On August 15 Ukraine struck the Progress Center, which produces the Soyuz-2 launch vehicles used by the Russian space program and military.

“The Progress Rocket and Space Center in Samara is Russia’s only enterprise for series production of Soyuz-2 family carrier rockets. Two hits struck Building 106A, where onboard electrical equipment, control systems, cable networks, and instrument compartments for the rockets are assembled. Building 106B, used for final assembly, is located nearby,” ~ Armyinform

Building 106A was a cleanroom, so it could take a year or more to rebuild and restore to clean room status. Some manufacturing equipment will also need to be repaired or replaced, unfortunately Russia can no longer import defense related products due to international sanctions. Significantly, the Soyuz-2 vehicle is not reusable hence one is produced for each mission instead of stockpiled. The adjacent building 106B contains some stages which could be salvaged, plus a few vehicles have already been shipped to the Baikonur launch site, so ISS missions should continue for awhile. However, a Soyuz launch gap seems probable, because Ukraine likes to revisit strategic targets, and no shortage of ammunition…

“The task is a thousand drones for long-range strikes against Russia every day. Right now, the average is over 300 of our long-range strikes, there must be more.” ~ Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine

History Rhymes

After NASA retired the Space Shuttle In 2011 they relied on Soyuz to launch astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station. Fortunately, less than a year later SpaceX began cargo missions on Dragon, then flew the first crew mission in 2020. Now the positions seem reversed as Roscosmos will need SpaceX to fly their cosmonauts and cargo to the ISS. Note, Roscosmos refuse to fly on Boeing Starliner due to technical issues, and Russia is still technically at war with Japan over the Kiril Islands, so unlikely to use their H3/HTV-X for cargo. Fortunately Russia’s transition to SpaceX could be managed relatively quickly, considering cosmonauts already fly on Dragon and SpaceX maintains a fleet of 15-20 reusable Falcon 9 launch vehicles and 8 reusable Dragon spacecraft.

Some Adjustment

Currently the Russian Progress vehicle and Zveszda Service Module are used to boost the ISS and maintain correct altitude. However, in 2025 the CRS-33 Cargo Dragon managed to boost the station to a higher orbit, using 2 additional Draco thrusters fitted in the trunk. No doubt SpaceX can be relied on to keep the ISS flying, considering Cargo Dragon visits the station 2-3 times a year and the boost kit is a fraction of the payload. If more boost is required, e.g. due to a solar storm expanding Earth’s atmosphere, SpaceX is developing the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle (USDV), which ironically could be used to save the ISS instead of ending it.

Optical Illusion

No doubt Russia will prioritize ISS missions to maintain good optics, until early-mid 2027 when the available rockets run out. Then expect 2 cosmonauts on every Crew Dragon flight and all essential Russian equipment transferred onto Cargo Dragon missions. Then if Soyuz production is not restored SpaceX will have to lay-on additional flights using existing hardware, at relatively short notice. Fortunately SpaceX has some experience troubleshooting the ISS, after 2 NASA astronauts were stranded there in 2024, following the Boeing Starliner mishap. SpaceX managed to organize a recovery mission in 4 months, and can probably improve on that figure, assuming NASA acts promptly.

In Conclusion

Roscosmos is experiencing a cascade failure i.e. aerial attacks on its sole manufacturing facility will reduce Soyuz launch rate, which ultimately hazards the ISS. No doubt SpaceX are already preparing to increase launches to the ISS and possibly expediting USDV delivery. Fortunately they possess a deep bench, consisting of 22,000 highly skilled and motivated employees, if they need to reallocate resources. Expect next year Roscosmos and NASA will engage in optics of denial, while preparing to transition to SpaceX behind the scenes.

Chris Prophet

Agency Leap

For decades space agencies pursued space stations because sending people to other worlds was beyond their budget. Now declining costs give them greater agency, allowing bases to be built on the Moon and Mars.

“According to NASA, the first version of Falcon 9 in 2010 had a launch cost of approximately $2,700 per kilogram, which represented a reduction of approximately 85% compared to the historical average launch cost per kilogram of $18,500...With the future deployment of Starship, which is designed to be the world’s first fully and rapidly reusable spacecraft, we aim to further reduce the cost to reach orbit by 99%.” ~ SpaceX SEC Filing

Realistically base building is just a prelude, because commercial operations will surely follow, turning these small offworld bases into thriving business cities.

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SpaceX has long pursued floating spaceports for Starship missions and now close to realizing that ambition. Instead of launching from a few niche locations, space transport will become a global service accessed by anyone. Making humanity multiplanetary is a huge undertaking, which will become a worldwide effort.

Phobos and Deimos

In 2020 SpaceX purchased 2 oil rigs, which they named Phobos and Deimos after the small moons of Mars. Then they began to convert them into floating spaceports to expand the launch capacity for Starship.

“SpaceX is building floating, superheavy-class spaceports for Mars, moon & hypersonic travel around Earth,” ~ Elon Musk/X

However, by February 2022 SpaceX concluded these rigs were “not the right platform,” and subsequently sold them on. These semi-submersible platforms were relatively small compared to Starship, hence could only support a single launch tower and limited propellant storage, and SpaceX had far larger ambitions...

New Start

SpaceX is now more experienced operating Starship, hence has a better idea how to build a floating spaceport. Regulatory hurdles like Environmental Assessments (EAs) have been cleared and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), who regulate offshore rigs, has been informed: -

“High cadence, cost effective launch and recovery, including offshore platforms is essential to expanding American presence in space and growing a vibrant commercial space economy.” ~ Owen McDonough, SpaceX Senior Manager Government Affairs

The BOEM’s area of responsibility includes the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), so SpaceX confirmed they want to use it for spaceport operations: -

“SpaceX supports use of the OCS for offshore space launch and reentry, including purpose-built and repurposed facilities for launch and catch operations of reusable spaceflight operations.” ~ Owen McDonough, SpaceX Senior Manager Government affairs

While SpaceX didn’t detail these Spaceports, their existing EAs give a good idea where they would be located.

Americas First

“Starship/Super Heavy orbital mission would include a Starship landing after Starship completes its orbital mission...Starship would land vertically at the VLA [Vertical Launch Area] or on a floating platform in the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific Ocean and go into an automated safing sequence.” ~ FAA Programmatic Environmental Assessment

SpaceX already land Starship boosters in the Gulf east of Starbase, which suggests the first floating spaceport will operate there, to take advantage of their local launch facilities and north coast shipbuilders. However, SpaceX also want to land Starship in sea areas adjacent to:-

• Cape Canaveral

• Vandenberg Space Force Base

• Hawaiian Islands

• Easter Island, off Chilean coast

Essentially SpaceX is taking an Americas first approach for these spaceports before going global.

Global Reach

“It’s no secret that we intend to launch Starship a lot, targeting thousands of flights per year. That cadence will require the ability to launch from many different locations, so we are constantly exploring to find viable sites to expand Starship operations in the future, both domestically and internationally.” ~ SpaceX/X

Building self-sustaining cities on other worlds will require a multitude of floating spaceports around the globe to provide launch opportunities every hour. Fortunately SpaceX can deploy these spaceports relatively close to coastal cities, allowing them to be used for commercial passenger transport.

“Most Starship spaceports will probably need to be ~20 miles / 30km offshore for acceptable noise levels, especially for frequent daily flights, as would occur for point to point flights on Earth” ~ Elon Musk/X

The US Space Force has shown strong interest in using Starship for materiel transport, so these floating spaceports will serve three customers, SpaceX, commercial passengers and Space Force. Effectively these 2 external customers will fund and support SpaceX’s expansion of their global network.

Spaceport Schema

This distributed network of land and sea based spaceports will allow a fleet of Starships, (including passenger vehicles, orbital Tankers and materiel transports) to shuttle quickly around the world – or even beyond and return. However, if an issue occurs with the catch tower, these flights could quickly backup. Hence SpaceX will need multiple launch/catch towers at each spaceport to provide redundancy and increase operational capacity (Starbase will have 2 towers, Cape Canaveral 3 and Louisiana has room for 100). This suggests floating spaceports will have at least 2 launch/catch towers to ensure one is available to catch arriving Starships, despite any issues.

Normally propellant storage tanks are located as far as possible from the launch area – doubly so for landings. Floating spaceports will be cramped, so likely dispense with propellant storage tanks, and have liquid methane and oxygen tankers supply the platform from a safe distance. This would leave more space for a Starship hangar, passenger terminal plus landing pad for electric shuttle aircraft.

Ideally there would be no permanent crews onboard these propellant ships or platforms; steering/station keeping would be managed via Starlink, and maintenance tasks handled by autonomous/teleoperated androids.

In Conclusion

SpaceX look far beyond the launch business and intend to change our entire culture. Operating a worldwide network of coastal spaceports will put humanity on a different level and hopefully bring us closer together. For any other company this would be fantasy yet SpaceX continues to surprise us. Their deliver might be late, but certainly worth the wait.

Chris Prophet

NASA’s Artemis Program needs a human lander fast, following delays to the Blue Origin system. SpaceX are super secretive about their Starship Human Landing System (HLS), and barely acknowledge their current work with anyone except NASA. However, SpaceX is steadily progressing towards a working system, as the deadline fast approaches for lunar landings.

HLS Simulator

“We’re also actively building our first flight fidelity Starship HLS cabin at Starbase. The primary structure is assembled and prepared to be outfitted with key functional systems like avionics, power, life support systems, and more to come in the next few months.” Jessica Jensen/SpaceX VP

Completing a working HLS cabin is a significant step forward as it will allow astronauts to simulate the most challenging parts of Artemis missions, i.e. Trans Lunar Injection (TLI) from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) through to lunar landing and takeoff. As the military say: “train hard to fight easy,” and astronauts will have everything short of nuclear war thrown at them in these simulations. This NASA/SpaceX collaboration should beat out all the bugs and further refine the HLS system before the first crew landings in 2028.

