[Starlink] Re: Data centers are racing to space — and regulation can’t keep up

David Lang
2026-02-26T04:39:44Z

a couple comments in response (specifically applying to SpaceX

they are working to reduce launch costs between 10x and 100x

they are not just looking at sun synchronous orbit, but also at launching from
the moon into a moon-size earth orbit or solar orbit

re: chip vulnerability to radiation

chips have gotten MUCH smaller over the years, which in part makes it more
likely for a cell that's hit to flip, but also means that (for a given
capability) it's much smaller, so is far less likely to be hit.

probability based systems don't require every calculation to be perfect

"AI" systems need to be validated anyway (since their behavior can't be
predicted), so if there are too many errors, it just will fail validation

with enough processing capacity, you can re-run the calculations and compare
resuts.

One thing I haven't seen people talk about is that space-based systems are NOT
going to be massive, coherent clusters the way current AI training clusters are.
They will be many smaller clusters with relatively low bandwidth/high latency
communications between them (you can't send data faster than the speed of
light). The first posts about space datacenters were dense, massive things
(comparable in size to ground based systems) with solar panels and radiators
measured in square miles. Elon and SpaceX are talking about many small
satellites in the 100Kw range, similar in size to the starlink satellites that
Starship can deploy.

I fully expect that new training algorithms will be found that will drastically
improve the efficiency, but I also expect that when they are found, those
companies with lots of hardware and expertise in running it will be able to make
better use of the new algorithms, if only to train more models doing different
things at the same time. It still favors those companies that get ahead (and
don't collapse in the process)

every bubble over-builds infrastructure, as a lot of people who lose their
shirts jump on board the new fad without being able to evaluate the companies.
But those companies that fail generally get bought out by others, cheap, and the
infrastructure that is built gets used by someone else with a more realistic
business model. It may take years (see the massive overbuilding of fiber in some
areas), but it will eventually be used.

I think there is disagreement on if AI is going to 'hockey stick' or not, but
even if it doesn't, thee are a lot of good uses for the pattern matching
capability (just not at today's prices)

David Lang

On Wed, 25 Feb 2026, Nick Matthews wrote:

> Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2026 19:38:52 -0700
> From: Nick Matthews <matthnick@gmail.com>
> To: David Lang <david@lang.hm>
> Cc: Daniel AJ Sokolov <daniel@falco.ca>,
> Dave Taht via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Subject: Re: [Starlink] Re: Data centers are racing to space — and regulation
> can’t keep up
>
> The underlying theory here is if someone builds a model that can improve
> itself faster than humans, they win. Military, economy, future problems,
> etc. That could have a lot of real on-Earth impact. There's investments and
> races going on that support that theory.
>
> If the major limiting factor is how big and fast you can build power plants
> on earth, and assume the person with the most access to power wins, it
> starts to make more sense.
>
> However, there's also a giant list of technical assumptions that need to be
> true for those assumptions to fly (get it?). And those technical
> assumptions don't necessarily need to be true in order to cash the checks
> from people that either want to compete in that race or invest in someone
> that is.
>
> Some of the assumptions I've come to include:
> * Adding more power and data to models eventually gets you to the
> intelligence needed to hockey stick. (Versus solving this problem with a
> different approach, algorithms, or different kinds of data.)
> * The models, data, and underlying algorithms aren't easily replicated by
> others once they start exponentially increasing in ability. E.g. can
> someone like Deepseek just take the outputs of the first mover, and then
> not require the same power capacity and replicate a similar value. This
> would slow down the first mover velocity benefits.
> * AI eventually starts creating returns.
> * Launch costs go down significantly (x10?)
> * There's enough room in sun synchronous orbit to run at power scales not
> possible on earth without kicking off Kessler
> * A combination of very large solar panels, radiative cooling, fluid
> exchange between them, the computing, propulsion, and any necessary
> redundancy of these components is still economical.
> * Operational loss due to radiation, micro asteroids, and general
> component failure is tolerable.
> * Components like GPUs and RAM and underlying bus structures can be built
> to be more radiation tolerant.
> * Burning up new orders of magnitude of amounts of elements in the
> atmosphere can be managed (aluminum, silicon, etc.)
> * Or, there is some amount of in-orbit recycling and manufacturing without
> returning material back to Earth.
> * Bandwidth can be built for 1) intra cluster within a satellite, 2) cross
> cluster via OISl, 3) Back to Earth using RF or lasers.
> * Regulatory bodies agree with the risk versus reward and approve this
> kind of plan.
> * The smarter-than-human AI doesn't decide to destroy the human race in a
> move of self preservation because the AI companies didn't have time for
> boundaries.
>
> I think it's a neat thought experiment, even if it's a little terrifying in
> scale and impact if it's remotely possible.
>
> -nick
>
> On Wed, Feb 25, 2026, 6:33 PM David Lang via Starlink <
> starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
>> Daniel AJ Sokolov wrote:
>>
>>> Block spots in orbit
>>
>> at the scale that he operates, everyone else combined in in the noise.
>> Starlink
>> is already several times the number of other satellites in orbit combined.
>>
>> besides, in the long run, he's talking about launching from the moon into
>> solar
>> orbit, not earth orbit, but even if he was just talking about launching
>> into
>> earth orbit near the moon's orbit, it's not like there are very many
>> satellites
>> there to contend with.
>>
>>> From a technology point of view, this is bonkers.
>>
>> if you only look at technical details, you may be right, but if you add
>> the
>> regulatory burden and delays in building traditional datacenters, that may
>> be
>> enough to change the math.
>>
>> Now, if we could ease the regulations so that it's easier to build power
>> plants
>> and hook up to the grid (or get small next-gen nuclear power plants
>> operational
>> so they can be dropped at the datacenters), that could change the math
>> back.
>>
>> David Lang
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>