The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party sent a letter on Saturday to SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk demanding that U.S. troops stationed in Taiwan get access to SpaceX’s Starshield, a satellite communication network designed specifically for the military.
The letter, obtained by CNBC and first reported by Forbes, claimed that by not making Starshield available to U.S. military forces in Taiwan, SpaceX could violate its Pentagon contract, which requires “global access” to Starshield technology.
They do, it just not as fast or reliable. SpaceX put more into infrastructure whereas the Military just did bare minimum. Now that Starlink is so much better, it’s cheaper and more efficient to rent from them than to continue building their own.
You know what would be even cheaper? Seizing Starlink as a national security asset.
They’d have to seize spaceX too, which is the reason that starlink is viable in the first place due to reduced costs in launching satellites.
And then if they do both, survive the brain drain while simultaneously surviving the onslaught of Republican attempts to defund it into oblivion, because that’s what they do.
Yeah. I don’t like those chances, nor do I like Musk essentially having power over foreign relations. Kinda lose lose, which is why we’re in this shitty holding pattern atm.
Make NASA Great Again.
Cool thing to say because NASA was great once
You know what would be the cherry on top? Seize all of Musk’s assets, and kick his ass out of the country. Along with the Murdochs.
You can’t really put a real cost on seizing something like that. Not all of the costs will be up front or even obvious. People don’t like having their stit stolen, oddly enough.
Do you really want to give the government the power to do that, and then hand that power over to the military… I don’t like Musk but I see so many worse scenarios with this being controlled by the military.
The government already has the power to do that.
If shit ever hit the fan, they could just invoke the DPA and force starlink to do exactly what they say.
that seems pretty stupid, should we also seize Amazon Kuiper when they start launching very soon?
yeah if they contract for military access and then dumbassidly refuse to give it.
Who do you think paid for SpaceX to launch all those satellites?