Main Engine Cut Off - T+220: Artemis Architecture (with Eric Berger)

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

Eric Berger of Ars Technica joins me to talk about the Artemis Program’s space suits, expensive launch sites, maybe-cheaper-but-at-least-not-as-delayed launch sites, vehicles, and its manifest over the next decade. Plus, a few bonus topics like Astra, Firefly, and Lori Garver’s new book.This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 42 executive producers—Simon, Lauren, Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Ryan, Donald, Lee, Chris, Warren, Bob, Russell, Moritz, Joel, Jan, 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, Andrew, Harrison, Benjamin, and seven anonymous—and 804 other supporters.TopicsEric Berger (@SciGuySpace) / TwitterEric Berger | Ars TechnicaNASA Partners with Industry for New Spacewalking, Moonwalking Services | NASANASA chooses two companies to build spacesuits for its 21st-century Moonwalkers | Ars TechnicaAfter years of futility, NASA turns to private sector for spacesuit help | Ars TechnicaNASA’s second mobile launcher is too heavy, years late, and pushing $1 billion | Ars TechnicaArtemis II Engine Section Moves to Final Assembly | NASAFAA Requires SpaceX to Take Over 75 Actions to Mitigate Environmental Impact of Planned Starship/Super Heavy Launches | Federal Aviation AdministrationEric Berger on Twitter: “Another Astra second stage failure today with Rocket 3. Overall the company is now 2 of 7 in orbital launch attempts, with 2 of the last 4 being successful.”After 9 difficult months, Firefly is set to take its next shot at orbit | Ars TechnicaEric Berger on Twitter: “Effective tomorrow, Tom Markusic will no longer be CEO of Firefly. Move comes three months after major investment in the company by AEI.”Episode 66 - My Next One is “Fiction” - Off-NominalEscaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age: Garver, Lori, Isaacson, Walter: 9781635767704: Amazon.com: BooksThe 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 NASA

hello and welcome to main engine cutoff i am anthony colangelo and we've got our old friend eric berger of ars technica back with us today there's been a lot going on lately on the artemis program side of things um from the SLS obviously getting ready for its wet dress rehearsal as we record this announcement of new spacesuit contracts for Artemis and for the ISS program. We've got a mobile launcher

that is way over budget and way over schedule down at Kennedy Space Center. A recent environmental assessment released by the FAA about Boca Chica for SpaceX's Starship launch site. So tons of stuff to talk about. And a lot of that I was going to do a show on on my own. But the more I was reading about all of it and thinking about all of it, and then I got a

little bit angry about the current manifest of Artemis missions as it's currently laid out on the schedule by NASA. And I was going to do a whole big show. And I thought, who better to talk about this stuff with than Eric Berger? So before we get there, though, I do want to just mention real quick because it's pertinent to this conversation. Yesterday on Off Nominal, the other podcast that I do with Jake Robbins, offnom.com, if you want to check it out. We had Lori Garver on the podcast to talk about her new book, Escaping Gravity. She was the NASA deputy administrator under the Obama administration, was a critical piece of commercial crew, the program that eventually, you know, started flying people to the ISS. She was like the champion there that made that happen and pushed

for that kind of change at NASA in a very interesting time in history. And she's got this whole book about her story of her career. and especially in that era of NASA, you know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, when it was really heating up. And it was an amazing conversation. There's a lot in there about the stuff that Eric and I talk about today in terms of how these programs really function in terms of going to Congress and asking for funding and how do you win over different constituencies and all that kind of stuff. So there's a lot in there that's relevant to this conversation. I would highly recommend going to offnom.com. It's episode 66 with Lori Garver.

Check that out. I've got a link in the show notes, obviously. But anyway, without further ado, let's chat with Eric. All right, Eric Berger is back with us. Once again, it's been a little while since we've talked and there's been some good stuff happening.

So we're overdue here. Good stuff, bad stuff, lots of stuff. A lot of things that we will not even get to on the list today, I'm sure. There's some good space drama out there right now. Oh, my gosh. I want to talk about the spacesuits with you, the Artemis spacesuits, task order uh based contracting situation because i was thinking about doing a show on this for a while because i feel a little weird about it and

i feel like i've gotten to the reasoning behind it but you're probably as somebody who was at that weird spacesuit event like a year and a half or two years ago did you go to that thing with the i was not at the event in dc which was just this weird thing i was at the announcement here in houston a couple weeks ago i think i mixed it up but um all right so to put context in place nasa announced this new what was the name of it it was the exploration extra vehicular activity services contract um that is effectively going to operate in a task order based mechanism like the commercial lunar payload services program, where providers get on ramp to these to the contracting mechanism. And then they bid on individual task orders into the future for

certain missions to provide spacesuits for not only the ISS program, but Artemis going forward, both, you know, spacewalking suits, but moonwalking suits as well. The one difference is that the two teams, Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace, are getting a little bit of funding up front to basically seed funding, as I read it. Yeah. And it's not clear to me whether it's really a little or whether it's a lot. So it could be like 50 million, it could be 500 million for each of these companies. I don't know. Maybe we'll find out when the source selection statement comes out.

