User Panel
Posted: 3/18/2021 1:05:12 AM EDT
12,000 mini satellites start falling out of the sky when they run out of fuel?
I am sure some parts will survive reentry. Do we need to hang up our tinfoil hats and start wearing AR500 hats? |
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Quoted: I am sure some parts will survive reentry. View Quote They are mini satellites after all. |
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OP needs to study some physics to understand how satellites such as the Starlink ones in low Earth orbit work...
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I'm not concerned about that. I'm more concerned I've never heard anyone explain what happens when terrestrial internet is so much faster than Starlink that it will become next to useless.
You can't upload new hardware. So they just let them burn up and send up new ones? Yikes. |
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I think they are going to be burning in at an average rate of something like 2 per day starting in about 3 to 5 years.
And then add to that the additional American competitors, and the European and Indian equivalents. So, even more stuff. |
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I don't know if they'd let them deorbit and burn up, or just use their thrusters to boost themselves up into a graveyard orbit like alot of satellites do. Ask Scott Manley.
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It weights 500lbs and has the LxW dimensions of a king sized mattress.
It will burn up. |
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Quoted: I think they are going to be burning in at an average rate of something like 2 per day starting in about 3 to 5 years. And then add to that the additional American competitors, and the European and Indian equivalents. So, even more stuff. View Quote From what I gather this is by design. "self cleaning orbit" that coincides with their life expectancy. They are the Bic lighter of satellites. |
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Quoted: So they just let them burn up and send up new ones? Yikes. View Quote That's exactly what they do. The satellites have something like a 5 year lifespan before they de-orbit. They are very small so nothing will reach the surface anyway. They will be constantly updating and replenishing them. They are cheap enough to do that considering spaceX also owns the rockets launching them. |
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FFS, they last 5 years in LEO so that you can get decent ping rates, when they run out of fuel they deorbit and burn up in the atmosphere. They are cheap to put into orbit, due to reusable rockets (Falcon 9) and will be even cheaper when the Starships are up and running. Because they deorbit regularly the technology will constantly be updating on a regular basis with ever increasing speeds. Eventually you will be able to get high speed internet anywhere on the Earth, it's small enough now for homes, RV's, boats and trucks. I imagine in the not to distant future that receivers will be built into all electronic devices, essentially eliminating all but the highest and fastest throughput providers, but for everyone else Starlink will be more than good enough for anything reasonable up to and including high def videos.
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Quoted: That's exactly what they do. The satellites have something like a 5 year lifespan before they de-orbit. They are very small so nothing will reach the surface anyway. They will be constantly updating and replenishing them. They are cheap enough to do that considering spaceX also owns the rockets launching them. View Quote Consider me doubtful that it's profitable to send up that many satellites with that kind of frequency. For the majority of people terrestrial internet will be faster and at least similar in price. Starlink sounds great for rural areas and countries with poor infrastructure, but only one of those will possibly have any money. |
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they are in very low orbits and will reenter and burn up within a few years.
they are small, orbital velocity is high, so less chance of anything large enough to be a hazard will make it to the ground. if they have control they'll probably deorbit them into the ocean. |
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Quoted: So they just let them burn up and send up new ones? Yikes. View Quote Between the replenishing launches, and what's already up there, it's a total clusterfuck at twilight, or even in the dead of night depending on the position of the moon. The best you can hope for are dark spots obscuring the stars and nebulae. But, it's the reflected flares that can be really overwhelming to the more casual observer. |
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Quoted: Consider me doubtful that it's profitable to send up that many satellites with that kind of frequency. For the majority of people terrestrial internet will be faster and at least similar in price. Starlink sounds great for rural areas and countries with poor infrastructure, but only one of those will possibly have any money. View Quote I don't have it handy but they listed what the target speed and price per month will be. It's competitive, and if you lived in the middle of nowhere it would be worth twice what they are asking. |
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Items like pressure vessels and some valve components are the types of things typically make it back to the surface.