Mystery Hangar

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SpaceX launch 90% of the world’s payloads and has developed a reusable Super Heavy Lift (SHL) launch vehicle, putting them in a different league. These super league teams are run by governments, and consist of big players with something substantial to contribute. In this rarefied atmosphere rules change and become almost unrecognizable, because these governments make the rules.

No Rules

“Physics is the law, everything else is a recommendation.” ~ Elon Musk

Governments make rules to make it easier to govern, so treat them like guidelines when applied to themselves. For example: -

• Security agents are illegal in foreign countries, yet the CIA employ thousands of operatives.

• The California Coastal Commission ruled SpaceX was restricted to 36 launches per year from Vandenberg; but the Pentagon ignored them and increased the launch limit to 100.

• It is illegal to restrict movement through international waterways, like the Strait of Hormuz, until push comes to shove...

SpaceX has now entered this twilight zone where rules are subjective, as they have made themselves indispensable to the US government.

Get out of Jail

“The FAA space division has a fundamentally broken regulatory structure. Their rules are meant for a handful of expendable launches per year from a few government facilities. Under those rules, humanity will never get to Mars.” ~ Elon Musk/X

Since inception SpaceX was bound hand and foot by regulations, but has now found a way to escape because they have a seat at the table.

“The Trump administration on Tuesday proposed a rule allowing the FAA to waive environmental regulations under 13 federal laws to speed up commercial space launch approvals. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy framed the move as essential to re-establishing U.S. dominance in space, citing a projected surge from a record 205 authorized operations in fiscal 2025 to as many as 4,288 over the next decade.” ~ Biggo Finance

While this rule change affects the entire launch industry, SpaceX will benefit most because of their launch dominance. Ultimately restricting certain areas to launch operations should preserve the coastal environment, instead of developing them into high density housing. Certainly the environment benefited from the closed nature of Cape Canaveral, particularly the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Why SpaceX

NASA relies on SpaceX to access the International Space Station (ISS), launch science missions and land astronauts on the Moon ahead of China. However, the US Space Force will have twice as many Starship Orbital Launch Mounts (OLMs) at LC-37, compared to NASA at LC-39A. All told Space Force has myriad uses for this giant spacecraft which can operate in cislunar space, the new Area of Operation (AO) with China. Last but not least, low cost SHL will supercharge commercial space and the US economy, sending it to new heights.

“We continued to accelerate R&D investments in our Starship program, which we believe will reduce the cost to orbit by 99% or more relative to the historical average, and unlock significant revenue potential across all business segments.” ~ SpaceX Q2 Report

March of AI

SpaceX will start to deploy Starmind AI satellites in 2028 to avoid local planning permission and energy supply bottlenecks. However, they intend to build an additional 8GW of terrestrial compute over the next 2 years and recently purchased APR Energy to supply onsite power to supplement the grid. Currently SpaceX make $30.72bn p.a. from their AI business, mainly through leasing some of their 1.4GW of compute to Anthropic, Google and Reflection AI, which suggests their AI revenue should soon exceed $368bn p.a. due to the relentless demand for computer intelligence. Recently Amazon Web Services reached $148bn p.a. revenue, following a 37% surge in Q2. Currently the demand for compute completely outstrips supply, resulting in enormous margins, so longterm the business is worth trillions.

“Our internal projection for reaching $1 trillion in revenue has moved up from 2031 to 2030; There’s a nonzero chance of that being in 2029.” ~ Elon Musk/Sawyer Merritt

Why Riches

The original SpaceX mission was to colonize Mars, hence they constructed the Starlink constellation to provide the necessary internal funding. Then they added colonizing the Moon, which overall could cost trillions. Hence it makes sense for SpaceX to pursue the AI business due to its unrivaled returns. Deploying a million AI satellites in Earth orbit and a billion AI satellites around the Sun, will eventually become self funding, similar to Starlink. Of course SpaceX has plenty of applications for agentic AI, which promises an exponential increase in space development.

Why Now

“It’s no secret that we intend to launch Starship a lot, targeting thousands of flights per year. That cadence will require the ability to launch from many different locations, so we are constantly exploring to find viable sites to expand Starship operations in the future, both domestically and internationally.” ~ SpaceX/X

SpaceX is opening a new launch site in Louisiana, which could double their launch capacity for polar satellites. The Starmind constellation requires continuous solar power, hence will use a polar sun synchronous orbit. Considering the main competition is China, SpaceX need to launch asap to acquire the best orbital AI slots. Certainly China has little concern for the environment and big ambitions for AI.

In Conclusion

There’s no limit for humanity when it becomes multiplanetary. SpaceX are focused on the Moon and Mars, including steps to provide the necessary finance and remove regulatory hurdles. Realistically they have 2 years to build an unshakable foundation, before the next administration arrives with a new broom. By then their Louisiana launch city should be well underway, adding numerous OLMs for polar launches and Starmind. This will enable major advances for humanity, similar to the 60’s space race, driven by international competition.

Chris Prophet

On July 24, Starship ascended smartly from the pad, with no discernible issues. Rocket engineers say any design flaws usually manifest in the first 2 flights, and this was the second flight of Version 3 Starship, suggesting the design is sound.

Many improvements were made to the B20 Super Heavy booster and S40 Ship following Flight 12: -

Engine restart – the Super Heavy engines had hardware and software modifications to reduce overheating and improve their re-light capability (e.g. error tolerance increased to reduce engine aborts during startup).

Staggered startup – the Ship’s vacuum engines started on one side first during hot staging. This ensured Super Heavy rotated back towards the launch site after stage separation.

Engine reliability – the Ship engines had hardware and operational changes to reduce engine-outs.

Launch vehicles are highly tuned so any modification could potentially cause a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (RUD), hence Starship proved its overall robustness, considering the many changes.

The vehicle was certainly tested on Flight 13, considering it accelerated hard from the start. This increased speed at Max-Q (when the vehicle experiences maximum aerodynamic pressure), which increased stress on the entire vehicle.

“This flight intentionally had much higher acceleration to test how well the heat shield tiles would remain attached at high dynamic pressure. Test was successful.” ~ Elon Musk/X

In addition, Starship has to fight gravity all the way to orbit, so getting there faster reduces the amount of propellant used to counter gravity, meaning the vehicle can lift more payload (i.e. an extra 6-7 tons).

First Operation

For the first time Starship carried an operational payload, i.e. 20 V3 Starlink satellites, which were successfully deployed into sub-orbit.

“The first Starlink V3 satellites in space successfully deployed their solar arrays, fired their thrusters, established connections with the Starlink constellation using radio frequencies and laser links, and captured imagery of Starship.” ~ Starlink/X

No doubt each satellite varied slightly to determine the optimal design, before they launch 100,000 V3 satellites, which have 10X the bandwidth of the current design.

After 6 of these satellites inspected the heat shield tiles, the Ship executed a brief deorbit burn, then performed a controlled entry, descent and landing in the Indian Ocean. The Ship used 2 engines for touchdown, to provide offset thrust, ensuring it floated belly side up. This provided excellent views of the heat shield tiles which appeared in good condition, except for some white streaks caused by ablated Kaowool underlay.

“We got all the heat shield data we needed and then some!” ~ Elon Musk/X

Thanks to the soft landing, S40 effectively became a ship, so SpaceX decided to salvage it.

“We’re sending a ship out to recover Starship.” ~ Elon Musk/X

Booster Recovery

Super Heavy lit all 33 engines for its boostback burn but only managed to relight 8 out of 13 engines for the landing burn – which then reduced to 5. This meant Super Heavy hit the water at ~30 m/s, a big improvement over Flight 12 as the booster was still supersonic. Super Heavy reenters the atmosphere at hypersonic velocity engine first which might explain why some engines failed to ignite. Hence SpaceX will probably perform another booster sea landing on Flight 14, and not risk damaging the chopsticks, which have a far more important job...

Orbital Operation

Production is accelerating at Starfactory, with Ship 21 and Super Heavy 41 close to completion, which suggests the next launch should be in August. For Flight 14 Starship will ascend to orbit for the first time, and deploy 20 fully operational Starlink satellites. Then they’ll deorbit the Ship and attempt to catch it with the chopsticks, another first for Starship.

SpaceX successfully recovered and reused 2 Super Heavy boosters on Version 2, so if they manage to recover the Ship they can reuse the entire launch vehicle. Realistically the first stages they recover will be stripped down to determine which parts need to be reinforced, or lightened to save weight. However, when SpaceX begin to reuse Starship, their launch rate should double due to the number of launch vehicles available, then double again with the next reused vehicle.

Orbital Refueling

When Starship can be fully reused, SpaceX will begin orbital refueling flights, likely before the end of 2026. Fortunately they will have 2 Starship pads available for these flights, OLM-2 at Starbase and LC-39A at the Cape. Likely one will launch a Target vehicle, quickly followed by a Chaser vehicle from the other. Then these vehicles will attempt to dock together in orbit, and transfer a large quantity of cryogenic propellant (50+ tons). Essentially these Starship derived vehicles are prototypes for the Propellant Depots and Tankers SpaceX will use to send Starship to the Moon and Mars.

In Conclusion

SpaceX’s strategy of iterative development is finally bearing fruit, with full reuse within reach. All being well, Starship will soon enter service, and send thousands of Starlink V3 satellites to orbit, to meet the surge in demand.

NASA rely on Starship for the Artemis Program and their faith in SpaceX seems well founded. While nothing is certain in rocketry, flexible development, fast production and redundant launch facilities go a very long way.

Chris Prophet

Recently the FAA published an Environmental Assessment (EA) which shows additional areas where Starship can land in an emergency. Previously the FAA agreed Starship could land in the Gulf west of Florida and North Atlantic, straddling Cape Canaveral, where SpaceX has three launch sites. Intriguing the modified EA shows Starship could land in 3 more sea areas, situated around the Americas: -

Coastal California – approaching Vandenberg Space Force Base

Central Pacific – west of Wake Island to east of Hawaii

South Pacific – surrounding Easter Island

Interestingly these areas are all close to land, instead of deep in the ocean (e.g. Point Nemo), which suggests SpaceX will intentionally land Starship in these locations. Certainly it could make test landings on a floating platform, or on one of the islands; and at Vandenberg Starship could use the existing Falcon 9 landing pad.

