Comment by ben_w

> The more compute you do, the more heat you generate.

Yes, and yet I still fail to see the point you're making here.

Max power in space is either "we have x kWt of RTG, therefore our radiators are y m^2" or "we have x m^2 of nearly-black PV, therefore our radiators are y m^2".

Even for cases where the thermal equilibrium has to be human-liveable like the ISS, this isn't hard to achieve. Computer systems can run hotter, and therefore have smaller radiators for the same power draw, making them easier.

> And, thus, we wind up at the "how do we cool and maintain a giant space station?" again. With the added bonus of needing to do a spacewalk if you need to work on more than one rack.

What you're doing here is like saying "cars don't work for a city because a city needs to move a million people each day, and a million-seat car will break the roads": i.e. scaling up the wrong thing.

The (potential, if it even works) scale-up here is "we went from n=1 cluster containing m=81 satellites, to n=10,000 clusters each containing m=[perhaps still 81] satellites".

I am still somewhat skeptical that this moon-shot will be cost-effective, but thermal management isn't why, Musk (or anyone else) actually getting launch costs down to a few hundred USD per kg in that timescale is the main limitation.