Off-Nominal - 206 - Coalition for Deep State Exploration

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

Jake and Anthony kick around the news, from Vulcan and Ariane 6 launches on the same day, Blue Origin’s MTO, and some licensing talk, because that’s super fun.TopicsOff-Nominal - YouTubeEpisode 206 - Coalition for Deep State Exploration - YouTubeAfter first operational launch, here’s the next big test for ULA’s Vulcan rocket - Ars TechnicaESA - MetOp-SG-A1 and Sentinel-5 launch on Ariane 6Op-ed: NASA’s New CLD Strategy Will Lose Mars, LEO to China - PayloadNo Changes Allowed | LinkedInThe Mission: Blue Origin’s Mars Telecommunications Orbiter | Blue OriginTrump Issues Executive Order on Commercial Space – SpacePolicyOnline.comFollow 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. I've lost control of my setup over here. Why can't I turn the music off? There we go. I don't know what's going on over here. It's being a little weird. It was like, it was quiet for me, and you were like, why is this so loud?

Just screaming at me across the thing, and I'm, I don't hear anything, but. It was not respecting my audio sliders. You still had all the settings on CNN. Is that why it was like that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I had on high budget production. CNN to YouTube and then you, listen.

In my little podcast studio remains doing great over here, okay? I'm in my little podcast studio. Yeah, yeah. How you doing, man? What do you got? What are you drinking today? I got the high lies. I got two left.

So I've been drinking one through the pre-show, which is a good pre-show. We did our, let's see, we did our old school astronaut Mount Rushmore. Not ours, but we did Jen Pops Mount Rushmore, which was Neil, Buzz, level. Our perspective of what we think Jen Pop would put on Rushmore. Yeah. Yeah. So it was Neil, Buzz, Jim, and then. Do we get to Glenn?

Is that where we went to, done Glenn? Did we go do Glenn? We might have done Glenn. Yeah, I think that's Glenn. Shout out to the real one, Mr. Lovell. Jim Lovell. Yeah. What else did we do?

We did, talked about car troubles. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you've had some. hanging off local asphalt crews. Yeah, and fixing your driveway. Yeah, the first world problems with the world problems

we're talking about, yeah. Yeah, you're running for mayor down there. I'm running for mayor of a small to medium-sized town only, yeah. Yeah, which he thinks is 100,000 people. So all this is a good reason, Jake,

to head over to the Discord and hang out with us. Offnom.com slash Discord. we have a pre-show in there. So right before the show, we do 45 minutes usually. Sometimes it's half an hour. It's less consistent, I will say that. But we try to hop on there.

Less consistent, but it's good. It's a good hang. It is. Well, it's a small group, right? It's a lot easier to say wild shit when it's only in front of like 10 people you can know. That's right. That's right.

You know, at least we'll just remember it rather than tweeting it. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. You can't, you know, you can't. Yeah. If you want our takes unleashed, then, yeah, it's a great. point. Don't tap it.

Absolutely, absolutely wild shit that we say is in the pre-show and then we tone it down for public consumption. Yeah, yeah, exactly. What do we got today, Jake? We got a lot of random stuff on the list here to hit. Yeah, well, we had small sat this week. Is that, that was the one?

Small sat was the one. I missed the names of all the time, but. No, it's small sat. You're right. Small sat, right. They moved it from Logan to Salt Lake City, which was big drama out there in the internet people that are only going to rest if it's in Logan and always in Logan. And I think to your individual saying that, I think you're a little susceptible to nostalgia and

you might want to just consider the fact that red iguana is a great place to go get dinner. I don't understand this drama because like if if LPSC moved out of the woodlands to Houston and no one would cry. Yeah, it's yeah. It probably takes about as long to drive. between Salt Lake and Logan is Yeah, probably. What's up with LPSC? Is it happening?

Yeah, as far as I know, they are trying to power through. So I guess they I don't know, there was a man, there was like a whole bunch of like all those like woke stuff. They were like pulling down abstracts that mentioned ladies. And then they had like, uh,

uh, some funding cut because they were like, you know, they're on the receiving it. They're on the receiving government money to learn things. So do research. Yeah. But last I heard was that they were like trying to not let that run them down. So we'll see how it goes. That's one of those questions you can't answer right away, right?

I don't know how good it would be if there's not like a lot of NASA representation. So even if they can like turn the conference on, if like none of the NASA employees and scientists can afford to go there, that's a big problem for it. Yeah. Yeah, that's not really doing the point of the thing. No. Yeah. So yeah, we'll see. We'll see.

All right. Did you bring a mead? No, I got a beer today. Oh, look at that. You burn out on the weird tastes, I guess. You got to switch it up. You can't just, like, go crazy, right? This is Marabasco, wit beer from Colima.

So, yeah, it's got a pretty label on the cover, so we'll see how it goes, you know. This is the time of the year for a wet beer? I don't know. I don't believe in that nonsense. Yeah, I guess you have the same temperature all year. You got to just roll with it. So what mood I'm in today? It's like, well, I want a, I want a fresh beach beer today, or do I want like a cinnamon stout?

I'll do whatever you want. I don't know that there's anything less attractive to me than a cinnamon stout. Yeah, I know you don't like any kind of fun in your beer. You just want plain beer, but. Just beer, yeah, just beer. Where do you want to start, Jake? There's been, there was, I think we've all been struck by lightning on, on the same day. there was an Aryan 6 and a Vulcan launch within mere minutes of each other.

Yeah, yeah. It was not saying last week how there was like those news stories where you're like, oh, that's never going to happen. So you just put it in the backbench and then like it just sneaks up on you. That was happening this week. I was like, so are Vulcan and Arian 6 just launching now? Like, are they just operational now? Like I feel like that snuck up on me.

