Make Me Smart: Lunar Edition

This week’s launch of Artemis II marked the first crewed mission to the moon in over 50 years. This time around, the spaceflight industry looks pretty different, with private companies playing a more dominant role. On today’s show, Kimberly gets into the future of NASA and the commercial space sector with Ars Technica’s senior space editor Eric Berger. Plus, why are we going back to the moon, anyway?

Here’s everything we talked about today:

• "Artemis II is unlikely to be the cultural touchstone Apollo 8 was, and that's OK" from Ars Technica
• "Isaacman aims to reinvigorate NASA’s image, starting with the moon" from Politico
• "Trump FY2027 NASA Budget Supports Moon Missions, But Cuts Everything Else" from SpacePolicyOnline.com
• "Big Banks Seeking a Piece of SpaceX’s I.P.O. Must Subscribe to Elon Musk’s Grok" from The New York Times
• "SpaceX quietly files for big bang IPO" from SpaceNews
• "Artemis II: What's on the Menu?" from NASA
• "Astronaut Reid Wiseman was wrong about how rockets get to space" from Marketplace

We love hearing from you. Leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART or email makemesmart@marketplace.org.