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Starlink Direct to Cell

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Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#711

Post by starspangled »

mschuster91 wrote: post #673
starspangled wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I think it is, and I think the rhetoric around Trump is hyperbole and fearmongering too. Not that you can't criticize them, I just don't see exaggeration being interesting or helpful there. Also I think caring about certain corruption or conflicts of interest when it happens to politicians one disagrees with is fairly easy to be seen as being divisive or politically motivated even if it's not. I thought that whee…

> Yes I think it is, and I think the rhetoric around Trump is hyperbole and fearmongering too. Well just reading through Project 2025 is very sobering. It's not like old times where what they wanted had to be read through the lines any more, it's right out in the open what they want to do - and even getting a quarter of their plans actually passed through is a very, very troubling perspective. > I thought that wheeli…

I shouldn't have brought up Trump, the subject never goes anywhere useful in an online debate. That was just my opinion, and other opinions and fears are not invalid.

> > I thought that wheeling out the architects of the Iraq war to denounce Trump's corruption/incompetence/bad foreign policy/etc was particularly ironic and sad, for example, even if they might have been technically correct.

> A sad consequence of people no longer debating policy on a shared common ground based on facts, but on tribalism, lies and propaganda instead.

Yep. When they do that it does make you wonder who shares common ground with whom, and who spreads lies and propaganda about what.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#712

Post by maxglute »

ethbr1 wrote: post #706
MaxPock wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"convincing a substantial portion of global launch demand to use Chinese rockets seems the trickiest bit, give the CCP's relationship with the rule of law." Expound more on this please assuming I'm a potential Brazilian South African ,Saudi or Thai client .

For countries that aren't on the US' shit list (e.g. Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, or Thailand), why would I take a chance on Chinese legal agreements instead of American ones? The American private company might be prohibited from launching military assets for you, but once a launch contract is otherwise signed, you know it's going to happen. In contrast, a Chinese legal agreement is worth what, if the central…

American Gov is far, far more fickle and likely to "get involved" / abuse export controls / fuck over friendlies due to domestic politics. Space is ITAR heavy, there's less guarantee that private American company can honor agreement than CCP verbal contract. This is 2024, JP steel just happened, US "rule of law" means nothing when strategic interests involved, never have. Can't say the same about PRC, granted they're to high end capabilities export. Ultimately, going with PRC likely will get you ITAR tier tech access bundled with cheaper launch, see state of military drones sales.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#713

Post by southernplaces7 »

dotancohen wrote: post #698
flyinglizard wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon knows well enough to act as a supporting character. He can't run for presidency anyway given he's not a native, and no other political post would be interesting enough. There'll be no falling out.

Trump is not a native either, his family is German and Scottish (just checked). So far as I know a native has never held the presidency in the US.

What silly political posturing. Native-born is the specific reference, and a perfectly valid one. By your logic, if the current descendants of people who have been here for many centuries by now aren't natives, than vast parts of the world's population are also not natives of the places where their families have lived for centuries.

Why not go further and say that the "natives" also aren't natives since they also migrated to the Americas over the Bering land bridge?

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#714

Post by adastra22 »

michaelt wrote: post #696
adastra22 wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by per-launch capital cost? Maintenance? The increase in value of a F9 booster after use is more than the near-negligible per-launch maintenance cost.

"Depreciation" and "capital cost" reflect the fact the vehicle has a maximum life, even given maintenance. Imagine if I buy a $200,000 Lamborghini which, with regular servicing, will survive 100,000 miles. That means for every mile I drive, not only am I paying for fuel, and insurance, and tyres, and servicing - I'm also paying, on average, $2/mile in depreciation. And sure, the "true" value chart might not be linear…

The statistics here are inverted. The main marginal cost of a launch is the risk of loss of payload which the customer must insure against. The risk of loss of payload actually goes DOWN with more launches, making costs cheaper the more a booster is reused.

It’s as if your car gained value with every mile driven.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#715

Post by starspangled »

_heimdall wrote: post #676
starspangled wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I heard he was going to have some advisory or executive capacity on government operation. There's a significant conflict of interest there if he's running and owning these companies at the same time.

Its hard to determine a conflict of interest when the role isn't clear though, and the problem there is that everyone can really go off of what they heard through the grape vine. If the role truly is advisory I wouldn't personally see that as a conflict of interest. Regulators are often asking for advise from those they are meant to regulate without it getting flagged as a conflict of interest (for better or worse).

I don't think it's that hard to determine. He has big companies involved in significant regulatory actions and oversight, he would stand to gain a lot by influencing things slightly in his favor. Sure, taken to absurdity everybody in government has a conflict of interest because they are alive on the same planet and have heir own views on things, but for the case of someone like Musk it's pretty clear.

Politicians and bureaucrats can and should consult with the people they govern of course. The "proper" way to do that would be via reasonably open and transparent process that is open to interested parties so competitors, customers, unions, scientists could have their say.

