What the actual fuck. It's not April Fools Day, right? This is real?! Fuck you, SpaceX. Maybe this will help regulators realize how fucking shortsighted companies' plans in orbit are?
Surely the FCC won't rubber-stamp-approve this one??... ONE MILLION STARLINKS FUUUUCCCKKKKKK
https://au.pcmag.com/networking/115649/spacex-eyes-1-million-satellites-for-orbital-data-center-push
@sundogplanets Kessler Syndrome, here we come 🙌🏻
@sundogplanets Elon realises there is no country on Earth that will let him run his CSAM-generating Grok program. He sees a way around this.
@sundogplanets Kessler was an optimist.
"AI" needs to die.
I'm convinced they want to blot out the stars entirely
@sundogplanets There must be something else going on. This cannot be what it seems.
Anyone with a modicum of experience knows the arguments in the FCC filing are garbage; beyond the enormous launch costs, space-grade solar is far more expensive than on the ground, and cooling is ghastly hard because you're in a vacuum.
Buzzword-based value pump for the merger? Jurisdiction shopping? Mental illness?
@sundogplanets somebody stop this nonsense. This will irreversibly deprive our species of land astronomy and the chance of ever leaving this planet.
Maybe the reason why there aren't any aliens is because they all have Elons.
@sundogplanets I am not an astronaut, but it was my understanding one of the biggest problems in space was radiating waste heat.
I am a computer engineer, and I definitely know one of the biggest problems of data centers is that they generate a lot of waste heat.
Sending ONE satellite into space to be a data center would be the stupidest idea I'd heard all week.
@sundogplanets
You can't have effective data centres in space though!
https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horrible-no-good-idea/
@sundogplanets I swear if we lose our night sky for *AI* I'm going to lose it
@sundogplanets rogue asteroids no longer need to fear being detected and intercepted, or have Bruce Willis land and destroy them. We will never see them coming through the cloud of billionaire supported space junk in the way.
Time travel must not be possible or someone would have come back to us 100 years ago and thwarted the system that lets some have BILLIONS while others live on the street.
🎶🎵 It's raining not-men-but-satellites 🎵🎶
@sundogplanets Surely someone has done the math here: roughly 10^1.5 satellites per launch. Roughly 10^2 launches per year. Average satellite lifetime of (optimistically) 10^1 years… Is 10^6 satellites even possible? (never mind orbital intersections, etc.)
@sundogplanets not to mention that they can’t cool serious datacenters in space… so what are they really?
Tbh, it is time to find a way to remove junk like SpaceX satellites from orbit without blowing them up with a ballistic missile. Aka. we need a way to free up the sky again or we'll just be stranded down here and not even be able to see the stars anymore...
“What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?”
@sundogplanets scientists need to build lasers to zap them out of earth. Put them into a trajectory to leave the earth.
@sundogplanets IMHO it's another dumb way of Elon Musk to hype his techno bullshit. Orbital datacenter is a stupid idea on so many levels. Nobody will pit actual money into it. (Maybe the current US government, but nobody sane.)
This is why he was so invested in Trump winning.
Can't be having all that regulation, now can we?
@sundogplanets I am so disappointed, man. When I was in highschool, I thought Elon Musk was so cool. The "real life Iron Man." Now, what the fuck.
@sundogplanets this is like the archetypal gold rush land grab. No thought or card for the consequences on others eg astronomy, debris impact etc. Just selfish short term monetary gain. The polluter should pay!
@sundogplanets The only relevant sci-fi: "we don't know who struck first, but we know it was us who darkened the sky."
@sundogplanets Isn't it obvious that speedrunning Kessler syndrome to no obvious benefit is how you become a multiplanetary species?
It's just science or something.
@sundogplanets @robpike lol data centers in space what a publicity stunt. Makes absolutely zero material sense.
@sundogplanets "Pump and dump" is the natural state of being for homo-muskiens.
He recently said that Tesla will soon be building a million humanoid robots a year.
