Transcription
There's a lot going on in the space world, and it's fair to say that 2025 has had some hiccups across the board. In this video, I sat down with Eric Berger, the senior space editor at RS Technica to dive into the latest developments shaking up the space industry. We talk about SpaceX's Starship challenges, NASA's budget cuts, and the fact that NASA won't have a leader for up to a year.
So, you recently interviewed Elon Musk. Congratulations. That was on the day of flight nine, right? Or was it the day before? Day of. Yeah, day of. And uh that flight didn't go perfectly. And then of course we had the recent ship 36 anomaly explosion. So talk about you know how you felt that day after talking to Elon. He was kind of back down at Starbase and just what has unfolded since then and and you know where you think the program sits as of now.
So, it's not been the year SpaceX anticipated with Starship. Certainly, um, it's it's it's been a pretty bad year, I think it would be fair to say. Um, you know, when I saw Elon, he seemed to be in a good mood. Uh, seemed to be kind of back in the saddle as CEO of SpaceX, which I think is important for the company. um and you know got a chance to look at the star factory facility from the inside and it was incredibly impressive um what they've built there and and they have really succeeded in building the machine to build the machine question I think is what's what's wrong with the machine itself right um and I think you have to separate it out like the first stage is going like gang busters they've proved that it's a successful largest rocket ever built they've land they've caught it. They've reflown it now. That's all very significant and important. Um the problem is that there the the the upper stage is something they haven't solved and that really is the most difficult problem because you know getting something back from orbital velocity reusing it enormous challenge and really the key to unlocking Starship potential. So the fact that we've seen kind of four flights or three flights in a row and the ground anomaly where they've sort of had suboptimal outcomes I think is concerning um in the sense that you know I'm not sure there's a fundamental problem with the design but certainly it's a very complex machine and um and they still got some issues and problems to work through.
Well you know you've heard Elon talk about this Mars 2026 window. I mean, what do you think are the chances of that? And also, what do you think about their what seems to be their plan moving forward, which is to adapt, you know, the launchpad as a static fire test stand?
I would say the odds of a Mars mission in 2026 are pretty much zero. Um, and you know, you've got to look at all the timelines with a significant grain of salt. Um, you know, I have said for a long time, and I would stand by this, that sending humans to Mars anytime in the 2030s would be a huge win for SpaceX and for NASA. Um, and so we'll see what happens. But, but, you know, I think in his optimistic mind, Elon probably believes that they're a couple years away from flying humans on Starship to orbit and back. Um I think that that really is is several years out and then obviously going much further than that is is a ways off. Um, so, so yeah, I mean that the timelines are are going to elongate and and as for moving the the, you know, the operations back to the pad, hard for me to say too much intelligent about that, but it clearly is a sign that they are eager to continue test flights um with the sort of second version of Starship, which is interesting to me because I think they're counting on the third version with Raptor 3 to solve a lot of the issues that we've been seeing on on the upper stage. Um, and that's not going to be ready until the end of the year. Um, so the they clearly want to fly more version twos. Uh, which is why they're, you know, not, you know, why they're going to probably do some static fire testing at them at their main orbital launch mount. Um, and that's interesting to me. It it it tells me that they still have a lot of concerns and questions and want to get data back on the performance of these tiles. um the thermal protection system for Starship coming back from from orbital velocity because that's the only really big reason I can see them wanting to head to get data from the second version of Starship, which is the one that's been flying and failing. Um it seems to me they're they're really keen to get data on re-entry. They can continue working on solving the heat shield problem.
Do you think that we'll have any successful V2 ship? Two more chances. I mean, and now they're having to like jerryrig the pad to even try to make this happen.
Um, you know, I have a lot of faith in the engineering team at SpaceX. A lot of brilliant people there working to solve some very challenging problems. So, yes, I would suspect they're going to get some successful V2 ships, maybe even on the next launch, whenever that is. Um, but but again, you know, the the track record of this vehicle speaks for itself right now and it's very poor.
How shocked were you about, you know, the anomaly that they just had and Massiey's testing site essentially being, you know, inoperable for many months. Felt like it was 2019 and 2020 all over again.
Um, you know, when they were testing Starship stages on the ground and they were having some serious anomalies. Uh, you know, it's a it's it's bad because it it feels like it's a regression. Um, but at the same time, you know, there's a couple things you got to remember. First of all, like this is a complex new vehicle trying to do a lot of different things. And I'm talking about the upper stage. And additionally, like these are not like operational rockets. Like they're not trying to fly customer payloads on these vehicles. And so they're really moving at a rapid speed. And so you're not doing all of the quality control you probably would otherwise be doing on these vehicles. and and certainly, you know, you're not doing all the testing and and preparation you would say for a human launch on a Falcon 9. So, you know, the fact that they're moving fast and breaking things, I guess it shouldn't surprise us too much that they're breaking things.
Yeah. Let's talk about a little bit um there's also been, you know, a falling out between President Trump and Elon Musk who used to be looked like BFFs. And we saw yesterday a I guess it wasn't a tweet. It was a truth social or something post from the president I believe about you know hey maybe we should take away those um government contracts and subsidies for SpaceX. What do you think is this is this an issue? Do you think that there's you know a lot of credibility in this?
I do think it's an issue. You know, I wrote um in the epilogue of re-entry that I thought that that Elon's entry into politics would have long-standing consequences for SpaceX. Um and I think we're clearly beginning to see that, you know, regardless of whether they take away SpaceX's contracts, which I don't expect to happen. That doesn't that would hurt both SpaceX, but it would even hurt the government even more, both NASA and the Department of Defense. But what is clear is that there is a lot of pressure now within NASA and the department of defense to find alternatives to SpaceX for their future needs. So in terms of launch, in terms of inspace services, um in terms of of all kinds of things that SpaceX now provides the government, um the reality is that right now there are not good alternatives for a lot of these things. Um, good luck buying a bunch of launches that aren't on a Falcon 9 on today's market or Falcon Heavy. Um, and and Starlink is still far and away vastly superior to any alternative. Um, SpaceX also has the capability to other kinds of satellites for the government. There's there's lots of really competitive services that SpaceX offers, but but that may not be the case forever. Um, and so I think I I I don't pay too much attention to the threats over contracts. That's that strikes me as rhetoric. But underneath certainly there's a lot of interest in the government in finding um non-SpaceX solutions for space flight problems going forward.
Let's talk about the NASA budget cuts. Uh you just released an article about that and you know this memo about the closeout plan. So just for people who might not be informed of what's at stake here, talk about, you know, why this is um not not great for science, for NASA, for you know, the space enthusiast.
Yeah. So it's kind of complicated. Um but but the big picture is that Russell VA and the Office of Management and Budget at the White House, it's very anti-science. You see this across the board with large cuts the National Science Foundation, NIH, um, Department of Energy, which does a lot of basic research, um, and at NASA, you know, I reported months and months ago that that they were likely to try to cut NASA's science budget by 50%. Um, that's ultimately what did happen with the president's budget. Now, normally during a during a budget cycle, the president would propose a budget and then the White or excuse me, Congress would come in and actually write the budget. And so, that's where historically you would see Congress saying, "No, no, no. We're not going to cancel this mission. Here's funding for and telling NASA basically, go continue working on it." So, the president sets priorities, but then Congress actually funds them and ultimately sets the direction of the agency. Um what is happening this year and what I reported yesterday is that actually the the OM has gone and asked and said no no we want your all of these missions that we've canceled and there are dozens to prepare plans to close them out within 3 months and so at the beginning of the fiscal year on October 1st then there's the possibility that that OM could go to NASA and say implement those plans. There's going to be a real fight later this summer and fall and probably into the winter over the budget process because Congress always had a difficult time passing a budget. It's very narrowly split along partisan lines. You need 60 votes in the Senate to pass a budget. So, this is a process that's going to take a long time. And OM has tried essentially it wants to cram down or force the president's budget onto these agencies. Um, and so, so typically what you would see is that NASA and other federal agencies would kind of defer to Congress. There'd be a back and forth about saying, "No, this is what we're going to fund, so continue working on these programs. What we have right now is a very strong armed attempt by OM to go to NAS and say, "No, no, no, you work for us. Here's the budget we're expecting you to work toward." And because there's not going to be a congressional budget passed on October 1st, into that uncertainty, I think OMB is going to try to implement the president's budget. And so we saw a strong sign with with these requests for closeout plans that that is going to happen and there will be a strong effort to cancel a lot of these missions, whatever the wishes of Congress ultimately might be.
