zlacker

>>g-mork+(OP)
A former NASA engineer with a PhD in space electronics who later worked at Google for 10 years wrote an article about why datacenters in space are very technically challenging:

https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horri...

I don't have any specialized knowledge of the physics but I saw an article suggesting the real reason for the push to build them in space is to hedge against political pushback preventing construction on Earth.

I can't find the original article but here is one about datacenter pushback:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-08-20/ai-and...

But even if political pushback on Earth is the real reason, it still seems datacenters in space are extremely technically challenging/impossible to build.

>>n_u+zs
The real reason is, Elon has SpaceX and xAI. He can create an illusion of synergy and orders of magnitude advancements to boost the market cap and pocket all the money. He realized long time ago you don't need to deliver to play the market cap game, in fact it's better if you are selling a story far in the future rather than a something you can deliver now.

>>bgnn+vu1
both can be true, he can excel at 'narrative' and also deliver me my Tesla and my starlink, it's not either or

>>dubeye+MD1
Ok, he delivered your Tesla and your Starlink, but so far he has hasn't delivered your Robotaxi, your Optimus, your lunar lander, your space datacenter etc. And the list keeps getting longer instead of shorter...

>>rob74+GN1
>Robotaxi, your Optimus, your lunar lander, your space datacenter etc. And the list keeps getting longer instead of shorter...

Lets go through this one by one

[1]Robotaxi. Someone just drove coast to coast USA fully on autopilot. I drive my tesla every day, and i literally NEVER disengage autopilot. It gets me to work and back home without fail, to the grocery store, to literally anywhere i need. Whats not full self driving about that? I got in two crashes before i got my Tesla cause i was a dumb teen, but i'm sure my Tesla is a much better driver than my younger sister. Politically it's not FSD, but in reality, it has been for a while.

[2] Optimus has gone through three revisions and has hand technology that is 5+ years ahead of the competition. Even if they launched it as a consumer product now, i'm sure a million people would buy it just as a cool toy/ gadget. AKA a successfull product.

[3] Lunar Lander Starship, a fully reusable, 2 stage rocket that has gone through 25 revisions and is 95% flight proven and has even deployed dummy starlinks. 10+ years ahead of everyone except maybe stoke.

[4]Space Datacenter Have you ever used starlink? They have all the pieces they need... Elon build a giant datacenter in 6 monmths when it takes 3-4 years usually. He has more compute than anybody and Grok is the most intelligent AI by all the metrics outside googles. Combine that with Starship, which can launch 10X the capacity for 10% of the cost, and what reason do you have to doubt him here?

Granted... it always takes him longer than he says, but he always eventually comes through.

>>burner+xy2
> [1]Robotaxi. Someone just drove coast to coast USA fully on autopilot.

Where's the source for this?