I'm really feeling seriously depressed about the disaster in orbit today, I already had a couple of meetings and a flurry of emails about the fucking awful SpaceX million satellite filing.
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@sundogplanets Disaster in orbit?! <checks news>
@WTL Did you find anything? Because I don't. I'm finding a Starlink on-orbit explosion in December and the Luch/Olymp breakup in graveyard orbit a week ago, but nothing today.
@sundogplanets a link or at least something specific would be very helpful! As bad as the SpaceX million satellites thing is, I fail to see how that is "today". Am I (and others, evidently) reading this too literally?
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@WTL Did you find anything? Because I don't. I'm finding a Starlink on-orbit explosion in December and the Luch/Olymp breakup in graveyard orbit a week ago, but nothing today.
@sundogplanets a link or at least something specific would be very helpful! As bad as the SpaceX million satellites thing is, I fail to see how that is "today". Am I (and others, evidently) reading this too literally?
@mkj I didn't see anything either. Perhaps @sundogplanets meant the disaster is the approval of 4000 more satellites today: https://www.engadget.com/science/space/a-potential-starlink-competitor-just-got-fcc-clearance-to-launch-4000-satellites-143905076.html
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I'm really feeling seriously depressed about the disaster in orbit today, I already had a couple of meetings and a flurry of emails about the fucking awful SpaceX million satellite filing.
It's Waitangi Day here, and I'm looking forward to learning a lot about Māori culture and seeing some geysers today. I'm going to try to lean in to the stunning natural beauty of the land I'm on today and the Indigenous knowledge that goes with it.
@sundogplanets It's bizarre to me to think that orbital data centers will be cheaper than ground-based ones, with having to power and cool them.
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@sundogplanets It's bizarre to me to think that orbital data centers will be cheaper than ground-based ones, with having to power and cool them.
@zompus @sundogplanets They aren't. The physics of heat doesn't work out, nor is there much in the way of rad hard compute that you could put in orbit. Like much of what Musk talks about, the orbital data centers thing is bullshit, not a real thing.
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@sundogplanets It's bizarre to me to think that orbital data centers will be cheaper than ground-based ones, with having to power and cool them.
@zompus @sundogplanets I think Elon tipped his hand when he said he wants a rail gun on the Moon to "launch data centers."
This was never about data centers. It's about extortion.
And between Trump, Cosplay Astronaut, and the Jesus Freak running DoD, they'll give it to him.
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I'm really feeling seriously depressed about the disaster in orbit today, I already had a couple of meetings and a flurry of emails about the fucking awful SpaceX million satellite filing.
It's Waitangi Day here, and I'm looking forward to learning a lot about Māori culture and seeing some geysers today. I'm going to try to lean in to the stunning natural beauty of the land I'm on today and the Indigenous knowledge that goes with it.
@sundogplanets hang in there. You're doing great work.
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@zompus @sundogplanets They aren't. The physics of heat doesn't work out, nor is there much in the way of rad hard compute that you could put in orbit. Like much of what Musk talks about, the orbital data centers thing is bullshit, not a real thing.
@mhkohne @sundogplanets My work involves both solar panels and HVAC, and I'm imagining the cost of launching enough power generation and cooling to run even one server rack. It's a grift all the way down.
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@sundogplanets It's bizarre to me to think that orbital data centers will be cheaper than ground-based ones, with having to power and cool them.
@zompus @sundogplanets They won’t be. Elon is purposely conflating AI and space tech to suckle on the teat of taxpayer subsidies to keep running his abuse machine.
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@zompus @sundogplanets They won’t be. Elon is purposely conflating AI and space tech to suckle on the teat of taxpayer subsidies to keep running his abuse machine.
@drahardja @sundogplanets I know somebody who works at NASA, and they went on a long rant to me about how SpaceX people didn't know how to do any space operations, so they got free tours and consulting from NASA people, and then came back and took all their jobs.
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@drahardja @sundogplanets I know somebody who works at NASA, and they went on a long rant to me about how SpaceX people didn't know how to do any space operations, so they got free tours and consulting from NASA people, and then came back and took all their jobs.
@zompus @sundogplanets The existence of SpaceX is a policy choice. And it’s a bad one.
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@WTL Did you find anything? Because I don't. I'm finding a Starlink on-orbit explosion in December and the Luch/Olymp breakup in graveyard orbit a week ago, but nothing today.
