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Starlink's history is rooted in the U.S. DoD's Strategic Defense Initiative, https://ioc.exchange/@muskfiles/112522370451697720 https://ioc.exchange/@muskfiles/

Starlink's history is rooted in the U.S. DoD's Strategic Defense Initiative, https://ioc.exchange/@muskfiles/112522370451697720 https://ioc.exchange/@muskfiles/112522370451697720

throwaway238492 2y ago
The key link between Starlink and SDI seems to be Mike Griffin and all his connections with Elon, https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin Also recent funding for LEO-based missile interception, mostly Republican led, - https://www.science.org/content/article/decades-after-reagan-s-star-wars-trump-calls-missile-defenses-would-blast-warheads-sky https://www.science.org/content/article/decades-after-reagan... - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79e8Y2Mgq-0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79e8Y2Mgq-0
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  Griffin was also the NASA administrator; it’s far from clear he was essential to Starlink’s genesis. > recent funding for LEO-based missile interception This has nothing to do with SpaceX.
  - throwaway238492 2y ago
    Watch that Heritage Foundation video above (^youtube), it's only a couple minutes. The full report is at https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/time-new-missile-defense-review-and-space-based-missile-defense-overlayer https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/time-new-missile-def... Terrence J O'Shaughnessy also runs Starshield at SpaceX. He was in charge of U.S. homeland missile defense. Kuiper (the Amazon competitor) has another four-star general who focused on missile defense: John Hyten.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > Terrence J O'Shaughnessy also runs Starshield at SpaceX. He was in charge of U.S. homeland missile defense Starshield is Starlink for the military. It came after Starlink. It is neither a root of Starlink nor a missile-defence project at this time. (Maybe it eventually gains that capability. But that’s not currently in play.) Starlink came about because SpaceX built cheap, high launch frequency rockets for, at first, NASA. It doesn’t shoehorn into an SDI origin by any stretch. At the point we’re contorting to make that connection, it might as well be part of our ballistic missile programme. > The full report Yes, people want missile defense. That doesn’t make everything in space is missile defense.
      - throwaway238492 2y ago
        [dead]
      - throw9474 2y ago
        Do you know about DC-X ?
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- samegene321 2y ago
  "In early 2002 he met entrepreneur Elon Musk and accompanied him on a trip to Russia where they attempted to purchase ICBMs. The unsuccessful trip is credited as directly leading to the formation of SpaceX.[7] Musk offered Griffin the title of Chief Engineer at the company,[8] but Griffin instead became president and COO of In-Q-Tel, a private enterprise funded by the CIA to identify and invest in companies developing cutting-edge technologies that serve national security interests.[9]" In 2005, he was appointed NASA Administrator where he pushed for commercial cargo and crew transportation services that saved the company from bankruptcy. "In February 2018, Griffin was appointed as Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering by Donald Trump. One of his first actions was to create the Space Development Agency.[13][14] The organization was tasked with procuring a proliferated constellation of low Earth orbit satellites to detect Chinese and Russian hypersonic weapons. Commercial contracts for the constellation were given to L3Harris and SpaceX."
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Starlink's history is rooted in the U.S. DoD's Strategic Defense Initiative Starlink’s future is enhanced by contracts rooted in the SDI. Its history has little to do with it.
- throwaway238492 2y ago
  The Griffin connections go back to SpaceX's founding (they examined ICBMs together in Russia and even presented together at Mars Society). SpaceX was founded months after SDI's main barrier, the ABMT Treaty, was withdrawn from by the U.S. The first contracts by SpaceX were part of Prompt Global Strike (DARPA Falcon Project) which was a proposed hypersonic delivery system for boost-phase interceptors.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > first contracts by SpaceX were part of Prompt Global Strike (DARPA Falcon Project) You’re skipping the $400mm NASA COTS contract that came a year earlier. DARPA bought the first two launches for hypersonic delivery system research, but it was primarily aimed at prompt global strike. As in what it says on the tin. Interception was tertiary at best, to the point that it’s mostly unmentioned [1][2]. Starlink is not rooted in SDI. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Falcon_Project https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Falcon_Project [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventional_Prompt_Strike https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventional_Prompt_Strike
