Off-Nominal - 226 - Missiles are Rockets (with Pat O)

Episode Date: January 29, 2026

Jake and Anthony are joined by noted industry watcher Pat O to talk about Rocket Lab’s development of Neutron in the Mid-Atlantic.TopicsOff-Nominal - YouTubeEpisode 226 - Missiles are Rockets (with Pat O) - YouTubeRocket Lab's Electron's First Launch from Wallops Island - YouTubepat o. 🚀 on X: “Here's a treat to whet your appetite for Mid-Atlantic Rocket Lab happenings, while we wait for the launch of the HASTE VAN mission. Activity at Rocket Lab's Middle River, MD facility seems to be ramping up. The facility was recently acquired through Lockheed Martin.”pat o. 🚀 on X: “Update on Rocket Lab's Facility in Middle River, MD. The wrapped structure from my last update is still on-site, but it now has a covering over it.”pat o. 🚀 on X: “Rocket Lab Middle River Update January 10 The Neutron tank structure sees it's first rainfall today since being moved outside last week, but it now has a cap. I think the red and grey hardware may be for the transport trailer. Stay dry, tank buddy.”pat o. 🚀 on X: “Rocket Lab Middle River Update January 21 The tank structure seen being worked on over the last few weeks appears to have collapsed sometime in the last 18 hours. No word on whether this was planned as part of testing or not.”pat o. 🚀 on X: “Rocket Lab's first Neutron fairing "Hungry Hippo" has been loaded onto a barge to presumably begin the next leg of its journey. Currently alongside the barge is the tug Northstar Integrity. The next destination is currently unclear.”Rocket Lab Neutron Test Update | Rocket LabRocket Lab’s Hungry Hippo Fairing Arrives at Virginia Launch Site Ahead of First Neutron Flight | Rocket LabFollow Patpat o. 🚀 (@spacepat_o) / Xpat o. - YouTubeLaunch Schedule - RocketLaunch.LiveFollow 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. Welcome to space. Hello, hello. It's a mid-Atlantic day, Jake. It's two mid-Atlantic dads, straight from the Discord. And you. And a far-south Atlantic dog dad. I'm trying to, I lost count.

I feel like we've upgraded many anomalies to show guests. And Pat is yet another in the long line of it. We have done that. We have done that. That feels good. I didn't realize that. That's cool. Yeah.

We're like the S&L of industry watchers. No, the other guys, I feel like work in the industry, don't they? Like, Lars, you know, I don't know who else? Adrian for a hot minute. Adrian, Adrian, yeah. There's been a couple, I think, but. Yeah. As I said, I lost count.

Yeah. It's good. It's a good problem to have. Can't do it. Can't count any of them. Yeah, and we were out here defending your honor last week, Pat, to the inimitable Jeff Boust, who likes to keep the iron boot of Capital J journalism on me and you. To be clear, I have nothing but the utmost respect for Mr. Faust.

He's been around ever since I even started, you know, in this watching the space industry, right? Just putting in the work every single day. So that's why it's so terrifying. It invades my dreams. You're exactly right. That's right. As soon as I saw that, because he initially posted something on X and then something about it being observed. And then followed it up with an article about me being an industry watcher.

So I was honored actually to be included in one of his articles as an embedded X post. but yeah definitely a funny callback to the to the fan blog issue issues right it's actually wild um it's actually wild how long jeffels has been around doing this shit like there was not too long ago where i was i was looking up dates for like different like early early spacex stuff and i was like on like internet archive dot com like trying to find like old articles and stuff and it was like yeah here's this article of when Remember when Elon like made that like Falcon 1 out of cardboard and put her on a truck and drove it through like Manhattan or whatever?

It's like, oh, when did this happen? I'm looking it up. It's like whatever, 2002 or something. There it is. Article by Jeff Thales. I mean, Jesus. This guy's just been like doing the same thing for ever, ever, man. He's crying.

