Part 3/9:

Elon Musk responded to this news with astonishing ideas that blend science fiction with near-future practicality. Notably, he proposed the construction of an enormous lunar base equipped with AI-driven satellite factories and mass drivers designed to propel cargo into deep space.

What is a mass driver? It’s essentially a magnetically-assisted launch system, capable of shooting payloads from the Moon into space at a fraction of the cost of traditional rocket launches. By leveraging lunar resources—particularly regolith and solar power—these mass drivers could launch large-scale structures and satellites into orbit efficiently and sustainably.