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Comment by andsoitis | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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>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.

> 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.

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.

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