Elon Musk Is Remaking the US Space Program
On this episode of Tech Won’t Save Us, Tim Fernholz on Elon Musk’s influence in the White House and, consequently, the US space program.

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On this episode of Tech Won't Save Us,Paris Marx is joined by Tim Fernholz to discuss how Elon Musk’s influence in the White House is shaping the US Space Program, why he’s pushing NASA toward Mars instead of the Moon, and whether the Starship rocket is in trouble.
Tim Fernholz is a senior reporter at Payload Space and the author of Rocket Billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the New Space Race.
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White House senior adviser and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attends a cabinet meeting at the White House on April 30, 2025, in Washington, DC.
(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)On this episode of Tech Won’t Save Us, I am joined by Tim Fernholz to discuss how Elon Musk’s influence in the White House is shaping the US Space Program, why he’s pushing NASA toward Mars instead of the moon, and whether the Starship rocket is in trouble.
Tim Fernholz is a senior reporter at Payload Space and the author of Rocket Billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the New Space Race.
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Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
We are often told that resisting technological development is impossible and ‘progress’ is inevitable, but history says otherwise. Thomas Dekeyser joins Paris Marx to discuss how understanding radical resistances of the past can help us rethink our modern relationship with technology and reshape our vision of the future.
Thomas Dekeyser is a lecturer in human geography at the University of Southampton, author of Techno-Negative: A Long History of Refusing the Machine, and co-creator of the documentary Machines in Flames.
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