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n_u 5 hours ago

A former NASA engineer with a PhD in space electronics who later worked at Google for 10 years wrote an article about why datacenters in space are very technically challenging:

https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horri...

I don't have any specialized knowledge of the physics but I saw an article suggesting the real reason for the push to build them in space is to hedge against political pushback preventing construction on Earth.

I can't find the original article but here is one about datacenter pushback:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-08-20/ai-and...

But even if political pushback on Earth is the real reason, it still seems datacenters in space are extremely technically challenging/impossible to build.

999900000999 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

It's much easier to find a country or jurisdiction that doesn't care about a bunch of data centers vs launching them into space.

I don't get why we aren't building mixed use buildings, maybe the first floor can be retail and restaurants, the next two floors can be data centers, and then above that apartments.

kuon 20 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

In Switzerland infomaniak built a data center under apartments and DC heat is used for heating. There are some videos about it.

999900000999 13 minutes ago | parent [-]

Americans have trouble understanding something like that. We believe anything short of a 3bdrm house with a lawn and backyard is communism.

I'd love to live in a dense city. My office within waking distance. A Cafe in my apartment building, etc.

SecretDreams 36 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Probably for the same reasons they aren't doing mixed use prison and restaurant buildings.

shimman 29 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

What you don't want to live near the newest poisonous abomination that the whiz kids dreamt up? Do you want China to take over America or something?

CamperBob2 23 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Mixed-use buildings with restaurants on the lower floors and residential on the upper floors are very common. Not sure what prisons have to do with anything.

taurath 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We don’t even have a habitable structure in space when the ISS falls, there is no world in which space datacenters are a thing in the next 10, I’d argue even 30 years. People really need to ground themselves in reality.

Edit: okay Tiangong - but that is not a data center.

nickff 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Who is “we”? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong_space_station

taurath 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Good point. Still a long, long way from data centers.

tzs 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't think any of the companies that say they are working on space data centers intend them to be habitable.

JumpCrisscross 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> We don’t even have a habitable structure in space

Silicon is way more forgiving than biology. This isn’t an argument for this proposal. But there is no technical connection between humans in space and data centers other than launch-cost synergies.

fluoridation 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Okay, but a human being represents what, 200 W of power? The ISS has a crew of 3, so that's less than a beefy single user AI workstation at full tilt. If the question is whether it's practical to put 1-2 kW worth of computing power in orbit, the answer is obviously yes, but somehow I don't think that's what's meant by "datacenter in space".

3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]
[deleted]
IX-103 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't know, 10 years seems reasonable for development. There's not that much new technology that needs to be developed. Cooling and communications would just require minor changes to existing designs. Other systems may be able to be lifted wholesale with minimal integration. I think if there were obstacles to building data centers on the ground then we might see them in orbit within the next ten years.

I don't see those obstacles appearing though.

doctorwho42 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The same things you are saying about data centers in space was said by similar people 10-15 years ago when Elon musk said SpaceX would have a man on Mars in 10-15 years.

We have had the tech to do it since the 90's, we just needed to invest into it.

Same thing with Elon Musks hyperloop, aka the atmospheric train (or vactrain) which has been an idea since 1799! And how far has Elon Musks boring company come to building even a test loop?

Yeah, in theory you could build a data center in space. But unless you have a background in the limitations of space engineering/design brings, you don't truly understand what you are saying. A single AI data center server rack takes up the same energy load of 0.3 to 1 international space station. So by saying Elon musk can reasonable achieve this, is wild to anyone who has done any engineering work with space based tech. Every solar panel generates heat, the racks generate heat, the data communication system generates, heat... Every kW of power generated and every kW of power consumes needs a radiator. And it's not like water cooling, you are trying to radiate heat off into a vacuum. That is a technical challenge and size, the amount of tons to orbit needed to do this... Let alone outside of low earth... Its a moonshot project for sure. And like I said above, Elon musk hasnt really followed through with any of his moonshots.

throwup238 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> A single AI data center server rack takes up the same energy load of 0.3 to 1 international space station.

The ISS is powered by eight Solar Array Wings. Each wing weighs about 1,050kg. The station also has two radiator wings with three radiator orbital replacement units weighing about 1,100kg each. That's about 15,000 kg total so if the ISS can power three racks, that's 5,000kg of payload per rack not including the rack or any other support structure, shielding, heat distribution like heat pipes, and so on.

Assuming a Falcon Heavy with 60,000 kg payload, that's 12 racks launched for about $100 million. That's basically tripling or quadrupling (at least) the cost of each rack, assuming that's the only extra cost and there's zero maintenance.

TheBlight 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Ok then short SpaceX stock when it IPOs.

techblueberry 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Why would you short the stock?

taurath 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What does stock price have to do with anything?

That someone could put a data center in space for the price of 100 years of eliminating world hunger doesn’t mean shit.

satvikpendem 4 hours ago | parent [-]

People always make this claim about world hunger elimination with no sources. Keep in mind we make more than enough calories to feed everyone on the planet many times over, it's a problem of distribution, of getting the food to the right areas and continuing cultivation for self sufficiency.

taurath 4 hours ago | parent [-]

That’s right, it’s an allocation of resources problem, and some people seem to control almost all the resources.

satvikpendem 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Even the most magnanimous allocators cannot defeat the realities of boots on the ground in terms of distribution. It is a very difficult problem that cannot be solved top down, the only solution we've seen is growth of economic activity via capitalistic means, lifting millions, billions out of poverty as Asia has done in the last century for example.

