Viasat’s Orbit of Denial

There’s something oddly comforting about watching a company throw $2 billion at a problem it still doesn’t understand. Viasat’s new “super satellite” is being paraded around like a weapon in the great orbital showdown, the one where Elon Musk already owns the battlefield, the supply lines, and half the spectators.

Bloomberg, in its usual gentle hospice tone, calls this a “counteroffensive.” That’s adorable. A counteroffensive implies momentum. What Viasat actually has is altitude, thirty-six thousand kilometers of it, and that’s the problem.