Off-Nominal - 12 - Gary from Lockheed

Episode Date: September 17, 2018

Loren Grush joins Jake and Anthony to talk about whatever the hell SpaceX is going to announce, Opportunity’s troubles, the masterpiece that is Space Craft, and why you never start in Mexico. Beers Shiner Bock - Spoetzl Brewery - Untappd Earl Grey IPA - Gulf Islands Brewery (Salt Spring Island Ales) - Untappd Mighty Things - Victory Brewing Company - Untappd Topics Loren Grush on Twitter: “This tweet occurred while I was ordering sushi, and I just now realized I never submitted my order. A true tragedy” SpaceX says it will send someone around the Moon on its future monster rocket - The Verge Space Craft is back with season 2 - The Verge InSight: how NASA got its next Mars lander to the launch site - The Verge NASA is trying to squash conspiracy theories about the space station leak - The Verge Picks The Mars Exploration Rovers Update: NASA Focuses on Recovering Opportunity as Storm Diminishes and Dust Settles | The Planetary Society Watch The First Online at Hulu ROCKETGUT! A town by any other name Follow Loren Loren Grush (@lorengrush) | Twitter Loren Grush (@grushcrush) • Instagram photos and videos lorengrush Profile and Activity - The Verge Space Craft is back with season 2 - The Verge 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

DLS and go for main engine, start. Welcome to space. Lauren, did you get your sushi last night? I did, but not until around 11 p.m. I noticed that it was a pretty late sushi order that you put. It was. It was a tragic moment in the night because I thought I was going to, I was thinking to myself, okay, it's fine, I can eat while I'm writing, and then that never happened. What kind of sushi did you get? Oh, I'm a spicy crab and a spicy salmon with edamomame.

It's my standard order mission. Okay, okay. That's good. I have a question for you before we start. Sure. And this is before we start? Before we start. And don't take this the wrong way, but my question is, are you a robot?

Because you post a lot of articles. And it doesn't. matter what time it is. Well, okay, last night was an exception, but sometimes I've actually had to kind of like take it back a bit because it was just too much and I need to like live my life. But then when I go on my vacations, it turns out to be a terrible choice and crazy things happen. Like I think actually my coworkers say that I'm cursed or some witch cursed me because

I think my most recent vacation, they announced the Space Force. the day, like the first day I was on vacation. And I, you can't even make this stuff up anymore. Every, every time that you say, oh, I'm going to be out for two weeks, I'm like, yes. There's such a good thing coming in the very imminent future. Exactly. Well, I'm about to go to Paris for a week in late October's.

Oh, shoot. What's happening? Man. Jake, I always end up skipping. the beer segment on this show. Yes, you do. Or drink segment. I always jump right into it. So I'm going to remember tonight, Lauren, you're actively drinking right now. So I'm putting you on the spot. What do you drink? Shiner Bach. It is the go-to Texas drink as I am from Texas. And it's the best beer you can drink, in my opinion.

Yikes. All right, throwing down. That's also a very Texas way to start the conversation. Cool. Okay. So like, you know how there's certain moments in time when you, there's certain days when you drink a particular drink that's just like resonating with your current day? Sure, yes. Does that mean, I know. I was at this wedding once outside of Baltimore and it was about 100 degrees and they had those ruby redbirds. I think they're shining ruby redbirds. And I drank so many of those and they were so refreshing.

And it's like one of those things that I'm just like, every time I drink that, I'm like, oh, I remember. remember exactly where I was and I was drinking this and it was super good. That sounds so yeah. Anytime I introduced a Shiner, somebody, they always fall in love with it. So I just contend it's the best beer that you can drink. I'm going to have to look for that. I would notice that this was the second show in a road that Jake has had a distinct comment about our guests.

And I'm taking issue with it. Ah, I got, so I got characterized inappropriately on the last time because I like Belgian beer and anyway we're not going to get into it what do you got what do you got tonight

to write your room all right so I was thinking a lot about the moon last night as I'm sure many were and so I picked up this is a salt

spring island ales which is like a salt springs like one of the many Gulf islands kind of off the coast of Vancouver and this is the Earl Grey that's a different Gulf then

used to. So you got to really specify. Yeah, Earl Grey IPA and it's got a little hat on it. And it's typical Vancouver. It's a very large bottle. Yeah, that's very... Let me see that again. Bring that back closer to the camera. Let me see that. 650 milliliters, which is like

4,000 ounces or something on all that corruption. Maybe not that much. It's a lot. It's a lot. Anyway, so here we go. I always do the pour. Oh, nice. This is like, I use like the same. same glass every time, too. This is going to start to become a...

You do. It's always the oilers glass and it's always a large, oversized bottle of beer. And he always does the opening right in the market. Nice. Cool. Oh, this is fragrant. Well, that's delightful. Okay. Does it taste like girl gray tea? A little bit, yeah. Yeah, that's what I was going to wonder. Like, what's the deal there?

It seems like the bar taste for a beer, but I'll trust you. It's like a little sweet and... Hmm. Ooh. Okay. Yeah. I need to think about this one. None of that sounded like a great reaction.

No, no, no, no good thing. Like, I need to, I need to, like, process it. It's good, though. I like it. All right. So I went down to my little local shop and I found a beer from the local brewery, victory. I guess sort of local. It's outside of Philly that I hadn't tried before.

It seems to be a seasonal one called Mighty Things. It's an Imperial IPA. It's a pretty rad logo as well. Is that a hot? It's a hop? no it's a hop but i mean i guess it could be a show but let me do so victory is uh from downingtown pa outside of philadelphia and i was like mighty things i

haven't seen that before let me look it up and it says that it's from may to august 2018 so i'm a little late i guess i haven't seen it on the shelves before um but i guess the founders were really into teddy roosevelt for some reason uh and they have this quote on the website that i'm going to start the show off with, and then we'll see where it goes. Okay? Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in

the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. This feels kind of relevant. It feels like the jet propulsion laboratory. Oh, yeah. Okay. Sure. We'll go with that. Oh, man.

Are we getting in... What is our... Okay, so we were... We had an email thread, and we were like, what are we going to talk about? And Lauren was like, oh my gosh, there's not really that much going on. I know, it's all my fault. I made this happen. I'm so sorry.

She's like, well, I guess there's nothing to talk about. We'll just, like, talk about my rad internet space show. And that's about it. What is our plan here? Because we got this big SpaceX thing. Yeah. That... What are we doing here?

Okay, well, if we talk about this, though, it's going to be wrong by tomorrow morning. Right. Yeah. I mean, wait, are we live right now, but are we posting this podcast later? Oh, if we're talking about this, I'm posting it in like single digit hours or else there's like a very short shelf life on this. Yeah, we can't be past Monday or we'll be wrong. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess my biggest question is, is this one of the people that they had originally said was going to ride on the Falcon Heavy?

Or is it a completely new customer? And if it is a completely new customer, what happened to those people that were riding on the Falcon Heavy? Because I really want to know what happened to them. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it's kind of like, I've been noticing here's a trend like that's really interesting to me is like the more press releases we get from. not just SpaceX, mostly SpaceX, but a lot of these places now it's like really, really fast and lose with the truth. It's like, here's the thing that we're going to say. It's like, well, what about this?

