By the time a child (born today) reaches adulthood half
of the stars that are visible in the night sky today will have
disappeared. We are losing our connection to the natural
night sky in all its glory. We have new human made
constellations gathering in our skies in the form of cubed
shaped satellites that are slightly bigger than a
Rubik’s cube.

On one hand these CubeSats (as they are known) can
help us to monitor our environment, animal migration,
aid in farming practices and help tackle climate change.
On the other hand the addition of thousands of
CubeSats and megaconstellations such as Starlink are
reducing our visibility of the night sky, creating debris
in our lower earth orbit and when they burn up in our
atmosphere we are only just discovering that these
satellites are adding plastics and chemicals to our oceans.

CubeSats open the door to remarkable new possibilities
in space exploration and discovery. It is our responsibility
to ensure the continued development of this technology
in ways that are both environmentally responsible
and sustainable.