Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: This is part two of our interview with Wall Street
Speaker 2: Journal reporter Emily Gliza. If you haven't already stopped by
Speaker 2: listening to Poplam Elon Musk's plan to take O Vanessa.
Speaker 3: There's this program at NASA that is known as Artemis,
Speaker 3: and it's a long range plan to explore the Moon
Speaker 3: and eventually Mars.
Speaker 1: We are going to the Moon, to deep space and
Speaker 1: to Mars.
Speaker 3: So NASA has had Mars and its long term plans,
Speaker 3: but currently it first wants to carry out a return
Speaker 3: to the Moon's surface, and it wants to establish a
Speaker 3: sustained human presence on the Moon with habitats and rovers.
Speaker 1: Boosters ignition and left off for Bartamos.
Speaker 4: Won we rise together back to the Moon and Yah.
Speaker 3: Elon Musk's ideal is skip over all those things about
Speaker 3: the Moon and just start getting a Mars. And our
Speaker 3: reporting shows that at some parts of the US government
Speaker 3: he is getting the wheels training for his plans to
Speaker 3: move forward.
Speaker 2: From Schwartz Media, I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am.
Speaker 2: As Wall Street Journal reporter Emily Glazer discovered Elon Musk
Speaker 2: is pressing NASA to abandon its planned journeys to the Moon,
Speaker 2: projects that have been decades in the making, with billions
Speaker 2: already spent and contracts already signed. But despite backlash from
Speaker 2: NASA insiders and politicians on both sides of Congress who
Speaker 2: view his plans as costly, disruptive, and politically toxic, Musk
Speaker 2: remains resolute today. Emily Glazer on whether the SpaceX CEO
Speaker 2: can really upend NASA's return to the Moon. It's Friday,
Speaker 2: April eleven. So Emily, I know you've been speaking to
Speaker 2: people close to Musk, but you've also been talking to
Speaker 2: a lot of people within NASA, and I just wonder
Speaker 2: if you can tell me a bit more about what
Speaker 2: Elo Musk's focus on Mars means for NASA's current plans
Speaker 2: to go back to the Moon. How has that all shifted.
Speaker 3: So there were officials from Trump's Office of Management and Budget,
Speaker 3: so this is like a division within the White House
Speaker 3: that controls federal spending. They've told people that there are
Speaker 3: discussions underway to move US government dollars toward Mars initiatives
Speaker 3: and away for NASA programs focused on the Moon and
Speaker 3: science mission. So that goes back to this whole idea
Speaker 3: of like how much is this going to cost, and
Speaker 3: even if you move like all these other programs and
Speaker 3: shift priorities, you know it would be quite an undertaking.
Speaker 3: So NASA has been working on the Artemis program and
Speaker 3: its predecessors for many, many, many years, and even to
Speaker 3: the point where the cost for the government's programming on
Speaker 3: all this roughly thirteen years. They've projected it to be
Speaker 3: ninety three billion dollars. And that's from the government's fiscal
Speaker 3: year of twenty twelve through the fiscal year of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty five, and that's all around Artemis spending ninety three billion.
Speaker 3: So this is a very expensive, very costly program. And
Speaker 3: Elon Musk has not been shy. In fact, he tweeted
Speaker 3: on x in January he said the Moon program is
Speaker 3: a distraction, and days earlier he criticized Artemis and said
Speaker 3: something entirely new is needed. So if they were to
Speaker 3: kill those programs or dramatically remake the Moon programs, that
Speaker 3: would unravel so many years of development work. Though, we've
Speaker 3: also talked to people that say some of the hardware
Speaker 3: for Artemis it's just too expensive, it's too slow to produce,
Speaker 3: and it's behind schedule. So there are people that are
Speaker 3: definitely in the camp of like, don't cancel this. There's
Speaker 3: so much time and energy and money that went into it,
Speaker 3: and then there are other people saying this is just
Speaker 3: not working and we got to rip it up. And
Speaker 3: sometimes you need to bring in an outsider to really
Speaker 3: throw things up in the air. And perhaps, you know,
Speaker 3: if Elon Musk is that person and Donald Trump can
Speaker 3: kind of like blame him for the people that get upset,
Speaker 3: then perhaps there could be benefits to that.
Speaker 2: And just to take a slat step back, can you
Speaker 2: just tell me what the goal of atomis is.
Speaker 3: So NASA launched Artemis one and that powered the Orion
Speaker 3: space capsule toward the Moon in twenty twenty two, and
Speaker 3: that was an uncrewed test flight that debuted Boeing's Space
Speaker 3: Launch System SLS rocket. SOLS rocket is like a really
Speaker 3: big deal in the space community, and NASA plans to
Speaker 3: use SLS to send astronauts to orbit the Moon on
Speaker 3: Orion in twenty twenty seven, so two years from now,
Speaker 3: and from there a SpaceX lander would shuttle them to
Speaker 3: the surface of the Moon a year later from that,
Speaker 3: NASA aims to start using something called Gateway and a
Speaker 3: planned space station that would orbit the Moon so that
Speaker 3: future crews would fly the Gateway and then from there
Speaker 3: they would board moonlanders to get to the surface of
Speaker 3: the Moon. SpaceX, Boeing and others have many billions and
Speaker 3: contracts to build rockets and ships and lunar landing vehicles
Speaker 3: and other technologies for the program, so there's a lot
Speaker 3: that's gone into this and SpaceX and other companies, including
Speaker 3: Blue Origin, which is Jeff Bezos's space company. There are
Speaker 3: many that are tied to different parts of this massive program.