It's like, shit's okay. It's fine. We just want to say this because I think it'd be a good time to say it. And it's like, oh, all right. Yeah. Pat, in the chat keeps saying funding security in response to all this. And it's just the perfect, it's the perfect take on this situation. It really is.

I mean of these announcements or something to think about, too. If you remember, the last Falcon Heavy announcement was made right when Trump had become president, and there was a lot of discussion about putting people on the first flight of the SLS. And it just seemed very peculiar that, oh, we're going to announce that we're doing a lunar flight to at the end of 2018 before the SLS flight. So I think these decisions or these announcements are definitely, they come at a time of, great political importance, and I'm wondering what the motivation is for right now. Yeah. Yeah, that other one was like the same week.

Yeah, yeah. It was a weird week. It was very close, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I... I'll say this up front, that SpaceX is having a fairly rough end of the year, though you wouldn't know it. Like, they seem, there's a lot...

They had a great start of the year, Falcon Heavy, and they had a pretty good pace. It got the Block 5 launched. They recovered it. It seemed to go pretty well. There's a lot under the surface right now where like GPS is pretty delayed. The Falcon Heavy Air Force flight is like pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty delayed even beyond what they've announced so far. Crew seems good. Seems like they do have a lot of focus on crew, but there seems to be something. Yeah, the whole Elon situation is another topic entirely, I think. Yeah. But it's been a weird couple of months and there's even some like block five falcon nine delays that are hard to explain that they're still having some issue that they're not really talking about things seem to

be going slower so it if it wasn't lined up directly with like the yearly updates i would be a lot more worried about the fact that it's like a big flashy thing at the same time as there might be some problems here that makes me kind of nervous yeah i think yeah i think it's important to know, SpaceX is doing so well. I mean, like you said, they look like they're doing well on the outside. So I think maybe this is a moment to kind of remind people of like, you know, Elon created SpaceX. And here we can talk about like how aspirational our goals are and how big we're going to go. And yeah, it has been a while since SpaceX has had something like really flashy.

like this since I think their last big thing what was like the block five launch right I mean yeah mayish may and then and then the commercial crew keeps getting delayed so yeah I think it's more of kind of keeping them in the conversation and keeping Elon in kind of a more good light it's very like it's very almost it's exact same kind of good light yeah a good light how about a better light It's very indicative of the behavior you would see from someone running for office, though, you know, like keeping your brand like top of like it. Yeah. It's very similar. Yeah.

Hmm. I guess they had the whole fairing problems too, right? Which is like supposed to be a big splash and then was, it was a splash. Oh. I'm about to hang up Skype. That was terrible. I don't think that was bad. I think that was fun.

You know, like we all. I think the thing that draws people to SpaceX is that they try new and ambitious things. And even if they don't work out, it's still fun and exciting to follow. So even though that didn't work out, it still seemed like a positive to me. So I would necessarily consider that a negative. Maybe they perceive it as one, but that was more fun. It's like, well, we'll just keep trying, you know. And it's always experimental when they do stuff like that.

Yeah, I think they were hoping that they would get some kind of success before this big lull in the launches, though. And that didn't work out, which is like, if you're an engineer, it's like fine, whatever. You just keep going. But from a PR perspective, it was not good timing, right? Right, right. I can see that for sure. All right. So I don't want to get too into like speculation because that's very quickly going to be boring and then nobody would find this conversation interesting because we would be wrong or right and it's fine.

but what is the thing that you would like if you had your pick of a thing that they would announce on Monday that would make you more confident in BFR, BFS, et cetera. Like what what is that item that you would hope for in your most favorite universe that you can create in your mind? Yeah. That you would hope for them to announce on Monday. What makes a really positive verge article on Monday? That's the question right there. I think I would need some kind of, I need more reassurance about how they're going to fund this development.

Because remember, they said it was going to be, what, $10 billion to develop this rocket. And I just don't believe that their business is that lucrative, like from their NASA contracts and from launching satellites. I just don't, I think there's got to be some kind of other cash influx for this development's work. And I, so a more, a better understanding of like where, how they're going to do to fund this. And then also maybe some like more details about their testing program for their Raptor engines. And, you know, like when they're going to roll out new hardware and when we're going to see stuff like that, like a more detailed timeline of their testing process. I think that maybe is what I'm looking for.

Yeah. That's, yeah, so the graphic that was released is much different than what we saw last time. Yeah. And in a lot of ways. It looks like that rocket ship at Disneyland. Like, everyone else saw that, right? It does. Wait, which.

Yeah, so we're on the East Coast, Jake. This is a very East Coast heavy thing. I don't know if they have it. We just go to the real one. That is Disney World. That's the real one. in Disneyland. Yeah, nobody goes there from this side of the world.

So to be clear, Disneyland was first. Let's just get that on record for the podcast. To be clear, Disney World is the best. That's 100% sure. Has Epcon. It does have Epcon. No, Disneyland has like, it's in Tomorrowland and it's like this long, thin white rock with like three legs.

And it like kind of looks like a, someone's going to put it in the chat for me because I think I tweet or did it. But yeah, it's like the TWA rock. like that's the the brand on it but but the the kind of wings look like legs and it's it's very similar but I think the last time I went there I tweeted a picture of it and I was like sorry SpaceX Disney did it first but no one thought it was funny though the one thing I'm wondering so like a couple of weeks ago somebody was doing some talk where they talked about they stated that the the Leo payload of BFR was now down to a hundred ton a hundred

tons, which was different than the 150 that we heard before. So there's some sort of size change. And I'm wondering if the engines are coming down to the size of the Raptor engine that they've already been testing, because that's been subscale for the last two revisions of BFR. And if this is a version of BFR that is actually the same size as the Raptor engine they've already been firing for thousands of seconds, does that make you believe it more that, like, okay, we've now successfully downgraded this rocket to the point where we do have to have a full-scale engine? Is that more confidence inspired? Yeah, actually. And you know what? I always

was skeptical of this idea of making a huge-ass rocket. Like, I'm not a fan of big rockets, because I think it's, I think you can do more in space than most people realize, and people just aren't thinking that way. Like, we, we aren't thinking of, like, in-space manufacturing. We aren't thinking of like, you know, in space, you know, what's the word, you know, piecing things together in space. I don't think we need to send a bunch of crap up in one piece to really do need things in, you know, to the moon or Mars. So honestly, if they were like, actually we learned out, we learned that we don't really need that big of a rocket. We can actually set up scale. I think that would actually instill more confidence in, in this whole BFR endeavor.

to me. Yeah. That's very classic, like, project manager, right? Like, ask for everything you want, and then through iteration, it'll, like, narrow down and refine and, like, get to the actual usable, sellable product, right? Right, right. Some sort of MVP situation. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And just, like, the thing that I've learned from talking with engineers is it's, it's not about how much you can put up in space at one time. It's about how much you can put up for a certain cost and how, how, frequently you launch that rocket. So if scaling things down means that you can launch more frequently and that it costs less, then I think that's what's most, that's the key metric that's going to make you more successful in your deep space endeavors. That's fair analysis. That's good. I'm bang on. That's, but I'm regurgitating what other people have told me. That is,

that is not my original analysis. Yeah, I know, I think that's, that's right. And even if it is regurgitated, like, it just, it's just, if you take all the emotion out of it and just think about it rationally, of course, that's how it has to happen. Like, there is no market for a 190 ton payload. Like, I just, I don't know, whatever it number is. I can't keep track of them anymore. But, like, there's no market for that.

