Main Engine Cut Off - T+47: Uncrewed EM-1 Delayed to 2019

Episode Date: May 16, 2017

Last week was rough for the Space Launch System. An issue with weld tooling was discovered, with some serious consequences, and then a LOX tank dome was dropped and damaged beyond repair. To top it off, NASA announced that EM-1 will fly without crew, and is delayed until 2019. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 12 executive producers—Pat, Matt, Jorge, Brad, Ryan, Laszlo, Jamison, Guinevere, and four anonymous—and 46 other supporters on Patreon. NASA will not put a crew on EM-1, cites cost – not safety – as main reason | NASASpaceFlight.com SLS Core Stage team recovering from consequences of weld pin change | NASASpaceFlight.com NASA investigating damaged SLS tank section - SpaceNews.com Options for Staging Orbits in Cis-Lunar Space (PDF, 4.7MB) The Deep Space Gateway, Cislunar Staging Orbits, and Momentum - Main Engine Cut Off Email your thoughts and comments to [e-mail] Follow @WeHaveMECO Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Google Play, Stitcher, or elsewhere Subscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off Newsletter Buy shirts and Rocket Socks from the Main Engine Cut Off Shop Support Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon

EM-1 has been officially delayed a year. It has been confirmed to be flying without crew. We've got some official announcements from NASA and some pieces shifting in the SLS Orion roadmap. So I want to break some of that down, talk about some things that I haven't covered a lot yet. Deep Space Gateway, Deep Space Habitat come to mind. I haven't talked about it too much on the show yet because I was waiting for these other pieces to fall into place. And they are now. So I wanted to do one of these old shows that we do where we talk SLS Orion,

commercial partners in that venture, and break down where we're at now. But before I do, I just wanted to mention real quick, I forgot to mention this in the last show, I had some people asking for the podcast to be over on Google Play and Stitcher. So they are up in those directories now. So if you're a Google Play or Stitcher user, head over there and find Main Engine Cutoff there. It's ready to roll for you. So I'm sorry that took me so long to get up and hopefully the people out there that use those platforms enjoy that quite a bit.

So wherever you find podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Google Play, Stitcher, wherever you go for your listening, Main Engine Cutoff will be there for you. And if I am missing a platform that I don't know about yet and you are listening to the majority of your podcasts there, send me a note, anthonyatmanagingcutoff.com,

and I will make sure to get the podcast available there for you as well. All right, let's dive into EM1. It's flying without crew. It's been delayed to 2019. We don't have a real date yet for it, but from people on the inside, from people with good sources on this sort of thing, it seems like the end of 2019 is what we're looking at for this. Previously, they were saying the end of 2018, though there were sources on the inside saying that that had been a date that's not been targeted for a while internally. And June 2019 was the date they were looking at for quite a bit. They just hadn't made that public yet. Now it looks like that's probably falling back towards the end of 2019. So just about a year delay from what they said publicly previously.

And along with that, that obviously pushes out the second flight of SLS because between EM-1 and the second flight of SLS, there is a 33-month gap that cannot be shortened because they need to rework all of the ground architecture to be able to fly a new upper stage on SLS. The first flight is flying with the ICPS, the interim cryogenic propulsion stage. The second flight is going to be flying with the exploration upper stage, which is a bigger model. It's wider, it's taller. So there's a lot of work that needs to go in to change everything over. So there's a 33-month

gap between these two flights that will not get shortened. So it's pretty much a year-for-year slip. They haven't said as much yet, but from what we've heard previously, there's no way to shorten that gap. So we can assume that the target date for the second flight of SLS is pushed back a year as well. So that's where we stand today. Now for a while there, it seemed like the crew decision was going to get the green light, that they were going to push ahead with putting crew on this first flight of SLS Orion. But thankfully, they did not. And I say thankfully because I am someone that I didn't see the purpose of doing this. You know, I didn't see the benefits of flying crew in this flight as outweighing the risks associated.

