I'm not entirely convinced that self-assembly is much of an answer in itself - especially in novel environments. Why, for example,  does it feature so little on Earth, which is a more benign and controlled environment? <br><br>One of the main lessons that Musk admits to learning at Tesla is that his notion of massively increased automation in production greatly overestimated the strengths of advanced manufacturing technologies and underestimated the skill of human operatives. Human beings are just better at a lot of things (more agile, more adaptable, more multi-functional, and a lot smarter).<br><br>The same can be seen at Boca Chica. In the most important respects the site is indistinguishable from every fabrication facility since the beginning of the industrial revolution - it is man and machine working together. SpaceX is able to advance Starship so quickly because the workers keep learning, adapting and getting better. Once something becomes sufficiently routine and fully-developed you can automate to a high degree, but many areas of endeavour never really reach that settled state, and so perpetually need the most powerful and flexible tools available - namely, people.<br><br>Consider also, the International Space Station. How much repair/maintenance is automated? The answer is almost none!