331–340 of 365 posts
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Spreading heavy metals in the upper atmosphere. Fun.
Seems like a bit of pointless whataboutism when we're still using leaded fuel in planes and helicopters
Why do they want to put a data center in space in the first place? Free cooling? Doesn't make much sense to me. As the article points out the radiators need to me massive. Access to solar energy? Solar is more efficient in space, I'll give them that, but does that really outweigh the whole hassle to put the panels in space in the first place? Physical isolation and security? Against manipulation maybe, but not agains…
One of the answers in OP is > A lot of waste heat is generated running TDCs, which contributes to climate change—so migrating to space would alleviate the toll on Earth’s thermal budget. This seems like a compelling environmental argument. TDCs already consume about 1-1.5% of global electricity and it’s safe to assume that this will only grow in the pursuit of AGI. The comparison here is between solar powered TDCs in…
The only sensible way to count pollution from solar+battery power manufacturing & disposal is do it on a per kWh basis.
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One of the answers in OP is > A lot of waste heat is generated running TDCs, which contributes to climate change—so migrating to space would alleviate the toll on Earth’s thermal budget. This seems like a compelling environmental argument. TDCs already consume about 1-1.5% of global electricity and it’s safe to assume that this will only grow in the pursuit of AGI. The comparison here is between solar powered TDCs in…
Apparently the only way to make renewable energy cool is to put it in space
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There's a difference between a couple humans (n 150W) and say JUST one H200 DGX (8 700W).
Shouldn't the radiators be directly proportional to the area of the solar panels? (Since there's no one munching on food on board.)
Let's start by acknowledging that there is no Starship and it's likely that the current iteration of that system is not viable. It will need to be redesigned, and no one even knows if it's possible not to mention economically feasible.
That's... bold. Yeah, the development process is different from what we're used to seeing with government-led programs, but so far most stages of starship have proven viable (ie they've worked at least once) and each launch gets closer. This claim also seems to ignore historical context - people said the same things about Falcon, then Falcon Heavy but those launch every few days now. You're basically saying that eith…
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It is really hard, and it is something you need to take into careful consideration when designing a satellite. It is really fucking hard when you have 40MW of heat being generated that you somehow have to get rid of.
It's all relative. Is it harder than getting 40MW of (stable!) power? Harder than packaging and launching the thing? Sure it's a bit of a problem, perhaps harder than other satellites if the temperature needs to be lower (assuming commodity server hardware) so the radiator system might need to be large. But large isn't the same as difficult.
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Maybe SpinLaunch can get it up there. And the power for the SpinLaunch motor can come from Solar Roadways.
There was a video from Scott Manley about this several years back. And he was very skeptical that it's even feasible for SpinLaunch to place something useful into orbit. And they haven't yet.
I am a big Manley fan, but I don't understand that. Fuel, oxidizers, and water can all likely withstand 10,000 G loads, and are quite useful in orbit. Also, IIRC correctly one big factor regarding SpinLaunch's G load is that it builds slowly.
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Look at the thermal shield design for the JWST. Could you have a data center that unfolds into a multi-layered plane where the outer solar collector layer faces the sun, an intermediate layer shields infrared emissions from the back side of that, and the final layer that always faces away from the sun holds (or is) a bunch of chips? Park it in an orbit where it can stay oriented this way or an L point. Free compute f…
Radiation at desirable operating temperatures is a relatively weak means of heat transport, hence spreaders. Only a big power-efficient chip like M2 Ultra could survive if it could _only_ radiate from one side of the wafer into CMB. The rest of the silicon will become molten at 100% TDP: H100, Xeon, Core, EPYC, Ryzen. Most would be over 400C at 1% TDP. Conduction and convection are linear or close and are effective a…
I recall some sci fi like The Expanse where it’s mentioned as an aside that big industrial processes happen on asteroids or moons because you can use a big cold rock as a heat sink.
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…
That is, as hardware fails, the system looses capacity.
That seems easier than replacing things on orbit, especially if StarShip becomes the cheapest way to launch to orbit because StarShip launches huge payloads, not a few rack mounted servers.
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Does using oil solve the mass problem? Liquids aren't light.
I would wager that its lighter than: Repair robots Enough air between servers to allow robots to access and replace componentry. Spare componentry. An eject/return system. Heatpipes from every server to the radiators.
Then you'd need vanes, agitators, and pumps to keep the oil moving around without forming eddies. These would need to be fairly bulky compared to fans and fan motors.
I'd have to see what an engineering team came up with, but at first glance the liquid solution would be much heavier and likely more maintenance intensive.