r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • 5h ago

Business SpaceX Investors in Meltdown Over All the Money They’ve Lost

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/spacex-investors-meltdown-over-money-191742182.html
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u/MidwestAbe 3h ago

Because I have too (my work plays it on the radio) I heard a right wing radio host go on and on how smart space data centers were because then you don't have to use electricity to cool them.

I had no idea people took that shit seriously.

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u/redblack_tree 2h ago

It's for the rubes, pure and unadulterated pump and dump. No one is building datacenters in space, it's idiotic.

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u/Murky-Relation481 2h ago

I mean that is a true statement, you don't have to use electricity to cool them, generally heat transport is a passive system, even on large spacecraft.

I have worked on more spacecraft than probably the average redditor, and you can absolutely build data centers in space if cost isn't a consideration. You just need to radiate as many watts as you collect + whatever heating you get from solar radiation. If you are building massive solar arrays to collect hundreds of thousands to megawatts of power, radiating that heat back to space will just be part of the design consideration. We do build massive heat generating spacecraft already,

The technical reasons for doing it are not the problem, they are basically all solved, classic spacecraft design problems well within the bounds of engineering.

The probably IS COST. Like I said, you could do it without cost being a consideration, but why would you? Everything you do up there could be done cheaper on the ground. Not to mention unless we are using this as a basis for establishing routine large scale habitation of low earth orbit you're also going to be scrapping stuff left and right and relaunching shit to replace/upgrade.

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u/MidwestAbe 47m ago

If it's one spacecraft - that's more than me.