But, this isn't going to be like the Columbia orbiter. That was a vehicle specifically designed to protect all of the components from the reentry kinetics. And it held the thermo-fluid aspects at bay for a considerable portion of reentry. Without something specifically designed for bow shock, ablation, very low thermal conductivity, et cetera, things screaming into the Earth's atmosphere don't have good odds to make it to the surface. |
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Quoted: Consider me doubtful that it's profitable to send up that many satellites with that kind of frequency. For the majority of people terrestrial internet will be faster and at least similar in price. Starlink sounds great for rural areas and countries with poor infrastructure, but only one of those will possibly have any money. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: That's exactly what they do. The satellites have something like a 5 year lifespan before they de-orbit. They are very small so nothing will reach the surface anyway. They will be constantly updating and replenishing them. They are cheap enough to do that considering spaceX also owns the rockets launching them. Consider me doubtful that it's profitable to send up that many satellites with that kind of frequency. For the majority of people terrestrial internet will be faster and at least similar in price. Starlink sounds great for rural areas and countries with poor infrastructure, but only one of those will possibly have any money. I think you underestimate the size of the markets for a product like this. Just the Marine and RV markets alone are enormous. |
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They are really small for satellites...
They will melt and essentially vaporize as they re-enter. The chance of anything remaining large enough to do even a slight bit of damage is infinitesimally small. |
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The 2021 US average download speed is 35.34 according to the first source I could grab which was WorldPopulationReview. That's pretty lousy compared to what Starlink can provide.
The thing is: Rural DSL providers are really slow and that's a big part of why the US average is so low. There seems to be a consensus among rural customers that their DSL's have little to no interest in increasing speed - but they're giddy about charging a lot. My rural DSL is pretty bad in what they provide - and that they are happy to keep things just as they are so long as they have customers. I'm way out in the sticks and pay 65 a month for, theoretically 12 down and 1.5 up. What I actually get is 6.5 or less down and the upload speed is so slow, Speedtest dot net can no longer measure it. It consistently returns zero up. I have quite a few concerns about the long term future of Starlink that run the gamut. Even so, I put my 99 bucks down to get on their waiting list. |
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Quoted: I'm not concerned about that. I'm more concerned I've never heard anyone explain what happens when terrestrial internet is so much faster than Starlink that it will become next to useless. You can't upload new hardware. So they just let them burn up and send up new ones? Yikes. View Quote The only competition for Starlink is another constellation of satellites. No one is ever running fiber out to the middle of no where to serve maybe a few families. Starlink Satellites only remain in orbit 5-7 years max. When they break, fall out of orbit, or become obsolete you just launch more. SpaceX charges about 60 million per Falcon 9 launch... but their internal cost is probably more like 25 million. Each Starlink Satellite is probably less than 100K. So each launch of 60 satellites is probably around 31 million. That's way way less than the Geo sync Communication satellites the other big telecommunication companies run. And all Starlink is doing is bouncing the signal up to a low satellite and back down to a ground station to use the Fiber back bone to go the rest of the way. It only relays between satellites if you're somewhere very remote like the Ocean. Latency will always be slightly worse than a land line but Starlink is for places that do not have land lines so it's latency will always be competitive with any other offering. Oh and when Starship becomes available to use for launches... the launch cost drops to a few hundred thousand and the number of satellites they can launch increases into the hundreds. |
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They'll pop down to the nearest Shell station and get some more fuel.
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Quoted: I don't have it handy but they listed what the target speed and price per month will be. It's competitive, and if you lived in the middle of nowhere it would be worth twice what they are asking. View Quote Yeah I've seen their speeds and pricing, it is competitive. However, how on earth can building a bunch of satellite's and launching them into space every couple months work out to be more profitable than digging a trench and throwing some cable in it? As it is you already have cable companies that think it's not profitable to dig a trench to rural areas... Don't get me wrong, I lived in the boondocks for a long ass time and I would have killed for broadband internet. That just doesn't seem to scale properly though, especially when you consider the rest of the world. Seems like something similar to Tesla is going on, aka not making money via the cars themselves. |
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In before China says they can't overfly and starts using some of our (stolen) laser tech to kill them.
