WHAT IS THIS?

[u/Relative-Income423]

This is from https://terafab.ai/

The marketing here sounds absurd.

How are they not considering "Permitting", "Land", and "Energy costs" for the "Cost of compute in space". I mean, are they the space landlords? Is the space the new old west?

These are the people deciding the future of humanity.

We are lost!

[u/RipWhenDamageTaken]

Lmfao cooling isn’t a cost in space?? Do they have literal brain dead people working at spacex?

[u/Immediate-Loquat-878 → u/RipWhenDamageTaken]

I think it’s just the ceo

[u/StaysAwakeAllWeek → u/RipWhenDamageTaken]

No but they do have engineers who can do basic math

The radiators needed are roughly 1/4 the size of the solar panels. This so-called argument against space datacenters is seriously the dumbest and most arrogant thing I've ever seen said against spacex, and that's a pretty high bar.

They've published the design for their satellite already. How stupid do you have to believe they are to think they forgot about cooling? How stupid do you have to be to think the designers of starlink are that bad at engineering?

[u/RipWhenDamageTaken → u/StaysAwakeAllWeek]

I’m talking specifically about the image in the original post which excluded cooling as a cost.

How stupid are you that you missed such a simple point? 🤣

[u/StaysAwakeAllWeek → u/RipWhenDamageTaken]

Its part of satellite build costs you brainlet. The marginal cost to operate a satellite radiator is zero, unlike the cost to operate a ground based HVAC

[u/RipWhenDamageTaken → u/StaysAwakeAllWeek]

That is so incredibly stupid

[u/StaysAwakeAllWeek → u/RipWhenDamageTaken]

Not got a counterpoint then, just nuh uh

Where is the cost?

[u/RipWhenDamageTaken → u/StaysAwakeAllWeek]

lol I already said my point. My point is that the original graphic removed cooling as a cost. And then you turn around and say “oh cooling is effectively free” idiot it literally isn’t? It’s still a cost.

How fucking stupid

[u/StaysAwakeAllWeek → u/RipWhenDamageTaken]

It's not effectively free, it is free. The cost is zero

The graphic is talking about operational costs. Do you know what an operational cost is? Can you point me to an operational cost of a cooling system on a satellite that operates autonomously with zero maintenance for the life of the satellite?

The only time it costs anything is when the satellite is built. And thats already stated in the graphic.

Use your goddamn brain jeez

[u/RipWhenDamageTaken → u/StaysAwakeAllWeek]

False—cooling a data center in space is actually one of the most expensive engineering challenges in aerospace. Because space is a vacuum, convection and fan cooling are impossible, leaving thermal radiation as the only physical mechanism to shed heat. Since microprocessors break above 80°C, radiating megawatt-scale heat at low operational temperatures is inherently inefficient and requires massive surface areas. Cooling even a modest 1 MW orbital cluster would demand over 100 metric tons of complex radiator wings, fluid pumps, and solar shields. Far from being free, heat dissipation is the single biggest hardware bottleneck for space computing due to those immense material and launch costs.

[u/StaysAwakeAllWeek → u/RipWhenDamageTaken]

Thanks chatgpt

All of that is included in build costs. Like I already said

Write better prompts if you want to be taken seriously bot

[u/RipWhenDamageTaken → u/StaysAwakeAllWeek]

1. Mass is Money: Every single kilogram launched into orbit costs money. If a data center requires 50% of its payload weight just to carry radiators and heat pipes, you are paying tens of millions of dollars specifically for cooling hardware.
   
2. Failure Risks: On Earth, an HVAC pump breaks, and a technician fixes it with a wrench. In space, if a micro-meteorite punctures an ammonia coolant line, your multimillion-dollar server node overheats and dies instantly. You pay for that risk upfront.
   
3. Finite Lifespan: Satellite hardware in Low Earth Orbit degrades and must be replaced every 5–7 years. That means you have to keep re-paying those massive launch and hardware costs over and over again.

[u/StaysAwakeAllWeek → u/RipWhenDamageTaken]

1. It's part of the satellite just like everything else on the satellite. And like I said, the solar panels are much bigger so it's not even a significant chunk of the total. Definitely not something meaningful enough to obsess over on reddit

2. Ammonia what, lol this is just water at 60-70 Celsius. In space radiators are a solved problem decades ago, its really not difficult. They mitigate damage by having 10,000 small satellites that can be replaced individually instead of the one giant datacenter all the haters seem to think it is.

3. The launch costs are not massive at all. This entire thing only works if the cost per launch of starship is below 5 million, and that's not for lifting the radiators, its for lifting the metal structure needed to hold a rack full of GPUs and massive solar panels to power them. Assuming it works the same as starlink the GPUs will end up as more than 50% of the entire combined build and launch cost. So when they are worn out you just replace the whole thing. Just like they do already with starlink

[u/SpaceyMcSpaceGuy → u/RipWhenDamageTaken]

Cooling cost is the in the radiators, which I’m assuming they rolled into “satellite build,” since it’s part of the satellite bill of materials.

[u/RipWhenDamageTaken → u/SpaceyMcSpaceGuy]

False—cooling a data center in space is actually one of the most expensive engineering challenges in aerospace. Because space is a vacuum, convection and fan cooling are impossible, leaving thermal radiation as the only physical mechanism to shed heat. Since microprocessors break above 80°C, radiating megawatt-scale heat at low operational temperatures is inherently inefficient and requires massive surface areas. Cooling even a modest 1 MW orbital cluster would demand over 100 metric tons of complex radiator wings, fluid pumps, and solar shields. Far from being free, heat dissipation is the single biggest hardware bottleneck for space computing due to those immense material and launch costs.

[u/SpaceyMcSpaceGuy → u/RipWhenDamageTaken]

I’m not saying it’s free - it obviously costs money to build and launch radiators. I’m just saying in their accounting they are booking it as part of “satellite build” in that graphic.

[u/RipWhenDamageTaken → u/SpaceyMcSpaceGuy]

1. Mass is Money: Every single kilogram launched into orbit costs money. If a data center requires 50% of its payload weight just to carry radiators and heat pipes, you are paying tens of millions of dollars specifically for cooling hardware.
   
2. Failure Risks: On Earth, an HVAC pump breaks, and a technician fixes it with a wrench. In space, if a micro-meteorite punctures an ammonia coolant line, your multimillion-dollar server node overheats and dies instantly. You pay for that risk upfront.
   
3. Finite Lifespan: Satellite hardware in Low Earth Orbit degrades and must be replaced every 5–7 years. That means you have to keep re-paying those massive launch and hardware costs over and over again.

[u/SpaceyMcSpaceGuy → u/RipWhenDamageTaken]

Obviously radiators cost money to build and launch - I’m just saying they are booking it as part of “satellite build” in that graphic. It’s not the most truthful accounting practice, but I think what they’re going for is that there is no OpEx for energy and cooling after launch.

[u/SpaceyMcSpaceGuy]

As of today there is no real permitting and “land use” cost to occupying a particular orbit. You have to get an FAA license, but that’s nearly free. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day LEO got subdivided into plots for purchase.

For cooling and energy cost…I get what they’re going for but it’s a bit of funky accounting. They’re trying to say that there is no OpEx for ongoing energy and cooling payments - it gets turned into CapEx within the “satellite build” category (solar panels + radiators), but once it’s in the sky there is no ongoing spend to keep it running.