Space datacenters proposed by Musk and Bezos ‘catastrophic’ for planet, experts warn
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- Environmental groups filed an FCC petition through PEER, Earthjustice, and DarkSky International demanding a pause on space datacenter projects from SpaceX, Blue Origin, and others, arguing the plans 'violate federal law' under the National Environmental Policy Act.
- Active satellites grew from about 1,400 in 2015 to roughly 15,000 currently, with as many as 100,000 expected in orbit within the decade, not counting the proposed datacenter networks of up to a million satellites.
- A 2023 NOAA stratospheric flight discovered metals in sulfuric acid aerosols that regulate Earth's temperature and shield the ozone layer, but further research 'has not been conducted under Trump,' per the source.
- Steve Volz, former head of NOAA's satellite office who was fired under the Trump administration, warned: 'you do not want to be filling up the atmosphere with refuse from these any more than you would want it coming from a smoke stack.'
- SpaceX's FCC application claims its orbital datacenters will 'ensur[e] humanity's multi-planetary future amongst the stars' but offers only a promise to 'develop industry-leading brightness mitigations' with no other environmental detail, the petition notes.
- Cowboy Space Corporation, founded by the billionaire co-CEO of Robinhood, is seeking permits for a 20,000-satellite system with its first launch targeted for 2028, with its FCC filing addressing only astronomy-community impact mitigation.
Why it matters: The FCC faces a decision on whether millions of proposed satellites can be licensed without environmental review under NEPA, while the stratosphere's role as a planetary 'sunscreen' goes unstudied — meaning a regulatory greenlight could lock in irreversible atmospheric pollution before the science catches up.