It's the same game every time.
https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/29/truth_telling_man_always_tells_truth/
@sundogplanets This is completely impossible to make work. Sounds more like a stock pump scam.
@sundogplanets other countries will have to shoot them fown to get into space
@sundogplanets I'm sure nothing could possibly go wrong with that. Completely risk free with no drawbacks whatsoever.
Do you see the red laser making a giant letter X?
This is a frame of video from "Attack on Skynet base ⧹ T800 Arrival ｜ Terminator Genisys".
You're only "dead" if you reject God's offer of eternal life through the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on a cross. Follow Him and live.
@sundogplanets At this point I'm quite sure they're deliberately trying to cause a Kessler syndrome, so we could never escape the hell billionaires are going to lay upon us.
@sundogplanets Not to mention this is a terrible idea. Hard drives don't last that long and now we are gonna have to launch data recovery teams every time an orbiting RAID array goes down? Not practical at all. How is it these people get to say they are pragmatists and their plans are constantly more and more asinine.
@sundogplanets 30x more satellites than objects that we are currently tracking in orbit? (Including debris from stuff that blew or was blown up)
One company?
Well that's fucking ridiculous.
@sundogplanets I kind of think the project is cool as fuck and makes a ton of sense. Fuck that guy obviously
@sundogplanets
My only thought: externalities
@sundogplanets
holy fuck. * groan *
@sundogplanets this is by far the stupidest thing I've heard in this dystopian mess Elon and friends are plunging us in.
@sundogplanets if they speak of datacenters - I imagine them tonbe much larger than starlink satellites and they would need a lot of energy. I guess they will have huge solar panels.
This is bat-shit crazy if true.
@sundogplanets That's something like 17,000 falcon 9 launches... they did 606 last year.
It's not April fools but it is the day after he appeared in the Epstein files in the most embarrassing way possible
@sundogplanets Starlink is going to launch a satellite cell phone service, also most airlines are switching to Starlink internet service, so I think it is natural that they will need a lot more satellites. Starship is going to able to deliver them into orbit.
@sundogplanets did they solved the cooling problem?
@sundogplanets
Takeaways: "Orbital data centers" for "accelerating demand for AI" (snicker). "This filing seems quite rushed"..."the details were left vague"
Bottom line: it's an investor scam. The people who wasted billions on AI R&D are looking for the "greater fool" to unload the investments onto, and need a fantasy project to convince people they can still get in on the ground floor of something. Once the IPO is through collecting gullible people's cash, their mission is accomplished.
@sundogplanets this will be a catastrophic disaster
Typical SpaceX Starlink communications satellites are roughly the size of a table or small car, weighing between 570 lbs (260 kg) for earlier models and up to 1,630+ lbs (740+ kg) for newer "V2 Mini" versions. They measure approximately 2.8 to 3.2 meters long, 1.4 to 1.6 meters wide, and are thin, designed for flat-packing in Falcon 9 rockets.
@sundogplanets You gotta build Skynet somehow
@sundogplanets JFC, everyday its news of yet another billionaire's hard-on to destroy the only inhabitable planet we know of.
@sundogplanets this is the peak of irresponsibility you might think, until you wake up next morning.
@sundogplanets I suggest we all become amateur radio astronomers but instead of receiving we transmit. We agree on a satellite to fry every day until starlink costs too much to keep running.
Obviously we can't do this. Not everyone can afford a radio transmission setup & a satellite antenna, & the FCC in the USA & the equivalents in other countries would be very mad, but I wish we could do this.
@sundogplanets of course they will allow.
They want this to be free of ALL privacy law, as Space is not regulated.
@sundogplanets ....uhhhhh.
okay, plan b, china builds as many nuclear reactors as it takes to laser broom earth orbit clean, and then we have about 40 years to figure out how to stop the aluminum oxides from destroying the ozone layer,
But, until Musk-Kessler Syndrome destroys all access to orbit for many decades, he'll give the world access to his "A.I". that will empower users to *checks notes* generate non-consensual pornography of women and children.
