Off-Nominal - 15 - +1 Space Dagger

Episode Date: December 19, 2018

Jake and Anthony discuss what 2018 will mean to future space historians, and announce the winner of The 2018 Off-Nominal Award. Beers Orbiter IPA - Ecliptic Brewing - Untappd Mad Elf - Tröegs Independent Brewing - Untappd Picks The Difficult Road to Mars: A Brief History of Mars Exploration in the Soviet Union By V.G. Perminov, (PDF, 8.1 MB) The edge of space: Revisiting the Karman Line - ScienceDirect Off-Nominal Merchandise Off-Nominal Logo Tee Team CAESAR Tee Team Dragonfly Tee WeMartians Shop | MECO Shop Follow Jake WeMartians Podcast - Follow Humanity's Journey to Mars WeMartians Podcast (@We_Martians) | Twitter Jake Robins (@JakeOnOrbit) | Twitter Follow Anthony Main Engine Cut Off Main Engine Cut Off (@WeHaveMECO) | Twitter Anthony Colangelo (@acolangelo) | Twitter

TLS and go for main engine, start. Negative return. Welcome to space. This is the sound of headlines, Jake, that I printed out because I have too many things running on my computer at once. We're doing this low-fi. There's printed scripts or something. It's like brush limb-ball style up in here. Like somebody else hand me, some intern is going to run over and hand me another stack halfway through the show. That's what it's like doing it live.

We literally are doing it live this time, yes. I printed out a whole bunch of headlines. and it's going to be a hell of a end of year show here because this is the last off nominal. Shout out to you for going through all the headlines. It was actually pretty cathartic. I told you this earlier. I was like scrolling through

and there were some things that I feel like we got really worked up about in the moment and even like six months later totally don't matter. That's like 2018 hashtag right there. Probably accurate, yes. Before we do that though. List is really long.

Are you okay? Yeah, yeah. I feel like this episode is depressing you, and we haven't even done it yet. No, it's not depressing me. It's like overwhelming me. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's different, different emotion. We usually have some banter here, but I didn't have anything prepared because I feel like we've talked a lot in the last.

Well, I had you on Miko. We had like, we got our podcasting banter out, not on off nominal. A little bit. Yeah, we screwed that on. Yeah. Well, what are you drinking? I said lesson learned. Never talk. Once a month. We're no longer friends.

Thank God. I have so much to tell you. It's just about random stuff, but it's all going to be on the podcast now. Okay, well, we can start with beer for sure. You want me to start? Yeah. I went with a very, I don't know if this is basic, but it's like, I'm sure this is like the space beer that a lot of people are like, when they, if you tell them space beer, this is, like one of the first three beers that comes to mind. I went over the border last weekend to Bellingham, Washington, which gives me access to a lot of, you know, West Coast craft beer. So this is a ecliptic ring orbiter IPA. Very simple. Hmm. Yeah. Have you had that one before on here? I, oh, God, have I? I don't know. We're that many episodes in that that's going to happen.

I think that's already happened for me at least because sometimes I just have the local stuff. You just drink yards every other episode. That's true. This time I don't have a yards though. I think this one I actually might have had on the show last year. But I think I have to. It feels like my duty each December. Jake, I'll show you in a minute because you're coming out of a different camera.

We got myself some mad elf here. This is the, uh, is that in my friend? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. From Troogs? You did have that. I think I had it last December. But I feel like it's, I think, It is my duty on the December off nominal to drink this because it feels like a requirement of having this kind of podcast in this state, at least in this half of the state.

So this is from Troegs out in Hershey, PA. They make this Christmas beer. That's 11%. And things get away from you very quickly with it. Okay. Well, and I also have my classic class. The Oilers Cup as there. Because this is definitely the team is winning and will win tonight.

So. Oh, Kurt asked if I've had the 50-50 mad at. Mad Elf Chocolate Stout blend. Oh, I'm doing a piss. Piss poor job of pouring this. That sounds really good, Kurt. 50-50 Mad Elf Chocolate Stout blend. Is Matt Elf like, what's the flavor they add to it?

Yeah. It's brewed with honey and cherries. It's like a Belgian-y kind of thing with honey and cherries. I usually don't like a Christmas beer or like something that's overly that kind of flavor, but this is actually, I feel like, a really good balance. I'm thinking about the cherry Belgians I've had and then I'm adding chocolate stout to it in my imagination. Is it good or bad?

It's working out pretty good. I'll send you some or something. Oh, man. I'm embarrassed about this pour. I don't want to lift the glass up. I noticed you weren't doing it on frame. Usually you like open the bottle in the mic and you do it on frame. you actually lean out of the way so that people can see it.

Kind of embarrassing this is. Oh, that's like a, that's rough. I'm not even going to describe it for the audio listeners. All right, so Jake, we were, we've been talking about going back to the old days of a Jake and Anthony off nominal for a little while. We had a lot of fun friends on this year. A lot of, we got Gary from Lockheed. I mean, that alone. It's a victory.

Yeah. The way that, like, Apollo 8 saved 1968, I think having. Gary from Lockheed on this saved 2018. Yeah. It just seems like I'm so happy with that one because it's like it's such a not the kind of guest you would expect to get and he just like was all in and he was man. He was like to the max. Like he got it instantly.

And I was like, okay, it's going to take him like 20 minutes to ease into it. But he was right on it. It was great. I got two different notes for people. And he was just about it. Yeah, I got some stories. I feel we stopped doing the mailbag, but if we've got, I didn't, I'm not on the notes prepared, but I got notes that were like, I didn't know what we were getting into, but it was the best episode.

So I'm very thrilled with that. He's got a lot of stories. I feel like we just like scrape the surface and like the fountain of knowledge and experience that is Gary from Lockheed. So anyway, we've been talking about doing a Jake and Anthony show. And I think we've got a new yearly tradition. This will be a nice little way to end the year, little off nominal Christmas party. holiday party sort of situation here. And I've poured through

relentlessly through Miko headlines and Red Planet Review because luckily we do this every week. And I've collected everything that happened this year that is worth talking about. And it's in this two-page double-sided

list in front of me. So what's our question, Jake? Okay, so everyone likes to do an end of the year show and I was like, okay, I don't want it to be like every other end of the year show where it's like just pick your favorite headlines and say them again. So, right? Because that's some of them are.

