Off-Nominal - 190 - Poolonauts (with Jason Snell)

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

Jake and Anthony are joined by writer and podcaster Jason Snell, to talk about Jared Isaacman’s nomination to lead NASA, what’s been up in the NASA CFO scene, what astronauts really want to be doing, and so much more. Also, this episode completes the Lifoff-Nominal crossover spectacular, AND makes 10 year old Anthony very happy that he’s podcasting with Jason friggin’ Snell.TopicsOff-Nominal - YouTubeEpisode 190 - Poolonauts (with Jason Snell) - YouTubeAnthony on CNN Last WeekMomentum seems to be building for Jared Isaacman to become NASA administrator - Ars TechnicaWhite House nominates Autry to be NASA’s chief financial officer - SpaceNewsTrump White House drops diversity plan for Moon landing it created back in 2019 - Ars TechnicaEpisode 128 - These Were Bad Movies - Off-NominalFollow JasonJason Snell (@[e-mail]) - The IncomparableSix Colors – Apple, technology, and other stuff by Jason Snell & Dan MorenUpgrade - RelayLiftoff - RelayThe Incomparable - Smart, funny pop culture podcastsNow entering the Snell ZoneFollow Off-NominalSubscribe to the show! - Off-NominalSupport the show, join the DiscordOff-Nominal (@offnom) / TwitterOff-Nominal (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceFollow JakeWeMartians Podcast - Follow Humanity's Journey to MarsWeMartians Podcast (@We_Martians) | TwitterJake Robins (@JakeOnOrbit) | TwitterJake Robins (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceFollow AnthonyMain Engine Cut OffMain Engine Cut Off (@WeHaveMECO) | TwitterMain Engine Cut Off (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceAnthony Colangelo (@acolangelo) | TwitterAnthony Colangelo (@[e-mail]) - jawns.club 🐘Off-Nominal MerchandiseOff-Nominal Logo TeeWeMartians Shop | MECO Shop

TLS and go for main engine, start. Jake is screwing with me right before we're live. Yeah, I was trying to make sure, I was trying to give you the giggles to see if I could like really get you to stumble into the opening a little bit. I was about to unveil our live stream and you were doing okay signs very aggressively. I can't, I can't, I can't shake a season CNN veteran like you. Yeah, yeah, we canceled last week's show because I was on regular TV, I guess. It's the storyline, how it reads from the outside.

But Jake, even better, though. We've got a professional since like the original podcasts, I think is probably fairly accurate, Jason. Like you're probably a single-digit podcast on the internet. We, I mean, we were experimenting with podcasts back in 2005 or whatever, yeah. So that's what I'm talking about. I was listening to like lost podcasts, but. Yeah, yeah. There are some podcasts from back then.

Macworld, we were playing around with the format back then. So none of my personal podcast that I have now predate like 2010, but we were messing around with it back then. But listen, it's been how long since you've talked about space? I feel like we're doing confessional. Ages. Ages. Stephen Hackett and I were threatening to do a new episode of Lift Off as a surprise. But, yeah, December 22 was our last.

So it's been, you know, a couple years. Okay. Well, we'll shake off the dust. I was just saying we completed the lift-off nominal spectacular here. You're now a lift-off nominal. Part two. We should have had a both on at the same time. I don't know why we didn't.

But, you know. There's always next time. Yeah. There's always next time. Part three. Yeah, we've got a metric ton of things that have happened that need to be unpacked, I would say. So I'm glad that you're here with us on West Coast time.

A little early. First Day Baseball? What kind of things you're drinking on the first day baseball? Yeah, it's, well, it's five o'clock somewhere. In this case, that would be Nova Scotia. But I've got, this is a, this is a, it's a Rattler. I figured that that was as close as I was going to get. It's a two pitchers, which is a local brewery, Rattler. It's a grapefruit beer, low alcohol. And again, cheers to everybody in Nova Scotia. You almost live there, Jake. You almost, you didn't think about moving there before you went to Mexico. Yeah, Nova Scotia was second in line after. Mexico. Actually, it was first in line for a while. And then we were, because we were shopping,

this is like 20, 21. And that's like when all the, in Canada, the COVID moving was like, get out of the really expensive cities and go to Halifax. So like we were, we were like browsing real estate. And the prices were just like literally like climbing on the screen in front of us. And they doubled in like a couple months. And we just had to, I think when you were shopping too, there were like one or two hurricanes that hit Nova Scotia. Yeah, we went out on like a scouting trip and we escaped Hurricane Dorian, I think it was called. We were on the literally the last flight out. The airport was empty and they had like that, you know, the screen with all the flights.

And it was just like canceled, canceled, can't. There was like all these red lines. And then one flight, which was us. And we hopped on there with all of the airline staff and we all just took off and cut out of there. So it was pretty fun day. Full on evacuation. I used to work with a guy in Halifax, Jim Talley Ripple at Mac World, lived in Halifax.

And it was great because he got up before everybody else, even the East Coast. Because a lot of people don't know that there's a, there's Atlantic time, which is even further out there than Eastern time. And that's, that's why it's five o'clock in Halifax right now. Yeah. And there's even one more after that in Newfoundland. It's true if you really want to. I mean, there's nobody out there.

It's just like elk. It's only a half hour. It's like half times on. Great. Plus 4.30 from. But it was always, I mean, he was up. He was up and ready for all those 6 a.m. press releases. So it's great.

Totally. Yeah. Cool. What'd your brain, Jake? Are you drinking anything for baseball? No, but it is time. It has finally happened. What is it?

Look at this. Oh, it's the mead? It's the mead. Jason, he's been making mead for like two years or something. I don't know. How long has it been? One year. One year.

Okay. And this one, this one was, I started this one in October. So it's not that old. But this is the first batch. that is passively. Have you tried it? Okay, yeah, I've tried. I thought this was the initial try on on the show, which is I always should have made you. But yeah, we'll see. I probably here, this is a sizer, so it's made with apple juice instead of water. And, uh, that'll be a little too much. I don't know about mead. I don't think. Anyway, how's that clarity? How's that look? I don't know. I don't know about me. I guess anyone out there about meed, shout it out on how it looks.

I don't know anything about me. I'm drinking white wine still. I'm still rolling with the, well, it's a new bottle of Vernacha, because it's springtime, and I love Vernatia in the springtime. Vernacha. Yeah. San Jiminyano in Italy. It's great.

