Off-Nominal - 128 - These Were Bad Movies

Episode Date: October 20, 2023

Jake and Anthony are joined by Stephen Hackett, co-founder of Relay FM and fellow space nerd, to talk about the ever-present SLS drama of the day, how Relay’s St. Jude fundraiser went, and partake in the first Terrible Space Movie Review Show™ in which we try to convince Stephen to watch our favorite of a bad batch of movies we watched.TopicsOff-Nominal - YouTubeEpisode 128 - These Were Bad Movies (with Stephen Hackett) - YouTubeRelay FMRelay FM for St. Jude - St. Jude Children's Research HospitalNASA should consider commercial alternatives to SLS, inspector general says | Ars TechnicaAd Astra (2019) - IMDbStarflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land (TV Movie 1983) - IMDbSolar Crisis (1990) - IMDbMoonfall (2022) - IMDbNASA OIG on X: “T–2 (2 Days until Launch) #NASA says “We are Going” but at what cost? See our audit on the Agency’s cost estimating and reporting practices”Follow Stephen512 PixelsStephen Hackett (@[e-mail]) - eworld.socialUngeniused - Relay FMFollow Off-NominalSubscribe to the show! - Off-NominalSupport the show, join the DiscordOff-Nominal (@offnom) / TwitterOff-Nominal (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceFollow JakeWeMartians Podcast - Follow Humanity's Journey to MarsWeMartians Podcast (@We_Martians) | TwitterJake Robins (@JakeOnOrbit) | TwitterJake Robins (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceFollow AnthonyMain Engine Cut OffMain Engine Cut Off (@WeHaveMECO) | TwitterMain Engine Cut Off (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceAnthony Colangelo (@acolangelo) | TwitterAnthony Colangelo (@[e-mail]) - jawns.club 🐘Off-Nominal MerchandiseOff-Nominal Logo TeeWeMartians Shop | MECO Shop

TLS and go for main engine starts. It's music to layers, Jake. Can you explain what this song is? Because I don't know all the lore. Yeah, the Phillies are on right now in the National League Championship Series, which is the series right before the World Series. Yeah, and that's curling, right, the Phillies. Yeah, baseball, okay, good.

Yeah, that's right. And, yeah, last year, so we have this, by the way, Stephen Hackett is here. We've been waiting millennia to have you on this show. How's it going? it's good baseball baseball is not my jam it's kind of that's okay it's kind of boring it's good okay I would I would go to I would go to bat for it I will say I would try it try it a little bit this year because the rule changes I think make it a lot more interesting there's it's a lot faster it's condensed it's there's more excitement I was saying is it like if either now it's

four strikes but if after three you have to take your shirt off or something it's like it's fun rules like that I mean I don't think that's it. For the Phillies, that would be fun. And this is the point of this song, is that, so our backup catcher, he plays almost never, this guy named Garrett Stubbs. And he is, he just lives for a postseason run where he is constantly shotgunning beers and, like, being the number one fan of the team.

And, yeah, they got this song, like, in the locker room last year. So it became the song. And then we lost the World Series. And they decided, let's just go for the song again to, like, avenge the World Series lost. So now it's great because we have a rabid fan base that goes to games and then no one leaves the stadium until everyone finishes singing that song and then everyone goes home. And that's the song. That's kind of a nice tradition. I can get behind that.

It's pretty wholesome. I'll be honest. Yeah. There's a far worse things you could do. Yeah. We have a very wholesome year. There was this one guy, we're going baseball heavy on this show. There was this one guy who was really struggling this year.

He was like having a hard time. He was really down on himself. and then he just came up to bat one time and the whole stadium gave him a standing ovation and he turned his entire season around and it's just very wholesome so yeah baseball

you should have had Jason Snell on he'll talk about baseball yeah I'll probably yeah that would next time Jake's gone I've already done one show when Jake was gone about cycling entirely so the next time Jake's gone I'll get Jason and we'll do only baseball

there you go all right Stephen welcome to the show did you bring anything fun to drink out there I did I don't drink drink so I have a peachy sweet tea

which is I can't I'm so bad at what towards the next ago you're an audio guy yeah there's a lot of sugar in this there's like the sugar and then there's the included added sugar that's how you know it's going to be good

but I'm from south I live in Tennessee but in the corner with Mississippi and Arkansas so like sweet tea it is yeah things get really sweet when you go down a little bit. Yeah, none of us actually have all of our teeth. You know, that's sort of like a southern stereotype, but it's because of the sweet tea.

I went to Tennessee once, and that's where I learned that you need to specify that we want the iced tea to be sweet. Otherwise, it won't be. And then that's not good. It's got to be sweet. You got to be more specific down there. You need more adjectives.

What do you got to? Jake. I'm clearing out some old bottles that I'm trying to get rid of. So this is a concoction. This is the honeymead that I have with some brandy and lime juice. So it's like kind of weird, but it works. It's working from the grid. Yeah, yeah.

You know, like your liquor cabinet, like you get some bottles and they get down and then like sometimes you have like this much of something. And it's just like, what am I going to do with it? Like, what am I going to do with this brandy? Like, I don't drink brandy ever. I have this bottle of bread. So I'm like, I'm going to put it in this and see it works. All right.

Good luck. I got another bottle of stick wine. It's the same one, but I opened it last week. And here we go again. So, you know. I admire the discipline. It's good. Yeah.

All right. We've got a lot, a lot of topics here. But first off, Stephen, you had a hell of a fundraiser. And we would love to hear about it. And, yeah, that you're beyond the main thing. him. Yeah, it was it was an amazing month. Each September relay FM, the podcast network I own and I'm on, we raise money for St. Jude Jones Research Hospital. Yeah, that's the page. $775,000 this year brings us a just, I mean like just shy of three million dollars over the now six year commitment.

And it's it's amazing. You know, our listeners, our communities, our communities, our community. I think the broader kind of Apple community. And then folks like yourselves all get behind it. And so we had like 150 community fundraisers. So people like exactly what y'all did, right? Like hey, we're going to talk about this in our own way and here's our page. And it was just, it's so humbling that so many people get behind this. And you know, childhood cancer is, it's a terrible thing.

