Overheat as there is no way to disperse heat in a vacuum
This is incorrect. You cannot do convection heat removal in a vacuum because there’s no air. However, you can still do radiant heat dispersal.
So you dump your heat into something that has a lot of surface area with which to radiate it away from your components.
Space is either very hot or very cold, depending on whether you are in light or shadow. If one side is constantly exposed to light, then there must be radiators on the other side to radiate that heat back off into the cold.
Now calculate the size of the radiators a full scale data centre would need.
About 2000 sqm per MW, according to Google. Given an average data center load of 100 MW, about 200k sqm. Add that again for the solar panels you’d need, and you’re at a cool half a million sqm. Compare the ISS, at a measly 7000 sqm. The mind (and budget) boggles.
That sounds familiar, like a quote from some movie or game. What’s it from?
The Matrix
The Matrix wasn’t a movie, it was a documentary.
That tracks with the context. Thanks!
This is incorrect. You cannot do convection heat removal in a vacuum because there’s no air. However, you can still do radiant heat dispersal.
So you dump your heat into something that has a lot of surface area with which to radiate it away from your components.
Space is either very hot or very cold, depending on whether you are in light or shadow. If one side is constantly exposed to light, then there must be radiators on the other side to radiate that heat back off into the cold.
Now calculate the size of the radiators a full scale data centre would need.
About 2000 sqm per MW, according to Google. Given an average data center load of 100 MW, about 200k sqm. Add that again for the solar panels you’d need, and you’re at a cool half a million sqm. Compare the ISS, at a measly 7000 sqm. The mind (and budget) boggles.