Also: are rake tines even steel anymore, or are they aluminum (even softer than steel)?
Also, about the previous comment: tool steels are a lot harder than mild steels and are much easier to scratch glass with. But you'd never make a rake out of a tool steel.
Exactly. "Moon" should just be seen as another optional modifier term that one may or may not add when describing a body in space, not exclusive of other terms.
One thing I've noticed is that people are constantly correcting themselves when describing large moons - they often accidentally call them "planets", and then having to back up and correct that to "moon". The reason we instinctively want to call them planets is because, well, they are like planets. Not just in appearance, but structure too. I think it would be quite reasonable to call, say, Titan a "planetary moon".
We need a wide variety of orbital and compositional terms, and not to insist that you can't use X with Y when both X and Y are clearly applicable. This approach of trying to make just a couple categories that everything has to be jammed into is clearly unsustainable. The more types of bodies we discover in the universe, the worse it's going to get.
Much better power-to-weight ratio is at the top of the list, which is not something Tesla can do much about unless they branch out into battery research.
Actually, since they now actually are making their own supermassive battery production facility, it absolutely is their field now. Battery producers take lab techs, whether developed in-house or licensed from outside researchers, and turn them into commercial realities.
Also, part of the max power you can get out of a pack depends on how the pack is built, not just the internal cell chemistry.
100 kWh in 1000 lbs is pretty poor compared to ICE despite all the other benefits.
I think you're confused. Are you meaning to talk about power density or energy density? You've been saying power, but kWh are energy.
You're probably joking about the silly "solar freakin roadways" idea of melting snow away, and the fact that the amount of energy it would take makes it grossly impractical. But it actually could be quite practical on a roof. Not through melting the snow away, mind you, but just enough of a melt layer to let it slide off. And indeed, I've seen some articles about the roofing product mentioning that it can be fitted with heating elements for colder climates.
They're complete morons if they've designed a roofing product and haven't conducted freeze-thaw tests. Literally sued-off-the-market level morons. I doubt they could even get it certified as a roofing material if they didn't.
Re, a rake: Absolutely would not break, unless you put the rake handle-down on a shingle and hit the other end with a sledgehammer. Tempered glass is far too strong for that. Scratching - steel is 4-4,5 on the mohs scale, glass is 5,5. That said, you can still sometimes scratch glass with steel if you concentrate enough force onto a small enough point. Seriously doubt a rake will, however.
Also, note that it's not like small scratches stop a solar cell from working.
They have some impressive impact test videos. Tempered glass is amazingly tough. Now, if you manage to break it, it breaks in its entirity (aka, an entire shingle), usually into little bits. But that break takes a pretty severe impact.
Time will tell what the total cost is in the real world, of course. My questions are more concerning how fast real-world installs go, aka what the labour costs are like.
Nearly the entire new generation of nukes has been one giant economic disaster after the next, both in the US and Europe. The most expensive "things" on Earth are now predominantly nuclear power plants (ISS tops the list if you count it as "on Earth", otherwise, the first "thing" on the list that's not a nuke plant is the LHC, which comes in several slots down). Hinkley Point tops the list among nuclear plants (~$35B USD and counting if you count interest and such, at least $18B if you just count construction costs), but it's got lots of company. By contrast, the Burj Khalifa was a piddling $1,5B.
