← Back to context

Comment by jccooper

12 hours ago

The idea here is that the economics of launch are changing with Starship such that the "incredible cost" and "overspeccing" of space will become much less relevant. There's a world where, because the cost per kg is so low, a data center satellite's compute payload is just the same hardware you'd put in a terrestrial rack, and the satellite bus itself is mass-produced to not-particularly-challenging specs. And they don't have to last 30 years, just 4-ish, when the computer is ready for retirement anyway.

Will that come to be? I'm skeptical, especially within the next several years. Starship would have to perform perfectly, and a lot of other assumptions hold, to make this make sense. But that's the idea.