Off-Nominal - 19 - Space Traffic Cones

Episode Date: May 20, 2019

Jake and Anthony try and figure out what’s going on with all this Artemis talk and where we’re headed. Drinks Stark Indonesian Pale Ale - PT Lovina Beach Brewery - Untappd Stark Lychee Ale - PT Lovina Beach Brewery - Untappd Stark Mango Ale - PT Lovina Beach Brewery - Untappd Galactic Fog W Comet - Captain Lawrence Brewing Company - Untappd Orbital Tilt IPA (Citra) - Captain Lawrence Brewing Company - Untappd Topics NASA’s initiative to put a woman on the Moon is named Artemis, after Apollo’s twin sister - The Verge The uphill battle NASA faces to sell its Moon plan to Congress - The Verge NASA administrator on new Moon plan: ‘We’re doing this in a way that’s never been done before’ - The Verge Picks The Planet Mars: A History of Observation and Discovery AstronautiCAST - Il primo podcast di astronautica in lingua italiana Space Policy Edition: Lessons From the Moonshot That Never Was (with Mark Albrecht) | The Planetary Society Diggnation - Wikipedia Follow Jake WeMartians Podcast - Follow Humanity's Journey to Mars WeMartians Podcast (@We_Martians) | Twitter Jake Robins (@JakeOnOrbit) | Twitter Follow Anthony Main Engine Cut Off Main Engine Cut Off (@WeHaveMECO) | Twitter Anthony Colangelo (@acolangelo) | Twitter Off-Nominal Merchandise Off-Nominal Logo Tee Team CAESAR Tee Team Dragonfly Tee WeMartians Shop | MECO Shop

DLS and go for main engine, start. Welcome to space. Hey, Anthony, do you remember in April when I didn't have a sun tan and Dragon was one piece and we had an off-nominal episode last time? And you were drinking Mountain Dew? Mountain Dew. And J.B. was the King of the Hill. Everything's in question, Jake.

Man, if there is ever an episode to come back to beer on, it's this one, right? Yeah, wait, so you literally left on vacation the day that Dragon blew up? Uh, yes, I think it was... I feel like it was the day you were in transit. Yeah, was I in China? No, I think I had landed. Yeah, but close, yeah. Something there.

Yeah, I had gone. And then I came back, I was like, oh, maybe I'll just look at... Maybe I'll just peek at what's going on in, like, the Discord or something. And it was like, whew! Ooh, wee. Oh, man. All right. Well, before we get two in the weeds, what are you drinking now that you're back?

Back in the, on the continent. You're back to drink a beer. Yeah, so I went to Bali in Indonesia. And it took a little bit of finangling, but I actually found craft beer there. So mostly in Bali, everyone drinks one kind of beer. It's called Bintang. It's like basically like Corona or like. If you ever been to the Caribbean, it's like that saul beer, you know, it's just like in a green bottle.

It's just like cheap, refreshing tropical beer. Stuff you can drink when you're getting sunburn. Exactly. Yeah, it's perfect on a beach. So I drank a lot of that. Presente. That's a good one. Yeah.

And the craft beer scene is not the same in Indonesia as it is on the West Coast. But I did find something. So I actually brought two bottles home and I had to like seal them in bags and wrap them up in towels so they didn't break. but they're super weird. I haven't tried these ones, so this could be a hit or miss. Wow. The brewery's called Stark.

And it says Made in Bali. And this one is a, they're both flavored. This is like a, I don't know how you say this, lighty, leachy. But it's,

it's a, berries? What are those? Yeah, I don't know. Lyce, Leachy, leachy? It looks like some kind of, berry.

Is that the thing that the dude eats on the Jaxa streams? Maybe. And then the other one is a mango-flavored one. So everything was flavored mango? I guess, yeah. Didn't we drink a mango beer? Yeah, the Jupiter one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is really funny. So when I found this beer, I was in like a grocery store, and I was like, oh, here's something. Oh, yeah, there's a picture over there in the chat. Thanks, Mass. And I spotted it, and I saw IPA. And I was like, yes, IPA. I can try what an Indonesian IPA sounds like or tastes like. Sounds like, what is he shaking it and like a Christmas present?

You see what it sounds like? This sounds just like normal beer. And then I like brought it home and I put in the fridge and then like later I was in my pool and I went got it, cracked it open and I took a sip and I'm like, this doesn't taste like an IPA at all. And I look at the bottle and it's IPA Indonesian pale ale. Everyone's doing that now. I was like, son of us. I'm like this is just bentang in a different bottle. Yeah, if we got any Italian listeners out there, is there an Italian pale ale yet?

because the last time I was there could not find one but I feel like that's the hot thing is if you got an eye steal that make it make it some sort of pale ale

let's see what oh he's smelling it it's looking around quizzically oh by the way this is not a Jake's size bottle that's why he has two no that's why I have two

yeah it's like um oh shit what is that berry called I can't describe what this tastes like but I've tasted it before oh look I'm poor

yeah have to pour the glass you have to see the glass I can't show the other people. Maybe I'll shoot in a discord a second. But look how, look at the color of that. Oh, wow. It's like kind of pink. Yeah.

So what do you got? I went down to the local beer establishment about 15 minutes ago. And I was trying to find something that I haven't had before. And I found one that I feel like a couple of people have tweeted this one at us. One of the two that I got. I got two from Captain Lawrence Brewing Company. So the first one I'm drinking is this Galactic Fycuit. Oh, wow.

Let me read you all the label and tell me when it starts to make any sense. Galactic fog with comet hops, double dry hopped with comet hops. Those are the words on the front. Does any of that track? Oh, and on the same thing. Well, Conno hops is like a real hops, isn't it? Yeah. N-E-I-P-A, so that's, is that a northeastern IPA?

This is from like New York, New England IPA. What if it's like... NEPA? Northeast Iowan, Paleo. Well, considering it's from New York, I don't think that's accurate. So I got that one. And then the other one is orbital tilt, which I feel like people have, have you drank one of these? You've drank one of these.

Have I? I don't think so. You know, I think our friend, local Philadelphia friend, Christine, tweeted this at us. Oh. So we went to a beer garden nearby to try to have some of this together and it wasn't there anymore. So we'll have to go do that again. Okay. I didn't try this yet, though.

The double comet hops. Yeah, good. Tasty. Yeah? Super tasty. I think this, this light cheese tastes like a medicine I had when I was a kid. Like when they make you, when they make medicine for kids. It's kind of taste like that too, a little berry-ish in this that I'm picking up.

Like fake berry. Yeah. So that the kids eat. Near Earth IPA. Is that what that stands for? Near Earth IPA. All right. Well, that part's out of the way.

Yeah. now let's drink these and figure out what the hell's going on I don't I'm going to tell you I'm going to be honest I'm not going to put all the pressure on you for this show but I have a lot of thoughts they are not very well formed they are completely incoherent and I'm equal parts disgruntled excited reinvigorated disappointed I am like I'm every feeling right now

and I don't know what to make of any of it That's a good way to describe it. Because there's like nuggets of good happening. Absolutely. Nuggets of good. It's just like if there's like a, if there's like, if you're measuring the good things that have happened and the bad things that have happened, it's like somewhere close to 50-50 and the margin of error is like 3%. So you're just not quite sure who's winning.