“Starship/Super Heavy orbital mission would include a Starship landing after Starship completes its orbital mission...Starship would land vertically at the VLA [Vertical Launch Area] or on a floating platform in the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific Ocean and go into an automated safing sequence.” ~ FAA Programmatic Environmental Assessment

Preparation in Depth

Realistically SpaceX only need one area to test land on a floating platform and the Gulf seems ideal because recovered vehicles could be shipped to Starbase or the Cape. Any Starships recovered in the Pacific would have to return via the Panama Canal, and no doubt swarmed by ‘Chinese tourists.’ However, if Starship lands at a launch facility, either situated on land or on a floating platform, it could be launched back to space on a Super Heavy booster.

The military want to use Starship for fast transport, hence Hawaii should have its own launch facility, because its a military logistics hub. Similarly SpaceX intend to transition entirely to Starship, so they will need a Starship launch facility at Vandenberg for Space Force missions. Easter Island is as far south of the equator as Cape Canaveral is north, hence it could provide addition launch opportunities for Starship Tankers to rendezvous with an orbital propellant depot, previously launched from the Cape. Longterm SpaceX has to send millions of tons of propellant to orbit to build and sustain space settlements, so new launch facilities should appear all around the world.

Dual Use

It seems SpaceX aims to build a network of launch facilities around the Americas i.e. Starbase Texas, South Louisiana, Cape Canaveral, Vandenberg California, Hawaii-Wake Island and Easter Island off South America. No doubt many will become dual use facilities, able to support both SpaceX and military operations. Later on the Starship network should extend farther, to provide commercial passenger transport to key cities. Floating platforms would be moored in international waters off the coast of these cities, with passengers shuttled on drone aircraft. No doubt these platforms will also be used to launch space missions, e.g. Starship Tanker, Cargo or Passenger flights, making them again dual purpose.

In Conclusion

SpaceX has long planned to expand Starship operations to the Pacific, as soon it enters service. While NASA is first in line for Starship, the US Space Force also want to use it for logistics so expect plenty of test landings at military bases, which eventually progress to launches.

Once precedent is set for Starship to operate beyond the US, SpaceX can start a commercial passenger service. This will create a global network of launch facilities to provide the necessary scale for humanity to become a multiplanetary species. Really SpaceX thinks of everything.

Chris Prophet

“You don’t seem to understand that SpaceX will be worth more than the rest of Earth if we accomplish our goals.” ~ Elon Musk/X

Initially this appears quite outlandish, considering SpaceX is a small component of the Earth economy, except, as Nicolaus Copernicus suggests, everything doesn’t revolve around Earth.

High Quarters

SpaceX relocated their head quarters to Starbase Texas in late 2024, to reduce regulations, taxation and litigation. However, complete freedom is only possible on other worlds, which suggests SpaceX will relocate again, after they establish suitable settlements on the Moon or Mars. This will open a floodgate of funding for these settlements, considering Starlink will become the backbone of the internet, including cell service, and Starmind will supply the majority of AI tokens from Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

Unfortunately dollars will have the same buying power as cents on these new worlds, because everything costs more to import from Earth or locally produce. In addition, the massive amount of money arriving each day from Earth would be highly inflationary, hence these settlements will have to establish their own electronic currency to manage the local economy.

To illustrate: NASA normally charge $10m for accommodation at the ISS, plus up to $167,000 per day service charge. No doubt commercial providers could reduce living costs at these new settlements, but realistically they will be orders of magnitude higher than Earth.

First Moon and Mars

In February 2026 SpaceX announced they would shift focus from Mars to the Moon, and build a lunar settlement first. Then they plan to manufacture AI satellites from lunar materials and launch them to solar orbit with a mass driver. This should maintain their lead in AI supply, as the market broadens to the Moon, Mars and transport spacecraft.

Coincidentally, Jared Isaacman was appointed NASA Administrator in December 2025, a few months prior to SpaceX’s tectonic shift. Under his direction, NASA is now pursuing Nuclear Electric Propulsion, with plans to send the SR-1 Freedom nuclear powered spacecraft to Mars in 2028. Interestingly, SpaceX tried to develop nuclear propulsion in the past but encountered difficulties procuring fissile materials, and stymied by nuclear regulations. Fortunately NASA want to find commercial users for NEP and no doubt SpaceX will be first in line considering their longterm interest. NEP should solve many problems for SpaceX, instead of sending thousands of Starships to Mars they can transport everything they need with a few nuclear powered spacecraft.

NEP spacecraft will necessarily be large, with a closed ecosystem to generate their own air, food, and water, hence better described as worldships. Given their size, these worldships could potentially have centrifugal gravity and electromagnetic shielding, supplied by their nuclear reactors. Ironically SpaceX has long been adverse to space habitats, yet now seem destined to build them to solve their space transport problem. However, Starship will be far from forgotten, as it’s great for ferrying goods and people to and from orbit, in fact they will likely need a Mega-Starship to help construct and supply these worldships.

Solar System and Stars

Once SpaceX operate worldships, the whole solar system is open to exploration and commerce.

“We plan to pursue asteroid mining operations to extract metals and other critical resources from near-Earth and main-belt asteroids, providing abundant raw materials for space-based industries and reducing the need to launch mass from Earth,” ~ SpaceX/Forbes

Asteroid mining missions will need to haul heavy machinery, and return a high tonnage of processed material, something more than possible by NEP spacecraft. Then the moons of outer planets could be explored and settled, spreading human interest far from Earth.

More advanced worldships could then travel to other stars, there are plenty of juicy prospects in our stellar neighborhood. SpaceX is roughly a generation ahead of commercial rivals and accelerating hard, hence their financial heft and technical chops makes them ideally placed to pull this off.

Megacorporation

Musk makes no secret he intends to merge all his companies, to make them easier to manage and share resources. The market for this megacorporation will be boundless as the mainstay for a multitude of new worlds. Elon is an avid fan of sci-fi hence well aware of how companies can grow in an unrestricted medium. The Weyland-Yutani corporation from Aliens and Spacing Guild from Dune clearly signpost where SpaceX is heading. Considering their commercial strength and access to advanced technologies, all it should take is coherent management and focus for the duration.

In Conclusion

Given the scope of Elon’s vision, and technical resources, his megacorporation could eventually exceed Earth, because space is infinite and Earth is finite. Will humanity be better served by an efficient commercial entity instead of myriad fractious governments, only time will tell. Progress requires change, particularly if we are to exceed Earth. The future will be nothing but interesting.

Chris Prophet

SpaceX was built to make life multi-planetary, so the technologies they develop must support this company mission. Rocket reusability, manned spacecraft, orbital infrastructure and super heavy landers are all core technologies for settling new worlds. Intriguingly SpaceX are heavily involved in Golden Dome, despite having plenty of work on their plate and a surplus of finance. Hence they must have another application for this ballistic defense technology, to solve a second order problem related to space settlement.

Golden Dome Awards

Ideally Golden Dome will intercept ballistic missiles before they launch or during the boost phase, quite a challenge considering the system must cover the whole world. Currently SpaceX has 2 key contracts for the Golden Dome Program, i.e. to provide airborne target tracking, and satellite communications. Essentially Starshield satellites will track potential targets, then relay this information via the Starlink constellation. SpaceX has also bid for the orbital interceptor work, the final segment of this ballistic defense network, so they are pursuing every major part of this program.

Dual Utility

While Golden Dome is intended to shoot down nuclear missiles, it could be repurposed to intercept incoming asteroids, like a point defense system for Earth. Instead of interceptor missiles, Golden Dome will likely employ high energy lasers or masers, because they cover larger areas and don’t run out of ammunition. Fortunately asteroids are packed with frozen volatiles, hence will out-gas when heated, altering the asteroid’s point of impact. However, if these gases can’t escape the internal pressure could shatter the asteroid completely. Alternately some asteroids are rubble piles, so if sufficient heat is applied the asteroid would disintegrate into smaller fragments, to burn up in the atmosphere. Overall seems wise for SpaceX to build such a system, although their application lies a lot farther from Earth.

Space Settlement

To become a multiplanetary species, SpaceX intend to build substantial settlements on the Moon and Mars using their Starship Super Heavy Lift (SHL) vehicle. Unfortunately Mars has a vestigial atmosphere, unlikely to stop anything larger than a micrometeorite, and the Moon has an exosphere, offering no appreciable protection. Hence settlements on either world will need some form of meteor defense to ensure their longterm survival. NASA estimate ~50 tons of meteoric material falls on Earth each day, so expect a comparable amount for the Moon, and possibly more on Mars, which orbits closer to the asteroid belt. Fortunately minimal atmosphere is ideal conditions for a laser or maser based defense system. Even the Starshield satellites could be used to detect incoming meteors, which reflect the suns heat, making them highly visible to infra-red tracking. Overall this implies SpaceX has a good grip on the basic technologies needed to settle other worlds and has now advanced to second order problems.

Assured Access

Numerous defense contractors are breathing down the Pentagon’s neck for the golden interceptor work, so it won’t necessarily go to SpaceX. However, if someone else lands the contract they will have to share their interceptor schematics with SpaceX to ensure system compatibility. In addition, SpaceX handles the majority of defense payloads, hence able to inspect the interceptor hardware prior to launch. It seems, one way or another, SpaceX will become familiar with every aspect of Golden Dome for Earth, making it relatively easy to re-engineer for the Moon and Mars.

