Main Engine Cut Off - T+69: Robin Seemangal

Episode Date: December 27, 2017

Robin Seemangal joins me for a free-flowing discussion on the stories we found most important in 2017 and what we’re looking forward to in 2018, including SpaceX’s huge year, Blue Origin’s under-the-radar work to lay foundations for their future, SLS’ rough year, and—what else?—Falcon Heavy. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 23 executive producers—Kris, Mike, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Brad, Ryan, Jamison, Nadim, Peter, Donald, Lee, Jasper, Chris, Warren, Bob, Brian, Russell, and five anonymous—and 108 other supporters on Patreon. Robin Seemangal (@nova_road) | Twitter How Is SpaceX Doing on Its Deep Space Ambitions? | WIRED Email your thoughts and comments to [e-mail] Follow @WeHaveMECO Listen to MECO Headlines Join the Off-Nominal Discord Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn 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

Welcome to Main Engine Cutoff. I am Anthony Colangelo, and I've got a special guest with me here today, Mr. Robin Seemangle. Thanks for having me. Glad to be on the show finally. Yeah, right? It's been a while. You've been on my list, so I'm glad I've got you. You know, the first year of doing guests here. It's good timing. Definitely. Yeah, it's, well, extraordinarily good timing. We're recording this seconds after Elon Musk finally posted the photos of the Falcon Heavy demo payload, which we'll get into. We're going to do a little bit of retrospective on 2017,

talk about some of the stories and trends that we saw this year that we were particularly excited about, and then look ahead next year a little bit just to set the table for what should be a pretty exciting year. So to start, what do you think, what is your story of 2017? Well, I have been along the ride uh at kennedy space center and i was the year started with um the debut spacex's debut at pad 39a which was a pretty big deal um it was the pad that launched apollo 11 uh toward the moon and facilitated space shuttle missions that assembled the ISS and, you know,

work on Hubble. So it's a pretty important launch pad. And for SpaceX to kind of be moving in as the tenant is a pretty big deal and a pretty, I want to say the optics are pretty extraordinary that SpaceX is moving into this, this pad that has so much of a legacy. So Gwynne Shotwell was there. Of course, it was a cargo resupply mission and a Dragon mission going to the space station. It was their return to flight at Cape Canaveral since the explosion at Pat-40. So Pat-40 was just, they just started working on it around that time and shotwell had said at the press conference as soon as they get that pad ready they're going to move single stick

falcon 9 over there and repurpose 39a for falcon heavy which is exactly what happened they kind of missed their time frame by a few weeks, but that's just space exploration. I think their time frame up front, everyone kind of knew would shift around a couple of months here and there. But, you know, I think they probably changed their plans partway through the rebuild when they realized, you know, this is the only opportunity we've got to make upgrades and not just rebuild it to getting flying. Because if they wanted to just rebuild it to get it flying, it wouldn't have taken as long. not just rebuild it to getting flying. Because if they wanted to just rebuild it to get it flying, it wouldn't have taken as long. But they wanted to get it up to speed with where they're at with 39A,

like you're talking about, this brand new pad that they've rebuilt and can really, you know, they've pumped missions out of there so frequently this year because of the work that they did to get it, you know, up to spec for what they need. Right. They had to build it for an X amount of cadence. And they were obviously looking a couple decades ahead. They leased the pad for 20 years. So that was a pretty important thing. And yes, they really proved that pad this year for their machines and that rapid capability that they're chasing.

They're still chasing a 24-hour turnaround. are chasing um they're still chasing a 24-hour turnaround they've they've mentioned a few times musk and shotwell have mentioned a few times that their next big goal beyond falcon heavy will be that that launch land 24-hour period launch land again it's that 24-hour turnaround that they're chasing that's what they need to print money. Yeah, exactly. That's like kind of, you know, I don't want to say it's the key to their grand plans, but you know, to a certain extent it is. I would actually agree with that. It is the key. Um, you know, what's holding everyone back from space exploration. It's, it's all, it comes down to the check always. So yeah, I would agree with that assessment.

One thing that stood out to me about the opening of Pad 39A, which kind of kicked off their year at Cape Canaveral, they had already had the Iridium return to flight. flight but she said that you know mars is interesting and we definitely want to go to mars but interstellar travel is is something far more interesting than mars and that kind of slipped under her her press uh her speech at her at the press conference but it was a funny moment for me because elon musk is usually the one who says crazy things and outlandish things like that. But to hear to hear Shotwell, who's who's always calm and composed and well-spoken and extremely smart, say something like this kind of shows you the vision of the company overall and exactly what they're chasing eventually. Yeah, she is always the one that feels like the grounded of the two. And she really, you know, she has the handle on the day to day stuff that's going on there and setting the roadmap for the short term while Elon is always out there talking about long term stuff. So it is funny that that is something that people don't really bring up as often as something like Elon

talking about Europa exploration or point to point travel or, you know, the far out things like that. It's it's an interesting turn of roles there for Shotwell. Yeah. And she's their ambassador. You know, they send her to meet with other space, private space corporations and represent them at the National Space Council and things like that. So one thing that I talk to other space reporters about, we cover IAC every year, which the last two years, Elon Musk has appeared there to talk about his Mars plan or SpaceX's Mars plan. But we hope that Gwynne Shotwell will do one of those talks at a future IAC. We think that would really bring that Mars colonization plan down to a more grounded level. That would be awesome to see because,

and you figure that that would happen as we get from where we are now is kind of this conceptual phase closer to, you know, planning the operations and planning how this is going to go down and the rollout of this new launch vehicle. So I could definitely see that transition happening as we get more real. You know, we're pretty real at this point. For other things that they've done in 2017, they had that tank burst test. They had I don't even know how many firings of Raptor this year. So they really are getting into the deep details of, you know, BFR at this point. But yeah, I from shotwell would be really

nice right and uh it's funny you brought up the how many firings at mcgregor i i actually went to mcgregor last month and i and you know i had some free time i tried to figure out i asked around like how many firings are there you know and has any idea. Because it is a lot. I mean, and it's just people don't notice it anymore. Or some people notice it depending where they are or the atmosphere that day. But it's a busy complex. And it's doing a lot of stuff. And yeah, McGregor is a very interesting place.