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Quoted: I think you underestimate the size of the markets for a product like this. Just the Marine and RV markets alone are enormous. View Quote Even if every RV and rural home in the US had a Starlink subscription I don't know how that equals enough income to facilitate the constant R&D for improving their satellites and internet tech plus their launch schedule. They might be cheap satellites, but it's not like they're a Raspberry Pi. |
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Quoted: Yeah I've seen their speeds and pricing, it is competitive. However, how on earth can building a bunch of satellite's and launching them into space every couple months work out to be more profitable than digging a trench and throwing some cable in it? As it is you already have cable companies that think it's not profitable to dig a trench to rural areas... Don't get me wrong, I lived in the boondocks for a long ass time and I would have killed for broadband internet. That just doesn't seem to scale properly though, especially when you consider the rest of the world. Seems like something similar to Tesla is going on, aka not making money via the cars themselves. View Quote I agree. I haven't seen linked proof but it appears many think Starlink is receiving some heavy infrastructure subsidies. Similar rumor that Musk has dumped billions into getting Starlink going. Finally, they seem to think they are going to really get the cost to orbit the satellites way down - and that the mass production of the satellites which is already underway will bring prices way down. Hyperinflation, the greenies, stargazers (home and scientists), hostile regulations, any number of things may kill Starlink. Even Musk's own eccentricities could kill it overnight. I view it as a gamble I'm willing to take due to really crummy DSL where I live. |
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Quoted: Consider me doubtful that it's profitable to send up that many satellites with that kind of frequency. For the majority of people terrestrial internet will be faster and at least similar in price. Starlink sounds great for rural areas and countries with poor infrastructure, but only one of those will possibly have any money. View Quote |
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Quoted: I agree. I haven't seen linked proof but it appears many think Starlink is receiving some heavy infrastructure subsidies. Similar rumor that Musk has dumped billions into getting Starlink going. Finally, they seem to think they are going to really get the cost to orbit the satellites way down - and that the mass production of the satellites which is already underway will bring prices way down. Hyperinflation, the greenies, stargazers (home and scientists), hostile regulations, any number of things may kill the thing. I view it as a gamble I'm willing to take due to really crummy DSL where I live. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Yeah I've seen their speeds and pricing, it is competitive. However, how on earth can building a bunch of satellite's and launching them into space every couple months work out to be more profitable than digging a trench and throwing some cable in it? As it is you already have cable companies that think it's not profitable to dig a trench to rural areas... Don't get me wrong, I lived in the boondocks for a long ass time and I would have killed for broadband internet. That just doesn't seem to scale properly though, especially when you consider the rest of the world. Seems like something similar to Tesla is going on, aka not making money via the cars themselves. I agree. I haven't seen linked proof but it appears many think Starlink is receiving some heavy infrastructure subsidies. Similar rumor that Musk has dumped billions into getting Starlink going. Finally, they seem to think they are going to really get the cost to orbit the satellites way down - and that the mass production of the satellites which is already underway will bring prices way down. Hyperinflation, the greenies, stargazers (home and scientists), hostile regulations, any number of things may kill the thing. I view it as a gamble I'm willing to take due to really crummy DSL where I live. One thing to keep in mind is that Musk simply does not care what SpaceX is worth. He will spend at whatever amount he deems necessary to accomplish his goals, without any need to answer to shareholders. |
