Lately I have been thinking a bit about how commercial and governmental satellites impact my life, so that I’m mentally prepared for life if they end service. This isn’t a doomer post, it’s solar punk or whatever. Practical.

The first time I remember interacting with a commercial satellite was in the late 2000s when I got a device with GPS. I don’t entirely know how satellites are involved in my current cellphone, but I know it does use them for GPS. Never had sat TV or sat Home Internet.

• The internet would still exist, people would have less access though especially in remote places

• Weather Service would be impacted, I think? But much of that is also done with radar.

• I don’t know anything about air traffic control! Does that have satellites?

• Those ugly TV dishes would still be ugly, but maybe they could be ugly spider plant planters or something.

• I don’t care about how nations spy on each other, but it’s funny to me that would be impacted.

What about your individual experience? What about the world experience am I missing?

*edit 1 Apparently it would mess up crop rotation in a lot of places and environmental monitoring would be broadly impacted.