Fast Defense

The first settlements on the Moon and Mars will consist of a cluster of Starship vehicles, hence vulnerable to meteor impacts due to their height and pressurized volume. Fortunately SpaceX could set-up a meteor defense system fairly quickly using the same basic technology. A Version 4 Starship can carry 200 tons, so could land a complete defense system relatively close to the settlement, ready for operation. For example: the lunar settlement will be located at the lunar South Pole, so a dedicated defense Starship could land on a peak of eternal light, to ensure continuous solar power. A high energy laser or maser, fitted on a turntable in the payload section, could cover most of the sky, similar to a telescope observatory. The turntable could also carry a large solar array, to maintain the best aspect to the sun as the moon rotates, allowing megawatt-hours of energy to be accumulated over time. Realistically meteors approaching from the direction of the sun would be less visible, so provide less warning time, but the laser/maser would be continuously pointed towards the sun hence able to react relatively quickly. In addition to meteors, this system could also defend against space junk, an emerging problem in cislunar space, due to increased lunar activity.

In Conclusion

SpaceX are serious about space settlement, considering they are currently solving first and second order problems. Hopefully their settlement defense system will only be used against meteors, although a good capability to have in an uncertain world.

The company is committed to building cities on distant worlds, and willing to go out of their way to protect their people. Overall SpaceX has demonstrated they have the will, finance and commercial means to develop all the basic technologies needed for space settlement.

Chris Prophet

“Our brain-computer interface translates neural signals into actions. In our clinical trials, people are using Neuralink devices to control computers and robotic arms with their thoughts. This technology will restore autonomy to those with unmet medical needs and unlock new dimensions of human potential.” ~ Neuralink.com

The Neuralink company has successfully implanted Brain Computer Interface (BCI) devices to improve the quality of life for severely disabled people. However, the applications for this technology go far beyond medical mitigation and it will likely become ubiquitous among most professional people in the future. No doubt the world will look completely different after we synergize with AI.

Tech Bottleneck

“Neuralink is needed to solve the super low & lossy output bandwidth of humans. Our input bandwidth, thanks to vision, is many orders of magnitude higher than our output bandwidth, but could also be greatly improved. By addressing these bandwidth limitations and greatly increasing our effective cognitive capacity, human-AI symbiosis will be far better, improving the probability of a great outcome for humanity in the future.” ~ Elon Musk

Human activity is increasingly going online but restricted by our poor computer interfaces. For example: we can think faster than we can type, so a better interface is required to exploit our full potential. Human connectiveness promises to remove our reliance on phones by providing immersive experience of the computer realm.

First Augment

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War is a constant thread through human history but constantly changing due to the advance in technology. Drones are the new wonder-weapon which increasingly make humans redundant on the battlefield. Hence future conflicts will be weapon system vs weapon system, with the best tech take-all.

Steppe Change

In most wars Russia relies on numbers to overwhelm the opposition, but Ukraine’s First Person View (FPV) drones outnumber Russian soldiers 70 to 1. The economics are stark, Russia offers ~$21,500 to enlist new recruits, whereas a standard FPV drone costs Ukraine $300-$700 to produce. This cost advantage extends to sea warfare, Ukrainian Naval drones and missiles have made the Black Sea impassible to the Russian fleet, which now remains in port. For Operation Spider Web, Russian truckers were paid to transport mobile cabins to military airfields in the Russian interior, then Ukrainian drones launched from the roofs, disabling ~10% of their strategic bombers in one fell swoop. Currently Ukraine is developing long range carrier vehicles, able to deploy FPV drones or missiles in any theater, land, sea or air. Even the undersea isn’t safe, as they have begun to operate submersible drones.

For ground assaults, Ukraine relies on heavily armed Uncrewed Ground Vehicles (UGVs), supported by surveillance and attack drones. Russians who survive the initial assault often surrender to these unmanned vehicles, and Ukraine only uses troops to secure basements where holdouts are hiding. Given these weapons’ effectiveness, Ukrainian servicemen mostly operate far from the contact-line, something made possible by ubiquitous broadband supplied by SpaceX’s Starlink. However, Starlink access has been removed in Russia, so they mainly rely on troops to fight machines…

Countermeasures are increasingly hard to come by, given the advance in technology. FPV drones use frequency hopping, making them difficult to jam except at short range, then they employ AI to home-in on pre-selected targets. Some drones are controlled via a strand of optical fiber, which Russian ground troops try to cut with scissors – but are not always successful. Counterwise, Ukraine has developed interceptor drones and they constantly hunt for Russian FPV operators with long range weapons.

Machine vs Machine

“Locally autonomous drone warfare is where the future will be, It’s not ‘I want the future to be this’ – it’s just, this is what the future will be.” ~ Elon Musk/BFBS Forces News

Given their effectiveness, troops will increasingly be replaced by machines on the front line. Then as these machines pose the greater threat, they must be dealt with first. Hopefully this should reduce military and civilian casualties, assuming a defeated nation surrenders after its drone defenses are overrun. Strange new world where military machines prioritize eliminating other machines over people.

Drone Drops

SpaceX has completed the first test of its Starfall vehicle, designed to return goods from space. However, demand for space manufactured goods is limited, so these reentry vehicles are more likely to be used to deliver military materiel.

“Starfall also has defense applications, and SpaceX is working in conjunction with the military on the program.” ~ Los Angeles Times

Each Starfall vehicle can carry 1,000kg of cargo which implies 1,000 rotocopter drones could be sent anywhere in the world in less than an hour, on one vehicle.

Less Fuss less Muss

“In the event of conflict or humanitarian crisis, the Space Force will be able to provide our national leadership with an independent option to achieve strategic objectives from space.” ~ General John Raymond, Chief of Space Operations/Spacenews.com

During the recent Middle East conflict, 69 Iranian munition storage sites were successfully attacked, blocking the tunnel entrances to these underground bunkers. However, Iran managed to unblock most of these tunnels, which allowed them to continue the war with their undamaged drones and missiles. By contrast if Starfall had been used, a swarm of AI drones could have flown deep inside the underground storage areas and destroyed any internal doors or impediments with high explosives, carried by the first wave. Once inside the main storage area, the swarm would make short work of any munitions, potentially ending the war in days instead of months. The whole world suffered exorbitant fuel prices and economic woes because of this protracted conflict, something which could have been avoided if Iran’s strategic weapons had been eliminated on day 1. No doubt their neighbors would also breath a sigh of relief knowing Iran could no longer attack them with nuclear missiles.

Starfall Practicality

Some suggest a sophisticated air defense system would make light work of any Starfall reentry vehicles. However, each vehicle weighs 3.1 tons when fully loaded, which suggests 30 could be launched by Starship Version 3 or 60 on Version 4. SpaceX will have 5 Starship launch mounts in the near future, which suggests they could deploy 300 Starfall vehicles at once, saturating any air defense system. Each vehicle will reenter at ~mach 25, making it difficult to intercept, even by advanced air defense systems. In addition, the vehicle would be surrounded by ionized plasma during descent, which should mask it from tracking radar. Currently Starfall has a relatively slow ground approach because they use parachutes to land, although these could easily be replaced by hypergolic thrusters, to enable a combat approach. For well defended areas, waves of rotocopter drones could be deployed throughout the descent, ensuring hundreds survive even if the carrier is intercepted closer to the ground.

In Conclusion

War is an unfortunate reality but bad actors like Iran could be reigned in with little difficulty in the future. Instead of sacrificing people, machines would become the primary casualties, something far more acceptable, at least to most ordinary people.

Overall this could lead most countries to become less belligerent, considering the prospect of a drone assault. Nuclear weapons were a technical marvel in their day but are now just another a drone swarm target.

Succinctly: if nukes are hammers, then drones are scalpels.

Chris Prophet

In the nineteen sixties NASA was destined to explore the solar system and far beyond, like a living incarnation of Starfleet. Times change but hope remains and now NASA is finally finding its feet. Similar to the classical renaissance their renewed success is due to a confluence of factors, both internal and external, with more to come in the near future.

Foundation Building

NASA has long been starved of funding, forcing them to delay and cancel projects to their own detriment. Now their budget has substantially increased, mainly due to supplemental funding for manned spaceflight.

“Congress has officially passed a budget that restores critical science missions and pushes the agency’s effective funding to nearly $27 billion.” ~ Astronomy.com

How NASA spends money has also improved, thanks to their new administrator Jared Isaacman. He streamlined internal organization, and accelerated delivery from legacy aerospace companies through to startups. Lastly the administration has set more achievable goals, like docking Orion with Starship in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for the Artemis 3 mission, to prove these systems are compatible before sending them to the Moon. Art 3 will also test whether Starship can boost Orion to a higher orbit, and if successful Falcon Heavy could launch Orion to LEO then use Starship to push it to Low Lunar Orbit (LLO). Not relying on a single launch vehicle, i.e. the Space Launch System (SLS), is eminently practical considering their recent experience with New Glenn.

Moon First

NASA wanted to build a moonbase after the Apollo landings, and now well on their way to achieving this lofty goal. A host of commercial landers should descend on the Moon in 2027, to deploy rovers and instruments on the surface, followed by at least one human landing mission in 2028, to prepare ground for the base. SpaceX aim to build satellites and a mass driver on the Moon, which will require a substantial settlement, so they will add their considerable resources to NASA’s efforts.

“I think SpaceX might be able to reach approximately $1T revenue in 2030...and I would be surprised if revenue is not greater than $1T in 2031.” ~ Elon Musk/X

Mars Up

NASA believes Mars is too distant for chemical rockets, hence pursuing Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) in advance of human missions. Their first NEP spacecraft, called Space Reactor One (SR-1) Freedom, should launch for Mars in 2028 to prove fast transit is possible. Then three drones will be released into the atmosphere to scout landing sites for a follow-up crew mission. Developing NEP spacecraft is a major advance, potentially opening the entire solar system to human exploration. Missions to the outer solar system could last years or even decades thanks to the reactors sustained power and efficient electric propulsion.

Human Factor

No-one has transited deep space for more than a few days duration, so NASA needs to mount a series of missions to determine the longterm effects, before they venture farther into the solar system. Fortunately SpaceX has two private Starship missions on their manifest, capable of carrying 12 people into deep space, which NASA could use for their own astronauts.

Initially Starship will loop around the moon on a week long mission, similar to Artemis 2, except with a full sized crew. This should prove large spacecraft can operate outside of Earth’s protective magnetosphere, particularly the Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS), essential for long duration missions.

