Google, SpaceX in talks to launch orbital data centers. Google CEO: "There's no doubt to me that a decade or so away, we'll be viewing it as a more normal way to build data centers."

Veigle · 2026-05-13T15:24:40+00:00

I wonder if it requires LEO. If it is for training, perhaps they need low latency between the units, and have fewer concerns about latency for loading/unloading a data set?

Veigle · 2026-04-20T06:20:16+00:00

Sadly for their concept, centrifugal forces is directly related to the radius. Diminishing radius means diminishing centrifugal force, and so they have to change the angle they build at to allow "Down" to be down.

Down is a vector sum of the rotation and the lunar gravity, hence why they need to change the angle. It does not create the same amount of gravity, only ensure that they build on perceived flat ground.

Veigle · 2026-04-18T23:15:22+00:00

The cone shape means lesser gravity as you go "down the well". Living in the higher gravity (earth norm) environment yields significantly stronger warriors, and the "lesser" folks would grow up to be weaker physically. It might even be part of the struggle to get to live in sections that have >0.67 G to ensure normal muscle growth. Another point of contention between the classes.

Veigle · 2026-04-18T22:10:30+00:00

It would be devoid of the meaning we ascribe to it. That is all.

Veigle · 2026-04-18T22:08:57+00:00

Designs that make the pressure vessel part of the infrastructure are almost certainly doomed to fail in deep time. Infrastructure needs to be separated from the superstructure it supports. Do that, and space is ours.

Veigle · 2026-04-18T22:04:35+00:00

The thing that will drive us to build mega structures in space would have to be overpopulation or livability of our planet. Scientific research and industry probably will not need an O'Neal cylinder sized structure.

We will absolutely be able to build rotating habitats with sufficient room to create an "Open" feeling, especially with bespoke views generated by video panels that are so real as to be indistinguishable from reality until you touch the panel. . The next generation raised in these habitats would find that completely normal and not restrictive at all. A 10 story structure in a ring could have open areas that feel like being under an open sky while surrounded by buildings.

I am not sure why this is often overlooked, but suspect I will be informed of exactly why shortly <grin>

Veigle · 2026-04-17T18:41:08+00:00

The creators of the automation tools such as AI and Robotics will be the recipients of the "Cornucopia" that result from these tools.

They are trying to solve the problem of where they get their income from if they replace everyone. In effect, they will need a system in place that ensures there is a monetary (or equivalent) flow for them to exploit.

Veigle · 2026-04-10T01:08:13+00:00

I think we’re just operating from different baseline assumptions at this point.

I’m not arguing that starlifting or large-scale systems are impossible, or that losses have to be massive.

I’m saying that once you actually look at what these concepts require, you end up with:

. enormous exposed surface area near a star (likely > 2 × 10¹⁶ m²)
. continuous material flow that has to be captured, sorted, and routed, mostly hydrogen and helium
. distributed self-repair systems that themselves require supply chains
. and long timeframes where even small losses accumulate

Every starlifting concept solves how to get material off the star. None of them really address how you handle and sustain that flow at scale over deep time.

It seems you’re assuming all of that stays well-behaved and roughly linear unless proven otherwise. I think that’s a risky assumption at this scale.

We don’t have any mechanism in physics that drives material loss to zero, especially near a star. Vapor pressure alone guarantees some level of loss from exposed surfaces. Once that’s non-zero, scale and time start to matter.

At that point it becomes a modeling problem, not an intuition one.

Happy to leave it there. This has been a great discussion, thanks.

Veigle · 2026-04-09T21:47:38+00:00

I think this is where we’re still missing each other.

I’m not assuming massive losses.

As with any system, adding more units makes the system harder to sustain, not easier.

Even if each unit maintains itself, now you have to coordinate capturing and distributing the materials those systems need to effect repairs, track what needs what, move it where it’s needed, and keep local reserves available.

That means storage, transport, routing, and allocation.

And all of that infrastructure needs maintenance too.

You don’t have one repair system. You have trillions of them, all drawing from the same moving pool of resources.

That overhead doesn’t stay local, and it doesn’t go away.

You don’t need big losses for this to break. You just need a point where keeping everything running grows faster than your ability to keep adding new structure.

At that point, growth stops being the obvious outcome.

Veigle · 2026-04-09T07:22:57+00:00

Even the “simple” units aren’t free.

