The Golden Crown, the Chicago White Sox & the Collapse of Starlink

by Lou Zacharilla

New York City, NY, November 1, 2024--SpaceX and its founder, whose innovations transformed the commercial Space business from a slumber deeper than even the makers of Melatonin promise, will surpass four million subscribers for its Starlink satellite broadband service by the time you finish this article.  The leader of the Digital Age’s Ford Motors with thrusters has, according to its president, Industry Hall of Fame inductee Gwynne Shotwell (https://tinyurl.com/nhc9nb6s), also produced one million terminals in less than 365 days at a facility deep in the heart of Texas.

According to SpaceIntelReport editor Peter b. De Selding, Shotwell told the Texas House of Representatives Appropriations Committee that the company’s massive Bastrop, Texas production site “will be the largest printed circuit board manufacturing facility in the United States.” An X-size claim.  She added another X for good measure, saying she was “pretty sure” it will beat Southeast Asia in efficiency in producing those printed circuit boards.  

I’m pretty sure I love that swagger. Talking big and walking tall plays well in Texas.  The hearing she attended was to highlight the newly created Texas Space Commission, which has $150 million in funds to support startup space ventures. SSPI’s New York Space Business Roundtable had the Commission’s Executive Director as a guest in September at our live event at Cornell University. For sure, said Norman R. Garza, Jr., this Commission plans to leverage the presence of the industry in Texas to do more than kick tumbleweed and put a few more astronauts up there. It’s thinking bigger. It’s thinking economic development at scale.

For sure, Starlink rocks in Texas and is on a roll.  Its very presence is a boost.

The decision by Air France and United Airlines to move their in-flight-connectivity service to Mr. Musk’s company next year offers further proof that Starlink is in the hunt to offer in-flight connectivity that, to refer to a recent Wall Street Journal article, “doesn’t stink.”
While the media descended on Texas for this event, it was also covering an event in Chicago where a business that is also a crown jewel of the city’s pride was about to achieve ignominy.  The Chicago White Sox baseball team broke a record too.  This one, though, was Major League Baseball's 62-year-old record for the most losses (121) in one season.  Things change, Kundun. A mere three years ago the team won the Division title. Now, it was unable to stick a landing and close out a ninth inning.

What’s my point? Two-fold.

Starlink, like SpaceX, has transformed the commercial Space industry in ways that were unimaginable not long ago.  They are winners by any measure. Their revenue picture is enviable and their dominance uncontested.  It strikes fear in boardrooms and joy among entrepreneurs who enjoy cheaper launch services and broadband connectivity, which allows more imaginations to be unleashed. It has helped create new services and business models. It has given the industry cache. 

But wherever there is the light, darkness must fall.  Wherever there is victory, defeat also looms.

On October 16 at the monthly New York Space Business Roundtable explored how things can go “South” in this industry – as it does in human affairs - in ways no one can imagine. There is a swagger in SpaceX’s step that fits a set of big guy cowboy boots and it is justified.  As a New Yorker I’m down with that.  There is also a trickle – or perhaps a gush - of arrogance that reminds me that a company which has the phrase, “Made by humans” printed on circuit boards that make up the antenna array for the Starlink dish need be mindful of the fact that human beings also made the story of Icarus, whose father was a great inventor of things like wax wings.  But dad was more humble than his kid.  Icarus could not resist.  Had he only waited for the Parker Solar Probe….

Humans also insisted on the slave’s warning to Roman conquerors, noted by the great conqueror of Nazis, General George Patton.  “All glory is fleeting.”

For the moment, Starlink has followed the Better Satellite World prescription.  It for sure has made the world better, more connected and opens imaginations almost as fast as it produces terminals. And if you are Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore you understand how transformative this monstrously innovative company is.

Mars awaits.  But with these kind of wings, can we ever refuse the lure of the Sun? 

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Lou Zacharilla is the Director of Innovation for the Space & Satellite Professionals International (SSPI) www.sspi.org and host of The Better Satellite World podcast every Monday.  He can be reached at: LZacharilla@sspi.org