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Data centers in space makes no sense

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Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#411

Post by elamje »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #366
elamje wrote: post #353

I was talking to someone about this the other day. I was part of a team at NASA that developed a cooling system for the ISS and this whole premise makes no sense to me. 1. Getting things to space is incredibly expensive 2. Ingress/egress are almost always a major bottleneck - how is bandwidth cheaper in space? 3. Chips must be “Rad-hard” - that is do more error correcting from ionizing radiation - there were entire t…

> Chips must be “Rad-hard” - that is do more error correcting from ionizing radiation - there were entire teams at NASA dedicated to special hardware for this. They don't do RAD hardening on chips these days, they just accept error and use redundant CPUs.

Where did you hear this?

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#413

Post by BurningFrog »

andrepd wrote: post #147
guluarte wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

We can't keep our already perfect planet livable, but we're going to terraform a totally new one. Yeah right buddy.

Earth keeps getting more livable!

We have a record high population, healthier and richer than ever.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#414

Post by sam »

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…

This is mistaken. In space a radiator can radiate to cold (2.7K) deep space. A thermos on earth cannot. The temperature difference between the inner and outer walls of the thermos is much lower and it’s the temperature difference which determines the rate of cooling.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#416

Post by BurningFrog »

bs7280 wrote: post #163

As a thought experiment, if humanity wanted to go all in on trying to move industrial processes and data centers off planet, would it make more sense to do so on the moon? The moon has: - Some water - Some materials that can be used to manufacture crude things (like heat sinks?) - a ton of area to brute force the heat sink problem - a surface to burry the data centers under to solve the radiation problem - close enou…

The Moon also has 14 day long nights, while space has permanent sunlight for your solar panels.

I suspect this is really the fundamental idea behind this whole plan.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#417

Post by ehnto »

scottyah wrote: post #190
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…

I mean definitely, and they're not shy about admitting it. They see cool stuff in imagination-land, think it's cool, and work to make it a reality. Many people have worked to make the fantastical things shown in Star Trek.

We're about as close as we have ever been to a holo-deck with VR/AR right now, but it is notable that it is still a fringe technology. I think basically no one cares about space data centres except the rule of cool enthusiasts in the technosphere.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#418

Post by danny_codes »

IFC_LLC wrote: post #339

Just like an idea of using an oil-powered carriage instead of a good'ol horsie was in 1910. Listen, I totally agree, the tech makes absolutely no sense. It does not. But the fact that someone is willing to spend money on figuring this out is pretty good. The worst thing is going to happen, we'll have a cheaper space travel. And let the guys to have the first hit at it, wasting money on an enormous amount of research…

It is your money being spent. ~40B so far. Though half of that is for services.

But more abstractly, it's our resources that are being allocated. The planet as a unit is deciding where to put it's effort. Apparently we're not very good at this

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#419

Post by WillPostForFood »

space_fountain wrote: post #265
gpt5 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused about the level of conversation here. Can we actually run the math on heat dissipation and feasibility? A Starlink satellite uses about 5K Watts of solar power. It needs to dissipate around that amount (+ the sun power on it) just to operate. There are around 10K starlink satellites already in orbit, which means that the Starlink constellation is already effectively equivalent to a 50 Mega-watt (in a rou…

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…

What about sourcing and the cost of energy? Solar Panels more efficient, no bad weather, and 100% in sunlight (depending on orbit) in space. Not that it makes up for the items you listed, but it may not be true that everything is more difficult in space.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#420

Post by rhplus »

phire wrote: post #244

As far as I can tell, Data centres in space only seem viable because their advocates insist on comparing them to standard terrestrial data centres. And nobody ever calls them out on it. Today's data centres are optimised for reliability, redundancy, density, repairability, connectivity and latency. Most of advertised savings come not from placing the data centre in space, but the fact that advocates have argued away…

By keeping the whole thing on earth we can also reclaim the gold, copper, and rare earth metals when it’s financially viable to do so, rather than just letting them burn up on reentry.
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