| > But Elon is not that sort of person, which is the great tragedy in all this. If he was, SpaceX and Starlink wouldn't exist. Have you ever tried to handle anything at UN level? That a 10-20 year discussion and even then must likely nothing will be agree on. The Outer-Space treaty has been argued about for 50+ years and not a single revision has been made. SpaceX is fully in line with the current interventional space regulation. Nothing SpaceX is doing is qualitatively different then what anybody else does. They just do it more. In fact, in many way SpaceX fast adjustment and dialogue with astronomy community is forward thinking. The reality is, its not UN and treaties that are gone solve these problems, but the actual stack holders working together. SpaceX is working with ESA on LEO consolation safety (as ESA has multiple sats in the same region) and work with astronomers to find good compromises and give them the data they need to plan operations. > constant satellite launches, maintenance, and deorbiting will not be viable cost-wise over the 20-40 years The cost of accessing to space will drop 10x at least in the next 10 years and likely go down more after that. > Just like nuclear, this is a perfectly good stop-gap. But the right answer is renewables - everyone knows it - it's just a matter of timing. Actually nuclear would have been the right answer and the only reason 'renwables' (nuclear is practically renewable as well) are considered is because terrible global handling of nuclear has made it unpractical. In 100-200 years people will be using nuclear, not renewables, they are the stop-gap for now. |