Good morning, it’s Ryan Duffy, your humble Per Aspera editor. For over a year, I’ve had a feeling that I’ve struggled to put a finger on — in the Age of Starlink, it felt to me like satellite broadband internet could revolutionize land value and rejuvenate parts of the map that have long been discounted due to lacking digital infrastructure. I generally avoid the word revolutionize given its overuse, but that’s how it truly feels.

Over the last few months, we’ve dug into this in much greater detail, and it’s culminated in an Antimemo that I think is truly awesome (though I’m admittedly biased). Beyond the physics, economics, and exclusive modeling, we’ve tried to grapple with the human side of the story.

Speaking of humans, three-fourths of the team — Dan, our wise sage, Joy, our creative director, and yours truly — is actively using Starlink right now to produce today’s edition. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to send you this newsletter and publish the new Antimemo!

We can’t wait for you to read it, and to hear what you think. But before we dive in, the team here at Per Aspera wants to thank you, as always, for being part of the American Renaissance in Hard Pursuits.

Now, let’s get into it.

P.S. Were you forwarded this email? Subscribe here.

For more than two centuries, American land has obeyed a law as reliable as physics: the closer to a city, the more valuable your property. Distance was a tax. Every extra mile shaved dollars off the price. That law shaped our maps, migration patterns, and sense of what a place was worth, ever since the nation’s founding. Railroads reinforced it. Highways reinforced it. Broadband reinforced it.

Now, is this law breaking? That iron law is now under quiet assault from 340 miles overhead. After decades of dreams, false starts, and multibillion-dollar bankruptcies…low-Earth-orbiting (LEO), high-speed broadband megaconstellations are finally here. Led handily by Starlink, its 8,000+ active satellites, and 6M+ subscribers, the LEO megaconstellations promise to deliver city-grade connectivity to places that fiber and capital forgot. The digital penalty of distance is starting to vanish.

And the physics invert the old order. Unlike terrestrial networks that thrive on density, shared-capacity satellite systems perform best where user density is lowest. The most remote ranch can claim digital infrastructure equal to the 'burbs.

This isn't a down-the-fairway tale of technological determinism or real estate arbitrage. There's a human element: a satellite link can deliver a Zoom call, but it cannot deliver a community. It cannot weave the social fabric that makes a place a home.

And this isn’t just about satellites. Multiple forces are driving a structural realignment that could redraw America’s economic geography: families fleeing expensive metros for space, affordability, and sanity; solar and storage making energy independence a backyard reality; LLMs enabling billion-dollar businesses in the backwoods. At least on the margins, we’re witnessing the emergence of a new American settlement pattern: digitally enabled dispersion, replacing century-old agglomeration.

Early evidence is mounting…Field notes, Reddit, and stories from buyers, brokers, and businesses nationwide tell the same story: Starlink's arrival makes previously unsellable properties suddenly marketable. But we wanted to dig deeper than anecdata. So, we partnered with the team at Mach33, an institutional research firm and capital services provider focused on the space industry, to quantify the effects of this new paradigm.

Our modeling reveals notable, immediate land value uplifts when broadband arrives. How much, where, and under what conditions? And how does human, social, and civic infrastructure fit in?

You’ll have to read the full piece to find out…

We could be at the forefront of one of the most significant redistributions of opportunity since Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System. What follows is our attempt to see the shape of it early.

SkyOS™ is a complete hardware, software solution transforming aviation with automation. At its core, SkyOS simplifies complexity found in traditional aircraft with touchscreen displays and a single control stick. One of its most novel architectural features is OPV (optionally piloted capabilities), allowing aircraft to be operated by a ground station or by a single pilot onboard.

Skyryse created SkyOS™ to enhance pilot success for every flight, especially during critical missions and in complex environments. Learn more about SkyOS™ here: skyryse.com/skyos

As mentioned above, we’re using Starlink right now to send you this email. In fact, 50% of the Per Aspera crew use Starlink daily, while three out of the four of us are at least monthly active users. We know adoption rates are still in the (low) single-digits in the States, but we’re curious to see how y’all might skew.

So we have to ask:

Click to cast your vote. After you respond, you’ll be able to write in — feel free to drop us a line with your thoughts, experiences, or questions about satellite internet. We read every response and will feature some of the replies!

A new assembly line. Ford, inventor of the moving assembly line, is ripping up a century of convention in Louisville. Last week, the automaker announced a $5B “bet on efficiency.” Ford will build a $3B battery plant in Michigan, and spend $2B to overhaul its Kentucky plant, which will launch a new mid-size electric pickup and debut Ford’s new “assembly tree” production model. Instead of vehicles winding through a single line, the assembly tree branches and recombines in parallel, attacking bottlenecks and complexity from all sides. We wonder if this was inspired more by Tesla’s methods or the rapidly ascendant Chinese OEMs that Ford CEO Jim Farley has been closely tracking? Either way, it’s a bold step forward for the 122-year-old company. Success will be measured by complexity slashed, cycle times, and wider proof that American EVs can still be built resiliently at scale.

Durham NC: Vulcan Elements, based in North Carolina, has emerged from stealth with $65M in Series A funding (led by Altimeter) to build the U.S.’s first large-scale rare earth magnet plant. The raise values Vulcan at $250M and sets the company up to scale production to hundreds of metric tons of magnets annually within the next couple of years, and thousands of metric tons before the decade is out. Vulcan Founder and CEO John Maslin is directly targeting the chokehold of Chinese supply on the U.S. and allied economies. “When you talked about rare-earth magnets a couple years ago, they would look at you like you’re insane,” Maslin told the WSJ. “People actually understand the strategic importance of onshoring this now.” We agree — they’re the invisible building blocks of everything from drones and chips to spacecraft and EVs.  

Nuclear pilot reactors. The Department of Energy has named a new class of nuclear startups for its fast-track demonstration program: Aalo Atomics, Antares Nuclear, Atomic Alchemy, Deep Fission, Last Energy, Oklo, Natura Resources, Radiant Industries, Terrestrial Energy, and Valar Atomics. Companies from California, Texas, Northeast hubs, and more are working to deploy sodium-cooled, molten salt, and microreactors, aiming for real pilot results by 2026. The goal to construct, operate, and achieve criticality of at least three test reactors using the DOE authorization process by July 4, 2026. This is an exciting step for American fission in moving out of the lab and into the dirt — and one with a tight deadline for execution, no less!

What’d we miss? Have something others participating in the Renaissance should know? Hit reply and drop us a line at [email protected].