20h ago

Reminder that an alternative for Starlink is needed, exchange between Musk and the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs

https://nitter.net/elonmusk/status/1898759859459203457#m

193 comments

Twitters UI confuses me. Where do I start? What's the next one? And where's the end?
- It starts in the middle. It's smaller and indented because it's then being quoted by the Polish minister on top. Then Elon, fuckwit that he is, responds at the bottom.

While I get the sentiment, another solution would put even more junk into low orbit, and cause even more problems for radio telescopes. There was already major concern about this with Starlink.
The questions are, what are the use cases, and can they be served by alternative technologies? When you answer that, then you can look into seeing if the extra latency to GEO is acceptable, or if terrestrial systems can do the job.
Eventually, I could see satellites becoming modules that attach to a frame that handles station keeping and such. That would keep LEO debris down. Would probably need Starship-level heavy lift to make that work, though, and nobody else has a rocket on that level except the chronically overbudget/overschedule SLS.

Was just discussing Eutelsat @ !stocks_eu@lemmy.world which has a big potentional to fill the Starlink gaps but also as a great investing opportunity!

Calling someone else a small man really shows what kind of man he is

Rocket Lab are working on their solution;
https://www.rocketlabusa.com/updates/rocket-lab-announces-flatellite-a-new-satellite-designed-for-mass-manufacture-and-tailored-for-large-constellations/

I wouldnt be suprised if putin beat his ass. They both might be old decrepit fucks but putin has martial arts training at least. This response to one of my countries government officials is also what pushed me over to finally dropping as much american everything as possible.
- Honestly I think Putin would beat his ass

Scheduled to arrived by 2030, but the EU is developing one and it's sounding pretty sweet: https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-space/iris2-secure-connectivity_en

There are already alternatives. Use a mixture of them so they compete with each other for your business. https://www.wired.com/story/starlink-replacement-ukraine-eutelsat-oneweb-project-kuiper-amazon-iris2-elon-musk/
As soon as possible ban Starlink for security, spying risk.

Are we really allowing this American man belittle our institutions for his own profit?
- No, we're apparently letting a South African man, who is/was an illegal immigrant in the US, and who's maternal side of the family fled from Canada because his grandfather was a Nazi and was trying to drum up support to make Canada a Techno-feudalistic oligarchy, do those things.
- @alxmg @Blaze
  I have been boycotting X for years now. I think we should all ignore that ignoramus as much as possible, and boycott his companies. Let's focus on making #Europe stronger and more independent.
  
  I am with you on this, I’ve been boycotting everything American for that matter, and Musk’s services in particular.

This post was the final straw for me. I deleted all my accounts on non crucial US based services yesterday when I first saw it. I was already angry with what is going on but it was a shallow meme boycott consisting of only drinking kofola now instead of coca cola. It got serious yesterday. Unfortunately I still need to think about the strategy to quit Google since pretty much everything I do is connected to my Gmail.
- My strategy is to use both Gmail and Proton and I'm slowly moving from one to another.
- Make sure to leave bad review specifically about those services being bad and poor quality.
  
  But if they are not, it's sad. You should put bad reviews with other real reasons.
- Try Proton!
  
  No.

Isn't it really frightening to let a super rich ketamine infused buffoon get this much power?

The irony of elon calling anyone else "small" is hilarious....
- Elon is quite large actually, especially his torso.
  
  Yup, nothing else of him is either big or medium sized. He has some complexes

We DON'T need them or a replacement.
These things are horrible.
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2527902/120-starlink-satellites-burn-up-in-january-2025
- You don't. What about Ukraine?
  
  That is a lost cause whether they like it or not.
  And this was with the help of those things.
  I know it's not popular here to say such controversial things like "a diplomatic resolution" but I don't see the point of sending granddads, kids to the meatgrinder.
  There would've been an agreement long time ago but it was sabotaged by Boris Johnson who want the war to continue to the last ukranian.

