Editor’s note: … In this article, we discuss the technical challenges of building an orbital data center constellation: launching all of it, dissipating heat in space, dealing with radiation, and addressing latency issues in orbit. Read part one here.
I find the napkin math interesting, especially putting into light that given expected longevity of such satellites, 5 to 7 years, they will have to do 10 to 42 launches per day. SpaceX will need $1.5 to $10 trillions to make it happen. All of that so the slop machine doesn’t have to run into obstacles like democracy ? So it can destroy communities and the environment freely? What are we doing?
Wouldn’t it still be cheaper to build megastructures on earth in remote and uninhabited places? Like I get you have to build your own power and run your own fiber if you say build a data center the size of Rhode Island in the Yukon or something, but that has to be more cost effective than orbital.
Taking it to orbit creates far more problems than it solves.
I think that a lot of companies are seeing a regulatory capture opportunity mixed with a very limited ressource (orbits) meaning they can lock out the competition by being the first one to do it.
It is easier to do stuff on the ground. Always. However, not having to deal with neighbors, cities, activists and representatives of thereof who complain about the impact of your data centers on people’s livelihoods is an opportunity. The FCC is in the pocket of SpaceX and other space companies. They don’t really care about impacts on astronomy, ozone layer, the atmosphere and the whole of the biosphere that needs dark nights.
Free sun energy is a good bonus.
But if you can be the first to deploy such a constellation and occupy all those sun synchronous orbits on the day/night terminator in low earth orbit, no one else can, giving you a monopoly on activities in those orbits.
This is the hype. That’s the promise. That’s what they want to sell VCs to get their money. The article highlights with numbers how unreasonable this endeavor is.