It's like, okay, here's. Well, it's a way to do a show in like early December so that you can check out, go on vacation, and then have something to put in the feed in late December. Yeah. Yeah. Which is what we're kind of doing anyway. But so my question would be, is like, what if we framed it as in what are the trends. So you take a step back, you look at this giant list that you made that is super daunting and

scary and like some of these things I can't believe we're still this year. They feel so long ago because there are so many space events between them and now. But what if we take a step back and talk about some trends? Like what did we see? What does this year mean? So what will this year mean to space historians? That's the question. I like it. That was a long way to say just that question. I was ready for just the question, but I liked all the pomp around it. Yeah, yeah. So I had a couple ideas. You have a couple ideas.

Where do you want to start? I feel like we've got a really good setup and we didn't even plan it in that. You have a very Jake. Planet. Jake. Oh, Jesus. You have a very Jake thing. And I have a very Anthony thing.

And we have one that we both agree on very much. Yeah. So let's go with yours first because I feel like it's more of the moment of like especially the last two weeks. I feel like yours is really a coalesced year. Yeah, definitely. So I was looking to this list and seeing all the planetary missions. And I actually asked myself like what is what does this year mean to planetary if I just like narrowing

a little bit? And to me, so first of all, it was a busy year. I think we can all agree for just for planetary. Like there was a lot of stuff happening here. Thinking about Insight and and Parker and Don and Osiris Rex and Kepler and Opportunity. Like the list keeps going and going of all these missions that have some sort of pretty monumental thing happening with them. And the theme that I think I picked out is that to me it feels like there's a real change of guard with planet. military missions. I think we saw a lot of older, you know, kind of, if missions were people,

this is like the, you know, the senior people in the room kind of retired. So Don finished its mission. It's out of fuel. It's good. Kepler, same thing. Kepler really took it pretty far past the finish line. But, you know, all good things come to an end. I'm hesitant to say it, but, you know, opportunity is in a tough spot right now. And if it happens to go and never come back, then that's just kind of adding to this theme. I'll knock on wood, find some wood behind me here. But you got to do that.

It's important. Yeah, this is really kind of a change year for planetary. I think if you look at 2017 and look at 2019 and then add the headlines up, they're going to look pretty different in terms of what spacecraft are in them. Oh, that's a good way to put it. Like what's dropping out of the headlines this year and what's coming on?

And you're right that it's like a whole new set. Yeah. Huh. Yeah, like we're going to be talking about New Horizons. We're going to be talking about Cyrus Rex. We're talking about insight next year. And 2017 was, I don't remember.

It was so long. Not those three. That's for sure. So, yeah, that's that's kind of interesting. So, and you know, planetary missions take so long to happen that it's kind of remarkable to have all the change events kind of line up. It feels pretty momentous. I mean, it's just kind of a randomness happens in bunches sort of things. But I don't know, it just feels like a marked event. I think I'm going

to remember 2018 is a little bit of just change. Yeah. Yeah, because especially the, you're right, that the timelines, it's almost like some of these missions have been going on our entire, like, space memory where it's just been that thing that has always been around like i don't know you're you're pretty mum about opportunity uh but that one feels like a real like timing element for you know people that follow space in the last 10 years the other interesting thing though is that all of them all of them are the same like i don't know how to put this well but like they are the same type of mission, not in that, they're all doing the same thing, but they are, like, we haven't yet seen that moment where the industry of planetary science looks different in the way that we

have seen with, like, launch or something, right? Where there's like, we have new spacecraft, but we haven't yet seen a change in what I would consider an era of how planetary missions are funded and flown and operated to the extent that I think we will see in the future. Yeah, thinking about the last big thing like that would be like the faster, better, cheaper, and the Mars program, right? Really, really turn planetary differently. Although that way... Marco is the savior of that, where it's like, do we get a whole new era of spacecraft

out of that? I don't see why not. And actually, maybe you could even think about, forget the specifics of Marco, but the the sort of acceptance of these kind of tag-along missions, right? So Marco with Insight, but you've also got the Mars helicopter approved to fly with Mars 2020. I'm kind of getting a vibe that maybe some Marco-style things will also fly with 2020. Like they asked that question a few times, and there was never already like, yes, we're going to do that, but no one was saying no either. You know, like, it was kind of just like, oh, we're going to look at it.

like we were just waiting for this to to happen right so um i feel like that's a uh something that could happen um yeah i'm trying to think of other i mean there's just not very many missions planned i guess it's a tough we're going into kind of a dark dark zone for for planning but it is interesting in that i feel like it's going to be from now on you have to wreak a really good case for why you shouldn't fly marco style vehicles alongside like yeah there's so cheap in mass, especially for the vehicles that we're using to launch these missions. You know, we're not really maxing out the throw capability. I guess in the case of curiosity, that's probably towards the upper end of what Atlas 5 can do out that far, right?

Yeah, I haven't done the math, but yeah. I mean, if it landed, you know, a tonne on the surface, that's a lot more heading out from Earth. But I'm pretty sure launch mass for Mars 2020 is on the order of 20 times what insight was. So maybe 10 times. I might be confusing landing landed mass versus launch mass but I think launch mass for like curiosity Mars 2020 is like six tons and Insight was maybe 600 kilograms. Yeah landed 300 yeah so okay so so order of magnitude difference right so strap a few solids on that Atlas five and add a few cubesats I don't know maybe it feels like a good it feels like a good use of money right because you're paying for the launch and if you do have that

margin, like with insight, it's kind of irresponsible not to. Yeah, you can get so much capability out of it and if it adds a couple, you know, 100 kilograms at the farthest end of like a small set, it's, it's pretty attractive option. And what was Marco like $16 million or something? Oh yeah, right, that too. For both of them. Yeah, so it's, it's pennies compared to, you know, Mars 2020. So here's my future-looking question related to this, is your thought that this is the changing of a generation of spacecraft. At the end of this generation of spacecraft, do you think that there will have been a shift

in the way that these missions are flown, meaning, well, we have seen a private exploration mission in some regard that, you know, there's a lot of talks for plans. We haven't seen a lot of money heading that way yet, but it seems inevitable in the history, in an infinite time scale, as some would say, that will have happened. Do you think it's this generation where that shift happens, or do you think we're still two or three generations away from that? That's a good question.

