Starship V3 • Hacker News Board

Re: Starship V3

#541

Post by EnergyAmy » Wed, May 13, 2026, 6:56 PM UTC

adastra22 wrote: post #402

damnitbuilds wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a whole book positing that a permanent settlement on Mars is unlikely to work, and I have not seen their arguments debunked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_City_on_Mars

As someone from within the space industry, their arguments are beyond bad. Indeed they miss the point entirely. If you don’t see much people talking about it, it’s because most people in the industry don’t want to stoop to that level. But there are a few who have bothered. Here is one of the better ones: https://planetocracy.org/p/review-of-a-city-on-mars-part-i

If that's one of the better criticisms of the book, that's a pretty good recommendation for the book. The article author clearly just doesn't like their dream being shattered.

Re: Starship V3

#542

Post by fatbird » Wed, May 13, 2026, 7:32 PM UTC

Schiendelman wrote: post #522

saalweachter wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except you aren't leaving that heat in place. You're concentrating it into a very small area of compute. If you don't spread that heat back out, it's going to find a much higher thermal equilibrium than the solar panels themselves would find just absorbing the sunlight and radiating the energy back into space. It's like you've pointed a magnifying glass at your compute, except with electricity, which means you can re…

I guess I'm curious: all the comments I see about this act as if the people proposing putting data centers in space are complete idiots. Do you believe they are complete idiots?

They're hucksters who know that adding "in space!" to a sales pitch is a free booster for tech enthusiasts.

It's the same way that Sam Altman talks about the risks of AI deciding to kill humanity: because that's dramatic and attention grabbing, and also the most unlikely outcome. Talking about it keeps us from talking about the real, ground level problems like the massive, unplanned-for disruption in jobs and education.

They just need to keep the money tap flowing, and tomorrow can worry about itself. Who's going to hold them accountable for data-centres-in-space five years from now, when they don't exist? Has Musk suffered any blowback from his hyping the Hyperloop that never materialized?

Re: Starship V3

#543

Post by lopsotronic » Wed, May 13, 2026, 7:36 PM UTC

BoxedEmpathy wrote: post #52

I really hope I get to see a permanent settlement on Mars or the moon. I don't care who settles it I just want to see humanity reach for the stars.

Depends on how you define "permanent" but the closed ecological systems (CES) problem is nowhere near solved.

Best case all the Martians get eaten alive by their own skin fungus and/or bacteria in a generation or two. There'll be a collapse in the personal or macro biome - biological systems have Kalmagorov complexity in a vertical like direction.

Shorter term, drawing from actual ISS problems, you get really weird and durable "biofilm" ecosystems sometimes literally exploding since there's nothing up there eating any of the material shedding from the crew and their food and poop and whatever else. Staphylococcus and Corynebacterium (skin commensals) and Bacillus species dominate surfaces. Aspergillus, Penicillium, Cladosporium, and Rhodotorula are some of the fungi. The Japanese Kibo module sampling found communities that shifted noticeably year over year. Thicker biofilms with novel "column-and-canopy" architectures not seen on Earth; probably related, E. coli and Salmonella studies showed increased virulence gene expression in microgravity. There's a Russian paper documenting 234 species recovered from Mir, including fungi actively degrading polymer materials. And this is on an orbital station after a few decades, constantly supplied, wiped down with sterilizers and lysol regularly, with individuals able to deorbit when they feel like it.

Re: Starship V3

#544

Post by IAmBroom » Wed, May 13, 2026, 8:42 PM UTC

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #510

timmmmmmay wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is literally zero evidence to support that assertion

There is also zero evidence to oppose it. We know some things from experience about the long term (1 year or so) effects on human health of 0g (tl;dr: not good). We know very very little about the long-term effects of 0.166g on human health, because it's never been done. (best guess: also not good).

> There is also zero evidence to oppose it.

That's how reason works. "You can't prove there isn't a silver, bubblegum-farting unicorn living on the asteroid belt" doesn't make it true. Nor more plausible.

