Limitless Podcast - NASA's Artemis II Launched, But It Should Have Been a SpaceX Mission

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

NASA's historic launch is putting four astronauts on a mission to orbit the moon for the first time in 53 years. We explore the advanced technologies behind this achievement, the high costs of the Artemis II mission compared to SpaceX, and the ambitions of both organizations for lunar colonization. We look at the crew’s extensive food menu but wrap with a discussion on future moon settlements, and why NASA should consider outsourcing.------🌌 LIMITLESS HQ ⬇️NEWSLETTER:    https://limitlessft.substack.com/FOLLOW ON X:   https://x.com/LimitlessFTSPOTIFY:             https://open.spotify.com/show/5oV29YUL8AzzwXkxEXlRMQAPPLE:                 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/limitless-podcast/id1813210890RSS FEED:           https://limitlessft.substack.com/------TIMESTAMPS0:00 Launching Towards the Moon4:20 Reflecting on 53 Years of Silence5:15 The Cost of Space Exploration8:33 Comparing NASA and SpaceX9:54 Future Missions and Lunar Colonization11:18 The Moon's Resources and Potential12:34 Phased Plans for Lunar Outpost14:00 The Astronauts' Menu14:59 Toilet Troubles in Space16:51 Visuals of Spacecraft Evolution18:11 The Future of Space Travel24:43 Closing Thoughts and Optimism for Space------RESOURCESJosh: https://x.com/JoshKaleEjaaz: https://x.com/cryptopunk7213------Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠

Last night, a rocket left Earth carrying four human beings towards the moon, which hasn't happened in 53 years. In 1972, back the last time we did this, the computer that landed Apollo 11 on the lunar surface ran on 43 kilohertz. That's less processing power than the chip inside of a $5 USBC cable that charges your iPhone. And they landed on the moon with it. Last night, the most powerful rocket NASA has ever built, standing tall within the Statue of Liberty, launched four astronauts into a 10-day loop around the moon. We're not going to the surface. We're just going to fly by, take some photos, and then come back home. And I got to be honest, this is incredibly exciting. I sat there all day watching the live stream.

I cheered them on as it took off, but it's a little embarrassing because we're not even reaching the point in which we left off a full generation ago. So there's a lot to unpack here with this mission, how amazing it is, how impressive it is, what enables with the future partnerships with companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin. And also how it kind of, to some extent, was just a collaboration. lossal waste of money. So there's a lot to unpack here, EJS. But to start with, oh my God, this is amazing. We're going back to the moon and the astronauts are currently, as you're listening to this, flying into space, getting ready to orbit around the moon. I had friends yesterday that I hadn't spoken to in like months, message me and be like, do you know, did you know people were launching

like people to the moon again? People were just like encapsulated by this entire thing. I think a bunch of people all over the world were watching this stream. And it's nuts. The mission is nuts. It's 10 days, we're sending four astronauts around the moon. So, you know, again, we're not landing on the moon, but we're going further than any space mission has gone before. 4,700 miles to be specific, a 10-day mission. Right now, the crew are being propelled around Earth, using Earth's gravity, and they're going to be launched towards the moon in about, I believe, a day and a half from now. They're going to reach the moon six days after that, traverse it for about, I believe, maybe half a day or so. They're going to view the dark side of the moon, and then they're going to

come straight home. And there's a lot of first for this too. This is the farthest away humans will have ever been from Earth. By a couple extra thousand miles, but still the furthest away they've ever been, there's also going to be a new record happening upon reentry where this is going to be the fastest humans have ever moved before at 25,000 miles per hour on reentry. And this is thanks to the free launch trajectory that they get from this mission. So basically what happens is we send these humans up into the low earth atmosphere, we whip them around Earth and then send them out into deep space. The gravitational pull of the moon pulls them into its orbit, wraps them around the backside and shoots them right back to Earth totally for free. No additional propulsion needed.

