30,000 simply gives you more coverage than 12,000.
Having a large network in LEO affords faster connectivity than an equivalently sized geostationary or geosynchronous network. It is more dynamic and flexible, and less environmentally destructive than an equivalent surface based physical network.
The increased frequency of launches to LEO grants more opportunities for smaller organisations (e.g. communication companies, universities, small countries) to piggyback their payloads into orbit more affordably.
More people across the developing world will have better and faster access to the internet.
Also the constellations of satellites flying overhead are awe inspiringly wonderful. It is comforting to see them as a sign of human progress.
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brb Monkhouse Stampede, Sun 14 Jun 2020, 15:35,
Reply)
Those constellations of satellites
fuck up my photographs big time, and I don't want to look up and see hardware. I want to see stars, planets and galaxies, not industrial equipment.
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Varmint, Sun 14 Jun 2020, 17:16,
Reply)
This seems more like a you problem.
JWST will launch soon*, probably**, next generation space telescopes are already in the pipeline, and if SpaceX get their Starship operating in a few years their lunar variant will be able to place a number of fairly large telescopes on the surface of the moon.
Useful astronomy is moving off-world, and I've seen some beautiful pictures of Starlink constellations. I think human made constellations are a thing of wonder, perhaps more so than the random movement of random accumulations of stellar nuclear waste.
*hopefully
**this century
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brb Monkhouse Stampede, Tue 16 Jun 2020, 14:49,
Reply)