My new supervisor, the day I met him, was talking about how space data centers are a great idea (“because it’s so cold up there!”) and will be amazing when they’re online. That’s the moment I realized he was breathtakingly stupid. He may not believe in thermodynamics, but thermodynamics believes in him.
I guess I shouldn’t have expected much given that he has a degree in finance and has worked in consulting for 10 years.
He may not believe in thermodynamics
How does thermodynamics make this a bad idea? Is it because the heat generated can’t escape?
Yeah. The only way to cool things in space is to radiate it away with fins, or the more destructive approach of jettisoning material.
How do the fins help if there’s no hot material being jettisoned? Are we assuming there is some atmosphere that will absorb the heat through (I’m guessing) convection?
Radiation is the part you are missing. The three ways of dissipating heat are: conduction, convection, and radiation which is what the “fins” do.
