IRIS²: The EU’s Response to Musk’s Starlink(reneweuropegroup.eu)
reneweuropegroup.eu
IRIS²: The EU’s Response to Musk’s Starlink
https://www.reneweuropegroup.eu/news/2023-02-14/iris2-the-eus-response-to-elon-musks-starlink-satellites-project
496 comments
Yeah, don't know why they posted Renew's page instead of the official press release but here they are:
https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/adoption-europea...
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/STATEM...
https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/adoption-europea...
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/STATEM...
> IRIS² will be a constellation at the cutting edge of technology, to give Europe a lead, for example in quantum encryption. It will therefore be a vector of innovation.
Quantum encryption?? Can anybody explain how this is related to satellites?
Quantum encryption?? Can anybody explain how this is related to satellites?
Don't know how it's related to the project but I guess they'd want to use the satellites for the quantum key exchange
You can do QKE via sat-bounce, which is maybe what they're talking about, but this sounds more like clueless hype marketing than something written by an engineer.
I'm sure somebody is making good money with the push.
Meanwhile, previous proponents like NSA are moving to "post-quantum crypto" (as in, non-quantum crypto that resists attacks by hypothetical quantum computers):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_key_distribution#Depre...
Meanwhile, previous proponents like NSA are moving to "post-quantum crypto" (as in, non-quantum crypto that resists attacks by hypothetical quantum computers):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_key_distribution#Depre...
Lots of high-entropy phenomena in space.
The release specifically addresses commercial use:
> This future satellite constellation infrastructure will allow for synergies with private sector to develop commercial services and provide with high-speed internet and communication in all EU territory, including over isolated regions where terrestrial and broadband connection remain scarce.
As does the page you linked:
> The system will also allow mass-market applications including mobile and fixed broadband satellite access, satellite trunking for B2B services, satellite access for transportation, reinforced networks by satellite and satellite broadband and cloud-based services.
> This future satellite constellation infrastructure will allow for synergies with private sector to develop commercial services and provide with high-speed internet and communication in all EU territory, including over isolated regions where terrestrial and broadband connection remain scarce.
As does the page you linked:
> The system will also allow mass-market applications including mobile and fixed broadband satellite access, satellite trunking for B2B services, satellite access for transportation, reinforced networks by satellite and satellite broadband and cloud-based services.
All official releases only mention government use, I think the idea might be to use a government contract to help the industry develop know-how for private use later on
> All official releases only mention government use...
The second quote I pulled above is from an official source[1]. It seems pretty clear to me that it's intended as a dual-use constellation, with government services coming online first and an allotment for commercial services later. One of the two key objectives in the downloadable fact sheet[2] is:
> Allow for the provision of commercial services by the private sector, to enable the availability of high-speed broadband and seamless connectivity throughout Europe, removing dead zones.
1. https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-space-policy/...
2. https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/system/files/202...
The second quote I pulled above is from an official source[1]. It seems pretty clear to me that it's intended as a dual-use constellation, with government services coming online first and an allotment for commercial services later. One of the two key objectives in the downloadable fact sheet[2] is:
> Allow for the provision of commercial services by the private sector, to enable the availability of high-speed broadband and seamless connectivity throughout Europe, removing dead zones.
1. https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-space-policy/...
2. https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/system/files/202...
Well, in Europe most palces can be reached either by fibre or 5G relatively easily, it is a quite densly populated cintinent after all. Let's ignore Germany's utter failure to build out fast internet, which is story of its own and totally unrelated to the EU in general.
Even here it's becoming kind of okay
Too little, too expensive, too late?
Once again the EU is playing catch up with last gen tech. Starlink is almost 10 years old - conceptually even older. Iridium has been around for over 25 years.
If the EU was serious, it should have invested proactively in next gen satellite direct to device tech that is around the corner in the US.
AST SpaceMobile is close to starting commercial activity for satellite based 5G that is supposed to work with any smart phone. Starlink is working on something similar with T-Mobile. G-Sat already has minimal D2D capability working with the latest iPhone generation.
Also, I wonder where cost competitive launch capability is going to come from for launching hundreds of satellites. Russia? China?
Once again the EU is playing catch up with last gen tech. Starlink is almost 10 years old - conceptually even older. Iridium has been around for over 25 years.
If the EU was serious, it should have invested proactively in next gen satellite direct to device tech that is around the corner in the US.
AST SpaceMobile is close to starting commercial activity for satellite based 5G that is supposed to work with any smart phone. Starlink is working on something similar with T-Mobile. G-Sat already has minimal D2D capability working with the latest iPhone generation.
Also, I wonder where cost competitive launch capability is going to come from for launching hundreds of satellites. Russia? China?
> too expensive
What's your source for good cost of launching satellite communication networks? Would you like to show us the reasoning here?
> it should have invested proactively in next gen satellite direct to device tech
If the current one works - why would they? For defence usage, reliable is better than next gen usually. (Something something next gen F35 still not usable)
> I wonder where cost competitive launch capability is going to come from
French Guiana and other places like most previous launches? https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Transportation/Pr...
What's your source for good cost of launching satellite communication networks? Would you like to show us the reasoning here?
> it should have invested proactively in next gen satellite direct to device tech
If the current one works - why would they? For defence usage, reliable is better than next gen usually. (Something something next gen F35 still not usable)
> I wonder where cost competitive launch capability is going to come from
French Guiana and other places like most previous launches? https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Transportation/Pr...
> What's your source for good cost of launching satellite communication networks?
- falcon 9 - $2700/kg
- falcon heavy - $1400/kg
- ariane 5 - $9000/kg
> If the current one works - why would they?
This is just low quality flame bait. If any of the before-mentioned (US) companies succeed commercially long-term, they will transform world-wide internet access especially in less developed countries.
For clarification: as a European citizen, I want the EU to stay competitive in the space tech sector.
- falcon 9 - $2700/kg
- falcon heavy - $1400/kg
- ariane 5 - $9000/kg
> If the current one works - why would they?
This is just low quality flame bait. If any of the before-mentioned (US) companies succeed commercially long-term, they will transform world-wide internet access especially in less developed countries.
For clarification: as a European citizen, I want the EU to stay competitive in the space tech sector.
...and that's probably with a considerable profit margin for SpaceX and at least some amount of "we're happy for any launch that keeps the wheels spinning" subsidy for ESA.
Last time I checked launch costs, and tjose are incredibly hard to come by, SpaceX prices were the LEO-launch equivalent of Ryan Air's 20 Euro tickets. So hard to compare. Also, for a bunch of launches, Ariane-5 was already a couple of years ago competitive with SpaceX launches. And the only real customer so far for cheap, low orbit launches using re-usable rockets is SpaceX itself for Starlink.
You should check your sources.
> for a bunch of launches, Ariane-5 was already a couple of years ago competitive with SpaceX launches.
Ariane 5 is in no way competitive against SpaceX in anything, and hasn't ever been. The only customers launching on it at all are the ones that have some good reason to avoid SpaceX, and the ones that bought launches early as a hedge. It has very real issues attracting any competitive commercial launches. This satellite constellation plan is, among other things, a way of bailing out Arianespace because they will fail unless they get more launches.
> And the only real customer so far for cheap, low orbit launches using re-usable rockets is SpaceX itself for Starlink.
SpaceX launched 60 reusable F9s last year, of which 37 were internal Starlink launches (of which some had additional customer payloads). In comparison, Ariane 5 launched 3 times.
> for a bunch of launches, Ariane-5 was already a couple of years ago competitive with SpaceX launches.
Ariane 5 is in no way competitive against SpaceX in anything, and hasn't ever been. The only customers launching on it at all are the ones that have some good reason to avoid SpaceX, and the ones that bought launches early as a hedge. It has very real issues attracting any competitive commercial launches. This satellite constellation plan is, among other things, a way of bailing out Arianespace because they will fail unless they get more launches.
> And the only real customer so far for cheap, low orbit launches using re-usable rockets is SpaceX itself for Starlink.
SpaceX launched 60 reusable F9s last year, of which 37 were internal Starlink launches (of which some had additional customer payloads). In comparison, Ariane 5 launched 3 times.
At the very, very lowest prices that Ariane 5 ever offered, they were close to SpaceX in only one specific very hard to find setup. They needed 2 Geo sats that wanted to launch at the same time and likely only the cheaper of those two actually had a price comparable to SpaceX.
Ariane was lucky that space launches were contracted so many years in advanced in the past. They had many years of contracts already lined when SpaceX was only just scaling and had huge backlogs.
Even by 2014 it was totally clearly to literally everybody in space, that Ariane 5 had to go. It had no future, even with all possible help, ESA and national launches and insentient launches from EU firms it cost would wildly spiral out of control.
That said, Ariane 6 is only a slight incremental improvement (in reality its mostly upgrades that were already planned for Ariane 5 anyway). It was designed to compete with SpaceX as it was in 2014.
Hence why European space people are already planning and pushing for more money to build a next generation rocket. Despite Ariane 6 being a new rocket then Falcon 9, its already outdated.
However Europe (and everybody else) was incredibly lucky that Amazon decided to compete with Starlink and to do so they had to basically buy every single available heavy lift rocket launch for the next half decade. Lucky for them nobody everybody outside of SpaceX sucks, so nobody sucks. Ariane 6 can compete with ULA even when they can't compete with SpaceX.
> And the only real customer so far for cheap, low orbit launches using re-usable rockets is SpaceX itself for Starlink.
Its kind of funny when people claim things that are so easy to verify to be false:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He...
SpaceX has already flown 2 commercial flights to low orbit this just year and its February. And their re-usability is not just for low orbit, they reuse the rockets if the go to GEO as well.
Ariane 5 flight rate was never more then 7 a year, SpaceX is planning more then 10 purely commercial LEO, MEO and SSO missions just in the next few months.
- Transporter-6
- OneWeb Flight #16
- OneWeb #17
- O3b mPOWER
- WorldView Legion 1 & 2
- O3b mPOWER 5 & 6
- Transporter-7
- SARah 2 & 3
- Ax-2
I'm sick of doing this, you get my point. Ax-2 is planned for May. You can continue down the list for the rest of the year.
So your statement is almost hilariously wrong, and totally wrong.
The problem is just that SpaceX is launching so often and so many Starlinks that people get confused by it in comparison to what was normal the last 20 years.
Its seems you have formed your opinion based on a bunch of Arianespace propaganda. The have been focused on spreading a a bunch of false narrative the last 5-10 years.
Ariane was lucky that space launches were contracted so many years in advanced in the past. They had many years of contracts already lined when SpaceX was only just scaling and had huge backlogs.
Even by 2014 it was totally clearly to literally everybody in space, that Ariane 5 had to go. It had no future, even with all possible help, ESA and national launches and insentient launches from EU firms it cost would wildly spiral out of control.
That said, Ariane 6 is only a slight incremental improvement (in reality its mostly upgrades that were already planned for Ariane 5 anyway). It was designed to compete with SpaceX as it was in 2014.
Hence why European space people are already planning and pushing for more money to build a next generation rocket. Despite Ariane 6 being a new rocket then Falcon 9, its already outdated.
However Europe (and everybody else) was incredibly lucky that Amazon decided to compete with Starlink and to do so they had to basically buy every single available heavy lift rocket launch for the next half decade. Lucky for them nobody everybody outside of SpaceX sucks, so nobody sucks. Ariane 6 can compete with ULA even when they can't compete with SpaceX.
> And the only real customer so far for cheap, low orbit launches using re-usable rockets is SpaceX itself for Starlink.
Its kind of funny when people claim things that are so easy to verify to be false:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He...
SpaceX has already flown 2 commercial flights to low orbit this just year and its February. And their re-usability is not just for low orbit, they reuse the rockets if the go to GEO as well.
Ariane 5 flight rate was never more then 7 a year, SpaceX is planning more then 10 purely commercial LEO, MEO and SSO missions just in the next few months.
- Transporter-6
- OneWeb Flight #16
- OneWeb #17
- O3b mPOWER
- WorldView Legion 1 & 2
- O3b mPOWER 5 & 6
- Transporter-7
- SARah 2 & 3
- Ax-2
I'm sick of doing this, you get my point. Ax-2 is planned for May. You can continue down the list for the rest of the year.
So your statement is almost hilariously wrong, and totally wrong.
The problem is just that SpaceX is launching so often and so many Starlinks that people get confused by it in comparison to what was normal the last 20 years.
Its seems you have formed your opinion based on a bunch of Arianespace propaganda. The have been focused on spreading a a bunch of false narrative the last 5-10 years.
Falcon 9 Success Rate - 173 / 184 (94%) - Most of it LEO
Falcon 9 Max Payload - 22 tons LEO, 8 tons GTO when all the conditions perfectly align and then it still kinda sucks.
Falcon Heavy Success Rate - 5 / 5 (100%) - No track record Falcon Heavy Max Payload - 83 tons LEO, 26 tons GTO
Ariane 5 Success Rate - 110/115 (95.7%) - 7 to 10 tons GTO, Most of it GTO
Falcon Heavy's cost is still theoretical, when it has barely launched anything in orbit. Ariane 5 works, extremely well. Self flagellation about EU space tech serves no purpose.
Falcon Heavy Success Rate - 5 / 5 (100%) - No track record Falcon Heavy Max Payload - 83 tons LEO, 26 tons GTO
Ariane 5 Success Rate - 110/115 (95.7%) - 7 to 10 tons GTO, Most of it GTO
Falcon Heavy's cost is still theoretical, when it has barely launched anything in orbit. Ariane 5 works, extremely well. Self flagellation about EU space tech serves no purpose.
This is one of the most confused takes on EU launch that I've ever seen.
Your Falcon 9 success numbers are completely incorrect. The success rate is 100% on current models and overall having only 1 launch failure (or 2 if you count a pre-launch failure).
Falcon 9 launches primarily to LEO because that is where the market is. There are just very few satellites that want to go to GTO, but those that do generally launch on Falcon 9. It's launch costs are substantially less than Ariane 5, to the point that Arianespace is now thinking of rushing Ariane 6 to end of life sooner than planned to focus on a future reusable vehicle.
Falcon Heavy was primarily designed for the US DoD as it's primary customer.
Your Falcon 9 success numbers are completely incorrect. The success rate is 100% on current models and overall having only 1 launch failure (or 2 if you count a pre-launch failure).
Falcon 9 launches primarily to LEO because that is where the market is. There are just very few satellites that want to go to GTO, but those that do generally launch on Falcon 9. It's launch costs are substantially less than Ariane 5, to the point that Arianespace is now thinking of rushing Ariane 6 to end of life sooner than planned to focus on a future reusable vehicle.
Falcon Heavy was primarily designed for the US DoD as it's primary customer.
Wow this post is peak delusional nonsense.
Falcon family: 208/210 --> 99% (if you want to include AMOS its 98.57%)
> Falcon Heavy's cost is still theoretical
Its cost is unknown (so is that of Ariane 5), but its price is pretty well known. And costumers care about price and not cost.
> Ariane 5 works, extremely well.
