Elon Musk’s plan to begin launching one million AI data center satellites into orbit in 2028 could trigger a financial catastrophe, sending SpaceX into a high-speed nosedive, say leading North American space scholars.

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Dr. Zubrin, who designed an early prototype of NASA’s Space Launch System Moon rocket, which just sent four Allied astronauts on a circumlunar space trek, says lofting satellites to host next-generation artificial intelligence models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini would be astronomically more expensive than terrestrial data centers.

During the countdown to the SpaceX IPO and listing, its commander-in-chief posted a mission statement on the outfit’s website stating: “Launching a constellation of a million satellites that operate as orbital data centers” would support “AI-driven applications for billions of people today and ensuring humanity’s multi-planetary future.”

Promising to launch the next-generation Starship super-capsule once every hour to rocket these satellites hundreds of kilometers above the Earth, Musk predicted: "My estimate is that within 2 to 3 years, the lowest cost way to generate AI compute will be in space.”

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