Main Engine Cut Off - T+146: Loren Grush on Commercial Crew, Starlink, NASA Authorization, and More

Episode Date: January 31, 2020

Loren Grush of The Verge joins me to talk about a whole host of current topics—SpaceX’s in-flight abort test, Starliner’s shaky first test and its fallout, space traffic, Starlink, the NASA Authorization bill, and why ”Space is hard” is the worst mantra.This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 37 executive producers—Brandon, Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Brad, Ryan, Nadim, Peter, Donald, Lee, Chris, Warren, Bob, Russell, John, Moritz, Joel, Jan, Grant, Mike, David, Mints, Joonas, Robb, Tim Dodd the Everyday Astronaut, Frank, Julian and Lars from Agile Space, Tommy, Adam, and six anonymous—and 329 other supporters.TopicsLoren Grush (@lorengrush) | TwitterLoren Grush Profile and Activity - The VergeVerge Science - YouTubeSpaceX successfully tests escape system on new spacecraft — while destroying a rocket - The VergeBoeing and NASA are forming an investigation team to figure out cause of spacecraft mishap - The VergeStarliner’s thruster performance receiving close scrutiny from NASA | Ars TechnicaStop saying ‘space is hard’ - The VergeThe era of satellite-repairing robots is here - YouTubeLeoLabs, Inc. on Twitter: “Our latest update this morning for IRAS / GGSE 4 shows a 12m miss distance, with a Probability of Collision (Pc) back to 1 in 100.”Mesmerizing graph shows uncomfortably close encounters between space junk - The VergeSpaceX successfully launches its fourth batch of internet-beaming Starlink satellites - The VergeHouse Draft NASA Authorization Bill is the Greatest Hits of Terrible, Dead-End Space Policy - Main Engine Cut OffA proposed House bill is threatening to rework NASA’s Moon plans - The VergeChristian Davenport on Twitter: “Show of force? NASA Administrator @JimBridenstine is at the House space subcommittee mark up. Says he’s here ‘because it’s open to the public.’”The ShowLike the show? Support the show!Email your thoughts, comments, and questions to [e-mail] @WeHaveMECOListen to MECO HeadlinesJoin the Off-Nominal DiscordSubscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn or elsewhereSubscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off NewsletterBuy shirts and Rocket Socks from the Main Engine Cut Off ShopMusic by Max Justus

Hello and welcome to Main Engine Cutoff. I'm Anthony Colangelo as always and we've got a real good one today. We're going to be joined by Lauren Grush of The Verge. She is back. It's been a while since we've had her on so I'm excited to talk with her. We're going to talk commercial crew, Starliner, Dragon abort tests, probably get into some Starlink, space policy. It's going to be a nice episode that cruises through all the topics that we've been chatting about of late. So it's going to be a good one. But before we get there, I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who supports Main Engine Cutoff every single month. There are 366 of you supporting over at mainenginecutoff.com slash support, including 37 executive producers who made this episode possible. Thanks to Brandon, Chris, Pat, Matt, George, Brad, Ryan, Nadeem, Peter,

Donald, Lee, Chris, Warren, Bob, Russell, John, Moritz, Joel, Jan, Grant, Mike, David, Mintz, Eunice, Rob, Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut, Frank, Julian and Lars from Agile Space, Tommy, Adam, and six anonymous executive producers. If you would like to join that list, head over to mainenginecutoff.com slash support. It helps keep this thing going. It gets you a little extra in your podcast feed every single week for Miko headlines. I run through all the stories of the week. Great way to stay up on what is going on. So head over there to support. Stories of the Week, great way to stay up on what is going on. So head over there to support. But for now, let's give Lauren a call.

Hello, Lauren. Welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me. It has been quite a while. I know. I've been sad. I've been waiting for this call. You've been busy.

You've been traveling. You've been on site at launches and things. Yeah, it's true. I most recently was at the Cape for the in-flight abort test that SpaceX did, which was a really unique launch for sure. Anytime I can go for a new launch experience, I'm there. You know, rockets usually launch this more or less the same way. Yeah, true. The first part's the same.

Right, exactly. What is it like covering a launch that ends in 11 minutes? It's just very much a big burst of adrenaline. And then you're like, oh, I need to go actually write about this. I need to run inside and actually do work. You don't get that like hour of waiting for payload deploy or, you know, whatever else has to happen before you're officially done. You just got to do it all right then. Yeah, we knew it would be over pretty quickly.

And it really, I didn't really know what quite to expect because beforehand they told us, oh, well, it might break apart. But when you hear that, you don't really know what that means. Is it split in half? We did not, I did not expect it to explode as it did sorry they like to use the term fireball but i reject of course they do i know anytime that every time i talk to a rocket company or their spin is never to say the word explode you cannot say it's a fireball or it's whatever i don't't know. I don't care. Like that thing exploded and we all saw it. I hate that. I mean,

I get it when there's things like the MO6 incident from years ago. Uh, but like this was, this was going the way that we thought it was going to go. Right. I guess in technical terms, if you need it for your engineering speak and to determine, you know, the source of an accident, sure, use whatever phrasing you want. But when I describe it to people who do not work in engineering, I will describe it as an explosion. Unfortunately, we couldn't see it from the ground because of the cloud cover, which was such a bummer. But we did hear...

