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Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network

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Re: Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network

#131

Post by akira2501 »

Bubble_Pop_22 wrote: post #108
rpmisms wrote: post #13

Man, I love when sci-fi becomes reality. It's the cool things that get me excited for some parts of the future, and this is exactly that.

Quoted post unavailable.

It doesn't seem like our obsession with space caused any difficulty in printing RNA. Progress is not a quantity, you can't subtract from over here and add it over there by whim. Humans are also not born into service to their fellow humans, so there is no ethical mechanism to even dictate this.

Meanwhile, space networks have enabled global communications, global rescue, and global positioning. All exceptionally important mechanisms, arguably, more important than using one of several possible mechanisms to fight a flu.

Given that there were many other possible mechanisms at our disposal, the desire to push mRNA technology on everyone might be considered a medical technology fetishism of it's own.

Re: Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network

#132

Post by unethical_ban »

Bubble_Pop_22 wrote: post #116
capableweb wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with very little to show for Global internet coverage would be amazing, and definitely something I and many others would consider worth it. Not just for people to browse Twitter/TikTok/social media, but for access to things like Wikipedia and various other knowledge-bases, and communication protocols.

The world's poor are ahead of us in this realm. Lagos will clock 100M people by the end of the century. Megalopolis are only getting bigger. Like luxury EVs , starlink is aimed at the particular preferences of the RV crowd and the yacht crowd. Improving the quality of life of the avg. consumer is never the goal. The goal is to have rich people get excited about some luxury product so that they immediately log on thei…

Luxuries, niche products and novelties today are commonplace tomorrow. Many of those things have benefits to society. I'd say advancing high-speed non-terrestrial Internet is a good goal.

I don't see how your comment on megacities aligns with the other comment about enhanced communications. How is Lagos "ahead"?

Re: Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network

#133

Post by MichaelCollins »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #65
MichaelCollins wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's now the Space Development Agency's (SDA) National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA). But yes, Starlink looks a hell of a lot like the Transport Layer of the NDSA, which is meant to be a mesh network comprising of thousands of satellites in LEO. Either Starlink is the Transport Layer of NDSA, or it proves that SpaceX has the technical ability to create the Transport Layer (no other company does.)

I really wouldn't put it that way, though. The core part of SDI, the missile defense, isn't part of NDSA. And the "transport layer" is something new to NDSA as far as I can tell.

It depends on which version of SDI you're talking about, there were numerous proposed architectures using different technologies, updated through the years as technology changed. In several of the proposals, orbital Boost Surveillance and Tracking Systems (BSTS) would communicate with orbital interceptors using inter-satellite laser links. Brilliant Pebbles particularly called for thousands of orbital interceptors with IR sensors to track missiles, but to arrange an intercept in time a Pebble would need to receive track information from the BSTS, or other pebbles. The challenge of doing that with thousands of pebbles was one of the factors that sank the proposal (the other big problem being the difficulty of actually launching thousands of interceptors into LEO.)

The mesh network aspect of NDSA / Starlink is new insofar as they've now figured out how to do what they wanted to do back then.

Space-based interceptors are missing from NDSA as it's described in public. But all the technical challenges have been resolved, what remains is the political challenge. Since the space-based interceptors are the politically contentious part, if they were going to do this it would make sense for them to build the 'benign' parts first while not talking about the rest.

Re: Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network

#134

Post by deelowe »

minhazm wrote: post #75
deelowe wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the plan, but it's an unimaginably difficult task. Many have speculated they wouldn't be able to pull it off at scale.

Forgive my ignorance but I don't understand why it's an unimaginably difficult task. The satellites are operating in a vacuum with no weather interference or anything and have line of sight to each other. I would think that it should actually be easy to pull off, and actually should get easier at scale since the distances between individual satellites would shrink and would be easier to align the laser links.

I don't remember the details, but I believe one of the issues is that the distances are extremely long.

Re: Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network

#135

Post by rtsil »

Bubble_Pop_22 wrote: post #108
rpmisms wrote: post #13

Man, I love when sci-fi becomes reality. It's the cool things that get me excited for some parts of the future, and this is exactly that.

Quoted post unavailable.

> with very little to show for.

The billions of people whose food and personal safety rely on data from weather satellites should at least count a bit above "very little".

So do the people like me who can't use a paper map to save their lives, and for which GNSS has been a life-changer in their ordinary life.

Re: Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network

#136

Post by coding123 »

mchusma wrote: post #58
capableweb wrote: post #50

According to their coverage map ( https://www.starlink.com/map ) there is no coverage in Africa nor Asia, unless I'm missing something obvious. Or if there are new continents I'm not aware of.

This is availability for purchase map, not coverage.

To expand, they get their internet from ground stations. If they had just one or two ground stations, like in CA and TX, then everyone would be depending on the laser network and the entire operation would be slow. So they can't sell to a lot of people that would just be getting laser coverage.

Re: Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network

#139

Post by state_less »

db48x wrote: post #62
capableweb wrote: post #50

According to their coverage map ( https://www.starlink.com/map ) there is no coverage in Africa nor Asia, unless I'm missing something obvious. Or if there are new continents I'm not aware of.

That map doesn’t distinguish between waiting for enough satellites to be in the sky overhead and waiting for permission from the local government. For better or worse, each country’s government has to approve the use of any particular frequency, as well as things like transmission power.

> For better or worse, each country’s government has to approve the use of any particular frequency, as well as things like transmission power.

I think it’s for the worse if governments disapprove the use of Starlink. Starlink should at least be allowed to send out an SOS message. It could save a life out on the frontier.

Re: Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network

#140

Post by db48x »

elil17 wrote: post #114
db48x wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you hover over various countries where it’s not yet available, it will tell you when they estimate that it will be available. Nigeria says “Q4 2022”, which is not very far away. In order to be sure of having service available in a month or two, they have surely already built a ground station or two, printed some instruction booklets in Nigerian, hired some Nigerian sales reps, etc.

FYI English is the official language of Nigeria, and the one most people who can afford satellite internet speak day-to-day. No need to translate!

Maybe that's why they're getting it months before anyone else :)
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