Main Engine Cut Off - T+317: Isaacman Renomination Hearing, Starliner Flights Cut, Starship at SLC-37, Zhuque-3 Almost Sticks the Landing, and More (with Stephen Clark)

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Stephen Clark of Ars Technica joins me to talk about a ton of stories in the news—Jared Isaacman was back in front of Congress, a few Starliner flights have been cut from the ISS manifest, Starship received environmental approval to proceed at SLC-37, Zhuque-3 almost stuck its first landing attempt, the Soyuz launch pad fell apart at Baikonur, and the Space Force has a new mission naming scheme.This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 32 executive producers—Matt, Fred, Kris, Natasha Tsakos, Josh from Impulse, Better Every Day Studios, Joakim, Joel, Ryan, The Astrogators at SEE, Tim Dodd (the Everyday Astronaut!), Heiko, Jan, Theo and Violet, Donald, Pat, Will and Lars from Agile, Lee, Russell, Joonas, Warren, Steve, Frank, Stealth Julian, David, and four anonymous—and hundreds of supporters.TopicsAuthor: Stephen Clark - Ars TechnicaNASA nominee appears before Congress, defends plans to revamp space agency - Ars TechnicaCongress warned that NASA’s current plan for Artemis “cannot work” - Ars TechnicaNASA seeks a “warm backup” option as key decision on lunar rover nears - Ars TechnicaIt’s official: Boeing’s next flight of Starliner will be allowed to carry cargo only - Ars TechnicaA spectacular explosion shows China is close to obtaining reusable rockets - Ars TechnicaBefore a Soyuz launch Thursday someone forgot to secure a 20-ton service platform - Ars TechnicaRivals object to SpaceX’s Starship plans in Florida—who’s interfering with whom? - Ars TechnicaSpaceX on X: “We’ve received approval to develop Space Launch Complex-37 for Starship operations at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Construction has started. With three launch pads in Florida, Starship will be ready to support America’s national security and Artemis goals as the world’s…”Attack, defend, pursue—the Space Force’s new naming scheme foretells new era - Ars TechnicaThe ShowLike the show? Support the show on Patreon or Substack!Email your thoughts, comments, and questions to [e-mail] @WeHaveMECOFollow @[e-mail] on MastodonListen to MECO HeadlinesListen to Off-NominalJoin the Off-Nominal DiscordSubscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn or elsewhereSubscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off NewsletterArtwork photo by Blue OriginWork with me and my design and development agency: Pine Works

Hello and welcome to main engine cutoff. I'm Anthony Clangelo, and today I've got Stephen Clark of Ars Technica joining me on the show to run through a bunch of topics. We talk a lot about the Jared Isaacman hearing from last week, the potential recompeting of Artemis Landers that he has to deal with, some Starliner contract updates, Space Force naming, the Soyuz landing, launch pad. We've got a ton of topics to run through with Stephen, and he's awesome

and always game to talk about this kind of stuff. So very excited to have him on the show. So without further do, let's give Stephen a call. All right, Stephen Clark of our ARS Technica. I feel like I always hear that shout out. You know someone's in for a good phone call when they hear that. How you doing? Good, Anthony. Always a pleasure. We got a lot

to talk about. There's been a thousand stories. You've written many of them. We should probably start by the recapping the Isaacman re-nomination hearing last week. What is your vibe on it? I thought the fact that we're going to have a second nomination hearing, it would have been a little spicier than it was, to be honest. It felt like we got two updates on conversations from last time and some new lines out of Jared, but otherwise it didn't seem as notable as I would have thought that it was going to be. Yeah, it seemed like a total, almost a total redux of the hearing back in the spring. So I think he's on clear sailing to get confirmed. Hopefully by the end of the year, we'll see about

that. But yeah, the committee has to vote on his confirmation, and then it goes before the full Senate on the Senate floor. And then once that happens, he'll be installed as the next official, permanent NASA administrator and but yeah the hearing seemed very very smooth no really no real red flags a lot of the questioning from a lot of the senators on both sides of the aisle

seem very similar to what they were asking back in the spring so and the answers were largely the same obviously the difference is the project Athena document has leaked and so that gave some more talking points for some of the questions and and also

allowed in my opinion, I think it allowed Jared to answer things with some more specificity and some more, some more detail, you know, instead of just, you know, using one-liners or using, you know, broad, vague statements, as many of these nominees do. There was some specificity in the statements, which I really appreciated during the hearing last week. That's a good point. Shout out my, he's not my neighbor, but he's not my neighbor, but he looks.

lives in this town, Andy Kim. I realized during this conversation, I was like, oh, wow, I should probably try to get a meeting with him next time he's in town and talk about Project Athena and his takes on it. He's on the subcommittee. I feel like I should use this to get some sway, you know? Yeah, yeah, there's no harm in that. There's no harm in that. I mean, and maybe the question goes both ways. Maybe he has questions for you too. Yeah, I mean, he's a pretty reasonable guy. I think I think it would be good. Yeah, the one real difference between the last nomination hearing now,

Athena, and then I guess the other difference would be the big, beautiful bill, the $10 billion, you know, flaunting on the existence of the Artemis program and the Gateway. So for Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell, that was clearly the thing they wanted to bring out was like talk about the things

that are in there and then talk about the re-competing of the Lunar Lander. It's kind of funny to me, because you can always tell when a center's asking, like, oh, Ted Cruz cares about JSC, and Maria Cantwell cares about Blue Origin, and there's, you know, the obvious alliance is there.