When I was there, I learned the backstory of the previous billionaire who tried to test rockets there and test engines and then built and then elon flew himself down there and leased and leased a place from the city yeah it's got a lot of history in it and you know given where they're at uh both at that facility and more south. They're looking towards Brownsville for another launch facility in the future. You know, you could see Texas becoming the heart and soul of SpaceX if it isn't already.

You know, everything goes through there. I think they just said the other day they had 400 Merlin 1Ds produced at this point. So, you know, there's a ton of hardware that flows through there. But if there is a launch facility coming online there in, you know, two, three years or something like that, McGregor really, you can sense that that would be the center of everything. Um, what I'm worried about is that they, you know, they, they speed up the building of that, that new launch pad and they move BFR, the first BFR launches to Texas.

I would, I would love to see those first few missions launch from Cape Canaveral, um, from Kennedy space center. I think Elon Musk, um, to kind of keep that legacy going or have SpaceX be part of that legacy is launched those first human missions from pat 39 aa i think it's part of that vision um did they rebuild pad 39 well did they refurbish pad 39a exactly for what they envisioned uh the bfr would look like or what it will end up being when it's manufactured, that's another question. So they have to build a fresh pad in Texas to just accommodate BFR. Let's face it, that is their plan, right? To kind of consolidate their entire fleet into a singular vehicle.

So why wouldn't they build a new pad in Texas just for BFR? So there is a chance that those first few crewed missions to Mars or the moon will not launch from path 39A like he envisions. So the thing that I get held up about is I could see the crewed stuff happening out of Florida, but the development of BFR, specifically when they keep talking up landing back on a launch mount. when they keep talking up landing back on a launch mount. Trying to convince NASA to let you fly back a giant booster directly at the heart of Kennedy Space Center seems like a tall task for me. So I could see them doing just development flights out of Texas and then still having that operational crew and all the seriousness that comes with Kennedy Space Center. You also have a lot more flexibility with launch directions out of Kennedy Space

Center. The Texas one would be pretty limited. So there's not a lot of, you know, there's a lot of speculation about what it may or may not be used for, but I could see it being used very heavily for development, but shifting, you know, the crew and the operational stuff over to Kennedy and sort of, you you know build up these two facilities um because we do see a history of spacex having a launch pad and building on building on as they're going through development and by the time uh slick 40 had that incident if you look at the transporter erector that was standing on pad 40 and the one that launched from 39a 40 was this old kludge you know they're sort of welding things

on in random places and 39a was this beautiful clean white structure and i think that shows you know this was us working in development mode and tacking on what we need and then once we've got everything ironed out we know what we need we can build it fresh and this is what it looks like i could see that mimicking um you know, Texas and then Kennedy for BFR infrastructure. I definitely see that happening. And I think what you're seeing is more long term, because I do think that they're going to manufacture BFR at Cape Canaveral, at least the first few ones and that's partially because of what i'm hearing from sources um i know that i think space florida may be involved in trying to get the financing for that but i do think that they they are aiming to build that first that first facility and if you go to Cape Canaveral now, there is a giant monolithic Blue Origin New Glenn Factory. Okay, Elon Musk debuted 39A this year.

It's really cool. There's a big hangar there. But then now, just open just a few weeks ago, is Jeff Bezos' factory. And let me tell you, it looms over the entire area. Even when you go to visit the Atlantis Space Shuttle, there are these giant windows. Jeff Bezos factory. And let me tell you, it looms over the entire area. When, even when you go to visit the Atlantis space shuttle, there are these giant windows and all you see is blue origins factory. And they put the logo on every side of the building. Like,

wow. No matter where you are, it's like a lighthouse or where you are. You see the giant blue origin letters. And it just looms over the whole facility. And I'm sure that SpaceX is ready to answer that. And I'm also hearing that they are going to lease another pad. I mean, another launch pad.

And that's always kind of been part of the plan. Landing Zone 2 is already a thing the landing zone three landing zone four will come soon um but i do think i think that you're right i think that long term they will have to build they want to build dozens of bfrs and hundreds and then so on and so forth they're going to need massive facilities in texas um where they can kind of build on untainted land, at least. And, you know, focus manufacturing there because of the limited launch capabilities that you mentioned. But I definitely see large manufacturing happening in Texas on the scale of how they I'm not too familiar with Tesla. But from what I've heard their manufacturing

facilities are enormous um so i see something like that for bfr especially if they want to build so many of them in a short period of time yeah and then when you consider just the the sheer amount of space you need to maintain a fleet you know they're already running out of hangar space for falcon 9 cores i read that it's like you know, to the point where they're going to start clearing some stock, I think, pretty soon. Even, you know, this won't come out till next week. But tonight, as of we're recording, there's an Iridium flight that isn't going to be landing again. We're not sure exactly why, but, you know, how useful are these old Block 3 cores that they can't really do much with? How useful are these old Block 3 cores that they can't really do much with?

I mean, that's exactly it. The Block 3 cores are kind of redundant. They don't need them. The customers, we the customers, don't need them. So it's kind of pointless to bring them home. It is. Storing them would be so expensive. Like you said, they were running out of space.

