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Personally I would rather see that we quit the rocket stuff and focus on real problems. Playing with rockets serves the entertainment needs of billionaires and

Personally I would rather see that we quit the rocket stuff and focus on real problems. Playing with rockets serves the entertainment needs of billionaires and maybe the tech bros on HN, but serves no other purpose. Starlink does come to mind, but that need can be served cheaper and more effectively if we would not be so capitalistic and spend a bit less on military. Speaking of purpose, at times it feels to me that the space thing is the only thing that gives the audience a higher meaning. But it seems so desperately hollow. It seems so gratuitous that billions are spent on nothing, whereas some very serious issues here down on earth are going out of control. But let’s keep dreaming and fantasizing about Mars. I keep my focus on the disintegration of society by the people who finance this rocket stuff.

vessenes 4y ago
Couple thoughts: First, I would gently suggest that, while it is easy to complain, it is hard to build - if you are into spending energy on humanity’s current plight, ‘focusing on disintegration of society’ is going to be a full and complete waste of your time, and of no benefit to the rest of us - I’d encourage you to do the much harder (and often riskier/scarier) thing of figuring out what you might do to improve things. Probably won’t look like what Elon does, but it’s a big world! Second, counterpoint on Starlink. Starlink is actually pretty amazing - it, at scale, will provide global relatively low-ping pervasive broadband internet EVERYWHERE. Without any ground-based deployments. Logistics in much of the world are prohibitively difficult to even get strung-out microwave repeaters into places humans live, much less 30-100ms broadband. Seriously, Starlink is amazing. While I agree that military budgets could often be better repurposed for the good of humanity, I’m not sure that even the US military budget could blanket the earth with broadband in any other way than this — politics plus logistics make it seem impossible to me. Anyway, I personally think the world could do with a lot more crazy dreamers building things right now! (Sent over Comcast)
- louwrentius 4y ago
  These crazy dreamers are building shit that destroys our societies so I gently suggest they stop.
  - Teever 4y ago
    How do you feel about weather satellites?
    - thfuran 4y ago
      Or gps.
      - louwrentius 4y ago
        I like state funded things that do serve a purpose that outweighs the drawbacks
    - louwrentius 4y ago
      I like state funded things that do serve a purpose that outweighs the drawbacks
- ncmncm 4y ago
  It is very far from clear that Starlink is even sustainable. It needs many times more full-price subscribers than can afford it. Expect available data rates to plummet as more sign up. And, anywhere with trees around (e.g., here), it doesn't work.
  - extheat 4y ago
    Why not? Be more specific. The tree issue I believe could easily be fixed by broadcasting over a lower frequency that can penetrate more materials easy. Wi-Fi for example works at lower frequencies (2.5Ghz/5Ghz opposed to 12Ghz). This is more of a regulatory constraint. The effect could also minimized with more satellites.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      They would need new regulatory clearance, a new spectrum allocation, and probably all new satellites and terminals to operate in a different frequency band. And by my estimate they need a million subscribers just to pay for replacement satellites as the old ones burn up.
  - vessenes 4y ago
    Sustainability is an interesting metric, probably two ways to look at it: On the “financially sustainable” question: Current public reported runrate is $40+mm/month in revenue = $500mm/yr ARR business on roughly 400,000 customers. Customers are still limited by geo for the reasons you mention - they need more satellite density, so I presume more customers would sign up than have right now, e.g. there is a lot of growth ahead in raw revenues. That should give the current business, as is, at least a $5bn valuation, frankly quite a lot more given the ease with which they can sign up whole countries worth of people. Can starlink add another 400,000 customers for less than $5bn? Absolutely. SpaceX has paid the capex for lift already, and right now it’s a matter of adding satellites and creating antennas and paying (at-cost) lift rates for the cheapest lift known to man. Starlink is going to be a $100bn+ business IMO very quickly, like next 5 years. Per your point, e.g. ‘is it good enough near trees’, or what percent of the earth can Starlink serve? On the one hand, it doesn’t matter a lot because that number is clearly north of 10%, and that makes the starlink broadband market 3 times the size of the US as is — and that ignores the various super-high-value markets like shipping, jets, and elsewhere that will pay 50x a ‘typical’ customer - but, I think the tree/coverage problem in general is a problem of low satellite density right now. My starlink is laid out as best I can near my house, and it’s at like “96% coverage” per the app; every ten minutes or so, it loses connectivity for a bit. That’s because all available satellites are occluded by my trees - with additional satellites, I wouldn’t have that problem. So, I would guess that problem gets less bad over time as they grow.
dqpb 4y ago
I’m very interested to hear what you spend your time working on.
- louwrentius 4y ago
  Nothing as polluting as rockets (If people make it personal you know you struck a nerve)
  - extheat 4y ago
    I think it’s a legitimate question. Doesn’t seem like an personal attack.
    - louwrentius 4y ago
      It is about what I do and what I do is irrelevant for the discussion.
      - dqpb 4y ago
        When you say, e.g. NASAs work is a total waste, it makes me wonder if you are working on something incredibly impactful for human kind.

