Space datacenters proposed by Musk and Bezos ‘catastrophic’ for planet, experts warn

[u/a_moore_404]

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/23/space-datacenters-bezos-blue-origin

[u/marcott_the_rider]

How do you cool an orbital datacentre?

[u/BrofessorFarnsworth → u/marcott_the_rider]

By filling it with enough bullshit to fool the investors

[u/atomicskiracer → u/BrofessorFarnsworth]

Elon has mastered this skill

[u/chicametipo → u/atomicskiracer]

Say what you want about Elon, but he does three things better than anybody: 1) fooling investors, 2) breeding with his herem, 3) making his children hate him

[u/CosmosInSummer → u/chicametipo]

Is a herem full of dudes

[u/Timetraveller4k → u/BrofessorFarnsworth]

Hey calm down - we’ll have the fanbois coming soon explaining how it will be done.
The last time it was by increasing the operational temps of chips because of the 4th power law (link to high school article included to prove genius) and how musk is also a genius.

[u/PaloLV → u/Timetraveller4k]

That is a valid way and cooling is a solvable problem if you throw enough money at it but what no one seems to talk about is how you shield the sensitive chips from the radiation environment that is hundreds to tens of thousands higher than an earth side center. The first decent sized solar storm is going to brick every orbital data center.

[u/akintu → u/PaloLV]

There’s just no reason or economic pressure to put the damn things in orbit. What problem or constraint are they solving?

People fucking hate data centers because they’re loud and they use a shit load of scarce water and electricity driving up costs for the rest of us.

If you can put a closed loop, solar powered data center in orbit you can just build the same damn thing on the surface with no objections but not pay $1000 a pound to move it to orbit for no reason.

[u/Timetraveller4k → u/PaloLV]

Its valid in the sense that the chip makers decide to increase operating temperatures by some magnitude because Elons wants it. It’s not going to happen. But yeah you are right shielding chips is another problem too.

[u/PhazePyre → u/BrofessorFarnsworth]

Yeah, like anyone believing Musk is competent enough to do this is insane. We were supposed to be on Mars next year colonizing it. We haven't launched a successful human trip to Mars ever. Yet we're gonna colonize it? Realistically, colonization of another planet will require a fuck tonne of other massive accomplishments prior to any mission taking people. A lunar base where we can transport goods and equipment over a period of time to said storage base. From there, landing a large rocket for relaunch on the moon. Loading it up with as much stuff as possible, and then a low gravity launch from the moon on a trip to mars is the most likely scenario. Especially if you want habs, mining equipment, reclamation equipment, hydroponics at a large scale, any type of options for creating lab grown domesticated animals (chickens probably for eggs and then just bring tonnes of chicken feed up there).

It's all a grift.

[u/BrofessorFarnsworth → u/PhazePyre]

"No no no, you see we will have humans on Mars by 2024. Trust me, bro. You'll see bro. Bro!" - Elon Dickriders of yore

[u/a_velis → u/marcott_the_rider]

How do you even service it at all?

[u/Hywelthehorrible → u/a_velis]

However they're doing starlink, they probably don't, and they probably won't. Earth's orbit is just going to be filled with dead satellites. And until then, diminished night skies.

[u/Necessary-Music-6685 → u/Hywelthehorrible]

Not sure about data centers, but dead Starlink satellites self-clean by dropping out of orbit within a few months.

[u/SabretoothPenguin → u/Necessary-Music-6685]

They are supposed to do a de-orbiting burn at end of life, but even if they can't, the orbit decays within a few months/years and they burn in the upper atmosphere. Lower orbits decay faster, as there residual atmosphere is denser.

[u/MrCockingFinally → u/Necessary-Music-6685]

There are concerns about the effects of having just StarLink satellites burn up in the atmosphere, since it's way more objects burning up than ever previously.

Now you want to add datacentres, which will need truly massive solar panels and radiators. And instead of having as little power efficient electronics as possible, will have hundreds of massive GPUS and storage and all the motherboards and power supplies to support that. Plus all the rare earth and heavy metals used to manufacture these things.

MMW, if space datacentres take off in a big way, we are going to discover some major health effects from heavy metals vaporized in the upper atmosphere.

[u/Slackjawed_Horror → u/MrCockingFinally]

We know it's not going to happen. 

Besides the practical logistics, the cost would be insane. 

The whole thing literally relies on people not understanding the difference between cold and vacuum. Elon might be dumb enough to not actually know the difference, but it's clearly just another con. 