But yeah, they're evolving to block five next year um the rest apparently the first block five is the next falcon 9 due off the production line that's what i've heard that the next one that will roll off is a block five core that is so you know manifest wise that might not fly for a couple of weeks or months. But it is it is a testament to the 2017 that they had. They have just nailed this cadence of launching every couple of weeks. And they've reflown, I think, four cores with the one tonight would be five. And they they proved out their business model. And the next key to that is getting to block five. And by the end of the year, they've got one on a production line. So they've now proved out their cadence, proved out reuse so much so that NASA is willing to accept

reused cores for flights. And they're on the precipice of flying that first block five core. It is impossible to say that anyone had a better 2017 than SpaceX. That it's literally impossible they are you know um i published my wired uh year wrap-up today and there was one typo that that just made it in there and one of them it was it's supposed to say spacex but it said space and you know what i was like i'm just gonna leave that as that because this year they've really taken leadership in in space access um they're doing i want to say in a small in a small way they're helping a lot of smaller nations access space also which is a pretty extraordinary thing you know bulgaria

you know you have taiwan you have the you know, the, the Taiwanese launch was delayed quite a few years. Yeah. That's an understatement. Yeah. And it costs SpaceX millions, um, to eventually launch that. They launched it at a Falcon one price and yeah, which is pretty crazy, but you know, they made good on their manifest, but the point is, is that they're giving access to these countries and they're allowing you know the military to have more options um and more places to give their millions

and millions of dollars but you know i think like you said their cadence is up and they've proven that reusability is a thing now it is here to stay. It is normal. I mean, I've seen all eight landings. Um, and yes, it is getting pretty regular. It's, it's a thing that happens now,

you know, rockets come home, you know, I think it was yesterday was the anniversary, correct? Yesterday was the anniversary of the very first landing at Cape Canaveral. And that night was pretty extraordinary, um, just to see the whole thing but uh i was with spacex to visit the rocket but i wanted to be as close as possible so i left them went to the beach with my laptop and

the sonic boom i've never felt anything like that so it's pretty crazy and i do you're in your listeners i hope they do consider going down to cape sometime for a landing the launches are amazing but you want to go down for a landing definitely a ground landing yeah yeah that's for sure have people stopped complaining about the sonic booms yet no they still call the plane um it was a couple of missions ago where 2,000 people in the area called local police because of the sonic booms. I always get on this rant that, did these people not remember 10 years ago when the shuttle was doing this?

At night, in the middle of the night, blowing out their windows and whatnot? Let me tell you, being at Cape Canaveral for the last three years, I've realized that the shuttle era is, it does seem so far away because of how the area and how the, you know, just the whole town, the towns around Cape Canaveral,

all those people that lost their jobs from shuttle, that era just seems so long ago because the area has changed so much. And Kennedy Space Center has changed so much. You know, they touted this multi-user spaceport. It actually is. You know, they've actually followed through on that. You know, and NASA is an agency now. It's an agency that kind of allocates different sectors to different companies and sometimes acts as a middleman.

But with Starliner, Orion, Orion is NASA, but it's being built by a Lockheed team at Kennedy. Then you have ULA and everyone else using the facilities. But once Blue Origin gets in there, it's going to be extremely busy spaceport. Yeah. And you've got Orbital ATK, who's already got access to one of the mobile launchers that was left over from shuttle. They're going to start maybe putting together a launch vehicle of their own using part of the VAB. There really is a lot of traffic and a lot of competition. When it comes to Orbital do want to see how this them being purchased by northrop grumman is going to affect their their launch business they'll have more resources and more technology um large manufacturing larger manufacturing

facilities so i want to see if orbital will you Northrop, or is Northrop going to attempt to get in this heavy lift business too? They're a large aerospace company that's been around 60 years, probably longer, but at least during the space age, the entire space age. So I wouldn't be surprised if Northrop bought orbital for that purpose to get into this launch, this launch business. Yeah. And if they're going to double down and invest their own money, or if they're really just going to rely on some sort of air force funding to create a launch vehicle, that, that would be something to watch for in 2018. I think the deal is supposed to close in the first couple of months of next year. Um, I think there's still to go through some regulatory stuff.

But that would be very interesting to see the results of not just the Air Force's contracting round, but if other people start putting their own money up in the way that SpaceX and Blue Origin are investing so much in themselves. Right. Right. And just speaking on Blue Origin, you know, he's he's cutting off stock from Amazon and financing Blue Origin, which is. And that was his plan for a very long time. I mean, Jeff Bezos has had his eye on space exploration for decades and, you know, Amazon was his his his way into that and he's going to continue financing blue origin that way until they start turning a profit on suborbital and orbital missions um i still don't know how the the business plan for the suborbital tourist flights is going to work um obviously that's going to be a luxury for the rich um but you know

orbital flights once he gets new glenn flying the factory is there people they're moving in stuff i saw them they're moving in equipment and and supplies and things like that into the building and they're going to start building that rocket very very soon soon. Yeah, and they got the propellant tanks delivered that's going to be installed out by their launch site. So there's a lot of infrastructure starting to come together. And, you know, I think people think of Blue Origins 2017 as pretty quiet because there was this gap in New Shepard flights. We just had the last test flight,

but there was about a year gap between those. But when you look at what they did on the new Glenn front, 2017 was a very good year for them. They had a bit of a hard time with one explosion out of a BE-4 down on the test stand, but they did complete their hot fire successfully. They made some announcements about if they do win the ULA contract, they're going to open up production in Alabama. So they're definitely playing the politicking game a little bit.

And all their infrastructure coming together at the Cape, they are laying the groundwork for a very busy next few years. And very quietly, while SpaceX has this very loud, successful year, Blue Origin is kind of creeping under the radar and putting together the pieces that they need to really hit the market and make a big wave. Yeah, and the thing is with Blue Origin, they're playing it slow and steady, and they're pretty open about that. They're focusing on development and just perfecting development rather than launching missions.