    - forgot-im-old 2y ago
      I've noticed Mike Griffin's goals have been pretty consistent since he led the SDI (and conceived COTS). Follow the man's actions not what's written on the tin. SpaceX's development has wed closely to the SDI requirements. Even Starship seems optimized for mass to LEO rather than Mars.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > SpaceX's development has wed closely to the SDI requirements Any launch vehicle would. I have no doubt Griffin may retain his SDI roots. That doesn’t mean they transferred to SpaceX, much less Starlink. The most we can say is SpaceX’s founders and allies were influenced by SDI. And that influence peaked in the 2000s, when SpaceX was dependent on grants versus launch contracts. > Starship seems optimized for mass to LEO rather than Mars That’s where the money is. Given Starship’s flexibility, concluding much about a secret purpose is untenable. (I agree it would seem to need sizing up for Mars. But if in-orbit propellant transfer really nails, LEO and Mars are practically neighbours. (9.4 km/s to LEO, another 3 to 4 to Mars. More to the Moon.)
Teever 2y ago
Man I've been saying this for years that it felt like SpaceX was just a way for the government to side-step the rot of entrenched companies like Boeing and Lockmart. It's pretty cool to be vindicated by this.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > SpaceX was just a way for the government to side-step the rot of entrenched companies COTS was designed to complement the majors. Few pre-2010 thought of replacement.
- tekla 2y ago
  You're not vindicated because you're wrong. COTS was a massive risk that most thought was absolutely crazy.
mlindner 2y ago
No it isn't. Starlink was funded completely with private funding until well into its operation when it started getting a few small government contracts. I've very recently seen numerous posts starting to show up on both reddit and various websites as well as anonymous wikipedia editors pushing this conspiracy theory. They all repeat the same thing. They'll claim Griffin as basically a founder of SpaceX (who in reality had almost no involvement with starting SpaceX) and they'll claim Griffin basically "gave" SpaceX its first government contracts even though NASA administrators have almost no sway over where contracts go (that'd be illegal). They'll also claim other things like that Starlink is somehow developing weapons to be put in orbit to reproduce SDI.
- samegene321 2y ago
  According to Mike Griffin (referring to the first decade of the company), "[SpaceX] will have received approximately $1.2 billion in government money from the collective programs. I’m rounding, but with this recent $400-plus million award under CCiCap [Commercial Crew integrated Capability], that brings the total SpaceX funding to something around $1.2 billion, maybe a little more. That’s—I will only say in my view—excessive, especially since in testimony last year the SpaceX founder, Elon Musk, indicated that the private funding involved was not more than $200 million. $100 million of his own money that he had brought in from a prior enterprise, and then he alluded to the fact—I’m trying to recall the testimony on an ad hoc basis, but the point is that there’s less than $200 million of private capital in SpaceX and $1.2 billion of government capital." https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/C3PO/GriffinMD/GriffinMD_1-12-13.htm https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/hist...
  - robocat 2y ago
    > $1.2 billion of government capital A fucking bargain! NASA spent $11.8 billion to develop SLS
  - panick21_ 2y ago
    You are just connecting unrelated evidence. Nobody denies that SpaceX got government contracts. That still doesn't validate the overall story. SpaceX got paid to provide services, and they did so. It had little to do with SDI or any long term demand for missile defense. Most of the money is from experimental NASA program to find a cheap way too get money for ISS. SpaceX got almost no money from DoD for quite a bit of its history. > That’s—I will only say in my view—excessive Its not 'excessive'. You can't just say 'excessive' without evidence. You actually have to show that they got overpaid for the services provided. In reality, they got underpaid and lost money on those contracts. The thing is, most of that money was performance based. Go look up how COTS and Commercial Crew actually worked. You only get money once you reached specific milestone. Having such a contract requires you to raise private money (can be stocks or lending), and then you can try to execute, if you do, you get paid. If you don't, you wont get paid. Look what happened with