vessenes 4y ago

Couple thoughts: First, I would gently suggest that, while it is easy to complain, it is hard to build - if you are into spending energy on humanity’s current plight, ‘focusing on disintegration of society’ is going to be a full and complete waste of your time, and of no benefit to the rest of us - I’d encourage you to do the much harder (and often riskier/scarier) thing of figuring out what you might do to improve things. Probably won’t look like what Elon does, but it’s a big world! Second, counterpoint on Starlink. Starlink is actually pretty amazing - it, at scale, will provide global relatively low-ping pervasive broadband internet EVERYWHERE. Without any ground-based deployments. Logistics in much of the world are prohibitively difficult to even get strung-out microwave repeaters into places humans live, much less 30-100ms broadband. Seriously, Starlink is amazing. While I agree that military budgets could often be better repurposed for the good of humanity, I’m not sure that even the US military budget could blanket the earth with broadband in any other way than this — politics plus logistics make it seem impossible to me. Anyway, I personally think the world could do with a lot more crazy dreamers building things right now! (Sent over Comcast)

louwrentius 4y ago
These crazy dreamers are building shit that destroys our societies so I gently suggest they stop.
- Teever 4y ago
  How do you feel about weather satellites?
  - thfuran 4y ago
    Or gps.
    - louwrentius 4y ago
      I like state funded things that do serve a purpose that outweighs the drawbacks
  - louwrentius 4y ago
    I like state funded things that do serve a purpose that outweighs the drawbacks
ncmncm 4y ago
It is very far from clear that Starlink is even sustainable. It needs many times more full-price subscribers than can afford it. Expect available data rates to plummet as more sign up. And, anywhere with trees around (e.g., here), it doesn't work.
- extheat 4y ago
  Why not? Be more specific. The tree issue I believe could easily be fixed by broadcasting over a lower frequency that can penetrate more materials easy. Wi-Fi for example works at lower frequencies (2.5Ghz/5Ghz opposed to 12Ghz). This is more of a regulatory constraint. The effect could also minimized with more satellites.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    They would need new regulatory clearance, a new spectrum allocation, and probably all new satellites and terminals to operate in a different frequency band. And by my estimate they need a million subscribers just to pay for replacement satellites as the old ones burn up.
- vessenes 4y ago
  Sustainability is an interesting metric, probably two ways to look at it: On the “financially sustainable” question: Current public reported runrate is $40+mm/month in revenue = $500mm/yr ARR business on roughly 400,000 customers. Customers are still limited by geo for the reasons you mention - they need more satellite density, so I presume more customers would sign up than have right now, e.g. there is a lot of growth ahead in raw revenues. That should give the current business, as is, at least a $5bn valuation, frankly quite a lot more given the ease with which they can sign up whole countries worth of people. Can starlink add another 400,000 customers for less than $5bn? Absolutely. SpaceX has paid the capex for lift already, and right now it’s a matter of adding satellites and creating antennas and paying (at-cost) lift rates for the cheapest lift known to man. Starlink is going to be a $100bn+ business IMO very quickly, like next 5 years. Per your point, e.g. ‘is it good enough near trees’, or what percent of the earth can Starlink serve? On the one hand, it doesn’t matter a lot because that number is clearly north of 10%, and that makes the starlink broadband market 3 times the size of the US as is — and that ignores the various super-high-value markets like shipping, jets, and elsewhere that will pay 50x a ‘typical’ customer - but, I think the tree/coverage problem in general is a problem of low satellite density right now. My starlink is laid out as best I can near my house, and it’s at like “96% coverage” per the app; every ten minutes or so, it loses connectivity for a bit. That’s because all available satellites are occluded by my trees - with additional satellites, I wouldn’t have that problem. So, I would guess that problem gets less bad over time as they grow.

dqpb 4y ago

I’m very interested to hear what you spend your time working on.

louwrentius 4y ago
Nothing as polluting as rockets (If people make it personal you know you struck a nerve)
- extheat 4y ago
  I think it’s a legitimate question. Doesn’t seem like an personal attack.
  - louwrentius 4y ago
    It is about what I do and what I do is irrelevant for the discussion.
    - dqpb 4y ago
      When you say, e.g. NASAs work is a total waste, it makes me wonder if you are working on something incredibly impactful for human kind.