Again I'm fully aware this isn't how things actually work, so I'm not saying Musk is really doing anything outside the norm in American politics by buying a seat at the table. He's just being slightly more open about it than most of them.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#716

Post by maxglute »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #653
nordsieck wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, one of the central problems is the cost of launching stuff into space. Today, SpaceX offers world leading low prices to launch satellites: $4 m / tonne[1]. But Starlink has access to launch at cost , which is $0.86 m / tonne[2]. Which is a huge advantage when launching an enormous number of satellites. One thing to keep in mind, especially for these LEO constellations: the lifetime of these satellites is 5-10 ye…

Yeah in theory China is the biggest potential competitor, having both a space program, a state deeply involved in business, etc. But their space tech is archaic in comparison, using really nasty fuels to blast stuff into space. The reusability of SpaceX's rockets is a feat that is years ahead of the competition - it's been nearly ten years since the first recovered Falcon 9 booster in a commercial launch if my quick…

PRC didn't take reusables seriously until a few years ago, really when strategic value of starlink became obvious. They're already making relatively quick progress, as in the expected faster than original catchup mode progress.

Ultimately the issue with simping for SpaceX is that it's still an American company working at American scale. People are conflating SpaceX doing cheap payload advantage at modest scale for actual scale. There's like <20 F9s doing more than 50% of global launches, 80% including starlink. People see 50% and 80%, but ignore that <20 is rookie numbers. Frankly no reason PRC won't have 100 reusables fleet _IF_ demand justifies it (TBH only real justification after megaconstellations is space weaponization). And then like with all PRC catchup, they'll put more than SpaceX lifetime aggregate payload in a few years, and then it won't even be close. Sure Elon can wank about starfactory building 1 vehicle per day, but if there's strategic reasons for it, PRC will be able to build 5 per day at less cost once they sort out the tech stack.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#717

Post by chucksmash »

torginus wrote: post #674
verzali wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not. They don't have the capacity to cover densely populated areas and it will always be cheaper to build out infrastructure on land in those areas than to launch something into space.

Honestly try as I might, I have failed to undestand your reply. Who is 'they' in your post? Aren't you actually agreeing with me in actuality (in that cells are better than satellites for densely populated areas)?

It's not a matter of agreeing accidentally, they just plain agree with you.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#718

Post by pyrale »

adastra22 wrote: post #577
quailfarmer wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do depreciate, even if the later launches are more valuable, that increase in value is marginal compared to the per-launch capital cost. Airplanes, cars, buildings, everything depreciates.

What do you mean by per-launch capital cost? Maintenance? The increase in value of a F9 booster after use is more than the near-negligible per-launch maintenance cost.

> The increase in value of a F9 booster after use is more than the near-negligible per-launch maintenance cost.

Do we have anything proving this besides the self-serving word of a privately owned company?

I'm not saying it's false, I have no idea either. But there's a lot of highly specific speculation going on here, based on no reliable source.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#719

Post by sudosysgen »

adastra22 wrote: post #714
michaelt wrote: post #696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Depreciation" and "capital cost" reflect the fact the vehicle has a maximum life, even given maintenance. Imagine if I buy a $200,000 Lamborghini which, with regular servicing, will survive 100,000 miles. That means for every mile I drive, not only am I paying for fuel, and insurance, and tyres, and servicing - I'm also paying, on average, $2/mile in depreciation. And sure, the "true" value chart might not be linear…

The statistics here are inverted. The main marginal cost of a launch is the risk of loss of payload which the customer must insure against. The risk of loss of payload actually goes DOWN with more launches, making costs cheaper the more a booster is reused. It’s as if your car gained value with every mile driven.

The fact that customers launching exceptionally expensive payloads (the US space force, for one) tend to demand new boosters is not consistent with this.

But even then, it doesn't change that the booster has a maximum lifespan and/or eventually increasing repair and therefore depreciation - we are working on an amortized basis.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#720

Post by nordsieck »

adastra22 wrote: post #714
michaelt wrote: post #696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Depreciation" and "capital cost" reflect the fact the vehicle has a maximum life, even given maintenance. Imagine if I buy a $200,000 Lamborghini which, with regular servicing, will survive 100,000 miles. That means for every mile I drive, not only am I paying for fuel, and insurance, and tyres, and servicing - I'm also paying, on average, $2/mile in depreciation. And sure, the "true" value chart might not be linear…

The statistics here are inverted. The main marginal cost of a launch is the risk of loss of payload which the customer must insure against. The risk of loss of payload actually goes DOWN with more launches, making costs cheaper the more a booster is reused. It’s as if your car gained value with every mile driven.

> The risk of loss of payload actually goes DOWN with more launches, making costs cheaper the more a booster is reused.

I don't think that's true. All of the F9 failures[1] have been due to the 2nd stage. And that's new every time.

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1. CRS-7, AMOS-6, and Starlink 9-3

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