Off-Nominal - 11 - That’s a Peach

Episode Date: August 7, 2018

Eric Berger joins Jake and Anthony to talk about his recent trip to Kourou, the European launch sector, Commercial Crew announcements, and the social eating segment of JAXA launch streams. Beers Belgian White - Blue Moon Brewing Company - Untappd High Grade IPA - Fairweather Brewing Company - Untappd Philadelphia Pale Ale - Yards Brewing Co. - Untappd Topics As the SpaceX steamroller surges, European rocket industry vows to resist | Ars Technica America's path to space begins in Russia | Adrift - Houston Chronicle Proton M rocket explosion July 2 2013 slow motion full HD - YouTube After seven difficult years, a fine day for NASA and human spaceflight | Ars Technica How can NASA return to the Moon? By making everything reusable, chief says | Ars Technica One possible job for SpaceX’s BFR rocket? Taking the Air Force’s cargo in and out of space. EELV LSA Selection “Sometime in August” - Main Engine Cut Off An interesting passage about Atlas V Phase II engine configurations (relevant to AR-1-Vulcan?) Eric Berger on Twitter: Top thread on /r/SpaceLaunchSystem/ right now is titled, “If BFR Becomes Reality: What will the SLS's Purpose Be?” Picks When Biospheres Collide | NASA Space Craft is back with season 2 - The Verge Star Trek: The Next Generation (TV Series 1987–1994) - IMDb The Greatest Generation | Maximum Fun Follow Eric Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) | Twitter Rocket Report: Japan chasing SpaceX, missile-test failure, Russian trolling | Ars Technica Follow Jake WeMartians Podcast - Follow Humanity's Journey to Mars WeMartians Podcast (@We_Martians) | Twitter Jake Robins (@JakeOnOrbit) | Twitter Follow Anthony Main Engine Cut Off Main Engine Cut Off (@WeHaveMECO) | Twitter Anthony Colangelo (@acolangelo) | Twitter

D.L.S. and go for main engine, start. D'clock, and welcome on podcast off nominal, number 11. I'm I'm calling Jake, and here's Anthony. Anthony, how about? I assume that was the intro and that you said all nice things about me

and our friend Eric Berger, who is here with us. Hello, Eric. It's all right, on Houston. Bonjourno. No Italian allowed. I speak the best Italian of all. Bonsoir. Oh man, okay, well we got the show going.

That's a good sign. Murphy's Law tonight. Yeah, yeah. It always crashes and burns the worst when someone's watching. So that's just kind of how it goes. But Eric, how are you today? How are things in Houston? You know, it's great.

Actually, we had that astronaut ceremony on Friday. And I was really, really taken aback by that. it felt really good to see, you know, the astronauts come out on stage and be so energetic and to be probably with about a year into flight and talk to them about sort of what they've been through. I'm not sure what it looked like online for people who watched it, but being there, it felt pretty special. And frankly, you know, it's been such a funk here in Houston since the retirement of the spatial. It was a really good day. Do you think that it feels good to see an American event in an American chair in an American

room with American astronauts in an American show? Somebody told me that it was Steve Balmer, but America instead of developers. And it was the perfect reference. America, America, America, America. We need to do a super cut of Jim Bryenstein and saying American, and then we'll make like a video of it. It's too good. Let's not make too much fun of Jim Bryansstein. At least he didn't get up there and do a Pence and say,

I want to welcome you to Johnson Space Center, you know, under the great presidency of Donald J. Trump. Wait for the applause line. Yeah, like, you know, he never mentioned Trump once. I mean, he doesn't. He's really good about that. I mean, I know he hit the America thing pretty hard yesterday.

He did say, you know, the NASA is as good as ever been. But, you know, he's, I'm not going to make fun of him too much because actually I think he's doing a really good job. He was in his element. too, because he was, you know, Navy pilot talking with other test pilots, and he was like, he definitely had more of a, he didn't feel like an administrator talking to astronauts. It felt like he was, he saw them as like his people, which was a cool thing. Jake, we skipped the entire beer segment already.

Yeah, everything. We just jumped right into it. We totally blew our non-format. I saw Eric drink of beer, so I was like, oh, that was part of the show. The only thing we're worse at than sound is format, I think, is probably the, uh, The truth there. Eric, what was that? I saw something pop up on screen there.

You had a beer coozy because you kept it cold through all of our tech meltdown. That just happened for the last 20 minutes. I like my beer about as cold as the permanently shadowed regions on the moon. It's a blue moon because it's a Belgian white beer, and that's my favorite kind of beer. And hopefully blue moon gets funded at some point from NASA, although I think it's going to be a pretty hot competition. over the next couple years to see how that... About how often would that happen, that they would fund such a program?

Well... Like once in a blue moon or... Well, they've done it once in their history, so not very often. But I think, you know, we're going to get some kind of an RFI over the next few months, and we'll see who responds to it and we'll see what that looks like.

But it's interesting. I mean, we're getting to the point, probably within next year. So we'll see NASA put some money on the table for at least at mediums. Islander. And, you know, at that point, Blue Orange will have to be pretty specific about what they're offering. And you'll still be drinking Blue Moons. I love Blue Moon. I love Blue Moons. One of my favorite beers. Belgian guy. Wow. I don't mean a lot of Belgian fans.

Belgian beer fans? Really? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It seems like, you know, everyone's like, it's good. But like, you're the first person who said this is my favorite kind of beer. I would drink one, no questions asked. I would also drink one. I love a good Belgian. What's all this? You're just, you know, judging us all over here. I just, I've never heard before. I just, I'm, I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued about the possibilities here. What do you got, Jake? So I had the great pleasure of meeting one of our listeners last week. So Chris was in town and he, uh, he was over from, from Hamilton, Ontario when he brought me a, uh, a Hamilton, Ontario beer, which you can see right here.

That is the most ornate label I've ever seen in my life. It's kind of pretty... It's juicy, dank, and tropical. This is the thing is that it's got these nice flower label. It's the Fair Weather Brewing Company in Hamilton, Ontario, high-grade IPA, and then it says juicy, dank, and tropical. So, yeah, it's pretty interesting. And it's, I've got a lot of condensation on here.

I must be very humid here today. But I'm very excited to try it because I haven't been to Ontario in a while. And, yeah, it's good. So I'm going to pour it, find out. Do the thing. What are you working on Anthony? Jake always opens his, like, within audible range of the mic, but he didn't today.

