this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2024
415 points (99.3% liked)

World News

38560 readers
3425 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Elon Musk-controlled satellite internet provider Starlink has told Brazil's telecom regulator Anatel it will not comply with a court order to block social media platform X in the country until its local accounts are unfrozen.

Anatel confirmed the information to Reuters on Monday after its head Carlos Baigorri told Globo TV it had received a note from Starlink, which has more than 200,000 customers in Brazil, and passed it onto Brazil's top court.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes last week ordered all telecom providers in the country to shut down X, which is also owned by billionaire Musk, for lacking a legal representative in Brazil.

The move also led to the freezing of Starlink's bank accounts in Brazil. Starlink is a unit of Musk-led rocket company SpaceX. The billionaire responded to the account block by calling Moraes a "dictator."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Maggoty -1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yup, the military with an operating budget ten times Starlink and an ability to put it's own satellites up could do nothing...

That makes total sense.

You are truly ridiculous.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

You don't seem to understand that it costs more to shoot down a satellite than it costs to launch one. It costs a lot more... Like, A whole lot more.

Yup, the military with an operating budget ten times Starlink and an ability to put it's own satellites up could do nothing...

10 times, eh? That's the budget you're willing to give your anti-satellite program? 10 times is not even "a lot" more, let alone "a whole lot".

Each Starlink satellite costs about $300,000 to build and launch. That allows you $30 million per missile.

The ASM-135 program had a per-unit cost of $380 million (2024 dollars).

A budget 10 times as large isn't going to cut it. You're going to need a budget 127 times as large just to keep up.

Brazil spent $22 billion on its military last year. That would buy them 57 missiles. But, let's assume they can get the cost down to just 10 times (they can't) and say it costs $30 million to down a satellite. Their entire military budget gets them 733 missiles per year.

Again, Starlink can launch 60 in one launch. They have demonstrated an ability to launch over 1200 per year over a 5-year period. They are currently licensed for a constellation that will require production and launch of 2400 per year to sustain, and their next phase will require 8000 satellites per year.

Not even the US military has the capability of shooting down satellites at anything close to these rates.

[–] Maggoty -1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Which makes sense until you remember how the USG budgets procurement programs. The "unit cost" includes all the R&D divided by the number of widgets bought. The actual cost to build is generally far lower. But you just keep going, don't let reality stop you from licking those billionaire boots!

I forgot to also mention, countries have access to debt financing based on their GDP. Pissing off even a medium sized one is not a big brain move.