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Starship V3

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Re: Starship V3

#391

Post by geertj »

luke5441 wrote: post #334
mrandish wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

I think what often gets confused is people saying it isn't viable with "it is not physically possible". It is physically possible, but it won't have positive ROI so it is not viable. If you have a paper/post doing the calculations for positive ROI, I'd be all ears. It can even have the optimistic Elon assumptions about price of mass to orbit.

I don’t think people are confused between the two. What’s happening is that drive by objections have no real way to assess viability. That calculation you ask for has line items in it that greatly depend on engineering optimizations that, unless you work in the field, are hard to estimate accurately.

Re: Starship V3

#392

Post by saberience »

coppsilgold wrote: post #255
choilive wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stefan-Boltzmann law means radiative heat transfer in space is approx. to the 4th power of the hot side of your radiator. Typical space based radiators operate around 350K. If you can increase the hot side of the refrigeration cycle by 4x (1400K) you increase heat transfer by 256x. Create a radiator design that can operate at this temp (multi-stage Brayton loops, heat pumps, possible liquid metal final stage) with a…

I was actually curious about this myself back when everyone was chiming in about how it was physically impossible. This is first and foremost an engineering problem as you need to design a system that will both tolerate high heat and be able to pump even more heat to the radiators. The high temperature seems to be the primary objective to design for unless launch costs become absurdly low.

It's not "impossible" but so hard, complex, and expensive that any "gains" you get from being in space are nothing compared to the costs you pay for being in space.

I.e. it's not worth it.

The cost of launching 100K servers, each of which needs 20m^2 each of radiator (for a single H200 server), or 250 m^2 for a GB200 rack!

Ok but these numbers are for a single server or single rack, now what about a standard cluster size of like... 50k GPUs?

You would need (with optimal idealized efficiencies) roughly 64000 m^2 of space to cool down your space data-center. That's 9 American football fields of double sided radiator panels! For a single data-center, and realistically there would be inefficiencies and wastage so it could end up more like 20 American football fields of cooling needed.

How's that going to work?

Re: Starship V3

#393

Post by xnx »

randallsquared wrote: post #385
larusso wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But for the shuttle each title was kinda unique and had a specific spot. If they managed to find a shape where you don’t have to mark each tile but can just pull them from a box for replacement is a huge win. Maybe even have some spares and allow them to be replaced during an EVA. This was all not really feasible with the Spaceshuttle.

Indeed! On Starship v1, that's what they started out doing: each tile was the same, and there was awkward placement and notable gaps, especially along the fins. I think they were hoping that this would be good enough, but that dream was dashed. I just hope that it can be completely standardized to provide the benefits you mentioned. I suppose it really helps that they'll be building thousands of these things instead…

> awkward placement and notable gaps

The places that are awkward to tile are the spots that need tile the most.

Re: Starship V3

#394

Post by saberience »

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.…

Yeah you would need 10-20 American football fields worth of radiators for a single data-center... so yes, it "can" work, but it's completely inefficient and unrealistic.

Re: Starship V3

#395

Post by xnx »

geertj wrote: post #388
elbasti wrote: post #166

Your daily reminder that there is no scenario in which putting data centers in space is easier than putting them in Texas, or Morocco, or literally anywhere else. The only problem that "data centers in space" solves is the problem of trying to scale a rocket company where the potential demand for rocket launches is simply not that big.

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.

Re: Starship V3

#396

Post by slumberlust »

philipallstar wrote: post #372
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

Is it possible that their arguments haven't been noticed to be debunked? These are apparently the authors: > The book was written by married couple Kelly Weinersmith, an adjunct professor at Rice University in the BioSciences Department, and Zach Weinersmith, a cartoonist known for the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

Its a good read. I'd encourage you to read it and come to your own conclusion on your question. Personally, they earned my trust but other members of our book club did not agree.

Space is very very unforgiving and they ultimately conclude humanity is better served focusing our resources here on earth first. But the Trekkies have a tough time with that answer because its a bit of a let down.

Re: Starship V3

#397

Post by geertj »

saberience wrote: post #394
mrandish wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Yeah you would need 10-20 American football fields worth of radiators for a single data-center... so yes, it "can" work, but it's completely inefficient and unrealistic.

The plan is to launch a constellation of smaller AI sats not a monolithic large data center. The calculations I have seen actually have a smaller radiator area than solar panels. Scott Manley’s has a video on this where he goes into some numbers.

Re: Starship V3

#398

Post by Paradigma11 »

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…

As a European my problem is that any additional success by Musks means more support for far right extremists that want to destroy the EU. Being against that is not moralizing or Tribalism.

Re: Starship V3

#399

Post by api »

ActorNightly wrote: post #150
AlexErrant wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_stations_in_Antarctic... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanza_Base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Las_Estrellas

Permanent means self sustaining. I.e biodome completely isolated from outside with its own atmosphere. None of those are self sustaining.

Nobody’s tried because they are a short flight away from South America. No point. It’s cheaper and easier to fly it in.

There are skeptical arguments against Mars settlement but the Antarctica thing is kind of a weak one.

To point out one more problem with it: there’s legal and treaty restrictions in play for that continent. You can’t just go. That’s another limiting factor.

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