Orbital Data Centers Yes or No
Why Hacker News recommends it
Recommended in orbital data center threads as a thorough, numbers-based assessment.
What it is
Eager Space examines the practicality of putting data centers in orbit, walking through three scenarios with cost calculations and the launch cost reductions that would be required.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2025 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Recommends bearjaws · 2025-10 · on “Starcloud”
We've officially lost the plot, we will now ship our AI data centers to ~space~ ... This will not work with modern technology. The sun will be eclipsed by earth many times per day, requiring you to either shift all workloads or add substantial UPS weight. The radiator grid you need to cool 125kw is something like 16x the size of the entire data center. I watched this video last week that went into 3 different scenarios, it's a good watch. [this video]
Recommends CivilR · 2025-11 · on “Datacenters in space aren't going to work”
Eager space did a pretty thorough hypothetical cost breakdown of orbital data centers that I recommend. [this video]
Recommends briandw · 2026-02 · on “Data centers in space makes no sense”
Eager Space [Orbital Data Centers Yes or No]( [this video] ) Goes into great detail with extensive calculations (for a YT video at least). TLDR: Cost to orbit needs to be under $200/kg before it makes sense.