It could go either way. There's still time. Yeah. You're like, well, I measured at 4852, but margin of error is 3%. It's tough to. call. There's a lot going on. Yeah. And it's weird to me because I feel like I've had a really hopeful six months. Like I've been very high spirits. I've been very up on everything. I've been really excited about stuff. Even though maybe if I thought more long term, I had some questions about,

you know, policy decisions or whatever else. Just like, oh man, I don't know. And then everything this week just turned around and I started getting really depressing. about the state of politics and the end but then also invigorated by projects that don't involve politics that are happening and those are going well and everything seems to be really cool so there's just like all this weirdness and I need a Canadian's help well so I was in a dark place for a long time you were you had an entire year yeah and sometimes I kind of I look back get away and see what it looks like again just to remember it but um um um um um um um So I actually have a weird, maybe it's a positive take, but I think that like everything that NASA and Bridenstein is doing with this whole Artemis like project, to me it feels like they are still a couple steps ahead of where we think they are and that it's kind of going according to what they expected.

like I really feel like they're playing multi-dimensional chess. You're one of those guys? And I think Brydenstein's better at it than we think he is. Oh, I absolutely agree that he is, it's almost as if having a politician in a spot where politicians shine is a good thing. Like, in all, in all, like, there was a lot of hate around Brydenstein when he was getting confirmed and all that. And there was a lot of people, myself included, I think even maybe you a little bit that

was saying, like, we think politicians would be good here. I don't put words in your mouth. But I feel like you had okay vibe. about how he would fit in. I think I was mostly neutral. Okay. I was very up on it. But even the politicians that were against him are totally, yeah, we should talk about how Jake

pronounces Bridenstein, by the way. Is that Bridenstein? Yeah, read those letters out. Spell that out. It's Bridenstein. Bridenstein. I'm glad we're having this talk. Anyway, even the politicians seem to be coming around, and they've, in recent hearings,

which he's been in front of Congress, like, you know, pooping his pants probably in some of these. But they even have said good things about him. Both parties doesn't matter. So that's been pretty sweet. But you think he's like, he's like way out there? Yeah, like, so, okay, so I'm going to take like a specific example and kind of illustrate how I think it may have been happening in the back end. This is purely conjecture.

And I am not good at this anyway. So this could be completely bullshit. But, okay, so like everyone's mad that this. budget request amendment seems to come from these Pelligrants, right? And there's outrage over it, which is probably merited. I don't know if that's the right decision either way. But I feel like in the background, like, J.B. was just like, okay, so here's what we're going to do. We're going to ask for this much money. And then the White House is like, we're going to take it from Pelligrants. And he's like, okay, so that's fine. We're going to get a lot of outrage. We're going to

take a lot of flack. But I can direct it onto the White House and I'll be able to navigate around that. Congress isn't going to pass it anyway. So it's going to be completely. completely irrelevant. And he's, and he's thinking like that many steps ahead. And so a lot of like, you know, Twitter or whatever, regular people and the media are kind of living just like one or two steps behind him. And I, I feel like we've got lots more in this kind of fun story. I think there's more to it. And yeah. And like everyone's like, you know, when they came out strong against SLS and like, oh, you know, if we can't, if our contractors can't deliver, we'll find new contractors. And everyone's like, battle cry.

I love your action movie hero voice that went with that. Like, hence was Liam Neeson's on a phone. I don't know who you are. I don't know where you are. Yeah. But like, and everyone's like, yeah, battle cry. And then it all like fell apart. And SLS was right back in it.

Entrenched with extra money. Like it was like completely not how that played out. But I think he expected that and he's got a plan. Like, I don't know. That's the sense that I'm getting, which leaves me in a more of an optimist place, which is kind of fun, I guess. Agree. Agree on the...

So, okay, I keep talking about this lately with everything in the world, but I do think there's this increasing separation between politics and policy, right? Yeah. And Bridenstein does, or Steen, I don't know which, apparently. He does tend to, like... He tends to know how to ride that line between getting... positive policy changes for things and playing the policy. Because even not even just NASA

Administrator, it looked to his like American Space Renaissance Act. That was like all these thoughts about what space legislation would look like. A lot of those were good policy directions, if you ask me, and that whole thing was never going to get past, but it was like, let me write this all down before I'm out of here so that I wrote it all down so I remember it later. And I pretty much why you did it. Yeah. I'll just use the legislative process to take a note. Yeah, absolutely. But there is this giant gap between the way that the politics happens and the policy that is affected, right? So you're probably right in that, that whole politics process is the part that sucks, and maybe policy is better than that is. Yeah. But I feel like people lump those together

and they're like jamming these two things as one thing to think about when I think they're too distinct things to approach. Yeah, and I think what you said, riding the line between politics and policy, and I think it's actually more like he recognizes that they're separate, and one can move without the other. And so he's just like, well, policy is actually what kind of matters in the long run. I mean, politics can shape the discussion and lead to policy later, but policy is what is. And he's just like, so have the necessary discussions you,

want to have about Pelligrants and I'm, you know, I'm signed in lunar lantern contracts. Like, it is funny too because he does that thing where there was all these Earth signs. I keep equating this to those Earth science missions that were trying to get cut out of the budget for years. And I think at one point, even the OCO, the orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 that just launched was one of those projects. Yeah. But the last like couple of weeks, he's just been talking it up every time he's in public,

which I also find one of those funny things where it's like these are the things that the administration that he is for all intensive purposes are part of is trying to cut these kind of projects and he just keeps talking it up whenever he gets a chance and there's there's that kind of thing which is probably why people have come around on him in the politics world

where he does play both sides like a politician and it sucks most of the time but every once in a while you get a nice little you know maybe he gets himself into a different room that probably wouldn't have let him in the door before and that makes a different conversation happen But all of that, I still, as we've gotten this budget amendment, now I'm thinking longer range stuff, you know, and I just don't know, like, where is this heading and is wherever it's heading a good thing five years, ten years down the line from now. And now I'm having your kind of, what your strife was last year, I'm having.

What's it all for, man? But like, then what? Yeah, no, I think you're right. I mean, I don't know. I think, like I said, I think he's got a couple moves planned still. Like, he's anticipating this. I really sound like I'm like really like the J.B. fan club. You love him, man, J.B.

Which would have been interesting. But he does a very good job of also like taking. So like direction from the White House, he has to follow that, like, both legally and like it's his boss. And like, he just, that's his job. And he does a good job of like taking the directives and doing just that and like nothing more and then filling in the blanks with his own kind of policy directive, you know, like his own style on things, which is really fun to watch because it's like, oh, your Pence said this random thing. How's Brydenstein going to deal with that?

Stein. Stein. Stein. And he does, right? He figures it out. It's interesting. I don't know. It's kind of fun to watch. But what do you make of this cool bill? that we're requesting for landers. People had a terrible reaction to it, and I'm shocked by it. Because literally everyone's been yelling for the last two years. F the gateway, we need a lander. And this budget amendment was literally, F the gateway, we need a lander. And everyone got mad.