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Quoted: When and how will terrestrial internet which no one currently has been willing to make available to rural and remote areas ever be faster than Starlink? The only competition for Starlink is another constellation of satellites. No one is ever running fiber out to the middle of no where to serve maybe a few families. Starlink Satellites only remain in orbit 5-7 years max. When they break, fall out of orbit, or become obsolete you just launch more. SpaceX charges about 60 million per Falcon 9 launch... but their internal cost is probably more like 25 million. Each Starlink Satellite is probably less than 100K. So each launch of 60 satellites is probably around 31 million. That's way way less than the Geo sync Communication satellites the other big telecommunication companies run. And all Starlink is doing is bouncing the signal up to a low satellite and back down to a ground station to use the Fiber back bone to go the rest of the way. It only relays between satellites if you're somewhere very remote like the Ocean. Latency will always be slightly worse than a land line but Starlink is for places that do not have land lines so it's latency will always be competitive with any other offering. Oh and when Starship becomes available to use for launches... the launch cost drops to a few hundred thousand and the number of satellites they can launch increases into the hundreds. View Quote Part of the issue is regulations in the US have allowed ISP's to become lazy. It's honestly the only reason a product like Starlink is even somewhat feasible, after all you can use a 4G cell phone connection in middle of no-where 3rd world countries. And it's generally the only internet they have. Our internet infrastructure is pathetic compared to a lot of the 1st world. Even so, that majority of our population is in urban areas that are already served by high speed internet that has seen improvements over time. Fiber being built out now for example. There is little incentive for the majority of urbanites who already have high speed internet to switch to Starlink. People living rural using cellular connections, DSL, or point to point internet will absolutely love it but they've already been deemed a small enough demographic that digging a trench that will last decades is too expensive. The amount of subscribers who would be better served by Starlink than terrestrial internet doesn't look any better when you look at those other 1st world countries that make our internet infrastructure look pathetic. The only place we'll see large populations of people with no access or slower access to internet will be in undeveloped countries, which is something they've said they wanted to create Starlink for. That won't pay the bills though, unless they're playing a REAL long game in regards to those countries developing. |
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Quoted: One thing to keep in mind is that Musk simply does not care what SpaceX is worth. He will spend at whatever amount he deems necessary to accomplish his goals, without any need to answer to shareholders. View Quote Yes and no. I don't think the guy is going to bankrupt himself just to serve up high speed internet to the world, but I can totally understand why he'd take an upfront loss on it due to his convictions about it. Like Tesla though, I'm wondering what the other hand is doing while we're distracted by this illusion of worldwide internet. |
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Quoted: Part of the issue is regulations in the US have allowed ISP's to become lazy. It's honestly the only reason a product like Starlink is even somewhat feasible, after all you can use a 4G cell phone connection in middle of no-where 3rd world countries. And it's generally the only internet they have. Our internet infrastructure is pathetic compared to a lot of the 1st world. Even so, that majority of our population is in urban areas that are already served by high speed internet that has seen improvements over time. Fiber being built out now for example. There is little incentive for the majority of urbanites who already have high speed internet to switch to Starlink. People living rural using cellular connections, DSL, or point to point internet will absolutely love it but they've already been deemed a small enough demographic that digging a trench that will last decades is too expensive. The amount of subscribers who would be better served by Starlink than terrestrial internet doesn't look any better when you look at those other 1st world countries that make our internet infrastructure look pathetic. The only place we'll see large populations of people with no access or slower access to internet will be in undeveloped countries, which is something they've said they wanted to create Starlink for. That won't pay the bills though, unless they're playing a REAL long game in regards to those countries developing. View Quote Theres a guy on this forum, I forgot his name. But he works in IT Networking and has an avatar of some sheep? @ElectricSheep556 Or maybe someone else? I'll give it a go though. I think ISPs in America get a bad rap. Trust me, even I get pissed at ISPs... but I think we often compare our infrastructure with other 1st world countries. But America is unique in that there really aren't many other countries that are 1st world *AND* are as spread out as we are. Its a heck of a lot easier to build *REALLY* great Internet services in Germany, or France, and especially places like South Korea or Japan... than something as huge and expansive as the United States of America. If you want to compare us to other countries, the closest comparisons would be Australia and Russia. Australia is also a 1st world country, and a similar landmass... but from what I've heard, Australia's internet seriously lags behind the US. Not sure how America measures up with Russia, however. When you compare our internet speeds with that of other countries with similar landmass/density... we actually have it pretty good. That being said... I'd like to hear what ElectricSheep556 has to say on the subject... |