Ariane 5 is end of live. It was incredibly expensive to the point where even Arianespace itself flew more missions with Russian rockets. It had a peak launch rate of 7 per year. Anybody with a brain has known Ariane 5 needs to be replaced since at least 10-12 years.
Outside of the Arianespace launched mostly Russian rockets, they just had a string of recent failures. Not to mention that they had issues with Ariane 5 that grounded the rocket for a very long time and the Swiss government had to provide emergency funding so they could make the launches leading up to Webb happen.
Arianespace will also consume more then 5 billion for the Ariane 6, a rocket that is mostly a slight upgrade over the Ariane 5 built with part that have been in development for a long time. This is more then the complete cost of the Falcon 1/Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy and reusability program have cost SpaceX.
The first step in improvement of European space is to not delude ourself of where we actually stand.
Falcon family: 208/210 --> 99% (if you want to include AMOS its 98.57%)
> Falcon Heavy's cost is still theoretical
Its cost is unknown (so is that of Ariane 5), but its price is pretty well known. And costumers care about price and not cost.
> Ariane 5 works, extremely well.
Ariane 5 is end of live. It was incredibly expensive to the point where even Arianespace itself flew more missions with Russian rockets. It had a peak launch rate of 7 per year. Anybody with a brain has known Ariane 5 needs to be replaced since at least 10-12 years.
Outside of the Arianespace launched mostly Russian rockets, they just had a string of recent failures. Not to mention that they had issues with Ariane 5 that grounded the rocket for a very long time and the Swiss government had to provide emergency funding so they could make the launches leading up to Webb happen.
Arianespace will also consume more then 5 billion for the Ariane 6, a rocket that is mostly a slight upgrade over the Ariane 5 built with part that have been in development for a long time. This is more then the complete cost of the Falcon 1/Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy and reusability program have cost SpaceX.
The first step in improvement of European space is to not delude ourself of where we actually stand.
That Falcon 9 success rate is for the first stage boosters landing. The current gen of Falcon 9 is 149/149 for launch success which would be comparable to the Ariane stat.
Looking at both recently they basically have a 100% success rate.
Looking at both recently they basically have a 100% success rate.
What are you counting here? Booster landing success rates? Then Ariane has a Zero here.
According to Wikipedia Falcon 9 Block 5 has a success rate of 100% (149/149) for launches.
Also I don’t understand your comment when the parent talked about commercial success and that American space companies are/will be cheaper than Ariane.
According to Wikipedia Falcon 9 Block 5 has a success rate of 100% (149/149) for launches.
Also I don’t understand your comment when the parent talked about commercial success and that American space companies are/will be cheaper than Ariane.
> Once again the EU is playing catch up with last gen tech. Starlink is almost 10 years old..
If the EU was serious, it should have invested proactively in next gen
Thats not their job.
Their job is to build infrastructure for Europe, Tonnels, GPS, bridges, etc, like the massive tunnels they are building through the alps.
https://youtu.be/30foJiPUrBA
Now they decided thay just like modern military and government needs a GPS, they need satellite based internet. I am sure war in Ukraine has helped sharpen minds there.
Their remit is not to invest in speculative projects ala hyperloop.
How is 5G mobiles connecting to sattelites relevant to EU?
Thats 100% commercial operation, if it is relevant, it's the job of European mobile operators to fund it, not for tax payers.
Thats not their job.
Their job is to build infrastructure for Europe, Tonnels, GPS, bridges, etc, like the massive tunnels they are building through the alps.
https://youtu.be/30foJiPUrBA
Now they decided thay just like modern military and government needs a GPS, they need satellite based internet. I am sure war in Ukraine has helped sharpen minds there.
Their remit is not to invest in speculative projects ala hyperloop.
How is 5G mobiles connecting to sattelites relevant to EU?
Thats 100% commercial operation, if it is relevant, it's the job of European mobile operators to fund it, not for tax payers.
6 years ago the ESA and Arianespace were ridiculing reusable rockets, even as SpaceX was getting closer and closer to the non-RUD landing. Ariane 6 yet to launch, now trying to retrofit some level of reusability. Too slow, too stuck with their views...
From my perspective, the 40ms I get from Starlink is worlds better then the 900ms I got from my 128kb/s Iridium Pilot (now in the skip).
This direct to device tech is going to suck based on everything I’ve read so far. The radios in phones are so weak and undirected that getting 128kbps is going to be a challenge, let alone anything near what’s required to watch video.
Look at the gymnastics you have to do to use SOS on iPhone now.
Look at the gymnastics you have to do to use SOS on iPhone now.
Let's see. ASTS claims to have solved this problem. Apparently their satellites have 30mbit+/s throughput with regular 5G smartphones at <100ms latency. If this stuff works (big if), it's going to disrupt the cell tower industry over night and bring broadband to remote places where towers are too hard and too expensive to operate.
Also, I imagine 5G satellites will be of interest to the DoD.
Anyway, the main point I was trying to make is: EU competition is so far behind (even conceptually) that they are playing catch up with 10 year old tech instead of looking where the puck might be going.
Also, I imagine 5G satellites will be of interest to the DoD.
Anyway, the main point I was trying to make is: EU competition is so far behind (even conceptually) that they are playing catch up with 10 year old tech instead of looking where the puck might be going.
Sounds fantastic, but if we look at the history of the EU's Galileo GNSS [0], massive delays can be expected.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation)
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation)
There are entire palettes of fantastically sounding plans to be found in Brussels. Don't get your hopes up.
A planned economy will always do worse than a free one. God bless the invisible hand
How did the invisible hand cause Elon Musk to exist?
I'm not saying we wouldn't have had reusable rockets and ubiquitous internet access without him; just that it probably would not have happened in my lifetime.
I'm not saying we wouldn't have had reusable rockets and ubiquitous internet access without him; just that it probably would not have happened in my lifetime.
Remains to be seen how the German economy evolves and if they are going to pay for it, because other EU countries probably won't.
Do you actually have information about the funding of this project or just joining the EU-org-bad crowd? ESA has a decent budget + optional projects. Those are agreed fairly early too https://www.esa.int/About_Us/Corporate_news/Funding
Citations welcome.
Citations welcome.
that’s not really how the EU works
inglor_cz(1)
Europallettes, yea
There was little demand for non-GPS satnav.
There is plenty of demand for non-Musk satcom.
There is plenty of demand for non-Musk satcom.
For terminally online people, prehaps. But in real life, no, people aren't generally obsessed by twitter drama. Real life usage is what matters, and if it's good enough for the ukrainian army in an active war zone...
Well, the guy who owns SpaceX seems to care a lot about Twitter drama...
It's not good enough for them because Musk seems to be limiting its use in line with his political views.
I'm out of the loop on that one, what are you referring to?
He's referring to the fact that SpaceX are trying to abide by weapons export restrictions, so they are trying to prevent Ukraine from using Starlink from drones etc.
That is a spin which leaves out the moralising I think.
This is a newspaper quote: "A senior Ukrainian presidential aide has reacted with anger after Elon Musk’s SpaceX said it had taken steps to prevent its Starlink satellite communications service from controlling drones, which are critical to Kyiv’s forces in fighting off the Russian invasion."
'Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s chief operating officer, said at a conference in the US that the surprise decision had been taken because it had never been the company’s intention to allow Starlink to be used “for offensive purposes”. '
That's quite an interesting claim as I wonder what one would expect from people fighting desperately to save their country. It was at the least going to be used for command and control.
'Shotwell said Starlink was “never, never meant to be weaponised” by Ukraine, although it cannot come as a surprise to the company as Kyiv’s military has been using it to pilot drones for months. “Ukrainians have leveraged it in ways that were unintentional and not part of any agreement,” she added.'
'She said SpaceX was able to take measures to curb Ukraine’s use of the technology to pilot drones, although it was not immediately clear what those were and whether Kyiv’s military could work around them.'
'The row is not the first between Ukraine and Musk. Last October, Musk asked Twitter users to vote on a poll for Russia-Ukraine peace that included Ukraine handing over Crimea and allowing UN-supervised referendums on whether Moscow could keep other land it had occupied after its unprovoked invasion.'
I think it's reasonable to say that Starlink is far from the ideal solution now and you can also see why it's going to be essential for there to be competitors no matter what the economics are - perhaps national ones with only local coverage. Why would anyone build any reliance on a system which is controlled from afar and suddenly becomes unreliable when it's needed the most?
This is a newspaper quote: "A senior Ukrainian presidential aide has reacted with anger after Elon Musk’s SpaceX said it had taken steps to prevent its Starlink satellite communications service from controlling drones, which are critical to Kyiv’s forces in fighting off the Russian invasion."
'Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s chief operating officer, said at a conference in the US that the surprise decision had been taken because it had never been the company’s intention to allow Starlink to be used “for offensive purposes”. '
That's quite an interesting claim as I wonder what one would expect from people fighting desperately to save their country. It was at the least going to be used for command and control.
'Shotwell said Starlink was “never, never meant to be weaponised” by Ukraine, although it cannot come as a surprise to the company as Kyiv’s military has been using it to pilot drones for months. “Ukrainians have leveraged it in ways that were unintentional and not part of any agreement,” she added.'
'She said SpaceX was able to take measures to curb Ukraine’s use of the technology to pilot drones, although it was not immediately clear what those were and whether Kyiv’s military could work around them.'
'The row is not the first between Ukraine and Musk. Last October, Musk asked Twitter users to vote on a poll for Russia-Ukraine peace that included Ukraine handing over Crimea and allowing UN-supervised referendums on whether Moscow could keep other land it had occupied after its unprovoked invasion.'
I think it's reasonable to say that Starlink is far from the ideal solution now and you can also see why it's going to be essential for there to be competitors no matter what the economics are - perhaps national ones with only local coverage. Why would anyone build any reliance on a system which is controlled from afar and suddenly becomes unreliable when it's needed the most?
>Why would anyone build any reliance on a system which is controlled from afar and suddenly becomes unreliable when it's needed the most?
This would make sense if it was China or Russia proposing this, but for NATO countries I don't see the risk. The US would presumably be fine with Starlink being used to guide NATO weapons.
This would make sense if it was China or Russia proposing this, but for NATO countries I don't see the risk. The US would presumably be fine with Starlink being used to guide NATO weapons.
Possibly but maybe only if the conflicts were ones in which NATO was involved. Some French involvement in Mali or whatever might not count and might even conflict with the national interests of other Nato members.
ohgodplsno(2)
The whole controversy around Musk is mostly a North American topic. I'm pretty sure that most Europeans that were left out in the rain regarding useful Internet speeds would love to use Starlink (if they can afford it) no matter which crazy billionaire owns the satellites.
I am European and I hate Musk, but that's not the reason why I wouldn't use Starlink.
I just don't want commercial companies to send hundreds of thousands of satellites and pollute my sky, just to enable more consumption in a world that has passed its limits.
I just don't want commercial companies to send hundreds of thousands of satellites and pollute my sky, just to enable more consumption in a world that has passed its limits.
There is demand for good satellite internet.
There is no demand for something more expensive than starlink, aside from government stuff and you need consumers to support it and not be money pit
There is no demand for something more expensive than starlink, aside from government stuff and you need consumers to support it and not be money pit
Exactly: any constellation built with pre-falcon9 rockets might be non-Musk, but it won't even be remotely starlink-like. They'd inevitably aim for orbits higher than "throwaway-LEO" and the much sparser constellations those orbits enable (lines of sight less constrained by horizon) will cause considerably more latency (far from geostationary-bad, but a meaningful quality difference) even if the inherent SNR drawbacks were somehow solved. It seems quite rational for governments to desire a fallback, but it won't ever be more than that and as long as starlink is on the market any hope for significant customer contribution seems unwarranted.
Without rocket parity to f9, it's just hopeless to get meaningful customer contribution as long as starlink exists. At least as long as they don't find some miracle tech to massively extend VLEO lifetimes (solar powered VLEO Bussard jet or something similarly far out), but even with that the numbers required would be virtually unachievable without an f9 equivalent (it's a somewhat crazy project even with the f9!).
They should absolutely go for it, if they consider having a starlink fallback worth the investment, but they should really not base that decision on illusionary hopes for customer contribution.
Without rocket parity to f9, it's just hopeless to get meaningful customer contribution as long as starlink exists. At least as long as they don't find some miracle tech to massively extend VLEO lifetimes (solar powered VLEO Bussard jet or something similarly far out), but even with that the numbers required would be virtually unachievable without an f9 equivalent (it's a somewhat crazy project even with the f9!).
They should absolutely go for it, if they consider having a starlink fallback worth the investment, but they should really not base that decision on illusionary hopes for customer contribution.
Amazon basically bought every available heavy lift rocket for the next decade in an attempt to compete with Starlink.
They did? Guess we might have to readjust the meaning of "state actor"..
All 8 of them?!
> There was little demand for non-GPS satnav.
Gallileo can detect a distress beacon in the middle of the pacific ocean and send gelm. No other system can do that.
Civilian gallileo has better accuracy than GPS or any competitors.
Every mibile phone has multi-system reciever and accuracy of navigation has tripled in the past 10 years precisely because Gallileo and Glonass and the chinese system went online.
Gallileo can detect a distress beacon in the middle of the pacific ocean and send gelm. No other system can do that.
Civilian gallileo has better accuracy than GPS or any competitors.
Every mibile phone has multi-system reciever and accuracy of navigation has tripled in the past 10 years precisely because Gallileo and Glonass and the chinese system went online.
> Gallileo can detect a distress beacon in the middle of the pacific ocean
InReach does that, no?
InReach does that, no?
Do we need satcom if we have good enough terrestrial communications? EU is reasonably densely populated. So why just not go with simpler and maybe even cheaper terrestrial solutions?
Because we've polluted the ground so much that it's hard for one company alone to really pollute significantly more.
But polluting space around Earth is brand new, so a few companies are rushing to leave their mark there.
But polluting space around Earth is brand new, so a few companies are rushing to leave their mark there.
Starlink is available to consumers. This is not and will not be. Flagged for being super misleading.
I would love some actual Starlink competition. My parents live a 15 min drive into the mountains and due to the topography there is no cell phone service nor incentive to provide it. Starlink is the only realistic option they have for usable internet. They had viasat before and the latency is so high it was garbage to use.
I would love some actual Starlink competition. My parents live a 15 min drive into the mountains and due to the topography there is no cell phone service nor incentive to provide it. Starlink is the only realistic option they have for usable internet. They had viasat before and the latency is so high it was garbage to use.
I don't like putting more junk into LEO than we absolutely have to because it disrupts our space telescopes (which the EU has also invested over 1 billion euro in). I much rather have the funding go to improving land based internet infrastructure.
Land based internet infrastructure doesn't solve the problem described in the article.
Specifically:
> It will secure the Union’s sovereignty and autonomy by guaranteeing fewer dependencies on third-country infrastructure, and the provision of secured telecommunications services for EU governments in critical scenarios where terrestrial networks are absent or disrupted, as observed, for instance, in the unfolding war in Ukraine.