And I have a post here that kind of walks through the highlights, right? We have 252,000 miles from Earth. These astronauts are going. Reentry at 25,000 miles per hour. Incredibly hot, incredibly fast and scary. And then it just kind of shows the trajectory of this, which is. is it's really amazing. It's something that has been discovered in the past. I believe they've even done this exact trajectory, a very similar one, but just a little bit further this time and a little bit more exciting because it's happening in real time. We have computers that can live stream. We have real-time video feeds of these astronauts and we get to actually watch and participate in this pretty unbelievable thing that's happening. So I've been watching the live stream since yesterday

and there's a tracker which tells you how far away from Earth they are right now. And just as of recording, it's around 50,000 miles. Now, if you're wondering how far away that is, that's around four Earth's diameters away from us. So they are a long, long way away from home. But the live cast is still going on. And people are generally just pumped about this, Josh. There was a hilarious video where a CNN report, I believe, asked this kid, hey, you know, why are you here? Why are you here to watch the launch? And his response was pretty hilarious. Why do you want to be here? Why do you love space? Why do you love being a part of history? We're going back to the fucking moon. Hell yeah, brother. That's how I felt. That's how I felt.

We're going back to the damn moon. Now, that sounds amazing. But when you put it into context as to when our last moon mission was, and there's been quite a few, we've put about, I think, 11 or 12 people on the moon. We've been to the moon maybe 12 people. And we've been to the moon maybe, was it, three times or so, you know, all American manned missions. I asked the question, why has it been 53 years since we've been back? That's a great question, EJ. And here's a timeline that should make you moderately uncomfortable because in 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. We walked on it, planted a flag, and came home. Three years later, Apollo 17, Gene Carman becomes the last person to walk on the moon. And his final words on the surface, we leave as we came, and God willing, we shall

return. Well, God was apparently not willing for 53 years because it has been a very long time. And it's funny. Like I mentioned in the intro, we did that on a computer that only ran 145,000 lines of hand optimized code. It was one 100,000th the power that sits in your iPhone in your pocket. And 350 times more than, you know this TI 84 graphing calculators you used in high school? It's 350 times more powerful than that. And we landed on the moon twice. So clearly there has been this disconnect in progress between then and now, but nonetheless, we are headed back. And this does actually begin to open up the door for why this actually matters. I mean, this is fun. We're learning, we're doing science experiments like testing for radiation out in deeper parts of space. But the

reality is that this is mission number one on a multi-step plan towards actually colonizing the moon, building a lunar base on the moon thanks to companies like SpaceX. This is where I kind of want to transition into the numbers because they sound impressive. It's a lot cheaper than it used to be back then. So that's one win. But when you compare it directly towards a company like SpaceX, which is using groundbreaking technology and cutting the cost down to a fraction of what this mission cost, it starts to look pretty bad on NASA and on this space mission in particular. Now, the headline number is $4.1 billion. That's how much it cost to launch this rocket. man this mission. And, you know, it's understandable. There's a lot of bureaucracy in the government. There's a lot of mouths to feed and jobs to pay. But the fact that SpaceX can do this for $10 million. And hey, if they blow the rocket up, what is it? Like $40, $50 million, Josh? Yeah. So the way it works is, I mean, reusability is a big thing. But even in the absence of it, it is a huge delta. So like you mentioned, $4.1 billion per launch for the SLS, which is this

Artemis 2 mission. The total mission costs, by the way, about $93 billion. So, quite a bit was spent on this. For Starship, it can launch for about $100 million. And that's if the Starship rocket blows up. So if Starship explodes, the total cost to build in materials is about $107 billion. If it does land, which they're planning to do just in a couple of months, that cost goes down to $10 million, from $10 million to $4.1 billion per launch. And actually, EJAS, if you scroll a little bit further down in this article here, there's a visual that shows the difference in size, too, as it relates to payload. And Starship is a monster compared to NASA's SLS. It sits, I want to say 25, 30 percent taller. It has much more payload capacity. It is just a far more impressive rocket.

And the fact that it costs a fraction of a percent, less than one percent to launch. And it can be reused and it can be overflown again and again and again. It's a testament to the gap that has been built between, I guess, government-funded industries and private industry. And part of the reason is the contracts are such a nightmare. When NASA builds these things, they build them based on cost plus contracts, meaning that the company decides a cost, they mutually agree on how much something is going to cost them to make, and then they add a fixed rate on top of it.

