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Comment by 10xDev | Hacker News Reader

And just like that Elon Musk shifted the overton window away from "unthinkable" on yet another topic.

  It's physically impossible
  It's technically impossible
  It won't be profitable          <= You are here
  It's bad for the environment
  It needs to be nationalized

This is just a joke, obviously, but the debate over on ArsTechnica about Falcon 9 going away is all about how it needs to be nationalized.

I think one of the reasons for putting these in space is to move them beyond the borders of any national control.

You can't launch from the US without the federal government giving you permission. And SpaceX does not have (nor are they planning) any launch pads outside the US. [And because of ITAR, I'm not even sure they'd be allowed to build one.]

However, I do think avoiding local control (state/city permits) is a reason for this.

Rocket Lab has launch pads in New Zealand.

> (nor are they planning)

Not true

Surely if this were the reason, you'd just put it in international waters?

What does it matter where physically computers are located? If the owners can be imprisoned in US, the will cooperate with US government.

As long as the company has a HQ and owners that care about their quality of life, they don’t really gain any extra safety by moving their hardware to space compared to keeping it where they are based.

Did anyone at and point say it's technically impossible? There's been computers in space since the 60s after all.

It's just far out research experiment like another commented quoted from the text: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49834746

You need to hang out at ArsTechnica more.

But even in this comment stream there are tons of people saying the cooling problem is insurmountable.

oh forgot about ars. a very cynical crowd

There are multiple people in these comments saying it's impossible.

You don't think Google has a self-interest in this? Google up how many shares of spacex are held by Alphabet.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com