Off-Nominal - 222 - Way to Gaureau (Presenting the 2025 Off-Nominees with Brendan Byrne)

Episode Date: December 19, 2025

Jake and Anthony are joined by Brendan Byrne, News Director at Central Florida Public Media and host of Are We There Yet?, to present the 2025 Off-Nominees: the most bizarre space news stories of the year.TopicsOff-Nominal - YouTubeEpisode 222 - Way to Gaureau (Presenting the 2025 Off-Nominees with Brendan Byrne) - YouTubeThe Off-Nominal Awards - Off-NominalEutelsat resolves OneWeb leap year software glitch after two-day outage - SpaceNewsJeff Foust on X: “NASA says there could be delays in the next Cygnus mission to the ISS after its shipping container sustained damage. NASA will alter the cargo manifest for the next cargo Dragon mission to put more consumables on it.”Isar Aerospace’s first Spectrum launch fails - SpaceNewsLivestream: First test flight of Isar Aerospace - YouTubeBOOM! ISAR Spectrum Rocket Launch Failure - YouTubeJeff Bezos Faceplants at Blue Origin Rocket Launch Capsule LandingUnpacking claims Jeff Bezos opening the Blue Origin capsule hatch was staged | Snopes.comAlpha FLTA006 "Message In A Booster" - YouTube[EXCLUSIVE] ERIS | Test Flight 1 SUCCESS | Gilmour Space Technologies - YouTubeAir Safety #OTD by Francisco Cunha on X: “Here´s an international mess... Today, a Zambian-registered light aircraft, carrying 400 pounds of drugs with "SpaceX" labels, inbound from Colombia, crashed in Brazil, killing the pilot, who was Australian.”Before a Soyuz launch Thursday someone forgot to secure a 20-ton service platform - Ars TechnicaKatya Pavlushchenko on X: “New photos of the damaged launch pad at Site 31 of Baikonur Kosmodrome were published in Telegram channels and on Novosti Kosmonavtiki forum. Sad to see it like this.”R-7 ICBM/Soyuz rocket launch facilities in BaikonurAlejandro Alcantarilla Romera (Alex) on X: “More than two and a half years after the last Proton launch, another one is out on the pad for launch in a few days.”Jake’s Original Falcon Heavy TakeBooster 18 suffers anomaly during proof testing - NASASpaceFlight.comRoscosmos replaces cosmonaut on next Crew Dragon mission to ISS - SpaceNewsSo how do Russian cosmonauts feel about Russia’s war on Ukraine? - Ars TechnicaNASA rebukes Russian use of space station for propaganda purposes [Updated] - Ars TechnicaFollow BrendanBrendan Byrne (@SpaceBrendan) / XBrendan ByrneAre We There Yet? : NPRFollow Off-NominalSubscribe to the show! - Off-NominalSupport the show, join the DiscordOff-Nominal (@offnom) / TwitterOff-Nominal (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceFollow JakeWeMartians Podcast - Follow Humanity's Journey to MarsWeMartians Podcast (@We_Martians) | TwitterJake Robins (@JakeOnOrbit) | TwitterJake Robins (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceFollow AnthonyMain Engine Cut OffMain Engine Cut Off (@WeHaveMECO) | TwitterMain Engine Cut Off (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceAnthony Colangelo (@acolangelo) | TwitterAnthony Colangelo (@[e-mail]) - jawns.club 🐘Off-Nominal MerchandiseOff-Nominal Logo TeeWeMartians Shop | MECO Shop

TOS and go for main engine, start. Oh, it's the eighth annual, Jake. I just counted. This is the eighth time that we've prevented, prevented, presented the all nominees. Well, that's, that's a, geez, that makes me feel old. How many would you have guessed that we've done? I don't know. I hadn't thought about it, and now it's making me feel like I'm a little long in the tooth.

But I guess there's no one better to do it with than the very first off nominal guest ever. Oh shit. Yeah. Is that true? Yeah. Yeah. Oh shit. Because we went to Falcon Heavy and then we had you on.

Yes. Yeah. That's right. Wow. On an episode called, I've got 35 loons. Yeah. Because Brendan told the story about how I left all my money in his spare room. I had a bunch of spare change.

I just took out of my backpack and then never took it. So he just got Canadian. He's getting poorer by the day with that exchange rate, you know? Yeah. You should have spent it, really. It's gotten worse since then. Should have converted it to Bitcoin immediately. Don't look up what it would have been if you did that.

Yeah. It's fine. It was worth the company. And you're wrong. And I said this before we went live. You are officially the guests of the year 2025 for rolling with this bullshit today in which we were going to do the show at this regular slot. But I had a kid get sent home early from school. And so we shook it up.

Old school, Jake, like the first time we ever had a guest on. We probably made him show up at like 10 p.m. on a Saturday to do that first episode, which is what we used to do as sociopathic individuals we were. It was way past my bedtime, yeah. And look at us. Just a few years later, Jake, I got to go in the Pentagon this week and go interview the head of the Space Force. So how about that? It's a big day.

That was a pretty cool interview. That was incredible. Yeah. I was showing off that picture to like everyone I know. I'm like, look at my friend. He's in the skiff. They let us in. We're like the very small percentage of people that showed that photo and we're

bragging about the guy on the left and not the guy. Yeah, what do you mean? There's not enough stars on my side. Hey, look, I did bring the, I didn't even mean to pose my very stickered up Pelican case. Oh, it's beautiful. But we got a lot of stickers in there. We got the valves from Marada. We got the Miko, the off nominal.

There's a wee Martians one. the other side, but it's not on this phasing side. Agiles in there. What else we got? Black Sky, Blue Origin. We got a lot of friends of the show represented there, Jake. That's pretty cool. Good stuff. I love that table he's got in there, too. All the patches underneath the glass. There was one that I believe was a Bill Nelson contribution, which was the one that says beat China down at the bottom. Are you sure they didn't get that in the police rate on the Bigelow estate.

God, that guy. I did feel a little weird trying to get a Pelican case through the security at the Pentagon. I was like, I don't know. I should have brought a different vessel to carry all this. Like maybe a clear zip-up bag or something. Yeah. Was it easy and in there? Oh, it was fine.

Yeah. It was shockingly fine. It helps that they background check you beforehand. So I think it's like the higher level TSA pre-check. And you made it out. Yeah. We'll tell us some stories later, but we got business, boys. We do.

We got to award the off nominees. But first, Brendan, did you bring something fun to drink? I did. I did. I thought this was the holiday episode, so I am holiday themed here. I didn't have an ugly sweater, so I'm wearing my green and red. That's beautiful. I like that. It's so hot.

