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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Odds are, when you think of NASA, you think of spaceships, the moon, Mars rovers, right? The act of seeing a dot in the night sky and saying, "Let's go there." Human ambition has gradually ceded over the decades to the bureaucratic realities of funding and politics and, over the last few years, to Elon Musk in particular. As space travel has increasingly become the domain of the private sector, NASA risks becoming a sandbox for the whims and desires of the world's richest man.

Joining us now to explain how this happened and what the consequences might be is Franklin Foer, staff writer at The Atlantic. Maybe you saw his most recent article, published a week ago, titled "How NASA Engineered Its Own Decline." Hey, Franklin, welcome back to WNYC.

Franklin Foer: Always great to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Before we get to how we got here or why we should care, early on in your article, you say that Elon Musk and SpaceX have superseded NASA. How do you mean superseded?

Franklin Foer: Once upon a time, when we wanted to do something in space-- By "we" I mean the United States, we had our own infrastructure for accomplishing that, whether it was launching satellites, whether it was traveling to the moon, or whether it was traveling to low Earth orbit. NASA had its own rockets. Now, NASA is merely a passenger on Elon Musk's rockets. There's something even deeper that's transpired, which is that the United States used to set its own vision for what it was going to do.

As NASA has lost confidence in itself and the culture has shifted, the vision for what we do in space has really been outsourced to Elon Musk with his cultural prestige, with the clarity that he has of his vision, with his alliance now or the alliance that he did have for a time with Donald Trump, which helped reset the American agenda for what we accomplished in space. We've transferred not just the basic infrastructure to Elon Musk. To some extent, we've allowed him to impose his vision for what we accomplished in the heavens on us.

Brian Lehrer: Before we even get into what that vision is or how this happened or why, tell our listeners why they should care or be dubious of this. One could argue, as I'm sure Musk would argue, maybe the current leaders of NASA would argue, I don't know, or Donald Trump would argue, look, if a private company can do space more efficiently, more effectively, and without charging the taxpayers, then why shouldn't we be having them do it?

Franklin Foer: The two things I want to talk about first is that I wrote this piece as a parable about American government and American ambition. Once upon a time, NASA symbolized the competence of the United States, that our government was able to do something extraordinary in the 1960s, which is that traveling to the moon was basically the hardest thing that humans could do. When Kennedy set that as the goal for the nation, we were able to display something about the potential competence of the government to do really big things.

When Lyndon Johnson and others thought about it, they weren't just thinking about doing this one big thing in the realm of technology. They were thinking that this could be a case study for how government was able to do big things back here on our own planet in the realm of fighting poverty and taking care of its citizenry. I do think that just watching how this transformation happens over time tells us something about ourselves.

The second reason that I think it matters is that space is no longer just about this exercise in traveling to new places, this exercise in exploration. Originally, when we used to go to space, it was about showing how there was this possibility for a better way to organize ourselves than we'd done back on our old planet, that space would be this realm of cooperation and none of our militarization or the worst of our economics would be transmitted up into space. Space has become now central to the way that we fight wars.

Part of our dependence on Elon Musk is not just about traveling back and forth to the International Space Station. It's the government is now partnering with Musk to build constellations of satellites that are essential to military communications, essential to the way that our government does surveillance around the world of hostile powers. There's talk now the Trump administration is building a missile defense system, the Golden Dome. SpaceX is going to be central to that. No matter the spat between Trump and Musk, the truth is that when Trump considered excising Musk and his contracts from the federal system, they couldn't do it because the United States is just dang dependent on SpaceX.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if you have a question, we can take a few for Franklin Foer from The Atlantic on Elon Musk controlling the space program more or less at this point. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, call or text. This reliance on Musk leads us to the core of your article, that NASA has had little choice but to capitulate to Musk's "delusions of destiny." Why delusions? What do you consider Musk's delusions of destiny?

Franklin Foer: Musk has a very specific idea about what a human future in outer space looks like, which is the colonization of Mars, which he considers to be the single most urgent thing that humanity could do. Musk believes that at some point, the Earth is going to suffer some apocalypse, whether it's because of climate change or nuclear warfare, or a rogue AI, and that there needs to be this safety valve in the form of a colony that gets established in Mars. Not just a colony on Mars, but he's got lots of very specific ideas about the shape and form that a colony would take hold there.

