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Starship V3

spacex.com

621–630 of 667 posts

Re: Starship V3

#621
post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless it manages to massively eat into mobile network market share Several mobile carriers are already using them for backend of remote towers.

For something relevant? Why would they do this? Dark fibers is an easy thing and you need to put power to these remote towers anyway.

You need a cell tower every 20 miles or so, less for a performant one. There's not dark fiber at that density in remote regions (remote is, by definition, lacking infrastructure). There's a better chance of power, and for the cases there's not, solar/battery is fine for a cell tower, especially one designed for lower power remote installations.

Re: Starship V3

#622

Prediction: SpaceX will launch a handful of GPU-equipped satellites. Maybe they’ll even include some token GPUs on each Starlink satellite so they can throw out some bullshit stats about the vast size of their AI supercluster in space, etc. They’ll be vague about capacity for a few years, and they’ll be building and acquiring data centers on earth “just while we wait for that will unlock overnight massive scaling of…

> just like FSD Obviously it’s very late, but Tesla now have vehicles in multiple YS cities taxing people with nobody in the front seats. It’s coming.

Yeah, right. Why do they only have a handful of these cars in each city, when supposedly wait times are super high for them? Why don't they just put more of these in service, if they're just Teslas?

I suspect the answer is because they're being remotely monitored and operated 24/7, and they don't have the staff to tend to them.

But only Tesla knows, and they've spent the last few years absolutely destroying their reputation. They lie constantly, they show flagrant disregard for the lives of their customers, and I trust nothing that they say.

EDIT: lol, looks like I was exactly right. These fucking clowns: https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-says-its-robotaxis-are-som...

Re: Starship V3

#623
post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> maintenance I suspect it would be maintained at the same quantization that it's delivered: pods. Pod has some unresolvable issue (things would have to go real bad), then eject it. What maintenance do you have in mind, specifically, in a modular system like this would necessarily be? If the argument is that off the shelf systems, designed within a context where humans are a Jira ticket away, won't work well in space…

And you are right that is possible. But the question is not, 'can you build a data-center in space', but rather is it cheaper to build it in space? A data-center no matter where has 100'000s of connections, each connection is a failure point. And things that go on rockets that shake to an insane degree need to have lots of special attention paid to each such connection. Heating again is 10-100x more difficult in spac…

It'll be neat watching someone try, to see what kind of innovations come out of it. I suspect the same learnings would apply to more remote terrestrial datacenter (icy regions, ocean, etc, where people don't like to be).

Re: Starship V3

#624

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.

I dunno I was listening to someone explain this on a podcast and to put up something on the scale of a typical land based data center would make it, by orders of magnitude, the largest spaced based object ever made and most of the size would be the radiators.

Re: Starship V3

#625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's an appeal to net worth and the argument that you don't become the richest person on the planet by being a massive idiot that everyone likes to paint him out as. he's problematic and sucks but he's not an idiot (in business)

I agree with you but he has also made many claims that are false. About hyperloop (where he also said it was validated by SpaceX engineers) but it turns out the original paper doesn't actually work. But Musk didn't try to do hyperloop of course so its kind of irrelevant. The thing is, this is a massive expansion of AI investment. And AI has been the thing where Musk has failed consistently the most. Nothing he has do…

"claims that are false" is such a broad statement and applies to basically 99% of business leaders, and probably 100% of anyone who's a household name. Elon gets that reputation 50x worse than, say, Larry Ellison, but only because when Elon says "revenues are up 12.5%" and it's actually 12.4%, there are 800 headlines the next day that he's lying and misleading investors and the SEC should investigate.

in the long term, elon has a very good track record for attempting to follow through with his stated intentions. sometimes things change, or he changes his mind, which is his right as much as it is anyone's. that doesn't mean "false claim".

"The thing he had success with were things that were known to be good ideas, reusable rockets, electric cars and space based LEO communications."

This is so outrageously not what history reflects. Elon started an electric car company when the entire industry very strongly believed both, individually (car and electric cars), are absolutely stupid, terrible ideas. And Elon did both at the same time anyway.

If you asked Hacker News 15 years ago if starting a rocket company was a "good idea" and a "good way to make a trillion dollars", you'd be hazed ruthlessly. Everyone in the establishment aerospace community said it was impossible or absolutely divorced from reality.

Elon, more than anyone alive, has been way ahead of the curve on good ideas when everyone else thinks they're idiotic. online payment processing, electric cars, reusable rockets

Re: Starship V3

#626
post #384

"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?

If you mean whether he’s putting his money where his mouth is, he is doing that by risking the future of the company that is his biggest asset on it. It may not be exactly 3 years. But is will very likely happen.

I don't see how he's risking the future of his company by saying words that end up being false, he does that all the time and lying/exaggerating is probably an essential part of being an effective fundraiser these days. In my eyes an enforceable large bet would be much stronger evidence indeed than words.

If I'm building a warehouse and I say "this warehouse is going to house the worlds supply of x", am I risking the future of the company if that fails and I pivot to housing y instead?

Re: Starship V3

#627
post #424

"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.

Obviously, but their implicit point is that in your scenario you can win by bluffing as long as you can continue to credibly promise the moon and keep the bet rolling but in their scenario only the final outcome wins. Dude is famous for bluffing so it's a reasonable take.

Re: Starship V3

#628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

Don’t get me wrong, space data centers will happen, but as usual, Elon’s timeline is total bullshit.

It's frustrating to talk to someone about this and get "they need to address these points" (which frankly, they have addressed) and then get "this will happen of course" when I point out that it will in fact happen. It feels like moving the goalposts to avoid saying "thanks for informing me of something new."

Re: Starship V3

#629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just like FSD Obviously it’s very late, but Tesla now have vehicles in multiple YS cities taxing people with nobody in the front seats. It’s coming.

Yeah, right. Why do they only have a handful of these cars in each city, when supposedly wait times are super high for them? Why don't they just put more of these in service, if they're just Teslas? I suspect the answer is because they're being remotely monitored and operated 24/7, and they don't have the staff to tend to them. But only Tesla knows, and they've spent the last few years absolutely destroying their rep…

Well, yes, exactly. They’re doing a cautious roll out.

If they didn’t you’d be canning them, and you’re canning them anyway.

It feels awfully like you don’t want them trying to roll out new tech at all. Funny take for someone on hacker news to have.

Re: Starship V3

#630
post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless it manages to massively eat into mobile network market share Several mobile carriers are already using them for backend of remote towers.

And to add to this: They still have packet loss when they switch the satelites every 1-4 minutes.

Packet loss is an assumption with cellular, so accommodations are built into all stages, including the variable rate vocoders used! And, a bit of packet loss is still better than literally no service, which was the previously, economically driven, state for these places.

There's a 20% increase in satellites planned, with possible 300% increase in the future, so it should reduce.

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