Part 7/14:
A significant financial comparison was made regarding NASA’s Artemis program. The traditional Orion spacecraft, built by Lockheed Martin, is set to carry astronauts to the Moon, costing taxpayers approximately $4.1 billion for the Artemis 2 mission alone, with overall program costs exceeding $90 billion due to delays and overruns.
Musk pointed out that if NASA pivoted to fully utilizing SpaceX’s Starship, with orbital refueling and rapid launches, it could significantly reduce costs—potentially below $1 billion per lunar flyby. This shift would vastly improve efficiency and leverage the power of commercial innovation to save billions.
Elon’s stance emphasizes the benefits of reusability and commercial contracting, echoing SpaceX’s broader mission of cost-effective space travel.