Off-Nominal - 144 - The Tube Man

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

Jake and Anthony are joined by Swapna Krishna to catch up on space science news, and to talk about her projects like Ad Astra, Stargazing, and more.TopicsOff-Nominal - YouTubeEpisode 144 - The Tube Man (with Swapna Krishna) - YouTubeAd AstraAd Astra - YouTubeThe Philly Mascots and First Responders From Engine 38 Re-Open I-95 - Crossing BroadFinal NASA 2024 spending bill defers decision on MSR funding - SpaceNewsDragonfly: NASA And The Crisis Aboard Mir: Burrough, Bryan: 9780887307836: Amazon.com: BooksStarship Flight 3 - SpaceX - LaunchesJonathan McDowell on X: “Estimated Starship IFT-3 planned trajectory”NASA Socials - NASAFollow SwapnaSwapna Krishna (@skrishna) / TwitterAd Astra - YouTubeSWAPNA KRISHNA — Bio SiteFollow 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

CLS and go for main engine start. Hello, everybody. Happy Thursday, Jake. We're taking over. Philadelphia's taken over the show today. I know. It's like, well, I have to find out if Swapna is going to be a better Philadelphia than you, and if she knows who the chicken guy is.

Oh, let's see. When Jake says chicken, man, who do you think of? If I say the Philadelphia guy that eats the chickens, who do you think of? Oh, God, I don't know. I think this is proof, Jake, that this was covered well outside of the Philadelphia market. That's what I think is proof of. Who's the chicken guy? Now, like, do I need to do this?

There was some guy in Philadelphia and he did a thing where, like, every day he ate an entire roast chicken. And just did it in like the most like Philadelphia way. He put up posters and he's like, like, tomorrow's my 40th day in a row eating a chicken, I'll be at the docks. This is not a media event. And then they just like put the address there. And there were just like people with phones. They're like, yeah, chicken guy. And he's just like tearing apart the chicken and like a wife beater.

It was really funny. That doesn't surprise to me where the city, you know, that had I-95 construction as like our main like live cam event for like weeks. Listen, it went great though. So like it went way better than we thought. Yeah, yeah. It was a full on highway. The live cam. Yeah.

Yeah. And the live cam was a big deal. Like everybody watched the live cam. It was entertainment. I honestly love. the weird regional obsessions that come up like that. They're always so funny. Like, I don't know what it is about it.

Jake, I like that to you. The collapse of the most important highway in this country was a weird regional thing that happened. It's true. No, the web cam live watching. The live webcam thing. That's the regional thing. Well, you know why, though?

I don't know if you know about how this got fixed, Jake. Because it got fixed in a very hilarious way. So the six lanes, or I guess it was more at that particular spot, but they were going to fix six lanes of it effectively. So what they did was, it was crossing a road. What they did was just filled up underneath the bridge and shut that road down and build a road on top of this thing that they filled up. And they were like, that's fixed for now.

We'll get to the, we'll work on a permanent bridge. But you keep driving over this pile of like, it was like glass or something? It was some sort of courts. They just filled the whole road up and built 95 on top of it. And then it worked. And this was, this went great. But it was done. It was done in like a ridiculous amount of time.

Like a weekend. It was a long weekend. And they filled this whole thing up. It was great. That's like the Chinese infrastructure project speed right there. And Jake, if you were going to manage a project like this in Philadelphia, I'm glad we're starting off it this way. When you open the road for the first time officially, who would you have be the first people that drove across the road? Gritty and the other mascot.

That's what happened. mascot, the tube guy. What's that one? The Philly. Tube guy. Which one is it? The Philly Fanatic? What's the green? The tube guy. This is the most offensive thing I've ever heard anyone say about this city. That the Philly Fanatics, the tube guy. It's the greatest mascot of all time. And you've called him the tube guy. I thought Gritty was the greatest mascot. I thought Gritty was the greatest, yeah. You know, he's kind of a real. Two against one, Anthony. I'm not going to fight that. You're definitely not going to find me dying on that hill. But anyway,

They put greeting the Philly Fanatic, and I think Swoop, the Eagles mascot was there. And there's probably the very unloved Sixers mascot on there. And they put them on a fire truck and they drove them across 95. And that was the first, that was how they opened the road. So go birds. Yeah. Anyway. So what do you drink it, Jake?

Okay, well, the theme apparently today is forgetting to prepare good drinks for this. So, yeah, the joke is that I actually have no alcohol. in the house at all right now. So I'm doing virgin today. But I still made it pretty. So I made a truly temple in my Magdalak glass here. So Madge Lake, look at that. That is pretty. Influen. Yeah, it's a little orange juice, little sprite, little granadine. And there was a meresino in there somewhere. But so yeah, lost the dark. Dry, dry Thursdays everybody. Swapna, how about you? I'm drinking. We talked about this earlier. Sadly, non-alcoholic wine, but it is a nice rosé from lights.

It's actually very good. I cannot tell it's non-alcoholic. It just makes me sad, but alcohol rooms my gut now, as we were describing, because I am now old. So I try to abstain unless I know, like, I'm not going to have a bad day tomorrow, and tomorrow's going to be a long one. Pretty reasonable thing that I'm not following because I have a, I forgot to put one in the Mars beers in the fridge, Jake, influencer thing, is hide behind my mic. What's the influencer thing?

Yeah, I got a cone head. Put a hand. Put a hand behind the product. Yeah. Hand behind the hand. Yeah. And that way the hand will make the product bigger for. Yeah.

We'll get TikTok tips. Swap. No, I'm gone. I have actually, like, that's funny. I've been coming to terms and I'm actually a terrible TikToker. I've been realizing that lately. I'm just kidding. All right.

Why? Unpack this for us. Unpack. Okay. So the part of what we're going to talk about today is my foray into YouTube and kind of me doing that. And what I have realized is that my demeanor is very good for YouTube and actually quite bad for vertical video in terms of I just am not. I get very enthusiastic. You need to be more of a tube guy. No, like I'm enthusiastic. I love talking about space, but not in a way where I am like constantly

moving around. Like it's just like there's a certain video style you think of for vertical video that You got to do like the really quickly zoom in, like, oh my God, oh my God, right? And I don't like looking at my face that closely. I don't think anybody wants to look at my face that closely. And like moving myself around a lot, like the camera, I'm just like, I don't know, man. So I've realized as I'm doing more YouTube, my style is actually more suited to YouTube. But I still like vertical video. I just don't think I am as good as it as I would like.

