Off-Nominal - 126 - Whatever, Russell

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

Jake and Anthony are joined by Brendan Byrne, of WMFE and Are We There Yet?, to talk about watching spaceships return to Earth, talking to astronauts, a change of leadership at Blue Origin, and what��s been up in the Florida space scene of late.TopicsOff-Nominal - YouTubeBrendan Byrne on X: “What a sight! Crew-6 coming in hot over Orlando. First time seeing that for me–pretty incredible!”Jake Robins on X: “SpaceX Dragon #Crew6 returning home. Came screaming right over top of my house here in Yucatán.”A space for artistic inspiration with veteran astronaut Nicole StottPrivate space station astronaut John Shoffner speaks with WMFE from orbitJeff Bezos finally got rid of Bob Smith at Blue Origin | Ars TechnicaJeff Bezos Announces Plans To Build, Launch Rockets From Cape Canaveral : NPRNASA’s Psyche Moves Toward Liftoff – Psyche MissionTamaliensFollow BrendanBrendan Byrne (@SpaceBrendan) / Twitter90.7 WMFE - Public Radio for Central Florida – Primary provider of NPR and Classical MusicAre We There Yet? : NPRFollow 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

DLS and go for main engine, start. Brendan Byrne. Anthony Calangelo. You're back. Yeah. No homework this time for you. No homework. No props.

No props. I was really expecting a package for you this week. I should have sent you something. I forgot about that. Darn. And I'm not in my office. It sits in my office. And every now and then when I want to feel important, when I'm at the office, I like pull it out and start talking to myself with that microphone.

You could attach that to a podium and then always. have like a little press conference ready to go for yourself. That's true. I should. I really should. Welcome back. It's been a while. Glad to be back.

It's good to see you guys. It's always fun. Jake, you're holding up down there? I'm doing good. Yeah, I'm having a very busy week and it's like, there's not a lot of downtime.

And it's been one of those weeks, you know, where you're just kind of like running from one fire to another. And it's really nice to be able to just turn this on and hang out with you guys. I'm stoked for it. Who knows? What we're doing? We have a list of random topics that we thought it would be fun to talk about in no particular order,

and we're going to see where that takes us. Maybe we should have given Brendan homework. So we're actually been something at the table. Yeah, you said the email says, off and nominal with no homework, and then it's a list of things that I have no idea what's going on. Research all of this. All right, fair point.

Fair point. You could leave if you want. We could take the next 57 minutes for you, you know? No, that's okay. I'm sure we'll figure it out. There's a lot going on right nowadays. September's always a busy time. There's things happening.

What you got down there, Jake? Do you cook something up? What do I got? Yeah, I got a nice little Mai Tai going on here today. A little bit of rum. and orange liqueur and there's some posh in here, a little Mayan drink and some, what else in there?

Amaretto. Yeah, kind of a little mix of stuff here. You have had a busy week. Yeah, yeah. Just keep dumping stuff in. Not my first drink this week either. I'll just like that. What do you got?

Oh, what do I got? I got a Victory Cloudwalker. I always like this one. got the little like those cool airplanes on it. Oh yeah. Yeah. Those things are sweet. Got into those recently with Will.

Immediately we lost a couple pieces, obviously, so they don't fly that well anymore. But man, I forgot how fun those things are. I thought he said you got into the beer a little bit with Will. No, no. I don't know how they do things in Philadelphia, but hey, I don't probably try to say it on it. Yes, you do. Oh, man. What do you got, Brendan?

I got another hazy one like you, Anthony, from St. Pete, which I think has the best beer here in Florida. I got a Skyway from Green Bench, which took a trip to St. Pete a few years ago and spent the entire trip at Green Bench Brewery, which was awesome. And I didn't open it yet because I wasn't sure if we still did this on the show. So I didn't want to be the only drink. All right. So there we go. What do you mean? Do we drink on the show or that we open,

that we have to have audible opening noises? We drink on the show. We need that off nominal ASMR of the can opening. I will, I will, in my branded, my branded pine glass here. Oh,

look at that. No. All I can do is the glass. Oh, speaking of which, Jake, let's plug it early this time. Hmm. Oh,

that's the first topic of the day, actually, Jake. Okay. We did not put on our, rundown. But, uh, so our friends at Relay FM have been running this fundraiser for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. And we put a little mini campaign situation together. It's like part of their campaign and then we go up to leaderboard and yada yada. We're pretty far up the leaderboard. I got to say, it's like two people above us that are listed as, uh, fundraising campaigns for this relay campaign

overall. And, uh, two of them made themselves a campaign and donated a ton of money to them, to their own thing. So they're up the board. So I feel like, we're like number two of the legitimate sub campaigns here and I have surprised in that that's good I'm here for this gatekeeping I love it yeah I'm totally gatekeeping on this one uh off nom dot com slash donate goes to this page uh we're not getting any this money it's all going to st jude and stuff but we did set a goal Brendan that if we hit our fundraising goal which we set at 1% of this overall campaign that we would do a terrible space movie review show oh Stephen Hackett of relay FM so we hit the goal.

Oh, awesome. He's coming on October 19th, and I don't know where you're at on terrible movies, but Jake loves these, like, horrifically bad sci-fi movies. I feel like this is up your alley. Yeah. I've been, I've been, I'm getting ready to ramp up and watch some really terrible horror movies because we're getting into spooky season. So, yeah, no, I'll totally tune in.

I'll switch gears and watch some sci-fi with you guys. That'll be cool. We have to develop the things on the list, Jake. And this is where we did some research early this week of what things are on our nomination list. So maybe we can solidify on a particular set so that number one, me and you can watch the movies. Number two, anyone else out there can watch them if they want. And maybe Brendan can help trim us in to the right mix. So do you have the list nearby, Jake?

Let me pull it up. I just didn't know if you want to be the... The one that we're convinced that we need to have on this list. I should have picked up on where you were going with that. If I was a good co-vers, I would have known that you were really kind of going for the setup there. The one that we are pretty convinced that we need to have, that we need to watch is Ad Astra because neither of us have seen it.

I have not seen that either. I have not seen that either. I'm curious because I remember when this came out and it got a lot of flack for being horrible and everyone's calling it Dad Astra but now I'm going to watch it as a dad and I'm like I wonder if that is it going to hit different for me than it did for everyone else at the time? I don't know. I'm not sure.

