Motley Fool Money - Bezos, Musk, and the Race for Space

Episode Date: June 25, 2021

Nike just does it. Google delays removing cookies. Visa makes a big buy. Peloton ventures into wearables. Accenture surges on earnings. And FedEx stumbles. Motley Fool analysts Andy Cross, Emily Flippen, and Jason Moser weigh in on those stories and share a couple of stocks on their radar: Virgin Galactic and FactSet. Plus, Washington Post space reporter Christian Davenport talks Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and the business of space. Looking for more stocks for your radar? Get 50% off our Stock Advisor service just by going to http://RadarStocks.fool.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money. From Fool Global Headquarters, this is Motley Fool Money Radio Show. I'm Jason Moser sitting in for Chris Hill. Joining me today, our senior analysts, Andy Cross and Emily flipping folks, happy summer. Hey, Jason, I, Emily. So we've got some earnings to get to this week. Google's cookies need a little bit more time in the oven.

Visa is making another run at a fintech deal, but we've been. begin this week with the swoosh. Nike reported earnings on Thursday afternoon, and to say the market approved, well, that would be an understatement. Andy, is this a typo Nike's revenue for the quarter grew 96 percent? Yeah, Jason, it's not a typo. Sales were, it was a really very impressive quarter from Nike. Now, some of that is just to pull forward from last year, or not the pull forward, but just the rebound from when things shut down last year about this time. But sales were up 96%. It's almost doubled from last year, and they were up 21% Jason from the previous quarter,

the previous fiscal quarter. Nike direct sales were up 73% in the quarter. Direct sales now make up almost 40% of the total sales for Nike. So they really have started to make this push and this migration very aggressively of the last couple years to much more direct connection with the consumers. North America was up 140 percent, so a really booming North America market. Higher wholesale shipments, thanks to those weaker comps a year ago. Digital growth was up 50 percent, so their digital business continues to do really well.

And now is a $9 billion run rate business for them. More than 300 million, Nike Digital members. Digital is three years, Jason, ahead of their plan. So really, when you look at what John Donahueyhew has done at Nike coming over from Service Now and from being really brought this digital focus for Nike. They continue to make these massive innovations into their product. They're growing across all the lines. China was a little bit of a weak spot Jason as they pulled back on some of their marketing initiatives.

But overall, you have a $211, $15 billion company, sales of $45 billion a year. Earnings very profitable at $6 billion. You got a company selling it about 30 times earnings, Jason, with 10% sales growth, and they think they can grow, they're earning somewhere between 15 and 20 percent long term. So, you got to like what's happening at the swoosh. It wasn't all that long ago that Kevin Plank, the founder and former CEO of Under Armour, said his goal was essentially to dethrone Nike as the leader in the space. Now, I think we all know how that's worked out so far. But if Nike is Coca-Cola today, what is Under Armour? Oh my gosh. Jason, I think you got to say Under Armour is just way, I mean, they

are just losing this game, unfortunately, and that's a stock that I've owned for a while, too. So, moving in the opposite direction than what Nike is doing, the thing that really distinguishes the two, I think, is the Nike brand, the innovations they've made, and it's a fresh brand. It stands for something. They are making massive investments. Their Gen Z business, what they are doing over in TikTok and with their applications, and that digital line is really reaching a different consumer base, and they are principled. And that brand now is that a resurgence and really stands for something that is very positive. That's, I think, just a different direction than, unfortunately, the Under Armour has gone into. So you've got to like, if you think about

what Nike is standing for, for health, wellness, and positivity, Nike stands above that. Under Armour is like store brand Coke, Jason. That's the only comparison here. I was going to go with Jolt Cola. But, hey, any... I don't know what Jolt is, Jason. Any which way, clearly, clearly they have some work to do. This week, Google announced it's delaying plans to stop supporting third-party cookies by almost two years. Now, the plan to stop using these third-party cookies, this was initially slated for early 2022. It's been pushed all the way back to late 2023. Emily, there's a lot to dig into here, but let's just start with a simple question. Why are they doing this? Google is waffling. They'll tell

consumers they're doing this because they really care about their privacy and they want to make sure that they have the right solution. But it's very clear, both from the macro environment we're seeing today, but also Google's own press release that they're doing this as a result of antitrust movements across the EU, and in particular, the UK. Google's cookie alternative, right? So the rotation out of cookies into this thing they call FLOC, I won't try to explain it, but essentially their solution to cookies was not really scratching the itch for a lot of, not only consumers in terms of privacy, but also ad buyers and sellers alike. It was not a great solution, but more importantly, it put even more power into Google's hands. So regulators are looking