It is a, a casualty of, I think, our generation is this. TikTok was just like a little, just out of our grasp. Yes, and I just feel old being all there too, yeah. It is true? How do you find the, like, when you were putting out this content? I don't know if you're still doing it extensively anymore because you've just declared not good for planned chaos in a vertical video. But like, what do you find that the, what is the Algo love in these days?

Like, is it, because I feel like that I've only explored TikTok a little bit, and I felt like every five posts, they were like, have you tried thinking about the moon landing in this way, though? No, okay. He doesn't like that. He doesn't like that. But did you ever think, no, I still don't like it. Okay. But what about the shadows? I feel like every five posts, it was like, you might, you might be a moon hoax guy. The, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the user's like science. They don't like space flight, which is interesting. Uh, okay. Because, like, anything I do on spaceflight, does, not do well, but they like the science stuff. Like, look at this pretty picture. Let me tell you what's going on. And I do love doing that. But one part of the reason I wanted to get into YouTube is I miss talking about spaceflight because I've been just doing science for so long. And like, spaceflight is my first love. I actually, you know, gone into science during my career.

But spaceflight, something I've been talking about since I was like, you know, 10. So like, I wanted to get back into that. But yeah, no, the vertical video, they really like, the younger people, people really like the science. They don't, they don't love. I think they like the bigger missions, like something intuitive machine stuff did well. But if I like talk about Starship, they're like, I'm like, okay, well, I think it's cool. There's some more variables under there. I don't know. I almost wonder like you know how. Yeah, yeah, it does really great on X.

It's true. Also vertical video. There's like all those like TikTok cooking videos that are like they, you know, they cook a recipe and it's like, ostensibly it's like, teach me a recipe, but like the measurements for the ingredients and they're moving really quickly. And you're very, yes. It's not about learning how to cook. It's about like I just want food to be shown to me. I just want like food distraction. I almost wonder if like science is the space part of that, right? Like, because sometimes you kind of just want to like flip the video and just like have your mind blown. Like, this is a picture from James Webb Space Telescope.

It is one trillion light years across. Whoa. video, right? Like, yeah, that's when you won't. No, I think you're absolutely right. I think that is. And people, it's like, sometimes I describe my vertical video feed as like the like, thinking you're going on vacation, but actually going on a class trip to D.C. and going to museums. Because like, you think you're like logging into this app for fun. And then I'm like, let me explain, you know, redshift to you and gravitational lensing. And like, I could see the point where people just like dip out of the video. I'm like, oh, yeah, I lost them with like, I lost them with like Abell, you know,

2744. Like, that's where I lost. I truly appreciate, like, how much you're unpacking this to a level that I feel like most people don't realize. I just can't hang with planned chaos in those videos, but I do like that you have made an honest effort to just analyze, like, what is going on here? And also it's so much that it's the same thing. It's the science, not the spaceflight, because I always tell people I'm into the rockets, not the black holes.

I like black holes fine, but, you know, it's just not my forte by any weans. Yeah, no, it's so interesting. And I do find, like, actually, I do find, like, looking at the, I don't really find it discouraging. I think that helps. Like, I'm going to keep doing vertical videos because some people watch them and like them. It doesn't have to be everybody. I don't need to be going viral. I don't need to have a ton of people following.

But if I can just reach a few people, I think that's worth doing. So, like, I'll still keep doing it, but I think it's very interesting. to look at what is doing well and what doesn't. So you're trying to mix more spaceflight in with the science. Is you're doing these as separate entities? Like what's your, what kinds of things are you focused on these days? Yes, or for YouTube, I'm kind of doing it all in one. So my new, I've kind of, I say new, I've been doing YouTube for over a year,

but this since January, I've been doing like in earnest. deciding that, okay, this is going to be the primary thing instead of the 8 million career things I usually have going on. I'm like, okay, no, I'm going to focus on YouTube and actually see if I can make this a thing. It's going really well. Actually, very surprisingly well, I thought it would take longer. But yeah, so there I'm doing more of a, I'm doing kind of a weekly new show every Thursday that is both science and spaceflight, usually about 12 minutes long. And it just kind of goes through the highlights of what happened during the week in space news.

The idea being if you only want to, you know, if you don't want to keep up with everything going on in space, hey, here's a way you can do it, you know, just in like 10 minutes on YouTube. And then I have an accompanying newsletter because everybody yells at me about how they don't like getting their news from video, even though, you know, clearly that's not true because plenty of people watch video. So like I do have a newsletter that goes out. Froglo-nites like me that do that. Yes. It's the people who liked Twitter. And we are like, oh, now I have to like be like on Instagram and like, no, I just want to write.

I don't want to take pretty pictures. You've nailed it. You absolutely nailed it. The people that Lisa liked Twitter. Yes. And it's like the like tiny fraction of those people who have gone over to blue sky and are like, it's, you know, it's just, it's a very, very small number of people. but they yell at me, so I'm like, all right, I'll do a newsletter. So newsletter has the same information in text with images and links, which is actually, I think, nice because one of the big problems of video is source,

like citing your sources, which I feel very strongly about coming from a journalism background, but also like it's video, what are you supposed to do? So then I could just be like, okay, here's the news letter to go forth. That's interesting. Yeah. But have you thought maybe the moon landing was a hoax? I was literally looking today at one of my videos

where earlier this week I was like here's why we're having so much trouble landing on the moon with like intuitive machines the lander falling over and stuff like that so I went through the whole like here's why it's hard now when we did it 50 years ago and literally I noticed today Google put like a content flag on it that was like

this is a controversial topic here are facts about like context, the Apollo space program. Yes. The Apollo space program was real. He did land on the moon. And I was like, oh my God. Like, man, she really like looks like she needs the encyclopedia Britannica up in her YouTube channel.

And like the one deal. Like my husband is like one of those people. He watches YouTube all the time. And he's been on my case to do YouTube for years. And he's the reason I actually decided to go ahead and start. But the deal is he moderates my comments. So like I do go in and read the like comments and respond to them. That's me responding, but he will go through and flag all of the like hoax.

