Elon Musk quote: SpaceX will lean in big on the Moon

[thespacecow]

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2001039650719256863

When the mass driver on the Moon gets going, I’m not sure money will be relevant

Dr. Phil Metzger's reply: https://x.com/DrPhiltill/status/2001283886655914235

True! This shows up when modeling the space economy on that future scale. The model loses meaning because it is based in dollars, which exists only as a tool to mediate human economic decisions, which become irrelevant when human labor, thought, and needs are a vanishingly small fraction of the metabolism of industry. Dollars cease being useful either to allocate resources as inputs to the industry or to distribute the goods produced by the industry. It will need to be organized by a different principle entirely, but what?

[Tywin]

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2001039650719256863

When the mass driver on the Moon gets going, I’m not sure money will be relevant

Context? This quote will (or will not) make a lot more sense with context...

I don't care about context, I want a mass driver on the moon.

It would be an enormous unlock for space exploration.

However, I doubt we see that happen in the next 50 years.

The Moon is the future, and a rail gun is key for the solar systems...

[spacenut]

I would say Mars is the real future because of water, 24-1/2 hour day, sunrises and sunsets, and enough gravity to help the human body adapt. 

The moon, in my opinion, will only be a mining base for oxygen and maybe some metals, but will require as much or more infrastructure than Mars.  Sure it is closer, but still takes about as much Delta V to get there as does Mars, just Mars if further away. 

A catastrophic event affecting earth might also affect the moon, while Mars will be far enough away to avoid it. 

Mars will be the stepping stone for Ceres and the asteroids, Jupiter's moons and Saturn's moons, and further out. 

[meekGee]

I would say Mars is the real future because of water, 24-1/2 hour day, sunrises and sunsets, and enough gravity to help the human body adapt. 

The moon, in my opinion, will only be a mining base for oxygen and maybe some metals, but will require as much or more infrastructure than Mars.  Sure it is closer, but still takes about as much Delta V to get there as does Mars, just Mars if further away. 

A catastrophic event affecting earth might also affect the moon, while Mars will be far enough away to avoid it. 

Mars will be the stepping stone for Ceres and the asteroids, Jupiter's moons and Saturn's moons, and further out.

Exactly right.

The moon is a quarry, basically.

Mars is a place to start a colony, and does not have good use of the quarry since it has the resources already, so the Mars colony will precede the quarry.

However, large in-space projects might use the quarry. But keep in mind that asteroids are also quarries, and might be easier to use.

I think the jury is very much out on lunar resources, but it's definitely the nearest point to try.  I wouldn't mind seeing sheet metal produced in the moon.

[Twark_Main]

an advanced AI could destroy the colony

Musk is well aware that a Mars settlement provides no security against AI caused extinction so it’s not a factor.

You changed "could" to "will" there.

If the AI has a 99% chance of destroying the Mars colony, that's still better odds than a 100% chance of destroying Earth.

You're trying to make it out like the "defensive argument" is completely worthless (wonder why?), but the actual claim was that Mars is not a 100% guarantee, not that it has zero value.

[meekGee]

an advanced AI could destroy the colony

Musk is well aware that a Mars settlement provides no security against AI caused extinction so it’s not a factor.

You changed "could" to "will" there.

If the AI has a 99% chance of destroying the Mars colony, that's still better odds than a 100% chance of destroying Earth.

You're trying to make it out like the "defensive argument" is completely worthless (wonder why?), but the actual claim was that Mars is not a 100% guarantee, not that it has zero value.

Yup.

Besides, Mars is not built as a haven against Skynet.   The range of scenarios where a civilization collapses is much wider than the script of Terminator.  AI may or may not be involved, but most likely as a social factor, not as a weapons operator.

All the great civilizations that collapsed didn't do so because someone killed them. Usually they succumbed to an otherwise minor threat due to having been weakened internally previously.

That's why Mars is needed. It will be divergent enough that it won't by default share the same weaknesses.

That's also why just a larger Earth-centric industry is meaningless in this context.

[thespacecow]

The new space related Executive Order has this part:

(ii)   establishing initial elements of a permanent lunar outpost by 2030 to ensure a sustained American presence in space and enable the next steps in Mars exploration; and

Eric Berger pointed out that this is ambiguous, since it seems Gateway would fit the bill too:

What do we think "permanent lunar outpost" means here? Surface base? Lunar Gateway? Deliberate obfuscation?

Elon replied to him with:

Giant lunar base with AI satellite factories and a mass driver to shoot them into deep space (of course)

Also note if you listen to Jared Isaacman's TV interviews after he became NASA administrator, he clearly interpret "permanent lunar outpost" as a "lunar base".