And in your worst moments as a parent, St. Jude can be there and say, hey, we're going to not only treat you with the best science research and doctors on the planet, but we're not going to bill you for any of that either. So transportation, meals, and care are all free for St. Jude patients and their families. And that's only possible because folks like y'all open your wallets and give. So it's really humbling just to be a conduit for that work and to help. spread their message. Yeah.

Yeah, you guys really crushed it. It's like the numbers on there are just fantastic. It's good to see. Yeah. I mean, I look at those numbers. It's like, I don't,

it's hard to comprehend, especially this year, right? It's hard out there for a lot of people right now. And for us to be 10% higher than we were last year by the end of the month, that's incredible. I mean,

no one, I certainly didn't expect that. And it was, it was just, a wild ride. You know, September is a long, hard month. We have all the fundraising. We also have Apple events. Like I had to, I went to the iPhone event this year. So like in the middle of campaigns, like I got to go to California for two days. I'll be back. You know, after all of that, like that hard work and that time to be able to celebrate such a high amount of money raised is like,

it's just, it's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I never heard if like what your vibe was when St. Jude also became a central focus in the space community for a while when it was around inspiration four and everything like you know what was how does that feel to have that still I mean even now with Polaris program it's it's out there still on that page right yeah I actually interviewed Jared Isaacman and the crew of the the upcoming mission they're going to actually have the first commercial spacewalk and even though inspiration for with Haley Arsena who's a same jude patient survivor she works there now and she's incredible I've gotten to her several times and like she's just the most amazing person.

But Jared Isamond, his team are still raising money for St. Jude. So it was amazing to get to talk to them and the podcastathon our 12 hour live show, sort of the highlight of the fundraiser for us, at least. That interview played, I think, in the back half of that show. And getting to talk to Jared and his crew about what they're going to do, right, they're going to make history with the first commercial spacewalk, you know, if everything goes well. But to talk to them to them about that, but how excited they were about that,

they were just as excited about meeting families at St. Jude and being involved with that mission. I think that says so much about Jared and his organization and the people around him with the Polaris project. It was really inspiring to get to talk with them and play a tiny part in it. But definitely wild that St. Jude was going to space. I had heard that they were working with. you know, they want to do something big that, you know, going into that year. And I knew Jared Isaac would have been around, but I never would have guessed that it was going to be as successful as it was.

Yeah, yeah. It's kind of interesting to see how, you know, what are we like two years after inspiration for now. And like St. Jude still has now. It's like, it's like the de facto space charity now. Like, like, even just when we were, when we posted this, like, yeah, we're doing this thing with Relay FM on the St. Jude fundraiser. And like instantly our listeners were like, oh yeah, St. Jude, that's what we do.

We're space fans. We give money to St. Jude now. Like the fact that they've kind of like established that is sort of the charity in waiting, a charity in residence for a space fandom is pretty fun. No, it's really cool. In September when we were doing the fundraising stuff, Mike Hurley, my partner and I, and then Jason Snell and Kathy Campbell from Relay, we all got to tour the inspiration for building at St. Jude's campus. and it's a research building, although they have this like really cool cafe in the first floor. It's got a lot of great stuff.

But the stairs above that are where the science happens. And, you know, getting to meet these researchers and these scientists who are, they're literally doing their life's best work at St. Jude on behalf of these kids and kids around the world with cancer. It's just, it's like inspiring the same way being Jared Isaac Minnaz, right? It's these people who are really operating at a high level,

at a high level the best in the world at what they do, but their heart is here in Memphis for St. Jude and these families. It's pretty sweet. I don't know what it takes to get a building named after you, but Inspiration 4 definitely deserves it. Yeah. Fat stacks. Yeah, that's exactly right. A couple more fundraiser in the ballpark for sure. Yeah, we joked once that we just want our, it was like Relay FM like name like above a bathroom or something. Like yeah. The real stuff somewhere. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's like, you know, it's like a hose, you know, faucet

in a parking garage. Like, whatever it, you know, I'll take it. I feel like the PA system. You could do the Relay FM PA system. That would be, that would be cool. Pretty on brand. Switch on, maybe. You know?

Switch on, yeah, yeah, maybe, you know, they used to have, we used to actually be friends with the woman who was the PA announcer in the hospital itself. And she had been there, I forget, I mean, like decades. Like, it was her life's work, being the announcer in the hospital.

And so we got to know her because she's at the front desk. So she's like the first person you'd see. What do you think was really smart? It's like the first person you meet. That's whose voice you hear throughout the day if like something's going on. But when she retired, they hit through a party. Like, you know, again, someone doing their life's work. But maybe we could get Mike in there.

Maybe we can squeeze him in a day next year. It's like, you know, we have this special PA announcer that no one would be able to, you know, parse it. But I think it'd be fine. What's the lift? Take the lift to where? What am I doing? Yeah, I don't know. His verbiage would be all screwed up.

That's right. Oh, wow. British people, they exist. Y'all are crushing it. And I'm sure, I know for a fact, that there are a bunch of people that listen to this show that are liftoff fans out there. Oh, yeah. And now you're kind of in this era where it's like special episodes only and not a

recurring thing. Yeah. And that's been real fun. So I'm curious how you're, like, what kind of stuff you're. you're following, what are you interested in? It's a lot of historical stuff, but I don't know if, you know, as we get close to Artemis, too, if you're thinking to more current stuff too. Yeah, I mean, for Lyftoff, you know, we were every other week for years.

And we did really what I'm proudest of on that show is the 50th anniversary lookbacks at the Apollo missions. And we didn't just do the crude missions that everyone thinks of, right? It's like, super interesting. The first time they flew this piece of hardware. Like, would it work? All those early missions. but yeah we just kind of got to a point where Jason and I had other projects that needed more attention

so so liftoff is sort of in this this it's not retired but it's not regular we're talking about doing maybe an end of the year recap definitely though with Artemis too we want to talk about that in terms of what I'm keeping up with it's a lot of stuff I was doing when I was doing the show regularly right so paid a lot of attention to their Cyrus Rex return which I mean if we can just step back for a minute. What an amazing story.

