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[return to "Data centers in space makes no sense"]
1. benl+ne1[view] [source] 2026-02-04 02:51:00
>>ajyoon+(OP)
Data centers in space may or may not make sense (personally I'm quite skeptical) but the objections in the article certainly don't make sense.

1. The only reason there are 15,000 satellites in space is because SpaceX launched about 9,500 of them (Starlink is 65% of all satellites) on their semi-reusable Falcon 9. If fully-reusable Starship pans out, they will be launching satellites at 10x the rate of Falcon 9 at the very least.

2. You don't need to upgrade the satellites, you just launch new ones. The reason data center companies upgrade their servers is because they can't just build a new data center to hold the new chips. But satellites in space are a sunk cost, so just keep using the existing satellites while also launching new ones.

3. Falling solar panel costs decreases the power costs for both earth-based and space-based, but they're more efficient in space so the benefit would be proportionally greater there.

As I said, I'm skeptical too, but let's be skeptical for good reasons.

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2. ZiiS+HF2[view] [source] 2026-02-04 14:41:29
>>benl+ne1
2) it is extremely common to add storage to existing servers. Only slightly less; RAM, CPUs etc. not to mention how often it is cost-effective to replace broken components.
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