So I guess the question regarding how "SpaceX will lean in big on the Moon" will be funded is answered: Part IPO money, part NASA funding.

[wes_wilson]

The new space related Executive Order has this part:

(ii)   establishing initial elements of a permanent lunar outpost by 2030 to ensure a sustained American presence in space and enable the next steps in Mars exploration; and

Eric Berger pointed out that this is ambiguous, since it seems Gateway would fit the bill too:

What do we think "permanent lunar outpost" means here? Surface base? Lunar Gateway? Deliberate obfuscation?

Elon replied to him with:

Giant lunar base with AI satellite factories and a mass driver to shoot them into deep space (of course)

Also note if you listen to Jared Isaacman's TV interviews after he became NASA administrator, he clearly interpret "permanent lunar outpost" as a "lunar base".

So I guess the question regarding how "SpaceX will lean in big on the Moon" will be funded is answered: Part IPO money, part NASA funding.

Maybe reading too much into it, but even when grandiose or unrealistic Musk's choice of words usually matters. 

What purpose is there in shooting AI satellites into "deep" space?  As opposed to "space" or just "orbit".

[Eka]

Maybe reading too much into it, but even when grandiose or unrealistic Musk's choice of words usually matters. 

What purpose is there in shooting AI satellites into "deep" space?  As opposed to "space" or just "orbit".

I'd say Musk plans to put them into solar orbit, not just around Earth.

[Oersted]

Well, that's where the sun shines, isn't it?

[crandles57]

Mars orbit would be one possible destination, but Musk's comments are clearly all very "aspirational" and not happening soon.

Will want to send some starlink like satellites to Mars but will need to launch first few? generations from Earth. Not at all sure whether moon or Mars wins race to produce satellites, Mars might develop faster and have more available materials faster but the moon has lower gravity to escape and is better situated for launch to Earth orbit which I think will remain a much larger market destination for satellites than Mars. Even if moon wins the race maybe Mars manufactures satellites for Mars so these never come from moon manufacturing facilities?

[rsdavis9]

Mars orbit would be one possible destination, but Musk's comments are clearly all very "aspirational" and not happening soon.

Will want to send some starlink like satellites to Mars but will need to launch first few? generations from Earth. Not at all sure whether moon or Mars wins race to produce satellites, Mars might develop faster and have more available materials faster but the moon has lower gravity to escape and is better situated for launch to Earth orbit which I think will remain a much larger market destination for satellites than Mars. Even if moon wins the race maybe Mars manufactures satellites for Mars so these never come from moon manufacturing facilities?

Mars is well suited to SSTO which greatly simplifies moving stuff to orbit and also greatly reduces energy needs beyond the just smaller gravity well.

And once in orbit(high?) its a small delta to send between planets.

[Vultur]

The new space related Executive Order has this part:

(ii)   establishing initial elements of a permanent lunar outpost by 2030 to ensure a sustained American presence in space and enable the next steps in Mars exploration; and

Eric Berger pointed out that this is ambiguous, since it seems Gateway would fit the bill too:

What do we think "permanent lunar outpost" means here? Surface base? Lunar Gateway? Deliberate obfuscation?

Elon replied to him with:

Giant lunar base with AI satellite factories and a mass driver to shoot them into deep space (of course)

Also note if you listen to Jared Isaacman's TV interviews after he became NASA administrator, he clearly interpret "permanent lunar outpost" as a "lunar base".

So I guess the question regarding how "SpaceX will lean in big on the Moon" will be funded is answered: Part IPO money, part NASA funding.

The wording can still be ambiguous. A lunar base may be the intent, but it may be worded to allow a "fallback" to Gateway if necessary (funding, technical/schedule difficulties) to allow claiming success.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2001039650719256863

When the mass driver on the Moon gets going, I’m not sure money will be relevant

Dr. Phil Metzger's reply: https://x.com/DrPhiltill/status/2001283886655914235

True! This shows up when modeling the space economy on that future scale. The model loses meaning because it is based in dollars, which exists only as a tool to mediate human economic decisions, which become irrelevant when human labor, thought, and needs are a vanishingly small fraction of the metabolism of industry. Dollars cease being useful either to allocate resources as inputs to the industry or to distribute the goods produced by the industry. It will need to be organized by a different principle entirely, but what?

I still don't get this part. Why would we want, or work towards, an economy that isn't primarily based on "human needs"? What would anyone gain from that existing? A bunch of robots automatically producing stuff that no one uses because it's massively surplus to human needs ... Just seems pointless.

