Comment by legohead
4 hours ago
sure, the physics is solved: we know how radiators work, and we can calculate the area needed, blah blah. but we haven't put sustained-AI-computer systems into space yet - heat is a genuine concern, and personally I'm curious if they are developing something beyond simple radiators. if a ~1m^2 radiator works, great. but if the current test can only run the TPUs for ~15-minute bursts before it has to stop and dump heat, this issue isn't exactly "solved" in my book.
I don't understand your argument. Sounds like you're saying, "In theory it should work, but what if there are space pixies that keep rebooting the TPUs? What do we do then?"
The 15-minute figure is what they currently designed for because they have mass constraints. If they wanted a different figure (like forever) they could do it with a larger radiator.
As you said, the physics is solved! We know exactly how much heat a surface radiates in space--there is literally an equation for it. We know how to cool stuff in space. Will the price be low enough to make a profit? That's the real question. But stop worrying about cooling in space.
No one thinks we don't know how to cool things in space. Everyone is saying that it's not feasible because you'd have to put too much mass up. Stop derailing the conversation please.
If you have something useful to contribute regarding how to actually reasonably put up enough mass to make this remotely a feasible idea then please contribute. We have the technology to prevent global warming, and doing that is far easier than this, and yet even that is apparently not feasible for humanity.
I honestly don't get that. The current SpaceX design is for a ~4 ton satellite with 160 m^2 radiator with peak 250 kW output. You can launch 25 of those satellites on a single Starship launch. 160 Starship launches and you get 4,000 satellites with peak 1 GW compute.
What's unfeasible about that? SpaceX has already launched 10,000 Starlink satellites. Falcon 9 launches 150 times per year.