Key highlights include a construction technology firm founded by two former SpaceX engineers aiming for future building operations on Mars, which has now completed a $115 million funding round.

Last month, SpaceX set a listing record with an $86 billion valuation, and with NASA vigorously advancing plans for lunar and Martian bases, optimism in the entire sector has been reignited.

The company utilizes control terminals like Xbox game controllers to enable remote operation of heavy engineering machinery.

Elon Musk is outlining a space economy blueprint for extraterrestrial survival to investors, while a construction startup founded just two years ago by two former SpaceX engineers is positioning itself early in the future track of interstellar infrastructure.

TerraFirma announced this Tuesday the completion of a $115 million funding round, with investors including Kleiner Perkins, Bain Capital Ventures, and three defense technology firms: SpaceX, Anduril, and Hadrian.

Headquartered in Austin, the company pairs various control terminals like Xbox controllers to remotely operate heavy construction equipment, claiming its technology can both reduce construction costs and significantly improve operational safety. Its long-term vision is to conduct building projects on Mars.

Company co-founder and CEO Noah Shachtman stated in an interview with CNBC: "Over the next few decades, infrastructure will almost become a bottleneck for the development of all innovative industries. While many mature and advanced technologies have emerged in recent decades, very few have been applied to the construction sector, which faces a significant talent shortage."

The company plans to use this funding round to hire 300 additional employees next year, while also establishing a production facility in Texas and a mission control center.

Today, the landscape of startups spun off from SpaceX continues to expand, with TerraFirma being one of them, each targeting the burgeoning opportunities in the space economy. Other notable ventures by former SpaceX employees include hypersonic weapons maker Castelion and 3D-printed rocket company Relativity Space.

Last month's record-breaking $86 billion IPO by SpaceX, combined with NASA's full-throttle push for lunar and Martian base construction plans, has once again boosted market confidence in the space infrastructure sector.

In the long term, humanity may relocate industrial production lines to the Moon and Mars, producing solar panels locally and more easily launching data centers into space.

The company's two founders, Shachtman and Noah McGinnis, met on the first day of engineering classes at Princeton University about a decade ago. Throughout their four-year university program, their schedules were highly aligned, and they partnered on nearly all projects.

After graduation, both joined SpaceX. McGinnis worked on the Starshield government satellite project, while Shachtman contributed to the Starlink project and Starship development.

During their tenure, the team constantly faced the high pressure of rapid development and scaling, often working in harsh environments where even basic infrastructure, such as reliable restrooms, was a challenge.

Simultaneously, observing the extremely low efficiency of traditional construction, the duo conceived their startup idea: to introduce SpaceX's model of rapid iterative building into the construction industry.

Shachtman said: "We were building rockets the size of skyscrapers every month. This process of large-scale automated production was not being applied to construction at all."

Reflecting on their time at SpaceX, both acknowledged the experience was physically and mentally exhausting, often working overtime to the point of sleeping at their desks, but deemed all the effort worthwhile.

Nearly half of the company's current engineering and technical team members have backgrounds at SpaceX, Tesla, or The Boring Company.

Currently, TerraFirma's focus is on deploying real-world projects on Earth to validate its technology, with recent commercial projects including a sports stadium and a Starbucks store.

However, the company has not shelved its long-term interstellar goals and plans to bid for all future lunar construction projects.

Shachtman stated: "We cannot build an industry around a space economy that doesn't yet exist. We should build the space infrastructure track steadily, leveraging the real economic pillars that drive global development today."