Pentagon looking to make sure SpaceX doesn’t abandon them in war | Hacker News Reader

Pentagon looking to make sure SpaceX doesn’t abandon them in war

defenseone.com

129 pointscampuscodi170 comments

This issue has been such a mess, demonstrating how low reporting standards have dropped. For starters, the only thing Ukraine has been prevented from using Starlink for is as a guidance system for drones.

On top of that, SpaceX asked for the government to fund Ukraine's use of Starlink, and if they were so worried about its importance, they should've just done that. It seems more than a little absurd to argue that SpaceX - unlike literally every other defense contractor - should both be footing most of the bill for the service and should have no say over how the service is then used.

Then, adding on to that, there's a huge difference in terms of regulations between a US company essentially supplying long range guidance systems (and ongoing services which enable those systems) of its own volition to a foreign nation involved in a war and a US company contracted by the DoD to supply the same. This should especially considered in the context that the US has been extremely careful in limiting the range of the weapons it has supplied to Ukraine (with exactly the same reasoning SpaceX has used of not wanting to enable an escalation in the conflict), while Starlink is able to handle guidance well beyond that.

This idiotic senator might as well be asking how they can trust ULA to keep launching satellites for the DoD when they won't unconditionally launch Rwanda's 300k satellite megaconstellation for free.

Indeed. And if Starlink is used in guidance for offensive drone operations, Russia is going to view those satellites as legitimate military targets. I’m not convinced the people criticizing SpaceX’s decision to not do that (for free) have thought this all the way through.

Does this imply that GPS satellites are a legitimate military target for Russia right now? (I'm pretty sure GPS is used for guidance of drones and missiles pretty heavily there.)

Or for a satellite top be a legit target the communication needs to be two-way? In such case I suspect Türksat satellite should be considered within scope, since Bayraktar TB2S (which reportedly has been used by Ukraine in this war) uses it for SATCOM.

What about other military uses of Starlink, outside of guidance systems? Those are plentiful, and it's hard to see why there would be a drastic difference between guiding a drone and providing communication backbone for military operation coordination in the eyes of the Russians. After all, they are bombing civilian infrastructure just fine, and didn't even care to formally declare this "special military operation" a war...

My point being, I don't think "legitimate target" has to do anything with Russia not shooting down any satellites; it's either lack of capacity or fear of retaliation, both being rather orthogonal to the targets "legitimacy" IMO.

Yeah I agree that SpaceX's concern is unlikely over potential attacks on their satellites. Not only is SpaceX able to put them up faster than Russia could shoot them down, attacking a Starlink satellite would be an act of war against the US regardless.

I think SpaceX's concern is more related to domestic liability. The US's policy has been that they will not provide offensive aid for attacking into Russia. They've been very careful about the range of the systems they send for that reason.

Unrestricted Starlink is not subject to those range limits. So, if the attacks which went deep into Russian territory involved Starlink mounted to drones, it would essentially be in violation of the US's own stated policy about military aid to Ukraine. Thus far this hasn't caused any trouble, but if something were to happen (eg an escalation), SpaceX might get thrown under the bus by the US government since they aren't contracted by the DoD to provide such service.

Low earth orbit is easy to hit with anti-satellite missiles, can even use ASM-135 which is a interceptor fired from a fighter jet.

GPS altitudes and up are a different story.

There's over 3,500 Starlink satellites.

That likely dramatically exceeds the number of anti-satellite missiles in the entire world, let alone Russia's.

One hit will create thousands of fragments. How many consecutive hits would be necessary to create severe enough Kessler event to destroy most of the Stralink satellites? Dozens?

As everyone knows, the best possible way to deal with an aggressor is just straight appeasement. The risks are so large that appeasement is the only answer. If only we had historically tried appeasing belligerent foreign powers, think what wars would have been avoided... /sarcasm

Replace "an agressor" with "the USA" and that pretty much sums up history.

LOL.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II

Most of us alive are thinking of the last 75 years.

Ironically this only further proves the point: US expansionist foreign policy would not have been checked by giving the US what it wanted. There was no version of Iraq complying with the UN which was going to prevent the neo-conservatives from getting their regime change invasion in 2003.

The only preventative measures which would've worked would be diplomatic and economic counter-pressure from the UN and more specifically Europe and other NATO allies, or substantial military build up capable of seriously endangering US conventional forces.

Ukraine would be in a much different military position today if it were a pariah state, as opposed to a nation declaring a strong intent to join both the EU and NATO. Turns out diplomacy, allies and soft-power are actually kind of useful things when you're not the dominant military hegemon.

Yes. The lesson from history is that no appeasement should ever be done. Any war, no matter how small or over how little a thing, MUST ALWAYS BE TOTAL. No war should ever end until one nation enacts genocide on another. Great plan.

So I'm sure you have literally any example of when that worked, historically?

Spoiler: it has never worked. What you are thinking of are diplomatic, economic and military moves and counter-moves or negotiated settlements but the aggressor is always forced to compromise or delayed such that they lose their advantage.

Appeasement - the aggressor making demands and getting them with the idea that they will be then be satisfied - has never worked.