Like I don't look at, he's like there's a lot of them, but I'm like, you need to deal with that and any, you know, the negative. It's the first layer. Yeah. He triages and then gets bumped up and then like this requires your attention. And then like personal comments. I'm like, I know I have vocal fry. I know I have a creaky voice. I just, I don't want to hear people commenting on it.

Like I know. it's just how I talk, but like that sort of thing, he flags, and then I go back in after that. But yeah, that's the deal because I'm like, I find doing YouTube, I do not want to deal with like the negative comments. Yeah, yeah. That's very healthy. That's smart. That's good, yeah.

You have such a healthy relationship with the science internet. Like, drug TikTok bailed out. YouTube, make the husband do the comments. You have such a healthy relationship with the internet. I love it. It's so wholesome. TikTok I don't even look at the comments. Like, I'm just like, whatever.

Like my biggest TikTok video that has like 10 million views is, crying over, God, what was it? It was a Mars lander. I think it was Insight. It was probably two years ago. I think that sounds right about right. That insight died. So my biggest video was like 10 million views.

I didn't mean to cry, but I'm like, you know, the cringe girl crying on the internet. And I got like 10 million views and like 20,000 new followers off that like one video. And I've slowly over the past two years, my following has not grown, even though people have following me because everybody who followed me who just wants me to be the girl who cries on screen to be that girl is like easy i thought this lady gets emotionally distraught when spacecraft die and i haven't seen any of that lately i'm out of course oh my god i just care's what they're up to i don't care what they're finding out i just like when they no longer work boy if they could have seen you the day ingenuity lost a blade you know that was just sad and it's like i'm not

filming a video about it though because i mean that's what i'll go wanted so It's true. Yeah. If I'd cried, I probably would be doing better on TikTok. You should make an alternative channel and compete them to see if it works, right? And the only one there, the only thing you do is cry about spacecraft. Cry. Oh, I would do so well.

And I don't know why because like extreme and just exaggerated as it goes. I know. Like, well, you could have done a whole series on ingenuity with like, you know, we think the helicopter's dead and then the picture of the helicopter like shadow blade and then like the picture of perseverance with it on the hill, like lonely and far away. Like, it could have been a whole series. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Curiosity playing happy birthday to itself was always one that I, that got me.

That always felt so bleak to me. Like, oh, we played it happy birthday, but it just played it to nobody on Mars. It's like, that's just too bleak. I know. If I do another one, though, I will do one when the, if they officially like declare a Voyager one done, which is, I think is coming in the not too distant future. like I might I might fill myself crying for that one because it's worth it like that one would be I don't know what is what happened today what happened today New York Times piece today about

it's how it's yeah it may be done it exited the solar system again yeah another for real this time it looked bad and it saw water on Mars and then it was out of the solar system and then it it exited its life except on TikTok tap is it unalived yeah is it bad that I'd never really think about the Voyagers? So, it's funny, I was reading, I was reading, I was reading that this article of the New York Times and it was just like, oh yeah, if it's gone, it's a, it's an absolutely devastating loss for science. I saw that.

And I was like, really? Is it though? Like, is it, it's a loss for science because it is returning data. But is it a devastating loss? Or is this a mission that there's like 50 times. It's what they expected it to do. And like, only one of its. instruments is like half working.

That was going to be my big thing. It's like one bit per hour that's coming back. Like, is it a devastating? I don't know if it's a devastating lot. We had that interesting, Anthony. You remember we talked about pick a spacecraft to kill on that one show, right? I went for it. I was like, yeah, I was over Voyager.

It owes us nothing. No, like, yeah, there's like one instrument working, like I think, like, It's fine if it's time, but I mean, it's still sad. I do think about it a lot, I will admit, because like when I find myself randomly clicking around the computer and like, you know, putting off whatever work I should be doing, but I'm not. One of the things I have like saved like very prominently is the deep space network.

So we'll just go click on that and like look at what the deep space network is doing. And a lot of times it is looking at the Voyager. So I do think about them a lot. But like also it might be time. It might be time. Yeah. What else? If you had to pick a spacecraft to kill that wasn't Voyager,

we did this episode where we went through a bunch of questions. People had sent in overtime, and there was a list of bizarre hypothetical scenarios. So this was the one that we probably argued about the most. Yeah, you have to be actively doing stuff today, and then you want to have to off it. Okay, okay. What planets are coming in mind?

Have you honed in on the target? Like, like, I'm thinking of the older ones. I'm kind of not thinking of stuff in Earth orbit because, like, that's too easy. Yeah. So I'm thinking of the, or like, you know, one of the, otherwise it would be like one of the atmospheric, like the time satellite that almost got like blown out by like the Russian, you know, Cosmos 2,221. Noah 20. I just don't like Noah 20. I would like to see that.

It's, it's like that, but that's too easy because it's just, you know. Yeah, not not hard enough decision. Yes. So like I was thinking of New Horizons because I don't especially like the, you know, I find the PIO. Love that. You'd get some followers on Twitter. Yeah. You'd get that you'd be sucked into some internet drama too. That's good. Yeah. Like that'd probably be it because I find the- A context thing under there about about the name of New Horizons movie. Yeah. I don't I don't love that spacecraft for a lot of reasons. I do recognize it's doing good work and it just like found that the Kuiper belt is like bigger than we thought. there might be a second caper belt depending on like the way that data comes out but it would probably be new horizons it's not a bad choice not a bad choice i forget what i picked i don't know

you were pretty harsh i think you were something like oh curiosity or whatever you said something insightful i think your only thing you said was to make me mad i know yeah insightful but with a c not not the yeah you got the good version okay inciting i think is the word you're citing sorry Yes, there you go. I got a Mars topic that I think would be helpful for us to sort out. NASA is finally going to get a budget for the year, about halfway through the year, and they've been told to spend somewhere between $300 and $950 million on Mars sample return, and I would like to unpack this with you two in particular.

