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Data centers in space makes no sense

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Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#231

Post by whynotmaybe »

vitaflo wrote: post #164
Bender wrote: post #2

AI data-centers use upwards of 100MW. The biggest solar panels in space could produce around 240KW. When they speak of AI data-centers in space what do they actually mean in realistic non theoretical terms and where are the materials for this coming from? If the AI data-center used only 10MW then each could have two redundant SMR's assuming the cooling challenges have been worked out but then we could have nuclear re…

This is the thing I don’t get. Everyone talking about the “how” but nobody talking about the “why”? It makes literally no sense.

Snake oil, like bitcoin.

A lot of people will invest in this because "it's the future" and a few will make a lot of money on that.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#233

Post by vel0city »

aunty_helen wrote: post #223
vel0city wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Next up in the equation is surface emissivity which we’ve got a lot of experience in the automotive sector. My car doesn't spend too much time driving in vacuum, does yours?

Engine bays have a lot of design go into where to keep heat and where to get rid of it. You can look up thermal coatings and ceramics etc.

Sure and it all routes to dump the heat to...where again? A vacuum? Or to a radiator with a fan with some kind of cooler fluid/gas from the environment constantly flowing through it?

Seems like quite a massive difference to ignore.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#234

Post by frotaur »

nickorlow wrote: post #221

I don't get the point at all of these. You: - have very non-deterministic latency - are located outside of a country that can protect you (ie China could disrupt your space data center) - have to pay millions of dollars to swap out hardware

and : kessler syndrome

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#235

Post by gpt5 »

lancewiggs wrote: post #177
beloch wrote: post #115

I would not assume cooling has been worked out. Space is a vacuum. i.e. The lack-of-a-thing that makes a thermos great at keeping your drink hot. A satellite is, if nothing else, a fantastic thermos. A data center in space would necessarily rely completely on cooling by radiation, unlike a terrestrial data center that can make use of convection and conduction. You can't just pipe heat out into the atmosphere or build…

It's exiting the 5th best social network and the 10th (or worse) best AI company and selling them to a decent company. It probably increases Elon's share of the combined entity. It delivers on a promise to investors that he will make money for them, even as the underlying businesses are lousy.

I'm confused about the level of conversation here. Can we actually run the math on heat dissipation and feasibility?

A Starlink satellite uses about 5K Watts of solar power. It needs to dissipate around that amount (+ the sun power on it) just to operate. There are around 10K starlink satellites already in orbit, which means that the Starlink constellation is already effectively equivalent to a 50 Mega-watt (in a rough, back of the envelope feasibility way).

Isn't 50MW already by itself equivalent to the energy consumption of a typical hyperscaler cloud?

Why is starlink possible and other computations are not? Starlink is also already financially viable. Wouldn't it also become significantly cheaper as we improve our orbital launch vehicles?

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#236

Post by bunderbunder »

beloch wrote: post #115

I would not assume cooling has been worked out. Space is a vacuum. i.e. The lack-of-a-thing that makes a thermos great at keeping your drink hot. A satellite is, if nothing else, a fantastic thermos. A data center in space would necessarily rely completely on cooling by radiation, unlike a terrestrial data center that can make use of convection and conduction. You can't just pipe heat out into the atmosphere or build…

My guess is it’s just another example of his habit of trying to use one of his companies to manufacture demand for another of his companies’ products.

Specifically: Starship makes no economic sense. There simply isn’t any pre-existing demand for the kind of heavy lift capacity and cadence that Starship is designed to deliver. Nor is there anyone who isn’t currently launching heavy payloads to LEO but the only thing holding them back is that they need weekly launches because their use case demands a whole lot of heavy stuff in space on a tight schedule and that’s an all-or-nothing thing for them.

So nobody else has a reason to buy 50 Starship launches per year. And the planned Starlink satellites are already mostly in orbit. So what do you do? Just sell Starship to xAI, the same way he fixed Cybertruck’s demand problem by selling heaps of them to SpaceX.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#237

Post by IcyWindows »

reactordev wrote: post #105
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any country capable of producing nuclear warheads will also be able to toss up enough BBs and other small objects into LEO to wipe out most of Starlink and anything else in LEO. At least on Earth data centers in theory can be hidden and physically hardened. In orbit, even a crude rocket able to reach that plane can become a weapon of mass satellite destruction. Even if those orbits clear out in four or five years, by…

They also fail to realize how devastating an attack a BB canister grenade would be in LEO. Nothing would stay in orbit. Eventually everything would collide and come down.

LEO is big, really big. Even at the smaller radius of ground level, large volcanos, forest fires, etc. Don't affect the whole earth.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#238

Post by j45 »

I'm not sure datacenters in space have to make suense to everyone, or from the perspective of earth.

Taking a creative step back, perhaps datacenters in space support something with Mars?

As much as that might not seem realistic, I also have to counterbalance it with operationalizing and commercializing SpaceX, Starlink and Tesla relatively quickly when so much stays at the R&D stage for so long.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#239

Post by mullingitover »

ojbyrne wrote: post #205
lancewiggs wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's exiting the 5th best social network and the 10th (or worse) best AI company and selling them to a decent company. It probably increases Elon's share of the combined entity. It delivers on a promise to investors that he will make money for them, even as the underlying businesses are lousy.

Plus government backstop. The federal government (especially the current one) is not going to let SpaceX fail.

Maybe not, but they might force it to sell at fire sale prices to another aerospace company that doesn't have the baggage.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#240

Post by vel0city »

bs7280 wrote: post #180
vel0city wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if instead we moved it all to a closer rock that has even more water, even more materials to manufacture crude (and even advanced) things, even more surface, more protection from radiation, and even crazier still had significantly less launch costs? Almost any reason why the moon is better than in orbit is a point for putting it on earth.

I think there's something to be said about imagining a future where we can keep the earth clean of all the nasty industrial processes we have grown accustomed to living next to. A big part about this proposed idea is that you could do a lot of manufactoring in space. I have long theorized there will be some game changing manufacturing processes that can only be done in a zero gravity environment. EX: - 3d printing hu…

We're able to make 3D computer chips on Earth today, and I don't know about you but all my organs managed to get made just fine on Earth. Doesn't seem like we need zero g to do either of these things.

Either way, this isn't about 3D printing organs, this is about launching AI compute into space. To do important stuff, like making AI generated CSAM without worry of government intervention.

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