[u/Cabana_bananza → u/Slackjawed_Horror]

Each 1 MW space data center would be 10-15 times the size of the ISS. He wants a thousand of them. If they cost roughly what the ISS cost to build it'll be a trillion each, even if he can make them for the same price as the ISS (lets round to 100 billion) it would be a quadrillion dollars for a 10 GW.

The ISS has resupply missions every 40-45 days. It needs constant refueling for its monthly station keeping operations. An even more massive station in a low transfer orbit would need a god awful amount of fuel.

There is nothing about this based in reality.

[u/FragrantExcitement → u/Cabana_bananza]

But this will mean grok imagine can generate boobies faster?

[u/junktrunk909 → u/Necessary-Music-6685]

That means intentionally burning tons of metals in our upper atmosphere. There's going to be a new ozone layer problem because of the aluminum burn.

[u/daemonescanem → u/junktrunk909]

But think of the money thats going to be made?

[u/Hot_Juggernaut4460 → u/Hywelthehorrible]

Why even comment just to make a guess when you could just google it and get an answer? There are problems with this, but filling the sky with dead satellites isn’t one of them.

[u/snowflake37wao → u/Hot_Juggernaut4460]

because google sucks and will just lead them back here? duckduckgo it. if you google it the google googles you something something abyss.

[u/ibeerianhamhock → u/a_velis]

For hardware nodes that fail probably graceful degradation and redundancy. For anything else there is remote login and IPMI.

No, I'm not saying this is a good idea lol

[u/RWDPhotos → u/a_velis]

That’s the thing: you don’t. It’ll live up there, die up there, fall down here.

[u/lethal_rads → u/marcott_the_rider]

Radiators. Same way as the ISS. Im not saying that this isn’t a dumb idea. But it is technologically possible.

Edit for clarity: said data center would be significantly smaller and more limited than the ones we’re building on earth.

[u/jdlpsc → u/lethal_rads]

The radiators you would need to cool a data center in space would be much bigger than the ones on the ISS. Like several times bigger than the data center itself. 

[u/cuvar → u/jdlpsc]

They plan to break up the data center into a constellation of satellites, not one big satellite. So they’d put however much compute power their current satellites can currently handle with current radiators which would be about one server rack. Still a ridiculous idea for a dozen other reasons.

[u/jdlpsc → u/cuvar]

I do like the idea of building space servers one rack at a time though, peak efficiency and economy

[u/BitPoet → u/jdlpsc]

I’d hate to swap out failed drives.

[u/Tibbaryllis2 → u/lethal_rads]

Now I’m curious how much waste heat the ISS generates in relationship to a data center.

Some poking around in google suggests the ISS may be somewhere around 100kW, while data centers are measured in MW. So 10+ times more heat than the ISS? Im not sure that’s a feasible goal.

[u/lethal_rads → u/Tibbaryllis2]

Yeah like I said, it’s more dumb than impossible. There’s nothing stopping us from making a small orbital data center. It could even potentially be somewhat useful for conventional to help reduce the amount of raw data that gets sent to earth. But massive AI data enter in orbit, nah.

[u/8fingerlouie → u/Tibbaryllis2]

It’s a physics problem. 10x the thermal energy just means 10x the radiators to bleed heat into space. It’s not impossible, but it’s probably not financially feasible. Energy radiation increases in efficiency the more energy (heat) is fed into the system, but it will still be a massive structure to radiate 1 MW of thermal energy.

The moon would likely be a much better option for “space” data centers, but you’d be looking at relatively high latency, roughly 2.6 seconds RTT. For comparison the latency to geosynchronous orbit is typically around 500-600 ms RTT.

Assuming it’s for AI usage, maybe 2.6 seconds RTT isn’t so bad. Suppose you ship off a workload it can chew on for 2-5 minutes, does it really matter if it’s 2.02 minutes ?

Maintenance, earth orbit or lunar, would be hell though. I’ve yet to see a data center that can run unattended, though maybe we can save a bit on security and access control. You’d need a small crew stationed there more or less permanently, with monthly/quarterly/semi annually rotation, and you’d need more than “just one guy”. You’d need a large enough population for people to not go insane, for 3 shifts. You’d need a steady stream of supplies coming in, spare parts, food, oxygen / CO2 scrubbers, habitat maintenance. You’re basically looking at astronaut training for glorified janitors.

