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.
The physics of it mean you basically have to be constantly launching new satellites to replace the 5 year old ones de orbiting.
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.
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.
Removed by mod