No one wants that. No one's like, oh, I can't wait for this rocket to go on because I have this payload that I've been wanting to launch for 40 years and no one's been able to take it. Like, it's just not the way it is. is, right? Right. And when they originally announced, or well, okay, the second time they announced BFR, the different version. 2017 BFR. 2017 BFR. I did a whole analysis of, is there a market for this rocket? And I believe I talked,

with some people I talked to was like, you know, a couple of launches of this would get all of the satellites up in a year that ever needed to be launched, you know? And I don't know if you saw, but there's been talk about how there's this. downturn in geostationary satellites. So it just doesn't, going big just doesn't make so much sense. It makes more sense to me to kind of scale down. And then if you want to do more ambitious things, you know, launch things up in pieces and then, you know, piece things together in space if you need to.

Even if it only costs you the fuel? Yeah. That's the big selling feature, right? Yeah, right. It's how big it is, which is not true because you wouldn't fly in a 747 by yourself. I mean, I would. It would be pretty rad. If somebody said you could do it, I would.

It would be a plane I could actually fit into. Lauren, Jake is very tall. I'm very short. Jake is very tall. Yeah, that was the other thing. It's like, is this person going by themselves? That doesn't seem right, right? Like, they have somebody to put them.

I was like they're into our first passenger. I'm like, okay, well, it's probably like first customer. And that customers may not be a person. It might be like an organization. And they're putting in like 20 people or something like that, right? Because you know how they're fast and loose with all the terminology, right? I'm like just getting wildly here. Yeah.

Lauren, is it you and this is actually the spacecraft season three episode one? Yes. I'm going. We're taking our whole camera crew with us. Going to give you the full experiential piece about it. I mean, that is the end goal, right? Yeah, I mean, that would... Come on, you could be real here.

Of course. There's like five people listening. Yes, of course. I would love to take my camera crew into space. I think that would be the best season finale of any show ever. Is that it? Is that the last episode ever? Yeah, how do I...

I think that's it, right? Yeah, like, what will we do after that? Nothing would compare it. That's it. Yeah, that's the end. I mean, I guess like, moon, Mars, you could do. Yeah, if I could go to the moon, then I could. Right. Oh, my gosh.

Can you imagine? Funding secured. Funding secured. So we should talk about spacecraft. I would love to hear, give us like the, what's the elevator pitch for this new season? So the first season, I kind of considered it was just like a basic, what does it take to get to space? and I really wanted to show just how difficult it is to be trained to be an astronaut. You know, wearing space suits is not easy.

The physical requirements are not easy. And I just laugh when people say it's like, oh, it's so we can just go to space. It's no big deal. I'm like, actually, you have a lot to learn before you go into space. So this season is more about what it takes to live out of, you know, live off of Earth. So long-duration missions to moon and Mars and the problems that are associated with that. So like having a medical emergency en route to the moon or Mars, that honestly fascinates me because it's something that we've just never dealt with, but it's something that we're going to have to

deal with when we do these like a year-long missions to Mars. And I mean, what are you going to do? you have to be autonomous and you have to figure out how to solve these medical problems on your own because you can't really talk with anybody on Earth. And that terrifies me. Yeah, that looked like a super not stressful day for you. Yeah, no, definitely. I do like there was one moment in that episode when you were just like, what have I gotten myself into?

And it was like my favorite moment because it's like, Lauren right now is every space nerd in this, in this environment. blinking red lights, there's a guy laying on the table, there's people freaking out, she's talking to the mission control, everything's going wrong. Basically, they gave us very little prep. You know, they had like a rundown of what, of the different scenarios we were going to do, and then we just kind of went with it. And so that was me being like, oh, no, what have I done? I'm in it now.

Here we go. So what was, I'm, there's probably so many fun behind the scenes stories of season one and two. I'm not limiting this this season two. What do you think is your favorite anecdote from all of the various situations in which you've gotten yourself into? You've been in various EVA suits, you've been in medical scenarios.

If you could go back and do one again, which one would you choose to put yourself into? So I think my... Don't say Hawaii, because that's the easier one. No, no, no. Actually, I think my favorite two to film were the vomit comment episodes, and then...

Oh, that's correct. That's a correct answer. actually I really love North Dakota, which is where we got to try on the spacesuits, because they were so relaxed about it. They were just like, yeah, we can put it on, put it on, no problem. And it was just all about like, oh, yeah, we'll just pull you out of the space suit.

Like, we'll take you out to this field and you can run around in it, and no problem. Like, it was just so relaxed and we had so much fun with it that that was just such a great shoot. Like, I really loved that. But of course, the vomit. the Bama Comet was just, you know, classic. And I recommend if anybody has the means to do it, do it.

It's just such a fun. I mean, it's short, but it's fun. And you really get to experience what weightlessness feels like. And it just, it's so cool. Okay. Can you tell us about the other parts? Off nominal meetup at zero G. It'll be cheap.

You know, it's actually, I listed up once. Listen, man, Patreon isn't going that great. I looked it up once. It's actually, if you can get a group to, like, split it, Was there a group on? There's a group on for CRG flights. Yeah, dude, they market them everywhere. And so, like, if you get a big enough group, like, let's say you get 20 people and you split the cost, it is reasonable for, like, you might spend more at super Disney World or whatever you have on that side of the.

That's regular Disney World. And you would definitely spend more money. It's like such a, it's the flight of a lifetime. And I'm sure you can find friends who can, who will. Lauren, are you in? in for this again. Yeah, sure, of course. Let's do it. Jake, how many people do we need? Okay, you guys keep talking. I'm going to look up the price. 20. I'm counting. We got three on Skype, and we've got about, I'm not super great at counting right in a mode. That looks like 11 people.

So by my count, we're six people away here from the Groupon. Is that a Groupon? Sound like, you were pitching me a Groupon on this Zerog plate. But Lauren, I want to know, everybody always says zero g flight this is the weightless part is super great can you tell me about the other half of the parabola oh yeah for sure actually really liked being in extra gs i don't know it just kind of like felt like i was it was it was the intense you know part that you had to work through in order to get to the fun part nobody says this nobody says that nobody everybody says zero g super great super great no i really liked it just felt like oh yeah here i am getting pressed down upon like i'm ready to do it again.

Granted, I did get starts to feel nauseous towards the end. Like when they called the last parabola or whatever, I was like, okay, yeah, I'm good. This will be it. Yeah, but I really didn't. I just felt like it was kind of the, you know, the obstacle you had to get through. So it felt. It's the boss battle. Yeah, exactly.

It felt much more justified to get to the, to the zero G part. So I kind of liked it. Were you like, what is that? Are you doing like, are you laying down or are you on your stomach? What's the situation? You're laying on your back and just kind of you can imagine like a mattress, you know, somebody sitting on a mattress on top of you. That's how it felt.

Super regular scenario that I could imagine. Yeah, you know, that's definitely what happens all the time. That's a weird place to go, but okay. Everybody kind of built it up as this moment. They're like, don't shake your head when you're in this scenario because you'll get nauseous. And so I kind of like... Did you do it? Of course I did.

