This is how I do it. No striping, normal partitions, different hard drive sizes, pretty easy. This way makes upgrades super easy too. Currently running 76TB mergerfs with 2 14TB Snapraid parity drives.
I know that Pixel 7's and above support it. There are Reddit posts showing they have the feature already. Satellite messaging is just using standard 4G/LTE from Starlink. I wouldn't be surprised if this is only an OS update away for most newer phones.
Looks like it's been available on some android devices for at least a month. I don't know about free though, I think it depends on your carrier. I know T-Mobile has been talking about supporting it using Starlink satellites.
This is the best answer I've seen in this whole thread. You're right that the key is not needed. Microsoft identified your system components and did the original activation based on the hardware you've got on your computer. All you need to do to bring back a licensed copy of Windows is to reinstall it.
Yes they will get paid eventually. They put that into law after 2019. If you are furloughed, you cannot use leave. Even if you are emergency essential and still working during the shutdown, I don't believe that you can be paid for leave (but you can still take it if it was scheduled before the shutdown).
If you're having power on issues, I would make sure you are using a standalone power brick. I've used a Surface Pro for work and I've found that sometimes when connected to the docking station, it wouldn't power on. When connected to a standalone power brick it usually would. For a standalone power brick, I've used both the one that came with the Surface and also a 65W USB-C adapter with a USB-C to Surface per cable.
To your point, geostationary satellites are in orbits around 22,300 miles away while Starlink is in a LEO orbit ~342 miles away. At the speed of light, that's an additional quarter second round trip time minimum. Absolutely forever in internet speeds. My experience with GEO is a latency >550ms round trip. With the TCP/IP protocol built the way it is (aka, three-way handshake), a webpage wouldn't even start downloading until almost 2 seconds have passed.
The military personnel will not be paid during the shutdown just like the government employees. DoD personnel that are emergency essential will have to keep working but that is a small fraction of the civilian workforce. Yes, everyone will be paid backpay (including furloughed civilians), but the point is that a lot of people cannot financially handle getting their paycheck late. Especially when there is no idea when the government will start back up.
This is how I do it. No striping, normal partitions, different hard drive sizes, pretty easy. This way makes upgrades super easy too. Currently running 76TB mergerfs with 2 14TB Snapraid parity drives.