Specifically:
> It will secure the Union’s sovereignty and autonomy by guaranteeing fewer dependencies on third-country infrastructure, and the provision of secured telecommunications services for EU governments in critical scenarios where terrestrial networks are absent or disrupted, as observed, for instance, in the unfolding war in Ukraine.
In a large enough war, space infrastructure would actually be very vulnerable. Imagine a cloud of a few tons of shrapnel, spread around in an orbit that intersects all the 550km orbits of the Starlink constellation. This shrapnel cloud could be deployed with a single launch.
It's not that simple. Because enemy nation states also have their own satellites. They will just be damaging their own infrastructure, specially Russia with their huge land to cover they need their satellites.
I think these things would happen as a result of a process of escalations, not as a result of rational decisions.
Perhaps one side temporarily blinds a spy satellite with a laser[1], to prevent it from observing something sensitive. Then the other side reacts by blinding another satellite in the same way, but oops, the laser was a bit too powerful and it does permanent damage to the sensors. Then a single satellite is outright destroyed in retaliation. Etcetera.
[1] https://theconversation.com/russians-reportedly-building-a-s...
Perhaps one side temporarily blinds a spy satellite with a laser[1], to prevent it from observing something sensitive. Then the other side reacts by blinding another satellite in the same way, but oops, the laser was a bit too powerful and it does permanent damage to the sensors. Then a single satellite is outright destroyed in retaliation. Etcetera.
[1] https://theconversation.com/russians-reportedly-building-a-s...
So the solution is to either do nothing, or do something that the russians will have even less trouble destroying?
The solution, I think, would be to have redundant terrestrial communication links. A spiderweb of links between nodes, with routing around damage. And fallbacks to slower microwave or radio links when fiber gets cut. And developing plans to make due with very low bandwidth (i.e. text based protocols) during a crisis.
Actually deploying that stuff in a single launch isn't that easy. And we have to remember how large orbits are. And how sats can change them.
Putting sufficient material into all necessary orbits to seriously damage Starlink would be incredibly difficult.
And if its just shrapnel a single hit threw the solar panel might not destroy the sat either.
Putting sufficient material into all necessary orbits to seriously damage Starlink would be incredibly difficult.
And if its just shrapnel a single hit threw the solar panel might not destroy the sat either.
I'm a very big fan of astronomy, but I can't seem to care at all about satellites blocking terrestrial telescopes. Ubiquitous connectivity is simply a larger concern than land based telescopes.
Further, space based telescopes seem to be the future of the discipline. While land based radio telescopes are less effected by satellites.
A bigger concern is Kepler syndrome, but that threat seems minimal in LEO.
Further, space based telescopes seem to be the future of the discipline. While land based radio telescopes are less effected by satellites.
A bigger concern is Kepler syndrome, but that threat seems minimal in LEO.
Land based will have an important role to play for a long time simply because we can easily service, upgrade and design new experiments for them which for a long time isn't going to be easy for space telescopes.
I'd much rather have available-everywhere internet whose use isn't subject to one rich man's whims and ideologies.
The satellite orbits decay, they don't stay up indefinitely
There are 10s of thousands planned and other companies eager to put up their own constellations.
Those that fall are planned to fall and to be replaced .. the issue is that are now thousands (and will be more) sats in LEO orbits polluting the night sky with both visible light and transmission spectra energy.
Doesn't matter much to those that live in cities and can't see the stars in any case .. but it's a blight to those that formally had clear skys, and to both visible and radio spectrum astronomers.
Those that fall are planned to fall and to be replaced .. the issue is that are now thousands (and will be more) sats in LEO orbits polluting the night sky with both visible light and transmission spectra energy.
Doesn't matter much to those that live in cities and can't see the stars in any case .. but it's a blight to those that formally had clear skys, and to both visible and radio spectrum astronomers.
They are not visible to people when the satellites are in the shadow of the Earth (at night)
> are not visible to people when the satellites are in the shadow of the Earth (at night)
Night is altitude dependent. Satellites can be in sunlight while the ground below is pitch black. (That said, I find the complaints about visual pollution silly.)
Night is altitude dependent. Satellites can be in sunlight while the ground below is pitch black. (That said, I find the complaints about visual pollution silly.)
Out of interest, where do you live on the light polltion map [1], Bortle scale [2]?
Do you have any sense of what you're missing out on or how bright and distracting tens of thousands of LEO sats glinting in the sun are, or to what degree they mess up long exposure visible astronomy shots, or the noise they make for radio astronomy?
I have no issue believing that you find "complaints about visual pollution silly" .. I'm guessing that would be because it has zero impact on you.
[1] https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bortle_scale
Do you have any sense of what you're missing out on or how bright and distracting tens of thousands of LEO sats glinting in the sun are, or to what degree they mess up long exposure visible astronomy shots, or the noise they make for radio astronomy?
I have no issue believing that you find "complaints about visual pollution silly" .. I'm guessing that would be because it has zero impact on you.
[1] https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bortle_scale
> where do you live on the light polltion map
Class 2. I can just appreciate the night sky with satellites in it. (They’re fun to watch.)
> to what degree they mess up long exposure visible astronomy shots, or the noise they make for radio astronomy
One is a luxury pass-time. For the other, there are workarounds.
Class 2. I can just appreciate the night sky with satellites in it. (They’re fun to watch.)
> to what degree they mess up long exposure visible astronomy shots, or the noise they make for radio astronomy
One is a luxury pass-time. For the other, there are workarounds.
The Desert Fireball network is visible astronomy used to find rocks on the ground within 24 hours of impact - thus delivering insights into the early formation of the solar system and occasionally insights into extra solar material.
I think of it more as science than as a luxury pass time but you're welcome to your opinion.
Streaking trains of LEO sats are a damn nuisance.
I think of it more as science than as a luxury pass time but you're welcome to your opinion.
Streaking trains of LEO sats are a damn nuisance.
> think of it more as science than as a luxury pass time but you're welcome to your opinion
There may be a niche for an open-source error-correcting model. These birds’ orbits are known and can be filtered from public databases. If you’re tracking meteors, you’re collecting enough data to project those orbits onto your field of vision and thus remove them as false positives.
For the luxury of taking beautiful photos, I unfortunately have nothing. (Though again, I find their paths pretty.) For the other, there are workarounds.
There may be a niche for an open-source error-correcting model. These birds’ orbits are known and can be filtered from public databases. If you’re tracking meteors, you’re collecting enough data to project those orbits onto your field of vision and thus remove them as false positives.
For the luxury of taking beautiful photos, I unfortunately have nothing. (Though again, I find their paths pretty.) For the other, there are workarounds.
Science? What theory are you testing?
You know that gathering evidence and observational bit?
That part.
As you asked, you might enjoy:
https://www.amazon.com.au/What-This-Thing-Called-Science/dp/...
and then move onto Lakatos, Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend, Musgrave, et al.
But for now, baby steps.
That part.
As you asked, you might enjoy:
https://www.amazon.com.au/What-This-Thing-Called-Science/dp/...
and then move onto Lakatos, Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend, Musgrave, et al.
But for now, baby steps.
You’re being needlessly condescending.
But I think you’ll find it’s a harmless question: What are you gathering evidence for exactly? What is the purpose of your observations?
But I think you’ll find it’s a harmless question: What are you gathering evidence for exactly? What is the purpose of your observations?
I live in Bortle class 3 and I don't notice more satellites now when star gazing then I remember 10 years ago.
The hundreds of starlink satellites are totally invisible to me, except sometimes right after launch.
A starlink satellite train is amazing to watch and I'd love to see it a few more times.
EDIT The light pollution that really bothers me is the terrestrial light pollution. There's several cities within an hours drive of me, and they make such a large glow in the sky.
The hundreds of starlink satellites are totally invisible to me, except sometimes right after launch.
A starlink satellite train is amazing to watch and I'd love to see it a few more times.
EDIT The light pollution that really bothers me is the terrestrial light pollution. There's several cities within an hours drive of me, and they make such a large glow in the sky.
FWiW I'm deep in class one area with no human glows on the horizon at night .. and in a large radio quiet zone - save fromn the chatter of unsheilded LEO sats above.
Some are switched off on over pass, many aren't.
I look forward to when all constellations are set to shut up when over head and the their surface an attitude are altered to minise reflection.
Some are switched off on over pass, many aren't.
I look forward to when all constellations are set to shut up when over head and the their surface an attitude are altered to minise reflection.
> when all constellations are set to shut up when over head
Total off is unreasonable, but a safety mode where chatter is reduced is doable. Particularly with LEO constellations. This could be done by e.g. the FAA, perhaps even solely through rulemaking.
Total off is unreasonable, but a safety mode where chatter is reduced is doable. Particularly with LEO constellations. This could be done by e.g. the FAA, perhaps even solely through rulemaking.
Putting more junk in LEO is a serious problem but SpaceX started this and now others will also enter the market. Why should Starlink have monopolistic control over the high bandwidth SATCOM market?
> Why should Starlink have monopolistic control over the high bandwidth SATCOM market?
I agree, but those satellites shouldn't have been there to begin with in my opinion. But it's too late now.
I agree, but those satellites shouldn't have been there to begin with in my opinion. But it's too late now.
Genie is out of the bottle. DOD has seen Starlink in a real hot war and they love it. The constellation has become a national security asset. If it disappears, Pentagon will pay for another one.
Is there serious talk about launching one? They honestly should.
There are many. Lots of other large constellations being planned. Some from former GEO companies. Amazon. DoD is doing its own as well.
Why should the not be there? They are in an orbit that has essentially 0 practical chance at causing long term harm. They provide a service that is clearly very useful.
> Why should Starlink have monopolistic control over the high bandwidth SATCOM market?
They don't. There are other satellite internet providers they just don't use LEO constallations.
They don't. There are other satellite internet providers they just don't use LEO constallations.
I don't like putting out huge amount of objects on any orbit because if they collide bits of them might spread to any orbit depending on the size of chunks and exact collision geometry.
This is vastly overestimated problem. Changing orbits takes a lot of energy and most of these crashes don't have enough to put significant materials in a significant different orbit.
If something is already on an orbit that decades within a decade or so, it still will.
If something is already on an orbit that decades within a decade or so, it still will.
If two things collide heads on there's decent probability of some chunks going twice as fast and twice as fast is 4 times the energy which means way higher orbit.
A fragment of a low orbit collision can't end up in a higher circular orbit, because the old orbit and new orbit inevitably intersect at the point/height of the collision, so in the best/worst case the new (more energetic) orbit's perigee/low point (which is the one that matters for the drag and deorbiting - and small fragments deorbit faster than large satellites) happens to be exactly is at the height of the collision and only it's apogee is raised; and in every other case the new orbit has a much higher apogee but the perigee is even lower, which means that the fragment deorbits on its own even faster.
So no, if satellite swarms are in orbits low enough to deorbit on their own within some years (e.g. 550km for Starlink), then a mass collision doesn't result in a Kessler syndrome as the resulting debris is effectively self-clearing. Doing the same at twice the height (e.g. 1100km original Starlink plan) would have that risk though.
So no, if satellite swarms are in orbits low enough to deorbit on their own within some years (e.g. 550km for Starlink), then a mass collision doesn't result in a Kessler syndrome as the resulting debris is effectively self-clearing. Doing the same at twice the height (e.g. 1100km original Starlink plan) would have that risk though.
I agree, but in the capitalistic economy that we unfortunately live in, competition is the only thing that will lower prices.
Competition is almost the only thing that has ever lowered prices, raised wages, raised quality and invented new things. It's weird to demonise competition.
Yeah under capitalism that’s sometimes true. Otherwise, Cuba has great doctors and great medicine for example. A lot of America’s competition is BS. Companies behaving like cartels is more common.
> Companies behaving like cartels is more common.
Companies can start to behave like a government and reduce or eliminate competition, it's true. I don't think it's proportionally a big effect, but happy to read sources.
Companies can start to behave like a government and reduce or eliminate competition, it's true. I don't think it's proportionally a big effect, but happy to read sources.
I'm european and dont like thousands of satelites swirrling around in the sky as well but I'd rather have government-founded satelites for the public benefit than from some way-too-rich sociopath's private company.
Of course - this project would probably not exist without Starlink, so credit where credit is due.
Personally I find it quite sad that we're destroying the night sky in the sense that before these projects people could look in the sky and know that all humans before them had more or less the same sight. Now there are just so many satellites swirling around in your sight. I find that quite sad.
Of course - this project would probably not exist without Starlink, so credit where credit is due.
Personally I find it quite sad that we're destroying the night sky in the sense that before these projects people could look in the sky and know that all humans before them had more or less the same sight. Now there are just so many satellites swirling around in your sight. I find that quite sad.
> Personally I find it quite sad that we're destroying the night sky
That's not actually a thing.
> Now there are just so many satellites swirling around in your sight. I find that quite sad.
Except 99.9% of the time you can't see any of them. So for 99.9999% of people who don't do advanced space photography the night sky looks like it has always looked.
That's not actually a thing.
> Now there are just so many satellites swirling around in your sight. I find that quite sad.
Except 99.9% of the time you can't see any of them. So for 99.9999% of people who don't do advanced space photography the night sky looks like it has always looked.
You can’t see Starlink satellites with your eye unless they are in sunlight while the ground is not (so a vary narrow time of day and set of satellites given a particular location).
> some way-too-rich sociopath's private company.
I am certainly you've developed this view in November of 2022. Meanwhile any European stuck with DSL - which would be most of my family - would be ecstatic to get sensible bandwidth today.
I am certainly you've developed this view in November of 2022. Meanwhile any European stuck with DSL - which would be most of my family - would be ecstatic to get sensible bandwidth today.
There's a few comments in this thread from self proclaimed Europeans, but this one is the weirdest. The internet infrastructure here is great. I haven't seen a sub 10mbps offering in years (with 100mbps being fairly common). The only spotty places are small villages (which is a rather common theme everywhere). Europeans aren't stuck with DSL.
Where is "here"? There are plenty of places in Europe with mediocre Internet infrastructure. It is not universally "great" by any measure.
That's something that has occured to me right after posting, my bad. For context I live in a small-ish town (~50000) in the Czech Republic. However, we have about 5 local competing providers each offering decent speeds. Some have started offering 1Gbps speeds recently (though I'm still on ~600mbps myself).
So pressure your governments so that they invest in infrastructure either directly of by incentivising private companies while keeping them in competition with each other. Even some poor European countries have amazing internet connectivity right now.
I have reliable gigabit fiber, my internet is just fine. But I have plenty of colleagues in some parts of Europe that still have chronic issues with crap internet. Most of these are not in small villages, they are just subject to the whims of companies that simply don't care for whatever reason.
The quality of internet access is pretty variable most places in my experience, and there is more to it than just the notional bandwidth of the network drop you get. Some do it better than others but universally good quality internet for a country-sized region is still pretty atypical.
The quality of internet access is pretty variable most places in my experience, and there is more to it than just the notional bandwidth of the network drop you get. Some do it better than others but universally good quality internet for a country-sized region is still pretty atypical.
And yet, it does not matter when anybody became aware, but when it became a real problem.
