They were trying to get them to solve a real world problem for free under the guise of an interview (made up) problem.

Nobody’s dropping a MOAB on Moscow, because it’s dropped out the back of a C-130.

And even if they did it’s got less than 4% the yield of a B61, on it’s lowest setting, that fits inside an F-35. On it’s highest setting the B61 is 30,000 times more yield.

Conventional explosives are toys compared to nukes.

Its not radio emissions necessarily, but general EMI, which isn’t illegal. But we’re talking about such sensitive instruments looking for incredibly faint signals. While the noise from 1 satellite might be insignificant, the combined effects of 100,000+ of all the planned constellations is going to be brutal to the noise floor. It’s the same deal with optical astronomy. Bright spots are an issue, but they are also going to increase the general diffuse brightness (noise) of the night sky, which is already reaching ‘problem’ threshold with the current number of satellites.

https://www.aanda.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202346374 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-023-01904-2#Sec2

Sure, professionals can work around it, but for amateurs it fucking sucks.

Its also not just optical astronomy either, they shit out RF on the reserved radio astronomy frequencies too.

It’s wrecking astronomy already and we aren’t even at the peak of satellite constellations.

Has to rank as one of the most exploited pieces of software ever.

Definitely be not aided by the fact it’s targeting an audience without the skills or knowledge to adequately configure, maintain and monitor it. And the plugin community only makes the vulnerability exposure worse.