Blowing up dozens of satellites would start a chain reaction that if left unchecked will eventually bring down all of them. But I doubt it would happen over a timeframe that's useful for this war. We arguably are already in a Kessler syndrome situation where fragments are created faster than they deorbit, but like any exponential process it starts out incredibly slow.

Space is big. The average breakup seems to create about 300 fragments [1], so if Russia blows up 100 Starlink satellites that's 30,000 bullets that have to randomly hit another 3500 objects spread over an area roughly the area of the surface of the earth. Except that it's worse because space is 3-dimensional and most bullets will spend little time at that altitude, and eventually deorbit. Over a decade it will do a lot of damage, and at some point things will escalate to a point where it's hard to handle. But Russia needs results within weeks or at most months.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_debris_producing...

> Space is big.

Satellites are usually in orbit, not randomly in a space, so your target is to make a mess from that given orbit, not to try to mess up whole space.

No it wouldn't bring down all of them. They are not all on the same level and they can raise and lower their level. Debris analysis would be done and the fleet would be commanded to move strategically.

Causing a chain reaction is significantly more difficult then people think.

SpaceX wasn't worried about any of these issues until, mysteriously, "SpaceX" suddenly was coincidental to Elon Musk having his Twitter breakdown when he decided he personally was going to negotiate peace for Ukraine[1] and was promptly rebuffed by the Ukrainian foreign minister.

Then, totally coincidentally[2] suddenly "SpaceX" had very big corporate concerns about how Starlink was used and also wanted more money from the DoD at a higher commercial rate[3] and...

You know, just a whole pile of totally normal coincidences...

[1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576969255031296000

[2] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579094238998171648

[3] https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/elon-musk-spacex...

Biden administration decided to halt plans to weaponize space started under Trump. This mothballing decision was made in early 2022 and led to said reactions by Elon.

>SpaceX wasn't worried about any of these issues until...

If they weren't worried about these issues, why are they very explicitly spelled out in the Starlink terms of service?

The issue came up because Ukraine violated the terms of service by using them as command/control of an explosive drone boat system. You're just making things up.

>SpaceX is able to put them up faster than Russia could shoot them down

This doesnt seem correct to me. Building, launching, and positioning replacement satellites to fill gaps in service seems like it would take much more effort and cost than a takedown.

Can you further expand on why you think your claim is accurate?

Russia doesn't have 3500 ASAT missiles and can't build (and launch) them at a rate of ~50 per week (it's estimated that they produce ~50 cruise missiles per month).

Admittedly they don't have to shoot down 3500 sats, probably only the sats in the group servicing Ukraine, but that's still a couple hundred sats and thus, likely more than the Russian ASAT stockpile.

The only two ways I can see to make ASAT logistics work against large constellations like Starlink is if they figure out laser-based ASAT or an in-orbit attack mechanism that shoots multiple cheap missiles/bullets (avoiding expensive separate launch per target). Neither sounds impossible, though.

Yeah it's difficult to envision a truly cost effective ASAT measure, "shooting" bullets is deceptive in that it'd still require carrying the large amount of fuel needed to effectively change orbit (especially for changing inclination) and would be a bit too messy in terms of spread of the resulting debris.

Another interesting and clean approach might be jamming the satellites from orbit. You can't go after all the satellites, but since you can predict which ones will be over when you're doing something important, you can launch vehicles to approach specifically those and jam them at close range.

According to the anti satellite wiki page, hitting a gps satellite would be difficult and pointless unless you're taking out everything in geo orbit.

GPS says aren't in geosync, they use 12 hour orbits.

Starlink is at 550 km.

A geosynchronous orbit is 37,000 km.

GPS saltines are at 20,000 km.

While not geosynchronous, they're certainly not in the LEO easy to hit target.

This is mentioned in the Wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon

> US intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites orbit at about 800 km (500 mi) high and move at 7.5 km/s (4.7 mi/s), so a Chinese Intermediate-range ballistic missile would need to compensate for 1350 km (840 mi) of movement in the three minutes it takes to boost to that altitude. Even if an ISR satellite is knocked out, the US possesses an extensive array of manned and unmanned ISR aircraft that could perform missions at standoff ranges from Chinese land-based air defences, making them somewhat higher priority targets that would consume fewer resources to better engage.

> The Global Positioning System and communications satellites orbit at higher altitudes of 20000 km (12000 mi) and 36000 km (22000 mi) respectively, putting them out of range of solid-fuelled Intercontinental ballistic missiles. Liquid-fuelled space launch vehicles could reach those altitudes, but they are more time-consuming to launch and could be attacked on the ground before being able to launch in rapid succession. The constellation of 30 GPS satellites provides redundancy where at least four satellites can be received in six orbital planes at any one time, so an attacker would need to disable at least six satellites to disrupt the network.

>Does this imply that GPS satellites are a legitimate military target for Russia right now?

Of course it does. In the real world, anything is permissible (because there is no global federal government) as long as you have the strength to enforce. In the case of GPS satellite constellation, that is infrastructure owned and operated by the US military, so any attack on those satellites brings Russia directly into conflict with the US and NATO.

