3 ms·

As a thought experiment, if humanity wanted to go all in on trying to move industrial processes and data centers off planet, would it make more sense to do so o

by bs7280 8mo ago

As a thought experiment, if humanity wanted to go all in on trying to move industrial processes and data centers off planet, would it make more sense to do so on the moon? The moon has: - Some water - Some materials that can be used to manufacture crude things (like heat sinks?) - a ton of area to brute force the heat sink problem - a surface to burry the data centers under to solve the radiation problem - close enough to earth that remote controlled semi-automated robots work I think this would only work if some powerful entity wanted to commit to a hyper-scale effort.

vel0city 8mo ago
What if instead we moved it all to a closer rock that has even more water, even more materials to manufacture crude (and even advanced) things, even more surface, more protection from radiation, and even crazier still had significantly less launch costs? Almost any reason why the moon is better than in orbit is a point for putting it on earth.
- bs7280 8mo ago
  I think there's something to be said about imagining a future where we can keep the earth clean of all the nasty industrial processes we have grown accustomed to living next to. A big part about this proposed idea is that you could do a lot of manufactoring in space. I have long theorized there will be some game changing manufacturing processes that can only be done in a zero gravity environment. EX: - 3d printing human organ replacements to solve the organ donor problem - stronger materials - 3d computer chips I do not work in material science, so these crude ideas are just that, but the important part I'm getting at is that we can make things in space without any launches once that industry is bootstrapped.
  - chuckadams 8mo ago
    Human organs manage to grow pretty well in 1G. In fact, they're almost certainly going to be terrible at it in zero g.
  - vel0city 8mo ago
    We're able to make 3D computer chips on Earth today, and I don't know about you but all my organs managed to get made just fine on Earth. Doesn't seem like we need zero g to do either of these things. Either way, this isn't about 3D printing organs, this is about launching AI compute into space. To do important stuff, like making AI generated CSAM without worry of government intervention.
    - bs7280 8mo ago
      The first two kidneys are free its the third one that gets tricky
vidarh 8mo ago
Probably a lot easier, but the moon looses a major selling point of data centres in space, namely reasonable latency. To be clear, I don't think it's a good idea. But I think that specifically the way Musk is trying to position it, the moon would be an even harder sell.
- TacticalCoder 8mo ago
  > But I think that specifically the way Musk is trying to position it, the moon would be an even harder sell. I agree. I would be quite a moonshot.
snewman 8mo ago
Water on the moon is limited and difficult to collect, it wouldn't make sense to use it for industrial purposes. It's a very challenging thermal environment (baking during the day, freezing at night). But perhaps worst of all, every month there's a 14-day period with no solar power. Overall seems worse than low-earth orbit.
- munchler 8mo ago
  > every month there's a 14-day period with no solar power So it's dark 50% of the time on the moon... just like here on Earth.
  - foxglacier 8mo ago
    ... and completely not like a sun-synchronous Earth orbit which is dark 0% of the time.
strangeloops85 8mo ago
The elephant in the room for all lunar scenarios is lunar regolith. Even ignoring the toxicity to humans (big problem and will happen quite quickly for any humans there!), it will be a big long-term problem for robots and machinery in general.
- vel0city 8mo ago
  A lot of people don't quite understand how terrible of a material lunar regolith dust is. There's not much stuff on Earth quite like it. The Moon doesn't experience any weathering, so its all super sharp and jagged compared to how smooth even the grittiest sand is here on Earth. Its electrostatically charged so it wants to cling to dang near everything. Its highly toxic to breathe in for the same reason as miner's lung. It will work its way into every joint and seal.
DaedalusII 8mo ago
it could be easier just to build in orbit. its a lot closer, sites can be positioned above various geographic locations as required. i think the moon likely does contain vast mineral deposits though. when europeans first started exploring australia they found mineral anomalies that havent existed in europe since the bronze age. the Pilbara mining region is very cool. it contains something like 25% of the iron ore on earth, and it is mostly mined using 100% remote controlled robots and a custom built 1000 mile rail network that runs 200-300 wagon trains, mostly fully automated. it is the closest thing to factorio in real life. 760,100 tonnes a year of iron ore mined out and shipped to China.
- rswail 8mo ago
  And Fortescue and others are working on BEV vehicles for those giant Tonka trucks that move the raw ore to the processing areas at the top of the opencut. They were also working on a "zero energy" train that would run "downhill" from the mines to the ports to charge its batteries that would then take the empty train back to the mine. Battery tech wasn't sufficient (yet), but that doesn't mean it can't come back when solid state and sodium ion batteries come online.
  - DaedalusII 8mo ago
    have to take this stuff with a grain of salt. a lot of australian mining companies do this so their stock qualifies as ESG and pension funds can buy it. turns out pit mining is good for the environment after all https://www.fortescue.com/en/real-zero/green-metals https://www.fortescue.com/en/real-zero/green-metals
hahahahhaah 8mo ago
Best bet is to put the servers in a rocket, go around the moon then land back on earth. Then install them in USE1.
BurningFrog 8mo ago
The Moon also has 14 day long nights, while space has permanent sunlight for your solar panels. I suspect this is really the fundamental idea behind this whole plan.