I thought like it was like sort of really dipping your toe in the waters and then see how it goes. But I guess they're just flying now. All right. That's great. There's some vehicles, man. Yeah. You got any takes on either of these? Well, Vulcan still needs, I was reading the burger article

and they mentioned you still need to get the six-pack one flying, right? All the boosters, the six-pack, the swall Vulcan. Swole Vulcan with a six-pack still got to fly. That's the one that can out do Delta IV heavy, right? It can do everything, yeah. That's the big boy. Yeah. Yeah, a chunker.

I mean, I don't know what the big, I don't know if that's going to like slow them down at all but yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, I mean,

any, at this point, to look forward to any solids flying well is, is a good sign. So, uh, now they have flown six solid rocket boosters on Vulcan.

Five of them worked out well. So I think that might be. Observationless, uh, solid rocket flight is a good one. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Uh, yeah. Do you think it's, let's go meta on these. right? Because I think your take is correct that the slow arrival of Aryan 6 and Vulcan, and it wasn't even slow in that it was more delayed than we thought. It was that they had a launch and it waited a while and then they had another launch and there was drama and it's been a very drawn out on ramp, which I do think is what we expected. And yet even these organizations still

talk up, we're going to do 15 launches our first year, right? And now Tori Bruno's out on the press circuit being like, well, we're going to just do nine or whatever. I find that interesting. And I get it more when it's a public company who has to, which is a bizarre thing to say, considering the fact that they could be like legally liable for misstatements. But all the spacks were doing the hockey stick chart of like, we're going to launch three times and six times and 400. But even Tori Bruno and the others are out there saying this is going to be a huge ramp up. and maybe Aryan space wasn't saying that. But it just kind of takes the air out of the balloon on the, like, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm very excited to watch them. The Tory statements are very strange. Like, I feel like he really did a credibility hit on those ones, right? Because, like, when he said 20 launches this year, everyone's like, what are you smoking, dude? Like, there are just straight up not going to be 20 launches. And then then so we are in August and he's like, well, maybe it's only going to be nine or 10.

I'm like, that's still too high of the number. Like, you were off by more than 50%. If you had said 10 at the beginning of this year, before we knew anything that had happened, I still would have told you the number was too high. So like, I don't know what the, I'm trying to figure out what the strategy. Anything the CEO says out loud in public is a strategy, you know, I'm trying to figure out what that is, right? And it's like, are you just, it's just glad handing?

I don't know what it is. And that probably would have been more defensible as a strategy if they were still the acquisition stuff going on, but that feels to have died out entirely. Yeah. Yeah, it sure does. It's odd, man. Yeah. Something was... So, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, listen, Tori's been on the show. We'd love to have him back.

I don't think his feeling's going to be hurt by us ripping into him. But I feel like, shortly after he was on our show, I was like, what happened to Tori? Like, this is a different... He's not connecting on the same level. He's maybe been turned a little bit in the acquisition day. to be more of like a sales guy yeah i guess sales guy or or susceptible to the same pitfalls as like most other executives in the space industry that was the thing that that felt different was that he was not susceptible to that stuff before he was always measured and realistic and sensible in many ways.

Yeah, yeah. But that felt like a change. And now I think if you were to apply those reasonings with the exception of the neutron launch date, Peter Beck has taken that mantle of like the guy who says things in a measured tone. Yeah. Hmm. That's an interesting one.

The fall of Tori Bruno. To make it dramatic. Now we're definitely not getting it back on the show. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think they're watching this level. Listen, listen, the Cosmos. people apparently we were watching last week

when we were trying to steal all of the spacecraft and they're fine to come on the show. So I think Tori will is a big point to handle it. All right. All right. Good. Good.

Yeah, no, I don't get it. It's very interesting. I think that's the real telling thing, Jake, is if he no longer can handle it. Because it's not like Tori's a stranger to being ripped apart by the internet. Yeah. He's existed in the R-slash-Space days of the internet.

Yeah. I guess, though. He's on Twitter. That dude's on Twitter still, you know? So I think he's fine. Oh, that's funny. That's a funny way to think about it. He's on Twitter still.

Yeah. Okay, he's got it. He's got, he's got fortitude. He runs you away and he's still on Twitter. He's got it. Yeah. Maybe we're not giving enough credit for that then. Maybe he is approachable.

Oh, wow. Maybe it's us who's changed. The Overton window of Torre Bruno has shifted. and we've just now graded him differently. The Tori Bruno Oberton window. Oh, man. We got titles coming out already. I got to write these down.

We never write them down and then put them in the chat. You got to start put them in the YouTube chat, people, because then what I have to do is I have to make the transcript and then I have to find the parts where there's laughter and then look at that. Ariens 6, Jake, do you have a take on Ariens 6? No is the correct answer. Moving on.

Yeah. I'm straight up I don't I don't know what I'm watching for for air hand six like I'm not you know like okay well there's an idea and then they're now they're X key on it like I don't know what KPI I'm trying to pay attention to that's the wrong screen that's just my audio levels that's not even the right level that's not even the right I don't know what KPI I'm looking for for hand six I'm like oh they're they're meeting expectations or they're not meeting expectations I don't know what that number is or what that thing is or what that behavior. I don't know what it is.

I'm just kind of like, it's a rocket that Europe is making. Apparently I can't change the screen right now. So we'll be back to that. Yeah. There you are. It exists. I think is the only thing to know about it.

Yeah. I mean, like the point of Arian 6th is best I know is just assured access for Europe, right? They want a rocket that does not depend on, you know, the United States. Let's be candidate about it. That's what they want. And I guess it's working. Don't be unfair to us. We're not the only unstable person on the world stage at the moment, Jake.

Yeah. Yeah. Which I always think is defensible. Again, to roll out my only area six take. If the SLS was a, was positioned in the same way Aryan six is, everybody who's an SLS critic would be at least feeling better about it. Right? If it was assured access and also occasionally wins a commercial mission, we'd be like, at least there's some money that comes into this thing. That's less true now because I think all of the commercial stuff has evaporated entirely.

