The New Space Race: NASA, China, and Jeff Bezos

Summary

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The Political Scene | The New Yorker

Episode: The New Space Race: NASA, China, and Jeff Bezos
Date: July 11, 2019
Host: Dorothy Wickenden
Guest: Rivka Galchen, New Yorker contributor

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Overview

In this episode, Dorothy Wickenden and Rivka Galchen explore the rebirth of the space race fifty years after Apollo 11’s landing. The conversation moves beyond nostalgia to dissect today’s crowded field of national and private space ambitions—chiefly those of China, NASA, and commercial players like Jeff Bezos. The discussion dives into the political, economic, and ethical stakes of returning to the Moon, the rationale behind moon mining, private-public partnerships, and the inevitable tensions around the militarization and commercialization of space.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Apollo Legacy and What Came Next

• [01:15] The 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 prompts reflection on how that mission symbolized Cold War-era American technological and political achievement.
  • Classic JFK quote (at Rice University) underscores the ambitious, unifying spirit:
    JFK: "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard..." [01:58]
• [03:35] Why did the US step back from the Moon?
  • Galchen: The Vietnam War redirected funding and attention; Apollo was successful but extremely expensive and primarily seen as a political and international power statement.
• [04:22] Most presidents post-Nixon have floated ambitious moon plans, but Congress resisted diverting funds—summed up by planetary scientist Bruce Hapka: "Congress decided we couldn't have guns and the moon at the same time." [04:42]

2. NASA’s Shifting Role and Goals

• [05:13] NASA continued scientific innovation (Hubble, Mars rovers), but nothing matched Apollo’s mythic status.
• [05:50] Current focus is returning astronauts to the Moon—yet plagued by the familiar “Charlie and Lucy football” scenario, with shifting funds and priorities:
  • Galchen: "One arm of NASA gets all ready to kind of go to Mars, and then the football gets moved." [05:50]
• [06:33] NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine claims a five-year return is possible—if adequately funded.

3. The Rise of Private Players: Public-Private Space Race

• [06:50] NASA increasingly relies on private companies, approving 9+ firms for moon-aimed contracts.

  • Galchen: The administration's mantra: “anything that a private company can do, should be outsourced to a private company.” [06:57]

• [07:24] The “FedEx to space” model:

  • Instead of grand exploration, it’s utilities—WI-Fi equivalents, delivery robots, etc.
  • Galchen: "These companies are saying, we can build a robot... that can go and take photos of the surface of the moon, and we can do it much cheaper than NASA can." [07:30]

• [08:06] Profit Motive?

  • No immediate profitability—companies depend on government as a steady customer, similar to early air travel’s reliance on US mail contracts.

4. Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin, and Lunar Industry

• [08:50] Blue Origin envisions zoning the Moon for heavy industry and the Earth for "light industry and residential purposes."
  • Wickenden: "I’m sort of struck by that... The title of one of their events was 'going to space to benefit the Earth.'" [09:14]
  • Galchen: The motivating story is moving environmentally harmful industries off Earth—but acknowledges the plans’ secrecy and ethical ambiguity.

5. Mining the Moon: Water and Rare Minerals

• [10:09] Mining lunar water isn’t about direct scarcity on Earth, but because water can be turned into rocket fuel—enabling the Moon as a space-fueling station for deeper exploration.

  • Galchen: "So once you have your own fuel source on the moon, then you don’t have to shuttle back and forth and bring fuel from Earth..." [10:09]
  • Wickenden: "So in that scenario, the moon becomes a fueling station, effectively, to launch rockets and satellites to Mars and beyond." [10:44]

• [10:52] Commercial interest in precious metals is high, but most scientists doubt short-term feasibility for profit.

6. The Commercialization (and Commodification) of Space

• [11:50] Japanese companies booking lunar landers for advertising and branding—feels "crass," exporting earthly consumerism to space.

  • Galchen: "What’s heartbreaking... is you can have a lot of hopeful feelings about humanity on Earth, but those don't seem to be things propelling us out to the literal regions of space. Instead, it's the sort of old story of seize and grab and extract." [12:17]

• [12:39] Funeral company Celestis plans space burials, but has yet to deliver remains to the Moon. [12:53]

7. The Military and Political Stakes

• [13:12] Trump’s proposed “Space Force” echoes Reagan’s “Star Wars.”
  • Wickenden: "He said, our goal is to ensure that we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States anywhere, anytime..." [13:12]
  • Galchen: Most countries have some militarization of space; India demonstrated anti-satellite technology recently. [13:55]
  • The “Space Force” will likely not exist as described, but space is already quietly militarizing.

