SpaceX has started a trend. More American companies are betting that they can beat the laws of physics by launching thousands of enormous satellites to create orbital “AI data centres” with names like Cowboy Space’s Stampede.

Space commercialization has progressed to a point where numerous aerospace and technology experts view these ambitious corporate orbital agendas as entirely detached from practical reality.

This technology is untested. Some of the proposed satellites are twice as large as the International Space Station. Extrapolations for re-entry into our atmosphere suggest that if these satellites were launched, hundreds of them would drop large pieces on Earth every year.

There are also many other serious safety, atmospheric pollution and light pollution problems with these proposals.

A licensing assembly line

First, SpaceX filed a proposal for one million satellites, invoking the hypothetical Kardashev scale (originally proposed to measure an alien civilization’s level of technological advancement) and other language that looked more like teenage fan fiction than a serious government document.

The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) parroted this language back when filing acceptance documents, stating: This satellite system will represent the “first step towards becoming a Kardashev II-level civilization – one that can harness the Sun’s full power.”

Four other companies then filed copycat orbital data centre plans within weeks of SpaceX: Blue Origin (involving 51,600 satellites), Starcloud (88,000 satellites), Cowboy Space (20,000........

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