I think, yeah, probably. And the reason I think that is because there's got to be sort of a generational delay between launch changing and those cost-saving, translating into change of policy at a space agency, right? So I think that, you know, the missions that we launch, or at least probably the missions that we start like formulation for in the 2020s will be thinking about, well, so they're already thinking about launch costs, but I guess maybe where the big difference be measured is,

does NASA change their format? So thinking about discovery, new frontiers and flagship missions. Do they refactor their cost caps and how many they do and the size of those categories with the new launch costs in mind? And that should probably happen in the 2020. Even though, don't think about NASA. Like, think about some person or group or organization or something that has a bunch of money that wants to fly to Enceladus

and they go to JPL or APL or... or some ASU, some of these groups that have done so much work, and they say, I want to spend X amount of money and fly here. When does that thing happen? That's tricky, though, right? Because, so first of all, like, there's no... You're going to throw some softballs here? Come on, man.

Well, there's no personal rate of return on a science mission, right? You just do it because you love it. That's the only way, like, when he's building and be like, I want to... And sell it just because I want the pictures and I want to say it. And I'm passionate personally about the science. And so that is just you're already a filter on what types of people would even sign up for that. But then, you know, does NASA want to take a billionaire's money and give it to JPL to make a mission?

What does that look like? Looks like they get another mission. Yeah, but just think of the optics, though, right? I don't know. I've been swayed in the last year by like some of the writing there's been about when like private observatories on Earth came about. and how there are privately operated things like that here. And I feel like, you know, just at some point that does have to happen. Yeah.

You know? Yeah, because the observatory thing became kind of a prestige thing, right? Right. Yeah, you get a building at a university or you get a spacecraft to, you know, some crater somewhere. I don't know. I'm just trying to figure out when is the last full generation of this kind of spacecraft. because it can't go on like this forever or else we're really not going to maximize our capabilities of like exploring every little nook and cranny of the universe.

Yeah, that's a really big question. All right, well, I got them. I got them, everybody. I don't know if anyone's going to give you a good answer for that. Well. Yeah, I'm like thinking through that and it's like, there's so much that goes into that. I guess, you know, there's, like you're saying, how it takes a generation to settle into something new. You know, we saw that with Marco even, where small sats have been flying around for quite a while, and this was their step outward.

And then on that same front, we have people spending private money on space today in other regards that are still expensive yet cheaper to get to. but if you start seeing some things come home like dear moon and other things like that and it's a slow build where that the bubble starts to expand out beyond like topical this week I want to spend a billion dollars to make a suborbital flying tire fire or I want to spend a billion dollars to fly around the moon right it's a slow expansion outward so once some of those things start actually doing the thing at that point maybe we're like 10 years away. I feel like I'm causing strife in you right now. No, I'm just really thinking about it. You really got me going. Do you want to move on to the next topic or is this going to ruin your night?

Yeah, let me percolate. Is that a yeah? Yeah. All right, well, that is a good transition because I feel like where I was ending was the start of my thing. Okay. Which was looking at this list, I feel like this is the year that we started cashing some checks that we've been writing for like five years. And I feel like this is the year that the new space checks are going to start clearing and we're going to start turning a corner here. The short list that I pulled through

the headlines list here, it's still a long list for these things that I would consider pivotal moments of starting with Falcon Heavy. That launched, but then it also beat out ULA for that Air Force contract this year. And that's the first time that that SpaceX won a non-GPS, non-expendable thing in that regard. And that's one that's been talked about for so long, and it finally happened.

They also got Block 5 launching, launched one three times, which people barely talked about. Like, that was very little fanfare for what it was, you know, because it was like, oh, my gosh, they flew one for a second time, and then that kind of just trailed off real quick. They fly one for a third time. it's just regular now. Like, I feel like it'll get pomp again when it hits 10, when they hit that number that they're talking about. So that was pretty great.

We had small launchers actually start launching. Rocket Lab got up twice. They got a third one coming up pretty soon. Virgin Orbit is only doing captive carry. They're a little behind schedule, but I feel like that's activity. But, yeah, progress. Yeah, they're doing something.

New Glenn's been signing customers left and right. They won EELV award from the Air Force. New Shepherd is pretty much done its test program at this point. It wouldn't be surprised if the next flight has a human on it, some regard. I don't know what that means, what some regard of a human would be. It's not going to carry a single leg. I don't know why I said that. Well, you meant like a customer or an employee.

That's what you meant. Yeah, somebody crazy enough to go up in the first one. Virgin Galactic finally made it. It's been 15 years, and they did it. debate if it was space or not, but they made it. This is an odd one I'm including in here. Cygnus boosted the ISS. That is another thing that only the shuttle could do before,

and that NASA could always say, oh, only the shuttle could boost the ISS. So we got one of those. Yeah, that's not an odd one, though, because just take two minutes on that, because we've been talking a lot about Cygnus and how they took this money for commercial cargo and they never did anything with it other than just fulfillment. contract, right? Yep. But that's actually an extra service that they added on.

Yeah, and it's just one more thing that that NASA can't say only NASA can do it. Yeah. You know, and that's been a big theme is like, oh, yeah, that's great that they've done this, but let me know when they do that. But keeping the ISS afloat is pretty good. I feel like the other one would be like servicing Hubble or something. But, Marco, I was kind of considering that. similar in that everyone was talking about the small stat revolution but it only made it so far

you know it only made oh well they're only good for low earth orbit and that kind of thing but they really proved out there and then i wish we could include in commercial crew but you're close like a year ago we were close a year ago yeah like a year ago yeah like a year ago we thought maybe so that's my that's my short list but i feel like these things are starting to starting to cash your checks, you know? That's a good theme. I like your theme. That's a good trend.

