Thread

1. zactato · 1790267254 · focus · HN ↗

   How are they solving the heat dissipation issues?

   1. lopsotronic · 1790268994 · focus · HN ↗

      For real. It's an enormous problem solved only with 1) sheer scale, and 2) Science Fiction.

      Both of those are expensive as hell, by the way.

      Cooling via radiation follows Stefan–Boltzmann: P = εσAT⁴. Let's assume a good surface (emissivity ~0.9) at 300 K (27 °C) at 400 W per square meter per side. A flat panel radiating from both faces into deep space gets 800 W/m, not including the losses from, say, the Sun, or from IR coming off the Earth. Now, input power. Sunlight in orbit ~1,360 W/m², assume ~22% cell efficiency, we got 300 W/m². So each 1 MW compute, 3,300 m² of solar panel and minimum 1,200–1,500 m² of radiator.

      In case ya didn't know - 1 MW is tiny from a present-day-datacenter perspective. It's like 8 racks. So we're talking orbital megastructures here, many many many square kilometers, and this is with all the best case assumptions, and magic radiator panels that never see the sun, or the earth, or the moon.

      This is just the basic numbers here, by the way. There's a garbage truck full of other unsolvable problems if you poke your head in there.

      Aside from the "Avoid Regulations" aspect, and the "Everything That Burns Deorbiting is Depreciation" aka "The Starlink Trick", I'm not sure what the hell the draw is.

      1. tessierashpool · 1790273035 · focus · HN ↗

         there are two arguments for it.

         one is marketing.

         the other is that you could make tiny datacenters and flood the sky with them. in effect, not datacenters at all, but some kind of dataswarm coordinating at literal lightspeed via lasers.

         they'd still be wildly expensive to deploy, and probably litter the orbit zone with fast-moving debris.

         1. nolok · 1790273401 · focus · HN ↗

            Your "other" makes no sense. It doesn't matter if you make a few big or a lot smaller, in space you will still need the same space for the same amount of megawatt. Or did you miss the scale of parent's post ? Because in that dream scenario of "let's ignore all the issues except that" and "the earth and the sun don't have any impact", it's still 3 THOUSANDS square meters for a MW of 8 racks.

            You want to go smaller and go one rack only sure, it's still hundreds of square meters. Check the size of current orbital structure for a point of reference, you can't dwarf those and call it a "dataswarm of tiny datacenters flooding the sky".

            1. tessierashpool · 1790718424 · focus · HN ↗

               don't shoot the messenger, dude. I didn't say there were any good arguments.

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