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Perhaps the next step will be selling cloud services from in-orbit data centers that have no cooling bill.
by noahdesu 10y ago
Perhaps the next step will be selling cloud services from in-orbit data centers that have no cooling bill.
- Something1234 10y agoAlthough the temperature in space is very low, the ability to dissipate heat is reduced. So you wouldn't be saving that much, unless my understanding is wrong.
- metafunctor 10y agoI think the heat would be just radiated out passively. Most space hardware, I'm told, needs to operate at -10°C – 50°C, and withstand continuous temperature fluctuations between those extremes caused by solar heat.
- Something1234 10y agoI thought that space would have a low thermal conductivity, meaning that things with a high tdp (big iron) would just hold the heat, and not much would transfer. As I remember from high school physics, radiation is the least efficient form of heat transfer.
- metafunctor 10y agoCorrect. That's why I said the way to lose heat in a satellite is by radiation.
- mnw21cam 10y agoEver heard of the Stefan-Boltzmann Law? This dictates the maximum amount of energy that can be radiated from an object per unit area for a specific temperature. The power is proportional to the fourth power of the temperature. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/stefan.html http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/stefan.htm... So for example if you have 300W worth of TDP, and a perfect black body radiator of half a square metre, then the radiator temperature is already going to hit your maximum CPU temperature of 50C, assuming it is perfectly shadowed from both the sun and the earth.
- metafunctor 10y agoSure, I have studied these things a couple of decades ago. Now that I read my comment above I realize it was badly worded. I didn't mean to say all heat would simply be radiated without posing a problem. I meant that the only way for a body to lose energy in space is by radiation (without ejecting matter, I suppose).
- mrep 10y agoCorrect, 2 major costs for data centers are energy and heat dissipation, neither of which are easy in space. Add in the cost of shipping all that stuff up there by rockets, trying to replace broken hardware, etc, etc, and this is more un-economical than solar paneled roads.
- metafunctor 10y agoI wonder which country's laws an in-orbit data center would need to respect. All? None?
- pmontra 10y agoThe ones of the owner's country?