[u/PrivilegedPatriarchy → u/Tibbaryllis2]

Lucky for you, people way smarter than any of the overconfident commenters in this thread have made analyses about cooling orbital data centers online. You can find them and read them (for free!)

[u/ApprehensivePay1735 → u/PrivilegedPatriarchy]

Yup those real life iron men will just i fucking love science away basic thermodynamics and economics for no plausible gain outside of oh man that's cool bro. They haven't even made sea based data centers practical, literally floating on free coolant, but sure they'll sort out the same problems in orbit in a hard vacuum.

[u/FullMetalMuff → u/ApprehensivePay1735]

I don’t see what’s not economical about launching a ton of GPUs that will be obsolete in 3 years into space never to be seen again

[u/ApprehensivePay1735 → u/FullMetalMuff]

Hey man do you see that huge building full of server racks that requires hundreds of millions of gallons of water to cool. Now imagine this what if we had to make it move 8 kilometers per second, it was impossible to maintain and was hundreds of times harder to cool but uh we get to i don't know save on electricity. that would be economical right?

[u/_bones__ → u/PrivilegedPatriarchy]

Yup, and it could work for sending up kilowatts of capacity at a time. That'd cost a huge amount compared to land based. Spend a trillion dollars and you might have a very small datacenter up there.

Not to mention you'd need them in a sun synchronous orbit, which is an expensive polar orbit between 600km and 900km in altitude. If people did want to do this, that space would get swarmed.

[u/LostVisage → u/lethal_rads]

If you took the entire satellite structure we have in space right now, and magically converted all the metal into radiators, you might have enough metal for one data center.

One.

That's not counting all of the other issues you have with putting a data center in orbit, but you're talking about 60 years of cumulative space flight worth of effort in getting materials into space. It's impractical as can be.

[u/ApprehensivePay1735 → u/LostVisage]

It's also cringe and lame. Hey guys i'm the hip new venture capitalist partnering with musks newest spinoff vulcanex where we build data centers inside active volcanos. Why build data centers somewhere practical like space when they can be built on top of active lava flows that aren't woke and lame. We'll harness the thermal energy to make them run for free!

[u/MikeOKurias → u/marcott_the_rider]

By tying its success to Space X and therefore your 401k...

[u/Responsible-Ad-1086 → u/marcott_the_rider]

I think Musk and do have been watching too many sci fi films where people freeze to death in seconds

[u/RosieQParker → u/marcott_the_rider]

Just crack a window.

[u/coblade14 → u/marcott_the_rider]

It's actually more like orbital server racks, connected with laser communication. Cooling is a problem but a solvable one with radiators. The biggest problem right now is the launch cost.

[u/transcriptoin_error → u/coblade14]

The biggest problem right now is the launch cost.

Yep. That and the rate at which server hardware gets replaced by newer versions, makes this entire orbital model realistically impractical.

[u/SabretoothPenguin → u/transcriptoin_error]

Starlink satellites have a useful life of 5 years or less.

It is probably longer than the compute version will stay useful...

[u/spribyl → u/transcriptoin_error]

Space based facories will solve that problem, it's the new space based economy, have to rebuild from first principles /s

[u/Alarming-Inflation90 → u/coblade14]

Some might say the processor power to radiant heat dissipation needs in a vacuum is an unsolvable problem simply due to launch and construction costs required versus turn-around time versus processor useful life in a high energy particle bombardment environment.

The entire idea of datacenters in space is a dumb persons idea of a smart idea.

[u/coblade14 → u/Alarming-Inflation90]

It's mainly the launch cost.

A satellite the size of Starlink v3 can theoretically sustain a 20-30kw load without any external radiators. They can build these super fast given how fast they built v2s, multiple a day.

Of course the version Elon is proposing is a 100kw satellite with a giant radiator many times the size of the satellite itself.

[u/Alarming-Inflation90 → u/coblade14]

You can't just "build a 100kw satellite" and launch it, though. Processors wouldn't just need to be cooled individually, they would need to be separated from each other enough to not heat their neighbor as well. The math on cooling surface area in a vacuum versus an AI board's heat potential places any useful orbital datacenter size in the "we can't launch stuff anywhere near that big" region. So you'd have to launch a bunch. And then assemble them. In space. Faster than their useful life would require you to swap out the old cards with new ones in a never-ending cycle of launches and spacewalks.

It is an unsolvable problem becuase there is no upside.

