Off-Nominal - 150 - Bullets and Cheetos

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

Erin Edwards joins Jake and Anthony to talk about flying helicopters, making the leap from the military to space, and being a Canadian CAPCOM at NASA.TopicsOff-Nominal - YouTubeEpisode 150 - Bullets and Cheetos (with Erin Edwards) - YouTubeThe Space Suit – Puffin DrinkwearBell CH-146 Griffon - WikipediaFollow ErinErin M Edwards, CD, M.Sc. | LinkedInFollow Off-NominalSubscribe to the show! - Off-NominalSupport the show, join the DiscordOff-Nominal (@offnom) / TwitterOff-Nominal (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceFollow JakeWeMartians Podcast - Follow Humanity's Journey to MarsWeMartians Podcast (@We_Martians) | TwitterJake Robins (@JakeOnOrbit) | TwitterJake Robins (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceFollow AnthonyMain Engine Cut OffMain Engine Cut Off (@WeHaveMECO) | TwitterMain Engine Cut Off (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceAnthony Colangelo (@acolangelo) | TwitterAnthony Colangelo (@[e-mail]) - jawns.club 🐘Off-Nominal MerchandiseOff-Nominal Logo TeeWeMartians Shop | MECO Shop

TLS and go for main engine, start. Hello, everybody. Hello. How's it going? I feel like we're doing a focus group. You've been a listener for 150 of these now. Is this our annual review or a focus group? I don't know which.

I don't know. I think he said that you mentioned in LinkedIn there, Anthony, that I was old, like an old listener. And I probably have to clarify with listeners. I'm not that old, but I have been there for a while. Yeah, we were trying to figure out if you were a single digit listener or a double-digit listener, but you have to be one of those two things for sure. Yeah.

You were in there pretty early. For sure. The days of the closet studio and the, what was your first setup? It was just like, I guess it was mostly the same room that it always was. Yeah, but I had, I had a closet era like me. No, but I had that like old blue snowball microphone. Yeah, the snowball. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So thanks for making it this far.

You're welcome. It's my pleasure. It's like a long time listener, first time caller kind of situation going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we were, I mean, so we've got Aaron Edwards here with us today. And Aaron, like you, you have been, um, not only listening to us for a long time, but you've been on your own kind of interesting journey. And we've sort of touched base over the years about where you're going. And I, you know, when you started, you were doing, I don't know, flying helicopters in which we're going to talk about, by the way, we're going have a helicopter conversation today. Once again, there hasn't been enough helicopter content on this podcast.

We need more helicopter stuff. In the spirit of continuity, we'll talk about helicopters. Exactly, yeah. And now you're at NASA. And so, like, there's a fun journey. And sometimes we like to have shows here or just us talking to interesting people. And you get to be the interesting person today. So we're excited to talk about it today.

But, yeah, should we do some drinks to start? We should. here. Yeah. Yeah, well, I'm still on the clock. So I have four shots of straight espresso in a cup that was gifted to me by my staff, which is a chaos coordinator, which is pretty apt for the job that I do. So I'm not very exciting today. My apologies, but what do you guys have on the go? Jake, you go first because I've got a whole thing. You just say four shots of espresso isn't exciting because I think it's actually the opposite of that. I got to stay awake, guys. I'm busy, all right? I can't tell if this is a pilot life thing that you learned or a government employee life thing that you learned.

And I don't know which. Both. There was two shots from each side. That's right. Yeah. Oh, wow. Well, you're in good company. I am also not having alcohol today, mostly because I ran out and forgot to get some.

But what I do have is just a regular horchata. So this is a very Mexican drink today. do a influencer thing influencer thing uh yeah so is it line or something no so it's like um it's it's well it normally so orchata is normally like a uh rice milk kind of thing so you yeah you you put it in a blender it's like a mexican paralyzer is what this is but it's i mean it's not actually milk though like it's literally it's like it's rice and this is the starches of the rice and you sweeten it and you put a little cinnamon and stuff in it so it's like this nice kind of sweet thing um this particular one has coconut in it this

is sort of a special coconut version, which I love. They're really good. My wife picks them up at this like hole in the wall place. They come in like used water bottles. This is the way you buy it in. So this is a very, also very Mexican thing. People just,

they reuse their water bottles and fill them up with Rajad and sell them. I don't like the way that you said it comes in re in used water bottles. Like, I don't like the way that you said that. I don't know what this was before, but it wasn't. In the era of like microplastics awareness, I don't feel like that's a great decision around all over there.

We're reusing plastic here, Anthony. It's a good. There you go. Exactly. Harsh's decision. But no caffeine. So I can drink that. Sounds great, though. No, just sugar.

That's a lot of sugar. All right. I got a whole thing here, Jake. I got some stuff. So number one, I've still got a star base beer here. I got star hopped, hazy IPA. We've got one of these left. So that's the drink, Jake.

But we got a, we've got to, as much as we ever do them, we've got a sponsor for this show. And in addition. to the Star Base sponsorship. And this is why I asked you, I asked you how I should send things to you, because I have a couple of these, okay? Now, I was in my email in a couple of months ago, maybe a couple weeks ago at this point,

and I was looking for something, and I found the completely unrelated thread that I had not replied to, and I totally thought I did reply to. So I just sent a two-year delayed reply to this email thread, and was like, I hope this is still an email that works. So, listen, I'm, I'm drinking this nice cold can, Jake.

But what makes your hands more comfortable when you're drinking a can? Is a cozy. You might have seen these because I've seen these at like LLB and some stores. Look at this thing. Whoa. This is the puffin drinkware like astronaut EMU kind of situation. So I've got a couple of these. I think there's four in this back so I can send you them.

But I need to know how to get it to your address. and you told me that's impossible. So you might have to wait and so you come to the U.S. again. It might be. Which is usually the way. Yeah, you might need the space suit part of that

to get all the way here. To get that much of the journey. So, yeah, I mean, I definitely saw this in, I think it was like LLB or REI or something that they sell like all these different models. And so I was chatting with them and they sent me a couple of these. And they were like, we don't really do sponsorships.

I was like, we don't really either. And he's like, well, I'll send you some of these and you can drink them on the show. So there's the space suit. but they make other very funny ones as well. So, yeah. I'm going to see, I am interested to see how the hood works out,

like the helmet portion of this. I don't know how drinking with that's going to be, so keep your eyes peeled. There's also a little backpack that you can put stuff. Like there's a little Velcro backpack component here. What accessories do you need for your beer? I don't know. I mean, it said your phone.

