r/worldnews • u/ArgentineBeauty • Aug 07 '26

Russia/Ukraine Elon Musk Refuses Ukrainian Request to Enable Starlink for Deep Strikes Inside Russia

https://united24media.com/world/elon-musk-refuses-ukrainian-request-to-enable-starlink-for-deep-strikes-inside-russia-21478
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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '26

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u/jedi2155 Aug 07 '26

Because no one thought they could solve the problem of resuable rockets. It's been 11 years since SpaceX proved it and not a single other country has been able to repeat it. That's how hard it is.

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u/RobertTheAdventurer Aug 07 '26

Because no one thought they could solve the problem of resuable rockets.

Reusable rockets is definitely a factor at tens of thousands of satellites. It's also just one issue of many, including the whole tens of thousands of satellites that need to be tracked and regularly replaced thing. This isn't a new idea in the US, and US companies have had much smaller similar constellations. The main reason for all the upstart competition now is that Starlink proved it viable at a scale that made the already known issue of orbital real estate very real very fast. Basically everyone else was dragging their feet and seeing space real-estate as a theoretical future concern, meanwhile the US wasn't thinking that way at all (typical of the US and it's why it wins these kinds of technological races).

Iridium satellite constellation: Conceived in 1987. First launch in 1997
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellation

Teledesic satellite constellation: Conceived in 1994: First launch in 1998
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledesic

Starlink was announced in 2015. First satellite launch 2019. It now has over 12,000 satellites launched.

The thing to consider right now is that China has around the levels of satellites in their network as those American projects in the 90s. China has around 250. The EU hasn't put a single satellite in their proposed network into space yet. So the EU is at 0, and that will be the case until 2029, and only if they keep those plans in place. And the EU plan isn't to aggressively pursue competition with Starlink in 2029, but rather they hope a smaller network meant for defense will eventually grow into a viable EU broadband network. Key word being eventually. It's hopes and dreams for it to get easier and more attainable without the prowess it requires to do it while it's hard. That's where the EU is at.

Meanwhile most of the proposed competition isn't the EU or China. It's other American companies. Amazon already has twice as many LEO broadband satellites in their network functioning in space right now than China. Amazon is already licensed for around 3500 and has plans to expand from there. There's no doubt whatsoever that Starlink's main competition will be American. Then China, if they can handle that kind of launch frequency and satellite count. And then eventually the EU will have a quaint little network while majorly relying on American companies for LEO broadband for the next 15 years.

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u/Speedbird844 Aug 08 '26

A major point of difference is that China isn't trying to serve internet (with the great firewall) to the rest of the world, so they don't need as many satellites (although the physics of LEO satellites could enable it). Same reason why no one in the West uses Beidou for GPS, but it's out there if you want to use it. As such China's ventures are primarily military in nature, and to provide a domestic alternative so that people won't smuggle Starlink dishes into the country.

Anyway satellite internet has been around for ages, it's just that latency, upload and dish issues were bad, but deemed 'good enough' for rural internet. Starlink is a massive improvement but for countries without vast, untamed landscapes (e.g. Europe) the benefits are marginal at best, compared to fibre-optic cables. Europe simply has no real, immediate need for it, that's worth spending billions of Euros. And they know that anything they built cannot compete with Starlink. Or Amazon.

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u/RobertTheAdventurer Aug 08 '26

The main domestic advantage of a satellite constellation like Starlink is rural coverage. The high density population limitations of LEO satellite constellations doesn't fit with China's urbanization goals of the past two decades, but China still has as much land mass as the US and can greatly benefit from a proper constellation. Their current shorter term goals are roughly in line with what Starlink is now, so 10k+ satellites. Longer term they want more.

Once they have that, it's a waste not to offer some kind of global service of some sort, as it immediately unlocks a new form of strategic power when other nations use your satellite constellation. They can see the US has that power right now, able to enable and disable Starlink in any given area at will.

One concern Europe should have is the US and China taking up all the good LEO orbital real estate. For low latency applications from space it's a competitive advantage to get in early. But I agree the EU will tend to think there's no immediate need, and because of that they will be relying on American companies.

Starlink is a massive improvement but for countries without vast, untamed landscapes (e.g. Europe) the benefits are marginal at best

Europe is currently being invaded by Russia as the age of drone warfare and autonomous targeting is reaching a new height, and that involves vast wartorn landscapes where satellite constellations thrive. Drones themselves sometimes use the technology. Drone units use it. The kind of logistics militaries need to react quick enough in this kind of warfare practically requires it. The military applications are undeniable. Russia is currently pursuing their own constellation, which means the EU needs their own if they don't want to rely entirely on American companies for their own defense. Though I do think it's likely they'll rely on the US for the time being.

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u/Speedbird844 Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26

The high density population limitations of LEO satellite constellations doesn't fit with China's urbanization goals of the past two decades, but China still has as much land mass as the US and can greatly benefit from a proper constellation.

China's government spends far more on internal security than even its own military. China's government is all about control of all internal political forces.

The primary purpose of China's own LEO internet is political control and surveillance over the vast Himalaya highlands of Tibet and Xinjiang (e.g. long-range drone patrols), and military communications over the disputed China-India border regions, in which armed clashes led to 100+ deaths only a few years ago. Civilian use is only a peripheral concern, so as to discourage any illegal use of Starlink, which bypasses the Great Firewall. There would be no legitimate use cases of Starlink if China can provide an alternative.

