zlacker

>>angadh+(OP)
Putting a datacenter in space is one of the worst ideas I've heard in a while.

Reliable energy? Possible, but difficult -- need plenty of batteries

Cooling? Very difficult. Where does the heat transfer to?

Latency? Highly variable.

Equipment upgrades and maintenance? Impossible.

Radiation shielding? Not free.

Decommissioning? Potentially dangerous!

Orbital maintenance? Gotta install engines on your datacenter and keep them fueled.

There's no upside, it's only downsides as far as I can tell.

>>energy+T6
If you read the Starcloud whitepaper[1], it claims that massive batteries aren't needed because the satellites would be placed in a dawn-dusk sun-synchronous orbit. Except for occasional lunar eclipses, the solar panels would be in constant sunlight.

The whitepaper also says that they're targeting use cases that don't require low latency or high availability. In short: AI model training and other big offline tasks.

For maintenance, they plan to have a modular architecture that allows upgrading and/or replacing failed/obsolete servers. If launch costs are low enough to allow for launching a datacenter into space, they'll be low enough to allow for launching replacement modules.

All satellites launched from the US are required to have a decommissioning plan and a debris assessment report. In other words: the government must be satisfied that they won't create orbital debris or create a hazard on the ground. Since these satellites would be very large, they'll almost certainly need thrusters that allow them to avoid potential collisions and deorbit in a controlled manner.

Whether or not their business is viable depends on the future cost of launches and the future cost of batteries. If batteries get really cheap, it will be economically feasible to have an off-the-grid datacenter on the ground. There's not much point in launching a datacenter into space if you can power it on the ground 24/7 with solar + batteries. If cost to orbit per kg plummets and the price of batteries remains high, they'll have a chance. If not, they're sunk.

I think they'll most likely fail, but their business could be very lucrative if they succeed. I wouldn't invest, but I can see why some people would.

1. https://starcloudinc.github.io/wp.pdf

>>ggreer+kw
Same with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, inventing a detour because it sounds cool and ultimately don't work out because Occam's Razor.

>>Aperoc+9C
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are a little different because there are safety, economic, and physical constraints that mean they will always be worse than battery electric or gas cars. I and many others correctly predicted this.[1] For hydrogen to succeed, batteries would have to get more expensive and/or have worse energy density than they did in 2015.

Satellite data centers seem unlikely to me, but at least their feasibility doesn't require that existing stuff get more expensive/worse. Starcloud is a bet that three things will happen in the next decade:

- SpaceX Starship will succeed and drastically reduce launch costs.

- Batteries will not get 10x cheaper.

- There will be valuable applications for high latency, high performance compute (eg: AI training).

If any one of these things does not happen, Starcloud is doomed (or will have to pivot). If they all happen, Starcloud has a chance at success.

1. >>25875749

>>ggreer+3y2
It does not make sense, you can do the same thing on Earth without launching it into space.

The entire launch thing is completely not necessary and is entirely detrimental to the product.