Gravity Grains

Project Waypoint

Project Waypoint

From orbital and lunar infrastructure to the foundations of a spacefaring civilization.

Project Waypoint is the natural culmination of the capabilities established through Project Crucible, Lunar Steel, LDAU, Lunar Water, Lunar Soil, Lunar Seed, Lunar Living, and Lunar Logistics. Each step sets the next into motion. Waypoint follows from this sequence. At this stage, Gravity Grains shifts from an Earth and Moon focus to the construction of the critical infrastructure required for a spacefaring civilization to endure.

The initial launch campaign establishes a foothold of space agriculture on the Moon and the industrial spine that supports it. Approximately 800 Caudex‑class stages are assembled in Earth orbit to form Caudex Station. Roughly 200 Calyx‑class stages are positioned in lunar orbit. Project Waypoint is a realistic and dedicated campaign to launch an additional 1,200 rockets to strengthen and expand this orbital resource base.

Waypoint adds two additional Caudex Stations to low Earth orbit. Each carries enough fuel for one of them to travel to the Moon. Waypoint is not a spacecraft. It is a semi‑mobile space station. Its next actions are grounded in the technological capabilities available today. By the time this stage is reached, every claim made here will be conservative relative to the compounding advancements in technology.

Why Waypoint Matters

Project Waypoint is a byproduct of Lunar Settlement, augmented by dedicated launches, to assure that the ecological investment we have incurred from launching rockets into space provides a profound benefit to everyone on Earth. Without Waypoint, space stations fall back into our oceans and all of that effort goes to waste. Instead we clean up after ourselves, and convert both Caudex Station and Calyx Station into profound, lasting capabilities.

When fully realized, Project Waypoint is a collection of three space stations estimated to exceed 70,000 metric tons, and a space cruiser exceeding 4,000 metric tons, capable of traversal between them.

  • One space station will remain at Earth, serving as an orbital spaceport and space debris reclamation center, to assure that Earth continues to responsibly receive, process, and reuse the assets that have been launched into orbit by ourselves or by others.
  • Our second space station will transfer itself to the Moon, serving as an orbital spaceport and space debris reclamation center with similar responsibilities as the Earth Station. As well, it will serve as a relay that connects us to the solar system, with resupply services connected to the Lunar economy below, and especially our LDAU.
  • Our third space station will transfer itself to Venus, serving as a forward post for orbital presence and exoplanetary research. It may one day allow for the development of a cloud city, or even help us learn how to guide a planet toward Earth-like habitability.

Project Waypoint is also the evolution of Calyx Station. The much smaller Calyx Station will be converted into a Calyx-class space cruiser, specifically designed to support Project Explorer. The space cruiser will be capable of full mission traversal between the Earth, Moon, and Venus, assuring that all three space stations have an established trade and supply route for permanent operations.

Without Project Waypoint, over 70,000 metric tons of launch material would have been returned to Earth, either by destruction or by deeper environmental pollution in the attempt to capture them intact. Instead of reusability on Earth, Project Waypoint is establishing reusability in orbit and beyond. With this, we can be a spacefaring civilization, and we can work to preserve the Earth for endless future generations.

Project Waypoint enables:

  • Crewed Exploration of the inner solar system, specifically the Earth, Moon, and Venus corridor, initially.
  • Sustainable interplanetary logistics without long-term Earth resource extraction.
  • The scalable ability to recover certain space debris and metabolize those resources.
  • A tactical response capability to orbital events, such as providing emergency docking services.
  • A resort-scale infrastructure for space tourism or short-term residency.
  • A stable semi-mobile platform for hosting extraordinary scientific capabilities and instrumentation.
  • A massively redundant megastructure with extensive self-repair and self-evolution capabilities.
  • Orbital shipyard construction services that will reasonably extend beyond the Calyx-class over time.

Vehicle Architecture and Mission Profile

Project Waypoint is enabled primarily by Project Crucible and the Crucible Architecture that underpins Gravity Grains technology. This technology was necessary to build for Space Agriculture, our primary mission, to be economically viable and ethically sustainable. Project Waypoint, ironically to its extraordinary value, is a byproduct of Space Agriculture.

Full vehicle architecture details will be published under Project Crucible where legally permissible to do so. Transparency is sacred to Gravity Grains, but ITAR regulations are legally binding. For semi-transparency without proprietary accuracy, we will share the basic equations that make Project Waypoint possible today.

