[anotherboffin]

Genuinely wondering why you mention “in a vacuum”, as the signal would have to go through the atmosphere.

[kimburgess]

For the inter-satellite links. First and last hop still need to pass from the ground to LEO.

The obvious solution is to start yeeting compute and/or users into space.

[notakio]

I vote for users. I'll stay down here with compute, I know how this ends.

[BenjiWiebe]

Atmosphere is practically vacuum as far as speed of light goes.

Fiber optic: 0.67c Atmosphere: 0.9997c Vacuum: 1c