Let's see. Hey, iPhone Mini. Look, boom, iPhone Mini. That's the perfect side. So now you can like creep on people while you're drinking your drinking. That works well. It's so good. P-O-V, you are a beer can.

There you go. So thanks to Rick for the puffin situation. So I'm going to put the can in there and we'll figure this out. It's reminding me when I went in Canada, I had this. I don't know where I got it, but I had this, I had one mitten. It was like a single mitten. And it was a special mitten for holding a beer. So, like, if you imagine, like, your hand would go around and it, like, sewed all the way across.

So you couldn't open your hand in it. It was just, like, sewed shut. It was like an Edward 40 hands. Yeah. And it just had a slot, it had a slot for a beer can. So you could, you could drink a beer with your mittens on and, like, it fit perfectly in there. I don't know where I got it. I can't tell if this was your most Canadian era or most degenerate era.

I don't know what you're in at that moment. It was my degenerary, for sure. Yeah. That's too great. Before we get going on real topics, people are complimenting your background in the chat. And we said right before we went live, we need your, we're keeping score of like, is 2001 a great movie or the most boring ever or both? And we need to know where you lie on this spectrum. Okay.

I don't know if it's the most, if it's the most impressive movie of all time. But I thought for one, it was made, it was shot pretty well. And they did some pretty impressive stuff in terms of, you know, visual effects and that kind of thing. It definitely did drag, but it felt very, you know, 1960s artistic. Like they're pulling something from like the French noir era and really making a point with 15 minute long scenes. But I like it. I'll watch it on occasion. It's pretty good.

A nuanced answer. Yeah. Thank you. It's my government answer. I can't say yes or no, I guess. I feel like the movies in that time, they just needed a good editor. Like, did editors not exist in this time? I feel like editors just were just, was that a new profession that came out in like the 1970s or something?

Because like this, this movie and also the original Star Trek both have like right at the beginning, like this awful drawn out like this 30 minute scene should have been 90 seconds. And they just, you know, it was the monkeys or the gorillas or whatever in 2001. And Star Trek, the original movie was like that where they were just like going through, I don't know, like the space rainbow or it had like synth music playing and everyone was like really concerned. in the bridge. It's like, you know, bang, bim, bime, bime, bain, bain, bain. And then, you know, Kirk's like, oh, my God, what's going to happen? And I was like 30 minutes of that. And it's like, brutal, brutal.

We need to trim this down a little bit. But anyway, I also, like, there's also a lot of credits at the beginning of old movies. Like, I don't know why I'm holding a pencil. You're taking notes. Yeah. That's right. There's also like 30 minutes of credits at the beginning, not at the end of a movie back back then.

So they had to have these long drawn-out shots. But I don't know anything about film. I just, you know, yay or me. That's where it's at That's what we wanted We're trying to keep score Perfect So I got you down

Right down the middle Put it down N nuanced It's one point from both sides Room for improvement Now I can decide If I'm going to drink this By holding the arms

As handles Or what It keeps your nose warm It keeps your nose warm When you're taking a sip It's pretty nice. I don't know how I feel about that. Okay.

Yep. So we got. I don't know. I don't know. I'll see. All right. The show's here, Jake. When you send me mine and finally gets here, if it does, Godspeed to it.

I'm going to see if it works better with a bottle. That's what I want to try next. It will. It will 100%. The can look like it's really hidden. It is. I don't have any bottles in the house. So, you know.

Now, to be fair, their marketing images show it with a can. So maybe it's, maybe I need a tall boy. Not one of these. there you go that could do it yeah Arizona iced tea yeah

or that do you remember that one beer we got at the the beach house in Florida someone sent us I don't remember some some listener brought it and it was like

the can was like it was like it was like a gallon in a can that it was enormous and it was like there was a sharpie written on it was like moon beer like 17% or something

ungodful they'll still know where that came from you buy in used water bottles yeah and used water bottles Yeah, it was an old keg. All right. Okay, so let's get into this.

Okay, Aaron, I know this is a space show, but I do want to have a helicopter segment. It only has to be five minutes because I literally know nothing about helicopters. So we can't really, there's not going to be any follow-up questions from me because I don't know what to ask. What's the question going to be? Yeah. I just, I just want to learn like, I want to learn about fun things with a helicopter.

And you flew them for. Tell them about auto rotation. No, like that. don't need to talk about that. No one actually wants to auto rotate. But yeah, maybe just tell us what you flew. Yeah. Like what did you what did you pilot? Um, so I still still technically fly for the Canadian Air Force. Um, obviously not too much anymore. I got to have to go back home every 90 days or so to keep current. So they're, I'm very fortunate. They let me still do that and play with the helicopter every once in a while. But, um, I flew the CH 146. That's what we call it, the Griffin, which essentially is a bell four 12. So if you were to think of, like another 1960s Kubrick movie. Think of Vietnam. It's like an upgraded version of that type of helicopter. And I flew that. Yeah, there you go. This one even says Canada. Look at that. It's true. That's a gripon. The ones I fly were blue, but same kind of thing. So I was involved in tactical and special operations aviation for about five or six years and went overseas with

Canada as a pilot. And while I was doing that, I was trying to, like, bring in some of the space stuff to help us out a little bit. And that's kind of how I went on, like, a total tangent. And that's not the reason why I ended up at NASA, but it certainly helped because I had a little bit more of an understanding of military space stuff. So, yeah, helicopters are rad. I kind of jokingly mentioned on occasion to our two Canadian military astronauts, Jeremy and Josh, that are both fighter pilots, that the person they picked to do this job for the first time ever to support them.

And the astronaut office as a non-astronaut Canadian military officer was a helicopter pilot. Is there like a GILO fixed wing rivalry still alive and well? Is that kind of a thing? It's a friendly rivalry. I'll still say it's a little harder to fly helicopter, but that's just me. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, all right. Is there like, can you give us a fun story or maybe a scary story about flying helicopter? Like what? Because I always think of flying helicopters as like a little bit. Like you must have like a little bit of crazy somewhere in you to fly helicopter. Yeah. Especially how you flew it. But it's probably also crazy off the top of my head.

I can't think of anything that's particularly nuts. But probably most relevant to this discussion is on occasion we have to transit the helicopters across the country to go do exercises or whatever. And certainly when I was overseas, we did a lot of really long flights. But we do all this preparation, all this planning. It's all like tactical and everything. But really the most important thing for me is where am I getting my coffee from? And where can I have snacks stored on board such that I can always eat?

