SpaceX/Starlink market discussion

[nativewolf]

Sorry this is seriously OT. I will not post more on space mining after this post. It's related to TSLA because SpaceX's market cap can affect Elon's wealth by a lot.

Use metal XYZ as example, it's at $900 per oz on earth. At planning phase, don't tell people you are going to mine XYZ in space. In the mean time buy Puts of all the mining stocks that has XYZ as their main product, also buy Puts on the metal itself. Then you go to space bring back 1000 tons of XYZ. At this point, you should get huge profit from those financial positions. If XYZ refuse to go down, you can sell the 1000 tons of XYZ, which would worth $31.7B in 10 Starship loads. Each starship mission will cost less than $20m.

Also SpaceX should consider to build a space city for tourism. They have achieved the holy grail in space technology. They are on track to reduce launch cost to 0.1% compared to traditional space industry. They will be able to rapidly send 10,000 ton of material into space at very low cost. I hope they don't waste the opportunity.

Seriously...go read his blog: caseyhandmer.wordpress.com. JPL guy. There is nothing out there worth mining that you can't mine here for less. There is almost nothing worth $900/oz. The markets are very very shallow for that sort of stuff. The cost of going to an astroid belt locating the metal, extracting it, bringing it back at 150tons/trip exceed the value of anything you can mine. So...it makes no sense. Mine it on earth if you need it. None of which gets you to Mars.

The trick here is starlink (according to casey), that is the trillion dollar market that exceeds the value fo the mining industry. That's the goal...starlink fund starship which is how you go to mars. It's that simple and brilliant. Mining isn't

 

[wipster]

Musk has been asked before if Tesla cars would be able to connect to Starlink. He chuckled and said no because the antenna is a big ugle pizza box.

Frankly I would be ok with a big ugly pizza box of an antenna on my trunk if it meant that I would get unlimited internet. But it appears that this is not an out of the box option for Tesla cars.

Only for those cars leased by Domino's...

 

[Pezpunk]

Enough to shade the planet and cool it a bit?

sure, each satellite will provide about as much shade as a golf ball hovering over Arizona.

 

[Krugerrand]

On the launch live coverage, it was mentioned N.America and Canada by 2020 .

Last I knew Canada was part of North America. But perhaps Canada no longer wants to be part of North America.

 

[ktrivedi70]

That’s my productivity gone for a while...View attachment 475522

That s#^t never gets old. I have this mental image where every one of these launches is like a Falcon 9 colonoscopy to every short selling, FUDing, lying, toilet toothbrushing, TSLAQ scumbag out there.

Does that make me a bad person?

 

[HG Wells]

That s#^t never gets old. I have this mental image where every one of these launches is like a Falcon 9 colonoscopy to every short selling, FUDing, lying, toilet toothbrushing, TSLAQ scumbag out there.

Does that make me a bad person.

No it doesn't make you a bad person, but might be medical malpractice.

 

[ggr]

It sounds mad, but it looks like SpaceX is planning to launch as many satellites in 2020 as the total number of operational satellites currently in orbit.

This should be enough for full global coverage. However, they may prioritise the initial orbits to provide increased bandwidth to the US rather than global coverage.

They don't (can't) optimize orbits for particular countries. The most they can do is target coverage in particular latitudes. It's ground infrastructure that determines which countries are served. (This is OT and will soon be moved, I predict...)

 

[Off Shore]

They don't (can't) optimize orbits for particular countries. The most they can do is target coverage in particular latitudes. It's ground infrastructure regulatory requirements that determines which countries are served. (This is OT and will soon be moved, I predict...)

No ground infrastructure needed, just connect the pizza box to the local WISP or cellular provider. Both are common planet-wide.

 

[ggr]

No ground infrastructure needed, just connect the pizza box to the local WISP or cellular provider. Both are common planet-wide.

Lots of regulatory hurdles before you're allowed to do that...

 

[Artful Dodger]

The second batch of v1.0 Starlink satellites probably won't reach operational orbits by November 21 - their ion thrusters are very efficient but low thrust - it takes months to raise their altitude.

Without them there's only 2-3 minutes of visibility of individual satellites - no continuous uplink.

Los Angles is too far south. The orbital inclination of this launch will provide initial coverage to the Northern US and Southern Canada (ie: 49° N, +/- Degrees).

Obvious screwup; Cybertruck reveal should be held at the SpaceX sat fab site in Seattle (47.6° N latitude)...

