Agreed. The focal range is something like 90KM to 1400KM based on this image and other off nadir images that have been shared by DigitalGlobe/Maxar, and it really makes you wonder what the focusing mechanism is fully capable of.
No. Countries of the world have been imaging each others satellites for decades. The only thing that has changed recently is that now companies can do this commercially in an unclassified manner.
I quite like the inclusion of the help needed section. I work for a publicly traded company so I don't know if it has much application for our size, but for a pre-IPO company it seems like a great opportunity to leverage the skills of their smaller investor base.
I also like the transparency of sharing it with ALL investors, and would add that it needs to be shared with all employees as well. Our publicly traded company is in the midst of an acquisition and a lot of detail has been shared with our investors. The issue is that most employees are not signed up to our investor alerts or monitoring SEC filings. It has resulted in some employees remarking that they felt left in the dark by leadership because they hear about acquisition details from the press (who pay attention to IR and SEC docs) instead of their own company leaders.
First, the word free is most frequently interpreted as not costing money, which in this case is completely true. Second, your comparison to a false claim by the NYT is absurd.
All you had to do was close the tab and move on. I can't imagine getting through life making this big a deal on such a minor inconvenience. Good luck out there.
It's likely a very very small group, but I am certain there are some ultra high net worth members of HN that are SpaceX investors, either directly through family offices, or indirectly through private equity funds.
I'm wondering if NASA will change their plans for Mark Vande Hei to return on Dragon instead of Soyuz. His return is planned for later this month, so I suppose we'll know pretty soon.
> I do not understand this thirst at seeing a private company monopolising space travel.
I don't think the poster your replying to is saying that, nor do I think the market is headed in that direction. Currently, SpaceX has the only crew certified transport aside from Russia's Soyuz capsule for transport to ISS. That is likely to change in the next two years as Blue Origin continue their certification process and NASA's SLS gets closer to launch (whether or not SLS is a good decision is a totally separate conversation). The more options, the better.
> I reckon I'm one of the few on this forum that doesn't hold SpaceX stock.
I reckon there are only a few that do actually hold SpaceX stock, given the fact they are a private company with limited investment opportunities for the common person.
> we all know it matters the route your hardware and software comes from if you are involved in national security.
No security apparatus in the world has the capability to build and execute everything they want to on their own. Hardware and software is always procured from multiple sources.