This is a you thing right because you were at the eclipse but you had the sprint to get out under a cloud i think that's just being you know out in nature you can't control the clouds at all times um yes i did get to see the eclipse though but this one couldn't move out of the way to see the explosion um but what was really cool was we did see that rocket. I guess it was we later determined it was the second stage falling rapidly through the sky. It looked a bit like a bomb coming down. And then when it hit the water, it created this huge cloud of smoke and debris. And so that also looked like a bomb had gone off in the water. So that was pretty neat.

Which of these events did you hear from where you do you hear everything or was there some stuff that was a little muffled all we heard was what sounded like a sonic boom so i'm assuming that is it was either the explosion or it was maybe the second stage coming back at such high speeds yeah yeah right we heard we heard boom, and we weren't expecting that. So that was pretty neat as well. Especially because I mean, it was pretty far downrange at that point. Yeah, yeah. I think that's what I didn't quite realize before I went is that even if even if there wasn't cloud cover, I think it was still pretty difficult to see at least for the photographers. They needed extra sensitive equipment to to pick it up yeah so um it would have been cool to see it i did get to see the video um my husband later he uh joked how he saw

it first because he was watching the live stream so that mattered more than me not seeing it no being there for it's pretty awesome because i'm sure you know everything that goes around launches is always so fun as well so yeah yeah it's also i i think of them as mini high school reunions because at this point uh all the same people go or the people that from other publications that i know that are that work the same beat as me are there so it's i see those people probably more than some of my friend groups because we're constantly getting together for these similar events. So it's kind of neat. And so what was the vibe like after the mission down there? Because it was hot on the heels of the Boeing Starliner stuff, which we'll talk about next. So there was definitely that flavored the abort test in an interesting way

because we were all just really upset about commercial crew stuff and then now we had a really good success uh so was there any of this kind of like tragedy and comedy going on down there definitely if at that i don't know if you watch the press conference afterwards but things got a little loopy in my opinion i would say you know i it was almost i don't want to say it I don't not saying anyone was drunk but there was a very jovial vibe going on which I always enjoy but I definitely think maybe that was you know coming off the heels of the starliner test people were so happy that it went so well you know they were giddy and Elon was very giddy at the at the end there so I don't know maybe that had to do with the Starliner test maybe not but it certainly

made for a very interesting press conference when we were there yeah and well part of it too probably is the relief that this test went well after last April we saw the DM1 capsule explode right getting ready for the abort test back then so there's that playing into it as well, that this is a long road from there to here. Right. And this kind of, I feel like it seals the deal for that investigation. I know that they had closed out the investigation earlier with the static fire, but I felt like this was kind of the real, you know, finish line that they were looking for to close that out. So I think everyone was really pleased with that. So where do you think we're at with SpaceX now? We heard that hardware is going to be at the Cape pretty soon, and they're looking like a Q2 launch for DM2.

Right. I'm wondering if you've got any thoughts on that, because there's also, you know, everything that's going into this is like dm2 will get extended to be a longer duration flight to the iss so what where do you think we're at with all that well from what i understand so i think they there's there's different milestones that are very clear but the hardware will be at the cape at the end of february and then beyond that they they still have to do more work when it gets to the cape so just because it arrives does not mean that it's done yet and so that once that work is finished then you have the analysis and the reviews to do before you um can say that people can fly on it um so yeah i don't know i would just I think I'm thinking summertime

summertime seems like a good time for that to happen so uh that's that's what my crystal ball says I don't know you have a vacation planned I don't have any vacations planned that's so once I go on my honeymoon which is in February I am purposefully not making any concrete plans other than weddings that we've been invited to. But I hate to say it. If the wedding falls out in the crude launch, I might have to make an excuse to bow out. I mean, I can't think of anything more important that I've covered than these upcoming crewed launches. Falcon Heavy was such a big deal, but that was still more fun than anything. This is going to be such an important milestone, both for SpaceX or Boeing and for the country. and for the country. And I think it's going to be a massive type of press event when we're out there. I was actually explaining to people during the in-flight abort test that pretty sure that the crew launches will be the worst day of my life. It's going to be absolute circus down there

for that. Yeah. Right. Well, just think about it. I mean, yeah, it's harder to do when you're, it's harder to work when you're on location. As fun as it is, it's harder. Second, it, there's going to be so many more people there, which is going to make it absolute mayhem. I will probably have a camera crew with me. So that's my own people that I need to take care of. So I'll have to be shooting video and I'll have to be writing breaking news. And yeah, it's just, I can't, I think I'm going to, I'll have to be writing breaking news. And yeah, it's just I can't. I think I'm going to I'll have to take a vacation once that is done, because that's going to be very stressful. Yeah. And you're right that it's going to be like Falcon Heavy was a huge deal. But I think when you're when you're thinking about why Falcon Heavy was a big deal, it was because of things that it would

affect later, whereas Commercial Crew is a huge deal right now like this mission is the big thing you know since the last shuttle flight this is probably the biggest launch that nasa will have done you know and maybe even beyond that right and falcon heavy was always kind of a peripheral thing i mean it was something we were like it was always on the horizon and just kind of like oh maybe we'll get it someday And so really what didn't feel very necessary, just felt fun. Whereas with this, I mean, I've been covering the commercial crew program since I've been on this beat and since the very beginning. And so I feel much more attached to it. And also, I mean, the added layer of people, I mean, that's just, I, I make a rule, no matter when or what time of day, I will watch the crude launches on the

Soyuz. It just doesn't feel right to not watch them, especially, especially, I mean, I hate to say it, but you know, with Nick Hague's flight, that proved to be true. If something goes wrong, I don't know. I don't want to say. I don't want to jinx it. But it feels important to make sure that they're okay. I know that I'm not doing anything to help them be okay, but just feel more comfortable watching it. So that's kind of how I feel.

