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Google’s Project Suncatcher to put ML infrastructure in space

233 points · 553 comments · xnx

  1. fwlr · · focus · HN ↗
    Yes, the physics are worse, and yes, the economics are worse, but data centers in space have the crucial advantage that they are out of range of the molotov-throwing arm of Joe Public (recently unemployed).
    1. octoberfranklin · · focus · HN ↗
      I dunno, considering how various insurgent groups manage to make some reasonably impressive rocketry, I have to believe that in a few years with AI assistance (abliterate all the things) knocking a LEO satellite out of orbit won't be that much harder than sabotaging an electrical substation.

      We're talking about an exceptionally vulnerable target with a perfectly predictable path of travel here. And it's constantly emitting lots of RF making it easy to track. You just have to get near it and explode with shrapnel.

      Totally illegal, of course. But it will be within the reach of millions of people if they want to do it.

      I don't think "just move to space bro" is going to stop the pitchfork-mob.

      1. mitxela · · focus · HN ↗
        You still need hundreds of tonnes of rocket fuel no matter what, though.
        1. jmb99 · · focus · HN ↗
          Back of the napkin math says a bare minimum of ~2000kg of solid fuel in three stages to “get to” GEO using a 3-stage rocket, to deliver 1kg of “something.” You’d need a gravity assist highly elliptical orbit which is a touch harder to pull off (but probably not harder than getting 2000kg of ammonium perchlorate). Plus building the actual rocket, guidance computer, etc.

          Not trivial but not impossible. If you’ve got a few hundred million people with nothing better to do, I’m sure a few dozen/hundred could pull it off.

          1. koolba · · focus · HN ↗
            I always thought it’d be some kind of railgun. A 1 kg slug would take out just about any satellite.
            1. mitxela · · focus · HN ↗
              If you have a vacuum-filled gun barrel extending out of the atmosphere.
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