First, a refresher on the standard Crucible Architecture stack:

  • The Rhizome-1 Booster
    Super Heavy class, 10-meter diameter
    40 Propagation class engines, 320s ISP, 73.2 MN
    Returns to Earth.
  • The Caudex-1 2nd Stage
    Super Heavy class, 10-meter diameter
    8 Explorer class engines, 360s ISP, 16.48 MN
    Becomes or rendezvouses with Caudex Station at 555km.
  • The Calyx-1 Payload
    Super Heavy class, 7-meter diameter
    4 Explorer class engines, 360s ISP, 8.24 MN
    Payload delivered to Caudex Station.

During Project Waypoint, the Caudex-2 2nd Stage is launched an estimated 1200 times. Caudex-2 is also called the "Crucible Tanker", capable of delivering 125 tons of fuel to LEO.

In combination with the LDAU series, Project Waypoint leverages that there will be 2,000 Caudex in orbit, assembled into 3 Caudex-class Space Stations in Low Earth Orbit. One of those space stations now has a complement of fuel that allows it to relocate to Lunar orbit.

With LDAU fully operational and the Gravity Grains Space Agricultural industry in operation, the arrival of the Caudex Station at the much smaller Calyx Station in orbit around the Moon begins the process of refueling. At full fuel capacity, this Caudex-class Space Station has a mass of nearly 1 megaton. This process takes time.

The fully fueled Caudex-class Space Station returns to Low Earth Orbit and docks with the other two space stations. It transfers enough fuel to allow one of the other space stations to travel to the Moon. It transfers remaining margins of fuel to the remaining space station, and departs for the Moon as well.

The Caudex Station that remained in Low Earth Orbit, now with a substantial quantity of fuel, becomes Waypoint Terra. One of the two Caudex Stations that have arrived in orbit around the Moon, ready to receive additional fuel from the Moon, becomes Waypoint Luna. The final Caudex Station in service refuels fully and prepares to transfer to Venus. When it arrives there, it becomes Waypoint Venus.

As insignificant cargo to a megaton-class space station, and relieved of service to the Moon, Calyx Station is serviced by the two Caudex Stations around the Moon to be retrofit into the Calyx-class Space Cruiser. Here, LDAU unlocked technology will be integrated, allowing the Space Cruiser to sustain a limited crew complement for a 5-year mission.

Following the successful arrival of Waypoint Venus, the Calyx-class Space Cruiser will start its mission to bring humans into orbit around Venus, where they will spend more than a year performing direct study, research, and development. This includes a shakedown of the Calyx-class Space Cruiser, assuring that it is ready for service in Project Explorer.

The Gravity Grains Advantage

Waypoint is only possible because every single step of the Gravity Grains mission includes a focus on multi-use, multi-role, extensible, and sustainable space architecture practices. Waypoint grows and evolves out of the byproducts of establishing the Lunar Steel, Lunar Water, and Space Agriculture industries on the Moon.

A megaton-class space station, much less three of them, cannot be fueled from Earth. The cost, both environmental and ethical, is prohibitive. The Gravity Grains capabilities established on the Moon result in a transformation of ISRU, mission residuals, and its results, to provide the methane and oxygen necessary to keep the three Waypoints in operation. For those who are unfamiliar with rocket science, the majority of our rocket fuel (about 78%) is oxygen. Oxygen is present in practically every speck of Lunar Regolith.

Gravity Grains reluctantly accepts the fact that Project Waypoint requires a lot of Earth resources (An estimated 2,000 rocket launches) to open this opportunity to become a sustainable spacefaring civilization within our current state of technology. We commit to continuing to find ways to reduce the environmental impact and ethical implications of exporting resources that we do not have in abundance on Earth. In doing so, we establish a future where Earth does not have to continue its exclusive role in the hubris of humanity, and the compass of our company is guided by our global citizenship base of members.

Every opportunity given, Gravity Grains strives to lead toward a future that is hopefully compelling to every citizen of the world. Whether you stay on Earth to take care of it, or leave Earth to see what is out there, we care about the worlds you live in, the stations you live on, or the eventual spaceships you will travel by. You are going to need air, food, water, energy, medicine, and materials. The advantage of Gravity Grains, is that our version of profit is the thriving of sustainable life.

Risk Management

Project Waypoint is unprecedented in reality. It is also supported by technology that exists today. Access to that technology, or the performance of work needed to replicate that technology ethically, is the nature of living in a capitalism-driven civilization. Without members, this entire plan can be executed by those that have the means to do so. This is not guaranteed to be a bad thing, but it is not guaranteed to be good either. Risks are not an accusation of intent, but a warning of practical concern and observations across the history of civilization.

Everything in Project Waypoint is possible. Some form of it is inevitable. The moment we accept this fact, it is the moment we have to choose how we are going to react to that knowledge.