I'm sure I've encountered him like sometime in the early SpaceX days. But the first thing that sticks in my brain, which I think is a proper. moment for this to have stuck in my brain was someone shouting the first day that EFT1 was trying to launch that the launch has been scrubbed and they heard about it because Jeff Fouse tweeted that before they said it over the loudspeaker and I was on the causeway with NASA Social and like that lodged to my brain then so like I know I've encountered him somewhere before that but this guy yelling on the and like dawn in on the

causeway that Orion is delayed a day it was like that's the proper way for it and that was the moment that it went in my head and then made that dream later on, I think. Yeah. Yeah. I was just a lowly NASA social type, which I guess, until we fix this media policy, I still am. Yeah, yeah.

Back when you were an industry watcher. Yeah, I guess I was just an industry watcher, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I say issue, because I do honestly think it is somewhat of an issue. It's a good thing, though. I mean, honestly, I'm an example of it, you know. basically anybody with a camera can cover this stuff and breaking news and that sort of thing. Like if you are at the right place at the right time, like, you know, that's legitimate. You moved the stock a little bit, I think, right? Did you look to see if the graph

adjusted at the moment you tweeted the photo of neutron collapsing? I had plenty of people telling me that I had moved the stock, but my economics education, I know better than to, to do that. Stocks have a mind of their own. Markets have a mind of their own. So there's no way. But when that press release went out, afterwards, I think it fell down pretty spectacularly

for a little bit. But yeah. I don't know. We're getting knee deep into it. I was going to say, well, what do you got over there? Mr. Stock trader? Jim Primer. I'm first.

I'm bringing in a local beer. Dundalk calling from Key Brewing Company What on earth is a Dundalk? Dundalk is a town in Maryland. I knew this is going to be a Maryland. It is on the outskirts of Baltimore. Actually, I think it might be in the city limits of Baltimore. I'm sorry for people from Dundalk if I'm not speaking.

You know, we may talk more about Maryland stuff later, so I figured I would bring up. A local. I do. Yeah. We're going to have Anthony share a screen with a map on it. We're going to figure it out. Here, Jake.

This dotted line is Dundalk. Cheers. So. There we go. Dundock. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

There you go. Oh, hey, does that have the, that's got the bridge in it then, hey? Is that the bridge? I see Middle River on that. Yeah. Well, part half of the bridge that you're thinking of, Jake. Yeah. The bridge that's left.

Yeah. The Francis Scott Key, key, key bridge or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was out there tweeting photos of that thing is where, you know, you know, you know,

Brewing Company comes from. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. I think. Francis Scott Key, a local staple. Is Francis Scott Key the flag person? So he wrote the Star-Spangled Banner. Okay. Anthem. Anthem flag. In the harbor. It's actually a pretty interesting story. Right around the area where the Key Bridge used to be is where he was captured

and in a boat, a British boat looking on to Fort McHenry. and writing the Star Spangled Banner. Yes, exactly. Such an inspiration. But, you know, writing that the flag was still there, Jake. It's a big-ass flag, too, if you're going to see it. The bombs bursting in air, those are my guys too, right? That was the...

How'd that work out for you 200 years later? Not great. Who's driving this economic boat, Jake? Never do that again. What you got, Jake? What's your cooking up? All right. Well, it's round three for trying out bad batches and waiting a year.

So this is the third batch I ever made. Okay, look at this label here. This is the name I'm most proud of, by the way. I've been trying to do like Spanish names. So, and Spanish space names. So Arando is a blueberry. And I made this Aranda Neptuno. Very good.

I like that, right? Blue, Neptune. tune figured it out. Very good. Yeah, so this got some blueberries in it. I bottled this 18th of January last year. So we're over a year now. It was not good when I bottled it, just like the first two.

All right. We'll see how it goes. All right. I think it's still going to be bad, but you never know. Something could happen, right? All right. I'm opening it, pulling the cork out. I hope it explodes on them.

That was a good pop. I think that carried through. Yeah, but does that mean something? Is that notable for a reason? I don't know. It's not carpet, it's not like... You said it like it was a really good sign that like, oh, this will be a good one.

Just surprised me, I don't know. Okay. Nice. You just bottled it really well? Yeah. Yeah, it does not smell good. It looks cool, though. It's got a good color.

