Main Engine Cut Off - T+195: Blue Origin’s Project Jarvis, Suborbital Flights, and Nauka Fallout (with Eric Berger)

Episode Date: August 3, 2021

Eric Berger of Ars Technica returns to the show to talk about the recent crewed suborbital flights by Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, Blue Origin’s Project Jarvis and their future work, and what the chaotic arrival of Nauka means for the future of the ISS and international space politics.This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 43 executive producers—Brandon, Matthew, Simon, Lauren, Melissa, Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Ryan, Donald, Lee, Chris, Warren, Bob, Russell, Moritz, Joel, Jan, Grant, David, Joonas, Robb, Tim Dodd (the Everyday Astronaut!), Frank, Julian and Lars from Agile Space, Tommy, Matt, The Astrogators at SEE, Chris, Aegis Trade Law, Fred, Hemant, Dawn Aerospace, and seven anonymous—and 618 other supporters.TopicsEric BergerEric Berger | Ars TechnicaLiftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceXHere’s why Richard Branson’s flight matters—and, yes, it really matters | Ars TechnicaBlue Origin successfully completes its first human launch [Updated] | Ars TechnicaDespite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin | Ars TechnicaBlue Origin has a secret project named “Jarvis” to compete with SpaceX | Ars TechnicaBezos says he is now willing to invest in a Moon lander—here’s why | Ars TechnicaNauka module’s near miss raises concerns about future of space station | Ars TechnicaThe 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 JustusArtwork photo by Roscosmos

🎵 Hello and welcome to Main Engine Cutoff, I'm Anthony Colangelo. It is early August, there's been some really good stories going on lately, so... I think I got a good one here today. If you are out there driving into work, maybe. Many are going back to the office. Hope you're enjoying the commute with some more time to listen to podcasts and the like. But I got Eric Berger back on the show because there's been a handful of stories that I wanted to cover

that I thought would be much more fun to do with him, especially because he had some original reporting and a scoop on Project Jarvis that Blue Origin is working on, which is their reusable upper stage. So we're going to dive into that. We're going to talk a lot about the International Space Station after the new Russian module, Nauka, has made its way to the space station and almost destroyed the ISS as well. and almost destroyed the ISS as well. That was pretty dramatic. So there's a lot to unpack with both those stories, and who knows, we might get off into some other tangents about suborbital tourism and the flights that Eric got to witness firsthand

down in New Mexico and Texas a couple weeks back. So a lot to unpack with Eric Berger, but before we do that, I want to say thank you to everyone else out there who supports the show every single month. There are 661 of you supporting Main Engine Cutoff, and that includes 43 executive producers who produced this episode of the podcast. Thanks to Brandon, Matthew, Simon, Lauren, Melissa, Chris, Pat, Matt, George, Ryan, Donald, Lee, Chris, Warren, Bob, Russell, Moritz, Joel, Jan, Grant,

David, Eunice, Rob, Tim Dodd, the Everday Astronaut, Frank, Julian and Lars from Agile Space, Tommy, Thank you all so much for your support every single month. If you want to join that crew, head over to mainenginecutoff.com support. You can sign up there. And if you're at $3 a month or more, you get an access to Miko Headlines, which is an entire other podcast I do one episode a week on the weekends, running through all the stories that are important to keep up on in space. So it's a great way to stay up on the news. It's a great way to let me do the work for you, sort through everything that's going on, tell you what's important. And it's a great way to support the show if you like episodes like this. So, without further ado, let's give Eric a call. Eric Berger, welcome back. It's been not too many

weeks since you've been on, but you're the man of the hour with at least one of these articles, so welcome to the show. Always a pleasure, Anthony. Where would you like to start? There's a lot of things that we really need to unpack. So what is the thing you're thinking about most these days? Is it Project Jarvis? Is it the ISS almost falling apart? Which of these things is getting you? I mean, the biggest story for me still of the last several weeks is the billionaire space race between Branson and Bezos and what that means for the future of spaceflight. between Branson and Bezos and what that means for the future of spaceflight.