Maybe we won't. I don't think we will because I read a couple different quotes that the source selection document will be scrubbed of prices. It'll just have percentage differences between offers. And then oddly space news had a quote that said, even the task order awards in the future won't be, And then oddly, Space News had a quote that said, even the task order awards in the future won't be, they won't have the amounts listed on those either,

which that's like, that feels wrong. Yeah, it feels very wrong. Borderline illegal? Like what's the, I don't know what the stipulation is, but. And I don't know why they would need that kind of protection. I mean, it's not like the commercial crew task orders are public. The Eclipse task orders are public. So I think we'll find out. I mean, I'd be surprised if we didn't.

Maybe they'll say ITAR. It could be the way they... It could be. I don't know. All right, so the reason I feel weird about this is that um i don't know spacesuits are weird this is a weird program because probably the number one reason to go this direction if i'm trying to reason about this is that nasa as of yet does not know which kinds of spacesuits it will need when like that manifest is not very well defined um we sort of have an idea that the spacesuits on the ISS are getting up there

in age. There seems to be more and more problems with those. So that seems a little more pressing, but I don't know that the spacesuits for Artemis three, like we have a notional date, but everything's notional because no one actually has like the official hardware built yet for this mission so is this them just trying to get around the manifest planning that they're

doing so that they can rather than specifically defining up front in the actual acquisition here specific requirements with specific missions they remain flexible into the next 10 years so they can define which spacesuits they need two, three years down the line from where we are now. So the thing you have to understand, I think, is that NASA has been, I think the technical term is farting around with spacesuit replacement for about 15 years now, going back to the Constellation Program, which was going to send humans to the moon. And, I mean, it's been known for a long time, as you say,

we need new spacesuits for low Earth orbit because they're 40 years old, 30, 40 years old, that they're using on the International Space Station. And for a long time, NASA tried to do this in-house through traditional procurement. And if you want to read about the gory details of that, there's a pretty good inspector general's report that came out maybe a year or 18 months ago. I don't have it right in front of me.

But it was pretty damning of both the contractors and NASA and said, this isn't working. And so NASA tried a hybrid approach. And what really has forced this, obviously, is that they got to have spacesuits if they're going to go walk on the moon. And it's pretty silly if you go down on the surface of the moon, stay in your spacecraft and then come back. And so if you're going to go to the moon in the middle of 2020, you need some new spacesuits because you can't use your existing spacesuits because they're not good in the dust environment.

And so I give credit to NASA for realizing that what they were doing wasn't working. And they've gone with a more purely commercial approach. And they've picked two companies in hopes that one of them will be ready sometime soon. And both Collins Aerospace and Axiom have pretty good experienced partners on this. And so they know how to build spacesuits. And it feels to me like there's enough money in the contract to get something done. Now, they're not going to be ready for the moon in 2025. I think that seems pretty clear to me. What we may see in 2025 is one of these companies have a spacesuit on orbit, and someone from the ISS takes a spacewalk in it, assuming the ISS is still flying,

and hasn't been shot down by the Russians. Well, so Axiom Space is the interesting one there, right? Because they have shot down by the Russians. Oh my God. The, well, so Axiom Space is the interesting one there, right? Because they have their own plans for Leo. They've got this space station they're going to build out attached to ISS, eventually be a free flyer. And unlike Blue Origin's Orbital Reef,

they have made pretty clear that spacewalking will be part of their architecture. Orbital Reef's going that other direction with that weird little single person spacecraft, which may not work. I don't know, but. I mean, this is, let's be honest, this is a huge windfall for Axiom Space because they were already going to need spacesuits and probably have to build EVA suits to fulfill that purpose. And now they're getting paid for it. And NASA, they'll get to use

these suits and share costs. And I mean, it's a huge deal for them. And again, it has to go down to Microsoft. Ferdini is the CEO of that company. He was at NASA for decades and ran this ISS program for a decade. And he knows intimately how NASA contracting works. He knows the right people. He knows what to say. And let's be honest, I mean, he still has friends at the agency. And so he can work the system pretty well. I'm not saying that that's bad. I'm just saying that it's a great contract for them. So if you're looking at companies to watch in the 2020s, Axiom is probably near the top of that list because they got a lot going on um and if they deliver they're they're kind of the premier commercial space company for in-space activities in my mind yeah and the good thing is that they're like you're saying they were

on this mission already and they're heading this direction and this is very much akin to nasa or the space force taking advantage of what SpaceX is doing in their own mission where SpaceX is heading a certain direction. It says we can accomplish your goals that also feeds into our architecture. So we can bid for this contract at a price that most other people would be terrified of. It actually feels like it has that going for it. I don't think they bid at a price that would terrify their companies. I think there's three and a half billion or something like that with a task orders, which is more than NASA's paying for the lunar lander starship.