And it's to the point where people that I flew with were like, hey, before we leave, end of our pre-flight checklist. Have you eaten? Has Captain Aaron Edwards eaten anything and had coffee? before we're trapped in a helicopter with her for eight hours. So there's definitely been like, wait, you can strap a cooler down to the deck and, like, have people feed you snacks and stuff. That's definitely something you have to consider.

And in every possible pocket I've ever had on my flight suit and, like, vest and stuff, it's like, yes, there's, like, you know, sometimes there's bullets and stuff down there, but there's also what she goes, right? Like, as required, just always have snacks. I think that's probably what I'm most known for is, like, snack planning. it became part of our procedures for sure. I don't feel like I, I feel like I have more questions about helicopters for sure at this point.

Like, bullets in your pockets and Cheetos and trying to figure out, just make sure you got the right one at the right time. Exactly. Jake, have you ever flown on an helicopter? You sound terrified of helicopters. I have flown on them. Yeah, yeah.

I, my dad worked in the oil industry when I was a kid and there was like a bunch of surveying stuff that used to happen. So one time he was able to like sneak me on to one of these surveys. So that was like when I was a kid, first thing I did, that was pretty rad. And then I did like, I did one over, like out of Maui on a vacation once. There was like a tourist flight and we flew across to, is it Molokai? Is that other island right next to it?

And you know, you fly in and out of the things. But that one, that's the one that trip me out because I was an adult by then. And so now I have fears, you know, I didn't nominate them on the tree. But like, it was fine. Like if we were moving, I was totally okay. I'm like, this is just like an airplane, but it looks different. And then we went down this like, you know, coastline and then like went into this little like a bay with high cliffs.

So like, you know, there was like wall stuff on all sides. And the guy just parked it there and just like, wait, and we just kind of like looked around because you could do that in a helicopter. Apparently you can just stand still. And I was like, this is unnatural. Like we are defying all laws of physics and, uh, and, you know, offending God. I think we were doing right now.

I was like, this is uncomfortable part of me. I want to keep moving forward again. I think we need to do this. This is amazing. And it's a little weird We discovered in the pre-show, pre-stream that we were doing in the Discord that Jake had a childhood fear of his parents

running out of gas while they were on drives. So I feel like these two things combined is just the, it's like the fear factor. It's like a helicopter with the visible gas tank indicator. Yeah, just watching it like tick down. Nobody wants that, yeah, exactly.

It is a little weird. The stuff you can do and how versatile helicopters are And sometimes you'll talk to people that also fly helicopters in different domains. And they're like, wait, you guys do what? But it is, we had, sometimes we'll have people repel out of the helicopter for like a pretty basic tactical task. And we're practicing one time. And this one fellow, because they were required to learn how to repel through trees, so we can really put these army dudes anywhere they need to go.

And this one fellow got stuck on his way down in the trees. So we were in the hover, just, you know, five feet above the trees. They're flopping around. for probably 20 minutes as we got this guy unhooked and like could try and get him up or down again. So it was a lot of work. And we're like, you know what? I think if I tried to explain this to the average person that I was in the hover over a tree, waiting for this guy who repelled out of my helicopter with the backpack and got hung up,

that this would be unusual. But it's a lot of fun. I miss it, but I don't miss like the helmet hair that I would get and having to deal with finding snacks all the time. So. Yeah. Yeah. I remember when you, like in the early days of our.

our Discord. You would pop in a note and we were joking before this. I was like, but we could go back and like do a statistical analysis of your messages and find out when you were deployed and when you were. You would just sort of like come back and you would rapid fire catch up with all the news and then you would disappear. Yeah. Let's not give any people ideas and how they can track us. But you know what? Probably or when I was really busy. Actually, part of the reason why I disappeared for so long was my was grad school. And I was so busy with work and flying in grad school. So you could either either deployments, I guess, or just fuzzin it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so let's talk about that then. So you did go to school. I remember that kind of

being one of the early things that you had talked about getting a master's or something in. And Philison, what did you what did you figure out? Yeah. Actually, that discord was super helpful. There's a bunch of people I went back and forth with and like, hey, have you heard about this program? And like I wasn't going to become like a bench engineer or be involved in that kind of stuff. getting some input from you eyes about what would be useful. And at the time, I was just interested in learning more just in general about space. And it kind of ended up being kind of human factors focused and then space law focused in the end. And I was just planning on doing it because having a master's would be cool.

And we're super fortunate in the military that they'll subsidize you under certain circumstances. So I did that through the University of North Dakota. They have a space science program there. I would never recommend that someone working full-time also deploying overseas and flying and having a bunch of other jobs that work also consider doing a master's degree at the same time because there's definitely times in the helicopter while I was snacking, we're putting fuel in the helicopter and I had about half an hour to kind of just sit there. The other people were just kind of chatting in the back and I'd pull out a textbook and start highlighting.

While I was deployed, like trying to like cram in this master's degree. So a lot of it was actually written while I was overseas, which is pretty entertaining. That's wild. And I did my thesis presentation from that facility as well. And I'm like, hey, if you guys hear a siren and I get up and run somewhere, just so you know, I'll get back to you. But like in a while, we don't know when. It might be a bit. Hang up and I'll email you when I'm back on here for sure.

Exactly. But it ended up being really valuable because a lot of the stuff that we learned in that program, it's interdisciplinary. but obviously it's highly relevant to NASA. So especially the human factors part. And a lot of the project management and mission design stuff that you learned to, like having a little bit of a background and that's definitely helping with this job down here. So it was valuable.

I thought it was great. I'd definitely recommend that school because they were super flexible with my horrendous schedule for a couple years there. So it was good. That's awesome. Yeah. I always like, sometimes I think about going back to school

and doing something like that, like some sort like, you know, flexible online or, you know, something that I can kind of like piece into my life. And because I'm always like so interested in the topics of those things, you know, like what you said, space law and that kind of thing. I'm like, wow, there's like, those are probably just so much fun to like learn about the kind of things and like really explore them academically. I think sometimes I get like a little starved of nuance, you know, just like in the social media world where just like everything's a 128 character take.

And I'm like, I'd love to read a textbook on one of these things at some point and learn something for real about something, you know? I like that you think that you would be able to piecemeal one of those programs. Like, not for the program's sake, but for you. Like, we did an episode of this show where we came up with a fake NASA budget and you had done more work than the NASA budget in some years. So, as if you would just like take it easy and like do it one day a week and you would be. This is a problem.

