Link to First Installment: https://chrisprophet.substack.com/p/spacex-evolution
Human Juggernaut
When Elon decides something is worth pursuing he generally succeeds. He’s an engineer first, so prefers to tackle technical challenges – and isn’t afraid to enter new fields. He takes existential threats to humanity personally, so makes whatever sacrifices necessary to provide a positive outcome.
“When I met Elon it was apparent to me that although he had a scientific mind and he understood scientific principles, he did not know anything about rockets. Nothing. That was in 2001. By 2007 he knew everything about rockets – he really knew everything, in detail. You have to put some serious study in to know as much about rockets as he knows now. This doesn't come just from hanging out with people. You have to crack some books.”1 ~ Robert Zubrin
Operational Divergence
Most commercial companies tend to stability, in order to create a conducive production environment, in part due to complex and extended supply chains. However, SpaceX tend to stable change, i.e. a constant process of innovation to improve product service, made possible by their end-to-end control of the production process and system operation. In other words SpaceX was able to disrupt the entire space industry because they were willing to disrupt themself.
Succinctly: SpaceX are an engine of innovation, everything else a byproduct.
Commercial Dominance
SpaceX and Tesla have already achieved commercial dominance in their core business areas, i.e. providing launch services and manufacturing electric vehicles, respectively. Most commercial enterprises would take a breath after outpacing the competition because that’s their business goal. However, Musk employees are motivated by the vision and rewarded with vested shares – which only increase in value if their company continues to improve its performance. Overall this seems extremely likely because they have a lock on innovation and advancing far faster than any competition, which suggests their dominance will broaden and deepen in the years to come.
Scale of Influence
Tesla, SpaceX et al are due to take a great deal of work from their direct competitors but that barely scratches the surface of the potential disruption. Each Musk company has a high degree of vertical integration, so in effect they also compete with their competitor’s supply chains. That implies we can probably expect a broad swathe of these companies to contract, amalgamate or disappear altogether in the next few years. To illustrate here’s a chart for some the business areas Tesla have begun to move into and all the competitors they will likely disrupt, to a greater or lesser extent.
Realistically this represents only a comparatively small group of companies which could be largely affected by Musk enterprises. Likely they will come to dominate entire industries such as: transport, energy, communications, healthcare and AI, all of which are wide open to the more advanced technologies purveyed by Musk corp. Likely the accumulation of capital under one commercial banner will be unparalleled, something which makes the likes of Apple and Google appear positively anemic.
Commercial Ecosystem
Elon Musk companies will undoubtedly disrupt many sectors but that doesn’t necessarily imply they will eliminate the competition. The new technologies they debut will open up whole new areas of commerce for startups to explore. A good example might be Tesla’s plan to create self-driving robotaxis and delivery vehicles, which should allow all manner of niche businesses to spring up for goods and services. Likewise SpaceX’s Starlink system can provide high bandwidth communication anywhere on Earth, which implies anyone anywhere could setup an online business using only a laptop. Their Starship vehicles will create a commercial launch market where payload prices are measured in $/ton instead of $/kilo, unlocking a space economy of unparalleled scope and scale. A little further down the line, full reusability and orbital refueling will allow them to operate above and beyond, opening the entire solar system to commerce. Overall it seems likely many established companies will experience some contraction as custom migrates to X.com and this new wave of startups, which implies these legacy OEMs will become more niche. Yet generally most affected companies will continue to survive due to a combination of brand loyalty, local need and national subsidies/regulations to keep X.com at bay. For example, both Kodak and Nokia faced similar disruption in the past, yet somehow managed to find a path to survival – and still operate today, to some lesser degree compared to their zenith.
Monopolizing Markets
It's truly ironic that Elon Musk hates monopolies, and firmly believes in the power of competition; as they say: “fate loves irony.” Unfortunately the commercial platforms he created to achieve his momentous goals are so efficient they threaten to almost monopolize their respective industries. Frankly, it seems unlikely he will take the foot off the technologic accelerator considering how far they’ve come, particularly as his vision begins to materialize before his eyes. No doubt labeling Musk enterprises a monopoly is unjust, considering their primary objective is to better serve the people rather than maximize profit. We appear to be entering uncharted waters, involving ever deepening corporate influence; interesting times indeed, which will no doubt challenge our attitudes, morals and values.
Independent Mars
The American colonies created their own constitution because they faced different challenges to the Old World, which couldn’t respond to their urgent needs due to the intervening distance. Similarly Mars settlers will face overwhelming challenges in their new world with little prospect of outside assistance due to the vast gulf of space which separates them. Hence Mars needs to make its own laws in order to prosper, ideally mandated by the people through direct democracy, to avoid undue influence from groups with special interests. Hopefully this should keep a check on corporate influence which otherwise might tend to dominate this new world, given the power vacuum.
X.com Aegis
Only X.com could hope to finance a colony on Mars, which will likely require an initial investment of trillions.2 Hence It would take the combined revenue from both Tesla and SpaceX to generate the capital necessary for such an audacious endeavor, even the budget of NASA falls several magnitudes short of what’s needed to build a self-sustaining settlement on Mars. This implies X.com will be in the driving seat for the emerging space economy and serve as a model for what’s to come.
Succinctly: X.com will be the primary patron for Mars.
