Elon Musk Needs to Dial Down on His Galactic Ambitions

Townhall.com ^ | May 19, 2018 | Nicholas Waddy

[Ozark Tom]

Hughs Net = Geosynchronous. Typical service 2/3 of a second delay. Low orbit satellite delay is about 25 thousandth of a second — same as cable or DSL.

[Moonman62]

Nikola Tesla >> Thomas Edison

...

Edison was the better businessman and quite a bit saner.

Tesla was the better inventor.

Both were much better than just about anybody else in their vocations.

[wjr123]

The author of this — a political “scientist” — illustrates what is wrong with the U.S. He s not technologically fit to shine Musk’s shoes.

Immediate social concerns seem to be all some folks are interested in. The key, here, is that if you don’t like the way things are then change the conditions. Musk is changing conditions by pushing technology forward rather than adding to the snark fest of social media.

Look, you need to take risks and you need to do so without the carping of social scientists — “social scientist” is an oxymoron I grant you.

Does he consume our cash? You bet, but, given all of the incredibly stupid things that government does, I wold rather give a bit to Musk because he actually does things rather than talk about them.

Some will work, some won’t but the ones that work have the chance to change the world in ways that we cannot really account for.

Again, there is bad and good to this but it is the way it always is when moving forward. If you don’t believe me then quit using the net. After all there are many really bad things that have happened to us because of the internet, right?

[EEGator]

Agreed. I’m just rather biased.

[hal ogen]

Dear elon: I want all the tax money you have stolen returned. Spend you own money and that of private investors.

[Vince Ferrer]

I have selfish motives, as we’re planning on moving to a much more rural area...as telecommuting becomes more prevalent this will remove one of the main obstacles to country living.

I'd like to have a van decked out with a bed, desk, and computer with internet so I can "work from home" anywhere in the country. I'd take a year off of going to work and drive around the country working remotely during the day, and at 5:00, enjoy wherever I am.

[Ozark Tom]

Lock-on to transponder as low as about 42 degrees above the horizon, allowing 3 or 4 satellite to be within range at a time, given an unobstructed ground terminal site.

Given LEO at 480 to 660 mile and without correcting for Earth orbit curvature, worst case slant-range less than 900 miles, a 5 ms transit on first hop to LEO node.

[ifinnegan]

How far can it go?

[ifinnegan]

“Nikola Tesla >> Thomas Edison”

Apples and oranges, really.

Edison made things happen.

Tesla didn’t.

[Darksheare]

Funny, but musk isn’t anywhere near the calibre of Kelly Johnson.

[EEGator]

You are quite confused.

[Darksheare]

Musk isn’t himself a company.
He’s just real good at talking himself into getting and spending taxpayer money.
And, guess what, were any businesses worth the effort they could do if by lining up this amazing resource called “investors” to take on the risk instead of taxpayers.
Amazing concept.

[ifinnegan]

Don’t think so.

I’ve been reading Tesla biographies since I was a young teen.

I’d love to see Tesla’s wireless power, but it didn’t ever happen.

Yet.

[Moonman62]

It looks like one of the hypermilers got 670 miles, but that isn’t practical.

Doing a search for “model s range” should give an idea.

[ifinnegan]

How can it not be known?

I can drive around 450 miles in my HondaAccord or Toyota Camry.

How far can one go in a Tesla and how long to recharge/refuel?

[ifinnegan]

Google search returns:

249 to 315 mi battery-only

I know the idea is to swap out a battery at given spots along major highways to make “refueling” comparable time wise to getting gas.

But this limited range is a drawback to me.

It makes the car one that really can’t be relied on for trips of any distance.

[Moonman62]

My recommendation is that you don’t buy one. There are plenty of people who are fine with the range.

Some people won’t buy a Honda or Toyota because there are particular things they don’t like.

[Teacher317]

arguably Musk's efforts are both unnecessary and redundant. Why unnecessary? Because most of the world's people who desire broadband internet access already have it, and companies and governments are already hard at work all over the world to extend broadband coverage to the few areas that lack it. There are, simply put, simpler and cheaper ways to bridge the digital divide.

It's adorable that this journalism major thinks that broadband will be anything close to what we are using in just 25 years. What were we using 25 years ago as the top-of-the-line connections? Telephone lines and 14.4k baud modems. Today, 1 Gig connections are available. That's 14,400 compared to 10^9. In 25 years, kids will be mocking "mere" Terabyte connections. They will likely know connections with Exabyte speeds. (That's 10^18, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000)

[Teacher317]

And, guess what, were any businesses worth the effort they could do if by lining up this amazing resource called “investors” to take on the risk instead of taxpayers. Amazing concept.

Are you trying to pretend that Tesla isn't publicly traded and has no investors?

TSLA Share price
06/29/2010 - $17.00 (initial offering)
02/08/2013 - $39.24 (price more than doubled in 2.5 years)
03/07/2014 - $246.21 (price sextuples in 1 year)
06/23/2017 - $383.45 (peak... price up more than 50% in 3 years, still impressive)
05/18/2018 - $276.82 (still up 1500% in under 8 years, and multiple stock splits... 1 share in 2010 is 58 shares today.)

Facts matter

[Darksheare]

And it still gets taxpayer money.
Are you trying to pretend THAT doesn’t happen?