Comment by GuB-42
3 hours ago
It is another common argument, but again trading a problem for a much harder one.
If politicians ban datacenter construction projects, do you think they will take kindly of the process of building them in space? Rockets are really bad from an environment perspective. We tolerate them because we don't do that many launches and the negative effects are small on a global scale.
People oppose data centres mainly for local reasons.
We already have more than 10k Starlink satellites, and there’s almost no outcry about that outside of astronomers, who are justified in their concerns… but politically irrelevant.
Plus, you can technically launch a satellite from almost anywhere if you’re not picky about the orbit, so you just need to find a single country willing to give you a logistically viable launch site. There are no international laws that would prevent, e.g., India launching 1 million satellites.