8. Governance, Law, and Ownership in Space

• [14:38] With many nations and companies investing in space, territorial and resource disputes loom large.
  • Galchen: Legal frameworks are lagging—space laws resemble high seas fishing: "If you catch some fish... those fish are yours." [14:54]
  • Currently, there is a regulatory vacuum—“something between the Wild West and the high seas.” [14:54]

9. The Earth-First Argument: Ethics and Opportunity Costs

• [15:30] Then as now, critics ask: shouldn't these resources be used for Earthly needs—climate change, inequality, and social programs?
  • Galchen: The reality is political—space funding often comes from military budgets, not social spending.
  • She calls it the “collateral poetry of scientific funding.” [16:08]
  • "It’s a depressing and difficult kind of math because of course it probably would be more well spent. But one can't imagine the political situation in which that would happen, at least right now." [16:08]

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Notable Quotes

• John F. Kennedy ([01:58]):
  "We choose to go to the moon... Not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
• Bruce Hapka (quoted by Galchen) ([04:42]):
  "Congress decided we couldn't have guns and the moon at the same time."
• Rivka Galchen ([05:50]):
  "One arm of NASA gets all ready to kind of go to Mars, and then the football gets moved."
• Rivka Galchen ([07:30]):
  "These companies are saying, we can build a robot that we can drop on the moon that can go and take photos of the surface of the moon, and we can do it much cheaper than NASA can."
• Rivka Galchen ([12:17]):
  "...it’s the sort of old story of seize and grab and extract."
• Rivka Galchen ([14:54]):
  "Unfortunately, the laws are far behind the political and technological situation. It's basically a sort of something between the Wild west and the high seas."
• Rivka Galchen ([16:08]):
  "...the ‘collateral poetry of scientific funding’... one can’t imagine the political situation in which [spending space funds on environmental issues] would happen, at least right now."

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:58] JFK's Moon Speech
• [03:35] Why Apollo Ended
• [05:20] NASA's Post-Apollo Work
• [06:50] Shift to Private-Public Space Collaborations
• [08:50] Jeff Bezos/Blue Origin's Moon Vision
• [10:09] Moon Mining: Water and Minerals
• [12:17] The Consumerization of Space
• [13:12] The Military and “Space Force”
• [14:54] Space Law and Ownership
• [15:30] The Earth-First Funding Argument

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Conclusion

This episode offers an incisive, sometimes sobering look at 21st-century space dreams. While new moon shots ignite technical and entrepreneurial ambition, Galchen and Wickenden lay bare underlying realities—government reticence, the uneasy handoff from public to private hands, and unresolved questions about who benefits from the new space race. The romance of space endures, but as Galchen remarks, so too do age-old motives of power, extraction, and competition—leaving open whether the next giant leap will be one for all humankind.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

This is the Political Scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and guests about politics. It's Thursday, July 11th. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of the New Yorker. Next Saturday is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, which landed the first men on the moon, a monumental scientific feat and a decisive triumph in the space race with the Soviet Union. By the time NASA concluded its Apollo missions in 1972, 12 men, all Americans, had left their footprints behind. In September 1962, at Rice University, President John F. Kennedy had this to say about his goal of reaching the moon within a decade.

[C]

But why some say the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills. Because that challenge is one that we're willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone. And one we intend to win. And the others, too.

[B]

Today, many nations and private companies are competing to surpass that accomplishment. In January, China landed the Chang' e 4 rover on the far side of the moon, a crucial step in its plan to build a base there. In April, an Israeli nonprofit crash landed an inexpensive spacecraft. And India and Japan have missions planned this year and next. The European Space Agency intends to mine lunar ice by 2025. Not to be outdone, Vice President Mike Pence announced in March that that the United States intends to return American astronauts to the moon within the next five years. Rivka Galchin, a New Yorker contributor, joins me to discuss the new space race and its political, economic and ethical ramifications. Rivka, welcome. It's great to have you.

[D]

Thank you so much for having me on.

[B]

You did a piece for the New Yorker not so long ago on this subject. Why did the United States pull back from outer space after the Apollo missions? No one has gone to the moon since the early 1970s.

[D]

People have different ways of telling that story, but probably the most thing is that the Vietnam War took the money away. It was a successful mission. It was successful in terms of a public story. It was successful scientifically, but it was very expensive. And the political will redirected itself towards other forms of war development. Like many ways, people saw the Apollo mission as a political mission, a way of sort of exerting international power. And in a sense, we now see how much more positive that was than other attempts at exerting international power.

[B]

You had an interesting conversation with the planetary scientist Bruce Hapka, who told you that almost all presidents since Nixon have proposed going to the moon, but none of them has been able to do it. They just haven't been willing to allot the money. And I guess he said something like, congress decided we couldn't have guns and the moon at the same time.

[D]

It's an interesting point to keep in mind when thinking about current developments towards the moon. There's always a sense with almost all space projects about what an absurd amount of money it is. And that's very valid points, but I think when you look at the history of the funding, you see that this is funding that was not necessarily going to go to social programs or the moon. It was going to go to one form of military research or another. And in some ways NASA is one of the more kind of beautiful manifestations of that.

