April 9, 2025 • 16 mins
Donald Trump wants to write the next chapter in US spaceflight history.
With billionaire tech CEO and SpaceX founder Elon Musk by his side, he’s outlined an ambitious agenda: to land the first humans on Mars before he leaves office.
Whether or not that goal is achievable, the plan would massively reshape America’s space program to the benefit of Musk’s company.
NASA has already suffered from Musk’s efforts to gut the federal government through the Department of Government Efficiency – and key SpaceX officials have been gaining power at the space agency.
Today, Wall Street Journal reporter Emily Glazer, on Elon Musk’s plan to take over NASA.
If you enjoy 7am, the best way you can support us is by making a contribution at 7ampodcast.com.au/support.
Socials: Stay in touch with us on Instagram
Guest: Wall Street Journal reporter, Emily Glazer.
Photo: Sipa USA / Scott Schilke
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Elon Musk has been talking about Mars for a very
very very long time.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Emily Glazer is a reporter focused on power and influence
at the Wall Street Journal, and so for her, there's
no bigger story than Elon Musk.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
For us, and I would say especially for me, we
were interested in understanding what Elon was doing to try
to get to Mars for several months, but then it
all kind of crystallized the week of President Trump's inauguration
because there was a very important sentence in there that
(00:38):
shruck a lot of people in the space community and elsewhere.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
And we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars,
launching American astronauts to plant.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
The stars and stripes on the planet Mars. President Trump
in his inaugural address talked about having astronauts plant a
flag on ours.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Ambition is the lifeblood of a great nation, and right now,
on nation is more ambitious than any other. There's no nation.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
What Emily knew is that this moment was something that
Musk had been working towards. The hundreds of millions of
dollars he put into Trump's campaign, the public support, a
lot of it came down to this.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
And it's my plan.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I'll talk to Elin get those rocket ships going, because
we want to reach Mars before the end of my term.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
We want to do it.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
And we want to help.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
From Schwartz Media, I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven AM today.
In part one of a special double episode, Emily Glazer
on how Musk is using his new powers to pursue
his Mars mission. It's Thursday, April ten. Emily, you were
(02:02):
watching as Donald Trump announced that he wanted to plant
a flag on Mars. So can you describe to me
what it was like to hear him say that?
Speaker 1 (02:12):
You know, I was actually at the World Economic Forum
atop the Swiss Mountains in Davos, Switzerland, And I am
not saying that as a humble brag. I swear I'm
saying that because there are a lot of space related
panels and programming there and different government space officials from
(02:32):
all over the world, and so it was a really
interesting place to be as President Trump was during his inauguration,
but also to go to these various space events, and
people were just floored. They were so excited. Multiple different people,
the head of the European Space Agency and the head
of the Japanese Space Agency both sat on the record
(02:56):
in interviews that it was akin to when JFK talked
about getting men on the Moon. I mean, this was
like a moment, and many in the space community were
very excited. They also wanted to get in on it.
I had the head of, you know, the Japanese Space
Agency talk about all the work Japan was doing in
(03:17):
researching minerals in Mars, and the European Space Agency was
talking about all of the collaboration, and then a whole
bunch of different space companies that were on the ground
there trying to kind of make a name for themselves.
So I think that was when we were sort of like, oh,
now that President Trump is putting it in his inaugural
address is a very big deal and something that the
(03:37):
White House may be prioritizing.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
And so when you heard Trump talk about mos, did
you immediately think about Alon?
Speaker 1 (03:45):
I think about Elon a lot, It's part of my job,
but absolutely I did. I mean, look, the Wall Street
Journal first broke the story about how Elon Musk and
Donald Trump had talked about Musk being should Trump win,
and so the relationship between Elon Musk and Donald Trump
has been on my mind for more than a year.
(04:07):
We wrote the article about Elon giving roughly forty five
million dollars a month toward reelecting President Trump. And part
of the reason, you know, why I was working on
this is the fruits of Elon's labors are coming home
to roost. And so when I heard that in the
inaugural address, the first thing that I thought of was, Wow,
(04:30):
Elon's influence. This is big time.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
And Donald Trump recently announced his pick to take over
leading the Space Agency NESSA a billionaire entrepreneur named Jared Isaacman.
So what do we know about him?