>My point being, I don't think "legitimate target" has to do anything with Russia not shooting down any satellites; it's either lack of capacity or fear of retaliation, both being rather orthogonal to the targets "legitimacy" IMO.

Right ... To rephrase: is the US military willing to indemnify Starlink to the same degree if it is attacked by Russia?

You can bet they would retaliate, simply because the game theory aspect of all this implies there needs to be a severe cost associated with damaging US infrastructure. Maybe a huge explosion at some vital oil infrastructure or actually destroying the bridge to Crimea.

>You can bet they would retaliate, simply because the game theory aspect of all this implies there needs to be a severe cost associated with damaging US infrastructure.

It doesn't necessarily imply that that IFF Starlink is providing military assistance to Ukraine, and in response, Russia targets Starlink satellites, that the US will necessarily escalate further. And there is precedence for this. For example, after US assassinated Soleimani, and Iran retaliated against an American base in Iraq (leading to ~100 casualties - though no deaths, and extensive damage to the base itself), America did not further escalate.

Agree with you.

I am damn sure that GPS satellites are a military target! They are even owned by a military organisation. It just so happens that organisation is the most powerful military power in the world. Given that, the next best thing is to jam GPS signals on the ground and I would be very surprised the Russians are not doing it at some scales.

I highly doubt Americans gave the Ukrainians the keys for the special modulation that bypasses usual jamming abilities.

> I would be very surprised the Russians are not doing it at some scales.

They certainly are - https://www.gpsworld.com/ukraine-attacks-changed-russian-gps...

The live map of where GPS is getting some interference - https://gpsjam.org

>Does this imply that GPS satellites are a legitimate military target for Russia right now?

GPS is a US military asset and consequently a military target for hostile actors.

The only thing keeping Russia from just blowing them out of the sky is because to do so would be an unconditional declaration and act of war against the USA.

And because they are using it in their planes and within their units. Sure you can argue with Glonass, but if it is working so well, why SU-34s are using Garmin with GPS instead?

Irrelevant - Garmin can receive GPS, Glonass, Galileo and BeiDou.

I'm pretty sure spacex can launch starlink satalites much faster and cheaper than Russia can shoot them down.

I'm sure spacex won't want to go down that route, but it's not a good tactic for Russia.

Why would you need to shoot down all or even most of the satellites? Pop a couple, let the resulting debris fields do the rest.

Kessler syndrome isn't magic. Space is big. Starlink satalites are small. And they're low enough thst atmospheric drag will deorbit must of the small debris very quickly.

I disagree.

Considering that StarLink satellites have a orbital period of ~95 minutes, I doubt that debris fields de-orbiting "very quickly" as you so precisely put it will be quick enough.

And even so, just shotgun your payload of tungsten flechettes into a orbit a bit higher than the satellites and let gravity do the rest.

I'm sure people smarter than me have considered these scenarios and done the economic math.

I really wonder about space junk if we start down this road, would the debris stay in orbit spinning round the earth or would it be pulled into the atmosphere?

It would come down, most of it very quickly, the rest eventually. The satellites are low enough to deorbit from drag alone within five years or so if their thrusters fail. Blowing them up increases surface area, which increases drag, bringing most of it down much faster.

The way orbit mechanics works, if you impart energy on an object at just one point in its orbit, the orbit will change overall but still go through that point. Some debris will be put in an elliptical orbit where it will start crossing higher altitudes, but will also still cross the original altitude, causing it to be affected by drag and eventually deorbit.

The worry is what it would damage until it comes down. At some debris density you start setting off a chain reaction (and arguably we are already there, it's just very slow right now)

Could the blast itself be quite strong and blow debris further outwards into space ?

As the parent comment explained, unless the debris reaches escape velocity (in which case it is no longer a problem) it will periodically return to the altitude of the explosion or (more likely) lower, just due to how orbital mechanics works.

Sorry, missed that, thanks.

Just to clarify that the Starlink service isn’t being provided for free — many of volunteers (and not just them) are paying for subscriptions with their credit cards. [1]

I’m sure there are additional costs for Starlink operations in Ukraine vs other countries, such as extra measures against jamming etc so the operation is less profitable in Ukraine than elsewhere.

And from what I understand there are some terminals that work without a subscription (although I haven’t seen any info about them specifically).

But it’s not free for many users in Ukraine.

[1]: https://wccftech.com/ukrainians-are-paying-for-starlink-them...

It was Musk himself who announced that they will be providing Starlink, nobody forced him to, he was praised for it.

Now, after failing to blackmail DoD for funding, he is trying to limit it and is shit on and rightfully so.

Not to mention his recent dumbfuck proRussian comments on twitter. All in all - don't bite what you can't chew.

Yeah, the lesson for SpaceX certainly has been that no good deed goes unpunished.

Instead of assuming that everyone will act in good faith, they'll just have to assume everyone's like you and turn down future public requests for emergency aid until they have everything down on paper. Of course then you'll be complaining about the rich/big companies not helping anyone.

