And just like that Elon Musk shifted the overton window away from "unthinkable" on yet another topic.

▲ GMoromisato 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

  It's physically impossible
  It's technically impossible
  It won't be profitable          <= You are here
  It's bad for the environment
  It needs to be nationalized

This is just a joke, obviously, but the debate over on ArsTechnica about Falcon 9 going away is all about how it needs to be nationalized.

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fulafel 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Did anyone at and point say it's technically impossible? There's been computers in space since the 60s after all.

It's just far out research experiment like another commented quoted from the text: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49834746

	▲	GMoromisato 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You need to hang out at ArsTechnica more. But even in this comment stream there are tons of people saying the cooling problem is insurmountable.

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zactato 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think one of the reasons for putting these in space is to move them beyond the borders of any national control.

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GMoromisato 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You can't launch from the US without the federal government giving you permission. And SpaceX does not have (nor are they planning) any launch pads outside the US. [And because of ITAR, I'm not even sure they'd be allowed to build one.]

However, I do think avoiding local control (state/city permits) is a reason for this.

	▲	m4rtink 8 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Rocket Lab has launch pads in New Zealand.
	▲	ChickeNES 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> (nor are they planning) Not true

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edot 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Surely if this were the reason, you'd just put it in international waters?

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tumdum_ 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What does it matter where physically computers are located? If the owners can be imprisoned in US, the will cooperate with US government.

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echoangle 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

As long as the company has a HQ and owners that care about their quality of life, they don’t really gain any extra safety by moving their hardware to space compared to keeping it where they are based.

▲ nova22033 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You don't think Google has a self-interest in this? Google up how many shares of spacex are held by Alphabet.

▲ folocitoan 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What did he do that others considered unthinkable? This is not a rhetorical question. Please give me a concrete example, with sources proving experts in the field thought the idea was "unthinkable".

Robofactories? The idea was roundly mocked and completely failed, costing many millions of dollars, leading to manufacturing defects on thousands of vehicles, and delaying Model 3 mass production.

Hyperloops? The idea was roundly mocked and completely failed. Somehow it attracted hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. (There's suspicion Musk proposed the idea cynically to distract from rail.)

Robotaxis? Waymo started in 2004 and is, today, ahead of Tesla.

Electric cars? Again, demonstrated long before Musk got involved. The frustration amongst environmentalists at the time was that the technology and demand both existed but manufacturers weren't interested in making them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

(Before you claim the EV1 was so obscure as to not count, GM built about 1,000 of them, vs 2500 Roadsters. If it doesn't count, neither does the Roadster.)

Reusable launch vehicles? Work started on them in the '70s at the latest and they were the American workhorse by the '80s. The basic design SpaceX settled on was demonstrated in the '90s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X

Satellite internet? Obviously old hat, so let's restrict ourselves to LEO constellations. These were proposed in the Star Wars project and were built by several companies in the 1990s. Starlink is much larger and more modern, but the basic idea was proven.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledesic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_Communications

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalstar

This narrative that Musk has done things other people considered impossible is simply untrue. Everywhere he's found success, other people had already demonstrated the basic idea. Everywhere the consensus was that he had lost the plot, he failed completely. Impressive work should not require exaggeration.

I will have to grant that this was previously unthinkable:

https://tinyurl.com/5aps6aam