Have you seen the size of the radiators on the ISS ? And that’s just what’s needed for cooling of body heat for 9 people and basic computer and support equipment.
A data center that is actively pumping out massive amounts of heat would need humongous radiator panels.
And you can only build so many of those radiator panels before you start running into congestion problems. You don’t want them radiating onto each other.
The area of radiator needed directly corresponds to the amount of power harvested by the solar panels. It doesn’t matter what the load is. So a compute frame with the same amount of solar panels as the space station would need approximately the same radiatot area as the ISS, unless you are bringing nuclear power into the mix.
I agree that space based datacenters are a bad idea, but the thermals really are not the gotcha people are making them out to be.
The solar panels needed is another problem for the space data center fantasy. Once you put together all the mass over enough surface area to make it work, you would blot out the sun worldwide.
Have you seen the size of the radiators on the ISS ? And that’s just what’s needed for cooling of body heat for 9 people and basic computer and support equipment.
A data center that is actively pumping out massive amounts of heat would need humongous radiator panels.
And you can only build so many of those radiator panels before you start running into congestion problems. You don’t want them radiating onto each other.
And those radiator panels are heavy and big, therefore enormously expensive to launch, and vulnerable to micro meteorites and other orbital debris.
The area of radiator needed directly corresponds to the amount of power harvested by the solar panels. It doesn’t matter what the load is. So a compute frame with the same amount of solar panels as the space station would need approximately the same radiatot area as the ISS, unless you are bringing nuclear power into the mix.
I agree that space based datacenters are a bad idea, but the thermals really are not the gotcha people are making them out to be.
The solar panels needed is another problem for the space data center fantasy. Once you put together all the mass over enough surface area to make it work, you would blot out the sun worldwide.
They’re called fins. Not panels.
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