I've got, so back in, Jake, when were you in Philadelphia? March? Yes, March. So I've got a Yards Philadelphia Pale Ale. They, when we were at, we did this meetup, Eric, in March, when Jake was in town, after he was in Houston, this is relevant. And we did a little meetup at Yards Brewery, which opened in Philly. But they, at that time, they weren't actually operating.

that brewery. Like it was still, they were moving all their stuff over still. They've got it rolling now. They started producing canned beer for the first time. So I bought a case of it to give it a shot. And they've got this sweet new design of their cans. It's pretty nice looking. So Philadelphia Paleo. It's kind of my go-to, like, need a case of something. That's what I grab. So going with the old standard tonight. It's good. Yeah? Drinkable, you know? Good and drinkable. That's what we're looking for. I'm trying to not only drink IPAs. I'm not doing a very good job of it tonight,

but it's like a new thing that I'm trying. And it's not going great. I'm going to go away. Eric, did you drink anything of note in French Guyana? I drank a lot of French Guiana beer. I wouldn't like to hear about that. That's pretty interesting. What was really interesting was like,

Heineken has some kind of licensing deal there because Heineken was everywhere, and I don't really like Heineken. But fortunately, there was some good, locally brewed French beer, or beer in French Guiana. And then actually Suriname is just north of French Guiana. So I had some Surinamese beer as well, which was kind of a trip. But yeah, it was all pretty good, the beer there.

I'd give it a thumbs up. It's interesting about French Guiana. I had never been to South America. And so when I got there, I was like, all right. You know, I'm in South America for the first time. And some of the hosts I was there with said, No, this is actually France. And so you're still in the European Union.

So technically maybe I wasn't in South America. I don't know. But anyway, I had this down there. It was cool. You were geologically in South America, but culturally you were in Europe. Sort of, yeah. Yeah, it's kind of a weird, like, little secluded, not real place in the middle of a real place. it feels like, I don't know, it's hard to describe, but

did that make any sense? Probably not. No, I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's interesting, like each of the major space ports kind of has their own biome. Like Kennedy Space Center is tropical, but it's kind of like beachy and, you know, you're looking at gaiters and swampy areas.

Kazakhstan's very dusty. It's a steppe. It's, you know, Asian step. You know, it's super hot in the summer, and it's, super cold in the winter. So like I said, it's kind of like a desert. And then this was a jungle.

Like they like it beat back the jungle constantly to sort of keep their facilities up. And, you know, you look at the buildings that were built in the 1990s. And they look like they're from the 50s or 60s. I mean, because it's just, I guess, the humidity there and the tropical rains and stuff. They're just really hard on their facilities. I wonder if that makes it worth it, because you get, you know, big benefit of being there just so close to the equator,

and I wonder how much of that you, that savings, you know, in performance in your vehicles, you spend back, trying to upkeep the facilities against the elements. That'd be a cool case study to read one day. I think it's not just the performance. I mean, the performance is considerable. It's even, it's like even 15% more

than Florida and like you could do like 30% more massed orbit than than Soyuz, a comparable Soyuz launched from Bikon. But it's also the fact that they can launch toward a polar orbit from there because it's kind of like at an angle on the coast and you can also launch eastward. I mean, if you think about it in Florida, if you in Europe, you can't launch eastward from anywhere, really. I mean, I guess maybe parts of Great Britain, I guess you could potentially get away from, but then you're super far north. So it makes sense. I mean, especially for France, which basically like, you know, they had this thing called

the Europa rocket, which I didn't really know anything about in the 1960s that was this contraption of like a British first stage, a second stage, and a German third stage. And it kept blowing up. And so, like, after that, the British were like, we're out. And the other companies kind of stepped back. So it was really just France and to a lesser extent, Germany kind of holding the candle. and so they went to the one place really that they could launch from. The whole European rocket story is really fascinating to me,

like how it all came together. Because it seemed like really, if you read up on it, like really kind of promising in the 70s, like late 60s and 70s, they really kind of hit it with a lot of velocity. And then, yeah,

that Europa rocket, which was basically tied together with sticky tape was, you know, didn't have great success. And then it kind of collapsed where they had the two organizations. there was like a launched company and then like a research, you know, organization and they merged together to make ISA. And then it just seemed to kind of like settle down into the nice kind of low-key pace that it is today. It's kind of an interesting story.

It is an interesting story. And it's what was striking to me is that how it could have definitely gone sideways back in the 1970s if the French kind of hadn't stuck with it. Because the Italians started buying these U.S. rockets, these small. scout rockets they were launching off a platform near Africa and you know that does I say the British basically just stopped building them and and then they and then they kind of came together and it was really because the success with the first area on rockets that people the other countries look that said oh well we want to be a part of that so they they came back came back together but it almost didn't work out I do appreciate how there's like a certain level of honesty with

Europe's launch industry in general that I feel like does not exist in the U.S. at all, like on a national level, you know, because Europe is always very clear that they're like, we're trying to maintain a European launch sector and we, you know, sell on the commercial market to make it viable. And your article, you had a big long piece about your trip down there, and you laid out that case very well, which was like, we basically aim to cover our costs, but it turns out we've made a lot more than we've covered our costs. So things have been working out. But you know, you get the sense that even if they were just able to cover their costs by like a dollar, they would still be doing it because they see that value

in keeping that European launch sector alive, which, you know. Right. And I think they've got two factors really working against them. One is the main threat of SpaceX and to a lesser extent Blue Origin, which isn't on the market yet, but he's starting to get launch contracts in the early 2020s. And so there are these commercial rockets that are coming along that are very competitive. And then there is the declining orders for geosatellites, which was their meat and potatoes for the 1990s and the 2000s. I mean, that was the area on four and five rocket were built to serve that market. And so you've got other competitors aggressively coming into that, and you've got fewer orders on the commercial market.

So it's difficult. My sense is that even if financially it's a money loser for them, they would keep going just because they want to maintain that independent capacity. I mean, it's pretty clear, especially now the way the U.S. foreign policy is set up, you know, sort of to antagonize Europe on a number of fronts, it seems like, that they're not going to be one of people holding to us or our companies to get into space. Yeah. I figure, like, it makes sense for them to, we often think about this argument in terms of

American, you know, perspective. So we talk about it, is it worth it to invest in a government-sponsored industrial base in the United States when you have American private companies? But when you do the European comparison, some of those arguments fall flat. Like, yes, it's cheaper to maybe go across the ocean and use SpaceX. But at the same time, that national. capability is cast in a different light, I think, than the way we look at stuff in the United States. Yeah, they don't want to be, you know, they just like the U.S. military wants their assured access to space, you know, the European military such as it is, but moreover, their GPS system and, you know, Earth observation systems, they want to have an independent access to space too.

So we went the route in the mid-2000s of the EELV program. But they're sort of plugging along with area on space, and they've built the Aeron 6 rocket to try to be more competitive commercially. We'll see if that works or not. I think the jury's out. But I also feel pretty confident that if you're a commercial buyer of multiple satellites or provider of multiple satellites, you're going to want to make sure that it's not just a SpaceX,

or it's not just a blue origin in the market. So you're going to maybe throw some contracts there too because you want to maintain that competition. Yeah, and you don't want one rocket to have an anomaly and then your whole queue of payloads is all messed up, right? So what did you get the sense here? I get the vibe that this was like a in the run-up to Aryan 6 kind of trip in general. I assume that was a lot of their positioning of it?