And then the fact that I've been following the development for so long as that added layer and I've met, I've met the astronauts that are going to be flying multiple times. So there's that connection to it as well. So yeah, and certainly, you know, we've in the past, we've heard you talking with your parents, who worked on the shuttle program back in the day. So you have historical context and current context, which is really cool to know that you're looking at it from that angle. And one thing I wonder with Commercial Crew, obviously there was always going to be a lot of pressure on these missions.

But if things went on schedule, right? Like if these were flying, what was the original date? 2016, 2017? I think 2017 was what they were saying when they awarded the final contracts yeah so if if things went on schedule and we're talking three years ago and these are going to happen there's not as much pressure that like at any moment we are at risk of losing access to the iss because things were more stable with soya's flights back then we had more flying uh there were we weren't always on these skeleton crews on the ISS where

there's one NASA astronaut and two Russian astronauts. So the fact that we're in this state where we're at risk of losing access to the ISS pretty constantly if we have another Nick Hague situation. It ramps it up to another level that I don't think NASA wanted it to get to that point. But unfortunately, we are at that point now. world. But it seems like this really did catch them by surprise in terms of how long it was going to take because they didn't have, I mean, they really waited until the last minute to like, okay, maybe we do need an extra Soyuz seat, you know? Yeah, they keep doing that. And that's, I always get ranty about this because like three years ago, there was always this fear mongering when they would appear in front of Congress that Soyuz lead time was like three years that they couldn't. They had to order one three years in advance of when they needed it, which was always bullshit.

Like, yeah, that's never been true. That was not there. Clearly, they're fudging that and use that as leverage to get the money that they needed or whatever, which find more power to them. But, yeah, it doesn't seem like that three-year lead time is absolutely critical. Right. And I get it in the moment, right? You want to make sure you've got funding. They were fighting with Congress for funding back in the day, in the early days of the program. So I get that, but it does compromise your position later down the line. So maybe they were banking on not needing to prove that they could order a Soyuz six months before they need

one. And they were hoping that would never come up to be proven wrong. But at this point, it's hard to trust. Really, we've never had a lot of openness from NASA about the relationship with ordering Soyuzes. That's a weird multiple word to say. Soyuzes. Soyuzes. But I don't think we'll ever hear more info on how they go about that process or what it costs or anything like that. We really have no insight into that. That's always been shady to me. Not shady in a bad way, but it's weird. It's a weird setup.

The thing with the Russian partnership is so bizarre to me, especially because there's been a lot of criticism about the commercial program and how stringent the safety requirements are and how you have to have this rating of, okay, you know, I can't remember the exact number right now. What is it like one in 200? Something like that. Something like one out of 200 chances that, you know, the flight will go badly that day. They don't have that rating for the Soyuz and they probably never will. And yet we're totally comfortable putting our astronauts on the Soyuz because of this bizarre partnership that we have with them. What choice do we have? There's no other option. Well, exactly. It just goes to show that all of these things that we put on ourselves

are all self-inflicted, which I guess that makes sense. There's no other way to do this other than to make the rules ourselves. But it is kind of curious how the standards change based on the relationships with the partners. And that is a fantastic segue to talk a little bit about Starliner because you are a pro. So this Starliner mayhem that we had going on, I think it's good that we're talking about this now

because I haven't really talked about it on the show much. Everything's just changing all the time, but we've got some distance now. We've heard a couple of more tidbits, so it's fun to dig into

at this point. I would love to go in. I mean, I don't know how tech-heavy your listeners are, but I would love to... Okay, I would love to discuss the explanation

that they had because i have some questions about it still i love it but i think i have an understanding but i would love to hash it out okay so from my understanding they clock so the starliner internal clock accidentally grabbed the time from or the grab the wrong time from the Atlas and thought it was, what, 11 hours later than it was. Yes, yeah, yeah. And so because it was at the wrong time, the main engines that it uses to raise the orbit did not fire because it thought, oh, it's 11 hours later. I've already fired my engines. It did not fire because it thought, oh, it's 11 hours later. I've already fired my engines.

But the thrusters that are used to stabilize the starlighter when it raises its orbit did fire because they're on a timer, which I don't understand why they're on different timers to begin with. Why aren't they all on the same clock? But whatever. I'm not an engineer, so I will not. I digress. But anyway, I guess when my confusion came in was, okay, if the thrusters were always supposed to fire during that orbit-raising maneuver, how did that make them run out of fuel? And I guess what I later learned is that, oh, well, they ended up raising the orbit later, but the thrusters had to fire again. And that was too much fuel to waste. And that's why they couldn't go to the International Space Station.

