[Robotbeat]

This isn’t true. The radiators on ISS are MUCH smaller than the solar panels. I know it’s every single armchair engineer’s idea that heat rejection is this impossible problem in space, but your own example of ISS proves this is untrue. Radiators are no more of a problem than solar panels.

[0xTJ]

The radiators are significantly smaller than the PV arrays, but not by a massive ratio; looks like about 1:3.6 based on the published area numbers that I could find.

It looks like the ISS active cooling system has a maximum cooling capacity that could handle the equivalent of a single-digit number of racks (down to 1 for an AI-focused rack).

[happyopossum]

if you were looking at a 10' tall spider and a 36' tall spider, yes they'd both be big but it'd be fair to say that the 10' one is much smaller....

[e_y_]

The heat load of the ISS is a handful of astronauts and some equipment and whatever it absorbs from the sun. Not an entire data center or a nuclear rocket which is where the radiator discussion comes into play.

[Robotbeat]

The heat load is equal to the load from the solar panels, to first order. So actually yeah, you CAN compare the size of solar panels to the size of the radiators.