In the US at least, nuclear power has always had more popularity on K Street than Wall Street. Nuclear died for decades, and the new "renaissance" died as well, not because of NIMBYs, but because investors abandoned it. Indeed, when you look at the cost breakdowns, "NIMBYs" have almost nothing to do with it. Look, for example, at the Olkiluoto #3 reactor in Finland. The project started in 2000. Construction started in 2005, with plants to open in 2010. Now it's not expected to open 2018-2020 (and I wouldn't bet my life on even that). Why? From Wikipedia:
In February 2014, TVO said that it is could not give an estimate of the plant's startup date, because it was "still waiting for the Areva-Siemen [sic] consortium to provide it with an updated overall schedule for the project."[37] Later the same month it was reported that Areva was shutting down construction due to the dispute over compensations and unfinished automation planning. According to Kauppalehti the estimated opening was delayed until 2018–2020.[27]
The delays have been due to various problems with planning, supervision, and workmanship,[5] and have been the subject of an inquiry by STUK, the Finnish nuclear safety regulator.[38] The first problems that surfaced were irregularities in the foundation concrete, and caused a delay of months. Later, it was found that subcontractors had provided heavy forgings that were not up to project standards and which had to be re-cast. An apparent problem constructing the reactor's unique double-containment structure also caused delays, as the welders had not been given proper instructions.[38]
In 2009, Petteri Tiippana, the director of STUK's nuclear power plant division, told the BBC that it was difficult to deliver nuclear power plant projects on schedule because builders were not used to working to the exacting standards required on nuclear construction sites, since so few new reactors had been built in recent years.[39]
At the end of 2013, TVO said that the Areva-Siemens consortium plans to reduce workers and subcontractors on the construction site and says that it expects the contractor to provide details about the expected impact on the project's schedule.[40]
After the construction of the unit started in 2005, Areva began constructing EPRs in Flamanville, France, and in Taishan, China. However, as of July 2012, the construction of the EPR in France is four years behind schedule,[6] and it seems that the two EPRs being constructed in China will be the first ones to enter service.[36]
Cost
The main contractor, Areva, is building the unit for a fixed price of €3 billion, so in principle, any construction costs above that price fall on Areva. In July 2012, those overruns were estimated at more than €2 billion,[36] and in December 2012, Areva estimated that the full cost of building the reactor would be about €8.5 billion, well over the previous estimate of €6.4 billion.[2][3] Because of the delays, TVO and Areva are both seeking compensation from each other through the International Court of Arbitration. In October 2013, TVO's demand for compensation from Areva had risen to €1.8 billion, and Areva's from TVO to €2.6 billion.[41] In December 2013, Areva increased its demand to €2.7 billion.[42] As of November 2016, the case is still ongoing.[43]
According to some estimates, Olkiluoto reactor could be the
To be fair, Germany's approach to coal isn't bad. They're working to retire their old generation of coal plants and replace them with advanced coal gassification plants. The big difference is that the new ones are dramatically more efficient than the old ones they're replacing, and will be responsive to rapid changes in demand or production. This in turn will let them gradually transition from baseload to peaking as renewables continue to make up an increasing share of the European power mix.
Unfortunately, countries like Spain are actively working against Scotland getting a direct pass into the EU, as they don't want to encourage their own separatist regions.
As for the stability of the EU, let's wait and see what happens with Le Pen before we start proclaiming a new post-Brexit era of inter-EU cooperation.
And NATO breaking up/US becoming isolationist (or reversing alliances) would lead to terrible consequences, including a massive spike in global military spending, resumption of production of nuclear weapons in countries that had previously stopped, and new countries producing nuclear weapons.
All of that said, indeed, kudos to the ESA. It's a start, although the ESA still has some serious problems, including a tiny budget (compared to NASA) and an internal culture that's far too closed / resistant to sharing information.
It should be 100Mhz per 1Gbps. 256QAM transmits 8bits/Hz (quite common). 1024QAM is 10bits/Hz. So 100Mhz would be 800-1000Mbps raw but with error correction bits (10-12bits for each 8 data bits) plus a compression factor you get the 1000Mbps(1Gbps).
So max capability per spot area of full constellation would be 1Tbps (100X100mile sized spot) data rate density of 1Gbps/10square miles.
So divide revenue figures in half. But they still are in the $Bs per year even for the 800 sat constellation. (earlier post >$4B now >$2B).
Just ran into these things - and gee, whatchaknow, backs up everything I said:
Also twitter from @malderi
"Musk: Have to pay attention to security. Bad if hacked, either by AI or people."
- very important IMO, this would get round state censorship, so attack by states possible.
"Musk: biggest concern about success: important to assume that competitors get better, too. Teledesic didn't."
- it will be interesting to see how they build a system that can be expanded to more bandwidth and increased capabilities. This is one of the biggest system design problems IMO, get it wrong and the system is doomed in the long term.
"Musk: Hopeful that we can structure this to work with different countries. Don't want China shooting out our satellites."
- setting up a global sales network will take time, need financing and other options that are sensitive to local circumstances.
"Musk: Plan on using Hall thrusters. Easy to make, no real production difficulty. Doesn't make sense to outsource." - good choice.
"Musk: Cheaper to have a bunch of PCs on racks than a few mainframes, this is the same idea." - distributed aspect more similar to PCs on desks
"Musk: Don't see bandwidth as difficult issue. Space to ground has plenty of usable spectrum." - doesn't explain how he expects to get permission to use that spectrum
"Musk: Going to cost a lot to build. Ten or fifteen billion dollars, or more. But revenues fund city on Mars." - SpaceX does not have the resources to fund this internally - Such a high investment, with significant chance of failure risks taking down SpaceX as well.