Kistler Aerospace for example. They failed to raise sufficient private capital and were kicked out of the COTS program. So for this argument to make sense, show what contracts SpaceX got, and explain how the government could have achieved the same results cheaper. Most experts agree, and pretty much everybody calls COTS the most successful NASA program in decades. And Commercial Crew as almost as good. NASA achieved a huge amount with little money. > less than $200 million of private capital in SpaceX and $1.2 billion Again, you don't just get 1.2 billion. You have to raise private capital, and then execute on your development program. Some of those 1.2 billion $ took years until they arrived at SpaceX. For example, Griffin included 400 million $ for CCiCap. Guess what, that money didn't fully arrive at SpaceX until way after 2013. Griffin only account for Musk private funding, not all the other money raised by SpaceX. Griffin is a very opinion person that often goes against what most people believe. I would not his interpretation and evaluation as gospel. He is a politician and a bureaucrat. His whole spiel during the last 15 years has been that government should own the intellectual property for things like capsules and such. The thing is, most of NASA simply doesn't agree with his opinions. And most expert that look at NASA performance, seem to agree. He is very much outside of current thinking at NASA.
Garvi 2y ago
From the article: > Satellites positioned closer to Earth in LEO can swiftly target and track objects on the ground, providing both low-latency communication and high-resolution sensing capabilities. They also hold the potential for offensive actions, such as deploying interceptors to shoot down rockets or ICBMs during their vulnerable boost phase. How much is this going to cost? Considering this system can be beaten by scheduling a regular ICBM test and pretending until it's too late and the missiles split into dozens of warheads and destroy an equal number of cities. When I first heard of hundreds of billions going unaccounted for in pentagon spending each year, that was 30 years ago and the images of f-117s bombing Serbia (and getting shot down) still fresh, that-s where I believed that money went to. I was around 12 back then, so don't me judge to harshly on my naivete. It would seem Musk doesn't mind.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  A counter-value first strike is nonsensical.
panick21_ 2y ago
The typical 'its all government conspiracy' nonsense. As usual the government isn't actually as smart as people pretend. And contrary what people like to believe. The government is not the only organization that has a brain. The idea of having many sats and having constellations has not only occurred to the government. So the idea 'constellation' therefore its invented by the government, is brain dead dumb. Its a logically idea based on the physics of the situation. And Griffin in these stories is way more involved and fundamental then he actually was. He was doing some consulting but he and Musk frequently clashed and didn't get along. Before modern SpaceX really got of the ground he had left. And after that he was not that favorable towards SpaceX. And today Griffin is giving talks how the government should be giving SpaceX money for Starship. It was absolutely not Griffin that pushed for the Commercial Crew, that came out of other parts of NASA. Griffin wasn't the driver of it. Neither was he much involved with Commercial Crew. Starlink happened literally more then a decade later with no involvement from Griffin. And Starlink primary revenue is from consumers, not from the military. And it was primarily funded by private funding rounds that SpaceX did. The reality is Musk achieved something nobody thought was actually gone happen. And once he did the government was like 'oh shit we should jump on this'. Just as they did with reusable rockets.Yes Starlink/Starshield will make money from governments in the future. But that doesn't actually validate this story. The idea that the US government had a long term coherent plan is utterly delusional if you understand anything about the history of SpaceX and space flight in the US. The main evidence seems to be 'Mike Griffin' was vaguely involved in various ways. So the whole narrative is just nonsense and doesn't even remotely hold up.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- throw9474 2y ago
  The continued goal of realizing SDI is not secret, nor a conspiracy. Heritage Foundation is quite open about it since proposing the original idea to Ronald Reagan. Griffin is a very influential member. He just pulled a team of SpaceX people (from the Starshield group) to build hypersonic warheads to implement the interceptor part of an SDI "at scale": https://www.castelion.com/team https://www.castelion.com/team As someone else said, follow what these people DO, not the self-serving narratives they/Elon gives biographers.