So they get a premium. So Lockheed Martin says, this piece is going to cost a million dollars. Well, cost plus means, well, NASA will pay you a 20% premium on that. But there's no incentive for them to bring it down, because the premium gets higher as the cost goes higher. So there's all the incentive in the world to make these things incredibly expensive, where SpaceX, a private company that does not use our taxpayer dollars to fund its launches, has every incentive in the world to remove the costs.

And that's why you get this thing called the Idiot Index, which is the delta between the cost of materials versus the actual cost it takes to get these things into orbit. And the Idiot Index on NASA's SLS is pretty freaking high. I'm starting to think that this entire mission should just have been handled and managed by SpaceX. I'm pretty sure the future missions, which NASA is going to name, putting people on the moon and setting up a moon settlement is going to be enabled by space six. There is no other way that they can do it. They need reusable rockets. They need cheaper costs to get into outer space into the moon and back. Now, I know they say never judge a book by its cover,

but I'm going to judge these two ships directly together. Starstrip is 25% taller. It is two times heavier. It can take 4x more payload than this current rocket. It is completely reusable, and both stages are designed for reuse. So the point I'm going to try to, trying to make here is I think that NASA taking 53 years is kind of a big discredit towards the agency and what they've achieved. Not to discredit that the mission itself is very impressive, but I think the future is going to be with companies like SpaceX that is able to lower down the cost for things like this and produce better efficiencies versus what we just watched yesterday. Yeah, it's totally right. And it's so important not to discredit what's happening here,

because this is amazing, right? It's like we do have humans that are on their way to the moon right now, built by an unbelievable engineering team that did this. It's not their fault. A lot of these people weren't even alive 53 years ago. They are doing their best to get these people to the moon, and they're doing a great job. The mission so far, outside of that one little toilet anomaly, has been a wild success.

Everything is working really well, and that serves a tremendous amount of credit. But like you mentioned, SpaceX is just far superior, and we're going to see that handoff happen as we've progressed through this Artemis program. So Artemis 3, which is scheduled for mid-2020, so a year from now, the crew is going to test docking with the SpaceX Starship, or perhaps Blue Origin, but I would

imagine that SpaceX is probably going to win over that contract. There's no way Bezos gets this. No way. Unlikely, unlikely, but possible. They have the option. Then Artemis 4 is the big one. That's happening in early 2028, and that's when we are targeting for the first lunar lander to actually land on the moon with human beings inside. So, SpaceX is probably going to be handling that one. That's coming in two years. and then just a little bit later in the year, in the second half of 2028, there's going to be a second crew landing plan in which NASA is going to target twice per year landings on the moon going

forward. And this is going to begin the production and the building of our lunar Mars base, which is really cool. I mean, NASA's administrator, Jared Isaacman, he's the new guy, everyone loves him. He's amazing. He announced a $30 billion decade-long plan to build a permanent lunar outpost on the south pole of the moon by 2036. So the Artemis launched today, while we may have some choice words to say about it, is very much the gateway to a lunar base. And this is step one in a multi-step process that's going to happen. And they're going to bring in SpaceX. They're going to bring in starship. The costs are going to decrease. It's just, you know, it took a little while to get here. I think it's also important to set the context as to why on Earth we have two major companies or

agencies trying to land humans and set up a supplement on the moon itself. Elon has his own specific reasons for SpaceX. He wants to get closer to the sun. He wants to train AI with data centers out in space and harness the sun's energy and turn us into a Cardachev or type 2 civilization. With NASA, it is part of that, but they've also realized that some parts of the moon is potentially habitable. They've found or confirmed water on the South Pole. They've got drinkable water, breathable oxygen. And one of the reasons why this is so important is it gives us more access to resources that we didn't have access to before more space. And also, it's easier to manufacture things with one-sixth of the gravity of Earth. Yeah, well, it's also, I mean,

