Not quite your main point (which I agree with) but comparing surface area of orbits to the surface of the earth doesn't really help understand the carrying capacity of orbits.

There are so many constraints on objects in orbit, the degrees of freedom so limited, that carrying capacity is much smaller than you might suspect (though probably larger than our earth-bound intuition).

Just for starters, each item in orbit traces out a path (an orbit!) that can not intersect with the path of any other object, without carefully considering phasing to make sure there are no collisions.

We keep items separated by kms (hopefully!) because there is too much variation and uncertainty in orbits.

You can use different altitude shells to fit more items in, but they take longer to orbit and increase latency, so you have to be able to deal with that.

Based on degrees of freedom, orbits are far closer to 2 dimensional than 3 dimensional.

I was aware of all the points you made here before writing your post but hopefully I can help allay your concerns.

The Starlink constellation has already been described as being passively de-conflicted, meaning that, as designed, no Starlink satellite had to maneuver around any other Starlink satellite. The positional accuracy of the Starlink satellites is known by SpaceX to the precision of meters rather than kilometers. I’d need to dig it up the source again but Starlink satellites pass within kilometers of each other daily. Starlink already has over 1000 satellites at several of its altitudes.

While yes it’s true they have to avoid space debris with a wide berth I don’t really include that in the argument as that is a true statement no matter how many or how few satellites are in any given orbit.

It’s more a matter of poor control and poor altitude maintenance of other satellites. That’s a matter of regulation rather than a matter of an actually limited resource. For example Starlink currently uses 10km or 7km gaps between its shells but they vary in altitude significantly less than that and could be closer if allowed to be.

I agreee that SpaceX is unlikely to run into any issues with the number of satellites they are putting up, or coordinating those satellites.

However! It's disengenous to say land is 2d and orbits are 3d so there is more space in space. That

> space is even less of a “limited resource” than completely unpopulated areas of the Earth

Consider: how many Starlink constellations could reasonably be deployed in low earth orbit? Probably less than 1000, but maybe 10000-100000 (that would be a lot of satellites, but let's be generous).

Now how many Starlink constellations could be deployed in unpopulated areas of the Earth? Putting aside that they'd be useless, you could fit literally millions of constellations next to each other.

Space is big, but heavily constrained. One of the reasons something like an orbital ring would be so cool if we could get it to work - tons of space that is not constrained by orbital mechanics the same way free flying stations would be.

I used to be a DSL CLEC. I know from personal experience what kind of conversations, and regulatory interventions, it takes to get a monopoly incumbent common carrier (such as US West, or SpaceX) to lease their network at fair rates and to provide reasonable service for those rates. I am gleeful because the groundwork we laid down in the CLEC days continues to pay off decades later. That was a lot of very hard work.

I am all for innovating in carrier networks, and I’m all for charging for access through those networks — so in that, my motives and Starlink’s align! And since Starlink makes the same dollars per user whether the user is T-Mobile or a Local MVNO, I don’t see how innovation in their satellite network suffers in any way.

Wait... if your motives and those of Starlink are aligned, why would we even need CLEC regulation?

Surely that regulation forces the carrier to do something it otherwise wouldn't have (or it would be pointless), thereby suggesting a misalignment of incentives.

Starlink, a corporation, has additional motives available to it that are not aligned with either my own or with regulations:

To selectively partner with only the highest bidder, and to sell them exclusivity to increase that bid, and therefore maximize the profit earned from their monopoly.

The CLEC system was put into place to ensure that this sort of maximization wasn’t permitted on the copper networks that were owned by regional monopolies. Starlink has a regional monopoly on LEO satellite cellular right now, and so they’re subject to the same principles.

If Starlink was a B-corp, or a co-op, I wouldn’t be so certain this sort of thing would end up being necessary — but Starlink as a United States for-profit corporation is compelled to prioritize the profits over all other concerns, specifically including the quality and price of service offered to customers. So, the US regulations forcing non-exclusivity will absolutely be necessary — just as we found with US West’s copper in the CLEC era — and those inescapable US regulations are not in alignment with Starlink’s desires.

Starlink doesn't have a LEO monopoly. I know a British company that does the same thing

> Also space is even less of a “limited resource” than completely unpopulated areas of the Earth is or the entire ocean’s surface is.

The scarce resource here is globally-available L-band radio spectrum (potentially spatially multiplexed, if you have steerable beams on both ends, or only one satellite in view at a time and are using spot beams).

> It’s three dimensional rather than two dimensional. Any single orbital altitude has more surface area than the entire earth.

Space is three-dimensional, but lines-of-sight are two-dimensional. Even if you have steerable beams on both ends (which aren't that precise either, unless you're using laser beams), there's only so much non-overlapping sky above.