Because we're going to go take this back to Disney World for a second. I did that on Mission Space. Oh, you did? I love Mission Space. Such a good... Yeah, Gerard, you probably, as based on your scenario, you probably turned your head during that Mission Space launch sequence as well. And so maybe I was always so nervous about going on the vomit comment because I really didn't

want to throw up and I wanted to have a good experience. but I should have known that I did that ride and I was totally fine. My mother was not good. She was like, nope, can't handle this. So I think we just have different constitutions. Okay, hold on a second.

I got a big problem with you equating mission space to literally being on a plane that's plummeting from the sky to simulate weightlessness. This is a drastically different scenario. Is mission space the one where you get into like the little shuttle crap and it like tosses you to the left and right? No, it's an actual centrifuge. It's a full centrifuge.

and you do experience extra Gs to kind of like, and then they move you back and forth to experience, you know, landing on Mars and some crazy asteroid scenario. The 3Gs part of launch is legit. The,

then you do like a 3G, I don't know why this turned in the Mission Space podcast, but you do like a 3G launch and then I think they flip you real quick to make it feel like you went into 0G, but you don't actually get, get zero G because it's a centrifuge. I feel like they just lean you forward.

Just like, yeah, like you're facing the ground at that point. Still rad. Would totally ride that ride again. Definitely getting a fast pass. Definitely. Hmm. You got to go to Disney World, Jake. I've been to Disney World.

All right. We're definitely 100% next time that there's a launch that we're going to, we're doing off-nominal meetup at Epcot. I thought we discussed that this was not a good decision for our health. No, we discussed that this was a good. Lauren, are you in for the off nominal meetup? We're drinking around the world and then we're going to miss this. Oh, I'm 100% in.

Actually, I really want... Not start in Mexico. It's always a bad decision to start in Mexico. Oh, I started in Mexico left. No, no, we've had this discussion on this podcast. You never start in Mexico. You're right. I was like totally...

Where's George? Exactly. You never start in Mexico. Oh, amateurs. You start in Canada. You're so right. You're so right. We will get you on the... the right foot to start. Okay. This is good.

No, it's... Because then Mexico is near mission space when you leave. Oh, you're right. It's on that same side. How do you know this start? I lived in Florida for a couple of years. No, I really do want to go, because I haven't experienced a launch, like, enjoyed one without reporting on it since I think the last time I saw the shuttle launch.

Hold on a second We definitely both saw you at Falcon Heavy And you did look like you were enjoying it I definitely enjoyed it But you didn't see the all-nighter that we pulled To put that video up You know That's a fair statement

We were sitting in the independent podcaster section Which was the back wall of that press room Much lower stakes back there She's like I don't know where that is Like yeah it's not a place I'm some fun behind the scenes of that video Like basically we went back to hotel, my amazing videographers editing and going crazy. And then I got a, they were like, I think it was like midnight.

They were like, okay, go take a nap. And then we'll need you to record at like two in the morning. And I get a call at two in the morning. They're like, okay, come downstairs. And they had created a makeshift sound booth in their closet, which was like draped, like a blanket and some chairs and stuff inside to just to kind of soundproof it. And so listen, again, you're talking to independent podcasts. We are pros at recording closets.

Look at Jake right now. This is my bedroom. So basically the voiceover you hear is a very sleepy Lauren at two, three in the morning in a closet that's trying to sound enthusiastic as possible. But it turned out better than I could have ever imagined. It reminds me of the insight videos, too, because that was, like, forgivably actually in the middle of the night. And so everyone just, like, said, you know, we're just going to go with it. We're just going to make our content. And everyone's going to have sympathy for our tiredness.

Everyone is, like, with coffee, like, yeah, I'm here at Vandenberg. It's really foggy. Can't see anything. I can barely hear anything. The funny thing is I'm so candid. And I think everyone was trying to be really optimistic about. what it just happened to us. But it's like we all just came out

to the middle of nowhere and didn't see anything. And I'm the one that's like, this sucked. And everyone's like, no, we was fine. We could hear it in the fog. This is really loud. No, this was terrible.

Cool mission, though. Very cool mission. You got to ride on that whole like C5. Was there C5? was that? It's cool. I will admit that was very cool. Yeah, let's get into that a little bit. That was really cool. Tell us some stories. Yeah, so, yeah, Lockheed reached

out and asked if I wanted to ride with Insight from Colorado to Vandenberg, and I was like, yes, of course. Listen, I was going to be in Disney at that point, Mission Space, very short lines that time of the year. I had a dentist appointment. Actually, I was concerned

that it was going to align with Falcon Heavy because they kept pushing back the launch. And I couldn't give them a clear answer because I was like, I'm sorry, but Falcon Heavy takes priority. And it worked out that Falcon Heavy launched. So I got to go. And yeah, they were,

it was just so cool. Like I got on the flight and I was like, can I just go up to the cockpit? And they were like, yeah, sure. And so I got to like be in the cockpit when they took off. and it was just incredible. And they were just so chill and everybody was so relaxed about it.

So it was fun. So what you fly into for that? We flew into Vanderburt. You landed on that little airstrip. Yeah. Okay, that's that's freaking amazing. Yeah. What was pretty simple is we were all in a bus.

So Insight followed us while we got to Buckley. That's the one in Denver. And yeah, so Insight was following us very slowly on the highway and they had this like whole police escort and at some point

we got a call where they said that the like the sign that said Insight had fallen off the box. And I was like, what is that me? Are we okay? They're like, no, it's fine. It just doesn't have more insight on it anymore.

We've got a major situation. The four people that have watched us in suburban Denver, if you don't know what we're driving anymore. But that's like a total foreshadowing of the launch, though. I know. Don't worry, it's there. You can't see it, but it's there. Too accurate.

Just listen for it. Just feel the ground. You'll feel it coming. It's all good. It's just a seismometer. Y'all, I felt so bad to you. All the people that were with me, had never seen a launch before.

I had talked it up so much. I was like, it's life-changing. You're going to love it. You're going to tell all your friends. Sure did. They're like, this lady that I work with, she told me that this is going to be the best thing I've ever seen in my whole life.

Oh, I felt so bad. The next time I go to a launch in California, I'm doing the whole, like, stay in L.A. and climb a mountain thing, because that was the right, that's the right way to watch a launch, I think. There's all these pictures like, great insight looked. I'm like, well, I didn't see any of that. Well, that's the other thing. We knew that the fog was going to be a problem. So we had different people stationed at different areas, and it still didn't work. So there's like, apparently there's, someone gave us a

longitude and latitude latitude of where to park our car on this hillside in Lompoke or near Lompok that was supposed to be a really good vantage void for seeing the launch. And so we stationed one of our guys up there all by himself in the dark at like 3 a.m. And then the rest of us went out to the gravel pit in Vanderbork Air Force Base, which I'm told is a lovely place to watch launches from. In fact, it's much better than Cape Cranabrele. I wouldn't know. Anyway, so we had multiple people trying to capture this launch from different spots. And as soon as launch was over, we get a text from the guy who's up on the mountain. He's like, yeah, I didn't see anything.

So it was, it's just, it's funny. Like, I can't, I don't have a bad experience because it's just so funny to think about and how hilarious, like hilariously bad it became. The early morning did not help it either because it was like all that hype of like shocking your body and being like, you have no sleep, it's dark, you don't know where you are, but it's going to be something fun. And then it was like, oh my God, someone posted my picture of, of the box for insight without the...

