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Starcloud

ycombinator.com

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Re: Starcloud

#141

Post by vermilingua »

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #129
echoangle wrote: post #103

I’m still not sure how people can believe this, this makes zero sense to me. There is no easy passive cooling in space, getting rid of heat is a major problem. And you need more redundancy because the radiation will crash your computers. And launch is very expensive of course. And the whole presentation is completely ludicrous. Look at table 1 in the linked PDF and tell me you’re serious. There is no additional cost…

I got to the comma in the first sentence from the webpage and immediately went to the comments because I had the exact same thought. Given Y Combinator's vetting process, I'm sure they would have tackled this problem somehow - maybe by feeding the heat into another process? It will be interesting to see how they've solved this.

> Given Y Combinator's vetting process…

The vetting process of the fund that quite famously invests in the founders over the idea?

Re: Starcloud

#142

Post by toraway »

dang wrote: post #40
tux3 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Can you please not post comments like this? Thoughtful criticism is welcome, of course, but this sort of thing isn't. Besides breaking the site guidelines, it takes threads in less interesting directions and evokes even worse comments from others. We're trying to avoid that here. " Don't be snarky. " " Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us somethin…

Tbh your moderation is normally very restrained and even handed so was a bit surprising to see you take down several borderline overly snarky comments in a row (that just so happen to be directed against VC investors or YC founders).

Re: Starcloud

#143

Post by alfiedotwtf »

echoangle wrote: post #117
daeken wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Massive radiators. The ISS has radiators that have a dissipation capacity of about 3m^2/kW. If we use that number, we'd need a 3000m^2 radiator per megawatt, which is the scale they're talking about. This could theoretically be brought down, but not even by an order of magnitude. I wonder how much cooling the solar panels alone would need, when operating at that scale.

The radiators on the ISS aren’t passive though, they have actively pumped fluid loops to get heat from the hot parts into the radiators.

That's interesting to know. But since it's space, how do they then cool down the hot fluid?

Re: Starcloud

#144

Post by IAmGraydon »

thrance wrote: post #52
Havoc wrote: post #11

>passive cooling huh? I was under the impression that cooling in space is an absolute nightmare since radiating heat into vacuum is super hard? Even the comparatively small and decidedly H100-free ISS needed giant radiators https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_Active_Thermal_Contro...

These two words are a massive red flags, signaling this is nothing more than a giant grift, like most of today's economy.

I very much agree here. This is clearly nothing more than a scam meant to separate investors from their money. I read the "white paper" and very few of their suppositions actually hold water, as many others have detailed in this thread. It seems like what this kind of "startup" does is pick two or three trending words, put them together and make up a story that would be believable to people who don't dig too deep. These guys chose the words "AI" and "space" and figured out how to stick them together. Speaking of that, anyone want to invest in my new quantum blockchain technology?

Re: Starcloud

#146

Post by [deleted] »

rozap wrote: post #102
ianhowson wrote: post #41

I had a good laugh. - You can't build 40MW of solar panels for $2M, even with theoretical maximum efficiency. You can't even build the cabling and regulators at that price. - You need battery storage -- not as your backup -- but as primary source. It is going to cost more than $2M. Batteries are heavy. They are going to cost a lot to launch. This is not even solved on the ground yet. - You need a heat transport mediu…

Either this is performance art, or interest rates are too low.

[deleted]

Re: Starcloud

#148

Post by lxgr »

esperent wrote: post #127
echoangle wrote: post #103

I’m still not sure how people can believe this, this makes zero sense to me. There is no easy passive cooling in space, getting rid of heat is a major problem. And you need more redundancy because the radiation will crash your computers. And launch is very expensive of course. And the whole presentation is completely ludicrous. Look at table 1 in the linked PDF and tell me you’re serious. There is no additional cost…

> There is no easy passive cooling in space, getting rid of heat is a major problem Nonetheless getting rid of heat (by radiation) is possible, otherwise people would be roasted inside the ISS. I'm sure all of these companies are advertising "ChatGPT in Space!" because that's what will generate hype and money, but what they'll actually be planning is very small edge data centers whose job is to reduce latency. Whethe…

> very small edge data centers whose job is to reduce latency

Reduce latency to where?

Re: Starcloud

#149

Post by jsheard »

slashdev wrote: post #112
echoangle wrote: post #103

I’m still not sure how people can believe this, this makes zero sense to me. There is no easy passive cooling in space, getting rid of heat is a major problem. And you need more redundancy because the radiation will crash your computers. And launch is very expensive of course. And the whole presentation is completely ludicrous. Look at table 1 in the linked PDF and tell me you’re serious. There is no additional cost…

I agree, this is makes no sense at all. Can I take the other side of this investment? Like an angel funding round, but selling short?

I think the other side of this is just buying Amazon stock based on the daring prediction that big grey buildings full of servers aren't going anywhere.

Re: Starcloud

#150

Post by echoangle »

esperent wrote: post #127
echoangle wrote: post #103

I’m still not sure how people can believe this, this makes zero sense to me. There is no easy passive cooling in space, getting rid of heat is a major problem. And you need more redundancy because the radiation will crash your computers. And launch is very expensive of course. And the whole presentation is completely ludicrous. Look at table 1 in the linked PDF and tell me you’re serious. There is no additional cost…

> There is no easy passive cooling in space, getting rid of heat is a major problem Nonetheless getting rid of heat (by radiation) is possible, otherwise people would be roasted inside the ISS. I'm sure all of these companies are advertising "ChatGPT in Space!" because that's what will generate hype and money, but what they'll actually be planning is very small edge data centers whose job is to reduce latency. Whethe…

Of course it’s possible. But they are acting like having the datacenter in space is actually an advantage over earth because space is cold.

That’s like saying „if you’re thirsty on a ship, getting thrown into the sea is actually really nice because you will be around a lot of water.“.

Physically, you could do it, but it won’t be simpler or cheaper than on earth. Except for constant solar availability, there are only downsides with this.

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