Thread

Google’s Project Suncatcher to put ML infrastructure in space

233 points · 553 comments · xnx

neuronexmachina · 1790274986 · focus · HN ↗
Whenever I hear about this I can't help but be reminded of the Howard Hughes Glomar Explorer, where a hugely-expensive commercial project was actually part of a secret CIA initiative to recover a Soviet submarine: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_Explorer" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_Explorer
I'm not sure that's truly the case here, but it does seem like the tech Project Suncatcher is working on has at least some overlap with requirements for military SIGINT and in-orbit imagery processing.
1. motionlessveloc · 1790280611 · focus · HN ↗
  Why would the CIA need Google's cover for any of that? The Feds have been flying spy satellites since the 1950s and there's plenty of classified satellite launches.
  1. OkayPhysicist · 1790281215 · focus · HN ↗
    Because anybody near-peer to the US at this point has the capability to shoot down satellites, and anything launched on a classified satellite launch is a prime target.
    motionlessveloc · 1790282419 · focus · HN ↗
    A foreign nation shooting down a US satellite would be an act of war, regardless of whether it's a Google or CIA satellite.
    datadrivenangel · 1790288145 · focus · HN ↗
    but 'accidentally' bumping it with space debris would be an 'accident'.
    jryle70 · 1790295795 · focus · HN ↗
    Well, then American will "accidentally" shoot down their satellites. Nobody wants any of that.
    fulladder · 1790308764 · focus · HN ↗
    Be sure to ask your favorite AI assistant about the time the U.S. "accidentally" bombed a Chinese embassy [1].
    [1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bombing_of_the_Chinese_embassy_in_Belgrade" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bombing_of_the_C...
    OkayPhysicist · 1790351181 · focus · HN ↗
    The US has been prepping for a showdown with China over Taiwan for quite a while now. It's the primary focus of US military strategy, and considering a when, not if. When we're sinking their ships (and them ours), shooting down satellites won't even register as an escalation.
2. aaron695 · 1790290897 · focus · HN ↗
  [dead]
3. maxlin · 1790292229 · focus · HN ↗
  While a bit tin foil hat-y, this is an interesting (conspiracy) theory, even while space datacenters aren't as impractical as some people try to make them to be.
  1. senordevnyc · 1790301189 · focus · HN ↗
    Some people, or physics?
    maxlin · 1790311084 · focus · HN ↗
    Some people, claiming to be the authority on laws of physics. While people actually doing this are obviously more credentialed and talented than said internet fools.
    It's getting quite tiresome.
    DoctorOetker · 1790322988 · focus · HN ↗
    Stefan-Boltzmann law considered conspiracy?
    maxlin · 1790364032 · focus · HN ↗
    Don't you think it's a _bit_ ignorant thinking the engineers at now several companies known for their genius didn't think of it? There's a meme for this kind of armchair drive-by commenting.
    And the preliminary design shapes aren't unknown. They just have huge ass solar panels and radiators. Plenty of space in ... space.
    senordevnyc · 1790368471 · focus · HN ↗
    Literally no one is saying it’s impossible. You claimed it’s not impractical, which is totally different. And yes, as of now, and likely for years to come, launching huge ass panels and radiators into space for data centers is going to be economically impractical, as compared with building the same amount of capacity on earth.
    And why haven’t these genius engineers delivered on basically any of Musk’s promises on time? Or at all, in many cases?
    maxlin · 1790372118 · focus · HN ↗
    >Literally no one is saying it’s impossible
    You have the entirely wrong impression of people here. TONS of people are saying exactly that, and trying to disqualify the whole debate.
    >likely for years to come
    Starship is putting its first business payload to orbit in two days. The craft represents making mass to orbit magnitude(s) cheaper. Read the text on your side mirrors.
    >any of Musk’s promises on time
    I find this argument so frivolous. Ok, so they've made what was considered impossible, _late_ on a few occasions? And they visibly iterate, showing failure, as if it makes them somehow worse? It does kind of sound like you are not the engineering type, or at least don't work with actual hard problems.
    The smartest people are still geniuses and the smartest even if they're late, while no one else is ahead of them.
4. lopsotronic · 1790464226 · focus · HN ↗
  Yeah, no proof, of course (these are spies, at the end of the day . . . like with the Epstein stuff any written records have already been shot into the Sun), but that is a very evocative theory. It explains things better than anything else, given how this whole rigamarole seems to run afoul of some very basic math.
  There's a case to be made that a substantial part of the mobile/social web revolution of the Aughties was at least in part propelled by the exploding budget of the security state post-9/11. LifeLog, In-Q-Tel, a bucket of other programs that have straight-line-relationships with the various Web 2.0 shenanigans. The CIA point man for these operations are recognizable today as some of the new generation of American semi-governmental oligarchs.
  This last year I read that the early Stingrays only worked because they were engineered in from the IMSI standards - it was backdoored at the spec level, not the design level, not the manufacturing level.
  When you step back a moment it makes sense. Who's funding a wireless information infrastructure to every American on the continent, not to mention a sea change in mobile computing manufacturing and development. Different tooling, different design systems, different everything, massive scale . . . what, paid for with advertising? Are you saying Mad Men is paying for all this? That seemed and seems . . . unlikely.

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