And this is a big point of contention because there's a lot of people, myself included, that seems to think that NASA is too risk-averse. Obviously, it's good to be cautious. It's good to be careful. It's good to be methodical in making sure that you are safe, that you're flying missions that make sense, are sensible, are not unnecessarily risky. And that's feedback that NASA hears from a lot of people. ski. And that's feedback that NASA hears from a lot of people. But even for someone who thinks NASA is too risk-averse, flying crew on SLS Orion on their first flight just seemed nonsensical. It doesn't do anything to accelerate the roadmap that SLS and Orion are on. So it doesn't change the long-term picture for SLS Orion. So it really did not carry any benefits that would really come to match the risks that you're taking on with that flight. Now, obviously, with space

flight, risks are always present. You know, there is an intrinsic risk to flying into space, to landing on any body out there and returning. That is something that everybody knows, that everybody has come to grips with. And then there are programmatic risks. So for instance, the flight of Apollo 11. That is a risky flight because you're flying from Earth all the way out to the moon, landing on the surface and returning with a rendezvous in lunar orbit there. That is a risky flight. The intrinsic risks of flying from Earth to the moon and back, those risks cannot go away. That is always a risky proposition, just as flying over the Atlantic in an airliner is a somewhat risky proposition. The probability that you're going to run into

a problem is very low because we've been doing it for so long, but that is a risky flight. But in the Apollo program, the programmatic risks had been diminished, had been retired, as NASA likes to say. Saturn V had flown, the Apollo command module had flown, the lunar module had flown, the lunar module had even descended towards the surface of the moon and rendezvoused with the command module in lunar orbit. So the programmatic risks of that flight had largely been done away with. The intrinsic risks were still there. But when you compare that to this first flight of SLS Orion, the intrinsic risks are still there, flying out towards cislunar space, and the programmatic risks are still there. Orion was going to be flying,

and still is going to be flying, with a brand new heat shield, a reworked heat shield. It's the first time that they're going to be flying with the service module. And at that, it's not even going to be a full service module. They would have been flying life support for the first time on the Orion capsule and the service module that went along with it. The Orion spacecraft itself is largely changed from the EFT-1 test flight back in 2014. So there were a ton of programmatic risks there that are unnecessary because the benefits of

flying crew doesn't do anything for you long term. It doesn't accelerate your roadmap. It doesn't make EM-2 different or better. It doesn't make you more confident in the system because there's still going to be a lot of changes between SLS Orion Flight 1 and 2. It doesn't make you more confident in the system because there's still going to be a lot of changes between SLS Orion flight one and two. It's going to be a largely different vehicle. You've got a new upper stage, different engines, four engines on your upper stage rather than one. There's a lot of changes between these two flights. So, you know, crewing this mission just seemed unnecessary, nonsensical in a way. I'm glad that they're not going to go ahead with that.

So let's talk about the slip in schedule. SLS is obviously something that's been historically delayed. It's a program that, you know, this past week has been a rough week for them. They discovered and announced a problem with the welding tooling that they're using that they're going to have to weld and, you know, actually produce a brand new hydrogen tank for the first flight of EM-1. They dropped a LOX dome, the LOX tank dome, and damaged that beyond repair. That was the qualification unit, so they're going to be using the flight unit for different tests.

And there were a lot of issues that they're dealing with in the last week alone, which made it a very interesting week when you have all of these production issues, and then you announce that we're not putting crew on it, and we're delaying it a year. So now we're looking at flying in late 2019. And when I think about that, you know, I was standing there on the NASA causeway, December 5th, 2014, watching EFT-1 go off with the first flight of Orion on top of a Delta IV Heavy. To think that,

you know, I could be standing there on the NASA causeway again on December 5th, 2019, watching the first flight of SLS, that is a huge gap. And if you, you know, came up to me that morning, waiting for Orion to go off and said, and said, this next thing's not going to fly for five years from today. That would be not unbelievable, but it would certainly give you pause about where things are at with this program. But I don't think a one-year slip does anything to change the overall position that SLS and Orion are in now. And this is what we talked about last week with Eric Berger. We talked about the fact that SLS and Orion are in a place where

things might not change for four years or more from where we're at now because of the relative state of this program versus the rest of the industry at large. So while I don't think the one-year slip changes the position SLS and Orion are in today, it does do something else that is very important. It opens the window of opportunity just a little bit more for companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, even ULA, and for people who think that we can do this differently to make their case. It opens that window of opportunity for these companies to prove out what they're working on, to prove out that they can provide these similar services to NASA for less cost, less risk, and free up NASA to do more interesting things with these flights,

and free up a giant chunk of the NASA budget to put towards payloads rather than the launch vehicle. So the slip might not change the calculus of SLS and Orion today, but it does open that window of opportunity wider. So let's look at where we're at by the end of 2020. Let's assume SLS EM-1 gets off the end of 2019, maybe the beginning of 2020. Where are we at by the end of year 2020? There will be another presidential election, could be an administration change there. And even if there's not an administration change up top, there's shifting members of Congress.

