Data centres suffer from several constant issues. The two prime problems are heat and security. An American tech startup, Lonestar, reckons that building these centres on the Moon would solve both issues. For a while, anyway. And, when considered logically, a lunar data centre isn’t a terrible idea.
Building a computing device that exists somewhere there’s no atmosphere means that cooling costs are massively reduced. With no air conditioners to shut down and far less power draw, maintaining the centre would prove more affordable — once you get it to the lunar surface, anyway. The security benefits seem obvious. If you can afford to physically get to the data, you probably don’t need it. Lonestar’s project would make weekend tech support call-outs far more interesting, as well.
Lonestar goes lunar
Before you start thinking that Lonestar Data Holdings is an overly ambitious company that will never reach its target, the outfit completed a data storage and edge processing test on board the International Space Station (ISS) in 2021/22. It’s got the expertise to pull this off. Now it just needs to get to space.
It’ll do that in partnership with an aerospace company called Intuitive Machines. Lonestar will test its concept on the upcoming IM-1 mission in June this year. The Nova-C Lander will carry an array of equipment, including Lonestar’s first lunar data centre. Assuming all goes well, IM-2’s mission to the Moon’s pole will also include the company’s “…first full data services payload”.
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Chris Stott, Lonestar founder and CEO, said in a statement last year, “Data is the greatest currency created by the human race. We are dependent upon it for nearly everything we do and it is too important to us as a species to store in Earth’s ever more fragile biosphere. Earth’s largest satellite, our Moon, represents the ideal place to safely store our future.” He’s… not wrong. At the moment, the Moon’s surface represents the ultimate offsite backup. Until the Artemis folks start stomping around there, anyway.