Further, one can make use of a service or product today, and still be happy that there are better alternatives in the pipeline. I am certain that is how many Tesla owners view their vehicles, for example.
Further, one can make use of a service or product today, and still be happy that there are better alternatives in the pipeline. I am certain that is how many Tesla owners view their vehicles, for example.
Well if websites were not absolutely huge for no reason, we could certainly live with slower Internet connections.
Well except for TikTok and the likes, I guess. But at some point we should realise that those "improvements" are destroying the planet.
Well except for TikTok and the likes, I guess. But at some point we should realise that those "improvements" are destroying the planet.
Musk has been proving he's a danger to society for the better part of the last ten years.
The whole point of Starlink is that it's economically unfeasible to reach everywhere. Specially in rural areas, neither cables, fiber optics or 5G will make it. Keep wasting money in Europe.
If there is a point to bring electricity into a village, then there is a point to bring there also a fiber.
Infrastructure has to be self financed otherwise it's a waste of resources. That's why rural areas do not have internet. It fails every time
I don't know where you live, but in most of Europe, rural areas have internet too. It doesn't "fail every time".
There aren't really any rural areas in Europe, by American standards.
I think you should review the definition of "rural" then.
No he’s right and this is brought up here all the time. There are large swathes of America where people don’t have neighbors for miles (sometimes tens of miles) while there are comparatively few places in Europe that meet this definition.
Again, review the definition of "rural". Just pretending words mean what you want them to mean is quite literally, definitionally, bullshitting.
He said “rural by American standards” not just rural. No one is pretending the word rural means that, that’s why additional context was added to the initial comment.
I can't believe that Starlink is counting on those relatively few people to make money. There must be some other stream of revenue, right?
Presumably ships/airlines/us military are all a signicant potential revenue source. Only once they get the laser links working though.
Right. So it's not exactly about connecting those who are remote and need it... unless we consider that having access to TikTok on a ship is a fundamental need.
The comment you are replying too never said they were dependent on it. You’ve pivoted the discussion. The poster said Europe doesn’t have rural people by American standards. Revenue wasn’t mentioned.
They aren’t, those people are just benefiting from starlink which will make most money through enterprise and government programs.
By this logic they should not have electricity and water pipes as well.
You're moving the goalposts. First came the cities and then came the public infrastructure. 200 years ago none of that infrastructure existed yet cities were already there. That's because there was a need for it, which was self financed.
Then someone had the idea to reverse the cause effect relationship in a way to promote moving people to smaller towns and away from big cities. To the point of Italy selling houses for €1 to motivate people to move back from big cities. It doesn't work.
Then someone had the idea to reverse the cause effect relationship in a way to promote moving people to smaller towns and away from big cities. To the point of Italy selling houses for €1 to motivate people to move back from big cities. It doesn't work.
This is a rather stupid comment.. so all public utilities are failed, wasted resources?
Barely any infrastructure is self financed, anywhere.
In Europe sure. That's why Energy is so expensive compared to the USA.
But in general that's not true. In particular, public resources such as electricity and water are installed for a specific planned capacity... the limit of how much resources to install is how much we can pay it back.
Public infrastructure is financed from taxes which is financed from jobs, this there's a cause effect relationship between infrastructure and productivity. That's the very meaning of self financed.
But in general that's not true. In particular, public resources such as electricity and water are installed for a specific planned capacity... the limit of how much resources to install is how much we can pay it back.
Public infrastructure is financed from taxes which is financed from jobs, this there's a cause effect relationship between infrastructure and productivity. That's the very meaning of self financed.
doubleg72(1)
Does it annoy anyone else that the title says "Musk's Starlink"?
Yes, it was his idea and he is the main driving force and owns half of the company, but any project like this is a collaborative effort between tens of thousands of people.
Yes, it was his idea and he is the main driving force and owns half of the company, but any project like this is a collaborative effort between tens of thousands of people.
Meh. It's like when the title says "X's wife". Yes, it's a bit demeaning, but that extra context is often useful to those who are new to the topic.
Those thousands won't get blamed personally if it fails. But Musk will be.
Well okay, that's true, but they would lose their jobs and not have billions of dollars to fall back on. So there is a strong personal element for them. In the classic pigs/chickens formulation, Elon is closer to the chicken side — he's got other companies to devote time to.
What are you talking about, CEOs take no responsebility.
Look at any recent disasters caused by companies, such as recent train crash with a toxic spill, boeing Max scandal, BP oil spill, 2008, anything.
Where has the CEO been personally punished?
Or does your idea of 'blamed' mean people will write something mean on twitter?
the press announce ment where CEO of Boeing took full responsebility for Boeing Max failure, CEOs of major banks took reaponsebility for 2008,
Look at any recent disasters caused by companies, such as recent train crash with a toxic spill, boeing Max scandal, BP oil spill, 2008, anything.
Where has the CEO been personally punished?
Or does your idea of 'blamed' mean people will write something mean on twitter?
the press announce ment where CEO of Boeing took full responsebility for Boeing Max failure, CEOs of major banks took reaponsebility for 2008,
Being blamed has nothing to do with taking responsibility.
In this case, being blamed means that everyone will attribute the failure to him personally and say more nasty things about him and people will stop investing in his companies.
It would probably also quarter his net worth.
In this case, being blamed means that everyone will attribute the failure to him personally and say more nasty things about him and people will stop investing in his companies.
It would probably also quarter his net worth.
Sure. I guess just like Musk got blamed personally for his screw up with Twitter employees all over the world? He did a whole bunch of illegal stuff there, I'm still waiting to see consequences.
If they were actually illegal then we should see some settlements or court cases resolved over the next year or three. The justice system moves slowly.
He'll get fines ("settlements", I guess), and that will still have been cheaper than going the legal way. In the meantime many people lost their job in an irregular way (w.r.t. their country), and maybe they can't afford it.
That's how much responsibilities too rich people have: it's cheaper for them to go the illegal way and screw those who worked for them.
That's how much responsibilities too rich people have: it's cheaper for them to go the illegal way and screw those who worked for them.
The fines will be handed out in such a way that obeying the law would have been cheaper. That's how things are done in Western Europe.
That's how it's supposed to be. I doubt it really is in practice (at least not always). Let me rephrase it to what I think is the reality:
"The fines will be handed out in such a way that obeying the law would have been cheaper as estimated by people who don't really have a way to know."
-> That's how lobbying works: people on both sides argue, and some rule decides for something in the middle. It's not exactly a formal proof.
"The fines will be handed out in such a way that obeying the law would have been cheaper as estimated by people who don't really have a way to know."
-> That's how lobbying works: people on both sides argue, and some rule decides for something in the middle. It's not exactly a formal proof.
Illegal or not, he faced no consequences for the screw up
Yeah, it's always weird to see. I get that it's probably SEO related, still seems so dumb. Even ignoring the contribution of the employees, it's just a weird way to phrase it. Especially in articles like these, since the EU isn't doing this in response to Musk specifically owning Starlink, it's doing it in response to Starlink not being European.
The other day I saw an article referring to Twitter as "Musk's Twitter" which was even weirder because IIRC none of the content of the article was actually about Musk.
The other day I saw an article referring to Twitter as "Musk's Twitter" which was even weirder because IIRC none of the content of the article was actually about Musk.
> Yes, it was his idea and he is the main driving force and owns half of the company, but any project like this is a collaborative effort between tens of thousands of people.
You named the reason. Another is that Musk is incredibly high profile.
High profile individuals accrete accolades and renown. If you don't like it, stop working for someone else and build your own startup. (I mean this in the sense of encouragement.)
You named the reason. Another is that Musk is incredibly high profile.
High profile individuals accrete accolades and renown. If you don't like it, stop working for someone else and build your own startup. (I mean this in the sense of encouragement.)
Yeah but I thought Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri was a great game.
It doesn't annoy me all that much because that's how things are always framed. Owner/driving force is exactly what matters.
It's propaganda, the US want to make sure it's clear to you that it's not an army project but "musk's project", a bit like how they did with google
They are good at it
https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci...
They are good at it
https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci...
Steve Jobs iPhone you mean?
Because a lot of people get triggered by Elon Musk so anything introducing a competitor is incentivized to remind everyone of Musk’s involvement.
2.4 billions is not enough for such a project given the EU overhead in cost. Espacially since the deadline is 2027, so 2030 with delays really, that means 350 millions a year for paying satellite design, build them, send them to space.
There's many organizations that have proposed Starlink competitors, but it turns out this kind of thing is hard. Starlink isn't the first to try this either, but they're the first to succeed.
There's very little hope of this getting funded or even if funded, getting developed sufficiently.
There's very little hope of this getting funded or even if funded, getting developed sufficiently.
Since it seems to be taken as fact that such projects are doomed to fail, let me give an example of the opposite: Airbus.
2027 seems quite ambitious.
Curious what launch vehicles they're planning to use.
Curious what launch vehicles they're planning to use.
Perhaps eventually Ariane Next/SALTO, with an architecture very similar to Falcon 9?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_Next
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_Next
No, Ariane Next is not even being seriously worked on. For this rocket to exists there will be at least 3-5 years of political discussions. The Ariane 6 has not even flown yet and Ariane 6 was already very decisive.
If Ariane 6 first flies this year, don't expect funding for a new rocket for at least 5-10 years and then at least 5 years of development.
Any Ariane Next will not exist before 2030 and likely not before 2035.
The only viable European rocket is the Ariane 6. And that has already been booked by Amazon. So unless they want to kick out Amazon, there is no way this will launch before 2027.
If Ariane 6 first flies this year, don't expect funding for a new rocket for at least 5-10 years and then at least 5 years of development.
Any Ariane Next will not exist before 2030 and likely not before 2035.
The only viable European rocket is the Ariane 6. And that has already been booked by Amazon. So unless they want to kick out Amazon, there is no way this will launch before 2027.
Sounds like the EU I know and loathe. /EU citizen from the north
Nice, good to see them acknowledge that a slightly better "pre-f9" rocket won't cut it. Doesn't say anything about their chance to succeed, but better than trying something that's essentially worthless even in the best case.
If the timeframe is 2027, why not Ariane 5 or 6? Ariane 6 is supposed to have its maiden flight in 2023. Ariane 5 is already in use.
Ariane 5 is EOL. There are only two left, to be launched sometime this year.
Ariane 5 is done. Ariane 6 will launch maybe once this year. And then its already massively overbooked. So much so that many of its launches will likely fly on Falcon 9.
And on top of that Amazon has bought a huge amount of launches. Flying these will take many years.
Its unlikely that they have capacity. Realistically this is a ~2030 at best, not 2027.
And on top of that Amazon has bought a huge amount of launches. Flying these will take many years.
Its unlikely that they have capacity. Realistically this is a ~2030 at best, not 2027.
So it seems that each group of nations needs/wants physical networks because it's not enough to use encrypted communication on others'. How many is enough, 3, 4, more?
Is this solvable with a single network? e.g. Is there a way of anonymizing users of a network preventing discrimination, analogous to cryptocurrency?
Is this solvable with a single network? e.g. Is there a way of anonymizing users of a network preventing discrimination, analogous to cryptocurrency?
You might anonymize users, but for this tech you can't anonymize location, so blocking communications for certain locations is possible and governments really, really want to ensure that they have a system where nobody else can deny them ability to talk to a certain place.
Can satellites know precise location or only timings to get a ring of uncertainty? Also transmissions could be delayed/weakened to simulate being farther away. I don't know much anything about satellite communications which is why I was hoping someone who did could chime in.
Depends on the satellites (for GEO ones it's very different), but for the particular case of Starlink, there are two aspects - first, as satellites are relatively low, each satellite can only possibly "see" a ~1000km radius so disconnecting certain large regions is trivial by having the satellite not work when it's above that area; but the main issue is that an important component to ensure their bandwidth is 'beamforming', focusing the antennas to cells which IIRC are something like 50km in size, so a Starlink satellite can be physically reachable for one city and not in the neighboring one, without the ground-based receiver being able to do anything about it.
Confidentiality is not enough to claim Security. You also need Availability.
The point is if users are truly anonymous, you can't be selectively available as you can't discriminate. It's either entirely available or unavailable.
Except that you will have to authenticate to use any one such network. They're not going to provide free service, and they're not going to allow parties they don't want to allow or which they are told not to allow.
I'm not sure encryption really solves the root issue that is autonomy.
Good luck, not sure $2B is enough though…
This is probably something that the US (or other major powers) should really think about doing too.
Military tactics and capabilities have generally been driven by communications capabilities. For example, radio communication technology was at least as important as the tank in for the German blitzkrieg. This becomes all the more important with drones, etc.
I just punched up some quick numbers to make sure I’m not talking out of my ass and it looks like getting to the 12,000 satellites Starlink initially stated is approx $3.6 billion in total over the years. This is in comparison to the nearly $2 trillion annual defense budget. Or in comparison, I believe the military spent $15 billion on a software defined radio project that I believe never produced a single product.
Sure, I get it that big government isn’t synonymous with innovation. But relying on the whims of these increasingly questionable billionaires for something like global internet prob isn’t a great idea.
Military tactics and capabilities have generally been driven by communications capabilities. For example, radio communication technology was at least as important as the tank in for the German blitzkrieg. This becomes all the more important with drones, etc.
I just punched up some quick numbers to make sure I’m not talking out of my ass and it looks like getting to the 12,000 satellites Starlink initially stated is approx $3.6 billion in total over the years. This is in comparison to the nearly $2 trillion annual defense budget. Or in comparison, I believe the military spent $15 billion on a software defined radio project that I believe never produced a single product.
Sure, I get it that big government isn’t synonymous with innovation. But relying on the whims of these increasingly questionable billionaires for something like global internet prob isn’t a great idea.
The US already is exploring setting up its own low Earth orbit broadband constellation, upgrading its traditional satellites, and contracting with commercial entities.
https://spacenews.com/dod-satcom-big-money-for-military-sate...
https://spacenews.com/dod-satcom-big-money-for-military-sate...
The US is already doing this, and not just once. They are already working with multiple of next gen network providers. And they are also doing their own.
The DoD will have access to multiple such constellations and use all of them.
The DoD will have access to multiple such constellations and use all of them.
Hard to believe that the DoD could ever do this for as cheap as SpaceX is doing it, probably better to just work with them.
Doesn't the US already have strong contracts with SpaceX?
... of course one can question how safe they are given Musk's condition.
... of course one can question how safe they are given Musk's condition.
Genuine question, what do you mean by “Musk’s condition”?
They are gaslighting a prominent man because he is from a different political tribe to theirs and they believe that by denigrating him they are defending their own tribe from “the other”
They mean he disagrees with them politically. By American standards, musk is still left wing and just doing what many Americans are either indifferent to (setting Twitter prices) or broadly agree with (his distaste for 'woke'ism).
What are you saying? Why make stuff up? Musk isn’t left wing any where. He’s obviously a right winger. He’s always been a right winger outside America. Now he’s finally a right winger here too.
Good luck to the engineers working on the project. Is this a job for Erlang?
With the war, Ukraine needed satellite telecommunications, but the EU didn’t have something to offer. Ukraine should not have to rely on the whims of Elon Musk to defend their people.
