ChipSats seem kind of impractical on the surface of things. It’s paying for itself basically by being a novelty and tapping into enthusiasm. Probably not very scalable.
On the other hand if a relatively low-scale space based computing framework could be developed that can do lots of parallel processing, it could probably pay for itself. One idea I’ve been playing with to do so would be to use it to mine bitcoins. This is something where things like stability aren’t all that critical. If you were to use a low-earth orbit calculated to last a few months, it might be enough to pay for the hardware and launch.
Bitcoin mining cost to dollar ratio may change over time, so ROI calculations would be approximate at best. However, mining difficulty level tends to boost the value of bitcoins, and devaluation of bitcoins tends to reduce mining because they have to cover power costs. Free power/heat radiation should generally grant a competitive advantage all else equal.
I have reservations about BitCoin, but mainly on the monetary policy level. Inflation sometimes has its uses in economic policy, and deflation can sometimes be a lot more disastrous than inflation. I think BitCoin, by capping the total amount of money that can possibly circulate, would lend itself to liquidity traps—a deflationary spiral.
However, the idea of “computationally mining the sky” (not just using solar energy, but also using the cosmos as a heat sink) is positively brilliant. Perhaps the only question is: when will its time come?
To be clear: I wasn’t proposing KickSat as a business model. That never even occurred to me. For one thing, immediate practicality seems like an awful lot to ask at this point. If the goal is massive computing power in orbit, KickSat isn’t going to deliver practicality. (I’ve got a Sprite coming, and when it arrives, I’ll be writing code for a slow 16-bit microprocessor for the first time in perhaps 25 years.)
The more important goal at this point is obvious: to get more reality-testing of the ServerSky idea. We can get more reality-testers if there’s an increase in awareness of the idea—which is why you’re posting this notice to Less Wrong, yes? Thinsats seem like an absurd idea on the face of it. But the same could have been said of the planar transistor before it happened. As soon as you had one planar transistor, people started thinking about it the whole idea a lot more. That first planar transistor wasn’t a commercially practical device. Probably the first few thousand fabricated at Bell Labs weren’t practical. What drove commercialization efforts at that point wasn’t profit, it was promise—a promise made more credible by a physical realization.
Call it “hardware as propaganda”, if you like, but most people don’t really believe in what they haven’t first seen. Less Wrong isn’t “most people”—it partakes of a strong speculative mindset. Please understand—I like powerful speculation, personally. But it’s hardly representative of what makes most people invest time and effort, much less money, in an idea. Talking about planar transistors didn’t put the word “germanium” on people’s lips. Making one did. It turned out silicon was really the ticket. But if a germanium planar transistor hadn’t gotten people saying something, nothing would have happened.
If I had to pick a key phrase in what I posted above, it’s “demonstration effect.” At this point, it seems the best way to physically demonstrate anything remotely like ServerSky is with a Sprite fleet.
ChipSats seem kind of impractical on the surface of things. It’s paying for itself basically by being a novelty and tapping into enthusiasm. Probably not very scalable.
On the other hand if a relatively low-scale space based computing framework could be developed that can do lots of parallel processing, it could probably pay for itself. One idea I’ve been playing with to do so would be to use it to mine bitcoins. This is something where things like stability aren’t all that critical. If you were to use a low-earth orbit calculated to last a few months, it might be enough to pay for the hardware and launch.
Bitcoin mining cost to dollar ratio may change over time, so ROI calculations would be approximate at best. However, mining difficulty level tends to boost the value of bitcoins, and devaluation of bitcoins tends to reduce mining because they have to cover power costs. Free power/heat radiation should generally grant a competitive advantage all else equal.
I have reservations about BitCoin, but mainly on the monetary policy level. Inflation sometimes has its uses in economic policy, and deflation can sometimes be a lot more disastrous than inflation. I think BitCoin, by capping the total amount of money that can possibly circulate, would lend itself to liquidity traps—a deflationary spiral.
However, the idea of “computationally mining the sky” (not just using solar energy, but also using the cosmos as a heat sink) is positively brilliant. Perhaps the only question is: when will its time come?
To be clear: I wasn’t proposing KickSat as a business model. That never even occurred to me. For one thing, immediate practicality seems like an awful lot to ask at this point. If the goal is massive computing power in orbit, KickSat isn’t going to deliver practicality. (I’ve got a Sprite coming, and when it arrives, I’ll be writing code for a slow 16-bit microprocessor for the first time in perhaps 25 years.)
The more important goal at this point is obvious: to get more reality-testing of the ServerSky idea. We can get more reality-testers if there’s an increase in awareness of the idea—which is why you’re posting this notice to Less Wrong, yes? Thinsats seem like an absurd idea on the face of it. But the same could have been said of the planar transistor before it happened. As soon as you had one planar transistor, people started thinking about it the whole idea a lot more. That first planar transistor wasn’t a commercially practical device. Probably the first few thousand fabricated at Bell Labs weren’t practical. What drove commercialization efforts at that point wasn’t profit, it was promise—a promise made more credible by a physical realization.
Call it “hardware as propaganda”, if you like, but most people don’t really believe in what they haven’t first seen. Less Wrong isn’t “most people”—it partakes of a strong speculative mindset. Please understand—I like powerful speculation, personally. But it’s hardly representative of what makes most people invest time and effort, much less money, in an idea. Talking about planar transistors didn’t put the word “germanium” on people’s lips. Making one did. It turned out silicon was really the ticket. But if a germanium planar transistor hadn’t gotten people saying something, nothing would have happened.
If I had to pick a key phrase in what I posted above, it’s “demonstration effect.” At this point, it seems the best way to physically demonstrate anything remotely like ServerSky is with a Sprite fleet.