Main Engine Cut Off - T+100: Midterms, and a Thought on Starlink

Episode Date: November 8, 2018

I share some space-focused takeaways from the US midterm elections and a thought that I had about recent Starlink reports. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 34 executive producers—Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Brad, Ryan, Jamison, Nadim, Peter, Donald, Lee, Jasper, Chris, Warren, Bob, Russell, John, Moritz, Joel, Jan, David, Grant, Mike, David, Mints, Joonas, and eight anonymous—and 194 other supporters on Patreon. Midterms and Space - Main Engine Cut Off What the 2018 midterms mean for NASA and planetary science | The Planetary Society Culberson loses as Democrats win House; Nelson losing Senate reelection - SpaceNews.com Musk shakes up SpaceX in race to make satellite launch window: sources | Reuters SpaceX seeks $750 million leveraged loan | Reuters SpaceX circulates price guidance on $750 million term loan | Reuters TMF Associates blog — Fake it till you make it? Low Earth Orbit Visualization | LeoLabs Email your thoughts and comments to [e-mail] Follow @WeHaveMECO Listen to MECO Headlines Join the Off-Nominal Discord Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn or elsewhere Subscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off Newsletter Buy shirts and Rocket Socks from the Main Engine Cut Off Shop Support Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon

midterms starlink we got some drama everywhere this week that i want to dissect this is managing cutoff i'm anthony colangelo let's start with the midterms. So the midterms happened. I'm sure that you've heard the news at this point. The House has flipped to the Democratic Party majority. Senate stayed Republican. And there were some interesting shifts specifically regarding space. And that's where I'm going to focus the show, obviously. Not going to get into outside influences as much. But I do want to talk about a couple of the important things with the space changes that we might see coming up out of this midterm election. any conversation with is that any particular representative or senator, if retiring, losing re-election, or whatever, in a space district doesn't usually matter as a general rule. There are certain conditions that do matter. I think, you know, because at the end of the day, that district is still that district. The same influences are there regardless of who's in that seat. The same constituents, the same lobbyists, the same companies, the same facilities

are there. So at a certain point, that district is a space district. What does matter is when a representative or senator is on a committee that impacts space, that can define the goals of NASA, NOAA, etc., that can define the budgets for them, the projects that they're going to work on. That matters quite a bit. The other things that matter are when somebody who has a lot of seniority leaves. And we're going to break down why all these things matter with some examples. The third thing that matters is when somebody is out who was a particular supporter, sometimes single-handed supporter of any given project.

So those are the three things to keep in mind that matter. Committee placements, seniority, and any off-base support. Any support for a program that isn't necessarily in their district, but is just something that they're interested in. And we had an example of every single one of those in this midterm election. So we're going to go through some of the important things. We'll start with Bill Nelson, with the disclaimer up front that Florida looks like it's going to go to a recount. A very close race right now now it's like 20,000 votes separating it, so this could change.

But it looks, right now, it looks like Nelson will lose his seat in the Senate. So Nelson is an example of two of these things. He is incredibly senior. He's been around a long time in Congress. And he was on a committee that impacts space. He was the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. So this is the committee that whenever you watch a Senate hearing, you'll see Ted Cruz,

you'll see Bill Nelson and the other senators that you know from the space sector. They will be the ones in those committee meetings asking questions of the witnesses. So this is a big loss because he's been around so long, he has that seniority, he has that position on the committee. He in particular has been historically a human spaceflight supporter, very staunch supporter of human spaceflight. He used his position in Congress to get him a flight on a space shuttle mission back in 86. And anytime you hear him talk, he will tell you about how he was on the launch pad. He was waiting to get on the space shuttle. He turned around, he looked at his homestead where his grandparents owned a house, and he had an amazing magical experience. He will tell you about it at every

turn. So pour one out for not hearing that story anymore in the Senate if he does, in fact, lose. What is important with him is that he, along with Ted Cruz, who won re-election, they have been recently pushing to have the ISS extended until 2030. 2030, yikes. I'm not a huge fan of that. But those two in particular, cross-party lines, they've been talking about doing this whole 2030 ISS thing for a couple of months now. So we'll see if Ted Cruz finds anyone else to take up that cause with. The ISS generally has good support in Congress, but Ted Cruz and Bill Nelson had been very outspoken that they would like to extend it to 2030. Now, Bill Nelson, the seniority thing,

he is a good example of why seniority matters. A lot of what goes on in Congress, at least traditionally, maybe the current era is a little different because of the state of politics, but traditionally, there's a lot of backroom dealings that happen where one congressperson will say to another, you can have my vote on this issue if I can have yours on that issue. I'll support you here if you support me there. And that's kind of the dealmaking that goes on traditionally. We've seen a couple examples of that even in the last year or so. that even in the last year or so. And a lot of that dealmaking comes down to relationships between different people in Congress or different offices. And Ted Cruz and Bill Nelson probably had a much tighter relationship than anyone would imagine because they had these positions on this committee. And they were able to work together. They had similar interests. They were able to work together and say, hey, what's going on in your party? Do you think this provision would make it? Do you think we can word this better to make sure it gets through, et cetera, et cetera?