There's different people in the game at that point. Falcon Heavy will be flying, will be operational by then. Hopefully it flies this year or next, and hopefully it would be operational to a good extent by 2020. New Glenn will either be on the launch pad or approaching it. Vulcan from ULA, Vulcan Centaur, will be in the same spot, either on the launch pad or approaching it. Commercial crew will be up and operational, flying to the ISS. And that's a big deal itself. And I would be kind of shocked if by the end of 2020, Falcon Heavy didn't fly a Dragon 2 around the moon and back with those two private people that bought a flight already. So you've got Heavy Lift available commercially by the end of 2020. You've got a company who is talking about distributed lift quite a bit in ULA, working out the kinks in their new launch vehicle.

You've got commercial crew flying operationally into low-Earth orbit, and even the hardware that is used for commercial crew flying beyond low Earth orbit, around the moon and back. Dragon 2 would be proving out its usefulness in deep space. It'll be proving out that its heat shield can survive an entry from cislunar space, and even be flying out to Mars as a red dragon, proving out that its heat shield can withstand interplanetary arrow capture. So you have all these commercial companies proving out their capability by the end of 2020.

And you have Heavy Lift online that NASA could rely on. You have Commercial Crew online that NASA could rely on. You have commercial crew online that NASA could rely on. And you even have one of the commercial crew companies proving out that their spacecraft is viable beyond LEO. And that's a huge deal, that all that would happen by the end of 2020. Because SLS and Orion would have flown once, and it'll be waiting another three years SLS and Orion would have flown once, and it'll be waiting another three years before the second flight of SLS takes off. So if that's where we're at by the end of 2020, that we have these commercial opportunities available, and you give it another three years to develop, think about where the commercial industry would be at by the second flight of SLS.

industry would be at by the second flight of SLS. You might have upgraded heavy launch vehicles. You'll have Vulcan Aces online with maybe even in-space refueling, distributed lift capabilities, maybe even a little bit of propellant depot kind of concepts at play there with Aces. You might have a Bigelow habitat in space. You might have a big low habitat in space. You might have some private landers on the lunar surface. You would have some private landers on the Martian surface. So from where we're at now, projecting out five years when that second SLS is on the launch pad, the industry is going to look massively different.

And NASA has shown, even in these early days, that they are willing to respond to that a little bit. And I think that's proven when you look at the roadmap for the Deep Space Gateway. Because in that roadmap, you see SLS and Orion providing the crew transportation and the heavy lift transportation. the crew transportation and the heavy lift transportation. But what it's not providing is the cargo resupply at the Deep Space Gateway. In the roadmap, NASA has worked in commercial cargo resupply missions to the Deep Space Gateway. So that's kind of proof there that the Mission Architecture Planning Office of NASA is willing to take these things into the roadmap when they're available. And that's the key, is that when these things are available, then they can take it into consideration.

Then they can work it into the roadmap. Then Congress can legislate with the knowledge that these things exist. But until they exist, that's not a viable option. And that's the double-edged sword of these commercial companies, is that they can find the incentive to do these activities, to provide heavy lift, to provide cargo, to provide crew transportation. But if there's not enough incentive, they won't provide these things. So NASA and Congress can't make decisions today based on the idea that these companies are going to offer this solution long term, because they don't know yet. The companies themselves don't even know yet. But when they do, like we see with commercial cargo, NASA takes that into consideration.