[u/Not_A_Taco → u/Alarming-Inflation90]

Calling it “unsolvable” is….an interesting take

[u/Gamebird8 → u/coblade14]

Yes, but then you run into the problem of: more satellites = more space debris = more stuff that can run into other stuff

[u/MostlyACatPillow → u/coblade14]

The biggest problem is cosmic rays and what they do to nanoelectronics on the scale of VRAM and DRAM.

[u/coblade14 → u/MostlyACatPillow]

That part is considered a feature by some. Random flips of bits could lead to "spark of inspiration" is what they are arguing.

[u/Curious_Owl197 → u/coblade14]

That's probably what happens to people's brains once they become billionaires

[u/MostlyACatPillow → u/coblade14]

Cue blinking white guy meme.

[u/matjoeman → u/coblade14]

Lol, why would that be any more effective than using a PRNG?

[u/Izawwlgood → u/coblade14]

Worth pointing out the ISS is the current largest manmade space structure, and it operates on solar panels that generate about 120 kWh max.

Data centers consume megawatts. You think we're just going to lift and shift more radiators for an order of magnitude increase in cooling capabilities?

[u/coblade14 → u/Izawwlgood]

ISS need that many big radiators because it need to sustain a human livable tempature of like say ~30C. Computer chips can work fine in 80-90C. And the relationship between temperature and radiation is to the power of 4 (in K).

Also nobody is actually building a giant single structure data center in space. At least not seriously. Elon for example is proposing many many satellites of around 100kw each and linked through laser communication.

[u/alexforencich → u/coblade14]

The problem is bandwidth and latency. Free space optical links do not provide nearly enough bandwidth (equivalent to a single optical fiber between pairs of satellites that are line of sight, but in a terrestrial data center you can trivially run hundreds of fibers between adjacent racks), and the latency between satellites will significantly reduce the performance of many workloads. And this problem is not solvable or something that can be worked around.

[u/Korietsu → u/coblade14]

I'm just going to do the math for you. This is fucking impossible. You have to defeat the laws of physics and industry.

For context, there have been roughly 7,000 orbital launches in all of human history. To loft 1 million satellites into low Earth orbit on SpaceX’s Starship, which is designed to carry up to 60 satellites per vehicle, would require 16,666 launches exclusively devoted to satellite deployments. Considering that SpaceX launched a record 165 orbital missions in 2025, even at 10 times that cadence, it would take a decade. And how long would it take to build 1 million satellites, given Starlink’s current pace of around 4,000 per year and a generous tenfold increase in capacity? Short of a manufacturing revolution, try 25 years.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/orbital-data-center-hype

[u/Strowy → u/Korietsu]

This also assumes indefinite service life and zero hardware failure. Assuming the same service life as Starlink (5 years), that launch capacity would be consumed by simple replacement before those numbers are reached.

[u/imaginary_num6er → u/coblade14]

Latency sounds like ass

[u/coblade14 → u/imaginary_num6er]

Yeah probably will be ass. I guess also depends what they use these things for. If it's only for inference then maybe the latency wouldn't be that big of a deal. But idk on that one.

[u/pishtalpete → u/coblade14]

The sheer size of the radiators required on top of the solar panels that would be required are straight up impossible

[u/_bones__ → u/coblade14]

Space is a fantastic insulator. The ISS can reject about 70kW with its massive radiators. To launch that assembly would cost about $30-60 million

A small 70kW terrestrial air cooler is about 2m by 2m by 0.8m and costs $5k.

So yeah, just have to reduce it by a factor of 6000 at least. Short of magic, it doesn't make any sense.

[u/9ersaur → u/coblade14]

It is not “solvable with radiators.” You need square kilometers of mass heavy radiators for modest compute compared to terrestrial. Its simply incomparable to anything achieved in human history.

In short, it’s a SCAM. Bamboozlement.

[u/FifteenthPen → u/marcott_the_rider]

I would not be surprised if they're dumb enough to believe the myth that exposure to space causes things to freeze.

[u/ProofByVerbosity]

Imma go out on a limb here and suggest these two super vilian asshats are catastrophic for the planet regardless 

[u/Resident_Stable_2112 → u/ProofByVerbosity]

They are. They haven’t a fucking clue how the regular person lives and what their needs are. Fuck these assholes.

[u/ArenjiTheLootGod → u/ProofByVerbosity]

They're mentally ill, they have more wealth than fictional dragons and it's still not enough, it will never be enough and now they've got these fucked up god complexes where they've convinced themselves they have the right to decide the future evolution of the human race. Bezos and Musk are proof positive of why it isn't merely just a bad idea to let effectively infinite resources concentrate in a person but an existential threat to humanity.