And it was, you know, I was very fortunate to be at both of those launches and sort of soak up the scene and kind of the different atmospheres. But it was clearly a moment both of those guys had relished for a long time. And it was, on one hand, great to see them realize their dreams, because they both put a lot of private capital into spaceflight and have made meaningful achievements. But on the other hand, they both really blew up the public view that this was a boys and their toys kind of thing, and sort of billionaire play things as opposed to what commercial space has the potential to become. And both of the events, you probably can speak to this better having been there, were so

exactly what you would expect from the companies where Bezos had an aerospace legend and like Amelia Earhart's glasses and we're going to donate a bunch of money to these other things. And then Virgins was a rock concert and the press was way off to the side. Some stuff that was very indicative of the company's attitudes over the past years. You know, it was very different. Like the Virgin Galactic thing event was a party. It was a concert. And they both reflected their founders, I think, mentalities.

One interesting thing was at the Virgin Galactic event, the press was literally walled off from the guests and from any Virgin employees. At one point, Lori Garver came over to talk to us from the VIP tent, and she was ushered away. You weren't even allowed to talk? We did for a while. And George Whitesides came over for a bit and chatted with a few of us. But it was very separate. But what was kind of cool about the Blue Origin event is that Clay Mowry and Linda Mills, their chief of communications, they were all there in the press area.

So you could just go up and ask them questions. And Mike Goode was also there, one of the NASA astronauts that works for Blue Origin. So that was, that was kind of cool. But it was, but it was very much Bezos, you know, he clearly has a deep appreciation for the history of spaceflight. And that was, that's reflected in his museum and his factory in Kent, Washington, and that was reflected by sort of the tokens that he carried with him on that first flight. Yeah, I went on a bit of a rant last show that I used to get really caught up in like how much are tickets and how big is the market and the real minutia of the company operations. I'm trying to avoid that because i don't think that's what's important with these two uh vehicles like i i just want it to be a thing that like these are

for better or worse the things that we have that will normalize space flight first and whatever very variety of definitions you have for space and flight. These are the early things that will do that for the most people. I absolutely agree with you. I absolutely agree with you. You've got to start somewhere. And if you start with an eccentric British record producer and the world's richest person who has his own peccadillos, that's fine.

Let's get going. And the reality is that what we're seeing, I think, is the demand vastly outstripped supply right now and will for quite some time. Like, I don't think either of these companies will come close to flying out the demand for their services over the next five years. Virgin Galactic, for sure, and Blue Origin probably as well. They're going to charge a crap load for their tickets. I've heard it's $600,000 to $800,000 will be the price that they ultimately get down to. Eventually.

Once people stop paying millions for them. Once people stop paying millions for sure. It's kind of the situation that SpaceX is in that we talk about all the time where they have no incentive to lower the price because they're the lowest that there is. It just turns out there's two companies that are the only companies doing this kind of thing. So whatever they're charging, they'll find somebody to pay.

And in Blue Origin's case, it's like, well, what do you think it would cost to go to space? Okay, that sounds good. How about you send us that amount of money? And Blue Origin was smart. Like when Virgin Galactic did this, like they just started selling tickets out of the box. It was like the first price was $200,000, right? Or was it $250,000? price was $200,000, right? Or was it $250,000?

Yeah, $250,000. When clearly they could get a lot more. And Blue Origin clearly reflecting the Bezos said, let's charge as much as we can get. And they're going to get a lot. That program will return a pretty nice thing. a pretty nice thing. I will say about the Blue Origin event, it was pretty disappointing in the sense that there was really no access to Bezos or the other, quote, astronauts outside of some scripted, some very carefully scripted TV interviews where they had to submit their questions in advance to Bezos. That's like, tell me about what it looked like up there.

Tell me about looking into Mark's eyes, deeply into Mark's eyes. Or even before, it was like, how cool is this? And that kind of stuff, which I guess plays fine on the TV networks. But for the real space fans, I think the listeners of your show, we want to go a little bit deeper. And so they had that, I called it a sham of a press conference, which it was, where they took exactly three questions during more than an hour long event. So he clearly does not invite scrutiny, which only makes me a little bit more eager to scrutinize what he's doing out there.

And it was really interesting because, like, you know, they had these nice tents and stuff set up in New Mexico for the Virgin Galactic event for the press. And that was cool. But, like, the main facility, you know, was always off limits. And in West Texas at the Blue Origin event, they put us in this amazingly beautiful, tall, white building with these clean floors. And it was like, you know, three or four stories high, but like inside it was just like one big room. And it was really nice. And I was like, what is this facility? Because you looked around and they had like a control center and they had the launch tower.