[B]

So what has NASA been up to for the past several decades? We've sort of. Most people have sort of Lost sight of that.

[D]

Exactly. Because nothing has quite seized imagination the way the Apollo landing has. That said, you know, there's been the Hubble telescope, there's been rovers and landers on Mars. There's been a lot of interesting work. But in terms of something that is accessible and captures the kind of childlike connection that children and adults have, there's been nothing that compares to Apollo.

[B]

And what is NASA's current goal? It too has its eye on the moon and has very concrete plans.

[D]

Exactly. So you know what, people within NASA talk about it as a kind of Charlie and Lucy football game. Like one arm of NASA gets all ready to kind of go to Mars, and then football gets moved. Funding shifts from one project to another. You know, the football is lined up to return astronauts to the moon. They want to do it under a very tight schedule. Whether or not that's going to happen. Of course, as these things always go, there's impossible promises that somehow there will both be funding without draining funding from other departments of NASA. It's very hard to say. Of course, when you speak to people at NASA, they feel quite confident that they will do it.

[B]

And does NASA think that this can be done within the next five years? Returning astronauts?

[D]

So Jim Bridenstine, who's the head of NASA now, obviously he has a PR job and he does represent it as a feasible project if given sufficient funds. I think the key issue for people inside of NASA is that funding doesn't happen from draining all their other departments.

[B]

And that must be the reason they've been working so closely with commercial companies to achieve their goals.

[D]

Absolutely. In fact, the new administration's kind of mantra was private public partnerships. And the way they talk about it is that they think anything that someone outside of NASA can do, a private company can do, should be outsourced to a private company. So they have approved nine different companies to potentially win contracts toward this goal of going back to the moon.

[B]

Someone referred to it in your piece as FedEx to space. Could you explain what he meant by that?

[D]

The thing is, on the one hand, it's the moon and it's so romantic and it feels so different. But when you speak to people about what the plans are, it's really about sort of getting things there and setting up more or less utilities. People have dreams of basically setting up better WI fi or to the equivalent of WI Fi. And these companies are saying, we can build a robot that we can drop on the moon that can go and take photos of the surface of the moon, and we can do it. Much cheaper than NASA can. So that's part of what they're referring to with the sort of DHL to space way of explaining what they offer.

[B]

But it is a very, very long trip and it's such a forbidding place to imagine turning a profit. So I wonder what is driving these commercial enterprises.

[D]

They don't have a short term view to a profit, but what they do have is a reliable customer, the government. So people who are very sympathetic to these projects will say, well, it's just like air travel used to be. Years ago, without the US Mail buying space on these air carriers, there would never have been a commercial airline industry. And that is historically the way it went. So these companies right now are almost entirely relying on hopes for getting big government contracts.

[B]

One of the big new companies was founded by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. It's called Blue Origin. It's an aerospace manufacturer. And they want to zone the moon for, as you put it, for heavy industry and then the Earth for light industry and residential purposes. I'm sort of struck by that. The title of one of their events was going to space to benefit the Earth.

[D]

Well, the vision there. And of course people may and should take issue with it and at the same time see some value in it. It's about moving a lot of the more toxic or environmentally damaging sorts of industry away off the Earth. And in a sense you could say that the vision that's being pushed is that Earth will be cleaner and more for humans, which is a very different vision than maybe the Earth will be wrecked and will live on the moon. Of course there's issues with all of these visions and there's a lot of questions about who's going to have the power and the finances. But that's the sort of motivating story within those companies. Those companies are also of course, quite secretive about some of the details of what they're doing because it's their product.

[B]

One of the things that's going on is their hope in mining water and rare minerals. Could you talk a little bit about that?

[D]

So at first it sounds strange. Why would we mine water on the moon? We have water on Earth. It may be somewhat scarce resource, but we basically have it. But the real idea of mining water on the moon is that water can very efficiently be turned into rocket fuel. So once you have your own fuel source on the moon, then you don't have to shuttle back and forth and bring fuel from Earth up to the moon to do whatever it is you might see yourself doing. So that is sort of a kind of resource they're hoping to develop, which is not a value in and of itself, but opens up other possibilities.

[B]

So in that scenario, the moon becomes a fueling station, effectively, to launch rockets and satellites to Mars and beyond.

[D]

Exactly. The moon becomes a fueling station to do further exploration into space. And the take on that is that it's so much cheaper. For various reasons, it would drop the cost of space exploration dramatically. The precious metals question is also exciting to industry. But most of the scientists I spoke to don't see anything right now that would be feasible that would actually make money.

[B]

America is changing, and so is the world.

[D]

But what's happening in America isn't just the cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global Story.

[A]

Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.

