Cowboy Space (I hate their name so much) published their consolidated response a week ago but we just noticed it.
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@sundogplanets I'm absolutely convinced it's a scam for getting investment funding. Thats all they have now. Look at the SpaceX IPO vs today. 1/2d in 'value' and the early investors don't care cos they made out when it listed on the stock market.
It's just a super fancy version of the Nigerian Prince scam.
(See also reflect @#£%ing Orbital)
@sundogplanets oh HANG ON... this is about building speculative asset classes of orbital space, so it can be sold to people who DO actually want to put satelites up into ( or maybe just intersecting) those orbits.
Like the 'air rights' or whatever its called over New York, for sky scrapers.
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This company also posted an ex parte filing (which means they had a super special extra FCC meeting), their satellites are too fucking huge to even be physically possible. They just can't fucking do this.
My estimate from looking at this ridiculous sketch is 8x60x10m solar panels... that's a reflecting area of 4800 m^2. The International Space Station, the biggest thing in orbit, has a solar panel area of about 3400 m^2.
Even as they present larger targets for debris, avoidance-maneuvering these cumbersome objects in a reasonable timeframe will be difficult not only in terms of propellant consumption but possibly also structural fatigue. How many maneuvers will be needed over their lifespans? (which begs the question: what's the 1OO% reliable disposal plan, because for the long term it _has_ to be 100%)
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@sundogplanets This is so colossally stupid. Like, I know AI + Space! is a perfect VC honeypot but has anyone even thought about the fact that GPUs go out of date inside like 2-3 years? Are they really planning to launch 10,000 satellites per year indefinitely?
Also, has anyone given ANY thought to radiation hardening? GPUs of the sort that people are using for AI are typically manufactured on a 3nm process or so. Most orbital hardware which we actually want to keep running is manufactured on like 50nm because radiation absolutely destroys tiny circuits.
But I'm sure it'll be fine...
@faithisleaping as someone who has worked on actual space flight software for actual space flight hardware where you have to implement redundant compute and memory processes with majority wins voting to determine what the correct answer is....just sigh. @sundogplanets
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Apparently ALL the opposition letters mentioned how 20,000 bright satellites would absolutely destroy astronomy, so that's nice.
Ok, well, this section is 100% gaslighting, which I expected. "No no no, radio astronomers, you are overreacting! We will totally not clobber your bands and we magically don't have harmonics or unintended radio emissions, despite not having actually ever built a satellite before. Also we'll use lasers to fix everything. Radio astronomers, shut up."
@sundogplanets hey there is a whole bunch of NATO research money available for war technologies, if we spin deorbitting technology as a defense tool to knock out bad guys satellites, the same technology could be used to clean up the sky. I’m clearly loving this idea way too much.
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Cowboy Space (I hate their name so much) published their consolidated response a week ago but we just noticed it. EDIT: It was due at 5pm EDT today. So... I guess I have to read this shit. Swearing a lot here will get me through it.
A reminder: this is the 4th company that wants to launch fucking enormous "AI data center" satellites into sun-synchronous terminator orbits, giving Earth a ring. This particular company wants 20,000 satellites in one ring.
@sundogplanets My guess is the next thing companies will be talking about is building AI centres on the sunny side of the Moon.
Sure, signals would be slower, but someone will have an application where slightly slower speeds are ok. -
Cowboy Space (I hate their name so much) published their consolidated response a week ago but we just noticed it. EDIT: It was due at 5pm EDT today. So... I guess I have to read this shit. Swearing a lot here will get me through it.
A reminder: this is the 4th company that wants to launch fucking enormous "AI data center" satellites into sun-synchronous terminator orbits, giving Earth a ring. This particular company wants 20,000 satellites in one ring.
@sundogplanets fuck
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This company also posted an ex parte filing (which means they had a super special extra FCC meeting), their satellites are too fucking huge to even be physically possible. They just can't fucking do this.
My estimate from looking at this ridiculous sketch is 8x60x10m solar panels... that's a reflecting area of 4800 m^2. The International Space Station, the biggest thing in orbit, has a solar panel area of about 3400 m^2.
Wait. Are they saying that they are magically going to build an entire new rocket in 3 months?
This really is quite the scam.
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@sundogplanets How much of this sort of thing (these guys, Reflect Orbital, etc.) do you think is just VCs throwing money at something they think is cool, with the companies behind it knowing it'll never work? And how much is just plain idiocy in action, with them genuinely believing it WILL work?
@andy @sundogplanets could it be a ruse, like asking your dad for £100 loan when you actually want £50. And will a second company put in a more reasonable ask by comparison and get looked at favourably when they might not have otherwise?
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Cowboy Space (I hate their name so much) published their consolidated response a week ago but we just noticed it. EDIT: It was due at 5pm EDT today. So... I guess I have to read this shit. Swearing a lot here will get me through it.
A reminder: this is the 4th company that wants to launch fucking enormous "AI data center" satellites into sun-synchronous terminator orbits, giving Earth a ring. This particular company wants 20,000 satellites in one ring.
@sundogplanets Maybe human life really did originate on Saturn!
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The rest of the astronomy section is pure bullshit, unadulterated by any facts or actual information.
"We will definitely work with astronomers, and we definitely won't have any reflections because our satellites are magical, we also won't have any infrared emissions, even though physics says that very hot things emit blackbody radiation. We are cowboys, not bound by mere LAWS OF PHYSICS."