And, you know, is it the case of the tortoise and the hare? No, because SpaceX is just, they're powering on. I mean, will Jeff Bezos catch up? What does that mean? launching new glenn first couple of flights and spacex will be a few falcon heavy flights down already and maybe a couple commercial flights but then nasa's gonna you know they'll have to pivot for a deep space contract commercial contract you know a deep space variant of the kotz contract that's the only way i see it going um it going. How much business is there going to be at the space station? There's still only one space station. There's not going to be two. The number of destinations has to increase with the number of competitors in the commercial market. If that doesn't happen, nobody's going anywhere. There's's gonna be a cap on missions that planet

earth launches which can't happen so nasa will have to issue deep space cots contracts and and the the top players for those contracts are going to be bezos going to be musk i think bigelow um and i think companies like boeing with starliner are going to continue operation at the space station. I think Dream Chaser is going to be one of those sleeper companies that just, you know, they're going to just start making money once they start launching missions for the United Nations and, you know, uncrewed launches to low Earth orbit. But, you know, Sierra Nevada, they are working on a human, a crewed vessel, a crewed version of the Dream Chaser, which they are going to enter into commercial crew bidding when that comes up again.

Yeah. So there's going to be a lot of players in this market. There just needs to be a market. And that's the real trick is you're right. You look at timelines and the iss decommissioning date is approaching it hasn't been officially decided yet but i personally where we're at right now wouldn't wouldn't necessarily be surprised to see it get pushed to 2028 but given that date even it's not very likely that blue origin would have a hat in the ring for any ISS-based contract, just because of contracting cycles and CRS-2 runs through 2020 already.

Right. That's exactly why they need to go straight for deep space contracts. There's nothing in low Earth orbit anymore. For the amount of money that SpaceX and Blue Origin want to make in order to bring a significant amount of people off the planet, the amount of money they need to make, low Earth orbit is not offering that. And you kind of see that with SpaceX's approach to their launch business. They don't really service the suborbital market. And a lot of launch providers don't really prioritize those kinds of missions.

And that market, the suborbital market of CubeSats and Microsats, that's going to be a $7 billion market in the next decade. And you have places like Rocket Lab and Vector Space getting into the game, which is awesome. It definitely seems to be, you know, we're hitting a point when not everything, not every architecture looks the same anymore. And it kind of felt like we were all competing at the same level of like, you wanted to start a launcher business, you had to hit the Air Force's target of, you know, you need this many kilograms to low Earth orbit, this much to GTO. And at this point, it's starting to break out and you're seeing people specialize in different ways. And I think that surprises a lot of people, especially when you see a new entrant

come on like Blue Origin and say, we're going to just be 45 tons to Leo. And everyone's like, wow, what are you going to do with all that? What exactly are you putting in Leo? Right. And that's the key that I think hasn't been talked about a lot. But Blue Origin, much like SpaceX, has their own plans. They have their own master plan of what they want to do in space. They haven't announced really any of it yet. They've announced a launch vehicle. They haven't really shed any light on, here's the things that we're going to be building and that we're going to be working on. pretty ho-hum about their internet constellation. There is a master plan like that for Blue Origin. And I think if you don't think that, you're kind of crazy to think that this company with that much resources, they don't have something else that they're thinking in the back of their mind is going to be their big thing.

And I don't think Launch Vehicle is it. You don't think that the Launch Vehicles are part of Blue Origin's long-term plan? It is only because it's a means to an end in the same way that SpaceX is. SpaceX wants to create a transportation architecture. They don't necessarily care about any given launch vehicle. They just kill launch vehicles left and right when they need to because their plans shift. Right. A launch vehicle is a means to an end. And Elon made that Chris LeClair at IAC this year when he said that all these spacecraft, the Falcon 9, the Falcon Heavy, the Dragon 1 and 2, are going to be cannibalized into a larger architecture.

Something consistent and reusable, fully reusable. But yeah, I mean, Blue Origin, we won't know their plans for years, I think. We're still a couple years off from New Glenn launching. Yeah, definitely. We're going to be waiting a while. I do wish that Blue Origin offered media access to some of their launches um now that they're starting to do payloads we have a better argument for that but um a lot of space

reporters do not appreciate just getting an edited video and packaged press release with photos in our email yeah no um it sucks and especially you want to get this stuff out to the public you have to do it in your own way you can't just be fed what the company is sending you and putting it out there so will blue origin i don't know i think blue origin would get much bit bigger and better coverage um if they did that allowed a little bit more media access. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how they progress. You know, they were opening up a little bit last year, and then, you know, this new test flight,

they were kind of closed-minded about again, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them open up through 2018 a bit. I want to shift the topic just a little bit because SpaceX had an incredible year. I don't think anyone had a worse year than SLS itself they had massive amounts of issues this year uh you know stuff that people have been about 2017 or 2016 or 2015 um yeah no that's SLS for you and you know i hate to it's a lot of jobs it's a lot of jobs um but the amount of money that the american taxpayer has pumped into that vehicle that is essentially based on

decades old technology and it still doesn't exist in a way that we can use it. It's horrible. It's, you know, when space access is being held back by finances and money and grants and things like that, and then you're spending all this money on this vehicle, it just doesn't work in the long run. I think we've suffered because of it. I think NASA's other programs, planetary science programs, and earth science and everything else have suffered because of the billions that has gone into SLS. Do I still think it could be built? Yes, absolutely.

But the delays and the issues, you know they're painting a pretty uh bad feature for sls the issues this year were particularly embarrassing um you know when it's this massive program and it comes down to a dropped dome of a tank and a welding tooling issue that you know kind of has them circling back and scrapping one entire tank for the test flight. These sort of things that seem like just kind of overlooked, you know, technical issues. How exactly do you drop a giant dome? Right. It's it's really bad. And I don't not a lot of info has come out about that. But, you know, somebody's got a really interesting story to tell about what happened that day that damaged that dome to that point.

It had to have been a serious malfunction of support ground support equipment right which is a pretty big deal um that means something the the dome is large very very large and that means the equipment holding it up or mounting it is also large and complex. That means that equipment failed. Why is that equipment failing? Don't we need to use that to build multiple of these domes and multiple space launch systems? When there's a problem in infrastructure, that usually translates to problems down the line. And I think it's telling, too, that it's telling of how little hardware there is for SLS coming through the pipeline, because SpaceX drops a lockstone, they can just throw it out the back door and, you know, pull one off the production line and things like that.

