Comment by sanbor
1 month ago
Providing GPS, communications, media, etc. in space so there is access anywhere in the world has a clear advantage. Here the only pros seem to be that it is potentially cheaper than a datacenter on earth because of solar and cooling. But I assume the environment impact is worse than having datacenters on earth. Launching lots of satellites uses lots of fuel and CO2 emissions. Building satellites and dealing with the end of life tech has much higher environmental impact than dealing with datacenters on earth, where you can do proper waste management and recycle materials. From the economic point of view, polluting the environment is currently free. I guess if the externalities would be part of the equation it would not be economically viable.
Maybe this project exists because the "early in the game" factor. It has worked well in the past for Google, OpenAI, etc. They used copyrighted content to train LLMs to sell AI. They indexed Yahoo directory and websites before robots.txt existed, once they have a dominant position they put robots.txt in Google results so new players can't use their content. And they are launching AI in Space before regulations and politics catch up.
the pro is being able to dodge the entrenched industrial-nimbyism in America.
we talked big game for a long time about bringing manufacturing back to the US, but the practicalities would likely have been impossible in our modern political climate
Listening to these leaders speak, this appears to be a major component. They're trying to pour trillions of investment into communities all over the world, and local communities are rejecting it. The reasons are complex and I'm not going to paint either side as the bad guy. However if they can't get approval to build more infrastructure on Earth, they going to build it in space. At least what is economical. SpaceX has already reduced the cost of space delivery by 90%. This has already made all kinds of new applications commercially viable. Every efficiency increase from now unlocks exponentially more use cases.
As a long time space and technology nerd, this is the coolest fucking time to be alive!