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Why put data centers in space?
(mander.xyz)
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this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2026
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You're talking about project Natick. All reports I saw was that it was actually a resounding success. The only reason I've seen for why it was cancelled is because it wasn't able to be kept at the bleeding edge as they couldn't upgrade the servers randomly. It doesn't really compare to launching them into space which gives basically zero benefit but adds an insane amount to the cost.
IDK about success.
I think it went predictably in that the cooling was ok but maintenance was an issue.
Seawater is a real bitch. If you could cool things with it we would just pump it onshore.
Yeah... No maintenance... Which is a thing that datacenters require.
Enterprise Hardware can have redundancy but things still break.
If it was a success they would have done it. Ergo, not a success.
Not only upgrading hardware, but maintaining any issues along the way. Hard drives fail, Memory fails, etc. That's just stuff that happens and can be easily remedied in a normal data center.
Now take all of those issues, and instead of being underwater... move it 500 miles into the vacuum of space. And take the heat dissipation of all that water, and make it a fraction because the vacuum of space is terrible at radiating heat despite the ambient temperature being so cold.