New FCC filing by SpaceX for constellation of million data center satellites for AI apps.
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A blunt assessment of "AI datacenters in space” by Prof. Matthew Buckley in Dec 2025 -
"To be blunt, the entire stupid idea is a giant middle finger to multiple fundamentals of physics, and the fact that it is apparently being taken seriously by our tech lords, mainstream journalism, and political leaders is a damning indictment of not just the ridiculous amount of money chasing bad ideas in the tech/LLM/hype sector that has eaten the American economy, ..."
https://www.physicsmatt.com/blog/2025/12/11/the-dumbest-thing-ive-seen-this-week
4/nSooner or later, the unemployed, angry masses of #AiAntagonists will stop posting silly memes and start smashing #datacenters instead...
...from that perspective putting data centers in orbit is perfect protection against angry #luddite mobs...
...as a plus, cooling and power, which is the main thrust of Luddite critique (because #AI #LLM are totally useless) is taken care of in orbit...
So if you have lift capacity of $20/kg suddenly orbital data centre starts to look like a damn good investment.
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New FCC filing by SpaceX for constellation of million data center satellites for AI apps.
# of sats: up to 1 million!
Orbit: 500 km and 2,000 km altitude and 30°inclinations. Multiple orbital shells 50 km apart.
Cooling: radiative
Schedule: unspecified
Sat size, weight, power, cost, ..: unspecified
Launches: millions of tons of mass per yearThere goes the neighborhood.
Or is this just marketing fluff and orbital hoarding?@sundogplanets
https://www.scribd.com/document/990116826/Orbital-Data-Center-LOA-Narrative
https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/icfs?id=ibfs_application_summary&number=SAT-LOA-20260108-00016
1/nWill they be armed with lazers?
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New FCC filing by SpaceX for constellation of million data center satellites for AI apps.
# of sats: up to 1 million!
Orbit: 500 km and 2,000 km altitude and 30°inclinations. Multiple orbital shells 50 km apart.
Cooling: radiative
Schedule: unspecified
Sat size, weight, power, cost, ..: unspecified
Launches: millions of tons of mass per yearThere goes the neighborhood.
Or is this just marketing fluff and orbital hoarding?@sundogplanets
https://www.scribd.com/document/990116826/Orbital-Data-Center-LOA-Narrative
https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/icfs?id=ibfs_application_summary&number=SAT-LOA-20260108-00016
1/n@AkaSci @sundogplanets
These are mild
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale#Criticisms_of_the_classificationEven Kardashev I is fantasy.
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Sooner or later, the unemployed, angry masses of #AiAntagonists will stop posting silly memes and start smashing #datacenters instead...
...from that perspective putting data centers in orbit is perfect protection against angry #luddite mobs...
...as a plus, cooling and power, which is the main thrust of Luddite critique (because #AI #LLM are totally useless) is taken care of in orbit...
So if you have lift capacity of $20/kg suddenly orbital data centre starts to look like a damn good investment.
@n_dimension @AkaSci
Frank Herbert's imagined "Butlerian Jihad" in Dune is looking likely.Multiple levels of magical thinking!
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Sooner or later, the unemployed, angry masses of #AiAntagonists will stop posting silly memes and start smashing #datacenters instead...
...from that perspective putting data centers in orbit is perfect protection against angry #luddite mobs...
...as a plus, cooling and power, which is the main thrust of Luddite critique (because #AI #LLM are totally useless) is taken care of in orbit...
So if you have lift capacity of $20/kg suddenly orbital data centre starts to look like a damn good investment.
@n_dimension @AkaSci
Cooling stuff in space is actually really hard. No evaporation cycles, convection or conduction. Only IR radiation on the "dark" side. -
@n_dimension @AkaSci
Cooling stuff in space is actually really hard. No evaporation cycles, convection or conduction. Only IR radiation on the "dark" side.@raymaccarthy @n_dimension
Not a problem. AI will solve it
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@raymaccarthy @n_dimension
Not a problem. AI will solve it@AkaSci @n_dimension
You need to adjust your clothing!That's fierce sarcasm that's exposed!
