Oh hey cool, an op-ed I wrote is now published!
TLDR: we need *fewer* satellites, each with *longer* operational lifetimes. Engineers: that's your challenge.
Thousands of satellites with incredibly short lifetimes are being sent up into low Earth orbit. When they fall back down they're fireballs of pollution — and what doesn't burn up hits the ground.
@sundogplanets Just spitballing here.
The satellites would be larger and more expensive. They'd still want thousands of them to create a worldwide network. Then we'd have thousands of larger satellites occasionally firing thrusters while crisscrossing the sky and interfering with ground-based observations.
Not sure.
A solution would be to stop doing this and to pay for ground-based relays. We can do that, too. We don't have a billionaire strung out on drugs funding it.
The places where ground-based coverage is impossible could be serviced by drones. They don't stay in the air as long, so there would be expense there, too, but no costly launch vehicle, so it's a short-term win, I think. But Elon can't monetize it all for himself, so I figure it won't happen.
@sundogplanets @steter yep, you can't beat the speed of light. Lower orbits give lower latency, higher orbits give higher latency. People demanding shorter delays will keep paying for those lower orbits.
Using balloon-lofted relays seemed like a pretty good idea, but you can't rely on them in warzones. And they probably can't stay aloft for decades at a time either. There's really not a lot of great alternatives, if you want wide coverage and low latency.
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