July 17, 2025 • 35 mins
Ever wondered what happens when a tech titan like Elon Musk sets his sights on revolutionizing global communications? Buckle up as we dive deep into the fascinating world of Starlink—SpaceX's ambitious satellite network that's changing the game for internet connectivity and military operations worldwide.
We break down how these remarkable low Earth orbit satellites are transforming global communications, with approximately 6,000 satellites already in orbit and plans for an astonishing 42,000. From covering 99% of the world's population to launching a rocket every four days with 60 flat-packed satellites, the scale and efficiency of this operation is unprecedented.
But there's more beneath the surface. We explore StarShield, the classified satellite program designed specifically for the U.S. military that carries mysterious "other payloads" for reconnaissance missions. What exactly can these satellites see and hear from just 340 miles above Earth? When Ukraine deployed commercial Starlink terminals during conflict, it demonstrated just how powerful this technology can be on the battlefield—so powerful that adversaries attempted to disable them with EMP attacks.
The conversation touches on everything from the remarkable AI collision avoidance systems keeping thousands of satellites from crashing into each other to the new commercial space race emerging between SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Chinese competitors. We even dig into T-Mobile's partnership with Starlink that allows standard smartphones to connect directly to satellites without special equipment—a capability that hints at the true potential of this technology.
Whether you're a space enthusiast, tech follower, or simply curious about how satellite technology intersects with global politics, this episode delivers fascinating insights into the present and future of space-based communications. Give it a listen and share your thoughts on this incredible technological revolution happening right over our heads.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
All right, all right, all right, it is that time for
the Global Bob Show.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, hold on.
You had that part right.
It's the Global Bob show.
I was very straightforward withyou when we started that it's
my show, not the Hello Shellyshow.
Also, what we talked about wasthat you've got to be on here
(00:40):
for five shows before you becomean official co-host, because
right now you're not even anofficial co-host.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Oh dang.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
You're more like a tag-along, right, is that okay?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
I don't know.
I want to take over the show.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I'm doing it, Okay so if the listeners out there want
to have Shelly take over theshow, please send your email to
asdf at globalbobshowcn.
I'm just kidding.
That's not even a real emailaddress.
So yeah, if y'all want to sendit there, then that's fine, it's
(01:23):
okay, bobby, you can have theshow.
Okay, all right, all right, herewe go.
It is that time of the week forthe Global Bob Show.
Global Bob Show we are thecrossroad of technology and
politics.
We got a real good one here foryou this week.
We're going to be talking aboutmainly about Starlink and some
(01:49):
of the things that come around.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Starlink Bobby, you've had a really crazy day
today.
You need to settle down some.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
And what makes you think?
That my day has been crazy sofar.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Let's see, you came in late.
The car was having issues.
Oh my God.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Everybody.
Please do not get me startedwith a car.
I know that from all outwardappearances that y'all probably
think I'm the most high-techperson in the world, but those
that know me very well will knowthat I just play a high-tech
person during the day.
(02:34):
When the show is not going onand I'm not in my business
capacity, then I'm very low tech.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
And today is very true.
Today is no different.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I go out to get in my automobile and I needed to pick
up my little nephew and bringhim to school.
Now, those that know Global Bob, and where the old ranch or
Ponderosa, or farm or whateverword you want to use for my
primary domicile is out in themiddle of the green swamp, so
(03:14):
you know I do a lot of cowboytype stuff.
Well, I go, get in the car, runa little late, throw the car
seat in there and text my littlenephew's mother and tell her
I'm rolling your way.
It's usually the way I, youknow, communicate you know
rolling your way, rolling to theswamp or whatever.
(03:35):
And my car has all these lights.
I mean, it's got so many lightslit up on the dashboard you
would have swore that it was apinball machine or something.
Lights lit up on the dashboard,you would have swore that it
was a pinball machine orsomething.
Now, for my younger listenersthat don't know what a pinball
machine is, it is a very pieceof low tech but highly
complicated devices Pinballmachines.
(03:57):
Without getting on a sidetangent, maybe we should do
something like a show around theevolution of games and stuff.
But, the pinball machine was allelectrical like switches, right
, no computers or anything.
So back to my car.
It's lit up like a pinballmachine and I go to put the car
(04:21):
in reverse and the car will notmove.
And more lights decided tolight up on the automobile and
it said something about anemergency brake, see owner's
manual.
Of course, me being a dude, I'mlike I don't need an owner's
manual for anything.
So I pushed the parking brakebutton.
(04:44):
Notice I didn't say I pull theparking brake because, or kick
the parking brake because thisautomobile has technology in it.
You just push a button so Iturn the parking brake on, I
turn the parking brake off,almost like doing the hokey
pokey here and nothing happens,car won't move.
it is locked.
So, being in my high-tech role,I'm like, oh, let's just reset
(05:10):
the car.
So I get out of the car, closethe door and I wait about three
minutes and I start this processover again.
The same light pattern is onthe dash.
Car won't move, All that funstuff.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
So I go down pick up my little nephew and bring him
down Now, the way I got down tohis house, which is only about a
mile down the road, if that wasI got in my F-250 diesel truck
(05:47):
Grr, grr, yeah, grr, that's mycowboy car, as some people call
it.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I go and I pick his little butt up, bring him back,
and I'm having to explain to asix-year-old here of how I'm
very frustrated with the car andwe need to fix the car Now.
Mind you, whenever I'm in theheat of the moment, I do say a
few cuss words from time to time.
I have been known to use cusswords that shouldn't even go
together and I'm explaining tohim that everything that's wrong
(06:13):
with these high-tech cars andanyway.
So I pull in, we try the thingagain.
I throw his car seat in mycowboy car and I proceed to work
.
On my way to work, I find outthat there's a meeting that I'm
supposed to attend that Ithought was going to happen an
hour after the fact, but anyways, it was running an hour early.
(06:37):
So I do the flight of thebumblebee, drop him off did not
break any laws or speed limits,I promise.
And then I get to the meetingand the meeting happens.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I Y'all know how I am I don't like things unresolved,
so then I have to go back tothe house and attempt to try to
get the car to move.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
So I've got the car to move, Then I need to take it
to the dealership, right?
And so I'm on my way to thedealership and I don't know why
we have so many podcasts.
We can do about this, but youwould think in this day and age
that folks know how to useroundabouts.
Now there's roundabout not toofar from my house.
(07:18):
I go through it every singleday and apparently even
professional truckers don't knowhow to use roundabouts.
But I understand, right.
I got friends in the techindustry that don't have
antivirus.
So I understand, okay, so yeah,my day has just been one of
those days, and so here I am.
But, yes, I think we should dosomething about the evolution of
(07:40):
entertainment.
I wouldn't say video games, butreally you know pinball
machines and really these lowtech but complicated machinery
you know that used to be around.
I think that would be good.
And then I really, I reallywould like can you see if you
could get Elon on the podcast?
I want to ask him.
I need to ask him before I gobuy a Tesla.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Because all of y'all know I absolutely hate to drive,
and so I've told everybody thatas soon as the Tesla cyber cab
comes out, I will wait in line.
