Cowboy Space (I hate their name so much) published their consolidated response a week ago but we just noticed it.
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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're building a summoning circle
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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.
Ok fine time to read the awful document.
First off, they imply they don't have to listen to any of the comments because nobody submitted "service copies, certificates of service, or affidavits" but I'm pretty sure that's just for formal petitions to deny. The American Astronomical Society did all of those things for SpaceX's million sat filing and Reflect Orbital, and it was expensive, hard, and it didn't make a fucking difference. So not doing that again.
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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.
@sundogplanets The company is called "Cowboy Space" and they call their launch solution "Stampede"? I hate this timeline.
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@NatureMC @sundogplanets
So are people!@ScottMGS Not the CEOs of certain companies and certain billionaires. Many of them are pathologic narcissists or act otherwise against social behaviour. If a wolf acted like this, the pack would exclude them.
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Ok fine time to read the awful document.
First off, they imply they don't have to listen to any of the comments because nobody submitted "service copies, certificates of service, or affidavits" but I'm pretty sure that's just for formal petitions to deny. The American Astronomical Society did all of those things for SpaceX's million sat filing and Reflect Orbital, and it was expensive, hard, and it didn't make a fucking difference. So not doing that again.
Oh gosh I don't know if I can actually read this. "The United States is engaged in a race for AI dominance, and as the terrestrial electric grid is overwhelmed by the demands of new data centers this race is now a race for space dominance as well"
FUCK THIS OUTRIGHT COLONIALIST DOGSHIT. WOW.
"Very little in the record disputes Cowboy Space’s qualifications"
HAHAHA that's because you haven't fucking done ANYTHING!!!
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Oh gosh I don't know if I can actually read this. "The United States is engaged in a race for AI dominance, and as the terrestrial electric grid is overwhelmed by the demands of new data centers this race is now a race for space dominance as well"
FUCK THIS OUTRIGHT COLONIALIST DOGSHIT. WOW.
"Very little in the record disputes Cowboy Space’s qualifications"
HAHAHA that's because you haven't fucking done ANYTHING!!!
"While one commenter derides Cowboy Space’s approach to data centers as mere 'avoidance' of terrestrial environmental regulation"
Uh yep that was me (via @space_environmentalism)
The rest of that section appears to be greenwashing, IN SPAAAACE!
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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 bah, what's the worst that could happen...
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"While one commenter derides Cowboy Space’s approach to data centers as mere 'avoidance' of terrestrial environmental regulation"
Uh yep that was me (via @space_environmentalism)
The rest of that section appears to be greenwashing, IN SPAAAACE!
@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...
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"While one commenter derides Cowboy Space’s approach to data centers as mere 'avoidance' of terrestrial environmental regulation"
Uh yep that was me (via @space_environmentalism)
The rest of that section appears to be greenwashing, IN SPAAAACE!
Next, they spend a bunch of time saying they totally need a bond waiver. Please ignore all the stuff we said about how much money we're making! We shouldn't have to pay!
And then they go into specifics of saying that @space_environmentalism "mischaracterized" the purpose of a bond: it's not actually to make companies pay for cleanup, it's to avoid over-asking for orbits. Well... they might have a point there, the FCC certainly doesn't give a shit about cleaning anything up.
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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 no physics, just vibes
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Next, they spend a bunch of time saying they totally need a bond waiver. Please ignore all the stuff we said about how much money we're making! We shouldn't have to pay!
And then they go into specifics of saying that @space_environmentalism "mischaracterized" the purpose of a bond: it's not actually to make companies pay for cleanup, it's to avoid over-asking for orbits. Well... they might have a point there, the FCC certainly doesn't give a shit about cleaning anything up.
They make it pretty clear that they are in fact over-asking and also don't intend to actually launch 20,000 satellites in 5 years. So... I guess that's good. But also fucking annoying.
Oh no here's the astronomy section. I'm sure this will be great.
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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 Here's hoping that *ugh* Cowboy Space heads to their final roundup before they launch anything. I think funding is going to do in many of the companies, dragging their investors down with them.
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They make it pretty clear that they are in fact over-asking and also don't intend to actually launch 20,000 satellites in 5 years. So... I guess that's good. But also fucking annoying.
Oh no here's the astronomy section. I'm sure this will be great.
@sundogplanets Just hope that there's not also an astrology section coming
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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 I brought the same thing up to some friends. They were like there are other ways to build in redundancy and besides the output isn't critical anyway.
I'm like... Cool so we're just going to have transistors randomly turning on causing shoot through. What could go wrong.
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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
You may not have heard of the German tabletop RPG Engel which comes along as a fantasy thing but in reality is post apocalyptic, one of the things that happens is that "GOD" writes on the earth with fiery beams from the sky. In reality it's giant space lasers out of control.I wish they wouldn't build EVERY variant of the torment nexus.
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They make it pretty clear that they are in fact over-asking and also don't intend to actually launch 20,000 satellites in 5 years. So... I guess that's good. But also fucking annoying.
Oh no here's the astronomy section. I'm sure this will be great.
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."
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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."
Ooo actual quote "AAS’s concerns are unfounded"
Top-notch gaslighting. Nope the professional astronomers definitely don't know what they're talking about. Ooo it gets better:
"Nevertheless, Cowboy Space commits to coordination with National Science Foundation (“NSF”) and will work to mitigate potential impacts on radio astronomy before they arise."
We totally don't need to do this because there won't be any problems but we'll talk to NSF about the problems that we totally won't have.
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Ooo actual quote "AAS’s concerns are unfounded"
Top-notch gaslighting. Nope the professional astronomers definitely don't know what they're talking about. Ooo it gets better:
"Nevertheless, Cowboy Space commits to coordination with National Science Foundation (“NSF”) and will work to mitigate potential impacts on radio astronomy before they arise."
We totally don't need to do this because there won't be any problems but we'll talk to NSF about the problems that we totally won't have.
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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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.
Assuring one's satellites are always in constant sunshine surely exacerbates the LEO light pollution problem (for everyone who appreciates a dark night sky, not just astronomers).
At least with other orbital configurations, satellites fairly rapidly dim in brightness as their orbits pass into Earth's shadow, and they lose the source of the light they reflect back to Earth...
What is the delta-V needed to boost Leon Musk to infinity (no need to bother about beyond)?
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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.
Eh, this only scratches the surface of geometry challenges. A ring of satellites over the terminator only services a strip of Earth on both sides of the orbital ground path. The lower the ring, the narrower the strip.
I suppose the eclipse problem could be solved by simply eclipse-hardening the satellites. There are always nearby satellites in the ring that are still/again in sunlight. Only, perhaps it isn't 'simple': like incandescent lamps, many electronic circuits not specially designed will be age limited by on/off shocks.
