Comment by kryptiskt
9 hours ago
Allow me to propose a modest alternative to space data centers, namely mountaintop data centers. This would consist of a container full of servers and GPUs and what else goes into a data center, a wind turbine for power and a communication module (say laser or microwave) for communicating with a base station with a fiber connection. This would be lifted on top of a mountain by a helicopter and bolted in place. Cooling would be provided by heat sinks exposed to the outside air. Some of the nodes could relay traffic from other nodes on remote mountain tops out of sight of the base station.
This scheme has many advantages over space data centers including launch costs, cooling, connection latency, servicability and ease of recycling.
I think we can't rule out the explanation that all the ideas of space data centers could be connected to a desire by some of finding additional applications for rockets that can transport stuff to space.
I think we can't rule out the explanation that all the ideas of space data centers could have been connected solely to a desire to pump SpaceX's IPO.
It also provides a post hoc rationale for rolling Elon's loss making businesses into SpaceX. The bull case for ODCs looks a lot like the bull case for space based solar power that Musk once called "the stupidest thing ever"...
That said, SpaceX aren't the only entity proposing ODCs, they're just the only ones promising they're going to make country-sized profits out of them...
A better idea is to put them on Mars, so people actually think before they send a stupid question.
I'm thinking if we send them out to catch the Voyager probe up, people might have time to write stuff themselves before they ask the computer to do it for them :)
You just need to go north. Most of Finland requires massive amounts of heating for most of the year for industrial and residential purposes. If the math doesn’t add up there, I really can’t see how math for orbital data centers would add up.
(I know this is a joke, but it made me think): I wonder what side effects having GW-level heat generation would have on the surrounding area. snowcapped mountains turn to rivers? Spring year round? Something else?
What advantage does a mountaintop have versus a more accessible earth-based location?
I suspect one of the motivations for space datacenters is to try to stay out of the reach of all jurisdictions so you Musk can start to run his companies as an autonomous state.
If the goal is to avoid various national jurisdictions, what about floating a barge out into international waters? Do it near the equator in the middle of the pacific to maximize the difficulty of humans getting there. Use the money saved by not needing to launch into orbit to purchase massive gun turrets to prevent piracy.
Instead of one large floating barge, make it a thousand smaller floating barges connected with Starlink. Monitor vessel activity near them and autonomously move the fleet to make intercepting them as difficult as possible. Rig them to explode upon capture to deter theft.
(Hint to the downvoters: I'm not being serious.)
A submarine comes by, says hi by torpedo, bye. Woe!
blub °Oo.
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What would be accomplished by doing this vs placing them basically anywhere else on earth?
It is a comment on the absurdity of orbital data centers. Mountaintop data centers sound absurd, but are more feasible and efficient than orbital ones in nearly every aspect.
Cooling is not the crux of the real problem, it's the fact that we have no way to replace single failed units in a running space-based data center without another launch - and if youre stressing your total launch cadence with 'new' datacenters, at what % do you repair or replace the whole slab.
The launch tempo, following the invention of a functioning approach to in-space single node replacement for even a modest portion of the planned workload capacity is something that strains credulity, even at the normal earth-level maintenance rate.
Addressing the increased failure rates due to the hard rads and geomagnetic effects, while demanding that orbital systems remain above nm% load - that's n% of the hardware still operating - at 100% power and thermal, or 100% of hardware at m% of power and thermal, or the intersection of those two slopes at any given time - in order to meet shareholders profit expectations pushes that launch cadence and cost - to maintain the baseline of workload... and well, the math of that for even a minimal % of earthbound current deployed demand is just staggeringly many launches per year.
Maybe i'm missing something, but bigger vehicles for putting larger payloads doesnt make it better, it makes it worse.
That's fine, if the argument for DC in space is just "Let's put them in the hardest place possible". Then less hard -> absurd, implies more harder -> more absurder.
But space based dc accomplish something that mountaintop dc do not. The different list of benefits/tradeoffs are why space DC are proposed and mountaintop ones are not. It's a difference of kind, not degree. It's not a meaningful experiment to just try to build DC in hard places and then we can finally validate space.
Stated benefits in particular:
- Power available 24/7 for "free"
- coms w/o interruption using existing infra
- Rideshare (SPX can build out capacity while other lifts pay some of the bill for lift)
- Nonregulation
- Very low latency to "places of interest far from USA mountains"
And no, I do not believe that mountaintop automatically satisfies these benefits in a smooth way such that mountaintop is a meaningful stepping stone towards space.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal
What about the rough weather and difficulty of maintenance, especially in rough weather?
Maintenance for a mountaintop data center only requires a team of skilled mountaineers. In space you'd need astronauts. It's at least an order of magnitude cheaper, perhaps two or three.
Nobody is doing maintenance on a small cluster in a satellite. It's disposable with a timespan of less than a decade to recoup all costs. Note that the usual argument to retire hardware is the electrical costs but when you've got lifetime solar you can run it indefinitely.
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