SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

Post by christina97 » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 12:18 AM UTC

joe_mamba wrote: post #116

lowkey_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe is too well-run (even the poorer parts) for Starlink to be as relevant. Having lived in Central America, imagine all the workers that are laying the internet cables going back at night and digging them up to sell. A government that, 50% of the time, won't actually build anything when given the funding, and usually can't get the funding anyways. Plus, in some parts, weather can result in internet going out and,…

>Europe is too well-run (even the poorer parts) for Starlink to be as relevant. Except there's rich parts like Germany or Austria where internet infra is poorly run due to monopolistic telco capture and regulations keeping infra upgrades costs high, and so have slower and more expensive internet than Starlink in some areas. Poorer nations of EU often have faster internet than the richer ones so poverty is not a reaso…

Post by garbagewoman » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 12:20 AM UTC

porphyra wrote: post #46

rishikeshs wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment was interesting. i just read somewhere about spacex slowly destroying our dark night skies due to their satellite constellations. Thoughts?

Starlink satellites are intentionally designed to be very dark, but they become more visible when the sun is about to come up or if there are super bright light sources on the ground nearby to reflect off of them.

Post by garbagewoman » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 12:22 AM UTC

briandw wrote: post #77

ceejayoz wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a significantly different makeup than plain old rock dust.

Citation needed.

Post by Aachen » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 12:23 AM UTC

NetMageSCW wrote: post #126

tzs wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The satellites aren't worse. It is the rockets that are worse. On the way up they emit various things into the stratosphere, which is about the worst place you can emit stuff when it comes to affecting the atmosphere. It has not been a major problem so far because in its entire history humanity has only launched around 35000 rockets that have reached the stratosphere. Ramp that rate up significantly and it comes some…

You may want to compare the emissions of all rockets annually to the emissions of jet planes daily and reconsider your position.

Post by leptons » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 12:27 AM UTC

jampa wrote: post #36

consumer451 wrote: post #5

When Starlink first became available here in poor-ish Central-EU, I was excited. Then, only months later, but after years of planning: EU funding brought fiber to my farm area, at ~$25/900mbps 10ms. While my story is just n=1, I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have However, I am dumb, and very open to be convinced.

When COVID hit, I knew a lot of engineers who decided to move to rural areas / small farms because they could leverage Starlink to work remotely. Last year, when I asked whether they still liked Starlink, all of them said it is amazing, but they had gotten fiber coverage in their area from a local provider, so they don't use it anymore, or just use it as a backup. I think Starlink was a huge demand signal that there…