And maybe as a word, a side note on these committee things, the way that committees kind of work is that every person in Congress can't care about every issue because there's just too much to get to. So you make these subcommittees that focus on particular sections, particular issues, and they make decisions about how the budget should be structured, what projects get funded, etc., etc. They approve it within the committees, then it heads up. Actually, they approve it at subcommittee levels, then it gets moved up to a committee level, and then it gets moved up to the full Senate or House, and it gets approved from there. So there's kind of this bottom-up it gets moved up to the full Senate or House, and it gets approved from there.

So there's kind of this bottom-up movement from committees up to the full Congress. So that's why these things matter, because it is extraordinarily rare that something would pass a committee or subcommittee and be rejected by the full Congress. It is very rare that that happens. A lot of times, if the committee approves it, it will get through in Congress. So that's where a lot of the politicking happens, is in these committees. So when you have senior members that have good relationships, they're able to swing votes their way because they have enough leverage. They have a position that gives them leverage, and it gives them the ability to make those kind of deals. So that kind of stuff was, you know, historically important with things like the ISS, which really didn't pass on a huge vote.

It had a very tough time getting through Congress and even programs before that, Space Station Freedom, you know, and that never really made it. So that historically is a very important point of, you know, politicking. So Nelson is an example of those two things. Likely that'll lose. So we'll see in the vacuum that is created by Bill Nelson, who joins Ted Cruz on the ISS 2030 push, and we'll see if, you know, who kind of takes his spot there on that committee and what position they stake out for themselves. And again, it doesn't necessarily matter that the party is flipping on this particular seat. It doesn't necessarily matter that it's going from Democrat to Republican because space is a very bipartisan

issue. It doesn't particularly matter. There are certain instances that matter based on the party alignment, but unlike other areas where the party swings heavily on these issues, I think the swing between Democratic and Republican space is much, much smaller. So it doesn't necessarily matter that the party's flipping as much as those positionings, and that's why the Nelson thing is important to watch. Let's move into Representative John Culberson. This is the biggest story. Probably should have led with this, but who knows? Culberson lost his seat in Texas. He was a House of Representatives member from Texas, from the kind of, I think Texas 7 is the west side of Houston, if I remember off the top of my head. He was the chair of the house commerce justice and science appropriation

subcommittee that is the one that deals with budgets of space um he is a very interesting case because he was nearly single-handedly uh pushing very hard for the europa lander mission and he he you know funneled money in that direction in years when that wasn't really a big push from nasa nasa or even planetary uh or the the um decadal survey you know there there was basically a single-handed effort by culverson to get this thing funded and to give it hundreds of millions of dollars and it's an interesting case case too, because a lot of this funding was heading out to JPL and places that are not in his district at all. So this isn't a case of bringing money home to your district. This was a case of his passion and interest in science and exploration, and Europa specifically was pushing him to send money where he thought it should go for this mission.

So it's a very non, you know, home-based politics example of the way that politics sometimes works. So he is out and, you know, he never really seemed to have a wingman or wingwoman on his side of this Europa lander. So it seems very unlikely that anyone else is going to pick up this torch and run with it. So this could be the end of the Europa lander mission, at least right now. Europa Clipper, that is officially sanctioned by NASA. That's already, you know, that's a project that they're working on. So that one's okay. But the lander mission was something that was outside of that and was being pushed, as I said, by Culberson, and no one else has taken up that mantle. So that could come to an end this

year. We will see very shortly. But that is a big loss for planetary science. If you were somebody who wanted to see a lander towards Europa, or somebody who just cares about the planetary decadal survey stuff, maybe that's a good thing because it means the money would be spent on the programs that we have going on now and wouldn't necessarily be given you know 500 million dollars to the lander every year from here until it happens so it kind of depends on your outlook there but that is a big story going forward now we have some other odds and ends, like Representative Dana Rohrabacher. He is a House of Representatives member out in California, 80, 48, which is kind of south of L.A., the south side of L.A., coast side. He was on the House Space Subcommittee, notably had bonehead moments like asking if there was ancient civilizations on Mars, if we could rule it out. Really dumb stuff that made it to the headlines. I am not a big fan of him. Never really liked his take on things. Always didn't seem that well informed on these issues, so I don't consider this a big loss. But you know, LA, good space area, not necessarily his district. But you