Yeah, that's exactly... Oh, this is your photo. Oh, this is inside the plane. Inside the plane. Okay, so that... Podcast listeners, I'm baking this the album art for this segment of the show. Yeah.

Check it out while Lauren explains what we're looking at. Yeah, so we're in the plane, and this is the box that's carrying insight, and there's a little black square, and that's where the Insight logo is supposed to be. It was like, it was like tacked on with Velcro or something. something and it fell off on the highway and sit. Okay, these three guys that are in this photo are so over this.

This guy, this one dude's reading a book. You can literally see the book in the photo. Yeah. The other dude in the orange vest is probably tweeting. I don't know what he's doing over there. And then the other dude has got his hood up. He's definitely taking a nap. I think one of those guys is Gary from Lockheed, who is my tweet guide.

I know Gary. Oh, you know, Gary. Yeah, yeah. I do. Gary from Locky. Oh, everybody knows. Gary from Locky. Actually, they do.

Really, like, he's that guy. Listen, I'm just some dude out here in Philadelphia. I have no connections to anything. Old space. I got to talk to Gary. You got to go to Denver. Is this Gary? Kurt is posted a zoomed-in photo of the Man in the Orange Vest.

Is that Gary? No, that's not Gary. Okay. Gary, I think, is the one with the glass. Gary, the one taking a nap? He's the one you can have to see his face on the left. No, not Gary. That's not Gary.

Search for Gary. Oh, wait, here we go. Yes, the zoomed in. Gary, who are you, Gary? Where have you been? You've got a LinkedIn URL now? No, that's not Gary. That's not Gary.

She's like stop talking about Gary. All right. Gary, listen, Gary, you're our next guest. Email Jake at offnominal. Space. Let them know you want to come on off nominal. Gary's great. Gary got me all the interviews for insight. So you can thank Gary for that.

All right. We're on the topic of Mars. Where's everybody out on this opportunity hot drama? I'm not optimistic. But I think that's just because NASA seems to have kind of hung up their hat on it. it, you know. And I mean, there was, so that was the other thing. Another, Lauren goes on vacation and this is all the news. It was that Friday that NASA had released, or it was like the Thursday before Labor Day weekend, NASA had released the press release saying that they were going to do this campaign of 45 days of thinging. And then the next morning, I got an email that was like, hey, some people think you should know that we think this is bullshit. I got that email too, and I was like all, I was on, on us on vacation.

So actually had a, had a very Lauren moment. I was on vacation. So I came out of the Alaskan brush with my phone and were like, opportunity. But so I was like all incensed with everybody else. But then I started, I read, and this is, I'm going to give way my pick now. Okay. All right, early pick for Jake today.

Who gives a shit? Nobody's spoiler in picks here, man. It's a spoiled pick. Anyway, it's the Planetary Society's update. They do a monthly update by AJS Rail on the Uptune Rover. And it goes through like the whole other side of it, which was absent from the Twitter outcry, right? And it's actually kind of, I was swung back,

my pendulum of emotion swung back the other way. And now I'm like really have a lot of questions. But like the whole 45 day thing, was only like really screamed about in context of spirit because they had much longer, but spirit had this weird problem that opportunity doesn't have. And anyway, so it kind of makes sense if you read the article. But so now, now I don't know anymore. Now I have to do more research.

Quick editor's note, as Jake was explaining how he's feeling all right about this, Lauren had very skeptical eyeballs. Yeah, yeah. She was like, I don't know about this guy anymore. Anthony's telling me that everything's going to be okay. I see both sides. So I understand, I haven't obviously been working with the rover as much as the JPL engineers have, so I understand that they're very close to it and really want to save it.

But at the same time, things come to an end, you know? And opportunity lasted so much longer than we ever thought it would. So I don't think it's necessarily a tragedy if we never hear from it again. But I do understand that those that have been working with it should try. I think they feel like they want to try every possible way of re-communicating with it that they can. And they don't think that this is enough. I can't make that judgment call. You know, like, I'm not a fear.

And I don't know for NASA. I think you're right in that like if it ends, it's not a tragedy. But what would be bad is if it ended prematurely when it didn't happen. after you, right? That's kind of the fundamental thing. Most people are arguing with this five-day recovery. It's that it's not enough and we could try longer. So we'll see. I don't know if things will change in the near future, but possible.

Okay. Yeah, I got no takes on fun. I'm just really sitting here wondering what Gary from Lockheed, Thanks. I think people What is he, where's he at on it? You're all right.

It's Gary. Found him. Who is Gary? Is our new calling cry here? Gary's like, listen, I'm here when you're the next rover. I'm going to get a call from Lockheed tomorrow that's like, what are you saying about me?

You're not invited for our next, our next transport of a Mars lander. That's funny. Okay, we have a little bit of time left. I want to talk about Russia. very briefly. Can we talk about Russia? Yes. I believe we were talking about this the whole time.

What was that? I don't know. Anthony just did some sort of tribal dance. I know. I'm sorry. Listen, I haven't really talked about Russia a lot, but I got some serious takes. Please, I bulge. Are they hot?

They're pretty hot. I think if Russia, not even I think. Let me ask you to a question. If we weren't beholden to, Russia to get us to ISS. How many years ago would we have totally ditched Russia as a space partner? Very good

question. I don't know. A lot. A lot of years. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I have totally ditched them. I want Russia to have no parts in building any part of the gateway if we're going to build the gateway. But it's like the one

threads that we have of peaceful cooperation with them at this point. Hold on, real quick. Everybody's requesting the hot drama alarm. Let me just quick, real quick, quick pause. Hot drama. This is the hot drama alarm.

This is an official hot drama alarm situation. Russia, the country, has had damn near zero space achievements that weren't kicked off in the Soviet era. You're right. And it's just been a very slow decline. and I do really, really, really feel like this whole drill situation plus the propaganda about, like, NASA's got a sick astronaut that wants to come home early. I kind of feel like this is the moment when it's like, this is the straw that breaks the camel's back of like, listen, man, we got a major situation on our hands here. What I'm wondering is what is the motivation behind spreading this rumor? you know, why

why does Russia resort to sabotage immediately? You know, because Dimitri Rosen or whatever, he was the one that was condemning all these journalists and he was the one that planted the seed of sabotage story.

But what's, I guess I'm still struggling with the motivation of it. And is it just to immediately offset the blame? to somebody else instead of one of their workers? Or, and why jeopardize this relationship with NASA if they don't have to?

I'm just kind of confused by the whole. Well, so commercial crew is months away from launching the first astronaut. Right. When that happens, there is no longer money exchanging hands from NASA to Ros Cosmos. and where we are today, a single astronaut seat to the ISS is about 5% of the Russian national space budget for a year, for a year. A single seat. So, you know, two flights a year, six months stays on the ISS, about 10% of the Russian national space budget. It's a big chunk, yeah.

That's a lot of money that's going away next year. You know, because the barter seat, you know, between, like, there's always going to be a NASA astronaut on Soyuz, there's always going to be a Russian astronaut on Soyuz. there's always going to be a Russian astronaut on commercial crew, that's a zero-funds exchange situation. So if commercial crew really does get off the ground next year, Russia is cut off from NASA funding. But that's... Are you over-thinking it, though?

I don't know how sabotage saves that. Yeah. That's what I'm saying is like, why would you kind of jeopardize the relationship if this is such a crucial funding avenue for you, wouldn't you want to kind of sweet talk, NASA, to keep the opportunity flowing, you know, I don't know. I don't know.

