Hm i dont know ,if they were MY tunnels i would be ok with them there.Someone elses tunnels just rub me the wrong way , like stepping in someone elses house with the furniture still there.
Similarly to Starlink , which was hyped as a low codt alternative for marginalised people/areas and sucked in enormous subsidies to that end.
While being more or less a proof of concept for a military command and control network , thats the same way this should be looked at.Especially with data centers being vulnerable on ground, coupled with the ability to reposition the space based units to be 'closer to the action' as it were.
So bottom line a proof of concept for DARPA funds and eventual inegration into the military command and control nodes.
Starlink didn't get any subsidies. There were reports in summer about them potentially getting 600 Mio (btw the broadband program is 40 billion heavy) and I can't find sources that SpaceX got any program founding yet.
You're correct that "we'll pay you to launch this satellite" isn't a subsidy. But "we'll pay you to develop this satellite launcher, and this cargo capsule, and this crew capsule, with the explicit goal of kickstarting a new launch provider" is.
Things like the EV tax credit also apply, considering Musk has leveraged his Tesla holdings to help SpaceX at times.
And to be clear: this was a very good use of public funds, whatever I think of Musk these days.
Exactly, in retrospect it's easy to confuse with a regular commercial transaction that happens to be with the government. But only because SpaceX was ultimately wildly successful with the Falcon 9/Dragon/Crew Dragon.
If SpaceX failed to deliver a working product after a receiving a bunch of incremental payments for the pre-delivery milestones (deliberately structured to prop up their early R&D), it might have ended up front and center as an example of government "picking winners and losers" gone wrong like how Solyndra was featured at the 2012 RNC.
> But "we'll pay you to develop this satellite launcher, and this cargo capsule, and this crew capsule, with the explicit goal of kickstarting a new launch provider" is.
"$38 billion!", the Post shouts about in the headline, knowing full well that people will take away that every cent was a true, untrammeled, unconditional "subsidy", as opposed to government contracts that came after successfully meeting that early ambitious goal the NASA development contract laid out for SpaceX.
By that logic, every US university with federal funding is being subsidized à la Musk. Every small business that gets an SBA loan—the type of low-interest loan that the Post article highlights—is being subsidized. The NASA program that helped fund Falcon 1 were available to anyone with a promising design, and was contingent on meeting various milestones; to paraphrase the old saying about the early manned space program, no Buck Rogers, no bucks. SpaceX delivered the Buck Rogers.
Regarding Crew Dragon, SpaceX and Boeing each signed contracts as part of the Commercial Crew program for six operational manned missions. After SpaceX fulfilled its six, NASA awarded another contract for eight more (and just purchased a few more). Meanwhile, in addition to Boeing being paid substantially much for its half of the program, the company received a $300 million special, uncontracted payment in 2016 (not disclosed until 2019) to further accelerate development.
The Starliner flight that spectacularly ran into difficulties at ISS in 2024 was a pre-operational manned test mission (SpaceX's equivalent was done in May 2020). In other words, Boeing has not yet begun its six operational missions!
Getting back to the Post article:
>Government contracts to SpaceX from NASA and the Defense Department make up the majority of funds.
Again, this isn't the US government giving sacks full of cash to Musk just because it feels like it. Biden's NASA administrator Bill Nelson quoted a member of the Joint Chiefs as telling him that SpaceX had saved the US government $40 billion for just launching military payloads <https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/06/05/did-spacex-really-...>.
> By that logic, every US university with federal funding is being subsidized à la Musk.
That is correct.
> Every small business that gets an SBA loan—the type of low-interest loan that the Post article highlights—is being subsidized.
Yes.
> Meanwhile, in addition to Boeing being paid substantially much for its half of the program, the company received a $300 million special, uncontracted payment in 2016 (not disclosed until 2019) to further accelerate development.
"Boeing is subsidized" is not a controversial statement.
> On the civilian side, SpaceX saved NASA $2 billion for just one payload
Yes, this is why we do subsidies - they (potentially) pay off. We subsidize healthcare for poor people because it saves us money in the long run. We subsidize infrastructure because it helps the economy. We subsidize critical manufacturers for national security reasons.
