Link to First Installment: https://chrisprophet.substack.com/p/spacex-evolution
CHAPTER 12: SPACEX SUPERSTATE
“They [Europe] are aiming too low. Only rockets that are fully & rapidly reusable will be competitive. Everything else will seem like a cloth biplane in the age of jets.”1 ~ Elon Musk
Perhaps the best way to illustrate what SpaceX will become is through describing what it is capable of now. SpaceX technology is already two steps ahead, and smoothly accelerating away from the competition, with arguably the same true for their planetary partners: Tesla, Neuralink and The Boring Company. For example, it took SpaceX only five years to develop booster recovery and reuse, a technology unique to the company. On the face of it this would appear to place them five years ahead of the competition, because that’s how long it should take other launch companies to catch up, once they commit to pursuing this technology. However, that assumes SpaceX are standing idly by, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Currently they are developing fully reusable launch vehicles (i.e. rapidly reusable boosters and spacecraft) which should place them roughly 10 years ahead – due to the numerous technological challenges. So assuming the competition do catch up the five year gap, they will then find themselves ten years behind SpaceX… And that, rather optimistically, assumes the competition achieve a similar rate of progress, while ignoring the fact SpaceX are actually accelerating their rate of innovation. What they have created is not so much a commercial moat as an unbridgeable technological gulf, that’s forever widening.
“Pace of innovation is all that matters in the long-run.”2 ~ Elon Musk
This pace of technological advancement is difficult to comprehend, when we have been conditioned to accept more modest gains from commercial companies, with the possible exception of the computer industry. To illustrate: Elon Musk conducted a tour of SpaceX’s Starbase spaceport in mid-2021, in order to demonstrate their progress to loyal followers. During this tour they passed a host of Raptor engines waiting to be installed on the first orbital Starship vehicle. Elon’s remarks were quite insightful regards any threat from the competition: -
“Frankly if some fool wants to copy this [Raptor 1] design, go for it. I mean Raptor 2 is a giant improvement over this.”3 ~ Elon Musk, credit Everyday Astronaut
Important to note: Raptor 1 is already the most advanced rocket engine in the world, mainly due to its full flow, staged combustion cycle. But before they even completed a single orbital test, SpaceX were already executing a major overhaul of the design, using data harvested from earlier sub-orbital test flights… Of course this tech accelerator effect is not unique to SpaceX, it’s baked into all the companies managed by Elon Musk.
“Progress is good [at Neuralink], and the patient seems to have made a full recovery [from brain inplant surgery], with no ill effects that we are aware of. Patient is able to move a mouse around the screen by just thinking,”4 ~ Elon Musk, credit Reuters
Rise of X.com
Given Musk companies’ ability to disrupt the legacy market, it seems broad market dominance in their respective spheres is just around the corner, likely in less than a decade. By that time the promised conglomeration process should be complete, creating a megacorporation of unparalleled scale and reach, possibly called X.com (Elon purchased this domain name for future use).5 While closely conjoined, each company would act independently (like divisions of the same company) to provide services in specific areas needed for planetary operations and space settlement. For example: SpaceX could supply the means of transport between worlds (for products and people), while Tesla would handle surface operations (transport, construction and energy management), leaving The Boring Company to concentrate on subsurface operations (pressurized habitats, tunnels and mining) for each new settlement.
