Orbital shells as distinct economic regimes

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Altitude is not a continuum for a satellite business; it is a small set of regimes with sharply different economics. Geostationary orbit, at roughly 35,786 km above the equator, gives one satellite a fixed position over about a third of the Earth's surface — so a broadcaster needs three spacecraft for near-global reach, and a receiving dish never has to move. The price is a round-trip signal delay of roughly a quarter of a second and a launch energy requirement that makes each spacecraft large and expensive. Medium Earth orbit, around 20,000 km, is where every global navigation constellation sits: high enough that two or three dozen satellites give continuous worldwide four-satellite visibility, low enough that the spacecraft stay manageable. Low Earth orbit, from roughly 300 to 2,000 km, gives low latency and cheap individual satellites but sees any one satellite for only minutes at a time, so continuous service requires thousands of them and continual replacement as atmospheric drag pulls them down. The three regimes are not competitors so much as different products, and the assets in each are effectively unmovable between them. Not a terrestrial place — no latitude and longitude apply.

A node is not a place. Drawing it on a map would assert something about the world that no stored fact supports.