SLS, I get that, you know, a lot of these procedures are pushing the edge of, you know, what's out there today. There's a question as to why that is and why we are doing those sort of things. But when you drop one lockstone and it pushes your schedule so much, you know, that that is itself telling to how little they are actually producing right now where we are in the schedule. And, you know, can that be ramped up? Can that be pushed to launch more than once every two years? None of that has been proven out yet. And a lot of the NASA architectures that they're showing for the next couple of years have this timeline that eventually show you ramping up beyond that. But it's like, why does it take that long to ramp up this production line to a way that a dropped lockstone isn't horribly detrimental to your overall program schedule? And like you said, that is just a clear sign of where they're at. And like you said, that is just a clear sign of where they're at. And just the fact they don't even have backup plans for these parts and backup hardware or it's it's a it's a shit show.

I'm sorry. I don't know if I'm supposed to curse on this show, but. No, you can. That's a good one. It's a perfect description. Here's the thing. uh here's the thing orion is i think that um i've had personal experience visiting orion at the operations and checkout building at kennedy and seeing its progress over the years i don't report on it anymore um i mainly write about spacex now but when it comes to orion um i do see what's going on on the ground there and i know that they they work very hard there's quite a few teams on that program both nasa and lockheed and i know that at least for the last few months they've been really ramping up work like 12-hour shifts um doubles and just they're they're powering through

testing and power-ups and they're doing a lot of work. And what's slowing them down is the European Space Agency with the service module. They are months behind. And when I say months, I mean close to a year. So I know some teams have, or some folks, have been dispatched from the United States to Europe to kind of, I don't know, kick ass or just kind of nudge them

a little bit, or at least get an assessment for what's going on there. But, you know, Orion isn't too far behind. And they are, like I said, they work very hard on that. And just a side note, I know that Lockheed is kind of rebranding its space sector of its company. They used to be called Lockheed Space Systems. And now they're going to be called Lockheed space which isn't a big change but they do want to modernize and kind of make their their image more sleek when it comes to their space stuff um why do you think because you have companies like blue origin and spacex that have

they get a lot of media attention obviously obviously, why you and I are here right now. You know, we're doing a whole podcast basically about SpaceX and things that kind of orbit around them. So. And it's interesting with the Lockheed thing that, you know, they're pushing this Mars base camp idea pretty hard in their, you know, press announcements and things like that, their conference sessions and all that sort of thing.

pretty hard in their, you know, press announcements and things like that, their conference sessions and all that sort of thing. And I think that was met with a lot of skepticism because it's clear that, you know, Lockheed themselves are not going to put money and resources into this program outside of, you know, trying to market this as an architecture for the larger program that they are already a part of. And I think a lot of people see that, not just, you know, the people that are super dialed into the day-to-day goings-on. You know, it's clear that there are already a part of. And I think a lot of people see that, not just the people that are super dialed in to the day-to-day goings-on. It's clear that there are companies that put their own money out there,

put themselves on the line, put their own resources into their projects, and others that have these architectural-type drawings. Now, that being the case, this is a good time to put out architecture-based drawings when we see, in a lot of ways, space policy kind of moving on in spite of SLS's delays. a good time to put out architecture-based drawings when we see, in a lot of ways, space policy kind of moving on in spite of SLS's delays.

Not a whole lot has changed from a 10- to 20-year timeline if you really zoom out and look at this stuff, but there's been a couple of things this year, notably the Deep Space Gateway and all the talk around that. NASA started putting out this concept, and we've seen other agencies like JAXA and ESA, even Roscosmos to an extent, latch on to that idea and say, here's what we would do with that sort of architecture. Do you have any thoughts on the way that specifically Deep Space Gateway, but space policy in general has kind of been shifting into this more, you know, moon focused, but also, you but also NASA sort of tests the waters and waits to see

who dives in on that architecture before they officially announce a program. Do you have any thoughts on that? You know, one time Bill Nye visited Kennedy Space Center, and he said something that stood with me. He said, every time there's a new administration, the space program gets a hard reset. And he was right about that. the space program gets a hard reset. And he was right about that. When the Trump administration entered into office, I feel like everyone suddenly, I mean, there was talk, I think this whole moon rush snowballed in the early days of the administration when Trump's cronies were like, oh, let's try and put humans on EM1, which anyone outside of the White House would have told you that is the most impossible thing in the world.

That is never going to happen. And when that talk started going, the headlines were Trump wants to send humans back to the moon, because EM-1 was a moon mission. It's still a moon mission, but uncrewed. But I feel like it snowballed and snowballed. very old school defense military. And, you know, his aerospace, his, his space advisors were all, they were moon guys. They're not fans of Elon Musk and not fans of things that they cannot do. You know, they want the moon is safe. The moon's a safe policy decision when it comes to, well, I wouldn't say safe. I would say safer than Mars.

