We will fill the space between the stars with Your cathedrals
Joined October 2016
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The Moon and Mars will be built out in the style of Greco-Futurism. The Martian Republic and Lunar settlements will need to show they are the future, but have ties to the best intellectual tradition of the past.
Imitating past civilizations’ architecture is one of the oldest trucks to demonstrate legitimacy. Modern banks and middle age empires alike design their buildings like ancient Athens and Rome
Not to mention, it looks majestic and beautiful, inspiring new generations to make an even better world
The general public doesn’t see the future of space travel x robotics. If you have an army of SI-enabled robots that get to Mars/Moon/an asteroid before you, they set up not just infrastructure to survive but also an environment to thrive
I’m calling it Turnkey Terraforming
Our offices on Mars may end up looking a little different than this, but the will be an exceedingly pleasant place to work. Period.
Thanks to ootwd for pulling it together.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald said “The test of first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function”
AI will be smarter than humans will ever be by orders of magnitude but still will not grasp the essence of The Human Condition.
Both modalities of intelligence, human and artificial, will be essential to improving civilization, expanding to the stars, and the flourishing of humanity.
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Glenn Beck talking about the lunar South Pole and astropolitics… regardless of political affiliations, the CisLunar Space Race is upon us
Everyone arguing over Trump’s “The Moon is ours” post completely missed the point. That post wasn’t for you, it wasn't for me, and it wasn't for the base. It was addressed directly to Beijing.
Somewhere in China, a CCP analyst is reading every single thing Trump posts and explaining what they all mean for the Party's strategy. Trump just dropped a high-stakes warning shot in the form of a troll.
Yes, legally, no nation can own space or the moon. It belongs to all of humanity. But whoever occupies it first gets to set the rules for the future space economy. THAT is the message Trump dropped right on the CCP’s desk: We are getting there first, and we are going to write the rules.
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“America faces a crossroads. We can either trod a road of cultural decay or hike our way back to the peak of global innovation. Join me on the latter path. Correct the fear mongering and conspiracies and tell the story of America’s great reindustrialization. Tell the story of our public servants, our great entrepreneurs, our scientific dominance.”
Now that I’m out of government, I can finally respond for myself: Get bent, soyboy. We didn’t do this for “Silicon Valley . . . companies.” We did this for you, for your family, your community, your state, your nation, and your species.
Nuclear energy provides the safest, highest density, reliable power available on our planet. My career colleagues at DOE and NRC inspired me to think about nuclear as a way to forge American steel and electrolyze aluminum without releasing particulate matter, to desalinate water in the Middle East and save humanity from resource wars. By rejecting the false narratives and Cold War hysteria, we can secure the next American century while raising whole countries out of poverty.
Do you really think I left an incredible career at Kirkland, paid out of pocket for an apartment in DC and dozens of cross-country trips, and left my family on the west coast because I wanted to enrich people I never met before taking this job? I came to D.C. to do something that mattered, to satisfy a driving curiosity (more on that later), and, most importantly, to serve.
As I learned more about nuclear energy and its history, I developed a conviction that one nuclear’s biggest issues was a culture of cynicism: nothing new or exciting could happen because it would end in disappointment, and that militated against rocking the boat even a tiny bit. The career staff in government and their industry counterparts lived through dark winters before and stopped believing that warm springs could bloom into summers.
I have two core philosophies. First, I believe in ruthless optimism. Rational decision making requires detached risk analysis. But we also cannot win if we believe we can lose. Merging the two requires orienting teams around driving missions. That way, when a real opportunity presents itself, you can take a huge swing.
If I take credit for anything—honestly, almost all of the success belongs to the incredible and dedicated people at @ENERGY and @NRCgov—it’s countering the cultural rot and morass that risked forfeiting American excellence. My colleagues and I gave cover to the scientists and engineers, which freed them up to focus on delivering safe power. And, as success materialized, they started to dream again. That’s why the pilot program succeeded, and why I feel confident about the future of NLICs and NRC reform. Nobody needs me anymore because they can innovate on their own.
My second core philosophy is to assume positive intent. Avi, I know that you heard about my real motivations from multiple people you interviewed when preparing your hit piece on me. Rather than telling that story, one which could help inspire another generation of people to use their talents for the greater good, you ignored them. Instead, you implied that Peter Thiel recruited me for nefarious purposes. (I’ve never met him, but, @peterthiel, if you’re reading this, I’m a huge fan!)
