Space Trucks: One Startup’s Plan to Get the U.S. Back on the Moon

Bold Names

The Wall Street Journal

Technology

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 8 August 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Longtime space rivals Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are vying to reach outer space with their giant rockets. Meanwhile, an ecosystem of other space-related startups are racing to be ready to set up shop on the moon and Mars. Lunar Outpost is one of three companies competing to build a space truck for NASA's Artemis missions. Founder and CEO Justin Cyrus is betting there will be a commercial rush to tap into the moon’s resources, including critical minerals. He says he wants his company to be the “mobility provider” for the lunar economy. On the latest episode of Bold Names, Cyrus joins WSJ’s Christopher Mims and Tim Higgins to discuss why the U.S. and its biggest rivals are in a race to build permanent bases on the moon. Check Out Past Episodes: How Tubi Is Coming for Netflix and YouTube in the New Streaming Wars Tariffs, EVs and China: A CEO Insider’s View of the Car Business Booz Allen CEO on Silicon Valley’s Turn to Defense Tech: ‘We Need Everybody.’ Let us know what you think of the show. Email us at [email protected] Sign up for the WSJ's free Technology newsletter. Read Christopher Mims’s Keywords column.Read Tim Higgins’s column. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Get out of the headlines and into real conversations happening inside global organizations with the Executive Insights podcast.
0:07.3	Brought to you by AWS.
0:09.6	Listen in on the Executive Insights podcast, available on all major podcast platforms.
0:18.9	Big American trucks. On the moon, digging stuff up, hauling it to rockets, and sending it back to Earth.
0:27.0	All in the dream of making the average Earth person affluent in a way few can imagine today.
0:32.6	Thanks to an endless supply of critical minerals and also the key ingredient for limitless energy from fusion.
0:39.7	This week, we're talking about something that doesn't exist yet, but that our guest insists will
0:45.7	exist someday the lunar economy. Justin Cyrus is the founder and CEO of Lunar Outpost,
0:53.1	a company that makes space trucks.
0:56.1	It's one of three companies that have been selected by NASA to build a lunar terrain vehicle, or LTV, for its Artemis missions.
1:05.0	Ultimately, NASA expects that it will select one company for the demonstration.
1:10.6	Cyrus says he wants his company to be the mobility provider for the lunar economy.
1:17.7	In other words, he wants to build big American trucks for the moon.
1:23.8	Let's roll the tape.
1:25.9	Can you name the truck with four-wheel drive?
1:28.3	Smells like a steak and seats 35.
1:30.3	Can you narrow?
1:32.3	Can you narrow?
1:35.3	Oops, wrong clip.
1:38.3	The value that the moon can bring as the naturally largest orbiting satellite of Earth
1:43.3	to the Earth economy right now
1:46.0	is pretty massive, even if you start discounting the resources and the future of the resources
	...

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