[HN Gopher] OneWeb will resume satellite launches with SpaceX as...
___________________________________________________________________
OneWeb will resume satellite launches with SpaceX as the launch
provider
Author : MPSimmons
Score : 280 points
Date : 2022-03-21 15:19 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (oneweb.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (oneweb.net)
| oxplot wrote:
| One thing to keep in mind is that satellite design takes into
| account, in no trivial amount, the specific ship that takes it to
| orbit. It's therefore, not a simple switch to use a new ship for
| existing hardware. Everything from G-force limits to fairing
| payload geometry and weight characteristics and more affect
| satellite design.
|
| Combine that with the long iteration development of the average
| satellite maker, it's not always economical to switch to an
| alternative launch provider, even if the new provider offers a
| ride for less cost. This is an addition to the reasons such as
| long term partnerships and discounts.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Oneweb explicitly designed their satellite to be able to launch
| on multiple launch vehicles
| samwillis wrote:
| I don't think this was an unexpected result of the situation with
| Russia, there wasn't really any other options, but interesting to
| see SpaceX launching a direct competitor to Starlink. I suppose
| they always made it clear that they were not going to let their
| investment in Starlink stop them launching competitors
| constellations.
|
| I am still somewhat surprised by the UK governments investment in
| OneWeb, I hope the strategy pays off and it becomes an important
| national infrastructure project. My thoughts where that it may be
| about providing a future proof network for the remote areas of
| the UK but we aren't exactly a big country so I'm not convinced
| that's the case. The rubbish that was written about it being a
| route to our own GPS system after Brexit forced us to leave the
| Galileo program was clearly all fluff to make it sound more
| impressive and tie it to a post Brexit strategy in some way.
| ufmace wrote:
| I think it makes perfectly good sense for SpaceX. They've
| always made it clear that their real business goal was
| colonization of Mars based on optimizing the cost of transport
| to space via reusability and design for manufacturability.
| Everything else they've done is basically just a way to
| monetize their current space travel capabilities in service of
| funding the design and construction of what they really want to
| do. Making Starlink as profitable as possible was never a goal,
| just a way to make some more money off of their incredibly low
| launch costs and probably also develop technology for
| communicating between ground and spacecraft. So why not launch
| a competitor too? It's just more launches and more funding for
| them.
| edgyquant wrote:
| I have a nice dream that Elon will build rocket and space
| enterprises, get them profitable, only to break them up and
| go public to allow them to be independent corporations and
| allowing real competition to begin (plus remove all his other
| business interests from each companies mission)
|
| He could still rake in cash from their owned shares it would
| just be them creating a real public space sector for the good
| of humanity. This will never happen ofc, but I can dream.
| eganist wrote:
| > interesting to see SpaceX launching a direct competitor to
| Starlink.
|
| Interesting, but entirely expected. They'd be investigated in a
| heartbeat if they didn't.
| manholio wrote:
| SpaceX is an american company that is subject to the Sherman
| act, which deals with domestic and interstate commerce.
| OneWeb is an international competitor based in UK that has no
| standing to make a complaint under the Sherman act.
|
| No similar antitrust provision or treaty exists in
| international commerce; charges against a monopoly must be
| brought within a certain national jurisdiction, SpaceX does
| not have partners or subsidiaries that offer launch services
| outside the US.
| simonh wrote:
| I'm sure Oneweb will have a US subsidiary and offer service
| to US customers through it. They manufacture their
| satellites in the US. There's no way they wouldn't have
| standing.
| manholio wrote:
| But that subsidiary would need to build and operate a
| satellite constellation, not simply distribute internet
| services or act as a purchasing agent of a foreign
| competitor.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| Stone Brewing does distribution for a lot of smaller local
| breweries
|
| I'd like to think that cutthroat competition is not the only
| way of doing business
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| US DoD and NASA now have effectively SPOF reliance on
| SpaceX...they aren't going to be "investigated" for anything
| NotEvil wrote:
| I don't think so. That's not anti-competive. Its like intel
| refusing to make amd chips on intel fabs. Perfectly logical
| simonh wrote:
| Intel doesn't sell fab services, so it's not an issue.
| However if you offer and advertise a service at a listed
| price (as SpaceX does), you can't always refuse to provide
| that service to specific potential clients just because it
| serves your commercial interests. It very much depends on
| the specifics of the service and market competitive
| situation.
| bpye wrote:
| I think that only works when there is other capacity
| available. If Intel was suddenly the only fab available to
| western companies but they refused to fab AMD chips I
| suspect that would result in intervention.
| j_walter wrote:
| Not so sure. AMD is always free to build a fab to make
| their own chips. It's perfectly reasonable to refuse to
| serve a direct competitor...or offer the service at a
| huge expense that would make it unreasonable for the
| competitor.
| simonh wrote:
| There is extensive legal precedent, and numerous outright
| laws in many jurisdictions restraining anticompetitive
| practices such as this.
| ericmay wrote:
| I get what you're saying, but SpaceX is a bit more
| public/private than Intel, and likely the government would
| be upset and better fund competitors if SpaceX was
| monopolizing launch capabilities. Their strategy (at least
| for now, as I would understand it) is to be neutral for
| launching cargo/services/etc. - likely OneWeb is paying
| more to deploy than SpaceX pays itself internally for
| Starlink deployments as well.
| mjevans wrote:
| Presumably 'internally' Starlink is seen as a major
| recurring customer who has agreed to an exclusive
| purchase contract for better rates; and also to take on
| higher risk mission slots (like the 12th launch of
| rockets which are making new records for launches).
| Teever wrote:
| You're saying that SpaceX, a privately owned company that
| has some contracts with different parts of the US gov't
| would find themselves in trouble with the government if
| they refused to launch satellites from a foreign owned
| company?
|
| And you're saying that the government would go out of
| their way to fund alternatives to SpaceX because of this?
|
| That seems a bit implausible.
| eganist wrote:
| "foreign-owned" in this case is still the UK i.e the
| closest ally we have today. So I don't think you'll see
| the same sort of American protectionism you might see
| with e.g a Chinese competitor.
|
| Therefore... yeah, nothing's stopping the DoJ (guessing
| the FTC would make the referral?) from pushing an
| antitrust matter. But I certainly can't say for sure; I'm
| not a lawyer.
| simonh wrote:
| Foreign owned maybe, but the satellites are manufactured
| in the US. There are US commercial interests at stake in
| Oneweb, and the services it intends to offer to US
| clients too.
| Teever wrote:
| Where's the law that says that an American business must
| sell their product or service to a foreign company?
| eganist wrote:
| > Where's the law that says that an American business
| must sell their product or service to a foreign company?
|
| As I understand it, it's covered by the various antitrust
| laws in the United States. And it's not so much a
| "foreign company" thing so much as it's an unfair
| advantage for any one company thing.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law
|
| Again, not a lawyer. But my lay reading would say that it
| would feel comparable to the action the feds took against
| Microsoft for trying to stifle Netscape. But I'm sure
| there are far better analogues.
| gbear605 wrote:
| Under antitrust law, SpaceX would theoretically be made
| to split off StarLink from the launch business so that
| the launch business would have no incentive to prioritize
| StarLink over other sattelites.
|
| In practice though, antitrust laws aren't enforced very
| strictly and government contractors are treated
| leniently, so probably nothing would happen.
| Teever wrote:
| How?
|
| SpaceX has no stranglehold over the market.
| cromka wrote:
| Is SpaceX a subsidiary of Starlink? Cause if not then it's
| not that logical to me...
| detaro wrote:
| Starlink is not a separate company, it's a product of
| SpaceX.
| InTheArena wrote:
| I thin Ukraine is proving to national governments exactly how
| important LEO constellations are. I was pretty critical of the
| decision of the UK gov't to bail out OneWeb, I think we may
| look back and say that it was a dramatically fore-sighted
| decision by the government.
|
| The UK still has a insane amount of geographical dispersion,
| even in their post-empire state. Having the ability to ensure
| that no one can turn off the lights on their communications is
| important.
| walrus01 wrote:
| > interesting to see SpaceX launching a direct competitor to
| Starlink
|
| It isn't, exactly, a oneweb terminal is MUCH too big and
| expensive for an ordinary residential consumer or small
| business. It's two active tracking parabolic antennas with
| their own RF chains in radomes, takes up about a 2.5 meter long
| x 1 meter wide space on a roof or similar.
|
| More than 1.5 years ago oneweb pivoted to a plan to sell high
| capacity uplink services for regional ISPs and telecoms on a
| business to business basis only. The oneweb terminal is still
| much larger and more costly than the recently announced
| starlink premium.
|
| oneweb in its current plan to sell services to ISPs currently
| dependent on geostationary is more like a cheaper/slightly
| smaller o3b terminal.
| Stevvo wrote:
| I had been talking with AST Group about getting OneWeb set up
| on my boat and the size of the terminals was a blocking
| issue; only place I could put them would be shading solar
| panels much of the day.
| walrus01 wrote:
| Unless you have a gargantuan yacht the monthly recurring
| cost is going to be prohibitive anyways, I'd be shocked if
| it's less than $1200/mo to start.
| Stevvo wrote:
| Right, but that is cost I could potentially swallow;
| worth it work from paradise anchorages with little other
| connectivity. You don't pay rent at anchor.
|
| What I will probably end up doing this summer is a stern-
| to mooring to some trees with a Starlink terminal sitting
| on the beach with an Ethernet cable running out to the
| boat.
| FDSGSG wrote:
| > stern-to mooring to some trees with a Starlink terminal
| sitting on the beach with an Ethernet cable running out
| to the boat.
|
| How come? What's the problem with having the Starlink
| terminal on the boat?
| Stevvo wrote:
| It doesn't deal too well with all the movement; it works
| sometimes but not reliably. I don't know if it is only
| the rolling or also the lateral swinging around the
| anchor that throws it off.
|
| In perfectly flat seas it might work fine, but you don't
| often find yourself in those conditions.
| strainer wrote:
| Seems 'marine stabilized platforms' of many specs and
| sizes are advertised. Surprising if none suitable to
| mount a starlink on.
| Stevvo wrote:
| A catamaran would be a nice "marine stabilized platform"
| nickvanw wrote:
| If you're that close to the beach that you can string a
| cable, do you not have 4G LTE/5G services available? With
| a high-gain antenna I would imagine you could get speeds
| and latency that would rival Starlink in many places. Of
| course, this will vary wildly and depends on how remote
| you are mooring.
| Stevvo wrote:
| It just depends; every anchorage is different however
| it's not uncommon to be cruising in area with great
| coverage, but once you lay anchor you find yourself
| without service because the rocks of the bay you chose to
| shelter you from sea waves also shelter you from radio
| waves.
