293
SpaceX is reportedly building a $1.8 billion network of spy satellites for US intelligence
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2024
293 points (98.0% liked)
Technology
58311 readers
3221 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
And what, you want to be able to use spy satellites to see your neighbor sunbathing in the backyard?
These are military satellites, to look at military shit like what planes an enemy has on the runway and how many, where tanks are on a battlefield, if a convoy is getting ready to leave a depot and how many vehicles it has. Not to mention, what they are even capable of seeing is a matter of national security. If an enemy knows your satellite only has a certain resolution, they can figure out exactly what camouflage they need to defeat it. If they know how the infrared photography works, they can develop strategies to fake the number of functional vehicles they have. Not everyone in the whole world should know that shit. Otherwise the entire intelligence apparatus of the United States should just pack up and retire.
We already have a global low latency communication network, it’s the thing I’m sending you this message on now. When we don’t need is a global, high quality, spy satellite network that everyone and their brother can use and learn the capabilities of.
Exactly my point. YOU don’t need a surveillance network. The US government DOES. And what do you know, this constellation was purchased by the US military, and is entirely for their exclusive use.
This constellation is being purchased from SpaceX but is not going to be operated by SpaceX. I’m not sure why everyone thinks this is the same as Starlink as if it were a consumer product.
Because Elon is both smart and stupid enough to build in a personal backdoor.
Elon barely does anything at SpaceX these days. No doubt this deal is being run by Shotwell instead.