Yeah. Well, and so this is the other side of the kind of thought that I'm having, which is a big reason why I'm really interested in this moon program, even for we Martians, like as a Mars podcast, because what I think is really happening here is, like they're really redefining how NASA approaches these kinds of programs. So a lot of it feels really uncharted, right? And I mean, some of that's this public-private partnership stuff,

but a lot of it, I think it's just sort of the style that they're doing it. And this Lander thing, I guess, is part. of that. I don't know. Like, yeah, people were like, kill the gateway, get a lander, and then here's the billion. It's like, well, you didn't tell us how much it's going to cost for the next five years. Every other NASA proposal gives us a five-year outlook. And there's like, nah, we're not going to do that, right? Also, does it matter.

No, it doesn't. It doesn't matter at all. But it's a status quo thing. It's like, this is how it's always been. And just like every other part of the government with the Trump administration, they're doing it differently. And it's kind of interesting to watch it with the NASA spin, because... But I think that's my problem is that everybody is, everybody is, nobody is possibly, I'm just

going to sound like I'm whining this whole show, but like, I feel like everyone reacts in a way that like they are impossible to pleats because they want this to be different. They want NASA to do things different. Yet because they've strayed from the times that they've done this with the vision for space exploration, the SEI and all the other times that this has been tried, now it's a big thing. Well, no, you're right. And it's just like, yeah, they could do it like the space exploration. Yeah, we could go down in exactly the same ball of fire that all of those did.

Sure. None of them got off the ground. So. That's the part that really just has been. And it makes me feel like I'm the crazy one. That I'm like, this seems reasonable enough. If we're going to do it this way, this seems reasonable enough. Like, try to get some lander money.

If you don't get that, the whole thing's off. Just go back to the ISS. One thing that would be really funny is like, let's say some variation of this gets passed and like, you know, the budget. goes up by like a billion dollars. That's, like, how many years have we been, like, crying for just a budget increase? Like, this 19.8 billion that we had a while or whatever, like, people were furious over that. And, like, this could theoretically get it over 22, maybe even close to 23 when everyone's done with it.

Who knows? That could happen. Says the guy who doesn't have to pay for it. Yeah. I'm, you guys jack up to 40. I'm all for that. Yeah. It's not my debt.

You'll come down with us too. If we're going down, you're coming with us. Yeah, I know. We're like those little fish stuck to the side of the shark. This shark is crazy. I don't know what's up with them. Let's talk about that. If gateway's out, so is Canada arm.

Well, we have 24 years to deal with that. That's a good point. You did get quite a long budget. Polar opposites. We're just trying to get one done, and you've got 25 years laid out in front of you. Yeah, we committed half of our space budget to the arm over the next. All right, Grant, Grant in the chat is bringing up.

Let's talk about the next. This is the horribly politically messy year where we're leading into a presidential election for an incredibly controversial president. And he says, how do you keep a coherent plan if there's an administration change? Let's attempt, let's attempt this. So I think there's a couple of ways that this can go. number one, we've talked about in the past that J.B. is working his way into being loved by everybody.

He's saying the right things. He's doing the right things. He's got the energy. There are Democrats in Congress that have been given him props totally unnecessarily, which I find kind of interesting. So if Trump were to lose the 2020 election and the party changes and they want to do an extend an olive branch, they could have J.B. stay on.

doesn't seem that likely to me. So the other name that's always tossed around is someone like a Lori Garver. Something that has similar-minded tendencies tends to be friendly with the other party in past transitions and things like that. So that would be, I know Lars is going to love it in the chat.

He's a big Lori fan. As am I. Yeah. So like if it was handed off to somebody like, Lori, that could work. She's been tweeting a lot. Man, and like in a world where the Democrats take the House back in 2020, having Lori Garver execute the Artemis program to put the first woman on the moon would just be like a Democrat. It's like the galaxy brain meme.

Oh, yeah. It'd be like the triple trifect of girl power. Okay, when you put it that way, though, this doesn't sound like the craziest damn plan in the world. No. The plan is pretty good. like forget all the politics it's a pretty decent like straightforward reasonable timeline not too complicated i mean you could argue the gateways maybe just a little bit extra complication you don't need yeah there's there even but they're already floating that idea

of turfing it right gateway gateway is on the outs gateway gateway is is almost certainly never going to be built like it's it's this was the year it was supposed to like be a thing and it's getting money taken away and it's down to just what, a propulsion element and a node to transfer. A utility module. Yeah, so if a couple of these lander proposals

come up with something that can work from an orbit that Orion can get into and down, then I don't understand why they wouldn't go for that. That's another way that this sort of story has played out is that

this like really consistent and gradual moving of the discussion. Like, if you, if Bridenstein had come out and like just said, listen, we need a new plan. We're going to cancel SLS. We're going to cancel Orion. We're going to blow the entire thing up. We're going to deorbit the ISS and all the money is going to go to this and it's going to be amazing. If he'd done it all in one fell swoop, it would have been dead in the water.

But he's like, just floated like one idea. Okay, have a big fight about it. Two steps forward. We'll go back one step. okay easy into it and then like another one and then easy into it and then another one and then like we're six weeks later since Pence's discussion started

and look how different the plan is already like we've already brought in a ton of commercial launch vehicles into discussion for all the non-crew parts of it EUS is up in the air there's now a lander on the table gateway has completely changed like the whole thing has shifted it's just

instead of one day he did it in six weeks and it's made it easier to swallow. And so that's another thing I'm thinking about is that I wonder if he thought that through and said, listen, the end state is this, but if we want to get there, it's got to be, we got to coax people through it. We got to hold their hand a little bit and manage the change, right? Yeah, and the thing that always, that everybody always said was like, Gateway was for Orion and SLS to be at a place that they could get to and to transition the ISS contractors to something else. ISS is going to be up there until 2030. Ain't no way that we're

that that thing's not getting through Congress and included in this budget amendment that took 300 million away from Gateway was 600 million more for SLS Orion. So, you know, if they're paying the troll toll to move to like a lander focused thing, then the prime directive, if a lander or, yeah,

mass fraction brings up in the chat, two landers was something that he said in that interview with Lauren Grush. Which we'll put in show notes because that was a really good interview. Great. Really good one. We should have probably...

She's actually just small sidetracks. She's killing it with the Artemis cover. She had that one. And the other one she had, which is like the summary of all the political hurdles, was really good as well. Yeah, we probably should have sent an email. Probably should have that one through a little bit.

Probably. Yeah. That would have been a good idea. Yeah. But you put all those things together, right? If a lander is proposed that could do a landing from an orbit that Orion could get into without, gateway if at least one lander can do that if all of the current contractors are happy if the

SLS mafia is happy who gives this shit about gateway yep I mean us but you do but you've got 24 years of budget laid out we'll put it on ISS 2 in 2048 or yeah no dude Canada Armed 2's probably gonna need some servicing agreements pretty soon that shit's gonna be old oh man so yeah you're right though that that is it is getting chiseled away I just have no idea how this is going to go. It's so weird. I just wonder if there's like a notebook somewhere in his desk with just like, okay, we're on step 36 now. No, I'm not one of those guys.