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| Surely Starlink's addressable market is a superset of
| OneWeb's? A fully-launched LEO constellation will make many
| of OneWeb's customers' use cases obsolete.
|
| That said, as others have pointed out, whether OneWeb does or
| doesn't use SpaceX as a launch provider doesn't really change
| that outcome (whatever it happens to be).
| GuB-42 wrote:
| For me, I consider the main reason for Starlink to exist is to
| make use of SpaceX launch capacity. SpaceX focus on assembly
| line production techniques and reusable rockets to bring down
| costs per launch only make sense if you have a lot of stuff to
| launch. With Starlink, they create their own demand.
|
| SpaceX is probably very happy to have a "competitor" paying for
| launches. By itself, I have some doubts about the profitability
| of Starlink anyways.
| __d wrote:
| This 100%.
|
| SpaceX is really the only provider who can credibly pick up
| the former Soyuz business in the next few years. And they
| need _a lot_ more business. Especially once Starship's
| capacity becomes available. Right now, there's just not
| enough up-mass or down-mass demand.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| It was definitely a problem in the past, hence why they
| originally went with the Russians. But since then OneWeb has
| been bought by the British government so while its a similar
| tech I don't think they are strictly competitors anymore.
| tobylane wrote:
| Perhaps the government are using it as a cheaper way to provide
| super fast internet (flexibly defined) to the last 1% or so who
| can't be affordably reached by standard exchange - green
| cabinet - premises measures.
| paxys wrote:
| AWS hosts a huge amount of direct Amazon competitors.
| Explicitly banning certain competitors in an unrelated business
| would be pretty damaging to the credibility of a platform.
| duxup wrote:
| Yeah someone else is going to take that money. Another
| competitor taking it would potentially be more damaging.
| fffernan wrote:
| not to mention you can use that as a way to spy and choke
| your competition out when they rely on you
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Basically this, for SpaceX it is all win, they get to say
| "see? We are agnostic and will launch competitors." And at
| the same time the profit they make from launching OneWeb
| satellites can be invested in growing their own business.
|
| I tried to explain this sort of thing to Intel once about
| opening up their fabs (before Pat Gelsinger took over as
| CEO). Selling access to your infrastructure for profit lets
| you invest in better infrastructure without using profits
| from the things you sell using that infrastructure
| internally.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| Yeah especially if you know that the competitor's product
| is inherently worse than yours (OneWeb vs Starlink).
| mmaunder wrote:
| Good analogy. As long as oneweb can differentiate they'll be
| fine. And as long as Starlink has vertically integrated
| launch, they'll always have price as a differentiator.
|
| I would say that aws is a rich substrate upon which many
| businesses can be built - many of which Amazon simply arent
| interested in getting into. Space ISP is one business and the
| price/bandwidth ratio is one of the few differentiators and
| that alone may decide the winner.
|
| So oneweb better get creative about what they're layering on
| top of their pipes.
| h2odragon wrote:
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Avoids accusations of anti-trust.
| lobocinza wrote:
| It's a positive outcome for SpaceX/Starlink. The former will
| increase revenue while the latter will have a cost advantage
| regarding their main competitor. There's no need for then to
| draw bad publicity.
| iSloth wrote:
| It does seem a little odd when SpaceX have Starlink, surely these
| two are each other's main competition.
| pkaye wrote:
| Musk's long term goal is taking humans to Mars and everything
| else is a stepping stone to getting there.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I wonder if OneWeb has no other choice. I'm sure executives at
| SpaceX realize that Starlink would be the superior product and
| they don't stand to lose that many potential customers to
| OneWeb. I bet they figure they can make more money from the
| launch costs than potential impact of competition from OneWeb.
|
| I also wonder if this will end up helping OneWeb. I can't
| imagine using Soyuz 2.1 rockets is cheaper than paying for
| reusable Falcon 9's.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| If OneWeb wins, SpaceX makes a ton of money launching for
| them, and doesn't have to bother running an internet company.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I wonder to what degree satellite internet is winner-takes-
| all.
|
| They are competing for customers but, at least last I
| checked, they weren't putting a ton of bandwidth into orbit
| (compared to existing land based stuff). Maybe they'll both
| end up just selling as much as they can produce.
| wongarsu wrote:
| It's probably less winner-takes-all than ground based
| internet. At scale, putting infrastructure into space is
| a much lower barrier to entry than putting a fiber line
| into every household.
|
| The limiting factor will be spectrum allocations. You
| only have so much bandwidth per area, giving an advantage
| to those that either have more directional antennas or
| more spectrum available.
| hedora wrote:
| Fiber to the home doesn't have any technical barriers,
| but localized corruption creates massive barriers to
| entry. (It's much easier to do fiber to the home in rural
| areas than in US metros)
|
| Satellite internet has the opposite problem. If it ends
| up winning it will be a testament to dysfunctional
| governments around the world.
| wongarsu wrote:
| And if OneWeb fails, SpaceX still made good money launching
| them. And if OneWeb is kind of successful and a duopoly
| between StarLink and OneWeb develops, SpaceX makes money
| from both companies.
|
| Selling shovels is a great strategy, even if you own a gold
| mine.
| manquer wrote:
| The only other affordable choice could have been ISRO with
| PSLV , there was some merits to this as oneweb is owned
| partly by Bharti an Indian telecom major.
|
| However that was always a long shot, Russia collaborates
| deeply on the Indian space and missile programs. The
| cryogenic 4th stage is still a Russian engine on GSLV, ISRO
| won't likely risk that partnership as America has always
| refused any tech because of dual concerns, and ISRO also is
| not very expandable on launch capacity so it would not be
| easy even if they wanted to.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Looking at the launch rates of Indian rockets, its pretty
| easy to realize that they have no way to simply launch
| more. They build rockets for specific project and have very
| low launch rates.
|
| They can't simply build 6 extra rockets in a few years.
| manquer wrote:
| I agree they cannot expand that much that fast, which was
| my second point.
|
| They wouldn't be very keen either way, as ISRO's primary
| objective is their research missions while there is some
| drive to have commercial operations it is not that
| important to them.
|
| However it was also possible that Bharti (and U.K.
| government ) could have pulled enough strings to get ISRO
| to agree, so won't have been that surprised if they had
| partnered.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| They might have been able to get a launch or 2 out of ISRO
| but they don't have the capacity to build rockets that
| fast.
| cfcosta wrote:
| Starlink is a money cow, but having your competitor rely on you
| for the most expensive part of the job sounds like a great
| proposition for SpaceX.
|
| For OneWeb, they just don't have other options anymore.
| joering2 wrote:
| Starlink is a money cow ?
| cowmix wrote:
| Will be (or that's the hope).
| adfgadfgaery wrote:
| I think you misspelled "money pit". It is currently burning
| money and will continue doing so for the foreseeable future.
| According to SpaceX's internal communications, the current
| approach is unsustainable. It requires future launch vehicles
| to make sense financially.
|
| https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-responds-leaked-email-
| war...
|
| I don't think satellite internet is promising even once the
| constellation is up there, but that's another matter.
|
| P.S. The expression is "cash cow".
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Satellite Internet is already a multi-billion dollar
| industry before you have inexpensive and low latency
| service provided by launch vehicles (and satellites) a
| tenth to a hundredth the cost.
|
| But sure, buy into Musk pretending it's desperate to try to
| motivate his workforce. The SpaceX Steamroller continues
| apace.
| adfgadfgaery wrote:
| >Satellite Internet is already a multi-billion dollar
| industry before you have inexpensive and low latency
| service provided by launch vehicles (and satellites) a
| tenth to a hundredth the cost.
|
| It is currently a money pit. It is a simple fact that
| right now it requires huge expenses in launches, R&D, and
| subsidized terminals and makes practically no revenue.
| SpaceX has itself stated in internal communications that
| their current satellites and current launch systems are
| not viable.
|
| I don't believe it ever will make any money--cellular
| networks do the same job better--but it _definitely_ won
| 't make any money in the next few years.
|
| >But sure, buy into Musk pretending it's desperate to try
| to motivate his workforce.
|
| So it is your opinion that he was lying to his employees
| to coerce them into working overtime over the holidays
| out of fear of losing their jobs? I fail to see how
| that's an improvement. Either the situation is
| legitimately desperate or the work environment is
| abusive.
| kortilla wrote:
| > SpaceX has itself stated in internal communications
| that their current satellites and current launch systems
| are not viable.
|
| Yes, you're commenting on the Musk email to motivate
| starship.
|
| > I don't believe it ever will make any money--cellular
| networks do the same job better
|
| No they don't, because they don't exist with good
| coverage in most of the geographic US. I live ~30 miles
| from a major city and my internet options are terrible
| cell backed plans that have gnarly data caps and poor
| throughput.
|
| Your viewpoint is understandable but it's completely out
| of touch with the reality of what exists today. I'm on
| the starlink waitlist and $100/mo for uncapped 50mbps in
| my location has absolutely no competition from the cell
| networks, terrestrial wireless, nor geo stationary
| providers.
|
| > So it is your opinion that he was lying to his
| employees to coerce them into working overtime over the
| holidays out of fear of losing their jobs? I fail to see
| how that's an improvement. Either the situation is
| legitimately desperate or the work environment is
| abusive.
|
| Yes, it's likely the latter. Starship didn't exist when
| starlink was started. The numbers didn't change.
| mst wrote:
| Being a UK resident I often have to remind myself that
| the UK and continental Europe's level of cellular
| coverage is something of an outlier.
|
| The whole of the UK is, after all, slightly smaller than
| Oregon.
| adfgadfgaery wrote:
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Musk is kind of bipolar when it comes to these things, he
| does run the company extremely aggressively in a growth
| mode leaving little margin for a breather (always
| charging into something more ambitious), and SpaceX does
| have a sort of reputation for burnout. Yeah, I DO think
| Musk was exaggerating the risk to try to get his workers
| to work harder. (He also pushes himself, which doesn't
| totally change the fact that SpaceX workers are often at
| risk of burnout.)
| hedora wrote:
| But, but, it will scale globally to millions of users!
| That's more than I can count, and almost enough to saturate
| one medium sized metro area!
|
| If local ISP's can eke out a living on that sort of revenue
| stream, I don't see why a global satellite network and
| launch infrastructure can't.
|
| /s
| ldargin wrote:
| It's not odd. They'll get paid for it. The money is still
| green.
