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Today, we’re talking about two topics near and dear to our hearts: space and economics. Over the last several years, NASA’s Artemis program and the commercialization of space have given rise to a large and growing space economy estimated at $400 billion. We’ll talk with Namrata Goswami, co-author of  “Scramble for the Skies: The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space,” about the state and evolution of the space economy. In the News Fix: Are we seeing signs of a slowing economy? And bye-bye barcodes. Then, this week’s answer to the Make Me Smart question sent Kimberly down a rabbit hole.
Note: Fox News reached a settlement in the defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems after this show was recorded.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

• • “Among the goals of Artemis I: launching the lunar economy” from Marketplace

• • “The Commercial Space Age Is Here” from Harvard Business Review

• • “QR-style ‘2D barcodes’ will revolutionize retail as we know it” from Axios

• • “Fox News, Dominion reach settlement” from The Washington Post

• • “Fox News and Dominion reach a settlement” from NBC News

• • “Biggest US banks write off $3.4 billion in bad consumer loans” from Bloomberg

• • “More US consumers are falling behind on payments” from Reuters

“Make Me Smart” has been nominated for a Webby Award! We are honored, but we can’t win without your support. You can vote for “Make Me Smart” until Thursday by going to marketplace.org/votemms.