Veteran astrophysicist with 1.8 million subscribers Scott Manley reveals why Elon Musk abruptly abandoned Mars for the Moon, why Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin have been quietly positioned for lunar dominance for years, and why China could beat them both by 2030.

Scott Manley is a Scottish-American astrophysicist, software engineer, and one of the most trusted space educators on the internet, with over 680 million views and 1.8 million YouTube subscribers. An asteroid bears his name. In this clip from the Watson-Howland Podcast, he explained why Elon Musk publicly pivoted SpaceX from Mars to the Moon in early 2025, what the US government told the private space industry behind closed doors, and why Jeff Bezos replied to Musk's announcement with nothing but a picture of a tortoise. Scott argued that Blue Origin has spent years quietly buil ...