[tgsovlerkhgsel]

Change is inevitable. I love seeing artificial objects in space, because it shows that we, humanity, are finally getting there.

Elon doesn't own space, he just happens to be the one who is currently best at making it reachable. There is plenty of space for everyone else, and others will get there, eventually.

I could eat myself up with envy over the money he's making from it... or be glad that it's at least someone getting rewarded for moving humanity forward (while also being an asshole), rather than someone who is starting wars to profit from insider trading...

[jneaty]

I wonder what you mean by "moving humanity forward". Just technological advancements without other considerations? In my opinion it should at least require reducing human suffering, and if ao he has done more harm than good

[rowanG077]

I agree with this. But imo its pretty clear that cheap and easy access to the internet on the entire globe is a clear win.

[protimewaster]

The guy in charge of it has demonstrated that he'll cut people off from accessing it on a whim, though, so it's not really cheap and easy access for the entire globe. It's access for the selected people.

[rowanG077]

Doesn't that hold for all internet providers? I'm not familiar with SpaceX cutting people of, but that doesn't sound out of line compared to industry.

[zorak8me]

Other Internet providers at least have true boards of directors, shareholders with decision power, etc. One person doesn’t have the power to snap their fingers and make decisions based on how much ketamine they’re on at the time.

[rowanG077]

I'm sorry that I don't agree with you that a out of touch board of directors or shareholders are better from the get go than Musk.

[rlt]

Who did Starlink cut off? Russia, which is legally sanctioned and illegal for US companies to do business with?

[Scroll_Swe]

Killing Russian access was good, no?

[pixel_popping]

I understand that you want Russia to have access to it without interruption but until there is some sort of "International law" regarding those newer ways of providing Internet, politics will win.

[bluegatty]

Almost all of us already have that, and the rest can as well.

The problem is not 'space' - it's getting ourselves sufficiently organized.

[JKCalhoun]

The brief history of the internet suggests to me that this is not a clear win.

[rglullis]

It's already pretty cheap, global and universally available.

[rowanG077]

This is just not true. Not even electricity or hell water is globally available.

[hackable_sand]

They don't mean technological advancements.

It's the same neo-liberal aggression couched in rhetorical trickery.

[Dig1t]

There are millions of people in Africa and rural areas around the world who have access to the internet because of these satellites. This massively reduces human suffering. Millions of people can now get medical information, farming, manufacturing techniques, talk to experts around the world. Connecting people to the wealth of human knowledge has a huge impact on reducing suffering. It also just directly saves lives by connecting people in an emergency to people who can help. Additionally, Ukraine would have lost the war a long time ago if these satellites didn’t exist. You could go on for a long time listing the ways these satellites reduce suffering.

[digitaltrees]

Government could be the creator of this just like it was with GPS. We are very tolerant of government innovation and infrastructure when it’s a military resource. But when it’s a pure public good everyone claims it’s wasteful or less efficient than the private sector.

Why do we need to let this be a monopoly controlled by one person. A king in a board room is still a king.

[Dig1t]

>Why do we need to let this be a monopoly

This is the opposite of a monopoly, Blue Origin and Rocket Lab are both planning competing constellations. Eventually there will be many competing constellations in orbit delivering service.

>Government could be the creator

Okay so why wasn’t it? The lifetime funding for NASA is 700+ billion dollars. With that incredible sum of money they weren’t able to even make reusable rockets let alone the satellite constellation. Launching a constellation with NASA’s pre-SpaceX approach (using Russian rockets) would have been literally impossible because Russia could have never built nearly enough rockets. Launching even a small fraction of Starlink would have consumed the entire NASA budget several times over.

Comparing GPS and Starlink doesn’t really even make sense because the scope of each project is so vastly different. Starlink if delivered by the same people who made GPS, would have been literally impossible, because the mass to orbit is orders of magnitude larger than the GPS project. Starlink was only possible because of the efficiency provided by SpaceX’s reusable rockets and the leading minds in the government literally said that reusable rockets were impossible and impractical until SpaceX actually delivered reliable reusable rockets.

[digitaltrees]

What percentage of market share do they have in launches? In awarded contracts? In satellites in the sky?

Also pointing to blue origin which is substantially related to the Amazon monopoly isn’t the best refutation of my argument. When all competition and innovation requires behemoth monopolies rather than ecosystems of entrepreneurship and capital markets capitalism has been replaced with oligarchy.

