This episode explores how the next era of space exploration is shifting from symbolic achievement to practical infrastructure, industry, and economic strategy. The discussion looks at helium-3 as a scarce but potentially high-value resource for quantum computing and future fusion, the search for lunar water through missions like LUPEX, NASA’s surprisingly large economic impact across jobs, tax revenue, technology transfer, and industrial growth, and the growing role of nuclear power and propulsion in sustaining lunar bases and reaching Mars. It also examines how international cooperation, including the Artemis Accords and long-standing ISS partnerships, may determine whether the emerging global space economy becomes a stable shared enterprise or a new arena of geopolitical competition.