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You've listed: 1. Radiating heat needs large radiators 2. Bit flips require extra compute capacity Neither of those violate the laws of physics. As I said, th

You've listed: 1. Radiating heat needs large radiators 2. Bit flips require extra compute capacity Neither of those violate the laws of physics. As I said, they may not work economically, but that depends on a large number of unknowns, including the cost per ton to orbit and the cost per GW of new power capacity on Earth in 2030. If you have a time machine and know those numbers, then can I please borrow your time machine? Moreover, when you say, "ALL the other problems ... someone with expertise in the domain could mention," you're saying either: A) SpaceX engineers do not have expertise in this domain. B) SpaceX engineers are hiding all the problems that they know about. B is basically a conspiracy theory. It is one YouTube video away from saying the moon landing was a hoax. A is just delusional.

vrganj 2mo ago
So between the giant radiator per GPU and the diminished compute capacity, how much mass are we shooting up exactly? This just seems utterly infeasible. You're missing C) SpaceX engineers know it's a bad idea, but can't say anything because it's the tyrant manchild's latest obsession, technology constraints be damned. Remember the vision-only FSD? How's that coming along?
- ethbr1 2mo ago
  > because it's the tyrant manchild's latest obsession, technology constraints be damned. Imho, there's only one reason that justifies Musk's space-based compute obsession: sovereignty. Specifically, avoiding terrestrial country's. This isn't about AI in space (though I'm sure dumb investors love that), it's about uncensorable Twitter in space, beamed down to Starlink terminals. Which would be one of the few things you'd care about, if you were one of the richest people on the planet... but still subject to those damned nations and their meddling laws.
  - jacquesm 2mo ago
    That's exactly it. Musk sees space as extraterritorial, which in the true sense of the word of course it absolutely is. But all those bits have to go to ground somewhere. As long as that somewhere is friendly no problem. That can change.
  - solid_fuel 2mo ago
    Yeah, I think Musk loves the idea of sticking his CSAM generators in space, where he thinks they will be beyond the reach of terrestrial laws and morals.
  - grim_io 2mo ago
    If Elon wants to offer space-twitter, he still needs to abide by the rules of the country he is offering the service to. Unless he's offering it to the aliens orbiting his magical lawless space data centers.
    - ethbr1 2mo ago
      Does he? Short of countrywide ku-band jamming and/or drone-based RDF at scale, what's the country going to do? It was one thing when you needed a C-band dish to receive, but much harder to deal with a 1-2 ft dish.
      - vrganj 2mo ago
        They could shoot down those data centers for example.
        ethbr1 2mo ago
        Unreasonably expensive for pLEO volumes (same problem/advantage militaries are looking at) + collateral damage to other nations satellites The only nations who would realistically have that as an option would have a robust scaled ASAT capability (maybe US and China) but no pLEO satellites (rules out US and China).
        ben_w 2mo ago
        Currently, yes. However, based on the rapid development of high-powered lasers, I think we're not too far from it being very cheap. Mostly an optics (adaptive and aperture) problem. This also means it's likely to get deniable very quickly.
      - ben_w 2mo ago
        They could, but this would be unnecessary. I suspect that simply blocking payments from locals to Musk may be enough, considering how Musk reacted when advertisers voted with their wallets to leave X. But nations have other tools, as Brazil showed when a judge ordered a freeze on Starlink assets because X didn't have reachable assets within Brazil to be frozen.
vel0city 2mo ago
Or potentially: C) SpaceX engineers enjoy their cushy salary funded by a guy who won't take "that doesn't make sense" for an answer to work on rockets and neat technology, even if it may never really work out.
- GMoromisato 2mo ago
  That's a different conspiracy theory, for which there is also no evidence.
- fragmede 2mo ago
  Do you know anyone that works at SpaceX? They get paid well, yes, but my friends who work there say they work you really hard. The bet that's being made is that there will be advancements in materials science that make data centers in space viable. If you hypothesize that there's a way to cool things down in space if you just had the right material to do it, it makes sense. Starlink satellites are already compute plus solar panels. Just scale it up! Or course "just" is doing a lot of work here, but that's the theory.
  - vel0city 2mo ago
    > Starlink satellites are already compute plus solar panels. Just scale it up! Starlink satellites use probably less than 1/100th the power budget of even these earlier supposed plans. They don't use much power at all in comparison. They're also big flat pancake for their body, as they want to have a good bit of area for their antenna array. So the other side can just focus on cooling very close to the actual compute parts. It's a radically different set of engineering requirements. For something line the AI1, you're looking at a few million in launch costs for the mass of the cooling system alone and that's assuming they get Starship flying around their projected costs. What's the install cost per rack or cooling equipment on the ground? Even say I'm overshooting it 100%, those numbers still don't sound very good!
ben_w 2mo ago
> Neither of those violate the laws of physics. As I said, they may not work economically, but that depends on a large number of unknowns, including the cost per ton to orbit and the cost per GW of new power capacity on Earth in 2030. If you have a time machine and know those numbers, then can I please borrow your time machine? Alphabet researchers have estimated future launch costs based on learning curves; they estimate that after Starship has launched 370,000 tons to LEO, they will have figured out how to reduce launch costs by enough to make space data centres viable. They optimistically suggested this might take ten years. Given the rate of development of Starship as a launch system, I suspect that Musk will reach federal pension age before this is viable.

