Space being “cold” doesn’t matter since vacuum INSULATES.
it’s not even cold…! The matter that DOES exist in it is very hot plasma but it’s just really thinly spread out.
Yea honestly, orbital data centers are the dumbest shit I’ve heard during this bubble, and a huge indication of peak bubble hype.
If you sell rockets and satellites, then data centers in space sound like a perfect idea to increase demand with other people’s money.
Anybody Who Thinks Orbital Data Centers are a Good Idea
Is Suffering from AI Psychosis, Experts ArgueDoesn’t Understand Basic PhysicsTwo main problems with data centers. Power and cooling. In space the power is doable. The cooling is a major pain in the ass and always has been. There are only three ways to get rid of heat. Conduction, convection, and radiation. The first two don’t work because of the vacuum thing. The third is horribly inefficient. Just look at the ISS and the giant fins that only dumps about 70 kW of waste heat through radiator “wings” that weigh several tons. A single rack in a high density compute rack can generate 100kW by itself.
So yeah given the expensive and how inefficient it is, it’s a terrible idea.
Edit: I’m a system architect so dealing with data center heat is something I’m familiar with.
iirc the power is not very doable, You’d need hundreds of times as many solar pannels as are on the ISS to power a single modest data centre.
Do you have a podcast? I saw a podcast clip on tiktok saying almost verbatim the same thing
There’s also the very real problem of data transfer.
On land you just lay down another fiber optic cable and you can double your data transfer rate.
In space, you have to deal with cross talk and interference on a limited spectrum.
Free space laser communications are possible, but even then you are only talking about 10s of GB/s, and you cant add more lasers or receivers on a satellite already in orbit.
That’s what the lasers are for. It’s a solved problem.
Not really, because it can’t be solved, just worked around.
Lasers are still subject to the inverse square law, but with a slightly different multiplier.
Also, lasers still have the bandwidth issue of not being able to double up the communication lines due to cross talk and other fun physics issues.
There’s a reason why fiber will never go out of style.
You’re just too small minded to comprehend the grand vision of business genius™ Elon Musk!
And Bezos apparently…
These chucklefucks are just trying to get some sucker… er I mean investor to fund the whole thing so their respective space companies can do the job.
And after doing to some very cursorary research other issues like…
- Radiation and reliability - apparently cosmic radiation is a bitch
- Lifecycle costs - I should have thought about this one. It’s not like when a drive dies in space you just drive down to the DC to replace it. And not mention we recycle out compute about every 5-6 years or so.
- Connection - somebody mention this already in the thread but yeah you ain’t hanging a fiber cable to a satellite
What if we run a really long tube down to earth to send water back and forth? You gotta think like Elon to be innovative.
The solution, then, is a downsized dc.
Well there’s a headline that’s going to have a lot of sane comments under it.
Orbital data centers are a good idea if one wants to get massive golden parachutes that siphon money from all the investor cash that the entirely u realistic promises brings in. They are a grift that will most likely benefit Musk in the same way all his other pie int he sky bullshit does.
Being technically terrible hasn’t really stopped that from happening with his other bullshit projects.
Orbital data centers are the new “hyperloop”
Are there actually people who think this is a good idea that are not in a position to make money off it?
Yes. All the retail investors in SpaceX that will be left to hold the bag.
That’s a funny way to spell "our 401k"s.
If it helps, you’re VTSAX 401k right now would only lose about 0.1% value if SpaceX dropped to $0. By June 2027 when all insider shares are unlocked it could go as high as 1.5%, but again only if it went to $0.
I hate Musk, I think SpaceX as an IPO was trash, and I disagree with the rule changes for index inclusion. But big picture, our 401k will be fine.
My aunt and uncle are Elon fans (yes, even after his fucking Nazi salute) and have said orbital data centers are a good idea.
They have money, and my uncle is usually pretty smart, so I’m not sure what the fuck is happening.
