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Bezos is in it only because he too has a rocket company. If he wanted to be in the business of feeding on the scraps of others he'd release his own terrestrial

Bezos is in it only because he too has a rocket company. If he wanted to be in the business of feeding on the scraps of others he'd release his own terrestrial internet service.

Robotbeat 6y ago
That’s why Elon’s in it with Starlink. From Elon’s perspective, if Starlink merely breaks even, it will be more than worth it as it has drastically increased launch demand, enabling high flight rate reusable rockets.
- shantara 6y ago
  Not just increased launch demand, Starlink launches serve SpaceX as a testbed for reusability and refurbishment techniques they want to experiment on themselves without risking customer hardware. For example, they intentionally swap hardware components between reflown boosters to better understand their behavior after multiple reuses, to the point they have individual modules that have flown more times than the current maximum number of reuses of any booster as a whole (currently at 9). Another example, they've stopped having static fires for flight proven boosters first for Starlink, then for customer payloads too, unless the customer explicitly requests it. It's unbelievable that "flight proven booster" turned out to be really what it says on the tin, and not just a piece of marketing speak.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    > It's unbelievable that "flight proven buster" turned out to be really what it says on the tin, and not just a piece of marketing speak. That's a thing to love about SpaceX. When they first started using this phrase, it was tongue-in-cheek in a pretty obvious way. Three years later, it was no longer a joke.
  - the8472 6y ago
    It's "booster", not "buster".
    - shantara 6y ago
      Fixed, thanks.
- bryanlarsen 6y ago
  IIRC Musk has already said he'd be happy to launch rival constellations.
philistine 6y ago
Webservers... in space!
- hackeraccount 6y ago
  Given that Starlink will do links between satellites that's actually an interesting idea. From what I've read one of the problems with it is heat management. Space is chilly but it's not a great heat sink and servers generate a lot of heat.
parsimo2010 6y ago
AWS has also created satellite ground stations in the last few years. A commercial satellite internet service running from the ground stations would probably justify scaling out, and having a larger network of ground stations would help AWS attract more commercial space customers. Bezos has been working this from a few angles, not just from a keep up with Musk attitude.

Bezos is in it only because he too has a rocket company. If he wanted to be in the business of feeding on the scraps of others he'd release his own terrestrial internet service.

Robotbeat 6y ago

That’s why Elon’s in it with Starlink. From Elon’s perspective, if Starlink merely breaks even, it will be more than worth it as it has drastically increased launch demand, enabling high flight rate reusable rockets.

shantara 6y ago
Not just increased launch demand, Starlink launches serve SpaceX as a testbed for reusability and refurbishment techniques they want to experiment on themselves without risking customer hardware. For example, they intentionally swap hardware components between reflown boosters to better understand their behavior after multiple reuses, to the point they have individual modules that have flown more times than the current maximum number of reuses of any booster as a whole (currently at 9). Another example, they've stopped having static fires for flight proven boosters first for Starlink, then for customer payloads too, unless the customer explicitly requests it. It's unbelievable that "flight proven booster" turned out to be really what it says on the tin, and not just a piece of marketing speak.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  > It's unbelievable that "flight proven buster" turned out to be really what it says on the tin, and not just a piece of marketing speak. That's a thing to love about SpaceX. When they first started using this phrase, it was tongue-in-cheek in a pretty obvious way. Three years later, it was no longer a joke.
- the8472 6y ago
  It's "booster", not "buster".
  - shantara 6y ago
    Fixed, thanks.
bryanlarsen 6y ago
IIRC Musk has already said he'd be happy to launch rival constellations.

philistine 6y ago

Webservers... in space!

hackeraccount 6y ago
Given that Starlink will do links between satellites that's actually an interesting idea. From what I've read one of the problems with it is heat management. Space is chilly but it's not a great heat sink and servers generate a lot of heat.

parsimo2010 6y ago

AWS has also created satellite ground stations in the last few years. A commercial satellite internet service running from the ground stations would probably justify scaling out, and having a larger network of ground stations would help AWS attract more commercial space customers. Bezos has been working this from a few angles, not just from a keep up with Musk attitude.