Because a LOT of people are missing the point:
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@cstross won't Kessler Syndrome make space launch dead as a business long before that?
@fazalmajid No, because the density of particles in orbit falls off as the inverse cube of their altitude—the volume of space around Earth is vast, and the probability of an impact is a function of the particle density at any given altitude and how long your payload spends there on the way up. Starship could plausibly deliver comsat constellations to altitudes much higher than the overcrowded 200km orbits Starlink is crammed into, where impact probability is far lower.
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@oldgeek @lucien @cstross
At 1:14:17 in the latest rant by @TechConnectify
https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM?t=1h14m17sImagine if government never built power lines to rural areas. They'd probably be singing praises to orbiting space lasers beaming them energy at huge expense or the delivery robot drones dropping off daily fuel shipments for their generators.
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@cstross Starlink might be the only thing one of his companies got right. I've been using one for a while now and it's a game changer when living somewhere remote. I wish we had a suitable EU competitor and not have to contribute to this man's lunacy...
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@cstross isn't Starship becoming less and less useful as they keep 'iterating' it's development?
That giant cargo capacity keeps on dropping.
@dgold Starship's first stage works fine (and has even re-flown), engines work fine (ditto). The problem is the upper stage design and the push for full reusability. If they throw away the stupid heat shield and make it a one-shot they could settle for a cheap disposable upper stage with monstrous payload capacity, and they could build it *right now*.
Once they had a 200 tonne payload HLV flying reliably, resuming incremental progress towards reusability would be uncontroversial.
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Because a LOT of people are missing the point:
No, Elon Musk is NOT serious about putting a million data centres into orbit. It can't work: laws of physics say "nope".
But SpaceX is expected to go public this year.
Elon is talking up his company's future prospects in front of gullible investors because he needs a growth narrative beyond Starlink, which is already priced in. Something to justify the Starship proram beyond NASA's lunar ambitions.
So it's salesman's bullshit, lies for fools.
@cstross Elon keeps talking the dumbest shit every time he opens his mouth and everyone just starts throwing money at him without any thinking. Like, anyone remembers stupid Hyperloop? I kept saying that shit cannot ever work from day one and every time I was told he's the genius and I'm the idiot. Well, where's the fucking Hyperloop in every city?
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@bellegraylane @cstross
Musk merged Xitter with xAI to justify its high valuation to investors as an AI company now.
The same crap with Tesla being rebranded an AI robotaxi and humanoid robot company.So makes sense to pull the same trick with SpaceX to gullible investors. That it's really an AI company so that SpaceX can afford to bail out Tesla when it buys all those unsold Cybertrucks.
Won't be surprised when Neuralink is touted as an AI company next
@bornach @bellegraylane @cstross just waiting for The Boring Company to pivot to AI…
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@bitterkarella @cstross @tony @polypunk
This email exchange particularly but there are at least 2 others I've seen (one of which looked like he actually made it to the island)
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@bitterkarella @cstross @tony @polypunk
This email exchange particularly but there are at least 2 others I've seen (one of which looked like he actually made it to the island)
@gbargoud @cstross @bitterkarella @tony @polypunk Wow. “Hey guys I wanna come party on pedo island!” “Nah man, you missed it, so sad”
As a nerd who’s gotten quite accustomed to living on the outer fringe of the Cool Kids Klub, this dialog feels hauntingly familiar.
Still gross, but also pathetic
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@fazalmajid No, because the density of particles in orbit falls off as the inverse cube of their altitude—the volume of space around Earth is vast, and the probability of an impact is a function of the particle density at any given altitude and how long your payload spends there on the way up. Starship could plausibly deliver comsat constellations to altitudes much higher than the overcrowded 200km orbits Starlink is crammed into, where impact probability is far lower.
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@bitterkarella @cstross @tony @polypunk
This email exchange particularly but there are at least 2 others I've seen (one of which looked like he actually made it to the island)
"sorry Elon, we're... Err.....away that weekend.... and anyway I don't think I'm gonna do anymore parties...."
<gestures at all the other half naked orgy goers to be quiet >
".... yeah, so maybe another time?.... OK, love you, bye"
<hangs up, naked mariachi band strikes up, Bill Gates stage dives into pit of naked girls>
"..... Jesus Ghislaine, how did he get my new number?"
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Because a LOT of people are missing the point:
No, Elon Musk is NOT serious about putting a million data centres into orbit. It can't work: laws of physics say "nope".
But SpaceX is expected to go public this year.
