6 ms·

>1. The capital costs are higher, you have to expend tons of energy to put it into orbit putting 1KW of solar on land - $2K, putting it into orbit on Starship

by trhway 9mo ago

>1. The capital costs are higher, you have to expend tons of energy to put it into orbit putting 1KW of solar on land - $2K, putting it into orbit on Starship (current ground-based heavy solar panels, 40kg for 4m2 of 1KW in space) - anywhere between $400 and $4K. Add to that that the costs on Earth will only be growing, while costs in space will be falling. Ultimately Starship's costs will come down to the bare cost of fuel + oxidizer, 20kg per 1kg in LEO, i.e. less than $10. And if they manage streamlined operations and high reuse. Yet even with $100/kg, it is still better in space than on the ground. And for cooling that people so complain about without running it in calculator - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46878961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46878961 >2. The maintenance costs are higher because the lifetime of satellites is pretty low it will live those 3-5 years of the GPU lifecycle.

viraptor 9mo ago
> will come down to the bare cost of fuel + oxidizer And maintenance and replacing parts and managing flights and ... You're trying to yadda-yadda so much opex here!
- trhway 9mo ago
  It is SpaceX/Elon who bet billions on that yadda-yadda, not me. I wrote "If" for $10/kg. I'm sure though that they would easily yadda-yadda under sub-$100/kg - which is $15M per flight. And even with those $100/kg the datacenters in space still make sense as comparable to ground based and providing the demand for the huge Starship launch capacity. A datacenter costs ~$1000/ft^2. How much equipment per square foot is there? say 100kg (1 ton per rack plus hallway). Which is $1000 to put into orbit on Starship at $100/kg. At sub-$50/kg, you can put into orbit all the equipment plus solar panels and it would still be cheaper than on the ground.
  - javascriptfan69 9mo ago
    100 x 100 is 10,000.
  - sarchertech 9mo ago
    It looks like you’re comparing the cost of installing solar panels on the ground with the cost of just transporting them to orbit. You can’t just toss raw solar panels out of a cargo bay.
    - trhway 9mo ago
      >You can’t just toss raw solar panels out of a cargo bay. That is exactly what you do - just like with Starlink - toss out the panels with attached GPUs, laser transmitter and small ion drive.
      - deleted 9mo ago
        [deleted]
      - sarchertech 9mo ago
        Best estimates based on the publicly available data I can find are that solar panels make up 5-10% of the manufacturing cost of a starlink satellite. There’s so much overhead you’re hand waving away to make your numbers work.
  - gf000 9mo ago
    > it is SpaceX/Elon The known scammer guy? Like these ideas wouldn't pass the questions at the end of a primary school presentation.
javascriptfan69 9mo ago
Current cost to LEO is $1500 per kg That would make your solar panel (40kg) around $60K to put into space. Even being generous and assuming you could get it to $100 per kg that's still $4000 There's a lot of land in the middle of nowhere that is going to be cheaper than sending shit to space.
- trhway 9mo ago
  >That would make your solar panel (40kg) around $60K to put into space. with the GPU costing the same, it would only double the capex. >Even being generous and assuming you could get it to $100 per kg that's still $4000 noise compare to the main cost - GPUs. >There's a lot of land in the middle of nowhere that is going to be cheaper than sending shit to space. Cheapness of location of your major investment - GPUs - may as well happen to be secondary to other considerations - power/cooling capacity stable availability, jurisdiction, etc.
  - blackoil 9mo ago
    Any idea, what is the estimated cost of a Google TPU. It may not make sense for Nvidia retail price but at cost price of Google.
    - trhway 9mo ago
      Can only speculate out of thin air - B200 and Ryzen 9950x made on the same process and have 11x difference in die size. 11 Ryzens would cost $6K, and with 200Gb RAM - $8K. Googling brings that the B200 cost or production is $6400. That matches the numbers from the Ryzen based estimate above (Ryzen numbers is retail, yet it has higher yield, so balance). So, i'd guess that given Google scale a TPU similar to B200 should be $6K-$10K.
  - estomagordo 9mo ago
    > with the GPU costing the same, it would only double the capex. Yes, only doubling the capex. With the benefits of, hmm, no maintenance access and awful networking?
pclmulqdq 9mo ago
> putting 1KW of solar on land - $2K, putting it into orbit on Starship (current ground-based heavy solar panels, 40kg for 4m2 of 1KW in space) - anywhere between $400 and $4K. What starship? The fantasy rocket Musk has been promising for 10 years or the real one that has thus far delivered only one banana worth of payload into orbit?
- trhway 9mo ago
  it is obviously predicated on Starship. All these discussions have no sense otherwise. > or the real one that has thus far delivered only one banana worth of payload into orbit? once it starts delivering real payloads, the time for discussions will be no more, it will be time to rush to book your payload slot.
  - gspr 9mo ago
    You are presented with a factual, verifiable, statement that starship has been promised for years and that all that's been delivered is something capable of sending a banana to LEO. Wayyyy overdue too. You meet this with "well, once it works, it'll be amazing and you'll be queuing up"? How very very musky! What a cult.
