Moonshot: Designing a Pareto-Optimal Solar-Electric System

Moonshot: Design Assumptions and Tradeoffs

Moonshot is not an attempt to maximize any single metric. It is an attempt to reduce fragility. The system is shaped by a few constraints that aren’t obvious if you come from either traditional marine design or consumer solar kits.

1. Battery risk scales faster than capacity

Battery systems suffer from a version of the birthday paradox. As the number of cells increases, the probability that one cell fails rises faster than intuition suggests. This isn’t linear risk; it compounds.

Larger banks don’t just store more energy — they introduce more failure modes: imbalance, thermal variance, BMS edge cases, and cascading faults. Past a certain point, adding cells improves peak capability but reduces overall system reliability.

Moonshot treats batteries as a constrained resource, not a goal.

2. Commodity hardware over specialized systems

The system follows the same principle that underpinned early distributed computing: many simple, well-understood components outperform fewer specialized ones over time.

This mirrors Hadoop’s philosophy — reliability through simplicity, not precision engineering. Batteries, panels, and cabling are chosen for availability, replaceability, and predictable behavior rather than proprietary performance envelopes.

If a component fails, it should be easy to source, easy to understand, and easy to swap.

3. Zero-copy energy flow

In large-scale data systems, zero-copy architectures reduce overhead by avoiding unnecessary transformations. Moonshot applies the same idea electrically.

The system assumes no transformer between generation and propulsion. The MPPT voltage matches the motor bus voltage, allowing solar energy to flow directly to propulsion when available, without touching the battery.

The battery is not in the critical path unless it needs to be. This reduces losses, heat, and wear — and it reframes the battery as a buffer, not a conduit.

4. Sustainable speed is bounded by the sun

Burst speed is easy. Sustainable speed is not.

Moonshot assumes that the only speed worth optimizing for is the one that can be maintained over time using solar input. You can always go faster briefly — but that debt must be repaid later through charging.

This shifts design thinking away from peak horsepower and toward energy balance. Cruising speed is defined by irradiance, not marketing specs.

5. Batteries age faster than panels

Solar panels are long-lived infrastructure. Twenty to twenty-five years is a reasonable expectation.

Batteries are consumables. Even well-treated LiFePO₄ banks are closer to five to seven years. They are also the most expensive component per unit of lifetime energy delivered.

Optimizing a system around batteries instead of panels guarantees higher long-term cost and more frequent invasive maintenance.

6. “Just enough” battery is more than enough

Because panels are cheaper, longer-lived, and lower-risk, Moonshot intentionally biases toward generation over storage.

The battery exists to smooth gaps, handle transient loads, and enable brief departures from the solar envelope. It is sized to be sufficient, not dominant.

In this system, having “extra” battery does not increase freedom — it increases complexity, cost, and failure surface.

7. Reliable machinery is preserved

We do not discard reliable machinery. Existing engines remain as a reserve system for poor weather, schedule pressure, or fault tolerance. Modernization adds layers without erasing trust.