As a reminder, this subreddit strictly bans any discussion of bodily harm. Do not mention it wishfully, passively, indirectly, or even in the abstract. As these comments can be used as a pretext to shut down this subreddit, we ask all users to be vigilant and immediately report anything that violates this rule.
It isn't. All LEO satellites have a short lifespan roughly 5 years, so having dozens of networks and hundreds of thousands of satellites is far from sustainable.
Yes. That's the business model for Starlink, and at the scale it's operating at it's sustainable, although Musk has been having trouble getting enough market share primarily due to data caps and hardware buy in, but the numbers themselves do make sense.
Originally, they launched satellites that had a $300,000 cost to build and get into orbit, and they needed approximately 12,000 of them each with a 5 year lifespan (to be in LEO the orbit has to decay, and it's good for it to decay for practical reasons anyways). That's a 5 year hardware budget of 3.6 billion or $720 million per year. This isn't too far off from what the big telecoms spend on physical hardware for their systems so that's not all that unsustainable. At $80/month for service that's sustainable at just 750,000 customers worldwide.
Where starlink is running into issues, is they messed up and need to jump the number of satellites from 12,000 to 42,000 (and likely more) because as it turns out, Musk too is a victim of Facebook pushing the internet to video and other high bandwidth activities. Furthermore, they've increased the satellite cost from 300k to 1.2 million as they've had to increase the satellite capabilities. So they've increased their operating costs from 3.6 billion every 5 years to 50.4 billion every 5 years, all while being unable to raise their prices due to price competition. This works out to just over $10 billion in hardware annually rather than $750 million, and requires a customer base of 10.5 million active users globally rather than just 750k to sustain.
Since you're talking global numbers this should still be very obtainable, it would represent just 3% of the US internet customer base for example, and well under 1% of market share globally.
So it's still quite sustainable as a business. Space pollution issues aside.
For what it's worth, if they deorbit faster than expected, that's actually good for space debris, since there's less stuff still up there. I'd also bet these are small enough to make the falling object safety issue minimal.
What it is terrible for, though, is the business case for this to be a viable system in the first place. I find it hard to believe that the subscription revenue is sufficient to just cover the satellite replenishment cost alone, much less everything else involved in running an ISP.
Man I think you've put your finger on it. I've put these talks aside as crazy talks. But this is it. They'll suck up taxpayer money to pay for this nonsense.
This is a terrible idea, even if you believe in the AI stuff. Data centers produce a tremendous amount of heat, and it is incredibly difficult to dissipate heat in space.
People have a lot of misconceptions regarding space, and space = cold is not strictly correct. The Apollo missions had to worry more about heat management than producing heat.
There's also the slight problem that all the aluminium residue from Elon's shitty disposable satellites burning up literally every day is destroying the ozone layer. Arsehole is single-handedly undermining the Montreal Protocol, arguably one of humanity's greatest actual achievements.
Got any references for that? I am highly skeptical that there's enough mass deorbiting to have any appreciable effect on the ozone layer. If anything, I'd be far more worried about the impact the launch vehicles have rather than the deorbiting debris.
You couldn't be bothered to do a quick web search for "starlink" and "ozone layer" before writing that? The scientific community's been raising the alarm about this for a year or so now.
You're the one that made the claim, it's not unreasonable to ask you to source it.
That having been said, assuming that article is an accurate representation of the scientific paper, I'm surprised it's that significant. Yet another reason why Elon is terrible for the environment.
I posted the numbers elsewhere, but the cost isn't that extreme, yes it's billions annually but you're talking about a global network. The size of the customer base that gets you access to covers it. It would need under 1% global market share to be sustainable.
Landline based networks cost just as much (maybe more, ISP's aren't too open with these numbers) to maintain their hardware.
There's plenty of environmental issues with Starlink, but economically it's a really good plan. It's just not all that competitive with regular ISP's value wise so it's tough for them to get enough customers.
As a reminder, this subreddit strictly bans any discussion of bodily harm. Do not mention it wishfully, passively, indirectly, or even in the abstract. As these comments can be used as a pretext to shut down this subreddit, we ask all users to be vigilant and immediately report anything that violates this rule.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
FSD - Full Self Deorbiting ....
The value just jumped to three trillion.
It's insane how all the government subsidies are going to Elon's pocket and shareholders instead of reinvestments to the company.
It's literally Boeing 2.0
And they don’t pay taxes which is infuriating to me.
How is this system sustainable? Are they just going to keep putting suicidal satellites into orbit in perpetuity?
It isn't. All LEO satellites have a short lifespan roughly 5 years, so having dozens of networks and hundreds of thousands of satellites is far from sustainable.
Is there any long term plan?
Elon Musk wore a “DONALD TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING” cap, so I’m gonna say that he no longer believes in climate change.
The original idea was that starship would make it very cheap to put them into orbit. That plan is, uhhhh, not going according to schedule.
So is it very very expensive putting them in orbit?
Yes.
To be fair, we don't really know yet since Starship has yet to deliver anything to orbit.
...after 11 launches.