    - ENGNR 9mo ago
      They also launched dummy satellites from the "pez dispenser", directly simulating the actual mission payload, about 4 months ago.
    - ben_w 9mo ago
      I have no idea if SpaceX will ever make the upper stage fully reusable. The space shuttle having existed isn't an existence proof, given the cost of repairs needed between missions. However, with Starship SpaceX has both done more and less than putting a banana in orbit. Less, because it's never once been a true orbit; more, because these are learn-by-doing tests, all the reporting seems to be in agreement that it could already deliver useful mass to orbit if they wanted it to. But without actually solving full reusability for the upper stage, this doesn't really have legs. Starship is cheap enough to build they can waste loads of them for this kind of testing, but not cheap enough for plans such as these to make sense if they're disposable.
reverius42 9mo ago
The bean counters at NVidia recently upped the expected lifecycle from 5 years to 6. On paper, you are expected now to get 6 years out of a GPU for datacenter use, not 3-5.
blackoil 9mo ago
To add space solar cell will weigh only 4-12kg as protection requirements are different.
- estomagordo 9mo ago
  source?
  - blackoil 9mo ago
    :| Did rough calculations with help of ChatGPT. In space it need not be hardened for rain, hail, wind and dust but for radiation and micro meteors.
    - shagie 9mo ago
      Compare the cost of a RAD750 (the processor on the JWST) to its non rad hardened variant. Additionally, consider the processing power of that system to modern AI demands.
      - blackoil 9mo ago
        I just calculated the potential weight of solar cells in space. Can't say about cost. Idea is mot of the weight of panel is because of glass/plastic protection on top and frame, these are there to protect from rain, hail, wind and dust. In space the elements it will need protection from will be different. I could be completely off but have no claims on cost and feasibility of this.
        shagie 9mo ago
        A solar panel deployed to space isn't deployed in its open / unframed configuration. Rather, it's sent in a way that is folded up into a compact volume and then unfolds into the full size. https://youtu.be/wkume9d4Ogw https://youtu.be/wkume9d4Ogw You'll note that there is still a frame that it gets unfolded with and that you've got the additional mechanical apparatus to do the unfurling (and the human there to fix it if there are problems. https://youtu.be/UX4cCKKFVrs https://youtu.be/UX4cCKKFVrs Again, you'll note that there is frame material there. You don't have a sheet of glass on it, but space doesn't give you the mass savings you think it does. https://youtu.be/6vjK9vGEw5Q https://youtu.be/6vjK9vGEw5Q Those are cutting edge tech (designed to work at Jupiter's distance) and that's about 40 m^2 of space (ten times more than you're describing) and they mass 176 kg ( https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-025-01190-6 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-025-01190-6 ). If we assume that scales down linearly, the cutting edge technology for solar panels is 20kg for 4m^2 which is more than your estimates. ... And they have problems and can fail to deploy. https://spacenews.com/cygnus-solar-array-fails-to-deploy/ https://spacenews.com/cygnus-solar-array-fails-to-deploy/ https://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1105/25telstar14r/index.html https://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1105/25telstar14r/index.htm... https://www.nasa.gov/history/50-years-ago-skylab-2-astronauts-deploy-jammed-solar-array-during-spacewalk-2/ https://www.nasa.gov/history/50-years-ago-skylab-2-astronaut... https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20210020397/downloads/Alphonzo%20Stewart-%20Final%20Paper.pdf https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20210020397/downloads/Al... You'll note that the Cygnus used the same design as Lucy, though smaller. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_(spacecraft) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_(spacecraft) > Starting with the Enhanced variant, the solar panels were also upgraded to the UltraFlex, an accordion fanfold array, and the fuel load was increased to 1,218 kilograms (2,685 lb). Digging more into Ultra Flex, https://www.eng.auburn.edu/~dbeale/ESMDCourse/Site%20Documents/Ultraflex%20Solar%20Array.pdf https://www.eng.auburn.edu/~dbeale/ESMDCourse/Site%20Documen... > Specific performance with 27% TJ cells: >150 W/kg BOL & > 40 kW/m3 BOL So there's your number. 150 W/kg of solar panel array. 1 kW is about 7 kg. They're not cheap. https://spacenews.com/36576ousted-from-first-orion-flight-circular-atk-solar-arrays-still-set-to-power/ https://spacenews.com/36576ousted-from-first-orion-flight-ci... > In 2011, Orbital replaced Dutch Space on the project and gave ATK’s space components division, which was already supplying the substrates for Dutch Space’s Orion solar panels, a $20 million deal to provide UltraFlex arrays for later Cygnus flights.
bildung 9mo ago
1 KW of solar panels is 150€ retail right now. You are probably at 80€ or less if you buy a few MW. (I'm ignoring installation costs etc. because actually creating the satellites is ignored here, too)
- tpm 9mo ago
  installation of large solar plants is largely automated already
iso1631 9mo ago
My car costs far more per mile than the bare cost of the fuel. Why would starship not have similar costs?

