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Data centers in space makes no sense

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Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#461

Post by m463 »

DaedalusII wrote: post #280
m463 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there was an article recently about a company wanting to put nuclear reactors at the bottom of very deep boreholes (like km deep). I thought that was actually quite interesting/practical, because if there is a problem, you can just bury the problem. not like tmi/fukushima/chernobyl

Interesting idea. 2km deep could work. I'm not sure how cooling or maintenance would work. Depth below surface | Typical temperature (°C) | Indicative cost to drill 1.2 m diameter hole 500 m | 15–25 | $5–10 million 1 km | 25–40 | $10–20 million 2 km | 50–70 | $25–45 million 3 km | 75–100 | $50–80 million 4 km | 100–130 | $90–140 million 5 km | 130–160 | $150–250 million

maybe not the article I read, but similar:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/underground-nuclear-reactor-deep-f...

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#462

Post by adastra22 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #300

> Kessler syndrome: a cascading explosion of debris crippling our access to space I'm taking the parts of this write-up I don't have expertise with a grain of salt after seeig this. Kessler cascades are real. Particularly at high altitudes. They're less of a problem in LEO. And in no case can they "[cripple] our access to space." (At current technology levels. To cripple access to space you need to vaporise material…

SpaceX made a request of the FCC to authorize a constellation of 1 million satellites. And these are going to be much larger, "data center" satellites. This many satellites, all in the same orbit (sun-synchronous is a specific orbit), vastly changes the math on Kessler syndrome.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#463

Post by adastra22 »

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…

About 120 degC.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#464

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

tensor wrote: post #425
hirsin wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply put no, 50MW is not the typical hyperscaler cloud size. It's not even the typical single datacenter size. A single AI rack consumes 60kW, and there is apparently a single DC that alone consumes 650MW. When Microsoft puts in a DC, the machines are done in units of a "stamp", ie a couple racks together. These aren't scaled by dollar or sqft, but by the MW. And on top of that... That's a bunch of satellites not e…

How much of that power is radiated as the radio waves it sends?

the majority is likely in radio waves and the inter satellite laser communication

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#465

Post by typ »

eldenring wrote: post #397
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?

That should be better than a sphere. Though I imagine there could be some fancier 3D geometry designs.

Even for a simple sphere, if we give it different surface roughnesses on the sun-facing side and the "night" side, it can have dramatically different emissivity.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#467

Post by dsl »

m463 wrote: post #456
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…

I used to really enjoy musk's talks when he was spooling up tesla. He was an engineer and obviously the world is missing what engineers see clearly. But now looking back and accounting for the claims he made there's a pattern. I saw this article: https://www.wired.com/story/theres-a-very-simple-pattern-to-... that said... he did jumpstart the EV industry. He has put up satellites every week for years. He is still a n…

> he did jumpstart the EV industry. He has put up satellites every week for years. He is still a net benefit to all of us.

Talk to any former SpaceX or Tesla employee. They will clue you in that both were successful in spite of Elon, not because of him.

The Cybertruck was really the first product he saw to completion from his own design. And well...

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#468

Post by numpad0 »

no, no, no, the key enabler to space datacenter is complete out-of-world computer 3D printers. You print entire 130nm, hell, even 130 micrometer GPUs and DDR2 VRAMs to go with, entirely on the Moon solely from Moon dusts, and shoot the complete satellites out into Earth LEO using maglev sleds. PUEs, opex, nothing matter because the Moon factory is self contained and don't interact with Earthian economy at all. The ssh key into the factory will be the source to free money to whoever holding it.

Is that possible in our lifetime? I'd be optimistic about that. Can SpaceX pull that off? Space what? ...

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#469

Post by fhd2 »

georgemcbay wrote: post #214
atleastoptimal wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its very simple, xAI needs money to win the AI race, so best option is to attach to Elon’s moneybank (spacex) to get cash without dilution

> xAI needs money to win the AI race Off on a tangent here but I'd love for anyone to seriously explain how they believe the "AI race" is economically winnable in any meaningful way. Like what is the believed inflection point that changes us from the current situation (where all of the state-of-the-art models are roughly equal if you squint, and the open models are only like one release cycle behind) to one where som…

I _think_ the idea is that the first one to hit self improving AGI will, in a short period of time, pull _so_ far ahead that competition will quickly die out, no longer having any chance to compete economically.

At the same time, it'd give the country controlling it so much economic, political and military power that it becomes impossible to challenge.

I find that all to be a bit of a stretch, but I think that's roughly what people talking about "the AI race" have in mind.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#470

Post by NitpickLawyer »

adastra22 wrote: post #452
philipwhiuk wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You are confidently incorrect. Even Starlink uses rad-hardened CPUs. Redundant error correction is only really an option on launch hardware that only spends minutes in space. Note that on modern hardware cosmic rays permanently disable circuits, not mere bitflips.

> You are confidently incorrect.

No, he's not. Dragon is using CotS, non rad-hardened CPUs. And it's rated to carry humans to space.

> AWST: So, NASA does not require SpaceX to use radiation-hardened computer systems on the Dragon?

John Muratore: No, as a matter of fact NASA doesn't require it on their own systems, either. I spent 30 years at NASA and in the Air Force doing this kind of work. My last job was chief engineer of the shuttle program at NASA, and before that as shuttle flight director. I managed flight programs and built the mission control center that we use there today.

On the space station, some areas are using rad-hardened parts and other parts use COTS parts. Most of the control of the space station occurs through laptop computers which are not radiation hardened.

> Q: So, these flight computers on Dragon – there are three on board, and that's for redundancy?

A: There are actually six computers. They operate in pairs, so there are three computer units, each of which have two computers checking on each other. The reason we have three is when operating in proximity of ISS, we have to always have two computer strings voting on something on critical actions. We have three so we can tolerate a failure and still have two voting on each other. And that has nothing to do with radiation, that has to do with ensuring that we're safe when we're flying our vehicle in the proximity of the space station.

I went into the lab earlier today, and we have 18 different processing units with computers in them. We have three main computers, but 18 units that have a computer of some kind, and all of them are triple computers – everything is three processors. So we have like 54 processors on the spacecraft. It's a highly distributed design and very fault-tolerant and very robust.

[1] - https://aviationweek.com/dragons-radiation-tolerant-design

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