‹ BackHN Continuity

Thread

Google's first Suncatcher orbital data center test launches October 1

52 points · 96 comments · sbulaev

  1. eximius · · focus · HN ↗
    The reasons against doing this is obvious. Is there any coherent description of why someone would think it is a good idea? And I don't mean, like, delusional reasons, but an actually rational argument for "here is where it might work out and we need to try and measure to find out".
    1. burkaman · · focus · HN ↗
      Google&#x27;s blog post (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.google&#x2F;innovation-and-ai&#x2F;models-and-research&#x2F;google-research&#x2F;google-project-suncatcher-facts&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.google&#x2F;innovation-and-ai&#x2F;models-and-research&#x2F;go...) describes the goal of the launch as &quot;designed to gather in-orbit data on how our TPUs handle the physical stress of spaceflight and the radiation and thermal extremes of space.&quot; That doesn&#x27;t sound like a bad idea, obviously it might be useful to have dedicated machine learning hardware on spacecraft or satellites for local processing. Maybe they just framed it as an orbital data center test for marketing, because that&#x27;s a trendy topic and sounds more newsworthy than &quot;hardware durability test&quot;?
Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.