Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers • Hacker News Board

Re: Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

#21

Post by markus_zhang » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 11:10 PM UTC

GMoromisato wrote: post #16

> ...we should be actively goading more billionaires into spending on irrational, high-variance projects that might actually advance civilization. I feel genuine secondhand embarrassment watching people torch their fortunes on yachts and status cosplay. No one cares about your Loro Piana. I 100% agree with this. There are ~2,600 billionaires in the world and we should encourage all of them to spend their money. Even…

Any normal human being may hang out with models for a while but I guess they will promote their own ideas very soon. $$$ brings power.

Re: Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

#22

Post by ok_dad » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 11:10 PM UTC

HardCodedBias wrote: post #5

I suspect that this orbital data centers isn't entirely about dollars (No doubt dollars are important). I suspect it is about the regulatory environment. The regulatory environment on data centers is moving quickly. Data centers used to be considered a small portion of the economy and thus benign and not worth extorting/controlling. This seems to be changing, rapidly. Given that data centers only exchange information…

Interestingly, the humans running the "unregulated space datacenter" are still on Earth, subject to Earth's laws.

Re: Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

#23

Post by mmooss » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 11:11 PM UTC

GMoromisato wrote: post #16

> ...we should be actively goading more billionaires into spending on irrational, high-variance projects that might actually advance civilization. I feel genuine secondhand embarrassment watching people torch their fortunes on yachts and status cosplay. No one cares about your Loro Piana. I 100% agree with this. There are ~2,600 billionaires in the world and we should encourage all of them to spend their money. Even…

> Any normal human being would retire and hang out on the beach with supermodels after all the abuse he has taken.

First, he seeks and creates conflict. He isn't 'taking' abuse, except in the sense that he is reaching out and grasping at it.

Everyone in that position takes lots of abuse. If they built their own fortune, they generally don't retire to the beach or they would have long ago.

Re: Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

#24

Post by sc68cal » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 11:12 PM UTC

When Starcloud put together that whitepaper the first thing I looked at was the launch costs[1]. It references a $5M cost to launch, which right away made absolutely no sense to me. Just a cursory search shows launch costs are around $50M per launch, if not more.

It's great that this site drills down even further to demonstrate that there is absolutely no point at which the launch costs ever make this economical or viable, so I really don't understand what people are doing.

Especially because this site was harping for years about the cost of launches and putting things in to orbit, the whole reason why SpaceX got started and has grown as it has. As soon as that became an inconvenient number, we now just make things up (Just pretend that launch costs are 10% of what they actually are to get people to invest?).

[1]: https://starcloudinc.github.io/wp.pdf

Re: Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

#25

Post by nickff » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 11:12 PM UTC

GMoromisato wrote: post #16

> ...we should be actively goading more billionaires into spending on irrational, high-variance projects that might actually advance civilization. I feel genuine secondhand embarrassment watching people torch their fortunes on yachts and status cosplay. No one cares about your Loro Piana. I 100% agree with this. There are ~2,600 billionaires in the world and we should encourage all of them to spend their money. Even…

>”we should encourage all of them to spend their money. Even buying a superyacht is a benefit to the economy.”

You’re falling victim to the ‘broken windows fallacy’ here; money which is invested is actually more productive in improving medium and long term economic productivity than ‘consumption’ goods. Even ‘retained’ money (under one’s mattress) is not net-negative, as it increases the value of its circulating counterparts.

Re: Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

#26

Post by markus_zhang » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 11:12 PM UTC

HardCodedBias wrote: post #5

I suspect that this orbital data centers isn't entirely about dollars (No doubt dollars are important). I suspect it is about the regulatory environment. The regulatory environment on data centers is moving quickly. Data centers used to be considered a small portion of the economy and thus benign and not worth extorting/controlling. This seems to be changing, rapidly. Given that data centers only exchange information…

I think it is also about security. It is impossible for ordinary people to break into such a data center.

It’s a bit like the cyberpunk future when the ultra riches live in moon bases or undersea bases and ordinary people fight for resources in a ruined earth.

Re: Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

#27

Post by compiler-guy » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 11:13 PM UTC

mlhpdx wrote: post #13

hooverd wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

such as?

Unregulated casinos?

Unregulated casinos don't need this kind of compute. Most could be run on a decent raspberry pi or two.

At any rate, one basic communication's satellite worth of compute would be more than enough. No need for TPUs.

Re: Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

#28

Post by mmooss » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 11:13 PM UTC

HardCodedBias wrote: post #20

GMoromisato wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but businesses don't care about regulations except where it costs them money. Also, remember that time is money, so any regulatory delays cost real money to a business. My point is that you can actually reduce it all to dollars. And I believe that the cost of orbital data centers will come down due to technological advances, while the cost of regulation will only go up, because of local and global opposition.

"My point is that you can actually reduce it all to dollars." I'm not sure. A couple of points: 1) The regulatory landscape is enormous. It is unknown from which angle regulators will "slow you down." 2) As I mentioned the regulatory frameworks in this area are evolving very quickly. It is unknown what the regulations will be in 1, 2, 5 years and how that will impact your business.

> The regulatory landscape is enormous. It is unknown from which angle regulators will "slow you down."

That's not true for people experienced in the particular industry. Others can find a lawyer that will give them a good picture.

Re: Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

#29

Post by guywithahat » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 11:13 PM UTC

klysm wrote: post #8

HardCodedBias wrote: post #5

I suspect that this orbital data centers isn't entirely about dollars (No doubt dollars are important). I suspect it is about the regulatory environment. The regulatory environment on data centers is moving quickly. Data centers used to be considered a small portion of the economy and thus benign and not worth extorting/controlling. This seems to be changing, rapidly. Given that data centers only exchange information…

How on earth does that justify the astronomic expense difference?

Well the argument some of these companies are making is that it would be cheaper over 10 years (some things like power can be cheaper in space, and you can get it from solar nearly 24h a day). It seems likely to me (as it does many other people) that it won't be cheaper, but if it's the same price or mildly more expensive there might be a regulatory incentive to train a ML model in space instead of a place like the EU

Re: Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

#30

Post by m_fayer » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 11:13 PM UTC

GMoromisato wrote: post #16

> ...we should be actively goading more billionaires into spending on irrational, high-variance projects that might actually advance civilization. I feel genuine secondhand embarrassment watching people torch their fortunes on yachts and status cosplay. No one cares about your Loro Piana. I 100% agree with this. There are ~2,600 billionaires in the world and we should encourage all of them to spend their money. Even…

Your description of Elmo applies to several other billionaires who have somehow avoided quixotic hyper-destructive rampages through American politics. I’m all for wired funny, but not when it comes with this much carnage.