SpaceX Launches 54 Upgraded Starlink Internet Satellites; Completes 60th Mission of the Year (space.com) 74
SpaceX launched the first batch of a new generation of Starlink satellites into orbit early Wednesday (Dec. 28) and nailed a rocket landing at sea to mark a record 60th flight of the year. From a report: A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 54 upgraded Starlink internet satellites -- the first generation 2 (Gen2) versions of the SpaceX fleet -- lit up the predawn sky with a smooth launch at 4:34 a.m. EST (0934 GMT) from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. "Under our new license, we are now able to deploy satellites to new orbits that will add even more capacity to the network," Jesse Anderson, a SpaceX production and engineering manager, said during live launch commentary. "Ultimately, this enables us to add more customers and provide faster service, particularly in areas that are currently oversubscribed."
About eight minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9 first stage returned to Earth with a landing on the SpaceX drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean, where rough recovery weather threatened to delay the launch. The touchdown marked a successful end to SpaceX's 60th launch of SpaceX in 2022, nearly doubling the 31 launches set as a SpaceX record in 2021. The Falcon 9 first stage on this mission made its 11th flight with Wednesday's launch. The booster previously flew five Starlink missions, launched two U.S. GPS satellites, the Nilesat 301 commercial satellite and carried two different private astronaut crews on the Inspiration4 and Ax-1 missions, SpaceX has said. The company will also attempt to recover the two payload fairing halves that made up the Falcon 9's nose cone, which had both flown before, for later reuse, Anderson said.
About eight minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9 first stage returned to Earth with a landing on the SpaceX drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean, where rough recovery weather threatened to delay the launch. The touchdown marked a successful end to SpaceX's 60th launch of SpaceX in 2022, nearly doubling the 31 launches set as a SpaceX record in 2021. The Falcon 9 first stage on this mission made its 11th flight with Wednesday's launch. The booster previously flew five Starlink missions, launched two U.S. GPS satellites, the Nilesat 301 commercial satellite and carried two different private astronaut crews on the Inspiration4 and Ax-1 missions, SpaceX has said. The company will also attempt to recover the two payload fairing halves that made up the Falcon 9's nose cone, which had both flown before, for later reuse, Anderson said.
So start a Twitter Thread in Musk-related articles (Score:4, Informative)
In the latest Musk-Rat screwup, Musk loses 10% of his fortune in one day [dailymail.co.uk]
Tesla shares slumped 11 percent on Tuesday, surpassing Meta to become the worst-performing tech stock of 2022.
The company has lost more than half its value since the start of October as investors worry that Twitter was taking much of Chief Executive Elon Musk's time while fretting about his stake sale in the electric-car maker.
They claim the acquisition and subsequent chaos which has seen Musk take a hands-on approach to running the social media network has distracted him from running the car company, and badly damaged its finances.
The drop, the lowest in two years, comes after Reuters reported that Musk's company suspended production at its Shanghai Gigafactory on Saturday.
Tesla was planning to run a reduced production schedule in January at its Shanghai plant amid a rising number of COVID-19 infections in the country.
I'm sure others can find other recent items of interest ...
Re: So start a Twitter Thread in Musk-related arti (Score:2)
I really doubt Tesla's troubles have anything to do with Musk or the Twitter fiasco. The stock was overvalued as it is, in addition to the stock market already being bearish in general. Fecebook going down was easily more deserved, and the name change to Meta says exactly why, despite the CEO going into that with both eyes open. Though at the same time, Fecebook wasn't quite as overvalued.
Tesla has another problem as well: Their Q4 numbers are expected to look bad. Really bad. And the reason why has nothing
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The mass storage battery factory is entirely dependent on other energy sources to be added to the grid - solar, hydro, wind - to supply intermittent energy that the megapacks can then store. Problem is that with a good enough energy mix, and using electric cars as part of the storage grid when they're parked, the megapacks aren't ne
Re: So start a Twitter Thread in Musk-related art (Score:2)
FSD is dead. They will never reach level 5, and they're being investigated for fraud over their sales of FSD to subscribers who actually never got FSD.
If only you had any idea...
Right now Tesla only has level 2. Same as everyone else. FSD requires level 5.
They're basically level 4 already, at this point it's a regulatory matter rather than a technical one.
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FSD is dead. They will never reach level 5, and they're being investigated for fraud over their sales of FSD to subscribers who actually never got FSD.