As I told Jake this on, I bet Swapna will know my reference, Jake, that you did not get. I told Jake that this was the marshmallow test of the NASA budget. So you know this, you know the marshmallow test, right? I think it's a possible. With kid, I think with kids, like most people know the marshmallow test. This is why I thought you would get it, not Jake. Yes. I think it was mostly bullshit, the whole like, we love the marshmallow.

But I also marshmallow test my kid all the time for the record. Well, now NASA's getting it where they can spend anywhere between $300,950 million. And also, the stipulation is they can't lay anyone else off until this report comes back. Yes. So what are they going to do, Jake? Are they going to spend all $950 million? or are they going to marshmallow it up? I don't know, man.

It's a tough one because we had Casey Dreyer on and we asked us a very question, right? Like, you know, what's going to happen? And one of the situations we talked about was, like, one of the worst case scenarios would be if they got a continuing resolution for the full year because it doesn't give you an answer to whether Congress wants to fund MSR. It just defers the decision, right? And so, like, if you defer the decision, then is JPL going to rehire all those people back? probably not if they're just going to have the risk of having to fire them again in the fall, right?

And so we're like, that's the worst case scenario. And then this came out and I'm like, no, this is this is the worst case scenario. This is like the same thing as a CR with like just like an open-ended like. Yeah, you figure it out. Yes. But also. You can guess by how much you spend. Also, we're going to yell at you for laying people off.

Like I did find that part of it that was like NASA did not consult with Congress before layoffs. And I was just like, oh, wow. I'm curious about how that would be enforced with something like JPL because they're not an asset, right? Like JPL can lay off people whenever they want, you know? That's the point of how they're constructed, yes. Yeah, and like that's where most of the employees. So like, okay, this stipulation, the budget's like, okay,

I guess Marshall's not going to lay off people that are working on the, on the, and like would layoffs and good contractors? I don't know. Maybe not. It's interesting. The way I read it was that, like, I'm assuming there is some sort of, other communication going on, whether it's someone, took someone out to dinner and was like, we're going to put this in. And you have to spend the least amount possible to keep everyone

employed, but we have no idea what that is. You do. So we're just going to write it this way. And then you can keep everyone employed. But please don't spend all $950 million, because we know that's not the accurate answer, considering you just laid everyone off. So like, is that $400,500, $600 million? I don't know. I don't understand how finances work. Like, I just don't get does all the money, if you don't spend all that money in the year, just go, do you have like a bank account that contains that money, and then you can spend it in following years, or if it was not appropriate for that year, you just, it goes away, it never existed.

I don't understand any of this stuff. Yeah, I don't either. Or like, I think it depends on how it's written in the budget, but could you spend it for something else or is specifically for MSR? Like, right. Because my question is just like, can they even, like, part of the congressional, you know, the budget, the, um, budget was concerned about, delays but if they've been

$350 million, they cannot launch that thing anywhere close to, you know, even like a delay of a couple of years. I just don't understand how I don't understand. This is a loggen. This is probably worse than the

CR version of this. They don't even definitely get the hundreds of millions. What was their budget last year? It was like up closer to the high end of that scale. Yeah, it was pretty high, right? 800. So yeah, no, it's tough. It's a really hard thing.

I mean, they can try and be smart and knock off as much of the, like, they have a bunch of obviously, like, design decisions to remake right now. And so, like, they should be, like, spending all they can to, like, get as much of that out of the way so that when the real budget comes next year, like, they'll know what they're up to. But it's hard to do. Like, it's a short period of time to kind of, like, you know, it's March. And the new budget's going to come theoretically in October.

It's not going to come in October, but theoretically it's supposed to come in October. And we'll know the request. next week, I think. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, the request, sure, but we know the request. But that still matters, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but like, you know, so seven months, like, to spend between that variable amount of money is, like, bizarre, right?

I mean, we could do it. We could, you can jump this up. It's true. Yeah. It's true. We'll hire a new person to go through your comments. Your husband can stop doing that. well yeah jake and i toyed around with the idea before this of starting an off nominal analysis group

that consults with space companies to help them organize their communications because most of it is terrible oh god so we could fund that we would be excellent at that i this is my theory we're gonna we're gonna give out a sales at offnom dot com email and just see what comes in i think we could do it you know you're our video consultant if if that if it comes to that so well Welcome aboard. Thank you. I appreciate it. This is a hodgepodge group.

Oh, my God. That would be excellent. Other budget notes. Commercial Leo development got the full budget request check of $200 and some million. We're just raking it in for these space stations. And it's almost the same amount of money as nuclear propulsion and nuclear electric propulsion got in the budget. And those are like tech demos. So tell me which of these programs they're most committed to.

I'm incredibly frustrated by the... Yeah. Where are you at on the... It is weird, though, right? What is your vibe on what they should do? Genuinely, my view is, like, just more, the more space, the better. Like, however we can do it at this point, because it's, everything is such a mess in terms of budgets. And, like, you can't make any point.

Like, just however we can do it is just get, you know, get stuff up there. You're like an incrementalist, like, this two and. $120 million is better than $0 million, so we'll take it. Yes, but it's really frustrating when the incremental funding means it's going to get canceled. Like, that gets really frustrating. Yeah. My biggest problem is just that I feel like NASA, the past five to ten years, has had a couple opportunities to make use of the overall geopolitical or political environment

and get some wins on programs that are easily marketable, and they have avoided doing that. And this is one that if there's ever a moment in time to say, we need $1 billion for commercial space stations because the space station is leaking and we're partnered on it with a completely chaotic partner that is going to war with other countries, like, this would be the moment to do that. And they've been like, we're probably good with like $150, $200 million a year.

And we'll eventually figure it out. It'll be fine. I just, I, yes, I just, I'm so frustrated with the way NASA is being funded. I, like, yes, I, like, you can see me like vibrating with annoyance right now. Just gonna get you some followers. Just gonna get you some followers. Just follow you showing up as we talk. Somebody cleared this.

Cry, cry, cry, cry. Cry over the NASA budget. Yes, no, but I agree. I completely agree with you. It's weird, you're right. Like, it's just, I'm trying to think of what is preventing that? Like, you know, if NASA just said, hey, we don't want 200 million, we want a billion and a half. Like, who says no to that and why?

