Темата е дълга и може много да се коментира какви вреди ще нанесат тези сателитни "мегасъзвездия", главните като че ли са следните
1. Показаните трекове в кадрите, които ще направят съществен % от фотографиите неизползваеми (в професионалната астрономия, пък и в любителската), особено при инструментите, имащи широки полета. Наистина спътниците са осветени от Слънцето до около края, респ. от около началото на астрономическия полумрак, но и в полунощ може обект, на който правите фотометрия, да бъде окултиран за кратко от сателит, без да разберете това.
2. Радиозамърсяването, което ще пречи на радиоастрономията, тъй като честотите, използвани от сателитите и радиотелескопите, не са чак толкова далечни - все пак са от тези, преминаващи добре през атмосферата.
3. Огромният брой сателити са гарантирано сигурен бъдещ космически боклук, който не е ясно как и дали изобщо ще бъде събиран. Той е опасен за пилотираните мисии (МКС и др.), а също и за останалите работещи в орбита спътници.
Изтъкват се и много други негативни последици.
Отдавна сред колегите е разпространен Апел против тази безумна инициатова, който, за съжаление, не е достъпен за други кръгове хора, споделящи опасенията на астрономите - примерно еколози, обикновени фотографи и пр. Тук високото самочувствие и егоцентризма, характерни за мнозина в академичните среди, може да ни изиграе лоша шега, защото само 2000 учени, подписали Апела, едва ли са фактор, който лесно би възпрял компании, разполагащи с милиарди...
Апелът е на https://astronomersappeal.wordpress.com ... xvVC0fteXg
Самото подписване става от тук: https://astronomersappeal.wordpress.com ... prBjId0g8o
Отдавна има изявления по въпроса от професионални астроном. организации:
от IAU: https://www.iau.org/news/announcements/detail/ann19035/
от ААС: https://aas.org/press/aas-issues-positi ... Ok9I9A25q8
от RAS: https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/news/r ... cDG-I8flb4
Причината да започна тази тема тук са писмата, които получаваме от проф. организации и които ще копирам по-долу.
Вече имаше няколко такива, информиращи колегите за мерките, които се вземат по въпроса или се планува да бъдат инициирани.
Ето го текста на вчера разпространено писмо. Съжалявам че линковете в текста няма да са активни тук:
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International Appeal by Astronomers: Healty Heavens Trust Initiative
Dear subscriber,
the "appeal by astronomers" supports the Application for Review (AFR) to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) filed yesterday.
The AFR is the first step in our Long-Term Action Plan. In drafting the AFR we have had two goals: first, to set a proper foundation for a considered review, reversal, or further conditions by the FCC on the grant by its International Bureau to SpaceX of a blanket license for one million earth stations; and second, to establish a larger context and framework (connecting many dots) for future administrative, judicial, and international actions. All are mutually reinforcing. The immediate next steps are:
· Prepare and file a Petition for Rule Making.
· Continue to support grassroots actions.
· Prepare an appeal to the DC Circuit based on the FCC’s ruling on the AFR.
· Cooordinate initiatives with attorneys, legislators, innovators, and advocates in other countries.
The following Roadmap on the AFR highlights some of its key points.
· Process and Procedure. The AFR maintains that although the parties may disagree on substance, the FCC must follow the law and its own rules and established procedures. It is not a supra-constitutional agency.
· Radiation Hazard Report (RHR). This is really the fulcrum of the argument. SpaceX is required by the FCC’s rules to prepare an adequate RHR. We contend its recent submission is inadequate; therefore SpaceX must prepare an environmental assessment (EA), which it has not done; indeed, we assert the FCC must conduct its own environmental impact assessment, as required under NEPA (National Environmental Protection Act). The FCC has also failed to meet this NEPA requirement. At this point come into help our "appeal by astronomers" with the request to FCC to withdraw SpaceX's authorizations and to put on hold further launches in the meantime that EA will be prepared and evaluated, according to astronomical community needs and provisions of international treaties. Weather Forecast activities are also greatly damaged.
· Radio Frequency Radiation (RFR). The FCC is about to adopt a new rule on cumulative effects of RFR applicable to earth stations. (Our team member, Australian barrister, Ray Broomhall, is even more concerned about radiation from magnetic fields (see his Declaration on pg. 53 of the Application.) We are asking the FCC and SpaceX to consider the cumulative effects of RFR from the uplinks (from the earth stations to satellites) as well as the downlinks (from satellites to base and earth stations). We have not found peer reviewed published studies of the cumulative health effects of continuing RFR exposures from satellites on humans, plants, and animals. In the case of individual purchasers of SpaceX “user terminal” earth stations, we maintain that the risks increase, because (based on our research) each earth station will be in constant simultaneous communication with multiple satellites, hence the earth stations will likely be transmitting and therefore radiating, more RFR, especially in inclement weather.