Nasas mandate wasn’t to build reusable rockets. They built the space shuttle, which was reusable. The GPS network is a constellation of satellites. They also launched numerous spacecraft that landed on planets and moons. If we wanted nasa to do what spaceX has done it could. At then end of the day teams of humans do things. If we want the teams of humans in government to do things we can arrange them to do it. I don’t see anyone saying private military, fire departments or police departments are significantly better than public government systems.

[electriclove]

If they could have, they would have.

[digitaltrees]

Could logically, logistically, financially and technologically also require politically. That’s the only thing that has been missing. When there was a political will there was a space race. Remove the political motive and suddenly it isn’t happening. Why do you conflate all of those abilities when it’s merely a political problem.

[Dig1t]

Before SpaceX demonstrated viability of reusable rockets nearly every single government industry expert on the topic dismissed the idea of reusable rockets as impractical and infeasible.

It’s not simply a matter of political will, the quality of what governments have been able to produce just is no match for what companies can do. It’s the same for rockets as it is for cars, computers, or anything else. Ever heard of a government-made car? There were a few that came out of the Soviet Union and they were laughably bad and only obtainable in small quantities. Rockets and satellites are the same way, the government just does not have the same incentives to produce things that companies have.

The proof is in the rockets. Compare SpaceX’s rockets with any government developed rockets anywhere in the world, it’s not even close.

Falcon 9, Heavy, Starship, Dragon. The government never would have come close to developing any craft like these let alone being able to launch a constellation like Starlink.

[rglullis]

We don't need to have space literally transformed into junkyards to make progress, and there is nothing going wrong with going a lower pace if it means reduced impact on the rest of society.

[ilikehurdles]

Your focus should be on junkyards on earth, which are exponentially greater in number on a surface area that is a fraction of the surface area of observable space. You’re complaining about a potentially artificial speck of light in the sky while plastic litters the highway you commute on, and India produces literal rivers of trash.

[rglullis]

Orthogonal issues. Will the trash on earth be reduced if we start littering low orbit with junk?

[rayiner]

Every year that you delay Africa and south asia getting to western levels of development equals tens of thousands of under-5 deaths that could have been avoided.

[rglullis]

Most of Africa and Southeast Asia has Internet connectivity that is cheaper and more ubiquitous than in North America. They are very well served by an extensive cellular network. Satellite Internet is not what is holding them back.

[pirates]

Maybe they should work on that then.

[rlt]

Junkyard? Starlink satellites are deorbited at the end of their lifespan.

[smrtinsert]

Who is envious of his trillions? I'm certainly not. I am very annoyed at someone who buys elections, literally promising a million dollars for a vote, and then running in and gutting key portions of the US government, and playing fast and loose with our data - at a bare minimum.

We will be investigating him for decades and he deserves every second of it.

[potatototoo99]

He is not a trillionaire anymore, though.

[glitchcrab]

I think you're missing the wood for the trees. He's still insanely wealthy.

[yodsanklai]

> I love seeing artificial objects in space, because it shows that we, humanity, are finally getting there.

The problem is that nobody asked the other 8.3 billions people what they think about seeing stuff in the sky. For the benefit of 1/1000th of humanity (~10 million starlink users).

[xandrius]

Change is inevitable but not all changes are.

[digitaltrees]

I didn’t say I am against change. I said I am against one man owning a monopoly on a common good.

If technological progress requires monopolies and the road toward serfdom is that really a path we want?

[electriclove]

There are other companies who have also begun and there will other countries doing it as well.

[digitaltrees]

That’s good. But we are a long way from a competitive market.

[bluegatty]

No, this is not really moving forward, it's just a traffic jam and pollution in an otherwise pristine space - for money.

It's just the money.

If we were actually going to Mars, then yes, but somehow he made himself the 'First Trillionaire' - without even so much as getting out of Earth's orbit.

This is NFT progress, in that, there is some plausible economic value in NFTs, but in reality, it's just a hustle.

[paulddraper]

> It's just the money.

Money is a materialization of human desire.

[bluegatty]

No - money it's a materialization of the expression of power. Desire is a subset of that.

The 'power' part is one of the most important things to understand.

In our every day lives, we see regular people 'creating value by working' and 'collecting money' and then 'spending according to their needs and desires'.

We see things like groceries, fuel, food - it all seems like relatively open and mostly kind of fair system - and it is, at that level.

But significant amount of wealth is accumulated into structure and by individuals that have power totally disproportinate to their value creation.

Kings of England didn't rule 'arbitrarily' - they owned most of the land - that was their power.