AI might, but we have no idea how to make an AI. The LLM/Generative "AI" are statistical plagiarism machines. More useful mis-named Machine learning is simply curated databases and pattern matching, with rules created by experts.
Scrape the Internet and you end up with regurgitated "Grokipedia", a NAZIfied version of Wikipedia, and a bunch on random nonsense.
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New FCC filing by SpaceX for constellation of million data center satellites for AI apps.
# of sats: up to 1 million!
Orbit: 500 km and 2,000 km altitude and 30°inclinations. Multiple orbital shells 50 km apart.
Cooling: radiative
Schedule: unspecified
Sat size, weight, power, cost, ..: unspecified
Launches: millions of tons of mass per yearThere goes the neighborhood.
Or is this just marketing fluff and orbital hoarding?@sundogplanets
https://www.scribd.com/document/990116826/Orbital-Data-Center-LOA-Narrative
https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/icfs?id=ibfs_application_summary&number=SAT-LOA-20260108-00016
1/nWhat happens if the command to 'hurtle towards the earth in a fiery rain' is pushed to the network?
Does Musk become a God in fact?
-
New FCC filing by SpaceX for constellation of million data center satellites for AI apps.
# of sats: up to 1 million!
Orbit: 500 km and 2,000 km altitude and 30°inclinations. Multiple orbital shells 50 km apart.
Cooling: radiative
Schedule: unspecified
Sat size, weight, power, cost, ..: unspecified
Launches: millions of tons of mass per yearThere goes the neighborhood.
Or is this just marketing fluff and orbital hoarding?@sundogplanets
https://www.scribd.com/document/990116826/Orbital-Data-Center-LOA-Narrative
https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/icfs?id=ibfs_application_summary&number=SAT-LOA-20260108-00016
1/n@AkaSci @sundogplanets At this point in human history, having the Kessler Syndrome occur just might not be the worst thing
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A blunt assessment of "AI datacenters in space” by Prof. Matthew Buckley in Dec 2025 -
"To be blunt, the entire stupid idea is a giant middle finger to multiple fundamentals of physics, and the fact that it is apparently being taken seriously by our tech lords, mainstream journalism, and political leaders is a damning indictment of not just the ridiculous amount of money chasing bad ideas in the tech/LLM/hype sector that has eaten the American economy, ..."
https://www.physicsmatt.com/blog/2025/12/11/the-dumbest-thing-ive-seen-this-week
4/n@AkaSci but hey, think of all that random bit flipping you’d get from the cosmic radiation. A whole new flavor of stochastic gradient descent! lol
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New FCC filing by SpaceX for constellation of million data center satellites for AI apps.
# of sats: up to 1 million!
Orbit: 500 km and 2,000 km altitude and 30°inclinations. Multiple orbital shells 50 km apart.
Cooling: radiative
Schedule: unspecified
Sat size, weight, power, cost, ..: unspecified
Launches: millions of tons of mass per yearThere goes the neighborhood.
Or is this just marketing fluff and orbital hoarding?@sundogplanets
https://www.scribd.com/document/990116826/Orbital-Data-Center-LOA-Narrative
https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/icfs?id=ibfs_application_summary&number=SAT-LOA-20260108-00016
1/n@AkaSci @sundogplanets One of the dumbest things I ever heard. How do you cool a data centre in a vacuum? Somehow get the heat to the outside and try to radiate it? Must be possible to workout the maths for radiating heat. I wonder how long it would take to earn back the energy taken to get it into space in the first place.
-
A blunt assessment of "AI datacenters in space” by Prof. Matthew Buckley in Dec 2025 -
"To be blunt, the entire stupid idea is a giant middle finger to multiple fundamentals of physics, and the fact that it is apparently being taken seriously by our tech lords, mainstream journalism, and political leaders is a damning indictment of not just the ridiculous amount of money chasing bad ideas in the tech/LLM/hype sector that has eaten the American economy, ..."
https://www.physicsmatt.com/blog/2025/12/11/the-dumbest-thing-ive-seen-this-week
4/n@AkaSci how will they launch the sysops?
