Casey Handmer’s Blog
Personal blog with deep technical analyses of SpaceX Starship, Mars exploration, and space infrastructure.
Australia Will Run an Overt Command Economy by 2040
Australia’s economy is edging toward an overt command economy by the 2040s, after crossing a fiscal “point of no return” in 2013 when the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and other welfare programs began expanding without caps. Government‑funded services now account for roughly 34% of the nation’s $1.8 trillion USD GDP and are growing at 4‑5.5% real, while the productive private sector, only about 66% of GDP, expands at just 1‑1.5% real. The extraction ratio – the share of private output siphoned to fund public spending – reached 66% in 2024 and is projected to exceed 100% by 2040, implying an unsustainable fiscal gap. Demographic trends, with the working‑age population dropping to 57% by 2050, further accelerate the imbalance, leaving Australia vulnerable to debt‑driven crises.
I Guess We’re Doing Moon Factories Now
SpaceX is refocusing on lunar development to build space‑based factories that will produce AI‑intensive hardware, leveraging Starship’s high launch cadence. The economic model hinges on turning microwave power into high‑value data, as demonstrated by Starlink, and extending it to orbital...