What a weird reason to undertake such a project. Ukraine isn’t an EU member.
What a weird reason to undertake such a project. Ukraine isn’t an EU member.
But providing support to Ukraine is EU business. And who knows what will be the member and buisnesses of EU in 4 years. Better to be ready.
I guess this is the near term reason, but the main motive for the EU to set up their own satellite positioning system Gallileo was because GPS is under the whims of US military and may not be available to even US allies under emergency circumstances. They want critical infrastructure without relying on an external entity be it the US military or Elon Musk.
The new satellites will orbit the EU.
There is always bashing if there is something about the EU and its national projects, not always deserved. However sometimes I wished HN showed more of local projects. For example: has there been a post about the European AI?
https://www.aleph-alpha.com/
https://www.aleph-alpha.com/
It's honestly got to the point where I barely open comments related to EU projects any more. While most of the time there's somewhat nuanced discussions in comments, once the EU gets mentioned for some reason most of the comments basically boil down to "EU bad, US better", and "Big government bad", completely ignoring the actual contents of what the post it about.
The odd part is that these bad takes seem to typically come from people that don't even live the EU, and don't understand how it works.
They just don't like that it exists.
They just don't like that it exists.
The EU is a major world power, like the US and China, which means everyone in the world will have opinions about them, of every level of informedness :)
The US is used to this. The EU still have to adjust.
The US is used to this. The EU still have to adjust.
is that odd? it doesn’t seem surprising to me that Americans would think USA good EU bad
Forgive me for not taking their opinion about an economic block that they don't seem to understand and that their country doesn't belong to very seriously.
if I was suggesting that they're right to criticise the EU, I would have said that. what I was suggesting was that "America number 1, everyone else turds" is an extremely normal and expected attitude for a lot of Americans, and not something that I would describe as "odd". you seem to have read it differently
I guess the question is, is that level of response what one would expect or hope for in a forum like HN? Maybe we could aspire to a better level of discourse?
Funny cause Europeans always think their opinions of the US should be taken very seriously, and they have a lot of them
Funny, do they? I don't participate in threads about the US and its policies, so I wouldn't be able to tell.
Well, as someone who has lived in various parts of the U.S (mainly Utah, Oregon and Northern California), as well as Germany, Denmark, and is married to an Italian: Germans, Danes, and Italians often have a lot of cursorily formed opinions of the U.S, while in the U.S if people have strong opinions about the EU (and not actual familiarity) they are often not just wrong or stupid but also just as often completely unhinged from reality.
I'm guessing this is due to stupidity manifesting in different ways in their respective regions.
I'm guessing this is due to stupidity manifesting in different ways in their respective regions.
> completely unhinged from reality
Like apparently the UK bring a knife-ridden crime epicentre, when the knife-crime rate is, while unacceptably high, actually rather lower than the US, and that's before you consider guns which are about 10 times more on top of that.
(And let's please at least pretend that the UK is still in the EU for argument's sake :)
Like apparently the UK bring a knife-ridden crime epicentre, when the knife-crime rate is, while unacceptably high, actually rather lower than the US, and that's before you consider guns which are about 10 times more on top of that.
(And let's please at least pretend that the UK is still in the EU for argument's sake :)
It is odd that you believe citizenship demands some kind of absolutist factionalism that is not just felt but continually reinforced using all available media channels.
lokar(2)
I live in the EU, understand how it works, and that's why I hate it, and I want my country out of it ASAP :)
I think the benefits far outweigh the downsides. To be frank, I think a big chunk of its problems is that it is not integrated enough.
Then again, my perspective is from someone not originally from Europe, that chose to migrate here and declined job offers from the US even though I would receive considerably more money had I accepted. I have zero regrets, by the way.
So take my opinion as one without the social nuance from someone born here.
Then again, my perspective is from someone not originally from Europe, that chose to migrate here and declined job offers from the US even though I would receive considerably more money had I accepted. I have zero regrets, by the way.
So take my opinion as one without the social nuance from someone born here.
I think many of the benefits could be achieved with better methods, other then putting a French style barley democratic bureaucracy on top of all existing democracies.
The reality is also that almost non of the people in the countries were actually asked if they wanted to join.
There is a difference between being pro European integration and pro existing EU structure.
The reality is also that almost non of the people in the countries were actually asked if they wanted to join.
There is a difference between being pro European integration and pro existing EU structure.
how where people not asked if they wanted to join?
mind you, European integration is a major political pillar in national politics of basically all countries inside of europe and its periphery.
People vote on parties based on there political program, and most people seem to want to vast economic benefits being a member states brings. (heck, ukraine is basically fighting a war at the moment about an issue which basically boils down to European integration).
People definetly had a say if they wanted EU membership through the political process of there country.
The only case where this is a bit of a grey area is of the founding countries of the precursor of the EU. (european community of coal and steel). Most of those measures got passed as policy without a lot of democratic process by the populance.
But we cannot change the past, and considering the state of most of europe during the 1950's i wouldn't judge them so harshly for it.
mind you, European integration is a major political pillar in national politics of basically all countries inside of europe and its periphery.
People vote on parties based on there political program, and most people seem to want to vast economic benefits being a member states brings. (heck, ukraine is basically fighting a war at the moment about an issue which basically boils down to European integration).
People definetly had a say if they wanted EU membership through the political process of there country.
The only case where this is a bit of a grey area is of the founding countries of the precursor of the EU. (european community of coal and steel). Most of those measures got passed as policy without a lot of democratic process by the populance.
But we cannot change the past, and considering the state of most of europe during the 1950's i wouldn't judge them so harshly for it.
I mean those problems are well understood. There are not that many parties to vote for and people vote for the party they dislike least. Some of those parties wanted to join the EU. In general it was elites that wanted to join the EU, not the party base. People might have voted social domestic because they wanted domestic labor laws but instead their country was integrated in essentially a super-national state.
The reality is most people vote primary for domestic polices, and the extent what the EU would do was not understood by voters at the time. There is a difference in initially joining and then having very little choice in the continue growth of that institutions power.
And in fact, in many places where aspects of the EU were put to a popular vote it actually fails.
There is also the reality that things like the EU/Euro were political projects and that Germany after the Cold War had to agree to some of these things in order for France and Britain to accept its unification.
People certainty were not asked if Eastern nations should be allowed to join the EU. Again, shouldn't a popular vote be in order when an institution like the EU considers adding a new member that can massively impact its economy and will receive untold billions in subsidies?
I'm Swiss so for me, a decision of such huge importance should actually be based on a popular vote. Not 'well in the 70s leftist parties were broadly more popular'. And once you are in, its incredibly hard to get out, and that is by design.
A real European Union based on fundamentally pro European pro Democracy principles would have been established over many steps and many votes. This would give some granularity to the choices. Maybe the population like one aspect of the many EU polices, but not the other.
In Switzerland we rejected the EG, but we joined Schengen, both based on popular vote. We join institutions such as ESA and many others. That seems to me to be a much better process of incrementally growing together.
> the state of most of europe during the 1950's i wouldn't judge them so harshly for it.
Lets not pretend the EU was formed in the 1950s.
The reality is most people vote primary for domestic polices, and the extent what the EU would do was not understood by voters at the time. There is a difference in initially joining and then having very little choice in the continue growth of that institutions power.
And in fact, in many places where aspects of the EU were put to a popular vote it actually fails.
There is also the reality that things like the EU/Euro were political projects and that Germany after the Cold War had to agree to some of these things in order for France and Britain to accept its unification.
People certainty were not asked if Eastern nations should be allowed to join the EU. Again, shouldn't a popular vote be in order when an institution like the EU considers adding a new member that can massively impact its economy and will receive untold billions in subsidies?
I'm Swiss so for me, a decision of such huge importance should actually be based on a popular vote. Not 'well in the 70s leftist parties were broadly more popular'. And once you are in, its incredibly hard to get out, and that is by design.
A real European Union based on fundamentally pro European pro Democracy principles would have been established over many steps and many votes. This would give some granularity to the choices. Maybe the population like one aspect of the many EU polices, but not the other.
In Switzerland we rejected the EG, but we joined Schengen, both based on popular vote. We join institutions such as ESA and many others. That seems to me to be a much better process of incrementally growing together.
> the state of most of europe during the 1950's i wouldn't judge them so harshly for it.
Lets not pretend the EU was formed in the 1950s.
> There are not that many parties to vote for and people vote for the party they dislike least
This is democracy at its finest.
This is democracy at its finest.
How exactly is it just "barely" democratic?
I think most Americans have literally no opinions about the EU. I’ve always assumed anybody talking about it lives there. It’s virtually absent from our lives here.
I’m American and my opinion is EU good. Also euro expanding east bad; single currency for radically different economies doesn’t work out well in theory and practice, ends up saddling everyone with a lot of debt since inflation in just Greece isn’t an option for France.
[deleted]
As a British person, I'd suggest you reconsider. Things over here are not so rosy. Drugs shortages, crazy inflation, no discernible benefits at all except to a government that hates judicial oversight of any kind.
The UK has been doing a bad job at a lot of things and they ended up blamed the EU. Now all the problems are blamed by the opposition on leaving the EU.
The reality is that most of the UKs problems were not because of the EU before and are not because they left the UK now.
The reality is that most of the UKs problems were not because of the EU before and are not because they left the UK now.
Can you share more about this 'drug shortage'? Is it like the empty shop shelves and empty fuel pumps that is claimed to still exist for years now despite being resolved within days/weeks at the time?
IDK about the UK, but in Czechia, we had a shortage of, among others, antibiotics, only very recently alleviated.
At the worst times, you could phone to thirty pharmacies with a relatively standard recipe (Augmentin etc.) and be turned away everywhere.
Been there, done that.
At the worst times, you could phone to thirty pharmacies with a relatively standard recipe (Augmentin etc.) and be turned away everywhere.
Been there, done that.
The fact is not everything was the EU's fault. There was a lot Westminster could have done to make things better. They choose not to and indeed actually gold plated many EU directives due to virtue signaling which made them much more difficult to follow.
That said not all the good stuff actually was caused by the EU either. I'd recommend watching Yes Minister but apparently that will get you put on a watchlist these days... https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1153smh/yes_min...
The fact is politicians at all levels including EU take credit for things they didn't do and try to ignore the fallout from things they did. All the while blaming the voters. Mainly because changing public perception of policy choices takes time and effort and they have limited of both and tend to want to focus on things they actually care about.
That said not all the good stuff actually was caused by the EU either. I'd recommend watching Yes Minister but apparently that will get you put on a watchlist these days... https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1153smh/yes_min...
The fact is politicians at all levels including EU take credit for things they didn't do and try to ignore the fallout from things they did. All the while blaming the voters. Mainly because changing public perception of policy choices takes time and effort and they have limited of both and tend to want to focus on things they actually care about.
"Drugs shortages, crazy inflation"
Sounds precisely like Czechia right now.
Sounds precisely like Czechia right now.
I think inflation in the EU is roughly at the same level as the UK right now.
edit: apparently this is a controversial statement
edit: apparently this is a controversial statement
Its actually higher than in the UK.
https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/inflation-rate?con...
https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/inflation-rate?con...
Euro Area inflation is significantly lower than UK, same as Germany, France, Spain, ...
In the EU as a whole it's slightly higher because of the East countries (Hungary, Romania, Latvia, Estonia, ...) where inflation is crazy high because of their dependency on Russia for energy.
UK is in the very West of Europe, not East, and not reliant on Russia as East countries are. The economic impact of Brexit has just been significant, as it was supposed to be. Everybody knew it would be. Brexit was never about economy, but mainly sovereignty. That's a legitimate trade-off, of course, and many in the UK prefer to be a bit poorer in exchange for less dependency on their neighbours. I respect that. But it's important not to fool oneself thinking that leaving the highest economy in the world (EU economy was bigger than US' before UK left) was going to be good for the UK economy. That's just nonsense.
In the EU as a whole it's slightly higher because of the East countries (Hungary, Romania, Latvia, Estonia, ...) where inflation is crazy high because of their dependency on Russia for energy.
UK is in the very West of Europe, not East, and not reliant on Russia as East countries are. The economic impact of Brexit has just been significant, as it was supposed to be. Everybody knew it would be. Brexit was never about economy, but mainly sovereignty. That's a legitimate trade-off, of course, and many in the UK prefer to be a bit poorer in exchange for less dependency on their neighbours. I respect that. But it's important not to fool oneself thinking that leaving the highest economy in the world (EU economy was bigger than US' before UK left) was going to be good for the UK economy. That's just nonsense.
I see Sweden the "utopia" that some claim has even higher inflation than UK, I guess that must be because of Brexit too right? And Italy, the land of the great food?
The UK would do much better had they not chosen Brexit. Basically everyone here admits that (bank of England etc) apart from some zealot politicians. And the health system has collapsed. The problems are not solely caused by Brexit but it exacerbates nearly all of them.
Exactly. Brexit long term net effect could be a few points off their GDP. That's not the end of the world, but it's certainly significant and it will make British people a poorer, which of course has an impact on public services. Whether this is worth it's up to British people to assess.
My personal suspiction is that UK citizens were mislead about the consequences of leaving but, hey, democracy is about taking decisions with incomplete information. People have spoken and their decision is sacred. I wish the UK the best luck and it's with sadness that I believe they will need a lot of it.
My personal suspiction is that UK citizens were mislead about the consequences of leaving but, hey, democracy is about taking decisions with incomplete information. People have spoken and their decision is sacred. I wish the UK the best luck and it's with sadness that I believe they will need a lot of it.
Democracy is about informed voters. The voters were tricked by silly things like lying bus ads. Doesn’t look like a Democracy to me.
If your definition of Democracy requires no deception or falsehood in politics then there likely has never been a Democracy in human history. The voters never work with perfect knowledge, and the politicians always lie.
What concrete advantage would it have for you?
Not all too different from Europeans smugly commenting about how crazy Americans are for having different priorities in threads that happen to relate to American issues.
As a third party (New Zealander), I don't think that's correct. I think the US criticism of EU is much more often baseless compared to the reverse situation (as evidenced by the number of issues which are picked up by the residents of non aligned countries).
Also as a New Zealander - I think the opposite - EU criticism of the US really misses many points about the competitiveness of their society and burden they bear protecting the rest of the world's democracies. I think it is really about people's personal politics - Kiwis generally are much more aligned (left) with EU socialism/interventionism and hence relate more and see US criticism as baseless. It's all a matter of perspective & personal politics vs one side being more baseless than the other.
"burden they bear protecting the rest of the world's democracies"
As an Australian, that's a pretty glowing interpretation of the US intervening where they aren't wanted or needed
Was the US protecting 'democracy' when they annexed Hawaii, or how they've treated Cuba? Or Vietnam or South America or Iraq or any litany of other countries
Hell. They helped depose Gough Whitlam because he dared threaten to nationalize our mines ala Norway, not to mention that worthless spying ring that is Pine Gap
As an Australian, that's a pretty glowing interpretation of the US intervening where they aren't wanted or needed
Was the US protecting 'democracy' when they annexed Hawaii, or how they've treated Cuba? Or Vietnam or South America or Iraq or any litany of other countries
Hell. They helped depose Gough Whitlam because he dared threaten to nationalize our mines ala Norway, not to mention that worthless spying ring that is Pine Gap
You’re completely disregarding that they’re talking about the US being the armed forces of all western democracies and strawmanning about 19th-early 20th century imperialism (which Western Europe took part in far more than the US did.)
