I'm Engine Rich, and I'm exhausted.
Joined August 2017
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Within the past year, we've gone from
"there might be data centers in space"
to
"there will be data centers in space"
to
"basically everything we send to space will be a data center".
Hey you know all those European politicians that got you into this mess of having to rely on Starlink because your space industry can't scale effectively? Yeah well now they're super serious and they're really really gonna stick to Elon this time. 🙄
BREAKING: US threatens "devastating" retaliation against European companies if EU restricts Elon Musk's Starlink from the European market, the US ambassador to the EU tells the FT.
He warned European companies they "should be wary that it could happen and it would be very devastating for those companies," given the size of the US market, and urged the EU to keep using US tech.
European policymakers are seeking to reduce their dependence on US technology over the risk of relying on foreign companies for critical infrastructure.
At the same time the US throttled Starshield for Ukraine's military last week. Musk proposed it, Trump agreed, and the Pentagon executed it.
Dear European countries: It's not a dunk on Elon/SpaceX/US that you're just now going to try to start providing your own basic internal government communications services. You should've been doing that all along.
The fact that you're just waking up to this fact now is a self-own, not a "devastating blow" to Starlink.
I agree that these governments will be able to gradually claw back some of their dependency on Starlink. That's quite a low bar. "Hey maybe as a sovereign nation, you should be able to provide all of your own secure governmental communications services." They don't get a gold star and a cookie just for managing to provide their own basic internal government services.
But the way this conversation is being presented (from what I've seen) is that this is some kind of huge impact on Starlink. "Devastating" and such. When the reality is that these other constellations will have negligible impact on Starlink commercially.
The space industry is awesome for a lot of different reasons.
One of those reasons is that it makes people who are smart in other domains look really really dumb.
Canada has a long and proud history as a space-faring nation. My father's worked for Spar Aerospace in the 70s, which built some of the earliest satellites (Canada was the third nation in the world after the US and USSR to launch one). Same company built the Canadarm. Replacing Starlink is easy in comparison.
Yeah
In honor of Zelensky, the EU, and now Canada threatening to build out their own constellations of high-bandwidth communications satellites to rival Elon Musk's Starlink (lulz), I created an ELI5 chart to help them understand the magnitude of the general task by highlighting (in crayon!) some of the (many) tasks that must be perfected before the goal even becomes attainable.
And remember, kids: you aren't aiming at a static target. As the chart points out, you can (maybe) compete by the late 2030s. But you will not be competing with Elon. You'll get there and Elon will be another 15–30 years beyond where he is today.
Two continents and many nations vs. one company, and it's not even a fair fight.
Here's to what Europe once was. You ain't that anymore.
"You'll see that the European Union's flagship project, IRIS² (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite), will very quickly offer a sovereign alternative to Starlink."
Iris2 was announced in 2022 and has not launched a single thing through 2026.
This is what it's like discussing space with people who aren't informed. They think they can just all of a sudden decide to create a SpaceX competitor or Starlink competitor.
They say "see our politicians are talking about iris2 already! SpaceX replacement coming right up!" Not understanding that iris2 has been flailing for 4 years with nothing to show for it. That's why it's easy for me to say they won't have anything meaningful for a decade. It's been 4 years since announcement and they don't even have a single satellite!
"You're taking old news" ?
That's propaganda.
If Washington has been threatening Europe in recent days in case Starlink is abandoned, it's because Starlink is already dead in Europe, my friend!
In early 2026, the German Ministry of Defence and the Bundeswehr ordered a sovereign satellite constellation from a national consortium (including Rheinmetall, OHB, and Airbus). The goal is to deploy hundreds of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) to directly connect tanks, ships, drones, and troops on the ground. Germany seeks to avoid repeating the bottlenecks and geopolitical policy shifts seen in Ukraine and during European negotiations.
Italy has already made its position on Starlink clear by outright suspending its plans for strategic and military agreements with SpaceX.