So Hughes-Net & ViSat aren't a thing ? They're satellite internet companies probably based in Europe, but I could be wrong. (I probably butchered the names)
Also, how rich of Elon, a man whose existence is propped up by government funding to bark & bite the hands that feed them
- The main European actor is called Eutelsat. They say they can provide a similar quality of service in Ukraine as Starlink. They have GEO sats and a LEO constellation of around 650 satellites.
- They use higher orbiting satellites which come with some trade-offs, lower speeds higher latency and more easily disrupted by weather events. When they say there is no competition they mean in terms of what you get and as much as I hate the man he isn't wrong there is nothing to compete with starlink right now
  
  So we just bring the satellites closer
- Both seem to be US companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viasat_(American_company), https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_Network_Systems

Making friends. Everywhere just making friends.

Rubio shouted at Musk, so poor Elon took it out on a foreign country's government official and called him "little man"

Put them down like rabid dogs.

Oligarchs used to act the part, and have the appearance of being "classy".
Now Oligarchs are just a bunch of 4chan users.
Wtf is: "Be quiet, small man"
That's not an elegant way of speaking.
These people are supposed to be "upper class"?
🤣
- Nah, Elon thinks it's elegant. As in "Ha ha, I spoke like a big boy. I heard that badass line on TV once, on one of those shows I'm not supposed to watch. Bet that guy is now red on face and is so distraught he won't be able to eat broccoli on supper and his mom will yell at him. Owned."
- "Be quiet, small man" sounds like a thing Dennis would scream at Mac in IASIP 😄 THE GOLDEN GOD! Dude is copying a comically psycho character from a show, thinking he's being sooo cool 😎
- Really dude ?? 4Chaners are smarter than Elon, Elon is the definition of rock-bottom
  
  They're just as obnoxious as he is.
- That's how dumb shit argue on the Internet. Ad hominem.

Starlink is just putting up cubesats with basic programming variations. The EU space agency can easily provide a competitive service that values freedom and democracy.
- The "putting up" is hard to do, especially cheaply.
- "easily"

Hubris. This is hubris.
Nemesis will follow, motherfucker, the Moires don't fuck around.
- BYD is already eating Tesla's lunch and I'm waiting for another to replace SpaceX.
  
  Not fast enough in Copenhagen. Teslas have become so numerous that within 500 metres i counted 25 Teslas parked or driving around. And that was just 1 street.
  Copenhagen is saturated with clean, perfectly un-vandalised Teslas...

Disgusting. Why the FUCK would you talk to our allies this way? The guy is a polish government official.. (I mean obviously I know why, Elon is a megalomaniac).
"Small man"??? WTF. I hate it.
- You wouldn't talk to your allies that way. Which once again makes it clear that the current US administration no longer sees Europe as allies.
  
  America as whole sees you as meatshields against the Russian bear

If America was a real country this guy would've immediately been removed from any and all companies he runs.
Does SpaceX not have a board?
- SpaceX bggest customer by far is the US gvernment. Obviously that is run by Musk, so they will not fire him.
  
  But why? Why did t NASA do this. Instead government funded it and a private citizen controls it and gets all the benefits.
- They’re all his pawns

Don't let the fascists fool you, there are alternatives to Starlink. Eutelsat in France, Telesat in Canada and Inmarsat in the UK, just to name a few examples.
- Why is starlink being used, do you know?
  
  Starlink has enough uplink to be able to handle live video streams and a latency low enough to do this with simple tools.
  I’m not sure if that still happens, but I’ve seen some pictures of Ukrainian command bunkers literally getting drone feeds using discord screen share.
  
  It’s faster, cheaper, and on the tech side more reliable (definitely not politically reliable though).
  
  Now, I don't know, but I would assume its the latency. Starlink has a (impressively) low ping of < 100ms, while existing alternatives usually have 600ms+. Now, that's only relevant if they are using it for stuff like flying drones.
  
  My guess is better coverage and latency with its sheer number of satellites.
  They use low earth orbit, which require them to use more satellites, but lowered latency.