> Instead of assuming that everyone will act in good faith

Musk never acts in good faith. Just one example is his desperate and failed six month attempt to back out of the Twitter deal that he himself proposed and agreed to:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/10/why-musk-gave-up...

The correct assumption when dealing with Musk is that he will act in bad faith. That is his track record.

Musk historically almost always acts in good faith. He's never been in it for the money.

> He's never been in it for the money.

Ah, so he must be in it for the bullshit and the lies. Like with his supposed full self-driving.

Falsely claiming FSD "next year", year after year: https://jalopnik.com/elon-musk-promises-full-self-driving-ne...

In reality Teslas can't even park themselves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsb2XBAIWyA

Falsely claiming all Teslas have the hardware for FSD in 2016: https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-tesla-cars-being-produced-now...

In reality the older Teslas now won't get Hardware 4: https://electrek.co/2023/01/26/elon-musk-kills-hope-tesla-re...

That's some real good good faith.

He's excited to bring the future to people and often overestimates the capabilities of existing technology and how fast things can be improved. Again, in good faith, and has often derided his past self on how overly optimistic his past predictions are.

> In reality Teslas can't even park themselves

A ten second youtube search shows several recent videos showing it working just fine.

> In reality the older Teslas now won't get Hardware 4

The second link does not disagree with the first. Hardware 4 is not necessary for FSD, and has been officially stated as such in multiple places, including in the article you yourself provided. There was never any promises that hardware 3 would be capable of being retrofitted to hardware 4. In the same investor's call hardware 5 was talked about as well.

> He's excited to bring the future to people

Is he? Is that why he spends his time falsely claiming cave divers are paedophiles and why he publicly mocks people with muscular dystrophy?

> and often overestimates the capabilities of existing technology

So what you're saying is he bullshits and he lies.

You do appear to be fully bought in to the Musk Mythology. At this point the only person who can help you see the more simple (and uglier) Musk Reality is you. It will be a hard road for you.

If you're not going to try to engage in reasonable discussions I'm not going to continue to respond.

The first event is ancient history and started with a public personal attack by said individual against Musk, and the second Musk apologized for as he was misinformed by others.

> So what you're saying is he bullshits and he lies.

No that's not what I said. Please follow hacker news guidelines.

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> I'm not going to continue to respond.

And yet you have.

> The first event is ancient history and started with a public personal attack by said individual against Musk

It's the reputation Musk has earnt for himself.

He wanted it. He sought it out. He has it.

> and the second Musk apologized for as he was misinformed by others

Sure, sure. It's always someone else's fault.

> No that's not what I said

That's exactly what you said.

Musk will never act in good faith or with honesty. But I expect better from you.

Biden administration locked Elon out of the big contracts that Trump was giving out (global missile defense). He has since aligned himself very publicly with Republicans.

I don’t think “pay for my stuff or stop using it” is really blackmail, no?

There’s a saying: "Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics."

The problem as I see it isn’t the satellites specifically, they want to have a firm of understanding of what can and cannot happen.

When you’re moving millions/billions of dollars of hardware, where mistakes cost lives, you bet I want to be sure I know what a CEO can and cannot decide on a whim. Especially this particular CEO with his many recent very public and very bad whims (across multiple companies, not just SpaceX).

> Especially this particular CEO …

Not just whims, this particular CEO has massive business interests in China which will result in a major conflict of interest in a potential US-China direct or indirect conflict.

I never realized that

I wonder if Elon could sell SpaceX secrets / IP to China?

That sounds like an ITAR violation.

Elon Musk, notably a stickler for following regulations.

Sell to China, tweet about overbearing government regulators after the fact.

Sell? China could also say "Nice gigafactory you've got there. It sure would be a shame if something were to happen to it."

It would also be a shame if FSD got an OTA update to drive on the other side of the road. By accident, of course. Bugs are so hard to discover.

Any individual going to war against a global power with unlimited funding generally doesn't succeed.

Generally, but this individual has his own spaceworthy rockets, which is more than halfway to an ICBM.

You do NOT fuck with ITAR. You are personally liable for any violations and it can result in jail time for you, personally. And the company is liable too.

I would hope anybody in that chain of command knows that, and tells him to go fuck himself if he drops even the hint of exporting it.

The guy has violated his agreements with the SEC, just recently lit $44B on fire, and risked SpaceX's contracts over smoking weed on Joe Rogan.

I'm not convinced he's all that influenced by consequences.

That may be, but the engineers under him are not protected by his money. That's why I call out that you are individually liable as well.

Not only conflicts with the Chinese, but also their friends the Russians:

Suggesting appeasement: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1576969255031296000

Entertaining sanctioned presenter: https://www.businessinsider.com/musk-spotted-pro-putin-russi...

Tesla buys aluminum from Rusal: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/14/tesla-has-bought-aluminum-fr...

"Tesla, as the only 100% foreign-owned automaker in China, holds a privileged place, but it holds it tenuously. The risk that China could retaliate against Tesla in response to U.S. or European sanctions or policies China finds distasteful has always been present": https://seekingalpha.com/article/4501080-a-new-tesla-risk-ru...

