Off-Nominal - 116 - Hot NSSL Summer

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

Jake is back, so Anthony will help get him caught up on the news, including the Mars Sample Return Hot Drama.TopicsOff-Nominal - YouTubeEpisode 116 - Hot NSSL Summer - YouTubeNASA’s Mars Sample Return has a new price tag—and it’s colossal | Ars TechnicaNASA's FY 2024 Budget | The Planetary SocietyThe U.S. Senate threatens to cancel Mars… | The Planetary SocietyOrigins, Worlds, and Life: A Decadal Strategy for Planetary Science and Astrobiology 2023-2032 (2022) (PDF, 27.5 MB)National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 3 DRAFT Request for Proposals (RFPs) #2Space Force to select three providers of national security launch services - SpaceNewsSpace Force changed launch procurement plan due to concerns about capacity - SpaceNewsFollow Off-NominalSubscribe to the show! - Off-NominalSupport the show, join the DiscordOff-Nominal (@offnom) / TwitterOff-Nominal (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceFollow JakeWeMartians Podcast - Follow Humanity's Journey to MarsWeMartians Podcast (@We_Martians) | TwitterJake Robins (@JakeOnOrbit) | TwitterJake Robins (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceFollow AnthonyMain Engine Cut OffMain Engine Cut Off (@WeHaveMECO) | TwitterMain Engine Cut Off (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceAnthony Colangelo (@acolangelo) | TwitterAnthony Colangelo (@[e-mail]) - jawns.club 🐘Off-Nominal MerchandiseOff-Nominal Logo TeeWeMartians Shop | MECO Shop

TLS and go for main engine, start. Hey, Jake. You're in a different locale. I am. I'm a moot. I'm a migrant again, yeah. You are the new Lauren Grush, though. You're the new Lauren Grush.

You go away on a transatlantic cruise and starship. Please explain, yeah. Yeah, it is. Mostly a compliment. Transatlantic cruise starship launches. Yeah. You finally go back to Canada to. to see your family who misses you dearly, I'm sure, and Mars sample return is attempted to be canceled.

I go away for like 10 days and the whole neighborhood goes. Congress is like, what if? They saw you flying over. There he is. Jake's not paying attention. Quit cancel Mars sample. This is our chance. Yeah.

It's a little weird. So, yeah, I got a time my vacation is better. This has been not a good year for that. You're totally right. Normally, I'm not that bad. Like, in the past, I've had just, like, great weeks where I just take seven days and nothing happens. Just, like, straight up zero news. And I don't have nothing.

Like, I don't even need to, like, clear the RSS feed. It's so bad. Like, that is how good some past vacations have been, but not this one. No. Well, you're back. So. You probably have a bought a craft beer or something since that exists again where you are. You bet I did.

Yeah, you did. Yeah, you did. What you got? I have today. So I'm in. medicine hat, your favorite city. Yes. And so I went to, uh, to get Hell's basement brewery here, the feather, lightly hopped

pale ale. Something a little chiller. I like that. And I'm pretty strong. I like all the facts. Yeah. It's a good, it's a good can design. Yeah.

It's pretty nice. So medicine hat. That's what I'm going for today. I always like to layer a little, uh, historical, like personal detail to the show. And I feel like I should unveil why Madison hat is my favorite city. It's a, yes, it's a, it's a, it's a, It's a disappointing story, but there may be five people out there who had the same experience. So set your mind back 20 years and you're playing EA sports, NHL, whatever, 90-something or 2000-something with your brother, and you make custom teams and then you do it fantasy draft and play seven-game series against each other constantly.

And I would always pick medicine hat because I thought it was hilarious name of the city. So I would make an NHL team, the medicine hat, something or others, every time. And then I meet Jake all these years later. And he's like, yeah, medicine hat. And I think I knew it. And you were like, why do you know medicine hat? And thus began our... And I have a thing, right?

I have one of these. Yeah, I sent you something, right? I have a medicine hat thing that opens my beer. And anytime I have a beer on Off Nomenal, I'm opening it with a medicine hat opener. And then I gave my brother... You brought a medicine hat, like fridge stationary pad, like a magnetic stationary pad or whatever. So I gave that one to him. So when I was here, was it like two years ago that I bought that, I think.

I was here. Probably. And I had a really fun time trying to find that shit because it was like the first thing, the first thing I remembered, because I haven't lived here for over 20 years, I think now. So 20, 23 years. So I remembered that there was like this tourist office here. I went there and they didn't have anything. So then you should go to this hotel. They have like this little gift shop there

and sometimes they have medicine hat stuff. So we're like driving all over this game city, trying to find these things. And then we found that stuff all in this like tiny corner of this little gift shop in a hotel. So that's where it came from. I didn't realize that. There was such a search.

That's amazing. Well, I also want to show I got a glass too. And this is where I was last week. Madge Lake. So shout out to anyone in Saskatchewan or Manitoba. You might know this is like a nice summer retreat. Lots of loons. See the loon?

I do. Same as the loony. The coin. Pretty much I only think about Tom Green when I think of loons from that. I forget what the bit was from the Tom Green show. I'll have to find it. I'll dig it up on to you and send it to you. Yeah.

All right. Sounds good. Yeah, great, good content. I've got a gold, gold strong, which I does my thing go. Gold, strong ale. It is 8% from yards. Uh-oh. 8%.

It's going to be one of those shows. I was in their summer. Summer bangers box or whatever it was called. Summer preep. I don't know, summer something box. It wasn't summer bangers. Yeah, this is off to a great start. We're doing great.

Good six minutes of content here, Jake. We both need this. Yeah, yeah. Let's do it. Where we started? Do you feel like you have a rundown of what's been happening while you were at Madge Lake? Okay, so there's two big ones that I want to cover. I think one, I did, so the Mars sample return, which we just already used about.

I did a lot of reading this morning trying to make sure I was all caught up. So I feel like we can have a good conversation there. I do have a couple of more sample requests for you. I bet you do And I also have some So if Bill Nelson is watching I would please get back to me You're not answering my emails

I have a lot of questions Also the Commerce and Justice Senate committee I also have some questions for you They also aren't getting back to me It's really weird So we should do that And then I also want to ask you about

Is there a better named committee for you than the Commerce Justice and Science Committee Like if I had to make a committee that was of Jake Roberts, Jake Roberts, of Jake Roberts' interests, what other word would you include in that?

