Main Engine Cut Off - T+322: SpaceX Acquires xAI as it Prepares for IPO, Blue Origin Cancels New Shepard, and Artemis II Delayed (with Loren Grush)

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Loren Grush, of Bloomberg, joins me to talk about SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI, its preparation for a potential IPO, Blue Origin’s cancellation of New Shepard and their recent momentum, and the delay to Artemis II following its first wet dress rehearsal.This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 33 executive producers—David, Natasha Tsakos, Stealth Julian, Warren, Joakim, Tim Dodd (the Everyday Astronaut!), Miles O’Brien, Pat, Better Every Day Studios, Will and Lars from Agile, The Astrogators at SEE, Steve, Joonas, Frank, Fred, Heiko, Donald, Lee, Russell, Kris, Ryan, Theo and Violet, Joel, Matt, Jan, Josh from Impulse, and four anonymous—and hundreds of supporters.TopicsSpaceX Acquires xAI as Musk Prepares for Mega IPO - BloombergSpaceX-xAI Deal Blurs Musk’s Once-Clear Space Exploration Mission - BloombergLoren Brichter, a High Priest of App Design - WSJBlue Origin to Pause New Shepard Flights for No Less Than Two Years | Blue OriginNASA Conducts Artemis II Fuel Test, Eyes March for Launch Opportunity   - NASAThe ShowLike the show? Support the show on Patreon or Substack!Email your thoughts, comments, and questions to [e-mail] @WeHaveMECOFollow @[e-mail] on MastodonListen to MECO HeadlinesListen to Off-NominalJoin the Off-Nominal DiscordSubscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn or elsewhereSubscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off NewsletterArtwork photo by NASA/John KrausWork with me and my design and development agency: Pine Works

Hello and welcome to Managing Cutoff. I am Anthony Colangelo and I've got Lauren Grush from Bloomberg here with me today to talk about everything that's been going on lately. SpaceX IPO, New Shepherd, Artemis 2, tons of news to dig into it. So let's get right into it. Lauren Grush, you have not been on Main Engine Cutoff for a long time. We keep stealing you to hang out on Off Nominal. So I don't think I've ever been on Main Engine. No, you have. That's nonsense. Look through your archives. I'm pretty sure I'm a full-time off nominal guest. No. No, it can't be. All right. I know I ran some of those off-nominals in the main engine got off feed, but I feel like you've at least been on it. That's stupid.

If that's true, that's dumb. If I've been on it's once, I think. Max, yeah. The problem is you're too fun and we have you over an alf nominal. Right. That's the fun one, yeah. Well, luckily, uh, this will be fun as well. Yeah, luckily we don't have any topics to cover today.

No, no. Just three of the greatest topics there are, which is. Super slow start to the 2026. Yeah. Artemis 2, Donuts thing. Blue Origin ostensibly about the New Shepherd cancellation, but I think that cracks into the whole New Shepherd storyline. Or Blue Origin storyline, generally.

And, yeah, I was going to say, Blue Origins start to the year, what they're signaling for their priorities, that sort of thing. Yeah. But we should start with the SpaceX drama because I feel like we've had a text thread of, hey, we should talk about the SpaceX IPO,

and then there just keeps being more stories added on to that. So maybe we've now collected them all to actually have a good check-in where they've now acquired, merged with acquired. I don't know, everyone, people are using these terms interchangeably. Maybe you can give us some intel on how that goes. I think acquired is more apt. They are a wholly owned, or X-AI is a wholly owned subsidiary through the structure, which I think makes it a little bit more palatable for investors.

And then, yeah, in terms of how they are operating, as far as we understand both of the, companies are still functioning very separately at the moment. And there are some, you know, crossovers which we can get into. But I think for now, um, SpaceX employees and XAI employees are not really noticing much of a difference with the news. And then how that all feeds into the IPO is another part too, right? Like even if the companies operate independently, the IPO is then priced on the conglomerated, uh, asset. Is that how we should think about it? Yeah. And, I, And as far as we know, the IPO plans are still on track for sometime later this year.