[D]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

[B]

You know, you talked about the waning romance of space. And in your piece, you mentioned this Japanese beverage company that's booked a spot on a lunar lander developed by an American company, Astrobotic, which is scheduled to launch in 2021. And there is something sort of crass seeming about all of this and us exporting qualities that we have not loved in ourselves back here on Earth.

[D]

Well, exactly. I guess that what's heartbreaking about it is you can have a lot of hopeful feelings about humanity on Earth, but those don't seem to be things that are propelling us out to the literal regions of space. Instead, it's the sort of old story of seas and grab and extract.

[B]

And what about this company? I think it's an American company, Celestis, the funeral services company. Is that already, in effect, they are.

[D]

Accepting spaces and booking spaces, but they haven't delivered to the moon yet.

[B]

So. And the idea is you take cremains and cast them out into space and maybe eventually to the moon.

[D]

Exactly. The idea is that instead of a standard burial or distribution of cremaines in the sea, say, you would send them into outer space or deposit them on the moon.

[B]

There's another dimension of all of this, which is a military one. So in February, Trump announced the creation of something he called a space force as a sixth branch of the armed forces, saying that the United States destiny beyond the Earth is a matter of national security. And it reminded me so much of Reagan's strategic Defense Initiative, which came to be known, often mockingly, as Star Wars. And he said, our goal is to ensure that we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States anywhere, anytime, any place. So that, as I understand it, would be incredibly costly and, of course, politically contentious, too. But is it now a feasible idea?

[D]

Well, I mean, I guess it's a continuum on some level. Many countries already have something like this. In fact, not that long ago, India demonstrated capacity to meet a missile in space and explode it. And that sort of upset a lot of people who, of course, those countries also have that capacity, and they didn't like seeing it expanded. That's one of those stories that will come up and come down. But it actually has its own private momentum. So the Space force probably isn't going to exist in the way that the President described it. But there are already militarization of space in many countries, including our own.

[B]

With all of these governments investing in space exploration, there are bound to be issues relating to territory and resources. Countries are essentially staking out their claims to interstellar colonies. Are there any laws regulating what happens up there?

[D]

Unfortunately, the laws are far behind the political and technological situation. It's basically a sort of something between the Wild west and the high seas. The laws that govern it now are basically like those laws that govern fishing in the sea. So if you're on a boat and you're in an area that's not owned by any country and you catch some fish in your net, those fish are yours. And right now, with some nuance in detail, that is the case in space.

[B]

So we touched on this earlier, and I want to get back to it. At the time of Apollo 11, critics were arguing that the money would be much better spent on pressing problems here. Civil rights, social welfare programs, detente with the Soviet Union. And a version of that debate is underway now. So many are saying that we should put all of this research, energy and money towards saving the Earth immediately, right here, addressing climate change and other really terrible problems, income inequality and the rest. So what do the advocates of the colonization and commercialization of space have to say about that?

[D]

Well, I would say, first of all, honestly, most of the people I spoke to, that was not really so much an issue on their map. So that can be distressing, of course. And then I would say, politically, it's hard to argue. It often gets cited. Under Kennedy, 5% of the national budget, more or less, was quickly redirected towards the space program and worked. And of course, you could say to yourself, well, imagine what we could do environmentally if we prioritized saving the earth. And it would be amazing. But then there's the real politic question of on some level this is funding that's going to science that otherwise most likely would be going to the military, because probably various forces inside the government think, okay, we're keeping a population of people educated and a workforce that could be repurposed in the future if we need them, we get the side benefit. This kind of collateral poetry of scientific funding, in what world is that going to be passed through Congress? It's a depressing and difficult kind of math because of course it probably would be more well spent. But one can't imagine the political situation in which that would happen, at least right now.

[B]

Thank you so much, Rivka.

[D]

Thank you so much for having me on.

[B]

Rivka Galchin is a contributor to the New Yorker. Her most recent book is Little Labors. This has Been the Political Scene. You can subscribe to this and other New Yorker podcasts by searching for the New Yorker in your podcast Apple, and find more political analysis and commentary on newyorker.com feel free to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Our theme music is by Russell Gillespie. This program was produced by Alex Barron for newyorker.com with assistance from Kylie Warner. I'm Dorothy Wickenden.

[E]

I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's Global Editorial Director. I'm Michael Colory, Wired's Director of Consumer Tech and Culture.

[B]

And I'm Lauren Good.

[D]

I'm a senior correspondent at Wired. And our show Uncanny Valley is all about the people, power and influence of Silicon Valley.

[E]

At Wired, we're constantly reporting on how technology is changing every aspect of our lives. So each week on the show, we get together to talk about one of the biggest stories in tech, right? So whether we're talking about privacy, AI, social media, or a major tech figure, we will always explain the Silicon Valley forces behind these stories and how they affect you. Make sure you're following Uncanny Valley in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode.

[D]

From PRX.