mash driver, dude, we're doing AI in space. Don't forget that. So the plan for, I mean, space extensively is to help build this Mars base, but also to build that mass driver that we talked about in an episode prior, which is a way of distributing satellites into orbit very cheaply and very quickly and harnessing a lot more energy. There's essentially unlimited free energy on the moon because we're able to capture all of it via solar. And when you apply that at scale, it's a really amazing way to begin to scale intelligence, energy capture. We start to build these mini Dyson forms because the cost per satellite become so low. And this is going to happen over this phased structure. They have like phase one, which is happening through 2028. They're planning 25

launches, 21 landings to deliver 4,000 kilograms of equipment. That's going to include like Rovers, drones, communication systems, things of the nature. Phase two happens in the following years between 2029 and 2032, where they're going to start building power systems and communications and habitat modules, where humans can actually live on the moon four weeks or months at a time. Phase three happens just after that, which is 2033 to 2036, which is the fully operational lunar outpost. So this happens fairly quickly.

A decade from now, there's a very high probability that, or I guess not very high, There's a strong probability that we have humans permanently stationed on the moon with rocket chips that go back and forth on a regular basis. And we see it doesn't take that long. This whole mission for these astronauts takes 10 days. If you go direct, I think it's way less than that. It's probably half or something. So the moon is going to change a lot.

And this is very much the gateway mission that enables that change to start happening. That still is almost a decade away. And I want to bring us back to the mission that's happening right now. we've talked about a lot of impressive things the tech, the ship itself, the crew, very accomplished. But I want to talk about the thing that impressed me the most, the menu that they have for the next 10 days.

Oh, boy. Artemis 2, crew menu, was leaked and they have 189 unique menu items. They also have spice levels for those who prefer spicier versus something more milder. And I have to say, this is more impressive than any space mission or arguably anything that I eat on a daily basis

at my local restaurant, my neighborhood restaurants, we've got coffee, green tea, mango peach, smoothie, chocolate breakfast drink. I've never had that before. Apple cider, pineapple drink, cocoa, strawberry bread. Like, that's just a drink section, by the way. Then you've got common food items. This seems like a lot for 10 days, but it is my favorite ever thing. You've got to keep the crew happy. I don't think the space station has this variety of different things. Five Canadian products, by the way, I just want to point out, it's not just all America. I love this. And to my understanding also, this is the first time there's like a fully functional toilet bowl in a spacecraft?

Questionable? Questionable? Okay, questionable. Why do you say questionable? Well, the good news is that we launched with everyone being saved. The rocket did not explode. Thank goodness. The bad news is almost immediately the toilet got clogged.

It got throttled and they couldn't use the toilet. Did it get clogged? It didn't get clogged. They're troubleshooting the toilet. What does that tell you, Josh? I don't know. But the important update is it has finally been. fixed. So the people will be able to reuse the toilet. But the question I have on my mind is,

what would they have done if that was unfixed? You know, I'm actually not sure how astronauts use the bathroom in space, generally speaking. So that's going to have to be some additional research we do after that. Perhaps if you know, you could leave a comic. So I would be curious. I think the menu is very funny. They need to be careful, tread lightly because we know that toilet's a little fickle. So don't go too overboard on the menu. But I think it's fun, right? It's like, if you're going to blow all this money, do it. Have fun. Like make it entertaining. Make it fun and exciting for the astronauts, make it fun for everyone to watch. And I think that's what's really interesting about having the live stream is that we get to watch and participate in this in real

time as it's happening. Now, I do have some choice comments about the live stream. They were standing on the launch pad and I was looking into the cockpit and it looks like it was being shot on a potato. Like perhaps they could have used this SpaceX partnership to partner with Starlink. That would have been cool to give slightly higher resolution imagery. Maybe they did because the image we just watched earlier was pretty good. But there was this really funny meme that I saw that showed the cockpits comparison between SpaceX and Artemis 2. And looking at these two, it is pretty stark the difference, right? It's like one of these looks like it is from the 1960s and the other one looks like it is out of a sci-fi movie. And I think that's another testament to kind of where we've come from and where we're

going, where NASA is very much right in the coattails of its history, which is unbelievably impressive and powerful and strong. But it's a new era. And there is a new kid in town who is building some really badass engineering, some really badass rockets. And based on this photo, like SpaceX, SpaceX looks like what I would imagine the future looks like. Yeah, it looks like something out of the interstellar movie, you know, when Matthew McConaughey is like, you know, we're going to land stars. Yeah, I think it's way more advanced. It's way less cluttered. I think, I hate to say it, but I think there's been a lot of bureaucracy in NASA and in government agencies. in putting people or focusing on space in particular.