know, it does kind of have that LA thing going on there. He was a fairly senior member, but never seemed to have the same kind of influence as a Nelson or, or even Culverson in the same way. As I said, Ted Cruz retained a seat. So we're still going to be hearing the same Ted Cruz kind of stuff like ISS forever. And really, the only other storyline here is that the House, you know, as I mentioned up front, the House flipped to a Democratic majority, which means that all of the committees, they get new chairs. The chair is from the majority party. And so now the chair of all these committees will be a Democrat, which could shift the focus of that committee because the leadership does get certain control of the committee and they can shift the focus of the topics that get talked about, the things that

get funded. It shifts the leverage a bit. So that could have impacts on space as well. We will see over the next couple of months. Some things to watch going forward from here. We're going to have the new White House budget requests in February for fiscal year 2020. After that comes out, you'll see congressional response. People will start giving quotes. They'll start leaking stuff to the media. And then the whole budget process will start from there. So as that process gets underway, once things kind of sort out the next four or five months and you start seeing some of these quotes about the budget request, things that might get funded, that might get cut. Look to see who's giving these space quotes.

It'll be interesting to see who kind of fills these voids as the representatives and senators that typically are talking to the media about space things. We'll still be hearing from Ted Cruz for sure. We'll be hearing from Senator Markey and people like that. But keep an eye out for who you're hearing quotes from to see if any new players kind of enter the scene here to see who wants to fill these voids that are left by these people losing re-election. So that'll be what I'm watching the next couple of months to see who perks their head up as a face that'll be what I'm watching the next couple of months to see who perks their head up as a face of these new space issues in Congress. But until then, I don't know if we have any real clarity. There is definitely going to be fallout from this that affects Space Force as well, but kind of hard to tell because Space Force, while it's been talked a lot in the media and

offhand quotes and stuff like that, we haven't seen any extensive talk in Congress about Space Force. Historically, we have people pushing the idea of Space Corps, Space Force, and stuff like that. But we haven't seen any recent strategy out there from Congress on this. So that'll be something we hear a lot in the next year about. But I don't know right now if I can say for sure how some of these elections affect Space Force in general. That's entirely different committees. Those are the Department of Defense committees typically. So that's entirely separate set of people. But I'm sure we'll get around to that as we hear. But again, February 2020, budget will be coming out. February, the 2020 budget will be coming out. And from that,

we'll get a congressional response and we can kind of see what the new players are going to look like for the next couple of years. All right, that's all I've got in the midterms for now. I want to get into some of the Starlink drama we've been seeing in Reuters. But before I do that, I need to say a very special thank you to all of you out there supporting Main Engine Cutoff over at patreon.com slash Miko. There are 228 of you supporting this show every single week, and I could not be more thankful for your support. This episode of Main Engine Cutoff was produced by 34 executive producers. Chris, Pat, Matt, George, Brad, Ryan, Jamison, Nadim, Peter, Donald, Lee, Jasper, Chris, Warren, Bob, Russell, John Moritz, Joel, Jan, David, Grant, Mike, David, Mintz,

Eunice, and eight anonymous executive producers. Thank you so much for producing this episode of the podcast. If you want to help out, support the show, help keep this thing going, keep this thing rolling, this is a 100% listener-supported show. So head over to patreon.com slash miko, sign up there. If you are in at the $3 a month or more level, you get access to a special little RSS feed that you can drop right in wherever you're listening right now to this.

And every single Friday, sometimes Saturday, you get a little show that I do run through the headlines of the week. We talk about all the stories that went on, small stuff, big stuff, everything. It's a great way to stay up on Space News without having to always read every single feed or Twitter feed like I do.

I do that work for you. It's great. Head over there again, patreon.com slash Miko, and help out and get headlines in your podcast player. Thank you so much for your support. All right, so there's been some Starlink stuff in the news lately. Reuters seems to have some sort of good lead on some of this Starlink behind-the-scenes drama, and there was a report recently that went up by Eric Johnson and Joey Roulette in Reuters. There's been a couple of reports, actually. So there's a couple of reports about SpaceX looking for a $750 million loan, some sort of new funding arm. Very little details on that yet.

