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Starlink Direct to Cell

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Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#761

Post by drewbitt »

smbullet wrote: post #710
hedora wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yeah, that’s the point of corporate libertarianism. You can’t grant absolute power to corporations without also implementing feudalism. Of course, there are voters that think they are voting for individual libertarianism, but are voting for corporate libertarianism instead. (Similarly, there are progressives and moderates that end up voting for corporatists.)

Do you have any examples of libertarian candidates that did not support individual rights?

In the United States, the libertarian caucus in power since 2022 has several leaders that could be said to be against individual rights, especially if you look within the Free State movement, oddly enough. However, they narrowly avoided their candidacy in this last election. The whole thing is a mess.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#762

Post by jorvi »

mmaunder wrote: post #283

Vertical integration by Starlink of the cheapest launch capability in the world (by far) is the reason there are no competitors, and there will be no competitors. The pace of innovation at SpaceX is not THE reason - it’s an additional reason that no one has a snowballs chance in hell of ever catching Starlink. I’ve seen talk of competitor satellite networks or a possible competitor emerging. Folks it’s game set and m…

What a ridiculous comment. You must still be holding long on IBM?

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#763

Post by Shocka1 »

pandemic_region wrote: post #536
cprayingmantis wrote: post #192

If anyone from Starlink or SpaceX is reading these comments here’s what you want to do: Sell your own branded trail cam with solar charging and LTE from orbit. You can charge $25-$40 a month for unlimited pictures sent from the cam. This would open up hunters, nature enthusiasts, and researchers to be able to place their hardware anywhere in the field without worrying about connectivity. Here in SWVA we have deep hol…

> This would open up hunters, Christ what more do you guys need to shoot a rabbit.

Agreed. As an avid hunter/angler I've been trying to make things more difficult the last few years instead of easier. At some point the trail cams start making people look more like butchers IMO. Similarly in the fishing world, tools like Livescope are becoming deeply embedded in the community.

For me, the draw of the woods and rivers is the chance to disconnect from technology and reconnect to nature.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#764

Post by barfingclouds »

mmaunder wrote: post #283

Vertical integration by Starlink of the cheapest launch capability in the world (by far) is the reason there are no competitors, and there will be no competitors. The pace of innovation at SpaceX is not THE reason - it’s an additional reason that no one has a snowballs chance in hell of ever catching Starlink. I’ve seen talk of competitor satellite networks or a possible competitor emerging. Folks it’s game set and m…

Well competitors are going to have to use SpaceX rockets to get their satellites up. So no matter what SpaceX is winning

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#765

Post by scotty79 »

refurb wrote: post #628
openrisk wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be onto something but we need a proper "evolutionary theory of bootlicking" before we get carried away. Its pretty clear that the all-too-common in space and time hierarchies, oligarchies, command-and-control pyramids etc. rely on trickle-down privilege to sustain. But the feeligs of disgust and disbelief at how a person can diminish themselves in the hope of some crumbs falling their way must also have str…

I’m not sure I understand your viewpoint. The OP said “the most successful businessman in the world”. Sure one can argue about how OP came to that conclusion, by what measure, etc, but the man produced a highly successful car company, in a field nobody has really been able to do it, under terms where everyone was counting down the days until it went bankrupt. That alone is an amazing feat. Then he went on to create a…

> Then he went on to create a rocket company that broke barriers of space travel no one has been able to do.

Look closer into how the sausage is made. For example the Moon grant for SpaceX to the tune of about $3bln was awarded by a person who wrote it in first person singular and after she did it, she promptly quit and went to work for SpaceX.

Musk is definitely successful, but a grifter not a businessman.

> [...] man produced a highly successful car company

Musk is claiming to posess and even selling non-existent technology to both investors and consumers (pre-orders never fullfilled) for almost a decade now. Other people (Theranos, Nikola) who tried to replicate his success in this field but didn't have pants padded with hundred bln$ are curretly serving very long prison sentences for investor fraud. While Musk got off on the grounds that what he says is widely known to be pure puffery and no-one of sound mind should expect what he says to be accurate. Funny how billions "in the bank" can change how justice percieves you.

Musk is now basically so full of hot air that when he stumbles he falls up.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#766

Post by scotty79 »

inemesitaffia wrote: post #503
scotty79 wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The pace of innovation at SpaceX is not THE reason - it’s an additional reason that no one has a snowballs chance in hell of ever catching Starlink. Don't forget over $15bln of tax money they got for doing barely anything so far.

Barely nothing? Are you out of your mind? pLEO, Starshield, SDA, NSSL, Commercial Crew, Commercial Cargo????? Only HLS is in view. And it's less than 5 billion. Everything listed above is delivered and has more expensive alternatives.

I don't know about everything else but 3bln out of that 15 were supposed to fund entire Moon mission and he burnt through that cash delivering a handful of suborbital empty metal pipes ... sorry, the last one was containing a banana to add insult to injury.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#767

Post by haliskerbas »

starspangled wrote: post #436
ryandrake wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For obvious reasons I think it's pretty safe to say we can count on at least the next four years of zero regulation or government scrutiny of any company Musk is involved in, monopoly-related or otherwise.

You believe the FAA, FCC, OHSA, EPA, FDA, etc., will cease to regulate SpaceX, Tesla, Nuralink operations? That seems pretty outlandish.

Kind of yes. I mean Trumps Supreme Court changes the rules because they interpreted something differently. So any political or government agency is all vibes based to me. Anything other interpretation is rose tinted.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#768

Post by philipwhiuk »

sudosysgen wrote: post #719
adastra22 wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

That used to be true. It no longer is.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#769

Post by philipwhiuk »

varjag wrote: post #549
bpodgursky wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but if you think this has even a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding you need to learn more about the launch and satellite comms industries. This is political posturing, not a plan. I don't want to spend hours typing on this so let's just say this; Arianespace is on the "team", so it's going to launch on Ariane 6, a rocket that was obsolete before it launched (and it was not a successful launch). The id…

A6 maiden launch wasn't completely successful but that hardly matters in a debate involving SpaceX.

What matters more is that it won't launch again until 2025 and will never be cheap to launch due to the expensive SRBs.

And ESA knows this - hence the spluttering of paltry funds towards cheaper vehicles.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#770

Post by philipwhiuk »

perihelions wrote: post #616
pyrale wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For that, Starlink would have to use the frequency band that the phone (and, therefore, the relevant operator) is using. Such frequencies are assigned by states to operators, and using them from space would be extremely easy to detect. That is why Starlink either has to make a deal with in operators, or acquire a licence to use a frequency band in every country it wants to operate. I assume that if Starlink was tryin…

- "I don't see what would prevent China from shooting down Starlink's constellation." They absolutely do not have tens of thousands of anti-satellite missiles, or any other credible (non-nuclear) way to dismantle a constellation of that size. If you look at their own news media[0], they (Chinese defense) consider it a major weakness, and priority. [0] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3178939/chin... (…

Honestly you probably only need a shoot a few before the debris is a huge challenge for the rest of the constellation.

They're not as impregnable as the military's new LEO obsession makes out.

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