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NASA's Artemis II Launched, But It Should Have Been a SpaceX Mission · In the Loop AI

0:00
Josh: Last night, a rocket left Earth carrying four human beings towards the moon,
0:03
Josh: which hasn't happened in 53 years.
0:07
Josh: In 1972, back the last time we did this, the computer that landed Apollo 11
0:11
Josh: on the lunar surface ran on 43 kilohertz.
0:15
Josh: That's less processing power than the chip inside of a $5 USB-C cable that charges your iPhone.
0:21
Josh: And they landed on the moon with it. Last night, the most powerful rocket NASA
0:24
Josh: has ever built, standing taller than the Statue of Liberty, launched four astronauts
0:27
Josh: into a 10-day loop around the moon.
0:29
Josh: We're not going to the surface. We're just going to fly by, take some photos,
0:33
Josh: and then come back home. And I got to be honest, this is incredibly exciting.
0:36
Josh: I sat there all day watching the live stream. I cheered them on as it took off.
0:40
Josh: But it's a little embarrassing because we're not even reaching the point in which we left off
0:45
Josh: a full generation ago. So there's a lot to unpack here with this mission,
0:49
Josh: how amazing it is, how impressive it is, what it enables with the future partnerships
0:53
Josh: with companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, and also how it kind of, to some extent,
0:59
Josh: was just a colossal waste of money.
1:01
Josh: So there's a lot to unpack here, EJS. But to start with, oh my God, this is amazing.
1:05
Josh: We're going back to the moon and the astronauts are currently,
1:08
Josh: as you're listening to this, flying into space, getting ready to orbit around the moon.
1:12
Ejaaz: I had friends yesterday that I hadn't spoken to in like months message me and
1:17
Ejaaz: be like, dude, are you watching?
1:18
Ejaaz: Did you know we're launching like people to the moon again?
1:21
Ejaaz: People were just like encapsulated by this entire thing. I think a bunch of
1:24
Ejaaz: people all over the world were watching this stream.
1:26
Ejaaz: And it's nuts. The mission is nuts. It's 10 days.
1:30
Ejaaz: We're sending four astronauts around the moon. So, you know,
1:33
Ejaaz: again, we're not landing on the moon, but we're going further than any space
1:36
Ejaaz: mission has gone before.
1:37
Ejaaz: 4,700 miles to be specific, a 10-day mission. Right now, the crew are being
1:42
Ejaaz: propelled around Earth using Earth's gravity, and they're going to be launched
1:46
Ejaaz: towards the moon in about, I believe, a day and a half from now.
1:49
Ejaaz: They're going to reach the moon six days after that, traverse it for about,
1:53
Ejaaz: I believe, maybe half a day or so.
1:56
Ejaaz: They're going to view the dark side of the moon, and then they're going to come straight home.
1:59
Josh: And there's a lot of firsts for this, too. This is the farthest away humans
2:02
Josh: will have ever been from Earth.
2:04
Josh: By a couple extra thousand miles, but still the furthest away they've ever been,
2:08
Josh: there's also going to be a new record happening upon re-entry where this is
2:12
Josh: going to be the fastest humans have ever moved before at 25,000 miles per hour on re-entry.
2:18
Josh: And this is thanks to the free launch trajectory that they get from this mission.
2:23
Josh: So basically what happens is we send these humans,
2:26
Josh: up into the low earth atmosphere. We whip them around earth and then send them out into deep space.
2:31
Josh: The gravitational pull of the moon pulls them into its orbit,
2:34
Josh: wraps them around the backside and shoots them right back to earth totally for free.
2:38
Josh: No additional propulsion needed. And I have a post here that kind of walks through
2:42
Josh: the highlights, right? We have 252,000 miles from earth.
2:45
Josh: These astronauts are going re-entry at 25,000 miles per hour,
2:49
Josh: incredibly hot, incredibly fast and scary.
2:52
Josh: And then it just kind of shows the trajectory of this, which is, it's really amazing.
2:56
Josh: It's something that has been discovered in the past. I believe they've even
2:59
Josh: done this exact trajectory, a very similar one, but just a little bit further
3:02
Josh: this time and a little bit more exciting because it's happening in real time.