What is Trump thinking? Can I get humans to Mars in my administration? Everyone around him probably said no. Can they do the moon? Yes. Then that is a win for the Trump administration. So where is this moon rush coming from? It's trickling down from the White House through different levels of people wanting to please the president, including Bridenstine. So do I think that SpaceX could make money off of that? Absolutely. Can Bezos make money off of that? Absolutely. So why not? Absolutely. Can Bezos make money off of that? Absolutely. So why not? And I feel like partially the international latching on that we've seen to Deep Space Gateway is because not a lot of the international agencies followed NASA to a Mars focused architecture. You know, ESA has been talking up Moon Village for so long. Russia has been talking about doing the moon. They don't have any money for it, but they've been talking about it for quite a while. China's been talking about it. And when they see NASA say, hey, we would put an orbital station there, you know, anyone that's been thinking about it would say, well, yeah, that would be useful to us because it's something that they don't have to pay for in their own mission. So it's it is a little bit worrying for NASA that

the only reason there's international acceptance of this plan is because everyone else was already thinking about it and nasa just happened to go you know what maybe we'll head back to the moon about it together right yeah it's like ah kumbaya we'll hang out at the moon together the thing is i actually like mars base camp a lot i think it's a really a really great idea and it it technology, a lot of technology that we have already. Some things they still need to master are the habitat and the environmental controls. And Lockheed's plan for guarding against radiation, kind of moving soft goods around the orbiter and the habitat, I'm not a complete fan of. I think we need better protection. And SpaceX also plays

a kind of... They play it cool when you bring up radiation like Musk will. Oh, Buzz Aldrin's still alive. Yeah, but I think we still need to talk about this. He was up there for a few days. We're talking months here. Potentially years. So those are things that need to be addressed but mars space camp very cool idea um very feasible in my opinion compared to you know must plan what he has going on right now um in a way you know it's small a smaller mission but where does it fail it fails on the fact that it's dependent on SLS.

When there's no faith in SLS, how can we even begin to broach the topic of your Mars base camp? Now, Lockheed's funded until EM-2. They'll keep working until EM-2. But they need a deep space contract, just like I mentioned with Bezos and Musk needing those deep space contracts to continue existing, Lockheed has an entirely different business model for their space sector that doesn't resemble Blue Origin or SpaceX. They need government contracts to stay alive, just to exist. So what will Lockheed do?

That's why they're selling Mars Base Camp so hard. They sold it at IAC in Guadalajara in 2016 and did almost exactly the same pitch in Adelaide, Australia. They added a cool-looking lander. Yeah, the lander. But They added a cool-looking lander. Yeah, the lander. But okay, a picture of the lander, and that's it. Not what the lander does, not what it looks like on the inside,

what it's called, maybe, but it's just a picture of a lander. That's what Lockheed has to offer. So I think they need... lockheed has to offer so i think they need lockheed needs to completely rethink what their space their space sector needs to be do they need to break it off into a commercial space outfit um you know boeing and lockheed did have the foresight to see this industry kind of emerging and that's why they formed United Launch Alliance. But because they didn't innovate, they're falling behind.

So will Lockheed need to break away from Boeing and kind of do its own thing now, form a launch company, or build a space company that focuses on habitats? That does look like what their next generation of spacecraft is going to be. They're still a part of the NASA next step program, which is bidding for habitat designs. I think orbital is in there. Boeing's in there,

Lockheed and Bigelow and maybe someone else. But yeah, there's the, the nano racks team with the wet labs and all that kind of stuff. So you see, that's where this industry is heading. We need a platform for divvying up deep space exploration and access. And just like the LEO market and the suborbital market starting to get divvied up between who's around.

You have Worldview and you have Rocket Lab and the other emergency. I get sent links and emails quite often now of new rocket providers. It's pretty insane. I think in the last three months I've gotten maybe seven emails about, hey, these two guys left Lockheed or these two guys left SpaceX or this guy left Blue Origin and they're forming a new company. And I'm like, wow, this is happening pretty frequently. I'm also worried about what's happening to talent at these bigger firms now, now that they've reached a certain level and their employees are wanting a little bit more with their careers. So they move on to build their own companies.

There's a bunch of people coming up under Elon Musk who are ready to leave and ready to build their own rockets. They see what he's done and they think they can improve on it. That's where the next Elon Musk comes from. Yeah, there's a massive amount of small launch players. And looking ahead a little bit to 2018, to me, that's going to be one of the main stories because we're supposed to have Rocket Lab's second test flight.

That got pushed to 2018. Sounds like Virgin Orbit's going to happen in 2018. I'm not too big on Vector, but they're going to do a couple launches in 2018. I feel like there's going to be a lot of, you know, the small launch stuff is really going to start to emerge and head into operational capability in 2018. And, you know, a lot of people say there's too many small launch companies, and there absolutely are. But it's just like any other emerging market that some are going to die out, some are going to flourish. And that's kind of the way it is.

You know, that's the way it's been in a lot of other industries. Space is just now hitting that part when there's this massive influx of talent and ideas and new opportunities that are emerging. That is the really fun part. So I think if you're interested in small launch, you've got an exciting 2018 coming up. If you're not interested in it yet,

start reading up because it's going to be a big story heading into next year. A very cool thing that happened um not it was around the crs 13 launch um everyone this launch was scrubbed so we were all kind of bummed out at kennedy space center all the the press pool and all our friends you know we were all on twitter and just you know just being bored because that's what launch scrubs are and then rocket lab was about to launch so like everyone lit like everyone got so excited about rocket lab um we were tweeting at them and stuff but you know even

you know rocket lab is in new zealand their launch pads in new zealand but all the entire press pool at kennedy's space center and especially all the people that we are you know our space twitter their launch pads in New Zealand, but the entire press pool at Kennedy Space Center, and especially all the people that we are, you know, our space Twitter, all those people were all tweeting about Rocket Lab that night when, you know, it was supposed to be NASA's SpaceX mission that day. So it was a pretty cool thing to see them garnering that kind of attention and that kind of credibility. I mean, everyone was talking about Rocket Lab. Even though they didn't get the launch off, people are still super excited about what they're doing.

And the way they present their social media and their, you know, I see a lot of SpaceX in there, a lot of that presentation and that marketing. But hey, you know, it works. It's working for rocket lab vector space for some reason. I'm also not too much into that. I've had some awkward interviews with their top people. I'm not going to name names, but, um, I didn't end up publishing the article with the interview that I did with them last year. Um, still, you know, I'm going to wait and see where they go and then pick up on that. You know, like I said, I'm a person that covers SpaceX and Lockheed and stuff,

but I like when a rocket company takes itself super seriously and does marketing and does sell itself in a cool way that's accessible to normal people. That's really important in the space industry. So you want to talk about Falcon Heavy a little bit? Yes. We haven't even mentioned it yet, but we've got some photos now of the rocket. It's mated in the integration facility.