Unclear. Yeah, yeah. I think we need to do that one. That's like our big budget blockbuster one that we want to do because and we've had people in the Discord talking about it a lot about how, just how it's so bad, it's bad. It's one of those kind of movies apparently. Not so bad that it's good, but just so

bad that it's just bad. And so I'm excited to see how rough it is. You always know when there's the huge rotten tomatoes divergence that of what you're getting into, right? When the tomato meter is 83% and audience scores 40%, you know what territory you're entering. So that one's got to be in there. And then we were looking at some old ones.

One that I don't think will make the cut. And I feel like Brendan will have seen this movie for knowing that he's the football fan that he is. Is Capricorn 1? Have you ever seen this movie, Brendan? That's a fantastic movie. It's a fantastic movie. What are you talking about? It's a great cast. It turns out. OJ. Simpson's starring in a movie where he's running away from stuff. Turns out he's good at the role. Who would have thought? Isn't Sam, Sam Watterson in that too? Who else is in that movie? Jake was impressed by the cast list for sure. Yeah, yeah. I know. I like, I remember renting that movie from like blockbuster as a kid um i think i'm like watersons in there yeah yeah yeah i thought it was

great i mean obviously i watched it when i was like nine uh but yeah i thought it was great for those not versed in this uh the that is a 1977 movie and the thesis is nassasa faked the mars landing and then like hijinks ensue after that and the astronauts are like they get pulled out of the capsule at the last moment i'm not spoiling anything it's literally number one this movie's from 1977 so if you haven't seen it then there's no spoiler. The statute of limitations on your way over. Number two, it's the first minute of the movie, but they get like, what is it, Brennan, that they didn't know they were going to fake it or something?

Yeah, I think that's what the premise was. And they get pulled out of the capsule and then they're running away from like the deep state or whatever. Yeah. It's a whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. Sam Waterson is in that one. I had to, I googled that.

I was actually correct at France. So, yeah. And what was this movie? Jake that we're pumped on. Starflight 1? Yeah, this was recommended to us in the Discord, and it looks like a banger. I am so excited for this one. Like, I just can't wait to dig into this. But basically, it's like there's a some sort of like really high altitude hypersonic jet flight and something bad happens and it has to be rescued. But I guess it's in space. I don't know. I don't really get the premise here. I'm looking at this poster where there's a space shuttle

docking with a hypersonic jet. Docking via this umbilical though. I'm not clear on the physics of this, but I'm really excited to figure out what's going on here. So yeah, Starflight, the plane that couldn't land from 1983. Which is just also an incredible, incredible title. Lee Majors is in it.

It's like definitely like an older generation of Hollywood. Like one of those times where like you look at the cast and it's all actors you, you've just never heard of because you're not. you know it definitely has the vibe of like someone like this just looks like airplane and yeah

and I'm curious like how airplane inspired it is in in the like you know what were they going for here I don't know this is 4.8 on IMDB that's bad it was 18% on the Rotten Tomato audience score so

there you goes there's the plane that just keeps going so yeah um this is just going to be great. So this one's on the list. So it's at Astra, Star Flight, the plane that couldn't land. And then I think there's, the main decision we need to make is, is what's next. There's one that's called Disney's the Black Hole.

Has anyone seen this? No. We were recommended it. Apparently, I did a little reading on it. It was like an insanely high budget Disney film, but they never thought, they never figure out what the ending was. so the movie just kind of stops reportedly,

person writing on it way after the fact. The one I would like to watch is called Solar Crisis. All right, I'm going to read you the, just the description from my MDP. I'm not going to show you anything about this yet, but I'm just going to read the description. A huge solar flare is predicted to fry Earth.

Astronauts must fly to the sun to drop a talking bomb, in parentheses Freddie, at the right time, So the flare will point somewhere else. Giant IXL Corp, CEO, Teague thinks the flare won't happen and wants the mission to fail so he can buy the planet cheaply while the scare lasts. It goes on from there. But it's just, like, how can you fight that premise, Jake?

Yeah, it's got Tim Matheson in it, who I'm a big Tim Matheson fan, so. Pretty stoked for that. A talking bomb named Freddie. What is going on there? What is, what do you think that means? Yeah, you can't figure it out. It talks. I first when I heard that it sounded like some sort of military jargon that I just didn't know like oh yeah it's a talking bomb you know because when you drop it it everyone calls you I don't know there's some effect from some time with you know one of those things but maybe I'm wrong tweet us if you know what a talking bomb is the other one that we were thinking about Brendan was moonfall and this is like the more recent what was this last year right um the moon's hollow is it moons hollow or something moon's a duck

Life and sphere? Moon blows up, I thought, maybe. I don't know. Yeah. Did you watch Moonfall or anything? I did not. I did not. What do you think?

Modern one or the 1990 solar crisis with the talking about? I, man, that sounds great. If you're asking me, I would say do that one, but I don't actually have to watch these. So I'll leave it to let me answer. Jake, what if, all right, I have an idea. We'll both watch the other two. And then you, I know you wanted to watch Moonfall. So you watch Moonfall.

I'll watch Solar Crisis and we'll try to convince Stephen Hackett to watch the one that we watched. Okay. We will stand. This is getting complex. We're letting this show come to us. Very hard. It's coming to us right now. Well, I'm making an executive decision.

All right. We're going to watch. So, yeah. We'll do them all. All right. that's settled. Should we talk about space? Yes.

I mean, that was kind of talking about space. You both saw a spaceship coming back to Earth and you, you, Jake's seen these before, Brennan. Was this your first time seeing this, I believe? This was my first time. This was my first time. First dragon.

Yeah. I was incredible, like, I was working on covering it for, oh, yeah, look, there's my house. Ha-ha. I didn't get a chance to weed whack that day, so I apologize. But yeah. And yeah, if you look real close, you can see the dog in the window or in the window, like, what the hell are you? I was trying to look for that, but Twitter, I think,

yeah, all the image sizing, except for the SpaceX tweets because they don't want to post them to flicker or whatever at this point. Like, it was super late, and my editor was like, you're going to be able to see it. And I'm like, whatever, Russell, like, I can, I see launches all the time. It's like, no, you got to go see this. It's totally different, man. Because I can look out my window, and it's due east. I can see both, you know, both, you know, KSC and Cape Canaveral launches from here.