Yeah, you would go 1,000% into it and burn out immediately. Yeah, I can see that for sure. I support it, though. All that said, I do support it. My pool horchadas will be severely diminished in that scenario. I do support it. So how did you end up working with Canadian astronauts? Because you're leaving us hanging on a huge jump here.

What does that even mean? I've got a lot of questions. It's a bit of a saga. It will probably take like a weird extended. dramatic take kind of like this movie to explain the whole thing but so I think the Canadian astronaut core given that we've got potentially flights happening for two Canadian astronauts at the same time and the same well we'll see how it goes but roughly they're around the same time next year maybe that they were like you know

what we could probably use a little bit of help in the NASA astronaut office and they have a small liaison cell where they'll bring in military lease military US military folks to help out usually to help with CAPCOM duties because that's a pretty busy job and there's not a lot of people that are doing CAPCOM. Most of the time the people that are working in mission control doing that controller position are also engineers or their astronauts. So everyone's really busy. So they like to bring in the odd person who can solely focus on that. And there was maybe some thought for me to help the Canadian astronaut corps with whatever else they needed down in Houston. There's already

a number of Canadians down there, but most of them are working in support of ISS programs as robotics flight controllers. Super rad job. I didn't realize this was something you could like go to the CSA, become a robotics flight controller, and then end up in Houston almost permanently. It's super cool what they get to do. So I think that was the plan and they approached the Air Force with that because Josh and Jeremy are still both serving colonels and pilots in the Air Force. And they talked to the CSA and CSA is like, yeah, we could build a position. So they put out a message to all of us in the military, at least in the Air Force, saying if you're interested, send a letter. I was actually in Texas at the time doing an exercise with my old unit. And I saw this message. And I told my boss,

I'm like, this position sounds really cool. Like working as a Capcom supporting astronauts, that sounds rad. I'm not going to get it. Like, there's no way this random helicopter pilot nerd is going to get this job. And she's like, you know what? I think you'll regret it if you don't quit your letter in and try to apply. And I'm like, yeah, whatever. I guess I'll just write a letter. I suppose. is they're going to pick someone else. I understand your instinct, but they're also like, no, no, we're looking for a helicopter space nerd. Like, that's exactly what we want.

It's like kind of ideal. It didn't quite say helicopter space nerd, but, you know, read the read between the lines. They're definitely looking for a massive nerd for sure. And so I put my application in a couple months later. Didn't forget about it necessarily, but it was like busy doing all those other stuff at my old unit, which was up west of Ottawa there. And then I got this email saying, I'd like to bring you in for an interview.

I'm like, okay, still not going to get it. And Jeremy Hansen was on the call, the branch chief of through operations. James Kelly, who's a former shuttle guy, was on the call, a bunch of senior military people did the interview. I'm like, still not going to get this job, whatever. I'll keep doing my, you know, my operations job at my unit. And then Jeremy actually called me at work.

I was sitting next to my warrant officer, John. And Jeremy's like, hey, we want to invite you to come down and work in Houston if you're still interested. And I pretty much swore, I think, on the phone. I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, you want me to come do this job? Of course I'll bleep and come and do that job. And my warrant looked at me and he's like, oh, my God. You probably just lost this job.

Anyway, so it was a great conversation. And within a vote, that was May or June of last year. And by August, I was down here getting myself all squared away to work. at NASA. So that was kind of put on loan from the RCF down to the Kane Space Agency. They made a position for me and then told NASA that this is a person that we want. NASA interviewed me as well. And I ended up in the crew operation or eventually ended up in the crew operations office, but I wasn't expecting to be pulled in to be the astronaut operations officer that happened after, which was also interesting. So that's how I ended up, sorry for the long

diatribe there, but that's how I... No, I mean... Down here in Texas. What I like to think is that Jeremy, you know, seems like a great guy, but I could see that he was watching, you know, ingenuity doing so well and there's some more Sanford-turn helicopters and

Dragonfly. No, he's like, we got to make sure all the helicopter pilots have other jobs because otherwise, us fixed-wing types are out. Like, this is... The future of astronauts are all helicopters based on what I'm looking at here. So we've got to clear out the ranks a bit. Hey, there's a lot of us, and I'm

Personally, I love it. I didn't think I'd see this number of helicopter pilots, but you've got some fantastic people in the astronaut office on the U.S. side as well that fly helicopters. There's always a fist bump in the hallway. Exactly. You got to fit in tinier spots. I'm just saying.

You got to land vertically on the moon. Watch your back. That's all I'm saying. Is it like a Jeep thing where when you pass in the hall, you have to kind of do the two fingers up? Like is that sort of a. Yeah, what's the symbol? That's the symbol.

Well, it's like a roadier thing. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So it's been crazy. Maybe like lassoing something? Yeah, yeah. Like the rotors.

Come on. You know what? We'll go with that. I'm going to say that. You're like holding a badge lanyard or something so that you just like pass and buy each other in the hall. Your NASA bag. Exactly. But yeah, it's been super rad.

Now I have just like back at home, I have four jobs. but I'm loving all of it. This is why we have four shots of espresso at 3.30 in the afternoon. But like, do what you got to do. But yeah, it's pretty cool. I'm laughing at the fact that you have this interview where they bring in, what you describe sounds like seven or eight people on this call, including an astronaut.

And you're like, no, I'm not in the running here. You have like multiple like multiple guys. multiple government organizations across like two different countries are ranging like very high level people are just being nice yeah they're clearly doing 50 of these yeah he does so many of these interviews yeah but it's been really cool because i'm the first person that they've brought down from canada that's not an astronaut to do this type of job like i'm not a robotics flight controller i am not smart enough to do that job um but uh there's there's other things that the office definitely needs and it's kind of cool that in this job

NASA has this very interesting way of like finding all of the skills you have and then leveraging all of them. So it's like, oh, helicopters, what we're, you know, we're looking at vertical landing stuff and human landing system. Do you want to get involved in that? I'm like, obviously, yes. We have an operations background. We have a hole now in the astronaut operations office. Like, do you want to be an op-so? I'm like, I don't know what that means for NASA.