| manquer wrote:
| Not that odd, oneweb sells b2b only , spaceX does mostly b2c
| and some b2b.
|
| Also spaceX launched iridium next gen satellites as well.
|
| OneWeb (and iridium) will just operate in their own markets .
|
| Iridium for example could work in different devices than
| starlink as they are not LEO and do not need the complex phased
| array setup starlink needs
| nradov wrote:
| Iridium constellation is in LEO. The ground terminals are
| able to use simpler antennas mainly because the data rate is
| much lower.
| manquer wrote:
| Yes, that was incorrect, they are at 780KM orbit, I was
| thinking Inmarsat who use GEO.
|
| Phased Array does help in improving signal strength(and
| bandwidth) by focusing on the orbital plane only, however I
| thought since Iridium uses L-Band(1-2GHz) and SpaceX uses
| Ku-Band(12-14Ghz), there is additional dish size required
| anyway and also rain fade issues meant higher strength is
| required in Ku to operate well.
| headmelted wrote:
| Not really.
|
| Starlink is their main competition, not SpaceX.
|
| This just seems practical and in everyone's best interest.
| SpaceX get another recurring paying customer, OneWeb get their
| sats up.
|
| This is more common than you'd think when companies are large
| enough to have products in so many different categories.
|
| As an example: Amazon runs Prime Video, but also hosts the
| infrastructure for Netflix, which to my knowledge Netflix has
| always been happy with despite relying on a direct competitor
| for their service.
| yodelshady wrote:
| Samsung will happily sell Apple parts.
|
| If you have a competitive advantage in launching, why limit
| your exploitation of that? Worst case, you find out that your
| satellite engineers were coasting off that advantage. Best
| case, you make money proving they aren't.
|
| Plus you're now antitrust-proof, if that's ever a thing again.
| taf2 wrote:
| It'll be great to see these launch on broomsticks. In all
| seriousness, I wonder if this ends up saving or costing oneweb
| ... I guess they really don't have much bargaining power in this
| case so kind of curious...
| takk309 wrote:
| If SpaceX were to deny OneWeb the launch space, or charge an
| excessive fee as compared to other commercial launches, would
| that have run afoul of anti-trust laws? Seems to me that SpaceX
| should not be able to be picky about what they launch as long as
| the cost is paid (within technical limitations, of course).
| atty wrote:
| I don't think that we should be essentially punishing spacex
| for their massive success by suddenly telling them they're
| required to take every customer at government-approved prices.
| SpaceX isn't a utility, and no one/no government has a right to
| deploy their technology in space.
| IMSAI8080 wrote:
| I don't think he was suggesting a government regulated price,
| I think he was meaning not charging above the usual
| commercially offered price. Unlike other operators SpaceX
| launches have a retail price. They have a tool on their
| website where they will give you a quote for launching a
| satellite.
| mooktakim wrote:
| This could actually save them money
| kobalsky wrote:
| these guys probably talked with and turned down a spacex
| proposal in the past. these are multi-billion dollar businesses
| and that's basic due-diligence.
|
| spacex has better leverage now, there's no chance in hell they
| went home with a better deal.
| geocrasher wrote:
| This is a _massive_ growth opportunity for SpaceX. Launching
| competitors is not only good press but good business. Blue Origin
| has yet to even deliver orbital booster engines. SLS is... uh...
| well it 's SLS. There are other orbital launch options in the US,
| but they are a heck of a lot more expensive than a Falcon 9
| launch.
|
| It would not surprise me if SpaceX started offering a stand-in
| for the Russian engines as well. I wouldn't expect that they'd
| sell Raptor engines to competitors, as those engines are very
| much their Special Sauce- but they have the experience to make an
| orbital booster engine, and right now that's a pretty unique
| opportunity in the US.
| sebazzz wrote:
| > It would not surprise me if SpaceX started offering a stand-
| in for the Russian engines as well.
|
| Would they? Selling an engine is different to using an engine
| internally.
| geocrasher wrote:
| Would they? I don't know. Could they? Likely. Could they do
| it while protecting the IP that makes their engines so
| throttleable and reliable to restart? No idea.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Not really a big growth opportunity. operating telecomm
| satellites itself is a much bigger market than building them
| which is a bigger market than launching them and that is a
| bigger market than just providing the engines.
| jakswa wrote:
| I assume by "operating telecomm satellites" you mean
| operating starlink? Last I read, SpaceX hoped to spin
| starlink out into a separate business, and even IPO it. So in
| the long run, it didn't seem like SpaceX wanted to count on
| the starlink market revenue. I'd be curious to hear that this
| is outdated/wrong now. It was interesting at the time because
| Musk has said he intends for SpaceX to stay private forever.
| Cerium wrote:
| If you are staying private and want the flexibility that
| gives you, it makes sense to me to spin out and IPO
| successful businesses. That lets you convert private equity
| into public and leave your core business unencumbered with
| additional logistics.
| secondcoming wrote:
| Did they get the satellites back from Russia?
| coder543 wrote:
| Not yet, if at all.[0]
|
| > The company isn't sure what happened to the spacecraft or if
| they'll ever be returned. "The thing about the satellites is
| honestly they're the least of our problems," Chris McLaughlin,
| chief of government, regulatory, and engagement at OneWeb,
| tells The Verge. "We make two a day in the factory in Florida.
| So we can find ways to get a resilient solution."
|
| [0]: https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/21/22988867/oneweb-spacex-
| la...
| trollied wrote:
| It wouldn't surprise me if they never get them back. The
| Russians would be wise to try and extract the software on
| board, just in case there are any private keys, or other
| useful things.
| MPSimmons wrote:
| Suppose they DO get their satellites back from Russian. How
| long do you think it would take their engineers to go over the
| satellites to determine that nothing had been tampered with,
| and to approve them for flight?
|
| I suspect it would probably be faster to launch the next
| flight's worth while reworking these and throwing away any
| Trusted Platform chips.
| wedn3sday wrote:
| Im still curious about this as well. I wonder if their
| insurance policy categorizes being seized during war time by a
| hostile government as "force majeure".
| hedora wrote:
| Schedule delay and engineering challenges are going to dwarf
| the cost of a few unlaunched satellites.
| tempnow987 wrote:
| I always thought of oneweb has a kind of govt boondoggle project
| for the UK.
|
| These are the projects that aren't commercially able to attract
| funding (which in this day is a bit wild) but have some weird
| pitch that gets a government somewhere to jump on them.
|
| I believe the UK claims this will result in jumping the UK to the
| forefront of space commercialization? I thought secretly that
| oneweb was actually maybe making the sats in the US and the UK
| mfg of the sats was basically just govt hype? Anyone know the
| real scoop?
| telmnstr wrote:
| The origin of OneWeb was that the founder approached Elon Musk
| with the OneWeb idea and an agreement was signed. Not sure what
| role SpaceX was supposed to take, but at some later point Elon
| bailed and started a competing service called Starlink.
|
| The OneWeb founder posted a photo of the signed agreement on
| Twitter some years ago, dumping on Elon Musk.
|
| The original OneWeb founder is no longer involved and has some
| other space startup now.
|
| Originally Blue Origin and Virgin were supposed to be the
| launch capability but neither can put anything in space.
|
| Here is the tweet. OneWeb was originally called WorldVu
|
| https://twitter.com/greg_wyler/status/1116101020675977218?la...
| iso1631 wrote:
| Virgin Orbit can put things into space, although very low
| payload - you might have enough capacity to put one oneweb
| satelite into orbit at a time -- wikipedia says 500kg to
| 500km, Oneweb are 150kg at 1200km.
|
| If 1 Satellite per launch, that would be 220 launched on
| LauncherOne at a cost of $2.6b (wikipedia costs), if Virgin
| Orbital could scale quickly enough (and if it can get 150kg
| to 1200km)
| kmlx wrote:
| > These are the projects that aren't commercially able to
| attract funding (which in this day is a bit wild)
|
| here you go:
|
| > On 3 July 2020, the Government of the United Kingdom and
| Sunil Mittal's Bharti Global (formerly a partner of OneWeb)
| announced a joint plan to invest US$500 million each for equal
| stakes in OneWeb Global, approximately 42% each; the rest would
| be held by other creditors including Softbank.
|
| > In July 2020, Hughes Network Systems invested US$50 million
| in the consortium.
|
| > In January 2021, a further funding round raised $400 million
| from SoftBank and Hughes Network Systems, with SoftBank getting
| a director seat on OneWeb's board. This brought available
| funding to $1.4 billion
|
| > In June 2021, Oneweb raised an additional US$500M from Bharti
| Global, increasing Bharti's holding to 38.6%
|
| > In August 2021, Hanwha Systems invested $300 million to
| purchase an 8.8% share in OneWeb
|
| from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OneWeb
| ID1452319 wrote:
| The satellites are made in the USA, by, ironically, Airbus
| Space and Defence (who's largest shareholders are the French
| and German governments). OneWeb have said they will move
| manufacturing to the UK, but this was stated in a Select
| Committee meeting, so could well be simply blowing smoke up the
| collective 'arrises of their investors.
| kmlx wrote:
| it's owned by multiple parties, with the UK Gov a minority
| shareholder, so i don't get what's ironic about that
| statement.
| tempnow987 wrote:
| The UK govt was the key investor in terms of bailing them
| out.
|
| https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/07/uk-acquires-oneweb/
|
| From the UK's own website:
|
| https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-government-to-
| acquire-...
|
| https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-government-secures-
| sat...
|
| "This deal gives us the chance to build on our strong
| advanced manufacturing and services base in the UK,
| creating jobs and technical expertise."
|
| The issue I have is they keep on describing the network as
| "cutting edge" without describing the breakthrough features
| of the project as well as a lot of talk about building up
| the UK sat mfg base, but of all the companies they pump
| half a billion pounds into, they choose one where at least
| SOME of the work is in the US.
| vaxman wrote:
| Elon is a winner, even supports competitors building EVs so it's
| not surprising he supports competition in the LEO consumer
| communications market. If Apple had bought them when they still
| could have afforded it, I wonder if President Musk would have
| changed Apple or if Apple would have changed Musk? Ah well,
| eventually we will all have Starlink tPhones and tPads and will
| stop pondering such questions.
| perihelions wrote:
| Galileo too, quite likely.