So I don't think this in any way cuts off the IPO plans. If anything, it only enhances it as part of the IPO process. Like, I think it's all intertwined together. I believe you and all of our friends that are reporting this. You've had a scoop here and there. You had the, one of the OG IPO sco sco sco scos, I feel like. Oh, well, we did. Well, yes, Bloomberg definitely got like the first details of the IPO numbers, the fact that they had hoped to raise north of 30 billion and that their hope to be at a valuation of $1.5 trillion.

And also I think this, and then we also got the letter first from CFO Brett Johnson confirming. And I like that one the best because that's physical documentation of, you know, that they put it in writing that the IPO plans are on the table. Yeah. And going back to that $1.5 trillion number, I think it's clear if you look at the merger and the $1.25 trillion number that the company now stands at, makes a lot more sense how they are targeting that number, in my opinion. So, yeah, another bullet point as to why all of these things are intertwined. And then, yes, you know, not to to my own horn, but we were 40 minutes ahead of the public announcement about the confirmation of the merger, which, you know, not a lot of time,

but in the news world, that is, you know, an eternity. Yeah. But I will say, you know, shout out to Joey and Reuters team. You know, they were the first to talk about the speculation of the merger. But then things really happened in quick succession over the weekend, you know, realized it wasn't just, you know, slight talk that it was imminent and that it could happen as early as Monday. And then it did. Yeah, it's light speed how this is all moving. Because I'm still like struggling to actually believe this. IPO situation overall. Every day I'm more believing it, but it's still hard to get your head around, especially when up until November, I feel like SpaceX, you know, C-suite officials are publicly throwing shade on, no, we're not going to IPO, maybe we'll peel off Starlink, we're not going to IPO.

And then it's been just a sprint from the, from, when I guess the, the CFO letter you talked about was like that December? It was December. Yeah. And that came right after their board meeting, which, as you know, SpaceX likes to do these twice a year tender offers, and that's when they usually, they set a new share price and a new valuation for the company. And during that meeting was when they said we are thinking of IPOing. So it's definitely very fresh.

And you're right. I feel like my entire time covering SpaceX has been just constant pooing on the idea that an IPO. of the full company would never happen until they were at Mars. Obviously, we've heard the Starlink rumblings for some time. But even then, it was will, they, won't they with the Starlink. And there was a time where we thought that just wasn't on the table for a minute. And now it's a completely different ballgame, which is just so wild. It's letting it all sink in every now and then is hilarious.

Like the idea that the Twitter app that I was, you know, making jokes and memes on for years and years is now part of the company, space company that I cover. I mean, that's just a wild concept. SpaceX owns the intellectual property that invented Polter Refresh. I would like to let you know my worlds of app development and space have now collided in that Pulter Refresh was invented in an app called Tweety, way back. of the day by a guy named Lauren Brichter who lives in Philadelphia and he's awesome. Okay. I don't know if he lives in city. Wait, is it spelled like my name?

It is. It is in fact spelled like your name. He invented Polter Refresh in that app named Tweety that then flourished throughout the ecosystem. Tweety was eventually sold to Twitter, OG Twitter, way back in the day. That became the Twitter for iPad app. That eventually was bought by Elon Musk, renamed X, X, X-A-I, SpaceX now owns the lineage of Polter Refresh, which is the most ridiculous. this timeline I could ever imagine.

Oh my gosh. I mean, if you really go through it all, it is, and then, you know, Twitter gets acquired, becomes X, and then XAI acquires X. It's crazy. It's dizzy. It's wild to think about it. And it's, uh, the funny thing to me about SpaceX is that when they got into Starlink, you know, I thought that I had was like, do they really want to be an ISP? because at the time when Starlink was beginning, everybody hated their ISP. There was just like, you would only gripe about it.