He believes that it would be this libertarian vision. There's almost a eugenics component to this, where he wants the smartest people to have this safety valve. That's what he's pushing towards. Part of the history of space, not just the American space program, but this happens all through human history, is that the richest people are always attracted to space as a way of signaling their status and power, much like the United States did during the Cold War. Because space travel is so exceedingly difficult, being able to do it signals to the rest of the world that you are indeed the planet's alpha force, that you are the richest, you are the most competent.

I think that that story of status and power and space is very much the Elon Musk story. It's what's propelled, in part, his cultural prestige, and it's, in part, part of his ambition for pushing and pushing and pushing to go ever further.

Brian Lehrer: One listener writes in the text, "Even in the glory days of NASA, private companies, Lockheed, Boeing, et cetera, were contracted to build rockets. What's the difference now?" Another text points out, "Elon relies on taxpayer dollars to fund his vision and actions. This is hardly 'privatizing' when taxpayers pay the costs and the risks." What do you say to either of those listeners?

Franklin Foer: When the Apollo program was launched, there was a network of contractors that the government used. During the height of Apollo, the government had so much engineering expertise at its own disposal that it planted its own bureaucrats within each of the factories, each of the facilities where the private contractors were doing the work. Ultimately, NASA had complete control over the process. Over time, what happened is the balance of power tipped towards the contractor.

When the space shuttle was built, the government didn't have the money that it had during the Apollo program. It made a deal with the contractors that the contractors would own the underlying intellectual property for the rockets. They ended up having much more of the expertise, and that that changed the culture at NASA, which became more timid, more deferential to the contractors. Then we get to this next chapter, which is the SpaceX chapter, where the government decides that it no longer is going to actually own the rockets itself. It's just going to buy essentially tickets on Elon Musk's rockets.

It's not a terrible system that we've developed. I'm not decrying the idea of relying on contractors or on private partners. SpaceX, in a lot of ways, is an incredible company that they do things cheaper, more efficiently than its competitors. There is no competitor to SpaceX. That indeed is the problem, is that we've become not just reliant on the private sector, it's that we've become reliant on one private company, and that gives that one private company so much leverage over the space program itself. As we've witnessed over the course of the Trump administration, we just see this hemorrhaging of government expertise. That, too, only serves to bolster the power that now resides within one contractor.

Brian Lehrer: I think that one contractor point is an important point, because there was a time not that long ago when if somebody was just casually following in the news, they might have thought, "Oh, multiple billionaires are starting space companies." Musk, but also particularly Jeff Bezos's space technology company, Blue Origin. There was just a story yesterday about crypto billionaire Justin Sun bidding $28 million for a seat on a Blue Origin spacecraft. What happened to the Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk going into space privatization era?

Franklin Foer: First of all, I don't know if it would be much better if we were dependent on two billionaires who were essentially hobbyists. It's fascinating to watch because these two billionaires had very different approaches to how they built rockets. Musk was more in this traditional move fast and break things Silicon Valley mold. It worked. That he was willing to fail spectacularly, and he was willing to make audacious promises to the government about what he would be able to deliver. Oftentimes, he failed to deliver what he was promising on time. He kept pushing forward in this relentless way, which made his company as ubiquitous as it's become.

Bezos identified more with the turtle than the hare. In fact, that's part of his company's motto and logo. He's been trying to take this step-by-step, slow, methodical process. That's failed, I think, at least as regards to-- it maybe succeeded a little bit as it relates to space tourism, but it's failed in the realm of government contracting.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Franklin Foer is our guest, if you're just joining us, from The Atlantic, who has a new article about how Elon Musk ate NASA. Joe in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Joe.

Joe: Hello, how are you? I just briefly wanted to remind everybody that, however unsavory it may be to have Elon Musk at the helm, as he seems to be, and how little real competition there appears to be, that before all of this, we were getting a lift from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, in order to get to our own space station. I would prefer to see a neo-oligarch in America launching us to and from space than to depend on the Russians. That's my only point. I'll listen.

Brian Lehrer: If those are the only choices, maybe. Here's somebody else on space and the Russians. Andy in New Paltz, you're on WNYC. Hi, Andy.

