Off-Nominal - 151 - CanadLeg

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

Jake and Anthony are joined by Eric Berger, Senior Space Editor at Ars Technica, to figure out what’s up with the Orion heat shield, SLS layoffs, commercial Mars studies, and the ISS deorbit vehicle.TopicsOff-Nominal - YouTubeEpisode 151 - CanadLeg (with Eric Berger) - YouTubeNASA's Readiness for the Artemis II Crewed Mission to Lunar Orbit - NASA OIGNASA seems unhappy to be questioned about its Artemis II readiness | Ars TechnicaAmid schedule uncertainty, Boeing will shed workers on SLS rocket program | Ars TechnicaNASA may alter Artemis III to have Starship and Orion dock in low-Earth orbit | Ars TechnicaWe got a leaked look at NASA’s future Moon missions—and likely delays | Ars TechnicaIf Starship is real, we’re going to need big cargo movers on the Moon and Mars | Ars TechnicaAn Overview of the Budget Proposal for NASA for Fiscal Year 2025 - YouTubeNelson lobbies Congress to fund ISS deorbit vehicle in supplemental spending bill - SpaceNewsFollow EricEric Berger | Ars TechnicaEric Berger (@SciGuySpace) / XFollow 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

TOS and go for main engine, start. Hello, everybody. Welcome, welcome. We have Eric Berger with us today. Eric, you look startingly different than Peter Beck, but you are maybe a better guest for what's going on this week. So we're excited to have you come and fill in and help us out because we had a last meeting a cancellation. We had to cut them from this show and move them.

Exactly. Give you another month. Yeah. We emailed the Rocket Lab PR and said, look, Look, we can't have Peter on today. There are more important things to talk about. And that's where we are. So, Eric, thanks for coming on today.

We appreciate it. It's my pleasure. Happy to be here. Yeah. We got lots to talk about, Anthony. There's all kinds of stuff. There's so many things. I put a giant rundown together that hilariously includes topics.

We're never going to get to any chance. Yeah, I know. We have this problem all the time where we like make a list for a guest. So like here's five things we want to talk about. And every time we look back and go, there was space for one of those things. And every time we still make a list of five things. So we'll see how many we can get through today. I think we're going to go out on Eric doing his best MKBHD on driving this rover around a parking lot.

So I think so. We're going to save that because Jake's got to get some OIG things off his chest. Jake has a whole new. He's, Eric, you're normally the Artemis re-manifesting guy, but I think Jake's got a whole other theory. today. In our ongoing series, taking down NASA Johnson. This is yet another installment, I think. So I'm excited for it. Yeah, yeah. It's dark. I'm not in a good place today, so we'll see how this goes. Anyway, we should start with drinks, but also I want to just comment on her blue origin shirt.

Yeah, we got to show that off a little bit there. I know things are looking up because it's this one. It's not the other Blue Origin shirts that we bought off the weird shop of I sight. It's this legit one from the real merch shop. This is the year of Blue Origin, right? I mean, they're going to launch New Glenn and making progress on their lander. They're building a crew spacecraft. I mean, lots of stuff's happening. And they're getting a study to go to Mars.

Two. Two studies. Yeah, two projects. We got that. All right, what's everybody drinking? Eric, you want to start? Absolutely, yeah. So I have a UFO white beer.

It's a Belgian white beer. My dogs are very excited about something. Sorry about that. But I just found an H-EB here in Houston, and it's excellent. So I'm enjoying it. I lo-key love H-EB. That is a fantastic grocery store. It is, yeah, absolutely.

Every time that I went to Houston for the planetary science conference that I was like, I'd like, that's my, my ritual was like, arrive on the Sunday, go to like the Airbnb or whatever, settle in, go to HGB and get like the week's groceries to get me through the conference. I always just get these like little, they had these spicy, like, jalapeno Monterey Jack's cubes of cheese that I'd buy in like a little bit in like a little bit in like a whole bunch of like crackers and I would just like munch on those for the week. That's the best. In a big bin. In a big bin. I have like very positive associations with HB. You love that storm.

That's like the that's like that's like that hotcy-tazzi Texas one right? Like that's the Wegmans of Texas and or the Publix. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. Farian is. Wegmans is one I understood. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You know about Publix.

Come on. I do. But I know Wegmans better. As you should. Anyway, I've got an of Colch. I still love you. I'm on my last of the Star Base beers, Jake. Of Colch, I still love you.

Nice. And I don't know. I bet Eric didn't see last week we got a sponsorship from these puffin coosies. Look at this thing. Oh, that's awesome, man. I love that. Well, if the box that I'm going to send to Jake gets rejected at the border, I'll just have them send it over to you. Quick reroute.

We'll see. We'll see. What do you got, Jake? Do you make something weird colored again this week? Well, I got, so I've started already. This is how bad the OIG report is, is that I cracked this open during the pre-show. but I went and got, I haven't had a Jake-sized beer in a while, but check this out. This is like whatever the Latin American equivalent of the Jake-sized beers, it's this funky,

like wine-shaped bottle. But this is, I don't know, it's Chilean. So it's Cervesa Fuerte, madruada con roblei-American, aged in oak, American oak. And there's like, you know, all those fancy spices you put in this kind of beer, it's like kind of dark and you put a little bit of cloves and cinnamon and stuff in it. I'll be honest. It kind of looks like they intended to be a winery and Hopps showed up instead of grapes. And they were like, I guess we'll just go for it.

And around here, man, that's what you do. You just kind of go with the flow and work with what God gave you, right? I've got some oak trees in my backyard. Should I just go put like a six pack of Bud Light in there and then come back like a year later and it's... Aged. I think that will do literally the exact same thing. I think there's no way that can go wrong. Dogs will also love that.

the dog is well love that. All right, we've got 8,000 angles on this SLS Orion stuff since we talked last. I actually don't know what the right way is. So we've got your reports from however the hell long ago was that workforce may be shifting on SLS. Also, your report from forever ago about Artemis Manifest, Artemis 2.5 being a thing. Pop it back up there. Which seems like we're revisiting that whole thing again with maybe we should do.

in a different Artemis 3 and then the OIG report that had at least three parts that are actually hilarious to read about and maybe we could run down some of those. Can I just start with St.Lay, so looking back to the original Artemis, what we call it, Artemis 2.5 or whatever, the pop it back up there episode. It's pretty wild that when we had you on Eric to talk about that, There was like, you know, that was when it was like, here are some potential changes. Yeah, pop it back up there. Some changes that could be coming.