@sundogplanets - so much for ever seeing stars again
@sundogplanets, why is this a problem? Datacenters in space would eliminate a lot of problems like access to free solar energy, cooling, etc.
For example, datacenters are being constructed with massive discounts by councils/municipals and in turn, water and electricity bill of residential area gets higher to pay that offset of costs.
@sundogplanets I'd still like journalists to start asking questions when "data centers in space" come up. Questions like:
-"How will you cool them?"
I really can't imagine there's a whole business plan drawn up thinking "space is really cold" will solve it but I'm starting to doubt ...
@sundogplanets Apropos of nothing, I recommend Becky Chambers’ SciFi book “The Galaxy, and the Ground Within”. A great read premised on the Kessler Effect.
@sundogplanets Shortsighted? No, I think they've invested long-term in SpaceX stock.
@sundogplanets
All in sun synchronous orbit? 🤡
@sundogplanets I’m (jokingly) pretty sure aliens are behind this stupidity. Why else would we be purposely stranding ourselves on this planet by filling up the sky with space junk?
Oh right, because we can…
Times like these I like to disassociate much more hilarious reasons than what reality actually offers, as to why things they way they are. Today it’s aliens, tomorrow? Tardigrades maybe.
@sundogplanets Musk: Hahaha Kessler go brrr
What people should suggest is that Elon Musk personally move himself into space to oversee the development of his glorious satellite network.
By all means, we should hurry him to the asteroid belt personally so he can collect the raw materials and then fashion the satellites. Tell him it will cut launch cost costs.
If you understand anything about the giant CF of data centers right now this is just the stupidest idea ever.
First, the lifespan of these chips runs on the order of 18 months before they are considered obsolete and the chips fry very quickly so there is a very high failure rate.
Also, the data centers power is determined by the networking of all the components in the data center.
Ask yourself if RF communication broadcast between satellites can work like wires
That would disintegrate into shrapnel in days.
The Kessler syndrome, also known as the Kessler effect,[1][2] collisional cascading, or ablation cascade, is a scenario proposed by NASA scientists Donald J. Kessler and Burton G. Cour-Palais in 1978. It describes a situation in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit (LEO) becomes so high due to space pollution that collisions between these objects cascade, exponentially increasing the amount of space debris over time.[3] This proliferation
...
collisions would accumulate faster than atmospheric drag could remove them.[4] The Kessler syndrome underscores the critical need for effective space traffic management and collision avoidance strategies to ensure the long-term viability of space exploration and use.
@sundogplanets The night sky will be spectacular for several decades as all the smashed bits fall back to Earth.
@sundogplanets Bye, nice telescope views, etc. Hello, Kessler syndrome.
@sundogplanets This is just a VC scam.
1. The timeline on launching a million satellites, even "small" ones is decades.
2. Near vacuum isn't a magical environment for heat management.
3. Power from where exactly? And don't say sunlight cause the amount of capture panels needed would be an order of magnitude more material to power a data center.
@sundogplanets Trash filling space with trash.
@sundogplanets That's what everyone in datacenters wants - unfixable latency and multimillion dollar costs to replace equipment..
@sundogplanets I am fine with this, not because I am happy with having our eternal view of the heavens f*cked up by stinking billionaires and impotent regulation, but because this situation is unmanageable from a physics and mechanics perspective. If all the operators in this sector do this then when 1 sat fails its going to be a big issue. It will make orbital space unaccessible which to me is better as it forces us to show respect and consideration!
@sundogplanets my condolences. The moment I saw this story, my thoughts were with you.
“Orbital data centers are the most efficient way to meet the accelerating demand for AI computing power,”
Demand isn't accelerating, you're forcing it on everyone you assholes!! We can't NOT use it when you make it an integral part of every product you sell ASSHOLES!
@sundogplanets Orbiting data centres are stupid for a huge range of reasons, not the least powering them, cooling them and fixing them. Just another idiotic idea from Musk (Optimius, Cybertruck, The Boring Company, “Full” self driving, etc….).