And then it was like, okay. And then I was like, and Elon really wants to own a social network that everyone also hates all time. So I'm left with the opinion that the next thing I'm going to do is enter the health insurance market. And they're going to just try to have three of the most hated consumer-facing industries in America all up under SpaceX. And it's really interesting, too, because they were so largely insulated. from that kind of business for so long.

And I think that might have been, you know, it kind of siloed them and it made them a little mysterious, right? Because most people aren't familiar with space. Most people don't interact, aren't buying rockets or, you know, building satellites and operating them. So really had no need to interact with SpaceX in any capacity. And now more and more, the average consumer is now tapping into a SpaceX owned property, which I never thought I would see, but it's interesting to watch it

evolve. And they're, you know, Starlink's an awesome service. Everyone's got great reviews of that now. There's tons of different ways to use it. It's amazing for aviation and even home use and Starlink minis getting raved about. So like, I'm not saying their products aren't good now, but the circle of life of corporations is you grow and grow and grow and you become the incumbent, and then everyone starts to hate you because your stuff gets old and slow and bloated, and then there's a newcomer. So they are very much on that cycle, which is not surprising. Even if they have these massive growth, you know, they have their sights set on massive growth.

But then I think like you wrote about like, how does this conflict with the actual vision of SpaceX overall? And that's like the crack in that. I was actually, I was thinking about that this morning. And, you know, I'm sure in Elon's brain. And, you know, he's talked about it. He was on that podcast this week. I can't remember the name of it, but basically talking about how it all fits in. And I think for him it probably does fit into the Mars vision and he's just expanding on it

and he sees it as a way to supplement that. I'm very sure that is the case. But at the same time, you know, the SpaceX plan was very simple. And yes, it has expanded for, you know, over time in terms of their products and what they've been doing. but they all still seemed to have relevance towards the Mars goal, right? So Starlink was created because, you know, the launch business as great as it has been for SpaceX and as much as they have dropped prices, still not a very high marginal profit business. I think we've all seen from them and from all other companies.

And so Starlink was created as a way to create more capital. for the bar you know raise more money for the mars endeavor so it still seemed to fit and and this i you know i imagine the ai portion of it will be you know i think for elon there is a way to integrate that all into the the mars plan you know if maybe this maybe the reason i'm kind of skeptical about it is because i'm i'm not a big ai adopter as much as everyone else is so that could be my own, you know, and I don't know if I have an opinion on it all being a bubble or not, but I don't necessarily see how it's going, how spending all of this money on this AI effort will be in service of the bar's goal. But I'm sure people can make that case for me and they probably

well. Well, so I've started, when this first came about, you know, the space data center storyline has been getting increasingly loud over the last couple months. And then there was talk of, yeah, SpaceX is going to get in this game, which to me seems obvious. They are, I mean, Starlink itself is proof that if they want to put infrastructure in space, they're the best person to do that, best company to do that, because they have everything they could possibly need. Incredible engineering staff, access to their own launch services at the lowest price you could possibly imagine. All the math checks out that they are the ones that would take that on. And so it makes a lot of sense to me that these things are linked intrinsically, that there's, you know, data centers in space

need massive launch capacity. They need a ton of hardware. SpaceX has done both of those things already. So I was like, yeah, this makes a lot of sense. And then the couple of days that have went on since then, I'm like, but I don't see why the XAI portion actually needs to be included in this. Why couldn't SpaceX go and do this alone? And I'm stuck on that at the moment, because, because they're better served if they, you know, Starlink is awesome because they're providing communication services to whoever really wants them. And that could be through consumer products. They have government focused products. They got government focused platforms like Star Shield that integrate in the same way. So they've flourished by having a really strong product

that is applicable across customers and industries. And adding computing power to that platform, Like if every Starlink satellite was also a data center, they don't need to own their own company developing their model. Like, I don't think the models are models. Everyone's got a model. But actually deploying hardware is the thing that sets people apart. It's my Nvidia's valuation is insane. And everyone out, Open AI and Anthropic and all are battling on who's got the best model.

