NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman backs space data centers to escape earthly friction

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has joined Elon Musk and Sundar Pichai in support of relocating data centers to Earth’s orbit. Along with the CEOs of SpaceX and Google, Isaacman is also pushing this idea to sidestep growing public anger over the facilities' environmental and economic toll in American communities.

In an interview with Nexstar DC's Vinay Simot, Isaacman said: "Let's take our data centers, put them in Earth orbit, take advantage of that free fusion reactor that's out there for us and use that to ensure we do win the … space race for sure, but the AI race, too,"

In January, at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Elon Musk said that "the lowest-cost place to put AI will be in space, and that will be true within two years, maybe three at the latest," while Google CEO Sundar Pichai has said Alphabet is exploring "moonshot" concepts for data centers in space later this decade under an internal effort known as Project Suncatcher.

Isaacman added that the move would "have immense benefits," as companies could leverage solar energy, which is the "free fusion reactor", to power data centers without straining terrestrial electric grids.

A political liability on the ground

Data centers, which fuel the growing AI industry, have quickly lost favour with the public with many saying their presence raises prices in communities and carries negative environmental impacts. Amid this pushback, US politicians are hastily trying to distance themselves from the facilities.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, signed an order last week requiring that data center developers cover electricity costs and gain local backing for projects. Shapiro had previously boasted about these facilities' investments in his state.

Not the first time Jared Isaacman has floated the idea

This is not the first time the NASA administrator has proposed the idea of sending data centers into space. In an early August appearance on the New York Post's "Pod Force One" podcast, Isaacman called the proposal a "fantastic" solution to the public's complaints.

"Elon [Musk] and others in the industry are like, 'Let's take the data centers that no one likes in your backyard — it seems like there's a lot of consensus on that — and put them into space where they won't bother anyone'," Isaacman said during the earlier podcast.

He added that the space data centers would need solar panels "the size of several football fields."