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Jared is an astronaut, and so he knows a lot
about space. He has experience, of course in space actually
like flying himself. And Elon Musk and Jared Isaacman have
known each other for years.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
I mean, I've been a you know, an aviation in
space enthusiast since Wilson's kindergarten. And you know, I thought,
you know, becoming an astronaut you a better chance of
getting struck by lightning. So I had this parallel career
in aviation.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Jared was an astronaut on SpaceX flights. The two we
know have hung out socially, and they've even given to
charitable causes together. And so far, everybody that I and
my colleagues have talked to have said that Isaacman, while
he's not like necessarily a traditional choice, you know, prior
(05:31):
and to Asset administrator, Jim Bridenstein was a congressman beforehand,
we've largely heard very positive things about Jared. Jared is
someone who really believes in exploring space, and a number
of people have actually shared that he is very risk tolerant,
to the point where we heard that even some people
(05:52):
at SpaceX have been worried in years past about his
level of risk, more so than the company itself.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
My top agenda, when I'm incredibly passionate about, is the
competitiveness of our nation. You know, we started leading in
this new domain, we have to continue to do so.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So for example, on one mission that he flew, he
wanted to go at a higher altitude and that worried
some people within SpaceX, and he kind of pushed for it,
and they ended up flying at that higher altitude. They
were worried about kind of like debris space debris, and
he got his way. And so I found it really
interesting that he is someone that is open to risks,
(06:29):
and maybe that's part of what fuels this friendship with
Elon Musk. But it was very interesting when we learned
that Elon had actually called Jared on the phone to
offer him the NASA position.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
And so do we know anymore about that phone call
between Musk and Asaka and what was said and then
I suppose what happened immediately afterwards.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
So we know that this phone call happened late last
year and that Elon called Jared with a request and
it was basically wood Jared and become the head of NASA.
And part of Elon's pitch to Jared was that they
could make NASA great again and work toward their shared
ambition of getting humans to Mars. Our understanding is that
(07:13):
that was something that really sat well with Jared. And
soon after the call, Trump announced that Jared was appointed
NASA administrator. Trump intends to put tech billionaire and entrepreneur
Jared Isacman in charge of the government space agency. Isaac
One's appointment could shake up the race for a man.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Okay, so we have this very risk tolerant billionaire astronaut
announced as the next head of NASA. We're still waiting
for his confirmation and for him to begin at that role.
But tell me about what's been happening behind the scenes
at NASA since the Trump administration came to power.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
So I've been kind of thinking about this in a
few different ways. One is that Elon Musk is installing
loyalists as head or key role of crucial agencies that
impact the ability to get to Mars. Obviously, that phone
call with Jared is like, you know, a huge example
of that. He also has been behind the scenes navigating
(08:13):
how to change federal spending so to get to programs
that are related to Mars. And then he also has
doge where he has access to you know, technology systems, personnel, budgets,
and has just tons of information. So there's been a
lot that Elon has been doing behind the scenes to
re order a number of NASA's programs. President Trump puts out,
(08:38):
you know, this announcement that Jared is appointed NASA administrator
and then NASA staff on January thirty. First got an
email that we reviewed from the agency's acting administrator, Janet Petro.
So she's the person who is leading NASA until there
is a confirmed NASA administrator, and they welcomed a new
(09:00):
senior advisor and it was a longtime SpaceX executive named
Michael Altenhoffen who had worked at SpaceX for like fifteen years.
And while he was at SpaceX, he also became close
to Isaacman and talks to Isaacman frequently. And he took
up this position right away ahead of the confirmation hearing.
And the way that it was described to us is
(09:21):
that he is basically shadowing the acting administrator. And that's
just one more person who has ties to Elon Musk,
who is now already at NASA even before Jared is confirmed.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
So as Musk wants to slit up the timeline to
get to Mars, what would it take to get there?
That's off to the right.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
Hi, I'm Daniel James. Seven I AM tells stories that
need to be told. A journalism is fan that on
trust and independence and now we're increasing our coverage. Every
Saturday until the election, we'll bring you an extra episode
to break down the biggest political moments of the week.