It's a great spot. This is good. I like this. I sent a rundown of a thousand news stories, Jason. I don't know. You're a pretty busy guy. I pulled this out before the show. I have a Macworld August 2006 edition that I keep in my

office because this is the first Mac that I bought, which is also back here. Look at that. Oh, I'm very bright and very blown out. But look at that thing. Beautiful. And I've got a picture of a 20-year-old picture of Jason Snell in my office. That's right. People were trying to lobby me to get you to sign one or both of these.

I have signed copies of Macworld before. It's totally happened. I'm going to keep down on the lowdown. It's funny because, you know, you work at a magazine back in the day. And all I can do when I see those covers is remember all the. arguments that we had about what was going to be on the cover. Yeah. Was there an argument about this one?

The black MacBook, Mac and Black? Well, see, because you got to understand the argument isn't there's a new, obviously, if there's a new Apple product, we wanted Apple to release one new product every single month because those are the best selling issues. But we had like a circulation consultant and she'd always be like, I don't know about yellow. And do people really buy yellow magazine covers? And we did a Mac, we did a yellow cover. four years ago and it didn't do that well,

even though it wasn't very good cover. These are new Macs, but could it be blue? Why don't you make a blue one too and we'll look at that? And my art director would be like, oh, God, okay, all right. It was that sort of, it was the worst kind of committee conversations

that we would have. Well, I mean, that was a good lead in for me to say, you're very busy with your actual job of Apple coverage these days. So I don't know how deeply in these stories you are, but you got the, you got the pick of the litter. Of which space story you want to start in on. Oh, I got the pick of the litter.

Well, then Jared Isaacman. Let's start there. How about that? It's a good spot because it gets us everywhere. There's a pressure campaign on Ted Cruz to willingly accept Jared Isaacman as the new overlord of NASA. How do you read this situation? uh i my read is that i think that uh jared isigman is probably the best case scenario for nassar um he's un he's unconventional um it's true um but the you know bill nelson was super ultra conventional

and and and you know and i think maybe a boring choice he isingman is interesting um i got to whoever is picking, because I don't think Donald Trump cares about NASA, but whoever's picking these people, like Jim Bridenstein, who, you know, was in Congress. So he at least was in the government, but he was actually a very good choice, who did a good job, I think. Isaacman, everything that I've heard, and it certainly seems like there are a bunch of astronauts who support him, is like he cares about space and NASA's mission. And yes, he's kind of a dilettante who, you know, funded his own space missions, but he does seem to care. and understand the role of NASA in a way that if you get another spin at the wheel, you might not get.

So I think maybe it's okay to have it be him. It sounds like that he is going to get confirmed that they're just going to slow play it for a while. I do think it is weird to see, yeah, to see Republicans in Congress complain about a Trump administration nominations. Like, I guess what was his shame is he donated to some Democrats one time? I mean, that's it. sort of don't know for previous Democrats in the cabinet

yeah and the president it was the scandal that he raised a lot of money for St. Jude and St. Jude treats people regardless of their politics I mean, I don't know what's going on there but he seems I just I don't know

he seems like the best they're going to get so fine he seems like a fine guy if you didn't know that Isaacman was the nominee and someone who said okay imagine what's going to happen Who's he going to pick for NASA administrator? You can come up with 1,000 worse ideas. So it's, yeah.

And that's like not a, that's not even a terrible way to say it. That's like as if Isaac is not good, but he's just not better than anyone else. He's actually good. I honestly thought it was going to be like Gilgerard. And I'd be like, what do you mean? He was Buck Rogers. He knows all about space. Like, what?

Huh? What? So this guy's actually been in space. He's been around it. Yeah. It's the funniest version, too. If you like smash cut to two years ago when Jake and I are on the show, like, shitting on the idea of an astronaut leading NASA again,

it's also the funniest version of this to me, right? Like, yeah, we need our words so hard as like the crew that was out here being like, we don't need another astronaut. I apologize. I realize now that the right choice for me to float was not Gilderard. It was Kevin Sorbo. He was also in a space show. I was like Kevin Sorbo could be in charge of NASA because, you know,

Gene Rodgers, Andromeda. He's been the captain before. circulating lists for NASA administrators every four years. Like the way that, like, you know, the Heritage Foundation does for Supreme Court justices when Republicans are president. Like, you need to put the Jason Snell list of NASA administrators out. Of sci-fi actors who could be NASA administrators. It's great. I love it.

I think Sorbo has the right color hat, too. I think he's pretty into that stuff. So I think it would work. Yeah. It's a good one. Brought up in the chat is, is, I got to hit the ad to broadcast button on this because they wrote Gene Autry as CFO, which is not. who not who got nominated as the CFO of NASA. It was Greg Autry, but Gene Autry is incredible.

It fits more with your picks, Jason. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he's going to ride into the bank on a horse. It was Greg Roddenberry, I think was who was the... I see. Greg Autry as the CFO of NASA is an interesting turn of the last week because we've had, especially in the world of like who's involved in NASA politics. sort of like a totally new team from original Trump administration.

And we kind of knew that at the end of the Trump administration. There was talk of Bridenstein being on the outs if Trump were to win reelection. But Greg Autry was nominated about a year before Trump's term ended. I think it was about a year. Maybe it was like six months within the end there. But they never got to the confirmation of Greg Autry as CFO. And he's back this time around, which, Jake, you and I were talking a lot about him in the run-up to the election because he was tweeting like mad trying to have some role in the administration. But I only find it notable in that

there are very few recurring characters that you could trace from this Trump administration to the last, especially in the world of space. And what is this connective tissue? Yeah, yeah. He was in the transition team too, right? I think. Yes. I believe that's true. That sounds right to me. I think there's an argument to be made, too, that the goal, even more than the last time, is to repudiate anything that came before and you end up in these very weird situations where things that happened in the prior Trump administration and were not stopped or continued on by the Biden administration are now viewed as tainted because Biden didn't kill it, which is such a weird. It's like, but you did it. You started it. But we're asking for consistency here and I think that's a mistake.

Yeah, landing the first woman on the moon, that one's out now, right? That was like a Pence thing. Yeah. Well, it's because Biden administration threw the flunt on it of the first person. Yeah, that's it. You can land the first woman on the moon, but you can't talk about her being the first. You just have to assign a woman to a crew and say, oh, is she the first? I guess because that's how it works now. I had no idea. I only hire on merit. That's right. We don't even see any of those things. Is it just so hard? Yeah, we just get candidate A and we have, oh dear, okay. We'll get, we'll get a two off on that one.

