4 ms·

"SpaceX, an aerospace company in Hawthorne, California, has already launched more than 650 of a planned 12,000 Starlink satellites. Other operators include the

by kome 6y ago

"SpaceX, an aerospace company in Hawthorne, California, has already launched more than 650 of a planned 12,000 Starlink satellites. Other operators include the London-based OneWeb, which has launched 74 of what it hopes will be a gigantic fleet of 48,000 satellites, and Amazon, which last month received US government approval to launch 3,236 satellites for its planned Kuiper service." We need to do something about millionaires. Urgently. But also global governance: space is not US's backyard.

cheph 6y ago
> We need to do something about millionaires. Urgently. Can you elaborate what premise this conclusion follows from? And what do you want to do about them? And going out on a limb, I would assume you have a problem with the satellites, but Amazon, SpaceX and OneWeb are companies, not a Millionaires. So maybe you meant to say we should do something about companies?
- rimliu 6y ago
  So you say this idea was born by the company and not some human ambition? How did Amazon the company, or SpaceX the company come up with this? Nothing to do with Bezos and Musk for sure?
  - cheph 6y ago
    > So you say this idea was born by the company and not some human ambition? Not a thing I said. > How did Amazon the company, or SpaceX the company come up with this? Companies have employees, employees are humans with brains, they come up with ideas. > Nothing to do with Bezos and Musk for sure? I'm sure the normal company structures were involved in approving strategy. I doubt the idea originated with either Bezos or Musk, and not sure why their net worth has much to do with it. If you have a problem with ambition, ambition is something many people who are not millionaires have.
- jsiepkes 6y ago
  > I would assume you have a problem with the satellites, but Amazon, SpaceX and OneWeb are companies, not a Millionaires. Elon Musk is CEO of SpaceX and owns > 50% of the shares. As for Blue Origin (aka Bezos / Amazon); Bezos is the owner of the company. That means these people can make decisions on their own without consulting anyone else. They appoint the board, they appoint the CEO, etc. And sure, there are outside investors. However these investors can only marginally influence anything because they can not get a majority of share holder votes (since Bezos, Musk have > 50% shares). Maybe they got a seat on the board if their investment is large enough. But then what? They still can't get a majority in the board. Besides the only reason these investors want to participate is because the whole thing is controlled (and partially bankrolled) by Musk and Bezos.
  - cheph 6y ago
    So are you positing that it would be impossible for a company to make such decisions if no individual shareholder owned >50% of the shares? If so the problem is still not with millionaires. And I'm not sure by what mechanism this will function. What will prevent a company where no individual shareholder owns >50% of shares from making a similar choice?
maeln 6y ago
I don't think it has anything to do with millionaires. Satellite internet has demand. It will happen no matter what. What we need is a global regulation for satellite brightness. It was never truly a problem until now, and sadly, these type of legislation tend to happen after the problem already arose instead of anticipating it. The sky will probably be screwed for a while until we have a global standard.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
Millionaires are individuals; spacex and oneweb are companies. Rich people aren't the problem themselves, a lack of regulation and taxation is. In this case, the FTC (iirc) can just approve spacex launching tens of thousands of satellites. This is weird because space is either international - so should be regulated internationally - or sovereign, the bits passing over other countries. But the world is busy with other shit than space legislation right now so eh.
iso1210 6y ago
Last time I checked, London wasn't in the US
kanox 6y ago
No. Providing satellite internet access is a very good thing, and imposing costs on astronomy is acceptable.

by kome 6y ago

cheph 6y ago

> We need to do something about millionaires. Urgently. Can you elaborate what premise this conclusion follows from? And what do you want to do about them? And going out on a limb, I would assume you have a problem with the satellites, but Amazon, SpaceX and OneWeb are companies, not a Millionaires. So maybe you meant to say we should do something about companies?

rimliu 6y ago
So you say this idea was born by the company and not some human ambition? How did Amazon the company, or SpaceX the company come up with this? Nothing to do with Bezos and Musk for sure?
- cheph 6y ago
  > So you say this idea was born by the company and not some human ambition? Not a thing I said. > How did Amazon the company, or SpaceX the company come up with this? Companies have employees, employees are humans with brains, they come up with ideas. > Nothing to do with Bezos and Musk for sure? I'm sure the normal company structures were involved in approving strategy. I doubt the idea originated with either Bezos or Musk, and not sure why their net worth has much to do with it. If you have a problem with ambition, ambition is something many people who are not millionaires have.
jsiepkes 6y ago
> I would assume you have a problem with the satellites, but Amazon, SpaceX and OneWeb are companies, not a Millionaires. Elon Musk is CEO of SpaceX and owns > 50% of the shares. As for Blue Origin (aka Bezos / Amazon); Bezos is the owner of the company. That means these people can make decisions on their own without consulting anyone else. They appoint the board, they appoint the CEO, etc. And sure, there are outside investors. However these investors can only marginally influence anything because they can not get a majority of share holder votes (since Bezos, Musk have > 50% shares). Maybe they got a seat on the board if their investment is large enough. But then what? They still can't get a majority in the board. Besides the only reason these investors want to participate is because the whole thing is controlled (and partially bankrolled) by Musk and Bezos.
- cheph 6y ago
  So are you positing that it would be impossible for a company to make such decisions if no individual shareholder owned >50% of the shares? If so the problem is still not with millionaires. And I'm not sure by what mechanism this will function. What will prevent a company where no individual shareholder owns >50% of shares from making a similar choice?

maeln 6y ago

I don't think it has anything to do with millionaires. Satellite internet has demand. It will happen no matter what. What we need is a global regulation for satellite brightness. It was never truly a problem until now, and sadly, these type of legislation tend to happen after the problem already arose instead of anticipating it. The sky will probably be screwed for a while until we have a global standard.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

Millionaires are individuals; spacex and oneweb are companies. Rich people aren't the problem themselves, a lack of regulation and taxation is. In this case, the FTC (iirc) can just approve spacex launching tens of thousands of satellites. This is weird because space is either international - so should be regulated internationally - or sovereign, the bits passing over other countries. But the world is busy with other shit than space legislation right now so eh.

iso1210 6y ago

Last time I checked, London wasn't in the US

kanox 6y ago

No. Providing satellite internet access is a very good thing, and imposing costs on astronomy is acceptable.