And if we look at this now, almost, I think all of them now are either, like, that's the best case scenario. Like, none of these are on schedule. Like, I think they're all off now at this point, aren't they? They're all off because Artemis II is still fiscal year 2024 here. Yeah. I guess it is still fairly. 24. Yeah.

I forget when it's. The year 2024 ends. next September No, this September. Oh, this September. Yeah, yeah. September 30, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So if they happen to launch Yeah. If we happen to launch Artemis 2, like, what is it scheduled now? Is it November next year? Is that the September?

September. I think it's still happen. I guess that's the content or the cadence one. Yes. If there are zero more delays, then we, we, We may make the cadence and the content ones just barely. Well, there's no way Artinus 3 happens, right, with that schedule.

No, no. It's wild. So, yeah, I wanted to bring that up at least. NASA is super sensitive about this stuff. I have found increasingly because there's a lot of congressional pressure. They're obviously worried about budget cuts. And it's just like they do not want to talk about it. They're not real happy with me right now for talking.

about it. And quite frankly, you know, the seat shield stuff, I, I do think it's possible that Artemis II gets redesigned to accommodate some of the seat shield concerns. They're not going to really go into how that, I think that could happen. But, you know, there is pressure to fly. And those pictures are not, it's pretty glaring. And I'll tell you, as a reporter, it's pretty upsetting that 18 months after the flight, we had never seen those. photos. I mean, they're, it's too strong to say they're hiding something, but the photos speak for themselves, and they don't want that out there. But it's pretty, it's not good. It's not a good look. Put it the other way, right? If one of the commercial crew or cargo companies had these picks and didn't

release them for 18 months and then it came out, they would be eviscerated. I mean, there's, people still will bring up, I think, what, the first approach in landing test that Dreamchaser had that like tumbled off the runway because it broke a landing gear and it's like we've never seen these pictures we only see pictures of dice hanging at it clearly not a right angle so like this would have been I would have hit the hot drama button for the first time of the year if dragon came back from demo demo one or demo two with that picture I mean you'd be like it would be insane but like federal investigation the whole thing people quitting Twitter yeah and I mean something that really hasn't come up but I think is germane is that we are now on literally the Twitter

20th anniversary of program start for the Orion spacecraft. Like literally it is 20 years old. I mean, this ought to be a solved problem. Right. Not just that, like Eric, like 20 years from program to start, but also it's going to be 10 years from its first spaceflight. And at best, we will just then be determining if the heat shield works. Yeah.

And that's true. You know, they if you won in, I think it was November 2014, really was kind of a stunt because, again, they were feeling some pressure to fly. That was really a boilerplate spacecraft that wasn't simulating lunar return velocities. So, but I agree. I mean, it's like, it's like, come on, let's, this is hard, but you've had 20 years, you know? Yeah, not just 20 years, but like a billion dollars a year. Yeah. It's real long. Yeah. And the other thing I've been like thinking about a lot too is that like, so, you know, for a while there, SLS was taken all the heat for delays, right? Like the original launch 2017 pushed back, push back, push back. They gained five years where, five years where SLS drove the schedule out, five years where Orion was funded. Like they got their annual funding in those five years, you know. It's not like they just got paused. Oh, you're ready. We'll put you in a bin and save the money for five years. No, like they got funded for those five years. And they got funded for those five years. years and still somehow now they're they're pushing the you know now they're the long pole

item is like kind of it's kind of disappointing right for for what it's been doing so it is dark man it's dark can i read you my favorite part of this oig report that's my favorite sentence in this in the history of oig report lines pop it up there i'll pop it up here because it's it is absolutely fantastic uh it's this section titled elevators uh which says According to an agency official, going into Artemis 1 mission, it was not known that the elevator, quote, blast doors were not in fact blast doors, but rather fiberglass doors designed to keep wind out. Which, thinking about how this line, like the history of this line here, right, at some point somebody referred to these doors as blast doors, whether or not that's because they thought they were or because they just referred to them that way. and someone else copied down, oh, the blast doors that are in place. And then everyone assumed that those were blast doors.

And then found out no one had ever ordered blast doors. Like it was like they found the other blast doors around. And they were like, oh, shit, we never to put these in. They just aren't blast doors. That's what happens when you spend 15 years building the ground support equipment, right, and modifying the lunch tower. It's like we have people come in and then people go. and it just could get turnover.

Yeah. Yeah, the people that approve those blastors are gone. They're not a member of the team anymore. But I mean, I really don't care that NASA budgeted $5 million for Pad Referb, but it's $25 million. I mean, it's not a big deal. It's a small price to pay. And I got to admit, it's a pretty awesome rocket to sit out there in a hurricane and like a little hurricane and then fly, like days later.

I'm pretty out about that, honestly. That was a really strong move by that rocket. I mean, I gave him quite a bit for that. But, you know, maybe it doesn't flex. I don't know. Yeah. Well, I mean, so the, oh, you're right, like, whatever, the blast door is, like, really not, not a big deal. It's a really funny.

It's a bit we would have done on this show as, like, a comedic bit entirely. Right. But it's funny, though, because, like, this is not funny, actually. So I actually don't think that's the funniest part. I thought there was funnier ones even like on the less headline making ones because like there's the bit the bit about the cameras blows my mind that this happened. Right. So let's, you know, the launch at night.

I think it's already like not being covered right because they're saying like, oh, it launched at night. And so it wasn't it wasn't good enough data to learn about the things they need to learn about when you're filming it. But if you read through it, no, the cameras would have worked fine. but they forgot to turn them to night mode, basically. They forgot to change the exposure settings. Or rather, they did remember, but they didn't check that it actually worked, and it didn't.

So they have, like, if I'm piecing all this together, right? So you have like the, there's the DSN problem with the hard drives that were dead for a year and nobody knew about. There's the parachutes sank. There's the cameras weren't set on night mode. There's the Orion Shield is still not working, right? Like, all these things adding up. This is where I'm, like, very concerned because it's like no one thing is like a really big deal, but altogether, like, has me really, I'm concerned.