In Europe? Right. I mean... Oh, you mean for SLS? No. No, no, definitely for SLS. For Aryan 6. It's not like they're out there winning... I mean, yeah, they've got the Amazon thing. But like, if I launched a launch company, I probably would have... won one of those awards.

Now you're gatekeeping the Kuiper contracts. Oh, geez, man. Jeff Hazels has, he can't win an argument, man. Listen, he didn't respond to our DM. So what do you want me to do? That poor bastard sometimes,

because it's like, we were just talking about this today about how, like, oh, yeah, Blue Origin, they're not really a space company. They don't do much. They're putting, like, people in space, like, monthly right now. And then people are like, no, it's not, it's not real, though.

It's not, it's not actual spaceflight. It's not a real rocket. It doesn't go to orbit. We don't count that. And now it's like, well, yeah, they're winning contacts, but like, they're just capric contracts. But they're not real. They're not, they're not a real satellite or a real constellation.

Like, that's what's different. Like, call me when, when, when, you know, when they're winning some actual contracts. No, I think, let me make my best argument. Okay. This is the, these are the, the people that, uh, the probably the best analogy is that there were people like early COVID days that were making arguments that were eventually true. Like in 2024, the reasoning that they had in mid-2020 eventually became true. It eventually ended up as being like a bad flu. But that was the, you were not correct about it then

for the right reasons. You were correct about it now then for the wrong reasons. And I feel this is the same thing that like, yes, you won the contract, but not on it like, it, like, you got a those launches, but it doesn't feel like you got them for the right reasons. And even the Amazon shareholders or whoever, what was it, the, whoever filed that lawsuit also agrees with me that they won those contracts for their wrong reasons. Yeah. So I don't feel better about the Aryan 6 positioning in the market because they have the Kuiper contracts. That's my point. But I mean, it only becomes true if there is like a bunch of competition that comes in and then they lose all those contracts because they're, you know, it's a shit rocket or whatever, right? Like, if,

if you're a bad rocket, but you're the only one out there flying, then you are by definition the best rocket, you know, like, you know what that means? Like, you still have to actually do it. The best rocket you have is the one with you. There you go. There you go. We got there, right? So, yeah, I don't know. It still counts to me, but yeah. That's the day. Doesn't move the needle, though. It doesn't, yeah. We're at the end of our area. We've talked about this for too much, for too long already. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Did we talk about the commercial Leo thing last week? Is that on the show?

I think we did that on the show, right? Did we do that on the show or on the free show? I feel like we talked about it on the show. I feel like we did. Does anyone remember? It's all blending together. Since then, I just found a remarkable that there's some competing op-eds in the world, Jake. I don't know if you've picked up on the-

I haven't got to the op-eds, no, no. I'm really not doing a very good job of using my very expensive space news subscription. I mean, listen, expensive. How much did you pay for your new piece of asphalt? You know, about one lunch, then maybe that's approximately what you paid for. That piece of asphalt cost less than one month of space names. Okay. There was an op-ed in payload.

I would bring it up on the screen, but apparently all you're going to look at is how my mic levels are doing. an op-ed and payload by Pam Melroy. Oh, yeah, I did. We talked about this, yeah. Did we talk about the op-ed-do? No, no, because it came out after. We were talking about how, I asked you, like, is there anyone actually having the take of,

oh, this is just Trump canceling another thing, right? Because, like, everyone was kind of like, oh, yeah, obviously they're, like, changing this, because it wasn't actually even anything to begin with. So, like, we're not losing anything. And you're like, no, this is oh they weren't actually having that take and then boom pam melroy having that take right there just like with the op-ed right out there like this is a disastrous cut to a program we desperately

need i'm like oh my god did not expect pam melroy to be the one with the op-ed i found that a little yeah it's a little strange let's let's do some palace intrigue on this one jake dude there is like a whole thing with op-eds like and figures like that that is a world that i we need to find someone in that world to come on the show and just talk about space op-ed like i feel like what's the world like i don't know that this is an op-to-run or this is like the deep this is like space deep-space state stuff man like it's like someone someone wanted that that message to be out someone Alex Jones here of space give me give me the chikons and no but so you think there's a cabal of people writing space opeds What is this?

Yes. Okay. Roll it out. Roll it out the whole theory. Somebody wanted there to be an opinion published that this is bad and you find an ally who also agrees with you and has some presence and you work it out and there's coordination. Guaranteed. There's no way that Pam Milroy woke up and said, you know what I'm going to do today? I'm just going to and just like wrote it out, mail it in and then signed off.

Like they're, you know, like this is. And because they always come out, they come out too strategically. They always come out too strategically. Since we've been covering this, it's like, oh, it's op-ed season. And then, oh, this is coming. This is coming. You know, this piece of news is coming looking for the op-eds. Who's going to be?

It's going to be this guy, this guy, boom, boom, boom. There they come. You know, like it's almost predictable. There's something going on. There's a world there. But don't you think too strategic would have been before the directive was signed? Sometimes they do come before. But.

Right. In this case. In the, I mean, with this administration, there's not always a lot of warning when shit happens. Yeah, there's not a lot of before. No. There's not much before. The premeditating period is pretty short in this administration. So, yeah, I don't know.

I don't think it's like nefarious. I think it's just people talk and they are affiliated and they're in organizations and they are working towards shared goals. But like, I'm just curious about how it works. The deep state coalition is what you're saying. I want to know who she talked to and like what the objectives were. I'm just curious about that. The Coalition for Deep State Exploration? What is the?

Coalition for Deep State, Deep Space. All right. Nice. Wow, I didn't think I'd be the Alex Jones of this podcast today. I love, I love, again, much like last week when you were talking to Boondoggle. You're getting a little extremist down there, Jake, because you get closer to permanent resident status. I like it. I also got some flack for siding with Ted Cruz on the space shuttle as a joke.

