Elon Musk's Dream To Beam Internet From Space Gets Closer To Being A Reality
Sometimes I wonder if Elon Musk is an alien being sent to Earth for the sole purpose of progressing us human beings into a more advanced civilisation or that he is secretly an AI-robot, much smarter than us, that has taken a liking to our race and wants to help.
One after the other, it seems like he has vowed to revolutionise the various highly important industries into powerhouses fueling the growth, sustainability and advancement of us humans.
He is revolutionising transport (by helping make electric autonomous cars mainstream and with the evangelism of the Hyperloop Concept), space travel (with reusable rockets, plans for Mars colonisation, rockets that can go anywhere in the solar system, all with a fraction of costs), energy use (with push into making solar energy mainstream and affordable) and a lot more.
It seems like there is one more area that he will completely transform and that is, internet. Yes, the technology that changed human race forever and if everything goes according to his plans, it will be something that each one of us will enjoy the fruits of.
Starlink - Beaming Internet From Space
The goal of this project is to provide affordable, high speed internet to everyone on the planet, wirelessly beamed through a network of around 12000 satellites, orbiting the planet. Yeah, I know, that sounds so futuristically awesome!
Yes, the concept is not new and some companies have been doing it for a while but what is new is the scale. Starlink will become a global satellite internet network providing much faster speeds than anyone else. Also, since SpaceX is literally a space company, they will have a competitive advantage with their ability to launch rockets regularly to update their fleet.
Last year, SpaceX launched two demo satellites which have been tested successfully. And beginning in May of this year, SpaceX plans to start launching the first large batch of Starlink satellites, upto 2200 satellites over a period of 5 years. This effectively puts the company's plan into production.
Elon has stated that Starlink could be operational by 2020-21 and could the constellation could be completed in about 12-15 years, with major upgrades every 5 years. Long term, Elon plans to develop a version of this technology for use on Mars. This would serve the communication needs between the Earth and Mars and also within Mars as well! Now, that's forward thinking.
Didn’t Facebook try to do something like this using drones, and Google with balloons? What happened to those projects.
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Yeah, Facebook tried it with electric planes and google with their balloons. I guess, they are still working on it figuring out how to scale it. In my opinion, the best way to do this is with satellites.
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I wonder if this service will be accessible to people in places like China or NK
Elon had said that if a country (or state or city) bans this service, then SpaceX wouldn't be able to provide it to the people there.
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