If you enjoy seven Am, the best way you can
support us is by making a contribution at seven am
(10:11):
podcast dot com dotu slash support. Thanks for listening. And
supporting our work.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
So, Emily, can we talk a bit more about Elon
Musk and his relationship to Mars. I mean, he's spoken
about it a lot in the past, you know, his
vision for humanity to get there. So tell me a
bit about the backstory here and how he's framing this
new push.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
So Elon Musk founded SpaceX more than twenty years ago
in two thousand and two, and the mission was to
take humanity to other planets. That has totally infused SpaceX's
culture with that long term goal, and SpaceX was on
the brink of failure many different times. Why he did
(11:00):
a successful launch of its first rocket in two thousand
and eight after having failures beforehand.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
We have the doc SpaceX Belcon one launch vehicle, the
Falcon that's.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Clear at the tower, and it eventually developed the Falcon
nine rocket and that could be partially reused. So this
was a game changer in the space industry because it
lowered the cost of launches, and it also took the
market share from incumbent rocket operators, especially a really large
company like Boeing. Over the years, Elon has talked about
(11:36):
Mars all the time, and he also talks a lot
about multiplanetary life.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Soship is the first rocket that has the potential to
make life multiplanetary, to make us a multi planet civilization
for the first time.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
And he envisions a world or universe I guess I
should say where there's civilization on Mars. It even got
to the point where just recently SpaceX brought back these
ashnuts to turn them from space. It was like a
huge success for SpaceX and something that was seen around
the world. And Elon Musk had an interview with Fox
(12:10):
News and as he was being interviewed and asked about
all of this, he started talking about Mars and just
didn't want to stop.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
We are going to be able to take Asronaltz to Mars.
In fact, we want to take anyone who goes to
Mars and ultimately build a self sustaining civilization on Mars.
That is the long term goal of the company, make
life healthy planetary.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
And I mean, what would it actually take to make
something like that reality. What is it like on Mars
and what would it take to actually set up a
colony there?
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Ooh, those are big questions. I mean, I will say
in terms of actually getting to Mars, just to break
this down a little bit. It can take roughly a
week to get to the Moon and back. It could
take an estimated two to three years for a round
trip between Earth and Mars, so let's just start there,
Like this is going to take a very long time.
(13:04):
What some people had mentioned to me is like the
clock is ticking because if Musk feels like he has
this four years while President Trump is in office to
try to accomplish this goal, that a number of people
in the space community, both on the commercial side and
government side across the world were kind of skeptical if
that could happen. And then let's just talk about the cost.
(13:24):
I mean, I talked to people that said, even if
you take all of the various costs of different programs
that NASA has, and if you redirected everything, so this
is like tens of billions of dollars, that still wouldn't
be enough. And so there are also questions of if
Musk is able to shift some of the federal spending
toward Mars, would he also have to self fund some
(13:47):
of it. And we are talking about the richest man
of the world, So in some ways, the sky's the limit.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
So everything about this seems incredibly ambitious, expensive, time consuming.
Why do you think it is that school wants it
so much to be able to be able to colony
on mass.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
When I have talked to people close to Musk, they've
told me that his ultimate ambition is to get to Mars,
and that for his legacy, it's not about having power,
it's not about having money, it's not about having influence.
All those things are nice benefits that he is enjoying,
but he wants to be the person that can get
people to Mars. In terms of why he wants to
(14:27):
make life multiplanetary, I think that he feels like there
should be other options besides planet Earth, so that in
case there are you know, more natural disasters or other issues,
that there are other options. And I think he, along
with a lot of people in Silicon Valley and elsewhere,
hope that they can live a really long time. And
so I think he's thinking into the future, you know,
(14:49):
generations of where will humans live if Earth continues at
the rate that we're going at.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Back tomorrow with part two of our interview with Emily
Glazer on how Musk's vision is jeopardizing NASA's current space projects.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
There's this program at NASA that is known as Artemis,
and it's a long range plan to explore the Moon
and eventually Mars. And one idea that we know Musk
and government officials have talked about is a scenario where
SpaceX would give up its Moon focused Partemis contracts that
are worth more than four billion dollars and that would
(15:29):
kind of shift the money behind the scenes and also
frankly benefit SpaceX, which is the private space company that
Elon Mask runs.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Also in the news today, the latest round of US
tariffs on dozens of countries have come into effect, including
a one hundred and four percent retaliatory tariff against China.
