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*Data centers in space only make sense if they are cost effective relative to normal data centers*. Disagree there are bunch of scenarios where Data Centers in space make sense. Like nuclear annihilation and having vaults across the globe to communicate and get back lost information because ground data centers would be wiped out by EMP from blasts.
To Steelman the topic, Musk’s whole alleged mission is to make humans a multi-planet species that can survive an earth killing event. To that end, a small data center space isn’t about unit-economics, it’s a bigger mission. So the question we should consider is what can we put into space the further that mission. Can we put a meaningful sum of human knowledge out there for preservation? It sounds like “yes,” even if…
Musk's whole mission is to scam even more people. Unfortunately people still buy his bullshit even though he couldn't deliver on anything, and just converts one failure to hyping up his next idiotic product. (Yes, I know what steel manning is)
Counterpoint: https://x.com/CJHandmer/status/1997906033168330816 (If you can't xcancel it yourself your hacker card is revoked.)
It's lala land nonsense. - Data centres need a lot of power = giant vast solar panels - Data centres need a lot of cooling. That's some almighty heatsinks you're going need - They will need to be radiation-hardened to avoid memory corruption = even more mass - The hardware will be redundant in like 2 years tops and will need replacing to stay competitive - Data centres are about 100x bigger (not including solar panel…
Hey! It can be de-orbited onto the location of your choosing. I bet you can sell this service to the DoD!
Barring that, you can sell it on the global market to the highest bidder.
To Steelman the topic, Musk’s whole alleged mission is to make humans a multi-planet species that can survive an earth killing event. To that end, a small data center space isn’t about unit-economics, it’s a bigger mission. So the question we should consider is what can we put into space the further that mission. Can we put a meaningful sum of human knowledge out there for preservation? It sounds like “yes,” even if…
Let's say there is an earth killing event, and let's say there is an outpost on Mars with some people on it. How much does it really matter that some humans survive, in light of the enormous catastrohophe that killed all life on earth? Is it a very worthwhile objective for our species to persist a while longer, or should we not just accept that also life itself will will die out on geological or astronomical time sca…
I also see no reason to “lay down and die” as I feel is somewhat implied here. I think it’s a truly noble cause, but maybe I read too much sci-fi as a young lad.
Counterpoint: https://x.com/CJHandmer/status/1997906033168330816 (If you can't xcancel it yourself your hacker card is revoked.)
Very confused by this plan. Data centers on Earth are struggling with how to get rid of waste heat. It's really, really hard to get rid of waste heat in space. That seems to be about the worst possible place to put a data center.
That's not Elon's problem. He's an ideas guy. Data centers in space is definitely an idea.
AI data-centers use upwards of 100MW. The biggest solar panels in space could produce around 240KW. When they speak of AI data-centers in space what do they actually mean in realistic non theoretical terms and where are the materials for this coming from? If the AI data-center used only 10MW then each could have two redundant SMR's assuming the cooling challenges have been worked out but then we could have nuclear re…
[1] https://hackaday.com/2024/02/05/starlinks-inter-satellite-la... (and this is two years ago!) [2] https://resources.nvidia.com/en-us-accelerated-networking-re...
It's lala land nonsense. - Data centres need a lot of power = giant vast solar panels - Data centres need a lot of cooling. That's some almighty heatsinks you're going need - They will need to be radiation-hardened to avoid memory corruption = even more mass - The hardware will be redundant in like 2 years tops and will need replacing to stay competitive - Data centres are about 100x bigger (not including solar panel…
The answer to that is that coordination problems are really hard. Much harder even than what are currently unsolved engineering problems. In fact, SpaceX can only launch from California because they have DOD coverage for their launches. Otherwise the California Coastal Commission et al. would have blocked them entirely. Perhaps the innovation for affordable space Internet is combining it with mixed-use technology.
The truth is that in America today self-driving cars (regulated by a state board run by bureaucrats) are easier to build than trains (regulated by every property owner on the train route). Mark Zuckerberg tried to spend some money evaluating a train across the Bay and had to give up. But Robotaxi service is live in San Francisco.
So if there is an angle that makes sense to me it's that they anticipate engineering challenges beatable in a way where regulatory challenges are not.