It's made of plastic. I was sticking with the theme of that. I recently moved, and I've been checking out some new breweries in my new neighborhood, and there's this one called Deez Brothers in downtown Sanford, and they have a fruitcake, spiced ale. Oh, that is a big one. This is the smallest size I could get. Yes. So good thing I'm off tomorrow, but yes, it's a brown ale with black current, orange liqueur, walnut, nutmeg, and molasses.

So it sounds warm and tasty. Yeah. So that's what I'm having. Wow. Jake, do they do holiday drinks when it's so tropical? They do when you make them yourself. Oh, yeah, baby. What is it?

Look at this. A nondescript bottle. Oh, nothing. No label. Yeah, because I didn't get it made in time. But this is a peppermint mead that I made in like February in anticipation of this show. I was like, I need to have a Christmas mead. on off nominees.

So 10 months ago, I got my shit together and I made this. I literally boiled like mint candies inside of a pot with like peppermint tea and honey and fermented it and put it in the closet. Yeah, it's something. I'm a little upset you didn't send us

a bottle to drink with you. Wait till the taste test, Brendan. These haven't gone great yet. I'm sad it was a lot. I'm sad that colored and turned out. It used to be like pink and then it just like as it settled, it turned yellow. I don't know why. That looks like pee now, but. You still, you still sad? You didn't get any, Brennan?

Yeah. I've actually, I haven't already, so I know it's good. Okay. This one passes the test. Yeah, that was delicious. Usually I do a mad elf on this show, traditionally, the 11% chaos beer from Troegs, but we had a shitload of snow. week and it stayed on the ground all week. And so I got a double blizzard to be thematic because there's still snow out there.

And that's so Christmassy and it's wonderful. But it was the wet snow that really hurt my back for a couple of days. And now I have a lot more sidewalk than I used to have. For your back because you're always like trying not to slip and you're like all like. Yeah, it was. Yeah. You know, I did have a person notionally helping me. and he would scoop some snow and then find the farthest location to go dump it,

so he would walk across all of the already shoveled area. So, it was great. Are your kids old enough to do that yet, Anthony? Just the five-year-old. Yeah, no, the one-year-old, we forgot to get, we didn't think there would be snow yet, so we did not have boots the right size. So we put him in boots probably two sizes too big, which went to his knees, so he then believed that he was completely immobile, so he just stood wherever you put

with a shovel and was looking around. Like, what are we doing out here? That would have been a mace, shoveling, no. Yeah. Yeah, you don't do that great. Yeah. Anyway, I've got to open this beer. I'm blasting it all over the place. This is actually quite delicious.

I'm going in blind on this one. It's very good. I bet it is. It sounds full. It sounds like a full beer. It's actually pretty light for all in it. Yeah, I guess it's a brown. I also, yeah, it's quite good.

Spilled a lot of beer over here. So give me a second. You take the reins, Jake. Why don't we before? I think what we always do to start this is we give a shout out to the current reigning champion. Is that correct? I feel like we've done that in past years.

I feel like we've done that. If you remember who it is, Jake? I don't. I don't remember. It is the Tianlong 3 non-static fire. Oh, yeah. When they set up for a static fire, didn't, I guess the holddowns failed, and it lifted off and traveled kilometer or something?

How far did they go? It went pretty far. I mean, a centimeter is too far, so. Fair statement. Yeah. It was a little too far. Yeah. Great winner last year.

It was a good winner. Very fair. I think we got flack for that, didn't we? I think we did. We always do. I don't think so. That's a pretty... There's always somebody.

Why? Because there was moon landers. Yeah, there's always someone. There's always someone. There was a Soyuz that landed like really shockingly close to a tractor. Really close. Yeah.

Good year. What do you make of this year? I'm wondering if there would be a clamp-related nominee this year with the Soyuz launch. They forgot to clamp it down and blue. Soyuz always makes an appearance. I think every year there's been a Soyuz related incident. Well, I mean, we don't plan for this, but this year, like many others, we have a category for Russia.

So I literally, that's not a content thing. We put them all on the board and go, is there enough for a category here? And there always is. But do you want to go in the order that you're categorized? Oh, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I just want to say, Bernie, you're allowed to nominate. So if we miss something, please shout it out. Oh, okay.

I will. Yeah. You are all the professionals here. I'm not going to. Okay, well, we have four categories this year. Do you want to go over the categories first, Anthony? Yeah, roll it out for us. You do the preview?

Okay, so the first category this year is going to be what I'm calling glitches and whoopsies, which are very low stakes and very funny. so hopefully they're good ones. We've got a classic category of flight anomalies. That's kind of what everyone is usually associates with it for some strange reason. As I said, Russia has a category this year, and we gave SpaceX a category this year. That's a slim one, but you have two on the list, and I think there should be a discussion about the third on what or should be included on the SpaceX list. I think there might be a little discussion around that.

I look forward to it. And to recap, Brendan, one more time, since I think this is your first off nominees, there needs to be a spirit of whimsy about these, right? This isn't just launch failures that are normal, right? Like, stuff that either went really bad or just expected, like a failure that went in an expected way, like New Glenn's first stage landing on the first flight, not on the list. It's not whimsical enough. There needs to be something about it that gives it that element of total chaos and hilarity

that is still a failure, but has a lighter side to it than anything. I like that. I like that. I'm glad I learned all of this stuff before I came on the show and agreed to do this. The prep document was great, I'm sure. Yeah. Didn't you read the briefing? I thought we sent out of the BF package.

I just got a text for me here on Thursday. Oh, dear. All right. Well, should we start with the... We'll just go down the list, I guess. Yeah, man. Whoopsies. These are fun.

I'm going to load... I'm going to load up the links. You've run us through these. All right. Well, we're going to start with everyone's favorite satellite constellation, one web. And they... This is exciting because... Do you remember this?

This is like the first minute of the year. It was like the entry... The very first off nominee of 2025, it came to us real fast. But they had a software glitch. because of a leap year, I guess. And the whole constellation was out for two days. So this one is especially funny to me and Anthony because we develop software and working with dates

is notoriously hard. It just doesn't work very well. And so this was like both funny and also very relatable. I feel free to those guys. Yeah, it was a ground station issue. The software issue was caused by a failure to account for 2024 being a leap year, according to U-TELSat spokesperson Joanna Darlington who told Space News that services were partially restored 36 hours after the disruption began December 31st. So it was math in 2025 because 2024 was a leap year.

So I assume it was a they were using a Unix timestamp or something doing seconds math and did not count for it or something. You know what's really strange about that? Like a leap year is a whole day. So like wouldn't they have been off a whole day since like... Well, maybe was that it? Maybe it started on December 31st at night. No, but wouldn't you be like off since February 29th? Like, wouldn't that be the date that you would be?

Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. That's what I would assume. But that's what I'm saying. February 29th and the one web satellite said March 1st and everyone was very confused. Like what? Nobody noticed until it said December 32nd.

