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A former NASA engineer with a PhD in space electronics who later worked at Google for 10 years wrote an article about why datacenters in space are very technica

• taurath 8mo ago
  We don’t even have a habitable structure in space when the ISS falls, there is no world in which space datacenters are a thing in the next 10, I’d argue even 30 years. People really need to ground themselves in reality. Edit: okay Tiangong - but that is not a data center.
  • nickff 8mo ago
    Who is “we”? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong_space_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong_space_station
    • taurath 8mo ago
      Good point. Still a long, long way from data centers.
      • whamlastxmas 8mo ago
        We have 15,000 satellites in orbit that are almost literally the exact same premise currently being proposed - a computer with solar panels attached. We've being doing exactly this for decades.
  • TheBlight 8mo ago
    Ok then short SpaceX stock when it IPOs.
    • taurath 8mo ago
      What does stock price have to do with anything? That someone could put a data center in space for the price of 100 years of eliminating world hunger doesn’t mean shit.
      • satvikpendem 8mo ago
        People always make this claim about world hunger elimination with no sources. Keep in mind we make more than enough calories to feed everyone on the planet many times over, it's a problem of distribution, of getting the food to the right areas and continuing cultivation for self sufficiency.
        • taurath 8mo ago
          That’s right, it’s an allocation of resources problem, and some people seem to control almost all the resources.
          • satvikpendem 8mo ago
            Even the most magnanimous allocators cannot defeat the realities of boots on the ground in terms of distribution. It is a very difficult problem that cannot be solved top down, the only solution we've seen is growth of economic activity via capitalistic means, lifting millions, billions out of poverty as Asia has done in the last century for example.
            • lpcvoid 8mo ago
              I argue that if you have literal hundreds of billions of hard cash to burn for stupid things like AI datacenters, you could afford to make the lives of millions of starving people not suck instead, pretty easily so. But to do that, you'd have to try, and that would mean actually doing something good for humanity. Can't have that as a billionaire.
  • tzs 8mo ago
    I don't think any of the companies that say they are working on space data centers intend them to be habitable.
  • IX-103 8mo ago
    I don't know, 10 years seems reasonable for development. There's not that much new technology that needs to be developed. Cooling and communications would just require minor changes to existing designs. Other systems may be able to be lifted wholesale with minimal integration. I think if there were obstacles to building data centers on the ground then we might see them in orbit within the next ten years. I don't see those obstacles appearing though.
    • doctorwho42 8mo ago
      The same things you are saying about data centers in space was said by similar people 10-15 years ago when Elon musk said SpaceX would have a man on Mars in 10-15 years. We have had the tech to do it since the 90's, we just needed to invest into it. Same thing with Elon Musks hyperloop, aka the atmospheric train (or vactrain) which has been an idea since 1799! And how far has Elon Musks boring company come to building even a test loop? Yeah, in theory you could build a data center in space. But unless you have a background in the limitations of space engineering/design brings, you don't truly understand what you are saying. A single AI data center server rack takes up the same energy load of 0.3 to 1 international space station. So by saying Elon musk can reasonable achieve this, is wild to anyone who has done any engineering work with space based tech. Every solar panel generates heat, the racks generate heat, the data communication system generates, heat... Every kW of power generated and every kW of power consumes needs a radiator. And it's not like water cooling, you are trying to radiate heat off into a vacuum. That is a technical challenge and size, the amount of tons to orbit needed to do this... Let alone outside of low earth... Its a moonshot project for sure. And like I said above, Elon musk hasnt really followed through with any of his moonshots.
      • throwup238 8mo ago
        > A single AI data center server rack takes up the same energy load of 0.3 to 1 international space station. The ISS is powered by eight Solar Array Wings. Each wing weighs about 1,050kg. The station also has two radiator wings with three radiator orbital replacement units weighing about 1,100kg each. That's about 15,000 kg total so if the ISS can power three racks, that's 5,000kg of payload per rack not including the rack or any other support structure, shielding, heat distribution like heat pipes, and so on. Assuming a Falcon Heavy with 60,000 kg payload, that's 12 racks launched for about $100 million. That's basically tripling or quadrupling (at least) the cost of each rack, assuming that's the only extra cost and there's zero maintenance.
  • JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
    > We don’t even have a habitable structure in space Silicon is way more forgiving than biology. This isn’t an argument for this proposal. But there is no technical connection between humans in space and data centers other than launch-cost synergies.
    • fluoridation 8mo ago
      Okay, but a human being represents what, 200 W of power? The ISS has a crew of 3, so that's less than a beefy single user AI workstation at full tilt. If the question is whether it's practical to put 1-2 kW worth of computing power in orbit, the answer is obviously yes, but somehow I don't think that's what's meant by "datacenter in space".
    • deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
  • rlt 8mo ago
    We also don't have fully reusable launch vehicles, yet. But we will shortly. That will decrease the cost of launch by at least an order of magnitude. Still there will be a lot of engineering problems to solve. 2-3 years seems very short, but 10 years seems long to me.
• edhelas 8mo ago
  "Technically challenging", a nice way to say "impossible"
  • boxedemp 8mo ago
    Just like rockets landing themselves
    • sollewitt 8mo ago
      No, rockets landing themselves is just controlling the mechanism you use to have them take off, and builds on trust vectoring technology from 1970s jet fighters based on sound physics. Figuring out how to radiate a lot of waste heat into a vacuum is fighting physics. Ordinarily we use a void on earth as a very effective _insulator_ to keep our hot drinks hot.
      • fourseventy 8mo ago
        His point is that everyone said landing and reusing rockets was impossible and made fun of Elon and SpaceX for years for attempting it.
        • SmirkingRevenge 8mo ago
          He also said he could save the us a trillion dollars per year with DOGE, and basically just caused a lot data exfiltration and killed hundreds of thousands of people, without saving any money at all
          • sejje 8mo ago
            Elon Musk killed hundreds of thousands of people?
            • SmirkingRevenge 8mo ago
              Yes. Mostly kids, because of the DOGE ransacking of USAID https://healthpolicy-watch.news/the-human-cost-one-year-after-the-us-took-a-chainsaw-to-global-health/ https://healthpolicy-watch.news/the-human-cost-one-year-afte...
• jaimex2 8mo ago
  No one is interested in excuses on why it can't be done. Were in interested in the plan on how they plan to do it. The guy is saying satellite communication is restricted to 1Gbps ffs. SpaceX is way past that.
• YetAnotherNick 8mo ago
  > It(Solar) works, but it isn't somehow magically better than installing solar panels on the ground Umm, if this is the point, I don't know whether to take rest of author's arguments seriously. Solar only works certain time of the day and certain period of year on land. Also there is so limited calculations for the numbers in the article, while the article throws of numbers left and right.
  • jhanschoo 8mo ago
    > Solar only works certain time of the day and certain period of year on land The same goes for LEO!
    • YetAnotherNick 8mo ago
      Most space datacenter plan plans to use sun-synchronous orbit.
• bandrami 8mo ago
  It's not just "very challenging", it's "very challenging and also solves no actual problem we face".
• sejje 8mo ago
  It's not like launching stuff into space doesn't have pushback, either. See: starlink satellites.
• onlyrealcuzzo 8mo ago
  > A former NASA engineer with a PhD in space electronics who later worked at Google for 10 years wrote an article about why datacenters in space are very technically challenging It's curious that we live in a world in which I think the majority of people somehow think this ISN'T complicated. Like, have we long since reached the point where technology is suitably advanced to average people that it seems like magic, where people can almost literally propose companies that just "conjure magic" and the average person thinks that's reasonable?
  • jitl 8mo ago
    you can’t tell me the microwave isn’t magic. it’s magic.
    • jasondrowley 8mo ago
      I can put things in a box that uses spooky electromagnetic waves to tickle water molecules to the point that they get hot and maybe boil off, given the chance? Sounds like magic to me
    • zvqcMMV6Zcr 8mo ago
      I think it counts as necromancy. After all it brings frozen hamsters back to life.
  • solid_fuel 8mo ago
    It's just the thought process that comes with shallow understanding: "I can buy a server" "We can put things in space" "What do you mean I can't get a server in space?!"
• 999900000999 8mo ago
  It's much easier to find a country or jurisdiction that doesn't care about a bunch of data centers vs launching them into space. I don't get why we aren't building mixed use buildings, maybe the first floor can be retail and restaurants, the next two floors can be data centers, and then above that apartments.
  • SecretDreams 8mo ago
    Probably for the same reasons they aren't doing mixed use prison and restaurant buildings.
    • shimman 8mo ago
      What you don't want to live near the newest poisonous abomination that the whiz kids dreamt up? Do you want China to take over America or something?
      • zaptrem 8mo ago
        Data centers don't do anything other than sit there and turn electricity into heat. They only emit nothing but heat (which could be useful to others in the building).
        • ZeroGravitas 8mo ago
          In America they have "temporary" jet turbines parked next to them burning gas inefficiently with limited oversight on pollution and noise because they are "temporary".
        • NoGravitas 8mo ago
          Heat and noise. The noise and the increased electrical bills are the main things people living near data centers complain about.