Like, is it just a money? Like, it must mean, like, rationally, it must mean that saving the money earns more political points than sticking it to Russia. That's the only thing that can make sense from a rational standpoint, right? Right? Like, I don't know.

I genuinely don't know. I feel like most of Western policy at the moment is hinged on sticking it to Russia. The Europeans are trying to figure out how to get this other rover to Mars because they want to stick it to Russia. This is a highly motivating thing. Also, not sure if you followed Jake, but the Russian half of the ISS losing two pounds of air a day if you left that one hatch open. So I feel like maybe even if you didn't have them invading Ukraine, there might be other situations that you could use to say, actually, we need some new stuff. we need some new hardware. This one's not doing so good.

It's really not. That shitty Russian FGB that was designed in 1972. That's what I'm like. Shocker. It's like it's 80s tech like built in the 90s. The thing is old. It's like very, very old. Even the newest module, Nauka was the pressure vessel was built then too.

It's not newer. It's all the same space track. It went up four years ago or three years ago and it's as old as the other ones. So it probably has the same problem. There are two kinds of space stations in Russia. Oh, Jesus. The stupid thing. And it freezes this camera.

It's every time. Two kinds of spaces. There's like the military and the civilian version of the Saluet. They were both designed in 1970. And that's all there is. Everything is just a derivative of that. And it's just like, I just can't believe it sometimes. They're still flying those things.

And yeah, that's what happens. when you collapse, I guess, right? And like, no, it's true. Like I read this book about MIR a while it goes out of print, but it's called Dragonfly by Brian Burroughs. And it is the most like bat shit, like, I just am like, I don't know how people didn't die, genuinely. I've never heard of this one.

I got to check this on. Oh my God, I highly recommend it. It's the same guy who wrote Barbarians at the gate, so he's not a space writer. writer. He's like a like a business writer. But it's been out of print for a very long time, but you can, you know, you can find it used very inexpensive. And it's like one of my favorite books because it is like unreal the things that's that happened that we don't know about because, you know. I don't, I still have never read this Jeffrey Mammert book, Jake. I bought it. Oh, no. Selling space inside the Soviet conspiracy that transformed the U.S. space program about when they tried to buy mirror back in the day. I still have not read this and I need to. It's not that long.

The type is pretty large, so I think I could get through it pretty quick. So I'll have to do this. But, yeah, Mir did seem like a chaos agent. Mir also five of the salient derived module stuck together. Yeah, yeah. Still have Mirr today. Same spacecraft, yeah. Oh, geez.

Less fungus on these ones. Yeah, and fewer fires. that we know of that we know of more leaks fewer fires that's the difference oh my god just

no I don't get it I don't know why they're not dumping in money into it either it doesn't make sense to me but it just feels like no miss you know I mean the problem is that it's

the log jam of they have too many budget wedges right now like yes Artemis has to have a budget peak at a certain time, which is the same time that the commercial space stations have to have a budget peak, which is the same time that I bet the ISS is going to get really expensive

because it's falling apart. So you can't do all those things at the same time. You're probably onto it there. That's got to be it. But here's the complicator, Jake. I think if I... All right, this is another scenario that we had in that show, I think, if you were put in charge of NASA today, like, what would you do? I would full-throated

push to just get commercial Leo, the main funding thing, like drive that as the, because it forces conversations about everything else. It forces conversation about SLS Block 1B and the mobile launcher number two and the gateway. And because all those things are, like, if you had to, if you had to eliminate one of those wedges, that is always the obvious one. And that's easy to say because we're all space fans that have argued on the internet for like 20 years and we've always said it.

But as time goes on and as these other priorities actually become real and not just something that we talk about for 10 years down the line, those are the most, those are the things you can dispense with the easiest. And they still are that way. But nobody wants to do that because that's the ones that Congress have liked the most. That's as I was going to say, Congress loves SLS. You'll save, you'll save $7 billion when you cancel Dragon XL right there. Like that's, you're so, so fixated on Dragon X-L. I can't wait. I can't wait until you go to the launch of Dragon X-L. You have to go if it happens, yeah, when it happens.

So on that note, Starship's launching next week. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. I'm encouraged by these changes, does the Starship plan, by the way? How do these land with you? Trajectory and the plan, overall plan for the mission. To do stuff? Do stuff, yeah.

Do we know why it's landing in the Indian Ocean? I know it's landing in the Indian Ocean, but... I haven't figured this out. Given us a reason? No. They said it was like... In order to do all the things and stay safe, like it was like one of those like not not answers. But like I don't really get like it's a shorter flight.

Like it's a really short hop now, right? It's up and down in an hour. Right. So I don't know why it would be safer to try and do it all faster. Like that extra time to go all the way to Hawaii and just get you those extra 20 minutes. Like why wouldn't you want to do that? I don't get what the issue is there. I think if I had to guess, it's probably that the,

they're going to do this test firing of Raptor in space to do, I don't know if that means they're actually going to go into orbit and use that test firing to deorbit the vehicle, or if it's just going to, they're going to turn it on as part of the descent. But maybe the margins that they have on that could have, if they went wrong and kept burning, it could have pushed it towards Hawaii close enough that they didn't want to deal with it.

or maybe they can't get airspace closures because like people fly in Hawaii and I don't know if you notice, but like this is the spot where we lost an airplane 10 years ago and never found it again. So like there's not that many airplanes down here. So it could just be that. That the,

what capability is on Starship when they do that burn is enough to get it to populated areas? And in this case, they can just avoid entirely. And everybody knows that it's not going to make it through the atmosphere on the first one. So why even try to get that paperwork through? Yeah.

Yeah, maybe. maybe yeah that makes sense let's talk about doing stuff let's talk about doing stuff they're doing stuff yeah that's big news pez dispenser door pez dispenser door

I don't know what the door shape is what door would you pick if you had to pick a door swabna always pez dispenser like why why not so they have they had multiple ones they had they had full on clamshell they had they had shuttle style door

they had the whale Well, the chomper. Yeah. Didn't they have shelter doors in one thing? Or is that the one with the crane for Artemis? Or does Artemis lift the other way? You know what I'm saying? Is it a tip from the top for Artemis?

What's that graphic? Is it the actual pezzis dispenser where the head tilts back? The whole thing's articulated. That's what I want. That is what I want. All right, what hits would you do? That's the funny thing about the pedis dispenser. It's missing a very key component.