Yeah. I just feel like there was a lot of those things that people have talked about for years that finally we can say they actually did the thing. Yeah, it would be interesting to see like once this year is kind of through if we could do some sort of financial analysis to like somehow measure economic activity for private space companies and see if like because you wouldn't see a jump in like expenditure because like you said they've been writing those checks for five years trying to right right right right right so spending should be theoretically going down because they're starting to do stuff like deliver um but yeah

I wonder if you know it's so hard to measure that but just maybe just revenue is the kind of basic thing you're looking for like are they finally you know fulfilling contracts so that'd be good to see I wish I had that data in front of me right now Yeah, right. That's okay. You don't have to do economic analysis for our drinking podcast. No, but I'm just, this is similar to what you said about the spacecraft, like which of these things are going to be in the headlines next year? That's a lot of the things that I would have listed as like big things we're waiting on. New Glenn Human Flight commercial crew, you know, because a lot of people thought this would be the year of humans in space on commercial vehicles. Turned down not so much. Yeah, it feels like that's going to be next year.

Right. But I mean, still, to have this amount of stuff cleared off the list, it's one more thing that people can just, like, people can't say, no, new spacey types are all talk. They don't ever deliver. You know, there's a lot of things on there that you can say. Actually, they did all these things this year in one year. Yeah, and a couple of them were kind of surprises too, right? Like, I'm thinking about Rocket Lab. I did not anticipate two launches, never mind possibly three. Yeah, yeah. And I'd say Virgin's flight yesterday was unexpected. I thought that would spill into next year. What else did you say? Yeah.

Maybe that's my only example. You never thought that was going to happen? Yeah, never thought that was going to happen. I didn't think they would win a contract so quickly. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Especially because that's not a contract that they like had one and it just was waiting for

Falcon Heavy to launch to announce, because that was one that was competitive that they needed to fly it for up front. Yeah. That's good stuff. That's good stuff. All right. You want to talk about the year of the Bridenstein? As I like to call it, the Bridenstein transformation.

The Bridenstining? The Bridenstine. I don't know. Bride of Bridenstine. No. Okay. Anyway. This is getting weird.

The 11% is kicking in. Yeah, it is. mine's not 11% though what is mine uh oh it's high enough seven and a half um yeah so jim do you say brydenstein or brydenstein i think it's stein because it's i n e right okay sure i hear some people say bridenstein that doesn't sound right but it endsen j b is actually what his name is i don't know why we're using anything but that thank you yes okay um so j b milk to J.B., per the words of Jason Davis of the Planetary Society. Milk toast J.B. I love Jason.

He's a treasure. He's a national treasure. Yeah, so he was confirmed this year, right? Am I, my timeline, correct? Yep, finally. All time is the same right now. So he was confirmed this year, and there's a lot of controversy, or as our British friends might say, controversy. this is really kicking in but like

so we've talked about this a lot like you really kind of morphed like is it just because you're a politician like is that what causes that like it was this is this the real him under all that politics or did you know like it's

it's such a funny story for me like I'm just enamored with what happened I'm telling the story terribly but I'm assuming most of our listeners know what we're talking about He just came out of a shell, you know? I would love to hear the story of J.B. Told by the words of Jake Robbins, a Canadian.

The story of J.B. Well, but like, okay, so you have to be a politician from a Republican state, you know, a state that this leans right. And so you have to take some of these positions that are considered maybe anti-science. or anti-NASA or anti-whatever, climate change being the obvious one. But there are certainly other progressive issues that he's weighed in on that would rile up a lot of people. And all of a sudden, he gets confirmed.

And it's just like the most exuberant, cheerful, space-loving, NASA-respecting, like team player, team supporting, just all around good guy all of a sudden. And it's really interesting to me. Maybe it's less of a comment on J.B. And more of a comment on how you guys do business down there. I think that's exactly what it is. Yeah. It's actually, in a lot of ways, it's a really good example of what's both what's wrong

with things and also like why sometimes people get a little too tied up in politics. And it's like, you don't, like there's still a human in there somewhere. It's just covered in this election machine that, can't see. Yeah. It was a very interesting year, but, I mean, in the same way that I was saying, like, New Space was cashed in their checks this year. Bridenstein sort of feels like that, but for NASA, and that all these things that have

been talked about for the last five years of, like, we got to start doing business this way. And there's obviously been two parties inside of NASA that are fighting for how to do it, see the friction that commercial crew has had compared to commercial cargo. Reinstein kind of felt like that moment that everybody was like, okay, we can get on the same page with this and find common, like, mission here with, you know, commercial lunar payload services, even like the other RFIs that have went out for ISS commercialization,

other landers systems. I feel similarly about it, where it's like, we've heard this talk for so long. and for whatever reason, Brian Stein was able to align everything to get some of these things announced officially. Yeah, that's a great way to put it because, like, he's done, like, there's, you can,

you can ask for someone to take the side you want to win and, like, go to battle, but he really feels like, to me it feels like he's really kind of harmonized the two side where, like, he can, he can say we need to change in a way that is respectful of the old, old guard, you know?

Like, I feel like he's really kind, kind of, he's walking the line very, very astute. Does that make sense? Absolutely. And I, almost to the point where it's like, I don't want to get mega political here, but there was, in recent years, there has been one particular side that was very worked up about another particular side using a particular phrase. And I feel like, or not using a particular phrase, I should say.

And Brian Stein's doing that with the term reusability where he just throws it in anywhere. he says like oh we'll have a reusable architecture uh and almost that alone is like lets everyone go oh he's like saying completely different things even though the rest of his statement could be about doing things the same way he just says like and we'll have a reusable piece yeah and that makes everything okay everyone's like oh i can calm down a little bit because i feel like this guy's hearing me yeah yeah we've mentioned that before he's he's really socializing the idea of change right So he's just putting the language out there and putting the ideas out there in a way that's not like staking aside, but he's just like he's moving the, what do they call it, the Overton window, right? He's moving reusability into the Overton window.