If only you had any idea...
Right now Tesla only has level 2. Same as everyone else. FSD requires level 5.
They're basically level 4 already, at this point it's a regulatory matter rather than a technical one.
Once again you're full of horse crap. How many crashes have Teslas been involved in? Why do they mistake street car tracks as road lane lines? Run into parked emergency vehicles? Distracted by the sun?
From 6 months ago [as.com]
Tesla has come under criticism for calling its driver assistant software “Full Self-Driving”. The head of the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Jennifer Homendy, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that it’s “misleading” and “people are misusing the vehicles and the technology” because of the way it’s being marketed.
On Tesla’s support page for the Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability states that the systems “are intended for use with a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment.” The company is working on making the features more capable over time but “the currently enabled features do not make the vehicle autonomous.”
And the safety recalls keep piling up [protocol.com].
Then there's the fit and finish problems with body paint and panels.
Re: So start a Twitter Thread in Musk-related art (Score:2)
Seriously? Reality check: Level 4 isn't completely self driving. And it already has a lower accident rate than human drivers. Also these "recalls" are done in the form of OTA updates, hardly a big deal, especially given most of them were just bugs found by Tesla themselves.
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Referred to as high-driving automation, Level 4 autonomy does not require any human interaction in the vehicle’s operation because it is programmed to stop itself in the event of system failure. Since a human driver is never needed, a Level 4 vehicle may not have a steering wheel and pedals.
And yes, at Level 4, you can take a nap while riding in the vehicle.
Level 4 driving automation technology is for use in driverless taxis and public transportation services. Such vehicles will be programmed to travel between Point A and Point B and restricted to specific geographic boundaries by geofencing technology. Certain conditions may limit or cancel Level 4 autonomous vehicle operation, such as severe weather.
In other words, restricted areas, limited interaction with other vehicles, and will have to be towed (no steering wheel) in the event of failure.
And your claim that the failures I listed were fixed by OTA software fixes is a flat-out lie - half of them required hardware fixes/replacements.
You really should stop with the disprovable lies.
Re: So start a Twitter Thread in Musk-related art (Score:2)
In other words, restricted areas, limited interaction with other vehicles, and will have to be towed (no steering wheel) in the event of failure.
Oh yeah totally self driving isn't it? What a moron.
And lol JD power, the outfit known for giving awards for things that companies don't actually deserve. What they're alluding to is a little something called ODD or Operational Design Domain.
Hence the inclusion of a few important details in my post: "not entirely self driving" and "regulatory". So first, an area has to be designated as being usable for level 4 by regulations. This is why Google's waymo only does self-driving in certain areas of the Phoenix
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So now you admit you lied when you claimed all the problems were fixed with software updates. At least that's a start.
And I didn't cherry-pick - the authors reported the recalls (and they were recalls). No cherry picking except by you.
And citing waymo as proof of anything tesla-related is totally ridiculous. Waymo isn't "regular cameras only." And the removal/de-activation of lidar sensors means that tesla will never achieve safe autonomous driving on regular roads, ever.
And no, I never claimed level
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So now you admit you lied when you claimed all the problems were fixed with software updates. At least that's a start.
Actually the only one blatantly lying here is you:
And no, I never claimed level 4 was fully autonomous. You lie again. I made it quite clear that tesla was only at level 2. Here's the quotes if you're too lazy to scroll up:
Me: Right now Tesla only has level 2. Same as everyone else. FSD requires level 5.
You: They're basically level 4 already, at this point it's a regulatory matter rather than a technical one
Nice selective quoting there. Here's what I said:
Reality check: Level 4 isn't completely self driving.
And in response, what did you do? Selectively quote an article to emphasize bits claiming that no human driver is needed, which is inaccurate. If you weren't disagreeing with that point, you wouldn't have bothered.
And I didn't cherry-pick - the authors reported the recalls (and they were recalls). No cherry picking except by you.
First, the article lists 9 recalls. Second, it's not even half as the number of physical work needed for only three of those nine, two of which are really minor adjustments. So if you want to say "ly
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Seriously? I made that video years ago for someone else who was living in a roach-infested place, to help them fight for better conditions.
Just like I made videos to help others.
And I went to court to help others. And forced the release of information and documents their landlord didn't want to release. Because that's part of what I do.
