Hundreds of fragments from Starlink constellation could reach the Earth

[ChrisSmolinski]

The chance that SpaceX’s planned Starlink satellite constellation will cause an injury or death is 45 percent every six years, according to an IEEE Spectrum analysis of figures submitted by the company to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/satellites/the-odds-that-one-of-spacexs-internet-satellites-will-hit-someone

[R4002]

Elon Musk hopes the nearly 12,000 satellites in the constellation will eventually carry half of all Internet traffic. The satellites will use laser and radio links to provide fast, cheap Internet access to people all over the world—and the associated service fees could help Musk fund his dream of colonizing Mars.

So what's the catch?  How many ground stations are going to have to be built to interface with the huge bandwidth this system is supposed to be handling?  It doesn't do Internet users on Earth much good to have all that bandwidth capability in space without the associated ground/earth stations. 

Also, what happens to laser communications when its cloudy? 

That's a lot of satellites, adding to the already huge amount of stuff in orbit...

[Josh]

"Enjoy fast and cheap internets with extreme latency!"