|
| https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1505879400641871872 (Eric
| Berger / Ars Technica)
|
| - _" Notable: Important space officials in Germany say the best
| course for Europe, in the near term, would be to move six
| stranded Galileo satellites, which had been due to fly on Soyuz,
| to three Falcon 9 rockets."_
|
| - _" This will almost certainly be resisted by France-based
| Arianespace. However it may ultimately be necessary because there
| are no Ariane 5 cores left, and the new Ariane 6 rocket is
| unlikely to have capacity for a couple of years."_
| pixl97 wrote:
| This war is SpaceX's black friday. While everyone else was
| pissing off using old technology, SX was moving ahead (not
| counting small launch providers).
| labrador wrote:
| The Russian space program was the most impressive thing to me
| about Russians, so to see it destroyed before my very eyes
| saddens me. Russians are quite clever about making do with
| little, but I don't see how a declining country like Russia is
| today can compete with the Indian or Chinese space programs, who
| are also doing amazing things that don't get a lot of press in
| America.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| Yes, the decline russia will face is tragic, and for what? At
| best they will own some land that has had all the buildings and
| infrastructure ground to dust and citizens who have all been
| murdered. Russia is spending tremendous resources to destroy
| more resources, but physical and social. It is the stupidest
| thing I've seen in my life.
| icu wrote:
| Before I begin to offer a different view, please allow me to
| say that I in no way condone what is happening.
|
| So why is Putin invading Ukraine now? There are several
| logical reasons if you understand Russian history, geography,
| psychology and demography.
|
| In terms of history, in the past 500 years, Russia has been
| invaded several times from the west. Specifically, Moscow has
| been attacked and conquered six times in its history by
| foreign armies, and usually via the same routes. This is also
| where geography plays an important role in understanding the
| Russian invasion.
|
| In terms of geography, the Carpathian Mountains are a natural
| land defence between the Baltic Sea, and the Black Sea.
| Indeed, in the days of the USSR, under the Warsaw Pact, the
| Russians could project military power in the land gaps either
| side of the Carpathian Mountains on Baltic and Black Seas.
| This is where NATO expansion has worried the Russians
| because, post the USSR, I speculate they feel Moscow is
| exposed, and is being encircled by NATO.
|
| I also speculate the psychology of the Russian leadership is
| one of paranoia of land invasion, and they want to push out
| territory (or at least project military power) to fight an
| invasion from the historical routes Russia has been invaded
| from. Post-communist Russia has been doing just this and is
| why Crimea was effectively annexed by Russia (because they
| wanted to project naval power into the Black Sea).
|
| From a US perspective we like to think that the US was the
| biggest factor in the Allied win of WWII, but little thought
| is given to how important the Russians were and how many
| Russians lost their lives. This is where, most mainstream
| media has completely omitted the rise of far-right violence
| and politics in Ukraine. No one in the West wants to think
| they are supporting Nazis even if they are fending off the
| Russians. Please note that I am not saying that all
| Ukrainians are far-right, however I speculate that the
| Russians do care about the rise of the far right in Ukraine
| (as it is along their border), and from their perspective see
| it as stopping the rise of another WWII Nazi-Germany type
| situation.
|
| Lastly, demography plays a part because Russia has had
| several 'baby busts', that is not enough babies have been
| born. I speculate that the Russian leadership believes that
| if Russia does not plug the geographic routes for invasion
| now, it never will.
|
| Sadly, I also don't see Russia stopping with Ukraine. If the
| Russians will stop at nothing to gain geographic security
| this puts Russia in a direct confrontation with NATO member
| states. I also worry about the second order consequences,
| like the loss of life and suffering that will happen due to a
| loss of Ukrainian wheat crops, and the loss of global crops
| due to sanctions on fertilizers from Russia.
| panick21_ wrote:
| The idea of land invasion is laughable. I mean seriously,
| Germany was basically not even spending anything on their
| defense.
|
| The idea that NATO would get its finger out of its ass to
| do that is basically impossible.
|
| And even so, that ignore nuclear power.
|
| I know more about Russian history then most people and was
| interested in the topic before this war, and Russia
| certainty has interest there. But strategically this was
| the worst single plan imaginable.
| [deleted]
| tomjen3 wrote:
| >In terms of history, in the past 500 years, Russia has
| been invaded several times from the west. Specifically,
| Moscow has been attacked and conquered six times in its
| history by foreign armies, and usually via the same routes.
| This is also where geography plays an important role in
| understanding the Russian invasion.
|
| If I was saying to somebody we should invade Russia they
| would understand that it was a joke, because nobody gets
| away with invading Russia. Nobody. It never ends well.
| Russia is not the place people go make a name for
| themselves as conquerors. It is the place conquerors go to
| die.
| asah wrote:
| more details on Russian demographics...
|
| https://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP162.html
| ufmace wrote:
| I see you're getting a lot of pushback on this. IMO, this
| guy knows what he's talking about. Not in the sense that
| it's absolutely correct. In the sense that this is what
| Russian Nationalists actually believe and think.
|
| Keep in mind, the Russians that think like this mostly only
| speak Russian. If they speak any other language also, they
| choose to spend most of their time in the Russian-language
| world. They consider Russia their motherland, and aren't
| about to leave to nations they consider foreign and hostile
| just because things might be tough for a while. They're not
| listening to Western news even when they were allowed to,
| and they don't know or care much what Westerners think.
|
| Are such types of people "ignorant", "uncultured", and
| whatever else you might call them? Kind of, yeah. But what
| nation can survive long without any such people, especially
| in the face of the invasions they've faced in the last few
| hundred years.
|
| These are the people who are Putin's base and make up most
| of the Russian elite. They're also the ones that will
| decide whether he stays in power or goes. They really do
| think that those uppity Ukrainians had it coming, don't
| know their place, have no business considering themselves a
| country and cozying up to Nato, etc. I'm pretty sure if he
| does end up getting the boot, it will be because his
| backers are horrified at how much he let the once-mighty
| Red Army degrade and how vulnerable he let them become to
| the West, not because they realized that Ukraine deserves
| to be independent after all.
|
| The trouble is, Putin and his crew spewed a little too much
| propaganda, and believed it a little too hard. They talked
| up how Ukraine was a bunch of drug-addled half-assed
| wannabe Nazis to themselves so hard that they actually
| believed it. They went in with a plan based around those
| assumptions. The trouble is, it seems they were quite wrong
| and are getting their asses handed to them. So what are
| they gonna do now? I don't think that pulling out and going
| home with their tail between their legs is gonna be a good
| option for Putin. Beats me what they'll actually do, but
| I'm afraid it won't be pretty.
|
| If you really want to understand things, you need to
| understand that it's a different culture over there. They
| really do believe this stuff. The few Westernized people
| who think it's all terrible are a tiny, unrepresentative
| minority. Don't make the mistake of thinking that everyone
| everywhere is really just like us, with maybe just a couple
| of weird assholes in charge for some reason. Our enemies
| are sincere. America has made such assumptions more than
| once in our past, and got our asses handed to us over it.
| Now it's Russia's turn, at least as long we we don't screw
| things up even more than they did.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| I'm not really convinced by the whole defensible geography
| argument.
|
| Who is going to attack a nuclear power in a land war in the
| 21st century?
| gitfan86 wrote:
| It isn't that an attack was likely, it is the fact that
| an attack could overtake Moscow much easier if one did
| happen. It is like people who keep assault rifles in
| their home in extremely safe neighborhoods.
|
| From Moscow's perspective Ukraine could have a Nazi party
| take over at some point in the future. Those Nazis may
| think about finishing the job Hitler failed to do and
| take Moscow.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > From Moscow's perspective Ukraine could have a Nazi
| party take over at some point in the future.
|
| Moscow doesn't care about Nazis; it's essentially a
| fascist state itself, and has been backing neo-Nazi
| groups among the separatists in sponsors (like the Sparta
| battalion) before Azov was involved in the conflict, much
| less incorporated into the National Guard.
|
| It only cares that Ukraine has a government now (not
| potentially in the future) that it isn't a willing puppet
| of Russia like the Yanukovych government was, or like
| Lukashenko's government in Belarus is.
| stef25 wrote:
| The only thing more preposterous than thinking someone
| would try to "take Moscow" is think that Nazis would do
| it.
| phatfish wrote:
| Russia is more worried about a democratic Ukraine joining
| the EU than a far-right government. A democratic country
| on their boarder is far harder to control from Moscow,
| simply look at Belarus for proof of that. Nutty dictator
| in the pocket of Putin.
|
| That anyone can even entertain that Russia is WORRIED
| about Nazis or far-right poltics in Ukraine is laughable,
| they WANT that government. It's propaganda 101.
| csee wrote:
| > an attack could overtake Moscow
|
| No it can't. Ukraine doesn't and can't have nukes. Russia
| has thousands of nukes. This doesn't even begin to make
| sense. Nobody can invade a nuclear power, let alone one
| with as many nukes as Russia.
|
| > From Moscow's perspective Ukraine could have a Nazi
| party take over at some point in the future.
|
| This is their propaganda. It's that logical fallacy;
| anything could happen, therefore this. Far-right gets
| very little support in Ukrainian elections, and neo-
| nazism is a bigger problem in Russia, Poland and Hungary
| than in Ukraine. Maybe Russia should be scared of
| Hungary; fair enough. But Ukraine? Azov is a large
| problem that needs to be dealt with, but it has nothing
| to do with neo-Nazis inside Ukrainian politics or
| leadership or broader society. If they wanted Ukraine to
| deal with Azov, they would stop threatening Ukraine, and
| then Ukraine wouldn't have the need for Azov. If you
| create an intense need for defence, then of course Azov
| isn't going to be dealt with. Azov is purely the fault of
| Russia.
| gitfan86 wrote:
| If you google "100 year history of Europe" you will see
| that older people like Putin are very aware of how
| drastically borders and governments have changed, even
| including countries that have nuclear weapons. To say
| that no one is going to invade Russia today is accurate,
| but from the Russian perspective the future of Russia is
| far from secure, they feel like they have to fight to
| preserve Russia.
| csee wrote:
| > they feel like they have to fight to preserve Russia.
|
| I get that's part of what the propaganda is saying, and
| therefore some part of the population will believe it
| strongly. I am just saying it is not believable.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Certainly, they have to fight to preserve rule by Putin,
| which is all that is under threat. Failing to invade
| might have made him look weak. Pulling out would make him
| look weak. The moment he starts to seem weak, he's out,
| and shortly dead.
| unionpivo wrote:
| People focus too much on Azov.
|
| They (Azov battalion ) are 1000 - 1500 (depending on
| source) people , and apparently only 10% - 20% of them
| are self proclaimed Nazis. Even if all of them are, It
| would surprise me if this was even the biggest Ukraian
| Nazi group.
