March 25, 2024 • 39 mins
Picture this: You're kicking back, watching one of those jaw-dropping SpaceX rockets launch into the cosmos, carrying astronauts or top-secret cargo to the space station. Yeah, that's the same SpaceX we're talking about today on Things Have Changed. They've been lighting up the skies and our feeds with a whopping 96 launches last year alone. Impressive, right?
But here's the kicker: even with all that rocket-fueled spectacle, we're left wondering, does all this bankroll Elon Musk's dream of an inter-planetary human?
Enter the game-changer: Starlink. Imagine thousands of tiny satellites zooming above us, bringing high-speed internet across the globe. In just a blink (A few years), Starlink's morphed into a giant slice of SpaceX's revenue, raking in nearly 40%.
And let's face it, in a world where the internet's as essential as the air we breathe, Starlink's looking to shake things up big time. So join us on Things Have Changed Podcast as we dive deep into the Starlink saga. It's more than just a tech tale; it's about connecting corners of the Earth that have been left in the digital shadows.
Here are some helpful links:
- How Much Money Will Starlink Make?
- How Elon Musk’s Starlink Is Bringing In Billions For SpaceX
- More than 14M households across the US don’t have internet
- Design Flaw - 100 Satellites
- Starlink Satellites
- Starlinks Rapid Growth
- Broadband Gaps Dirty Secret - redlining in Digital Form
- Starlink Subsidy Denial
- Military Importance
This podcast empowers high-earning women to make informed financial decisions and thrive.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
There's recent data from the FCCthat finds that more than 8
(00:03):
million American homes andbusinesses nationwide do not
have access to high speedbroadband internet service.
Shikher Bhandary (00:09):
One of the hottest private companies in the
world right now, SpaceX, isknown for launching these
humongous rockets.
The company partners with NASAand other government agencies
for incredibly complex missionslike transporting astronauts and
(00:30):
valuable cargo.
to the International SpaceStation.
SpaceX more or less dominatesthe global space industry with
96 successful launches in 2023alone.
(00:52):
But is that enough to fund thecompany's ambitious goals of
driving humanity to become aninterplanetary species?
So today on Things Have Changed,we explore an ambitious project
that has rapidly become close to40 percent of SpaceX's revenues
in the span of a few years.
(01:14):
Enter Starlink, SpaceX's answerto providing global high speed
internet coverage using anetwork of thousands of
satellites buzzing around theplanet in a region known as Low
Earth Orbit.
Starlink has the potential totruly disrupt one of the largest
industries and most significantmoney printers we see in
(01:36):
business today, the internet.
So tune in.
Jed Tabernero (02:21):
Yosemite is one of the most beautiful places on
the planet, man.
So my parents live quite nearand every time we have a guest
over it's like one of our thingsto take them to.
Hey, let me take you to one ofthe most beautiful places on the
planet.
I have a ton of friends who youknow, because I'm from the Bay
Area and Yosemite is relativelyclose.
I have a ton of friends who'sthat's their go to for a weekend
(02:43):
hiking trip is let's go toYosemite.
Let's go hike some of these,most beautiful trails.
And I actually have friendswho've, decided to settle there.
They actually bought housesreally nearby to Yosemite.
It's a relatively ruralenvironment, and there's a ton
of people moving in still, evenif it's a rural environment.
And one of the things I noticedwas I stayed there for a couple
(03:06):
of weekends in my friend'splaces, right?
One of the things I noticed thatwas annoying for us city people,
is that the internet reallysucked out there.
It's tough.
It's tough to get infrastructureout there to build internet.
So it's understandable.
Many folks have maybe been tobig bear mountain.
It's the same scenario, not toomuch internet, ton of folks who
(03:27):
come in.
And sometimes you just reallyhave to rely on, really slow
solutions that have beenprovided all throughout these
years.
My friend recently got himself.
Starlink membership, asubscription to Starlink.
Shikher Bhandary (03:43):
Dang.
Jed Tabernero (03:44):
It just changes the way you look at being able
to live there, because it usedto be a weekend thing, right?
Like I mentioned earlier, that'slike his weekend home.
He still lives in San Francisco,but all of a sudden now he can
see himself working from hishouse near Yosemite.
And it's an insane type oftransition because.
(04:06):
That type of access was so quickto set up, man.
It was super quick to just geton, buy the equipment needed,
sign up to the subscription andjust get onto the product.
So
Shikher Bhandary (04:17):
It's on a global scale, right?
This specific application fromSpaceX.
Traditional internet companiesare really looking for servicing
a lot of customers.
They have to justify the costsof actually laying down the
line, right?
(04:37):
Like fiber costs a ton becauseit's just too capex heavy.
It's too expensive for them toactually put up a tower, put up
the fiber and then be unsure ofwhat returns they're going to
get.
They have to get guaranteedreturn on investment and some to
justify their decision toactually service a community.
(05:00):
in these far off places.
So this is where that solution,the solution that we were about
to talk about comes super handy.
And it's not only being used forthis purpose, but also like
folks where, the government hascut access to the internet or
natural disasters.
(05:21):
Suddenly you can just log intothe, to a wifi in the sky and
call for help.
Jed Tabernero (05:26):
There's a massive population that don't have,
don't enjoy the luxuries that wehave to the internet.
So with the advent of suchthings like Starlink, we have to
think like, why did we gotowards the Starlink solution?
Versus everything else.
We mentioned fiber is just waytoo expensive.
Setting up cell towers are alsoa capex heavy activity.
(05:47):
Isn't launching satellitesreally expensive too.
And I think this is theinteresting piece, right?
Is the interesting piece.
Like we think, okay, launch isheavy.
All of these things are quiteexpensive pursuits.
But income SpaceX, that is theBoeing for the aviation industry
(06:07):
where they've now made it socheap to launch up in low earth
orbit.
And so all of a sudden theseideas with providing internet in
a way that, by the way, is notsuper novel becomes just more
cost effective, right?
Why do I say not super novel?
It's just because we've hadsatellites that provide
(06:27):
internet, right?
And some of you who who arelistening to the show, who are
in like rural areas, your firstinternet likely was coming from
a geo stationary satellite,right?
And.
That just means it's a lotfarther out, a lot slower, a lot
higher latency, but thesesatellites were already existed.
(06:47):
So it's not like a novel ideathat we're putting satellites up
in the air for internet, but itjust became so cost effective
that it's obvious.
All of a sudden it's obvious toprovide internet in this matter.
Shikher Bhandary (06:57):
mean, Jed is super animated because he
obviously works in this space.
But that's all confidential.
So we're not going to talk awhole lot about his work, but
isn't it really expensive to putup these satellites up in space?
Yes, it is.
But this company anyway, issending rockets into space.
So they have figured out a waywhere, and they could do both.
(07:19):
This is the power of verticallyintegrating, right?
A rocket company that owns therockets and transports
astronauts and cargo to theInternational Space Station is
now hang on.
We can now put up satellitesourselves.
And so what they have done isthey have built this network of
(07:40):
how many, like thousands ofsatellites in the lower orbit of
Mars.
The earth that now works as anetwork where they can now beam
the internet with very lowlatency to you.
Jed Tabernero (07:56):
Exactly.
And I think we should clarifyfor the folks on the call who
haven't heard of low earthorbit, that's, it's pretty low.
And for some of you may haveseen the constellation coming by
your house.
One of these days, right?
If you don't have too much lightpollution, a lot of people, I've
seen it on Tiktok, at least abunch of folks will see Oh,
those are lines of satellites.
(08:16):
People think, damn, those arealiens.
But they're not, they'restarling satellites.
It's very interesting the waythat it works because this low
earth orbit area that we've beentalking about, me and Shaker,
the difference between that andour outdated geo stationary
satellites, is that it's a lotcloser.
That's why it's low earth orbitversus geostationary, right?
What does that mean in terms ofscale, geostationary satellites,
(08:41):
which are the ones that we'vehad for decades, GPS uses it in
all sorts of different kinds ofsatellites, right?
They're up there about 33, 000kilometers away from earth,
right?
30, 000 kilometers away.
So that's the coverage is prettybig, but it's pretty far from
low earth orbit satellites.
(09:01):
I think it's only about what,300 miles, 500 kilometers or
something like that from Earth.
Okay, so that's a factor, a hugefactor closer to the Earth than
these geostationary satellites.
