Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Space Porn

Episode Date: July 21, 2022

Conan talks with NASA engineer Smythe about the craziest things he’s smuggled into space and how Conan’s team would fare in the final frontier. Wanna get a chance to talk to Conan? Submit here: TeamCoco.com/CallConan

Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com slash call Conan. Okay, let's get started. Hi there, Smith. Meet Conan. Meet Sona. Hey, Smith.

How are you? Doing very well. How are you? We're doing well. It's very nice to meet you. Your name is... Smith is your first name. Is that right?

It is. I get that a lot. A lot of times when I go into a doctor's office, they look at my first name and say, no, don't want to pronounce that. Look at my last name, Mulligan. No, I don't want to do that. So I get my middle name, Robert. So I have to be on the looks for any name said in a doctor's office.

These are very crappy doctors you're going to. Yes. Yes. How are you going to trust them to do a delicate procedure if they refuse to even try your name? That was before my triple bypass, actually. What? No, I'm joking.

Is that true? Oh my God. Yes. You know what? Here's the thing. Can I call you something? I'm going to call you Smythe because it's S-M-Y-T-H-E. Yeah.

Hey, Smythe. Smythe. First of all, when someone mentions that they got a triple bypass, I thought it was highly likely you were joking. But if I laugh in that moment, then I'm penalized if you say, no, I'm serious. Then I'm the prick. What we did was the safer course of, oh, that's terrible, and then you told us you were joking and now you're the prick.

Well that's the safer course. What I've learned from your podcast is, since when do you care? Right. Yeah. Good point. Now listen, Smythe, I'll go with Smythe. Smythe, I do care. I am a compassionate man.

I'm very good at pretending I don't care. Right, guys? No, it's pretending that you care. That's what it is. You're right. I got confused. It's pretending I do care. Yeah.

It's a reverse. I do care about you. Tell me about yourself. You're showing it well. Thank you. Yeah. Tell me, like most sociopaths, I've learned visual cues of how to behave. What?

Tell us about yourself. What do you do, Smythe? So I am a mechanical engineer. I work for a NASA contractor here in Houston, Texas. Oh wait, you're a NASA contractor? What are you? Are you building rovers? What are you building?

What are you doing? No. No. The rovers and all that stuff is out there in JPL by y'all. Yes. JPL was in Pasadena. That's right. Yes.

And I was there just a week ago, by the way. Oh. I went there to do, I taped an episode of the podcast Infinite Monkey Cage with Brian Cox. And it was really fun and we went to JPL. Oh, that's why I've been there. It's amazing. And my son came with me and they showed us the rover and they let us keep it. Oh.

I drove it on the 405. Oh. You're the last person they should give it to. Yeah. And then we took a core sample. And it turned out it was concrete. And you know what? It's concrete.

Anyway. And broken dreams. To everyone's surprise, it is concrete. Yeah. Mostly concrete and then some broken dreams at the bottom. Smith, so I did know that, but what are you making for? So you're a mechanical engineer. You work for a contractor of NASA.

Are you actually, what are you doing for NASA that involves space? I want to get right to the nitty gritty. So I am not actually like building any rockets or anything usually. But when you're in a bar, you say you are, right? Oh, yeah, of course. I mean, I'm sorry. If I was a mechanical engineer for NASA and I didn't build anything, that would not be the story I would tell in bars.

Or on a podcast. Yes. Or on a podcast. Yeah. Just lie. Think of UPS for space. Essentially, we create the manifest that all of the visiting vehicles use going up and down.

So everything that needs to launch to the International Space Station, everything that needs to return or get disposed of. You decide what gets in the payload going to the space station and coming back. Me and a host of other people. I am a small cog in a much larger wheel. Okay. Again, this is not the way you would say it at a bar. I'm trying to help you, Smithy.

I'm trying to help you. You're supposed to say like, yeah, I pretty much decide. I build the space station and then I send it up and then sometimes I take it back down and fix it and send it up again. What's the craziest shit you've ever smuggled up there? Is it porn? Smuggled up. I mean, there's a cool video on YouTube if you want to look it up.