"Musk: Smaller satellites, few hundred kg, but capability of much larger satellites." - my guess is optimum size is somewhere in 300-600 kg range, driven mainly by antenna size.
"Musk: (timeline?) In the past, I've been optimistic on schedule. Recalibrating. Envision version 1 in about 5 years." - my translation - I'm aiming for 3 years, but I've been optimistic - planning on multiple versions from the start
"Musk: Talking about around 4000 satellites. 4025 exactly in current design." - that is probably 100s of launches, maybe 50/year.
"Musk: Talking mostly around 1100km level. Space debris not much of a problem there." - with that number of satellites, they will have to take great care to dispose of them at end of life.
"Musk: 20-30ms latency everywhere on earth. Expand tech to Mars, not much fiber there yet." - a unique selling point, lower latency for long distances than earth bound networks
"Musk: Developing world, but also options for people stuck with comcast." - big problem in developing world is that it needs to be very cheap both in cost of equipment and charges. Larger antennae on satellites mean smaller cheaper ground stations. - significant numbers in developed world have poor internet speeds and few prospects of significant improvement, not enough of a market on its own but still maybe $1B/year.
"Musk: More than half of global long haul comm over this system." - this is a biggie, global long haul market is massive. Competes directly with GEO telecom sats.
"Musk: Long term, rebuilding Internet in space. 10% of local business traffic." - another biggie, business traffic is concentrated in a far smaller number of customers than consumer, but generally needs higher quality of service and grade of service guarantees.
"Musk: Start by developing our own constellation. Comm, earth science, space science. Focus is global comm system." - looks like long term they plan for more than just this initial 4025 satellite global internet system.
Commentary from an Atlas engineer:
One of the key items on the business case is the power available on the sat. With 12m^2 of solar arrays that would be ~3.6kw. This would then be enough power to have 5 equal bandwidth links Ground-Earth,Forward, Aft, Port, and Sta
Yeah, because I don't specify networks for a living, or tie in leased lines, or pay for broadband.
Which totally makes you an expert on economics, communications satellites, and launch vehicles! In the same way that living in Alaska makes Sarah Palin an expert on Russia!
It also somehow magically gives you all of the data available to SpaceX involved in making their decisions.
Shipping, aviation, etc. all have satellite data where necessary.
Right, there's absolutely nobody who would pay for always-on bandwidth and latency and price comparable to what they get on land, they'll clearly just stick with current expensive high latency low bandwidth systems. Got it!
at best their things get cheaper,
Meaning paying customers.
Ku band starts at something like 15GHz, Ka band is up to 40GHz.
I'm sorry, but are you under the impression that there's only one Ka and one Ku beam per satellite? The satellites are designed for extensive frequency reuse by breaking transmissions down into numerous tight beams.
It will also be highly asymmetric
Says who?
LEO is minimum 20ms,
Since when?
(1200000 meters / 300000000 meters per second * 2 hops = 8ms. 16ms round trip. And that's not a "flat increase" on top of transmissions, since you're generally transmitting at angles, so you're covering ground as well as up-and-down (the constellation works at angles as low as 40 degrees with the horizon). Also, with long uninterrupted spans you can eliminate many switching delays - and have far more routing options)
but this is between LEO and current data satellites
Says who?
Have you actually read the technical attachment? The satellites interface with gateway earth stations. They mention nothing about interfacing with GEO satellites. Your connection might for some reason be routed through a GEO satellite if going through some unrelated surface network, but that would be through no fault of the SpaceX constellation.
), and require specialist customer equipment.
So does every net connection on Earth, whether fiber, DSL, cable, or whatnot.
This one requires a small phased-array antenna.
blowing up rockets on launchpads with no idea what happened.
The failure was due to within the overlay of the COPVs being compressed up to its flammability limits during the pressurization of the COPVs. Normally free LOX/GOX in the overlay would be squeezed out during pressurization, but the cold enabled some of it to form SOX and was thus retained. The solution is just changing the propellant and pressurant loading procedure.
4000 satellites is A LOT.
Wow, thanks for discovering this interesting bit of trivia which nobody else has!
In case you didn't notice, satellites are getting smaller (for equivalent capabilities), launch costs cheaper, and demand higher. What exactly do expect?
Viasat - one of the largest and oldest the arena of satellite data - has THREE satellites
Yes, that's GEO for you. Viasat's capabilities are nowhere near what are being discussed here.
