Why can’t orbiting solar collectors be made to work efficiently? Aren’t satellites already doing solar collection, data processing, storage, and transferring already?
Happy to learn from you tec...
Space is really big, but it is also an almost perfect insulator. Which makes cooling absolutely ridiculous. No conduction at all. Best you can do is some sort of liquid cooling and then pipe the liquid into a big flat panel to lose heat by radiation alone. Its like putting your CPU into a thermos flask, only more so. It can be done, but it is insanely expensive compared to just opening the window on earth.
Space is big, and it is also full of radiation. All the processors and memory and GPU chips that you put up there are bombarded with radiation and cosmic rays at a level earth dwellers would find insane and deadly. You can radiation-harden hardware, but it is insanely expensive compared to just living under a mile of atmosphere.
Space is big, and it is also far away. When things break and need repair you need a tower-block full of fuel and a space-rocket to burn it in order to send an engineer to replace the hard-drive. It can be done, but it is insanely expensive compared to just putting your chips near where an engineer lives.
Space is big, and hasn't got good fiber. You can send signals down to earth with microwaves but only for the 30 minutes when the satellite is overhead . Otherwise there's an entire earth in the way. You can get around this with receivers and relays and whatnot but it is insane expensive compared to just laying some fiber to your data center.
Space is big, and it is also full of radiation. All the processors and memory and GPU chips that you put up there are bombarded with radiation and cosmic rays at a level earth dwellers would find insane and deadly. You can radiation-harden hardware, but it is insanely expensive compared to just living under a mile of atmosphere.
Space is big, and it is also far away. When things break and need repair you need a tower-block full of fuel and a space-rocket to burn it in order to send an engineer to replace the hard-drive. It can be done, but it is insanely expensive compared to just putting your chips near where an engineer lives.
Space is big, and hasn't got good fiber. You can send signals down to earth with microwaves but only for the 30 minutes when the satellite is overhead . Otherwise there's an entire earth in the way. You can get around this with receivers and relays and whatnot but it is insane expensive compared to just laying some fiber to your data center.