We went off. We captured this material. And then it just sets down in the desert. That's amazing. Obviously, keeping up with everyone's favorite SLS, you know, Eric Barker had some reporting, I think earlier this week about like this idea that NASA had that the SLS construction be offloaded to a company and then they would like buy the rockets at the end of the construction period. It's like, oh, it's going to cut cost.

I think they said in half. 50%. Yeah. What a number. All right. And that's basically what the GAO said. They came out like, um,

a realistic number too. Like, yeah. Somehow they nailed it and at 50%. A scientifically achieved number. Just crushed it. Yeah, but the,

they just came around at 50%. I'm so it was amazing how that happened. You gotta make math easy for Congress, you know. But, uh, they, yeah, so the inspector report came out was like, no,

man, like that number is unrealistic and the numbers are probably going to go up. And so, you know, SLS, I mean, I know you all have, talked about it, we've talked about it.

But the limbo that program has been in, the program started, you know, over a decade ago. They've flown once. They're so far over budget and over time budget. Like, it doesn't even make sense. Like, it's just unreal. And I think Eric wrote this, someone did a few years ago, but basically it was like SLS, a rocket with nowhere to go.

Because it's coming up in this era where, NASA can fly a Falcon heavy for a percentage of a percentage of the cost, right? But this report, the price of one engine on SLS. I mean, what in the world? Almost exactly. Yeah, the scale difference there is really bad. If there's only one thing Eric Berger is fantastic at, it is the most amazing price analogies you've ever heard of.

He will cast a price in a narrative you've never even thought of it. That division wasn't in the OIG report. No. I didn't work out well when you did the division. Yeah, yeah. Maybe he'll be quoted next time. But it is, it's just fascinating to watch this because the SLS program is a child of Congress, right? Ultimately, everything in the NASA budget is, but SLS touches all 50 states just about.

It's got people and suppliers everywhere. And so it's, it'd be super unpopular to kill it politically. but we can fly SpaceX for a whole lot less money and we can with that savings do untold amount of other things I don't know where it goes I mean it's a mess the interesting most of these OIG reports I'm like

yeah like we we nailed it you know that saying about how the Supreme Court is downstream of culture I don't if anyone's heard this saying before but like they will ratify like the violence of the American public 10 years after the fact. And I feel like the OIG is kind of that for space nerds, where it's like, yeah, we've been talking about that for years. But this one had the kicker of the agency may soon have

more affordable commercial options to carry humans to the moon and beyond. That stuff is never, that was always the undertone of the other reports, but it was never specifically stated. So I do feel like that is a notable aspect there, that OIG is willing to put that to writing now rather than just that being between the lines. Yeah, this report felt way spicier than the other ones. Even the but but at what cost?

What was that one, Jake? At what cost? Oh, yeah. But at what cost? I don't remember, but I remember the line. That was the one that came out when we were on Artemis, on the Artemis one trip, I think, right? But at what cost? That's right.

It was like a few days before the launch, right? Oh, wait. Here, it was this tweet. I found the tweet. Oh, yeah. It was literally, yeah, August 27th, 2022. two, T minus two days to launch. NASA says we are going, but at what cost?

See our audit. The agency's cost estimating. That's brutal. With the picture, with the we are going picture. This was the best, this was peak Twitter right here. This is the days where it was Twitter. It was peaking. This was the moment.

From a federal government account. Let's not lose it. But it wasn't one of the three of us angry at NASA on Twitter. It became us three. But yeah, I was like, no, we're a federal agency and we've hired this intern to burn you down on Twitter. 2 p.m. scheduled 2 p.m. August 27th, but at what cost? Not real. Scheduled.

Yeah. Loaded this up in the hoot suite and got it rolling out at 2 p.m. God, it's so good. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I do feel like this one is making some, all the other ones before this, the same one five times in a row, just like with the schedule rolled forward a few years. This one at least started to be like, let me actually explicitly state things.

What that does, though, because actually what this does is that like NASA has to respond to these all the time and post like, we concur with, you know, points one, six, and seven, but not one, two, and four or whatever. Yeah. So they do write these things and NASA has to acknowledge them officially, which is good. They didn't have to do that for the tweet. Yeah. right now the tweets the cherry on top.

I do wonder if that, again, going back to that 50% budget thing, that not only paints the SLS project in a bad light, but also whoever came up with that plan and then put numbers to it right. And I wonder if all the talk about how long and how much money they've taken, all that stuff,

then maybe that's worn out a little bit in people's minds. Like, yeah, like you said, like we've been talking about this forever. But when you see this plan, had to save money and how it's going to go the other way, like, that feels like a different level of issue to deal with. And I wonder if this may get more traction in the community or maybe even, you know, in the minds of, of Congress members of like, oh, we need to look at what's going on here as opposed to just like shoveling money to it, like coal into a fire. Yeah. Yeah.

Do you guys watch Saturday Night Live at all? Are you SNL people? Occasionally. It's pretty, It's all pretty late. Yeah, we're old now. Yeah, I would say, you know, children in this department. Yeah. Yeah. There was, you know, during like the peak like Trump years when like things were just like, it's escalating every day.

Like it just every day felt like it was worse than the day before. And they did like this like silly talk show thing where the talking heads were doing that. It's like, this is unprecedented. A president has never done. And then they just like spout off some wild and crazy thing. And then they had Keenan in the background of every, every statement, he'd go, ain't nothing going to happen. And it's like, yeah, but like, this is never, this is, this is unprecedented. This is the thing that's finally going to do.

Yeah. We got on this time. That's what I feel about these OIT reports. Ain't nothing going to happen. Yeah. I mean, hypothetically, if Congress were in a position to be debating budgets, maybe, but that's not looking like that's going to be, it's going to be a while. this is a happy place we can stay happy we can stay happy and you know what we did

Stephen we watched a bunch of really really incredibly shitty space movies and we like to bring a report to you what I think we should do is we are going to report to you these four movies that we watched and then we are each going to lobby for which one you should watch because we feel different and and so you are going to be assigned homework to at least watch one movie

all right my fate is in is in your collective hands. Yeah. These are bad movies, Jake. Okay, so yeah, I was telling Anthony before the show, I had, like, my, my notes app open on my iPhone as I'm watching these because I'm just like, I wanted to just, like, throw thoughts in there so I didn't forget them because like four movies and like, I watched them over four days.