@sundogplanets Other than the obvious, how on earth are you supposed to be able to maneuver such a large number of satellites in extremely close proximity in orbit to prevent them from colliding with each other or anything else at all? With that number of satellites, even if just one collision were to occur at some point, it would be beyond disastrous (at worse, we'd have like many thousands of satellites/junk concurrently raining down into Earth kinda thing).
@sundogplanets Hell is not below the earth
The world's most heartbreaking six-word stories:
1906: For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.
2026: Orbital data centers for artificial intelligence.
@sundogplanets The CO2 footprint for the launches alone must be terrible? 🤔
@sundogplanets
For the data centers.
They will orbit in the sunrise line (I don't know how to call it) between 509 km and the sector where there's enough radiation to be unworthy.
Earth will have a ring
@sundogplanets that's it... Imma build a rail gun that can shoot down those satellites
@sundogplanets So now Musk wants to jump in the data center wagon, so he can get VC funding. Too late, that bubble will burst this very same year.
"Launching a constellation of a million satellites that operate as orbital data centers is a first step toward becoming a Kardashev II-level situation"
THIS IS IN AN FCC FILING NOT A SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK I'M DEAD
I first read that as "Kardashian II-level situation", which probably still makes more sense than the actual filling.
@sundogplanets There is a story by Stanislav Lem where he mentioned a scale based on the radio signals received from a planet. IIRC at a certain point, the orbital waste becomes intelligent and tries to enslave the planets civilization. The planets inhabitants fight back so the waste sends interfering radio signals to disturb communication on the planet. This signal was one the last steps on the scale.
@sundogplanets what a asshole fucking way to start the Kessler syndrome.
JFC.
@sundogplanets China filed a request with the ITU for frequency allocations for 200,000 satellites. Elon said “ I’ll see your 200,000 and raise to 1,000,000 satellites. “
@sundogplanets JFC these people know nothing about physics, do they.
That…isn’t what that means.
@sundogplanets ha. More like the first (second? third?) step to Kessler syndrome.
@sundogplanets Is there enough rocket fuel on earth for a million rocket launches?
What about the logistics?
Say you manage to find 100 suitable rocket launch sites and have a successful launch a week from each site.
Assuming a 100% successful launch rate and that all of the satellites end up in the right orbit first time that's still 10,000 weeks before all of the satellites are in place.
So 192 years?
Are my calculations correct?
@sundogplanets What’s a Kardeshian II-level situation?
@christianschwaegerl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
Don't ask me what this will do to our planet 😞. @sundogplanets
@sundogplanets We aren’t even a Level 1 civilization. Also, this shows their complete lack of understanding of what that scale actually means.
@sundogplanets WHAT on earth are they going on about, they are like 12 year old boys
@sundogplanets
Seems they're (intentionally?) confusing Kardashiev and Kessler
@sundogplanets Imagine being familiar with the Kardashev scale but unfamiliar with Kessler syndrome
@sundogplanets ... what the fuck does that even mean? I know I could search for it, but I'm not sure I want that in my search history.
@sundogplanets Ugh! Musk and the other tech bros are the next “great filter” we need to survive as a species.
So, when they all collide and fuck up all access to earth orbit for decades, where on the Kardashev scale will we be?
Asking for a planet.
@sundogplanets For my own sanity i haven't read the news yet, so no clue what you are making fun of here... Did Elon typo Kessler Syndrome again. 😂😅
@sundogplanets god damn cardassians!!!!! /s
SpaceX FCC filing:
Step 1*: launch shit into orbit with chemical propulsion rockets using in essence the same concepts as every single rocket ever launched by humans.
Step 1.00000000000001 - 1.99999999999999 [to be filled in later]
Step 2. Cosplay scenes from Iain M. Banks his Culture series.
Step 3. The majority of humanity is now worse off.
*current step.