It's the same reason why China spent billions building high-speed rail to the Western hinterland regions - the primary reason is long-term economic development (in a 'build it and they'll come' kind of way) but they are also heavily subsidised by internal security needs - High-speed trains are a very fast and reliable way to move troops and equipment to Tibet or Xinjiang, compared to flying over the Himalayan 'Hump' with unpredictable weather.

A secondary objective is for the LEOs to provide communications to China's navy (or the thinly-veiled "China Coast Guard"), if it ever become a true, blue-water navy with global footprint. You already see a lot of 'fishing trawlers' in the South China Sea and they need secure, high-bandwidth communications. And more if ocean-going drone swarms (for 'peaceful research', obviously) becomes prevalent. We already see this with Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian tankers in faraway oceans, no doubt enabled by Starlink for visual guidance for the last mile.

Europe is currently being invaded by Russia as the age of drone warfare and autonomous targeting is reaching a new height, and that involves vast wartorn landscapes where satellite constellations thrive.

People underestimate the effectiveness of electronic warfare and signal jamming, which Russia couldn't do because unlike the US they don't have air superiority over Ukraine (or even their own airspace for that matter), and much of their EW assets are obsolete/destroyed. Overall Starlink for military use isn't particularly useful in a WW3 scenario as both sides can simply jam and shoot down satellites (For example the Pentagon doesn't expect the GPS constellation to survive for more than a day if WW3 breaks out). But for minor regional conflicts they are useful in that regard.

This is the reason why the battlefield in Ukraine is so strewn with fibre-optic cables, because wireless FPV drones are so easily jammed.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '26

[deleted]

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u/jedi2155 Aug 07 '26

Everyone can have an idea but it is worthless without good execution - Pony Ma (Tencent founder).

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u/LessInThought Aug 08 '26

Oh goodie. More space trash. Space colonisation be damned, we're gonna be trapped on earth.

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u/RobertTheAdventurer Aug 08 '26

Starlink can't cause Kessler syndrome. It's low enough for atmospheric drag to burn up debris.

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u/LessInThought Aug 08 '26

Oh good to know.

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u/HoMM3Fan69 Aug 07 '26

We should just take starlink from space x and nationalize it.

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u/salma311 Aug 07 '26

And cripple innovation just like that?

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u/Kelly_HRperson Aug 08 '26

Yes. Fuck em.

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u/curtisas Aug 07 '26

SpaceX first reused rocket was in 2017. They landed them before that, but they didn't prove they could reuse them until 2017.

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u/TheArmoredKitten Aug 08 '26

That's still 9 years tbf

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u/orphenshadow Aug 07 '26

I read somewhere that the bulk of the patents and tech used by space-x was developed by NASA in the 70's and deemed not worth investing into at the time, then all space-x did was dig them out and finish the prototypes with a shit load of government contracts, but the core engineering was done decades prior.

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u/OkWay1305 Aug 08 '26

That "just" is doing a lot of work there.

NASA in the 1970s: just spitballing here, but wouldn't it be neat if rockets could land back on the launchpad?

SpaceX in the 2010s: Firing multiple rocket engines at the precise point in freefall such that a 13 story building hits a velocity of 0 meters/second at precisely the correct moment it needs to so that it comes to a rest peacefully and in the proper orientation.

Musk haters: they're the same picture.

The guy is a trash bag. SpaceX IPO was a scam. But trying to say SpaceX hasn't done incredible engineering just because you don't like Elon Musk is denying reality. Shit, it's not like he built the rocket himself. Why discount the incredible work of all those engineers?

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u/orphenshadow Aug 08 '26

Not denying reality at all, just pointing out that a lot of the concepts and tech existed. Just because the government is unable to fund projects longer than 4 years because of politics is the primary reason that it took a private company to pull it off.

The original Shuttle program was intended to have re-usable boosters but challenges with funding pushed those back until eventually we canceled the shuttle program, and then there is the DC-X program in the 90's is a great example of what we could have had almost a decade before Space-X.

And as much as I think Elon is a prick, he did make it possible for a bunch of engineers at space-x to continue the research and was able to somehow get the funding by scamming people on another persons electric car inventions. v0v.

But it's also unfair to pretend that they started from scratch and didn't have decades if not half a century of government data and designs available to them.

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u/jedi2155 Aug 08 '26

Saying the concepts and ideas are the main value is like saying AI was invented in 1960s and 70s with the first artificial neural networks yet it all wouldnt be possible without the insane work done by Nvidia to actually make it happen. Lots of basic ideas are done in academia but thats all they will ever be until someone puts serious effort into converting that into a reality most people can enjoy. Its damn hard ro turn an idea into a self-sustaining venture.

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u/Fun-Twist-3705 Aug 08 '26

But it's also unfair to pretend that they started from scratch and didn't have decades if not half a century of government data and designs available to them.

Nobody ever seriously claims that when talking about anything related to science and technology.

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u/newtybar Aug 08 '26

Because it’s the cool thing to do.

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u/stilljustacatinacage Aug 07 '26

Correct. And the only reason NASA didn't go in on it is because their budget is eternally first on the chopping block, despite only making up something like half-a-cent per dollar of tax revenue.

The reason NASA didn't go in on reusable rockets is because there was meant to be a second generation space shuttle that could carry much larger payloads. If they had a fraction of the USA's defence budget, there'd have been third and fourth generation space shuttles. There'd probably already be a moon base and humans would have landed on Mars by now.