How is it you're reading "x is subsidized" - a simple fact - to mean "subsidizing x is bad" - a matter of opinion that varies from subsidy to subsidy and company to company?
"A subsidy, subvention or government incentive is a type of government expenditure which redistributes from tax payers to individuals, households, or businesses. Subsidies take various forms, such as direct government expenditures, tax incentives, soft loans, price support, and government provision of goods and services."
> How is it you're reading "x is subsidized" - a simple fact - to mean "subsidizing x is bad" - a matter of opinion that varies from subsidy to subsidy and company to company?
You and I, and everyone else, knows what "Musk got subsidies" means to the mentally reddited of the world:
>the US government giving sacks full of cash to Musk just because it feels like it.
No, I'm saying that when the Post puts out an article shouting about "$38 billion" going to Musk, many, many people are going to take away from that that "Musk received $38 billion in grants, gifts, and otherwise free money from taxpayers". What was your purpose in insta-citing that article, as opposed to pointing to the one NASA program for funding promising booster designs, complete with strict standards at various milestones, that helped fund (in addition to $100 million, essentially every cent of Musk's PayPal fortune) resulted in the Falcon 1 two decades ago?
I'll answer my own rhetorical question. Your implication is that every single thing Musk and Musk's companies are doing today—Dragon, Crew Dragon, Falcon 9, Starship, xAI, Tesla, etc., etc.—are "subsidized"—again, with the "sacks of free money with dollar signs painted on them" connotation—because of that Falcon 1 program two decades ago. If believing that makes you feel better about the accomplishments of someone you admit to greatly disliking, congratulations.
And before you deny doing so, you are the one who wrote
>> Starlink didn't get any subsidies.
>If you don't count the launcher it rides on, and the company that owns both.
> many, many people are going to take away from that that "Musk received $38 billion in grants, gifts, and otherwise free money from taxpayers"
Maybe you're projecting your own beliefs about government subsidizing things a little on other people. The government made a risky bet; that's one of the important things governments exist for. Sometimes they pay off (SpaceX), sometimes they don't (Starliner).
Perhaps the next time someone correctly notes SpaceX got subsidized you might lead with the clear positive cost savings you eventually defended them with?
> What was your purpose in insta-citing that article…
It was the first reputable source that came up in Google? It gives several specifics that directly match the Wikipedia definition of a subsidy?
> because of that Falcon 1 program two decades ago
Falcon 1 got them the subsidies. It was the most unsubsidized part of SpaceX!
> If believing that makes you feel better about the accomplishments of someone you admit to greatly disliking, congratulations.
I can be a big SpaceX fan and still wish the man running it hadn't gotten brainworms.
> And before you deny doing so, you are the one who wrote…
Why would I deny that? I asserted Starlink has been subsidized, and stand by that claim. I'd thought we'd settled that point handily by now.
>Falcon 1 got them the subsidies. It was the most unsubsidized part of SpaceX!
mfw
>I asserted Starlink has been subsidized, and stand by that claim. I'd thought we'd settled that point handily by now.
And here you were questioning my need to speak to the mentally reddited.
Even accepting the notion that a small NASA pay-for-performance program = "subsidy" = Falcon 1 (with Musk throwing his entire $100 million fortune into starting a cockamamie rocket startup despite having zero experience in the field having absolutely nothing to do with the rocket meeting the program's goals, of course), name the subsidies that resulted in Falcon 9, in vertical-landing Falcon 9, in Dragon, in Crew Dragon, in Starship, in Starlink, in Starshield. (And before you say it, Starlink was turned down for the FCC rural subsidy.)
>Perhaps the next time someone correctly notes SpaceX got subsidized you might lead with the clear positive cost savings you eventually defended them with?
As I said,
>Your implication is that every single thing Musk and Musk's companies are doing today—Dragon, Crew Dragon, Falcon 9, Starship, xAI, Tesla, etc., etc.—are "subsidized"—again, with the "sacks of free money with dollar signs painted on them" connotation—because of that Falcon 1 program two decades ago.
> Even accepting the notion that a small NASA pay-for-performance program = "subsidy" = Falcon 1 (with Musk throwing his entire $100 million fortune into starting a cockamamie rocket startup despite having zero experience in the field having absolutely nothing to do with the rocket meeting the program's goals, of course), name the subsidies that resulted in Falcon 9, in vertical-landing Falcon 9, in Dragon, in Crew Dragon, in Starship, in Starlink, in Starshield.