“Tesla Cybertruck (pressurized edition) will be official truck of Mars.”6 ~ Elon Musk
“I do think getting good at digging tunnels could be really helpful for Mars. It would be a different optimization for a Mars boring machine versus an Earth boring machine. For sure there's gonna need to be a lot of ice mining on Mars, and mining in general to get raw material. And then, along the way, building underground habitats where you could get radiation shielding… you could build an entire city underground if you wanted to. People are still going to want to go to the surface from time to time, but you can build a tremendous amount underground with the right boring technology on Mars. So I do think there is some overlap in that technology development arena.”7 ~ Elon Musk/ISS R&D Conference 2017
At first glance this implies the more grounded segments of the megacorporation might possess far greater influence, due to their potentially huge market spanning multiple worlds. However, that would overlook the true potential of space, which is infinite in breadth, width and resources. SpaceX should have an assured grip on the space domain by this point, being the only one able to offer economic space transport and communication. Accordingly the more these settlements grow the greater the need for space resources, like in-space propellant production, orbital outposts and shipbuilding, with raw materials mostly supplied by asteroid and moon mining. Tom Mueller, the former Propulsion CTO at SpaceX, provides some insights into how this will likely happen: -
“SpaceX so far has been evolutionary, Starship is revolutionary. It’s a fully reusable vehicle that’s designed to operate daily like an airliner; it’s gonna change access to space. People like say why do you need to take 150 tonnes to space, you know for $5m… What are you going to do with this thing, we don’t even know yet. We do know some things: you’re gonna exploit resources on the moon, water and minerals on the moon, mine asteroids. Use that water to make propellant. Use those minerals and metals to build structures in orbit and in the inner solar system. Build gas stations throughout the inner solar system so you can transport. Put giant solar PV (Photovoltaic) arrays up there so you can have massive energy and move manufacturing into space.”8
This implies space itself will become populated by many far-flung communities. Even the large space carriers used by SpaceX would class as mobile towns or cities making the starry expanse far from empty. Elon believes Starship is close to the optimum size for a launch vehicle, 9 hence anything larger will probably be built in space, which should be feasible given their ability to launch large modules and machinery. Starship might appear mighty to us, but it is just a building block for what’s to follow.
“Future spacecraft will make this [current system] look like a rowboat.”10 ~ Elon Musk
Over the years, SpaceX’s part in this megacorporation will likely grow and influence multiply, until they morph into what could best be described as a space superstate. Nations or even planetary governments might wield paramount influence over comparatively small geographic areas but SpaceX would be everywhere across all space as well as represented on the surface of multiple worlds. Nothing could move between these far-flung space communities without SpaceX’s hand, which would grant them tremendous power to shape human destiny. It’s possible X.com might falter along the way, even become broken up, which would result in a more pluralistic approach to space expansion. However, with each passing year, all of its constituent companies become better at getting better,11 which indicates a clear trajectory for the future, i.e. increasing market dominance. For example, many automotive companies find it easier to deny electrification is inevitable than make the profound changes to their business which are urgently required to compete with new electric car companies. Meanwhile Tesla are steadily improving in all areas, and this rate of improvement is accelerating due to their inherent agility and drive to save the planet. This is the same effect SpaceX have on their earthbound competitors, and they are arguably even more agile than Tesla and just as passionate about their mission to make life multiplanetary. While SpaceX are moving forward with what is effectively ultra-heavy lift vehicles, capable of placing 250 metric tons into orbit,12 their ‘competitors’ persist with developing mere heavy lift vehicles, i.e. two categories less capable, little more than bottle rockets by comparison. Similarly while SpaceX are launching thousands of satellites to create fast ubiquitous internet, the majority of commercial communication providers are content with constellations comprised of mere handfuls of satellites, with slow connection speeds, and data caps.
“We go for substance. Not pizzazz.”13 ~ John Elbon, former vice president of space exploration for Boeing
In the final evaluation space is hard and, without the commitment shown by SpaceX, impossible for many, at least as a broadly successful commercial business. No doubt in the future SpaceX will seek to lease their spacecraft to other commercial endeavors, to encourage growth and expand commercial opportunities. However, they would likely maintain control of these vessels, through an onboard AGI, to ensure their use is lawful and lease payments timely. In addition, SpaceX will hold the communication links to distant worlds, vessels and space settlements, making them indispensable – hence impossible to ignore. How they choose to wield such power depends on their corporate ethos, which so far appears inherently liberal, while closely focused on their mission. A final prognosis might be: expect an unending process of space expansion with ever increasing influence for SpaceX.
Link to next installment: https://chrisprophet.substack.com/p/spacex-evolution-chapter-13part-1
1 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1374163576747884544
2 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1045016610006654976
4 https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/01/elon-musk-neuralink-wires-up-monkey-to-play-video-games-using-mind.html
5 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1341801143631028225
6 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1197627433970589696
9 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1410537178762027009
10 https://blog.ted.com/what-will-the-future-look-like-elon-musk-speaks-at-ted2017/
11 https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-pushes-gigafactory-limits-texas/
12 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1423677217133957127
13https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/m9cdrq/interested_in_the_new_spacex_book_liftoff_author/grv3r6c/