The US helped bomb Yemen this decade. Drone strikes still happen in multiple countries if I’m not mistaken. America funds Israel now. That’s all happening now.
Which is irrelevant to the discussion.
The subject is about how the US sucks and should be critiqued. You're talking about defending what the US does around the world. I'm giving examples of how the US really is around the world, at least the Global South. What discussion do you think is happening?
I did not realize that the Iraq War was "19th-early 20th century imperialism"
Nor the mid 1970's
Nor the mid 1970's
This is a further straw man when the point is that American economics and politics is what allows for the military that protects western democracies around the globe. Address the point don’t change the subject.
As a USian, I think it is super important to question a super power that takes it upon themselves to protect the rest of the world's democracies--even if they have to force them into democracy first.
The same way I think it is super important to challenge Russia's current defense against Ukrainian aggression.
The same way I think it is super important to challenge Russia's current defense against Ukrainian aggression.
[deleted]
America is an awful country and they have lead 50+ coups. Murdered many millions. Installed tons of fascists, right wingers, and dictators. How is that protecting the rest of the world’s democracies?
If you’re in NZ you don’t have to fall for American capitalist agitation propaganda. It’s obvious the US only cares about advancing capitalism and its own imperialist whims.
If you’re in NZ you don’t have to fall for American capitalist agitation propaganda. It’s obvious the US only cares about advancing capitalism and its own imperialist whims.
In my experience, criticism of the US is of the "this is clearly harming more people than it helps" variety, while criticism of the EU is of the "look at what these silly people are trying to provide as a service to their citizens" variety.
Nah criticism from Europeans generally comes down, “look at dumb Americans doing things differently than us, don’t they know we’re objectively right about political and economic institutions?”
Do you have anything of substance to contribute, `edgyquant`?
Yes, precisely like that.
Again, useless fluff. It is more enjoyable for everyone involved when you produce signal and not noise.
Comments which can be adequately summarized as "nuh uh" are noise. There is no information whatsoever being communicated with such low-effort posts.
Comments which can be adequately summarized as "nuh uh" are noise. There is no information whatsoever being communicated with such low-effort posts.
The same can be said of your posts. I pushed back against someone, so buzz off. You aren’t the arbiter of usefulness just as Europeans aren’t the arbiter of what other countries should be doing economically or politically.
So glad to see someone pointing out this phenomenon!
A crowd that is ideological resistant to reality in quite a entertaining fashion. Just remember the Boing 737 Max, which was never explored under this focus. Why does European airbus thrive, while us aircraft industry declined? Both are heavily state subsidized, so it is not that. There is something dysfunctional in us business culture, that extracts value first, and then runs without creating something for the value extracted.
It sometimes is almost reminiscent of the eastern European oligarchs that emerged at the end of the coldwar.
It sometimes is almost reminiscent of the eastern European oligarchs that emerged at the end of the coldwar.
> Why does European airbus thrive, while us aircraft industry declined?
The documentary "Downfall: The Case Against Boeing"[1] goes into this topic, and I believe the wiki page[2] summary captures it nicely:
> "There were many decades when Boeing did extraordinary things by focusing on excellence and safety and ingenuity. Those three virtues were seen as the key to profit. It could work, and beautifully. And then they were taken over by a group that decided Wall Street was the end-all, be-all. [...]"
Of course, I have no idea if this is just cherry-picking information, but it does seem plausible why things "suddenly" changed.
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11893274/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downfall:_The_Case_Against_Boe...
The documentary "Downfall: The Case Against Boeing"[1] goes into this topic, and I believe the wiki page[2] summary captures it nicely:
> "There were many decades when Boeing did extraordinary things by focusing on excellence and safety and ingenuity. Those three virtues were seen as the key to profit. It could work, and beautifully. And then they were taken over by a group that decided Wall Street was the end-all, be-all. [...]"
Of course, I have no idea if this is just cherry-picking information, but it does seem plausible why things "suddenly" changed.
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11893274/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downfall:_The_Case_Against_Boe...
I've heard one theory that the merger with McDonnell Douglas swept the bean-counters from there into executive positions ruining the engineering focus at Boeing.
That's what I read and understood to be the cause. Prior to that Boeing had an engineering culture all the way up.
The Microsoft spreadsheet happy-hippos are relying on India to buy enormous sums of Boeing passenger planes is one headline the media is running with, and another line of propaganda is to not bet against India. They say.
>> There is something dysfunctional in us business culture, that extracts value first,
You just said it. When we prioritize the money over the activity that makes the money... We deprioritize the activity - it's at least second place if not worse.
You just said it. When we prioritize the money over the activity that makes the money... We deprioritize the activity - it's at least second place if not worse.
If there was a machine that increased a company's stock value by crushing orphans invented today, tomorrow there would be lobbyists in Congress pushing to allow corporations to directly apply for adoptions.
>A crowd that is ideological resistant to reality in quite a entertaining fashion. Just remember the Boing 737 Max, which was never explored under this focus.
Boeing was heavily criticized by HN in every thread I saw about it. You picked a wrong example.
Boeing was heavily criticized by HN in every thread I saw about it. You picked a wrong example.
I can’t comment on the broader US/EU perception question, but I would partly attribute Airbus’ success to its harnessing of smaller scale engineering excellence always present in Western European aviation. Airbus merely solved the problem of risk of high scale production which has historically been a challenge for European manufacturers relative to Americans operating in their large, uniform market.
And Volskwagen cheating on it's emissions?
This is bit of a glib view of Boeing.
Boeng and Airbus will trade spaces for a while, until China starts stelling it's gear at 1/2 the price and then we will see some material changes.
This is bit of a glib view of Boeing.
Boeng and Airbus will trade spaces for a while, until China starts stelling it's gear at 1/2 the price and then we will see some material changes.
Way to cherrypick - A380 wasn't exactly a masterpiece in economics. Should we discuss Airbus/Araine?
not being a masterpiece in economics is not on the same scale as building an aircraft which is technically simply unfit to fly.
Sure, you can make bad bussiness decisions but this doesn't mean you cannot build proper airplanes.
Sure, you can make bad bussiness decisions but this doesn't mean you cannot build proper airplanes.
I think pointing out Airbus is a bit questionable. Yes Airbus does well now, but Europe tried to do these kinds of things in many different places and most of them didn't end up so well.
And at the same time, if we stay within Aerospace, why is SpaceX utterly dominating anything from Europe. Is US business culture to blame?
And at the same time, if we stay within Aerospace, why is SpaceX utterly dominating anything from Europe. Is US business culture to blame?
the comments basically boil down to "EU bad, US better"
Outside of the whole issue of Russia invading Ukraine instead of launching the damn thing like they were supposed to:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin_(rover)
Oh well, one way to avoid it crashing I guess. ;-)
Still, Europe being responsible for Mars having two Shapirelli craters is cool as well. ;-)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin_(rover)
Oh well, one way to avoid it crashing I guess. ;-)
Still, Europe being responsible for Mars having two Shapirelli craters is cool as well. ;-)
I can't shake the feeling you have been baited successfully.
You're surprised a headline like "The EU’s Response to Musk’s Starlink" from "reneweuropegroup.eu" [1] stirs up nationalistic mud flinging?
It's silly to blame HN for this. This sort of headline is just asking for the conversation to be derailed. Which is exactly why your comment is #1 and the comments below it are quickly derailing into it's own version of EU vs US.
[1] which is apparently a political group's website https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renew_Europe
It's silly to blame HN for this. This sort of headline is just asking for the conversation to be derailed. Which is exactly why your comment is #1 and the comments below it are quickly derailing into it's own version of EU vs US.
[1] which is apparently a political group's website https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renew_Europe
Also Stable Diffusion is made by a German organization:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_Diffusion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_Diffusion
TIL!
This article and your link reek of, "but Europe can do it too".
I don't know why the EU / Europe can't just do interesting things without coming across as so desperate to prove something – can we not just start a cool AI company without branding it a "European AI company", as if that's something so unlikely we should be proud of it?
An AI company started by kids would be something worth noting, an AI company started by the world's most prosperous and well educated continent is kinda cringy. I can't think of a single American company which does this.
I don't know why the EU / Europe can't just do interesting things without coming across as so desperate to prove something – can we not just start a cool AI company without branding it a "European AI company", as if that's something so unlikely we should be proud of it?
An AI company started by kids would be something worth noting, an AI company started by the world's most prosperous and well educated continent is kinda cringy. I can't think of a single American company which does this.
This is a bit crazy to me since it seems like there is a constant, almost never ending praise for everything related to Europe here. But I totally get that it's probably a difference in what topic we browse and what comments we read, so your experience is just as valid. I guess it's just surprising to me!
that’s strange. every EU-related thread I’ve ever seen has had highly ranked comments poo-pooing whatever it is they’re planning to do.
what’s your position on the EU? perhaps I notice the negative comments more because I’m very pro-EU, and vv for you?
what’s your position on the EU? perhaps I notice the negative comments more because I’m very pro-EU, and vv for you?
Well EU != Europe for one. I’m positive to Europe, (mostly) negative on EU. Could be you are both right.
You are right: here in the EU we often refer to ourselves as 'Europeans', thus implicitly excluding people from the non EU part of Europe. That's inacurate (and a bit disrespecful to non-UE Europeans, if you ask me). For that reason I try to always use the expressions 'EU' and 'EU citizen' instead of 'Europe' and 'European'.
Which reminds me that USA != America, also. It would be perfect we should not have to deduce from context when 'American' refers to anyone from the whole continent, from Canada to Chile, or just someone from the US. I guess it would be more practical to use 'US' and 'US citizen', for clarity...
Which reminds me that USA != America, also. It would be perfect we should not have to deduce from context when 'American' refers to anyone from the whole continent, from Canada to Chile, or just someone from the US. I guess it would be more practical to use 'US' and 'US citizen', for clarity...
I think the EU is ultimately the best option for europeans.Though I also think that it will always be prone to making super weird or counterproductive decisions by design (steering a ship with 27 different rudders will always be hard).
I guess I have a generally slightly negative opinion of Europe (or more accurately, of the portrayal of Europe I generally see online), having lived there for a little while. I guess it's that I honestly see a lot, lot more of harsh america bashing than criticism of europe. But ultimately, I'm a bit of an outsider to both the US and Europe and it might be that the constant, louder "america bad" makes eu bashing less apparent to me.
I guess I have a generally slightly negative opinion of Europe (or more accurately, of the portrayal of Europe I generally see online), having lived there for a little while. I guess it's that I honestly see a lot, lot more of harsh america bashing than criticism of europe. But ultimately, I'm a bit of an outsider to both the US and Europe and it might be that the constant, louder "america bad" makes eu bashing less apparent to me.
I am American and think it sucks. America is also closely aligned with capitalism which is praised far too much. Combine that with any American praise and America is warmly received here. The entire site is based around neoliberal capitalists. Of course it’s going to be slanted pro America in some sense and negatively EU and maybe Europe on the other hand.
I worked for the EU gov. and I believe that Europeans are more naive about the foundations of EU than Americans are about the US.
And far more sensitive about it.
All Americans are cynical about their own country and government.
The EU is a wierd entity, and few Europeanns have a true understanding of the mechanisms of power, the horrible democracy deficit; a result of a kind of 'blind faith' in institutions, and a naivte with respect to the power and motivation of their leaders.
I guess it's a bit like the 'faith' we have in something like the UN, it's all well meaning, but when you look at operational elements it's bizarre. There's a kind of utterly detached academic view that permeates UN culture, it reminds me of Brussels.
The French population roundly rejected the trety of Lisbon, the French government went ahead with it anyhow, and future referendums in Europe were annulled because the elite had no will to allow the plebes to have a voice. In their view, the plebes woudl be too dumb to make the calculation.
The European Court of Justice is one of the most insane things in Judicial history of the world - it was never granted the powers it has (!), rather, it 'took them'. ECJ 'Judicial Supremacy' is the longest political sleight of hand in history. It's a bit mind-melting and the smoke that the institutions throw up to try to imply legal foundations are established. In Germany, they still contest the legitimacy of ECJ Supremacy, as they should, but it's not allowed to be talked about outside Germany. If they bring it up in the UK or Poland it's considered 'alt right' inanity.
Nobody ever voted for Ursula Von Der Leyen and nobody even knew who she was (outside of Germany) before the election - and yet - she speaks for everyone now! Because Democracy! All of the arguments in support of this system of choosing leadership fall flat, like Russians justifying their invasion of Ukraine. European elite could 'fix' that specific representation problem instantly, they very actively don't want to.
Those are tiny examples, there are so many more.
Commenters here and other places are super pro-EU in a way that if it were some other country we'd recognize it as being very nationalist, but for some reason, maybe because the EU is not quite a country, we judge the defensiveness by a different standard. Americans might say things that are effectively pro-America, but rarely in a directly nationalist manner. No Americans is going to run on about some government program, rather more like a story about something that is 'great', but which happens to be in America.
Also, for some strange reason the Swiss are the other hyper-sensitive nationalist group here in that if you say anything they will come out like an Army. I'm not necessarily complaining, just nothing that oddity. Also maybe Canadians, except nobody ever talks about them (or rather 'us' as I am Canadian).
As for satelites, we have every right to be skeptical - the EU is 20 years behind in this regard and talk is cheap.
They are 'reacting' to this war, which is a function of careless strategic orientation of the past.
Maybe this 'wake up call' will reveberate into other sectors.
.... it was amazing to see Germany drop it's dependance on Russian Oil very quickly, I'm sure we are all as impressed by that as Ukrainian resilience in the face of invasion. So let's hope for more than Satelites.
And far more sensitive about it.
All Americans are cynical about their own country and government.
The EU is a wierd entity, and few Europeanns have a true understanding of the mechanisms of power, the horrible democracy deficit; a result of a kind of 'blind faith' in institutions, and a naivte with respect to the power and motivation of their leaders.
I guess it's a bit like the 'faith' we have in something like the UN, it's all well meaning, but when you look at operational elements it's bizarre. There's a kind of utterly detached academic view that permeates UN culture, it reminds me of Brussels.
The French population roundly rejected the trety of Lisbon, the French government went ahead with it anyhow, and future referendums in Europe were annulled because the elite had no will to allow the plebes to have a voice. In their view, the plebes woudl be too dumb to make the calculation.
The European Court of Justice is one of the most insane things in Judicial history of the world - it was never granted the powers it has (!), rather, it 'took them'. ECJ 'Judicial Supremacy' is the longest political sleight of hand in history. It's a bit mind-melting and the smoke that the institutions throw up to try to imply legal foundations are established. In Germany, they still contest the legitimacy of ECJ Supremacy, as they should, but it's not allowed to be talked about outside Germany. If they bring it up in the UK or Poland it's considered 'alt right' inanity.