I don't know. Why is that, why is that like me? You feel like a guy who loves commerce, you love justice and you love science. Like, it's a great... Who loves commerce? Yeah, you love commerce.

You're like the Wilbur Ross of this show. Oh, man, I can't wait get to back in my vacation so I can have some commerce. Listen, do you go away and you're like, where's the craft beer? I need to do commerce. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I need to do commerce on this beer. You just told me, you drove around. You're like a small, what's the name of the, no, I'm forgetting what those things are called, like the little office, Chamber of Commerce. You drove around to find this bottle opener in a local hotel that has a weird gift shop. Like, that's some Chamber of Commerce. No, I did that for you. That was from love that I have for you. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. I mean, I think I know you better than you know you at this. this point. This is your committee. If you were going to be the chair of any committee, it would be this one. Yeah, I might be. I have big feelings about justice, too. Yeah. Yeah. No, you're not a jurisprudential kind of guy. Maybe I do. We'll see.

That's a conversation for a conversation for more beers than we're going to fit into this show, maybe. Not at 8%, but I'm turning the show over to you because I've ruined the first eight minutes of the show now. I know we're doing great. This is how it is when it's just the two of you. We need that mediating force of a guest. Okay, so anyway, so I was going to say, I also want to ask you about the rocket stuff. So there's some, how do you say, is there, you've been pronouncing this word now. Nissel. Only to you.

I haven't said it on the show. Nizzle. Nizzle. NS-S-L, the third, third edition. Should it be nozzle? Some fun drama happening there. I don't know. Hot nozzle summer, but.

NSL. I'll reply all to the CJS committee email and then I'll add you into it and we can append that question. We can sort it out for the justices. Yeah, so that's what I want to cover today, really. I don't know. Where do you want to start? All right.

I felt like, yes, you were away when the Mars sample return drama was going down. And my main question to you, because I've seen, and I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, haven't been able to refute this, but I felt like I should have been able to, and I failed you. So I need you to help prepare me for the next time I talk to Eric Berger and talk about Mark Sampeter. Eric Berger and I are on a break. Last time he was on the show, I fought him, so we'll have to bring him back, and then you can fight him, so I know how that feels.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, my main thing was that... Maybe we can win. My main thing was that there's this sentiment that, and I guess to lay the ground, we're in the fiscal year 2024 budget cycle where the House and Senate and the U.S. are putting out

in the subcommittees are putting out the appropriations bills and we're dealing with the budget scenario that we're in which means pretty much NASA's budget is going to be cut just a matter of how much and where and as part of that at the same time like a parallel storyline

was this reporting recently I think Berger was the first one with the scoop that like hey the cost estimates coming in for our sample return again and it's giant now it's up to like 9 or 10 billion So the Senate said, we're all giving you $300 million this year instead of the $900 million you asked for. And I skipped over the whole part where Bill Nelson was in front of Senate and was like, we're already spending more money than you're giving us.

So you better give us some more money. And it was like a very off-hand way of saying it's expensive now. Smooth move, yeah. Yeah. But the Senate said, all right, you're getting $300 million and we need you to submit what this is actually going to cost and how it fits in the budget profile or else it's going to be canceled. So there's this implicit threat. One of the sentiments I've saw about this was that... Hold on. It wasn't an implicit threat.

It was an explicit threat. But, like, yeah, how much do they believe it? That's true. That's true. I guess I'm casting doubt on how much they mean it at this point. Yeah, okay, good. But this is exactly what I want to talk about. People are drawing parallels to JWST back in the day,

and there's a sentiment that at the time, the science community was more defensive of JWST because they could aim the telescope at different places. and that they won't feel that way about Mars sample return because it's a narrow piece of science. And I feel like knowing from what you've talked about of Mars samples being a Holy Grail that unlocks a whole potential list of things to study,

how narrow is the interest in getting samples from Mars? Like, do they mean narrow in that it's planetary or narrow in that it's geology or narrow that it's just Mars? Yeah, so that is a great question. I think it's being chatted about in kind of any flavor you want. You can go find a conversation with a different answer, which is kind of weird. And I think the, so the comparison to JWST is, it seems apt because they're like similar size missions.

They're scientific missions at NASA. They are both broad. They're ambitious. I think that comparison is pretty good. And I would definitely agree with some of the coverage that says JWST is, more broad. I think JWST does have an objectively broader scope

in what it can do because you can do all this astronomy stuff, but you can also point it at planets in our system and you can point it at exoplanets, you can do planetary science, you can do all sorts of crazy stuff with J2D. It's amazing. But I don't think that means

that Mars sample return is narrow. And that's where I think the nuance is gone. If you had it on a spectrum, you're going to have like kind of like regular, quote unquote, regular planetary science missions on one side and then you can put jwsts t on the other one is like the thing mars sample return is like not closer to this side it's you know it's it's it's probably pretty close to jwsts t and so i think it's it's it can be a bit disingenuous to say that it's narrow in scope

because it is it if it's narrower than jwst t which is like the broadest you know so that's where i i have gotten a little frustrated with some of the talk in that sense um mars samples so we've already seen this with with the lunar samples from the moon which 50 some years later we are still unboxing and learning incredible stuff from and it's like it's the it changed the game in terms of of geology across our solar system and so Mars sample turn will probably do the exact same thing if we can get those things back you've got yeah obviously like if you study rocky planets in the interior of our solar system you're going to like these but also if you study moons in the solar system, you're going to like it. If you study planetary formation, just generally,

you're going to like that. If you're interested in, you know, effects of atmospheres on surfaces, so that applies to anything with, you know, air. Yeah, you got a big atmospheric sample coming your way, Jake. Yeah, yeah. And also including the planet that we're on, this is helpful too, right? So, like, all of Earth geology is going to benefit from Mars. So, like, you know, there is a reason that literally every decadal survey that has been published in planetary science puts this at the top of the list, right? Like, it's not a coincidence. This is a really big deal. And so that now that I've got that off my chest. Yeah, but that's exactly what I wanted to ask. Yeah, it feels even beyond, like, I think what that sentiment is about is like looking at the zero-sum

nature of scientists fighting for area in budget. and operating out of like an environment of scarcity where they have to fight over every single penny. And certainly in today's, you know, 2023 politics, that is true in this particular instance. But at the same time, look at the planetary budget over the years. It has gone way up. Look at the general NASA budget.

