Post #1453230
2026-04-13 02:18 UTC
Replies (10)
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@elizayer@mastodon.social 2026-04-13 10:59
This episode of mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 is also a wonderful antidote to "AI data center in space" thinking. https://peertube.dair-institute.org/w/ggqiYcoWgw8p2ELsvzwfsJ
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@shom@gts.shom.dev 2026-04-13 02:34
@elizayer I think it is wild that the conversation doesn't start and end with two fundamental facts: every watt of electrical energy consumed by compute hardware ultimately becomes waste heat. In space, heat does not dissipate naturally into a surrounding medium. And those aren't even the best reasons why it's a bad idea: crowding our orbital space increasing odds for Kessler syndrome, the immense energy expense and environmental impact from the launch and the atmospheric pollution from reentry are all concerning (to name a few).
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@CavedaleRhones@sfba.social 2026-04-14 03:32
@elizayer Great article. Takes me back to my heat transfer course years ago. In some places (Mongolia for instance) they use waste heat from power generation to heat apartment buildings. Got me thinking about what might be done with the waste heat from data centers.
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@fraggle@social.coop 2026-04-14 04:24
@elizayer it's literally the principle that thermos flasks are designed around!
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@tewalds@sigmoid.social 2026-04-14 07:40
@elizayer have you seen https://youtu.be/FlQYU3m1e80 where he does the math on cooling? It's hard but not crazy hard. It's still a terrible idea though.
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@PeterHald@helvede.net 2026-04-14 09:21
@elizayer To quote Daniella Mestyanek: "Cults always promise space travel."
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@leeloo@c.im 2026-04-14 09:26
@elizayer Who would think that? Not anyone who has ever built their own pc. The number one thing to ensure you get the performance your pc is capable of: Airflow. There's no air in space. Neither anyone who has been following the news about AI datacenters. One of the big problems now is that they are using our drinking water for cooling. There's no water in space, so they'd have to use rockets to move all our drinking water into space - and we are not getting it back (Never mind that evaporative cooling probably doesn't work in space anyway, and other forms of water cooling is really just moving heat to where it's easier to get rid of).
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@knowprose@mastodon.social 2026-04-14 16:47
@elizayer it's just physics... Oh. People don't science anymore. 🥹
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@arclight@oldbytes.space 2026-04-14 18:12
@elizayer If you can find a used copy at a reasonable price, "Space Nuclear Power" is an interesting text. A tiny power reactor needs to get rid of heat and the only way to do that is with thermal radiation. The size and weight of the radiators needed is prohibitive. It's all so stupid from every perspective. https://www.amazon.com/Space-Nuclear-Power-Orbit-foundation/dp/0894640003
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@hoco@sfba.social 2026-04-14 18:16
@elizayer We're gonna need a new http error response code for "data center burned up in the atmosphere before your request could be fully processed".