Or was this more of like, we haven't really done a lot of outreach and maybe we should have somebody swing on by French Guiana because nobody ever comes here? Or maybe they were trying it out in prep for people to come down for James Webb, which is when I assume they will have more tourism to French Guiana than there ever has been for space nerds? So I think it was more of the latter, the fact that they're like, they, people in Europe don't even know that they have a space agency, right? And so they were bringing over some journalists from a lot of journalists from Italy, some from France, a couple from Britain. And then they actually invited me and they invited Caleb Henry from Space News.

He couldn't, he could not, ended up not being able to go. But his loss, because it was awesome. It looked like a great trip. It really, really was a great trip, very eye-opening. And it was really cool to be able to get in to see all their facilities and sort of meet their key people. and just to really kind of understand where they're where they're coming from. And, you know, they really, I think, are just looking at ways of getting more attention. And so I think that was why they did the trip. And actually, I told them that what they really ought to be doing is the next time they have an area on five launch is they ought to bring down, you know, there's like these dozens of kids like in their teens and 20s at the Cape that they're,

take these just incredible launch pictures. Oh, yeah, yeah. I said bring down a half a dozen of those kids and turn them loose and let them, you know, let them take these, you know, some awesome pictures of your launch and then share that. And then that'll get your, you know, the United States will be looking at the, what is that rocket? Whoa, that's really cool. Because it's a pretty nice scene of the rocket taking off from the middle of the jungle that you don't really see. And so the response I got to that was, we're going to consider.

of that. But the people who take pictures for them are, I don't know if it's a union or not, but it's basically like they have like, they take the pictures, right? And they don't, you know, other people coming in to take their picture. So I don't know if that's going to work out. But, you know, if you're thinking about going down there for James Webb, I would just say that, you know, the viewing area is really far from the launch pad. So it's not, it's not like going to see a Soyuz launch. where you're, you know, a mile and a half away. You know, all those people that have been there for Soyuz launches all over the world,

the thousands. But even like the, you know, even like the Falcon Heavy launch where you were, I don't know how far is the media center from the... Yeah, it's pretty close. It was close enough that Jake and I were like, this feels like we're maybe a little too close to this thing. No, no, no. But, I mean, it's like seven miles or something like that, I want to say.

It's really far. because they took us, they took a sense, oh yeah, like, because like you're in the controls, you're like behind a glass wall looking at the control center. That's where they VIPs are, and then they go out on the balcony to see the launch, but it's like seven or seven miles away.

Wow, even that is seven miles? Yeah. That's kind of nuts. Yeah, so, I mean, you know, I don't want to tell anyone not to go down there because it's a cool place to go and to check out, but maybe, I don't know. I'd do it if they need,

both space podcasters and beer reviewers. I feel like we've got that market cornered. You guys have got that. I don't know, Matt from Interplanetary was there, and he also has that market cornered. Yeah. I mean, the European, the PR guys, like, for the ESA and for the area on space, were just, you know, really cool people to hang out with, you know, very open.

And yeah, they were just trying to get more attention on what they were doing, you know. So what was the most surprising element of that trip for you, of, you know, whether that was the actual facilities there or something that they were said. What was that takeaway for you? I guess it was just sort of, it was really kind of getting a sense of the history that they'd been doing this for so long, you know, and that sort of really having it hammered home that the commercial market for satellites was not created in the United States. It wasn't even in Russia.

It started there. They were the first to come to the market and say, if you've got the money, you know, we've got a rocket, we'll sell their services to. Because, you know, before, before the late 80s, you couldn't, you couldn't launch a, you know, you couldn't really fly that space in a shuttle, especially after a Challenger. And, you know, Russians weren't launching commercial stuff really back then. And so, I mean, they, they said, well, we'll launch it for you. And that, you know, so they kind of, they kind of view that as their market. And sort of to seeing how they've reacted to SpaceX and, you know, because before SpaceX, you know, I mean, it was them in Russia that

dominated that market. You know, ULA was just not competitive price-wise with them. Yeah. Because the Arian 5, you could put two satellites in there. Two satellites, yeah, yeah. $180 million, you know, the primary is paying like $110 and the secondaries paying the other half. It's still less than Atlas 5. That was kind of the, it's kind of the one of the, the claim to fame to the that of the Air N5 was its ability to, like it had a pretty, for its time, like the lift

capability on it was pretty impressive when you really get down to it. It's a big rocket. I mean, it's still one of the highest ones out there for, you know, GTO. It's a big rocket. It's a big rocket. Yeah. I always trying to think about how I could leverage because being Canadian, I'm technically an ESA member state.

And so I always try to think about how I could like, you know, use that to go to some sort of launch. I'm like, there's like 5% of me that is like thinking about saving up money and then trying to go after the Xomars launch in Kazakhstan somehow and like make it make it a trip, you know, I'm like, like go out there and see how weird of a place it is and, you know, see a, see a Mars launch. What is XOMAR's launching on? A proton.

I believe one of the last protons probably, right? How close is the, I don't know where the viewing area for the proton is, how close that is to the It's within the radius of that one in 2013 that just turned around and decided it was going to head back gone down to the Kazakhstan step. Well, I will tell you, for the Soyuz launch,

it was like, it was like a mile and a half overhead. Are we allowed to curse on here? Yeah. Okay. So it was... What a preamble to the Soyuz story. It's a preamble.

So it was a 2014 launch of Butch Wilmore to the space station and a couple of Russians and so like you're standing there and the rocket is like I don't know what it is mile or a mile and a half it's close because when it goes up

it feels like when it gets I don't know a little bit up in the sky it feels like it's almost going overhead and so it was cool but also like a little nervy because you're like man you know

so I just remember like walking back to the buses after that launch and Mike Sufferdini, who was then the program management for the International Space Station, saying off the record, of course, that I said something like, boy, Mike, that rocket really seemed like it was over our heads. He's like, yeah, if that had exploded, we'd all been fucked.

So. Super great. So it was, it was that, I, from a launch perspective, I think the Soyuz would be the way to go. And a proton is as close, If you're that close to a proton, then I would definitely. Is there even like a site there, or were you just kind of out in the fields?

It was like... Whatever it is. It was like very large deer blinds, as I would characterize it. And then like, so they had like sort of like the media, like three areas for bystanders in the media. They were like 150 or 100 people there. And then they had like a smaller area over where the family was with the NASA officials. But like, I mean, you're all walking back to the same buses. So, I mean, you're all together.