And I've been here for literally three seconds, but sure, I'll give that a try. The Capcom thing, super cool. I'm super enjoying that. I'm just working on finishing up a recoil for my dive certification, so I can go dive in the NBL and watch them do their EVAs and stuff. Wow. I used to dive with the Navy, so that's pretty cool as well. And I know, Jake, I think you and I have talked that we had a similar,

well, somewhat similar geology background. I'm not as good at geo as you were, but going back to the moon, there's some stuff that I can get involved in there too. So it's like all the little things I never thought I'd be able to combine into one job, which would be the most amazing thing. ever. NASA's definitely very good at integrating all of your skills and giving you work to do. So I'm happy about that. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Give me, giving me way too much credit for geo, though. I just grew up around rocks. It's really, it's really it. Yeah. I should have way more

considering where I grew up, like a geology like mecca of the. It's the most disappointing thing about him for his parents. Middle of the common. Yes. To be honest, though, like it's a little bit of a stretch for me. That was a while ago now. So someone's like, yeah, described this, you know, Igneus, whatever. I'd be like, I don't, I don't remember. I can tell you that I don't want to hit it with the helicopter. Like, that's about where those worlds combined for me, but yeah, I say which phase of rocks are good to land on and which ones are not. Yes, and which ones I don't want to hit. But it's cool. There's so much work going on down here that, yeah, they'll keep you busy for sure. That's awesome. The Capcom thing, is that like

you're going to be a Capcom, like full-blown capcom or is there? I don't know what else there would be like a Canadian specific one. A Casey says some term that Americans don't say. I'm like, can we get a translation on this? It's Capcom, where there's a U at the end. It's E-O-U-M. Yes, for a double double. Like, what do we do with that information?

Yeah, so there is, that was actually the primary job they had me bring me down here for us for Capcom. But I'm halfway through my training flow for that. So I'm hoping by August I'll be certified. And it'll be pretty cool if Josh is up there and I can be one of his CAPCOMs, but there's a lot of us that will work on that console because it's staffed pretty much around the clock. But yeah, it's a lot, though. You do a lot of the same ground school classes the astronauts do so you can kind of figure out how you'd want to translate what you're seeing

or what the engineers are telling you to what the astronauts might see on stations. You take a lot of the same classes. you're talking the same language. And then they just put you through a series of like sims with all of the other flight controllers are learning how to do their jobs. They break everything on station and then you'll have to figure out how to fix it.

So those sims are definitely entertaining. So yeah, I'll be a Capcom hopefully soon. Hopefully. And that'll be another really rad thing I get to do on occasion is help the ISS program that way. So that's specific for ISS. Are there Artemis plans in the works of like what the Capcom situation would be there?

Yeah, so the expiration side, they're doing their own, sort of, they're setting up that whole flow for people now. But they've taken people are a little bit more senior because they want you to be certified on ISS. And that's the stream to get certified for CAPCOM. Well, actually, most flight controller positions now. And then they'll pull you from there into other missions, I guess. But I don't think I'll be on that one just because I'll be so new. But, you know, station's still complicated enough. Like, it's a lot of information to take in sometimes.

especially from some of these really smart engineers that are trying to tell you what the problem is. And I'm like, I would talk to me like I'm five. I would kind of suspect that ISS would be the more complicated like vehicle to figure out from an operation standpoint. There are way more parts. Well, yeah. I mean like like are, you know, not say Orion's like like a tin can or anything, but it's like it's a single purpose kind of vehicle, right? Like it's got it takes you from A to B, it keeps you safe and gets you to the whatever, right? But like, ISS is like it's a whole thing.

It's also not actively falling apart. So there's not like Leaks on Orion and stuff that they're fixing all the time. So yeah, there's a little bit of a difference. I think they're they're using ISS because it's been around for so long. It's like it's a measurable quantity to train somebody on. And once you've got that handled, then you can go off and do all the cool stuff. It's stable. It's, exactly.

It's stable. As long as long as there isn't the new Russian module attached to it, it's very stable. Or even if like you've got, it's a. it's still going around where it's at. So like you've got a little bit of time to figure some stuff out. If it takes five minutes longer than you thought it would,

that's not really that big of a deal. Like we'll figure that out. If something takes you five minutes longer than it should have on Artemis 2, that could be a big deal. There could be a very big deal. So they've taken more of the senior folks and some of the astronauts

to work on the Capcom part for that. But it's super exciting to watch though. I'm very excited to see how they integrate all that stuff. I'm curious to hear. So I'm very interested in this. idea of like having Capcoms that aren't astronauts because like because we'd be good at it is what Jake's getting on. No, but like so there's like it's like one of those I feel like it's one of those gatekeeping things from like the original era where it's like you know I like one of some of the

original idea was like it's like no we have to know nobody talks to the astronauts no one else understands how how incredibly complex and meaningful our astronaut brains are and no one No one can even conceive them unless they're another astronaut too. So that's the only person that can do the job. And now we're past that a little bit. And now it's like, no, like there are lots of smart people in the world. And everyone can figure out problems. And so like we're moving past that, which I think is a really good thing.

But I'm kind of curious to hear like what that actually means in practice, right? Like are there parts of your job or you're like, man, I really wish I was an astronaut so that I could understand that better? Or are there like pluses where it's like, because I'm not an astronaut, like, I can, can provide a perspective here that is actually not just at par, but maybe better or different or some way, right? Yeah, I think maybe not so much like the, well, the astronaut perspective is obviously super important because you are

almost like another crew member, but you're on the ground. So you and the flight director work really closely to make sure what you're passing up to the astronauts in terms of like tone, tenor information makes sense, but it's not too much information because you want to figure out like, what do they need to know right now to give them the context, to give them the warm and fuzzy that their station's fine, whatever's going on, and that we're working on the problem, but we need you to do something. So it's an interesting relationship that you develop, but I like to think that a lot of our catcoms actually are flight controllers or engineers and other disciplines, and then

they come over to the Capcom role. And you see definitely that they have a really, obviously, they have a really good understanding of their previous console position, and they're all really, like, genius engineers. So that's super helpful. But I think where you see differences is in my background coming from like military aviation, you'd be flying around listening to like six or seven or eight different radios at the same time, kind of like bringing in that information while also flying. So there's some things that I'm like listening to a room of people talking and picking out information is relatively easy for me.

But the part where I find it difficult and where I can see why they wanted to retain people initially that were trained specifically for that position like as astronauts was the technical piece. But now, like, we have this almost year-long training plan where you learn a high little technical stuff so you can at least translate it in a way that makes sense or you know the questions or where to go to find some of those answers if you don't understand.

