The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party sent a letter on Saturday to SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk demanding that U.S. troops stationed in Taiwan get access to SpaceX’s Starshield, a satellite communication network designed specifically for the military.
The letter, obtained by CNBC and first reported by Forbes, claimed that by not making Starshield available to U.S. military forces in Taiwan, SpaceX could violate its Pentagon contract, which requires “global access” to Starshield technology.
“We demand that you make us reliant on you for communications!”
JFC we spend a trillion bucks a year on the military. Why don’t they have their own satellite internet already?
They do, it just not as fast or reliable. SpaceX put more into infrastructure whereas the Military just did bare minimum. Now that Starlink is so much better, it’s cheaper and more efficient to rent from them than to continue building their own.
You know what would be even cheaper? Seizing Starlink as a national security asset.
They’d have to seize spaceX too, which is the reason that starlink is viable in the first place due to reduced costs in launching satellites.
And then if they do both, survive the brain drain while simultaneously surviving the onslaught of Republican attempts to defund it into oblivion, because that’s what they do.
Yeah. I don’t like those chances, nor do I like Musk essentially having power over foreign relations. Kinda lose lose, which is why we’re in this shitty holding pattern atm.
Make NASA Great Again.
Cool thing to say because NASA was great once
You know what would be the cherry on top? Seize all of Musk’s assets, and kick his ass out of the country. Along with the Murdochs.
Do you really want to give the government the power to do that, and then hand that power over to the military… I don’t like Musk but I see so many worse scenarios with this being controlled by the military.
Do you? Musk is already letting the Russian military use Starlink after refusing to let Ukraine us it in a major military operation.
What would be worse than giving aid to Russia?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/12/ukraine-accuses-russia-forces-using-elon-musk-starlink
This is crazy talk. Anybody can smuggle some terminals into their country. That doesn’t mean they’re being “helped”. The US government would come down on SpaceX with unprecedented force if they violated sanctions like that
It’s crazy talk? No. It’s reality. Elon shut down Starlink for the Ukraine military with the excuse that they would have started World War 3. Meaning he has the power to shut down Starlink for the Russians as well.
They didn’t have it on in that area and refused to turn it on when asked. They didn’t just shut down the sats.
Who said anything about shutting down satellites?
I’d love to better understand your position. it seems like you think that Starlink is aware of who is using a terminal. how can Starlink differentiate between a Ukrainian and Russian user in the same general area? should Starlink randomly turn off user terminals it suspects? what if it accidentally turns off a Ukrainian one? billing is obv not a good indicator
I want to understand your thoughts a little more clearly on this
The area is Russian-occupied. Just turn off Starlink to that area. It’s not hard.
Yes, that sucks for anyone stuck there. But this is war. You don’t let the Russians have an advantage.
The government already has the power to do that.
If shit ever hit the fan, they could just invoke the DPA and force starlink to do exactly what they say.
that seems pretty stupid, should we also seize Amazon Kuiper when they start launching very soon?
yeah if they contract for military access and then dumbassidly refuse to give it.
You can’t really put a real cost on seizing something like that. Not all of the costs will be up front or even obvious. People don’t like having their stit stolen, oddly enough.
Who do you think paid for SpaceX to launch all those satellites?
We do. They’re all geostationary. So high latency and low bandwidth. Been in operation early 2000.