Speaker 3: But now MUSK wants to move up plans to go
Speaker 3: to Mars, and their goal is to launch an uncrewed
Speaker 3: mission to Mars next year, with crude missions as early
Speaker 3: as twenty twenty nine.
Speaker 2: So Bezos would potentially stend to lose contracts if NASA
Speaker 2: switches SKIS to MOSS.
Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting you say that, because if SpaceX gives
Speaker 3: up its roughly four billion in Moon focused contracts tied
Speaker 3: to Artemis, any changes to Artemis could affect Blue Origin.
Speaker 3: It has a contract under Artemis to develop a lander
Speaker 3: for a future Moon mission, so it's unclear if it
Speaker 3: could benefit Blue Origin. Because if SpaceX is giving up something,
Speaker 3: then if those contracts still exist, someone would take them,
Speaker 3: and right now Blue Origin is the other company that
Speaker 3: has an active contract with this particular type of work.
Speaker 3: So it isn't totally clear to us if Blue Origin
Speaker 3: would be a winner or a loser, but I think
Speaker 3: there's an opportunity for it as well.
Speaker 2: And how unusual is it for an individual, someone like
Speaker 2: Elon musk in this case, to have this level of
Speaker 2: influence over a government agency when at the same time
Speaker 2: they also have a very clear financial and personal interest
Speaker 2: in the outcome.
Speaker 3: Well, there wasn't a Doge before President Trump, so let's
Speaker 3: start there. It's highly unusual. I mean, I don't think
Speaker 3: people have found in martyrn u ofs history something like
Speaker 3: this out in the open. That's the key thing here,
Speaker 3: Like we don't know how much would be going on
Speaker 3: behind closed doors for a business person with financial interest
Speaker 3: to have such influence over agencies that regulate their businesses.
Speaker 3: But this is unprecedented.
Speaker 2: After the break, how Congress is trying to stop Elon musk.
Speaker 4: Hi, I'm Daniel James seven Am tells stories that need
Speaker 4: to be told. Our journalism is founded on trust and independence,
Speaker 4: and now we're increasing our coverage every Saturday until the
Speaker 4: election will bring you an extra episode to break down
Speaker 4: the biggest political moments of the week. If you enjoy
Speaker 4: seven am, the best way you can support us is
Speaker 4: by making a contribution at seven am podcast dot com
Speaker 4: dotu slash support. Thanks for listening and supporting our work.
Speaker 1: So Committee on Space and Aeronaux will come to order.
Speaker 3: Welcome to today's hearing entitled step by Step the Artemis Program
Speaker 3: and NASA's path.
Speaker 2: How much I suppose freedom does Moscow Isaacson have to
Speaker 2: make changes at NASA? To what extent would they need
Speaker 2: the approval or the corporation of the federal government or
Speaker 2: other agencies.
Speaker 3: I think this goes back to the US lawmakers. So
Speaker 3: Artemis has really powerful supporters in Congress.
Speaker 5: In two thousand and five, Congress directed NASA to develop
Speaker 5: a sustained human presence on the Moon as a stepping
Speaker 5: stone to future exploration of Mars and other destinations, and.
Speaker 3: A bipurtisan group of senators. So both the Democrats and
Speaker 3: Republicans recently introduced legislation that requires NASA and its leaders
Speaker 3: to continue supporting the existing plans and hardware for Artemis,
Speaker 3: including this base launch system or SLS, rocket.
Speaker 5: Given the time and resource intensive nature of any space mission,
Speaker 5: successfully carrying out a crude space exploration program requires that
Speaker 5: the government maintained continuity of purpose over the course of
Speaker 5: several years. Changing direction isn't free and it is incredibly
Speaker 5: taxing on the United States industrial base.
Speaker 3: So exactly to your point, they're going to have a
Speaker 3: hard time pushing through what they want because there are
Speaker 3: different checks and balances in the US government. So it's
Speaker 3: not like, Oh, Elon wants something, Jared is his guy
Speaker 3: in NASA, Therefore it's just going to happen. But again,
Speaker 3: it's quite unusual to have a private citizen also as
Speaker 3: a top advisor to the president of the United States,
Speaker 3: and there's a lot more power and influence in that.
Speaker 3: So I would say, even though there's bipartisan lawmakers that
Speaker 3: are supporters of Artemis and don't want it to be disrupted,
Speaker 3: we haven't really seen ever in US modern US history
Speaker 3: the relationship that Elon Musk has with Donald Trump as
Speaker 3: a business leader with a president of the United States,
Speaker 3: at least out in the open like this, And.