Are we just overthinking it? Like, is this just a case of there's a new head of Ross Cosmos and he doesn't want to look bad in front of his boss? And he's... Right. And he's always kind of been really, really, like, heavy-handed with, hey, why don't NASA make a trampoline to get the astronauts to ice? He's always kind of been, you know, a loose cannon.

heard Russia is kind of that like this is their thing is to blame sabotage for everything and like I've reported this is the first time that they were you know resorted to sabotage for spacecraft failures before like this is kind of their thing is to sort of been about half a century yeah exactly so maybe that's just what they do and it's just coming at a pivotal a pivotal time thank you Shiner. Hey, listen, we're like 40 minutes in at this point. Anonymous. Yeah.

It's coming at a pivotal time for the Russian NASA relationship. That could be it. But it just seems very. I mean, it is it is pure embarrassment for Russia. Yeah. You know. It's super embarrassing. Like that's where I think you might be overthinking it.

Is it like that is a bad look? All the other stuff they've had like Q. problems and and that's like it's not good but it's like well we just we're running out of money and that's just is what it is but this is like someone maliciously like made the decision to say

I am more important than all the lives of the astronauts I'm just going to put my bubble gum in here and cover it up with sticky tape and hope no one notices or like like there's there's some super bad stuff in there if they but but even it's not it's not like

so there's this Russian ISS module that's been talked about being launched for like a half a decade at this point. Right. And the most recent delay is like particulate in the fuel lines. Also a recent delay that the SLS has had. So that one isn't really an issue that is like only Russia screws up like this. This one is very directly, like there's a direct line between this particular failure and Russian engineer is underpaid and worried about reporting an issue.

that would cost him or her his or her job. And that was a complex sentence for a couple of beers in at this point. Like, there's a direct line between this issue and the state of Russian QA at, you know, various space contractors. I know. And I think that's the point that, did I fail out right there? Yeah, you passed. Well, everybody else is listening to me directly, so it's okay. But there's a direct line between this failure and the issues that we've been seeing.

in Russian space engineering for the last couple of years. And maybe that alone is the source of like, I don't know, I still can't figure out. Lauren's right. Like, there's no reason to do this. If this went right, what is the end goal? Yeah. The end goal is that he gets to keep his job. I guess.

But like, we're all just going to sit here and go, eh. I think my best case scenario is that this is something that Russia, does whenever something goes wrong, it's like their go-to move is to not discount even the biggest of conspiracy theories. And so the conspiracy theory spread. And then, and, and, and, and, and the main motivation is to make it so it's not their fault. And then it turns out to be their fault in the end. And maybe they just try to stir up the pot in the meantime. I really don't know. I'm, I think it's maybe, and it could be just something as simple as to sow the seeds of descent among the U.S., you know? Yeah.

That's a real bummer. But it's not, I mean, this is embarrassing for NASA because they've had to respond to it. Like, that's insane. I did not think that they would actually come out and say anything. and then even Drew Fustle at the ISS had to say something about it

in space. Like he had to actually say no, we did not drill a hole in our own spaceship. Okay, so the conference call between Dimitri

and our good buddy J.B. Yeah. So Bridenstein's thing You want to roll play this out, Jake? Okay, but my question is, like, J.B. has been, like, very, like. J.B. By the way, Lauren, J.B., Jason Davis came on this podcast and started calling him J.B., and now J.B. is our favorite term for Joe Bryanson.

I can't unhear. So, anyway, so J.B. has been, like, all over, all the NASA centers. I'm so excited about NASA. I love my job. Flat Stanlian. He's Flat Stanlian, baby. Look at all these amazing people that work at NASA. I'm so happy and cheerful. Do you think he got on this conference column

was like, Dimitri, I'm going to take you for a ride right now and I want you to buckle up? Do you think he did you think he was able to throw down? You think you think he'll? No, no. I think he got Liam Nisans and he brought him in and he said, I don't know where you are. I don't know who you are.

And whatever that taken scene was. He just brought Liam Nisans in for that quick scene. I don't know. I think I think I'm with the silent J.B. J.B. Spreading, by the way. Like, I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed. Yeah, like, I think if, so here's the thing.

He is so positive and upbeat and just seems like, when I met him, he, like, looked me straight in the eye and he was like, your name's Lauren. Okay, great. You know, he was very attentive, you know? He's like, do you know, do you know Gary from Locky? So I think, like, he's, he just comes off as, like, your best friend or you're, like, your friend's dad. you know. Definitely friend's dad. Yeah, he's definitely. Absolutely friends dad. My friend's dad, yeah, for sure.

Like, I went over to my friend's house and he like gave us like popsicles or something. Iceys for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But so if, imagine if your friend's dad was like, Anthony, I'm very disappointed. Wouldn't you be really upset? You think he was that calm? Because I'm picturing like, Dmitri. You need to cut your.

shit right now. That's kind of what I'm hoping for. I think I think friends' dad, when your friend's dad knows, you really screwed up. Yeah. And it's like, it's like 3.30 in the morning and you're drunk and you had to come pick you up. And he's like, this is not the time for trip. I'm about to drop you off at home and your mom's going to notice this. Oh, man.

It's like this one time. I was on Bourbon Street and we were to get picked up by my uncle. And we got in the car and he was just, and my cousin. who's his, her, uh, his daughter. She was like, I'm so sorry, dad. And he was like, it's fine. And everyone in the car just kind of like, we were like, oh, we know we screwed up. It's totally fine.

Everything's cool. Yeah. It's fine. Like Gary, Gary, everything's cool, man. Do you work for Lockheed, by the way? I don't know if we've met before. Okay. So we're running at a time.

I have a special. new segment that I want to do. Oh, right. I forgot you had a segment, Jake. Yeah. But it's fast because it's called the Lightning Round. Lauren, we don't want to make you stay too long, but Jake has had this segment. He told me about weeks ago. I don't know

what it is. He doesn't tell me anything about it. I'm going to get Lauren to do it. She's game. I know it. I know it. Okay. So the Lightning Round is I'm going to ask you ten questions and you have to answer like your first. You can't think about it. Oh my God. This is terrifying. Okay.

We can't do at the same time because Skype ducking is pretty bad. No, no. So is this a back and forth situation? Oh, it's just, okay. I don't care what you have to say about any of these things. Sweet. Good. I'm so glad we do a podcast together. Yeah.

Okay. So the first question is a calibration question. It's an easy one. Okay. Just to make sure you can kind of get loose, you know. Okay. So name your favorite Canadian space podcaster. Go.

Canadian space. I mean, obviously. You are Canadian. That space queue guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, no, did you freeze? He froze. He froze right as he asked that question.

Right, look, look at that guy. There he is. He's back. He's back. I knew you were going to be good at this, so this is good. Okay. So now we'll get into real questions. And they're going to start easy.

They're fun, but they get a little tricky at the end, okay? All right. Question two, favorite planet besides Earth. Oh. Venus. False, Mars. Question three. Dragonfly or Caesar? Dragon, frontiers. All right, okay. I had high hopes, but I don't know.

Question four, favorite SLS block. Definitely the block one B that we'll never see. Oh, Lord. Exploration, upper stage. Okay, question five, favorite astronaut. Scott Kelly, because I've talked to him multiple times, and I think he's rad. Good, good. Favorite contract type, fixed or cost plus?

