Founder of Terraform Industries and formerly a physicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory; writes about energy, space and manufacturing.
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Tulainyo Lake, a relatively small alpine lake, is about 117 meters deep.
The skinny: This relatively small alpine lake is about 117 m deep!
caseyhandmer.wordpress.comSaid 20 Sept 2026This on korrents
Changed their mind Manufacturing and mining in space will never be lucrative enough to pay for human settlement of space.
Before Furthermore, I believe it’s very unlikely that space-based manufacturing or mining could be lucrative enough to fund the venture.
Now Today, exploding demand for power-intensive AI applications provides enough of an upside to justify producing components in space, providing the economic engine necessary to justify and fund the trillions of dollars necessary to build and sustain space factories.
Said 10 Feb 2026This on korrents
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From one piece How deep is Tulainyo Lake? 2 beliefs · caseyhandmer.wordpress.com
Their words
That makes it the 25th deepest natural lake in North America, and by far the deepest lake on Earth for its size.
Their words
The skinny: This relatively small alpine lake is about 117 m deep!
From one piece How to build a lunar mass driver 2 beliefs · caseyhandmer.wordpress.com
korrents.com
Starship will bring the price of low Earth orbit down to roughly a hundred dollars a kilogram.Their words
Starship promises a near future with launch costs to LEO of perhaps $100/kg.
Their words
At even $500/kg, launch cost is only 5% of the total satellite deployment cost, so a lunar mass driver is unlikely to drastically improve the economics of space-based AI, by reducing launch costs.
korrents.com
Manufacturing and mining in space will never be lucrative enough to pay for human settlement of space.Their words, before
Furthermore, I believe it’s very unlikely that space-based manufacturing or mining could be lucrative enough to fund the venture.
Their words now
Today, exploding demand for power-intensive AI applications provides enough of an upside to justify producing components in space, providing the economic engine necessary to justify and fund the trillions of dollars necessary to build and sustain space factories.
From one piece Space AI: I guess we’re doing Moon factories now 2 beliefs · caseyhandmer.wordpress.com
Their words
Starship can lift orbital power generation to about 100 GW with perhaps 10,000 launches per year, or about one per hour.
Space AI: I guess we’re doing Moon factories nowcaseyhandmer.wordpress.com
Their words
The economics of orbital “datacenters” or essentially glorified Starlink satellites with a bunch of GPUs attached are likely to be even better than Starlink.
Space AI: I guess we’re doing Moon factories nowcaseyhandmer.wordpress.com
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The skinny: This relatively small alpine lake is about 117 m deep!
How deep is Tulainyo Lake? Said 20 Sept 2026
That makes it the 25th deepest natural lake in North America, and by far the deepest lake on Earth for its size.
How deep is Tulainyo Lake? Said 20 Sept 2026
At even $500/kg, launch cost is only 5% of the total satellite deployment cost, so a lunar mass driver is unlikely to drastically improve the economics of space-based AI, by reducing launch costs.
How to build a lunar mass driver Said 8 May 2026
Starship promises a near future with launch costs to LEO of perhaps $100/kg.
How to build a lunar mass driver Said 8 May 2026
The economics of orbital “datacenters” or essentially glorified Starlink satellites with a bunch of GPUs attached are likely to be even better than Starlink.
Space AI: I guess we’re doing Moon factories now Said 10 Feb 2026
Starship can lift orbital power generation to about 100 GW with perhaps 10,000 launches per year, or about one per hour.
Space AI: I guess we’re doing Moon factories now Said 10 Feb 2026
On the flip side, these captive solar power plants will be curtailing approximately 75% of their generated power and will be able to provide net power on all but a few days per year.
Energy Predictions 2025 Said 8 Dec 2025
Storing electricity for months is economically difficult, but storing heat is easy.
Energy Predictions 2025 Said 8 Dec 2025
While heat pumps can achieve higher efficiency, consumer uptake has been much lower than expected because fundamentally, a heat pump is a 20 year bet on future power prices that most homeowners are unwilling to make.
Energy Predictions 2025 Said 8 Dec 2025
The only highly populated industrial country unable to trivially meet its electricity and synthetic fuel needs with solar alone is the United Kingdom, due primarily to a high population density and high latitude. The Nordic and Baltic countries are tiny by comparison. Among other problems, the UK needs to decide if it wants the future where energy is cheap and it is rich, or the future where energy is expensive and it is poor. If the former, it is time to get serious about large scale deployment of wind power, using home-grown vertically integrated technology at prices as low as $10/MWh.
Energy Predictions 2025 Said 8 Dec 2025
By 2045, natural gas will be used as LNG primarily for high performance supersonic aviation, shipping, and industrial heat.
Energy Predictions 2025 Said 8 Dec 2025
Do we need to drastically expand the grid in order to metabolize renewables? No.
Energy Predictions 2025 Said 8 Dec 2025
Even for $5.2b per launch, Orion is so overweight that there does not exist a booster nor an upper stage that can launch it to Low Lunar Orbit and return it to Earth.