But I think everyone brings their own flavor to it. And so it's a little bit more representative now of, like, how many people are trying to contribute to this program. And it's cool that they let engineers and people like me that I'm not a flight controller and I'm not an astronaut. and I'm also a Canadian. So they're opening up a little bit more so we can have those conversations

in ways that make sense to all of the astronauts on station too. So I think it's cool. Everyone brings their own background to it. My strength, like I said, is listening to all these radios and managing all the conversations, whereas you have flight controllers

that have been engineers for 10 years, their specialty is like, I understand the technical piece and they might have to work a little bit harder to figure out how to listen to all those conversations. But we all bring something different. friend. And I love that they open it up. It's pretty cool. I mean, I imagine it would be like in an emergency situation, having someone like you would probably be a pretty big benefit.

Like I presume based on your background that you're pretty like calm under pressure. I think you're going to have to be. Yeah. You know, and so like the things like that are probably good. Hovered over trees while I'm hooking someone from a tree. Exactly. And what you didn't mention was the helicopter was blowing the trees around a lot. So that didn't seem easy. Yeah. But the thing that is so cool about, and I came here a little bit older than a lot of the engineers that were on my boot camp course, I'm probably like 18 years older than some of these folks, is while maybe they haven't had some of those experiences like, you know, stress under pressure, the amount of time it takes them to get trained to move into that front room to be in actual mission control, they've been trained the entire time in different positions of increasing responsibility and complexity as they move up. So by the time they get to the front room, they're equally as capable of handling situations under stress. And like my training flow is like a year at most, whereas literally every other flight controller position. So whether you're doing, you know, conjunction analysis or managing stations attitude or you're the flight surgeon or whomever, they have, or the Robos, for example, I think is almost a five-year training plan.

So by the time they're front room certified, they've been stress tested in simulations and watching some of them, watching some of them work under pressure. in those integrated simulations where we're all pretending to be the mission control team that day, I'm not worried about it. Those guys are right. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, no, it's a complex job. Like, every time, you know, I obviously I've heard of a Capcom before and I know what it is,

but then, you know, even just talking about this, I was like, man, there's like a lot of stuff. There's a lot of stuff packed into that. Like, that is, I'm just trying to have a good game plan, like, all this. different scenarios that you kind of have to be ready for. And I don't know, is there a perfect person for it or is everyone kind of just filling in a different part of the slice and you depend on the team to fill in the other ones? You know, like it's kind of interesting how that that role maybe even transitioning away from from that sort of, again, that old, old view of one guy can pilot the ship back into, you know, whatever. The Neil Armstrong fixing Gemini

right? Like he did it. The bubble down. Yeah, exactly. I feel like everyone brings, like I said, their own flavor to it and there is, and everyone in that team is bringing something different to it as well. So you cover off the gaps that appear,

which don't happen very often. So it's, they remarked on this actually when I first got here is like how team focused NASA is. Not that I didn't work as a team in a helicopter before, but like they really bring that message home that you you're an engineer, you're on the ground,

you are fulfilling a particular role, but you are supporting human spaceflight, and there are humans on board that station that you're responsible for. So they really drive that home. So it's like, if you have an issue or you don't understand or something's not going right, you immediately reached your team to make sure you're covered off. They don't want you working alone, right? Which is kind of a cool thing. Like they really, really focus on that team aspect and that you're just as much of a part of that mission as everyone else. So. Can you explain the situation in Houston where so you are

part of the Canadian Space Agency right? Or are you part of NASA titular? I don't know like what angle. And then if there's also an ESA person that's doing the same thing and a jacks a person like what's the how does this work? What is what are you coordinating

with these astronauts and have you met Victor Glover? That's my other question. I have I mean Victor I'm in the office So I am essentially Canadian military seconded to the CSA and then NASA created the position. So I have like four different people there. Yeah, a lot of bosses. But my day to day actually is one of them, Victor Glover. This is like a government equipment of a reverse merger spec.

Like it's crazy, which has made some things a little challenging, but for the most part, like we're all trying to do the same thing. But my day to day in the operations office is like making sure that all of the astronauts that aren't assigned specifically to a mission are meeting all of their currency and training requirements for space flight readiness. So are they in the neutral buoyancy lab? Are they doing their EVAs? Are they flying a T-38? Are they doing their Russian classes? Are they doing their field medical training and their biomed and all of this stuff? And so coordinating all of that, and then the folks that are assigned. All the astronauts or just the Canadian ones?

Just the, sorry. It's a lot of astronauts. All of the astronauts that aren't assigned belong to crew ops. Okay. And once you're put onto emission, Yeah, they're owned by a different sort of not owned, but their schedules are managed by a different group of people. Like the mission team or whatever then, right? Yeah, exactly. But you still try to, you still have to integrate all these resources. We all still need the same resources, but they also have the additional burden of, you know, planning mission specific items. So it's a lot of work, but I don't think ESA and Jaxsa have an ops person permanently in the Asheron office proper.

They obviously have their own offices at JSC, but this is the first time I think we've had a non-astronaut in the crew ops office as the operations officer coordinating all this stuff. So my other job technically is, yes, I would also coordinate a couple of things for the Canadian astronauts. But the CSA does a lot of that on their own. I just happen to be another available person to help down here. And is this just, did this come about because it sounded like the Canadian Space Agency wanted to contribute this role? Or like what did NASA say, hey, can we get someone down here to do all this stuff? I'm trying to figure out how this came to be and what the arrangement is. Because it seems pretty cool.

It is super rad. I'm very excited that. I think the initial push actually came from the astronauts themselves saying, like, listen, we think that there's some value. We see what the U.S. military officers can bring here on occasion. When they're brought in to do Capcom, they have short, I think their postings are about two years or so. So they'll work on special projects. There's a bunch of U.S. military people that are contributing really awesome knowledge to programs at JSC.

And I think the Canadians were like, I think we could probably do something similar. So they approached the Air Force, the Air Force and approached the CSA. And then the CSA said, hey, do you guys want another Capcom and another body? And NASA's like, free labor. Let's do it. Because I'm obviously still owned by a Canadian government. That's who I'm paid for. So, I mean, it's a win-win literally for everybody.