The fact that Cantwell was going so heavy into the, will you commit to continue to re-compete the Artemis 3 contract, and Jared's sort of dodging of that, not dodging, but repositioning of that was saying, everyone knew that for both these companies, meaning SpaceX and Blue Origin, whoever makes the first lander is going to fly the first mission. which is not official in any paperwork,

and yet we all probably got that sense that they'll figure it out if it comes to that. We're not going to let a lander just sit around and be ready to fly, and the other one, you know, be waiting for this other one to finish. So I understand that that would have come to pass at some point. My point is, though, that

reconpeting the Lunar Lander contract really only benefits the potential third option of the cost plus government option thing that I think Eric wrote the story on, right, in ours technique it doesn't benefit blue origin in that way so i kind of find it interesting that can't well is so supportive of that rather than just saying yeah we've already got two great landers in the program let's just keep going with that yeah that's an interesting point i think obviously there was another hearing last week with focusing on china mike griffin was there oh yeah

they always roll them out once every congress so some predictable statements from him about going, you know, a government Goss Plus route with a lander. And no refueling. Exactly. He should have been on that other show with Charlie Duke and the moon landing denier about and giving him his thoughts on refueling. I really would have went out. I don't know if you caught this whole drama going on last week. Oh. No, I missed that.

It's not worth finding out about. Charlie Duke did a four-hour interview with the guy that Buzz Aldrin punched in the face and then on a different podcast. And they were playing some clip of Von Braun saying, you can't do it with refueling. And he, I guess, similarly, has a take about Mike Griffin. Wow. Interesting. Okay. So I guess Apollo astronauts are all from the same, cut from the same cloth, it seems. So the right stuff and same opinions about refueling. So I think in the defense of von Braun, which is a sentence nobody says in this modern era, it was a clip about one of the architectures that were being

proposed for Apollo, right? When there was like, do we do Earth orbit or Lunar Orbit rendezvous and yada, yada? And so they They use that clip to be like, look, they can't do it. They can't even get to the moon. And I don't know, this is already going on too long. Charlie Duke, why are you doing that yourself? It's unbelievable. But Mike Griffin would find a home on this podcast.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. So, yeah, his comments were very predictable, though, of course, last week. And I think, you know, Maria Cantwell's questioning, it strikes me that, you know, Blue Origin is really well positioned here, though. I think that they have a lander that is close to launch. Like they've been saying it for the whole year, 2025. We have a lander that's under construction. We didn't see any evidence of it.

And then all of a sudden they did this media blitz after their very successful NG2, New Glen 2 mission. And that was one of the things we saw was, okay, this lander is real, the Mark 1 cargo lander. And that is, you know, a possible. I think that if they land, Mark I successfully next year, really at any point next year, but certainly in the beginning of next year, if that really happens, that's going to be huge. That's the largest lander that will have ever landed on the moon, larger than the Apollo lunar lander. And I think that will naturally raise questions about, well, why don't we convert this lander into a crew human-rated lander and get to the moon without refueling in a few years' time?

while you know starship and um mark two are many years away from landing on the moon um so i'm also i mean this is getting off topic here maybe we'll talk about this a minute but i'm also really curious and really interested about brainstorming about what what spacex is simplified starship architecture is going to be and um yeah i i think a successful landing on the moon by Blue Orch next year will really, would really raise a lot of questions. And we recount well as right, though, to bring that up and to say, well, why don't we recompete if that happens. How do you think that Isaacman is going to deal with this?

If he, say it gets confirmed this year, like, my take was that the repositioning of the recompeting versus what he said was like, well, whichever one's ready first gets Ardomew. three. Like, I wonder if there's a way to make that NASA policy and that appeases everyone enough to not cancel and recompete a contract that then gets protested. Like, I, there's literally no way that that is a faster process than playing out what's in front of us based on how the first time went when there was a thousand protests. And SpaceX won it in April, but I don't think they got through the protests until late 2021. I don't know if you remember the dates on this. It was a while. Yeah, it was like November 2021, something like that. So like, you're going to go

through all that again and then say now you're working with even less time and that's going to be faster than sticking the course with two landers that you've already funded especially if you then say whichever one's ready first gets Artemis 3 you know I well the statement of whichever one is ready first is should be obvious I mean that's common sense you like you said at the beginning you don't wait around for a lander but I'm also how you get that into paperwork like what lawyer at NASA exactly well why did they I mean it would be be good to go back and look at why did they separate these missions out to begin with, these contracts out to begin with, and say SpaceX gets Artemis 3 and 4 and Blue Origin

or the second provider, you know, it wasn't Blue Origin awarded immediately, but the second provider gets Artemis 5. Isn't it 3, 4, then 5? Like, that was a dumb sentence. Isn't it 3 on Starship, 4 on Blue Moon, and then 5 on Starship? It's 3, 4 and then 5? 3 is Starship, the basic version. I'm expecting you to understand what I'm saying by just saying the numbers with different inflections.

All right. So it's two starships and then a blue moon. Right, right. So the second starship for Artemis 4 is the sustainable version of Starship. Oh, right. The upgraded Starship. And then Blue Origin gets Artemis 5. Well, you know, my memory, if my memory serves when they awarded SpaceX, there was no assurance

they were going to get a second provider. So they were locked in on Artemis 3. I mean, there would be nobody else that we get. it. But going back to the way NASA did commercial crew, commercial cargo, there was no, like, leader follower paradigm. You know, Boeing and SpaceX both got contracts and whoever was ready for us was going to fly. They weren't saying, well, SpaceX is going to fly in 2019 or Boeing's going to be in 2020 or whatever. So, but I think by the decision, well, they were kind of, NASA was kind of backed into it funding wise, but the decision to only go with one provider at the beginning

really locked them into saying SpaceX is Artemis 3 but I don't know if the contract do you know if the contract actually says SpaceX will fly on Artemis 3 I would bet not I would bet it's more generic than that right I don't know we can't really ever did we get that we never really get the actual text of the contract right no no no no no we could we could FOIA it would just be

redacted redacted yeah better off following through my you know I foiled the uh to try to get that picture of the found tomatoes on the ISS. I filed it. They wouldn't release the photo of the tomatoes that got lost in the ISS. I foyered it and then they released it. Did they release it to you

or just release it publicly? No, I think I just told them they should release it and they released it publicly. It would have been really funny if they sent it just to me. But my point is, if we all FOIA, maybe they'll release the actual text to know, is this already NASA policy or not?