It is on a good swing right now. And if you are somebody who's like interested in NASA or space science, it feels silly to be like, I don't value, even if you care about like black holes only, saying like I don't value what is going to clearly be groundbreaking science in some area of my general field is kind of a hilarious sentiment. Like, I don't know if there's any more scientists

that would be like, I wish we would never learn anything else additional about dark matter. Like they're just as scientists, they're going to be generally interested in figuring out like the fundamental laws of the universe. And at the same extent, it's like, I think it would be, I would love to talk to somebody

this straw man that we're inventing of someone who just loves astrophysics and hates learning anything to do about planets. I don't think that person exists. Like, find me that person that is like, oh, I would not love to see a Mars rock on Earth. Like, come on, come on, people. And if that's you, we're coming on this show

and we're going to talk this out because that's a ridiculous stance. Yes, yes, yes. You know, and I think the other thing, too, that's been misconstrued is that I've seen, you know, comments over, like, some planetary scientists or even some Mars-focused planetary science are concerned about Mars sample return. And like they are, obviously, but they're not concerned that the idea is dumb. They're concerned about the implementation.

And I think it's really important to, to like distinguish those things. It's like, let's stop trying to attack the idea that Mars sample return as a concept is dumb because it isn't. It's like very, very important. The second conversation, are we doing it the right way? Okay, that one's, that door's wide open and we got lots to chew on in that. but like I just I don't know people were like I need I need 10 bucks back in the budget for my personal project so now I've decided Mars sample return is stupid and it's like okay let's let's reel that one in a little bit you know all right let me let me let me let me let me let me

let me let me let you noodle on something else about the current mission architecture from our sample return and the timeline they're in you know faced up against the current momentum of the industry. Like, how do we feel about now there's helicopters on this, which are doubly redundant backup systems to the original plan? Yeah. Which does feel a little bit bizarre? Like, does this reframe for you the helicopter decision a year ago?

Or do you feel like that was totally unrelated? I mean, I always thought the helicopter decision was really weird and this makes it weirder to me. You know, because I'm pretty sure the helicopter was, another thing where Congress was pushing on the scale a little bit, right? You know, that was something that they were like, we need more. This is, you know, this is big for NASA. We want this to be more headlining.

Please add some helicopters somewhere, please. And they, you know, they got it into this. But then at the same time, you have Congress now saying like, this is way over budget. How dare you? Right. And so I was kind of like, what's going on there, guys? What's the true story behind that?

I'm not sure. I haven't quite unpacked that. But I don't know, I always thought the helicopter thing was kind of weird to be honest, but yeah. I like, don't get me wrong. I like the helicopters. You're pro helicopter. You know, yeah. I'm pro helicopter, but it's just like, it kind of felt like, oh, we have this problem and I also have this other tool. I don't know if it's the right tool for this problem, but I like the tool a lot. And so I'm now going to go and try and build a shed with

my particular life. But not enough to rely on a single helicopter. I like it only enough to build two helicopters. Exactly. I don't know what that's about either. It's like really, I don't know. It's really weird. The whole thing's, this whole project has just been like, I don't really know what's going on with it. It's just such a, it was set up from the start as like a very bizarrely constructed organization, like sub-organization that like doesn't quite have a, you know, has no master. Like it's like, yeah, you're sort of run out of HQ, but your budget's in planetary science, but also JPL is kind of going to run this. And so you're like, and also Europe's going on here. Like, who's in charge of this? And also Europe's going to run this.

And so I am not surprised that it has gone a little bit south. Like, like, who's looking after this? Like, I don't know, like Jeff Grambling, I guess, or is like just kind of has whatever a broad authority he wants to have with it? I don't know. It's really weird. It's super bizarre. So, you know, that's where we're at.

If you were the Mars Sampert turns out, now what? Well, okay, so there's this review going on, right, which had already started before all this. And so that kind of tells to me that somebody somewhere knew that there was some shit going on with this program and they were trying to, you know, get it under control, right? So review an IRB report, just like Psyche got, right, can help clarify the problems and get everybody, you know, light a fire under some people and get things going. So I'm very, very interested in that review. Whether it's good or bad, I think it's when that started. Do you have any idea? I think it was within the last year, if I recall.

You feel like mid-December, late December? Not that year. It wasn't like a Christmas party situation? No, no. It might have been the Christmas party sequel. This smacks of somebody having a Christmas party and realizing that the whole program was screwed. Yeah, well, I think the issue is that one has enough authority to, like, like look at the whole thing and go, hey, this program's screwed.

I mean, just the management structure of it is just tricky. It's really tricky, right? And we've already seen, sorry, I derailed you. No, it's okay. We've already seen like, Congress step in with Artemis program and be like, yo, you've got to put a program office on this. What's the plan? Yeah, what the hell is Artemis?

Like, that's kind of like, what the hell is Mars to Ample return? Is it JPL? Is it Planetary Science Division? Is it the Science Mission Directorate? Is it Bill Nelson? Is it Congress? Like, who's running the show here, right? So it's a little weird.

Now, the review that you're talking about, this is a NASA particular thing? Because, like, I don't have you read the news, right? But, like, ESA, Europe is a pretty large part of this program. I can't imagine if we're going to spend $10 billion on this, Europe's like, now we're still perfectly on budget. Everything's great.

Or is it because the helicopters? Did the helicopters descope the Fetrover in a way that saves Europe some? money because wasn't the Fetrover Europe? Yeah, the Airbus was making it. Yeah, so they're doing the return orbiter now. Oh, man, hold on. We got to slap some Boeing stickers on the helicopters, just to troll them.

They lost the Fetrover. It's a Boeing helicopter. Yeah. Anyway, that takes out, Feterovers is not cheap. So does that... No. Yeah. What's the chances that was related of like, wow, the budget's going way up in Europe needs something to off their plate?