I will be one of those guysthat are sleeping in a sleeping
bag the first one at the Teslaplace.
But I got one question for Elonwhat in the hell is the
(08:23):
emergency procedure to get theemergency brake off if this
happens in a Tesla?
So I'm talking to one of thefolks at the office and they
informed me that all I needed todo was plug into my car with
some kind of ODBC connection orsomething.
I don't know what he was sayingand I can do it that way, but I
(08:47):
don't know.
I need to find out before I buyone of these cyber cabs.
How in the hell do you get theemergency brake off?
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, these cars are getting smarter every day.
They are, they are, and I thinkthose could be how the hell do
you get the emergency brake off?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
So anyway, these cars are getting smarter every day.
They are, they are, and I thinkthose could be exploitation
platforms, so I digress.
Now that y'all know how my daystarted.
Let's get the podcast started.
So what are?
We talking about today, Shelly.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Bring us in.
So we're talking about Starlinkand satellites.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Like the other.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
LEO satellites oh, that are up there with amazon
starling yeah, so what do youknow about them?
Speaker 2 (09:19):
what do you want to talk about?
Speaker 1 (09:21):
well, first before we get into the podcast, I noticed
you're wearing a cowboy hattoday the cow, the cowboy hat,
what's that?
Speaker 2 (09:28):
well, I kind of think of the cowboy hat as kind of
something that keeps me calm,and plus I was driving my cowboy
car, so I might as well wear mycowboy hat, because if not I
would lose all credibility, Iguess.
So here I am, I'm wearing mytennis shoes, my blue jeans and
a cowboy hat, so maybe that'show I'm going to manifest myself
(09:51):
into the old keyboard cowboy.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Tech Titan cowboy, tech Titan cowboy, tech Titan
cowboy, oh my gosh, okay, enoughof that.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
So we have this Starlink going on.
What else?
What else?
I mean talk to us.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
So for our listeners out there, what is Starlink?
We'll go into that.
Yeah, what is?
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Starlink.
We'll go into that.
Yeah, so Starlink is.
Y'all know I'm a huge fanboywhen it comes to Elon and SpaceX
.
I think everything he's doingis just amazing.
It is, and no matter what sideof the aisle you're on or what
side of the aisle Elon's on,because you know he was a super
pro-Trumper there.
And now there's a littlesquabble going on.
(10:35):
So Daddy and Bubby seem to bearguing, but he's done some
really great things for humanity, and Starlink is a wonderful
technology that useslow-Earth-orbit satellites.
Wow, I just sorry about that.
I was drinking some of my sweettea here.
Low-earth-orbit satellites andthey are flying around.
I just sorry about that.
I was drinking some of my sweettea here.
Low Earth Orbit Satellites andthey are flying around you know,
(10:59):
about 340 miles out in spaceand they have really
revolutionized.
They can hit a lot of peopledon't know this, they can hit
99% of the world's population.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Now, just because they can hit it doesn't mean
that you can actually use yourStarlink in those locations,
because each individual country,like we've talked about before,
has their own rules andregulations.
But guess what?
Guess who doesn't have anyrules or regulations per se?
That we saw displayed not toolong ago the US government, not
too long ago, the US government.
(11:33):
I mean, was that not amazingtechnology when they took off
out of Whitman Air Force Baseand flew those B-2 bombers?
all the way to Iran, droppedthose bombs down the air shaft,
like everything that we've seenin the movies and, by the way, I
(11:54):
think Top Gun 2 got it right.
Remember they had to, like,drop one bomb to penetrate?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
I haven't seen it, oh my gosh.
Okay, well, I'm not going togive away the ending, where what
really happens.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
But yeah, I mean that that is amazing.
But so back to the Starlink isthe US government.
They pretty much do what theywant to do when they want to do
it Now.
I know that there's rules andregulations Me, being someone
that worked for the government,totally understands all of that.
But I mean, think about thisNow with Starlink, the
(12:25):
government can havecommunications from pole to pole
and from anywhere in the worldusing Uncle Elon's technology.
And they actually have aproject that just came out and I
was reading about it a coupleweeks ago called StarShield.
(12:47):
Have you heard of StarShield?
Speaker 1 (12:49):
No, I haven't.
What's that about?
Speaker 2 (12:51):
So StarShield is a classified satellite program
designed by SpaceX for the USmilitary.
And, from what I found online,just like most of these
classified government programs,you're not supposed to know
about them and I didn't findthese out on WikiLeaks or
(13:12):
anything.
I mean, this is just stuffthat's out in the news, but
they're built specifically fornational security.
And I find that interestingbecause if someone says it's
built for national security,you're like, oh my gosh, you
know there's a lot of thingsthat it can do.
And when we talked aboutStarlink before, we talked about
(13:33):
global communications, which ispart of it, but with these star
shields out there, they havelisted on their site that it can
carry with air quotes I knowy'all can't see us here in the
studio, but other payloads andwhenever I think about other
(13:54):
payloads, I'm like, oh my gosh.
I mean that could be everythingfrom scientific experiments to
some kind of I don't know, maybethey have little ball bearings
in there and they can drop themon people's houses.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Like I don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
So, digging a little deeper into StarShield, they say
that some of these payloads canbe used for reconnaissance
missions.
Oh wow, and you know it's been alot of science fiction and
we've seen some of the sciencefiction turn into science facts,
that of what reconnaissancepayloads consist of.
(14:29):
And you know, we've all seenwhere they say they can read a
pack of cigarettes from you knowup and outer space via
satellite.
Now whether that's true or notI don't know, but the fact that
they use the term cigarettes Idon't even know.
Anybody even smokes cigarettesanymore.
But yeah, so they say they canread license plates.
So when we think ofreconnaissance and satellites, a
(14:51):
lot of folks talk about visualreconnaissance, which this is
reading license plate tags,looking at people's faces and
things.
But there's another type ofreconnaissance the world that I
came in back whenever I workedfor the US government and that
is signals intelligence orSIGINT, which is a type of
(15:15):
reconnaissance that it caneither be active, which means
you can go out and break into acomputer system and get the
information off of it, or it canbe passive, which means the
information flows across thenetwork and they suck up the
stuff.
So the fact they say they can doreconnaissance with these and I
(15:37):
think, wow, if you're covering99% of the world and these are
only at 340 miles out in space.
Think about that as thesatellite flies over China or
Russia.
That's only 340 miles away.
(15:58):
And when some people think that,wow, 340 miles away, that's
pretty far, but really whenyou're dealing with radios
that's not far whatsoever.
And one of the folks I wastalking to said yeah, you know,
I understand that these Starlinksatellites can carry signals,
intelligence, reconnaissance,but I mean, really, what can
(16:21):
they do with it from 340 milesaway?
And what I like to point to isT-Mobile.
T-mobile now has a partnershipwith Starlink to deliver text
messages right now it's text toa standard iPhone.
Now a text message isbidirectional communications.
(16:44):
That means my phone talks tothe satellite, the satellite
talks to the earth and it goesback and forth.