It was so different, you know, because if you do a NASA launch, a space shuttle launch back in the day. And I'm sure commercial crew will be the same way. Like, the family is completely segregated, you know, from the media and, you know, the entire time. And, like, so the media has their little area or their big area. And then everyone else is kind of kept away from there. There, everyone's, like, together. Like, you know, you're traveling out to the rocket rollout, the family is there. when it gets put on

vertical on the launch pad the family's there and they're standing right there and it's totally different peeing on the bus tires and stuff we didn't see the peeing on the bus tires is that actually a thing I'm told that's actually a thing

yes I've always been like a is that a thing seems like a pain but the question is you know how the women do it right that's why that's what that's what mainly comes into my head right yes they have a cup they bring they bring They bring it ahead of time.

These Russians and their traditions, none. Yeah, don't they still like, they still like bless the rocket and everything. Yeah, they're the whole thing. Yeah,

we got to see that too. That was a, that was fab. Well, you really have to commit to not changing anything since 1960, whatever.

60, yeah, 61, right? Well, I mean, everyone who's developed anything knows that once you start changing stuff,

that's when it breaks. So it may as well just, just do it exactly the same forever. And that's really working out for their rocket. market industry now in the 20. NASA's 2. Mass is trying to change.

Come on. Parts. Try it. To the bar. Yeah. All right. Let's shift to the commercial crew stuff because that seemed like a lot of fun yesterday. You've had like what a couple of months you've had here, Eric.

This has been like space nerd heaven for you. I have a ridiculous, ridiculous. You're on a good run here. You talked to Gwen Chowell while yesterday. This is like she would be like, the patron saint of the Off Nominal podcast if that was such a thing Yeah Gwen's a badass

She um yeah she's a badass It was no just so what it was is Most of the media had filed out But I was sitting there talking to Chris Davenport He's the Washington Post reporter He and our friends He's one of the I mean he's great He's great guy a fabulous reporter obviously

And one of the people I consider real real competition On this beat but we're sitting there waiting to talk to Ted Cruz because Ted Cruz was there and he is a human being by the way not an alien I can confirm that I'm sure he's not like an android or something or it didn't well he was

excellent on no matter what you asked getting back on message although I did ask him about the BFR to try to say hey you know you're you're the center from Texas they test their engines here and that thing is going to launch from Texas You know, I mean, what do you think about it? And I'll have a story on that that next week, by the way.

But it wasn't great. I mean, I wish you'd say it. But he like talked about that for a second and then pivoted back to his message, which is all the great things Ted Cruz has done on space as the center. And to be fair, the last couple of years, he has been very good for commercial space. Anyway, she was, as we were waiting, she comes walking down the hallway. And so we just, you know, grabbed her for a minute because, you know, we both knew her. she was great man she's very you know Gwen is just always super high energy I think you'd have to

be to sort of work next to Elon um and survive that um but she was she's fired up she said you know i've got a date for i've even got a date when we're going to launch in november that's sort of how confident she was but she said they wouldn't let me they wouldn't let me tell that today so thanksgiving oh yeah it's i i one of them either Canadian or American i don't know which I mean, no turkey, right? I think it, you know, I think it's probably if it happens, it would be sort of in the last 10 days of November. So there you go.

You heard it here first. You heard it here first. That's right. Can I just go off for a second about Victor Glover? Yes. Man, I got a man crush on that guy. He's a bad. Is that your profile picture in the Discord, Eric?

Is that big? I put that up because I love that picture. The one, the double thumbs up? all those pictures that they put up that Bill Ingalls took of them and like their charged up moments like you know are great I mean those are

that that was like the energy of yesterday it just I mean it felt cathartic for that space center and for people you know it was a great day so yeah yeah his picture was the best though well he he was the best charismatic entrance of all of them yeah yeah it was

did you get a sense like And this is this is the outsider question here. So bear with me. But like, I mean, there was a lot of like American rah-ra on this. So like, did you get a sense of like how much of this, this like fanfare was just kind of waving the flag and how much of it was like really genuine? Thankfully, this is this is finally happening again. Like can you can you interpret that? So here's the deal, right?

Since 2011, Houston has got the shaft. on space flight, on NASA's spaceflight. Marshall has had the space launch system. They've had Richard Shelby making it rain for them. And they've had a lot of good, you know, a lot of funding going there and a lot of activity. And they've had a lot of growth. And Florida has seen this, you know,

they took it in the short's hardest right after shuttle. they had the most layoffs and things like that. But they have made a really nice comeback with the spacecraft manufacturing facilities there, with Blue Origin located there, with the sort of renewed launch activity of SpaceX and the promise of more launches. So, you know, Florida has had a nice renaissance. But what, you know, what has been happening in Houston? Yeah.

They've been building Orion, which they've been doing since 2004, 2005. They're managing the space station program, which may go away in 2025, may go away in 2030. But the astronaut corps has shrunk by in half, been cut in half. This big flight directorate, which oversaw seven shuttle flights a year in addition to Space Station, And, you know, now they're not managing any flights. I mean, when the humans launched the space station, the flight directors in Houston watch it. They watch the Russian feed, you know. They're not in control.

They're kind of along for the ride. And so it, you know, it, my perception, they wouldn't, obviously they wouldn't tell you this. But, I mean, it's been a really hard seven years for Houston. So to be back in the game of actually overseeing launches, you know, it was a big deal. It was certainly much, it was the biggest deal. And I would submit it was a bigger deal than the EFT1 launch back in 2014. I mean, think about it. They have had a flight director and flight team assigned for EM1 for like two years.

And all due respect to those people, what, what are they doing? doing everything. Your flight planning for a mission that's going to happen, not going to happen probably for at least two more years. And it's, it's, you know, anyway, anyway, so all that to say to sort of have nine people assigned to flights and to have that seem real and now being back in the flow of training for those missions like you were in the shuttle before 2011, that was a big deal. So is there anything that you could glean from particular assignments? I know there was even just here in the Discord, there was like, oh, Sunny Williams isn't on one of these first flights. I was like maybe she got a longer assignment on ISS or I don't know what goes on behind the scenes.

But was there anything in particular that you're taking away from, you know, that list of names? Yeah. So, okay, so first of all, Sunny Williams, good question. I don't have the absolute answer, but I think it was the fact that by going on the second Boeing spacecraft, she gets to do a mission. be the leader. She gets to be the commander by default because she has the experience and she gets six months on station, which I think she wants. But I don't

have 100% knowledge of that. Because I can tell you she didn't do anything wrong during training. And like she was being the only woman in that the cadre of four, you know, had very high profile. So I think that was probably her choice.