We've got photos of the payload. They're heading towards static fire in early January, it sounds like. I think the static fire is going to happen in the first week of January. And then two weeks later will be the test flight. That sounds pretty definitive. So I'm into that. Yeah, no, I think that, yeah, that is my, you know, we've been following it day to day. You know, I chat with other space reporters, Lauren and Lauren Gresh of The Verge and Chris

Debhart at NASA Space Flight. We kind of talk about it all the time, not to make them seem like losers, but I'm the loser that always brings it up. You know, we're keeping an eye on it. We all want to witness it. That's why. There's a lot of space reporters coming to Cape Canaveral. A lot of just people that just want to watch and are fans of Elon Musk and fans of SpaceX.

Yeah, I'm planning on coming down. Awesome. Are you going to do a show at Cape Canaveral? You should. We've been discussing doing either a show or renting out somewhere nearby that can have some fun at night so we're working on some plans for that we are having um we are having these first we're it's this is not official at all so i shouldn't

even say this but we're having a space correspondence dinner at the at cape canaveral um probably the night before the falcon heavy launch and obviously you're invited but it's going to be a funny thing to get all these reporters in the same place and people who do podcasts and and write and do photography all basically around spacex and nasa and things like that but we that's how big the falcon heavy launch is is that it is the only opportunity when all well not all but most of the country's space reporters um are in the same place you know there's only a couple dozen of us really and people that do you-specific, launch-specific stuff. But it's going to be an exciting time, whether it explodes or not.

And that is not from me. That is from Elon Musk himself. Yeah, as much as I can't stand it. That's my least favorite thing. Okay, here's the thing. I was really mad when he said that because think about it from the perspective of his employees at SpaceX who have been building Falcon Heavy and have been working super hard to get it right.

Yeah, to not have it explode. And then you hear Elon say that, oh, a win would be not destroying Pad 39A. Oh, thanks boss. Thanks for the vote of confidence that you've really been paying attention to all the testing that we've been doing for five years. Look, I'll be honest. I don't know what's going on with the Roadster. It's going somewhere. That's fine with me. We're going to get cool photos of the Roadster flying somewhere, at least for a few minutes um that'll be really amazing i'm sure they're loading up the falcon heavy with cameras at least the second stage with cameras to capture

some of that that stuff in orbit and um two so the side boosters are going to be coming back to landing zone one and the newly kind of revealed landing zone two um originally landing zone one was going to be multiple landing pads but now it's just landing zone one landing zone two so both those those side boosters are going to come back um there's going to be multiple sonic booms which will be insane and that core booster is going to land on the of course i still love you um out at sea so that day is gonna be um a visual feast of craziness and then social media is gonna have like tons of amazing content from spacex yeah it feels like the culmination of multiple years of build-up of you know all this excitement around spacex and their landings, because every time a SpaceX thing would happen, everyone thinks, well, that was awesome. But man,

Falcon Heavy is going to be really, really cool. So there's so much momentum leading into this. Yeah. And we've been waiting for so long. Like it's always kind of been around the corner, quote unquote. But there was the first disaster and the second.. And we've been waiting for these last few months because Elon finally put a month on the net date. He said November originally. Obviously, that got delayed and a little bit delayed. But to be honest, a delay from November to January is not that bad for SpaceX.

Yeah, especially Falcon Heavy. It's kind of a blink of an eye bad for SpaceX. That's actually Falcon heavy. It's kind of a blink of an eye for Falcon heavy. It's the best delay ever. Yeah, it is the best delay ever. Personally, I, I had plans.

My Chris, I'm, I'm here right now in the area because I had planned to stay down here during the holiday, just in case the static fire was going to happen. Now, me and Chris Jebhart from NASA Space Flight had a plan to just go to the... We were going to keep our eye on it, and then we were going to head to the beach an hour before

and bring bears with us and just wait there all day until they scrubbed it. That's not a bad Christmas break, you know, static fire or not. I think the plan still holds. Yeah. And, uh, that was the plan. Um, but the static fire is not going to hold, you know, it's going to be in January first week of January. We pretty much know that. So yeah,

I'm kind of glad I won't have to leave Christmas Eve at, you know, whatever time and go wait at a beach to watch this monster fire itself up. So anything else on your radar in particular, 2018 that you're amped up about commercial crew, maybes, uh, we've got, you know, some policy stuff maybe. Um, well, you know, my thoughts on Bridenstine, just to wrap that up. I don't think the NASA administrator, in my opinion, has that much power. I mean, the NASA administrator is a figurehead. They meet with the president, they kind of meet with heads of state, and they meet with heads of agencies, they shake hands, they sign papers. But the work at NASA is done by everyone underneath the leadership.

But the work at NASA is done by everyone underneath the leadership. And the money comes from Congress. It's not exactly out. The head of NASA doesn't even allocate the budget. So what power does the NASA administrator really have? None. Arguably, a decade ago, there was something that they could do to influence the day to day. But, you know, in the modern era of spaceflight flight there has never been an administrator with actual power no and so i think uh will i fight brian i

mean i didn't fight bridenstine's you know nomination i knew about it a long time before it became official i just i didn't care because i it's not we need to divert our energy toward other things. His job is not going to matter. We don't even know how long this administration is going to be in office, let's be honest. So that's not something that people should be fighting over. Yes, we know he doesn't buy climate change, but you know what? He's kind of the least dumb guy they've got in that administration.

So you know what? Let it go. Let him sit there. And he's a fanboy of space. He's a fanboy of SpaceX. I'm cool with that. Let him have fun for a couple years. And then we'll get back to business at some point.

