Starcloud

#1

Post by jonbaer » Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 11:23 AM UTC

Starcloud
blogs.nvidia.com

Re: Starcloud

#2

Post by wiz21c » Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 11:26 AM UTC

I though that refrigerating things in space was using a lot of energy because heat cannot dissipate in the void of space.

Moreover, why are the energy cost 10x lower when in space you have unlimited access to sun power? Is it the cost of building the energy production infrastructure ?

Re: Starcloud

#3

Post by Reubend » Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 11:34 AM UTC

Last time these folks were mentioned on HN, there was a lot of skepticism that this is really possible to do. The issue is cooling: in space, you can't rely on convection or conduction to do passive cooling, so you can only radiate away heat. However, the radiator would need to be several kilometers big to provide enough cooling, and obviously launching such a large object into space would therefore eat up any cost savings from the "free" solar power.

More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43977188

Re: Starcloud

#4

Post by kilroy123 » Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 11:35 AM UTC

They really don't want to let this bubble pop, do they?

Re: Starcloud

#5

Post by wiz21c » Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 11:41 AM UTC

wiz21c wrote: post #2

I though that refrigerating things in space was using a lot of energy because heat cannot dissipate in the void of space. Moreover, why are the energy cost 10x lower when in space you have unlimited access to sun power? Is it the cost of building the energy production infrastructure ?

and what about solar storms...

Re: Starcloud

#6

Post by JanneVee » Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 11:43 AM UTC

Uhm, isn't radiation a problem outside of the atmosphere? How fast are the data transfers going to be? so many questions...

Re: Starcloud

#7

Post by qwertytyyuu » Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 11:45 AM UTC

Thats a ridiculous amount of solar pannels to send up. I don't really think this is going to work/be viable

Re: Starcloud

#8

Post by petesergeant » Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 11:46 AM UTC

Reubend wrote: post #3

Last time these folks were mentioned on HN, there was a lot of skepticism that this is really possible to do. The issue is cooling: in space, you can't rely on convection or conduction to do passive cooling, so you can only radiate away heat. However, the radiator would need to be several kilometers big to provide enough cooling, and obviously launching such a large object into space would therefore eat up any cost s…

Their website pitches it as 16 square km

Re: Starcloud

#9

Post by J07 » Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 11:46 AM UTC

Engineer call out for diskswap

Re: Starcloud

#10

Post by gtsnexp » Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 11:47 AM UTC

Reubend wrote: post #3

Last time these folks were mentioned on HN, there was a lot of skepticism that this is really possible to do. The issue is cooling: in space, you can't rely on convection or conduction to do passive cooling, so you can only radiate away heat. However, the radiator would need to be several kilometers big to provide enough cooling, and obviously launching such a large object into space would therefore eat up any cost s…

Their white paper touches on the issue, which seems slightly hand-wavy without much detail on quantification. They could potentially take advantage of heat gradients from deep space and dissipate heat to explore the Seeback effect.