Scientists, looking deep into space, have long voiced their concerns that satellites are encroaching on their ability to study the cosmos.
I tried to separate the conversation from Elon to keep it more honest about the benefits of accessible internet for everyone anywhere on Earth.
So why do you think that launching thousands of satellites would be more cost-effective than other options?
-
Satellites are expensive.
-
Launching them into space is expensive.
-
Cell phones, and cell phone towers are cheap.
-
Elon Musk is launching them into an orbit where they’ll decay in 10 years anyway, meaning you’ll have to perpetually launch these thousands, or even 10s of thousands of satellites into space just to keep service.
-
Traditional satellite companies launch fewer numbers of many satellites into the sky to cover large swaths of land instead. Since they aim at rural areas (ex: the Ocean with no one there), they are superior in a cost/efficacy perspective. Yes, there’s less bandwidth, but there’s less people, so its a fine tradeoff.
-
If you need more density, building cell phone networks / cell phone towers is just superior.
-
If you need even more density than what cell phones can give you, then there’s always fiber optic directly.
Well, a quick google makes me think a single cell tower and a single satellite are close to the same price.
All the satellites in question burn up within 10ish years due to their placement in orbit. In fact, a large number of SpaceX satellites already exploded due to mistakes during their deployment.
Cell towers don’t burn up like that just sitting around.
I think it would take a lot more work and money to set up towers in the poor countries/areas infrastructure doesn’t exist/hard terrain/desolate areas/warzones/middle of the ocean/etc. But you’d have to weigh in the sacrificing space, which is invaluable to me personally.
Cool. We already have Hughesnet and have had it for decades.
