Orbital Data Centers: Why the Hype Outpaces Reality

Data Centers in Space are a practical engineering impossibility, as well as making no economic sense. Engineering and the laws of physics get on the way.

Just because Scott Manley refuses to call that out, so he can do another eight videos about it, don´t stop listening to somebody with the feet on the ground:

"Orbital Data Centers: Spacecraft Constraints and Economic Viability" - https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.27197

"Hot AI in Cold Space: Thermal-Crosstalk-Aware Scheduling for Sustainable Orbital AI Clusters" - https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.26150

"Above the Cloud: Building Data Centers in Space - Richard Campbell - NDC Copenhagen 2026" - https://youtu.be/eo7MEPgWGic

"Space Data Centers Are Dumb" - https://youtu.be/-w6G7VEwNq0

Rather than reasoning on the feasibility of data centers in space, what are the constraints that prevent them from being built on Earth? What's the minimum cost of building and operating in the US the equivalent of a 1M satellites data center?

have you ever seen a detailed photo of the ISS?

* https://images2.imgbox.com/64/4b/GhtUtq1m_o.jpg

look at how massive the solar panels and more importantly the thermal radiators are outside

compare to the size of the human habitat tubes

"AI" in space would demand as much if not even more for each node

The advantage is solar power in space. They will never stop getting sunlight.

I think everyone misses the real point - they're completely outside the jurisdiction of any government.

Short of launching an ASAT and the risk of space debris, nobody will be able to shut them down.