Maybe something like this could be created comparatively easily and inexpensively. NASA tested optical communication to Moon in 2013 already [0], so the techno

Maybe something like this could be created comparatively easily and inexpensively. NASA tested optical communication to Moon in 2013 already [0], so the technological readiness level of some highspeed transmission technology should be quite high already. If such an optical communications module were installed on a sat that could also talk to off-the-shelf Starlink sats, this satellite could serve as relay that connects Earth to a (very?) small constellation of Starlink satellites. Beside the bespoke relay satellite, this might be a rather inexpensive solution (Starlink satellites are cheaper than $500k per piece already, as far as I know). A counterargument I can think of is that Starlink satellites might not be hardened enough to work outside of Earth's protective magnetic field. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LADEE#Lunar_Laser_Communication_Demonstration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LADEE#Lunar_Laser_Communicatio...