A concept image from Nasa’s 1978 proposal for a 10km-wide ‘satellite power system’. The space-based solar farm is visible top right, while the energy would be beamed down to a ‘rectenna farm’ on earth, in the centre of the image. Credit: Nasa / US DoE / Satellite Power System (SPS) Concept Development and Evaluation Program Plan, 1978.
AI companies increasingly want to move their operations into space. Elon Musk's SpaceX has applied to launch over a million AI data center satellites and ultimately build them on the moon.
Jeff Bezos, Google, OpenAI and others have similar plans. The idea is to harness 24/7 solar energy and, in Bezos's vision at least, to move all polluting industries off-world, rezoning Earth for humans and nature.
It's an intriguing plan. But once you factor in the whole life cycle, from water and rocket fuel used to launch these satellites into space to keeping them cool and eventually disposing of old satellites, the environmental case becomes less clear.
Outer space, out of mind