So that was good. You did? For who? Yes. I'm going to discard. Okay. Nice. Yeah.

Wait. Why did you side? How did you side with Ted Cruz? Remember because we were like, we went in a roundabout way and it was like, wow, we should, you know, Houston's a good spot for an orbiter. Like the engineers launched it. That's where he mission controls. Why wouldn't they have an orbiter there? And then they're like, oh, yeah.

And I'm like, I guess I agree with Ted Cruz. Get it away from the bureaucrats and put it near the engineers. Yeah. Man, I love right wing Jake's going crazy lately. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not on that spectrum. I don't know. All right.

Well, that's what a lot of people say who are. All right. Here's an interesting, if you want to go meta on op-eds and your aforementioned space news subscription, any week before this, this op-ed would have run in space news. Yeah. It ran in payload. I find that an interesting changing of the guard. She didn't want this behind a paywall. Dude, there's something.

There's something behind this. I like your theory now. I'm into it. And isn't payload? Like payload is pretty like industry connected. Yeah. Yeah. Like like it's like the wapo of space, right?

Like it's. Yeah. It's like and like a lot of times you're wondering if it's just. It's a company is just renting ads by having the articles there. You know what's going on here? Yeah. Yeah. A little bit.

Again, I mean, you know my stance on advertising. I'm not an advertising guy. Yeah. But what I find interesting is the decision to write an op-ed in opposition to a thing that changed in which you were just in charge of the goddamn program that was going nowhere. Yeah, that is the extra circle of irony that it's on top of that. You were in charge less than a year ago. Look, Anthony, she was very busy writing out the 1,000 requirements for a Mars mission.

That's true. MSR was taking the, yeah, late last year, MSR had the eye of Sauron on it, I guess. No, just not even,

not even, MSR was a real project. She had the 1,000 requirements for a human mission tomorrow. Oh, the human thing, yeah, remember that giant document?

That's right. It's a cool document. I was like very interested to read it, but it's like, I don't know if this was a valuable use of time just yet. I forgot about that. I was like,

there must be a, they're competing. I mentioned there's competing opeds. There is a Phil McAllister writing on LinkedIn a piece about this as well which I will put in the show notes um

Phil McAllister formerly what was his title head of commercial space or something at NASA it was like extremely relevant to this which in which he was like I think he said in there's one section of this that you

repeated almost verbatim without without uh without saying it um where he was like the first major flaw with this previous strategy is that NASA does not

nearly have enough money to make it successful according to public sources the directive states that it was approved yada yada with a $4 billion budget shortfall this is a factual statement

the CLD budget was subsequently reduced by a billion dollars which means it was a $5 billion shortfall only NASA would have the hubris to approve an acquisition strategy that requires $4 billion more than what it has to spend and then when NASA loses another

billing, and the agency response is to change absolutely nothing. So again, I find this interesting in that he's laying this out, as somebody who was mysteriously departed from the commercial space program at NASA and had one of those things where he was like shuffled off to, you know, advisor. That's some like big Johnson Space Center shit right there, man. That's like, yeah. We're going to get canceled. You're on a mission for so many titles today.

I don't remember. when in the timeline he was when he was relocated to lower in the org chart, but it was two or three years back at this point, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was in response to something. 23, I think?

Was it in response? Early 2024? What was it? But again, he was in the administration for several years when this acquisition strategy was in place. So was, I don't know, maybe he'll tell us, but was he fighting for this

realism internally? because that's how I read his post, is that, like, the way that you said it. We all felt externally, like, this was never a real program that had a legitimate shot at having the money that it needed and doing the things that it needed to do. So was he saying that internally, and eventually that became, you know, too much for people to handle and he was shuffled off, or what? I don't know. It's just weird that there's, it's not like op-eds from us on the outside that just disagree, right?

Like, you and I would write gateway op-eds if we felt the desire to. Maybe one day we should write an op-ed in this way, right? But they run all the time in Space News. They run op-eds from think tanks or people in the industry or retired this or whatever. This is like two people that were in the org chart very recently at NASA that are now writing publicly about either agreeing or disagreeing with how they see this particular program that they were in charge of like 10 minutes ago. This is so bizarre. Well, I think that point rings a little more true with Pam Melroy, who as deputy administrator, was actually in charge of it. I don't know about, I don't know where he was on the CLD.

I'm not saying that his view came to pass. That's what I'm saying is that he might have been fighting for realism internally. But it has, it had been years. And I guess there weren't really many public faces at the time for a commercial Leo, right? There was people of the ISS program. It never got any heft, right? that was the big issue. Like it was just,

it always felt like a program on the side. And there was never a champion at NASA. There was never like an industry champion that was like really going after. There wasn't a congressional champion that was really going. It was just very much kind of like the ugly stepchild of the of the programs. Right. Like, I don't know. Just left to do whatever it would do.

Just sort of had to be there. Someone got some money in somewhere and then I don't know. Very, very odd. Weird program. How do you think it's going to result? Do you think they will ever fly a commercial Leo destinations mission? I think if anything resembling that flies, it will be more commercially driven than envisioned in CLD, if that makes sense.

I think it's certainly possible that one of these players just goes at it. And then once it's up, you know, like they get like maybe a little bit of like token money or NASA promises to send a crew that they buy a seat on a thing yeah yeah but like ultimately like it's it's a program designed to not depend on NASA and that's how it gets on I don't know if that can get done that's a that's an expensive uh that's a capital intensive operation to try and bootstrap but um that's kind of I see I just I don't know I I don't have a lot of faith in NASA starting a lot of big new things right now so I think the best NASA could hope for for the next like short term five year horizon is like keep the good stuff going and

figure stuff out. That's about the best you can hope for right now. That's the office. That's a win. If you if you're running NASA for the next five years, the, the KPI for you, the key performance indicator of your job as a next mass administrator is that the fucking blaze isn't burned down at the end of the. That's what I'm saying is that I, this is the best time to be the that's administrator. How much have I said this? Like, yeah, the, the bar is set. Just save a couple programs and then show up to the launches and glad I had some congressional people. You did, you've done it. You did it, man. So, try to maybe, you know, keep the space shuttle

in D.C. Yeah. You know. Or something to Houston, just saying, you know, whatever you know. All right. Now I'm just fully on board this, yeah. Yeah, it'd be really funny, though. It's for there to be somebody out there. I stumbled into, into, uh, caring about by action. Maybe this is. Maybe this is what's holding us back from being extremely popular, is like not being, you know, bombastic enough to take this.

