Off-Nominal - 160 - Cut That Shit Out (with Lori Garver and Loren Grush)

Episode Date: July 26, 2024

Anthony is joined by his two favorite LGs—Lori Garver, former NASA Deputy Administrator, and Loren Grush of Bloomberg—to talk about an absolutely chaotic run of space news.TopicsOff-Nominal - YouTubeEpisode 160 - Cut That Shit Out (with Lori Garver and Loren Grush) - YouTubeBoeing Flubbed Its Space Debut. NASA Isn’t Helping. - The AtlanticBoeing Crew’s Return From Space Station Still in Limbo - BloombergSpaceX’s Workhorse Rocket Is Grounded After Failure in Orbit - BloombergVIPER Clears Acoustic Tests as Scientists Question Proposed Cancellation – SpacePolicyOnline.comFollow LoriLori GarverLori Garver (@Lori_Garver) / TwitterEscaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age: Garver, Lori Amazon.com: BooksFollow LorenLoren Grush - BloombergLoren Grush (@grushcrush) • Instagram photos and videosLoren Grush (@lorengrush) / TwitterThe Six: The Untold Story of America's First Women Astronauts: Grush, Loren: 9781982172800: Amazon.com: BooksFollow Off-NominalSubscribe to the show! - Off-NominalSupport the show, join the DiscordOff-Nominal (@offnom) / TwitterOff-Nominal (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceFollow JakeWeMartians Podcast - Follow Humanity's Journey to MarsWeMartians Podcast (@We_Martians) | TwitterJake Robins (@JakeOnOrbit) | TwitterJake Robins (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceFollow AnthonyMain Engine Cut OffMain Engine Cut Off (@WeHaveMECO) | TwitterMain Engine Cut Off (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceAnthony Colangelo (@acolangelo) | TwitterAnthony Colangelo (@[e-mail]) - jawns.club 🐘Off-Nominal MerchandiseOff-Nominal Logo TeeWeMartians Shop | MECO Shop

CLS and go for main engine, start. Hello, happy Thursday. It is a show I've waited weeks for. It's my favorite LGs on the show. We've got Lauren Grush with us hanging out from Austin, right? Yes, yeah. Awesome. Nice and hot.

A little further closer to me. Lori Garver is back. Third visit, I think. Is your mom watching? Absolutely. It's her favorite podcast. So she better be out there. And Eric Burger gets more than me, so I'm still cutting off.

That's just because him and I fight about space stations anytime he comes on. So people know, they're always primed for a fight when he gets on here. I'll fight with you about that. All right, nice. We do have like a million topics. It has been an absolutely chaotic month and a half, two months of space news. So for all the times that I've come on and be like, there's not a lot happening. Let's talk about some light, fluffy stuff.

we are eating our words right now. So I'm pumped. I have no idea where we're going to start, but I do know we should talk about what we're drinking. Lauren, I think you've got some tea over there. I think I have a curse or something that whenever you invite me on this podcast, I have some weird ailment. Like, I don't know if I admitted this,

but I did have COVID on one of the episodes I was on. And now I have to actually leave the podcast 15 minutes early to go get a root canal, which is my first. So I'm drinking tea, which I think I drink every time I've come on on this podcast. I mean, it's fine. It could be your bit. That's cool. I do think I currently have COVID. So I'm on the tail end of it, but it's been a lot. Next time I'm going to be like, oh God, I got to go to the doctor. Something's wrong. Check in. Yeah, yeah. Let me know when you schedule doctor visits and we'll have you on the week after so that we can clear it. It's fun. Lori, did you bring anything fun today?

Well, you know, I'm a pleaser, so I'm all about that. And I got a, I don't even like beer. Well, it's a hard seltzer. Great Lake Rocket Pop. Rocket pop. And I'm from my skin. So this is what I got for the show. I'm joining you in the Seltzer World.

The Kansas City Royals and Boulevard Brewing sent me beer to drink on the show. So I've got a quirk blueberry slam. It's got the little, where's the Royals? On that side, the Casey Royals logo. So this is like some official stadium merch, I think. I don't know if they only sell it the stadiums, but I feel like if you've got the Royals logo on, probably probably do it.

Well done, why you should reach out to the rocket tops, people. I mean, just work through all the Midwestern Celtsers would be the way to do this. Well, it has a rocket in its name, so. Yeah, I mean, I assume it's modeled after the popsicle, right? Like the bomb pops? Yeah, it tastes like it. Yeah.

Well, the first third does. And then it changes as you go down. That would be some interesting chemical reaction if you could do that. All right. Let's see. Do we want to talk about this Starliner update at all? Because, well, so, I don't know, you were quoted in the Atlantic recently, Lori, as having some takes about this.

And last week, I had a whole complaint session with Joey Rowlett. and Jacqueline Feltcher just talking about how bad NASA and Boeing have been handling this and then I felt rewarded that you feel similarly and I wasn't on it so maybe Lauren has update yeah the update again is kind of there is no update they finished the testing that they had promised they would do at White Sands but from what I could understand which to be honest you know these these press conferences are certainly a final exam when it comes to, you know,

using all of your jargon and space expertise, you know, and they talk a mile a minute, right? So you're just trying to stay on that horse as long as possible while they're, you know, jumping from one topic to the next. But from what I understand, it seems to be that these Teflon seals are to blame and causing some of the thruster issues that they're seeing. What continues to confuse many is that they still have not decided on a return date yet. Supposedly, there's going to be a big review as soon as late next week, and depending on how that review goes, then they'll be able to set a return date. They hinted at the possibility of looking into contingency options, but they definitely do not want to

