Post #4245662

2026-07-30 15:59 UTC

Cowboy Space (I hate their name so much) published their consolidated response a week ago but we just noticed it. We either have 3 days or 8 days to respond now. So... I guess I have to read this shit. Swearing a lot here will get me through it. A reminder: this is the 4th company that wants to launch fucking enormous "AI data center" satellites into sun-synchronous terminator orbits, giving Earth a ring. This particular company wants 20,000 satellites in one ring.

Replies (4)

@sundogplanets@mastodon.social 2026-07-30 16:03

After modelling this in detail, I can say that that these companies can't even do basic geometry, apparently. They want tens of thousands of satellites to have 24 hour sunlight, so sun-synchronous terminator orbits, baybeeee! But as Hugh Lewis pointed out (I know, ew, linkedin sorry) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sun-always-shines-tv-hugh-lewis-tlkbe/ IT DOESN'T FUCKING WORK unless you're above 1400km altitude. And then you're not in the *magical* low-latency low-altitude zone that these companies actually want for fast comms.

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@Laukidh@infosec.exchange 2026-07-30 19:53

@sundogplanets@mastodon.social “cowboy” and science makes me think of early nuclear experiments like the Demon Core, or the meltdown that happened in my community in the 50s cause they kept turning the reactor back on without figuring out why they had to keep hitting SCRAM.

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@muddle@infosec.exchange 2026-07-31 04:08

@sundogplanets@mastodon.social Just thinking about this from another perspective. There was that "line", I think, city that some nutters were going to build in the desert. May both those people and the Cowboy Bebop crowd both read Larry Niven's ringworld and just managed to capture enough vc to fund the prospectus? More fool them.

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@ScottMGS@justme.masto.host 2026-07-30 16:02

@sundogplanets@mastodon.social It's like they're dogs and they have to piss on something to prove they exist.

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