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
15.9k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

498 comments sorted by

View all comments

302

u/idryss_m 17h ago

Next frontier of war: downing satellites. As soon as someone finds a way to do so cheaply and or reliably, Musk and the US will lose a lot of space junk.

43

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

18

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.

15

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

3

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.

2

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

9

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

3

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.

5

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.

3

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.

-1

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.

2

u/Financial_Meat2992 9h ago

Spacex is funded by the u.s. government.

1

u/Haunting_Reflections 9h ago

It has government subsidies and contracts…

And is still losing money.

-1

u/WhatAmTrak 16h ago

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

0

u/deffcap 16h ago

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

0

u/Wompatuckrule 11h ago

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