|
| Most Westerner nations have more, hell In US you would be
| hard pressed to find a state that has less of them.
|
| Not trying to excuse them. Any white supremacist and/or
| nazi has no place in modern society. Just trying to put
| things in perspective. If Azov is all the nazis that
| Ukraine has, they are better than most western countries.
| usrusr wrote:
| > In terms of history, in the past 500 years, Russia has
| been invaded several times from the west. Specifically,
| Moscow has been attacked and conquered six times in its
| history by foreign armies, and usually via the same routes.
|
| If they think Moscow is too close to a border for safety,
| they should cry themselves to sleep and try to find friends
| to protect them. Is there _any_ capital city in the world
| further from the closest border or ocean, besides Brasilia?
| hshjdhskfhs wrote:
| There's far right movements in more places then Ukraine,
| what makes Ukraine special in its movement compared to
| those elsewhere in the west?
|
| I'm also not sure Ukraine would have had the ability to be
| a Nazi-Germani situation, their military stands no chance.
| What would they have tried to conquer and not quickly been
| pushed back from doing so?
|
| This is why I feel that argument makes no sense to me, and
| sounds like a big pretext for something else, which in my
| opinion is more about Putin's holding on to his power and
| authoritarianism.
|
| Personally, I think Russia's best future is to do what
| Ukraine was trying to do. Become a part of the west,
| democratize properly with real term limits and all, tackle
| corruption, regulate your oligarch to favor more
| competition, etc.
|
| My thoughts though is that Putin is the one that loses most
| if Russia were to do that, and he was afraid that Ukraine
| would set an example, if Ukraine did it and it turned out
| good for them and their people, Putin would be put in a bad
| spot.
|
| But I'm interested in your thoughts, because it's true I
| don't know as much about the geopolitics around Russia.
| usrusr wrote:
| It seems to be one of the few far right movements that
| isn't at least in part funded from Moscow (or perhaps
| even that one actually is...)
| adrian_b wrote:
| All those invasions of Russia from the West were failures
| that did not have any long-term consequences.
|
| Moreover, those invasions were all personal affairs.
| Dictatorial leaders like the Swedish kings, Napoleon or
| Hitler wanted to beat the Tsar/General-Secretary or
| whatever the master of the Russians called himself and take
| his possessions.
|
| It was not like the majority of the citizens of those
| countries cared about the Russian lands and wanted them.
|
| Now, when all the Western neighbors of Russia have
| democratic governments, continuing to say that there exists
| any danger of invasion for Russia is ridiculous.
|
| While during the last 500 years there were a few failed
| attempts to invade Russia, on the other hand Russia has
| continuously invaded very successfully both its Western and
| its Eastern neighbors, becoming from a relatively small
| country one of the largest empires, and it remained the
| largest country after the British Empire decomposed.
|
| On all the territories that they invaded, the Russians have
| implemented brutal policies against the natives, both
| during the Tsars and during the communists.
|
| Especially during the 19th century, the Russians, while
| expanding continuously toward the West, claimed that they
| were "liberating" various populations from the non-
| Christian Ottoman exploitation.
|
| In reality the new "Christian" rulers have always proved to
| be much greedier than the former Ottoman rulers and much
| more aggressive towards the non-Russian populations. The
| former Ottoman empire was much more tolerant towards
| minorities, regardless of their religion (as long as they
| paid the imposed taxes).
|
| So no, any justification of Russia being some kind of
| victim of invasions, when it is Russia who invaded
| successfully and relentlessly all its neighbors during 500
| years, and thus needing today some imaginary vital space
| for its protection, is completely baseless.
|
| Moreover, because the post above mentions that the Russians
| would like to reach the Carpathian Mountains, supposedly
| for a better protection of their Western border, it is good
| to know that before WWII Russia/SSSR never reached until
| the Carpathian Mountains.
|
| After WWII, according to the agreements with Roosevelt and
| Churchill, the Soviet Union incorporated large parts from
| Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania. Those parts included a
| segment of the Carpathian Mountains and it is thus how
| Russia reached them.
|
| However Stalin included much of what was taken from Poland,
| Czechoslovakia and Romania into Ukraine.
|
| Therefore when Ukraine opted out of the Soviet Union,
| Russia lost the access to the Carpathians, so they probably
| regretted that Stalin has chosen to include those parts in
| Ukraine (which made more sense geographically) instead of
| in Russia proper.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| That seems like an incredibly improbable analysis due to
| nuclear deterrence. The politics of 500 years ago simply do
| not apply.
| icu wrote:
| Thank you for your comment, you are right that nuclear
| deterrance is important and should be factored into any
| military conflict. However, you've assumed that nuclear
| deterrence cannot be nullified, or that robots or drones
| (or say a bat virus) will not be weaponised to be a
| threat to a conventional military (or nuclear deterrent).
| I'm not so sure, all war brings surprises and unexpected
| developments. My guess is that we're going to see hybrid
| wars in the future where it isn't obvious that an attack
| has been made. Indeed in "The Unnatural Origin of SARS
| and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic
| Bioweapons", by Xu Dezhong, it was speculated that WWIII
| would be fought with bioweapons. It's quite an eye opener
| considering it was published in 2015.
|
| If I was a military strategist, I would want geographical
| strategic advantage and maximum future flexibility.
| [deleted]
| trhway wrote:
| Why write such a long posts only rehashing Russian
| propaganda? Removing the propaganda part, the bunch of
| those long posts of yours today could have been stated
| 10-20 times shorter as "Russia has decided to genocide a
| neighbor and to use the resulting wasteland of the
| neighbor's country as a geographical buffer".
|
| Should the world allow it to happen? All countries have
| had centuries of wars. I don't see why Russia qualifies
| for an exception allowing it to genocide Ukrainians.
|
| For the people not familiar with related terms - the UN
| definition of genocide
| https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml.
| Putin was very clear in his editorial and speeches that
| the destruction of Ukrainian ethnic and national identity
| is the main goal of the war.
| icu wrote:
| I have literally said, "I in no way condone what is
| happening". Also, please don't start jumping to
| conclusions that I'm just a parrot of Russian propaganda.
|
| It shocked me that I never considered that I would see an
| invasion, and let's be frank, a war in Europe.
|
| Of course, I think there should be a halt to the
| hostilities... but I believe in seeing the world as it is
| and dealing with that, with a view to work towards what
| it should be. Sadly, the US and others like the UK, won't
| risk a NATO/Russian war. That's the only way I see the
| Ukrainian invasion ending.
| JoshCole wrote:
| Jewish democratically elected president and yet you repeat
| the lie that this war is about nazis. Jewish people are
| persecuted by nazis, not elected to the presidency by
| nazis.
|
| Russian land invasion fears as speculation for why Russia
| invaded, but this war started many years ago when Russia
| took Crimea and Crimea doesn't have a land connection with
| Russia. Russia shares a sea with Crimea, but not land. What
| Crimea does have is a lot of oil. So much so that it was a
| geopolitical threat to Europe's reliance on Russian oil.
|
| This war isn't happening because of baby busts. It is
| happening because Russia raped Ukraine for oil, but then
| discovered that holding Crimea against Ukraine wasn't
| feasible. Crimea gets its water from Ukraine. Russia
| doesn't have a port for the sea that connects it with
| Crimea which is always usable. So it has to ship water in,
| but doesn't have a great means to do so when Ukraine is
| hostile.
|
| It built a bridge, but that sort of infrastructure is
| vulnerable in the event of war.
|
| Stealing Crimea turned out to be expensive. Meanwhile,
| Ukraine was modernizing its armies and pretty upset that
| its land was stolen from it.
|
| So they call them nazis, which in this case really means
| people willing to defend their land, but who cares about
| actual meanings when you can just repeat Russian
| propaganda?
|
| If Russia waits, Ukraine continues to modernize. Eventually
| the war starts on Ukraine's terms and instead of
| humiliating international defeat now they would have gotten
| a crushing and humiliating international rout later. The
| defeat is Ukraine retaking Crimea. It isn't an invasion of
| Moscow. The war with NATO that Russia is afraid of isn't
| NATO invading Moscow either. It is NATO supporting
| Ukraine's efforts to retake Crimea.
|
| Which is why Russia was so desperate to do this now, even
| though it was a bad decision. Every moment they waited
| Ukraine was getting stronger. They wanted to win now to
| stop them from facing justice later. Except they
| miscalculated. Ukraine grew stronger faster than they
| realized. Moreover, their espionage wasn't as effective as
| they had hoped. They wanted to win quickly. They hoped to
| just take Ukraine and be done.
|
| They didn't. They blundered. This blunder goes back many
| years. As far back as the invasion of Crimea itself.
|
| The kicker? Oil isn't the currency of the future. They
| blundered over the resource that everyone is going to be
| trying to get away from.
| DrBazza wrote:
| If NATO were genuinely a threat to Russia, I'd expect NATO
| jets to "stray" into Russian airspace as often as the
| Russian planes stray into UK airspace north of Scotland, or
| China flies over Taiwan.
|
| NATO doesn't do this. Or at least if it does, it's
| remarkably poorly reported by some of the press in the UK
| that I would expect to gleefully report if it were true.
|
| Also, if you want 'second order consequences' take a moment
| to think about the brain drain of many under-30 Russians
| (I'm picking an arbitrary age), that have grown up with the
| Internet and western food. They're leaving as we type.
|
| Then, there's the demographic problem. There are fewer
| young men in Russia.
|
| https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/03/russia-demography-
| birth...
|
| Even fewer due to COVID, and now due to the events of the
| last few weeks. And who knows how many Russian teens and
| 20-somethings will be dead in a month or two?
|
| How do you "protect yourself" from perceived invasion from
| the west with fewer and fewer people in the army? Bigger
| weapons? I hope not.
|
| Russia are losing their youth on two fronts.
|
| Well done Putin, you've ruined your country for decades.
| icu wrote:
| I completely agree about the Russian brain drain issue,
| and about the extreme cost of sending young Russian men
| (many of whom are only sons) off to die. All of it, on
| all sides, is a huge waste and tragedy.
|
| However, with regards to your statement about overt
| military operations threatening Russia, have you
| considered all the covert stuff? The CIA have been
| running operations in Ukraine for a long time and I think
| it would be fair to say that the Orange Revolution was
| helped along by Western intelligence agencies.
| robocat wrote:
| > There are fewer young men in Russia. Even fewer due to
| COVID
|
| Quite possibly the economy could be better after COVID?
| Something that mostly kills off older retirees could
| reduce economic drain (although it depends on lots of
| factors).
|
| "Covid-19 caused total life expectancy in Russia to fall
| by 2.32 years in 2020" -
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/03/covid-has-
| caus...
| golergka wrote:
| > Yes, the decline russia will face is tragic, and for what?
|
| For Putin to stay in control of the country. And also, for
| majority of Russians, to finally have the moment of their
| fascist pride.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| gameswithgo wrote:
| No you misunderstand, Iraq and Afghanistan are pretty much
| a tie in my mind, and should the USA invade anyone in the
| future, please sanction us until I starve to death or
| leave.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Like syria, you're occupying now?
| mminer237 wrote:
| I don't think 900 servicemen supporting the local SDF to
| defend certain locations in a de facto autonomous region
| is really comparable in any way to Russia sending 200,000
| soldiers to conquer a sovereign nation and
| indiscriminately shell all major cities.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| If eg. mexico bombed the shit out of USA, because it
| didn't like their leaders, basically destroyed the
| country, change the government, kill a bunch of people,
| and then leave behind 900 mexican soldiers, would you see
| those soldiers as "someone defending you", or as an
| occupation?
| khuey wrote:
| Ignoring morality entirely for a moment it is rather
| remarkable that Russia watched the US experience in
| Afghanistan and Iraq and said "yes, we'd like that for us,
| but on hard mode".
| gameswithgo wrote:
| Russia did the same thing in Afghanistan shortly before!
| With the same result!