They had a hangar for the rocket. And there wasn't much else but this big white building, I was trying to figure out what it was for. And I walked outside and like there was a big, two big painted squares with H's in the middle. So there were two helipads. So I was trying to figure it out. And then someone told me that this was a building Jeff had built for his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez. Now, he's very sensitive about Lauren Sanchez, this news anchor, media personality who he left his wife, Mackenzie, for a couple of years ago in a pretty public divorce. To put it lightly.

I think that's one of the reasons why he didn't do any real questions at the press conference, because he didn't want to get asked about that. But she was clearly there, and I'm told that- She was there, present, front and center in all the videos. And a pretty good source says that she's kind of becoming increasingly a gatekeeper to him. So if you want to get to Jeff, you got to go through Lauren Sanchez. But I don't have a great understanding of the dynamics of that relationship. It's just, he's very protective of it.

Anyway, which makes this funny. So anyway, I was trying to figure out what this big, white, beautiful building was. And it turns out it was the barn quote that Jeff had built for Lauren, because she loves to fly helicopters. She's a pilot. She does, you know, videos and photos of their launches and she needed a place to park her helicopter. So this, this this this big beautiful building where the press was interesting lauren's helicopter barn um so he built some weird stuff out in west texas i i know a couple people involved with the clock of the long now yeah you've heard of this thing that's oh yeah sure i think it's on similar land or it's on his he

owns he owns like a mountain range yeah in west somewhere out there yeah think it's on similar land. He owns like a mountain range in West Texas. Somewhere out there. So there's some bizarre stuff. It's probably not the end of the bizarre things that will get built. I mean, he's 57 now. And so you start to get a little more eccentric as you get older. And he clearly is more indulgent in his interest than Elon Musk is. Because Elon Musk is clearly focused on getting things done with Tesla and SpaceX and the Boren company. I think that is 95% of his existence, is devoted to advancing these projects that he's interested in.

Whereas Bezos clearly is taking time to enjoy being the world's richest person. And I don't know whether that's going to translate into actually doing more for Blue Origin, although he's done some things that are interesting. But he clearly is spending more time, as I say, to enjoy the fruits of that living. And Lauren Sanchez is playing some kind of a role in that, which I don't fully understand, but is unlikely to advance Blue Origin's interests. This is the first relationship drama we've had on Main Engine Cutoff. So maybe there's a whole new section of the show I haven't uncovered until now.

I mean, this stuff matters when your company is entirely funded by one person yeah um and doesn't have you know and really only has one major contract right now the the be4 contract with ula that it's responsible for so like you know they are entirely beholden to his whim and he clearly is supportive of spaceflight but you know he also is building a half a billion dollar yacht um where he's going to go and you know and spend a lot of time yeah and i think last time you were on we talked about like their motivations for any given project that are often unclear and trying to make sense of that um is something that at least indicates like what we should have hope in which is maybe a good transition to talk about Project Jarvis,

which is your piece last week, this week, I forget exactly when it was, following up on the saga of stainless steel rumors from months ago. And at the time, I remember we were texting about it and we were like, something doesn't smell right about this. It doesn't seem to be exactly what the rumors are, which at the time were, they're scrapping aluminum on the first stage,

going stainless steel for the whole vehicle that is New Glenn. Turns out it's the upper stage that we should have our sights set on for stainless steel. Fully reusable upper stage. Obviously not going to be there for the first launch of New Glenn. But actually, now that I say that, who knows? Maybe it will. Depending on schedule slips, I guess they could beat New Glenn itself to being ready. So what do you make of it now,

having done some digging around in this area for so long? And what do you make of all that? So there's two key takeaways, I think. First of all, New Glenn is an insanely expensive rocket to build. You've got the seven BE-4 engines, and that's probably almost $100 million right there. You've got the whole structure. And then the upper stage, I'm told, is really expensive as well. And so this is not a Falcon 9 rocket that you can go launch 20 times to figure out reuse and then sort of build reuse into it.

To make the economics work on this vehicle, you need to catch it on the boat and be able to fly it again. And I think their internal expectations are that they're going to get probably the second one back and go from there. But long term, the economics for this really only makes sense if the entire vehicle is reusable. And so that's one reason why they went to the reusable upper stage. And second, I think it's a reality that you're not building to compete with the Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy anymore. You're actually trying to have to compete with Starship.