Elon Musk was literally spit on by the Russians before starting SpaceX. There was also the long going spat with the former head of Roscosmos with him calling the Falcon 9 a "broomstick" and saying that NASA will need a trampoline to get to space and Elon Musk playing into those jokes.

It's amazing how much people forget history and only remember recent events.

It's not us who overlook those sleights, it is he snubbing Ukraine, buying from Russia, and seeking a Tesla factory there.

So do the Biden's...

> CEFC China Energy, which has close ties to the Chinese Communist Party and People's Liberation Army, paid entities controlled by the then-cash-strapped Hunter Biden or his uncle James Biden $4.8 million over the course of 14 months beginning in 2017, according to The Washington Post.

https://news.yahoo.com/hunter-biden-paid-millions-chinese-17...

> Not just whims, this particular CEO has massive business interests in China which will result in a major conflict of interest in a potential US-China direct or indirect conflict.

Most CEOs of most large companies have large business interests in China. If it's a concern for one it's a concern for all.

I’m often left nonplussed at how many people seem satisfied with a “Enh, that’s not what’s happening this moment and it probably won’t ever happen…” for all kinds of issues.

That’s completely non-reassuring. But even worse: it’s very concerning when someone is reassured by it.

Like logistics, individual events are not really interesting or meaningful. I want to understand the possibility space.

This is what contracts are for. There was no contract signed here.

Wait a moment. SpaceX willingly paid for a batch of those devices when it served its own purposes. It was good advertising for them to provide those. They weren't even defense contractors at that time. Also: DoD just like some other EU countries bought additional devices and services. Everything was great until....the mad owner of the company started embarrassing himself with his side business and comments and suddenly financing became a problem.

Musk has become a problem and seems to have lost his mind, so I can very much understand if someone who wants to do business with him, would take all precautions possible.

Everything you've said is entirely divorced from reality.

You're right, SpaceX never paid for them. They just said they did:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/08/us-quietl...

Everything else is true, though.

Even your article acknowledges that SpaceX "donated a significant sum to Ukraine’s cause." They are just not footing 100% of the bill. It is not clear why they would be expected to do so. According to Musk, "25,300 terminals were sent to Ukraine, but, at present, only 10,630 are paying for service."[1]

[1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1582098412501364736"

So the guy who claimed that the US Government didn't pay even though it did pay is supposed to be a trustworthy source?

I appreciate you following the guidelines and making the most good faith interpretation of my statement /s

I was talking about Musk.

They needed advertising for a service with a year long wait list and no competitors?

Yes. There are competitors and besides the consumers and future contracts there are also investors.

Nice try. There are no competitors and it is privately owned. Name a competitor.

> They weren't even defense contractors at that time.

Flat wrong.

> DoD just like some other EU countries bought additional devices and services.

Did they specifically pay for Starlink dishes and access designed to be used on planes and drones? If not, I don't see what the issue is.

> Musk has become a problem and seems to have lost his mind

And somehow the 2 major company he is running have not lost their minds and a both growing and still successful.

Maybe having a CEO who has lost his mind should be done more often. Or you just don't like Musk ...

> Did they specifically pay for Starlink dishes and access designed to be used on planes and drones? If not, I don't see what the issue is.

Why don't you? He lied when he said he's paying himself when it was the DoD. Later other countries joined the DoD in buying his products. Despite that he started to limit the service and spreading Russian propaganda. How don't you see an issue there??

> And somehow the 2 major company he is running have not lost their minds and a both growing and still successful.

What? Twitter and TSLA both lost massively.

He lost massively money.

They are still there DESPITE him.

There is nothing to be proud of.

To be fair, SpaceX offered starlink for free. Then later the man-child twitted some bullshit about ceding large parts of Ukraine to their invader as some weird attempt to mollify the aggressor.

When Ukraine rightly told him to fuck off he decided to pull the plug. It was only later that he made up the thing about cost.

The way it played out could cause some cautious people to look for some assurances. Asking how you can trust someone who has proven himself to be mercurial, thin -skinned and prone to snap decisions, prone to conspiracy thinking, and with a proven track record of retaliation against anyone who questions his decisions up to and including baseless accusations of heinous crimes…

Pretty good question actually.

> some bullshit about ceding large parts of Ukraine to their invader

Interesting this idea still is a huge taboo in Eastern Europe, while rest of the world kinda moved on.

btw this is same bullshit that China proposed

Because last time when we were ceding territories of other countries to appease a dictator, it was year 1938 and we were ceding parts of Czechoslovakia. Guess what? It did not worked and WW2 started a year later.

Really, is it so hard to learn from a recent history?

Who is 'we' here. The US didn't do anything in 1938. And the Brits and have done so lots of times since then. And lets not pretend the US doesn't have a long history of ceding issues to dictators if convenient. Handing over Afghanistan to the Taliban is apparently totally ok, but not defending Crimea is like the Münich conference.

Looking at isolated cases in history you can come up with lots of example for anything and everything. Its a typical politician move to pick the singular events and then act as if it is a universal lesson for every situation.

One can make the argument, but just say 'Münich' as if it settles everything is dumb.

