alt Hacker NewsAlmost no one said those were impossible, just hard. This is completely different. Rather like... a train in a vacuum tube hard. Definitely harder than making a subway with autonomous trains under a modern city. And much harder than being a third rate AI lab, though Elon did hit that target perfectly.
Train-in-a-vacuum-tube isn't even restricted by the laws of physics, and it doesn't have to be a perfect vacuum anyway, just low pressure. Data Centers IN SPAAAAAACE have the teensy little problem of cooling that you can't just brute-force a solution to. Those giant things dangling off the ISS that make up most of its footprint aren't solar panels, they're heatsinks, and they still have issues managing heat.