CamperBob2 21 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you're hellbent on arguing with a cult, it will be much cheaper to go down to your local Church of Scientology and try to convince them that their e-meter doesn't work.

Sohcahtoa82 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

As if company performance actually affected stock price when it comes to anything Elon Musk touches.

For fuck's sake, TSLA has a P/E of a whopping *392*. There is zero justification for how overvalued that stock is. In a sane world, I should be able to short it and 10x my money, but people are buying into Musk's hype on FSD, Robotaxi, and whatever the hell robot they're making. Even if you expected them to be successes, they'd need to 20x the company's entire revenue to justify the current market cap.

onlyrealcuzzo 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> A former NASA engineer with a PhD in space electronics who later worked at Google for 10 years wrote an article about why datacenters in space are very technically challenging

It's curious that we live in a world in which I think the majority of people somehow think this ISN'T complicated.

Like, have we long since reached the point where technology is suitably advanced to average people that it seems like magic, where people can almost literally propose companies that just "conjure magic" and the average person thinks that's reasonable?

jitl an hour ago | parent [-]

you can’t tell me the microwave isn’t magic. it’s magic.

jasondrowley 15 minutes ago | parent [-]

I can put things in a box that uses spooky electromagnetic waves to tickle water molecules to the point that they get hot and maybe boil off, given the chance? Sounds like magic to me

bandrami 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's not just "very challenging", it's "very challenging and also solves no actual problem we face".

sejje 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's not like launching stuff into space doesn't have pushback, either. See: starlink satellites.

edhelas 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"Technically challenging", a nice way to say "impossible"

boxedemp 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Just like rockets landing themselves

sollewitt 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

No, rockets landing themselves is just controlling the mechanism you use to have them take off, and builds on trust vectoring technology from 1970s jet fighters based on sound physics.

Figuring out how to radiate a lot of waste heat into a vacuum is fighting physics. Ordinarily we use a void on earth as a very effective _insulator_ to keep our hot drinks hot.

fooker 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Figuring out how to radiate a lot of waste heat into a vacuum is fighting physics.

Radiators should work pretty well, and large solar panels can do double duty as radiators.

Also, curiously, newer GPUs are developed to require significantly less cooling than previous generations. Perhaps not so coincidentally?

doctorwho42 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Well there lies the rub, solar panels already need their own thermal radiators when used in space ...

fooker 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Great, so you seem to agree the technology exists for this and it is a matter of deploying more of it?

Numerlor 37 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

It's a matter of deploying it for cheaper or with fewer downsides than what can be done on earth. Launching things to space is expensive even with reusable rockets, and a single server blade would need a lot of accompanying tech to power it, cool it, and connect to other satellites and earth.

Right now only upsides an expensive satellite acting as a server node would be physical security and avoiding various local environmental laws and effects

Daishiman an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

You need to understand more of basic physics and thermodynamics. Fighting thermodynamics is a losing race by every measure of what we understand of the physical world.

fooker 44 minutes ago | parent [-]

> Fighting thermodynamics is a losing race

The great thing about your argument is that it can be used in any circumstance!

Cooling car batteries, nope can't possibly work! Thermodynamics!

Refrigerator, are you crazy? You're fighting thermodynamics!

Heat pump! Haah thermodynamics got you.

kristjansson 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

1kW TDP chips need LESS cooling?

fooker an hour ago | parent [-]

Yes, Rubin reportedly can deal with running significantly hotter.

That makes radiating a much more practical approach to cooling it.

fourseventy 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

His point is that everyone said landing and reusing rockets was impossible and made fun of Elon and SpaceX for years for attempting it.

myko 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

No, people made fun of Elon for years because he kept attempting it unsafely, skirting regulations and rules, and failing repeatedly in very public ways.

The idea itself was proven by NASA with the DC-X but the project was canceled due to funding. Now instead of having NASA run it we SpaceX pay more than we'd ever have paid NASA for the same thing.

DC-X test flight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE7XJ5HYQW4

It's awesome that Falcon 9 exists and it is great technology but this guy really isn't the one anyone should want in charge of it.

kortilla an hour ago | parent [-]

>Now instead of having NASA run it we SpaceX pay more than we'd ever have paid NASA for the same thing.

This doesn’t pass the smell test given that the cost of launch with spacex is lower than it ever was under ULA.

NASA has never been about cheap launches, just novel technology. Look at the costs of Saturn and SLS to see what happens when they do launch.

SmirkingRevenge 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

He also said he could save the us a trillion dollars per year with DOGE, and basically just caused a lot data exfiltration and killed hundreds of thousands of people, without saving any money at all

sejje 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Elon Musk killed hundreds of thousands of people?

SmirkingRevenge 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes. Mostly kids, because of the DOGE ransacking of USAID

https://healthpolicy-watch.news/the-human-cost-one-year-afte...

techblueberry 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

He said impossible, this was done recently, by spacex themselves.

moomoo11 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah but he’s an expert his opinion can be dismissed bro this is 2026

YetAnotherNick 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> It(Solar) works, but it isn't somehow magically better than installing solar panels on the ground

Umm, if this is the point, I don't know whether to take rest of author's arguments seriously. Solar only works certain time of the day and certain period of year on land.

Also there is so limited calculations for the numbers in the article, while the article throws of numbers left and right.

jhanschoo 40 minutes ago | parent [-]

> Solar only works certain time of the day and certain period of year on land

The same goes for LEO!

jaimex2 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No one is interested in excuses on why it can't be done. Were in interested in the plan on how they plan to do it.

The guy is saying satellite communication is restricted to 1Gbps ffs. SpaceX is way past that.