A couple of advantages come withbeing a lot closer.
When you're beaming data betweenground gateways, which are often
(09:22):
connected to data centers or theterminals, the ones that you see
when you actually buy Starlinkthat communicates with the
satellites it's a lot easierbecause it's closer.
Of course, the disadvantage isthat you'd have to have a lot
more to cover.
All of the earth, right?
Cause geostationary so far thatit covers a ton of the earth.
And while you're getting closer,you're only covering a portion
(09:44):
of the earth at a time.
That's why they got to put outso many.
Shikher Bhandary (09:47):
It's like a flashlight, right?
The further you move away.
from a torch, right?
You cover more space, but thestrength weakens and it's not as
focused as if you come closer.
So think of that concept, butlike satellite in space.
So SpaceX, I was like, okay,let's just flood.
Low earth orbit with satellites.
(10:09):
And they have what over 5, 000satellites
Jed Tabernero (10:11):
Yes.
Yeah.
And dude, they're not stoppingthere, man.
They're not stopping.
I think 2027, they're going tohave 42 K satellites up in low
earth orbit.
And that's just one company,dude.
That's just one company.
We haven't talked about therest.
Wink that are going to havemassive networks out in low
earth orbit as well.
So we see now that it works,right?
(10:31):
Like we were talking earlierabout how many customers
Starling casters, 2 millionpeople using this service.
At least 2 million people.
So
Shikher Bhandary (10:41):
over the past three years, over the past three
years, it's gone from, we werejust looking at some numbers.
They even though SpaceX is aprivate company, they do.
release some numbers, which kindof gives the public a feel as to
where they are headed as acompany, right?
Because this is a future publiccompany, hopefully, right?
(11:04):
And they grew their revenuesfrom 200 million In 2021, just
from Starlink to 1.
4 billion.
Now that's seven X.
So in, in the span of two, threeyears, they have grown their
revenue seven times, becausethat's the demand, not just from
(11:25):
the consumer point of view, butalso like enterprises, but also
government, right?
So we'll get to that later, butit's just, they found this niche
where now they are now availableon all seven continents.
In over 60 countries, that'smind boggling the ramp, over the
(11:47):
past four years, we are talkingnot just of software is, you can
do this a lot easier.
You can just publish it intointo the app store and it's
automatically.
Allowed or spread in thedifferent countries, right?
Based on regulation and stuff.
This, we're talking abouthardware.
So for them to be able to getthe satellites, satellites out
(12:10):
in space, and then be able tostrike these deals with
different governments is justmind blowing execution.
Jed Tabernero (12:19):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's paved the way for othercompanies to start thinking
about what are the otheralternatives to getting
internet.
And yeah, like you said, UI issuper easy.
One thing that we haven't evenmentioned dude is latency.
The closer that it is, it's alsoprovides better better internet
service in general.
And the fact that you havethousands up there, especially
(12:40):
right now with Starlink'sconstellation, the fact that you
have thousands out there, thesecustomer terminals that you have
at home, they connect tospecific satellites.
And they find satellites inclose proximity to be able to
beam that data up and down.
The more satellites you have,the better connectivity you'll
have in a specific region aswell.
And so that also lends to likelower latency.
(13:03):
Which is something it'smentioned a lot with with
satellite internet, because alot of people, when they think
about satellite internet, it'slike, Oh, that's slow as hell.
Like people already have prepreconceived notions about how
satellite internet is Starlinkchange that, starlink changed
that, that kind of view.
And that kind of lends to just abetter overall customer
(13:25):
experience with Starlink.
And now there's a completely newspace focusing on ISPs that
actually provide.
Internet in low earth orbit.
So impressive stuff, whatthey've done.
Shikher Bhandary (13:37):
Them being vertically integrated is so
crucial for their successbecause now they are independent
and they are able to operate ontheir own.
Jed Tabernero (13:47):
You mentioned controlling the economies of
scale on this kind of verticalintegration that they have.
The most expensive the mostexpensive thing about
satellites.
If you were to look at, in acosting world where what's the
actual cost that you spent on aspecific satellite, almost
always a majority of that costis attributable to the launch
(14:11):
cost.
Of a satellite, of course, ifyou're not Starlink who has
SpaceX who launches theirsatellites, right?
They charge.
Okay, this is just an estimatethat has come from our research.
Let's say a Falcon nine launchright with a couple of
satellites will cost theminternally.
(14:33):
About 15 mil.
Okay.
Just think about that.
15 mil to launch satellites thatcost them internally.
So what do you pay for therocket, all the stuff that's not
reusable, all the things that gointo a launch.
Would they charge customers forthat same launch?
Is about 50 mil.
Okay.
(14:53):
So you can think if you had, ifyou're, if you don't have your
own launch service, you'repaying effectively, most of your
satellite costs, the actualasset that becomes a satellite
when it gets into space, a tonof that more than 50 percent of
that will be launch costs.
Just thinking about the verticalintegration here, the fact that
they also have SpaceX, the factthat they build their own ground
(15:17):
gateways.
Shikher Bhandary (15:18):
Incredible.
Jed Tabernero (15:19):
Makes it so much easier for them to optimize in
this regard, right?
Because they can find ways to,okay, what do we have to do to
make launch cheaper?
Let's put more capacity on therockets, right?
Let's make it so that it'seasily integrable.
With this rocket, anything thatyou're building as far as
satellites, you're also makingthe satellite so you can make
(15:41):
the satellites more efficient.
You can make the satellitescollect more sun so that it has
more energy.
You can think of really coolstuff.
One cool thing that the SpaceXdid for their satellites, right?
With the advent of AI is thatthing up in the air, when you
see those lights that arefollowing each other, they'll
look like aliens, right?
It's because they move in aconstellation.
So they communicate with eachother.
(16:02):
They know what's going on.
They're not going to hit eachother.
So there's going to be thousandsof satellites up there that,
that are not going to hit eachother if they're coming from the
same the same company.
Cause they're communicating,they're using lasers to do that,
to get out of way forcollisions.
They're using, A gas calledKrypton that's on their
satellites that kind of inchthem somewhere, if you, if they
(16:22):
see something that's about todisrupt their constellation,
they could save their entireconstellation by just
recognizing that and thenpushing a little bit to the left
with this Krypton gas, which is,That's amazing, by the way,
which a lot of companies havefollowed that path as well.
If they're going to lower orbitis to use kind of these Krypton
thrusters.
I didn't know there was a gascalled Krypton before I worked
(16:43):
in this space.
But it's really interestingstuff what they've done, right?
That all comes from verticalintegration, because now when
you say optimize, you can lookat other parts of your end to
end process of getting asatellite up in the space and
then optimizing for the overallcost reduction, right?
Which SpaceX is.
devilishly good at dude.
Devilishly good at those guys.
(17:04):
But yeah, again, like we'retalking today, which is what?
March 17, a couple of days afterstarship launch.
You know what they did withStarship launch that was so
interesting.
They increased the capacity oftheir biggest rocket 4X for
satellites.
Shikher Bhandary (17:23):
Oh, wow.
Jed Tabernero (17:24):
That's 4X.
Which is, this is, remember whenI said it was the most expensive
piece was launch.
Now that you have more capacity,yes, it's a little more
expensive, but they couldoptimize for that too.
Now that there's 4X satellitesavailable there on the typical,
maybe Falcon 9 it becomes somuch more attractive to put more
stuff.
They all of a sudden have morecapacity.
What does that mean?
(17:45):
They can have a rocket wherethey have their own satellites,
Starlink satellites, and thenthey can also have other
people's satellites, OneWebsatellites, Kuiper satellites
that they can put onto therocket so that they can charge a
margin that makes their launchcost much lesser.
I like that you brought up theVertica integration piece
(18:06):
because That is what will makethis scale.
You know what I mean?
So really cool stuff, whatthey've done, honestly,
Shikher Bhandary (18:12):
Yeah.
And one thing, like I was justthinking through that and so
SpaceX is transporting cargo andastronauts into space, right?
Space station future lunarestablishments and stuff.
That's their goal.
That's their mission vision,right?
It's really ambitious, butcoming down to the ground and
(18:35):
maybe out to the seas They arenow striking these really smart
deals, and they are going afterthese big logistics heavy
industries that need access todata and the internet at all
times.
What is one of that?
Shipping.