2TJ is 556 MWh. 4425*386*1150000*9,81/1.000.000.000.000 is 0.2TJ anyway, if you're just looking at altitude (which is a terrible way to approach orbital vehicle energy analysis)
Cute, but in the real world, industries are often built entirely around long-term investment. A deep sea oil rig, for example, may not give its first drop of oil for over a decade after they sink vast sums of money into it.
Unless SpaceX plans to be out of business in a decade or so, they have incentive.
So because you're assuming that it'll be more expensive than ISPs in the First World (and let's pretend that the first world is all 100% net connected, why don't we), and because only a quarter of the world's 7,5 billion people currently own a computer, that means that there's no way to get 90 million subscribers?
Compelling argument there.
Let's also pretend that there's no other markets for satellite data service, such as shipping, aviation, backbone data transmission, etc why don't we.
I'm sure all of the people looking at moving into the arena of satellite broadband are morons who didn't think to consult any people to do their financial analysis for them. They should have just had "ledow on Slashdot" do it for them without any numbers.
They've stated that they do plan to produce a new generation of Roadsters in the future. But obviously things like the Model 3 take top priority; I'd imagine even the rumored Tesla pickup truck will come first.
But do expect that down the line. With another 5-10 years of advancements, the performance should be unreal.
Pluto isn't the nearest KBO, although it's the nearest large one. FYI, it's currently estimated that we've only discovered about 1% of KBOs with diameters of 100km or greater. The further out you go, the easier it gets to hide things. In the "inner Oort cloud" (ill defined) you could hide entire ice giants.
NH will not go anywhere close to Eris; we're lucky that there's anything it's able to intercept at all. It'll be passing a small, undifferentiated KBO, so it should be more like Pluto's small moons than Pluto or Charon (or Eris). Eris, and the many other interesting large KBOs, will have to wait for a later date. IMHO I'd love to see Haumea - a body that's spinning so fast that its equilibrium shape is nearly twice as wide at the equator as it is at the poles. Its day length is only 3,9 hours. It has an unusually high rock concentration for a KBO, meaning it might be mostly comprised of the mantle of what it was before a large impact sent it spinning nearly into obliteration. Even weirder, the spectra we've been able to get it are indicative of a body that's being recently (continuously or just once?) resurfaced with fresh water ice... but its equilibrium temperature is only 50K, so what gives with that? There's also some implication that it may have cyanide compounds on its surface, which have been suggested in Titan research as a possible backbone for life at cryogenic temperatures.
There's a good launch window that opens in 2025. I hope we take it. There's a "backup" possibility in 2026. After that, there's no good windows until 2037 (if you want a Jupiter assist, that is)
Beyond this, I expect that a lot of these would actually be nearly "free" - I would not be in the least surprised if their plan is to pack these as secondary payloads in existing launches to take up the remaining payload capacity of the launch vehicle.
Also, spending a few billion years on average during operation is a very small amount compared to the amount spent globally on internet infrastructure.
SpaceX or not, the number of satellites in orbit is going to significantly increase. Today's satellites are far lighter and more capable than before, demand is higher than ever before, and launch prices are falling across the board. Also, it's critical to note that LEO satellites like this are generally much smaller and cheaper to launch than GEO satellites.
Slashdot Mirror
Also: are rake tines even steel anymore, or are they aluminum (even softer than steel)?
Also, about the previous comment: tool steels are a lot harder than mild steels and are much easier to scratch glass with. But you'd never make a rake out of a tool steel.
Exactly. "Moon" should just be seen as another optional modifier term that one may or may not add when describing a body in space, not exclusive of other terms.
One thing I've noticed is that people are constantly correcting themselves when describing large moons - they often accidentally call them "planets", and then having to back up and correct that to "moon". The reason we instinctively want to call them planets is because, well, they are like planets. Not just in appearance, but structure too. I think it would be quite reasonable to call, say, Titan a "planetary moon".
We need a wide variety of orbital and compositional terms, and not to insist that you can't use X with Y when both X and Y are clearly applicable. This approach of trying to make just a couple categories that everything has to be jammed into is clearly unsustainable. The more types of bodies we discover in the universe, the worse it's going to get.
Actually, since they now actually are making their own supermassive battery production facility, it absolutely is their field now. Battery producers take lab techs, whether developed in-house or licensed from outside researchers, and turn them into commercial realities.
Also, part of the max power you can get out of a pack depends on how the pack is built, not just the internal cell chemistry.
I think you're confused. Are you meaning to talk about power density or energy density? You've been saying power, but kWh are energy.
Coal gassification does not emit more CO2 than coal by itself after taking into account the efficiency difference.
