pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
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User ID: 278
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
11hr ago
Ok, I've been persuaded to accede that SpaceX themselves can not really be said to have delivered any payload to the moon yet.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
11hr ago
Indeed, I've had a fully submerged mineral oil PC rig since before Covid.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
16hr ago
Basically, space is the last place you want to put your data center. Putting your computers basically anywhere else, be it in high altitude balloons, the summit of Mt Everest, the Mariana Trench, Point Nemo, downtown Manhattan, on harnesses worn by stray cats, the surface of the Moon, the rectal cavities of cybertruck drivers, Antarctica, Gaza (to just brainstorm a few not-so-good ideas) is going to be much less of a hassle than LEO.
I think you're greatly exaggerating. Deep ocean is a much more hostile and inaccessible location than LEO by almost any possible metric I can think of except, possibly, the energy cost of reaching it. The Moon is much further away, requires much more Δv, and isn't even sunny for half the time. Antarctica is extremely energy-poor and is unavailable for commercialization in any case.
While solar power is plentiful in space, computing turns the energy consumed into heat, and radiative cooling is not very efficient, especially if you want your chips to run at 400K and not 4000K.
At 400K, your panels should be able to reject over 1KW per m² to deep space, continuously. That's actually pretty efficient! You can do better with air cooling of course, so long as you don't care about environment heating at all, but that's also at some energy cost.
It is not that computing in space is impossible per se (every cubesat does some, after all), it is just that it is extremely painful compared to computing dirtside.
Dirtside computing can be infinitely painful, depending how uncooperative governments want to be with regulations and lawsuits. At least in LEO there's limited jurisdiction.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
17hr ago
I actually also agree with the main thrust of his post, but orbital datacenters make zero sense unless you’re wrongly thinking “space = cold” instead of “space = vacuum”.
Well, space is a vacuum, yes, but the radiative heat sink is extremely cold. People have suggested testing cooling in a vacuum chamber to prove the infeasibility, but this misses the critical factor that the vacuum chamber walls are not ~2 K, and the efficacy of radiative cooling scales by the differences in temperature to the 4th power.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
17hr ago
You have to be able to pay money for zero things.
You don't need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Take a look at my cousin: he's broke, don't do shit.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
17hr ago
The still-standing totally nonfunctional signals are a nice touch too.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
1d ago
Those landing failures had nothing to do with SpaceX. They delivered the payloads to the correct insertion velocity, so the SpaceX portion of the mission was successful.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
1d ago
Wrong, Falcon 9 has delivered several lunar missions. Disregarding even missions to lunar orbit:
| Mission | Launch Date | Spacecraft | Launch Mass |
|---|---|---|---|
| HAKUTO‑R Mission 1 | Dec 2022 | ispace lunar lander | |
| IM‑1 (Odysseus) | Feb 2024 | Intuitive Machines Nova‑C | 1,900 kg |
| Blue Ghost Mission 1 | Jan 2025 | Firefly Blue Ghost | 1,517 kg |
| HAKUTO‑R Mission 2 (Resilience) | Jan 2025 | ispace lunar lander | 1,000 kg |
| Total | ~5,417 kg (5.4 t) |
This is enough to put SpaceX above every nation except China (barely) and the USSR, with just Falcon 9/Heavy.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
1d ago
There's a chance of this year, but given the current cautious pace, I think next year is a little more likely. BO's pad mishap has removed even the small amount of competitive pressure they were bringing, for now. If the next flight has a successful relight with no issues, they'll go for it on the flight after. If no manufacturing or testing delays, that would probably be later this year. If there are any flight glitches or testing issues, that will slip. The gigabay production facilities nearing completion in both Texas and Florida will mean an increase in flight cadence is very likely in either case.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
1d ago
Small probes are irrelevant next to ~100 tons of soft-landed payloads.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
1d ago
Ironically you won your bet mostly due to SpaceX being so far ahead of the competition they can afford to proceed with much more caution that they previously have. Starship has undoubtedly been capable of achieving orbit for over a year now, each launch deliberately bringing it just under that threshold, and the only reason it hasn't is because SpaceX doesn't want to run the minor risk that an uncontrolled re-entry results. This makes it likely that once they are confident that uncontrolled re-entry is a mitigated risk orbital starship launches will go from "never" to "always".
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
1d ago
Adding +1 vote for each child under 18 would also create good incentives and add balancing power to those who choose family over income. I think the problem you describe isn't too large a problem, as market forces would be constantly fighting against it.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
2d ago
This becomes an easier problem to solve if you permit multiple votes per person. Then you could, e.g., divide the total income tax collected by the number of registered voters, and give each voter a number of votes equal to their shares of taxes paid, rounding up, with a minimum of one and a maximum of, say, 10. Rough figures put that share at about $15,000, so for every $15,000 of federal income taxes paid, you get an extra vote, up to 10, which would correspond to an income of around $500K. This would weight the franchise in favor of those with skin in the game without giving wildly disproportionate power to the ultra-wealthy. (This would also have the side benefit of incentivizing cleaning up voter roles, to decrease the denominator of the income contribution and raise the price of additional votes for the wealthy).
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
6d ago
You will be protected from the Terrible Secret of Space
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
6d ago
It's not just crime and disorder, it's mismanagement in general. Many large cities have very high taxes and struggle to deliver basic civic services beyond safety, like transit, parks, civic maintenance, or public improvements. Every year, things get shittier and worse. Tore out the flowers. Closed up the toilets. Potholes unpatched. Children can't read. Removed the benches. Tore down the statues. Closed the library branch. Closed the public pool. Stopped maintaining the beach. Stopped mowing the grass. No more leaf collection. Let brush overgrow everything. Cut the municipal office hours. Added more sales tax. Added more property tax. Added more income tax. Increased salary and benefits. It's maddening, it never ends.
ETA: Oh yeah! And no more fireworks on the 4th of July!
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
6d ago
If we go off the notion that America is a Christian nation with Christian values
It isn't, not anymore if it ever was.
then the US responsibility is really high to help
Only if you accept the hidden premise that the government is a moral avatar of the individuals it governs, which I've seen little basis for in Christian teachings.
those in need
It's not obvious why people on the other side of the planet who are intentionally and willfully giving themselves sexually transmitted diseases would fall into that category. You're wrapping in utilitarian concepts of "need" wherein saving the life of a fool you will never know or meet is a greater "need" than, say, mentoring a young man in your neighborhood so he doesn't end up in prison. And that's putting aside whether most of the help is even reaching those who need it.
Which we can see in how religious charities are some of the most helpful around in the third world.
Indeed, and who funds those I wonder?
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
6d ago
Because in the modern day in first world nations, most victim complaints are not real.
Real or not, they are used because they work. You will never convince people to stop whining about being victims as long as rewards - material, social, or political - flow to those who claim victimhood status.
Antarctica is closed to economic exploitation by international treaty. It's the complete opposite of escaping terrestrial legal jurisdiction. As for oceanic datacenters, they have a lot of technical disadvantages compared to orbital components. Large vessels would be preferable for stability, security, and navigational control, but power generation becomes impractical unless you permit commercial maritime nuclear reactors, which seems unlikely, or plan to have LNG refueling tankers visit every few weeks, which is expensive. A constellation of small solar powered vessels scales a lot less conveniently in the ocean, given communications constraints from the ground, security difficulties, and the scale of ordinary maritime maintenance that is necessary.
So, I think you are wrong - there are other advantages. In orbit, security is a non-issue, environmental degradation is minimal, solar power is abundant, communications are easier, and in general the floor cost per node is lower, meaning that scaling down incurs fewer penalties.
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