It was like four movies and four days. I'm not going to remember any of them. So I'm like throwing these thoughts into this notes thing. And I just opened it up today to like before the show, to read it. And it is like an unhinged fever dream of the wildest stuff. I'm reading this list. I'm like, this happened. I'm like, oh, my God, this is the worst movie I've ever seen.

So I'm excited to dig into these. I don't know where it's going to go because I have too many to talk about. So there's going to be like some extra gems for later. I don't know what we do with all this content. Let me talk high level because I feel like sci-fi movies tend to fall in one of two buckets where you care only about the plot or you care only about the characters. That's sort of the breakdown, right? And that's how I sort them.

There are some of these movies, nothing progressed in the plot. There was no advancement of my understanding of the physics of the world they were inhabiting. All I knew was this one dude missed his dad so bad and that was it. Like, Dad Astra was an actual, that was a real good take on Ad Astra. Yeah, yeah, it really was. Other ones only advanced the plot and I had no idea who anyone was or why I should care that they got blown out of an airlock. I don't know which is worse, though. Yes, that is a great way to put it.

Although I will say that with Dan Astra, there were also characters that I didn't really know what they were and I didn't care that they got one. You care about no characters in this movie except Brad Pitt. I don't even know what his name was. McBride or something. I don't know. He's the only character.

The whole thing is him doing a series of psychology narrations about himself. It wasn't even like a therapist situation. I'm going to have to do a psych evaluation after this episode for sure. Listen, all I'm saying is I went in year order. So I watched, Jake did some of my homework. We were supposed to watch two movies shared and one movie separately because we didn't want to watch four movies.

Jake watched four movies. So I was a little bit annoyed at Jake doing my homework. I watched Star Flight One from, I think that was 1983. I watched Solar Crisis, which happens to be on YouTube in full length. And I didn't know that until after I paid money for Solar Crisis, which is from 1990 and then I watched Ad Astra which was from I don't know

2015, 16 something like that, 13, I don't know which high level thoughts Star Flight 1 was there are just technological plot points in this that are absolutely hilarious okay the premise of this is that they're taking a hypersonic flight from

Palmdale to Sydney Australia okay and I knew things were off to a good start when they had cutscenes that would then say what town or city they were in for this scene. That's important. And they cut to the Saturn 5 rolling out to launch Complex 39 and it said, Sydney, Australia. And that was the cutscene. In 1983, a complete, like, who doesn't know what the Saturn 5 is in 1983?

If this was 2083, maybe. 1983, this was, you were a decade on from that being seen on the launch pad. Sydney, Australia, okay? Now, this flight proceeds to go horribly wrong in every possible way. and they are visited again in the course of Sydney I was gonna or Palmdale to Sydney they ended up in orbit

spoiler alert we're still in small spoilers this time so hope you're good with that this flight got visited by Space Shuttle Columbia three times in like an hour and a half yeah just dropping by just like seeing how they were doing it fly up and do a thing come back down and then get back up and down up and down it was a really

unbelievable so again think of the timing 1983, this was made in the probably was written before Shell even flew and they just bought in on the same projections that you and I are complaining about now for SLS. That totally went in all in on it. We could fly it over and over and over. It's totally fine.

They didn't read a single OIG report back then. Well, they weren't spicy back then. They're only spicy now. Yeah, yeah. They needed Twitter before they were spicy. It's true. Also, Stephen, you've played Kerbal Space Program, I believe. Play is a strong work.

Yeah, but yes. You've experienced it. You've experienced it. Starflight 1 is a vehicle from Kerbal. I will pull up a photo. I'm pretty sure. Totally. I didn't think about this, but it totally is.

Isn't this just, why can I never make Google images? It's totally the Mark 2. It's totally the Mark 2. It's a 100% the Kerbal Mark 2, a fuselage system. Yeah, just right there. Yeah. pretty incredible. Wow.

So they had a big budget for special effects is what you're saying. Well, so that's where we get to here, Stephen. Momentarily, they end up in orbit, rockets fired too long. Momentarily, they're like,

we're going to go all in on zero gravity just to show people that everything's in free fall. So shit starts floating around the cockpit. There's bags. The precious metals corp who had a bunch of cargo in the cargo hold. It was literally called

The Precious Metals Corp was what it was stamped as. I wonder what they do. I wonder what's in that box. Yeah, it said, it said like, you know, top secret over it. It was just wood boxes that hold gold bars. Gold bars.

So there's a moment. There was no point to that at all. Nothing, no. A moment of weightlessness. And then for the rest of the movie, for an hour and a half at a minimum, everybody walked around, like, they were stumbling,

they were holding on to stuff. Like if, just turbulence is what, what they thought walking around a free fall was like your major turbubble. trying to go to the bathroom in the middle of a really bumpy flight. So I don't know. We need to discuss the point of that. The zero G acting in this movie is something to remember for the rest of your life.

It is wild. Like the, it was amazing. It was incredible. I just can't say anything more amazing about how funny it was to watch these people try and simulate zero G. Yeah. And again, this was a movie.

This was one of the very. of only advanced the plot, never care about anyone. Okay, yeah. Okay, so here's what I have to say about that part, but not caring what anyone won. How messed up was it that they had the, the pilot had like a wife that he was cheating on? And then like, they just like throw her out of the story. It's just like they like introduce her to like almost like create some sort of like empathetic like storyline. Like there's tensionist marriage.

And then he's just like, nah, I'm done with you. and then just leaves her. It just ends. Like, there's no resolution to you. Like that page fell out of the back of the binder. It's like, oh, no, we're out of the scene in that. There's no, like, reconciliation or, like, a fight. It's just like, he just leaves her.

And then she isn't important to the story at all. Yeah. That's a pretty great movie. Oh, man. That's brutal. I'm going to go to bat. You've convinced me of that. Yeah, no, I'm just going to say, this is the one that you should.

watch of all these movies for sure. It's a vision of the future, as well, I'll say. The rest are not. This one's a vision of the future. Irville in the chat says, one of the riders was projecting. Yeah. Makes me sad. Love triangle situation going out.

