Live data from Hacker News

Datacenters in space aren't going to work

taranis.ie

421–430 of 447 posts

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason why we don't see satellite-targeting missiles is not because the problem is hard. All relevant actors are capable of that.

All relevant actors are also capable of destroying ground-based data centres, but somehow that's not a huge problem for data centres.

You can take out a data center in space with an accidental collision of a small runaway satellite. Taking out a data center in the middle of Oregon would be significantly harder and will invite massive retaliation.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking past everything I said. Do you have any sources for your claim that space based datacenters are dual-use?

Easy: https://www.kratosspace.com/constellations/articles/data-cen... SDA’s “Battle Management Layer will provide automated space-based battle management through command and control, tasking, mission processing and dissemination” to support time-sensitive kill-chain closure. https://www.sda.mil/battle-management Golden Dome and future missile tracking and ISR will depend on real -time insights, which requires Edge Co…

The only link that you provided mentioning dual-use satellites is from a Swedish defense contractor at an expo.

Is SDA "tracking and targeting" on consumer satellites, or are they not? Let's narrow this down to your initial claim.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Outer Space Treaty is very very clear: anything launched into space is the responsibility of the country that launched it. Even if a private company payts for it and operates it, it's still the responsibility of the launching nation. Even if you launch from international waters, your operating company is still registered to a specific country, and the company is made up of citizens of one or more countries, and i…

Spy satellites maneuver so that no one can tell who launched them, or when. If these satellites can do the same, good luck pinning responsibility on someone on the ground. Hell, with Musk's low orbit network, he could probably even provide connectivity to them in a plausibly-deniable manner.

No, this is not true. First of all, every nation is required by space law to publish the initial orbits of every object they launch, as part of that taking responsibility I mentioned earlier.

The US Government further publishes tracking on pretty much every single thing in orbit of the earth larger than a few centimeters, to help satellite operators avoid space debris. They do obfuscate the current orbit of their own spy satellites (only publishing their initial orbit), but other countries and even private citizens around the world keep obsessive tabs on these things (e.g. https://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/). This sort of thing is easily within the reach of even a medium sized nation state that was interested in the investment: just need a couple of big ole radars and you can do it just like the US does. So if you do try and hide the resources of a nation-state can easily counter.

The solution to oppressive government is not technological, it's political. Prevent countries from going bad, retrieve the ones that have gone bad, it works out a lot better for everyone.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently Microsoft tried it and it worked, but they shelved it? https://www.tomshardware.com/desktops/servers/microsoft-shel...

It didn't work, it was an utterly terrible idea and they are almost certainly lying about the sentiment that it "worked". No ability to perform maintenance is a complete nonstarter. Communications and power is a nightmare to get right. The thermal management story sucks - just because you have metal touching water doesn't mean you have effective radiation of heat. Actually scaling it up is nearly impossible because y…

Look at that, there are all exactly the same problems as space data centers! Although I’m surprised by cooling underwater being hard.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#425
When SpaceX came about, they said it was impossible for the rocket to come back from space and get reused. They said it wasn't going to work to combine multiple thrusters to form a big thruster and be reliable enough. When Starlink was introduced, they said it was stupid because the bandwidth is too small to be useful. Where are we now? 10 years ago, AI couldn't even beat a high-rank amateur Go player, let alone the best of pros. Everyone takes the excuse of dimensionality curse. Now what?

People who only look at the past/present and conclude impossibility are never going to be the ones who invent the future. Even math and science evolve, let alone engineering. The problems described in this article don't even remotely feel like the kind of barriers we faced when Go was solved, when protein fold was predicted and when LLM was solving problems with one prompt. If there is a strong NEED for datacenters to be up in the space, there will eventually be datacenters in the space.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#426
post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and now that "climb Everest" is past the "pioneer" stage, what does it look like? Trash, exploitation and littered with corpses.

So? People still want to climb, and if they want to risk their lives, they can.

Yeah, unlike you I'm not a fan of trash, exploitation and corpses littering the ground.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are asking my elected representatives to, and if those reps say yes, then I have to help pay for it or risk going to jail.

The current Mars movement is NASA-independent. We only need FAA authorization to launch, that is all. It's 100% privately funded.

Then I'm fine with it. Thanks for your patience with my ignorance.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#428
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It didn't work, it was an utterly terrible idea and they are almost certainly lying about the sentiment that it "worked". No ability to perform maintenance is a complete nonstarter. Communications and power is a nightmare to get right. The thermal management story sucks - just because you have metal touching water doesn't mean you have effective radiation of heat. Actually scaling it up is nearly impossible because y…

They claim it did. Microsoft finds underwater datacenters are reliable, practical and use energy sustainably - https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/sustainability/pr... > Among the components crated up and sent to Redmond are a handful of failed servers and related cables. The researchers think this hardware will help them understand why the servers in the underwater datacenter are eight times more reliable tha…

that was in 2020, and so here in 2025 MS has underwater data centres around the world!

wait, no it doesn't. why would that be, d'you think

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#429
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes no sense. The company will still be on the ground in some country and it has to connect to the Earth internet on the ground in some country. Unless you are talking about actual space pirate station, but in that case it better come equipped with missile defense because it will be attacked sooo fast.

> The company will still be on the ground in some country But the data won't. That is literally how people launder money. They live in one country and keep their money in another with laxed laws and enforcement. Those people get away a lot. > it has to connect to the Earth internet Why? This is only true if the datacenter is directly serving people. As I mentioned previously, I don't believe space datacenters will be…

this is all infosec mall ninja proposals

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#430
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They claim it did. Microsoft finds underwater datacenters are reliable, practical and use energy sustainably - https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/sustainability/pr... > Among the components crated up and sent to Redmond are a handful of failed servers and related cables. The researchers think this hardware will help them understand why the servers in the underwater datacenter are eight times more reliable tha…

that was in 2020, and so here in 2025 MS has underwater data centres around the world! wait, no it doesn't. why would that be, d'you think

Because despite being more reliable and energy efficient the other costs associated with it were higher. It is one thing to dunk 14.3m L x 12.7m D in the ocean for a 240 kW setup in the ocean. It is another to scale that up to a "full scale" data center that is about 200x larger that has additional electrical supply challenges.

Let's say that pod needs to be serviced once every two years. That means having a ship that services one pod every 3 days when scaled up.

From the standpoint of a single pod data center and "does this work?" - the answer is "yes, it works better than we thought it would." From the standpoint of "can we scale this to a full data center?" - the answer is "we'd need a ship servicing a twice a week, with the logistics that entails for the ship (and backup ship)." That second part becomes less practical compared to building a data center on terra firma where it's much easier to walk into a building to service it and hook up the power.

Post reply on HN