That's an important question. If it's already NASA policy that they just bought a lander service from SpaceX, and it's not specified to mission, then it, I think, is just at the discretion of the administrator because there isn't really a program office in the same way of the Artemis program. So it would be a roadmap-level decision

and not something they need to change the contract for. So I just don't, the recompete thing, I can't figure out who in that hearing was actually pushing for it from a, I can't get my head around being Senator Cantwell and supporting that when you've already got Blue Origin in the program in the way that they are? I mean, I think it makes sense to some degree for me when I think about it because if they reconpet, there's a potential that Blue Origin has a contract to convert Mark 1 into a human lander and still keeps Mark 2 as the sustainable lander.

So they could be building two landers, two lander designs. My problem is that the only time that Blue Origin has won a contract over SpaceX and the NASA program is when SpaceX was not allowed to compete on the program because they had already won the other contract. Like every SpaceX contract that's, or every time SpaceX competed for a contract, they've won that contract in the NASA round. So, you know, maybe it's, this is them daring everyone to say, go ahead. Like, you know, we'll give you our streamlined lander approach. And it's flying drag into starship and flying directly to lunar surface and not waiting around for SLS to be ready and thereby unlocking a huge portion of the calendar to be flown on. That to me is the biggest

aspect here is if you're, if you're opening up the, you know, we want to hot rod this to beat China to the moon. All options are on the table. If I'm SpaceX, that's what I'm bidding. I fly dragging up to starship. I fly directly to lunar surface. I don't have to wait around for near rectal linear halo orbit to be in the right spot for me to go to. I don't have to wait around for SLS Orion to nail their schedule matrix of like when they can fuel up and activate the pyros on SLS and it only leaves them two days to launch the thing. before they have to reset the pyros. That schedule was nuts.

If you compare that to the NRAHO schedule, there's like four days on the calendar that I'm exaggerating barely. There's so few days on the calendar. And so you may plinko your way beyond the Chinese landing date purely because of your calendar, even if all your hardware is ready.

So if you're SpaceX, why not? Say, you know what? You're cutting me out of this program. Screw you. I'm bidding a thing that's Dragon and Starship only, doesn't have any of our hardware, and that's the only way that I'm coming back into this program.

Like, you could totally play hardball I'll hear that. Absolutely. I mean, they, they have a lot of power in this. And what you're saying makes total sense to me. I don't know. I think the big question is what is NASA's appetite for something like that? With Jared in place, maybe there's more likelihood of that potentially coming to pass and actually being approved and happening. But, you know, it's when you avoid NRA show when you when you go a full commercial full space x route you know all the stuff we talked about in the big beautiful bill that take ruse put in for the gateway well the gateway's moot if you don't go to nr ho um s less is the risk though man your old space you want to push for this recompete to get a government option lander don't fly too close to the sun like this is a really good way to burn yourself on the whole program well i i mean the government option lander is just not going to happen i mean that's no unless they make it happen

Well, I mean, I think it would have to be written into law, but that didn't seem to stop Ted Cruz on the 10 billion for the Gateway, right? That's true. That's true. He'd write something to law every time. He's trying to move a spaceship. But I'm not sure. I'm not sure how much interest Ted Cruz has in a government lander, though. I mean, you know, he's big on Gateway, Orion, you know, a government lander, I'm not even sure, like, would that even be managed?

but I don't even, by JSC, it could be Marshall, it could be somewhere else. So, yeah, yeah, I think Ted Cruz, you know, he has his powder focus on other things in NASA, like, you know, Gateway, Orion, things like that, J.S.C. Space shuttle. Yeah, moving a space shuttle to Houston, that is the top policy priority for Texas congressional legislation. What do you think, all right, well, this is our last Isaacman question. What do you think he's going to do about the space shuttle situation? because the way the law is written, he would legally be allowed to send the Starliner that is no longer going to be used to fly, crew up to the ISS to JSC and fulfill the

language on that directive. Man, I don't know how that's going to shake out. It would be, you know, we've talked about lost time with Jared Isaacman. He, you know, he had six months ago he would have been in office, you know, if his name wasn't pulled from the nomination. by the president. Well, I mean, that's only three years now. He has to punt the ball down the road

about the spatials for three and a half years. Great point. You know, I just foresee a lot of feet dragging. Yeah. And good for him if he does. I mentioned Starliner as a bad segue to talk about the fact that NASA is instituting some of the stuff that we kind of theorized would happen,

where the next Starliner will be cargo only. They've then cut some of the flights from Starliner. in a lot of ways this is a story we already knew because the schedule is running out on ISS there just aren't enough years left to get all of the Starliner flights in anything else that you make out of the Starliner story

where it stands right now I mean again no surprise from that announcement that NASA made about cutting the flights and going cargo only all that was kind of predicted as you said one thing that like I have kind of had in the back of my mind

is NASA obviously has the interest in trying to help these space station operators, these commercial space station, commercial Leo destinations, to make their business case is closed and be able to actually get to something launched in, you know, 2030-ish. And I've always thought, you know, Starliner could be dangled as a basically government furnished transportation to one of these commercial Leo destinations. I'm not sure how any of these companies would react to that.

