Economist Podcasts — "Over the moon: Artemis II launches"

Date: April 2, 2026
Host: Rosie Blore
Main Contributors: Oliver Morton (Planetary Affairs Editor), Dina Musa (Science Writer), Gabriel Crossley (China Correspondent)

Episode Overview

This episode explores three compelling stories:

1. Artemis II Launch: The historic return of American astronauts to lunar orbit for the first time in over 50 years, examining the launch, its significance, and the geopolitical undertones.
2. AI Language Gaps: How AI models still falter across languages, posing critical challenges as they're rolled out in health and professional settings worldwide.
3. China’s “Influencer Officials”: The unusual rise of social media–savvy civil servants in China and what it means for party politics.

Section 1: Artemis II Launch – Humanity Returns to the Moon

Launch Play-by-Play and Significance

With Oliver Morton (Planetary Affairs Editor, The Economist)

• Timestamps: [02:00] – [12:05]

Key Discussion Points

• The Artemis II mission marks the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo, with a launch using NASA's most powerful rocket.
• The first phase includes a high looping Earth orbit, then a figure-eight trajectory around the moon, returning to Earth on day 10, splashing down near San Diego.
• Significance lies in venturing “beyond the shallows" of space for the first time in decades—moving from low Earth orbit (the "beach") to deep space (the "Channel").

Launch Highlights

• [02:00] NASA launch audio dramatizes the moment:
  "Booster ignition and lift off. The crew of Artemis 2 now bound for the moon. Humanity's next great voyage begins."
• [03:14] Ollie explains "Max Q," the phase of maximum aerodynamic pressure where the spacecraft endures the greatest stress.
  • “It's the point at which the system's under the greatest stress.” — Oliver Morton
• [04:17] Discusses the separation of solid rocket boosters, referencing Challenger: “It's always nice to get rid of them.”
• [05:16] As the spacecraft "Integrity" proceeds, the crew enjoys a moonrise:
  “It's nice that one of the coincidences of the way that you have to launch to get to the moon... you can see where you're going.” — Oliver Morton

Mission’s Purpose & Geopolitical Context

• [07:02] Rosie asks: “What's the point of the Artemis 2 mission?”
  • Oliver: "The point of Artemis II is effectively the Artemis III mission. The point of Artemis III is the Artemis IV mission."
  • Future missions will attempt a landing and establish an enduring moon presence—potentially a moon base akin to Antarctic research stations.
• NASA's program, reignited in 2017 under President Trump, has faced delays, with upgrades under administrator Jared Isaacman aiming to increase mission frequency.

Why Return to the Moon?

• [08:43] Morton draws a contrast with 1960s Apollo:
  “The moon missions of the 1960s were effectively a sort of Superpower Flex.”
  • 1960s goal: Beating the Soviets to the moon.
  • Today: Twofold—the end of the current space station era and a response to China's rapid moon program, which aims for a human landing by 2030.
• Current urgency (since Chinese robotic and upcoming crewed missions) is both strategic and symbolic; prestige is at stake (“a hedge against the loss of prestige”).

The New “Space Race”?

• [10:58] Rosie: “So is this really just old fashioned space race stuff again then?”
• Oliver:
  "Part of it is just, yeah, we can do that and you can't. But there are also ideas about what sort of civilization you want to be... national self assertion, trying to be an America that many Americans would want America to be... a moon base sort of speaks to that because it can be seen as this, like, reopening of the frontier."
  — Oliver Morton [11:20]

Notable Quotes & Moments

• [07:57] On mission return: “People have flown this trajectory before, but they haven't done it for more than 50 years... this is going a bit out into the ocean.” — Oliver Morton
• [11:51] Rockets into deep space:
  "Integrity 75 miles in altitude, 330 miles downrange, approaching 10,000 miles per hour." — NASA Launch Commentator

Section 2: AI Language Gaps and Real-World Risks

With Dina Musa (Science Writer)
Timestamps: [13:10] – [19:13]

Key Discussion Points

• Modern AI models (LLMs) can give vastly different answers in different languages, sometimes dangerously so.
• Example: A pregnant woman asking about swollen legs may get life-saving advice in English (“warned about preeclampsia”) but only reassurance in Swahili (“just be told not to worry”).
• [13:55] Stakes are high as LLMs are deployed professionally:
  • Gates Foundation and OpenAI’s $50 million project in African clinics could risk lives if advice is subpar in local languages.

Why the Disparity?

