Thread by @StephenMcDonell

#China's government says its Tiangong space station has twice had to manoeuvre to avoid collision with one of Elon Musk's satellites, avoiding potentially catastrophic space crashes. For Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian said the #US had "posed a serious threat to astronauts' lives"

#Beijing sent a note to the United Nations saying that signatories to the Outer Space Treaty are also responsible for any private actors in their countries. Hence the government of #China has blamed the government of the #USA for the actions of Musk's Space X company.

Some nationalists on #China's social media have called for a boycott of Musk's Tesla. His company Space X -
- which operates the subsidiary Starlink that has placed thousands of satellites into space for future internet access - is yet to comment.

BTW scientists and engineers say that a major collision between a satellite and #China's new space station could result in the deaths of all onboard. There have already been astronauts on the space station preparing for it go into full operation next year.

Interesting that the Chinese Government has so publicly attacked an Elon Musk company, given that Tesla had had quite a presence in #China selling 10s of thousands of vehicles here each month. #USA

Now that it's morning on the east coast of the #USA we may get a response soon from #Washington. #China #Beijing #US #ElonMusk #Tiangong

For those asking if this might have something to do with ElonMusk's satellites potentially providing open internet for #China, I'm assuming no. I'm no expert but there'll still have to be ground stations?(Experts: correct?) For China delivery they'd be in China & controllable.

Naturally there would also be practical political problems for Elon Musk, in terms of operating his other businesses in #China, if he started providing open internet here but - at the moment - I'm just talking about the blockability of this technology by China's censors.