I mean, given the lack of schedule and technical reliability that Starliner has exhibited to date, to put it mildly. But transportation is expensive. Transportation is like somewhere around half the cost of the International Space Station's operating budget per year. And transportation is not going to get that with Dragon or Starliner at least. you know, Starship eventually maybe another story, but transportation for astronauts, for crew to one of these commercial space stations is not going to be

significantly cheaper than it is to ISS. The operating cost of the station will be a lot cheaper, but you're still going to be spending hundreds of millions a year on transportation, if not a billion. And if NASA approached

Blue Origin or Axiom or even Vast or somebody and said, hey, we have this contract of SpaceX, or with Boeing, we can convert these contracts over to crew or cargo flights to your station and we've already paid for them or we're already paying for them. And so you don't have to worry about transportation for the first two or three years of your space station because it's already paid for. I wrote a story about that a few months ago, just kind of an idea that I had that Eric and I were talking about, like that was just something

that I put out into the, into the ether and, um, but it's just like a brainstorming exercise kind of like, you know, if Starliner is done, so to speak, and, but there's nowhere for it to go because it's been delayed so long and the ISS is about to be deorbited, that can be something to do with those contracts. But other than that, I mean, there's obviously no future for Starliner beyond ISS. That's the only way I think Starliner survives beyond 2030. And, which is a shame, really, because I think having two transportation options to lower Earth orbit would be great for this country and be great for NASA, it would be great for industry. But without basically a subsidy, I don't see how it's ever going to happen with Starliner. Yeah, and the idea of just continuing those contracts to fulfill NASA's low Earth orbit human spaceflight objectives, I always thought that's how they would try to transition it.

So I am, in that vein, I guess, cutting the flights specifically moves away from that concept. But it's sort of like obvious why Boeing wouldn't want to pursue that because what they're going to sell a Starliner flight for today, knowing what they know now, is a lot higher than what they would have sold it for before. And so NASA is getting the deal from, you know, 10 years ago, basically, of what Starliner would have cost to fly and operate. So, I don't know, I would assume that Boeing would fight, you know, tooth and nail to actually extend those contracts in that way or would ask for, okay, well, these flights individually are a lot more because of the requirements to fly to these other space stations. I don't know. It is kind of, it does suck. Like there's a theoretically a whole spaceship that's just sitting

around. And no, we say that, but also, like, thing don't work. If it works. Yeah, exactly. That's the, that's the most impactful aspect of this cargo mission is, you know, does everything go well? I have the same thoughts about Artemis 2. Like, we all talk about Artemis 3 and 4 schedule. Artemis 2 is going to go perfectly, but they're flying a lot of eclos systems that they haven't before. So, you know, they're doing a staging orbit for a reason. They might just come right back to Earth if something doesn't look good. Right.

Artemis 1 was successful, but it was not perfect, and they learned things and the things they learned, you know, delayed Artemis 2. So I think that's something certainly to be keen about and to be aware of going into Artemis 2 is like, this is, there are going to be things coming out of it that will require some study or assessment or investigation or and what does that do to the Artemis 3 schedule. I think Artemis 3 has plenty of time to wait to fix something on the order of,

you know, the Orion Heat Shield or something like that. But yeah, back to Starliner though. Like I think that is, you know, cutting it to four flights, I think re-makes the question reemerged of how long is Boeing going to be committed to this program. I mean, I was actually kind of surprised given everything that went down, Boeing's silence for so long about Starliner after the crew flight test last year, I was really kind of geared up to expect Boeing to make an announcement sometime, you know, one of their earnings calls or quarterly reports or something saying, hey, you know, we're going to, we've looked at this and Starliner is a loser for us and we're going to back away from the contract and end it. And, but they didn't do it. And, you know,

I try to think of what, you know, what does Boeing gain from, from keeping Starliner around? You know, there's not much market opportunity for it, nil, pretty much. And I mean, there's some reputational harm, I guess, if they quit on NASA. But by NASA cutting the contracts from 6 to 4, NASA's starting to say to Boeing, we really don't need you. So, you know, maybe that discussion comes back to the four. and we see if Boeing remains committed to Starliner in the next few months. I mean, they got themselves a gift sitting over at the Bikinar Cosmodrome right now with the launch platform sitting at the bottom of the flame trench

after this most recent Soyuz flight went up. Now, I'm seeing conflicting stuff out there. I don't know if you've heard anything specifically, but some people are like, you know, they'll be all right. They'll find something else to put in its place and get this landing platform reinstalled and they'll be able to fly soon. Anatoly Zach, who's one of the best sources in this, says like it could be two years before they get this.

thing fixed up. And that's the only launch site they can fly Soyuz and progress off of right now for the ISS missions. Yep. So I mean, from that perspective, everyone's solely relying on on SpaceX to get to the ISS right now, crew and cargo, is all flying on SpaceX. So if you're Boeing, like, pretty good time to, you know, turn the screws and actually get the Starliner program back on track, because you got a good messaging thing, at least going here. Yeah, yeah, I think that's That's a fair point. I'm not, you know, on the Soyuz thing, I count me among the group that doesn't think it's going to be two years. I mean, I may have a different opinion than a lot of people on this, but, you know, they have hardware at Gagarin's pad, pad one at Bikinor, that they could potentially move over, but they can't obviously go to Vastotchni or any other launch site.

So they have to fix that launch pad. So we'll see how long it takes. I just foresee, you know, if it's going to be repaired at all. I mean, if it's going to be repaired at all, I see it happening in less than two years, you know. It's also the Soyuz, there are some beautiful elements of its design and the simplicity of its ground hardware is one of them, right? That there's a lot of like just straight mechanical systems versus a lot of highly complex. flex stuff that we see here in Kennedy Space Center and whatnot.

Right. So that's a benefit. Yeah, and one of the reasons they can't go to, like, Faustachni and the Soyuz launch pad there is because the launches there use a digital control system on the rocket. So when the rocket comes off the pad, it actually can

rotate and roll toward its launch azimuth. And for Soyuz, for missions to ISS, they still use the, like you said, mechanical apparatus. This is the structure that fell into the flame trench that rotates, physically rotates to the launch azimuth, and the rocket actually just flies in the direction that the structure is rotated on. So there's no role program or anything like that. So that's the reason they can't just go to Vastachna. One of the reasons,

you know, they don't have the, you know, accommodations for crew there to load crew into Soyuz at that launch pad in Russia's Far East. But yeah, that's interesting. I mean, the whole, you know, the way that the Russian program works is so, you know, mechanical and based on the way they've been doing things for almost 70 years now. The entire space age. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So it works for them until it doesn't. That's an obvious statement.

