Likely the intended meaning here is that the practicality of space data centers goes against the physical realities of operating in space. The single most prevalent issue with operating anything in space is heat dissipation in that the only method of doing so is via radiation of heat, which is very slow. Meanwhile, the latest Nvidia reference architectures convert such ungodly amounts of power into heat (and occasionally higher share prices) that they call for water cooling and extensive heat-exchange plant.

Even if one got the the economics of launching/connecting GPU racks into space into negligable territory and made great use of the abundent solar energy, the heat generated (and in space retained) by this equipment would prevent running it at 100% utilization as it does in terrestrial facilities.

In addition to each rack worth of equipment you'd need to achieve enough heat sink surface area to match the heat dissipation capabilities of water-cooled systems via radiation alone.

Not physics defying, just economically questionable.

The main benefits to being in space are making solar more reliable and no need to buy real estate or get permits.

Everything else is harder. Cooling is possible but heavy compared to solar, the lifetimes of the computer hardware will probably be lower in space, and will be unserviceable. The launch cost would have to be very low, and the mean time between failure high before I think it would make any economical sense.

It would take a heck of a lot of launches to get a terrestrial datacenter worth of compute, cooling and solar in orbit, and even if you ship redundant parts, it would be hard to get equivalent lifetimes without the ability to have service technicians doing maintenance.

Their viability is what I called physics-defying. Without some drastic changes to our current level of technology, the added costs of putting something in space along with the complexities of powering, cooling, and maintaining it once it's there is just too much to overcome the alternative of just building it on Earth.

Cooling.

Radiative cooling is the only option, and it basically sucks vs any option you could use on earth.

Second, ai chips have a fixed economic life beyond which you want to replace them with better chips because the cost of running them starts to outpaxe the profit they can generate. This is probably like 2-3 years but the math of doing this in space may be very different. But you can't upgrade space based data centers nearly as easily as a terrestrial data center.

More details from a guy who has thought this through https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horri...

How do you cool them? Getting rid of heat is one of the number one challenges on the ISS.

Without evaporation and convection, getting rid of heat is a bitch in space.

> Starlink is under SpaceX

Kuiper is not under Blue Origin, and there are no whispers of Amazon and BO merging. You're the one being disingenuous in suggesting that companies have to be merged to buy services from - or cooperate with - each other.

The biggest problem with satellite internet was the costs involved, which SpaceX has pretty much solved.

Datacenters in space, on the other hand, are a terrible idea because of the laws of physics, which will not get "solved" anytime soon. But don't take it from me, listen to this guy with a PhD in space electronics who worked at NASA and Google:

https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horri...

Your understanding is wrong; see page 2 of https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20200001093/downloads/20.... That’s a log plot!

The backing table is on page 8. Falcon 9 is (was, in 2018! It’s only cheaper now.) at $2700/kg to LEO. No one else is below $4k, except… Falcon Heavy.

> SpaceX didn't invent the reusable rocket

There isn’t a single inventor and reusable rockets emerged through decades of research.

But: SpaceX was the first to make orbital-class reuse routine and economically viable.

I found that surprising, so I looked on Wikipedia.

Soyuz-2 capacity to LEO: 8,600KG

Falcon 9 capacity to LEO: 22,800KG when expended, 17,500KG when not.

Soyuz-2 Cost to Launch: $35 Million

New Falcon 9 Cost to Launch: $70 Million

Used Falcon 9 Cost to Launch: $50 Million (cost to SpaceX: ~$25 Million)

Soyuz-2 cost per KG: $4000 (data from 2018)

New Falcon 9 cost per KG: $964 when expended, $1250 when not.

Use Falcon 9 coster per KG to Customer: $893 when expended, $690 when not

So realistically, Falcon 9 is roughly 20-30% the price per KG when new, and dropping to a minimum of 17.25% of the price when used.

Plus you get a larger diameter payload fairing and the ability to launch a payload up to 4X the size.

I'm pretty sure that even used as an expendable rocket, 1/4 the price per KG (if you need the capacity) is a pretty significant improvement. Now I understand why satellite ride-shares are so popular!

Space is basically half the cost of it's competitors on a per kg basis. And while previous experiments like the DC-X existed, SpaceX absolutely gets credit for the first operational reusable rocket stage.

And I say that as someone that despises Elon and the way he casts his companies as due to his personal technical genius.

I mean, even if he isn't directly making a lot of the decisions in these companies that are doing well, it doesn't mean he doesn't play a big role in that still. He still had to pick a lot of these leaders, pay them well, keep them satisfied enough to stay there, and also give them the proper freedom to lead these companies. There are many people out there who could also manage to make these companies fail instead of grow.

I feel that a lot of people simply don't like Elon because of political reasons which are often also based on misinformed opinions. It also can't be denied that he is an intelligent person. You can hear it when he talks in interviews.

Now I think ultimately any ultra wealthy person is going to have some flaws that people can find and latch onto in order to hate someone.

Trying to make a point out of whether he did or didn't found Tesla kind if defeats the rest of your post. He paid over 90% of the first funding round and brought in key people like JB Straubel. When the company was basically an incorporation paper and no assets. Under most companies people would have argued for founder/co-founder status at that point. So yes he didn't "found" Tesla but for all intents and purposes he basically did.

truly a braindead argument. probably paid for by a shortseller.

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