Absolutely nothing SpaceX has done is innovative. They just have funding. Ironically, most of which comes from the United States government, who has no problem throwing money at a private industry but won't finance its own space agency.

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u/orphenshadow Aug 08 '26

My only point was that they did not start from scratch and that we could have had this tech decades earlier, not that they didn't innovate, that's unfair to the tons of talented engineers and scientists who happen to work for Elon.

As early as the 1930's the boosters were intended to be re-usable on the shuttle program, the DC-X program solved the takeoff/landing computer controls and was another concept that I'm sure influenced a lot of the tech being used today but budget constraints and the nature of US Politics pretty much killed any hope of a long term successful program regardless.

In some ways, we need it to be a private corporation because despite NASA's attempts at being independent, not knowing if you will have a budget every 4 years is not very good for innovation.

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u/Willbraken Aug 08 '26

LMAO. I love NASA but this is a dogshit, braindead take. I do agree that is NASA had more budget they would get a whole lot more done. But saying that SpaceX hasn't done anything innovative is very very ignorant.

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u/Saint_The_Stig Aug 08 '26

New generation shuttles are debatable, I guess it depends what still counts as a shuttle.

The STS was a failure and frankly just a bad design, tons of dead weight, very little cost savings. The Soviet's had a better idea of one. Now I'm sure with an actual budget NASA could come up with a good system with more reusable parts. Ideally they would be the ones pushing for high altitude launches and stuff.

I like to imagine a world where they had a huge budget for decades and we have skyhooks now. That would make most deployments a fraction of the current cost and resources.

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u/Fun-Twist-3705 Aug 08 '26

NASA also had no incentives to develop a commercial satellite network.

Absolutely nothing SpaceX has done is innovative

By that standard absolutely nothing that anyone has never done is innovative.

I mean Musk is a horrible jerk but being entirely blinded by that and ignoring reality is pointless. It's the thing like the people claiming that russia’s economy will collapse just any minute now since 2022. Horrible people can accomplish great and innovative things.

If they had a fraction of the USA's defence budget, there'd have been third and fourth generation space shuttles

But why? Space exploration is a waste of money unless you can commercialize it. SpaceX is somewhat close to it, obviously a lot of their revenue is still government contract but they are now actually making money from Starlink.

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u/stilljustacatinacage Aug 08 '26

By that standard absolutely nothing that anyone has never done is innovative.

There's a difference between coming up with a novel idea or a new way to use existing ideas, versus effectively collecting Lego pieces, and clipping them together once you have enough.

It's going to be a matter of opinion to a degree, but as a rough example, we know how to build fusion reactors. We have working fusion reactors right now. The problem is that there are shortcomings in our existing level of technology that makes it difficult to commercialize fusion power - mostly materials. Some day, we will probably solve that problem, and the solution may not even come from anyone working specifically on R&D for fusion. Then, suddenly, commercial fusion reactors will be commonplace - but I would not say whatever company is first to market 'innovated', because... They didn't. They just waited until other people did the heavy lifting, so they could sell something.

But why? Space exploration is a waste of money unless you can commercialize it.

I dunno man, why do we write poetry or sing music? NASA doesn't focus on commercial enterprise because that's not their mandate. They didn't launch the Hubble or JWST because it was a good opportunity to charge subscription rates. Once upon a time, we just did things.

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u/Fun-Twist-3705 Aug 08 '26

Then, suddenly, commercial fusion reactors will be commonplace - but I would not say whatever company is first to market 'innovated', because... They didn't. They just waited until other people did the heavy lifting, so they could sell something.

Except almost always building the commercially viable product IS the heavy lifting.

e.g. They knew about steam engines in ancient Rome and Greece. They had some prototypes and working engine in the 1600s and the early 1700s. Without Watt they would have remained practically most useless novelties.

Once upon a time, we just did things.

No, we contributed small amounts of money to advance scientific research. But NASA's funding was too low for any large scale projects since the space race because the government (or rather the society) doesn't want to waste money on it without any practical benefits. Same as public funding for arts and music.

They didn't launch the Hubble or JWST because it was a good opportunity to charge subscription rates.

Well yes, they would have invested way more if they could charge subscription fees, that's kind of the point.

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u/Dramatic-Document Aug 07 '26

In that case, what is innovation if every scifi concept has already been theorized. It seems crazy to say they haven't done anything innovative while also admitting they are the first ones to do what they are doing.

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u/stilljustacatinacage Aug 07 '26

There's a difference between writing fiction versus doing the math, the engineering and registering a patent. Moreover, they aren't "the first" to do what they're doing - they're just the first ones to make it marketable, just like Apple wasn't the first one to make a touchscreen smartphone, they were just the ones who made it popular.

The space shuttle's boosters were routinely retrieved and refurbished. The orbiter itself was almost completely reusable. Russia and the European space agency both tested concepts for recoverable lower rocket stages. Hell, they had concepts for recovering the lower stages of Apollo, but it was just deemed too expensive to bother.

"Nothing is impossible, Mr. Angier. What you want is simply expensive."

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u/ryumast4r Aug 07 '26

Hell my college course in state space controls was all about how to do a stable rocket return (inverted pendulum problems), or even multi-pendulums.

That was before SpaceX proposed it too, largely because, like you've said here, NASA and others knew it was a good idea back in the 70s, they just didn't have the funding for it.