Andy: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Andy: Great. I recall reading that at the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine, after the Russian invasion, Elon Musk licensed Starlink to the Ukrainians for their communications for the military, but rigged the system so that the Ukrainians couldn't receive the signal inside Russian territory, so the Ukrainians couldn't invade Russia as a result. Which basically means that Elon Musk was dictating rules of engagement for the Ukrainian military, which seems to me to be a lot of power to put in the hands of a non-governmental, unelected person, and probably foreshadows some of the abuses that could happen elsewhere if those practices continued. I was just wondering what your guest had to say about that.

Brian Lehrer: Andy, good question. Franklin.

Franklin Foer: Yes, it's indeed the case that Musk had volunteered to supply Starlink, which is the company that he has, that's part of SpaceX that uses SpaceX satellites to provide internet coverage back here on Earth. It's been a-- Starlink is a huge profit center for SpaceX. It subsidizes everything else. In fact, Musk said that he created Starlink in order to subsidize his pursuit of his Martian dream. During the Ukraine war, after having extended Starlink to Ukraine, there was a moment where he geo-limits it so that it can't be used in offensive operations that Ukraine is engaged in near Crimea.

He boasts on X, on Twitter, that basically he-- The communications network of the Ukrainian army is something where he supplies the spine, and that he can cut it off if he chooses. That's what he did. That, to me, that instance highlights the danger of the dependence that I'm describing, that even if we don't think that he could do that necessarily in the context of the American military, it's still-- We saw this in his spat with Donald Trump. Trump wanted to cut off SpaceX. Musk said, "You know what? Then fine, I'm not going to use my rockets to resupply the International Space Station."

Now, eventually, he backed down, and Trump backed down. Even so, that threat that Musk made, that I can shut things down, I can shut off this one switch that you depend on as a country, is something that we need to worry about.

Brian Lehrer: Let's end by talking about Musk and Mars. You wrote that Musk is obsessed with leaving Earth to escape apocalypse and human extinction. On creating Starlink, which you were just describing, Musk's satellite Internet service, you write that he did so because it would supply him with the capital to build rockets powerful enough to carry humanity to Mars. Quoting from your article. You mention how colonizing Mars would be the most audacious engineering challenge in human history. Much harder than landing on the moon.

On Musk's dream to travel to Mars, you write, "Musk sees Mars not merely as a lifeboat, but as a laboratory, an opportunity to re-engineer humanity." I mean, oh my God. There's some multiple threads in there, I guess, on human curiosity to explore to the-- I don't know even what the word is, megalomaniac or something, to re-engineer humanity, if that's really what he's about.

Franklin Foer: Yes, I mean, it's not uncommon that these Silicon Valley titans have a utopian vision for what they hope that their technology will accomplish. A lot of this rests in AI. In Musk's case, space is the place where he imagines that humans will take this next evolutionary step, that he talks about the possibility of re-engineering humans so that we can better thrive on Mars. It's connected to the way that he talks about his own biological reproduction, that he's so concerned that "smart people" are not having enough kids. He's done his part in this.

The Wall Street Journal had an article about how he has 14 children with different mothers because he believes that it's urgent that he plays his own part in reproducing the upper echelon of the species. I think we need to be concerned about that vision because of his influence. There's one last point I just want to leave listeners with, which is that NASA does two different things. One is human space exploration, and the other is that it produces knowledge about the heavens, but also about our own planet. That there's so many incredible things that NASA does well as it relates to understanding the universe, whether it's using telescopes to understand the deep history of the planet.

They're addressing almost spiritual questions about where we come from. That's the part of NASA that's being sacrificed by the Trump administration, as the Trump administration sacrifices all these other parts of the government that are committed to research and the production of knowledge, whether it's the National Institutes of Health or the war that the Trump administration has waged on universities, or even the war that it's waged on public radio, that it's tried to eliminate these independent sources of knowledge while it's pursuing a billionaire's utopian dream about what happens to the species. That, too, is part of the tale of what happens when a powerful person becomes too powerful. We start to lose our way in terms of our priorities.

Brian Lehrer: Franklin Foer, his latest article for The Atlantic, you might find it under the title "How NASA Engineered Its Own Decline," or "How Elon Musk Ate NASA," depending on when you click on The Atlantic site, I guess. Franklin, thanks a lot for sharing it with us.

Franklin Foer: Thanks.

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