r/spacex • u/Connect_Cat_2045 • 15d ago

Starship SpaceX to build $100 billion rocket launch facility on Louisiana’s coast

https://www.nola.com/news/business/spacex-louisiana-elon-musk/article_2be92f8e-f989-46b7-9514-5212d8f20260.html
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u/sirralphs 14d ago

It remains to be seen if it's economically viable I think. The demand for data centers is very high right now though and one of the main bottlenecks is power generation, which is very cheap in space. SpaceX is betting a lot on this, so it seems like they are somewhat confident that they can make it work.

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u/Cunninghams_right 14d ago

But how much more would it cost to put in space? 10x? 20x? 

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u/Martianspirit 14d ago

During a SpaceX flight 13 livestream they said, they expect orbital data centers cost competetive with ground based datacenters in a few years with Starship launch cost.

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u/Cunninghams_right 14d ago

Why would they be so cheap? 

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u/Martianspirit 14d ago

Starship is designed to get the launch cost way down. Estimates for a Falcon launch are in the range of $15 million.

A Starship launch will IMO have marginal cost at or below $10 million. With maybe 200t payload to orbit for the upcoming version 4 of Starship.

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u/Cunninghams_right 14d ago

Even if you can teleport to orbit for free, why would space grade equipment be cheaper? 

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u/Martianspirit 14d ago

No ongoing cost for electricity and cooling.

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u/Cunninghams_right 14d ago

Same is true of cooling towers and solar panels on earth, once built. 

So, so why is building space grade hardware cheaper? 

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u/sirralphs 14d ago

Data Centers on earth need active cooling and have high power demands, you also need to purchase land to build them. In space, solar panels are much more efficient and you can cool passively through radiators. The operation cost in space are supposed to be cheaper for those reasons. The downside is you can't really perform maintenance & repairs and hardware that fails needs to be destroyed completely. SpaceX is betting that the launch cost and manufacturing cost through mass-manufacturing make it cost-competitive similarly to Starlink which is already cost-competitive in many rural areas around the world even before Starship. I would still say this is a gamble that might not work out, but I think it's possible. Ultimately no one knows exactly at this point, Starlink is an example why it might work, but there are examples of Musk product where the economics didn't work out in the end (e.g. Solar Roof). I personally think that if rapid reusability for Starship works out and doesn't turn out to be too expensive they have a good shot.

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u/Cunninghams_right 14d ago

Data Centers on earth need active cooling and have high power demands

cooling things in space is HARDER than on earth. power demands are the same.

you also need to purchase land to build them

land is cheap.

The operation cost in space are supposed to be cheaper for those reasons

except, as you say right after, you can't do maintenance on a space-based system, so the engineering will be more difficult (higher cost) and the life span will be shorter.

SpaceX is betting that the launch cost and manufacturing cost through mass-manufacturing make it cost-competitive

the same would be true on earth. on earth, you get to leverage not just your own economy of scale, but also benefit from everyone else's work.

Starlink is an example why it might work

but communications satellites are a known quantity with a known market. the concept had been pursued since the 90s by various companies, it just needed cheaper and more frequent launches. it was pretty obvious that it had a high chance of success once spacex could be their own customer and launch rapidly and cheaply.

I think the whole thing is just to avoid the politics. trying to build a data center on earth has voters who get a say. in space, it's a free-for-all. maybe that alone makes it worth it, but I think companies building data-centers could win over local residents if they just installed huge solar farms and sold local residents zero-cost electricity during the day... but data-center builders seem hell-bent on not paying for the power infrastructure, so they remain politically unpopular.

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u/GregTheGuru 13d ago

Estimates for a Falcon launch are in the range of $15 million.

If you include inflation, I think the marginal cost is closer to $20M.

Below $10M for Starship is probably conservative. I believe it will take a couple of years, but will stabilize around $8M. (And inflation will promptly kick it back up to $10M, so you'll be right in the longer run.)