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Nice work, everybody. Yeah. If I were to actually follow that paper trail, I'm like, I don't 100% understand how it all works, but I'm just, I'm supportive. We need to be supportive. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Show up in the morning with your first of, but someone's like, when you're like, go to a party and someone's like, you know, what do you do for work? Do you just be like, I work at NASA? Is that you're just going to cut that story down to that point, right? I mean, Anthony, I mean, I first have to go to a party, which I don't go to very often. But yeah, I think it's usually just easier to say, I'm a Canadian and I work for the

CSA and NASA and sometimes the Air Force. And that's usually where I leave it because it's too complicated. Have you heard of anyone in North America that flies things? I probably work for that organization. Exactly. Or I know them, exactly. Can we make the show like very Canadian for a few minutes? I want you to brag about like what does CSA do different?

you know, like what is something that, what is something that, this American-ass space suit on screen real quick. This moonwalking space suit real quick. No, but I'm curious to know, like, what, what the Canadian side of this, the Canadian perspective, the Canadian Space Agency, like what is something that we can provide to NASA that just cannot be fulfilled by a NASA representative or otherwise American representative? I'm really curious to know, like, what's our differentiator from your inside perspective?

Like what is something that like makes it that you know people go I'm really glad that Aaron's Canadian because because because this like what is what is this right? You know like what is the thing that comes out? I think it's the fact that there's just one diehard NHL fan at Nasson Johnson and they're like thank God. No, it's not it's not even that. It's not even that. It comes back to snacks. I think it's because I bring maple cookies to the office every time I come back. I think that's what it is.

They wanted a conduit for like snacks they can't get in America. Yeah. Some kind of president's choice for that brand or something like. that. The one pipeline didn't work out, but this snack pipeline really did. This is the one that's the one that worked out. Exactly. I mean, I think the big ones are obviously like we offer robotics and we have and we kind of like to say you didn't have station without the arm, right? So we're still knocking that out of the park. I think it's a big thing. And I think the reputation that we built with that just opened up an opportunity that people were comfortable with the fact that

If the Canadians want to bring someone down here, they're probably going to be pretty decent. So let's give this a try. And that's just how it is. The Canadians that are here, the three astronauts are here full-time, are fully integrated. They live here. So they contribute so much to the office. And when David visits for his requirements quarterly as well, he dives right back in as well. Not that the other astronauts from other agencies don't, but the Canadians are here full-time.

and they're here all the time offering whatever they can do to help. So I think that just built a really good relationship with the folks down here. So if Canada wants to bring people, they just kind of let us bring people and it's amazing. And maple cookies. As the American on the show, I support this entirely. I'm clearly open to any and all collaboration with Canadians. Yeah. Just generally.

Yeah. Yeah. Huh. That's interesting. That's cool. I mean, I'm proud of you. I'm proud of like, you know, the fact that we have, we have this, this, this job and that you angled into it.

Because I think it's really cool for us as a country. I'm stoked that it's, that it's there. Yeah, I'm pretty happy. And there's our weird little illuminati of space over in the Discord. Like, that's the real situation in there. So that's right. I don't want to plug that real quick. I should pop in and say hello because you guys were pretty important.

making sure I got there. So thank you very much Discord. Appreciate you. Yeah. We just kept you company while you're waiting to fill up your helicopter. I haven't quite drawn the line about what role we played in that. You keep saying that, but I was like, wow, okay. Sounds like a you think. You were the one highlighting the textbook in the back of the helicopter, probably under fire in my imagination. There's like, no, no, not under fire. I love your view of helicopters, Jake. I just, You're like, it's as if I flew back in time and tried to explain airplanes to somebody, like from the 1700s. Orby flew back in time and tried to explain helicopters.

Helicopters, yeah, yeah. I mean, like Leonardo Jordan, you know, so that was around. There was some source material there. Yeah, no, it's a weird thing. I don't get it. Where are you on rotorcraft generally, Aaron? What's your vibes on the space helicopters of the day? the Marsnep return ones maybe are out now but you know

I have a lot of space for ingenuity I think that thing is rad I want more of them I was following its little logbook there for a while I'm all about that and I also love that it was relatively inexpensive to come up with and a great way to explore the surface so I'm all about rotorcraft obviously how much does a real helicopter cost Is it a $3.35 billion? Yeah, it really depends on what you want.

What is the one that you flew? Going to the unit pricing of the Griffin? Let's see. Yeah, I want to know. Do you want the upgraded version? Yeah, I think Wikipedia said like 8 million per unit or something like that. Let's see. Eight million?

I don't know. Something. Is that on Wikipedia, I think the unit cost. That sounds cheap to me. And like now we're learning that Injuity was way more expensive than a real helicopter. What was your? I think intonuity was 80 million. Yeah, but he had to ship it.

You had to ship it to Mars. That's different, right? Is that what the bus is leaving anyway? What's the marginal shipment cost on that, really? Yeah, you'd have to look up the cost of a Griffin, but I had my idea. My Googling is, so. That's just failing me here. Let's see.

I find a lot of like stainment and modernization pricing on this bad boy, but. And you can't go by the Canadian government procurement runs because we're just not good at procuring aircraft. You have to look for different figures if you want to do that. Next question, please. Again, we're talking to an American here. If anyone knows, how to procure aircraft on an extreme scale. It's complicated. See the time when all 20 B2 bombers took off and we were supposed to have like 300 or whatever.

I don't know. We're supposed to buy a lot of those. unrelated. I've been watching Masters of the Air, and I just have a strong recommendation for that, because B-17s are just heroin to me. And there was a lot of them. Turns out that one, we were really good at procuring those back in the day.

Well, you had to be, right? But that was a, that's a really good show. I enjoyed that. It's a great show. Yeah, yeah. Big, big shout out. What's the good helicopter show? Oh, gosh, I don't even know.

Is there good helicopter content out there? Air Wolf? I mean, no. No. Not Aero Wolf. I actually don't know. I don't watch a lot of helicopter. Why isn't there no helicopter content?

I don't know. I think people just don't know how cool they are. We're just keeping it secret, you know, within the community only. The movie about the finding bin Laden, the Zero Dark 30, has some pretty cool helicopter content. The stealth helicopter is like. Not sure those are real. I don't know if they're real either, but it was still cool content. It's pretty neat for sure.

Yeah, it looked like someone saw a, uh, nighthawk and said, we should make a helicopter that looks like that. Wait, they made up, well, because there was one that like crashed during that, right? Or they like, they blew it up because they couldn't fly it out or something. And there was like the tail left behind. I saw a picture of that at some point. Maybe it's real, but no one actually knows what it looks like. So they had to like pick some creative license.

I don't know. I don't know what it is. But yeah. Yeah, the spy planes get all of the hype. But like there's probably some crazy looking helicopters out there. Yeah, there probably is. Erin knows. She can't tell us.

