When does/do the research/space programs enabled by these more frequent launches start to benefit us all? It must have already contributed to something somehow. Agriculture? Defense? Oil exploration? Seems like the sort of information that's hard to find.
There's the Dragon 2, the only US human space vehicle in operation, as the Space Shuttle has been retired in 2011 due to expenses and safety issues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Dragon_2
Something I’ve wondered about Starlink. What data does that company glean from the communication that traverses its network? What are the privacy implications?
Oh please, it's perfectly feasible. The catch is you need to put more energy in than you get out, and it won't save you any money. But it's not "against the laws of physics and chemistry"
(The reason it might be done despite costing more money is mostly PR.)
It's quite feasible on Mars, where the concentration of CO2 is much higher (albeit the air is also much thinner), and a cornerstone of SpaceX's plan to produce methane fuel in situ.
To be more precise: the laws of physics and chemistry will never allow to pull CO2 from the atmosphere in an energy efficient way
The consequence is that, unless all your electricity generation and raw resource extraction needed for the process has basically zero emissions, it's probably better to just use regular fuel. Burning fossil fuels to create fuel that you then burn has more CO2 emissions than just burning fossil fuels once (since you need way less fossil fuel in the first place). And the US grid is, right now, not in path of not burning fossil fuels. So the idea of pulling CO2 from the atmosphere and be carbon neutral doesn't seem plausible.
> To be more precise: the laws of physics and chemistry will never allow to pull CO2 from the atmosphere in an energy efficient way
I see. Now that is a big difference. I don’t know enough to tell if you are right.
> it's probably better to just use regular fuel
Maybe. There is one reason why spacex might still do it even if it is less energy efficient.
Their mars plan depends on in-situ resource extraction. If they can’t generate fuel on mars they can’t send their rockets back.
This will be a very hard technological challenge. If they can find a path to derisk their co2->methan plants here on earth it would be worth doing it even if it costs them money. They have to master the tech anyway.
Now clearly doing the conversion here on earth is not the same deal as doing it on mars. The atmosphere is quite different as a start. I don’t know enough to tell how much this matters. Maybe they can just tweek some process parameters and make a machine which works here on earth and on mars “sameish” enough that it helps with learning. Maybe they can process the exhaust of some industrial process into a kind of “martian atmosphere” analogue close enough that they can learn from that.
They will want to test their ISRU equipment before heading to mars. And they want to it eventually in large enough scale that the output can power their rockets back. It stands to reason that even their tests must be at a certain point on a huge scale. So why not fill the methane they get from the testing into their rockets at that point here on Earth too?
There is a lag between the service being available and missions being planned to use it. The US government is finally starting to see the light and is presently benefiting from lower costs and better performance compared to legacy providers. Starlink wouldn't have been possible without this, both competitive constellations are considering using SpaceX for launch services too. This area alone is providing incredible value to humanity already but also doesn't require human capabilities.
One benefit is the connectivity provided by Starlink to Ukraine's front line defending forces. Which, amongst other things, increases the quality of reconnaissance, tempo of battle, and should translate to fewer defender and civilian casualties.
The long term effects of a more rapid Ukrainian victory (and a dramatic Russian defeat) are difficult to estimate.
What exactly are you referring to? If you mean the satellites, Earth observation satellites run by governments play a big role in things like agriculture by aiding weather predictions. Defense should also be relatively obvious from that (even private Earth observation services are proving helpful to Ukraine for instance).
If you mean the rockets, there's the perk of making it easier for smallsats to get rides, enabling all sorts of smaller research/Earth observation and making it easier to train the next generation of talent in the field.
If you mean things like Starlink, one thing coming in the next few years that should play a decent role in the world is the idea of cellular connectivity anywhere by direct satellite uplink. It would be extremely low bandwidth, basically text-only, but likely to still be a fairly big deal for monitoring remote environments and for search and rescue purposes.
Not sure what kind of impact you are looking for. Nobody is going to show up at your doorstep with a check. That said, you can look around you for a lot impacts. If you really want to be specific to the frequency of launches, increased availability of starlink for indidvidual and military needs.