Like, I just like, I don't know how all of this can all happen at the same time and the same program. Is it like, are we just getting more visibility? And so it seems like more, like, are there this many, like, big problems like this at every, you know, organization that we don't have visibility into? Or is this remarkable? That's like the thing I'm thinking about a lot, right? I mean, I do think that they're, look, these are extremely complex systems.

They're trying to integrate the rocket, all these complicated ground systems, spacecraft and upper stage, and they were doing it for the first time. So I think they did find a lot of things. And that's really, it is what a test flight is supposed to find. And so I don't really have a problem with all that stuff because I think that just happens when you shake out a new system. And, you know, I am glad that they actually finally flew it, right, to get that data. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I am more concerned about the insight we've had to the heat shield. Because I distinctly remember when it came back, you know, they described it as a perfect flight and they had some minor issues. But the heat shield, they sort of talked about, said, we're going to find the root cause. But here we are 18 months later, and there was some found the root cause. And my sources have told me that it's really pretty serious to the point where they are considering really what to do with Artemis II. So I'm glad this report came out because it certainly gave some visibility to an issue that NASA has been working on. But they have been, they have not been transparent about this. And that's concerning because four astronauts are supposed to get this vehicle, fly around the moon and then come back.

And chances are it will be fine, right? I mean, it's a robust heat shield. The spacecraft survived Artemis 1, so why wouldn't it survive Artemis 2? And I don't think NASA people are inherently evil, right? Engineers are generally good people who want to do the right thing. But you do worry about things like the normalization of deviance, and you do wonder why they just really haven't shared that much information about this problem. Yeah, yeah.

And then the call out by Kathy to, you know, we already knew about these problems. like this is redundant, this is a wasteful report, you just got in the way. It's like, it's so out of touch. Because it's like, yeah, well, we didn't have these photos. And just like, to your point, 18 months later that we haven't seen these is like pretty wild. And so the point is to do this report, the point is to keep journalists up to date with, you know, what's actually happening. So they can ask questions and get deeper and to hold NASA accountable to actually fixing it. Right.

Because if they haven't shown us the photo for 18 months, then like what else would they not have showed us if we hadn't had the OIG report, right? Like it's a little scary. It's little. Yeah, I mean, there's almost been no media availability with Catherine Kerner, Jim Frey, Mike Seraffin, other sort of other really key officials that could talk about this problem.

It's just the media has kind of been kept at arm's length about that. And like, as a reporter, you cannot really dial up NASS and say, hey, can I get an interview with Kathy Kerner? It just doesn't happen. I tried to do it for the Artemis 3 story I did a couple weeks ago.

and, you know, I just got a blank statement. So, I mean, they're in a difficult spot, but they really should be doing a better job of communicating, I think, what's going on. Yeah, yeah. So if they're considering, much to Bill Nelson's rejection on his Joe Rogan-length congressional appearance from this week, he really held court for three hours through inane questions. That was a... If nothing was a test of stamina

that they're reconsidering or considering alternative Artemis 3s and also considering alternative Artemis 2s, I mean, really, the only option is not going to lunar speeds on the heat shield, or like figuring out a way to slow back down

in Earth orbit, but good luck with that Delta V. Yeah. There's weird stuff there where, like, my one fear with all these remanifestings, and where I think that they should, I could feel resistance to do it because they've made crew announcements and big, you know, like pronunciations of, this is going to be the first, all the superlatives, right? The first this to do that, the first thing that's going to go to a place that hasn't been since Apollo,

all of that gets rewritten. So do you, like, disband that crew? and pick a new crew for Leo-based Artemis 2? Let me just be clear. I do think Artemis 2 will fly as it currently is manifested. I think NASA will get there and understand the problem to the extent where they can sort of talk themselves into understanding the cause of this and how to fix it if it needs to be fixed.

I'm much more confident that there are likely to be changes to Artemis 3. But then again, if this heat shield pushes Artemis 2 out a couple years, maybe that's not necessary. So it's all in flux. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Armist 31 confuses me, though, because you think about, you know, you're talking about your story here that they're looking or thinking about having Starchem of Ryan Doc and Leo as like an Apollo 9 style. mission when like not to be the guy that's on Twitter all the time but like you could do this mission with a dragon and not waste your Orion's light like the concept is can crew go into

Starship and poke around with it and can Starship dock with a thing I think the concept is parts I really disagree with that because I think the point is to prove that Orion can dock with Starship right that is that is the risk and you'd rather be that close to to home, then far from home. And then it's not an Artemis mission at this point if you're not using Orion and SL. Well, I guess that's me misidentifying which part people are thinking is the part they want to test. Like doing the test crew getting into Starship and give the vehicle a shakedown, or are you not actually worried about the Starship part? In which case? Well, I think in that scenario, though, wasn't Starship going to be the passive target? Like Orion

was doing the docking, right? Yes, I believe so. Yeah, so if you do that with dragging, you're not really like, you don't even need the starship at that point. I thought it was the other way. No, I think Orion's doing the active part, right? Should have flown at the ISS, I guess. So if you listen to Nelson, what Nelson said to Representative Frank Lucas

when he asked about my article, which was a shock to sort of sit there and hear that as the first question coming out from Congress, he did not deny it, right? He just said, this is the plan. Of course it's the plan, right? But I am 100% certain that NASA has asked SpaceX to go and do a detailed study on Leo docking with Orion and Starship for Artemis 3. So, like, I mean, like I said, I don't know what will happen, but I think NASA is concerned about cadence of these missions. I think they should be right to be concerned about cadence and issues.

And that concept really kind of hits a sweet spot of buying down some of the risk for a lunar landing, saving the ICPS for the actual lunar landing. And then, you know, it's, you get to fly an Artemis mission before 2020 or 2029. Yeah. I feel like they got themselves in a bit of a trouble with that cadence bit, right? Because it's like once, once Artemis 1 happens, then it's like all of a sudden the expectations ramp up. It's like, well, it's ready now. The rocket's flown or Ryan's flown. Let's go.