Nuclear regulation starts and ends with safety. I promised everyone I worked with that I would resign before doing or pushing for anything that could compromise public safety. But I also distinguished between real safety and performative bullshit. That’s what the careers came to embrace, too. We love nuclear, why would we do anything that could risk threatening its future?
America faces a crossroads. We can either trod a road of cultural decay or hike our way back to the peak of global innovation. Join me on the latter path. Correct the fear mongering and conspiracies and tell the story of America’s great reindustrialization. Tell the story of our public servants, our great entrepreneurs, our scientific dominance. Tell the real story about how DOGE went nuclear.
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“The Church knew there was no halting Progress; but slowing it, slowing it even by half a century, giving man time to reach a little higher towards true Reason; that was the gift she gave this world. And it was priceless. Did she oppress? Did she hang and burn? A little, yes. But there was no Belsen. No Buchenwald. No Passchendaele.” - from 𝘗𝘢𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘦, 1968
For everyone commenting on the Vatican and Pope Leo’s Magnifica Humanitas on AI, I would encourage a reading of this alternate history
It directly addresses what would happen if the Church and governments oppressed new technology because “the modern man was not trained to use power well well”. As you read, you realize this technologically stunted world is not better nor worse, just different. Each decision on technology comes with its own tradeoffs on good and evil.
Christopher Olah, a Canadian billionaire businessman and researcher who co-founded AI giant Anthropic, sitting in the Synodal Hall and speaking next to Pope Leo said, closing his speech:
"I'd like to close with a request.
We need more of the world - religious communities, civil society, scholars, governments - to do what His Holiness has done here: to take this seriously, to look closely, and to push events in a better direction.
We need informed critics who will tell the labs when
we are failing. We need moral voices that the incentives cannot bend.
Today is just the beginning - the start of a long collaboration between those of us who are building this and those who can see what we, from inside, cannot.
Today is a powerful illustration of the form this global project of good will might take.
Let it also be a decisive first step toward a hopeful future for magnificent humanity."
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Ah yes the natural product cycle of every space company:
Cool space industry niche -> yet another satellite bus provider
Vast is expanding into high-power satellites. Introducing our new line of high-power satellite buses that leverage the technologies we’ve developed in-house for our Haven-1 space station and validated with the success of our Haven Demo mission. vastspace.com/satellites
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This my Roman Empire
Unironically, if Starship turns out to be extremely successful and space exploration really ramps up by the late 21st century, then by the 22nd or 23rd century humanity might look back at America as the first true aerospace empire, the one that pushed humans into the space frontier. People in the future could end up admiring the U.S. the same way we look at Rome today, as a civilization that laid the foundation for everything that came after.
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The Cislunar Economy will be in the G20 in 2 decades, and this is the catalyst
Just released: @NASA Moon Base User’s Guide nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/… @NASAMoonbase #ArtemisII #NASA #Moon
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The Cislunar Age of Abundance has started
100%!!! The advantage of Cislunar space, especially the highly accessible asteroid population that TransAstra has identified, is that there is an economic reason to go there. Namely, we can harness the materials needed to build massive industries, such as data processing, in space.
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NASA under @rookisaacman is going to lead humanity’s Cambrian explosion into space by “building the Moon Base, launching SR-1 Freedom, igniting the orbital economy, and launching more missions of discovery”
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Sometimes I think we don't deserve to make the Moon a state, we'd bring overbearing regulation @micsolana @PirateWires
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In the era of AI acceleration, Clawdbot/Moltbot, e/acc, doomers, and so misch more, I’m surprised how prescient The Corporation Wars trilogy was by @amendlocke
All of the AI and techno-political phenomena was predicted by these books. It’s a future history of what happens next
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Instead of $/kg to LEO, the metric to be should now be optimized now should be kg(orbit)/kg(launched)
The past decade has shown the utility of reusable rockets in increasing human capacity in space. Mass to orbit has gone exponential, thanks to SpaceX. But is mass ON orbit that’s the real game. Doesn’t have to come from Earth.
The story the next decade may be the story of space resources, with the growth driver switching from how many tonnes are launched from Earth, to the leverage of how many tonnes of useful payload you can get per tonne of payload supplied from Earth.
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