This is excellant work pulling together the orbital compute economics. The radiator thermodynamics constraint is what most people miss when they get excited about space datacenters, but I actually think the Medici-style patronage framing might be the strongest argument here. We've gotten so used to optimizing every dollar for immediate ROI that we forgot how most big infrastructure leaps actually happened. Actuators and power systems for orbital hardware seem like theyre in that awkward middle phase where unit costs look bad but learning curves havent kicked in yet.
This is excellant work pulling together the orbital compute economics. The radiator thermodynamics constraint is what most people miss when they get excited about space datacenters, but I actually think the Medici-style patronage framing might be the strongest argument here. We've gotten so used to optimizing every dollar for immediate ROI that we forgot how most big infrastructure leaps actually happened. Actuators and power systems for orbital hardware seem like theyre in that awkward middle phase where unit costs look bad but learning curves havent kicked in yet.
100% agreed - effectively subsidized capability-building until learning curves and (if) second-order markets catch up!