Yeah. And look. Orange. Yeah, good clarity. you know what this actually isn't so bad it's orange best one you've done yet definitely better than the first two batches i'll give you that much yes okay i don't hate that all right feeling good wait another year or even better look at that what do you got i have a whole pot of coffee because it is so cold in my house and i needed some

coffee i made a whole french crescent brought it brought it with me don't me to send you over some of this chocolate rum from Guatemala, it'll go great in that. It would actually go well. Yeah, the alcoholic's hot chocolate from last week. Yeah. It would be good. There's a lot, it's a la cologne notes of chocolate one. Neitzah. It's good.

All right. Yep. Jake, we're here to talk about Neutron, I think, having an issue that we might know some things about. We might not. That's it. Yeah, I was wondering when an expert I don't join up in. No, but I think Jake specifically needs geographic help.

Even though I was the one that thought, hey, I bet Pat moved to the eastern shore. I was like, he took a remote job and moved to the eastern shore because there's no way he's dropping by the eastern shore on a lark. Yeah, but then you enlighten me that, no, this is that other Baltimore area joint that Rocket Lab set up shopping. And that's where I am actually confused about it. I did not know about this with the facility, but I guess it makes sense. I straight up thought that the neutrons were like being manufactured like down the road from the launch site and they were just going to roll them over there. So clearly I'm wrong about that. But yeah, maybe.

Yeah. What is this? Well, Rocket Lab a couple of years ago acquired. I'm not sure. And this is again where I'm not an expert. So forgive me people. I don't know if they're leasing it or if they bought it or whatever. but it's an old building that Lockheed Martin was in.

And so this Middle River area has a lot of aerospace heritage, I think primarily in the defense industry. Specifically, this building that they're in, it's kind of interesting, was formerly used to build the vertical launching system that has been around for decades. If you don't know about that, it's essentially a modular system. I think they can house, I don't know, it's a couple dozen or a dozen and a half missiles that get loaded in a modular fashion into this structure and then get loaded onto a ship and are then utilized to blow things up, I guess. So it's pretty cool, actually.

I mean, there's plenty of videos on YouTube of this system. I just thought it was interesting. Yeah. Well, you know, missiles are rock. pockets, right? So there is a little crossover. You did say you're not an expert, but that's pretty legit. Yeah, but I think it's a cool system. Like I would encourage our space friends here to look up

videos of the vertical launching system just to see it in action. It has this thing that, you know, they have options. They have different types of missiles, obviously, and one of the cool things is that they can do a cold launch versus a hot launch. The hot launch obviously it's launching right out of the, you know, the structure. With a cold launch, it actually, like, lobs the missile into the air, and then the missile ignites and launches towards its target. That's like those Brahmos missiles or whatever, right, that they fire out of the...

I thought that was, like, subs that do that, where it's like, yeah, it's just like a boom, it, like shoots up. It's like very, like, it's like Marsa-R-Sap return style, you know, like... Yeah, this is a real high... Is this what I'm talking about? Okay. That's exactly it. Yep.

So you can see that square on the ship is where the structure is loaded on. But anyway, they were, they manufactured that system in the building that Rocket Lab is currently in now. And so they have a lot of open space. It's a pretty big building. It's, you know, smaller scale than what's down at like Star Base and that sort of thing. But it's still a pretty large building and they have big, you know, gantry cranes and things like that. so they can definitely build some larger, you know, hardware down there. So that's where they installed the big 3D printer for Neutron.

And so that's in there, and they are building hardware. So it's close to my house, you know, with 20, 25 minutes away. So I started going down. I think when they first opened, I started going down. but it was pretty quiet down there up until about probably six weeks ago. I would go by and there would not be many cars in the parking lot, no signage, nothing that indicated that it was Rocket Lab in there. And then, you know, within the last couple of months, you know, there were signs up,

you know, fencing and gates and security huts and things like that. Yeah. So it was like, okay. Well, time to start looking at this thing. And being that it's fairly close to my house, I was able to, you know, as I'm driving by the area, basically, check in on this place. So what's cool about this...

