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Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

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Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#131

Post by weinzierl »

I worked in aerospace for a couple of years in the beginning of my career. While my area of expertise was the mechanical design I shared my office with the guy who did the thermal design and I learned two things:

1. Satellites are mostly run at room temperature. It doesn't have to be that way but it simplifies a lot of things.

2. Every satellite is a delicately balanced system where heat generation and actively radiating surfaces need to be in harmony during the whole mission.

Preventing the vehicle from getting too hot is usually a much bigger problem than preventing it from getting too cold. This might be surprising because laypeople usually associate space with cold. In reality you can always heat if you have energy but cooling is hard if all you have is radiation and you are operating at a fixed and relatively low temperature level.

The bottom line is that running a datacenter in space makes not much sense from a thermal standpoint and there must be other compelling reasons for a decision to do so.

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#132

Post by mavhc »

weq wrote: post #100
Robotbeat wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. It's all contingent on a factor of 100-1000x reduction in launch costs, and a lot of the objections to the idea don't really engage with that concept. That's a cost comparable to air travel (both air freight and passenger travel). (Especially irritating is the continued assertion that thermal radiation is really hard, and not like something that every satellite already seems to deal with just fine, with a radi…

Musk is already in the testing phase for this. His starship rockets should be reusable as soon as 2018!

How will he overtake all the other reusable rockets at this rate?

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#133

Post by e_y_ »

Robotbeat wrote: post #93
wkat4242 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes cooling is difficult. Half the "solar panels" on the ISS aren't solar panels but heat radiation panels. That's the only way you can get rid of it and it's very inefficient so you need a huge surface.

This isn’t true. The radiators on ISS are MUCH smaller than the solar panels. I know it’s every single armchair engineer’s idea that heat rejection is this impossible problem in space, but your own example of ISS proves this is untrue. Radiators are no more of a problem than solar panels.

The heat load of the ISS is a handful of astronauts and some equipment and whatever it absorbs from the sun. Not an entire data center or a nuclear rocket which is where the radiator discussion comes into play.

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#134

Post by Brian_K_White »

jand wrote: post #101
Brian_K_White wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also drink from a shoe. It's absolutely possible.

And it enjoyed some popularity. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_boot

And there you've cut to the chase.

I was implying an unspoken obvious "but why would you?"

But of course the answer I missed was you don't, you make money from people who, for whatever reason, want to drink from shoes.

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#135

Post by westpfelia »

philosophty wrote: post #106

"Terrestrial datacenters have parts fail and get replaced all the time." This premise is basically false. Most datacenter hardware, once it has completed testing and burn in, will last for years in constant use. There are definitely failures but they're very low unless something is wrong like bad cooling, vibration, or just a bad batch of hardware.

Backblaze is a perfect example of parts failing.

https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/resources/hard-drive...

Yes it was ONLY 1,000 out of 300,000. But that is only harddrives not other hardware failures/replacement. But it goes to show that things do fail. And the cost of replacement in space is drastically more expensive. The idea of a DC in space as it stands is a nothing burger.

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#136

Post by aaron695 »

GlenTheMachine wrote: post #76

Space roboticist here. As with a lot of things, it isn't the initial outlay, it's the maintenance costs. Terrestrial datacenters have parts fail and get replaced all the time. The mass analysis given here -- which appears quite good, at first glance -- doesn't including any mass, energy, or thermal system numbers for the infrastructure you would need to have to replace failed components. As a first cut, this would re…

[dead]

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#137

Post by littlecranky67 »

weinzierl wrote: post #131

I worked in aerospace for a couple of years in the beginning of my career. While my area of expertise was the mechanical design I shared my office with the guy who did the thermal design and I learned two things: 1. Satellites are mostly run at room temperature. It doesn't have to be that way but it simplifies a lot of things. 2. Every satellite is a delicately balanced system where heat generation and actively radia…

They address that issue in the link; The propose a 63m^2 radiator for heat dissipation.

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#138

Post by weinzierl »

Why do they want to put a data center in space in the first place?

Free cooling?

Doesn't make much sense to me. As the article points out the radiators need to me massive.

Access to solar energy?

Solar is more efficient in space, I'll give them that, but does that really outweigh the whole hassle to put the panels in space in the first place?

Physical isolation and security?

Against manipulation maybe, but not against denial of service. Willfully damaged satellite is something I expect to see in the news in the foreseeable future.

Low latency comms?

Latency is limited by distance and speed of light. Everyone with a satellite internet connections knows that low latency is not a particular strength of it.

Marketing and PR?

That, probably.

EDIT:

Thought of another one:

Environmental impact?

No land use, no thermal stress for rivers on one hand but the huge overhead of a space launch on the other.

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#139

Post by weinzierl »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #137
weinzierl wrote: post #131

I worked in aerospace for a couple of years in the beginning of my career. While my area of expertise was the mechanical design I shared my office with the guy who did the thermal design and I learned two things: 1. Satellites are mostly run at room temperature. It doesn't have to be that way but it simplifies a lot of things. 2. Every satellite is a delicately balanced system where heat generation and actively radia…

They address that issue in the link; The propose a 63m^2 radiator for heat dissipation.

Sure it is doable. My point is that at room temperature convection is a so much more efficient heat transfer mechanism that I wonder why someone would even think about doing without it.

Re: Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

#140

Post by teekert »

weinzierl wrote: post #131

I worked in aerospace for a couple of years in the beginning of my career. While my area of expertise was the mechanical design I shared my office with the guy who did the thermal design and I learned two things: 1. Satellites are mostly run at room temperature. It doesn't have to be that way but it simplifies a lot of things. 2. Every satellite is a delicately balanced system where heat generation and actively radia…

Lay people associate space with cold because nearly every scifi movie has people freezing over in seconds when exposed to the vacuum of space (insert Picard face-palm gif).

Even The Expanse, even them! Although they are otherwise so realistic, that I have to say I started doubting myself a bit. I wonder what would really would happen and how fast...

People even complained that Leia did not freeze over (in stead of complaining about her sudden use of the force where previously she did not show any such talents.)

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