orbital AI datacenters are just a horrid idea in general:

Ariadne Conill 🐰:therian:

RE: https://mastodon.social/@sundogplanets/116087219652324350

- more junk screwing up the night sky
- cosmic rays can cause data flips in RAM
- how do you fix any of the servers if they are in space?

i can't *wait* to see the world's first AI datacenter *spacewalk*.

this is a fundamentally bad idea.

mkj

@ariadne …how do you keep them from boiling themselves!?

Mae

@mkj @ariadne I think that's the real trick with space data centers. Space is cold, so intuition says that the servers aren't gonna need cooling.

Once you think about the physics of the situation it all falls apart obviously

mkj

@Mae This isn't really my field of expertise, but I do think it's misleading to say that space is cold. Temperature is a property of matter, and space is fairly well known for being notoriously devoid of matter; therefore space doesn't *have* a temperature as we normally think of the concept.

Also, a thermos bottle uses a far worse vacuum than what you'd get in a stable Earth orbit, and functions as a pretty good heat insulator.

@ariadne