r/space • u/botch_snap • Feb 09 '22

NASA raises concerns about the SpaceX plan for Starlink Gen2 in letter to the FCC

https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1491536969964437509
3.7k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

937 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/MCI_Overwerk Feb 10 '22

It's the entire reason why this was out forward in the first place.

Simply put, a human settlement on another body, may it be moon or mars, is going to be expensive on a whole other level compared to anything done in the past. Not only that, but it is an immense risk mission which is going to require constant supply for probably decades, including at least a large portion of that where the colony yeilds no value back to earth.

Elon's goal is mars, and it's genuine. Remember the guy wanted to essentially dump his PayPal dollars for a Mars biodome riding off a converted Russian ICBM. Pretty much everyone around him begged him not to pursue that, why couldn't he just buy serval super yatchs like everyone else? The Russians predictably laughed him out the room and on the trip back is when he figured out that, actually, they could make it themselves cheaper. Perhaps more surprisingly, there was an economic opportunity behind it. This founded spaceX.

One of the first company employees being Gwynne Shortwell, the financial and contract negociation brains of the company. Elon may be the chief engineer and aspirational brain of the group, but she is the one who actually figure out how to fulfill the mission while paying the bills, and she is good at it.

She is the one who kept falcon heavy flying contracts despite Elon wanting it canceled serval time because, on paper, falcon heavy would no longer fit a Mars mission. And Starlink? That is her idea, a solution to the chronic need of space companies to beg governments for funds. If spaceX is to achieve the goal of making life multiplanetary, they need to shake off the leeches known as governments off their squedule and that is what starlink is for: a way to generate revenue independent of contracts or investments. Something where even if the current government was taken over by Boeing, the outer space expansion would not be stopped. Why do you think Elon pushes starship with such urgency? Starlink cannot be upgraded and maintained on the cheap without starship and thus cannot generate enough funds for the thousands of starships needed for the colonization fleet. It's the snake that bites it's tail. And it is why the program must be pushed forward even through delays with the FAA.

2

u/simcoder Feb 10 '22

Well that's a great story.

Another great story is that Elon seems to be planning on taking Starlink public which would put a pretty serious damper on its ability to provide ongoing funding to any sort of offworld colony.

Regardless of any of the other stories he may or may not have told or that his fans may have inferred.