Tracking Wealth Through the AI Lens
Tracking Wealth Through the AI Lens
Alright, so SpaceX launched two rockets, like, within spitting distance of each other in Florida. And another one from Vandenberg, carrying some weather satellite. Big deal. Are we supposed to be impressed?
Let's be real, this ain't about space exploration anymore. It's about Elon Musk's ego and stuffing the sky with more goddamn Starlink satellites. Oh, "internet for everyone," they say. Yeah, and I'm sure the data caps will be totally reasonable and affordable for the average Joe. Give me a break.
More than 8,900 operational Starlink satellites already clogging up low Earth orbit. 8,900! And they're launching more every freakin' week. It's like throwing garbage into the ocean and saying, "Hey, at least someone might find a use for it!" What about the light pollution for astronomers? What about the increased risk of collisions? Nobody seems to care, as long as their cat videos load in 0.5 seconds.
And don't even get me started on the environmental impact of all these launches. All that fuel, all that carbon, just so you can tweet from your toilet. We're trading the planet for convenience, and nobody seems to notice because they're too busy staring at their screens.
Okay, fine, the Falcon 9 boosters land back on drone ships. "Reusable," they call it. Like slapping a new coat of paint on a used car and calling it "brand new." Sure, they reuse 'em, but how many times can they really do that before they become space scrap falling back to Earth? And what's the carbon footprint of refurbishing these things after every flight? I'm just asking questions here.
And this whole "landing" thing... Blue Origin finally managed to land one, too. So what? Is this the new space race? Who can stick the landing the prettiest? It's all just a distraction from the fact that we're not actually doing anything meaningful up there. We're not building colonies on Mars. We're not mining asteroids. We're just launching more satellites to sell more bandwidth.
The Sentinel-6B satellite launched from Vandenberg is supposed to measure sea levels and atmospheric temperatures. "The data it gathers is meant to protect coastal infrastructure, improve weather forecasting and support commercial sea activities," according to the article. Oh, so now they care about the environment? After launching thousands of satellites that are probably contributing to the problem in the first place? It's like a pyromaniac joining the fire department.
Speaking of Vandenberg, the launch happened under a new FAA curfew. Apparently, the government shutdown caused some scheduling headaches, and now there are restrictions on when they can launch. Col. James Horne III, commander of Space Launch Delta 30, said they "treat every mission as critical to the national architecture – while ensuring rigorous public safety and scheduling flexibility." Translation: "We'll do whatever the hell we want, whenever we want, as long as we say it's for national security."
And residents near Vandenberg might hear sonic booms. "Areas local to Vandenberg Space Force Base will hear the initial low rumble of take-off," they say. "Sonic booms are brief, thunder-like noises that are often heard from the ground when a spacecraft or aircraft travels faster than the speed of sound." Yeah, brief and thunder-like. Like your house is about to collapse. But hey, at least you got to see a rocket launch, right? SpaceX plans rocket launch from Vandenberg. Where to see liftoff in California
SpaceX is launching rockets left and right. So what? They're making money, Elon Musk's ego is getting stroked, and we're all getting slightly faster internet. Meanwhile, the planet's burning, the oceans are rising, and the sky is filling up with space junk. Is this progress? I ain't so sure.
