SpaceX tries to de-orbit Amazon's request for a satellite broadband shortcut

SpaceX has tried to shoot down Amazon's attempt to speed up approval of its rival satellite broadband constellation. As readers will be aware, SpaceX's Starlink is already beaming down broadband services from thousands of satellites. Amazon wants its own Kuiper service to share some of the radio frequencies Starlink already …

[b0llchit]

Me frist!

Just wait until I get all my 257983 cubed satellites up there beaming thought control all the way down to each individual. All those billionaires can get in line because my satellites have real world uses and therefore priority.

[zuckzuckgo]

Re: Me frist!

So that's why Musk's Neuralink will come with the standard Starlink feature. Instead of autopilot controlling the car it could just control the driver directly.

Orbital domination, communication monopoly, mind control, robot army, automated giga factories. It is all starting to fit together. He can even use the Boring Company to construct a secret underground headquarters.

[DS999]

Re: Me frist!

He can even use the Boring Company to construct a secret underground headquarters

That's probably already well underway. Because the Boring company has done fuck all as far as actually digging any publicly announced tunnels - and if you believed Musk's typically grandiose claims about how quickly it could tunnel there should be tens of thousands of miles of tunnels by now. Maybe for once he wasn't lying (I know, but stick with me here) and 99% of the tunneling has been for creating his secret lair deep under Texas (because no supervillian wants to have his lair in a location subject to state income taxes!)

[James Hughes 1]

Re: Me frist!

The Vegas Loop was built/bored by the Boring company, so your statement of "fuck all" is incorrect.

[DS999]

Re: Me frist!

A handful of miles that took years to complete and doesn't deliver on their initial promise as cars are not driving in the tunnel. It may not be "fuck all" but it is FAR closer to that than anything Musk promised which should include thousands of miles of tunnels by now.

[Excused Boots]

Re: Me frist!

Texas, really, come on now, every potential super villain knows that you have to construct your secret lair under or within a volcano on a Japanese island! Otherwise, well, you're just not getting the idea of proper super villainy here are you?

[DS999]

Re: Me frist!

Dunno, if they really are evil geniuses you have to think after seeing those volcanic lairs blown up again and again causing the volcano to erupt and destroy everything they'd want to locate their lair in a more geologically stable location.

Plus it has to be harder to hire henchman if they see the workplace is a volcano and they know what happens to henchman when those lairs are blown up. You don't want to find out firsthand what happens when "the floor is lava" is really true!

[Bebu]

Re: Me frist!

Didn't Captain Nemo has a base in an extinct volcano's caldera? (Perhaps that was only in a 1960s movie version.)

I imagine Nemo would had been a foundation member of Greenpeace if nobody was.

Anyway volcanoes extinct or otherwise as the lairs of supervillains or evil geniuses is very last century. I should think a contemporary, status conscious, supervillain aspires to an orbiting space lair or a sprawling sublunar base on the far side.

Its so hard to keep up with Bezoses if you have plonked your wad on annexing Twiterie to your dismal empire.

The irony is that most the Bond villains from SPECTRE were far more credible characters than most of these clowns. Even KAOS and THRUSH had smarter villains.

[xyz]

Oooh handbags at dawn...

I dread Amazon having any satellite service. There would probably be a get Prime pop up that appears on screen every 5 seconds.

Whatever happened to OneWeb? Must be really embarassing needing to use somone else's tool to get yours up.

[Mishak]

OneWeb

I think they have one more launch (from India) to complete their initial constellation - they have written off (and replaced) the satellites that are currently "stuck" in Russia.

[Gary Stewart]

Re: Oooh handbags at dawn...

They are now using SpaceX to launch their satellites. The latest SpaceX launch put 40 OneWeb satellites in orbit on Mar. 9.

[Bebu]

Re: Oooh handbags at dawn...

"Must be really embarassing needing to use somone else's tool to get yours up."

Nearly pissed myself :))))

The picture of Bezos and Musk duelling with their respective pork swords in order to get more thrust, as it were, was worthy of the best of "Drop the Dead Donkey."

[druck]

Re: Oooh handbags at dawn...

Joy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hugo Drax Wannabees....

Can't wait for a moonrakeresque fight in space!

[that one in the corner]

Re: Hugo Drax Wannabees....

I've been hoping for something more like You Only Live Twice: to the accompaniment of a thundering good John Barry style theme, one mad billionaire's satellites swallows up another's.

Whilst Musk's lot would be sticking to the tried and true "bring the captured back down to my volcano^^^^^^^barge-based lair" script, Amazon will have to follow the Body Snatchers approach, suborning the SpaceX satellites and turning them into its Own Kind. Hmm, they want to share the same frequencies as Starlink, eh? So the zombie Starlink sats will have the correct radio kit to join in with Kuiper? Suspicions are growing...

