SpaceX’s orbital data centers would create a new category of e-waste
SpaceX’s orbital data centers would create a new category of e-waste
SpaceX 的轨道数据中心将创造一种新型电子垃圾
Elon Musk’s talk about maintaining a million-strong AI data center satellite megaconstellation may not exactly be practical or economical, but it might be unique. It’s about the closest we’ve come to confronting a scheme that would export a considerable amount of valuable materials into space. Humans aren’t doing a great job of material sustainability, but normally we’re talking about stuff escaping a recycling pipeline rather than escaping Earth’s gravitational pull.
埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）关于维护一个拥有百万颗卫星的 AI 数据中心巨型星座的构想，或许并不切实际或经济，但它确实独一无二。这可能是我们迄今为止最接近的一项计划，它会将大量宝贵的材料送入太空。人类在材料可持续性方面做得并不好，但通常我们讨论的是材料从回收渠道中流失，而不是逃离地球引力。
The commercial space sector likes talking about the allure of mining asteroids for precious metals to bring back to Earth. Under what circumstances are we going to be willing to do that in reverse? Starlink alone has doubled the mass of objects in low-Earth orbit, and this orbital data center constellation would dwarf that—and dispose of at least some satellites by pushing them away from Earth.
商业航天领域喜欢谈论开采小行星以获取贵金属并带回地球的诱惑。那么，在什么情况下我们愿意反其道而行之呢？仅 Starlink 就使近地轨道上的物体质量翻了一番，而这个轨道数据中心星座的规模将远超于此——并且至少会通过将部分卫星推离地球来处理它们。
Given the roughly five-year expected lifetime for data center GPUs, about 200,000 of the 1 million proposed SpaceX AI1 satellites would be decommissioned each year. Based on their May 29 FCC filing, about 40,000 would definitely deorbit and burn up in the atmosphere. (Those materials would largely be dispersed throughout the atmosphere, turning a resource into a diffuse contaminant that slowly settles over the globe. One related issue: the aluminum would cause an unknown amount of ozone depletion over a period of decades.)
考虑到数据中心 GPU 大约五年的预期寿命，在 SpaceX 提议的 100 万颗 AI1 卫星中，每年约有 20 万颗将被退役。根据其 5 月 29 日提交给美国联邦通信委员会（FCC）的文件，其中约 4 万颗肯定会脱离轨道并在大气层中烧毁。（这些材料大部分会散布在大气层中，将资源转化为一种缓慢沉降到全球各地的弥散性污染物。一个相关的问题是：铝会在几十年内造成未知程度的臭氧层损耗。）
Some or all of the remaining 160,000 satellites would be moved outward into a distant “disposal” orbit, instead. Either way, they’re lost from a “material life cycle” point of view. Without full, detailed specifications for these satellites, there’s no way to properly tally the amount of material we’re talking about. Focusing on just the GPUs themselves—ignoring solar panels, cooling systems, and the rest of the server and networking devices—can at least provide a starting point.
其余 16 万颗卫星中的一部分或全部将被移至遥远的“处置”轨道。无论哪种方式，从“材料生命周期”的角度来看，它们都已丢失。由于没有这些卫星的完整详细规格，我们无法准确统计所涉及的材料总量。仅关注 GPU 本身——忽略太阳能电池板、冷却系统以及其余的服务器和网络设备——至少可以提供一个起点。
Musk has described these satellites as using a modified Nvidia Vera Rubin NVL72 rack, which contains 72 GPUs. Though it references a slightly older card, a May study on the material footprint of LLMs provided a full chemical analysis of an A100, covering 32 elements. The massive air-cooled heatsink on that card accounted for 88 percent of its mass, which we’ll simply have to exclude, since the satellite will obviously require another type of cooling that has not been defined.
马斯克曾描述这些卫星使用改进版的英伟达（Nvidia）Vera Rubin NVL72 机架，其中包含 72 个 GPU。虽然这参考的是稍旧的显卡，但 5 月份一项关于大语言模型（LLM）材料足迹的研究提供了 A100 的完整化学分析，涵盖了 32 种元素。该显卡上巨大的风冷散热器占其质量的 88%，我们必须将其排除，因为卫星显然需要另一种尚未定义的冷却方式。
But using the extremely conservative assumption that each AI1 satellite was simply composed of 72 naked A100 GPUs taped together, we can estimate the material exported to space (or vaporized so thoroughly that it might as well have been) each year. That includes 1,000 tons of copper, 170 kilograms of gold, almost 2 tons of silver, over 20 tons each of bismuth and titanium, over 2 tons of palladium, and 76 kilograms of thallium.
但如果我们采用极其保守的假设，即每颗 AI1 卫星仅由 72 个裸露的 A100 GPU 拼凑而成，我们就可以估算出每年出口到太空（或被彻底汽化，效果等同）的材料量。这包括 1000 吨铜、170 公斤黄金、近 2 吨白银、超过 20 吨的铋和钛、超过 2 吨的钯以及 76 公斤的铊。
Some of these elements are, unsurprisingly, rounding errors compared to the amount we mine each year. But that’s around 1 percent of global annual palladium and thallium—a remarkable amount to eject into space.