80 percent of all goods that wetransport across the world is
(18:58):
shipping.
So what SpaceX and the Starlinkteam have done is they have now
signed up so many.
Cargo ships and like shippingcompanies to have, the SpaceX
terminals on the cargo ships.
And now, so those cargo shipsnow have access to fast
(19:19):
internet, which probably unlocksa lot of productivity there,
right?
Because in our conversationsabout the shipping industry,
everything is still very manual.
Jed Tabernero (19:28):
dude, that's interesting.
Cause in our conversations withMartin Verhagen, at least
talking about kind of thelogistics industry and shipping,
the interesting thing was that.
They don't know how long orwhere a vehicle is at all times,
all the time, right?
They've created technologies forthat.
And there were some startups whocame up with okay, we can track
(19:49):
the ship to where it's actuallyat.
But a lot of the times it's anestimate, right?
A lot of the times it's anestimate.
All of a sudden you give themfull internet.
Connectivity, they might be ableto have better GPS frequencies
that could do coordinates.
So that's an interesting pieceas well.
And I don't know how manypeople, in the Navy dude, but
these guys, they got to stay inthese ships for six months to a
(20:11):
year.
Which is insane.
That's like a six month job.
You're in the ocean.
A lot of times you won't haveaccess to everything.
You got to bring all your moviesand stuff that you got to watch
for these six months wheneveryou're bored.
But now all of a sudden there'sa potential for them to have
internet on board.
That's huge.
Shikher Bhandary (20:27):
and they are partnering with all these
airline manufacturers to have aSpaceX terminal so that they can
beam internet to all thepassengers in the flight at a
fraction of what it used tocost.
They are expanding a ton and nowthey are coming to direct to
sell teamed up to a T Mobile togo straight to consumer, right?
(20:51):
So your sell LTE would be withSpaceX maybe in the future.
Jed Tabernero (20:57):
So this partnership, you mentioned it,
this partnership with T Mobile,you would think because these
companies are kind ofcompetitors, into the providing
internet space that they wouldwork with each other because
it's tough, but the truthactually is these internet
service providers are partneringup with each other to cover for
their scale and make a betterservice on both ends because the
(21:18):
T Mobile example is interestingbecause I just mentioned
Yosemite at the beginning ofthis call.
Even in Yosemite, my internet isgone.
It's not there.
The interesting thing is that ifT Mobile partners up with
companies like SpaceX, when yougo to those places that are
underserved by even cell towersor just.
The government doesn't allow itto be built nearby, right?
Shikher Bhandary (21:41):
Yeah,
Jed Tabernero (21:41):
All of a sudden you've given access to them
without disrupting the local,the local infrastructure, right?
Like you said, you don't have toput a tower there.
You don't have to put, certainthings around.
All you got to do is partner upwith a telecom company to get
yourself some access from space.
So all of a sudden these likepartnerships are making services
(22:03):
better across the board.
I don't know if you've seen thisdude, but you have an iPhone.
Shikher Bhandary (22:08):
yeah.
Jed Tabernero (22:09):
One of the new features that was like really
big for the iPhone 14, at leastwhen it came out was the fact
that if you don't have coveragein some places, they can
actually offer you Satelliteinternet, right?
911 calls when you fall off africking ledge, right?
(22:30):
When you're stuck on a mountain,dude, we've seen so many of
these things on the news, right?
Where somebody stuck at, Oh,this guy was stuck in the
mountain for 20 days.
It's a step closer to coveringyourself for emergency services.
It's us moving closer to a saferworld.
So it's interesting that thesepartnerships are
Shikher Bhandary (22:47):
Basically half of the serial killer slasher
movies would not exist if we hadthis level of
Jed Tabernero (22:56):
Oh
Shikher Bhandary (22:57):
everywhere, right?
Jed Tabernero (22:58):
that's so
Shikher Bhandary (22:58):
the whole part.
You're in a cabin and you don'thave any connection.
Batteries are dead.
Jed Tabernero (23:03):
Villains, dude, villains beware, man.
We mentioned it a little bitearlier.
They're also doing a ton ofpartnerships with the
governments.
Right
Shikher Bhandary (23:11):
Their biggest customer.
Jed Tabernero (23:13):
That's it.
I didn't know that.
That's insane.
And based on what's happeningright now, like around the world
it's 2024, ton of war going onout there.
That's like first timetelevised.
All of a sudden you see theimportance of something like
Starlink.
Okay.
We're not going to spend toomuch time in this area, but if
(23:33):
you've seen anything about thewar that's happening in Ukraine
at the moment, theirinfrastructure for internet.
Was completely obliterated,right?
It was completely obliterated atthe start of this conflict and
nobody was providing theminternet, dude.
Nobody is because you can't,right?
They've destroyed thatinfrastructure to be able to
(23:55):
provide for the end, but guesswhat Starlink was able to
provide internet to that region,
Shikher Bhandary (24:01):
Yeah, incredible.
So what we access as maybeStarlink, right?
Through SpaceX satellites.
That's for public.
So what they're building rightnow is something called
StarShield.
And StarShield is the privatesatellite network for the
(24:22):
Pentagon.
So they are getting into thesediscussions of like serious
national security and thegovernment absolutely would want
to build, would want to use allthat investment that SpaceX has
done and the efficiencies thatthey have driven to make sure
that they have the bestspacecraft sensors and
(24:44):
communication services.
So it's in, it's like they, theyare not only cracking the
consumer code, but also theenterprise code.
We mentioned the shipping andthe airline industry and also
self service, but also now theregulatory and the government
side of things as well.
Jed Tabernero (25:03):
The government has.
Geostationary satellites aswell, right?
That has existed for quite awhile, but with the advent of
this really close satellites inorbit, all of a sudden it
becomes more efficient to evengrab satellite like that, right?
More secure as well.
Shikher Bhandary (25:19):
Yes, way easier than if the government
did it
Jed Tabernero (25:23):
way cheaper.
Shikher Bhandary (25:25):
way cheaper.
Jed Tabernero (25:26):
It's in some sorts.
It's an Internet revolution,right?
Because all of a sudden there'sa solution to bridge the gap
between the underserved andunserved as well.
But on the other side, there'salso a not so rosy picture about
that.
And, just to name a few.
A lot of people who complainabout this idea of
(25:47):
constellations in space to beable to provide Internet.
A lot of what people are worriedabout is there's already so much
shit in space, man.
There's a lot of shit in space,especially in low Earth orbit.
There's a lot of shit in spacebecause there have been,
unfortunate collisions ofdifferent government satellites,
private satellites, et cetera,and we've seen it.
(26:08):
There's a ton of trash in lowearth orbit.
So one of the things that peoplereally complain about is, Hey,
we're launching so many things.
There might be a way moredangerous situation in low earth
orbit than we'd like, right?
And so that's one of the bigthings that people are concerned
(26:29):
about the overcrowding of space.
Shikher Bhandary (26:33):
It's a super interesting concept called
Kessler syndrome.
I've been reading, 30
Jed Tabernero (26:38):
Wow.
Shikher Bhandary (26:39):
To bring that up.
One of my favorite books inscience fiction is this book
called seven eves by NeilStephenson.
And that covers this concept.
Basically, if there's a lot ofdebris in space.
One, one thing can cause a chainreaction.
(27:01):
So if one big, say a used jet ordiscarded satellite, or other
mission related, related debris,if they strike each other, they.
even though it's unintentionaland they collide because of
gravity and so on, they end upexploding into these thousands
(27:23):
of debris fragments and they andthose fragments then do the same
and then create, thousands ofdebris.
So it becomes like thisexponential exponential number
of incidents where you then haveYour entire low earth orbit
completely crowded, which ruinsit for everyone, right?
(27:45):
So this is called the Kesslersyndrome, where it's just a
runaway chain reaction ofcollisions will result in such a
dense cloud of just debrisaround the earth.
It would really threaten futuremissions.
Jed Tabernero (28:01):
We mentioned about this Kessler syndrome or
whatever, that is gonna end tothis crazy overcrowding of low
Earth orbit.
The reason why that's sodangerous, and you may not
appreciate this as somebody whojust watches stuff online,
right?
You see a satellite.
And it's moving when you'relooking at it on a video or
something.
It seems like it's just movingat a leisurely pace, right?
(28:23):
You just see it and it's ahthat's cute.
Maybe I can get on it.