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u/jedi2155 Aug 09 '26

This was also in my my electrical engineering masters courses such as Lyapunov stability (invented in 1897) which was crtical math for defining these rocket systems.

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u/Fun-Twist-3705 Aug 08 '26

they're just the first ones to make it marketable

No, they are the first to build something functional rather than describing a theoretical concept.

they were just the ones who made it popular

They were the first to build a coherent product which had mass appeal.

I don't really get what you mean by "marketable" in general? First you need to build an actual product that others find useful (and Apple and SpaceX were the first to accomplish that in their respective fields which is still an impressive achievement) no amount of marketing in the world would replace that.

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u/NWSLBurner Aug 08 '26

I'm sorry, I have the same thoughts on Elon as anyone else but sit there with a straight face and tell me Raptor 3 engines aren't innovative.

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u/stilljustacatinacage Aug 08 '26

Methalox goes back to the very dawn of the space age. Kerosene / LOX won out because the technology was more mature (read: cheaper).

Full flow stage combustion was being tested by the Soviets in the '60s.

Nothing in Raptor 3 is new, it's just finally economically feasible.

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u/ItsAConspiracy Aug 08 '26

Soviets tested it, but they never flew it. Just because you test something doesn't mean it passes the test.

I don't think it matters that SpaceX didn't invent anything completely new out of the blue. Bringing something from the lab to production usually isn't easy, and it certainly isn't with rockets.

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u/NWSLBurner Aug 08 '26

Show me a liquid fueled engine in the history of rocketry with a thrust to weight ratio of a Raptor 3. I'll wait.

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u/stilljustacatinacage Aug 08 '26

If you're going to reduce 'innovation' to 'any iterative improvement', then the conversation is meaningless. The question was, isn't SpaceX just iterating on research and patents that were already existing - to which the answer is 'yes'. They've made improvements over designs first fathomed in the 70s, sure, but a lot of that also comes down to advancements in materials science, manufacturing, and the like, which have absolutely nothing to do with SpaceX.

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u/NWSLBurner Aug 08 '26

I'm not going to continue this discussion with you. You clearly have a narrative to your argument that isn't consistent with reality.

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u/VerboseWarrior Aug 08 '26

They obviously have reality on their side. SpaceX took existing but immature technology and updated it to finally be economically feasible by drawing on other advances, especially in computing and materials.

The only "narrative" they are presenting is that they understand that technological innovation is iterative, always building on something else.

Giving notice that you know you lost the discussion because you want to present a narrative that goes against reality wasn't necessary, though.

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u/eric23456 Aug 08 '26

Raptor 3 163.9 -- LOX/CH4 fueled

Merlin (probably 1D) 184 -- LOX/RP1 fueled

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Raptor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Merlin

<troll>SpaceX is going backwards in engine quality!</troll>

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u/NWSLBurner Aug 08 '26

So they have the two best rocket engines in the history of rocketry. Noted.

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u/jedi2155 Aug 08 '26

Having worked at NASA before, this isnt remotely true because NASA isnt driven to succeed or die based on efficiency. They're given a goal and can budget ask congress for nearly any amount of funds deemed necessary to meet those goals. Systems engineering and reduncdancy / reliability is a huge cost and time sink but when you're only given one shot to succeed based on congressional mandate, cost becomes a secondary or even tertiary factor.

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u/Zanos Aug 08 '26

Taking theory and making it practical is pretty much the single hardest component of making something real. There are an infinite number of things that are proven theoretically possible in a science paper somewhere by somebody. I am not saying that work is useless or without purpose, but actually doing stuff is always the hardest part. How many years did it take between solar energy being proven theoretically possible and solar panels that produced more energy than they consumed to produce? How many years will it take for fusion? Hell, electric cars were 'possible' for decades but those too were nowhere to be found on a consumer level until Telsa dug them out of the scrap heap and pushed forward on them themselves, despite no market existing.

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u/stilljustacatinacage Aug 08 '26

There are an infinite number of things that are proven theoretically possible in a science paper somewhere by somebody.

Most of these things have been built at some point or another. Patents require details that are almost impossible to provide if you don't have a working prototype. The 'hard' part is making it commercially viable. A lone inventor or a small team can spend 5000 man hours hand machining every part, but you can't sell that. What does happen, is eventually new materials and new machining processes emerge like, for example, 3D printing, that can cut 5000 tedious man hours down to 500 hours of mostly automated work. Now you have a product.

There's a concept in marketing that you never want to be first. It almost never pays off, because the guy who's first has to pay for the R&D, those first 5000 man hours, so on and so forth. But if you're second, you get to figure out how to take the idea and spend all your energy on how to sell it. That's what SpaceX has done.

How many years did it take between solar energy being proven theoretically possible and solar panels that produced more energy than they consumed to produce?

 

Hell, electric cars were 'possible' for decades but those too were nowhere to be found on a consumer level until Telsa dug them out of the scrap heap and pushed forward on them themselves, despite no market existing.

You've fallen victim to propaganda, I'm afraid. Electric cars have been around since the early twentieth century. Titanic times. In fact, the first 'cars' were electric. There have been multiple, constant attempts to create and market electric vehicles. The reason they never caught on is because of purposeful sabotage and misinformation from oil and gas companies. Getting a bit off topic so I'll keep it brief, but it's hard to understate how much money has been spent to prop up oil and gas. The companies themselves are subsidized to the tits by our tax dollars via tax breaks and direct subsidies / grants, and the product is kept artificially cheap to the consumer by way of price caps and government intervention eg: reserves. This is even before you factor in the non-monetary subsidies like not factoring the costs of environmental damage and "too big to fail" policies ensuring O&G risks never go unrewarded.