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Well yeah, and americans trained osama bin laden to fight
| them. Oh how the turntables...
|
| So we basically agree, that both countries are bad, but
| we somehow act as if somehow americans are the "good
| guys" for bombing weddings in pakistan and killing
| afghanis, and bunch of other people, and that russians
| deserve the sanctions, while other countries currently
| occupying eg. syria don't.
| specialist wrote:
| Do you know of Chris Hedges?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hedges
|
| Everything he says is 100% true.
|
| But he never offers suggestions about how to make things
| better.
|
| Even though I agree with Hedges, empathically, I just
| can't stand listening to him. He's an Eeyore.
|
| People need hope, affirmation, reasons to keep
| struggling, a wee bit of joy.
|
| Especially when everything seems so pointless.
| tehbeard wrote:
| Ignoring the whataboutism.
|
| Last I checked, noone in the states or the west at large
| got disappeared or shoved out a window for protesting
| those actions by their government.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Oh yeah, sure, FBI never ever infiltrated and also never
| ever did anything bad to any anti-war movement in USA.
| adventured wrote:
| The US are the good guys, quite obviously. That's why
| nearly all the good - liberal, democratic, freedom-
| oriented - nations are specifically aligned with the US,
| and why Russia's only pals are tyrants. It's also why
| Ukraine is friends with the US (despite the distance and
| cultural separation) and is fighting a war against
| Russia, because Russia are the bad guys (anti democratic,
| anti liberal, regressive, dictatorship, conquest-
| oriented).
|
| Nobody thinks the US are the good guys for bombing a
| wedding in Pakistan. It's for countless other reasons
| that people still think the US are on the side of good,
| as it always has been. You're of course attempting to use
| a particularly weak argument to prove a massive claim.
| The US doesn't have to be perfect to be good. What
| Germany did in WW2 doesn't preclude them from being good
| now; what the British Empire did doesn't preclude them
| from being good now; and so on.
|
| The US have been such extraordinary good guys across
| time, we even saved millions of Russians from starvation
| by their own government (even while Russia was broadly
| considered an enemy of the US at the time, we saved them
| anyway):
|
| https://news.stanford.edu/pr/2011/pr-famine-040411.html
|
| Things like that are what have built the US moral
| credibility, which stacks against its various mistakes
| (and everyone here knows well all the prominent US
| mistakes).
|
| The US invaded Germany, the US invaded Italy, the US
| invaded France (and several other European nations), the
| US invaded Japan, the US invaded Korea. Now contrast what
| the US did after invading Europe, with what Russia did.
| It's the difference between being the good guys and being
| the bad guys, just ask Poland what the difference is -
| they know exactly what the stark separation between the
| US and Russia represents (the difference between freedom
| and slavery, affluence and poverty). There's a reason why
| Poland welcomes US soldiers on its soil, and why they'd
| fight to the death to keep Russian soldiers out of their
| territory. Ask Czechia, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia,
| Lithuania, Romania what the difference is, they all know.
|
| Why are all of Russia's weaker neighbors afraid of it?
| Meanwhile, there's affluent, free, peace-loving Canada,
| not afraid in the least (witness their military spending)
| that the US superpower of the last 75 years would invade
| and attempt to conquer them. The difference between the
| US and Russia could hardly be any greater, now or in the
| past. The Canadians know it, the Polish know it, the
| Ukrainians know it.
|
| What Russia is doing right now is evil, and they are the
| villains in this war, regardless of what they did in the
| past. We don't need to eg go into the history of the
| Holodomor and other things Russia has done to Ukraine and
| its people to demonstrate their evil, all we need is to
| focus on what Russia is doing at present (intentionally
| genociding the civilians of Ukraine). Russia are the bad
| guys and it couldn't be any more clear than it is - which
| is again why Ukraine (freedom-seeking, aspirational
| democracy, liberal-leaning, West-leaning) is asking the
| US to help them fight against Russia and why Ukraine
| appeals to the US about shared liberal values just as
| they have with other European democracies.
|
| The US didn't train bin Laden. It didn't invent Al Qaeda.
| It didn't train or create the Taliban either. Funding
| various Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the decade prior to
| the founding of the Taliban, doesn't equate to training
| bin Laden.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_assistan
| ce_...
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Why is US good for attacking various middle eastern,
| african and south american countries, and russia is bad
| for attacking ukraine?
|
| The germans had 70+ years to get over the WW2, while USA
| is currently occupying more than one sovereign country,
| and acting good about it. You guys bomb a new country
| every few years, sometimes for oil, sometimes not even
| for that. Here in the balkans, people were rooting for
| Trump in both elections, because everyone was afraid
| Hillary will start another war here... believe me, for
| most of the world (except for yourselves) you're not
| "good guys" at all. Your freedom loving country has
| shitty education, totally broken health system, the
| prison system is basically legalized slavery, you can't
| even get voting IDs to people, your warmer cities have
| more homeless people than ukraine does now, and you've
| changed a leader that inappropriately touched supermodels
| with a leader that inappropriately touches kids. The only
| thing you americans have is the military system and
| lobbyists who like to attack foreign countries so they
| can earn even more money. Just the money spent on weapons
| for attacking countries on the other side of the world
| would solve many, many other issues your country
| currently has, but your priorities are not in order.
|
| So yeah, maybe pull out your soldiers from the countries
| you're currently occupying, before you blame putin for
| doing the same you guys are doing, then maybe set up your
| priorities in order, so young people don't start their
| lives with $200k+ in debt, instead of bombing random
| countries that never did anything bad to you.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Oh yeah, and let's not forget, you guys bombed your own
| city!
|
| https://www.vox.com/the-
| highlight/2019/8/8/20747198/philadel...
| adventured wrote:
| > Why is US good for attacking various middle eastern,
| african and south american countries, and russia is bad
| for attacking ukraine?
|
| Intent matters. Iraq was not a sovereign nation when the
| US invaded, it was a slave encampment (its people had no
| human rights), its majority Shia population was held
| hostage - genocided and constantly tortured - by the
| minority Sunni Hussein regime. There's no such thing as a
| sovereign dictatorship; there can be no claim of
| sovereignty where there are no human rights. Any free
| nation had a moral right to invade Iraq, if it so chose,
| to attempt to remove Hussein's regime and attempt to free
| the Iraqi people from the grip of his regime. The US
| didn't go into Iraq to conquer it, or annex its
| territory, or steal its oil (which is why today Iraq is
| free-standing and has such enormous oil revenue pouring
| into its government coffers).
|
| Did the US have a moral right to invade Nazi Germany? How
| about Fascist Italy or the Empire of Japan? Did the US
| have a moral right to invade France and help free it from
| the Nazis and Vichy France? Yes it did, of course, and
| the same moral principle in action there was just as
| valid in regards to Iraq and the Hussein regime that was
| holding the majority in Iraq hostage. Which
| simultaneously doesn't mean it was rational for the US to
| invade Iraq (as it wasn't willing to dedicate the
| extraordinary resources necessary to provide the security
| to prevent the civil war between the Sunni and Shia,
| which would have required far more troops and financial
| investment).
|
| So even though the US rationally should not have invaded
| Iraq, the democratic world understands the US didn't go
| into there in the name of conquest. The democratic world
| understands the US didn't invade France, Italy or Germany
| to conquer them. That's why the US is still viewed as
| good, because intentions matter. It went into Iraq with a
| very naive belief that - with its superpower might - it
| could nation-build a new democracy relatively easily in
| the Middle East. And when the civil war broke out between
| sectarian groups, the US stood between them and tried to
| stop it, at great loss to the US in blood and treasure.
| The US didn't try to take Iraq's oil (India and China are
| the biggest recipients of Iraqi oil today), it lost over
| a trillion dollars from the invasion. It's entirely fair
| to call the US invasion of Iraq a gigantic blunder, a
| foolish mistake, an act of arrogance by a superpower that
| thought it could materialize a democracy easily out of
| thin air. The good nations of the world understand the US
| didn't try to conquer Iraq for its own empire, that
| annexation of Iraq wasn't its goal, which is why NATO is
| still standing and why the US allies in Europe didn't
| abandon the US.
|
| The US spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to
| nation-build Afghanistan to progress the nation forward,
| including shepherding the first democratic elections in
| its history. The US effort failed, it was naive in
| regards to what it would take to accomplish a positive,
| sustainable outcome in a nation as backwards and poorly
| developed as Afghanistan. The US is regarded as the good
| guys in regards to Afghanistan, because of what its
| intentions for the nation were (compare it to the Taliban
| and who the friends of the Taliban are - exclusively
| tyrants and theocrats). Russia went into Afghanistan in
| the name of conquest, to make it a de facto part of the
| Soviet Empire, it didn't aim to build a free, democrat
| nation there.
|
| Russia has gone into Ukraine solely to annex its
| territory and conquer it for the goals of the Russian
| Empire, as per Putin's own oft stated world view (of how
| things should be). Ukraine is a burgeoning democracy
| pursuing liberal values, Russia is a brutally repressive
| dictatorship with no human rights that has largely been
| ruled by one tyrant after another for centuries. Russia's
| intentions are plainly evil, they aim to enslave the
| Ukrainian people and destroy their pursuit of liberal
| values, to force them to be part of Putin's imagined new
| Russian Empire.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| So, what happened to iraqi soldiers killing babies? And
| iraq having weapons od mass destruction?