That thing is moving 70, 000,17, 000 miles per hour.
That's about seven kilometers asecond, right?
You're scaling.
Shikher Bhandary (28:40):
do that?
Did you do that math right now?
Or you had it right in front?
Jed Tabernero (28:44):
What do you think?
We'll leave it there.
Dude, seven kilometers a second,right?
You can imagine how fast thisfucking thing goes, and then you
add in thousands of debris.
Ah, it's not just that when youlaunch a rocket, and maybe the
launch vehicle is still up therewith it and it's still
dispensing satellites or maybedispensing something to the
(29:06):
international space station,which is a little bit above that
could really cause a problematicscenario, right?
Seven kilometers per second forany little thing that makes all
those tiny debris.
Just as dangerous as a bigdebris like this.
Because it's moving so fast.
So anyway, just to put someemphasis on how dangerous, this
(29:28):
little project, this quite largeproject could be, we need to
acknowledge that it's dangerousregardless, even if there's one,
one piece of debris up there.
I mentioned earlier aboutStarlink's AI capabilities, and
the beaming of data lasers,communicating with other
satellites as well.
Why do they travel?
(29:49):
In these like littleconstellations that you see up
in the sky, right?
It's because for them that's away to avoid how dangerous it
might be when one gets hitRight?
The fact that they have thosekrypton thrusters move them
around a little bit when onemoves it then all of the whole
constellation moves because itknows that there's a single
(30:10):
piece of debris that might takeout the whole constellation so
in that way, they're able toavoid these collisions and dude,
I gotta Communicate that there'sa ton of near collision
experiences happening On a dailybasis, right?
Near collision experiences thatare caught.
And, a lot of regulatory bodiestrack that they look at, Hey,
(30:32):
how close can these guys get toeach other?
That job becomes a lot moredifficult when you have
thousands and thousands ofsatellites up in low Earth
orbit, right?
So there is something thatthey're doing about it.
And the Yeah.
Shikher Bhandary (30:46):
Dude.
One thing I want to point out iswhen humans have their backs
against the walls, they alwaysfind a way.
And I got into this rabbit holeof this Kessler syndrome stuff.
And they are now creating.
something called space trashlasers, where a laser will point
(31:10):
it out, will map it out and thenboom just do enough to push the
satellite off its path.
And then it just falls down andburns in the atmosphere.
So there are some prettyfascinating things that people
apply thinking and creating.
to overcome this.
Jed Tabernero (31:26):
Very
Shikher Bhandary (31:26):
so yeah, so I, I don't think we're ever going
to stop, with the number ofsatellites in low earth orbit.
Jed Tabernero (31:34):
Yeah it's true.
And that being said, the reasonthat there even is debris is
because the way satellites kindof work before is that if it's
broken, governments don't give afuck.
They'll just leave it up there,right?
The older satellites that wehad, even the ones that were in
low earth orbit, they justdidn't disintegrate completely.
(31:56):
So when they broke, they justleft it there.
Who's, there's no janitor forspace, right?
So it's just up there.
Going fucking 17, 000 miles perhour which is insane that
there's still debris up there.
The thing about these newsatellites, especially with
Starlink satellites is that theypromise to at least disintegrate
(32:18):
95%.
And now I think it's 100, 95%,at least initially 95 percent of
the satellite, right?
When they deorbit it.
A satellite's useful life isabout five years.
So when they decide Hey it's notworking anymore.
They do something called theorbit.
And when they deorbit that youwant to expect that it doesn't
(32:38):
hurt one other satellites.
Or other things in lower orbitto the people on earth, there
was this crazy study that, thatI just I read up on before the
call which is that in 2027,there's a potential that
deorbiting satellites from lowearth orbit will actually result
(33:02):
in one human death a year.
That is a crazy stat.
That's a crazy stat because wedon't know what the effects of
deorbiting satellites.
Typically is because whensomething fall, you can't track
all the pieces to fall down,right?
It's just very difficult.
So what they can do from thereand the satellite manufacturers
(33:22):
is ensure that the entiresatellite goes away when they
decide to deorbit.
So that's one of the cool thingsthat they're doing with the
modern satellites these days,SpaceX and Starlink is always
looking at.
Newer designs of satellites, andthey've just launched rather
than a couple of months ago.
It's important that they dothese things so that there's no
more debris that gets left upthere when they decide to
(33:44):
deorbit said satellite.
So that anyway, those are justthings that kind of defend
against, the scientists who areactually working on this are
actually thinking about thosethings as well.
It's not like it's completelyignored.
Shikher Bhandary (33:56):
Yeah.
I think it is extremelydangerous, but if we say, Hey,
it kills one person a year, noone's going to take it serious.
Like vending machines kill like10 people a year.
I don't know how.
Jed Tabernero (34:12):
But anyway it's acknowledged that it could cause
some danger.
That's all the fact that thereis, that we're not completely
safe from satellites, theorbiting basically.
And that's one of theconsiderations.
Another thing is I have a fewastronomer friends who like to
go to observatories and watchthe skies, the other thing that
is
Shikher Bhandary (34:31):
Oh, that's totally been ruined now because
of this.
Jed Tabernero (34:34):
Oh, yeah.
Dude, now that there's 5k,right?
They said there's no chance ofthem taking like a decent
picture from an observatory.
My friend goes to the LickObservatory.
I think that's down in San Joseor something.
South Bay.
Which I've been to as well.
Gorgeous.
And it's amazing place for youto take your kids.
But from the observatory, youcannot really expect to take a
full blown picture without aStarlink satellite in the air.
(34:58):
And so now they're not able toobserve galaxies from very far
away because the brightest thingto them in those pictures are
now satellites.
Now, like I said, there's alwaysbeen satellites, but they are
fricking far and not brightenough.
So now all of a sudden thesesatellites are close and bright
as fuck.
So they look like stars as well.
And that was one of thefrustrations that my friend had
(35:20):
of just looking at these,beautiful pictures that yeah,
now there's starling satellites.
I even had friends in thePhilippines who are just
astronomer, like they're notreally astronomers, but they're
just, Infatuated by space.
So they bought themselves a tonof equipment to just observe the
sky.
There's not too much lightpollution in a lot of places in
the Philippines.
And so it was enjoyable to lookat the sky, but now it's
(35:42):
confusing because there's kindof these satellites, so one of
the things I was thinking about,which is how do you get rid of
that?
Maybe we send more things thatcan observe.
In higher orbits further andfurther, which actually we do
have, right?
We have also medium earth orbitwhere some satellites are there
for purely observation purposes.
Obviously
Shikher Bhandary (36:02):
Yeah.
And the Hubble telescope is allis like super far because then
the earth does not distract itfrom actually capturing
pictures.
So there are solutions, but it'sjust it's where my head goes.
With regards to all of this islike a dark and funny place
where it's like, what happenswhen these uncontacted tribes
(36:24):
look up in the sky and there arelike seven dots just circling
every day, they'll be likefreaking out.
So yeah, it's just funny that welive in such such unprecedented
times where, satellites are inspace, we are launching, I don't
know, hundred rockets.
(36:45):
in a year, more than that, likeit's incredible.
Jed Tabernero (36:48):
it is.
It is.
And, I think going into thistopic helped me appreciate
number one, the digital dividethat we talked over this
Starlink isn't the beautifulsolution yet to this digital
divide primarily because ofcost.
Like we have a digital dividewith underserved and unserved
communities that they can't getaccess to internet because the
(37:09):
infrastructure doesn't exist.
Now the infrastructure can existbecause of companies like
Starlink, but it's not yet costeffective enough to provide that
internet to everybody, right?
Maybe in America, but not therest of the world yet.
So quite interesting to payattention to that kind of stuff.
And the cool thing that Starlinkat least gives us is the ability
(37:30):
to bridge that gap somehow.
They're planning on bringingdown those upfront costs for
customers, by a healthy marginonce they're able to scale.
And so there's some things wecan look forward to in bridging
that digital divide.
Another thing is, great securitythat, that comes from having
your own satellites up in lowearth orbit and that being
(37:51):
accessible to governments allover the world.
And really scaling technologyacross the board.
We've seen the great things thathave come out of space
technologies, right?
Like cell phones, all these coolprojects that have come out of
this, right?
We even have better cell phonestoday because of these new
technologies, right?