3:06
Josh: We have computers that can live stream. We have real-time video feeds of these
3:10
Josh: astronauts and we get to actually watch and participate in this pretty unbelievable
3:14
Josh: thing that's happening.
3:15
Ejaaz: So I've been watching the live stream since yesterday and there's
3:18
Ejaaz: a tracker which tells you how far away from earth they
3:21
Ejaaz: are right now and just as of recording it's around 50
3:24
Ejaaz: 000 miles now if you're wondering how far away
3:27
Ejaaz: that is that's around four earth's diameters away
3:30
Ejaaz: from us so they are a long long way uh away from home but the live cast is still
3:34
Ejaaz: going on and people are generally just pumped about this josh um there was a
3:38
Ejaaz: hilarious video um where a cnn report i believe asked this kid hey um you know
3:45
Ejaaz: why are you here Why are you here to watch the launch? And his response was pretty hilarious.
3:49
Josh: Why do you want to be here? Why do you love space?
3:52
Ejaaz: Why do you love being a part of history? We're going back to the fucking moon.
3:57
Josh: Hell yeah, brother.
3:59
Ejaaz: That's how I felt. That's how I felt. We're going back to the damn moon.
4:03
Ejaaz: Now, that sounds amazing. But when you put it into context as to when our last
4:08
Ejaaz: moon mission was, and there's been quite a few.
4:10
Ejaaz: We've put about, I think, 11 or 12 people on the moon. We've been to the moon,
4:13
Ejaaz: maybe 12 people. and we've been to the moon maybe, what was it, three times or so?
4:17
Ejaaz: You know, all American manned missions.
4:20
Ejaaz: I asked the question, why has it been 53 years since we've been back?
4:25
Josh: That's a great question, EJ. And here's a timeline that should make you moderately
4:29
Josh: uncomfortable. Because in 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon.
4:33
Josh: We walked on it, planted a flag, and came home. Three years later,
4:36
Josh: Apollo 17, Gene Carman becomes the last person to walk on the moon.
4:41
Josh: And his final words on the surface, We leave as we came, and God willing,
4:45
Josh: we shall return. Well, God was apparently not willing for 53 years because it
4:49
Josh: has been a very long time.
4:51
Josh: And it's funny. Like I mentioned in the intro, we did that on a computer that
4:57
Josh: only ran 145,000 lines of hand-optimized code.
5:01
Josh: It was 1,100,000th the power that sits in your iPhone in your pocket and 350
5:08
Josh: times more than, you know, those TI-84 graphing calculators you used in high school? Yeah.
5:13
Josh: It's 350 times more powerful than that. And we landed on the moon twice.
5:15
Josh: So clearly there has been this disconnect in progress between then
5:19
Josh: and now but nonetheless we are headed back
5:22
Josh: and this does actually begin to open up
5:25
Josh: the door for why this actually matters i mean this is fun we're learning we're
5:29
Josh: doing science experiments like testing for radiation out in deeper parts of
5:33
Josh: space but the reality is is that this is mission number one on a multi-step
5:36
Josh: plan towards actually colonizing the moon building a lunar base on the moon
5:41
Josh: thanks to companies like spacex.
5:44
Ejaaz: This is where I kind of want to transition into the numbers because they sound
5:49
Ejaaz: impressive. It's a lot cheaper than it used to be back then. So that's one win.
5:53
Ejaaz: But when you compare it directly towards a company like SpaceX,
5:57
Ejaaz: which is using groundbreaking technology and cutting the cost down to a fraction
6:00
Ejaaz: of what this mission cost, it starts to look pretty bad on NASA and on this
6:05
Ejaaz: space mission in particular.
6:06
Ejaaz: Now, the headline number is $4.1 billion. dollars.
6:10
Ejaaz: That's how much it costs to launch this rocket and man this mission.
6:15
Ejaaz: And, you know, it's understandable. There's a lot of bureaucracy in the government.
6:19
Ejaaz: There's a lot of mouths to feed and jobs to pay. But the fact that SpaceX can
6:22
Ejaaz: do this for $10 million, and hey, if they blow the rocket up,
6:27
Ejaaz: what is it, like $40, $50 million, Josh?
6:30
Josh: Yeah, so the way it works is, I mean, reusability is a big thing,
6:32
Josh: but even in the absence of it, it is a huge delta.