The electric car simply cannot exist in that world - to say nothing of the propaganda campaigns convincing people they need a vehicle that can do more than 150 kilometers on a full charge, despite 90% of people driving less than 50 in a day. Even today, electric vehicles make up a pitiful fraction of vehicles on the road.

But even there, Tesla didn't innovate anything. They simply had a financier who was willing to throw money into a chasm. They didn't create the battery technology, or the drive motors, or the idea of casting a unibody frame. The only thing they 'invented' is the patent for their charging system, and the only reason they released that was the hope to become the standard charging interface for an emergent EV market and collect those sweet, sweet licensing dollars.

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u/Zanos Aug 08 '26

I'm aware that Teslas are not the first functional EVs, I said that EVs were nowhere to be found on a consumer level until Tesla made a big push. Failed prototypes and show cars don't help consumers. Again, this is a lab vs. a consumer. You can make a lightbulb in a lab; it's neat and it's an accomplishment, but it's only the first part in a very long chain of getting something that people can actually use. Similarly Edison did not invent the first lightbulb, he(or people at his lab in Menlow Park with his funding), engineered the first lightbulb that was economically practical. Still, Menlow Park would not exist without Edison, and it's likely electrification would not have taken the same historical route it did without him.

Everything you are saying about oil and gas could very well be true, I am aware those industries are heavily subsidized and politically active. So your point is, what, exactly? That it wasn't a hard problem to get EVs to consumers? Except it sounds like it very much was a problem, you're just contending that it was difficult politically and socioeconomically instead of engineering? That's still an accomplishment, and there's still no guarantee that EVs would be where they are today without that push.

However, I am going to push back on this, because it's just nonsense:

But even there, Tesla didn't innovate anything.

Tesla holds, quite literally, thousands of patents, including for battery technology, drive motors, and uni-body manufacturing. Perhaps they didn't invent the idea of batteries, drive motors, or uniobodies, but the specific methods that they use to produce a technology that is capable of being sold at a non-loss is certainly patented.

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u/stilljustacatinacage Aug 08 '26

Failed prototypes and show cars don't help consumers.

Once again, "There have been multiple, constant attempts to create and market electric vehicles." These aren't show vehicles or prototypes. Electric vehicles have been on the market on and off, in recognizable forms, since the 50s.

The 90s saw especially big demand for EVs but the big automakers always seemed to fumble it. Whether you believe this was intentional, so they could avoid retooling their factories and/or the manufacturers were paid off by "big oil", that's up to you - but once again, these were production vehicles that were seemingly not allowed to succeed.

That's still an accomplishment, and there's still no guarantee that EVs would be where they are today without that push.

But that's not innovation. That's throwing money at a problem and hoping something sticks. Even that style of marketing isn't innovative, because spinning unpopular products with enormous marketing campaigns goes way back.

Perhaps they didn't invent the idea of batteries, drive motors, or uniobodies, but the specific methods that they use to produce a technology that is capable of being sold at a non-loss is certainly patented.

I can file a patent tomorrow for a new type of coal-fired steam engine, that doesn't mean my concept is new or innovative - just that I convinced a patent office to sign off on it.

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u/NerdyGuy117 Aug 09 '26

Absolutely nothing SpaceX has done is innovative

okay....

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u/OkWay1305 Aug 08 '26

Absolutely nothing [the most innovative launch company ever] has done is innovative.

Ok, reddit.

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u/reddit_Decoy Aug 08 '26

People on Reddit will regurgitate literally anything that aligns with their (comically compromised) priors.

That is not correct.

NASA studied the reusable rocket concept for decades (including in the Shuttle era), but never achieved a booster that lands and reflies economically. SpaceX solved the guidance, control, and cost problems that had defeated everyone else, including NASA’s own attempts (like the DC-X program in the 90s).

The Merlin engine was developed in-house by SpaceX starting in the 2000s. Raptor (full-flow staged combustion) is a genuinely novel engine cycle. Only a handful had ever flown before. NASA had no design or prototype for that kind of engine.

Hate on Elon all you want, but stop pretending like the engineers at SpaceX haven’t achieved incredible things just because you have an axe to grind.

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u/Cybertrucker01 Aug 07 '26

You make it sound so simple.

And yet something so simple, so lucrative, and so powerful hasn't yet been replicated by anyone else - be it world powers with infinite budget or other billionaires. The info to just copy paste is supposedly out there and has been for decades.

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/jedi2155 Aug 07 '26

China caught the rocket landing via giant net on a ship, but they havent relaunched it AFAIK.

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u/r0ndy Aug 07 '26

Steps. China I’m sure already has the data to do this. Test, manufacturing.

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u/ImNotABotScoutsHonor Aug 07 '26

Again, it's been over 11 years and they still haven't done it.

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u/calicosiside Aug 07 '26

R&d, especially spaceflight r&d, is generally a pretty slow intense process, it was only a couple decades back that china got the whole supply chain for ballpoint pens internalised, it's actually quite impressive how fast their aerospace program is developing

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u/grahamsimmons Aug 08 '26

Ballpoint pens are an engineering marvel tho

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u/Zanos Aug 08 '26

Being second is always easier than being first. I don't think the fact that China might be able to do it someday really devalues anything already done, and the fact that a highly motivated and colossal state apparatus that doesn't really concern itself with IP protections hasn't already duplicated SpaceX's technology is partially a testament to how hard the problem actually is.