And I think Jeff Bezos was pretty skeptical early on. I think we were all pretty skeptical early on of the Starship super heavy concept. And while it has a long way to go, they're clearly making progress in South Texas. And we may see a flight this year, we may not, but I mean, that is coming. And so, you know, New Glenn is probably not going to fly until 2024, 2025. So if you're, you know, what's Starship going to look like? It's probably going to look like a real rocket. And so that's what you're going to be competing against. And so it's credit to him for recognizing that that's the new normal. And you see it with Relativity Space too, with their Terran R vehicle, which is designed to be fully reusable. That clearly is the future for competitive rockets, not perhaps for institutional launchers. So it's those two things.

It's first of all, the economics of making the rocket affordable. And second, it's a realization that the landscape has changed the one thing i'm concerned about and and maybe the the reusable upper stage changes this a bit is that historically blue origin has talked up the new glenn flight rate as being very low like once a month at best um and by that same accord they had not planned on building much hardware if they could help it so the things that i've heard was like low single digits of how many new glenn first stages would ever exist and which is crazy when you've spent i think the last time they've done a promo video they said at the cape they spent a billion dollars or something like that on

unclear to me if that was the launchpad and the factory. I kind of assume so, but probably maybe, maybe I'm bad at accounting or something. You're spending billions of dollars to build a factory that you're going to use like very few times. It's something is strange there about the logistical planning. I mean, I guess ideally it would work great and then you'd have a very reusable vehicle, but it just seems weird to bank on that upfront. Yeah, it sure does. I mean, the new Glenn project is predicated on there being need for multiple heavy lift launchers, but it's going to be coming into a difficult US market with, um, with the Falcon heavy Falcon nine neutron potentially Terran are potentially. Um, and, and, and, and so if you've got two other big rockets, Falcon heavy

Vulcan, and then maybe Starship, you know. What is New Glenn's niche going to be? I don't know. Really, the most important thing they've got to do is demonstrate that it is actually a real rocket and they've got to go fly it. And I think then a market would materialize. But for now, there's just a lot of skepticism about whether they can pull it off in any kind of a reasonable time frame. The only way that I can justify some of this stuff is if I think about New Glenn more as an institutional launcher than a competitive commercial launcher, by which I mean low flight rate, reusable booster, reusable upper stage. That could be filled out pretty good with Blue Origin's own plans like if

they have extensive plans for their own space station if they have big plans for i guess slightly side tangent amazon kuiper um there are things that i could see them filling their own plate with in a way that would not leave a lot of room for commercial launches which and maybe that's not the game they're after you If Bezos is serious about building out infrastructure in space, maybe that's the part we're missing. Well, here's something controversial that I've been thinking about, about Blue Origin. One of their major problems, like if SpaceX didn't exist, they would look like a hell of a revolutionary company with all that they're trying to do. Yeah, that's a good point.

they would look like a hell of a revolutionary company with all that they're trying to do. Yeah, that's a good point. The problem is that in everything but suborbital space tourism, they're competing directly against SpaceX. They're competing against them with the big reusable rocket. They're competing with them in the lunar lander. They're competing with them in launching satellite internet, although clearly Project Kuiper is an Amazon program, not Blue Origin. Frankly, they're losing in all three. SpaceX got the lunar lander, Blue Origin's protest was just denied. SpaceX is way ahead in launch, 120 orbital launches, perfected reuse with the Falcon 9, built the Falcon Heavy, which is comparable in lift to New Glenn, and is working on Starship. And there are thousands of satellites ahead with Starlink. They're going to roll out commercial service two to three to four years early. And I don't know

if there's a first mover advantage in that, or if there's some kind of sweet sauce with Project Kuiper that will make it a better product than Starlink. But at some point, I'd like to see Bezos realize that he is losing badly to Elon Musk. And that's not a criticism of Bezos. Okay. It really isn't. It's just like he got started seriously a little bit later than Elon. He's been less committed to this. He's been running Amazon. And Elon just frankly seems to want it more. And so what should Bezos do?

Like does Blue Origin really need to build the highway to space or has SpaceX already built that highway? need to build the highway to space or has SpaceX already built that highway? And if SpaceX has already built that highway, then what contribution could Bezos make in a meaningful way? Well, it could be commercial space stations. It could be lunar surface infrastructure. It could be in-space transportation. And I have heard rumors of a major project of Blue Origin focused on that. of a major project of Blue Origin focused on that. But he talks a lot about these O'Neill cylinders. And my thought on Blue Origin is that maybe they ought to pivot to in-space infrastructure away from this highway to space stuff. I don't think Bezos' ego will allow him to do that.

