Snopes, another in a long line of fake fact-checking sites, attempted to suggest that Elon Musk and his Starlink internet system lost contact with the missing Titanic submersible.
Here was the Snopes headline: “Was the Missing Titanic Submersible Relying on Satellites from Elon Musk’s SpaceX to Communicate?”
And to that blatantly stupid question, Snopes declaratively said… TRUE [emphasis original]:
When news broke of the failed communications, a number of news reports and posts claimed that the missing submersible was relying on Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites for its communications.
The claim is true. OceanGate, the company that operates the submersible, tweeted right before the expedition that it was relying on Starlink: “Without any cell towers in the middle of the ocean, we are relying on @Starlink to provide the communications we require throughout this year’s 2023 Titanic Expedition.”
Good grief.
At this very moment, I am hooked up to Starlink. Were it not for Starlink, you wouldn’t be reading this because I’m ten miles down a dirt road in Northern Wisconsin where my phone is useless. Starlink is wonderful. Starlink is pumping us with so much internet my wife can stream her TV shows while I write this.