[Originally posted on the Terraform blog April 3, 2025.] Three years ago we set out to make cheap synthetic natural gas from sunlight and air. At the time I didn’t fully appreciate that we had kicked off the process of recompiling the foundation layer of our entire industrial stack.  Last year, we made cheap pipeline grade natural gas from sunlight and air and expanded our hydrocarbon fuel road map to include methanol, a versatile liquid fuel and chemical precursor for practically every other kind of oil-derived chemical on the market. Unlimited synthetic methane and methanol underpinning global energy supply is a good start, but …

Some ideas on preventing cryogenic propellant boiloff in Starship during long duration cruise or while operating orbital fuel depots. The usual caveats apply! One of the major concerns with using Starship for the Human Landing System is that propellant (cryogenically liquid methane and oxygen) need to a) be transferred in orbit and b) maintained for the duration of the mission, which could be weeks, months, or years. In particular, no astronaut wants to board their Starship after a successful 6 week sortie on the Moon only to find the fuel’s boiled off and they’re stuck.  The trick lies in using energy …

California is by far the richest and most powerful polity led by Progressive ideals, and it has taken a beating of late. In this post, I discuss a practical roadmap by which California must reclaim its mantle as the shining city on the hill, an embodiment of the positive attributes of Progressive ideals and material optimism, and once again become a target of aspirational upward mobility. This will not be an easy road. Decades of complacency have squandered enviable resources and potential. But I believe a strength of America is syncretism, with the marketplace of ideas providing robust competition for …

As of today, it is 601 days until October 17, 2026, when the mass-optimal launch window to Mars opens next.  While I don’t have any privileged information, it’s fun to speculate about what SpaceX could choose to send on its first Starship flights to Mars. (Spoiler alert: Rods from the gods…) Over the next 600 days, SpaceX has a number of key technologies to demonstrate; orbit, reuse, refill, and chill. It’s hard to make predictions, particularly about the future. I’m optimistic that SpaceX will have multiple fully fueled Starships ready to go in October next year, to be followed by …

This post is a follow on from Powering the Mars Base. It’s an extended riff on the following thought experiment: What is the most electrical power you could extract from an integrated Starship-delivered nuclear reactor on Mars? The usual caveats apply. I have taught nuclear physics but I am not a reactor designer – which will shortly become obvious to those of you who Know. No liability is accepted for attempts to install open Brayton cycle nuclear turbines in Starships, with or without SpaceX permission. At the outset, let’s rehearse the underlying assumptions. A Starship has a 9 m diameter, …