But yeah, I know. It's interesting. I, the Greg Autry thing is, that is interesting. It's like I almost expected him to be nominated for deputy. I was kind of one that was on my list for maybe a deputy because it's like he's a little more insidery and a little more, you know, connected to the political side of it. might have been a good, you know, accompaniment to Isaacman, but CFO, I don't know. I have a question.

The two Trump administration is the only time I've ever even thought about the NASA CFO. Because there was Craig Autry and then there was like some other shadiness the first time around too, right? Wasn't there some drama with the? I don't know. It's the question I wanted to ask because I was trying to figure this out the other day. I was like, what is the CFO like an important position? Because it's like Senate confirmed, isn't it? And so like, what do they do?

And are they fully beholden to the admin? or do they actually have a little bit of autonomy because their Senate conferred? I don't know. What is this job? What is the point of it? Everyone's shaking their head. I can tell you. I don't think this is the core of people we need for that.

We did many years of the liftoff podcast and not once did we discuss the CFO of NASA. Yeah, yeah. Like who's the CFO? Like, who's the last one? Does anybody know? Put in the chat. If you know the last CFO of NASA, Roy Rogers, I think. The one that was CFO before Trump got inaugurated, like 50s.

days ago, put the name in the chat without Googling. Or who's acting, acting CFO right now? Tell me the gender of the CFO and you'll get points. No, it doesn't matter, Jake. We can't talk about it. Yeah. The Cruz thing is interesting though, right? Do you read the Cruz resistance?

Like, what do you think he's more mad about? The potential threat to the ISS and the tantrums that Elon has been throwing about the ISIS or the potential threat to the moon and its relationship to NASA Johnson. Why does Ted Cruz do anything? I don't know. I mean, I'm sure he's got a motive. It may just be he wants to stir it up. He wants to remind people that he's from Texas and that Texas is important space or he wants to get promises about something, right?

Like, it might not even be space related. He might literally just be making some complaints because he feels like he can in order to get somebody to give him something. But I've got to assume that's what it is. Because, you know, complaining that he's not, Jared Eisenman's not enough of a true believer, which seems like a weird hill to die on for Ted Cruz when, you know, there's been no resistance to basically any of these nominations. So, but beyond that, I don't know. I cannot fathom.

But, yeah, I mean, there's, he may be anticipating. If he's, if he's really smart, he may be anticipating sacred cows getting slaughtered and trying to find a way to negotiate some, you know, whether it is the SLS future or International Space Station Extension or something like that, just because those are all, you know, they're all in Texas, they're all jobs in Houston. So I understand that part of it. Yeah. They'll be fine.

They're where all the astronauts live. Like, I think Houston's an interesting one because, you know, the Alabama region would be more ticked off at SLS getting canceled. But, like, there's either going to be a little bit of. more of an ISS or the astronauts are going to go somewhere. I don't think anyone's talking about, let's not have NASA astronauts because Jared Isaacman figured out that a private astronaut corps is supremely better. That dude loves astronauts. I'm not, nobody's questioning that he loves astronauts or not.

And the astronauts love him. You know, a bunch of astronauts came out and endorsed him. I thought that was one of those moments of them saying, look, it's okay. He's going to be fine. Yeah. Which is also interesting when you consider, you know, years ago we had Richard Garrett on the show talking about how different that was when he was flying to the ISS as a tourist. and the, you know, the kind of like, you know, us versus them nature of the new era of people that were buying tickets to space and how there was so much tension.

And even sometimes NASA was trying to, you know, eliminate the chance that he was actually going to fly to the ISS. And so then, you know, all these years later, part of that is Isaacman and the takes that he's put out there about the things he believes in. And honestly, I think a lot of times the credit that people don't give to astronauts in the astronaut corps is that, like, where do you think they want to be flying? you know like see they they want to be flying to run two miles a day or two hours a day on the ISS or they want to go to the goddamn moon yeah or anywhere like how they pick where they would go in space i bet they top choice would not be the ISS as much as they love the ISS the way i always try to view because like i said i don't think don't think don't think don't trust about space other than what it represents um so that's what i

but Elon must does um and for as long as that's i mean who knows what will happen in the long run with that relationship. But I would say, and you could argue that this is true of all or most presidents, is that they don't really care, but they do mind like, am I going to get my name on the moon is a good one? Is something historic going to happen where I'm there for it? Do I get credit or does the country get credit for some important positive thing? And then also I would say, you don't want to be in the middle of.

of a bad story about it. So I think that I would view all future space policy in this administration, and maybe through all administrations through that lens. So in this case, it would be going to the moon is the thing you do to say, look at us, we went back to the moon. Isn't that awesome? I'm talking to somebody on the moon. Going toward Mars, obviously, a big milestone.

But I would say the other parts are abandoning the ISS without a place to go is a bad look. And being seen as poorer than China in space is a real bad look, being beaten to the moon, having their space station continue to run while yours is being abandoned. Those are bad looks. And politicians hate looking bad like that. So I think that'll motivate a lot of what they decide. Yeah, that seems reasonable. It seems like they need a really good CFO though, Jake. I think they really need to lock that one in if they want any of these plans to succeed.

Greg, I'm going to get a Greg Autry email now. Yeah, we probably will. Honestly, we might probably need to get confirmed first, but right when he's confirmed, let's have him want to be like, what the hell? So what do you do here exactly? Yeah, if Greg Autry is listening, please, you have an open, open mic here to come and tell us why this is a good job. It's interesting.

The cruise thing is it could be to me like something really innocuous, like you said, Jason's like, he's just being a senator and, you know, like, I'm going to, I'm in, I'm in charge of some committees and I'm important and I'm going to make everybody remember that. And it's like, could be like nothing and he's going to totally cave on all this stuff anyway. And it's all just irrelevant. But it could also be bigger than that. Because like a couple of things about Ted Cruz.

It's like he is, so he's, he's the chair of the, the Senate community on space stuff, right? Like it doesn't, isn't he have like the, isn't this like the old Shelby job? Like this is the right. Yeah. Didn't they shift around a little bit though? I think they did. Because some of the lines shift around a little bit. I'm looking at the community name now doesn't have justice in it anymore.

