Our buddy Casey Handmer (@CJHandmer) of Terraform Industries (@TerraformIndies) sat down with Dwarkesh to drop fat knowledge on this AI-vs-electricity situation.

I pulled out some great datapoints that help me understand this much better 🧵:

0: All of the below is w/r/t the AI business IN PARTICULAR.

AI cares about power availability, NOT PRICE.

If $1 of AI electricity makes $100 of value for someone, then the electricity can cost anything. If it's there.

Let's fuss about a "dual fuel" rocket engine, that can switch between CH4 and H2. 🧵

FYI, volume ratios oxygen:fuel are:
- O2:CH4 = 1.33:1 ~= ~4:3 ~= 8:6
- O2:H2 = 2.7:1 ~= 5:2 ~= 15:6

So these oxygen:fuel flow ratios are pretty different. Surely that's bad, but HOW bad?

1/3 Why do I bring this up?

I'm getting into the Stoke Space machine. They're the ONLY guys out here genuinely taking on the hardest thing ever: A for-real reusable heat shield.

BUT they have to use LH2 to do it, LH2 is much harder to make (refrigerate) on Mars.

2/3

Starstack 2 Orion Special *revA*: "Princess' Special Needs"

It's about solar panels, and how Orion was designed for a
- pre-SpaceX
- RL-10-centric
- low-thrust
...solar system.

Real complexity -> real pain -> real brains. 🧵 Let's go...

1/11 #SpaceXStarstack (@elonmusk) First, meet "Universal Stage Adapter", the piece of the EUS Exploration Upper Stage that Orion rides on, and then separates from.

@KenKirtland17 sensibly advised that it only makes sense to use it here too.

4.4 tonnes(!), but it turns out we need the weight anyway 🤓...

2/11

Starstack 2 Orion Special: "Princess Flies Coach"

Starstack isn't a "design". It's a menu. Like Mexican food. Same few ingredients, many dishes.

Here we open the fridge and pull out the perfect concoction to send Orion safely off to TLI.

1/5 🧵 #SpaceXStarstack (@elonmusk) We start with the same "heavy" 2nd stage with 1200 tons of fuel in it, on the same RTLS'ing SuperHeavy, but since there's people in there, we're not "cheap-maxxing" but "margin-maxxing" instead:
- spare efficiency
- spare payload
- spare fuel
- spare engines
...and no LH2.

2/5

"Orion on HLS" 🧵

So SLS is Artemis poison, Orion wilts on the vine, and Lunar Gateway is stupid. Sad!

But Starship CAN rescue the Artemis Show.

(@BellikOzan thought up all of this, BTW, but Sales English is my man's second language, so hi.)

Intent:
This is an implicit plea for guidance on HOW to market the below #OrionOnHLS scheme better.

(Look I get it. The obvious political path is to "play NASA" with SLS anyway, accomplish nothing, give up, become Argentina, and "watch China do it.")

But gotta TRY dammit.

2/