Following a successful moon mission, Starship will flyby Mars and return to Earth in 2 years, establishing a new human spaceflight record. Then the crew can be periodically monitored to evaluate any longterm effects, and provide NASA with invaluable data to develop mitigation measures.

Future Proof

After the next presidential election, Jared Isaacman will likely leave NASA to start his own space business. However, Artemis 4 and 5 missions are assured thanks to NASA’s supplemental funding, and Starship Version 4 should have delivered thousands of tons to the lunar surface, to help establish the moonbase. NASA will also be developing their next generation NEP spacecraft, capable of carrying even more cargo and crew to the Moon and Mars. With this kind of inspiring momentum the next administration would find it difficult to make anything more than cosmetic changes to NASA, considering the competition with China.

In Conclusion

Whether by chance or contrivance, NASA’s prospects have never looked rosier. The arrival of commercial partners like SpaceX, willing to pour billions into building launch vehicles and spacecraft, must seem like manna from heaven following years of cash starvation. The fusion of NASA science and SpaceX technology will produce science vessels capable of exceeding the solar system, proving there’s no limit to human potential.

Succinctly: NASA began a commercial wave that’s building into a tsunami – and now they’re gonna ride it!

Chris Prophet

“We plan to pursue asteroid mining operations to extract metals and other critical resources from near-Earth and main-belt asteroids, providing abundant raw materials for space-based industries and reducing the need to launch mass from Earth.” ~ SpaceX IPO Prospectus

SpaceX plan big for space, such as building communities and facilities far from Earth. These points-of-light scattered around the solar system will devour raw materials sourced from space. In the near future, their hugely capable Starship will be used to trailblaze asteroid mining, to establish supply before demand.

Asteroid Promise

When planets form, heavier materials, like metals, tend to sink into the core. Hence the heavy metals we extract from Earth’s crust are trace amounts compared to the quantities contained in the planet’s core. However, the solar system originally consisted of a multitude of small planets, called planetesimals, some of which grew into full sized planets, while others were reduced to rubble. Metallic asteroids are the remnants of planetesimal cores, so they could contain vast quantities of noble metals and rare earths, in relatively high concentrations compared to those found on Earth.

Roughly 7-8% of asteroids are metallic, and these m-class asteroids mostly consist of nickel-iron alloy. However, veins of gold, silver, platinum group metals, rare earths, even uranium and thorium, should occur in a few such asteroids. These veins are essentially exposed strata, hence relatively easy to identify and mine, using surface extraction methods.

Asteroid Prospecting

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On May 28, Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket exploded on the LC-36 launch pad during a static fire test. Unfortunately this could delay the Artemis Program, because Blue Origin’s Mk.1 cargo lander and Mk.2 Human Landing System (HLS) can only launch on New Glenn. Fortunately SpaceX has a fleet of reusable launch vehicle ready to fill the gap, so the race is still on with China, as the 2028 finish-line fast approaches.

Affected Missions

Blue Origin has 5 lunar lander flights, which could be delayed: -

Pathfinder 1 – Mk.1 cargo lander test, No Earlier Than (NET) late 2026.

Pathfinder 2 – NASA VIPER mission on Mk.1 lander, NET 2027.

HLS – Mk.2 crew lander test, NET 2027.

Artemis 3 – Mk.2 lander docks with Orion crew vehicle in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), NET late 2027.

CLV-1 – Astrolab Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) on Mk.1 lander, NET early 2028.

Pegasus – Lunar Outpost LTV on Mk.1 lander, NET early 2028.

Unfortunately the Mk.1 and Mk.2 landers are both topped off with hydrogen propellant from New Glenn’s upper stage, so can’t launch on Falcon Heavy or Starship because they use different propellants. The ULA Vulcan has a hydrogen upper stage but lacks the lift capacity of New Glenn, which is designed for cislunar operations.

Community Support

NASA’s Administrator visited LC-36 to assess damage and offer their support: -

“We are going to take an active role alongside our partners, just as we did in the 1960s, to overcome setbacks, remove obstacles, and deliver the intended outcomes. NASA is committed to helping the Blue [Origin] team recover, continue to advance their lunar lander and get New Glenn back to launching as soon as safely possible.” ~ Jared Isaacman/X

SpaceX also offered their support and advice on how to proceed: -

“You have to first study and then precisely engineer the demo[lition] as there are many unknowns with the state of the infrastructure. You also want to do your best to save the Ground Support Equipment that is still good. A miss on a piece of steel mass/cg or unknown trapped pressure can quickly turn disastrous. The last thing you want to do is make a tough situation worse by getting someone hurt or worse. Cleanup has to be done with a sense of urgency, but extreme precision. It’s literally launch pad surgery.” ~ Kiko Dontchev, VP of Launch/X

In 2016 SpaceX experienced a similar explosion during the AMOS-6 static fire, which totaled the SLC-40 pad at the Cape. More recently in June 2025, Starship 36 exploded during a static fire, causing extensive damage to Masseys test site at Starbase Tx. While Blue Origin is a competitor, SpaceX supports anyone who shares their mission to open space, even the direct competition. For example: they helped OneWeb complete their internet constellation after Soyuz launches were discontinued, due to the Ukraine war.

How Long

“We will fly again before the end of this year. Gradatim Ferociter.” ~ Dave Limp, Blue Origin CEO/X

This is an aggressive target, considering SpaceX’s experience rebuilding SLC-40: -

“SpaceX went from the AMOS-6 failure to a new launch in 15.5 months. The actual construction part, following remediation and design, required 11 months.” ~ Ars Technica/Eric Berger

Note: SpaceX is renowned for fast work, and has a deep bench of technical employees at the Cape and Vandenberg, call them ‘the right staff...’

Realistically it could take a month to forensically examine the launch site, followed by a year to rebuild the pad and transporter, assuming there’s little damage to the ground support equipment. Then New Glenn must be recertified for NASA missions, which could require multiple test flights with non-NASA payloads. The last New Glenn flight failed due to a second stage problem, and the static fire failure originated from the booster, indicating they have multiple issues. Overall this suggests Blue Origin is effectively sidelined from Artemis, and the onus is now on SpaceX.

Why SpaceX

Increasingly SpaceX has become the fallback option to overcome space related problems: -

Astronaut rescue – SpaceX managed to safely return 2 astronauts (Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams), from the International Space Station (ISS), following the Boeing Starliner mishap.

Interrupted launch – in August 2023 the Antares 230 launch vehicla ceased production due to Russia sanctions. Northrop Grumman now uses Falcon 9 for its Cygnus cargo flights to the ISS, until the Antares 300 rocket becomes available.

Development delay – Firefly Aerospace is building a Medium Launch Vehicle (MLV) to carry their Blue Ghost lander to the moon, but MLV wasn’t ready for the first flight, so they used Falcon 9 to maintain schedule.

Given their flexibility and experience, SpaceX seems a safe pair of hands.

SpaceX Save

For the Artemis 3 mission in late 2027, NASA can dock the Orion crew vehicle with a Starship Human Landing System (HLS) in LEO. Coincidentally, SpaceX also plans to send a HLS to the moon in 2027 for a lunar landing test, so they could use the Artemis 3 HLS for this landing test, after refueling it in LEO. The HLS elevator is rated for 2 tons, more than enough to lower the 500kg VIPER rover to the lunar surface, or one ton vehicles like CLV-1 and Pegasus. Alternately one of the Commercial Lunar Payload System (CLPS) landers (i.e. Nova-D, Griffin or Apex 1.0) could land VIPER on the moon, if launched on Falcon Heavy. Unfortunately Pegasus and CLV-1 are too heavy for CLPS landers, hence will probably launch on Starship. Technically HLS has a 100 ton payload, which means it can transport 2 NASA astronauts and both LTVs to the moon, on a single vehicle.

It seems some destinies have an ineluctable gravity, that can’t be denied: -

“Starship will end up doing the whole Moon mission. Mark my words.” ~ Elon Musk/X

In Conclusion

NASA will have a tough time keeping Artemis on track but has a capable partner in SpaceX. Starship is now the critical path to the moon, fortunately its development is accelerating, with $930m spent in the last quarter alone. Pivotally LC-39A will soon be ready to launch Starship from the Cape, providing launch pad redundancy, reducing the overall risk for Artemis. In the final analysis, SpaceX’s head down charge for the line attitude, has scored plenty of touchdowns…

Chris Prophet

On June 11-12 SpaceX (SPCX) will start selling its shares to the public, in the biggest Initial Public Offering (IPO) in history. The company’s initial value is $1.75tn, although this should rise rapidly after IPO, due to internal and external factors. Literally SpaceX destiny is out of this world.

IPO Timing

SpaceX has stolen a march on major rivals, like Anthropic and OpenAI, who will IPO later this year. This should ensure SPCX receives the lion’s share of institutional and retail investment, as first to market.

Recently SpaceX completed Flight 12 of Starship, the world’s most powerful launch vehicle. This proved the viability of their Starship V3 design, demonstrating they are 10+ years ahead of any competitor.

June 28 is Elon Musk’s 55^th birthday, and it would make a great birthday present if he becomes the world’s first trillionaire.

“Elon Musk: current net worth $839.2 bn” ~ Forbes

IPO Launch

“This ​is one of those lifetime moments in which people may say they just have to get in.” ~ Rowan Taylor, Liberty Hall Capital

Retail investors are chomping at the bit for SpaceX stock, following the 30,000% ascent of Tesla (TSLA) post IPO. Reportedly 30% of the SpaceX stock is allocated to retail investors, because they are more likely to hold over the longterm. However, no amount will be enough to satisfy initial demand, suggesting SPCX will substantially increase when its listed, how much depends on macro conditions.

The Strait of Hormuz is effectively reopening, which lowers energy cost, giving a boost to the world economy. Large institutions who hedged against a recession should return to the market, just as SPCX stock becomes available.

Kevin Warsh will chair his first Federal Open Market Committee meeting on June 16-17, then speak to reassure the markets, who abhor any kind of uncertainty. Warsh believes one off events like tariff increases or short term wars have negligible affect on longterm inflation, hence he’s more open to interest rate cuts. Changing the narrative from rate increases to rate cuts will certainly improve market outlook, particularly stocks.

