Hubcapped

This becomes subjective, but if true, he should be held accountable. Particularly if he closed the link mid operation. At least give a time of shutdown so they would know not to utilize this asset.

”Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me'.George Orwell

rickair7777

Starlink is not a military capability, and was never intended to be. It's a civilian commercial service.

This situation got weird because UA is using it for military purposes.

Not Elon's fault. All he did was succeed (dramatically) in an effort to greatly improve space access, at a much lower cost. Not his fault that his competitors suck arse. Again he was focused on civilian services, but the mil isn't entirely stupid so they jumped on the wagon too.

I'm sure boeing would absolutely LOVE it if the USG restricted SpaceX's operations to ensure that ULA could muddle along with old hardware and indefinite delays on new hardware, keeping launch rates low and prices astronomical (pun intended).

I wouldn't want it dependent on ANY single entity, of any provenance.

Which is why ULA will continue to be paid vast sums to provide a backup alternative to SpaceX. And boeing is getting paid to work on (but never actually deliver) Starliner for Nasa. That thing makes MCAS look like genius innovation. I suppose it gives Elon at least a vague hint of competition to keep him honest.

I don't think the answer is .gov entities either... no competition and the whole enterprise will turn into a vast civil service jobs program. That's what happened to Space Shuttle, and is still perpetuated with the politically-mandated retention of legacy shuttle hardware in Nasa's new heavy lifter.

rickair7777

Agree that he should have told them in advance.

I can almost assure you that there's no legal mechanism to "hold him accountable" in the US. This is one of those areas of technology advance that's probably way out in front of the regulatory infrastructure.

I bet that if you read the fine print on his service contract it allows him to terminate it for any reason or no reason, with no notice.

It might also prohibit using it for certain purposes... that would be sensible since if you allow one party to use your service in an armed conflict, the opposing party might shoot your satellites down. The business model probably wouldn't account for that. Better to let the combatants pay you to launch their wholly-owned satellites.

METO Guido

Yeah, surviving to deny tomorrow’s enemies a shot is for patsies. Worf, son of Mogh. Who doesn’t want to be a blog Klingon?

Excargodog

And yet that’s been US policy throughout this war, to limit the range and capabilities of the weapons systems the US has been providing. Should the Biden administration then “be held accountable” for not providing long range weapons sooner?

Excargodog

https://www.politico.eu/article/ukra...george-w-bush/

Hubcapped

False equivalency. If what elon did was true, it would be like giving the Ukrainians M1a1s, and as soon as they advance we kill switch them and they shut down.

i made a clear delineation that it was mid op. Nice try though

Hubcapped

I don’t know what any of this means bruh

METO Guido

You, poster Hubcap, got a hair trigger hard on to take out a 20+ year, Russian regime that’s just as unprofessional as it is blood thirsty. They leave their friggin dead behind. Meanwhile we’re staring at another budget impasse. Any clue why? Notice you like to ask leading questions & demand answers too. Tell me this, how is it a whatever it takes proponent of unrestricted, forever support for this war, can’t quite maintain composure dealing with Meto’s trifling of the King’s English? Is it YOUR 2nd language?

Hubcapped

dude, you were talking about klingons……..

if saying “i dont know what this means” indicates a loss of composure to you….. I think that says more about you than about me

as soon as Russia gets back into their internationally recognized borders, I don’t care what they do.

Its about precedent…..again if that doesn’t do it for you, nothing will. History is filled with countless examples of the failed policy of appeasement.


if the english had continued the failed policy of appeasement, we would all be speaking Danish right now for one.