Blain’s Morning Porridge April 2026 – Artemis II, Space X, Data Centres and Competition.
“Space will end up being one of the places that keeps making Earth better.”
Hype and reality seldom mix. Elon Musk is the exception that proves the rule. The Space X IPO is set to make him the first trillionaire – but what if Competition is already eating his lunch in space-based datacentres before he’s even looked at the menu? In the Tortoise vs the Hare space race – will Jeff Bezos emerge the winner?
Today’s launch of the Artemis II 4-man mission to circle the Moon is the most exciting thing to happen in Space exploration in decades. Commercially? The financial markets are focused entirely on how superlative the Space-X IPO is set to be in terms of size, price and profit action – or at least they were…
The excitement around the Artemis mission obscured the success of yesterday’s launch of a duo of geo-sync satellites built by Singapore tech firm JieYuren on a prototype Blue Origin New Glenn rocket. The launch wasn’t only a rare example of Asian/American corporate tech co-operation but could be the straw that breaks the Elon Musk Myth. If any of Musk’s legion of fanboys were paying attention, it should have reminded them that the new ex-Earth based economy will literally be a competitive “space”. (Hah!)
The future never stays the same. Not only has Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin achieved multiple orbital insertions of the New Glenn rocket, and delivered a package into high orbit, but the two JieYuren satellites are prototype units for orbital data-centres – a concept Musk thought he’d pretty much patented!
According to Avril Salmon, JieYuren’s spokesperson, yesterday’s joint launch is not a deliberate spoiler for Space-X – but a clear demonstration that there are multiple pathways to monetise space – not just the Musk vision. The Space-X IPO is expected to value Musk’s firm at $1.75-2 trillion on a $75 bln record float as early as June.
Musk milks his fan base cleverly – announcing 33% of the IPO will be targeted at retail investors. Musk knows his retail fan are “sticky”, suck up whatever he says, and ask fewer difficult questions.
The IPO will be launched on tidal wave of hype to back up the extraordinary valuation. The $2 trillion expectations are based around Space X’s domination of commercial space flight through its successful and reliable Falcon 9 rocket, the serious revenues its now reaping from the Starlink system, which has significant growth potential from untapped internet users, (I have fitted it to the boat and it’s excellent.) But the main component of the valuation is the massive future revenue streams Musk expects to garner from Space-based data centres and the Starship heavy lift rocket system that will one day dump him on Mars. How achievable, sustainable and likely these revenue streams are debatable – especially as Space becomes a hotly contested competitive market.
Jeff Bezos and Musk have very different approaches to space.
Bezos and Blue Origin prefer to be the tortoise and progress steadily. He recently dispensed with the flummery of space tourism to focus on making the New Glenn the heavy lift rocket of choice. He is focused on being a reliable partner to NASA. Many space-economy investors reckon the Blue Origin approach is too methodical – but it got The Americans to the Moon and back in the 1960s. Rocket watchers say BO’s launch schedule is too slow, claiming his team aren’t getting the benefit of learning the lessons Musk’s crews are.
JieYuren’s approach is close to Chinese AI methodology – build good enough, open source, and keep it simple. They described it as the “pencil approach” to solving space-based data centres – rather than invent a pen for zero-gravity, use a pencil instead.
Musk is the hare. His Starship has launched multiple times but has still not completed a full orbital flight plus recovery. That’s because his fail fast approach is being overwhelmed by the complexity of the 36 Raptor engines that make it the most powerful thing ever built. But complexity and weight means it rattles and rolls through the incredible stresses of lift-off, tends to blow up, while experiencing shutdowns. There has been much speculative comment that its underpowered and too heavy to reach orbit.
To get lob useful payloads into space, they are still talking about refuelling the rocket while it’s in the assent stage! Musk’s fail fast ethos has seen many spectacular fireballs – which the Musk fan-boy club is happy to accept as the price of his genius.
What if they are wrong? If Musk can’t make Starship work and provide regular, reliable heavy lift capacity, then someone else will – and Blue Origin’s New Glenn looks a potential likely winner.
