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Comment by casenmgreen | Hacker News Reader

I may well be utterly wrong, but this seems a bit Maginot Line.

Single large satellites are I think going to be sitting ducks for anti-satellite missiles. Be destroyed first five minutes of a war.

What you need is something like Starlink - bazillions of tiny satellites.

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Surveillance is just as important. In the months and years before a war begins, you need preparation and deterrence.

And as a NATO member and nuclear weapon state, UK's wars are not likely to escalate to satellite shooting. I mean, if it does escalate to that point it's going to be with Russia or China and there'll be bigger problems to worry about than losing a satellite.

I would put it to you that with bigger problems to worry about, you'd really rather not have other problems to worry about as well, such as the complete loss of space-borne surveillance capability, which likely would prove very useful with regard to the bigger problems.

I was in Grand Teton national Park last week and was looking at the sky to view the Perseids meteor shower, and I just saw chains of these Starlink satellites constantly moving across the sky. They look like tiny little stars, moving smoothly in an equally spaced out line.

Also turns out they destroy the ozone layer. Great. That problem again.

The UK gov is a shareholder in the oneweb satellite constellation.

I can't with a quick search find any info on the OneWeb satellites, but they're internet access, right? not equipped with high-resolution telescopes.

no - high resolution target-able telescopes on taskable satellites don't go on low cost microsats.

Bit of a story here, given in the 'pedia page.

Brits had a launch, 36 satellites, ready to go from Russia, days before the invasion.

Putin's Russia says (having just invaded Ukraine!) : we will only launch if guarantee not to use satellites for military purposes, and UK Gov divests shares (it was the large majority shareholder).

UK Gov oddly enough says no. Russia refuses to launch.

Russia then also refuses to return satellites, and they were in the end written off.

Like dealing with stroppy children with guns.

I wonder what the implications would have been if the UK had just said "of course not" to the question of using them for miltary

Would Russia ever know or not on the usage?

Reminds me of this map of Starlink satellites covering the globe.

https://www.starlinkmap.org/

The perceived enemy isn't without but within.

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