But quite frankly, SpaceX has beat them on the space transportation stuff or launch stuff. So that's just my thought. I don't know. What do you think about that? I would love that because there is a lack. Well, number one, that's something that SpaceX expressly does not want to take on right now.

That's right. They've said all along, we're going to get to Mars, but what we do there is up to other people at the current moment. And same goes with the space station stuff. I mean, I don't think SpaceX is going to compete for the commercial LEO destinations contract that NASA's putting out there. I think that's going to be Axiom. It's going to be Blue Origin, maybe something like NanoRacks. So there is a huge need for those things to exist. There's a huge need for a market to be created there. And those are incredibly capital intensive investments, way more so than launch vehicles, which right now are the most capital intensive investments

in space infrastructure. And I'll tell you something helpful. I'll tell you something helpful. As part of that project's Travis story, I mentioned that they were building up this ISRU, In-Situ Resource Utilization Team at Blue Origin. Pretty highly qualified folks. And so that's hopeful to me because NASA is going to need some help from the commercial sector if it's going to have a sustainable program at the moon. It's going to need useful and interesting things to do there. And it's not going to be able to do that all on its own. So if Bezos were to create sort of an ISRU development program on the surface of the moon, because let's face it, you know, in those O'Neill cylinders videos that he loves, they're getting the material to build those things from the lunar surface, a lot of it. So go figure out that piece, right? Because that's really hard. I mean, launching rockets, we've been doing that for 60 years, but getting water from the poles where it's extremely cold, like hundreds of degrees below zero, that's incredibly difficult. Figuring out how to get that material from the surface of the moon and doing stuff with it in orbit, manufacturing in space.

Super important, but that's not something SpaceX is going to do. And so, again, I don't know if Jeff Bezos would allow himself to pivot like that. But that's really where the... We need to be worrying less about how to get into space and more about what to do there. And that could be a huge role Blue Origin could fill. They could really lead the industry in that. Yeah. That's my biggest hope for him.

And I guess one indication might be this open letter that was posted by Jeff Bezos to Bill Nelson. Maybe. The reason I'm saying that is this is the moment where we will see whether he is committing to building things in space under his own funding or whether he's really just hoping to get some NASA contracts. Because you can't write a letter that says, I guess I should give a little summary of what this letter was.

Yeah. It was a long history of the Artemis lander program to now. And the fact that SpaceX won the only contract and blue origin was left out and it's offering a series of things to NASA. And we'll have to get into a whole thing about like he's offering to NASA, but what is it actually offering to Congress and how can that even go? It was we will cover the costs for the next two or three fiscal years up to two billion dollars. We will add a demonstration mission. Basically, what was that Apollo nine? Apollo 9, right? Where they flew the LEM in low Earth orbit. We'll add one of those in addition to the uncrewed landing of Blue Moon on the surface,

all in a run-up to being able to have a second lander in the Artemis lander program. You can't write a letter that says, we will spend $2 billion and then not spend $2 billion even if no one flinches at the letter. That's the part where I think this is really a moment where they're putting their reputation out there saying, we're going to commit this money. I'd rather them have written it, we're going to spend $2 billion on a lander, come along for the ride or not. That's kind of what it was saying, but you have to really work through the lines to get there.

through the lines to get there. What I like about SpaceX is that once Elon decides that this is the best path forward, like reuse was the best path forward with the Falcon 9, so we're going to invest and do it. And like Starship is clearly the next step and what the vehicle we need, it has to be fully reusable. And he just did it on his own. I mean, Bezos has a lot more money than Elon ever did. And he could so afford to do that if he decides something is the best path forward. Now, he looks at SpaceX and says, well, the majority of their work has been funded by government contracts. And he's absolutely right. But that's because Elon started SpaceX with $100 million, not $100 billion. So they had to do it that way. Bezos doesn't. And so what I'd like to see him do is figure out what is the best architecture forward for what I think we ought

to be doing in space. And it would not surprise me, Anthony, to see a breaking of the fellowship, the national team coming apart, because let's face it, they all came together in hopes of getting those sweet, sweet NASA dollars for a lunar lander. And for a long time, it looked like they were going to get it. I could see a future in which Bezos takes his $2 billion and goes his own way and says, okay, a three-stage lander that integrates around the moon is actually a crappy idea. And we're going to build our entirely own reusable system. And he's going to take his $2 billion and invest in that.