Did I get that? From what you understand, does that make sense to you? That is exactly as I understand it. Okay. Yeah. The problem with this issue that you hit on is it sounds so basic. Like, how are these on different timers? Why is the clock wrong? It's issues that when you tell them to people, they are confused as to how it ever happened. And it's such a bad issue compared

to all the other issues we've had in commercial crew have been like somewhat weird or even the SpaceX issues with Falcon 9 back in the day. It's like nobody even understands what liquid oxygen is. So it's already you're in this weird territory where it's like, well, that does sound dangerous. And this is a clock issue. I know for my job, it's weird territory where it's like, well, that does sound dangerous. And this is a clock issue. I know for my job, it's extremely daunting because I'm like, OK, how do I explain this incredibly complex fault process to someone who doesn't even know what, you know, especially when it's not even really known yet? Like it was that was the best guess they had. known yet like it was that was the best guess they had and then now i i think uh i don't know if it was picked up anywhere else but eric berger got some scoops that even among those thrusters there there were issues with the thrusters themselves some didn't fire right some failed

during the firing process so it doesn't even sound like that part went well uh it's crazy i i want to clarify i did speak with um doug lavero recently who said that he contradicted that slightly, but I think that's also what NASA does. He was just saying that the thrusters did do as they were supposed to. I don't know. I'm looking forward to a more complex write-up of whatever NASA finds because I'll be very interested to read it. of what whatever nasa finds because i'll be very interested to read it yeah and now it sounds like boeing's doing some accounting trickery in case they need to uh order another uh uncrewed test flight of starliner so yeah i don't i wouldn't take that as any confirmation that it's happening but they obviously boeing is in a stressful time as a company right now so they're doing whatever

they need to uh to protect themselves i think it's's a good PR move as much as it is a practical move. But yeah, I don't know. I could see it going either way. But I think, you know, going back to what you said earlier, the high stakes and the fact that NASA was kind of banking on doing that extended mission with the Boeing, uh, you know, flight crew, I think that they will probably, I mean, this is just my gut, but I, I feel like they'll probably make an excuse not to have to do that second on crew flight test. Yeah. I, I kind of think so as well. And I, I honestly, what would you, if you were, if it was your decision, would you make them fly an uncrewed one? Oh, my decision. I honestly, what would you, if you were, if it was your decision, would you make them fly an uncrewed one? Oh, my decision. I don't know. Um, this is what we're doing here.

I know. I know. Let me remind everyone. I'm not an engineer. Um, I mean, if it's look, if it truly, if you truly can demonstrate that the system can work without doing that automatic docking process, then I guess, you know, that's fine. But I just feel like when it comes, if they're being so strict with these standards, I would feel a lot better knowing that it's done that process in space before and it can be done. Yeah, I get conflicted because, and I tie this back to, it was like maybe two years ago now when they were considering putting crew on, at the time, EM-1, the first flight of SLS. And that never made any sense because the payoff for that, what you get out of taking that risk, was just not there. There was nothing other than PR stunt and the astronauts obviously would love flying to somewhere near the moon. There wasn't anything concrete that you get out of taking that risk.

And with this, knowing the context that we are at risk of losing access to the ISS, knowing what stakes there are on not having astros up on the ISS, that risk seems worth it if the astronauts are willing to fly on that spacecraft. For sure. Yeah, the stakes are definitely higher. And I could see NASA figuring out a way to make it work just because they're... And let's be real, we could have some unknown anomaly happen between now and when we're supposed to fly. No one expected the Crew Dragon to just explode during a test. And not knocking SpaceX, but you don't plan for those things. And that was a huge setback. I mean, SpaceX, I mean, we can debate all day long if

they were actually going to fly last year, but definitely, definitely made it certain they weren't going to fly last year. So who knows what could happen, you know, in the interim. And so I, yeah, like you said, the stakes are high. And if, in my opinion, if they truly can find a way to demonstrate that docking ability without actually doing it in space, I don't know how you do that. But if there is a way to get that data and prove that out, then sure. I mean, it seems like a reasonable thing to move ahead with to the crewed mission. Yeah, and you're right. Like, Dragon's got, you know, one flight under it. And Starliner's got, if we give it like, you know, 60% rating or whatever it is, it's not a massive difference in sample size.

Certainly, we look back to Shuttle that had plenty of flights under it before we started discovering some pretty nasty bits. Yeah, exactly. So it doesn't necessarily like one flight is not good enough to say we are 100% confident we're getting to the station. That's never going to be realistic. So there is always some risk, you know? Yeah, there's that's the thing. So I don't know if you are familiar with my early work at The Verge. But when I first started at the company, I wrote this op ed that pissed everybody off.

I said, just early on, you mean? What? Yeah, yeah. Never made anyone angry after that. No, the title was Stop Saying Space is Hard. Oh, I hate Space is Hard. Oh my God, thank you. Oh, I hate it.

It wasn't because... And in the article, I was very clear. I was like, it's not because space is easy. Of course, space is hard. Like it, that is the, it's just, we can't keep saying space is hard after something goes wrong because it's just a way for us to not move forward and to just accept failure. What, what my mom says is not that space is hard as space is risky. And I think that's a better idiom to follow. That is way better. Yeah, I'm supportive of your mom in this case. Yes. Wow, I'm glad someone agreed with me because that was a scary time.

No, it's such a terrible cop out that we don't accept in any other facets of important things in life. Right. You think of plane crashes, we're going to say, oh, aviation is hard. Yeah, oh, building a new 737 is hard. Sorry, 400 people. Like, we don't accept that. No, and I guarantee you, I mean, heaven forbid, I'm knocking on wood right now, if anything goes wrong with these crude flights, somebody said space is hard after that, I think they would be ran out of the country, you know?