And then like, I don't know. Maybe it's up here in his brain, but. What do you think Brian Stein and Gers talk about? You think they like each other? Brianstein razzes them in public. So I imagine that they're friendly. Might be one of those kind of like tense friendships. Yeah.

I have a couple friends like that where I like, go on. Like, I won't name names. No, no. Make them feel bad. But, like, friends from just like, I like you and I think you like me, but like, we don't get along. But, like, I'm still going to go and have a beer with you. Just, that's weird. You should stop hanging out with those people.

No, but I like them. Hmm. It's a weird, I don't know how to describe it. I might need an example. No, we don't need to have an example. But, I mean, like, you might need to, you might be like, oh, yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah.

I just wonder. I wonder about them. Gers is probably so pumped, though, that there's a Bridenstein to send to Congress. Because all those hearings that Bridenstine's been in would have been Gurst. Yeah, where he was just getting mowed down. Yeah, but Brinstein's like, I'll go. I'm there. I'll be there.

Hmm. So. Okay, so the original question, though, we didn't actually answer it. We didn't answer anything. We are so all over the place. How do we get through this year, right? Because you're going to have a... So here's my thinking is that...

I mean, they know how turbulent the budget year is going to be next year. They can maybe get one. Is it this year, you think? Yeah, I mean, it's been floated like nine times that we are not going to have a budget this year. This year. Yeah. Because this is not the election year. Like, you could pass.

This would be the budget that ran up until the election year. Right. But you'd be theoretically passing the FY21 budget during the election. They usually don't. They usually just wait, right? Yeah. CR it until like December. But we usually don't pass budgets.

Yeah. Just as a general rule. So we definitely don't in election years. We don't even name Supreme Court justices in election years, not to bring up anything. But I, because I was wondering if you can get, like, squeeze this like one extra billion in and then do CRs off that, you still have the extra billion. That's accurate. Yeah, yeah, no. That's totally true.

Because this would run until October of election year. Yeah, if they can pass it. If they can pass it. Otherwise you're going to see R in last years. Which is not terrible, but... Which is nothing for Gateway, no landers. Yeah. And like 150 million for ISS transitions.

Why are we getting so wonky right now? We're supposed to talk about feelings on this show. 150 million for ISS transition. Can you imagine CRing that all the way to the election? What do we spend this money on? That's really funny. I don't know. You blew my mind a little bit with like a...

Because I pretty much thought if Trump lost the election, then they would just change everything in NASA for because. But now if there is somebody out there who's friendly with Lori, I'm just voting for that person 100%. I mean, realistically. Is Lori Garver sweeping in and then having Artemis, like, cooking? That's such a cool alternate future. Didn't she just retire from the Airline Pilots Association?

They've been like, they've been lining, she's been lining something up. Yeah. And so, like, um... Yeah, Lars is saying that Lori would have won if Hillary had won. Oh, I totally agree with that. We talked about that. Yeah. Yeah, but she's already been on, is it, two transition teams for now?

Like, she was set up for Hillary and she did for Obama as well, didn't she? Yeah, and she was like one of the prime pieces of the commercial cargo thing getting underway. Yeah, so, I mean, whoever the Democrat is. She's on the template that they get sent for here's how to do NASA. Yeah. And yeah, she's totally pro-private, public-private partnership. She's totally pro-change, which is important. I mean, realistically, okay, so we're still on the hypothesis that the Democrats win, which is not a sure thing. I still don't think that's going to happen. Yeah. On that hypothesis, though, they would still have to put their mark on it, right?

So there would still have to be one more pretty big curveball to change it. But I bet she could find a way to change it without changing it too much, you know, so that it was unrecognizable from the previous plan, but still pretty much the same and accomplishes the same, you know? Well, I got one piece that would still be funded under this administration before that one took over that is ripe for the killing. So that's good. Yeah. I would take odds that Gateway never exists, like in this in this formulation. What's more likely, Gateway or SLS? SLS, 100%. SLS launching. Oh, now we're doing that, 100%.

We're in it to win it, man. Like, we're, we're like that part where you're, you're driving real fast and the light turns yellow and you're like, oh shit. And then you're like, uh, I think I should just hit the guess. And then you're, it turns. red when you're half or through the intersection, you're like, woo, made it. Wow, that was really blown out. Sorry, everybody. Learning a new audio interface here. Going to have to tone that down a little bit. We have, uh, we have red light cameras in BC, so. Oh, really? Yeah, we don't do that.

Because like, woo, made it. And then you got a ticket in the mail. Okay. Now, can we talk about the why? Set it up? I don't even know where to go with this, but I've been, I was, let me, let me got the second one. Yeah. Yeah. It's time. I've been... Okay, you've known me for a handful of years now.

We're like three years into our budding friendship. Is it only budding? Isn't it like a real friendship by now? I didn't know if I was on one of those friends that you like hanging out with, but you don't really like hanging out with. Like, you're my friend, but I don't tell anyone about you. Right.

So, you know, in the beginning, the Mars thing was like, humans to Mars, journey to Mars or whatever. And then I was... I was having good vibes about going back to the moon because I felt that it was a thing that was achievable with the political environment and the political timelines and the budgets that we have. And that it could also, in the way that ISS right now, has had all of these good spinoffs, not spinoffs in like the NASA PR way. But like the- Like commercial cargo. Yeah. The SpaceX is, the maiden space, you know, the stuff they'd been doing on the ISS, the stuff that Tethers just flew up there.

Like, there's all these little bits, the nanorax airlock, like, all of these little bits that were addendums to the ISS that no one could have predicted. And I was, that's like the best stuff out of the ISS. And then I was supportive of the moon thing because I thought if we could achieve that politically, then there would be a whole bunch of those for the cis lunar area, as NASA likes to say. So I was like big on that. But then when the moon thing was like, when we shifted in a. of the moon thing, it then went from a hypothetical policy shift to like real in the weeds policy and things ground to a halt. You know, because we could talk like hypotheticals forever about how the moon stuff could go. So then it started looking at like, what are we actually doing with

the moon policy? And it's so much away from expanding infrastructure in space to being just like land some shit. right and I'm like if we want to do like a crash course like I think only I think pushing for 2024 is the only way to land before 2028 you know like just in general so I'm not I'm not like totally down on like a crash course to land on the moon but when I put my like I want to see space infrastructure hat on and see our infrastructure grow out into space I don't know how this program not even this 2024 program, but a NASA program like this even does that at this point because of all the politics involved.

I mean, is it just simply as straightforward as you do this program, you hand out two contracts to two different companies to build a lander, you fly it a handful of times and they get that flight experience and then NASA detaches itself and now there's two companies with lunar landing experience with people, you know? I will believe that when commercial crew companies start flying humans for not governments. Yeah. It's really expensive. Yeah.

