191–200 of 230 posts
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It just goes to show magical thinking isn't just an American thing.
I can’t imagine how inefficient a country would be if they tamped down all their magical thinking. FFCS, SMILE, and EUVL are all magical thinking if you ask me. Some of the craziest things humans have ever conceived of.
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Most locations that could provide guaranteed power for western companies with stable governments are also full of NIMBY or NGO who could easily blockade those datacenters. Then you'll have to run to offgrid locations where you have to build 24hr battery for solar with closed loop cooling. Is 24hr battery+solar on earth cheaper than LEO satellites in constant sun without batteries? That's the question that would make…
> Is 24hr battery+solar on earth cheaper than LEO satellites in constant sun without batteries? I'll be shocked if it isn't.
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Exactly. This whole thing is not about being able to build whatever they can afford, it’s about being in a (stupid) race to build it as fast as possible.
Even for ultimate speed I don't see how it works. Facilities to make and launch satellites add a lot of delays and need their own permits.
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Ok, there are at least two bad assumptions there. First, it assumes the radiator is at the same temperature as the GPU. But radiators become dramatically more effective as temperature increases, with radiated power increasing as the fourth power of absolute temperature. So a heat pump that drives the radiator at higher temperature could make the radiator far smaller. More power would be required (and the radiator wou…
> Ok, there are at least two bad assumptions there. > First, it assumes the radiator is at the same temperature as the GPU. But radiators become dramatically more effective as temperature increases, with radiated power increasing as the fourth power of absolute temperature. So a heat pump that drives the radiator at higher temperature could make the radiator far smaller. Carnot's theorem and refridgeration cycles rea…
And GPUs operate just fine at 90°C
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Even for ultimate speed I don't see how it works. Facilities to make and launch satellites add a lot of delays and need their own permits.
The queue to hook up to the Texas grid is 3-5 years long now.
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> Carnot's theorem and refridgeration cycles rear their head. Your heat pump still needs power to pump heat uphill., negating any savings from a smaller radiator. And what happens when you shrink a radiator? It becomes a high temperature radiator, meaning the GPU must operate outside its operational tmperature of about 70 degrees C. Sorry, that's all nonsense. Yes, the extra power needs to be radiated. But the advant…
Again, Smaller radiator = bigger heat pump + more batteries and solar panels Satellites have a mass and power budgets. Your scheme only looks at temperature. If you want to build infinitely large AI Data satellites, go ahead.
The first, second and third stages all being solid rockets also means India now has a global-range ICBM, with only a little bit of modification needed to make it storable in a silo. Privately developed, but I would be astonished if the Indian military isn't well aware of this new capability.
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> Is my borderline childish understanding of basic physics THAT off because I cannot see the value or utility (beyond a small smear of niche edge cases) of space-based compute? Don't worry, most of the people online didn't get the memo on this. One of the major selling points of orbital compute is power supply - more specifically, it turns out that, compared to beaming power from space, it's projected to be cheaper t…
The unit economic tradeoffs aren't quite that straightforward (beamed power is lossy enough to require more panels[1], but solar cells and satellite structures have longer useful lives than inference chips so over longer time periods you likely end up launching more stuff into space with disposable datacentres anyway[2], particularly given the datacentres also need bigger radiators. Other issues which favour power be…
The limiting factor on the lifetime of any satellite is fuel. Especially for large structures that are influenced a lot by atmospheric drag and solar wind.
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> Is my borderline childish understanding of basic physics THAT off because I cannot see the value or utility (beyond a small smear of niche edge cases) of space-based compute? Don't worry, most of the people online didn't get the memo on this. One of the major selling points of orbital compute is power supply - more specifically, it turns out that, compared to beaming power from space, it's projected to be cheaper t…
Could we have giant nuclear reactors in space? What's the power loss from beaming down power?
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Non-exclusive use of farmland or wasteland (or even - at least until maintenance complexity is considered - offshore) isn't a major barrier; we have many many miles of wires and pylons crossing farmland for regular terrestrial grids already. A rectenna looks more like a mesh than a set of panels: the idea is that the visible light spectrum passes through and the target microwave frequencies don't, so unlike a photovo…
> Non-exclusive use of farmland or wasteland (or even - at least until maintenance complexity is considered - offshore) isn't a major barrier Not now, but with solar power output doubling every few years how long before we run out of land?
Space based solar power has much bigger challenges in gaining acceptance, proving the physics works in real world conditions and delivering on its promises than the theoretical possibility that there is absolutely no unoccupied region of land or sea