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A Supercomputer On the Moon To Direct Deep Space Traffic
Hugh Pickens writes "NASA currently controls its deep space missions through a network of 13 giant antennas in California, Spain and Australia known as the Deep Space Network (DSN) but the network is obsolete and just not up to the job of transmitting the growing workload of extra-terrestrial data from deep space missions. That's why Ouliang Chang has proposed building a massive supercomputer in a deep dark crater on the side of the moon facing away from Earth and all of its electromagnetic chatter. Nuclear-powered, it would accept signals from space, store them, process them if needed and then relay the data back to Earth as time and bandwidth allows. The supercomputer would run in frigid regions near one of the moon's poles where cold temperatures would make cooling the supercomputer easier, and would communicate with spaceships and earth using a system of inflatable, steerable antennas that would hang suspended over moon craters, giving the Deep Space Network a second focal point away from earth. As well as boosting humanity's space-borne communication abilities, Chang's presentation at a space conference (PDF) in Pasadena, California also suggests that the moon-based dishes could work in unison with those on Earth to perform very-long-baseline interferometry, which allows multiple telescopes to be combined to emulate one huge telescope. Best of all the project has the potential to excite the imagination of future spacegoers and get men back on the moon."
Aren't they afraid it will launch rocks at the earth if it achieves self-awareness?
Leave the computing power here on Earth, where it can easily be installed, repaired, and upgraded as necessary without budget-busting missions. Put a simple relay station on the moon if you feel it's necessary. Put two - one primary, once backup. Good god.
Perhaps this computer will be 3D printed as well, and powered by privately launched solar arrays? I mean, if you're going delusional, might as well go full out. The nurses don't mind either way, they just up your dose of Haloperidol.
> in a deep dark crater on the side of the moon facing away from Earth and all of its electromagnetic chatter
Great... so the one good place we could put radio telescopes because they are shielded from chatter is now ruined because there is a big-ass transmitter.
That would be incredible thing to do. I bet it would be interesting to use its idle time to projects like SETI.
I always thought that putting a radio-telescope on the back side of the moon would be a good idea since the moon would block all the electromagnetic noise from Earth. Two could be installed, one just over the curve near the north pole and one near the south pole. This would give a baseline of appropriately the diameter of the moon. It would be one, big ear.
Don't stop where the ink does.
Maybe also build a big catapult.
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I thought heat-sinking in near-vacuum conditions was difficult because, although it's very cold temperature-wise, the ability of the "air" to hold heat is so limited that you can't move very much away.
Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.
Let's take it out of all the EM chatter on the earth, and instead put it inside of all the EM chatter from the SUN. That sounds like a pretty good idea.
The supercomputer would run in frigid regions near one of the moon's poles where cold temperatures would make cooling the supercomputer easier
Actually that is NOT what the article says. I know on slashdot that us commenters rarely read the article but things are getting pretty bad if not even the submitter reads the article!
The reason for locating it at the poles (as the article explains) is due to the availability of water ice for cooling. You stick it in a deep crater there to provide a stable thermal environment i.e. you avoid having to design a system to cope with both the heat during the day and the cold at night. The reason this is important is because vacuum is a fantastic insulator so, despite it being cold, the only way to lose that heat is via radiation which is not very fast (this is why thermos flasks use vacuum as an insulator). The presence of water ice means that you can use it to transport the heat away from the the computer.
A supercomputer? On the moon? To relay deep space traffic? Gee I can only imagine how many tens of billions that will cost. Not like something couldn't be built on the earth for a fraction of the cost and complexity. Why is NASA even the one to run and build what amounts to a telecommunications network? They should be farming this out to industry.
It's a lame excuse for a "man in space" pork program. There's not much data coming back from space beyond Earth orbit, because there isn't that much hardware beyond Earth orbit. Right now, only Voyager I, Cassini, and the Mars rover are transmitting. The total data rate from all of them would fit over a dial-up line.
There are some bottlenecks in dealing with all the stuff in earth orbit. More satellites in the TDRSS system, or more ground stations, may be needed. Assets on the Moon wouldn't help.
it's a space sta^h^h^h datacenter.
Those are not real difficulties. The computing centre would be underground, that provides excellent radiation shielding. Computer just needs to survive transportation (when it will not be running) once. much simpler than the shuttle. You don't repair anything, just send a bit extra and apply fail-in-place maintenance strategy... What would be really cool is if they plan to operate at a natural temp... they could be designed for exploit superconduction... maybe the computer would be completely different from earthbound designs.
So you're advocating for a radically different, first-of-its-kind computer to be installed in a place that's almost impossible to get to.
Yeah, I'm sure that'll work out well.
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A story about super computers and not one comment about a Beowulf Cluster??
No, it's this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nude_on_the_moon
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
What's the advantage of landing a bunch of computers on the moon? Also, it's much easier to get a high bandwidth signal to an Earth satellite (including on the moon), so why would we want to process the data there with computers that will quickly become obsolete instead of just creating a simple and reliable relay station?
it makes for a wackier story.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Will it transmit Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon in a never-ending loop?
*** Don't be dull.***
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/lunar/program_overview.html
"On average, 33 metric tons (73,000 lbs) of meteoroids hit Earth every day, the vast majority of which harmlessly ablates ("burns up") high in the atmosphere, never making it to the ground. The moon, however, has no atmosphere, so meteoroids have nothing to stop them from striking the surface. The slowest of these rocks travels at 20 km/sec (45,000 mph); the fastest travels at over 72 km/sec (160,000 mph). At such speeds even a small meteoroid has incredible energy -- one with a mass of only 5 kg (10 lbs) can excavate a crater over 9 meters (30 ft) across, hurling 75 metric tons (165,000 lbs) of lunar soil and rock on ballistic trajectories above the lunar surface. "
Why do you need a "supercomputer" to "process" and relay signals?
How are "processed" signals going to get to earth from a station on the dark side of the moon without a line of sight back to earth?
How exactly does spending (high) three digit billions (at the very least) to build this system rather than (low) double digit billions to replace/upgrade the existing system make any sense whatsoever?
Not to mention that even with steerable antennas on the farside, this system won't replace the 24/7 communications capability currently available.