Maybe. I know that the lander went through like a lot of significant design changes and got, it was started really big. And then it was like two. And then they were like too stupid. They made it one again. And then they shrunk it down. And there's been like a whole bunch of iterations there. And so I would presume that the fetch rover was a casualty of that process. But I don't I don't really know. I mean, Nobody knows. It's kind of the issue, right? It's been pretty opaque in terms of what they're doing and why, right? So it's tricky. But, you know, what's going to happen? Is it going to get up $10 billion and work just like it's currently sketched?

Okay, so I have a question for you on that then. So I'm looking at the numbers this morning about, like, you know, what is this about? Because there's a lot of stories about the budget being cut and the whatever. your government did with the we're not allowed to have a credit card anymore whatever that bill was last this year whatever it was um so there's no money anywhere and everyone's talking about that and that was kind of the first thing that you know i would look for okay is it being cut just because because you're broke but it's not like if you know if you look at the the line items it's like everything is pretty much flat to last year except my sample it gets like a 60% guy like it's a very

targeted um cut like it's saying this is where we're going to take all the money away from. And so I was like, well, what's that about then? Because it's not really budget anxiety. Like this difference is not enough to make a break the NASA budget, even within the CJS super budget or whatever that thing is, right? And so I kind of think this, like the best thing I can come up with is this is really just Congress trying to tell them to get their shit together. So they have Word. They've learned somehow that the program is not being well run. They're, you know, they're having management challenges, design challenges. They can't make decisions or whatever it is. And that is a risk, maybe not to this budget,

maybe like this 600 million bucks for 2024 doesn't make a huge hilly beans a difference. But, you know, down the line, bad decisions now could cost billions, right? And so maybe it's as simple as that. Is this the Senate's being like, please get your shit together? And they knew that was coming. And so the review was already triggered and they're going to have those results in the fall. And for better or for worse, this is going to come out, you know, changed. and that's where it'll end up.

That's my best guess theory on what's going to happen. So the one, like, spidey sense that I had about the time, I'm just looking up when Bill Nelson was in front of Congress and seeing, like, where that was. Yeah, that timeline was like. So this was April, right? And it was at the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Commerce Justice and Science, the Jake Robbins Committee,

subcommittee. Yeah. And he, like, randomly said, well, by the way, like, I just got told they need another quarter billion dollars, which felt really strange at the time to just, like, roll it out. And I sprinkle it in there, yeah. I brushed it off as, like, Bill Nelson probably handled that better than it seemed in that hearing because he's from this. He, like, grew up here, and, like, he knows how this works.

I assume he told somebody beforehand that he was going to say that. but the reaction to it kind of felt like he didn't and I'm like is somebody mad that like he just casually said well you know it's going up an entire year's budget right now this year I need the money in four weeks

in the budget was there some like did that kick off some series of conversations about like how did it just go up as much money as we spent on it last year between January and April and you're just telling us now and then I'm writing fanfic at this point but like was there a curfuffle that occurred in the springtime

that led this to be unacceptable to whoever's holding the power here? Yeah, well, okay, so I have to well you know that I was very skeptical of Bill Nelson when he came into office but our friend Eric Berger even though he's very, very wrong about Mars Samperton He has some great points about the sort of technical proficiency of Nelson as an administrator, right?

And I have to believe that that's pretty much true. And so at this point, I generally assume if Bill Nelson goes in front of the Senate and says a thing, he planned to say it. Like, I think he's probably got enough. He did, but that's what I'm saying, is did he plan to say it with no heads up to Senate? are we writing fanfic and that Bill Nason personally hates Mars sample return? No, no, no. Just to draw parallels, I feel similarly about when Jim Brynstein went in front of Congress and said, we're doing some studies and sure looks like we can put Orion on not SLS.

Like that felt very similar to me. It might be. It might be. Yeah. And I don't know. I guess the question is, did he give them a heads up? Like, did the Senate know that there was a problem, and that's why they had Nelson in front of them? Because, you know, that's what you do in politics.

Like, you've learned about something in the normal way, and then you get in front of cameras and then record, and you put it on record. Put it in a tweetable sound. Everyone knows what everyone's going to say in these things, right? Like, so they just kind of go through the motions, right? In fact, if you, the reason that they won't let C-SPAN just broadcast these hearings and stuff is because C-SPAN would occasionally zoom out, and you would notice that the entire room is empty, except for the person on the soapbox doing their little bit, you know? The stabbers in the back are texting and tweeting and no one else is in the room and they're like, I'm sticking it to this guy who's up here in front of Congress. And there's nobody there. That's just this.

That's all it is. Everyone knows what's happening. Yeah. It might be. I don't know. I don't know if that was a surprise to Congress or not. But either way, I do think that Bill Nelson or maybe somebody else was kind of running something up the chain because maybe Marry. Maybe Mars sample return is like because of the way it's managed.

Maybe it is kind of like unruly. I don't I don't know. Like can you who's who had the authority to like really, you know, correct? I do a course correction, like a big course correction on that thing. Basically Bill Nelson kind of is the only guy that really could I've done that. But you know, so Lori Glaze doesn't have control over that budget. JPL doesn't have like, you know, a direction authority over the program. HQ is effectively managing it, but it's like a sub project and it's split across a bunch of

centers. It's like hard, right? It's a hard thing to manage when it's that size, then it's spread around. And so I don't know, maybe maybe the point was to to trigger something like this and light a fire under this thing and get a review and get a threat. And let's tighten our belts a little bit. Let's get this done. Let's not let this wander off into design purgatory or endless cycles of changing our minds. How we're going to do it. Let's get the damn rocks, you know? Go get the rocks.

Get the damn rocks. That's what I'm saying, right? Anyway, I'm pretty fired up about this. Can you tell? Yeah, I'm just, it really is, like, I'm scrolling through the list of people on the subcommittee to see, like, to try to do some, like, Charlie Day pins, you know. Well, here, let me ask you this.

Let me ask you this. Can you think of someone at NASA who had reasonably high authority and who Mars sample return was in some way in their portfolio and who is no longer with the agency and who may have left plus or minus six months from the Bill Nelson comment at the Senate? and who may or may not have been quoted in an Eric Berger article about the far sample return being in a little bit of trouble. Maybe. All right. Keep going, Charlie. Come on, Charlie. What do you got?