talk about that because they don't want any headlines saying that, you know, they're considering the Dragon capsule to take the Boeing astronauts home. I don't think that is the primary goal at the moment, but that is basically the update. So we continue to wait and they continue to re-certify the battery to last longer in space. I think that was a good summary. Yeah, you left out all of the annoying technical detail of the of the tests and the thrusters and the vents and the valves and everything that was like this is so many technical descriptions that i you are doing this in the in the vein of transparency and i get it but like this is going over everyone's head at this point about what these valves are built like so i don't know maybe there's a couple of google listening

but for my understanding it's that the teflon material was not behaving well with the heat i think Please correct me if I'm wrong. Sounded like it, yeah. That is degradating, wow, I'm the writer. Sorry, I'm on antibiotics, okay, just fair warning. It's degrading the thruster performance. And so it sounds like a redesign of removing the Teflon material as an order,

but we will certainly find out with more updates. But yeah, that seems to be the origin of the issues. they also got like over the course of the call increasingly comfortable with saying that they would consider the dragon alternative like they started out saying well you know we have we have contingency plans and then later like two sentences later steve stitch was like you know we have other systems that we could use to bring them home and they they got increasingly close to just finally saying yeah dragon is the other option that we're clearly talking about uh so at least they've they've entered that into the realm of possibility and then did you see uh the aforementioned eric burgers tweet from earlier. I don't know if you saw this, but he tweeted that they have been quietly studying launching crew nine with just two astronauts and they have suits available for Butch and Sunny, which is like interesting. And also if they weren't doing that, I would be very, like, what are you doing? You know? I was going to say, it doesn't really shock me because NASA is like their watchword is redundancy, right? So they're obviously...

That's literally the whole point of this situation, right? It was how to say, having two things. I would actually be worried if they weren't looking into other opportunities and other options. Lori, tell us some OG stories here. Was the plan, if this was not the plan, should it be the plan that every astronaut has a flight suit made for both vehicles and they just have them sitting around? Oh my gosh. That was never discussed in my presence.

That does not mean it was planned or not planned since I would not. not have necessarily been in on something like that. The article you mentioned in the Atlantic, I thought had a good quote from a former astronaut who would not be named saying, well, of course, there is a concern about whether the astronauts will get home safely, otherwise they would have sent them already. And I thought that was pretty telling,

because people I talked to at NASA continue to say, No, we really want to study it. So I'm sorry, I don't mean to say everything is a reaction to me. But the quote that you mentioned that of mine in the Atlantic article, for those who don't subscribe, said it is discouraging that NASA appears more focused on shaping the story than on their mandate to provide unfettered information to taxpayers. So sorry, Lauren, you may have gotten a lot more. We got so much unfettered technical details.

Yeah, I would have appreciated a little bit of fettering in that instance. Yeah, I know. It's kind of like be careful what you wish for. You're constantly asking for transparency. They're like, okay, here are the, all the schematic. I don't know. The part of this that I think we're all struggling with is this narrative. And you both sort of said it already in regards to, well,

they don't want to signal that they might have a drag in his backup. My position is, why not? It would do just what you're saying if they had done it since the beginning, show the plan that they're on was strategically smart to have potential backup, and they shouldn't be defensive. This is happening, and the public has a right to know. That was my main point. I don't have any great insight other than what I, I,

believe really is a question that all of us wanted them to get to the bottom of. I haven't heard, did they talk today about the helium leak? I mean, at the beginning, it was like, oh, it's so slow. It's not going to matter. Well, that was when they weren't going to stay more than two weeks. Apparently testing that this weekend. They'll get another indication, which is the first time in a month and a half. So, yeah.

It sounded to me, though, that the helium leaks are not the things they're most concerned about. even though they will be doing some hot fire tests this weekend, it's predominantly the thrusters. But yes, they did bring them up today, which they hadn't been talked about in a while. So it was kind of a surprise. I will say, Lori, maybe you can back me up on this. My interpretation of the strategy, media strategy, is that NASA just seems extremely adverse to criticism or having, like looking bad. And I think that manifests in kind of these jumbled answers. Like I think one of the things that has really frustrated reporters,

and you can see it in the questions that are asked, is, you know, can you just say if Starliner can come home right now? And nobody will give a straight answer, which I made a joke about this in one of our recent newsletters. And it's also in my book that the NASA nickname, is never a straight answer. But I just want, is that, do you think that might be behind some of these like garbled answers as to why they can't just say it directly to us? Of course. And that I think is unfortunate. I don't know that we were that much better at it when I was there. I credit our

head of cons, David Weaver, for any of the good answers and guidance. that Charlie and I got because he's terrific. I later stole him from NASA and took him to the Airline Pilots Association where he still is. So I might be, again, somewhat to blame. But the defensiveness of a public agency, I mean, we've been seeing this. I, of course, notice it in Artemis. It seems to be more propaganda than this real thin skin about any criticism. when, oh my goodness, NASA's the last people to need to be concerned about that.

They have the best brand. The public loves them. We understand the, maybe not why, but that this is a very difficult high order thing to be doing without any problems. And so my, my comm advice would be to cut that shit out. Yes. there is a total like stric sand effect going on here too right where the longer that it's like mealymouth answers the more coverage it's getting versus at the beginning and actually mark navvy of bowing owned up to it today of like yeah i wish at the beginning we did enunciate that this was an eight-day minimum and we were

going to stay longer than we planned or than the initial plan was um but the more that this becomes the more that the storyline is the comms the more coverage this is getting whereas if it was plainly stated at the beginning, it would have gotten like a day of headlines, and then we would have all went on to all the other topics, and we would have checked in on it occasionally and said, it's still where they said it was last time, but it's this evolving thing, so it becomes weeks of a storyline, and all these different calls have different answers, and they finally said Dragon, and there might be spacesuits, and you get this drip-drab kind of thing going on, and it just stretches it out, so the entire mission is covered, rather than just the part that they want, which is the highlights. So.

