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Datacenters in space aren't going to work

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Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#371

Post by myhf »

collinmcnulty wrote: post #197

To say the quiet part out loud, I don't think any serious companies have any intention to build a data center in space. There is no benefit in actually trying this. There is however, benefit in saying you'll do it to advance a narrative and distract from the problems terrestrial data centers are facing to an audience that mostly doesn't understand how heat transfer in a vacuum works.

To say the even quieter part out loud, datacenters are colonial encampments (like energy projects). Space has no indigenous people to colonize.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#372

Post by rsynnott »

datavirtue wrote: post #350
rsynnott wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market can, as always, remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent, or certainly for longer than _I_ can. Like, come on, you must understand what a stupid response this is? “There is a bubble” is not a sufficient thesis to, well, do much of anything on.

Really? Logic wouldn't dictate that if I'm up 300% or more over two years and everyone is starting to get jittery about an AI bubble that perhaps I should pull out now and await the pullback? If it happens in a year, and I can buy back in at a 15-20% discount, that is also a return!! Do you hold for possibly another 5%? That doesn't make any sense. Your cash gets 4% a year just waiting--paid monthly.

Yeah, that you could do, though even then if the timing is sufficiently uncertain you might be in trouble, and it's particularly risky in a time of stubbornly higher-than-ideal inflation. If you happened to have a bunch of Hype-y AI Ltd, then sure, probably. Far less clearly a good idea if you just have the S&P500, though.

It's further complicated by the fact that most of the worst examples of AI hype are not public. Like, if and when the bubble bursts, the hyperscalers will likely get burned, but they're not going to go to zero or anywhere near it.

And that's assuming you already have stocks; it's very different, risk-wise, from shorting or buying puts.

> Your cash gets 4% a year just waiting--paid monthly.

It really doesn't, due to inflation.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#373

Post by titanomachy »

myhf wrote: post #371
collinmcnulty wrote: post #197

To say the quiet part out loud, I don't think any serious companies have any intention to build a data center in space. There is no benefit in actually trying this. There is however, benefit in saying you'll do it to advance a narrative and distract from the problems terrestrial data centers are facing to an audience that mostly doesn't understand how heat transfer in a vacuum works.

To say the even quieter part out loud, datacenters are colonial encampments (like energy projects). Space has no indigenous people to colonize.

Ok, but couldn’t you equally say that about anything constructed by industrialized people in places that used to have lots of non-industrialized people?

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#374

Post by adam_gyroscope »

mr_toad wrote: post #280
collinmcnulty wrote: post #197

To say the quiet part out loud, I don't think any serious companies have any intention to build a data center in space. There is no benefit in actually trying this. There is however, benefit in saying you'll do it to advance a narrative and distract from the problems terrestrial data centers are facing to an audience that mostly doesn't understand how heat transfer in a vacuum works.

The only real advantage is 24/7 power without having to use batteries (or some other power supply at night or when cloudy). The way solar prices are going the problem of suppling power when the sun isn’t visible is a real bottleneck.

The article covers why this doesn’t work in detail.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#375

Post by mercutio2 »

JJMcJ wrote: post #358
collinmcnulty wrote: post #197

To say the quiet part out loud, I don't think any serious companies have any intention to build a data center in space. There is no benefit in actually trying this. There is however, benefit in saying you'll do it to advance a narrative and distract from the problems terrestrial data centers are facing to an audience that mostly doesn't understand how heat transfer in a vacuum works.

Consider what it costs to lift material to orbit. How can it possibly make sense except as a science fair project?

You mean, not very much? Everything about space-based anything is dependent in the short to medium term on Starship making mass to LEO cost about as much as air freight.

Starship, at least as a rapidly reusable second stage, may fail, rockets are hard. But you aren’t really engaging with people’s dreams if you start from “we don’t have access to the technologies that appear to represent a one to two order of magnitude cost shift”.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#376

Post by ajjahs »

datavirtue wrote: post #350
rsynnott wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market can, as always, remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent, or certainly for longer than _I_ can. Like, come on, you must understand what a stupid response this is? “There is a bubble” is not a sufficient thesis to, well, do much of anything on.

Really? Logic wouldn't dictate that if I'm up 300% or more over two years and everyone is starting to get jittery about an AI bubble that perhaps I should pull out now and await the pullback? If it happens in a year, and I can buy back in at a 15-20% discount, that is also a return!! Do you hold for possibly another 5%? That doesn't make any sense. Your cash gets 4% a year just waiting--paid monthly.

[dead]

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#377

Post by DennisP »

mjevans wrote: post #369
DennisP wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly even better would be Zubrin's recent book The New World on Mars: What We Can Create on the Red Planet , which goes into quite a bit of detail on how we could build a self-sustaining settlement.

Though it lacks in the headlines, my preference is to send the robots first to bootstrap local production. Unless we really screw up the worst case would be some extra garbage to clean up for future missions, and the best case is any sort of increase in local production capacity.

Yeah that makes sense, especially these days. Even Zubrin's original Mars Direct plan sent a methane factory ahead of the people.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#378

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

mybestday wrote: post #368
collinmcnulty wrote: post #197

To say the quiet part out loud, I don't think any serious companies have any intention to build a data center in space. There is no benefit in actually trying this. There is however, benefit in saying you'll do it to advance a narrative and distract from the problems terrestrial data centers are facing to an audience that mostly doesn't understand how heat transfer in a vacuum works.

It makes the same amount of sense as a colony on Mars, largely for the same reasons. Sure you can put people underground, but that’s probably not much fun. Why not just do that on earth?

Is the answer slavery? Once you've been taken to Mars and given your underground living quarters, you're going to be stuck there and not have any option but to carry on working or be thrown out to die on the surface.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#379

Post by Zigurd »

vid wrote: post #302
collinmcnulty wrote: post #197

To say the quiet part out loud, I don't think any serious companies have any intention to build a data center in space. There is no benefit in actually trying this. There is however, benefit in saying you'll do it to advance a narrative and distract from the problems terrestrial data centers are facing to an audience that mostly doesn't understand how heat transfer in a vacuum works.

I always assume, unfortunately, that once companies start to get to a certain point they become strategic, and military applications comes into play. They then probably get special consideration when it comes to funding and access. All of Musk's efforts certainly fit this paradigm.

Google "atoms for peace." You will find an entire multidimensional cluster of hype ranging from Rickover maneuvering to get a nuclear navy, which seems to work pretty well, but on the way there it created a subsidized nuclear reactor business which was never in the money but for subsidies, loss leaders, and underbids. There was no Golden Age of nuclear power. There were fixed bid contracts that masked cost overruns until they didn't anymore. There was FOMO about Soviet gigantism and (subsidized) European nuclear projects.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#380

Post by exomonk »

mybestday wrote: post #368
collinmcnulty wrote: post #197

To say the quiet part out loud, I don't think any serious companies have any intention to build a data center in space. There is no benefit in actually trying this. There is however, benefit in saying you'll do it to advance a narrative and distract from the problems terrestrial data centers are facing to an audience that mostly doesn't understand how heat transfer in a vacuum works.

It makes the same amount of sense as a colony on Mars, largely for the same reasons. Sure you can put people underground, but that’s probably not much fun. Why not just do that on earth?

It's basically nuclear preparedness research.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_syst...

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