Yea honestly, orbital data centers are the dumbest shit I've heard during this bubble, and a huge indication of peak bubble hype.
this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2026
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Orbital data centers are a good idea if one wants to get massive golden parachutes that siphon money from all the investor cash that the entirely u realistic promises brings in. They are a grift that will most likely benefit Musk in the same way all his other pie int he sky bullshit does.
Being technically terrible hasn't really stopped that from happening with his other bullshit projects.
Orbital data centers are the new "hyperloop"
The advantage of datacenters in space is that the peasants can't break in and sabotage your equipment. Only a very small set of nations would have the capability of blowing it up or somehow jamming its communications.
It literally only makes sense if you're a billionaire worried about the growing unpopularity of your AI datacenters, or you're using it for war and don't want it easily bombed...
The advantage of datacenters in space is that the peasants can't break in and sabotage your equipment.
If that's your criteria, put servers in containers and sink them in the ocean. Bonus, no cooling problems.
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I've been working on IT for quite a while now and the only certain thing on this business is that hardware breaks down. All of it. Only questions are 'when' and 'how'. I'm pretty sure you can't get NBD support to the orbit. And I'd guess that shaking the shit out of the hardware during launch won't really help.
And that's of course just a minor detail, the whole idea is so stupid on a very fundamental level that I don't know why it's even a news worthy.
Lots of radiation in space. Computers classically do not do well with radiation.
They'll just get AI to design hard drives that don't fail and chips that are immune to cosmic rays, duh.
My god it's genius, why hasn't Elon Musk thought of this? Is he stupid? (Yes, but not for this)
Or with waste heat-- a different kind of radiation problem
If you sell rockets and satellites, then data centers in space sound like a perfect idea to increase demand with other people's money.
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Very useless and expensive idea.
Are there actually people who think this is a good idea that are not in a position to make money off it?
Yes. All the retail investors in SpaceX that will be left to hold the bag.
My aunt and uncle are Elon fans (yes, even after his fucking Nazi salute) and have said orbital data centers are a good idea.
They have money, and my uncle is usually pretty smart, so I'm not sure what the fuck is happening.
I know what’s happening! Your aunt and uncle are racist dumbasses.
I don't know you, and I certainly don't know your aunt and uncle, but I would generally assume in Nazi situations that "even after" probably means "particularly after" even if they don't admit it.
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A data center in space would be damn near impossible to cool.
What's sad is that Stanley did a remarkable job of putting a vacuum flask in the literal hands of millions of Americans. It shouldn't be hard at all for everyone to figure out why this is the case, but here we are.
Even putting aside the absurd expense, impossible power demand, lack of cooling and abundance of hostile radiation, what the fuck is even the point of a data centre in orbit? "Sorry, I can't access my files right now, the data centre is over the Indian Ocean". "Yeah, I've sent the email - it'll be delivered in fourty-three hours when the satellite is next in range of London". Yes, I'm being facetious but what possible benefit could there be for having ten thousand tiny, low-power data centres - of which you can only access one or two at a time - versus the obvious, existing, cheaper, proven alternative?
As far as I know, there are no more orbital deadzones. We've got so many satellites, if not Starlink, I'm sure some other satellites could do the job of relaying to ground stations. We get live video of boosters landing in the middle of the ocean after all.
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Ignoring all of the disadvantages of datacenters in space, what are any of the advantages?
Harder to burn down in a civil uprising, space is neat, and able to ignore laws and regulations because cops are too dumb for space.
Shit-tons of profit, if you happen to own a company that specializes in rocket launches.
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