Genuine question: why are there so many people up-in-arms on orbital data centers? Like they have a personally vested interest in ensuring their opinions on failure are correct? There are many people on HN that despise it and say it will not and will never work, but here we are, they are flying them up to space and presumably, will start working soon.
Because when things are getting built that obviously should not work, in one's view of the world, it threatens that view of the world. Finding out that your common sense and understating of basic physics and economics has a sizable hole is pretty unpleasant for most people.
But if the project fails, then the view of the world is proved correct again, which feels moderately pleasant.
> Like they have a personally vested interest in ensuring their opinions on failure are correct?
I haven't commented on this topic before (here or elsewhere) but I don't understand your surprise at people being critical. Everyone has a vested interest in keeping the planet usable. We could try lots of things in space, like agriculture or power production. It takes a lot of fuel to push a usable kilogram of stuff into a low orbit (laser propulsion and spin launches aren't quite there yet), so moving operations into orbit has various major downsides. So long as nobody states an upside, yeah, my mind is quite blown about wasting investor money on this. Even when not considering the opportunity cost of that used money (alternative positive uses), it seems like burning the equivalent amount of cash in a bonfire or otherwise disappearing the money would be a lesser evil
>... orbital data centers...
>... but here we are, they are flying them up to space and presumably, will start working soon.
No, this isn't "here we are". This is not an orbital data center, this is just something that will test TPU cooling functionality in orbit for only 15 minutes at a time.
This argument sounds reminiscent of "this is not AGI/ASI". Arguing over definitions is arbitrary. This is an operational data-center that is processing data on TPUs. That alone qualifies as an orbital data center.
Whether we like AI or not, LLMs did open up a horde of use cases that were impossible a few years ago. Orbital data centers are not like that: their value proposition is that they will provide the exact same service already offered by land-based data centers. So the only way for it to make economical sense is if it's cheaper. It's not.
It's more like blockchain than LLM: there's no clear value proposition and you have to squint really hard to see any perceived benefit.
Anyone managing a terrestrial data center that had this level of performance and called it a “data-center” much less “operational” would be fired for cause.
And ah, I see you’ve been dancing around with definitions and goomba fallacies around this thread. You definitely asked your question in good faith.
It's like watching flat earthers launch yet another experiment to prove the earth is flat. We already know the outcome, including the subsequent press release that has the words "very promising" and "flawed assumptions" in the same sentence. But this "flat earther" has billions to burn and enough clout to keep investors and the media in the carousel for the better part of the next few years.
The hardest thing about AI datacenters is power. The second hardest thing is cooling. All of these are physical challenges and exponentially harder in space.
So why do it? Because datacenter regulations on earth are becoming a referendum by proxy on AI. "Texas has no jurisdiction in low earth orbit!" is the general idea. Critics point out that this is a transparent move to moot the argument over AI, and that it doesn't even work in principle, due to above mentioned physics.
It’s simply a stupid idea that indeed will not work, and this little tech demo is mostly a proof of that. It’s awful to many people (especially engineers, which you'll find more than elsewhere on here), to witness incompetence, waste, and inefficiency. Especially when we’re talking about investments of billions of dollars and orbital launches.
Oh I'm just against it because I love the night sky and I don't want it littered with even more trash from obscenely rich American oligarchs. This tech doesn't help me, or anyone that is not in power. Instead it (and light pollution, but that at least not everywhere on the planet) destroys one of the few things that is there, commonly available for everyone to enjoy: the majestic view of the night sky.
Actually, some of us predicted exactly what’s about to happen: these companies will launch a handful of GPUs into space, declare that it’s “working”, and then continue to build out terrestrial data centers at orders of magnitude faster rate.
No one is saying it’s impossible to put operating GPUs in space. People are saying that the economics of this make zero sense, and there seem to be hard physical limits for how much you can change parts of the reasons why. This test does absolutely nothing to disprove that.
Plenty of people are saying it is impossible to operate GPUs in space. They are about to be proven wrong, and then very wrong.
Economics are another matter.
Again, no one is saying that. I bet there are GPUs in space now! What do you think that even proves?
Are you moving the goalpost? There are other people in this thread right now that are stating exactly that running orbital GPUs in space will not physically be possible (heat limits, etc).
Look at what they're doing. It runs for 15 minutes and then sleeps for an unstated amount of time (I'd guess hours to days).
Literally nobody thought it would explode if you run it for even a nanosecond.
It's an offensively stupid idea. Anyone trying to sell you on it thinks you're stupid.
Look at the article: they threw 4 cards in a box and launched it. It works for 15 minutes and then it has to snooze for who-knows-how-long.
Everything about technological progress is like this. It props up their ego, and they risk nothing. The man in the arena is always dangerously close to being the villain.
Spend the money on something we already know works that will help people today, right now.
You first.
Especially considering their just-stated opinion, who says they don't...
Soon the musical chairs game will come to a screeching halt. Interest rates are skyrocketing and not even a Presidential decree will make them come down.
To me it's clear the U.S. is heading for a default. Instead of toning down the deficit Trump made it much worse with his "Big Beautiful Bill" and is bankrupting the country.
What happens next is anyone's guess, but it won't be pretty.
