On one side: Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX (and Tesla Motors), backed by Google. On the other: Musk's friend Greg Wyler, founder of OneWeb, backed by Virgin Galactic parent company The Virgin Group and its eccentric billionaire founder Richard Branson.

The prize: the chance to sell high-speed satellite internet connections to the billions of people throughout the world who don't yet have access—and in the process become a global telecommunications company to rival giants like Comcast and Verizon. And, in Musk's mind, the opportunity to sell internet access to Martian colonists, when the time comes.

Late last month, as first reported by DCInno, SpaceX filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission to begin testing such a system. Unfortunately, the idea of cheap, ubiquitous high-speed satellite Internet may be just as science fictional as Musks's dreams of planetary migration.