Yeah. Let's actually stay on the topic of, we're doing a little lightning round. I like this. I'm going to be the lightning round guy. When I have a list of 10 topics, you're going to be the guy bringing on to run through 10 topics in 40 minutes with, no pressure. But you wrote a really cool story about Starship at Cape Canaveral. They've got environmental approval at Launch's Complex 37.

And you touched on some stuff that I had heard over the last several years, which was the characterization of explosions for new methane-based vehicles and how this has been an area of intense study and focus from the Space Force. Going back to the Terran One days, I remember hearing that the Keepout Zone for Terran One first launch attempt was bigger than the Falcon Heavy keepout zone, which caused major alarm down at the Cape, and it was because they didn't have a good basis for what a vehicle of liquid oxygen and methane would do if detonated. And your story is much on that same topic of, like, you know, a lot of the maps of what needs to be evacuated. There's a little bit of uproar

from the other operators on the Cape of how impactful that's going to be to their operations. What did you, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, what's your, uh, what's your, uh, what's your, uh, what's space force is using is that a detonation of locks methane would be 100% of the TNT potential of, of, of, of the same mass. I guess, of a vehicle. And the studies from the commercial side say that's way, way overstated. They are saying, I think, 10 or 20% would be the more appropriate assumption for T&T potential for a locksmithane explosion. So all the maps we've seen of where the keepout zones are for starship, either during a static fire or actual launch or a recovery,

are all predicated on that 100% T&T potential, which is not going to be the final answer. So all the maps we're seeing are the very conservative versions of where the keepout zones will be. I'm looking at the map right now. You see Complex 41, which is the Vulcan launch pad. And you also see Complex 40, which is the Falcon 9 launch pad. And, of course, there will be overlap between Falcon 9 and Starship.

So, you know, Starship ops would be potentially affecting SpaceX's own Falcon 9. and then going further south missile row where you have stoke space you have relativity maybe eventually even firefly several other companies down there those are all in the keepout zones as well on the current maps so anytime starship is fueled on the pad whether it's for a static fire or a launch some or all of these launch pads will have to be cleared of all personnel so there won't be any work being able to do go on at these facilities either construction or or launch operations.

So if these maps were the final maps, if the maps were seeing that have been released in the EIS and all the other documentation were the final maps, I can see where ULA and other companies would be protesting this. But I think within a couple of years, and maybe even by the time Starship even flies the first time from the Cape, you know, in a year or whatever that is, these maps are going to be vastly different.

So I think the issue is overblown, to be honest. And I think that it's a natural talking point for somebody like ULA to try to throw something into the gears of SpaceX and try to slow them down. But I don't think that's the Space Force is not buying that argument. And I mean, even with the maps that we're seeing today, the Space Force is saying we're bringing Starship to the Cape. We're going to be ready to support it. And this is the way it's going to be. But I think the maps are going to shrink, as I said. And maybe even next year, maybe even by the time, Star Ship actually makes his first flight from the Cape.

It's a shame someone's not out there blowing up large locks methane vehicles on a regular basis that we could try to do some math based on the explosions from them. Exactly, exactly. You know, the budget, so there was like in 2020 or three, NASA and the Space Force and the FAA started this tri-agency. investigation or study into locks methane explosions and they were going to spend or they're spending $80 million on it to do these experiments and studies and analysis of the detonation potential of locks methane. Well, SpaceX put out a statement a few months ago saying that they are using real flight data from their ground and in-flight explosions of Starship and they've done their own experiments at McGregor with a much smaller scale locks methane tanks, basically,

to detonate them and see... Well, they've done some large ones as well. They didn't mean to, but they've done some large locks methane explosions for sure. Right. At Star Base, of course, yes, yes, yes, of course. But, but, you know, they've done small ones at McGregor, though, with all the instrumentation to measure the exact explosive potential around it. So they've done some purposeful experiments as well on their own, and all that data

Great phrase for it. Purposeful, yes. Purposeful experiments. I love that. Yeah, not accidental ruds, but purposeful ruds. But I think even then, accidental ruds, right? Like, they're blowing something up at Massey's, and Star Base isn't in shambles, right? They're blowing something to Starbase and Massey isn't in shambles.

And do you look at these maps and you're like, yeah, it's going to be all right. It's going to look like a lot of these other vehicles that we have, not to say Keepout Spheres aren't legit, right? Like, obviously you want to clear what needs to be cleared, but I just remember back to these, the Terran One Days was, like a huge topic of conversation down at the Cape because it was many people that were working on the program are like, this is crazy that we're doing this, but I understand why we don't understand it yet, but why don't we understand it yet? We know all these other large methane vehicles are coming. Did you get a sense for what the New Glenn situation was like, even with their most recent launches? For New Glenn, I didn't really detect any sort of unusual keepout zones

or clear zones or blast danger areas for the second flight, at least. I was not there for the first flight. So for the second flight, everything seemed to be pretty normal at the Cape. What I can remember... I guess their launch site is out pretty far already. Like, it's not going to be up. That's the difference probably. The Starship pads are going to be really up in some of the biggest, heaviest launch pads with the most activity around them.

A lot of the ways to get to the farther out areas of Missile Row there. Right, right. I did see a post on Facebook from the museum there at the Cape where they had some windows blown out at Hangar C, I believe it's called, at the tip of the Cape, which is one of the closest buildings to Complex 36, one of the oldest buildings, too. And so the windows were 60 years old. And a lot of them got blown out. There's no damage to any of the stuff inside. This is during a successful launch, not even during, you know, an explosion or anything. So just the vibrations from the launch. But they said the windows there were not up to code, not up to spec or what they

would be in a new building and they were going to replace them with modern windows that would be able to withstand the pressure waves from a new glen launch that's wild i mean that thing is if you've ever been to the beach at port canaveral and it looks like you're sitting on the launch pad for new glen like it is so close to very public areas and very far from the typical press sites where we might go for a launch um i think next time i'm going down for new glen launch i'm not going to go in on base. I'm just going to go hang out of the beach because it's such a better view than assuming that a cruise ship doesn't drive in front of you when you're trying to launch. Exactly. I was there at just south of the pier for New England too. So that's a great,

great view. You're right. But the space force is conservative. You know, they have to protect all the other range operators. They have to protect national infrastructure at the Cape. you know if you know god forbid something happened with a launch and it crashed into the the billion dollar NRO satellite processing facility at the at cape canaveral space war station that would be embarrassing to say the questions asked yes questions will be asked so they have to you know it's a different calculus a different decision-making process that they have to go through then SpaceX has to go through at star base where they're just surrounded by their own equipment except for course of course the other country across the river. That's another story.