I have to, before we move on, though, I have to ask, Andy, do you catch that there is now a new definition for where space starts? Oh, yeah. They were pretty fast and loose with where space, what was it, 450,000 feet? 450,000 feet was where they said space starts. That's 137 kilometers. So now we've got three on the board. We've got the McDowell line at 70.

I didn't do the conversion. We have the Carmen line at 100, and we have the Star Flight 1 line. The Lee Majors line at 137 kilometers. Wow. Let the debate continue. Not happy about that. No, like, dang it, we're so close. Blue Origin is banning this movie.

They're going to remove it from Amazon Prime now. We got to get it canceled. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do a cancel culture movement on this movie. Oh, man. That's so good. That's really funny. I didn't do the conversion.

No, right away I do. So I do the math. Jake, I'm going to let you be the review. of solar crisis. But I just want to read, I want to read Stephen the synopsis of this movie and see if you can help me,

like, because I read this and I was like, we got to watch this movie because I had no idea what this meant. So now, and now having known that, I would like to see if you could fill in some of the details. Okay. A huge solar flare is predicted to fry Earth.

Astronauts must fly to the sun to drop a talking bomb, in friends, Freddie, at the right time, so the flare will point somewhere else. What do you think a talk talking bomb means. Yeah, I was going to say, why does the bomb talk?

That's upsetting because you know what's in his near future. So like you're making a friend and you're going to lose a friend. That's sad. Yeah. So I definitely have a problem with that. I also, how close to the sun do you have to be? All the way. All the way at the sun.

All the way in the sun. Pretty close. Well, we have to build the SLS then. That's the only thing that can do it. One way there. All right. So what have I told you that Freddie was a budget-ass version of Hal 9,000 in an antimatter, anti-matter bomb?

Okay. That's what Freddie is. That's upsetting. This was the first movie written by Chad GPT. It is a complete amalgamation of all the movies from the 70s to 90s. All of them. So what year did it come out? 1990.

Do we think that this base? sick storyline inspired Armageddon? It's kind of the same thing. Something's coming to Earth. You got us an astronauts. Magic has to happen. The Earth is saved. I,

that's highly plausible. It's possible. Because this has everything. This has all the tropes. This has this kind of command center where they're giving out orders. Whoa. So Star Wars. Right.

You've got to have the thing that can project the globe. What is that in them? The like CIC here going on, wherever that is, right? Like, got to have that. You got to have, there's a total 90s nude scene. Complete out of left field, like, 90s nude scene. There's this, everyone was sweaty because you really, you had to go all the way to the sun.

So everyone was sweaty the whole time. Yeah. Yeah, it's hot. So I kind of feel like you might be, I think you nailed it. I think we could probably not even remove this movie, Jake. This movie would have been a lot more. fun if it wasn't like interspersed with like the cringiest inappropriate 90s lines like every once in a while like it was like it was like it was a totally fine movie and then it was like you know like

to maths and it was like an actor I like really like at Skytown yeah and you would just be like oh we got a hot new girl on the crew I'm going to creep her Facebook on the computer and just like like look at her face on the computer and they're oh yeah there's there There's just some lines in this that you're just like, no, you can't, you can't say that out loud in a special environment. What are you guys doing? Like, this is supposed to be the future. Yeah, so a future without HR maybe. Yeah, this is one that didn't age very well in terms of social standards.

There's a mad max, there's like a mad max middle to this as well. Yeah, what the heck is with all that? Like Jack Palitz shows up and he's like, I'm the crazy guy. I mean, I was my favorite part, the reason I think this is a chat GPT movie is that the villains are just an unnamed corporation

who are betting on the solar flare not happening. Right? But Stephen, if you were a giant corporation, if you were, you know, if Relay was, you know, basically Walmart at this point, and you thought everyone was lying to you

and the solar flare wasn't going to happen, what would be your course of action with regard to the mission to avert the disaster. I mean, you would want to, you'd want to make sure it didn't happen, I guess, right? Why? I thought you'd think it's not happening. Yeah.

That's what I can't figure out. They're sabotaging it, but they think it's not happening. Look, you know, you just don't have the big brain that Ray Romano's dad, Elon Musk has, okay? You just don't have the insight into how the world works. in order to get ahead, okay? Yeah, who knows how big corporations think, right? You know.

Yeah, it's wild. It's a good one. I don't know if I can recommend this one. It's a horrible movie. Completely awful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wish I would never have seen it. Please describe to me, Jake, why Moonfall was good.

You loved Moonfall. I did. Okay. So, I mean, I have a bit of reputation for, like, jumping on, like, weird, bad space movies. So I'm like a huge, I count the core as a space movie, even though it goes to the middle of the earth. But that way, I'm a big fan of the core. And I also really love Geostorm, which was, like, a terrible space movie. But it was incredible.

And I think Moonfall is, like, the third on that list. I think it's not as good as the other two, but I think it makes that top three list. because it's just got it's just got okay so moonfall is if I had to give you like a like a one line synopsis for space fans it's like this is a movie where there was

someone in charge of the movie was there to just get a job done like they're mailing it in it's their I'm a movie maker nine to five Monday to Friday I make movies and they didn't really have a lot of like thought into it and then the person immediately under that manager was a hardcore space fan

what this movie is. Okay. Good tension. Very good tension. You can see the manager being like, okay, listen, what I need you to do

is I need somewhere, we need to launch a space shuttle. I don't know where you do that. So just can you give me some pictures of where it would be a fun place to launch a space boat? And this guy's like, we're bringing Vandenberg back, baby.

This is going to happen. And they're like, they're carting out all the old pictures of like the sliding, like house that they had for it. And fog everywhere. Yeah, there's all this wild shit just like that where you're just like, yeah, only a space fan

would have put that into the movie. You just know. And so that is kind of like the big reason I love this movie because you can just tell. I mean, this is straight up. Like, look at that. Look at that. That's it.

A space fan concocted that 100%. That's a really close office building. Yeah, it's a super close office building. They're going to lose some windows, probably. That's going down. Where they bring, they bring, spoiler, they bring Endeavor out of retirement, you know, they pull it out of the space center in California. And they literally go there, like, they have the scene in the thing.

