[taurath]

We don’t even have a habitable structure in space when the ISS falls, there is no world in which space datacenters are a thing in the next 10, I’d argue even 30 years. People really need to ground themselves in reality.

Edit: okay Tiangong - but that is not a data center.

[nickff]

Who is “we”? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong_space_station

[taurath]

Good point. Still a long, long way from data centers.

[whamlastxmas]

We have 15,000 satellites in orbit that are almost literally the exact same premise currently being proposed - a computer with solar panels attached. We've being doing exactly this for decades.

[tzs]

I don't think any of the companies that say they are working on space data centers intend them to be habitable.

[JumpCrisscross]

> We don’t even have a habitable structure in space

Silicon is way more forgiving than biology. This isn’t an argument for this proposal. But there is no technical connection between humans in space and data centers other than launch-cost synergies.

[fluoridation]

Okay, but a human being represents what, 200 W of power? The ISS has a crew of 3, so that's less than a beefy single user AI workstation at full tilt. If the question is whether it's practical to put 1-2 kW worth of computing power in orbit, the answer is obviously yes, but somehow I don't think that's what's meant by "datacenter in space".

[IX-103]

I don't know, 10 years seems reasonable for development. There's not that much new technology that needs to be developed. Cooling and communications would just require minor changes to existing designs. Other systems may be able to be lifted wholesale with minimal integration. I think if there were obstacles to building data centers on the ground then we might see them in orbit within the next ten years.

I don't see those obstacles appearing though.

[doctorwho42]

The same things you are saying about data centers in space was said by similar people 10-15 years ago when Elon musk said SpaceX would have a man on Mars in 10-15 years.

We have had the tech to do it since the 90's, we just needed to invest into it.

Same thing with Elon Musks hyperloop, aka the atmospheric train (or vactrain) which has been an idea since 1799! And how far has Elon Musks boring company come to building even a test loop?

Yeah, in theory you could build a data center in space. But unless you have a background in the limitations of space engineering/design brings, you don't truly understand what you are saying. A single AI data center server rack takes up the same energy load of 0.3 to 1 international space station. So by saying Elon musk can reasonable achieve this, is wild to anyone who has done any engineering work with space based tech. Every solar panel generates heat, the racks generate heat, the data communication system generates, heat... Every kW of power generated and every kW of power consumes needs a radiator. And it's not like water cooling, you are trying to radiate heat off into a vacuum. That is a technical challenge and size, the amount of tons to orbit needed to do this... Let alone outside of low earth... Its a moonshot project for sure. And like I said above, Elon musk hasnt really followed through with any of his moonshots.

[throwup238]

> A single AI data center server rack takes up the same energy load of 0.3 to 1 international space station.

The ISS is powered by eight Solar Array Wings. Each wing weighs about 1,050kg. The station also has two radiator wings with three radiator orbital replacement units weighing about 1,100kg each. That's about 15,000 kg total so if the ISS can power three racks, that's 5,000kg of payload per rack not including the rack or any other support structure, shielding, heat distribution like heat pipes, and so on.

Assuming a Falcon Heavy with 60,000 kg payload, that's 12 racks launched for about $100 million. That's basically tripling or quadrupling (at least) the cost of each rack, assuming that's the only extra cost and there's zero maintenance.

[hvb2]

Falcon Heavy does not cost 100M when launching 60 metric tons.

At 60 metric tons, you're expending all cores and only getting to LEO. These probably shouldn't be in LEO because they don't need to be and you probably don't want to be expending cores for these launches if you care about cost.

The real problem typically isn't weight, it's volume. Can you fit all of that in that fairing? It's onli 13m long by 5m diameter...

[throwup238]

Good point on the fairing volume. All of the solar array wings were launched from the shuttle.

I was being charitable on the back of the napkin math.

[jpfromlondon]

> Assuming a Falcon Heavy with 60,000 kg payload

Casually six times more than it has ever lifted.

[rlt]

His time estimates are notoriously, um, aggressive. But I think that's part of how his companies are able to accomplish so much. And they do, even if you're upset they haven't put a human on Mars fast enough or built one of his side quests.