        • shimman 8mo ago
          False, come up with new talking points please: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VJT2JeDCyw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VJT2JeDCyw If these things were so safe the rich should build them next to their homes.
• moomoo11 8mo ago
  Yeah but he’s an expert his opinion can be dismissed bro this is 2026
• spikels 8mo ago
  Google is currently working on AI data centers in space. https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/research/google-project-suncatcher/ https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/research/go...
• lpcvoid 8mo ago
  Nice article, the first one. I hope they try it, burn many billions of cash, and then fail. I also hope they don't spread radioactive material across the whole atmosphere when failing, though.
• bgnn 8mo ago
  The real reason is, Elon has SpaceX and xAI. He can create an illusion of synergy and orders of magnitude advancements to boost the market cap and pocket all the money. He realized long time ago you don't need to deliver to play the market cap game, in fact it's better if you are selling a story far in the future rather than a something you can deliver now.
  • andruby 8mo ago
    exactly. This smells like a way to boost the SpaceX IPO to meme-stock premiums
    • disgruntledphd2 8mo ago
      I mean, personally I'd probably have invested in SpaceX but it's a hard no with xAI attached. I'm probably an outlier though.
    • UltraSane 8mo ago
      That seems to be exactly what the goal is.
  • jstummbillig 8mo ago
    I don't understand the claim. SpaceX is literally delivering? And I don't think there is any delusion about that being optional.
    • davidguetta 8mo ago
      [flagged]
    • adammarples 8mo ago
      The wild claim is that they will deliver data centres in space
    • mortarion 8mo ago
      Yeah, delivering using Falcon 9. The Starship stack? Not so much. It's plagued, and will continue to be plagued, by endless problems. BO will beat them with NG.
• Ajedi32 8mo ago
  I was skeptical at first for much the same reason the author of that first article is; there are a lot of obstacles. But the more I think about it the less daunting those obstacles seem. The author uses the power capacity of the ISS's solar panels as a point of comparison, but SpaceX has already successfully deployed many times that capacity in Starlink satellites[1] without even needing to use Starship, and obviously the heat dissipation problem for those satellites has already been solved so there's little point in hand-wringing about that. The author also worries about ground communication bandwidth, claiming it is "difficult to get much more than about 1Gbps reliably", which seems completely ignorant of the fact that Starlink already has a capacity much greater than that. The only unsolved technical challenge I see in that article is radiation tolerance. It's unclear how big of a problem that will actually be in practice. But SpaceX probably has more experience with that than anyone other than perhaps NASA so if they think it can be done I don't see much reason to doubt them. Ultimately I think this is doable from a technical perspective, it's just a question of whether it will be economical. Traditional wisdom would say no even just due to launch costs, but if SpaceX can get Starship working reliably that could alter the equation a lot. We'll see. This could turn out to be a boondoggle, or it could be the next Starlink. The prospect of 24/7 solar power with no need for battery storage or ground infrastructure does seem tempting. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/zzwpue/with_starlink_spacex_has_now_launched_50x_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/zzwpue/with_starlin...
  • tech_ken 8mo ago
    > The author uses the power capacity of the ISS's solar panels as a point of comparison, but SpaceX has already successfully deployed many times that capacity in Starlink satellites[1] without even needing to use Starship, Your link here isn't really a fair comparison, and also you're still short a factor of 10x. Starlink has deployed 50x the ISS's solar cap across its entire fleet (admittedly 3 years ago); the author's calcs are 500x the ISS for one datacenter. > and obviously the heat dissipation problem for those satellites has already been solved so there's little point in hand-wringing about that. This reasoning doesn't make any sense to me, the heat dissipation issues seem very much unresolved. A single Starlink satellite is using power in the order of watts, a datacenter is hitting like O(1/10) of gigawatts. The heat dissipation problem is literally orders of magnitude more difficult for each DC than for their current fleet. This is like saying that your gaming PC will never overheat because NetGear already solved heat dissipation in their routers. > The author also worries about ground communication bandwidth, claiming it is "difficult to get much more than about 1Gbps reliably", which seems completely ignorant of the fact that Starlink already has a capacity much greater than that. Don't their current satellites have like 100Gbps capacity max? Do you have any idea how many 100Gbps routers go into connecting a single datacenter to the WAN? Or to each other (since intrahall model training is table stakes these days). They have at most like O(1)Pbps across their entire fleet (based on O(10K) satellites deployed and assuming they have no failover protection). They would need to entirely abandon their consumer base and use their entire fleet to support up/down + interconnections for just 2 or 3 datacenters. They would basically need to redeploy a sizeable chunk of their entire fleet every time they launched a DC.