And so I really appreciate thekind of science that has gone
(38:11):
into solving these problemsbecause of the cool shit that we
can do today.
But yeah, there's a lot more tocome.
And we just had a episode onstellar, that wonderful startup
who's looking to connect even,mobile systems to the global web
without much latency, which isgoing to be a really exciting
topic.
We'll link it in the show noteshere, but lots to look forward
(38:35):
to.
And we'll keep tracking theprogress of low earth orbit
satellites.
As always stay curious.
The information and opinionsexpressed in this episode are
for informational purposes only.
And are not intended asfinancial investment or
professional advice.
Always consult with a qualifiedprofessional before making any
(38:56):
decisions based on the conceptprovided.
Neither the podcast, nor iscreators are responsible for any
actions taken as a result oflistening to this episode.
There's recent data from the FCCthat finds that more than 8
(00:03):
million American homes andbusinesses nationwide do not
have access to high speedbroadband internet service.
Shikher Bhandary (00:09):
One of the hottest private companies in the
world right now, SpaceX, isknown for launching these
humongous rockets.
The company partners with NASAand other government agencies
for incredibly complex missionslike transporting astronauts and
(00:30):
valuable cargo.
to the International SpaceStation.
SpaceX more or less dominatesthe global space industry with
96 successful launches in 2023alone.
(00:52):
But is that enough to fund thecompany's ambitious goals of
driving humanity to become aninterplanetary species?
So today on Things Have Changed,we explore an ambitious project
that has rapidly become close to40 percent of SpaceX's revenues
in the span of a few years.
(01:14):
Enter Starlink, SpaceX's answerto providing global high speed
internet coverage using anetwork of thousands of
satellites buzzing around theplanet in a region known as Low
Earth Orbit.
Starlink has the potential totruly disrupt one of the largest
industries and most significantmoney printers we see in
(01:36):
business today, the internet.
So tune in.
Jed Tabernero (02:21):
Yosemite is one of the most beautiful places on
the planet, man.
So my parents live quite nearand every time we have a guest
over it's like one of our thingsto take them to.
Hey, let me take you to one ofthe most beautiful places on the
planet.
I have a ton of friends who youknow, because I'm from the Bay
Area and Yosemite is relativelyclose.
I have a ton of friends who'sthat's their go to for a weekend
(02:43):
hiking trip is let's go toYosemite.
Let's go hike some of these,most beautiful trails.
And I actually have friendswho've, decided to settle there.
They actually bought housesreally nearby to Yosemite.
It's a relatively ruralenvironment, and there's a ton
of people moving in still, evenif it's a rural environment.
And one of the things I noticedwas I stayed there for a couple
(03:06):
of weekends in my friend'splaces, right?
One of the things I noticed thatwas annoying for us city people,
is that the internet reallysucked out there.
It's tough.
It's tough to get infrastructureout there to build internet.
So it's understandable.
Many folks have maybe been tobig bear mountain.
It's the same scenario, not toomuch internet, ton of folks who
(03:27):
come in.
And sometimes you just reallyhave to rely on, really slow
solutions that have beenprovided all throughout these
years.
My friend recently got himself.
Starlink membership, asubscription to Starlink.
Shikher Bhandary (03:43):
Dang.
Jed Tabernero (03:44):
It just changes the way you look at being able
to live there, because it usedto be a weekend thing, right?
Like I mentioned earlier, that'slike his weekend home.
He still lives in San Francisco,but all of a sudden now he can
see himself working from hishouse near Yosemite.
And it's an insane type oftransition because.
(04:06):
That type of access was so quickto set up, man.
It was super quick to just geton, buy the equipment needed,
sign up to the subscription andjust get onto the product.
So
Shikher Bhandary (04:17):
It's on a global scale, right?
This specific application fromSpaceX.
Traditional internet companiesare really looking for servicing
a lot of customers.
They have to justify the costsof actually laying down the
line, right?
(04:37):
Like fiber costs a ton becauseit's just too capex heavy.
It's too expensive for them toactually put up a tower, put up
the fiber and then be unsure ofwhat returns they're going to
get.
They have to get guaranteedreturn on investment and some to
justify their decision toactually service a community.
(05:00):
in these far off places.
So this is where that solution,the solution that we were about
to talk about comes super handy.
And it's not only being used forthis purpose, but also like
folks where, the government hascut access to the internet or
natural disasters.
(05:21):
Suddenly you can just log intothe, to a wifi in the sky and
call for help.
Jed Tabernero (05:26):
There's a massive population that don't have,
don't enjoy the luxuries that wehave to the internet.
So with the advent of suchthings like Starlink, we have to
think like, why did we gotowards the Starlink solution?
Versus everything else.
We mentioned fiber is just waytoo expensive.
Setting up cell towers are alsoa capex heavy activity.
(05:47):
Isn't launching satellitesreally expensive too.
And I think this is theinteresting piece, right?
Is the interesting piece.
Like we think, okay, launch isheavy.
All of these things are quiteexpensive pursuits.
But income SpaceX, that is theBoeing for the aviation industry
(06:07):
where they've now made it socheap to launch up in low earth
orbit.
And so all of a sudden theseideas with providing internet in
a way that, by the way, is notsuper novel becomes just more
cost effective, right?
Why do I say not super novel?
It's just because we've hadsatellites that provide
(06:27):
internet, right?
And some of you who who arelistening to the show, who are
in like rural areas, your firstinternet likely was coming from
a geo stationary satellite,right?
And.
That just means it's a lotfarther out, a lot slower, a lot
higher latency, but thesesatellites were already existed.
(06:47):
So it's not like a novel ideathat we're putting satellites up
in the air for internet, but itjust became so cost effective
that it's obvious.
All of a sudden it's obvious toprovide internet in this matter.
Shikher Bhandary (06:57):
mean, Jed is super animated because he
obviously works in this space.
But that's all confidential.
So we're not going to talk awhole lot about his work, but
isn't it really expensive to putup these satellites up in space?
Yes, it is.
But this company anyway, issending rockets into space.
So they have figured out a waywhere, and they could do both.
(07:19):
This is the power of verticallyintegrating, right?
A rocket company that owns therockets and transports
astronauts and cargo to theInternational Space Station is
now hang on.
We can now put up satellitesourselves.
And so what they have done isthey have built this network of
(07:40):
how many, like thousands ofsatellites in the lower orbit of
Mars.
The earth that now works as anetwork where they can now beam
the internet with very lowlatency to you.
Jed Tabernero (07:56):
Exactly.
And I think we should clarifyfor the folks on the call who
haven't heard of low earthorbit, that's, it's pretty low.
And for some of you may haveseen the constellation coming by
your house.
One of these days, right?
If you don't have too much lightpollution, a lot of people, I've
seen it on Tiktok, at least abunch of folks will see Oh,
those are lines of satellites.
(08:16):
People think, damn, those arealiens.
But they're not, they'restarling satellites.
It's very interesting the waythat it works because this low
earth orbit area that we've beentalking about, me and Shaker,
the difference between that andour outdated geo stationary
satellites, is that it's a lotcloser.
That's why it's low earth orbitversus geostationary, right?
What does that mean in terms ofscale, geostationary satellites,
(08:41):
which are the ones that we'vehad for decades, GPS uses it in
all sorts of different kinds ofsatellites, right?
They're up there about 33, 000kilometers away from earth,
right?
30, 000 kilometers away.
So that's the coverage is prettybig, but it's pretty far from
low earth orbit satellites.
(09:01):
I think it's only about what,300 miles, 500 kilometers or
something like that from Earth.
Okay, so that's a factor, a hugefactor closer to the Earth than
these geostationary satellites.
A couple of advantages come withbeing a lot closer.
When you're beaming data betweenground gateways, which are often
(09:22):
connected to data centers or theterminals, the ones that you see
when you actually buy Starlinkthat communicates with the
satellites it's a lot easierbecause it's closer.
Of course, the disadvantage isthat you'd have to have a lot
more to cover.
All of the earth, right?
Cause geostationary so far thatit covers a ton of the earth.
And while you're getting closer,you're only covering a portion
(09:44):
of the earth at a time.
That's why they got to put outso many.
Shikher Bhandary (09:47):
It's like a flashlight, right?
The further you move away.
from a torch, right?
You cover more space, but thestrength weakens and it's not as
focused as if you come closer.
So think of that concept, butlike satellite in space.
