4 ms·

Orbital data centers are a dumb idea. Put a solar farm in the desert and add some batteries? That’s cheaper. So I wouldn’t be too worried about this, the econo

Orbital data centers are a dumb idea. Put a solar farm in the desert and add some batteries? That’s cheaper. So I wouldn’t be too worried about this, the economics of this won’t pan out.

cyanydeez 6mo ago
Datacenters need cooling. Cooling always externalizes heat go the environment. The places you want centers are cold and water available. Neither space or typical deaert.
- konschubert 6mo ago
  Still easier to cool in the desert than in space
  - andsoitis 6mo ago
    > Still easier to cool in the desert than in space What is the physics and the math than let you conclude that?
    - thrance 6mo ago
      Lack of medium in space so can't rely on convection or conduction there? This is really basic.
      - andsoitis 6mo ago
        But what if you need compute for activities in space? Is the desert on earth still a good option?
    - dmos62 6mo ago
      Presumably that vacuum is an insulator.
    - risc_taker 6mo ago
      [dead]
  - zajio1am 6mo ago
    You can do radiative cooling in space (you just need big radiators). You cannot do that reasonably in desert.
    - m4rtink 6mo ago
      Taking aside you certainly can do radiative cooling in desert at night just fine - you have air, which even if hot to desert standards during the day is still by magnitudes more effective for cooling via direct heat transfer than radiating heat away in vacuum.
      - cyanydeez 6mo ago
        I did realize geothermal would be the way to do it in the desert; the ground is still typically cooler than the heat computers give off. It's still problematic that most deserts dont haveaccess to groundwater, so bootstraping and maintenance are an issue.
    - konschubert 6mo ago
      You can try to put the heat underground. Maybe there is an aquifer you can use. Or maybe your desert is close to the coast! Still easier than radiating it into space.
    - risc_taker 6mo ago
      [dead]
- lostlogin 6mo ago
  A desert isn’t necessarily hot.
- cheald 6mo ago
  It's actually very easy to cool in deserts, because low humidity makes it very easy to move heat into the ambient air. You have to contend against ambient temperatures, but that's what insulation is for. The other big things you need for datacenters are reliable power and a low probability of infrastructure-disrupting natural disasters.
smackeyacky 6mo ago
The world seems to have become an abstract plaything for these billionaires why would they give a damn about practicality. This idiot shot a car into space for no good reason.
- konschubert 6mo ago
  He can blow his money on 1 million satellites that will all decay back into the atmosphere within a few years
  - smackeyacky 6mo ago
    Why should he be allowed to pollute the night sky like that?
    - Tadpole9181 6mo ago
      Not to mention the planet. Launching satellites takes an incredible amount of fuel.
  - squidbeak 6mo ago
    Decay and be replaced. You make it sound as if this is short term, like flinging confetti up in the air, instead of long term, like tiling a roof.
  - throw0101a 6mo ago
    > He can blow his money on 1 million satellites that will all decay back into the atmosphere within a few years He can also 'blow' his money on helping people by giving them opportunities: > In 1993, Harris Rosen “adopted” a run-down, drug-infested section of Orlando called Tangelo Park. Rosen offers free preschool for all children prior to kindergarten and a free college education for high school graduates. Today, the high school graduation rate for Tangelo Park is 100 percent. And no, that is not a typo. * https://www.ucf.edu/pegasus/harris-rosen/ https://www.ucf.edu/pegasus/harris-rosen/ * https://www.today.com/news/millionaire-uses-fortune-help-kids-struggling-town-1c9373666 https://www.today.com/news/millionaire-uses-fortune-help-kid...
schiffern 6mo ago
With today's very high orbital launch costs, it's trivially true that the desert is cheaper. With very low orbital launch costs, it's trivially true that space would become cheaper. Solar panels have no atmosphere/night/seasons and are always pointed at the Sun, no cover glass for hail, no 24h battery either. Radiators are 1/10th the area of PV which is very doable. The question is, where exactly is the tipping point between those two extremes, and will Starship reach that? Opinions on this naturally bifurcate depending on one's feelings about Elon Musk. I wouldn't be too worried because SpaceX engineers put a great deal of effort into reflection mitigation, including developing a space-rated mirror able to have an RF signal fire transparently through it.[1] The strategy is to bounce all the sunlight away from Earth, which makes satellites darker than even (hypothetically) covering a satellite in Vantablack. [1] https://youtu.be/MNc5yCYth5E?t=1717 https://youtu.be/MNc5yCYth5E?t=1717
- konschubert 6mo ago
  I don’t want to be foolishly dismissive, but I just don’t see how launch costs could be small enough to compensate for the huge overhead of putting things into space and maintaining things in space as opposed to literally any other place on earth. I think the burden of proof is on the people who want to tell us that this is economical to show the numbers
  - rlt 6mo ago
    Ok I’ll try: Starship becomes “fully and rapidly reusable”, needing little to no refurbishment between launches. Then the lower bound of launch costs is just the expendables (methane, oxygen, nitrogen) which could cost as little as $1M per launch. SpaceX uses custom silicon (produced by “TeraFab”) that can run at higher temperatures then the radiative cooling requirements goes down significantly and a 100 kW satellite might weight around 1 ton. Starship should be able to launch at least 100T payload. Assuming they could fit that many, that puts the launch cost per 100 kW at $10,000, which is a rounding error compared to the cost of the chips alone, even if it’s off by a factor of 10. Obviously a lot needs to go right for this to happen, but it’s not impossible.

