4 ms·

I guess we could put a data center in space, powered by solar. But that sounds silly.

by geoduck14 3y ago

thrtythreeforty 3y ago
You could not. There would be no place to get rid of the waste heat.
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  Elton John told me that space is cold as hell. Presumably the ISS is putting its waste heat somewhere, but I don't really know the limitations of radiators in space.
  - perihelions 3y ago
    - "Presumably the ISS is putting its waste heat somewhere" Giant radiators: http://claudelafleur.qc.ca/images/iss028e005676.jpg http://claudelafleur.qc.ca/images/iss028e005676.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_Active_Thermal_Control_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_Active_Thermal_Contro... Fluid pipes are threaded through them for transferring heat. These contain mixed-phase ammonia: I believe it should condense from vapor to liquid under the radiators, the coldest point. That phase change adds a huge boost to their heat-carrying capacity.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    A cubic meter of space has very little heat energy, that's true, but it's more about having only a few molecules here and there in any cubic meter of space. That leads directly to the problem though, that if there are no molecule to contact you and steal some kinetic energy and then leave, reducing your heat, the only option is to radiate it away. Radiating heat is exceptionally inefficient at rejecting heat from an object than using a material of some sort to sap away that heat with physical contact.
- roflmaostc 3y ago
  Space is around -270°C cold. The heat would dissipate so quickly, much better than even liquid nitrogen cooling.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - gideonparanoid 3y ago
    Without convection or conduction?
  - roflmaostc 3y ago
    ok to correct myself. Due to lack of much air, heat would only dissipate by Black body radiation. One would need to calculate if that could cool down the chips efficiently.
    - Ekaros 3y ago
      It won't. There is reason why we use fans. There is two ways to handle high heat loads, convection or evaporation. And you would run out of evaporative material in space pretty quickly.
    - bee_rider 3y ago
      I think this is a very popular mistake to make. It is sort of a well known bit of trivia, but only because everybody has to correct themselves on it at least once, haha.
    - asdfman123 3y ago
      If it's dissapating through black body radiation the temperature of space isn't really that relevant to cooling. You can radiate heat from the surface of the earth into space via the sky, but you don't lose much energy that way.
      - roflmaostc 3y ago
        > You can radiate heat from the surface of the earth into space via the sky, but you don't lose much energy that way. That's not quite true. Black body radiation is the only reason why earth does not heat up much more. It's the only factor with a negative radiative forcing. Solar radiation is the only main incoming source of energy, and black body radiation the only outcome with almost the same magnitude (which is huuuuge btw)
- sl-1 3y ago
  You can radiate it away, but it would be really hard compared to just dumping it to atmosphere / water bodies. Especially as computers need quite low temperatures. Here is some more analysis on the problem of radiating heat away in space: https://toughsf.blogspot.com/2017/07/all-radiators.html https://toughsf.blogspot.com/2017/07/all-radiators.html

I guess we could put a data center in space, powered by solar. But that sounds silly.

thrtythreeforty 3y ago

You could not. There would be no place to get rid of the waste heat.

hotpotamus 3y ago
Elton John told me that space is cold as hell. Presumably the ISS is putting its waste heat somewhere, but I don't really know the limitations of radiators in space.
- perihelions 3y ago
  - "Presumably the ISS is putting its waste heat somewhere" Giant radiators: http://claudelafleur.qc.ca/images/iss028e005676.jpg http://claudelafleur.qc.ca/images/iss028e005676.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_Active_Thermal_Control_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_Active_Thermal_Contro... Fluid pipes are threaded through them for transferring heat. These contain mixed-phase ammonia: I believe it should condense from vapor to liquid under the radiators, the coldest point. That phase change adds a huge boost to their heat-carrying capacity.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  A cubic meter of space has very little heat energy, that's true, but it's more about having only a few molecules here and there in any cubic meter of space. That leads directly to the problem though, that if there are no molecule to contact you and steal some kinetic energy and then leave, reducing your heat, the only option is to radiate it away. Radiating heat is exceptionally inefficient at rejecting heat from an object than using a material of some sort to sap away that heat with physical contact.
roflmaostc 3y ago
Space is around -270°C cold. The heat would dissipate so quickly, much better than even liquid nitrogen cooling.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- gideonparanoid 3y ago
  Without convection or conduction?
- roflmaostc 3y ago
  ok to correct myself. Due to lack of much air, heat would only dissipate by Black body radiation. One would need to calculate if that could cool down the chips efficiently.
  - Ekaros 3y ago
    It won't. There is reason why we use fans. There is two ways to handle high heat loads, convection or evaporation. And you would run out of evaporative material in space pretty quickly.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    I think this is a very popular mistake to make. It is sort of a well known bit of trivia, but only because everybody has to correct themselves on it at least once, haha.
  - asdfman123 3y ago
    If it's dissapating through black body radiation the temperature of space isn't really that relevant to cooling. You can radiate heat from the surface of the earth into space via the sky, but you don't lose much energy that way.
    - roflmaostc 3y ago
      > You can radiate heat from the surface of the earth into space via the sky, but you don't lose much energy that way. That's not quite true. Black body radiation is the only reason why earth does not heat up much more. It's the only factor with a negative radiative forcing. Solar radiation is the only main incoming source of energy, and black body radiation the only outcome with almost the same magnitude (which is huuuuge btw)
sl-1 3y ago
You can radiate it away, but it would be really hard compared to just dumping it to atmosphere / water bodies. Especially as computers need quite low temperatures. Here is some more analysis on the problem of radiating heat away in space: https://toughsf.blogspot.com/2017/07/all-radiators.html https://toughsf.blogspot.com/2017/07/all-radiators.html