Jared Isaacman

But that is not a way to get there frequently.

That is a way to get there every three years.

She was like, really?

Insane.

And not only that, it introduces a whole other part called Gateway, which is a lunar gateway that makes things even more expensive.

And the reason we need to do that is because our partners on SLS that are building the European service module doesn't have the performance to do what we need it to do.

So we need to create a new space station over the moon.

None of this is affordable.

You know what I mean?

But anyway, we leverage what we have to get back to the moon and then figure out, do we need to stay?

Is it helium-3?

I mean, there's more of it on the Moon, not a lot of it, but there's more of it on the Moon than on Earth.

Is that going to be the key to, I don't know, any sort of quantum computing or fusion power source?

If so, you're going to need to stay.

Well, the good news is you can't get back to the Moon without either Blue Origin, SpaceX, or both because they're both building the landers.

And in order to get the landers to the Moon, it means they're reusable big rockets, so Starship and New Glenn work.

And if that works, now you have a way to get to and from the Moon affordably, repeatedly, without having to spend $4.5 billion per launch.

So now you've determined why you need to be there, and now you have an affordable path to go back and forth.

So now you pivot the money that you were investing in that $4.5 billion per launch vehicle to nuclear spaceships, and that has applications for Moon, Mars, low Earth orbit, and it's just a natural evolutionary step for the agency.

For the third of the budget that is SLS, I would have used what we already have and will have over the next two years to get to the moon a couple of times,