I keep meaning to grift the SovCits, with new and exciting producta. For example, license plates with yellow fringe on them to indicate they are actually seagoing vessels portaging overland between navigable waters. You just have to drive them to a boat ramp and let their wheels touch the water from time to time, to make them subject to maritime law. This allows you to use them even for commerce without needing to register them with the DMV.
If it ever becomes forced, colleges and employers are going to expect to see scores. Absence of ASVAB results will be conspicuous.
I’d have loved that job, learning languages,
Former linguist here… I’d recommend not joining as a linguist on your first enlistment. Go in on something simple: admin, truck driver, something with a short tech school. Then re-enlist as a linguist.
For prior service students in a Cat IV language, Monterey is pretty much a ~2 year, paid vacation. You’ll have free time to attend college classes, take a part time job, or something else that will benefit you in the long run.
For initial entry students, it’s a 2-year, officially condoned and mandated hazing ritual.
I think they should build it, but use it to reflect some darkness down on the bright side, rather than sunlight down on the dark side.
Brb, restocking guillotines in my Etsy store.
The problem with CO2 is that it traps energy radiated from the earth, preventing it from passing through the atmosphere and back into the sky. Now we’re going to send down more energy?
You don’t seem to understand that it costs more to shoot down a satellite than it costs to launch one. It costs a lot more… Like, A whole lot more.
Yup, the military with an operating budget ten times Starlink and an ability to put it’s own satellites up could do nothing…
10 times, eh? That’s the budget you’re willing to give your anti-satellite program? 10 times is not even “a lot” more, let alone “a whole lot”.
Each Starlink satellite costs about $300,000 to build and launch. That allows you $30 million per missile.
The ASM-135 program had a per-unit cost of $380 million (2024 dollars).
A budget 10 times as large isn’t going to cut it. You’re going to need a budget 127 times as large just to keep up.
Brazil spent $22 billion on its military last year. That would buy them 57 missiles. But, let’s assume they can get the cost down to just 10 times (they can’t) and say it costs $30 million to down a satellite. Their entire military budget gets them 733 missiles per year.
Again, Starlink can launch 60 in one launch. They have demonstrated an ability to launch over 1200 per year over a 5-year period. They are currently licensed for a constellation that will require production and launch of 2400 per year to sustain, and their next phase will require 8000 satellites per year.
Not even the US military has the capability of shooting down satellites at anything close to these rates.
Not even the US military has the capability of shooting down 200 satellites a month. You really have no idea what you are talking about.
Biden was above the ideal age when Obama was first elected in 2008. Yes, he is too old now.
The ASM-135A was fired once, and destroyed one test satellite. That satellite was the first and only satellite that mankind has destroyed with a missile.
How many of those missiles does Brazil have? How fast can they produce them?
The first operational batch of 60 Starlink satellites were launched 5 years ago. They now have well over 6000 aloft. Starlink has a demonstrated ability to produce and launch well over 100 satellites a month. They are launched in batches of 20 to 60, using any space available in any of SpaceX’s launch platforms. After launch, they are deployed and scattered throughout the sky. Brazil would need 60 missiles to bring down just one launch worth of satellites.
They are planning a constellation of 12,000 satellites with 5-year lifespans. That’s 200 satellites a month. Can Brazil produce ASM-135A missiles fast enough to actually put a dent in the Starlink constellation?
57 is the optimal age for a first-term president.
I want to be able to retire. I want everyone to be able to retire. I want my representatives to share that value, and set that example for the general public. I want them leaving office at age 65.
I won’t necessarily vote against an older candidate, but a workaholic does not share my values: I don’t live to work, and I think poorly of people who do.
They can certainly continue to contribute I. Their retirement. They can speak, teach, work for charitable organizations, sit on boards, counsel and mentor. Pretty much anything except professional business like politics.
The president should be setting the example and promoting retirement, not working themselves into the grave.
Americans and their property don’t have some special protection just for being American
Strawman. Never claimed they did. Everything I said is valid for any person of any nationality. Shooting down a Chinese satellite is an act of war against China. Shooting down one of Brazil’s dozen satellites is an act of war against Brazil, even if it is over the United States at the time.
Brazil does not have any authority to shoot down any satellites but it’s own. To do so is an act of war.