And so he's like, go outside, go outside. And I went outside. And I was like, super glad I did because, holy crap. Like, that is just incredible. And, man, that thing was booking it through the sky. Like, it was really, really neat. I'm really curious to know how our perspectives were different. Because, you know, I was like three or four minutes before you.

Oh, yeah. And so it would have been faster and higher, but I don't know how much faster, how much higher. Like, it just really wasn't that big of a change, right? But yeah, I'm like, you would have been,

I assume it would have been like a lot closer to you, but I just don't know if that would have been like, yeah, a big deal, you know? Well, you'll have to come here and I'll go there and then we'll compare that next one. Yours look more overhead though, Jake. Yeah, this one went right over top.

Like, I couldn't believe it. This, this is a second. one I've seen from from Yucatan and this was way better than the first one. It was so high. Like probably had like 85, 87 degrees elevation for me. So it was pretty cool. Yeah. For us it definitely was much lower in the sky and like you could see it just streak all across and it was there for like I almost woke my wife up which that could have gone either way. But yeah, it was really, really cool. And I'm glad. I did it.

That was crew six, right? So I interviewed Woody on there. So it was really cool to like know, hey, this dude that I talked to is like, you know, zooming across the sky right above my house right now. So of course, I waved and I'm sure. He didn't see it. He was busy. Cool.

You should have taken a boat out to meet him. There we can. It's the Florida way. That is the Florida way. I went up on my roof to do it. I have a nice flat roof, so it's a good place to just kind of go up and get above the tree line. And so I were watching it. And my neighbors were down, like on the other side of the house down in their yard, looking up at it too.

And they just happened to see it because they were like doing laundry outside or something like that. And they were like, what is that? So I had to explain in Spanish what was going on. And like it was not a very convincing conversation. Let me tell you what. I'm getting pretty good at Spanish, but advanced human spaceflight is not quite my exact. For that one minute you turned into the guy from the Lego movie and just spaceship.

I got out space and vehicle and coming home and I think that was enough. And NASA is still a known word. So I think I was okay there. Yeah, they went back in the house and like that that dude was fucking high. I don't know what's going on out there. He thinks this is some ET shit or something. I mean, we're already the weird white people that live in this like rural Mexican town. So I'm sure it couldn't have hurt my reputation anymore than it already is.

Yeah, they're like, I don't know, man, that's that guy who's always on his roof, pointing that shit or this satellite dish. Like, get down. I'll be up there. Wait, so, all right, take me through. You both are fairly mind-blown by these events. Is it the apparent speed of this, since it is so much lower and it's still incredibly fast? Is it just the, like, the thinking about it that gets you? What's the vibe on this?

Yeah, I think like, I think you have like knowing what it is is definitely like, I mean, it's people, you know, returning to this planet, which is pretty friggin wild if you think about it. And I, you know, I was I was talking with with my editor about a Russell Lewis and NPR. And we're like, yeah, like they're finally like NASA's, remember NASA wouldn't tell you like if you'd be able to see it or where it was coming from. They didn't publicize it at all. And like they have for the past few launches at least, I think. But it's like they really. They really. should make this a lot more public because, I mean, it's almost cooler than a launch at this point. Like, how rare is it to see a capsule filled with people like come back to the earth? Like, it's kind of mind blowing. And if you don't know what it is, like Jake's neighbors, it's like, okay, crazy guy looking at the sky. But if you do know what it is, like, it's pretty mind-bogglingly cool. Like, people. And it is fast.

Like, it seemed like it was a lot faster than a launch, you know, which would be. but yeah it was definitely far far different than seeing it launch you know how like when you see the ISS come over it's like I mean ISS is not quite as spectacular as this but it has that kind of like characteristic of it's going pretty fast like it's it's very clearly like fast it's a different you know velocity regimen than an airplane or like that like there's something very very kind of different about it just because of how fast it is but I think the constancy of it is really interesting like it just like very much

like traces a line at a very, very constant speed and does not deviate. Like nothing changes about it. It's like a very kind of fixed thing, right? And this had that too. Like it, even though it was like very much slowing down, it still felt like it was just coming in a line and going straight and was not, nothing was moving it from its, from its path. But then you just get to add like it's way closer.

So it's bigger and it's like it's on fire and it's like, you know, lighting up the sky. Like you can see, if the lighting's right, you can see the smoke trail. behind it. Like there's like a con trail from the capsule that like, you know, still cuts across the sky, which is pretty cool. So there's, I don't know, it's just very surreal. Like it's very, I don't know. It was, it's, it's awesome. It took my breath away the first time I saw it. So, yeah. I'm very excited to see another one. I'd like, hope, hope there'll be another one soon. And I will wake up my wife and. Because it's kind of trip down for one of those. Yeah. Yeah. This is way more, this is way easier to catch on the schedule than a launch. So, you know.

Unless it's coming back You can kind of have a good sense For when you're when you're coming home Yeah and once they commit to it Like it's not getting to come Yeah I can book a flight pen when they undock And I'll probably catch it You'll see it, yeah

The one that I always think of is the I saw like the last orbit or two Of the Was it the original Tian Gong or Tiangong too? I forget which one it was A couple years back We were doing the show at this point I think it maybe was original Tiangong

and this was like, you know, Jonathan McDowell tracking, you know, when is it actually going to follow the sky? And this was barely still in orbit. And I got to see a pass of that. And I was like, holy shit. That thing is moving because it's like twice as close as the ISS. Just similarly, you know, like, yeah, the ISS, you're right, Jake. It's got like a clock kind of vibe to it when it passes.