Maybe you and your mom will be like, cut the shit. Space is risky. The other thing with all of this is the unspoken about, as of yet in our conversation, the whole difference between SpaceX and Boeing thing that people like to harp on. If SpaceX was in this situation, they would make them refly. If Boeing, they're obviously going to let Boeing off the hook. Which, yes, but also, like, even if that was not a factor,

I think you can still make a decision that ends in flying crew to the ISS. So it is certainly a factor going into the decision-making process that Boeing and SpaceX have different histories and different relationships. But I don't think that excuses... Like, I don't think Boeing should refly just because SpaceX would have been if they were in this situation. But I mean, are we sure that they would have, you know? That's a good point, I don't know. I feel like, I mean, to be honest with you,

the issue that SpaceX had scares me a bit more than what Boeing had. Just because if anyone had been on that, you know, conceivably, if the astronauts had been aboard the Boeing vehicle, they would have been fine. But if the astronauts had been aboard the SpaceX vehicle, they would not have been fine. Now, not saying that that means one company is better than the other. But, you know, NASA didn't require SpaceX to do any extra, you know, flight demonstrations because of that incident. So who knows if they would have made them fly another uncrewed test. And I not to be a little snarky, but because of all the SpaceX love that is out there, I can guarantee you if something had gone wrong during SpaceX's

flight and they were not required to do another uncrewed flight test, so many people would be making the excuse that that was warranted. I'm sorry, but people make excuses for SpaceX quite a bit and that's their prerogative. But I do think it is interesting in terms of the the anger versus the fandom and against these two companies yeah and that's always been a factor of spacex and it's a it's a good part of spacex because it brings so many people into space yeah uh you know i'm not angry about that i know that myself was i'm more into space space because of SpaceX today than I would have been otherwise. Yeah, no, for sure. And I think if you had talked to just my friends or people that don't follow space, they wouldn't really know much of what's going on. But when I talk to people these days that aren't big space consumers, they know a lot more about what's going on than they would have

a decade ago, for sure. Yeah. Nobody asked me any questions about Starliner, but a lot of people asked me questions about SpaceX and Dragon missions. That's just like the that's that says a lot about the positioning of them, not just within the space nerds like you and I, but but everybody out there that remotely reads headlines about space. Sure. You know, it's funny is when we, this is a very journalist problem, but when we were thinking of how to sell, you know, to frame the Boeing Starliner pieces that we were writing, I saw that some people were referring to Boeing as SpaceX's biggest rival in their headlines. And I was like, do people really not know that Boeing is in aerospace? And so we did, I did a poll of my friend, I do this all the time where my cousin jokes, she's like, do you

always contact me when you need like a lay person's opinion about space? But yeah, we did polls, you know, talk to people like who knows if Boeing does aerospace? Nobody knew. They're like, pretty sure they just do planes. So it's interesting, you know, that disconnect there. I mean, I have to remember that from time to time. The more I do this beat, I get a little lost in it and think that everybody knows what I'm talking about. And I got to, it's just a constant struggle to step back and remember that not everybody is aware of all these different facets and things that are going on. Yeah. And I love the videos that you do are fantastic. The one that just came out,

you had the most timely video of all time. I'm not quite sure if you just knew that there was going to be a satellite conjunction last night within 47 meters or what. But you had this great video about satellite servicing with past guests, Jonathan Goff, and you had this great video about satellite servicing uh with past guests jonathan goff and you had uh charlie whedon in there as well yeah great great sources both of them i love all the little you know animations and everything that you have in the video that show some of this stuff that's really abstract that people it takes a lot to get your head around what's going on in space um but you know whoever does the animation work over at the verge is yeah that shout out to alex and cory and will they're my team uh doing verge science and they're they're doing great work

and we pulled that video around pretty pretty quickly too um i think in terms of timing it just goes to show that this is a very relevant topic right now as space gets more and more crowded these days we're gonna have more conjunction events like the one that happened last night so i'm sure we'll have more nail biters in the future yeah i was uh so i went out on my deck last night to to watch just in case anything crazy oh yeah that's right because you're nearby yeah and uh it was it was weird to to think so for context because this happened yesterday, people might not have been reading the news. There were two satellites that were up 900 kilometers

in sun-synchronous orbit going opposite directions of each other that were going to be, the mist distance was calculated at 47 meters, and I saw the error bars on that was about 48 meters, so who knew what was going to happen? And so I went out back, and I had the binoculars out tracking this one thing and I was realizing that this would have been the strangest event

that would have been horrible and yet maybe have made a difference in how we treat this issue because I don't know that we've ever had a more high impact collision possibility that has been so widely disseminated with everybody watching, you know, above like the largest metro areas in the US. So there was this weird convergence of everybody could hear about this issue that was tuned into space stuff, probably see it. And it

would have created such an issue that high in orbit, those things would have been up there, the debris that would have been created would have been up there for hundreds of years. Yeah. In what is probably the most valuable orbit in the low Earth orbit regime. For sure. And I wasn't, I mean, were you following that other crash that happened? What was that in 2009, I believe? Yeah, I wasn't doing any of this stuff. So I was just following along with it. But yeah, I'm assuming it wasn't as, you know, it would it would have been made more impactful than that one. But yeah, I think if I was OK, I hate to say it, but I was a little let down.

