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SpaceX wants to launch a million satellites

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Re: SpaceX wants to launch a million satellites

#61

Post by timschmidt »

ben_w wrote: post #59
timschmidt wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 160 launches figure includes falcons. Seems like Starship fuels and flight tests faster than Falcon though. And if they manage to reuse second stages, then that eliminates a significant manufacturing bottleneck.

If you're counting Falcons, you are making my point for me: even with those, on three launch sites, they still can't get close to the minimum for an extremely small, to the point of being unreasonable, target satellite mass. Further, until they actually do solve upper stage reuse, it is an "if" which can kill the economics of the vehicle itself, let alone reach the eventual potential cost reductions necessary for spa…

I don't see any reason a non-renewable Starship upper stage would kill the economics of the vehicle. No one else has a renewable upper stage yet, so there's no competition in that space until someone else does. Stoke have an interesting design but it hasn't flown yet and is only about the size of Falcon.

If they do manage to reuse the upper stage, then they should have no problem exceeding falcon launch cadence. Starship is much easier to build than Falcon. Welding is simpler and less expensive than the carbon composites used on Falcon upper stages.

Re: SpaceX wants to launch a million satellites

#63

Post by tzs »

foxglacier wrote: post #49
Ekaros wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And getting them down. Or allowing them to come down on their own... I doubt that is entirely environmental impact free.

Why are so many people just desperate to imagine environmental, economic, or social harm from any new technology or ambitious projects? Are you all just too old to enjoy the thought of an amazing future that's better than today? Or are you too brainwashed by the negativity in the media and think disasters are the only things that can happen? Or are you just bitter about life and can't have any hope? Or do you just fe…

> Why are so many people just desperate to imagine environmental, economic, or social harm from any new technology or ambitious projects?

Rockets aren't new technology and they are not imagining the environmental harm. It has been known for a long time. It is just that with only ~300 launches per year (and about 35000 launches ever) the harm has not risen to the level of something that has to be limited.

A million data center satellites is a significant increase in that harm. Furthermore data center satellite are expected to have a service life of maybe 3-5 years so there will be an ongoing 200-370k replacements needing to be launched. That's 3.3-6.2k launches per year at 60 satellites per launch.

Re: SpaceX wants to launch a million satellites

#64

Post by tzs »

tristanj wrote: post #47
johnea wrote: post #29

There is an upside: this may be the shortest route to eliminating any future launches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome Sorry Buck Rogers fan bois, should have left this fantasy in the 1950s...

Mentioning Kessler syndrome, especially in the case of Starlink LEO satellites, is the classic midwit signal.

What makes you think they are talking about Starlink satellites? The 1 million satellites in the article are data center satellites.

Re: SpaceX wants to launch a million satellites

#65

Post by PunchyHamster »

ben_w wrote: post #58
wrs wrote: post #36

The people who want to put data centers in orbit must be either much smarter than me, or much dumber than me, because I just don't get how that makes any technical or economic sense. Of course, it's possible nobody actually wants to do this, they just want to get funded to do it. (Old joke: "I wish I had enough money to buy an elephant...")

From what I've seen (Google paper, IIRC), it only makes sense economically if Musk's stretch goals for price/kg to orbit for Starship become true. Technically it's fine, just take something like Starlink and use most of the power for compute rather than for comms. But financially, it depends on price to orbit being extremely low; not just lower than Falcon, but as low as Musk's best public claims about what may be co…

Yeah but how's that more financially viable than "build your own solar battery farm to power data center on ground"

Re: SpaceX wants to launch a million satellites

#66

Post by clumsysmurf »

wrs wrote: post #36

The people who want to put data centers in orbit must be either much smarter than me, or much dumber than me, because I just don't get how that makes any technical or economic sense. Of course, it's possible nobody actually wants to do this, they just want to get funded to do it. (Old joke: "I wish I had enough money to buy an elephant...")

Perhaps the reasons are not technical. Perhaps it has more to do with jurisdiction, not being physically dependent (or susceptible) to any physical state.

Re: SpaceX wants to launch a million satellites

#67

Post by roelschroeven »

variety8675 wrote: post #27

> Most people likely don’t think about how often they use satellite communications. But that Instagram post you made? You used a satellite. This article seems to confuse Starlink with ordinary cellular communications

Also some, or even many, people think that intercontintental communications use satellites rather than cables.

Re: SpaceX wants to launch a million satellites

#68

Post by jauntywundrkind »

foxglacier wrote: post #50
jauntywundrkind wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're only starting to see and understand the damage. https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/... https://www.science.org/content/article/burned-satellites-ar... Leave it to the chainsaw man who has already become the millenium's worst killer, to wreak yet more sad havoc and ruin upon the sphere. What absolute trash, what a mad frivolous pointless ambition meant only to crowd out anyone from think…

Must has clearly stated the reason and value. You know that. You're just trying to be wrong because the internet told you you'll be a good person for hating him.

Giant space data centers, up where what couple particles there are bouncing around are already 1000 degrees.

It seems like an incredible amount of pollution to make, to go lord over everyone's heads. This isn't a plan that has any empathy for the earth or reason, except to just deny everyone else access, to burn as much rocket fuel as conceivably possible. So no one else can. Just go build some terrestrial solar, please, thanks.

The man is the bloodiest butcher of the millennium and this is a vile stealing of shared human space. Your lack of actually saying anything and throwing random jabs my way to defend him is ignoble & distracting, adds 0 engagement.

Re: SpaceX wants to launch a million satellites

#69

Post by hkpack »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #65
ben_w wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've seen (Google paper, IIRC), it only makes sense economically if Musk's stretch goals for price/kg to orbit for Starship become true. Technically it's fine, just take something like Starlink and use most of the power for compute rather than for comms. But financially, it depends on price to orbit being extremely low; not just lower than Falcon, but as low as Musk's best public claims about what may be co…

Yeah but how's that more financially viable than "build your own solar battery farm to power data center on ground"

Land is expensive, water is scarce, people don’t want sound pollution anywhere near them.

Building a datacenter in the neighborhood is already unpopular enough that companies do tricks to prevent public from knowing what is being built and by whom in advance.

Sending a small box with a panel to space may be a solution if a: the inside of the box is expensive and the cost to launch is cheap.

You amortize the box over 2-5 years and burn it in the atmosphere afterwards.

If the math is mathing, multiply by a million and voila, you have a datacenter in space where each rack is flying separately.

With a regular compute it may not be profitable but with GPUs connected to each other by optical links? I think it may be possible.

Re: SpaceX wants to launch a million satellites

#70

Post by Zigurd »

tristanj wrote: post #13

Starlink has been so successful, it is facing a lot of competition in the next few years. Every major power wants their own, national starlink network. China's state-backed starlink competitor GuoWang is putting 13,000 satellites in orbit by 2030. They've already started launching satellites. China's Qianfan plans 15,000 satellites by 2030. AST SpaceMobile is building their own network. Amazon Leo plans for 3,000 sat…

Circa 2032: "Remember when everybody was going to launch constellations of thousands of satellites?" "Yeah, just like the data centers, only about 10% of that got built."
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