The risks of doing this: Once Project Waypoint was recognized as inevitable, we had to make the choice between being the ones to share the discovery publicly, or to hide from scrutiny and wait for someone else to figure it out. By presenting this information now, we are placing our calculated hope that the solution can be presented in companionship with our vision, our mission, and our version of this shared future. Just like becoming a parent, we are not ready. Just like leaving home on your own for the first time, we are not ready. Just like falling in love and getting into a relationship, we are not ready. Humans are never ready. We are never ready because we have evolved to adapt. The risk of doing this is something we will face together.

The risks of not doing this: Under Gravity Grains tenure, these megaton-class space stations are platforms of peace, supply, trade, science, exploration, tourism, and many other desirable things. However, we recognize that this exact same platform can be used for space superiority, geopolitical threats, and destructive warmongering. Even if those things are not realized, there is still the threat of letting a megaton-class space station crash into Earth, just like the ISS is fated to do, but over one hundred times larger. Without a member stewarded global civilization holding the compass of whatever entity holds this capability, there is always a risk of this historical trend into tyranny. This capability will exist with a Lunar Economy, and if we do not establish a Lunar Economy, then we will never become a spacefaring civilization. Project Waypoint is inevitable.

The risks that face anyone: Gravity Grains understands that space is complicated, geopolitical circumstances are complicated, and there are a lot of people on Earth who do not want this or want to capture this for their own personal reasons. Inevitable is inevitable. There is always the threat of terrorism to turn a beacon of humanity's progress into the stars into a ballistic reentry over a group of people in disagreement with the actor. There are many projects that Gravity Grains withholds, not because they are immensely valuable to the future of humanity, but because certain factors of humanity will weaponize them. This would normally fit that exception, but again, inevitable.

On a less severe note, our target altitude of 555km, subject to change, would create a permanent shooting star across the night sky relative to people viewing from Earth. Waypoint Earth is estimated to be 1 arcminute in diameter, roughly 1/30th the size of the moon by perspective. When all three Caudex Stations are in LEO, a constellation of three bright star-like artifacts will pass overhead roughly every 95.6 minutes. These types of disturbances create frustration in some scientific and hobby communities, but Gravity Grains will actively seek opportunities to host complementary scientific capabilities on the space station. We're also opening up the solar system to direct sustainable exploration through this technology.

There are also some risks inherent to its nature. Some of those are:

  • Distributed Propulsion Project Waypoint features hundreds of Explorer-class vacuum engines. Coordinating the attitude control of a space station two orders of magnitude larger than the ISS is an entirely new unprecedented experience.
  • On-orbit Salvage and Fabrication Project Waypoint is a self-modulating superstructure that reconfigures itself on orbit and processes end-of-life space assets. This includes intentionally deconstructing and repurposing its own components. The facilities necessary to perform these types of operations have never been proven at this scale.
  • Kessler Syndrome To be a great steward of Earth space, Waypoint is designed to receive controlled space debris and perform cleanup operations, specifically to avoid Kessler Syndrome. Its massive attitude control system is designed to provide anti-collision assistance. It is not, however, capable of perfection. It is capable of putting itself back together, to an extent. At 555km, we have decades to launch another one to resume stewardship.

Deploying three Waypoints assists with risk measures by allowing each semi-mobile space station to provide immediate response to a catastrophic failure during those operations. Their fuel reserves and fleet of tactical vehicles will be substantial.

Cost Logic

The cost of Project Waypoint is insignificant when evaluated against the value it delivers on a civilizational era scale. The investment required to build everything is less than a handful of aircraft carriers, or a few percent of a leading nation's operational budget. The cost is also finite. Once the Earth, Moon, and Venus Waypoint network exists, the cost of every subsequent mission to and across these worlds becomes economically accessible.

For less than an estimated $300 billion USD, humanity gains:

  • A permanent self-evolving Waypoint Terra
  • A permanent self-evolving Waypoint Luna
  • A permanent self-evolving Waypoint Venus
  • A Calyx-class space cruiser to transport between them
  • The potential for a permanent Venusian settlement
  • Represented by and governed by at least 1,000,000 citizens of Earth, and all solar-citizens that have become settlers of our solar system, crew members of the highest integrity, or have chosen to accept Gravity Grains as their service provider for thriving in our immeasurable universe.
  • The potential for everything that comes after.

Where This Leads

Repeating Project Waypoint is simply a repeat of the entire mission spectrum. Another LDAU is generated to bolster the Lunar settlement. Three more Caudex-class Space Stations enter orbit, resulting in two orbiting Earth, two orbiting the Moon, and a third on its way to Mars. It also results in another Calyx-class Cruiser in service to keep this new route connected. Three planets in the semi-habitable zone of our solar system will be ready to examine the reality of exoplanet settlement and to exist as a fully realized space-faring civilization.

Project Explorer is where we take that next step together.