That’s definitely good news, if we can get anything Elon out of our lives, it’s always a plus.
Eh, I don’t particularly care much about Elon, he’ll eventually go away. But more competition is usually good.
Really, the guy currently in charge of trying to dismantle the US government you don’t particularly care about? Assuming you aren’t from the US, so perhaps US internal politics don’t bother you, but he is also pushing for the far right in Germany, which means he wont stop at destroying America for his own profit. The richest man in the world is currently dismantling one of the largest countries in the world should probably concern everybody in the world, at least a little.
I am from the US, and Musk doesn’t actually have the power to do anything, so I’m much more concerned about Trump, who does have the power to do things. Trump is largely following Musk’s recommendations, probably without a second thought, and that’s a much bigger problem than whatever Musk is doing.
On the scale of things I care about, billionaires are pretty far down there, and the POTUS is pretty far up there.
I think your though process is on the right track but it seems like you think you’re done evaluating things way too quickly.
Musk may not explicitly have the power to do anything, but as we know Trump doesn’t give a fuck about the rules and Musk is his right hand man.
I’d argue that Musk does indeed have the power by proxy to do whatever he wants. Billionaires are licking Trump’s boots the world over right now… Maybe keep that in mind moving forward.
Right, I just don’t see that as Musk’s fault. Musk only has power because Trump gives him power. Musk is just a caricature of a spoiled rich kid who wants to play President, but Trump was actually elected, chosen by the people to lead them.
So I have much higher expectations of Trump than I do of Musk. So any damage Musk causes is directly attributable to Trump.
I have even less control over what Musk does than I do over Trump. For Trump, I can at least push my reps to impeach him, whereas Musk will have Trump’s ear regardless of whether he holds his “official” position. So I choose to not particularly care what he does, because there’s nothing I can do about it except react emotionally.
More competition? LETS GO!
How bad is it for low earth orbit to have multiple companies fighting over the market?
One field it impacts is radio astronomy. We can already see Musk’s satellites mess with it (unintentionally) and it’s probably only going to get worse from here.
Depends on a lot of factors. Due to uncontrollable factors like small untrackable debris, more satellites is always more dangerous, but that’s still an extremely small problem. If all the Starlink-style companies cooperate properly and adopt high tech solutions for collision avoidance, it’ll probably be fine - space is really, really big. Additionally, the extremely low orbits are a great mitigating factor for potential parts failures; even if a satellite outright dies, losing its telemetry and maneuvering capability, it’ll be gone pretty quick.
Honestly, more than anything, I’d be concerned about the recent science showing that satellites burning up on reentry could be very significantly more damaging to our atmosphere and the ozone layer than previously thought.
I’d be concerned about the recent science showing that satellites burning up on reentry could be very significantly more damaging to our atmosphere and the ozone layer than previously thought.
Can you link to a source explaining the phenomenon? I am curious.
In the big picture I expect collisions and debris in LEO are less of a problem because things at that level tend to naturally deorbit without regular use of propulsion to make up for the effects of atmospheric friction (which is tiny, but still there and adding up over time).
Low earth orbit is very big. It’s not bad.
Fuck the stars. Like they do anything for profits.
We need the UN to have crown corporations
I would support a petition for the UN to maintain control of that market. 1 it would give the UN an more active role and give it a means of funding itself 2 it would prevent multiple companies from rushing to install their cluster of sats keeping the sky as free of debris as possible
Just initial idea…
Would have been nice,but sadly we see how the US is handling the UN right now.
At least the EU has decided to get one unified network with Iris2 now. That is at least a step in the right direction.
Damn that sounds impressive. Hopefully they can get this service deployed before the others do and they can start to claim some more market share
Except Starlink already has direct to cell technology, with satellites already in orbit, and limited coverage already available. I don’t know if they’re using 5g, but this tech is available to the public already.
The article states that Starlink requires special equipment to access the satellites, and that’s just not true.
Accurate.
More competition is good IMO. Ideally, we’ll end up with a cross-company agreement to share satellites so each can compete on overall service instead of infrastructure, kind of like municipal wifi.
At the moment, what is happening is that people sign up to an existing provider, who then bundles in access as part of the plan.
I wonder if it wouldn’t be cheaper and more practical to just install antennas all over…
In the ocean too?
And warzones
Considering the number of launches that will be required if there isn’t just one provider with tens of thousands of satellites floating around? Yeah.
