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stouset • yesterday at 8:30 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

Orbital datacenters suffer from the same problem: limited surface area. You think cooling is a problem now? Try not having conduction or convection. Radiation is all you get. A huge proportion of the mass and size of the ISS is radiators, and that only has to deal with the heat of low-power electronics and a few measly human beings.

Using an entire Mars only nets us about a 2x multiplier for our energy expenditure budget. Then we need four planets to double it again. Exponential growth is a bitch.

Thermodynamics and the tyranny of exponential growth are going to win this battle every time, regardless of the unobtanium technology you try to invent.


Replies

itishappy • yesterday at 9:48 PM

Not quite the same problem, because only a small portion of that energy radiated from space will make it back to the environment on Earth. For convection that is 100%.

> Using an entire Mars only nets us about a 2x multiplier for our energy expenditure budget.

We don't need to care about cooking Mars.

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