And commercial cargo, you know, it's had its share of problems, but it's proving to be reliable. And it's getting more advanced. You know, we're approaching CRS-2, the second phase of commercial cargo, which includes SpaceX, Orbital ATK, and Sierra Nevada with the Dream Chaser. There will be three different variants of Cygnus flying commercial cargo. And there will be a propulsively landing Dragon 2 flying cargo missions to the ISS and back. Don't forget that Dragon 2 is going to propulsively land as part of CRS-2. So the commercial cargo capabilities are becoming more advanced. And in the foreseeable future, when you project out to where that Deep Space Gateway starts on

that roadmap, mid-2020s, you know, if you give that commercial cargo capability eight years to progress, it's clear that NASA thinks that that is a reliable and viable plan. So the same thing has to happen for commercial crew in order to see these changes in the roadmap. You know, a lot of us say that we would rather see Dragon 2 and Starliner fly crew to the Deep Space Gateway than Orion and use the SLS. If it's going to exist, use it for these giant chunks that you need to lift or use it for things like the Europa mission that you really need that heavy, heavy lift to get out there. And that's fine, but NASA needs to see that that is a thing that can be done. So when you look to the end of 2020 and you see that there could be a Dragon 2 flying two people around the moon and back, that gives you some good confidence that that's something we could see in time to

make these decisions. So what needs to happen is the commercial sector needs to prove that it could match or exceed the capabilities provided by SLS and Orion. NASA isn't working on a cargo vehicle because those are available. They are working on a heavy lift vehicle because those aren't yet available. They are working on a crew vehicle that can go out to lunar orbit because those are not yet available. So when you look at Dragon 2, you got to wonder, what does it take to make that capable of getting into and out of lunar orbit? Can there be changes to the trunk, turn it into more of a service model with some extra fuel to get into and out of lunar orbit? Because at that point, it could exceed what Orion could do.

Because it can land on the surface of Mars. It can fly to the Deep Space Gateway and back. It can do these things and even exceed them in some ways. So at that point, NASA and Congress can start looking at the viability of flying crew to the Deep Space Gateway or beyond on a Dragon 2. So this window of opportunity is opening. It is a huge opportunity for SpaceX, Blue Origin, ULA, for these other people out there that are looking to offer some of these services.

It's a huge opportunity to prove themselves, prove themselves viable, reliable, prove that things can be done differently. But the other thing that they need to prove is that the industry at large can become an economic powerhouse. Because a lot of times we talk about certain Congress members legislating in a certain way to benefit their own district, which by the way, is the point of the way we've set up our government. We set up a representative democracy for that reason, that we send representatives to Washington, and they fight for our best interests and they return that value to their districts.

So what you need to do if you're these companies that want to see it done differently and want to see things doled out differently than always to Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Orbital ATK, and Aerojet Rocketdyne, what you have to do is prove that an industry, a burgeoning industry, can provide more economic power to that district, to these members of Congress, to the country at large, that it can provide, it could match or exceed the economic power of a single program. Because if this industry rises together, and the capabilities rise, the economic opportunities rise, at some point, that's going to exceed the economic opportunity provided by SLS and Orion contracts. So if the industry at large can exceed a singular program, then things will start to shift.

Dynamics will start to shift. And ULA is putting a lot of money right now into Decatur. and ULA is putting a lot of money right now into Decatur. They even brought in their fairing manufacturer, Ruag, to Decatur. This European company is now opening a place in Decatur to build fairings. So there is a little bit of consolidation in these areas. SpaceX even mentioned about, they talked about building ITS in the Gulf states. So there is a little bit of this consolidation in that area to kind of garner that same level of interest. And if that takes off, if those kind of opportunities

rise and show value to these same members of Congress, then the dynamics will start to shift. and show value to these same members of Congress, then the dynamics will start to shift. I want to break down a little bit of the Deep Space Gateway, Deep Space Habitat plans in a minute. But before I do, I want to say a huge thank you to all of the patrons of Main Engine Cutoff

over at patreon.com slash miko. There are 58 of you supporting the show over there, including 12 executive producers. Pat, Matt, George, Brad, Ryan, Laszlo, Jameson, Guinevere, and four anonymous executive producers. Those 12 executive producers. Pat, Matt, George, Brad, Ryan, Laszlo, Jameson, Guinevere, and four anonymous executive producers. Those 12 executive producers made this episode of Main Engine Cutoff

possible, and I'm hugely thankful for their support and everyone else over on Patreon. So if you want to help support the show, head over to patreon.com slash Miko and sign up just like these 58 wonderful humans did as well. If you want to help support another way,

as always, tell a friend about the show, post a link somewhere, or head over to the shop, shop.mainageandcutoff.com. We've got some great shirts and everything that you can check out. All of those things really help support the show. So as a single person operation, all of your support makes a huge difference. You know, I don't have ads for mattresses

or subscription razors to read or anything like this. I get my support directly from you, which keeps me honest, keeps me working, and it keeps this show growing. So thank you so much for all of your support. Now, the Deep Space Gateway, I haven't talked about it too much on the show yet because it's kind of still a loose plan. It's not really worked into the overall future of NASA. It's not really taken action upon yet. It's just a framework for what we could see in the 2020s. And there's two components that I want to talk about with it. There's the orbit selection and the destination selection.