Operating at a distance is, indeed, possible, but at a distance, legal compliance is not obligatory. Starlink doesn’t have to follow Brazil’s laws any more than it does North Korea’s. Brazil can take legal action against its citizens if it prohibits them from using Starlink services. But it can’t take action against Starlink itself, except through diplomatic channels or with Starlink’s consent, because Starlink is not operating within Brazilian jurisdiction.
I don’t know why you keep insisting that a company operating outside of Brazil needs to follow Brazilian law. Brazilian customers of that company need to follow Brazilian law, but the company is not obligated, regardless of what Brazil thinks about it.
Same thing with the GDPR. Yeah, they’ll fine the European division of a company based on the company’s worldwide revenue, but if the company has no European division to fine, European regulators can piss up a rope, regardless of whether the company is based in the US or Brazil.
can’t sit in international waters while operating inside a national area
You can’t do that for the same reason you can’t sit in a corner of the oval office. It’s a contradiction of terms. An oxymoronic proposition.
Starlink isn’t operating inside a national area. Low earth orbit is not a national area.
Yes, ships have been sunk in international waters by national governments. Those are acts of war.
Your definition of an act of war would mean every American citizen, plane, and ship, carried a presumption of military action with them wherever they go
No. Not “wherever” they go. Pay very close attention: Brazil controls only it’s own territory.
An American going into Brazilian territory is expected and required to obey Brazilian laws. An American in international waters is not expected or required to obey Brazilian law just because a Brazilian warship shows up and threatens to sink them. A Brazilian naval vessel attempting to sink an American commercial ship in international waters is committing an act of war. And you damn well better believe there will be a military response to such an act. Don’t touch our boats.
Starlink is not operating in Brazilian territory. They are operating over Brazilian territory. Downing a foreign spacecraft is an act of war; beaming a radio signal carrying the internet into a nation that doesn’t want it is simply not.
Brazil can go after it’s citizens for using Starlink, but it can’t go after Starlink itself.
Paradoxically, they would probably do better if the AI hallucinated more. When you realize your tutor is capable of making mistakes, you can’t just blindly follow their process; you have to analyze and verify their work, which forces a more complete understanding of the concept, and some insight into what errors can occur and how they might affect outcomes.
That’s not how that works, you can’t just jam a commercial ship into a country and blow raspberries at them
If you want to use a commercial ship in your analogy, you’re going to have to place it in international waters, 200 miles off the coast. Brazil does not control a commercial ship in international waters; Brazil does not control a satellite passing overhead. Attacking either is, indeed, an act of war.
Sending and receiving radio communications with Brazil or North Korea is not an act of war. If Brazil has a problem with that, they can make it a diplomatic issue.
Your sovereignty arguments should hold true no matter what sovereign nation we are talking about. Replace “Brazil” with “North Korea”, and they devolve into absurdity: North Korea has no authority to dictate terms to Starlink, and no capacity to stop them. Their sovereignty does not convey them the power or authority to control low earth orbit.
Brazil firing on a Chinese satellite would be an act of war against China. Brazil firing on a Starlink satellite would be an act of war against the US, even if that satellite were in Brazil’s sovereign borders at the time. Whether the US would respond to such aggression is an open question, but I doubt they would be interested in finding out.
Brazil has no direct, forceful route to compel Starlink to comply with the order. Their only real option is diplomacy.
Brazil didn’t give them a permit for anything. The relevant permits are from the FCC, FAA, NASA. They have a permit for 12,000, and they have plans for a 3-layer constellation of 30,000.
don’t get why you think Starlink can manufacture and replace delicate instruments in orbit faster than a medium sized country can launch explosives to yeet them.
Starlink deploys something like 60 satellites per launch, then scatters them. Brazil would have to launch a separate missile at each of those 60. Of course, this assumes they actually have a missile that can do job. Which they don’t. Not even the US has the capability to destroy satellites at this scale.
It is not possible to accomplish what you are talking about. And even if it were technologically possible, it is entirely infeasible. It would be easier for Brazil to develop a manned Mars mission than to destroy Starlink satellites faster than they can be replaced.
There you go: he is outside Brazilian law, but Brazil can call on the US to rein him in.
Brazil does not have the capacity to stop Starlink from putting up satellites.
ACTs and SATs aren’t mandated. Students take them if they want to, just like the ASVAB now.
If the SATs were mandated, employers and colleges would expect to see the scores.