What have YOU done to improve the world you live in?
Nothing, as far as I can tell. And no - I didn't "selectively quote" - those are our exact words, putting the lie
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Seriously? I made that video years ago for someone else who was living in a roach-infested place, to help them fight for better conditions.
Dude...I saw the video...You and I both know those roaches were your roommates. Joe's Apartment was a documentary about your life.
Just like I made videos to help others.
And I went to court to help others. And forced the release of information and documents their landlord didn't want to release. Because that's part of what I do.
Hmm...no. Basically your whole blog/channel was about how everybody is out to get you, including detailing that event where supposedly somebody "outed" you. The lady you went after probably didn't even know you were trans, she probably thought you were just a regular guy, which is quite a reasonable assumption to anybody who merely hears you speak, let alone sees you. You look AN
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Amazing how much of your headspace I took up, ain't it.
"Disappearing", I went blind, you dumb fuck. Couldn't use a computer. Had to devise a better way, because the second-level organizations helping those with low vision are simply not doing a good job with their 80's style "tech."
I have a long history of helping others. Even when I could barely see. What have you done? Nothing.
What amazes me most is how many slashdotters are old burned-out bums with nothing constructive to do with their time.
I mi
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Amazing how much of your headspace I took up, ain't it.
You really like to flatter yourself don't you? Typical narcissist.
"Disappearing", I went blind, you dumb fuck.
The nice thing about slashdot is you can't delete or edit your own posts. And shortly before leaving, I reminded you of that, which left you speechless:
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
Nevertheless, you repeatedly said why you left, and not once did you mention anything about your eyesight:
https://slashdot.org/journal/2... [slashdot.org]
https://slashdot.org/journal/3... [slashdot.org]
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
Your upward descent into your own asshole began at that
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And here's the thing - you're all still irrelevant, same as slashdot. I've been trying to put my finger on what's different now, that there it is - slashdot is irrelevant in today's world.
The place has really gone downhill since the 90s. Not even in the top 20,000 any more.
And not a single Musk twitter meltdown story when it's major news covered by the mainstream media worldwide?
I'm thinking it's time to leave the has-beens to continue to fade into irrelevance. Even Mastadon is looking better. Just c
Re: So start a Twitter Thread in Musk-related art (Score:2)
Yet here you stand.
I told you I'd do this again. And here you accused me of lying...
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Hey, look Stan. Another Musk stan!
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re: Tesla and stock (Score:2)
Honestly, it's true though. The news media is going out of their way to generate negative news about anything Elon Musk and Tesla related. I'm guessing it's the same way they love to talk about anything "Apple", even when there's barely any real news behind the article. The brand and names just generate page views or eyeballs/attention.
In the last week, I've seen multiple articles predicting gloom and doom for Tesla due to "multiple serious recalls", when the said recalls were just small software tweaks the
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Give them time to work out the bugs. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked. Nothing.
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You aren't going to blanket a continent with coverage using one satellite in LEO, you mouth breathing retard.
Thank you for perfectly illustrating the point.
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Yeah, but if The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists.
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Yeah, but if The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists.
My history might be failing me, but pirates were not known to be cannibals. Nonetheless, proper attribution is best when quoting movies like Jurassic Park.
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Inuit have long shared tales of cannibalism on Sir John Franklin's last expedition to the Arctic, and now researchers say they have found evidence to back up those stories.
Researchers from the University of Alberta and the U.K. public body Historic England looked at the remains from 36 cracked bones found on King William Island, in what is now Nunavut. The bones show signs of breakage and polishing consistent with heating in water to facilitate marrow extraction, as well as evidence of having been cut into with a sharp object.
"With the cut marks we've shown that the cannibalism took place," says Simon Mays, a member of the excavation and analysis team at Historic England.
Mays says cannibalism tends to occur in stages, with people first feeding on the biggest cuts of meat for calories.
"As time goes on, they progress and invest more and more effort trying to get nutrients out of the bone. And the final stage is to break up the bones and marrow which is what we're seeing here."
Mays says the evidence confirms that Franklin's men were practising cannibalism over time, as the bone remains were located in multiple sites. The new research also proves that in the final throes of the expedition the men not only ate human flesh to survive, but even resorted to boiling human bones, he says.
"They say they saw bones in kettles with heating vessels. So this is really confirming 19th-century Inuit accounts of cannibalism on the voyage," says Mays.