And Apple's fumbling around and Grok's doing its weird stuff. And so I'm like, I'm struggling at that part of SpaceX could, have done this anyway and would have been the one with the most advantages regardless. So why complicate it with a social network and a model that has been the most off the chains and criticized and problematic? Well, I think you might have it be answering your own question by posing it. You know, we've had some stories too about. And there's speculation that this is more of a financial bailout than it does serve any logical purpose. Because XAI is, you know, comes with a lot of debt. It's, um, as you mentioned, it's struggling in various ways, not the best reputation. And here,

SpaceX has a pretty stellar reputation and is by, by and large, Elon's most successful company, uh, you know, it's a, it's a, maybe an older sibling helping out a, you know, younger struggling. Well, and the, I mean, what would it deal on buy Twitter for, 44 billion or something like that? Is that, that's the number in my head? Yeah. That's a rounding error on the SpaceX valuation.

And now, now XAI is at 250 billion valuation, at least according to this recent acquisition. And, yeah, SpaceX is now at one trillion, which is filed. And now, I mean, we can't, we can't talk about them apart anymore. They are one company. So $1.25 trillion, it's mind-boggling. It's crazy, but I'm also a, I'm of the mind. Maybe I'm just like way more optimistic than you on both AI and SpaceX valuation takes. That's totally fine.

Yeah, I'm like, there is no ceiling here for any of these things. I, in my own life, see the huge value in these tools. They are tools. I don't know. I think that's a whole argument we can, I'd rather have with you in person when we're waiting on an Artemis 2 delay or something. But the, I mean, SpaceX is. is an insane, it feels silly for me to try to assign a monetary value to SpaceX. They are a hugely

important thing. And if you look at them as a national asset, they are like an insane asset that has proven its worth in geopolitical situations, like wars going on, the mere existence of a, they are so far an outlier in the industry. And no one is even close to catching up on really any of their different product lines. They still remain a ridiculous outlier. And no one can figure out really why that is. You know, there are executives that go and I'm going to overwork people the way Elon Musk overwork people. That doesn't really work either. I'm going to try to simplify architectures down to first principles thinking, that doesn't really work either. There's some weird mix that is really like impossible to define and extract and recreate that makes them this outlier. And

I don't know how to value that as like a person who looks at financials. And that's not my job. And I can say things that you're not allowed to say and whatever. But I'm like, I believe it. Whatever the devaluation is, I believe it because I can't figure out how to put a cap on what that actually is worth. Well, and going back to the vision that we talked about, I do think a big part of that secret sauce is the vision that Elon has laid out for SpaceX, right? I mean, by all indications from talking to folks in the industry, you know, people, a large amount of people go to SpaceX because they really believe in the mission, right? And Mars is a big part of that, making humanity a multi-planetary species. That's a big part of that.

So I really do wonder what this, I think of it as a detour. not so it's not that Mars isn't off the table and I'm assuming it will still be a big part of the conversation but it does feel like a bit of a detour on the road to Mars and I do wonder how that will sit with the employees the former employees the people who were very much tapped into the mission yeah exactly it's it's interesting too when you think about 10 years ago right uh Elon at IAC's in Guadalajaro, wherever, the stump speech had a lot more energy than than it did in the last couple years.

And every time that they've done, oh, a Star Base update or whatever, it's kind of just this half-baked version of it. Elon doesn't really seem that into it, but it's a lot of the same points that he's talked about for years. And to me, I was like, well, that's because Starship and Boga Chico

were kind of in this boring spot for a bit, and they were stuck on a few things, so there wasn't really a lot to, you know, new content to bring out. So yeah, it's going to sound the same. But then you're like, well, is that just because he's not that interested in it anymore? And like these other things are taking his attention. And, you know, there's a huge section of the internet that always criticizes SpaceX and Elon Musk specifically that like, oh, he's just doing the shiny thing to distract people because, you know, his empire is a sham and it doesn't work.