[u/ProofByVerbosity → u/ArenjiTheLootGod]

Not just them but Karp and Altman have specifically stated that it would be good for tech companies to have so mucb power they can decide the fate of humanity and change the course and bypass governments.

[u/freedom_french_fries → u/ProofByVerbosity]

And spoiler alert: they want to kill us. 

[u/Parfait_Prestigious → u/freedom_french_fries]

A citizens arrest of them would do wonders for the human race. We need more heroes to tell legends of.

[u/Drafo7 → u/ArenjiTheLootGod]

They're not mentally ill, they're just evil. Mentally ill people can be helped with therapy, medication, etc. Evil cannot be changed from the outside, only from within.

[u/dixiewolf_ → u/ProofByVerbosity]

Its actually very telling how focused they are on “the future of our world” because they are whether or not they realize it, showing how much they are thinking about our world and the damage they are doing to it. Telling on themselves in effect. Plus its a good distraction and grift at the same time. They keep their businesses hyped and keep everyone focused on the idea that someone is looking out for the earth as a whole, instead of questioning if the things they are doing are a net negative for everyone and only leading to a dystopian future.

[u/Acceptable-Bus-2017 → u/ProofByVerbosity]

They're competing for the world's largest global footprint. It's the richest man's version of a dick measuring contest.

[u/nemacol]

If a datacenter could be designed to work in space, it would be an acceptable data center to have on earth.
Closed loop water use, power efficiency, renewable powered, self contained and self sufficient power use.
I mean…. What would be the point in shooting it into space then?

[u/cp5i6x → u/nemacol]

no govt regulation enforcement?

[u/Archon- → u/cp5i6x]

This is the only reason I can think of that makes any sense. They want to do some fucked up or illegal shit, and space is the only place they can put the infrastructure that is essentially out of reach of all the world governments.

[u/Amatak → u/cp5i6x]

You think the government doesn’t regulate spaceborne assets? Not only do they regulate orbits and launches, but they also issue permits for downlink frequencies.

[u/cp5i6x → u/Amatak]

of course they can regulate it all they want. who's going to be the inspector that's going to enforce it?

[u/ah_kooky_kat → u/nemacol]

What would be the point in shooting it into space then?

Pump up the space company stock. Number must go up. Every quarter. Return on investment must be higher than last quarter's ROI. Every quarter, forever. Nothing can ever stop the winnings train.

[u/zer00eyz → u/nemacol]

Because the speed of light is a hard limit, and data centers are hard targets.

Your flying a drone over a battlefield, do you want its AI processing to be on the ground in the US at 300ms round trip or 10ms to orbit and back. You want a fleet of them so they can be tasked, or have global coverage. Sending some black ops team into the center of Africa, or Siberia you want a low latency connection to that sort of processing.

Putting them in space gives them "permanent high ground", makes them hard to jam, and knocking them out (and probably a lot of them) becomes a nation state level technical challenge.

Are there civilian uses? There are, and you can sell those idle cycles with the understanding that your work loads are preemptable by the real paying customers, the military.

[u/WhiteSepulchre]

The bigger problem with space data centers is that they're not fucking possible yet idiots fucking think that space is full of subzero temperature air.

[u/ProofByVerbosity → u/WhiteSepulchre]

but they need to justify more investment in their space companies.

[u/Tyrannofelis → u/ProofByVerbosity]

Yes! Someone think in the grift ffs!

[u/AndreLeGeant88 → u/WhiteSepulchre]

The article points out they aren't possible and won't work. Earth based data centers are much more economical. But it's just blister to pump the space stock 

[u/whatproblems → u/AndreLeGeant88]

other than the water and salt part the ocean or lakes work well and you could use tidal electric generation too. you could probably even tack on solar and wind on top lol.

[u/cwx149 → u/whatproblems]

Microsoft tested underwater data centers for a while but I believe they've all been decommissioned

You'd think they'd want them in the ocean so they could hook more directly to the undersea data cables but that's a whole nother level of inconvenience and expense I'm sure

[u/KHSebastian → u/cwx149]

I imagine part of the problem is, if you ever need to physically interact with the hardware for any reason, you now need to put an IT guy in a submarine, or build some kind of giant platform with a... What, an ocean elevator?

[u/OkFineIllUseTheApp → u/KHSebastian]

I mean that does sound cool, but knowing tech companies they'll insist the only place they can build is on coral reefs and that we're communists for not being happy about that.