Starlink's history is rooted in the U.S. DoD's Strategic Defense Initiative, https://ioc.exchange/@muskfiles/112522370451697720 https://ioc.exchange/@muskfiles/112522370451697720

throwaway238492 2y ago

The key link between Starlink and SDI seems to be Mike Griffin and all his connections with Elon, https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin Also recent funding for LEO-based missile interception, mostly Republican led, - https://www.science.org/content/article/decades-after-reagan-s-star-wars-trump-calls-missile-defenses-would-blast-warheads-sky https://www.science.org/content/article/decades-after-reagan... - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79e8Y2Mgq-0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79e8Y2Mgq-0

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
Griffin was also the NASA administrator; it’s far from clear he was essential to Starlink’s genesis. > recent funding for LEO-based missile interception This has nothing to do with SpaceX.
- throwaway238492 2y ago
  Watch that Heritage Foundation video above (^youtube), it's only a couple minutes. The full report is at https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/time-new-missile-defense-review-and-space-based-missile-defense-overlayer https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/time-new-missile-def... Terrence J O'Shaughnessy also runs Starshield at SpaceX. He was in charge of U.S. homeland missile defense. Kuiper (the Amazon competitor) has another four-star general who focused on missile defense: John Hyten.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Terrence J O'Shaughnessy also runs Starshield at SpaceX. He was in charge of U.S. homeland missile defense Starshield is Starlink for the military. It came after Starlink. It is neither a root of Starlink nor a missile-defence project at this time. (Maybe it eventually gains that capability. But that’s not currently in play.) Starlink came about because SpaceX built cheap, high launch frequency rockets for, at first, NASA. It doesn’t shoehorn into an SDI origin by any stretch. At the point we’re contorting to make that connection, it might as well be part of our ballistic missile programme. > The full report Yes, people want missile defense. That doesn’t make everything in space is missile defense.
    - throwaway238492 2y ago
      [dead]
    - throw9474 2y ago
      Do you know about DC-X ?
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
samegene321 2y ago
"In early 2002 he met entrepreneur Elon Musk and accompanied him on a trip to Russia where they attempted to purchase ICBMs. The unsuccessful trip is credited as directly leading to the formation of SpaceX.[7] Musk offered Griffin the title of Chief Engineer at the company,[8] but Griffin instead became president and COO of In-Q-Tel, a private enterprise funded by the CIA to identify and invest in companies developing cutting-edge technologies that serve national security interests.[9]" In 2005, he was appointed NASA Administrator where he pushed for commercial cargo and crew transportation services that saved the company from bankruptcy. "In February 2018, Griffin was appointed as Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering by Donald Trump. One of his first actions was to create the Space Development Agency.[13][14] The organization was tasked with procuring a proliferated constellation of low Earth orbit satellites to detect Chinese and Russian hypersonic weapons. Commercial contracts for the constellation were given to L3Harris and SpaceX."

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> Starlink's history is rooted in the U.S. DoD's Strategic Defense Initiative Starlink’s future is enhanced by contracts rooted in the SDI. Its history has little to do with it.