Now, if they can, get a messageback and forth to my cell phone
that's reaching 340 miles withno special antennas.
I mean it's amazing.
Yeah, I still have a satellitephone that I still use and it's
by Inmarsat.
(17:05):
And this thing Now totallydifferent technology.
We've talked about it inprevious podcasts.
It's got a big antenna.
It previous podcast, it's got abig antenna.
And when you use the EnmarSatphone you better tell everybody
you're using an EnmarSat,because it's big, it's clunky
and the antenna almost lookslike a pistol.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Okay and this big thing, but somehow Elon and the
boys are able to take my iPhone.
That's unmodified, no clunkyantenna, and it will connect up
to Starlink and I can sendmessages.
So what I'm saying is that thefact that they can do that,
imagine if they have a specificreconnaissance payload on the
(17:46):
Starlink.
That's part of the StarShieldprogram, which, by the way, you
know how I am with program terms, that's a pretty good name, huh
.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yeah.
No that's really amazing Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah.
So that's the part of theproblem that the Chinamen are
having issues with that thesesatellites that are flying over
and, by the way, right now theyhave approximately 6,000
satellites up in space.
They have plans for 42,000satellites up in space, 42,000.
And so that's the problem thesecountries are having.
(18:21):
They're saying, hey, you'rebasically flying all these
little satellites over and it'sunder the guise of to provide
communications, but they havestated that they can use these
for reconnaissance.
Now, if you can get an activeconnection to a cell phone, then
you can also probably getactive connections from the
(18:43):
satellite to go break intonetworks as they fly over.
So it's just a lot of questionsthat people are asking around
this phenomenal technology.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
And the Falcon 9, the rocket they used to launch the
satellites.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, I'm not a rocketeer.
Why don't you tell me somethingabout that?
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Oh so the Falcon 9 rocket is known for its
reusability and ability tolaunch satellites and astronauts
into orbit.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
So those rockets, can do both, so it's like a
multi-use rocket.
Yeah, that's very interestingthat you say that, because
before NASA would do theseclassified missions us living
here in Central Florida and mymom oh my God, mom, she will set
her alarm clock to get up inthe middle of the night, whether
(19:34):
it's 2.30 in the morning,whatever time it is to go out
there.
She loves these things and sheloves watching them blast off.
But there's been times when mymom has called me up and said
baby, I think they launched offone of their rockets last night
and I didn't know anything aboutit and I'm like mama that's
probably a classified mission.
They probably didn't want you toknow anything about it.
And I'm like Mama, that'sprobably a classified mission.
(19:54):
They probably didn't want youto know anything about it, but
you know how parents are theygot a Super cute.
Yeah, I know Probably Elon'smom's calling him hey baby, why
didn't you tell me that you'relaunching a rocket?
But the fact that you said thatthey're a multi-use, dual-use
technology, that's veryinteresting, because now a
(20:17):
falcon 9 is sitting on thelaunch pad and you don't know,
or we don't know, the adversarydoesn't know is that a rocket
that's carrying the star shield,star links?
Is it carrying astronauts?
Now, most of the time, so Ithink that they tell us that
there's an astronaut on there,but still, I mean, if there's an
astronaut on there, but still Imean if there's not astronauts
on there and they could say it'sa Starlink, but it could have
(20:40):
anything on there.
So that's kind of cool, it'salmost like the psychological
show where they tell you towatch the ball that's being
dribbled and count the number oftimes, and then the elephant
sneaks across or the monkeysneaks across and you don't see
it until they replay it.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
You know you get so focused.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
So it makes you wonder.
But one of the interestingfacts is that I didn't realize
on average, and I don't thinkthis is all out of Florida,
because, because they do, theygot Starbase and they got.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Texas.
I think that's the Starbases inTexas, right yeah?
Speaker 2 (21:14):
And then they have something out in California
which they should get everythingout of California after their
governor there.
But do you know?
They launch on average a rocketevery four days.
That's awesome when you werelittle and they had the space
shuttle I remember that was abig deal, yeah and they damn
(21:34):
sure didn't launch one everyfour days.
I mean we're gonna shoot workwell, maybe a couple times a
year, yeah, yeah and so, withone going up on average every
four days, I mean that's, that'squite a bit going up and it's
like you know, hey, this one'sgot star links and this one's
got the star shield.
Just don't, just don't tellanybody about it.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
So the cool thing is they carry up to 60 satellites
per launch so how do they getthem all in there?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
I mean, I mean, I know me, I have a hard time
carrying a laptop and an iPad inmy truck or car.
I mean, how the hell are theygetting 60 of these things in
there?
Speaker 1 (22:13):
So they have this flat stack deployment.
The satellites are flat packed,without individual dispensers
to maximize volume.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Wait a second.
Say that again.
They're placed in there likepancakes.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Okay, but no.
Say the whole thing over again.
The satellites Wait a second.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Say that they're placed in there like pancakes,
okay, but no, say the wholething over again.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
The satellites.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
They're in a flat, they're flat packed.
Flat packed Like a pancake.
Okay, flat packed.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Flat Packed, without individual dispensers, to
maximize volume.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Do you know the real reason why they're set up like
that?
And it's a non-technologicalreason.
It's because the more of thosesatellites that they can flat
pack, old Uncle Elon gets to puta bigger and bigger fat stack
in his pocket.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
That makes sense.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Hey, and you know what you're pulling out there.
Shelley is showing us just howefficient commercial technology
is.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
And nothing bad against NASA.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
And I heard that Duffy now is going to be running
NASA, which I think he's a heckof a good guy.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Sean.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Duffy.
But you know, back in the day,I remember they would launch a
satellite.
Remember that, the governmentyeah, and a non-reusable rocket.
I remember they would launch asatellite, remember that the
government yeah.
In a non-reusable rocket.
They're going to launch asatellite.
Okay, let's blast this thingoff.
Here's Elon.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
He's putting how many of these things in there?
Speaker 2 (23:38):
60 satellites per launch 60 satellites per launch
and he's launching four a day.
Yeah, that's a lot, and he'slaunching four a day, yeah
that's a lot so just like withother classified projects, the
information that makes its wayout, unless you're that scumbag,
snowden, which I need to do awhole podcast on that piece of
(24:01):
crap.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
You'd be a good one to talk about.
That would be a good one.
If anybody knows where he's at,please let us know.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah please let us know.
I'd like to Edward Snowden.
If you're listening to this,please call into the show
immediately.
Yes, I have a few words to speakto you about, anyways.
Do you know that it's almost a$1.8 billion is just what the
government pays Elon, is justwhat the government pays Elon,
(24:28):
and I'm sure that number isprobably way low because they're
not going to tell you.
You know these black budgetsand stuff like that, but that's
pretty interesting and that'sneat to think about.
You know, we say that we arethe crossroad of technology and
politics.
And to me that's really whatthis is.
Is that the fact that the USgovernment is launching these
(24:51):
one satellites up there Matterof fact?
Some of the times they don'teven get them right.
