The opening moves to industrialize space will look like a string of ordinary business decisions. Consider a space-services company that begins assembling solar arrays in orbit. It supplies power to its customers but also to itself. To keep installations running, it sends along robots that inspect, assemble, and replace modules or faulty components. The company deploys more of these machines as its customer base grows, and soon, it is producing enough specialized robots to run orbital shipyards and small off-Earth factories. Each of these activities on its own serves an intelligible commercial need, but together, they form the foundations of a general industrial economy beyond Earth.
Space agencies and private companies have entertained this vision of the future for decades, but it has remained technologically out of reach. Now, artificial intelligence may be poised to advance space timelines dramatically through automation. The spoils of the AI race therefore extend far beyond digital supremacy in which one country has the best hackers or the most productive knowledge workers. Powered by an industrial flywheel in space, in which existing infrastructure compounds and allows the construction of yet more infrastructure, whatever actor first manages to combine proficiency in AI with launch capacity and robotics could achieve enduring supremacy in space. Other states, looking on from the sidelines, may scramble to catch up—or find by then that it is simply too late.
In this essay, we explain how AI promises to accelerate the industrialization of space and outline the advantages that a first mover might expect. We then look at the dynamics between an incumbent space power and aspiring newcomers, including a winner-take-all outcome, and the prospect of a point of no return once a leading actor expands into deep space.
