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Why Russia Is Terrified of SpaceX – and Starlink
- Turing_Machine 6y ago> One of the first places in America to get SpaceX Starlink service was Alaska, the state with the lowest population density in the country That is not correct. Starlink has only been offering (very limited) service to Alaska in the past month or so, as their main constellation is not located in orbits suitable for access from high latitudes. They only recently got permission to launch some test satellites into polar orbits. Source: live in Alaska, have been waiting impatiently for Starlink to become available here.
- Arnt 6y ago25% of Russians live in the countryside, but there's countryside and countryside... say that 15% of Russians live far from town, 20 million because that's such a round number. At $20 billion for Sphere, that's $1k per potential user. If people live in two-person households, $2k per potential customer. If 30% sign up, $6k investment per customer, to be recovered from customer income within the lifetime of a satellite. Sphere will need many, many customers outside Russia to be viable.