So SpaceX, I was like, okay,let's just flood.
Low earth orbit with satellites.
(10:09):
And they have what over 5, 000satellites
Jed Tabernero (10:11):
Yes.
Yeah.
And dude, they're not stoppingthere, man.
They're not stopping.
I think 2027, they're going tohave 42 K satellites up in low
earth orbit.
And that's just one company,dude.
That's just one company.
We haven't talked about therest.
Wink that are going to havemassive networks out in low
earth orbit as well.
So we see now that it works,right?
(10:31):
Like we were talking earlierabout how many customers
Starling casters, 2 millionpeople using this service.
At least 2 million people.
So
Shikher Bhandary (10:41):
over the past three years, over the past three
years, it's gone from, we werejust looking at some numbers.
They even though SpaceX is aprivate company, they do.
release some numbers, which kindof gives the public a feel as to
where they are headed as acompany, right?
Because this is a future publiccompany, hopefully, right?
(11:04):
And they grew their revenuesfrom 200 million In 2021, just
from Starlink to 1.
4 billion.
Now that's seven X.
So in, in the span of two, threeyears, they have grown their
revenue seven times, becausethat's the demand, not just from
(11:25):
the consumer point of view, butalso like enterprises, but also
government, right?
So we'll get to that later, butit's just, they found this niche
where now they are now availableon all seven continents.
In over 60 countries, that'smind boggling the ramp, over the
(11:47):
past four years, we are talkingnot just of software is, you can
do this a lot easier.
You can just publish it intointo the app store and it's
automatically.
Allowed or spread in thedifferent countries, right?
Based on regulation and stuff.
This, we're talking abouthardware.
So for them to be able to getthe satellites, satellites out
(12:10):
in space, and then be able tostrike these deals with
different governments is justmind blowing execution.
Jed Tabernero (12:19):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's paved the way for othercompanies to start thinking
about what are the otheralternatives to getting
internet.
And yeah, like you said, UI issuper easy.
One thing that we haven't evenmentioned dude is latency.
The closer that it is, it's alsoprovides better better internet
service in general.
And the fact that you havethousands up there, especially
(12:40):
right now with Starlink'sconstellation, the fact that you
have thousands out there, thesecustomer terminals that you have
at home, they connect tospecific satellites.
And they find satellites inclose proximity to be able to
beam that data up and down.
The more satellites you have,the better connectivity you'll
have in a specific region aswell.
And so that also lends to likelower latency.
(13:03):
Which is something it'smentioned a lot with with
satellite internet, because alot of people, when they think
about satellite internet, it'slike, Oh, that's slow as hell.
Like people already have prepreconceived notions about how
satellite internet is Starlinkchange that, starlink changed
that, that kind of view.
And that kind of lends to just abetter overall customer
(13:25):
experience with Starlink.
And now there's a completely newspace focusing on ISPs that
actually provide.
Internet in low earth orbit.
So impressive stuff, whatthey've done.
Shikher Bhandary (13:37):
Them being vertically integrated is so
crucial for their successbecause now they are independent
and they are able to operate ontheir own.
Jed Tabernero (13:47):
You mentioned controlling the economies of
scale on this kind of verticalintegration that they have.
The most expensive the mostexpensive thing about
satellites.
If you were to look at, in acosting world where what's the
actual cost that you spent on aspecific satellite, almost
always a majority of that costis attributable to the launch
(14:11):
cost.
Of a satellite, of course, ifyou're not Starlink who has
SpaceX who launches theirsatellites, right?
They charge.
Okay, this is just an estimatethat has come from our research.
Let's say a Falcon nine launchright with a couple of
satellites will cost theminternally.
(14:33):
About 15 mil.
Okay.
Just think about that.
15 mil to launch satellites thatcost them internally.
So what do you pay for therocket, all the stuff that's not
reusable, all the things that gointo a launch.
Would they charge customers forthat same launch?
Is about 50 mil.
Okay.
(14:53):
So you can think if you had, ifyou're, if you don't have your
own launch service, you'repaying effectively, most of your
satellite costs, the actualasset that becomes a satellite
when it gets into space, a tonof that more than 50 percent of
that will be launch costs.
Just thinking about the verticalintegration here, the fact that
they also have SpaceX, the factthat they build their own ground
(15:17):
gateways.
Shikher Bhandary (15:18):
Incredible.
Jed Tabernero (15:19):
Makes it so much easier for them to optimize in
this regard, right?
Because they can find ways to,okay, what do we have to do to
make launch cheaper?
Let's put more capacity on therockets, right?
Let's make it so that it'seasily integrable.
With this rocket, anything thatyou're building as far as
satellites, you're also makingthe satellite so you can make
(15:41):
the satellites more efficient.
You can make the satellitescollect more sun so that it has
more energy.
You can think of really coolstuff.
One cool thing that the SpaceXdid for their satellites, right?
With the advent of AI is thatthing up in the air, when you
see those lights that arefollowing each other, they'll
look like aliens, right?
It's because they move in aconstellation.
So they communicate with eachother.
(16:02):
They know what's going on.
They're not going to hit eachother.
So there's going to be thousandsof satellites up there that,
that are not going to hit eachother if they're coming from the
same the same company.
Cause they're communicating,they're using lasers to do that,
to get out of way forcollisions.
They're using, A gas calledKrypton that's on their
satellites that kind of inchthem somewhere, if you, if they
(16:22):
see something that's about todisrupt their constellation,
they could save their entireconstellation by just
recognizing that and thenpushing a little bit to the left
with this Krypton gas, which is,That's amazing, by the way,
which a lot of companies havefollowed that path as well.
If they're going to lower orbitis to use kind of these Krypton
thrusters.
I didn't know there was a gascalled Krypton before I worked
(16:43):
in this space.
But it's really interestingstuff what they've done, right?
That all comes from verticalintegration, because now when
you say optimize, you can lookat other parts of your end to
end process of getting asatellite up in the space and
then optimizing for the overallcost reduction, right?
Which SpaceX is.
devilishly good at dude.
Devilishly good at those guys.
(17:04):
But yeah, again, like we'retalking today, which is what?
March 17, a couple of days afterstarship launch.
You know what they did withStarship launch that was so
interesting.
They increased the capacity oftheir biggest rocket 4X for
satellites.
Shikher Bhandary (17:23):
Oh, wow.
Jed Tabernero (17:24):
That's 4X.
Which is, this is, remember whenI said it was the most expensive
piece was launch.
Now that you have more capacity,yes, it's a little more
expensive, but they couldoptimize for that too.
Now that there's 4X satellitesavailable there on the typical,
maybe Falcon 9 it becomes somuch more attractive to put more
stuff.
They all of a sudden have morecapacity.
What does that mean?
(17:45):
They can have a rocket wherethey have their own satellites,
Starlink satellites, and thenthey can also have other
people's satellites, OneWebsatellites, Kuiper satellites
that they can put onto therocket so that they can charge a
margin that makes their launchcost much lesser.
I like that you brought up theVertica integration piece
(18:06):
because That is what will makethis scale.
You know what I mean?
So really cool stuff, whatthey've done, honestly,
Shikher Bhandary (18:12):
Yeah.
And one thing, like I was justthinking through that and so
SpaceX is transporting cargo andastronauts into space, right?
Space station future lunarestablishments and stuff.
That's their goal.
That's their mission vision,right?
It's really ambitious, butcoming down to the ground and
(18:35):
maybe out to the seas They arenow striking these really smart
deals, and they are going afterthese big logistics heavy
industries that need access todata and the internet at all
times.
What is one of that?
Shipping.
80 percent of all goods that wetransport across the world is
(18:58):
shipping.
So what SpaceX and the Starlinkteam have done is they have now
signed up so many.
Cargo ships and like shippingcompanies to have, the SpaceX
terminals on the cargo ships.
And now, so those cargo shipsnow have access to fast
(19:19):
internet, which probably unlocksa lot of productivity there,
right?
Because in our conversationsabout the shipping industry,
everything is still very manual.
Jed Tabernero (19:28):
dude, that's interesting.
Cause in our conversations withMartin Verhagen, at least
talking about kind of thelogistics industry and shipping,
the interesting thing was that.
They don't know how long orwhere a vehicle is at all times,
all the time, right?
They've created technologies forthat.
And there were some startups whocame up with okay, we can track
(19:49):
the ship to where it's actuallyat.