Nobody ever voted for Ursula Von Der Leyen and nobody even knew who she was (outside of Germany) before the election - and yet - she speaks for everyone now! Because Democracy! All of the arguments in support of this system of choosing leadership fall flat, like Russians justifying their invasion of Ukraine. European elite could 'fix' that specific representation problem instantly, they very actively don't want to.
Those are tiny examples, there are so many more.
Commenters here and other places are super pro-EU in a way that if it were some other country we'd recognize it as being very nationalist, but for some reason, maybe because the EU is not quite a country, we judge the defensiveness by a different standard. Americans might say things that are effectively pro-America, but rarely in a directly nationalist manner. No Americans is going to run on about some government program, rather more like a story about something that is 'great', but which happens to be in America.
Also, for some strange reason the Swiss are the other hyper-sensitive nationalist group here in that if you say anything they will come out like an Army. I'm not necessarily complaining, just nothing that oddity. Also maybe Canadians, except nobody ever talks about them (or rather 'us' as I am Canadian).
As for satelites, we have every right to be skeptical - the EU is 20 years behind in this regard and talk is cheap.
They are 'reacting' to this war, which is a function of careless strategic orientation of the past.
Maybe this 'wake up call' will reveberate into other sectors.
.... it was amazing to see Germany drop it's dependance on Russian Oil very quickly, I'm sure we are all as impressed by that as Ukrainian resilience in the face of invasion. So let's hope for more than Satelites.
Americans aren’t cynical. 95% can’t define an economic system outside capitalism or a stance outside liberalism of conservatism.
Americans don’t know anything about America. They love the Founding Fathers and founding of the country. There’s nothing critical to them. Holding the govt or corporations accountable is never done.
Americans can’t talk about great govt program because there’s so few of them. Of the Govt programs they do talk about, the major ones are: Defense, Social Security, Medicare. That covers most of the usefulness of the government. That’s unfortunately capitalism.
I’m first gen POC American, but I don’t like America. Anything Europe or EU is going to be better. Or Canada.
Americans don’t know anything about America. They love the Founding Fathers and founding of the country. There’s nothing critical to them. Holding the govt or corporations accountable is never done.
Americans can’t talk about great govt program because there’s so few of them. Of the Govt programs they do talk about, the major ones are: Defense, Social Security, Medicare. That covers most of the usefulness of the government. That’s unfortunately capitalism.
I’m first gen POC American, but I don’t like America. Anything Europe or EU is going to be better. Or Canada.
Americans are not cynical people, but they are cynical about their government.
Remeber 'Rambo'? The simple Vietnam Vet who comes home and is harrassed by the Police for no reason?
Or the 'Most American Film Ever' aka the Godfaather, which is criminal family's rise to power - and the Patriarch wanting the son to be 'something legit' aka a 'Senator'? That's JFK.
The American military, DARPA etc. are all amazing things, and frankly so is the Constitution and major institutions aka Congress even as people are cynical they are 'believers' in the end.
Anyhow - 'crude nationalism' isn't that common in intellectual circles where as defensive pro-EU (as an institution) commentary is all over the place and people who don't go for it are 'alt-something' etc. This is unique.
Remeber 'Rambo'? The simple Vietnam Vet who comes home and is harrassed by the Police for no reason?
Or the 'Most American Film Ever' aka the Godfaather, which is criminal family's rise to power - and the Patriarch wanting the son to be 'something legit' aka a 'Senator'? That's JFK.
The American military, DARPA etc. are all amazing things, and frankly so is the Constitution and major institutions aka Congress even as people are cynical they are 'believers' in the end.
Anyhow - 'crude nationalism' isn't that common in intellectual circles where as defensive pro-EU (as an institution) commentary is all over the place and people who don't go for it are 'alt-something' etc. This is unique.
Maybe because it's always in response to, and generally a failed copy costing billions to Europeans because of bureaucrats?
“because of bureaucrats”. with such a nuanced justification, perhaps you should consider the solidity of your position
Bureaucrats -> Horizon and the other incredibly murky EU funding programs that a good bunch of these projects come from, with the ”businesses” ending up only having the lifespan of whatever runway they have been able to build with EU funding
I presume thats the gripe with a lot of these ”EU” technologies
I presume thats the gripe with a lot of these ”EU” technologies
And that’s very different from all the startup grants every other country does?
Any examples you'd care to elaborate about?
Galileo might be a good example to discuss in this context.
Are you talking about the satellite navigation system that's been usable and widely used for about a decade? The one that gives location data ten times more precise than GPS (1m vs 10m)? That's a "failed copy costing billions to Europeans"? Really?
Galileo was down for 5 days in a row in 2019. I won't go in to the details of other issues of, for that Bert Hubert's blog is a good start.
Now that's an indictment! One major outage in nearly a decade. Better write off the whole programme as a waste of money.
Meanwhile the whole US government gets shut down seemingly every other year.
Meanwhile the whole US government gets shut down seemingly every other year.
Has GPS ever experienced a major outage in its ~30 years of operation?
Not that I know of. What's your point?
Are you sure you're writing from an informed perspective? Galileo holds a LOT of expensive, time-consuming lessons that this project will do well to absorb. Outages are only scratching the surface.
You'll note that I didn't say "Galileo sucks," or "those guys are morons," or that there was no reason to build it. But the fact that it took longer to commission than the original NAVSTAR GPS system doesn't augur well for a Starlink clone. Which, in any event, will probably be so highly regulated and censored that it will be more like an orbital Minitel than a conventional ISP.
You'll note that I didn't say "Galileo sucks," or "those guys are morons," or that there was no reason to build it. But the fact that it took longer to commission than the original NAVSTAR GPS system doesn't augur well for a Starlink clone. Which, in any event, will probably be so highly regulated and censored that it will be more like an orbital Minitel than a conventional ISP.
Are we still on the satellite communications subject?
Yes, we are. Why?
Because GPS has never been shut down, to my knowledge.
Can you be more specific on how exactly this one-dimensional evaluation of a resolved issue contributes to your argument?
Because who wants to rely on a navigation system which occasionally goes down for nearly a week?
US has no bureaucrats? All the EU member states, no bureaucrats? How many projects in member states cost the tax payer billions? Btw the EU budget is tiny in comparison.
or we need a European chip manufacturer, so we take the most pathetic legacy brand around, and give it billions to build chips from the old generation. Oh, hi Intel!
Or maybe it's because HN crowd parrot the same groupthink like reddit? /s
I mean... DeepMind has its fair share of AI exposure
[deleted]
inglor_cz(15)
They still haven't finished Galileo yet; with the project seemingly going backwards ever since the British were forced out. How will they deliver yet another moonshot project like this? They don't even possess reusable rocket technology yet to make such a LEO project economically viable.
Galileo has been operational for a few years. Even customer mobile devices Support and use it.
Further more the British had a referendum and decided to leave on their own. Quite hard to call that force out. In fact it's impossible to expell a member state.
Further more the British had a referendum and decided to leave on their own. Quite hard to call that force out. In fact it's impossible to expell a member state.
Operational? Yes. Reliable? No. It has had numerous outages in the last 4 years.
How do you explain several non-EU states being members of the Galileo programme - namely Switzerland and Norway? Hell, even China invested into it in 2003. And yet, the UK which invested almost a quarter of its funding is booted out on the basis of an unrelated political issue? It doesn't make sense. The British even offered to continue funding and investing into it. So "forced out" is an accurate description.
How do you explain several non-EU states being members of the Galileo programme - namely Switzerland and Norway? Hell, even China invested into it in 2003. And yet, the UK which invested almost a quarter of its funding is booted out on the basis of an unrelated political issue? It doesn't make sense. The British even offered to continue funding and investing into it. So "forced out" is an accurate description.
Switzerland and Norway negotiated special treaties to join Galileo.
The UK were in because of their EU membership. No one could have taken that from them besides they themselves.
And once you are out you get treated like any 3rd party state. If you want a special deal you better bring some time and be prepared to start fresh.
The desire "to get Brexit done" in a very tight timeframe, pushed by populist politicians, did not allow for that.
The whole deal of the EU is to make cooperation between countries easier and to act as a single voice.
The UK reaps what they sowed
The UK were in because of their EU membership. No one could have taken that from them besides they themselves.
And once you are out you get treated like any 3rd party state. If you want a special deal you better bring some time and be prepared to start fresh.
The desire "to get Brexit done" in a very tight timeframe, pushed by populist politicians, did not allow for that.
The whole deal of the EU is to make cooperation between countries easier and to act as a single voice.
The UK reaps what they sowed
I hate these takes. If the goal of the EU is to make European cooperation. Why then was the attitude 'Britain wants to leave, fine fuck them'. Like just because they didn't want to be in the EU anymore, now the EU is no longer about cooperation? All of sudden the EU acted more like a geopolitical opponent of Britain.
The idea that there was not enough time to negotiate is nonsense. This was the EU punishing Britain for leaving, its as simple as that. If the EU was really about European cooperation, then they should have wanted Britain to stay in the project.
ESA existed before the EU and cooperation on space goes back way before the EU. It was short sighted politics with the goal to inflict punishment on Britain and make sure nobody else leaves.
The idea that there was not enough time to negotiate is nonsense. This was the EU punishing Britain for leaving, its as simple as that. If the EU was really about European cooperation, then they should have wanted Britain to stay in the project.
ESA existed before the EU and cooperation on space goes back way before the EU. It was short sighted politics with the goal to inflict punishment on Britain and make sure nobody else leaves.
The UK was trying to negotiate a special agreement/treaty regarding Galileo. But the EU did not want to even consider it. Indeed even today the UK has not really given up on trying to be friends with the EU and continues to remain open to rejoining Galileo and Horizon programmes. Bizarrely, the latter of which, the EU seemingly had a moment of weakness during the negotiations by agreeing that the UK could remain members of Horizon - but then later had a change of heart and decided to break the agreement (international law?) in choosing to cut the UK out to this very day.
> No. It has had numerous outages in the last 4 years.
That's just plain false. There was one major outage in 2019. Since then, nothing of note.
That's just plain false. There was one major outage in 2019. Since then, nothing of note.
I think it has, when compared to GPS or even GLONASS.
https://insidegnss.com/galileo-logs-a-5-hour-timing-related-...
https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/galileo-accident/
https://insidegnss.com/galileo-logs-a-5-hour-timing-related-...
https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/galileo-accident/
The second link is the major outage I'm talking about, yes.
The first one is indeed significant, but to call it an outage is a stretch. You're linking to some blogspam that is basically [copying the official statement](https://www.gsc-europa.eu/news/galileo-nominal-service-resto...). To link that without linking to the [follow-up explanation](https://www.gsc-europa.eu/news/further-information-on-the-ev...) is, well... Not exactly an okay move. In that follow-up, you'll read that only ill-configured receivers (that ignored satellite health) were affected.
The first one is indeed significant, but to call it an outage is a stretch. You're linking to some blogspam that is basically [copying the official statement](https://www.gsc-europa.eu/news/galileo-nominal-service-resto...). To link that without linking to the [follow-up explanation](https://www.gsc-europa.eu/news/further-information-on-the-ev...) is, well... Not exactly an okay move. In that follow-up, you'll read that only ill-configured receivers (that ignored satellite health) were affected.
Ah that would make sense! I wonder though, is my perception of Galileo as being less reliable accurate? Or are those issues normal for GPS too? My (probably ignorant) understanding was that the structure of the Galileo program made it inherently more brittle, considering how the first major outage went down.
> going backwards ever since the British were forced out.
It was already going badly for years before UK left. Galileo was scheduled to be finished in 2021, shortly after Brexit and around the same time UK parted from the project.
It was already going badly for years before UK left. Galileo was scheduled to be finished in 2021, shortly after Brexit and around the same time UK parted from the project.
Yet, I can switch on my GPSr, use Galileo and get higher accuracy than GLONASS/GPS.
Is it really a moonshot project ?
ESA has plenty of experience in delivering projects like this e.g. Copernicus, Sentinel, EDRS.
ESA has plenty of experience in delivering projects like this e.g. Copernicus, Sentinel, EDRS.
The Sentinel satellites ARE the Copernicus program(me). Why are the EU spy sats, sorry, totally-not-spy-sats, so poor and so few compared to what the US has?
a) Copernicus program is bigger than just the satellites themselves.
b) What does a meaningless comparison with the US have to do with whether launching a bunch of extra satellites is considered a moonshot or not ?
b) What does a meaningless comparison with the US have to do with whether launching a bunch of extra satellites is considered a moonshot or not ?
It's up and running, and like any project like this it's then constantly updated and maintained so "finished" makes no sense
Why this infatuation with low Earth orbit? Why not put just few satelites further out, like every other satellite internet provide does except starlink?
EDIT:
To people bringing up latency. Far away satellite has them far enough that they cover large area so the signal goes to satellite and back and that's it. Distance introduces latency.
But in case of constallation packet must bounce through multiple satellites and/or ground stations to arrive at the target so that introduces latency too. So it's usually not great either.
EDIT 2:
Never mind. Apparently Starlink manages to get pretty decent latency so far: https://blinqblinq.com/starlink-latency-and-ping-times/
The question reamins, if the goal is for the Europe to have a backup system for disasters such as armed conflict is the ping really key factor?
EDIT:
To people bringing up latency. Far away satellite has them far enough that they cover large area so the signal goes to satellite and back and that's it. Distance introduces latency.
But in case of constallation packet must bounce through multiple satellites and/or ground stations to arrive at the target so that introduces latency too. So it's usually not great either.
EDIT 2:
Never mind. Apparently Starlink manages to get pretty decent latency so far: https://blinqblinq.com/starlink-latency-and-ping-times/
The question reamins, if the goal is for the Europe to have a backup system for disasters such as armed conflict is the ping really key factor?
Starlink originally planned to put their first shell at 1100 km altitude. They changed to 550km for several reasons. First, because it offered slightly reduced latency. Second, so long as you launch enough satellites, the reduced coverage region for each satellite is offset by having more satellites and hence (other things being equal) more bandwidth per area of land. Third, satellites at 550 km will naturally deorbit in a few years if something fails. So although they plan to actively deorbit the first satellites after 6 or 7 years to replace them with newer ones, if they get something wrong and have a lot of satellite failures, they really won't cause a long term problem. At 1100 km the orbit won't decay for centuries. If you have satellites fail, the rest of the constellation will be doing avoidance maneouvers for a very long time. Thus if your launch costs are low enough and you can mass-produce satellites cheap enough, you want them as low as possible. Somewhere around 500 km is about as low as you want to go, before too much of the satellite mass ends up being fuel to maintain orbit.
According to https://frankrayal.com/2021/07/07/latency-in-leo-satellites-..., GEO has about 20x the latency of LEO.
I think this is why starlink is so much more usable than traditional satellite internet.
I think this is why starlink is so much more usable than traditional satellite internet.
[deleted]
The van Allen radiation belt [1] starts at 650 km (and ends at 58,000 km).
