SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by ehsankia » Mon, Dec 07, 2020, 11:54 PM UTC

joecool1029 wrote: post #165

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.

While I absolutely agree that defense contractor spending is an abhorrent waste of public funds, this is a bad take. Literally every company in this space (ISP's, and more so ISP's that utilize satellites) have used it as a platform to grift public funds. Examples include Lightsquared, Iridium, Globalstar, and the worst of all, DISH) SpaceX has significantly reduced the cost of building a satellite ISP but you need t…

Why do you look at the history of telecommunication companies rather than the history of SpaceX?

They received subsidies for electric cars and delivered electric cars.

They received subsidies for space travel and they delivered both cargo and humans to the space station.

Now they receive subsidies on for telecommunication, given the two previous deliveries, what makes you think this third one will suddenly go the grift route?

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

#202

Post by grecy » Mon, Dec 07, 2020, 11:56 PM UTC

FrojoS wrote: post #180

grecy wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently the beta is geo-locked to within about 35 miles of there address you signed up for it. Elon has said multiple times it will work perfectly well on a yacht crossing the pacific, a moving train, etc., so we have to assume the "stay in one place" restriction will go away. Country borders will be interesting though, I assume many want to tightly control how you communicate with sats.

With the current satellites it can’t work in the middle of the ocean due to a lack of ground stations.

Right, but it will in the future.

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

#203

Post by robocat » Mon, Dec 07, 2020, 11:57 PM UTC

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…

For financial comparison, New Zealand (similar size/population to Oregon) used a lending model to fund a national fibre rollout in a private-public partnership.

“The Government will [initially] invest up to $1.35 billion [NZD] in the UFB network, which it expects to cost a total of $3.5b [NZD]. That includes $929m which it will invest directly in Chorus in interest-free loans and equity. [The government] will not be entitled to any dividends until 2025 and the loans will not be repaid in full until 2036. The difference between what it will pay and what it will get back will be $600m in today's money” - https://archive.vn/20170807221541/http://www.stuff.co.nz/bus...

84% of NZers can access fibre, and uptake is 64% as per: https://www.mbie.govt.nz/assets/quarterly-connectivity-updat...

Fibre is owned by infrastructure companies that charge standard rates to ISP’s, and the ISP’s compete to provide Internet to consumers.

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

#204

Post by Retric » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 12:02 AM UTC

aroch wrote: post #149

saberience wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you saying about UK ships not knowing how to navigate? The US navy is far, far worse in that respect, the British navy hasn't had anything near as bad as this happen anytime recently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Fitzgerald_and_MV_ACX_Crys...

Over the last few years there have been several (4-5) instances of British subs nearly striking surface ships in their home waters. Also running aground right outside their home port in 2010. Not exactly reassuring. The US Navy is much bigger and has global operations. They're just as guilty of being careless but they also have proven war fighting capabilities. No one is asking the British to sail by as a show of pow…

Near misses are fairly common in all large navies, that says little about the British capacity for warfare. For example both the USS Fitzgerald and USS John McCain actually had significant collisions yet the US Navy is generally considered by far the strongest in the world.

Similarly, military aircraft crash vastly more often than their civilian counterparts, but consider extreme safety simply isn't what militaires optimize for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident...

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

#205

Post by bumby » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 12:07 AM UTC

chillacy wrote: post #183

bumby wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm generally in favor of what SpaceX is doing, I don't think your point holds up in any sort of constrained environment. Could there be a marginal (or even reasonable) tangential benefit to other industries? Of course, but not as much as if those industries were the primary focus to begin with. With limited resources, you have to prioritize or else you can run the risk of being spread so thin nothing is adequa…

What you're saying is true but I don't believe humans to be in any kind of "constrained environment" if more people can work on ad delivery and social media marketing than space exploration and environmental engineering combined.

>I don't believe humans to be in any kind of "constrained environment"

I probably didn't do a good job of explaining that I meant "constrained environment" in the operations research sense. Everything rooted in the real world is constrained. Why don't we each take a private jet to work everyday? Because we're constrained on money. If we're not constrained on money, we're constrained on time. If it's not that, we're constrained by the amount of carbon we can release and still have a reasonably favorable environment for humans.

One of the reasons the Space Shuttle became somewhat of a boondoggle was because of this. They had a constrained budget but had to meet the demands of multiple, often competing, stakeholders. Musk knows this; he knows that NASA has constraints he doesn't. He doesn't have to spread his facilities across multiple States to help ensure support from as many Congress people as possible. He doesn't have to expose himself to the same level of political risk that can change every four years. He can optimize under a different set of constraints, but it would be a mistake to assume he's unconstrained.

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

#206

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 12:12 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #204

aroch wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over the last few years there have been several (4-5) instances of British subs nearly striking surface ships in their home waters. Also running aground right outside their home port in 2010. Not exactly reassuring. The US Navy is much bigger and has global operations. They're just as guilty of being careless but they also have proven war fighting capabilities. No one is asking the British to sail by as a show of pow…

Near misses are fairly common in all large navies, that says little about the British capacity for warfare. For example both the USS Fitzgerald and USS John McCain actually had significant collisions yet the US Navy is generally considered by far the strongest in the world. Similarly, military aircraft crash vastly more often than their civilian counterparts, but consider extreme safety simply isn't what militaires o…

> For example both the USS Fitzgerald and USS John McCain actually had significant collisions yet the US Navy is generally considered by far the strongest in the world.