Because it’s so fucking stupid for the stated benefits that you get
- people getting nerd sniped and explaining why it’s wrong
- people who assume it isn’t wrong given the level of competence these groups have demonstrated already and are incensed by what they feel are bald faced lies to pump up stock prices like has been done before
- people who think this is some conspiracy(rightly or wrongly) to surreptitiously get weapon platforms or other support for weapon platforms into space.
The majority of tradeoffs for data centers make them always better on the ground. Just due to maintenance and heat alone.
> There are many people on HN that despise it and say it will not and will never work, but here we are, they are flying them up to space and presumably, will start working soon.
This is the one Google says they can run in 15 minute bursts and I’ve yet to find where they document what the cooldown period is before they can run again.
Also 99% of people saying it’ll never work are talking economically, not that theoretically you could get something up that works in the laws of physics.
Why are you so mad about orbital data centers? Your language is full of hate and vitriol. Let people build things that other people say are impossible or infeasible, find out if they work, turn out they dont work, then make improvements. If someone proposed the combustion engine to you in 1700 Im sure you would reply the same negative way.
Quit with the bait. It’s obvious with your follow up questions that when you said “Genuine question:”, it was disingenuous.
In the extremely unlikely situation that you weren’t, and so the mods can see I engaged with the question.
I personally am against for economic reasons and feel like point 2 laid out by me is the most likely, although there is another option I could entertain where the people running these companies are so high on their own supply with the TESCREAL beliefs, or literally high like we’ve seen guys like Musk be in public, that they actually believe in this being economically plausible despite all contrary evidence.
Elon Musk supports it and will be the main beneficiary if it succeeds. That's it.
I encourage Musk to launch all of his GPUs into space as soon as possible. Benefit away, creepy weirdo.
Nah, it's because the economics don't make sense. It's a PT Barnum level scam.
Debatable. It's not economically viable under current economics. There's an engineering problem that's solvable in the short term, e.g. the cooling issue.
The economics of mass production of satellites has been demonstrated to work out just fine (see Starlink) and what's missing is the same shift when it comes to space launches. Now I'm not saying that this is going to happen, but that's what the whole purpose of Musk's Starship/Superheavy rocket is.
If - and that's a big if! - the whole Starship concept works out, it'd drastically change the economics of putting satellites in LEO and the whole idea instantly becomes much less stupid.
So basically it's a bet on Starship working as advertised in the very near future. If it does, data centres in space (e.g. in the form of laser-linked satellite swarms) become a compelling alternative to terrestrial data centres. No regulatory issues, no infrastructure problems (power, water, ...), no risk of sabotage or drone strikes (see AWS in Middle East), and no land leases required.
Once you add up all these risks and costs and put them next to the launch cost that SpaceX envisions for Starship, the concept suddenly sounds quite plausible.
I'm sceptical myself - though for very different reasons - but I wouldn't call it an outright scam. It all hinges on one thing: Starship has to work. Cheaply, reliably, and within the next couple of years. If it turns out to be less capable, significantly more expensive, less reliable than F9 and F9 Heavy, or not ready until the mid-2030s, the concept is dead.
The engineering problem is called physic and thermodynamics. And unless we learn how to change those rules the problem will be unsolvable. It's like discussing perpetual motion...
I hear this a lot without actual calculations backing up the claim.
First of all, orbital data centre doesn't mean a monolithic 500MW monstrosity orbiting Earth. That's not what the companies actually investigating the idea (Google, Amazon, SpaceX, ...) have in mind.
The real-world implementation would use constellations of Starlink-sized satellites, so we're talking about a ~10kW power envelope. Under ideal orbital conditions (sun synchronous near polar orbit, ~250-450km), you can get away with as little as 40m² of radiator area depending on engineering margins, provided you allow your radiator/coolant temps to be 70°C and above (70°C is what I used for my estimation plus an ideal 400km SSO and a reasonably efficient radiator similar to the improved ETCS on the ISS - no ammonia for the coolant, though see below as to why).
People often cite the ISS and its ~100m² radiators for comparison. The problem with that is that for one, the design operating temperature of the ISS' EATCS is 4°C on the low temp loop and 17°C on the moderate temp loop. That little known fact aside, the current improved ATCS is capable of rejecting 70kW of waste heat - way more than the thermal output a realistic satellite would produce. The active temperature control system (ATCS) of the ISS is designed around humans and science experiments in a 400km 52°N to 52°S orbit, not silicon chips that are allowed to run much hotter than 25°C and sit in SSO.
In short the *actual* thermodynamics work out just fine if you consider real satellite designs instead of sci-fi monstrosities, use realistic operating temperatures for the coolant loop designed around silicon chips, and the desired target orbit.
So when you say "unless we learn how to change those rules the problem will be unsolvable" I'd honestly like to know why my 25+ year old literature on satellite mission and hardware design, Boeing's numbers from "Active Thermal Control System (ATCS) Overview" document, the formulas from NASAs "Guidelines for thermal analysis of spacecraft hardware", this gem from DLR https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2024.11.024 and my calculator are all wrong at the same time.
Sure, I only did some napkin math (still took nearly 45min) using some simplified formulas and crude estimates for the required parameters (I was curious, but not THAT curious), but I always rounded up and used a healthy 2x margin on top of the estimated result.
So please tell me why I'm wrong.