I think 1U was poorly optimized for scale, and thus bigger chassis in a rack could use bigger heatsinks and fans at lower speeds instead of small screamers.
We grew with overbuilt furniture, trailers, radio masts, gas fittings, plumbing, etc. that my father built. A whole lot of knitted jumpers, wool socks, bed covers, etc. from my mother and the aunts with a freezer full of home cooked meals scaled for shearing teams and put away for later.
Most of that carries on, and we've got good relations with a slew of people that are solid craftspeople who put their best work in galleries for the extra big bucks.
The good stuff is as accessible to us normies as good software is to the HN crowd .. it costs less or nothing if you're in the maker circles swapping food, yarns, and other goods.
FWiW I was a silent partner and occasional assistant in a glass studio / wood shop for two decades, that helps - that was some money (way back when you could get a lot of land for a lot less than today) and a lot of sweat equity modifying buildings and landscaping, etc.
> Potentially you could burn the constellation with reentry
Just put them into a spin with a strong propellant burn while compromising ground stations. Even if the fleet recovers, its lifespan will have been significantly reduced by the propellant expenditure.
Spin would be indeed the most problematic, but the Starlink satellites only have krypton hall thrusters. Very efficient but also very low thrust - you you could not actually significantly waste fuel this way even if you wanted to.
You'd need to have actual knowledge of the hardware systems and serious access to do anything interesting with thrusters. It may be possible. But just bricking the updates is likely way simpler and less protected.
You have the resources of a country to support any activity. Need computer experts? Take your pick? Astronomers? Mathematician? They have all the expertise required.
The agent getting the right access or finding the right people on the inside and exploiting them successfully without trigger counterintelligence is the hard part.
First you'd have to extract the documentation which may not be available to everyone. I'm just saying that in limited time, the purely software side of starlink is likely much less protected from both access and changes than anything to do with thrusters usage.
I'd wonder about someone targeting Musk seeing as Starlink is one of his ventures that seems to be running well up to now while his other companies have issues. Having typed that out it seems like a spy movie plot, but that seems to be the world we're living in recently.
I don’t think musk himself would be the weakest link, as the high profile brings scrutiny and thus increased security and counterintelligence. Trying would be a good way to get the FBI to look into you.
Easier and safer to go after unknown employees with access.
In Canada with a state broadcaster you can get credit from low information votes just by announcing a program without ever implementing or funding it.
Pravda!
it needs to be better connected over larger distances i guess.
Some 'sunny' countries around the equator are working on it. laying gridlines to other less sunny places and trying to offer solar to reduce carbon taxes or whatever.
i know Saudi, Morocco and China are all massively dumping panels into their deserts, likely more places too. these are great places to put them as it has less impact on environment (less wildlife etc.) and it's pretty much always sunny during the daytime, so it's high efficient per m/2 comparted to colder more cloudy places.
Morocco already is connected for energy providing to Europe via Spain afaik, though i think that is currently not used yet, so they are in a good position to leverage that as power demands surge across EU datacenters trying to compete in AI :'D (absolutely no clue if they will actually go that route but it seems logical!)
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