6:35
Josh: So like you mentioned $4.1 billion per launch for the SLS, which is this Artemis II mission.
6:40
Josh: The total mission cost, by the way, about $93 billion.
6:43
Josh: So quite a bit was spent on this. For Starship,
6:46
Josh: it can launch for about $100 million. And that's if the Starship rocket blows up.
6:51
Josh: So if Starship explodes, the total cost to build in materials is about $107 billion.
6:57
Josh: If it does land, which they're planning to do just in a couple of months,
7:01
Josh: that cost goes down to $10 million.
7:03
Josh: From $10 million to $4.1 billion per launch.
7:06
Josh: And actually, EJ, if you scroll a little bit further down in this article here,
7:09
Josh: there's a visual that shows the difference in size too as it relates to payload.
7:13
Josh: And Starship is a monster compared
7:16
Josh: to nasa's sls it sits i want to say 25 30
7:19
Josh: taller it has much more payload capacity it is
7:23
Josh: just a far more impressive rocket and the fact that
7:25
Josh: it costs a fraction of a percent less than
7:28
Josh: one percent to launch and it can be reused and it can be overflown again and
7:32
Josh: again and again it's a testament to the gap that has been built between i guess
7:37
Josh: government funded industries and private industry and part of the reason is
7:42
Josh: the the contracts are such a nightmare when nasa builds these things.
7:46
Josh: They use it, they build them based on cost plus contracts, meaning that.
7:50
Josh: The company decides a cost. They mutually agree on how much something is going to cost them to make.
7:56
Josh: And then they add a fixed rate on top of it. So they get a premium.
7:59
Josh: So Lockheed Martin says, this piece is going to cost a million dollars.
8:02
Josh: Well, cost plus means, well, NASA will pay you a 20% premium on that.
8:06
Josh: But there's no incentive for them to bring it down because the premium gets
8:09
Josh: higher as the cost goes higher. So there's all the incentive in the world to
8:12
Josh: make these things incredibly expensive.
8:14
Josh: Where SpaceX, a private company that does not use our taxpayer dollars to fund
8:18
Josh: its launches, has every incentive in the world to remove the costs.
8:21
Josh: And that's why you get this thing called the Idiot Index, which is the delta
8:24
Josh: between the cost of materials versus the actual cost it takes to get these things into orbit.
8:29
Josh: And the Idiot Index on NASA's SLS is pretty freaking high.
8:33
Ejaaz: I'm starting to think that this entire mission should just have been handled and managed by SpaceX.
8:38
Ejaaz: I'm pretty sure the future missions, which NASA is going to enable putting people
8:41
Ejaaz: on the moon and setting up a moon settlement, is going to be enabled by SpaceX.
8:45
Ejaaz: There is no are the way that they can do it. They need reusable rockets.
8:48
Ejaaz: They need cheaper costs to get into outer space and to the moon and back.
8:52
Ejaaz: Now, I know they say never judge a book by its color, but I'm going to judge
8:56
Ejaaz: these two ships directly together. Star Trek.
8:59
Ejaaz: 25% taller. It is two times heavier. It can take 4x more payload than this current rocket.
9:06
Ejaaz: It is completely reusable and both stages are designed for reuse.
9:10
Ejaaz: So the point I'm trying to make here is I think that NASA taking 53 years is
9:15
Ejaaz: kind of a big discredit towards the agency and what they've achieved.
9:18
Ejaaz: Not to discredit that the mission itself is very impressive,
9:20
Ejaaz: but I think the future is going to be with companies like SpaceX that is able
9:24
Ejaaz: to lower down the cost for things like this and produce better efficiencies
9:28
Ejaaz: versus what we just watched yesterday.
9:31
Josh: Yeah, it's totally right. And it's so important not to discredit what's happening
9:33
Josh: here because this is amazing, right? It's like we do have humans that are on
9:37
Josh: their way to the moon right now built by an unbelievable engineering team that did this.
9:41
Josh: It's not their fault. A lot of these people weren't even alive 53 years ago.
9:45
Josh: They are doing their best to get these people to the moon and they're doing
9:47
Josh: a great job. The mission so far outside of that one little toilet anomaly has been a wild success.
9:52
Josh: Everything is working really well and that serves a tremendous amount of credit.