"Subsidies take various forms, such as direct government expenditures, tax incentives, soft loans, price support, and government provision of goods and services."
Tesla received low-interest loans (and tax credits for their customers). SpaceX was given funds (that'll be "direct government expenditures") to develop the Falcon 9, Cargo Dragon, and Crew Dragon (and now the lunar lander). Those funds were not conditional on completion of the program (as we've seen with Starliner); they were R&D funding in milestones in hopes of a functional spacecraft at the end.
> with Musk throwing his entire $100 million fortune into starting a cockamamie rocket startup despite having zero experience in the field having absolutely nothing to do with the rocket meeting the program's goals, of course
Again with the strawmen.
"You got subsidies" and "you had nothing to do with the success" are wildly different statements. You can be both an extremely hard worker and supergenius and still need government support for your very expensive good idea.
> Your implication is that every single thing Musk and Musk's companies are doing today—Dragon, Crew Dragon, Falcon 9, Starship, xAI, Tesla, etc., etc.—are "subsidized"—again, with the "sacks of free money with dollar signs painted on them" connotation—because of that Falcon 1 program two decades ago.
No, the opposite. Falcon 1 is the single least subsidized part of it. It was the one big bit Musk completely self-funded.
They demonstrated an ability to get to orbit (after almost going bankrupt), which gave NASA the confidence to subsidize them in a larger project.
Starlink was granted $880m from the FCC, but later defaulted on conditions, so didn't get most of the money.
Starshield, on the other hand, has been directly funded by the US government to the tune of ~$9b in reported funding (much of it NRO or Space Force classified). It has ~250 satellites up as of now.
> A subsidy, subvention or government incentive is a type of government expenditure which redistributes from tax payers to individuals, households, or businesses. Subsidies take various forms, such as direct government expenditures, tax incentives, soft loans, price support, and government provision of goods and services.
SpaceX benefited from the italicized items in this definition.
icbms and hypersonics exist, theres no defense against the top end anywhere atm.
if you're in a war where people are shooting your satellites out of the sky you're past the point where defenses matter. theres no grey war in space like russia hiring people to blow up stuff in europe and very few states could take out multiple satellites in space.
beyond that if we ever did get to that point, you could develop anti missile tech in space, you effectively have the high ground sitting at the top of the gravity well.
I'm reasonably sure there are more states that could destroy a satellite than hit infrastructure on US soil. And if you try to use an ICBM to hit the US then you risk getting nuked.
> people are shooting your satellites out of the sky
If space powers have any sense at all they'll develop a fleet of satellites that deploy small limpet craft that attach to the enemies' satellites and drag them toward earth.
Literal shooting sounds like mutually assured satellite destruction.
This. Orbital debris are an area denial attack, and since there's only one shared planetary orbit (in aggregate), debris-creating weapons are more like biological weapons, poison gas, and tactical nuclear weapons. Even if you win, you've impeded yourself.
The internationally hoped for outcome should be that China continues scaling their orbital use, to the point where it becomes mutually advantageous to sign a treaty with the US banning orbital debris-creating weapons (and ideally imposing mutually-supported consequences on non-signatories who breach the agreement).
Then everyone would be left with more sane options of disabling-only (microwave, laser, targeted EMP, etc).
It's really about bandwidth and availability - US satcom systems were really struggling, and the only truly global (Iridium) was quite low bandwidth. Starlink is essentially "Iridium with newer tech and mass production" and IIRC DoD through various fronts put quite a lot of early financing to make it a thing, even if later the networks were supposedly disaggregated (would make sense to start building separate one once PoC was proven)
DoD financing for Starlink was a long term game to create pLEO sensing capabilities: initially GMTI, then AMTI.
Both of which give the US military more persistent (revisit delay near zero because number of assets) and survivable (number of assets + LEO debris characteristics + cattle vs pets) ISTAR.
And an advantage in persistent ISTAR is a key enabler of the way the US military is aiming to fight a peer state adversary.
I'd be fascinated to dig into the contracts, but at 10,000' it's DoD offloading the bulk of the development cost onto NASA and the public (which in both cases, still gets good value for money).
