reusable-rockets
(2)
Climbing the Kardashev Scale: SpaceX AI Satellites and the Terafab
In a SpaceX studio sit-down at the company's Bastrop, Texas facility, Elon Musk and Starlink engineer Ian join a host to connect the dots between Starship, Starlink solar technology, and a bold plan to put AI compute in orbit. Musk frames the effort using the Kardashev scale, arguing that humanity currently harnesses less than a trillionth of the sun's power and must move to space to ascend it. The team outlines three limiting factors to solve at scale, mass to orbit, solar power, and chips, and unveils a draft design for a SpaceX AI satellite delivering roughly 150 kW peak power. The conversation escalates from launching thousands of orbital compute satellites to building a 100-million-square-foot 'terafab' chip factory, and ultimately to lunar mass drivers that could fling AI satellites into deep space, scaling civilization's energy harvest toward a terawatt per year and beyond.
Relativity Space
Relativity Space is an American aerospace company building rockets in a radically different way - by 3D printing the bulk of each vehicle with its proprietary Stargate metal printers and autonomous robotics. Founded in 2015, it became the first company to launch a largely 3D-printed rocket (Terran 1) in 2023, and is now focused on Terran R, a medium-to-heavy-lift, fully reusable launch vehicle aimed at the commercial and government markets. Under CEO Eric Schmidt, who took the helm in 2025, the company is also exploring orbital infrastructure for AI and high-performance computing.