9:55
Josh: But like you mentioned, SpaceX is just far superior and we're going to see that
9:58
Josh: handoff happen as we progress through this artemis program so artemis 3 which
10:02
Josh: is scheduled for mid-2027 so a year from now uh the crew is going to test docking
10:07
Josh: with the spacex starship or perhaps blue origin but i would imagine that spacex
10:12
Josh: is probably going to win over that contract there's no.
10:14
Ejaaz: Way bezos gets this no way
10:16
Josh: Unlikely unlikely but possible they have the
10:19
Josh: option then artemis 4 is the big one that's happening in
10:22
Josh: early 2028 and that's when we are targeting for the first lunar
10:25
Josh: lander to actually land on the moon with human beings inside so spacex is probably
10:31
Josh: going to be handling that one that's coming in two years and then just a little
10:34
Josh: bit later in the year in the second half of 2028 there's going to be a second
10:38
Josh: crew landing planned in which nasa is going to target twice per year landings
10:43
Josh: on the moon going forward.
10:44
Josh: And this is going to begin the production and the building of our lunar Mars
10:49
Josh: base, which is really cool.
10:51
Josh: I mean, NASA's administrator, Jared Isaacman, he's the new guy.
10:54
Josh: Everyone loves him. He's amazing.
10:55
Josh: He announced a $30 billion decade-long plan to build a permanent lunar outpost
10:59
Josh: on the South Pole of the moon by 2036.
11:02
Josh: So the Artemis launch today, while we may have some choice words to say about
11:06
Josh: it, is very much the gateway to a lunar base.
11:08
Josh: And this is step one in a multi-step process that's going to happen.
11:11
Josh: And they're going to bring in SpaceX.
11:13
Josh: They're going to bring in Starship. The costs are going to decrease.
11:15
Josh: It's just, you know, it took a little while to get here.
11:18
Ejaaz: I think it's also important to set the context as to why on Earth we have two
11:22
Ejaaz: major companies or agencies trying to land humans and set up a supplement on the moon itself.
11:28
Ejaaz: Elon has his own specific reasons for SpaceX. He wants to get closer to the sun.
11:32
Ejaaz: He wants to train AI with data centers out in space and harness sun's energy
11:36
Ejaaz: and turn us into a Kardashev 2 or Type 2 civilization.
11:39
Ejaaz: With NASA, it is part of that, but they've also realized that some parts of
11:44
Ejaaz: the Moon is potentially habitable.
11:46
Ejaaz: You know, they've found or confirmed water on the South Pole.
11:50
Ejaaz: They've got drinkable water, breathable oxygen. And one of the reasons why this
11:53
Ejaaz: is so important is it gives us more access to resources that we didn't have
11:58
Ejaaz: access to before, more space.
12:00
Ejaaz: And also, it's easier to manufacture things with one-sixth of the gravity of Earth.
12:04
Josh: Yeah, well, it's also, I mean, mass driver, dude, we're, we're doing AI in space.
12:08
Josh: Don't forget that. So the plan for, I mean, space extensively is to help build
12:12
Josh: this Mars base, but also to build that mass driver that we talked about in an episode prior,
12:17
Josh: which is a way of distributing satellites into orbit very cheaply and very quickly
12:22
Josh: and harnessing a lot more energy.
12:23
Josh: There's essentially unlimited free energy on the moon because we're able to
12:27
Josh: capture all of it via solar and when you apply that at scale it's it's a really
12:31
Josh: amazing way to begin to scale.
12:35
Josh: Intelligence energy capture we start to build these mini
12:37
Josh: dyson storms because the cost per satellite becomes so low
12:40
Josh: and this is going to happen over this phased structure they
12:44
Josh: have like phase one which is happening through 2028 they're planning 25
12:47
Josh: launches 21 landings to deliver 4 000 kilograms
12:50
Josh: of equipment that's going to include like rovers
12:53
Josh: drones communication systems things of the nature phase two
12:56
Josh: happens in the following years between 2029 and 2032 where
12:59
Josh: they're going to start building power systems and communications and
13:02
Josh: habitat modules where humans can actually live on the moon for weeks
13:06
Josh: or months at a time phase three happens just after that
13:08
Josh: which is 2033 to 2036 which is
13:11
Josh: the fully operational lunar outpost so this happens fairly
13:14
Josh: quickly a decade from now there's a very high probability
13:17
Josh: that's or i guess not very high there's a
13:20
Josh: strong probability that we have humans permanently stationed on
13:23
Josh: the moon with rocket chips that go back and forth on a regular basis and we
13:28
Josh: see it doesn't take that long this whole mission for these astronauts takes
13:30
Josh: 10 days if you go direct i think it's way less than that it's probably half
13:34
Josh: or something um so the moon is going to change a lot and this is very much the
13:38
Josh: gateway mission that enables that that change to start happening.