· Empowering Local Communities. The AFR can be a useful tool to empower local communities in several respects:
1. By the FCC’s rules, local communities are not preempted from imposing reasonable precautionary controls on the unannounced and random placement of earth stations.
2. These controls can take the form of local ordinances requiring warnings.
3. Local communities should consider requiring a bond from SpaceX, as more than likely it does not have insurance to cover liability for RFR-related harms.
4. On this score, there is a significant legal question of informed consent. It is one thing for a SpaceX customer to purchase an earth station for personal or business use. It is quite another if this earth station irradiates a neighbor’s property and person without his/her consent, which is a distinct possibility. The FCC rules do not address this contingency. (This matter will be addressed in our Petition for Rule Making.)
5. The AFR with its Declarations and citations establishes a prima facie case for heightened duty of care, hence contingent liability, especially on behalf of members of local communities who already have established medical disabilities. The FCC and SpaceX will be challenged to argue that they had no knowledge of the health and environmental consequences, especially as the record is further developed.
· Innovation. The AFR contains an innovative use of Interrogatories as set out in the Declaration by legal team member Joseph Sandri. The power of the Interrogatory process and The Art of the Question are described in great detail in the Resilient Negotiator course, Meeting the 5G Challenge. There will be many creative uses of Interrogatories in developing a compelling evidentiary record to support international actions.
· Corona Pandemic. We cite an important U.S. Supreme Court decision to support our argument that the FCC”s obligation to follow reasonable precautions and established procedures increases rather than lightens during a national emergency like the corona pandemic.
Giving careful thought on how most effectively to use the AFR as part of an expanding and continuing educational process.
The AFR to FCC is the first obligatory step, then, depending on the answers obtained, we will take our requests to any US Federal Court of Justice (i.e. Florida) and if this were not even enough we will move to the International Court of Justice, ICJ.
This is a global initiative so please share this informations with all your contacts and supporter us. Continue to advertise our Appeal by professional astronomers to protest against satellites' constellations.
After gathering around 2,000 signatures of astronomers (SEE CURRENT SIGNATURES), the Appeal is now ready to be used at the local level to increase awareness by governments and NGOs of some of the harms that will be caused by those satellites.
Concerns related to the impact of large satellite constellations for astronomical ground based facilities are described in two dedicated scientific preprint here:
· https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.10952
· https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.05472
The "appeal by astronomers" declaration:
Please feel free to compile this open letter and send us to be part of our legal action against SpaceX and FCC.
My name is XXXX XXXX and I am a graduate in XXXX specializing in Astrophysics and working as a Research XXXXX for the XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX.
I have worked for more than ten years with .... ..... .....
As soon as my colleagues and I learned of the intention to launch mega-constellations totalling more than 50,000 satellites into low earth orbit, we committed to try to move international scientific opinion that seemed to be ignoring the impacts.
In a personal capacity I totally agree and subscribe the "Appeal by Astronomers". I am one of the 2000 subscribers.
I think that all inherent problems described in the appeal will be provided by mega-constellations of satellites in different electromagnetic bands: radio astronomy, for example, could be totally annihilated and unable to operate in few years, despite the billion dollar investments for the large
facilities on the ground.
Even in optics, investments funded by public money for large telescopes could suffer a percentage decrease in value proportional to the loss of scientific content of the observations made: if for some telescopes with medium-large field of view, it is possible to lose 60-70% of the science data produced within an observing night, this would have the same effect on the loss of value for the public investment committed to that ground based facility.
Each institution has invested different amounts of public money in astronomical ground based projects. Over the past two years for example, my institute, XXXXXX, has invested around XXX million euros for ground projects; so the loss of economic value would be significant.
The more satellites in orbit there are, the more this percentage of damage to the observations will necessarily grow, so if satellites density reaches a critical value, observations from the ground will become totally impossible, and all the tens of billions of euros / dollars spent so far will be permanently lost.
Clearly the fear is not only that of safeguarding a profession or of avoiding damage to public finances, but that of losing an immeasurable good for all humanity for the sake of commercial profit, which is why the astronomers' petition asks agencies and governments to take action in order to block any further satellite launches, and simultaneously to deorbit all low-orbit
satellites launched to date, and to put in place and immediately execute an international moratorium on all exploitation of the sky for commercial purposes.
We are 2,000 scientists who are clamoring for it.