But so the space force has historically been conservative. I can remember the first Falcon 9 landing back in 2015. I was there covering that at the Cape, and they closed off the causeway, the NASA causeway on base, which was like five or six miles from the landing zone. That was closed for the first Falcon 9 return. And there's also a lot of real estate in the south part of the Cape. of Complex 36, like where the old Delta 2 launch pads are. The old Thor launch pads are down there, I believe, as well.

And that whole real estate area, there's a lot of room to add more launch pads down there. But the Space Force is hesitant to do so because those are really close to the port and really close to the cruise terminals and really close to public land and public roads. So, you know, as they learn more about the, you know, detonation potential of methane, maybe they clear some of that or open to some of that area for launch pad development. Because the pads that are that have been cleared and made available to commercial launch companies, like the old Missile Row launch complexes, those are all pretty much spoken for at this point. There's one other pad that I even hesitate to mention that could be made available,

which is Complex 34, the old Apollo 1, uh, pad where the Apollo 1 fire occurred for differing reports over the last couple of years of whether the Space Force would ever make that available to a commercial launch company. But that's a huge pad on the scale of Pad 37. And so you could put a super heavy rocket there. There's no other place, really, unless you develop something way up north, which I think would be run into environmental issues, potentially north of. KSC.

Oh, yeah. There's really no, there's a place on the base, other than Pat 34, that would be available to a super heavy lift rocket, other than developing something from a green field. So opening that real estate down south of the skid strip, which is the runway, the Space Force base or south of Complex 36 and north of the port is something that I think space, the Space Force could look. look at at some point down the road to bring in more small and medium providers. But I don't think, you wouldn't want to put a starship pad, you know, a mile or two miles north of the port. It would be awesome, but it would be advised. How do you take the state of starship coming to Florida?

I feel like we've all had different vibes on this where we're like, well, it'll be, it'll be, you know, the program will be neat and tidy by the time it gets to Florida and all the kinks will be worked out over in texas but the timelines are converging on uh neat and tidy in florida uh so like what what did i don't know what's your take on how it arrives yeah um that's a really good question um it seems like you know we heard from um SpaceX's director of launch a few weeks ago he posted some pictures of the starship pad in a pretty advanced state of construction at pad 39a and said i have to go back and look at the exact quote i think he said starship arrives here in a few months or sometime in early part of 2026 um and that kind of got

my attention because i i think i didn't really fully realize that the pad was so uh close to being ready to support a starship but at pad 39a i think 37 is still a year or two away but um that that is is really interesting to see. And it's going to be really cool to see a starship transported from Texas to Florida. I mean, they're going to lower it horizontally, is my understanding, and transport it by ship across the Gulf and seeing it arrive at the port or potentially not sure where it's going to arrive. If it's going to arrive at the port or if it's going to actually go into the turn basin

at Kennedy Space Center, yeah, where they deliver the SLS Corps potentially. I feel like if you're SpaceX, that's the one you want. You want the signaling of it, you know? Yes, yes, yes. And it's a lot closer to where it's going to be, you know. And transporting Starship is a problem. I mean, it's problems overstating it, but it's no easy feat. You don't put it on a trailer and just truck it into the gate, you know.

So I think having it delivered closer to the pad is important. Yeah. Yeah, because then you're just down the crawl away, basically. Right. Exactly. Yeah, I'm just, I'm curious how and what picks up there and what, you know, what do they start to do some operations,

but they're not going full bore into a launch campaign yet. Do they, I'm sure there's going to be a lot of different, you know, fit checks and whatnot that they need to do with some of the new hardware. But I wouldn't be shocked to see them get a launch in on the earlier side to rattle everybody a little bit as a visual reminder as what's about to come. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think that's a launch I don't want to miss, seeing Starship fly from Path 39A.

That'll be really something. Are you tired of driving to Boca Chica? Is that what you're saying? That's a long drive for me, yes. You're saying you're ready to fly back to the Orlando airport and drive out? Right, right. Yeah, my old stomping grounds. All right, we got a handful of small things that I want your take on.

Well, we talked about clearing out landing zones, and they were doing that for the 2Q3 launch. a really impressive first landing attempt for this weird kind of hybrid of Falcon 9 and Starship, right? As a stainless steel Falcon 9 looking launch vehicle over in China. So I understand that they hit the launch pad. Obviously, they had an issue when landing burn lit back up.

Although the re-entry burn went okay with the same engines. So they did it at least successfully relight, which was different than what we saw with the first Nucal N landing, right? That had an issue right on first light of the engines, first relight of the engines. So the fact that they made it through that burn and then went for the landing burn, I was very impressed by. And guidance was clearly good if they hit the landing pad. So it seems like a thing that will probably get a lot more noticed over here as they're successful and could be a big politically impactful story as we already have all these hearings in front of Congress of the Chinese lunar program.

