Not pointless, that's the best use of Starlink with phones. Base station backhaul gets the benefits of not having to run fiber + space for a bigger antenna w/ better signal to noise ratio
+1 for reading projects. There's rarely one, perfect way to solve a problem, and there's certainly no silver bullet pattern in software. The more patterns and types of solutions you've seen, the bigger the set of tools you'll have in your mental toolbox when faced with a new problem.
These answers seem to be quite out of date, as the aerospace industry (most notably SpaceX) has been using Linux as part of their rocket control systems for quite a while now.
US Government: You have to careful about potentially leaking export controlled material, or your employees will be held personally responsible and go to jail.