Because I think right now we're on the precipice of, you know, having our satellites out of equilibrium, I guess. Is that a good way of saying it? You know, we're adding more and more into the space right now, and we don't really know what that means for the future of these conjunction events. So this would have been one of those moments, a bit of a reckoning, you know, and I think it would really have, you know, drawn focus back on, you know, the space traffic management issues and whether or not we can handle all these mega constellations that are going into space right now. So, I mean, it's good that they didn't crash, but also, you know, maybe we need a crash who knows no i i definitely would not argue that i do think that you know isa seems to be looking into this a little bit they've funded a couple of programs for removing debris one being removed debris uh that came out of surrey satellite center and sounds like they're inching their way towards targeting envisat which

is the largest defunct satellite up there. Pretty high. I think that's like six or 700 kilometers. So similarly, you know, impactful. And it seems like they're going to get to a point pretty soon where they're going to have a mission dedicated to bringing that down. So they're working their way towards it. In the U.S., you know, this did seem like one of the things that if we're in the era of Space Force, which I've been generally positive about, not the way that it turned out. I was supportive of it being separate because I thought the leadership was being stifled under the Air Force, but the setup now doesn't really change that. So I've kind of bummed out.

It's essentially just Air Force Space Command. But I mean, if you're looking at the missions that they're that are on their plate, you know, I would put debris management and planetary defense as two things that they could take on and it would fit within the mission profile of keeping space safe and also be something that, you know, it's it's hard to see NASA getting too into debris management or something like that. But I could see a space force being tasked with it, similar to how the Navy deals with international waters. Yeah. But it's right. What is going to trigger that change in policy to make that a priority? We are only reactive in this country. Right. And I think that people were getting excited because one of the space policy directives did center around space traffic management,

and it's kind of stalled in the interim since it was announced. So, right. Like it might need one of those things where a very, I mean, sadly, very visible problems get reaction to them. And so this could have, I could have easily seen legislation come out after, you know, something like that had occurred. But yeah, ultimately, I just want to reiterate, it is for the best that the crash did not happen. But yes, I mean, the fact that the and let's be honest, I mean, these close calls happen more frequently than we would like. You know, Brian Whedon responded to me on Twitter, he was saying,

you know, what we really need to be worried about are these, you know, spent rocket stages that are just clustered up in orbit and constantly passing by each other all the time. And, you know, at risk of, you know, exploding. So yeah, this, I know last night's conjunction event was, you know, it seemed like an anomaly, but it really isn't in the long term. Definitely not. Yeah, I was out at AGI a couple of weeks back. I did a couple of YouTube videos with TS Kelso of Celestra. Oh, yeah. I love him.

They took me on a tour of their commercial space operations center where they monitor a bunch of different satellites and conjunctions for their commercial customers. And they have this display on one of the walls that is a running list of conjunctions as they are happening. And it just keeps ticking away. And it's like, you can see like maybe, you know, 15 or 20 at a time. And it's just by, you know, what's the next conjunction, and it just keeps rolling off. And you're like, Oh, these satellites three kilometers, this one one kilometer. And it was stressing me out being in there just looking at this list. Did you see the visualization that Mariva Jha from UT has come up with? I wrote about that. Oh, yes.

I remember seeing the big graph kind of thing. Yeah, it's just a graph showing. I'm pulling it up right now. It shows how close these objects are getting within, let's see, yeah, it's five kilometers. And while I was looking at it, I saw one get down to zero, and I was like, already? Or it was.06 kilometers. That's how close it passed, just when I was writing the story. just when I was writing the story.

So definitely things are getting crowded up there already, even without Starlink and OneWeb and all the rest of them. Yeah, so you want to talk about that before we're out of here? I don't want to keep you too long. Sure. So I don't want to get too ranty about Starlink. But they're obviously pretty good into their deployment at this point. They've got four full launches up there, causing all sorts of drama about astronomy and what we're talking about here with space traffic management. Where are you at

on all these different things about Starlink, just generally? I think the biggest thing that I want to see, and I wrote about this in the last story that I did, is just there isn't very much research into what's going to happen. And I don't know if we can get that, you know, how much can we study this before we deploy? But that, I think the unknown is what is creeping people out so much is because, you know, maybe the space environment can handle this large influx, or maybe it can't. And so it's kind of scary to just kind of plow ahead without that knowledge. Then again, I don't foresee SpaceX being like, okay, you know what, we'll take a break until we figure this out.

Yeah, yeah, all that that 10 billion that we're spending. Nope, no, we'll just hold off a little bit. So it looks like it's just going to be one of those scenarios where we find out along the way but i think spacex and i'm sure they realize that this is that they have a lot to lose if something messes up you know they already had that really embarrassing moment where their their satellite almost ran into that isa's satellite um so if there is a collision with one of their their spacecraft you know that they it is on them to be as diligent as possible. Otherwise, the PR that they're going to get is going to... People are ready to pounce. They're ready to pounce on something going wrong.

And so it's in their best interest to be as thoughtful as possible and be as good neighbors, good neighbors in space as possible. Yeah. And I mean, to that point, they are their biggest neighbors. So if there's debris in their orbits, that is screwing up them more than anyone else until it starts coming down towards ISS and things like that. But where they're at 550 kilometers, you know, they're going to be they're going to be the owners of that area by default because of how many satellites are going up there. For sure. So I do feel like that's discounted when we're talking about this kind of thing is that people say it as if like if there was a collision spacex would be like doesn't bother us and keep moving on without no having to react to it i think they're acutely

aware of it um i mean i would be just given i mean i would have to say you know spacex gets its fair share of bad press, but I think Starlink must be the thing that people have hated most that they've done so far. You know, like people weren't, people weren't very, very keen on the, um, the sports car in space, but at the end of the day, it's funny, you know, you know, it didn't really bother anybody. It's out in deep space space like minding its own business whereas the starlink constellation is having an impact on astronomers already so yeah i i think they're they need to be on top of their game with this project more than anything else i do wonder if the timeline that we're dealing with here on starlink is is causing some of this consternation