That said, though, I mean, it does, from the... the outside, from a non-engineer perspective, does feel as, I mean, you have to put it in the context of the mission too. You know, we felt like there's been nothing but issues with Starliner development. And then, you know, compared to Dragon's first flight, at least crewed dragons first flight, I know a lot of people have been making the distinction that, you know, cargo dragon had similar issues when it first flew, which is probably a more comparable, you know, direct comparison, apples to apples comparison, but from the people who've been covering the mission like me, it does feel as if that this particular program is more prone to issues

than its counterpart. I don't know if that's fair assumption to make, but from covering it for as long as we have, that does appear to be the case. I don't know. Sure. And part of the reflecting NASA's discomfort with that narrative is that they gave more money to Boeing. It's taken two and a half years longer. You know, all these things aren't a good story. And again, I would just say you have to be clear and own it. Thank goodness for SpaceX. Why not acknowledge that? And really, thank goodness for Boeing and that they're making the effort. And we wanted a situation with competitors and maybe them even being in. it made SpaceX hungrier, sharper, faster. So I think we really recognize exactly what you just said, but it's, again, not really a government agency's job to favor and try to cover for a contractor over another. I agree.

All right. Where do we want to go next? I know, Lori, you were thrilled to see the art. Two course stages arrived at Kennedy Space Center. Just made your day. That was a nice boost. You love the Pegasus Barge. That's your fair part is the boat.

Indeed. No, I just went for listeners. You wanted a list of what was going on. I had forgotten that. So then I added it because I think it's funny that that's big news. You can actually accomplish something in space or you can write press releases along the same lines as the previous discussion about some non-examined. non really noteworthy thing that really the story there is is going to have been three years

between launches. Oh wow, yeah. 22 was Artemis I. Yeah. Wow to think about. And is that. Are we really? Let's also talk about the real issue.

I don't follow this as a profession anymore. So you guys tell me, are we really thinking? we're sending our wonderful for Artemis two astronauts with the Orion Heat Shield, not being yet understood or explained? I don't think that will happen. I think the question is when will they feel comfortable enough with the heat shield? And I don't know. I don't know if they would opt to do another mission.

But yeah, knowing how NASA is with these things, I really highly doubt. they would actually send the crew without being completely, you know, on top of it. I will say I spoke with a few of the Artemis two astronauts when, oh gosh, I was in Cape Canaveral for one of the Starliner attempts. And, you know, they eagerly brought up the, I think it wasn't an OIG report or a GA report about the heat shield and just saying that they actually were pretty high. happy that happened because it would, you know, they really wanted to get to the bottom of it and learn more about it. So at least with that, they were embracing, you know, those reports and not trying

to kind of wipe them under the rug. Yeah, but I mean, it is the same issue of concern that NASA is more interested in promotions and some of this being, hey, we return from Artemis I, we were all told it was 100% successful. And it was over a year and a half after that we first saw those pictures of that heat shield, that is scary to me and that it came out in an IG report instead of NASA right away saying, oh, we don't understand this degradation of the heat shield. That's problematic. And I can't imagine why that wasn't released at the time.

And so for those astronauts to be saying, oh, glad the IG is raising it, my goodness, wouldn't you think the agency should be raising it? And we don't have anybody saying to us, yeah, until we understand it, we won't fly just what you said, Lauren, which of course has to be the case. And maybe it will require another test, but it might just even be a test not on a SLS because we don't have extras of those very often. and but if there's not going to be a flight test I know Eric Berger had released talking about this other flight before the landing mission but I think it's the flight before going all the way the moon and coming back from lunar distance

without understanding the heat shield damage that's the issue and I the other weird part the weird part is that they I think there's going to be some pressure in that they already did this big rollout of like, these are our astronauts that are going to go towards the moon and the first humans back to the moon, like they did that whole rollout before really verifying that that was going to happen, right? And of course, like, you never know that it's actually going to happen.

They could launch and then decide they're not going to commit to the, you know, TLI, which is fine. But I think it's a positioning thing. Much like the, you know, how long is the Starliner mission going to be? I think it is positioning saying this is our current. plan. They are flying on Artemis too, but they wanted it to be a very splashy, like, you know, Neil Armstrong moment. Like, these are the humans doing the thing. The Niel Armstrong moment, by the way, wasn't years in advance, you know. Right. It was like weeks to months.

It just follows this same concern. It's all about the hype and the mission should be what's important. We don't go to it's safe. We don't go to we're ready. We say all those words, but what we really do is do a big rah-rah and get the cruise. now for how many years is going to be touring around as a crew. I just worry that it's become more about that, and especially on this, because there's really not any question about it. It's bipartisan. They get more money in Congress every year.

I think both the presidential candidates today would be supportive of it. There's not really any need for the defensiveness and sensitivity instead of selling it like it's a new product, I think we should be carrying it out for the value of what it brings. And of course, my concern is we have couched it now as this race with China, which is silly since we've won the race with China and everyone else six times. So what are we truly doing here that's of value? And let's talk about that.

Well, I also think that Artemis is interesting because it, I feel like a lot of it got dictated by that very intense timeline that was placed on it in the previous administration. And it has slowly been evolving. You know, that really dictated a lot of the truncated, you know, mission parameters up front. And now as we become more realistic and the time frame becomes, you know, more evened out, then things are starting to change and starting to evolve. So we're kind of, we're working backwards in a way. I don't, maybe not backwards, but it's kind of like we're starting from like the, the pie in the sky, the best case scenario.