So, I don't know, maybe, maybe as a parting gesture of love towards one of the biggest science projects NASA has done in a long time, Mr. Thomas Rubkin did what he had to do to make sure things were right after he was gone. That's my conspiracy theory. All right. I need more, I need this drawn out more precisely for me. Dr. Z. Dr. Z. Yeah. What is his game plan? Is there a game plan besides he probably just likes the project? Like, he's a scientist. Wouldn't he want Mars sample return to, you know, succeed? Yeah, but what's, so what are you saying? What's he doing? What's he marionetteing here? What's he doing? Well, look, so, you know, if There are challenges with the organizational structure, the management,

the execution of the Mars Sam for a term project. And maybe he only discovers them. I don't know. So he left at the end of last year, 2022, right? Which I think he announced his retirement significantly early. Like he gave a six or nine months. Didn't he have like an announcement? Didn't he start talking about it like in the wake of JWST and all the events and everything saying like,

Not the right time to transition. The year before that, right? And so, I don't know, maybe that's the point where he starts learning or realizing or grasping that there is a significant problem here, right? And if you've already announced your retirement, you're on the way out the door, your training successors, you're doing stuff. Like your authority, you start become a lame duck person at this point, right? And so he does probably what he, by the way, I'm making all this up. Yeah, I love this. This whole show is fanfic.

I love this. Very, very fan fiction. You do not write this down anymore. But I can imagine him like, you know, doing what he can do to try and fix things. But you run out of time and you run out of authority, right? And so if he can convince Bill Nelson, hey, by the way, one way you could solve this real fast is if you had Congress, you know, put their foot on the scale a little bit. Maybe that's an idea. It's kind of.

And he helps it out by calling up a jury. journalist who's got a few, you know, a few readers and supporting the story that way, you know, timing's there. I love it because if you're going, all right, let's just, let's try this whole theory on, right? And you're somebody who you're doing this from a point of view of where you actually care about the mission, not that you just want to destroy the mission, right? Yeah, yeah, I don't think he just started a poison pill. Right, but if you know that this, this gauntlet needs to be.

run through, what better body to put the blame on than Congress? It's the best because they don't want to take credit for or blame for anything. So they'll do what they can to like mitigate against it. And no one worries about putting blame on them for any particular thing. And they can look like they're sticking it to the scientists and all that. And like, yeah, it's great. Exactly. Because so if if Mars Sampreturn doesn't get their shit together, then Congress cancels it and says we are responsible with the taxpayers money. And if our Samp return does get their shit together, Congress says, look, we have held programs accountable to the taxpayers money and they cleaned up their act. Like, it's a complete win-win for Congress. Like, there's no, there's no loss of anyone's love

there, except maybe the head of the Rass sample return project. Maybe that person's not very excited. But to your point, if the disease stepping down and doesn't want his successor, who he's obviously worked very closely with for years and cares about their well-being, he doesn't want to like bail and be like, by the way, that's a flaming pile of garbage. Good luck with that one. He'd rather, like, set the stage for new, Lori Grays, right, was pretty new to that role. God, Nikki Fox, you mean.

Nicky Fox, sorry. And it was like not going to immediately go down with the ship of Mars Sample return, but at least, like, have this thing, this drama kicked off so that she can be there to help fix it versus, like, just blaming it on her because she's the one ahead of the organization when this came out. I kind of like it. I like this.

I like this. This is a great book. Are you a West Wing fan? Did you ever watch that show the Western? No, but I should because you reference it every five minutes. It's a great show. It's a great show. All the West Wing fans out there are going to understand this reference.

But in the final season... We'll go full. Full check. No, okay. So in the final season, there's like the president is on his way out because it's been the end of eight years. There's a new president coming in. And there's like this drama where the president-elect

calls a foreign nation and starts doing some diplomacy ahead of time before they're in office, right? And it's like they come down hard on this country about how they're not pulling their weight. It's this very big bad cop diplomacy action. And everyone's like, how could you do this? Like you are way out of line. You are not in office yet. Maybe you're elected, but you're not in office yet. You don't have the authority to make diplomatic calls on behalf of the United States. That's a whole big story, right? And then it turns out that the, the sitting president had worked with them to make them be the bad cop. And then the sitting president called them and said, I'm the good cop.

You know, like, you need to solve this now with me. Because in a couple months when the new guys in here, he's not going to be very much fun to work with. And then they got the deal, right? They got what they wanted. Maybe there's a little bit of that going on, right? I like this theory. Bad cop, good cop kind of situation. Totally.

But in reverse, I don't know. All right. And completely made up conspiracy theory. did I have no evidence for whatsoever? This is a show is not a journalistic practice. Please do not read this down. On that note, Jake, guess what I have about the National Security Space Launch Program

Phase 3 Lane 1? I hope it's a giant conspiracy theory. It's not even giant, but it is, and probably not a conspiracy theory, but it is strong conjecture about what this program actually exists for. So the hot nozzle summer, where are we diving in on this? Like, give me a baseline of where you're at, what you want to talk about with this program.

Okay, so what I know is that there was a draft RFP out. And the big news was there was a whole other lane for a new rocket entrance that was like maybe a little laxer. So you didn't have to hit like all special nine fancy orbits like to do a loop to lieu in space, go to polar. and then to the equator and then back to the poles and go to the moon and then to Mars, all these crazy orbits you had to do. So that was very cool. Everyone was very excited about that.

But then I guess something happened. And that's maybe you can clarify the next day. You missed like most of the story. I heard Congress stepped in and I don't really understand what they were trying to do. So maybe you can help me out with that. I like how flummox do you've always been by the National Security Space Launch Program?

Because you always just like write random comments that you're like, I really need Anthony to do a show. about this. Your military organization is like orders of magnitude the size of my entire government. So like, it's just the scale is just something I do not really understand. Guess what, Jake? It's as big as the rest of my government too. So yes, you're correct.