So what will happen with same appeasement in Ukraine? After few years of "peace" war will continue again. So you lost with appeasement and you got war again.

Oh yeah we already did it, 2014 was supposed to be "enough", but 8 years later, here we are, dictator wants more. Rinse and repeat

> while rest of the world kinda moved on

So "rest of the world" negotiates with terrorists nowadays?

Ukraine never told him to fuck off, and the plug was never pulled. That was the misreporting talked about in the post you replied to.

> On top of that, SpaceX asked for the government to fund Ukraine's use of Starlink, and if they were so worried about its importance, they should've just done that.

Exactly. SpaceX was doing a favor, at first, but the service still costs money. For the service to continue, it clearly needs funding. Just about any company will have a limit to how much they can or will provide for free. The answer to the problem, is mainly money. Provide contracts and money for the SpaceX service, and that will likely resolve the issue.

>This issue has been such a mess, demonstrating how low reporting standards have dropped. For starters, the only thing Ukraine has been prevented from using Starlink for is as a guidance system for drones.

not exactly. there were a lot of reports that starlink functionality constrained to Ukrainian territory beyond "conflict line". When during September/October counterattacks Ukrainian forces advanced, starlinks didn't function and it created operational problems.

>On top of that, SpaceX asked for the government to fund Ukraine's use of Starlink, and if they were so worried about its importance, they should've just done that.

IIRC, it was mostly funded but usaid,etc.

> not exactly. there were a lot of reports that starlink functionality constrained to Ukrainian territory beyond "conflict line". When during September/October counterattacks Ukrainian forces advanced, starlinks didn't function and it created operational problems.

Reports that Ukrainian leadership themselves denied.

Starlink regularly has regional service outages (look on the starlink subreddit and just search "outage"), even in areas where there isn't an opponent trying to actively jam it as there is in Ukraine. Occam's razor and all that.

>Reports that Ukrainian leadership themselves denied.

they denied starlink service been shut down in general for new dishes/etc. what I described was month or more before that

>Starlink regularly has regional service outages (look on the starlink subreddit and just search "outage"),

i have starlink myself

> even in areas where there isn't an opponent trying to actively jam it as there is in Ukraine.

they can only jam it with jam. their latest advertised starlink jammer actually jams wifi ap

> they denied starlink service been shut down in general for new dishes/etc. what I described was month or more before that

My memory was that they denied it had ever happened, and my point still stands about general unreliability issues.

> they can only jam it with jam. their latest advertised starlink jammer actually jams wifi ap

That was not what I was referring to in my comment.

> the only thing Ukraine has been prevented from using Starlink for is as a guidance system for drones

I can't tell if this is supposed to be humorous or not.

Ukraine is involved in an existential fight for its right to be a nation and a people. It's war. A war that Ukraine did not seek out. A war brought to Ukraine by Russia. A war that has cost many Ukrainian lives and will cost still more.

Ukraine is not going to care about terms of service set by a petulant man-child who has advocated for submission to Russia. Especially not when volunteers and soldiers on the ground are paying for Starlink access themselves:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/15/the-hell-with-...

Now say the same but for why the world insists that none of its aid be used to attack into internationally recognized Russian territory and why Ukraine isn't allowed to do so with HIMARS etc.

I know this place loses its sanity whenever the bad rocket man is mentioned, but all they did is put themselves in line with the US's stated policy about the target of their aid to Ukraine.

So the new position you've shifted to is that Starlink should be usable for all purposes within Ukraine, just like all other aid.

If you can't keep a consistent position from one post to the next maybe you don't have much of an argument.

What? My position is that SpaceX are justified in the limits they've set. That hasn't changed at all.

I'm simply pointing out the most likely reasoning behind setting those limits in the first place, and clarifying that what you said about how Ukraine isn't going to care about those limits because they're in an existential war also is in conflict with what they're dealing with regarding all the other aid.

> My position is that SpaceX are justified in the limits they've set.

They are not.

> That hasn't changed at all.

Of course it has. You indulged in whataboutism. You suddenly wanted Starlink to be on the same terms as other aid. That is inconsistent with your original claim.

At this point you're not keeping up with your own posts.

> Ukraine is not going to care about terms of service

Well in that case they won't provided that service. That's how it usually goes. If it creates a significant legal liability to the service provider (which is the reason for many ToS clauses), the service provider would be absolutely stupid to not shut things down in such cases.

Starlink was offered for free and then elon started receiving payments from eastern people in trench coats and suddenly he starts talking about negotiating peace. Then he suddenly turns off starlink to try and sway a major battle.

How can you trust someone like that not to betray you?

"he suddenly turns off starlink"

That too had been a lie by CNN. They issued a correction two weeks after reporting that, which explained that the "outage" was a third party unrelated to SpaceX deciding not to pay for the terminals it had provided of its own volition and Ukraine had been fully aware, swapping those out with other terminals beforehand.

Starlink was never turned off.

And there's been no evidence of him receiving payments from anyone for political purposes. And I mean just think about it, if someone tried they'd have to pay him a whole lot to not just run with it to twitter and mock the people who tried to bribe him.