Yeah, they didn't have any customers. I thought it was they were doing math about. Yeah, it's weird. I wonder if they used some weird like epip. and it was tied to 2024. Nobody noticed because it was just a big, like, Unix timestamp, just a bunch of numbers, nobody knew, yeah. I feel like it's even more embarrassing than been,

that has been reported. We should dig into this. Yeah. We should FOIA this. Yeah, all right, that's a go-on. Yeah, so let's kick that off. We got next. We're going to move fast for these ones.

Cygnus was damaged in a shipping container. This one is weird. This is a weird one. Because it sucks. Yeah. Right. We never heard what was the actual inciting incident about this, right? Did it get in an accident on the roadway?

Did it get dropped from a crane? Nothing? Did Brendan touch it? Probably, yeah. Yes, I touched it. You don't remember, Jake? He touched Terran one? Yeah, yeah.

And it was all over. Yeah. In my defense, a bunch of other people touch. it too and came to my defense on on Twitter so it wasn't just the issue yeah Chris Abbott is implicitness as well so

uh yeah the thing this was weird this was weird I yeah we never really heard much about it after that but they said they were going to inspect it and yada yada and then it was just like nope it was too screwed up so it definitely was a more higher impact situation than just like

it you know fell off the flatbed. They didn't scuff the Baydoor on the way out, yeah. So what do you think happens to this hardware? This is what I want to talk about. They got this damaged Cygnus. I think they put it in a dumpster. And then the Italians find it.

And then I'm trying to remember how it goes, something like that. You're right in the fact that, yeah, this did also come from Italy. So this could have been thrown out in that same trash can that the Vega hardware was thrown out. Very likely. Also an off nominee. Yeah, yeah. It's a repeat off nominee. All right.

Our first video entry, Jake. Oh, yeah. Great one here. And apparently I've linked to TMZ for this one, which tells you what kind of category is going to be in. This is Jeff Bezos after, oh boy, here we go. Jeff Bezos, after the mission walking around New Shepherd in the desert. Here he comes.

Oh, and thank you. TMZ for the arrows. Bezos, and he steps right in the hole and falls down. And I think there's a second level here, Jake, right? Isn't this the same one where they also released a video of him

opening the hatch that was clearly edited after the fact? Wasn't this the same thing? Yes, because of the Katie Perry flight. Yes, Katie Perry, yeah. That could almost be its second off nominee, I'll be honest. I thought it was the same one, and I thought it was on this video clip, and that's why I didn't have it as a

second unit, but, uh, I mean, this flight generally, I think does find itself high up the ranking this year. What was your take on this, uh, Katie Perry anchored flight? That was for Brandon. I'm getting your take. We didn't, we didn't cover it. So that's, and that's our take. Yeah, what a strange flight. Yeah. You're right. They like opened it and then there was a video of it closed and was like spin it like that's so weird like did we ever figure that out what was it just oh like you open it too fast we didn't have the camera on like go back close it and then open yeah or they had yeah it was maybe it was like tough to get open and they needed extra leverage to open it or something brutal yeah the suborbital companies generally have a knack for like really producing content

i remember the virgin galactic richard branson launch where they had the whole theatrical intro to the thing, right? And it made it look like that morning Richard Branson had biked from the house where Elon showed up at 3 a.m. or whatever to the launch site. But when you watch the video, there's like nobody in New Mexico, right? And then they cut back to the event at like 6 a.m. And there's a thousand people there. And it's like, he didn't just bike there. And then you set all of this up in an hour. So, you know, there's a lot of theatrics involved. Yeah, it's all for sales, right? I mean, who's going on these suburb? orbital rides. They're, you know, people with lots of money.

That's true. Yeah. All right. Brendan, the next one, I think, for some reason, I have a feeling that this one's going to win your vote for this category. By the way, we elect a winner of each category. Oh, okay. And then we go to the finals. Yeah. Well, we'll run through them all again. But this one, Jake, I feel like, I feel like Brendan's going to choose this one. So what I'm going to do is I'm put this full screen, Brendan, I'm going to have you read the text and then describe the photo of

associated with this text, okay? And read every word on screen. No. I didn't mean do the voice, but if you want to do that also, you can. Congratulations to Blue Origin on the first successful test flight of New Glenn together. And in the spirit of John Glenn, NASA and our commercial partners are pushing the boundaries of exploration and reaching new heights to the the moon, Mars, and beyond. Actually, it's got, man, I haven't done a good job with, oh, no.

And that is a Falcon 9. There it is. It's not even just a photo of Falcon 9. It's a screenshot of a SpaceX webcast of a Falcon 9 launching. And I'm not great at math, but I'm pretty sure he was still the head of NASA when tweeting that, right? Yeah, this is like the final days.

It was like in the final days of it, wasn't it? Yeah. We don't have a date on the tweet, but they probably got rid of dates in X. But yeah, he was former senator of current administrator. Three days left. Yeah. Three days. That was the last of it.

Yeah. Yeah. He went out with a bang. We'll just say. All right. At that point, you know, everyone from that administration had just given up, you know. whatever. Yeah, morale was not high on the Democrats.

On Twitter, who cares? Just send the tweets. It's funny, though, because you would think it would be the inverse, right? You'd think that he would be congratulating SpaceX and put a photo of someone not SpaceX doing a thing. Like, that would have been more appropriate given the tensions at the moment. More Bill Nelson. Yeah. All right, we got to pick a glitches and whoopsies champion.

We've got a leap year. I will say unexplained leap year. software issue. Unknown Cygnus shipping damage. Jeff Bezos tripping in a hole and then fake opening the New Shepherd capsule. And then a completely botched tweet by Bill Nelson on what is a monumental flight for his agency. I think the first two lose points for not being open enough with the information. Fair, fair.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm voting for Bill Nelson. It's too funny. The context of the end of the administration, like mailing it in is just too much for me. It's like perfect. Senior senatoritis. So you know some intern went, is this okay, Bill?

And showed him before anyone. Yeah, it's fine. You should just say it's sandwich. I'm going to go with Bill too. Yeah. All right. You correctly predicted that. Yeah.

Always going to root for my buddy, Bill Nelson. So even if it's going to. and's going to Florida. This category. All right. We got flight anomalies. This is a real highlight this year. We got some good ones.

Some with video, some with not video, which is going to be a topic of conversation here. The ESAR Aerospace Launch. Now, this one is, give me your thoughts. The whimsiness of this one is suspect, but it is so strange and unique and different that I smiled a lot when I watched it. So that's why I put it in here and why I kept it in here.