And it's like all like graffiti. Something says like fuck the moon on the side of it. It's hilarious. It's so funny. And so they, they cart the shuttle out of retirement. And they even have the scene where they're driving it through the streets of Los Angeles. Like it's totally, it's totally a space fan moment. I have that one photo of the two kids playing basketball that didn't even know it's drunk by.

Like that always gets posted. It was like kind of the same idea where it's like some people were just like out and about in their business and they're like, get out of the way. There's a space shuttle coming. So I don't know. I thought it was fun. I also like that there was like it's like kind of like a there's a very harmless conspiracy theory that comes true in this movie and it's like kind of fun.

So it's like not a bad conspiracy theory, but like just like kind of a weird fun one that doesn't hurt anybody. And it just comes true. And it's like they were describing the theory. It's about the size of the moon and why a solar eclipse can happen. Right. It's like, wow, that's pretty weird that the moon is 400 times smaller than the sun and the sun is 400 times further away than the moon. And so we can have eclipses. That's a coincidence? I don't think so. Right. And I was like, hey, yeah, that is weird. Why is it that we're the only place in the whole solar system that can have eclipses? That's kind of weird. So I was thinking of that.

Real talk, though. There's movies about the moon being hollow or something? The moon is a megastructure. Okay. Uh-oh. Because that's like, you're talking about the harmless conspiracy theories out there. I just feel like this one's getting a little too close to the sun of a real conspiracy theory. And it makes me uncomfortable and I've avoided it because of that.

That's all I'm saying. No, it's fun. And it gets weird near the end of it's like, oh, okay. we're going with that. All right. But it was fun. It was a lot of weird stuff going on in there. You like the disaster sci-fi movies is what you like.

I do. I'm a huge end-of-the-world movie fan. Like day after tomorrow, Armageddon, Deep Imp. I love all of those movies. We're just like, it's the end. Yeah. So this is one of those, yeah. What was the other one?

What's the earthquake one? San Andreas. I guess so. What was 2012 then? that's like the is that the Mayan thing the end of the world thing yeah I don't know that was the Mayans right 2012 asex you should know you're like right there I think it's Aztex it was maybe somebody yeah Stephen what's your favorite uh of these like all right

give us their favorite good space movie and your favorite bad space movie my favorite good space movie like kids come to you tonight and they're like dad we want to watch some space movie what are you throwing on I know what I would want to if they're on, they would rebel. But the, the, was it just, was it named just Apollo 11, the documentary with the

classic footage? Oh, yeah. I saw it in IMAX and it was just my mind blowing. That's the first thing you're putting in your Apple Vision Pro. Oh, man, that'd be awesome. It's like,

305 everywhere. The, so yeah, I mean, I don't think they would particularly enjoy it, but I sure did when I saw it. And not just because work paid for tickets because I think we talked about it on lift off. But I needed it for my work.

Worst, favorite favorite, favorite, like, nature movie, which is Twister. Oh, classic, yeah. I've read somewhere that there's like. That's a kindred spirit with these movies that we watched. Yeah, it sounds like it. I mean, you got to drive. A lot of advancement only.

Yeah, you got to. got to drive your toy to pickup truck into the tornado before the other guy does. Cool. Spoken like a guy with experience, am I right? Hey. There is a Toyota sitting in my driveway. It has not been in a tornado. No.

Honestly, I try to avoid bad space movies because I'm sure like y'all, once you're sort of in that mode of like, this is wrong, this is wrong. It's like I at least kind of lose the fun some. So that said, so I haven't seen. very many. But what is the one is about the space station like breaking up? Gravity.

There's just this famous scene, right? Where they're spinning around. Yes. That, uh, I don't even know if people consider that a bad space movie, but I... It's horrible. It was the worst. It was not, not for me.

Gravity is so bad. And I was so... I was so triggered by it that a place where I worked at the time, my co-workers bought it on iTunes for me as like buy it as a gift option and send it. Oh no. Looking at your email, you're like, I'm being bullied by somebody who was doing this for me. So it's forever in my iTunes library.

They, you toed me with gravity and it's just always there. I get a new device that's in there. It's incredible. It's like when Apple gave YouTube music away to everybody. They totally did that to me. Yeah, that's terrible. I'm glad you don't work there anymore. So, okay, so talking about like inaccuracy.

So like one of the fun things about moonfall is that when they bring endeavor back, it's like invincible. Like this shuttle goes through hell and back and it just keeps working until it finally was destroyed. But they, but one of the fun, this plot point like endeared me to the movie. So they launched from Van denberg and there's like this tidal wave coming in and it's like trying to, it's trying to launch before the way it's a little like they're messing off. And it's like splash as it goes up. And then like one of the engines was already broken. So they only launched two SSMEs. And then like one of the solids goes out.

And it like just like keeps on plucking on. Like it just keeps going. And they use because the moon is falling and it's like very close to the earth. They just like use the moon's gravity pole to launch. And I'm like, yeah, let's do it. I love it. Endeavour. Let's go.

Let's launch with the moon's gravity. No, is a gravity assist launch? What? Yeah, the gravity assist launch. It was the best. The tension between the manager and the assistant manager that you're talking about was palpable in that moment. Yeah, totally, totally.

It's like, if you make me do a tidal wave, hit the shuttle, I will do this. Oh, 100% work, boss. We can do this. We can do this. Yeah, it would be totally close enough. It'll be fine. I think I The one thing I left out of my reviews

On this note of accuracy Was the complete Wanton disregard For the Saturn 5 in these movies I mentioned the one Cut Scene of Star Flight 1 About how Saturn 5 was pulling out In Sydney, Australia

Clearly far up It was launching a satellite For yet another unnamed Corporation Who was trying to take over the world or something It was a Saturn 5 launch launching a satellite That then they destructed

Because it was going poorly Okay, that was one Wow The other one on Ad Astra was that... They called it a Delta. They did call it a Delta Rocket. They did call it a Delta Rocket. Oh, my God. That's almost more insulting than using something way too powerful for the job. The terrible fake Australian accent called it the Delta.

