Space & the universe
The new Moon race: why everyone is going back
12 min
After decades away, the US, China, and a wave of private companies are racing to return to the Moon. Unpack what's actually at stake — water ice, strategic position, prestige — and how this race differs from the last.
Listen on the app, request early access:
Show notes
NASA's federal budget share plummeted from four percent in nineteen sixty-five to zero point four percent today.
Lunar water ice can be split into hydrogen and oxygen to create rocket propellant for deep space travel.
The Moon's axial tilt creates thermal traps reaching negative three hundred and eighty degrees Fahrenheit.
Safety zones around lunar mining drills may serve as legal loopholes for nations to claim territory.
Lunar regolith can be three-D printed into radiation shielding to protect human habitats from cosmic rays.
The Moon's one-sixth gravity makes it an efficient staging ground for future missions to Mars.
In this episode
- 1Intro1 min
- 2The Cold War vs. The Commercial Era2 min
- 3The Lunar South Pole: Strategic Real Estate3 min
- 4The Geopolitical Chessboard3 min
- 5The Moon as a Gateway to Mars3 min
- 6Outro1 min
Sources
- The New Space Race | The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
- NASA administrator says "we are very much in a space race right now" against China - CBS News
- Why Go Back to the Moon? - CSIS
- The new space race: Why the U.S. and China are racing to the moon | CBC News
- Why go back? How the space race shifted from moonshots to a moon economy | The Independent
- The real reason America wants to return to the Moon | BBC Science Focus Magazine
- As Artemis II hurtles home, a global space race accelerates - CSMonitor.com
- Human flight was still 7 years away in 1776. Now, we're headed back to the moon | Space
- The real moon race is about power, not flags | telegraph.com
- The New Space Race: NASA, Artemis, and the Race to the Moon | Andreessen Horowitz
- How Artemis Could Change the Global Space Economy | New Space Economy
- Space Race 2.0: The Competition for the Future Operating System of Space – The Diplomat
- The Cislunar Competition | Lawfare
- 3 charts that show how Artemis compares to… | The Planetary Society
- From Apollo to Artemis: How Moon Exploration Has Changed | New Space Economy
- Artemis II reignites deep-space travel. Will it also boost a lunar economy? - CSMonitor.com
- An Assessment of Cost Improvements in the NASA
- What is Project Artemis? - by Stephen C. Smith
- Thermal Stability of Ice at Shackleton Crater: Implications for Water Ice Detection for the Chang’E-7 Mission - IOPscience
- Water Ice and the Shallow Regolith Structure of the Shackleton Crater, the Moon: Implications for Future Chang’E-7 In Situ Radar Observation
- https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/acr22-wp-why-lunar-south-polar-region.pdf
- Shackleton crater | Artemis II Moon Mission
- Frontiers | High-resolution accessibility and energy cost assessment of 31 priority permanently shadowed regions at the lunar south pole
- Artemis and the Economics of a Permanent Moonbase
- We Are Going Back to the Moon to Stay
- A lunar base or a lunar economy? - SpaceNews
- As Artemis II hurtles home, a US-China space race accelerates - CSMonitor.com
- Artemis II and the rapid rise of a global space economy | Brookings
- In the wake of Artemis 2, America needs to consider the ‘why’ of its government space program - SpaceNews
Fylom generates episodes like this on any topic you're curious about.
Fylom episodes are researched and written by AI. Automated checks help catch inaccuracies, but episodes aren't reviewed by a human and AI can still get things wrong. Treat them as a starting point, not a source of record — more in our accuracy disclaimer.