And I'm like, it's a tiring storyline out there when then you see like, yes, they're not delivering on every single date or promise. But like, again, look at how much of an outlier they are. There is a there there. This isn't just some bullshit. But like I said, I don't know. Buying an AI company is like, maybe they're a little bit of more juice behind that argument than there was previously. I actually had someone tell me once that they thought that Elon self-sabotages sometimes

because he's too close to he's too close to reaching the Mars goal and to reach the Mars goal would be this depressing moment for him because then it would be done. And so he actually makes these like very big, bold detours. I don't know if I believe that, but I thought that was a very, very interesting speculation. That would be a turn of event. But no, like I said, I do think that in Elon's mind, this all, you know, wraps together. And if you think about it, it can, right? like Starship is needed for this AI data center project and Starship is also tailor made for Mars travel right so that you know they could be pursued in parallel and if they raise the appropriate capital for um you know with the IPO then I'm assuming that can be that can go toward

you know helping with the starship flight rate which then can be used for both launching data centers and for sending things to Mars. So I think they do inner work. They obviously rely on much of the same architecture. But yeah, as I noted in my newsletter, you know, he's just been talking a lot about the AI project lately. And Mars has been a little off to the wayside. And it's Mars has been replaced with Kardashev, like, level two civilization, which I've, oh my gosh, it's been so fun having to explain what that is

to coworkers recently because that's been, I saw Brendan Carr use the term on X the other day. And I was like, I thought, wow, never thought I'd see the day. So, and the fact that it was in their FCC filing about the data center is truly chef's kiss. I will take something you said and flip it in that the data center thing needs Starship. I actually think there's a certain extent to which Starship needs the data center push. For two aspects. One, they just need a, I mean, Starlink was the anchor tenant that Falcon 9 thrives on.

I was just going to make that point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Starship needs a similar thing. But then here's an extra reason I would throw on top of that. I've been thinking a lot about the concept of, I talked about this, a month or two ago, I forget if it was with somebody or just rambling. But there's the whole question of how many flights do you need to refuel a human landing system to go out and land on the moon? And I was talking to a couple of people and then got my head around the concept that they were telling me,

which was like, stop thinking about it as how many flights does it take to refuel the HLS. Think about it like always having a fuel depot fully topped up and ready to roll. So you are constantly refueling fuel depots. And when you have an HLS ready, you go up, you get the fuel and you head out. And then I'm trying to figure out, all right, well, is that something that they could constantly keep topped up while also launching a, you know, a slate of Starlink vehicles or data center vehicles or something like that, that they launch a whole slew of satellites, whatever propellant they've got left that they don't need for reentry, they head over, refuel the depot, and then head on down. Can they do both of these things at once where they're launching

payloads going to refuel Depot and then heading back? And if they're talking about doing daily launches or whatever. That's my home renovation, if you're hearing some noises. That's fine. Somebody just walked by my window at the same time. It's a chaos. There's some metal chopping. Anyway, it sounds like I live at Starbase

to the extent of that there's metal being cut in my house. But anyway, like, is it possible that they need these daily flights for both things, right? That they are going to be using some portion for fuel and some portion for Starlink or data center payloads, and those do actually pair really well together. I mean, that is a fairly cynical concept, right? Like, they're essentially giving Starship something to do in order to justify. It's the lunar gateway of Starship.

I mean, but I guess in their mind, if AI does become this massive industry that people are going to, like the insatiable need for these data centers is just going to keep growing and growing. then I guess, yeah, that does make sense, but that is, you're essentially gambling that that will continue, that thirst will continue, that there will be this need for all of this gigawawat capacity, and then that will be enough to fuel... Keep your fuel depot's topped up. Yeah, to metaphorically and literally fuel Starship

for the foreseeable future. I'm there, and I'm also bought in on, I bet we'll need way more data centers than people realize. Like, I look at the history of technology, and it's like, well, who would fill up four megabytes? And you're like, now I've got four terabytes and I'm filling it up. Like the growth of, there's two kinds of criticisms of space architectures. There is the, that is physically impossible of spin launch.