by trhway 9mo ago

viraptor 9mo ago

> will come down to the bare cost of fuel + oxidizer And maintenance and replacing parts and managing flights and ... You're trying to yadda-yadda so much opex here!

trhway 9mo ago
It is SpaceX/Elon who bet billions on that yadda-yadda, not me. I wrote "If" for $10/kg. I'm sure though that they would easily yadda-yadda under sub-$100/kg - which is $15M per flight. And even with those $100/kg the datacenters in space still make sense as comparable to ground based and providing the demand for the huge Starship launch capacity. A datacenter costs ~$1000/ft^2. How much equipment per square foot is there? say 100kg (1 ton per rack plus hallway). Which is $1000 to put into orbit on Starship at $100/kg. At sub-$50/kg, you can put into orbit all the equipment plus solar panels and it would still be cheaper than on the ground.
- javascriptfan69 9mo ago
  100 x 100 is 10,000.
- sarchertech 9mo ago
  It looks like you’re comparing the cost of installing solar panels on the ground with the cost of just transporting them to orbit. You can’t just toss raw solar panels out of a cargo bay.
  - trhway 9mo ago
    >You can’t just toss raw solar panels out of a cargo bay. That is exactly what you do - just like with Starlink - toss out the panels with attached GPUs, laser transmitter and small ion drive.
    - deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
    - sarchertech 9mo ago
      Best estimates based on the publicly available data I can find are that solar panels make up 5-10% of the manufacturing cost of a starlink satellite. There’s so much overhead you’re hand waving away to make your numbers work.
- gf000 9mo ago
  > it is SpaceX/Elon The known scammer guy? Like these ideas wouldn't pass the questions at the end of a primary school presentation.

javascriptfan69 9mo ago

Current cost to LEO is $1500 per kg That would make your solar panel (40kg) around $60K to put into space. Even being generous and assuming you could get it to $100 per kg that's still $4000 There's a lot of land in the middle of nowhere that is going to be cheaper than sending shit to space.

trhway 9mo ago
>That would make your solar panel (40kg) around $60K to put into space. with the GPU costing the same, it would only double the capex. >Even being generous and assuming you could get it to $100 per kg that's still $4000 noise compare to the main cost - GPUs. >There's a lot of land in the middle of nowhere that is going to be cheaper than sending shit to space. Cheapness of location of your major investment - GPUs - may as well happen to be secondary to other considerations - power/cooling capacity stable availability, jurisdiction, etc.
- blackoil 9mo ago
  Any idea, what is the estimated cost of a Google TPU. It may not make sense for Nvidia retail price but at cost price of Google.
  - trhway 9mo ago
    Can only speculate out of thin air - B200 and Ryzen 9950x made on the same process and have 11x difference in die size. 11 Ryzens would cost $6K, and with 200Gb RAM - $8K. Googling brings that the B200 cost or production is $6400. That matches the numbers from the Ryzen based estimate above (Ryzen numbers is retail, yet it has higher yield, so balance). So, i'd guess that given Google scale a TPU similar to B200 should be $6K-$10K.
- estomagordo 9mo ago
  > with the GPU costing the same, it would only double the capex. Yes, only doubling the capex. With the benefits of, hmm, no maintenance access and awful networking?

pclmulqdq 9mo ago

> putting 1KW of solar on land - $2K, putting it into orbit on Starship (current ground-based heavy solar panels, 40kg for 4m2 of 1KW in space) - anywhere between $400 and $4K. What starship? The fantasy rocket Musk has been promising for 10 years or the real one that has thus far delivered only one banana worth of payload into orbit?

trhway 9mo ago
it is obviously predicated on Starship. All these discussions have no sense otherwise. > or the real one that has thus far delivered only one banana worth of payload into orbit? once it starts delivering real payloads, the time for discussions will be no more, it will be time to rush to book your payload slot.
- gspr 9mo ago
  You are presented with a factual, verifiable, statement that starship has been promised for years and that all that's been delivered is something capable of sending a banana to LEO. Wayyyy overdue too. You meet this with "well, once it works, it'll be amazing and you'll be queuing up"? How very very musky! What a cult.
  - ENGNR 9mo ago
    They also launched dummy satellites from the "pez dispenser", directly simulating the actual mission payload, about 4 months ago.
  - ben_w 9mo ago
    I have no idea if SpaceX will ever make the upper stage fully reusable. The space shuttle having existed isn't an existence proof, given the cost of repairs needed between missions. However, with Starship SpaceX has both done more and less than putting a banana in orbit. Less, because it's never once been a true orbit; more, because these are learn-by-doing tests, all the reporting seems to be in agreement that it could already deliver useful mass to orbit if they wanted it to. But without actually solving full reusability for the upper stage, this doesn't really have legs. Starship is cheap enough to build they can waste loads of them for this kind of testing, but not cheap enough for plans such as these to make sense if they're disposable.

