{"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 Rare Earth Supply Chain Is More Fragile Than You Think","slug":"the-pentagon-rare-earth-supply-chain-is-more-fragile-than-you-think","published_at":"2026-06-08T07:48:27+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-defense-tech-podcast-with-fexingo-government-contracting-aerospace-and-military-tech-7871833/the-pentagon-rare-earth-supply-chain-is-more-fragile-than-you-think","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-0038.mp3","audio_url":"https://audio.fexingo.com/business/the-defense-tech-podcast/episode-0038.mp3","summary":"Episode 38 of The Defense Tech Podcast explores a quiet vulnerability inside the Pentagon's supply chain: rare earth elements. Lucas and Luna break down why China controls roughly 70% of global rare earth processing, how the Pentagon has been trying to build a domestic alternative through the Defense Production Act, and what a new $350 million grant to a startup called USA Rare Earth actually buys. They also tie in current market data — Lockheed Martin up 1.4% this week, Boeing down nearly 4% — to show how geopolitical risk ripples through defense stocks. If you've ever wondered why the F-35, Patriot missiles, and night-vision goggles all depend on a handful of Chinese refineries, this episode explains the bottleneck and what the Pentagon is doing about it. #RareEarth #Pentagon #SupplyChain #DefenseTech #China #USA Rare Earth #Lockheed Martin #Boeing #F35 #PatriotMissiles #DefenseProductionAct #CriticalMinerals #GeopoliticalRisk #LucasAndLuna #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast #DefenseIndustry #Technology Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo","meta_description":"Episode 38 of The Defense Tech Podcast explores a quiet vulnerability inside the Pentagon's supply chain: rare earth elements. Lucas and Luna break down w…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":504,"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-rare-earth-supply-chain-is-more-fragile-than-you-think/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-rare-earth-supply-chain-is-more-fragile-than-you-think.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}