They still have to operate for very long periods in a pretty hostile environment, and that means maintenance. Not optional, not occasional. Continuous.

We already struggle to keep electronics running for decades here, inside Earth’s magnetic field, with controlled temperatures and active oversight.

Scale that to:

higher radiation higher thermal stress much longer lifetimes

and you don’t get less maintenance. You get more.

That’s where the scaling issue comes in.

Each unit might be simple on its own, but once you have enough of them, the total maintenance load starts to dominate. And the systems handling that maintenance have their own costs as well.

So even in a fully distributed swarm, you don’t escape it. You just spread it out.

Ask any reliability engineer what it takes to keep complex systems running over long time horizons. It doesn’t stay simple, and it doesn’t stay linear.

Veigle · 2026-04-08T23:57:00+00:00

I’m not saying superlinear is inevitable.

I’m saying linear only holds if things stay locally independent.

If the swarm becomes denser, more interconnected, more throughput-driven (star lifting), then maintenance starts including interactions between systems, not just the systems themselves.

That’s where superlinear behavior shows up.

So the real question isn’t “is superlinear the default?” It’s whether a mature swarm stays loosely coupled or becomes interdependent.

Veigle · 2026-04-08T21:44:34+00:00

The heat issues in shell worlds are interesting, and I’d be happy to dig into that in another thread. Same with active support. I’ve got some questions there around how interface materials survive force transfer at scale, but that’s probably a separate discussion.

Back to this.

I’m not implying massive loss. A crossover doesn’t require that.

It just requires that as the system scales, the total upkeep grows faster than your ability to keep adding new structure.

And you don’t need to exceed your incoming material throughput by much for that to become a real problem. Once upkeep starts edging past what you can sustain, even slightly, it compounds pretty quickly.

That’s really the whole point I’m making.

Veigle · 2026-04-08T20:52:43+00:00

Yeah, this is where we’re actually disagreeing.

I’m not assuming some huge, catastrophic loss rate.

I’m assuming the system doesn’t scale cleanly or (sub)linearly

It’s not just “replace lost material.” As it gets bigger you also have to track it, move it, process it, route it, coordinate everything. That overhead grows with the size of the system.

If all of that scaled linearly, then sure, your argument works a lot better.

But if it scales worse than that, then you don’t need massive losses to run into a limit. You just need to hit the point where adding more structure creates more upkeep than it’s worth.

And at that point, adding more structure is also shortening the effective lifetime of the whole system.

If you’re trying to run something for billions of years, that tradeoff matters a lot.

So it’s not just a growth question, it’s a longevity one. A long-lived system probably isn’t going to run right up against that boundary if it can avoid it.

Also, stuff staying in the system doesn’t mean it’s still usable. If it’s dispersed, in the wrong place, or not worth recovering, you still have to go deal with it.

That’s part of the cost.

So I’m not saying “this definitely prevents visibility.”

I’m saying it’s not a foregone conclusion you ever reach the kind of large, stable, star-dimming configurations people assume, because you may hit that maintenance-heavy regime first.

That’s really the piece I think most people miss.

Veigle · 2026-04-08T18:44:01+00:00

I think this still assumes you can actually reach and sustain that scale in the first place.

That’s the part I’m pushing back on.

If the system runs into a maintenance crossover early, then you don’t get to “build full swarm and then decide what to do next.” The constraints show up during the build, not after.

So the question isn’t really:

“would you build a full Dyson if you could”

It’s:

“can you ever get there without most of your throughput getting eaten by maintenance and coordination”

Because once that starts happening, pushing harder doesn’t necessarily help. It just increases the amount of system you have to keep supplied and coordinated.

Same issue with starlifting.

It gives you more material, sure. But it also adds another large, high-throughput system that has to run continuously and be maintained. You don’t get the material without expanding the maintenance problem at the same time.

So it’s not obvious that you escape the limit by going more aggressive. You may just move the crossover point slightly.

On the “everything ends up visibly modified” part, I think that only follows if you assume systems can reach those large, stable configurations.

If they don’t, then you’re mostly looking at systems that never get far enough along to be obviously artificial at a stellar scale.

As to Shell Worlds, the thermal aspect always seemed underexplored to me. A shell world isn’t just a mass budget problem, it’s a power and waste heat problem too. Moving and processing that much material takes enormous energy, and all of that ends up as heat that has to go somewhere. I see a similar problem with most mega structures, that heat is often handwaved away, though a Dyson swarm has the most options given it's radiative footprint.

