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PID: Synchronet 3.18a-Win32  May 31 2020 MSC 1925
TID: SBBSecho 3.11-Win32 r3.173 May 31 2020 MSC 1925
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-=> August Abolins wrote to Daniel <=-

 AA> Hello Daniel!

 AA> ** On Wednesday 10.06.20 - 06:15, Daniel wrote to All:

 D> Well Musk is well on his way to having the first reasonably priced and
 D> broadband/low latency satellite internet service available to the public.

 AA> What are the prices?  The initial claims are often overly ambitious.
 AA> There are surely to be excuses for prices to rise very quickly.

I don't know yet. The difference here, if you didn't know, is that the rockets
are being reused. The main booster detaches from the rocket and lands itself on
a barge in the ocean. The barge returns to port. They clean the rocket, inspect
it, and reuse it. Before spacex made these goals, any launch into space fell in
the hundreds-of-millions to accomplish. Now, with reusable rockets, this isn't
the case anymore. The cost of each launch is 10% of what it was a decade ago.
The 60 satellites he sent last week bring the number close to 500. They're
fully autonomous, they detect incoming debris for avoidance, and will deorbit
when they reach 'end of life.' They are using ion rockets to accomplish this. 

The concept of the technology is to provide inexpensive broadband internet to
the most remote reaches in the world. I can see why you'd be pessimistic, but
Musk's track record is pretty solid. I see no other company out there driving
innovation like this.

 D> Discuss?

 D> I'm rather excited about the possibilities.

 AA> I'm not too crazy about all that junk in space, and blocking the stars.

I wouldn't call them junk, but then I tend to agree with you. Spacex is the
first company to deorbit their satellites when they reach end-of-life. As such,
they won't be contributing to the existing cloud of 100,000+ relics floating
forever in orbit. Modern technology has become reliant on satellite technology
and for good reason.

Daniel Traechin
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