Even here. Yeah, so you got the broad strokes. Right now we're in phase two, which is ULA and SpaceX getting assigned launches. the ULA has 60%, SpaceX gets 40%. This is a big deal. I think that's also proper to set the stage for why anyone cares about these launches. It is a big deal because it's like tens of launches a year, not a year, every five years, tens of launches a year to the biggest launch competitors in the U.S.,

which because of the position the U.S. launch competitors have in the market drives a lot of launches in the global launch market. So it does have effects overall. That's why you should care. it's a big customer it's a big deal so there's phase two works like that now and they have all these stipulations around who can apply and then they pick two winners and then they divide up launches phase three is coming out into uh they're working through all this paperwork now because these are five-year terms so as you're assigning the missions from one phase you got to be working

on the stuff for the second the next phase so you can roll into that one so there's two lanes in this one there's lane one which is uh almost like NASA's commercial lunar payload services program where the DOD is going to put out a task order for a launch. They will have selected launch providers that can bid on that launch, and then they will pick the best offer that they have for that particular launch. You got to give them, it's like a commercial customer. You got to give them the whole launch price. They're going to pay for it all. They're not paying you outside of that particular launch service. And there's 30 missions that will be assigned that way. Put that lane on pause. We're coming back for my conspiracy theory. Lane two is

traditional national security space launch, they're going to select some providers that will divide up launches. They will pay them not only for those launches as they occur, but they will pay them money per year to to, like, do the special things that the Department

of Events cares about, like vertical integration, putting your payloads on the rocket vertically because they're very expensive spy satellites. This is the famous ULA subsidy. The subsidy. This is the subsidy thing. It's a subsidy if you don't like the launch company. It's not a subsidy if you like the launch company. When a third one gets injected with the threat of getting

money per year, it is a fucking nightmare in the industry. I'll tell you that much, Jake. It is an outrage. That's what you would learn if you were reading Twitter right now. So this brings me to my theory. I guess I should round out the thing. So formerly, previously on Hot Nozzle Summer, the U.S. Space Force maintained that they would like to only have two providers in Lane 2, where they select two providers and assign them a bunch of launches per five year segment of time and pay them money per year.

They think two is the right amount because it gives them enough launches that helps that company continue to exist. That is their main focus with this lane. Give launches to a company that we know will exist in five years so that we can launch things in five years, not just hope that that company survives

the gauntlet of being a launch company. The Senate was going to force through the National Defense Authorization Act, which is the big budget bill that says, here's how much the Department of Defense is going to spend and what they're going to do with it. The Senate was going to write in there that there had to be a third provider selected

instead of two, which the Space Force previously said they would definitely not like to do because they think it would water down the lane and it would not be as effective as making sure that they would survive. Eric Berger on the second most recent MECO episode said that that was particularly because

they don't think ULA could survive with less launches per year, and that's the stated intent of that provision. But after the Senate threatened that we will force you legislatively to put a third provider, the Space Force came back out and said, actually, we think it's a great idea to add a third provider. We've ran the math again. There's a whole bunch more launches now. There are going to be 39.

Now there's 58. We think it's actually a good decision. I think I know where you're going with this. I like this. I like this. No, we think it's a great decision. I don't even know if you'd think know where I'm going, because I don't know what You think I'm going with this.

All right. Well, then the worst case, we have two fun conspiracies. That's great. I can't wait to hear you. So, yeah, what I had heard and was confirmed in this, like, media call recently was that they blamed it on the National Reconnaissance Office, why the launches went from 39 launches to 58 launches. And they blamed that on why they're adding a third provider, even though they're just doing it because Congress was going to make them anyway. And smartly, as an organization that doesn't want to do that, if they'd, jump first. They get to write all the requirements for what the limitations are on that.

So in this draft RFP, they wrote some limitations that the third provider only gets seven missions of the 58. They get five GPS satellites and two that go directly to geostationary orbit. The other 51, which is, by the way, 12 more than the last time we told you, those get divided up just like the ones today do, 6040. So even with the third provider, you will lay and SpaceX are getting more launches than they did before. Yeah, yeah. And even, I should do some quick math, right? Let's see.

So if you're 51, 40% of 51, 20 launches. Because one thing that Eric said on your show was that, you know, a third provider may threaten the viability of ULA, right? Because if they have to divide the launches up, okay. Yeah. So that's no longer. So even in the scenario where if you, if ULA was going to get 60% of 39 launches, right, they would have received 23 launches.

if they now only receive 40% of 51 launches, they're getting 20 launches. So it's kind of in the same ballpark. So, yeah. But they blame this on the National Reconnaissance Office, which I've heard some scuttlebut that, surprisingly, the NRO wanted their launches in the other lane because they think it's going to be cheaper.

They're competitively awarded ones. But then they got dragged into this lane with the block by. So that's kind of some fun inner office drama. So yada-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. that. Let me wrap up the previously on National Security Space Launch program. Whatever. We should divide, we can talk about lane two in five minutes because we can debate what the actual intent of that thing is. Let me go back to lane one for a second. Lane one is like not that much more open than lane two. You don't have to hit all these

specified orbits to get into lane one like you do to lane two. Lane two, you have to have, you have to be able to hit these reference orbits that the space force sets out. But lane one, you just have to have flown a rocket to orbit that hits a certain payload range. It used to be like eight tons, so it would have been open essentially to the providers that we're talking about, SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin, plus Rocket Lab Neutron, relatively Terran R would fit in that range. The latest RFP has this new stipulation that certain missions can actually be flown as, distributed launch. So as long as you can do a thousand kilograms to orbit on any given launch, you could be on-ramped to lane one, though not every mission will be available that route. But hypothetically, ABL or Firefly could bid and say, we'll do that mission over five launches.

It'll be this much money. And that's going head-to-head against SpaceX saying, we'll do that in one mission. We're on the map on that. That doesn't seem likely that they would win, but Well, does the DOD have a lot of missions that they can break into five pieces? I didn't, I kind of, in my head cannon, these are like giant monolith, like, battle stations that you're sending up here. Like, I don't know what they are, but. Yes, but also it's 2023, Jake, and welcome to the world of constellations. Not sure you noticed.

Yeah. That's true. That's true. Fielding an entire constellation right now of hundreds of satellites at the moment. So. Yeah, they're being, they're feeling very termescent about it. constellations, right? Yeah.

So that's pretty much just, that's the only thing that would be viable in that route was, is like the space development agency has this constellation. They could fly it that way. This is all still.