Yes. So yeah, this is the, this is the, I sorry, I saw it, I saw it. I said it. But like the most picturesque launch site, like I'm sorry, New Zealand. You had the crown for a while, but now it's this place. That's gorgeous. Just unbelievable. And the drone shot is just extraordinary.

and then yeah like this loop-de-lu rocket epic flip epic flip total tracking shot whoever's flying this drone baby you delivered on this they kept on they did their job yeah and then just boom into the water and credit to esar for releasing the whole video yeah the whole video yeah yeah all the way through my wireball wallpaper that looks great my desktop background it's beautiful i know it's so pretty. It's not like, like sometimes, you know,

like our community is like, oh, this explosion is so pretty because we like love the engineering of it. It's like an explosion. There's like all this methane and oxidizer. This is just like objectively like a Renaissance painter would look at this and go. Oh my God.

It's gorgeous. And look at this. The orbit they're doing now with the drone as well, which may have just been like I need to get this drone out of the, the plume that's coming my way. But there's debris coming. Yeah. But listen, this is the year where we saw a lot of videos that were cut off early from SpaceX themselves fading to black in the way that I, and I tweeted this and it was hot drama at the time on Twitter that they cut that video off like every state run organization in China would edit their videos.

They did it the same way with Starship flights and everyone's like, well, the context, people aren't going to understand. Esar said, F that, we're putting the whole thing out there because it's absolutely beautiful and everyone will love this. And we love them for that. Yes. I want your take on the snow shoveling at that launch site. Anthony. I'm going to say that because it's Norway, and this was, what part of the year was this?

This was eight months ago. So I feel like it's probably a dry snow and a lot of ice, but the snow that is there is dry, which is nice to lift. It's the soggy, you know, this time of the year snow that just really kills you. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. I also think they don't shovel because it's too much snow. Yeah.

So your post-shoveling. You just give up. You just give up. You're like, we live on snow now. Great one. Yeah. So then we have Firefly. This one was fun specifically about the second stage staging, right?

This is where this is where this one kind of fun. What was the mission on this one again? Like six. I feel like there's a, can we sidebar for like two seconds? I feel like there is a group of rocket companies and their rockets right now in this time period that have all changed their name like two or three times and I cannot keep track of them anymore. Like you could tell me this is a 3D printed ABL Long March firefly rocket.

And I just I wouldn't know if you were making that up or not. Like I can't keep track of all these. Was this an alpha? Is that the one or was this? This is an alpha. They don't have any other ones yet. No, it's always been the same. The company has chained ownership, and that was dramatic,

but the rocket has stayed the same. Yeah, this was the Flight 6 anomaly, which is, I would say, odds-on favorite for the off-nomalies generally. I think I timed stamp this to where the anomaly happens. So what you want to watch, I'm going to commentate a little bit, because what you want to watch is after the anomaly happens. Watch how much debris. There's the issue.

Watch how much debris is in this. this video right here. Because you see, you're spinning, obviously, and then you just see, oh, that was the, there we go. These are all the things in the plume. Like, look how much stuff is back there. And then look at this. Just a murderer's row of debris in the back with no engine bell visible.

If you look up photos of what Firefly Alpha should look like, there's an engine bell on the second stage, and there's none to be seen on this video. It's just coming. Fantastic. It looks like they were driving down the highway in a garbage truck with the back open. Thanks, everybody. Have you from the vehicle here?

It's a great one. You can see the farings of jettisoned. This is always, and also, by the way, I'm like a little nerd thing at the very bottom left of this stream. I can't do this on YouTube. They have the issue, Jake, where they're showing December 31st, 1969. But now we're into that longer. We have the second stage running, the lightning doing its job to get that horizontal philosophy. So this is a common thing.

Brendan, a lot of times the Unix epoch date will show up as an issue if you have like a null date timestamp in your coding somewhere, it will default to December 31st, 1969. So if you've ever gotten one of those ghost phone calls on your phone that says you have a voicemail from almost 1970, that's the same issue that Fireflow is having on there. I didn't know that. If you get an email, it says that, like you must renew your account by December 31st, 1969. Don't do it.

That's a programming error. There was also something funny about this flight that I noted, Jake. Yeah, I saw that note too, and I couldn't quite catch it, but was there, they called it supersonic when it wasn't supersonic. Is that what it was? I think so. Did I do the math wrong? Maybe. I don't think so, because they called it supersonic at 200 kilometers per hour, which is 124 miles an hour.

So. Not supersonic. No. I do like how they were commentating throughout the entire thing, too. Like, the thing is blowing up and like, oh, and look, the fairings of, uh, to blow it. The pharynx, the bearings and everything else. That's the spaceflight accepts these contracts

to do the webcam or the web, live streams, and then they've got to talk their way through these early hours. You got to deliver it. Because they were Astra, too, right? When Astra was having their hilarious failures, weren't they doing the streams? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Didn't Tim do one of the Firefly ones? I think so. Yeah. I think he did maybe even the first one that um sounds right none of the engines worked and it hit max queue at like 10 miles an hour or whatever and then fell apart and half fell apart and half fell apart and half all right jake we got to talk about it man we've friendon we've had an inside line on this show to gilmore space the australian company launching rockets out of australia who had two fantastic entries to the off

nominees this year. In one case, I'm clicking on this link, Jake, but is there anything to show here or am I just telling people what happened? I don't think we have anything to show on that one. They were on the launch pad prepping for their first launch attempt and the Faring activated on the launch pad and fell off the rocket. The front fell off. The front fell off of this. which I would like to point out is non-normal so they posted this fantastic photo with a description

of what happened and and they had to replace it it was that bad the whole thing the whole front fell right off we were told that there is video of this

that exists in the world and has not been released and we've been lobbying for weeks heavily that if they sent us this video to debut on this show. They will win the off nominees. Clerical error, I don't know what, a little bit of approvals issue. I think it's tied up in red tape, yeah. It's tied of red tape,

but we have visual confirmation, not of the video, but of the files of the video, that we know these exist, and they are there, and they are not allowed to be released. And we were so close to having our second ever scoop. None of our scoops ever result in anything good, so they probably made a good decision. because our first scoop, I'm pretty sure killed a Tom Cruise movie on the ISS. But the farring fell off. But it's still funny.

That's why I still gets to be enough nominee. It's like me when I first started playing Curbel Space Program and missed my staging and, you know, just... Every time, yeah. We don't launch the rocket and the pharynx popped off. We've all done that. It hit space part.

The pharyn just come off and your rockets just... It goes the other way. It goes the other way. revert, right? What Scott Manley always say? Check your staging, right? Yeah. Always check your staging.

It's the truth. But don't worry, Brendan. They did get back on the horse and provide us video. I don't know if this was from them. Was this video published by them specifically? Or was this like an external, again, another independent streamer. It feels like a fan blog. Yeah.

