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It seems fairly short sighted after the last decade to not assume there is also a military, state, or data collection side to a tech startup's business case. T
by drawfloat 6y ago
It seems fairly short sighted after the last decade to not assume there is also a military, state, or data collection side to a tech startup's business case.
There are definitely applications for this in all those sectors, the onus should be on Starlink to confirm that they don't or assume they are – particularly in light of Elon's recent announcement about SpaceX weapon drops.
- modeless 6y agoThere are undoubtedly military applications and it's not a secret conspiracy or anything. The US military has already tested Starlink and it's been publicly announced. SpaceX is already a military contractor in other areas, of course. But the consumer market is bigger. It's not an afterthought; it's the main event. And AFAIK SpaceX's funding for Starlink is a combination of their own revenue from launch services, and private VC. So it's not correct to say that the military is "bankrolling" Starlink, except to the extent that they buy unrelated launch services from SpaceX.