Like every year we should have a flight at this point, right? But pretty clearly they had to fly it because they had to find out if the rocket work, which it did. Which was awesome. They had to find out, and if the spacecraft worked and it did, but there are issues. And it's clearly going to take some time to correct that. I mean, I'm young enough to remember when the pacing issue for Artemis 2 was the boxes, the avionics boxes, they had to pull from Orion.

And they nailed those. Did you read that in the report? Yes, I did. That was awesome. That's way faster than intended. They're just like, they're just like knock on the way faster than expected. They're all done. Like they're in there.

They're ready to go. They're done. We looked at them. They're fine. They're installed. It's good. No problem. Like February last year, they were in there.

They were like in a riot ready to go. That's like the biggest turnaround in this story. I just feel like there was a project matter at Lockheed that's like, nailed that one. Like, we look pretty good. We look pretty good today. This has to like make you ask questions, though, right? Okay, so we've got this heat shield thing where they're like very clearly not communicating it and like doing a poor job of being transparent. And yet they have this super clear win like that nobody knew about.

Like they are the avionics thing was in Orion a year ago. They never want to talk about the boxers though because that was kind of embarrassing, right? But they could have bragged about how it wasn't actually a problem. It's like, look, yeah, you all said me and you in particular. We told you so. That's what they could have done, Eric. There are email threads they could have replied to, to it, probably all three of us that said, like, yeah, we told you about this. This is what we meant.

So, yeah, hilarious. They should have been bragging about that. There should have been a huge, on the Artemis blog, there should have been a great post. Like how the, how the electromagnetic testing was like all done as soon as all this other news came out. They were like pushing that out. They could have like deployed the avionics boxes as like, you know, counter, counter PR. So fast and they never did. You did mention Bill Nelson in Congress.

I just made me think of a thing that we never brought up in the show, Jake, and it feels right to bring it up with Eric, who's been the one Bill Nelson defender that's come on this show time and time again and stood up with our berating of this. I'm pretty sure, not this hearing, the one before this a couple weeks ago, that he committed perjury in Congress. when they asked why the Chinese are landing on the far side of the moon and he told them that it's always dark and that we don't know why they're landing on the far side of the moon that was a legitimate conversation he had in Congress so I do just want to say like you know

this is the whole thing whenever it says like oh you could find one felony a day this was his lying about the backside of the moon so I'll dig that clip up because it's an epic one yeah that was funny I saw some like Chinese people on Twitter making fun of him about that. What point in Twitter are you on? And I was like,

I was like, are you guys serious? Like, at least we're having public discussions about our space program. Like, what's happening? It's like, you know, this is democracy. And anyway, I mean, look, Nelson is what he is. I think he's, I think he's done a fine job

as administrator of NASA. and I hope Pam Monroe follows him and does a great job as well. But, you know, he's older and, you know, you're going to slip up. I mean, I slip up when I speak publicly all the time. I'm pretty sure he knows that the backside of the moon is not dark all the time, and he's just going for it. And if he doesn't, that's a major concern that I have. So, yeah.

I mean, I learned that by listening to Pink Floyd about the far side of it. I will say that he fended off some stupid questions in this most recent hearing really well when everyone just circles through, sits down, asks a couple questions about how their astronauts, the astronaut that's key to the whole thing, and then they leave, and occasionally they'll do like a wide shot on those hearings, and there's no one in the room. There's just like the one person talking to him. Like this whole thing is embarrassing, but he knows the deal. He knows what he's there for.

We can thank Newt Gingrich for that one, right? I mean, he's in his element in Congress. Yeah, he loves that. Yeah, he does. He does fine. Generally, he does a good job. He did low-key roll out some crazy news to me on that hearing, which is that the de-orbit vehicle for the ISS is now a $1.5 billion program, which I will remind everyone is only

$1.4 billion less than the entire Starship Lunar Lander contract that NASA is paying. So why is it, do some math real quick. and tell me how you get to $1.5 billion? I think it's obviously that they're prioritizing giving it to a legacy contractor. That's the only answer. Do you think that actually happens in NASA? They're like, okay, we've got a contract to do a lot.

What's it worth? Is it well, are we going to give this to an old company or a new company and then they change the price based on it? No, I don't want to accuse them of, you know, there's your one felony. Oh, now we're not going to conspiracy. eyes about NASA Johnson. I mean, I necessarily haven't been following that issue too closely, Anthony.

That's, I had missed that number, which is shocking to me. It used to be below a billion, just shy of a billion. And now it's $1.5 billion. So let's, let's do some quick pencil math, back of the napkin math here. You assume this will be launched on a Falcon Heavy or Vulcan, because it's going to be a giant thing with a lot of propellant to take the ISS wherever it needs to go. That's like $1 to $300 million, depending on who, competes and how competitive it is.

The vehicle itself, I think there's two options. One is like, I don't even think Cygnus makes sense because you don't need like the rest of Cygnus. You just need like a bunch of fuel and a little Cygnus bus. So maybe a really chonkified commercial satellite bus, like a MaxR thing, would make more sense. Just a Centaur with a Cygnus upside down on it. So that you can like, yeah, so you can, I don't know, Centaur can get it there. And Cygnus can, I don't know, I'm making stuff up.

I like this. But I feel like I've seen something like that before. Probably. There's got to be a PowerPoint with that somewhere. It might be is the like the old school wet workshop nanorax thing. Oh, love it. Love it. So maybe we bring that back out.

All right. So there's that vehicle. I'm still like $800 million short on what this would cost, which we can only chalk up to $800 million to prove that you're not going to land this on a piece of land somewhere. That's a lot of mission assurance. Yeah. I think that's the whole thing, right?

Probably. You have to prove it to every country within 51 degrees inclination that we swear we won't land this on you. That's a giant program. We can't figure out how to pay for any of this Artemis stuff.

And also we have a $1.5 billion that needs to be spent. Yeah. I need to go look at that. That's great. Yeah. It's like, you know, on one hand, I'm like mad about that number, but also, you know, because Bill was like, we have to do this because we don't know what Vladimir Putin's going to do. And in that case, I'm just like, you're 100% correct. Like, I think it is very prudent to have a, like, an escape hatch for the ISS right now. I think it's like very smart to have that all lined up and ready to go and like have a clear plan in place for. when the doomsday comes for that program. But I hate, Jake, I hate that this is the only thing that they're using that political

line for. This has been my bugaboo the whole time. You have the best opportunity to get all sorts of money for commercial space stations or even extensions of the ISS. Fund a thing that does all the jobs that the Russian half does right now. You have so much opportunity for that, but they're in a situation because of all the other programs that they literally can't take advantage of that political scenario. And that drives me nuts.