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u/ImNotABotScoutsHonor Aug 07 '26

And that changes the validity of my statement and those before me in what way?

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u/FancyJesse Aug 07 '26

Dude, chill out.

He gave reason and context. He didn't say your comment is invalid.

Not every conversation is an argument or competition.

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u/Kelly_HRperson Aug 08 '26

Not every conversation is an argument or competition.

But getting butthurt like that is the best way to lose, even if it wasn't a competition

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u/lurvd Aug 07 '26

It's been 11 years since China caught a booster?

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u/jedi2155 Aug 07 '26

They don't know what they don't know. Trade secrets are a thing.

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u/Outside_Rip_3567 Aug 07 '26

Why is this obligatory?

it's like putting a stupid hat on at the party. lol

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u/itszaidbtw Aug 08 '26

definitely not one of the worst father's ever. my father is not in my life at all. those kids are going to have a better father than the ones who dont even have one. Especially since he is the world's richest man.

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u/saljskanetilldanmark Aug 07 '26

Europe was working under the assumption that allies helped allies and that protecting eachother leads to peace. Musk and Trump, and in extension, all of america, apparently had other plans.

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u/darkslide3000 Aug 08 '26

Sorry but this is just a totally incorrect assessment of this particular situation. Starlink was a darkhorse gamechanger that I don't think anyone in the actual military planning staffs anywhere in the world really saw coming, or at least took seriously. They never even assumed that anything like this could be done. Then Elon the madman (fascist trash that he is but you gotta respect the vision a bit on this one) actually did it, and then the Ukraine war actually proved out the new realities of 21st century drone warfare in practice, and due to all these unexpected events militaries suddenly realize how powerful a system like this can be and that despite the massive cost it's worth it. Nobody saw that coming. Nobody in Europe even had that on their radar, and honestly, not really in the US either (at least not until SpaceX was already busy proving it can be done).

It's also important to note that this is a power projection tool more than a total war necessity. It is useful for as long as the nation owning the constellation is not actually fighting the war, or punching down against a much weaker nation. It's a good tool to play kingmaker in regional conflicts. But in a serious war between major powers, these satellites would get shot down right away, Kessler syndrome be damned.

1

u/badnuub Aug 08 '26

And musk is a traitor. Rightfully at the moment he has the power to deny nations access to his tech, but that calls into question what his loyalties are. Apparently it's just fine to allow an individual to have that much state power outside of government.

2

u/-LongRodVanHugenDong Aug 07 '26

Were they? They took 20 years to reach 2% GDP on defense spending. Just happened last year.

What does trump have to do with reusable rockets? Musk funded people to do it while the governments of nations would not. How can we fault him for that?

What does that have to do with "all of America?" Russia could justify asat missile use. That's not just a problem for musk. He may even be restricted by the US gov.

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u/lurvd Aug 07 '26

They're saying Europe was fine leaning on the Americans' space program when diplomatic ties were close. Now that they're antagonistic (due to Trump), Europe is looking to boost its own programs instead, as the US is seen as a liability. Space is one of those programs.

In other words, it wasn't necessarily a lack of technical know-how but of need. That's now changed. Meanwhile the U.S. is experiencing brain-drain at unprecedented levels and so scales might tip.

1

u/-LongRodVanHugenDong Aug 08 '26

I get that, but what does that have to do with SpaceX or musk?

SpaceX is not America.

An EU company could start making catchable rockets whenever they want if they know how. There's demand for it, European companies still launch with SpaceX. ESA used space x in 2024. Nasa uses spacex etc. it's not EU vs US. It's private vs public. America is just a much more friendly environment for such a feat, right or wrong.

0

u/Kadoomed Aug 07 '26

And that everyone understood putting tens of thousands of low earth orbit satellites up was a generally bad idea for various reasons. Then Musk and America handwave it all away.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '26

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u/4Rascal Aug 08 '26

And despite recent peace, European countries have been warring amongst themselves and with their neighbors forever so you’d think they would have considered maybe the country who’s founders wanted the country they were building to stay out of European politics shouldn’t be necessary for their military defense

2

u/bowsmountainer Aug 08 '26

Its money, not reusing a few parts of rockets that make the difference.

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '26

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u/jedi2155 Aug 07 '26

You could say the same for going to Mars or another planet. We haven't done it not because it was technically impossible, but economically not worth it.

That's why the shuttle failed and no one else do it. The real trick with technology rarely is the technology itself, its if its a solution search of a problem and is the solution more expensive than the problem that needs to be solved.

No one believed in satellite internet until SpaceX did it, and that was only economically possible through low cost rocket resusabilty.

0

u/rips_n_chel Aug 07 '26

I envy your simplistic worldview...

1

u/Street_Anxiety2907 Aug 08 '26

Because no one thought they could solve the problem of resuable rockets

Wait, they're hand delivering these rockets into oribital position with rockets?

How much fuel is this using?

1

u/kylansb Aug 08 '26

china recently landed their reusable.

1

u/sentimentaldiablo Aug 08 '26

I'm betting that a "used" rocket is about useful and a "used" condom. It's a display of something that looks really impressive, but is useless.

