and so because of the smartphone war, satellites can now be small enough that their launch costs can be accessible to tiny companies, and we can now get basically daily images of the entire surface of the planet because the we can do so much better than in 2005

the math of mere multiplication, using 2005 costs for satellites, is NOT APPROPRIATE for calculating whether its feasible to get daily whole planet imagine, because external changes shift the OPTIONS, and therefore shift the costs

something that might have taken hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars in reality actually takes a few MILLION, because we can do it _differently_ because of the changes in underlying technology costs

this is one of the biggest factors in what's going to happen with the $5-$50/lb price point that we're heading towards with reusable heavy lift vehicles like SpaceX's Falcon Super Heavy/Starship, and Blue Origin's New Glenn

except in this case, the lowering of launch costs means the engineering requirements of the things being put into space can change dramatically

currently, you need to have extremely light weight but durable systems, because launch costs are at least $1500/lb

and light weight but durable means lots of very expensive, complex manufacturing and quality control

but as launch prices drop, you can start to build HEAVIER durable systems using much more common, and much cheaper, manufacturing and QC

the example I give in the article is a comparison between the aerospace engineering quality ultralight weight aluminum can design of space stations, which cost huge quantities of money, and have to withstand a mere 14 PSI of atmospheric pressure

compare that to the cost of the equivalent welded steel high pressure tanks that hold compressed gas at tens or hundreds of PSI

the price of those is much lower, and you can buy them used for even lower prices still and they still work just as well

mass production of those tanks lowers cost enormously, for all sorts of reasons. there's more tools being produced for them so the cost of the factory itself is cheaper, there's more workers with necessary skills, so labor costs are lower, more competition so lower profits, etc

if you can triple the weight of the thing you launch into space, you could dramatically reduce the cost of building that thing, because you can rely on mass production factory economics

but you CANT do that if launches cost $1500/lb to orbit