Like, what if we did just own the, like, they are right. We should send this to Houston. It just went hard, hard for no reason in this. Yeah.

I don't know. Isn't our appeal that we've got measured takes? Am I just, am I breaking the format here? We'll see. Yeah, but I'm saying maybe, maybe we should try something else for a little bit.

Just be, just go haywire. If we get it, If you're in the deep space, deep state, let us know. And maybe we'll engage. We'll have me on the show. Speaking of which, Jake, I need your takes. I need your takes.

You tell me, you promised me that you have them. I wish I could get my screen thing working. I'm going to try this again. Let's see what this does. Still this screen, but for some reason this button doesn't work. Why can't I do this? Why can I change? You still got it set on CNN.

You just got to fix that. You know what? I don't know what's going on, Jake. Okay, it's fine. I'll figure it out while you're while we're chatting, but Blue Origin announced, is that the right word for it?

Their Mars Telecommunications Orbiter proposal. They wrote an op-ed on their site about the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's some marketing. What? I guess that's my question. Is what? Well, okay, my,

I have a question for you first. So is this, was it with the budget request had money for this, right? And we were all, we were all kind of thinking that it sounded like the rocket lab thing, but now are you thinking that it might be this instead? Is this is the lobbyist behind getting this in the budget request? I still think that it's a rocket lab thing. And I think this is blue origin trying to edge in on that program. That would be very blue origin like. Wait for someone else. to have the idea and then bid on it. So it kind of the take that I was going to go with. Do you guys want to do this or not? Because it's just, otherwise it seems like the way that you do everything,

which is like wait for there to be a program that you maybe could win. I sound like I've been drinking beer all day. And I've got no filter. I don't know what's going on with me. I love it, man. I don't know. All right, let me see if I can get the screen. If I just hit just screen, let me see if that,

if I can edit this one. Now we're gone. Now we're gone. Yeah. I mean, It's cool, man, that you guys can see what I'm working on. This is quality YouTube right here. You're going to be moving the screen around.

Why can I change this, though? I don't understand why I can't change that. Very odd. Yeah, very odd. Very odd that I can't change that. I don't know why I can't change that. So we're not going to do any screen sharing. I was hoping to watch this video of what is maybe the most

curbel space program-looking spacecraft I've seen proposed. Do you see the amount of shit attached to this thing? Did you watch the video of this? It's got a lot of thermometers and pressure readers and that goes in and out. Yeah. Okay, but do you like, did you look at this from a technical angle? Because they had an interesting proposal to it, which was blue ring spacecraft, has a lot of different payloads on board, big probably what, high gain antenna pointing back at Earth.

But it would also deploy these like, you. UHF relays in a lower orbit at Mars, and then the spacecraft itself would operate in a higher elliptical orbit that would maintain contact with Earth at all. They say at all times, but there's the one time when the sun's in the way that I don't think that's true. Yeah. Like a weird little bit there. But that they would then, can you give me like a breakdown on which surface assets

would use that UHF legacy thing? Yeah, that I'm not sure about. It's too far into the Wartian's brain of you? Yeah, yeah. Because I think they have, they generally do have the two. I think most of the, I'm thinking about the rovers stuff, they do have kind of the two. There's like a high gain and a low gain antenna.

So is the, like one is kind of like omnidirectional. One is more directional. So I think the is the UHFs? I'm going to deal with the, I don't really can send a lot from. Well, it said that was like a relay system. So those would accept the signals from legacy spacecraft on the surface and then send it up to the main spacecraft, which would get it back to Earth, which is a cool system. Sounds great.

Yeah. That sounds awesome. I think that, yeah. I don't know. I've never thought that the barrier to this has been technical. Like I feel like to send in some more antennas over there has never really been like a huge problem to solve. And then, you know, of course, you can have, like, whatever system you want to, to provide better coverage for more often. And that's all great.

Like, I'm very excited about that. I just, but I, I don't know, I never thought the technical stuff was the problem. Yeah. It's a concept. Yeah. I mean, NASA does it as a secondary function of the actual orbiter. Like, you know, they've been doing that for a long time. I don't know how much, I don't know how much innovation space there is there beyond, like what we already do at Earth, right?

like I was just kind of taking some ideas we already have and sending them some there. I do love, though, if Blue Origin were the company to launch Escapade and then this mission, and SpaceX had not launched anything like to orbit Mars. I would appreciate the storyline there. Yeah. We already have New Glenn beating Starship to orbit, but having them beat them to Mars is going to be even funnier, is what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah.

And then I guess people are like, well, the Hera flew by Mars. I'm like, not the point. That's not what I'm saying, you know? How many years have I been bitching about this, Jake, on this, on this here podcast? Many years. Many, many years. Yeah. This company has the cheapest launch vehicle that's ever flown.

They have the most communication satellites that have ever flown. They have talked the most about settling Mars of any company ever, and they have never strung those three things together. Are they now also the most valuable private company? Ever? I don't know. Sounds plausible. I think, yeah, I think they might be up there because they're not publicly traded.

They're the most, the highest value non-publicly. With this recent round? Yeah, because they're in like some unbelievable amount of money, right? 400 billion or something. Some crazy amount. So, yeah, I, yeah, I obviously agree with you. I don't know what they're doing. But, yeah, orbiter's though.