at this transition saying to themselves, man, you know, this is concerning. Are we really going to give these tech giants more power? So we don't know what the solution is today, but those extra almost two years of time certainly gives Google, but more importantly, other players in this space, plenty of time to figure out, okay, what's the medium ground between allowing advertisers to reach their target markets while still preserving privacy online? This is a space with a lot of opportunity and a lot of uncertainty right now. What's something you're going to be watching moving forward? I think it's important to watch how the ad buyers and sellers respond over the next couple

of years. The Trade Desk in particular was having a great day today, along with many of these ad sellers as a result of the privacy pushouts. But the Trade Desk is just one example of a business that is trying to institute their own rules when it comes to privacy and data and reaching advertisers. So I definitely want to keep an eye on their UID 2.0 process that's going to be potentially a seamless solution to this cookie problem that we're having today. In January, it was announced that Visa would not be going through with its plan to acquire financial services company Plaid due to antitrust concerns, but that didn't stop management's wheels from turning. This week, Visa announced plans to acquire Swedish fintech startup Tink for $2.1

billion. Andy, do you like this move? Yeah. I think, Jason, I think for Visa, it's very positive. Hopefully for consumers, now they pivoted from looking towards San Francisco with the earlier one, and now they've pivoted over to Europe and to Sweden, which is a much different market. Europe has more than 440 different third party providers as part of their open banking initiative. They kicked off in 2018. So Visa is looking at that market saying, hey, wow, here is Tink. Now, Tink is one of the larger integrators, application integrators for financial companies in Europe. But they're seeing this market as much more open and hopefully not as a regulatory challenge like this all with the PAD

integration, which raised concerns about some of the debit card. Tijuana. taking away some of the competitive opportunities for consumers when you look at the debit market. So, they hopefully won't have those in Europe. So for Visa, they're splashing out $2 billion, about $2 billion of US. Buying this startup tank gets them into a market that is really growing and dynamic and open. And so hopefully, when you look at, it won't run into the, if you're a visa shareholder, won't run into the regulatory risk that you saw with Plaid. So, hopefully that gets approved. But we will be watching that as you go forward to see how that integration goes and how the approval process goes.

Bloomberg reported this week that Peloton is venturing into the wearables market with a digital heart rate armband. Emily, there's a lot of opportunity developing in the wearable space, but it's also fraught with challenges. Does this move make sense for Peloton? It definitely makes sense for Peloton. If you go back to Peloton's most recent quarter, the thing that struck me the most and struck a lot of investors the most was the engagement they were having from their core Peloton users. The average user did 26 workouts a month with their Peloton products. That's truly insane.

That to me says Peloton hasn't engaged a potentially even more monetizable body of users. So I think this is a smart move, and it's smart because they're doing it very slowly. They're coming out with what seems to be an R-BAM. Again, this is a rumored release, but this armband is a potentially. a solution for heart rate tracking seamlessly into Peloton's products. And I know a lot of consumers may ask themselves, do I really need this, though? I mean, I have an Apple Watch. I have a Fitbit. These things already integrate into my Peloton. What's the point of this armband? Well, it actually fixes a couple of issues in terms of workout tracking beyond just biking with Peloton products,

so it could be really attractive to these engaged users. So, earlier this year, Peloton acquired Atlas Wearables, maker of a heart rate tracking fitness wearable. If the company sees early signs of success here, do you think acquisitions will be the strategy of choice when it comes to gaining more share in this wearable space? Peloton could certainly go the way of acquisitions, but I think they'd be smarter to keep it in-house. Their brand is so valuable. And I don't think this is a particularly challenging space for them to compete in, given their technological expertise. expertise already. So I think it's critical for them to make a move, whether it's through acquisition

or bringing it in-house. I'm not sure it matters so much to the end of consumer. Up next, we've got some more earnings to get to. Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Full Money. Welcome back to Motley Full Money. Jason Moser sitting in for Chris Hill, joined by senior analysts Andy Cross and Emily Flippin. As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about and the Motley Full may have recommendations for or against. So don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. Global Consulting, firm Accenture reported strong earnings this week and raised full year guidance. Andy, we know as

investors that sometimes boring is beautiful. And while Accenture may not elicit excitement for so many, it's certainly worked out pretty well for patient shareholders so far. How did the quarter look to you? Well, Jason, if anyone has used technology at all, Accenture probably provides some service to them. It provides this strategic consulting focus really in the tech area. So we're talking like 5G cloud migration. blockchain, robotics, all those cool things that we love to use or want to use, and companies are migrating to. Accenture is helping them get there, especially Forbes 2000 kind of large enterprise companies. We're talking like they have partnerships with Salesforce and Google,