For more than a century and a half the British refused to believe that a British officer would resort to cannibalism.
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Yeah, got to love the half-second turnaround, uplink bottlenecks, and tiny transfer caps.
Give them time to work out the bugs. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked. Nothing.
Disneyland opened in 1955. By 1956, most of the rides were running reliably. Most. And by then, the concrete was dry... so ladies in their heels were no longer poking holes in the ground.
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Re:Unimpressed (Score:5, Informative)
this must be a troll? seriously?
viasat:
>$175 a month
>600ms + minimum latency
>100GB monthly cap
>virtually unusable during peak hours (and only marginally usable otherwise)
starlink:
>$110 a month
>~30ms latency
>no cap
>very infrequent, minor outages, 10s tops on average
there is no comparison whatsoever between starlink and the legacy providers. i know elonmanbad and all that, but sheesh.
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Starlink did add at 1TB cap about a month ago, but speeds went up quite a bit when they did. I was downloading at 300Mb the other day.
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oh yeah, forgot about that -- 1TB i can live with (hell, i believe comcast had that same cap a few years back, before we moved out into the woods)
but yeah even with such a cap, starlink is still lightyears better than viasat/hughes. trying to use my work VPN was impossible.
(to be clear; not defending implementing a data cap for existing customers, but such is the way of the world)
Re: Unimpressed (Score:2)
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It's a "soft" cap. You still have unlimited data, but your traffic is placed in a lower-priority queue.
Actual speed is then dependent on local congestion. If you and your neighbours are hammering the airwaves downloading linux ISOs and four different 4K Netflix streams, your speed will be affected. If you live semi-rural or rural where there's no possibility of enough subscribers to saturate the satellite/s, your speed won't be affected.
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this must be a troll? seriously?
viasat: >$175 a month >600ms + minimum latency >100GB monthly cap >virtually unusable during peak hours (and only marginally usable otherwise)
starlink: >$110 a month >~30ms latency >no cap >very infrequent, minor outages, 10s tops on average
there is no comparison whatsoever between starlink and the legacy providers. i know elonmanbad and all that, but sheesh.
A friend has Starlink - outages every evening. But you do know for the faithful, that matters not. Starlink is the single best and fasstest internet service eva, and will eventually be instantaneous, as soon as Elon tells the laws of physics they gotta obey him, not those stupid physicists.
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Here's an experiment for you. Take your current connection, and put it behind an appliance that:
Limits speed to 25 down and 5 up
Artificially extends latency to 600ms. Wildly variable jitter is an option
a. further limits speed to 5 down 1 up when you've reached a 100GB cap, or
b. charges $10 per GB when you've reached the cap
or
simulates a copper fixed-line ADSL service at 8 down 0.83 up, and
regularly loses dial tone because the last pairs in the in-ground conduits corrode, and are replaced by "temporary" abov
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Here's an experiment for you. Take your current connection, and put it behind an appliance that:
Limits speed to 25 down and 5 up Artificially extends latency to 600ms. Wildly variable jitter is an option a. further limits speed to 5 down 1 up when you've reached a 100GB cap, or b. charges $10 per GB when you've reached the cap
or simulates a copper fixed-line ADSL service at 8 down 0.83 up, and regularly loses dial tone because the last pairs in the in-ground conduits corrode, and are replaced by "temporary" above-ground patch cables which then get chewed by animals
Then you'll understand why people might choose Starlink. It's got nothing to do with Musk worship, and everything to do with being able to experience the internet like city folk have been doing for years. Yes, we're vocal about it. It'll settle down.
Except that the poor downtrodden country folk are getting nice shiny alternatives like 4G and after the transition, 5G.
And are running their internet access through that. That's how this cellular buildout works. I've been through towns of a couple hundred people with a cell tower, shiny and new is providing them.
And the places where there is no service, which should be prime MuskLink territory, like the wilderness areas of PA, the number of people who live there can often be counted on one hand per 10
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sounds like your friend either has some obstructions (the app would detect that, btw) or it's exceedingly congested around his area.
That said though it's not about being a simp for elon, or any other progressive trope you guys like to shit out when someone goes and commits thoughtcrime, or has the audacity to have differing opinions. But having tried legacy sat and cellular, starlink is hands down the best of what's available at present.
side note about the laws of physics, they're exactly why starlink exis
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A friend has Starlink - outages every evening. But you do know for the faithful, that matters not. Starlink is the single best and fasstest internet service eva, and will eventually be instantaneous, as soon as Elon tells the laws of physics they gotta obey him, not those stupid physicists.