I don't know. I'm excited. You asked for my take, though. My take on this is that what does any of this matter if we don't get some goddamn Mars missions sent there? Because they're going to invent these great telecommunications orbitors and get them flown. And what do they arrive? Like, what's best case scenario of these things get there in a few years? If green lights to Malibu, they're going to get there in like a few years. I think this was like a 2028 mission or something per the Blue Origin video on. this? Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. We have nothing planned to send to Mars.

Rosalind Franklin, I guess, is like the is that the only mission of the books. This is by 2028 is when they would have this ready to deploy. Or will, it, Blue Origins, Mars telecommunications orbiter will provide NASA with a high-speed, low-cost telecommunications relay network by 2028. That's not even the green lights to Malibu's schedule. That's the green lights to Malibu, and I'm speeding. And there's no cops. Yeah. There's no cops. I'm in a Dolorian or whatever. And I have a helicopter. Yeah.

No, but like, I don't know. And this isn't this, this, this is like a problem that's not even rooted in all the budget nonsense. That's just compounding it. Like they have not had a new Mars mission booked besides sample return. Uh, because like it's just sucking up all the attention. So So, so 2028, it means curiosity will be 16 years old. Yeah.

Does that sound right? In spacecraft years, that's a be a bajillion. Yeah, 2012. A hell, perseverance will be 16 years old from landing. Yeah. Perseverance will almost be 10 years old

by that time, you know, and there's no other circumstances. And Rosner, Franklin is scheduled for, do we know? I don't even, I have almost zero hope that's even going to move forward.

I don't know. We're still there. Okay, that's interesting. You're still at that point. It hasn't got the radar yet, but at some point it's going to be a playing card in a terror fight somewhere. Net 2029 landing date. All right. That's a bleak take.

Can't disagree with it. at the same point, I kind of feel like of all of the let's try a commercial services approach to a thing, like maybe this is a good one to try anyway, even if we do or don't have a lot of missions. I'm all for trying. I, again, like, if, you know, from the cost of the government is probably not going to be that high.

And if the private industry wants to invest in it, like, I'm not going to stop them. That sounds great. I love that. Yeah, but that's the thing, right? I mean, everybody, I talked to, who do I talk to? last week, lunar outpost on Miko, right? And then you've got astrobotic and astrolab and all these

companies developing rovers for the moon and even some of the intuitive machine stuff. They all talk a huge game and I think this is true for the commercial space stations as well that like we're doing this whether or not NASA is there. Also NASA is our anchor customer and we need them to fund this program before we do it. And that's the, I think maybe that's the moment that we need to watch for of like is the commercial services approach going to work out? It will when the companies just say we're doing this thing and that will result in them getting a lot of business from NASA versus we're doing this thing from a commercial services perspective

as long as we win the bid for the contract that NASA's funding. Yeah, yeah. And the Mars stuff is still in that boat. Same old stuff. It's still that same old story, right? But what's tough about this one is it's like, okay, so there's nothing on the books for NASA. one rover that might still launch from Europe, all of the assets that are there are already

optimized for a substandard communications thing. Like, if you're going to make a commercial orbiter, it better not be just like match the capacity of the, the ass end of Maven and whatever's left of Mars reconnaissance. Orber. Like, it's got to be, I, in my head, if you don't 10x it or more, you're doing it wrong. Like, straight up. And so like, are you going to send this like gorgeous new telecommunications over there to send like 20 photos from perseverance every other day? And then like, because they're not going to be servicing like bless blue origins heart. They're not going to be selling their services to SpaceX when they decide they want to invent a city. Like they're not.

That's not going to be a customer for them. Right. Like everyone is very confident that SpaceX will probably be able to handle their own communication needs at Mars, whatever those. maybe. So I don't know what I'm that's a great storyline Jake. That is so good in the fact that like you as a Starlink customer is like I'm usurping the ISPs of earth and like going this satellite internet way and then Blue Origin puts an orbiter at Mars and it's like finally I can break free of the shackles of SpaceX like that's the changing of the guard moment that we need in our life then we will have made it it's so fun is this really live asking for a friend a friend

prove it. Erin, we're so live. Like, do you hear the stuff Jake is thrown out here? We are so live. It's unbelievable. Okay. Unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so I don't know. I'm, I'm, this feel, and maybe this, maybe this, maybe here's the, the, the optimistic take on this is that we're at a point in developing our exploration of Mars where we just need to sink a bunch of money into some commercial services to spin them up and get some ideas and get some hardware build. And then once that's there, we can reevaluate our strategy. And that's just the point we're at where we need to spend more time on developing some tech and some services. That's fine. That's just a bummer, though, that like, I mean, when we started our podcast, we were talking

about commercial Mars relays, right? Like, we, this was such an easy win if it was funded in 2017 or 18. Like, this was such an easy win that would have gone a long way. Then every article or op-ed that would have been written about NASA's commercial services approach would have been able to say, just like they're doing at Mars, and relaying back all the data from these stories. And we wouldn't have had all of the constant worry about this thing dying or that thing dying. It's just like, man, the fact that they missed that opportunity, it makes me mad, Jake, because it fits the theme of what I've been mad about with NASA,

which is things easily presented to them, as like, this is a good opportunity to exploit politically and get more budget for something or get something funded, right? Like, that has been what they've missed for the last 10 years. And they've ended up in this situation where they now have to cancel a bunch of stuff, which would they have had to cancel stuff if the Trump administration rolled in any way and had this take on things? Yes, absolutely.

Did any of us think that if Kamala Harris won, the NASA wouldn't have had to cancel a bunch of stuff? All we've talked about for five years is like all these budgets are exploding the same year. And they haven't decided on which one's going to win. Are they going to spend money on the moon? Are they going to spend money on the ISS follow-ons? And that was always coming. And the Mars Amper Turn apocalypse was upon us. You had been talking about it since the time you canceled your podcast, right?