You're probably joking about the silly "solar freakin roadways" idea of melting snow away, and the fact that the amount of energy it would take makes it grossly impractical. But it actually could be quite practical on a roof. Not through melting the snow away, mind you, but just enough of a melt layer to let it slide off. And indeed, I've seen some articles about the roofing product mentioning that it can be fitted with heating elements for colder climates.
They're complete morons if they've designed a roofing product and haven't conducted freeze-thaw tests. Literally sued-off-the-market level morons. I doubt they could even get it certified as a roofing material if they didn't.
Re, a rake: Absolutely would not break, unless you put the rake handle-down on a shingle and hit the other end with a sledgehammer. Tempered glass is far too strong for that. Scratching - steel is 4-4,5 on the mohs scale, glass is 5,5. That said, you can still sometimes scratch glass with steel if you concentrate enough force onto a small enough point. Seriously doubt a rake will, however.
Also, note that it's not like small scratches stop a solar cell from working.
They have some impressive impact test videos. Tempered glass is amazingly tough. Now, if you manage to break it, it breaks in its entirity (aka, an entire shingle), usually into little bits. But that break takes a pretty severe impact.
Time will tell what the total cost is in the real world, of course. My questions are more concerning how fast real-world installs go, aka what the labour costs are like.
Nearly the entire new generation of nukes has been one giant economic disaster after the next, both in the US and Europe. The most expensive "things" on Earth are now predominantly nuclear power plants (ISS tops the list if you count it as "on Earth", otherwise, the first "thing" on the list that's not a nuke plant is the LHC, which comes in several slots down). Hinkley Point tops the list among nuclear plants (~$35B USD and counting if you count interest and such, at least $18B if you just count construction costs), but it's got lots of company. By contrast, the Burj Khalifa was a piddling $1,5B.
In the US at least, nuclear power has always had more popularity on K Street than Wall Street. Nuclear died for decades, and the new "renaissance" died as well, not because of NIMBYs, but because investors abandoned it. Indeed, when you look at the cost breakdowns, "NIMBYs" have almost nothing to do with it. Look, for example, at the Olkiluoto #3 reactor in Finland. The project started in 2000. Construction started in 2005, with plants to open in 2010. Now it's not expected to open 2018-2020 (and I wouldn't bet my life on even that). Why? From Wikipedia:
To be fair, Germany's approach to coal isn't bad. They're working to retire their old generation of coal plants and replace them with advanced coal gassification plants. The big difference is that the new ones are dramatically more efficient than the old ones they're replacing, and will be responsive to rapid changes in demand or production. This in turn will let them gradually transition from baseload to peaking as renewables continue to make up an increasing share of the European power mix.
Unfortunately, countries like Spain are actively working against Scotland getting a direct pass into the EU, as they don't want to encourage their own separatist regions.
As for the stability of the EU, let's wait and see what happens with Le Pen before we start proclaiming a new post-Brexit era of inter-EU cooperation.
And NATO breaking up/US becoming isolationist (or reversing alliances) would lead to terrible consequences, including a massive spike in global military spending, resumption of production of nuclear weapons in countries that had previously stopped, and new countries producing nuclear weapons.
All of that said, indeed, kudos to the ESA. It's a start, although the ESA still has some serious problems, including a tiny budget (compared to NASA) and an internal culture that's far too closed / resistant to sharing information.
Followup from the same engineer:
Just ran into these things - and gee, whatchaknow, backs up everything I said:
Commentary from an Atlas engineer:
What exactly would you like to see?
*** "... due to oxygen within the overlay..."
Which totally makes you an expert on economics, communications satellites, and launch vehicles! In the same way that living in Alaska makes Sarah Palin an expert on Russia!
It also somehow magically gives you all of the data available to SpaceX involved in making their decisions.
Right, there's absolutely nobody who would pay for always-on bandwidth and latency and price comparable to what they get on land, they'll clearly just stick with current expensive high latency low bandwidth systems. Got it!
Meaning paying customers.
I'm sorry, but are you under the impression that there's only one Ka and one Ku beam per satellite? The satellites are designed for extensive frequency reuse by breaking transmissions down into numerous tight beams.
Says who?
Since when?
(1200000 meters / 300000000 meters per second * 2 hops = 8ms. 16ms round trip. And that's not a "flat increase" on top of transmissions, since you're generally transmitting at angles, so you're covering ground as well as up-and-down (the constellation works at angles as low as 40 degrees with the horizon). Also, with long uninterrupted spans you can eliminate many switching delays - and have far more routing options)
Says who?
