Comment on The Physics of Data Centers in Space
WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 2 days ago
You would need to launch so ridiculously much into orbit. The ISS is rounded up 200 kW of solar power. 0.2 MW. Say you want the equivalent of a gigawatt data center. 1000 MW. Yeah, that’s about 5000 ISS sizes objects. It needs a bunch more cooling, and a data center doesn’t need habital zones, so a pretty barebones ISS. Launch about 3 roughly ISS sized objects per day and you’re done in 1.7 years. Somehow I don’t really see that as a realistic plan.
GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca 2 days ago
The current solar panel system of the ISS weights about 8 tonnes, the Falcon Heavy can deliver 63 tonnes to LEO. That’s about 715 launches of the Falcon Heavy, assuming space solar panel W/kg hasn’t improved since then, that Starship never becomes commercially viable, and doesn’t include batteries, cooling, or the working components. This still isn’t in the range of feasible for a data center, but could be an option for microgravity industry. The value of a more successful or precise silicon crystal production method, for instance, may make it worthwhile.