this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024
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cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/24946971

TL;DW:

Does It Make Sense To Put Data Centers In Space?

At some point in the future, yes.

Can They Really Cost Less To Operate?

In theory, yes.

Scott expresses concerns that current startups have not adequately addressed some of the practical challenges, such as cooling.

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[–] charade_you_are 13 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Cooling? Just open a door.

[–] tquid 45 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Getting rid of heat in space is actually a serious challenge. You can only radiate it away, since there is no gas to allow convection.

[–] Enkers 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

This always makes me wonder: When they say space is a frozen vacuum, it wouldn't actually feel nearly as cold as it is, right? Because there's no matter to actually take that heat away from you.

The big issue is the pressure, and you'd balloon up like a blob fish out of its depth. But would it feel cold for the few instants you'd have?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago (1 children)

no one says space is a β€œfrozen” vacuum except movies.

[–] Enkers 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Sorry, that embellishment (?) was probably mine; I guess I meant to say "really cold". And it is really cold, but it's also a very good insulator.

Actually, thinking about it, it really is freezing, isn't it? If you took some liquid water and just let it out into space, wouldn't it eventually freeze? It'd just take a really long time.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Matter not sunlit in space really is cold (and sunlit matter is baking hot, btw). It's just there is so little matter in space (vacuum and all) that getting rid of heat via conduction is virtually impossible, meaning it's insulated. So technically space is cold, also hot, and also damn well insulated.

Water not exposed to sunlight could get as low as - 260C (close to absolute zero) by radiating away all it's heat... eventually. Meanwhile water exposed to our sun in Earth orbit would be at around boiling temps, like 100-140C. Just check the Moon surface temperature readings.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

The first thing to happen is that any liquids (saliva, tears, blood) will start to boil in the very low pressure, but your body won't explode like in some films. This boiling will pull heat from your body causing your nose and mouth to nearly freeze.

Another film trope is that you freeze over, but you'll often overheat first since you can't radiate your heat away quickly enough (depending on if you're in sunlight or not).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The first physiological effect will be your body parts swelling up due to lack of atmosphere.

Joseph Kittinger made a jump from over 100,000 feet, and near the peak, one of his gloves malfunctioned. His hand swelled up and became useless. But it returned to normal a while later when he was back on the ground.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

Joseph Kittinger

That guy had one hell of an interesting life: world-record altitude, world-record jump, flying in combat and being shot down over Vietnam, being a POW, being the first person to cross the Atlantic on a balloon, and making it onto a game show.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I think Mr Musk lost a good opportunity to find out by sending a dummy instead.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Yeah but he didn’t want to be gone from spewing bullshit on twitter that long.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Anything within a sealed loop such as blood or brain fluid shouldn't be boiling. Your body is pretty good at keeping that stuff inside as long as you don't have any major cuts or something. That said, I don't think even a minor cut suffered in the vacuum could clot or scab without oxygen.

All of the air in any of your orifices would rapidly get sucked out (including from one's butt), and pretty much any liquids exposed to the resulting vacuum would boil. Negative pressure within the body means more room-temp boiling liquids, which then creates more air to get sucked out! It's a feedback loop!

A space-exposed corpse would likely end up quite dehydrated for the above reason.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

wouldn’t do anything. you’re basically in a giant thermos, insulated by vacuum on all sides.

[–] charade_you_are 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Too advanced for me. I was just thinking it would get cold but obviously too cold.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

the opposite. if you put hot coffee in a thermos, it stays hot for a long time because a vacuum is the best insulation there is.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

How to destroy space datacenter any% speedrrun