Do you think that a lot of, you know, President Trump's uh proposed cuts and what do you think exactly spurred or if you know if the lack of support for what Elon's doing in space? Do you think that that was kind of a pain point?
No, I don't think I don't think the I don't think the Trump Musk relationship really has a lot to bear on what what's happening with the NASA policy and the NASA budget. I think there's a there's a misperception that Elon was like pulling all the strings behind the scenes on this and now that he's out, you know, Trump is seeking to punish him and and through NASA. I don't think that's really what's happening because these budget cuts for NASA were in place were expected, you know, way back in February. That's kind of when I first reported about that this was coming. And and again, we're seeing this not just at NASA, but across the federal agency's scientific and research portfolio. Basically, if you're doing basic research, the government is telling you, "We don't value what you're doing, and we're going to significantly cut that work." That's a philosophical viewpoint that has been held by Russ VA, um, who's the who's the head of the OM, Office of Management Budget, for years. Um, so it's no secret that that that he's the one ar the architect behind this and seeking to implement it.
Yeah. I feel like NASA's just in such a such a hard spot because it's like, you know, they're they're getting criticism. Some people are saying for them to step up, but with without the resources and the money, what what are they to do?
NASA is in, you know, this is this is very painful me for me to say because I've loved NASA since I was a kid and I've written about the agency for more than two decades and and celebrated successes and criticized I think where I felt like it was failing. But this is the darkest time for NASA at any time in my lifetime. Um certainly in my professional lifetime. It's just, you know, they're implementing cuts, employment cuts across the board at NASA. And that's not to say NASA wasn't kind of a bloated federal agency. It was like it was a big bureaucracy. It is a big bureaucracy and change was needed. But the changes that are not being made are not really strategic or well thought out. They're just being made to cut, cut, cut. Um, and they're hitting the science part of NASA's budget, which you know, typically and historically has been far more productive than human space flight or other areas of the the NASA budget. And then obviously the other big thing happened that was, you know, Jared Isaacman's nomination was killed for political reasons like like literally a fit of peak within the office of personnel management at the White House. Um and and and he was like his heart was in the right place. You know, he was he was he was going to battle for these science missions. He was going to try to make deals with OM to really save this and and provided some leadership at a time when NASA has none. The reality is that Janet Pro, you know, whatever you may think of her, is not acting with any kind of independence. She she tried that earlier and was basically told to fall in line and so she now is taking direction from OM and the White House and and so like they're being told what to do from political people and they're implementing those changes and and they may recognize that this is bad for NASA but it's either that or or be fired. Um and so the lack of having like a space council in place um which may be coming but it's not here yet. Um and and the lack of having a confirmed administrator really has put NASA in an extremely difficult position. There's no one to advocate for what's best for NASA at this point. Like literally no one. And so and no prospect of having an administrator in place certainly before the end of the year most likely. Um and so it's just it's it's very dark. The budgets being cut. There's there's very little leadership. Um, you know, they talked about, you know, transitioning to Mars, but that's, I think, gone. Like, like there's no one pushing for Mars. Um, there's no money yet in the budget. Congress doesn't care about that. They're going to want a couple of Artemis missions and and then they don't care. It's just it's I hate to be really like a Debbie Downer, but but it's they are they are gutting our national space agency, and it's difficult to see a happy path forward for the a for NASA.
It just shocked me to see that nomination withdrawal for Jared. I mean, to me, he was like the best person for the job. And so, you know, what exactly do you think happened? I know that he's talked about it on the All-InO podcast. There was some speculation that it was because he wasn't always or he had, you know, been Democratic donor at least in the past. Like, it just I don't buy it. What do you What What happened?