And then we're inserting more realistic expectations in along the way. And so, you know, having Artemis 2 with people on it may, you know, that might not have been the track that people have taken, would have taken if. you know, politics and a timeline didn't get in the way, you know. So it is interesting watching it evolve both with, you know, the politics and the urgency. And then also when realism finally, like, you know, knocks on the door. Yeah, I think that's really good. That's the important point. And, of course, saying we were going to do it this year, 2024, no one even talks about that. Initially, though they were planning to 28 and maybe there were more missions in between. I know when they

accelerated it to 24, NASA had to look at, at least tell the White House they were looking seriously at putting people on the first one. In hindsight, we clearly could have done that. But I think those are all really good points and interesting now, if you think, and I'm getting asked about it more, we've got potentially a Trump administration, a second one, or a Harris administration, and neither one, in my view, was likely to do anything different with Artemis, although Trump, you just never know, right? He had this whole, let's go to Mars, why do we need the moon? Brydenstein was obviously, you know, the soothsayer and able to cock him off the ledge a few times.

But who knows? We won't have Pence. You know, we have J.D. Vance, who seems very pro-commercial space from his comments and hearings. So the guy who created it might be like, what? I'm becoming president 25. We haven't even sent anybody there yet, and it's still going to be another five years. Forget it. You just never know.

Yeah, that would be a good transition, Anthony, to... I know. She nailed it. Nailed it. Yeah. Which one of us hosts the podcasts? We're all switching roles here. Book writers, politicians, you know, everything.

All right, you left out the whole, like, maybe an astronaut VP, by the way, in that whole storyline, which is an thing as well. So here's my, can we start here? Because you're talking about, you know, SLS-O-Ryan having these weird moments. This, I don't know how this would go down, right? If Trump comes in, there's the whole transition team situation that happens, where there are going to be, like, Same with Harris. So that's what I was going to ask is like what, but how intense do you think that process is going to be, right? Because there's like it would not be the worst idea in the world to distance yourself from the Biden administration when you can because polling wise that wasn't going to work out.

So like at some point you might start to see some distance open up between those when that happens, who knows? But do you think this whatever review happens if Harris wins that it would be as intensive as you would see when a party switches? Would it be just as much? or do you think it would be a little bit more hand-wavy? So we can look to history for that. Transition teams for vice presidents who come in after immediately being vice president. Most recently, that was the first president Bush. I have a good friend who is political appointee and Reagan.

She ended her tenure on January 20th for the rules and did not get hired back by the new president. I think there would be a full transition. with new people. And for the NASA roles, that's not very many people. The Space Council, if obviously it's Mark Kelly, she'd probably turn all of this over to let Mark Kelly make these decisions, which I think everyone in the space community

would be very excited about having that opportunity. Any of the other people don't seem to probably the Space Council. She's led it, seems to like space, certainly. have somewhat of an interest, but I would presume all those people will turn over. I know that's not going to be popular with those people, but that's how it works. And her administration will have a very shortened campaign, but not transition, assuming we have, you know, the results cleanly more quickly than a few times in the past.

But I don't expect there to be this really deep transition team before the election. I will say in 08, by this time, I was already deeply working transition for the Obama administration. I could talk about it at that time, but I had already been asked in early July. I had my team together and we were working. So that's clearly not happening yet on the Harris side. And Trump, by the way, never did that before he won last time. who knows if he is this time. Shocker.

I don't think these policy issues will be much of a big deal before the election, but there will, there is usually just equally as robust transition for any new president, whether it's a different party or not. I was going to say with the chaos that this election cycle has already been, I highly doubt that space is on anybody's priority list at the moment. But with all the rumors that Mark Kelly could potentially be the VP candidate for Harris, it is kind of interesting to think what it might be like to have the head of the Space Council, be an actual astronaut, and understand the agency very intimately.

Obviously, for reporters, we are constantly dealing with new incoming politicians who may not have known anything about space before, and then have a crash course in it and we then become very familiar with their speech cadence. But yeah, it'll be neat. It would be neat if

you know, if an astronaut was actually the one setting space policy. I mean, I don't know if that's ever happened before. He's also like, I went looking, I feel like he's had very little space policy takes. There just haven't been that many out there, right?

that he's never been a huge space policy figure. I think didn't he start campaigning? His wife was shot, and then he started campaigning like the next cycle, right? So a lot of his early stuff was gun control focused. It was several cycles because I think she was shot in 2011. And he wasn't there until. He went through.

That was right before his last flight. I remember him before and after. before he was married to Gabby, but that is so interesting because bringing him even to the oval, meaning at the time, President Obama, he was not political. He was not political. And having him run for the Senate, be in the Senate, I have heard him speak, for instance, at the FAA conference, I think last year, I don't know if you were there, Lauren, and he gave a great space policy talk. And he said, you know, I was deeply involved in constellation. And I think he was even of the astronaut liaison to the Orion program or something.

And he said commercial space, it did not strike me that we should do this. And you know what? I was wrong. And you know, for me, a politician who is just willing to evolve and take in new data and have a position, I, that's the right kind of attitude. And I think he would, would, as Lauren said, come in, first of all, is, you know, basic, really in-depth level of knowledge about the activities. And on policy, I doubt, I doubt he's going to spend that much time on it.

John Glenn was someone I worked for, and he didn't really like getting a lot of the astronaut questions when he was a senator because he cared about questions that were maybe more far-reaching and certainly in the campaign. But he, I am one of the people who I think really feels like it would be a very positive thing for us to have him in there. But, you know, it might not be Mark. You know, right now it's just speculation. But yeah, he is a definitely an interesting pick.

