Posted on 03/19/2022 2:10:12 PM PDT by dennisw
Starlink is just providing Internet. Not really anything beyond what Starlink does for everyone else. It just happens that the Ukrainians are using it for videos spotting Russians.
Ukrane: 44,000,000 people
Russia: 144,000,000 people
Putin bit off far more than he can every chew. There are going to be a lot of very, very angry Ukrainian men who will be angry for a very, very long time.
But they are happy to kill 5 year old “Nazis”...
I hear you, canuck_conservative. Though maybe shill doesn’t mean what you think it means.
They cancelled Russia and the Russian people. Putin just gave a speech about how the Russians are done with the LeftWest.
There is literally NOTHING preventing the Russians from taking reprisals on people like Elon Musk and others who are taking on enemy combatant status with their mouths from what they think is the safety of the West.
If some of these people get rubbed out, what is the West going to do? Cancel Russia harder?
If I was in the position of the Russians, these people would have to start looking over their shoulder.
“What is more interesting is that the Russians have apparently not been shooting down satellites.”
Russkies might have faked their capabilities in this area. Elon has lots of his comms satellites up there, so too many to take down.
If anyone has real anti-satellite capabilities, it is China. My opinion.
“Starlink is just providing Internet. Not really anything beyond what Starlink does for everyone else. It just happens that the Ukrainians are using it for videos spotting Russians.”
Elon Musk must be given credit for immediately supplying Starlink receiver units when Ukrainians made a tweet requesting them. Musk made sure they got lots of them ASAP. More units than we will ever know, Musk does not want to have Russkie enemies.
“I don’t think Putin is looking for “Victory” - he’s made clear what his objectives are.”
What are his objectives?
Starlink has over 2,000 operational satellites. They are also in low earth orbit and not very big. It would be difficult to hit just one.
I guess they could try to take out a few Starlink satellites and hope the debris takes out the rest. Even so, the individual satellites can move to avoid debris.
USA permitting this is an act of war — if we wish to help Ukraine we should do it ourselves, hopefully in a thoughtful manner, and not let a single individual “without portfolio” or authorization create or provoke Ww3 for us.
“West going to do? Cancel Russia harder?“
Exactly. Traditionally Diplomacy had no use for such upfront extremes…outside of declared war. The Mob thinks it is all powerful.
Yes, but they are expensive - more expensive than the smaller satellites at which they would be shooting.
EMP would disable the Russian advance and leave the Russian soldiers with only small arms fire. Also, satellite killers work best on geostationary satellites which are high enough that even tho they are going fast, their ground speed is zero. Thier longitude and latitude are pretty fixed, as is their elevation. Skylink satellites are much lower and orbital. Longitude and latitude constantly vary (but on a fixed path) and elevation is hard because you cant just have a fixed satellite then move it towards them.
High altitude nuke bursts are going to fry a lot more things than Musk’s satellites. Talk about potential for collateral damage. And who knows if Musks things are EMP shielded.
That comes off as rather snarky. Musk really has achieved great things. And this is great advertising for Starlink, which is patented Musk, he is a great marketer.
Which is odd but interesting, given he has Aspergers syndrome.
This is an upsetting bit of revelation to Putin circle jerkers, especially given that their “anti satellite “ weaponry has failed.
Nobody has enough satellite killers to take out even a small fraction of Musks satellites. There are over 1500 operational Starlink satellites up there now.
And he can replace them 60 at a time.
“they won’t come right out and say it, of course,”
Of course. So you’ll go ahead and infer it for all of us. How thoughtful of you.
The problem with “traditional” diplomats is they think governments are the only people they are negotiating with. This failure to consider context and the multiplicity of independent players was recognized in the Cold War. It is as it is and diplomats must deal.
But, 90 minutes later, a new set of satellites orbit into view and the net is restored.
Low and medium earth orbit sats do not take long to orbit the earth.
Kind of like Iridium.
The diagram of the satellites doesn’t even make sense to me. I thought Starlink doesn’t work with a mobile ground antenna?
I thought that’s why its no good for boats.
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