because we're used like like you said earlier, projects are always delayed in space. And this one is not. Like this is on schedule. And I don't think that's been talked about a lot, but this is on schedule with what SpaceX has always said. And not only is it on schedule, when it started, it was instantly,

you know, hundreds of satellites launched within a couple of months. So it's this instant ramp up to like, holy crap, this project is really moving. And there's all these different effects. And it doesn't look like this train is slowing down anytime soon. Well, the thing is, the space component is on schedule for sure. Not saying that the other components are not on schedule, but we have heard very little about the ground stations that SpaceX needs in order for the entire program to

actually work, right? It's not just the satellites that you need. You also need the ground stations that actually connect to the internet that, you know, do the round trip movement. Are those ready? Are those going to be available by the time they're rolling out all of this coverage? You know, that also remains to be seen. And remember, the ground component was the reason that iridiums didn't work out. So I would say that the satellites are not the hard part. It's the working with other countries and, you know, getting the permits to build on the ground. So I know we haven't heard a lot about that.

The most we've seen was like a leaked photo. We had Caleb Henry on the show last week and we were talking about this a little, that the most that we've seen, and even he who's tied in pretty tight with, you know, the SATCOM side of things, there was like a leaked photo on Reddit once of a flatbed truck with four terminals on it. And the theory was that that was the ground station that they're going to place all around the country? I mean, I guess. It sounds pretty SpaceX-y.

I mean, if it works, sure. But I mean, I wonder, what does it take to get that into other countries? The country's thing is a huge thing. If you think that SpaceX is going to start service with China available from day one, you are kidding yourself no absolutely not um it'll be interesting to see i mean gwen predicted that they'd start rolling out partial coverage this year um so it'll be interesting to see where that coverage is available yeah and who

you know they've done some tests with the dod so far but uh i do wonder what their rollout plan is like for communicating this stuff if it's going to be you know all of a sudden we're going to hear them working on a big project with some company or some agency or if they're going to have some sort of announcement it's that's going to be very interesting to see because that will be there if they do some sort of announcement or event, which Elon loves a big event, so it would be surprising to not see that. That would be the first time that SpaceX is talking to consumers, if that's what they're going to unveil, you know, whenever they're ready to do that. So how they position themselves with that will be very curious to watch. That's what I'm very eager about as well, is that I feel like Starlink is kind of fundamentally transforming the company, you know, because you

and I can't buy a rocket launch. I mean, I guess I could if I saved up. We could kickstart it. Yeah. But I could conceivably buy a Starlink terminal and, you know, get my internet from the sky. So yeah, it would provide a completely different relationship and open up a huge consumer base for SpaceX. And are they ready for that? Maybe. I mean, I guess Tesla's already been working with customers for years and years already, so I'm sure they could feed off of that expertise there. But it'll be interesting to see if that transition is smooth for a company that really hasn't had to deal with that since it started. Well, I got one last thing I want to get your take on before we're out of here.

Sure. There was this House subcommittee draft authorization bill that caused a lot of drama, and I think it was pretty terrible. We had this hearing the other day that didn't really change much from what I was listening in on. What do you think? This doesn't sound like something that's going to make its way through Congress, given the process at hand. But what do you make of how this is being positioned by the South Committee? So I think some good points were made in the discourse about this. And yeah, first of all, I think it's premature to get upset about it.

I mean, obviously, it's definitely something good to keep an eye on. You know, NASA, Jim Bridenstine's already got it on his radar for sure. But it does bring into clear focus just kind of how unbridled NASA has been for the past year or so. I mean, essentially, Artemis was dreamed up early last wait, no, is it 2018, 2019? No, you're right. Last March, last year, the announcement. It feels like it's been five years. We're not even a year yet. Yeah. Yes. But it but essentially, this was the vice president announced it. And soa is just like okay we're doing this now but it almost as if nasa forgot that it is controlled by congress as well and now congress is having its say at least partially or is making its opinions much more known and how it wants nasa

to be run and what it thinks of the artemis program so I think we're moving into a phase of like, okay, so the administration doesn't always get what it wants. And we also have to take these other opinions into account. Not to say that it's a good thing. It just it's it, it goes to show that we were in kind of uncharted territory for the last year or so. Yeah, you're totally right. And how many different ways they found to fund pieces of the mission through other programs. So they did a lot through the Next Step program that was already funded. They're doing a lot through

the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which already has line items in the budget. So they're finding a lot of these ways to make progress on different pieces. But now, at some point, they do have to get the big thing signed off on. It just, I'm kind of depressed about it because it is every bad space policy

that has ever been enacted in the last 30 years. It's overly prescriptive. It's changing destinations. It's picking, you know, specific architectures for launch vehicles and landing vehicles. It is so everything that we all hate about space policy that it just makes me really sad. No, it is a reminder. It's a reminder that this is this is how NASA is. Right. You know, it's it's in order to get the money that I mean, NASA has more money to do things than, you know,

all these commercial companies do. But we have to adhere to the constituencies, you know, all these commercial companies do. But we have to adhere to the constituencies, you know, and it's just that opens the floor to debates like, does that mean that NASA is going to grow obsolete one day? And I hope the answer is no. But I don't think in the long term, NASA will continue to do great things. if we must constantly adhere to what's best for people in each state. And I hate to say that because I don't want to sound cruel, but it's going to stalemate NASA every time. I could not agree more. Space policy is hard, Lauren. It's risky.

