Elon Musk has gained immense popularity in China, I mean he even has a gigafactory there,
it seemed like Elon and China share a lovely relationship…until this happened.
Apparently, China has sent a BRUTAL Warning to the Tesla CEO and he just doesn’t seem
to care much about it.
What will be the consequences of this?
Will the richest man on the planet get away with what he did?
How did he even react to all of this?
Let’s find out!
Starlink
Wait for a second, before we find out how he reacted, we need to know WHY he has to
react?
Why is China warning Elon Musk, what did he even do?
To answer that, we first have to look at his Starlink project.
It’s basically a satellite internet service which can provide internet anywhere you want.
By the end of the last month, they had launched over 2000 satellites into orbit.
Why so many?
Because they together would form a network which is called “ the satellite internet
constellation “, a pretty fancy name for basically a web of satellites around the globe.
The tech behind this is pretty great and it can actually be pretty fast, it has no lag
issues at all and can run any time since it has nothing to do with wires.
So what did Starlink do?
Well for a matter of fact, Starlink is indeed getting more popular day by day, they are
offering their services in 29 different countries, Ukraine recently being the 29th.
Even though most of Starlink’s users are in North America, European users are increasing
as well and as Elon predicted, Starlink would have customers from all around the globe,
to him, it's just a matter of time.
However, the issue is to increase their reach, they have to increase their number of satellites
as well and as I mentioned before, they already have over 2000 satellites in the orbit.
It may seem like a big number to all of us but to Starlink and Elon, it's just the start.
Space Traffic Issue Starlink is not the only one who is launching
such a high amount of small satellites, Hughesnet and Viasat are also doing a similar thing.
Commercial companies are not the only ones who are increasing the traffic in space, in
fact, more and more Government projects by different countries are launching hundreds
and thousands of satellites every year.
All these contribute to a new issue that is evolving in the world of Space Technology;
properly maintaining them in orbit.
Look, satellites are really important to us, every country is reliant on the information
that is provided to us from them and therefore they require high maintenance.
Despite all this, near-misses keep occurring all the time in our orbit, there is just so
much metal around us.
These indicate that with the growing numbers of objects around the globe, the chances of
collisions are increasing every single day and there is nothing any space agency can
do about it.
You may say though, hey!
They are all calculated so that they don’t bump into other things.
True, you got that part correct.
However, are you aware of the anti-satellite, or ASAT missions conducted by China and Russia
where they blew up a few satellites in orbit, or have you heard that there have been some
malfunctioning satellites that blew up on their own?
How does it relate to our topic?
It does relate, all the debris from all those broken satellites is STILL in orbit and well,
they are not being controlled by anyone nor is their pathway calculated.
This means that the more you add objects there, the higher the chances of them colliding.
Why China issued a warning on Elon Musk.
So what does any of these have anything to do with China and Elon.
Satellites are the protagonist of this entire incident.
China has complained to the UN earlier this month for Outer Space Affairs.
According to the reports, China has claimed that two SpaceX satellites flew too close
to China’s own Space Station and that they had to maneuver it in order to avoid collisions.
They have also claimed that the two encounters “constituted dangers to the life or health
of astronauts aboard the China Space Station”.
All of this did not make the headlines instantly, in fact, it’s only been a few weeks since
all this happened.
Initially, it was the Chinese State media that made quite a big fuss out of it calling
out Elon Musk.
They said that these satellites were part of Starlink and from there the topic just
spread like perfume in the room.
It became a hot topic on Weibo, a Twitter-like social media service available in China.
There were many kinds of comments, these ranged from criticizing the company to discussing
conspiracy theories, the internet was wilding.
Some were even saying that SpaceX is actually under U.S military operations and that they
were being used as weapons.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs wasted no time contacting the United States and asked
them to take immediate measures in order to prevent such events from happening again.
Zhao Lijian, the deputy director of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the following;
“ It is a typical double standard for the US to proclaim the concept of 'responsible
conduct in outer space' while ignoring its obligations under international treaties on
outer space and posing a grave threat to the lives and safety of astronauts “. You know
things got pretty heated when such statements were being made!
We all know that all the top countries are competing with each other in the Space Industry,
every country is trying to come up with new innovations in order to take their own technology
to another level.
The United States and China are direct competitors.
It's true that the U.S has always been way ahead when it came to Space Tech, we all know
NASA has been making progress after progress with many of its successful missions.
However, China is not far behind, in reality, they are closing the gap between them and
NASA faster than anyone else.
This is all thanks to the Chinese government which has thought of spending more on Space
research.
Knowing all this, it’s only common that China would take this incident very seriously.
Right before we jump into the last part, if you make it this far, make sure to like and
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Elon and SpaceX’s response
Not only China, but the world wanted a response from Elon, from SpaceX.
They had to explain to everyone what caused it, and how they plan on improving it.
CNN Business made things easier for everyone looking forward to their answer, they invited
SpaceX to comment on the document that China filed with the UN.
As disappointing as it may sound, SpaceX actually did not respond to any of CNN’s requests.
They even remained silent when they were asked other questions related to this incident.
For example.
if they were able to communicate with the Chinese authorities regarding this matter.
It came as a surprise to many, especially Musk admirers in China.
This whole controversy made a huge impact on his reputation.
Look, Musk spent years trying to impress China and its citizens and he was successful, he
still is.
He has a giant GigaFactory there, sells a ton of cars in China, has the only foreign
company without a local partner to win a big tax break.
These achievements are pretty great, and it adds to how he became instantly popular on
Weibo with his infamous dance during the debut of Shanghai-made Model 3”.
He has always shown love towards China and even tweeted things like ''The economic prosperity
that China has achieved is truly amazing, especially in infrastructure!
I encourage people to visit and see for themselves”.
He features in many interviews in China and is always spreading his good thoughts about
the Country.
He thinks that China would become the biggest economy in the world one day and that it would
become Tesla’s most important market.
With all these comments and of course his character of posting memes, he had impressed
the Chinese people and became a fan favorite.
Therefore, his fans from China and from all across the globe were waiting for a response
from him, maybe a tweet?
But nope!
Elon never said a thing about this incident, he never brought it up in any of his interviews
or answered any questions related to this topic.
So what does his silence towards this matter mean?
Is he actually guilty and what would happen to the relationship between Elon and China
in the future?
Will SpaceX ever collaborate with CNSA or will this matter take another turn?
Let us know what you think about this matter down below in the comment section!
Be sure to watch “ Timelapse of the Future: Artificial Intelligence “.