Are We Over the Moon?
What Next
Slate Podcasts
4.6 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 4 January 2026
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Trump administration wants NASA to land astronauts on the moon by 2027. They also want them to do it with their budget slashed, a leadership carousel and competing views that Mars is more important.
Guest: Joel Achenbach, freelance journalist and author of Moondoggle
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, just leave and work now. Sorry, it's a bit loud. Um, basically, so I was thinking we could get Macies tonight. Had a big Mac on my mind all day and delivery fee on the app is now from 99P. So you win? Of course you are. Ah, love you. Bye. Exclusively on the McDonald's app. 18 plus service fee and small order fee may apply, but it's replacing restaurants. Serving times and teas and Cs apply. At Accardo, you'll save 25% on your first shop and get free delivery. Which means if you were to buy a four cheese pizza, you'd basically be getting one of the cheeses for free. Save and splurge at Accardo, the online supermarket. Geographical and other restrictions. Minimum spend, pounds and charges apply. New customers only, |
| 0:39.9 | maximum saving 20 pounds terms at Accato.com. |
| 0:51.0 | Not so long ago, journalist Joel Akenbach asked his daughter what she knew about the Artemis mission, a plan to send U.S. astronauts to the moon. |
| 0:55.0 | She thought it was puzzling because we already did that. |
| 0:57.8 | We went to the moon long before she was born, and she didn't understand why we would do it again. |
| 1:03.0 | And I, frankly, had the same reaction. |
| 1:05.6 | And then, Joel, who spent more than 30 years at the Washington Post, asked his neighbors. |
| 1:10.9 | They are plugged in D.C. residents. Surely they knew what Artemis was, right? |
| 1:15.5 | Some of my neighbors, including some who were scientists, thought that Artemis was a Mars plan, |
| 1:21.8 | you know, send astronauts to Mars, which is only a little bit true. |
| 1:27.3 | The Artemis goal, which Joel wrote about for Slate, |
| 1:30.5 | is to put Americans back on the moon before China does it, |
| 1:34.5 | and then eventually use the moon mission as a kind of proving ground |
| 1:38.8 | to pave the way for missions to Mars. |
| 1:41.9 | So the goal with the story that I wrote, in part was just to say, hey, this is what's going on. |
| 1:51.0 | Well, what is that general cluelessness tell you about the current state of American space travel |
| 1:59.9 | and how much the public is aware of it? |
| 2:03.3 | If you go back to the 1960s, the space program was pretty central in our consciousness. |
| 2:10.1 | I mean, they were doing live television broadcasts of rockets being launched with no astronauts aboard, |
| 2:19.3 | but we knew that it was important that this version of the Saturn 5 rocket successfully get off the pad. |
| 2:26.3 | So Walter Conkite would be on television narrating the launch because it was part of this race against the Soviet Union to get to the moon first. |
| 2:36.6 | All engines are running. |
... |
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