Workday, Adobe, so they really focus in that area. In fact, Julie Sweet, their CEO, said pre-COVID, our research showed the digital achievement gap with leaders was growing two times faster than laggers. So if you were investing a lot in technology, you were growing two times faster, and that is now widened to five times with leaders really stepping up their investment in technology, and they saw that. So their third quarter sales were up 21 percent in U.S. dollars now at $13.3 billion ahead of estimates. Their earnings per share are $2.46, or 40 cents, up 26 percent, again, ahead of estimates. Their bookings were up 39 percent. They believe they are taking this significant market share, Julie Sweet said. They saw growth in 11 of 13 industries, growth

higher than 10%. North America was up 18%. That was the real growth. They added 32,000 employees to their more than 500,000 employees in Q3, Jason. So really, Accenture, looking at the technology market and the demands from their clients, they are seeing a lot of growth, and they continue to see a lot of growth ahead. Well, I mean, as you've noted, I mean, this is a massive global business that has benefited from some cost savings over the past year plus due to the fall off and things like business travel. But it does seem, we're seeing some signs that at least some of that travel is coming back to an extent.

Now, that's the part of the debate, I guess we can have there. But ultimately, how do you see that trend impacting Accenture's probability? Yeah, they talked about that, Jason, because they do serve these big clients. And so they depend on travel. And they talked about the fact that now they will not have. those tailwinds that have helped them because they haven't been able to send their clients around the globe and they are a global organization around the globe to talk to clients. That will be coming back to some point. So that will be an impact on their margin picture.

They're still expecting healthy growth on their earnings side of 15, 17, 18 percent this year. But going forward, that's something you're going to have to watch with these big companies that depend on global travel because in some way, that will come back now. Often seen as a key indicator for the state of the economy, FedEx reported earnings this week that left the market wanting a little bit more. Emily, what stood out to you in the quarter? Well, what stood out to me was the fact that this was a really strong quarter for FedEx, but the market still didn't really pat them on the back. I guess the beat wasn't as great as investors expected. They had record revenue and profit for the quarter, beat by nearly a billion

dollars on their top line, over $22.5 billion in revenue versus 21 and a half expected. And they also raised expectations for next year. I think there was some fear from investors, though, about competition and labor shortages. So when you look at some of their bottom line movement, it wasn't as good as it could have been this quarter because of some pricing pressures they had in terms of attracting talented labor. But still, they were able to raise prices around 5% year-over-year in terms of their package delivery. And they're just operating in such a good space right now.

The U.S. domestic parcel market, according to their management, is exceptional. expected to be over 107 million packages a day in 2022. That's rising to 172 by 2026. So, great market to be in strong business. Just the stock market didn't quite appreciate it the way they could have. Well, I wonder if we've seen the inflation has just been rampant in the headlines here over the past several weeks. We've been really having much more of this conversation lately. And with that comes the discussion of stocks that may be better to. suited for inflationary times and others. How does inflation impact a business like FedEx? I love that you asked that question because very few businesses have what we call pricing

power, which is really the opportunity to pass along price increases to the end consumer. What FedEx saw during the pandemic was their ability to pass along their increase in costs to the people who are paying for these packages. People would pay for it because guess what? You need during a pandemic. You need packages. And they actually expect for this to continue. throughout 2021 as well. So I always like to say, if you're an investor and you're looking at your portfolio and thinking about moving into things like gold or commodities, don't forget about the equities in the world that have this pricing power. They could be a great inflation hedge as well. Many businesses have pricing pressure. Not many have pricing power.

