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Comment by spikels | Hacker News Reader

Context missing. This is in reference to a vision the (distant?) future where the satellites are manufactured in factories on the Moon and sent into space with mass drivers.

Full paragraph quote comes from:

> While launching AI satellites from Earth is the immediate focus, Starship’s capabilities will also enable operations on other worlds. Thanks to advancements like in-space propellant transfer, Starship will be capable of landing massive amounts of cargo on the Moon. Once there, it will be possible to establish a permanent presence for scientific and manufacturing pursuits. Factories on the Moon can take advantage of lunar resources to manufacture satellites and deploy them further into space. By using an electromagnetic mass driver and lunar manufacturing, it is possible to put 500 to 1000 TW/year of AI satellites into deep space, meaningfully ascend the Kardashev scale and harness a non-trivial percentage of the Sun’s power. >

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> This is in reference to a vision the (distant?) future where the satellites are manufactured in factories on the Moon and sent into space with mass drivers.

In the meantime, how about affordable insulin for everybody?

Isn't it already somewhat affordable? https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-i...

It's a political problem, not a tech problem

Exactly; most of the world's problems are political problems.

Which Musk has no intention to fix, of course, because he's more about money and (buying) status with it. He had an opportunity but decided to aid the regime in extracting people's data instead (probably selling it to adversaries).

Why is it cheaper to ship all of the materials to space, then to the moon for assembly (which also includes shipping all of the people and supplies to keep them alive), then back into space vs just…

building them on earth and then shipping them up?

We’re not exactly at a loss for land over here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_resources

In situ manufacturing. You just have to send enough to build the thing that builds the factory.

It's not like satellites need anything like computer chips, which are finicky things to build that require parts with a sole supplier on the entire planet.

You can make propellant on the Moon (aluminum based solid fuels), and the energy to get into orbit or into deep space is far, far less that from Earth’s surface.

> which also includes shipping all of the people and supplies to keep them alive)

What do you mean, "people" ? I'm pretty sure Musk is only expecting to send self-assembling Optimus robots [1] to do the whole manufacturing.

[1] "pre-order now, expected delivery any time soon"

(Oh, those times where you try to be sarcastic and realize: "wait, maybe that's the actual plan".)

That makes much more sense tbh. I believe Musk predicted in 2021 that we would land humans on the moon by 2024 [0]. That obviously has been deprioritized but how many Starships have delivered 50+ tons of payload to the moon so far?

[0] https://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/spacex-boss-elo...

Why would satellites be manufactured on the moon? There's nothing on the moon. The raw materials would have to be ferried over first. What would be the point?

It would appeal to naive technofetishists, the same crowd of investors enamored by many of Elon's other impossible schemes.

The moon mfg makes significantly more sense than the hilarious plan to establish a permanent Mars base in the next 50 years, but that's not saying much.

> Why would satellites be manufactured on the moon? There's nothing on the moon. The raw materials would have to be ferried over first. What would be the point?

From lunar regolith you would extract: oxygen, iron, aluminum, titanium, silicon, calcium, and magnesium.

From the poles you can get fuel (water ice -> water + hydrogen + oxygen).

The real constraint is not materials, but rather power generation, automation reliability, and initial capital investment.

So you have to shuttle machines, energy systems, and electronics.

The moon can supply mass, oxygen, fuel, and structure.

Satellites that would benefit most are: huge comms platforms, space-based power satellites, large radar arrays, deep-space telescopes, etc.

>From lunar regolith you would extract: oxygen, iron, aluminum, titanium, silicon, calcium, and magnesium.

Do we actually know how to do that?

>From the poles

From the poles! So the proposal includes building a planetary-scale railway network on bumpy lunar terrain.

>The moon can supply mass, oxygen, fuel, and structure.

None of those are things we are hurting for down here, though.

> So the proposal includes building a planetary-scale railway network on bumpy lunar terrain.

And that’s from a fascist who barely managed to dig ONE small one lane tunnel under Las Vegas and called it a revolution.

I’m sorry to be rude but people who are still giving musk any credit are stupid at this point.

Oh boy, IA data centers in space. It’s not only ridiculous, but it’s also boring and not even exciting at all.

Power would almost certainly mostly come from solar panels. The SpaceX-xAI press release mentions using mass drivers which are electrically powered. Could make Hydrogen-Oxygen rocket fuel but not needed in Moon's lower gravity/thin atmosphere.

> The real constraint is not materials

It's solvents, lubricants, cooling, and all the other boring industrial components and feedstocks that people seem to forget exist. Just because raw materials exist in lunar regolith doesn't mean much if you can't actually smelt and refine it into useful forms.

Both China and the US are working on building nuclear reactors on the moon, so presumably they see line of sight on those matters?

https://spectrum.ieee.org/lunar-nuclear-reactor-nasa-moon

> [...] and initial capital investment.

This is the big one - Musk knows that if he convinces enough people, they will invest the billions / trillions necessary, making him stupendously rich.

But anyone investing in that is... not a good investor, to be politically correct, because what's the expected return on investment? Who are the customers? What is the monetization? Or bar that, how does it benefit humanity?

It's throwing money down the drain. If you're an investor and are considering this, consider investing in earth instead. Real projects with real benefits. There's enough money to fix hunger, poverty, housing, education, and everything. Enough money to buy and / or fund politicians to make the necessary changes.

> There's enough money to fix hunger, poverty, housing, education, and everything. Enough money to buy and / or fund politicians to make the necessary changes.

Perhaps. But I can also see someone wanting to use their money to fund space exploration because it is more exciting.

As an aside, I strongly suspect that to solve the problems you think are more worthy, it isn't money that is the problem, but rather social, structural, cultural, and other issues mostly.

If you successfully solve hunger, poverty, housing, education, etc. Then humanity will back you doing whatever billionaire space or submarine shit you want.

Trying to do billionaire space shit while there is extreme poverty is a dangerous game imo; but I guess flaunting their wealth hasn't had any consequences so far.

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