Orbital data centers, part 1: There’s no way this is economically viable, right? | “This is not physically impossible; it’s only a question of whether this is a rational thing.”
Orbital data centers, part 1: There’s no way this is economically viable, right? | “This is not physically impossible; it’s only a question of whether this is a rational thing.”
The ultra wealthy aren’t worried about money now. They want security through calamity. Data centers in space are just ai bunkers.
AbeFromanEast on
There’s no way for computer servers in space to cool themselves as quickly as on Earth. Convection isn’t available, only radiation. Which is far slower. Add to that: any semiconductors in space need to be hardened against radiation. That’s why space electronics usually aren’t just one generation behind, they’re several generations behind state of the art terrestrial tech. There is simply no way a chip like Nvidia’s H series or Vera would survive in a hard radiation environment.
By now folks should realize that when Elon Musk promises (soon!)
1. Living on Mars
2. Vacuum Train tunnels
3. Androids
4. Robotaxis nationwide
That he is deep in a K-hole and dreaming up ways to goose his stock price.
Nemo_Griff on
Put them at the bottom of the ocean.
Xyrus2000 on
Sure, data centers in space aren’t physically impossible. They’re just incredibly stupid from just about every viewpoint you’d care to look at it from.
The solar arrays on the ISS produce about 120KW of power. The typical power used by datacenters range from about 20MW to 100MW. This would require approximately 420,000 square meters of solar panels for a 20MW data center. This would be a square that is approximately 6.5 football field on each side.
And then, you have to get rid of the heat. There’s no transfer medium in space, so all heat would have to be radiated. The radiators needed to dissipate the waste heat would also be massive.
It would take many many trips to build just one small datacenter, and then maintenance costs afterward would be massive as well.
It’s hard to believe serious people are actually considering this.
MiddleSale5068 on
When hardware becomes obsolete on Earth it get recycled. What happens to obsolete hardware in orbit? It just gets burned up in the atmosphere? What’s the environmental impact of burning up all that hardware for every cpu upgrade?
CptKeyes123 on
It feels at best like putting the cart before the horse. I’ve had people disagree with me on this. There are serious technical challenges, like coolant and getting enough material up there to matter. I feel like if you want to make a project of this magnitude, it would be a better bet to make a space based solar power station. That would get you a lot of juice that could be used for applications beyond AI, and solving the engineering hurdles would generate a bunch of useful spinoff technologies.
CarneDelGato on
Again, what are they planning on doing about all the heat?
Flonkadonk on
Yeah you CAN build one if you want to, there’s no physics forbidding it, and all necessary technology exists. But there’s no comparative advantage to ground based centers. The constant solar power is a relatively miniscule boon that doesn’t make up the associated extra costs at all.
BlahBlahILoveToast on
Powering a data center in space would be a nightmare, cooling it would be a nightmare, maintaining it when stuff breaks down would be a nightmare. A project like this would cost 1000x more than just building the same capability on the surface.
The question is not “can you” but “why would you want to?”
SpaceyMcSpaceGuy on
It it *certainly* technically possible. There is nothing preventing anyone from constructing large foldable solar arrays and large foldable radiators – those things currently fly on many spacecraft, including Starlink sats.
It *could* be economically possible, but requires a large number of technological advancements in parallel:
1. You need launch cost to drop to around $100/kg. The theoretical limit for Starship is around $20/kg, but it obviously isn’t done or anywhere near that mark yet. Current best is Falcon around $1,000/kg. None of this is possible if Starship doesn’t work as planned.
2. You need sat power density to hit around 100 kW/ton. That requires a number of improvements:
* Chip junction temps need to rise to above 100 C sustained, which drops radiator area needed.
* Solar panels need to go > 1,000 W/kg. Current is around 300 W/kg
* Radiators need to go < 4 kg/m^2. Current is around 8 kg/m^2
3. You need the chips to not die
* Current failure rate is ~9%/year on the ground
* You need around CPU failure rate – 1.5%/year, but in Space with radiation
4. You need inter-satellite links to improve. Current laser links on Starlink handle 25 Gbps – **way** slower than connecting server racks with ethernet cables. You need around 1Tbps.
None of these are impossible. All are very hard.
MonkeyMercenaryCapt on
ELI5: Heat management requires stuff, it can be solid stuff, liquid stuff, gas stuff, sometimes a combination of stuff, hell sometimes you even directly involve turning one set of stuff into another set of stuff as part of the process.
Space does not have stuff.
JubalKhan on
At this point building data centers in space makes absolutely no sense. Components would need to be durable against radiation, launching parts and labour would carry an astronomical price (pun intended) and most importantly, cooling the servers with current tech (through radiation) is wildly ineffective (and servers generate A LOT of heat)…
Statements like these, by Ketamine Musk, and others, are just empty promises in order to manipulate stock prices and attract investments. And the fact that he’s able to do this speaks volumes about what kind of economic system we chose over alternatives.
o_MrBombastic_o on
It’s a con to lap up billions in investment money the AI bubble is about to burst this is the next thing they’ll get Wallstreet gambling addicts to invest in
Also, people are failing to understand the regulatory headwinds that data centers face. It’s not that space makes more sense. Its that the permitting process in the US is so difficult, that its actually more straightforward to put them in orbit. Localities simply don’t want data centers.
So I don’t disagree with all the assessments I’m seeing in this thread, just pointing out what’s pushing them in that direction.
Karsh14 on
Wouldn’t you be better to put data centres on the moon surface instead?
Although it still wouldn’t be ideal, at least you could have the heat dissipate in the cold surface of the moon.
In space, those orbital data centres are going to heat up extremely quickly with no way to shed all that access heat. You’d have to over engineer them to deal with the heat build up, and at that point you might as well just put them in the ocean.