Not nearly as good. Well, really quickly, we can go around the table here because this is such an interesting question, I think, to deliberate. Who do you consider FedEx's primary competition today? I mean, in the age of Amazon. Who's FedEx's primary competition? I would say Amazon is, if you look at that domestic parcel market, I mentioned it was $107 billion expected in 2022. That actually falls down to only $72 million if you remove Amazon from the equation. So I think Amazon is probably a formidable competitor. Andy? Well, gosh, I think when you look at some of the logistic companies that are just driving so much more of the logistics network, like Shopify, for example,

as they think about building out their shopping, their shipping, or even Mercado Libre, someone like that, I think, as these companies look to build out their own networks, that's probably going to put some pressure on FedEx. Okay, time for some stocks on our radar, and we'll bring in our man, Dan Boyd, for a quick question or even better, an observation. Emily, flipping, you're up first. What do you got? My radar stock this week is Virgin Galactic. The ticker is SPCE.

The stock is flying this week because the Federal Aviation Administration granted the company the license it needs to fly just regular passengers on future space flights. The market's rewarding it. I think this is such a cool, exciting idea. I'm happy to be a shareholder. Dan? Emily, are you trying to go to space? Is this what I'm hearing? I have aggressively tried to go to space, Dan. Nobody will take me. So if there's any listeners out there that want a passenger, I am free. Okay, Andy, you're up. What are you looking at? Jason, I'm looking at a fact set research symbol FDS. They report earnings next Tuesday, much different than Virgin and Galactic. It's a market cap of $12.5 billion, which is a little bit bigger than

Virgin Galactic, but they provide analytical tools, data feeds, content insights for more than 150,000 investment professionals. In 6,100 global clients that pay more than $10,000 per year. So it has 24 unique data sets, Dan, from 850 different independent providers. And so it takes this data, provides these tools for their clients to help their clients make better investment decisions, for their clients, and it's very profitable, great returns on capital. You get a little dividend, 1% yield, and that dividend has grown 11% per year over the last five years, Dan. Dan? Yeah, if I didn't know who's you on the show, Andy, I would have said Ron Gross picked this stock. Yeah, it is a very Ron Gross stock. Hey, you're getting nice little growth from it.

You get these 30% operating margins, and you get that dividend yield that we know Ron loves. All right, Dan, Virgin Galactic and fact set to very different business. You've got a favorite for your watch list? I'm going to the moon, Jason. Let's go, Virgin Galactic. Good enough. Up next, we'll talk Bezos, Musk, and the Business of Space with Washington Post Space reporter Christian Davenport.

Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Full Money. Welcome back to Motley Full Money. Jason Moser sitting in for Chris Hill this week. On July 20, the Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, is scheduled to go into space via his Aerospace company, Blue Origin. Here to talk about that and the business of space. is Washington Post Space Reporter, Christian Davenport, author of the Space Barrens.

Christian, welcome back to Motleyful Money. Thanks so much for joining us. Sure, thanks for having me. So real quick as a refresher here, let's say, can we just explain what, explain Bezos and spaceflight in its significance or even lack thereof in regard to this space race, right? I mean, in other words, is this really something that matters in the long run as far as the the investments in the race towards space go? Or is this kind of an evil-can-eval kind of thing? Well, in some ways, actually, it's both. I mean, it's an evil-can-eval kind of thing in the sense that this is a suborbital spaceflight. This is a 10-minute ride, like, in total,

where he shoots up and comes straight back down. It's the first human spaceflight for Bezos's company Blue Origin. A lot of people don't even still, to this day, realize that Jeff hasn't the space company and that he has these ambitions in space and that they're finally, you know, after 20-something years, flying people. And Jeff has raised his hand and said, I'm going to be on that first flight, which I think is designed to show his confidence in the vehicle and the rocket and his brother's going as well. But it's significant in the sense that, you know, if he can fly people routinely on a regular basis, that sets the stage for bigger, more ambitious missions. And that's really what Blue Origin is designed to do. These suborbital

space tourism flights, that's practice for sort of the big game, which is routinely taking people to orbit and then to the moon and beyond. So it's think of it as a stepping stone. Were you surprised when you heard this news? Were you surprised when you heard that Jeff wanted to go to go to space? Yeah. No, I think everybody was. I mean, it's still, you know, the space is there's a lot of hype. And, you know, space is there's a lot of hype. And, it's inspiring and you see in pop culture and in the movies, you know, it's sort of played out as this, you know, it's romanticized. But in reality, it's dangerous. It's really dangerous. So to put yourself on that flight, you have to be thinking, but it is interesting too. I mean, it kind of made

sense once you realize that he'll no longer be CEO of Amazon at that point. He will have stepped down from Amazon because I don't think the Amazon board would have allowed it. And, you know, I mean, it is risky, but they've flown the new Shepherd vehicle, you know, this configuration 15 times to space successfully. So they've done it and done it and done it. There are abort scenarios, emergency scenarios. They've played all of that out. So, yeah, I mean, I was surprised he was on that personally.