[thespacecow]

I still don't get this part. Why would we want, or work towards, an economy that isn't primarily based on "human needs"? What would anyone gain from that existing? A bunch of robots automatically producing stuff that no one uses because it's massively surplus to human needs ... Just seems pointless.

Well for one thing, it would allow an individual to realize dreams that require enormous amount of resources, resources which if we still have an economy based on "human needs", the rest of the humans would not want to be spent on this dream since they don't need it. You know, dreams like building a colony on Mars and spread humanity to the stars.

There are also defensive reasons you'll want to do this, but let's not go there.

[Vultur]

I still don't get this part. Why would we want, or work towards, an economy that isn't primarily based on "human needs"? What would anyone gain from that existing? A bunch of robots automatically producing stuff that no one uses because it's massively surplus to human needs ... Just seems pointless.

Well for one thing, it would allow an individual to realize dreams that require enormous amount of resources, resources which if we still have an economy based on "human needs", the rest of the humans would not want to be spent on this dream since they don't need it. You know, dreams like building a colony on Mars and spread humanity to the stars.

Ohh hmmm perhaps I was misunderstanding. I was thinking "not involving humans", but maybe the meaning is "beyond basic survival needs"?

[crandles57]

The wording can still be ambiguous. A lunar base may be the intent, but it may be worded to allow a "fallback" to Gateway if necessary (funding, technical/schedule difficulties) to allow claiming success.

Quite easily "permanent lunar outpost" does means a base on the moon but "initial elements" might be just gateway and/or a landed starship to act as a habitat or ...

[Eka]

The wording can still be ambiguous. A lunar base may be the intent, but it may be worded to allow a "fallback" to Gateway if necessary (funding, technical/schedule difficulties) to allow claiming success.

Quite easily "permanent lunar outpost" does means a base on the moon but "initial elements" might be just gateway and/or a landed starship to act as a habitat or ...

A Starship could be outfitted as a permanent base and make a one way trip. I'd do it if it was my project. One lands a bunch of Starships as base and cargo ships with supplies and habitat space for the colonists as test landings. The robots then come out of them and do the simple preparations. During that time you also do the land and return from moon tests a few times. Earth needs real regolith to play and learn with. Add humans once those are working fine, and the colony starts.

[DanClemmensen]

The wording can still be ambiguous. A lunar base may be the intent, but it may be worded to allow a "fallback" to Gateway if necessary (funding, technical/schedule difficulties) to allow claiming success.

Quite easily "permanent lunar outpost" does means a base on the moon but "initial elements" might be just gateway and/or a landed starship to act as a habitat or ...

A Starship could be outfitted as a permanent base and make a one way trip. I'd do it if it was my project. One lands a bunch of Starships as base and cargo ships with supplies and habitat space for the colonists as test landings. The robots then come out of them and do the simple preparations. During that time you also do the land and return from moon tests a few times. Earth needs real regolith to play and learn with. Add humans once those are working fine, and the colony starts.

The Starship HLS uncrewed demo can be re-landed on the surface after it does its ascent demo, and I thought that was the plan. I think Starship HLS has a larger pressurized volume than any of the proposed surface habitats, so just declare it to be the lunar outpost.  It's not, of course, since it is not designed to  remain functional for longer than the demo mission.

If you really want a habitat, send a Starship HLS with an Optimus and some welding tools. That's more than 100 tonne of stainless steel with a bunch of interesting useful equipment. Let the Optimus spend a year disassembling the HLS and re-assembling the steel into a habitat, possibly retaining the pressurized section intact. All under close supervisions by humans on Earth, so Optimus is autonomous only for the second-by-second details. The main advantage of chopping the HLS up is to get the garage down to surface level. There are all sorts of clever ways to lower the top section to the surface by removing the rings out from under it.

[crandles57]

... so just declare it to be the lunar outpost.  It's not, of course, since it is not designed to  remain functional for longer than the demo mission.

Well yeah, but first it is only declaring it to be "initial elements".

Secondly is it so hopelessly ill prepared that everything just falls apart after a few weeks?
Or is it that it just lacks provisions for humans for longer? Easily fixed by taking more provisions on one or two of the cargo starships that will be going?
Or perhaps that it additionally fails to generate electric through lunar night so environmental control cannot be maintained in these conditions? Come lunar daytime can it all be woken up again as needed? Perhaps substantial batteries are needed to last through lunar night? Or if near south pole perhaps vertical PV panels need to be erected so they can be swivelled to correct direction.