So, I mean, it's not, it's a lot of money, but you're right. I mean, if this succeeds, they are sort of in that same kind of thing that SpaceX was doing 15 or 20

years ago. That price tag is also maybe a big part of why they went this direction with this kind of contracting mechanism, because in the other route, whether it was a NASA owned suit or if it was just going to be a traditional contract, but to be building out suits, you know, either owned by NASA or leased by NASA or whatever, they were going to have to go to Congress and get a big old chunk of funding to initiate that program and be able to define those milestones. Whereas task order allows them to go to Congress and attach that funding to particular Artemis missions over time. So that if they're able to build support for an Artemis three mission or an Artemis four mission,

they can include in that line item spacesuits for that mission and they don't have to fight another battle over a flagship contract. So I mean, that feels like the right strategy, because it's bundling the concerns all in one line item rather than multiple programs. I think you raise a great point, Anthony, is if you look at how the Artemis program is structured from a contract basis, NASA is punting a lot of the major costs down the road. You see that with spacesuits. You see that with Gateway. You see that with the Lunar Landers competition. They are really trying to backload the costs.

And I think that inevitably we're going to see delays, delays, delays, especially for Artemis III and the missions beyond that. And that probably is an unhealthy way to go about it, but it may be the only way to get these things moving forward. And let's be honest, if you're going to do the moon program, you need new spacesuits. And so this, and the significance of this is, this is really the last big piece, I think, of hardware that you needed. You've got SLS, you've got Orion, you've got Starship all under contract, and now you've got the spacesuits. And so that's, those are the foundational pieces to go to the moon. And I think that's a big deal. Let's just circle back on the NASA owned spacesuit program that was going on for so long, the XEMU.

So that report you were talking about was August 2021. And I'm looking at an article that you wrote in October of that year where they started issuing RFPs for changing the way they were going to acquire these spacesuits. changing the way they were going to acquire these spacesuits. Like I, I just kind of flummoxed as to how the spacesuit program got to where it was without, I mean, people noticed, but like,

how did it just continue on in that form for so long? So I asked about that. Um, and the, and the answer is, um, that spacesuits were really hot topic back during the Constellation heyday. So this is 2006, 2007, 2008, back when it kind of looked like we were going to go back to the moon

or at least talk in a good game. And then that all got shut down when President Obama came into office and said, wait a minute, this is years behind. It's over budget. It's not happening. We're doing something else. And then all of a sudden, you didn't need spacesuits, right? Because you had your ISS EVA suits that were then only 25 or 30 years old. And so contracts kind of

percolated along and people were tinkering and trying different things and running into walls. And let's be honest, spacesuits are small spacecraft that have to keep humans alive and have to be really small and do lots of you know pretty complex things so they're it's you know these are not like the spacesuit spacex is building and this is not to diminish spacex for jared isaacson's polaris mission is has an umbilical tie to the spacecraft so it doesn't have to have independent water cooling all that stuff it basically is a i don't want to have independent water, cooling, all that stuff. It basically is a, I don't want to say glorified pressure suit, but it's a pressure suit tied to

the spacecraft consumables, right? So these other spacesuits are completely independent. So you've got the spacesuit and then you've got all that other stuff that keeps you alive while you're in the spacesuit. So, you know, it's a big deal. And it just, different pieces that fell to the wayside. But, you know, so it was kind of like a background program. And then all of a sudden Artemis comes along in 2018, 2019, like, wow, we really need some spacesuits. And so that's why they put those racing stripes, I guess, on EVA suits and had an event in DC.

It was one of the stranger things Jim Bridenstine did as an administrator. And I think I mocked it justifiably so because, like, you're not going to put just a random colored stripe on a spacesuit in a weird thermal environment like the lunar surface. So anyway, they've gotten serious about spacesuits and they realized that, look, the most quickest way to do this is probably just to give it to the private sector. And so NASA is saying, we have 14 years of work on spacesuits. Here's what we think is the best design. You're welcome to use any of this technology or throw it in the trash. We just need some spacesuits by 2025. And so they're, you know, they're working with the private sector and I think we'll get there.

I don't know if it'll be 2025. And so they're, you know, they're working with the private sector. And I think we'll get there. I don't know if it'll be 2025. And it's important to note that the 2025 date is not the date for a demonstration on the moon, because 2025 is the current notional date for the Artemis 3 landing on the moon. But come on, it's not going to be 2025. So they need to demonstrate low with orbit. I think one of the really interesting things about this is that the suits are designed both for spacewalking at the space station and walking on the moon, which are two incredibly different environments. So, I mean, that's a big challenge.