"We specialize in making the impossible merely late"

[acdha]

I note that their accomplishments tend to be in the past, prior to his Twitter addiction absorbing his attention. Tesla is a solid decade late on FSD, cutting models, and losing market share rapidly thanks to his influencer stunts. SpaceX has a solid government launch business, which is great, but they’ve been struggling with what’s been the next big thing for a while and none of that talk about Mars has made meaningful progress. Boring Company, Neurolink, etc. show no signs of profit anytime soon no matter how cool they sound.

Being ambitious is good to an extent but you need to be able to deliver to keep a company healthy. Right now, if you’re a sharp engineer you are looking at Tesla’s competition if you want to work on a project which doesn’t get cancelled (like it’s cars) and the stock price being hyped to the moon means that options aren’t going to be as competitive.

[rlt]

I agree he leans into the hype aggressively, and spends too much time on Twitter, but they are making progress regardless.

Starlink is growing rapidly.

Starship has been making steady progress.

Neuralink is helping ~12 real people with spinal cord injuries/ALs.

Optimus seems to be making progress.

Tesla is beginning to roll out robotaxis without safety drivers.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> Cooling and communications would just require minor changes to existing designs.

"Minor" cooling changes, for a radically different operating environment that does not even have a temperature, is a perfect insulator for conduction and convection, and will actively heat things up via incoming radiation? "Minor" ? Citation very much lacking.

[DoctorOetker]

Take the area of solar panels, multiply by 3, thats the area of black body thermal radiation surface. The sattelite will chillax to 27 deg C (300 K):

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

[SideburnsOfDoom]

And is that "Minor" ? Is that actually practical on a reasonable budget? Aren't there better uses for the solar panels etc?

[DoctorOetker]

if you focus on shedding heat and make it sound like an impossibility, don't be surprised when people describe what it would take.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

So that's a "no, no and yes".

[rlt]

We also don't have fully reusable launch vehicles, yet. But we will shortly. That will decrease the cost of launch by at least an order of magnitude.

Still there will be a lot of engineering problems to solve.

2-3 years seems very short, but 10 years seems long to me.

[TheBlight]

Ok then short SpaceX stock when it IPOs.

[int0x29]

“Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.” - John Maynard Keynes

[taurath]

What does stock price have to do with anything?

That someone could put a data center in space for the price of 100 years of eliminating world hunger doesn’t mean shit.

[satvikpendem]

People always make this claim about world hunger elimination with no sources. Keep in mind we make more than enough calories to feed everyone on the planet many times over, it's a problem of distribution, of getting the food to the right areas and continuing cultivation for self sufficiency.

[taurath]

That’s right, it’s an allocation of resources problem, and some people seem to control almost all the resources.

[satvikpendem]

Even the most magnanimous allocators cannot defeat the realities of boots on the ground in terms of distribution. It is a very difficult problem that cannot be solved top down, the only solution we've seen is growth of economic activity via capitalistic means, lifting millions, billions out of poverty as Asia has done in the last century for example.

[taurath]

You can pay for a lot of people when you have a billion dollars. When you have a trillion, you can move countries.

When someone lives in opulence while the rest of the world burns, the rest of the world doesn’t sit idly.

[lpcvoid]

I argue that if you have literal hundreds of billions of hard cash to burn for stupid things like AI datacenters, you could afford to make the lives of millions of starving people not suck instead, pretty easily so. But to do that, you'd have to try, and that would mean actually doing something good for humanity. Can't have that as a billionaire.

[CamperBob2]

If you're hellbent on arguing with a cult, it will be much cheaper to go down to your local Church of Scientology and try to convince them that their e-meter doesn't work.

[Sohcahtoa82]

As if company performance actually affected stock price when it comes to anything Elon Musk touches.

For fuck's sake, TSLA has a P/E of a whopping *392*. There is zero justification for how overvalued that stock is. In a sane world, I should be able to short it and 10x my money, but people are buying into Musk's hype on FSD, Robotaxi, and whatever the hell robot they're making. Even if you expected them to be successes, they'd need to 20x the company's entire revenue to justify the current market cap.

[techblueberry]

Why would you short the stock?