reverius42 9mo ago

The bean counters at NVidia recently upped the expected lifecycle from 5 years to 6. On paper, you are expected now to get 6 years out of a GPU for datacenter use, not 3-5.

blackoil 9mo ago

To add space solar cell will weigh only 4-12kg as protection requirements are different.

estomagordo 9mo ago
source?
- blackoil 9mo ago
  :| Did rough calculations with help of ChatGPT. In space it need not be hardened for rain, hail, wind and dust but for radiation and micro meteors.
  - shagie 9mo ago
    Compare the cost of a RAD750 (the processor on the JWST) to its non rad hardened variant. Additionally, consider the processing power of that system to modern AI demands.
    - blackoil 9mo ago
      I just calculated the potential weight of solar cells in space. Can't say about cost. Idea is mot of the weight of panel is because of glass/plastic protection on top and frame, these are there to protect from rain, hail, wind and dust. In space the elements it will need protection from will be different. I could be completely off but have no claims on cost and feasibility of this.
      - shagie 9mo ago
        A solar panel deployed to space isn't deployed in its open / unframed configuration. Rather, it's sent in a way that is folded up into a compact volume and then unfolds into the full size. https://youtu.be/wkume9d4Ogw https://youtu.be/wkume9d4Ogw You'll note that there is still a frame that it gets unfolded with and that you've got the additional mechanical apparatus to do the unfurling (and the human there to fix it if there are problems. https://youtu.be/UX4cCKKFVrs https://youtu.be/UX4cCKKFVrs Again, you'll note that there is frame material there. You don't have a sheet of glass on it, but space doesn't give you the mass savings you think it does. https://youtu.be/6vjK9vGEw5Q https://youtu.be/6vjK9vGEw5Q Those are cutting edge tech (designed to work at Jupiter's distance) and that's about 40 m^2 of space (ten times more than you're describing) and they mass 176 kg ( https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-025-01190-6 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-025-01190-6 ). If we assume that scales down linearly, the cutting edge technology for solar panels is 20kg for 4m^2 which is more than your estimates. ... And they have problems and can fail to deploy. https://spacenews.com/cygnus-solar-array-fails-to-deploy/ https://spacenews.com/cygnus-solar-array-fails-to-deploy/ https://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1105/25telstar14r/index.html https://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1105/25telstar14r/index.htm... https://www.nasa.gov/history/50-years-ago-skylab-2-astronauts-deploy-jammed-solar-array-during-spacewalk-2/ https://www.nasa.gov/history/50-years-ago-skylab-2-astronaut... https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20210020397/downloads/Alphonzo%20Stewart-%20Final%20Paper.pdf https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20210020397/downloads/Al... You'll note that the Cygnus used the same design as Lucy, though smaller. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_(spacecraft) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_(spacecraft) > Starting with the Enhanced variant, the solar panels were also upgraded to the UltraFlex, an accordion fanfold array, and the fuel load was increased to 1,218 kilograms (2,685 lb). Digging more into Ultra Flex, https://www.eng.auburn.edu/~dbeale/ESMDCourse/Site%20Documents/Ultraflex%20Solar%20Array.pdf https://www.eng.auburn.edu/~dbeale/ESMDCourse/Site%20Documen... > Specific performance with 27% TJ cells: >150 W/kg BOL & > 40 kW/m3 BOL So there's your number. 150 W/kg of solar panel array. 1 kW is about 7 kg. They're not cheap. https://spacenews.com/36576ousted-from-first-orion-flight-circular-atk-solar-arrays-still-set-to-power/ https://spacenews.com/36576ousted-from-first-orion-flight-ci... > In 2011, Orbital replaced Dutch Space on the project and gave ATK’s space components division, which was already supplying the substrates for Dutch Space’s Orion solar panels, a $20 million deal to provide UltraFlex arrays for later Cygnus flights.

bildung 9mo ago

1 KW of solar panels is 150€ retail right now. You are probably at 80€ or less if you buy a few MW. (I'm ignoring installation costs etc. because actually creating the satellites is ignored here, too)

tpm 9mo ago
installation of large solar plants is largely automated already

iso1631 9mo ago

My car costs far more per mile than the bare cost of the fuel. Why would starship not have similar costs?