But a lot of the times it's anestimate, right?
A lot of the times it's anestimate.
All of a sudden you give themfull internet.
Connectivity, they might be ableto have better GPS frequencies
that could do coordinates.
So that's an interesting pieceas well.
And I don't know how manypeople, in the Navy dude, but
these guys, they got to stay inthese ships for six months to a
(20:11):
year.
Which is insane.
That's like a six month job.
You're in the ocean.
A lot of times you won't haveaccess to everything.
You got to bring all your moviesand stuff that you got to watch
for these six months wheneveryou're bored.
But now all of a sudden there'sa potential for them to have
internet on board.
That's huge.
Shikher Bhandary (20:27):
and they are partnering with all these
airline manufacturers to have aSpaceX terminal so that they can
beam internet to all thepassengers in the flight at a
fraction of what it used tocost.
They are expanding a ton and nowthey are coming to direct to
sell teamed up to a T Mobile togo straight to consumer, right?
(20:51):
So your sell LTE would be withSpaceX maybe in the future.
Jed Tabernero (20:57):
So this partnership, you mentioned it,
this partnership with T Mobile,you would think because these
companies are kind ofcompetitors, into the providing
internet space that they wouldwork with each other because
it's tough, but the truthactually is these internet
service providers are partneringup with each other to cover for
their scale and make a betterservice on both ends because the
(21:18):
T Mobile example is interestingbecause I just mentioned
Yosemite at the beginning ofthis call.
Even in Yosemite, my internet isgone.
It's not there.
The interesting thing is that ifT Mobile partners up with
companies like SpaceX, when yougo to those places that are
underserved by even cell towersor just.
The government doesn't allow itto be built nearby, right?
Shikher Bhandary (21:41):
Yeah,
Jed Tabernero (21:41):
All of a sudden you've given access to them
without disrupting the local,the local infrastructure, right?
Like you said, you don't have toput a tower there.
You don't have to put, certainthings around.
All you got to do is partner upwith a telecom company to get
yourself some access from space.
So all of a sudden these likepartnerships are making services
(22:03):
better across the board.
I don't know if you've seen thisdude, but you have an iPhone.
Shikher Bhandary (22:08):
yeah.
Jed Tabernero (22:09):
One of the new features that was like really
big for the iPhone 14, at leastwhen it came out was the fact
that if you don't have coveragein some places, they can
actually offer you Satelliteinternet, right?
911 calls when you fall off africking ledge, right?
(22:30):
When you're stuck on a mountain,dude, we've seen so many of
these things on the news, right?
Where somebody stuck at, Oh,this guy was stuck in the
mountain for 20 days.
It's a step closer to coveringyourself for emergency services.
It's us moving closer to a saferworld.
So it's interesting that thesepartnerships are
Shikher Bhandary (22:47):
Basically half of the serial killer slasher
movies would not exist if we hadthis level of
Jed Tabernero (22:56):
Oh
Shikher Bhandary (22:57):
everywhere, right?
Jed Tabernero (22:58):
that's so
Shikher Bhandary (22:58):
the whole part.
You're in a cabin and you don'thave any connection.
Batteries are dead.
Jed Tabernero (23:03):
Villains, dude, villains beware, man.
We mentioned it a little bitearlier.
They're also doing a ton ofpartnerships with the
governments.
Right
Shikher Bhandary (23:11):
Their biggest customer.
Jed Tabernero (23:13):
That's it.
I didn't know that.
That's insane.
And based on what's happeningright now, like around the world
it's 2024, ton of war going onout there.
That's like first timetelevised.
All of a sudden you see theimportance of something like
Starlink.
Okay.
We're not going to spend toomuch time in this area, but if
(23:33):
you've seen anything about thewar that's happening in Ukraine
at the moment, theirinfrastructure for internet.
Was completely obliterated,right?
It was completely obliterated atthe start of this conflict and
nobody was providing theminternet, dude.
Nobody is because you can't,right?
They've destroyed thatinfrastructure to be able to
(23:55):
provide for the end, but guesswhat Starlink was able to
provide internet to that region,
Shikher Bhandary (24:01):
Yeah, incredible.
So what we access as maybeStarlink, right?
Through SpaceX satellites.
That's for public.
So what they're building rightnow is something called
StarShield.
And StarShield is the privatesatellite network for the
(24:22):
Pentagon.
So they are getting into thesediscussions of like serious
national security and thegovernment absolutely would want
to build, would want to use allthat investment that SpaceX has
done and the efficiencies thatthey have driven to make sure
that they have the bestspacecraft sensors and
(24:44):
communication services.
So it's in, it's like they, theyare not only cracking the
consumer code, but also theenterprise code.
We mentioned the shipping andthe airline industry and also
self service, but also now theregulatory and the government
side of things as well.
Jed Tabernero (25:03):
The government has.
Geostationary satellites aswell, right?
That has existed for quite awhile, but with the advent of
this really close satellites inorbit, all of a sudden it
becomes more efficient to evengrab satellite like that, right?
More secure as well.
Shikher Bhandary (25:19):
Yes, way easier than if the government
did it
Jed Tabernero (25:23):
way cheaper.
Shikher Bhandary (25:25):
way cheaper.
Jed Tabernero (25:26):
It's in some sorts.
It's an Internet revolution,right?
Because all of a sudden there'sa solution to bridge the gap
between the underserved andunserved as well.
But on the other side, there'salso a not so rosy picture about
that.
And, just to name a few.
A lot of people who complainabout this idea of
(25:47):
constellations in space to beable to provide Internet.
A lot of what people are worriedabout is there's already so much
shit in space, man.
There's a lot of shit in space,especially in low Earth orbit.
There's a lot of shit in spacebecause there have been,
unfortunate collisions ofdifferent government satellites,
private satellites, et cetera,and we've seen it.
(26:08):
There's a ton of trash in lowearth orbit.
So one of the things that peoplereally complain about is, Hey,
we're launching so many things.
There might be a way moredangerous situation in low earth
orbit than we'd like, right?
And so that's one of the bigthings that people are concerned
(26:29):
about the overcrowding of space.
Shikher Bhandary (26:33):
It's a super interesting concept called
Kessler syndrome.
I've been reading, 30
Jed Tabernero (26:38):
Wow.
Shikher Bhandary (26:39):
To bring that up.
One of my favorite books inscience fiction is this book
called seven eves by NeilStephenson.
And that covers this concept.
Basically, if there's a lot ofdebris in space.
One, one thing can cause a chainreaction.
(27:01):
So if one big, say a used jet ordiscarded satellite, or other
mission related, related debris,if they strike each other, they.
even though it's unintentionaland they collide because of
gravity and so on, they end upexploding into these thousands
(27:23):
of debris fragments and they andthose fragments then do the same
and then create, thousands ofdebris.
So it becomes like thisexponential exponential number
of incidents where you then haveYour entire low earth orbit
completely crowded, which ruinsit for everyone, right?
(27:45):
So this is called the Kesslersyndrome, where it's just a
runaway chain reaction ofcollisions will result in such a
dense cloud of just debrisaround the earth.
It would really threaten futuremissions.
Jed Tabernero (28:01):
We mentioned about this Kessler syndrome or
whatever, that is gonna end tothis crazy overcrowding of low
Earth orbit.
The reason why that's sodangerous, and you may not
appreciate this as somebody whojust watches stuff online,
right?
You see a satellite.
And it's moving when you'relooking at it on a video or
something.
It seems like it's just movingat a leisurely pace, right?
(28:23):
You just see it and it's ahthat's cute.
Maybe I can get on it.
That thing is moving 70, 000,17, 000 miles per hour.
That's about seven kilometers asecond, right?
You're scaling.
Shikher Bhandary (28:40):
do that?
Did you do that math right now?
Or you had it right in front?
Jed Tabernero (28:44):
What do you think?
We'll leave it there.
Dude, seven kilometers a second,right?
You can imagine how fast thisfucking thing goes, and then you
add in thousands of debris.
Ah, it's not just that when youlaunch a rocket, and maybe the
launch vehicle is still up therewith it and it's still
dispensing satellites or maybedispensing something to the
(29:06):
international space station,which is a little bit above that
could really cause a problematicscenario, right?
Seven kilometers per second forany little thing that makes all
those tiny debris.
Just as dangerous as a bigdebris like this.
