6 ms·

Found a rather... skeptical take (I'd argue it's more of a takedown)[0]. A bit crazy how far off the math is from viability, for a company that someone actually

Found a rather... skeptical take (I'd argue it's more of a takedown)[0]. A bit crazy how far off the math is from viability, for a company that someone actually invested money in. Impressive salesmanship though. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkjyeI0ykGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkjyeI0ykGM

Ajedi32 2y ago
Yeah that looks pretty bad. I'm trying to figure out if something got lost in translation or if Reflect Orbital is just running an outright scam. It's pretty clear a 10m X 10m square can't transmit 200W/sqm to a 3km area. So either those figures were for a different version of the product (like maybe an array of hundreds or thousands of these cubesats all working in concert?) or he's just flat out lying about some very important figures.
- Ajedi32 2y ago
  So in case anyone cares, I re-watched the podcast and I'm leaning towards something getting lost in translation (or, more uncharitably, Ben being misleading about what he was describing in order to make the company look better than it is). At 47:42 he says: > So serving energy customers is kind of like the end state, you know, that, that makes sense when you're launching like, you know, full Falcon Heavies full of full of vehicles. Implying he knows you're not getting 200W/m^2 with only a single 10m x 10m 16u cubesat. He says for single satellites their short term goal is to be an alternative for street lights in undeveloped areas, which requires much less power per unit area. And at 1:11:57: > And you can also optimize like different curves of customer saturation, you know, so like initially, you're not going to have as many customers excited to buy, you know, a couple minutes of sunlight that's not very bright. But later down the line you're going to have a lot of people who are very interested in buying a lot of sunlight. Um, you know, at the kind of point where we're, you know, a couple hundred Watts per square meter for, for quite a while. So it sounds like 200W/m^2 is a long term goal, not something they're planning to have right away with the 100m^2 satellites. Would be interesting to run the numbers and find out exactly what would be needed for 200W/m^2 in the maximally bright part of the illuminated area, in terms of the size and number of satellites required.
  - bloedsinnig 2y ago
    It would be huge to actually get a real no bullshit answer from people like him. Either he got some strategy which is smart but he can't communicate, or he tries playing a very long game, or he actually doesn't understand it and is just a normal person and normal people need experts telling them why it sounds good but is stupid or he has some VC experts telling him how to communicate to get money without a real endgoal but pivoting to something else later.
Kuinox 2y ago
I avoid "debunk" channel like theses. Lots of them "debunked" SpaceX at it's beginning.

Ajedi32 2y ago

Yeah that looks pretty bad. I'm trying to figure out if something got lost in translation or if Reflect Orbital is just running an outright scam. It's pretty clear a 10m X 10m square can't transmit 200W/sqm to a 3km area. So either those figures were for a different version of the product (like maybe an array of hundreds or thousands of these cubesats all working in concert?) or he's just flat out lying about some very important figures.

Ajedi32 2y ago
So in case anyone cares, I re-watched the podcast and I'm leaning towards something getting lost in translation (or, more uncharitably, Ben being misleading about what he was describing in order to make the company look better than it is). At 47:42 he says: > So serving energy customers is kind of like the end state, you know, that, that makes sense when you're launching like, you know, full Falcon Heavies full of full of vehicles. Implying he knows you're not getting 200W/m^2 with only a single 10m x 10m 16u cubesat. He says for single satellites their short term goal is to be an alternative for street lights in undeveloped areas, which requires much less power per unit area. And at 1:11:57: > And you can also optimize like different curves of customer saturation, you know, so like initially, you're not going to have as many customers excited to buy, you know, a couple minutes of sunlight that's not very bright. But later down the line you're going to have a lot of people who are very interested in buying a lot of sunlight. Um, you know, at the kind of point where we're, you know, a couple hundred Watts per square meter for, for quite a while. So it sounds like 200W/m^2 is a long term goal, not something they're planning to have right away with the 100m^2 satellites. Would be interesting to run the numbers and find out exactly what would be needed for 200W/m^2 in the maximally bright part of the illuminated area, in terms of the size and number of satellites required.
- bloedsinnig 2y ago
  It would be huge to actually get a real no bullshit answer from people like him. Either he got some strategy which is smart but he can't communicate, or he tries playing a very long game, or he actually doesn't understand it and is just a normal person and normal people need experts telling them why it sounds good but is stupid or he has some VC experts telling him how to communicate to get money without a real endgoal but pivoting to something else later.

Kuinox 2y ago

I avoid "debunk" channel like theses. Lots of them "debunked" SpaceX at it's beginning.