13:42
Ejaaz: That still is almost a decade away. And I want to bring us back to the mission
13:47
Ejaaz: that's happening right now.
13:48
Ejaaz: We've talked about a lot of impressive things. The tech, the ship itself,
13:52
Ejaaz: the crew, very accomplished. But I want to talk about the thing that impressed me the most.
13:57
Ejaaz: The menu that they have for the next 10 days. Oh boy.
14:00
Ejaaz: Artemis 2 crew menu was leaked. And they have 189 unique menu items.
14:06
Ejaaz: They also have spice levels for those who prefer spicier versus something more
14:09
Ejaaz: milder. And I have to say, this is more impressive than any space mission or
14:13
Ejaaz: arguably anything that I eat on a daily basis at my local restaurant,
14:17
Ejaaz: my neighborhood restaurants.
14:18
Ejaaz: We've got coffee, green tea, mango, peach, smoothie, chocolate breakfast drink.
14:21
Ejaaz: I've never had that before.
14:22
Ejaaz: Apple cider, pineapple drink, cocoa, strawberry bread. Like that's just a drink
14:26
Ejaaz: section, by the way. Then you've got common food items.
14:29
Ejaaz: This seems like a lot for 10 days, but it is my favorite ever thing.
14:33
Ejaaz: You've got to keep the crew happy. I don't think the space station has this
14:36
Ejaaz: variety of different things.
14:38
Ejaaz: Five Canadian products by the way I just want to point out it's not just all America but
14:41
Josh: I love this. And to my understanding also, this is the first time there's like
14:45
Josh: a fully functional toilet bowl in a spacecraft. So that's pretty...
14:50
Ejaaz: Questionable.
14:50
Josh: Okay, questionable. Why do you say questionable?
14:53
Ejaaz: Well, the good news is that we launched with everyone being saved.
14:57
Ejaaz: The rocket did not explode. Thank goodness.
15:00
Ejaaz: The bad news is almost immediately the toilet got clogged. It got throttled
15:04
Ejaaz: and they couldn't use the toilet.
15:06
Josh: Wait, did it get clogged? It didn't get clogged.
15:09
Ejaaz: It got they're troubleshooting the toilet um what does that tell you josh i
15:13
Ejaaz: don't know but the important update is it has finally been fixed so the people
15:19
Ejaaz: will be able to reuse the toilet but the question i have on my mind is what
15:22
Ejaaz: would they have done if that was you know unfixed
15:25
Josh: You know i'm actually not sure how astronauts use the
15:28
Josh: bathroom in space generally speaking so that's gonna have to be some additional research
15:31
Josh: we do after that perhaps if you know you could leave a comment so i
15:33
Josh: would be curious i think the menu is very funny um i
15:36
Josh: they need to be careful tread lightly because we know that toilet's a little fickle so
15:39
Josh: don't go too overboard on the menu but i think it's fun right it's like
15:42
Josh: if you're gonna blow all this money do it have fun
15:45
Josh: like make it entertaining make it fun and exciting for
15:48
Josh: the astronauts make it fun for everyone to watch and i
15:51
Josh: think that's what's really interesting about having the live stream is that we
15:54
Josh: get to watch and participate this participate in this in real
15:56
Josh: time as it's happening now i do have some choice comments about the
15:59
Josh: live stream they were standing on the launch pad and i
16:02
Josh: was looking into the cockpit and it looks like it was being shot on a potato
16:05
Josh: like perhaps they could have used this spacex partnership to partner with starlink
16:09
Josh: that would have been cool to give slightly higher resolution uh imagery maybe
16:13
Josh: they did because the image we just watched earlier was pretty good but there
16:16
Josh: was this really funny um meme that i saw that showed the cockpits comparison between.