There is, no, not of that. Oh. Of that. People want some. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Does porn work in zero gravity? Does it?

Wouldn't there be some problems? Like never before. Where does that just go? I mean, hey, Sona. Where does it go? Take it easy. It goes everywhere. Yes.

Smithy, I'm sorry, Smith. I'll get it right at some point. He said you're not even trying to get it right. No. People, yeah, that is, Sona brought up, and it's disgusting what she said, but because she said I have to follow that line of reasoning, we're someone to be watching Space Porn up on the space station. What are the, how does that work?

Three female astronauts can be impregnated by the same man on the same session. Because the semen flies around? And finds its way. Life finds a way. And their women are all naked or just hanging around naked? Well, this is Space Porn. Smith, why did you take us down this road? I blame you.

I fully blame Sona. You know what? I like you. You've been on the, anyone who after knowing us for five minutes says I fully blame Sona has my great admiration. So you decide, I'm going to get us off of this terrible tangent that Sona brought us on. I fully decide.

I say no, Buster Brown, you're not launching that thing or launching this other thing. So what kinds of things are you sending up there, food, various ducting that they need? I mean, from the most mundane duct tape, anything? Anything from the food, the air they breathe, the science experiments they need to do, spare parts, because let's face it, people have been up in the International Space Station for 20 years continuously. Stuff breaks like in a home. You've got to go fix it, but they don't have a Lowe's or a Home Depot to go like grab some

stuff and do it themselves, so we have to send it. Is it like Survivor? Do the astronauts get to bring a personal item, like a stuffed animal or a toothbrush or something? They do. They do. So on a lot of the vehicles, on a lot of the crewed vehicles, they'll actually have what's called a zero gravity indicator.

And on, I think, demo two for SpaceX, the first one that they actually sent people into space on their rocket, they had like a kid's toy, like one of the astronauts' kids, like one of his stuffed animals, and they used it as a zero G indicator, because once you're done with the thrust of the rocket, you're just in zero G, and that tells you, because it just starts floating around. But any object floating would be fine. A tennis ball. Giz.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They can be literally... Clean it up. They need to start something first. Matt, clean it up. Sorry. Clean it up. We're talking to a gentleman here who's doing good work for NASA, keeping the astronauts

alive, and you're splooging all over the place in zero gravity. So what I'd like to task you is things break on the space station, and they send them down to you to be repaired. Is that correct? Yes. And again, to me, particularly, I'm fixing things. There we go. There we go.

You're getting better. You're getting better. You're getting better. Yeah. So they'll send everything back down, and it'll get investigated. Any science samples will then get to actually be processed here on the ground, a whole wide variety of things. Are you ever concerned?

And this is a legitimate concern, because I've seen a lot of alien movies, and I know that Matt Gorley has as well. After opening, we know it's...Sona, we know you've never seen one. Let us handle this stuff. Sona has watched the human centipede 35 times. That's the limit of her science fiction. That's science, too. Yeah, it is.

It actually is. It's the most tender kind of science. My question... It's science friction. Okay. Smith. Man, I love these diatribes. This is my favorite part of the podcast.

This is the most difficult time I've had interviewing anyone since we started talking to fans. I'm sorry. Keep it together. I'm sorry. Okay. You were just... You had some jumpin' beans for breakfast. Let's play, Gorley.

It's not just me. Me, too. It's predominantly you. No, but I'm just... I now forget my train of thought. You said alien movie. I've never seen it. You are opening canisters that have come from the International Space Station.

As anyone who's watched science fiction knows, that's a recipe for disaster. All alien to human contact. If it doesn't come from a spaceship, it comes from mankind accidentally bringing something back to Earth. Good point. Thank you. Yeah. Luckily, most of what we're doing is stuff that's been sent up previously by man.