Yeah. I mean, I think one positive about our funding at the orbit mission is that you do get NASA closer to declaring an end date for the ISS, right? Totally. Yeah. If you decide you want to fly it to 2040, like Boeing would love to do, then make that decision. But if you're really going to deorbit it in 2030,

then make that 100% clear. Because these commercial space station companies, as you mentioned, Anthony, are all struggling right now. and if there was the most important thing NASA could do outside of like you know awarding more funding would be to set a certain end date for ISS because that would really help them go to investors and say hey look there really is going to be a need in six years for this look NASA just said this I think there's there's just enough ambiguity right now about the future

the ISS that it makes it difficult for those commercial companies yep does this all sink into, we'll go to the next Eric Berger story as on the rundown, which was the Boeing, was this like an all-hands meeting that you were privy to where they said they're going to be cutting the workforce back because of NASA budgets changing, which I feel like the bearing the lead part there is NASA is talking about dropping the SLS funding in the out years of the budget requests. So. Right. So, I mean, everyone kind of knew that once SLS started flying, like you didn't need all of these billions and billions of dollars of development costs, right?

I mean, it should come down, right? The cost should come down. I never really expected to see it in my lifetime, given that sort of the main reason the SLS was great was to spend this money on shuttle contractors. But NASA basically did tell Boeing that, look, we don't need an SLS every year for the next few years, we have these delays to Artemis 2 and Arndus 3. And my understanding is that they said, you know, we can either skip a year of funding or we can spread it out over an extra year.

And Boeing's response was just let's spread it out over another year. And so then they had to go and make these cuts to the SLS program, which are pretty substantial, I think, not like 5%, you know, more like 10, 20% or more of the workforce. Yeah. I'm like, I'm really concerned about this in a way that. So we talked about how Orion, you know, was not the long pole item for a long time. And now all of a sudden it is. So now Orion's pushing the date out.

And Boeing has to make workforce reductions. And like, is it going to swing back the other way now? So like once they finally, once Orion's finally ready and then Artemis 2 flies and all of a sudden, NASA's like, we need another SLS core. and then Boeing's like, oh, now I got to hire people again. And like, you know, it's because they're going to be slow to spin back up again. And there's like this weird pendulum effect of like one side of the equation slowing down the other over and over and over again.

It's hard to get. It's like traffic, right? When there's like a, there's not a, there's not like something actually causing a traffic jam, but someone slows down and then like reverberates back through. And it's just like constantly there's a traffic jam for no reason. The rubber banding. My understanding is more of these cuts were in Huntsville. as opposed to the Shoe in Louisiana where they build it and Florida where they assemble it.

So I think Boeing is set up to build one a year. So I don't think that's an issue. You know, when you get past Artemis 3, you do get into the issue of exploration upper stage, which is what NASA currently says it wants to use. And so you've got that vehicle testing. And you've got the mobile launch tower two, you know, ongoing, although they're finally laying down some still. structures it looks like in Florida for that. Like I would have thought that the Huntsville staff would be all about U.S.

group for that, right? Yeah, although my understanding is that the cuts were some cuts happened in the U.S. program as well. I always thought it was weird. There were different line items in the budget that wasn't just more money for the SLS. And it's like also, please give us an upper stage with this. Yeah. We bought a stage that can only go here.

What would have happened if you had only funded one of those? So where are you guys on the necessity of the U.S.? Does this is the more powerful upper stage for the SLS rocket, that sort of the killer advantage, you can co-manifest payloads, which basically means that you can fly a crew on Orion out there with a component of the Lunar Gateway. Well, and importantly, you can't fly the gateway any other way because only none of the pieces have any ability to do rendezvous and docking.

Right. Orion is the thing that gets them there. They're putting the initial pieces out there. Well, because it doesn't need to dock with anything. It just goes out there. Yeah. Remember, there's one thing now. They're not two things.

It's an integrated piece that just goes to a place, right? So the falcon can put it there. Yeah. They have done the thing that everyone complained about for years of, like, architecturing their way into the necessity of the stage because of that constraint. I mean, my concern with EUS is that you should, You shouldn't invent a rocket for a one-time job. Like, because like, are you going to keep adding modules to the gateway forever?

No, like there's a number of them, six, seven, whatever it is. And they're not going to launch all of them. So it's less than that, you know, four or five of them or whatever it is. And then you're just done. Like, you don't need it after that. Like that seems like an enormous waste of money. So like just like very high level. I never really thought about that direction.

Yeah. Like co-manifesting sounds awesome, but what are you going to do with it after? gateway's done, right? I mean, your point is very well taken, Jake, because it can throw, what, 27 tons to lunar orbit, something like that? Sure. 30? I don't know.

You can pick it. It's irrelevant. Gas is coming on starship working and a cargo variant could carry 100 to 200 tons to lunar orbit, to the moon. So it's like, it really, in my mind, I think you hit the salient point, Jake, is that like, US exists only to serve Gateway for these five missions or whatever. And then after that, if you are really are delivering hundreds of cargo, hundreds of tons of cargo on reusable landers launched by SpaceX and launched by Blue Origin,

then what do you need to US for? And so like in a world in which NASA's budget is not constrained by, it's unlimited, it makes sense. to have EUS and Gateway, but if like you're starting to cut programs and I mean, it's just like it seems like those two go together and are they essential to the Artemis program? Not even one bit. Yeah. No, Gateway is the, gateway is the easy hack to solve NASA's budget problems that is completely politically and feasible to do. That's the problem. Well, and you know what, if we would be having an entirely different conversation.

station if EUS costs $500 million to develop, right? Like if it was like, yeah, like a couple years of development and it's ready to go. And it kind of should be because the engines are already done. It's just RL10s. Like they don't have to invent a new engine. This is like the same tank diameter as the other part. It's a fuel tank and it's maybe on it. It's a short core stage plus more of the other engines.

