kidme5

9 ms·

31.
by kidme5 4y ago
Willingness to get vaccines and wear masks made New Yorkers look Chinese. Honestly I think when human population centers get dense and connected enough they are essentially the same. Economic ties and shared needs and values are ultimately
32.
by kidme5 4y ago
If you know the history China/Russia are doing smaller-scale R&D type development mainly to respond to to US ditching arms control treaties and building offensive tech first (usually happening when Republicans in power).
33.
by kidme5 4y ago
He's basically a defense contractor now. That can't go over well with China.
34.
by kidme5 4y ago
Nice to see Mastadon supports LaTeX
35.
by kidme5 4y ago
Not for long
36.
by kidme5 4y ago
Yes they're related. This is SpaceX making public (to a partial extent) what they have long been doing for the Space Development Agency (a Mike Griffin government program closely aligned with Starlink). https://en.m.wikipedi
37.
by kidme5 4y ago
I thought SpaceX is just building thermal imaging satellites for tracking ballistic missiles, but agree it's obvious just the first step to orbital weapons for interception. Yes that's the plan. Sounds like Biden Admin wasn't
38.
by kidme5 4y ago
"SpaceX also designs and launches custom military satellites for the Space Development Agency as part of a new missile defense system in low Earth orbit. The constellation would give the United States new capabilities to sense, target
39.
by kidme5 4y ago
I've discovered that if you tweet the name "Michael Griffin" + "Elon" (or "Musk"), nobody will see your tweet organically unless they search for it directly. Michael Griffin is an important person in Elon&
40.
by kidme5 4y ago
Those donations go (in part) towards Ukrainian Kamikaze ship drones with Starlink antennas onboard: https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/ytlhe7/starlink_u...
41.
by kidme5 4y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33510272#33510919
42.
by kidme5 4y ago
Keep in mind he actually spent around half that. There were significant loans and other investments contributing. He needs more than lobbying, he needs to sway an election. But there were obviously other reasons as well, he probably thinks
43.
by kidme5 4y ago
SpaceX isn't really focused on going to Mars... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33510272#33510919
44.
by kidme5 4y ago
We might all have to live underground in tunnels
45.
by kidme5 4y ago
Read the links
46.
by kidme5 4y ago
Yup, this is easily a $500 billion defense contract over 5-10 years.
47.
by kidme5 4y ago
Looks familiar...(!) https://youtu.be/fEkXTV69yo4?t=22s
48.
by kidme5 4y ago
That's simply incorrect, see the COTS Space Act Agreement above. Those "initial payments" to SpaceX totalled $200M just to do presentations (more than double what Elon's total investment ever was). The book Liftoff is
49.
by kidme5 4y ago
Out of curiosity, I read the COTS Space Act Agreement. It's a crazy good deal for SpaceX. They got their first $200 million just for doing presentations to the government and writing down requirements. This effectively front-loads
50.
by kidme5 4y ago
According to Mike Griffin who gave them the money, Substantial amounts of money, hundreds of millions of dollars, are being provided to the private companies. If SpaceX continues on along its current path, it will have received approxim
51.
by kidme5 4y ago
not continuous yet but there are plenty of satellites shown there in the Arctic for partial service and demonstration already.
52.
by kidme5 4y ago
They already added polar orbits for the military.
53.
by kidme5 4y ago
Starlink has a separate military division led by a four-star general (Terrence O'Shaughnessy). They're not exactly making PCs.
54.
by kidme5 4y ago
It's only four satellites until it isn't.
55.
by kidme5 4y ago
Elons wealth is liquid and he leverages SpaceX's image to drive public Tesla investment. When you invest, you invest in "Elon".
56.
by kidme5 4y ago
> how tiny each satellite is That's true for v1 satellites, but the v2 (to be launched with Starship) are huge. > it's just a conspiracy theory Its open knowledge that SpaceX is building these custom military satellites for
57.
by kidme5 4y ago
https://youtu.be/KsPLmb6gAdw?t=55m47s But a historical prerequisite is understanding https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative unless you're old enough to remember. Then carefully re
58.
by kidme5 4y ago
Funny people think Starlink is mainly a commercial enterprise. Since Teledesic in the 90s, these low earth orbit constellation projects have always been about stepping towards the real goal, which started with Strategic Defense Initiative
59.
by kidme5 4y ago
Besides supply chain, CyberTruck won't have them because it's all stainless steel and won't integrate into the body easily. Seems like this is a forcing function preparing for that.
60.
by kidme5 4y ago
This could be used for Directed Energy Weapons? Strategic Defense Initiative seems to be getting traction lately.

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