I did speak to Mark when he was running for the Senate. And one of the main things he was very focused on in our interview was about bringing science to the Senate. And so, you know, he was all about using data and, you know, evidence-based research for making decisions. And so I'm assuming that is something that he would carry with him if he was elected as well. Or picked and then elected. Ficked and elected. On the Trump side. we've got a ways to go

it's a long it's so long from from now it's like Lori look at what's having the last two weeks like it's really long there's so many things that could happen between there the Trump side I'm curious about too

in the way that this went down last time right? Because we had Pence who nobody quite expected to be as into space as he seemed and professed we had the brinestein factor of it all

Scott Pace was a huge figure then when you're looking at who may be involved this time knowing how everything ended last time Pence is ousted he was like on vacation in Montana during the RNC or something Brian Stein was ousted he's just doing his thing there was indications that he wasn't even coming back if there was a second term so there's a real changing of the guard there I don't know which of those three like what

what came first there right was was Pence an instigator that got one or both of those involved as as key figures was Scott Pace the driver behind the people that were placed. What was the transition team like? What do you make of the map then? And how does that change now? Well, I would say, you know, when Trump came in, as I noted, he didn't have a transition team already in the works. You know, frankly, on the Hillary side, we totally did. The person who would be leading it was staying at my house and going to start the next day and didn't get to start the next day. And it took Trump quite a while to bring people in.

And then if you recall, he brought in like sort of a large number of people and they were very disparate in their backgrounds and views. And I think a lot of those people out there now are anxious to get back in. I have no idea if Trump is doing a NASA transition team yet. But, you know, Greg Autry is out there sort of carrying the flag. Campaigning, I would say. I would use the word campaigning personally. But I'm sure there's others. I was just saying to someone, I don't think Scott would come back.

But there are plenty, plenty of, frankly, I think, good people to populate those positions in either administration. It made me excited that you said this, you think it would be a significant transition if Harris were to win, too, because it does mean that either way we're getting some movement. Right. And on my end of things, I'm like, this is kind of the last moment to consider Gateway. And in the current budgetary logjam that we're looking at on NASA, it is the one that's got to go if you're trying to do the puzzle pieces here. And but this is literally the last moment because by the next election, schedules will progress. Something will be launched, I think. I would kind of assume that by 2028, something will be launched. But I don't know what I don't. know what the fan base is like these days. I could be wrong. They could get a transition team in there who says, you know what, everything is great. She could decide, hey, why not keep the crew that's at NASA now? I sense, you know, there's tension with the space council on NASA. There always is. Whether or not that manifests itself with her or not versus more the staff level,

I'm not sure. I don't think they've coordinated. NASA being the they in this sentence. very well with the Space Council. You often see things where there's people with their nose out of joint because they didn't know this or that was happening. I don't know that that's going to really matter. It really, I really could be wrong and she might just keep the exact team, but I think that is less likely. Can I, I want to pose a question slash prediction. How do we feel about the stain power of Artemis and the influence? entire structure of the architecture. I mean, Gateway is one component, but, you know, that could

easily come in and out. Sorry to Gateway fans. We always say that. I don't know there's any left, to be honest. Like, hit us up if you're out there. I think that Artemis might have some staying power just because it has survived the two transitions. I think the architecture gets a lot of which, to be fair, logically, it's probably does not make sense as a logical architecture. But I do think it makes sense as a political architecture because it does cross the lines between or cross the, you know, the barrier between the old school way of doing things and the new school way of doing things. And so that everyone kind of is in this frenemy zone where we can all kind of work in the sandbox together. And I think that was ultimately what you ran up against,

Lori, right, when you were trying to make this major transition at NASA, whereas Artemis kind of says, okay, we'll do it the old way, but we'll also incorporate the new way. I'm curious if that's your sentiment as well. Yeah, and I thought, I tried to say earlier, I think the most likely scenario with either new administration would be continuation. I don't even know what I would do, frankly, if all the speculation about me, I don't even know because I haven't looked into it recently where we are. I would have known at this point in 2008 not having really looked under the hood on constellation either. I believe that these transitions are really helpful and positive in this country because it is a time, like you were saying, Anthony, when you could really look

with fresh eyes. And otherwise, it's just too easy to keep. bad programs that aren't delivering because you're already bought into them. But in a weird way, both the Harris and Trump administrations would already be bought into Artemis. So I don't know that they would cancel. If they look under the hood and there are things like, oh, we can't return astronauts on that Orion Heat Shield right now without some more test flights or Starship really isn't working and going to be able to land.

And, you know, there are a lot of technical things. I know that Gateway was looked at by the Biden transition team, and they didn't think it was realistic at the time, but then the head of NASA came in and wanted to keep everything the same. So there's always that. You can start looking at something, and then, and this happened to me, a new head person comes in, and they get a lot of say on that. We have international agreements with Gateway.

that's what everyone sparks. You know, we have to do it. But that's the thing, right? The math has changed a lot on the gateway side from 2021 to 2025. Like, back then, there was not a war that Russia was engaging in, and there was not as much rabble-rousing on the ISS side of things. And they were at least, I think at that point, still saying like, yeah, yeah, we'll do something at Gateway.

And Gateway was run under that same agreement that we have in place for the ISS. That's out the window at this point. We just bought an ISS deorvibing. vehicle. We are beyond that. And all of the other partners have committed to something on the surface of the moon in the time between 2021 and 2025. So the baseline math of like why Gayway made sense has completely shifted in four years. And the other thing that happens over time that we forget. And Lauren, you said it. And a lot of people say, well, you know, this is a successful program. This is a good program. It's getting its support. So yes, if you are interested in

putting money into NASA in your state, this is a gift that keeps on giving. But the longer we do go without going, without actually doing the things we say we're going to do, the dollars just keep multiplying without the value coming out. And Gateway, just like so many of these others, cost overruns, and then over time, you're just spending so much more that the calculus becomes a little different.

again, I really don't want to take away to be, I think anyone's going to cancel. I think chances are it'll limp forward for a while. I mean, for all we know, you might. You just haven't gotten the call yet. So we might be, Lauren and I might be lobbying right now, and we don't even know. Yeah, but I wouldn't even know to say what I would do for sure because you have to win. Call me. I'll cancel it right away.