It feels like the guy. who used to shoot the Jackson launches. But you need to have audio, though. We have to have audio for this to work. Yeah, it's very important. We're going. It's going. It's going.

It's going. It's going. Can we hear it enough? I can. Oh, okay. It's hovering. It's hovering. It's hovering.

It's hovering. It's hovering. It's gone. Oh, no. It didn't go. There wasn't sufficient for us to actually keep it up. It slid straight off the pad. There wasn't sufficient thrust.

That tells me that's the thrust. What's the thrust? Oh, it's efficient. There's the sound. There's the sound. Unfortunately, it went sideways. I believe that's the end of the heiress rocket. Oh my God, this is so good.

We have a cloud and that's the end. I forgot how good the commentary is. Yeah. So that tells me that the way the rocket reacted, there was insufficient thrust available for it to actually launch off the pad. It was enough for it to release, but it wasn't enough for it to actually. It is like so, like, this guy, it's just, he just really wanted to watch this rocket today,

and he went out and he did the thing, and he participated, and he was so excited and so disappointed at the same time. I feel like I am this guy. I've been this guy. I've definitely been this guy. I cut the audio off too early, let me play a little bit more. So, yeah, so what we've got now

is we've got the aftermath of a failed mission. So congratulations to Gilmore Space for the attempt. I think I heard after that. I thought you were talking, and he was talking to my ear, but you couldn't hear it. So I did not cut this off too early. I regret the error.

Yeah, it was good. I loved it. It was a good video. I personally think that guy should be hired by NASA spaceflight. I would listen to that. Every time they do a starship launch, we can hear, oh, no. It's not going. It's not going.

Oh, no. It didn't go. Oh, bless it. Love it. Well, okay. That's the category, I think, right? Do we get it? Yes, that's all four.

Okay. What do you guys think? Run it back for us, Jake. Give us your rundown. We got the picturesque beautiful I saw our launch in Norway. We've got Firefly staging issue, a little bit of a corkscrew motion,

lots of garbage coming out the back, no engine bell. Gilmore's the front fell off, and Gilmore's hovering, hovering, hovering. Didn't go wrong. Is that one for sure. If I didn't hear the commentary, it would not have been that. I would have gone with the picturesque Norway launch and that beautiful explosion in that lagoon.

But yeah, the Gilmore got me. I feel like if we, if this one wins, then you've got a better argument to get that video from the fairies. We're playing politics here. That's good point. Dangle, carrot. Yeah. Okay. Do we know the name of the guy commentating on that launch?

Because I would like to award it to him specifically in the way that we awarded it to Oleg Konanenko the one year for stabbing the Soyuz. I don't know. I don't know. If somebody can get our name, get a name for this. He should reach out to us. He probably listens, right? Hey, the three people we are shouting at for the last month, can you tell us who that guy was? I just made fun of his accent for like five straight minutes.

I think are we all agreed that Gilmore Flight 1 hovering? I think I know. I say so. Yeah. It's hovering. All right. You have to do the SpaceX category, Jake, because I don't know what this second one is about. And I feel like you need to get it. You need to.

Okay. Well, we'll do the normal one first. Yeah. The first one is when I was first categorizing this, I started, I came down this one in the list. and the category name that cannot mind was what the what the what is this this is not a story what is going on here but this is I guess

like a plane went down in Brazil and the pilot died the pilot was Australian there we go didn't go and it was oh my god Jake

it was full of drugs Zambian registered Zambian registered Zambian registered and all the drugs were branded SpaceX. So I don't even know what to do with that story. Like that is an absolutely insane amount of information to pack into a single tweet. 400 pounds of drugs.

SpaceX labels. Inbound from Columbia crashed in Brazil. I love the tweet, killing the pilot. Who was Australian? Wow. That's like an ad-libs. I guess paragraph. Yeah.

Isn't it? I guess this is like, if you went to chat, GBT, you're like, give me the weirdest thing that would fit into the off nominees category. And they just gave me this. Can we try to unpack why they put the SpaceX labels? That's what I was just going to say. It would pass through. Like nobody would look at it if it said SpaceX,

because everybody would look at it if it said SpaceX. Yeah. I don't know, man. I don't have any answers for this. This is the thing. It gets you high enough to take you to orbit. I like that it's also a SpaceX logo that was, like they got the vector file and they made the whole thing blue,

which is never how the SpaceX logo appears anywhere. Very not adhering to brand standards. Yeah, the swoosh is supposed to be different. Jeez. So that happened. What? Yeah, I'm just tagging it with a very recognizable, important company logo is just the craziest decision ever.

Yeah. I don't understand. Is this, are we in the SpaceX category? Does this even count the SpaceX has nothing to do with. They're implicated, I think. Yeah. That sounds like something a SpaceX lawyer would say, Brendan Byrne and Byrne.

Let me put my tinfo hat on for one second. Was this, wasn't this around, it has to be somewhat temporally, adjacent to the Elon Musk judge drama in Brazil doesn't it? Maybe there's like a framing there's like some framing going on here like we're going to crash this plane

we'll put SpaceX luck on. I don't know. It's a very bad idea. It's a poor, poor idea but who knows? I don't know what's going on there. What a wild story. Yeah. And there's a comment that says it was a Zambian registered plane but there was

a fake South African South African license. I don't know why it's a license like pilots license I don't know is that again is it trying to like that Elon thing I don't know I'm really it does feel like trying to yeah it's crazy

I think in September 2025 that guy needed any more controversies going on in his life I don't know that's a wild one yeah that's crazy right all right Jake convince us that this next one

should be on the list Okay. Well, okay, so the, the, the, where I started with this is that I didn't have enough other SpaceX stories to make a category, but I wanted it to be a category. So I reached a little bit, but I think this qualifies. Um, because if you remember, two years ago, we had Brendan burn on this show and we did our, uh, newlyweds game. Thank you for that, Brendan. That was very fun. And I had a very controversial's take that is seems to have become part of off nominal lore now, which is that Falcon Heavy is the most overrated rocket. And I just wanted to add as an off nominee this year, the Falcon Heavy flight rate, which if anyone was tracking it, was very low this year. Jake putting up the original Falcon Heavy paper. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Look at this. Look at that jacket, Brendan.

Damn. I was at work. You caught me in my office. Yeah. But, yeah, so Falcon Heavy did not fly this year. Big goose egg on the flight rate. Zero launches. And I think I just wanted to point that out that that seems to uphold my theory a little bit.

When was the last one? Last fall. How long was that? I think, yeah. October 24. October 24. Wow. Okay.

Pre-election. Yeah. Like, here, like, there have been a lot of things that have happened more than Falcon Heavy Flight rates this year. Let's put it like that. That's a pretty strange number, zero, I got to say. I mean, ULA's flown more than that. Yeah, yeah.

