Exactly, and there needs to be some economic justification for a giant rocket. There is no money to be made by going to Mars, and AI data centers in space could attract investors (who are just riding the data center hype).

> I data centers in space could attract investors (who are just riding the data center hype).

I find this to be the most obvious game plan here. Makes total sense from financial engineering point of view.

You _might_ get to develop nice tech/IP to enable other space based businesses at the same time. "we sold them on X but delivered Y". So it's a bit of a hail mary, but makes total sense to me if you want to have a large budget for inventing the future.

Once you can demonstrate even a fraction of this capability of operations ... I think you can sell a "space dominance" offering to Pentagon for example and just keep pedaling.

"We are going to build the perfect weapon" does not necessarily entice as large engineer population as "we are going to Star Trek".

Another thing - if Moon is going to be a thing, then _properties on Moon_ are going to be a thing.

In theories of value in post-ai societies scarce assets like land are going to become more valuable. So it's a long term plan that makes sense if you believe Moon will be a realestate market.