this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2026
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[–] Lodespawn@aussie.zone 4 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

There's a bunch of sealed underwater data centres and they found reliability went right up (see Project Natick). Underwater has the benefit of actually having cooling though ..

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 15 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

Yet Microsoft abandoned the idea because it was so fraught with commercialisation issues. Which is exactly what the experts are saying

Can't maintain, can't upgrade, can't repair, it pollutes the environment with abandoned shit and it doesn't scale

Reliability probably went up because of the extra expense put into making sure it won't immediately fail and need to be repaired

[–] Lodespawn@aussie.zone 1 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I'm not saying the space data centres are a good or even viable idea, just saying you can improve the reliability significantly if you try. The space data centre planis a non starter, there's nowhere for the heat to go.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 3 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Yes, investing in reliability will increase reliability

You can radiate the heat with a biiiig long radiator but it doesn't solve any of the other problems or improve commercial scalability

[–] Lodespawn@aussie.zone 0 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (3 children)

You may note that this thread is talking about data centre reliability ..

Also you can't radiate heat in space ..

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 5 points 12 hours ago

You can ONLY radiate heat in space..

[–] peeteer@feddit.org 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

The ISS has 475m^2 of ammonia filled radiators that like to disagree with you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_Active_Thermal_Control_System

[–] justaman123@lemmy.world 1 points 21 minutes ago

Yeah, I've been wondering why there's such a push against the feasibility of space data centers on a lack of cooling when it's in a vacuum where we have already solved temperature regulations. Are there good arguments for why this doesn't work for data centers in space? I mean I imagine other concerns will definitely make it difficult but this argument hasn't seemed accurate to me. I mean also I'm against data centers in general so ya know fuck them but from a reality pov like isn't that argument incorrect?

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 0 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Also you can’t radiate heat in space …

How does the Sun work?

[–] Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Mostly emitting ungodly amounts of photons and radiations, as far as the earth is concerned. Is that actually cooling it though ?

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Yes, all that emitted radiation does cool down the sun. It's why it has a mostly stable temperature instead of getting hotter infinitely.

[–] jungle@lemmy.world 4 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Right, I'm sure the hard radiation will help with that as well.