It's out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Gateway's out. The thing is, you're right, the Gateway itself has had longer,

like, it is delayed so long to this point that even if Starship landing on the surface is a couple years out, we are so much closer in those time differences now, like the difference in Gateway getting on orbit and Starship going to the surface is so small now compared to what it was originally that the value of Gateway has gone entirely. And that also brings in the whole conversation about the SLS architecture, and you've got Block 1B being so built around this idea of co-manifesting a space station module. So there's like so much tied to this. You dump Gateway, you dump a lot of other parts of this.

It is literally, I've thought about it so much, is the only way out of the budgetary logjam that NASA is in right now. It is the literal only way out that maintains enough of the program that is interesting. So it feels inevitable to me, but here we are. Well, I was asked by the Biden transition team, you know, now four years ago, although I think it was after the election, given the choice of, you know, they said we acknowledge we don't have money to do both, which should we select landing or gateway? It's like, undoubtedly landing. And, yeah, that has not changed. Turns out they thought we had the money to do both. The powers that be decided we'll keep saying we can do it all.

Yeah. I have to leave in two minutes, Anthony, so if you've got one final question for me, now is the time. What was the thing we should have talked about? What does your two-minute take on the SpaceX thing? You want to get that in here? I don't know if I have time for that. You are in a very rare SpaceX Falcon 9 grounding time right now. also that continues and we're on constant FAA approval watch.

So that's been an interesting. I always knew this was going to happen at some point. I mean, no perfect record, you know, happens forever. And I knew it was going to happen in the middle of the night. And it definitely did, checked all those boxes. But I'm sure we'll, we'll see the Falcon 9 be flying again soon. But it is interesting. Like we haven't been to this moment in many years.

It's shocking. It's been eight years since, like, a Falcon 9 issue. 2015, to me, is still five years away, but it's like, you know, the 90s are actually 30 years away at this point, but it's always 10 years away. That's how 2015 is to me. Nine years to an in-flight issue, right? Eight years only to the Amos explosion. Right, right. That was a day, man. That was a day. Nine years is 300-some flights.

Yeah. I mean, Atlas, I guess, went upper stage problem once in like 07. They flew again the next time four months later. So that's intriguing. And I was at give a plug for the Brookies, the Brookerlands Fellowship Summit when this happened. And several of our interns are at SpaceX and leadership work there. And they were like, oh, yeah, no, this is a big deal. I'm like, oh, man, how long do you think?

And they said, oh, maybe like a couple weeks. It's like, oh, my. I was in shuttle days of, you know, years. Yeah, years and congressional investigations. Lauren, what do you want to plug before you go get a Rucan now? Go get your health checked. That's what you're putting. Go to the dentist.

The doctor. Lauren, me the best. Yeah, we're going to get you on here one time when you're not drinking tea, I swear. Yeah. I'm convinced, by the way, because your first appearance in this show was a drunk as Jake and I have ever been on the show. And I can convince that's why you always drink tea since you've been on. So that was good. All right.

Lori, always a pleasure to see you. Anthony. Enjoy the rest of the show. See you later. All right, now we can get into the real talk, Lori. You mentioned we don't have the money to do both the landing and the gateway. I would like to take on this Viper rover situation. This is a very interesting political situation.

Have you been following it? I don't know if you know about this. Of course. I know that NASA has canceled the program. I know they've canceled a lot of programs, and there's a lot of people very concerned about the budget at NASA and decisions, prioritizations have to take place, and people are prioritizing the Artemis program over many other things that last of us think are more valuable.

That is their prerogative to do. It seems to be reinforced by the Hill. Tough choices are never easy. budget choices are never easy, and I think, you know, I would definitely make a different choice, but I'll take your, what's your concern? Well, originally, so Jake and I have had this thing for a while about missions that have been going on where, like, some of them get the cost caps enforced, and some of them just like, we'll figure it out, we'll figure it out, we'll figure it out, right?

Vipra was always one of the we'll figure it out. where it grew from like 200 million to basically a new frontiers budget, where if you factor in the launch, the landing, and the rover, it was going to be north of a billion dollars by the time it was on the surface, when it was marketed at 200, I think, less $199.5 million, and then once it made it into an actual program, it was 430, and it grew and grew and grew. So we always had this suspicion about this program.

And certainly Jake would always point to Dragonfly, being another mission that is just like massively exploded in cost and complexity since it was originally proposed. And there's been these over the time. A year ago, there was the Janus spacecraft that were going to fly with Psyche. It's launched change. They're sitting completely done in storage, never going to fly. So there's just been different handling of planetary missions over the years.

This one, I kind of started on the initial vibe of like, well, a cost cap's a cost cap. You know, you went over that 30% flag where you then have to go to Congress and tell them that you're over this and you've got to get more money. So I guess that's what it is. Since then, there's been some more reporting about this, and it's even weirder in that, first of all, they said, if anyone wants to take this rover over, we'll give you it to August 1st to let us know that you want the rover. I find that incredibly bizarre. The other one is, apparently they are doing the testing, the pre-flight testing that they said was next. They're already done like two-thirds of it, and everything's been going fine, and they are into thermal testing now, and they expect that to go fine since all the components passed. So it's going to not even be, it's not like they stopped short of testing it.

