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Data centers in space makes no sense

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Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#391

Post by XorNot »

murderfs wrote: post #279
space_fountain wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like this. Everything about operating a datacenter in space is more difficult than it is to operate one on earth. 1. The capital costs are higher, you have to expend tons of energy to put it into orbit 2. The maintenance costs are higher because the lifetime of satellites is pretty low 3. Refurbishment is next to impossible 4. Networking is harder, either you are ok with a relatively small datacenter or you have…

> The maintenance costs are higher because the lifetime of satellites is pretty low Presumably they're planning on doing in-orbit propellant transfer to reboost the satellites so that they don't have to let their GPUs crash into the ocean...

And just like that you've added another not never done before, and definitely not at scale problem to the mix.

These are all things which add weight, complexity and cost.

Propellant transfer to an orbital Starship hasn't even been done yet and that's completely vital to it's intended missions.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#392

Post by BobbyTables2 »

beloch wrote: post #115

I would not assume cooling has been worked out. Space is a vacuum. i.e. The lack-of-a-thing that makes a thermos great at keeping your drink hot. A satellite is, if nothing else, a fantastic thermos. A data center in space would necessarily rely completely on cooling by radiation, unlike a terrestrial data center that can make use of convection and conduction. You can't just pipe heat out into the atmosphere or build…

It’s funny how quickly the general public forgot about the “vacuum thermos”. (Perhaps more popular before StarBucks overran society).

Those flasks don’t have any space age insulating material - mainly just a vacuum…

Technology from 1892…

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#393

Post by shagie »

Terr_ wrote: post #31

I'm convinced that >30% of this comes from ideas leaking out of fiction such as like Neuromancer , and percolating through the minds of wealthy people attracted to some of the concepts. Namely, the dream of being a hyper-wealthy dynasty, above any earthly government, controlling an extraterritorial Las Vegas Fiefdom In Space. (Which in the book, also hosted a powerful AI.) Then they work backwards, trying to figure o…

He is very influenced by The Culture of Iain Banks. They're really good sci-fi... and describe a hedonistic world where machines do the hard thinking and bidding of the biologicals.

https://recommentions.com/elon-musk/books/culture-by-iain-ba...

https://www.vox.com/culture/413502/iain-banks-culture-series...

https://fortune.com/2025/12/15/billionaire-elon-musk-say-tha...

> Musk pointed to The Culture series by Iain M. Banks as his best “imagining” of this world. The science fiction novels depict a utopian future where citizens can have virtually anything they want thanks to AI—making money obsolete and leaving citizens free to spend their time doing whatever they love.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#394

Post by mediaman »

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #260
guluarte wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also cities in Mars, like who the fuck wants to live there?

I would, it would be an adventure. You could have said the same thing about Europe or America. We could have just stayed in Africa, and the people like you did. But taking the leap worked pretty well, even if it was tough at the beginning.

Africa, Europe, America, Mars. I wonder if there is something about one of these that makes them unlike the others.

Actually, why not colonize Venus instead? Sure, it will be hard, at first, with all the sulphuric acid and intense heat and whatnot, but we colonized America, so why not Venus?

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#395

Post by FeteCommuniste »

ekidd wrote: post #252
Findecanor wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> win the AI race I keep seeing that term, but if it does not mean "AI arms race" or "AI surveillance race", what does it mean? Those are the only explanations that I have found, and neither is any race that I would like to see anyone win.

A significant number of AI companies and investors are hoping to build a machine god. This is batshit insane, but I suppose it might be possible. Which wouldn't make it any more sane. But when they say, "Win the AI race," they mean, "Build the machine god first." Make of this what you will.

On the edge of my seat waiting to see what hits us first, a massive economic collapse when the hype runs out, or the Torment Nexus.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#397

Post by eldenring »

typ wrote: post #283

Assuming that we place an iron ball (ideal sphere-shaped and thermal conductivity) on the SSO (solar synchronous orbit), how hot can the object be? Given the solar constant 1361 W/m^2, you can calculate the temperature range based on the emissivity and absorptivity. With the right shape and “color”, the equilibrium temperature can be cooler than most people thought. I suppose that a space data center powered 100% by…

The ideal shape would be a shaded, flat panel perpendicular to the sun right?

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#398

Post by monocasa »

Another thing that doesn't make sense about them is that DCs get a lot of out of physical locality. Caches become hot as different use case spin up and down during the day near their customers.

If the nodes are spinning around the earth at orbital velocities, then all the benefits of physical locality are thrown out the window.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#399

Post by condensedcrab »

monocasa wrote: post #398

Another thing that doesn't make sense about them is that DCs get a lot of out of physical locality. Caches become hot as different use case spin up and down during the day near their customers. If the nodes are spinning around the earth at orbital velocities, then all the benefits of physical locality are thrown out the window.

But apologists would say that putting the data centers in LEO would mean that latency to a client via a ground station wouldn't be much more than ~50 ms extra. At least LATAM and Africa would be getting a good deal out of it with better coverage.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#400

Post by sinuhe69 »

As the focus here is solely on the US, and the comments focus too much on the impossibility of heat dissipation, I want to include some information to broaden the perspective.

- In the EU, the ASCEND study conducted in 2024 by Thales Alenia Space found that data center in space could be possible by 2035. Data center in space could contribute to the EU's Net-Zero goal by 2050 [1]

- heat dissipation could be greatly enhanced with micro droplet technology, and thereby reducing the required radiator surface area by the factor of 5-10

- data center in space could provide advantages for processing space data, instead of sending them all to earth. - the Lonestar project proved that data storage and edge processing in space (moon, cislunar) is possible.

- A hybrid architecture could dramatically change the heat budget: + optical connections reduce heat + photonic chips (Lightmatter and Q.ANT) + processing-in-memory might reduce energy requirement by 10-50 times

I think the hybrid architecture could provide decisive advantages, especially when designed for AI inference workloads,

[1] https://ascend-horizon.eu/

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