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Starship V3

spacex.com

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Re: Starship V3

#421

Post by Geof25 »

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.

And then it creates problem with radiation (energy dense particles travelling close to the speed of light ripping holes into 2nm chips) and heat (it turns out that coffee stays hot in a thermos for very long time)

Re: Starship V3

#423

Post by mapt »

svantana wrote: post #362
AntiUSAbah wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not always on. Its only 'always' on if you would orbit the sun which starlink can't do, it has to orbit the earth. This only works in a certain constelation which would create a halo around our planet, without clear understanding what even would do. The more power you consume, the more power you need to dissipate. These constelations wouldn't be small at all. It would also take a interesting solution to be able t…

A polar low earth orbit can be always-on (no earth shadow). Each satellite will be in thermal equilibrium, around 10°C. Catastrophic destruction from micrometeoroids is rare. I'm not saying it's a good idea, but I don't see any dealbreakers in the math/science.

Kessler Syndrome is the biggest dealbreaker. We're already fairly far advanced in that scenario from Starlink, and competitors/scaleouts to Starlink promise to be worse.

If you plug eleventy trillion dollars of hope that the aristos can finally replace the working class into the issue, Earth loses access to low orbit from orbital debris almost immediately.

Their entire mindset cannot deal with this. Low orbit is a physically-enforced type of commons, inextricably tied to tragedy if overpopulated. You cannot privatize it and scale indefinitely. There is no defense, and any pissed off individual actor who gets malicious can burn it to the ground.

Re: Starship V3

#424

Post by Gys »

Paradigma11 wrote: post #233

"My estimate is that within 2 to 3 years, the lowest cost way to generate AI compute will be in space" Soooo, how much did he put on that outcome on polymarket?

Why would he do that? A successful IPO is the goal. His shares will go sky high. That is where his money is.

Re: Starship V3

#425

Post by hagbard_c »

damnitbuilds wrote: post #370
laughing_man wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New Glenn's engines are quite a bit less efficient than those at SpaceX. Lower chamber pressures, lower thrust:weight ratio, and they're partial flow staged combustion. I assume BO will increase their performance over time, but for now they company is about a decade behind SpaceX.

Spacex's work is out there ( and I am grateful for the excitement that generates ) but BO work in the shadows, surprising us sometimes with major advances. I suspect BO not as far behind as you think.

They'll remain behind as long as they keep copying SpaceX's concepts since they need to wait and see before they can copy.

Re: Starship V3

#426

Post by orbisvicis »

svantana wrote: post #324
lukan wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you get much more radiation from the sun and other sources. How do you do cooling? Radiators the size of small moons? Also hard radiation is not something transistors like.

The joint solar panel + computer system will be pretty close to an ideal black body, which near earth will have an average temperature of about 10°C. And radiation is an issue, but starlink seems to work so I don't see why this wouldn't.

More energy will be required than radiation absorbed by a spherical (ish) data center. You'll have massive solar panels piping energy in, and so the temperature would by higher than thermal equilibrium at that distance.

Re: Starship V3

#427

Post by johnsimer »

7e wrote: post #187

V3... the third major redesign, and the second unplanned one. How many verisons will it take? Will Starship beat Full Self Driving into production, or will the hyperloop steal the show? Will it take longer than the Tesla Semi (9 years and counting) or will it pull a Tesla Roadster and never launch at all? Either way, it's sorely needed to meet Musk's goal of landing on Mars by 2018. Or at least to get to zero new cas…

Tesla Semi is in production

Re: Starship V3

#428

Post by johnsimer »

Teever wrote: post #109
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.…

Putting a datacentre in space may be feasible but the scale that he's suggesting is really unbelievable. And if he's actually capable of producing solar panels in the quantity that he's talking about in the time frame that he's talking about -- why doesn't he just put them on earth to solve our growing climate change problems and fuel shortages?

Permitting/regulation issues

Re: Starship V3

#429

Post by jeltz »

Geof25 wrote: post #413
adastra22 wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the vicinity of the Earth, they get to about the temperature of the Earth. That’s not a coincidence. Hotter if they are actively generating heat.

So you can have datacenters in space, you are just not allowed to use them

Not using them would also solve all issues with cosmic radiation.

Re: Starship V3

#430

Post by le-mark »

damnitbuilds wrote: post #371
AntiUSAbah wrote: post #294

He again mentions data center in space. He has to be the biggest richest idiot on the planet. It should be a lot cheaper to just buy massive solar (wait, couldn't he just make them himself with his tesla roofs?) and batteries (which Tesla also makes) and put Datacenter in some dessert and put fiber to that place... But it seems he needs some angle to push all this necessary investment into something? Are we now in th…

Elon is smart and employs many smart people. If the thermodynamics didn't work, they would know. I do wonder if shielding the multi-billion transistor GPUs will be a difficult.

Just shield them under the tons of heat radiators they’ll be deploying. One ton of compute will > 1 ton of hardware to radiate the waste heat. Does anyone know the multiplier?
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