I think in that time in the 53 years since we did our last moon mission, private companies have caught up. SpaceX being the prominent one, Blue Origin from Jeff Bezos being probably the one that is in second. I think we're going to start, like, when I zoom out, I think that NetNet, we're going to see more space launches and more space missions.

Before we started recording, Josh, I told you, like, I hope one day in my life before I die, I get to go to the moon or into outer space in general, I think that's going to become a reality. Elon is targeting a launch every hour in the next, I believe, five years or within a decade. I can't remember the time span. But that would be also. That's something out of Star Trek, something straight out of sci-fi.

Yeah, it feels very high conviction to say that you will have the option to go to the moon in your lifetime. And if you want to, you will have the chance to do that. And I think that's a really cool thing that this enabled and this recent focus on space is going to enable. We are very much back into our space era. And this is unbelievably exciting. Like right now, four humans are in a spacecraft hurling towards the moon, and by Monday, they'll fly over the side, which just for a moment, they will see a part of the moon that no human eyes have ever directly seen before. It's really exciting, and this opens up not only the enthusiasm, because this has gotten quite a bit of publicity, but also just the velocity and all of the approvals needed to actually start building and making progress towards the lunar base. Spacex pivoting from Mars to the Moon is really important.

there is now a clear path to building a lunar base, and what it unlocks is really cool in terms of technology, but also just in terms of awe and curiosity and getting excited about what it's like to explore beyond the current planet that we've lived on since the beginning of time. And the progress is, it's just so awesome to see. And even though it, sure, it was inefficient, sure, there were a lot of mistakes, sure, it took us a long time. We're here, we're back. And we are back in a way that is sustainable and durable. And the window is open to do this now. And, assuming things continue to go well, assuming there is no catastrophe within our country between now and like maybe 15, 20 years from now, EJA, you can go to the moon. I'll be able to go to the

moon. And it will be very cost effective because when you think about the launch costs, I mean, $10 million to send a starship to the moon today, what is that going to cost like a decade from now? Probably significantly less. I assume it's going to be something like an airplane because at the end, at the limit, that's the only way that this becomes sustainable business model is if they are able to do that at a cost that's competitive. And that seems to be the goal. And over the next 10 years, we're going to build something that is indistinguishable from sci-fi. Like, it's really going to start to look like the future. And that is so unbelievably exciting. I remember last year, Elon was speaking about the launch economics of putting stuff into outer space. And he mentioned that there might, in the

short term, be this new type of transportation system for people who want to get to countries quicker. So what he modeled out was going straight up in a SpaceX shuttle and coming down about 44 minutes later in Japan. So you've done the journey from the U.S. to Japan in 44 minutes where usually it would take like 13 to 19 hours depending on airline and flight time. So there are a lot of intermediary benefits that are going to happen with all of this. But hey, I'm so proud of all of this. And as a foreigner and a tourist living in this country, I'm wearing my American flag here. I don't know if you guys can see it. But I'm proud of us.

And I'm super excited to see. I hope the mission is successful, and hopefully it'll lead to more missions in the future. Yeah, we got to keep it real. We got to clap back where it's deserved. That descriptor that you're saying about SpaceX, that's the vertical takeoff and landing, rockets, the V-TOLs. And I believe the video where they initially pitched that idea is probably close to seven or eight years old. And they made a total of zero progress towards that.