As for France, it has decided to take a firm stand by opting to invest heavily in Starlink's European rival. The French state has become the main shareholder in Eutelsat Group (operator of the OneWeb low-Earth-orbit constellation).
As with Germany and Italy, France is the main driving force behind IRIS², the European Union's future sovereign constellation. The French Directorate General of Armaments (DGA) and Space Command (CDE) are preparing the transition to these European infrastructures by the end of the decade.
You'll see that the European Union's flagship project, IRIS² (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite), will very quickly offer a sovereign alternative to Starlink. Considered the third major European space project after Galileo (GPS) and Copernicus (Earth observation), it aims for the continent's strategic autonomy.
Engine Rich retweeted
The thing you're missing is that you're assuming these countries can just "choose" to have their own version of Starlink. As if previously they just chose not to do it, but now they've chosen to do it.
The reality is they've been trying as hard as they can the whole time, and they just can't do it. The fact that they're huffing and puffing now doesn't change that. They can't simply "choose" to do this, anymore than you or I could "choose" to play in the NBA.
In other words, this is a skill issue.
Literally not one of these countries' constellations will offer a commercial service within the next 20 years.
It's a skill issue. The reason you don't have your own version of Starlink is because you're not capable. Not because you weren't trying before.
The thing you're missing is that you're assuming these countries can just "choose" to have their own version of Starlink. As if previously they just chose not to do it, but now they've chosen to do it.
The reality is they've been trying as hard as they can the whole time, and they just can't do it. The fact that they're huffing and puffing now doesn't change that. They can't simply "choose" to do this, anymore than you or I could "choose" to play in the NBA.
In other words, this is a skill issue.
If you think Elon is controlling US military assets, then you also think there are military officials abdicating their duty to serve the US, and therefore you think we should be investigating and prosecuting people in the Pentagon.
Would you like to hear from the military officials who voluntarily abdicated their duty to serve the US by giving control of US military assets to a private citizen? Don't you think we should prosecute them? Sounds illegal to me.
If you actually believe that Elon is in control of US military assets, then there are some people in the military who need to be investigated and prosecuted.
I'm like 75% sure he's trolling, but it's pretty funny either way.
The car's speed was VERY slow going up the ramp, then driving UNDER the ramp, before it launched from the under side. No rocket thrusters are visible during the "under the ramp" driving segment. The laws of gravity have not been repealed. Therefore, something else that's not visible must have been at work to push the car UP, into the bottom side of the ramp, before the flight segment. What was that? Why has no one pointed this out? Why are there no visible rocket thrusters during that segment of the ramp drive?
Nvidia uses 1 million-year-old sand as it tries a new stunt in chip manufacturing.
Tesla turns to 50-year-old stunt technology as it tries to Roadster again arstechnica.com/cars/2026/10…
Fascinating that Elon has been answering this question clearly and repeatedly for years and yet we still see people ask it.
The answer to your question is:
"Life cannot just be about solving one miserable problem after another. There need to be things that inspire you, that make you glad to wake up in the morning."
If you're trying to understand Elon and you don't already know this quote, then you haven't even made the first step in understanding him. This quote (along with the many variations he has said over the years) is quintessential to his life philosophy, and you will not understand his companies without understanding this idea.
This quoted post is unavailable.
The reason Europe has fallen behind in the space industry is because they weren't *ready* to fast-track strong satellite competitors. But watch out, because now they're *ready*.
🙄🤦
When your competitor just developed and built ~10+ MILLION phased array antennas at consumer prices (a technology which was considered military grade prior to Starlink),
...maybe don't brag about a moat of 85,000 mobile antennas. Maybe that might reveal a critical misjudgement about your competition. Maybe that statement will end up in a business school case study about incumbents of seemingly-entrenched industry giants underestimating their competition until it's too late.
Idk maybe.
"We have 85,000 mobile antennas in America. [SpaceX CEO Elon Musk] has to build those first," said Deutsche Telekom AG CEO Timotheus Höttges, adding that Musk still has "many, many" hurdles to overcome.
finance.yahoo.com/technology…
