Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

angadh.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 365 posts

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#71

Post by dismalpedigree »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #56
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seems oddly paradoxical. ISS interior at some roughly livable temperature. Exterior is ... freakin' space! Temperature gradient seems as if it should take of it ... ... and then you realize that because it is space, there's almost nothing out there to absorb the heat ...

there literally is nothing to absorb the heat. Conduction and convection are out, all you got is radiation. new vc rule: no investing in space startups unless their founders have 1000 hours in KSP and 500 hours in children of a dead earth

I’d settle for at least a high school physics education. This idea seemed insane when I first heard about it a few weeks back. This analysis just makes it that much more crazy.

If YC is hell bent on lighting piles of money on fire, I can think of some more enjoyable ways.

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#72

Post by dismalpedigree »

nkrisc wrote: post #52
GolfPopper wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Servers outside any legal jurisdiction. Priceless.

Pretty worthless unless the execs live in space too.

Why? Its not like we put execs in jail for allowing their companies to do terrible things under their watch.

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#73

Post by thwarted »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #53
wkat4242 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes cooling is difficult. Half the "solar panels" on the ISS aren't solar panels but heat radiation panels. That's the only way you can get rid of it and it's very inefficient so you need a huge surface.

seems oddly paradoxical. ISS interior at some roughly livable temperature. Exterior is ... freakin' space! Temperature gradient seems as if it should take of it ... ... and then you realize that because it is space, there's almost nothing out there to absorb the heat ...

There's nothing paradoxical about it. There's no such thing as a temperature gradient in a vacuum, there's nothing to hold or measure temperature against. And thus a vacuum is a really good insulator. Which is why a vacuum flask, which ultimately became one of Thermos' most well known products, is used to control temperature both in and outside the lab.

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#74

Post by XorNot »

chatmasta wrote: post #43
notahacker wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best argument I've heard for data centres in space startups is it's a excuse to do engineering work on components other space companies might want to buy (radiators, shielding, rad-hardened chips, data transfer, space batteries) which are too unsexy to attract the same level of FOMO investment...

Yes, and also just because a space data center isn’t useful today doesn’t mean it won’t be required tomorrow. When all the computing is between the ground and some nearby satellites, of course the tradeoffs won’t be worth it. But what about when we’re making multi-year journeys to Mars and we need a relay network of “space data centers” talking to each other, caching content, etc? We may as well get ahead of the prob…

We'd build it then? The problems of a space data center are extremely generic and only worth solving when you actually need one. Which would never be in low earth orbit.

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#75

Post by ugh123 »

energywut wrote: post #4

Putting a datacenter in space is one of the worst ideas I've heard in a while. Reliable energy? Possible, but difficult -- need plenty of batteries Cooling? Very difficult. Where does the heat transfer to? Latency? Highly variable. Equipment upgrades and maintenance? Impossible. Radiation shielding? Not free. Decommissioning? Potentially dangerous! Orbital maintenance? Gotta install engines on your datacenter and kee…

Sounds like a great investment for SoftBank

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#76

Post by GlenTheMachine »

Space roboticist here.

As with a lot of things, it isn't the initial outlay, it's the maintenance costs. Terrestrial datacenters have parts fail and get replaced all the time. The mass analysis given here -- which appears quite good, at first glance -- doesn't including any mass, energy, or thermal system numbers for the infrastructure you would need to have to replace failed components.

As a first cut, this would require:

- an autonomous rendezvous and docking system

- a fully railed robotic system, e.g. some sort of robotic manipulator that can move along rails and reach every card in every server in the system, which usually means a system of relatively stiff rails running throughout the interior of the plant

- CPU, power, comms, and cooling to support the above

- importantly, the ability of the robotic servicing system toto replace itself. In other words, it would need to be at least two fault tolerant -- which usually means dual wound motors, redundant gears, redundant harness, redundant power, comms, and compute. Alternately, two or more independent robotic systems that are capable of not only replacing cards but also of replacing each other.

- regular launches containing replacement hardware

- ongoing ground support staff to deal with failures

The mass analysis also doesn't appear to include the massive number of heat pipes you would need to transfer the heat from the chips to the radiators. For an orbiting datacenter, that would probably be the single biggest mass allocation.

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#77

Post by hamburglar »

GlenTheMachine wrote: post #76

Space roboticist here. As with a lot of things, it isn't the initial outlay, it's the maintenance costs. Terrestrial datacenters have parts fail and get replaced all the time. The mass analysis given here -- which appears quite good, at first glance -- doesn't including any mass, energy, or thermal system numbers for the infrastructure you would need to have to replace failed components. As a first cut, this would re…

Seems prudent to achieve fully robotic datacenters on earth before doing it in space. I know, I’m a real wet blanket.

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#78

Post by [deleted] »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #47
bigiain wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that's all true, it does hilariously increase the difficulty for the government showing up and seizing your server hardware...

They don't need to do that if they go after your ground station operators. To escape the law you need to hide or protect something on earth (your ground station(s), downlinks). If you can hide or protect that infrastructure on earth, why bother putting the computers in space?

[deleted]

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#79

Post by protocolture »

GlenTheMachine wrote: post #76

Space roboticist here. As with a lot of things, it isn't the initial outlay, it's the maintenance costs. Terrestrial datacenters have parts fail and get replaced all the time. The mass analysis given here -- which appears quite good, at first glance -- doesn't including any mass, energy, or thermal system numbers for the infrastructure you would need to have to replace failed components. As a first cut, this would re…

Did Microsoft do any of that with their submersible tests?

My feeling is that, a bit like starlink, you would just deprecate failed hardware, rather than bother with all the moving parts to replace faulty ram.

Does mean your comms and OOB tools need to be better than the average american colo provider but I would hope that would be a given.

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#80

Post by protocolture »

protocolture wrote: post #79
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #76

Space roboticist here. As with a lot of things, it isn't the initial outlay, it's the maintenance costs. Terrestrial datacenters have parts fail and get replaced all the time. The mass analysis given here -- which appears quite good, at first glance -- doesn't including any mass, energy, or thermal system numbers for the infrastructure you would need to have to replace failed components. As a first cut, this would re…

Did Microsoft do any of that with their submersible tests? My feeling is that, a bit like starlink, you would just deprecate failed hardware, rather than bother with all the moving parts to replace faulty ram. Does mean your comms and OOB tools need to be better than the average american colo provider but I would hope that would be a given.

>The mass analysis also doesn't appear to include the massive number of heat pipes you would need to transfer the heat from the chips to the radiators. For an orbiting datacenter, that would probably be the single biggest mass allocation.

And once you remove all the moving parts, you just fill the whole thing with oil rather than air and let heat transfer more smoothly to the radiators.

Post reply on HN