And here's Uncle Elon puttingfour of these things up, 60 of
them packed in there, and thatjust shows you how much more
efficient that commercialoperations can operate.
And we know that it's inconjunction with the US
(25:12):
government.
Wow, shelly, you're just fullof facts.
What other factoids do you havethere?
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Another cool thing that I learned about was that
the Starlink satellites use anAI-based collision avoidance
with US Space Force trackingdata.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Wow, you know one of the other things too.
Like I said, coming into towntoday was a truck that flipped
over in the roundabout.
So we got commercial truckdrivers and even people.
Okay, not picking on commercialtruck drivers, because they do
(25:53):
a heck of a job and there's noway that we can run without them
, but they can't even get arounda roundabout.
Maybe we need some AI collisionavoidance in those.
But here's Elon and boys, theSpaceX women and men.
They have AI-enabled collisionavoidance for a satellite that's
(26:14):
zooming around at thousands ofmiles.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
An hour With thousands of them out there.
Yeah, thousands of them outthere.
They don't hit each other.
When's the last?
Speaker 2 (26:20):
time you heard of something getting hit out there.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
I don't think I have heard anything, to be honest.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yeah, that's really neat there.
I don't think I haven't heardanything, to be honest.
What's really cool, too, isthat Starlink.
As far as I know, the firsttime that was used was in the
war in the Ukraine.
Oh wow, they didn't use themilitary version, they didn't
use the Starshield version, theyjust used regular old gen pop
Starlink satellites.
(26:46):
They were running encryptedcommunications across it in the
field.
That's cool.
They were hooking their dronesup to it to fly their drones
around, wow, and it was enoughthat.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Vladimir did not.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
That's the worst Russian accent I've ever done,
by the way, actually, he didn'tlike that too much and there
were some EMPs that he tried todo to disable these star links
and I haven't researched a lotbut from what I understand that
there is EMP technology in thereand for those that don't know
(27:19):
or don't remember what an EMP is.
It's an electromagnetic pulse,and what that means is that it's
a bolt of energy that friescircuit boards, and some of
these can occur naturally, andso, when the sun is throwing off
these solar flares that us hamradio people absolutely love
because it charges.
Oh yeah, it charges up theionosphere but with the starlink
(27:43):
they actually have littleshields on the ones flying
around to protect themselvesagainst EMPs.
And so I think that's reallyneat that they were using just
commercial off-the-shelf what wecall COTS, commercial
off-the-shelf Starlinks, andthey were running a whole war
against one of the.
At the time everybody thoughthow great the Russians are which
(28:05):
we've seen time and time againthat they can't even get their
stuff working half the time.
But imagine what Star Shieldwould do with the more advanced
technology in there.
Since we're talking about someof the detractors of Starlink,
we should probably talk aboutpeople.
(28:26):
Not everybody likes it you knowand it doesn't have anything to
do.
I'm surprised theenvironmentalists haven't jumped
on this.
They seem to jump on everything.
But maybe there's not anenvironment up in space, which I
guess there is one.
But for whatever reason, Ihaven't heard too much about the
environmentalists, but there isspace debris and the Chinese
have complained about this andwhat I understand is is that
(28:51):
even when Starlink is completelydeployed, the chances of a
manned rocket ship hitting aStarlink satellite would be the
same as you placing a quarter onthe floor.
You're standing on a chair andfalling face first and your nose
(29:11):
hitting that quarter, thechances of them hitting that.
So I think that, while some saythat that's a detractor, you
know the space debris because ohmy God, what if?
one of these manned spaceflights hit it.
Well, okay, the odds areprobably in your favor to get
hurt on the way to the launchpad than getting hurt by one of
(29:32):
these satellites.
Another one is that, thelaunches being as frequent as
they are and them being you know, at one time NASA was out in
the middle of nowhere.
Now it's prime real estate allaround there and they seem to
launch them off all hours of thenight and morning.
And so some people say well, youknow, it's disturbing the peace
(29:54):
.
And I even had one of myfriends say you know, if I play
my loud music then I get aticket.
But how come they can launchoff rockets in the middle of the
night and wake up half ofFlorida?
I'm like, okay, not the samebuddy.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Right, exactly, you know, but when it's tied to
national, security.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
It's like, okay, who are you going?
Speaker 1 (30:10):
to call yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Call up, call up DT Donald Trump and complain about
him and see what he says yeah,so yeah, you know the noise, the
frequency of launches, thespace debris.
Then there's folks that talkabout the visibility in the
night sky.
Now, you're a space nerd andyou like telescopes, oh yeah,
(30:32):
and if anything, you've told methat you would like to see one
of the Starlinks come over andlook at it.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yeah, I think it would be really neat.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yeah, they call that the old Starlink train and so
when these things are launched,these 60 satellites, as you told
me, they actually go into atrain-type configuration and you
can see this whole trainstreaking across.
But I guess astronomers get alittle mad that their film has a
Starlink train going across,but still I haven't heard of
(31:03):
anything that people have toldme that I'm like oh wow, that's
bad, maybe we should look intothis.
And so, just like with a lot ofthings, especially around
military and government, it'sall about is it good for
humanity?
Is the juice worth the squeeze?
And you know, not saying I'm oneither side of it, but I
haven't heard anything so farabout the physical satellites
(31:27):
being up in space or theirlaunches.
That would make me say you know, really we should look into
that.
But one of the things I didhear and I do understand this,
is the monopoly that SpaceX has,and to me it is.
You know, when you inventthings.
(31:48):
I have patents.
You are going to be on some ofthe patents there, some of the
work that you've done, butthat's what it's all about,
right?
I mean, you have inventedsomething that nobody else has
and you haven't but a monopoly,just like a zero-day exploit.
You know, at some point in time, that zero-day is going to be
null and at some point in time,that zero day is going to be
null and at some point in time,even McDonald's has competition
(32:12):
Starbucks has competition, andso the monopolistic argument to
this?
I don't really think here's acowboy.
Term really doesn't hold waterBecause you've got folks like
Bezos, who has had some issuesboth with his rocket Not that
I'm comparing Elon's rocket toBezos' rocket, but the rocket
(32:37):
men there I think actually Iknow that Elon's further ahead,
but he's launching his own stuff.
His rocket ship is Blue Origin,and I think his Starlink
product is called OneWeb.
And also, too, the Chinese havelaunched their own stuff, and
so everybody's getting into thiswhole low Earth orbit.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, it's like the new satellite space race.
Yeah, like a satellite spacerace.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
And, just like with GPS back in the day, matter of
fact, we call it GPS, which thatis, a type of positioning
system, but there's differentGPSs now, and so some of the
GPSs that I've purchased for myhiking and stuff it talks about
that.
It's like, you know, tripletechnology and stuff, so yeah,
(33:28):
so I really don't think thatdetractors hold water, but you
know what, just like it was timefor episode 29 to start, we're
at the bottom of the hour and wehope that everybody got a
little something out of this andplease keep the suggestions
coming.
If you like what you hear on theshow, then please share the
(33:50):
show.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
I'm very happy that Shelley has made it through her
fourth show and you've got onemore to go Show number five and
it will be online.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
No, you don't realize .