So I'll be interested to see how the companies come up with it. I think it's great that there's competition because maybe one of them fails. Yeah. My vibe on that is that Axiom is going to focus on the space walking suit and maybe have a version that works for walking on the moon where collins is coming at it from the other direction because if you think about what axiom needs out of this is they need a space walking suit for low earth orbit and all of the visualizations we've seen from collins are people walking around in surface suits. So I feel like, you know,

and even I think I forget who it was from Collins in that announcement was talking about how they can have this common top half torso section of the suit and then a different bottom for different needs that you have when you're walking or when you're floating. So I feel like they're going to approach it from different ends, which actually could work well for those first two or three missions. That's a great, that's a great thought. And I probably agree with that. I would just say, I would want to know where the money is. If the money is in the lunar suits, then that both companies are going to be going for that. But I don't know. I don't know. I think that's a good, that's a good thought. Uh, should we talk about this mobile launcher situation to

keep on what's going on with the artemis schedule uh number one i need you to help me figure out how to pronounce this contractor because i jake and i have been disagreeing about how you pronounce this and i don't think i've listened to uh a press conference that has said is it bechtel is it bechtel bechtel yeah bechtel all right jake was right for the record um we didn't not know this before but it is like way way way way way over budget many years late uh several hundred thousands of pounds too heavy for the job that it's got going what do you make of this like very unsurprising announcement that it's a billion dollars to build a new mobile launcher for SLS block 1B? Well, the new cost estimate is $960 million. But the IG inspector

general, Paul Martin, who put his name on the report, basically wrote that telegraphed that it's going to be more than a billion bucks because there's going to be additional changes. And, oh, by the way, we still don't have the final dimensions, parameters, values for the exploration upper stage that this thing is going to accommodate. So it's going to go up the price with these changes. I mean, it would not shock me if this tower is $2 billion by the time we get to whatever it's used to launch. So yeah, I mean, what I make of it is this is what you get when you do space program by cost plus contracting. There is no incentive in Bechtel for Bechtel to really deliver this on time or on budget. It's going to get award fees.

It's going to, you know, and it knows that there is a huge contingency, constituency in Congress for this tower because there's a huge constituency in Congress who supports the SOS rocket and wants to see the bigger version of this with the exploration upper stage coming out. So, I mean, this is not, this seems unlikely to me to be canceled, although we can have a discussion about that anytime soon. So the money is coming and, and it just, it sucks because it's, it's just, it's the worst way to run your space program. And we've seen it with mobile launcher one, and now we're seeing it with Mobile Launcher 2. And it's really just, I mean, if you want to be a critic and call NASA a jobs program,

this is another glaring example of that at work. This really puts in stark contrast how SLS Block 1B fits into Artemis overall. how SLS Block 1B fits into Artemis overall. Because it would be one thing if you were taking on these gargantuan costs for a truly unique and special capability. But SLS Block 1B is not that useful compared to what the rest of the program is shaping out to be.

Like, the unique aspect here is, okay, it can take another habitation module along with Orion to near rectal linear halo orbit, right? And no, Ryan has to do the work to tug it there because you're putting, you know,

a dumb pressure vessel inside, uh, the fairing on top of the exploration upper stage. So you've co-manifested a expensive payload with Orion, but it doesn't, there's no way you can do any math to say however much the eos is going to shape out to be what do you think that's going to end up at also two billion four billion dollars like six billion dollars the cost of the stage or development well you know however you want to do your art. My back of the napkin math on that,

and I did a story on this, which was a year and a half or two years ago where I used a cost, a U.S. military cost estimator. It was $8 to $10 billion just for development of the U.S. And you're laughing, but it's going to be that much. Come on. It's a new market. Yeah, I mean, and they just keep sneaking, you know,

$300 or $600 million into each year's budget right now. Exactly. Now, I've heard that there could be an IG report on U maybe next year and i hope that's coming because we have we have zero absolutely zero transparency into that program from nasa yeah but i mean the way that it's on the manifest right now it's going to take you know a eight or ten ton co-manifested payload alongside Orion. Is that capability worth 10, $12 billion all in? Or can you get away with block one B or block one, sorry, fly crew on Orion on SLS. And when it comes to the European supply in that I have module for the gateway, like throw Northrop Grumman 300 400 million dollars to build another ppe

that power and propulsion element that's going to tug uh the first habitation module to gateway and launch it on a like it's you're literally an order of magnitude different here in investment for a capability that doesn't change the program in any significant way. You're missing, you're really missing the important benefits of the EUS. And that is the fact that- It sells a lot of RL-10s. It sells a lot of, you're exactly right. It sells a lot of RL-10s. You're keeping Aerojet happy or Lockheed, but I guess Lockheed didn't buy Aerojet,

but you're keeping Aerojet happy. Boeing gets to develop that EUS and Marshall gets to manage that development. And that's just all sweet, sweet money. But let me just step back before we get into EUS and talk about the mobile launch tower. So they've been working on this. And they awarded the contract three years ago. And now it looks like what? It's going to be another four years, five years until who knows when this is done.

