Almost no one said those were impossible, just hard. This is completely different. Rather like... a train in a vacuum tube hard. Definitely harder than making a subway with autonomous trains under a modern city. And much harder than being a third rate AI lab, though Elon did hit that target perfectly.

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chuckadams 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Train-in-a-vacuum-tube isn't even restricted by the laws of physics, and it doesn't have to be a perfect vacuum anyway, just low pressure. Data Centers IN SPAAAAAACE have the teensy little problem of cooling that you can't just brute-force a solution to. Those giant things dangling off the ISS that make up most of its footprint aren't solar panels, they're heatsinks, and they still have issues managing heat.

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rbanffy 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Well... If the launch cost is low enough you can just pack a radiator large enough. Good thing this might drive the development of a wider Starship and Ultraheavy booster (or a Superheavy-Heavy where three Superheavy rockets boost a bigger, heavier Starship). Eventually we can get to the Comicallyheavy booster.

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chuckadams 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Perhaps, but I don't see the costs getting anywhere near being worth it. You'd need a space elevator or to manufacture the sinks IN SPAA— er, in space. The latter is theoretically possible but still extremely remote, the former still requires unobtanium.

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rbanffy an hour ago | parent [-]

It all depends on how far you are willing to go to make your server invulnerable to a police raid.

	▲	throw310822 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The police will just arrest you and/ or anyone who operates the downlinks or connects to you. The server can stay in space.

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aeternum an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Energy radiation scales T^4 so physics is really on your side here. If you can engineer GPUs to run a little hotter you get significant decreases in radiator size required.

	▲	adrian_b 25 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		That will have to wait 10 years, or even a few more years, for a transition from silicon to a semiconductor with a wider bandgap.