Claiming it to be "initial elements" seems much, much easier than saying the base is fully up and running.

If you really want a habitat, send a Starship HLS with an Optimus and some welding tools. That's more than 100 tonne of stainless steel with a bunch of interesting useful equipment. Let the Optimus spend a year disassembling the HLS and re-assembling the steel into a habitat, possibly retaining the pressurized section intact. All under close supervisions by humans on Earth, so Optimus is autonomous only for the second-by-second details. The main advantage of chopping the HLS up is to get the garage down to surface level. There are all sorts of clever ways to lower the top section to the surface by removing the rings out from under it.

Well there might be a limit to how far you want to trust Optimus early on? Perhaps you might want to avoid such dangerous tasks early on? Do you cut steel from inside risking the Optimus getting trapped if it collapses earlier than expected or are you planning on Optimus rappelling to positions needed on the outside and also operating cutting torches? Let's not get too carried away thinking Optimus can do anything and everything. (Nor too mired in thinking nothing at all is possible with Optimus.) 3 second lag does make teleoperation much more plausible than with 6-44 minutes for Mars so more should be doable on the moon. Yes structural engineers can be watching and advising what to do next but ... I think I would prefer to lay Starship horizontal using multiple ground anchors and winches while the Optimus robots are well away from Starship. Once horizontal then Optimus can start cutting it up with less risk of some unexpected collapse.

[OTV Booster]

This honestly reduces my confidence in it happening, because it means the funding disappears if there is a major AI bubble burst.

I just flatly do not believe that there is a long term stable market for AI power use exceeding the total rest of humanity's energy use - especially if that "AI" is LLM based and therefore unable to do very much useful.

So far LLM AI has mostly made the Internet worse.

That part I have no problem seeing.

LLMs will evolve more, but I already find them (chatGPT mostly) very useful in both personal and professional life, and honestly quite fun...

I also recognize not everyone's on the same page, but this is a one way train.

This one is no bubble, it is as robust as can be.

Well there are two separate issues here.

I do think there is likely a bubble (which does not mean the technology is useless - there was a huge Internet bubble burst about 25 years ago, but the Internet was certainly very useful & survived the burst) and that this is a potential threat not just to Mars funding, but to R&D/tech funding in general. (I also think a lot of current LLMs are pretty harmful,  but that's yet another issue.)

But letting that pass. Let's say investment doesn't decline and LLMs turn out to dramatically increase everybody's productivity... How do you go from that to 100TW of AI power use? The economy is ultimately based on goods and services. There are only so many people (world population is not growing that fast anymore) and they can only consume so much actual goods and services.

The idea of uncapped demand for *anything*, AI queries or not, with a capped world population, doesn't make sense to me.

(And Mars is not going to be a meaningful part of the total human population on this time scale).

OTOH even something on a much smaller scale (say 100GW rather than 100TW) would still be ridiculously game changing in terms of space development.

As so often happens, i've not paid attention to this discussion and am now working my way through it. The conversation has gone through interesting twists and my comments will probably be out of context to the current discussion. It'll be a day or two before I climb up to current posts. My apologies.


Goods and services are what humans directly consume but both stand on a foundation of information. Information being data with context. Looking beyond the smarmy popular applications of current LLMs (may the bursting bubble take them all) and the systemic distortions of greed, AI has the potential to tightly bind resource availability and allocation. This isn't necessarily a good thing.


An example: When bringing a product to market the fixed costs that are easy to calculate, and the variable cost that are difficult to pin down because they depend on market assumptions, drive important decisions. Today the supporting data is based on similarity to earlier product launches, surveys, economic projections and the human gut feel of the sales/marketing people. A robust AI could conceivably tightly align production volume (hence variable costs) with a tight assessment of market size. Ideally, no interested buyer goes without and nothing is left on the shelf/showroom floor.


What goes unsaid but is implicit in this model is that what I call 'proctological commerce' (business alway looking up the consumers ass) will only intensify.


Beyond my personal distaste of proctological commerce, this model promises to be the ultimate clueless MBA that stays safe and kills anything unpredictable like innovation. See Lee Iacocca and the Ford Mustang.


Marketing decisions are only one specific use. Anywhere resource allocation decisions are made is a potential use. Government and military immediately come to mind.


Bending this back to the current discussion, AI applications of this type do not need low latency but they do need a lot of data, and with a lot of data comes a lot of power consumption. From a strictly technical point of view it would work anywhere from LEO to Luna.


This won't spring forth fully formed next week. It's all about allocating resources. I'll go ask Grok.