They're still working with, I think it was like Morgan Stanley, a couple of different venture firms. Oh merrill lynch sorry and that's not necessarily that notable i mean you know it's a lot of money they got 500 million last year or something like that for starlink or for whatever other projects they're working on so we'll see the details of that funding come out fairly soon i don't really have too many comments on the funding yet other than it's interesting that they're looking for more funding at that level. The report I wanted to talk about, and only because this really triggered one thought in my head, was this report a couple of days ago, I guess a week or two ago, that was a report about a meeting in Seattle in June. So this is a very

delayed reporting of a meeting in June. Apparently, Elon Musk flew to Seattle to meet with the heads of the Starlink project, which is their satellite constellation for internet. I'm going to read you a little snippet from this article, again, by Eric Johnson and Joey Roulette in Reuters. Within hours of landing, Musk had fired at least seven people on the program's senior management team at Redmond, Washington office, the culmination of disagreements over the pace at which the team was developing and testing its Starlink satellites, according to two SpaceX employees with direct knowledge of the situation. Known for pushing aggressive deadlines, Musk quickly brought in new managers from SpaceX headquarters in California

to replace a number of the managers he fired. Their mandate launched SpaceX's first batch of So there are several layers to this story. First up, a reminder, they launched, SpaceX that is, launched two satellites that are the test versions of Starlink. They're kind of the prototype satellites. They launched two of them earlier this year. They were Tintin A, Tintin B. Now, there's been some drama recently about that because they were released into a 500 and some kilometer orbit. and some kilometer orbit. But we had info that said once they were checked out,

they were going to raise their orbit themselves to about 1100 kilometers. And that was the actual FCC filing that they had for those test satellites. That never happened. They are still sitting at that 500 and some kilometer orbit.

I just checked on the Leo Labs website. They've got the little web portal to see low Earth orbit satellites. It's amazing. You should check it out. I'll post the link in the show notes. And you can do a search to see where satellites are. And they tracked, in the last day,

they tracked the Tintin satellites. And they are still at that low orbit. So the theory right now is that they've had some sort of propulsion issue, and they were not able to raise their orbit. This has sort of been refuted by a couple of different people at SpaceX, Elon himself saying everything's fine. But the fact that those were never raised is causing confusion and concern that something went wrong with the propulsion of those vehicles. So whatever the case is, in June, Musk went there, fired seven people, and brought in new management to launch the first batch by the middle of next year.

Now, from here on out, all of this is conjecture and random thoughts that I've had about this situation. All of this is conjecture and random thoughts that I've had about this situation. If the theory holds that this new management was brought in to pick up the pace of Starlink, that the old management was maybe focusing too much on getting it right on the first take rather than getting these things out the door, you know, that's the theory anyway, that the old crew was like, no, we got to get this right from day one, and Musk wasn't happy about that.

And the new crew is, let's launch these things as quick as possible. In general, I'm not a super big fan of like move fast and break things in general. But in certain cases, it makes a lot of sense. And this might be one of those because there is this FCC rule that SpaceX now has their 4,000, whatever it is, 4,400 satellite constellation approved by the FCC. From the day that got approved, SpaceX has six years to launch half of that constellation, and then three years to launch the other half. If they end that time period with less than that amount, their approval gets lowered to cap at that

amount of satellites that they have up in space at that moment in time. So it is hard to overstate the fact that they need to be moving really fast if they want to get anywhere close to those numbers in that timeline. Now, the other part, this is the part that triggered in my head is, I wonder what kind of requirements the FCC has for what counts as a satellite in this count. That they have to have 2,200 satellites up by six years, by 2024. What counts as one of those satellites? Is there any specific requirement for a particular functionality or specific design that you submitted to FCC.

I can't find anything that says that. So I think maybe the idea is, I don't care if the first 300 satellites that we're going to launch are going to die in five years and be deorbited. I don't really care because we got to get these things out the door. We got to get them on orbit. We've got to get them up there as quick as possible because I can't find in the FCC rules anything that says the satellite has to live its full lifespan to count. So maybe it's okay if the first 300 off the line totally suck and have to be replaced by 2024. But what matters is getting them on orbit. So if we have an issue that's going to affect these things or some significant portion of these things, that's okay. We got to get these things out the door. We got to do it cheap. We got to do it fast.

We got to get them up there. Kind of the Google strategy back in the day of instead of buying a few really expensive servers, they bought a ton of really crappy servers. They got them online. They knew that a certain portion were going to fail, but that's okay because they built out this huge data center of them. That's kind of the strategy I think SpaceX needs to take here because of these astronomical numbers that they have in their constellation. So my theory is that since the FCC doesn't mandate having a specific lifespan, design, you know, any technical level of functionality of these satellites, that maybe the Musk and whoever else is on that side of the argument, whoever's on that side of the argument that

we got to get going fast, sees that as the reason to just push these things out the door quick, get them on orbit, make sure they work well enough. But we don't have to have these perfect now. But what we do have to have is a lot of satellites in orbit. So reading the tea leaves, that's kind of my hunch as to what's going on here. But if somebody out there is more familiar with these FCC rules, I tried to read some of the paperwork. It's hard to track down every document that's involved here. If somebody out there knows more about these rules, I would be very curious to hear from you. So anthonyatemanagingcutoff.com is the email.

As always, on Twitter, at WeHaveMiko. That's all I've got for you this week. Thanks again for supporting the show over at patreon.com slash miko. And I will talk to you next week. Thank you.