There are the occasional deals of like, hey, germs grow different places. They'll take a swab of something on the ISS just to make sure health and safety of the astronauts and all that good stuff. Yeah. That's where it happens. If everything's sent up and sent back down, it was meant to be. No, no. The alien germs...

You just revealed... ...only a couple deaths have happened in the space. Have you ever felt sick to your stomach and you thought, maybe it's a burrito, but then a creature, a green worm-like creature burst out of your stomach? Yeah. No. Luckily, no monsters have been sent down from space. Smith, did you do COVID?

Did you do it? Was that you? You guys are coming in with like the hard-hitting questions that the listeners want to know. I can't say that I personally did COVID. Right. Right. Remember, Bragg, you're supposed to Bragg. No, no.

Someone who worked with him did. Well, I'm not going to Bragg about COVID. That one, I'm not going to Bragg. This is cool. This is... I think you have a very cool job. I think you could embellish it somewhat, saying it's UPS, but for space isn't sexy. If it fits at ships for a really high flat rate, that's okay.

That also works for a spaceporn. I have a question. Can I send something up to space, a civilian? If I wanted to send something... Let's say we wanted to send something up from the podcast, like a s'more or something that relates to something that our regular viewers know about or something emblazoned with the word catechi, would we be able to send that up? You definitely could.

You would, I think, get in touch with NASA's PAO office and then kind of go through a couple. Yeah. It's going to be a little bit, but you can definitely get it on. I would love to. We've sent some NFL footballs for their 50th Super Bowl and stuff like that. That's such shit, you know? Okay, the NFL sent something up. That's great.

It's about time they got some airspace. I think we should get something up from the podcast into the International Space Station. What? A towel? A towel? I don't know. Oh, does it clean up up there? No.

You're back at the... You're back at the dis? You know what? You're out of control today. I am. And you know what? I may put you in a... I'm going to put you in one of those quiz show booths from the 50s where you can't hear

anything and you can't speak. I'm going to back off your... I don't know. I just think footballs they could play with and stuff, that's fun, but we give them that would be of any use. I'm thinking, but I know that our podcast is touched on a wide... We could send Paul Rudd up. We could send Jeff Goldblum up.

Paul would love it. Oh, Jeff Goldblum. I mean, if we could let him kind of do some cleanup and tidying up up there, that would be great. No, I think it's going to be Goldblum. Goldblum on the... Can you imagine how people love that guy and he's been... He's becoming one of our all-time favorite podcasts.

He's half alien himself. He's like the perfect ambassador when the aliens come. He's the fly. He's, you know, and he's Brundle, you know, Brundle fly. I think we got to get him up there. I think it'd be fantastic. I'll talk to him. It's going to be a problem.

It's going to be six-five, but I think he'll go quietly. Six-five. We could... I can run some numbers and see what size bag we could fit him in. He must have been in a bag. Because we deal with all the sizes of bags that things need to fit in. We have to put Jeff Goldblum in a bag. I can tell you right now he needs to be in a bag that's at least six-five.

Yeah. Yeah. You know what? Gourley's just done the calculations. Yeah. For a six-foot-five man, he says the bag needs to be what? Six-five at least. Here we go.

Yeah, at least. Okay. There's a computer over here. This is fantastic. Now, tell us a little bit about you. I want to know, Smythe the man. I... So, me, I am a man at the...

Okay. The tests are in. Sometimes it's drive-throughs and over the phone, I get mistaken for a woman. So if you guys can't see me right now and you assume that I'm... No, I see you right now and you are all men. Yeah. Yeah, but... All men, just...

Yeah. Yeah. No, so sometimes when I go through drive-throughs, they assume I'm a woman, so I've gotten used to man and Mrs. over the phone, just a part of it. No, otherwise, I have really over COVID like so many other people had to kind of pick up fun hobbies and picked up cocktail making. Oh, you make cocktails. That's interesting.

Our own Matt Gourley, who I'm going to allow to come back to the podcast now, he was banished for 18 seconds for his insane recidivist behavior. The chilled chum. I've been listening to it and wanted to make it myself. It's really good. I will say that. I'm not a fan of Gourley's, but man, does he make a great cocktail. Thanks, guys.

It's a new hobby of mine too. I'm a novice, so thank you. So you make cocktails. Yeah. No, I've gotten really into that. My wife... Oh, you're married. How long have you been married?

Yes, I am. I... That's a little over six months now. Wait a minute. That is fresh. I asked you to tell us about yourself, and you didn't mention that you're newly married. You mentioned that you'd like to make the occasional cocktail. Yeah.

What the hell? What's going on? Parts of my life. Parts of my life, Conan. Stream of consciousness. That's a huge deal. Just give me a thanks. You got married.

Yes, I did. Did you meet at a bar where you told her that you pretty much built the International Space Station? No, you saw how well I embellished that story. That's not going to win for me. Trust me. It's not interesting. I'm one of 150 million people, but I'm all last names.

A useless cog, but my name is Smythe. So you've been married for six months. Wow. How long were you guys dating? We dated for six years. Wow. Oh. Cool.

But you've been living together for a while. I mean, it's not like it's a big transition. No, we had not been living together. So we just moved in. Oh, you've been dating for six years, but you never lived together? No. How's it going? It's going actually pretty well.

We don't want to kill each other, which I think is a success. Yeah. No, that's a huge transition, you know, to go to living with someone right after you get married. That's a big transition. So and it's a shock to the system when we move in with a member of the opposite sex. Trust me. Why are you saying it like that?

I don't know. It doesn't mean anything. He hadn't met a female until he was 35. Jesus. Smify. It's true. I like you, Smif. I like you.

I had that coming and I deserved it. And it's also you're off by two years, asshole. It was 30. 37. 37. So OK, well, that's great, so I mean, you are you guys are living together now as men and wife. I approve.

That's fantastic. I know that you called for my blessing and clearly you didn't give a shit, but that's terrific. That's great. And you are making cocktails. What else? What else? Do you have a question for Conan at all?

Oh, yeah. Do you have a question for me? I do have a question for you, actually. Oh, can I say one thing? I will answer your question in one condition, that you try and help us get something podcast related onto the International Space Station. And it could be something really small, something pretty harmless, you know, something that says cataclysm on it, a small vial of very flammable liquid, something.

One of those many things. With a detonator. I can I can try to write a couple emails and make a couple phone calls and, you know, snap my fingers because again, I decide what goes on. Can I say something? And I'm going to use your real pronunciation just to show my growing respect for you and my need to get this done, Smith. I think that this would be great promotion for the International Space Station because

this is a big podcast. Yeah. I don't like to brag, but more people listen to this than have ever seen a star in the sky. Oh, true. That's true. If you added up all the humans and all the stars in the universe, that's how big this podcast is.

That's an actual equation that we worked out that Matt worked out shortly after the six foot five thing. I have to say, I will do this if you at least write a couple of emails. That's all. Okay. I can I will I give you my promise. I will do my best. What if we send up a small voice recorder so that all the astronauts up there do a little

recording that we play on the podcast that can be the first maybe the first ever podcast from space? Probably not. I'm sure. There is actually there are a couple podcasts that have gotten astronauts on. I don't want to first step up Matt, but I'm sorry. Man. That's fantastic.

I'll show myself in. It's Andy Richter. Andy Richter did it a week ago. We didn't know about it. Three questions with General Zod. Yeah. No, I think it doesn't have to be. I mean, yes, there's that idea, but clearly I mean podcasts are everywhere.

And I think, you know, most the I read this recently, I think most the astronauts on the space station aren't even doing experiments anymore. They're just recording their own podcasts. It's why. Yeah. It's why. No, they had a cure for cancer. They were so close and they needed one more experiment and they just ditched it.