|
| > The US spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to
| nation-build Afghanistan to progress the nation forward
|
| So, you spent your own taxpayers money to try to rebuild
| a country you guys destroyed
|
| > The US effort failed
|
| And failed even at that?
|
| I'm very sorry, but for anyone outside of US, you were
| considered bad guys then, and are still considered as bad
| guys now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_
| the_Iraq_War <- just look at the number of protests (in
| USA too!). You guys made up a story about weapons of mass
| destruction to destroy a country (again), and couldn't
| find or even plant those weapons there. Well, not just
| you, UK and some other countries did play a role too, and
| they're the bad guys too.
|
| Russia has a minority living parts of ukraine, and the
| ukranian neonazis (which became a part of the official
| national guard in 2014) have been attacking them for
| years now. And I'm calling them neonazis, because
| everyone in the west called them that until this year -
| https://i.imgur.com/mRAaOo0.jpg
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Russia has a minority living parts of ukraine, and the
| ukranian neonazis (which became a part of the official
| national guard in 2014) have been attacking them for
| years now.
|
| Azov is smaller, both absolutely and as a share of the
| forces on the relative side, than the neonazis among the
| separatist forces it operated against even before the
| full-scale direct genocidal invasion by the militarily
| aggressive totalitarian corporatist ethnonationalist (or,
| more succinctly, fascist) Russian regime that had both
| invaded parts of Ukraine in 2014 and sponsored (and in
| some cases covertly supplied) the separatist forces.
| hiddencost wrote:
| Ignoring morality entirely for a moment, it is rather
| remarkable that the US watched the Russian experience in
| Afghanistan and said, "yes, we'd like that for us."1
| vl wrote:
| One of the pillars of supporting dollar as world reserve
| currency (and thus having endless credit) is showing that
| it's backed by strong security force. Thus it
| necessitates periodic demonstrations and actual training
| of said security force. Thus constant deployment to some
| far countries to "fight for piece".
| nkingsy wrote:
| I was a freshman in college at the time and we discussed
| it in a geography class.
|
| We all agreed that a nation state based approach to the
| problem of terrorism was absurd, but there was no way any
| US president would do anything less. Remembering the
| phrase "a wartime president has never not been re-
| elected" turns my stomach. Iraq of course was another
| matter, but Afghanistan was more of a greek tragedy.
| mst wrote:
| Go back far enough and you'll find the british empire
| thought Afghanistan would be a fun place to invade quite
| a long time before that.
|
| It worked out just as badly for us as it did for the USSR
| and the US later.
|
| I'm not sure why Afghanistan is catnip for overconfident
| empires, but it seems to be a repeating pattern.
| khuey wrote:
| Americans were acting like morons after 9/11. I don't see
| an analogous motivating event here for Russia.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Russians are playing the kosovo playbook.
|
| Minority in a larger country, minority wants to separate
| into its own country, the main country won't let them,
| some conflicts and shooting, shelling, killing, and an
| "outside player" steps in and starts destroying the main
| country.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Well, atleast the americans left them vehicles and
| weapons, so the talibans didn't have such a rough re-
| start there.
| blibble wrote:
| it's not known as the graveyard as empires for no reason
|
| (I wonder if the Chinese will have a go now it's
| apparently their century?)
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| randomsearch wrote:
| > for what?
|
| For Bin Laden.
|
| America has done terrible things, but what Russia is doing
| to Ukraine is much worse than Afghanistan or Iraq.
|
| When in recent history did the UK surround a city of
| another country and starve it to death whilst deliberately
| shelling civilians?
|
| There isn't a comparison. Russia's actions in Syria are the
| most similar to the Ukraine situation that I'm aware of in
| recent history.
| camdat wrote:
| >When in recent history did the UK surround a city of
| another country and starve it to death whilst
| deliberately shelling civilians?
|
| Is this a joke? I can think of three examples in the past
| 30 years.
| CommieBobDole wrote:
| And those examples are?
| camdat wrote:
| Two entire countries and a city: Yemen Yugoslavia Baghdad
|
| I also forgot the highway of death... So four off the top
| of my head.
| randomsearch wrote:
| Since when did the UK surround and starve Baghdad???
| These are completely different situations.
|
| In Mariupol, thousands of _civilians_ have died in days
| of Russian bombing (the mayor estimates up to 20 000, but
| 4000 already certified) - including the deliberately
| shelling of civilian buildings by Russian forces. They
| 've cut off power, heating, water, and have bombed
| theatres, schools, hospitals. Corpses are rotting in the
| streets.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| So, destroy a country for one man? Good guys americans!
|
| > When in recent history did the UK surround a city of
| another country and starve it to death whilst
| deliberately shelling civilians?
|
| Yugoslavia, 1999... civil buildings were actual targets,
| not just "accidents"... from tobacco factories, to public
| television, bridges, etc. Also cluster bombed a city...
| If you count the "mistakes", also a passenger train, bus,
| group of escaping refugees, hospitals, schools, etc. Oh,
| and let's not forget the chinese embassy.
|
| And USA is also currently occupying syria.
| adventured wrote:
| As the parent correctly pointed out, it's not even
| remotely close to comparable.
|
| The Russians are intentionally destroying entire large
| cities, intentionally committing genocide against
| thousands of civilians in Ukraine. Intentionally seeking
| to starve and deprive the civilian population of the
| basic requirements of survival to further their conquest
| aims. At the rate Russia is going, it'll have
| intentionally murdered tens of thousands of Ukrainian
| civilians before the war is likely to end.
| camdat wrote:
| >At the rate Russia is going, it'll have intentionally
| murdered tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians before
| the war is likely to end
|
| And it will pale in comparison to the 300 thousand
| civilians killed in the US intervention in Afghanistan
| alone. At least Russia will likely succeed in it's
| military objectives.
| adventured wrote:
| The US didn't kill hundreds of thousands of civilians in
| Iraq and Afghanistan. You're conflating two entirely
| different things. You're pretending the US shot, bombed
| and killed all those civilians, when in fact that was an
| Iraqi-on-Iraqi sectarian civil war that produced such
| high civilian deaths, a civil war which the US spent
| enormous resources trying to stop.
|
| Russia is directly, intentionlly killing the civilians in
| question in Ukraine. They're doing it on purpose, aiming
| for the civilians, to terrorize them into submission (and
| Russia has a very long history of this form of
| intentional terror-war against civilian populations in
| the name of conquest). Russia's genocide of Ukrainian
| civilians isn't a mistake of aiming, it's not an accident
| of war, it's not a whoops, they're trying to kill them
| and starve them (see what they're doing to Mariupol at
| present).
|
| The difference between the two situations is
| exceptionally obvious and morally clear.
| randomsearch wrote:
| Additional stats: the US and allies directly killed ~ 13
| 000 civilians during the occupation of Iraq.
|
| It's likely the Russians have exceeded that number in
| Mariupol alone in just a few weeks.
|
| The difference in these numbers reflects that Russia is
| deliberately targeting civilians.
|
| I condemn the occupation of Iraq, but agree it is
| exceptionally obvious that the two situations are in no
| way equivalent.
| camdat wrote:
| >It's likely the Russians have exceeded that number in
| Mariupol alone in just a few weeks.
|
| Source this.
| randomsearch wrote:
| Can't grab a link right now but that's from the Mariupol
| mayor's office and reported in The Economist this week.
| 4000 dead certified at the morgue but 20000 is mayor's
| estimate. Doesn't seem unreasonable an estimate given the
| backlog and reports of corpses in the street yet to be
| collected, along with missing persons from bomb shelters
| etc
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| US bombed and killed many civilians in bombing of
| yugoslavia in 1999... even hit a passenger train and then
| had to speed up the footage to make it seem like an
| accident -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grdelica_train_bombing
| (also a bus, tv station, many more bridges, tobacco
| factory, a group of escaping refugees, etc.)
|
| This is urban warfare... ukrainian army hides in civilian
| buildings, shoot down at russian soldiers and tanks,
| tanks shoot back, and the damage a tank does is what you
| then see on tv. There were (now removed) videos on
| youtube, of ukrainian people trying to get the ukranian
| army out of their apartment building just because of
| that.
|
| But looking at history, when US kills civilians, they
| arrest the whistleblower and threathen the webpage owner
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_ai
| rstri... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Manning
| camdat wrote:
| >The difference between the two situations is
| exceptionally obvious and morally clear.
|
| https://youtu.be/JqMQk337p5s
|
| >You're pretending the US shot, bombed and killed all
| those civilians, when in fact that was an Iraqi-on-Iraqi
| sectarian civil war that produced such high civilian
| deaths,
|
| Typing this and not realizing the obvious parallels to
| the Donetsk and Luhensk regions of Ukraine is laughable,
| and forces me to assume you lack the background necessary
| to make a real comparison between these two situations.
| mminer237 wrote:
| The separatist people's republics comprise roughly 15% of
| the enemy force in Ukraine. For most of the Iraq War,
| Iraqi Security Forces comprised 82% of the anti-
| insurgency forces. During the civil war period when most
| of the civilians were killed, the US only comprised
| roughly 5% of the soldiers, and they were on the third
| side trying to stop the fighting.
|
| The US-led invasion of Iraq had ~4,000 civilian
| casualties in its month and half of fighting.
|
| The Iraqi civil war had 70,000 civilian casualties in its
| 2 years.
|
| The War in Donbas had 350 civilian casualties in its 8
| years of fighting.
|
| The Russian invasion has boosted that over 10,000 in less
| than a month.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Not that long ago, I was under the impression that
| americans knew that they were the "bad guys" in all of
| those wars, but stood quiet, because they gained cheap
| oil and other benefits from most of them. I also got that
| sentiment from eg. the french, when their governments did
| something bad in any of their (former) colonies. There
| were even movies/documentaries (Michael Moore comes to
| mind), or even historic conflicts (vietnam and the Hippie
| culture around it), showing the US doing bad stuff around
| the world.
|
| And now? It makes me sad, that so many american people
| actually consider themselves the "good guys" for
| destroying random countries and killing people there.
| Like they did nothing bad, when they bombed peoples
| houses, occupied their countries, stole their oil, etc.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Why is it not comparable? Why is cluster bombing a
| serbian city better than cluster bombing Kiev?
|
| ...except for you people calling it "bombing for peace" -
| https://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1995
| /11...
| perlgeek wrote:
| Not to mention that reproduction rates both in Russia and in
| the Ukraine are below replacement levels, so they'll have
| more land for a shrinking population.