Tell your friend to climb out of the tree branches and locate that Starlink panel on an open piece of ground...like the rest of us knuckle-draggers. /s
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A friend has Starlink - outages every evening. But you do know for the faithful, that matters not. Starlink is the single best and fasstest internet service eva, and will eventually be instantaneous, as soon as Elon tells the laws of physics they gotta obey him, not those stupid physicists.
Tell your friend to climb out of the tree branches and locate that Starlink panel on an open piece of ground...like the rest of us knuckle-draggers. /s
Which makes it a non-starter for those of us who live around trees. Or where it rains a lot.
Although, I have to wonder why it would have an outage at the same time every night. Anyhow, he's going to switch back to comcast.
Re:Unimpressed (Score:4, Informative)
Having had both Hughesnet and Starlink there is no comparison between the two. I had to use dialup for anything remotely latency sensitive when I had Hughesnet so take your bullshit lies and stick them up your ass.
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Re: Unimpressed (Score:2)
Sat service on your cellphone (Score:3)
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I'd suggest you still carry your personal locator beacon especially if you still have a working one. A little redundancy can't hurt if you experience a bad event IMHO.
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I'm pretty excited about the gen2 starlink supporting limited satellite service for normal LTE phones [extremetech.com], since for years I have carried a personal locator beacon when going out of cellphone range.
It's 10G silly - Elon won put up with the inferior service mere human companies provide.
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The best satellite phone doesn't save you if S&R are looking for your PLB instead. Thinking that just because you have phone coverage you shouldn't take the device that S&R primarily use would be incredibly stupid.
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My friend... :-)
So, when a prior president starts a problem, and the current president allows it to continue, it's not the current president's fault? Careful what you suggest, because the argument goes both ways.
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Why should I be careful with that? Nationalist fools make that argument anyway. 99% of their argument is that Trump was oblivious during 99% of his presidency. He had no idea what anyone who worked for him was doing.
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Elon seems to be following the "Howard Hughes" playbook - very rich, increasingly unstable.
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But you are correct. He has clearly lost it, and the Pelosi tweet should convince anyone of that.
Maybe he needed to take drugs to put in the hours he did, and this is the consequence ?
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Nationalism is doomed to fail through war and pestilence. Division is an unstable configuration.
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Also, quit calling me a socialist. I am not a socialist by ANY definition. I'm a business owner and investor. How can that be socialist? You know what, never mind, its better to just ignore when you idiots say I am a socialist even though I am not. In fact, I am not even going to address your BS, because I've never advocated any sort of socialist policy. It's true I support UBI and Obamacare (without the public option), but that's less socialist than even a highway system. Obamacare or UBI is not the govern
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Tesla is not tanking, stock is (Score:1)
SpaceX is still thriving while Tesla is tanking
Tesla has been doing really well in terms of building and selling cars. Tesla cars are still in extremely high demand.
What is tanking is the stock only. But that makes sense because it was terribly over-valued.
Even now it still is over-valued, but at least the P/E is more in line with other tech companies... which are all going to drop about 50% more (at least).
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Starlink is in LEO and will come down in about 5 years if it fails and the satellites are small enough and fragile enough to burn up when they do so. So clean up is self done.
1st Stage of Falcon 9 lands and is reused in most cases other times goes into the ocean at planned locations. Won't reach orbit in any case.
Falcon 9 fairings are at least frequently reused and are otherwise dumped in the ocean not orbit.
Crew Dragon capsules are reusable.
Starship is planned to become fully reusable. So given that it s
No, because we read (Score:2)
Is anyone concerned Elon is putting up stuff that will increase space junk and make a mess?
No because if you read the SPACEX'S APPROACH TO SPACE SUSTAINABILITY AND SAFETY [spacex.com] guide (scroll down or search for that title), they de-orbit old satellites.
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That Musk posts crazy conspiracy theories is also true.
New Coverage Where? (Score:1)
Not V2 satellites (Score:1)
Not Content With (Score:1)
Not content with polluting his own planet to dangerous levels, 21st century man resorts to polluting space as well.
Next up: the moon.