PelvisResleyz on
It’s a ridiculous proposition that anybody with any familiarity of space tech can see. But the product isn’t actually data centers, it’s a financing scheme with a far fetched technology as a tagline. Looking at it that way, it makes a whole lot more sense.
16 Comments
The ultra wealthy aren’t worried about money now. They want security through calamity. Data centers in space are just ai bunkers.
There’s no way for computer servers in space to cool themselves as quickly as on Earth. Convection isn’t available, only radiation. Which is far slower. Add to that: any semiconductors in space need to be hardened against radiation. That’s why space electronics usually aren’t just one generation behind, they’re several generations behind state of the art terrestrial tech. There is simply no way a chip like Nvidia’s H series or Vera would survive in a hard radiation environment.
By now folks should realize that when Elon Musk promises (soon!)
1. Living on Mars
2. Vacuum Train tunnels
3. Androids
4. Robotaxis nationwide
That he is deep in a K-hole and dreaming up ways to goose his stock price.
Put them at the bottom of the ocean.
Sure, data centers in space aren’t physically impossible. They’re just incredibly stupid from just about every viewpoint you’d care to look at it from.
The solar arrays on the ISS produce about 120KW of power. The typical power used by datacenters range from about 20MW to 100MW. This would require approximately 420,000 square meters of solar panels for a 20MW data center. This would be a square that is approximately 6.5 football field on each side.
And then, you have to get rid of the heat. There’s no transfer medium in space, so all heat would have to be radiated. The radiators needed to dissipate the waste heat would also be massive.
It would take many many trips to build just one small datacenter, and then maintenance costs afterward would be massive as well.
It’s hard to believe serious people are actually considering this.
When hardware becomes obsolete on Earth it get recycled. What happens to obsolete hardware in orbit? It just gets burned up in the atmosphere? What’s the environmental impact of burning up all that hardware for every cpu upgrade?
It feels at best like putting the cart before the horse. I’ve had people disagree with me on this. There are serious technical challenges, like coolant and getting enough material up there to matter. I feel like if you want to make a project of this magnitude, it would be a better bet to make a space based solar power station. That would get you a lot of juice that could be used for applications beyond AI, and solving the engineering hurdles would generate a bunch of useful spinoff technologies.
Again, what are they planning on doing about all the heat?
Yeah you CAN build one if you want to, there’s no physics forbidding it, and all necessary technology exists. But there’s no comparative advantage to ground based centers. The constant solar power is a relatively miniscule boon that doesn’t make up the associated extra costs at all.
Powering a data center in space would be a nightmare, cooling it would be a nightmare, maintaining it when stuff breaks down would be a nightmare. A project like this would cost 1000x more than just building the same capability on the surface.
The question is not “can you” but “why would you want to?”
It it *certainly* technically possible. There is nothing preventing anyone from constructing large foldable solar arrays and large foldable radiators – those things currently fly on many spacecraft, including Starlink sats.
It *could* be economically possible, but requires a large number of technological advancements in parallel:
1. You need launch cost to drop to around $100/kg. The theoretical limit for Starship is around $20/kg, but it obviously isn’t done or anywhere near that mark yet. Current best is Falcon around $1,000/kg. None of this is possible if Starship doesn’t work as planned.
2. You need sat power density to hit around 100 kW/ton. That requires a number of improvements:
* Chip junction temps need to rise to above 100 C sustained, which drops radiator area needed.
* Solar panels need to go > 1,000 W/kg. Current is around 300 W/kg
* Radiators need to go < 4 kg/m^2. Current is around 8 kg/m^2
3. You need the chips to not die
* Current failure rate is ~9%/year on the ground
* You need around CPU failure rate – 1.5%/year, but in Space with radiation
4. You need inter-satellite links to improve. Current laser links on Starlink handle 25 Gbps – **way** slower than connecting server racks with ethernet cables. You need around 1Tbps.
None of these are impossible. All are very hard.
ELI5: Heat management requires stuff, it can be solid stuff, liquid stuff, gas stuff, sometimes a combination of stuff, hell sometimes you even directly involve turning one set of stuff into another set of stuff as part of the process.
Space does not have stuff.
At this point building data centers in space makes absolutely no sense. Components would need to be durable against radiation, launching parts and labour would carry an astronomical price (pun intended) and most importantly, cooling the servers with current tech (through radiation) is wildly ineffective (and servers generate A LOT of heat)…
Statements like these, by Ketamine Musk, and others, are just empty promises in order to manipulate stock prices and attract investments. And the fact that he’s able to do this speaks volumes about what kind of economic system we chose over alternatives.
It’s a con to lap up billions in investment money the AI bubble is about to burst this is the next thing they’ll get Wallstreet gambling addicts to invest in
Relevant Scott Manley video:
https://youtu.be/FlQYU3m1e80?si=nl97aOUwEOCUa9KW
Also, people are failing to understand the regulatory headwinds that data centers face. It’s not that space makes more sense. Its that the permitting process in the US is so difficult, that its actually more straightforward to put them in orbit. Localities simply don’t want data centers.
So I don’t disagree with all the assessments I’m seeing in this thread, just pointing out what’s pushing them in that direction.
Wouldn’t you be better to put data centres on the moon surface instead?
Although it still wouldn’t be ideal, at least you could have the heat dissipate in the cold surface of the moon.
In space, those orbital data centres are going to heat up extremely quickly with no way to shed all that access heat. You’d have to over engineer them to deal with the heat build up, and at that point you might as well just put them in the ocean.
It’s a ridiculous proposition that anybody with any familiarity of space tech can see. But the product isn’t actually data centers, it’s a financing scheme with a far fetched technology as a tagline. Looking at it that way, it makes a whole lot more sense.