Star Link train

[Vil_Riker]

How is it a military project?

It’s privately funded. Sells the product to anyone.

They’ve had to get regulatory approval from governments to offer the service in new areas/jurisdictions.

But this is a private enterprise.

And what it is selling: high speed internet in remote locations, seems to be selling well.

dig a little to see what's behind the myth.

Elon Musk 'donated' Starlink terminals to Ukraine. U.S. taxpayers paid SpaceX millions for it.

SpaceX previously claimed the U.S. didn't give them any money to send Starlink to Ukraine.

mashable.com

SpaceX Awarded Nearly $1 Billion in Preliminary Taxpayer Funding to Supply Broadband Internet in Rural US

As Elon Musk gets increasingly more ambitious regarding plans for his space exploration company SpaceX, it appears that the Tesla

thedeepdive.ca

Elon Musk is speaking out against government subsidies. Here's a list of the billions of dollars his businesses have received.

Musk's companies benefited from subsidies as recently as April, when SpaceX won a $2.89 billion contract from NASA. Tesla got subsidies for years.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[Astro14]

dig a little to see what's behind the myth.

Elon Musk 'donated' Starlink terminals to Ukraine. U.S. taxpayers paid SpaceX millions for it.

SpaceX previously claimed the U.S. didn't give them any money to send Starlink to Ukraine.

mashable.com

SpaceX Awarded Nearly $1 Billion in Preliminary Taxpayer Funding to Supply Broadband Internet in Rural US

As Elon Musk gets increasingly more ambitious regarding plans for his space exploration company SpaceX, it appears that the Tesla

thedeepdive.ca

Elon Musk is speaking out against government subsidies. Here's a list of the billions of dollars his businesses have received.

Musk's companies benefited from subsidies as recently as April, when SpaceX won a $2.89 billion contract from NASA. Tesla got subsidies for years.

www.businessinsider.com

None of those prove your point.

1. Federal government gave a ton of support/money to Ukraine. Paying for an existing service doesn’t make something “military”. Commercial enterprise.

2. Federal government wanted more broadband access for rural areas. The “digital divide” as it’s been called. Starling offered a service that fit the definition of rural broadband access. The service was launched before the government asked for it. Commercial enterprise.

3. SpaceX has been selling commercial services to NASA for a while. This is just one more service. Commercial enterprise.

So, not a military project. He got no money from the government, not DARPA, not the military itself, to start this project.

Subsequent subscription services don’t make it military.

The military pays for commercial products. The military subscribes to Microsoft for software. The full suite of Office Software.

Nobody is calling MS Office a military project.

And nobody should be calling Starlink a military project, either.

 

[JimPghPA]

Saw it at "Mt Blue state park" in Central Maine, in the middle of the night.

Not impressed. Supposedly the new birds are less reflective.

How is "more internet", bought from "that guy", going to benefit society?

No dead spots for cell phones.


In the past there have been occasional rare incidences where somebody or some family got stuck out in the wilderness and end up freezing to death. With the starlink system an individual or group in that situation would have access with their cell phone and be able to get help.

 

[Astro14]

Knock off the political comments or the thread gets locked. This was about seeing a satellite launch. Not Conspiracies, not Nazis, not Putin, not Ukraine

 

[JeffKeryk]

I thought it was an alien invasion too. Lol

It is. He's an alien.

 

[nate379]

Lots of rural places have horrible internet, limited to DSL or poor satellite reception. My mom lives in rural Oklahoma and her internet speeds are under 1MBps down and like 0.3MBps up on a good clear day. I looked to see if Starlink was available for her location and unfortunately not .

I had ~700k at my place until fairly recent. It's 3mb now.

Costs $110 a month too.

 

[dumkid]

I saw it in September. 12 sattelites in a row.

Speaking of internet, im one of those people on dsl, with 1000+ ms of latency sometimes. We did upgrade from 3mbps to 15 a few weeks ago, but the slower Internet had less lag (which meant it was actually faster if you were just trying to load bitog)

 

[GON]

How is it a military project?

It’s privately funded. Sells the product to anyone.

They’ve had to get regulatory approval from governments to offer the service in new areas/jurisdictions.

But this is a private enterprise.

And what it is selling: high speed internet in remote locations, seems to be selling well.

And it provides at least a bit of competition in the broadband marketplace. And this provider does not own/sell content (less X) which equates to a impartial broadband offering.

 

[PandaBear]

Saw it at "Mt Blue state park" in Central Maine, in the middle of the night.

Not impressed. Supposedly the new birds are less reflective.

How is "more internet", bought from "that guy", going to benefit society?

How is "radio" or "electricity" or "telephone" going to benefit society? Seriously a lot of people living in rural area can now work from home. I know people who wished to work from home instead of commuting and finally are able to do so because of starlink.

In urban area you pretty much are going to pick cable but may pick 5G / fiber if you really hate your cable company, but in rural area you might be on LTE if you are lucky and if not, DSL or some weird satellite. Starlink really makes it possible for a lot of rural area to be livable for people who want to move there but can't due to job reason.

 

[PandaBear]

How is it a military project?

It’s privately funded. Sells the product to anyone.

They’ve had to get regulatory approval from governments to offer the service in new areas/jurisdictions.

But this is a private enterprise.

And what it is selling: high speed internet in remote locations, seems to be selling well.

I wouldn't call it a military project unless you call Internet a military project as well.

But it is a much cheaper option than Iridium and with so many satellite in the sky, almost impossible to completely shut it down like the older satellite.

 

[mk378]

almost impossible to completely shut it down like the older satellite.

To shut down Starlink in a combat area, an enemy would (a) ask Elon nicely, (b) jam the uplink radio frequencies, or (c) blow up the regional ground base station(s). The latter could be politically difficult since they may be located in neutral countries.

 

[PandaBear]

To shut down Starlink in a combat area, an enemy would (a) ask Elon nicely, (b) jam the uplink radio frequencies, or (c) blow up the regional ground base station(s). The latter could be politically difficult since they may be located in neutral countries.

Jamming radio means they can find you as well. Instead of heat seeking they can find you by the radio source.

I'm not sure if Russia ask Elon nicely would get Crimea Ukraine border shut off. Also Starlink's architecture can in theory route traffic outside of the area via satellite to satellite link. This is one of the original benefit they propose because EM wave / light speed is faster in vacuum than in optical fiber and therefore useful for trading orders to get there sooner. Elon knows Wall Street would do anything to get the trade ahead of their competitors after they read what you want to buy and sell at your broker, and issue a related order or change their own orders before yours get there.