Post IPO

Around 5 trading days after SpaceX IPO they should be listed on the Russell 500, 10 trading days later on the NASDAQ 100, then the S&P 500 will likely follow suit to remain competitive. Every ETF, 401K etc that tracks these indices will have to buy substantial quantities of SPCX to re-balance their fund.

In late July/early August, SpaceX will perform Starship Flight 13. This should be the final proving flight for Starship before it carries commercial payload, i.e. Starlink Version 3 satellites. These will have more than 10X the downlink and 24X the uplink capacity of Version 2 satellites, allowing Starlink to cover densely populated areas and access a far greater market.

“By clearly demonstrating Starlink’s superior speed, low-latency, affordability, and ease of installation—not only in rural, remote, and infrastructure limited areas, but also in suburban and urban areas with wireline broadband options—we expect to drive meaningful subscriber and revenue growth.” ~ SpaceX/Form S-1

Starlink is already a massive cash cow for SpaceX, generating $11.5bn revenue in 2025 at software margins, with the number of subscribers roughly doubling each year.

Starship should become fully reusable by the end of 2026, which is a game-changer. Previously SpaceX launched 10,000 Starlink satellites on their partially reusable Falcon 9, which takes 30 days to refurbish. Starship can launch 4X the payload and designed to be fully and rapidly reusable, possibly in hours.

“There will ultimately be >100k V3/V4/V5 satellites for Starlink broadband and direct to cellphone connectivity. If growth continues, Starlink will one day carry the majority of Internet traffic. At that point, it is the Internet and everything else just connects to Starlink.” ~ Elon Musk/X

As Elon suggests, Starlink satellites will allow cellphones to connect anywhere, which should generate comparable revenue to Starlink internet in the medium to longterm.

In late 2027 SpaceX will land a Starship Human Landing System (HLS) on the Moon, to prove its safe for NASA astronauts. Then in 2028 SpaceX will start to launch AI satellites to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), aiming to deploy a million satellites in total.

AI Service

SpaceX has merged with xAI, who are the fastest data center builder on Earth, judging by their Colossus 1 and 2 facilities. Currently Google and Anthropic pay $2.17bn a month to use Colossus 1, and other deals will likely follow, given the limited supply of compute and massive demand from AI companies. No doubt Anthropic view this as good future investment, considering it puts them first in line for SpaceX’s AI satellites, when they become available.

“As part of this agreement, we have also expressed interest in partnering with SpaceX to develop multiple gigawatts of orbital AI compute capacity,” Dario Amodei, Anthropic CEO/SpaceNews.com

Future Acquisitions

Before the end of 2026, SpaceX should buy Cursor, a leading AI coding company. This would put Grok on par with any automated coding system and accelerate other ambitious projects, like Starship, satellite AI and space settlement. Consequently SpaceX market value should increase by at least $60bn.

In 2027 SpaceX will probably buy Tesla. Elon Musk has an 85% controlling stake in SpaceX, so purchasing Tesla will secure his control of the company. Likely this will add ~$2tn to SpaceX market value.

Given this move to agglomeration, no doubt The Boring Company and Neuralink will also be absorbed, to minimize the management burden on Musk. Overall these purchases will put a $7.5tn market value within reach for SpaceX, something Musk needs to achieve to receive 260 million in vested shares.

Defense Work

The US military is racing to catch up with technological advances from the Russo-Ukrainian war, which utilize high bandwidth communications. For example: Starlink allowed Ukraine to effectively clear the Russian Navy from the Black Sea, using only low cost naval drones. Recently Space Force announced SpaceX will develop the Space Data Network (SDN), a military version of Starlink for all services. No doubt this will add billions to SpaceX’s bottom line, when it becomes widely adopted.

SDN will also be used to operate Golden Dome, so SpaceX play a central role in its development. In addition, Golden Dome satellites need to incorporate AI to reduce reaction time, putting SpaceX in pole position to receive this work. They are currently developing their own AI satellite constellation, using custom built microchips, which aims to deploy around the same time as Golden Dome in 2028… Realistically Golden Dome could cost $trillions to build and maintain, which would certainly help SpaceX financials.

Looking further out, Space Force want to protect NASA’s moonbase at the lunar south pole. Each Starship can carry more than 200 tons of cargo, making it an ideal cislunar patrol vehicle. Currently SpaceX are constructing 2 Starship launch mounts at SLC-37 for Space Force, which would allow them to launch 2 patrol vehicles in parallel. NASA pays $1.15bn for a Starship HLS mission, including orbital refueling, which seems a reasonable price SpaceX could charge for each cislunar patrol mission.

In Conclusion

“We estimate that our quantifiable TAM [Total Addressable Market] is $28.5 trillion, consisting of $370 billion in Space from space-enabled solutions; $1.6 trillion in Connectivity across $870 billion in Starlink Broadband and $740 billion in Starlink Mobile as well as additional opportunities in enterprise and government; $26.5 trillion in AI across $2.4 trillion in AI infrastructure, $760 billion in consumer subscriptions, $600 billion in digital advertising, and $22.7 trillion in enterprise applications.” ~ SpaceX/Form S-1

SpaceX should acquire the majority of this TAM, due to their ability to develop and launch technology faster than the competition. Normally a tech company’s market value is 10X their revenue, which suggests SpaceX should be worth $200tn in a few decades. And that’s before they get serious and settle other moons, asteroids and planets. Then the only thing to exceed their ambition will be their market value.

Chris Prophet

“Over the past two decades, SpaceX has driven the cost of reaching low Earth orbit from roughly $16,000/kg down to under $1,200/kg on Falcon 9 (reused), and now targeting sub-$200/kg on Starship.” ~ Jarsy/X

For millennia the sky was an impossible impassible barrier, now SpaceX makes space flight seem almost mundane. People point to reusability as the reason for their success, but this is a gross oversimplification; like describing the entirety of the ocean as ‘wet.’ The company’s culture is the real reason for their unrivaled progress, and arguably a model for how to succeed in an increasingly AI invested world.

Right Stuff

SpaceX was founded by people passionate about space, talented and capable, who recruited more of the same. Many were rejected who put their own interests ahead of the company, which keeps the focus laser sharp on the corporate mission. This allows small teams of cooperative people to blitz technical challenges, each day building on the success of the last.

Vertical Integration

The company pushes its highly talented workforce to come up with innovative solutions to technical challenges. Hence it’s often quicker and cheaper for them to make new parts themselves than negotiate price and delivery with a suitable supplier, which results in incredible cost savings. For example: Starlink ground terminals use phased array antennas which normally cost thousands of dollars but SpaceX produces them so cheaply they can give them to subscribers for free.

Iteration Iteration

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” ~ proverb

SpaceX takes a similar approach to software companies when developing new systems. They quickly assemble a minimum viability product, find how it fails, then iterate as quickly as possible. For example, SpaceX launched Falcon 1 only 4 years after the company was founded, going from no rocket building experience to first test flight at an incredible pace. Falcon 1 was small, only capable of lifting a couple of hundred kilos to orbit, but commercially viable. Essentially SpaceX philosophy is to break things down into the smallest bites possible then consume them as quickly as possible. So far a myriad of small steps have allowed them to advance to the technical height of Starship, the world’s first fully reusable launch vehicle, capable of lifting more than 200 tons.

Fearless Advance

Most companies halt development after they achieve a working rocket, because even a minor change could cause a Rapid Unplanned Disassembly (RUD). Conversely SpaceX make continuous changes to the design, despite the occasional RUD, because these failures indicate how to improve the existing system or signpost the next step in its evolution. To illustrate: Starship Version 3 incorporates hundreds of changes from Version 2 – that’s fearless...

Commercial Horizon

Legacy aerospace companies build bespoke launch vehicles for governments, who have exceptionally deep pockets, which led to extraordinary prices. For example, the part reusable Space Shuttle cost ~$60,000 per kilo of payload, compared to $1,200 per kilo for a part reusable Falcon 9. This prior cost burden limited the commercial horizon to a handful of satellites, when the potential for space is far wider. SpaceX broke the mold by taking a more commercial approach, i.e. find the best way to deliver payload at the lowest cost. Then they demonstrated what’s possible through quickly constructing Starlink, a 10,000 satellite mega-constellation capable of delivering broadband anywhere on Earth. Now they are helping other companies achieve their space goals, some far beyond Earth orbit.

All-in Investment

SpaceX is all-in pursuing their goals, developing Starlink and Starship in parallel was cripplingly expensive for the company. However, they value progress above profit, which gives them an enormous advantage over legacy launch companies. So far SpaceX spent $15bn on Starship development, and rapidly ramping investment. Once complete Starship will allow them to replicate their success with Starlink anywhere in the inner solar system.

Overall betting the company shows management commitment and focuses the minds and effort of their highly invested workforce.

Everyone Wins

Following each SpaceX success their stock increased in leaps and bounds. This directly motivates SpaceXers to succeed, because they receive vested shares by way of a bonus. Essentially interns can turn into millionaires in less than a decade, with enough money and experience to start their own companies. Many of these startups are space related, which means more launch business for SpaceX, who currently handle ~99% of the payload for the western world.

This is the Way

In the near future companies will be founded by a few talented people, who are passionate about pursuing a commercial goal. Their first step is to recruit teams of specialist AI agents from various sources and let them develop the product. AI androids will then build the plant, handle production and distribution. These virtual companies will have even greater focus than SpaceX and capable of faster advances. Probably this new model for development will be demonstrated first at SpaceX, who constantly strive to improve their performance; no wonder they snapped up xAI,

There is No Try

Hyperscalers promise to invest hundreds of billions in AI but SpaceXAI is the only company who has built a coherent gigawatt of compute, at their Colossus 2 facility. When hyperscalers catch up, SpaceXAI will be deploying a gigawatt of compute in space, an order of magnitude more difficult to develop. Strategy wins over tactics, and SpaceX’s strategic vision is peerless.

