of course he was afraid of russian nuukes. this only prompted Ukrainian engineers to bypass use of starlink entirely and current sea drones, like the one used in second Kerch bridge strike, or these used against SIG tanker and Olenegorsky Gornyak landing ship use domestic technology only

  • wagesj45@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    1 year ago

    I don’t think Musk is a man driven by what is in his self interest. He has some underlying pathology that drives him to be his own worst enemy. He’s a lot like Trump in that regard.

    • swlabr@awful.systems
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      1 year ago

      Personally my mental model of Musk is that whenever he does something, I think, “is this what an idiot who thinks he will eventually go to mars would do?” Then it’s really a matter of figuring out the path to the answer being yes. Can’t go to mars if you die from nuclear war, or something. I don’t try very hard to think about this.

      • self@awful.systems
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        1 year ago

        he is absolutely practicing which buttons to push to end an eventual Martian worker rebellion

        • gerikson@awful.systems
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          1 year ago

          Starlink causing a Kessler event and grounding all spaceflight would be delicious irony, but I believe their orbits are too low for this to be a problem. Instead they just annoy astronomers and Russians.

          • Jonathan Hendry@iosdev.space
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            @gerikson

            On the other hand, Kessler wrote: “Some of the most environmentally dangerous activities in space include large constellations such as those initially proposed by the Strategic Defense Initiative in the mid-1980s”

            SDI’s Brilliant Pebbles originally proposed a 10,000 unit LEO constellation.

            Starlink is already close to 5,000, and Musk wants 30,000. Add in the Chinese effort estimated at ~13,000. OneWeb has 500-600 up there.

              • Jonathan Hendry@iosdev.space
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                4
                ·
                1 year ago

                @gerikson

                “would pose minimal risk for launches continuing past LEO”

                I suppose so, and yet you could say the same about aircraft flying over the launch site on launch day. A collision is unlikely due to the speed of the rocket and the short time it would be at aircraft altitudes.

                But I’m pretty sure they still don’t want anyone flying over the launch pad.

            • Jonathan Hendry@iosdev.space
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              1 year ago

              @gerikson

              Even if it doesn’t rapidly degenerate into a full-blown Kessler Event, I’d have to think there’d be enough going on there to increase uncertainty and risk.