The series of four accidents including those two in a short period in the US 7th Fleet was considered a sign of very significant problems. It is not at all typical of large, capable navies.

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

#207

Post by bumby » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 12:13 AM UTC

derekp7 wrote: post #199

bumby wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> first stage it's comparable to something like one modern Olympic games event cost. To continue on with the steelmanning, the first stage is probably a drop in a bucket compared to the entire effort. How much freight do you think it would take to colonize a planet with a population large enough to be relatively self-sufficient? Just the payload cost would be huge and that's just to park it (not to assemble, maintain…

So if SpaceX shuts down their entire operations (and lets include all rocket companies), then that would completely fix health care and the climate crises? I'm not following the logic of how that would work. It is basically a larger version of the argument "Well, if you are so poor, why did you drink that cup of coffee this morning?"

>that would completely fix health care and the climate crises?

At no point did I say it's a magic bullet that would "completely fix" any of that. But spending hundreds of millions directly on healthcare would likely pay more healthcare dividends than, say, some unintended materials science application that started in rocket engine development.

How exactly do you think funding gets doled out? They aren't just given a blank check...Agencies request a certain amount, then as the sausage gets made on Capitol Hill, some programs are shaved, others are padded. The people in those discussions are bringing their priorities to the table and, in some cases, will have to make concessions like not having their metaphorical coffee in order to save a higher priority project.

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

#208

Post by sumedh » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 12:16 AM UTC

mssundaram wrote: post #196

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.

> Mars .... Compared with the absurd amounts of money wasted on defense contractors Couldn't we spend absurd amounts of money on fixing Earth instead? Surely it's easier than starting from even less resources and livable environment than Mars. There is a cultural myth in New Age communities that humans decimated Mars and came to Earth after, or something like that. We should fix Earth first

> Couldn't we spend absurd amounts of money on fixing Earth instead?

The US can use some of the trillions it wasted(and still wasting) on middle east wars for fixing Earth.

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

#209

Post by bumby » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 12:18 AM UTC

mulmen wrote: post #186

bumby wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm generally in favor of what SpaceX is doing, I don't think your point holds up in any sort of constrained environment. Could there be a marginal (or even reasonable) tangential benefit to other industries? Of course, but not as much as if those industries were the primary focus to begin with. With limited resources, you have to prioritize or else you can run the risk of being spread so thin nothing is adequa…

Again, I disagree with the framing. Colonizing Mars and global warming are not wars, they are opportunities . There are countless ways humans can spend their time and energy but none of them exist in a vacuum. Progress anywhere is progress everywhere.

>they are opportunities

I mean, defense contractors look at hot wars as opportunities as well. And they do drive technology forward, perhaps even more than any other force in this discussion. But that's not to say they don't have negative externalities that shouldn't be ignored.

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

#210

Post by joecool1029 » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 12:21 AM UTC

ehsankia wrote: post #201

joecool1029 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I absolutely agree that defense contractor spending is an abhorrent waste of public funds, this is a bad take. Literally every company in this space (ISP's, and more so ISP's that utilize satellites) have used it as a platform to grift public funds. Examples include Lightsquared, Iridium, Globalstar, and the worst of all, DISH) SpaceX has significantly reduced the cost of building a satellite ISP but you need t…

Why do you look at the history of telecommunication companies rather than the history of SpaceX? They received subsidies for electric cars and delivered electric cars. They received subsidies for space travel and they delivered both cargo and humans to the space station. Now they receive subsidies on for telecommunication, given the two previous deliveries, what makes you think this third one will suddenly go the gri…

>They received subsidies for electric cars and delivered electric cars.

Majority of the subsidies (around 70%?) were indirect on EV's through buyer incentive credits. I wouldn't directly consider this a Tesla subsidy as any established auto manufacturer could claim it with an electric vehicle. The remaining subsidies were far less than this FCC subsidy is.

> Why do you look at the history of telecommunication companies rather than the history of SpaceX?

Because when a company that isn't a telecommunications company decides to be one, it's important to understand why and the best way to do so is to look at the history of the industry and the behavior of principle executives in the company deciding to pivot.

>They received subsidies for space travel and they delivered both cargo and humans to the space station.

This was a great success and they should absolutely be commended for this. There are situations where the public and SpaceX have received a mutual benefit. The GPS, ISS missions, and Lockheed defense contracts all saved taxpayers a ton of money.

> Now they receive subsidies on for telecommunication, given the two previous deliveries, what makes you think this third one will suddenly go the grift route?

Sweeping aside that this is the way it's always been for a market that should not require subsidies now that costs can actually be amortized (unlike previously for Iridium), there's already a track record of scandals around their Elon-associated affiliates looting public funds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SolarCity#Lawsuits_and_investi...