We're so down the weeds at this point. Come on. This is rude. Okay, fixed, obviously. Unless it's Gary from Lockheed, then you're okay with cost plus. Gary, listen, we know the cost plus. The taxpayer. It just depends, right?

Like, JWST was not going to be on a fixed contract, but anyway, I digress. All right. Okay, question seven. This is multiple choice. American astronauts will first fly on A, a SpaceX Dragon, B, a Boeing Starliner, C, an Orion spacecraft, or D, Virgin Galactic Spaceship 2. Oh, I got to go with Dragon. But you did not include.

Where's the Blue Origin at, man? Yeah, I think that might be the... Jake, this is screwed up, man. What do you got against Texas? I'm not interested in that one. I know they're going to be first. I want to know the next one. Oh.

Excuse us. All right. Question eight, your favorite space reporter to cover a launch with. Oh, no. This is so me. This is getting personal. Listen, nobody's listening this far into this thing. None of these people are.

Anyway. Okay. Can I give multiple answers? Sure. Okay. Yeah, sure. So I love, obviously, my. Spirit Animal is Miriam Kramer from Mashball. But I also love Robin Smingle, who is not, he was

outwired, but not anymore. But he, the reason I love Robin is because, like, I went to my first launch in a really long time, and he was at the press office, and he was like, oh, you're Lauren. I love your videos. And then he kind of just like took me under his wing for the rest of the launch. And I, that was really nice and special. So shout out to Robin. All right. There was literally no wrong answer to that question. Okay, question nine, your least favorite space reporter to cover a launch with. Oh, my gosh. You've definitely been at a launch with boat Jake and I, so this is going to be a disturbing

answer. Okay, well, you guys are not the answer, but I can't answer this question. I'm just kidding. Gary, it's Gary from Rocky. Okay, question 10, favorite space conspiracy? Oh, the new solar observatory closure. New Mexico What's going on with that?

What is it? What is it? Not aliens, apparently, but who knows what it is? I don't know. I saw my... Okay, can I tell you something? Yeah. I was at, I told you before this, I was at a bowling alley, hip bowling alley here in Philadelphia.

My father-in-law was there, and he brought up this solar observatory thing. Oh, he did, so he knew about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was like, I heard like... That part. He was like, I heard it was some crazy. crazy, both froze. You're back.

I'll cut this part out of the podcast. He said it was like, oh, I heard it was some sort of like crazy laser DOD situation. Like there was a DOD laser telescope situation there. I was like, I don't even know what that means. I don't know, is this not an anti-satellite

situation? I don't understand what's going on with this. It's probably not. It's probably totally fine. And it's some weird FBI postal office situation. but I do like the theory that I haven't heard before that it's a DOD laser installation. A DOD lasers. What does that mean?

I don't know what that means. It's fucking lasers, man. We were all speculating like sun aliens. We've all speculated about aliens on Europa or Enceladus or on Mars, but really we should have been looking at the sun. It's the best place to hide because we can't look at it. Okay. So that's your favorite space conspiracy?

No, I think my favorite space conspiracy was that ULA shot the Falcon Night. Oh, the sniper. That was pretty good. Yeah, the sniper. Oh, yeah, I love the sniper. Not Zuma. We got a lot of questions in the chat from Zuma. Oh, yeah, Zuma.

No, the sniper one's way better. The sniper was better. Zuma, there wasn't really conspiracy. It was more of just like who messed up, you know? We talking Northrop Grummanzuma? Yeah. But the sniper one's better because it has like a conspiracy side and then it has a factual side where there's a SpaceX employee who like knocks on the front door and is like, can I go on your roof? Conspiracy.

They actually considered it, which I think is amazing. It has just enough realism to be good. That's why. Yeah, exactly. Gary from Lockheed open the door was like, no, dude. Oh, man. All right. Jake already did his pick.

Should we get into picks? I did. We're running long. We're running long. Lauren's got sushi to order. I do. But I also have a pick. I brought a pick for this thing.

It's who lose the first. Have you watched it yet? Yes. We're about to get into some stuff here. Wait, how far have you gotten? I haven't. I haven't gotten into anything. I got the screener, so I'm...

Yeah, Jake has a storied history with this situation. Oh, you do. Well, I watched the first two episodes, but I don't want to ruin it for you. Oh, hey, man. Listen, we got a spoiler warning. Everything's cool. No, we're stuck. Do I like it?

I like the... Whenever I watch a space show, there are always, like, bits of space nerdery that pop out of me and so this show definitely has it. There are some things though where I'm like, wait, what? So they're launching out of New Orleans? I don't understand. You would never launch out of New Orleans. It doesn't make any sense.

Yeah. It gets a little weird. It's about space, but it's kind of just like about, it's a drama, right? Yeah. Also, Champin, it's like so many shirtless. And he's so jacked. He looks like he's about to burst out of his body. And it just makes me uncomfortable.

Yeah, it really does. Like, he really got it together for this show. We were talking about it. We were like, do you think that the direction called for him to be shirtless so much? Or that Sean Penn was like, I think I should be shirtless for this scene. They're like, man, you got to wear a pressure suit for this scene. He's like, I don't care. Yeah. He's like, no, I think I could handle it shirtless, totally fine.

There's like a whole like intense scene with his daughter where he's shirtless. And I'm like, do we think this was a good idea? Okay, but should I watch it? As somebody who has not received a screener, I'm not fancy. Yeah, you should. I think they've definitely done their homework and I don't want to give it away. It's very obvious. There's a failure that happens.

And it definitely like gave me flashbacks to what it was. like during Columbia, which is a very difficult time for us. Not to put a damper on things, but sorry. No, you're right, though. And, like, I thought that the show, like, the drama, if you, if you were just like, don't care about space and you just want to watch a drama, it's actually, like, not bad. Like, my wife likes it. And that's, like, my barometer.

Like, she's like, no, I want to, I can't wait for the next episode. She watched it Wish Me. And she's like, I can't wait for the, for the episodes to catch up because this is really cool. I liked it. Yeah. Yeah. So, and there's, like, little pieces. Like when they do the failure, they show a shot of like the room where they put all the pieces and they're trying to categorize the pieces, which is something that, you know, they do during failure scenarios.

So there's like little pieces like that where you're like, ah, as a space nerd, you know, it speaks to you. But then they're also like, they changed the NASA logo, which I'm like, why did you do that? You didn't need to do that. Maybe they couldn't use it. No, they could probably use it for the show, right? No, that's like the one part of NASA you're not allowed to reproduce, right? What do I mean? You can do anything you want with it. We paid for it.

You put it on shirts and hats and stuff. Jake didn't pay for it. Lauren and I paid for it. I paid zero for it. You paid nothing for it. You're just a grifter here. You're a meatball grifter. NASA's like copyright things. Like listen, every image we get from space, you just do whatever you want with it, but don't touch the logo.

No, you can do anything you want with the logo. No, man, it says. Yeah. No, dude, I print some shirts with some NASA on it. Yeah, I can't use it. Everyone, everyone, what are you getting? Everyone in the chat's like Jake, you freeloader, Canadian. I have a shirt with the Canadian Space Agency that I bought.

