[credit_guy]

> Let's say Starship can put 100-150 tonnes into orbit per launch, that is somewhere between 40-65 launches for just one single orbital data center.

Ok. And why does it follow from this that the physics of an orbital data center makes no sense?

[adgjlsfhk1]

Because 50 rocket launches seems hard to make cheaper than a building.

[tekla]

The cheapness of the building is not the problem that is being dealt with.

The construction of the building w/ zoning and the political fights and utilities arguments and years of time and whatever is what is being dealt with by putting it in orbit.

[ink_13]

I bet you could build a fully off-grid DC that didn't guzzle water for less money than launching a rocket today, and there would be thousands of people lining up down the block to sell you more than enough land to do it a thousand times for cheap. This just isn't happening yet because it is still quite possible to build on-grid DCs supplied with fresh water for cooling despite what some people would have you believe.

And then when you build on the ground you could even send people to it to swap hard drives and GPUs when they inevitably fail or upgrade them to keep them current. At lower rates of failure than they would in space because we have a planetary magnetosphere protecting us from cosmic rays.

[kaashif]

It would be extremely funny if putting things in space is cheaper and faster than dealing with zoning and local politics.

It implies that China, which can cut through much red tape and has great (and improving) utilities and infrastructure, lots of energy, can just build normal datacenters and save the cost of dozens of space flights.

[eeixlk]

Building in space adds engineering complexity. Heat output requires radiators. Radiation damages equipment without shielding. Repairs require a spacewalk. All this for what, better solar panels? If you think local zoning challenges are an obstacle, then you have 194 other countries to build in. Going to space is probably the worst option. Even putting a data center on a boat is probably a better choice and that still sounds like a stupid idea.

[credit_guy]

Why? It seems to me to be much cheaper than a building. Musk's aim is for the cost of one Starship launch to be under $10 million in the long run. 50 rocket launches would be less than half a billion dollars. Can you get a datacenter built on the ground for half a billion dollars?

[sumeno]

Half a billion in JUST the rocket launches, you've still got to build the actual data center too.

That's assuming he can get launches down to $10 million which I'm sure will be right behind his flying roadster and cybertruck boat

[adgjlsfhk1]

The comparison isn't half a billion for a datacenter, it's half a billion for a big shed (and some solar panels). The problem of space based data centers is that the only effort they save you is building a big shed to put the GPUs in (and potentially cheaper power at the cost of more expensive cooling)

[Symbiote]

Using easily available numbers, a high quality distribution center building (heavy duty concrete floors, HVAC etc) is $100 per sqft.

A very large 1,000,000 sqft data centre is therefore $100 million.

[adammarples]

You haven't built a data center for half a billion mate, you've just launched rockets. You still have to build the data centre! Only not from bricks, it's going to be complex modular units made of radiators and solar panels and you have to buy the gpus too, and the whole thing will be bombarded with cosmic background radiation but you can't replace or repair any part of it.

[LearnYouALisp]

Are you for real? HN yep

[credit_guy]

Yes, I am for real. The Colossus datacenter that xAI built cost $7 billion.

[1] https://www.globaldatacenterhub.com/p/can-elon-musks-7b-colo...

[ac29]

Most of that cost was presumably the 100,000 GPUs it contains, they didn't even build the building

[credit_guy]

Maybe, but in the end if the cost of launches is less than 10% the cost of the GPUs, then why is the project non-sense?

[Terr_]

No, you've got the burden of proof backwards: We haven't even begun to talk about maintenance issues, space-proofing the equipment, power-generation, cooling, etc.