The space in an argument where it's socially acceptable to have that idea, right? So, yeah, it's interesting. I've really enjoyed watching him kind of step into the role and his enthusiasm is like super infectious. you know. Even to those little kids at that weird event. I straight up, I didn't watch that event. And then I heard you guys talking about it. And then I was like, I'm just straight up not going to watch it.

I'm not going to do it. I don't need this in my life. It was so awkward. Yeah. So here's the one thing I'm wondering about Brian Stein and the stuff that we're thinking here, you know, that these checks are cash in as well. in the past couple of transitions between different administrators,

different presidents and all that, there's been this whole like upheaval of NASA on a fundamental disagreement of what they were working towards. I feel like these programs can survive that better because exactly what you were just saying, how they're playing enough to both sides that at least everybody can find some sort of win in them.

Like take commercial lunar payload services? Did we determine if that's clips or claps or? Clupays, I think we decided. Okay, yes, I'm not saying that. That one is an interesting one because you've got the like the privatization wing obviously loves it because they're developing these companies. Then you have the whole thing where we're going to take a bunch of different payloads and sprinkle them over the lunar surface.

So people that are working on research and payloads, I think like it. The people that working on resource prospector hated it because it canceled their thing. But I think in general, they will probably like this in the long run, because it gives them more opportunities. So I feel like between those two, this program could actually survive better than a lot of other NASA programs have done in the last 10 years. Yeah, that's a good point, for sure. And that gives me hope in these trying times, Jake. Hope and trying times That's all you can ask for really

Let's get to business here To business We're going to do something else To wrap up the year Per our podcast We're going to award The first ever 2018 off nominal

Did we determine an actual name For this award Another I'm about to say this Well We have a good term But I don't think it's for the winner It's not for the winner These are the 2018

Off nominees I should have had music cute up for this. It's so much funnier when you say it out loud. The off nominees? I haven't had a lot of beer lately. It's his history pretty hard. All right.

You want me to read you the list of off nominees and then we will discuss and we will pick maybe a top three. This is a good office reference. Chase is correct. The Dundees. This is our version of the Dundies. Yes, it is.

Okay, so here are your off nominees for 2018. Zuma. Okay, hold up. We haven't said what the criteria is to be an afternoon. Good point, good point. Well, based on my first example, people can probably guess what this is. But can you explain this in the best tactful way?

This is the stuff that was least expected and caught us off guard the most in space news. That's a great way to put it. The weirdest bizarre. Bizar is a great word for it. Yeah. Just the news that we were just like, it ends. you read the article or like you watch the live shooting and you're like, what? What did I just experience?

Yeah. Okay. So first up, Zuma. Do you want to say a word on each of these as I run through them? Zuma, Palo that made it to space maybe, probably not? Probably not. But it was everybody's fault. It was SpaceX's fault.

It was the Air Force's fault or whoever, whatever government agency it was his fault. it was Northrop Grumman's fault in the end for the payload adapter so far as we know oh the humanity star I forgot to put that one on here that was this year shit I'm putting that in the list Jake humanity star because that was a total total failure

and also you're like what Kurt is so mad at me because Kurt is the only person I know that saw the humanity star Pixar didn't happen Kurt we don't believe you. I don't even know if it even went to space. I don't believe that it's a...

Humanity star. The most pomp and circumstance for the most underwhelming thing ever put into orbit, is what I will say. Jake, this next one is for you, the high seas six incident. Oh my God. Because I still don't know what to make of this one.

Well, basically, it's a health and safety nightmare inside the hab and didn't work out. Didn't work out. Turns out they have now, is this the one that's changing to the lunar thing? Yep, they're not doing them anymore.

Bailed on Mars. Ruined Mars forever. We need to put some money in this and the only guy who can afford to buy wants to do moon stuff. So here we are. The Aryan 5 VA 241 anomaly is one of my favorite ones

because this was forgotten about almost instantly. And I feel like should have been a much bigger deal. And if it was just like a flight anomaly and they were like, oh, we screwed up and then like it would have been like, okay, an anomaly. But they were like, everything is fine. Yeah, nothing to see here.

The live stream was still rolling on like it was fine. Then after the launch, do you remember the first, remember, nobody knew what happened to the launch, but do you remember the first thing that came out that made us realize what had happened? Was it like that video from the beach? It was the video from the beach. fly over top of their own heads? And yes, it was directly above them.

It was like straight up above them. So this is when we realized that it launched to the wrong azimuth. And it actually went to 20.6 degrees inclination rather than three degrees. They raised their inclination from Kauru 15.6 degrees rather than lowering it two degrees. So that was tremendously fantastic failure. All the satellites worked out. They just wasted some gas. Yeah.

James Webb Space Telescope got its screws and washers shaken into its sunshield this year. Yeah. That is very unfortunate and very hilarious to me. The craziest thing about that, like a delay on a space telescope is not like unexpected news, but to me it was really kind of like hit me. It was like, okay, we shook it and then some bolts fell off.

You're like, okay, so secure those. and they're like, hey, it's going to be delayed three years. Three years, yeah, literally. Well, wait, wasn't it? There was two different delays with that, right? Yeah, there was like, they moved it like a month. And then they were like, ah, just kidding. Yeah, and they were like, we found some washers and screws in the sunshield.

Turns out it's going to be another two years beyond what we already told you. Yeah, like, oh, I guess those washers were a big deal. It was really weird, yeah. I thought maybe you just get a wrench and everything would be okay. But, you know, that's not. No. True. MS-O-9 leak.

A very strong contender, I would say. Yeah. So basically what happened is an American astronaut drilled a hole in the Soyuz. And we don't know why they get it. In space, and nobody heard it during the middle of the night. Everybody heard it. Nobody detected the leak as they pulled the drill bit out

and then had to put gum in it or whatever they did to plug it up. but the Russians are very mad. Still very mad. They're investigating more to come on that. Yeah. And then keeping on the theme, the MS-10 abort. This was a good one.

Yeah. What are the chances it's the same guy? That built it? That screwed up, that drilled the hole in MS-O-9 and kicked that one booster in on MS-10 that caused the abort. So barring like a sabotage situation, I hope that the Russian space program is not so down on its luck that they're reusing engineers for the spacecraft. I'm not as confident.