A couple other things that stuck out. One, they didn't name commanders, which was really surprising to me. And I had assumed that Doug Hurley and Eric Bow would be the commanders because they are the only, they are two of the last three shuttle pilots left at NASA. And so they're like, they're the only, there are three people at NASA

who have flown a spacecraft in space, Doug Hurley, Eric Boe, and Butch Wilmore, and all the other shuttle pilots and commanders are gone. Which is crazy to think about. just being seven years removed from the shuttle. So I don't know why they did that. I've got to go back to some sources and really figure that out. They're going to do that later,

and they may not even do like commander and pilot. They may do like, I don't know what they're going. They may still be working on names. It's kind of strange. I will also tell you that the Chris Ferguson edition, which obviously we've known about for, was clear that was going to happen for several years was not universally a

loved thing at NASA you know so that he got the slot and was sort of touted so highly was was interesting to me um well was that even a slot though like it wasn't just hey we've got extra seats

and I'm an astronaut and I would like to go to space also Yeah, because it's super strange, right? There's also the, you know, Boeing is also offered to add an extra person to the first flight test to help NASA with its need. By the way, do you want to know how much they asked for that seat? Take a guess of how much money they wanted for that seat. Wait, who asked for what seat? This is how much money Boeing asked for an ex-net would charge.

charge NASA for an extra seat on that first flight test to get another crew member on station for long duration flight. 50 mil. How much does Russia charge? 87. 80, 50, 50.

Yeah. So I have a, I have not, NASA would not confirm this. Boeing would not confirm this. This comes from a source who is my most plugged in source on commercial crew. They ask for $110 million. dollars. I hope our reaction was, was the reaction at NASA when they said that. I really hope that was the case.

I think it could still happen. But that's them just, you know, so that is, you know, Boeing does a great job. They're a great company. They have a storied history. But they're in the space business, like they're in the airplane business to make. money. And that was pretty good evidence of that. What is the, I'm trying to remember now, if you divide the whole commercial crew contract up by the amount of flights, what is the per flight cost on a starliner? Let's see. They got, was it, $2.4 billion? And I don't know how many

flights, the first contract six, I think? Six. Including the demos. So, well, I mean, roughly then, you know, 2.4 million billion divided by 12. Wasn't Boeing's 4 billion? No, no. It was 2. It was double SpaceX

on the cargo one, I think, right? It's 2.4 and 1.6, I think. I'll look it up. It doesn't matter. It's astronomical regardless. Yeah. 110 million for a seat that I don't get it.

It was, the thing's going to space. They tout that there's like seven seats. in it. I'm just telling you that is... Like, lift line is a lot cheaper than a regular lift. That's what I'm confused about. Okay, you guys were right. I was wrong.

My bad. Bowling got $4.2 billion in CCTV cap, and SpaceX got $2.6 billion. But that and that... This is great. This is a great podcast. But you know, you've got to think about it. it, that's not, that's not, that's not for operational flights so much, is those are development costs.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, you're not going to get, you know, you're not going to get value on that right away. And so I think that the second phase of contracts would get you a much closer to a per seat, per seat price. But, but the analysis that I've seen have suggested that it would have been just cheaper to buy or sole use flights for the entirety of the program. But politically, politically, that doesn't make any sense. And if you're, if you're NASA and you do want to stimulate the commercial market, which they have done a fantastic job of. People bag on NASA, I bag on NASA, but they are the stimulus for commercial activity

and have done a great job of that. And the commercial crew program is evidence of that. But anyway, to go back to that $110 million, the way sort of, you know, it's been explained to me is that when Boeing gets a contract like this, I hope I don't get myself in legal trouble here. But I mean, when Boeing gets a contract, sort of the lawyers and company officials look at it

to figure out how they can maximize the value that contract. Right. And when SpaceX gets a contract like that, they sort of throw it on the pile with the other five things that they're working on kind of running around. So like, you know, in Boeing, it's kind of run by lawyers

and SpaceX is run by graduate students kind of running around, pulling their hair out, you know, working 20-hour days. And so it's kind of the different cultures. And it's going to be really fascinating to see who gets there first. I think it's still way too early to determine which company is actually going to get there first, get to the launch pad with people. I'm curious to know what the contract looks like on a granular level like seats because the news releases we see is like here's the amount of flights or here's the amount of price.

But is it the price the same if you put two or four or six people in the capsule, right? So because I think it's going to be four. I think a nominal flight will be two NASA astronauts, one partner, and then a Russian. Because there will always be, after these flights, there will always be a Russian on the U.S. vehicles and there will always be an American on the solar use vehicles going up. Right, right. Because it's like charging for the extra seat, but we already bought the flight, you know? Like that's kind of interesting. It feels like you've chartered an airplane and then they're just.

charging you extra for them. Yeah, it's like Spirit Airlines. I think SpaceX on their first, I think SpaceX on their test flight for the first CRS mission took some cargo up and got paid for that on top of their contract. So, I mean, it's not unheard of. It's just, I thought it was very funny that they charged they charged allegedly like this source who, like I said, probably my best source. So it was $110 million that they, they had to Eubris to ask for that much money. I wonder how long before that gets into a Senate hearing somewhere when they're criticizing the validity of the program. It's interesting. The commercial crew critics have gone dead silent.

I mean, it's night and day from 2014, 2015, even 2016, when you would get some people in the Senate to really bitched about the program and said, and maybe it was because Charlie Bolden, you know, as a Democrat, they didn't like them and they gave him a hard time. But it's everyone is on board with it now and it's full funding and everyone is very, very supportive of it. It was always tough though in the Senate hearings because they would say like, oh, is there additional costs? And they're like, nope. It was a fixed thing. I feel like that happened the last time there was a hearing in Congress about that and that kind of killed. Shelby did, Shelby did that was saying, well, you know, these delays are going to cost NASA money.

And okay, they are going to cost money because they're going to have to buy soy seeds, but the contracts aren't going up like, you know, SLS delay. They delay a year. But $2.2 billion. an entire commercial crew year. Going into either. Speaking of Congress, I asked Ted Cruz, I said, hey, have you, has your opinion evolved on, you know, commercial crew?

Because like, till, you know, until, like, 2015, you know, it's like they didn't provide full funding. He said, he said, well, you'll notice that when I became chairman of the science committee, they started to get full funding. And I didn't have the heart to tell him that, you know,

he was not he was an authorizer not an appropriator in the appropriate committee's actually you know appropriate money so it's kind of funny head crews head crews ladies and gentlemen jakes has his own beef with him this week yeah he had a really great um uh uh magic trick of cognitive dissonance this week about we can't delay getting to mars and then funding i ss on the side is trying to try to authorize it all On the side to 2030. On the side. Another 12 years.

That is the most frustrating thing about NASA to me is that there is no detail plans about how we actually get to Mars. They're not building actually any hardware from Mars. And so it's just still hot air and talk. And it's been that way forever. So I, you know, I, it's, it's got to be very frustrating for people who really are like fired up about getting people to Mars. And it is, I mean, I think ultimately it is going to take some kind of game changing technology like the BFR, you know, and I think they'll build the rocket, but I'm not sure that they're going to build the spaceship. That just seems like science fiction, but maybe, maybe they're kind of mantle, right? tweet of the day

was Eric's tweet about some Reddit thread that you got sucked into I'll post a link in the show notes because the gif that Eric attached as a reaction to reading some Reddit thread about BFR today was A plus I'm a subscriber to like the SLS

subreddit just because I I currently keep tabs on what they're saying and there's nobody well you gotta wonder who's in there but I mean It's Ted Cruz. He's like, hey guys.