And then like, you know, try to come on board for future missions with NASA. Because let's face it if starship works again huge if but they're making progress if starship works the dynamics land and the national team lander are just ridiculous like who needs them um you don't i mean it's if starship works but a fully reusable lander that blue origin really self-invests in, and maybe you integrate it in low Earth orbit instead of lunar orbit. Now, that might work. That would be pretty interesting. So I think watch this space.

And for me, the real enigma here is where do Jeff Bezos' true feelings lie? Why is he happy with Bob Smith as the CEO of that company, right? The employees hate him, right? He has come in, slowed them down, screwed things up from their perspective. And certainly from outside looking in, it looks like he's been a pretty terrible manager of that company. But Bezos seems okay with that. And to me, that's a red flag, right? Why? Your company is not making substantial progress.

And so for Jeff, was it like the most important thing for him was actually just to go into space? And like all the rest of this stuff is sort of ancillary to that? Or is it like, is he really committed to that bigger purpose? And I agree with you 100%. If he is, he would just decide what the best path forward is for Blue Origin, commit to spending the money on that project. And then, you know, realize that the government funding will follow. His problem is he's been fighting for government money before he has anything to offer. Like, you know, we, New Glenn should be allowed to compete for launches in 2023 or 2024. You know, 2023, right?

Was when the LSA? I believe so, yeah. NLS too, yeah. I mean, your rocket's not ready. And everyone knows it's not going to be ready. So, you know, you should have a build it and they will come mindset. And that's the fundamental difference when people compare SpaceX contracts. It's like, yeah, they've gotten a lot of government contracts, but it's because it's

the contracts that are on the path that they've already started on and have clearly decided on versus deciding your path based on what contracts are available. And, you know, I think it would be like if Jeff Bezos decided, maybe not today, but three years ago, that he was going to be the next person to set foot on the moon, I would have bet money that that's possible. 100%.

Clearly willing to fly on the first human launch of a spaceship that he's built. I would put money that he could be the next person on the moon if he really wanted to. He's certainly got enough money to do that. Right now, he doesn't he could be the next person on the moon if you really wanted to he's certainly got enough money to do that right now he doesn't want to be the next person on the moon and he's the only person who could legitimately say that and he's like nah no thanks i won't be that person so that's the letter itself i don't think it's going to go

anywhere i think nasa should say oh great we have this other program that we just announced where you're going to self-fund your own lander and we'll buy services from you later and put it right back to blue origin put them on the spot and say like you said you're going to do it and we'll buy your services and and this is the chance for blue origin to either change that and and start doing that or i think they've just mortgaged their entire reputation and it would take a long time for that to recover. And by the way, how much of a wizard is Kathy Leuters? Because she drove that decision to down select to only one and knew that there was going to be substantial blowback from Congress for picking SpaceX over the other firms, which had much more broader interest in jobs across the country. But played that in just the right way to basically say, you only gave us a quarter of what we asked for. We can only afford one, and we can only afford the one with the lowest

price and the highest technical score. And lo and behold, it looks like Congress is going to fund the lander and give them more than enough money than they need for this SpaceX Starship lunar lander to go forward. So you have to give her a lot of credit for managing that process. Whereas the easy way, right? The easy way would have been to punt on 2024 and say, well, 2024 isn't possible. 2026 isn't possible. We don't have enough money. It's really important to have competition. We have a new administrator.

We have a new administrator. Didn't even start the job yet. We're going to back off this 2024 date and we're going to have two companies and just split that money between SpaceX and Blue Origin or maybe all three and just sort of give them more development money as they could have built more balsa wood models at Johnson Space Center.

But instead, she sort of went for the bold choice and it looks like she's going to work out for her. So I give her a lot of credit on that. Yeah, like Space Hero Award of the main Engine Cutoff podcast goes to Kathy for sure. Yes, yeah, for sure. I just invented that, of credit on that. Yeah. Like space hero award of the main engine cutoff podcast goes to Kathy for sure. Yes. Yeah,

for sure. I just invented that, but she won it. Um, all right, let's talk about the space station before we wrap up. Okay. Oh boy.

Uh, you, you wrote something up on this, uh, that just posted before we recorded this. Um, so Russia had been working on Nauka for before I was born, maybe.