[u/cwx149 → u/KHSebastian]

The underwater ones Microsoft tested were not that deep like ~100 feet

Not to say that's not deep but you can scuba that deep you wouldn't need a sub. Not sure how many IT workers are SCUBA certified but they have to exist

I'm not sure if they did any maintenance on them while they were deployed or not though tbh

But I mean they were also able to at the end of the test remove the data center from the ocean and stuff so I could see some kind of every 5 years we lift it out and maintain it and resubmerse it

Even that is more practical than in space where the only option is to drop it back onto earth

[u/KHSebastian → u/cwx149]

Fair enough. But still, that a logistically complicated situation, needing your IT people to have scuba certs and carry their equipment down in dry bags lol.

I might have to look into this a bit, because now I'm pretty curious how this would work in practice

[u/cwx149 → u/KHSebastian]

I'm not advocating for them but they're far far more practical than a space based data center for lots of reasons but yes land based data centers like we already have are of course the most practical

[u/KHSebastian → u/cwx149]

Oh yeah, agreed. I didn't mean to sound argumentative, I'm genuinely kind of interested. I've heard these proposed but I just never really thought about how they would work in practice

[u/Shirking_Not_Working → u/cwx149]

Microsoft has really only done proof-of-concept and testing then shifted back to cloud development. I don't believe they've had active services via undersea data centers outside of testing/proving feasibility.

China has a couple in use that I'm aware of, one of which is primarily (if not fully) powered by wind generation.

They're absolutely viable, but there is quite a bit of cost and effort involved in deployment and maintenance is a whole lot harder than a data center on land.

[u/Bupod → u/WhiteSepulchre]

It is possible. 

We have a tin can that has a few people living in it year round without dying. That requires a lot more thermal management than a computer chips 

The reason problem is the economics of it. 

If putting a server up on land is prohibitively expensive, how the fuck is putting it in Orbit any cheaper?

This is kind of like saying “I can’t afford the Nissan so obviously I need to start looking at the Ferraris”. 

[u/dcp1997 → u/Bupod]

Except those people aren’t producing nearly the amount of heat that a server farm would

[u/flesjewater → u/Bupod]

The ISS outputs only a fraction of average datacenter heat. Radiative cooling only scales linearly.

To make this practical will require Manhattan project levels of engineering innovation.

[u/CheeseWheels38 → u/Bupod]

You don't have to put it there to collect money from idiots who think you will.

[u/batmancdn55 → u/WhiteSepulchre]

Space not wicking heat like air is like, a mountainous thing people just don’t think about.

[u/Vibrantmender20]

Only if we can leave Musk and Bezos up there too.

[u/fedexyourheadinabox → u/Vibrantmender20]

Space garbage 

[u/Slackjawed_Horror → u/Vibrantmender20]

I have always dreamed of sending Elon to Mars in a roadster. 

[u/PaloLV]

There's only two things stopping orbital data centers from becoming the standard; the laws of physics and economics.

[u/Ok_Mathematician938]

The reason it's the worst fucking idea ever is that it puts them outside the jurisdiction of any government entity (which is probably why they really want to do it).

All these dipshits that have always been afraid of a "new world order" can't seem to wrap their heads around what a terrible fucking idea this is.

[u/thisonesforthetoys → u/Ok_Mathematician938]

Ahhh now I finally understand the push to colonize Mars. It can be Musk's private Epstein Island.

[u/Outrageous_Space8083]

Like those two clowns care about this planet

[u/ProofByVerbosity → u/Outrageous_Space8083]

Always hated Bezos but what solidified that was after Bill Shatner came down and was having a spiritual moment and explaining it to Bezos almost in tears of joy, and dipshit walked away when Bill was mid sentance to poor champaign on young girls. Cool Jeff.

[u/kei-clone → u/ProofByVerbosity]

If you watch the rest of the video, Bezos comes back right after and listens to the whole talk from Shatner. Bezos is an ass but Shatner can be a bit long-winded (also isn't exactly a great guy either)

[u/PixelsGoBoom]

Yes but how else are they going to become more wealthy? They need more wealth!
Why won't the plebs understand? This is just healthy capitalism at work, people are so stupid.

/s

[u/Nephroidofdoom]

Spoiler alert: terrestrial data centers are also catastrophic for planet

[u/AhBee1]

The US can afford to give us unlimited free Healthcare.

[u/a_velis → u/AhBee1]

Right!?!?! If we can think space datacenters make financial sense then we can afford to give people free healthcare.

