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Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

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Re: Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

#51
post #48
post #42

I am very familiar with the purchasing process of satellites by LATAM countries. Basically the Chinese or the French (i.e. Airbus) come in and offer you a satellite that ranges between 180M-380M USD in price depending on what you want. The price includes a building with a ground station, the launch, and some basic training. If you negotiate correctly, the full telemetry is send only to you and you process it all loca…

Why do these countries need satellites anyway, what exactly are they using them for?

Not sure if you read the linked article:

> The 70 kilogram remote sensing satellite is to be used for agricultural, climate, mining and environmental observations, allowing the Horn of Africa to collect data and improve its ability to plan for changing weather patterns for example.

Re: Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

#52
post #48
post #42

I am very familiar with the purchasing process of satellites by LATAM countries. Basically the Chinese or the French (i.e. Airbus) come in and offer you a satellite that ranges between 180M-380M USD in price depending on what you want. The price includes a building with a ground station, the launch, and some basic training. If you negotiate correctly, the full telemetry is send only to you and you process it all loca…

Why do these countries need satellites anyway, what exactly are they using them for?

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 know much about African politics but telecom is clearly one important reason.

Re: Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

#53
post #48
post #42

I am very familiar with the purchasing process of satellites by LATAM countries. Basically the Chinese or the French (i.e. Airbus) come in and offer you a satellite that ranges between 180M-380M USD in price depending on what you want. The price includes a building with a ground station, the launch, and some basic training. If you negotiate correctly, the full telemetry is send only to you and you process it all loca…

Why do these countries need satellites anyway, what exactly are they using them for?

Why does anyone need satellites? This might have been a relevant question in the 80s.

Re: Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

#55
post #12
post #6

Ethiopia's GDP growth has been on a tear since 2000. [1] If you visit the capital, you can't miss the Chinese influence. Last time I was there, a huge Chinese bank building was going up kiddy corner to the Airport in Addis. BTW, if you haven't visited Ethiopia, put it on your list. It's an amazingly beautiful country. [1] https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...

I just spent three years driving around Africa. I visited 35 different countries all around the continent. [1] The Chiense influence is staggering . I'm writing a book about it now. Many, many parts of Africa are developing faster than any of us can comprehend, because we've never seen it. In the last ~20 years cities like LA and Vancouver have gotten bigger, but they're more or less what they were - there were skysc…

China is the African continent's largest trading partner.

Worth noting is that China's been trading with Africa since at least 200 BCE.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa%E2%80%93China_relations

Re: Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

#56
post #48
post #42

I am very familiar with the purchasing process of satellites by LATAM countries. Basically the Chinese or the French (i.e. Airbus) come in and offer you a satellite that ranges between 180M-380M USD in price depending on what you want. The price includes a building with a ground station, the launch, and some basic training. If you negotiate correctly, the full telemetry is send only to you and you process it all loca…

Why do these countries need satellites anyway, what exactly are they using them for?

The uses are endless. Telecom, survey, mining, weather, agriculture etc.

Re: Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

#57

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…

China’s model seems to be build infrastructure and the rest of society will come along as opposed to providing aid for the least fortunate.

Re: Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

#58

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…

It's important to look at the political component of our approach as well. The Western political-economic growth model for the third world - fostering democratic institutions while giving basic aid to the poor - is not productive from the perspective of nation building and wealth creation. Democracy is not conducive to growth for poor, diverse nations, especially those still deeply rooted in genuine tribalism as many…

I would say the approach should be more economical than political focused. Donation is very socialistic way needs no accountability from donation receptors, while business deals require responsibilities from both side and have risks attached. In fact China doesn't care about the political system. Ethiopia Happened to be a democratic country.

Re: Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

1. Could you please explain the connection between economic growth and the population problem a little more? I would expect economic development to gradually cause a decline in birth rates? Is there a GDP marker where delta GDP > delta population? As far as overpopulation, the entire continent of Africa has roughly the same population (1.3b) as India with ~9x the land area so the absolute population density is not di…

Sounds like a surviving version of Victorian "blame the victim" thinking. It was a popular and heavily flawed idea that the people the British invaded and robbed (of food in many cases), if faced with food shortages, should have just "had less kids".

When a parasite finds a good host, the logic can get really warped.

Re: Ethiopia has launched its first satellite into space

#60
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The progress after 2000 does not really look too different from the time before. GDP per capita is a bit of an exception though. GDP per capita: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-real-gdp-per-capi... Literacy rate: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cross-country-literacy-ra... Life expectancy: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?time=1950... Hunger and undernourishment: https://ourworldindata…

Not sure how your links support your argument. Literacy rate data is from 1994 onwards, steadily up except one hiccup (by the way I can’t imagine how literacy rate could drop 6% in a year; short of mass extinction of a literate group it must be a change of methodology); life expectancy growth accelerated from ~2000 and is slowing down a bit again; hunger data is from 2000 onwards, same for HDI which you already remov…

> Literacy rate data is from 1994 onwards, steadily up

Supporting the argument, since progress keeps following the trend.

> life expectancy growth accelerated from ~2000 and is slowing down a bit again

Slight waviness superimposed on the overall trend.

> how is GDP per capita, an important metric, “a bit of a exception”

GDP per capita had a trend reversal in 2000, unlike the other metrics.

> annual GDP growth rate does seem a lot more steady since 2004

Most likely a change in methodology that gives less noisy estimates.

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