It just has the little, like, flow thing, but doesn't have the tilt back, right? Oh, HLS is the little door. That's right, duh, because people have to live in the thing still. Yeah. It just opens up. It's just exposing the whole hand to vacuum. It's got the Polaris Dawn version of getting out onto the moon, vent the whole thing. A whole thing's an airlock.

You don't need it. The best airlock is no airlock, Jake. Jeez. All right, so we're supportive of the pet. I'm skeptical of the pez dispenser door. Why? I feel like doors are easier than whatever the hell you need to do internally to make a pez dispenser door. That's my vibe on it.

And then the other door is useful for big stuff too. It's got to be like some kind of like a hatch that like would depression and like move back, right? Like it can't just be a slide. It's not like it's not like it's going to be like a barn door, you know? Like it's got a it's got a seal and seat nice. So like it's got to it's got to like, you know, come off the seal backwards and then slide up out of the way. right so there's like some sort of like rotational hinge thing happening there almost it does

I can't just be a little door isn't the point it's just a little door and then you kick the satellites out yeah but it's like a long slot right right and it's gonna be your around the curve of the of the vehicle maybe it'll have a cool like rotational automatic door if you turn it sideways it would look like a like a like a rainbow right like a bit like a flat like that but if it's if it's gonna seal like I assume the fairing was sealed I mean it seals a little bit yeah it's

It's not like fully pressurized in there. It doesn't need to be a pressurized hat, but don't they keep a little bit of like... Yeah, they keep a little negative pressure in there or positive pressure, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so I guess it doesn't need to be like... I bet Starlings don't need it, though. Yeah, maybe not. Those things ride like, it's like a Spirit Airlines flight in there.

You know what I mean? But yeah. Maybe you can just slide up. I don't know. I don't know what the deal is, but we'll see. It's cool. I'm glad they're trying it. Because I've said the whole time, like,

the plan with starship has to be full speed ahead to getting payloads on orbit. Like that's the only way that makes sense from them. They have to have a thing to do up there so they can fly more and do more things, right? So as soon as they can get Starlings coming out of there, it's also good for Starlink. As a Starling consumer, you are happy about it. Yes. I'm all excited for that. That's the thing, though, is because before this, it seemed like,

and not that I didn't doubt that this was like the plan to get to the active flights sooner, but to me this reads like flight four, there could be Starlink's on it if everything went well with Flight 3. Like that, this brings that to reality, which wasn't expressly stated before. It still isn't, but it's more clear than we're going to try to figure out reentry before we yet to flying payloads on this thing. But if they're going to do, they're doing payload door testing and propellant transfer testing on this.

So if they had all these starships that were just flying, launching payloads, doing propellant transfers, that gets them so much further down the line on the other parts of starship and gives them a very Falcon 9-like ability to fly a mission and test a thing. And that was the best part of Falcon 9, that every time they flew a mission, they could test their thing as a secondary event. And we can take over under bets on how many starships they'll waste doing this. But it's going to be better than if they just put all their effort on. recovering them first before flying it. Yeah. I agree. Yeah.

Yeah. What was your favorite Falcon 9? Because you had a very wistful of those days. God, that first, like, do you, don't you remember this? I remember I was at the demo launch of the Falcon Heavy, and I just remember standing at the press site and looking over and after the launch and watching, like, and it felt like magic, honestly. Like, that was just, I still, I still get chills when I see like landing, like, landing.

on the, you know, live stream, even if it's, like, routine at this point. Yeah, they did two in a row, you know. Yeah. No big difference. It's crazy. No big deal. It's crazy. The Falcon Heavy double landing is like, it's like, yes.

Primo space event to watch. Yes, agreed. Agreed. A plus. That was good. That's Will, my son's favorite video on YouTube is the, like, two-minute clip that they put up with the music and all that. If I show anything about space, I'll be like, we should watch that other one,

I'm like, all right. It's great. We'll watch it. Do you show the one with me and you? To smile. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we were at the press site and we have a shot facing us as it launched. And I'm like just grabbing Jake's arm.

Like, it's actually happening. I know. Well, do you guys like, like, because we didn't know it was happening because I've been so delayed. I don't know if you guys, but like. A delayed all day. I had a conspiracy theory about it. We thought, we all thought, like, oh, this isn't going to go up. And then all of a sudden, like, the countdown keeps going and going.

And people are just like milling around and not everybody was outside. I don't even think for the launch because it just kind of snuck up on us. Sockers. Yep. A lot of people, I think, don't realize like you're like there's, if you're outside, there's like not much of a countdown. You're like on your phone trying to dial into the thing. Yeah.

This perception is terrible. Unless you go stand in front of the big clock, but that's real literally. Yeah. But the good viewing places are behind the clock right up against the water there, right? So, like, yeah, you can't see it. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Good times.

It's a great week. Best week of my life. Eagles won the Super Bowl, flew down to Falcon Heavy, flew back for the Super Bowl parade. Broke my iPhone. Great week. Is breaking the iPhone part of the great week? At the parade.

Yeah, it was, well, because an Eagles player knocked out of my hand, so it's great part. Our star cornerback knocked it out of my hand, giving everyone else a high-five. And I was like, I can't even be mad about that. Yeah, no. It's great. Great week.

Jake had a handler all week. I had a handler, yeah, yeah. Foreign nat. He's a Canadian. Oh. He had to go, he had an attendant when he would go to the bathroom. Oh my God, like I was, I remember for Artemis 1, like watching with the international people had to go through, seemed miserable.

It was awful, man. I was just like, like, like, I was like, there was no thing. No, like, I mean, I don't mean that to be funny. that to be funny it's just like like they're all like like like grouped to get on the butt and i'm just like oh that seems terrible yeah we had like a separate bus and then we had yes um dogs like to our our bags and uh and yeah we were we were not allowed to be out of eyesight of the the security people that like SpaceX had assigned us and there was like 30 of us and three of them so like what are we supposed to do and they're like you have to step stay here like i'm going over there the finally i just

gave up. I just started walking. I'm like, you, this is your job to figure out what to do, but I'm going that way. It's good. I do feel like this is irrelevant to a thing I saw you tweeting about recently, Swapnoddna, that every once in a while we should do an obligatory shout out for NASA Social, because I know we were both at that one back in the day and probably source our like origin story to some extent of why we're sitting on this podcast right now to the EFT1 NASA Social. Oh, no, 100%. Yeah. I feel like we should tell our people about that because Yeah. Well, I think there are applications are open for the Boeing Starliner, I think, launch right now.

