4 ms·
Of all press releases in recent memory, this is the one that reads the most like hard science fiction.
by mortenjorck 5y ago
Of all press releases in recent memory, this is the one that reads the most like hard science fiction.
- platistocrates 5y agowhat's cool is, it doesn't even feel futuristic anymore.
- the_arun 5y agoSomeday potentially we could buy/lease/rent our own satelites over satelites.com use it for personal research, photography etc.,
- Johnythree 5y agoAmateur groups have been launching satellites for decades now...
- GekkePrutser 5y agoYou can already make your own and get it launched if you have enough money. Cubesat components are pretty much off the shelf except the payload. And launch costs are to the tune of 30k per kg or so. I'm sure a lot of overhead / integration is added but it's financially possible for the well-off :)
- hypertele-Xii 5y agoLaunching a satellite is already sub $100k. Technology both miniaturizes and industrializes at an exponential rate. Think about how small and cheap computers have become in the span of a hundred years, from "occupies a building and costs a fortune" to "fits in your pocket and everyone can afford one". Sputnik 1, the first satellite ever launched cost 33 billion 1985 US dollars. 45 years later, you can get a cubesat into orbit for $100k.
- ceejayoz 5y agoI really don't think Sputnik cost more than the entire Apollo program, nor 8x the cost of the JWST. I can only find a couple of sites saying "33.000 million" for Sputnik's cost, unsourced.
- HWR_14 5y agoThat could be an EU/US issue. In the EU it is common to separate thousands (or millions) with dots, and decimals with commas. In the US it is the other way around. So those sources could be saying (or were read by GP) as 33 thousand million (33 billion) or it could mean 33 million and 0 thousands. The billion sounds linguistically more correct, but I have no idea if those are inflation adjusted dollars or whatever. It could be an error that telephones around the internet as 33.0 million by the US system then converted to someone in the EU to 33.000 because they misread the number.
- hypertele-Xii 5y agoI definitely interpreted it as 33 thousand million. Whoops :D
- willcipriano 5y agoSomewhere there is a scientist trying to convince his peers this wasn't a geomagnetic storm but instead a alien spacecraft but they don't believe him.
- function_seven 5y agoOh my god I think you're right. Somewhere this morning a low-level SpaceX engineer was apologetically skipping out of the house. A full breakfast—uneaten, except for the toast he grabbed—laid out on the kitchen table and now the focal point of his wife's muttering. In the background a TV has the morning news on, briefly mentioning the geomagnetic storm. "I promise I'll be back in time for Kaitlyn's play. ...Yes I know how much this means to her." But he won't be, will he? Because by the end of the day, the entire world will have been transformed in ways nobody could have seen that morning. Except for the perennially-ignored news anchor on in the background. EDIT: Yeah, https://xkcd.com/1387/ https://xkcd.com/1387/
- alexfringes 5y agoI think the press release is lacking in detail. For example, they completely fail to disclose whether recovery was attempted by rerouting power from life support to the structural integrity field.
- sho_hn 5y agoI believe a geomagnetic storm calls for rerouting power to the subspace accelerators backing your deflector dish, and of course sufficient impulse power to maintain an appropriate heading, not rerouting to the SIF. Please get your spaceship right. It's a technical forum!
- politician 5y agoThis is why I read HN. You just can’t find experts like these anywhere else.
- alexfringes 5y agoSorry, was assuming SpaceX had quantum slipstream already. But it appears I was mistaken. In the case of a slipstream drive, integrity for entry and exit of the slipstream would be paramount. But if they’re still using warp, then your comment of course is accurate. Impulse, by the way, is covered by the press release [1] and, I agree, would need to be a priority no matter which FTL drive is used to get the satellites to their final destination. [1] > The Starlink team commanded the satellites into a safe-mode where they would fly edge-on (like a sheet of paper) to minimize drag—to effectively “take cover from the storm”
- Redoubts 5y agoWell, "continued to work closely with the Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron" was a bit on the nose.