| necovek wrote:
| Wasn't that the case in Western countries as well 30 years
| ago? Basically, formerly communist countries are 20-30
| years behind in the sociological development, even if they
| catch up economically in some aspects earlier (though those
| are closely intertwined, because they are still at "I can't
| reasonably provide for more than 1-2 children").
| loudmax wrote:
| I don't think there was any scenario where the invasion was a
| benefit to Russia. But if it had gone the way most analysts
| had expected, with Kyiv falling after four days, it could
| have been a benefit to Vladimir Putin. With the invasion
| having gone horribly wrong it's clear to everyone that it's
| in Russia's best interest to withdraw immediately. But what's
| in Russia's best interest isn't necessarily in Putin's
| personal interest. So better to keep on killing Ukrainian
| men, women, children by the thousands to save his own skin.
|
| Some call Putin a "genius". I'd call him something different.
| necovek wrote:
| He's also sending Russian soldiers into death. Mutiny is
| hard and complicated, and runs a huge risk for your life
| and life of your family, so even those convinced they are
| doing the wrong stuff will have a hard time stopping
| themselves.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| The moment that clown Dmitry Rogozin was appointed as a
| director of Roscosmos, I knew it is a death sentence for
| Russian cosmonautics.
|
| But in a larger context, it is all a consequence of Putin's
| rule. The guy is like Midas in reverse: everything he touches
| turns to shit.
| redisman wrote:
| The brain drain will get a huge spike again unless they're
| literally stopped from leaving the country. So all industries
| will be affected for a long time
| golergka wrote:
| Half the software engineers and other STEM professionals I
| know that lived in Russia have left the country in the last
| month, me included. Most don't have job offers or money to
| last more than a couple of months, some don't even have their
| passports.
| gruez wrote:
| >some don't even have their passports.
|
| Do countries accept refugees without passports? I can't
| imagine living a stateless/undocumented existence in some
| random country to be better than a relatively middle class
| life in russia.
| JAlexoid wrote:
| You can get a refugee status without an ID.
|
| If ID/passport were a requirement, it would make no sense
| whatsoever... considering that you're likely fleeing a
| government that wants to kill you.
| walrus01 wrote:
| > You can get a refugee status without an ID.
|
| tell that to all the afghans in pakistan right now who
| can't get any documents from the .PK domestic offices of
| UNHCR
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| But technically Russian government isn't killing their
| citizens unless you were conscripted.
|
| And for all it is western governments don't have a good
| history of accepting refugees, let alone refugees who
| just decided the leave the country because it's just not
| too good there.
| mjevans wrote:
| I suspect Maybe / It Depends. Plausibly they could beg
| for asylum given the current geopolitical realities.
| SXX wrote:
| Getting asylum for is much harder than you might think
| when it's come to someone from Russia.
|
| Getting into EU using all legal (or illegal) ways and
| trying to get asylum is good option for people who
| actually running from war when their home being bombed.
| But if you're from IT and used to higher quality of life
| and also need some comfort to work efficiently then it's
| not an option - because finding a job takes time.
| vl wrote:
| Russians remember iron curtain all too well, wait now,
| and you will not be able to leave at all. There was no
| freedom of travel in Soviet Union.
| golergka wrote:
| Armenia accepts Russian citizen by internal Russian ID.
| It's confusing, because internal id is called "passport"
| in Russia, and passport is called "foreign passport" -- a
| legacy of a system that was (and still is) designed to
| impose prison-like discipline on it's own citizens and
| limit their ability to go abroad.
| konschubert wrote:
| I think you and others that left deserve the support of
| then western world.
|
| I'm a software developer in Germany. If you can think of a
| way I could maybe help, mail me at
| mail@konstantinschubert.com
| golergka wrote:
| Capitalism is the best way to do it: just hire people who
| are leaving. It's a pure win-win situation.
|
| There is a direct and very strong correlation in Russia
| between person's level of education, his worth on the
| labour market and his disdain for the Russia's policy.
| While majority of Russians support fascist regime and
| criminal war against Ukraine, majority of those who leave
| now, especially those with fluent English and
| internationally valued skills absolutely do not.
| jacquesm wrote:
| If you need a hand, mail in profile.
| antattack wrote:
| They might switch to hyper-sonic missile development.
| colechristensen wrote:
| There has already been reporting of hypersonic missiles
| launched at Ukraine, which is not at all surprising.
| gliptic wrote:
| Those in the know suspect these are just the upper stages
| of Iskanders launched from jets.
| robonerd wrote:
| asah wrote:
| https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/18943/putins-air-
| launc...
|
| https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/why-calling-russias-kinzhal-
| a-h...
| robonerd wrote:
| renewiltord wrote:
| Why bother, Brahmos is likely unstoppable for its purposes
| for quite some time. Brahmos 2 is likely going to work too
| so there's no reason to man-month it.
| hackerfromthefu wrote:
| Sounds expensive..
| chaostheory wrote:
| It may be declining in the short term, but Russia will be one
| of the winners as climate change continues to progress.
| redisman wrote:
| They already have 10x more land than they can do anything
| productive with.
| necovek wrote:
| You mean as Siberia turns into beautiful sunlit coastal area?
|
| I've long suggested buying seaside plots there as a viable
| investment strategy, with the only issue not knowing where
| the coast will be :D
| redisman wrote:
| I'd rather buy in Canada which has its own "Siberia" and a
| functional rule of law. Look at YT, NT, NU
| chaostheory wrote:
| I agree. I'm just pointing out that Russia will be a
| superpower again one day due to inaction on climate
| change. Far too little and too late.
| justin66 wrote:
| > The Russian space program was the most impressive thing to me
| about Russians, so to see it destroyed before my very eyes
| saddens me.
|
| It's been dead for thirty years. Russia has done an admirable
| job using, reusing, and repurposing tools developed during the
| Soviet Union's existence, but that is all they have had going
| for them - aside from cash related to Mir and ISS and the
| associated launches, which kept the whole thing on life
| support.
| labrador wrote:
| "It's not dead, it's resting!" I had hopes for a comeback,
| but that looks highly unlikey in Putin's regime or whatever
| dictator follows him.
| MrZongle2 wrote:
| _"...or whatever dictator follows him. "_
|
| This phrase saddens me, but it seems the most likely
| outcome.
|
| When the power brokers in Moscow acknowledge that Putin has
| become a liability, they'll replace him so they can return
| to the kleptocratic status quo.
|
| I highly doubt there will be a popular uprising against
| him, which at least would allow for a chance for democratic
| progress.
| lhoff wrote:
| I was listening to a podcast recently where they were
| discussion the best possible outcome for Russia in the
| comming years and there conclusion was a strong but
| benevolent dictator (maybe a women) that slowly paves the
| way towards democracy. There sentiment was that Russia is
| not ready for democracy right now because of years and
| years of propaganda and suppression of an intellectual
| elite.
| dopamean wrote:
| Which podcast?
| jacquesm wrote:
| They had that. Gender aside, Gorbachev did just that. And
| then the thieves moved in.
| ordu wrote:
| _> There sentiment was that Russia is not ready for
| democracy right now because of years and years of
| propaganda and suppression of an intellectual elite._
| Propaganda and suppression of an intellectual elite are
| symptoms. The root cause is the possibility for a small
| group of greedy people to pump oil and gas, get a lot of
| profits, and to finance a repression machine allowing to
| cement the status quo. All this scheme is leads
| inevitably to a simple economy and a concentration of
| power, when democracy is considered as a threat to
| profits of a small powerful group.
|
| If there was no possibility to sell oil and gas, then it
| would be appropriate to discuss if a benevolent dictator
| might help to build a democracy. While this possibility
| persists nothing will help. Now it seems West is going to
| ban exports from Russia (I'm very excited), but there is
| China. China will benefit from supporting Russia on it's
| way to a North Korea scenario. So I believe there is no
| hope for a democracy in Russia.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I had assumed that Russia would want to embrace trying to land
| first stage boosters after SpaceX proved it was do-able. With
| the vast amount of territory they have they could avoid the
| trouble of trying to land on a droneship and perhaps even
| develop a large structure to catch fairings downrange.
| KuiN wrote:
| Roscosmos are working on a launch system with a re-usable
| first stage, Soyuz-7 or Amur [1]. The renders they've
| released are basically just a tweaked Falcon 9, except this
| one will be re-usable 100 times over!
|
| Whether Amur will ever fly, or even become hardware ... I'm
| not holding my breath.
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/10/russian-space-
| corpor...
| _joel wrote:
| I do wonder if Elon meant a certain 2 nations when Tim Dodd
| was with him on the Starbase tour.
|
| There was a Raptor 1 full upclose to which he said
| something along the lines of, paraphrasing, "If you copy
| these then good luck to you, you're in for pain".
|
| I'm sure they still know a thing or two about rocket engine
| design(!) but I can't help think that brain-drain will get
| the better of them sooner or later. These things require
| innovation, not just brute forcing old designs.
| panick21_ wrote:
| You are vastly overestimating Russia ability to innovate.
| Russia has basically not innovated since the Soviet Union.
| Angara rocket is supposed to be the 'next generation' rocket
| and its adoption has been painfully slow.
|
| The idea that they could just build a reusable rocket is just
| not in the car.
|
| Mostly what the Russian space program has been doing is
| announcing one absurd program after another. The amount of
| power-point designs announced by Russia is comical. They have
| announced a reusable rocket but like so many of the other
| projects, its mostly just propganda.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| They have been using the same rocket for like 30 years. I'm
| not sure they are organizationally equipped to innovate
| anymore. Similar to the standard NASA contractors, who are
| rearranging shuttle parts to make the SLS and costing and
| order of magnitude more than even SpaceX's outlandish
| experiments from scratch.
|
| Also its entirely possible the cost of a Soyuz launch is
| cheaper than a Falcon9 despite re-use, due to it being used
| for so long and slightly smaller.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Well, previously commercial outfits were choosing SpaceX in
| large numbers. So if Soyuz is cheaper, why not Soyuz. Both
| these vehicles have government orders which are never going
| on a foreign platform, so there is no price cap for those,
| but if I'm a comms satellite outfit (and there isn't
| currently a war) surely I just pick whichever is cheapest?
| [deleted]
| totetsu wrote:
| And they suspended launches because they had used rockets from
| Russia https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-60602512
| _joel wrote:
| ESA have also pushed pause on their side of the new mars rover
| too. There's a complete bifurcation that seems to be happening.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-work-solo-mars-m...
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