Overclocking in Space...

[aapold]

Just speculation.... sorry if it seems irrelevant or off-topic

The computer equipment on that space station thing tends to be horribly obsolete because of the time it takes to get up there, usually years and years behind the times.

However, in theory, once they get it there, would they be able to overclock the hell out of whatever they have by just having the chip exist in the airless vaccuum of space? I am not a physicist, does heat even conduct away in a vaccum?

(and the other side is they might be able to cut half the latency out of a satelite broadband ISP

 

[Platinum321]

electricity -> ohm (sp?) law still applies.. the freq. of a chip is not primarily dependent on how cool it can run.. most of the ability comes from the component/gates that exist in it that will satisfy signal propagation in the chip for a given clock. this can be done using statis/dynamic timing verification/anaylsis during design. So no, you won't get much improved o/c.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Another major reason for the delay in getting kit into space is that it needs environmental hardening, which also involves radiation protection.

AFAIK, the most up to date common or garden x86 processors in space are 1st Gen Pentiums and some of the Space shuttles CPU's are so old that NASA has to trawl eBay to find replacement parts.

 

[Hellblast]

in a vacuum the CPU would overheat if overclocked because there is no air the heatsink can transfer heat to. Then if they have them onboard, the heat-issues would be the same as on the ground.

Hellblast

 

[CaptnKirk]

Gentlemen, the computer systems that are used in military and NASA applications as flight hardware, are a completly different breed of computer system then you have ever seen. Only ground based equipment has any simular systems integrated into them, and I seriously doubt that any of you have the optical data integration that command centers and control rooms use. Space Flight and Combat Engagement computers from 10 years ago, were instrumental in the developments that you are using today, but as advanced and sophisticated as you think your home system is, it is a toy when compared to what we are presently using in our tactical fighters and Space Shuttles.
Cold plates in the shuttle can remove the heat from any electrical equipment by allowing a direct path to the -273C of space, and heat flows fhom high concentration to low concentration as fast as the electrons in the base material can vibrate.

Can you imagine if you could use a liquid nitrogen cooler dumping directly on your CPU to hold the temperature at -273C ? In space, energy becomes more like a particle in its motion, heat does not move through a vacuun, but the partice does. A light bulb gets hot, not because the heat from the filament heated the glass, but because of emited incandecent radiation bombarded the glass with a stream of photons. (particles)

Enviromental hardening in a space environvent, consists of stopping the solar wind - emited particles from the sun - from saturating the electronics with X-Ray, Beta, and Gamma radiation that is generated as a result of the sub-atomic particles traveling through space striking the metalic shell of the space vehicle, eg: aluminum frames and skins, silica tiles, glass view ports, Astronauts, etc. EMI is terminated by using overbraided wire harnesses, simular to the round cables, and running grounding drain wires to the metal structure to dissapate any random electrical or radio frequency signals.

Been there, done that.

 

[SupermanCK]

yes...that's the respond i want to hear...thanks much captnkrik
so you working for nasa?

 

[CaptnKirk]

Not anymore

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
Not anymore

They ever fly you out here to KSC to troubleshoot the goof ups my idiot neighbors created?

 

[aapold]

I wasn't talking abou the flight systems and stuff like that so much as the systems they have for the experiments they conduct up there. Those I've heard are kind of old, though for all I know that could just be what they're telling people.

 

[CaptnKirk]

Maybe the reference could have been to the ride along experiments that are given to educational prorgams on apace available basis.
Elementry schools, High schools, and Colleges are allowed to submit, design, build, and deploy shelf size experiments and I'm sure that
they can't match NASA's budget, so they are happy to obtain any equipment they can for whatever they can afford. Good cause.
Maybe they could take that 'nSync boy up - and leave him there, better cause.