It's risky. Yeah. No, it's definitely really hard. I would say the policy is harder than Lauren. It's risky. It's risky. Yeah. No, it's definitely really hard. I would say the policy is harder than the rockets, you know? Sure seems it, yeah. I mean, the rockets haven't been going super great lately on the NASA side either, but they're at least making progress. And this other side does seem to be waffling quite a bit.

Yeah, it is funny to me, though. You'd think, I mean, well, I understand the thinking behind it, though you'd think i mean well i understand the the thinking behind it but you'd think that the that congress would favor fixed price contracts since it's less money that they have to spend um but i guess that is just but it's less money to spend on the people that got them there i know it's always hard to get out of that but you know the one shining moment in all this is the fact that Bridenstine showed up at that hearing and he said, because it's open to the public, so I'm here. Yeah, that is my favorite thing. You know, what has been so funny about Bridenstine is just remember all the animosity about the fact that he was a politician and not a scientist. And I would contend that his politician background has

been his biggest asset in this entire process. You know, he like the job. In fact, I mean, he's got a pretty good understanding of how the engineering and whatnot work. I mean, I've heard that guy say neuro vestibular system so many times. I truly love it. But that's not what he needs. He doesn't need to have the biggest understanding of those processes and the engineering. He's got to be able to work these lawmakers because he's talking to them every single day and dealing with curveballs that he wasn't expecting. And I just think it's so funny how that was such that was such a thing that was seemed like a detriment. But now it's

turning out to be like the thing that he's going to be known for. Yeah, I mean, I was always that's where always my head was at. And you're preaching the choir here is one of the two founders of the Jim Bridenstine fan club. You missed out on the IAC mayhem because you were getting married and all that. Oh, that's right. We had quite an incident down there with pins and everything, so it was a good time. Wait, what happened? Oh, man. Do we have time?

It is a long story, but I will give you the short version. Jake and I, you were on Off Nominal back in the day. Yes. We developed quite an affection for JB, as we call him. And it came to a point when a listener brought a hundred Jim Bridenstine fan club pins to a meetup. Oh, my goodness. And gave them to Jake. And he said, I guess we're taking these to IAC.

And we gave them out to everybody. And it eventually culminated in us getting to meet with him for a little bit and chat. Oh, wow. And he was very weirded out by the pins, but they were totally successful. I have found that he's incredibly open. You know, if you find a way to talk to him by wearing a pin, he'll talk to you, you know?

He sure does, yeah. And it's funny, though, that, like, you're saying that it's his biggest asset, and it totally is because he has sensibilities about different things and other administrators. I don't know if Charlie Bolden would have walked into that hearing and said, well, I'm here because it's open to the public. I don't see him going to that kind of thing. But, you know, Brinestein knows how this works. He knows he's up there shaking hands with the committee. I mean, it is his old committee.

So there's a little bit of there's some internal stuff going on there, I'm sure. Oh, for sure. Two of the people that are on this bill were from Oklahoma. So there's a lot of like, you know, stuff that we don't see here. I think it's very telling that Brian Babin made it clear that he would not have supported the bill if he had been in the majority. So I think that just goes to show that we're going to see some changes before. I mean, it might not change significantly before it goes to the full House, but definitely they have to reconcile it with the Senate and that's going to be a process for sure. It sure is. I don't know what's going to acts, but they're not as binding as the appropriations are.

So I think that's much, much more concerning. And that's what I look out. I normally don't cover the authorization acts or even the appropriations before they're signed. You know, it's the final version that I really look for. Granted, it's important to watch these things to see trends and to see, you know, what's coming down the line or where politicians' minds are at. But we, you know, these things change quite a bit along the road. So yeah, I feel exactly the same. But it is funny that you say like, you know, we had an authorization bill that was signed in 2010 that stayed with us for like eight years or something. Yeah, we had like totally different

space policies in its lifetime. Well, and also a trump signed an authorization act didn't he yeah that was like his first year in office and i mean have we even thought about that no i mean i'm pretty sure that told everyone he had to work towards going to mars you know and yeah that's not even not even on anybody's radar anymore. So even if an authorization act is signed, how much teeth does it really have? So I know people are concerned, but I think take a breath. It's going to be okay. Awesome.

Well, Lauren, thank you so much for coming back on. What should people check out of your work of late? Where do you want to send them if they have not been reading or watching what you've been doing? Well, always theverge.com slash science. And the space tab is usually populated by me. Then you can follow me on Twitter at Lauren Grush, L-O-R-E-N-G-R-U-S-H. And then you should definitely check out our amazing Verge Science videos on YouTube. Verge Science, they're incredible. The Verge Science team just is killing it every single week.

And it's a privilege to work with them. Awesome. Thank you so much. It's always a pleasure hanging out with you for a little bit and hope we get to hang out in person sometime soon. For sure. And also don't wait as long to call me to come back because I love doing the show. I know.

I'm bad at scheduling guests. I'm really bad. I'm not upset. Don't worry. All right. See you later. All right. Take care.

Thanks again to Lauren for coming on the show. It's always great talking with her. It definitely has been too long, like she said. So look for her coming up again soon on the podcast, I'm sure. But for now, that is all we've got this week. Thank you all so much for listening. Thanks for your support, as always, over at mainenginecutoff.com slash support. And always remember to check out the blog. I've been blogging a lot more lately over at mainenginecutoff.com and or on Twitter, if you're over there, at WeHaveMiko. But until next week,

thank you all for listening. I'll talk to you soon.