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@sundogplanets clearly you’re missing the point, the company doesn’t need to be successful for the founders to become multimillionaires. It just needs to sound feasible enough to fool the VCs so they can pay themselves ridiculous amounts of money and then ‘fail’ for a few years. Then they declare bankruptcy and walk away with all that money.
The Standard Model of Andreessen.
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Cowboy Space (I hate their name so much) published their consolidated response a week ago but we just noticed it. EDIT: It was due at 5pm EDT today. So... I guess I have to read this shit. Swearing a lot here will get me through it.
A reminder: this is the 4th company that wants to launch fucking enormous "AI data center" satellites into sun-synchronous terminator orbits, giving Earth a ring. This particular company wants 20,000 satellites in one ring.
@sundogplanets
> "AI data center"I would laugh of the top of my lungs if I wasn't doing Joker makeup and reading on orbital ballistics at the same time \s
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After modelling this in detail, I can say that that these companies can't even do basic geometry, apparently. They want tens of thousands of satellites to have 24 hour sunlight, so sun-synchronous terminator orbits, baybeeee!
But as Hugh Lewis pointed out (I know, ew, linkedin sorry) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sun-always-shines-tv-hugh-lewis-tlkbe/ IT DOESN'T FUCKING WORK unless you're above 1400km altitude. And then you're not in the *magical* low-latency low-altitude zone that these companies actually want for fast comms.
@sundogplanets
> They want tens of thousands of satellites to have 24 hour sunlight, so sun-synchronous terminator orbits, baybeeee!Okay, I smirked x)
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@sundogplanets This is so colossally stupid. Like, I know AI + Space! is a perfect VC honeypot but has anyone even thought about the fact that GPUs go out of date inside like 2-3 years? Are they really planning to launch 10,000 satellites per year indefinitely?
Also, has anyone given ANY thought to radiation hardening? GPUs of the sort that people are using for AI are typically manufactured on a 3nm process or so. Most orbital hardware which we actually want to keep running is manufactured on like 50nm because radiation absolutely destroys tiny circuits.
But I'm sure it'll be fine...
@faithisleaping @sundogplanets typically I would just like them to fast forward to the Find Out phase.
Problem with these guys' epic fails is that they take all sorts of scarcities out of the market. Not just talking about the raw materials, energy, labor and capital but also our clean air and skies.
It's a fucking self-fulfilling prophecy gamble with our lives as ante.
Why don't we declare war on these genocidal maniacs?
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@faithisleaping @sundogplanets typically I would just like them to fast forward to the Find Out phase.
Problem with these guys' epic fails is that they take all sorts of scarcities out of the market. Not just talking about the raw materials, energy, labor and capital but also our clean air and skies.
It's a fucking self-fulfilling prophecy gamble with our lives as ante.
Why don't we declare war on these genocidal maniacs?
@deedo @sundogplanets Yup! And it’s even right there in their pitch:
It’s inevitable that there will be a mad race to fill space with shit so America needs to start filling space with shit to ensure space will be full of mostly American shit! (Paraphrased)
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And then there's a whole section where they say that the FCC isn't allowed to consider environmental regulations, and they point to Reflect Orbital getting approved where the FCC specifically said they're not allowed to consider anything except radio broadcasts. This section might actually make me cry.
Next section is just... complaining, I think?
And then they end with saying that clearly they need to be approved.
Fuck you, FCC. Kessler Syndrome is on you.
@sundogplanets Regarding that last point: isn't there anything that can be done from abroad to stop this madness? Why can the FCC alone decide what is appropriate to put in orbit of the whole world?
I dread the "the Americans went nuts and that's why we cannot go to space" chapter of future history books.
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Sure, completely untested, brand-fucking-new company that has never built or launched a satellite. You can definitely launch 20,000 of the biggest satellites ever built.
Oh apparently their first demo mission is scheduled for OCTOBER 2026? Gosh these guys are fucking unreal. The mission is listed as "power beaming demonstration"
What does that even fucking mean? Guess they're going to fry some birds and maybe some pilots? Hm. Watch for that I guess.
@sundogplanets this sounds like when I was 8 years old and I presented my brilliant idea for firefighting: hyper-compressed water capsules that could be air-cannoned into tall burning buildings, delivering thousands of liters of water to douse the blaze.
I got a smile, a pat on the head, and a physics lesson.
These are clearly idiots, who’ve gotten handed a lot of money by other idiots. They don’t even know the Rocket Equation. We should laugh at them.
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@sundogplanets I think I need to do another piece on this for my weekly national radio report. Just proposed it to the network for Monday -- they almost never don't approve these.
@sundogplanets Yep, it's a go.
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Cowboy Space (I hate their name so much) published their consolidated response a week ago but we just noticed it. EDIT: It was due at 5pm EDT today. So... I guess I have to read this shit. Swearing a lot here will get me through it.
A reminder: this is the 4th company that wants to launch fucking enormous "AI data center" satellites into sun-synchronous terminator orbits, giving Earth a ring. This particular company wants 20,000 satellites in one ring.
@sundogplanets Besides orbit geometry and Kessler syndrome etc., how would they deal with waste heat?!
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@sundogplanets Besides orbit geometry and Kessler syndrome etc., how would they deal with waste heat?!
@sundogplanets And besides detrimental effects on astronomy and just everything of course...