16:21
Josh: Spacex and artemis 2 and looking at
16:24
Josh: these two it is pretty stark the difference right it's
16:27
Josh: like one of these looks like it is from the 1960s and the other one looks like
16:31
Josh: it is out of a sci-fi movie and i think that's another testament to kind of
16:35
Josh: where we've come from and where we're going where nasa's very much riding the
16:38
Josh: coattails of its history which is unbelievably impressive and powerful and strong
16:43
Josh: but it's a new era and they're,
16:46
Josh: There is a new kid in town who is building some really badass engineering,
16:50
Josh: some really badass rockets.
16:51
Josh: And based on this photo, like SpaceX, SpaceX looks like what I would imagine the future looks like.
16:56
Ejaaz: Yeah, it looks like something out of the Interstellar movie,
16:59
Ejaaz: you know, where Matthew McConaughey is like, you know, we're going to land this TARS.
17:03
Ejaaz: Yeah, I think it's way more advanced. It's way less cluttered.
17:05
Ejaaz: I think, I hate to say it, but I think there's been a lot of bureaucracy in
17:10
Ejaaz: NASA and in government agencies and putting people focusing on space in particular.
17:14
Ejaaz: I think in that time in the 53 years since we did our last moon mission,
17:18
Ejaaz: private companies have caught up.
17:20
Ejaaz: SpaceX being the prominent one, Blue Origin from Jeff Bezos being probably the one that is in second.
17:26
Ejaaz: I think we're going to start, like when I zoom out, I think that net net,
17:30
Ejaaz: we're going to see more space launches and more space missions.
17:34
Ejaaz: Before we started recording, Josh, I told you, like, I hope one day in my life
17:38
Ejaaz: before I die, I get to go to the moon or into outer space in general.
17:42
Ejaaz: I think that's going to become a reality.
17:44
Ejaaz: Elon is targeting a launch every hour in the next, I believe,
17:48
Ejaaz: five years or within a decade.
17:49
Ejaaz: I can't remember the time span, but that would be awesome. That's something
17:52
Ejaaz: out of Star Trek, something straight out of sci-fi.
17:54
Josh: Yeah, it feels very high conviction to say that you will have the option to
17:57
Josh: go to the moon in your lifetime.
17:59
Josh: And if you want to, you will have the chance to do that. And I think that's
18:02
Josh: a really cool thing that this enabled and this recent focus on space is going to enable.
18:07
Josh: We are very much back into our space era. And this is unbelievably exciting.
18:11
Josh: Like right now, four humans are in a spacecraft hurling towards the moon.
18:14
Josh: And by Monday, they'll fly over the side, which just for a moment,
18:17
Josh: they will see a part of the moon that no human eyes have ever directly seen before.
18:21
Josh: It's really exciting. And this opens up not only the enthusiasm,
18:25
Josh: because this has gotten quite a bit of publicity, but also just the velocity
18:29
Josh: and all of the approvals needed to actually start building and making progress towards the lunar base.
18:35
Josh: SpaceX pivoting from Mars to the moon is really important. There is now a clear
18:39
Josh: path to building a lunar base.
18:41
Josh: And what that unlocks is really cool in terms of technology,
18:44
Josh: but also just in terms of awe and curiosity and getting excited about what it's
18:48
Josh: like to explore beyond the current planet that we've lived on since the beginning of time.
18:53
Josh: And the progress is, it's just so awesome to see. And even though it,
18:58
Josh: sure, it was inefficient.
18:59
Josh: Sure, there were a lot of mistakes. Sure, it took us a long time. We're here, we're back.
19:02
Josh: And we are back in a way that is sustainable and durable. And the window is open to do this now.
19:07
Josh: And assuming things continue to go well, assuming there is no catastrophe within
19:12
Josh: our country between now and like maybe 15, 20 years from now,
19:15
Josh: Ejaz, you can go to the moon.
19:17
Josh: I'll be able to go to the moon. And it will be very cost effective.
19:19
Josh: Because when you think about the launch costs, I mean, $10 million to send a
19:22
Josh: starship to the moon today, what is that going to cost like a decade from now?
