5 ms·

lol WHAT? AI datacenters are bottlenecked by power, bandwidth, cooling, and maintenance. Ok sure maybe the Sun provides ample power, but if you are in LEO, you

by kortex 8mo ago

lol WHAT? AI datacenters are bottlenecked by power, bandwidth, cooling, and maintenance. Ok sure maybe the Sun provides ample power, but if you are in LEO, you still have to deal with Earth's shadow, which means batteries, which means weight. Bandwidth you have via starlink, fine. But cooling in space is not trivial. And maintenance is out, unless they are also planning some kooky docking astromech satellite repair robot ecosystem. Maybe the Olney's lesions are starting to take their toll. Weirdest freaking timeline.

crote 8mo ago
The shadow thing can be solved by using a sun-synchronous orbit. See for example the TRACE solar observation satellite, which used a dawn/dusk orbit to maintain a constant view of the sun. Cooling, on the other hand? No way in hell.
- giancarlostoro 8mo ago
  The cooling is the bit where I'm lost on, but it will be interesting to see what they pull off. It feels like everyone forgets Elon hires very smart people to work on these problems, it's not all figured out by Elon Musk solely.
  - spikels 8mo ago
    Google, Blue Origin and a bunch of other companies have announced plans for data centers in space. I don't think cooling is the showstopper some assume.
    - giancarlostoro 8mo ago
      Good call out, and really interesting. SpaceX being the cheapest way to get things into space, it seems like SpaceX is about to become extremely lucrative.
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
- clausz 8mo ago
  Every telco satellite can cool its electronics. However, more than a few kW is difficult. The ISS has around 100kW and is huge and in a shadow half the time.
- SJC_Hacker 8mo ago
  > Cooling, on the other hand? No way in hell. Space is actually really cold when the sun is blocked So, solar panels on side, GPUs on the other, maybe with a big ass radiator ...
  - kristjansson 8mo ago
    Space is empty, not cold.
    - SJC_Hacker 8mo ago
      > Space is empty, not cold. The "dark" side of the JWST has temperature of about 40 K (-233 C)
  - derrida 8mo ago
    How does a radiator work in a vacuum?

by kortex 8mo ago

crote 8mo ago

The shadow thing can be solved by using a sun-synchronous orbit. See for example the TRACE solar observation satellite, which used a dawn/dusk orbit to maintain a constant view of the sun. Cooling, on the other hand? No way in hell.

giancarlostoro 8mo ago
The cooling is the bit where I'm lost on, but it will be interesting to see what they pull off. It feels like everyone forgets Elon hires very smart people to work on these problems, it's not all figured out by Elon Musk solely.
- spikels 8mo ago
  Google, Blue Origin and a bunch of other companies have announced plans for data centers in space. I don't think cooling is the showstopper some assume.
  - giancarlostoro 8mo ago
    Good call out, and really interesting. SpaceX being the cheapest way to get things into space, it seems like SpaceX is about to become extremely lucrative.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
clausz 8mo ago
Every telco satellite can cool its electronics. However, more than a few kW is difficult. The ISS has around 100kW and is huge and in a shadow half the time.
SJC_Hacker 8mo ago
> Cooling, on the other hand? No way in hell. Space is actually really cold when the sun is blocked So, solar panels on side, GPUs on the other, maybe with a big ass radiator ...
- kristjansson 8mo ago
  Space is empty, not cold.
  - SJC_Hacker 8mo ago
    > Space is empty, not cold. The "dark" side of the JWST has temperature of about 40 K (-233 C)
- derrida 8mo ago
  How does a radiator work in a vacuum?