And then there's the actual construction of it and how it's put together with the help of SLS Orion, commercial partners, as I talked about, and what it could be beyond that. So first, the orbit selection. This is going to be placed, initially at least, in a near-rectilinear orbit. This is an orbit that is extremely elliptical and polar in nature, so it goes over both poles. When you're going over one pole, this can either be a north-facing or a south-facing orbit. So when you're going over one pole, you'll be very low to the surface, and then you loop out really, really high over the other pole.

And what this does is lets you linger a long time over one of the poles. So let's say, for instance, the South Pole, because all indications show that there's some good spots there where you can get access to sunlight all year round, pretty much. There's, you know, I think something like 85, 90% of the time of the year has access to sunlight in some of these spots in the South Pole. There's also permanently shaded spots, which might have some good water ice that can be mined and turned into propellant and all that kind of stuff. So let's say we want to set up a base there. We would choose a near-rectolinear orbit that lingers over the South Pole. So when you fly over the North Pole, you kind of go real quickly, and then you linger for a long time over

the South Pole. And there's a great paper that was written by two people from NASA from the Johnson Space Center that I will link to in the show notes at mainenginecutoff.com. It's really worth reading this thing. It's only a couple of pages long. It's not super complex or super dense, but what it does is show some comparisons between different lunar orbits and their utility for something like this, for supporting a base on the moon or supporting even just an in-orbit station

like the Deep Space Gateway. And what they found was this NRO orbit, near rectilinear orbit, it was the best balance for the different things that they found, the different aspects that they were comparing on. One of those aspects though, was the ability for SLS Orion to reach it and this is where the Orion service module really falls down because it does not have enough delta v to get into a low lunar orbit or even anything really lower than this NRO orbit it can get to the you know Lagrange points between the earth moon it can get to these highly elliptical orbits. But it does not have the delta-v to transfer to a lower lunar orbit. So that right there kind of shows one of the biggest weaknesses of Orion,

is that it's very limited in what it can do because its service module is not very capable. It doesn't have a lot of delta V, certainly not the kind that you would want for extensive cislunar operations. So anyway, that's one of the aspects that this paper compares these lunar orbits for, is access to it by SLS and Orion. So I encourage you to go read this paper because I think it helps explain why NRO was chosen as the destination for the Deep Space Gateway. But what it's pretty clear to me is that this Deep Space Gateway idea is trying to find the common denominator between NASA's roadmap needs

and other partners out there, be it governmental like ESA, or even commercial like Blue Origin. NRO seems to be a good destination to balance these needs. The ability for SNS Orion to fly there, the desire for ESA to have a presence around the moon. You know, they've been talking about this lunar village for quite a while now. There's not a whole lot of activity on that front that we can see yet, but it is something that they've expressed a lot of interest in. And even Blue Origin has talked about Blue Moon, which is the lunar lander that they want to make. There's a lot of private companies now looking towards the lunar surface.

ULA has talked a lot about landing on the lunar surface, maybe with some sort of modified Centaur or Asus stage with the help of Masten. So there seems to be a lot of movement towards the moon. And this orbit that is chosen for the Deep Space Gateway is trying to find the lowest common denominator because NASA can't do it alone. They can do it alone technically, but they can't do it alone politically, monetarily, any of these other considerations. You know, they need to convince partners to join in on their effort. I should also mention the Russians have expressed interest towards the moon, and the Chinese have expressed a lot of interest

towards the moon, both towards lunar surface operations. So if NASA can put out a roadmap that can fit a lot of different needs, the ability for SLS Orion to get there, the ability for commercial or governmental partners to use it for surface operations, then maybe they convince some other partners to join them in the effort.

