21–30 of 124 posts
SpaceX and Amazon seem to be headed for competing with traditional telecoms and ISPs. I'm betting the next acquisition target will be AST SpaceMobile. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see big telecom/ISP mergers pass regulatory approval now that they have competition from the heavens
Or possibly viasat.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why space data centers? What advantage this would have? Cooling will be a big issue, while it is easily solved on the planet earth, as we have water, air that can transfer heat away.
Defense systems in space need to be... in space. I don't think people are looking at this the right way. They need to be inaccessible to terrestrial and air weapons, have lower latency, not be dependent on power plants, etc.
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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why space data centers? What advantage this would have? Cooling will be a big issue, while it is easily solved on the planet earth, as we have water, air that can transfer heat away.
You don't have to buy real estate.
The Utah Data Center [0] is a 200 acre plot with 35 acres of buildings.
Even prime farmland values is arround $10k an acre, or $2m, but for other land you're talking $400k for that much land [1]
It uses 65MW. The solar panels alone to generate that cost $100 per kW in bulk, or $6.5m.
That's 570GWh a year.
Mount Signal 1 Solar plant, from over a decade ago, produces about that currently. Total cost $365m [2].
Then there's the lifetime? What do you do in 36 months time when you want to replace the hardware with the latest generation? In an earthbound one you turn off the rack, remove the old kit, put the new kit in. In space, it just burns up in the atmosphere.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center
[1] https://www.land.com/property/201-acres-in-brown-county-nebr...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why space data centers? What advantage this would have? Cooling will be a big issue, while it is easily solved on the planet earth, as we have water, air that can transfer heat away.
Defense systems in space need to be... in space. I don't think people are looking at this the right way. They need to be inaccessible to terrestrial and air weapons, have lower latency, not be dependent on power plants, etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Cooling will be a big issue a 1m2 at 70C radiates 785 Watt. Seems thet cooling will be more simple than on Earth.
A 1m2 heatsink/fan on earth can sink kWs. My heatpump is about 1m2 area and can sink 15kw. Seems earth is at least 20x times better.
Cooling isn't an issue.