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Data centers in space makes no sense

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Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#881

Post by undersuit »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #755
FranklinJabar wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is probably plenty of scope to optimize space radiators. It was never a priority until now and is "just" an engineering problem. Well, it's a physics problem. The engineering solution is possibly not cost efficient. I'd put a lot of money that it isn't.

What makes you so sure? SpaceX already has thousands of 6 kW networking racks flying around in LEO and they dissipate their heat just fine, and are plenty cost-effective. You think they can't do any better than that with a new design specifically optimized for computing rather than networking?

The solar panels on the newest satellites can deliver 6kW but the power that satellite actually uses is less. The satellite is only using 300W[1] during the dark phase of it's orbit when it can use it's entire mass to cool down. Is that limit because of the battery or is it because the satellite needs to radiate all the heat it acquired from the other half of the time in the sun?

[1] https://lilibots.blogspot.com/2020/04/starlink-satellite-dim...

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#882

Post by jtrn »

panda-giddiness wrote: post #608
jtrn wrote: post #564

This sentence proves the author has no ability for logical thinking: Data centers in space only make sense if they are cost effective relative to normal data centers. I too don't think it's currently a sensible solution. But the author completely unable to make a proper case. For instance, just to refute that one claim, there are many reasons to do it in space even at an cost. Space-based data centers provide an off-…

Essentially all of your concerns concerns can be mitigated by building somewhere else. Worried about natural disasters? Build some place less prone to natural disasters. Worried about the strain on local communities? Build some place more remote. Worried about energy availability? Build near a nuclear power plant or hydroelectric power station. Worried about hostile governments? Don't build data centers within the te…

Omg. I dident say my reasons where good. I said that the claim that price vs ground based data center alone made space based compute a no God, was a bad argument. I obviously suck at framing my point

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#883

Post by jtrn »

jacquesm wrote: post #681
jtrn wrote: post #564

This sentence proves the author has no ability for logical thinking: Data centers in space only make sense if they are cost effective relative to normal data centers. I too don't think it's currently a sensible solution. But the author completely unable to make a proper case. For instance, just to refute that one claim, there are many reasons to do it in space even at an cost. Space-based data centers provide an off-…

One of the bigger threats to life on earth right now is called Elon Musk.

That's the stupidest thing I heard so far to day.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#884

Post by indoordin0saur »

devin wrote: post #863

As long as we're pointing out things that don't make sense: A long time ago in the United States we decided to run electricity _everywhere_, even farmhouses in the middle of nowhere. The solution to broadband in the United States is somehow, inexplicably "Let's use satellites" rather than increase tower coverage or run hard lines. It is a _terrible_ solution to this problem based on the cost alone.

I've used Starlink and it's fantastic in rural areas. Why dig thousands of miles of holes for physical wires when the problem is already solved?

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#885

Post by tgtweak »

gwbas1c wrote: post #877
tgtweak wrote: post #767

The crux of it is that radiative cooling in space is dependent on exposed surface, not total surface area like a radiator or heatsink on earth - this means if you just put an existing finned heatsink in space it would radiate most of it's heat back to itself - the only net cooling you'd have is the amount that can radiate outwards without hitting itself. For a benchmark - the IIS uses about 4500sqft (420 sqm) of radi…

Makes me wonder: Back in the early 1990s I read some children's futurist book that suggested that we might send solar panels to space that would then beam energy via microwaves to the surface. The book was more fantasy than science, so I took it with a huge grain of salt and appreciated it for its entertainment value. But do you think schemes that try to direct solar energy to the surface are more practical then runn…

I don't think there is calculus that makes the cost of getting it to space worth putting it there - Elon of all people knows this - if you scale up the ground-based solar and add battery storage, the costs are still far lower than trying to put that in space to gain more hours of usable sun and higher intensity sun... it's just not cost effective until panels are paper thin, weigh nothing and the cost of launches and thus per-ton to orbit gets an order of magnitude cheaper.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#886

Post by catoc »

mike_hearn wrote: post #582
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…

It sounds hard but it shouldn't not make sense. 1. Solving cost of launching mass has been the entire premise of SpaceX since day one and they have the track record. 2. Ingress/egress aren't at all bottlenecks for inferencing. The bytes you get before you max out a context window are trivial, especially after compression. If you're thinking about latency, chat latencies are already quite high and there's going to be…

“just an engineering problem”

Sounds a bit like that Dilbert where the marketing guy has sold a new invisible computer and is telling the engineers to now do their job and actually make it.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#887

Post by devin »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #884
devin wrote: post #863

As long as we're pointing out things that don't make sense: A long time ago in the United States we decided to run electricity _everywhere_, even farmhouses in the middle of nowhere. The solution to broadband in the United States is somehow, inexplicably "Let's use satellites" rather than increase tower coverage or run hard lines. It is a _terrible_ solution to this problem based on the cost alone.

I've used Starlink and it's fantastic in rural areas. Why dig thousands of miles of holes for physical wires when the problem is already solved?

Think. You don't even need to dig. We have myriad wireless internet solutions. We did not need to send satellites into space to fix this problem in a far more cost effective way.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#888

Post by indoordin0saur »

estomagordo wrote: post #555
jraby3 wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few additional items to rebut the lack of info in this Article: - SpaceX just requested a license to launch up to a million satellites. - the satellites already have some incredible anti collision software, which I believe Elon has now open sourced. - the cost to launch 1 kg to space has dropped by a factor of 10 in the past few years and is currently less than $1000. It's perfectly reasonable to estimate that over…

Elon has open sourced them, or the people at SpaceX who actually know or understand something did?

Open sourcing your company's secret sauce is probably the sort of decision that only the CEO approves.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#889

Post by indoordin0saur »

zbentley wrote: post #744
sinuhe69 wrote: post #400

As the focus here is solely on the US, and the comments focus too much on the impossibility of heat dissipation, I want to include some information to broaden the perspective. - In the EU, the ASCEND study conducted in 2024 by Thales Alenia Space found that data center in space could be possible by 2035. Data center in space could contribute to the EU's Net-Zero goal by 2050 [1] - heat dissipation could be greatly en…

> Data center in space could contribute to the EU's Net-Zero goal by 2050 How unbelievably crass. "Let's build something out of immense quantities of environmentally-destructive-to-extract materials and shoot it into space on top of gargantuan amounts of heat and greenhouse gas emissions; since it won't use much earth-sourced energy once it's up there, that nets out to a win!" Insane.

Blue Origin at least runs its rockets on hydrogen whose exhaust is only water.

Re: Data centers in space makes no sense

#890

Post by madeforhnyo »

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #260
guluarte wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I would, it would be an adventure. You could have said the same thing about Europe or America. We could have just stayed in Africa, and the people like you did. But taking the leap worked pretty well, even if it was tough at the beginning.

Would you say that slaughtering Native Americans and enslaving Africans "worked pretty well" for them, or do you only speak from the White adventurer perspective?
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