What would be accomplished by doing this vs placing them basically anywhere else on earth?

It is a comment on the absurdity of orbital data centers. Mountaintop data centers sound absurd, but are more feasible and efficient than orbital ones in nearly every aspect.

▲

jvanderbot 2 hours ago | parent [-]

That's fine, if the argument for DC in space is just "Let's put them in the hardest place possible". Then less hard -> absurd, implies more harder -> more absurder.

But space based dc accomplish something that mountaintop dc do not. The different list of benefits/tradeoffs are why space DC are proposed and mountaintop ones are not. It's a difference of kind, not degree. It's not a meaningful experiment to just try to build DC in hard places and then we can finally validate space.

Stated benefits in particular:

- Power available 24/7 for "free"

- coms w/o interruption using existing infra

- Rideshare (SPX can build out capacity while other lifts pay some of the bill for lift)

- Nonregulation

- Very low latency to "places of interest far from USA mountains"

And no, I do not believe that mountaintop automatically satisfies these benefits in a smooth way such that mountaintop is a meaningful stepping stone towards space.

	▲	zarzavat an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> - Power available 24/7 for "free" The Sun is visible from Earth as well, the last time I checked. In LEO you don't get power 24/7 because you are only 500km above the Earth. Yes the Sun is more attenuated on Earth but what we care about is $/W not raw wattage, and Earth certainly has cheaper $/W than space. > - coms w/o interruption using existing infra I'm perplexed how comms might be easier in space than on Earth where you can just run a cable. > - Rideshare (SPX can build out capacity while other lifts pay some of the bill for lift) On Earth you don't need to rideshare because you don't have to ride a rocket. > - Nonregulation Space is more regulated than Earth. The only way to get to space is via a rocket which is the same as an ICBM. Governments regulate the process of building ICBMs and what payloads can ride on them. If you want non-regulation then go to international waters or find a bribable government. > - Very low latency to "places of interest far from USA mountains" The latency is not terrible in LEO but it's nowhere near as good as on Earth.

▲

gnfargbl 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal