The New Space Race
2/26/202657 min
We’re going back to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. That is, if Artemis II can get off the ground. I sat down with Jared Isaacman, the billionaire leading NASA, to hear his perspective on everything from extraterrestrial life to the timeline for sending humans to Mars.
This interview was recorded before NASA announced the delay of Artemis II’s launch.
- 01:59 - Where are we?
- 04:00 - From entrepreneur to astronaut
- 09:04 - The “lunar futuristic junkyard”
- 15:06 - NASA’s budget
- 22:43 - Beyond NASA: Blue Origin, SpaceX and private industry
- 27:26 - The orbital economy
- 37:21 - How do we get to Mars?
- 43:31 - “Do you think there's life out there?”
(A full transcript of this episode is available on the Times website.)
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsRoss Douthat· Host0:00
[upbeat music] From New York Times Opinion, I'm Ross Douthat, and this is Interesting Times. [upbeat music] We're going back to the moon! Well, at least that's the hope. God willing, and without any additional delays, NASA plans to launch its Artemis II rocket sometime this spring, sending astronauts around the moon and back for the first time in 50 years. After that, the hope is to actually land again and establish a base for scientific research, and once we have a lunar base, well, maybe it will help us develop the technology to get to Mars and even beyond. These are the goals of the new NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur and pilot turned SpaceX astronaut. As that description suggests, his goals overlap with figures like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, who are trying to make private space exploration work. I want it all to work, but I also have my doubts. An enduring human presence beyond Earth requires more than just ambition. It requires big technological breakthroughs. It requires stronger commercial incentives, maybe mining