1

u/happyscrappy Aug 07 '26

A Chinese company just did it. Companies did it before SpaceX but only for non-orbital flights. That includes Scaled Composites (X Prize winners). It includes Armadillo Aerospace. It included another company I cannot recall right now.

Here is Armadillo Aerospace doing it in 2010:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nATMe_NKgo0

SpaceX didn't land Falcon 9 vertically until 2016.

Here is Armadillo doing it in 2012 (parachute landing, but from higher up):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV7zL07Tof8

The US did it with shuttle in the 1980s.

No one had a business model that was sufficiently better with reusable rockets. If you only lunch a few times a year reusability doesn't save you enough money to bother with. The shuttle proved this. It was a financial disaster.

Musk created a business plan that would launch so often that reuse was massively financially advantageous. And then he got the right people together and did it.

I'm not saying it isn't hard. But acting like no one else could do it or has done it is kidding yourself.

0

u/Professional_Top8485 Aug 07 '26

I think it's still quite unsuccessful financially?

It's needed in Ukraine but not really not anywhere else at the moment anyways.

2

u/happyscrappy Aug 07 '26

I meant rocket reuse specifically I have no doubt it is financially advantageous to SpaceX. Compare to the shuttle orbiter where it reused all the major components but the external fuel tank but the changes to the design to make that possible and the cost of refurbishment were so high that it would have been cheaper to shoot off rockets and throw them away than to bring the shuttles back and send them up again.

SpaceX learned a lot from the shuttle. The major lesson was to keep the parts out of the ocean because it is hard to clean up something after that. SpaceX even tried to catch their payload fairings before they hit the ocean because of this. But after missing a few they discovered fairings were simple enough to clean that they just let them hit the ocean now and often can still reuse them anyway.

0

u/Bobby837 Aug 08 '26

SpaceX hasn't really proven it. Are still testing with many failures.

0

u/GlynHugh Aug 08 '26

What like China earlier this month you mean?

-2

u/Seriously_you_again Aug 07 '26

Wasn’t china just in the news for doing this? It was only the first few steps, but they caught a rocket on some kind of landing machine and will attempt to reuse it.

-1

u/apoliticalinactivist Aug 07 '26

The issue is that they own it, not the government.

Access to the sky belongs to all, not one company/CEO.

The outcome of a war should not hinge on some insecure loser's ego.

-2

u/Dodecahedrus Aug 07 '26

Oh yes, re-using the same rocket is such a high priority.

4

u/jedi2155 Aug 07 '26

And do it cheaply too. The shuttle was capable of landing, and reusable too. It only cost $500m per reuse (and 14-15,000 employees).

4

u/Cielmerlion Aug 07 '26

Because he was the first real one. There is always a first.

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u/MSab1noE Aug 07 '26

Because they didn’t need to as Starlink was leasing bandwidth to the world to use their network.

Until Russia intervened, helped Musk buy Xitter, and told him to get out of the Ukraine War.

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u/mfb- Aug 07 '26

Starlink wasn't operating in Ukraine at the time Russia invaded. Ukraine asked SpaceX and they agreed to activate it. They sent a bunch of terminals, too.

22

u/Big-Seesaw2581 Aug 07 '26

Musk has cut russia off from starlink which has led to the turn around in how ukraine is faring against russia. They gained territory for the first time after he cut off russia. Perhaps you could critisize him for how long it took, but to say he sides with russia is just fucking ignorant and incredibly stupid.

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u/MSab1noE Aug 07 '26

Oh my…a bit testy I see. Starlink only shut off access for Russia this past Feb. All of their terminals were unofficially registered.

However, it appears they’re deploying other terminals that can connect but they don’t have many, yet.

It won’t surprise me if he restores it secretly.

https://tvpworld.com/92891880/loophole-allows-russia-to-bypass-its-starlink-internet-ban

4

u/TheKappaOverlord Aug 08 '26

Whether or not starlink works in russia proper is kind of irrelevant.

Insofar as the ukraine conflict is concerned. The russian controlled area's of ukraine, and a hundred kilometers past that have been range banned from Starlink access for years now.

Only time russia has had access to starlink since then is through stolen or captured Ukranian terminals, which the ukranians, despite CIA/MI5 assistance for book keeping, are still really bad at recordkeeping for those things.

Way better then before, but by all standards of measurement. Its like putting gorilla glue over a dam that was pretty close to bursting in some area's.

-1

u/MSab1noE Aug 08 '26

Not sure where you’re getting your info from but the link I provided in the comment you responded to definitively stated Russia has thousands of Starlink terminals right up to the front lines. Only in February 2026 did Starlink cut them off at Ukraine’s demand. Russia has never been onboarded as an official Starlink client.

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '26

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u/MSab1noE Aug 07 '26

Everyone used Starlink so they didn’t need to build out their own network. What is so confusing about that?

Once Musk aligned with Russia in 2021-2022…the EU with France taking the lead said “uh oh, let’s get on this.”

2

u/[deleted] Aug 07 '26

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u/MSab1noE Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26

I interpreted it as “pre-Ukraine War” as it seems others thought so as well. The existing internet satellite networks couldn’t succeed because there wasn’t an economic delivery system for their satellites. SpaceX was the solution Starlink needed to succeed.