And maybe they convince other people to say, this is a good idea. I would use this. I think this is a valuable asset to the cislunar environment. And that's kind of what they're banking on here because so far there's no budget for something like the Deep Space Gateway. Our budget is foreseeably taken up by SLS Orion and the ISS until at least 2024. So they need to convince other people that this is something that could be of use to them. So again, take a look at that paper because it describes how SLS and Orion can get to NRO, and it describes how it's useful for access to the lunar surface. It's probably not optimal for some of these different considerations, but it can be capable of supporting these different

things. And that's what NASA is going for here. The common denominator between all of the motivations to head out towards the cislunar environment. Whether you want to be in cislunar space, whether you want to be getting some experience in deep space environments outside the protection of Earth's radiation belts, whether you want to have access to the lunar surface, the Deep Space Gateway is positioned to be the lowest common denominator, to garner some different support from different players in the industry,

and that is why NASA is moving after it. The thing I have a problem with is that the ISS extension beyond 2024 is still floated as very likely, and if that happens, I don't know where the money comes from for Deep Space Gateway, Deep Space Habitat, or anything. SLS and Orion aren't getting any cheaper, certainly not when they move into the 2020s, if their roadmap is to be believed. Maybe they do some sort of, you know, we've seen this Next Step Habitat program

that they're kind of taking the early days of commercial cargo and crew approach to, where they're putting out some different RFPs to commercial companies to say, you know, tell us what you would do with a deep space habitat. Maybe they take advantage of that and that becomes the basis for the deep space gateway and a couple of different modules that they're working on with Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Orbital ATK and their Cygnus derived habitat, even NanoRacks like we talked about back on episode 20 with their modified Centaur habitat maybe that's the

basis for the deep space gateway and these all fly as shared payloads on sls but that's the real crux of it is that where are you going to get the money to pay for these habitats and why are you going to designate an entire flight of sls to something that could be flown otherwise because with the exception of the deep space transport, which is the far out, you know, almost 2030s destination, none of these other payloads can only be flown on SLS. They can fly on SLS, but they can fly on a lot of things. And again, this is where it comes back to,

we need to see heavy lift commercially available to make different decisions. But right now, you know, SLS flying an Orion and a bunch of co-manifested payloads to build up a station doesn't sound that responsible from a budget aspect. But if NASA were to say, we're going to focus heavily on the deep space transport,

this big 40-ton module that nothing else could lift right now, nothing else could fit under a fairing right now. If they were to focus on that, that would be a unique capability that only SLS can do. Because until a big new Glenn flies, nothing else even approaches that fairing size. Nothing else even approaches that lift capacity when you take all these different aspects. Falcon Heavy could do it, but it doesn't fit in the fairing size. Nothing else even approaches that lift capacity when you take all these different aspects. Falcon Heavy could do it, but it doesn't fit in the fairing. New Glenn, the three-stage version with the seven-meter fairing, might be able to fit it. So it doesn't seem to warrant an SLS flight. I don't know where they're going to get the budget from this, but it's pretty clear that NASA's putting this out there to garner some support from the rest of the industry and make it

something enticing for somebody else to say, we would get in on that. We would take part in that. And honestly, I can't necessarily blame them for that, given where they're at right now, the cards they're dealt, being stuck with a big budget of SLS Orion, being stuck with a big budget for ISS. Not all of these things are self-inflicted wounds on NASA's part. And there's certainly a lot of people within NASA that feel differently about a lot of these programs. You know, NASA is not a uniform opinion. There are a lot of people within that are working for different kinds of ways of working, different roadmaps, different things that they want to do. So these aren't all self-inflicted wounds by NASA or the people within NASA. A lot of them are driven by politics, but that is where they're

at today. So is the Deep Space Gateway the best plan I've ever seen? No. Is it a viable plan from where NASA's at now? I think so, if they can get out from under the ISS budget, if they can transition away from that successfully, which I don't necessarily have a lot of confidence in. So anyway, that's a lot of my rambling about the Deep Space Gateway, Deep Space Habitat. I haven't covered a lot of that yet, so I did want to spend a little time thinking through some of that stuff. It's been a very interesting week in terms of SLS Orion. So I'm sure a lot of you out there have thoughts on SLS Orion, EM1, what's beyond for it, maybe even some of the Deep Space Gateway stuff. So as always, if you've got any thoughts, send them over to me, anthony

at mainenginecutoff.com. I always love hearing from you and what you're thinking about some of these different things going on. That'll be it for me this week. Thank you so much again to all of you supporting Main Engine Cutoff over on Patreon, patreon.com slash Miko. Thanks for all of your support. Thanks for listening, and I will talk to you next week.