Its basically that staring at the log patterns in graph form or system stats you get a pretty good idea of what 'normal' looks like and anomalies stick out pretty quickly.
Though having a person interpretingthe degradation progress and relaying it to the rest of the team could be a usable scene.
I think its the way their kernel architecture has diverged to this point in time.Seeing as it depends on structures/primitives in DRagonfly that dont exist in the other BSDs. Making a port a bit of a challenge.
Funnily enough most takes on the book misunderstand the point that was being made (probably due to Death of the author) . In his unpublished preface and subsequent analysis the view by Orwell , who was had Trotskyist leanings, his main critique is that they weren’t communisty enough but sellouts to capitalist tendancies, hence the analysis
"Using Orwell's works to make generalised attacks on the left is problematic, even for the two novels championed thus - while Animal Farm is very clearly a deserved satire on the Soviet Union, its greatest criticism of the Russian leaders is that they sold out socialist principle to accommodate themselves with capitalist countries ("The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.");"[1]
Obviously once a work is in the public’s hands , interpretations may supersede even the authors original themes.Leaving it as a matter of interpretation/comprehension and generally accepted consensus. Incidentally a good measure of reading comprehension and analysis for the students studying he text.
More of a 'its the journey' rather than the destination type of thing.Since the insights , quirks, tricks and procedures gained along the way allows insights intoother at that moment unknown problem/domains in the future.
As far as researchers sharing their data/notes with the AI hyperscalars looks like that would be coming to an end wihth a mor guild-like structure going forward to prevent their progress being fron-run by the AI labs.
I wonder if it would be possible for researchers and scientists to submit their papers to an organization which would then collect them, submit them for peer review by other experts in the field, and then release them in periodical form ONLY to individuals and organizations who pay a subscription fee in order to read them while suing those who try to redistribute them without permission?
Why would society fund mathematicians if they decided to become a guild that hides secrets? They could pursue that as a hobby, but they’d end up like the coders who refuse to use LLMs - rapidly becoming irrelevant and a bit sad from an outsider’s perspective.
Ah but heres the thing , society/gov expects mathematicians to be productive and tries to measure that by awards/publications/citations gained. Within a guild ope or secret they could possibly use a local LLM (even if slow) to accelerate their collective output.While ensuring their credit/publication/citations remain intact rather than with the AI labs taking a lions share of that.
Think along the lines of the Nicolas Bourbaki persona/collective :
" was a collective pseudonym chosen in 1934 by a group of young French mathematicians. None of them carried the name alone; all of them carried it together. And under that name, they launched the most ambitious mathematical publishing project of the twentieth century: a series of texts rebuilding modern mathematics from scratch, on entirely axiomatic foundations."[1]
*ICC(International Criminal Court aka Hague established 1998/2002) not the ICJ(International Court of Justice aka World Court established 1946) they are different entities , hence the Hague Invasion Act from the US.
Seems if any assignments are to be handed out they should be structured in such a way that takes into account the potential of LLM use. Additionally to make the output (hardcopy? handwritten?oral presentation?) in such a way that even if LLms are used at the very least some part will be forcibly undertaken by the students in preparation of finals/real life.
Open book exams existed for a long time and even take home assignments where the net was usable to complete the tasks.
Difference was one actually had to do the reseach and learn something along the way regarding research skills or the topic itself.
LLms just make the automation and laziness with a lower barrier to polished output.
Yep and most classical computer engineering approaches have rarely tackled it appropriately in my opinion.
Expecting a von-neuman-machine with at most viaion/audio encoded tin binary to replicate a quantum processing machine with multi spectrum inputs audio/visual/tactile/electromagnetic/olfactory encoded in ternary(ACGT) is only going to simulate a very basic image.
Not to mention the philosophy of the mind/brain dichotomy (including the gut brain[1]) that connects the physical/enviromental/emotional.
In the instance that the physical (silicon/photonic) recreation is not possible the next best direction would be learing how to program the DNA for wetware devices[2].
Ideally a techthat is not core to the business goals should neither occupy dev/ops time managing it or be so complex that its failure modes are cryptic. It should get out of the devs way and be easy to grok in case of failures.
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