So we're looking at like a seven-year, 1.5 to $2 billion project. And I hate to compare NASA and Bechtel to SpaceX, but in this instance, I'm going to. And I'm going to say, look at the orbital launch tower in Texas or the one they're building in Florida. The build time on that is on the order of one year. We have zero transparency in the cost. I'll bet it's a couple hundred million at least. They've spent some real money on that. But this is a launch tower that both launches super heavy and catches it, right? So, I mean, it's just woefully, woefully inefficient. And it's demoralizing, I guess, as someone who's interested in spaceflight. Anyway, to answer your question about the EUS, I think there's a good capability there

that NASA wants, but you're right. I mean, if you look at their program out over the next 10 or 15 years, you could get by with block one of the SLS rocket and some creative orbital maneuvering. You could launch some of that stuff on block one. You could launch some of that stuff on Falcon Heavy or New Glenn or something, and then use some kind of tug to get it out there. I mean, Blue Origin's working on tug. Northrop's got that capability. And so, yes, you could get creative if you wanted to do this, but you could have gotten creative 15 years ago or 10 years ago with the space program. If you wanted to build the capabilities around the Falcon Heavy and a Delta IV or an Atlas V Heavy, which ULA said they could have built, and you could have had a distributed launch

space program. And NASA, or more importantly, Congress is not interested in that. They're interested in having, they understand Apollo, they understand sort of the existing contracting landscape, and they want to maintain it. And unfortunately, that's just the road I think we're going down. And it's really hard for me to see the EUS genie put back in the bottle. I mean, a couple of years ago, there was a pretty good fight to use BE-3U engines. So the same upper stage engine on New Glenn instead of the RL-10, which would have given EUS more performance at arguably less budget. And NASA didn't do that. So I just think that this is the program that we're going to have. And until something better comes along, cough, cough, Starship or New Glenn and Project Jarvis that even vertical integration, right? The reason that this mobile launch tower needs to be a mobile launch tower is because vertical integration, building everything in the VAB and rolling it out to a

launch site was the way it was, you know, it was the way my daddy built rockets and his daddy built rockets. And that's how we're going to build rockets today rather than all the cheap rockets that roll out on their side and stand up on the launch pad. I mean, if you look at the Artemis program, it is basically the culmination of NASA's three major human spaceflight programs in its existence, right? It's Apollo-like in the fact that it's a big rocket with a small capsule on top and everything's expendable and we're going to the moon. It's like the space shuttle in that it's using the space shuttle main engine. It is the space shuttle. It is the space shuttle rocket.

And then it's like International Space Station because we're building a space station at the moon. I mean, it's like all the things that NASA – like NASA can't do anything else but what it knows how to do already. And that's unfortunate because there is a fresh new mindset out there. We are in the era of commercial space. And while NASA is doing a pretty good job of leaning into commercial space, people in Congress are not really down with that.

One thing that got me angry when I was revisiting all these past thoughts, I feel like I kind of just occasionally check in on my Artemis thoughts again as it regards this, because it's not worth spending all of your days mad about it. And the most galling thing is this gap that's coming up between Artemis 1 and 2. Not even the gap between SLS Block 1 and SLS Block 1B, but this gap, but just straight up between the mission

they're about to fly asterisk whenever it actually happens this year um or next or next year and then it's a three-year gap before the same rocket flies the same vehicle different orbit but with people this time and that was explainable earlier in the program if you were if this did launch in 2017 it was an explainable gap because there was a If you were, if this did launch in 2017, it was an explainable gap because there was a bunch of work still to go on Orion. Um, and you could say Orion was the long pole item,

but the fact that this is going to be that Artemis one is going to be in 2025 timeframe right now. Uh, like what has the Orion side of the program been doing so long that have they just been, you know, paused and sitting around waiting and, like what has the Orion side of the program been doing so long that have they just been, you know, paused and sitting around waiting and, and that's led to this gap. Cause like, why couldn't they have caught up to wherever SLS is going to be in the

timeline? I don't understand what the problem is. It's been, it's only been eight years since the last Orion flight. And they, I mean, their budget's only been about 1.3 billion a year. I mean, I don't know what your problem is. No, I mean, I don't understand it either, really, to be honest. I mean, we are looking probably at a minimum at a two and a half year gap between Artemis 1 and Artemis 2. And to be honest, I haven't fully looked into it. I mean, the basic thing they have got to do is pull the avionics out of the Artemis I Orion

and put them in Orion II. I have no idea, frankly, what the status of the life support systems are in Orion. I have to believe they're pretty far along. Maybe it's rocket issues. I mean, there's going to be a lot of- That's the thing though, like June 9th, this blog post on the Space Launch System website, June 9th, Artemis II engine section moves to final assembly. So if you look at where the Artemis I core stage was, and where the Artemis II core stage is, and knowing that Artemis II doesn't have to go through this same wet dress rehearsal rigmarole,

it seems likely that the SLS core stage is going to be sitting around waiting right next to the solid rocket boosters on a vehicle that theoretically had all this time to catch up in the schedule with all the money still flowing. This is the part that's kind of outrageous to me at this point. Well, maybe an enterprising reporter such as myself ought to go dig around and figure out what the hell's going on. Because you're right.

My favorite part about having you on the show is when I assign you stories. The internal schedule for NASA is showing like a 2025 launch date for Artemis 2. And you're right. Why is there a three-year gap? I mean, it does seem insane. I can only imagine it's because they're going to have to spend 12 months or 24 months worrying about putting astronauts on this and, you know, conducting 4 million tests. I mean, this stuff does take time, but you're right. I don't know. I mean, it has literally been seven and a half years since the last Orion flight, EFT

one, Explosion flight test one. And it's, you know, when they were pivoting to try to launch in 2018 after that, okay, that's, you know, a flight test one. And, and, and it's, you know, when they were, they were pivoting to try to launch in 2018 after that. Okay. That's, you know, pretty decent turnaround, but yeah, I mean,

it's, it's, we're now in 2022. So here's the timing element. I just looked up another blog post, August 30th, 2019. The engine section was completed asterisk again for Artemis one.

