Cooling in Space
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Cooling in Space
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Re: Cooling in Space
#2See also https://andrewmccalip.com/space-datacenters with some models and numbers you can play with.
Re: Cooling in Space
#3Space data centers are physically possible but don't make financial sense. The total cost of an orbital datacenter over five years is at least 2–3x that of a terrestrial one.
But those economics don't matter to SpaceX, because the main purpose of its orbital data centers is to create a use case for Starship. Starship has to fly frequently to iron out the kinks, encounter and fix rare (1/1000) failure situations, and optimize the launch cadence which pushes launch costs down. Plus Starship needs to fly a lot before it's ready for crewed flight. The long-term goal is a Starship optimized for crewed interplanetary travel. Orbital data centers are a payload that bring in some revenue, and provide a reason to launch constantly.
It's the same thing they did with Starlink to make Falcon 9 as reliable and rapidly reusable as it is.
Re: Cooling in Space
#4Re: Cooling in Space
#5Space data centers are physically possible but don't make financial sense. The total cost of an orbital datacenter over five years is at least 2–3x that of a terrestrial one. But those economics don't matter to SpaceX, because the main purpose of its orbital data centers is to create a use case for Starship. Starship has to fly frequently to iron out the kinks, encounter and fix rare (1/1000) failure situations, and…
My guess is: it just sounds cool.
Like the cybertruck
Re: Cooling in Space
#6I still don’t see what the advantage is. Of course it’s physically possible to build a datacenter in space, but I can’t imagine land prices being that high that the same data center on earth wouldn’t be cheaper. Even just due to launch costs and the more sophisticated equipment needed for space.
Re: Cooling in Space
#7Space data centers are physically possible but don't make financial sense. The total cost of an orbital datacenter over five years is at least 2–3x that of a terrestrial one. But those economics don't matter to SpaceX, because the main purpose of its orbital data centers is to create a use case for Starship. Starship has to fly frequently to iron out the kinks, encounter and fix rare (1/1000) failure situations, and…
2-3x sounds like a very low estimate.
There’s so much data center capacity being built all over the Earth. Thousands of large projects across US / China / Europe / Middle East. It would be astonishing if something that’s never been done before could be so cost-competitive immediately.
Starlink wasn’t the first time LEO communications constellations were attempted. Multiple 1990s projects did it (Iridium, GlobalStar…) and went bankrupt.
It took 30 years to make the concept work. SpaceX investors seem to be assuming the space data center business will be immediately viable.
Re: Cooling in Space
#8This isn't terribly practical. Yes, we can deal with heat. The trouble is cost, and dealing with high energy radiation both flipping bits and corrupting the silicon.
Re: Cooling in Space
#9See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlQYU3m1e80
Re: Cooling in Space
#10Allow me to propose a modest alternative to space data centers, namely mountaintop data centers. This would consist of a container full of servers and GPUs and what else goes into a data center, a wind turbine for power and a communication module (say laser or microwave) for communicating with a base station with a fiber connection. This would be lifted on top of a mountain by a helicopter and bolted in place. Cooling would be provided by heat sinks exposed to the outside air. Some of the nodes could relay traffic from other nodes on remote mountain tops out of sight of the base station.
This scheme has many advantages over space data centers including launch costs, cooling, connection latency, servicability and ease of recycling.