Comment by ACCount37
2 months ago
Antisatellite weapons are expensive and rare, and also woefully inadequate for dealing with megaconstellations.
If there's one large orbital datacenter, then sure, ASAT is a threat to it. But if it's a dispersed swarm like the Starlink system?
Good luck making a dent in that. You'd run out of ASAT long before Musk runs out of Starlink.
Swarms of satellites need to maneuver, which includes maneuvering directly toward the atmosphere.
It would take zero anti-satellite weapons to take down Starlink. Just point a good old fashioned gun at the SpaceX engineer who can issue maneuvering commands to the satellites.
You only need to destroy a few. Then you have a cloud of debris that will take down the rest or at the very least force them to use all their fuel making evasive manoeuvres.
And they'd get away with it too if it weren't for that pesky orbital mechanics.
Not really. Space is too large.
On the contrary, orbital positions are quite limited. And space debris is already a large issue.
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Blow up the ground stations. Or the CEO.
Good fucking luck. Starlink's ground infrastructure is absurdly decentralized. Laser links make that possible.
Starlink can even bounce data P2P, from one client terminal to another.
How absurd is absurdly decentralized, here. A hundred ground stations? Thousands? Do they really have more than can be shut down by the FBI domestically and blown up by the USAF internationally?
And how does decentralized ground infrastructure save you from a centralized executive?
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Lasers