This did not at all. I felt like, holy shit, that thing is like grazing the average. sphere in a fairly terrifying manner right now because it was just here and gone in no time. So there's definitely, and launches are kind of funny that they, the initial part happens really fast and then the next six minutes are like a slow departure. It sounds weird, but after the first minute and a half, you're like, this is kind of a calm experience. I watch this light go into the sky and then go over the horizon, especially if it's a night launch

and you get to see it drop over the horizon and it's like a calming moment. I think this, you're right, with like fire and a very lot of pomp around this, it's much more a Kool-Aid man than the launch thing. You have that effect where like you get the, the fun part is going up, but then like it very quickly pivots and it's going away from you. And that's like, that part's super boring, right? Because you're just like, you're just seeing the ass end of the rocket and there's not much else to, it gets too small to get any details out. And then it's just like a light. But this has this like very I cannot tell if you said, at cent or ass end of the rocket. I really can't tell.

So I love that. I love that. We'll leave that to the listeners to decide. No, but you get this like really arcing motion where it's never, it's always going perpendicular to your sight line. And so like it's, it stays as cool as it is from start to finish, right? And it was like,

I think you can see one. This is the point. Yeah. It's quiet. Obviously, like the return, you don't hear anything. But like to me, it looked like it was.

screaming across the night sky. Like it was like, it was really, really cool. Yeah, come on down, Anthony. I mean, come on down,

Anthony. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Listen, Brennan, you casually are just dropping these references to like this time I talk to these astronauts.

You've been talking to a lot of astronauts lately. We should talk about that. What? So, you know, what's going on? Why are you chatting up so many astronauts? Well, it's kind of my job.

Like, my boss is like, they're like, you haven't talked to enough astronauts. Anthony, what's the deal? You're making all these podcasts. What's going on? Well, it's a funny thing for us, though, just to pull back the curtain a little, because we're like, what are we going to get out of them? Like, they kind of have to say what they're going to say about it.

And then, you know, like, can we get more out of that? Or are they going to just going to do their astronaut thing, you know? That's how we feel about it. So convince us otherwise. I will say talking to like veteran astronauts, those who are no longer with NASA are definitely a lot more fun. That's the money. That's the money. That's the money. I mean, talking to, you know, actual NASA astronauts, super cool.

Like I had I had this incredible conversation with Christina Cook. Like before she was announced for Artemis II, I was doing a story on like the training protocols and like what they're doing. And like, we talked for like an hour. And she just like totally geeked out onto, you know, training and, you know, what they're doing for Artemis. And, and, you know, like, it was like super cool. Like, they're awesome people to actually chat with. But like, yeah, those former astronauts are really cool. And like, I was writing a story.

My NPR editor is, he's like a huge space fan. And, you know, he got a promotion, but wanted to make sure that he was still editing space. So that's why we're still working together. And he came to me and he's, he's, I file a story. And he's like, yeah, you know, we've heard from, you know, this astronaut. Do you have any more astronauts you can reach out to? Like, just to diversify who we're talking to. I'm like, oh, yeah, sure.

Let me just go pick up the phone and find another astronaut. You can my astronaut book out real quick. Yeah. First of all, there's only like 600 of them ever. You know, it's not too easy to pick up an astronaut or pick up the phone and call an astronaut. But it's not lost to me just how kind of honored I am to be able to have those conversations. with them and like have them, you know, return my calls and return my emails and say, yeah, I'd love to chat with you.

So it is really cool. It's super cool. Yeah. It's a wild feeling. You, so you actually interviewed, I wanted to ask you with this one, because you actually interviewed someone in space recently. And I want to kind of hear that story because I feel like that that must come with a little bit of extra logistics.

I don't know if that's true or not or if we've figured out the communication lines perfectly now or not. well I was like super terrified about that right because of all of the logistics it was like you connect through a web browser just like I'm talking to you guys that was a cool one like that was that was John Schaffner who was on X2 and he his PR people actually reached out to us like right when he was announced for that position he was a big fan NPR and and you know wanted to chat with us and so I I really really did realized he was doing, I try to do something different for every human launch, like, you know, not just it's going to go up with these people, but, you know, kind of look at a different, unique aspect for every launch. And John was doing an art project or an art contest in space. And so we decided to do a story on kind of the history of art. And so him and I talked quite a bit about it. And at that point, like when I first interviewed him, I had no idea that I was going to

get to chat with him in orbit. And so I interviewed him then. And then we did a few follow up interviews as he's prepping for this mission and stuff. So I talked to like two or three times before he left. Then like after that last interview, like he's in quarantine and, you know, hang up and right before I hang up like, John, you know, I'll chat with you when you're back on the ground. You know, he's like, yeah, of course,

can't wait to chat with you. And so he hangs up. And then he's like, his PR person calls me. I was like, hey, so we had someone drop out. Would you want to chat with him on orbit? And like, the answer is, of course, yes. Like, of course I do. So, yeah, so there were, there were multiple e-mails.

with like probably dozens of people that were like coordinating this. But they basically just gave me a time and logged into this, you know, kind of web platform. And there was the uplink to the station. He couldn't see me, but I could see him. And yeah, they've got this, they called it the set. So like he had to be on set. So they actually have like a place on the International Space Station where they do these kind of

interviews from. Yeah, it was super, it was super wild. like to just be talking with him and then like seeing another astronaut like kind of float behind him like actually doing doing work and I'm like what's it like what's the bathroom like up there john you know but yeah it was it was it was really really neat and uh there's video of me and I think we might have we might have mixed it down um like like you can't pull the smile off my face during this entire interview because it's like you know how many people get to do this and I have the opportunity to chat with this guy who's you know flying Yeah, yeah, yeah.

230-some miles above my head at this point. So it was really cool. Yeah, there it is. Oh, look at this. Yeah, I even went to the set. I even went to the set thinking that they were going to, that they were going to send it up there, and they didn't. So like, you got your lighting all nice.

Yeah. But yeah, he's great. So I talked to them when he came back, and he's doing some really cool stuff with education outreach now. And, yeah, just a great guy to chat with and get to know. and shared some really cool stuff about the trip. That's one of the kind of like side benefits to having more like private astronauts kind of doing this thing is that at least for right now, a lot of them have kind of like their own agendas, right?

And they get to bring like along with going to space, they get to bring some of their their interests, their passions, their causes to make the spaceflight a little more unique, right? because I'm not that NASA astronauts don't have, you know, interest or anything, but they're, they're very much going under the NASA umbrella. And so they kind of have to be, they have to be NASA spokespeople, right? And they're 80% of the time is working out or doing blood work, like, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I got like an art content.

