Are datacenters in space more lucrative than on earth?

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨JubJubBird@sh.itjust.works⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

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?

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rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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heat dissipation on satellites is a cataclysmic showstopper, but even if it was solved, anything on a satellite has to survive launch, is nonrepairable and all of that expensive silicon burns down in a couple of years

“datacenters in space” story is a result of highly advanced reasoning: 1. musk has space launch company 2. musk has ai ~~company~~ cash furnace 3. musk wants more money and 4. for what i assume are completely rational reasons and not speculation fueled by cultists, ai stocks pumped and only started crashing recently

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- rain_enjoyer@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  and before that, you’re gonna take a real hard look on whether regular ai datacenters on ground are profitable (they’re cash furnaces)
  
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aldhissla@piefed.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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- JubJubBird@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - aldhissla@piefed.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    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 🤷.
    
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- RodgeGrabTheCat@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I found several companies planning on launching data centers into orbit.
  
  Blue Origin, Orbital, Aetherflux, and Starcloud.
  
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  - IronBird@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    only one of those even has a launch platform
    
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Folstar@lemmus.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Absolutely. Data centers on earth are subject to the laws of physics. Data centers in space, per SpaceX’s white paper on the subject, operate beyond paltry thermodynamics, material sciences, and several other fields of science. When you’re that much of an IPO boosting gigachadalphabro it’s all profit.

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- actionjbone@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Everyone knows physics doesn’t exist in outer space. If it did, there would be gravity.
  
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  - bstix@feddit.dk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Nobody can hear you lying in space.
    
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kerthale@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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…
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- Bytemeister@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Yep. Data center in space is about as dumb as an underwater bakery.
  
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  - phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    That actually isn’t a bad analogy
    
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isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
You’ve been hearing the marketing hype of a Nazi space company CEO trying to prop up his company’s stock price so he can unload his rotten shares.

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MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
No, it’s a stupid idea through and through.

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ohulancutash@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
They’re good for people selling rocket launches.

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swordgeek@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Fuck no. They’re a stupid, terrible idea peddled by psychotic grifters.

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- axh@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Even the “energy generation benefit” is dubious. The solar panels in space might be more efficient, but if you consider the cost of transportation, installation and maintenance… It won’t add up. You could just build more panels on earth and get similar results (still much cheaper). It’s not like we are running low on space on earth.
  
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Treczoks@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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…

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unitedwithme@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It would be astronomically expensive, wasteful, and expensive (yes twice).

Got a server rack damaged? Are the IT going up to fix it or astronauts? What kind of training would there need to be? What about upgrades? What about waste or recycling of old equipment? Do you just eject out into space wasting all the precious resources??

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agentTeiko@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Yeah its a pipe dream told by people that have not thought it through and people selling to investors by telling lies for investment dollars.

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- pwnicholson@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  It’s about avoiding taxes and regulations
  
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fubarx@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
What they don’t show in a lot of SciFi is the mundane day-to-day stuff (AFAIK, the only shows that came close were Red Dwarf and Firefly.)

Problem is, things break. Connectors come loose. Temperature makes things brittle. Small debris cross pads and create shorts. Most automated manufacturing lines can catch assembly problems, but none have 0% failure rate. This is what post-deployment maintenance is for. Somebody shows up in a van with a bunch of test gear and replacement parts. They diagnose the problem, swap out a cable or board, and the business keeps humming.

Add IoT and fancy telemetry. Monitor sensors and run ML to do predictive analytics. It still requires someone in a cargo van with a bunch of spare parts.

If you put an installation in a remote location, under water, or in space, there are benefits. But you just multiplied the cost of basic maintenance. You can build in redundancies, but a small glitch at a single-point-of-failure could cascade to a catastrophe.

Microsoft and Google tried putting data-centers under water, and after years of trials they nixed it because of these issues. Multiply that for something far out in space.

Only alternative is to build failure into the business model. Something breaks, you just leave it to rot (or burn in the atmosphere) and send another container out. Maybe the finance math works out, but it sure is wasteful.

tl:dr: SciFi is fantasy. A clogged toilet is reality.

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- Septian@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Don’t disagree with your main point at all, just want to throw The Expanse into your list for shows that do a good job of showing things just break and it’s catastrophic when they do it in space.
  
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- JubJubBird@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Oh right. I already forgot about the underwater data centre hype. Data centre in space would face much of the same challenges so the concept has basically already been tried and failed.
  