Sunlit Uplands

“We believe that our current space efforts will catalyze transformative breakthroughs that could reshape terrestrial industries and lead to the emergence of new trillion-dollar markets on the Moon, Mars, and beyond.” ~ SpaceX/SpaceNews.com

Now Starship is transitioning into service, companies will come from all around the world to use it. Space habitat and observatory builders, Moon and asteroid prospectors, emigrants to new worlds and science pioneers. No doubt Space Force will take strides to keep up, and secure strategic interests. Inspiration, it seems, is infectious, and SpaceX has proved anything is possible.

In Conclusion

SpaceX started a snowball rolling which will eventually circle the world. Expect prodigious advances in the years ahead, starting in the technology sector. SpaceXers are the real heroes, their sacrifice has made anything and everything possible.

Chris Prophet

Lunar Assumptions

Following the Apollo landings it was determined the Moon’s composition is remarkably similar to Earth, hence held little material value. However, after the Chang’e 1 and 2 surveyor missions mapped the lunar terrain and surface deposits, attitudes began to change. China sent Chang’e 4 and 6 robotic landers to the South Pole Aitken (SPA) basin, a 2,000km crater caused by an asteroid impact ~4bn years ago.

Now NASA is ramping robotic missions to the SPA basin and vowed to land people there before China. Previously Elon Musk said the Moon was a distraction, but now pivoted to lunar development, promising to build a self-growing city. It seems something beyond gas extraction is drawing attention to the SPA region, something of strategic importance.

Aitken Gravity

Unusually the Moon’s gravity is more intense in the center of the SPA basin, where the remnants of the asteroid lies buried deep beneath the surface. Magnetism is higher along the northern rim which suggests the impactor was metallic. The asteroid approached from the south, hence some metallic fragments would have scattered to the north, when it penetrated the lunar crust.

Metallic asteroids are the remnants of planetesimal cores, i.e. the high density materials found in the core of small planets destroyed when the solar system was being formed. While these asteroids are primarily nickel-iron they can also carry rich veins of noble metals like gold, silver and platinum group (platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium etc). Essentially the small deposits we mine on Earth are trace amounts compared to the mother lodes contained in planetary cores.

How Big

“Imagine taking a pile of metal five times larger than the Big Island of Hawaii and burying it underground. That’s roughly how much unexpected mass we detected,” ~ Peter B. James, professor at Baylor College

This suggests there’s a buried mass of ~2,000 quadrillion tons in the SPA basin, extending up to 300km underground. For comparison 16 Psyche, a metallic asteroid in the main belt, is only 24 quadrillion tons in mass. Psyche could contain tens of $trillions in noble metals, which implies the SPA basin could have a hundred times more...

Material Gain

Noble metals are used for electronic manufacturing, their exceptional conductivity, corrosion resistance, and thermal stability, make them essential for capacitors, resistors, and hard drive coatings. More importantly high performance semiconductors depend on these materials, so they have become strategically important as we increasingly embrace AI. While China has large deposits of gold and silver, it lacks indigenous platinum group metals, making them doubly valuable for Chinese manufacturing.

Transport Problem

Initially SpaceX plan to send far more payload to the Moon than it returns, to help found a lunar settlement. However, once they begin lunar propellant production, Starship could lift 100 tons of precious metals from the lunar surface and safely return them to Earth. This relatively low quantity should avoid crashing the market, given accelerating demand from the electronic/semiconductors industry. Of course returning $500m in precious metals every month could seriously affect SpaceX’s value to the positive.

“I think the company over the next 10 or 15 years is going to be worth $10 trillion, $20 trillion, $30 trillion, and I could be very low.” ~ Ron Baron/CNBC

While producing propellant on the moon should help, it would still require ~1GWh of energy to mine and process enough propellant to launch a single Starship. Interestingly China want to build an electromagnetic mass driver, which should solve the transport problem. The moon is tidally locked with Earth, so a single mass driver could launch a steady stream of material containers towards Earth. These containers would require heat shields to survive atmospheric entry, but likely be disposable and built from abundant lunar materials (aluminum, silicon etc).

Coincidentally, SpaceX also intend to build a lunar mass driver to launch AI satellites into solar orbit. No doubt they could construct a driver for Earth-bound materials and fabricate suitable containers at their lunar manufacturing facility. Currently SpaceX is developing reentry capsules for space manufactured goods, which could be scaled up into Moon return containers.

True Value

SpaceX aim to deploy billions of AI satellites into solar orbit, which would require millions of tons of materials. Hence thousands of Starships would be needed, if these materials are sent from Earth.

Alternately a handful of Starships could establish a mining operation on the moon, where raw materials are free for the taking, assuming one of the ships includes a nuclear power reactor. By way of backup, solar power at the lunar poles is continuous, and not attenuated by atmosphere, so solar panels produce ~5 times more energy than on Earth.

False Positive

Only ~7% of asteroids are M-type, i.e. metallic, hence the Aitken asteroid could have easily been C-type (composed of clay and silicate ) or S-type (composed primarily of silicate materials and nickel-iron). However, the asteroid impact was so energetic it excavated the Moon’s crust and likely penetrated the lunar mantle. Hence metallic core materials could have backfilled the void and solidified, relatively close to the surface,

The Apollo 12 mission discovered low assay materials, which had been ejected from the core, in the Procellarum mare. These materials contained Potassium (K), Rare Earth Elements (REE), and Phosphorus (P), collectively known as KREEP, Mares tend to be darker because they contain nickel-iron extruded from the core, accompanied by heavier elements like uranium, thorium etc. If the Aitken anomaly was caused by backfill from the lunar core, the crater might not include noble metals, yet remains valuable for lunar manufacturing.

In Conclusion

The Chinese and American drive for the Moon resembles a gold rush for a reason. There’s untold wealth buried beneath the SPA basin and significant surface deposits along the northern rim. If this find pans out, it could transform the world economy and significantly accelerate AI.

NASA waited patiently to build a moonbase and now their time has come. SpaceX has their own plans for the moon, and together they’ll make it happen.

Chris Prophet

Space has long been the realm of governments, supported by their industry partners. Then companies began to operate communication and Earth observation satellites, followed by resupply missions to the ISS. Now commercial crew missions are commonplace, with companies like SpaceX driving the technology frontier through hard investment.

“We have continued to invest significantly in further increasing our lead by pursuing full and rapid reusability at ​scale, including investing over $15 billion in our next-generation rocket, Starship,” ~ SpaceX/Reuters

In 2012 SpaceX started to develop Starship, then in the last two years investment went exponential.

“SpaceX devoted $3 billion to research and development in 2025 for its space segment, the entirety of which went to the Starship program, a sharp jump from the $1.8 billion spent in that segment the prior year.” ~ SpaceX/Reuters

This is the kind of investment needed to truly open space, because companies create new business opportunities through lower cost.

Big Problems Big Solutions

Earth’s deep gravity well is a high hurdle in the race to develop space. Normally 95-98% of a rocket’s mass is expended lifting its payload to orbit, but if you double the diameter of a rocket it quadruples the lift capacity. Hence extremely large and powerful launch vehicles like Starship can lift hundreds of tons to orbit, with enough propellant left to land both stages.

“Starship V4 aims to achieve 10k metric tons of thrust at liftoff or ~22M pounds of force, which is ~3 times the power of the Saturn V Moon rocket” ~ Elon Musk/X

While each Starship costs ~$100m to construct, if both stages are reused it can launch for less than $2m, little more than the price of fuel.

The next big hurdle is sending payload beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO), because Earth’s gravity effectively extends a million miles into space. Fortunately tanker Starships can refuel transport Starships in LEO, allowing them to travel as far as the asteroid belt.

The last big hurdle is to return significant payload from asteroids and other worlds. Proactively NASA plan to launch SR-1 Freedom in 2029, the first Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) spacecraft. Its ion engines are an order of magnitude more efficient than chemical propulsion, making it ideal for deep space transport.

“We realized that when we went out and said, ‘Industry, you do it all [for space reactors],’ that was a big ask, This really is a NASA near-impossible thing. Let’s trailblaze, let’s be the pathfinder, and then hand off to them.” ~ Steve Sinacore, nuclear program executive for NASA

Likely SpaceX will be front of the line for NEP technology, given their expansive goals.

High Goals

SpaceX want to create a self-growing city on the Moon in the next decade, followed by one on Mars in 20+ years. While this seems uncommonly altruistic, SpaceX has huge commercial projects planned which will require small cities similar to Starbase, their prototype city in Texas.

Initially the Moon will focus on propellant production, to lower transport cost. Then SpaceX will build a manufacturing facility to build AI satellites from in situ materials, and a battery of mass drivers to launch these satellites into solar orbit. The Sun emits billions of times more energy than we receive on Earth, which suggests a solar AI constellation could be a billion times more powerful than one in Earth orbit. While SpaceX has plenty of applications for AI, the commercial potential for this kind of compute power is mind boggling.

SpaceX plans for Mars are more far reaching. When nuclear powered transports roam the solar system, Mars will become a transport hub due to its strategic placement and ease of launch. Mars has plenty of materials to build spacecraft, and its solid surface and one third gravity makes construction far easier than in orbit. The low gravity also allows larger vehicles to be launched from Mars than Earth, and SpaceX intends to build an interstellar spacecraft… To assist this effort they want Mars settlers to be independent, to free them from excessive Earth regulations and partisanship. Essentially Mars will become a super-science park, equipped with an advanced A/C after they terraform the planet.

More Money

No government would underwrite such ambitious goals, fortunately far more money is available in the commercial sector. Reportedly 100m will subscribe to satellite internet by 2028, and Starlink costs ~$100/month on average. This suggests SpaceX revenue will soon reach $120bn p.a. at software margins – plus a comparable amount from their direct-to-cell service. Realistically SpaceX will require trillions to execute their exocity projects, even with economies of scale and commercial efficiency. However, there’s certainly enough to get started, after which these cities should become self-funding.

