Number of the Day
Amazon’s Race to Space, by the Numbers
Jeff Bezos wants to give Elon Musk a run for his money
3,236. That’s the number of satellites Amazon recently received government permission to launch. Given the recent congressional grilling of Jeff Bezos and other big-tech CEOs, you might think that the e-commerce giant would want to chill out on the global-dominance vibe. But the company’s next notable move will apparently be to transcend global dominance and move on to space itself. Specifically, it plans to launch a huge “constellation” of satellites, in an effort to provide worldwide internet service.
That’s quite an undertaking, given that the total number of satellites in orbit now is 2,666, and only about half of those are owned by U.S. private or government entities. While Amazon’s satellites are “a long way from the launchpad,” according to The New York Times, SpaceX has already launched hundreds in a similar effort that may ultimately total 12,000.
Astronomers and other stargazers are already complaining about the effect of all this flying hardware on the actual study of space. As one scientist suggested to the Times, the sketchy regulatory oversight of this satellite onslaught is akin to “putting a bunch of planes up and then not having air traffic control.” Finally, it’s worth noting that there are already an estimated 3,000 defunct satellites orbiting the planet, a problem that’s been dubbed “space junk.”
Watch out: The next round of congressional hearings may be out of this world.
