Corporate ‘orbital data centre’ proposals are dangerous for humanity

A computer-generated image of objects in Earth orbit that are already being tracked, before any massive new satellite megaconstellations.

Approximately 95 per cent of the objects are space debris in the form of non-functional satellites. (NASA) 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 .

How satellites could be distributed around Earth in megaconstellations. (ESA) 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 satellites) and Orbital Compute (100,000 satellites).

They all plan to launch from the U.S., which means they only need approval from the FCC — an agency that is increasingly mandated to approve anything and everything American in what it describes as a “ licensing assembly line .” This graph shows how congested it would be if five orbital data centre megaconstellations used their proposed rings of orbits.

Data from Jonathan McDowell at https://planet4589.org. (Samantha Lawler) , CC BY-NC-ND For example, the FCC recently approved Reflect Orbital for launch of a test orbital mirror.

This despite thousands of comments in opposition from the general public, research papers by scientists demonstrating harm to ecosystems and human health and even a direct admission of possible permanent eye damage by Reflect Orbital in its own documents.