The co-host gets paid nothing.
They have to bring me my sweettea.
They have to.
You know there's a lot of stuffthat's okay.
And also, before that, you haveto sign this paperwork.
I have saying that you've gotto non-compete for 99 years in
all podcasts.
Awesome, All right.
(34:24):
Well, we really appreciateeverybody tuning in and the best
way to say thank you to us isshare the show.
If you liked the show, share it.
If you didn't like the show,share the show and we will be
back next week and we got areally, really good one for next
week.
Just want to tease that out alittle bit and I hope everybody
(34:47):
stays safe, stays well, and I'llkeep you updated on my car
clothes and, like I said, allaround smart cars and just how
damn dumb they are.
All right, Until next time.
All right, all right, all right, it is that time for
the Global Bob Show.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, hold on.
You had that part right.
It's the Global Bob show.
I was very straightforward withyou when we started that it's
my show, not the Hello Shellyshow.
Also, what we talked about wasthat you've got to be on here
(00:40):
for five shows before you becomean official co-host, because
right now you're not even anofficial co-host.
Okay.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Oh dang.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
You're more like a tag-along, right, is that okay?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
I don't know.
I want to take over the show.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I'm doing it, Okay so if the listeners out there want
to have Shelly take over theshow, please send your email to
asdf at globalbobshowcn.
I'm just kidding.
That's not even a real emailaddress.
So yeah, if y'all want to sendit there, then that's fine, it's
(01:23):
okay, bobby, you can have theshow.
Okay, all right, all right, herewe go.
It is that time of the week forthe Global Bob Show.
Global Bob Show we are thecrossroad of technology and
politics.
We got a real good one here foryou this week.
We're going to be talking aboutmainly about Starlink and some
(01:49):
of the things that come around.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Starlink Bobby, you've had a really crazy day
today.
You need to settle down some.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
And what makes you think?
That my day has been crazy sofar.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Let's see, you came in late.
The car was having issues.
Oh my God.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Everybody.
Please do not get me startedwith a car.
I know that from all outwardappearances that y'all probably
think I'm the most high-techperson in the world, but those
that know me very well will knowthat I just play a high-tech
person during the day.
(02:34):
When the show is not going onand I'm not in my business
capacity, then I'm very low tech.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
And today is very true.
Today is no different.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I go out to get in my automobile and I needed to pick
up my little nephew and bringhim to school.
Now, those that know Global Bob, and where the old ranch or
Ponderosa, or farm or whateverword you want to use for my
primary domicile is out in themiddle of the green swamp, so
(03:14):
you know I do a lot of cowboytype stuff.
Well, I go, get in the car, runa little late, throw the car
seat in there and text my littlenephew's mother and tell her
I'm rolling your way.
It's usually the way I, youknow, communicate you know
rolling your way, rolling to theswamp or whatever.
(03:35):
And my car has all these lights.
I mean, it's got so many lightslit up on the dashboard you
would have swore that it was apinball machine or something.
Lights lit up on the dashboard,you would have swore that it
was a pinball machine orsomething.
Now, for my younger listenersthat don't know what a pinball
machine is, it is a very pieceof low tech but highly
complicated devices Pinballmachines.
(03:57):
Without getting on a sidetangent, maybe we should do
something like a show around theevolution of games and stuff.
But, the pinball machine was allelectrical like switches, right
, no computers or anything.
So back to my car.
It's lit up like a pinballmachine and I go to put the car
(04:21):
in reverse and the car will notmove.
And more lights decided tolight up on the automobile and
it said something about anemergency brake, see owner's
manual.
Of course, me being a dude, I'mlike I don't need an owner's
manual for anything.
So I pushed the parking brakebutton.
(04:44):
Notice I didn't say I pull theparking brake because, or kick
the parking brake because thisautomobile has technology in it.
You just push a button so Iturn the parking brake on, I
turn the parking brake off,almost like doing the hokey
pokey here and nothing happens,car won't move.
it is locked.
So, being in my high-tech role,I'm like, oh, let's just reset
(05:10):
the car.
So I get out of the car, closethe door and I wait about three
minutes and I start this processover again.
The same light pattern is onthe dash.
Car won't move, All that funstuff.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
So I go down pick up my little nephew and bring him
down Now, the way I got down tohis house, which is only about a
mile down the road, if that wasI got in my F-250 diesel truck
(05:47):
Grr, grr, yeah, grr, that's mycowboy car, as some people call
it.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I go and I pick his little butt up, bring him back,
and I'm having to explain to asix-year-old here of how I'm
very frustrated with the car andwe need to fix the car Now.
Mind you, whenever I'm in theheat of the moment, I do say a
few cuss words from time to time.
I have been known to use cusswords that shouldn't even go
together and I'm explaining tohim that everything that's wrong
(06:13):
with these high-tech cars andanyway.
So I pull in, we try the thingagain.
I throw his car seat in mycowboy car and I proceed to work
.
On my way to work, I find outthat there's a meeting that I'm
supposed to attend that Ithought was going to happen an
hour after the fact, but anyways, it was running an hour early.
(06:37):
So I do the flight of thebumblebee, drop him off did not
break any laws or speed limits,I promise.
And then I get to the meetingand the meeting happens.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I Y'all know how I am I don't like things unresolved,
so then I have to go back tothe house and attempt to try to
get the car to move.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
So I've got the car to move, Then I need to take it
to the dealership, right?
And so I'm on my way to thedealership and I don't know why
we have so many podcasts.
We can do about this, but youwould think in this day and age
that folks know how to useroundabouts.
Now there's roundabout not toofar from my house.
(07:18):
I go through it every singleday and apparently even
professional truckers don't knowhow to use roundabouts.
But I understand, right.
I got friends in the techindustry that don't have
antivirus.
So I understand, okay, so yeah,my day has just been one of
those days, and so here I am.
But, yes, I think we should dosomething about the evolution of
(07:40):
entertainment.
I wouldn't say video games, butreally you know pinball
machines and really these lowtech but complicated machinery
you know that used to be around.
I think that would be good.
And then I really, I reallywould like can you see if you
could get Elon on the podcast?
I want to ask him.
I need to ask him before I gobuy a Tesla.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Because all of y'all know I absolutely hate to drive,
and so I've told everybody thatas soon as the Tesla cyber cab
comes out, I will wait in line.
I will be one of those guysthat are sleeping in a sleeping
bag the first one at the Teslaplace.
But I got one question for Elonwhat in the hell is the
(08:23):
emergency procedure to get theemergency brake off if this
happens in a Tesla?
So I'm talking to one of thefolks at the office and they
informed me that all I needed todo was plug into my car with
some kind of ODBC connection orsomething.
I don't know what he was sayingand I can do it that way, but I
(08:47):
don't know.
I need to find out before I buyone of these cyber cabs.
How in the hell do you get theemergency brake off?
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, these cars are getting smarter every day.
They are, they are, and I thinkthose could be how the hell do
you get the emergency brake off?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
So anyway, these cars are getting smarter every day.
