Space as a Service | Hacker News Reader

Space as a Service

judegomila.com

92 pointsjudegomila24 comments

"X as a service" is HN's equivalent to the old "imagine a beowulf cluster of these" Slashdot meme.

You should check out "...in space!" at TV Tropes. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RecycledINSPACE)

I miss those days.

Fascinating stuff, maybe not too far away. I wonder, however, what is the advantage of OffGlobe (providing a data center on the moon). You get extra latency and maybe reliability issues. Or maybe the advantage is to be off local jurisdictions and safe from FBI operations ?

You'd be safe from seizure of the actual SSDs, which sounds nice.

Until the FBI obtains a court order granting them root access to the OffGlobe C&C infrastructure. Oops.

Or until the FBI obtains a court order freezing OffGlobe's bank accounts until they suspend a particular user. Oops.

And so on.

Sovereign risk is difficult to cope with because the Crown or the People always have multiple ways to obtain compliance. This is as it should be, but it does mean that in riskier fields you need continuity plans that go beyond the merely physical.

Do you remember Sealand? Offshore datacenter on an independent "principality" off UK coast?

I do. I also recall that the venture was a failure.

What stops an American or Chinese military vessel from blowing up so called data center if it is known that it has been used in conducting activities inimical to the interests of these organizations?

Hyperbole aside, my point is that I am not convinced that the whole keep data safe from the arm of the law business model is sustainable. If they want to find you, they will find you.

the Moon is 400,000km from the Earth and the speed of light is 300,000km/s. So, about 1.3 seconds, but since you need to send a command and get it back, you're looking at 2.6 seconds before you start receiving your data back.

UDP all the things (in space)

DTN all the things (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay-tolerant_networking)

Another for the Data category: Silvia Terra (http://www.silviaterra.com/). They count trees from space.

Wonder what other industries need large scale inventory done like this from effectively image recognition?

Why is this useful? I'm asking because I am a tree counting noob, vs. trying to be a dick

I don't have any expertise either but here's a conjecture:

I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay... I want to buy 1000 Acres of pristine forestland and then spend 8 years wrangling with the government for the right to log it. So how much wood could I cut if I could cut wood?

If I remember correctly (One of the founders is an acquaintance), logging companies frequently have large parcels of land of varying quality, size, and even contiguity. Being able to cheaply determine the the composition of the trees on these disparate parcels better allows them to determine which areas would be most lucrative to develop logging operations (an enormous capital investment) in, which is incredibly valuable.

I'm not friends with any of the founders, but I'd imagine it'd be useful for environmental groups too.

Real estate transactions involving logging rights?

Forestry Service studies too, I'm sure.

As I read these, my first thought was that I don't think big enough.

Agree (i thought the same thing about myself). Big ideas for a big space are hard to come by.

Nonsense; there's plenty of ideas. Just attend the Space Frontier Foundation's NewSpace conference to see, or pick up any O'Neill-inspired hard sci-fi and have a read.

What's missing is execution. Why do we all have a man-crush on Elon Musk? Because for the past 30 years it's been the same pool of a dozen-odd failed entrepreneurs suckering the next batch of investors to losing money on The Next Variation Of The Same Old Idea That Will Really Make You Money This Time, I Promise. Now SpaceX is actually pulling it off, and all it took was a little execution. Kistler? Bell? Rotary rocket? They all tried the same business model. What they lacked was the business know-how and straight-forward execution to make it happen and get in the black.

I encourage every entrepreneur here with real world experience to give the space sector a serious look. We could use your experience.

Remember, the first trillionaire will be made in space.

Space Burial: http://elysiumspaceflights.com/

now that's something new!

This overview about 'space as a service' is good, but it should specifically mention X Prize founder and Singularity University co-founder and now Planetary Resources co-founder "Peter Diamandis" as somebody of interest in this industry.

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