A million new SpaceX satellites will destroy the night sky • Hacker News Board

Re: A million new SpaceX satellites will destroy the night sky

#41

Post by nailer » Wed, Apr 01, 2026, 9:02 PM UTC

throw0101a wrote: post #39

nailer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Bringing satellite coverage to the world, including Iran and Ukraine is noble, yes. The general "world" is getting connectivity just fine via mobile phones for a lot less than what it would cost them to get a Starlink system. Useful for the war in Ukraine, not so useful in Iran: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Internet_blackout_in_Iran... > As is volunteering to help get rid of waste and fraud, particularly wh…

> Useful for the war in Ukraine, not so useful in Iran

Wikipedia isn't a source, but regardless Wikipedia confirms the utility of Starlink in the war.

> Are you referring to DOGE

Yes.

> without saving any money

Your source at Cato Institute confirm 150B.

> USAID have been estimated to have caused many tens of thousands of deaths

Lancet is a political advocacy magazine. USAID isn' an AID agency. Not funding gay and lesbian theatre in Serbia doesn't stop anyone from dying.

> much of the (alleged) money that was saved

You said zero money was saved earlier. What is it?

> is now going towards the Iran war?

It seems like a better investment than giving Iran 1.6 billion dollars to fund terrorism across the middle east, wouldn't you say?

Re: A million new SpaceX satellites will destroy the night sky

#42

Post by iknowstuff » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 7:14 AM UTC

nullocator wrote: post #40

rlt wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok I’ll try: Starship becomes “fully and rapidly reusable”, needing little to no refurbishment between launches. Then the lower bound of launch costs is just the expendables (methane, oxygen, nitrogen) which could cost as little as $1M per launch. SpaceX uses custom silicon (produced by “TeraFab”) that can run at higher temperatures then the radiative cooling requirements goes down significantly and a 100 kW satellit…

Counter argument: Before the cost of flying very heavy shit and dealing with all the problems of operating that shit in space goes to zero, the cost of doing it terrestrially will go to zero. The idea that shooting any amount of payload into space could some how be more economical than just not doing that is completely bonkers and laughable. It's like people completely forgot that there was 15+ years of connectivity…

You thought you made an actual counter argument there?

Re: A million new SpaceX satellites will destroy the night sky

#43

Post by smackeyacky » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 9:59 AM UTC

d1sxeyes wrote: post #26

smackeyacky wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world seems to have become an abstract plaything for these billionaires why would they give a damn about practicality. This idiot shot a car into space for no good reason.

Not completely 'no good reason'—they needed to test the ability to send heavy payloads, it's great marketing for SpaceX (who intend to make money by having people pay them to put things in space for them) and brand awareness for Tesla.

Bollocks. Making the payload weird just shows the lengths that idiot will go to to give the finger to everyone

Re: A million new SpaceX satellites will destroy the night sky

#44

Post by d1sxeyes » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 5:12 PM UTC

smackeyacky wrote: post #43

d1sxeyes wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not completely 'no good reason'—they needed to test the ability to send heavy payloads, it's great marketing for SpaceX (who intend to make money by having people pay them to put things in space for them) and brand awareness for Tesla.

Bollocks. Making the payload weird just shows the lengths that idiot will go to to give the finger to everyone

I honestly think he believes he’s doing good for mankind in a “fun and quirky way”, I don’t think he’s particularly trying to flip everyone off.

Re: A million new SpaceX satellites will destroy the night sky

#45

Post by Caius-Cosades » Thu, Apr 02, 2026, 8:07 PM UTC

Yeah, okay, you throw million satellites up there to satiate your greed and hubris. Now what? We are already past the Kessler syndrome's hypothetical tipping point when it comes to exospheric orbit saturation. Are these million satellites in exospheric orbit going to make matters better for mankind or worse?

Re: A million new SpaceX satellites will destroy the night sky

#46

Post by schiffern » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 10:02 AM UTC

nullocator wrote: post #40

rlt wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok I’ll try: Starship becomes “fully and rapidly reusable”, needing little to no refurbishment between launches. Then the lower bound of launch costs is just the expendables (methane, oxygen, nitrogen) which could cost as little as $1M per launch. SpaceX uses custom silicon (produced by “TeraFab”) that can run at higher temperatures then the radiative cooling requirements goes down significantly and a 100 kW satellit…

Counter argument: Before the cost of flying very heavy shit and dealing with all the problems of operating that shit in space goes to zero, the cost of doing it terrestrially will go to zero. The idea that shooting any amount of payload into space could some how be more economical than just not doing that is completely bonkers and laughable. It's like people completely forgot that there was 15+ years of connectivity…

Transport doesn't "go to zero." Terrestrial transportation is already fully reusable, so it doesn't have the same cost headroom for improvement vs orbital launch.

Thanks, I really needed this post. I'm saving this for when people inevitably try to re-write history by saying "we didn't need Elon, because did anyone really doubted space-based AI would be the winner?? It was obvious all along because blah blah... "