You know? I just don't, I don't think, I'm big on there needing to be total chaos to have any, like, good things come out. Like, everything good in the history of the world has come out of times of total chaos. And NASA's in a state where, by, you know, by the stretch of history of, history they've had right behind us. They don't like chaos. Chaos is not good. We're currently in it, and that's why everything's weird. But like, that fundamental change of the world is different tomorrow than it was today always comes out of absolute chaos and things that nobody really can

predict. And this, the currently envisioned roadmap is so, it's so like, I don't know, there's, there's not, it's, I just feel like it's missing something and I can't put my finger on it. Hmm. Because the Moon Village thing, the Issa Moon Village thing. I always like that idea as something to talk about. It's never going to be a thing that they work on. No. That's not the idea.

But I like the, I like the expression of what that was. Like the meaning behind Moon Village was, I don't care why you want to go there. I don't care what you do when you get there. Let's just pick a spot to go together. Moon Village is just McMurdo Station on the moon. Pretty much. Yeah, yeah, right. I don't care why you're doing or what you're doing when you get there.

Why you even decided to come here in the first place. But I'm going there. But let's share the same toilet. Yeah, bring some extra fuel, share some batteries, like, little figures, flickered out when we get there. And I love that. And I don't see this being, there's been no expression of that in this lunar thing. They're like, we're going to set up a moon base,

but it wasn't, we want to kickstart some infrastructure. Yeah. And that's the part that bums me out. Yeah. I mean, and that, is that something you can really ever plan? Like, I don't know. No, and that's probably my point. And so if you can't plan it, like in the absence of being able to just say,

I'm the space dictator for the next 20 years and here's what's going to happen for all humans, like, what can you do, right? If you remove that sort of utopic option off the table, stable, like, what can you actually do to make it better in terms of permanent, long-lasting infrastructure? Is it just, you know, go there? It's a slog, man. It's a slog.

Yeah, but I think, I think in your analogy, NASA's closer to trying to be space dictator. Because they always have been. That's the change part, right? Right. But there's a part of NASA that doesn't want that, though. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. We always talk about NASA as like a thing, but there's a billion people that work for NASA that

all think different things and we get a lot of email from all sides of it about what they think and it's totally different. Yeah, because it's a 20,000 person organization. It's like trying to say what the United States wants. Yeah. But then I'm encouraged. So I said at the beginning that I'm equal parts like disappointed and encouraged and all over the map. There are plenty of women this probably transitions us nicely into all the other chaos. There are a lot of projects small and large that are happening right now that I see as like, that's a thing that matters a lot. You know, and we talked to like John Goff from Altius on Miko,

and we tweet with him all the time and stuff, and he's working on like cryogenic fuel transfers and little interfaces that satellites could use to, you know, get serviced later. And it's like, that's a thing like a traffic cone. It's so tiny you never think about it, but that's going to be a big thing. Like, who makes traffic cones?

You ever think about who makes traffic cones? That dude makes a billion dollars. like a day. There's probably more than one place that makes traffic cones. No, I know, but like, it's probably not a lot. Where would you buy a traffic cone? I'd probably just steal one. No, but nobody ever thinks about traffic cones.

Yeah. Actually, I, that... It's one dude. Space Pat says, it's one dude in his... He's like, I got a, yeah, I got an early 3D printer, and it prints this kind of rubber, so here I am. Yeah, yeah. I have a family member that worked in a concrete business,

And the one thing that she talked about was those. That's different, though. Of course you do. Oh, man. When you're doing construction, those concrete medians you can move around. It's like, you know. Oh, yeah, the contraflow thing. Yeah, it's like eight feet long, kind of like two feet tall.

Jersey bear. I don't know what they're called. It's a piece of concrete. That's what my family's thing was called. Jersey barriers. Yeah. Worked a lot with concrete shoes. But there's like thousands of them, right?

Like you just need so many of them for every construction part. But nobody thinks about it. Nobody thinks about it. And so, like, I'm thinking about, like, what are those things for space? I mean, it's got to be, like, I don't know. Fuel ports, maybe. Fuel ports. Fuel ports.

Maybe. Space cones. Space traffic cones. Space traffic management, hire me. Space traffic cones. That's what we're getting. The very first thing, though, which is a positive because a ton of people are working on is just like figuring out the operational waste.

Like we're seeing a ton of this now versus, you know, like the way that NASA launched space shuttle versus the way that like rocket lab or SpaceX are trying to put up launch vehicles, really asking a lot of hard questions. Like, do you on this team really need to be here? Like what is your job? Like why, you know, and like streamlining it down to a point where a handful of people can put something into space, that is to me very, very critical.

and there's a lot of good stories on that. Yeah. That's step zero, I guess. I don't know, step one. Yeah, and I guess that's, like, that's, we're in it right now. We're in that, you know? And I love that.

We're in the midst of a transition that is going to be so weird when we look back, you know? Like, we're at that point. I feel like, I don't know if we're before after that moment, that, like, not to bring all of my worlds together, but, like, when Steve Jobs got on the stage

and pulled an iPhone out of his pocket that January, what is it, 2006, 7. Seven. The world changed that day, right? And it didn't make sense. It wasn't tomorrow that you bought phones that looked like iPhones, but it was like, everybody thought about phones, technology, their relationship with it. Everyone thought about it differently that day, and it took two years for the whole industry to catch up, and phones move fast, so it's going to take longer for space.

But, like, we are at that moment when things are happening that make. it makes space look totally different tomorrow than it did today. And it will take probably five or ten years to catch up to that. I feel like that moment was the first booster landing from space. December 21st, 2015. Yeah. Right. And it's going to take, what, five, six, seven years to catch up.

Yeah. But there is, we are at that moment when you and I are old and doing the show, we're going to, I hope that we're still doing the show. Hello, welcome to off nominal. We're drinking their bruises. 742. What are you got? Meta Musil.

But when we're doing that, that sounds kind of rad, actually. Double hopped and sure. Yeah. But like when we are there. Is Meta Musil with vodka like a senior citizen mimosa? I don't know. I will find out for you.

What's a mimosa? Champagne, isn't it? An orange juice, yeah. But when we get there, when we're old and talking about this, don't you think these are the years that were that will it don't like because we had this era once before when everything looked like it was going to be different and then it was the same but there's definitely differences now given what's happened the last three four years

there are achievements that have happened that the previous era would talk about who's the guy that wrote that book just this coming out he's doing all his public publicity right now I think the interplanetary guys had him on the show because he was like a student reporter for apollo Oh, yeah. Right? And he, like, wrote a book about his experience covering Apollo. Maybe that'll be like us when we're seniors and we're like, yeah, I was there for Falcon Heavy. Double booster landing.

You just want to write a book, it sounds like. I do want to write a book. But it feels like, it feels like these years are that moment, you know? Yeah, that could be. And that's cool because, you know, I did a show this past week about. all this stuff. And my main theme was, this is the last NASA program

that looks like this. 100%. If it works or not, either way. This is the last time it looks like any echo of Apollo. Yeah. Yeah, I think whatever the next big, the next Artemis,

whatever that looks like, it's got to be something more like instead of leading infrastructure development, trying to fall away, right? That's kind of what you hope for. You hope that like, we're going to go here and all the stuff started there so we can just focus on our objectives and our payloads. Things exist. How do we use it?

