4 ms·

None of that sounds like a big impact on the lives of most people, who are already living in areas well covered by cellphone networks and will never afford to t

by ric2b 3y ago

None of that sounds like a big impact on the lives of most people, who are already living in areas well covered by cellphone networks and will never afford to travel to space.

Kim_Bruning 3y ago
SpaceX Starship is projected to bring the price of space travel down drastically, to the point where non-1%-ers should be able to afford it.
- ric2b 3y ago
  Still not a big improvement for most of the population, maybe a few middle-class hardcore space fans spend their life savings to make 1 trip to space instead of going to some beach resort multiple years in a row. Good for them.
- pavon 3y ago
  I don't think it will. NASA has contracted SpaceX Dragon flights at about $70M per seat, and the OIG estimates the cost to SpaceX at $55M per seat. If we are extremely optimistic about Starship and say it will cost the same amount to launch as Falcon 9 / Dragon, and has 100 passengers instead of 4, that brings the price down to $2-3M per seat. SpaceX could probably do suborbital hops on just the StarShip second stage for less per seat than what Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin do now, but I don't know if that is a market they want to get into. They haven't shown interest in it in the past.
  - Kim_Bruning 3y ago
    That's still a huge drop, but I guess we'll have to wait a little longer before a ticket to the moon becomes commonplace.
  - modeless 3y ago
    > If we are extremely optimistic about Starship and say it will cost the same amount to launch as Falcon 9 / Dragon That's pessimistic. Starship is targeting a significantly reduced cost per launch than Dragon + Falcon 9. Made possible by drastically reduced refurbishment, dramatically increased launch cadence, and full reusability (Falcon 9 second stage and Dragon trunk are both expended), among many other things. And it could carry a lot more than 100 passengers. It's certainly possible that it won't meet its goals, but I wouldn't call that stance "optimistic".
modeless 3y ago
I'm willing to bet that "most" people live in or travel to areas of bad cell coverage often enough that they will definitely appreciate an increase in coverage to literally 100% of the Earth's surface. Starlink capacity and reliability increases will enable a lot more people to ditch bad ISPs, not just people in extremely rural areas, and that can have a big impact on people's lives. Also I would say that international air travel had a big impact on civilization even long before "most" people globally could afford to fly internationally (if they even can today, I haven't found a good estimate for the percentage of people who will fly internationally during their lifetime but it could easily be less than a majority).
- ric2b 3y ago
  I don't think that would be a big change for the vast majority of people. Very few would even subscribe to an internet service that they will only make use of while hiking or doing other activities that take them to remote places. Maybe if they sell access for a few days and you no longer need any dedicated hardware to connect?
happytiger 3y ago
You could say the same thing about early airplanes, early computers, early radio, early cars… in fact many people did. This bias doesn’t reflect the reality of technological revolutions but is very common. Be mindful of this. “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” - Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943 “Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” - Darryl Zanuck, executive at 20th Century Fox, 1946 “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” - Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977 “Almost all of the many predictions now being made about 1996 hinge on the Internet’s continuing exponential growth. But I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.” - Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com, 1995 “Apple is already dead.” - Nathan Myhrvold, former Microsoft CTO, 1997 “None of that sounds like a big impact on the lives of most people, who are already living in areas well covered by cellphone networks and will never afford to travel to space.” - hackernews user rick2b in 2023
- fomine3 3y ago
  Not much the same. Your examples were new techs that enables new thing, but no one knew how it useful . For internet access, fiber or 4G/5G cell tower are existing better solution for non-rural ground use. It's great for very rural area (including industry use) and I'm exciting how it make new use case on marine, but it's not so exciting for urban/suburban use.

by ric2b 3y ago

None of that sounds like a big impact on the lives of most people, who are already living in areas well covered by cellphone networks and will never afford to travel to space.

Kim_Bruning 3y ago

SpaceX Starship is projected to bring the price of space travel down drastically, to the point where non-1%-ers should be able to afford it.

ric2b 3y ago
Still not a big improvement for most of the population, maybe a few middle-class hardcore space fans spend their life savings to make 1 trip to space instead of going to some beach resort multiple years in a row. Good for them.
pavon 3y ago
I don't think it will. NASA has contracted SpaceX Dragon flights at about $70M per seat, and the OIG estimates the cost to SpaceX at $55M per seat. If we are extremely optimistic about Starship and say it will cost the same amount to launch as Falcon 9 / Dragon, and has 100 passengers instead of 4, that brings the price down to $2-3M per seat. SpaceX could probably do suborbital hops on just the StarShip second stage for less per seat than what Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin do now, but I don't know if that is a market they want to get into. They haven't shown interest in it in the past.
- Kim_Bruning 3y ago
  That's still a huge drop, but I guess we'll have to wait a little longer before a ticket to the moon becomes commonplace.
- modeless 3y ago
  > If we are extremely optimistic about Starship and say it will cost the same amount to launch as Falcon 9 / Dragon That's pessimistic. Starship is targeting a significantly reduced cost per launch than Dragon + Falcon 9. Made possible by drastically reduced refurbishment, dramatically increased launch cadence, and full reusability (Falcon 9 second stage and Dragon trunk are both expended), among many other things. And it could carry a lot more than 100 passengers. It's certainly possible that it won't meet its goals, but I wouldn't call that stance "optimistic".

modeless 3y ago

I'm willing to bet that "most" people live in or travel to areas of bad cell coverage often enough that they will definitely appreciate an increase in coverage to literally 100% of the Earth's surface. Starlink capacity and reliability increases will enable a lot more people to ditch bad ISPs, not just people in extremely rural areas, and that can have a big impact on people's lives. Also I would say that international air travel had a big impact on civilization even long before "most" people globally could afford to fly internationally (if they even can today, I haven't found a good estimate for the percentage of people who will fly internationally during their lifetime but it could easily be less than a majority).

ric2b 3y ago
I don't think that would be a big change for the vast majority of people. Very few would even subscribe to an internet service that they will only make use of while hiking or doing other activities that take them to remote places. Maybe if they sell access for a few days and you no longer need any dedicated hardware to connect?

happytiger 3y ago

You could say the same thing about early airplanes, early computers, early radio, early cars… in fact many people did. This bias doesn’t reflect the reality of technological revolutions but is very common. Be mindful of this. “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” - Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943 “Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” - Darryl Zanuck, executive at 20th Century Fox, 1946 “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” - Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977 “Almost all of the many predictions now being made about 1996 hinge on the Internet’s continuing exponential growth. But I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.” - Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com, 1995 “Apple is already dead.” - Nathan Myhrvold, former Microsoft CTO, 1997 “None of that sounds like a big impact on the lives of most people, who are already living in areas well covered by cellphone networks and will never afford to travel to space.” - hackernews user rick2b in 2023

fomine3 3y ago
Not much the same. Your examples were new techs that enables new thing, but no one knew how it useful . For internet access, fiber or 4G/5G cell tower are existing better solution for non-rural ground use. It's great for very rural area (including industry use) and I'm exciting how it make new use case on marine, but it's not so exciting for urban/suburban use.