Satellites
topic on 8 shows · 17 statements across 13 episodes
the Pitch 
Another Podcast 
American Optimist 
Invest Like the Best 
the MAD Podcast 
How I Built This 
the a16z Podcast 
All-In
17 statements about Satellites, every show
Mendler: Satellites without ground connections are just rocks in space
“Every satellite requires a connection point back to Earth. If you don't have it, you don't have a space mission. It literally is just like a rock in space.”
Huang: Nvidia has radiation-hardened CUDA hardware deployed in satellites
“We're already radiation-hardened. We have CUDA in satellites around the world.”
Inter-satellite laser links create faster networks than terrestrial fiber-optic data centers
“So if you can link these satellites in space together using lasers, you actually have a faster and more coherent network than in a data center on earth.”
Cinnamon: US government-owned satellite launches tripled between 2019 and 2024
“Between 2019 and 20 24, so over that five year period, The U S government has about tripled the number of satellites that they've launched that are government owned. So they've gone from a pretty low number or like call it about 50 or so to now about a 150 or …”
Cinnamon: US government launched only 146 satellites last year
“And I look at how many satellites the US government was able to launch last year, not how many they wanted to, but they were only able to launch, according to the data that we've been able to pull, a 146.”
US government launched barely over 200 satellites in 2024, says Ian Cinnamon
“The US government launched barely over 200 last year.”
Clark: Atomos space tugs can complete multiple satellite transfers before refueling
“Our spacecraft, which is essentially a space tug, it rendezvous with the rocket upper stage, retrieves the satellite, and transfers it to its final destination, and we can reuse our space tug. So it would then cycle back down to the low orbit, pick up another …”
Clark: One-third of on-orbit satellite failures stem from power failure
“So to put it in perspective, one-third of all on-orbit failures are satellites because of power failure.”
Gedmark: Traditional satellites historically cost hundreds of millions and match bus sizes
“The big satellites that historically cost several hundred million dollars each You know, they are the size of a school bus, if not like a double decker, you know, big, big red London double decker bus.”
Gedmark: GEO orbit historically received the bulk of satellite capital
“Historically, GEO is actually the most valuable orbit. That is where the bulk of money has been spent to put satellites into orbit.”
Gedmark: Traditional satellites keep getting bigger instead of shrinking over time
“If anything, they've gotten bigger and bigger over time instead of smaller and smaller. They somehow, you know, got, found themselves in this, you know, part of the design space where they got, they fell into this, you know, local optima. Descending down this …”
Jah: Earth orbit contained 1,200 working satellites and 26,000 debris pieces in 2006
“At that time in 2006, there were only 1200 working satellites and 26,000 pieces of garbage.”
Jah: SpaceX operates nearly 3,000 satellites at a 500-kilometer altitude
“Elon has almost 3000 satellites at 500 kilometer altitude, and it would be wise for you to talk to Elon before you try to go through the orbital shell that he has.”
Schingler: Smartphone hardware capabilities and engineering processes closely match satellite requirements
“And really the insight that the team had is, what's so different about a phone from a satellite? And turns out, like, the engineering processes, the capabilities internally, All of that stuff is very similar.”
Evans: Satellites will not threaten cellular because they fail indoors
“And the same thing now with people saying that satellites are the threat to cellular. Well, it doesn't work indoors, so like you can probably forget about that one.”
Johnson: $1 billion will flow into satellite infrastructure over coming years
“It turns out there is a billion dollars of investment going into satellites over the next few years.”
Bob Johnson: Technology and Content Diversity Inevitably Defeat Incumbent Regulation
“Technology is a hard thing to keep tied down, and as satellites launched, and you could beam signals across the entire country, and aggregate huge audiences via cable, over time, the argument for more content, free choice, more diversity of content, particular…”