19:26
Josh: Probably significantly less. And I assume it's going to be something like an
19:29
Josh: airplane because at the end, at the limit, that's the only way that this becomes.
19:33
Josh: Sustainable business model is if they are able to do that at a cost that's competitive.
19:37
Josh: And that seems to be the goal. And over the next 10 years, we're going to build something that,
19:42
Josh: is indistinguishable from sci-fi. Like it's really going to start to look like
19:44
Josh: the future. And that is so unbelievably exciting.
19:47
Ejaaz: I remember last year, Elon was speaking about the launch economics of putting stuff into outer space.
19:54
Ejaaz: And he mentioned that there might in the short term be this new type of transportation
19:59
Ejaaz: system for people who want to get to countries quicker.
20:02
Ejaaz: So what he modeled out was going straight up in a SpaceX shuttle and coming
20:07
Ejaaz: down about 44 minutes later in Japan.
20:10
Ejaaz: And so you've done the journey from the US to Japan in 44 minutes,
20:13
Ejaaz: where usually it would take like 13 to 19 hours, depending on airline and flight time.
20:18
Ejaaz: So there are a lot of intermediary benefits that are going to happen with all of this.
20:21
Ejaaz: But hey, I'm so proud of all of this. And as a foreigner and a tourist living
20:25
Ejaaz: in this country, I'm wearing my American flag here.
20:27
Ejaaz: I don't know if you guys can see it, but I'm proud of us.
20:30
Ejaaz: And I'm super excited to see. I hope the mission is successful and hopefully
20:33
Ejaaz: it'll lead to more missions in the future.
20:35
Josh: Yeah, we got to keep but real we got a clap back where it's deserved that uh
20:38
Josh: descriptor that you're saying about spacex that's
20:41
Josh: the vertical takeoff and landing rockets the vetols and i
20:44
Josh: believe the video where they initially pitched that idea is probably
20:47
Josh: close to seven or eight years old and they made a total of zero progress towards
20:51
Josh: that so damn space is hard man and priorities change like spacex was going to
20:56
Josh: build vtol rockets and go to the mars uh now they're going to the moon and nasa
21:00
Josh: hasn't really had the opportunity to go to the moon no they're doing it now
21:03
Josh: so priorities change things shift, but right now we have a very clear trajectory.
21:08
Josh: Jared Isaacman has said, we are going to the moon. We are colonizing it.
21:11
Josh: We are building a lunar base. 10 years.
21:13
Josh: And we actually have momentum. There are astronauts in the air right now and
21:17
Josh: a very clear trajectory to continuing that. So,
21:19
Josh: Really cool. If you're listening to this, chances are they're still in space.
21:22
Josh: You can go to NASA's YouTube channel and watch this live in real time.
21:26
Josh: And it's pretty amazing.
21:27
Josh: You could just see these guys kind of hanging out. They were taking pictures with their iPhones.
21:30
Josh: I think the idea of this is to run some science experiments,
21:34
Josh: sure, but also just to get people excited about space and to make it more relatable,
21:37
Josh: to make it more accessible.
21:39
Josh: And I mean, it's really exciting. So I would encourage anyone to go and check
21:42
Josh: out the live stream, share maybe in the comment section what's most exciting.
21:45
Josh: I don't know, Eijas, any final thoughts before we head out today?
21:48
Ejaaz: I want people's over-under on SpaceX getting us to a moon settlement fully living
21:54
Ejaaz: by 2028 versus NASA doing it themselves.
21:58
Ejaaz: What do you people, folks listening to us think? My bet is SpaceX.
22:03
Josh: Josh, anything? Yeah, I mean, NASA, they already said they're not doing it.
22:07
Josh: It's either SpaceX or Blue Origin.
22:09
Josh: So Blue Origin is doing well. They're really strong in low Earth orbit.
22:13
Josh: They're less strong anywhere else. i think starship is going to i'm almost 100
22:17
Josh: positive starship will be the rocket and perhaps blue origin could do stuff
22:20
Josh: with space station like falcon heavy is doing with the dragon cat how far.