But somebody, I think, tweeted me and was like, I don't know if you know about this program. I was like, do I know about that program? Like, that's the reason. Like, that's what got me into like thinking like, oh, maybe I can do the space thing for real because, you know, people responded so much, you know, to my, you know, tweets and whatever when I was there. But God, NASA Social is such a good program. I don't even know if you would be allowed, Jake, but it's great. I forget with the foreign situation It depends on the program Some do and some don't

But yeah I almost did I got close on one I got close on the Sophia one When they were gonna I think it was Flight out Yeah something

But I was in Vancouver And it was in Seattle So I was like I'll drive down there for that That's fine and then But then it got it got canceled Or no I was on I was on like the wait list. So, like, I didn't make the cut, but I was on the, like, if someone drops out,

we'll call you, and they never did. But, uh, yeah. So that was a lot attended. That was, a real cold following there. Sophia. Yeah, I was like, that's the one on the plane. Yes, it was. Yeah. Yeah. No. They all do well, though. Like, they're all full, which is, I mean, I think it's just the idea of, you know, being able to go do this behind the scenes thing with NASA. Like, it's nice to know that. But it's awesome. Like, yeah, people, if you have not, if you are not in the media and you like NASA things or space things generally, you should 1,000% apply to all of them in a row until you get into one because it's legitimately awesome. You get essentially a media pass for whatever the event is, but you do more fun things.

I was going to say you get better than a media class. You get better access than the press. Because the media is all working. And it's actually, Jake, we should always do this because we would have more fun, like screw around as we do anyway. but without bothering the actual media professionals that are doing their work. I know, no,

it's the same. Like, I was going as a freelancer and I'm like, no, you looked like you were working after. I don't even think we talked because you were working.

I was. I was sitting around, you know, shooting the shit back there. That was like the one because I was covering it for NGagget and I had like four features due in like two days. And that was also when I like literally

was like on the phone. I remember I was on the phone in the car back from the launch, listening to the press conference with, like the post launch press conference and like speeding because I was going to be late for my inter because I was interviewing Michelle Yo like about Star Trek Discovery and that was like a big day. That was a big career day.

That's a great week also. Yeah, great week. So yeah. Great week. Huge week. But yeah, not social, man. It's the it's the real deal. It is.

You can maybe even occasionally catch. I don't even know that this is as much of a thing as it was back then, but there were some old media heads that were still around in 2014 that were really annoyed that we were all there being excited about a thing. Yes. And I'm not sure how much that it would exist anymore. Yeah. I feel like, oh, I remember, because my first one was STS 134 in 2011, which was the second to last space shuttle flight. And the journalists were so annoyed because we got to like go and see it like the like shuttle up close, the rotating service structure, like all like, all of this stuff. And I remember the press were so annoyed.

There was also the, I feel like this has died out at this point. But I do remember I went to wallups for the return to flight of Antares after it exploded. And I don't remember who this was. There was a lot of local media there because it was a major story since they just blew up the whole spaceport and then Virginia paid a whole bunch of money to fix it. And they were all like, everyone's mad that Virginia paid money. So we're here to cover this. So there's a lot of like local TV reporters and there was one guy was sitting on next to a bus I don't remember his name so I can't even like call him out specifically but he was so cranky

that I had a media pass for doing like a little good for nothing podcast he was so mad about it and it was great I had a great time like needling him on this bus ride out at the launch site that was like media like how this works but I do feel and I was like 2015 or 16 or whatever. 17? When was that? I forget when Entari's blew up. I was doing the show, so it had to be like 17.

Yeah. I do feel like it's died out. I feel like the media core is like mostly us now. Yeah, and I feel like for the big launches, we got, you know, you don't just don't get a, you don't get the desk at the, you know, at the press site. You don't get a sign. We would never do such a thing. Yeah. I, um, got a desk.

for Falcon Heavy and I probably shouldn't have gotten a desk for Artemis because I was just messing around. But I did. I took one anyway. I was with my serious space reporter friends. We were relegated to what we called the independent podcaster section which was sitting on the floor against the back wall. And for Artemis one, I was drinking on the beach. Yeah, I drink on the beach. What was funny though at the Falcon Heavy one is near, like as the day went on, the desks seemed to like vacate a little bit. I don't know if people were leaving or if they were just going to work outside of her. So near the end, there we just moved into the vacant desk. And so we were we were sitting next to like capital J journalist and we were just like sending off tweets like uh-huh,

you know, like whatever, whatever stupid thing we were tweeting about them. So you're right. We should definitely just keep going to NASA socials. Everyone should go to them. Yes. Because you get to go, they take you on places that they won't take the media because the media doesn't care enough to do interviews at this place. But like for EFT1, we went to the spot where they had all the segments of the solid rocket boosters for the now retired shuttle program. and soon-to-be-artist program, and that was really cool. We went in the VAB. So you get to do the fun side trips that you would really hope that you'd do.

Yeah, and then like the Armstrong Center to see, like, Orion. Like, it was cool. So sign up. Sign up and tell us when you're going and where you're going, and we will maybe go also. I don't know. I guess we would have to sign up in advance to. I know, yeah.

So. Yeah. Anyway, do you want to take bets on stuff? Starship, what happens this time? How hard does it make it? Yeah, I wanted to succeed. I genuinely do, but it's also so much fun when it blows up. So like, I'm torn here.

We can do a series of questions and you two can take a vote, all right? Does the booster touch the ocean? Yeah. Yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah. Get salty, boost it gets salty, all right? Yes. So that indicates also that you think hot staging is going to go fine again.

Yeah. Yeah, everyone feels good about that. Successful main engine cut off? Yes. No explosion this time. No explosion this time. I think they'll fix. I think they'll, yes, I do think it'll be successful, yeah.

