Reminder: Balloons >> Satellites

 A high-altitude balloon can do 99% of what a satellite can do for a fraction of the cost. Probably less than 1/10th."But satellites last longer," balloons do come down fairly quick, but they still cost less per unit time. If you have to send up six balloons or whatever per satellite lifetime, that means each balloon costs 1/60th of a satellite.

Satellites are used for peacocking.

 Any idiot can use a balloon. Satellites are high status. The fact they cost too much is the point. You're not a poor are you? That plus balloons sound like blimps and blimps are something ze Germans did. You're not going to admit the Germans had a good idea, are you? That's not very cash money! A good American does it the tasteless gold-plated cock statue way. Ostentatious, tasteless, ugly, and wasteful! If it's polite and considerate you're plain doing it wrong, rofl.

 You may notice that making a reusable balloon is way easier than making a reusable rocket.
 Part of the reason I ask about Musk's underwater city: he's obviously not serious. It's about showing off, not about getting work done. Turns out in America, "Look ma, no hands!" is a multibillion dollar industry. "Flash Gordan was cool, you want to be cool like the Gordan of Flash, don't you?" (Reminder: a literal children's show. On TV.) "Come work for me!" "Yessir right away sir!" Flash Gordan didn't make no underwater cities, thus neither will Elon Musk. Inhabiting hostile environments is not the point.

 Much of the reason Russia can outfight America is that Americans would literally rather die than buy anything that makes them feel poor. With 1/3 the population and 1/2 the GDP/cap or so, Russians can still buy more total effectiveness because they don't refuse to buy inexpensive things. They don't try to ban poverty and declare it religiously anathema.
 You can buy like 40 artillery bombardments for the price of one airstrike, but warplane pilots are flashy and cool. Gun factories are dirty and crass, so very WWI, whereas airplane engineers are well-paid and allegedly bright and gleaming. The fact they cost so much is yet another reason for the American never to use artillery unless they absolutely have to.

 Meanwhile satellites all need microthrusters for microadjustments, which means they need to be refuelled...but can't be, so they steer themselves into the atmosphere eventually. Distinctly limited lifetime. Or drift into space junk. Orbital littering - also very American. Only a filthy peasant uses the trash can. Slaves, right guys? What, you put junk in the junk box? Lol saluted the king recently lmao? You can tell someone's really high status by how they live in a pile of dirt they refuse to clean up themselves. Perfectly sogical. P.S. Reminder that Kigali, $2000/cap, is clean because they pay folk to clean it every day. Weird concept, eh? Who does that? Who agrees to take that job? What a loser. The fact Shenzen and Singapore don't look dirty makes them unAmerican. 

 Which you would think would make sense, not being in America. You would think being American would be considered weird in these cases. Americans don't agree.

 Part of the reason Americans like wind and solar power so much is precisely because it's way more expensive than nuclear. The fact America can't afford it is a major sore spot. America has failed if not everyone can afford their own solar-powered flying car reusable orbital rocket. If you can't have a launch pad in your front yard, it's time to pack the country up and go home. Egalitarianism doesn't work - not everyone is identical. Dreams' over. 

 Likely this is ultimately for tax reasons. Consumerism is about maximizing sales taxes, and no American would consider not acting in the government's best interests. Slavishly (but voluntarily!) sacrificing for your master is just what freedom means. The more everything costs, the less they can save, and the more money ends up in Washington. Monetary velocity is considered good by Regime economists because more transactions => more taxes. 

 

 Solution: remember not to act in the government's best interest. Unless it's your government, as in you're charging it rent, I suppose.
 Solution: it's okay to buy cheap things. If someone thinks you're low-class, that doesn't make you low-class, that makes them delusional. Even if you were low-class, it wouldn't matter. You're not in a Muslim country where there's extra taxes if you're in the wrong class. On the contrary, there are extra taxes if you're in the ""right"" class...with a few exceptions where the government tries to bully the poor out of sheer insecure sadism.
 Peacocks are at least genuinely glorious. If you're going to peacock, you have to do it in a way that freaks out and disturbs Americans, in other words, by promoting genuine beauty. They'll hate your guts once they stop having an anxiety attack. I suppose that's a tax too. Do the accounting.
 Dumb solution: put a show on TV (ideally for children) about underwater cities. Have them use blimps, so the FAA unbans them.

 These solutions really do go without saying. By writing them down I'm mocking anyone who needed me to write them down. It looks dumb because it is, that's the joke. They say if you have to explain the joke it's not funny, but, as we can see, that's not true - in special cases it's even funnier.