{"podcast":{"title":"The Defense Tech Podcast with Fexingo: Government Contracting, Aerospace, and Military Tech","slug":"the-defense-tech-podcast-with-fexingo-government-contracting-aerospace-and-military-tech-7871833","podcast_index_feed_id":7871833,"rss_url":"https://feeds.fexingo.com/business/the-defense-tech-podcast.xml","website_url":"https://www.fexingo.com/","image_url":"https://audio.fexingo.com/business/the-defense-tech-podcast/cover.png","author":"Fexingo","episode_count":120,"summary":"Defense contracting isn't just F-35s and carrier groups. Lucas and Luna break down the actual economics of military tech: how aerospace primes like Lockheed, RTX, and Northrop Grumman manage multi-year fixed-price development contracts, what the DoD’s new CMMC cybersecurity rules mean for small subcontractors, and why the Navy’s Columbia-class submarine program is a case study in industrial-base risk. Each episode starts with a real number — a contract award value, a quarterly P&L line from a defense prime, a Pentagon budget line item — and builds a conversation around it. Lucas, a former defense correspondent, brings the policy and accounting; Luna, a tech-market analyst, connects the programs to publicly traded supply chains and venture-backed startups trying to break into classified markets. No classified information, no defense-blog speculation — just the business logic behind the weapons systems you read about in the news. Why does a missile cost $4 million? How does a shipbuilder hedge against steel tariffs? And what happens when a startup wins a Small Business Innovation Research grant for a prototype that the Air Force actually wants to buy? This is the business of nationa…","last_synced_at":"2026-07-19T08:17:05.344517+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-defense-tech-podcast-with-fexingo-government-contracting-aerospace-and-military-tech-7871833"},"episode":{"title":"The Pentagon Is Building a Moon-Based Nuclear Reactor","slug":"the-pentagon-is-building-a-moon-based-nuclear-reactor","published_at":"2026-06-17T08:03:36+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-defense-tech-podcast-with-fexingo-government-contracting-aerospace-and-military-tech-7871833/the-pentagon-is-building-a-moon-based-nuclear-reactor","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-defense-tech-podcast-with-fexingo-government-contracting-aerospace-and-military-tech-7871833","url":"https://audio.fexingo.com/business/the-defense-tech-podcast/episode-0056.mp3","audio_url":"https://audio.fexingo.com/business/the-defense-tech-podcast/episode-0056.mp3","summary":"The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is funding a project to build a nuclear fission reactor on the Moon by 2030 under the DRACO program. This episode explores why the Department of Defense needs lunar nuclear power — not for scientific exploration, but for energy-intensive military operations like persistent surveillance, surface mobility, and secure communication nodes. Lucas and Luna break down the technical challenges, the budget (around $100 million for the initial phase), and the contractors involved, including Lockheed Martin and BWX Technologies. They connect this to the recent surge in defense stocks — LMT up 2.1% and RTX up 5.3% in the past five days — and discuss how the push for space-based nuclear power signals a shift in military strategy toward a permanent off-world presence. #Pentagon #NuclearReactor #Moon #DARPA #DRACO #SpaceDefense #LunarEnergy #LockheedMartin #BWXTechnologies #FissionReactor #MilitaryTech #SpaceOperations #DefenseContractors #LMT #RTX #Business #Technology #FexingoBusiness Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo","meta_description":"The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is funding a project to build a nuclear fission reactor on the Moon by 2030 under the DRA…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":611,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-defense-tech-podcast-with-fexingo-government-contracting-aerospace-and-military-tech-7871833/episodes/the-pentagon-is-building-a-moon-based-nuclear-reactor/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-defense-tech-podcast-with-fexingo-government-contracting-aerospace-and-military-tech-7871833/the-pentagon-is-building-a-moon-based-nuclear-reactor.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}