Like, that's pretty cool. And I know that there's, there's NASA astronauts that do the art stuff. I mean, you hang out a lot with one that paints a lot, I think, right? Nicole, right? Nicole, Scott. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's a, she's a painter or something. But I just think it's kind of cool that we get to kind of see some, I don't know, some just different sort of unique, very personal interests sort of come into the spotlight of what these flights are about.

So that's cool that you got to talk to them about. Yeah. And I mean, he specifically wanted to do that. Like, you know, he was talking to schools while he was up there. And then, you know, a lot of the content that he was doing was specifically to be given out for education. educational reasons down here on earth. So it's, it's not just about art, but it was, you know, kind of, you know, some physics experiments and stuff like that up there. But yeah, like, that was part of his contract with Axiom was that he would have X amount of time to do these

kind of outreach things. And you're absolutely right, Jake. Like, we're going to get a lot more of that now, which is really cool. Yeah. But all the weird stuff, right? But here's the thing. Like, now, X3 is like straight business, right? It's like, national, astronaut. It's not like, quirky dude that's flying to space and is now an astronaut. It's like, you know. I mean, it's still like, it's still insanely expensive to do that, right? That's the problem. Yeah.

And, you know, that was the one thing that I couldn't get out of John is he wouldn't share how much he paid for his ticket. But yeah, like there's only so many people that have that amount of money that want to do that, willing to do things like that. So, yeah, you're, that it's a very limit. Like, I mean, I'm sure the three of us would love to do that. I don't think the three of us have the money or we'll never have the money to do that. And the NDAs, they probably sign about how much money they pay.

It's like, if you disclose the price, we will fly you back up there and kick you out the airlock. And then that will be, yeah. That's the NDA you're signing right now. Yeah. I do think that some of these suborbital flights, like in our lifetime, they have, I think it's totally reasonable that they could approach something that, you know, middle class people could afford. Like it would be like a cash expense. Like it would be I saved up a bunch of retirement money because when I retire, I want to go to space. And that's what I've been working on.

And, you know, it's my nest egg. Or like, you know, there are people that get there. Especially if you think about like if it's, you know, if it's half a million bucks today to ride on New Shepherd or Virgin Galactic, like if they can get the cadence up and we can realize all those like amazing cost productive dreams. Like maybe it's maybe it's only half that in 30 years. and it's not like out of the question. Yeah, if they knock a zero off, then it's in that range of like the epic expedition that you've like planned for. If they knock a zero off today,

like I would be like going to check up my finances to see where. You'd be like moving some shit around. Yeah. Could I, I'm like, if I did this, carry a zero. Yeah. I mean, if I did nothing for the five years after the trip, then like, you know, not that work. Yeah.

If I did them. If I buy those Costco. lots of food to eat for the following three years. If I live like a prepper from when I get back till like the time that I'm solvent again. This can be done. This can be done. We all say this, but like none of us have dropped cash on a zero G flight, you know?

I was just going to say that like, as I know zero G flight's quite expensive. I think you could do them for most people. I think if we put a package together, we could do like 10 grand a pop. Yeah, I think that's about right. Yeah. It's in like fancy vacation budget range. I think it's about $8,000, honestly. Well, there you go.

And based on the flight prices to Europe right now, that's looking like just as reasonable as like going to Europe for two weeks, from my perspective. And I go to all the way to Seattle or whatever, and that's going to cost you another $1,500. No, I go for Florida. I stay at Brandon's house. I have no cost of staying down there. It's good.

We'll feed you. We'll even feed you here, Anthony. Leave a couple loons in his bedroom and we're good. Yeah. I mean, that was a really cool. experience. I had an opportunity to do that. We didn't pay for it. I went covering a story. But I mean, that is, that was kind of a life-changing experience in itself, you know. And yeah, so for eight or ten grand, yeah, I would go do that. So not that I'm, I don't make a profit or, uh, don't contact, Brendan. He's not in the market. Don't aim up. Don't buy his email address from somebody. It's not going to buy a ticket. It's fine. Yeah, I know. I think the zero-g flight, like I would like to do one, but I don't know if $8,000 is right for me. Because I think when I compare it to like something like a space flight, it doesn't have the look out the window effect.

I think that might be, it's either that specifically that like interests me or that in combination with the zero-g. Like I want to like turn upside down and see the earth above me, you know, like I want to do that. I don't know if you can really get that out of a bomb com. so we do have a contractual obligation to one day do the off non-vom-com though the up-nom-com rom-com yeah film a rom-com yeah that's a real it's a thing we're obliged to do but yeah um one thing i'm curious about when you were talking to john is like did vibe check is a thing we like to do uh a x-1 notoriously or like kind of hinted at but maybe it wasn't openly spoken about that it was

kind of a shit show on the station in terms of like organization, time management, expectations. Do you have any sense that AX2 went significantly better? Was it better prepared for? Or was it just like you were talking about the whole time and you wasn't

really concerned about that? Well, so he worked a lot with that crew before they launched because he was backup pilot for AX1. And you know, he did kind of allude that, you know, they learned quite a bit from, from that mission. And it seemed to me that, you know, when he got back, we were chatting and he got everything he wanted to get accomplished while he was there. So, yeah, it seemed like, well, he didn't complain, but I also don't feel like he would complain publicly about it. It's probably sure. Probably also in the airlock, NBA. Yeah, yeah. So, like, you didn't write a Google review on it or something like, but, but yeah, I got the

sense that that he felt prepared for it. I did ask like, you know, about the actual launch itself, you know, were you, were you prepared and did you get through enough training? And he says, yeah, it's like, it's exactly how it was described to us and how we thought it was going to be. And yeah, he said his time on station was exactly what he wanted to do. So. Yeah. That's good.

I really would love to do like a deep dive into both axioms training and SpaceX. Texas training for private astronauts. Axioms in particular, though, because it's ISS-based. I would love to know, you know, what does John Schackner go through that's different from what a NASA astronaut goes through? Because fundamentally, it's all the same hardware, right? They're still launching on the Falcon and drag and going to the ISS and coming back again. So, like, there's so many similarities to it.