So like I don't have the same engines and it was 20 billion dollar development. Yeah. Well, you know, so we can we can have that's a whole other podcast. How much is the U.S. budget now? Eight, maybe $8 billion, something like that? I think wrong numbers, it's going to be like $6 to $10 billion. Can we use it to deorbit the ISS? That's the one right there.

That's the life act. That cuts it to a nice five and a half, Jake. Nice five and a half. Five and a half bees. We can stomach that. Here's the thing, though, for all that people that want to go curbel on the real world is if you your articles

Eric about like can we fly this thing without the ICPS I don't know I tried to ask around nobody really knows this seems to be an unanswerable question

but I found out you can but you can okay cool so what if you did that but you had like

a real service module on Orion that could actually go places and instead of spending a bunch of money on EUS you spend a bunch of money on an actual service module

that could fly all the way to lowland orbit and back. See, politically, I don't think that's possible because you're just cutting Europe out and that's just not good. Why could we have asked Europe to make a bigger one to begin with? They should have done a better job. Yeah. Like, give them two OMS engines to hook up to that.

They could do that, you know? I don't know. That's a great question. I'll send them the U.S. money. Like, straight up. If they want it, I'll send it to them. I honestly don't know why we didn't ask Europe to build a more powerful. That's a great question.

because it was only supposed to go to the ISS, right? 20 years ago, it made a lot of sense to have. It was the ATV thing. It was a derivative of the ATV chunk. I think that's it. Yeah. But yeah, it was. It was actually just supposed to do the ISS missions.

Because in the old constellation diagrams, there was the little one, and then there was the big service module. And that was the one that went with like all there and all that kind of stuff. I think there was a big one that was like in the mockups of the, I mean the drawings of the Lander. Let me look. You have to show for a second.

I'm going to Google. We've solved it. Yeah, there we go. No. I've said this thing, this take before, but like, man, SLS, Orion, this whole program could get itself out of so much trouble if it was flying once a year already. Like, you know, if we were, or twice a year or four times a year, you know, like if it was, if it was that shuttle pace, imagine how much love this program would have right now if it was flying at shuttle pace. Like, that would be, who. Everyone was super happy when Artemis won and flew, right?

Yeah. It was like, wow, this is a vision of the future. And then, you know, nothing. You know, two years later, you know, we're still kind of like, when's the next one going to fly? When's the next one going to fly? And it's just like, if you're really, if you really invested in NASA is all in on SpaceX and Blue Origin lunar landers, right?

And these are going to evolve into becoming reusable systems to put a lot of stuff on the moon and NASA's investing in clips and all this stuff. What purpose does a space station around the moon serve? A human-tended space station serve. I just, it's everyone wants to, the partners that are participating in the gateway want to be on the surface of the moon. Like, I just, you know, it's difficult to see the value of it. And especially in a budget-constrained environment where you're building this upper stage and super expensive mobile launch tower and, you know, putting a, I don't know what the budget line for gateway operation is going to be, probably a billion or two billion a year.

It just seems like there are other uses NASA could have for that money, like, you know, flying a Mars, or return mission or something like that. It's got to be at least $2 billion a year just for the SLS launch, right? Yeah. Fair point. That would be booked differently. You're right, though, that the gayway itself was like a holdover from the time when that was the only politically survivable plan. But we've proven that the surface Artemis plans are politically survivable.

And now, like, you know, Jackson's, like, we're going to build this crazy rover and get on the surface as soon as possible. and I'm sure Canada is trying to figure out how arms work on the surface. Maybe we can get into the leg market. Who knows? Like, they'll figure something out. And everyone wants to get down. And so, yeah, you've proven that you can make that jump. You're just a leg market, did you?

The leg market, yes, I did. It's a big market, Jake. It's one-six gravity, no problem. But, yeah, like, Gateway existed only because it was an extension of the ISS agreement, and it was politically survivable, and it was, like, achievable, budget-wise. but we've proven those old... And you're missing the most important point. It was the only place the SLS could get to.

That too, yeah. And now we have all these other things. It was an actual destination where you didn't need a lunar lander. Well, now we have lunar landers. Two. So how late can gateway be for it to get lapped by progress? I mean, it's... I like the people run the gateway program.

That's the hard part for me. And I'm here in Houston. I don't think it's fired. They can go through other stuff. I know. They're making habitats. You can put those on the surface. Like, there's nothing special about them about orbits.

They'll do fine on the lunar surface. We can just give you some legs to put on the, uh, the halo. Like market. It's a big market. We can put it on the surface. We solved it. A huge leg that the gayway gets set on. They're self-leveling.

It doesn't matter what slope you landed on. It's great. They can walk between Artemis missions. They work in ice and stuff. No, it's great. I mean, it's just that the optics of like a starship, which is bigger than the gateway being docked to the gateway or, you know, flying because the gateways can be like, why do you have this if you've already got that there?

It looks completely ridiculous. It's, yeah. I mean, that's the perennial problem for Starship. It makes everything else look weird. But it's not just Starship. It's like the Blue Moon Lunar Landers too. Like, you've got the Lunar Landers now, so you don't really need this. I mean, Gateway was the lunar destination

when you didn't have landers. That's what it was. Yeah. Well, we solved that one. Can we get a review of this rover? Talk about things that do go to the surface and go in Starship. And we have to talk about Mars too,

is we've got to make time for that. Oh, okay. All right. We'll save Mars. This is relevant, though. Look at Eric driving this thing. Zoom in on his face because there's like, look at this smile.

Look at the smile. They're loving it. I'm loving that. I'll make a full screen for a second. Yeah, there you go. So the Astrolab was doing a tour. They were in Houston, I think they're in D.C. Now with their rover.

