Server Sky - internet and computation in orbit

It is easier to move terabits than kilograms or megawatts. Space solar power will solve the energy crisis. Sooner if we process space power into high value computation before we send it to earth. Computation is most valuable where it is rarest - in the rural developing world. Human attention is the most valuable resource on earth, and Server Sky space-based internet can transport that attention from where it is most abundant to where it is most valued.

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Server Sky thinsats are ultralight films of glass that convert sunlight into computation and communications. Powered by solar cells, propelled and steered by light pressure, networked and located by microwaves, and cooled by radiation into deep space. Arrays of tens of thousands of thinsats act as highly redundant computation and database servers, as well as phased array antennas to reach thousands of transceivers on the ground.

First generation thinsats are 20 centimeters across (about 8 inches) and 0.08 millimeters (80 microns) thick, and weigh 5 grams. They can be mass produced with off-the-shelf semiconductor and display technologies. Thousands of radio chips provide intra-array, inter-array, and ground communication, as well as precise location information. Thinsats are launched stacked by the thousands in solid cylinders, shrouded and vibration isolated inside a traditional satellite bus.

Traditional data centers consume almost 3% of US electrical power, and this fraction is growing rapidly. Server arrays in orbit can grow to virtually unlimited computation power, communicate with the whole world, pay for themselves with electricity savings, and greatly reduce pollution and resource usage in the biosphere.

The goal is an energy and space launch growth path that follows Moore's Law, with the cost of energy and launch halving every two years. Server Sky may cost two to ten times as much as ground-based computation in 2015, but it may cost 100 times less in 2035. The computation growth driven by Moore's Law is solving difficult problems from genetics to improved manufacture for semiconductors. If Server Sky and Moore's Law can do the same for clean energy, we can get rid of the carbon fuel plants, undam the rivers, and reduce atmospheric CO2 far sooner than we had dared hope. Energy production systems based on manual manufacturing, human construction assembly, and the use of terrestrial land, biological habitat, and surface water, packaged to survive weather, gravity, and corrosion, cannot grow at the same rate as Moore's Law.

Server Sky is speculative. The most likely technical showstopper is radiation damage. The most likely practical showstopper is misunderstanding. Working together, we can fix the latter.

• Why Bother? 212 Acres and a Marble

• Thinsat Detailed Description

• Thinsat Propulsion and Navigation

• Deployment orbits

• Launching Thinsats from Earth

• Radios for communication, interconnect, synchronization, radar, and orientation

• The Space Environment - Radiation, Drag, Collisions, Erosion

• Manufacturing Thinsats

• Biological and Environmental Effects

• Future Possibilities - low cost launch, terascale arrays, beam power to Earth, scientific sensors

• Criticism

• The Launch Loop, a speculative space launch system useful for launching Server Sky.

This website is under construction - many of the sections need filling in. If you want to improve spelling, add expertise, etc... send me an ASCII (not html) email and I will add you to the editor's list.