They are actually going to have tested it, and they say they'll save $84 million on the program by not flying it, which apparently is going to be as much as it costs to disassemble it and reuse the pieces. So the real difference here is the lander situation. That's where it all breaks down. They don't, I think they don't have confidence that Griffin from Astrobotic will be ready by next year, and they think it's going to go longer than that. And I think the concerning part is that, like, I think they put themselves in this situation by putting this big of a mission on a commercial lander.

That was the root issue here of, like, the first flight of a first lander. That's what we're tying this billion-dollar program to, you know? So, I don't know, a lot of people learned weird lessons from the programs that started under your tenure at NASA and maybe overcommitted in certain areas. like we should do the moon exactly like we did cargo and crew, but you didn't put a $1 billion payload on the first cargo dragon flight, you know? And that feels like the root. That's like the crux of it, really.

Yeah, but we did bet the store, you know, in general. You were otherwise going to have to launch with the Russians, which was not a good plan, although interestingly, for some reason, I was looking at past hearings where we actually had members of Congress telling us, Well, if it's going to be just as expensive as the Russians, why would we do it? Very, very odd time. But yes, these along the lines of what I previously said, I mean, no, we're not consistent in how we being NASA implement the cost overrun issue. First of all, things have been over 30 percent.

then we make exceptions and keep going, we use it when there's a program that maybe doesn't have as much support from the people making this decision. Or sometimes that's the hill. But for putting the commercial crew and cargo acquisition strategy into so many other things, I have great concerns with that. I've talked about that before. This was never a cookie cutter, one size fits all. Launch in particular always had this unique existing market. And it had a very high cost of doing it at the time. So if you could just undercut that cost, you could get that market, you could get international payloads. You could do all kinds of things. Obviously, that has born out. Things at the moon where there isn't yet a market besides NASA, I think, are more

challenging and just what you said, being able to do it in a way where you don't have to risk big missions. Again, in our case, taking astronauts is a pretty big thing. But being able to do that, it's not the acquisitions. strategy that would probably work for a lot of these things. And now we have fixed costs too. I know things on Gateway were fixed costs, but what are you going to do when you only have one and their cost over? You just eat it. And so we need to think that through a little better, yes. It's funny what you're saying about the inconsistency on the cost growth side of things, because one of the mystifying elements of Essela as Orion over the years is like, well,

when a mission gets delayed a year, like, but I don't, I don't know if I'm good at finances to the same extent that, like, the CFO of NASA is, but like, what happened to that money? Like, couldn't you have done Artemis II on that money? So what happens to the rest of it? Does that, are we getting a better Artemis 3 because of the year delay to Artemis 2?

No, it just, like, is funding the existence of the program. So the, the, you're paying for, like, a run rate of the program that is completely not associated to the deliverable of the program. So it's a weird situation when you have a program structured the other way, where you have a specific fixed budget on a thing or a cost cap, you are then compared to it in a way that you don't get compared to if you're a cost plus mission. So, like, that's... I don't know how you reconcile that other than just getting rid of cost plus entirely,

except for there being times where, like, some different arrangement makes sense, if you're running the ISS over year over year, like, yeah, there's an operating budget to that program. I understand that. But on these development side things, it doesn't, it's not an operational program at that point. You're still in development. So, like, you can put numbers to it in a way that you can't

when it's an operational mission. Right. It's hard to understand. The thing that really we have to accept, and for me, with the transition from shuttle to consolation, then SLS Orion is really recognizing the baked-in costs of this NASA Cary's anyway. So these were standing armies. These were facilities.

Someone needs to pay for those unless you're going to shut them down and lay off people. And so those are the things that there's just not going to be a big outcry if you're not ending, like you said, getting to the moon in this case. or even flying many missions because you're going to pay those people one way or the other. And I would have people explain that to me. And no one wants really, in our community, especially a smaller NASA. And if you do everything without it being cost plus, things not getting done at all. although I think it's played out that cost plus are the ones that really take the longest and have the highest cost overruns.

But when it's cost plus and has been for so long now a program of record, as we call it, there's no one. I don't think there's been a congressional attempt to cancel these programs. They were founded. Whereas the space station over the decades of, development there were. So they've done a good job with it. I think this battle, we wouldn't need to stay ahead of China or something plays into that, maybe a little of human spaceflight in general. You argue is a sort of a U.S. pro superpower kind of thing that we do. And that's where NASA has

chosen to bend its pick, leaving, I know in the few minutes we have. have Space Station to be this big question that you and Eric like to argue about. And I tend to be a big fan of commercial Leo destinations. And especially since now, as you said, we are going to be deorbiting ISS by all indications here. In the next half decade or so, we really should probably be investing more in those, in ways that really will give them a chance. Because if you're going to take the example I gave of an acquisition strategy where there's a market, there's more likely to be a Leo commercial market than a lunar

commercial market over the shorter term, just because the cost, the access, and everything is lower. Starship may upend that. If Starship is flying regularly going to the moon, we could develop more commercial activities there more quickly than really meets the eye now, but seems like a natural progression to have. Yeah, the commercial Leo stuff is just always confounded me because this has been the perfect environment to go after a bunch of funding for it in the last, I don't know, say three years since like Russia has devolved to being the worst partner in this way. And not only from the war on,

but like when Dimitri Rugozen was running things and was telling us that like our astronauts were drilling holes in the space station and their hardware's falling apart, it's been a weird situation in the ISS for a while and they just have done very little in the way of taking advantage of that politically to go get budget.

