Colonizing Mars is actually doable if we want to, though there are a number of reasons why we might want to think twice, such as the apparent existence of Martian life, which if encountered would either fuck us up or be fucked up by us, or both. But if we really want to, it is a doable and feasible possibility. The surface of Mars has issues but it’s more habitable than the moon or asteroids or anywhere in the outer solar system. And it does offer a genuine alternative to living and dying on and with the Earth.
But data centers in orbit... there is no case to be made for them as an alternative to data centers on the ground, unless the goal is to build them at such a gargantuan scale that the ecosystem down here literally can’t support them. And nobody can build up there at that scale, no matter how big a trillionaire they are. And they’d have to be orbiting a lot further away than normal satellites, because cramming that much hardware into too tight a volume of empty space would lead to a Kessler Syndrome catastrophe — something we’re already taking too many chances with all the orbiting crap we’ve got already.
Elon’s vision of a million massive satellites taking advantage of the unlimited power available out there to provide AI companies with unlimited compute is never going to be built. Same with Eric Schmidt’s vision, or with any of the other grandiose assholes who’ve been floating the idea lately. With Mars you can say “unlikely, but eventually in the coming centuries it will probably come about under some circumstances or other.” But with this, there is no scenario where the plan ever makes sense as a way to solve a real problem.
There are two factors driving this promise: first, the need to keep feeding Ponzi bait to investors to keep the bubble inflating, and second, the same impulse that keeps leading so-called libertarians to want to found cities, create micro-nations, seastead, and so on: their personal desire to find a place not covered by anyone else’s laws, where they can do whatever they want. They want data centers in space because although it may be expensive, at least there are no complaining neighbors and no environmental laws, so they don’t have anybody poking their ego-bubbles by telling them that they are bad citizens.
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