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Comment by galenmarchetti | Hacker News Reader

Feels like the elephant in the room here is...why can't the US military deploy Starlink capabilities themselves? Is this not meaningful defense technology to own themselves / worthy of legitimate defense research+spending? Feels like with the amount of taxes going into defense, USG and their allies shouldn't have to rely on Elon to make strategically sound decisions

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The military has had communication satellites since the late 1950s. The military's use case is different enough from civilian applications that they build their own systems which have very different properties from starlink.

Here is the US military constellation satellite system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milstar

The US is working on constellations using SpaceX Starshield technology. This is being done under Space Development Agency (SDA) which is resurrection of SDI. They are working on tracking and communications for tracking. They are talking about communications constellation but not soon.

This is great to know! I wasn't aware - I appreciate the attentive response here specifically tailored around Starlink's class of capabilities.

The US military has a bunch of comms satellites. That does not mean the Ukraine military has access to them.

They have access to GPS which is us military. I believe the commenter was suggesting that providing this access in the way GPS is provided would be a passive way to support countries like Ukraine.

This is again a situation where we think we're entitled to a service because we paid for it and that's how capitalism is supposed to work. Unfortunately the service fee doesn't give you power over the whims of the business or it's owner to withhold service from anyone anytime for any reason. This is what the over-long eula boils down to. A legal exemption from fulfilling the basic obligation of a capitalist exchange.

GPS is broadcast only, there is no communications back to the satellite. GPS is provided to everyone.

The United States is not at war with Russia.

We may be funding and equipping a proxy, but we are not at war with them.

>allies shouldn't have to rely on Elon to make strategically sound decisions

What makes you think allowing AFU to use Starlink in this matter is a strategically sound decision?

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