Making it difficult to shut down AI’s is very important. There’s a real chance we end up with a regulatory capture cartel that’s enforced because of “safety”.

But there are solid engineering and logistical advantages. Not having to deal with nimby’s, permitting, data center blowback is a big advantage. It’s difficult to spin up new power infrastructure in western countries, and putting up a satellite with direct 24/7 solar power means you can skip the headache of building new power infrastructure. My electricity bill has increased by 50% in the last year and most of that increase is likely because of data centers powering AI. If we can instead directly power that compute in orbit from the sun then it will not increase demand on existing power infrastructure.

▲ BurningFrog 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The standard motivation is 24/7 unfiltered sunlight to power the AI with, where you're not in anyone's backyard and don't need to convince a planning commission.

▲ shagie 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> The standard motivation is 24/7 unfiltered sunlight to power the AI with, where you're not in anyone's backyard and don't need to convince a planning commission.

The orbit that this is in doesn't meet that criteria. While it is in a near polar orbit, it is not in a dusk dawn orbit ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun-synchronous_orbit ). Half of its orbit is in shadow.

As I wrote this, it is above Campo Grande, Brazil. The time there is 10 pm.

https://satellitemap.space/sat/100902

    1 A0902U 26227V   26304.16445033  .00002596  00000-0  13395-3 0  9997
    2 A0902  97.4408  13.1552 0001768  65.9370 294.2048 15.17216777  4461

▲ randomblock1 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You do, though. The FAA/AST govern launches. I'm no rocket scientist but building a rocket and launching it is probably much harder than building a small data center.

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vlovich123 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It’s not though. There’s existing rocket launches that fit within a well established federal regulatory framework. Building data centers has overlapping state and municipal regulations as well as local opposition.

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mbreese 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s probably a lower regulatory burden to get the approval of the FAA than it is any number of municipal bodies to get approval for building and powering a new data center. There are a lot of people that need to sign off on things. When you’re talking about space, if you can afford and build it, that list is pretty short.

I’m not convinced that the economics are favorable to space based data centers, but ironically, it still might be a lower hurdle than terrestrial data center approval.

	▲	dannyw 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The FAA is federal, and may pre-empt state/local laws (see: CFTC, Kalshi/Polymarket/etc). It's also pretty well accepted that the FAA is very cozy to SpaceX, and partially because NASA is basically dependent and beholden on SpaceX at the moment.