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I'd broadly agree that EU is pretty behind the curve. But I think China is probably only ~5 years max behind the curve in terms of Starlink.

But in terms of defense needs, I don't think you actually need the thousands and thousands for reasonable returns. DoD/NRO has bought maybe ~500 Starshields (https://www.fool.com/investing/2024/03/26/spacex-starshield-...) from SpaceX.

I think China is well within reach of being able to put up those numbers within a few years, even if they don't get re-use figured out (which I think they will within a 2-3 years - basically what SpaceX did from the first landing attempts to success).

Falcon-9 first landed in 2015 and was regularly landing within a couple of years. So being 10 years behind means "almost ready to go".

suborbital Yuanxingzhe-1 landed may 2025, and orbital Zhuque-3 was really close to landing in December. Long March 12A also tried in December although it wasn't as close to success.

So if China is 10 years behind, they've caught up. We won't know if they're 10 years or further behind for a couple years more, though.

And while China may be 10-15 years behind on their Falcon-9 equivalents, they're likely less than 10 years behind on their Starship equivalents.

SpaceX will happily launch satellites for competitors. OneWeb has bought launches from them, for example.

Can you explain what makes Falcon9 / Starship special (or needed) to launch these satellites? China, India, EU, Japan etc. all have the capability to launch satellites. So why is a Falcon9 / Starship a particular requirement?

The story I like to tell is about the Manhattan Project. This caused a debate in US strategic circles that set policy for the entire post-1945 world. Debate included whether a preemptive nuclear strike on the USSR was necessary or even just a good idea.

Anyway, many in these circles thought the USSR would take 20 years to develop the bomb if they ever did. It took 4 years. The hydrogen bomb? The USA tested theirs in 1952. The USSR? 1953.

China now has decades of commitment to long-term projects, an interest in national security and creating an virtuous circle for various industries.

The US banned the export of EUV lithography machiens to China but (IMHO) they made a huge mistake by also banning the best chips. Why was this a mistake? Because it created a captive market for Chinese-made chips.

The Soviet atomic project was helped by espionage and ideology (ie some people believed in the communist project or simply thought it a bad idea that only the US had nuclear weapons). That's just not necessary today. You simply throw some money at a few key researchers and engineers who worked at ASML and you catch up to EUV real fast. I said a couple of years ago China would develop their own EUV processes because they don't want the US to have that control over them. It's a matter of national security. China seems to be 3-5 years away on conservative estimates.

More evidence of this is China not wanting to import NVidia chips despite the ban being lifted [1].

China has the same attitude to having its own launch capability. They've already started testing their own reusable rockets [2]. China has the industrial ecosystem to make everything that goes into a rocket, a captive market for Chinese launches (particularly the Chinese government and military) and the track record to pull this off.

And guess what? China can hire former SpaceX engineers too.

I predict in 5 years these comments doubting China's space ambitions will be instead "well of course that was going to happen".

[1]: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/china-want-buy-nvidi...

[2]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/chinas-explosive-...

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Any serious journalist/aid work efforts should be doing the same. It's too easy for countries to disable terrestrial internet to suppress reporting. And it's too easy for AI to generate believable but false video evidence. But if you can afford to put a man on the ground, he can get information into the next hemisphere with just a sandwich sized radio and a spool of wire -- a fantastic backup against inevitable systemic disruptions.

Canada has a lot of obscure technology that would normally fall under export restriction in the US.

The problem I have with the Canadian business culture was there is zero protection on a global scale for your company, privacy, and or personal safety. =3

Ever notice just how many countries seem to be pretty convinced war is coming? And don't tell me it's all Trump, at the very least they believe that whoever follows Trump isn't going to be very different. Plus it's mostly EU that's rearming, and surely they aren't afraid they'll be attacked ...

Starlink is redeploying to 300 miles. Many consider Kessler to be impossible at 300 miles. Any unpowered satellite at a 300 mile orbit will deorbit within a couple of months. But a collision means fragments which deorbit faster because they have a higher surface/weight ratio, and because orbit disturbances lower that time considerably. Any single disturbance that raises aphelion lowers perihelion.

A smaller player like North Korea and Iran would not have as much to lose. Iran is doing something similar today, suicide bombing everything it can.

These LEO satellites are low enough that I imagine a Kessler situation would self-resolve within a few years.

Sorry, relativity is against it. They - if they exist (a debate I'm not touching) - don't even know we are here. Even if they knew we are here they can't get here.