Yes. Also incredible. Oh, my, yeah, the Delta is not working. Yeah, they have time to call each other transatlantically because the flight was delayed on the other side of the world. Like, there was so. much. But then the other time that the Saturn 5 appears in these movies is at Astra, I think it's when he's landing on Mars. There's like a scene

where he's in a very curable looking vehicle. All the vehicles from At Astra were curable space program. Like the designer, space craft designer was in a heavy curbel phase. Yeah, which timeline-wise makes a lot of sense. Like that, I feel like that's a fairly accurate statement. Except for the Mars descent

vehicle, the like heads up display in the vehicle where it was showing which way he's pointing is just a Saturn 5 drawing with, you know, the full-on F-1 engines at the bottom, and it does not look at anything like that. Oh, boy. I'm just continually flummoxed by the idea that that's...

Because I, to some extent, right, like the space shuttle has that thing where it is iconically the space nerd thing. Like, oh, that is a space vehicle. The shuttle saves the day in literally half of these movies. Like, this is... Because it's super cool, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, where are you at on shuttle? Is it? Are you a shuttle stand? the shuttle gave us amazing things, including Hubble International Space Station, but was a terribly flawed, terribly mismanaged program. It's right here, Jake. This is why he's on the show.

So I love it here, but up here, you know, it's bad for you. I do feel this sort of like metaphysical connection, And much like astronauts when they're flying to the sun, to the shuttle, I was actually born the day of the Challenger accident. And even as a little kid, you know, I'd hear that from people or me, you know, my parents or whatever. I didn't really know what it meant until high school. When I kind of read into it for the first time, I found the, you know, much of the reports

online. Even back then, you could, you know, read them and stuff. Way to call out yourself for being old. Oh, dude. Ancient. then I could read them. I mean, I had to print them from the lithograph machine. It was fine. But I was in high school in like 2000. I'm old. But having like digested that, you know, yeah, like it gave us amazing things, but the cost was just too high. And I'm not even talking about

the budget, right? But the fact that it lost two crews, it's unbelievable to me they flew it after Challenger. I mean, they didn't have any other option, and so they did it. And they did turn the, you know, turn the tide for a while internally at NASA after that accident. So much about that accident was mismanagement, just straight up people making the wrong decisions. And I think they, they righted a lot of that for a while.

But the shuttle's inherent delicacy, you know, which I think is why all the movies make hardcore because it's like cool. But reality, a very delicate and sensitive vehicle, that was always going to catch up with it. And it's just, it's such a mixed bag. The way I like to think about shuttle, for me

personally, is how I think about it is 364 days a year. I'm like this was a bad idea. And then the other day is when they revealed Atlanta's at KSC and I cry. That is what shuttle is to me. That's the ratio.

Bringing this full circle, did you see that they are, like, the stuff is actually happening to reconstruct the on the launch pad experience at the California Science Center? It's going to make it a lot harder for endeavor to save the day one day.

Well, it'll be all ready to go. They just kind of throw it on the transporter and just to crawl it out. No, I'll take the roof open, you can open the roof and then they can just shoot it right out of there. Yeah, just pop right out of it. of there. Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, when you see a shuttle in person, I've been fortunate enough to see a couple of them. They're not very big. Like, I mean, they're big, but they're not.

I thought, I think they're way bigger than they, I thought. Really? I'm always blown. Even, even, I've seen everyone and I've gone back to them. I'm still from the US of A here. I'm still low my. I mean, you are saying like, we're like, man, things are huge. And Jake's like, it's got to be like a Cessna. How big could It's not even as big as Texas, whatever. Make it more American. I don't know. It's interesting, we have different perspectives on that.

But I think if you think it's too big or too little, either way, like, if you start to look at it, you're like, this is the most hand-built thing I've ever seen. I mean, seriously, I mean that both like, yes, it was flawed, but also just the immense engineering and talent that went into keeping those safe as long as they did is incredible. But you get it closer. It's like, oh, all these tiles placed by hand, all this, you know, the the blanketing, all of it laid in by hand. I mean, it's amazing how many people kept that thing going for so long. But definitely a mixed heritage without a doubt.

In Star Flight 1, they were able to replace those tiles and turn the whole thing around in 90 minutes. It was pretty impressive. That's the most ridiculous part of that movie. No, no, no, it's not. No, it's not. I left out one detail. Okay? It made three trips to Star Flight One.

All right, they were 45 minutes from their orbit falling apart, as the movie put it. Right, Star Flight 1 is coming back in. Got to figure out a plan. They doesn't have a heat shield. Figure out a plan. The third flight of Columbia is back on its way home to rescue the whatever individuals made it on that rescue flight. And they call up any chance we can get her up here one more time.

They made a last minute call to see if the fourth was possible. The fourth Columbia flight in a day, yeah. Just wasn't quite possible. It's getting dark outside. We got to call it for the day. Yeah, you should 100% watch Starfight 1. It's a completely ridiculous movie. I find the pure plot advancement of Star Flight 1 superior to the pure plot advancement of Solar Crisis.

Okay. I think introducing your children to what movies used to be like before you were born, this is a valuable way to do it. because it's close enough to our era that there are special effects, but they're really funny. They're the funniest thing I've seen in my life. Yeah, we could do a doubleheading that and twister and really get them educated. Just go to school, you know? You just need to make sure that you have a very, like,

a very, like serious conversation about what it means to be in a committed relationship and how you should treat people. Yeah, because it doesn't exactly translate from Star-plane one. Yeah, that's good. Matthew in the chat says the shuttle is actually pretty small in person. So I got another vote for me. You know, I think maybe one thing that affected that for me. I think it may depend on the first one you see.

The first one I saw was Atlantis, which is at in Florida, the Space Center. And you walk in, it isn't a two-floor like hangar. And when you see it, you walk in kind of on the second floor. So you're like eye to nose with it. Like you're kind of looking at Lannis in the face when you walk in. and it's tilted over so you can see into the cargo bay. And maybe that presentation makes it feel small. It's like if you're putting it on the wedge side end, right?

That's so thin on one side. But maybe if you, you know, you see one that's, you know, sitting on its landing gear or upright, you know, maybe it feels different. Yeah. I thought endeavor first. So maybe that's true. I don't know. Yeah, I had to walk underneath it.

Current endeavor. Yeah. Current endeavor. Yeah. How much graffiti was on it. Zero of graffiti. It was well taken care of. Good.

