[txcwpalpha]

"Thanks to Elon Musk"? Seriously? This is exactly the type of Musk-worship that makes people angry.

Elon Musk has hardly anything to do with Iridium NEXT. SpaceX launched the satellites, but that's it. If it wasn't SpaceX, it would've been any other launch provider (just like how China, Russia, and McDonnell Douglas provided 23 Iridium launches, compared to SpaceX's 8 Iridium NEXT launches).

You really should be saying "Thanks to Bary Bertiger, Raymond J. Leopold and Ken Peterson", who were the three engineers who actually came up with, designed, and developed the entire Iridium constellation, as well as Motorola, the company that financed Iridium, Lockheed/Orbital ATK/Thales, the companies that built the satellites, and of course Iridium Communications, the company that actually runs it.

Give credit where credit is due. And it's not due to Musk.

[valuearb]

You both are talking past each other. Sure Elon had nothing to do with developing iridium technology. The question is whether Iridium would have been brought back to life without SpaceX. Iridium went bankrupt because it's costs were so high, they went 15 years without replacing a satellite, even though they were only rated for 8 years. They had plans to replace them, but kept postponing. It really looked like they couldn't raise enough money for the huge launch costs and were were just going to ride them into the ground (literally).

Then they suddenly got new funding and started launching satellites again in 2017. Right at the same time Falcon 9s dramatically cut commercial launch costs by well over half compared to other launch providers.

So Elon deserves some credit here, just as Bary, Raymond and Ken do.

[txcwpalpha]

Iridium "got new funding" in 2001 when it was bought by PE firms and restructured to generate piles of cash from selling satellite communications to the government, long before your claim of 2017. It had nothing to do with the Falcon 9 other than coincidence. Trying to claim otherwise is misleading.

[valuearb]

And what did they do for 15 years with that money? Made plans to replace their dying satellites and having every single plan refused to be funded because of the massive costs.

Suddenly SpaceX cuts launch costs by 4x and Iridium is able to get funded and launch again. Trying to claim coincidence is misleading.

[snowwrestler]

I agree with you about Musk worship in general, but I bet the financial viability of a satellite constellation is at least somewhat dependent on launch costs, and SpaceX has undeniably brought those down significantly. IIRC, the original Iridium company went bankrupt and the constellation was only kept in service by a U.S. government bailout.