No, man. No, man. But it's like, the question was, well, what is SLS going to be used for if BFR flies? And it's, so there's only 1,400 subscribers to the space launch system subreddit. Russian trolls. It's the Internet Research Agency. I don't know. Subcontracted.

out by a Richard Shelby. God bless them, they still have in their preliminary launch schedule, EM1 in 2019 on here. So anyway, you know, it's 1,400 people, you know, I don't know who it is. They're just the people from Marshall or who it is. But anyway, yeah, what happens if it's, I mean, really, it's if New Glenn becomes a reality,

what happens to SLS? I think that's the real question. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that tweet killed me. I love just how honestly the question comes about, like, hang on a second. Oh, yeah, guys, I'm doing the math here. I'm doing the math here. It's been $2 billion for a launch of, you know, poor people.

Poor people. I don't know, man. That's worse than Boeing's rates. It's not really work. I thought this was supposed to be cheaper because we're reusing stuff. If they could launch CubeSats to the moon, too? Why does every one of our episodes degrade into making fun of SLS by the end of it? I don't know what.

We got into this space podcasting lucrative ecosystem for one thing to make fun of SLS. SLS ribbing. Oh, man. Okay. What else you got on the radar, Eric? You've got, you've had these, you know, Kauru and commercial crew. What's the trifecta here? Well, I don't know if it's going to happen yet or not, but I did.

This is, again, it's ridiculous. I got invited to go to the next HDV launch. It's September. Can you be the guy that livestreams it with a sandwich in the photo at the end of the live stream? Oh, my God. Have you seen those? No, what happened? No, it's not a sandwich.

It's like a, okay, so if you ever watch the Japanese live streams. First of all, they're handheld cameras from like farther away than Kauru is. And the rocket goes, it flies away and then like the stream just stays on and it just like watches the pad for like 10 minutes. And if you stick with it, eventually what happens is some guy pulls out like it's some sort of like fig or something. It's like some sort of like fruit and it's in a bag and he like holds it in front of the camera and like does a focus with it.

And then you like opens the bag and you like. breaks the fig in half and like, and then, and I, I thought it was like someone playing a gag, and then I watched another one like months later. It is the most bizarre. I don't, I wish I could speak Japanese. If you go there, you need to write an entire feature on whoever does the social eating stream after any launch from the tanga, tanga machine. What is it called?

Tanga. Tangaschaima. Tanagashima. Tanagashima. Tanagashima. Tanagashima. I'm not sure exact pronunciation. Anyway, it's the H-2B rocket, which is only flown like six times maybe or something like that.

It's six or seven times. Let me look it up real fast. But it's a big rocket. It's not quite as big as powerful as an Atlas 5, but it's like eight tons to GTO and 16 and a half tons to Leo. It's, yeah, it's flown six times since 2009. doesn't launch that often. But anyway, I don't know. We'll see.

I mean, you know, kind of asking a lot of my wife, I took 10 days to go to French Guiana, and now I'm going to turn around and go to Japan. But again, I mean, how many times you're going to get to go? So I may do that, you know, in September. We'll see. That's the trifecta.

Other thing, I mean, the other thing that's coming up is the anniversary of Falcon one launch, 10th and 10-year anniversary of, Falcon 1. So I'm going to really dig into kind of that. And then you're going to fly to Quijellin and just hang out. No.

Yeah. Try not to get killed by a missile missile test. Oh, man, that's some hot trauma right now. I mean, you know, it's really like the, that was really the dawn of truly commercial space.

So there's a big, it's a big deal, big anniversary. So that's, that's kind of what's going on. And anything else?

Oh, so Bridenstein, too, he had a media round table Thursday, I guess. He said some interesting things. He said those, made those comments about the SLS, which I had a story about it. I don't know if your readers

or listeners had not seen it, but it basically it was sort of him really going in depth about how he loved reusable rockets. and how everything going to the moon and back should be reusable, yeah. And so I said, well, I said, so the Orion, so the Johnson Space Center Director was sitting next to him, a guy named Mark I're going to him, know him pretty well, a very nice guy, great engineer. Used to be the Orion program manager and now is the director of JSC.

And so I said to him following up, I said, so now Mark here has told me that Orion can be reused. I said, but your rocket is not reusable. So how does that fit in? And so, Bridenstein, like before Bridenstine could answer, Geyer, Mark Geyer pops in and says, well, that's a good question. And then starts talking about how SLS has this great Delta V capability.

And, you know, to date, no one has been able to build a big reusable rocket and, you know, home home and how SLS and Orion are really, you know, this unique capability to build the gateway. And at some point, Bridenstein had enough because he spoke up. He sort of, I'd have to go back and listen to the tape, but he almost kind of like cut him off and said,

but if the private industry does develop a big reusable rocket, we'll use it. And we want to help them, we want to help them succeed. So it was really interesting. Like, you know, he's not saying cancel SLS. No one is.

That's a battle the Trump administration doesn't want to have with Congress. But I think, you know, this administration is signaling to the blue origins and SpaceX as the world is sort of go on. And it will, you know this, Anthony, you've spoken and written about this quite a lot, about the LSA awards that are coming out sometime this month, I guess. And we'll see if there's anything in there for the BFR or a BFR. You don't think so? I don't know.

I don't know what to make of this weird, like somebody got a weird presentation. at the Air Force in the last week and realized that point-to-point or suborbital flight with the BFR could be cool for military purposes because there seemed to be this story floated of like, you know, somebody in the Air Force going, gee whiz, that would be really cool.

Well, maybe that's why SpaceX is talking about. I don't know. I really don't have any insight in the military space. I just see that there's, for the constraints that they have on the EELV or whatever it's going to be called now, what's it what is it now NSL the Nuzzle the Nuzzle program

they have they have plenty of things that fit the bill better and I don't know how willing they're gonna how willing they are to dive into something that is that different you know they've got Vulcan New Glenn and Omega you know love or hate any one of those

they fit the bill for what they're looking for and you know and the Falcon Heavy already serves all their needs. That's even aside the point. They're not going to get, you know, I don't even think SpaceX would get any money from the LSA development contracts because they can still compete fully for the, you know,

the actual launch contracts that come after that. They don't need any development money. They've got all this development money for vertical integration that they've done nothing on down at the Cape. So personally, I don't see any reason why the Air Force should give them money. Yeah. Well, again, it's really going to be fascinating to me. to watch to see, because I agree with you that Omega will get money, we'll get, let's

come kind of award, and then how much Vulcan gets and whether it's, because that's obviously why they're waiting to downselect, I think is for those awards. The Air Force is waiting to downselect. Well, what do you mean? Say that again? Any company could submit two bids to the Air Force for those awards. Right. And I'm pretty sure that ULA submitted B-E-4 Vulcan and AR-1 Vulcan.

