Subsea Cables & Internet Infrastructure

Musk confuses cooling a hot object in space with a cold object in space. An object in orbit cools more slowly than on Earth because a vacuum eliminates cooling via convection or conduction. Heat only escapes via thermal radiation. Hence the ISS has thermal radiators and controlling heat is a major priority in space vehicle engineering. Musk is right that an object without internal heating will settle down to 3 Centigrade degrees above absolute zero (-273.15). But an orbital data center generates heat continuously and will overheat if the radiators are not sufficiently large. What is scary is that Musk has the title of SpaceX CTO, yet he is clearly unqualified given his physics illiteracy. Click to enjoy the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1umCJfbJ0w. 

I build low energy homes. One of the best building insulators are vacuum insulated panels, which have a dense core of fiber glass from which all gases been removed. Any vacuum, like space, eliminates the convection and conduction of heat. Hence the only way for heat to flow is via thermal radiation. But thermal radiation is long wavelength. In other words, it doesn't carry a lot of energy. Hence thermal radiation is low intensity, and consequently, the radiating object cools very slowly. An object at 20 degrees placed in outer space will only radiate 500 watts per square meter of surface area. The temperature falls one centigrade every three to four minutes. Not exactly like the science fiction depictions where someone is ejected from an air lock and freezes instantaneously.  On earth we use convection to dissipate heat. Air and water are the usual media. This is just much more efficient than radiation will ever be. For more details on the woes of cooling orbital data centers click...