President Trump almost doubled duties on Chinese imports, originally set
at fifty four percent, after China announced their own counter
tariffs and vowed to quote fight to the end over
(16:08):
what it views as blackmail. And the family of Dawn Singleton,
one of the Bon Dai Junction stabbing victims, has launched
legal action against the nine Network and the Sydney Morning Herald.
The action is over photos in nine's sixty Minutes program,
which they claim were used without their permission and was
launched ahead of the inquest into the deaths of seven
people killed at Bon Dai Junction, Westfield on April thirteen,
(16:31):
twenty twenty four. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven AM.
See it Murray
Elon Musk has been talking about Mars for a very
very very long time.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Emily Glazer is a reporter focused on power and influence
at the Wall Street Journal, and so for her, there's
no bigger story than Elon Musk.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
For us, and I would say especially for me, we
were interested in understanding what Elon was doing to try
to get to Mars for several months, but then it
all kind of crystallized the week of President Trump's inauguration
because there was a very important sentence in there that
(00:38):
shruck a lot of people in the space community and elsewhere.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
And we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars,
launching American astronauts to plant.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
The stars and stripes on the planet Mars. President Trump
in his inaugural address talked about having astronauts plant a
flag on ours.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Ambition is the lifeblood of a great nation, and right now,
on nation is more ambitious than any other. There's no nation.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
What Emily knew is that this moment was something that
Musk had been working towards. The hundreds of millions of
dollars he put into Trump's campaign, the public support, a
lot of it came down to this.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
And it's my plan.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I'll talk to Elin get those rocket ships going, because
we want to reach Mars before the end of my term.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
We want to do it.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
And we want to help.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
From Schwartz Media, I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven AM today.
In part one of a special double episode, Emily Glazer
on how Musk is using his new powers to pursue
his Mars mission. It's Thursday, April ten. Emily, you were
(02:02):
watching as Donald Trump announced that he wanted to plant
a flag on Mars. So can you describe to me
what it was like to hear him say that?
Speaker 1 (02:12):
You know, I was actually at the World Economic Forum
atop the Swiss Mountains in Davos, Switzerland, And I am
not saying that as a humble brag. I swear I'm
saying that because there are a lot of space related
panels and programming there and different government space officials from
(02:32):
all over the world, and so it was a really
interesting place to be as President Trump was during his inauguration,
but also to go to these various space events, and
people were just floored. They were so excited. Multiple different people,
the head of the European Space Agency and the head
of the Japanese Space Agency both sat on the record
(02:56):
in interviews that it was akin to when JFK talked
about getting men on the Moon. I mean, this was
like a moment, and many in the space community were
very excited. They also wanted to get in on it.
I had the head of, you know, the Japanese Space
Agency talk about all the work Japan was doing in
(03:17):
researching minerals in Mars, and the European Space Agency was
talking about all of the collaboration, and then a whole
bunch of different space companies that were on the ground
there trying to kind of make a name for themselves.
So I think that was when we were sort of like, oh,
now that President Trump is putting it in his inaugural
address is a very big deal and something that the
(03:37):
White House may be prioritizing.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
And so when you heard Trump talk about mos, did
you immediately think about Alon?
Speaker 1 (03:45):
I think about Elon a lot, It's part of my job,
but absolutely I did. I mean, look, the Wall Street
Journal first broke the story about how Elon Musk and
Donald Trump had talked about Musk being should Trump win,
and so the relationship between Elon Musk and Donald Trump
has been on my mind for more than a year.
(04:07):
We wrote the article about Elon giving roughly forty five
million dollars a month toward reelecting President Trump. And part
of the reason, you know, why I was working on
this is the fruits of Elon's labors are coming home
to roost. And so when I heard that in the
inaugural address, the first thing that I thought of was, Wow,
(04:30):
Elon's influence. This is big time.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
And Donald Trump recently announced his pick to take over
leading the Space Agency NESSA a billionaire entrepreneur named Jared Isaacman.
So what do we know about him?