Yeah. Yeah. And that's cool. That's cool as hell. And we have like, we got these starships. Yeah, I don't know where it'll be, but we've got starships being welded together in random spots in Texas and Florida. We've got, there's probably some good stuff going on in that Blue Origin factory on the Cape right now that nobody, that they're not showing us yet. There's so many things in motion that are.

giant scale that have massive resources behind them that would change things fundamentally for NASA because as much as we give SpaceX credit the last five, ten years, launch price hasn't come down that much. No, not yet. It's not that low, right? Because there's no other pressure. Yeah, there's no incentive for them to lower the prices.

We keep saying, oh, this competition is making it better. But like no one's competing with... There's one more competition. Yeah, yeah, but no one's competing on the reason. ability scale yet. Yeah, it's going to be awesome to see what Blue Origin announces as a price for New Glenn. And that will probably push it lower. That's going to be crazy, right?

That's going to be the day. But sometimes I think about it. So, I mean, we just had this blue moon unveiling. And they're like, here's this perfectly timed, hey, we happen to have this thing that exactly fits. I mean, it's not that coincidental, I'm sure. I'm sure that Jeff and Jim have had conversations here and there. but they've been working on that for three years supposedly. And I really wonder, what are they starting now that's going to be the perfectly timed thing in, you know, 20, 23 or whatever?

That's kind of what I want to know. Well, you just have to wait. Yeah, because Jeff Bezos won't show us. I want to know who... Who talked to Blue Origin and Bezos about the timing of that announcement? Foya that. I don't think that's foiable. I want all the emails between Jim Brainstine.

Because I don't think that conversation was documented. You're telling me that was random chance. I mean, it was satellite 2019, so it's not. But why was the NASA announcement so close? I mean, it was all about like, hey, you know, that thing that you and I know you've been working on for three years, it's time to pull the curtain back. Did we accomplish anything on this show?

I don't know. I was just going to say, I don't think we solved anything, man. Whatever. Every once in a while, I feel like everyone that's listening to this right now is right here with us, right? This is how we all feel. All right, so everyone, we're going to take a short 10-minute break. We're going to go get some more beers and I'm going to start hour two of this.

Yeah, no, I'm not even kidding, man. This could be the longest one. I don't think anyone would be mad. What else is bugging you about this, though? Is there anything else that you've been thinking about? Well, I mean, like I said, there's more steps to this, and I think that J.B. knows a couple of them. But I really, I can't quite see the SLS path yet.

I don't feel like I know what's going to happen there. I predict that path with the least amount of confidence is all the other pieces of this. Because they came out strong with a shot across the bow. They very clearly demonstrated, you know, displeasure with the status quo. And it is, we're right back to here's your plus up on this budget. And, you know, EOS is still uncertain at this point. Like, it was pushed off.

The exploration upper Schrodinger. Yeah, yeah. The big, big upper stage for Block 2 or whatever, Block 1,000. be. And so I don't know how that's going to play out yet. And I, my optimist side likes to believe that there's a strategy to just minimize it out of existence. Like, oh yeah, it's still a program, but it launches once every 10 years or just like, keep building. And then we just like slowly sequester it to the side of NASA. And then like, I don't know, like, at the extreme case, it would be just like Marshall spins off as like its own space agency and they just get their

us to less budget. It just keeps going on in perpetuity and NASA moves on with his life. Like, you know, because you can't kill it. So just like amputate, but I don't know. Like, that's what I can't, I can't figure out. It's really hard to pick a title for this show. You can't kill it, just amputate. But like that's, that's the only way, the way things are entrenched now with that program, that's the only way I can see NASA making a reasonable change to it. just like, literally just like sequestering it.

Like, yeah, you get your money. The NASA budget is now $16 billion. And that's what we're working with. And there's a different program that's a rocket program that we're not a part of anymore. We have nominal oversight over it. But like, since Congress writes into the budget, the directive, we don't really have to manage it. So like, you're doing this with this dollar and this with this dollar.

So, like, what, you know, what is the, what is the, administrator have to do in that situation. Like, hey, you guys following the lock? Yeah, great. Thanks. So your best hope is that somebody tells somebody that SLS would be really great for Space Force. Hey, that's one way to do it. I don't know. I, like, as I say, I don't, I can't see that path. I don't know what it is. Okay. So now I'm spitting out conjectures. When you mean the path, you mean what it does in the future, not necessarily how it would launch these missions? Well, like, I feel like the administrator is not done with it. Okay.

You feel like the whole, we'll find other contractors, was J.B. saying space launch system with its middle name. And so he knows he really means it. And this is the last chance before you're sent to your room. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Yeah.

And then like, like, Richard Shelby's really old. He is really old. He's 85. He just, he just waited out. He's 85. It's kind of how I felt about the Philadelphia Flyers when Ed Snyder was getting up there and I'm like I don't think we got it in us until

Snyder's out of here I actually think about how old Richard Shelby is really old and he can't even open his mouth anymore he talks like with his teeth clenched I can't even believe you still working to be honest but that's everybody can I tell you my thing that's bugging me okay remember the small lander

program to land things on the moon clips yeah remember when's the last time you heard anyone talk about that obviously it was like six months ago but like it's going on there yeah I don't know hmm hmm hmm what was the last piece of news we had did we had we were awarded

we awarded some contracts right they put out the first task order I'm not saying there's no news on it I'm just saying that like what's going on right no that everybody that's in that program is still a handful of years away from launching launching a lunar lander with those payloads. I mean, that program predated the pivot, right?

The acceleration. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So maybe they're just trying to figure out where that fits in to this new plan, right? Because it wasn't the main part of that, was it's like, hey, we need to do some scouting missions, so we may as well do some science at the same time. So we will, you know, invest in these companies that are doing small landers. we'll get them to go to the South Pole and figure shit out. And then the scientists can ride along so that it's actually useful.

And then we'll use that experience to move on to the humans. But if you're doing humans like, you know, PDQ. Right. How does an astrobotic lander that's going to launch in 2021 play into that at all? Yeah, like the human lander will be past, you know, PDR by that time. I would hope, right? Yeah, Lars says, what's a handful? I think he meant I said a handful of years that they're away from launching.

Everybody's talking up, like, oh, we can do it by the end of the year. But, like, I haven't heard anyone realistically say things confidently in 2020, let alone 2021. Yeah, I've heard, like, small chance 2020, more likely 2021, right? Yeah. But that's the part that I'm like, this was sold on, like, this is a part of our program. You know? But then the timelines for those are...

are 2021 plus. And if flying a 400 kilogram lander or whatever it is in 2021 is like our best hope right now, how does that matter to this other program? Maybe part two is then like, they come out and be like, all right, well, the human part part is accelerated. So all you small sat launchers, you need to be done by the end of 2020. Like, the contract is this. And if you don't get it, then see you.

Like, and then kicks all them in the gear, right? All of those are probably more commercially viable than anything that would be worked on for humans. Yeah, don't like. So I would very much prefer all of, you know, everyone that's working on Clips, Landers, please just keep doing your thing. Please make it work. Don't worry about all this other stuff too much. Yeah, we really like you.

