Sparks: Elon Musk’s dangerous grip on outer space

The terminals went dark at a speed the operator chose, and the army that had been fighting with them returned to the fight with what it had before; I do not understand why no one has asked the operator what else he has decided for them.

That the defense of a nation should depend upon the pleasure of a single man, who may withhold it not from enmity but from a schedule, is a condition no free people can long endure.

A single commercial entity has been permitted to operate the nervous system of a war, and the remedy proposed is not a treaty or a treasury but a request that the entity behave better.

The man who owns the sky has discovered that a modest speed limit is a more effective weapon than any bomb, and he has imposed it with the perfect manners of one who has never been told no.

We have wagered the defense of a nation on the continued goodwill of a man who has demonstrated that his goodwill is a variable; the wager is not irrational, but it is a wager, and the stakes are the lights of a country.

If the difference between a free sky and a rented one is only visible when the renter changes the terms, then the dispute is not about space but about who can change the terms, and the answer is already in the contract.