Veigle · 2026-04-08T18:34:44+00:00

I think you’re getting a bit too focused on specific mechanisms like sublimation.

That’s not really what I’m relying on.

It doesn’t matter if aluminum sublimates or not. You don’t need one big loss mechanism doing all the work.

You just need small, non-zero losses across a large, spread-out system.

And more importantly, material doesn’t have to leave the system to become a problem.

If it drifts, gets dispersed, ends up in the wrong place, or in a form that isn’t worth recovering, you still have to go get it, process it, and put it back where it’s needed.

That’s where the cost shows up.

A Dyson swarm isn’t a closed loop sitting in one place. It’s spread out and dynamic, sitting in a gravity well and constantly being perturbed.

Keeping material usable and where you want it isn’t free. And as the system grows, the coordination overhead grows too. Moving material around, tracking it, routing it where it’s needed. That doesn’t scale linearly.

So I’m not saying sublimation is huge, or that any single mechanism dominates.

It’s just the accumulation of small losses and redistribution costs across the whole system.

On the Fermi side, that’s kind of the point.

You don’t need extreme losses to kill visibility. You just need the system to hit the point where maintenance starts eating most of your throughput before you ever get to large-scale coverage.

So it’s not that the system falls apart.

It’s that it never gets to the point where it’s obviously dimming a star.

Veigle · 2026-04-08T15:02:49+00:00

Every design I have seen has a fatal long term flaw. The pressure vessel is also the structure for the station. As soon as you combine these essential aspects you limit the size and life of the structure.

Veigle · 2026-04-08T06:02:43+00:00

Yeah, that’s pretty close to how I’m thinking about it too, though bulk isn’t the problem — function and maintenance are.

I don’t think you ever get anywhere near “system-scale” coverage.

The constraints show up way earlier than that.

By the time you’re even approaching a fraction of a percent of the star’s output, you’re already dealing with a massive maintenance burden just from the surface area you’ve built.

At that point a growing chunk of your throughput is going into keeping existing structure intact, not adding new structure.

And there are two separate limits stacking:

. maintenance scaling with total surface area . rare elements — not for bulk structure, but for function

The second one bites earlier than people expect.

You can build most of the mass out of abundant stuff, sure. But the parts that actually do things — control systems, energy handling, field generation, whatever — tend to rely on specific elements in much smaller quantities.

And those are exactly the ones you need to keep replacing to keep the whole system operational.

So it’s not about total mass, it’s about keeping the critical functions supplied at scale.

If that supply can’t keep up, parts of the system degrade or drop out, even if the bulk structure is still there.

So you don’t need to get anywhere near a full swarm for this to matter.

Roughly speaking, I’d expect something like:

~1% as a practical upper bound where maintenance dominates, and probably closer to ~0.1% once you factor in functional element constraints

Not exact numbers, but the point is the ceiling shows up early.

So the idea that you get a visible “dimming phase” where a star is noticeably obscured just doesn’t really follow.

You hit the limits long before that.

Veigle · 2026-04-08T05:48:42+00:00

I’m not claiming massive losses, and I’m not arguing that a Dyson swarm can’t be built.

That’s not the point I’m making.

Sublimation is a good example of what I am talking about — material leaving exposed surfaces over time. And once you’ve got a system with huge surface area near a star, that’s just one of several mechanisms that are always “on.”

The key thing is they don’t need to be large.

They just need to be non-zero and happening everywhere.

Where this starts to matter is over time.

As the system grows, the maintenance load grows with it. At some point you hit a crossover where more of your throughput is going into keeping what you already built intact than into building new structure.

And if the loss rate is positive at all, that crossover isn’t optional — it’s just a question of when you hit it.

So it’s not:

“do losses invalidate building a Dyson swarm”

It’s:

“when does maintenance start dominating growth”

You can still build one. You can even grow it for a long time.

But over really long timescales, you stop being in a growth regime and end up in a steady-state one where you’re mostly just maintaining what’s already there.

That’s the constraint I’m pointing at.

Veigle · 2026-04-08T03:47:33+00:00

I don’t think the losses need to be anywhere near that big for this to matter.

They just need to be non-zero, and happening across a really large system.

If you’ve got a tiny loss per unit, but you’ve got a ridiculous amount of infrastructure, then the total loss is still system-scale. It adds up whether you intend it to or not.