and they're letting the Air Force pick and I think the Air Force is going to pick New Glenn and AR1 Vulcan because that gives them some differentiation there and they can go with the old Reliables, you know, Boeing, Lockheed, Arrowjet, everything's good and they have their old reliable version,

they have the new, you know, second cheapest option in Blue Origin and drives down their cost more. All's good. It just makes too much sense. I mean, that's that's reasonable, but you would think ULA would want to have a say in that, ultimately. You would, but they've shown ULA itself, maybe separate that out, but the parents have shown

little to no interest in any of the things that ULA has been saying for the last two years, and it's bumming me out because I could see a future where Tori Bruno, with support, can actually do something really cool, but it seems like whatever's going on internally there, the parents are just not into it without the support of an outlet. Yeah, boy, if the Air Force, if the Air Force comes to the ULA and says, we want you to build Vulcan with the AR1, you know, when does that rocket fly? You know, because, like, I don't see evidence

that there's been that much development work done on AR1. It seems like they'd be pretty far away from. Well, don't they have to change the hole? Because, like, all the mockups have been, like, a diameter of rocket that have been based on methane as a fuel. So they could do a double AR1 5 meter Vulcan, which is crazy sounding. And I linked to an interesting, we're going to go back to Reddit here, but there was an interesting thread on the ULA subreddit, like a month ago or so, of an old, old, old envisioning of like, I forget what the concept was called, but it was at Atlas 5 upgraded with two RD-180s. and it essentially lets them drop a couple of solid rocket boosters

for the typical payload range. So when you put it that way, there is a future. I think they're like 10 years too late on this concept, but it is a viable thing for what they've got. Yeah, Atlas 5FaFaFaFEs 2, Mass Fraction in the chat, has that name exactly. So like when you put it in context of all the other stuff

that's been talked about with Vulcan, saving money on SRBs and, you know, doing the what previously was the most bat-shit-crazy recovery option of any space flight hardware was with the engine dropping off and the helicopter catching it up until the point

when SpaceX created the monstrosity that is Mr. Stephen Faring Catching boat. Now it doesn't look so nuts to do something like that. It seemed like a viable option 10 or 15 years ago. That's a peach in that that Jackson stream. That's what it looks like to me.

We're looking at the photo. It's not a peach, dude. It's got like a hard shell of some kind. It's, I don't know. And it comes in a bag. That's a ratty-looking peach if that's a peach. Man, that's hilarious. Yeah, I don't know.

So the LSA awards are going to be fascinating to watch. We're going to get a lot of answers to a lot of questions, I think, from that, to see what the military wants. And we'll see. Should we do some picks? I think we should do some picks. I think we're at Picks point right now. Okay.

You got a pick? Who's going first? You're talking. I'm talking. Okay, I have a pick. I'm not done consuming the pick yet. I've started consuming the pick. But I'll plug it anyway because it's been kind of weird.

So I started reading this book that is available for free on NASA's website. It's a history of planetary protection. Oh. Yeah, it's by a nice. I'm blank. Sounds like a reader. Dude, that's the joke.

It's like super. And like, I'm only like in the first couple of chapters and it's like talking about the history of where it came from. And it's just like, it's basically a chronicle of like every meeting that happened in 1957. It's a, so it's,

it's pretty funny. But yeah, it's really, at least where I'm at so far, it's been really fascinating to see just like everything else in the US space program and where how the planetary protection. policy has rooted in the race against the Soviets. Like everything, it just comes back to this one little bit about how, oh, they're going

to go there and we're going to go there. And the scientists are freaking out because of what might happen if they're starting. Like literally the first few meetings were like, what do we do if they nuke the moon? That was like the main, the main meeting was about how to handle a nuclear fallout on the moon. And so it's, they really advise against it. That's great. It's a really good recovery option. Yeah, yeah. So it's funny and some of the weird concerns they had, you know, like they, they didn't want to, um, they, the reasoning of like, let's not put anything in orbit around the moon because when you fire the rocket engine, it expels gases. And because the moon has basically no atmosphere, the gases that you expel from your rocket engine will account for a massive percentage of the, of the lunar atmosphere. And so it would ruin,

any study of the atmosphere. So they didn't, they were like, let's not, like, don't even go to the moon. You can fly by it with no engine firings.

And that's like, all you're allowed to do. Like, so there's some really funky, uh, things that they brought up in it. But, yeah,

it's been pretty interesting. So, um, you can get the ebook or the PDF, whatever on, on NASA's website. We can, we can link to it.

But it's been, it's called, uh, when biospheres collide is the, uh, which is a great dramatic sounding. But, but yeah,

it's, is that one of those, NASA history ones? Yeah, kind of, yeah. So I wanted to get the full context because I really want to dive into planetary protection a lot. Not for any particular reason related to projects that you may or may not work on.

No, no, definitely not. No. There's an interview I'm chasing, and it's taking me longer than I wanted to. It's the moon nuke developer. Yeah. Really? A guy that first built the first nuke.

It was the nuclear quadrients. or whatever the word is for beyond a triad. So that's really interesting. I think that, you know, if we ever get to the point where we're starting to do real shit, you know, on Mars with private space, then this will be a real battle. And so I think it's good to sort of really understand the history of this. And there is this huge divide between people like Musk who couldn't give a shit. shit about planetary protection and scientists and like the planetary society who you know will fight

tooth or nail against you know sort of any kind of human activity and you know we're going to come to a point where that's really going to come to a head so that'd be fascinating it's good to understand the background of that and exactly and whenever there's like a one of these kind of debates it's like super tribal like that like it's getting to a point where like it doesn't matter what the facts are as you're on team them or team us, right? I always like to try and that puts me on edge and I have to like understand more. I'm not comfortable with those kind of debates.

I'm like, no, I will learn until I can bring everyone together. It's my personality trait right there. I'll fight this battle with knowledge. But yeah, that's what I've been reading. So check it out. If you're like, hey, I want to have an agenda. of cost bar meetings from 59.

What do you got, Anthony? I've got a preemptive pick. Oh. Lauren Grush's spacecraft is coming back next week. So I'm just doing a preemptive one because there's going to be a couple episodes for the next show here.

And the first season was fantastic. She was doing like zero G flights and, you know, wearing exosuits and stuff like this and it was pretty great. So this one seems to be more focused. I think she went to Hawaii to visit some of the analogs, so that's relevant to your interest, Jake.

And it's more about living in space. So I'm very curious to see what she's got. I think the first episode goes up like next Friday, I want to say, the 10th. So that'll be fun to watch. I don't know how many episodes are in this season, but it's going to be great. Awesome. Okay. She's got to be on this show soon.

She's like... Yeah. That'd be a lot of fun. We'll get it. That's all I got. Eric, you got one? Yeah, so I was in college or in high school in college

when Star Trek next generation came out. And so I watched some of it, but not all of it. But I liked it. I liked it. I saw the movies and stuff. And so, you know, you kind of need some escapism from the real world these days. Jake reads, Co-Spar meetings from 19-15.