I just would like J.B. to remember that those exist. I mean, in his defense, he's probably pretty busy. he is man he probably doesn't sleep a lot though he drinks a lot of Mountain Dew yeah have you ever like did he ever actually like

stopped and thought about his schedule because there's like days where it's just like he appears in the Senate and then he's like boom he's at the humans to Mars summit and then like he's at some fundraiser

and he's pumped he's pumped every time and he talks at every one Adderall what do you think it is methamphetamines yeah I'm thinking I don't know man

you think he's just vibrant just like really I love him I can't wait for the off-nomble episode with him it's not imminent and it probably won't be until he's retired and old but it's going to be great

yeah he flies T-38's that that's true he does fly really fast airplanes and I think that requires a certain level of intensity I got like a 50-50 mix of like bat shit crazy and super calm

Lars said still I would love if he's like flying around in his suit, like, Landon at, you know, land in heading in an Uber and heading right to the hill and then flying back to somewhere else. I had an employee town hall at Johnson Space Center at 10 a.m. And then I had to talk. I had to talk at Exploration Park in Florida at 2 p.m.

And the only way to get there that fast was a jet. So I hopped in the back seat with, you know, with Harrison Ford. Some other astronaut. Do you remember when Harrison Ford was supposed to fly in? into the um to for the balfa heavy launch do you remember that yeah you got a star wars shirt on the night he was supposed to fly in for falcon heavy and then he like landed on a taxiway in california on the shuttle on the shuttle landing ship he's supposed to like yeah and then he crashed that world war two plane or something all right we've we've lost it we're off the trail what are we

doing all right well does anyone want this to continue i don't know even to what we've accomplished I don't know. I think we hash it out. People keep saying yes and there's still nine people here. Let's keep this going. We've said nothing for 60 minutes. I know. I don't.

I feel like, I mean, this, honestly, though, this is the true spirit of off-nominal this show. It really is. This is what we would do if we all were at a bar right now and we were just both excited and bummed out about space. Yeah. Well, we were just saying like two days ago, like, we have never needed an off-nominal more than we do right now. Just to figure out, I don't know.

I literally tried to do a podcast three nights in a row this week, and I didn't know what to do. I didn't even know what I was getting at. Okay, let's talk about your, what is the best case scenario for all this, and what is the worst case scenario that you can envision moving forward? Oh, we were supposed to find out what we were called. Shit, I meant to do that at the beginning of the show, Jake. We shrewded it.

Should we do a little entremont and talk about this? All right. Okay. Okay. There's no structure to this podcast. It's chaos. Just like the face program. I've got to open my second beer.

Okay. Derailed the show. Kurt is successful. Let's talk about, last show, this is a little intermission. Intermezzo. You made a call for what everyone would like to be called out there in the wild. What was my first go at in the cold open? like off nom noms or something?

It sounds accurate. Off nominees probably, yeah. Off nominists. We got a lot of, we got a lot of suggestions. We did get a lot of suggestions. You, what was your favorite? Thank you for emailing us, everybody.

Quick, too. It was like the next day. Yeah, yeah. I liked, uh, I think we liked the same one, basically, was like. You liked off nominots. I did like off nominaut.

And that came up. for more than one person. Yep. So that sounds like an obvious one. So Mass fraction suggested Garys, which I thought was pretty funny. Garys was pretty good. Oh, no, what was the, what was the pub quiz trivia drinking team? The beer podcast with a space problem or something?

Yeah, that's our quiz. That's our quiz. But I have Neil written down. Neil, if you're out there, you won this. All of you are called anomalies. and that is the best fan name of all time. Anomalies is pretty good.

Yes. It's so good. It's so good. It's so much better than this podcast deserves. Yeah. This podcast doesn't deserve much, so that's not saying much. Okay. Entremont over. Okay, so we were talking about scenarios.

Yeah, best case, worst case. Okay, so I think the worst case is easier. So the worst case is the House and the Senate don't pass anything. And we go into a CR mode until the election. And then the Republicans lose and they fire Bridenstein. Bring Bolin back. SLS is plused up. Yeah, they hire like, I don't know, like Gerson Meyer becomes the administrator or something.

No, we'll bring Lightfoot back. So sleepy. Lightfoot back, yeah He's just like I don't think I don't think that we're ready for reuse ability yet But all of you are so great

I'm Robert Lightfoot I'm very soft-spoken Yeah So that to me is the worst case Like literally nothing changes That to me is what the nominal course of action is though That's where we're headed in right now

Although I don't know about the election thing Yeah Okay. Best case, it totally works. Yeah, best case... This was a really fun segment. I'm glad that we did this segment. Well, okay, so best case is interesting

because it's like, do you take the approach of like best case realistically or just like best best case that you can ever, you can think up? No, we're in realism mode. Realism mode. Yeah. So, I mean, I don't think they make 2024 even in the best. circumstances, but like maybe they make 2026 or something. And so maybe there's stability in the organization and it lasts through the end of

2024. And then whoever becomes president in 2024, it's too deep to change anything. So like you carry through. There's some delays, which are inevitable. 2026, you get like, you get a couple landings from two different companies who develop some like pretty decent architectures. I don't know. Maybe it's blue.

Maybe it's someone else. else, I don't know. And I think by then you really hope that on the Leo side, you've got commercial crew has been like humming for a while and they're trying new things. And maybe there are some of these commercial space stations. And like you just, you pull the, you pull the, the, what's normal outward a bit, right? So there's just like one or two steps more happening in Leo, one or two steps more happening in SISLooner.

one or two steps more happening on the surface. That's kind of really my realistic best case scenario. Something's happening. Yeah, I would agree with the 2026 thing for sure. Yeah, it's interesting that that was, you know, people were unhappy at the 2028 timeframe. But the only way to get to 26 is to say we're doing it in 24. Yeah.

It's like that friend who's always late for stuff and you tell them to come around. Yeah, or my wife. No, she knows that. It's fine. What about you? I think I totally agree with that. Although your worst case scenario is what I would imagine this is. Yeah.

My worst case scenario would probably be that they go all in on Gateway. Just like some random Congress was happy with that before. I don't know. I'm not down on Gateway though. I don't see that as worst case. Because that's one more step of something happening. It's so much money. I know that you're in it for the Canada Arm thing.

But like, come on, man. Separate yourself from this. It's all so much money. Everything's so much money. much money. Everything is so much money. And that, okay, worst case scenario, something happens in which we start to

actually take our national debt seriously, and then all this is off the books. Ooh. Plausible, plausible, plausible case. I mean, implausible because nobody cares about it. Possible because I feel like it should happen at some point. General laughing in the chat.

Many people are typing. Yeah, that would probably be worse than that would probably be worse than that. And then I guess I'll throw in like Ted Cruz flies to the ISS a la. What's his name? That would be pretty annoying. Like that's your worst case. Yeah, if Ted Cruz flies to the ISS, that's my worst name.

That's my worst case. A slow, like really awkward length video of him suiting up in a Boeing space suit. With that untrimmed beard that he's got right now. Like, like, like, with color. The Michelin Man space suit? Yeah, yeah, he's putting that on. And just like, he makes a video and it's like seven minutes long of him like dressing. And he's like commentating.