So, damn. Space is hard, man, and priorities change. Like, SpaceX was going to build V-Tol rockets and go to the Mars. Now they're going to the moon. And NASA hasn't really had the opportunity. to go to the moon. No. They're doing it now. So priorities change, things shift, but right now we have a very clear trajectory. Jared Isaacman has said, we are going to the moon, we are colonizing it, we are building a lunar base, 10 years, and we actually have momentum. There are astronauts in the air right now,

and a very clear trajectory to continuing that. So really cool. If you're listening to this, chances are, they're still in space. You can go to NASA's YouTube channel and watch this live in real time, and it's pretty amazing. You could just see these guys kind of hanging out. They were taking pictures with their iPhones. I think the idea of this is to run some science experiments, sure, but also just to get people excited about space and to make it more relatable, to make it more accessible. And I mean, it's really exciting. So I would encourage anyone to go and check out the live stream, share maybe in the comment section what's most exciting. I don't know. Is there any final thoughts before we head out today? I want people's over under on SpaceX getting us to a moon settlement fully living

by 2028 versus NASA doing it themselves. What do you, what do you people? folks listening to us think. My bet is SpaceX, Josh. I mean, NASA, they already said they're not doing it. It's either SpaceX or Blue Origin. So Blue Origin is doing well. They're really strong in low Earth orbit. They are less strong anywhere else. I think Starship is going to, I'm almost 100% positive. Starship will be the rocket. And perhaps Blue Origin could do stuff with Space Station like Falcon Heavy is doing with their Dragon Catalyst. How far behind is Blue Origin on SpaceX now relatively, do you think? It depends how you measure it. But Blue Origin does not have a starship.

And a starship is really the only thing that matters in space because, again, the cost a kilogram is the singular metric that matters. And the cost per kilogram of starship is dramatically lower than anything that Blue Origin has or will have in the near future. So Blue Origin will have the capacity to do specific things. It could send satellites into lower orbit, kind of like what Starlink's doing. They're trying their own thing. In fact, Amazon just recently purchased yesterday, Global Star, Telecommunications, which is a

satellite company to help compete with Starlink. So there is going to be this competition for a low Earth orbit. In terms of lunar orbits are moving mass further out or moving large amounts of mass. So these Starlink v3 terminals that are coming are huge. Blue Origin cannot carry those, but SpaceX and Starship can. So there's going to be, I wouldn't say Blue Origin is behind in the sense that they're behind on getting to orbit. They're just behind on getting mass to orbit, large amounts of it at a cheap quantity. And that's what makes the big difference. So SpaceX is very far ahead in that sense. But there's a lot of companies that are now competing. And there's a ton of public stocks that actually have been doing incredible recently in the market over the last

few weeks because people are starting to realize the space race is back, baby. And it's all America. It's all the USA. All these companies are fighting for getting mass into orbit, creating these networks, putting stuff into space. So it's a really exciting time. I'm feeling very optimistic about the future of space travel. And I'm glad that everyone's aligned. Government, private industry, the people, everyone's stoked about this. You would think that AI is like the hottest stock in industry to invest in right now, but SpaceX just filed for a discretionary IPO. So it's happening.

They're targeting a June launch. And the valuation that they're going for is $1.75 trillion. It will be the biggest, largest IPO that we've ever seen before. The over-under that I've seen on a lot of websites as well is it's going to be valued above $2 trillion by the close of day on its initial day. So people are excited about space. They realize that there is so much of a bigger opportunity outside of Earth than just constrained to Earth's resources.

And I'm excited to see this manifest and become real. Just truly a great day for the world and America in general. I wish the astronauts and the mission the best of success. I'm going to be tracking this for the next six days. Sorry, the next 10 days. There's not going to be anything else I'm going to be watching. That's great. Big week for the optimist, man.

Space is back. We are so back. And we got 10 days to enjoy this. 250th anniversary of the United States, painted on both of those boosters that are going to be burning up in orbit as they return back to Earth. And it's really cool. I mean, this is awesome. This is exciting.

It leaves me optimistic. I'm curious, your takes on whether you are also joining us in the optimism or not. But anyways, thank you so much for watching. If you enjoy this episode, do not forget to share it with your friend who is also perhaps a space nerd. Or maybe you just want to joke about how inefficient NASA is or how their menu is more sufficient than the menu at the restaurant you went to last night. Whatever it is, don't forget to rate us. However you believe we deserve to be rated, five stars is pretty awesome on your favorite podcast player. We have a newsletter. I just published a new issue that went live yesterday all about

this mission in a little bit more detail. So if you're interested in that, you can go subscribe. All of the links are found in the description below. And yeah, I think that wraps up our episode today. Thank you guys so much for watching.