Comment by lpapez
12 hours ago
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.
12 hours ago
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.
> - Power available 24/7 for "free"
The Sun is visible from Earth as well, the last time I checked.
In LEO you don't get power 24/7 because you are only 500km above the Earth. Yes the Sun is more attenuated on Earth but what we care about is $/W not raw wattage, and Earth certainly has cheaper $/W than space.
> - coms w/o interruption using existing infra
I'm perplexed how comms might be easier in space than on Earth where you can just run a cable.
> - Rideshare (SPX can build out capacity while other lifts pay some of the bill for lift)
On Earth you don't need to rideshare because you don't have to ride a rocket.
> - Nonregulation
Space is more regulated than Earth. The only way to get to space is via a rocket which is the same as an ICBM. Governments regulate the process of building ICBMs and what payloads can ride on them.
If you want non-regulation then go to international waters or find a bribable government.
> - Very low latency to "places of interest far from USA mountains"
The latency is not terrible in LEO but it's nowhere near as good as on Earth.
We're losing the direct chain of thought here. My assertion is that "Nonexistence of Mountaintop DC is not a counter-example to space DC". That's it. The reasons were spelled out.
Your points: "Mountaintop" is how comms is easier in space vs on earth. Starlink already serves many rural areas simply b/c it is easier to go to/from space in some places than "running a cable". "Latency is nowhere near as good as on earth" is just false. "Mountaintop" is why. But more broadly, my most recent vacation cabin has higher latency than starlink offers. Case closed I guess?
And one more on latency: I was referring to latency in areas of interest far from USA mountaintops / USA in general. You might want to peruse the DARPA programs on low latency in-situ, closed loop comms for in theater (sometimes space based) compute. Something close to the action.
Power: "Mountaintop" is how space has a better power case than earth. Not all of earth. Mountaintop earth. top level comment was talking about a wind turbine on a mountaintop. That's an attempt at 24h power which is very likely strictly worse.
You can step back and make larger arguments, but this thread is narrower.
"Space is more regulated than Earth". Yes, again, you're talking about wider counts of regulation. Just go look around at the pushback to data centers and you'll see some of the case for DC in space. The path to getting equipment into space is clean - just get permits and launch same as SPX does for starlink. The path to building a data center on a mountaintop probably encounters at least some non-paperwork pushback that's likely to trip big political fights. That's it. Are there a lot of mountaintops that are sufficiently cold to warrant "cooling" arguments that are not part of large state/federal parks?
So going back to the thread - if you believe that a mountaintop datacenter is a counter example to the feasibility of a space-based data center, then I think you're making a category error on some of the above criteria. Your comments don't dissuade me at all about that because they don't address either side of that argument.