Wasn't it like the commerce justice and science. Now it's just. Yeah, it's commerce science and transportation now. Oh. But either way, space is in there. That makes more sense. So whoever redesign that line makes, that that is a better grouping. Right.

So space is in there. So he's got like some kind of, he's got some space power. right? And you remember Anthony, you talked about how like this Trump presidency is going to be like, you know, it's kind of like lame duck from the start because he's not going to, you know, like he loses a bunch of his power as soon as he wins, right? So Cruz's term is going to outlast the Trump presidency run way or another, right? And so he's, if anyone is in a position where they're like, I only need to like satisfy this piece for a little bit, but like I get to make the long-term decisions.

It could be him. So and then there's also this whole big question about executive versus legislative power. That is a theme so far in this, uh, in this administration. And this could be a line, right? So I'm kind of keeping my eye on this. I don't think it's a big story yet, but it could be. I think it could be. We'll see.

That's my take as that's the foreigner take. How did I do? Yeah. Listen. It's all right. It's almost like you follow nearly exclusive American media. Yeah, almost, yeah. Yeah.

I mostly just listen to Main Engine Cut Off, so that's about it. Hey, look that. Thank you. You don't listen to upgrade or anything Jason does? I guess all as much of a Mac guy. I'm waiting for the next one to drop in Lift Off. I just keep, no, I keep refreshing that. The astronaut draft, we'll have to do that one of these days.

Yeah, yeah. That's a good one, the astronaut draft. Or sci-fi actors, that would be good NASA administrators. Great, one-two punch. I love it. Anthony, I wanted to ask you, the letter, the astronaut support letter for Isaacman. It had a certain name on it that was maybe surprising to some folks.

Did you catch that one? I've got to be honest, Jake. I don't give a shit what astronauts say about the administrator NASA. I didn't read the story. Straight up. Skipped it. Had the Hubble repair man on it, John Grunsfeld. Hmm.

All right. I should have not skipped this story. It's been a busy week. Listen, I nearly bought a new house, and I don't think I did. So it's been a little bit of a weird week down here. Okay, that's a turn. I didn't see. I literally never would have guessed that if you made me just guess who would have been on it.

I was like, I have no idea. That's a good one. Now we're all trying to figure out where that went. Or, you know, was it never sour? and it was all overblown or did something change, right? I bet that. I bet that the latter one of like, I think your Hubble take was the best of all takes. We're just like, is that good?

They're broke. Is it worth like doing this? Like, is it that good compared to the money that it would cost to do this? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Grunsfeld feeling like a remaining the Hubble man. I don't think it was, I don't think his ego is in the way of like squelching the opportunity to go up to the Hubble and keep it flying. I think it was overblown.

I think that was the... Yeah. Well, that's good. I'm glad they mended fences. Yeah. Is that a term? I feel like I just made up that term. Yeah.

No, that's it. That's a term, right? Okay. Yeah, it felt weird when I said it. Mm-hmm. I don't know. Where are you at on? What was the other favorite astronauts on this list?

Who else? Anyone notable? I'm all former. I'm looking at it now. Let's see. Retired, not former. What stands out to me here? Scott Kelly's on it.

That's interesting. maybe I don't know a little bit Kelly's are not in the best of spirits with the administration at the moment no not really so that's tough right I know

is it Mark Kelly's solo's Tesla was that the one day that was interesting let's see you got Garrett Reesman on here that's not a surprise Peggy Whitson no that's not a surprise

well does that agree no not a surprise I didn't read the story Grunzvold is a surprise, but I skipped the story, rightfully so. I don't know. What do you want me to do? Like, astronauts, I get that they have a elevated status in the way that people think about space. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We've never locked them as space policy. You got to shake this story a little bit and you're like, guys, Isaacman is the human spaceflight administrator. Of course, the astronauts want. Yeah, right. If your job is fly to space on rockets and the administrator, you have administrator, option A that says let's fly people on rockets and another one who says let's do another Mars rover or something like yeah obviously which one are you going to pick this is my point I think I actually think with this and the and the crew nine and 10 story the I think people like

us think about the astronaut office a lot but I don't think it that that theory breaks out past the like core space community of like there are so many things that are going on inside the astronaut office that never make it outside of those walls and the the way that they feel about these issues and there's a reason honestly that we've never had an astronaut in this show. Did you ever interview an astronaut, Jason, for Lyftoff? I don't think so. No? For some reason, I feel like you've talked to an astronaut, but maybe not. That's just because I think you're pretty cool. NASA people, but I'm not sure astronauts. Well, we've never interviewed one on this show because when they're active astronauts, they can't

really say a lot. Like, everything that you've heard them say is what they would say on this show. There would be no element of unexpectedness. But that doesn't mean that in the internal, and certainly with Starliner over the last year, we've seen this, like, from reporting from Eric Berger and others, that, you know, internal to the astronaut office, there is constantly very heated debate about what they should do and what their policy should be about what to fly on and how to fly, where they should go, and we never hear about any of that. So, you know, to some extent when they are retired and they start making their policy, their feelings known. I think like Terry Vertz, when he retired, he went wild, given outtakes on

Twitter, right? Like he was all over everywhere. And that was interesting, but we never know that from what does Don Pettett think, right? What does Christina Cook think? We never get that, that insight. And like I said, would they all, if you had them all vote anonymously, how many would say, let's keep the ISS flying verse, let's double down on Artemis and fly to the moon? Yeah.

That was interesting, right? Because the Artemis thing is more exciting, but like, let's be dead serious. like if you have a 20 year career as an astronaut, like what is the likelihood you're going to get on one of the five flights that's going to happen? Like the cadence on that is just bad. It's just real bad. And so if your options are go to ISS or, you know, help train the person that goes to the moon in the neutral buoyancy lab in Houston,

like I'd take the ISS in a heartbeat, you know? Yeah, there's more glory in maybe making it to the moon, but there's way more volume. in, you know, low Earth orbit space station runs, right? Keep those around. You want to keep those around. That is the most, Jake, incrementalism take

that there's ever been on this show, by the way, of like, me forcing a vote between Artemis and ISS and him being like, the choice is actually ISS versus scuba diving. Like, that is the most Jake take of all time. You're right. I can't argue with that. I know.