He's like, wow, this strap's pretty interesting. Look at this. And there's like some awkward engineer who's just like trying to help him. We're off the rails. Let's go all in. If you had to put together a bipartisan ISS flight to to mend our political environment and it was Ted Cruz, who would you send with Ted Cruz? Look at that beard.

I'm going to make that the album art right now. A bipartisan. A bipartisan olive branch where both parties go to space to the ice says, Who flies with Ted Cruz? Does it have to be another senator or could it be a carmish person or someone else? Anyone that is a part of the Democratic Party. We got some AOCs out there. I don't think so.

I don't think that would be enough tension for me. I don't think Bernie could make it. Like John Glenn was on the edge. Democratic. Trying to think of a good foil for Tag Cruz. It's a tough question. I think it's a tough question. Like, is there a Democrat that's like,

kind of has that really kind of lame nerdy feel to it, you know? Lame nerdy. But like just democratic, like, if you wanted fireworks, you'd put like a woman of color up there. Yeah, no, no, I want more like awkward tension. I don't want outright everyone's angry at each other I want no because this is supposed to be

let's mend the side so I want people that that can on camera look like they're getting along but you know when the camera gets off they're just like elbowing each other like little brothers in the back seat that's what I want let me know

everybody out there let me know there's got to be some like Chuck Schumer there you go Chuck Schumer would be good because he would be so uncomfortable the whole time. He would hate it. I think you would hate it. That's perfect. Yeah, he would look flabbergasted the whole time.

Would he be able to wear his glasses on the end of his nose? That would be the zero G indicator when his glasses lift off with the tip of his nose. That's awesome. Okay, this episode needs to end. That's really funny. Okay, let's do picks or something. What do you got? Do you even have one?

You are... I do have one. It was an emergency pick because I forgot to get one. So this is following a trend that I have with picks where I find a book that I have. Haven't read yet? That I haven't read yet. So I'm just sharing you with what I found here. So this is...

I got this on eBay for like three books or something. It's called The Planet Mars. And then subtitle. A history of observation and discovery. Yeah. William Sheehan is the author. And this is, if you're a history geek,

this is like the observation of Mars right back to when, you know, we were like figuring out how to do agriculture and looking up at that red dot. So it's like everything covers a lot of like... Extensive.

Just the way you like it. Yeah, like context. So much context. So a lot of like the early celestial stuff, a lot of the 19th century opposition measurements, a lot of Skiaparelli, a lot of Percival Lowell, fun stuff and then kind of leading up into the space age. And then they cover a bit of like Mariner Viking. So it's kind of cool.

I'm pretty excited to read it because I love that stuff. I want to do a big long history podcast about this stuff. Maybe that'll happen one day when I find all this free time. Can we talk about when I went outside of the Brera Observatory? You never ever told me the story. No, because there wasn't much of one. I couldn't get in. But I sure as shit saw all the observatory that Scaparelli was doing those famous observations from.

I emailed them. I tried to get in there, but I just ended up standing outside and looking at it. and my wife said this was as cool as I thought it would be. Why did you bring me here? Yeah, I said it wasn't that far and it was an easy walk and it's cool and look at that. That place is famous and that was it. So if you're ever in Milan, give it a shot. Check it out.

Yeah. L'Barrera Observatory. On that note, let me do my pick that I have one pick and one pick shout out because one pick, my pick pick, I know that is relevant to everybody listening to this show. My shout out pick, probably not. as relevant. We talked pre-show that I was, I've been, maybe I mentioned it during the show that I've been working on my Italian. So I've been listened to a lot of the Astronauticast, which is this Italian space podcast. And it's my, it's one way that I practice. And I, I love it. I don't know if any of them listened to this, but I wanted to shout them out as it's a really rad podcast. So if there's

anyone out there that's listening that also speaks Italian or is attempting to speak Italian like I am, check it out. Great, astronauticast.it.it.com. Flipping tabs. They're great. They're like, They're friends with us, but in a different language. Yeah. My long-term goal is to be good enough to eventually appear on that. That's like my, literally whenever I'm practicing, that is my goal is like, I've got to make it there. That's my long-term goal.

And diablo. Good. You nailed it. Actual pick is, I think I told you to listen to this recently, was it a recent episode of Planetary Radio where Mark Albrecht was on. Was this the last one? I considered doing this pick, but I figured you would have picked it. Yeah, it's awesome.

So Mark Albrecht was the essentially the Scott Pace of 30 years ago, right, of the last time the National Space Council came around. He was the executive director of it. Is that the right term? I think that's the right term. He was in charge of that. He ran that whole thing surrounding the space exploration initiative. So he was on planetary radio talking all about this and is in that,

phase of life where he's totally frank about what happened, what they should have done, what they did wrong, what they did right. And I listened to this before all of this recent stuff happened, so maybe I had a different framing of like what could be. And it probably doesn't change much after the recent politicking. But to hear him talk about this, you know, decades down the line of the way that things were set up and the parallels are incredible to right now where we're at in the world. And the differences are also kind of interesting. You know, where the industry is is interesting to consider. So I felt like it was a really interesting hour to listen to him,

talk about that, and learn from history in real time, but just felt really cool. And he's a rad dude. And then the millennial in me would like me to mention that Mark Albrecht is the father of Alex Albrecht, who anyone out there who is of my similar age might have watched Alex Albrecht on Dignation. Did you ever watch Dignation?

Never heard of it. Imagine if we did a show that wasn't about space, but we did the same thing we're doing right now. That's Dignation. Okay. It was amazing. Kevin Rose, Alex Albrecht. Alex Albrecht's dad was the guy that ran the last National Space Council.

And I just, it's so soothing to me to have this continuity of my life. And I love it. It's great. Check it out. Yeah, it was a good conversation. It's like an hour long with Casey Dreyer and it's just amazing. Yeah, space policy edition, the May one, right? Yeah.

Yeah, that was a good episode. That was really cool. just like hearing him talk about what he would have done differently was like pretty interesting. You're just like, oh, okay. Because like in the end, that program was destined to never happen. So like even just thinking about what he would have changed is pretty interesting. Because that was the program, the space exploration initiative, right? That was that one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the 90 day report came out and they said it's going to be 500 billion. million dollars and then Congress wrapped it up in a bow and threw it in the dumpster out back. And then everyone's mad now that they're not giving us five-year, five-year budget. Yeah. There, you just circled it back. Well, if you have a suggestion for who should fly in, I would put them into Soyuz just for the extra added weirdness.

If you would like to see somebody fly to space into Soyuz with Ted Cruz, please let us know who. And tell us who's in the middle seat. Who's in the middle seat? No, no, no, you're in the middle seat. Not you personally. Like, whoever's listening to this. It'd be funnier if Ted Cruz is in the middle seat and then his elbows are in the face of the other person.

I love it. Yeah. Love it. Let us know. Email literally anything at offnominal. And it will get to us. Be creative with your two line that we get a lot of enjoyment out of it. And that's all I got.

What do you got? That's it. That's it. Bye. One, two, three, four, five.