SpaceX is building a railroad to the solar system. It will change everything, and quickly.

> The railroad was bringing people to a land that was already successfully settled by neolithic peoples tens of thousands of years earlier.

That's what people thought before the railroad was completed.

See "Nothing Like It In the World" by Stephen Ambrose:

https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Like-World-Transcontinental-1...

> But the question is what can they do that's more useful than communication satellites to people on Earth?

Sure. And nobody predicted how incredibly useful the transcontinental railroad would be.

"Nothing Like It In The World" by Stephen Ambrose

https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Like-World-Transcontinental-1...

I just finished reading the book "Nothing Like It In the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869" (http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Like-World-Transcontinental-18...). It talks about the building of the transcontinental railroad. The railroad greatly changed the shape of the country due to the fact that within a span of a few years, travel times across the country dropped from months to a week.

What is particularly interesting about this was how similar the methodology that they used was to the Lean Startup methodology. With the way that the Railroad Act was structured, there was significant award for moving fast. While they were in the wilderness, it was rather difficult/expensive getting supplies. They used lower quality cottonwood ties to build out fast knowing that once the railroads were built, higher quality replacements could be brought in for far cheaper.

Anyways, I'd highly recommend this book for those of you in the startup scene.