Nick J. wrote:


no great surprise - the backchannel is slow, and the satellite is a
decent fraction of the way to the moon ;-)


Perhaps I've missed a giggle here, but surely the satellite has to be
the same distance away from earth as the moon? :


Not quite.

The moon orbits the earth once a month.
A geostationary satellite orbits once a day
so it has to be much closer.