I was downstairs. I thought I had a book that I was going to bring out. I took the same approach to all. I have a Canadian Space Agency cert, and it was like purchased at a place that was not a legit distributor of agency apparel. But you know what? I paid for that, and I don't care. Interesting.

I wonder, you know, I've done, I did a whole story this week on like how space or how NASA does branding and how they are like how they would enter the commercial fold. And that's interesting because I know that Canada doesn't have the same restrictions or at least like their astronauts can do more commercial things than NASA can do. I didn't know that. Well, at least Chris Hadfield was able to sell his The astronaut His

His His David Bowie's song That he recorded it in space Oh yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah Cool Okay, what's your pick? My pick

So we had Jason Davis on a couple of months ago Two months ago Something like that And he plugged a new project of his called Rocket Gut. Oh, I love it. I've been loving Rocket Gut. It's great.

It's amazing. Like, it was, when he was on, it was, I think they only had like two things posted. And they've been posting stuff. Let me see. Let me hit the fresh content button, which is one of my favorite website buttons. They've been posting stuff quite a lot.

I got a weird URL redirect there. It looks like they're weekly-ish at this point. Okay, great. But recently, I guess two weeks ago, they did this piece about truth or consequences, New Mexico, which is the Spaceport America location.

Totally. And it is, I would send everybody to this post specifically, not because it is incredibly depressing, though it is. There's a whole section in here which he gets in a hot spring, and then there's like a fentanyl package

in the hot spring also. So there was like some very real America stuff in this. but it's a really, really, really interesting piece about spaceport America and truth or consequences and all sorts of stuff that is, I'm getting a weird situation on my Mac right now. Everything's cool.

I mean, I love Jason. I think he's great, but I'm also pissed because I wanted to do a story about truth or consequences. Well, it's a very, it's not a much of a travel destination for him. No, definitely. But I think we're going to do something, but I'm going to need to come up with a new angle because I feel like that was great. I'm very interested. I would love to talk to him about a little behind-the-scenes stuff because, like, they clearly got access to Spaceport America.

And I really wonder how Spaceport America people thought this was going to go. Yeah. Because it's like not a great, great look overall. No, like not. But it's incredible. I love this piece, and the photography is fantastic. I would recommend reading this and keeping up on Rocket Gut, because it's, I don't know, it's just, I've been really, really enjoying it.

And the art is fantastic. Yeah, I was saying the art's great. And in this truth or consequences piece, he rode this, like, weird, what was the machine called? It was like a G-shock machine or something? It's just this, he, like, sat in this, basically, roller coaster chair that was in this metal ball that spun around a bunch. Oh, man.

It's very odd. I don't know. The whole piece is really, I think it just really imparts upon you how weird spaceport America is overall. And as somebody who is not a very large fan of Virgin Galactic, to say the least, it's pretty depressing, but it's worth a read.

Yeah. I really do want to take a look at, like, the state of spaceports in America. Because I was, I mean, I was shocked to find that there are so many. You know, because you only really think of California and Virginia and Florida, but there are actually nearly a dozen certified spaceports in the U.S. and you're like, why?

New one pretty recently, too, in Colorado. Yeah, and it's out near Gary. But they've admitted they don't have anything that can actually fly from there. So it's like, why even? bother getting the approval for it. I just think that's really interesting. You got to remember Camden Spaceport? Camden's championed by our good friend, Laura.

Yes, I do like Camden, though. I think they're super excited and into it. So I wish good things for them. That one actually makes a little bit of sense, though, because it's like not that different than Port Canaveral, right? Right. It's like it's on the coast. It makes good sense.

Like they're pretty close to Florida on the Georgia border. So like they're kind of close to the, or they're closer to the equator than most places are in the U.S. So at least that would have some kind of reason to be there. Okay, we got a quick break in here. Okay. So we have somebody in the all phenomenal universe that is from New Mexico. We were talking about this National Solar,

observatory situation. And he posted this article to a local news story about a Belgian tourist found dead at White Sands National Line. That he's like, maybe this is related. What is happening out there? I don't know. I don't know.

My initial thought was that some, like, bad person had showed up on the site and they were trying to, like, find that person. There's also a post office. nearby. Why did the post office get it back? Well, it makes sense because if it's a post office situation,

the FBI is instantly involved because that's federal. Oh. Okay. If somebody mailed, okay, if Jake, if hypothetically Jake or some other foreign national mailed something weird into the U.S. Post Office, the FBI would be involved immediately. But then why the observatory? Because it's right next door.

All I don't know. to say is that you guys, your news is way better than our... You have got the market cornered for weird news. We're killing it right now. Yeah, it also gives us panic attacks and induces lots of anxiety. My news is like, hey, there's a new member of parliament who's running in a riding in a riding in your town, and it's not where he was from. what do you think about that

let's get on CBC and ask every other member of parliament what they think about that so we'll see on that for a little bit pretty crazy oh man someone said we have Florida enough said Florida man

Florida man I don't know I'm as far from Florida as you can almost get like on this continent that's accurate that's accurate Lauren all right where do you want to send people if they don't already know Lauren Grush. Oh.

Well, they should follow me at Lauren Grush on Twitter, but it is L-O-R-E-N, not L-A-U-R-E-N, not like those losers that are spelled. Yeah, it's definitely a cooler way to spell Lauren. GR-U-S-H, Crush with a G. And then you can also find me at the verge.com slash science where I post regularly and then also my Instagram which is at Grush Crush Crush.

That's Crush with a G and then regular crush. Yes, exactly. I think those are most of the places that... No, on which platform does Gary most make an appearance? Gary is not on any platforms. I feel, oh my God. I so want to know Gary. I don't know Gary.

two know Gary, I need to know Gary. Gary's a great guy and that's all I want to say about this. Can either of you hook me up with Gary? I can hook you up with Gary for sure. I would love to talk to Gary. Gary is super nice. He just wants to talk about Lockharton. Yeah.

He has a lot. Actually, Gary is like a font of knowledge when it comes to Lockheed history. So if you want to know anything about like, he actually told me this crazy story about how Lockheed was tasked to image the survivor site. you know when Survivor was big and cool and not like the Cleveland 25 Oh shoot

This is raining heat on Survivor right now But yeah apparently Like some guy Gave Lockheed a tip that was like I know where the survivor is being filmed And so they use one of their satellites To image the survivor

The location and they found it like they were able to make out this the tribal god i haven't ever watched survivor what's where is the place where they like boat people off the tribe is spoken situation yeah the tribe is spoken that area they were able to image it and like find the camps and stuff it's a good story i'm totally ruined it's okay gary for me is like hey what do you want to talk about I'm like this. He's like, I have three people that are perfect for that. And he's like the connector.

He's like, all right. And you here and you here. Here we go. That is my kind of PR person. It's where I can, I know I can reach out to them and they'll be back. They're like, yes, I know exactly what you need. Here are five different people that you can talk to. This episode might just have to be called Gary.

It's definitely going to be called Gary. Well, the next episode is going to have Gary on it. We're getting Gary on this one. I actually think that would be a really good episode. No, Lauren, there is no joke. You're on this episode for September. Lockheed is in the live chat. I know.

They have massed. Oh my gosh. Okay, so we're laughing at someone live chat. Who it was, because they changed their name. But they changed their name to carry from Lockheed. And now their logo is Insight. Oh my god. This is off the rails. We need to end this episode. We've got to hit the outro.