A $2.14-billion federal loan for an Ottawa-based satellite operator has Canadian politicians arguing about whether American billionaire Elon Musk poses a national security risk.
The fight involves internet connectivity in remote regions as Canada tries to live up to its promise to connect every Canadian household to high-speed internet by 2030.
A week ago, the Liberal government announced the loan to Telesat, which is launching a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites that will be able to connect the most remote areas of the country to broadband internet.
Conservative MP Michael Barrett objected to the price tag, asking Musk in a social media post how much it would cost to provide his Starlink to every Canadian household that does not have high-speed access.
Starlink was SpaceXs solution to having a reusable first stage rocket and not enough demand for all the flights they could now do.
They basically poured billions into perfecting reuse, and had to find a way to make money on the new but upfront costly capabilities so they came up with starlink.
Edit: it also gave them a safer way to more easily test flight proven rockets with what was at the time more weary customers of the tech. For awhile NASA still wanted new rockets, but then became fine with flight proven as all the extra flights showed it was okay.