vrganj 2mo ago

So between the giant radiator per GPU and the diminished compute capacity, how much mass are we shooting up exactly? This just seems utterly infeasible. You're missing C) SpaceX engineers know it's a bad idea, but can't say anything because it's the tyrant manchild's latest obsession, technology constraints be damned. Remember the vision-only FSD? How's that coming along?

ethbr1 2mo ago
> because it's the tyrant manchild's latest obsession, technology constraints be damned. Imho, there's only one reason that justifies Musk's space-based compute obsession: sovereignty. Specifically, avoiding terrestrial country's. This isn't about AI in space (though I'm sure dumb investors love that), it's about uncensorable Twitter in space, beamed down to Starlink terminals. Which would be one of the few things you'd care about, if you were one of the richest people on the planet... but still subject to those damned nations and their meddling laws.
- jacquesm 2mo ago
  That's exactly it. Musk sees space as extraterritorial, which in the true sense of the word of course it absolutely is. But all those bits have to go to ground somewhere. As long as that somewhere is friendly no problem. That can change.
- solid_fuel 2mo ago
  Yeah, I think Musk loves the idea of sticking his CSAM generators in space, where he thinks they will be beyond the reach of terrestrial laws and morals.
- grim_io 2mo ago
  If Elon wants to offer space-twitter, he still needs to abide by the rules of the country he is offering the service to. Unless he's offering it to the aliens orbiting his magical lawless space data centers.
  - ethbr1 2mo ago
    Does he? Short of countrywide ku-band jamming and/or drone-based RDF at scale, what's the country going to do? It was one thing when you needed a C-band dish to receive, but much harder to deal with a 1-2 ft dish.
    - vrganj 2mo ago
      They could shoot down those data centers for example.
      - ethbr1 2mo ago
        Unreasonably expensive for pLEO volumes (same problem/advantage militaries are looking at) + collateral damage to other nations satellites The only nations who would realistically have that as an option would have a robust scaled ASAT capability (maybe US and China) but no pLEO satellites (rules out US and China).
        ben_w 2mo ago
        Currently, yes. However, based on the rapid development of high-powered lasers, I think we're not too far from it being very cheap. Mostly an optics (adaptive and aperture) problem. This also means it's likely to get deniable very quickly.
    - ben_w 2mo ago
      They could, but this would be unnecessary. I suspect that simply blocking payments from locals to Musk may be enough, considering how Musk reacted when advertisers voted with their wallets to leave X. But nations have other tools, as Brazil showed when a judge ordered a freeze on Starlink assets because X didn't have reachable assets within Brazil to be frozen.

vel0city 2mo ago

Or potentially: C) SpaceX engineers enjoy their cushy salary funded by a guy who won't take "that doesn't make sense" for an answer to work on rockets and neat technology, even if it may never really work out.

GMoromisato 2mo ago
That's a different conspiracy theory, for which there is also no evidence.
fragmede 2mo ago
Do you know anyone that works at SpaceX? They get paid well, yes, but my friends who work there say they work you really hard. The bet that's being made is that there will be advancements in materials science that make data centers in space viable. If you hypothesize that there's a way to cool things down in space if you just had the right material to do it, it makes sense. Starlink satellites are already compute plus solar panels. Just scale it up! Or course "just" is doing a lot of work here, but that's the theory.
- vel0city 2mo ago
  > Starlink satellites are already compute plus solar panels. Just scale it up! Starlink satellites use probably less than 1/100th the power budget of even these earlier supposed plans. They don't use much power at all in comparison. They're also big flat pancake for their body, as they want to have a good bit of area for their antenna array. So the other side can just focus on cooling very close to the actual compute parts. It's a radically different set of engineering requirements. For something line the AI1, you're looking at a few million in launch costs for the mass of the cooling system alone and that's assuming they get Starship flying around their projected costs. What's the install cost per rack or cooling equipment on the ground? Even say I'm overshooting it 100%, those numbers still don't sound very good!

ben_w 2mo ago

> Neither of those violate the laws of physics. As I said, they may not work economically, but that depends on a large number of unknowns, including the cost per ton to orbit and the cost per GW of new power capacity on Earth in 2030. If you have a time machine and know those numbers, then can I please borrow your time machine? Alphabet researchers have estimated future launch costs based on learning curves; they estimate that after Starship has launched 370,000 tons to LEO, they will have figured out how to reduce launch costs by enough to make space data centres viable. They optimistically suggested this might take ten years. Given the rate of development of Starship as a launch system, I suspect that Musk will reach federal pension age before this is viable.