FT says for 250 billion:
xAI joins SpaceX
791–800 of 1001 posts
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#792> it is possible to put 500 to 1000 TW/year of AI satellites into deep space, meaningfully ascend the Kardashev scale and harness a non-trivial percentage of the Sun’s power We currently make around 1 TW of photovoltaic cells per year, globally. The proposal here is to launch that much to space every 9 hours, complete with attached computers, continuously, from the moon. edit: Also, this would capture a very trivial…
I wonder what the plan is to recycle those. Without a plan to safely bring back all this hardware and recycling it, we'll deplete earth from it's mineral. The matter used to build things on earth stays within earth's ecosystem.
Moving matter out continusously at industrial scale with no plan to bring 100% of it back in the ecosystem other than burning it seems quite unsustainable and irresponsable.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#793> it is possible to put 500 to 1000 TW/year of AI satellites into deep space, meaningfully ascend the Kardashev scale and harness a non-trivial percentage of the Sun’s power We currently make around 1 TW of photovoltaic cells per year, globally. The proposal here is to launch that much to space every 9 hours, complete with attached computers, continuously, from the moon. edit: Also, this would capture a very trivial…
We also shouldn't overlook the fact that the proposal entirely glosses over the implication of the alternative benefits we might realize if humanity achieved the incredible engineering and technical capacity necessary to make this version of space AI happen. Think about it. Elon conjures up a vision of the future where we've managed to increase our solar cell manufacturing capacity by two whole orders of magnitude an…
The data centers in space is 100% about Golden Dome,
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_syst...
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#794> it is possible to put 500 to 1000 TW/year of AI satellites into deep space, meaningfully ascend the Kardashev scale and harness a non-trivial percentage of the Sun’s power We currently make around 1 TW of photovoltaic cells per year, globally. The proposal here is to launch that much to space every 9 hours, complete with attached computers, continuously, from the moon. edit: Also, this would capture a very trivial…
Earth does have plenty of sand and iron. Literally all you have to do is grow the sand into a crystal, slice it up, etch some patterns onto it, then add some metal. Making only 1TW of pv cells per year is a skill issue.
Sure, and copper, and aluminium
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#795Earlier quoted context omitted.
Setting aside the possibility it's window dressing for a financial bailout, there would be two ways compute in space makes sense: 1) new technology improves vacuum heat radiation efficiency 2) new technology reduces waste heat generation from compute All the takes I've seen have been focused on #1, but I'm starting to wonder about #2... Specifically spintronics and photonic chips.
1. It's cheaper to make a vacuum on earth around a computer than it is to send a computer into space. 2. That would also presumably work on earth, unless it somehow relied on low-gravity, and would also be cheaper to benefit from on earth.
That’s not what 1 is about.
The problem for 1 is how do you dissipate heat without being in contact with a lower temperature mass.
Creating a vacuum on earth would solve nothing as the heath would still have to escape the vacuum.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#796Elon's usual modus operandi: take the thing that is losing money and merge it with the thing that is making money.
Prediction: at some point SpaceX will acquire all Tesla stock and take it private.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#797Speculation - Starship is a dead end all of this is a play to inflate IPO prices for SpaceX during the AI bubble. Then cash out and start a new private space company?
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#798> it is possible to put 500 to 1000 TW/year of AI satellites into deep space, meaningfully ascend the Kardashev scale and harness a non-trivial percentage of the Sun’s power We currently make around 1 TW of photovoltaic cells per year, globally. The proposal here is to launch that much to space every 9 hours, complete with attached computers, continuously, from the moon. edit: Also, this would capture a very trivial…
Not to mention… how do you repair it when components fail, especially sensitive electronics against cosmic radiation
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#799Whenever Elon Musk says free speech, I get the chills.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#800A former NASA engineer with a PhD in space electronics who later worked at Google for 10 years wrote an article about why datacenters in space are very technically challenging: https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horri... I don't have any specialized knowledge of the physics but I saw an article suggesting the real reason for the push to build them in space is to hedge against political pushback pr…
The real reason is, Elon has SpaceX and xAI. He can create an illusion of synergy and orders of magnitude advancements to boost the market cap and pocket all the money. He realized long time ago you don't need to deliver to play the market cap game, in fact it's better if you are selling a story far in the future rather than a something you can deliver now.