Paul Mobbs on proliferation of satellites
Posted: 20th October 2026
This is one of the latest posts from Jonna Jinton in Northern Sweden (yeah, OK, so I like ‘cottage core’). This link will start 3.5 minutes into the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50OqeR4wc7Q&t=210s
Her time-lapse is a wonderful illustration of what’s happening right now. I’ve noticed over my last 3 years in rural Wales that the number of satellites overhead is really starting to ramp up, year-on-year. 20 years ago 50-60 satellites were launched each year. That’s risen to 250-300/year recently, and is set to increase sharply over the next few years.
Elon Musk is still on target to get 15,000 Starlink satellites operational by 2030 (11,150 currently working), with a target of 42,000 by the late 2030s. Starlink has just applied to increase the number of annual rocket launches from ~25/year to ~250/year (each rocket carries
10 to 12 satellites - and his new jumbo rocket will carry even more). principally Musk and his tech-bro friends (which is partly why SpaceX was valued so highly when floated a few months ago). In particular, the potential for Starlink to be used for passive surveillance of digital radio emissions across the planet gives Musk and his military backers a huge data resource with which to dominate human interaction (another reason why I don’t have wifi at home… and that’s before we even get around to why I don’t have a mobile!).
I’ve been on about data and digital tech. for 20 years or so. People don’t realize the sheer scale of new surveillance and propaganda opportunities that this new global network of ‘connectivity’ (and simultaneously, ‘surveillance’) will give US tech. companies -
Space has now been militarized, with US satellite weapons already in orbit, and the US military (via Musk, Thiel, and ‘the other boys in the
band’) is determined on dominating that ‘domain’. The video I made five years ago about this is still fairly accurate—on-line here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KhkdjqSNic
All we can hope is that Musk’s blind ambitions trigger the ‘Kessler Syndrome’ to shutdown this entire segment of Earth’s natural environment, hopefully for quite a few decades. Certainly no terrestrial politicians seem to want to stop him.
taa,
P.