by bs7280 8mo ago

vel0city 8mo ago

What if instead we moved it all to a closer rock that has even more water, even more materials to manufacture crude (and even advanced) things, even more surface, more protection from radiation, and even crazier still had significantly less launch costs? Almost any reason why the moon is better than in orbit is a point for putting it on earth.

bs7280 8mo ago
I think there's something to be said about imagining a future where we can keep the earth clean of all the nasty industrial processes we have grown accustomed to living next to. A big part about this proposed idea is that you could do a lot of manufactoring in space. I have long theorized there will be some game changing manufacturing processes that can only be done in a zero gravity environment. EX: - 3d printing human organ replacements to solve the organ donor problem - stronger materials - 3d computer chips I do not work in material science, so these crude ideas are just that, but the important part I'm getting at is that we can make things in space without any launches once that industry is bootstrapped.
- chuckadams 8mo ago
  Human organs manage to grow pretty well in 1G. In fact, they're almost certainly going to be terrible at it in zero g.
- vel0city 8mo ago
  We're able to make 3D computer chips on Earth today, and I don't know about you but all my organs managed to get made just fine on Earth. Doesn't seem like we need zero g to do either of these things. Either way, this isn't about 3D printing organs, this is about launching AI compute into space. To do important stuff, like making AI generated CSAM without worry of government intervention.
  - bs7280 8mo ago
    The first two kidneys are free its the third one that gets tricky

vidarh 8mo ago

Probably a lot easier, but the moon looses a major selling point of data centres in space, namely reasonable latency. To be clear, I don't think it's a good idea. But I think that specifically the way Musk is trying to position it, the moon would be an even harder sell.

TacticalCoder 8mo ago
> But I think that specifically the way Musk is trying to position it, the moon would be an even harder sell. I agree. I would be quite a moonshot.

snewman 8mo ago

Water on the moon is limited and difficult to collect, it wouldn't make sense to use it for industrial purposes. It's a very challenging thermal environment (baking during the day, freezing at night). But perhaps worst of all, every month there's a 14-day period with no solar power. Overall seems worse than low-earth orbit.

munchler 8mo ago
> every month there's a 14-day period with no solar power So it's dark 50% of the time on the moon... just like here on Earth.
- foxglacier 8mo ago
  ... and completely not like a sun-synchronous Earth orbit which is dark 0% of the time.

strangeloops85 8mo ago

The elephant in the room for all lunar scenarios is lunar regolith. Even ignoring the toxicity to humans (big problem and will happen quite quickly for any humans there!), it will be a big long-term problem for robots and machinery in general.

vel0city 8mo ago
A lot of people don't quite understand how terrible of a material lunar regolith dust is. There's not much stuff on Earth quite like it. The Moon doesn't experience any weathering, so its all super sharp and jagged compared to how smooth even the grittiest sand is here on Earth. Its electrostatically charged so it wants to cling to dang near everything. Its highly toxic to breathe in for the same reason as miner's lung. It will work its way into every joint and seal.

DaedalusII 8mo ago

it could be easier just to build in orbit. its a lot closer, sites can be positioned above various geographic locations as required. i think the moon likely does contain vast mineral deposits though. when europeans first started exploring australia they found mineral anomalies that havent existed in europe since the bronze age. the Pilbara mining region is very cool. it contains something like 25% of the iron ore on earth, and it is mostly mined using 100% remote controlled robots and a custom built 1000 mile rail network that runs 200-300 wagon trains, mostly fully automated. it is the closest thing to factorio in real life. 760,100 tonnes a year of iron ore mined out and shipped to China.

rswail 8mo ago
And Fortescue and others are working on BEV vehicles for those giant Tonka trucks that move the raw ore to the processing areas at the top of the opencut. They were also working on a "zero energy" train that would run "downhill" from the mines to the ports to charge its batteries that would then take the empty train back to the mine. Battery tech wasn't sufficient (yet), but that doesn't mean it can't come back when solid state and sodium ion batteries come online.
- DaedalusII 8mo ago
  have to take this stuff with a grain of salt. a lot of australian mining companies do this so their stock qualifies as ESG and pension funds can buy it. turns out pit mining is good for the environment after all https://www.fortescue.com/en/real-zero/green-metals https://www.fortescue.com/en/real-zero/green-metals

hahahahhaah 8mo ago

Best bet is to put the servers in a rocket, go around the moon then land back on earth. Then install them in USE1.

BurningFrog 8mo ago

The Moon also has 14 day long nights, while space has permanent sunlight for your solar panels. I suspect this is really the fundamental idea behind this whole plan.