The Liechtenstein Astronomical Working Group offers public observation workshops for the population and school classes.  Recently it supported a school project in the Malbun Alpine Valley, an ideal place to observe the starry sky without parasite light.

”We started with the daybreak and the  observation of the course of the sun, then we  built a sundial to measure the true solar time. In the evening the schedule was the observation of  stars and the planets Saturn and Jupiter. Even before the Summer Triangle could be seen in the sky, an “Elon Musk swarm” crossed the dark sky, much brighter than any stars already visible, high above the majestic Mount Augstenberg at regular intervals in a long chain of small satellites over the peacefull Malbun valley ! ”  remembers a shocked participant.

Privatization of Space

Space travel was once the arena for superpowers, but in recent years it has increasingly become a playground  for  billionaires. Now many big businessmen are competing  for satellite orbits;  Elon Musk , Jeff Bezos, Florian Krenkel and many others want to grab a place in the sky.  With a global satellite network, they want to secure their access to  high-speed internet for business purposes.

In addition there are hundreds of satellites launched into orbit.

Who is responsible ?

The International Telecommunications Union, ITU , a specialized agency of the United Nations and  the only organization that deals officially and worldwide with technical aspects of the  Telecommunications, indeed does attribute frequencies to governments who may resell them to private operators, but there is no internationally responsible body for the control of the near-earth orbit. This orbit is crowded with  active satellites and the remainders of disused satellites. Satellites that are shot up today, will be space debris tomorrow, because the technical development of  space industry is fast. If some accident occurs up there , there could be serious breakdowns on our planet, we think about telecommunications, navigation, internet, research, weather  and much more.

Satellite cemeteries

One of the biggest problems of modern space exploration is the disposal of space debris. Currently thousands of cheap satellites are planned. A single rocket can carry  up to 600 such mini satellites. These small satellites  cannot be deorbitated, since they don't have controls, but are cheap and easily built. Steerable satellites can be sent back to earth and with luck will burn up when  re-entering. Another option is to kick them higher to the so-called satellite cemetery. That's where the garbage will be  orbiting for centuries, if not millennia,  around the earth. If a low orbit becomes a  debris dump, it becomes a great danger for space travel and astronomy.

Who will pay ?

The orbit has to be  cleaned from space junk. Up to now , all measures are based solely on commitments from  space nations, not on legal regulations. As is well known, commitments are eagerly broken, especially if they cost a lot of money. Clearing the orbit of its trash will be  very expensive , and  will cost billions annually .  Who will pay for the cleaning ?

With tens of thousands  of these small communication satellites, the view of the starry sky is severely obstructed. Will we soon see more satellites than stars in the sky?