SpaceX wants to fill Earth orbit with a million datacenter satellites

Elon Musk's pie-in-the-sky plan to launch a massive orbital datacenter satellite constellation has taken a rapid step closer to reality with the Federal Communications Commission advancing SpaceX's application for public comment, technical feasibility be damned. 

SpaceX applied for permission to launch as many as one million satellites for its proposed orbital datacenter constellation on January 30, and the FCC's Space Bureau has already accepted [PDF] the application for filing just five days later, though perhaps just so it can collect enough public comments to shoot the ridiculous idea down before it gets beyond the Muskian brainstorm stage (we inquired, but didn't hear back). 

According to Harvard astrophysicist and space object cataloger Jonathan McDowell, there are a paltry 14,518 active payloads in Earth orbit as of the end of January, 9,555 of them belonging to Starlink. Earth's orbit is already crowded with fewer than ...