141–150 of 155 posts
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The difference in cooling rate between 290K and 370K isn't as large as you think.
About 2.6x? Making a radiator >60% smaller is a pretty big diff.
You know what makes an even bigger difference?
Having a planet-sized place to dump all your waste heat into.
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About 2.6x? Making a radiator >60% smaller is a pretty big diff.
60% smaller than 'orders of magnitude way too bloody big to ever make a lick of sense' is still 'orders of magnitude too bloody big'. You know what makes an even bigger difference? Having a planet-sized place to dump all your waste heat into.
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60% smaller than 'orders of magnitude way too bloody big to ever make a lick of sense' is still 'orders of magnitude too bloody big'. You know what makes an even bigger difference? Having a planet-sized place to dump all your waste heat into.
Do you think the radiator will need to be bigger than the solar panels?
The people who want to put data centers in orbit must be either much smarter than me, or much dumber than me, because I just don't get how that makes any technical or economic sense. Of course, it's possible nobody actually wants to do this, they just want to get funded to do it. (Old joke: "I wish I had enough money to buy an elephant...")
The list of people saying they're going to put compute in space is getting long. Unlikely they're all dumb or faking it. It is clearly technically feasible but how the economics will develop is still unknown. Starcloud Axiom Space SpaceX (Starlink orbital data center constellation) Google (Project Suncatcher) Lonestar Data Holdings Blue Origin (TeraWave/Project Sunrise) Aetherflux (Galactic Brain) Kepler Communicatio…
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> I don't see how orbital datacenters will ever be able to compete with terrestrial. An orbital DC makes fiscal sense when the cost to launch one to space is lower than the cost to build one on Earth. Key point: The cost of building on Earth will inevitably trend upwards as more restrictions & costs are (~80% rightfully) placed onto Earth-bound datacenters.
And that will never be true, so it’s meaningless. It would also be cheaper to build one on the moon, if it was free to build them on the moon.
The math is simple: The total cost for building on Earth is X, the total cost for building in space is Y.
If X > Y, building in space makes fiscal sense.
To say that it never happens, MagicMoonlight, requires X to always be less than Y, which cannot hold true forever. Eventually, X will grow to be more than Y, simply due to (rightfully placed) increased regulations for building on Earth.
> It would also be cheaper to build one on the moon, if it was free to build them on the moon.
Arguably, that should be the original goal: Build the DC on the moon.
Starlink has been so successful, it is facing a lot of competition in the next few years. Every major power wants their own, national starlink network. China's state-backed starlink competitor GuoWang is putting 13,000 satellites in orbit by 2030. They've already started launching satellites. China's Qianfan plans 15,000 satellites by 2030. AST SpaceMobile is building their own network. Amazon Leo plans for 3,000 sat…
I'm a layman in this field, and I always thought that satellites were supposed to take a very small space in orbit... until I saw a GIF made from Artemis 2 ship. Satellites were big enough that could see the queue of them orbiting Earth in the GIF. Maybe they were the bigger ones and I'm confusing them with Starlink?
The Artemis gif you are referring to only shows the satellites because the earth is eclipsing the the sun and they did a long exposure.
Those satellites showing up in the gif are briefly catching the sun at the perfect angle.
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You think Grand Forks ND or Tempe Arizona is going to say, “we’re going to shoot down your datacenters?” Of course not. The only people to stop you is like 6 nation states that have the capability to tell you no, you know? Maybe less? And most of them all need your launch capabilities? Cmon. Who is going to tell them no? The US government? And jeopardize NRO satellite launch abilities or whatever? No, the Feds won’t…
Destroying a satelite is much easier than launching one, even with existing systems. Worse, given rate of improvements, I think we're going to get ground-to-orbit anti-satelite lasers before 10% of this constellation gets launched. And at least one of the nations with the existing military capacity to make a "no" stick is currently considering criminal charges against Musk personally, while another has a long history…
I'm sorry, at least in this exact moment I don't see it. Even if france wants to bring charges against Musk, are they going to start downing his satellites? That seems like a leap. This kind of further illustrates my point. In space, you're literally kind of "above" the fray...
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They've only spent half of the BEAD funds, $21B. 50 out of 56 final plans have been approved so the remaining half will be released. https://www.ntia.gov/press-release/2026/assistant-secretary-...
My bad, the spent $21billion and haven't done a single thing.