Oh, it's quite clear what happened. Um, I've talked to Jared about this. I think other people have as well. Um, you know, his his donations to Democrats in the past, and he gave to both parties for pragmatic reasons were well known going back to the beginning of his nomination. The president knew about it. Um what happened was that that Elon Musk when he was in Washington DC made a lot of enemies and in trying to make changes in various departments you know he he incurred the wrath of of cabinet officials and he incurred the wrath of of people including Sergio Gore within the office of personnel management which basically signs off on federal hires and Elon was trying to get people hired and he was as as he does running roughshot. Um, well, some of these people had the political stick to to sort of stand up to him. And as soon as Elon, it was clear Elon was leaving Washington DC. Um, like literally as he was walking out the door, they they saw an opportunity to stab him in the back and and take out Isaacman um as administrator. And it wasn't I don't think it was super personal against Isaacman, but it was just like, you know, Elon had had helped put him in that position to be NASA administrator. And so, you know, they were going to take him out. Um, and they were able to sort of make a stronger case. The president that that he had given to Democrats and and maybe they found some people that Isaac Benn had given to that Trump personally didn't like and so they just sort of underlined that, underscored it and took him out. But it was literally it was literally people with the Office of Personal Management seeking to take some revenge on on Musk.
That is so petty and I feel like it's like one of the worst decisions, you know? I mean, the fact that NASA could be leaderless for up to a year. When is the last time that that happened? I mean, I know these things can take a while.
Well, it took a it took a long time to get Binstein confirmed as administrator during the first Trump administration, but the agency had good leadership in absentia, like the the the acting administrator had some power, um some decision-m ability and and a little bit more independence from the politicals. um that's not the and also Vice President Mike Pence was was clearly going to head the space council was was playing a role um and and more involved and I think JD Vance is eventually going to head the National Space Council but I think it's going to be too late to need um because that's not going to be set up for a while um and again we're just really in a position this time where it's very clear to me and anyone watching this closely that is is the Office of Management and Budget um whose priority it is to like keep federal costs down. Hey, look, we need to control federal costs, but but their priorities are to keep cost down. And a personal priority of of Russ VA is is just very anti-science. Um are are running the show at NASA. It's not space people running the show making these decisions. It's budget people and that's very harmful and and I don't see that changing in the coming months.
Well, you know, not only is science going to suffer, but also our strategies for planetary defense. You recently wrote an article about this rare asteroid flyby opportunity that would be great if we could, you know, study it, but we might not get that opportunity because of what's happening. So, expand on that.
Here's the kind of here's the kind of insanity about how these these decisions are being made. So, Papus is a 270 meter asteroid, very large um is going to fly by Earth within about um I think 18,000 miles. Certainly less than onetenth of the way out to the moon. Very close flyby. And NASA had a spacecraft called Osiris Rex that went out to the asteroid Bennu about half a decade ago, took a sample and in a small canister brought that sample back to Earth. It's it's now here in Houston, a couple of miles from where I live. like the samples. So that was a big success. The spacecraft that sampled Bennu Osiris Rex is still out there. It still has propellant. And so a couple years ago after senior review, NASA said, "Hey, you know, we should take this $800 million asset and set it on course to rendevous with Apopus shortly after it flies by Earth to get really important data to see how Apus was changed by by its interactions with Earth's gravity. Um, that mission has a budget of about $15 million a year to keep the lights on, to keep the support staff. Um, and if if if you and I were to decide that it's really important for us to to to set up a mission today, it would cost us at least $250 million to build a new bespoke spacecraft to go out there and do this. But like literally, Osiris Rex was designed to go to an asteroid, study it, touch it. I mean, all these amazing amazing capabilities. Um, and the budget proposed by the White House shuts it down. So, we're not going to have we're not going to have a flyby. We're not going to have a spacecraft to visit Apus as it's flying by Earth. That that look, I think we can all agree that the federal government spends too much money and that there are inefficiencies. I'm not going to say there's fraud, waste, and abuse like some politicians say. I think that Doge looked into this and we've seen some evidence that there there was some, but there really wasn't that that much, right? Um, but certainly the federal government is very inefficient. But go after the things that are efficient. You know, taking a spacecraft that you spent $800 million to get into space is perfectly suited to study asteroids and then and then spending pennies on the dollars to give it a second life um to do something really meaningful and you're cutting that, but you're you're keeping all of these other things. It just it it boggles it really boggles the mind and it it sort of underlies the fact that these cuts being made to NASA are not strategic, right? They're just cutting to cut.
