Well, everyone, you can now submit a comment to let the FCC know what you think about SpaceX asking for 1 million satellites for "AI datacenters" whatever the fuck that means.
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Deutschlandfunk had an interview with Prof. Dr.-Ing. Felix Huber (director of GSOC - German Space Operations Center) about this topic yesterday - and they discussed all the points. To me he sounded increasingly annoyed ;D
- mass
- size
- space debris
- heat
- radiation
- tech ageing
- maintenance
- replacement
- de-orbiting
- atmospheric pollution
- communication
- CO2 emissionsConclusion:
German, 5 min:
https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/ki-aus-dem-all-wie-realistisch-sind-weltraumgestuetzte-rechenzentren-100.html -
Well, everyone, you can now submit a comment to let the FCC know what you think about SpaceX asking for 1 million satellites for "AI datacenters" whatever the fuck that means.
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-113A1.pdf
Comments due March 6.
I am having a very hard time believing this is really happening. Fuck you, SpaceX, and fuck you, FCC. This is not regulation, this is a fucking joke, that will destroy our ability to use satellites for centuries.
@sundogplanets the environment agency should have their word to say. Because all these millions of datacenters are going to be disposed off... And they won't be recycled. Just burned up. In the open. No filters. No catalysators. Just burned in the atmosphere.
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@kiri @sundogplanets you’re not missing anything; this is absolutely the problem with data centers, structures famously constrained by their ability to reject heat, in space, a place famous for its insulative properties. It’s stupid.
Not to mention that data centers require maintenance and equipment replacement. This aspect of data centers is why companies decided not to put them in the ocean (where heat would be easier to reject). How do they think they’ll do maintenance? Or do the satellites just become trash after a few years?
@mmcknett @kiri @sundogplanets
I suspect Musk knows this won't work. He doesn't care so long as more naive investors throw money at him.
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@sundogplanets the environment agency should have their word to say. Because all these millions of datacenters are going to be disposed off... And they won't be recycled. Just burned up. In the open. No filters. No catalysators. Just burned in the atmosphere.
TBH as someone with direct experience of existing "AI datacenters" I feel like there should be a literal sanity check involved somewhere. At this point you might as well ask for 1 million satellites for isolating the voice of Azathoth the Nuclear Chaos: at least that would be something you might conceivably need to be in space to do.
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Well, everyone, you can now submit a comment to let the FCC know what you think about SpaceX asking for 1 million satellites for "AI datacenters" whatever the fuck that means.
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-113A1.pdf
Comments due March 6.
I am having a very hard time believing this is really happening. Fuck you, SpaceX, and fuck you, FCC. This is not regulation, this is a fucking joke, that will destroy our ability to use satellites for centuries.
@sundogplanets Why would Trump want sophisticated communication systems to be available to just anyone?
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If anyone has time and energy to set up instructions for how to submit a comment to the FCC (it's really fucking complicated, on purpose, I'm sure), I would very much appreciate it! Otherwise I'll do it in the coming days.
If somebody wants to venture into this, please test all steps.
The first one involves sending an email to ecfs@fcc.gov with "get form" and your email address in the message body.
The reply I got was trying to strangely gaslight me:
"Delivery has failed to these recipients or groups:
ecfs@fcc.gov
Your message couldn't be delivered. The Domain Name System (DNS) reported that the recipient's domain does not exist."There seems to be a strange subdomain falstaff.fcc.gov involved. The attached error log says:
Diagnostic information for administrators:
Generating server: SJ0PR09MB11735.namprd09.prod.outlook.com
ecfs@fcc.gov
Remote server returned '550 5.4.310 DNS domain falstaff.fcc.gov does not exist [Message=InfoDomainNonexistent] [LastAttemptedServerName=falstaff.fcc.gov] [SA2PEPF00003023.namprd09.prod.outlook.com 2026-02-05T12:30:46.776Z 08DE6078A5284768]' -
Well, everyone, you can now submit a comment to let the FCC know what you think about SpaceX asking for 1 million satellites for "AI datacenters" whatever the fuck that means.
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-113A1.pdf
Comments due March 6.
