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SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

arstechnica.com

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Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

#151

Post by ryanSrich »

bumby wrote: post #144
ryanSrich wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's nobler and more feasible to protect and improve this planet than settle another one That's an incredibly short sighted argument. As if this planet will last forever. I don't get this attitude at all. It's like saying why plan for the future at all!

It's probably a matter of convention. We consider solar a renewable resource even though the sun will eventually die out. Humans are wired to think little beyond generational timelines, not geological ones.

Entropy waits for no man.

Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

#152

Post by apexalpha »

liquidise wrote: post #7

This headline is only part of the story, looks like ~10 ISP's were awarded sizable subsidies. While i am not a fan of subsidies in general, the ISP space is particularly tricky for free-market forces to ensure competition. The capital requirements are overwhelming in many cases for a traditional startups, leaving the only other option as local/municipal votes, which have been successful in some areas. Long-term, i co…

In my country they simply force the main ISP to open their network on fair rates. No need for and entire new physical network but there is competition.

Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

#153

Post by gwright »

dcolkitt wrote: post #41
liquidise wrote: post #7

This headline is only part of the story, looks like ~10 ISP's were awarded sizable subsidies. While i am not a fan of subsidies in general, the ISP space is particularly tricky for free-market forces to ensure competition. The capital requirements are overwhelming in many cases for a traditional startups, leaving the only other option as local/municipal votes, which have been successful in some areas. Long-term, i co…

> The capital requirements are overwhelming in many cases for a traditional startups, leaving the only other option as local/municipal votes, which have been successful in some areas. I disagree. Especially today, capital is highly abundant and dirt cheap. The markets are starved for yield on any sort of fixed income product, especially when it's secured by tangible assets with predictable cash flows. Every day the m…

The "last-mile" problem has been around for a long time and doesn't seem to be going away, although wireless solutions (including Starlink) is one way to bypass that problem.

Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

#154

Post by pharke »

sneak wrote: post #117
dkdk8283 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nations are great. Not everyone agrees on all policies. My personal opinion is that I do not want to live in a censored or communist country (Such as China). Having borders and different countries allows multiple ideas to exist and folks can choose where to live.

> folks can choose where to live. This is absolutely not true in practice, even for rich people fortunate/lucky enough to be born in a place where they receive a passport with lots of options. For the 99% of the other humans, it's even worse.

That doesn't appear to be a defect inherent to nations since there seems to be a pretty even split between free and non-free nations[0] Rather, it seems to be a problem of bad governance, corruption, ineffective or non-existent institutions, etc. My reason for favouring a world with many nations is that failures of those varieties are generally limited by the borders of the nations in which they occur. A world with a single governing body is a world with a single point of failure.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices#:~:tex....

Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

#155

Post by aquadrop »

bumby wrote: post #134
derekp7 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counter argument to that, is that it is worth while to do things, even if there are other things that are worth while to do. For any single item one can pick out "Why spend on X, when Y has a need", someone else can come along and say "Why spend on Y when Z has a need".

I think that's exactly the point. It's a disagreement about what gets priority to get optimized. The problem is exacerbated when there are multiple giant sinks for resources (e.g., colonizing Mars, combating climate change). In a world of limited resources, some things have to get sidelined.

I think colonizing Mars is pretty small sink compared to climate change and many others. With how SpaceX going, I think for the first stage it's comparable to something like one modern Olympic games event cost.

Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

#156

Post by Koshkin »

juanbyrge wrote: post #9

If there is any corporate entity I'd happy giving public funding, it would be SpaceX. Their end goal is to settle Mars and potentially other bodies in the solar system. Compared with the absurd amounts of money wasted on defense contractors, I am perfectly happy with funding SpaceX in every way possible.

Yes, sending your enemies to Mars is the best defense for sure. Nobody in their right mind would voluntarily spend the rest of their lives in a can filled with a few cubic feet of recycled air.

Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

#157

Post by reportingsjr »

lgats wrote: post #2

SpaceX has been awarded $885.51 million by the Federal Communications Commission to provide Starlink broadband to 642,925 rural homes and businesses in 35 states. That's $1376.52 in subsidies per customer

Welcome to the US, where cities are constantly sucked dry of money to pay for people to move in to rural areas and destroy nature. Yay!

Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

#158

Post by extropy »

bumby wrote: post #100
juanbyrge wrote: post #9

If there is any corporate entity I'd happy giving public funding, it would be SpaceX. Their end goal is to settle Mars and potentially other bodies in the solar system. Compared with the absurd amounts of money wasted on defense contractors, I am perfectly happy with funding SpaceX in every way possible.

I don't know if those who would argue against funding SpaceX take the "either traditional defense contractors or SpaceX" bait. I think a major argument is that there are better ways to spend the money here on Earth. I.e., it's nobler and more feasible to protect and improve this planet than settle another one. As a former space industry worker, I don't know if I subscribe to that, but that's the best steelmanning I c…

The problem with protect and conserve is that is leads to limited resources mentality. "There is not enough to go around" becomes ugly very fast.

https://mobile.twitter.com/robert_zubrin/status/101347705748...

Edit: Will surely invest considerable resources to convert Earth to a national park once we have outgrown earth's economy 100x

Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

#159

Post by xxpor »

serf wrote: post #110
aaronblohowiak wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should rural lifestyle be subsidized ?

(playing devils' advocate) City/population-center living is wildly inefficient for a host of reasons, and a dollar of urban development towards a major metropolis goes much less far than a dollar of urban development for a rural community. We deal with the inadequacies of living in such big population dense areas because we want to; not because it's efficient. Turns out it's not efficient to stack up as many people v…

>We deal with the inadequacies of living in such big population dense areas because we want to; not because it's efficient.

>Turns out it's not efficient to stack up as many people vertically as possible.

>It over-burdens local municipal systems to the point of skyrocketing economic costs, creates more job scarcity due to sheer population and high real-estate costs, and creates untenable situations during times where population density is a net-negative, like during a pandemic.

These are all exactly the opposite of true? It's very efficient to stack people vertically. What's not efficient is delivering sewer service to people whose houses are a half mile apart or having someone drive 60 miles round trip in a single occupancy vehicle to get to work every day.

Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

#160

Post by cromwellian »

nikolay wrote: post #143
cromwellian wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla was built before tax payer money, they got loans for scaling. They paid them back with interest, the tax payer profited. SpaceX was also mostly built with Musk's personal fortune, after they developed the Merlin engine, and got the Falcon 1 to orbit, only then did they get contracts from NASA, and they actually saved NASA money, because SpaceX launch costs are significantly lower, ergo, in a way, they also paid…

So, Elon Musk first flirted with Democrats, because this is how he got the buddy favors. But this year, he probably saw a change in the wind and started to flirt with Republicans - I expect him following the wind again...

What would you do if the local mafia showed up at your business and said "Nice little space/car company you got there, it would be a shame if something happened to it?"

Call it an act of cowardice, but all of the top companies are currying favor with governments, because cronyism is everywhere, and if you are not in the game, you are out of it.

Do you think SpaceX would have beat ULA, who literally had the Apollo moon landing astronauts badmouthing competitors in front of congress, if they had not curried favor?

China is an especially great example of this: Don't play ball, you lose. (e.g. Google leaves China). Play ball, and find yourself continually kow-towing to keep the goodies flowing, as Tim Cook travels every year to Beijing and stroking the hearts of the government or nationalists.

Until we end money in politics and ban the revolving door of lobbyists, we're not going to address the problem of contracts being handed out with questionable rationale.

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