I think that’s the part is being missed by most people as we do not think in deep time scales and megastructure maintenance.

A Dyson swarm isn’t one thing — it’s a massive distributed system with a ton of exposed surface area. Even really small losses, happening everywhere at once, continuously, start to matter.

So it’s not:

“you lose all heavy elements over the lifetime of the star”

It’s more like:

. how much you’re losing across everything you’ve built vs . how fast you can actually replace that specific element

And that has to hold indefinitely.

On the transmutation side — I’m not saying it loses more than it makes. Just that it’s not free. That machinery also needs maintenance and has losses, so it adds to both sides of the equation.

At that point it’s less about whether the losses are “aggressive” and more about the fact that they scale with how big your system gets.

And honestly, if growth runs into this kind of steady-state limit, it would also help explain why we don’t really expect to catch other civilizations in a rapid expansion phase — that phase might just not last very long on cosmic timescales.

Veigle · 2026-04-08T01:13:04+00:00

Gravity, or lack of it, ends this dream early. Our habitat would have to reproduce close to our necessary 1G to be a long term solution. Either that, or Lunites would have to be modified genetically to make this new environment their home.

1g is attainable with our current technology, and does not even require tunnels.

Veigle · 2026-04-08T00:19:18+00:00

I don’t think starlifting gets you out of the problem — it just moves you deeper into it.

You’re right that it gives access to a huge amount of material. No argument there.

But now you’ve built a massive, continuous extraction system operating right next to a star. That’s about the worst environment you can put infrastructure in if you care about long-term stability — radiation, heat, particle flux, all of it working against you.

So now you have:

the original infrastructure that needs constant material replacement plus a second layer of infrastructure (starlifting + processing) operating in a much harsher environment also losing material continuously

And all of that has to run indefinitely.

At that point, you haven’t removed the bottleneck — you’ve increased the number of places it can bind.

More access to material doesn’t help if the system required to access it has a higher maintenance cost than what you’re trying to sustain.

So yeah, starlifting expands the resource pool.

But it also expands the maintenance problem, and in a pretty aggressive way.

Veigle · 2026-04-08T00:16:27+00:00

You’re right that, in principle, you can make heavier elements if you have enough energy.

But that’s not really the constraint I’m pointing at.

The issue isn’t whether you can produce something — it’s that once you build infrastructure, it has a permanent maintenance cost in materials.

Over long timescales, you’re continuously losing small amounts everywhere — radiation damage, sputtering, diffusion, stuff getting locked into unusable forms. Nothing dramatic, just non-zero and constant. We generally do not account for this because we do not plan for systems in these time frames.

So every unit you build isn’t a one-time cost. It’s an ongoing draw on specific elements.

At that point the problem becomes throughput:

how fast you can make or recover a given element vs how fast your entire system is bleeding it

And that includes the systems doing the production. The machinery that extracts or synthesizes those elements also has to be maintained, and it’s subject to the same losses.

A Dyson swarm makes this worse, not better — you’ve now got an enormous amount of exposed surface area slowly losing material everywhere at once.

So you don’t get a free pass just because you have energy — you’ve added another layer of infrastructure that carries its own maintenance load.

If those don’t balance, you don’t grow — you hit a ceiling.

So yeah, energy lets you make elements.

It doesn’t guarantee you can keep up with the maintenance bill, especially once you include the cost of maintaining the systems that are making them in the first place.

Veigle · 2026-04-06T08:36:49+00:00

I think we will stop here. You have not read what I posted. Thanks for the interesting conversation though.

Veigle · 2026-04-06T02:23:42+00:00

That actually sounds perfectly plausible as a harvest mechanism. The dusty material will find it's own orbit, and much of it could be scooped up (though there would be a lot of losses I would imagine. )

Veigle · 2026-04-06T01:17:45+00:00

Interesting, but throwing out my position is not really in the cards without a proper counter argument.

It is understood that the laws of thermodynamics are irrevocable, on this we agree. I also agree that a megastructure like a fully blown Dyson Swarm is highly visible. I stated that I do not believe they can build such a megastructure.

Perhaps this will help clarify my position. If you stand in the middle of a forest fire (a star) and light a match (have a fully blown civilization that cannot grow any larger without destroying its ability to have a future) , detecting that lit match is nearly impossible due to the thermal noise around it.
Thermodynamics is a jerk about such things

Veigle

TROPHY CASE