Yeah, she's not telling us, but she knows. When I was a kid, I played. this video game a helicopter like simulator. I think it was called maybe Comanche or something like that or Apache one of the I remember playing that and thinking like this was like the coolest like flight simulator game

because my dad was into the airplanes and stuff and we had all these different flight simulator games and I remember playing that one like it was it was different. I was not afraid of that helicopter again I was a kid so. Yeah you got a weird I think it's I'm going to age myself here but Star Fox Star Fox hell yeah. Yeah I really enjoyed that. That's not that long ago.

Not helicopters, but Star Fox does red. Still a lot of spinning in Star Fox. Just different kind of. Yeah, right? Exactly. I might go fire that up tonight. That was a great game. That was a game.

I had another thing that was coming my head, but I forgot it at this point, Jake. It's gone. It's gone forever now. It's gone. Oh, I was going to ask you have, have you flown any astronauts in your helicopter? No, excuse me. Not yet. Maybe one game.

Who would you fly in your helicopter if you could take some of them? Are any astronauts afraid of helicopters? That's what I need to know. Great question. No, I've not flown any astronauts in a helicopter. I'd like to, though. We'll see. Maybe one day if we ever go to an helicopter at Ellington Field.

I was going to say your assignment is to fly all the astronauts as many as you can and find out which one is afraid of helicopters like Jake is. And then figure out like why they are okay with flying. line on a rocket. I was one of this. This is the thing I've wondered about astronauts being scared of things and things that normal people are scared of that

astronauts do a lot. So like, when you get up into zero G, right, theoretically, that feels the same as riding on a roller coaster. You just don't have any of the other sensations of the roller coaster, which is like incredible relative speed based on what's around you,

the visceral nature of almost hitting the ground every time you're flying down. And everyone's terrified of that. Even if you like roller coasters, you're like, ah, you yell a bit, right? But why does nobody have that when they get up into zero-g for the first time? Why is it so different? Just constantly screaming in the headset. But is it purely the relative nature of that like everything else is also? So your mind is like, I'm floating versus I'm plummeting to the ground? You know, that's a good question. I've not asked, but I don't know how they manage to not be freaked out all the time. I think some of them say it's like

It's nerve-wracking, but they've done so much training to get to that point that I think by the time they're able to do. What about all the people on New Shepherd who didn't, you know? Like, I'm just saying, if you took someone who's terrified of a roller coaster, of like drops on a rollercoaster, me when I was younger, for sure, right? And put them on a new shepherd. Would they also feel the same way during the zero-g portion? I don't know. This is the thing I've always wondered about it in my life.

I think this is an experiment you should approach Blue Origin with. Yeah. Find six people terrified of roller coasters and convince them to go on a space ride. Like, what happens? In terms of psychological assessment of some guy. I will start up a proposal for a study and I'll see if I can get some funding. It sounds like it would cost. Yeah, yeah, shout out.

If you're listening, this sounds like it would cost between $6 and $20 million. I don't know what the flight rates are these days, but it does sound like it would probably be on that order. Less than ingenuity. Less than ingenuity. About as much as a Griffin and ingenuity, yes. Somewhere between a Griffin and ingenuity. Exactly. I just want to know.

So, all right, Erin, can you just ask around some of the astronauts, find out who, take a poll, who was afraid of roller coasters? Why does it feel so different? Because it's clearly not, like, what I'm trying to get at is that everyone thinks it's the feeling in your stomach when you're on a roller coaster that makes you yell. And my theory is it's everything else. It's the fact that you're flying towards the ground and you're in a metal thing that you can see how fast you're going

because space is 0-G is just like only the stomach thing and nothing else. So this is my thesis. Let me know. Find the astronauts that were weird about roller coasters but have been to the ISS. And I'll put that in work right now. Yeah.

At everyone in Slack real quick. Please have it in by the end of the week. Yeah. Yes, sir. Excellent. Okay. Cool. Great.

Well, this has been awesome. Aaron, this, I had fun. This is great. Well, thank you guys. I learned a lot about helicopters. Still terrifying. Still terrifying. Still scary, but I know more about the care.

If I ever take you up, we'll try a simulated auto rotation. How about that? It's a very good roller coaster analogy as well if you're interested in doing some analog studies. I did one. Not fun. I kind of enjoyed it. I thought it was kind of interesting. Yeah.

It's like when you think about it, I'm like, I'm practicing this in case I lose both my engines and that would be a really bad day. So it's like I'll do them, but only because I have to learn to make sure. Don't like that. Or I run out of gas. It could be also like that. It's the gas tank thing, Jake. This conversation is over. Jake's Fear Factor is this episode.

Exactly. Yeah. Aaron, I doubt you have anything that you can publicly plug and for people to come follow you at. NASA Johnson, but what should they go check out if they're interested in helicopters or or Aaron in particular? I guess LinkedIn, not the coolest one. I was the link I provided. Yeah.

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, at least there was one person in the Discord who thought we were having Aaron Andrews on the show today, which is different. That's a different thing. Yeah. Yeah. So no football talk today. Yeah, exactly.

I do appreciate you guys reaching out because it's a long overdue catch up on what's been going on for sure. And yeah, it's great. We have to give us a small shout out to your brother too, though, because we'd already had you on a list and then he messaged me at some point. It was just like, why don't you have Aaron on you? And I was like, I'm good to go. Yeah, my brother, Brad is one of my most favorite humans on this plan.

He's a great big brother for sure. Yeah, and he's an Aaron booster. So it's good. Anthony, what do we got going on next week? Am I correct in that this week was all about helicopters? Next week is all about rocket bikes. Rocket bikes. Rocket bikes. We have got Peter Beck on the show finally.

It's been long overdue as well that Peter Beck will be joining us. So we'll be straddling the dateline there. I think he's going to be waking up with four shots of espresso. So we'll see. I think it's an 8 a. New Zealand time that we're that we're doing. Something like that, yeah. It's really far enough in the time zones that it just doesn't make any sense anymore.

No one knows what day it is. But this is the time of the year where we can have Australians and New Zealanders on because it's the regular time and it's still a reasonable hour for them or for us. So when the time zones shift a little or daylight saving shifts a little, it's not as good. So that should be happening. It's going to be great. Rocket bikes. That sounds rad.

Rocket bikes. Yeah, we got some Ashley Vance follow-up there. We do, yeah. All right. All right. Well, thanks again, Aaron. Thanks, everybody for hanging out with us today. See you later.

And if you come back and tell me that Victor Glover is scared of roller coasters, I'm going to be very disappointed. So please don't shatter my dreams in this way. I don't think he's afraid of anything, that guy.