Peter, Peter Beck's business decision is looking real good right now, then, isn't it? Who, by the way, is going to be building Neutron in Virginia, who, by the way, their senator, Tim Kane, is on the community,

that picks that. So that's interesting. Yeah, okay. All right. It's almost like Peter Beck doesn't mind about the Blue Origin lobbying line, right? Like, yeah. Yeah. So that's interesting.

But here's my thing about Lane 1 is that they, so my criticism of NASA's Clips program, right, has been that it is too open. So they onboard all these weird companies that then can bid $1 for the launch and the mission, the lander mission. And like at a certain point, this is an extreme example, but NASA is like, okay,

I guess we'll pick the $1 lander because that's per our criteria, like we needed a good deal on this. And then you get, you know, it's hard to like filter down to the serious companies. So lane one feels like

the Space Force saying, let's write requirements that give us a strong baseline of a serious company that's actually capable of providing legitimate launch services. But also, also open it up wide enough that they really have to be competitive on price and performance.

So even in this case, with the thousand kilogram guideline, right, if you're going to bid out a five and a half ton stack of constellation satellites, SpaceX is going to bid a Falcon 9 for that at like, because it's the Space Force, like, $80 million. Right? So here comes ABL saying, like, we'll give you, you know, five launches at $10 million, or five launches at $12 million. They're pretty competitive at that point, you know? Yeah, yeah. So they're trying, it feels like they're trying to find the right frequency of limitations that keeps it of a good competition, but still gives you the benefits of competition.

So my, this is where my conspiracy kicks in, is that, like, this is almost so little expansion of the market that it almost feels like a trial run of could this model just work for us in phase four? Could we ditch the pay these people $100 million a year to exist as a company? Are there enough launch vehicles in this highly sorted range that lets us just go full-on competition for phase four

and we'll try it out with 30 missions and we'll see how it goes. If SpaceX wins 29 of them, then we'll say that was not successful. We'll move on with our life and just do it the old way. But if there is actually an interesting mix of providers that win these, maybe we expand from 30 missions next time to like 50. And eventually one day, do we eat the whole thing by phase five?

That's kind of my vibe on it. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. So just another step in sort of the military trying to wean themselves off of the ULA subsidy. Pretty much, yeah, because now it's just the ULA, SpaceX, and soon Blue Origin. That was the ULA SpaceX subsidy. Yeah.

And the origin's like, let us in. And we're like, no. Because no. No, not like that. That was our 2012 argument. Now it's 22. That's not what I meant. Yeah.

I meant my team. All right. What's your conspiracy theory coming in? Are you a lane two conspiracy theorist? No, mine was much simpler. it was that the DoD knew they had to add 30 launches and they didn't know where they were going to get the money for it. And so they tricked Congress into approving a third provider. And they're like, well, now that we have this, you have to approve all these satellites.

That, I mean, again, see also the comment about like, when's the last time the DOD's really been concerned about a budget, you know? I don't think they lose a lot of sleep over it. I'm sure individually they do that like their particular program is not getting enough. but on the whole they're doing all right. The lane two thing, look, like my, I have found a decreasing amount of ability to care about this in terms of like a piece of drama because the point of lane two is that they want companies to exist

so that they can fly stuff to space. And I feel like as a military, like that is their job. That is what they are commissioned to do is to make sure that they exist in five years and make sure they can do the things that they need to do in five years. Like, to some extent, if they have weird requirements,

pay the people that are doing those for your weird requirements. At that point, if you are opening up more missions to this competitive range and you want those companies to rely on the competitive missions over in lane one,

give them less missions in lane two, and it's basically a second tier of what I was just saying of like establish a strong baseline of what competitive looks like, And lane two is just another ratchet up of like, can you go directly to geostationary orbit? That's really the gate. If so, we'll give you $100 million a year.

Like, we could write a law in this country that says, if you are a provider that can launch five tons to geostationary orbit directly, we will give you $100 million a year. And that would probably save us a lot of money instead of managing this kind of program. And I'm interested in that as a functional baseline of like, how much money are we spending writing all these requirements? What if we just said five tons to geo and you get $100 million a year and it's like an interesting incentive program? Well, this is what was really interesting to me in sort of the discussion is that there's all this chatter about who should or shouldn't be allowed to be in this program. Like, you know, oh, they have to already have a rocket or a rocket has to have already flown or the rocket has to already have flown to or the rocket has to already exist and have flown to all nine of the reference orbits or the rocket has to be based in Hawthor and California.

or whatever other, you know, requirements that people are sort of inventing have to be a thing. And a lot of the stuff was based on like, well, this is a service purchase. This is like costs. This is not, this isn't the government, you know, owning a design to SLS and Orion. They're just buying rockets as a service. And I was like, well, if they were really just buying rockets as a service, then they just buy rockets as a service. Like, you don't need to have any of this, right? Like, this is market intervention.

Like if you, whether you call it, you know, developing an industry or whether you call it assured access to space or whether, like, you know, you can have all the whatever buzzwords. Strategic investment. Yeah. It's market intervention. And that's fine. Like, you're allowed to do. That's what the government, the whole, any decision the government makes is how much do I intervene, basically. That's like, that's like the whole, the whole shit.

So, like, if you are just kind of like, accept the fact that the military is going to intervene in the market a little bit, because that's their prerogative, then, like, all the other requirements are just made up to whatever. Like, I don't know. Legally defensible. That's really it. Like, yeah. Yeah, I guess.

I guess. Yeah. So, I don't know. It's, it's bizarre. It's kind of a weird, weird thing that we're seeing. But, yeah. It's, it is weird because when you think about the other parts in the military, it's like, there isn't a commercially viable F-22.

Like, there's an F-22, you know? I guess to some extent if you say like, well, they sell to other countries so it's commercially viable. Like, okay, sure, but those are also like defense customers. They're pretty weird and one off. Oh, and Jared Isaac may know who's out of here buying fighter jets on the whim, you know?