Seems good because they blew themselves up by venting oxygen last time. Yeah, it seems like they have a pretty good handle on why it happened, so usually that means they'll fix it. Do we think this is going to do an orbit, though? I can't. I still can't tell. We don't know. I don't believe. Like just given that flight plan

Like I don't think so But is it going to be orbital and then deorbid? That's the part about this engine burn that I don't know It sounds like they don't have enough confidence on that reentry burn Like the vacuum relight seems to be like the thing They're you know they're a little nervous about it For whatever reason I think that seems to be the sticking point And until that's proven I feel like it's always going to be

A Suborbital that will bring it back down Right Properly regardless right have this go uncontrolled. Especially with how close to Australia this is going, because that's always where uncontrolled things come down. And the last thing that NASA and SpaceX need is a quadrillion ton monstrosity floating around in space.

We have no idea where it's going to come down. But then nobody needs that right now. Genuinely, no. God, I already get... Hold my beer. Oh, my God. I already get so many comments when I talk about Starship, and I'm like, this is part of...

They have to prove this tech for the... the Artemis program. Like, and so, yeah, I just don't want that happening. So not, it's not or real.

It's got to be a short march, not a long march, yeah. Oh, my God. Jesus. Oh, no. I should just end the show. We got five minutes left.

I should just close it. That was terrible. Oh, my God. But no, I do not think it will be orbital. Does, that's mine. Do the Starship heat tiles

build up plasma? Hmm. It's a hard one. I mean eventually, yeah And the intentional way Yeah On the correct side Maybe

Maybe this is that I'm just thinking now Maybe that's the trajectory thing Maybe like Hawaii is the fallback And then if they do the burn It puts them into Indian Ocean Maybe that's what I bet they have to do it

So they're not counting on the burn I think you're right Yeah Either way Did these heat tiles get toasty or not Does it stay intact long? enough to do some atmospheric entry. Yeah.

It might be a little like, my kingdom for a wing falls off and it goes spinning. I've had that bet in Discord for like years at this point. Yeah. I'll say yes. I'll say yes. I wanted to do well. All right.

It's good optimism. I like it. I do feel pretty confident. I just, I feel like it might be doing re-entry for like 10 seconds and something chaotic will happen. Like, I think it's going to be a quick, a quick reentry portion. We might not even get to the loss of signal part of reentry.

Yeah. I think it will get farther than it did last time. Like, I think they will continue to improve on what they did, but I will say 50, 50 on whether I think the full thing will be successful. They do show, if we want to hedge our bets, I do just want to show you this graphic from their site, because they do show the icon for, water landing is that they're not going to do the cool. Oh boy, this website handles Zoom very poorly. It does not do the cool flip. They have water landing. They don't have the

cool flip in this graphic. Okay. I feel like that's just artistic. Yeah, I feel like they're, I mean, if they get that far, why wouldn't they run that software and see what it does, right? Like. Agreed. Yeah. One can hope. It's always so hard to tell with SpaceX because they're so stinging with their information. It's like we're looking at the graphic to see if they put the flip in there. Pretty sure that's a different department of SpaceX, but. Yeah, yeah. Swapna, where can people follow along with your horizontal videos?

My horizontal videos are on YouTube. The channel is called Ad Astra, and it's like at Ad Astra space. I'm publishing like twice three times a week. You usually do mission previews. like, I don't know, I'm definitely open to hear what people want, but it's going well. So let's hope that that keeps going. At Astra space, not the movie. No.

Not the movie. No. You have a 30 second review of the movie at Astra because we watched it earlier this year. I have not seen it and that is my review. And I think I will continue that trajectory. Strong, strong, strong cosine of that. Strong finish. I would not watch that movie.

No. Oh, dear. The derisive title was Dad Astra, and that was so accurate. It was... You heard that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not a good movie. I want to throw us out there.

We have a couple minutes left here. So, Eclipse is coming up, and so I'm traveling for it. I'm going to be in Southern Ontario. So I'm thinking of putting together a meetup if there's interest. I don't know how many anomalies are, like, in the Niagara. Canada region. You could be in the Niagara of U.S. region too if you want to pop over the border. But if you're in Toronto or Hamilton or Buffalo, anywhere in that kind of region there and you want to hang out, can you just like send me an email at jkidofnam.com be like, hey, I would hang out

with you. And then I'll know if here's it. I just don't want to show up at a bar by myself. So I want to know if someone will come with me. A thing that you're surely not going to do when you're on the trip, right? Yeah, yeah. You never know. So let me know if you want to hang out. I mean, if there's a little bit of interest and I'll put a little event up and we can have a we can have a meetup. We haven't had a meetup in a while like a proper scheduled meetup. Just Artemis I think was the last one right. It depends how much you count space symposium and the random people that I met there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They picked a terrible week. They should have moved that conference this year. They put that on eclipse week. It's a bad situation. Oh, I heard about that. And I was somebody because somebody's asking if I'm going. I was like, when is it?

And I was like, I'm going to be in San Antonio. Like, no. that's bad that's bad alignment yeah yeah that's good i don't know if we have a good gauge of canadian uh the canadians other than the ones that used to live up by you jake or still do but you don't yeah that's where we got the that the pacific northwest meetups where we got the jb pins right that's right yeah yeah yeah that was the vancouver one yeah yeah yeah it's good stuff good stuff yep all right well maybe next week there will be a oh next week michael sheets coming on. Yes. There's been like 8,000 Ornings Reports and we can

roast the Rocket Lab satellite bus names a bit more than I think that's what we did in the pre-show. Is that the pre-show when we talked about that today, Jake? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Appreciate we talked about the off-thon.com slash discord. You can be in the pre-show. All the photons, yeah. Yeah. All the photons that have like weird names and aren't that, they're very disjointed names and we're not sure what to make of it. So I guess we'll ask Sheets his opinion next week. Yeah. So, So that'll be fun. All right.

Swabna, thanks for hanging out. Yes, thank you. You're having me. Don't read the comments. We're going to make your husband read the comments on this video. Yes. And not cut any of this into vertical. Don't worry.

So we'll be good. See you, everybody. Bye. Bye, everyone. Hi. One, two, three, four, five, four, three, two, one, end of death.