TBH I think any more low orbit telecom satellite arrays than we already have are just going to become a huge problem in the following decades.
- I hate the fact that they just got "permission" to destroy the view of the nightsky.
- Starlink is already being a problem currently, and it's not even fully deployed
- This has been commented before.
  Starlink flies at a very low altitude, meaning relatively high atmospheric drag, and a very short period of time before their sats deorbit if they go dead, less than ten years.
  It's nowhere near the problem everyone makes it out to be.
  
  Until we find out that not nearly as much burns up on re-entry as assumed and they've been raining carcinogens for decades.
  
  Official statemens claim they run for about 5 years, deorbit anywhere, and do NOT always burn up in reentry.

This post has more upvotes on Lemmy than Reddit
- Let my add one more then!

When the war was turning in Ukraine's favor and they were about to push into Russia, he shut it off and crippled their counter offensive. I remember. Fuck Elon and fuck starlink.
- Which is why Starlink needs to be confiscated and managed by NATO. Somebody has to operate it, and it should be an entity who is on the side of Freedom amd Democracy.
  
  It's not that easy to confiscate sattelites
- Not push into Russia, but attempting to retake Crimea.
  
  ~~They're presumably talking about the Kursk Oblast.~~ Edit: probably not, see responses.
- Oh no I'm hearing from people that wa a technical glitch.
- Musk and Starlink aren't major difference makers in this war. It's a years-long slog where the main takeaway is "cheap and reliable in volume is more than a match for the newest and fanciest." It hasn't been on the verge of turning in Ukraine's favor since the end of Russia's initial push towards Kyiv.
  
  I have a buddy who's been eating/sleeping/breathing this war and, hands down, cheap and reliable FPV drones have changed how warfare is done. It's the main reason why trench warfare came back, and one of the things that fucked Russia up in the mid-term. Apparently they have a long-standing strategy that involves armor and something something something that my buddy explained and I don't remember, but because there's always drones watching every inch of the front at all times, Ukraine was able to bust that strat by being able to dial in artillery fast and early. At least, that's how I'm remembering what was explained.
  
  Is that why you guys are welding cages on your tanks?
- Close. There was a geobarrier that he refused to remove. Because attacks against Russia are aggression.

"My starlink system". He's literally a walking, talking "you made this? I made this" meme.
- I get what you're saying, but I refer to my car as...my car. I didn't turn a wrench in its construction, nor did I design it, but it's still mine.
  
  I mean he doesn't own it, SpaceX does. And he owns a bit less than half of SpaceX, though he retains most boring power.
- Except for the fact that he doesn't make anything, he pays people who do, then takes the credit for it. Is his way with everything: companies, gaming profiles...
- I reread and still don't see what you're quoting.
  
  "I literally challenged Putin to one on one physical combat over Ukraine and my starlink system is the backbone of the Ukrainian army."
  It's the first sentence of the quoted tweet.
  
  The interior, initial Musk tweet. It's a snippet in the middle of a sentence.

It's time for Europe to finally get their own solutions.
- It's called One Web by Eutelsat. Same latency and reliability, but less Mb/s about 70 Mb/s (and does it matter much for the few Kb packets to relay small amounts of data?).
  
  Eutelsat
  Eutelsat has about 9% the number of satellites and Starlink is expanding fast. This significantly limits the potential backhaul, which is why Eutelsat doesn't really focus on consumers, but rather governments and enterprise. They don't have the backhaul to offer wide consumer products. Their cost of launch is 10x higher than Starlink, at least, so they'll never be able to compete in backhaul or the consumer space. Of course they could contract SpaceX to launch their satellites, but then they're basically paying the competition to operate, and this power imbalance would be immediately leveraged to their detriment.
  The bottom line here is that competitors need reusable rockets, and no one else is even close. However Musk put together the company and strategy pushed space transport forward by decades in a very short space of time, and it's unlikely another Musk figure emerges in Europe. I do not subscribe to the common notion that if we throw enough money at the problem we can solve it. Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin confirms this. It appears to require an appetite for extreme risk; the will to blow up hundreds of expensive rockets; and likely a penchant for the disregard of existing safety laws. The EU would never permit this.
  