@sundogplanets a link or at least something specific would be very helpful! As bad as the SpaceX million satellites thing is, I fail to see how that is "today". Am I (and others, evidently) reading this too literally?
@mkj @WTL @sundogplanets A Falcon 9 2nd stage failed its de-orbit burn so came back in uncontrolled. somewhere. https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/04/spacex_halts_falcon_9_flights/
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I'm really feeling seriously depressed about the disaster in orbit today, I already had a couple of meetings and a flurry of emails about the fucking awful SpaceX million satellite filing.
It's Waitangi Day here, and I'm looking forward to learning a lot about Māori culture and seeing some geysers today. I'm going to try to lean in to the stunning natural beauty of the land I'm on today and the Indigenous knowledge that goes with it.
@sundogplanets While I've always been pissed about how cavalier Musk, Bezos, and others have been with the space junk problem they are creating with these mega constellations this push for *one million* satellites and data centers in space has me even more so. This week the analogy it had me thinking about was the industrial wastelands Robber Barons and industrialists of the first Gilded Age created. We look back and think, "How could they have done that and how could everyone have let that happen?" Meanwhile they are doing it again but up in space, and even down here with their unquenchable thirst for resources to feed their new AI machines. It's just so frustrating that humans can't learn from the past but must go through all the same mistakes over and over again. -
@mhkohne @sundogplanets My work involves both solar panels and HVAC, and I'm imagining the cost of launching enough power generation and cooling to run even one server rack. It's a grift all the way down.
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@zompus @sundogplanets They won’t be. Elon is purposely conflating AI and space tech to suckle on the teat of taxpayer subsidies to keep running his abuse machine.
@drahardja @zompus @sundogplanets
Like The Moneyed of Eisenhower's era, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel & Larry Ellison know that vast wealth comes from attaching themselves to taxpayer-funded military contracts
It lets politicians reward their donors in secret
Pay-to-play for Silicon Valley moguls gearing up for world war
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5612954-trump-f35-saudi-arabia-deal/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/05/13/trump-tech-execs-riyadh/
https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-f-35-sale-saudi-arabia-threatens-antagonize-israel-11063802
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/us/politics/trump-saudi-fighter-jets.html
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I'm really feeling seriously depressed about the disaster in orbit today, I already had a couple of meetings and a flurry of emails about the fucking awful SpaceX million satellite filing.
It's Waitangi Day here, and I'm looking forward to learning a lot about Māori culture and seeing some geysers today. I'm going to try to lean in to the stunning natural beauty of the land I'm on today and the Indigenous knowledge that goes with it.
@sundogplanets Enjoy our downunder experience.
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@zompus @sundogplanets I think Elon tipped his hand when he said he wants a rail gun on the Moon to "launch data centers."
This was never about data centers. It's about extortion.
And between Trump, Cosplay Astronaut, and the Jesus Freak running DoD, they'll give it to him.
@emma @zompus @sundogplanets I think you can infer his reading list when he spouts his crazy. Rail guns is from 'the moon is a harsh mistress', data centres in orbit are mentioned in 'nueromancer'
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@emma @zompus @sundogplanets I think you can infer his reading list when he spouts his crazy. Rail guns is from 'the moon is a harsh mistress', data centres in orbit are mentioned in 'nueromancer'
@thedarknite @emma @sundogplanets Like the time Zuckerberg read Snow Crash and then threw his entire company behind "Metaverse"
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@sundogplanets It's bizarre to me to think that orbital data centers will be cheaper than ground-based ones, with having to power and cool them.
@zompus @sundogplanets
The Solar electricity isn't that much better than many places on Earth, panels are cheap, launch expensive.The Datacentres in space can't be cooled. No convection or water.
They can't be serviced.
Space electronics uses different chips to datacentres and they can't be shielded.
It's fantasy
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@mhkohne @sundogplanets My work involves both solar panels and HVAC, and I'm imagining the cost of launching enough power generation and cooling to run even one server rack. It's a grift all the way down.
@zompus @mhkohne @sundogplanets I mean. Basically that's what satellites already are. Lil special purpose compute systems run by solar panels in space. "Data centers in spaaaaaaace" is just generalizing the specific parts of it. And it's EPICLY stupid, those fuckers need to spin to dump waste heat. It would be cheaper to solve the vibration problem and stuff data centers under every Walmart parking lot.
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