I don’t know you, and I certainly don’t know your aunt and uncle, but I would generally assume in Nazi situations that “even after” probably means “particularly after” even if they don’t admit it.
I know what’s happening! Your aunt and uncle are racist dumbasses.
Ignoring all of the disadvantages of datacenters in space, what are any of the advantages?
Shit-tons of profit, if you happen to own a company that specializes in rocket launches.
Potentially greater power collection for use since solar arrays dont need to be built with the same space and enviromental constraints.
Potentially already in the data path for a lot of communications with satilites being capable of both last mile and backhaul communication.
Archtecture could take advantage of all three dimensions better again because of the extra space and different enviromental constraints (the big one being gravity). This is truer the more of it could be consteucted in microgravity.
Physical security. Its pretty hard for someone to sneak in.
Further failure domain segmentaion. I.e. hurricanes, earth quakes, etc not saying space is safe (good God not saying that!) but if you have a DC in florida, California, and above the earths mesosphere the likely hood that a disaster effects all three is pretty slim.
Closer data transit for interplantery or lunar communication.
Ignoring the costs and new hurdles of the enviroment this is what im tracking.
Harder to burn down in a civil uprising, space is neat, and able to ignore laws and regulations because cops are too dumb for space.
The light and noise pollution no one wants near them are offloaded to space?
Astronomers: Am I a joke to you?
Non-astronomers: What are you gonna do about it? Nerd!
Like with Starlink, it’s all about orbital dominance.
If Starcloud is about data storage out reach of terrestrial events (attacks and desasters), then it’s irrelevant whether the performance can compete with terrestrial systems. In fact the paper neither mentions flops or bytes.
Looking at starlink, it must be possible to run at least some computational power in space.
The biggest issue is heat dissapation. A satellite that relays a signal requires orders of magnitude less compute power than an AI datacenter.
Well, they mention AI in the title. It’s a startup. Of course they do.
At least their water consumption would do down. Let’s do it, shoot the tech bros up there with them. Let’s even overshoot the orbit and make them disappear in the darkness.
Water consumption has been way overblown. Sure if you’re in the Colorado River basin, water is absolutely an issue. But if your concerned with wasted water usage, all data centers combined would be a rounding error compared to what we throw away on turf grass.
Kyle Hill and Hank Green have both made videos about this I’m not crazy.
I’ll watch these after work, but surely the problem is not availability of water, but drinking water, which is another story? Data centers aim for clean water sources which can be used for drinking. Turf grass don’t need that which makes the comparison seem unfair
It just depends on the location.
Some areas have water shortages where resources are already strained and other areas have abundant water so that no amount of usage will make a dent.
It not that it isn’t a problem at all, it’s just it is only a problem in specific places and not an inherent issue with datacenters everywhere. Building datacenters in a desert would cause water issues, building them near the great lakes wouldn’t impact water availability in the slightest.
They do prefer drinking water, because it’s already treated and so the equipment/maintenance to use it is lower and they can just evaporate it away. In other areas, or if required by legislation, they could run coolant to the machines and then cool the coolant using dirtier sources (including seawater).
No let’s not do that. Building these slopstations will only contribute to the build up of space debris. Making it harder for future generations to have access to the stars. Just shoot them into a mountain side, or the ocean floor instead. Far more economical too.
We can “accidentally” explode them on the launch pad as well. I don’t really care.
Could even make it easier, cheaper and avoid the ecological disaster as well
Just shoot them
The article you posted from Futurism(Via Yahoo News) reference a YouTube video as it’s source which is in itself is a follow up to IEEE Spectrum article.
I believe watching the original video or reading the actual article will provide a better value.
Diagnosing opposition as mentally ill…
where have i seen that before? hmmmSocial media where ‘if you don’t agree with me you’re a bad person and probably deserve to die’ is the standard position for the outrage junkies.
Gravity doesn’t turn off but those data centers will