Nine to do that. Yes. I like the old world. I like to believe that there's still some potential in humanity. So I just started back and started watching the whole series a couple months ago. Just sort of from beginning to end. And I had watched all of deep science. I really like that.

So I'm going to watch that again. But there's a, sorry, it's another podcast. I hope you don't mind. But there's this greatest generation podcast. which is these two, like, videographers or something, but they just kind of go back and make fun of the episodes.

Like, one of their sticks is that, like, Picard is kind of like, you know, sexually abusing Wesley because he keeps calling him the boy. It's very awkward around him.

It's, but they like, they kind of, they kind of, they make fun of, like, the episodes that it's, it's,

but, you know, also provide, like, a take, you know, it, It's very good.

It's very funny. And so I'm watching the show and then listening to those podcasts and moving. It's called The Greatest Generation. There's a lot of like, I think Star Trek podcasts that take themselves very seriously. But these guys, I mean, they make some comments about how the filming shots were done. But it's very funny to see like how, especially that first season was just kind of like slap dashed together. And like, you know, like one of the episodes in season two, they're having a meeting. in Picard's quarters.

And he's got like, you know, like, like if you would have an office meeting in like the C-suite where they'd have like muffins and stuff and coffee in the corner, it's like they have that in the cards in Picard's chambers.

Like, it's like, it's just so odd. Replicators? It's like, yeah, from the, anyway, it's very, it's very funny. So it's called the Grey's Generation. and it's kind of like sort of how I escape from the world we live in. So anyway, that was what I would recommend.

I love those early next-gen episodes. They are so my favorite. It's like I think the very first episode when it's like, what is it, escape from far side or something, I don't know. Yeah, far point. And it's like when Riker's like assigned to the crew and Picard's like, I don't trust you and I'm going to make you do a test. and you have to like separate the saucer by hand.

And he like, he like sits down. He's got like super serious face. And he's got us and he's like one degree left, two degrees left, up one degree. And like just like wings it like the whole enterprise separation. And then at the end of it, Picard's like, well done. You're on the crew. So like if you even go back and like watch it though, it's hysterical. Because like Breaker gets up to the ship about 30 or 40 minutes into the episode.

and Picard doesn't tell him what's going on. He's like, sit down there and like watch what happened. So like Riker for like 10 minutes is at like on the bridge, like staring at a screen, like watching everything that's happened today. It's so bizarre. You should go look, go back and look at it. But yeah, then there's this big maneuver which basically consists of Riker telling the helm, you know, fly here, do this. And it's like no big deal. Anyway, yeah, it's those first season episodes are.

This is proof that. like last Jedi wasn't that bad. We're just, you know what I mean? Compare it. It's probably wasn't that bad. It's a great way to bring it back. Pretty good, pretty good matter. Oh, wow.

We should get out of here. You got a parting thought, Eric? Some wisdom. I would just say that it's an amazing time to be following this stuff. There's so much going on. And oh, I would just, you know, I, You know, there's a lot of attention paid to SpaceX and Blue Origin and NASA, but I started this thing called the Rocket Report, which is a weekly newsletter to pay attention. And you can sign up on our site. But basically, it's to pay attention to all the other stuff that's happening because there's so much going on with these smaller launch companies. And so it just tries to keep track of all the stuff that's happening at like the literally dozens of companies in the United States, but not here. But in China, there's this amazing commercial launch industry, too, that's that's going. going on. So it's, it's just an incredible time of innovation.

Commercial. Do you do commercial? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's curious. I have been enjoying the rocket report. What's the, what's the best domain to head them to for that? They could just go to ours technica and then search for Rocket Report. And then there's a sign up. I'll put it in the show notes. Then they can just click the thing. Yeah, thanks, man. It's done really well. Like, it's been ahead of excellent response.

So people seem to be in... I'm reading it every week. It's great. Thank you. I at least look at the headlines. It's resounding endorsement. I'm a terrible news consumer. Well, if it's not about geology or planetary protection for the 1950s,

Jake's like, man, I don't have a time for that. I've got a 1950s nuke the moon report to read. I get the Jeff Faust one in the morning, too, and like, most of the time, if it's not, if the headline is not in the subject line that I want to listen to it's like

it doesn't even get open I don't know how Jeff does it every day like doing a weekly one is like oh my God I gotta do that this week and he's like does it every day he is the hardest working man in space journalism

hands down I said this the other day I'm pretty sure he's the first AI and they thought that space journalism was the best spot to drop the first AI ever

and I don't know I don't even understand how he works I have nothing but respect and admiration for Jeff he's a cool guy Jake you got a plug what do you've been working on you got some podcast recently

yeah yeah I had a had a quiet streak because my house renovations and me trying to sell the house that I renovated and combined with summer availability of guests which is just notoriously bad I got I got caught and I didn't have an episode so I went five weeks on an episode which like hurt my heart but we're back now You're just saying you got caught in a dust storm.

Yeah, I got caught in a dust storm. Poor little opportunity. And they're posting in the chat, something. I got to go investigate after this. Something's going on. But yeah, so I'm back now. I got some pretty cool stuff. I want to really hit it in the fall.

I got some big plans for Wii Martians in the fall. But I only just made a list this morning. So that's really how far I've gotten. and I have a list of stuff to do. No pad. It's so cute. Yeah, it's got bears on it. It's very Canadian.

There's a moose. But anyway, I don't have any specific thing to plug, but other than stay tuned. Oh, there's big sale coming at the shop. A lot of capitalists. There's Canadian here that joined us. Yeah. I figured this episode will be out by the time and post it. So go to shop.com for your favorite t-shirts.

What about you? You plug in anything? Cube Rover. Talk to Cube Rover. Eric, these guys are pretty interesting to talk to. Talk to a couple people from the astrobotic off-spin that is Cube Rover. Okay. It's a divisive episode, I would say.

People are split on whether this is a great idea or the worst idea that since nuking the moon. So it's pretty curious. They're working within a lot of constraints. I find that kind of stuff interesting. Some people think that they don't really. have a realistic roadmap. So I'd be curious about anyone's thoughts. A lot of companies don't.

A lot of companies don't. I mean, it's so much hype out there, man. It's a lot of BS. Kind of try to cut through it. Some sad word that a moon expressed today, too, looks like. What happened? It looks like it's not going well there.

I don't know. I just saw a tweet that says that they're down to only a few engineers. Not surprised. I'm looking into that. I'm looking into that. I'm looking into that. They're toppling just like the old launch. complexes well every time every time i write a story about moon express i get people saying you

ought to be really careful about what you write about them and what they're saying so well all right cliffhanger great place to leave it yeah anyway i'm talking to bob richard probably monday or tuesday and see what's going on sweet cool see you everybody okay all right i enjoy it thanks guys