I know that it's you know, buying launch services but like this isn't this isn't ordering copy paper for the government. It's different. Like, it is. It just is. And I hope we don't have to explain that. But there, therefore my theory holds

I feel like that lane one is like a beachhead in to establish some territory of like look it's possible to be fully competitive with this because at some point right in the in if we do the infinite time scale thing

uh this is solid point in the chat the Jared is weird because he buys both fighter jets and rocket launches and he's the complete outlier in the world um long view, right? Like, the U.S. Department of Defense does not have to pay Boeing and Airbus $100 million a year to remain solvent. Because they make a lot of airplanes.

The U.S. Department of Defense does not have to pay American Airlines $100 million a year for not flight purposes to continue flying their airplanes. So, like, at some point, is space travel going to be the same? And the DoD can stop doing that sort of thing and just fly, you know, commercially, effectively? sure are they still going to want the fighter jet equivalents of space services probably because they haven't stopped flying fighter jets like there's so weird services that the military does that normal people don't need so they're going to have to continue paying money for that and they just have to write a program that is legally defensible to do that and so right now we're just in this weird transition where no one no one can say that these companies are stable enough to exist in 10 years if you just switch off the DOD money but at the same extent, how many years away from that are we where a launch company actually can survive? I mean, so like one thing I know that

was kind of true in the early days of NSL1 or whatever it was called back in. I had a different name, but, you know, like the DoD was very excited about SpaceX, and it wasn't because they are excited about making life multi-planetary or using rockets, it's because they were going to squeeze ULA on cost like nobody's business.

Like it was a big deal just because like this is going to help us save a bunch of money. Like period. That was the, that was the reason number one, two and three

that the DOD was very excited about. Though, Jake, I will say it is arguable how much money they have saved over the past couple years in terms of like, it's gotten a little cheaper for sure. It's a little cheaper.

But in terms of the DOD budget, it's not a lot cheaper. Right? Yeah. Maybe they're like, hey, two isn't enough. Maybe we need to have three. Maybe we need to have 10.

I don't know. Maybe we could just keep going down this path because we need someone who's as good as SpaceX. We really want this price to come down. I mean, you and I have said that for our entire career as podcasters. Like nothing in the launch market gets interesting until someone puts pressure on SpaceX. That is what it is, you know? So who is it? This is just DOD's way of making that happen.

Yeah, man. I don't know. I feel like everyone is so focused. You know, you ever played dodgeball in high school? and stuff. I'm sure you played dodgeball in Canada. I don't know. Yeah. You know we got dodge ball a few years after you but we do play. Yeah. Right. Were you ever the kind that threw up a ball like a lob and then also had another ball on your other hand so that when everyone looks up at the lob, you just fucking nail them

right in the face. You know what I feel like that that ball is Blue Origin and Rocket Lab is like ready to just nail everyone with Neutron. It feels so like, yeah, I don't know. Don't you feel like that a little bit though? Yeah. Can someone make us a meme of that image of New Glenn going up and Neutron like nailing someone in the face? There's got to be like a screenshot from the Dodgeball movie with that wrench drill or whatever

we can do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's Neutron. No, you're 100% right. I mean, Blue Origin and Jeff Bezos are freaking lightning rods for vitriol. And so like anytime something weird happens in space, There's like, it's his fault. I'm going to get him.

And that's just how it goes. And then here comes to Tron. We'll take all 30 missions of Lane 1. No problem. Like, that's, that sounds great. There it is. Okay, we've solved it. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, now, do we need to go now and make predictions in the Discord about who's going to be the third provider based on this conspiracy theory? Again, have fun with the five GPS launches and two direct-to-geo, New Glenn. Have fun with that. Neutron's going to win 30 launches of Lane 1. and it'll be great. So not that I'm a homer to the extent that I can be a homer for Virginia-based Neutron,

but like that's a much better bet than New Glenn is a third provider and also wins a bunch of the lane one launches. Yeah. However, Tim Ellis now unsubscribe from our podcast, so thank you for that. That was really good. I don't know if that was a recent, might not have been a recent situation. Was he already not responding to your emails? I haven't tried in a while. All right.

Did we solve it? I felt like we solved some things. I think we did. Yeah, I don't think there are any open questions in space after that show. Nothing to debate about March 7 for turn. I mean, is there more like, I mean, if we had to pick two topics that perfectly describe everything we've talked about since 2015 or whatever, like. Like, natural security launch and Mars sample return. Like, come on.

July 20th, the day of Jeff Bezos's spaceflight, the Viking lander. The anniversary of Jeff Bezos. Nothing else. Maybe we should blame Mars sample return on Jeff Bezos. That would tie the all up in a nice bow. And then fly it on photon. To put Mars sample return on a blue moon, a blue Mars. Mars. And so they're getting it. Yeah. But it'll also fly on neutron. So yeah. Yeah.

What are we doing next week, Jake? Do you remember? I have to look at the calendar. I do know. Phil Metzger is coming to talk to us about sand that people mailed him, which I cannot wait to do. People mailed him particulate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All of those Bocahcichigo beachcomers went and scooped up stuff into zip logs. off to Phil Metzger. And then he's going to tell us whether he's, I mean, I think he's going to tell us whether Starship is good or not. I think that's the ultimate conclusion we're going to be reaching on next week's show. So once we solve that one, between Mars Sample Turn, Nissel 3 and, you know, is Starship good? There aren't any other podcasts you have to listen to, really. Like Europe, we're taking August off after that. Yeah, exactly, exactly. No, he's going to talk to us about the actual work he's doing, because Phil works. on specifically on the moon, but like, you know, the problem of when rockets land on the moon,

their engines make big, big, bad craters and that sand flies at every direction and never ever stops because there's no atmosphere. And it's a big problem if we ever want to do stuff on the moon. So he has done a lot of work on that. And the starship launch, turns out, was a pretty cool science experiment to figure out how that works. So I'm pretty, I'm pretty stoked doing it. I can't wait. I don't think I've ever talked to him, like not on Twitter. I'm very pumped about that. He's a riot. He's great. Yeah. He's got lots of good stuff to talk about, so that's next week. All right, y'all.

Well, that's it. We got nothing else. I didn't prepare an ending zinger. So yeah. Signed out from Medicine Hat. Oh, yeah. From Medicine Hat, signing off. Live from Medicine Hat.

Yeah, baby. Hell's basement. Live from Hell's basement. See y'all. Bye. What do we do it? Thank you.