So, hey, I mean, I agree with you. I mean, I was surprised as well. It's romanticized, of course, obviously a tremendous risk, but. Clearly, he's very excited about it, but what do you think this looks like years from now? I mean, now that this, the cat's out of the bag, so to speak. I mean, I have a hard time believing this is the only time he does this. I mean, are we looking at the early days of Jeff Bezos astronaut? Yeah.

And so, I mean, in early days of like us being astronauts. Yeah. You know, they did auction off that seat to see who's going to fly with Jeff and his brother, Mark, and I went to $28 million, which is crazy. that you would think that that's what someone would pay for a 10-minute ride to space. But I think, you know, if, again, there's a caveat to all of this, that they're able to do it successfully and reliably and safely. And if that happens, you know, there have been a total of 560 people who have ever been to space. Wow. And imagine Blue Origin starts taking people on a

regular basis, and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic and Elon Musk's SpaceX. Instead of it being 560, it's 5600. And then, you know, within a matter of years, as you talked about, it's 56,000 people who have had this experience of going to space, seeing the earth from a distance, land masses without borders, the thin line of the atmosphere, that, you know, sort of transformative experience that astronauts, you know, come back and they talk about, you know, that could have a profound effect. But, you know, I think what Jeff's goal is, yeah, he'll go up and down, you know, a suborbital space trip, I think what he really wants to do and is working toward is the next step, which is, you know, New Shepherd is named for Alan Shepherd, the first American in space that just

went on one of these suborbital trajectories. The next rock of their building is called New Glenn for John Glenn, who went to orbit. So I could see Jeff ultimately, you know, doing that and going to orbit. Let's say, you know, 10 years from now, obviously we've made a lot of progress in the space. Is this something, on a personal level, is this something you'd be interested in doing one day? Yeah, no, absolutely. And I've talked to Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson about it. I think that if the public is going to be doing this, a journalist should go to experience it and to see what it's like and to be able to tell the story.

And in fact, that's what NASA was going to do. I mean, people forget early days of the space shuttle. They thought the shuttle was going to be flying so frequently that NASA would need, ordinary people to fill the seats. And so if you remember, you know, they filled the seat with a teacher, Krista McColliffe. Yeah. And in 1986, and obviously she was a board shuttle Challenger when it exploded. But at that time, NASA was already looking at the next round, which was going to be a journalist. And they had thousands apply. They had a list of 40 finalists by the time that Challenger launched. And they were already working through picking out who the journalist was

going to be. Obviously, they canceled that program when Challenger blew up. But yes, no, I mean, journalists have been talking about going to space for a long time. And I want to be there. Well, as someone who writes for the Washington Post, which is, of course, owned by Jeff Bezos. How do you and your colleagues feel about this? Is there some trepidation about the fact that he's going to space? Well, you sort of wonder what the succession plan is going to be. But, you know, we cover Jeff the way anybody, you know, the way we cover anybody else without sort of fear in favor. And we say that. And, you know, that's true that he doesn't have a hand in the editorial decisions. And he's going to go. And that's just, you know, his choice. And he can be able to do that. I'm sure there's a succession plan in case anything would happen. But, you know, I do think that the fact that he's going sort of tells me there's a high level of confidence in the safety of this system. And that they really, really put it through its pace. and tested it. And frankly, I would go.

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned you said the word confidence, and I think that's a really important word in regard to this. And it kind of leads me to my next question here, because we, of course, want to take this from an investing angle. And, you know, I start looking at what's going on here. The investments have been made in Blue Origin and Jeff going into space. You start thinking 10, 20, even 30 years out as an investor, I mean, what kinds of opportunities do you think could come for investors from all of this

spacework? I mean, is this, I mean, he's stepping down as the CEO of Amazon. I mean, I guess he's really technically stepped down. I mean, what is, is this his second act? I mean, could we be witnessing some sort of the early days of another Amazon-esque sort of investing opportunity from all of us? Yeah. I mean, so the way Jeff talks about it is that when he started Amazon, anybody could start an internet company like in their dorm room, right? There was, Dr. Berg did Facebook, right? Because, you know, the telephone company had been there and laid down the lines that ultimately, you know, carried the broadband for the internet.