I am having a very hard time believing this is really happening. Fuck you, SpaceX, and fuck you, FCC. This is not regulation, this is a fucking joke, that will destroy our ability to use satellites for centuries.
@sundogplanets wtaf??? That's crazy
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Well, everyone, you can now submit a comment to let the FCC know what you think about SpaceX asking for 1 million satellites for "AI datacenters" whatever the fuck that means.
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-113A1.pdf
Comments due March 6.
I am having a very hard time believing this is really happening. Fuck you, SpaceX, and fuck you, FCC. This is not regulation, this is a fucking joke, that will destroy our ability to use satellites for centuries.
@sundogplanets any advice on what comments to the FCC should cover?
This is an awful idea, but not because it interferes with radio communications or anything like that. Does the FCC care about things like “this won’t work at all, and after it fails space will be filled with a massive quantity of trash”?
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Well, everyone, you can now submit a comment to let the FCC know what you think about SpaceX asking for 1 million satellites for "AI datacenters" whatever the fuck that means.
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-113A1.pdf
Comments due March 6.
I am having a very hard time believing this is really happening. Fuck you, SpaceX, and fuck you, FCC. This is not regulation, this is a fucking joke, that will destroy our ability to use satellites for centuries.
@sundogplanets are we signatories to any treaties governing liability for shit that falls out of space from a known source? In the past, space crap was often the property of an actual country. Having falling space crap owned overwhelmingly by a single private company seems to throw the liability balance way off and I am not sure if there are space treaties that cover one fishfaced South African dumping junk all over the world from low orbit for years.
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@sundogplanets There's a walkthrough here: https://e-ratecentral.com/Resources/Educational-Information/Guide-to-Reading-and-Filing-FCC-Comments
@teresa_athome I tried this, but it only seems to work for documents in the ECFS database. This SpaceX filing is in the ICFS database, which requires registration and login to an FCC portal (which I’m not sure I feel comfortable doing). Ugh, this is so convoluted…
Link to filing in ICFS database:
https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/icfs?id=ibfs_application_summary&number=SAT-LOA-20260108-00016 -
Well, everyone, you can now submit a comment to let the FCC know what you think about SpaceX asking for 1 million satellites for "AI datacenters" whatever the fuck that means.
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-113A1.pdf
Comments due March 6.
I am having a very hard time believing this is really happening. Fuck you, SpaceX, and fuck you, FCC. This is not regulation, this is a fucking joke, that will destroy our ability to use satellites for centuries.
@sundogplanets SpaceX is playig the "AI" buzzwork to get a rubber stamped approval for unlimited number of satellites which the government would look very bad if it rejetected since the Trump regime wants to play the AI casino game very much.
Once they have the approvals, they can start a garbage disposal service in texas where they send the gargage into those pre-approved orbits. (or any other stupid use of those satellite positions). And getting those approved would also mean others can't reserve thsoe orbits anymore because SapceX will have monopoly on them.
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Well, everyone, you can now submit a comment to let the FCC know what you think about SpaceX asking for 1 million satellites for "AI datacenters" whatever the fuck that means.
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-113A1.pdf
Comments due March 6.
I am having a very hard time believing this is really happening. Fuck you, SpaceX, and fuck you, FCC. This is not regulation, this is a fucking joke, that will destroy our ability to use satellites for centuries.
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social don't worry. This is not happening. Musk just wants money and attention. He can literally just tell lies and money will flow in.
Musk won't launch one million satellites. -
Well, everyone, you can now submit a comment to let the FCC know what you think about SpaceX asking for 1 million satellites for "AI datacenters" whatever the fuck that means.
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-113A1.pdf
Comments due March 6.
I am having a very hard time believing this is really happening. Fuck you, SpaceX, and fuck you, FCC. This is not regulation, this is a fucking joke, that will destroy our ability to use satellites for centuries.
@sundogplanets "unlimited number of satellites"
Soon our weather forecast will be predicting how many of those satellites will be falling down tonight.
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@teresa_athome I tried this, but it only seems to work for documents in the ECFS database. This SpaceX filing is in the ICFS database, which requires registration and login to an FCC portal (which I’m not sure I feel comfortable doing). Ugh, this is so convoluted…
Link to filing in ICFS database:
https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/icfs?id=ibfs_application_summary&number=SAT-LOA-20260108-00016@SunnJax What a pain. The regular process is pretty easy. I haven’t run across this one before. (I have been lucky.) Something else to bring to the attention of my electeds. Thanks for the heads up.