Have you actually read the technical attachment? The satellites interface with gateway earth stations. They mention nothing about interfacing with GEO satellites. Your connection might for some reason be routed through a GEO satellite if going through some unrelated surface network, but that would be through no fault of the SpaceX constellation.
So does every net connection on Earth, whether fiber, DSL, cable, or whatnot.
This one requires a small phased-array antenna.
The failure was due to within the overlay of the COPVs being compressed up to its flammability limits during the pressurization of the COPVs. Normally free LOX/GOX in the overlay would be squeezed out during pressurization, but the cold enabled some of it to form SOX and was thus retained. The solution is just changing the propellant and pressurant loading procedure.
Wow, thanks for discovering this interesting bit of trivia which nobody else has!
In case you didn't notice, satellites are getting smaller (for equivalent capabilities), launch costs cheaper, and demand higher. What exactly do expect?
Yes, that's GEO for you. Viasat's capabilities are nowhere near what are being discussed here.
2TJ is 556 MWh.
4425*386*1150000*9,81/1.000.000.000.000 is 0.2TJ anyway, if you're just looking at altitude (which is a terrible way to approach orbital vehicle energy analysis)
Cute, but in the real world, industries are often built entirely around long-term investment. A deep sea oil rig, for example, may not give its first drop of oil for over a decade after they sink vast sums of money into it.
Unless SpaceX plans to be out of business in a decade or so, they have incentive.
zeroto60times.com lists them at 2.3 sec. But still a touch faster than 2.4 sec. Then again, the Spyder costs nearly a million dollars...
So because you're assuming that it'll be more expensive than ISPs in the First World (and let's pretend that the first world is all 100% net connected, why don't we), and because only a quarter of the world's 7,5 billion people currently own a computer, that means that there's no way to get 90 million subscribers?
Compelling argument there.
Let's also pretend that there's no other markets for satellite data service, such as shipping, aviation, backbone data transmission, etc why don't we.
I'm sure all of the people looking at moving into the arena of satellite broadband are morons who didn't think to consult any people to do their financial analysis for them. They should have just had "ledow on Slashdot" do it for them without any numbers.
They've stated that they do plan to produce a new generation of Roadsters in the future. But obviously things like the Model 3 take top priority; I'd imagine even the rumored Tesla pickup truck will come first.
But do expect that down the line. With another 5-10 years of advancements, the performance should be unreal.
Pluto isn't the nearest KBO, although it's the nearest large one. FYI, it's currently estimated that we've only discovered about 1% of KBOs with diameters of 100km or greater. The further out you go, the easier it gets to hide things. In the "inner Oort cloud" (ill defined) you could hide entire ice giants.
NH will not go anywhere close to Eris; we're lucky that there's anything it's able to intercept at all. It'll be passing a small, undifferentiated KBO, so it should be more like Pluto's small moons than Pluto or Charon (or Eris). Eris, and the many other interesting large KBOs, will have to wait for a later date. IMHO I'd love to see Haumea - a body that's spinning so fast that its equilibrium shape is nearly twice as wide at the equator as it is at the poles. Its day length is only 3,9 hours. It has an unusually high rock concentration for a KBO, meaning it might be mostly comprised of the mantle of what it was before a large impact sent it spinning nearly into obliteration. Even weirder, the spectra we've been able to get it are indicative of a body that's being recently (continuously or just once?) resurfaced with fresh water ice... but its equilibrium temperature is only 50K, so what gives with that? There's also some implication that it may have cyanide compounds on its surface, which have been suggested in Titan research as a possible backbone for life at cryogenic temperatures.
There's a good launch window that opens in 2025. I hope we take it. There's a "backup" possibility in 2026. After that, there's no good windows until 2037 (if you want a Jupiter assist, that is)
You think a low latency broadband network available to the entire planet's 7,5 billion people is only going to be able to get 91 million subscribers?
Beyond this, I expect that a lot of these would actually be nearly "free" - I would not be in the least surprised if their plan is to pack these as secondary payloads in existing launches to take up the remaining payload capacity of the launch vehicle.
Also, spending a few billion years on average during operation is a very small amount compared to the amount spent globally on internet infrastructure.
SpaceX or not, the number of satellites in orbit is going to significantly increase. Today's satellites are far lighter and more capable than before, demand is higher than ever before, and launch prices are falling across the board. Also, it's critical to note that LEO satellites like this are generally much smaller and cheaper to launch than GEO satellites.