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NIMBY for data centers is opportunity for SpaceX. When they saturate the demand for communication, data processing demand will be ramping up with no apparent ce

NIMBY for data centers is opportunity for SpaceX. When they saturate the demand for communication, data processing demand will be ramping up with no apparent ceiling. The merger between SpaceX and xAI positions them to benefit both from the AI revolution, and from the resistance to it. It's like a hypothetical 19th century textile company that managed to profit from Luddite riots by using them to help move production to Umpa Loompa.

outside1234 9mo ago
Is this satire? I can't even tell anymore. If so, bravo.
brightball 9mo ago
Yep. That was my first thought when I saw the SpaceX & xAI merger news. https://www.wsj.com/tech/bezos-and-musk-race-to-bring-data-centers-to-space-faa486ee https://www.wsj.com/tech/bezos-and-musk-race-to-bring-data-c... https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/01/technology/space-data-centers-ai.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/01/technology/space-data-cen...
timmg 9mo ago
Do data centers in space actually make sense? I can’t figure out how that’s possible. But some people seem to believe they do(?)
- janice1999 9mo ago
  > Do data centers in space actually make sense? No. It's currently a fantasy. Even if the cost of getting payloads to orbit decreased another x100, you still have the issues of radiation and heat dissipation.
  - simianwords 9mo ago
    this will age poorly. you have both Google, Tesla/X betting on it. They are not stupid and probably have given it way more thought than people's whose paycheques not tied to this have thought about. This is an ambitious bet, with some possibility of failure but it should say a lot that these companies are investing in them. I wonder what people think, are these companies so naive? Edit: Elon, Sundar, Jensen, Jeff are all interested in this. Even China is. What conspiracy is going on here to explain it? Why would they all put money into this if it is so obvious to all of you that it is not going to work?
    - MattSteelblade 9mo ago
      Google is hardly betting on it; they are exploring the feasibility of it and are frank about the engineering challenges: > significant engineering challenges remain, such as thermal management, high-bandwidth ground communications, and on-orbit system reliability.[1] [1] https://research.google/blog/exploring-a-space-based-scalable-ai-infrastructure-system-design/ https://research.google/blog/exploring-a-space-based-scalabl...
      - simianwords 9mo ago
        why do you think this changes what i said? I know it has constraints but the fact is that Google is serious about it. Enough to publicly speak about it many times and invest enormous amounts of R&D. You are saying they are "hardly betting on it". This is grossly false and I wonder why you would write that? Its clearly a serious bet, with lots of people working on it. > Google CEO Sundar Pichai says we’re just a decade away from a new normal of extraterrestrial data centers Its surely a high risk bet but that's how Google has been operating for a while. But why would you say they are hardly betting on it? As a counter question: do you think Google is not serious about it?
        MattSteelblade 9mo ago
        I never said Google wasn't serious; I said they are hardly betting on it relative to their other capital expenditures. Google rightfully describes this as a "moonshot." To date, the only public hardware commitment is two prototype satellites in 2027 for a feasibility study. Compared to the billions pouring into Waymo, DeepMind, and terrestrial data centers, this doesn't yet qualify as an "enormous" financial bet, even if the engineering intent is serious.
        simianwords 9mo ago
        i agree with you then. lets agree that the intent is serious.
    - deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
- MattSteelblade 9mo ago
  Not even a little; doesn’t pass napkin math. It doesn’t solve any problems while adding a litany of new ones: massive radiators for heat rejection, radiation hardening, and enormous launch + repair costs (assuming repairs are even possible). The idea exists to separate investors from their money; the product is the funding round.
  - codethief 9mo ago
    I haven't done the actual math and I might be a few orders of magnitude off but shouldn't electrical resistance drop quite significantly in space, too? (Of course there's the other issue that information processing is an inherently dissipative process because entropy etc.)
    - cguess 9mo ago