And then there's a, that's more than anyone needs now. I will never be sold on that's more than we can possibly imagine using right now. Because the entire history of humans is, like, I bet one boat's enough for us. Nope, we have a bejillion boats. Like, we, I've, the, the growth of what we do is, I'm never going to be convinced by that. But it's, and that's where I get stuck, though. I then circle back of myself, which is like, well, SpaceX is the launch outlier. They are the satellite deployment outlier.

They would have benefited from this anyway. And they don't necessarily need that to be an XAI thing. So I go around in circles in this way, and I'm not sure I'll ever be happy about it. I guess what's the big risk, though? I mean, is there a chance? of bankruptcy in pursuing this? Is it just that they sink all this money? Or do we think that SpaceX is, you know,

impenetrable at this point and they can recover if it turns out that the AI boom is, you know, goes bust? I bet we'll figure something to do with computers. I bet we can figure something out. We'll have all these computers in space. We can find a task for them to work on it. We've never been like, oh shit, we have too many computers. That's not a problem that humanity has run into yet.

Okay, yeah, fair enough. I want to, the Mars vision thing, though, is one aspect I want to ask you. It is 2026. SpaceX was founded in 2002. For all of the, you know, all of the crap that Blue Origin took for these years where they never launched anything to orbit,

how many years does it take for us to criticize SpaceX for never having sent any of their own hardware to Mars? I know they've flown Harrow by Mars and yada yada. They've never flown their own hardware to Mars. How many decades has to go by before they're going to be hit for that? Great question. I mean, I already...

Coming up on 30 years. I already ding them for their Mars timelines. And, yeah, I mean, look, I always say that starting a human settlement on Mars will be humanity's greatest achievement of all time. It'll be the most massive project and scope. I mean, it's going to require more than just SpaceX. Let's be honest, it's going to require like every country's resources in some capacity. As long as the goal is to keep people alive and to bring them back, then that's going to require so much scope. So, you know, I kind of already ding them on the, on the fact that they keep saying, and, you know, oh yeah, next year we'll be sending something.

But not even to Starship. I'm saying like, they got all these Starlink satellites. There's not a Mars version of that laying around that they might want to start sending out to Mars? Remember Red Dragon? Red Dragon, man. RIP. I've missed Red Dragon. That was, I did a whole video about that.

It was such a, I thought that was a great concept, you know. And it made a lot of sense. Just like get some data. You just want some data about what it takes to, send something to Mars. I mean, granted, I know it doesn't work out because Dragon was never equipped with the thrusters that it needed to land. But at the same time, I don't know.

Cool renderings, though. The Super Drake goes. It was cool renders, yeah. That was good stuff. I guess would it be so bad to let something just kind of catapult onto Mars? I'm sure the science community would have been horrified at that. But I don't know. Just getting some kind of, you know, data.

They have the capacity, right, with either Falcon. Heavy or Falcon 9 to just send something, you know, might as well just get, I feel like having information is good and not a waste of time if that is the ultimate goal of sending things to Mars, you know, just does it, does Starship need to be the first thing that they send? I don't think so, but. Yeah, that's, that's where I'm at. Like, not even a Starlink bus, no? Okay.

Starlink bus. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. We can go. We can go so far. down that rabbit hole. I know. How long have we been talking already? I feel like we have other topics. Almost the entire time that I put in your calendar. So we, unless you got a hard out in three minutes, maybe we can go five, ten minutes longer than that. We can't. We can't. Yeah, well, all right. I think

that closes out the SpaceX segment. That was enough of that. 35 minutes later. I know. It deserved it, but you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's talk about Blue Origin. So they, if they announced this as a, oh, we're pausing New Shepherd for two years, nobody believes that. Everyone, and I think even people I've talk to internally are like, yeah, this is canceled. Mm-hmm. So. I would be surprised. I mean, two years just feels like, just think about what it takes to maintain a rocket program,

you know, assembly lines keeping up and right. You know, that's one of the big things. You don't think two years between launches is a health thing? I'm just saying that. How about three? Three years between launches? You have any hydrogen vehicle? Is there any problems with that?