I don't know. Yeah. It had a hell of a week getting its way to the ISS to say the least. The funny thing about this is that none of us thought this was going to go well, but none of us could have imagined how poorly it went. You know, like it was,

it was outside the extremes that even we could have imagined. poorly it went you know like it was it was outside the extremes that even we could have imagined so they had propulsion issues from the start they had a docking antenna issue from the start they we thought it was going to decay out of orbit within two days eventually they get it to iss it and there was like some also issue with like the navigation system too which i didn't fully fully understand they were out of alignment like way before docking then they came into docking and everyone on the live stream was shouting that they were going into manual control mode

turns out they didn't and it docked automated the whole way which is like did they mean to flip it into manual mode and that didn't work which is also concerning and I feel like that hasn't come out and then it docked and then it tried to aggressively undock to the point of spinning the space

station around 540 degrees. That's a good summary of what happened. That's a great summary of the week that was for the Nauka space module. Now I will say it was very important to both Russia and NASA that this thing actually got there. So despite

all of the drama, I think everyone is pretty happy that Nauka's there. I will really question you whether it's important to NASA that this made it. Oh, I think it's important because you want the Russians to stay as committed partners for this station through 2030. I don't. I no longer do. through 2030. I don't. I no longer do. Why? Why should I? They've had, as you illuminated, three serious problems with human spaceflight in as many years. They are instigating public arguments between NASA and Roscosmos at every chance. They are saying that NASA astronauts are drilling holes in Soyuz while on orbit. They are not being good stewards of human spaceflight. They are not being good partners to NASA. They are rabble-rousing when

commercial crews coming online. And they're, as far as I'm concerned, contributing nothing to the International Space Station at the moment, other than the fact that we are stuck with them because turns out that their module, which I think even NASA owns, does NASA own Zvezda at this point? I don't know. I don't think so. NASA owns, does NASA own Zvezda at this point? I don't know. I don't think so. Maybe Zarya, but not Zvezda. We stuck there with the job of providing. The Russians could take that and go home if they wanted to.

Yeah, and we'd be stuck without propulsion, and that is the real killer. the future of human spaceflight, I would rather NASA be in a position where they have to figure something out in terms of replacing what we would need on the International Space Station and building maybe even a new station than continuing to run the risk that what is clearly a brain drain

of epic proportions happening at Roscosmos because of their inability to pay people the right amounts and to, you know, have successful work done. There's just nothing good coming of it at this point. And I don't see why I should maintain an attitude any otherwise. Speaking of attitude, I wrote a story on the Friday, Thursdayursday last thursday when it finally docked and the whole thing about the attitude came out i got no kidding at least 10 snooty emails from people saying well nice article but you know you misspelled altitude throughout the article or you know what a dumb mistake you idiot um so it's a real really fun to write back to these people with a link to spacecraft attitude and say, no, that's right.

Nailed it actually. But, but, but going back to your point about, uh, and that's not to say I don't make errors. I make errors all the time, but that was just, just funny. Like how many people seized upon that as a gotcha moment? Um, so I, I have to disagree because I think fundamentally the space station program was a US-Russian partnership. And the reason it's had such longevity and continues to be valuable is because it does provide a bridge between two countries that are very far apart. And I would attribute a lot of the discord to Dmitry Rogozin, who perpetually is rumored to be on his way out as head of Roscosmos.

All of the things you cited, I think, originate to some extent or not with him. 100%. It's his fault. But yeah, he's still there. He's backing. I just think I'm not convinced NASA could scramble if the Russians pulled out to save the space station and and and beneath the bluster when I talk to people they still say that the Russians are very good partners um in terms of doing what they do you know helping to keep the

space station flying obviously Soyuz was an invaluable lifeline for the last decade. And it's still the redundant way for NASA astronauts to get into space until Starliner comes. But just because we put ourselves in a shitty situation doesn't mean that I should be comfortable with what has been going on for the past three years in Russian human space flight. No, you should not. It's been a very troubling time.

I think the hope is that they can kind of get their stuff together and focus on their core responsibilities. It's been really interesting to watch the bluster about the Russian orbital space station, the replacement for the ISS that the Russians are going to build. I mean, give me a break. You spent 20 years building a single module, Nauka, and now you're going to build a brand new space station?

I don't think so. And I wouldn't count on the Proton rocket to launch it either. So it's a really interesting issue. And it is intriguing to me that NASA would have options. Like you could buff up the Axiom module to basically replace the service module, or you could dock a Starship and use its propulsion capabilities. But both of those solutions are probably four, five years away. I just think politically, the pairing of US and Russian space is so nice.