Like you canceled it before they canceled Mars sample return, presciently realizing there's nothing else going to Mars. There's nothing else to talk about. Yeah. You were like, I've reached the end of this content. Perseverance is humming. That's it. we're done. I just feel like NASA is, has put themselves in situations with a lot of these programs that were,

I don't want to say easily avoidable because politics is really hard, but they missed some easy opportunities to go and fight for a thing because they were doing so much at the same time. They had too many programs going on, and so that didn't allow them to focus on the things that they should. So in 2017, should we have been talking about like the commercial lunar market when Artemis was still young and like we didn't know which way was going to go or should they have said, you know, we have a present problem in front

of us, which is we need $500 million or whatever it would have been for a Mars telecom orbiter, operate it like an old school NASA mission, but just prove that a company could do it. And would that have paid off in the existence of that program and the validity that it would have provided to

before you've jumped into a space suits as a service contract? You would have had the actual validation of Yeah, guess what the commercial market was really good at? Communications. Guess what they're providing us now from Mars communications? Like, we can do this. It's a bummer, man. It's a bummer.

NASA, we are available for a consultation service. Yeah, clearly. They're obviously going to want us to come in and do this. So first of all, we need to gut Johnson Space Center. The big Johnson Space Center, as you call. Yeah, I'm going to go in there with a machete, and we're going to fix this. So, yeah. The other aspect here is that the lunar communications counterpart here is like intuitive machines has been talking up, we're going to do a lunar relay network.

NASA has now desoped their lunar communications program as well, which is also funny that they've inserted a Mars communications thing into the budget, downscoped the moon one. And that one's way more useful. Yeah. It's total pork. Because the moon one would get, there's users of the moon one. Which lobbyist put this in? Do you think it was Blue Origin or do you think it was Rocket Lab? I still think it was Rocket Lab.

Because think about the timing, right? The timing for Blue Origin, unless this is good proof of how agile Rocket Lab is and how slow Blue Origin is internally. That Rocket Lab found out about it and was able to mobilize a big production. I don't know that the lobby effort was coming and we're ready for it. Yeah. If that's true, that's a, that's a huge story. But I think it was the other way around. Wow.

When we get our guests from Big Opette in Europe, they'll be able to tell us for sure. Yeah. That's the same circle for sure. That's funny, though. Oh, dear. Yeah, that's a bummer, man. Wait a minute. But now you're convincing me, Jake.

Now you're convincing me that it was Blue Origin that got spoken to Ted Cruz's ear. Hmm. Well, I mean, I mean. They have Texas facilities. Rocket Lab has no Texas facilities. And yeah, I don't know. Is Rocket Lab, are they at that level yet where they're like shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the big lobby groups?

Like when when like some big event happens and all the, and, you know, Boeing and Lockheed and SpaceX and Blue, they all dispatch their lobbyists and they all show up at the same place in the same room. Is there a Rocket Lab guy in that room yet? I don't know. Not. All right. Are they big enough yet?

I'm going to scrub some names from the story. I am aware of the time that Peter Beck finally relented and hired the first DC employee, or thereabouts, maybe not the first one, but like the first one focused on DC, you know, lobbying, really, and was somewhat flummoxed at the fact that he had to approve the hiring of this person who would go to DC and lobby for their programs. and was like, this seems like it shouldn't work this way, but everyone else is doing it. So I guess we got to jump in the game. So I know for sure that they do this. Yeah. You're also asking that question about the company who decided to start a launch site up within like spitting distance of the Beltway.

I don't know. Sometimes sometimes like it, it's not always like a direct correlation of like scale the company because especially with these with these like new age like startupy, you know, like, famously don't have a marketing budget kinds of companies, you know, like, they're just like, no, man, we're just going to like come out here and tell our story and people are going to, you know, it's like our podcast marketing strategy. It's like, listen, those listen to show and they'll come if they come if they don't, they don't, whatever. Like, you know, like we just like, we don't have, we don't have a lobby guy in that room,

you know, and I don't make sure that the off nominal podcast is represented. So some, some of those companies get pretty far without. That's true. Begrudgingly admitting that they have to do that. Right. That's true. Yeah. I don't know. It's a toss-up.

Yeah. I don't know. That would be really funny if the origin was the one in charge of this, yeah. Man. If you are listening, lobbyist, please call us and come on the show and tell us how lobbying works. Honestly, that would be awesome. Yeah. We still want to, we still got to call some, you have some people we thought about that once. I don't know. We did? We'll see.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That would be cool. No, no, no, no, no, no, not in the emails. but oh all right i don't know what you're talking about but i'm i'm i'm i'm for it we'll get uh i don't know do you have any takes on this uh launch licensing thing you seemed like you did you came in hot oh it's the executive order it's a throwaway take it's a throwaway take because that the article

drop and it was like oh here it comes like here now it's happening right so like pull up the space these article i'm like what what freaking f a drama is am i going to have to absorb and talk about on the show this week. That's what I went into that article. And I started reading. And it's like, it's so policy dense. This is like, all right, the first thing. And Jeff Fouse is like, oh, yeah, I'm all over this.

Right. Like, yeah, okay. So here we go. The first thing is we're going to streamline the part 450 and do the, the, the, blah, blah, blah. And then I got half through the article. I'm like, I don't know what's going on with this. This is too dense.

There's no drama here. It's just policy. And I can't have a take on it. I mean, it sounds like they're, they know what they're talking about and they're working on it. So I don't know. What's the take? I got to call Tom Arana and be like, please explain this to me.

That was literally where I got to. Which we attempted to do and the time it didn't work out. So he's coming on Miko tomorrow to solve your itch. That's specifically for Jake content that I'm producing tomorrow. But Part 450 thing is funny because it put the companies in charge of like figuring out what things they needed to get licensed for. And then everyone realized, shit, that was a lot of work. and we don't really know what questions we need to ask. We should bail on this.

