The problems; plural; is that the person who popularized the idea of data centers in space has little to zero understanding of any of the space sciences and yet owns and directs one of the world’s largest, and privately owned, aerospace companies with massive government contracts that splits its time with their own AI work.
Have you never seen a movie set in space? Evrytime someone gets sucked into space they freeze. You saying every movie got it wrong?? Space is cold. Duh.
It would be 20kW for each rack or two. The types of data centre deal they talk about these days are measured in GW of compute. That’s 50,000x just for 1GW.
Very large scale datacenters would likely have some nasty fluid handling problems to solve.
I’ll just note that I am not a fan of putting internet infrastructure in space. I think polluting the upper atmosphere with a bunch of metals every time a satellite deorbits will certainly have negative consequences. So IMO space should be limited to things we can’t do with earthbound infrastructure.
And you can only build so many of those radiator panels before you start running into congestion problems. You don’t want them radiating onto each other.
The area of radiator needed directly corresponds to the amount of power harvested by the solar panels. It doesn’t matter what the load is. So a compute frame with the same amount of solar panels as the space station would need approximately the same radiatot area as the ISS, unless you are bringing nuclear power into the mix.
I agree that space based datacenters are a bad idea, but the thermals really are not the gotcha people are making them out to be.
The solar panels needed is another problem for the space data center fantasy. Once you put together all the mass over enough surface area to make it work, you would blot out the sun worldwide.
Yeah the amount of heat a data center vs a satellite your going to super heat the space in that orbit over time. It they are geostationary then its even harder as the the data center doesn’t move away from the heat.
Um, it doesn’t make the data center in orbit thing make sense, but a geostationary satellite absolute moves at high speed and does not stay in the same place in space.
Thermal energy is primarily dissipated as infrared light which moves at the speed of light. There is no way for space to accumulate heat. If that were the case the entire solar system would be unlivable. The IR emitted by satellites is truly negligible in comparison to the electromagnetic radiation emitted by the sun.
Again, it doesn’t help the case, but just… no. The heat gets out of the spacecraft by radiating, and radiation doesn’t move in a circular orbit around Earth, it moves at speed of light outwards from where it started.
Radiators in space work by radiating electromagnetic energy(light). Heat can only accumulate in matter, not in space, so that is definitely not one of the things we need to worry about.
geostationary then its even harder as the the data center doesn’t move away from the heat.
Geostationary would leave the satellite in shadow anytime it was night time over the part of the earth since a geostationary orbit is stationary in the sky over a given point at the equator.
That doesn’t solve any of the cooling problems just saying that you do get some shadow at geostationary orbits.
There are other orbits that get less shadow though.
To do that they’d have to be filled with something other than something water based to be able to do that over a large area which would require constant maintenance to do so. It’s not easily feasible and I doubt people who want to do this or defend it realize that. I have to look it up but it takes Anhydrous Ammonia to perform that in the ISS. Like this is a bad idea and it fries my brain people trying to defend this.
Do you ever make posts that demonstrate what your opinions are or what your own thoughts are or do you just like to talk about other people and put them down cuz it makes you feel better?
Tell me you don’t know how radiators actually work without telling me. They dissipate heat via convection through the air surrounding them or gasses in general. What does space lack a significant amount of?
Yeah so there is some confusion here. The are radiators on cars or in houses, but those are more accurately heat exchangers. Then there are things like heat lamps, which are really IR radiators that convert electricity to infrared light that feels hot.
Most of the heat you feel at a camp fire is radiant from the flame, unless you are down wind and feeling some convective heat, but most of that heat goes straight up with the smoke.
Hard to say, but they’ve been using resistive radiative cooling In space a long time.
Also a tech ingredients made a neat video about building one and radiating heat out into space from the ground. It was cool to see what happened when it was cloudy and stopped working.
Oh, you got me, turned it around. Oh dear, whatever will I do? Oh right, remark how you don’t know and should stop supporting a stupid idea in the first place.
To prevent any moisture that might be in the air inside the data center from condensing onto electronics. Admit it, it’s a stupid idea and stop defending it as a legitimate one.
My question is always how the hell are you going to cool them. Do you know hard it is to move heat in a vacuum?
The problems; plural; is that the person who popularized the idea of data centers in space has little to zero understanding of any of the space sciences and yet owns and directs one of the world’s largest, and privately owned, aerospace companies with massive government contracts that splits its time with their own AI work.
We already have data centers in space.
Oh? Good. Problem solved then.
User name checks out, though
Have you never seen a movie set in space? Evrytime someone gets sucked into space they freeze. You saying every movie got it wrong?? Space is cold. Duh.
Please tell me you aren’t serious.
They are completely cereal!
Super cereal
dude! how do you expect anyone to answer if you don’t say surely you can’t be?
I am serious, and don’t call me dude!
Dude stop
Easy, just create a long heat sink and dangle it in the earth’s atmosphere. Now we are winning!
From that to a space elevator…
How would you power them?
The surface area of solar panels exceeds the surface area needed for radiators to cool everything.
In space I would imagine you’d find the perfect sandwich ratio. One bun solar, one bun radiators, the meat being the racks.
Raditors. Starlink v3 can in theory already shed (edit 20) kW of heat. But they would need to figure out how to 5x that and keep things profitable.
It would be 20kW for each rack or two. The types of data centre deal they talk about these days are measured in GW of compute. That’s 50,000x just for 1GW.
