Musk and Bezos have no idea who becomes the King of Space

The world’s two richest men – Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos – are bickering over their competing satellite Internet plans, in an argument sparked by SpaceX’s recent request to move some Starlink satellites to a lower orbit.

The feud comes as regulators assess their respective satellite plans, namely SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper. SpaceX is asking the Federal Communications Commission for permission to position its satellites in orbits lower than initially planned. Amazon was an exception to this request, arguing the move would cause excessive interference from satellites.

“The facts are simple,” Amazon said in a declaration. “We designed the Kuiper system to avoid interference with Starlink, and now SpaceX wants to change the design of their system.”

The requested changes “not only create a more dangerous environment for collisions in space, but they also increase radio interference for customers,” says Amazon. “Despite what SpaceX is posting on Twitter, it is the changes proposed by SpaceX that would hamper competition between satellite systems.” The Bezos-led company said it was “clearly in SpaceX’s best interests to stifle competition in the cradle if they can, but it’s certainly not in the public interest.”

In one TweeterSpaceX CEO Elon Musk replied, “It doesn’t serve the public to hold Starlink back today for an Amazon satellite system that is at best several years of operation. “

Musk, who also runs Tesla, recently surpassed Jeff Bezos as the richest person in the world, with a net worth of $ 182.9 billion.

SpaceX’s intention is to deploy an Internet constellation made up of 12,000 Starlink satellites and possibly many more. The goal of the project is to provide high-speed Internet access to paying customers anywhere on Earth. The company has launched a public beta last year, which is an upfront start-up fee of $ 499 for required hardware, followed by $ 99 per month. Forbes estimates that Starlink could possibly be valued at around $ 30 billion. Some scientists are concerned that the Starlink constellation, which currently consists of more than 1,000 satellites, will interfere with astronomical observations and increase the chances of a collision with other satellites or space debris.

For Project Kuiper, Amazon hope to place 3,236 satellites on three orbital planes in low Earth orbit, the lowest of which will be 590 km above the surface. Kuiper would be in direct competition with Starlink, as it also seeks to provide high-speed, low-latency internet access to paying customers. Amazon has yet to launch a single Kuiper satellite, but the FCC authorized the project in July 2020.

In a recent presentation to the FCC, SpaceX chief David Goldman claimed that Amazon had held “30 meetings to oppose SpaceX”, but none to “authorize its own system.” reports CNBC. Amazon last month asked the FCC to limit the height of Starlink satellites to 580 km (360 miles), saying SpaceX satellites perform very well above that altitude, according to CNBC.

And with that, Musk and Bezos go for it, with each billionaire doing their best to suffocate the other. I could say something cynical about all of this, but I’m sure you get it.

So instead I’ll try to be positive and claim that competition leads to technological advancements and better consumer choice. And in this case, we should also be happy that broadband internet is soon made available to people living in rural and remote communities or anyone who is off the beaten track.

TThe question we should ask ourselves, however, is whether it will be worth the cost of further cluttering Earth’s orbit – after all, humans don’t exactly have the best track record for responsible use of resources. natural.