There was this thing called the postal service that, you know, could deliver the books that he was selling. There was this invention called the credit card, and he could take people's money to sell those books. The infrastructure for Amazon was there. The infrastructure for space is not there. So if you can't today start a space company in, your garage. And what he wants to do and what Elon wants to do is create that infrastructure,

you know, to space. The barriers to entry are just too high. So what we're seeing now is the dawn of a new age so that what Jeff calls this new economic dynamism can come to life, but in space, where you're doing things like manufacturing in space, mining asteroids, celestial bodies, things like that, exploring, that this can open up all new sorts of possibilities like the Internet did. And that's what they're hoping to build. But now you can't get there. It's too hard. And that's where I was saying earlier, you know, the space tourism thing is often derided as this thing for the rich. The way Jeff sees it is no, this is the practice we're going to get to go to space so we can make it more affordable and efficient and then open up all of those

economic opportunities in space. Well, I'm with you. I mean, I think I asked you last time we spoke if you felt like going to the moon in my lifetime was a reality. And I believe you said yes. I'm with you. I'd go too. I really would. I mean, this is something that just fascinates me. And I really do feel like there is just, there's so much, so much potential here for this. A lot of time, I mean, when it comes to these types of, when it comes to these types of investments, these types of long-term, trends here. Clearly, capital is a big deal. I mean, these companies, these investors need a lot of money. Obviously, Mr. Bezos is not hurting in that regard, but by the same token, I mean,

with Blue Origin, I mean, on a scale of 1 to 10, with one being no way on Earth, and then 10 being, I can't wait, what do you think his feelings on taking Blue Origin public are? Do you think we'll ever see that? That's a great question. You know, so they say space is hard, right? And the easiest way to become a millionaire in space is to start out as a billionaire. So, you know, I wouldn't rule it out because he's got huge ambitions, you know, in space. And this stuff, I mean, there's a reason why only governments, you know, operated in space and

human exploration. I mean, governments had a monopoly on this, you know, for 50, 60 years. And we're seeing the erosion of that. But it's still, the government. is still the biggest contractor, right? They're still the biggest customer, and they're all contractors, you know, vying for these government contracts worth billions of dollars. So if space is, if it becomes a self-sustaining economy, you're going to need more access to capital to sort of get over that tipping point. So I could see it. And another reason I say that is, you know,

I go down to Cape Canaveral, you know, a few times a year for launches, see people. And every time I drive by, Blue Origin has a manufacturing site right near the Kennedy Space Center. And it's like a college campus. It is massive. And I know he's investing a billion dollars a year of his own money into this. And Jeff says that Blue Origin, you know, that is the most important work he's doing. So I do think he's sort of all in on this. But if he's going to open up a whole new industry to open up space, you know, for commerce, I don't know that that's something that, you know, like Elon and Jeff and Richard Branson can do on their own. That seems like that's a societal thing, moving along with governments and even international partners. So I could see it. I don't think

it's on the short-term horizon, but maybe at some point, if they have a big ambition, you want to build a colony on the moon, that's not cheap. That's so cool. You go down to Cape Canaveral for those launches. I mean, what is that like from a personal level? I've never seen a launch before. I mean, it strikes me as being something that would be utterly life-changing. But I mean, how does that impact you as just a human being? A rocket launch, I would highly recommend it. You know, sort of thing like, you know, take the family, take the kids, and go see it. You know, I go down there. You see a lot of the Atlas 5 launches for the United Launch Alliance, SpaceX is Falcon 9. And, you know, you've got to be a couple

miles away from it. You're not allowed to close in case something bad happens. There's a clear-out zone. and so you're, you know, two, three miles away, and that rocket takes off. You feel it in your chest. I mean, the sound, you know, because sound travels a little bit slower, it takes a minute for that sound to hit you. And it literally, I'd say hit you, it hits you. There's a wave that comes over you. And the cool thing now is for years, I've been watching these rocket launches, and it's satellites going up, not humans. And now we're back to human spaceflight. You know, SpaceX launched the first NASA astronauts in almost a decade because the space shuttle retired in 2011.

So there were no astronauts launching from U.S. soil until that happened last year. They've now, SpaceX has done it three times. And when you look at that rocket and that ball of fire and you realize that, wait a minute, there are people on that thing. I mean, that gives it, you know, that extra sort of emotional level. Coming up, how real is the rivalry between Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk? Stay right here. You're listening to Motley Fool Money.