Corporate Influence
From our perspective, allowing corporations to guide humanity’s progress might seem disaster. However, from the perspective of future peoples, the arrival of more efficient and effective forms of commercial enterprise could be a blessing. Chronic disease, serious disability even the effects of aging would be wiped out by genetic advances which lead to one shot cures; created by corporations who are deeply invested in the welfare of the people, instead of maximizing profit. On a larger scale, extinction level threats, such as large asteroid strikes, would largely be avoided when we become more outward looking, due to commercial space traffic. Hence if corporations present the only way to improve the human condition, that is a price we should certainly pay (See Appendix F: Fermi Paradox).
Necessary Change
Earth’s history was glorious but all those centuries of accumulated laws, expanding state bureaucracy and stifling security apparatus are weighing us down. Nothing lasts forever, nor should it, so for humanity to advance and flourish, a completely new start is the best – perhaps only way forward.
“…[Mars] that's really where a tremendous amount of entrepreneurship and talent would flourish, just as happened in California when the Union Pacific railroad was completed. And when they were building the Union Pacific, people said it was a super dumb idea because “there is hardly anybody living in California.” But now today we have sort of at least, U.S. epicenter of tech development and entertainment and it's the biggest state in the nation.”3 ~ Elon Musk
Interesting to note that SpaceX’s relationship with NASA could be seen as a microcosm of our future as a species. NASA’s bureaucracy oversaw a technological decline from performing human moon landings in the 1970s, to purely Earth orbit missions in the late twentieth century, until eventually they lost the ability to send astronauts into space with the final Space Shuttle mission in 2011. However, SpaceX managed to restore human launch capability with only a fraction of NASA’s budget and now pushing on towards Mars (see Appendix C: Why SpaceX not NASA and Appendix D: Dark Vault).
“People are mistaken when they think that technology just automatically improves. It does not automatically improve. It only improves if a lot of people work very hard to make it better, and actually it will, I think, by itself degrade.”4 ~ Elon Musk
This NASA-SpaceX dichotomy illustrates the divergence between the two cultures to come, an X.com driven technocracy which embraces new technologies and releases human potential, compared to increasingly anachronistic Earth governments who tend to discourage new technologies, and add to their bureaucracy in order to preserve their grip on power (see Appendix B: Why SpaceX Superstate).
Big Picture
Transplanting life to Mars is only the start of the story. The technology currently under development by Musk companies is just the minimum required to support the first step to Mars, which will then be used as a halfway house to make all the necessary advances to society, politics and technology necessary to take humanity to the next level and transform into a true spacefaring species.
“There are no doubt some enterprises that can be done on the Moon, and should be. But the purpose of going into space is to create new nations. That can best be done on Mars.”5 ~ Robert Zubrin
More than likely Mars will become a proving ground for establishing self governing settlements on new worlds. There are plenty of viable candidates within our solar system, such as Ceres, Europa and Titan which offer their own unique challenges, best addressed by their own independent administrations. And likely these will become models for how to administer new worlds beyond our solar system, amongst the myriad stars. SpaceX plans for Mars are really just the start, with coherent space colonization as their shining goal on the horizon.
Big plan
Multiplanetary Civilization – It is too big a jump to transition directly into space operations, due to Earth’s high gravity, poor performance at developing new technology, and highly bureaucratic governments. Hence Elon intends to create a new society on Mars, which emphasizes technological growth, with a highly simplified and supportive government. Mars has reduced gravity, low air pressure and lower average temperatures, which makes it an ideal intermediate world for developing space technologies.
Spacefaring Civilization – Once humanity becomes a dipole (i.e. Earth and Mars), this will stimulate the development of the bigger and more powerful spacecraft needed to transport large amounts of goods and people between each world, using technologies primarily developed on Mars. These mega-carriers will then be used to colonize the greater solar system, where we will learn to live in ever more challenging conditions, i.e. decimal gravity, extreme cold and negligible atmosphere, completing our deep space adaptation.
Starfaring Civilization – These new far-flung communities will require even more powerful space vehicles to service, which will be used to travel to different solar systems and establish extrasolar outposts. Then the true work begins treating with alien (possibly non-organic) entities.
Succinctly: Elon will create a more technocratic society, building on improvements seen in his companies, capable of raising humanity into a starfaring civilization.
Our future is far from certain, building a new civilization from scratch on new worlds would be our toughest challenge yet – but a necessary step in our evolution. To bring this about, the coming generations will likely possess far greater bravery and ambition than their forebearers. Truly a brave new world.
Link to next installment: https://chrisprophet.substack.com/p/spacex-evolution-appendix-a-spacex
1 https://www.wired.co.uk/article/whats-driving-elon-musk
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1159964499975135232
3 http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/spacex/elon-musk-making-humans-a-multiplanetary-species/
4 http://uk.businessinsider.com/brilliant-career-advice-from-elon-musk-2017-5?r=US&IR=T
5 https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/pv91cs/dr_robert_zubrin_rspacex_ama/he8jfqo/
"Once humanity becomes a dipole"
New word for me!
One concern I have for Tesla (and Tesla energy) is that if your track Musk’s “Master Plan” over time they have become increasingly unfocused.
Musk needs to be clearer where Tesla is going and what kind of company it is. It can certainly be a transportation company and an energy company. But is it also an AI company? A robotics company? Can (or should?) it try doing everything? Or is Tesla becoming stretched too thin?