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Starship V3

spacex.com

431–440 of 667 posts

Re: Starship V3

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

I'm not saying I'm dismissing the arguments for that reason, at all, to be clear! Thanks for the recommendation.

> 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.

Well - it's a tricky one because that is susceptible to slippery slopes. If we hadn't gone to space at all and focused on Earth first we wouldn't have GPS, for example. We can always spend more on Earth to achieve a temporary boon for the current population. We could have not spent money on developing Golang and used the salary to dig wells in Africa, for example.

Spending a tiny amount on space for the chance of a permanent upgrade for the species does sound like quite a good idea, and I'm personally glad the American taxpayer is doing it.

Re: Starship V3

#432
post #315

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…

Data centers in space make sense if it is military AI controlling drone swarms over Starlink during global conflict.

Why? These data centers will likely be further away from the Starlink satellites than Satrlink is from Earth. It would make much more sense to control you drone swarm from something on Earth's surface.

Re: Starship V3

#433

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…

Pretty sure this is just a lie to increase the value of Space X before the IPO. Not sure why people still trust Elon after all his hype and lies.

Re: Starship V3

#434

I wonder how you solve the cooling issue as you can only shed heat via radiation.

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…

How much energy does it take to pump the heat from a primary loop at a temperature tolerated by the silicon to a secondary loop at 900 K? If we pick 300 K for simplicity, would we not need twice as much energy as we want to get rid of just to raise the temperature? 2 MW to raise 1 MW from 300 K to 900 K?

Re: Starship V3

#435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you cool them? https://www.chaotropy.com/why-jeff-bezos-is-probably-wrong-p...

Admittedly it is not my field, but back of the envelope calculations in a sun synchronous orbit with the radiators pointed towards deep space seem pretty plausible with about 1.3 to 1.7 ratio of solar area to radiator area. Like, it's not "great" but if you're not flying around the sun every 72 minutes or whatever and you can keep your panels sun on and radiate into deep space, the numbers aren't bananas.

Also, you have to iradiate towards a space area which is not occupied by Earth. Ideally you go to Lagrange points with the datacenter but not around the earth.

Re: Starship V3

#436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure they're all that simpler, the basic plumbing probably hasn't changed much, it's just that modern fabrication tech means you can hide all the complexity inside

A single metal piece that contains plumbing inside it is simpler than a metal piece with attached pipes for that plumbing.

In this particular case maybe but in general I would say it is the other way round.

Re: Starship V3

#437
post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can try the same thing in Greenland or far north of Canada. But nobody does that either, because there is no reason to do so.

However put a reason to go to Mars, i.e. alien shipwreck and there is going to be multiple cities within end of the decade.

Re: Starship V3

#438

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…

So you think China is also idiot [0], or Google [1], [2], or Blue Origin [3]?

Do you have aerospace engineering background? what are your arguments?

I don't know how all of these turn out to be, but when you keep repeat the same arguments, without anything to back it up, you should have some reflection.

[0] https://news.cgtn.com/news/2026-01-29/China-unveils-space-am...

[1] https://www.reuters.com/science/google-spacex-talks-explore-...

[2] https://research.google/blog/exploring-a-space-based-scalabl...

[3] https://spacenews.com/blue-origins-surprise-terawave-constel...

Re: Starship V3

#439
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is irrelevant because offensive launches can destroy many orders of magnitude more launches worth of payloads. Even with simple kinetic means. Though these days I think I'd expect to see directed energy weapons adding even more zeros to that.

Have you done the math? "Many orders of magnitude" means, IMHO, at least three. A regular Falcon 9 carries 60 Starlinks IIRC, so three orders of magnitude means destroying 60 thousand at once. What is the offensive launch that can destroy 60 000 satellites in one mission? I don't think it exists.

you do not need an orbital capable launcher to carry an anti-satellite weapons. Modified SAMs are sufficient.

Re: Starship V3

#440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think showing a flag is a sign of pride, and as I watch the news it is currently a very misplaced pride in America.

Your biggest problem is watching the news. It is designed to make you angry. Meanwhile, I've never been prouder to be American.

Ignorance really is bliss I guess.
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