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Starlink (collectively) already has 10 times the solar power of ISS, with present-day launch capabilities. If Starship works out (not guaranteed) launch cost sh
by GMoromisato 11mo ago
Starlink (collectively) already has 10 times the solar power of ISS, with present-day launch capabilities. If Starship works out (not guaranteed) launch cost should drop to ~$100/kg, which would enable very large constellations.
Musk is planning for 1 megaton/year of satellites, each with 100kW, yielding about 100GW per year.[1]
He thinks they can do that in 4 years, but adjusting for Elon-time, it's probably no less than 8 years, if ever.
But will the AI money last that long? Maybe not.
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[1] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1997706687155720229 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1997706687155720229
- m4rtink 11mo agoSure, it is impressive how much solar power Starlink currently captures, but ISS actually does not get that much - as far as I can tell its about 250 kW maximum even with the new roll-out solar arrays that have been installed quite recently. So about 2.5 MW of solar potential ? That's indeed quite impressive, but for serious compute a lot of energy needs cooling will eat into that.
- GMoromisato 11mo agoCooling won’t use much energy because it’s mostly radiators and probably some recirculating pumps.
- m4rtink 11mo agoI think there could be a non trivial ammount of pumping. Also building all the radiators and structure from in-space resources could be quite substantial energy investment, same with the energy to put it in the final orbit.