spikels

Besides the 3 big NASA missions there are 5+ non-SpaceX missions (Superbird-9, Astrolab, Starlab, ASI Mars and lunar cargo trips). Article ignores this and lots of other info that goes against its doomer narrative.

Starlink works at high attitudes. It was a big deal when they got it at McMurdo 4 years ago. Same in Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow) Alaska.

Scam Plan

(1) Give $11B away

(2) ???

(3) Profit

It's very expensive. Their extremely optimistic estimates of a minimum viable Mars colony is $1 trillion ($25B a year for 40 years).

Launch services, satelite internet, orbital compute and now cell service are all ways of financing the development of the required tech tree and eventually the Mars colony itself.

Same weight or slightly more for standard range version, same or slightly less for long-range version. Same volume.

There are multiple people in these comments saying it's impossible.

Strange they don't mention how many stones. Image shows two. There are three today and four, maybe five, originally.

Not only was Chat Control 1.0 already rejected twice by the European Parliament but:

- This vote took place on last day of the session when many MEPs had already left for Summer vacation - 112 MEPs of 719 didn't vote.

- The vote was called only two days before as an "Rule 170 - Urgent procedure" - 73 MEPs missed the vote making it "urgent". Normally it takes months of procedure to come up for a final vote.

Today both "newspapers" lie about everything. Sad.

The US uses ~0.5 TW of electricity on average but to go 100% solar you would need ~3 TW of solar capacity (6X average usage) and ~30 TWh of battery storage, maybe lots more, plus a massive upgrade to the grid.

Chrysler (now Stellantis), Honda, Toyota and Geely all had/have rocketry divisions and many more auto companies have/are involved in the Aerospace industry more generally.

Musk never promised $1T revenue by 2030. Maybe that's the problem here.

I think there are other reasons and am capable of critical thought. A variety of synergies have been discussed publicly for at least 9 years. This article lists several of them.

This guy joked about it in 2013:

https://x.com/Loh/status/362036803517169664

A Wall St analyst was asking questions about it on Tesla earnings calls in 2016 and later wrote a research note about the idea. Been widely discussed since.

https://www.roic.ai/quote/TSLA/transcripts/2016-year/2-quart...

That the earliest mentions I could quickly find.

It's been discussed for at least a decade. A Wall St analyst even wrote a note suggesting it back in 2017 that was widely covered in the media. Most people think is very likely to happen eventually.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/05/the-case-for-elon-musk-to-co...

Google is paying $12.00 per gpu-hour which costs SpaceX $1.50-$3.50.

Who's taking advantage of who?

The saga of Musk's 2018 Tesla pay package.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/19/musk-tesla-pay-delaware-supr...

The list of people saying they're going to put compute in space is getting long. Unlikely they're all dumb or faking it. It is clearly technically feasible but how the economics will develop is still unknown.

   Starcloud
   Axiom Space
   SpaceX (Starlink orbital data center constellation)
   Google (Project Suncatcher)
   Lonestar Data Holdings
   Blue Origin (TeraWave/Project Sunrise)
   Aetherflux (Galactic Brain)
   Kepler Communications
   Sophia Space
   Madari Space
   Adaspace / ADA Space / Guoxing Aerospace (China)
   Orbital (LA-based AI inference constellation)
   Atomic-6
   Planet Labs (with Google)
   Crusoe (partnership with Starcloud)
   Edge Aerospace
   Rotonium
   Lux Aeterna
   Star Catcher
   Loft Orbital
   Cowboy Space
   OrbitsEdge
   Galaxia (Canada)
   China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC)
   Beijing Orbital Twilight / Orbital Chenguang
   Astro-Future Institute
   Space Compass (NTT + SKY Perfect JSAT JV, with JAXA support)
   NASA + HPE (Spaceborne Computer)
   European Union / ESA / ASCEND (Thales Alenia Space, Airbus, ArianeGroup, HPE, Orange)
   UNOOSA (with Madari Space)
   Canada’s Department of National Defence (with Galaxia)

No I don't ever give up. I would have to be dead or completely incapacitated.

-Elon

https://x.com/XFreeze/status/2012390928221094335

It's a two-seater

Haha. It's less than 1,000 words that would take less than 5 minutes to read.

I bet much less than half of the hundreds of HN commenters here bother to read it. Many are clearly unfamiliar with its content.

Google is currently working on AI data centers in space.

https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/research/go...

What temperature were you assuming?

Because the amount of energy radiated varies with the temperature to the fourth power (P=εσT^4).

Assuming very good emissivity (ε=0.95) and ~75C (~350K) operating temperature I get 808 W/m2.

Power would almost certainly mostly come from solar panels. The SpaceX-xAI press release mentions using mass drivers which are electrically powered. Could make Hydrogen-Oxygen rocket fuel but not needed in Moon's lower gravity/thin atmosphere.

It was originally for $15B. They raised $20B of which $2B was from Tesla.

Your sources might be shady (Elektrek?).

Google, Blue Origin and a bunch of other companies have announced plans for data centers in space. I don't think cooling is the showstopper some assume.

Google, Blue Origin and at least 5 other smaller companies have announced plans to build data centers in space. My understanding is the cooling issue is not the show stopper you assume.

Context missing. This is in reference to a vision the (distant?) future where the satellites are manufactured in factories on the Moon and sent into space with mass drivers.

Full paragraph quote comes from:

> While launching AI satellites from Earth is the immediate focus, Starship’s capabilities will also enable operations on other worlds. Thanks to advancements like in-space propellant transfer, Starship will be capable of landing massive amounts of cargo on the Moon. Once there, it will be possible to establish a permanent presence for scientific and manufacturing pursuits. Factories on the Moon can take advantage of lunar resources to manufacture satellites and deploy them further into space. By using an electromagnetic mass driver and lunar manufacturing, it is possible to put 500 to 1000 TW/year of AI satellites into deep space, meaningfully ascend the Kardashev scale and harness a non-trivial percentage of the Sun’s power. >