Startup I used to work at fueled Cingular's mobile storefront and distributed those J2ME games along with ringtones and graphics. Those were the days...
Never heard of Talos before now. That looks pretty cool and I might start playing with that on my home lab. Can't use it at work for reasons, but good to keep on top of tech (even if I am a little behind)
This dude did a complete walkthrough setting up a Talos cluster on bare metal: https://datavirke.dk/posts/bare-metal-kubernetes-part-1-talo... It's a nice read. I have my own Talos cluster running in my homelab now for over a year with similar stuff (but no Ceph).
They taught me that Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in space. Which is probably something else these space data centers will struggle against, it'll be interesting to see how much shielding they have against impacts. There was a Soyuz that had a coolant leak blamed on a micrometeorite strike.
If a giant chunk of the constellation can act as a truly huge antenna, what can you get from that? Super high resolution? Seek/dwell time on a target that is effectively infinite?
No need for the satellite manufacturer to be the same as the launch provider, and there's nothing at all special about short-lived commodity satellites for LEO constellations. SpaceX is going to be cost-effective at building them given their experience with Starlink, but cost isn't typically a major concern of the US govt, and certainly not a higher priority than concerns about the satellite operator frequently suggesting that access to his satellites might be contigent upon his views on a particular conflict.
> but cost isn't typically a major concern of the US govt
tell that to any project that has had their budget slashed or out right canceled because somebody thought their project was a waste of money. every contractor is bidding unless your name is Halliburton. what's the famous astronaut quote about sitting on top of a rocket built by the lowest bidding contractor?
2/3 of Falcon 9 launches are for Starlink. No outside revenue. SpaceX continues to require new investment rounds. So the whole "driving costs down" thing might only work until investors expect some actual free cash flow.
There have been 11 test launches of starship. You might've missed the last one because it didn't do anything new, except shedding parts and exploding less. There's a pretty good chance that program will never beat the cost of Falcon Heavy, or that the technology, like multiple refueling flights to get beyond low Earth orbit, is ever made workable.
The last Starship launch was indeed unspectacular because it didn't try pushing the envelope particularly hard. The previous launches were much more precarious, with many fire balls. But I'm a strong believer in iterative development. It's bad PR when everyone can see every failed prototype, but the "design it once, simulate, and make sure the first prototype flies without issues" boxes you in to conservative design decisions.
Well, if 2/3 of SpaceX's current launches are for Starlink (which deploys satellites in LEO), isn't a two-stage, fully reusable vehicle optimized for LEO deployment the thing SpaceX would want to build?
In terms of "free cash flow" expectations, are you aware that approximately 90% of "space" revenue and profit comes from satellite telecom services, with launch services accounting for about 10% of the mix? SpaceX's development of a telecommunications constellation (Starlink) is highly consistent with historical industry patterns of what makes profit in space.
If SpaceX only had contract money as revenue, they'd be fine but they probably would not be innovating as fast. The investment rounds are to pay for Starlink build-out and Starship.
How could you even think the opposite to be a better option?
The US does suffer from a serious amount of issues politically (I'm 100% convinced that presidential republics are flawed) but it's still an organization with plenty of checks requiring popular mandate.
No single private individual should ever hold this kind of influence imho, not even if it is Gandhi or a saint and Musk is quite the other end of the spectrum.
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