They are, they are, and I thinkthose could be exploitation
platforms, so I digress.
Now that y'all know how my daystarted.
Let's get the podcast started.
So what are?
We talking about today, Shelly.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Bring us in.
So we're talking about Starlinkand satellites.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Like the other.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
LEO satellites oh, that are up there with amazon
starling yeah, so what do youknow about them?
Speaker 2 (09:19):
what do you want to talk about?
Speaker 1 (09:21):
well, first before we get into the podcast, I noticed
you're wearing a cowboy hattoday the cow, the cowboy hat,
what's that?
Speaker 2 (09:28):
well, I kind of think of the cowboy hat as kind of
something that keeps me calm,and plus I was driving my cowboy
car, so I might as well wear mycowboy hat, because if not I
would lose all credibility, Iguess.
So here I am, I'm wearing mytennis shoes, my blue jeans and
a cowboy hat, so maybe that'show I'm going to manifest myself
(09:51):
into the old keyboard cowboy.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Tech Titan cowboy, tech Titan cowboy, tech Titan
cowboy, oh my gosh, okay, enoughof that.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
So we have this Starlink going on.
What else?
What else?
I mean talk to us.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
So for our listeners out there, what is Starlink?
We'll go into that.
Yeah, what is?
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Starlink.
We'll go into that.
Yeah, so Starlink is.
Y'all know I'm a huge fanboywhen it comes to Elon and SpaceX
.
I think everything he's doingis just amazing.
It is, and no matter what sideof the aisle you're on or what
side of the aisle Elon's on,because you know he was a super
pro-Trumper there.
And now there's a littlesquabble going on.
(10:35):
So Daddy and Bubby seem to bearguing, but he's done some
really great things for humanity, and Starlink is a wonderful
technology that useslow-Earth-orbit satellites.
Wow, I just sorry about that.
I was drinking some of my sweettea here.
Low-earth-orbit satellites andthey are flying around.
I just sorry about that.
I was drinking some of my sweettea here.
Low Earth Orbit Satellites andthey are flying around you know,
(10:59):
about 340 miles out in spaceand they have really
revolutionized.
They can hit a lot of peopledon't know this, they can hit
99% of the world's population.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Now, just because they can hit it doesn't mean
that you can actually use yourStarlink in those locations,
because each individual country,like we've talked about before,
has their own rules andregulations.
But guess what?
Guess who doesn't have anyrules or regulations per se?
That we saw displayed not toolong ago the US government, not
too long ago, the US government.
(11:33):
I mean, was that not amazingtechnology when they took off
out of Whitman Air Force Baseand flew those B-2 bombers?
all the way to Iran, droppedthose bombs down the air shaft,
like everything that we've seenin the movies and, by the way, I
(11:54):
think Top Gun 2 got it right.
Remember they had to, like,drop one bomb to penetrate?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
I haven't seen it, oh my gosh.
Okay, well, I'm not going togive away the ending, where what
really happens.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
But yeah, I mean that that is amazing.
But so back to the Starlink isthe US government.
They pretty much do what theywant to do when they want to do
it Now.
I know that there's rules andregulations Me, being someone
that worked for the government,totally understands all of that.
But I mean, think about thisNow with Starlink, the
(12:25):
government can havecommunications from pole to pole
and from anywhere in the worldusing Uncle Elon's technology.
And they actually have aproject that just came out and I
was reading about it a coupleweeks ago called StarShield.
(12:47):
Have you heard of StarShield?
Speaker 1 (12:49):
No, I haven't.
What's that about?
Speaker 2 (12:51):
So StarShield is a classified satellite program
designed by SpaceX for the USmilitary.
And, from what I found online,just like most of these
classified government programs,you're not supposed to know
about them and I didn't findthese out on WikiLeaks or
(13:12):
anything.
I mean, this is just stuffthat's out in the news, but
they're built specifically fornational security.
And I find that interestingbecause if someone says it's
built for national security,you're like, oh my gosh, you
know there's a lot of thingsthat it can do.
And when we talked aboutStarlink before, we talked about
(13:33):
global communications, which ispart of it, but with these star
shields out there, they havelisted on their site that it can
carry with air quotes I knowy'all can't see us here in the
studio, but other payloads andwhenever I think about other
(13:54):
payloads, I'm like, oh my gosh.
I mean that could be everythingfrom scientific experiments to
some kind of I don't know, maybethey have little ball bearings
in there and they can drop themon people's houses.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Like I don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
So, digging a little deeper into StarShield, they say
that some of these payloads canbe used for reconnaissance
missions.
Oh wow, and you know it's been alot of science fiction and
we've seen some of the sciencefiction turn into science facts,
that of what reconnaissancepayloads consist of.
(14:29):
And you know, we've all seenwhere they say they can read a
pack of cigarettes from you knowup and outer space via
satellite.
Now whether that's true or notI don't know, but the fact that
they use the term cigarettes Idon't even know.
Anybody even smokes cigarettesanymore.
But yeah, so they say they canread license plates.
So when we think ofreconnaissance and satellites, a
(14:51):
lot of folks talk about visualreconnaissance, which this is
reading license plate tags,looking at people's faces and
things.
But there's another type ofreconnaissance the world that I
came in back whenever I workedfor the US government and that
is signals intelligence orSIGINT, which is a type of
(15:15):
reconnaissance that it caneither be active, which means
you can go out and break into acomputer system and get the
information off of it, or it canbe passive, which means the
information flows across thenetwork and they suck up the
stuff.
So the fact they say they can doreconnaissance with these and I
(15:37):
think, wow, if you're covering99% of the world and these are
only at 340 miles out in space.
Think about that as thesatellite flies over China or
Russia.
That's only 340 miles away.
(15:58):
And when some people think that,wow, 340 miles away, that's
pretty far, but really whenyou're dealing with radios
that's not far whatsoever.
And one of the folks I wastalking to said yeah, you know,
I understand that these Starlinksatellites can carry signals,
intelligence, reconnaissance,but I mean, really, what can
(16:21):
they do with it from 340 milesaway?
And what I like to point to isT-Mobile.
T-mobile now has a partnershipwith Starlink to deliver text
messages right now it's text toa standard iPhone.
Now a text message isbidirectional communications.
(16:44):
That means my phone talks tothe satellite, the satellite
talks to the earth and it goesback and forth.
Now, if they can, get a messageback and forth to my cell phone
that's reaching 340 miles withno special antennas.
I mean it's amazing.
Yeah, I still have a satellitephone that I still use and it's
by Inmarsat.
(17:05):
And this thing Now totallydifferent technology.
We've talked about it inprevious podcasts.
It's got a big antenna.
It previous podcast, it's got abig antenna.
And when you use the EnmarSatphone you better tell everybody
you're using an EnmarSat,because it's big, it's clunky
and the antenna almost lookslike a pistol.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Okay and this big thing, but somehow Elon and the
boys are able to take my iPhone.
That's unmodified, no clunkyantenna, and it will connect up
to Starlink and I can sendmessages.
