Yes, the physics are worse, and yes, the economics are worse, but data centers in space have the crucial advantage that they are out of range of the molotov-throwing arm of Joe Public (recently unemployed).

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thelastgallon an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Businesses run anywhere real money can be made. Middle east is the most volatile place. Yet, the businesses are perfectly okay building infrastructure to extract, refine and ship oil from there.

If real money can be made, there is no need of datacenters in space. Offer some country some money and they'll let you build whatever you want. The whole idea is entirely unprofitable thats why they are making up things that won't work economically. Keep giving us money indefinitely, we'll keep spending, money can be made after a few decades of spending ... trust us.

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throwaway473825 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Note that you didn't mention any such country, and for good reason - there is none.

You'd need a dictatorship where people's voices don't matter, but then there's no right of ownership either.

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thelastgallon 31 minutes ago | parent [-]

> You'd need a dictatorship where people's voices don't matter, but then there's no right of ownership either.

And there are plenty of those countries. As well as countries that aren't dictatorships. Every leader everywhere is available for sale. In democracies, usually for a small sum. Dictatorships ask for a percentage of profit.

Everyone knows how the current administration got to power: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/01/politics/elon-musk-2024-e...

Trump will gladly allow datacenters to be built on federal lands. Just like he allows Oil/Coal and bans Wind and Solar. The only reason there is new story of Space Datacenters is because even if they are given everything by the Govt, it simply won't work.

If you see a datacenter in orbit, it means something went wrong on Earth: https://systemsthinkingcollection.substack.com/p/space-datac...

People believe all kinds of fiction and garbage, like going to Mars. (Why Terraform Mars When We Can Fix The Earth? https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8mhib97--n4)

The same argument holds for AI DCs. If you can build profitable AI datacenters in space, why can't you build profitable AI datacenters on Earth? The only reason is you can't build profitable AI datacenters on earth. Just give us a few more trillions and wait a decade or two, we promise ...

	▲	jazzyjackson 22 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		This idea that space is a way to get out of the reach of NIMBYs is so dumb. a: now you’re in everyone’s back yard, since satellites in orbit can be seen by the naked eye at twilight zipping across the sky, so now the whole earth hates you b: you are still launching from earth, which is a pretty significant target if you’re worried about ecoterrorism.

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ericd an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

The real point is power limitations, putting stuff in space in the right orbit lets you turn solar power into reliable base load.

	▲	thelastgallon 27 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Why stop somewhere in between? You can go straight to the Sun and directly tap into near infinite source of energy. No need of solar panels, direct access to thermonuclear energy, too cheap to meter. The economics already works out, zero capex, zero opex for the next ~4 billion years. Just needs a few small problems to be worked out, like a pipe to transfer energy.

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catchnear4321 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Good thing Joe Public wouldn’t then decide to interfere with launches.

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octoberfranklin 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I dunno, considering how various insurgent groups manage to make some reasonably impressive rocketry, I have to believe that in a few years with AI assistance (abliterate all the things) knocking a LEO satellite out of orbit won't be that much harder than sabotaging an electrical substation.

We're talking about an exceptionally vulnerable target with a perfectly predictable path of travel here. And it's constantly emitting lots of RF making it easy to track. You just have to get near it and explode with shrapnel.

Totally illegal, of course. But it will be within the reach of millions of people if they want to do it.

I don't think "just move to space bro" is going to stop the pitchfork-mob.

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mitxela 2 hours ago | parent [-]

You still need hundreds of tonnes of rocket fuel no matter what, though.

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jazzyjackson 19 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

You don’t have to intercept the satellites in orbit, they fall back to earth in a few years on their own. What SpaceX et al need to defend against is attacks while they are still on the ground or seconds after launch. Next round of investment will put the factories on the moon (only then will we see calls from the general public to Blow Up the Moon)

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jmb99 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Back of the napkin math says a bare minimum of ~2000kg of solid fuel in three stages to “get to” GEO using a 3-stage rocket, to deliver 1kg of “something.” You’d need a gravity assist highly elliptical orbit which is a touch harder to pull off (but probably not harder than getting 2000kg of ammonium perchlorate). Plus building the actual rocket, guidance computer, etc.

Not trivial but not impossible. If you’ve got a few hundred million people with nothing better to do, I’m sure a few dozen/hundred could pull it off.

	▲	koolba an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I always thought it’d be some kind of railgun. A 1 kg slug would take out just about any satellite.
	▲	byzantinegene an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		especially if a good chunk of them are out of work mathematicians and physicists due to ai

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ETH_start an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

There is no evidence that AI will increase unemployment.

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King-Aaron an hour ago | parent | next [-]

This is what AI was fucking promoted as being for! The utopia where machines do all our work and we receive universal basic income to enjoy our freedoms.

Taking away work was exactly the premise it was sold under.

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krapp 43 minutes ago | parent [-]

>This is what AI was fucking promoted as being for! The utopia where machines do all our work and we receive universal basic income to enjoy our freedoms.

No one promised any utopia of any sort. The only promise was that AI would put people out of work. The rest is just some naive Star Trek bullshit that was never on the table.

	▲	lofaszvanitt 30 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		And people fattened up these companies with their own money :DDD. And now all they do is pouring excrement on the populace.

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N_Lens 11 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We are the Horse from Animal Farm.

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38 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

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