Or mabbe Cybertruck just don't have Starlink? /s

Cheers!

 

[Artful Dodger]

That's not the same thing as productivity.

Question. Can we STILL be off-topic if replies to the off-topic gets punted from the main thread?

 

[ReflexFunds]

Interesting fact given they've barely started.
SpaceX is now already the second largest operator of satellites in orbit ahead of Iridium, the Air Force and NASA.

 

[AudubonB]

No it doesn't make you a bad person, but might be medical malpractice.

What is the opposite of "malpractice", asks TMC's resident word maven.

As in "What's malpractice toward one short seller is {_______} to the rest of the world".

 

[mblakele]

What is the opposite of "malpractice", asks TMC's resident word maven.

As in "What's malpractice toward one short seller is {_______} to the rest of the world".

Therapy?

Healing?

Medicine?

 

[AudubonB]

¿A quantum of solace?

 

[mspohr]

Elon Musk’s 42,000 StarLink Satellites Could Just Save The World

As such, radios were contraband and confiscated. One of the activities the allies undertook to support resistance fighters was shipping in radios for communication and outside news.

Today, radios aren’t at risk of being confiscated.

But the internet is.

The Great Firewall of China is the most well-known example, but Iran, Syria and Vietnam also control significant portions of the internet for their populations. Russia just completed technology to wall off its internal networks, servers and internet users from the wider internet. And India, in its attempt to control unrest following its anti-Muslim citizenship law, has employed a particularly heavy-handed approach: simply blocking the internet entirely.

Elon Musk recently revealed details about how people will access StarLink. It will be incredibly simple, and it will enable access to the relatively free global internet from anywhere on the planet.

 

[EVCollies]

Elon Musk’s 42,000 StarLink Satellites Could Just Save The World

As such, radios were contraband and confiscated. One of the activities the allies undertook to support resistance fighters was shipping in radios for communication and outside news.

Today, radios aren’t at risk of being confiscated.

But the internet is.

The Great Firewall of China is the most well-known example, but Iran, Syria and Vietnam also control significant portions of the internet for their populations. Russia just completed technology to wall off its internal networks, servers and internet users from the wider internet. And India, in its attempt to control unrest following its anti-Muslim citizenship law, has employed a particularly heavy-handed approach: simply blocking the internet entirely.

Elon Musk recently revealed details about how people will access StarLink. It will be incredibly simple, and it will enable access to the relatively free global internet from anywhere on the planet.

I've wondered how Elon will weather the pressure of China to wall off the internet service provided to their citizens?

Apple, Google Pull Hong Kong Protest Apps After China Uproar

 

[mspohr]

FCC has “serious doubts” that SpaceX can deliver latencies under 100ms

SpaceX has argued that the FCC's skepticism is unwarranted, telling agency officials that its Starlink broadband system "easily clears the commission's 100ms threshold for low-latency services, even including its 'processing time' during unrealistic worst-case scenarios." While altitude isn't the only factor in latency, SpaceX's altitudes, ranging from 540km to 570km, are a fraction of the 35,000km used with geostationary satellites. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said the company is aiming for latency below 20ms, similar to cable Internet and low enough to support competitive online gaming. SpaceX will have a chance to make its case in detail to the FCC during the application stage.

 

[Prunesquallor]

Somewhat OT:

While I have a Starlink reservation, it seems that Verizon 5G is deploying ~300 Mbps wireless home internet in my area soon. Unlimited data would run $50/month. That's less than half of what I pay the Comcast/Xfinity monopoly now, and half the Starlink quote.

I know urban areas are not Starlink's main market, but this could be a potential competitor.

 

[CorneliusXX]

Somewhat OT:

While I have a Starlink reservation, it seems that Verizon 5G is deploying ~300 Mbps wireless home internet in my area soon. Unlimited data would run $50/month. That's less than half of what I pay the Comcast/Xfinity monopoly now, and half the Starlink quote.

I know urban areas are not Starlink's main market, but this could be a potential competitor.

I think most lazy internet monopolies will start trying to provide better service to regional areas from now on. Starlink's competition is such a powerful forcing function as it competes right for the customers that have the worst marginal cost for existing telecoms companies (low density that requires high capex to expand).

Also, this is only v1 of starlink. What will happen 5-10 years down the road when satellite throughput continues to improve and shrink the areas where it can't compete on speed. It'll never compete with high density cities, but the outer suburbs might eventually be in play. That is a giant customer base for starlink.