I'd be really, really curious to know what is different about the training programs. I think that's really fascinating. I have no insight to offer on that comment. I just want to say it. Yeah. I don't need to use pretty tight-lipped about that, too. think, you know, for, you know, NDA reasons and stuff like that.

But yeah, it would be really interesting. And because, like, especially people like, like John and some of the other ones that that went on AX1, like, I mean, these are like pretty busy people, right? You know, they're not, they're not, it's not their whole career to train for this mission. Like, you got to slip these in between board meetings or, you know, it's kind of things like that.

Like, it's pretty wild how that, do you make that work. Yeah. Yeah, it's real tough life. But it would be. interesting in how you make that happens. Hit me on if you want me on your board. I got to get on some of those. Yeah, they sound great. Yeah. I know, but it's, I mean, I guess there's probably some like, I would expect there to be some sort of reduced responsibility, right? Like, like, you know, an X-1 astronaut probably doesn't have all the, they may get some like standard safety training. Well,

they must obviously get some safety training for how to deal with emergencies on the ISS. But like, you know, if there is some sort of emergency, there must be some sort of emergency. There must be some sort of like thing where the NASA astronauts do this and you get to the escape capsule or something, right? You know, something like that. You get as far into the corner of that dragon as you possibly can and you stay there. You know that area under the seats? You get under there as quick as possible and hold on.

You go down to the independent podcaster section of the dragon. Right next to where they store the sweaters and the water bottles. Yeah. Yeah, and the bags of poop. I do wonder if, like, one of the NASA astronauts or even one of the other participants, like, had to, like, supervise one. Like, if there was an emergency, like, your buddy is this person. Like, go to them and. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. You just latch on. Their hand is there, you know. I'm, I'm strapping on to Victor Glover's leg for sure. Like, I feel like, oh, yeah. That man will save you, yeah. He's got the muscles to do it. I could do his jack.

I can just imagine you collecting his leg. holding on sight. It's like a swole. It'll get me, that'll get me home that leg. Yeah. I won't touch the biceps or two. I don't want to,

you know, can't put your hands around him, is that why? My arms, too little. Yeah. In the spirit of the last, you know,

week or, week or so in the country here, I feel like I should have probably put my number on a friendship bracelet and tried to get it the Victor Glover. Like,

that feels like the, the route to success. That one's done it. Yeah. I'll try that. I don't want to know the context of that too. It's so wholesome, Jake. It's not even... It is.

We'll let Jake figure out. I'll be fine. I guess I'll Google friendship bracelet later. That's for the Venn diagram of NFL fans and Taylor Surf fans. Yeah. All right. All right. Florida topic that I did not put on the list, Brendan.

but Jake and I were talking about it earlier this week, and I don't know, you might have a little something on this. Have you looked at the psyche launch recently, and there's some things going on with this? Is it going to happen? Are they going to launch this thing? I have not. I did just look at it because I've got a show next week,

and we're not covering it, and I need to, so I'm looking for a psyche expert. It looks. It looks some. But I'll leave between you guys. I have no idea what's going on. There was a tweet today from Marsha Smith. She says the P.A.O. said they're accepted.

So they're good. Oh, okay. All right. Because that's what I was going to ask about the government shutdown and how things go. Oh, yeah. Jake and I were trying to do like the 40 chess on, has there ever been a government shutdown when there was also a launch that had a very tight launch window? And we couldn't find an example of like a planetary launch window, though.

Yeah, no. Like the human stuff goes. and the ISS stuff goes fine. Yeah, there actually was a government shutdown, and I remember there was, it was a SpaceX launch camera what it was, but it was delay. Was it Falcon Heavy?

Because I remember, I remember PAO told me that there was going to be a problem, and I reached out to SpaceX. I was like, yeah, I was told that government shutdown's going to, you know. I remember that one, yeah. And then. Mission that was, though.

Yeah, the PR person just kind of yelled at me and was like, where'd you hear that from? That's not happening. Blah, blah, blah. You're lie. And then like it, then it did get affected by it and it's like, do you still want to comment? But yeah, so it definitely happened at one time because I got yelled at. I can't remember why.

Well, this is good because we were getting into like if government shutdown happened and Psyche was not accepted and was unable to launch, tight launch window of like 20 days or something. Yeah, it's not big. Pretty short. And then it's already a year behind because it was supposed to launch last year. And then we're in the territory of like, what now? That would have been problematic. Yeah, it's not good after that. So, yeah.

I thought they would, but. I thought they would too. But I, what my main concern was like, what does that process actually mean? Because I wouldn't have been shocked if it was like, the government has to shut down before the exception portal opens. And then you can apply for exceptions,

which everyone does on the same day. And then you would get approved. And by then they've missed launch. And no one's working on it. That was my concern. Yeah. So, yeah, all right, this is good. This is, that's an improvement.

And who knows, Brendan? Maybe I'll see you. I don't know. Yeah, well, I would, I hope so. But this is also that, you know, we're in Atlantic storm season as well. So that's true. Something else to be concerned. I think we're okay for the next week or so.

Yes, but I am going to be in the state of Florida in the next few days. And I am known to attract them. So. Well, thanks. Yeah. Do not beware. How many of them are even named? at this point. I think we're probably okay, right?

Like the ones that are coming in the future? We might have to go back like we're getting to. There's not enough names. Are you on Q yet? We're pretty close. What is the next one? I can't remember what the next one. Felipe or whatever is right now, right?

Yeah. And Rina. Rina. We're at the R's. Yeah, we're at the R's. So then S is next, right? Steve, Hurricane Steve. is that the one on the list? It's Hurricane Steve. It's going to be Steve.

Man, remember last year, all the hurricane tracking that was going on with Artemis 1 on the pad? What a season. What a great season. That was wild. That was wild. I had so much fun on that season. That was so long. That was nice on nap.

We had a storm so late in the season, too. I remember like we did. had an election and then a hurricane, which was like unheard of. Yeah. A name storm hitting Florida in November. So. On the topic of launches,

I have a couple of launch topics that I thought would be fun to talk with you guys about. Brendan, the last time you were on the show, I believe you told us that you did, in fact, touch Taryn One. I did. And that's the last Taryn one there ever was. I wonder how responsible you are for it.

