Do not look up: how the Trump deregulation reader could hide the stars and threaten our access to space | Astronomy

DOnald Trump spent eight months trying to redo the United States thanks to a massive program of cuts and deregulation. Its administration has left almost no part of American life intact – from classrooms to university campuses, from offices to factory floors; Museums, forests, oceans and even the stars.

An executive decree signed last month to rationalize rocket launches was celebrated by officials from the commercial space sector, who considers it as an integral part of America’s priority as a world leader in spatial exploration.

But this also causes a wave of alarm – scientists, environmental activists and astronomers, who say that a growing network of satellite constellations clog the sky, obscures the stars and threatening our even access to the orbit of the earth.

From his isolated farm in Saskatchewan, Samantha Lawler is only one of the many astronomers who have noticed the effect that satellites have on his work. Lawler can see the milky path of his window, but the clear views offered to him at the rural heart of Canada are overwhelmed by Elon Musk’s mission to bring the Internet to all corners of the earth.

“It changed the appearance of the sky,” said Lawler. “I look up and say to myself:” Oh, this constellation looks bad. There is a starred bond through. »»

Starlink is the network of satellites, operated by Musk’s Spacex Company, orbit around the land providing the Internet to those of the distant premises, robust and torn by war. But the high objective of the company came at a price for astronomers like Lawler, who saw their work become more difficult as the sky fills with satellites.

Starlink alone has two thirds of all satellites in space. With 8,000 in low -land orbit, the company is currently permission to launch 4,000 others and would have filed documents to bring the total number to 42,000. Amazon and a project supported by the state from China have their own rivals to current Starlink, which would see all the figures multiplied, with certain estimates that in a decade, there could be 100,000 satellites in orbit.

Trump seemed to support the expansion of the American commercial space industry, signing a decree last month which could accelerate the number of rockets and their useful massive charges of new satellites, potentially exacerbate the difficulties of astronomers and cause unexpected environmental damage.

The struggle for space

Commercial space operations have increased on a scale and ambition since the United States fell to the flights supported by the government and have turned more and more to private companies such as the blue origin of SpaceX and Jeff Bezos. In recent years, government efforts to regulate industry have had trouble keeping the pace of the ambition of the operations of these companies: in the past four years, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued more commercial space licenses than in the 32 years before 2021.

At various times, the companies themselves expressed their frustration with regard to the government’s regulatory regime-Elon Musk himself threatened to continue the FAA last year for “excess”.

Trump’s August executive decree would aim to eliminate certain environmental examinations and launch security measures contained in previous regulations produced by the president’s first administration, while pre-decency certain state laws which could hinder the development of private space ports.

The FAA itself provides that the number of commercial launches could almost quadruple during the next decade. With up to 28 satellites launched from a single rocket, the accelerated launching calendar made activated by the reduction of administrative formalities by Trump will be essential if companies like SpaceX must extend their satellite constellations.

The cataclysmic danger of “space junk”

“What will the sky look like?” In a career devoted to contemplating big questions, it may be the one that is most existential for Lawler.

His research examines small frozen objects at the edge of our solar system called Kuiper belt objects. Understanding them could help us form an image of how the solar system has formed and planets aligned themselves. It is a job that could fundamentally move our understanding of the very universe that we live.

“I would like to know what is others … which is beyond what we know,” explains Lawler. “There could be another planet in our solar system. But for the first time, it becomes more difficult to do the work due to the actions of for -profit companies. ”

She says that when she points to her telescope in the sky, her field of vision is often obscured by brilliant streaks of satellites.

“The way in which satellite streaks appear on the sky, in different seasons and different night moments, it is in fact made more difficult to appear in a particular direction than in other directions,” explains Lawler.

It is a common complaint of astronomers, who also say that the fire in the earth’s terrestrial atmosphere that has reached the end of their lives could create incalculable damage.

“All this metal, plastic, computer parts, solar panels, which is simply deposited in the atmosphere,” she said, with studies suggesting that this could cause ozone depletion and change the opacity of the atmosphere.

“We just direct this experience and it’s really terrifying.”

The proliferation of “space index” in orbit is also worrying for experts. There are approximately 43,000 objects monitored in space, most of which are debris of old rockets and disused satellites. The European space agency estimates that there is an addition of 1.2 million tiny objects between 1 cm and 10 cm wide.

The risk of a debris flight collision – a phenomenon known as Kessler’s syndrome – is considered to be the number of satellites multiplies. In such a scenario, a collision triggers a chain reaction which would see more debris produced, until a critical mass of cascade collisions makes the orbit inaccessible.

The global communication company ViaSat paints a cataclysmic image of the world after such an event: “All of humanity would look helpless while space waste multiplies uncontrolledly. Without a timely intervention, we risk bringing the spatial age to an endlessness and trapping humanity on earth under a layer of its own trash for centuries, even millennia. “

“This is one of the most ironic things, there is all this speech that we have to go to Mars, we must colonize another planet, but all these orbit satellites actually make much more likely that there will be a catastrophic collision,” explains Lawler.

Companies like Starlink act to mitigate such an event by building avoidance systems that maneuvr their satellites around potential collisions, while removing old models that are more at risk.

“So far, it has been perfect,” said Lawler.

The real risk, she says, will come when the thousands of starlinks competing satellites will be in orbit in a few years, with a question on how they coordinate and share data so that other operators know that they are there.

“Right now, an American private company actually controls orbit,” said Lawler. “If you want to go to a higher altitude orbit, you have to talk to Starlink and make sure they don’t hit your satellite as you go.”

The Guardian approached SpaceX and the White House to comment.

Despite certain astronomers calling for a moratorium on rocket launches, Starlink and its celestial competitors show no sign of their ambitions.

Starlink seems to be aware of the effects whose satellites have the work of astronomers and have made efforts to make them lower in the sky. But Lawler says that at the same time, objects have become bigger, “so it just cancels.”

“This is an engineering challenge to which satellite operators need to think more: how do you offer your services with fewer satellites? How do you make your satellites last longer? ”

Despite the cost of her work, she concedes that the service offered by Starlink and her future competitors is an engineering miracle. But she thinks that the potential drawbacks prevail over the convenience they provide.

Lawler says that this can take a serious orbit collision to concentrate the minds of politicians and political decision -makers with the danger of deregulated commercial space operations, comparing such a scenario to a new cataclysmic events such as the oil spill by Exxon Valdez from 1989.

“I’m really afraid that something very serious will happen before things change.”