PLANETARY EMERGENCY

The Earth needs your help. Now.

Many are the assaults on our planet. The oceans—Jacques Cousteau said it already in 1970—are dying. The majestic wilderness is no more. The very oxygen we breathe is being converted to carbon dioxide.

Others are wrestling with those problems, and they are not going to be solved overnight. But there is one that must be: we must leave space alone.

On March 29, 2018, the Federal Communications Commission gave its approval to SpaceX’s plan to launch an unprecedented 4,425 satellites into low orbit around the Earth. And that’s only the beginning. SpaceX has applied to the FCC to increase the number of satellites to 42,000 in order to provide “ultrafast, lag-free Internet” to every square inch of the earth. 5G from space. The name of SpaceX’s project is “Starlink.” As of May 2022, Starlink already has about 2,500 operating satellites in low-earth orbit.

The global electrical circuit, which sustains all life, is about to be seriously disturbed unless we act.

Recent History

In 1997, in my first book, Microwaving Our Planet, in the last chapter, titled “The Danger from Satellites,” I wrote: “The proliferation of satellites we are about to witness—unless this world wakes up soon—is mind boggling, and nobody seems to have considered that popping thousands of them up there like so much confetti might have consequences for our atmosphere and our climate.” I wrote about the expected ozone loss; the destruction of the Van Allen belts; global warming from the addition of water vapor to the stratosphere; toxic wastes; groundwater pollution; space junk; microwave radiation; and the vandalism of the night sky. My 1997 book is posted here, courtesy of the Spanish website AVAATE, one of the best websites on this issue: www.avaate.org/IMG/doc/Microwaving_Our_Planet_firstenberg.doc

A year later the radiation problem asserted itself. On September 23, 1998, the world’s first satellite phones became operational. Service was provided by 66 satellites in low orbit around the Earth, launched by the Iridium Corporation. They unleashed a new kind of rain that turned the sky red and emptied it of birds for a couple of weeks.

A six-nation telephone survey was done of electrically sensitive people, support groups, and nurses and physicians serving this population. The results: 86% of electrically sensitive people and a majority of patients and support group members became ill on Wednesday, September 23 exactly, with typical symptoms of electrical illness including headaches, dizziness, nausea, insomnia, nosebleeds, heart palpitations, asthma attacks, ringing in the ears, etc. Follow-ups revealed that some of these people were acutely ill for up to three weeks. Some were so sick they weren’t sure they would live. In the United States the national death rate rose by 4% to 5% for two weeks. During those two weeks, very few birds were seen in the sky and thousands of homing pigeons failed to return home in pigeon races throughout much of the country. This was all documented in No Place to Hide, Vol. 2, No. 1, Feb. 1999, pp. 3-4.

The second satellite service, Globalstar, began commercial service on Monday, February 28, 2000. Widespread reports of nausea, headaches, leg pain, respiratory problems, depression, and lack of energy began on Friday, February 25, the previous business day, and came from people both with and without electrical sensitivity. See No Place To Hide, Vol. 2, No. 3, March 2000, p. 18.

Iridium, which had gone bankrupt in the summer of 1999, was resurrected by a contract with the United States Armed Forces. On March 30, 2001, commercial service resumed. Again the sky turned red. Again came reports of nausea, flu-like illness and feelings of oppression. But the events that made the news were catastrophic losses of race horse foals that were reported throughout the United States and as far away as Peru. On June 5, 2001, Iridium added data and Internet to its satellite phone service. Again came widespread reports of nausea, flu-like illness and oppression, and this time also hoarseness. See No Place To Hide, Vol 3, No. 2, Nov. 2001, p. 15.

Additional details are provided in chapter 17 of my new book, The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life (AGB Press, 2017).

Between 2001 and 2019, our skies did not essentially change. Iridium and Globalstar, operating 66 and 40 satellites respectively, were still the only providers of satellite phones. The amount of data raining on us all from space was still dominated by those two fleets. The predicted fleets of thousands of satellites had not materialized. But they are doing so now. Everything we know and love is at stake—not just hawks and geese, pigeons and race horses, not just the human race, but life itself. This is a mortal threat not just to our children and grandchildren, but to all of us.

The Details

The biggest planned fleet of satellites is the Starlink constellation being launched by Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX. But there are about 150 other companies competing with Starlink, several of which are already launching satellites. The number of satellites proposed to be operated by all of these companies totals, incredibly, more than 442,000. Almost all are proposed to be orbited at altitudes ranging from 210 to 700 miles in altitude. They will all operate at millimeter wave frequencies and they will all be phased arrays. Each satellite will have thousands of antenna elements that will aim focused, steerable beams at any desired point on the surface of the earth. The effective radiated power of each beam from each of the satellites can range up to 5,000,000 watts, depending on its altitude and how many simultaneous customers it is serving. The satellites will communicate both with individual users and with gateway earth stations, of which there will be several hundred just in the United States for just the Starlink constellation.

One of the other companies planning a megaconstellation is the UK’s OneWeb. Its founder and Executive Chairman is Greg Wyler. To build and launch its constellation of 7,088