Have you seen that the neutral buoyancy lab? It's beautiful. It's awesome. You get to work in Houston and Spain. your entire job in a swimming pool? In a space suit? Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah. Oh, you're saying you would not dig that, Jason, because you want to actually be swimming. No, I mean, if you're an astronaut, I think you would, I'm just saying your job is in a swimming pool. Isn't that fun. But of course, yeah, you're in a space suit. You're working hard. But I don't know, I just, being an astronaut, it's not a bad job, but they don't do it

to be in a swimming pool. That's not why they do it. I think that you would have a problem, right? They're not, they're not pool of knots. So they want the number of, I guess, unless your attitude is, well, I'm the best, so of course I'm going to go to the moon. But in most cases, you'd probably say, they're way more steeds. By the way, Jason, you're talking about fucking astronauts, which are all like, I'm the best.

I became an astronaut. They all think they're the best, right? There's 50 of them, but they were selected from eight bazillion people. It's true, it's true, but who gets to go on those? The problem is, like, if there are only nine seats to the moon or 10 seats to the moon, and there are 50 seats or whatever to lower Earth orbit. Yeah. You know, if you truly believe that you're going to be one of those nine,

then maybe you don't care. But I bet most of them do. Yeah. That's the take. I think you got a really tricky scenario, though. You laid out the timeline, Jake, of like, yeah, of the, it's like a prisoner's dilemma. No one would ever choose the moon route because it always outstrips their, you know, relevancy. Which is actually feels a lot like the president's constantly picking humans to the moon versus humans to Mars.

And I strangely have a feeling that we have a president that might be like, whatever, whatever. Mars sounds cooler rather than do the one that would fit in my term. Well, and you can see the managing up because what they've said is the moon is a necessary step on the way to Mars. They're trying to, they're trying to manage it that way, which is yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We know Mars, but we really need to go to the moon. We're not going to stay, but just doing the moon, but we have to go to the moon first and then go to Mars. And they're trying to get that, right? It's like you've got to tell your boss.

Yeah. I am doing what you want, but I have to do this other thing first. I said I have a Mac World magazine from 2006, not a not a magazine about space policy. I was going to say that is a, that is August 2006. Party agnostic. Every administration is doing the exact same thing. That's the moon to Mars program office, right? Tell them what they want to hear is that, I mean, that doing a liftoff for all that time.

I mean, one of the things that Stephen and I discovered is like so much of this is, you know, we don't really want to do this, but a senator wants something or a representative wants something. They want money for their district. And the politics of it is so spectacular. And the truth is, the shame of it is that everybody thinks NASA gets more money from the government than they actually do as a percentage of the total. And if you've ever been to a NASA office, like, they're not well-funded, right?

Everything is kind of threadbare in my experience. And that's, it's just kind of amazing, right? That they are begging and they are pleading and telling stories about where they're going to go, but please first give us this money. It's remarkable. how much of it is really about, you know, it's not about what's possible scientifically. It's about what's possible politically.

Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Bummer. No. It's not really, though. It's not really bummer. It's the correct take, man. No, the question I have for you guys is, if you look at something like what Eric Berger wrote in ours about what you could do to get this SLS sort of semi-retired and still do Artemis, one of his suggestions was actually, using the new ULA rocket

as a second stage, right? And my overall question is, what effect does Elon Musk ultimately have on space policy under the Trump administration, assuming that he continues to be

Donald Trump's biggest cheerleader and that they don't have a falling out, which everybody sort of figures will happen at some point, but maybe not. I don't know. What do you, because like,

that's the question is like, how much of NASA policy is going to be just let, let, you know, give Elon money to do SpaceX things. And it is the, yeah, it is like the $25 million question or whatever, right? Like it's billion, I think. Billion. You also mix up billions and millions. I understand that happens occasionally.

I was shooting for a joke about how much money per month you spent on the campaign, but I don't think I got it right. I was just thinking about NASA. You got a number that was close to NASA's budget with the wrong unit, which is also a joke about Elon Musk, so I figured that was where you know. That was a good joke. Yeah. Just to fully dissect the bit.

Fully dissect the bit. No, I mean, I don't, I don't know. That's the interesting thing. And this is kind of that like little, but I'm not going to be the CFO. That's what they say in the chat. Very clearly, I have not fit for that job. Greg Otry will do math circles around me.

No, but like that's definitely a question that kind of ties back to the cruise thing, right? Because like, if Congress decides to draw a line on that, like, I mean, how many times, like, they've enshrined that rocket into federal law. And like, you know, it doesn't matter what Elon thinks at some point. If Congress is like, no, then that's what it's going to be, right? So it all comes down to whether the politics, you know, whether the politics can sway them, because that's the only way you can get Congress to do that.

Like, you have to convince Congress through some other means to cancel their favorite pet project if you want that to happen. And that's tough. Yeah, except the fact that a lot of the first moves of the Trump administration are to say that Congress holds the purse strings, but we don't have to spend the money if we don't want to. And they could just defund the SLS and there's nothing Congress can do to stop it. They'll just, I mean, and they can hold that over Congress and say, look, we're not going to fund this. So figure something else out. And yeah, I mean, this is one of those fundamental government things, which is if you believe as the Trump administration does, that executive power allows them to basically choose not to spend money that Congress tells. them to spend, then the dynamic shifts a little bit and they can say, we're not going to, this is, okay, so, you know, most of the people I know do not like Donald Trump, but I, and I don't either, but I'll say this about, about this situation is there are a lot of things in our government that are kind of weird and messed up because of the political ties where everything gets tied together and then it gets fossilized and we, and everybody who knows something about space knows that the SLS is. is a waste of money. And the reason they're doing it is because it's a government pork project and a government employee project.

SLS fans don't at me. It's just a waste of money. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's old tech. Like, I mean, is there anybody? Um, not that it can't do things, but because of what a cost, it's just such, it's such a huge amount of money that they're, that they're spending on it. And yet it has gone on and on and on. And the whole time that we've been following space, it just keeps going.

And everybody knows it's about. idea but it just keeps going and and so say what you will about the attitudes of the trump administration i will i will say that some of what they're doing will seems to be untying a lot of those log jams by basically saying we're not going to do it and i don't love that for democracy um and functioning government but one of the side effects is that some of these weird political kind of like zombie projects and log jams and all of that may just blow up. And SLS is one of those that like, I don't, if they just kill it, I'm not going to say, well, it's very troubling that the funding was ignored. And I'm going to be like, well, they probably should have done that five years ago, 10 years ago.

