Real Engineering has a video that describes the value of SpaceX Starlink satellites.
Nextbigfuture has pointed out the value of Starlink to reduce the latency for financial communication around the world.
SpaceX Starlink Satellite
Elon Musk has also indicated that Starlink will look to serve people outside of dense urban areas with internet connections.
SpaceX is making smaller medium pizza box-sized flat phase array links. It is unknown what the pricing will be for those phased arrays. Kymeta makes low cost phased arrays at about $30,000 each. If SpaceX and Tesla can get Starlink connections into new Tesla commercial trucks and increase the volume of production, then SpaceX could get the price down to a few thousand dollars each.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
If you are in your low teens, you are not very bright.
An open letter to Elon Musk:
Have you ever thought about precisely aiming your Starlink solar panels so the reflected light from them is focused at existing solar power plants already operating on the surface of the earth, around local dawn and dusk time periods? So that “light pollution” from Starlink is minimized, and the collected sunlight boosts the terestrial solar plant’s electrical output at their minimum power production times around dawn and dusk? This could be worth billions in additional yearly revenue to SpaceX, if they are willing to pay for it.
Tony Rusi
You can only see at most a dozen stars in most urban areas due to light pollution.
So your argument was invalidated long ago.
Personally, I regard that second half as poetry.
People who think the others make mistakes may be right.
People who think the others are fools are often not very smart.
It seems that he has been hired to play the part of
McCoy in a world of Spocks.
R. Kimhi’s comments are about 50% normal observations, and 50% proclaiming magic.
I don’t remember what the stars looked like in a US city. I do remember pointing out (to my 8 year old nephew) that the moon was upside down relative to the Southern hemisphere, so I must have been looking at the sky at some point.
I’ve hunted in some remote places in the US, and looking the the night sky in those places is breathtaking.
Yea, and mine is that this guy is a loon.
Wondering if Slooh makes a profit…if so, then this model could work for in-space assets, assuming some bigger names (universities and government agencies) pay the premium rates, but still have some viewing times at cheaper rates for private individuals.
Indeed. The prospect of having 24/7 high resolution imaging of the whole sky appeals to all from governments to amateurs alike. It would lead to great advances in our knowledge of space.
Relax. Its a forum for opinions and comments..
I’ve spent a few score nights at 3km-4km elevation and my goodness it is practically a fireworks show compared to my normal midwest low elevation 2.5M city view, not even factoring in the boost from, soon to be legal most places, certain fungal species. I’m guessing you are Sydney or Melbourne but those places sound much more pristine than most of the US.
“Our natural connection with the stars”
The **** are you even talking about, you loon?
True. Watching satellites is a feature of star gazing, at least for amateurs.
That’s just not true.
Maybe my city of 4.5 million is not big enough to count by your standards, but stars are quite visible even in the CBD. The suburbs where everyone lives there is no problem.
Obviously you can see better if you are in remote area. But you’re statement is observably incorrect.
OneWeb’s founder’s startup which recently decloaked is aiming at $300 phased array antennas, based on LCD manufacturing techniques.
https://wafer.tv/
Kymeta and Alcan both are also aiming at $1000 class antennas once they move to mass production.
Still, the odds are this will be used for rural cellphone towers that have difficulty arranging backhaul.
AsteroidWatch/Planetary Defense office at NASA would want 24/7 monitoring of most of the sky (at least the ecliptic band), you can probably get the US government to pony up some money for that. If the telescopes are any good, any of the asteroid prospecting companies would want the found TLE’s as well.
Fighting a real tangible benefit for billions over an abstract, intangible one, specially when the complainer has the problem already solved, by virtue of being born in the right place with that problem solved is the very definition of hypocrisy.
Alas, it is extremely common nowadays, when some of the rich wish to impose over the poor their crazy political beliefs and moral crusades ( which are born precisely out of their countries’ success, riches and idleness) above the poor’s tangible measurable welfare.
Why would anyone do this? Novelty, not a business.
If, and its a big IF, people were really willing to pay these higher costs en mass, then there are other solutions already on the ground that can be deployed in these outer areas. The reality is, companies know not many people are willing to pay for extra speed they really don’t need. Some will, but not enough to make it viable. Somehow people forget basic economics when it comes to all things Musk. Somehow he knows things nobody else does. Brian says if Musk can just get these on all the nonexistent Tesla trucks the price will come down to a few thousand dollars. Riiiight. Where’s the trucks? It sounds like a perpetual motion machine. Maybe Musk can line boring tunnels with net service via the Starlink for all the auto pilot Teslas screaming down his tunnels. That should knock off a few more bucks too.
I kinda think more things flying around above us will be even better for star gazing.
It only happens for an small period before dusk and dawn, when we are in the dark but 300km above us is not. And they are going to make them less reflective to minimize it.
You can buy a directv antenna new for $70 right now. I don’t think these phased array antennas are going to cost much more, maybe they bottom out at $100.
SpaceX has acknowledged they are to bright the others will be darker to reduce brightness so it will be better.
Also no one in modern cities can see the stars anyways so o/
They are working on a stealth version.
Progress.
As someone that has lived in large and small cities, this is very true.
I had similar thoughts, i figured an antenna were more likely to be shared by smaller groups of individual users such as an apartment building or business.
I suppose a large group of the poor out in the sticks could pool their resources for a smaller slice of an antenna’s capacity.
I wouldn’t put it beyond SpaceX to eventually send multiple high resolution telescopes into high orbit, connect them to the Internet via starlink, and allow everyone viewing access to peer into space in all directions at all times of the day.
Hopefully we aren’t going to see these satellites in their final orbits. SpaceX will do their best to reduce their reflectivity, according to Musk. There’s about 4 or 5 thousand satellites up there already, plus the attendant junk which already is widely distributed around the earth.
But the real issue for earth dwellers is the lights from our towns and cities. This is going to get much worse with cheap lighting.
And then there’s the noise effecting radio telescopes…
Your nuts, if you think you will stop progress! Throughout history many have tried but none have succeeded. Oh sure some temporarily slowed progress down for awhile but none stopped progress. We know the names of the greats that discovered the new technologies but forgot the names of those who stood in the way of progress.
You would stand in the way of third world peoples who want and need the internet, just so the stars are a little more visible to you? What kind of monster are you, living good off the fat of the land and denying the needy just for a little visual pleasure?
Everyone who will sacrifice our natural connection to the stars and increased light pollution for the faster trading is nuts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytUygPqjXEc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueei3U_wpl4
They will be distributed to villages thoughout the third world.
It will be a great improvement, I just hope they don’t ask me to pay for it.
Still looks more like a network backbone solution than an end user one to me.
The pizza box antennas ain’t going to be cheap no matter what, and they make more sense for specialized applications, like airplane and boat Internet, or remote location cellphone towers. Even SDCs could come with them, to avoid any Internet blackout while driving outside the grid.
I guess some consumers could buy it for their ranches and remote homes too, but the cost of a few thousand bucks is too steep for poor people in the third world. They will indeed benefit from it, but by giving these people cellphone towers even in the most remote villages.