throwaway238492 2y ago
The Griffin connections go back to SpaceX's founding (they examined ICBMs together in Russia and even presented together at Mars Society). SpaceX was founded months after SDI's main barrier, the ABMT Treaty, was withdrawn from by the U.S. The first contracts by SpaceX were part of Prompt Global Strike (DARPA Falcon Project) which was a proposed hypersonic delivery system for boost-phase interceptors.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > first contracts by SpaceX were part of Prompt Global Strike (DARPA Falcon Project) You’re skipping the $400mm NASA COTS contract that came a year earlier. DARPA bought the first two launches for hypersonic delivery system research, but it was primarily aimed at prompt global strike. As in what it says on the tin. Interception was tertiary at best, to the point that it’s mostly unmentioned [1][2]. Starlink is not rooted in SDI. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Falcon_Project https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Falcon_Project [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventional_Prompt_Strike https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventional_Prompt_Strike
  - forgot-im-old 2y ago
    I've noticed Mike Griffin's goals have been pretty consistent since he led the SDI (and conceived COTS). Follow the man's actions not what's written on the tin. SpaceX's development has wed closely to the SDI requirements. Even Starship seems optimized for mass to LEO rather than Mars.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > SpaceX's development has wed closely to the SDI requirements Any launch vehicle would. I have no doubt Griffin may retain his SDI roots. That doesn’t mean they transferred to SpaceX, much less Starlink. The most we can say is SpaceX’s founders and allies were influenced by SDI. And that influence peaked in the 2000s, when SpaceX was dependent on grants versus launch contracts. > Starship seems optimized for mass to LEO rather than Mars That’s where the money is. Given Starship’s flexibility, concluding much about a secret purpose is untenable. (I agree it would seem to need sizing up for Mars. But if in-orbit propellant transfer really nails, LEO and Mars are practically neighbours. (9.4 km/s to LEO, another 3 to 4 to Mars. More to the Moon.)

Teever 2y ago

Man I've been saying this for years that it felt like SpaceX was just a way for the government to side-step the rot of entrenched companies like Boeing and Lockmart. It's pretty cool to be vindicated by this.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> SpaceX was just a way for the government to side-step the rot of entrenched companies COTS was designed to complement the majors. Few pre-2010 thought of replacement.
tekla 2y ago
You're not vindicated because you're wrong. COTS was a massive risk that most thought was absolutely crazy.

mlindner 2y ago

No it isn't. Starlink was funded completely with private funding until well into its operation when it started getting a few small government contracts. I've very recently seen numerous posts starting to show up on both reddit and various websites as well as anonymous wikipedia editors pushing this conspiracy theory. They all repeat the same thing. They'll claim Griffin as basically a founder of SpaceX (who in reality had almost no involvement with starting SpaceX) and they'll claim Griffin basically "gave" SpaceX its first government contracts even though NASA administrators have almost no sway over where contracts go (that'd be illegal). They'll also claim other things like that Starlink is somehow developing weapons to be put in orbit to reproduce SDI.

samegene321 2y ago
According to Mike Griffin (referring to the first decade of the company), "[SpaceX] will have received approximately $1.2 billion in government money from the collective programs. I’m rounding, but with this recent $400-plus million award under CCiCap [Commercial Crew integrated Capability], that brings the total SpaceX funding to something around $1.2 billion, maybe a little more. That’s—I will only say in my view—excessive, especially since in testimony last year the SpaceX founder, Elon Musk, indicated that the private funding involved was not more than $200 million. $100 million of his own money that he had brought in from a prior enterprise, and then he alluded to the fact—I’m trying to recall the testimony on an ad hoc basis, but the point is that there’s less than $200 million of private capital in SpaceX and $1.2 billion of government capital." https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/C3PO/GriffinMD/GriffinMD_1-12-13.htm https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/hist...
- robocat 2y ago
  > $1.2 billion of government capital A fucking bargain! NASA spent $11.8 billion to develop SLS
- panick21_ 2y ago
  You are just connecting unrelated evidence. Nobody denies that SpaceX got government contracts. That still doesn't validate the overall story. SpaceX got paid to provide services, and they did so. It had little to do with SDI or any long term demand for missile defense. Most of the money is from experimental NASA program to find a cheap way too get money for ISS. SpaceX got almost no money from DoD for quite a bit of its history. > That’s—I will only say in my view—excessive Its not 'excessive'. You can't just say 'excessive' without evidence. You actually have to show that they got overpaid for the services provided. In reality, they got underpaid and lost money on those contracts. The thing is, most of that money was performance based. Go look up how COTS and Commercial Crew actually worked. You only get money once you reached specific milestone. Having such a contract requires you to raise private money (can be stocks or lending), and then you can try to execute, if you do, you get paid. If you don't, you wont get paid. Look what happened with Kistler Aerospace for example. They failed to raise sufficient private capital and were kicked out of the COTS program. So for this argument to make sense, show what contracts SpaceX got, and explain how the government could have achieved the same results cheaper. Most experts agree, and pretty much everybody calls COTS the most successful NASA program in decades. And Commercial Crew as almost as good. NASA achieved a huge amount with little money. > less than $200 million of private capital in SpaceX and $1.2 billion Again, you don't just get 1.2 billion. You have to raise private capital, and then execute on your development program. Some of those 1.2 billion $ took years until they arrived at SpaceX. For example, Griffin included 400 million $ for CCiCap. Guess what, that money didn't fully arrive at SpaceX until way after 2013. Griffin only account for Musk private funding, not all the other money raised by SpaceX. Griffin is a very opinion person that often goes against what most people believe. I would not his interpretation and evaluation as gospel. He is a politician and a bureaucrat. His whole spiel during the last 15 years has been that government should own the intellectual property for things like capsules and such. The thing is, most of NASA simply doesn't agree with his opinions. And most expert that look at NASA performance, seem to agree. He is very much outside of current thinking at NASA.

