Celestial Computer

Whether or not we need it may still be up for debate, but recently Ouliang Chang shared his concept of building a supercomputer on the moon.  NASA scientists have been concerned for years about a traffic jam happening on the Deep Space Network (DSN).  At the  AIAA SPACE 2012 Conference & Exposition Chang suggested that one way to ease the strain on the DSN would be to build a supercomputer and radio dishes on the moon.

According to their website, the Deep Space Network (DSN) is an international network of antennas that supports interplanetary spacecraft missions and radio and radar astronomy observations for the exploration of the solar system and the universe.  The antennas are located in Spain, Australia and California and are approximately 120 degrees apart in longitude, which enables continuous observation and suitable overlap for transferring the spacecraft radio link from one complex to the next.

Ouliang Chang’s idea, which can be seen here , is to bury a massive, nuclear-powered machine in a deep dark crater, on the side of the moon that’s facing away from Earth and all of its electromagnetic chatter. This supercomputer would process data for space missions, which would free up the up the DSN to handle the stuff a human needs to look at.   Kul Bhasin, a system engineer and formulation manager with NASA Glenn Research Center, agrees that there is a growing problem with outer-space networking.  He says, “Even though far-out,” Chang’s paper “does excite the imagination,”.

Chang acknowledges some of the challenges in his presentation, but one of the greatest may be the cost. A lunar supercomputer may be the most expensive supercomputer ever built, if it is indeed built.  Shipping materials to the moon (at a cost of $50,000 per pound), plus digging out and building the sub-lunar center, cooling system and nuclear power generator, it is easy to envision a project in the $10 billion to $20 billion range.  Building the lunar base station would be an additional cost.

On his presentation, one of Chang’s assumptions is that this could be done within the next 10-15 years.   In my opinion, the idea of a celestial computer seems so far-out, and that time frame feels short, even considering our technological leaps over the past 15 years.  I’m no expert, but I would be surprised if we would see this happen.  However, when the question, “Will there be a supercomputer on the moon?” is posed to an expert, NASA’s Bhasin says, “Your guess is a good as mine.”  I can agree with that sentiment.

Image:  Simon Lutrin/Wired