All of a sudden they get a Falcon 9 looking vehicle up and running. and they get up the flight rate, that could be a pretty enormous story. Exactly. And we've heard out for comments from Space Force officials over the last few months that one thing they're really watching this very closely in the U.S. Space Force is when China is able to field and master a partially reusable rocket, whether it's the Zuku 3 or the Long March 12A, which may be launching in a few days or a couple of weeks from now,

or a future vehicle that has a recoverable and reusable booster, that is really going to open up and unlock China's launch capabilities. Because right now China uses over a dozen different types of rockets from small to heavy lift. They don't have a super heavy yet to basically fly half as often as SpaceX does with the Falcon 9. And they have to use these whole family. of rockets from different companies, some government owns, some quasi-commercial or privately funded, and they really lack, you know, a dominant provider other than the established

government enterprises, which themselves have several different types of rockets to fly. So, you know, the Space Force officials have said to me, when China has a reusable rocket, they're going to be able to ramp up their launch capacity very, very quickly. And that's a concern for them as they look at the threat environment in space and putting up, you know, new networks. Obviously, China has the two mega constellations that they're working on, but also, you know, counter space, anti-satellite weapons, early warning communications, all the sorts of capabilities that the U.S. military is building out with the space development agency and whatever comes next with Golden Dome, all that requires, you know, a healthy, predictable launch manifest and

affordable access to space, which having a reasonable rocket world would unlock and make possible. So seeing the Zuku 3 gets so close really kind of was a wake-up call for a lot of people, I think that they've obviously learned a lot of lessons from SpaceX. You know, a lot of people accuse Chinese companies of espionage, and I don't have any personal knowledge of any of that. So I won't go there. It's possible, but I won't go there. But just open source information about what works and what doesn't from SpaceX.

You know, this first rocket had grid fins, has landing legs that look a lot like the Falcon 9's landing legs. they're using methane engines which are easier to turn around and reuse than kerosene engines mentioned the stainless steel structure that SpaceX has proven works with Starship so they're learning a lot of lessons just by watching from afar of what SpaceX has done so SpaceX when they first tried to land a booster they were looking at using parachutes and then they looked at landing a booster without fins and they realized they needed grid fins and all this was part of the experimentation that SpaceX did over the course of several years from like 2011 or 12 to

2015 to figure out what works. And all these Chinese companies or even a future American company can just kind of skip through all that because they know what doesn't work and what works. And so, you know, looking back at it, maybe it's not such a big surprise that the Zuku 3 got so close to landing on the first try. And man, some of that video is remarkable. If your listeners haven't seen the video go to YouTube or go to X or look up some of these videos of the landing burn ignition. And obviously there's something that goes wrong, just a split second after ignition of the landing burn where the booster catches fire and it just comes down at a high rate of speed. But again, nearly a perfect bullseye right on the landing pad out in the middle of the desert. And so I think that, you know, is something that augurs well for the next attempt getting it right.

And, you know, we have another company. China has another company about to launch the Long March 12A in a matter of days or weeks that will also attempt a landing of the booster on the very first try. And the Long March 12A comes from one of China's established government-backed aerospace contractors. So Zuku 3 is one of these new commercial outfits called Landspace. It's the developer of the Zuku 3. The Long March 12A comes from a company, the Shanghai Academy of Space Flight Technology, which is part of this big government apparatus of contractors in China that has a very, very, very good track record with the Long March rocket. And maybe they have a better chance of landing on the first try. That would

be remarkable if they do. And they're very similarly sized vehicles as well. Yes. The 12 high and the Zuku 3. They're like almost and I think payload wise, they're pretty equivalent to Falcon 9. Yes. The Zuku 3, the version that flew most recently has a engine that is based on the engine that the company land space flies on their small launch vehicle. So I think the performance for the version of the Zuku 3 that just flew is only around 8,000 kilograms to Lower Thorbit, which is, you know, half or so of Falcon 9, but they have a roadmap where they're going to put in new engines, same design of the rocket, but put

in new engines still using methane, where they will be able to increase that, to closely match what the Falcon 9 performance is. But, you know, it looks a lot like Falcon 9 and from the outside, certainly. And so a lot of these Chinese rockets do. And you can see. A lot of them new American rockets do too. That's true. Look around the startup scene, right?

Well, a lot of them do, but certainly not Neutron or not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or not, what's the other one? Not Nova, not Stoke. Yeah. You know, those look different. But obviously, like, nine, seven or nine engines is the, way to go, it seems like, for a reasonable rocket because the Zuku 3 has nine engines, as

as has Falcon 9, and the Long March 12A has seven methane engines, which is the same number as New Glenn. Well, New Glenn's trying to do both, so. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. All right, you also, there was one other story I want to point people to because I thought it was interesting. Was this naming, the Space Force naming scheme story? Number one, how did you even like figure this out? How did you find this out? You got some info. and then you started parsing it up. Give me the backstory on this. Yeah, yeah.

I was talking to a retired military official and about space force things. And he was like, we were talking about RGXXX, which is the next generation space surveillance satellites that the space force is developing to replace what's called the GSEP satellites, which actually are these satellites

that kind of approach other spacecraft and geostation of orbit. And we were talking about the new programs, It's called RGXX, and he was like, do you know, do you know where that name came from? And I was like, no, I don't. It hasn't been reported. And I haven't been told.

And he explained it to me and said there was a document that was signed about a year ago that was never really publicly released and it's not classified or anything. So I went to the Space Force and asked for it and got the document. And they've actually since released it publicly on their own website. And but I was first to report it. And so the Space Force is going to be naming their satellites. satellites, kind of the way the Air Force names their airplanes. So the old U.S. Army Air Corps, which was the predecessor of the U.S. Air Force, I guess the Space Force in some way, about a century ago in

1924, released a naming convention for airplanes. So a century later, in 2024, the Space Force signed a similar document to establish a naming convention for spacecraft. And not just spacecraft, but any space force, let's say, asset. So they'll even name ground-based assets, like a ground-based anti-satellite missile or something. We'll have one of these names. Excuse me. So they have a prefix.

So let's use the RGXX example. RG, the R stands for reconnaissance, and G stands for geosynchronous or geostationary orbit. And the XX is just a placeholder for a number. So you'll see these satellites as they launch RG1, RG2, RG3, all the way up to ever how many they eventually fly. And so that's the name of, that's kind of an example of the naming convention. They have a list of different prefixes that are available, things like Pursuit, so a P,

which is actually the same, if any airplane buffs are listening, like the P-51 Mustang from World War II, that was a pursuit airplane. So there will be pursuit satellites that have a P in front of them. there will be electromagnetic warfare satellites that have an E, navigation satellites will have it in. So GPS potentially will have the satellites will be named in M potentially, navigation in medium Earth orbit. So those are just examples of some of the naming conventions. There's a whole list. I put the list in my story on RIS Technica, if your listeners are interested in going, checking that out and seeing the full list.