We were calling this a couple episodes ago. This is the forest fire approach to government. Just burn everything down and then hope the good stuff grows back. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But that's the difference, though, Jason, that you're on is that, you know, the first time around, right, 2016, when Trump won the first time, is so long ago. There is so many things different about, like, when Trump won the last election, SpaceX was not even a year from the first time they landed a rocket booster. Like, things are so different that, and I think back then we were saying the same thing, that the only way to get to usurp SLS Orion is to fly your way out of it.

honestly, honestly, I think, I, okay, I don't know if I think this or not. I might think this. I want to know if you guys think this. If Starship had had two or three successful missions, successful tests where they, they did the orbit, they didn't blow up in over the Bahamas or wherever. They kept making progress. And instead they've had two or three missions that are like, there's some progress, but there's also a bunch of failure. But if they had a couple, like, Gold Star, like, oh, man, we're on a roll. Do you think the conversation would be different? Because I sort of think they're waiting for an excuse to say, oh, Elon's got this. Let's just move over there. And unfortunately, Starship development hasn't given them the excuse. I think it's definitely something that Elon is losing sleepover. I think that that is like a huge missed opportunity to like come at this time in this like three or four months span where all I.

are on you to nail that flight would have been, I think he's really, I bet he's really wishing they've gone differently. It pairs of squizzily with my theory that the only reason that he bought Twitter was because Bocchika was really boring during that, like one to two years stretch when he was buying Twitter. That was like that total debt. If you look at like the dead period between, you know, the suborbital flights and then when Orbital got, it was the time at which Elon decided he was going to buy Twitter and then

didn't buy Twitter and then bought Twitter. So I like, I like this. of mind. But I still, I don't, I don't know that these two flights change that, right? Like, the positioning of SpaceX in 2025, verse 2016, they have, they have completed the company circle of life. They are winning every contract that they possibly could. They are the best at everything in the industry that they put their company efforts towards by sheer force of will and execution. They operate more satellites. I was trying to do this math the other day. Is it true? That they operate more satellites than history combined at this point? I'm sure of it.

I'm sure it was. Before they started launching Starlink, there were 2,000 active satellites, and there was like 4,000 things in space total, including debris. And now they've launched 7,000 or whatever. So they operate more satellites in history combined. They have the two biggest launch vehicles that are flying today, flying. They are the only way to get to the ISS right now, either cargo or crew. And they're winning every NASA science mission other than Russia, which whatever.

They're flying every NASA science mission possible. Vulcan just got certified by the Space Force now. And they did that all because they are just executing brilliantly. So, you know, like in 2016, I was saying you got to fly your way out of the SLS program. And it feels like we haven't quite, right?

To your point, Starship isn't doing the things that we were hoping they would be doing in 2025 yet, but they're damn close to flying their way out of it. Oh, yeah. Well, that's what I'm saying is if they had, if they had not had three kind of iffy missions, and they were like, look at our momentum.

We are already dominating in all these areas and now look at us here with our new thing, which is going to be able to replace, let's say, SLS, or at least sort of replace it. It would make this a really a much easier case to make. And they are, I agree. They are kind of on the precipice. If we look at their history, you know, all the stories that come out every time one of these things blows up and everybody's like, ha, ha, look at that. The blown up rocket.

It's like, well, you would have been laughing in the early Falcon days, too, and look what happened. So like, don't, don't point last. That's the only thing I was going to throw back to you is that, like, the only thing I've learned over the last 10 years is how easy it is to move the goalpost on SpaceX, right? Like every time they, and Jason, I always say this, that the previous 10 years of SpaceX feel like a certain era of Apple, where everybody, SpaceX's worst day gets compared to everyone else's best day in the way that, like, Apple's shipping products compared to Facebook's imaginary products and they are they are positioning wise very similar in their their rise and dominance of the industry and that they got there through brilliant execution and putting a better product

out there than everyone else and they only had a small part of the market but they grew and they grew and they became the unstoppable force and that's you know now they're maybe both turning into the big bad in some ways and they have to deal with that era of their lifespan where like you know now others are filing lawsuits against SpaceX they're not the ones that are filing that are filing the lawsuit against the Space Force. And, you know, it's all these protests and infographics that Blue Origin has done over the years. It's they're, they in 2025 are, you know, they're the same company. They become the establishment. Yeah. Yeah, they are a totally flipped relationship in 2016. The, it's kind of like Donald Trump, honestly. It's very much. If we like about him undoing all

the stuff he did before, it's like, oh yeah, it's because you're a charge of all this now. Yeah, you were the president once now. No, but what's, what's interesting, like, you know, I, I, you know, think you're right and that and I don't know it's probably been true for a long time that like Starship will will eclipse SLS in terms of capability and everything every metric it'll it'll eclipse it right um it's not a matter of if rather than when but what's interesting now I think is like if if you're looking for it to to sweep in and knock out SLS and take the role that it's going to have in that program like there is actually now a narrow window for that to happen because SLS can launch crew nominally.

I'm putting that in quotes because, you know, things are a little dicey there. But, you know, it is, it is on a schedule right now. Just say both heat shields are a little suspect. Both heat shields are a little suss and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, there is a clear path for SLS to put crew into space on the way to the moon in this administration. And there isn't that for Starship yet, right? And so if you have a very narrow view of success, which honestly, I think you're right, Jason, like Trump doesn't care about space other than what it represents. And if it represents, we're awesome,

like, hell yeah, America, like, you got to get that done before 2028. And so now there's like this interesting question. It's like, do you make the right choice and you reframe your whole program, your flagship program around like good hardware and then absolutely crush it in 2031 onward? or do you or do you like side with all your Republican Senate buddies who are going to pass all your budgets fund their stupid rocket send a Canadian around the moon in 2028 and call it a day like you know what I mean is bump the brakes over there all right geez you know how much he's got to pay for that trip and then when the blowback happens in 2028 and they elect like Bernie Sanders to run whatever like you know a very plausible scenario

Jake yes you know he'll be like 100 he'll be 106 and still going on about. But like when that happens and like Elon Musk is not going to be having as many favors as he does now, right? Like it's going to be it. So there's a really interesting dynamic politically about how like this is a this is a bet right. Like we're putting money at like Elon is putting money on the table right now and we need to see how that's going to play out. It's interesting. Yeah. I think the um, I think we're going to take again, four or two. I think that's really good. I mean, I think it seems unlikely to me that they're not going to go ahead with the next SLS launch if they can manage it because you bought the rocket. It's already there.