It delivers impressive explosions
And it will be even more because of the debris cage that's being created (satellites/ celestial bodies enter in collision and get blown up and such)
https://youtu.be/yS1ibDImAYU (video to learn more about the topic)
and increasing climate change as they burn up deorbiting
add in kessler syndrome https://www.space.com/kessler-syndrome-space-debris
Of course not.
It's "sustainable" in that everyone keeps giving Elon money, and that sustains his worthless, disgusting existence.
Yes. That's the business model for Starlink, and at the scale it's operating at it's sustainable, although Musk has been having trouble getting enough market share primarily due to data caps and hardware buy in, but the numbers themselves do make sense.
Originally, they launched satellites that had a $300,000 cost to build and get into orbit, and they needed approximately 12,000 of them each with a 5 year lifespan (to be in LEO the orbit has to decay, and it's good for it to decay for practical reasons anyways). That's a 5 year hardware budget of 3.6 billion or $720 million per year. This isn't too far off from what the big telecoms spend on physical hardware for their systems so that's not all that unsustainable. At $80/month for service that's sustainable at just 750,000 customers worldwide.
Where starlink is running into issues, is they messed up and need to jump the number of satellites from 12,000 to 42,000 (and likely more) because as it turns out, Musk too is a victim of Facebook pushing the internet to video and other high bandwidth activities. Furthermore, they've increased the satellite cost from 300k to 1.2 million as they've had to increase the satellite capabilities. So they've increased their operating costs from 3.6 billion every 5 years to 50.4 billion every 5 years, all while being unable to raise their prices due to price competition. This works out to just over $10 billion in hardware annually rather than $750 million, and requires a customer base of 10.5 million active users globally rather than just 750k to sustain.
Since you're talking global numbers this should still be very obtainable, it would represent just 3% of the US internet customer base for example, and well under 1% of market share globally.
So it's still quite sustainable as a business. Space pollution issues aside.
Don’t be coming here with your facts! /s
Then of course there's the ozone layer to worry about again
For what it's worth, if they deorbit faster than expected, that's actually good for space debris, since there's less stuff still up there. I'd also bet these are small enough to make the falling object safety issue minimal.
What it is terrible for, though, is the business case for this to be a viable system in the first place. I find it hard to believe that the subscription revenue is sufficient to just cover the satellite replenishment cost alone, much less everything else involved in running an ISP.
It is not. The cost of constantly launching new satellite is a huge liability on their balance sheet. It is not profitable and will never be.
But that doesn't change anything. They'll go public. Musk will get some more billions and will move on to the next con.
The next con is AI data centers in space.
Man I think you've put your finger on it. I've put these talks aside as crazy talks. But this is it. They'll suck up taxpayer money to pay for this nonsense.
This is a terrible idea, even if you believe in the AI stuff. Data centers produce a tremendous amount of heat, and it is incredibly difficult to dissipate heat in space.
People have a lot of misconceptions regarding space, and space = cold is not strictly correct. The Apollo missions had to worry more about heat management than producing heat.
It's already profitable because launch costs for them is pretty cheap due to the reusable booster.
"pretty cheap" by space standards is still staggeringly expensive, and we have no way of knowing their actual financials because they're private.
> I find it hard to believe that the subscription revenue is sufficient to just cover the satellite replenishment cost alone,
No, but it's a nice dog & pony show to have going on when the IPO hits.
There's also the slight problem that all the aluminium residue from Elon's shitty disposable satellites burning up literally every day is destroying the ozone layer. Arsehole is single-handedly undermining the Montreal Protocol, arguably one of humanity's greatest actual achievements.
Got any references for that? I am highly skeptical that there's enough mass deorbiting to have any appreciable effect on the ozone layer. If anything, I'd be far more worried about the impact the launch vehicles have rather than the deorbiting debris.
You couldn't be bothered to do a quick web search for "starlink" and "ozone layer" before writing that? The scientific community's been raising the alarm about this for a year or so now.
https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/starlink-plans-to-send-42k-satellites-into-space-that-could-be-bad-news-for-the-ozone/
You're the one that made the claim, it's not unreasonable to ask you to source it.
That having been said, assuming that article is an accurate representation of the scientific paper, I'm surprised it's that significant. Yet another reason why Elon is terrible for the environment.
I posted the numbers elsewhere, but the cost isn't that extreme, yes it's billions annually but you're talking about a global network. The size of the customer base that gets you access to covers it. It would need under 1% global market share to be sustainable.
Landline based networks cost just as much (maybe more, ISP's aren't too open with these numbers) to maintain their hardware.
There's plenty of environmental issues with Starlink, but economically it's a really good plan. It's just not all that competitive with regular ISP's value wise so it's tough for them to get enough customers.
raising questions about space debris and safetyExposing the lack of questions by journalism for almost two decades.
TF00t is vindicated again.
Wasn't there a flashy "meteor" over the Great Lakes area a couple weeks ago that turned out to be a Starlink satellite?
just like Elon wanted? it’s all work and no research.
Gonna be so much space trash up there we can’t launch new shit or space missions
But there won't be poverty in the future, there is no need to save any starlink satellites.