See, they could meet power demands in space, solar panels are much more efficient in space vs on the surface of the Earth. I don’t know that even modern panels are efficient enough to supply what is needed, but the numbers are going to be better than what we would need on earth.
But datacenters? In space? The whole idea is half baked at best. Data center equipment isn’t light; and heavy stuff doesn’t like to go up into orbit. Then you need to consider how much thrust you’re going to need to keep that stuff in orbit… The numbers just don’t work in my mind…
If we had a thruster system that didn’t require burning a skyscraper worth of fuel to get into orbit, then maybe? But we don’t, so …
I could maybe see it happening on the moon, because then you wouldn’t need to worry as much about your orbit, but then you have at least three big problems to solve, how the heck are you getting the equipment there, how are you powering it, and simple latency.
Getting it there will burn so much fuel that I’m not sure it’s a valuable thing to do at all.
For power, yes, solar will be pretty good on the moon, just like in orbit, but the moon rotates. One of the faces of the moon is always towards the earth, so when it’s between the earth and sun, that face is in darkness, and if you build on the other side, it will be in darkness when it’s on the far side, away from the sun. You would effectively need an array of solar that runs a loop around the whole surface so at least something is in the sun pretty much all the time, especially considering the moon rotates every 29ish days. I don’t know of any power storage system that’s robust enough to store the power requirements of a datacenter for half a month while the moon slowly orbits back into the sunlight.
The last thing is latency. Light is the fastest “moving” thing in the known universe. We have yet to observe anything that can propagate faster than light. Some things can match the speed, but nothing goes faster. The Moon is approximately 1.3 light-seconds away. Regardless of all other factors, it will take no less than 2.6 seconds, round trip. I don’t know of many applications for data center tech that is ok with that kind of delay. Super computers, maybe, but datacenters, not so much.
The whole thing is wrought with issues from the ground up. And I’m not even a scientist, and I can see the obvious problems here.
Meanwhile, we have 2/3rds of the planet covered in water, which is basically unused space by humans. It’s vast and plentiful, and as a bonus, has built in cooling. Microsoft was testing datacenter stuff at sea and AFAIK, it went pretty well. I believe they’ve discontinued it since it’s still not as practical as land-based datacenters, but the idea is solid at least. Space based stuff is even less practical. I don’t see why anyone would want to take on the cost of something like this when there are cheaper and more profitable alternatives.
You make some good points, and there’s also thermal issues.
The whole reason the datacentres use so much water is cooling all those processors.
Rejecting heat in space is super hard because you’re ultimately relying only on radiation (not enough matter for conduction/convection), no matter how many heavy/expensive/complex/maintenance-needing cooling systems you use.
But at least if it was able to be done, the heat would be 'outside the environment ’ as it were. The idea of using earth’s seas to cool datacentres on top of everything else does not sound ideal…
See, they could meet power demands in space, solar panels are much more efficient in space vs on the surface of the Earth. I don’t know that even modern panels are efficient enough to supply what is needed, but the numbers are going to be better than what we would need on earth.
But datacenters? In space? The whole idea is half baked at best. Data center equipment isn’t light; and heavy stuff doesn’t like to go up into orbit. Then you need to consider how much thrust you’re going to need to keep that stuff in orbit… The numbers just don’t work in my mind…
If we had a thruster system that didn’t require burning a skyscraper worth of fuel to get into orbit, then maybe? But we don’t, so …
I could maybe see it happening on the moon, because then you wouldn’t need to worry as much about your orbit, but then you have at least three big problems to solve, how the heck are you getting the equipment there, how are you powering it, and simple latency.
Getting it there will burn so much fuel that I’m not sure it’s a valuable thing to do at all. For power, yes, solar will be pretty good on the moon, just like in orbit, but the moon rotates. One of the faces of the moon is always towards the earth, so when it’s between the earth and sun, that face is in darkness, and if you build on the other side, it will be in darkness when it’s on the far side, away from the sun. You would effectively need an array of solar that runs a loop around the whole surface so at least something is in the sun pretty much all the time, especially considering the moon rotates every 29ish days. I don’t know of any power storage system that’s robust enough to store the power requirements of a datacenter for half a month while the moon slowly orbits back into the sunlight.
The last thing is latency. Light is the fastest “moving” thing in the known universe. We have yet to observe anything that can propagate faster than light. Some things can match the speed, but nothing goes faster. The Moon is approximately 1.3 light-seconds away. Regardless of all other factors, it will take no less than 2.6 seconds, round trip. I don’t know of many applications for data center tech that is ok with that kind of delay. Super computers, maybe, but datacenters, not so much.
The whole thing is wrought with issues from the ground up. And I’m not even a scientist, and I can see the obvious problems here.
Meanwhile, we have 2/3rds of the planet covered in water, which is basically unused space by humans. It’s vast and plentiful, and as a bonus, has built in cooling. Microsoft was testing datacenter stuff at sea and AFAIK, it went pretty well. I believe they’ve discontinued it since it’s still not as practical as land-based datacenters, but the idea is solid at least. Space based stuff is even less practical. I don’t see why anyone would want to take on the cost of something like this when there are cheaper and more profitable alternatives.
Orbital space station + pulley system? Sounds nuts, but…
You make some good points, and there’s also thermal issues.
The whole reason the datacentres use so much water is cooling all those processors.
Rejecting heat in space is super hard because you’re ultimately relying only on radiation (not enough matter for conduction/convection), no matter how many heavy/expensive/complex/maintenance-needing cooling systems you use.
But at least if it was able to be done, the heat would be 'outside the environment ’ as it were. The idea of using earth’s seas to cool datacentres on top of everything else does not sound ideal…