With that number of more satellites in orbit, launching a manned rocket into space is likely to be too risky due the amount of more debris and satellites.
And will it be net energy positive solution ?
xAI joins SpaceX
701–710 of 1001 posts
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#702Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only people who never interacted with data center reliability think it's doable to maintain servers with no human intervention.
There are a class of people who may seem smart until they start talking about a subject you know about. Hank Green is a great example of this. For many on HN, Elon buying Twitter was a wake up call because he suddenly started talking about software and servers and data centers and reliability and a ton of people with experience with those things were like "oh... this guy's an idiot". Data centers in space are exactly…
Thanks for putting words to that; the paragraph which most stuck out to me as outlandish is (emphasis mine):
The basic math is that launching a million tons per year of satellites generating 100 kW of compute power per ton would add 100 gigawatts of AI compute capacity annually, *with no ongoing operational or maintenance needs*.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#703Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If elon were working for me, I would have fired him for having never delivered on any of his projects. Never? For the sheer amount of moonshot bets he's doing, his track record would make any VC jealous. Zip2, PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, Grok/xAI.
World's Best At Surfing A Temporary Hyperinflation Wave is not a life goal to really be proud of tbh.
Plenty of politicians are very proud of doing that.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#704> "The only logical solution therefore is to transport these resource-intensive efforts to a location with vast power and space. I mean, space is called 'space' for a reason. [crying laughing emoji]" This is all the reasoning provided. It is quite sad how a company I admired so much has become embroiled in financial doohickery.
It’s not SpaceX’s fault. It’s still a company to admire, it’s just that nobody appears to be able to stop Musk. I wonder why SpaceX investors aren’t revolting.
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Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#705Earlier quoted context omitted.
We also shouldn't overlook the fact that the proposal entirely glosses over the implication of the alternative benefits we might realize if humanity achieved the incredible engineering and technical capacity necessary to make this version of space AI happen. Think about it. Elon conjures up a vision of the future where we've managed to increase our solar cell manufacturing capacity by two whole orders of magnitude an…
Yeah it does not make a whole lot of sense as the useful lifespan of the gpus in 4-6 years. Sooo what happens when you need to upgrade or repair?
This is a question that analysts don't even ask on earnings calls for companies with lowly earthbound datacenters full of the same GPUs.
The stock moves based on the same promise that's already unchecked without this new "in space" suffix:
We'll build datacenters using money we don't have yet, fill them with GPUs we haven't secured or even sourced, power them with infrastructure that can't be built in the promised time, and profit on their inference time over an ever-increasing (on paper) lifespan.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#706A former NASA engineer with a PhD in space electronics who later worked at Google for 10 years wrote an article about why datacenters in space are very technically challenging: https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horri... I don't have any specialized knowledge of the physics but I saw an article suggesting the real reason for the push to build them in space is to hedge against political pushback pr…
> It(Solar) works, but it isn't somehow magically better than installing solar panels on the ground Umm, if this is the point, I don't know whether to take rest of author's arguments seriously. Solar only works certain time of the day and certain period of year on land. Also there is so limited calculations for the numbers in the article, while the article throws of numbers left and right.
> Solar only works certain time of the day and certain period of year on land
The same goes for LEO!
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#707Earlier quoted context omitted.
We also shouldn't overlook the fact that the proposal entirely glosses over the implication of the alternative benefits we might realize if humanity achieved the incredible engineering and technical capacity necessary to make this version of space AI happen. Think about it. Elon conjures up a vision of the future where we've managed to increase our solar cell manufacturing capacity by two whole orders of magnitude an…
Yeah it does not make a whole lot of sense as the useful lifespan of the gpus in 4-6 years. Sooo what happens when you need to upgrade or repair?
not to mention that radiation hardening of chips has a big impact on cost and performance
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#708A former NASA engineer with a PhD in space electronics who later worked at Google for 10 years wrote an article about why datacenters in space are very technically challenging: https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horri... I don't have any specialized knowledge of the physics but I saw an article suggesting the real reason for the push to build them in space is to hedge against political pushback pr…
It's much easier to find a country or jurisdiction that doesn't care about a bunch of data centers vs launching them into space. I don't get why we aren't building mixed use buildings, maybe the first floor can be retail and restaurants, the next two floors can be data centers, and then above that apartments.
Probably for the same reasons they aren't doing mixed use prison and restaurant buildings.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#709The Goalpost shift continues, If elon were working for me, I would have fired him for having never delivered on any of his projects. Hyperloop > Neuralink > Self-Driving Cars > Robotaxi fleets > Personal Robots > Orbital Datacenters > [Insert next]
Lol this is why you aren't a VC. Even if every single Musk venture failed other than SpaceX, the investments would have paid off wildly well. You aim for the tails not the median.
Re: xAI joins SpaceX
#710Earlier quoted context omitted.
We also shouldn't overlook the fact that the proposal entirely glosses over the implication of the alternative benefits we might realize if humanity achieved the incredible engineering and technical capacity necessary to make this version of space AI happen. Think about it. Elon conjures up a vision of the future where we've managed to increase our solar cell manufacturing capacity by two whole orders of magnitude an…
Yeah it does not make a whole lot of sense as the useful lifespan of the gpus in 4-6 years. Sooo what happens when you need to upgrade or repair?
> Sooo what happens when you need to upgrade or repair?
The satellite deorbits and you launch the next one.