Um, you don't want to, you don't want to lose that. I mean, it survived the sanctions and all that stuff seven years ago. And, you know, there's the issue of if you turn Russia away completely, they go running to China. Um, not that, not that I care too much. I don't know. Oh, darn. Are they going to go spin out the Chinese space station?

Like if you're a China hawk, all right. Yeah. Let them dock Naoko to Tiangong. Go ahead. Well, I don't think they could launch Naoko to Tiangong. No, they couldn't. But I'm just hypothetically saying if they wanted to spin another person's space station out of control, then that's fine by me, I guess. I mean, okay.

I will give you this. It's an interesting issue. fine by me, I guess. I mean, okay, I will give you this. It's an interesting issue. I think in the big picture, there are lots of reasons to still hope that the US and Russia can hang together in space. Now, I did hear definitively this week, by the way, that the Russians are out of Gateway, the Lunar Gateway program. I mean, we didn't, they sort of had been making noises about the Artemis Accords. But they were still nominally on board to build the airlock. They're out. They're out of the program.

So that raises questions to me about the future of space station as well. But it's a very interesting time. But I still think the most likely scenario is that the U.S. pays some kind of maintenance fee to Russia for the service module going forward that replaces some of the whole left and seat purchases on the Soyuz. Yeah. I mean, at, at worst, if I'm, if I'm, if I get my way and Russia is out of the space station at worst, how much money would it cost to replace the service module? Let's give the Russians that money.

They get their funding for their space program. We get ownership of that module and total control of it. And what they want out of this space station is money to fly people there. That's why they're so pissed off is that that money's dried up. So I see a way to buy our way out of this problem. I think there's some value to for them and that they don't have anywhere to go without that space station. Yeah, it's a prestige thing. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I mean, if, if, if they're out of the space station program, then it's us and China and Russia,

which you and I clearly understand is already pretty much an also ran in space, but it becomes clear to the rest of the world that you've got the U S and China. Right. And then you've got Russia a distant third in capabilities and sort of being caught soon by India. So, I mean, it's an interesting issue. And like I said, it makes the space station, which frankly is a pretty boring program, right? They do interesting science, but it goes around and around and around.

And there's launches every quarter. And it's basically the same thing over and over again. It certainly adds some spice to that program because you don't know where it's going to go. And it is pretty important to the future of NASA and certainly to Russia as well. Well, turns out I'm spicier than you are today. So this is good to discover. I told the Lauren Sanchez story and you're bringing more to this than me. Anthony, come on, man. Eric, thank you so much for coming on. This has been a lot of fun to unpack all this with you. I

really appreciate you hanging out. Always a pleasure. Well, do you want to plug anything for everyone? If they haven't read Liftoff, they should go read it, I assume. If you haven't read my book Liftoff, you're behind 50,000 other people who already have. So you better, you know, thank you. But Liftoff has been, the response to that's been just fabulous. I'll tell you just a really quick story. So remember a few months ago when like the pandemic looked like it was receding? So the launch director for the Falcon 1 one tim buzza was in la got everyone

together who's in the book and they had a party we had a party book party at his house in seal beach california um and it was amazing i'd met i'd met a lot of the people in person but some just on phone interviews so like everyone got there and like we're all signing the books and it was like for the first time for some of of those people, it was the first time they'd seen their sort of Falcon 1 buddies in like five or 10 years. So that was like unbelievable experience for me to sort of meet all of these legends

and sort of just kind of, you know, see them sort of interact again. So the book has had a really nice impact for the employees as well who made it happen. That's awesome to hear. I'm increasingly excited for the Falcon 9 book. Ah, yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, man. Thank you so much. Talk to you later. Okay. Thanks again to Eric for coming on the show. It is always awesome to have him, and we always get into interesting corners of thought

that I don't get to on my own often. So always a pleasure having him. And like we talked about at the end of the show, if you have not read Liftoff, you got to check it out. I just reread it on vacation recently to commit some more of it to memory because it is that good. So definitely check that out. And, you know, his writing at Ars Technica, if you are not following that, is always great. I've got tons of links in the show notes at mainenginecutoff.com for the stories we were talking about today.

And thanks again to all of you who support the show over at mainenginecutoff.com. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, I will talk to you soon. Bye.