this will age poorly. you have both Google, Tesla/X betting on it. They are not stupid and probably have given it way more thought than people's whose paycheques not tied to this have thought about.
This is an ambitious bet, with some possibility of failure but it should say a lot that these companies are investing in them.
I wonder what people think, are these companies so naive?
Edit: Elon, Sundar, Jensen, Jeff are all interested in this. Even China is.
What conspiracy is going on here to explain it? Why would they all put money into this if it is so obvious to all of you that it is not going to work?
Serious question: If you are so sure that this is a big payday, have you put all your net worth into SpaceX? Seems like a no brainer if you fully believe it.
The reason for this "data centers in space" is the same as the "sustained human colony on Mars". It is all pie in the sky ideas to drive valuation and increase Musk's wealth.
Just a small sampling of previous failed Musk promises:
- demonstration drive of full autonomy all the way from LA to New York by the end of 2017
- "autonomous ride hailing in probably half the population of the U.S. by the end of the year"
- “thousands” of Optimus humanoid robots working in Tesla factories by the end of 2025."
- Tesla semi trucks rollout (Pepsi paid for 100 semis in 2017, and deliveries started in 2022, and now 8 years later they have received half of them.)
The thing about Elon is that he's got more than enough credibility with betting on big crazy ideas that he's one of a few people that you have to take seriously.
SpaceX rewriting the entire economic formula for space launches, accounting for almost 90% of all launches globally last year, becoming a critical piece of the Department of Defense while also launching Starlink globally.
Neuralink let's people control computers with their brain, even playing video games. They're working on an implant to cure blindness right now.
I get that the man is politically unpopular in some circles, but it's really difficult to bet against him at this point. So far, the biggest criticism has been that it took a little longer than he initially said to deliver...but he did deliver.
I have put as much money as I believe in it (risk adjusted). And same goes for Google, Spacex, Blue Origin and other companies.
This trope
> It is all pie in the sky ideas to drive valuation and increase Musk's wealth.
Really needs to stop. This is based on a naive interpretation of how wealth gets created. Musk has an amazing reputation getting things done and making things that people like. Whether you like him as a person or not, he has done stuff in the past and that's reason enough to believe him now.
Sure, I don't claim all of them go well. Do you want to run a hypothetical exercise on how many they get right vs wrong? And based on that we can see if this is a "fantasy" or not?
No but you're claiming "if they all are investing X amount then these bets obviously must pan out". If you follow that rationale then it means that all bets that these company's make in the same space must all pan out. So if they don't all pan out then the fact that they're all making bets isn't a sound rationale for it being true.
As others have pointed out, investors notoriously have FOMO, so rationale actors (CEOs of big tech) naturally are incentivized to make bets and claims that they are betting on things that the market believes to be true regardless if they are so as to appease shareholders.
> simply that most bets are made intelligently with serious intent.
That is NOT what you said. You said this:
> Why would they all put money into this if it is so obvious to all of you that it is not going to work?
In other words: "if these companies are putting all of this money to work then it's obvious it will work"
So, no you didn't simply say "their bets are made intelligently with serious intent". No one is saying these companies aren't serious about it, they are saying there are legitimate physics limitations involved here that are either being ignored or the companies are betting on a novel scientific breakthrough.
> your take on investors is naive and largely incorrect - its the musical chairs theory of markets.
Then you clearly have never worked with investors before.
Here’s our point of disagreement: I think smart people have made a bet in this with serious intent after considering all the pitfalls.
You think they are either deliberately ignoring it (so ridiculous) or they are betting on a scientific breakthrough.
It’s too comical to even address the “they are ignoring it part” so I’ll ignore it.
I would agree with you that part of their bet might involve hoping for breakthroughs and the investment analysis probably factored it in.
Lots of earlier investments have banked on breakthroughs like this.
Also your opinion on how markets work is naive and unscientific.
Because it will inflate their stock valuations? It's like with fusion energy or going to Mars etc., constantly X years away and currently economically unfeasible.
I'm not sure if you're joking, but "AI datacenter in space" is the kind of phrase that attracts investors, that's straight from Musk's playbook for keeping the stock trading at ridiculous P/Es, especially now that he is planning SpaceX IPO.
why does it attract investors if it is so obvious that it will fail?
it is a ridiculous conspiracy theory you are trying to assert - musk comes up with an absurd idea that captures investor's attention. its not like he wants to make a good product, he just wants to fool investors. not only that, he fools them, gets the money and then puts said money into this venture that obviously won't work. why does he waste his time into a venture that obviously won't work? who knows
You should ask yourself this, not me, you're the one who blindly believes what Musk says. He also said he was creating a new political party in the US, how's that going? Did you believe him when he talked about landing people on Mars in 2018? It’s 2026. How is boring company going? etc.