Musk is a brilliant marketer and the king of snake-oil. He’s seen the opportunity to monetise his space delivery platforms and boost his rather meh X-AI (which is now part of Space X) by persuading the world that orbital data centres are the solution to everything AI. And the million very large bases he intends to build will be crewed by his Optimus robots and powered by massive solar arrays. How to pay for it? The plan is to get outside investors to buy the IPO, paying today for what he might be able to deliver tomorrow!
The IPO will be sold on the revenues Starlink is generating, but even more so on the massive amounts of money SpaceX will make as the monopoly “orbital data centre provider” and from “Spaceship” flying to Mars and back. I can’t wait to read the risk statements in the prospectus.
Musk has talked the donkey’s hind legs about the value of space-based data centres but has not produced any detailed conceptual framework or addressed the multiple technical problems that are blindingly obvious.
In contrast, JieYuren appears to have addressed many of the issues Musk is still only just beginning to blabber about:
· Instead of trying to build Musk’s space-station sized orbital datacentres, the Singaporeans have adopted the latest flock-tech, combining multiple small units using laser digital links to create what will be the first scalable distributed space data centre.
· Each individual unit contains a fraction of the number of (hardened) chips that might be expected in a traditional earth-bound data centre, but CTO Xin Luici says the multiple ways the AI managed units in larger flocks will learn to operate between themselves will enable massive improvements in chip inter-functionality, rather like human neurons.
· Parking data centre satellite flocks in geo-sync orbits will add to the latency issue (the time delay between earth stations and the units) and potential servicing issues but avoids a Kessler Syndrome risk of Low Earth Orbit collisions. As in all things, it’s a compromise, but keeping the design solid state, and cheap enough that failing units can simply be dropped and replaced, means maintenance costs can be minimised.
· The key problem of heat dispersion and gamma ray damage has been addressed using a variation on heat shield tech from the latest sun monitoring satellites, while the new “windmill” solar “sails” are aligned to disperse radiation energies, generate solar power, while simultaneously acting a thermal radiator – in effect using the solar wind as a heat sink.
· Geo-Sync orbits mean lower future power requirements, enabling most of the energy generated by the sails to be devoted to the compute functions.
· The sails on each part of the distributed multi-unit data centre can be coordinated using the distributed onboard AI, ensuring each unit remains precisely linked on station to maintain the laser digital coms. Blue Origin Project Team Head Brad Raybury reckons the flock should stay linked even through violent solar storms and prominences.
The implications for Space X are huge. Although Musk successfully innovated the Electric Vehicle Market and has reaped rewards from the extraordinary share price resilience of Tesla – the car maker is now posting operational losses and no longer leads innovation in the sector. The Robotaxi mass rollout on which Musk has staked Tesla has been delayed again. Recently a Finnish firm was able to announce solid state 1000km range batteries with 5 min charge times – a complete game changer.
History is full of lessons… The Wright Brothers created the airplane market in November 1903 at Kitty Hawk when mankind flew for the first time. For the next 10-years Wilbur and Orville had a monopoly. But by 1914 they had lost the lead in the swiftly evolving aviation tech. Of the thousands of planes flown by the allied nations in WW1, not a single one was built by the Wright Brothers. The same thing has happened to Tesla. Although it now pins its future on Robotaxis – that’s a highly competitive space where Tesla has no first mover advantage.
Although Space X is expected to launch its $75 bln IPO in June – which will be the largest on record. It will be admitted almost immediately into the NASDAQ (and some think the S&P will follow). It is at the top of its hype trajectory. If Starship is a flop and Blue Origin continues to improve its launch cadence and win broad government business, even Starlink may find itself pressure for exactly the same reasons Tesla is now in decline – competition.
Have a great day… nothing like a pinch of salt on the first day of the second quarter of year to set your mind in motion.
Bill Blain
Author of the Morning Porridge
CEO Windshift Capital
Advisor – Spitfire Strategic Capital