With radiators just like with every existing satellite system.
https://youtu.be/DCto6UkBJoI&t=12m57s
Very large scale datacenters would likely have some nasty fluid handling problems to solve.
I’ll just note that I am not a fan of putting internet infrastructure in space. I think polluting the upper atmosphere with a bunch of metals every time a satellite deorbits will certainly have negative consequences. So IMO space should be limited to things we can’t do with earthbound infrastructure.
Removed by mod
And you can only build so many of those radiator panels before you start running into congestion problems. You don’t want them radiating onto each other.
Removed by mod
The area of radiator needed directly corresponds to the amount of power harvested by the solar panels. It doesn’t matter what the load is. So a compute frame with the same amount of solar panels as the space station would need approximately the same radiatot area as the ISS, unless you are bringing nuclear power into the mix.
I agree that space based datacenters are a bad idea, but the thermals really are not the gotcha people are making them out to be.
The solar panels needed is another problem for the space data center fantasy. Once you put together all the mass over enough surface area to make it work, you would blot out the sun worldwide.
They’re called fins. Not panels.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Yeah the amount of heat a data center vs a satellite your going to super heat the space in that orbit over time. It they are geostationary then its even harder as the the data center doesn’t move away from the heat.
Geostationary satellites are not standing still. They’re orbiting the Earth at the same rate that it rotates “beneath” them.
Um, it doesn’t make the data center in orbit thing make sense, but a geostationary satellite absolute moves at high speed and does not stay in the same place in space.
The heat would be moving at the same speed. Though, that does mean it wouldn’t be any better in any other orbit.
Thermal energy is primarily dissipated as infrared light which moves at the speed of light. There is no way for space to accumulate heat. If that were the case the entire solar system would be unlivable. The IR emitted by satellites is truly negligible in comparison to the electromagnetic radiation emitted by the sun.
Again, it doesn’t help the case, but just… no. The heat gets out of the spacecraft by radiating, and radiation doesn’t move in a circular orbit around Earth, it moves at speed of light outwards from where it started.
Super heat what in that space? The point is there’s nothing to transfer heat to. All you can do is radiate infra-red light.
Radiators in space work by radiating electromagnetic energy(light). Heat can only accumulate in matter, not in space, so that is definitely not one of the things we need to worry about.
Geostationary would leave the satellite in shadow anytime it was night time over the part of the earth since a geostationary orbit is stationary in the sky over a given point at the equator.
That doesn’t solve any of the cooling problems just saying that you do get some shadow at geostationary orbits.
There are other orbits that get less shadow though.
It’ll be in shadow at midnight, yes, but not necessarily at any other time. Geostationary orbit is at about 7x the radius of the earth.
As such, the period when in will actually be in shadow is only a short period directly behind the planet.
A radiator. Next question?
What’s going to be performing convection to dissipate heat from the radiator in a manner to support the heat generated by an AI data center?
Obnoxious as he seems to be, he’s actually right, there will be no convection, but they’d radiate heat in a vacuum, by IR IIRC.
You’d need an enormous radiator to move the heat a data center puts out. Not even all the billionaires put together could afford that.
Sure, the idea is as bad as solar roadways. It’s actually kind of impressive to come up with an idea that bad.
To do that they’d have to be filled with something other than something water based to be able to do that over a large area which would require constant maintenance to do so. It’s not easily feasible and I doubt people who want to do this or defend it realize that. I have to look it up but it takes Anhydrous Ammonia to perform that in the ISS. Like this is a bad idea and it fries my brain people trying to defend this.
Yeah as I have already said, it’s kind of impressive how bad the idea is, I mean how can it be worse…
What part of radiator don’t you understand?
What you don’t understand is the size requirements those radiators would need to have to cool an entire data center.
It’s conserved.
Right. Exactly zero understanding on your part.
Zero effort shit post. Cool.
Do you ever make posts that demonstrate what your opinions are or what your own thoughts are or do you just like to talk about other people and put them down cuz it makes you feel better?
My opinion and thoughts: dunking on idiots online brings me joy.
So I guess the last one I suppose. If I just had to pick one.
Tell me you don’t know how radiators actually work without telling me. They dissipate heat via convection through the air surrounding them or gasses in general. What does space lack a significant amount of?
Yeah so there is some confusion here. The are radiators on cars or in houses, but those are more accurately heat exchangers. Then there are things like heat lamps, which are really IR radiators that convert electricity to infrared light that feels hot.
Most of the heat you feel at a camp fire is radiant from the flame, unless you are down wind and feeling some convective heat, but most of that heat goes straight up with the smoke.
There’s a difference certainly but do you think the people who seem to be floating this idea know the difference?
Hard to say, but they’ve been using
resistiveradiative cooling In space a long time.Also a tech ingredients made a neat video about building one and radiating heat out into space from the ground. It was cool to see what happened when it was cloudy and stopped working.
Radiative cooling is all you got in space.
Radiators dissipate heat through…wait for it…
Radiation.
deleted by creator
Right… and a carpet is a pet you keep in your car, got it.
Do you know how BIG they would have to be to dissipate a data center worth of heat to keep it as cool as on earth?
Do you?
Oh, you got me, turned it around. Oh dear, whatever will I do? Oh right, remark how you don’t know and should stop supporting a stupid idea in the first place.
Do you know how much heat they would need to retain?
To prevent any moisture that might be in the air inside the data center from condensing onto electronics. Admit it, it’s a stupid idea and stop defending it as a legitimate one.