5 ms·

Edit: Great points! Space would be a terrible location for data center hosting, not only due to latency and heat radiation issues, but also due to the difficult

Edit: Great points! Space would be a terrible location for data center hosting, not only due to latency and heat radiation issues, but also due to the difficulty in mitigating solar radiation. What about putting the data center in some kind of low Earth orbit? Something within the magnetic field, but far enough out to radiate heat? Would the latency still be a factor if your web server and CDN were hosted "in a cloud" on numerous communications satellites?

chc 10y ago
I'm pretty sure dissipating heat is harder in space since you don't have a relatively cool medium like air or water to dump the heat into.
tbabb 10y ago
That sounds like just about the worst place to put a datacenter. Getting just a single kilogram to orbit costs about $2000 at its absolute cheapest, so I can think of no better way to send deployment costs through the roof. On top of that, space is bad for heat exchange because there's no convective cooling. Also cosmic rays will wreck havoc on all your delicate silicon chips.
tshannon 10y ago
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that radiating heat is actually really hard in space. It seems counter intuitive, because space is so cold, but it's mostly a vacuum. To transfer heat, you need a medium for the heat to transfer through. I believe some heat can be lost due to radiation, and so they have these big metal fins as heat sinks to radiate as much heat as possible, and reflective material on the solar facing side to prevent more heat from being absorbed. The water, on the other hand, is a fantastic absorber of heat, and I'm guessing it's easier to drop one in the ocean, rather than launch one to space.
- noir_lord 10y ago
  > I believe some heat can be lost due to radiation. In hard space all the heat is lost as radiation (minus and incredibly tiny loss from hitting the very few particles in space), the dark side can be treat as a blackbody for a rough approximation. One of the reasons that the side exposed to the sun is mirrored is to reflect as much of the radiation falling on that side as possible as the heat is so hard to get rid off, people think the shiny part is gold but it's actually usually mylar or something stacked in a layered insulation. Space is a horrible environment to make things work, metals spontaneous weld themselves (vacuum welding), radical differentials in temperature depending on orientation, your electronics are constantly hammered by high energy radiation, micro impacts by things travelling at velocities that make a sniper rifle look like a slingshot, it's fascinating as a layman what it takes to keep stuff working reliably up there at all.
- nradov 10y ago
  The Atomic Rockets site has some great information on how spacecraft heat radiators actually work. http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/basicdesign.php#powerplant http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/basicdesign.php...
motoboi 10y ago
Space suits have ar-conditioning units so astronauts don't die of overheating. This is how hard is to radiate heat to space.
knicholes 10y ago
There is also a high cost to get something into space, a risk of it blowing up or crashing while heading to space, dealing with very, very long wires (space is ~160km-2,000km) as opposed to the 50 and 200 meters that'd be used for servers under the water. Also is the issue of having these very long cables running through airspace. Airplanes would have to be made aware of these wires. I can also imagine a lot less electromagnetic interference going on under the water. Also, heat transfer becomes more difficult. No longer is there conduction of hot metal to cold water. In space, you have one main option for transferring heat. Radiation. I think this is addressed in your edit, but yeah, there's the Sun adding energy while you're struggling to radiate out your own server heat...

chc 10y ago

I'm pretty sure dissipating heat is harder in space since you don't have a relatively cool medium like air or water to dump the heat into.

tbabb 10y ago

That sounds like just about the worst place to put a datacenter. Getting just a single kilogram to orbit costs about $2000 at its absolute cheapest, so I can think of no better way to send deployment costs through the roof. On top of that, space is bad for heat exchange because there's no convective cooling. Also cosmic rays will wreck havoc on all your delicate silicon chips.

tshannon 10y ago

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that radiating heat is actually really hard in space. It seems counter intuitive, because space is so cold, but it's mostly a vacuum. To transfer heat, you need a medium for the heat to transfer through. I believe some heat can be lost due to radiation, and so they have these big metal fins as heat sinks to radiate as much heat as possible, and reflective material on the solar facing side to prevent more heat from being absorbed. The water, on the other hand, is a fantastic absorber of heat, and I'm guessing it's easier to drop one in the ocean, rather than launch one to space.

noir_lord 10y ago
> I believe some heat can be lost due to radiation. In hard space all the heat is lost as radiation (minus and incredibly tiny loss from hitting the very few particles in space), the dark side can be treat as a blackbody for a rough approximation. One of the reasons that the side exposed to the sun is mirrored is to reflect as much of the radiation falling on that side as possible as the heat is so hard to get rid off, people think the shiny part is gold but it's actually usually mylar or something stacked in a layered insulation. Space is a horrible environment to make things work, metals spontaneous weld themselves (vacuum welding), radical differentials in temperature depending on orientation, your electronics are constantly hammered by high energy radiation, micro impacts by things travelling at velocities that make a sniper rifle look like a slingshot, it's fascinating as a layman what it takes to keep stuff working reliably up there at all.
nradov 10y ago
The Atomic Rockets site has some great information on how spacecraft heat radiators actually work. http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/basicdesign.php#powerplant http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/basicdesign.php...

motoboi 10y ago

Space suits have ar-conditioning units so astronauts don't die of overheating. This is how hard is to radiate heat to space.

knicholes 10y ago

There is also a high cost to get something into space, a risk of it blowing up or crashing while heading to space, dealing with very, very long wires (space is ~160km-2,000km) as opposed to the 50 and 200 meters that'd be used for servers under the water. Also is the issue of having these very long cables running through airspace. Airplanes would have to be made aware of these wires. I can also imagine a lot less electromagnetic interference going on under the water. Also, heat transfer becomes more difficult. No longer is there conduction of hot metal to cold water. In space, you have one main option for transferring heat. Radiation. I think this is addressed in your edit, but yeah, there's the Sun adding energy while you're struggling to radiate out your own server heat...