      How would electrical resistance drop in space? If you're thinking "because it's cold" that's actually the biggest issue. The vacuum means you can't dispose of heat easily, so you need giant radiators, which are expensive, heavy, etc.
  - fouc 9mo ago
    there's no repair involved. imagine a series of throwaway satellites on an orbit that essentially leaves them close enough together for effective mesh networking, and probably on an orbit that slowly takes them away from earth. the compute is used for training, not inference. the redundancy and mesh networking means that if any of them die, it is no big deal. and an orbit that takes them away from earth means they avoid cluttering up earth's orbital field.
    - MattSteelblade 9mo ago
      It sounds like you're describing Google's proposal, which I believe is at least feasible (though likely uneconomic) unlike, say, Starcloud's. I don't think you are correct about the orbit, though; Google's proposal lists the satellites at 650 km, which would give them approximately 20 years in orbit without boosts. They list estimated life at 5 years given radiation concerns, so they almost certainly would purposely deorbit them earlier.
- _ea1k 9mo ago
  I've always assumed that the answer to this would be no. However, I also always assumed that a huge space-based internet system would be both expensive and impractical for bandwidth and latency. Starlink has largely defied those expectations thanks to their approach to optimize launch costs. It is possible that I'm overlooking some similar fundamental advancement that would make this less impractical than it sounds. I'm still really skeptical.
mekdoonggi 9mo ago
Wouldn't it be cheaper to buy a container ship, convert it to a data center and connect it to a bunch of floating panels?
- gman2093 9mo ago
  Most systems use fresh water for cooling. Salt water can corrode pipes and deposit sediment, but maybe there's a way to use ocean water efficiently. They also need to be powered and connected to a network, but that seems like an easier problem.
  - andruby 9mo ago
    the internal loop can be fresh water which heat exchanges with the ocean water
sailfast 9mo ago
I wouldn’t overthink the SpaceX / xAI thing. Seems to me it’s a pure financing play to blend two companies owned by the same guy that might look meh on their own to the market but have a compelling narrative about “future growth” together. All so that the same guy who is already quite rich can continue to run his funny-up money roll-up machine, re-capitalize on a bunch of froth and leave other people holding the bag.
- simianwords 9mo ago
  what about Google? It's always the same tired thought ending cliches - companies with "bad" people do obviously "bad" thing to convince idiotic shareholders and prop up the bubble. i keep seeing this same repeated trope again and again. Edit: Elon, Sundar, Jensen, Jeff are all interested in this. Even China is. What conspiracy is going on here to explain it? Why would they all put money into this if it is so obvious to all of you that it is not going to work?
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deleted 9mo ago
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DalasNoin 9mo ago
Space doesn't seem like a good place to build datacenters at all. Cooling is going to be an enormous issue, how do you disperse of heat in a vaccuum? Radiators are very ineffective for cooling.
- whizzter 9mo ago
  Cooling is the biggest reason for space datacenters, heat is movement of particles and vacuum being an absence of particles, so it's by definition cold. Naturally the system needs energy, the sun giving radiation convertible to electricity should enable that. Both parts are documented about ISS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_system_of_the_International_Space_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_system_of_the_Inter...
  - delecti 9mo ago
    Space is indeed very cold, but it does not cool you off very quickly. The lack of particles means it's harder to get heat away from yourself. Essentially all of the energy produced via solar panels would be converted to heat by the computers.
  - DalasNoin 9mo ago
    It's cold in a sense that is not very relevant. Your tumbler has a vaccuum layer because vaccuum does not transport or absorb any heat. you need those atoms to carry away heat.
  - tzs 9mo ago
    > Cooling is the biggest reason for space datacenters, heat is movement of particles and vacuum being an absence of particles, so it's by definition cold. That absence of particles also means it is a nearly perfect insulator, with almost no heat transferred from the station to space by contact with space. No convection either. That leaves cooling by thermal radiation, which is not a very good method.
deleted 9mo ago
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outside1234 9mo ago