Because it's moving so fast.
So anyway, just to put someemphasis on how dangerous, this
(29:28):
little project, this quite largeproject could be, we need to
acknowledge that it's dangerousregardless, even if there's one,
one piece of debris up there.
I mentioned earlier aboutStarlink's AI capabilities, and
the beaming of data lasers,communicating with other
satellites as well.
Why do they travel?
(29:49):
In these like littleconstellations that you see up
in the sky, right?
It's because for them that's away to avoid how dangerous it
might be when one gets hitRight?
The fact that they have thosekrypton thrusters move them
around a little bit when onemoves it then all of the whole
constellation moves because itknows that there's a single
(30:10):
piece of debris that might takeout the whole constellation so
in that way, they're able toavoid these collisions and dude,
I gotta Communicate that there'sa ton of near collision
experiences happening On a dailybasis, right?
Near collision experiences thatare caught.
And, a lot of regulatory bodiestrack that they look at, Hey,
(30:32):
how close can these guys get toeach other?
That job becomes a lot moredifficult when you have
thousands and thousands ofsatellites up in low Earth
orbit, right?
So there is something thatthey're doing about it.
And the Yeah.
Shikher Bhandary (30:46):
Dude.
One thing I want to point out iswhen humans have their backs
against the walls, they alwaysfind a way.
And I got into this rabbit holeof this Kessler syndrome stuff.
And they are now creating.
something called space trashlasers, where a laser will point
(31:10):
it out, will map it out and thenboom just do enough to push the
satellite off its path.
And then it just falls down andburns in the atmosphere.
So there are some prettyfascinating things that people
apply thinking and creating.
to overcome this.
Jed Tabernero (31:26):
Very
Shikher Bhandary (31:26):
so yeah, so I, I don't think we're ever going
to stop, with the number ofsatellites in low earth orbit.
Jed Tabernero (31:34):
Yeah it's true.
And that being said, the reasonthat there even is debris is
because the way satellites kindof work before is that if it's
broken, governments don't give afuck.
They'll just leave it up there,right?
The older satellites that wehad, even the ones that were in
low earth orbit, they justdidn't disintegrate completely.
(31:56):
So when they broke, they justleft it there.
Who's, there's no janitor forspace, right?
So it's just up there.
Going fucking 17, 000 miles perhour which is insane that
there's still debris up there.
The thing about these newsatellites, especially with
Starlink satellites is that theypromise to at least disintegrate
(32:18):
95%.
And now I think it's 100, 95%,at least initially 95 percent of
the satellite, right?
When they deorbit it.
A satellite's useful life isabout five years.
So when they decide Hey it's notworking anymore.
They do something called theorbit.
And when they deorbit that youwant to expect that it doesn't
(32:38):
hurt one other satellites.
Or other things in lower orbitto the people on earth, there
was this crazy study that, thatI just I read up on before the
call which is that in 2027,there's a potential that
deorbiting satellites from lowearth orbit will actually result
(33:02):
in one human death a year.
That is a crazy stat.
That's a crazy stat because wedon't know what the effects of
deorbiting satellites.
Typically is because whensomething fall, you can't track
all the pieces to fall down,right?
It's just very difficult.
So what they can do from thereand the satellite manufacturers
(33:22):
is ensure that the entiresatellite goes away when they
decide to deorbit.
So that's one of the cool thingsthat they're doing with the
modern satellites these days,SpaceX and Starlink is always
looking at.
Newer designs of satellites, andthey've just launched rather
than a couple of months ago.
It's important that they dothese things so that there's no
more debris that gets left upthere when they decide to
(33:44):
deorbit said satellite.
So that anyway, those are justthings that kind of defend
against, the scientists who areactually working on this are
actually thinking about thosethings as well.
It's not like it's completelyignored.
Shikher Bhandary (33:56):
Yeah.
I think it is extremelydangerous, but if we say, Hey,
it kills one person a year, noone's going to take it serious.
Like vending machines kill like10 people a year.
I don't know how.
Jed Tabernero (34:12):
But anyway it's acknowledged that it could cause
some danger.
That's all the fact that thereis, that we're not completely
safe from satellites, theorbiting basically.
And that's one of theconsiderations.
Another thing is I have a fewastronomer friends who like to
go to observatories and watchthe skies, the other thing that
is
Shikher Bhandary (34:31):
Oh, that's totally been ruined now because
of this.
Jed Tabernero (34:34):
Oh, yeah.
Dude, now that there's 5k,right?
They said there's no chance ofthem taking like a decent
picture from an observatory.
My friend goes to the LickObservatory.
I think that's down in San Joseor something.
South Bay.
Which I've been to as well.
Gorgeous.
And it's amazing place for youto take your kids.
But from the observatory, youcannot really expect to take a
full blown picture without aStarlink satellite in the air.
(34:58):
And so now they're not able toobserve galaxies from very far
away because the brightest thingto them in those pictures are
now satellites.
Now, like I said, there's alwaysbeen satellites, but they are
fricking far and not brightenough.
So now all of a sudden thesesatellites are close and bright
as fuck.
So they look like stars as well.
And that was one of thefrustrations that my friend had
(35:20):
of just looking at these,beautiful pictures that yeah,
now there's starling satellites.
I even had friends in thePhilippines who are just
astronomer, like they're notreally astronomers, but they're
just, Infatuated by space.
So they bought themselves a tonof equipment to just observe the
sky.
There's not too much lightpollution in a lot of places in
the Philippines.
And so it was enjoyable to lookat the sky, but now it's
(35:42):
confusing because there's kindof these satellites, so one of
the things I was thinking about,which is how do you get rid of
that?
Maybe we send more things thatcan observe.
In higher orbits further andfurther, which actually we do
have, right?
We have also medium earth orbitwhere some satellites are there
for purely observation purposes.
Obviously
Shikher Bhandary (36:02):
Yeah.
And the Hubble telescope is allis like super far because then
the earth does not distract itfrom actually capturing
pictures.
So there are solutions, but it'sjust it's where my head goes.
With regards to all of this islike a dark and funny place
where it's like, what happenswhen these uncontacted tribes
(36:24):
look up in the sky and there arelike seven dots just circling
every day, they'll be likefreaking out.
So yeah, it's just funny that welive in such such unprecedented
times where, satellites are inspace, we are launching, I don't
know, hundred rockets.
(36:45):
in a year, more than that, likeit's incredible.
Jed Tabernero (36:48):
it is.
It is.
And, I think going into thistopic helped me appreciate
number one, the digital dividethat we talked over this
Starlink isn't the beautifulsolution yet to this digital
divide primarily because ofcost.
Like we have a digital dividewith underserved and unserved
communities that they can't getaccess to internet because the
(37:09):
infrastructure doesn't exist.
Now the infrastructure can existbecause of companies like
Starlink, but it's not yet costeffective enough to provide that
internet to everybody, right?
Maybe in America, but not therest of the world yet.
So quite interesting to payattention to that kind of stuff.
And the cool thing that Starlinkat least gives us is the ability
(37:30):
to bridge that gap somehow.
They're planning on bringingdown those upfront costs for
customers, by a healthy marginonce they're able to scale.
And so there's some things wecan look forward to in bridging
that digital divide.
Another thing is, great securitythat, that comes from having
your own satellites up in lowearth orbit and that being
(37:51):
accessible to governments allover the world.
And really scaling technologyacross the board.
We've seen the great things thathave come out of space
technologies, right?
Like cell phones, all these coolprojects that have come out of
this, right?
We even have better cell phonestoday because of these new
technologies, right?
And so I really appreciate thekind of science that has gone
(38:11):
into solving these problemsbecause of the cool shit that we
can do today.
But yeah, there's a lot more tocome.
And we just had a episode onstellar, that wonderful startup
who's looking to connect even,mobile systems to the global web
without much latency, which isgoing to be a really exciting
topic.
We'll link it in the show noteshere, but lots to look forward
(38:35):
to.
And we'll keep tracking theprogress of low earth orbit
satellites.
As always stay curious.
The information and opinionsexpressed in this episode are
for informational purposes only.
And are not intended asfinancial investment or
professional advice.
Always consult with a qualifiedprofessional before making any
(38:56):
decisions based on the conceptprovided.
Neither the podcast, nor iscreators are responsible for any
actions taken as a result oflistening to this episode.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.