Over the past couple of years, Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies has just about doubled the total number of satellites in orbit around Earth. It now has as many functioning satellites as all other nations and companies combined. And they’re raising a lot of important questions.
All of this is to say we’re in the midst of the first real space war in which corporate players are exerting major influence over the action on the ground. In the months leading up to Russia’s invasion, governments, analysts and even the public were provided with thousands of images from satellites owned by companies such as Planet Labs and Maxar Technologies.
The commercial space industry has been a great equaliser in this war – a turn of events that must eat at Putin and his space-proud nation. When Russia claims not to have bombed a hospital, before-and-after images of the building are at the ready to reveal the truth. When Russian troops move during the night, their positions are known. And when communication towers are brought down on the ground in Ukraine, they’re backstopped by data beamed from above.
Much has changed since Musk started his rocket company in 2002. As far as patriotic stories go, it’s hard to top SpaceX: Immigrant from South Africa comes to California and restores the US’s once-flagging space program to become the envy of the world. The conundrum the US and, really, everyone now faces is that Musk has moved so fast with so much ambition that SpaceX has amassed the power of a nation-state within a private company. Historically, the leaders of military contractors have been happy to do the Defence Department’s bidding during a conflict. Musk, though, is Musk. He’s out there tweeting, changing his mind on the fly, and getting involved in geopolitics in ways that no government official can control.
Between SpaceX, PayPal, Tesla, Spacelink, OpenAI and others - you can't say the guy isn't make a positive difference in the world!
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