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Data centers in space makes no sense

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Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#521

Post by smileeeee »

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…

The cost might be the draw (if there is one). Big tech isn't afraid of throwing money at problems, but the AI folk and financiers are afraid of waiting and uncertainty. A satellite is crazy expensive but throwing more money at it gets you more satellites.

At the end of the day I don't really care either way. It ain't my money, and their money isn't going to get back into the economy by sitting in a brokerage portfolio. To get them to spend money this is as good a way as any other, I guess. At least it helps fund a little spaceflight and satellite R&D on the way.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#522

Post by adastra22 »

hdgvhicv wrote: post #510
adastra22 wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sure space is cold Even this isn't true. It's ~120 degC in daylight in LEO. It only gets cold in the shade, but a solar powered data center is pretty useless in the shade.

The solar labels are in the sun. Behind them they are in the shade.

In close proximity, and connected to metal structures radiating & conducting heat at 120 degrees. You still have to expel that heat somehow, and route it around the spacecraft core.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#524

Post by lambertsimnel »

MengerSponge wrote: post #486
matt-p wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(DTC) Datacentres take electricity and turn it into low grade heat e.g 60c water. Put them anywhere where you've either got excess (cheap) energy or where you can use the heat. Either is fine, both is great, but neither is both bad and current standard practice. It's perfectly possible to put small data centres in city centres and pipe the heat around town, they take up very very little space and if you're consuming…

Resistive heating is a tremendously inefficient way to generate heat. Sometimes it's worth it if you get something useful in exchange (such as full spectrum light in the winter). But it's not all upsides. Heat pumps are magic . They're something like 300% efficient. Each watt generates 3 watts of useful heat.

I share your enthusiasm about heat pumps, but I wonder what the efficiency of using waste heat is. Couldn't it be competitive with heat pumps? As it's a waste product, isn't it reasonable to also expect it to be more than 100% efficient?

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#525

Post by deepfriedchokes »

energy123 wrote: post #514
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…

What in particular is wrong/misleading in the Starcloud whitepaper, then? https://starcloudinc.github.io/wp.pdf

Probably this bit on page 4, which parent comment addresses: “More efficient cooling architecture taking advantage of higher ΔT in space.”

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#526

Post by gostsamo »

AI in space makes no sense because the data center will be distributed and half of the time your processors will be waiting for data (if you are lucky). When they are working, you need to cool them down. When they finally heed the call of gravity, your vibe coders can see the vapor of their work in the sky and you throw the entire unit as a loss (might be a net positive for tax purposes).

This is BS, everyone knows that this is BS, but because this is Elon, there are still people who don't call out the BS.

It might be distraction, he might be delusional, he might be asking his investors to stop asking for profit by giving them shares from SpaceX, but this is not him discovering new physics.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#527

Post by mmoustafa »

energy123 wrote: post #514
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…

What in particular is wrong/misleading in the Starcloud whitepaper, then? https://starcloudinc.github.io/wp.pdf

They do not at any point outline how cooling will be done, they simply say "it will be more efficient than chillers due to the larger delta T" which is incorrect because it's about dT not delta T

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#528

Post by joelthelion »

dathinab wrote: post #322

The really crazy thing is you don't need to know more then basic (non Hollywood) physics to know how dump this is 1. every gram you need to send to space is costly, a issue you don't have at ground level 2. cooling is a catastrophe, sure space is cold, but also a vacuum, so the cooling rate is roughly the infrared radiation rate. This means if you are not careful with the surface of a satellite it can end up being ve…

> The really crazy thing is you don't need to know more then basic (non Hollywood) physics to know how dump this is

And yet journalists at major institutions have been repeating Musk's claims with very little skepticism ("xAI and SpaceX are merging to bring data centers to space").

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#529

Post by deepfriedchokes »

belter wrote: post #211
croddin wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starlink and Falcon 9 have been an excellent pairing, Falcon 9 partially reusable rockets created a lot launch capacity and starlink filled the demand. Starship if it meets its goals will create more launch fully reusable supply by orders of magnitude, but there is not the demand for all that launch capacity. Starlink can take some of it but probably not all so they need to find a customer to fill it in order to buil…

Nobody colonizing Mars. Get real. The most likely outcome, is him landing on a cell when the full Epstein files come out.

The most likely outcome is that no one will be punished for anything in the Epstein files.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#530

Post by Juliate »

antonymoose wrote: post #10

To Steelman the topic, Musk’s whole alleged mission is to make humans a multi-planet species that can survive an earth killing event. To that end, a small data center space isn’t about unit-economics, it’s a bigger mission. So the question we should consider is what can we put into space the further that mission. Can we put a meaningful sum of human knowledge out there for preservation? It sounds like “yes,” even if…

A sum or product of human knowledge is not humanity: that specific mission (putting it into space for preservation or contact) has been done (Voyagers and others) and is done continuously (radiowaves).

Making a dent into making humans a multiplanetary species requires making a lot of companion species as well; the task requires much more elementary stuff (relative to the mission), at the ground level, than Musk is demonstrating to do (at technical, entrepreneurial and political level).

This is a con, from the start. It just worked so far so some people fall for it.

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