New Glenn. We've inaugurated more U.S. presidents this year than that. So it's a lot, you know. Jared Isaac has been nominated twice for the head of NASA since Falcon Heavy Flight. That's infinity times more than Falcon Heavy Flight rate. Wow. And your point, Anthony, on that episode, I listened to that clip a little bit.

Your main point to argue me was that, well, I don't know. I think Falcon Heavy came into a DoD market and obliterated the competition and took over the entire market. I said, that's a fair point. But let me got to ask you now, follow up. If the market has no customers in a whole year, was it really that much of a market to obliterate, Anthony? Wow. You were just at the Pentagon. Answer me this.

Yeah, I was talking to the market. I was doing market research, man. Was he like, hey, there's not a lot going on at the space for us. We don't have any launches this year. I will say Falcon Heavy did not come up. We didn't talk about it. Yeah. You know what?

It's not thinking about it. You know, all right, that might be your argument. If you went back eight to the original off nominees episode eight years ago and said, Anthony, you will talk to the head of the space force in the year 2025. Will Falcon Heavy come up? I bet I would say, yeah, it would definitely come up. And it did not at all. I wasn't even close to bringing it up. Yeah.

You're right. Yeah. So I'm nominating. the big falcon heavy goose egg for 2025. All right. You got your, there's your soapbox. Jake's soapbox nominated for an off nominee this year. Brendan, here's the question I have for you on the SpaceX category.

We were debating this a little bit before the show. Do you think any of the starship failures had a spirit of whimsy to them? Because it was a rough year for Starship, right? The flight failures were bad. They were cool looking, some of those ones with the debris stream. Did any of them, because a lot of them, because a lot of, Starship made a huge appearance in the 2020 to 2021 era era on the off nominee. Like, they were all over the list.

But do you think any this year were particularly whimsical? I don't think so. I think they're so, these failures are so serious and have implications to a lot of big programs that, yeah, there's no whimsy there. There's a lot of pressure on Starship. I don't think we can laugh at it. It's time to deliver. Is that what you're saying? Time's deliver.

Space is hard. Booster 18, there's some comments in the chat, Jake, that Booster 18 should make the list because of the fact that the side ripped open and somehow it stayed up upright on the pad. I'm pulling up a photo if you don't remember what this looks like. I mean, we can nominate it, but it's not going to win. So, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, the cocaine or the whatever. Do we know what drugs it was? cocaine-bear airplane or whatever. Yeah, it's got to be that one, right? Let me pull up this image of this thing just to show it, for the record. I mean, that thing was ripped wide open. And it did stay. I mean, this one has a crane on it,

so this picture probably less impressive than the one of it freestanding half blown up. That is a whoopsie. That's a whimsy and whoopsy. It should be in the whoopsie category. Is it a whoopsy-dupsy-wipsy-whoopsie category? I'm at least adding it to the list of... All right, all right. I will accept this nomination.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's some other details that might make it farther up the list, but I think the narco plane is winning for sure. All right, it's time. Russia. Russia has always has three items on the list, at least. and Brendan did intro us to one, which is the... It did make the list. Clamp issue, yes.

Definitely, yeah. Can you explain this? Can somebody explain this? Brendan, what do you know about it? Not much. I know somebody needs to explain what happened. That's probably what Roscos was saying. It seems to me kind of like the back fell off, right?

That's kind of what happened with this one. which is not normal. Anatolai Zack said that, and I think this actually will make this more of a contender in this category, that there are, let me try to find this, they were trying to get this thing

fully latched into place. And they were running late. They tried to do it several times. And then they had pressure to just go ahead with the launch because a lot of tourists, paying tourists, were there for the launch and some high-profile individuals were there for the launch

and they wanted to see it go off. And so they said, screw it, maybe it'll stay where it's at. Let's bounce and launch this candle. Light this candle. Like, let's just go. That's rough.

So it's bad. The whimsy on this one is the fact that it rolled so perfectly into the flame trench and was sitting at the bottom of the flame trench. That's a hilarious visual, as weird and sad as it may be. it just looks very funny to me sitting down there that's a weird thing

also what is this thing even doing yeah yeah I didn't cover the story it's like a servicing platform or something for the underside of the launch pad I guess and it like retracts in what do they do on I said I heard everyone explain it that way but what do they do on there

that where they put the little matchstick that's yeah that's the light day The big giant That would be the funniest turn out. Oh shit. That would be the funniest result of this, Jake, because there's been a lot made of like,

how long is it going to take to fix? Will they be able to launch? Is the ISS going to be okay? The funniest result of this would be, we actually don't need this anymore. We don't know why we were still using this thing. Like, this is from the 60s and we don't do anything with it anymore.

Yeah, the guy that designed this is no longer with us and we have no any reason why it's here. Oh, here's the line I wanted to read from this. According to one rumor from Bikinor, the mobile platform was retracted and moved back to the rocket as many as five times as the specialist tried unsuccessfully to secure it in its parking position inside its shelter after the routine called a retracting platform had been issued during the final countdown less than an hour before launch. When they were finally ordered to evacuate the pad 30 minutes ahead of the liftoff, the decision was made to leave the platform in its parking position inside the shelter without securing it. They didn't want to postpone the launch. People speculated that was because there was pressure to go ahead to not take. disappoint the high-ranking officials and

3,000 paid tourists who came to the remote center to witness the launch. So, yeah, it's that, that's that long-term Russian thinking at the moment, you know? Yeah, yeah, geez. I don't know what to say about that. There's that one.

Yeah. All right. Jake's favorite launch vehicle has returned. Apparently, this struck, this came out of nowhere. I have no idea how this happened, but like a week or two ago, a proton rocket just rolled out of the factory ready to launch. This rocket flew its final flight two years ago.

It is a retired rocket. So I don't know where it comes from. Why it's like I have no answer. And it got scrubbed already. It's pushed into the next year. But just the rollout itself to me is enough to be enough nominee. Like what is what's going on here? why is there a proton getting ready to fly?

That's funny. Yeah. Part of me wishes that it did get off this year because then we could have said that proton had a higher flight right than falcon. This makes me think that if this whole steal the shuttle, the Texas thing comes true, what I think we should do is troll the Russians by pretending to roll it out to launch pad 39B and just put it on the crawler one time. I'd be like, it's back, baby.

All right, what do you think the odds are? This actually launches. I mean, it looks like it's ready to go. Russian ingenuity, they'll get it up. This is higher, Jake, I thought this had no chance. It's flying very old Soviet technology. That's a good point. So, I didn't think this one

I would feel good about this one being on the list, but I feel so good about this one being on the list, because I forgot how definitive the final launch of Proton was, that there was a whole round of, like, pour one out for Proton. Yeah. That's really good. Yeah. I like it.