NASA’s Orion Space Capsule Is Flaming Garbage Said 31 Oct 2025
It’s also a capsule to nowhere, designed without reference to any mission architecture that resembles our actual solar system.
NASA’s Orion Space Capsule Is Flaming Garbage Said 31 Oct 2025
The updated heat shield design, after more than 14 years of development, had performed even worse.
NASA’s Orion Space Capsule Is Flaming Garbage Said 31 Oct 2025
I am far from certain that NASA can regain anything like the vigor necessary to respond decisively to the Chinese threat, but I am determined that the free people of Earth not live under a Red Moon
NASA’s Orion Space Capsule Is Flaming Garbage Said 31 Oct 2025
something like 90% of the complexity and cost of MSR is driven by a requirement that the samples “break the chain” on the way home
How to get samples back from Mars Said 13 Sept 2025
China is surrounded by 15 countries who are mostly hostile to it, right? with no good like mountain ranges or rivers or anything to really separate them. And then they get all their oil, almost all their oil from the Middle East, right in countries that they don't control, don't have strong diplomatic relationships with on fleets of oil tankers that they can't defend because their navy doesn't have the ability to to operate effectively in the Indian Ocean.
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
It absolutely asymmetrically helps China. We're not currently working with China. They don't plan to, but like the physics is very obvious, you know, and synthetic fuels have been around for 100 years.
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
I would never like hold up a flag saying I'm really good at building highspeed trains. Like that is just a sign that you're really bad at capital allocation.
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
so the mainstream view would say, well, China has cheaper labor, which is no longer true, uh, say compared to Mexico, and it's got lower environmental regulations, uh, which is true, and that it is more businessfriendly, which is absolutely crazy.
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
And I think the United States could probably do that in 2 years or less if you started today. Like it's currently 11:00, so like we're going to start cutting checks by noon.
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
They're focused on the chips, right? Because they understand like the key bottleneck is the chips, not the solar power, right?
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
We're not going to run out of natural gas at 1 gawatt per year indefinitely. Okay, what if we're doing 5 gawatts per year? What if we're doing 50 gawatts per year? What if we're doing 100 gawatt per year? Like, you can you can just break the situation.
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
you're going to have to build your own power plant for them, which is how it used to work. Like if you if you had an aluminum plant back in the day, you would be building your own power plant for it as well.
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
well their cost of serving it is is like maybe a buck per million tokens or something like that and the cost of electricity is about 10% of that. So it's like 10 cents of electricity is generating $1,000 worth of economic value.
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
You you also don't know like in order to make that money back, you have to then operate that plant at that capacity for 20 years, right? And if I was looking at the same charts as they're looking at right now, I'd say what are the odds that in 25 years time we can produce gas turbines at a price that is relevant in a world where solar is already at its current price and batteries at a price where they're already like you cannot win.
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
It is not only the case that solar adoption, production, price decreases are continuing. They're accelerating. And the rate that they're accelerating is still accelerating.
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
So I think within a few years we'll probably see that like the majority of new DCs that are going in will be mostly solar
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
actually it turns out that you can significantly decrease power consumption with a very small reduction in overall compute. So if you if you've got like three really bad days in a row or something, you can actually just like you can dial back your power usage quite a lot without compromising your inference or or um or training.
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
But then all you need to connect that to the outside world is like an optical fiber, right? An optical fiber cable which you can string up on poles, you can run underground, you could even use microwave links if you really wanted to.
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
In terms of things that are causing us to lose to China, tariffs are neither here nor there because, as we've discussed, we're not sensitive to cost on power. But the environmental regulations that are actively preventing us from deploying renewable energy in the United States, like this is the reason Texas is winning. Texas is out deploying California 10 to1.
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
And the impact of solar array on desert is arguably positive because it shades the ground and improves like soil moisture retention. Um there like if you wanted to reverse desertification, you would basically just deploy solar panels on it and that would pay for the process.
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
the meta problem here is if we don't move our industrial stack off fossil fuels in 10 or 20 years, first of all, we'll get poor the same way you UK did, right? Because they ran out of coal basically. And the second thing is we'll get poor because we'll flood our coastal cities in Florida underneath climate change.
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
So it's just very clear that like the average distance the electron is going to travel between generation and consumption is going to decrease in the future pretty radically.
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
central takeaway is that is that the hyperscalers are not power cost sensitive they are power availability sensitive
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
And the bottleneck prior to what we call the industrial revolution was uh metabolism, right? It's just like how much like oats can a human or a horse physically digest and then convert into useful mechanical output for you know their their um their peasant overlord or whatever.
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
because it's not competing against humans for most of those roles, it would be competing against the other labs, right? And so you'd actually see like the cost pushed down to, you know, a mult a small multiple of whatever the marginal production cost of those tokens is.
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
so what you actually need is a big slab of relatively cheap silicon to make the power and then a small slab of relatively expensive silicon to do the thinking.
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
You can revisit a bunch of legacy industrial processes that are have been optimized for efficiency and say, well, what if we just like use twice as much power and we just want to do them faster and cheaper, right? Like less capex, less lead time, more power, right?
