Low orbit satellites are unnecessary for emergency/comm. Fewer, dimmer, satellites at higher orbits are actually cheaper, but LEO constellations are now subsidized by the military industrial complex (there is other value to be low).
According to Mike Griffin (referring to the first decade of the company), "[SpaceX] will have received approximately $1.2 billion in government money from the collective programs. I’m rounding, but with this recent $400-plus million award under CCiCap [Commercial Crew integrated Capability], that brings the total SpaceX funding to something around $1.2 billion, maybe a little more.
That’s—I will only say in my view—excessive, especially since in testimony last year the SpaceX founder, Elon Musk, indicated that the private funding involved was not more than $200 million. $100 million of his own money that he had brought in from a prior enterprise, and then he alluded to the fact—I’m trying to recall the testimony on an ad hoc basis, but the point is that there’s less than $200 million of private capital in SpaceX and $1.2 billion of government capital."
"In early 2002 he met entrepreneur Elon Musk and accompanied him on a trip to Russia where they attempted to purchase ICBMs. The unsuccessful trip is credited as directly leading to the formation of SpaceX.[7] Musk offered Griffin the title of Chief Engineer at the company,[8] but Griffin instead became president and COO of In-Q-Tel, a private enterprise funded by the CIA to identify and invest in companies developing cutting-edge technologies that serve national security interests.[9]"
In 2005, he was appointed NASA Administrator where he pushed for commercial cargo and crew transportation services that saved the company from bankruptcy.
"In February 2018, Griffin was appointed as Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering by Donald Trump. One of his first actions was to create the Space Development Agency.[13][14] The organization was tasked with procuring a proliferated constellation of low Earth orbit satellites to detect Chinese and Russian hypersonic weapons. Commercial contracts for the constellation were given to L3Harris and SpaceX."
Yes and every halving of that 1% error is more than twice as hard to do with neural net training. At some point more principled control algorithms are needed.
These types of comments are unhelpful. The expectations on the driver are getting vaguer and vaguer. Can't drive in damp weather? Yet it's Full Self Driving? Tesla wants to market it as powerful AI but leave all responsibility with the driver, don't encourage that narrative.