Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cyprus is on the proscribed countries list for ITAR.
Don't want to get into political discussions but isn't ITAR about defence tech?
The difference between a rocket and an ICBM is what payload you put on it.
Starship V3
551–560 of 667 posts
Re: Starship V3
#552Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
As I said, "doesn't get it." Neither the Weinersmiths nor you seem to understand the motivations of people that actually want to settle Mars.
EDIT: It was just pointed out to me that the meat of Peter's review (parts 2 & 3) are paywalled. What I linked to was more like a summary for a review. Sorry.
Space fan: We're going to make a city on Mars!
Weinersmith: It's going to be hard. There is no air, the ground is toxic, an insane amount of constant work will be required just to stay alive.
Fan: Don't threaten me with a good time.
Re: Starship V3
#553Earlier quoted context omitted.
Later in the video he runs through the changes needed for 100kw per rack.
Wow, one 100kw rack! Dude, you realize that right now there are 100+s of data centers in construction around the world often in the 500MW to 1PW range? I.e. there are many, many datacenters (100s) in construction, right now, with 100s of MW up to multiple PW? Scott's analysis is out by several orders of magnitude! Everyone knows its "theoretically" possible to have a single server or a single rack in space. The big a…
Nobody said one rack. Your entire rant is misguided. He analyzed what it would take to put one rack on one starlink like package in order to build a constellation.
Re: Starship V3
#554Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
I mean, if someone wants to pay you to do a lot of very interesting R&D that will never result in an alternative to ground-based datacenters, more power to you?
It might even be useful in other circumstances. Better radiative cooling systems, hardening commercial high-end compute for space, etc etc. R&D you can feel proud of, even if your bosses are only paying you to do it to fleece rubes who think it's the next trillion dollar industry.
Re: Starship V3
#555Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
The problem is, that person is deeply underinformed. For instance:
"you don't lose that much power through the atmosphere"
Assuming you can point the orbiting panels at the sun and remain direct, you lose 80% of your power through the atmosphere (from angle and day/night). On the ground you lose 25% even if your panel is directly below the sun pointed exactly at it, which is never the case in many latitudes.
And of course it's not trivial to radiate heat. But it's also a fairly simple mechanical problem. You pump the heat to spread it out, and radiate it. You've already got the surface area shaded by the panels (which is more than enough, because the panels don't absorb 100% of solar radiation).
Sure, you need a lot of them. Starship V3 is probably about to get us past 100 tons of payload capacity - even if they blow up a few first.
The key people miss is that you don't have to spend money on ongoing cooling once the thing is in space. This isn't going to save money now, but the cost lines are going to cross.
Re: Starship V3
#556Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The Russians beat us to all but the last milestone: first object in space, first human in space, first probe to land on the moon, and first probe to photograph the far side of the moon. The Russians would have beat us to the moon landing if the head of their space program hadn’t died on the home stretch of the space race.
Re: Starship V3
#557Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody (sane) is talking about putting nuclear reactors on Satellites in close Earth orbit so we don't have to worry about them generating heat. They've got solar panels that move some of the solar energy they absorb to a central location which presents problems in moving the waste heat back out so that spot doesn't get too hot. But that doesn't change the overall equilibrium temperature.
Running a data center generates heat.
Not if you first absorb heat with your solar panels. Conservation of energy and all that.
Re: Starship V3
#558Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem putting them in space solves is the approx 5X more solar energy without needing batteries for day and night cycles, along with some smaller wins due to less structural support needed due to microgravity.
> The problem putting them in space solves is There are a lot of problems that can be solved by creating 20 other, much bigger, problems.
You are creating 20 other engineering problems but not 20 other physics problems. You cannot put those in the same bucket.
It remains to be seen how efficiently those engineering problems can be solved, but none of the commentators here have any real insight about that (myself included). My money is on the ingenuity of the engineers that are working these problems.
Re: Starship V3
#559Earlier quoted context omitted.
The always on orbit exists and is called a dawn-dusk Sun synchronous orbit. It is an orbit that is always above the terminator (line between night and day) where it can face the Sun 100% of the time. This orbit has to rotate about a degree every day to follow the terminator as the earth orbits the Sun. It uses the equatorial bulge of the earth to achieve that rotation without have to spend rocket fuel. It is really q…
Aren't dusk-dawn orbits already the most crowded orbital space with the most orbital debris?
Yes they are crowded. There are engineering solutions to that, including formation flying based on absolute positioning and space tethers. It is a great time to be an engineer.
Re: Starship V3
#560Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Everyone is crazy" is a well-measured stance that I can respect. /s On a serious note, if you think that everyone else loses contact with reality, it's a signal to check and recheck your assumptions.
Maybe check your own knowledge on the topic you're commenting on before talking down on others. Musk for example has famously said himself on several occasions that he thinks Tesla is overvalued. But any company with a >1000x P/E ratio is less screaming "sensible investment" and more "get on the train before it moons" meme-stock. Regardless, none of this is rational anymore. It is mostly hype (and a little bit of ins…
"This company is overvalued" and "The market is not rational anymore" are a bit different claims.
One of the assumptions I mentioned is "significant overhaul of economy is impossible."