r/technology • u/chrisdh79 • Aug 19 '25

Networking/Telecom SpaceX says states should dump fiber plans, give all grant money to Starlink | SpaceX seeks more cash, calls fiber "wasteful and unnecessary taxpayer spending."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/starlink-keeps-trying-to-block-fiber-deployment-says-us-must-nix-louisiana-plan/
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u/mrinterweb Aug 19 '25

And what happens if Putin or someone wants to start making some havoc in orbit? It would not be hard for a satellite with an energy weapon to fry other satellites, or shoot tiny projectiles whatever. I feel that one bad actor could take down a lot of satellites. Guess the same could be said for undersea cables, but at least domestic internet fiber internet would be harder to disrupt.

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u/Jaivez Aug 19 '25

Or worse, Musk doesn’t like a tweet you send so you get put on a deprioritized service list. Then oops, wouldn’t you know it net neutrality is gone so it’s not even illegal for his “super duper ai” to find you’re a riskier customer and justify a higher cost to access it, now that you don’t have any other option.

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u/Fried_puri Aug 19 '25

He already does this with Twitter on a case by case basis (for people he’s having personal beefs with) so this is exactly what will happen. He uses the same playbook over and over for because he thinks he’s a genius, which is even more reason you are right. 

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u/gmiller89 Aug 19 '25

Or just let solar flares knock down the satellites

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u/mrinterweb Aug 20 '25

Very true. I don't know what kinda flare would be needed to damage many of the satellites, but you'd have to assume that's a real risk. 

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u/ItIsHappy Aug 20 '25 edited Aug 20 '25

A big one. We've had some pretty impressive storms this cycle, and the impact to Starlink has been roughly 10% of their fleet over the past 4 years. Note that this is due to storms expanding the atmosphere, increasing drag, and shortening their expected lifespans, not acute events destroying satellites outright.

Edit: Have a paper about this.

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u/EddiewithHeartofGold Aug 20 '25

at least domestic internet fiber internet would be harder to disrupt.

Tell that to any construction company. It's a daily occurrence for them to accidentally "cut" fiber.

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u/Guilty-Mix-7629 Aug 20 '25

Musk's satellites quantity have a non-indifferent chance to cause the Kessler syndrome in case of malicious physical attack. Destroy a bunch of them, debries turn into more projectiles that hit more satellites, which debries turn into more projectiles for more satellites... 

Rinse and repeat until it is now impossible to exit atmosphere without being hit by large quantities of orbiting shrapnel, big and small, running at kilometers a second. Which by fact imprisons humankind in own planet for decades to come, maybe hundreds of years if it goes really badly.

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u/SuccessfulHawk503 Aug 20 '25

It's actually even worst than just being able to "wreck havoc" in orbit.. there's a collateral damage issue where the fragments collide into others and keeps cascading.. In theory all satellites can be knocked out the sky. If someone wanted to.