Yeah, that is um very frustrating. I feel like there's been a lot of bad news, which we're also going to talk about, you know, Blue Origin struggles. Um of course, New Glenn, you know, so far falling short by a lot of its 2025 launch goal. What's happening there?
Um, so you know, I think New Glenn is fine in the sense that you don't build a huge new rocket and then just expect to start flying them every other month right out of the gate. Um, it's just not how it's how it's done, especially at a company that's a little more careful and cautious um like Blue Origin is is expecting success on these flights. So, they had their first launch in January and it went pretty well. Um, and then they had some budget cuts. And I think that as Blue Origin is trying to scale up New Glenn, they're also they have a leader Dave Limp, a new CEO, has been there for more than a year now. He came from Amazon. I think he's trying to implement Amazon policies there. So that means more like stack ranking of employees and and trying to get rid of the lowest performers every year with with periodic cuts. And so that's had an impact on morale. Um, but you know, I do talk to some people at Blue who think that what Dave Limp is trying to do is really meaningfully trying to change the company for the better and it's creating some illwill inside Blue Origin. Um, where there perhaps was a bit more of a relaxed atmosphere. Um, but but I do think that the changes he's making is trying to make the company, you know, more efficient and and better run. So, I reported um this week that that their first la their next launch of New Glenn is likely to slip to September, potentially October. Um they're going to fly the Escapade Escapade mission from for for NASA to go to Mars. And then I do think they'll get into a higher cadence of launching every maybe 3 to 5 months after that as they continue to to ramp up their cadence. But Blue Orange's got a lot of exciting things. You know, they their their Mark1 spacecraft to land on the moon is coming along nicely. Um, I would expect that to launch hopefully within the next 12 months. I don't think people realize how big that spacecraft is. It's taller than the lunar module that carried astronauts to the moon in during the Apollo program. Um, it will be the largest object landed on the moon since then. Um, Apollo in terms of of mass and width and so forth. So that you know they are starting to make progress. Um, and they have a real opportunity now to to to accelerate. Um, and I think one of the big stories in space fight the next couple years will be seeing whether they can. Um, which I think a lot of us would like to see happen.
Do you think that they could beat SpaceX to the moon?
Absolutely. I think why they will. I mean, I'm highly confident that the Mark 1 will land on the moon before Starship, a cargo Starship does. I would not expect a cargo Starship landing on the moon probably before 2027 sometime. Um, I just don't see it. Uh would love to be wrong about that. Um and then I think Mark 1 gets there next year. Um I also think I also think if I'm sorry, were you going to ask about humans? The human landing system. Is that you know for the longest time I would have bet a lot of money that SpaceX's human landing system put people down on the moon before Blue Origin. Like a lot of money. Um now I think it's closer to 50/50 um based on what we've seen with Starship and priorities within SpaceX. So hard to hard to forecast that far out, but I do think Blue Origin has a real opportunity to make meaningful progress in the next 12 to 24 months.
Yeah, it seems like this could be a tortoise in the hair situation potentially. And broadly speaking, it's a it's a interesting but but perilous time in space flight. you know NASA's budget is going to be cut by 25% and while there will be some employeement consequences for NASA the reality is that the majority of that money goes out to contractors and so the aerospace industry whether it's new space traditional space is going to feel significant pain points I think over the next you know several years maybe that's offset by some spending from the military um but it it. I think it's a really difficult time for the commercial space industry as well trying to figure out where where all this is headed. It's not clear to me where NASA's human spaceflight program is headed. I do I know we're going to see Artemis 2 next year. Um but then after that it's a big bowl of who knows because it's I think it's very uncertain.
Yeah, it makes you you know worried about us not not winning the space race, right? We have China cooking up a lot and uh you know India is doing really well. So this is seems like it's going to set us back quite a lot.
I would not I would not worry so much about India. Um they're doing some nice things but they are they are they are far behind where China is. I think China has a very capable program on the rise and if we don't get our act together, they certainly will return samples from Mars first and very likely put humans back on the moon before for the United States.
Wow. I want to give a big thanks to Eric Berger for joining me and breaking down everything happening in the space world right now. If you enjoyed our chat, don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit the bell so you never miss an update from Ellie in Space. [Music]