Majority of people my generation are able to experience what once was very common only few times in their lifetime due to light pollution.
It feels dreadful to realize that even that experience will be taken away forever.
So I wouldn’t be too worried about this, the economics of this won’t pan out.
With very low orbital launch costs, it's trivially true that space would become cheaper. Solar panels have no atmosphere/night/seasons and are always pointed at the Sun, no cover glass for hail, no 24h battery either. Radiators are 1/10th the area of PV which is very doable.
The question is, where exactly is the tipping point between those two extremes, and will Starship reach that? Opinions on this naturally bifurcate depending on one's feelings about Elon Musk.
I wouldn't be too worried because SpaceX engineers put a great deal of effort into reflection mitigation, including developing a space-rated mirror able to have an RF signal fire transparently through it.[1] The strategy is to bounce all the sunlight away from Earth, which makes satellites darker than even (hypothetically) covering a satellite in Vantablack.
Neither space or typical deaert.
It's still problematic that most deserts dont haveaccess to groundwater, so bootstraping and maintenance are an issue.
Still easier than radiating it into space.
He can also 'blow' his money on helping people by giving them opportunities:
> In 1993, Harris Rosen “adopted” a run-down, drug-infested section of Orlando called Tangelo Park. Rosen offers free preschool for all children prior to kindergarten and a free college education for high school graduates. Today, the high school graduation rate for Tangelo Park is 100 percent. And no, that is not a typo.
* https://www.ucf.edu/pegasus/harris-rosen/
* https://www.today.com/news/millionaire-uses-fortune-help-kid...
How about running DOGE and gutting USAID?
Or helping Trump get elected? Was that a worthy endeavour? How's that working out for the average American (or anyone else on the planet) with four dollar gas and five dollar diesel?
As is volunteering to help get rid of waste and fraud, particularly when his time could be spent on more lucrative pursuits.
There are more things to life than the price of gas.
Are we including cutting off Ukraine’s coverage at keys times? Or Russian usage?
No need to discuss the DOGE bit, no one believes that trillion dollar saving was real.
‘Musk the Noble’ sure has a smell to it.
The only 'key times' were Ukrainian military usage of Starlink inside Russia. Ukraine was given Starlink to use to defend Ukraine, not attack Russia.
> Or Russian usage?
Which was explicitly identified and cut off.
> No need to discuss the DOGE bit
Exactly. Nobody can defend fraud and abuse. Since your main issue is that the savings weren't as big as expected it sounds like you know that.
Fighting without hurting the enemy? What’s the point? The approach of the Trump administration is just letting Ukraine bleed out.
Russian starlink usage has only just been cut off, how many years did that take?
> Nobody can defend fraud and abuse
This administration is anti-fraud and anti-abuse?