So what I'm saying is that thefact that they can do that,
imagine if they have a specificreconnaissance payload on the
(17:46):
Starlink.
That's part of the StarShieldprogram, which, by the way, you
know how I am with program terms, that's a pretty good name, huh
.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yeah.
No that's really amazing Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah.
So that's the part of theproblem that the Chinamen are
having issues with that thesesatellites that are flying over
and, by the way, right now theyhave approximately 6,000
satellites up in space.
They have plans for 42,000satellites up in space, 42,000.
And so that's the problem thesecountries are having.
(18:21):
They're saying, hey, you'rebasically flying all these
little satellites over and it'sunder the guise of to provide
communications, but they havestated that they can use these
for reconnaissance.
Now, if you can get an activeconnection to a cell phone, then
you can also probably getactive connections from the
(18:43):
satellite to go break intonetworks as they fly over.
So it's just a lot of questionsthat people are asking around
this phenomenal technology.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
And the Falcon 9, the rocket they used to launch the
satellites.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah, I'm not a rocketeer.
Why don't you tell me somethingabout that?
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Oh so the Falcon 9 rocket is known for its
reusability and ability tolaunch satellites and astronauts
into orbit.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
So those rockets, can do both, so it's like a
multi-use rocket.
Yeah, that's very interestingthat you say that, because
before NASA would do theseclassified missions us living
here in Central Florida and mymom oh my God, mom, she will set
her alarm clock to get up inthe middle of the night, whether
(19:34):
it's 2.30 in the morning,whatever time it is to go out
there.
She loves these things and sheloves watching them blast off.
But there's been times when mymom has called me up and said
baby, I think they launched offone of their rockets last night
and I didn't know anything aboutit and I'm like mama that's
probably a classified mission.
They probably didn't want you toknow anything about it.
And I'm like Mama, that'sprobably a classified mission.
(19:54):
They probably didn't want youto know anything about it, but
you know how parents are theygot a Super cute.
Yeah, I know Probably Elon'smom's calling him hey baby, why
didn't you tell me that you'relaunching a rocket?
But the fact that you said thatthey're a multi-use, dual-use
technology, that's veryinteresting, because now a
(20:17):
falcon 9 is sitting on thelaunch pad and you don't know,
or we don't know, the adversarydoesn't know is that a rocket
that's carrying the star shield,star links?
Is it carrying astronauts?
Now, most of the time, so Ithink that they tell us that
there's an astronaut on there,but still, I mean, if there's an
astronaut on there, but still Imean if there's not astronauts
on there and they could say it'sa Starlink, but it could have
(20:40):
anything on there.
So that's kind of cool, it'salmost like the psychological
show where they tell you towatch the ball that's being
dribbled and count the number oftimes, and then the elephant
sneaks across or the monkeysneaks across and you don't see
it until they replay it.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
You know you get so focused.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
So it makes you wonder.
But one of the interestingfacts is that I didn't realize
on average, and I don't thinkthis is all out of Florida,
because, because they do, theygot Starbase and they got.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Texas.
I think that's the Starbases inTexas, right yeah?
Speaker 2 (21:14):
And then they have something out in California
which they should get everythingout of California after their
governor there.
But do you know?
They launch on average a rocketevery four days.
That's awesome when you werelittle and they had the space
shuttle I remember that was abig deal, yeah and they damn
(21:34):
sure didn't launch one everyfour days.
I mean we're gonna shoot workwell, maybe a couple times a
year, yeah, yeah and so, withone going up on average every
four days, I mean that's, that'squite a bit going up and it's
like you know, hey, this one'sgot star links and this one's
got the star shield.
Just don't, just don't tellanybody about it.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
So the cool thing is they carry up to 60 satellites
per launch so how do they getthem all in there?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
I mean, I mean, I know me, I have a hard time
carrying a laptop and an iPad inmy truck or car.
I mean, how the hell are theygetting 60 of these things in
there?
Speaker 1 (22:13):
So they have this flat stack deployment.
The satellites are flat packed,without individual dispensers
to maximize volume.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Wait a second.
Say that again.
They're placed in there likepancakes.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Okay, but no.
Say the whole thing over again.
The satellites Wait a second.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Say that they're placed in there like pancakes,
okay, but no, say the wholething over again.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
The satellites.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
They're in a flat, they're flat packed.
Flat packed Like a pancake.
Okay, flat packed.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Flat Packed, without individual dispensers, to
maximize volume.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Do you know the real reason why they're set up like
that?
And it's a non-technologicalreason.
It's because the more of thosesatellites that they can flat
pack, old Uncle Elon gets to puta bigger and bigger fat stack
in his pocket.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
That makes sense.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Hey, and you know what you're pulling out there.
Shelley is showing us just howefficient commercial technology
is.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
And nothing bad against NASA.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
And I heard that Duffy now is going to be running
NASA, which I think he's a heckof a good guy.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Sean.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Duffy.
But you know, back in the day,I remember they would launch a
satellite.
Remember that, the governmentyeah, and a non-reusable rocket.
I remember they would launch asatellite, remember that the
government yeah.
In a non-reusable rocket.
They're going to launch asatellite.
Okay, let's blast this thingoff.
Here's Elon.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
He's putting how many of these things in there?
Speaker 2 (23:38):
60 satellites per launch 60 satellites per launch
and he's launching four a day.
Yeah, that's a lot, and he'slaunching four a day, yeah
that's a lot so just like withother classified projects, the
information that makes its wayout, unless you're that scumbag,
snowden, which I need to do awhole podcast on that piece of
(24:01):
crap.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
You'd be a good one to talk about.
That would be a good one.
If anybody knows where he's at,please let us know.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah please let us know.
I'd like to Edward Snowden.
If you're listening to this,please call into the show
immediately.
Yes, I have a few words to speakto you about, anyways.
Do you know that it's almost a$1.8 billion is just what the
government pays Elon, is justwhat the government pays Elon,
(24:28):
and I'm sure that number isprobably way low because they're
not going to tell you.
You know these black budgetsand stuff like that, but that's
pretty interesting and that'sneat to think about.
You know, we say that we arethe crossroad of technology and
politics.
And to me that's really whatthis is.
Is that the fact that the USgovernment is launching these
(24:51):
one satellites up there Matterof fact?
Some of the times they don'teven get them right.
And here's Uncle Elon puttingfour of these things up, 60 of
them packed in there, and thatjust shows you how much more
efficient that commercialoperations can operate.
And we know that it's inconjunction with the US
(25:12):
government.
Wow, shelly, you're just fullof facts.
What other factoids do you havethere?
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Another cool thing that I learned about was that
the Starlink satellites use anAI-based collision avoidance
with US Space Force trackingdata.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Wow, you know one of the other things too.
Like I said, coming into towntoday was a truck that flipped
over in the roundabout.
So we got commercial truckdrivers and even people.
Okay, not picking on commercialtruck drivers, because they do
(25:53):
a heck of a job and there's noway that we can run without them
, but they can't even get arounda roundabout.
Maybe we need some AI collisionavoidance in those.
But here's Elon and boys, theSpaceX women and men.