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Quoted: In before China says they can't overfly and starts using some of our (stolen) laser tech to kill them. View Quote In before their access becomes geographically locked via software, defeating one of the stated purposes (evading censorship nets), as a condition of other business units (Tesla) being able to operate in hostile nations (China) |
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Quoted: In before their access becomes geographically locked via software, defeating one of the stated purposes (evading censorship nets), as a condition of other business units (Tesla) being able to operate in hostile nations (China) View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: In before China says they can't overfly and starts using some of our (stolen) laser tech to kill them. In before their access becomes geographically locked via software, defeating one of the stated purposes (evading censorship nets), as a condition of other business units (Tesla) being able to operate in hostile nations (China) I would find it very unlikely that China would allow him to keep doing business in China, if he even so much as threatens to open up the internet for China. As much as I like Musk, I think he's definitely cucked out to the PRC. |
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Quoted: Honestly? It makes more sense for him to just start building tall-ass Line of Sight WiMax towers all around the globe. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Consider me doubtful that it's profitable to send up that many satellites with that kind of frequency. For the majority of people terrestrial internet will be faster and at least similar in price. Starlink sounds great for rural areas and countries with poor infrastructure, but only one of those will possibly have any money. And an SST makes a lot more sense than a Hyperloop. And a space elevator makes a lot more sense than reusable rockets for delivering massive payloads. |
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Quoted: One thing to keep in mind is that Musk simply does not care what SpaceX is worth. He will spend at whatever amount he deems necessary to accomplish his goals, without any need to answer to shareholders. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Yeah I've seen their speeds and pricing, it is competitive. However, how on earth can building a bunch of satellite's and launching them into space every couple months work out to be more profitable than digging a trench and throwing some cable in it? As it is you already have cable companies that think it's not profitable to dig a trench to rural areas... Don't get me wrong, I lived in the boondocks for a long ass time and I would have killed for broadband internet. That just doesn't seem to scale properly though, especially when you consider the rest of the world. Seems like something similar to Tesla is going on, aka not making money via the cars themselves. I agree. I haven't seen linked proof but it appears many think Starlink is receiving some heavy infrastructure subsidies. Similar rumor that Musk has dumped billions into getting Starlink going. Finally, they seem to think they are going to really get the cost to orbit the satellites way down - and that the mass production of the satellites which is already underway will bring prices way down. Hyperinflation, the greenies, stargazers (home and scientists), hostile regulations, any number of things may kill the thing. I view it as a gamble I'm willing to take due to really crummy DSL where I live. One thing to keep in mind is that Musk simply does not care what SpaceX is worth. He will spend at whatever amount he deems necessary to accomplish his goals, without any need to answer to shareholders. It's apparently what the shareholders love about him |
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Boomers are retiring in droves - and many of us don't want to live in a shit big city. So I think the rural internet demand is growing fast and will explode.
The nearest 4G tower to where I live is 57 miles away. I use a Yagi antenna on my roof and a cell amplifier to get decent cell connection - but only on clear skies days. If there are clouds in between, forget it. I see very high dissatisfaction in the threads discussing rural 4G and 5G. Some love it, many hate it. Many problems. And then - the data caps. With 4K and above streaming increasing fast, a data cap is a real problem. I think any rural provider is going to have to provide good, stable speed and the competitors can snipe others with either no cap or a high cap. And how about some honest marketing instead of trying to hide data caps behind mealy-mouthed language? I don't think any customer appreciates dishonesty. Starlink is going to have to survive some serious risks and threats. And they're going to have to make some correct pivotal decisions. If I had cheap fiber, that's what I'd go for. But that's not going to happen here and probably not in the next 5 to 10 years - if ever in my lifetime. |
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