• [14:36] Data and design:
  • Most LLMs are primarily trained on English, with less data for other languages.
  • Tokenization—the way models break down text—is designed for English. This makes them inefficient and less accurate in other languages, and costs more per query outside English.

The Size of the Gap

• [15:36]
  • Studies on African languages: Top models performed 12–20 percentage points worse than English. In worst cases, dropped from 75% to 23% accuracy.
  • “The gap gets wider the more dissimilar a language is to English... Igbo or Yoruba see much larger drops than Spanish or French.”

Is the Gap Closing?

• [16:37] Progress is real, but slow:
  • LLMs are improving, but language gaps haven’t narrowed significantly in recent updates (e.g., GPT 5.2 ≈ O3).
  • “Progress has stalled on multilingual accuracy in the last few iterations.” — Dina Musa [16:57]

Are Multilingual Models Better?

• Even models designed for multilingual use (like Meta’s Llama) often default to answering in English first, then translate—losing accuracy in the process.
  • Mandarin/Korean: Under a quarter of factual questions answered correctly, despite possessing the relevant knowledge in English.

Solutions & Outlook

• [18:14]
  • Adding even small amounts of high-quality non-English data can help—related languages provide positive spillovers.
  • Deeper fix would be redesigning tokenization for linguistic diversity.
  • However, these changes require labs to prioritize non-English accuracy, which isn’t currently the case.
  • “Right now... the people with the most to gain from these tools who are in developing economies, are the least able to use them.” — Dina Musa [18:57]

Section 3: China’s “Influencer Officials” — A Social Media Revolution in Governance

With Gabriel Crossley (China Correspondent, Beijing)
Timestamps: [19:30] – [23:56]

Key Discussion Points

• Young Communist Party officials are increasingly using social media to broadcast their dedication amid pressure from both the public and the party’s leadership.

Why Social Media Now?

• Officials face complaints of being lazy and out of touch; President Xi Jinping campaigns vocally against “bureaucratic laziness.”
  • New anti-corruption focus now includes laziness, making it imperative for young officials not only to work, but to be seen working.

What Kind of Content?

• Examples:

  • Officials like Pang Fuqiang post videos giving noodles to villagers.
  • Others film themselves managing local issues—traffic control, produce—and are highly responsive to comments.
  • Many of these “influencer officials” work in rural areas, featuring local fruits and vegetables in their content.

• [22:15] A viral example—Lin Yang Duo, “China's hottest village cadre,” smashes persimmons with his biceps: “He calls his follower 'babe.' ... He became famous by posting videos like this of him squashing persimmons, which are a local specialty, on his biceps.”

Does the Party Approve?

• [23:01]
  • Party higher-ups approve: Social media–famous officials are more likely to get promoted and attract state investment.
  • There are risks: Some officials take bigger, riskier stunts; in one tragic case, an official died filming a horse-riding promotion.
  • Some party critics argue this distracts from real governance, but for now, “influencer officials” enjoy support. Trends could change quickly.

Notable Insights

• Crossley: “For now, the party does seem supportive, but what's more popular today can quickly fall out of favor.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On moon launches:
  "This is going a bit out into the ocean. Our colleague Tim said that it's the difference between going 40 meters off the beach at Dover and swimming the Channel." — Oliver Morton [07:57]

• On the moon as a prestige project:
  “There's a lot of ideological weight in America that says, yeah, we want to be people who go forth and do stuff that no one else has done before... a moon base sort of speaks to that because it can be seen as this, like, reopening of the frontier.” — Oliver Morton [11:20]

• On AI language risk:
  “The people with the most to gain from these tools... are the least able to use them.” — Dina Musa [18:57]

• On China’s influencer officials:
  “Some officials been doing more and more extreme stunts to get views... Some party critics say that this sort of thing is distracting officials from real work.” — Gabriel Crossley [23:30]

Timestamps for Major Segments

• [02:00] – Artemis II launch and live commentary with Oliver Morton.
• [07:02] – Mission aims and America’s lunar ambitions discussed.
• [13:10] – Dina Musa on AI language gaps and health risks.
• [19:30] – Gabriel Crossley on the rise of “influencer officials” in China.
• [23:54] – Closing remarks and cross-promo to Drum Tower (China podcast).

Final Thoughts

This episode of The Intelligence reminds listeners that the stories beneath the headlines—be it a new space race, the quiet risks in AI, or shifting forms of statecraft in China—are shaping the future just as much as the “main events.”