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> it's cheaper but not cost-free to sustain a narrative of "independence" and "alternative to incumbent" The narrative is independent of the price. SpaceX has

> it's cheaper but not cost-free to sustain a narrative of "independence" and "alternative to incumbent" The narrative is independent of the price. SpaceX has showed that they may refuse service in various situations, such as drone access to Starlink Internet in a battle during Ukraine war. Thus a government being dependent on them for their space fleet, gambles the possibility of being suddenly unable to guarantee commercial services such as Galileo GNSS, or during military operations.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> SpaceX has showed that they may refuse service in various situations, such as drone access to Starlink Internet in a battle during Ukraine war If the goal is building a European Starlink, Ariane 6 is a step backward. It fundamentally cannot support the required launch cadence and doesn’t build any of the foundational technologies required to get there. (Analogous to Starliner, which was also pitched as a back-up plan.)
627467 2y ago
my argument is, none of the observable actions from European leadership are effective towards independence and I would argue those actions are detrimental - ie. wasting money in a decaying, incapable and parasitic organizations
ckozlowski 2y ago
This was a special case. Much of Ukraine's connectivity came via donations from SpaceX, and via their commercial business. They gave free connectivity to Ukraine for a direct military purpose. There's legitimate reasons for why SpaceX would not want to be blurring the lines between the two. Programs such as the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program exist for this reason, providing a legal and contractual framework for such arrangements that route business through the state, with the legal and diplomatic oversight that comes with such. SpaceX rushed to provide terminals to Ukraine for free when they asked for them, and that was laudable. But SpaceX had no mature defense sales program set up, or it was bypassed. I could argue that this was another instance where Elon's impulsiveness created issues that SpaceX would have to deal with down the line, such as ongoing payments and the lack of a shield for their commercial business. Properly set up, a defense sale will include such things like a guaranteed minimum buy, service level agreements, and the legal and diplomatic framework to provide a level of shielding to the contracting company from third-party complaints to alleviate the risk of an arbitrary service shutdown.
inglor_cz 2y ago
In that case, tough luck for us. We cannot build an European equivalent of Starlink with expendable rockets. It would be just too expensive to build hundreds and hundreds of one-time rockets and immediately destroy them.
dotnet00 2y ago
Next time SpaceX should simply refuse to provide aid until countries requesting aid get everything approved through the US government first. Otherwise people like you will continue to act like it was unreasonable that SpaceX wouldn't allow Ukraine to do things with Starlink that were potentially in conflict with officially stated US policy. No good deed goes unpunished.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> SpaceX has showed that they may refuse service in various situations, such as drone access to Starlink Internet in a battle during Ukraine war If the goal is building a European Starlink, Ariane 6 is a step backward. It fundamentally cannot support the required launch cadence and doesn’t build any of the foundational technologies required to get there. (Analogous to Starliner, which was also pitched as a back-up plan.)

627467 2y ago

my argument is, none of the observable actions from European leadership are effective towards independence and I would argue those actions are detrimental - ie. wasting money in a decaying, incapable and parasitic organizations

ckozlowski 2y ago

This was a special case. Much of Ukraine's connectivity came via donations from SpaceX, and via their commercial business. They gave free connectivity to Ukraine for a direct military purpose. There's legitimate reasons for why SpaceX would not want to be blurring the lines between the two. Programs such as the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program exist for this reason, providing a legal and contractual framework for such arrangements that route business through the state, with the legal and diplomatic oversight that comes with such. SpaceX rushed to provide terminals to Ukraine for free when they asked for them, and that was laudable. But SpaceX had no mature defense sales program set up, or it was bypassed. I could argue that this was another instance where Elon's impulsiveness created issues that SpaceX would have to deal with down the line, such as ongoing payments and the lack of a shield for their commercial business. Properly set up, a defense sale will include such things like a guaranteed minimum buy, service level agreements, and the legal and diplomatic framework to provide a level of shielding to the contracting company from third-party complaints to alleviate the risk of an arbitrary service shutdown.

inglor_cz 2y ago

In that case, tough luck for us. We cannot build an European equivalent of Starlink with expendable rockets. It would be just too expensive to build hundreds and hundreds of one-time rockets and immediately destroy them.

dotnet00 2y ago

Next time SpaceX should simply refuse to provide aid until countries requesting aid get everything approved through the US government first. Otherwise people like you will continue to act like it was unreasonable that SpaceX wouldn't allow Ukraine to do things with Starlink that were potentially in conflict with officially stated US policy. No good deed goes unpunished.