New FCC filing by SpaceX for constellation of million data center satellites for AI apps.

AkaSci 🛰️

The filing is short on details and long on lofty goals and promises.

And also a bit sloppy -
"Global electricity demand for data centers is projected to more than double by 2035 driven by growth in AI — reaching ~1,200-1,700 Terawatt hours and ..."

You gotta specify TW or TW-hours per month or per year.

Also, I suspect the million satellite number comes from 1 million * 100 kw = 100 GW total power.

For comparison, Starlink v3 satellites will generate 20 kW with a 60x8 m array.

3/n

Mike Torr

@AkaSci @sundogplanets OK, this has gone far enough. Does anyone actually have a way of shooting these fucking things down as they launch? Just asking.

trainguyrom

@donaldball @AkaSci @sundogplanets especially when we could simply lay more fiber trunks across the world (technology that already exists and is awesome) and achieve multiple magnitudes more bandwidth for more people at far greater speeds and consistencies! But that wouldn't further inflate Musk's wealth so we can't have that!

rich

@AkaSci @sundogplanets we should start crowdfunding "Kessler Takedown Rockets"

AkaSci 🛰️

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

Wulfy—Speaker to the machines

@AkaSci

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.

Cedar Fen Farm Cedar Fen Farm

@AkaSci @sundogplanets

Will they be armed with lazers?

Ray McCarthy

@AkaSci @sundogplanets
These are mild
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale#Criticisms_of_the_classification

Even Kardashev I is fantasy.

Ray McCarthy

@n_dimension @AkaSci
Frank Herbert's imagined "Butlerian Jihad" in Dune is looking likely.

Multiple levels of magical thinking!

Ray McCarthy

@n_dimension @AkaSci
Cooling stuff in space is actually really hard. No evaporation cycles, convection or conduction. Only IR radiation on the "dark" side.

AkaSci 🛰️

@raymaccarthy @n_dimension
Not a problem. AI will solve it

Ray McCarthy

@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.

Sassinake! - ⊃∪∩⪽

@AkaSci @sundogplanets

What 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?

Mira

@AkaSci @sundogplanets At this point in human history, having the Kessler Syndrome occur just might not be the worst thing

BenjaminHimes

@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

Joseph Lord

@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.

flng

@AkaSci how will they launch the sysops?

Kingsley Bugarin PLY OAM 🇦🇺

@AkaSci

Let'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 years

Orbital 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.

Amish Cyborg

@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.

AkaSci 🛰️

Another 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