There’s supposedly a way to comment via email if you request the form for instructions. I’ll update after I hear back.
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If somebody wants to venture into this, please test all steps.
The first one involves sending an email to ecfs@fcc.gov with "get form" and your email address in the message body.
The reply I got was trying to strangely gaslight me:
"Delivery has failed to these recipients or groups:
ecfs@fcc.gov
Your message couldn't be delivered. The Domain Name System (DNS) reported that the recipient's domain does not exist."There seems to be a strange subdomain falstaff.fcc.gov involved. The attached error log says:
Diagnostic information for administrators:
Generating server: SJ0PR09MB11735.namprd09.prod.outlook.com
ecfs@fcc.gov
Remote server returned '550 5.4.310 DNS domain falstaff.fcc.gov does not exist [Message=InfoDomainNonexistent] [LastAttemptedServerName=falstaff.fcc.gov] [SA2PEPF00003023.namprd09.prod.outlook.com 2026-02-05T12:30:46.776Z 08DE6078A5284768]'This is boring stuff, but when your server tries to deliver mail, the first thing it does is look for the MX records for the recipient's domain.
It looks like they're using Microsoft to run their email system.
My first guess is that they're changing their mail servers, and somehow your message got stuck during the transition.
1/2
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This is boring stuff, but when your server tries to deliver mail, the first thing it does is look for the MX records for the recipient's domain.
It looks like they're using Microsoft to run their email system.
My first guess is that they're changing their mail servers, and somehow your message got stuck during the transition.
1/2
Then it looks up the numerical address of the mail server. That's working as well. I think that if you try again, it will work.
The caveat is that when you query a DNS server, the answer gets cached for a while. So you might have to wait for your server's cached copies of the data to expire. But the data that's live now is good.
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I appreciate any Americans that submit a complaint, but who exactly gave an American regulatory body authority over the whole of low Earth orbit and beyond?
Colonial theft.
@EricLawton @sundogplanets @PhoenixSerenity
or is it because they have authority over SpaceX as an American company - and the US already believes it can tell American companies what the can do in other countries.
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@sundogplanets let me marh this badly...
At a launch a second they could have that sucker up in months. At a launch every hour it'd take more than a century. At a launch a day millenia. Assuming of course one satellite per launch. That's just the getting to orbit bit. Fabbing the satellites might well take longer. After of course the lead time to ensure hallucinating chatbots are not on the worse granola.
@jamesb192 Yeah, I ran some very rough numbers earlier and I think with 30 satellites per launch and one launch per day it would take almost a century, which is in line with your figures.
Of course that was under an assumption that no failures or other reasons for replacement on-orbit would be needed for the period. Which is… unrealistic.
Problem is, I suppose, that in the current climate, we can't just assume "it's madness and makes no sense, and therefore won't happen".
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@sundogplanets How would a data center event work in outer space? Heat would build up. Unless I'm missing something and the idea is to have something super worse than regular DCs down here?
@kiri https://www.physicsmatt.com/blog/2025/12/11/the-dumbest-thing-ive-seen-this-week
And as an interested non-expert, I personally get the feeling that Matt is being more generous than the facts *should* allow, but at least he's showing his math and coming up with a conclusion of "dumb" and "stupid idea".
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I read an article about this, and there was a discussion section, and someone there was making this very argument that space is cold so cooling won't be required, which I thought at the time made total sense. But then someone else brought up the fact the ISS actually has trouble cooling itself, because while yes space is cold, there is so little matter around, it remains very difficult to dissipate heat. So now I'm not so sure.
@bit A thermos bottle works by having a near-vacuum between whatever you want to keep warm or cold and the surrounding air. This works well because vacuum is a very good insulator.
Space provides a better vacuum than anything we can easily create on Earth.
Getting rid of heat in space is friggin' *hard*.
As for "space is cold", temperature is a property of matter, and space is notably lacking in matter, so it's arguable whether space even *has* a temperature per se.
