3 ms·

Previously Musk declined to enable Starlink over Crimea to prevent SpaceX hardware from being used to wage war (the Ukrainians asked him to enable it for a dron

by sneak 3y ago

Previously Musk declined to enable Starlink over Crimea to prevent SpaceX hardware from being used to wage war (the Ukrainians asked him to enable it for a drone strike). Now, I am told DoD is in charge of where Starlink is geofenced (and the Ukrainians in the military are happy, which suggests he was overruled), and SpaceX is launching a full/heavy X37B in the middle of a proxy war with Russia (who has recently tested antisatellite weapons). I worry this will subject future SpaceX/Starlink hardware to retaliation should certain geopolitical conflicts escalate. I also wonder what the odds of FAA approval of Starship tests being gated on SpaceX doing whatever the military wants are. It’s not like the Americans with a monopoly on orbital weapons are gonna let someone just walk up and usurp them because they built the hardware. Unfortunately stories like this won’t ever get told in my lifetime, if ever.

thinkcontext 3y ago
USG is SpaceXs most important external client. I doesn't take some conspiracy to explain them launching a national security asset like the X37b.
- sneak 3y ago
  Every sale is, literally speaking, a conspiracy between buyer and seller to do a deal. A conspiracy doesn't need to be nefarious to be a conspiracy. I think there is a lot more on the bargaining table between SpaceX and the US military than dollars, given the geopolitical implications of the level of easy access to orbit that SpaceX currently exclusively possesses. No other organization on Earth could cost effectively build something like Starlink today, due to F9 reusability. Euphemising the X37B as a "national security asset" doesn't change the fact that SpaceX has historically only launched reconnaissance for the US military and not weapons (and that Musk had explicitly avoided getting involved in supporting weaponry, at least until it seems he no longer could). This being a change to the status quo, of course, presumes that the need for FH indicates an X37B payload that is heavy (or an orbital insertion that requires more energy). Both of these suggest (but do not guarantee) weapons systems, either from payload weight requirement or orbital insertion requirement (or both). This is, of course, an assumption, and it's possible that SpaceX still hasn't committed to launch any weapons, and that the X37B is just heavier because of its research payload(s) (or it's also reconnaissance and they just want to put it in a specific big-delta-v-requiring-orbit for better surveillance). It's also possible it's chock full of munitions and SpaceX doesn't get to keep trying to research how to get to Mars if they don't help the US military continue to do what they do on Earth.
dotnet00 3y ago
Are you maybe mixing up Starshield, the defense oriented Starlink service in which the DoD controls cells and has the rights to do whatever they want with since it was sold to them with that intention, with Starlink, the civilian internet service being provided to Ukraine? Haven't heard anything about the DoD overruling the controls on Starlink in Ukraine.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
actionfromafar 3y ago
If large geopolitics escalates, no one will care who used what earlier, only what someone could do. It’s all politics. Another obvious target is GPS satellites.
- sneak 3y ago
  Not really. Taking out the US Navstar/GPS satellites wouldn't be very effective unless you coordinated to take out a lot of them at once because there's a fair amount of redundancy in them. Also, they're in MEO at ~20k km, not where there's a lot of other stuff (including antisatellite weapons). I don't know enough about orbital mechanics to know if antisatellite weapons in geosynchronous orbits can easily attack things in MEO but I know that you can't do it very quickly from LEO unless you have significant (ie visible from the ground) fuel/engines already in LEO. Also, there are QZSS, Beidou, Galileo, and GLONASS now too. You'd have to take out multiple systems (or convince their operators to geofence) to actually deny all useful location signals to an area. This is rapidly becoming a project that is beyond the capabilities of most single countries, given the number of different systems, number of different satellites, number of different frequencies, and number of different orbits.
Racing0461 3y ago
Advocating for unilateral disarmament is fine (it's a nash equilibrium). The only other stable solution to UD (unilateral disarmament) is MAD (mutually assured destruction). Advocating for your own country to be handicapped while china/russia and others does the same thing is stupid. Thankfully my freedom doesn't depend on people like you.

by sneak 3y ago

thinkcontext 3y ago

USG is SpaceXs most important external client. I doesn't take some conspiracy to explain them launching a national security asset like the X37b.

sneak 3y ago
Every sale is, literally speaking, a conspiracy between buyer and seller to do a deal. A conspiracy doesn't need to be nefarious to be a conspiracy. I think there is a lot more on the bargaining table between SpaceX and the US military than dollars, given the geopolitical implications of the level of easy access to orbit that SpaceX currently exclusively possesses. No other organization on Earth could cost effectively build something like Starlink today, due to F9 reusability. Euphemising the X37B as a "national security asset" doesn't change the fact that SpaceX has historically only launched reconnaissance for the US military and not weapons (and that Musk had explicitly avoided getting involved in supporting weaponry, at least until it seems he no longer could). This being a change to the status quo, of course, presumes that the need for FH indicates an X37B payload that is heavy (or an orbital insertion that requires more energy). Both of these suggest (but do not guarantee) weapons systems, either from payload weight requirement or orbital insertion requirement (or both). This is, of course, an assumption, and it's possible that SpaceX still hasn't committed to launch any weapons, and that the X37B is just heavier because of its research payload(s) (or it's also reconnaissance and they just want to put it in a specific big-delta-v-requiring-orbit for better surveillance). It's also possible it's chock full of munitions and SpaceX doesn't get to keep trying to research how to get to Mars if they don't help the US military continue to do what they do on Earth.

dotnet00 3y ago

Are you maybe mixing up Starshield, the defense oriented Starlink service in which the DoD controls cells and has the rights to do whatever they want with since it was sold to them with that intention, with Starlink, the civilian internet service being provided to Ukraine? Haven't heard anything about the DoD overruling the controls on Starlink in Ukraine.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

actionfromafar 3y ago

If large geopolitics escalates, no one will care who used what earlier, only what someone could do. It’s all politics. Another obvious target is GPS satellites.

sneak 3y ago
Not really. Taking out the US Navstar/GPS satellites wouldn't be very effective unless you coordinated to take out a lot of them at once because there's a fair amount of redundancy in them. Also, they're in MEO at ~20k km, not where there's a lot of other stuff (including antisatellite weapons). I don't know enough about orbital mechanics to know if antisatellite weapons in geosynchronous orbits can easily attack things in MEO but I know that you can't do it very quickly from LEO unless you have significant (ie visible from the ground) fuel/engines already in LEO. Also, there are QZSS, Beidou, Galileo, and GLONASS now too. You'd have to take out multiple systems (or convince their operators to geofence) to actually deny all useful location signals to an area. This is rapidly becoming a project that is beyond the capabilities of most single countries, given the number of different systems, number of different satellites, number of different frequencies, and number of different orbits.

Racing0461 3y ago

Advocating for unilateral disarmament is fine (it's a nash equilibrium). The only other stable solution to UD (unilateral disarmament) is MAD (mutually assured destruction). Advocating for your own country to be handicapped while china/russia and others does the same thing is stupid. Thankfully my freedom doesn't depend on people like you.