I think you're overinterpreting what I wrote and projecting. I'm telling you how the physics works, and the physics is simple here: unless you change the physics or discover some exotic, cheap materials, this is 100% not economically viable today or in the near future.
You didn't answer my questions. How is The Boring company going? And in this context, you can also ask: "Is he putting money into something that will obviously fail?"
Also, go back and read how many people who were "smarter than him" there nine years ago:
You know why I mentioned hydrogen energy earlier? There was a Financial Times article last month titled "Hydrogen dreams meet reality as oil and gas groups abandon projects", which notes that "Almost 60 major low carbon hydrogen projects—including ones backed by BP and ExxonMobil—have been cancelled" because they weren't economically feasible. Space data centers are in the same place today. It's physics.
And none of the people you mentioned have invested in this. They may be interested and might research the topic, but that's not the same thing. I've yet to see any plan that explains how they'll replace failed hardware and manage heat while keeping the whole thing economically feasible.
You're using an uninteresting appeal to authority argument again.
So let's talk physics. Are you familiar with the radiative heat-balance problem? You can use the Stefan–Boltzmann law to calculate how many radiators you'd need.
Required area:
A = P / (eps * sigma * eta * (Tr^4 - Tsink^4))
Where:
A = radiator area [m^2]
P = waste heat to dump [W]
eps = emissivity (0..1)
sigma = 5.670374419e-8 W/m^2/K^4
eta = non ideal factor for view/blockage/etc (0..1)
Tr = radiator temperature [K]
Tsink = effective sink temperature [K] (deep space ~3 K, ~0 for Tr sizing)
Assuming best conditions so deep space, eps~0.9, eta~1:
At Tr=300K: ~413 W/m^2
At Tr=350K: ~766 W/m^2
At Tr=400K: ~1307 W/m^2
So for 10 MW at 350K (basically around 77°C): A ~ 1e7 / 766 ≈ 13,006 m^2 (best case).
And even in the best case scenario it's only 10 MW and we're not counting radiation from the sun or IR from the moon/earth etc. so in real life, it will be even higher.
You can build 10 MW nuclear power plant (microreactor) with the datacenter included on Earth for the same price.
Show me your numbers or lay out a plan for how to make it economically feasible in space.
Because "investors" are a large group. Many of them are not involved in the industry and are clueless about tech. Same reason they invest in OpenAI, that hasn't made any money.
Investors, both commercial and individual, often have more money than sense.
I didn't say they make it. They have it, like an older person who grew their portfolio over time. They are an example of someone who invests in AI without knowing anything about what it is.
Google is hardly betting on it; they are exploring the feasibility of it and are frank about the engineering challenges:
> significant engineering challenges remain, such as thermal management, high-bandwidth ground communications, and on-orbit system reliability.[1]
why do you think this changes what i said? I know it has constraints but the fact is that Google is serious about it. Enough to publicly speak about it many times and invest enormous amounts of R&D.
You are saying they are "hardly betting on it". This is grossly false and I wonder why you would write that? Its clearly a serious bet, with lots of people working on it.
> Google CEO Sundar Pichai says we’re just a decade away from a new normal of extraterrestrial data centers
Its surely a high risk bet but that's how Google has been operating for a while. But why would you say they are hardly betting on it?
As a counter question: do you think Google is not serious about it?
I never said Google wasn't serious; I said they are hardly betting on it relative to their other capital expenditures. Google rightfully describes this as a "moonshot." To date, the only public hardware commitment is two prototype satellites in 2027 for a feasibility study. Compared to the billions pouring into Waymo, DeepMind, and terrestrial data centers, this doesn't yet qualify as an "enormous" financial bet, even if the engineering intent is serious.
This is an ambitious bet, with some possibility of failure but it should say a lot that these companies are investing in them.
I wonder what people think, are these companies so naive?
Edit: Elon, Sundar, Jensen, Jeff are all interested in this. Even China is.
What conspiracy is going on here to explain it? Why would they all put money into this if it is so obvious to all of you that it is not going to work?