Once upon a time, a long time ago, a little girl would sit in her front yard at night, staring up at the stars in the sky. It was rural California in the 80's, where the hills would sing at night with coyote song and the nights would get so dark you'd need a flashlight to get from the front door to the barn. This little girl would grab a deck chair and sit in the middle of her massive front yard, her head tilted back, and stare into that darkness with the kind of avid curiosity only children can display. She would imagine strange, alien worlds and the spaceships we would build to get there. Or maybe contemplate a sky filled with thousands of tiny points of light, each of those lights a star in a far-away solar system, and wonder what it would be like to study them up close.
Of course, that little girl was me. I loved sitting in the front yard of the vineyard ranch I grew up on and look up at the night sky. Inspired to be interested in space at a young age through the inadvertent influence of my parents, my imagination thrived in the stars. I saw them as an endless ocean of possibilities that stretched far beyond the tiny, small town I was tangentially attached to. At night, the sky would look like a beautiful painting, a mass of darkness speckled with a sea of stars. On some nights, the sky would be so crystal clear the band of the Milky Way could be seen by the naked eye. It was beautiful, it was inspiring...
...and it's gone.
As we have grown in population and technology, so, too, have the night skies shrunk. The once crystal-clear, pristine night skies of my childhood home are gone now to light pollution, and the ever-expanding radius of the once-tranquil and bucolic farm town that has since become a tourist trap and a haven for the wealthy. The worst part of that loss, however, is that it is gone for good, regardless of whatever legislation is made to deal with light pollution in the future. Even if it were reduced and things went back to how they had been when I was young, the sky is no longer a crystal clear picture of possibility. Thousands upon thousands of satellites mar the vision of our sky, and thanks to Elon Musk and SpaceX, it's only going to get worse.
Gizmodo reported today about a train of satellites launched into space by SpaceX that disrupted the readings of a Chilean observatory. While this disruption was classed as more of an annoyance than anything else, the fact that the company has received permission to launch another 12,000 satellites while seeking permission for 30,000 more isn't just alarming, it's downright terrifying. Why do we need all these satellites anyway? Why are we polluting the space around our planet the same way we're polluting the oceans that span it?
At the rate we're putting objects into orbit, it won't be long before space travel is as dangerous as white water rafting through an obstacle course would be. Our insatiable need to be connected instantly, all the time, is destroying one of the few areas we haven't already studied intensely. It used to be that the only areas of the planet humanity hadn't explored were the bottom of the ocean and the limits of space. The lack of knowledge leads to some of the greatest imaginings. Legends, myths and fables evolved from stories made up not of knowledge but of clarifying ignorance. There is no negative connotation to this; merely a realization that the knowledge these storytellers had of the world is far exceeded by our own. Yet the greatest stories can come from places where we know nothing, and space was once one of those places. The more satellites we launch into orbit, the harder it is to study the universe around us.
And the harder it is to inspire the next generation of minds.