Yeah. Now, it's hard to compete, Anthony. I think Star Flight 1 is like, maybe you should watch, you should watch both. We should watch Star Flight 1. We should watch Star Flight 1 and watch Moonfall. And then tell us which one you like that. I'm going to watch Moonfall, but nobody should ever watch Ad Astra. It's a completely worthless movie.

No. I thought, you know, Stephen, you'll connect with this on me. I'm like, the only thing I know about this movie, is that people called it Dad Astra. Maybe this is going to hit different now that I'm a dad. It didn't. It certainly did not. There was a bad dad.

There were so many parts of that movie that didn't matter. Like if you think about it, like, like, okay, so you got like, what was the point of Don Sutherland in the whole movie? He's Don Sutherland. Yeah, that's the point. His character was inconsequential. There was the whole moon buggy fight. Yeah.

Didn't matter. there was like a baboon murder, it didn't matter. Like, there's just like a bunch of random stuff in there. The moon buggy thing, yeah, we're super advanced. We fly all the way out to Neptune. We fly everywhere in the solar system, but yet the lunar roving vehicle was perfected in the 1960s. And we've never rethought that design. And it could survive a jump off of a crater cliff, a flat spin and land and be intact.

You know, those lawn chairs, they like tack-welded onto that thing. I mean, it's perfect. You don't need anything more than that, you know. That may have been the most American spacecraft ever devised. The Lunar Rover? Yeah. It is low-key, my favorite. It pulls up in the back to your F-150.

Yeah, you can fit in new cars, Stephen. You can fit it. Yeah. I just drop my kids off to school in one. But when you get up close to one, or you look at, you know, detailed photos, again, it's like handmade like the shuttle, but you're like, oh, this was handmade a long time ago. Like, it's such an interesting

because the ideas are so wacky. And they didn't know, I mean, the genius of it is they didn't really know what to expect. Right. So they did all this testing and research. Like the wheels are a work of art. But then it's to literally to like Walmart folding chairs on top. It's like, this is an eclecting mix.

Yeah, it's a funny one. The chairs, I never really thought about the chair. chairs. Like, you're putting this in a totally different perspective. If you look at pictures, I mean, it straight up looks like folding chairs from the 60s and 70s. God, you're, this is blow my mind right now, to be honest. Like, yeah, these are straight up. Like, yeah, these are just. Yeah, look at that. Your grandma has that, you know? It's like, and like the, the seat is made of, it looks like, what were the, uh, pipeworks was like the PVC thing?

that you could buy and build stuff out of. This looks like pipeworks. Yeah, wow. I never really looked at the chairs. Yeah. I only ever just look at John Young being an absolute boss driving that thing. Dude, for real. Irrigation system in the backyard with PVC pipe looks just like that.

Yeah, turns out the year 2050, whatever, we're still driving around with those. So it's legit. Yeah. It's legit. I don't know. Don't waste your time. I like all of your other output, and I would like everyone else to enjoy it as well,

so don't ruin your productivity. And if you want, I can plug some things for you. Okay. Because I've, I listen to a lot of your shows in my podcast feed every week. Thank you. I sometimes feel like we're doing like a space rip-off of Connected every now and then.

Connected is wonderful. You did have my other business partner on Mac Power Users, but you were not there that show, which I thought was a good decision to not be there when Ryan Ireland was on the show. Yeah. I forget, something came up that week, but yeah. It was a good decision. I've missed a few this year.

Yeah. What's your other, what else should people be listening to? Yeah, so connected to Mac Power users are both covering Apple. If that's not your jam, check out my show, UnGenist. I do it with my buddy McCurley. It's like a 10-minute show every other week about, something weird on Wikipedia. That's what's up.

I love Wikipedia rabbit holes. They're the best. Also, five-fxels. Yeah, yeah, more Appley stuff. Yeah, that website's 15 years old. Sorry to believe. Back then, you could Google stuff about the space shuttle Challenger. Yeah.

You could print it out. If you want a weird Wikipedia rabbit hole to go down, hit me there are there are separate articles for the monarchs of commonwealth countries so you can go to Wiki

and go to the king of Canada and you get an article about the king of Canada it's just it's the same stuff as the king of England because it's the same person but there's an article about it

they're just setting up for that post commonwealth future yeah we got this warmed up you know let's go like low key rebels of all the commonwealth

countries over at Wikipedia We're just keeping this URL available. It used to be the queen of Canada. Now it's gone. It says the monarchy of Canada. I'm looking at it now because of the old Chuck here. But anyway, it's always weirded me out that this article has to exist. Like, you know, anyway, that's your next episode.

It's weirded us out that you have a monarch. So that's where we'll leave it. Jake, what do we got going on here next week? Oh, next week. Oh, put me on the spot. So next week, we have a really fun guest because we're talking about Artemis. Talk about Artemis. We're going to the moon again.

And we have Dr. Oz, Gordon Azzynski coming on to. Not that one. Not the one you thought of. Good, Dr. Oz. Not my once and maybe future senator from the great state of Pennsylvania. Yeah. Oh, boy. No, no, no.

So Gordon is a planetary scientist. he's a Canadian and he helps out with training all the astronauts about geology and how to like do useful things when they go to the moon. So he's been involved in that for a long time. He's been named to the Artemis science team for the Artemis 3 landing campaign. So he's got a lot of control and insight over what the astronauts are going to do when they step out there and we're going to talk science and moon stuff and it's going to be awesome. Cool.

And his website is spacerocks.ca.ca. So space rocks. That's a good URL. Under the jurisdiction of the King of Canada right there, you can tell. Stephen, you're the best. Thanks for hanging out with us and putting up with this. And we're happy to have not super high up on the leaderboard, but I was gatekeeping about the people above us on the leaderboard of the Relay FM fundraisers.

So I just will maintain that we are the highest on the leaderboard with the most distinct donation sources. Awesome. That's all I'm saying. Thank you all for joining us in that. And everyone who donated and shared it, it's super cool to see these communities come together for a good reason. Absolutely.

And keep donating, even though the thing's over. Go for it, yeah. It's the space charity, right? It is. All right, everybody. We'll see you later. Bye. Go endeavor.