My understanding from news reports a few months ago is that SpaceX literally asked the DoD to fund Ukraine's ongoing use of Starlink for war and they refused to cover it. I don't know what the reasons were, but I'll bet SpaceX would let Ukraine do whatever it wants if the DoD was paying for it.

Agree. SpaceX said their services are not free for SpaceX, and requested help in funding the effort.

Is Bezos trying to get a foothold in the effort, to help fund launch of his 3K satellites?

https://spacenews.com/amazon-planning-3236-satellite-constel...

Because how could a democrat white house possibly justify paying money to a Musk affiliated company? That’s how bad politics is now.

If Musk were actually the asshole people made him out to be, he would have just pulled starlink until payment. He didn’t. No one seems to appreciate or even realise this on the musk hater side.

I somewhat disagree in that the current administration has also been very open to paying SpaceX for all its other contracts, even buying more crew launches etc.

Paying for Starlink got turned into a public spat and thus ended up drowned out by idiots.

I mean one could say the current admin is paying for all those SpaceX contracts only because there’s literally no alternative left - yup, after Vulcan 5 ending due to restrictions on engines import from Russia there’s literally no other heavy launch provider in continental United States. Same with crew launches in some way.

You have no idea if Musk is telling the truth. All of the stories in the news are based on Musk’s tweets and one unnamed DoD official.

There’s no transparency, therefore no independent confirmation that the US / EU countries supporting Ukraine aren’t actually paying Space-X for Ukraine’s use of Starlink.

https://spacenews.com/shotwell-ukraine-weaponized-starlink-i...

> Shotwell told reporters she led efforts to get Pentagon funding for Starlink services in Ukraine. “I was the one that asked the Pentagon to fund this. It was not an Elon thing,” she said. “We stopped interacting with the Pentagon on the existing capability.”

Not as bad as the politics of a Banana Republican White House.

Democrat is a noun. Democratic is an adjective. Go back to grammar school.

Maybe the Pentagon is promising enough MAU that they think it should be free ;)

Why would they ask for more money when half of the terminals in Ukraine are bought and paid for by Poland? One EU country is paying for half of it all.

The terminals are the smallest part of the cost and an ever decreasing portion. The service and support is by far the biggest cost.

> but I'll bet SpaceX would let Ukraine do whatever it wants if the DoD was paying for it.

I don't think the cost is that significant for Musk, but surely if the DoD was paying for it, then that would shift enough responsibility away from SpaceX.

You mean:

- the richest man on earth decided to be publicly magnanimous by providing a free service to Ukraine

- more than half of the service is being paid through various funds anyway

- same richest man on earth spends 44 billion to stroke his ego

- complains that he no longer has the money to sustain operations because the cost (accroding to him) exceeds 100 million dollars (0.2% of what he spent on his ego)

- the moment he hears that Pentagon will pay, but needs to organize the payment and figure out where it will come from... withdraws his complaints and strokes his ego again by saying he will keep providing service for free

Common sense and circumstantial evidence suggests Elon was planning major DoD support including global missile defense as early as 2001.

- SpaceX first contract was DARPA Falcon Project (part of Prompt Global Strike). Possibly even where the Falcon name came from. (mentioned in parent article)

- SpaceX founding contracts with NASA were awarded by Elon's friend Michael D. Griffin https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin#Career who architected global missile defense and designed space-space interceptors for SDI. His NASA COTS program was an unprecedented award and given to SpaceX before they had even flown a rocket. He also awarded CRS to SpaceX just before leaving office. This constituted 85% of all SpaceX funding (remaining 15% was Elon and a few investors). https://wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX#2005%E2%80%932009:_Falcon_... Griffin was so important to Elon that it is rumored he named his first son after him (Griffin Musk).

- Griffin went on in 2019 to start the Space Development Agency where he advocated for global satellite constellations of sensors and space weapons. First contracts were given to SpaceX after Starlink seemed viable. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#Military_capabilities

Lately it's unclear if Elon is still supportive of said programs as fervently as he did in the early days. He's still hiring for Starshield..

,,Dickinson said that the Pentagon needs to make sure that all sides understand their legal obligations and have a full understanding of the military’s expectations before those moments occur.''

I'm not an American, but as far as I know US is not in war with Russia. Executives are smart enough to know that whenever US gets into war SpaceX will have to take part in it (and get compensated in contracts).

> as far as I know US is not in war with Russia

Even Ukraine is not at war with Russia. Even Russia is not at war with Ukraine.

Turns out that many lives and a lot of hardware can be expended without a war.

Welcome to the 21st century where the there are gaps between contract law (that governs the relationship between the Pentagon and SpaceX) and international law (that spell out the rules in case of war but not necessarily in a case of "conflict" in which US has a geopolitical interest).

This seems somewhat moot given in a time of war, the president can just use the Defense Production Act?

"The Act currently contains three major sections. The first authorizes the president to require businesses to accept and prioritize contracts for materials deemed necessary for national defense, regardless of a loss incurred on business.

The second section authorizes the president to establish mechanisms (such as regulations, orders or agencies) to allocate materials, services and facilities to promote national defense.

