Starlink launches forty-ish Starlink sats every other week, Russia could deplete it’s entire arsenal of missiles and, if they’re lucky, cause a hole in their coverage.
As someone who spends a lot of time in the outdoors, I have to disagree with you. I’m very excited about how this will simplify logistics, and make getting weather etc much easier.
The skies are already polluted with Starlink satellites and there’s even more coming. I agree that is does solve some situations, but it’s being done for profit, not for undeveloped areas. Sticking more shit in our skies for money is really sad, I am surprised there’s not more international regulations for this kind of satellite spam.
If there were more third-world people here they’d probably agree with you as well. Last I checked there’s like one or two cables going into the entire continent of Africa.
It’s actually a really good idea, with the main exception being the impact on astronomy. That Musk happens to be the guy behind this first network is just an unfortunate coincidence.
Enjoy spreading misinformation online? There are valid criticisms against LEO constellations but Kessler syndrome is not one of them
Which is exactly why Russia only needs a handful of rockets at most. You only need to make debris. The rest will sort itself out.
But that is a strategic capability, not a tactical one. It’s another form of MAD.
I’m pretty sure that starlink satellites are orders of magnitudes more expensive to manufacture and deploy than the weapons that can target them.
Really? You can put up 50 starlinks at a time for tens of millions of dollars, whereas asats need a more expensive an maneuverable kill vehicle and a launch for each one with lots more complicated targeting and maneuvering. It’s pretty hard to track and follow something down moving so fast through space and hit it. Plus Russia just doesn’t have the launch capacity to put up that much mass to orbit.
Not to mention that SpaceX has designed things so that they can piggyback starlink deployments on the back of other commercial launches. So, for example, AT&T pays them $25 million to launch a new telecom satellite, and they toss in another dozen or so starlink satellites along with it.
AT&T pays for the majority of the launch costs and starlink benefits from it.
How do you know that? You’re launching an entire rocket to kill one satellite, that can’t be cheap.
Yes, it is probably expensive, but a satellite is probably even more expensive, and not just by a little.
Spy satellites have always been valid targets. I don’t think they’re any more likely to shoot these ones down than any of the others.
For real. This seems like something that threatens musk and space x more than anybody else. The CIA effectively has unlimited money to replace whatever Russia takes down, but musk needing to pay to replace satellites to maintain starlink will hurt his bottom line. I don’t think tin foil hat wearers would be all that unreasonable to make the assumption that this is a veiled threat to keep musk in line. I frequently hear the argument that “billionaires can’t be bought” but I believe the exact opposite. They care more about money than morals and ethics, and can therefore be coerced by it either through hurting their bottom line or rewarding them with more of it. A dragon’s hoard can never be too big for the dragon to accept more, and nothing hurts the drain more than reducing its hoard.
Musk supports Russia so what’s the play here
Huh, found that news on Google. So Musk is quite publicly doing something in secret, with the CIA and Russia. Definitely fishy
Can’t wait to hear about space X satellites falling out of a window.
We’d stop, if the joke wasn’t relevant anymore.
But I doubt Putin will fall out of a window himself anytime soon.
There are more sats than asat missiles. The math doesn’t work out. Unless they use nukes or shotgun blasts or something to make the entirety of leo unusable.
The math doesn’t work out.
You only need enough asat missiles to create enough debris. Kessler handles the rest.
Eh, not for long. LEO everything falls eventually. HEO… that can take a long hot minute.
Really? Where are you getting that info? This estimates a starlink costs about 1M to build and launch. The SM-3, the US asat missile, costs at least 10M each. I think it’s more for the asat variant, but I couldn’t find numbers for that. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-estimated-cost-for-Starlink-satellites-to-provide-high-speed-internet-across-the-United-States#:~:text=According to one source%2C the,be around %2415-30 billion. https://missiledefenseadvocacy.org/missile-defense-systems-2/missile-defense-systems/missile-interceptors-by-cost/
