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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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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.
They’re called fins. Not panels.
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They’re called fins, not panels.
You seem rather dull.
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.
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.
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?
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?
Radiators dissipate heat through…wait for it…
Radiation.
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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.
Right… and a carpet is a pet you keep in your car, got it.
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.