And the question is, yeah, do you go for the third mission and say, okay, this one but no more? I would not put any money on the exploration upper stage ever being funded further because that seems to be pointless. But you could make do with a bunch of stuff. I can see a phased withdrawal from SLS. But it probably, again, I think it probably requires a little more proof that Starship can do what they think it will be able to do before you fully pull a plug. So they've got a little room to wiggle here. My question is just like, is Elon Musk that patient? Is that what he wants to do?

And what does Jared Iskerman think? And who is doing space policy in the Trump administration? Last time, at least, he had Mike Pence kind of say, you know, do you do this? I'm not sure. I don't know if there's any of saying. Jesus, Jason, if I said that sentence to you in 2015, you'd be like, what the hell was I saying? I know. Who's doing space policy?

At least he had Mike Pence. What a quote. It was so good. Incredible. He loved those speeches, didn't you? He was present for various events. Yeah. Yeah.

He was present. Yeah. The time he touched the space hardware that said, Do not touch you. When we saw him talk, Anthony, do you remember that? Oh, hell. Yeah, I did. Of course I did.

Yeah. I'll never forget that because of the silliness of the pomp and circumstance. Because I never. Jake wasn't ready for the song, the vice president theme song that Jake was not prepared for. Not just the song, not just the song, but like the little podium and the flag that they like carted out with him. Like, I don't know. It was all very silly to me because I'd only ever seen it like in the frame of a camera. And it looks like, you know, the, oh, a vice president walks onto the screen.

Yeah, yeah. In context, though. Because he's at work, obviously. It's like, of course, there are American flags in D.C. I don't even think about it, right? But it's like, no, this is like some conference center and there's like some intern like carting a flag out and a little stupid podium. And then they go,

and then he walks out and does the thing. And then he leaves and they all carted away. It was just like very calm. Other countries pump never reads well, right? Like if you listen to any other nation's national anthem and you, if you were walking through Disney World and they inserted that as the background audio at any land in Disney World, you wouldn't notice.

It would be like, that sounds like a song that would be on at Disney World. Other than O Canada, which is the greatest anthem. Oh, Canada is a good one. 100% best anthem. I love it. Brazil is pretty dramatic. It's a real ride. Roller coaster ride, the Brazilian national anthem, yeah.

Yeah, France has a notable one, but it kind of blends in the background. It's like whatever. Yes, government, somebody else's government symbols always is a very weird thing. Yeah, like whatever. Because then often you're riffing on them, right?

Like how many of our songs are rip-offs of British ones that we then changed all the lyrics to because we were like in a dick about it back in the day? Yeah, what's that? America, my, which one is that? America is it. No, there's another one that is like literally, it's like literally a British song. He just changed all the lyrics to America. Yeah, isn't there a gods.

That's literally the Star-Spangled banner is that. But you're right. what is it, America the Beautiful is, God's the Queen. Yeah, is it God Save the Queen America. The Queen is also an American song with different words. They're both, yeah, we stole all of them.

It's fine. My country to the V. Oh, my country to say the queen. Yeah, that's what it is. That's it. That's it. It's actually God Save the King now. I don't know if you heard, but.

What? Not my king. Literally. Hashtag not my king. I can't say that. It is. So you can't. So I wonder, actually, the thought occurs to me that if Jared Isaacman being nominated versus somebody from Congress like Bridenstein back in the day also says something about the adversarial relationship, a more adversarial relationship.

Rather than getting Bridenstine in there who knows all the players. and can talk to them all about getting funding that they needed. Now it's more like, yeah, we'll just get this guy who knows Elon and has a successful businessman and like not even caring about the congressional relationships. I feel like that does say something. Yeah, for sure. Same on the Department of Defense side. The Secretary of the Air Force that was nominated, Troy Mink, is somebody who's the,

it would be the first Secretary of the Air Force that is from the space people side of the Air Force. Right. Like forever there's been a plane for space people. He's an alien, yes. He comes from from beyond, but there's always been this thing, right? Like, who cares about planes? Who cares about space? And the space people have always been the ones taking the back seat.

There's going to be a lot of writing about, oh, he made this decision on this contract. I feel like that was attempted. There was a little bit of like Apo research that hit the press for a little bit. But that seems to have gone away when they were like, no, it was legit. Like, you know, Space Force bought stuff, whatever. So, yeah, I mean, Elon picking a conference. couple of people and their positions in space policy is interesting, but I don't think it's clear that you were saying, Jason, when we had Scott Pace involved back in the day, right? There was a,

we kind of knew at the time, there was a space policy thinker that had a theory of mind about space. We don't, that isn't apparent to us yet. We haven't heard any other names. It's crazy, right? Like, there's no deputy names. It may literally be Elon and Jared Isaacman. Maybe. I'm so busy and distracted. Greg Audrey. CFO, obviously, the shadow government of NASA. Yeah. He's going to be so mad. He doesn't have to be all his money in a payments company. Maybe that's the answer is just get his CFO in there.

There it is. Peter Thiel, great head of NASA. He's the CFO. Sure. David Sachs. He had the whole PayPal Mafia back in the driver's seat of NASA. The PayPal Mafia. Oh, dear.

Yikes. There it is. All right. I guess we covered that one. We nailed it. I mean, yeah. We just didn't talk about the stuck astronauts, Jake. Yeah, I was going to say, I was going to say,

what about how they saved those astronauts by bringing them back exactly when they were going to bring them back anyway? Didn't you see Anthony's hit on CNN? It is now on the record. I was on the record. I was on CNN, Jason. I was on real big person television. What did you say?

Television. I mean, you know, it was pretty normal. A lot of these takes. And then the kicker, obviously, which I was prepared for, was they were stuck, right? They were totally stuck. I had to fend off the narrative and informant that. It's a bit of a mischaracterization.

I did say that. They were like, ah, man. All right, so here's what's bizarre. Let me tell you about this. When you're on TV, like right now, Jason, you're calling in on e-cam. I think you're often on the other side of e-cam running streams for some of the stuff that you do.

Everybody that's watching right now, you're seeing the same thing we're seeing. Jake and me and Jason all look at each other. We have body language. When you call in and you do TV hits, you see nothing. You're sitting by yourself. You can't see the other side of it. You have no feedback. You're on TV and you see nothing.