Re: Starship V3

#545

Post by IAmBroom » Wed, May 13, 2026, 8:44 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #500

eagerpace wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And to think, it wasn’t that long ago competitors we still using old Russian engines for their domestic rockets. Brilliant work to get back to leadership in this domain.

Raptor is a thing of beauty: https://sxcontent9668.azureedge.us/cms-assets/assets/Raptor_... . Look how polished it is. It looks like a fucking Apple product. The Russians were really good at aerospace. It's a testament to their engineering that it took this long to advance past where they were in the 1970s. I love this video describing the development from the Russian RD270 all the way to Raptor: https://x.com/Erday…

Is that why they never made it to the moon, and did their best to hide fatal failures?

They beat the US exactly twice, on two very early records - first manmade object and first human in space. Then they fell behind.

Re: Starship V3

#546

Post by ActorNightly » Wed, May 13, 2026, 9:22 PM UTC

hagbard_c wrote: post #417

christophilus wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus insane storms and winds that I’m not sure Antarctica will properly simulate.

Those "insane storms and winds" in an atmosphere with 2% of the density of earth's atmosphere won't be much of a problem.

That works both ways. Sure you won't have much density for air to move things, but things moving through air also don't have the drag to slow them down.

Re: Starship V3

#547

Post by tlb » Wed, May 13, 2026, 9:31 PM UTC

ActorNightly wrote: post #546

hagbard_c wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those "insane storms and winds" in an atmosphere with 2% of the density of earth's atmosphere won't be much of a problem.

That works both ways. Sure you won't have much density for air to move things, but things moving through air also don't have the drag to slow them down.

Yes, for example taking off or landing a rocket on the surface blasts particles of sand out sideways at 1000s of m/s. The particles can fly in the thin atmosphere for kilometers and sandblast everything. Our intuitions about how far and fast tiny things can fly are only true in an atmosphere of similar density.

Re: Starship V3

#548

Post by Schiendelman » Wed, May 13, 2026, 9:49 PM UTC

senordevnyc wrote: post #527

Schiendelman wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'm curious: all the comments I see about this act as if the people proposing putting data centers in space are complete idiots. Do you believe they are complete idiots?

If they’re actually serious about this, they could simply address the points about cooling that numerous experts have raised. But they haven’t done that, at least not that I’ve seen. I have no idea whether they’re complete idiots, and I don’t really care. Maybe it’s idiocy, maybe it’s hubris, maybe it’s a grift, I have no idea. But until I see a compelling solution to this known problem, or a compelling suggestion as…

What if it's actually not that hard to cool something in space, and y'all just have these beliefs about the people talking about this that make you think there must be something obvious they aren't thinking about?

Re: Starship V3

#549

Post by Schiendelman » Wed, May 13, 2026, 9:49 PM UTC

fatbird wrote: post #542

Schiendelman wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'm curious: all the comments I see about this act as if the people proposing putting data centers in space are complete idiots. Do you believe they are complete idiots?

They're hucksters who know that adding "in space!" to a sales pitch is a free booster for tech enthusiasts. It's the same way that Sam Altman talks about the risks of AI deciding to kill humanity: because that's dramatic and attention grabbing, and also the most unlikely outcome. Talking about it keeps us from talking about the real, ground level problems like the massive, unplanned-for disruption in jobs and educati…

So you've only looked at the very loud people talking about this, and not the hundreds of quiet people working on this?

Re: Starship V3

#550

Post by senordevnyc » Wed, May 13, 2026, 9:57 PM UTC

Schiendelman wrote: post #548

senordevnyc wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they’re actually serious about this, they could simply address the points about cooling that numerous experts have raised. But they haven’t done that, at least not that I’ve seen. I have no idea whether they’re complete idiots, and I don’t really care. Maybe it’s idiocy, maybe it’s hubris, maybe it’s a grift, I have no idea. But until I see a compelling solution to this known problem, or a compelling suggestion as…

What if it's actually not that hard to cool something in space, and y'all just have these beliefs about the people talking about this that make you think there must be something obvious they aren't thinking about?

If it’s not that hard, then perhaps someone can just point to the simple math of how it would work.

It’s not like only idiots who know nothing about space are pointing out the cooling issue: https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horri...