The North American startup lonely has announced its intention to install data centers in the Moonto store Backups. In this way, it intends to reduce the environmental impact that the use of servers produces in the fragile terrestrial biosphere.
This announcement is not about some kind of wish, idea, or dream. It is a very real goal. lonely has hired the company Intuitive Machines to transport these servers, which in turn has a contract with NASA to take technological demonstrations to the Moon, through the Artemis program, as explained by the company itself on its website.
lonely You are not a newbie in these matters. In 2021 she already sent one of her servers to the International Space Stationto check how it worked in low gravity conditions.
The reality is that the economic, recreational and governmental activity of human beings increasingly generates more data, which is stored in huge data centers endowed with thousands of servers.
These servers consume a high amount of energyand at the same time they generate a lot of heat that must be dissipated using even more energy. Except for isolated cases that work with renewable energy, most data centers are harmful to the environment and climate change.
Lonestar, data centers on the Moon
The idea of lonely is install servers on the moon to store backup copies of critical data for Humanity. So don’t expect to send your copies of old MP3 songs there… At least in the beginning.
The lunar servers they would not cause environmental problems, simply because there is no atmosphere or life on the Moon. And the data would be safe in the event of earthquakes, nuclear bombs, and other terrestrial catastrophes.
Intuitive Machines He plans to launch his first IM-1 lunar mission this same month of June. If all goes well, in the second mission IM-2Planned for 2026Lonestar will send a small server of 1 kg of weight and 16TB of datawhich will be placed in the surface of the moon.
Unfortunately, details are still scant. lonely It hasn’t explained what power the servers will use, and whether solar panels will suffice. We also don’t know how it will read and write data in those lunar servers.
And there are more issues to discuss. For example, the private appropriation of the Moon. Does a private company from a country have the right to place servers on the ground of the Moon and do business, when the Moon belongs to all Humanity?
But there are still a few years to go before this project of lonely for install servers on the moon with backups, become reality. We’ll see if he achieves his goals.