Is this satire? I can't even tell anymore. If so, bravo.

brightball 9mo ago

Yep. That was my first thought when I saw the SpaceX & xAI merger news. https://www.wsj.com/tech/bezos-and-musk-race-to-bring-data-centers-to-space-faa486ee https://www.wsj.com/tech/bezos-and-musk-race-to-bring-data-c... https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/01/technology/space-data-centers-ai.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/01/technology/space-data-cen...

timmg 9mo ago

Do data centers in space actually make sense? I can’t figure out how that’s possible. But some people seem to believe they do(?)

janice1999 9mo ago
> Do data centers in space actually make sense? No. It's currently a fantasy. Even if the cost of getting payloads to orbit decreased another x100, you still have the issues of radiation and heat dissipation.
- simianwords 9mo ago
  this will age poorly. you have both Google, Tesla/X betting on it. They are not stupid and probably have given it way more thought than people's whose paycheques not tied to this have thought about. This is an ambitious bet, with some possibility of failure but it should say a lot that these companies are investing in them. I wonder what people think, are these companies so naive? Edit: Elon, Sundar, Jensen, Jeff are all interested in this. Even China is. What conspiracy is going on here to explain it? Why would they all put money into this if it is so obvious to all of you that it is not going to work?
  - MattSteelblade 9mo ago
    Google is hardly betting on it; they are exploring the feasibility of it and are frank about the engineering challenges: > significant engineering challenges remain, such as thermal management, high-bandwidth ground communications, and on-orbit system reliability.[1] [1] https://research.google/blog/exploring-a-space-based-scalable-ai-infrastructure-system-design/ https://research.google/blog/exploring-a-space-based-scalabl...
    - simianwords 9mo ago
      why do you think this changes what i said? I know it has constraints but the fact is that Google is serious about it. Enough to publicly speak about it many times and invest enormous amounts of R&D. You are saying they are "hardly betting on it". This is grossly false and I wonder why you would write that? Its clearly a serious bet, with lots of people working on it. > Google CEO Sundar Pichai says we’re just a decade away from a new normal of extraterrestrial data centers Its surely a high risk bet but that's how Google has been operating for a while. But why would you say they are hardly betting on it? As a counter question: do you think Google is not serious about it?
      - MattSteelblade 9mo ago
        I never said Google wasn't serious; I said they are hardly betting on it relative to their other capital expenditures. Google rightfully describes this as a "moonshot." To date, the only public hardware commitment is two prototype satellites in 2027 for a feasibility study. Compared to the billions pouring into Waymo, DeepMind, and terrestrial data centers, this doesn't yet qualify as an "enormous" financial bet, even if the engineering intent is serious.
        simianwords 9mo ago
        i agree with you then. lets agree that the intent is serious.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
MattSteelblade 9mo ago
Not even a little; doesn’t pass napkin math. It doesn’t solve any problems while adding a litany of new ones: massive radiators for heat rejection, radiation hardening, and enormous launch + repair costs (assuming repairs are even possible). The idea exists to separate investors from their money; the product is the funding round.
- codethief 9mo ago
  I haven't done the actual math and I might be a few orders of magnitude off but shouldn't electrical resistance drop quite significantly in space, too? (Of course there's the other issue that information processing is an inherently dissipative process because entropy etc.)
  - cguess 9mo ago
    How would electrical resistance drop in space? If you're thinking "because it's cold" that's actually the biggest issue. The vacuum means you can't dispose of heat easily, so you need giant radiators, which are expensive, heavy, etc.
- fouc 9mo ago
  there's no repair involved. imagine a series of throwaway satellites on an orbit that essentially leaves them close enough together for effective mesh networking, and probably on an orbit that slowly takes them away from earth. the compute is used for training, not inference. the redundancy and mesh networking means that if any of them die, it is no big deal. and an orbit that takes them away from earth means they avoid cluttering up earth's orbital field.
  - MattSteelblade 9mo ago
    It sounds like you're describing Google's proposal, which I believe is at least feasible (though likely uneconomic) unlike, say, Starcloud's. I don't think you are correct about the orbit, though; Google's proposal lists the satellites at 650 km, which would give them approximately 20 years in orbit without boosts. They list estimated life at 5 years given radiation concerns, so they almost certainly would purposely deorbit them earlier.
_ea1k 9mo ago
I've always assumed that the answer to this would be no. However, I also always assumed that a huge space-based internet system would be both expensive and impractical for bandwidth and latency. Starlink has largely defied those expectations thanks to their approach to optimize launch costs. It is possible that I'm overlooking some similar fundamental advancement that would make this less impractical than it sounds. I'm still really skeptical.

mekdoonggi 9mo ago

Wouldn't it be cheaper to buy a container ship, convert it to a data center and connect it to a bunch of floating panels?

gman2093 9mo ago
Most systems use fresh water for cooling. Salt water can corrode pipes and deposit sediment, but maybe there's a way to use ocean water efficiently. They also need to be powered and connected to a network, but that seems like an easier problem.
- andruby 9mo ago
  the internal loop can be fresh water which heat exchanges with the ocean water

sailfast 9mo ago

I wouldn’t overthink the SpaceX / xAI thing. Seems to me it’s a pure financing play to blend two companies owned by the same guy that might look meh on their own to the market but have a compelling narrative about “future growth” together. All so that the same guy who is already quite rich can continue to run his funny-up money roll-up machine, re-capitalize on a bunch of froth and leave other people holding the bag.

simianwords 9mo ago
what about Google? It's always the same tired thought ending cliches - companies with "bad" people do obviously "bad" thing to convince idiotic shareholders and prop up the bubble. i keep seeing this same repeated trope again and again. Edit: Elon, Sundar, Jensen, Jeff are all interested in this. Even China is. What conspiracy is going on here to explain it? Why would they all put money into this if it is so obvious to all of you that it is not going to work?
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

DalasNoin 9mo ago

Space doesn't seem like a good place to build datacenters at all. Cooling is going to be an enormous issue, how do you disperse of heat in a vaccuum? Radiators are very ineffective for cooling.

whizzter 9mo ago
Cooling is the biggest reason for space datacenters, heat is movement of particles and vacuum being an absence of particles, so it's by definition cold. Naturally the system needs energy, the sun giving radiation convertible to electricity should enable that. Both parts are documented about ISS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_system_of_the_International_Space_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_system_of_the_Inter...
- delecti 9mo ago
  Space is indeed very cold, but it does not cool you off very quickly. The lack of particles means it's harder to get heat away from yourself. Essentially all of the energy produced via solar panels would be converted to heat by the computers.
- DalasNoin 9mo ago
  It's cold in a sense that is not very relevant. Your tumbler has a vaccuum layer because vaccuum does not transport or absorb any heat. you need those atoms to carry away heat.
- tzs 9mo ago
  > Cooling is the biggest reason for space datacenters, heat is movement of particles and vacuum being an absence of particles, so it's by definition cold. That absence of particles also means it is a nearly perfect insulator, with almost no heat transferred from the station to space by contact with space. No convection either. That leaves cooling by thermal radiation, which is not a very good method.

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