BSV Podcast 0165: StellarWorld

Balerion Advisor Doug McAdams sits down with Jim Keravala, CEO of StellarWorld, to discuss lunar cities and off-Earth industrial infrastructure. StellarWorld is developing a commercial framework for lunar cities, transportation, power, mining, manufacturing, and data centers. Its architecture combines terrestrial robotic mining experience with a network of partner companies intended to build scalable infrastructure on the Moon.00:00 – Introduction and Jim Keravala’s background in spacecraft, launch, and space entrepreneurship03:42 – Why now: AI, industrial growth, and the Moon as the next infrastructure highway09:52 – Space settlement philosophy and the challenge of moving from vision to execution11:36 – StellarWorld, Lunar Cities Development Company, and the holding-company architecture16:47 – Building a multimodal transportation network from Earth to the lunar surface22:04 – Nuclear electric, nuclear thermal, and future fusion propulsion24:47 – Lunar landers, cargo barges, and the need for standardized lunar civil engineering27:50 – Civil Engineering 1.0 and the transition from the industrial age to the agentic age32:33 – AI-driven productivity, economic growth, and future infrastructure demand35:20 – Onworld Mining, terrestrial robotic mining, and the “terrestrial then celestial” strategy37:32 – Lunar data centers and the need for large-scale power and thermal management39:20 – Space-based solar, surface nuclear power, and lunar manufacturing43:23 – Timeline toward underground factories, data centers, and Lunar City District 146:25 – Why humans would live on the Moon in an increasingly autonomous economy52:00 – Underground lunar cities, radiation protection, and long-term human habitation54:09 – Scaling launch cadence and treating space as a commercial industrial domain56:03 – Closing vision: robotic swarm mining as the foundation for autonomous lunar development This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit balerionspace.substack.com