Thread

Google’s Project Suncatcher to put ML infrastructure in space

233 points · 553 comments · xnx

kin · 1790291957 · focus · HN ↗
For those questioning viability, there's a startup called Starcloud <a href="https://www.starcloud.com/">https://www.starcloud.com/ with a public whitepaper explaining a bit their hardware and economics <a href="https://www.starcloud.com/wp">https://www.starcloud.com/wp. They've already had one small proof of concept launched. Not trying to promote, I just heard about them on the ycomb podcast
1. stingrae · 1790292853 · focus · HN ↗
  “A 5 GW data center would require a solar array with dimensions of approximately 4 km by 4 km”
  I think dodging debris is challenging at that scale.
  Also this is the solar cells not the radiators
  1. FuckButtons · 1790294607 · focus · HN ↗
    Presumably that’s not a single satellite.
    efskap · 1790297206 · focus · HN ↗
    Right, the goal here is a more realistic Dyson swarm, not a Dyson sphere (yet)
    jasonwatkinspdx · 1790299980 · focus · HN ↗
    Nope, it's a single massive panel sat and they're using $30/kg as their launch costs.
    Up to you how plausible you think that is.
    yencabulator · 1790353380 · focus · HN ↗
    There's an artist's impression of the frigging thing in the whitepaper! It's very obviously a single enormous thing!
    > Figure 3. A data center in Sun Synchronous Orbit, showing a 4km x 4km deployed solar array and radiators.
  2. flog · 1790298979 · focus · HN ↗
    I wonder if the shadows from such a large area would have a climate cooling effect?
    glenstein · 1790299515 · focus · HN ↗
    I think the principle is correct but probably it would need to be much bigger.
    johntb86 · 1790301352 · focus · HN ↗
    Ideally you'd put it in an orbit that wouldn't shadow earth, since if it goes in front of earth in part of the orbit then it'll go behind earth (and be in shadow) for part of the orbit. They mention they'd want it in a dawn-dusk sun-synchronous orbit, which would be in sunlight all the time and would never shadow the earth.
    vl · 1790304653 · focus · HN ↗
    How can this practically work though? As Earth goes around the Sun 90 degrees, orbit will become half-shadowed.
    sephamorr · 1790305440 · focus · HN ↗
    The earth isn't exactly round, you can use this to process your orbit exactly 360deg/year so you can always stay in the sun. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun-synchronous_orbit" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun-synchronous_orbit
    addaon · 1790307368 · focus · HN ↗
    s/process/precess/
    madamelic · 1790341075 · focus · HN ↗
    It's wild that I didn't even realize it didn't say precess until I saw your comment. Brains are weird.
    lend000 · 1790307104 · focus · HN ↗
    Would be cool if so, but I wonder what the plan is regarding radiation pressure pushing things out of orbit.
    busssard · 1790331485 · focus · HN ↗
    would radiation pressure not counterbalance the radiation pressure from the sun?
    given solar cells are only 30% efficient. if you put the radiators behind the panels then you have the structure already and always keep the radiators shaded
    me_again · 1790311968 · focus · HN ↗
    The Earth's surface area is ~ 510,000,000 km^2. For simplicity, say exactly half of it is receiving sunlight. If the satellite perfectly shadows 16 km^2, it would reduce incoming solar energy reaching Earth by 16/205,000,000 = 0.00000078%, I think.
    So not really. There are some proposals for space-based geoengineering, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901125002291" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S146290112... has a summary. I can't say how plausible any of them are.
    [deleted] · 1790322521 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
  3. hdgvhicv · 1790316236 · focus · HN ↗
    Desert land is full of that amount of area available for peanuts.
    That’s 4000 acres. I see a 6000 acre ranch available in Arizona for $7m. The cost of building a 5GW DC is about 100 billion. Land including enough for all the solar and battery you need to be completely self sufficient is basically free.
    King-Aaron · 1790316542 · focus · HN ↗
    You can fly a drone laden with fireworks across a desert. Harder to do in LEO
    consp · 1790320174 · focus · HN ↗
    The only reason I see in putting those things in space is to do illegal things. Otherwise the economies do not make sense. The "terrorism" threat is nearly non existant in practice and only the legislative threat is real, which might be good cause to think about what you are doing in the first place.
    DoctorOetker · 1790322265 · focus · HN ↗
    > The only reason I see in putting those things in space is to do illegal things.
    Consider a global human population, fractured into historically formed nations and power blocs. Consider corruption and clans taking up a fraction of positions of power at a certain duty cycle. It's unavoidable legislative bodies would eventually abuse control of technology, for those points in time yes, doing the right thing becomes doing the illegal thing, but only because corruption attained such powers.
    > Otherwise the economies do not make sense.
    The economics at what scale? At scales of earthly compute, earth is cheaper and more maintainable. At stellar scale, the power simply isn't available on Earth, so the most economic path is whatever is the most economic space ML datacenter path.
    XorNot · 1790323244 · focus · HN ↗
    What the heck are you talking about? Basic grounding problem: who the god damn hell is going to be buying your AI compute from space if the situation on Earth has deteriorated that much? You know that place where 100% of your customers and the hostile legislative bodies would be.
    King-Aaron · 1790324576 · focus · HN ↗
    > who the god damn hell is going to be buying your AI compute from space if the situation on Earth has deteriorated that much?
    Militaries.
    hdgvhicv · 1790342061 · focus · HN ↗
    Ones that have to worry about local laws?
    busssard · 1790331370 · focus · HN ↗
    this is also about geopolitics. Destroying satellites in space hurts your own space infrastructure (see the movie "Gravity")
    On the ground nothing harms your own infra by dropping a bomb on another datacenter that might be powering the opponents entire military strategy.
    Terrorism threat is nonexistent now, but maybe not in the future.
    NetMageSCW · 1790370732 · focus · HN ↗
    The movie Gravity was not a documentary. It broke more laws of physics than the claims about data centers do.
    busssard · 1790418234 · focus · HN ↗
    exaggeration makes visible, runaway collisions are definitely a problem. I didnt like the movie, but space collisions are no joke...
    igleria · 1790335862 · focus · HN ↗
    cheaper to defend on earth than launch and maintain in space.

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