Enough Musk Spam
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Exactly. The business isn't remotely sustainable. All that money being invested into new satellites will, by next year, need to be invested constantly to keep the network at the same size.
Starlink needs run as fast as it can, just to stay in the same place, and the investment money is finite when people see it's not going to grow.
What was the life expectancy of each satellite? I think I read something like 5 to 7 years. If we were talking about dozens of satellites I would say no problem, but thousands?
On https://satellitemap.space/ you can see the numbers pretty accurately under "status over time". The current launch cadence is steady since mid 2022, and the burn rate is climbing to match. It seems to have a 5 year delay, but it's possible the new satellites will last a little longer.
Which means that by mid 2027 earliest and mid 2029, the current "investment" in "growth" will have become the regular maintenance spending. And up to that point, maintenance costs will continue to climb to consume the entire investment budget.
Starlink is already making more money than it costs to expand and operate, you are wrong. This is sustainable (financially) and counter to your beliefs over the next 10 years I'd wager the starlink network will balloon to many times its current size, 20,000 plus satellites in orbit.
SpaceX is the most successful company/entity in history that does space launch, it doesn't cost them a whole lot of money to launch new batches of Satellites and that cost will continue to decrease as the Falcon 9 program continues to improve and as starship becomes operational over the next few years.
With how many government handouts though?
Honestly, there are no realistic, reliable figures either way. There are plenty of guesstimates, and they show a profit now, but that with a very significant investment in growth. And that investment comes in large part from external sources, which means that when the happy time ends and the satellites fail at the same rate as they're currently launches, they need to either make WAY more money, or rely on external funding.
Definitely, they're on track to stabilize at around 36.000 with the current launch cadence. That's where every new satellite is a replacement. But that doesn't count money, which is the problem, and will be more of a problem when expenses replace growth.
Eh, I wouldn't be too sure of that. Falcon 9 costs haven't gone down in years. Falcon Heavy is supposed to be cheaper per ton, yet somehow is almost never used for Starlink or anything else. Starship isn't even projected to be cheaper than Falcon 9 (I except in what are basically ads).
I won't debate more on the finances because, like you said, they're a private company and we can't know for sure. However, reliable public estimates show starlink is profitable already or will be very soon.
Starlink already about maxes out the fairing capacity of the Falcon Rockets, so allowing more weight doesn't do much besides increase cost. Same with other companies buying launch services from SpaceX. Usually they don't need the extra capacity or margins heavy offers, although I wish me got more launches, they are always a treat to watch.
Maybe not, but that wasn't my main point. They are already spending money on Starship and that isn't going to change. It's just soon they will actually be able to use that money they're spending to make more money by launching more starlinks. With the significantly larger payload capacity, they will also be able to launch way sats per launch and also more capable sats with higher bandwidth or more onboard propellants for a longer operational life
I expect Starship will be used to launch many batches of Starlink while the vehicle is still in testing and expected to fail on occasion, If you think about it in that capacity, the launches are free since they are already going to be doing test launches.
I do not like Elon musk
I literally canceled because of his fucking nazi salute. Not giving that pos any money
There's a bunch of technology problems that make it undesirable, like the light and projectile pollution in leo
I mean, ultimately, that's probably inevitable. We need to decide as a species whether we actually want to have a future in space in a big way. If you actually want to see a future where humanity spreads across the solar system, we're going to need a vast infrastructure in orbit. That's true no matter who is building that infrastructure. So...is it worth giving up that future just for the sake of ground-based astronomy? I would say no. Especially because the same technology and economies that lets you launch enough birds to ruin ground based astronomy also allows you to launch absurd numbers of space based astronomical telescopes.
That seems like a fair trade really. Again, this is just a limitation of the technology. Do you want to see a future where there actually are millions of human beings living and working off Earth? Then we're going to have to give up ground based astronomy. Making low-visibility satellites can help a bit, but it's a fundamentally intractable problem. And again, this is true regardless of who is building that big space infrastructure.
First, you don't need tens of thousands of internet satellite in LEO to have an ambitious space program. The current mega-constellations are just a way for billionaires to build a new monopoly, and control internet access. It has nothing to do with getting humanity in the stars or whatever. Second, when are all these space telescopes coming? Launch cost is a very small fraction of building a space telescope because they are fragile, very large and complex pieces of equipment and getting them on a rocket is hard. Third, we will never see millions of human in outer space in our lifetimes. Earth is our only chance, at least for the overwhelming majority of us. So let's protect it from sociopath billionaires.
No see other posts
I just generally doubt anything Musk does because of his track record. However, is there a particular reason why Starlink is inherently not viable? Could a competent person do it or it is fundamentally flawed? To put it another way is it cybertruck bad (yes people want electric cars but not a barely driveable dumpster held together with glue) or hyperloop bad (physics said no)?
The physics of it mean you basically have to be constantly launching new satellites to replace the 5 year old ones de orbiting. Further, it will also be disadvantaged to anything closer with ability to choose a cable medium. All this adds up to the most expensive infrastructure that exclusively targets very low population density areas and/or areas too poor to afford good Internet. The people that could afford to sustain this can afford to move somewhere with a bit more infrastructure or at least within reach of a terrestrial tower and have an even better result.
I mean...so what if the birds only last 5-7 years? My only real concern is that they're not made with environmentally damaging materials. Let them fall over the South Pacific and be atomized on the way down. It really depends on how cheaply you can launch them. All infrastructure has a finite life span. 5-7 years is lower than most terrestrial infrastructure, but this is all a function of launch costs. If those can be made cheap enough, the concept is perfectly viable.
It is a viable business product, latest estimates are Starlink will bring in a revenue of 12 billion in 2025 with about 2 billion being profit. Of course it's not a public company so we don't get official numbers, but you're flat out wrong.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/starlink-profit-growing-rapidly-as-it-faces-a-moment-of-promise-and-peril/
When it's all finished, and operating, that's when the next Democratic government should take it from him. One person, especially one demonstrated to be mentally unstable, should not control the world's Internet.
You keep showing how you don't know anything about this, there are no subsidies on these items. Starlink is owned by SpaceX, so it is essentially free to launch besides the fuel it costs to launch. They are going to spend the money on operations, no matter what. If you want to call that a subsidy fine, but it's a subsidy that's never going away.
Secondly, prices have not gone up for the most popular plan that normal folks have. Prices were only raised for customers that do not have a fixed location, such as people who use their dish on a boat or RV.
Third, It's funny how confident you are when the fact is that this is such a good business model that other companies are desperately trying to fill the space as competitors.
Amazon's Kupier just starter launching their network, and have significantly greater launch costs than starlink because they do not own the launch vehicles, still Kupier will print money for Amazon in 10 years. You are talking out of your ass.
I see you responding to many of my comments, it shows you are unreasonably upset about something that shouldn't upset you. Yes Elon musk is a horrible person that will hopefully die soon, doesn't change the fact SpaceX and Starlink are both incredibly successful and will continue to be in the future.
Also last I read the cost to manufacture a terminal was now lower than the cost they sell them at, and that will continue to drop as production scales up (because there is significant demand despite what you may believe)