Orbital data centers are a dumb idea. Put a solar farm in the desert and add some batteries? That’s cheaper. So I wouldn’t be too worried about this, the economics of this won’t pan out.

cyanydeez 6mo ago

Datacenters need cooling. Cooling always externalizes heat go the environment. The places you want centers are cold and water available. Neither space or typical deaert.

konschubert 6mo ago
Still easier to cool in the desert than in space
- andsoitis 6mo ago
  > Still easier to cool in the desert than in space What is the physics and the math than let you conclude that?
  - thrance 6mo ago
    Lack of medium in space so can't rely on convection or conduction there? This is really basic.
    - andsoitis 6mo ago
      But what if you need compute for activities in space? Is the desert on earth still a good option?
  - dmos62 6mo ago
    Presumably that vacuum is an insulator.
  - risc_taker 6mo ago
    [dead]
- zajio1am 6mo ago
  You can do radiative cooling in space (you just need big radiators). You cannot do that reasonably in desert.
  - m4rtink 6mo ago
    Taking aside you certainly can do radiative cooling in desert at night just fine - you have air, which even if hot to desert standards during the day is still by magnitudes more effective for cooling via direct heat transfer than radiating heat away in vacuum.
    - cyanydeez 6mo ago
      I did realize geothermal would be the way to do it in the desert; the ground is still typically cooler than the heat computers give off. It's still problematic that most deserts dont haveaccess to groundwater, so bootstraping and maintenance are an issue.
  - konschubert 6mo ago
    You can try to put the heat underground. Maybe there is an aquifer you can use. Or maybe your desert is close to the coast! Still easier than radiating it into space.
  - risc_taker 6mo ago
    [dead]
lostlogin 6mo ago
A desert isn’t necessarily hot.
cheald 6mo ago
It's actually very easy to cool in deserts, because low humidity makes it very easy to move heat into the ambient air. You have to contend against ambient temperatures, but that's what insulation is for. The other big things you need for datacenters are reliable power and a low probability of infrastructure-disrupting natural disasters.

smackeyacky 6mo ago

The world seems to have become an abstract plaything for these billionaires why would they give a damn about practicality. This idiot shot a car into space for no good reason.

konschubert 6mo ago
He can blow his money on 1 million satellites that will all decay back into the atmosphere within a few years
- smackeyacky 6mo ago
  Why should he be allowed to pollute the night sky like that?
  - Tadpole9181 6mo ago
    Not to mention the planet. Launching satellites takes an incredible amount of fuel.
- squidbeak 6mo ago
  Decay and be replaced. You make it sound as if this is short term, like flinging confetti up in the air, instead of long term, like tiling a roof.
- throw0101a 6mo ago
  > He can blow his money on 1 million satellites that will all decay back into the atmosphere within a few years He can also 'blow' his money on helping people by giving them opportunities: > In 1993, Harris Rosen “adopted” a run-down, drug-infested section of Orlando called Tangelo Park. Rosen offers free preschool for all children prior to kindergarten and a free college education for high school graduates. Today, the high school graduation rate for Tangelo Park is 100 percent. And no, that is not a typo. * https://www.ucf.edu/pegasus/harris-rosen/ https://www.ucf.edu/pegasus/harris-rosen/ * https://www.today.com/news/millionaire-uses-fortune-help-kids-struggling-town-1c9373666 https://www.today.com/news/millionaire-uses-fortune-help-kid...

schiffern 6mo ago

With today's very high orbital launch costs, it's trivially true that the desert is cheaper. With very low orbital launch costs, it's trivially true that space would become cheaper. Solar panels have no atmosphere/night/seasons and are always pointed at the Sun, no cover glass for hail, no 24h battery either. Radiators are 1/10th the area of PV which is very doable. The question is, where exactly is the tipping point between those two extremes, and will Starship reach that? Opinions on this naturally bifurcate depending on one's feelings about Elon Musk. I wouldn't be too worried because SpaceX engineers put a great deal of effort into reflection mitigation, including developing a space-rated mirror able to have an RF signal fire transparently through it.[1] The strategy is to bounce all the sunlight away from Earth, which makes satellites darker than even (hypothetically) covering a satellite in Vantablack. [1] https://youtu.be/MNc5yCYth5E?t=1717 https://youtu.be/MNc5yCYth5E?t=1717

konschubert 6mo ago
I don’t want to be foolishly dismissive, but I just don’t see how launch costs could be small enough to compensate for the huge overhead of putting things into space and maintaining things in space as opposed to literally any other place on earth. I think the burden of proof is on the people who want to tell us that this is economical to show the numbers
- rlt 6mo ago
  Ok I’ll try: Starship becomes “fully and rapidly reusable”, needing little to no refurbishment between launches. Then the lower bound of launch costs is just the expendables (methane, oxygen, nitrogen) which could cost as little as $1M per launch. SpaceX uses custom silicon (produced by “TeraFab”) that can run at higher temperatures then the radiative cooling requirements goes down significantly and a 100 kW satellite might weight around 1 ton. Starship should be able to launch at least 100T payload. Assuming they could fit that many, that puts the launch cost per 100 kW at $10,000, which is a rounding error compared to the cost of the chips alone, even if it’s off by a factor of 10. Obviously a lot needs to go right for this to happen, but it’s not impossible.