Elon is talking up his company's future prospects in front of gullible investors because he needs a growth narrative beyond Starlink, which is already priced in. Something to justify the Starship proram beyond NASA's lunar ambitions.
So it's salesman's bullshit, lies for fools.
@cstross
I still keep trying to think of any reason, at all, to put a data center in orbit. Obviously musk is going for stock but Nvidia also said something about this a year ago ( or was it someone else?).It's literally the dumbest possible idea to the point where I tried to figure out if relativity helps at all since time would move faster (short answer - not nearly enough).
Heat, power, size, latency, repairability - there's genuinely no upside
It's a weird one
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Because a LOT of people are missing the point:
No, Elon Musk is NOT serious about putting a million data centres into orbit. It can't work: laws of physics say "nope".
But SpaceX is expected to go public this year.
Elon is talking up his company's future prospects in front of gullible investors because he needs a growth narrative beyond Starlink, which is already priced in. Something to justify the Starship proram beyond NASA's lunar ambitions.
So it's salesman's bullshit, lies for fools.
@cstross
His real goal is getting price of payload to previous down another 100x.
He's already massively reduced the price with space x (for starlink) but it may be that doing it again will be harder -
Because a LOT of people are missing the point:
No, Elon Musk is NOT serious about putting a million data centres into orbit. It can't work: laws of physics say "nope".
But SpaceX is expected to go public this year.
Elon is talking up his company's future prospects in front of gullible investors because he needs a growth narrative beyond Starlink, which is already priced in. Something to justify the Starship proram beyond NASA's lunar ambitions.
So it's salesman's bullshit, lies for fools.
@cstross Musk's whole hustle is to make increasingly grandiose claims to inflate his stocks. None of his big ideas ever materialize though. If Musk were credible, we'd have a colony on Mars by now (among much else that is simply never going to happen). It's so frustrating that the media continue to neutrally report his bombastic nonsense as if he wasn't just the world's most successful confidence trickster.
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@cstross Musk's whole hustle is to make increasingly grandiose claims to inflate his stocks. None of his big ideas ever materialize though. If Musk were credible, we'd have a colony on Mars by now (among much else that is simply never going to happen). It's so frustrating that the media continue to neutrally report his bombastic nonsense as if he wasn't just the world's most successful confidence trickster.
@ApostateEnglishman "None of the big ideas ever materialize" except the launcher with the payload of the space shuttle at $12M/flight that is *more reusable* than the shuttle ( 8 day turnaround between flights! 50 reuses per booster and climbing!) or disrupting the car industry by making EVs sexy. Or the low orbit comsat cluster.
Most of his bullshit evaporates on close inspection or goes wrong—but enough of it works to keep everything afloat.
(Shun anything he says about software, though.)
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Because a LOT of people are missing the point:
No, Elon Musk is NOT serious about putting a million data centres into orbit. It can't work: laws of physics say "nope".
But SpaceX is expected to go public this year.
Elon is talking up his company's future prospects in front of gullible investors because he needs a growth narrative beyond Starlink, which is already priced in. Something to justify the Starship proram beyond NASA's lunar ambitions.
So it's salesman's bullshit, lies for fools.
@cstross Yup. Nail on head. It's all meme hype now.
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@ApostateEnglishman "None of the big ideas ever materialize" except the launcher with the payload of the space shuttle at $12M/flight that is *more reusable* than the shuttle ( 8 day turnaround between flights! 50 reuses per booster and climbing!) or disrupting the car industry by making EVs sexy. Or the low orbit comsat cluster.
Most of his bullshit evaporates on close inspection or goes wrong—but enough of it works to keep everything afloat.
(Shun anything he says about software, though.)
@cstross @ApostateEnglishman sort of like how Tesla is down 46% in sales this year and no longer the #1 electric car but that's alright, were going to male robots instead. -
Because a LOT of people are missing the point:
No, Elon Musk is NOT serious about putting a million data centres into orbit. It can't work: laws of physics say "nope".
But SpaceX is expected to go public this year.
Elon is talking up his company's future prospects in front of gullible investors because he needs a growth narrative beyond Starlink, which is already priced in. Something to justify the Starship proram beyond NASA's lunar ambitions.
So it's salesman's bullshit, lies for fools.
@cstross Yes. But selling this *idea* is still likely to be very bad for any rational and responsible use of our orbital space.
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@cstross @ApostateEnglishman sort of like how Tesla is down 46% in sales this year and no longer the #1 electric car but that's alright, were going to male robots instead.
@Nimbius666 @ApostateEnglishman Musk is trying to ride the AI bubble. Seems he hasn't realized he's riding it like Slim Pickens:
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