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Starcloud can’t put a data centre in space at $8.2M in one Starship

(angadh.com)
199 points angadh | 3 comments | 26 Jun 25 20:06 UTC | HN request time: 0.211s | source
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energywut ◴[26 Jun 25 20:49 UTC] No.44391208[source]▶
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.

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notahacker ◴[26 Jun 25 21:14 UTC] No.44391460[source]▶
The best argument I've heard for data centres in space startups is it's a excuse to do engineering work on components other space companies might want to buy (radiators, shielding, rad-hardened chips, data transfer, space batteries) which are too unsexy to attract the same level of FOMO investment...
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1. chatmasta ◴[26 Jun 25 23:39 UTC] No.44392524[source]▶
Yes, and also just because a space data center isn’t useful today doesn’t mean it won’t be required tomorrow. When all the computing is between the ground and some nearby satellites, of course the tradeoffs won’t be worth it.

But what about when we’re making multi-year journeys to Mars and we need a relay network of “space data centers” talking to each other, caching content, etc?

We may as well get ahead of the problems we’ll face and solve them in a low-stakes environment now, rather than waiting to discover some novel failure scenario when we’re nearing Mars…

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2. XorNot ◴[27 Jun 25 02:14 UTC] No.44393194[source]▶
We'd build it then? The problems of a space data center are extremely generic and only worth solving when you actually need one. Which would never be in low earth orbit.
3. robertlagrant ◴[27 Jun 25 12:00 UTC] No.44396090[source]▶
> what about when we’re making multi-year journeys to Mars and we need a relay network of “space data centers” talking to each other, caching content, etc?

How would this work? Planets orbit at different speeds, so you can't build a chain of relays to another planet. I can imagine these things orbiting planets, but is that worth it compared to ground-based systems?