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
one square meter of silicon like like the thickness of a sheet of paper floating in space that's a future human form that's that's my final form
China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer Said 15 Aug 2025
I believe NASA is worth saving.
NASA Is Worth Saving Said 12 Jun 2025
It is clear, however, that today’s NASA is but a shadow of its former self.
NASA Is Worth Saving Said 12 Jun 2025
With the recent SpaceX Starship orbital flight tests, it is time to commit to building the largest physically possible space telescope.
It Is Time To Build The Monster Scope Said 30 Nov 2024
The same as JWST, only 150 times wider and 22000 times more sensitive.
It Is Time To Build The Monster Scope Said 30 Nov 2024
Current PhD students will be nearing retirement by the time these missions fly.
It Is Time To Build The Monster Scope Said 30 Nov 2024
For loads below $1000/kW, intermittent operation with some modest solar array oversizing is the winning strategy. Above $1000/kW, we charge and discharge batteries daily to run them.
Solar and batteries for generic use cases Said 9 Nov 2024
A battery that’s discharging every day gets great utilization, but one that’s only there in case the sun doesn’t come up for two days in a row, barely gets used.
Solar and batteries for generic use cases Said 9 Nov 2024
Inert glass rectangles that, placed on the ground, print out wealth, at roughly 100x the rate of the best farm land.
Solar and batteries for generic use cases Said 9 Nov 2024
Four years on, the program has consumed another $20b with nothing to show for it.
SLS is still a national disgrace Said 2 Oct 2024
This is symptomatic of an agency who, compromising their technical integrity on their flagship program, subsequently lost the ability to maintain technical integrity anywhere else.
SLS is still a national disgrace Said 2 Oct 2024
But for SpaceX, both the US and Europe would lack adequate strategic access to space.
SLS is still a national disgrace Said 2 Oct 2024
SLS, like JWST before it, eats everything in its path, meanwhile NASA hasn’t sent a single mission to Venus since 1989.
SLS is still a national disgrace Said 2 Oct 2024
The brief summary is that MSR’s architecture, pictured below, is incredibly complicated, slow, and expensive.
What is going on with Mars Sample Return? Said 26 Nov 2023
Yet solar development is hopelessly snarled by dozens of different development regulations which begin with the assumption that it will permanently and severely harm the environment unless proven otherwise, at exhaustive length.
Permitting Reform Or Death Said 10 Nov 2023
The primary driver of increased impact, longer time scales before displacement, and catastrophically high levels of avoidable pollution is environmental protection regulations.
Permitting Reform Or Death Said 10 Nov 2023
The terrorist attacks on 9/11 killed 2996 people in a day of singular horror. Our ongoing indifference to regulatory inefficiency, considering only the area of green energy development, kills more people every year – more than 10 people per day, and that’s only within the US.
Permitting Reform Or Death Said 10 Nov 2023
In summary, it is hard to imagine a lower impact use of low-value land than solar development.
Permitting Reform Or Death Said 10 Nov 2023
Cheap solar is the unlock that brings human progress and climate action from the realm of fundamental incompatibility to complimentary inevitability.
Radical Energy Abundance Said 11 Oct 2023
Per doubling of production, costs have fallen a consistent 30-40% since 1970, but it’s only in the last few years that this price has become competitive with legacy electricity generation
Radical Energy Abundance Said 11 Oct 2023
Beliefs others hold too
Yet solar development is hopelessly snarled by dozens of different development regulations which begin with the assumption that it will permanently and severely harm the environment unless proven otherwise, at exhaustive length.
Permitting Reform Or Death Said 10 Nov 2023
I am far from certain that NASA can regain anything like the vigor necessary to respond decisively to the Chinese threat, but I am determined that the free people of Earth not live under a Red Moon
NASA’s Orion Space Capsule Is Flaming Garbage Said 31 Oct 2025
Cheap solar is the unlock that brings human progress and climate action from the realm of fundamental incompatibility to complimentary inevitability.
Radical Energy Abundance Said 11 Oct 2023
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Fascinating book, good to have a web browser handy when reading it.
caseyhandmer.wordpress.com 1 Oct 2024
amazing. Such a fun read. Better than Jurassic Park.
caseyhandmer.wordpress.com 26 Jul 2020
NS's first published novel and one of my favorites.
caseyhandmer.wordpress.com 26 Jul 2020
This book divides readers. I love it.
caseyhandmer.wordpress.com 26 Jul 2020
Very funny, the lowest pain technical(ish) book I've ever read. Accuracy is quite good too.
caseyhandmer.wordpress.com 26 Jul 2020
A great intro to Mars stuff and the Mars Direct plan.
caseyhandmer.wordpress.com 26 Jul 2020
The best book I've read on actual Mars exploration as historically conducted by actual humans, some of whom are colleagues and good friends.
caseyhandmer.wordpress.com 26 Jul 2020
Where he works through the physics and economics of synthetic fuel, solar and space hardware at length -- the writing the rest of his work is argued from.
Open caseyhandmer.wordpress.com
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