Comment by smlacy
3 months ago
The ultimate "out of sight out of mind" solution to a problem?
I'm surprised that Google has drunken the "Datacenters IN SPACE!!!1!!" kool-aid. Honestly I expected more.
It's so easy to poke a hole in these systems that it's comical. Answer just one question: How/why is this better than an enormous solar-powered datacenter in someplace like the middle of the Mojave Desert?
From the post they claim 8 times more solar energy and no need for batteries because they are continuously in the sun. Presumably at some scale and some cost/kg to orbit this starts to pencil out?
You're trading an 8x smaller low-maintenance solid-state solar field for a massive probably high-maintenance liquid-based radiator field.
Can't be high maintenance if we just make it uncrewed, unserviceable and send any data center with catastrophically failed cooling to Point Nemo /s
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No infrastructure, no need for security, no premises, no water.
I think it's a good idea, actually.
> No infrastructure
A giant space station?
> no need for security
There will be if launch costs get low enough to make any of this feasible.
> no premises
Again… the space station?
> no water
That makes things harder, not easier.
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Think to any near-future spacecraft, or idea for spaceships cruising between Earth and the Moon or Mars, that aren't single use. What are (will be) such spacecraft? Basically data centers with some rockets glued to the floor.
It's probably not why they're interested in it, but I'd like to imagine someone with a vision for the next couple decades realized that their company already has data centers and powering them as their core competency, and all they're missing is some space experience...
Sure, if you don't mind boiling the passengers.
Heat management is table stakes. It's important, but boring. Nothing to obsess about.
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I think the atmosphere absorbs something like 25% of energy. If that's correct, you get a free 33% increase in compute by putting more compute behind a solar power in LEO
And you can pretty much choose how long you want your day to be (within limits). The ISS has a sunrise every 90 minutes. A ~45 minute night is obviously much easier to bridge with batteries than the ~12 hours of night in the surface. And if you spend a bunch more fuel on getting into a better orbit you even get perpetual sunlight, again more than doubling your energy output (and thermal challenges)
I have my doubts that it's worth it with current or near future launch costs. But at least it's more realistic than putting solar arrays in orbit and beaming the power down
> How/why is this better than an enormous solar-powered datacenter in someplace like the middle of the Mojave Desert?
Night.
I mean, how good an idea this actually is depends on what energy storage costs, how much faster PV degrades in space than on the ground, launch costs, how much stuff can be up there before a Kessler cascade, if ground-based lasers get good enough to shoot down things in whatever orbit this is, etc., but "no night unless we want it" is the big potential advantage of putting PV in space.