Neat, TeleDesic[1] V2.0 (or is it 3.0?) :). That effort stalled when single stage to orbit rockets became impractical due to insufficent launch demand when Regan's StarWars program was cancelled.
With a fast turn around re-usable F9 booster (so its relaunch costs are significantly less than launching a new one) Musk would have control over his destiny in this case. When Iridium was being built the whole ground station thing (up/down links into the switched telephone network) was nearly a decade slog of permission, licenses, and regulations.
That said, if he is successful he will suck a lot of money out of wallets that belong to some pretty big fat cats companies. And if he made every ground station a Tor exit node it would really mess with the powers that be.
I'm fairly surprised the US government is a-ok with all of this, or maybe they've already sat down and had a chit chat with Mr Musk. Or, if everyone moves to SpaceX internet service does it make no difference whatsoever to the NSA?
With a fast turn around re-usable F9 booster (so its relaunch costs are significantly less than launching a new one) Musk would have control over his destiny in this case. When Iridium was being built the whole ground station thing (up/down links into the switched telephone network) was nearly a decade slog of permission, licenses, and regulations.
That said, if he is successful he will suck a lot of money out of wallets that belong to some pretty big fat cats companies. And if he made every ground station a Tor exit node it would really mess with the powers that be.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledesic