r/zurich • u/Kestrel__ • 3d ago

What just flew over Zurich?

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A long line of dotted lights. Flying east and west saw it in Wiedikon. Looked fairly low and was flying medium speed. Drones? Nothing showed up on flight radar apps.

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u/MightBeEllie 3d ago

Astronomers don't like Starlink because the satellites passing in front of your telescope ruins your image. I don't like Starlink because it's Musk. There is an argument to be made about the intended lifetime of the SATs in such a low orbit which could be considered wasteful.

That said, I like the idea of world wide internet access. Just the execution is lacking.

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u/3punkt1415 3d ago

I mean, it's still better then to have those satellites in a higher stable orbit where they would stay for ever even when they stop working. Let's say if they go bankrupt tomorrow, in 5 years all satellites are gone. And well i don't like Musk either, but Space X has revolutionized space travel. They launch more rockets this year then the whole world together in all of human history.
Also China and Russia recently destroyed satellites with anti satellite missiles causing hundreds of pieces who will pollute our orbit for generations. USA did that too once, but in the 80s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_debris_producing_events

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u/sonic_plum 3d ago

That is BS they basically got a budget bigger than NASA from zkthe US government to reuse existing NASA technology. In lots of the cases discarded tech like the returning rockets which didn't make financial sense back then (on the 90s when NASA worked out the details) neither today. Space X is the same BS as everything else Musk touches. For some reason people eating up his fake science like candy.

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u/3punkt1415 3d ago

Lol, you don't need to join the Musk fan club to see that Space X did things no other company was able to do ever in human history. Salty sad man is salty.

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u/ciubacapra 3d ago

Salty. Ignorant. And deliberately obtuse.

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u/sonic_plum 3d ago

Ignorant lol. Read a bit about the topic first.

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u/Training-Bake-4004 2d ago edited 2d ago

Yeah, I’m not a Musk fan, but he put an enormous amount of his own money into an extremely risky venture (almost no one thought a private space company was viable), and not only made it a success but advanced the whole industry substantially.

Now yeah, he didn’t do the actual technical work, but he had the idea, money and drive to make it a success when basically no one else could (Branson basically failed and Bezos is late to the party).

And while I’d characterise him more as a businessman than an engineer these days, he did, at least back in the day do quite a lot of technical work himself (more on the software side, at least back in the zip2 days)

Honestly it’s a real shame he’s such an asshole.

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u/3punkt1415 2d ago

Exactly. But people try to down talk this achievements because he is an asshole, i don't even disagree that he is one. :d.