@sundogplanets Sounds like they used AI to generate this. The Kardashev scale is a classification of _civilization_, not "situation". I see this sort of auto-correct in lots of AI slop.
Recent news articles kept referring to Tom Human as the Border Guard.
If this wasn't so serious, I'd laugh.
@sundogplanets the performance of total seriousness, no matter how absurd the goal, is critical to tech oligarchs' "fake it til you rule the world" strategy. it rarely survives contact with reality but the damage it does is of course very real.
Well, yeah, the idea of just you know oh we’re going to now reach this science fiction milestone because reasons.
@sundogplanets
The Kardashev "levels" are pure fantasy, not even good SF.
Bezos: Oh yeah? Well AWS will put TWO million data centers in orbit!
China: Let 5 million space data centers bloom!
Musk: Well, then SpaceX will put TEN million centers in orbit!
Bezos: Fine! ELEVENTY million AWS centers!
Musk: Hah! TWELVETY million SpaceX centers! Each with a cool robot!
Bezos: Meh-meh-meh-robot-meh. Amazon has robots.
Musk: But not COOL robots.
I feel like this is a good time for everyone to go read "More Everything Forever" by @adambecker.bsky.social because that completely unrealistic and awful techbro mentality/religion the only way to explain this FCC filing (and that book explains this very clearly!)
Time to go outside and listen to NZ birds as the sun comes up, because fuck SpaceX.
Where does the FCC get off in thinking it can make decisions that affect the entire planet and all humankind?
There's a tui in the tree outside loudly proclaiming "Ripe Plums".
@sundogplanets @adambecker.bsky.social brilliant book and well worth the read. Every time I hear someone mentioning one of these tech bros being intelligent I want a copy to throw at their head. Maybe we need to start explaining to politicians that if LEO is a shooting gallery it means no more GPS, do they remember what it was like navigating the world with paper maps, because we are going back there.
@sundogplanets @adambecker.bsky.social I have three non-techbro mentality/religion reasons for this:
1) Distract from Tesla's poor earnings
2) Distract from the Epstein files
3) Bezos says he's going to launch zillions of data center satellites so Musk just wants to nab scamee money for it first
But yeah, also Musk is a moron.
@sundogplanets @adambecker.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy I do feel like we're on the path to Neil Stephenson's Seven Eves somehow
@sundogplanets @adambecker.bsky.social
Added to my To Read list.
Enjoy the sunrise and birdies. Hope you got a bit of sleep 🤞
@sundogplanets They will absolutely rubber stamp it. The orange dictator will see to it.
@sundogplanets I would ask if you were fucking serious and why the FCC hasn't thrown it out, but calling the people left there "clownshoes" is an unforgivable insult to the footwear of professional entertainers.
Also, worth noting, that isn't even fucking *ZERO* on the Kardashev because that's not even a goddamn relevant scale. Please somebody start fucking executing these techbro oligarchs to save the rest of us.
@sundogplanets not that it matters, but it also wouldn't budge a thing in the kardashev scale, as it's supposed to measure how much power civilization can harness, and they certainly would pale in comparison to the total amount of earth based computing power, not to mention all the power used in non-computing usage
@sundogplanets The FCC is corrupt. What I don’t understand is how US gets to decide this for the world. :(
![3 emails in a chain
The earliest one (at the bottom of the image) from Elon Musk to Jeffrey Epstein with the subject "epic island vacation"
Hi Jeff! I was thinking of flying down for an epic vacation. . . [REDACTED] told me you were planning a party. (girls FTW!) I cleared my calendar. What are the details? Thank you good sir
- E
Second email from Epstein to a mostly redacted name starting with G (punctuation and spelling preserved)
deal with this . thanyou
Third email from G to Elon Musk
I'm so sorry Elon? You just missed J E. He actually told me he was thinking of winding down the entire Little St. James operation. Bummer! If it starts up again we'll be sure to let you know.](https://cdn.masto.nyc/media_attachments/files/115/991/564/580/591/036/original/5fe42feb352a5ac9.jpg)