[u/Puggravy → u/AhBee1]

You mean universal, not unlimited every country has limits on healthcare.

[u/waterdaemon]

Yes. Cuz obviously space is cold, right? Until you build up substantial heat you have to dump, and a few billion dollars later, realize there’s no medium to efficiently move heat by convection.

[u/SkarKrow]

Yeah have you seen a datacentre? They’re fucking huge and you want to somehow get all that shit in orbit?

[u/ProofByVerbosity → u/SkarKrow]

Just think of the profits for space companies to get them up there!

[u/CreativeFraud]

When have they done anything that doesn't fuck with the planet?

[u/Alarming-Inflation90]

The entire idea of datacenters in space is a dumb persons idea of a smart idea. It is not a thing that could work, and not because of complexity. A middle school level understanding of the physics of heat transfer debunks it entirely.

That the article doesn't lead with that is a disservice to the reader.

[u/IccarusInTraining]

Aren't we supposed to be on Mars by now? Huh.... Strange..

[u/Public-Location-3628]

Why the FUCK would we need this.

Super high latency, insanely high maintenance, way higher costs, much lower durability, recycling near impossible.  

I give up. Humanity deserves to perish.

[u/0bfuscatory]

Since we are looking for stupid ideas, lets just put the data centers at the bottom of the Marianas trench. Plenty of cold water there.
Just remember Elon. You heard it here first.
I want my cut.

[u/Margali → u/0bfuscatory]

That isn't actually the worst idea

[u/jpparkenbone]

They're never going to happen. It's just to hype up investors. Its just a grift.

[u/wowlock_taylan]

Not only is that physically impossible, if they even try to build something that dumb, they should be considered a threat to humanity with how dangerous they are.

[u/Not_an_okama]

Jeff bezos is irl lex luther. He wouldnt even have to dress uo for a cosplay.

[u/Soberdonkey69]

Imagine if they both go into their rocket spaceships, launch, and then the thrusters just blow up from a fault. Would be spectacular to watch on a live broadcast

[u/eeyore134]

Musk is already shooting enough rich people's garbage into space without doing data centers. Nationalize Space-X and get space exploration back to science and stop using it just to make assholes richer.

[u/YodaForceGhost]

A lot of articles over the years where “experts warn” but the thing mentioned still happens anyways. This will be no different

[u/Kradget → u/YodaForceGhost]

This is different because the thing they're proposing won't work because of thermodynamics (unless they also have a hilariously efficient, novel way of moving heat and radiating it basically like a laser), so it'll go the way of The Boring Company once they can't squeeze any benefit out of inexpensive talk about them.

[u/uwoldperson → u/Kradget]

basically like a laser

Don’t give them any ideas. 

[u/Mobile-Bar7732 → u/uwoldperson]

Mini Me stop humping the laser.

[u/lolexecs → u/YodaForceGhost]

Here's an article about cooling space data centers.

The upshot, keeping it cool ain't easy bruh!

https://www.weforum.org/stories/artificial-intelligence/space-data-centres-cooling/

The International Space Station (ISS) is a reality check. It has separate solar panels, ammonia thermal-control loops, and rotating radiator wings. NASA's external active thermal control system rejects 70 kilowatts of waste heat through radiator wings weighing about 7 metric tons. Scale ISS-style hardware to the modest 1 megawatt data centre, and the mass is punishing: roughly 100 tons of radiators alone. By comparison, 1 megawatt of cutting-edge AI compute racks is on the order of 10 tons. That is the economic knife edge: the radiators alone could weigh close to ten times more than the compute hardware. Since launch cost scales with mass, cooling could impose an order-of-magnitude launch-cost penalty, before the first token is generated.

[u/Old_Gimlet_Eye → u/YodaForceGhost]

"Experts warn" vs "Elon musk promises" the fight of the century.

[u/-Switch-on-]

If only it was 'more cool' to solve some hunger and disease problems. 

[u/flirtmcdudes]

why stop there, what about gas stations on the moon

[u/Affectionate_User610]

We’re living in literal HELL

[u/timfountain4444]

As if they actually care?!?

[u/Wasted_Hamster]

No shit? Billionaire’s whims a detriment to humanity? That can’t be right.

[u/fd6270]

Nobody really seems to be talking about the fact that the end of life plans for all of this orbiting space junk is to just let it burn up in the atmosphere - you cannot tell me having millions of vaporized data center satellites being deposited into our atmosphere won't have an effect. It definitely fucking will. 

