
The New Space Race: One Man's Mission to Build a Galactic Internet - prostoalex
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2015-01-22/global-internet-greg-wyler-may-beat-elon-musk-google-facebook
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LiweiZ
I think one of the main advantages of the space internet is it will further
take over the control of internet access. Regional rulers have to face a
harder time on controlling internet. This will be a huge power to hold. And I
guess it may reshape the world economically and politically. Any other
thoughts regarding this?

~~~
onion2k
The only way that affordable internet access is possible in any country is
with explicit and complicit action from the government. You can't get everyone
online if the government is run by a group of people who actively don't want
it to happen. For example, if a government wants to stop its citizens
accessing the web all they need to is make the necessary equipment illegal.
When the price of being found with a satellite modem is 30 years in prison
_most_ people are going to forego internet access.

The sad thing is there are governments that not only have that sort of power
but willingly use it.

~~~
jsprogrammer
Making something illegal is not all that needs to be done. The government
would still need a detection and enforcement mechanism.

~~~
maskedinvader
why was this down voted ?

ps. I ask sincerely trying to understand the reasons when I see grayed out
text that seem (to me) quite a reasonable comment.

edit: typos

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codinghorror
I guess he was the first to come up with this radial heatsink design?

[http://www.google.com/patents/US20040200601](http://www.google.com/patents/US20040200601)

Stock Intel coolers do look like this today and have for a while.

I used to spend a lot of time thinking about heatsinks. It is all tower and
heatpipe models today, though, e.g.

[http://www.anandtech.com/show/6830/cpu-air-cooler-roundup-
si...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/6830/cpu-air-cooler-roundup-six-coolers-
from-noctua-silverstone-and-cooler-master/6)

Originally popularized by the Scythe Ninja back in gosh, what, 2004 or so? It
was a super effective design, main refinements over time have been more and
more "slices" and direct contact heatpipes. Nobody afaik has beaten efficiency
of the tower heatpipe design to date.

~~~
rasz_pl
looks like junk patent, filed 4 years AFTER Thermaltake Golden orb

[http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=256](http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=256)

~~~
rgbrenner
did you read the patent? it says: "Priority date Aug 30, 1999" and the first
sentence of the description is: "[0001] This application is a continuation of
application Ser. No. 09/386,103, filed on Aug. 30, 1999."

which is:
[https://www.google.com/patents/US6851467](https://www.google.com/patents/US6851467)
and was indeed filed on Aug 30 1999.

Which is almost a year before the Thermaltake Golden Orb.

Besides, he actually has his name on a number of patents:
[https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&hl=en&tbm=pts&q=ininv...](https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&hl=en&tbm=pts&q=ininventor%3A%22Gregory+T+Wyler%22&oq=ininventor%3A%22Gregory+T+Wyler%22)

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mytochar
150ms is an incredible number, and the volume of satellites required will also
increase bandwidth. This seems like a good situation to be in all around. I
hope he succeeds at this work.

~~~
thescorer
I'm having a hard time translating 150ms into something I understand right now
which is Mbps. Can someone enlighten me?

~~~
ihsw
Well, simply put, there's more to a good user experience than having some high
Mbps. For example, if your latency is high then loading a web page with fifty
small pictures will take longer than one really big picture.

On your phone, when chatting with someone, the connection will be really
choppy.

Think of it as having a car that can go really fast in a straight line, but it
takes a _really_ long time to make any left or right turns.

~~~
eterm
> For example, if your latency is high then loading a web page with fifty
> small pictures will take longer than one really big picture.

This is true currently, but check out this http/2 demo with a tile of images
loaded with different latencies:

[https://http2.golang.org/gophertiles](https://http2.golang.org/gophertiles)

If you have a http/2 enabled browser, then it shows how even with high
latency, the browsing doesn't suffer nearly as much.

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nitinics
Looks like they use Ka band [
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O3b_%28satellite%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O3b_%28satellite%29)
]. Wonder what were the factors of not choosing the Ku band. As far as I know
Ku band is more cost effective and less susceptible to rain fade and such.

~~~
icw
Much faster data rates I suspect - you can spend some of that on forward error
correction to compensate for rain fade.

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ztratar
Rooting for him, though SpaceX has the core competency and capital to get this
off the ground much faster. (no pun intended)

~~~
dharma1
some comparison between the two

[http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=36590.0](http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=36590.0)

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dharma1
will this number of satellites really have enough bandwidth to serve 3 billion
people? And how will the satellites 750 miles from earth be upgraded in the
future as bandwidth demand increases?

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state
It's true that I live under a rock, but how have I never heard of this guy?

