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Rocketlab acquires Iridium

investors.rocketlabcorp.com

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Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#271

Post by panick21_ »

hgoel wrote: post #204
panick21_ wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You act as if 'launch' is a thing. All Rocket Lab launches ever combined don't even fill a single SpaceX rocket. Those are not the same thing. Lets see their reliability when they have a bigger rocket and if they can land reliably. Because their rocket will be quite expensive to build.

We know from the graveyard of companies that reached orbit with their small rockets and ran out of funding before they got to be reliable, that reliably flying even a small rocket is pretty good.

I didn't say it wasn't good.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#272

Post by [deleted] »

panick21_ wrote: post #270
versteegen wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is false. They were a purely NZ operation launching sub-orbital rockets before they got into DARPA contracts. What you meant to say is "Before they ever launched Electron", and I'm pretty sure that is false too, they weren't "primarily" American, the majority of the workforce was in NZ until years after that.

I'm 99% sure that they went to the US venture to raise money to build Electron and that's when they made the US company that primary and the NZ company the subsidiary.

[deleted]

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#273

Post by throwpoaster »

tomaskafka wrote: post #263
proee wrote: post #41

We have a bright future full of endless "space-junk". As the price to orbit drops, people will inevitably send up more and more satellites that have questionable value. In 100 years will the sky at night just be a massive grid of dots moving across the sky? Who will create the first advertisement in space using satellites as pixels to create their company logo? Maybe they can add some color and animations for kicks.…

I asked Claude to visualize 1M proposed SpaceX satellites in the night sky: https://static.tomaskafka.com/prototypes/1m-starlinks/

Looks awesome!

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#274

Post by mr_toad »

Centigonal wrote: post #48
proee wrote: post #41

We have a bright future full of endless "space-junk". As the price to orbit drops, people will inevitably send up more and more satellites that have questionable value. In 100 years will the sky at night just be a massive grid of dots moving across the sky? Who will create the first advertisement in space using satellites as pixels to create their company logo? Maybe they can add some color and animations for kicks.…

Hank Green did a video recently advocating for an "orbit value tax" -- like a Georgist Land Value Tax, but for orbits. This tax would, among other things, help fund orbital cleanup and internalize the externality of polluting orbital shells. It's an idea that deserves more discourse IMO. Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLjW6zuYmos

Difficult to tax something you don’t have jurisdiction over.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#275

Post by numpad0 »

NetMageSCW wrote: post #25
everfrustrated wrote: post #2

RocketLab gains spectrum + profitable satellite company

A profitable satellite company with a lot of debt and satellites that target the previous model of bespoke terminals when the market is moving to satellite service on regular phones.

I'm not sure if that kind of great replacement theories stand anymore. That happened once with iPhone, and... what else? All the direct-to-cell stuffs are limited to simple texts as well. IIUC they require the phones to be out in the wild with nobody around and patient with the rituals of sending messages, like how earliest forms of GPS receivers worked. I don't see that changing that much in coming few years.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#277

Post by guelo »

athrowaway3z wrote: post #126
nba456_ wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And who does the tax get paid to? Some mythical Global Government that will totally work this time?

The Dutch figured out how to do collective dike maintenance a millennium ago without inventing mythical super government. Collective rules worked just fine. I encourage you to reflect on this bias. I suspect you're taking the American state as a template, and extrapolating its incompetence. The history is filled with different ideas - some of them far older than America itself. Hell, I'd call America a place so natur…

Not to mention that this bias is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Thanks to all the ideologues that get elected to government by insiting that government can't work, surprise, surprise, government doesn't work.

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#278

Post by someonebaggy »

athrowaway3z wrote: post #197
ericmay wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how did the Dutch collect the toll and who received the tax benefits for it? I’m interested in understanding your comparison here and how it would be applicable to space and how you envision it working based on your comparison.

You wish to take up a specific space, and with the right to use it come obligations. There was no tax or toll to consider. People naturally self-assembled under the idea that if you benefited, then you had to contribute. The calculation was: how much land did you have, how valuable was it, how much benefit you'd get from some waterworks (it wasnt just dikes but also rerouting rivers etc). Obligations were denominated…

What happened if you didn't pay?

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#279

Post by someonebaggy »

cjblomqvist wrote: post #261
ericmay wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how did the Dutch collect the toll and who received the tax benefits for it? I’m interested in understanding your comparison here and how it would be applicable to space and how you envision it working based on your comparison.

The EU is collecting CO2 taxes (indirectly by giving permits out). That's a good comparison. There're tolls in the making for imports.

That works because every member country agrees to it

Re: Rocketlab acquires Iridium

#280

Post by someonebaggy »

rvnx wrote: post #90
jqbd wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US can enforce US satellites, no?

Maybe but if so, it would mean that US spontaneously would go against one of their main strategic interests for the planet ? Doesn't makes too much sense. It's like this bicycle meme where the person puts a stick in its wheels. It's for the same reason that petrol cars are encouraged in the US. Punishing SpaceX will lead to a bigger financial crisis, an upset Elon Musk who might refuse to fund the next democratic ele…

CFCs were solved because we found new chemicals that were more profitable than CFCs. Global warming may eventually be solved because renewable electricity is (already) more profitable than fossil electricity (but only when it's working, which is the major sticking point). In neither case did thinking about the bad things that would happen if we continued along a path actually stop us continuing along that path. It was always about profit.
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