Interesting analysis. There is however some very big holes in the "orbital datacenters" story, that make quite a lot of people think that, like Hyperloop, this is a decoy for other purposes (grabbing cash, getting rid of X as a sinking ship, getting more money in a SpaceX IPO, among many other theories).
What are the main holes ?
* first, bandwidth and latency. Sure, Starlink show that it's manageable, but we're talking of a several orders of magnitude larger scale here. Will it keep up?
* second , energy. People say things like "solar panels in space are more efficient than on the ground and can be permanently illuminated". That's true, however solar panels are big and heavy, and to be efficient, they also need ....
* third, and most important, cooling. No, space is not "cold". In fact, whatever is in sunlight in orbit is really hot, like 200°C. And your solar panels at 200°C needs cooling. Ditto your datacenter itself, which is making heat from all that solar energy. But in space, you can only radiate heat, which is really inefficient. The ISS has two 7.5 tons radiators, which each extracts 35kW of heat from the station. Of course we can imagine more effective radiators, and a cascade of heat pumps to reach higher temperature (like red hot) to radiate more efficiently for instance, but physics tells us that these radiators will be extremely bulky, which isn't optimal for space devices...
So of course, as a perpetual pessimist, I think these datacenters in space are complete baloney until proven otherwise :)
1. Latency is not a problem with datacenter data, you don't need the answers in milliseconds. Remember we're already waiting seconds to minutes for answers.
2. I'll cover this when I do datacenters in space
3. Ditto
For 2 and 3, I don't know if they're feasible. I know what the hypothesis is, I just need to check whether it's true or not
Not discussed is the effect of radiation on the AI chips function and spooky action at a distance quantum interference. Anything known about any requirements for shielding for that issue?
Radiation. They need to tolerate higher temperatures for this. This is the biggest physical obstacle I see too, so I’m just repeating Musk’s take on this. I need to look at the data independently.
Interesting analysis. There is however some very big holes in the "orbital datacenters" story, that make quite a lot of people think that, like Hyperloop, this is a decoy for other purposes (grabbing cash, getting rid of X as a sinking ship, getting more money in a SpaceX IPO, among many other theories).
What are the main holes ?
* first, bandwidth and latency. Sure, Starlink show that it's manageable, but we're talking of a several orders of magnitude larger scale here. Will it keep up?
* second , energy. People say things like "solar panels in space are more efficient than on the ground and can be permanently illuminated". That's true, however solar panels are big and heavy, and to be efficient, they also need ....
* third, and most important, cooling. No, space is not "cold". In fact, whatever is in sunlight in orbit is really hot, like 200°C. And your solar panels at 200°C needs cooling. Ditto your datacenter itself, which is making heat from all that solar energy. But in space, you can only radiate heat, which is really inefficient. The ISS has two 7.5 tons radiators, which each extracts 35kW of heat from the station. Of course we can imagine more effective radiators, and a cascade of heat pumps to reach higher temperature (like red hot) to radiate more efficiently for instance, but physics tells us that these radiators will be extremely bulky, which isn't optimal for space devices...
So of course, as a perpetual pessimist, I think these datacenters in space are complete baloney until proven otherwise :)
1. Latency is not a problem with datacenter data, you don't need the answers in milliseconds. Remember we're already waiting seconds to minutes for answers.
2. I'll cover this when I do datacenters in space
3. Ditto
For 2 and 3, I don't know if they're feasible. I know what the hypothesis is, I just need to check whether it's true or not
Thank you for tackling this issue for us, eager to see the follow-up :)
Not discussed is the effect of radiation on the AI chips function and spooky action at a distance quantum interference. Anything known about any requirements for shielding for that issue?
Great article.
Will discuss in the AI + Datacenters in space!
But I'm pretty certain this is OK
How will the data centers in space be cooled?
Radiation. They need to tolerate higher temperatures for this. This is the biggest physical obstacle I see too, so I’m just repeating Musk’s take on this. I need to look at the data independently.