[_fizz_buzz_]

> Bezos has been pushing manufacturing-in-space for a long time, as a ideal candidate for what to do in space that you might prefer to not do on Earth. Robotics, AI automation, manufacturing - combo it in space, let the robots manufacture for us in space.

LOL, this seems so far off from the reality of what manufacturing looks like in reality. - sending raw materials up there - service technicians are necessary ALL THE TIME, in fully automated production lines - sending stuff back down

Maybe I lack vision, but data centers in space is a 1000x times better idea and that is already a terrible idea.

[mike_hearn]

Space manufacturing is a real thing, there are already companies trialling it. The factory is small, satellite sized, and it deorbits when the manufacturing run is done. The results are protected enough for them to be picked up from Earth.

The justification (today) is that you can do very exotic things in zero-G that aren't possible on Earth. Growing ultra-pure crystals and fibre optics and similar.

[_fizz_buzz_]

Ok, that I might buy. If there is a product one can build in zero-G that one cannot build on earth. Especially something like growing crystalls. Sure. But trying to compete with something that can just as well be build on earth on the premise that it will be cheaper to do the same thing just in space is insane.

It's the same issue that I have with data centers in space. I don't think there is any big technical hurdle to send a GPU rack into space and run it there. The problem is that I have a hard time to believe it is cheaper to run a datacenter in space. When you have to compete solely on cost, it will super hard.

[mike_hearn]

I don't think it's insane. It might not work or be competitive but it's not obviously insane.

In a frictionless economy governed by spherical cows it'd be insane. But back here on Earth, AI is heavily bottlenecked by the refusal or inability of the supply chain to scale up. They think AI firms are in a bubble and will collapse, so don't want to be bag holders. A very sane concern indeed. But it does mean that inferencing (the bit that makes money) is constantly saturated even with the industry straining every sinew to build out capacity.

One bottleneck is TSMC. Not much that can be done about that. The other is the grid. Grid equipment manufacturers and CCGT makers like Siemens aren't spinning up extra manufacturing capacity, again because they fear being bag holders when Altman runs out of cash. Then you have massive interconnection backlogs, environmentalists attacking you and other practical problems.

Is it easier to get access to stable electricity supplies in space? It's not inconceivable. At the very least, in space Elon controls the full stack with nearly no regulations getting in the way after launch - it's a pure engineering problem of the sort SpaceX are good at. If he needs more power he can just build it, he doesn't have to try and convince some local government utility to scale up or give him air permits to run generators. In space, nobody can hear you(r GPUs) scream.

[jodrellblank]

> "At the very least, in space Elon controls the full stack with nearly no regulations getting in the way after launch - it's a pure engineering problem of the sort SpaceX are good at. If he needs more power he can just build it, he doesn't have to try and convince some local government utility to scale up or give him air permits to run generators. In space, nobody can hear you(r GPUs) scream."

Wouldn't he be able to float solar panels and GPUs out into international waters and run them on cargo ships powered by bunker fuel much (much much) cheaper than launching them into space?

[mike_hearn]

Cargo ship emissions are heavily regulated and the IMO is trying to net zero shipping into non-existence.

https://www.imo.org/en/mediacentre/pressbriefings/pages/imo-...

[bydlocoder]

Building nuclear-powered and solar powered datacenters in places with low population density will still be cheaper. Do you think Mongolian government won't allow China to build datacenters if the price is right?

[mike_hearn]

It might be easier in China but that doesn't help Elon or Americans.

Solar powered datacenters on Earth don't make sense to me. The GPUs are so expensive you want to run them 24/7 and power cycling them stresses the components a lot so increases failure rate. Once it boots up you need to keep the datacenter powered, you can't shut it down at night. Maybe for CPU datacenters solar power can make sense sometimes, but not for AI at the moment.

Nuclear is super hard and expensive to build. It probably really is easier to put servers in space than build nuclear.

[kamaal]

>>sending raw materials up there

That's what asteroid mining is for.

>>service technicians are necessary ALL THE TIME

Optimus is already very well tele-operated. Even though over time it can likely be trained to do specific tasks far better than even humans.

[kergonath]

> That's what asteroid mining is for.

It’s not necessarily cheaper energetically to get stuff from an asteroid than from Earth. You’d have to accelerate stuff from a wildly different orbit, and then steer it and slow it down. Metric tonnes of stuff. It’s not physically impossible, but it is wildly expensive (in pure energy terms, not even talking about money) and completely impractical with current technology. We just don’t have engines capable of doing this outside the atmosphere.

[mr_toad]

> It’s not necessarily cheaper energetically to get stuff from an asteroid than from Earth. You’d have to accelerate stuff from a wildly different orbit, and then steer it and slow it down.

Delta V from just about anywhere in the solar system is lower than launching from the surface of Earth. You could launch stuff from Mars and bring it back to Earth orbit with less energy than launching it from Earth. The rocket equation is really punishing.

[kergonath]

Right. The alternative is not to send materials from Earth for processing in space, that would be stupid. We send finished stuff, which were manufactured on the ground. But you don’t mine finished widgets from asteroids. You mine ore that needs refining and processing before being used to manufacture things. This ore is orders of magnitude heavier than the finished products, never mind all that’s required to do anything useful with it.

[moogly]

> Optimus is already very well tele-operated

It can't even serve popcorn in a diner.

[_fizz_buzz_]

> That's what asteroid mining is for.

I think you might have no sense of what it takes to go from a raw mined material to something that can be used in a factory. I am not saying it cannot be done. I am just saying it cannot be done in a way that is cheaper than on earth.

[nunez]

The show For All Mankind kind-of hinted at how the labor problem would be solved: recruit like the military and promise huge bonuses that will probably not be realized because space is risky business

[bigbuppo]

Well you see, what you do is send a bunch of humanoid robots up there to do all the work.

(please don't ask what we do when those break down)

[bonesss]

I think it makes more sense if you invert the manufacturing cycle.

Automated asteroid mining, and asteroid harvesting, are potential areas where we have strong tech, a reasonable pure automation story, and huge financial upsides. Trillion dollar asteroids... If we’re sourcing metals out there, and producing for orbital operations or interplanetary shenanigans, the need for computing and automation up there emerges.

And I imagine for the billionaire investor class now is the window to make those kinds of plays. A whole set of galactic robber barons is gonna be crowned, and orbital automation is critical to deciding who that is.