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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

#91

Post by creatonez »

skybrian wrote: post #76
fragmede wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

It didn't work, it was an utterly terrible idea and they are almost certainly lying about the sentiment that it "worked". No ability to perform maintenance is a complete nonstarter. Communications and power is a nightmare to get right. The thermal management story sucks - just because you have metal touching water doesn't mean you have effective radiation of heat. Actually scaling it up is nearly impossible because you need thicker and more expensive vessels the bigger it gets. The problems go on and on.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#92

Post by bigbadfeline »

throwaway198846 wrote: post #47
vintermann wrote: post #39

Always remember the magic words: dual use technology. The people pushing these aren't saying to you that they want to build data centers in space because conventional data centers are at huge risk of getting bombed by foreign nations or eventually getting smashed by angry mobs. But you can bet they're saying that to the people with the dual-use technology money bag. Or even better, let them draw that conclusion thems…

It is far easier to build them at remote places and bunkers (or both). Even at the middle of the ocean will make more sense and provide better cooling (See Microsoft attempt at that).

Not exactly at the middle but close to shore is pretty good too, a lot of solar and wind around to feed the compute.

One of these projects is bonkers IMO: china-has-an-underwater-data-center-the-us-will-build-them-in-space

https://www.forbes.com/sites/suwannagauntlett/2025/10/20/chi...

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#93

Post by skybrian »

creatonez wrote: post #91
skybrian wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently Microsoft tried it and it worked, but they shelved it? https://www.tomshardware.com/desktops/servers/microsoft-shel...

It didn't work, it was an utterly terrible idea and they are almost certainly lying about the sentiment that it "worked". No ability to perform maintenance is a complete nonstarter. Communications and power is a nightmare to get right. The thermal management story sucks - just because you have metal touching water doesn't mean you have effective radiation of heat. Actually scaling it up is nearly impossible because y…

Presumably it didn't work well or they wouldn't have shelved it. But do you actually know about what happened or is this all based on your priors?

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#94

Post by skywhopper »

cuuupid wrote: post #20

I don't agree with the logic that "something is hard/can't be done right now" is equivalent to "this is a terrible idea and won't work." There are dozens of companies solving each problem outlined here; if we never attempt the 'hard' thing we will never progress. The author could have easily taken a tone of 'these are all the things that are hard that we will need to solve first' but actively chose to take the 'catas…

What reason is there to build datacenters in space, though? Literally, what limitation do we face in building datacenters on Earth would building them in space improve?

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#95

Post by skywhopper »

foobarian wrote: post #69
kevdev wrote: post #6

As someone with a similar background to the writer of this post (I did avionics work for NASA before moving into more “traditional” software engineering), this post does a great job at summing up my thoughts on why space-based data centers won’t work. The SEU issues were my first though followed by the thermal concerns, and both are addressed here fantastically. On the SEU issue I’ll add in that even in LEO you can s…

The only advantage I can come up with is the background temperature being much colder than Earth surface. If you ignored the capex cost to get this launched and running in orbit, could the cooling cost be smaller? Maybe that's the gimmick being used to sell the idea. "Yes it costs more upfront but then the 40% cooling bill goes away... breakeven in X years"

But the cooling cost wouldn’t be smaller. There’s no good way to eliminate the waste heat into space. It’s actually far far harder to radiate the waste heat into space directly than it would be to get rid of it on Earth.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#96

Post by cmptrnerd6 »

foobarian wrote: post #69
kevdev wrote: post #6

As someone with a similar background to the writer of this post (I did avionics work for NASA before moving into more “traditional” software engineering), this post does a great job at summing up my thoughts on why space-based data centers won’t work. The SEU issues were my first though followed by the thermal concerns, and both are addressed here fantastically. On the SEU issue I’ll add in that even in LEO you can s…

The only advantage I can come up with is the background temperature being much colder than Earth surface. If you ignored the capex cost to get this launched and running in orbit, could the cooling cost be smaller? Maybe that's the gimmick being used to sell the idea. "Yes it costs more upfront but then the 40% cooling bill goes away... breakeven in X years"

Cooling is more difficult in space, yes it's colder, but transferring heat is more difficult.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#97

Post by skywhopper »

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…

Starship is on a fast track to failure. It is not a cheaper way to get to orbit and will never get there at the current pace. And even if it were, it would not make getting to orbit so cheap that it would somehow make it economically viable to put a datacenter there.

You still have to build the GPUs, etc for the datacenter whether it’s on Earth or in orbit. But to put it in space you also need massive new cooling solution, radiation shielding, orbital boosting, data transmission bandwidth, and you have to launch all of that.

And then, there are zero benefits to putting a datacenter in space over building it on Earth. So why would you want to add all that extra expense?

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#98

Post by buildbot »

skywhopper wrote: post #95
foobarian wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only advantage I can come up with is the background temperature being much colder than Earth surface. If you ignored the capex cost to get this launched and running in orbit, could the cooling cost be smaller? Maybe that's the gimmick being used to sell the idea. "Yes it costs more upfront but then the 40% cooling bill goes away... breakeven in X years"

But the cooling cost wouldn’t be smaller. There’s no good way to eliminate the waste heat into space. It’s actually far far harder to radiate the waste heat into space directly than it would be to get rid of it on Earth.

Which is why vacuum flask for hot/cold drinks are a thing/work. Empty space is a pretty good insulator as it turns out.

It’s a little worrying so many don’t know that.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#99

Post by kibwen »

Shhh, I'm begging people, if brain-dead VCs want to waste their money on things that are obviously farcical (and not actively destructive), please let them and stop doing their due diligence for them. The alternative is that they turn their impossible amounts of capital towards societally-destructive acts like buying up all the real estate in the world and turning us back into land-slaves.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#100

Post by estimator7292 »

dayjah wrote: post #13
ReptileMan wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Serious question: how in theory? I’m under the impression you need to radiate through matter (air, water, physical materials, etc). Is my understanding of the theory just wrong?

Hot objects emit infrared light no matter the conditions. The hotter the object, the more light it throws off. By radiating this light away, thermal energy is necessarily consumed and transformed into light. It's kind of wild actually
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