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Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

andrewmccalip.com

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Re: Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

#51

Post by yabones »

jofer wrote: post #39

What really worries me is that I keep hearing "cooling is cheap and easy in space!" in a lot of these conversations, and it couldn't be farther from the truth. Cooling is _really_ hard and can't use efficient (i.e. advection-based air or water cooling) approaches and are limited to dramatically less efficient radiative cooling. It doesn't matter that space is cold because cooling is damned hard in a vacuum. The artic…

Yeah, I don't see a way to get around the fact that space is a fabulous insulator. That's precisely how expensive insulated drink containers work so well.

If it was just about cooling and power availability, you'd think people would be running giant solar+compute barges in international waters, but nobody is doing that. Even the "seasteading" guys from last decade.

These proposals, if serious, are just to avoid planning permission and land ownership difficulties. If unserious, it's simply to get attention. And we're talking about it, aren't we?

Re: Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

#52

Post by SauntSolaire »

m_fayer wrote: post #30
GMoromisato wrote: post #16

> ...we should be actively goading more billionaires into spending on irrational, high-variance projects that might actually advance civilization. I feel genuine secondhand embarrassment watching people torch their fortunes on yachts and status cosplay. No one cares about your Loro Piana. I 100% agree with this. There are ~2,600 billionaires in the world and we should encourage all of them to spend their money. Even…

Your description of Elmo applies to several other billionaires who have somehow avoided quixotic hyper-destructive rampages through American politics. I’m all for wired funny, but not when it comes with this much carnage.

I'm not sure who the whole 'Elmo' thing is for -- more than anything I cringe at the person saying it, rather than thinking less of Elon or whatever the hope is. Like 'drumpf', or the whole small hands thing, it just comes across like a redditism that escaped confinement.

Is the hope that Elon or fans of his read it and get offended? I doubt they care much, and I fail to see the point of it.

Re: Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

#53

Post by waterTanuki »

GMoromisato wrote: post #16

> ...we should be actively goading more billionaires into spending on irrational, high-variance projects that might actually advance civilization. I feel genuine secondhand embarrassment watching people torch their fortunes on yachts and status cosplay. No one cares about your Loro Piana. I 100% agree with this. There are ~2,600 billionaires in the world and we should encourage all of them to spend their money. Even…

Elmo already cancelled out any progress made by buying a social media platform and getting the most anti-science anti-NASA admin in history elected. He's done a net negative on the world at this point, even if the scale is vastly larger than most people.

Re: Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

#54

Post by bgwalter »

I have no idea what this Grok assisted article is trying to say. But the data-center-in-space hype is irrational. It hand-waves cooling and bit flip errors. It does not explain why we need chat bots in space (we don't need them on earth either).

It is a nice talking point for the U.S. Saudi Investment Forum. The Saudis apparently buy anything:

https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/2000603814249079165#m

Re: Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

#55

Post by mjhay »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #43
zozbot234 wrote: post #19

Will these space-based data centers run on rad-hard silicon (which is dog slow compared to anything on Earth) or just silently accept wrong results, hardware lockups and permanent failure due to the harsh space environment? Will they cool that hardware with special über-expensive high-temperature Peltiers that heat the radiators up to visible incandescence so that the heat can be shed with any efficiency? There's zil…

At this scale could you do shielding?

Orbital data centers are impractical for a lot of reasons (to put it mildly) but radiation shielding isn’t one of them. Proportionally less shielding is needed as one scales up, due to lower surface/volume ratios.

Re: Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

#56

Post by mjhay »

wmf wrote: post #45
jofer wrote: post #39

What really worries me is that I keep hearing "cooling is cheap and easy in space!" in a lot of these conversations, and it couldn't be farther from the truth. Cooling is _really_ hard and can't use efficient (i.e. advection-based air or water cooling) approaches and are limited to dramatically less efficient radiative cooling. It doesn't matter that space is cold because cooling is damned hard in a vacuum. The artic…

None of it is easy but neither is cooling impossible as many people are saying.

There’s a big difference between “impossible” (it isn’t) and “practical” (it isn’t).

Re: Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

#57

Post by brotchie »

Did a similar back-of-the-napkin and got 5x $ / MW of orbital vs. terrestrial. This article's analysis is ~3.4x.

I do wonder, at what factor of orbital to terrestrial cost factor it becomes worthwhile.

The greater the terrestrial lead time, red tape, permitting, regulations on Earth, the higher the orbital-to-terrestrial factor that's acceptable.

A lights-out automated production line pumping out GPU satellites into a daily Starship launch feels "cleaner" from an end-to-end automation perspective vs years long land acquisition, planning and environment approvals, construction.

More expensive, for sure, but feels way more copy-paste the factory, "linearly scalable" than physical construction.

Re: Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

#58

Post by modeless »

bediger4000 wrote: post #49
modeless wrote: post #42

I love the sliders, but note that the numbers on this site literally came from ChatGPT, so there is plenty of room for disagreement. Seems like according to this analysis it all hinges on launch cost and satellite cost. This site's default for Starship launch cost is $500/kg, but SpaceX is targeting much lower than that, more like $100/kg and eventually optimistically $10/kg (the slider doesn't even go that low). At…

Aerospace industry has a long history of missing lower cost/kg to orbit. I'm extremely suspicious of $500/kg, which is about a third of today's cost.

OTOH SpaceX has a pretty good history of undercutting the industry on cost. If Starship full reusability works I would be very surprised if it only lowered launch costs by a factor of three. Of course it's not guaranteed to work, but clearly SpaceX's orbital datacenter plans are predicated on Starship working.

Re: Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

#59

Post by cmgbhm »

wmf wrote: post #45
jofer wrote: post #39

What really worries me is that I keep hearing "cooling is cheap and easy in space!" in a lot of these conversations, and it couldn't be farther from the truth. Cooling is _really_ hard and can't use efficient (i.e. advection-based air or water cooling) approaches and are limited to dramatically less efficient radiative cooling. It doesn't matter that space is cold because cooling is damned hard in a vacuum. The artic…

None of it is easy but neither is cooling impossible as many people are saying.

Doing like an 8xh200 server (https://docs.nvidia.com/dgx/dgxh100-user-guide/introduction-...) is 10.2kW.

Let’s say you need 50m^2 solar panels to run it, then just a ton of surface area to dissipate. I’d love to be proven wrong but space data centers just seem like large 2d impact targets.

Re: Economics of Orbital vs. Terrestrial Data Centers

#60

Post by ted_dunning »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #43
zozbot234 wrote: post #19

Will these space-based data centers run on rad-hard silicon (which is dog slow compared to anything on Earth) or just silently accept wrong results, hardware lockups and permanent failure due to the harsh space environment? Will they cool that hardware with special über-expensive high-temperature Peltiers that heat the radiators up to visible incandescence so that the heat can be shed with any efficiency? There's zil…

At this scale could you do shielding?

Sure. At the cost of lofting that shielding from the ground and taking the economics from 500x to 2000x crazy.
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