I like it. All right, the last one, I need to find a link for this. Yeah, I just tossed it on there. It wasn't on, so there was no link. Okay. But you can probably just grab the Eric Burger article. would have been pretty recent, right? Yeah.

So, yeah. So we had a cosmonaut removed from a flight, Oleg Artemiov, who this is now the second time we've mentioned him on the show, I think. He's won one. He's on the list, man. He's won an award before. In fact, yeah, in the previous episode with Brendan Byrne, the newlyweds, one of the questions was which astronaut disappointed you the most?

And his name came up then. So he's like a, he's an all-star of the off-nominees, I think, because he threw a satellite into a, into a solar panel. Oh, that disappointed you? I think that was hilarious. The same guy, yeah. He was the winner of 2022's off-nomonies. The overall winner was Oleg Artemiev throwing a CubeSat into the ISS Solar Array and saying, whoop, I think I hit the solar array.

Yeah. So, I mean, the arc of Oleg-G-Temiof just keeps getting better and better because it just kept going from there. He's the Pete Conrad of Ross Cosmos, I think. Yeah, there's like, yeah, something. So he's removed from the flight, allegedly for leaking, or at least possessing classified documents. This is what the, and like it sounds like maybe he just took a bunch of pictures of like Falcon Nines in the factory when he was there,

which he wasn't supposed to do or something on his iPhone. I don't know. That's what it kind of sounded like. But he was removed from the flight. But if you want to put your tinfoil hat on for a second. Jake, here he comes. Here he comes. Putting it on, put it on.

If you remember, this is the same astronaut that crawled out of the capsule with his crew wearing the Ukrainian colors. And for like three weeks, all we could talk about was whether this was some sort of like Russian resistance. Do you remember that? Like when that happened. And then subsequent to that, they put him up. Yeah, there's the, there's the flight suits. And they said, oh, no, it's our, it's our alma mater, right? whatever.

So there's that. And do you remember, Anthony, there was like sometime after this, which felt like a punishment, but they put him like in the back of the ISS, like in the Russian segment. And they like adorned the whole thing with like iconography, like Russian iconography, like flags and the Russian like Orthodox saints and like, I don't know, a bottle of vodka. Like, you know, just like tons of like Russian stuff. And then he just like spouted propaganda on a web page, like webcast for like an hour. Do you remember that? It was like,

I do. I think we talked about it on the show. On the show with, with the archaeologist, right? Oh, man. Justin. Yeah, but where can I find that? Well, the pictures, yeah, I couldn't find it either, but the picture is wild, right? He's just like, it's like, like, crazy eyes, like, rush, right, rush, like just like going nuts on that on the thing.

And so I'm just, I don't know, this felt like it needed to go on the list because that arc of like, throw us, throw us, that cubes that into a solar room panel. win the off nominees, international crisis with the Ukrainians, propaganda, and then like crimes. Crimes. I don't know. I don't know. Like, how do you not put that on the list?

It feels like just like a crazy, a crazy thing. But why would he have gotten a flight assignment? You know? I don't know. Why can't we find this image? Has this been scrubbed from the internet? Why can't we find this?

It might have been scrubbed. Yeah. Has anyone in the chat have a link to the crazy webcast of all the Russian Orthodox Saints or whatever? We'll find it. It's weird. We'll tweet it. It's real. It's just with like a fever dream of Jakes or something.

You disgusted. You're disgusted on the show because our guest who was a space archaeologist was talking about how this was like a gold mine of like research data. Like look at it. Justin Walsh. Yeah. Look at all the stuff we can learn about like culture and space and Russian culture. in space. And it was just like,

it was giddy with excitement that this like video existed because it was like such a, for a researcher, it was just, oh, interesting. It's like an anthropologist dream, right? So,

anyway, so that happened. I like it. I like it a lot. What do you think? What do you think tops the Russia here? Brendan, what do you like? You like the site 31 platform? You like proton rolling,

rolling out all of the sudden or Oleg Artemiev. continuing to be the Pete Conrad of Ross Cosmos. You know, going into this, I thought it was going to be the, the clamp issue with the servicing platform. But with Jake's framing of this arc of Oleg, I'm going with, I'm going with, I'm going with, I'm going with the issue. It would be cosmonized. Oleg, man, what a guy. Oh, he's a two-time off nominee.

He is. nominee. I would be shocked if he was on there three times. Yeah, he might be. Did we put them on for the other ones too? I don't know. No, no, no. There was another Oleg. Oleg Konanenko was the guy who did win in 2018 for daggering Soyuz MSO-9, which is an awesome, a totally awesome year where they went out and they cut through the Soyuz to find. Who drilled that hole that no one ever found. I like it. The proton thing is. is really odd.

But Artemia's funny too because like either it's crazy that he was up to like espionage or it's crazy that he was that he took photos and that was like, oh shit. Like I. Oh, damn it. And that's what that's what it sounds like. It sounds like the most likely story is that he was just taking some photos because he was like in a factory and like had no plans to do. Sending to his family or something.

Yeah. I'm just like, look, look, honey. Look where I am. Falcon 9 and they were like jail straight to jail yeah I mean also considering the fact that like you could probably give every blueprint from SpaceX to the Russian space industry at the moment and they wouldn't do anything with it because there's nobody left to do anything with it what are they gonna do yeah I like Artemyev I'm game let's make them a finalist this year all right so now we got a pick we got we're down to the wire on this one we got bill Nelson with his uh blue origin

falconine tweet to fiasco Gilmore flight one hover with the epic commentary, the narco plane with the SpaceX branded drugs and Oleg Artemiev committing ITAR crimes. That's our set. It's Gilmore. It's Gilmore. I vote Gilmore. Yeah. I guess my vote doesn't matter that. Holy.

It doesn't. What would you vote for? What's the runner up? That's a really hard one. I kind of like the narco plane. It's too much weird in one thing. I would like the record to reflect that I didn't pick anything from that SpaceX category because I do not want to get sued I would like to keep my credentials with them The plane does remind me of the law

Like either of you two watch Lost Back in the day Yes yes It doesn't remind you the plane? Remember the plane crash? Yeah Jake you lost watcher I never watched it no It's a Dharma issue

I'm told that it's not worth going back to try Yeah It was like a thing of it I'm... Yeah, I mean, this is a French goodbye of a topic, but I would say there's a non-zero percent... Non-zero-percentage point reason that I am into podcasting right this second because of Lost, because when it started airing

was the heyday of Internet forums and then podcasting, very, like, original podcasting. The transmission, dude, that's like one of my first podcasts. Like all the lost podcasts, Jay and Jack, like all these guys, right? Where you would watch Lost, I was super into the forums and the podcast. And I feel like I don't care actually

what the plot of Lost was. That era of the internet was so good and so cemented in my like 13 or 14 year old brain or whatever, like going to the lunch table talking about your friends. That it's, I haven't watched it since and I probably won't because it's just like too good in my memory.