-
New FCC filing by SpaceX for constellation of million data center satellites for AI apps.
# of sats: up to 1 million!
Orbit: 500 km and 2,000 km altitude and 30°inclinations. Multiple orbital shells 50 km apart.
Cooling: radiative
Schedule: unspecified
Sat size, weight, power, cost, ..: unspecified
Launches: millions of tons of mass per yearThere goes the neighborhood.
Or is this just marketing fluff and orbital hoarding?@sundogplanets
https://www.scribd.com/document/990116826/Orbital-Data-Center-LOA-Narrative
https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/icfs?id=ibfs_application_summary&number=SAT-LOA-20260108-00016
1/nLet's ignore the reality that orbital data centres are bullshit for hundreds of reasons and assume ketamine boy can pull it off.
This site lists the sizes and masses of starlink satellites. I'm going to use the V2 full size specs. 40m^2 fully deployed and 1,250kg.
https://dishycentral.com/how-big-are-starlink-satellites
The orbital decay times for unboosted satellites with those specs at different altitudes are;
500km - 5.68 years
600km - 47.02 years
700km - 303.73 years
800km - 1,536.21 years
900km - 6,112.47 years
1,000km - 19,255.79 yearsOrbital decay calculator here;
https://www.lizard-tail.com/isana/lab/orbital_decay/
Data centres at higher altitudes better be built to last because they are not coming back down any time soon.
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A blunt assessment of "AI datacenters in space” by Prof. Matthew Buckley in Dec 2025 -
"To be blunt, the entire stupid idea is a giant middle finger to multiple fundamentals of physics, and the fact that it is apparently being taken seriously by our tech lords, mainstream journalism, and political leaders is a damning indictment of not just the ridiculous amount of money chasing bad ideas in the tech/LLM/hype sector that has eaten the American economy, ..."
https://www.physicsmatt.com/blog/2025/12/11/the-dumbest-thing-ive-seen-this-week
4/n@AkaSci well, there's this simple solution, although unpopular because ICE exists: arrest that south african illegal immigrant and NEVER let him go. Problem solved.
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A blunt assessment of "AI datacenters in space” by Prof. Matthew Buckley in Dec 2025 -
"To be blunt, the entire stupid idea is a giant middle finger to multiple fundamentals of physics, and the fact that it is apparently being taken seriously by our tech lords, mainstream journalism, and political leaders is a damning indictment of not just the ridiculous amount of money chasing bad ideas in the tech/LLM/hype sector that has eaten the American economy, ..."
https://www.physicsmatt.com/blog/2025/12/11/the-dumbest-thing-ive-seen-this-week
4/nAnother good article by a former NASA engineer/scientist on why "Datacenters in space are a terrible, horrible, no good idea."
"This is an absolutely terrible idea, and really makes zero sense whatsoever. There are multiple reasons for this, but they all amount to saying that the kind of electronics needed to make a datacenter work, particularly a datacenter deploying AI capacity in the form of GPUs and TPUs, is exactly the opposite of what works in space."
https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horrible-no-good-idea/
5/n -
A blunt assessment of "AI datacenters in space” by Prof. Matthew Buckley in Dec 2025 -
"To be blunt, the entire stupid idea is a giant middle finger to multiple fundamentals of physics, and the fact that it is apparently being taken seriously by our tech lords, mainstream journalism, and political leaders is a damning indictment of not just the ridiculous amount of money chasing bad ideas in the tech/LLM/hype sector that has eaten the American economy, ..."
https://www.physicsmatt.com/blog/2025/12/11/the-dumbest-thing-ive-seen-this-week
4/n@AkaSci As much as I think the current Data Center Boom (TM) is a massive bubble that will end badly with a LOT of bag holders, if we really really needed *that much* compute we have plenty of cold surface area that just needs "bring heavy things and folks in and out" infrastructure.
