From June
I used to think it was unrealistic in Civilization how you would have a country in the space age next to a country still in the iron age but that’s basically China and the US.
I’m full of zingers tonight ig.
Technically we have a space age civilization next to a copper (bronze?) age civilization in the case of sentinel island
American libs and chuds only played the first Civilization.
”I know they’re ahead of us in tech, but a spearman can beat a battleship if he gets lucky!”:liberalism: ”Democracy has no corruption.”
Overall what the Chinese researchers did was very cool and an impressive technological feat. Communication at speeds of 1Gbps over a distance of 36,705km using a 2 watt laser is seriously impressive. I just don’t see the need for comparison to Starlink, completely irrelevant here and honestly clickbait.
From reading the article, they used lasers to do data transfer from space to ground. NASA has done the same at speeds up to 200Gbps (obviously with higher power lasers). Don’t see the relevance to Starlink space to ground communications here, which use radio waves. Starlink itself uses lasers with 200Gbps transfer rate to communicate between satellites, but not for space to ground communications. I don’t think it’s practical or affordable to use lasers for a satellite based internet service’s space to ground communications. How much would a receiver cost for an everyday user? In this experiment, a 1.8-metre telescope with 357 micro-mirrors and tailor made processors was used as a receiver, to precisely track the satellite. Is this a practical and affordable receiver option for your average user vs a Starlink terminal, a 0.5m x 0.5m square that does not require precise tracking of the satellite it’s up linked to? I don’t see mass adoption of such telescope receivers being viable.
If we want to talk about Starlink and SpaceX, they have a massive advantage over everyone else as far as lift capacity goes. Any competitor in this space (pun not intended) will have to close this enormous gap. The more mass you can move into space, the more satellites, the more people can connect:
The above graphic is also why Elon Musk can basically do whatever he wants with minimal negative effect (see 1 trillion dollar Tesla payout). He’s in control of what is essentially, a massive monopoly here, a monopoly on mankind’s ability to put things into space affordably. No one wants to piss off that guy. Not even the Tesla board, who could lose a ton of money if the Tesla bubble bursts.
Yup, this is dumb propaganda being made of a tech demo.
People on hexbear are a bit broken when it comes to pro-chinese propaganda.
I mean it’s a very cool technological achievement by China, I would love to work on something like that. A 2 watt laser being used to communicate over such vast distances is mindblowing. But why compare it to Starlink? It’s like comparing a Formula 1 car to your grandmother’s Honda Civic. Yes, of course the F1 car is more technologically advanced and on the cutting edge. But can you sell millions of F1 cars in the same way Honda sells millions of Civics? Obviously not, which is a general rule for cutting edge technology.
Well that’s the thing, if you throw money at research you can do amazing stuff, give me an army of grad students and a few thousand meters of sticky tape and I’ll make you some graphene supercaps.
The issue is always in translating results into something practical.
Media releases like this are just dumb propaganda clouding the scientific and technical achievements and preventing their clear-eyed assessment
Mhmm, kessler me harder daddy
Starlink is probably not the biggest concern for that as they’ve reduced the altitude their satellite’s orbit at vs initial plans (and are incentivised to do so because of the reduced latency as an internet service). So in theory, they should de orbit relatively quickly because of that, more drag the lower you go. The sheer number of Starlink satellites is concerning though.
The most concerning objects for Kessler syndrome are the largest pieces of space debris at higher altitudes that won’t de orbit quickly. Large rocket stages, larger decommissioned satellites, and so forth.
IIRC their deorbiting satellites have raised atmospheric aluminum levels by some ridiculous amount in a few years, which has some pretty serious potential ramifications for the environment. Temp increases around the equator I think.
They’re tearing a hole in the fucking ozone again, most likely.
I’m not an expert but do lurk around Chinese space nerd online groups.
Starlink (and SpaceX in general) is one of the few areas where even Chinese space nerds will admit the gap between the US and China is actively widening, as in SpaceX is actually doing way better than the rest of the world.
People don’t like SpaceX because it’s associated with Elon Musk. China’s manned space program has been around since 2003 and there has been a total of 16 crewed orbital missions. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon only started in 2020 and already has 18 crewed orbital missions, and have carried more people to space than the entire span of China’s 20+ years of manned space program. Apparently it’s because SpaceX has managed to bring the cost of rocket launch down significantly.
But the laser power on Shijian-20 remains classified. The US military has reportedly sent a satellite to spy on Shijian-20 from a close distance, but the Chinese satellite moved away.
It’s probably “standard behaviour” to spy on “enemy” satellites, but it seems so petty and dumb when put this way.
so funny how they tried to spy on it but moving away just invalidated it
This is totally like when someone you didn’t like tried to cheat off your shit in school. Gotta scooch the desk away.
Ah shit ah fuck they have thrusters on that thing
Also I imagine the engineers piloting the satellite: 😒
So it’s cool if we spy and steal their technology? But when China commits “IP Theft” it’s a world ending problem
See… this is where communism leads. Slippery slope.