Garvi 2y ago

From the article: > Satellites positioned closer to Earth in LEO can swiftly target and track objects on the ground, providing both low-latency communication and high-resolution sensing capabilities. They also hold the potential for offensive actions, such as deploying interceptors to shoot down rockets or ICBMs during their vulnerable boost phase. How much is this going to cost? Considering this system can be beaten by scheduling a regular ICBM test and pretending until it's too late and the missiles split into dozens of warheads and destroy an equal number of cities. When I first heard of hundreds of billions going unaccounted for in pentagon spending each year, that was 30 years ago and the images of f-117s bombing Serbia (and getting shot down) still fresh, that-s where I believed that money went to. I was around 12 back then, so don't me judge to harshly on my naivete. It would seem Musk doesn't mind.

lupusreal 2y ago
A counter-value first strike is nonsensical.

panick21_ 2y ago

The typical 'its all government conspiracy' nonsense. As usual the government isn't actually as smart as people pretend. And contrary what people like to believe. The government is not the only organization that has a brain. The idea of having many sats and having constellations has not only occurred to the government. So the idea 'constellation' therefore its invented by the government, is brain dead dumb. Its a logically idea based on the physics of the situation. And Griffin in these stories is way more involved and fundamental then he actually was. He was doing some consulting but he and Musk frequently clashed and didn't get along. Before modern SpaceX really got of the ground he had left. And after that he was not that favorable towards SpaceX. And today Griffin is giving talks how the government should be giving SpaceX money for Starship. It was absolutely not Griffin that pushed for the Commercial Crew, that came out of other parts of NASA. Griffin wasn't the driver of it. Neither was he much involved with Commercial Crew. Starlink happened literally more then a decade later with no involvement from Griffin. And Starlink primary revenue is from consumers, not from the military. And it was primarily funded by private funding rounds that SpaceX did. The reality is Musk achieved something nobody thought was actually gone happen. And once he did the government was like 'oh shit we should jump on this'. Just as they did with reusable rockets.Yes Starlink/Starshield will make money from governments in the future. But that doesn't actually validate this story. The idea that the US government had a long term coherent plan is utterly delusional if you understand anything about the history of SpaceX and space flight in the US. The main evidence seems to be 'Mike Griffin' was vaguely involved in various ways. So the whole narrative is just nonsense and doesn't even remotely hold up.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
throw9474 2y ago
The continued goal of realizing SDI is not secret, nor a conspiracy. Heritage Foundation is quite open about it since proposing the original idea to Ronald Reagan. Griffin is a very influential member. He just pulled a team of SpaceX people (from the Starshield group) to build hypersonic warheads to implement the interceptor part of an SDI "at scale": https://www.castelion.com/team https://www.castelion.com/team As someone else said, follow what these people DO, not the self-serving narratives they/Elon gives biographers.