Speaker 2: What about through the Department of Government efficiency, can Musk
Speaker 2: exert much power through there to make changes at NASA.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and it's already happening. I want to go
Speaker 3: back to early February. I was hearing from people about
Speaker 3: how nervous, you know, folks that NASA.
Speaker 1: Were about Doge kind of landing.
Speaker 3: At the building, you know, each agency, it's like, Doge arrives,
Speaker 3: their people are nervous.
Speaker 1: There's a mystery around it.
Speaker 3: What are they doing, what kind of layouts are going
Speaker 3: to happen, how will strategies change. So several weeks ago,
Speaker 3: NASA's top executives, top brass gathered on the ninth floor
Speaker 3: of their headquarters in Washington, d C. And there were
Speaker 3: DOVE staffers and part of the point of this meeting
Speaker 3: was that DOGE had arrived, and they were kind of
Speaker 3: like acknowledging that this was happening. DOGE would be analyzing
Speaker 3: NASA's work and started off on a really awkward note.
Speaker 3: People are around the conference room sharing their names and titles,
Speaker 3: and one person who others knew to be a JOJ
Speaker 3: staffer described themselves as a staffer at the Treasury Department
Speaker 3: instead of part of DOGE.
Speaker 1: And so it was just like, what's going on.
Speaker 3: This is the elephant in the room, and they're not
Speaker 3: being totally honest, and so even before the meeting, we
Speaker 3: knew that some NASA officials had been concerned about how
Speaker 3: transparent dog staffers would be about what they were doing
Speaker 3: at the agency, and I think that meeting did not
Speaker 3: help to assuage fears. NASA has had layoffs, and so
Speaker 3: some of that work has already started to unfold. I
Speaker 3: do want to say that NASA spokeswoman said that they're
Speaker 3: committed to optimizing their workforce and resources in alignment with DOGE,
Speaker 3: and that they ensure tax payer do off are directed
Speaker 3: towards the highest impact projects while maintaining NASA's essential functions.
Speaker 1: That was a statement for NASA.
Speaker 2: If we consider for a moment the possible end result
Speaker 2: of Musks Mars plans. As global warming accelerates, there's more
Speaker 2: natural disasters. If we were to see a small number
Speaker 2: of people who were able to live on Mars, that
Speaker 2: would presumably be something that would be under the control
Speaker 2: of Elon Musk. So are we entering this kind of
Speaker 2: like thought experiment where the richest people in the world
Speaker 2: can decide who gets to leave when things get bad?
Speaker 3: Here you're making me think of those like compounds in
Speaker 3: New Zealand that really wealthy people have. Look first, I
Speaker 3: will say, if this happens, it would take a really,
Speaker 3: really really long time for there to be the infrastructure
Speaker 3: on Mars to even have people live there safely. But
Speaker 3: engineers at SpaceX have it time is it worked on
Speaker 3: unresolved questions about how humans might live off the land
Speaker 3: on Mars, like turning materials on the planet into usable resources.
Speaker 1: You know. Technical leaders include an employee.
Speaker 3: Whose job it is to focus on landing a future
Speaker 3: starship spacecraft on the Martian surface. We have some reporting
Speaker 3: about how even employees at Tesla we're working on a
Speaker 3: special like pressurized vehicle that could work on the surface
Speaker 3: of Mars.
Speaker 1: So there are all these things that would have to happen.
Speaker 3: I think right now they're talking about planting a flag
Speaker 3: on Mars, which is very different than people living there.
Speaker 3: But you know, I guess once you open the door
Speaker 3: to something to your point, a lot of other doors
Speaker 3: could open as well.
Speaker 2: Emily, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Also in the news today, the Shadow Minister for Indigenous
Speaker 2: Australians and Government Efficiency to center nampujimper Price has cential
Speaker 2: audit expenditure across the Indigenous Affairs portfolio looking for waste.
Speaker 2: Senator Price signaled the possible cuts while saying she'll also
Speaker 2: look to reset the approach to closing the gap, citing
Speaker 2: a lack of progress. And the environmental impact of dogs
Speaker 2: is far greater, more insidious, and more concerning than generally recognized,
Speaker 2: according to a new Australian review of scientific research published
Speaker 2: in the journal Pacific Conservation Biology. While the impact of
Speaker 2: CAATs on the environment is well documented, the paper says
Speaker 2: dogs cause extensive and multifarious impacts, ranging from polluting waterways,
Speaker 2: disturbing wildlife, and contributing to carbon emissions. The review's lead author,
Speaker 2: Professor Bill Bateman of Curtain University, said dogs get a
Speaker 2: free pass because they're so important to us. I'm Ruby
Speaker 2: Jones and my co host Daniel James will be back
Speaker 2: tomorrow with a special Saturday edition of seven Am. Thanks
Speaker 2: for listening.