I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about using satellites for data processing lately. The benefit is better energy generation as I have understood it. But isn’t there a problem in that satelites are bad at expelling excess heat, since they can only do so passively?
It’s definitely a harder technical problem than regular buildings, but it’s not absurd. I think the biggest risk factor is the disposition of the hardware after a life cycle: deorbiting and vaporizing tons of servers would be pretty bad, but dropping them to the surface somehow for reclamation and recycling is possible.
Nobody that says the answer is obvious has put enough expertise and thought into it. In my experience, a bunch of qualified engineers saying “well, I guess we could, maybe 🤔” is an incubator for innovation.
Orbital data centers, part 1: There’s no way this is economically viable, right? - Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/03/orbital-data-centers-part-1-theres-no-way-this-is-economically-viable-right/
Something tells me you are not an engineer…
That’s a nice ad hominem you’ve got there.
It’s not an ad hominem. I’m clearly implying that your analysis indicates you lack fundamental knowledge of basic elementary physics and engineering principles.
Are you?
Read the article. The answer is a very drawn out “no”.