I’m not worried about “Star Wars” lasers – most commercial, industrial, and defense applications don’t appear on the visual spectrum, and are exceedingly brief; nevermind the physics of how they operate (without an ionising medium, you will not see a laser bloom). What I am concerned about is national assertance and military efforts for LEO supremacy. I’ve heard it joked that the “Space Force” would be better replaced with a “Cyber Force”, but considering the current direction of global communications and electronics, they would appear to serve the same purpose. As humanity slowly transitions to reliance on space-based networks, a space-focused conflict, however brief, would do some serious damage to our infrastructure.

The complaints by astronomers about starlink have nothing to do with lasers, but because they reflect sunlight well and there are so many of them… even when they do have lasers firing, observatories will not see them unless the lasers are precisely aimed at the observatory.