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SpaceX and OneWeb -- Same Goal, Different Technology and Strategy
lpress writes: OneWeb has announced that Airbus will manufacture their Internet-connectivity satellites and told us more about their plans and progress. Both OneWeb and their competitor SpaceX have the same goal — global Internet connectivity and backhaul using satellite constellations, but their technologies and organizational strategies are different. SpaceX will use many more satellites than OneWeb, but they will be smaller, shorter-lived, cheaper and orbit at a lower altitude. They are also keeping more of the effort in-house. This is competitive capitalism at its best — let's hope both succeed.
Maybe you should do some research before plodding around with your opinions.
Musk co-founded Zip2 in '95 and made bank on that in '99.
Co-founded X.com in '99, which after mergers and whatnot made bank for him in '02.
Now he's grown SpaceX to a valuation of $12 billion (and that's not dot-com fake money like Twitter, et al.).
And Tesla is pretty close to breaking even.
(all of this according to Wikipedia)
I'd say that's a much better track record than the vast majority of people on the planet.
Obviously sub-optimal.
Indeed. The dead weight of competition is exactly why capitalist countries are always lagging behind technological powerhouses like Cuba and Ethiopia.
I have a theory that after the initial outlay of satellites, they will launch the replacements into "good enough" orbits by filling up leftover space on other SpaceX launches. Payload is 10% less than the Falcon 9's max? Put a handful of cubesats in there to put it near max, use slowly becoming-standard ion propulsion to slowly move them into the orbits you need. Five replacement sats for near zero launch cost.
I'd like to see it happen, but call me skeptical.
-=/\- Jizzbug -/\=-