https://andrewmccalip.com/space-datacenters
You can play around with the cost sliders to estimate the economics, but even being quite optimistic, space data centers cost ~2-3x of their terrestrial counterparts.
If Nvidia/SpaceX can make the chips run at a higher temperature that would help a lot although I assume it would have already been done if it were possible. Another option is to add a heat pump to raise radiator temperature if the smaller radiator mass can pay for the heat pump mass.
That means that for every 3 units of heat your chips emit, you will use a 4th unit to spin the pump. If your panels generate 150kW, you will only have 113kW available for compute and the rest is cooling. Radiators will more than halve vs 340K operation, so it's net beneficial.
It's all a giant techno-economic optimization problem: the extra mass of solar panels you need vs saved radiators vs mass of the pump, the die temperatures you achieve and corresponding performance, durability and chip price point etc.
To me the biggest problem of the system is the dependence on launch cost. The more launch cost can be lowered the more viable the system is and the more options there are for solving every problem. But IMO the reason Musk is building this system is to lower launch cost. He needs a project that can fund a high volume of launches and create economies of scale to lower launch cost, the way that Starlink did for Falcon 9.
Starlink doesn't need GPUs, they use hardened chips. The first question is, can whatever works as a 2nm GPU work where Starlink is?
The second question is even funnier: Starlink satellites have a limited lifespan and regularly burn up in the atmosphere when they fall back to Earth - that's due to the need to fly them at low altitudes where, coincidentally, the radiation is lower.
Where then will the flying data centers be - high with higher radiation or low with a higher fall rate? And I doubt those heavy birds are going to burn up fully before hitting somebody's head.
Again, we're getting closer to Hyperion Cantos here.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/05/spacex-pushed-sniper-t...
Heat emission in space is not problematic for humans
If it were up to me, I would be researching and optimizing non-chemical propulsion, also green synthetic fuels for launches. Unfortunately, we will have to leave that for some firm other than SpaceX to develop.
If the commoners are attacking infrastructure, there's still always going to be ground stations that can be attacked.