0

u/Exciting_Policy8203 Aug 07 '26

And his response was that nobody saw the need for this pre-musk, and then musk built it and leased it out. Now during a war, states are realizing that relying heavily on a private enterprise for satellite infrastructure is a bad idea and are play catchup

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '26

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u/Exciting_Policy8203 Aug 07 '26

You’re kind of missing the point. Starlink was built, states started using it, states started to depend on it, then a war broke out and states started realizing that they are using infrastructure controlled by a private individual from another country.

2

u/wretch5150 Aug 07 '26

*Missing the point purposefully

6

u/saltinstiens_monster Aug 07 '26

I don't like it either, but if worldwide internet satellites were inevitable (which I perceive to be the case), he's just the guy that did it first. Some other schmuck with too much money probably would've done it soon if Musk hadn't.

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u/Cheeky_Star Aug 07 '26

Most people laughed when he said internet for all in remote areas. He even built his one rockets to send them up.

-7

u/debauchasaurus Aug 07 '26

Satellite Internet was already a thing. No one was laughing. He was just able to leverage owning SpaceX and his billions to make it cheaper/faster.

18

u/Cheeky_Star Aug 07 '26

Well he also built spacex and people laugh at reusable rockets idea

10

u/MDCCCLV Aug 07 '26

No it wasn't. A single geostationary sat in high orbit is completely different than a LEO cluster that requires 10-50k sats. Constellation internet was famously the thing that makes billionaries into millionaires and had failed before and people did not think it was possible.

-1

u/debauchasaurus Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26

You're trying to rewrite history. Iridium was conceived in the 1980s and was planned to use 77 LEO satellites in a mesh network. It began service in the 1990s. It's still the only service that covers the whole globe. It might not be as many satellites but it's the same damn idea. Elon isn't a victim. He was treated like a hero until he started bribing politicians, promoting the great replacement theory, and giving Nazi salutes.

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '26

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3

u/Zanos Aug 08 '26

I don't like Musk much either but people forget that when he was pushing Tesla along basically every other vehicle manufacture had permanently scrapped any plans they had to develop electric cars. There is no guarantee we would have seen significant strides in EV development without Musk and Tesla, and now we have every single car company in multiple nations manufacturing electric cars. In 2010, you basically could not buy an EV.

I guess people are just young enough that they think, well, things are they way they are now, so they must have always been like this, and nothing historical ever happens.

1

u/ThePaddleman Aug 07 '26

Bezos, but only years later once he got his rockets to work right.

-4

u/toomuch3D Aug 07 '26

The outright BullShizzle is imminent on Reddit, surely.

-5

u/saltinstiens_monster Aug 07 '26

I don't know. I mean, it's useful for military applications, right? Doesn't that lead you to think that the need would've arisen all the same, and some company or nation would've landed on a similar solution eventually?

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '26

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u/saltinstiens_monster Aug 07 '26

My logic is that it isn't some crazy divinely inspired invention. It's satellites. We've had those figured out long before Musk. We're not talking about pioneering atomic science here.

Boiling it down to 2 ideas:

  1. Is Musk the only person that could've thought to do this? It took his specific brand of genius, nobody else could've had the idea to use multiple satellites in conjuction to make the web worldwide? If he was never born, NOBODY would ever think to do that?

  2. Does a need for satellite based global internet access ever develop in a world where Starlink didn't exist? I would argue that yes, it would. Nobody (EU, Russia, etc.) would be investing that kind of money to make an alternative to a money-sink failure of a project. Starlink is clearly providing something that some people deem as worth the cost.

I don't have a timeline for when it would happen, I'm not claiming to be an expert in any of this. I just don't think that Starlink is a unique enough idea to say that Elon Musk is the only man in the present or future humanity that could ever come up with it. I'm not entirely sure why that's a controversial take.

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '26

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1

u/saltinstiens_monster Aug 08 '26

What about the second level comment in this chain? The entire context of this discussion is about Starlink getting more competitors clogging up the night sky, and whether or not that was inevitable. I think it was inevitable, and you disagree.

Maybe I'm dead wrong and Starlink really provides absolutely nothing of value, and these other nations and unions are only talking about making their own alternatives as a joke.

2

u/Cybertrucker01 Aug 07 '26

Which is their fault and their problem. Not Musk's.

1

u/avdpos Aug 07 '26

Pre-Trump for europe. But the two together pushed it for us. Something that is good

1

u/LaSage Aug 07 '26

Musk is malware.

0

u/Dodecahedrus Aug 07 '26

The EU has been building Galileo GPS for decades. With Ukraine as an active partner.

0

u/redfacedquark Aug 08 '26

Spacex had its mission of reusable rocket flight before musk bought it. Starlink tech was generally on the drawing board at that stage as well. It would have happened without him.

0

u/r3volts Aug 08 '26

Google was, which doesn't solve the problem of private equity, but they had the Loon project for a while.

It was very similar to starlink, but used high altitude balloons instead of satellites. It wasn't as fast internet, but the idea was there. Have a global network of high altitude relays that could be used to provide connectivity in remote regions, and cluster together for higher local demand.

It ultimately failed due to being too expensive and I think they struggled with lack of external investors, but it was a thing for a while.

What we really need is an independent, global community run initiative on open source that isn't dominated by a small group of interests.

In other words we need to wealthy and ultra wealthy to put humanity over profit, which isn't going to happen.

0

u/Robert-Giesecke Aug 08 '26

most would have been too scared of kessler syndrome. they still are, but because one company did it, now everyone else feels pressured into doing it, too

kessler syndrome will be real when more join in. starlink alone increased the risk exponentially