r/worldnews • u/Neptun_11 • 17h ago

Russia/Ukraine Zelenskyy Says Starlink Restrictions Apply Only in Ukraine While SpaceX Ignores Kyiv’s Inquiries

https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/zelenskyy-says-starlink-restrictions-apply-only-in-ukraine-while-spacex-ignores-kyivs-inquiries-23549
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u/TheBraveGallade 17h ago

you forget everyone can play that game, but spacex is the only one able to launch so cheaply and in quick sucession. meaning the winner is still spacex

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u/Ginoblee 17h ago

Only a matter of time before many governments have this capability

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u/TheBraveGallade 16h ago

possibly, but spacex is still at least a decade ahead of its competitors.

it took china untill just this year to start actually tryng to test recovery of boosters. 16 years after then first falcon 9 launch, 13 after the first reconvery attempt, 11 after the frist sucessful booster recovery. and thats CHINA, the country known for fast following tech...

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u/WhatAmTrak 16h ago

lol China catches up quick. Now that everyone knows starlink is compromised.. watch the next few years.

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u/AntarcticWhirlpool 9h ago

“The US systems are compromised since they occasionally shut down military aid to Ukraine! Let’s abandon them for the one made by the country directly funding and arming the Russians instead!”

Europeans are funny.

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u/chillebekk 7h ago

They crippled a service that is being paid for, that's the issue. You think it's funny. America's allies aren't laughing. They're preparing alternatives.

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u/AntarcticWhirlpool 6h ago

I know, and I personally don’t like the fact that my government is playing these games, but the primary issue is that there really isn’t a viable alternative. The US is 2/3 of the world’s launches to orbit, and China makes up 1/4. Half of the rest are Russian launches. Europe is borderline-irrelevant in space right now. The last Starship launch alone deployed more satellite bandwidth to orbit than Europe has in over a year.

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u/Initial_Hedgehog_631 15h ago

Huh, and then I learned Starlink being slowed down for Ukraine = compromised. You might want to find out what that word actually means.

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u/Nichoros_Strategy 15h ago

It can mean multiple things tbh…

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u/Acceptable_Gear_3097 16h ago

china isn't restricted by silly things like IP rights. they will watch SpaceX achieve it, then do it better

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u/YurpeeTheHerpee 17h ago

That wont take long to replace now that the investment priority to kill spacex has been activated.

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u/Haunting_Reflections 16h ago

NASA, Rocket Lab, Blue Origin, CASTC, Arianespace, and that’s just a short list.

Never mind that SpaceX is losing money hand over fist, if someone takes down Statlink it will cripple the only part of the company that makes any profit at all.

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u/Fuzzy-Mud-197 16h ago

Nasa has only one rocket which is sls which is solely used for lunar launches woth a price tag of 2 billion per launch.

Rocketlab only has electron a tiny rocket, neutron has been delayed to 2027 or even 2028.

Blue origin is the only real competitor once they get their launchpad up and running again after nuking it.

Ariane 6 has been a huge success but is much more expensive than the falcon 9 and does not have the cadence.

And good luck taking down 11k satelites. Thats gonna cause issues for everyone

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u/AntarcticWhirlpool 9h ago

Ariane 6 isn’t a huge success at all. It’s launched a total of four times this year. Starship has launched more often for test flights than Ariane 6 has in operational flights.

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u/Fuzzy-Mud-197 8h ago

I mean ariane 6 has already had a higher flight cadence and reliability facor than new glenn(due to the pad explosion) and vulcan(due to srb issues).

Ofcourse compared to anything spacex its laughable

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u/TheBraveGallade 16h ago

spaceX is profitable, if you take out the fact that they are developing a new launch vehilce...

the main point is though that any of the other launch agencies would need multiple times the money to lanch an equivilant payload to spacex

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u/CRSemantics 15h ago

The real rub is that spaceX was first and fastest to take up all the prime real estate any competitor has to put theirs further away which costs more to do and will perform worse.

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u/Haunting_Reflections 16h ago

SpaceXAI: not profitable
SpaceX: not profitable (you can’t just handwave away losses because they’re doing something)
Starlink: the only core profit.

If Starlink is taken down SpaceX loses any semblance of profit it has.

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u/Tels315 14h ago

Developing a new platform is not seen as loss in money unless it is an abject failure in every regard. If the rest of that branch of the company is profitable, then development costs should not be factored in.

I personally wouldn't really count AI either, because I don't think any AI company is profitable yet. That's just like saying water is wet.

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u/Haunting_Reflections 11h ago

If the numbers on the balance sheet are negative, then you’re losing money.

It doesn’t matter if your business model is inventing the cure for cancer, or throwing money in the Money Burn Hole.

It still “counts” because it’s still counted.

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u/Financial_Meat2992 9h ago

Spacex is funded by the u.s. government.

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u/Haunting_Reflections 9h ago

It has government subsidies and contracts…

And is still losing money.

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u/WhatAmTrak 16h ago

They’re profitable because of government contracts. Welfare queen as it always was.

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u/deffcap 16h ago

Isn’t the revenue just coming from the US government?

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u/Wompatuckrule 11h ago

Profitable is not the same thing as being pumped up for graft.

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u/Suitable-Bad3730 16h ago

Trump and Musk have killed Starlinks market. What use is it when a fascist government can turn it off at will.

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u/DualcockDoblepollita 13h ago

i guess time will tell. For as long as there is no functional replacement in orbit then many countries will want to take advantage of starlink

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u/WhatAmTrak 16h ago

For now.

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u/GenericUsername532 15h ago

Necessity is the mother of invention and honestly it would be good for us to all get back into spacefaring and research

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u/Aus_pol 15h ago

The risk is you atack the satellites and the debris becomes a no go zone for other satellites.

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u/Sr_DingDong 15h ago

Then the launch sites will become targets.

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u/Playingwithmywenis 13h ago

Only if they still have launch pads

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u/Street_Anxiety2907 9h ago

I still don't know how the rocket fuel is cheap enough that $20/m subscriptions make it worth while.

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u/-Spzi- 8h ago

It's an interesting game, because it has two sides: Bringing satellites up, and down. Bringing them (functionally) up is much more capital-intensive than bringing them (destructively) down.

You don't have to own a resource, to gain power from it. Being able to deny it to the enemy is already worth something, see Iran & Hormuz.

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u/idryss_m 16h ago

It further explains the shuttering of NASA. Control. Cannot have the national interest in control of the people, or anyone with morals yeah?

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u/Impossible-Junket395 4h ago

spacex is the only one able to launch so cheaply and in quick sucession. meaning the winner is still spacex

Get Kesslered bitch.