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Datacenters in space aren't going to work

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Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#71

Post by 0manrho »

Only legit thing I can see this being used for is redundant archival storage or just general research into hardening equipment to radiation or micrograv (eg for liquid cooling). But anything that generates significant amounts of heat seems like it'd be a huge problem.

Then again there's lots of space in space, perhaps it's possible to isolate racks/aisles into their own individual satellites, each with massive radiant heatshedding panels? It's an interesting problem space that would be very interesting to try to solve, but ultimately I agree with OP when we come back around to "But, why?" Research for the sake of research is a valid answer, but "For prod"? I don't see it.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#72

Post by fragmede »

skybrian wrote: post #70

Google’s paper [1] does talk about radiation hardening and thermal management. Maybe their ideas are naive and it’s a bad paper? I’m not an expert so I couldn’t tell from a brief skim. It does sound to me like other concepts that Google has explored and shelved, like building data centers out of shipping container sized units and building data centers underwater. [1] https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/suncatch…

Pedantically, Microsoft has actually submerged datacenters (UDC). Google's only tried pumping seawater for cooling.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#73

Post by salawat »

Ekaros wrote: post #66
ReptileMan wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can radiate the excess energy away on the non-sun facing part. In theory.

I wonder if there should be levels of "in theory". Yes theoretically black body radiation exist and well stuff cools down to near background radiation via that. But the next level is theoretical implementation. Like actually moving around the heat from source and so on. Maybe this could be the spherical cow step... Reminds me of the hyperloop. Well yes, things in vacuum tube go fast. Now does enough things go fast to…

>Now does enough things go fast to make any sense...

You're worried about rates when we can't even get the ball rolling on safety for human occupancy, maintenance, workability.

I swear, nothing on Earth more dangerous than someone with dollar signs in their eyes.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#74

Post by jauntywundrkind »

One thing I haven't seen talked about at all: how quickly would space heat up?

I presume Earth's gravity largely keeps the exosphere it has around it. With some modest fractional % lost year by year. There is a colossal vast volume out there! But given that there's so little matter up in space, what if any temperature rise would we expect from say a constant 1TW of heat being added?

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#75

Post by more_corn »

Except you don’t build a data center, you add a GPU to an individual starlink node. If you can do that a couple hundred or thousand times you’ve got a lot of compute in space. The next question is how would you redesign compute around your distributed power and cooling profiles? The article doesn’t talk about the actual engineering challenges. (Such as scaling down the radiative cooling design, matching compute node to the maximum feasible power profile, etc)

I’m not arguing it’ll be easy or will ultimately work, but articles like this are unhelpful because they don’t address the fundamental insight being proposed.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#76

Post by skybrian »

fragmede wrote: post #72
skybrian wrote: post #70

Google’s paper [1] does talk about radiation hardening and thermal management. Maybe their ideas are naive and it’s a bad paper? I’m not an expert so I couldn’t tell from a brief skim. It does sound to me like other concepts that Google has explored and shelved, like building data centers out of shipping container sized units and building data centers underwater. [1] https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/suncatch…

Pedantically, Microsoft has actually submerged datacenters (UDC). Google's only tried pumping seawater for cooling.

Apparently Microsoft tried it and it worked, but they shelved it?

https://www.tomshardware.com/desktops/servers/microsoft-shel...

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#77

Post by ffsm8 »

jhanschoo wrote: post #45
ReptileMan wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can radiate the excess energy away on the non-sun facing part. In theory.

You can radiate the excess energy away on the non-sun facing part on Earth almost just as well..., though corrosion is an issue.

"just as well"?

I man you totally can radiate excess heat energy on earth, but your comment implies that the parents idea of radiating off excess "energy", specifically HEAT energy in space is possible, which it isn't.

You can radiate excess energy for sure, but you'd first have to convert it away from heat energy into light or radio waves or similar.

I don't think we even have that tech at this point in time, and neither do we have any concepts how this could be done in theory.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#78

Post by notahacker »

awei wrote: post #15

The one thing that space has going for itself is space. You could have way bigger datacenters than on Earth and just leave them there, assuming Starship makes it cheap enough to get them there. I think it would maybe make sense if 2 things: - We are sure we will need a lot of gpus for the next 30-40 years. - We can make the solar panels + cooling + GPUs have a great life expectancy, so that we can just leave them up…

You can't just "leave them there" though. They orbit at high speed, which effectively means they actually take up vastly more space, with other objects orbiting at high speed intersecting those orbits. The orbits that are most useful are relatively narrow bands shared with a lot of other satellites and a fair amount of debris, and orbits tend to decay over time (which is a problem if you're in low earth orbit because they'll decay all the way into the atmosphere, and a problem if you're in geostationary orbit because you'll lose the advantage of stationary bit for maintaining comms links). This is a solvable problem with propulsion, but that entails bringing the propellant with you and end-of-life (or an expensive refuelling operation) when it runs out. The cost of maintaining real estate space is vastly more than out right owning land.

Similarly, making stuff have a great life expectancy is much more expensive than having it optimized for cost and operational requirements instead but stored somewhere you can replace individual components as and when they fail, and it's also much easier to maximise life expectancy somewhere bombarded by considerably less radiation.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#79

Post by quesera »

throwaway198846 wrote: post #42
Waterluvian wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you would kindly consult your Human HR Universal Handbook (2025 Edition) and navigate to section 226.8.2F, you’ll be gently reminded that it’s the responsibility of any and all employees to train their replacements.

Where can I find a copy?

Typically, these sorts of things are located in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard'.

So, it makes sense to always start there.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#80

Post by quesera »

oskarkk wrote: post #52
Waterluvian wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you would kindly consult your Human HR Universal Handbook (2025 Edition) and navigate to section 226.8.2F, you’ll be gently reminded that it’s the responsibility of any and all employees to train their replacements.

Human Human Resources?

The Synthetic Human Resources Universal Handbook is in a binary format which is not understood by Organics, but seems to be useful sometimes.
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