zlacker

>>angadh+(OP)
Space roboticist here.

As with a lot of things, it isn't the initial outlay, it's the maintenance costs. Terrestrial datacenters have parts fail and get replaced all the time. The mass analysis given here -- which appears quite good, at first glance -- doesn't including any mass, energy, or thermal system numbers for the infrastructure you would need to have to replace failed components.

As a first cut, this would require:

- an autonomous rendezvous and docking system

- a fully railed robotic system, e.g. some sort of robotic manipulator that can move along rails and reach every card in every server in the system, which usually means a system of relatively stiff rails running throughout the interior of the plant

- CPU, power, comms, and cooling to support the above

- importantly, the ability of the robotic servicing system toto replace itself. In other words, it would need to be at least two fault tolerant -- which usually means dual wound motors, redundant gears, redundant harness, redundant power, comms, and compute. Alternately, two or more independent robotic systems that are capable of not only replacing cards but also of replacing each other.

- regular launches containing replacement hardware

- ongoing ground support staff to deal with failures

The mass analysis also doesn't appear to include the massive number of heat pipes you would need to transfer the heat from the chips to the radiators. For an orbiting datacenter, that would probably be the single biggest mass allocation.

>>GlenTh+QE
Seems prudent to achieve fully robotic datacenters on earth before doing it in space. I know, I’m a real wet blanket.

>>hambur+9G
If mass is going to be as cheap as is needed for this to work anyway, there's no reason you can't just use people like in a normal datacenter.

>>Robotb+FL
Space is very bad for the human body, you wouldn't be able to leave the humans there waiting for something to happen like you do on earth, they'd need to be sent from earth every time.

Also, making something suitable for humans means having lots of empty space where the human can walk around (or float around, rather, since we're talking about space).

>>little+JQ
Underwater welder, though being replaced by drone operator, is still a trade despite the health risks. Do you think nobody on this whole planet would take a space datacenter job on a 3 month rotation?

I agree that it may be best to avoid needing the space and facilities for a human being in the satellite. Fire and forget. Launch it further into space instead of back to earth for a decommission. People can salvage the materials later.

>>switkn+wo1
The problem isn't health “risk”, there are risks but there are also health effects that will come with certainty. For instance, low gravity deplete your muscles pretty fast. Spend three month in space and you're not going to walk out of the reentry vehicle.

This effect can be somehow overcome by exercising while in space but it's not perfect even with the insane amount of medical monitoring the guys up there receive.

>>little+tx1
Then just provide spin gravity for the crew habitat.

>>Robotb+Sx1
“just”

It's theoretically possible for sure, but we've never done that in practice and it's far from trivial.

>>little+vz1
Yeah, “just.”

Every child on a merry go round experiences it. Every car driving on a curve. And Gemini tested it once as well. It’s a basic feature of physics. Now why NASA hasn’t decided to implement it in decades is actually kind of a mystery.

>>Robotb+pj2
If it’s that straightforward, why haven’t you done it?