@cstross ...as with any cancer or parasite... @jb

@cstross Indeed, I know -- it's where we are now.

Perhaps not too late to stop it from metastasizing, but it's going to be a hard battle.

@jb

@jb I don't approve of capitalism occupying Earth orbit; my point was that (at least according to Manley, and what I do understand of physics and orbital mechanics) it's not implausible that what the Muskrat is doing here is actually sensible from a capitalist standpoint.

His whole existence is a grift, and he needs to be stopped, but this particular part of it seems far less of a con than (e.g.) the "cybertruck".

@cstross

@cstross I'd be interested in finding out if Scott Manley got anything wrong here.

His take, as I understand it, is basically (1) the physics makes it complicated but not non-doable, and (2) can't be profitable now but may well be so within the foreseeable future -- making it likely that whoever gets there first, even before it's profitable, stands to make the usual absurd amounts of money (especially if orbital access is never properly regulated) once it does become cheap enough for it to be profitable.