Right. You know, they start the process up again. It's going to start leaking right away. No, but you see that throughout rocket history, right? You close down a production line and restarting it again is such a nightmare. You know, it just, and it takes, like, we just don't retain that knowledge over time, you know. So if people are working on other things, it doesn't matter how well-versed they were in the procedures and the technology before. beforehand, you have to learn all that again. So two years certainly feels like a, we didn't want to

cancel it, but we did need to put a big pause, or sorry, we didn't want to outright cancel it, but we are thinking about it for sure. timing's interesting too in that this is like you know a couple of months after uh people start saying hey maybe they did learn a lot from new shepherd and that's why they nailed that new glen landing and they're able to refly this thing on the next flight and and like all of that was new shepherd learnings they could take advantage of this storyline and say yeah that's exactly right we got there we got what we won out of it all we get out of new shepherd now is we lose money and we get bad press when someone flashy flies uh so i understand it from that aspect and

And then the other thing is that the origin by me and others has been criticized for being very indecisive about what they want to work on and what they want to focus on. And I try to separate this from, like, I never criticize a company or an organization that they're doing too many things because they can hire people to do many different things. And you can have, I mean, Yamaha makes like pianos and jet skis, you know, and no one's ever like, what is Yamaha up to? It's weird, but like companies can do many different things. things that are not the same teams of people. They can multitask.

So I try to separate. The blue origin, they have so many things, you know. They have so many things. And they keep switching. That's the problem. It's not that they keep adding. Now we have Terra wave. Yeah, we just keep, we go, no, we're not doing that anymore.

We're going to do this other thing. And it's like, add, don't switch. That's been the criticism. So is this, is this them trimming in their vision and saying New Shepherd didn't fit and we're going this other way in a leaner method? Or is this another case where it's like, nope, we're not doing that anymore. doing this thing now and the new shepherd people are going to go and actually work on human habitation systems or something. Yeah. Well, it would be easier to think that it's a way of trimming

if they didn't just announce a massive new satellite constellation program. So that, but yeah, at the same time, you know, I think, you know, we talked about this earlier that when Dave Limp came on as CEO. He's, he's said multiple times that, you know, he asked Jeff Bezos, is this a side project or is this an actual company? So perhaps this is a sign. And, sorry, and to be clear, supposedly Jeff was at, no, this is a company. We want to be a business. We want to be profitable and get to get to that space. So presumably this is part of day. Lemp kind of acting on that vision, you know, I can't imagine New Shepard made a ton of money, despite being a reusable rocket. You know, and I'm sure any time one of those celebrities flew,

I can't imagine they paid a premium. So, you know, perhaps this was a way of signaling that we are, you know, trimming something that doesn't work for us. But as I said, at the same time, adding a massive satellite constellation on top of that, it's weird timing, that's for sure. They got good momentum, though. The vibes are good. They've got New Glenn going well. The endurance is in Houston now, ready for its testing.

Right. No, I think this, we've been saying this for a minute now, but I do think this, could be the year of blue if they really nail it, right? Like they had that huge win at the end of last year with New Glenn. And if they are able to actually land on the moon this year, I mean, the conversation is going to fundamentally shift, right? Especially with regards to Artemis, their position with SpaceX. You know, obviously you and I both know that their cargo landers,

very different. But I do, you know, I believe it's out there already that, you know, that could tap into some changes that they make when it comes to the lander that they actually try to send people on, you know. So I think, I think it could be a big year, but they have to really nail it. Yeah. You got any thoughts on Artemis II's wet dress rehearsal? I thought it was interesting that in the, I mean, Isaacman was out there.

tweeting very similar takes that he's tweeted, which was like, yeah, SLS is really slow and the flight rate is really low, so it's going to be problematic. But in the press conference after the wet dresserousal and the delay to March, they actually did openly talk about being a slow and low flight rate program. And they have never actually said that, and especially this particular group of people, have never really talked about that openly. So I thought that messaging switch was at least good. Yeah, certainly, but what is that going to do? You know, I mean. Acceptance is the first step, Lauren. I guess I was going to say, I mean, sure, they've accepted it, but it doesn't change the reality that they are kind of in a bind.

