With Iridium the approach was to hand ff the transmission between satellites until it was within range of of a ground station to connect to a terrestrial network, or reach another satellite phone, usually one or two hops

They may use a similar approach, although Iridium initially involved the governments in the countries that they maintained gateways in as part of the corporate structure. See Wired story, "The United Nations of Iridium"
http://archive.wired.com/wired...

It would make a lot of sense to use the satellite network as the primary routing mechanism and only maintain gateways in geographic locations that Musk has strong political influence in. This would limit political interference from countries that practice censorship and limit money lost to graft and bribery

This ^

Furthermore, Musk has gone beyond ideas or demos and delivered profitable companies delivering these technologies

I would say put your eggs into many baskets, this endeavor represents another basket

People get confused between because the current satellite data providers (like HughesNet) are in geosynchronous orbit, which does suffer latency issues

Iridium is a LEO system that does not currently provided data services, and which has a relatively sparse constellation which requires a wide visible horizon to use

Variety?

If all of your eggs are in one basket, i.e. fiber optics, then last mile, remote location, some jackass dragging an anchor or a recalcitrant local government can cut you off from access

Satellite communication is the more expensive option, but it can be worth it if there is no other means of connection

The real question is whether that market is enough to support their cost structure

It really depends on how many sats SpaceX can jam into one launch and how much of their capacity is already committed to other contracts

Teledesic was dependent on other companies for launch, the one demo sat they put up was using Orbital's Pegasus

It is actually calling for a few thousand satellites, but you are correct.... not that big of an issue considering the area that they are spread out over

I have to wonder, considering the Branson announcement, which billionaire is trying to distract from which billionaires actual commitment

Musk has the lead in the form of an actual, demonstrated, launch capability, but Branson made it to press a few days earlier

Gotcha, every story has to be wrapped up in a bow and dropped in your lap with no loose ends in a 90 minute running time.

I'm glad that Ridley Scott's other works like Blade Runner made it so easily digestible

My favorite is Grandma's Boy where the aging dweeb bangs the hot management consultant would would have had him riffed in real life

My guess is that he is the only one that they are willing to hang out as bait and get wasted so they can identify their target without any down-side of somebody else caring what happens to him

A lamb staked out to draw in the wolves

I'll probably wait to watch it on netfix in a few years, no rush to see it on the big screen

I got a really stupid script for you

Deep space ship is called on to land on a planet
Somebody sticks their face into an opening egg
The person is brought back on the ship and they somehow miss that they have an alien embryo in it
Ships computer and an android attempt to kill a crew member, by stuffing a rolled up magazine down their throat
Alien pops out, grows without any food and kills most of the crew while they flail about the flamethrowers in a closed environment
Hero runs around with fog machines and strobes flashing
Hero escapes exploding ship (kaboom!)
Hero fights off alien in their undies and drifts into space

Yep, that is Alien, a summer slasher flick stuck in space, but somehow everybody wants the same damn movie made over and over and will not accept when a new movie is made in the same franchise that attempts to draw the viewer further into a story

I am willing to accept that humans are fallible and likely to make horrible mistakes

The fact that Ripley did not make many mistakes is why she was a hero, everybody else working for Weyland Industries can be expected to act like a mindless sycophant because that is what corporations support

All of Dick's writing contains a great deal of self-doubt and delusion, it has to do with Dick's own mental state and I believe that stating that Deckard did not even understand what he was fits with Dick's other work

Krakatoa explosion caused a mild global winter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y...

OMG... It's not a satellite network... IT'S A CAGE!!!