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Starbase, LA

spacex.com

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Re: Starbase, LA

#331

Post by wat10000 »

modeless wrote: post #281
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boring company maybe? It's not abandoned, but they likely gave up the idea of an underground system of roads under a city, and just focus on single project individually like traditional construction company.

It's far from abandoned. They're actively building TBMs at their factory and tunneling in Vegas and it's pretty different from any other transportation project I'm aware of.

DC to Baltimore tunnel, LA tunnel network, Chicago airport tunnel. New Roadster, possibly Tesla Semi. Battery swap stations. “Alien dreadnaught” factory with no humans on the production line. Dragon 2 propulsive landing. Self-driving ought to qualify at least partially, because although the project continues and is doing quite well, a huge number of cars were sold with hardware that was promised to be capable of it and turned out not to be.

Re: Starbase, LA

#332

Post by zzrrt »

modeless wrote: post #281
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boring company maybe? It's not abandoned, but they likely gave up the idea of an underground system of roads under a city, and just focus on single project individually like traditional construction company.

It's far from abandoned. They're actively building TBMs at their factory and tunneling in Vegas and it's pretty different from any other transportation project I'm aware of.

Wait, is hyperloop not a Musk failure because he never said he would build it, or is it not a failure because his company is still building it? You've said both.

Re: Starbase, LA

#333

Post by testbjjl »

PoignardAzur wrote: post #324
tristanj wrote: post #200

So this is official after months of speculation. Local realtors called this back in May https://x.com/SERobinsonJr/status/2051440979878559829 , and Ars Technica covered these rumors earlier this month https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/08/spacex-is-set-to-acqui... . The Louisiana location has two major benefits: Sun-Synchronous Orbit (SSO) Access : Launches into SSO have a launch angle of ~98° relative to the equator…

> Gulf of America Do people actually use that name when Trump can't force them to on pain of job loss? I'm pretty sure nobody outside the US does, at the very least.

I dunno, a lot of folks in leadership in the valley and tech in general don’t have, or present a problem with most, if not all of the changes.

Re: Starbase, LA

#334

Post by nrr »

WalterBright wrote: post #289
jcranmer wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I'm too busy trying to check an algorithm to convert floating-point numbers to strings for correctness to deal with people playing the "I'm a rocket scientist, therefore everything is easy to me" card. And yet somehow Elon isn't that (see his most recent SpaceX, where he quite literally uses that to justify his competence to build orbital data centers).

I implemented float-to-string for my compiler's printf back sometime before 1985. It's a medium difficult problem. Once you understand engineering, transferring that skill to another engineering discipline is not that hard. For example, the equations for Newtonian mechanics, electronics, beam design, rotating inertia, etc., are interchangeable. > his competence to build orbital data centers Since nobody has yet built…

> I implemented float-to-string for my compiler's printf back sometime before 1985. It's a medium difficult problem.

It might have been medium difficult back in 1985, but the state of the art has progressed in the intervening 40 years. The constraint of correctness makes things trickier because it further imposes three requirements: completeness, uniqueness, and determinism.

Unless the implementer has the skill to prove these properties about the algorithm they've implemented, such an implementation is likely not to achieve those requirements.

Re: Starbase, LA

#335

Post by XorNot »

api wrote: post #201
thegrim33 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so interesting to me that the whole "futurism" concept got co-opted into some sort of political propaganda machine. All the articles are negative hit pieces, they're all reductive, they're almost all political in nature. I used to go on the futurism subreddit years ago and it's all the same there. You'd think "futurism" would be about .. promoting new technology, ushering in the future, you know .. futurism. Not…

That’s just a microcosm of everything. The culture war ate the entire public discourse to the exclusion of practical concerns and even coherent ideas. It’s all vibes and tribalism and bashing the other tribes, while the tribes themselves become increasingly incoherent in terms of what (if anything) they really mean or stand for. I just turned it all off, though it makes me fear for the future. Feels like the early st…

Okay but Musk himself deliberately and continuously uses his companies and wealth to participate in the culture war so it's no surprise it comes up when his companies do.

He could switch off and stick to building rockets and electric cars. It's very easy (notionally) to just not post on Twitter.

Re: Starbase, LA

#336

Post by modeless »

zzrrt wrote: post #332
modeless wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's far from abandoned. They're actively building TBMs at their factory and tunneling in Vegas and it's pretty different from any other transportation project I'm aware of.

Wait, is hyperloop not a Musk failure because he never said he would build it, or is it not a failure because his company is still building it? You've said both.

What they're building in Vegas is not a hyperloop.

Re: Starbase, LA

#337

Post by UltraSane »

ggreer wrote: post #175
UltraSane wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Space data centers still make absolutely no sense.

Whether they make economic sense or not depends on launch costs. With current operational rockets (such as Falcon 9), the launch costs are too high for space compute to be profitable. All these projects depend on Starship succeeding. If you read Starcloud's white paper[1], they make the case that space data centers can be cheaper than terrestrial ones because of access to 24/7 solar power. I think failure is more lik…

Launch costs need to decrease by a factor of 20 to 30 for orbital data centers to make sense. And even then there are enormous issues with irreversible radiation damage.

Re: Starbase, LA

#338

Post by mbgerring »

WalterBright wrote: post #297
jryan49 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here ya go https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-026-00088-9/index.ht... Something like 25% cut in new grants. 50% cuts to NSF... You could have just as easily found the data...

I did a word search on that article (it's impossible to read with its idiotic presentation), and "musk" is not mentioned.

Are you being serious? Are you actually not aware that Elon Musk ran the federal government department tasked with cancelling federal grants and firing government employees in 2025? How is it possible that you are not aware of this?

Re: Starbase, LA

#339

Post by jcranmer »

WalterBright wrote: post #291
jcranmer wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for putting words into my mouth that I didn't say. Especially when they're quite literally the opposite of my message. Although, given that I pointed out that Elon literally did the exact same thing, why do you trust him when he does it? Or is it simply that you're unaware that he does stuff like that?

> why do you trust him when he does it? His companies have made many monumental engineering achievements at his direction.

His companies making those achievements is not the same as he personally making those achievements. He does have some talent in being a CEO of a company and inspiring employees and investors.

But also don't oversell that: only Tesla and SpaceX have been successes, and he's had to have them bail out is other failed companies: SolarCity, Twitter, and xAI. The Boring Company also doesn't seem to be particularly successful either, and he never got around to building a company to build Hyperloop in the first place.

Re: Starbase, LA

#340

Post by testing22321 »

webdood90 wrote: post #253
testing22321 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These comments are so strange, because you’re demonstrating how far your head is in the sand, willfully. Of course Musk talks big. He is almost always late. Lots of things have never happened, or have not yet worked (but they’re still trying) At the same time he has monumental successes that nobody, ever, has achieved. Worlds safest car (multiple times) worlds highest selling car (model y), car of the year, massive f…

> you’re demonstrating how far your head is in the sand Interesting. Perhaps ironic? If only society cared about genuinely good people like they seem to care about Musk. It's puzzling.

I want to be clear: I don’t care about Musk as a person. I care about facts. I care about achievements.

Just the same as saying Israel is committing genocide is not antisemitism, saying Musk has achieved incredible things is not caring about or supporting him.

Both cases are simply stating facts without any judgement or show of support/not support.

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