I'm with Mark on this being stupid because (a) launch costs (coming down fast but still ridiculously high), (b) energy (PV cells, yes, but you need to put them in orbit first), and (c) waste heat, which is THE killer problem for data centres on Earth, where we have these heat sinks called "rivers" and "the atmosphere". Vacuum's a thermal insulator!
(No need to get into the weeds and talk about latency. Whole idea's stupid.)
https://eigenmagic.net/@NewtonMark/115332884441287733
Just for solar power?
I was under the impression that the standard stupid reason for tech bros wanting orbital data servers was for orbital data havens, orbital financial centers, or other ridiculous tax-dodging schemes.
@nyrath @cstross It's petty of me, I admit, but I'm reasonably confident in my security against people without physical possession of my hard drives, and the thought of making the buggers spend obscene quantities of money to get said hard drives down from orbit only to discover that they contain nothing even slightly criminal gives me a nice warm spiteful glow.