And so the era of Part 450 was six, seven years long? Like how long? Yeah, it was short, right? Wasn't it like 2018? Something like that. That was the big hot new thing, yeah. Yeah, 2017, 16? I don't know.

It was SPD something or other, three or something? Spree. It was a funny lesson, though, because it's like. Directive free, yes. this is how you can do news like if you don't want the drama like you got to avoid the headline and just do a policy dump and like no one will pay attention to it and it'll just go through like this all these changes there's no there's no there's no there's no one no one that wants to be mad about stuff is like looking at the going like I can't find anything here man I don't know what this

means I don't know that they're looking for the line that says like trump page safety right and like they're looking for that somewhere there and it's like I can't find I don't know what this where it is, I'm just going to go on stuff. I got to go open up CNN and look for something else. The funniest thing is that the way that the administrations have rolled out is that there's like a bunch of stuff that the Trump administration is backtracking on from the Trump administration one. Yeah.

And it's like, actually, we screwed that one up. Like, let's fix that. And you know, commercial Leo destinations developed in the like, what, late 19s, early 20s. So it was like probably roughly some Trump appointees that, or at least in the. meetings before they got announced. And then it's like, we should bail on that and change this entire program. And then this, there was a whole SPD about this back in the day of the big

extravagant. And also the National Space Council. That never came to fruition this time around. No. That was a while. I was just a Mike Pence hobby? It is a, it is a, if you want to be a cynic, it's a very, it's a very obvious sign of an oligarchy, because this is how companies work. They've just freaking cancel shit. they invented 10 minutes ago over and over and gets it. Like, if you don't get immediate traction, it's gone. You know, in the corporate doggy dog world, you don't have time for anything to just piss around and be kind of mediocre, right?

Right. You're saying that NASA should hire Sidney Sweeney for some of these policy rollouts. Is that what you're saying? Brutal. Is that what you're saying? Good Jean Sernan. Sydney, Sidney, Gene Sernon. Jesus.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what to make of it. Whatever. I'm sure it matters for people in the industry, but don't worry about it too much. Yeah. It's like I can't see it going in either direction noticeably. Like I can't see a world where it's like now all the companies is like, oh, man, it's so much better.

And I can't see a world where they're all going to just complain about everything all nonstop all the time. Like, it's just, that nothing's going to change. I don't think. Isn't that the point of this part of the industry is that you're always like, this could be better. this thing could be better, this thing could be better. But it's never going to be great. Yeah.

I mean, that's how a liberal democracy should work, right? You should have freedom unless you need a compelling reason not to have it, right? You should be able to do whatever you want unless it is a problem of something. And that's any kind of regulatory body is defining all the problems, right? Nothing is more American than loathing yourself so much that you change shit. Like that's, if American exceptionalism is one thing, we are the best at self-loathing. And we've, that is our superpower and that is the thing that drives us forward and that is the thing that makes us better. And it's always been true and it always shall be true.

And that is like what if American greatness is called out in this executive order, that is the true American greatness is that we hate ourselves more than you hate ourselves or you hate us and we will make ourselves better because of it. Like that is the true. That is the true thing. So, yeah. And this is the case. Whatever. Launch licensing. Like, sure.

Get hot about it, you know. We'll find out. I'll find out tomorrow. I'll let you know. Good. I'm going to listen intently. I have a feeling this is not the thing that's holding back to space industry. In anyway.

Yeah. We're getting long in the tooth here, Jake, and we have a very fun episode next week. Oh, we do. Long away there. long away. This is only long awaited if you've been in our Discord, though, I think, is that. Which I think is a critical part of our audience, Jake. Yes, it is a critical part of our audience. Why don't you tee it up? You'll be better at it than I will. If you've been around in our Discord for a long time, you may have been familiar with the handle, Leon Running Man, who is an individual that you may have assumed was placed very interestingly in some space organizations.

and you would have assumed correctly based on the stories that Leon Running Man told in the Discord time and time again. And finally, all these years later, we had to wait for some retirement to come and go. It is time for us to unveil Leon Running Man himself, and that'll be great. We're going to have some great stories. I feel like we've heard some of them in the Discord, so it'll be fun to, like, gather a little list of what we want to talk about. But some of what we can talk about is like how does this inside baseball stuff work in the, the collision point between the commercial industry and the government and how to the contracting go and how do you decide who's winning this and who's winning that and maybe even get some old-timey stories

would be great. I love this because if you're not in the Discord, which I guess statistically most of you listening are not. Correct. You're just like, who the is Leon running? What is it? That's not a person. What is that?

We're not telling you until next week. We're just going to let you simmer on that. Maybe join the Discord and then search and find all the stories. Exactly. Do your homework. I think he's even in the, I don't know if he's told me or the Discord, the story of the rocket frog from Antares. Yeah. That's like one of the best.

Or not Antares. Taurus? What launch people is that? Minotar? Minotar? Yeah. One of the Tars. One of the T-R or T-A-U-Rs.

One of those. Yeah. It's not what you think. Yeah, the frog is not what you think. Yep. That's your teaser. That's it. That's the teaser.

I would hit our outro music, but I think it might be the loudest thing in the world for me. And I won't be able to hear anything at all because my software is off the chain today. You'll tell me you just be like, it's done. Well, hopefully I can hit the finish button today. So, yeah. All right.

everybody. We appreciate you. Thanks for dealing with my unhinged tinfoil hat takes today. I don't know what got into you today. This whole asphalt project really got you. This freaking wiffier, man. What kind of asphalt was that? Have you been like, inhaling something? There's definitely no safety standards on that. That's for sure. Maybe that happened and you're unhinged Jake. I love it. I love it, man. It's great. All right, y'all. A very quiet outro. Goodbye.

Bye.