22:22
Ejaaz: Behind is blue origin on spacex now relatively do you think
22:25
Josh: It depends how you measure it
22:29
Josh: but blue origin does not have a starship and
22:32
Josh: okay a starship is really the only thing that matters in
22:35
Josh: space because again the cost of kilogram is is the singular
22:38
Josh: metric that matters and the cost per kilogram of starship
22:41
Josh: is dramatically lower than anything that blue origin has
22:44
Josh: or will have in the near future so blue origin will have
22:46
Josh: the capacity to do specific things it could send satellites
22:49
Josh: into low earth orbit kind of like what starlink's doing they're trying their own thing in
22:52
Josh: fact amazon um just recently purchased yesterday global star telecommunications
22:57
Josh: which is a satellite company to help compete with starlink so there is going
23:02
Josh: to be this competition for low earth orbit in terms of lunar orbits or moving
23:06
Josh: mass further out or moving large amounts of mass so these Starlink V3 terminals
23:11
Josh: that are coming are huge.
23:12
Josh: Blue Origin cannot carry those, but SpaceX and Starship can. So there's going to be.
23:18
Josh: I wouldn't say Blue Origin is behind in the sense that they're behind on getting
23:21
Josh: to orbit. They're just behind on getting mass to orbit, large amounts of it at a cheap quantity.
23:25
Josh: And that's what makes the big difference. So SpaceX is very far ahead in that
23:29
Josh: sense. But there's a lot of companies that are now competing.
23:32
Josh: And there's a ton of public stocks that actually have been doing incredible
23:35
Josh: recently in the market over the last few weeks.
23:38
Josh: Because people are starting to realize the space race is back, baby.
23:41
Josh: And it's all America. It's all the USA. all these companies are fighting for
23:44
Josh: getting mass into orbit creating these networks putting stuff into space so
23:50
Josh: it's a really exciting time i'm feeling very optimistic about the future of
23:53
Josh: space travel and i'm glad that everyone's aligned government private industry
23:57
Josh: the people everyone's stoked about this.
23:59
Ejaaz: You would think that AI is like the hottest stock in industry to invest in right
24:04
Ejaaz: now, but SpaceX just filed for a discretionary IPO. So it's happening.
24:11
Ejaaz: They're targeting a June launch and the valuation that they're going for is $1.75 trillion.
24:16
Ejaaz: It'll be the biggest, largest IPO that we've ever seen before.
24:20
Ejaaz: The over-under that I've seen on a lot of websites as well is it's going to
24:25
Ejaaz: be valued above $2 trillion by the close of day on its initial day.
24:28
Ejaaz: So people are excited about space.
24:31
Ejaaz: They realize that there is so much of a bigger opportunity outside of Earth
24:35
Ejaaz: than just constrained to Earth's resources.
24:37
Ejaaz: And I'm excited to see this manifest and become real.
24:40
Ejaaz: Just truly a great day for the world and America in general.
24:44
Ejaaz: I wish the astronauts and the mission the best of success. I'm going to be tracking
24:47
Ejaaz: this for the next six days.
24:48
Ejaaz: Sorry, the next 10 days. There's not going to be anything else I'm going to be watching.
24:51
Josh: That's great. Big week for the optimists, man. Space is back.
24:54
Josh: We are so back. And we got 10 days to enjoy this.
24:58
Josh: 250th anniversary of the united states painted on both
25:00
Josh: of those boosters that are going to be burning up in orbit
25:03
Josh: as they return back to earth and it's really cool i
25:06
Josh: mean this is awesome this is exciting it leaves me optimistic i'm curious your
25:09
Josh: takes on whether you are also joining us in the optimism
25:12
Josh: or not but anyways thank you so much for watching
25:14
Josh: if you enjoyed this episode do not forget to share it with your friend who
25:17
Josh: is also perhaps a space nerd or maybe you just
25:20
Josh: want to joke about how inefficient nasa is or how their
25:23
Josh: menu is more sufficient than the menu at the restaurant you went
25:26
Josh: to last night whatever it is don't forget to rate us
25:29
Josh: um however you believe we deserve to be rated five stars is pretty awesome on
25:32
Josh: your favorite podcast player we have a newsletter i just published a new issue
25:36
Josh: that went live yesterday all about this mission in a little bit more detail
25:39
Josh: so if you're interested in that you can go subscribe all of the links are found
25:42
Josh: in the description below and yeah i think that wraps up our episode today thank
25:45
Josh: you guys so much for watching.