This was when they shipped it out of, uh, or when they shipped it out to get actually attached to the core stage. So, like, I'm going to dig around to find some of these very one-to-one example blog posts. Yeah, because the engine, now, are you sure the engine section for Artemis 1 or Artemis 2? Artemis 2 engine section moves to final assembly, June 9th, 2022. Here's a picture of it. I'm looking at it. It's right next to the rest of the core stage tankage. So pictures do very well on podcasts.

So I congratulate you for that. I mean, Anthony, I don't know, man. It's, you know. This is just the part that drives me nuts because it's, I just want to know, like, I'm not doubting any, if you're listening and you work on Orion, I'm not doubting your individual skill here, but like what the hell has been going on for the last three years that, that still has this three-year gap between these flights?

Well, Orion has a new program manager, a guy named Howard Hugh. Um, a decade ago, I coached his daughter in Peewee soccer. So we've got that connection going on. I'll try to report back, Anthony, and get some answers on that at some point. I want it on my desk by Monday. ask is why is it going to take you so long? Because it is, even if it's a two year gap right now on paper, you know, it's going to extend out. Um,

but they don't need spacesuits. They don't need Lander. They don't need, they got the hardware. So. They don't have the crew yet. They haven't announced that. Well,

they're going to, yeah, they're going to announce that this fall, um, theoretically. And, um, maybe.

I assume they'll be subtle time that with the launch. It's going to be after I take that launch? It's going to be after. I take that back. It's going to be after the launch. So, you know, maybe it won't be until next year. We'll see.

Nice. All right. On more fun news, you mentioned SpaceX building up infrastructure. They got some good news from the FAA last week.

The environmental assessment completed. They have 75-something mitigations to complete down in Boca Chica, but it's not going to be as long of a delay as many feared. I was, I was afraid I'll be honest. I was thinking it was going to go to the full environmental review. So I was pleasantly surprised to see that.

What do you make of Ocelot watch 2022? I had some, I had some information in the last month where I was pretty confident it was going to Fonzie with lots of mitigations, and that's ultimately what came out. And I do – like you, I consider this to be very good news for SpaceX, and I'll tell you why. There's two reasons. First of all, we're only a little more removed from them launching a Starship from South Texas without approval from the FAA. And that's a pretty big no-no. And the FAA sort of looked at that and said, well, don't do that again. And we're going to go right back to work

on getting you the approval to move forward. And that's why I don't buy any of these conspiracy theories about Biden or this or trying to hold them back. I don't think that's true at all. And second of all, they're not talking about building some podunk spaceport in small town, coastal Carolina or wherever, where you're launching a one-ton rocket. They're not launching an Astra rocket or like a Terran 1 or something like that. I mean, they're launching the world's biggest rocket from an area that's never had a rocket

launch before that has these immense ground systems and propellant needs. And there was nothing there five or six years ago, and now there's a small city. This is an enormous change to that community and that environment. I think for the FAA to turn this around this quickly is pretty significant. And it says they want to work with SpaceX. Now, okay, there's some really ridiculous stuff in those mitigation activities. And I wonder about that. And my sense is that that's the FAA looking for some political cover to say, hey, here's all of the things that we had SpaceX do. And they kind of threw the kitchen sink at them in that regard. But I mean, now that SpaceX knows what it has to do, they're going to do it and they'll move on. And so this gives them the kind of certainty they need. So the next step is lawsuits

from environmental organizations and things like that. But who knows what will come out of that, but my sense is not much. And this, as I said, this is a pretty big step forward for SpaceX in South Texas. What do you make of the situation where they're building a launch site at Kennedy Space Center right now? Like the launch today that happened, we could see it in the background, the first tower sections there. And at the same time, you know, the paperwork that they filed for this review is limiting them to five suborbital and five orbital launches out of Boca Chica per year. A lot of stipulations around, I'm sure the SpaceXers

are happy that they can't launch on weekends more than five times a year, they can't launch on holidays. There were some wins for the SpaceX employees in this announcement. Wins for space journalists too. Let's be honest. But I'm just trying to make sense of that combo, right? There are very limited launch

windows out of Boca Chica in the current documentation. There's the theory of like, are we getting this approved and then just going to file amendments to bump that number up? Maybe. But they are also moving ahead pretty firmly with launch site in Kennedy Space Center. So how do those two things play into the Starship plans overall? play into the Starship plans overall? So that's a great question. Because, you know, if SpaceX is going to be launching Starship a lot, and if it's going to be doing moon missions, it needs to be doing six to 10 launches for each mission to fuel those vehicles.