Yeah. I remember I was in college at the time. We like, we get together and watch it like, whoever had the 27-inch TV, that was the biggest TV we could go to their apartment, and like 12 of us would watch Lost together on that and discuss what was going on. I think that's the reason I also like the Narcoplane story, is that it feels like that storyline from Lost. Is that the runner-up, though? Because you voted for that, Jake.

That's the one. I think it's the runner-up, yeah. All right. Sounds like it's the runner-up. Runner-up. Narcoplane winner. Gilmore Flight 1. Specifically, though, if anyone can send us the name of the man commentating,

It's in the chat. It's in the chat. We can bring it up right now. It's Josh Keegan from the show called Ozzy Not. Oh, can we have Josh Keegan on? I think we might be able to. I think we might be able to. It sounds like he's our people. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. All right, Josh Keegan is the winner. We'll reach out to him for comment later. I think we should award it to Josh Keegan personally. Josh Keegan and the Gilmore. or one flight failure because like Brendan said, you said it. If he didn't have Josh, they would not be winning this award. No. No.

Correct. Hell yeah. I love personally awarding off nominee awards. This is great. Let's have him on to accept his award in January, Jake. All of the Van Diagram fans of our two shows now are like frantically like messaging him right now. Like, oh my God, dude.

You got to hear what has this happened to you. He's like sound asleep in whatever Australia land time is. I think it's the daytime there, Jake. We're doing this late. We could maybe call them right now. To me, most part, that it's just always nighttime there. If I'm awake as nighttime. Oh, shit.

Anyway, well, congrats, Josh. Josh Gigan. There he is, Ozzy not. This is a guy we need on the show, Jake. Oh, yeah. Get him on. That's our people. For sure.

For sure. Maybe Gilmore will release the videos to him. him and then he can maybe yeah yeah leak it to us all right hell yeah great show Brendan what you've been up to can you plug some stuff yeah so

one thing I'm super excited to talk about is are we there yet is turning 10 in March yeah so we are all the same era Brendan yeah I don't think you realize that was we Martians December are we there yet March Miko April 2016.

Oh really? Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah, we should do something together. But I wish I would have remembered that when we were planning, are we there yet's birthday? It's 10th birthday. But we are doing an event in Orlando. So if anybody's local, we're going to be releasing some details on that.

We've got Winston Scott will be joining us live. He's been on our show taking answers or answering questions that we've been collecting from kids out in the community about what it's like to live in space. so he's going to do that live for a live event. We're going to have special merch.

I was told we were getting some pint glasses and some beer steins that are branded. So, yeah, we're going to celebrate. And we'll be launching. It's called Space on Tap. It'll be a series of events starting next year. And this will kick it all off. So we're really excited to get out in the community and see some people. So if you're in the central Florida area, I hope to see you out there.

That's right. Sounds like I have some events to attend when I'm not allowed to go to the Artemis 2 launch since my media request was denied. Based on the old world media policy of the Bill Nelson-era NASA that is still in place, which classifies podcasts as the same as social media and is disallowed to actually apply for media credentialing. So we're going to get this fixed. As the pre-show listeners heard, Jake.

Give up on your fan blog dreams, okay? You just need to like, level set. Real quick on that. I know we're going long. Brendan, if you need to leave, you need to leave. It's fine. So Jake's referring to this fact that I had a dream once in which Jeff Faust had to cite our podcast for some article in Space News, but he then referenced us as a fan blog, which broke my heart.

I woke up sad, and then I'd been scared of Jeff Faust ever since until we finally rectified that years later on the show. And I realized driving home from D.C. on Tuesday that I was like, I bet there's a non, there's non insignificant portion of the, Chinese space program that needs to listen to this interview I'm doing with the head of the U.S. Space Force about human spaceflight and future. There's some intelligent asset that has to listen to this show to gather information. And that I felt the same about the Jeff Faust fan blog reference, Jake. Like, we finally made them listen to this show. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. So anyway, I'm coming to space on tap, Brendan, because I'm not going into the actual launch. That sounds good. He's just credential with us. We just figure that out. Last time we were just drinking on the beach of Port Canaveral and realized that it was probably more fun anyway than...

That's probably going to be more fun than working at the press night. Probably should just do that again. Yeah. It's going to be bonkers. Jake's not coming. He still has this embargo in place. Right? Yeah.

Yeah. I'm weighing it, but the embargo's winning so far. So, yeah, the boycott. What if you got a narco plane with four? 400 pounds of drugs. That seems like a safe way to get to the U.S. right now, Jake, from South America. Put the Canadian Base Agency logo on me. Nobody taking drugs to the U.S. has had a problem.

No. No. Certainly not from any building that I've been in recently. No. Nothing. Nothing like that. Hell yeah. Hey, Brendan's going to be thrilled with who we're having on next, Jake, because it's

holiday break time. Yes, it is. Who's coming on the show? Yeah, we take our holiday break. And then, so normally our first show of the year is our prediction show where we try and guess what's going on. And Brendan, I'm just, I'm just like in the nostalgic mood, 10 year anniversary of our podcast. I have you on for this show. I got to get Emily on for the next one.

Oh, that'll be great. Yeah. That'll be awesome. We're going to get Emily Speck on who's got a new gig covering space. And Anthony, it looks like she might be living up in your neck of the woods these days. Yeah. We'll see. Not only that.

Let me tell you this, Jake. If you look at the map of New Jersey and you put a pin where I live and, a pin where Emily Speck lives. Do you know what is exactly in the middle of those two points? I know. I'm going to see if Brendan knows. I have no idea. It is the Brendan Byrne State Forest.

That is exactly in the middle. There is a road that goes basically from my house to, I don't know exactly where she lives down there, but basically to her house. And at the exact middle, the midpoint is the Brendan Bird State Forest. Oh, that's hilarious. Emily and I need to have a meet up at the Brendan Bird and State Forest and go on a hike. Yes. I think so. Yeah.

Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, we just had Emily on the show not too long ago as well. Yeah, it's good to see she's kind of owning the space weather beat. And yeah, she's awesome. So I'll have to tune in. I assume she came to New Jersey after we got really into drones last year. She was like, that's where I got to be for weird space weather people.

Yeah, she used to live right down the street for me. It would hang out all the time. So I was sad to see her go. But she's having a good time up there. New Jersey's all right. She realized she couldn't cover weather if she wasn't in a place that had different weather, right? Yeah, that's true. We just have hurricanes and hot.

Heck yeah. All right, y'all. That's what we got. Congratulations, Josh. You're the winner. Yeah, Josh. Josh Gigan. That's Josh Gigan.

Way to Garum.