  Awesome hopefully it will improve and be a contender world wide.
- Here's one: https://www.skydsl.eu/en-DE/Personal/Satellite-internet/Tariffs/Private/Overview
  Seems to be about half as expensive as Starlink. 700ms latency though. So you won't be gaming skydsl.
  
  Promising , I bet th latency will improve with time , very good

He also challenged Zuck to a cage match and chickened out when Zuck accepted. They’re both pieces of shit.
- He even chickened out of his recent offer to come on the Daily Show and debate Job Stewart! He's a Nazi coward even when it's just talking...
  
  Did he officially bow out then? Jon gave him all the conditions he wanted too...
- Lol I forgot about that! Yeah fuck em both of course, but I feel like most folks would put their money on the ex-KGB agent who seized and kept control of freakin' Russia over nepo-baby "gamer", "engineer" Musk. What a goofy threat. And I say that as a middling gamer and engineer myself lol
  
  Putin also practiced judo for most of his life. Musk won’t be standing for long during the match.
  
  feel like most folks would put their money on the ex-KGB agent who seized and kept contr
  Putin is 5' 7", like 160 lbs, and 70 years old. Elon is 6'2", probably 200 lbs, and 52 years old.
  I don't think fitness and training can overcome 20 years, 50 lbs, and a full head of height.
  
  It’s Zuck and Elon not Elon and Putin.
- I hate Zuck but in this match I’m thinking if it’s not mutually assured destruction, then I might root for Zuck. Elon is becoming a very big problem.
  
  Zuck is actually fit, trains, and is 10 years younger, hence why Elon chickened out.
  
  Or 400 pounds of semtex under the cage. 2 birds, one ring.

But what SpaceX does is so cool, and for the greater good of the humanity!
/s

Also a reminder that everyone who is not a Musk sheep should leave Twitter.

Ah, the full Hitler, a bold move let’s see how it plays out.
- never go full hitler

did elon really say "pipe down pipsqueek" like that worked well for drake? man people with canadian citizenship gotta stop doing that.
- I think the ritual to siphon all Canadian aggression into Justin Bieber every year is beginning to fail.
- Soary :(

Is this exchange real? Surely this can't be, right?
- It is real and my biggest concern right now is that European politicians seem so quiet about this. This conversation, including Rubio's comment, is scandalous.
- Musk has completely lost touch with reality at this point and thinks he's god.
  
  That's what being completely fucked up on disassociatives all day everyday day will do to you.
  Being one the richest men in the world and completely unaccountable sure as shit doesn't help.
- Looks like it is real https://nitter.net/elonmusk/status/1898759859459203457#m
  
  OK, so this is where things are now. Wow.
- He's a ketamine addict, so that's probably affecting his cognitive facilities to a degree.
  
  What are the clinical manifestations of Ketamine addiction? I'm asking honestly, because I don't know, and I wonder if he ticks the boxes.
- https://kyivindependent.com/poland-will-seek-alternatives-if-musk-cuts-ukraines-starlink-access-sikorski-says/
  
  Given Musk's latest remarks, they need to implement an alternative yesterday. I fully expect Starlink to be cut on Monday.
- Why couldn’t it be. I don’t understand at this point how people can read shit like this and go ‘no way he would say that’

Hey, rest of the Democratic world, there are a whole bunch of ex feds right now needing funds and direction for their anger. Maybe you should tap into them if you need someone to rid you of this meddlesome Chancellor.

Elon is an absolute clown there are alternatives they just aren’t as robust at this time.

There's so many places where strategically important resources have been delegated wholesale to the US. Now, concerning mankind, it's theoretically better, of course, to not overdo it with wasteful redundancies. But, unfortunately, we're not talking about some kind of UN-controlled infrastructure, which is maintained and used internationally. Unfortunately, it's controlled by people like this, and that is now coming home to roost.
- I mean with the right President there would be reason to take it under the Defense Production Act or civil forfeiture. But Democrats will surely squeal, "our hands out tied" until the next Republican gets elected.