And it's, you know, for Mars missions, it's the same. And, you know, Kennedy is already congested, right? Let's say you could theoretically get to one launch every two or three days from there, that spaceport. You know, it's still, you've got all of NASA's activities, all of ULA's activities, Relativity's activities, all these other commercial companies coming in there. Like, that spaceport is going to be close to capacity. That spaceport is going to be close to capacity. So you could do some – I think you'll do human missions, human launches from there and some other things. But it's not the kind of cadence SpaceX wants.

And certainly the reason they went to Texas is because, as always, they want the control of their own destiny. And that was what Texas offered, right? Regulatory free environment. And so I think they got their foot in the door and then now they're going to do what SpaceX does is push, push, push. And so they'll get waivers or they'll get, I think they'll go from five to 10, 10 to 20 or whatever. And maybe they'll mitigate the beach issue by building a bridge that they talked about from Padre Island to the park or a tunnel or something so that you could just shut Boca Chica Highway down through traffic. Anyway, I think five launches a year. What about the wildlife viewing platform that's going to be off the highway, though?

Because how would you get to that then? Charter a boat? I don't know. i don't know um you know i don't know like i said you you gotta you gotta get your foot in the door and then it's like you know when you get your foot in the door they can't shut the door and you just keep pushing on it i think i don't know my sense is that's what they're going to do here because five launches a year for them is a complete non-starter for the Starship system. So you've got that factor. You've got Florida. I don't think there are any other US orbital launch sites for Starship.

It's just too big and there's nowhere else to go. And so they've got the orbital platforms that they're working on. And maybe the idea is that you get all your test flights done in Texas, you do your human launches from Florida, and then you launch 500 times a year from a normal platform. I still think they're going to do a lot more launches from Texas just because it would be more convenient to assemble the rockets there and launch them. But I think this was really just about going for the lowest, going for something the FAA would accept.

And then let's say you do five launches and the first one blows up, but then the next five are great or four are great. And then all of a sudden you go back to them and say, look, we can do this safely. We can do it with a minimal impact on the community. We've addressed this. We've addressed this. Can we now go to 10 this year or 20? I think that'll be what happens. Yeah. I mean, that's definitely the SpaceX way, which is the roadblock right now is launching it all from Boca Chica. Yep. If man, the first year that they do five Starship launches will be a great year. And that's not going to be this year.

It's not going to be next year. Maybe the year after that. But I don't know. Elon said they're launching in July and they're going to have a monthly cadence thereafter. That's six this year, seven, six, no six this year. That's all right. Yeah.

Him and every other launch provider ever. I just, I think this covers them for dev and they can work it out and then at a year and a half down the road figure out what makes sense for their operations um given where they and the world are at at that time like the spacex horizon is very short generally they have a very long-term vision but their horizon of the things that we've figured out is only as short as it needs to be only as long as it needs to be yep and they need to get into flights with starship to figure out exactly how the current system is broken and five does that enough for them those these will literally absolutely be test flights and each vehicle will be an iteration on the one

before as they figure all this stuff out because this Because it's not going to work right out of the gate. It's very much an experimental system. It's not the SLS rocket, which had better work right out of the gate, or it's going to be a failed system. You've got a few minutes before you need to go work on stuff, I know. But we were just talking about monthly launch cadences and launching very frequently, which makes me think of Astra. And I'm curious if you have any thoughts on where Astra is at right now, because it is disastrous as far as I'm concerned with that

they've had now. As your stats put it, two for seven on orbital attempts. Where do they go from here? I mean, it's been not a great week for commercial companies because you've got Astra. I've talked to Tom Markuzik two weeks ago, and he told me we're going to launch Alpha three times this year. And now he's been moved aside. The economics of rockets are damn hard. And Astra never really had a great business case to begin with, in my opinion. Their launch business just never made sense. You're not going to launch 50 times a year. I mean, I'm sorry.

It took SpaceX 20 years to get to an operational cadence of 50 a year. And they have had all sorts of advantages along the way. And they've got the best technical team in the business and visionary leadership and money and all that. They've got a very difficult path ahead of them. I don't know when they're coming back, but they keep finding problems on the vehicle. You know, their next vehicle,

they're buying engines from someone else. It's just, it's not a, it doesn't feel very good to me. And I hate to, I don't want to dig anyone's grave and I'm not going to do that, but it's just their business cases was difficult to close. And the fact that they haven't been able to, you know, their business case was difficult to close and the fact that they haven't been able to

execute on their vehicle safety is disappointing. The Firefly situation is, as always, mysterious. Firefly is nothing but intriguing to people like you and I. What is your best guess as to what's going on over there? I mean, the private equity company came in and saved them. as to what's going on over there? I mean, the private equity company came in and saved him because they were running out of money.

They couldn't take money from Max Polyakov anymore. They needed to get back to the launch pad. And so I don't think Mark Kuzik knew that him stepping aside was part of the deal, but private equity company basically owns Firefly now. So they could make that decision. They probably wanted different leadership. especially if they execute. I mean, Alpha could be a pretty great rocket. It's going to be the first one.