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Jared is an astronaut, and so he knows a lot
about space. He has experience, of course in space actually
like flying himself. And Elon Musk and Jared Isaacman have
known each other for years.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
I mean, I've been a you know, an aviation in
space enthusiast since Wilson's kindergarten. And you know, I thought,
you know, becoming an astronaut you a better chance of
getting struck by lightning. So I had this parallel career
in aviation.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Jared was an astronaut on SpaceX flights. The two we
know have hung out socially, and they've even given to
charitable causes together. And so far, everybody that I and
my colleagues have talked to have said that Isaacman, while
he's not like necessarily a traditional choice, you know, prior
(05:31):
and to Asset administrator, Jim Bridenstein was a congressman beforehand,
we've largely heard very positive things about Jared. Jared is
someone who really believes in exploring space, and a number
of people have actually shared that he is very risk tolerant,
to the point where we heard that even some people
(05:52):
at SpaceX have been worried in years past about his
level of risk, more so than the company itself.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
My top agenda, when I'm incredibly passionate about, is the
competitiveness of our nation. You know, we started leading in
this new domain, we have to continue to do so.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
So for example, on one mission that he flew, he
wanted to go at a higher altitude and that worried
some people within SpaceX, and he kind of pushed for it,
and they ended up flying at that higher altitude. They
were worried about kind of like debris space debris, and
he got his way. And so I found it really
interesting that he is someone that is open to risks,
(06:29):
and maybe that's part of what fuels this friendship with
Elon Musk. But it was very interesting when we learned
that Elon had actually called Jared on the phone to
offer him the NASA position.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
And so do we know anymore about that phone call
between Musk and Asaka and what was said and then
I suppose what happened immediately afterwards.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
So we know that this phone call happened late last
year and that Elon called Jared with a request and
it was basically wood Jared and become the head of NASA.
And part of Elon's pitch to Jared was that they
could make NASA great again and work toward their shared
ambition of getting humans to Mars. Our understanding is that
(07:13):
that was something that really sat well with Jared. And
soon after the call, Trump announced that Jared was appointed
NASA administrator. Trump intends to put tech billionaire and entrepreneur
Jared Isacman in charge of the government space agency. Isaac
One's appointment could shake up the race for a man.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Okay, so we have this very risk tolerant billionaire astronaut
announced as the next head of NASA. We're still waiting
for his confirmation and for him to begin at that role.
But tell me about what's been happening behind the scenes
at NASA since the Trump administration came to power.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
So I've been kind of thinking about this in a
few different ways. One is that Elon Musk is installing
loyalists as head or key role of crucial agencies that
impact the ability to get to Mars. Obviously, that phone
call with Jared is like, you know, a huge example
of that. He also has been behind the scenes navigating
(08:13):
how to change federal spending so to get to programs
that are related to Mars. And then he also has
doge where he has access to you know, technology systems, personnel, budgets,
and has just tons of information. So there's been a
lot that Elon has been doing behind the scenes to
re order a number of NASA's programs. President Trump puts out,
(08:38):
you know, this announcement that Jared is appointed NASA administrator
and then NASA staff on January thirty. First got an
email that we reviewed from the agency's acting administrator, Janet Petro.
So she's the person who is leading NASA until there
is a confirmed NASA administrator, and they welcomed a new
(09:00):
senior advisor and it was a longtime SpaceX executive named
Michael Altenhoffen who had worked at SpaceX for like fifteen years.
And while he was at SpaceX, he also became close
to Isaacman and talks to Isaacman frequently. And he took
up this position right away ahead of the confirmation hearing.
And the way that it was described to us is
(09:21):
that he is basically shadowing the acting administrator. And that's
just one more person who has ties to Elon Musk,
who is now already at NASA even before Jared is confirmed.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
So as Musk wants to slit up the timeline to
get to Mars, what would it take to get there?
That's off to the right.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
Hi, I'm Daniel James. Seven I AM tells stories that
need to be told. A journalism is fan that on
trust and independence and now we're increasing our coverage. Every
Saturday until the election, we'll bring you an extra episode
to break down the biggest political moments of the week.