So I did share that and a few other reporters came to my side and said that they also touched it. So we cannot squarely put this on me. But I do take a bit of responsibility. I will be held accountable and take a fair amount of response. It may not be your fault, but once again, mainstream media really, really screws the poohs. We really do. Too good. Too good.

I can't argue with that. You're absolutely right, Jay. Oh, yeah. Okay. That's all we have for that segment. That's it. No, I'm actually curious. No, I'm curious.

I'm curious what you're, you know, we're a little bit, we're out of our, like, in the feelings phase of Teran One's departure from this sweet, sweet earth. I'm curious, like, how you initially took their decision to bail on Terran One. And if you've, where you're at now on relativity and, you know, is there stock rising or falling for you as a Florida man who likes to see launches from your backyard? Yeah, I mean, I, I mean, I've had the chance to talk with Tim Ellis quite a few times and like, he knows what he's doing. At least I like to think. And so I think that this is, you know, they did what they wanted to with Taryn One.

And, yeah, it'll be interesting to see. I mean, it's great to have all sorts of other launches here in, in Florida. So the stats are really super fascinating. We hit, we're over 50 launches from the space coast this year. And like, when we hit the 50th launch,

it was a SpaceX launch. And like 47 other launches were SpaceX. Two were ULA and then one was relativity. Like that's what we've done this year. So yeah, diversity of launches would be great here. That stat started off as like really impressive. and now it's just like, what?

What are we doing? Yeah. So it's like they're mostly Falcon 9s here, which I mean, they're really cool, you know, and awesome to see. So once we can get, you know, if Taryn R comes on, like that'll be really cool to actually see. And yeah, I have confidence that they'll do what they say they're going to do. I mean, I didn't think that they were going to pull off Taryn 1. And I mean, that thing left the ground. So that's pretty cool.

They got to get it going before we have to just rename it the Cape Falcon. It's basically what we have to do. The Falcon Space Center. It's truly what it is. I mean, it's to the point now where, like, I mean, we stopped reporting on every single launch just because that would be somebody's full-time job. Yeah. Not two people to just report on every single launch here. And, you know, pretty much any other day, you can look up in the sky and see Falcon 9 taking off, which, I mean, that's awesome. That's really cool. But yeah, I want to see something new.

Well, the next news is, the origin's CEO, Bob Smith, is on the outs in a few months here. And I don't know if Jake, I see you're wearing a blue shirt. Jake does, in fact, enjoy his commute. That's a super, super niche inside blue origin. Yeah, we may or may not have made a purchase off an unknown Shopify site to get some shirts in our life. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I've gotten resounding positive vibes from all the Blue Origin people that I communicate with on this situation. It was always unclear on like, you know, Bob Smith got a lot of flack. generally, I feel like, from the community at large. It was always unclear to me because they're so secretive and kind of cagey about stuff,

how much of that tracked to the issues they were having or the slowness or whatever, but like, I don't know, the vibes are way up on the news. So I'm kind of interested to see what happens. I mean, wasn't this plan, didn't, wasn't there kind of an exit plan for him anyways? The vibes that I was picking up sound like, No. Really? I ignored finally a couple of times.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, like this is, this is a tough one to like comment on, right? Because like, unless you are, you know,

you work there or you are otherwise intimately involved with the leadership of Blue Origin, like, it's really hard to like make a judgment. So the only thing you can really do is just like, remember that a CEO is ultimately responsible for the company's results, right? And it's like,

is anyone anywhere satisfied with Blue origins output. And I think there's lots of reasons why there, maybe they aren't outputting as much as they want, but I think most people will say, no, I wish they'd done more faster, right? And so that's like, the only judgment you can really kind of cast. And so in that sense, I'm kind of like, great, let's try a different person. That sounds like a great option at this point. Let's try to get some things moving here. The only time these changes aren't, are like what you were saying, Brendan like, oh, this was like planned out in particular and not a, you know, no drama behind the scenes here is when it happens like right after the landmark achievement that was clearly

that person's tenure, you know, like, I launched that thing and I'm out, right? Even look at SpaceX of how many people left in the leadership crew, like, after they had either finally gotten like landing and reuse sorted out or crew flights were going fine, it was always following those like major milestones. And yeah, in the middle of like, I mean, are they still technically launching next year?

Per like, they've been launching next year. I mean, yeah, because they're launched an exculpator. Yes, I know that. But they have that Mars launch. Jake,

I'm sure you believe in heavily. I don't know. I don't know. I have a lot of questions about the escapade launch. And yeah, because it's like, As such as what? Well, just like, it's like a QSat basically and they're going to put it on a new blend.

And so I'm like, is that the only payload? I feel like they're going to add more payloads. And they're like, no, no, no, no other payloads. It's just that. And I was like, okay, well, so is that really, is this just a test flight then that a QSat's hitching a ride on? And it's like, okay, then is it really going to launch on time? Because this is a planetary spacecraft.

It's got a launch window and it's got to like, it's got to nail it. You can't just willy-nilly shoot. this thing into whenever time window you want. See also, though, your previous statement, right? Like, well, there's all this extra del V. or just blast it in whatever direction. It's like a three-ton to Leo vehicle for a cube set.

So like- But then you have to ask that question about Blue Origins like past Leo capability. And like the way I understand it is that like its only job is to put something very, very, very large, very, very close to the earth. And like past that, all the efficiency just drops off a cliff. And it can't do like, you know. It's like the Long March 5B. Basically, it's just the American Long March 5B. Yeah.

Screw all the other orbits. With slightly more landing precision is what it is. Hopefully. We don't know that. I will give them slightly. It benefited down on slightly. Anyway, I'd be delighted to see New Glen launch. I don't have a super good read on that yet.

