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SpaceX is reportedly building a $1.8 billion network of spy satellites for US intelligence
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2024
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Would you rather he, as a non-government affiliated citizen, pick a side? War is stupid. Communication is great. Maybe this is naive of me, but I think the world would be better, and maybe require less war, if everyone had equal access to communication.
The fuck are you talking about? These are surveillance satellites, not some unity communications empowering satellites or something.
Surveillance is a usecase for communication. I can't think of a communications technology that hasn't been (ab)used for surveillance... Books even! Historically people have been prosecuted due to the books they possess! Should our target of ire be the entity building the network? Or the entity wanting to use it for surveillance? The vibe I'm getting from this thread is that folks would prefer the US government, via NASA or otherwise, have control of the whole thing instead.
You have no idea how a spy satellite works, do you?
They take pictures.
With really, really fancy cameras.
Cameras that are very carefully, and secretly, designed to be very good at their jobs.
No, you can’t just let some third party decide to use your fancy spy satellite, that means they now know what your satellite can and can’t do, which means they can hide things from it, which means it’s now just a very expensive lump in orbit.
And need I remind you that SpaceX is not some magical self funded space ferry service. They’re a US Government contractor, that’s where most of their money comes from. The satellites are made by other contractors. There’s not a government satellite factory somewhere in the desert, they pay companies like Boeing and Honeywell to make them the parts for the satellite, and then SpaceX gets money to launch it.
When the government pays for something, the contractor is legally required to keep their mouth shut about it, hand over the keys, and be available if it breaks. The contractor cannot just decide to let someone else play with the government’s toys, that’s called espionage.
It really is. We're not discussing the philosophy of free and open communication, we're talking about a single narcissist who has been given money and power and how that's a problem.
Science fiction of the 90s was the time to discuss philosophy. We didn't come to a conclusion then. The future is now. A global low latency, highly available communications network is technologically inevitable. In our timeline, a rich narcissist has gathered enough support and competence around himself to start building that network. So now we have real, concrete questions that need answers: who should have access to that network, and who should decide?
The way I see it, the options are (besides opening the network for everyone globally):
Do you have another suggestion?
Then what are we even discussing? we've had orbital cameras for decades. These are just networked better and launched different?
This is a huge network (hundreds) of very low orbit satellites, making surveillance far closer to realtime, with more global coverage, with presumably a higher resolution. Since there are so many of them they’re also more resistant to anti-satellite weapons than traditional surveillance assets.
Remember that the existing Keyhole satellites are basically the same build as the Hubble Space Telescope, meaning fewer, larger, more expensive satellites. This is a huge leap in capability.
And what, you want to be able to use spy satellites to see your neighbor sunbathing in the backyard?
These are military satellites, to look at military shit like what planes an enemy has on the runway and how many, where tanks are on a battlefield, if a convoy is getting ready to leave a depot and how many vehicles it has. Not to mention, what they are even capable of seeing is a matter of national security. If an enemy knows your satellite only has a certain resolution, they can figure out exactly what camouflage they need to defeat it. If they know how the infrared photography works, they can develop strategies to fake the number of functional vehicles they have. Not everyone in the whole world should know that shit. Otherwise the entire intelligence apparatus of the United States should just pack up and retire.
We already have a global low latency communication network, it’s the thing I’m sending you this message on now. When we don’t need is a global, high quality, spy satellite network that everyone and their brother can use and learn the capabilities of.
Exactly my point. YOU don’t need a surveillance network. The US government DOES. And what do you know, this constellation was purchased by the US military, and is entirely for their exclusive use.
This constellation is being purchased from SpaceX but is not going to be operated by SpaceX. I’m not sure why everyone thinks this is the same as Starlink as if it were a consumer product.
Because Elon is both smart and stupid enough to build in a personal backdoor.
Elon barely does anything at SpaceX these days. No doubt this deal is being run by Shotwell instead.
I would rather they fund NASA to the fullest, and nationalize SpaceX under them.
So that the US government can more directly use starlink for surveillance?
Sure, they won't sell it to Russia at least
Communications are important, which is why they're one of the number one things an invader disrupts upon invasion: communications systems. Disrupting your enemies communications is incredibly common and to act like simply because Musk is "offering communications" means he's a good guy is such a simplistic fucking take I want to blow my brains out.
Maybe you should read some McLuhan or some Debord.
Do you have any particular pieces of theirs you can recommend I read?
I don't consider Musk, by any means, to be "a good guy". Ideally, I'd just rather let SpaceX keep building out starlink for the good of the world and have it be a medium for communication that is difficult to disable.
Why do we need to kill our enemies at this point in our civilization even? it's barbaric and ridiculous. The state of the art of weaponry right now is trending towards remote operations. How long until it just becomes BattleBots but with collateral damage? When do we get to world leaders settling disputes in a game of Worms?
Musk is a massive POS that cannot be trusted to maintain equal access to that communication.
What don't you grasp about that?
I recently read about Ted Hall who shared nuclear secrets with the Soviet Union because he thought everyone should have equal access to nuclear weapons and this would prevent another world war.
Your logic is similar and it's not a good thing.
Putting aside the fact that this is a bit of a straw man, multiple countries having nuclear capability is the only thing preventing nuclear war. Russia does not nuke the US (or allies) because they know the US will respond with a nuclear launch of its own. same for the other way around. Awareness and access to similar capabilities makes everyone think twice about becoming the aggressor. if I had to pick, a cold war is preferable to a hot one.