Key Points

SpaceX has outlined ambitious goals for the coming years.
One major step involves commercializing its Starship megarocket.
Ultimately the firm aims to establish a presence on the Moon and other planets.

Investors seldom retain shares for an entire century. Yet reflecting on a company's path across such a span encourages focus on the long term while examining the core drivers of enduring success.

Where could SpaceX stand a hundred years from today? Several hints appear in the company's IPO prospectus.

Foundations for SpaceX's next century

Four primary catalysts shape SpaceX's prospects over the coming hundred years. The first centers on commercializing the Starship megarocket. This vehicle would represent the largest rocket brought to market at scale, sharply cutting payload expenses and accelerating the pace of space activity. Starship's success underpins the three catalysts that follow.

Once Starship reaches commercial operation SpaceX gains a pathway to orbital data centers. Operating such facilities in the vacuum of space presents physics hurdles yet the advantages of low temperatures abundant open space and plentiful solar power prove compelling. Realizing orbital data centers in turn heightens the value of the next growth driver.

Starlink already generates profits. Scaled orbital data centers would further enhance this business by enabling AI firms to transmit data through Starlink satellites perform computations in space and return results via the same network. The result is a vertically integrated system positioned to support a multitrillion-dollar AI economy.

Over the century SpaceX intends to deepen vertical integration by manufacturing its own AI chips through Terafab a project targeting one terawatt of compute hardware production annually.

Success across these initiatives would unlock the fourth catalyst interplanetary settlement. The IPO prospectus states the goal of ultimately building a base on the Moon and cities on other planets. Landed Starships would become living and working structures while Starlink satellites and orbital data centers would handle communications and workflows free from terrestrial power and latency constraints.

A century ahead SpaceX could operate the first permanent human bases on the Moon Mars and beyond. All of it hinges on successful commercialization of the Starship megarocket.

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