不出所料，与我们每年开采的总量相比，其中一些元素的占比微乎其微。但这一数字约占全球年度钯和铊产量的 1%——将如此惊人的数量抛入太空是值得注意的。
Earth’s neighborhood inconvenience store
地球附近的“便利店”
Another way to think about this is to calculate the size of asteroid you would have to mine to recover the amounts of these elements being lost. As a 2023 study notes, there are only a few elements that can be found at a higher concentration in asteroids compared to ores on Earth, like the platinum group metals. Using average chemistry and densities for a couple different types of asteroids—common CM-group carbonaceous chondrites and rarer iron-rich M-type asteroids—some of the elements lost could be found in modestly sized bodies.
另一种思考方式是计算你需要开采多大体积的小行星，才能回收这些正在流失的元素。正如 2023 年的一项研究所指出的，与地球矿石相比，只有少数几种元素在小行星中的浓度更高，例如铂族金属。利用几种不同类型小行星（常见的 CM 组碳质球粒陨石和较稀有的富铁 M 型小行星）的平均化学成分和密度，可以发现其中一些流失的元素存在于中等大小的天体中。
The platinum, for example, equates to the contents of an asteroid 16 to 43 meters in diameter. The 180 kilograms of cobalt could be recovered from an asteroid about 3 to 6 meters across. But it would take a 140–190-meter asteroid to collect that much copper, something in the 225–300-meter range for an equivalent amount of silver and barium, and something like a 530-meter asteroid for an equivalent amount of tin. Again, this would have to be repeated annually to balance the losses from the satellite constellation.
例如，铂金的含量相当于一颗直径 16 到 43 米的小行星。180 公斤的钴可以从一颗直径约 3 到 6 米的小行星中回收。但要收集等量的铜，则需要一颗 140-190 米的小行星；收集等量的银和钡需要 225-300 米的小行星；而收集等量的锡则需要一颗约 530 米的小行星。同样，为了平衡卫星星座造成的损失，这必须每年重复进行。
Most of these elements are too low in value to be proposed targets for asteroid mining, but it has been suggested that spacecraft materials like aluminum and titanium might someday be mined in space for use in space. SpaceX suggested a variant of this in an SEC filing: “We intend to establish lunar‑based manufacturing capabilities, including factories to produce large‑scale AI compute satellites[…] We expect to use raw materials from the Moon to construct most of the mass of the satellites and ship chips and other lower mass elements from Earth.”
这些元素中的大多数价值太低，不足以成为小行星采矿的目标，但有人建议，铝和钛等航天器材料未来或许可以在太空中开采并用于太空。SpaceX 在一份提交给美国证券交易委员会（SEC）的文件中提出了类似方案：“我们打算建立基于月球的制造能力，包括生产大规模 AI 计算卫星的工厂……我们预计利用月球原材料来构建卫星的大部分质量，并从地球运送芯片和其他低质量元素。”
It’s technically possible to mine aluminum and titanium on the Moon. It doesn’t necessarily follow that it’s cheaper to manufacture satellites on the Moon just because it would reduce the weight launched from Earth’s surface. (Of course, you’d first have to launch an entire moonbase and mining operation and satellite factory up there…)
在月球上开采铝和钛在技术上是可行的。但这并不意味着在月球上制造卫星就一定更便宜，仅仅因为它减少了从地球表面发射的重量。（当然，你首先得把整个月球基地、采矿作业和卫星工厂发射上去……）
There are a number of questions about all this that one would not have to answer if one were building servers on Earth, deploying them in data centers inside humble buildings, and responsibly processing e-waste for recycling in a few years when they die of email-summary-related causes. (Or even better, pushing some equipment to the secondary market if it has useful life left.)
关于这一切，有许多问题是如果我们在地球上建造服务器、将它们部署在普通建筑内的数据中心，并在几年后因“邮件摘要相关原因”报废时负责任地回收电子垃圾，就不必去回答的。（或者更好的是，如果设备还有使用价值，将其推向二级市场。）
In addition to the cost of putting something in orbit, there is a cost to not getting it back. Will there someday be an environmental review for space projects that includes an evaluation of the mass of materials it proposes to remove from the Earth system? The legal framework for extracting minerals from space has been much discussed—but congested orbits full of junk (or junk reentering the atmosphere) may not be the only space disposal concern on the horizon if projects of this scale proceed.
除了将物体送入轨道的成本外，无法将其回收也是一种成本。未来是否会对太空项目进行环境审查，其中包括评估其计划从地球系统中移除的材料质量？关于从太空提取矿物的法律框架已经讨论了很多——但如果这种规模的项目继续推进，轨道上拥挤的垃圾（或重新进入大气层的垃圾）可能并不是地平线上唯一的太空处置担忧。