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raman_klogius@ani.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Methinks the reason techbros want to put compute in space is to have it physically away from people. Normal data centers are right there to be smashed and torched in the event of widespread societal unrest. In space, it’s unreachable.

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- marcos@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  In space, it’s unreachable.
  
  To normal people, yes. But it’s perfectly reachable for any small country military. And the orbits people are talking about can be easily intercepted from any place outside of the poles.
  
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- Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  if they want to spend billions mroe to just send 1 datacenter, they are free to do so.
  
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  - swordgeek@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    They shouldn’t be.
    
    Space, especially LEO, is cluttered with way the hell too much garbage already.
    
    Nobody should be allowed to put garbage up there for no benefit beyond CEO pocket lining.
    
    Every single space mission should be carefully considered as a resource usage. Every object left behind in orbit should be scrutinized ten times as closely.
    
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Drusas@fedia.io ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I, personally, would just really appreciate it if we could stop by blocking our view of the sky/solar system with so much future garbage.

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- NihilsineNefas@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The only possible upside is that kessler syndrome will not only wipe out the internet, but it’ll trap these techofascists on the ground with us (or bring about the return of blimps when the first of their bunkers is overrun by civilians pumping raw sewage into it.)
  
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yogurt@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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Lemmert@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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. 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)

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dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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? You tell me.

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breezeblock@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
No — makes absolutely no sense what so ever

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- pwnicholson@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Unless you’re a lawyer or a tax accountant.
  
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breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It seemed to work for Arasaka so 🤷‍♂️

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inbn@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
No <3

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qaz@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Well, no, because generally things that don’t work at all don’t make money.

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SuiXi3D@fedia.io ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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FaceDeer@fedia.io ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
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.

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pwnicholson@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It’s about being outside of any company’s jurisdiction. Same thing for the floating statements at sea. Can’t tax it and regulate it if it’s not in any legal country.

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sem@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
No

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Infinite@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
It’s definitely a harder technical problem than regular buildings, but it’s not absurd. I think the biggest risk factor is the disposition of the hardware after a life cycle: deorbiting and vaporizing tons of servers would be pretty bad, but dropping them to the surface somehow for reclamation and recycling is possible.

Nobody that says the answer is obvious has put enough expertise and thought into it. In my experience, a bunch of qualified engineers saying “well, I guess we could, maybe 🤔” is an incubator for innovation.

Orbital data centers, part 1: There’s no way this is economically viable, right? - Ars Technica share.google/d26ZkArGh2UaLMGKl

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- isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Something tells me you are not an engineer…
  
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  - Infinite@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    That’s a nice ad hominem you’ve got there.
    
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- Bytemeister@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Read the article. The answer is a very drawn out “no”.
  
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noobdoomguy8658@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Can any kind strangers here share some reads (or anything) on heat dissipation in space? My understanding is that there is virtually no medium to carry away all that energy, but I remember reading something about satellite and space stations actually cool off and there being some sort of a solution to heat. I just wanna learn more.

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- drath@lemmy.drath.ru ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  ELI5 version: You know how things glow red when heated up? That takes energy, or, more precisely, that converts heat energy to light. And you know how the color changes the hotter it is? Even before its starts to glow red it actually still glows, pretty much everything does, we just dont see it because it falls outside visible spectrum, but thermal cameras can and that’s how they work. So, for space question, just take a big plate, and unlike solar panels, point it perpendicular to the sunlight. Run some coolant through it and you’ve got a space chiller. If you look at i.e. ISS photos you’ll see big solar arays at the sides and smaller jagged square panels protruding off the middle and some off the sides, those are exactly it, the so-called “heat rejection units”. Actually while double checking myself I was surprised to learn that they do not run a thermal pump between radiators and everything else, I always thought they did as hotter objects dissipate more energy, but apparently shipping more radiators to orbit was a better tradeoff than constantly wasting energy pumping the heat away.
  
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  - noobdoomguy8658@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Thanks!
    
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- ToxicWaste@lemmy.cafe ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  this website covers heat and cold pretty well in my opinion: jameswebbdiscovery.com/…/heat-management-in-satel…
  
  since radiating heat is the only real way of getting rid of heat, the main solutions are limited size and power combined with insulation. quite opposite to what datacenters do.
  
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  - noobdoomguy8658@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Nice article, thanks!
    
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Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
its expensive, like how they suggested the ocean as well.

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TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
i prefer that wez create giant mecha robots that then juggle data-centers always twirling, twirling, twirling towards them towards profitability.

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- Tollana1234567@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  only japan has shown interest in making large mechs.
  
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