Cowboy Space (I hate their name so much) published their consolidated response a week ago but we just noticed it.
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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 Fascist times are always the times of buffoons, but that doesn’t make them any less dangerous.
Wunderwaffen..
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@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.
@jkb @sundogplanets Fascism ends by only revolution or defeat in war. It’s not logically contestable!
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@michael_w_busch @sundogplanets FWIW, their rocket+spacecraft bus+lots of solar panels concept has existed (in powerpoint, naturally) for a lot longer, their original grift was a space based solar power startup called Aetherflux before they pivoted to AI around the end of 2025 https://mastodon.social/@reedmideke/116581799330100949
Recursive vaporware. Great.
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@sundogplanets Jesus, "retired engineers" sending AI generated code, in addition to AI generated drafts of new cosmology-breaking theories is officially my new nightmare...
I miss the crackpots of yesteryear, who knew that creating insane cosmologies took a serious hands-on work ethic.
Today's crackpots have it so easy with their LLMs and whatnot. End of an era.
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@sundogplanets Just hope that there's not also an astrology section coming
@rwaschbaer @sundogplanets Just noting that "physics" and "psychics" are virtually typos of each other
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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?"
Oh, come on they have lots and lots of CGI. At least I know everything associated with Elon Musk is CGI heavy. It is a pattern that’s persistent across vanity, projects of Petro state rulers, and entrepreneurs who want to build hotels on the moon.
We all know we can live in James Bond film!
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HAHAHA wow apparently they shouldn't have to provide any kind of debris mitigation plan because they haven't built the satellites yet.
OK but like... why are you filing if you haven't built the fucking satellites yet?? Weren't you complaining earlier about "warehousing" orbits? WHAT ARE YOU FUCKING DOING RIGHT NOW HMMMM??
Then they go on to say that the FCC shouldn't have to think about aggregate collision risk. Just consider one satellite at a time please, ignore the other 19,999
@sundogplanets These Ponzi schemes are getting more elaborate and destructive.
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Recursive vaporware. Great.
@michael_w_busch @reedmideke @sundogplanets God do I want to corner one of these bros and have them explain SSO Eclipse Season to me...
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I miss the crackpots of yesteryear, who knew that creating insane cosmologies took a serious hands-on work ethic.
Today's crackpots have it so easy with their LLMs and whatnot. End of an era.
@Phosphenes @sundogplanets Totally. "This in attachment is my conversation with chatgpt, I hope you can find it interesting.." etc
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@sundogplanets Their demo video is not reassuring: https://youtu.be/xt_Kn4DggPg?t=122
I can’t help from working that the American accents feel extremely forced. It’s almost like they were told to speak away. Say a British audience imagine they did..
Remind you, I really love all the old bond flicks
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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
The science fiction i read as a teenager had more credibility than this. -
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 “cowboy” and science makes me think of early nuclear experiments like the Demon Core, or the meltdown that happened in my community in the 50s cause they kept turning the reactor back on without figuring out why they had to keep hitting SCRAM.
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Bigger picture: What about other potential effects? What happens when we have an upper atmosphere chock full of metal and exotic chem particles? And sats that outshine everything in the sky by order of mag? What else breaks or is degraded?
The Aurorae?
Earth's albedo?
Sat-ground radio comms?
Ground-ground radio?
Raincloud / storm formation? Lightning intensity?
Etc.Scientists used to worry that atomics might burn the sky. Maybe these are accelerants.
@jakebrake
I think during the Manhattan project one scientist worried about igniting fusion in the Nitrogen of the atmosphere, then did the maths and decided that it was not possible, and stopped worrying, along with anyone else who had taken note of what he was spending time calculating. -
@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 you see, you're thinking small, they'll laugh 1000s the first year, then tens of 1000s by the time the 1000s are obsolete they'll have A BAJILLION satellites so what's a thousand satellites more or a thousand satellites less
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I can’t help from working that the American accents feel extremely forced. It’s almost like they were told to speak away. Say a British audience imagine they did..
Remind you, I really love all the old bond flicks
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @sundogplanets Goldfinger remains the quintessential Bond film. And it always will be.
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@GhostOnTheHalfShell @sundogplanets Goldfinger remains the quintessential Bond film. And it always will be.
If I recall correctly, at least for Sean Connery Thunderball was his personal favorite film.
It has been so long since I’ve watched any of these films. I really should again. I’ve had some fun watching thin man. I really appreciate most the first two movies.
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@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.
@fullywoolly @faithisleaping @sundogplanets stochastic parrot is extra stochastic today.
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@sundogplanets Sorry, that's probably not fair to dogs.
@ScottMGS @sundogplanets as a dog, no it's not lmao
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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
I had naively assumed that sun-synchronous orbits were perpendicular to the ecliptic, not the equator. Presumably such orbits don't benefit from the same rotation that keeps them facing the Sun? -
If I recall correctly, at least for Sean Connery Thunderball was his personal favorite film.
It has been so long since I’ve watched any of these films. I really should again. I’ve had some fun watching thin man. I really appreciate most the first two movies.
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @sundogplanets And he did it twice, too.
