3 ms·

> There is no easy passive cooling in space, getting rid of heat is a major problem Nonetheless getting rid of heat (by radiation) is possible, otherwise peopl

> There is no easy passive cooling in space, getting rid of heat is a major problem Nonetheless getting rid of heat (by radiation) is possible, otherwise people would be roasted inside the ISS. I'm sure all of these companies are advertising "ChatGPT in Space!" because that's what will generate hype and money, but what they'll actually be planning is very small edge data centers whose job is to reduce latency. Whether that makes financial sense, I have no idea. But I am sure it's at least physically possible for a small enough data center.

lxgr 1y ago
> very small edge data centers whose job is to reduce latency Reduce latency to where?
- trebligdivad 1y ago
  Could this be a military image processing use? - imagining you're scooping up earth observation in real time, if you AI analysed it locally and then just sent a 'Missile at coordinate.....' and then just the image where you spotted it, it wouldn't be so much the latency as the bandwidth reduction.
  - matt-p 1y ago
    But that's embedded compute on a satellite isn't it, not a data centre in space.
  - lxgr 1y ago
    In-orbital-plane data processing is an interesting idea! Laser links are much simpler to do between satellites in the same plane than across planes or even down to Earth.
echoangle 1y ago
Of course it’s possible. But they are acting like having the datacenter in space is actually an advantage over earth because space is cold. That’s like saying „if you’re thirsty on a ship, getting thrown into the sea is actually really nice because you will be around a lot of water.“. Physically, you could do it, but it won’t be simpler or cheaper than on earth. Except for constant solar availability, there are only downsides with this.
matt-p 1y ago
Reduce latency for what? I can't think of how, unless of course you ran a laser down to starlink or some other completely impractical plan.

lxgr 1y ago

> very small edge data centers whose job is to reduce latency Reduce latency to where?

trebligdivad 1y ago
Could this be a military image processing use? - imagining you're scooping up earth observation in real time, if you AI analysed it locally and then just sent a 'Missile at coordinate.....' and then just the image where you spotted it, it wouldn't be so much the latency as the bandwidth reduction.
- matt-p 1y ago
  But that's embedded compute on a satellite isn't it, not a data centre in space.
- lxgr 1y ago
  In-orbital-plane data processing is an interesting idea! Laser links are much simpler to do between satellites in the same plane than across planes or even down to Earth.

echoangle 1y ago

Of course it’s possible. But they are acting like having the datacenter in space is actually an advantage over earth because space is cold. That’s like saying „if you’re thirsty on a ship, getting thrown into the sea is actually really nice because you will be around a lot of water.“. Physically, you could do it, but it won’t be simpler or cheaper than on earth. Except for constant solar availability, there are only downsides with this.

matt-p 1y ago

Reduce latency for what? I can't think of how, unless of course you ran a laser down to starlink or some other completely impractical plan.