If you enjoy seven Am, the best way you can
support us is by making a contribution at seven am
(10:11):
podcast dot com dotu slash support. Thanks for listening. And
supporting our work.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
So, Emily, can we talk a bit more about Elon
Musk and his relationship to Mars. I mean, he's spoken
about it a lot in the past, you know, his
vision for humanity to get there. So tell me a
bit about the backstory here and how he's framing this
new push.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
So Elon Musk founded SpaceX more than twenty years ago
in two thousand and two, and the mission was to
take humanity to other planets. That has totally infused SpaceX's
culture with that long term goal, and SpaceX was on
the brink of failure many different times. Why he did
(11:00):
a successful launch of its first rocket in two thousand
and eight after having failures beforehand.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
We have the doc SpaceX Belcon one launch vehicle, the
Falcon that's.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Clear at the tower, and it eventually developed the Falcon
nine rocket and that could be partially reused. So this
was a game changer in the space industry because it
lowered the cost of launches, and it also took the
market share from incumbent rocket operators, especially a really large
company like Boeing. Over the years, Elon has talked about
(11:36):
Mars all the time, and he also talks a lot
about multiplanetary life.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Soship is the first rocket that has the potential to
make life multiplanetary, to make us a multi planet civilization
for the first time.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
And he envisions a world or universe I guess I
should say where there's civilization on Mars. It even got
to the point where just recently SpaceX brought back these
ashnuts to turn them from space. It was like a
huge success for SpaceX and something that was seen around
the world. And Elon Musk had an interview with Fox
(12:10):
News and as he was being interviewed and asked about
all of this, he started talking about Mars and just
didn't want to stop.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
We are going to be able to take Asronaltz to Mars.
In fact, we want to take anyone who goes to
Mars and ultimately build a self sustaining civilization on Mars.
That is the long term goal of the company, make
life healthy planetary.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
And I mean, what would it actually take to make
something like that reality. What is it like on Mars
and what would it take to actually set up a
colony there?
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Ooh, those are big questions. I mean, I will say
in terms of actually getting to Mars, just to break
this down a little bit. It can take roughly a
week to get to the Moon and back. It could
take an estimated two to three years for a round
trip between Earth and Mars, so let's just start there,
Like this is going to take a very long time.
(13:04):
What some people had mentioned to me is like the
clock is ticking because if Musk feels like he has
this four years while President Trump is in office to
try to accomplish this goal, that a number of people
in the space community, both on the commercial side and
government side across the world were kind of skeptical if
that could happen. And then let's just talk about the cost.
(13:24):
I mean, I talked to people that said, even if
you take all of the various costs of different programs
that NASA has, and if you redirected everything, so this
is like tens of billions of dollars, that still wouldn't
be enough. And so there are also questions of if
Musk is able to shift some of the federal spending
toward Mars, would he also have to self fund some
(13:47):
of it. And we are talking about the richest man
of the world, So in some ways, the sky's the limit.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
So everything about this seems incredibly ambitious, expensive, time consuming.
Why do you think it is that school wants it
so much to be able to be able to colony
on mass.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
When I have talked to people close to Musk, they've
told me that his ultimate ambition is to get to Mars,
and that for his legacy, it's not about having power,
it's not about having money, it's not about having influence.
All those things are nice benefits that he is enjoying,
but he wants to be the person that can get
people to Mars. In terms of why he wants to
(14:27):
make life multiplanetary, I think that he feels like there
should be other options besides planet Earth, so that in
case there are you know, more natural disasters or other issues,
that there are other options. And I think he, along
with a lot of people in Silicon Valley and elsewhere,
hope that they can live a really long time. And
so I think he's thinking into the future, you know,
(14:49):
generations of where will humans live if Earth continues at
the rate that we're going at.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Back tomorrow with part two of our interview with Emily
Glazer on how Musk's vision is jeopardizing NASA's current space projects.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
There's this program at NASA that is known as Artemis,
and it's a long range plan to explore the Moon
and eventually Mars. And one idea that we know Musk
and government officials have talked about is a scenario where
SpaceX would give up its Moon focused Partemis contracts that
are worth more than four billion dollars and that would
(15:29):
kind of shift the money behind the scenes and also
frankly benefit SpaceX, which is the private space company that
Elon Mask runs.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Also in the news today, the latest round of US
tariffs on dozens of countries have come into effect, including
a one hundred and four percent retaliatory tariff against China.
President Trump almost doubled duties on Chinese imports, originally set
at fifty four percent, after China announced their own counter
tariffs and vowed to quote fight to the end over
(16:08):
what it views as blackmail. And the family of Dawn Singleton,
one of the Bon Dai Junction stabbing victims, has launched
legal action against the nine Network and the Sydney Morning Herald.
The action is over photos in nine's sixty Minutes program,
which they claim were used without their permission and was
launched ahead of the inquest into the deaths of seven
people killed at Bon Dai Junction, Westfield on April thirteen,
(16:31):
twenty twenty four. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven AM.
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