Why would they bother?

Why bother using NASA a civilian, largely open space agency when they could use y'know, the actual, specific, designed-for-task military space agencies that were designed, structured, and staffed PRECISELY for secretive military projects? Like DARPA, the Space Force, or the Dept of Defense programs.

I'm not saying the US doesn't have secret space launches, OBVIOUSLY they do.
What I'm mocking is the absolutely ridiculous assertion that the Chinese program is "open" to any degree, except very-calculated revelations...you know, like a military based program. From the bottom to the top. The ENTIRE Chinese program is purely secret, except for the shit they're trying to manipulate you with.

I get it, the concept of a major government program that's not secretive has to be incomprehensible to Chinese.

Obviously in 2026 most of the posts are going to be about how stupid Trump is just making meaningless goals for his own ego.

To be clear, he absolutely is.

Then again, I would point out that it seems pretty common that every president since the 1970s* has seen fit in the latter stages of their presidency to "talk big" on space commitments ... and then proceed to fund none of them.
Until I actually SEE $50bn flowing into NASA or space investment, I take ANY presidential assertions about expanding space programs as what they are: publicity bullshit.

*In fact the only one I can think of that didn't was Biden, but he was basically non compos mentis the last 12+ months anyway.

OK, OK we'll let Xi know you're earning your paycheck today.

The chinese space program is a fundamentally MILITARY program and thus its budgets, priorities, and developments are secret UNLESS there is deemed a value to public revelation.
The Chinese routinely withhold basic data that is generally shared across space agencies globally such as expected precise trajectories of vehicles and discarded stages.

Project 921, Shenlong, Or perhaps the 2007 ASAT test that was COMPLETELY unannounced and blew what, 3000+ of orbital debris?

Do you know what those TJS "communication" satellites are doing migrating into specific geostrategic orbits and then suddenly adjusting to park next to US or Euro satellites?

How's Yang Lewei feeling today?

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fundark.org%2F2019%2F01%2F29%2F...

What's chinese for "shut the fuck up, comrade"? I'm pretty sure you know it.

... But my request to the IT security mavens would be to extend your rigor beyond the employees to the programs that directly contradict your rules themselves.

I am told strictly: NEVER click on a blind link, yet I get constant emails from departments - including IT! - that are LINKS to training videos, educational resources, mandatory bullshit that when if don't click on it, I get stern warnings that I'm not doing mandatory things. (Oh, and all external email urls are replaced with unparseable 200-character strings that supposedly route the link through "URL defense" or some such.)

Or how about all the consultants? I work for an EU multinational and we have at least 3 REGULATORY-required systems that I have to log into to comply with EU bureaucracy that are myCompany.kpmg.com or whatever - and then I'm supposed to give that EXTERNAL pop-up my *corporate* user and password while it authenticates through our corporate cellphones.

I'm reasonably savvy, I believe, but when policy & security rules contradict, which am I supposed to follow? I can tell you that corporate IT doesn't appreciate being shown it's own use of blind links.

Absurd generalizations? Wut?

On what basis? It's unquestionable that the political left in the US has both:
- fought nuclear tooth and nail since the 1970s
- is clearly the most concerned (panty-wetting fear in other words) with climate change.

There is no sane person that can dispute those assertions, gaslighter.

"ignoring the fact that your tech isn't actually the only fossil fuel alternative out there" I said LITERALLY NOTHING about that. Nothing. Are you asserting that expanded nuclear WOULDN'T have reduced hydrocarbon emissions substantially, or... are you just afraid to admit that?

I think wind and solar are great; they weren't meaningfully part of the conversation 45 years ago, which is what I rather specifically referenced.

I feel like you might not be getting enough oxygen. I made a single irrefutable assertion and you go off on irrelevancies as if they matter.

We went from "Reusable rockets? That's Nuts!" to "who can stop Elon" in about 10 years.

Rocket reuse wasn't a real thing until Falcon did it in 2017, Starlink came in 2018. It was a chicken egg problem, people just don't realize how close the rocket reuse was to the first Starlink.

Getting stuff into orbit is one thing, rocket reuse is another. Lots of people are still trying to get reuse, and SpaceX is slowly retiring Falcon 9 for the Next Big Thing, reuse of two stages of rockets. Three years ago, that idea was still considered nuts. V3 Starlink can't ride on Falcon 9. They (Starship/V3 Starlink) are tandem projects.

Light is light.

Starlink V3 is not using radio, it's using Lasers. The coherent beam is the key to Terabit speeds. Which they already have. Multipath Terabit Low Latency World Wide Network? Nobody has that right now. Earth bound pathways are limited, especially across the huge H20 Holding tanks between land masses. Space offers nearly unlimited pathways, redundancies unimaginable using earth based fiber.

Here's an article explaining some of the problem: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Farstechnica.com%2Fgadget...

"What good is a phone call if you are unable to speak" - Agent Smith

Long Term thinking isn't profitable in the short term. And it is much riskier to bet long term than short term.

The correct view a blend of aggressive short term with long term values.

Comcast could have taken the aggressive short term and built out before anyone else, AND THEN CHARGED MORE while they were still a monopoly. They still have cable in my house, and I've replaced it with faster fiber for less. They simply dropped the ball.

If only the people crying about the imminent doom of climate change weren't exactly the same group that INSISTED we abandon nuclear 45y ago.

The *exact* same idea with the *exact* same complaints from the Left, the UCS, all the progressive crybabies...can reasonably be seen as having ended the Soviet Union by ramming it financially into its own contradictions.
Is that ACTUALLY what you guys at the Paul Robeson bookstore are all still salty about? That the guys you insisted all along were the "good guys" turned out not to be?

Anyway, the idea that defense = escalation hasn't been a thing since MAD was largely abandoned in the 1990s. Welcome to the post cold-war era, comrade.

...and it is genuinely an efficiency gain: now I can completely avoid 2 shit product families from only 1 vendor.

That's great!

"Off the top of my head, I cannot do it fully accurately."

Correct. You cannot. Courts are in disagreement, the police take advantage.

There was no warrant here (as you pointed out). They are claiming to not need one, even in light of the 4th and 5th Amendments.

RAS is a legal requirement. What was the Reasonable Articulatable Suspicion. They lied either by claiming Kiddie Pron or they had no RAS at all.

Can cops lie? Legally yes and largely without boundries. That is the end of any conversation.

It's more like guidelines.

"The US is escalating"?
That's a rather specious viewpoint, isn't it? Or did you intend to lie by omission?

The Soviets/Russians have had space based weapons platforms in orbit since the 1960s
The Chinese have had weapons aloft for at least 10y.
Honestly, if the US *doesn't* have functional, effective orbital weapons already up there, they're fucking incompetent.

And, if investors don't like it, they can walk away, can't they?
Isn't that how the free market works? Convince people to invest in you, great. If you're an asshole or do stupid things, they take their $ away.

Look, I get it, slashdot despises Musk for many, many things (some even have to do with actual business or technology). But this is up to investors and their choices.

SpaceX IPO $160 today $162. Not really compelling unless one believes in their mission.
Tesla 1y was $442, now is $385. Not very compelling.