Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space • Hacker News Board

Re: Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

#101

Post by lainga » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 6:24 PM UTC

simlevesque wrote: post #98

tines wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some will proclaim "But they'll owe China! That won't end well!", which is shortsighted, lacking in self-awareness and playing into the "everyone that isn't us is the boogeyman" narrative the West likes to maintain. Exactly. There aren't many Uighurs in Africa, so Africa should be fine.

Is this a joke ? Uighurs are muslims and Africa is full of them.

You'd better stay away from Istanbul then, it's full of unspayed Socrates-es.

In seriousness, China's problem is not with all Muslims, it's with the Uighurs as a threat to their national integrity (especially in a region with such strategic importance, bordering Pakistan and India, and containing many railheads linking China to the rest of Eurasia). One of China's largest partners is Pakistan -- which is in its own words an Islamic republic -- and whose government generally turns a blind eye to what's happening in Xinjiang.

Re: Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

#102

Post by mdszy » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 6:24 PM UTC

iguy wrote: post #94

elil17 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each satellite is launched into an orbit that has it fly over certain areas more than others. Most satellites are stationed over the richest countries, so there is very little satellite image coverage of many parts of Africa. These images help monitor everything from weather to crop health. Just like building a road, buying a satellite for your country provides critical infrastructure which can boost an economy.

But is this true? Sure if you want coverage of Siberia you may need your own, but doesn't every orbit cross the equator? I would have thought plenty of satellites cross Ethiopia every hour, although perhaps not bothering to run all their cameras without a customer?

Geostationary orbits won't necessarily cross the equator.

Re: Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

#103

Post by rb808 » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 6:25 PM UTC

cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #83

Sub-Saharan Africa feels like a missed opportunity now for Europe and the US. While the US and EU has been focused on donating aid, or through NGOs merely shipping Africans into Europe without much of a plan and then shrugging their shoulders when problems arise, China has been making deals there and investing an utterly staggering amount on an on-going basis into its development and future prosperity. Some will proc…

China is a big investor but its just one of many. European companies always had a big footprint. https://unctad.org/en/pages/newsdetails.aspx?OriginalVersion...

Re: Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

#104

Post by rayiner » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 6:28 PM UTC

Aaron_Putnam wrote: post #21

ajmurmann wrote: post #16

There is a dead comment by someone whose grandma kept donating to charity for Ethiopia. The grandma died poor save the poster is upset that nobody from Ethiopia ever thanked her and now they are prospering. I don't like that comment, but it is actually quite interesting, especially if taken together with another comment on a parallel discussion about the huge growth in Africa and the very visible Chinese influence. I…

GDP per capita change for 2018 was negative for sub-saharan Africa: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD.ZG?locat... Be careful what you wish for: economic growth in Africa is going to come directly at the expense of the local and international environment, in the form of land clearance and coal and oil emissions. Africa desperately needs to stabilise its population, so that it can focus on infrastruct…

> The West can help by redirecting all food aid instead towards education, contraception and abortion for women.

This is evil.

Re: Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

#105

Post by aassddffasdf » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 6:31 PM UTC

filleduchaos wrote: post #88

faizshah wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno how true this is but my african friends have told me that telecom in africa is extremely expensive and calling someone the next village over can have huge charges. So african countries under the African Union created the African Telecommunications Union to send out an african owned telecom sattelite instead of having to pay for western owned telecom sattelite usage. Again this is second hand info and I don't…

Call to the next village? Really? Unless you were having that conversation two decades ago, they 100% were just having you on.

This should not be downvoted. filleduchaos is right. Get over yourselves nerds.

Re: Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

#106

Post by throw_m239339 » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 6:37 PM UTC

cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #83

Sub-Saharan Africa feels like a missed opportunity now for Europe and the US. While the US and EU has been focused on donating aid, or through NGOs merely shipping Africans into Europe without much of a plan and then shrugging their shoulders when problems arise, China has been making deals there and investing an utterly staggering amount on an on-going basis into its development and future prosperity. Some will proc…

> While the US and EU has been focused on donating aid, or through NGOs merely shipping Africans into Europe without much of a plan and then shrugging their shoulders when problems arise, China has been making deals there and investing an utterly staggering amount on an on-going basis into its development and future prosperity.

