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Starship V3

spacex.com

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Re: Starship V3

#111

Post by foxylad »

mrandish wrote: post #67
slac wrote: post #20

Gotta pump that Grok IPO /s Seriously though, the whole SpaceXAI makes zero sense to me. SpaceX was a wonderful company and there was zero need to pollute it with Twitter and a service that creates sexual images of people without their consent.

I was initially very skeptical about the viability of space-based data centers but after a couple hours reading papers, studies and summary technical assessments I realized there are a range of credible expert viewpoints from, "pretty unlikely" to "it could actually work". There at least appear to be plausible, though unproven, solutions to the most obvious drive-by objections I had off the top of my non-expert head.…

Did you find a credible solution for heat dissipation in the papers you read? I fear the laws of thermodynamics will kill this project.

Re: Starship V3

#112

Post by YZF »

lucisferre wrote: post #102
piloto_ciego wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I think he's spot on, and I normally am not fond of Elon's public behavior. I mentioned in another thread that they're getting around having to ask permission to build datacenters by doing it in space. The entire thing is to avoid NIMBY stuff I'd bet.

How do you cool them? https://www.chaotropy.com/why-jeff-bezos-is-probably-wrong-p...

https://youtu.be/FlQYU3m1e80

"Is It Really Impossible To Cool A Datacenter In Space?" - Scott Manley

tl;dr -> not impossible.

Re: Starship V3

#113

Post by Fordec »

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.

I assume because the Mars goal is as good as dead with what they're finding out about the complexities of building Starship that they can barely get it back down to this planet, never mind back from a second one.

This "space datacenters is more important than colonizing the universe" thing is just to deflect from what would be an inevitable failure because if they do this pivot, they can push out the timeline for that further than the original 2026 on Mars goal that they are about to wildly overshoot.

Re: Starship V3

#114

Post by ericd »

dullcrisp wrote: post #90
jiggawatts wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In space, that solar panel is always in the sunlight. No clouds, no night time. Weirdly enough, earth is a more challenging environment in some ways for solar. You need to lay out >3x the number of panels on earth to get the same power production, and you need batteries or a grid interconnection as a buffer.

Also, there's a populist backlash on building datacenters, power transmission infra, and power generation in many areas on earth. Locally, we have a number of people complaining about solar arrays going up on farmland, even though it's the farmers choosing to do it. "It's an eyesore".

Re: Starship V3

#115

Post by idiotsecant »

piloto_ciego wrote: post #95
spankalee wrote: post #38

[flagged]

Honestly, I think he's spot on, and I normally am not fond of Elon's public behavior. I mentioned in another thread that they're getting around having to ask permission to build datacenters by doing it in space. The entire thing is to avoid NIMBY stuff I'd bet.

Building datacenters in a medium where the main waste product (heat) is incredibly difficult to get rid of, there is zero opportunity for maintainance, and the fuel to get to site costs more than the site does. Makes perfect sense, spot on!

Re: Starship V3

#116

Post by pveierland »

spankalee wrote: post #38

[flagged]

Beyond aggressively optimistic timelines, I find it difficult to disagree with the premise. The aggressively optimistic timelines is also what makes it feasible to even attempt these things, where e.g. the amount of iteration required for Starship would have broken most other companies.

> In the long term, space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale.

In the long term - all mass and energy available is outside of Earth - what is here is not even a rounding error. If you wish to continue scaling compute it then becomes a question of time before you'd want to go off planet. Personally I'm quite keen to see near term space based compute explored, as it could end up becoming a much better trade-off than allocating ever more ground to power and operate terrestrial compute which directly conflict with the biosphere.

SpaceX started the Starlink design phase in 2015 - started launching Starlink satellites in 2019 - and they now have the most dominant satellite constellation ever deployed by a large factor. They have their own launch systems, launch sites, satellite bus, communication stack - both in-house designed and built.

What is really going to be that difficult with space-based compute? Radiation hardening and cooling? These are clear engineering challenges that can be simulated, tested with earth analogs, and then rapidly iterated across design generations. There's napkin math all over the internet on this, but it really seems like small challenges compared to the other engineering SpaceX have already sorted.

Beyond radiation / cooling / servicing - it seems like the biggest hurdle is to crack the scaling of designing / scaling the necessary amount of compute they will need to scale space based compute according to the laid out plans.

Re: Starship V3

#117

Post by Melatonic »

senectus1 wrote: post #101
spankalee wrote: post #38

[flagged]

long term is doing a lot of heavy lifting here... in the very broad shoulders of long term, he's probably right.. its why the concept of a dysonsphere is around. you can get uninterrupted 24/7 free energy. but yeah, the tech is a long way away. *Edit: lol My estimate is that within 2 to 3 years, the lowest cost way to generate AI compute will be in space. i think 2-3 years is a very unlikely outcome.

I agree - long term I can see highly distributed compute ( like tons of small satellites ) becoming a cool space thing. And eventually a ringworld like thing or dysonsphere

But 2 to 3 years?! Seems crazy

Re: Starship V3

#118

Post by derektank »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #94
jiggawatts wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Even assuming "that's it", why not just install it in e.g. Morocco instead? It's not like space is any easier to access than the Sahara, and saving a few dozen ms of network latency isn't particularly valuable when your TTFT is measured in tenths of a second. Sure, sun synchronous orbits are a thing, but you also need more expensive panels and the comparative efficiency will decline over time vs land-based hardware a…

>why not just install it in e.g. Morocco instead

The number of political actors that can stop you from building in Morocco (or confiscate/damage your invested capital once you deploy it) are numerous. The number that can do so in space? Maybe a half dozen. We’re already seeing states and municipalities in the US moving to ban data centers and the energy infrastructure needed to power them. Building in space faces no such procedural roadblocks.

The economics still seem like an open question, but if the demand for compute is high enough, space based data centers might be the only option

Re: Starship V3

#119

Post by piloto_ciego »

lucisferre wrote: post #102
piloto_ciego wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I think he's spot on, and I normally am not fond of Elon's public behavior. I mentioned in another thread that they're getting around having to ask permission to build datacenters by doing it in space. The entire thing is to avoid NIMBY stuff I'd bet.

How do you cool them? https://www.chaotropy.com/why-jeff-bezos-is-probably-wrong-p...

Admittedly it is not my field, but back of the envelope calculations in a sun synchronous orbit with the radiators pointed towards deep space seem pretty plausible with about 1.3 to 1.7 ratio of solar area to radiator area.

Like, it's not "great" but if you're not flying around the sun every 72 minutes or whatever and you can keep your panels sun on and radiate into deep space, the numbers aren't bananas.

Re: Starship V3

#120

Post by Melatonic »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #94
jiggawatts wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Even assuming "that's it", why not just install it in e.g. Morocco instead? It's not like space is any easier to access than the Sahara, and saving a few dozen ms of network latency isn't particularly valuable when your TTFT is measured in tenths of a second. Sure, sun synchronous orbits are a thing, but you also need more expensive panels and the comparative efficiency will decline over time vs land-based hardware a…

I think Elons version is totally crazy but the idea of edge computer (maybe for latency or something) on each satellite above your head could make sense. It could even integrate well with larger terrestrial datacenters (like your example of Morocco) depending on use case
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