# 🚀 The trillion-dollar space race: My chat (+transcript) with journalist Christian Davenport

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Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/faster-please-the-podcast-5630783/the-trillion-dollar-space-race-my-chat-transcript-with-journalist-christian-davenport.md
Podcast: [Faster, Please! — The Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/faster-please-the-podcast-5630783)
Published: 2025-11-04T20:32:58+00:00
Episode link: https://fasterplease.substack.com/p/the-trillion-dollar-space-race-my
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/177410874/536da7aa4f480b14f2dde7e53ed05326.mp3
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Duration seconds: 1801

## Resource

My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers, China’s spacefaring ambitions pose tough competition for America. With a focused, centralized program, Beijing seems likely to land taikonauts on the moon before another American flag is planted. Meanwhile, NASA faces budget cuts, leadership gaps, and technical setbacks. In his new book, journalist Christian Davenport chronicles the fierce rivalry between American firms, mainly SpaceX and Blue Origin. It’s a contest that, despite the challenges, promises to propel humanity to the moon, Mars, and maybe beyond. Davenport is an author and a reporter for the Washington Post, where he covers NASA and the space industry. His new book, Rocket Dreams: Musk, Bezos, and the Inside Story of the New, Trillion-Dollar Space Race , is out now. In This Episode * Check-in on NASA (1:28) * Losing the Space Race (5:49) * A fatal flaw (9:31) * State of play (13:33) * The long-term vision (18:37) * The pace of progress (22:50) * Friendly competition (24:53) Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. Check-in on NASA (1:28) The Chinese tend to do what they say they’re going to do on the timeline that they say they’re going to do it. That said, they haven’t gone to the moon . . . It’s really hard. Pethokoukis: As someone — and I’m speaking about myself — who wants to get America back to the moon as soon as possible, get cooking on getting humans to Mars for the first time, what should I make of what’s happening at NASA right now? They don’t have a lander. I’m not sure the rocket itself is ready to go all the way, we’ll find out some more fairly soon with Artemis II. We have flux with leadership, maybe it’s going to not be an independent-like agency anymore, it’s going to join the Department of Transportation. It all seems a l…

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## Transcript

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