SpaceX Says There's 'Not a Lot of Effort' Going into Satellite Internet Plan

SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell pumped the brakes on the company's audacious plan to launch 4,000 internet-providing satellites into orbit Tuesday, noting that the plan is "very speculative," that there's "not a lot of effort going into it," and that it would be tough to compete with Comcast and Time Warner on price.

The plan, which we've reported on several times before, would be to put a series of satellites into low-Earth orbit and then use them to beam down optic fiber-speed internet connections to anywhere on Earth. It would be one of the most complicated and expensive commercial space endeavors ever attempted, but its payoff could be potentially huge: SpaceX could then become a telecom, satellite, and infrastructure company in addition to running its rocket business.

By all accounts, the company was moving full-steam ahead on the plan: It opened a satellite manufacturing office in Washington, has asked the Federal Communications Commission to approve wireless spectrum necessary to do a test, and has sparred with competitors about the spectrum.

But for now, SpaceX has bigger things to worry about, it seems. The company still hasn't returned to flight after the June International Space Station resupply launch failure, and it still hasn't mastered the reusable rocket technology that'll be necessary to make the cost of launching 4,000 satellites into space reasonable.

So Tuesday at Hong Kong's Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia convention, Shotwell said we shouldn't expect SpaceX's internet satellite plan to get off the ground anytime soon. Her comments were first reported by Space News.

"I would say that this is actually very speculative at this point," Shotwell said about satellite internet. "We don't have a lot of effort going into that right now.

"Certainly I think that from a technical perspective this could get done," she added. "But can we develop the technology and roll it out with a lower-cost methodology so that we can beat the prices of existing providers like Comcast and Time Warner and other people? It's not clear that the business case will work."

Shotwell's comments don't come out of the blue: Elon Musk recently said that the satellite plan could "overextend" the company.

Many, myself included, have speculated that a successful SpaceX internet service could change the telecom industry and could potentially be used as funding for Elon Musk's Martian colony plans. As Shotwell mentioned, it's fun to speculate, but it's all going to depend on the details.