And they're up there talking about old cars they used to have and dates that went wrong. But anyway, okay, Smith, we'll get something up in the International Space Station. I don't know what it is. I would like it if they we had a recording me going cataclysm. And then every time a little door or anything, you push it. You pushed any button on the space station, like a door that opened or a flushing of space toilet would go cataclysm. When the toilet, the space toilet flushes, it goes shaz.

There's shaz. And then there's cataclysm. Okay. What's shaz? Remember, you were so drunk at chill chums that you don't even remember this. I don't remember that at all. That's a new thing we do. It was a thing that I talked about on the podcast when you were wasted.

Okay. So you might want to listen to it. Yeah, I should listen. It's shaz. Yeah. It's like the first time I'm hearing it. I'm not even joking. We probably talked about for five minutes.

No idea. It's blowing up the internet. The quality control on this podcast is... And that's my fault. Okay. I will get us back on to... What is your question for me, Smith? So I had a quandary, a question for you.

So imagine that you guys are launching into space. How do you guys function as a crew? What roles do you guys take up? Who goes insane first? Basically, give me an idea of how this space travel goes. Say you're just stuck in the space capsule for a couple months traveling to Mars or something. Okay. I have very strong feelings about this.

If it's okay for me to begin, I'm asking permission on this one because these guys are out of control today. What? No, it's okay. Just before you start, I'd love to go first. Go ahead. Shaz. Shaz.

Try listening to this sometime, you might enjoy it. You were there. Oh, anyway. Okay. Okay. First of all, it would be a similar dynamic to what you see here. We don't change as people. It's just in zero gravity and under constrained conditions.

I don't think I go crazy first because I would posit that I'm gone already. I would... That's my... I think I'm unbalanced now on Earth. I don't think I change that drastically when you put me in space. I think Goorley goes crazy first because, Sona, I've seen you be very chill in very intense situations. Goorley, you're a fussy fellow who likes your life the way you like it and all your little

chotchkes would be floating around. This is a guy who carries a briefcase telling me this. I don't have a briefcase. I've seen you come in with a little brown leather briefcase. It's a show. No, it's a... That's a mailman's bag. It's a mail bag.

That's even worse. No, no, no. Let me finish here. Okay. You're just wrong. You like your life the way you like it. That's true. Everything is just so.

And Sona and I have been in the trenches and some crazy stuff over the years. I think you have always, you've always enjoyed the music you wanted to hear, when you wanted to hear it, and the little snacks you wanted, just when you wanted them. I got Smith to ship all this up there for me. I know. No, but it's going to be floating around. That's just it. That's even better.

It's going to be floating around and you're going to get very uptight and you're going to say, where's my, yeah, where's my little, I don't even know what he's talking about. Well, no, I'm definitely not going crazy first. I know that's for sure. And I'm not. Because I'm there. I'm there. And that's what I was going to say.

You're already crazy, but how are you going to do without an audience for two months? Oh, all my bits in zero gravity. I get to do every bit that I've been trying out since I was a kid in zero gravity. I don't need anybody. I'm going to be so happy up there. I swear to God, me doing my stick in zero gravity, I mean, first, the first two years are going to be me doing the string dance in zero gravity and no one can even get my attention.

It doesn't come back down though, Conan. Oh, right. The string doesn't come back down. You just keep going up. You're going to be stuck in the position and you're going to have to manually force your leg back. Yeah. You could eject me from the spaceship and I could do one pole on the string dance of

and which rocket me towards the sun. Little thrusters. Yeah. You could do the movie Sunshine. This is what would happen. Yes. You would end up like Mark Strong in that movie. They wouldn't hear from us for decades and then they'd find you burned by the sun having

murdered everybody in the space station. Yeah. Okay. But that's not going. Still eating a potato. Yeah. That's not going. That's not me going crazy.

That's me realizing a dream. Oh. Okay. Oh, he went crazy. What did he do? He killed Goorley. Oh. I don't think he went crazy.