They have AI-enabled collisionavoidance for a satellite that's
(26:14):
zooming around at thousands ofmiles.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
An hour With thousands of them out there.
Yeah, thousands of them outthere.
They don't hit each other.
When's the last?
Speaker 2 (26:20):
time you heard of something getting hit out there.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
I don't think I have heard anything, to be honest.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yeah, that's really neat there.
I don't think I haven't heardanything, to be honest.
What's really cool, too, isthat Starlink.
As far as I know, the firsttime that was used was in the
war in the Ukraine.
Oh wow, they didn't use themilitary version, they didn't
use the Starshield version, theyjust used regular old gen pop
Starlink satellites.
(26:46):
They were running encryptedcommunications across it in the
field.
That's cool.
They were hooking their dronesup to it to fly their drones
around, wow, and it was enoughthat.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Vladimir did not.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
That's the worst Russian accent I've ever done,
by the way, actually, he didn'tlike that too much and there
were some EMPs that he tried todo to disable these star links
and I haven't researched a lotbut from what I understand that
there is EMP technology in thereand for those that don't know
(27:19):
or don't remember what an EMP is.
It's an electromagnetic pulse,and what that means is that it's
a bolt of energy that friescircuit boards, and some of
these can occur naturally, andso, when the sun is throwing off
these solar flares that us hamradio people absolutely love
because it charges.
Oh yeah, it charges up theionosphere but with the starlink
(27:43):
they actually have littleshields on the ones flying
around to protect themselvesagainst EMPs.
And so I think that's reallyneat that they were using just
commercial off-the-shelf what wecall COTS, commercial
off-the-shelf Starlinks, andthey were running a whole war
against one of the.
At the time everybody thoughthow great the Russians are which
(28:05):
we've seen time and time againthat they can't even get their
stuff working half the time.
But imagine what Star Shieldwould do with the more advanced
technology in there.
Since we're talking about someof the detractors of Starlink,
we should probably talk aboutpeople.
(28:26):
Not everybody likes it you knowand it doesn't have anything to
do.
I'm surprised theenvironmentalists haven't jumped
on this.
They seem to jump on everything.
But maybe there's not anenvironment up in space, which I
guess there is one.
But for whatever reason, Ihaven't heard too much about the
environmentalists, but there isspace debris and the Chinese
have complained about this andwhat I understand is is that
(28:51):
even when Starlink is completelydeployed, the chances of a
manned rocket ship hitting aStarlink satellite would be the
same as you placing a quarter onthe floor.
You're standing on a chair andfalling face first and your nose
(29:11):
hitting that quarter, thechances of them hitting that.
So I think that, while some saythat that's a detractor, you
know the space debris because ohmy God, what if?
one of these manned spaceflights hit it.
Well, okay, the odds areprobably in your favor to get
hurt on the way to the launchpad than getting hurt by one of
(29:32):
these satellites.
Another one is that, thelaunches being as frequent as
they are and them being you know, at one time NASA was out in
the middle of nowhere.
Now it's prime real estate allaround there and they seem to
launch them off all hours of thenight and morning.
And so some people say well, youknow, it's disturbing the peace
(29:54):
.
And I even had one of myfriends say you know, if I play
my loud music then I get aticket.
But how come they can launchoff rockets in the middle of the
night and wake up half ofFlorida?
I'm like, okay, not the samebuddy.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Right, exactly, you know, but when it's tied to
national, security.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
It's like, okay, who are you going?
Speaker 1 (30:10):
to call yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Call up, call up DT Donald Trump and complain about
him and see what he says yeah,so yeah, you know the noise, the
frequency of launches, thespace debris.
Then there's folks that talkabout the visibility in the
night sky.
Now, you're a space nerd andyou like telescopes, oh yeah,
(30:32):
and if anything, you've told methat you would like to see one
of the Starlinks come over andlook at it.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yeah, I think it would be really neat.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yeah, they call that the old Starlink train and so
when these things are launched,these 60 satellites, as you told
me, they actually go into atrain-type configuration and you
can see this whole trainstreaking across.
But I guess astronomers get alittle mad that their film has a
Starlink train going across,but still I haven't heard of
(31:03):
anything that people have toldme that I'm like oh wow, that's
bad, maybe we should look intothis.
And so, just like with a lot ofthings, especially around
military and government, it'sall about is it good for
humanity?
Is the juice worth the squeeze?
And you know, not saying I'm oneither side of it, but I
haven't heard anything so farabout the physical satellites
(31:27):
being up in space or theirlaunches.
That would make me say you know, really we should look into
that.
But one of the things I didhear and I do understand this,
is the monopoly that SpaceX has,and to me it is.
You know, when you inventthings.
(31:48):
I have patents.
You are going to be on some ofthe patents there, some of the
work that you've done, butthat's what it's all about,
right?
I mean, you have inventedsomething that nobody else has
and you haven't but a monopoly,just like a zero-day exploit.
You know, at some point in time, that zero-day is going to be
null and at some point in time,that zero day is going to be
null and at some point in time,even McDonald's has competition
(32:12):
Starbucks has competition, andso the monopolistic argument to
this?
I don't really think here's acowboy.
Term really doesn't hold waterBecause you've got folks like
Bezos, who has had some issuesboth with his rocket Not that
I'm comparing Elon's rocket toBezos' rocket, but the rocket
(32:37):
men there I think actually Iknow that Elon's further ahead,
but he's launching his own stuff.
His rocket ship is Blue Origin,and I think his Starlink
product is called OneWeb.
And also, too, the Chinese havelaunched their own stuff, and
so everybody's getting into thiswhole low Earth orbit.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, it's like the new satellite space race.
Yeah, like a satellite spacerace.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
And, just like with GPS back in the day, matter of
fact, we call it GPS, which thatis, a type of positioning
system, but there's differentGPSs now, and so some of the
GPSs that I've purchased for myhiking and stuff it talks about
that.
It's like, you know, tripletechnology and stuff, so yeah,
(33:28):
so I really don't think thatdetractors hold water, but you
know what, just like it was timefor episode 29 to start, we're
at the bottom of the hour and wehope that everybody got a
little something out of this andplease keep the suggestions
coming.
If you like what you hear on theshow, then please share the
(33:50):
show.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
I'm very happy that Shelley has made it through her
fourth show and you've got onemore to go Show number five and
it will be online.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
No, you don't realize .
The co-host gets paid nothing.
They have to bring me my sweettea.
They have to.
You know there's a lot of stuffthat's okay.
And also, before that, you haveto sign this paperwork.
I have saying that you've gotto non-compete for 99 years in
all podcasts.
Awesome, All right.
(34:24):
Well, we really appreciateeverybody tuning in and the best
way to say thank you to us isshare the show.
If you liked the show, share it.
If you didn't like the show,share the show and we will be
back next week and we got areally, really good one for next
week.
Just want to tease that out alittle bit and I hope everybody
(34:47):
stays safe, stays well, and I'llkeep you updated on my car
clothes and, like I said, allaround smart cars and just how
damn dumb they are.
All right, Until next time.
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