Alex Epstein

I'm genuinely excited to see America headed back to the Moon. But Artemis is a moondoggle and shows we haven't learned the deepest lessons of the Apollo era. Remember that Apollo did *not* result in durable progress in space. It marked a literal high point for more than half a century. The cost of space access remained prohibitively high until we had a rebirth of space entrepreneurship. Thank you for showing the way, SpaceX. Apollo was history's greatest tech demo—the Moon landing. This is inspiring—it shows the triumph of ingenuity, science, and reason. But also, Apollo led to half a century of stasis and regression. It was fundamentally uneconomic, contributed to creation of a cost-insensitive space agency and supply base, all more concerned with perpetuating their own existence, more concerned with make-work jobs than accelerating human progress. Now we're going back to the Moon... essentially the same way we did in 1969. Again uneconomically, again with central planning. A disposable rocket, no answer to how we create a self-sustaining lunar economy. Again, we're taking communists approaches in competition with the communists. Communism didn't work for the Russians, and it won't work for America either. The sooner we can be done with this moondoggle, the better. But there is also reason to be optimistic: this time around, there's a nascent, commercially-led vision for the moon. Lunar hotels. Mass drivers. Data centers in space. Helium-3. The commercial programs that gave SpaceX an early assist show a different and better path forward. This is where the better future lies, and this is where America should be focused. America should take the Moon, and we should take it the same way we took the American West. Let's encourage and protect lunar value creation. How about a Homestead Act for the Moon? Most important, let's stop dumping money and more importantly the time of our engineers and scientists on glory projects that will never lead to a better future. It is indeed time for another space race. Last time, we fought communism with communism. This time, let's remember what made America great. This time, let's fight communism with capitalism.

To all who still don't get why renewable energy generation beats oil & gas hands down:

Elon Musk: The vast majority of intelligent people still miss this — sustainable abundance for humanity is completely achievable on Earth. “There is a straightforward roadmap to a fully sustainable energy future for our planet. It doesn’t mean wrecking natural habitats. It doesn’t mean embracing austerity, shutting off the lights, or freezing in the dark. In fact, we could sustainably support a civilization far larger than today’s — well beyond 8 billion people. I’m continually surprised that so few recognize this obvious path. Most of the sharpest minds I talk to still don’t see it. They assume a sustainable energy future either doesn’t exist, can’t handle our current population, or demands drastic sacrifices. None of that is accurate.”

Ok not couple of 10s of miles but couple of miles