Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Starship V3

spacex.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 667 posts

Re: Starship V3

#81

Post by yellowbkpk »

gct wrote: post #65
neuronexmachina wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm basically assuming that "space-based data centers" are some Glomar Explorer-style cover for something else.

They'll put up thousands more starlinks and track every mobile device on the planet simultaneously, might as well have a homing beacon in your pocket.

Check out this video that goes into a very deep technical explanation about how the satellites can be used as a Synthetic Aperature Radar to build a realtime representation of the entire globe at meters of resolution: https://youtube.com/watch?v=jbp3kdJZ1_A

Re: Starship V3

#82

Post by ryandrake »

gpt5 wrote: post #27
danpalmer wrote: post #19

[flagged]

Why is everything today has to be "good" or "bad". Where is the nuance? Where is seeing things as they are - an exciting endeavor built by thousands of people, one of them has flaws you don't like. The rise of moralization of everything is really killing online discourse. It's gotten to the point where people will now mostly criticize and support ideas based on who proposed them, and not based on their merits. Tribal…

People who themselves eschew nuance should not be surprised when they and everything they touch are polarized into "good" and "bad" buckets. I'm pretty neutral to most companies on earth, because their CEOs wisely don't make wild comments every other day on their personal politics.

Re: Starship V3

#83

Post by trothamel »

neuronexmachina wrote: post #47
spankalee wrote: post #38

[flagged]

I'm basically assuming that "space-based data centers" are some Glomar Explorer-style cover for something else.

It's putting AI processing out of the reach of hostile local, state, and international governments. Does it need to be a cover?

Re: Starship V3

#84

Post by Forgeties79 »

Petersipoi wrote: post #75
Forgeties79 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t buy into the 2010’s Tony stark persona. His momentum is clearly slowing because he can’t put his politics and rather fucked social values behind business sense. I have immense appreciation for what SpaceX has done for humanity. I’m not being dramatic. Reusable rockets alone is an incredible achievement . But he’s lost the plot. He needs to drop his right wing bullshit and stardom chasing if he wants to be taken…

[flagged]

> Before he bought Twitter, you could be banned from essentially all the big social networks for bullshit such as "misgendering"

If you think musk hasn’t banned people for bullshit you’re not looking at all. The site has suspended literally millions of people since he took over. He banned the jet tracker by creating a curated doxxing policy specifically designed to cover his ass.

You need to spend 5min with a search engine. The myth that he has made it more open and free speech friendly is just that.

Re: Starship V3

#86

Post by jiggawatts »

winfredJa wrote: post #76
jiggawatts wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

issue is land based will still be cheaper. there are lot of cool things we can do in space, i’m not convinced putting data center is one of them.

Elon explained the logic at length in an interview: Cheaper != Available.

The availability of power is the constraint almost everywhere, no matter how much money you throw at it.

Gas turbine production has a many-year backlog. Everybody that can make the single-crystal superalloy turbine blades is fully booked for most of a decade and can't expand capacity for years (at least).

Meanwhile, putting a slightly larger solar panel onto a satellite is a trivial engineering excercise and has no blockers in 2026.

Disclaimer: Personally, I suspect all this AI-in-space "talk" from Elon is just cheap marketing to boost the IPO of xAI.

Re: Starship V3

#88

Post by gpm »

trothamel wrote: post #83
neuronexmachina wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm basically assuming that "space-based data centers" are some Glomar Explorer-style cover for something else.

It's putting AI processing out of the reach of hostile local, state, and international governments. Does it need to be a cover?

> It's putting AI processing out of the reach of hostile local, state, and international governments

It isn't... the hostile local government can seize the ssh keys you use to control it and take it over just fine.

The hostile international non-local super power just gained a new ability to jam communications or destroy it with a bit of deniability too.

Re: Starship V3

#89

Post by dodu_ »

01100011 wrote: post #41
spankalee wrote: post #38

[flagged]

You've got to give him credit though. His caustic managerial style seems to have borne fruit despite his lack of engineering or technical skills. He has been supremely effective at defining a vision(however delusional) and attracting funding. Will we get to Mars soon? Hell no. But we may end up with a world-leading launch provider based in the US and that's a clear win for the country.

You absolutely do not, under any circumstances, have to give him credit.

Chronic over-promise, underdelivery.

Where was the nearly 3T of fraud he said he'd uncover in the US government, again? Was that a clear win for the country?

But hey at least he's effective at getting people to give him money, I guess, which is an indistinguishable "skill" from that of someone who is able to convince people to buy an online course on how to make money online.

He just does it at a bigger scale so people are quick to suck him off. How we are still falling into the "money = smart/competent" trap in > is beyond me.

Re: Starship V3

#90

Post by dullcrisp »

jiggawatts wrote: post #86
winfredJa wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

issue is land based will still be cheaper. there are lot of cool things we can do in space, i’m not convinced putting data center is one of them.

Elon explained the logic at length in an interview: Cheaper != Available. The availability of power is the constraint almost everywhere, no matter how much money you throw at it. Gas turbine production has a many-year backlog. Everybody that can make the single-crystal superalloy turbine blades is fully booked for most of a decade and can't expand capacity for years (at least). Meanwhile, putting a slightly larger so…

Okay but why not take that slightly larger solar panel and leave it on Earth?

Is the sunlight millions of times brighter beyond the atmosphere? I don’t get it.

Post reply on HN