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Re:A bevy of rovers heading for the Moon by wongarsu on Wednesday February 16, 2022 @12:07PM (#30362513)
Elon is banking on low launch costs creating lots of demand. Whether that pays off has to be seen: for conventional satellites the launch cost hasn't been the biggest factor by far, but we are now seeing more satellites that profit from low launch costs (mainly earth observation and internet services), and there are at least some projects in the pipeline for things that make sense to manufacture in space (like optical fiber). But demand takes time to materialize, and SpaceX has to somehow stay solvent until then.
Re:A bevy of rovers heading for the Moon by Ancapistani on Wednesday February 16, 2022 @02:00PM (#30364167)
I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that the demand will be there.

At $2,800/kg, I'm curious enough to start looking at options for a _personal_ satellite. It's unlikely that would be viable, because the cost of the communications and stationkeeping hardware would be prohibitive. I'd be interested in sharing space on a "F/OSS" orbiter of some type, but I've not seen any projects that would make such an idea viable.

At $100/kg... I'd figure it out, if only to say that I'd done so. At that price I'd be trying to figure out a way to stream video from a microsatellite of orbit, de-orbit, and re-entry just to show the couple of "flat earthers" I know what's obvious to the rest of us. Let them pick the camera and lens so they can't fall back to "It's a fisheye lens!".

In all seriousness, though - at $100/kg, you'll see all kinds of entities trying things that have never been practical before just to see if they'd work.

Re:A bevy of rovers heading for the Moon by dylan604 on Wednesday February 16, 2022 @02:46PM (#30364759)
NASA used a commodity CPU for their Martian drone, so just start there. See what an RPi4 or something could do. If it works for any amount of time at all, then it's a success. If it lasts the entire duration before re-entry, then it's a resounding success.

If launches are that cheap, just keep throwing junk up until you find out where the line for good enough is.