More competition will ensure the oligarchs to behave.
I don't trust the EU tech owners, but I recognize that they are at an disadvantage to the US counterpart (and nationalism is a useful tool to sell their product) so they won't be making overt moves to dismantle European democracy.
- It’s really really really not up to trust! Imagine if bec of eu oligarchs thousands of folks died because said oligarchs refused to pay for peoples healthcare!
  The one remaining guillotine in France would go around!
  
  So there really is one still in existence? So, like, if a prototype were needed ( just hypothetically speaking, of course), to build more, that could be done?
  Asking for a friend. . . Of a friend.

I can’t stand the fact that Poland is doing Literally What they wanted - spending a lot of money on defence. Yet, they bark at them.
- nothing will ever be good enough for the fascist. the point is not deals, the point is capitulation. there are winners and losers to the fascist. there is no mutual aid or benefit
  
  Thou are right! Someone once said that
  The US does not have allies. The US has only countries that are useful for a while.

Pride goeth before the fall, they say. The hellish part is the wait.

That would be Eutelsat, but it is smaller in scale (at the moment) and therefore more expensive. It's also said to be less userfriendly, but that should be possible to fix.

There are alternatives to starlink though. This guy thinks he owns it all
- The shares of the most likely alternative are going through the roof.

Isn’t OneWeb constellation is debated until Iris2 is available?
But we should reconsider the SpaceX launch contracts.
- They’re both targeted towards commercial or government business, which is unfortunate from an individual subscriber perspective. I would love to see a euro competitor to Starlink and Kuiper, so I can unplug my Starlink.
  Iris2 looks like a traditional Euro project with a dozen companies from different countries involved, to make sure the funding isn’t concentrated in one country. SpaceX has the advantage of improved integration in comparison.
  
  Well. In my opinion it is about substitues for Ukraine.
  
  Not exactly a replacement for Starlink, and it’s not ready yet, but Vodafone just announced buildup of a European direct to device service.
  Full disclosure, AST Spacemobile is a US company directly competing with Starlink in this space.
  https://www.vodafone.com/news/corporate-and-financial/vodafone-and-ast-space-mobile-sign-agreement-to-create-european-direct-to-device-satellite-service-provider
- We should consider buying and nationalizing starlink. It's apparently critical for national defense and security, so it would make perfect sense to nationalize it.
  
  In a perfect world, yes. No one in the current administration and no GOP member in congress wants it, hell, the supreme court might even revoque it if suggested because Vladimir Vladimirovich, our dear leader would not allow the orange governor of neorussland to do it.
- We should reconsider every thing associated with this psychopath… which is why he would stop at nothing until he owned those who might challenge him. Elon may be the most significant threat the western world faces at this time, and I don’t think the solution will come from inside his captured governments.

An alternative sure, but not in the manner. StarLink is already filling up the air space and producing a ton of new space debris. It needs to die with an entirely different alternative.
- The alternative is putting up "do you want free training on operating a small bulldozer?" signs everywhere, hiring the humans who show up, and laying down underground cable or telephone poles everywhere. Fuck, just slap a "national defense" reason for why there needs to be internet everywhere for military communications.
  Starlink outshines in latency vs undersea cables. Small drones use small radios, bigger drones can use bigger military satellites. Just build out communication to rural areas already. Integrate comm lines into road maintenance crews.
- EU could knock them out of the sky.
- What is the alternative?
  Geostationary needs a lot more power to transmit.
  
  What is the alternative?
  Underground fiber. The thing we paid all our telecoms to install back in the 90s, which they promptly didn't do after pocketing all the money.
  
  That's not even the issue with geostationary. The problem is latency to/from satellites in geostationary orbit.

Regime is working OT on weekend on dismantling our alliances.

Now I do understand why nations started to name their '' air forces '', '' air and space forces ''
Soon, we may see satellites taken down Space at least until was a place of cooperation. Too bad we start to use it as a new field for combat

Where IRIS 2 🦧

https://www.msn.com/en-sg/news/other/eutelsat-in-talks-to-increase-satellite-terminals-in-ukraine-amid-starlink-service-concern/ar-AA1ArMhG

I am 100% willing to help start a 501(c )(3) with the goal of creating free access to satellite internet

193 comments