It could be the first one to operational status in that nearly one ton to Leo market. The Blue Ghost Lander is a nice contract if they can deliver on that. So they've got some pretty good people and a pretty good niche, but it's going to come down to execution. And how much money, more money are the private equity? Max Polyakov, say what you will about his background or the fact that he wasn't allowed to ultimately do business in the United States. The guy was pretty passionate about this stuff. And so he was willing to put money out there to make it happen. How far is the private equity company going to go with – and I keep saying private equity because I'm not sure if it's AEI.

I think it's AEI is the company that's – I just didn't want to misquote it. AEI is a different thing, but I think it's A&E Ventures or something. A&E Ventures? A&E? Is it A&E? Man, this is a great segment of the show. It's great.

It's something like that. Yeah. AEI is the great segment of the show. It's a great, it's a great, you know. It's something like that. Yeah. The American Enterprise Institute or whatever. That's that conservative thing. I just wrote about it too. It was a couple of weeks ago. I forgot. But anyway, I don't know what their patience is going to be.

And maybe he did something, Mark Cusick did something they didn't like, or they wanted someone to come in and cut costs. I mean, that's often what happens is with these companies coming to cut costs. but rocket company, if you want to succeed, you got to spend money. And it's capital intensive business. And what I've heard on the clips programs too, is that the companies that are bidding on those are not making money. They're losing money. And they're hoping to regain that money down the line. So again, it's like how much money are these guys going to be willing to put up cash up front to get to the point where you're actually making money?

Because very few launch companies make money unless they have huge government contracts. Or if they're stealthily not a launch services company, as my theory about relativity goes. They're stealthily not a launch services company, as my theory about relativity goes. Well, we're going to find out if they're a launch services company here in, I think, September or October at the earliest. Good times. As always, it's fascinating times. Steps forward, steps backward, and expensive mobile launchers. That's kind of the constants of space.

It's the title of your next book. What are you working on that people should check out if they're listening to this and somehow they're not already Eric Berger diehards? So next week I'm going to have an interesting story on looking ahead at NASA's Artemis Manifest after Artemis 3. It's not going to be a happy story. Um,

so I'm working on that. Uh, I, do you think the subreddit will like it? Which subreddit? Uh, aren't you like a, our space launch system,

uh, hero over there. Those guys, those guys might appreciate it because it provides some details that they won't know. Um, but you know, they love me. And that's not going to change anytime soon.

Actually, there's a lot of people there that do like me. Say, hey, this guy usually gets it right. And then there's a few people that say, he's the worst, man. And then also, I need to write this up. Like NASA's attitude toward commercial space has really changed significantly. And listening to some recent talks and doing some interviews, it's changing even more. It's like Nelson is fully embracing this. And it's really pretty remarkable to see.

And I've got to spend some time to really write that up because I think it's a pretty significant change in their attitude toward that. So that's, I'm working on that too at some point. And then it's just. I was on that topic. I should plug that yesterday we had Lori Garver on off nominal. And she's talking about our new book that I know you blurbed because you're right up there on our website. right up there on our website. And that book could not have landed at a better moment where the first chapter just completely eviscerates Bill Nelson. And he's like, you know, I'm reading that as he's in Congress talking about how cost plus contracts are a plague. And it's the world is

moving in the right direction as far as that's concerned. Yes, yes. It's interesting. You know, if you look back at NASA over the last decade, I would argue that the two most consequential figures at the Space Agency over the last 15 years are two women, Lori Garver and Kathy Leuters, because they're the ones who have stepped up and advocated for change and pushed that change through. up and advocated for change and pushed that change through. And history, I think, will be very kind to both of them. Lori has taken much more of the political beating because she's been very out there and was first. But Kathy, in terms of changing policy and sort of moving toward commercial has been super important as well. Absolutely. All right. Well, this was awesome. Thanks for hanging out with us for so long, as always. And we'll be looking forward to reading your stuff next week.

Okay. All right, man. Take it easy. See ya. Thanks again to Eric for coming on the show. And something that we didn't mention when I was talking to Eric, but I should mention is off nominal that I mentioned at the front of the show. Eric will be joining us in just about a week and a half. June 30th, he'll be joining us to talk about Bill Nelson. We're going to have a debate of whether Bill Nelson is or is not a good NASA administrator because Eric had this little Twitter thread earlier, you know, maybe a month or two ago, where he declared that he was wrong about Bill Nelson and that Bill Nelson is a good administrator. Jake and I thoroughly

disagree. So June 30th, Eric Berger will be on Off Nominal. Check that out if you like this conversation, because there's going to be a lot of similar stuff. But anyway, before we get out of here for the day, I want to say thank you to all of you who make this show and everything else I do in the world of space possible. This show is brought to you by all the supporters over at mainenginecutoff.com slash support. There are 846 of you supporting the show. We are super close to 850 if you want to hop in and be the last four that get us over the 850 mark.

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slash support, join up there. But otherwise, thank you so much for listening. As always, thanks for your support. If you've got any questions or thoughts, hit me up on email, anthonyatmainenginecutoff.com or on Twitter at WeHaveMiko. And until next time, I will talk to you soon. Bye.