If you own all the land, the serfs can't escape your taxation - however you think you can create value, it will be taxed away.

Corporations have incredible economies of scale and leverage through division of labour that individuals could ever have - and - they are even 'limited liability.

We set individual up to compete against goliaths, and then give those goliaths special advantages.

'Parts of the Economy' are relatively fair, just, open etc. but much/most of it is not, it's a game of power leverage and accumulation, as it always has been. It's that part that people don't have a strong instinct for.

[paulddraper]

Well it’s both of those things.

Power is exercised according to desire.

[bluegatty]

You're not wrong - but when people say 'we vote with our money' ... it ends up being misleading, because of our instinct to think that individuals make those decisions collectively with their choices and will. Generally it's 'who has the power (and therefore the money)' will make those decisions.

It's a fine point, because some people believe that everything is controlled by a cabal of secret bankers and rich people and that's not true either.

'Nobody is charge' - that's also unsettling. But there are centres of great influence, many of which do not have our best interests at heart.

[account42]

It's the materialization of a tiny fraction of human desire - the desires of the rest are worth only a rounding error in monetary terms.

[beanjuiceII]

hey mom wants you to get off the couch and come for dinner, meatloaf is ready

[bluegatty]

Ok ... but you have to at least try be funny!

[bmitc]

Getting where, exactly?

[newaccountman2]

> I love seeing artificial objects in space,

Kind of fucked up lol

> rather than someone who is starting wars to profit from insider trading...

Your moral and ethical bar is Trump?

[ThrowawayTestr]

Do you like looking at city skylines? I'm not a misanthrope so I like seeing humanity's progress.

[newaccountman2]

I do happen to be a misanthrope, but I suspect a lot of people who aren't also have distaste for your expression of joy at seeing the night sky full of satellites.

I do like big cities and their skylines though, sure.

[watwut]

> or be glad that it's at least someone getting rewarded for moving humanity forward

Forward back to fascism. No thanks. He already caused astonishing harm.

[sevenzero]

Yea but it introduces a lot of issues for space travel and other satellites. The useful space in space we have is extremely limited. A single company shouldn't be able to just clutter space at will.

[tticvs]

1. That's not true. 2. It's not "at will" if you actually read the article you're commenting under you'd see it is about them _applying for a license_ to do something.

[taotau]

Taken literally you are technically correct, but... 1. Space is big, but LEO is not that big and if a single company clutters it enough, other organisations might start bumping into issues like 'if i don't get sign off from starlink corp, i might hit one of their satelites on the way up and my insurance wont cover that so I cant afford to launch given the risks of being sued by elon'. 2. Applying for a licence in this context, mostly means greasing the right palms (preferably the pudgy bruised ones).

[tticvs]

It introduces no issues for space travel. And what exactly do you want to happen here? LEO to stay empty because no one else is able to fill it and for spacex to not to try to expand because the regulatory process isn't perfect according to your standards?

[SirHackalot]

Yes.

[BurningFrog]

There is nothing more abundant than the extra room there is in space!

Earth orbit is more constrained, but it's very far from full. Geostationary orbits are about 20% full, but the rest is practically empty still.

[inigyou]

The best way to create change is to create the conditions where change is necessary. If Elon causes Kessler syndrome in low earth orbit, it will quickly be illegal to launch satellites without permits.

[parineum]

Kessler syndrome isn't possible in the StarLink orbit.

[bdangubic]

did you read the article? it is already illegal to launch satellites without permission, hence the article (above the fold in the summary) is stating SpaceX applied for permission :)

[k12sosse]

Asking permission from whom? The entire world or just the corrupt bonkers folks?

[lowkey_]

Someone said it would "quickly be illegal to launch satellites without permits", then you/they found out that is already illegal, and you nitpicked about who you need permission from.

It feels like there's no feasible solution here that would please you guys.

Should we all democratically vote on every satellite launched into space individually? It's already our elected representatives that approve it.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

Does it really? Every time I heard the "we'll run out of space" FUD argument it was followed by a drastic increase of satellites in orbit with no issue...

[hnhg]

We're also facing a climate and pollutant crisis as a species so we seem only capable of thinking in the short term. We're not doing that well right now after only a brief period of industrialisation.

[tticvs]

We're doing extremely well compared to an unimaginably long period of pre-industrialization.

[hnhg]

In the short-term. Thanks for proving my point on perspective.

[tticvs]

Yes, so let's think long term. How do we keep it rolling? Perhaps we will need to continue to advance our technology, especially moving industries to space where there is no ecosphere.