2 comments

  • jameslk 24 minutes ago
    SpaceX and Amazon seem to be headed for competing with traditional telecoms and ISPs. I'm betting the next acquisition target will be AST SpaceMobile
  • kumarvvr 1 hour ago
    So, Amazon wants to own the tubes too?

    I guess the stack should be completed with this. AWS servers, satellite communications, boxes to view content on TVs, apps on mobiles, content creation studios, advertising, product placement, product sales. Whew!

    I guess they also want expertise to launch stuff into space, in case it becomes feasible to run space data centers.

    • trhway 1 minute ago
      They would also need to protect all this stuff spread globally and into the space. No government will be able to do that - like we've already seen with the datacenters being hit in the Gulf states. Company like AMZN will have all the components for the most modern weapon system - global autonomous drone offense and defense network with the space component, and will have and will be able to better protect themselves. Those large BigTechs will unavoidably have to move into defense, for themselves and as-a-service for smaller transnationals.
    • karavelov 32 minutes ago
      > I guess they also want expertise to launch stuff into space

      Blue Origin is Jeff Bezos' private aerospace company

    • bigfatkitten 24 minutes ago
      Probably for their existing L/S-band spectrum and carrier licenses.
    • ge96 1 hour ago
      Amazon seems to have a service for everything, one time I saw they had satellite ground station as a service
      • compounding_it 53 minutes ago
        I think America in general is moving to a service based economy where you don’t own anything anymore. Everything from cars (lease) to homes (rentals) to electronics to insurance etc comes at a monthly cost. This kind of model works when the central government is trusted (or at least perceived to be trusted) to keep the wheel churning. I think the current government took some of the power back from big tech and people didn’t like it. Very interesting because the whole argument was private companies having too much power. Now the argument is government having too much power.
        • enos_feedler 50 minutes ago
          You only now just think this? The writing has been on the wall for quite some time. Especially as you move down in age cohort.
      • jasoncartwright 1 hour ago
    • piokoch 1 hour ago
      Why space data centers? What advantage this would have? Cooling will be a big issue, while it is easily solved on the planet earth, as we have water, air that can transfer heat away.
      • bigfatkitten 27 minutes ago
        They don’t have any advantages at all.

        People point to the cost of land, but if being physically inaccessible isn’t a problem, then there are lots of cheap places on Earth you can deploy data centres too at far lower cost than launching them into orbit.

      • nish__ 51 minutes ago
        You don't have to buy real estate.
      • trhway 27 minutes ago
        >Cooling will be a big issue

        a 1m2 at 70C radiates 785 Watt. Seems thet cooling will be more simple than on Earth.

        • pretendgeneer 21 minutes ago
          A 1m2 heatsink/fan on earth can sink kWs. My heatpump is about 1m2 area and can sink 15kw. Seems earth is at least 20x times better.
          • trhway 16 minutes ago
            in space 1m2 of thin metal will radiate those 785 watt. No fan, no heatpump, nothing. Only the launch cost. Which given the projected Starship launch cost will be cheaper than installation on Earth.