One of the joys of writing science fiction is asking outrageous questions.
What if humanity built cities on Mars?
What if we discovered new laws of physics?
What if we could manipulate spacetime itself?
The trick, however, is making those ideas feel believable. A reader doesn’t need every detail explained, but they do need to believe the world has rules. The best science fiction stretches reality without breaking it.
That’s why I found myself smiling while listening to Elon Musk’s comments during the SpaceX earnings call this week.
Among the more eye-catching predictions was his vision of autonomous factories on the Moon building solar arrays, radiators, and eventually launching hardware into space using a lunar mass driver. He suggested this could ultimately create an economy in space roughly 1,000 times larger than Earth’s, acknowledging himself that it “sounds like super sci-fi.”
For once, I agree with him.
Ambition Isn’t the Problem
I’ve spent years writing about space exploration, and I admire ambitious goals.
Reusable rockets.
Cheap access to orbit.
Lunar industry.
Asteroid mining.
Those are fascinating ideas worthy of serious discussion. The problem comes when we skip over all the engineering, economics, biology, and logistics that separate today’s reality from tomorrow’s vision.
A Moon factory isn’t just a factory that happens to be on the Moon. It’s an entire industrial ecosystem. It requires economically recoverable raw materials, mining and refining operations, reliable power generation, manufacturing facilities, machine tools, maintenance robots, replacement parts, transportation systems, communications infrastructure, and a supply chain capable of surviving in one of the harshest environments imaginable.
Each of those is a monumental engineering challenge in its own right.
The Missing Chapters
One thing I’ve learned from writing novels is that readers notice when the middle of the story disappears.
A character can’t simply begin Chapter One as a struggling student and arrive in Chapter Two as emperor of the galaxy without explaining what happened in between.
Technology works the same way.
When someone says we’ll build Moon factories that eventually support an economy thousands of times larger than Earth’s, my first question isn’t “Can it be done?”
It’s “What are the next fifty chapters?”
Because those chapters are where reality lives.
They’re where budgets fail, hardware breaks, unexpected physics appears, and seemingly minor problems become decade-long engineering programs.
Good Science Fiction Respects Reality
Ironically, I often find myself holding science fiction to a higher standard than some real-world technological predictions.
A good novelist knows readers will reject a world that ignores consequences.
If I wrote a novel in which humanity casually built an industrial civilization on the Moon without confronting launch costs, infrastructure, maintenance, radiation, dust, or economics, readers would rightly call it unrealistic.
Yet the SpaceX earnings calls leapt over those details with surprising ease.
That’s not engineering.
That’s aspiration.
Dream Big—But Show Your Work
None of this is meant as criticism of dreaming big.
Human progress depends on ambitious people willing to imagine futures that seem impossible.
But there’s a difference between a destination and a roadmap.
Science fiction explores destinations. Engineering builds roadmaps. This week’s SpaceX earnings call offered a spectacular destination: lunar factories, mass accelerators, and a space economy one thousand times larger than Earth’s.
As someone who writes science fiction, I found it wonderfully imaginative.
As someone who has spent a career in technology, I couldn’t help wondering where all the missing chapters had gone.
Because in both fiction and engineering, the ending only works if the journey makes sense.
Jayson L. Adams is a technology entrepreneur, artist, and the award-winning author of The Quantum Mirror, Ares, and Infernum.
His novels blend high-stakes science fiction, psychological tension, and character-driven suspense. Explore the books at www.jaysonadams.com.