Yeah. I'm not as confident. I hope there's more than like 15 people putting that thing together. I would hope so too. Yeah, Adam says it was the same guy that installed the accelerometers on that proton. Oh, man. 2013. That's a rough one.

Too soon. I would say MS10 abort is behind MSO-9. pretty far. Yeah. MS09 still, to me, right now, current champion. Yeah, and it's not even over yet. It's not even over yet.

Joe Rogan and Elon Musk smoked some pot, drank some whiskey, caused the whole stir. Pass. Pass? Is that he said? Yeah. Okay. The next one I have listed as that CLPS event.

The one that Jake didn't watch. The Cloupe event. The Clipe event. Yeah. You got to go to that one. I didn't watch it. It was the least well-organized event in the history of the world. They brought out people, they flew these people out from these companies that they just awarded money to to sit in the auditorium as they had what was essentially a school assembly that was live streamed over the internet. In which one of the guys was a German guy who nobody could understand.

That's what that is. Cool. Cool. He's German, right? Who? Zerbuchen. Swiss? I was thinking Swiss. German speaking Swiss? German speaking Swiss. Second, the last one here, the CRS 16 water landing.

Yeah, that was awesome. Pretty great one. Yeah, pretty cool looking failure. Super cool. And like the video was so good that you could just soak it up. Live, in live full time, full speed. For real. For real, soak it up. Okay. And the current, the next one I think is going to be undoubtedly the champion. Yeah. As Jake put it, the daggering of MSO-9.

It felt like the only right thing to call it. What the hell was this? It was a plus one dagger. I tweeted that and it was a very popular tweet. That's how I know it's true. You focused group this before you brought it here. Yeah, I did. I outsource. my jokes before this. What? And all the D&D nerds on Twitter rallied behind me.

I need to know who planned this EVA. Other than nobody. Yeah. You're trying to get this D&D joke in, and now you're just shutting me down otherwise. I don't get it, though. Okay, so someone drills a hole in your spacecraft, and you can see it from the inside,

and you know it's a drill hole. Right. And you're like, better look at it from the other side. And so you like hack up the... I don't understand that, though. Which was like basically a brutal murder of a spacecraft. And there was like spacecraft blood and guts all over space. And the ferocity with which this guy like assaulted it against the explicit instructions to be careful.

like belied some sort of underlying animosity that I'm really afraid of. That's true. That's true. And then they like, get to the hole and they're like, hey, here's the hole. And they're like, yeah, okay, there's a hole here. We're going to take a sample. And I don't understand that because how do you take a sample of a hole? It's by definition, not something.

Well, they were like sampling the stuff that they patched it with, you know? But didn't they patch it? Right, that's my point. Like, what the hell are you doing? Or are they trying to find the original patch that the whatever worker put in there. Oh, you think that they're trying, okay. But you can get that from the inside too. If you drill another hole.

Well, at this point. But here's what I don't understand. That doesn't make any sense either, Jake, because let me give you some physics. Okay. the drill hole from the inside we could see where the drill was sliding so it was drilled from the inside we know that right

okay does that pass your your smell test sure because there's literally other drill streaks on the inside right like the skipping of the bit across the surface yeah okay so if you were if you were drilling a hole from the inside of a spaceship knowing that there's air inside the spaceship

and vacuum outside the spaceship, which side would you, which you, would you, would you passion on? The inside. The inside. So, Dmitri, whatever his name was, who drilled this hole.

Dmitri. I don't know, assume. He probably would have been like, you gotta assume some gender parity. It could be a Svetlana. Okay. It could be a little two-person team. Yeah.

And Dmitri was drilling and Svetlana was like, listen, man, we got to patch this. She was a lookout. She was. She was like, nobody's coming. Stick your gum in there real quick. But you would patch it from the inside, right? And theoretically, if this sealant gave way, whatever it was, gum or weaker epoxy or whatever it was, that would have shot out to space. Right? It would have got sucked out of the ship. Yeah, if it all went in one piece. Well, what? He was going to fall into the cracks of the inside of the Soyuz? Do we, do we know? for sure what they used. Like, could it just have the, whatever, like, gum just cracked and then there's like a leak in the gum.

Well, it wasn't in the pictures. Whatever. We're getting into the minutia too much here. What we really need to talk about is, like, how does... But that's why it's the best off nominee. Like, you can just go down this rapable for the rest of the podcast. We can have another podcast after this.

Yes. I just love to think, like, if I could sit down with somebody and say, like if this went right, how did this EVA go? You know what I mean? Like, what if this went exactly as planned, what would it be? I can't figure it out. Here's another question.

Okay, so first of all, the dagger. The canonical dagger. The dagger. Was it already on station or did they bring it up with the MS10? Really good question. I don't know. I feel like if anyone knew nassaspaceflight.com would know. Here's the second part of the question,

and it doesn't matter how you answered the first part. If it was already there, why was it there? Right. And if it wasn't, why wouldn't they sent up something that was safer to do this specific job with? It's all great questions. Because there's no way that was a space certified dagger.

Like it should have been in a Game of Thrones episode. It was pretty big, man. Dude, it was like a sword. I like that it was called a space dagger, too. Was it actually called that? That's what I've been calling. Well, in Nassasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasasplate.com, they have, quote,

space dagger. I think they stole that joke from me. Maybe they did. Let's see. This is Chris B, so it's not our boy, Chris G. Yeah, I don't, man. She was Chris B because he's got eight hours ahead of me. I think, I think the space d'clock.

term, because it appears as if anything in quotes here comes from the ground crew. Oh, no, wait, or Procopoev was also saying his spacecraft, and that's in quotes. So I think that's a direct quote. I think somebody was up there calling it a space dagger. Yeah, me. Okay, you. It quoted me. They just failed to give me credit.