Now, there's two sides of it. There's the budget to support commercial Leo and then the other aspect that the providers always bring up is like, we need an actual date when this thing is going to be sunk or else we can't do our math to say how we're going to run this business. business. So, I don't know, I mean, they've got a date range at this point that, like, it'll probably

have a 203 in front of when this thing comes down. That's better than thinking that it will go all the way to 2040 for sure, but, you know, budget funding wise, are they now, are we going to fund this U.S. D.O. vehicle and then finally start funding commercial Leo, you know, several years too late to, like, we're 100% going to have a gap. This whole thing of, like, we don't want a Leo gap. Like, you already got one of those. We definitely have a Leo gap. There's almost no way we've got not a Leo gap at this point. But how do you fund both of those things and I don't know, you're never going to be able to land them in the right order, right? You've got to pick one to start with. I thought they would have started with the Space Station one, but they started with the

deorbit one. And so now what? What do you go after? Yeah, I think this is prioritization that you and I must disagree with the current NASA leadership on. I don't. thing, well, maybe you don't, but I do. I feel like... If I was Bill Nelson, I would have been going after so much commercial Leo funding while like the actual ISS was at stake. It seems like the most politically obvious thing to do. So I just take it that he doesn't actually care about it that much.

Right. He wants to do Artemis and Big SLS, and that is consistent since I've known him. Yeah. The Artemis Court State dinner is pretty nice, though. So... Hey, I made a joke about Artemis Quartz and I know. need to, you know, repair whoever was upset by that. I've never said anything but positive things, but it is sort of a, you know, non. It's not a treaty level. It's not something. Yeah, so we're all

enjoying the, where in the world do we want to go next? We'll see. We'll see where they get to in six months if your, if your theory holds that there's going to be some sort of transition. But, you know, running out of countries to sign on. We're getting up there. My theory is based on, you know, what is, there will be a transition. Joe Biden has decided he's not running for re-elections. So it's just a question of will the NASA team be populated with people actually interested in looking at ways to improve our program? Or if there's a charge to say, no, we think everything's great. I mean, there's no reason to not try and make your programs the very

best they can for the American people. And I think NASA is a crown jewel and all presidents I have ever worked with on either side of the aisle. I strongly agree with that. And I think both Trump and Harris do too. So it's really, I think, an exciting thing and not something to fear. It's an opportunity to make things better, to align priorities with the nation, and to see where we are with things that started a few years ago. Are they on track? And if not, try to do better. Do you want to bring off the wall, predict who might be the administrator of NASA in the last minute of the show? I don't. I don't even, don't want to try. I have a weird thing that my prediction was that if Trump wins, John Culbertson will make a return to the space world.

I haven't, I haven't checked in with him at all. I can't really find where he's doing now. I think someone said he's at some sort of investment situation. I don't know. But like, he kind of felt like a Bridenstein-ish pick, like a guy who was weirdly into space policy in a non-parochial way. I don't know if he's friends with the current crop of Republican crew. I like that. He sure was. And if you want to have someone on to talk to about who that would be Mark Albrecht would be my suggestion. He's been a Trump supporter on the, um, every time. And I think he would have the most insight into that. That's true. I should get him back on here. Yeah. We left off. We, we didn't even get to a bunch of stories from him. So we'll have to,

we'll have to check that out. Yeah. He's, I remember his episode was so good. My favorite was he was he was talking about the National Space Council User Advisory Board. And he's like, wait, He went off on that. They're appointing all these people who get money from NASA and then are going to ask them what to do with NASA. Are you kidding me? And it just shows you really when he was chair of the or executive secretary of the National Space Council and Dan Quayle was head of it. Truly, as I go through in the book, they did a fantastic job. And that's where I was a young person cutting my teeth on these things.

And to have the vice president be that interested and the space council really wanting to make a positive difference. That's what I hope we can get back to no matter who's present. Perfect ending. Plug the book also because it's a good time, good time of year to read the book. Escaping Gravity is my memoir. It's been out for more than two years.

My quest to transform NASA and launch a new Space Age is the subtitle. And I do spill the tea, as I said, and you on your show, Joe and Jake were saying I didn't pull any punches. I told you that is not true. I pulled many punches. I've been asked for earlier drafts and those are remaining in my private profession so far. Fair enough.

All right. Maybe one day they'll see the light of day, you know. We'll see. We'll see if you end up running NASA or not in a couple months. If not, you can put out the second book. Yeah, well, I think I'm 19 years younger than the current head of NASA, so I got time. Big theme. Big theme this year. So yeah, there's a solid guess. We'll see. Lori, thanks so much for hanging out. Where do you prefer people buy the book? Do you care? Is there a place that's better for you?

I do not. I do not. This is not. This is a just something. Just read the book. And in fact, I make the least if you do Audible and I get like two cents or something. But lots of people have enjoyed the Audible version because it's, one credit and it's my voice look at that that's the way to do it then yeah i love i do love me some audible but uh jake is back next week from vacation and i got christian davenport to join us to catch him up so i can't wait to figure out what jake feels about all this stuff we're going to throw a fire hose uh at him he's missed a couple of interesting weeks so there's the whole world has changed since he's since he's left so And Chris has that book coming out too. A new one.

I don't know if I know this. Maybe I haven't been reading Twitter once. I hope that's not a spoiler alert. Maybe, I mean, it might be, but we'll find out. Erics is coming out first. September's Eric's, I think. I've already read it because we got to do a blurr. So I definitely can recommend that.

We got a lot of friends, but Caleb's writing a book about one web. That's going to be a whole thing. So, we've got a lot of reading to do coming up. All right, y'all, thanks for hanging out. We'll see you next week, and Lori, I hope you come back soon.

So, see you later, everybody. Bye. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 2, 1,000, end of death.