The third section authorizes the president to control the civilian economy so that scarce and critical materials necessary to the national defense effort are available for defense needs."

There's a long distance between "the pentagon is involved in a military operation (or even war)" and "the defense production act is invoked". The pentagons role is not solely to prepare for total war scenarios.

Defense production act was invoked for several covid things. Total war is not necessary.

Is the US at war?

It doesn't matter, the criteria to apply the Defense Production Act of 1950 don't refer to a state of war in any way; it applies to activities which the president "deems necessary or appropriate to promote the national defense".

My take is: Starlink just reminded Pentagon they’re a mostly civilian operator, and they’re not ready to defend from direct cyber warfare, it without investment and someone to pay for that. Which is reasonable, IMHO

And Ford was a civilian operator until they needed to build heavy machinery for WWII.

Wartime is different.

This is a non-issue. In times of war government can simply nationalize the company. They did it in 1st war world with rails companies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_nationalization) and that was a harsh lesson for those companies when 2nd war world came around - they got their act together so no such act was necessary anymore.

Pretty sure if SpaceX does not fully complies with government demands in times of war, it will suddenly be a subsidiary of NASA.

I would predict that our government no longer has the stomach to nationalize anything.

In a direct war the public would demand nationalization of starlink the moment Musk disagreed about anything at all. Government would happily comply.

If NASA could run it, why don't they have a Starlink?

I don't like musk for a number of reasons, but did he sign any legal contract with any entity regarding starlink services to Ukraine?

There’s no way DOD can have Musk as the CEO of Starlink, he’s not predictable enough

He is the longest running CEO in the space industry and in the car industry. The companies have been successful and very much execute their plans. Other then overachieving most predictions, they are predictable.

So what is this passed on, twitter comments?

Yes its based on his ADHD instability that causes him to make irrational decisions based on twitter comments and constantly flip flop

In a war the DoD could just take control of the satellites. If enough men with guns then up at Starlink HQ what is Elon going to do?

Disable them with a cryptographic lock, at the least.

https://xkcd.com/538/

In European countries there are laws that a government take over your car, home, or horse if the military needs it urgently. I learnt about this at schools years ago and I don't know if USA has such laws, but pretty sure such laws were extended to laptops and solar panels. I think this is either NATO or EU regulation. It would be unwise to oppose a military at such times having such powerful tools.

There's a film called Warhorse, about a kid whose pet horse gets seized to serve as a draft animal in WW1.

In the US, all government power is derived from the US Constitution. The 3rd and 5th Amendments provide some protections of civilians from the military. But in practice, all civil rights only exist to the extent that they can be enforced. When martial law is enacted, there are no civil rights protections.

In the war of 1812 the president had to run away from Washington because of the British. His party wanted to sleep in a farm house, the farmer rejected the present. The president and his part left.

That’s just him being a good politician. He chose to be better than the other side and be seen to be better. It’s a trade off, in this case the hearts and minds won.

We've got the Third Amendment that says

> No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

So I don't think the US military can legally take over your house without your consent, except in time of war and then only if a law is passed.

But, experience from WWII shows that the government is gonna do what it wants, and the wheels of justice move slowly, and may not hold to what is right; the exclusion order that began the Japanese-American Internment was found to be constitutional, although detainment of loyal citizens was indeed found unconstitutional. If armed people demand use of your stuff, better to let them use it, and fight for compensation later.

surefire way to end up in prison at wartime, and without a company after

> In a war the DoD could just take control of the satellites.

In a war, DoD could buy the satellites, but the 5th Amendment takings clause does not have an exception for war.

How long have we been doing civil asset forfeiture?

That's only for the poor and minorities. They will not dare touch a corporation, let alone owned by some high-profile billionaire with a significant public presence.

Yes, but power can get what it wants without rights too. Power matters, rights do not.

They don't have to provide a fair price for it. The Defense Production Act allows demanding the production of goods, even at a loss to the company.

Which might theoretically be unconstitutional, but the courts have a history of ignoring the text of the constitution during wartime.

What do they mean

It's similar to FBI "buying people data" they can already access for free

SpaceX is a US Defense program

Similar to how Google got funded

https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci...

> Pentagon Looking to Make Sure SpaceX Doesn’t Abandon Them in War Again

SpaceX having morals and not wanting to support one side or another in war is fine by me. But they should have stopped well before selling a ton of gear to the Ukraine (some of which was on the US Government's dime) and then shutting it all down after the checks had been cashed.

They've only prevented Ukraine from using Starlink as a guidance system. They're fine with it being used for the originally envisioned purpose of communications, even within the armed forces.

Is that what they did? Last reports suggests StarLink works just fine inside Ukraine with some congestion issues. My impression is that Ukraine bolted StarLink dishes to offensive drones, possibly the remote controlled boats that struck Sevastopol. Personally I am a hawk on the Ukraine War and hope they utterly destroys the Russian Military, that includes the one inside Russia.

But I find it deeply hypocritical that the US Military, who won't let Ukraine use the weapons given inside Russia, has a problem with a private company who does not want their civilian tech used in offensive weapons.

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