I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about using satellites for data processing lately. The benefit is better energy generation as I have understood it. But isn’t there a problem in that satelites are bad at expelling excess heat, since they can only do so passively?
It’s an idea used to justify merging xAI (burning through cash) and SpaceX (more profitable*). It’s not remotely practical due to heat dissipation, general complexity, additional cost, and complete inability to service broken components.
- heat (dissipation)
- power
- network bandwidth
- cosmic rays (shielding)
- part failures (with so many parts, there’s always something broken
- eol parts (lifecycling in 3-5 yrs avg)
They are all challenges that can be overcome. But at what cost. Consensus is that economically it seems hilariously unviable. Datacenters tend to have to make their money back within about 3 years. The 3 year make money back issue is also why I believe the AI DC buildout is such a high risk gamble/bubble. In a year or two, all that hardware they made a year ago will need to be replaced. You just redo the whole investment again…
Yep. Data center in space is about as dumb as an underwater bakery.
That actually isn’t a bad analogy
No <3
Data processing in space can be useful, albeit not in the way that Musk seems to sell it. I spoke with some people from a space startup (edgx) at a jobfair in Belgium half a year ago.
Their thing was that they did some data processing in space to cut down on bandwidth (so this is specifically for applications where satellites are a necessary component). I also remember specifically asking them about cosmic rays and they told me it’s definitely manageable because their computers fly in LEO. (They already have a computer in space)
The amount of energy required to send a human up there for maintenance is, literally, astronomical. Can a datacenter run at a profit with zero humans and up in space? Your guess is as good as mind.
Nah, man. I have an issue with your wording. You have not been “hearing a lot of talk”. You are quoting one specific lie of a prolific grifter.
Nobody in their right mind agrees with this. If you had put your question as “Elon Musk, owner of a satellite launching company, as well as several money burning pits, wants others to pay him to put some of those money burners into orbit. Is there any sense to this?”, the answer would be trivial.
It has come up in talks with a friend of mine, I have read an independent article on it and I have also read Musk wants to do it. That is my experience with the topic. I think it’s patronizing that you tell me how I should phrase my question.
Of course you would. But I also don’t quite believe you. Everybody lies on the internet, and when I see corporate PR being regurgitated by someone pretending to be “just one of us”, indignant when confronted, expecting the benefit of the doubt, I call it out.
Well just the other day I was doing my regular human activities with my biological friend Frobert, and just between consuming two Earth crustaceans, we came to talk about the benefits of alchemy to transmute people into gold. We’ve got the idea from Grok.
It doesn’t matter to me whether you’re an actual shill or someone genuinely uninformed whose talking points reflect whatever a shill would say. If you give me the Musk fan impression, I’m gonna give you the Musk fan treatment. Call me patronising if you want 🤷.
Yeah, you’re being an ass.
I found several companies planning on launching data centers into orbit.
Blue Origin, Orbital, Aetherflux, and Starcloud.
only one of those even has a launch platform
And that matters … how?
Because “planning to” in this case is practically code for “grifting their investors with fairytales”, especially with these people. The self-driving car, the underground tunnel that would replace motorways, the chatbot that would replace people, the Mars colony, these are all lies no matter if it’s Musk saying them or anyone else trying to get some of the same easy money.
That’s not the point. I agree space data centers are dumb. The point is it’s not as impossible sounding to many people as you make it out to be.
Woosh
My understanding is that computers in space need to have redundancies in the hardware design because bit flips are a lot more common. Radiation and whatnot. Regardless, you can’t just shove some parts in a case and expect it to work. At least not for very long.
Well, no, because generally things that don’t work at all don’t make money.
Scott Manley did a video that went through the numbers and formulae to calculate how cooling works for these sorts of satellites. Unsurprisingly, the professional satellite designers who think this is a reasonable thing appear to be correct about it.
There’s a lot of misinformation circulating about how it’s impossible to cool things effectively in space, but it’s really not a complicated or new field. I think people mostly just want it to not work and stop there.
No, they are not. Putting a data center in space is a completely ridiculous idea. You can probably build and run hundreds of data centers on earth for the price of one in orbit.
I’d really like to know who put this utter nonsense idea in circulation. Wouldn’t be surprized if it was Elons idea…
its expensive, like how they suggested the ocean as well.
No, it’s a stupid idea through and through.
Yes because it’s a bubble, none of them make real money so it’s a waste to actually build them, but you have to fake it to scam investors. On earth the investors will look at land purchases and permits and power contracts and construction, so you have to spend millions of dollars to fake it. You can trade stock back and forth with Nvidia and “order” infinite chips that will never exist but you can’t do that for electricians.
In space you just have to already own a vanity project rocket company. You fill out a form with the FCC and get a theoretical permit to launch “up to” 100 quadrillion datacenters into space, and then just point to a windowless factory that might theoretically have the capacity to make datacenter satellites but you can’t let them see inside because you have classified defense contracts. Who knows might be a trillion dollars in shareholder value in there, you can’t prove there isn’t.
They’re good for people selling rocket launches.
No