And it's like super cool. Like, you know, they, you like put one hand on the sort of to hold on and not fall off. You know, a hand with the joystick to kind of fly it and then use like a touchscreen to say, I want to go in this mode or that mode or whatever. And it's like, it can. go like diagonal like movement because he's like Jared Matt I'm sorry Jared Matthews is the founder who's helped me drive it and he's like you know let's say you want to drive six kilometers in over to a crater over here but the

sun angle you know we've got to power the rover so like you could drive the rover like at a angle okay just to maximize the solar panel you know irradiance on the way you're going there and you know people are kind of looking at initially thinking it was goofy because why they standing up, you know, you got these other hot rod-looking rovers where people are sitting down and going out. But it turns out if you, like, go into like the Apollo, you know, notebooks and stuff from the astronauts, it turned out getting into that rover was like super difficult. Yeah. And they were, they were bouncing all around. And it's not a race car. Like this is a work vehicle. I mean, think about, think about the,

anyone like who's like worked on a work site and you rent one of those like, you know, skyjacks you're always standing up in those things. They're slow. They move around. They get the job done. That's the point. And it's also 1 6G. So standing up is not like this huge burden.

It's not a big deal. Yeah. You're just kind of sitting there floating anyway. And it's much easier to get into and out of. And actually you can sit down. It drives like you could just drive it backward. You can sit on the back step with like a laptop and like just drive it. Can go on that way if you really want to sit down.

So it's pretty cool. That's an interesting competition because you've got three companies. And again, we're in a budget-consuming environment, so probably NASA is only going to ultimately pick one company to do an unpressurized rover. And so these companies basically have 12 months to show their stuff to NASA, and then they're going to pick one, or maybe two, but probably just one. So it's Astrolab and Lunar Outposts Intuitive Machines. Interesting thing about that is that the other companies are backed by Lockheed and North of Grumman, so they have big backers. And Astrolab is kind of like the small company who's leading. solely with with action.

The underdog. Yeah. I think it's the same one. Maybe it's not the same exact model. They brought like the mock-up to the space imposing last year, but they wouldn't let me stand up on it. Yeah. Probably couldn't have seen over the dashboard if I would have, but, you know, that would be. No, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's.

I had to drive backwards only. No, they, they had a mock-up of P. Conrad. They made sure that it worked on that place. I suspect it was the same one, because they've had it. But I think they're the only one that has like a really kind of functional prototype. So I'm not sure they're the underdogs. They seem like they've got a lot of things going for. Love it.

Love it. Cool. No, I'm excited for it. It looks cool. Both the unpressurized and the pressurized rovers, like the fact that those are, you know, there are like RFPs that are out there and like we're moving on them is like so exciting to me because like it feels we've talked about rockets and landers for a long time. And they've, you know, they've mostly been in like the theoretical space.

And then now they're kind of moving. And the fact that we're getting rovers into theoretical space is like, to me is a very optimistic thing. Like there's some really, there's some really good vibes to pull out of that, you know. And like the the Japanese pressurized one, the requirements on that. We were talking about this a couple of shows ago, Anthony. It's like, yeah, you can like live in that thing for 30 days. Like that is like a full-fledged spaceship.

Like that is like wild that they're, that's something that they're working on actively. and that's a thing that's planned. That's great. I'm excited for that. I'm all in that. I mean, as much as we've been critical of Artemis today, I want to be clear that I think the Artemis conception is awesome. It's like the best sort of deep space policy that's been around in my lifetime. It is sustainable in the sense that it has broad support from Congress, the White House, international partners, and the space like community and industry. Like everyone is on board. So I'm like super happy that it's going forward. And you know, it's so like, yeah, you make a great point.

Like we're going to have rovers on the moon, you know, pressurized and unpressurized and doing all this interesting stuff. And like the cool thing about the actual lab vehicles, it was initially designed to unload cargo from Starship like a cargo container ship. Like, you know, they're going to bring like all these pallets of cargo and it just takes them and sets them up across various places to moon. I mean, it's like, it's an exciting future if we get there. Yeah, it is. Nailed it. Do you want to speed run these Mars things, Jake? The only reason I want to bring this up is because I feel like there has not been enough

like shouting from the rooftops that this is a study that is happening because NASA just awarded like all these study contracts. Like admittedly, they are study contracts. Like so we know how a lot of those don't go anywhere. But like these are contracts to develop stuff to go to Mars. commercially and look at the cool stuff that's on this list like so we have you know so there's a whole bunch of different like categories of of you know like contracts that NASA would theoretically want to dole out so small payload delivery hosting services large payload delivery hosting services that's just

like send a payload to the orbit of Mars and host it there or whatever right you have Mars surface imaging so cameras pointing down and then you have relay services which is you know your comms network And like there's some great winners on here like SpaceX for the Coms. That's Starlink at Mars. That's a study contract that NASA is now funding. Starlink at Mars essentially, right? You've got ULA on there as a hosted payload at Mars. And it says modify an earth vicinity cryogenic upper stage.

That's centaur at Mars. Okay, that's like maybe that's Aces. I don't know. That's like that's pretty cool. Ais is back, Kirk. We've got impulse on there. We've got Blue Origin on there. We've got Red Wire on there.

astrobotics. There's like some really cool stuff happening here. Linger on the astrobiic one for a second because they won this whole round, okay? Because their first project is astrobiic technology. Modify a lunar exploration spacecraft. Their second win is modify a lunar exploration spacecraft to include imaging. They got one. They're double billing.

They're double billing on this one. They can write the same report with one extra chapter and get paid twice. It's great. It's awesome. Good for them. Like, well done, Astrobi. You nailed it. I'm a freelancer.

I've done that job. I've done that trick. It's great. It's awesome when it works. That's hilarious. So can I ask you guys a question? Why do you think in the large payload delivery services, there's not a SpaceX bid for Starship? It's very interesting.

I don't know. Maybe it's not worth their time. I don't know. I don't know. The paperwork would be more. more than $200,000 and they've already done it? What's your theory? Do they want to go into orbit?

Maybe that's the issue, right? Besides like, but I don't know, why can you just send this? SpaceX would be happy to accommodate any, any mission for NASA at Mars, I think. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I thought it was what was most interesting to me is that of the 12, I think they're 12 chosen, none of them ostensibly require a starship vehicle, which is the one

vehicle under development specifically to go to Mars. And I wonder if politically NASA did that because it doesn't want the Mars Kipps program to be associated or to be known as the Starship program. You don't want to be like the Elon Handout Department, right? That's right. You don't want to be like, you know, the Bezos bailout fund that Bernie Sanders said about the Lundland. So I think that's my theory.

