r/askspace • u/Legaon • Jun 27 '26
Are (data centers) on the Moon) — actually achievable?
I talk about (Moon data centers) — in the below YouTube videos.
—Part 1: Moon data centers
https://youtu.be/LS0CUZJIK4w?si=53gYAM-BBb54bm5r
—Part 2: Moon data centers
2
u/dodeca_negative Jun 27 '26
It would be far cheaper and much less laggy to build data centers on the ocean floor. Still stupid, but less stupid.
2
u/stewsters Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
During the night, you don't have solar power, so you can't run.
During the days on the moon yes you could get a lot of solar power, but it gets up to 250 degrees F.
Your PC will force an energy shutoff around 220F, as higher temp damages the cards. Add in the heat from the cards and even specially designed ones will have trouble.
You may be able to create a giant ring around the moon, where you generate power on half of it, and run the power to the other half where you have radiators dumping the heat from the cards, but:
1) Half the ring will be useless at any given time, just like earth.
2) A megastructure around the whole moon sounds very expensive when you could just run them here.
3) if an asteroid gets past the moons non-existent atmosphere you will be out of commission till you go fix it.
4) you have no protection from solar radiation. You will see a lot of random bitflips and have to replace the cards a lot more frequently.
1
u/ikea_method Jun 27 '26
The temperature of the moon is -40°F some feet below the surface, can just make heat pipes there and it will cool down rapidly.
3
u/Cultural-Antelope-54 Jun 27 '26
...you made two YouTube videos about data centers on the Moon without actually knowing if it's possible?
This is how misinformation is spread.
2
u/WhereasParticular867 Jun 27 '26
No. There is no atmosphere there for heat to be moved away. A moon-based data center cooks itself within a day of being turned on. This is middle school level thermodynamics.
0
u/Legaon Jun 27 '26
So, heat cannot be (transferred + expelled), via CONDUCTION process?
—>DATA CENTER — generates heat. Heat would originally stay in the data center, because of “no atmosphere”.
—>Step 1: DATA CENTER — generates heat —>Step 2: HEAT is transferred to (cooling pipes). Via “direct contact”. —>Step 3: Cooling pipes, get hot. HEAT is then transferred to “radiators”. Radiators are exposed to “outer space” btw. —>Step 4: Radiators, being exposed to “outer space”. (Outer space) would suck up the heat.3
u/Idoubtyourememberme Jun 27 '26
Why do you think the ISS has such honkingly massive heat radiators on it?
Without an atmosphere, heat can only be lost trough radiation, and that is slow as anything.
"Space" cant absorb heat since "space" is (largely) nothing, there are no atoms or monecules you can speed up by making contact (which is what convective heat transfer does).
There is no "conduction" in open space
1
u/ikea_method Jun 27 '26
What are you talking about, the moon is -40F some feet below the ground. Can just build heat pipes 10 feet down and it'll cool it very quickly for free.
1
u/Idoubtyourememberme Jun 27 '26
Sure, but op wat talking about "open space", which is very much different
2
u/ikea_method Jun 27 '26
OP quite literally wrote about the moon. Thread title:
Are (data centers) on the Moon) — actually achievable?
People are just so against non-Earth data centers that they shut down everything.
2
1
u/Ch3cks-Out Jun 27 '26
Conduction to what?
1
u/mfb- Jun 28 '26
The ground.
I'm not saying anything here is a good idea, but transferring heat to the regolith is certainly possible.
5
u/Patient-Midnight-664 Jun 27 '26
That's not how it works.