xAI joins SpaceX • Hacker News Board

Re: xAI joins SpaceX

#851

Post by eamag » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 9:41 AM UTC

titzer wrote: post #551

spikels wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Context missing. This is in reference to a vision the (distant?) future where the satellites are manufactured in factories on the Moon and sent into space with mass drivers. Full paragraph quote comes from: > While launching AI satellites from Earth is the immediate focus, Starship’s capabilities will also enable operations on other worlds. Thanks to advancements like in-space propellant transfer, Starship will be ca…

> This is in reference to a vision the (distant?) future where the satellites are manufactured in factories on the Moon and sent into space with mass drivers. In the meantime, how about affordable insulin for everybody?

Isn't it already somewhat affordable? https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-i...

It's a political problem, not a tech problem

Re: xAI joins SpaceX

#852

Post by DoctorOetker » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 9:42 AM UTC

usrusr wrote: post #811

mr_toad wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We currently make around 1 TW of photovoltaic cells per year, globally. Doubling every three years; at that rate it would take about 30 years for 1TW to become 1000TW. Whether on not the trend continues largely depends on demand, but as of right now humanity seems to have an insatiable demand for power.

Space to put them, terrestrially, is not infinite. Demand has a hard ceiling.

unless demand comes from space

Re: xAI joins SpaceX

#853

Post by martinclayton » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 9:44 AM UTC

I'm pleased that Blue Origin and others are making progress on reusable flight hardware, because I fear that SpaceX will itself suffer a "RUD" for non-engineering reasons.

Re: xAI joins SpaceX

#854

Post by wazoox » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 9:46 AM UTC

What a torrent of nonsense.

* Starship so far can't put as much tonnage in orbit as New Glenn or several other more conventional rockets. Putting "megatons" of hardware in orbit is an entirely unsolved problem.

* the ISS currently carries 250kW of solar panel and 70kW of radiators. Cooling vast amounts of hardware in orbit is ever more an unsolved problem than putting it up there.

Sheesh. I'm so tired of this bullshit.

Re: xAI joins SpaceX

#855

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 9:49 AM UTC

tenuousemphasis wrote: post #493

moeadham wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, solar cells can be about 5x more efficient in space (irradiance, uptime).

Now do waste heat.

[deleted]

Re: xAI joins SpaceX

#856

Post by DoctorOetker » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 9:50 AM UTC

tenuousemphasis wrote: post #493

moeadham wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, solar cells can be about 5x more efficient in space (irradiance, uptime).

Now do waste heat.

Here you go:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46862869

Re: xAI joins SpaceX

#857

Post by Ekaros » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 9:53 AM UTC

gorgoiler wrote: post #813

> Starship will be capable of landing massive amounts of cargo on the Moon […] to establish a permanent presence and take advantage of lunar resources to manufacture satellites and deploy them further into space. The trouble with strip mining the moon is that it is a pristine international geological park where one side is permanently visible from Earth*. In terms of park visits it’s been seen by pretty much every hu…

Strip mining moon is the easy part. Manufacturing anything used for satellites is the very hard part. It is very hard as is seen from number of players here on earth. But just imagine doing everything in hostile environment with significantly smaller benefits of scale.

Might be possible theoretically. But certain infeasible in any level of practise.

Re: xAI joins SpaceX

#858

Post by adammarples » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 9:56 AM UTC

jstummbillig wrote: post #839

bgnn wrote: post #800

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real reason is, Elon has SpaceX and xAI. He can create an illusion of synergy and orders of magnitude advancements to boost the market cap and pocket all the money. He realized long time ago you don't need to deliver to play the market cap game, in fact it's better if you are selling a story far in the future rather than a something you can deliver now.

I don't understand the claim. SpaceX is literally delivering? And I don't think there is any delusion about that being optional.

The wild claim is that they will deliver data centres in space

Re: xAI joins SpaceX

#859

Post by nebula8804 » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 9:56 AM UTC

sagarkamat wrote: post #543

Does this mean the foreign software engineers in xAI are now subject to ITAR?

Not in this administration

Re: xAI joins SpaceX

#860

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 9:59 AM UTC

_fzslm wrote: post #348

ohyoutravel wrote: post #171

I am concerned, and haven’t seen anyone else point this out yet, that Musk will move Grok’s CSAM generation capabilities to space to be beyond the reach of terrestrial policing. Does this create some sort of legal loophole here so Musk can do this with impunity?

AFAIK he can do whatever he wants in space, but CSAM is still illegal to view or even download in most (all?) countries of the world. So unless the degenerates also move out into space (which I'm sure they're eager to do), it wouldn't really ease the legal situation here on Earth.

[deleted]