The satellites would probably have a shorter lifetime if they were higher.
Since the speed of light is 300,000 km/s, adding 300 km adds one millisecond of delay, or 2 milliseconds to a roundtrip. Doesn't seem a lot for satellite internet?
Geostationary orbit is at 36,000 km, then for lag that is indeed problematic as it's then 240 ms for a round trip. Still bearable.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt
Since the speed of light is 300,000 km/s, adding 300 km adds one millisecond of delay, or 2 milliseconds to a roundtrip. Doesn't seem a lot for satellite internet?
Geostationary orbit is at 36,000 km, then for lag that is indeed problematic as it's then 240 ms for a round trip. Still bearable.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt
Doesn’t that have higher latency (further distance) and lower speeds (more users per satellite)?
The constellation has direct line of sight while fiber follows crazy paths. Constellation /decreases/ not /increases/ latencu
Latency
latency.
> This future satellite constellation infrastructure will allow for synergies with private sector to develop commercial services and provide with high-speed internet and communication in all EU territory.
Satellite internet isn’t great for speed. Europe is also so densely populated that full 4g coverage is totally doable. I think satellite internet is cool, but it doesn’t serve a real need and I expect this project to flounder.
Also, notice that an entire continent has less ambitious goals and merely tries to keep up with one guy.
Satellite internet isn’t great for speed. Europe is also so densely populated that full 4g coverage is totally doable. I think satellite internet is cool, but it doesn’t serve a real need and I expect this project to flounder.
Also, notice that an entire continent has less ambitious goals and merely tries to keep up with one guy.
> Europe is also so densely populated that full 4g coverage is totally doable.
The main goal here as I can see is to learn from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when the main infrastructure (including electric grid) was targeted.
The issue is much broader than you may consider. Besides the obvious benefits for military communication, consider the following points (all from my experience living in Kyiv):
1. Modern society depends on the internet heavily - banks, shops, eCommerce. Your ATMs need internet to allow you to withdraw cash. Your enemy will target your power infrastructure to stop economic activity very early.
2. In case of long-term power outages, you can expect most of the land lines will stop working after 12 hours when batteries on the ISP sides start to be depleted.
3. Your 4G network will become less and less useful very quickly, the more people will start losing wired internet and switching over to 4G. The cellular will not be able to fulfil demand and eventually will halt under the load.
4. It is very difficult to power wired internet with mobile generation, as the infrastructure is huge and requires power generation in multiple places at once.
Satellite internet solve this miraculously:
1. you can get internet where you need it without reliance on any other infrastructure - i.e. bank, office, ATM, etc... Just plug the dish to the nearby router.
2. Mobile power generation becomes much more useful, as you can have it only where it needed (i.e. to power satcom).
3. It is VERY cheap considering the alternative.
The main goal here as I can see is to learn from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when the main infrastructure (including electric grid) was targeted.
The issue is much broader than you may consider. Besides the obvious benefits for military communication, consider the following points (all from my experience living in Kyiv):
1. Modern society depends on the internet heavily - banks, shops, eCommerce. Your ATMs need internet to allow you to withdraw cash. Your enemy will target your power infrastructure to stop economic activity very early.
2. In case of long-term power outages, you can expect most of the land lines will stop working after 12 hours when batteries on the ISP sides start to be depleted.
3. Your 4G network will become less and less useful very quickly, the more people will start losing wired internet and switching over to 4G. The cellular will not be able to fulfil demand and eventually will halt under the load.
4. It is very difficult to power wired internet with mobile generation, as the infrastructure is huge and requires power generation in multiple places at once.
Satellite internet solve this miraculously:
1. you can get internet where you need it without reliance on any other infrastructure - i.e. bank, office, ATM, etc... Just plug the dish to the nearby router.
2. Mobile power generation becomes much more useful, as you can have it only where it needed (i.e. to power satcom).
3. It is VERY cheap considering the alternative.
> satellite internet is cool, but it doesn’t serve a real need
Starlink’s 100 Mbps [1] is faster than many European countries fixed averages and most’s mobile medians [2].
Also, the second sentence of this article cites the need: “critical scenarios where terrestrial networks are absent or disrupted, as observed, for instance, in the unfolding war in Ukraine.”
[1] https://bigtechquestion.com/2022/01/10/broadband/how-fast-is...
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_...
Starlink’s 100 Mbps [1] is faster than many European countries fixed averages and most’s mobile medians [2].
Also, the second sentence of this article cites the need: “critical scenarios where terrestrial networks are absent or disrupted, as observed, for instance, in the unfolding war in Ukraine.”
[1] https://bigtechquestion.com/2022/01/10/broadband/how-fast-is...
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_...
I am not sure how fair that comparison is. E.g., in my country most people can get 1GiB downstream/50 MiB upstream through cable internet (even in small villages), more than 50% of the households can get fiber with 1GiB downstream/1GiB upstream.
Yet the average fixed download/upload speed is 123/40 MiB. Why? Most people just want enough bandwidth for Netflix (TV is reserved separately), Youtube, and basic surfing. So, they'll go with the cheapest subscription, which is usually 100MiB downstream (except on budget providers), pulling down the averages. Starlink-like bandwidth is really cheap on cable/fiber. Heck, I have unlimited 5G and I think it's only 25 Euro per month, less than a third of a Starlink subscription and the bandwidth is usually much better. Even in the small village my parents live I get 100-200MiB downstream.
At any rate, it is no problem at all to get 1GiB downstream in most of the country and much cheaper than Starlink (we currently pay 35 Euro p/m for 1GBit up/down). For European countries that can't offer this yet, it makes more sense to invest in 5G and wired broadband.
That said, I think the EU should also do this. Satellite internet is good for remote areas and in the case of calamities (war, disaster, etc.) and crucial infrastructure should be in European hands.
Yet the average fixed download/upload speed is 123/40 MiB. Why? Most people just want enough bandwidth for Netflix (TV is reserved separately), Youtube, and basic surfing. So, they'll go with the cheapest subscription, which is usually 100MiB downstream (except on budget providers), pulling down the averages. Starlink-like bandwidth is really cheap on cable/fiber. Heck, I have unlimited 5G and I think it's only 25 Euro per month, less than a third of a Starlink subscription and the bandwidth is usually much better. Even in the small village my parents live I get 100-200MiB downstream.
At any rate, it is no problem at all to get 1GiB downstream in most of the country and much cheaper than Starlink (we currently pay 35 Euro p/m for 1GBit up/down). For European countries that can't offer this yet, it makes more sense to invest in 5G and wired broadband.
That said, I think the EU should also do this. Satellite internet is good for remote areas and in the case of calamities (war, disaster, etc.) and crucial infrastructure should be in European hands.
> Starlink’s 100 Mbps [1] is faster than many European countries fixed averages and most’s mobile medians [2].
But Starlink also doesn’t deliver those 100 Mbps reliably. Starlink is an awesome choice if you are in an underserved region but in most EU countries most people have better alternatives.
The capacity of Starlink is very low for many countries in the EU. If people were to actually use it at scale it wouldn’t work.
But Starlink also doesn’t deliver those 100 Mbps reliably. Starlink is an awesome choice if you are in an underserved region but in most EU countries most people have better alternatives.
The capacity of Starlink is very low for many countries in the EU. If people were to actually use it at scale it wouldn’t work.
Up to 100Mbps
Good luck getting half of that. Especially if you want to service any significant number of customers.
Meanwhile I get 600Mbps for about $30 in Poland.
Good luck getting half of that. Especially if you want to service any significant number of customers.
Meanwhile I get 600Mbps for about $30 in Poland.
>Europe is also so densely populated that full 4g coverage is totally doable
Whenever this is brought up a lot of Germans will reply that the 5G/4G situation in Germany is hopeless and only Elon Musk can save them. But looking at the 5G/4G coverage in Denmark and the rest of the Nordic countries it becomes obvious that the problem is Germany and not 5G/4G.
Whenever this is brought up a lot of Germans will reply that the 5G/4G situation in Germany is hopeless and only Elon Musk can save them. But looking at the 5G/4G coverage in Denmark and the rest of the Nordic countries it becomes obvious that the problem is Germany and not 5G/4G.
> Satellite internet isn’t great for speed.
It's great for speed, but not for latency.
> notice that an entire continent has less ambitious goals and merely tries to keep up with one guy
This doesn't have to fully compete with starlink. A working secondary provider is a great goal in itself if the network is independent. Currently the critical military communication in Ukraine depends on how he feels today for example.
On a policy level, there are likely also issues with using a private US company for critical EU communication.
Having a single global provider is never a great idea. It's even worse when it relies on someone like Musk.
It's great for speed, but not for latency.
> notice that an entire continent has less ambitious goals and merely tries to keep up with one guy
This doesn't have to fully compete with starlink. A working secondary provider is a great goal in itself if the network is independent. Currently the critical military communication in Ukraine depends on how he feels today for example.
On a policy level, there are likely also issues with using a private US company for critical EU communication.
Having a single global provider is never a great idea. It's even worse when it relies on someone like Musk.
> Europe is also so densely populated that full 4g coverage is totally doable.
Broadband via fiber (fine, let's save money and use VDSL for the last mile) is totally doable for the population centers. But we can't even manage that reliably at scale.
In Germany, mobile internet of any speed gets spotty once you're outside of the cities. It's just a sad state of affairs.
Broadband via fiber (fine, let's save money and use VDSL for the last mile) is totally doable for the population centers. But we can't even manage that reliably at scale.
In Germany, mobile internet of any speed gets spotty once you're outside of the cities. It's just a sad state of affairs.
Broadband via fiber (fine, let's save money and use VDSL for the last mile) is totally doable for the population centers.
Why VDSL and why only population centers? 50% of the households in The Netherlands have access to fiber internet. My parents live in a small village and have fiber (their village is about as remote as a remote German village). Heck, they are even hooking up farms out in the fields to fiber. It just takes some subsidies from the government, but it'll last for decades, so it is well worth it.
In Germany, mobile internet of any speed gets spotty once you're outside of the cities. It's just a sad state of affairs.
Internet is just hopelessly behind in Germany. We have lived in an economically strong area in Southern Germany. But wired broadband was deplorable (slow on paper, even slower and less reliable in practice). And mobile internet is not only spotty, the pricing is insane. E.g. unlimited 5G was 90 Euro per month last time I looked (I pay 25 per month).
Why VDSL and why only population centers? 50% of the households in The Netherlands have access to fiber internet. My parents live in a small village and have fiber (their village is about as remote as a remote German village). Heck, they are even hooking up farms out in the fields to fiber. It just takes some subsidies from the government, but it'll last for decades, so it is well worth it.
In Germany, mobile internet of any speed gets spotty once you're outside of the cities. It's just a sad state of affairs.
Internet is just hopelessly behind in Germany. We have lived in an economically strong area in Southern Germany. But wired broadband was deplorable (slow on paper, even slower and less reliable in practice). And mobile internet is not only spotty, the pricing is insane. E.g. unlimited 5G was 90 Euro per month last time I looked (I pay 25 per month).
Germany's problem is German, not European. Germany also used to have waiting lists of many months for getting an extra line (+ they were expensive). Apparently, that was a Good Thing because it was because the state monopoly was protected against competition from Evil Capitalism (usually Foreign as well).
Allow competition and good things will happen.
Allow competition and good things will happen.
> Germany's problem is German, not European.
I'm not sure if you've noticed who's calling the shots in the EU. Germany's problem is the EU's problem.
I often feel like there's a fundamental misunderstanding in German politics which then spreads to EU politics. They make the same basic mistake the Soviets made: believing that people are perfectly rational, don't react to incentives, and will do what's best for everyone if given the chance. Why have competition, you'll just waste resources. If someone says they're not able to work, surely that's true, so just give them money. If we just give billions to academics, surely they'll spend it wisely and get us a first class satellite internet. If we elect someone, it's always wise to give them plenty of power so they can make their job efficiently, there's no way they'd abuse that power. If we establish a bureaucracy, surely they'll focus on being efficient and nobody will try to grow their department beyond necessary just to increase their status.
I'm not sure if you've noticed who's calling the shots in the EU. Germany's problem is the EU's problem.
I often feel like there's a fundamental misunderstanding in German politics which then spreads to EU politics. They make the same basic mistake the Soviets made: believing that people are perfectly rational, don't react to incentives, and will do what's best for everyone if given the chance. Why have competition, you'll just waste resources. If someone says they're not able to work, surely that's true, so just give them money. If we just give billions to academics, surely they'll spend it wisely and get us a first class satellite internet. If we elect someone, it's always wise to give them plenty of power so they can make their job efficiently, there's no way they'd abuse that power. If we establish a bureaucracy, surely they'll focus on being efficient and nobody will try to grow their department beyond necessary just to increase their status.
> Germany's problem is the EU's problem.
Let me try again: Germany has bad internet because Germany is German, not because the EU forces Germany to be German.
I agree with the other sentiment you express: that Germany's bad German ideas cause problems for the entire EU due to Germany's size and influence. France's bad French ideas are of the same dumb variety and they also cause problems for the entire EU due to France's size and influence.
All member states have their favourite dumb ideas. That's not much of a problem if they balance out with each other. It's a big problem when they don't.
And of course the EU would be better with less German and French influence. The EU would also be better if the UK could Brenter to counter the Big State and Big Planning ideas of not just Germany and France but also Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, etc. The "Frugal Four" certainly can't do it alone.
Let me try again: Germany has bad internet because Germany is German, not because the EU forces Germany to be German.
I agree with the other sentiment you express: that Germany's bad German ideas cause problems for the entire EU due to Germany's size and influence. France's bad French ideas are of the same dumb variety and they also cause problems for the entire EU due to France's size and influence.
All member states have their favourite dumb ideas. That's not much of a problem if they balance out with each other. It's a big problem when they don't.
And of course the EU would be better with less German and French influence. The EU would also be better if the UK could Brenter to counter the Big State and Big Planning ideas of not just Germany and France but also Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, etc. The "Frugal Four" certainly can't do it alone.
> I'm not sure if you've noticed who's calling the shots in the EU.
Yeah, the EU.
> Germany's problem is the EU's problem.
Certainly not with regards to infrastructure. All countries around Germany are strictly better for mobile and broadband infrastructure.
Yeah, the EU.
> Germany's problem is the EU's problem.
Certainly not with regards to infrastructure. All countries around Germany are strictly better for mobile and broadband infrastructure.
Cambodia was better almost 15 years ago. That Germany's internet is the mess it is, is purely Germany's fault.
There are a lot of places with surprisingly poor mobile coverage even inside the Berlin city limits.
I think one way Starlink could massively improve the digital infrastructure here is to be a demonstration that it's possible to be better; the existence proofs of other nations doesn't have the same emotional valence as the existence proof of your coworker.
I think one way Starlink could massively improve the digital infrastructure here is to be a demonstration that it's possible to be better; the existence proofs of other nations doesn't have the same emotional valence as the existence proof of your coworker.
https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-space-policy/...
This means it's for government use, and is not really comparable to commercial end user services.