Comment on SpaceX is reportedly building a $1.8 billion network of spy satellites for US intelligence
db2@lemmy.world 8 months agoMaybe this is naive of me
It really is. We’re not discussing the philosophy of free and open communication, we’re talking about a single narcissist who has been given money and power and how that’s a problem.
vvv@programming.dev 8 months ago
Science fiction of the 90s was the time to discuss philosophy. We didn’t come to a conclusion then. The future is now. A global low latency, highly available communications network is technologically inevitable. In our timeline, a rich narcissist has gathered enough support and competence around himself to start building that network. So now we have a real, concrete questions that needs an answer: who should have access to that network, and who should decide?
The way I see it, the options are (opening the network for everyone globally):
Do you have another suggestion?
pennomi@lemmy.world 8 months ago
vvv@programming.dev 8 months ago
Then what are we even discussing? we’ve had orbital cameras for decades. These are just networked better and launched different?
pennomi@lemmy.world 8 months ago
This is a huge network (hundreds) of very low orbit satellites, making surveillance far closer to realtime, with more global coverage, with presumably a higher resolution. Since there are so many of them they’re also more resistant to anti-satellite weapons than traditional surveillance assets.
Remember that the existing Keyhole satellites are basically the same build as the Hubble Space Telescope, meaning fewer, larger, more expensive satellites. This is a huge leap in capability.