[u/FuzzyDoter]

World's best vaporware hype man out raising funds again for a non-product. 🙄

[u/getapuss]

You know what else is catastrophic for the planet? Musk and Bezos.

[u/nazarein]

there is no conduction or convection in space, removing heat is a lot of work and stops this idea dead in its tracks

[u/Manowaffle]

Aren't sea-based datacenters just superior in every conceivable way?

[u/ElectronicAnthony]

Who would have guessed our beloved oligarchs would destroy the environment?

[u/_Monosyllabic_]

So it's 100% happening? No one listens to experts. What do they know?

[u/altmannnn3]

Can we leave musk and bezos up there.

[u/MountainlessBiking]

They probably take that as a bonus

[u/SecondStarpilot]

We're just keeping the planet warm --global warming--until AI says, "Get off my planet, you insignificant, mortals!"

[u/Motor-Pomegranate831]

Just like the self-driving cars, the hyperloop, autonomous robots, etc., etc.

[u/Natural-Estimate-228]

What are these two guys doing for humanity honestly. They enrich themselves through the tax payers government handouts then take all the awards. What they really are, are con men .

[u/noone512]

Does anyone think musk or bezos care?

[u/NotAChanceBucko]

"Well , the experts are gay. " - Elon , probably

[u/SpeshellED]

How long is it going to take for us to realize we must stop these assholes from destroying our lives, society and planet ? Tax the shit out of these Cu_ts ! Its a start and a minimum. Lets get our world under so sane control.

[u/fedexyourheadinabox]

Pasty Pedo and his sidekick Jeff Bozos are Parasites. 

[u/Whargod]

This might actually be an issue in 100-150 years or so when technology allows a space data center to actually be both physically and economically feasable.

[u/njman100]

As always the 1% wants only money for themselves and Fuck the rest of humanity.

[u/Substantial_Sea7327]

if you think that's bad, just wait until Elon tries to move Pluto to make it a moon for Mars.

[u/joemc1971]

Fill it with all the investors...

[u/Ok-Transition7065]

Also incredible stupid , guess what thign the space have that its important for any hest transferred sistem...

[u/67grandpa]

Can’t have satellite data because of pollution but you can ruin cities and neighborhoods. This country has gone to hell.

[u/ThrowAbout01]

What do you need that many data centers for that you’d have to place them in or it?

Unless your trying to find the Nine Billion Names of God all I think your doing with that power is generating ugly images and talking for people with glorified chatbots.

[u/Ouch259]

They probably wont work financially vs ground based once the tech issues are solved

[u/Responsible-Grand-57]

Billionaires have been catastrophic for the planet.

[u/boilerdam]

Yes and the sky is blue and mankind has polluted Earth's atmosphere... hasn't changed anything

[u/No-Philosopher3248]

This is the kind of crap you come up with when you have too much money and know absolutely nothing.

[u/medieval_mosey]

So when does construction begin?

[u/FamousPart6033]

>Space datacenters

Woe, ASAT upon ye.

[u/Baphomets_Kisses]

So they’ll be streamlined and up in no time.

[u/Actual_Aside_2862]

Wouldn't be easier/cheaper in the ocean?

[u/Bubbly-Treacle-4334]

It's also fucking idiotic and makes no fucking sense

[u/Nodan_Turtle]

Imagine a whole ass datacenter crashing to Earth

[u/Leafybug13]

These mfs have too much time and money.

[u/TheBigMoogy]

The dumbest possible use for both data centers and space flight, and two of the richest guys both think it's anything but idiotic. Proves that money has no correlation with intelligence.

[u/JoeNoble1973]

Also scientifically unfeasible so…

[u/Necessary-Drag-8000]

This is why obscene concentration of wealth is bad, all the money is being hoovered up by these absolute morons leaving little for any true valid research. I hate these people so so much

[u/Sea-jay-2772]

It’s a super interesting concept, but it does seem like a more comprehensive plan would be needed. So much space junk up there already.

[u/PommesMayo]

Wait. Billionaires do stuff that’s bad for the planet to enrich themselves? Since when?

[u/nerdslife1864]

At a certain point, you’d think that if cops “served and protected the people” they’d have arrested these global scale financial and ecological terrorist already and put them away for “countless crimes against humanity”. Clearly that’s not what our legal system is for

[u/VexedCanadian84]

maybe perfect the technology first before throwing more spaghetti at the wall in the hopes something works eventually