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.
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.
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?
no one says space is a “frozen” vacuum except movies.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.