Thread

1. logancbrown · 1790368439 · focus · HN ↗

   Genuine question: why are there so many people up-in-arms on orbital data centers? Like they have a personally vested interest in ensuring their opinions on failure are correct? There are many people on HN that despise it and say it will not and will never work, but here we are, they are flying them up to space and presumably, will start working soon.

   1. lucb1e · 1790369991 · focus · HN ↗

      > Like they have a personally vested interest in ensuring their opinions on failure are correct?

      I haven't commented on this topic before (here or elsewhere) but I don't understand your surprise at people being critical. Everyone has a vested interest in keeping the planet usable. We could try lots of things in space, like agriculture or power production. It takes a lot of fuel to push a usable kilogram of stuff into a low orbit (laser propulsion and spin launches aren't quite there yet), so moving operations into orbit has various major downsides. So long as nobody states an upside, yeah, my mind is quite blown about wasting investor money on this. Even when not considering the opportunity cost of that used money (alternative positive uses), it seems like burning the equivalent amount of cash in a bonfire or otherwise disappearing the money would be a lesser evil

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