If these really cared about Africa, they would have stopped subsidizing their agriculture. They don't. "Aid" here is a way to hinder development.

China is being scummy, but who's criticizing China here? Europeans who did far worse to the African continent and their inhabitants? talk about lacking of any sense of self-awareness.

Re: Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

#107

Post by Omnitaus » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 6:39 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #95

cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #83

Sub-Saharan Africa feels like a missed opportunity now for Europe and the US. While the US and EU has been focused on donating aid, or through NGOs merely shipping Africans into Europe without much of a plan and then shrugging their shoulders when problems arise, China has been making deals there and investing an utterly staggering amount on an on-going basis into its development and future prosperity. Some will proc…

There was a time, probably late 60s to early 80s when western firms went into LatAm and had moderate success and the economies began to transition from (subsistence) farming to light manufacturing, but due to pop explosion ran into a gringo go home resistance. Wonder if China will manoeuver around that kind of thing.

"due to pop explosion ran into a gringo go home resistance"

I wonder what else happened in the 60s...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor

Re: Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

#108

Post by cambalache » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 6:41 PM UTC

tristor wrote: post #61

vorpalhex wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet even this exploitative relationship may prove much more helpful than the grain and occasional squad of observers the US or UN sends. It's a funny sort of problem isn't it - perhaps the only way to get genuine investment in these areas is an almost parasitic relationship. More interesting would be if this forces the US or other western countries to more aggressively step up to the plate...

The West will never step aggressively to the plate. We aren’t allowed to by our own domestic politics. One of the major reasons China can become so directly and aggressively involved is they aren’t white. They don’t have a history of African colonialism, Apartheid, or slavery in Africa. They’ve done all these (or similar) and worse, but not in Africa and not in a way which found domestic disapproval. If the West ever…

Let me guess, you are western and white, I ask because only a person of your demographic would dare to say that the Chinese has done even worse than the African slave trade, if you are going to mention the great leap forward I can easily mention WW1 and WW2 so I dont know where your sense of smug superiority comes from. I am not chinese by the way, nor "white".

Re: Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

#109

Post by faizshah » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 6:42 PM UTC

filleduchaos wrote: post #88

faizshah wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno how true this is but my african friends have told me that telecom in africa is extremely expensive and calling someone the next village over can have huge charges. So african countries under the African Union created the African Telecommunications Union to send out an african owned telecom sattelite instead of having to pay for western owned telecom sattelite usage. Again this is second hand info and I don't…

Call to the next village? Really? Unless you were having that conversation two decades ago, they 100% were just having you on.

Exaggerating, sure. But, the general point is accurate especially when looking at cost relative to income: https://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/o...

More recent: https://a4ai.org/extra/mobile_broadband_pricing_heat_map-201...

Re: Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

#110

Post by elil17 » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 6:45 PM UTC

iguy wrote: post #94

elil17 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each satellite is launched into an orbit that has it fly over certain areas more than others. Most satellites are stationed over the richest countries, so there is very little satellite image coverage of many parts of Africa. These images help monitor everything from weather to crop health. Just like building a road, buying a satellite for your country provides critical infrastructure which can boost an economy.

But is this true? Sure if you want coverage of Siberia you may need your own, but doesn't every orbit cross the equator? I would have thought plenty of satellites cross Ethiopia every hour, although perhaps not bothering to run all their cameras without a customer?

I’m by no means an expert on satellite orbit selection, but from my experience as a consumer the quality and frequency of imagery for an area has to do with a variety of factors - how often the overhead pass occurs in daytime vs. nighttime, how much data capacity they will devote to downloading the imagery, and what angle they point the sensor at.

Here’s a real world coverage map from a European earth observation mission, you can see they were able to select and orbit that gives them daily coverage of Europe but only biweekly coverage of Africa: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David_Slater12/publicat...