I only have one other legit theory is that the Starship to Mars team, is going to be busy between now and the end of the year? They are, but I mean, all these other companies... They have to save Mars sample return. That's it. That is their goal, Eric. I cannot, I cannot, it's difficult for me to see a world in which the planetary science community gives that mission to Starship. I see a world that is difficult for them to figure out how the hell to do that mission

without giving that thing to Starship. That's my problem. Politically, that's a big matzo ball, my friend. I don't know what, I don't know what's going to happen. I do commend NASA to essentially taking that away from JPL and saying, let's figure out a better way to do this.

And if we can't do in a better way, maybe we just do it right now. I think that was the right decision. You know my take, Jake. SpaceX better fucking do it anyway. Yeah, they better put a rock-solid proposal on the table in 15 days when it's due. On the clock.

That's terrible. It is funny how short those studies are to figure out how to save sample return. You know what's a lot about that too is the other one minute on MSR is that they have to spend $300 million this year. Okay. Those are going to be some pretty intense reports. Because these other ones that they just handed out for these ones we just talked about, they were like $200,000 a piece. okay, $300,000 a piece at most times 12 means like three, four million dollars. And they got to spend a hundred times that for the MSR review. And they're due in 90 days.

So like these companies, like, I don't know, if they hand out 10 of these, these companies have to like, I don't know, spin up like a thousand workers to work on them to fill that money out. Like, what do you do with that? But doesn't that also include like paying for the NASA MSR staff too? That's what it's going to be. It's going to be $290 million to support the. existing MSR and $10 million for the reports. Oh, what a sad state. Are these Mars things only to the only to orbit?

They're not going to the surface at all? Yeah. Like they're not studies. No surface. No surface yet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, there's like payload delivery to orbit and then payload hosting in orbit. So those, you know, two kind of scenarios. And there's a specific one for imaging and a specific one for comms, right? All right. Yeah. Sure. Let's do it. Let's go.

I guess we're all out. I'm all excited for it, man. Eric, what's the, what's the, right now, May 2nd, 2024, what is the manifest of Artemis 1 through or 2 through 5? Two is Artemis 2 as conceived. Three is Starship docking with Orion and Leo. Four is a lunar landing. and five is, I don't know. We'll see.

We'll see if, I mean, we'll see. Artemis 4 is a landing with Starship? It's right now, it's on the book. Oh, it is anyway, right? Five is the blue moon. Five is the blue moon, supposedly. Jake, you don't want humans to fly in Artemis 2, right? I don't think they will.

You don't think they will. If they do, if they do, they're not leaving Earth orbit. That's my prediction, is that if NASA may, like, reconfigure it in a way that they still fly people on it, but I don't think they're going to go all the way. I think your docking scenario gets moved ahead of time, and maybe they put people on it to, like, flesh that out,

you get a year Apollo 9. And then, you know, the third mission, quote, third mission becomes the whatever Artemis 2 is today. That's my prediction. When's the docking? I can see that. He's saying that Artemis 2, is the starship in Leo.

You just don't fly Orion of the Moon. You do then docking in Leo. Keep everything the same as it is, but insert a new mission first coming up next to be your Leo docking one. Wow. I like that. I like that.

That sounds wild and I'll co-sign it. I think all the safety stuff that came up today or this week or whatever, the safety stuff that came up today is going to like, it's going to be enough of a confidence hit that going all the way and completing the Artemis 2 mission all the way in lunar orbit is not going to be tenable. And so they're going to want to, they're going to want to like test this heat shield out again, but they're going to want to also not

put like not skip the people part because that's like a big reputation hit. And so you combine them. Let's send people, but put them in Leo. We'll knock out the docking, get that confidence stuff out there. And hey, look at that. We're going to get some more heat shield information to make sure that our new design works and we'll feel better about it. That's my thought. I think they'll convince themselves to fly off the Heat Shield as is. That would be my strong guess. They're going to create flight rationale.

Is that what they're going to do? No, no, no. God, I hate that term so much. They'll do studies. They'll understand the risk. They'll say the current design mitigates that risk. And they'll fly. That's my prediction.

All right. Showdown. Yeah, I'm conflicted. So I'm going to just be the judge of this one. that's not fair you shouldn't get to just sit in the corner and pontificate i can't see them waiting long enough to do the docking thing as artemus two so i do agree and i think there's too much of a ego hit to not fly crew on artifice two um and it's a long way away so and i think if they're willing to fly crew on the first test flight of the life support system then they're probably fine doing that with the heat shield

that has already been tested and it did make it back through. So even if it was that bad again, like, I don't know, I'm more nervous about the life support system. Beyond that, I don't know, man. Like, the Starship dock. Like, is docking the part we're concerned about?

That's what we're concerned about. Everything goes as planned except Artemis 2 flies in 2029. I kind of feel like that's where I lean in. The main concern is you don't have a four or five-year gap between Artemis 2 or Arndis 3. Yeah. All right. Well, don't tell me the concerns docking, everybody. I'm not.

If we're concerned about docking, when we're flying at the goddamn moon, we're doing it all wrong. We've figured out docking. I'm not concerned about it. So, yeah, I don't know. I guess, I guess, it's not your ass in Orion. So who cares? I mean, I got a countryman in Orion for Artemis, too. I'm concerned about it. I've got an Eagles fan. Go birds. So. Go per. All right, Eric, where should everybody follow you if they're somehow listening to this and they have not?

The best place is to come to Ars Technica, and you can find my author page there. Eric Berger Ars Technica. Got an article coming Monday, sort of trying to explain why Starliner took 14 years. And that's pretty measured. It's not your ass in Starliner. It's not my ass in Starliner. It's just trying to explain why it took so long and based on some interviews with some people on background and sort of explain that how they end up four years behind SpaceX despite getting more money and sort of being the blue blood of spaceflight. Yeah.

That does be something worth checking out of. Love it. Yeah. Jake, next week, I convince Caleb Henry to come with us and dive into their Starlink financial model. model that they just did at Quilty Analytics. I had lunch at them last week, and he gave me a little preview of how they put this together, and it's kind of a wild process. Are they profitable? Are they not profitable? What do they think?

He says yes. So, yeah. We're going to find out if my 1,100 pesos is what makes the deal. So tune in next week for that. See, everybody. Bye, everybody. Thanks. One, two, three, four, five, four, three, two, one, end of death.