But at least being able to talk about it in the open and ask questions and not be like shrugged off, I think is a good sign. That's true. That's true. Yeah, we should definitely, I mean, that's more of that, please. More of that. Yeah, I mean, what else, what more is there to say? I think we were all taking bets on when the first leak would happen. I hate to say that. but, you know, it's just, and I mean, if you think about, what was the time frame between Artemis 1 rollout and their actual launch? It was something like eight months. Yeah. You know, and I was actually, I was kind of losing it because I think I can say this now. February was not an ideal time. We would be in Florida right now if they had held a schedule. So, and I was, I was kind of, having some anxiety about having to go down there and get all of our coverage done by then. And fortunately that that changed. But yeah, I think I was actually more impressed.

You know, they were able to get through a good portion of that wet dress. You know, that was a very, that was a much more successful wet dress from the outside than they had that the first couple times. They did it back in what, 2022. too. So I do think they have made progress for sure. But yes, I think the low flight rate is just going to continue to be an issue. It's going to be a cool mission though. I mean, but think about what is the what is the buildup to Artemis 3 going to be like, you know, because we are going to have vehicles that have never run before being tested, you know. I mean, granted, I guess Star-Sherry,

ship presumably will have at least landed once on the moon. That's the idea, right? That's the idea. They may not take off from the moon, but they might land on it. And then if Blue Origin usurfs them, what does that testing campaign look like? So many open questions about what the buildup to Artemis 3 is going to look like. So, and how is that going to pair with SLS testing? Oh, my gosh.

What year do we have for that taking place? When do you think? Oh, man. It's not 28, that's for sure. Sorry to say. 30, 31? I don't want to say, I don't want to get in trouble. 30 or 31.

Okay, sounds good. You can say it, not me. Yeah. All right, Lauren, what do you got to plug? What you're working on lately? People should buy your book? Yeah, please keep behind my book. No, I think we're just, we are so heads down on all the things we've discussed.

You know, the SpaceX IPO story is far from over. We will continue to pursue that. And, you know, obviously we have Artemis II waiting in the wings. So we'll have a ton of coverage coming out about that once we get closer. So just keep your eyes tuned to Bloomberg.com slash space. And yeah, there's no shortage of things to talk about. So, you know, what do I always say, Anthony? It's an exciting time.

It's an exciting time. It is definitely an exciting time. So, well, I'm glad I finally had you on Miko, I guess. if you're telling me you've never been on this one. I think maybe I was a liar. I think there was one time, but it was many, many, many years ago. Too long ago for sure. Exactly. Always a pleasure, Anthony. Always great hanging out. Thanks, Lauren. Have a good one. Thanks again to Lauren for coming on the show. Always a good time hanging out with her. And thanks to all of you who support main engine cutoff over at main engine cutoff.com

slash support. There are 33 executive producers for this show who made this episode possible. Thanks to David, Natasha Sacco, Stealth Julian Warren, Joe Kim, Tim Dodd, De Reyeshanot, Miles O'Brien, Pat, our Everyday Studios, Will & Large from Agile, the Ashtigators at SEE, Steve, Eunice, Frank, Fred, Heiko, Donald, Lee, Russell, Chris, Ryan, Theo and Violet, Joel, Matt, Jan, Josh from Impulse, and four anonymous executive producers. Thank you all so much for the support, as always. Head over there. if you want to join the crew, Main engine got off.com slash support. Jump in, support the show, get Nico headlines in your podcast feed.

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