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

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

#91

Post by notpushkin »

mandevil wrote: post #15
GolfPopper wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Servers outside any legal jurisdiction. Priceless.

International space law (starting with the Outer Space Treaty of 1967) says that nations are responsible for all spacecraft they launch, no matter whether the government or a non-governmental group launches them. So a server farm launched by a Danish company is governed by Danish law just the same as if they were on the ground- and exposed to the same ability to put someone into jail if they don't comply with a legal…

What if you’re a stateless person? (Not an easy status to acquire these days, but any US citizen can just renounce their citizenship without getting a new one, for example.)

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

#93

Post by Robotbeat »

wkat4242 wrote: post #19
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…

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.

This isn’t true. The radiators on ISS are MUCH smaller than the solar panels. I know it’s every single armchair engineer’s idea that heat rejection is this impossible problem in space, but your own example of ISS proves this is untrue. Radiators are no more of a problem than solar panels.

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

#94

Post by Robotbeat »

thwarted wrote: post #73
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'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.

Except a thermos has a really low emissivity, otherwise (if it had high emissivity), it’d be a poor insulator due to thermal radiation, the same reason why ISS’s radiators are much smaller than its solar panels.

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

#95

Post by Robotbeat »

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

Radiation is not actually a problem unless you're trying to do super high power nuclear electric propulsion (i.e. in your videogame). Classic armchair engineer mistake, tbh.

Radiators work great in space. Stefan-Boltzmann's law. The ISS's solar panels are MUCH smaller than the radiators. Considering datacenters on Earth have to have massive heat exchangers as well, I really think the bUt wHaT aBoUt rAdiAtOrs is an overblown gotcha, considering every satellite still has to dump heat and works just fine.

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

#96

Post by Robotbeat »

hamburglar wrote: post #77
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.

If mass is going to be as cheap as is needed for this to work anyway, there's no reason you can't just use people like in a normal datacenter.

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

#97

Post by Robotbeat »

oceanplexian wrote: post #83
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…

Why does it need to be robots? On Earth we have skeleton crews maintain large datacenters. If the cost of mass to orbit is 100x cheaper, it’s not that absurd to have an on-call rotation of humans to maintain the space datacenter and install parts shipped on space FedEx or whatever we have in the future.

Bingo.

It's all contingent on a factor of 100-1000x reduction in launch costs, and a lot of the objections to the idea don't really engage with that concept. That's a cost comparable to air travel (both air freight and passenger travel).

(Especially irritating is the continued assertion that thermal radiation is really hard, and not like something that every satellite already seems to deal with just fine, with a radiator surface much smaller than the solar array.)

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

#98

Post by Robotbeat »

monster_truck wrote: post #85
oceanplexian wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it need to be robots? On Earth we have skeleton crews maintain large datacenters. If the cost of mass to orbit is 100x cheaper, it’s not that absurd to have an on-call rotation of humans to maintain the space datacenter and install parts shipped on space FedEx or whatever we have in the future.

That isn't going to last for much longer with the way power density projections are looking. Consider that we've been at the point where layers of monitoring & lockout systems are required to ensure no humans get caught in hot spots, which can surpass 100C, for quite some time now.

You mean like every single kitchen?

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

#99

Post by Robotbeat »

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…

You need less batteries in orbit than on the ground since you're only in shade for at most like 40 minutes. And it's all far more predictable.

Cooling isn't actually any more difficult than on Earth. You use large radiators and radiate to deep space. The radiators are much smaller than the solar arrays. "Oh but thermos bottles--" thermos bottles use a very low emissivity coating. Space radiators use a high emissivity coating. Literally every satellite manages to deal with heat rejection just fine, and with radiators (if needed) much smaller than the solar arrays.

Latency is potentially an issue if in a high orbit, but in LEO can be very small.

Equipment upgrades and maintenance is impossible? Literally, what is ISS, where this is done all the time?

Radiation shielding isn't free, but it's not necessarily that expensive either.

Orbital maintainence is not a serious problem with low cost launch.

The upside is effectively unlimited energy. No other place can give you terawatts of power. At that scale, this can be cheaper than terrestrially.

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

#100

Post by weq »

Robotbeat wrote: post #97
oceanplexian wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it need to be robots? On Earth we have skeleton crews maintain large datacenters. If the cost of mass to orbit is 100x cheaper, it’s not that absurd to have an on-call rotation of humans to maintain the space datacenter and install parts shipped on space FedEx or whatever we have in the future.

Bingo. It's all contingent on a factor of 100-1000x reduction in launch costs, and a lot of the objections to the idea don't really engage with that concept. That's a cost comparable to air travel (both air freight and passenger travel). (Especially irritating is the continued assertion that thermal radiation is really hard, and not like something that every satellite already seems to deal with just fine, with a radi…

Musk is already in the testing phase for this. His starship rockets should be reusable as soon as 2018!
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