Other than there's been some nice pictures with a lot of hardware on the floor. So that's good to see. Yeah I'm like That's my new Glenn rent I go back and forth so much man Like you know I go through weeks where I'm like No there's like

It's not happening anytime soon And I go through weeks where I'm like Oh man they could pop that garage door open anytime now And that would be like that thing would be fully ready Like that's exactly how it's gonna work with new Glenn Is it like we're gonna hear nothing about it And then they're just gonna roll it out one day And be like we're gonna launch next week

And like what? The thing that is is like we don't we just don't know a lot right like Brendan's not driving out there every other day with a long telephoto lens taking picks of whenever they open the door and stuff there are people that are doing that to some extent

but they don't open the door that much like it's occasional you know the thing that the thing that is telling that we have no idea about and we all can just I mean I've heard some stuff I'm sure Brendan's heard some stuff of how many engines of the first batch are going to ULA versus going to Blue Origin do they have to wait until a certain amount shipped ULA before

they've got their new Glenn set. I have heard at least from two or three different places that that is not the case, and they are getting engines while the ULA is still working on Vulcan 2. So, like, that's the ballmark there, right? Or the high watermark or whatever, of like how many BE4s are in their facility. Yeah, I haven't heard anything. I mean, I turn to you for these kind of things, Anthony. I mean, you've got your finger on the pulse more than I do.

So theoretically, like once they get seven down to Florida for new Glenn, they can then like the, the 10th and plus engines can start going back to ULA again, right? Because like once, I mean, let's say Blue has, they're ready to go. Then they get their seven. Like the time that they need engines eight through 14 is going to be way, way past that, right? Because they're going to like take a nice long test campaign and get everything working right. And then they'll finally fly. Then they're going to get a bunch of data. They're going to have to go back to the drawing board.

Like, there's a whole process that comes after that. So even if that one crashes, like, they're going to need more time before engine 8 through 14 or ready. So I imagine they can they can sort of like get ULA going, get themselves going, and then go back and start filling up the ULA manifest, right? The fun conspiracy theory is like, you know, when hypothetically if you're test firing an engine, you just like throw a screw in there, get some fod in there and say, you know what? We just got to work out the next seven to eight off the production line and then we'll ship you the ninth one after this. and then that one will be good, right? Like, we'll take the heat on the seven that might blow up because who knows if we had screw loose in there.

Yeah, yeah. We always come up with these theories, Jake. But then the crackpot theories dock. Or how about this? They send the seven to Florida. They launch a new glen. They land it. They bring it back.

And then they ship all seven into a ULA and give them a distance. Tested them for you. We ran these. You got three and a half Vulcans here. Light-proven B-4s. I did while you guys were discussing all those theories. series. I did go and look up. The first story I ever did for NPR was on New Glenn. It was when Jeff Bezos was down here announcing the fact that they were going to launch and build it. And this

is in September 2015. The first line of my story is at Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 36, Blue Origins founder Jeff Bezos vowed to launch a new orbital vehicle by 2020. So, way off. I'm going to need that link. That was back when 2020, was the year of the rocket. Was that the old design too, right? With the weird little step down. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wasn't 2020, was it, it was to be, it was New Glenn, Vulcan, Starship. Like all the rockets were supposed to launch. RAN6. We're all supposed to launch in 2020, right? Yeah.

There's probably some other ones we're missing. But yeah. That was the year. Now they're all 2024. That's a rough way. Yeah. I remember telling my editor, I'm like, yeah, it's going to happen. Like, we got a plain coverage

for this. He's like, no, it's not, and it never did. Well, you're going to be not covering space by the time it does. Yeah, that's what I feel like that's going to be it. So we'll spend our retirement money going down there to watch New Glen launch for the first time and then zip over and do a new shepherd flights.

That's going to be so fun to watch. Just looking at that launch facility from Port Canaveral Beach is ridiculous. That's going to be so close. It's going to be awesome. Yeah, at the off-bound beach party location, it's going to be a great thing. Yeah. Yep. That's where we got to go.

Yeah. Brendan, what do you got, what do you got to plug? I got a link in the show notes of people to check out your interview with John Schaffner, but what else? What else do you want to point people to? Well, speaking of Blue Origin, I just taped an interview with Rob Meyerson on kind of the

commercial lunar I guess commercial and lunar space outside of Artemis. I couldn't even think about it. Honestly, that was a very telling, like, brain stumbling. The lunar commercial thing? It's simply how we can make me off of the moon. So, yes, I've got him on there next week, which would be fun.

Then I've got, I think we've got Sarah Skulls is coming on next week. she's a science journalist. She writes about UFO culture. It's a really fascinating conversation about what the UFO culture thinks about the recent NASA UAP report. So pretty insightful conversation. I'm sure it's really resounding the reaction. Yeah. Yeah, it's it was an interesting conversation.

So. But Sarah Scholes is phenomenal journalist. Wait, did you do this interview yet? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I was going to, I had a question for you, which was what does Tom DeLong's return to blink 182 do for UFO culture.

That's the question I need answer. The fact that Blink has an album coming out is that, does that change the vibes here? Yeah, I actually should have asked about that, but yeah, again, you should just be doing my job here, Anthony. That's what I've got going on.

Anthony's super into the alien stories right now. What the fuck did you just send me, what is this? What is going on? Jake just sent me with literally, am I supposed to show this? We're going to close the show with a Spanish alien meme. What is this? Oh, yes. All right, please, please enlighten me.

Those are tamalians. Tamalians. Oh, dude. Oh, dude. Oh, my God. That's fantastic, Jake. That is fantastic. I love that.

And now I'm hungry. Now I'm hungry. Yeah. I don't know, Jake. I haven't made the list of all nominees yet, but the Mexican government aliens might be pretty high on the list. Dude, that's the way up there. Yep.

Yeah, so good. Yep. Man. All right, everybody. That's it. That's what we got. Brennan Burns the best. Donate to St. Jude, and we're going to watch our movies.

And Jake, I will not be here next week. As I mentioned, I will be in the state of Florida. TBD, I may be visiting Brendan for a rocket launch. I'm unsure. It depends on how the sketch shakes out. I'm really hoping it works out because it has been forever since I've seen both of you, but it'll be great to see Anthony. Sorry, Jake.

That's all good. We're going to try and throw together some sort of psyche show in your absence. I'm still letting the show come to me, so we'll figure out what it is, and then we'll go from there. Listen, we were doing 8D chess on trying to figure out who to get for the psyche conversation because we were like but if it's shut down, will they be able to talk to us? Should I ask them? I don't know if I can ask them if there's their email work. I don't know.

And if they're not shut down, are they going to be at the launch? Then they're busy. That's the problem. It's the whole thing. Yeah. So. All right, everybody. All right. Thanks, everyone. That's all we got.

Thanks for having me. It was fun.