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1. Reuben+o1[view] [source] 2025-10-22 11:34:42
>>jonbae+(OP)
Last time these folks were mentioned on HN, there was a lot of skepticism that this is really possible to do. The issue is cooling: in space, you can't rely on convection or conduction to do passive cooling, so you can only radiate away heat. However, the radiator would need to be several kilometers big to provide enough cooling, and obviously launching such a large object into space would therefore eat up any cost savings from the "free" solar power.

More discussion: >>43977188

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2. dheera+5d1[view] [source] 2025-10-22 17:07:55
>>Reuben+o1
TFA> “In space, you get almost unlimited, low-cost renewable energy,”

Why is this exclusive to space? If you're powering datacenters on solar, one would think covering the Sahara or other large desert in datacenters would be easier than launching them into space. Renewable energy is just as plentiful and free there, you can connect it to the rest of the world with multiple TB/s of fiber links, and the construction/maintainence costs would be a few orders of magnitude less.

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