So that's where I'm at with that. 2018, I'm hoping that SpaceX and Boeing both get their demo flights off the ground. That's my hope. That's where I'm at. I think the first crewed flights are going to be early 2019. That's what I'm hoping for. 2018, looking forward to more Rocket Lab stuff. Policy, honestly, it's hard to see where that goes nowadays. We've had, what, three announcements that we're going back to the moon,

each of them less serious than the last. Like, why? I was at Kennedy Space Center. Trump came on television. This was a couple weeks ago, to say, oh, we're going back to the moon and sign some paper. The sound wasn't even on on the TV at Kennedy Space Center. Yeah, that's telling.

Watching this again, you know, I listened to the National Space Council and who is headed by Pence. I can't even say that with a straight face. But when he says that America is falling behind in space and that we're no longer the leaders or whatever and then you have people like shotwell and and sitting there that is just an insult and it undermines what people have been doing in this country to access space and you know spacex i guess their latest number is that they have 6,000 employees. Something like that's a significant amount of employees. And all their hardware is built on American soil.

You know, so I don't know where the disconnect is, but I've been at Cape Canaveral for three years and I've seen some insane shit and lots of it. Like, I don't know. insane shit and lots of it like i don't know people have asked me how many launches i've seen since uh 2014 and i honestly have no idea um i've covered almost every ula launch too i mean i've written them up but i like watching atlas launches they're fun ula doesn't sell itself in a way that i like and you know they do need a rebrand and they are working on that from what I've been told. And they have the Vulcan coming up. But, you know, it's hard to sell

a ULA launch to a publisher. Let me tell you that. Selling a SpaceX launch? Easy as pie. Selling a United launch? First you have to explain what United Launch Alliance is. What, who again? Who is this? That's the thing.

I'm excited. I hope ULA bounces back. They've had a slow year and they've had delays, but everyone has had delays. So you can't put that on ULA. But I hope they bounce back. I hope they rebrand. I think they need a new name.

These are things that I've heard from sources that they are working on. think they need a new name. These are things that I've heard from sources that they are working on. So they need a new name. They need a new everything. They need a rebranding of their effort in order to be relevant in this new industry. I mean, this industry is half moneymaking and half inspiration. So you have these elements that NASA have built over the last 50 years of, wow, space is incredible. This is about exploration. This is about adventure.

This is about science. You have those elements still halfway. And then the other half is like, wow, we need money. Money, money, money. Yeah. Now that you're inspired, we need to make it happen. So you have those two elements and ula was was making money but they were not inspiring and spacex you know i wouldn't say that they go out of their way to inspire people but they just do it by doing what they do

you know what i mean? Innovation inspires, and that has just been the story with Silicon Valley and these emerging industries. But as long as, you know, I'm obviously excited for SpaceX in 2018, and I wish them all the best. I won't be witnessing their launches anymore after Falcon Heavy, all the best i won't be uh won't be witnessing their launches anymore after falcon heavy but i

do plan to return um covering them as a beat reporter sometime when those mars missions get started i'm not missing that you know yeah i'll be back for that um i that's always been my plan like i i want to be a beat reporter when the first human missions are launched to Mars. That's the only role that I see myself getting in there with. You know what I mean? What other way? But yes, I do plan to return. Now I'm going to go make different space content in the form of documentaries, short films, and things like that to kind of reach a better

audience i i don't want to um discourage my friend all the space reporters are friends of mine but i don't know if we've done enough yet to kind of get the word out there and i know there's so many people making i think i failed and in my attempt to reach a larger a larger readership to to to get them to know about what spacex is doing and for to know what nasa is doing and orbital and everybody else but i feel like we're not getting out there uh and it's because of the you know media and everything else but it's difficult man and i'm sure you have your own experiences with that, trying to get the word out. Definitely.

I'm very intrigued by whatever it is that you're going to be off working on. So I'm going to keep an eye out for that. I'm sure it'll be a little while before it all gets rolling, but Twitter is the best way for everyone out there to keep up with that. Yes, definitely follow me on Twitter. And I apologize in advance because not all my tweets

are space tweets um i do like to troll spacex quite a bit on there um which is fun for me because i have to face them at kennedy so awkward situations they're great um but yeah follow me on twitter i have two more features coming up in wired um um for falcon heavy um in early january so stay tuned for that and like i said if you want falcon heavy updates i will be following it throughout the holidays and stuff like that and i know people are seeing leaked photos but stay away from those because spacex publishing their own cool stuff. And they're much better photos. Much better photos and it's just much

cooler. Don't share the ugly ones. They suck. A great message to end the year with. Hopefully we'll hear from you again when I make my way down for Falcon Heavy. We'll put something together for what will be a very exciting week, I'm sure. You should book all the space reporters all at once.

At one time, just like put one mic down and let them go. Yeah. Just have them talking over each other and how excited we are. Yes. I hope to meet up with you for Falcon Heavy. I think we're going to do a lot of celebrating. So maybe we'll do a drunk podcast or something. Oh, that'll almost certainly happen.

Drunk history, Falcon Heavy launch. Yes. I love it. All right. Thank you very much, Robin, for being on the show. And thanks for hanging out with me for an hour. Yes. Let's do it again. Thanks again, Robin, for coming on the show. And thank you so much to all of you who made this show possible. There are 131 of you over at patreon.com slash Miko that make this show happen week in, week out. That includes 23 executive producers who produced this particular episode of Main Engine Cutoff.

Chris, Mike, Pat, Matt, George, Brad, Ryan, Jameson, Nadeem, Peter, Donald, Lee, Jasper, Chris, Warren, Bob, Brian, Russell, and five anonymous executive producers. Thank you so much for your support through all of 2017. And this will be the last show for the year, but we'll be coming back in 2018 for what should be a really good year with Falcon Heavy. Not too distant in the future at this point. So thank you so much for all your support throughout the entire year.

Have a great new year and I will talk to you next week. Thank you.