Another Day, Another Launch... So What?
Alright, folks, let's get real. Another day, another handful of rockets blasting off into the great beyond. Rocket Lab doing its thing for iQPS, sticking another Earth-observing satellite – Yachihoko-I, whatever that means – into orbit. And SpaceX? Oh, they're just casually chucking 29 more Starlink satellites into the sky like it's NBD. SpaceX launches 29 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral – Spaceflight Now
Seventy-four launches for Rocket Lab this year? One hundred forty-six for SpaceX? Numbers, numbers, numbers. Who cares? What does it mean?
iQPS wants a constellation of 36 SAR satellites to give us near-real-time images every 10 minutes. Okay... and? What pressing global crisis demands we see everything on Earth in near-real-time? Are we expecting an alien invasion and need to track their every move? I doubt it.
"The Nation God Navigates." Seriously? That's the mission name? Sounds like something out of a bad anime. I mean, come on. Are we really supposed to get excited about this? Are we supposed to be impressed? Because I ain't.
The Musk Machine Rolls On
And then there's SpaceX. One hundred forty-one Falcon 9 launches this year alone. Over a hundred dedicated to Starlink. It's a damn machine at this point, isn't it? Launch, land, repeat. Booster B1094 making its fifth trip to space. Yawn.
They call them "V2 Mini" satellites. Mini? Let's be real, each one is probably the size of a damn school bus. But hey, "mini" sounds less threatening when you're carpeting the sky with them, right?
Look, I get it. Internet access for everyone, blah blah blah. But at what cost? Our night skies? The potential for Kessler syndrome? The sheer, unadulterated ugliness of thousands of satellites glinting in the sun?
Plus, let's not forget that Elon is probably using all this Starlink money to fund his Mars obsession. Which, okay, fine, go colonize Mars. But maybe don't turn Earth's orbit into a junkyard in the process? Just a thought.
And speaking of space junk, what happens when these "mini" satellites eventually die? Are they just gonna float around up there forever? Are we just kicking the can down the road for future generations to deal with our mess?
Then again, maybe I'm just being a grumpy old man yelling at clouds... or satellites, as it were.
Is This Progress, or Just More Noise?
SpaceX is increasing its launch cadence every year. Cool. So is my local garbage truck. Doesn't mean it's progress. It just means there's more... stuff. More noise. More distractions. More reasons to feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of everything.
I'm all for innovation, offcourse. But is this really innovation? Or is it just a relentless pursuit of profit disguised as progress? Are we actually solving problems, or are we just creating new ones in the process?
Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe there's some grand, utopian vision behind all these launches that I'm too cynical to see. But let's be real – it feels more like a land grab than a leap forward.
So, What's the Endgame Here?
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I'm telling you, this whole space race 2.0 thing is starting to feel like a bad joke. We're so busy launching things into orbit that we're forgetting to take care of the planet we're already on. Maybe we should focus on fixing things here before we go screwing up another planet. Just a thought.
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