> What if you knew you could get a cheap ride anywhere anytime?
That's exactly the premise of Starlink. SpaceX know they can launch those things 100x cheaper (1000x ?) than ever before in history, so they're churning them out and throwing them up. Even though the ones going up right now aren't "finished" it doesn't matter, because replacing them with new and better ones is so cheap.
400 Starlink satellites per Starship launch costing $2M is $5,000 per satellite per launch. Basically nothing compared to the eventual mass-produced cost to make each satellite which might be $100,000.
Musk recently said that they need to get Starship working because the launch cost on Falcon 9 is already exceeding the cost of the launched Starlink satellites. With a launch cost of approximately $30M and 60 satellites, they are already at $500k per satellite at most.
That's exactly the premise of Starlink. SpaceX know they can launch those things 100x cheaper (1000x ?) than ever before in history, so they're churning them out and throwing them up. Even though the ones going up right now aren't "finished" it doesn't matter, because replacing them with new and better ones is so cheap.