You just see yourself. You're talking to yourself in a room and you hear people in your head. It's the most bizarre thing of all time. Yeah, but you did it at your home, right? Just right here. Yeah, I didn't do. You're an old school. The last time I did a proper TV hit was before we had good enough, or it's not before we

had good enough VOIP. It's before television trusted it. COVID helped there. And so they'd tell you to go. So I would be like, go to this place in San Francisco in the financial district. And you go in this building and up to the fifth floor and they'll buzz you in and they'll take you to a room that's empty except for a camera and you'll sit in this chair and here's an earpiece and now just stare at the camera and we'll tell you what to do. It's like the worst. Just. It's even it's like you. You have to go somewhere to do it. At least you were in your own room for Pete's sake. I mean, that was the funny thing. People were like, have you been on TV? It looked good. I was like, no, I've just been by myself in this room talking to myself for almost 10 years.

Like, I turned up all right at this. I'm surprised that they haven't elevated it at the point where they've got like the output from their, that they're sending to broadcast as video you could see. That would be a thing. Yeah, because we use ECAM. And maybe think about the shows, though, where everyone yells at each other about political takes and there's like four talking heads on the screen. They don't see each other. They're just yelling and there's a one second latency and there's yelling. They're not, no one's hearing anything.

It's crazy. Yeah, because we use ECAM with MacBring Weekly and it's the same. I can see, we're actually on a Zoom call, and I can see the output in a box, and then I can see all of the other people in their own little boxes. It's great. It's actually really, it's better than it ever has been in terms of latency. But I guess that's too advanced for CNN. Yeah, yeah.

I've done like that. Just ripping CNN, Jason, geez, you know? I've done like that actually in the... participated in failing media organizations. Yeah. My first day, they're like, do you think they're going to lay people off? I'm like, oh, here we go. The media is dying already.

All right. I got here some time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I only started working in magazines because literally there were no jobs on the web at that point. I actually, I did internet magazine when I was in college. And then I graduated and I'm like, oh, I need a job. And the answer was the only jobs that pay are going to put ink on dead trees. So, all right, I'll be that guy.

the color of the cover. Oh, man, don't even tell. Oh, God. Yellow cover, you know, five years ago, yellow cover did badly, so we must never do yellow covers again. It was all voodoo. Is that why everything's orange?

It's no different than YouTube thumbnails are today, though. I have to say, it's the same level of like, there's data that nobody actually knows what the deal is. Yeah. Oh, dear. Yeah. Jason, can you plug some stuff for people like Jake who are, you know,

heathens that don't understand Jason Snell? Sure. 6Cellers.com is a great place to go for all of my stuff, including links to my podcast. And I write stuff there. If you want to hear people talk about computers every week, you could listen to the upgrade podcast on Relay FM. That's me and Mike Hurley usually. He's on vacation.

He's on paternity league right now. It's a very weird vacation where he doesn't go anywhere and a baby yells at him. And the incomparable is my network of, pop culture themed podcasts, including the incomparable mothership, which is what I've been doing since 2010. And that stuff's all fun, too. So lots of podcasts and also some computer writing things at Six Colors. That's what I do for the last 10 years. That's been my, no more magazines for me, friends, because magazines don't exist anymore, basically. So yeah. Just the smell podcast. That's all that's all that. Oh yeah, Jake, you're in the snow zone. You are in the

Snell zone right now. And there's a website, Snell. That zone, it's literally a Mac Mini in my closet. But the Snell zone as a concept is, if you're in my presence digitally or in person, you are in the Snell zone. It literally, they're like, I'm leaving IDG and I'm like, I need to buy a domain for myself. What am I going to do? And up on hover, up pops, a thing that says, you know, dot zone domains are available.

And I thought about smell. That's zone. And it just made me laugh and laugh. And I've been paying for that domain for a decade. gate now. But, you know, it's fun. I guess. The one I have is, um, I, I am a kid of the 90s. So I'm nostalgic for a certain era of the internet in which all domains were dash

online.net. So I have Anthony dashonline.net, which is, uh, goes to my site. So that's my favorite of the domains that I bought to feel nostalgia. That was a time. That's really good. I like that. That was a real time. This was, this was my first, uh, real dive into novelty, uh, extensions at the end, right? Like, you know, people have like, not the first ones. Domains and stuff, but, but the

dot zone, I just thought that was fun. So, you know, whatever. Don Museum was the one where I think we lost the plot. That's the stupid one. Dot museum. Dot museum, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm still, I'm still waiting for a dot snake

so I can get Jake the dot snake. That's the one I want. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Sure. My, um, my mastodon instance is a custom one and it's Zeppelin dot flight. which I'll tell you it's priced expensively because I think airlines are supposed to pay for those domains

but I don't know I couldn't resist Zeppelin dot flights so that's where I am I don't want to talk about how much money I spend on domains I don't want to talk about it I'm sure everyone on this call has a list of domains sitting parked for some unknown project that will never get done For Jake's former podcast, Wee Martians. I don't know if I still own all these, Jake.

I had, it was Wee Martians, W-E Martians. And then I had, he's, you know, Canadian, so he speaks French. And so I had Wee-Marsians, O-U-I, and then I had Weimartans. Dot com. I had all these things redirected to his. There was one other one, right? We-Martians is still up. We-Marsians is still up.

You don't have Martians-a.com? Martians-A. I got we-Martians. G-C-C-C-C-A. That's what I got. My buddy Trudeau got that one done for me. Well, Jake, do we know what we're doing on the show next week? Do we know what we're doing?

Oh, yes, we do. Richard French from Rocket Lab is joining us. We're going to corner him about... Finally, a good guest. Speaking of French, we're going to corner him about Rocket Labs, the way they've been communicating about Mars Napal Return and going out on the campaign trail effectively. to say they should be the ones to do Mars sample return. I'm very pumped about this.

Yeah, we have a bunch of pet theories that are like not even borderline. They fully are conspiracy theories. So we're going to see if any of them are true. About this? I thought that was just Johnson Space Center that we had the conspiracy theories about. Oh, no, Anthony, I'm like a factory of conspiracy theories. I got a new one every week for you. Let me know when you need a new conspiracy theory.

I need one next week, apparently. Man. Jason, thank you so much for hanging out with us. We got to get you and Stephen at the same time, so we got to sort that out. Yeah, we'll do it. That would be great. All right, everybody. We'll see you next week.

Bye. Bye, everybody. One, two, three, four.