You want a little trip, my supersonic ships at your disposal if you feel so inclined. Well, all right, we're going to travel faster than life. Welcome back to Motley Full Money. Jason Moser sitting in for Chris Hill this week. Now, more of my conversation with Washington Post Space Reporter, Christian Davenport. We see this push and pull between private interests, you know,

like Blue Origin, and then the public interests. I mean, governments trying to invest in invest and make progress in this area. But I mean, it feels like there needs to be some cooperation, but by the same token, it also feels like, you know, one side maybe wants it a little bit more than the other. I mean, how do you feel about, I mean, the future of space travel, to me, it seems like it's going to require all hands on deck, but I don't know. I mean, is this something you feel like is going to continue to be a cooperative? Or is it leaning in direction more so than the other? Yeah, no, that's a great question. I mean, early on, these

sort of public-private partnerships where NASA was reaching out to the private sector and hiring them for services was really controversial. Even inside NASA, you know, people at the government space agency were like, why are we outsourcing space? Why are we, like, you know, giving space, you know, these missions over to Elon Musk. This is what we do. We should do this. And then, you know, I think other people within NASA could see, you know, the commercialization. of space and see the capabilities in the private sector and see how, frankly, you know, they can move faster. They can innovate. They're not a big government bureaucracy. They can just move a lot quicker and say, no, we need to harness that and leverage that and invest in that and build up that

capability in the United States industry. And that will allow us as a space agency and as a country to do more and to go further and to have this sort of leadership in space. And the fascinating thing is that has transcended governments and parties within the U.S. So it doesn't matter if it's a Democrat or Republican. We saw it with Obama. We saw it with Trump. And now we're seeing it again with Biden. And they all are, you know, it's become normal to have these public-private partnerships. It's now normal to have Elon Musk fly U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station. I mean, you know, their lives are in his hands. And that was enormously controversial when NASA first decided to do it, and now it's becoming more accepted and routine. They're talking about

taking that paradigm and extending it to get us to the moon and relying on private industry to help us get to the moon. So it's a huge shift. So I'm glad you mentioned Elon Musk. I mean, clearly he plays a big role in this as well, the investments towards getting into space and beyond. Do you feel like it's the rivalry between Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. Is that real or is that more of a media narrative? No, I think there is real for sure. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. No, they've gone at it for a long time.

It's maybe overblown, but there are key moments. I mean, just look at what happened when there was this big NASA contract for to build the lunar lander, the spacecraft that would land NASA's astronauts on the moon. And there was an initial round of contracts. and Blue Origin, Jeff's company, came out on top. They won the most funding. But in the final down-select, like, you know, SpaceX won and beat everybody. And that way, and it was a huge shock. And Blue Origin turned around. They've now protested this through the GAO, the Government Accountability Office. They fired basically a lawsuit to try to overturn that contract award. They're working through Congress to try to have multiple awards.

And Elon and Jeff have sort of gone at it. So there is a real rivalry there for sure. The bottom line is that at this point, Elon is winning and winning big. Yeah, it feels like that rivalry needs to exist, though. I mean, it kind of goes back to that old saying competition is a good thing. This is something that's ultimately going to make this better. I mean, it's going to get us there faster and hopefully more safely. Speaking of getting places, do you feel like, I mean, it seems like the discussion with Elon Musk really all centers around Mars.

Do you think we'll see Elon Musk go to Mars in our lifetime? Well, so it all depends on this new next generation, Rocketty's building called Starship. And you may have seen the videos, this is a thing that falls down. They've been trying to land it. They've blown it up like five times, and they finally landed. ended it. And this is the spacecraft, actually, that NASA, they put up for that lunar lander bid that would land astronauts on the moon. And NASA looked at it, you know, very carefully and awarded SpaceX basically $3 billion to continue developing it. And this is the rocket and spaceship that Elon says will eventually take people to Mars. You know, I used to be very skeptical

whether we would see people on Mars in our lifetime. And I'm starting to think that maybe that is, in fact, a possibility. I don't, you know, Elon's talking about the next, you know, four or five years for this happening. I don't think that's a possibility, but I do think within, you know, 15, 20 years or now, maybe. He is the space reporter for the Washington Post author of the Space Barrens. Christian, thanks so much for joining us this week on Motley Full Money. Really appreciate your time. Yeah, thank you so much. That was a blast. That's going to do it for this week's Motley Full Money. The show is mixed by Dan Boyd. Our producer is Matt Greer. I'm Jason Moser. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.