The three hard-tech moonshots fueling SpaceX’s unbelievable IPO

But take that with a grain of salt: Consider that NASA, which has a nearly $4 billion contract with SpaceX to use Starship as a Moon lander, still isn’t ready to commit to a test mission with the vehicle scheduled for late 2027.

As public investors get their hands on SpaceX shares, they’ll find themselves owning a near-monopoly on access to space in the US and Europe, a world-spanning communications network, and a wager on the most ambitious infrastructure project of the AI era.

Those projects depend on SpaceX creating something never seen before — a fully-reusable rocket. The company will also need to build a high-rate production facility for AI satellites, but do so in eighteen months, not the decade it took to develop its Starlink manufacturing. Finally, it will need to build a chip foundry in the US, something even dedicated silicon firms are reluctant to take on. Musk is right that SpaceX is the only company positioned to build any of this anytime soon, but that speaks to the magnitude of the challenge as much as the company’s likelihood of achieving it.

Musk used to say he wouldn’t take SpaceX public until he reached Mars, since fickle investors might lose faith along the way. Those plans may have been put on hold, but what he’s laid out ahead of the company’s IPO could be just as difficult.