I'm going to send them an email about it. Don't worry about it. I'll follow up. This question, though, of where did it come from is so good? Right. I just, you know, we spend so much money on, like, space certifying everything. Like you can't even send a pen up there

without being like certified. And then this is just like just like some cutout that they took out of a museum from France. And you know, like it was like Louis Ketor's dagger. Like it's just

I don't get it. I love it. Why don't we have a safe space knife? Safe space knife? Or a safe space knife? Or like a safe space insulation removal tool. again is it a safe space removal tool

or a safe space removal tool okay anyway depends on who you voted for you may not have we're talking about old J.B or new jr yeah yeah pre-nomination or post all right Jake so let's do our awards here I think we're both in agreement that the daggering of MSO 9 is the undisputed champion I just don't see how we can call it any other way. It's just too raw.

It's just too much. Runner up? I couldn't even run her up. I'm looking at the list. I'm voting Zuma. I think Zuma. Zuma, because there's so much stuff around it.

Yeah. Yeah, I think Zuma is it. Zuma was fun because it was like my favorite episodes of Lost, where there's just a thousand questions and no answers. You know? And it's also... Cool because Zuma and the Daggering just bookend the year. Perfectly.

Well, congratulations, Oleg, Conan Yanko. You, sir, are you the official winner of the 2018 off nominal award? Well, what do we got left here? Picks? Oh, wait, before we get the Picks, do you have a favorite moment of 2018? Favorite moment? Personal or space or otherwise. not like personal, like in your personal life, like personal space life.

Because I've got a really good one that might be yours as well. I'm going to give that to 405 a.m. on May 5th. When I was sitting on the ground of a runway at the Lompoke Airport in the dark and I hadn't slept for like a day and I had a lot of coffee and there was also Bailey's in the coffee and then I was so excited to watch Insight and it was just sound and I couldn't see anything and then I had to go home. That was it. That was the end of the trip. It was just such a weird. It was amazing. I'll always remember that. Mine is not just Falcon Heavy. be in there for it.

But specifically, after the boosters had landed and everything went well in orbit, when we turned around to walk back in, but Chris G was running at full speed across the countdown clock lawn, not the waitress from our Patreon special that was delivering us chips and guac in the middle of our podcast, Kurt. Although she's like a close runner up. She is definitely the runner up because that was a great. like Tex-Mex kind of joint. No, Chris G. running full speed. Like, he just got off his favorite ride in Disney.

Yeah, he was like sprinting. Like that moment, because it was perfectly framed. We had the VAB in the background. The launch was just happening. There's helicopters flying around. Everyone's partying. And he's running at full speed through the grass towards us. It was like just my favorite moment of like,

this is everything that I'm hoping for in my life. It was great. And the Eagles had just won the Super Bowl, so it helped. Yeah, yeah. That was great. Full disclosure, I actually just now forgot that Falcon Heavy was this year. Wow. It's literally the first item on this list.

I know, but it was a long time ago in headline land. You know what I mean? That's the year, man. That's how it goes. Our trip was fun, though. I have to give that. We'll be back soon for the first crude launch, I'm sure. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I have a lot of plans for next year. I don't know how it's going to go. a lot of moving parts still. And it's foreshadowing. Yeah. Do you got any picks for us for 2018? I do have a pick.

It's not really for 2018, it's just a pick. Just for today. Just for like a normal pick. So, as you know, I did an episode about entry descent and landing. I loved it. Love that episode. Thank you. I loved it too. It was a lot of fun.

And I was doing a lot of research for it. and I never actually used this thing that I found in the podcast, though it did give me a lot of context that was important. But this is, it's actually on NASA's website. It's a PDF document. But it is about the Soviet Union and specifically about their kind of their Mars program in the 60s and late 50s, 60s and early 70s. And it's kind of like a memoir. It's written by a guy named, VG Permanov, who is the leading designer for Mars and Venus spacecraft at Lavochkin Design Bureau in the Soviet Union.

So that's a pretty good title. No, that's one for the records, right? He ain't drilling any holes in any spacecraft? No, dude. He's putting hole drillers in the gulags. So, yeah, it's a fascinating document. It's not that long. Yeah.

it's maybe too real it's 40 some pages long so you can actually and it's pretty big text like you can read this in a sitting if you wanted to and it's really cool it just goes through like kind of his experience designing these spacecraft that went to Mars and Venus and the Soviet Union was pretty good at Venus

but not so good at Mars and the pressures they were getting so he talked about a lot of meetings where like you know communist party officials would swing by or Korylev would swing by and change their direction or put a lot of pressure on them and how they kind of reacted to that. And then it goes into a lot of the technical details. You'll learn a bit about kind of the spacecraft and the entry capsules and kind of what

technology they were using and what worked and what didn't work. And I don't know, I found it really fascinating. It's because the Russian, the Soviet, sorry, the Soviet Mars program is a really interesting story because of, you know, it was part of the space race. They were racing NASA to Mars as well. And they just, frankly, they kind of blew it, right? It just did not work out for them. But, yeah, it's a, it's pretty, it was a really cool document.

I'm really glad I found it. NASA's got a lot of, like, stuff like this floating around in their archives online. It's not very well cataloged. And history. History.com.com. Oh, my gosh. Could I get this out with this 11% beer? History.nasa.gov is literally the best thing for any space nerd.

Yeah. And like, you just, every once in a while, you just find a jam, you know? You're just like, ah, awesome. This is a good one. So it's, yeah, so we'll put the link. Maybe I'll just put the link in the chat right now so these people can see it. I also like that it's fairly evident that somebody like hand scan these in. Yeah.

You know? Definitely. Yeah. And it was translated to, right? It's from 1999. So they got the Russian version and then someone translated it. And yeah, it's just super cool. I know how you could read this in a sitting, though.

I'm scrolling through this thing, man. There's a lot going on in here. Well, it might take in like 45 minutes or something, but moving an hour. I'm a slow reader. I'm a slow reader too. You want to race? No. I love it's got these little mug shots in the sidebar too.

Yeah. It's, I don't know, it's just really, charming. It's a good document. So that's my pick. I like it. Learn about Soviet Mars. I like it. Mine is more current. Not

trashing your pick or anything, but it's just a hot topic this week that I think everybody needs to make it a point of going to read Jonathan McDowell's The Edge of Space Revisiting the Carmen Line paper. Have you read this? This is foreshadowing. This is foreshadowing. Have you read this yet?

