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Are folks still thinking orbital data centers are an impossibility? Because this is a strong part of the motivation for those.
by pfdietz 3mo ago
Are folks still thinking orbital data centers are an impossibility? Because this is a strong part of the motivation for those.
- Bjartr 3mo agoA data center on a ship out in the ocean is orders of magnitude cheaper and orders of magnitude more capable. If we can't demonstrate a solution to the heat problem, in-orbit DCs that contribute meaningful compute are a fantasy and nothing more.
- pfdietz 3mo agoSolar power in space is potentially very cheap; solar on a ship is not. The heat problem has demonstrable solutions that people who are physics challenged can't seem to get themselves to accept.
- malfist 3mo ago> Solar power in space is potentially very cheap Only if you ignore the cost of getting in there
- pfdietz 3mo agoNo, even if you include that. Remember to not commit the mistake of thinking current launch costs are written in stone for all time to come.
- Der_Einzige 3mo agoYou think the heat problem has solutions in space? Good luck! Unfortunately this is a harsh mistress. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan%E2%80%93Boltzmann_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan%E2%80%93Boltzmann_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_cooling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_cooling You don't in fact have viable solutions to this problem when orbital launch prices are above like 100USD per ton, probably needs to be closer to 20USD per ton.
- pfdietz 3mo agoYou confused $/kg with $/ton.
- Der_Einzige 2mo agoSorry, yes.
- aprentic 3mo agoWhat's the solution to the heat problem?
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- pfdietz 3mo agoHeat pumps and radiators. Pumping heat to 2x the absolute temperature reduces the size of the radiator by ideally up to a factor of 8.
- s0ss 3mo agoI choose to accept reality. Until someone can do it, it hasn’t been done. Once that happens, this will cease being vaporware. The bubble is filled with vapors and those who drank the koolaide can’t seem to get themselves to accept.
- pfdietz 3mo agoThis is an attitude that sets one up to be blindsided by developments. It's backward looking, not forward looking.
- ByThyGrace 3mo agoOTOH wave power should potentially be very cheap in the middle of the ocean.
- bryanlarsen 3mo agoSolar power in space is not cheap. It's efficient. A solar panel in space produces 4-10X as much power as one on land. Which would be relevant if solar panels or land were scarce and expensive. Neither are. It's easier and cheaper to put 4-10X the number of panels on land.
- pfdietz 3mo agoWhat part of "potentially" didn't you understand? The critics of space data centers seem to be focused on the immediate instant and downplaying any potential tech improvements.
- scrumper 3mo ago> The heat problem has demonstrable solutions that people who are physics challenged can't seem to get themselves to accept. Go on then, what are they? Demonstrable, you said. Show us some demonstrations please.
- Bjartr 3mo agoI've yet to hear of any solution to the heat problem, only vague handwaves that it will be solved. But it's the single largest and most challenging obstacle (amongst a set of large, challenging obstacles) My searches aren't turning anything up, would you mind sharing what you know about solutions to the heat problem or point me towards a resource if can learn from?
- anonymars 3mo agoIt still doesn't make any sense: if they're not going to use bodies of water to cool them in space, they can not use a body of water to cool them in the middle of nowhere. The same with the solar panels
- scrumper 3mo agoThe water moves the heat from the DC to some near-infinite sink (ocean, river, atmosphere if evaporative, whatever.) In space it's quite (very) hard to move the heat anywhere. So water cooled ocean DC is more realistic than an orbital DC. If they were talking about putting them on the moon I'd get it; use the moon itself as a giant heat sink. Latency isn't ideal but for applications where that's not a problem (like AI; 3s round trip isn't meaningful in the context of a chat session) then why not.
- aprentic 3mo agoNot impossible but I'm still curious how they're planning to deal with heat. I'd also wonder if the folks who don't want to live within 3 miles of a data center are OK with the data center flying over their head
- Der_Einzige 3mo agoNo they aren't because it was never about the externalities of the data center itself (for most - it was for a few people who actually were screwed by the noise, for example). Instead, it's because most of this crowd are anti-AI luddites who hate that change is happening too fast for their minds to comprehend or adapt to. They stand in the way of a nearly limitless number of positive outcomes from this technology and directly have blood on their hands that they wipe away with thought terminating cliches like "precautionary principle"
- mapping365 3mo agoOr look at it this way, a massive change has been forced on the public through the decisions of a small number of people. Basically the whole "Accept your fate, it is inevitable" backfired spectacularly. The people were robbed of their agency, their democratic process. This is just the democratic will reasserting its agency.
- dmix 3mo agoThe modern version of democratic will is a sudden need to ban everything because you saw some outrage articles on social media.
- mapping365 3mo agoI think that ignores the scale and speed of what is happening with the buildout. That it's gotten to the point that states are putting in moratoriums, thats pretty incredible. I've never seen political government forces mobilize this quickly except in some sort of emergency situation.
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- WarmWash 3mo agoAnyone reading between the lines understands datacenter deployment has little to do with datacenters and a lot to do with kneecapping AI development. If datacenters in space become a thing, you'll hear your neighbor talking about how rockets poison the air.
- tzs 3mo agoIt depends on the scale. If space data centers become a thing at the scale Musk and others are talking about (millions of space data centers) then rockets will indeed became a major issue for the atmosphere, as will the space data centers themselves. The total atmospheric pollution from rockets, even at that scale, will be small compared the total from terrestrial sources but unfortunately atmospheric pollution works like real estate: location matters. Orbital rockets deposit stuff into the upper stratosphere which is about the worst place you can put. Things there have effects massively disproportionate to the same amount of the same things emitted into the lower atmosphere by terrestrial sources. Some have up to 500x the effect when emitted in the upper stratosphere than when emitted by airplanes or on the ground. It's been OK so far because in the entire history of rockets there have only been about 7500 orbital launches (which are what matter for the upper stratosphere--see below). With a million space data centers which are expected to each have a useful life of 5 years there would have to be about 2000 Starship launches (@100 data centers per launch) per year just for replacing the ones that have reached EOL. That's after the 10000 launches for initial deployment. Worse, satellites damage the upper stratosphere on reentry. With a million space data centers that's 200k reentries per year. The cumulative number of reentries so far is around 10k satellites and spent rocket bodies, and around 25k if we count smaller things that we can track like debris. There have been tens of thousands of suborbital launches that have reached the upper stratosphere but most of them have been sounding rockets which are small enough that the cumulative pollution from all of them is less than a year's worth of current orbital launches. On top of that most of the sounding rockets were for weather monitoring and have been replaced by balloons. Current sounding rocket use is negligible. There have also been ballistic missiles but by the time those are in the upper stratosphere they are ballistic and don't pollute much. Hence it is only orbital launches we have to worry about.
- lapcat 3mo agoThe motivation for this idea is to inflate the price of SPCX.