That's just normal behavior. He's okay then. He achieved his lifelong ambition. Is my life in danger? No, you're fine for now. For now. You're going to be murdered. So I think it would be a fantastic experience, you know, and I think we could add greatly

to science's knowledge of space. So, Conan, are you taking the lead role? Are you the captain on this mission? I'm not. Excuse me. I'm muting. What are you talking about? I'm not taking the lead role.

Wait a minute. What do you want to do? Why is this up for debate? That's insane. That's insane. Operate like a car fob, even, like much less a phone or a computer. He's not wrong. It's called Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend.

And you guys are terrific, smaller players. But you can't put me, you can't make me answer to Goorley or answer to Sona that small. It's going to be called Conan O'Brien Crashes a Spaceship. He's not wrong. Here's the thing, if there's something mechanically wrong that needs to be fixed like physically, somebody needs to actually fix it, I don't think you'll do that. I know Goorley will do that. I don't think you'll do that.

Are you handy? You need me. Are you handy? Are you handy as one? You are pretty handy. No, but you're still not in charge. Scotty on Star Trek was not in charge. The captain was in charge, and then he'd tell Scotty, get the engines working, and Scotty

would do it. That's the dynamic. But what if Scotty doesn't do it? Yeah, but what are you contributing? I have an amazing personality. That doesn't matter in space. Guess what? I have zero gravity hair on Earth's gravity.

So imagine what it's going to be like up there. I just don't know what you're bringing to the table. I have lots of bits. 28 years of America's love. Hold on a second. I'm doing the math right now. Well, I was on for 28 years. I want to say a solid three of America's love.

But I think, it's not even for discussion. I am the alpha. And I'm not saying it's- You're the elf. I'm not saying it's a good thing. I didn't say it was a good thing. It's just going to happen. Okay. Okay.

All right. Well, Smith, it's been very nice talking to you. I don't think we accomplished anything, but we never- No, this will never air. This- Oh, no, no. Coming into this, talking with the producers, I understood this would never see you. No, no, no.

It would never air if the whole spaceporn thing alone has created some images. Something a lot of people might want to forget, but- No, no. You want to hear it. Something that happened, none of this. A roping ejaculate spinning through the air, impregnating everyone in its path. No one's going to forget that. No one did.

You've made space jizz art. Well, I thank you guys for your time. He's ending it. I'm also forgetting. He's probably fired. Smith Malikin, you're the first man ever on a Kona fan to end the interview. Yeah, Smith. Through your own good judgment and sense of propriety.

And I congratulate you. Thank you. Well, thank you guys so much. And also, I must say, just real quick, your YouTube channel, I watched a lot. That's one of the ways I got really into being a Conan fan. Oh, that's nice. Originally. I actually found out about people's deaths through the YouTube channel because they were

so quick to publish things with that person. I know. It's clear that people will no longer want to be interviewed by me because everyone you talked to died suddenly. You know what? We worked really hard on that stuff and devoted a lifetime to it. So it's makes me very happy that people are seeing that stuff on YouTube and and then finding their way to us here on this show.

So thank you. Thank you for saying that. If anyone who heard that, go check us out on the YouTube channel and find out which celebrity died this week. Team Coco. Team Coco. Sorry. I just in case they're looking for it, it's it's the Team Coco channel on YouTube.

This is why you're captain. Yeah. Sona just made herself captain. And guess what? Yeah. Anyone who gets the plug in for our own products should be captain. I quit. I don't want to be captain.

Thanks a lot, Smith. Really nice to meet you. Bye, Smith. Take care. Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Both Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian and Matt Gorely, produced by me, Matt Gorely, executive produced by Adam Sacks, Joanna Soloteroff and Jeff Ross at Team Coco and Colin Anderson at Ear Wolf, music by Jimmy Vavino, supervising producer Aaron Blair, associate talent producer

Jennifer Samples, associate producers Sean Doherty and Lisa Berm, engineered by Will Beckton. Please rate, review and subscribe to Conan O'Brien needs a friend on Apple podcasts, Stitcher or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.