I have full disclosure not read the paper yet. Okay, it's unacceptable that you have not read. I'm just kidding. You should definitely read this because it makes you realize a couple things. Carmen was just like, it's close enough, and it rounds well. Yeah. And that's kind of annoying. You know, it's like we've reassessed all of these other things that we've discovered in space history,

where we'll reassess like, you know, I don't know, everything about a place when we get there and learn about it. But this was one that we've seemed to have never revisited. I mean, other people have talked about it off and on for years, and this has always been a debate. But I like Jonathan's approach to it in that essentially his point is that, so TLDR, he thinks that 100 kilometers is not appropriate, and something closer to 80 kilometers is appropriate. He doesn't make a specific, he says 80 kilometers,

but I think he's lenient on that being maybe somewhere between 80 and 90. And his idea was basically, let's figure out where there have been stable orbits of Earth. And what he has found is that there are several cases where there was a satellite with a stable perigee of between 80 and 90 kilometers, but very few examples, if any, under that. So once they drop below 80, they're back in, you know, within an orbit or two kind of thing. So I appreciate that thinking. Obviously, you can argue with that thinking. Like there's some people out there in history that thought we should define space as the lowest altitude that you can maintain a circular orbit. Which is kind of weird.

Yeah, wouldn't that be like a lot higher? Like 150 kilometers was the line. Yeah. Yeah. So. Casey Stedman. And this one, I don't know how much you should consider this when you're trying to define where spaces,

but it was just kind of a poignant point. He said, if you have to use a reaction control system to control your spacecraft, you're in space. Yeah, I think that's a pretty fair one. You know, he was showing the video of Virgin Galactic doing the role maneuver or whatever it was, right? Absolutely, yeah.

But I don't know where that altitude is because that's like... Way lower than 80, probably, yeah. I don't know if we should talk about that, but I thought it was a funny tweet, at least, so. The one thing, though, that I find this argument, the argument is funny because it only matters

in like four bodies in the solar system, you know? Yeah. Like, where's space on Mars? Or because for humans, is everywhere space? Interesting, too, is that with Mars, you think thinner atmosphere,

so you think lower, just like that atmosphere. But meteorologically speaking, scale height. of the atmosphere is way higher. So these like, because there's less gravity, right? So the,

you know, the E.L entry points and stuff, they're all higher than 100 kilometers. It's really, really interesting. So gravity makes it, makes a point that has a factor in it, right? Right.

I just am like, I don't know. At what point do I care anymore? I don't know. So Titan must have a huge scale height, because they've got lots of atmosphere and no gravity. Right. Yeah. Virgin would never have...

I mean, I don't know how it would work on there. Probably wouldn't be great. Virgines could just literally fly to orbit. That's probably true. With wings half the size. I don't know. It's a tough one. It's a good argument.

Even our friend Pat in the Discord was asking me what I thought about it. I don't have an answer. I don't know. I don't know the signs. Well, read the paper. It's why you haven't read the paper yet. I'm waiting for your interview.

I like to listen. I'm a terrible reader. You have no idea. You're the one that just told me I could read this crazy Russian PDF in 45 minutes with graphs and charts and Russian names to learn. Okay, so you remember like a couple of episodes ago, I had a pick that was the ebook about planetary protection. Yes.

And I was like, I haven't finished it yet, but it's pretty good. Still haven't finished it? Yeah. I haven't touched it. I can't I just can't read I can't read if it's if it's longer than a tweet

it's game over shit I have to re-sess my blog priority no your blogs are great because I can just skip the quotes I'm pretty short yeah great

well Jake that's it for my paper rundown here all right you got any parting words for 2018 parting words for 2018 If you guys If you guys

And I say you guys What I mean is like all of space Can just cool it for like a little bit That'd be great because I'm tired and I have to catch up I forgot one thing on the rundown Jake I have a note here that says talk about shirts you idiots Oh yeah We didn't talk about this last time

Well you put a little post Post what is epilogue in there? Oh yeah, I did. I forgot that. Do you still want to talk about shirts or now? Yes, we can talk about shirts because they're pretty cool, I think, and they have phenomenal specific ones.

So, you know, there's the logo is the Team Dragonfly versus Team Caesars. And I think that's so, you know, there's still time to, I think if you're in the U.S., they're still time to get one. They're printing them pretty quickly. You won't get it if you're in Canada. It's too late for that. Yeah. You probably won't get that by next Christmas. No, and Canada posts is on strike. So, oh, is it? Although I think they're back to work. Yeah,

I'm back to work now, but it was a disaster for a while. So, uh, but yeah, help us out. You know, we don't, uh, I don't think we ever have the intention of putting up like a separate Patreon for off-nomeral and like that. So this is just a fun way to support this little side project where we let loose and have a couple beers and talk about whatever doesn't fit in the main shows. And all proceeds benefit you in the future when you are having an off-nominal meetup with us. Yes, and we're going to have some of those next year.

I was going to say, let's give a little early heads up here because I'm definitely going. You don't have to commit to this. But next, is it September, October? September? Somewhere. I think it's September. IAC is going to be in Washington, D.C.

this year. And I will be there for sure. I'm going to drive down for that. And I think what we're going to try to do is find a brewery, close by the Udvar Hazi, Udvar Hazi. I forget how to say the guy's name. Near that little wing of the Air and Space Museum, do a little air in space with the off-nominal crew, have a couple of beers at a brewery nearby. And that is when. When is the downselect for these discovery missions? Oh, that's sooner. That's like April, May. Cool.

So we can drink the dragonflies win at the meetup. Or pour one out for Dragonfly. It might be the more. Pour one out onto its rotors and break it. Yeah. It'll already be broken by then. That's way too long. Somebody will accidentally, like, walk with it too fast.

Like, this drone is awesome. Let me try. fly it over like look I can fly it over the little balcony here yeah I can go right up to people with this oh man all right well that's it Jake that is it that's a great 2018 I love you and I love all the space nerds out there doing this is so much fun

we really nailed it I would say one two three four five five four three two one end of death