Super Scale

Currently SpaceX is building 5 Orbital Launch Mounts (OLMs) for Starship, 2 at Starbase and 3 at the Cape. However, they want thousands of Starship launches per year, so need far more OLMs. Reportedly SpaceX has purchased large tracts of land in Louisiana: -

“SpaceX has acquired or is in the process of acquiring approximately 136,000 acres of coastal Louisiana marshland straddling Pecan Island and Freshwater City in Vermilion Parish. The footprint reportedly stretches from south of Highway 82 down to the Gulf, encompassing some of the most ecologically rich and economically untouched wetlands in North America.” ~ Keaty Real Estate

136,000 acres is comparable to the Cape Canaveral launch site, which also includes large tracts of wetlands. Interestingly SpaceX could use the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW) to ship Starship stages from their Starfactory at Starbase to the Cape. Typically these stages would be transported by barge along the GIWW, then use the Freshwater Bayou Canal to reach the south coast launch site.

Overall this expansive area would put SpaceX on another level, if fully utilized to build, fuel and launch Starships. Certainly they could operate hundreds of OLMs at this site, considering the surfeit of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) and grid power available.

“Cameron Parish to the west is the LNG capital of the United States. Starship’s Raptor engines run on liquid methane — the same product flowing through Cameron’s export terminals every day. And Entergy Louisiana has been building out a hurricane-hardened high-voltage transmission corridor across this exact stretch of marsh for the last two years.” ~ Keaty Real Estate

Louisiana is well situated for polar launches, as Starship can head south over the Gulf. This should be particularly useful as SpaceX plan to deploy a million AI satellites in sun-synchronous orbit, and build a base at the lunar South Pole.

Risk and Reward

The risk level for what SpaceX propose would be unacceptable for any company – except one run by Elon Musk. Fortunately the board seem onboard with this risk, even encourage him to go further: -

“The SpaceX board in January approved a ​pay package for Elon Musk that will award 200 million in super-voting restricted shares if the company hits a market value of $7.5 trillion and establishes a ​permanent human colony on Mars with at least 1 million people.” ~ Reuters

SpaceX is primarily a transport company for people, cargo and data. Hence they will offer a commercial transport service to Mars (and the Moon) for everybody, including their competitors, as they’ve done in the past. Entrepreneurs, prospectors, and all manner of companies will set-up shop on these new worlds, to begin new commercial enterprises. Even so it could be decades before a million people live on Mars, except… If Optimus robots achieve Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) they might gain the same rights as people. They’ll certainly need an army of robots to construct an exocity on Mars, and Optimus keeps getting smarter.

“His [Musk’s] performance ⁠package also gives him as many as 60.4 million in restricted shares if SpaceX meets separate valuation goals and operates data centers in space that provide at least 100 ​terawatts of compute capacity.” ~ Reuters

Again this milestone would be impossible to reach without a battery of mass drivers on the moon and lunar satellite factories – at least in Elon’s lifetime. Normally he relishes these kinds of challenges, and has a history of quickly demolishing them.

In Conclusion

Originally space was monopolized by governments, which restricted its use due to high prices. Now space has become commercial, thanks to companies like SpaceX, who are effectively creating a space economy. Realistically it could take trillions to create a broad space economy, fortunately SpaceX will be one of many who found new space enterprises.

SpaceX is key, as they will perform hundreds of Starship launches per month to build development cities on the Moon and Mars. Consequently they are ramping OLM construction at the Cape and along the Gulf, as Starship prepares to go operational. The first flight of Starship V3 is NET May 15, then all things become possible.

Chris Prophet

SpaceX has long sought to strengthen US defense, through launching Earth observation satellites and improving orbital communications. Now their defense prowess has developed into a pivotal role in the Golden Dome Program, the US ballistic missile shield. SpaceX needs stability and security to pursue their longterm goals, so adding another layer to US defense seems prudent strategy.

Why SpaceX

So far every company who tried to build a mega-constellation in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) have ended up insolvent – except SpaceX with Starlink. Understandably this didn’t go unnoticed by the intelligence community, who like to keep a close eye on Earth.

In 2022 SpaceX began to deploy Starshield satellites for the NRO, to enable Earth observation from LEO. The Starshield constellation uses laser interlinks to provide secure communication, making it ideal to backhaul defense data. Subsequently Space Force chose to expand the Starshield constellation to 480 satellites, to create a Space Data Network, which will be used as the data transfer backbone for Golden Dome. Overall they prefer to buy not build, because it reduces cost and shortens delivery.

More recently SpaceX was contracted to develop Link-182, the secure RF waveform used to control interceptors through MILNET. Now Space Force have selected them to build a prototype interceptor, in competition with a variety of defense contractors. However, Space Force has a limited budget and determined to rein in cost, which strongly favors SpaceX.

“Because we are so focused on affordability, if we cannot do it affordably, we will not go into production,” ~ SF General Michael Guetlein, Head of Golden Dome Program

Good Bad and Ugly

Orbital interceptors will add another layer of defense against ballistic missiles, making it easier for naval and ground based systems to cope. As a side benefit, an orbital defense system could save lives in regional conflicts, such as the recent Iran war. Ideally Golden Dome will intercept ballistic missiles during the boost phase, while all the warheads are in one place. The boost phase typically lasts 3-5 minutes, so the interceptor must be relatively close overhead to be in range. Unfortunately this effectively rules out kinetic interceptors, because thousands upon thousands would be needed to cover all possible launch sites. No doubt SpaceX could build and launch hypergolic interceptors at relatively low cost, but the sheer number required would make them fairly indigestible to congress. More importantly, the Golden Dome constellation would become the first target in any conflict, so most interceptors would be expended defending the constellation itself from anti-satellite weapons...

Alternately, SpaceX has expertise in precision lasers, which are routinely used on Starlink and Starshield satellites. Photons travel at the speed of light, hence an orbital laser platform could cover a far greater area. Only electricity is expended, so these stations can perform multiple shots to defend itself and handle swarm attacks. SpaceX could mass produce orbital platforms, equipped with pulsed lasers, which can turn the atmosphere into a lens to maintain coherence. Overall a few hundred laser platforms promise to be far less expensive and more effective than tens of thousands of kinetic interceptors.

Lastly there’s an outside chance SpaceX might develop maser platforms. These could beam microwaves at missiles to disrupt their guidance and control electronics. Low frequency microwaves pass freely through the atmosphere, so ballistic missiles could be interdicted either before or after launch. Additionally these masers could disable free flying warheads, decoys and surveillance satellites, even used for asteroid defense. However, given their efficacy they would effectively become strategic weapons. Complete carrier groups, airfields or governments could be targeted from orbit, shifting the strategic balance.

Command and Control

A ballistic missile launch is relatively easy to detect due to the massive heat plume. Following this the decision to interdict must be made in less than 3 minutes, i.e. during the boost phase, before the multiple warheads and decoys are deployed. Hence Golden Dome will use AI to analyze observation data in real time and quickly identify missile launches from spurious effects like volcanic eruptions. Then after the fire command is given, the same AI will supply targeting data to the intercept platform and track progress.

Space Force will use orbital AIs for this command and control process, in order to reduce response time and improve security. SpaceX aim to launch a million AI satellites to sun-synchronous orbit and currently building Terafab, their own fabrication facility to produce one terawatt of AI chips per year. Overall this depth and scale of AI deployment should grant SpaceX significant advantage when bidding for Golden Dome AI. Certainly Space Force would prefer the electronics are designed and built in the US for political and security reasons. Ideally AI would be integrated into the intercept platforms, which further favors SpaceX if they receive the orbital platform work.

Program Prognosis

“The costs just for deploying up to 2,000 space-based interceptors remain astounding, ranging from $161 billion to $542 billion over 20 years.” ~ Congressional Budget Office/Ars Technica

The Space Force drive to buy vs build should help control costs and ensure significant progress before 2028. Given the scale of SpaceX involvement they could offer a package deal for station development and Starship launch to minimize cost. Likewise they will probably demonstrate their prototype interceptor by 2028, given the company’s fast development culture. It’s important the program remains within budget and demonstrates real progress, considering the next administration will likely review all large expenditures…

Strategic Significance

When the nuclear age began, nations aligned with one or other of the nuclear powers, hoping to shelter under their nuclear umbrella. Likewise Golden Dome will cause many to reassess their relations with the US and possibly become more deferential. The defensive constellation could be used to intercept short, medium and long range missiles anywhere in the world, allowing the US to underwrite the defense of friendly nations in regional conflicts. Overall Golden Dome should make nuclear conflict less likely because the aggressor would effectively be firing blanks. Worse, many outgoing nukes would fall short on the aggressor’s home territory, like a karma short circuit. Strange new world where nuclear armed tyrants can’t menace their neighbors.

In Conclusion

Given SpaceX’s peerless space prowess, Golden Dome is theirs to lose. Anyone who underbids them on orbital platforms will have to pay hundreds of billions for launch services, whereas Starship costs a few million to launch, little more than the price to fuel.

We’ve lived under the threat of nuclear annihilation for nearly a century so an antidote is long overdue. Those who try to replicate orbital intercept will find it an uphill task, effectively making the US a nuclear safe oasis.

Chris Prophet

SpaceX has advanced their vertical integration through acquiring xAI, and aim to purchase Cursor, an AI software company. Previously they achieved marvels without AI, so these acquisitions should advance them to an almost unimaginable level.

“SpaceX team is incredible. All done without AI so far, even Starship. With AI, I can’t even imagine the possibilities.” ~ Elon Musk/X

The main strength of AI is its broad understanding across all subjects, whereas humans tend to specialize in a specific area. Overall AI’s accessibility and ability to synergize subjects makes it a powerful tool for SpaceX, particularly as its understanding deepens.

AI Assistant

SpaceX employees already use Grok to assist with data analysis, engineering bottlenecks, and software development. This reduces time spent on mundane tasks and increases overall productive. They say devil is in the details, so technical staff now have more time to work on the details, improving the operational efficiency and reliability of their systems. However, data and software analysis is only the initial benefit from AI, its true potential lies much deeper.

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