Cowboy Space (I hate their name so much) published their consolidated response a week ago but we just noticed it.
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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.
This just really highlights the freaking audacity of greedy DOGE Bros:
Speculative.
Arrogantly wrong about everything.
Lazily entitled to money that isn't theirs.
Apathetic to consequences. -
WOW it gets even more whimsical and hand-wavy in the orbital debris section. Actual quote: "Certain commenters raise concerns regarding the extent of the orbital debris mitigation information provided in the application but ignore Cowboy Space’s steadfast commitment to operating
safely."In other words: "Why won't scientists believe the words that we wrote down without any actual data, information, citations, or sketches?"
@sundogplanets Oh, a "steadfast commitment to operating safely"? Why didn't you say so earlier? That changes everything.
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@sundogplanets I note that in my engineering job, we call people "cowboys" as a pejorative, to describe someone who hasn't done solid calculations and is making decisions based on vibes
Yep. That's the meaning I'm used to. But since they seem to turn other meanings around as well (Tolkien, Cyberpunk,...) I assume they see themselves as bold nonconformists when they use the word.
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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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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 so apropos of nothing I'm now raising Pre-seed for my own space startup, it's an orbital demolitions service. I have this intuition that there'll be a big demand for this, just a crazy hunch.
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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 this reminds me of when I used to work with satellite transmission - 3/4 of the signal was essentially error correct. The radiation aspect was pricing. The signal transponders degraded over time (due to basically being bombarded by radiation every day) so you moved from one to another over time. Depending on your fees determined if/when you did this.
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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 Admittedly I don't know much about astronomy but I know a shit ton about data centers and server infrastructure, and this _has_ to be a grift of some kind.
Compute is nowhere near reliable enough to be thrown into orbit for 18+ months without something failing: a fan, a heat sink, a power supply, a DIMM, what have you—that kind of shit breaks DAILY once you get above a certain quantity of systems, and it's pure fiction to think you could just strand it all in space and expect nothing to go bad—even the very reliable enterprise-grade stuff is not reliable enough to be left unmaintained indefinitely.
And that doesn't even touch the stupidly complex problem of cooling high density, high power compute in a vacuum (which I assume their white paper just winks at) ... and the gobshites at the FCC won't push back on any of this, probably because they'll want to cash in on the scam, too.
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@ScottMGS exactly. Dogs are social animals. @sundogplanets
@NatureMC @ScottMGS @sundogplanets People LIKE dogs.
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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 GPUs also often wear out inside of months, or fail spontaneously, or are installed in systems that fail spontaneously, because compute hardware is just not built to last like this.
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@sundogplanets Admittedly I don't know much about astronomy but I know a shit ton about data centers and server infrastructure, and this _has_ to be a grift of some kind.
Compute is nowhere near reliable enough to be thrown into orbit for 18+ months without something failing: a fan, a heat sink, a power supply, a DIMM, what have you—that kind of shit breaks DAILY once you get above a certain quantity of systems, and it's pure fiction to think you could just strand it all in space and expect nothing to go bad—even the very reliable enterprise-grade stuff is not reliable enough to be left unmaintained indefinitely.
And that doesn't even touch the stupidly complex problem of cooling high density, high power compute in a vacuum (which I assume their white paper just winks at) ... and the gobshites at the FCC won't push back on any of this, probably because they'll want to cash in on the scam, too.
@klausfiend Thanks for sharing this. And yeah, they said absolutely nothing at all in any of the documents about how this would actually WORK.
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@faithisleaping @sundogplanets GPUs also often wear out inside of months, or fail spontaneously, or are installed in systems that fail spontaneously, because compute hardware is just not built to last like this.
@klausfiend Data center companies are already eating that cost. They don't replace individual GPUs. They just shut off the unit and leave it be.
But that failure rate will be WAY higher with zero gravity, the heat differentials of space, and radiation.
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@klausfiend Data center companies are already eating that cost. They don't replace individual GPUs. They just shut off the unit and leave it be.
But that failure rate will be WAY higher with zero gravity, the heat differentials of space, and radiation.
@faithisleaping @sundogplanets No, they don't. 90% of my job is verifying that GPUs perform to spec and the rest is identifying which approach will satisfy the RMA gods. We don't host dead compute, because that still costs money.
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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 this is the company sucking up to their suckers, er, “investors,” so as to more easily separate them from their money. At least I hope that’s all it is.
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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.
Not to mention that the cooling is something I cannot imagine worth the effort. This project will fail, but first they will fill the skies with junk.
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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 Let's use them for target practice! If it goes ahead.
What's the link? I might send it to my Astonomy and Astrophysics department, and other government sites and organisations which have a stake in it.
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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 What's the lifespan of that orbit? They are going to be using a lot of fuel to keep their path. Maybe 2 or 3 years? Then all that compute will deorbit and be destroyed?
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@sundogplanets Admittedly I don't know much about astronomy but I know a shit ton about data centers and server infrastructure, and this _has_ to be a grift of some kind.
Compute is nowhere near reliable enough to be thrown into orbit for 18+ months without something failing: a fan, a heat sink, a power supply, a DIMM, what have you—that kind of shit breaks DAILY once you get above a certain quantity of systems, and it's pure fiction to think you could just strand it all in space and expect nothing to go bad—even the very reliable enterprise-grade stuff is not reliable enough to be left unmaintained indefinitely.
And that doesn't even touch the stupidly complex problem of cooling high density, high power compute in a vacuum (which I assume their white paper just winks at) ... and the gobshites at the FCC won't push back on any of this, probably because they'll want to cash in on the scam, too.
Cosign 100%. I have managed enterprises with massive server load. There is never a day when something doesn’t need to be touched.
Even ignoring physics, which on face seem to make this idea absurd, the practical implementation is pure fantasy. You cannot put server farms in space unless those servers are connected to a space station with full time personnel.
We have neither the technical capacity, nor the will to create massive space server farms serviced by terrestrial operators. The whole idea is science fiction fwapping.
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@klausfiend Thanks for sharing this. And yeah, they said absolutely nothing at all in any of the documents about how this would actually WORK.
I'm sure there are abundant water sources in Low Earth Orbit they can use for cooling, just like they do here on Earth. *checks note* Oh.
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@Red_Shirt_no2 The pictures in the marketing material show radiators. Are they enough? Probably not. Do they know that? Of course not!
They also seem to think that radiators don't emit IR...
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@faithisleaping @sundogplanets No, they don't. 90% of my job is verifying that GPUs perform to spec and the rest is identifying which approach will satisfy the RMA gods. We don't host dead compute, because that still costs money.
@klausfiend @sundogplanets Okay, I might be out of date in how these things are managed. I was thinking back to when Microsoft (I think) was bragging about their modular data centers and how they shipped everything in sealed containers and never had to have a tech on site. But it’s been a long time and I haven’t paid much attention to that stuff.
