The Internet — everywhere

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I probably do not have to say it but the Internet is useful. 

Unfortunately, nearly 50% of our population do not have access to the Internet. In Africa, only 28% of population has access to the Internet. But building infrastructure for Africa would be expensive. Hundreds  of billions expensive.

Access to the Internet – International Telecommunications Union

Right now every place with the Internet access is connected with those long, complicated cable net under the oceans. But what you can do to bring quite cheap the Internet to places and people where essential infrastructure is too expensive? 

Traditional satellite technology isn’t enough. it has limited data capability and connections speed. It results in huge lag in data transfer and slow connection. It’s expensive solution and it’s not that great over all.

You may also send thousands of smaller satellites and provide the Internet form space to every, event abandoned places. It’s the only way to speed up data transfer in areas where cables can’t reach. But sending satellite to the orbit is expensive. To sent thousands of satellites you have to figure out how to do it without throwing away every rocket used for liftoff. SpaceX figured it out how to reuse rockets. SpaceX can send satellites for 90% less than other institutions thanks to that. Megaconstellation of 40 000 satellites – project Starlink is possible mainly because SpaceX has acmes to this amazing technology.

Why? – the context

Elon Musk dreamt about colonisation of other since he was a child. When he got money from the sale of PayPal — 165 mln USD — he decided to do two things. First one was to “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy” — mission of Tesla inc. — second one was to “make mankind interplanetary” — mission of SpaceX. He invested every penny he has received having those goals in mind. 

 

“You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great – and that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.”  

~ Elon Musk on SpaceX mission    

 

Space X — true purpose of Starlink

SpaceX has been created to bring humanity to Mars. It’s complicated task. As You may think — to achieve it’s goal SpaceX needs money. Huge pile of cash actually. Elon Musk’s masterplan how to get this huge pile of cash is Starlink. SpaceX’s list of achievements is impressive so it seems like they are the only candidate to make mankind interplanetary and by the way give the Internet access to every person in the World. (And in the meantime became the biggest company in the world in therms of revenue).

At the end I want to share the list of my favourite SpaceX achievements:

  1. The first privately funded rocket to reach orbit — Falcon 1 flight 4 on 28 September 2008 — (if this one went wrong, SpaceX or Tesla would be gone)
  2. The first private company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft — SpaceX Dragon on COTS Demo Flight 1 on 9 December 2010 
  3. The first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station  —Dragon C2+ on 25 May 2012.
  4. The first landing of an orbital rocket’s first stage on land — Falcon 9 flight 20 on 22 December 2015.
  5. The first landing of an orbital rocket’s first stage on an ocean platform — Falcon 9 flight 23 on 8 April 2016.
  6. The first private company to send an object into heliocentric orbit — Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster on Falcon Heavy test flight on 6 February 2018 (also the best advertisement ever)
  7. The first private company to send humans to the International Space Station — Crew Dragon Demo-2 on 31 May 2020
  8. First company cutting costs of sending anything to orbit 90%
  9. First self-sufficient space company ever
  10. One of the coolest companies ever 

 

Sources:

https://www.spacex.com

https://www.spacex.com/human-spaceflight/mars/

https://www.geekwire.com/2016/spacex-elon-musk-colonize-mars/

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spacex-passenger/spacex-signs-first-private-passenger-to-fly-around-the-moon-idUSKCN1LU04A

https://www.insidehook.com/daily_brief/science/spacex-starlink-commercial-satellite-network

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/07/130991/spacex-now-operates-the-worlds-biggest-commercial-satellite-network/

2 thoughts on “The Internet — everywhere

  1. Mabast says:

    Despite Money, Starlink is an absolute an innovation in communication. for years we couldn’t reach every place to make experiments but with Starlink in near future we will get more opportunity.

    Another great aspect in my opinion is a competition for the market, for instant Germany has the worst ISP, Telekom dominated the markets and sell low speed internet for more than half price of Starlink beta program.

    Thanks Jan, very interested 🙂

  2. Mroczyński Wojciech says:

    Very interesting post, Jan?

    I also watched the YouTube video and I must say that I’m a bit concerned about the possible collision of all these satellites. The cloud of debris is a worrying vision that could make it very difficult to access the space which could be the worst thing that could happen to SpaceX and their mission of space exloration in the future.

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