[that one in the corner]

Re: Hugo Drax Wannabees....

On second thoughts, Let's Go Drax!

Pew, pew, pew.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hugo Drax Wannabees....

> Can't wait for a moonrakeresque fight in space!

But Elon assured us his satellite lasers were just for communications ...

[FIA]

Thing I can never get past when it comes to Amazon and space is Bezos's stated attitude that the American taxpayer should fund his fancy rocket development.

SpaceX may have been in receipt of US taxpayers funding, but they've dramatically reduced the cost to the same taxpayer for getting stuff to space. (They've launched more orbital rockets than everyone else combined).

[Mishak]

"SpaceX may have been in receipt of US taxpayers funding"

In the form of being paid for services or to carry out specific research (on-orbit refuelling), rather than a handout.

[nautica]

"We like a man to come right out and say what he thinks- if we agree with him."

[iron]

I hate to support Space Karen but Jeff's BO stinks.

Try launching a rocket into space (the dildo doesn't count) then into orbit before you go throwing your weight around in an arena where you have achieved nothing.

[Anonymous Coward]

A bit cruder that I' dhave said it but,

Lets not forget that Bezos fired the opening volleys on this, and then kept on shooting, for a couple years.

His lobbying has tried to slow or obstruct SpaceX on contracts, regulatory approvals, and funding. Over and over. All in an effort to delay SpaceX from its goals and in the hopes of keeping it from becoming an entrenched player in the markets Bezos wants to enter then take over the same way Amazon operates.

The Musk vs Bezos dick measuring contest is a game with no winners, but we as taxpayers lose when a predatory corporate monopolist is trying to break the back of the healthiest competitor in the space race. Musk is an albatross around the companies neck, but SpaceX is making launches happen, shifting payloads to orbit, and keeping costs down in an era where the competition is mired in graft, cost overruns, delays and technical failures.

Making SpaceX stumble so that Jeff's vanity project has a chance to catch up only benefits Bezos. If he was picking on the ULA and making them up their game I'd have a different opinion of him, but since he started a ruthless campaign of obstructionism against SpaceX, he shouldn't clutch his pearls when the Golden Rule kicks in.

[Mishak]

If he was picking on the ULA

Unlikely, as BO are supplying BE-4 engines to them.

[FIA]

Re: If he was picking on the ULA

You say 'supplying'...

They've managed to send two engines so far, over 5 years late, one of which had to be returned to be repaired. (It wasn't clear if it was damaged when the delivery driver tossed it over the fence or not).

I suspect ULA are really wishing they'd kept up their prime membership.

To be fair, it seems the problem BO are having is they've adopted the NASA approach, when everyone else has switched to rapid itteration. The BE-4 engine looks mighty impressive, but then so do a pluraity of raptors and they're strapped to an actual rocket.

[DS999]

So what, you have to have your own rockets to launch your satellites before you have any say in satellite policies?

No one would ever have had the "right" to speak up if your ridiculous take applied. It isn't like all the TV networks and satellite TV companies commissioning satellites have their own rockets. Unless I missed Charlie Ergen having a rocket company, or Viacom, or whoever.

[Marty McFly]

Good, very good!

I have Starlink & I like the service. However, they are well underway to becoming the monster they sought to replace.

Those of us with rural single-vendor Internet service (read: very slow DSL) are delighted to finally tell the wired Telco's to go pound sand. As the single vendor for decades they have perpetually raised prices with zero service improvements. Starlink has now raised the price on me 20% in the past year - from $100 to $120/mo.

Would I switch to Amazon? Who knows. BUT it would give competition to Starlink and cause them to re-think their regular price increases. A multi-vendor market for satellite ISP service is a good thing!!

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Good, very good!

But you DO have a choice. Go back to your cheap(er) and crap DSL provider or stay with expensive and fast provider :-)

[File Not Found]

Re: Good, very good!

Oh no it’s not. Keep all this pointless space junk on the ground and leave some dark sky for the rest of us.

[James Hughes 1]

Re: Good, very good!

Hmm, satellite constellation have the chance of improving the lives (via broadband) of a huge number of people all around the world. Is that a worthwhile tradeoff for the occasional light trail affecting a tiny number of people? I think it is.

[Kapsalon]

Re: Good, very good!

If your price went up then you live in a "heavy use area, so move to a more rural place to get cheaper Starlink, see https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/11abrra/reply_from_starlink_regarding_price_increase/

[Claptrap314]

About time!

See, THIS is what I come here for--there's drama on the screen, and El' Reg is here with the popcorn (deets) and salt(y commentary). Okay, so it's not strictly IT, but.... BITE THAT HAND!! BITE THAT HAND!!