Comment by osigurdson
9 hours ago
I suspect Musk has a workable plan of some sort, realistically. Clearly, the one thing that is available in space is an abundance of square meters. There is no need whatsoever to conserve space at sufficient orbit. It is a little counter intuitive as we are so used to needing to conserve all the things.
Power input and heat radiation both scale with area so maybe there is some way to achieve this at scale. For instance, maybe it will not look like a traditional data center or even traditional chips.
The rumor I heard is that Musk's big issue with SpaceX was that he was only able to employ US citizens with a security clearance, as per the limitations of a rocket company, which he has rallied against multiple times.
One of the motivations behind this whole thing could be that he could make a way for foreign talent to work on space projects without the necessary government signoff.
Would that really be that much of an unlock?
Yes. I don't have an estimate right off the bat, but if you considered all the people employed at top tech companies, what percentage do you think are US nationals eligible for a security clearance?
I'd say less than a third.
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