It's clearly been thought out, and RGXX is the first program that's going to be actually using this new naming convention. But eventually, it's supposed to be proliferated out into the entire fleet of satellites for the Space Force. I love naming. I love naming in space. I love any story about naming. It's just an enjoyable sub-topic. I do, too. And what's, yeah, it really is. And what's also interesting to me is trying to connect what the space force is doing today to something that the Air Force did about a century ago. So the air domain became a domain of warfare really leading up to World War I, so a little over 100 years ago. When we see the Army Air Corps establishing a naming convention in 2024, and for a century, there was no practically no new domain of warfare, you know, space is emerging and now space is emerging as domains of warfare. And as you think about this,

you kind of get to write some of the rules and some of the, establish some of the norms as you go and, you know, how things are done, both in operating satellites or operating weapons in space and how you name them. And, you know, these types of norms and conventions will be with us for, you know, decades or centuries, or century at least, because we've seen that the Air Force, those naming conventions have largely remained unchanged for 101 years. I'm trying to understand, though, like, the extent to which all of these names will be out in public. Like, is the intent to actually state the names of things that are getting launched? Because there's so much meaning in these names that you could then figure out what the things

up to versus, you know, the mysterious names that have existed prior. You have no idea what, you know, and enroll 127 was launched and then it was USA 345 or whatever the numbers were right you have no idea what that was right right and yeah the the names have there have been numerous names that payloads have been known by or launches have been known by um i'm not sure this if this naming commission applies to NRO i don't didn't see any evidence that well yeah yeah so um and i guess your point is some of the air air and space force specific ones they even they talk you know silent barker we know just doing this thing at geo and like they've they illuminate some detail about these so this is this would be a similar level that they're comfortable exposing today i think so i think so

so to use the silent barker example that would be it kind of reminds me of an example i used in my story which is the f35 obviously the f35 lightning is the name of the airplane but it has its origins in the joint strike fighter program so you can see a silent barker the name still remaining around and these satellites be named RG for reconnaissance geosynchronous or SG for surveillance geosynchronous. I'm not sure which one it would actually fall under in that example. But yeah, all these names, you know, the Space Force and the NRO have all these names that these satellites are known by.

So when it launches, it has a USSF or NROL code name with a number. Then when it's cataloged in orbit, it's USA, you know, 501 or whatever. USAXXX. And then there's also the names that the satellites are actually known by, like GPS or G-Sapp or WGS or whatever. And it gets confusing for sure. And I think this is a noble attempt to consolidate these names all into one scheme. And we'll see how closely the Space Force follows it. I think the implementation is going to be key because I think there's going to be, you know, there's always friction and pushback against change and even for something like this. And, you know, a lot of those names may not go away. They may be names that are used colloquially or, you know, old timers may

still use the old names for a long, long time to come. So I think the implementation is going to be key in how this actually transpires. And yeah, so I think this is going to be interesting. seem to follow. And as I was saying, I think the names are just an example of the Space Force trying to establish a culture and trying to establish its own identity amidst the entire bureaucracy that is the Pentagon and Department of Defense. And all this is happening as they try to navigate this new domain of war. And all this is happening about 100 years, as I was saying, about 100 years after the air domain became a factor. A good spot to end the topics for today,

as this will make sense to people next week when they hear the next show. So, Stephen, what else are you going on? Plug some stuff if people want to know what's going on. Yeah, I'm following Golden Dome as closely as I can because the Space Force and the Pentagon have gotten really tight-lipped about that recently after a lot of fanfare when they announced it back in the spring.

And of course, Artemis II, preparations are well underway at Kennedy Space Center. And that is going to be, you know, for all of the flaws and criticisms of Artemis and Space Launch System and Orion, you know, as me, as a space nerd growing up, as a lifelong space enthusiast, I think seeing people, humans flying around the moon again is going to be really, really remarkable and impactful for a lot of people. and looking forward to that flight in a few months' time. Awesome. Thanks for hanging out. You'll be back soon enough. I can't believe I've not had you on the show until this point.

That's totally my fault and we'd need to correct that on a regular basis. Yeah, happy to join again, for sure. I had a lot of fun. Thanks again to Stephen for joining me on the show here. And thanks to all of you who support Main Engine Cutoff over at Mainenginecutoff.com slash support. There are 900-something of you supporting every single month. I'm so thankful for your support. only reason this kind of thing happens is a 100% listener-supported show. I don't do advertising or anything like that. If you like this show, you're the ones that support it. So join the

crew and join up. And you could join the list of executive producers for this show. 32 people made this particular show possible. Thanks to Matt, Fred, Chris, Natasha Saccoe, Josh from Impulse, Better Everyday Studios, Joe Kim, Joel, Ryan, The Astrogators at SEE, Tim Dodd, David, Adionaut, Hyko, Jan, Theo and Violet, Donald, Pat, Will, and Lars, from Agile, Lee, Russell, Eunice, Warren, Steve, Frank, Stealth Julian, David, and four anonymous executive producers. Thank you all so much for the support, as always, for making the show possible. If you want to get Miko headlines in your life, head over to support the show, and you'll get an extra podcast in your feed every single week-ish, depending on how much is going on.

I read all the space news. I filter out the stuff that doesn't matter, and you got a whole show talking of me talking about what did happen in space the last week. That is important to keep track of. So it's a great way to stay up on the news to support the show. It's a win-win all around. Mentioned towards the end. We've got a really exciting show next week. I can't wait for you to hear it. A little bit of travel involved, but you're going to love it, I promise. So we'll see how that hits the feeds. And thanks again for listening. I'll talk to you soon. I don't know.