On the right, by the flag, to the right of the flag, there's a, maybe you can't do it. There's still a legacy sign, there you go, related to the vertical launching system there. So I think that's cool. Hopefully they keep that sign up. But yeah, so then you can obviously see evidence of Rocket Lab being there with the big sign. And so, you know, I started looking.

And obviously, while this is happening, there are things going on down at wallups as well. So other people watching what's going on there. especially with NSF, I've been, you know, kind of working with them for several years at this point. One of the guys down there, Micah, is from the Wallops area and has been watching what's been going on down there. So it was interesting, really kind of the first indication that, you know, we might be starting to see things was this truck that showed up at Wallops. and I can't remember what it was used for down at Wallops. But I drove by Middle River one day. You matched the license plate.

I love this comment. We literally matched the license plate. Yeah, because it was. And that's when you became truly part of NSF. That's a pro-industry watcher move right there. Zoom right in on the license plate. We actually followed the driver home and got to figure out where he lived. in then.

So it showed up in this yard that was to the adjacent of the space structures complex, the Rocket Lab space structures complex. And it was like, oh, this looks familiar. Hey, Micah, did you happen to get any photos of the license plate? Yep. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, it matches.

So it was interesting because it is three hours away. And this truck is, it's a big truck. and it's got a huge trailer on it. So it's not something that, you know, you would expect necessarily, I guess. I'm not in logistics. So maybe it's a normal thing, but it's three hours, three and a half hours up the road.

So then, you know, I mean, just going through the timeline, it was like, okay, well, why would they bring this big truck up here to Middle River? We know that there is hardware being somewhat manufactured, at least, obviously details are barely limited. but there had been pictures released and, you know, information that Rocket Lab had put out via press releases and things like that, but we didn't really know what exactly was going on in there. We knew that they supposedly had this big 3D printer and, you know,

that they were supposed to start manufacturing things in there, but we didn't really know. At least I didn't. Again, not an expert. Haven't really been following this too, too closely, but that, that next photo is so a couple of, I guess

it was 10 or 11 days later, so I would just drive by and if there was nothing interesting, I would just keep moving. But 10 or 11 days later I noticed some escort vehicles showing up.

And obviously when you have pickup trucks basically that are made to follow a big load rolling down the street, obviously, or the highway way. Is this what we're talking about? They must be doing something. Yep, exactly. You picked these pickup trucks out of a lineup in, in outside of Baltimore? Well, because this looks like every goddamn truck that drives in this part of the world. They're sitting in the parking lot and it says on the side of the road, or on the side of the vehicle, you know, escort

vehicle or whatever. So I'm like, okay, well, something's happening. Certified. Not only that, it's a certified escort vehicle. So they were sitting in the parking lot. I don't get a flight. license plate or what? No, I didn't get that. No, I didn't run the plates. Pat's like, I took a job with the local police department so I could have a plate scanner. Yeah. No, believe me, I fully recognize this stuff is somewhat silly, but you know what?

It's really cool. And it's actually been, it's been really fun watching this stuff. And, you know, I would always say laugh, somewhat laugh at, you know, and like things that, at Star Base, for example. Like, new posts go up, tweets go out, like, oh, they move this piece of hardware there. They move that piece of hardware there. They're doing this or that. And it's like, you know, very minute details about what's going on.

And then I, when it started happening in my backyard, it was like instant. Like, holy cow, look at all. Hey, they moved this thing over here. Like, what are they doing? You got the bug. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So that next day, you know, it was thankfully January 2nd. So I was off work. It was like nothing going on. Okay, let me drive down there and see what's happening. And that the big door was open to the building, which I had not seen before in several weeks of driving by there. And you could see what looked like a really big piece of hardware inside. And so, you know, I'm like, all right, well, I'm hanging out here. Let's see what they're doing.

And sure enough, before seeing that big stage come out, I noticed that there was a big truck inside the building. And I guess I failed to mention the truck disappeared a couple days earlier. So, so anyway, there's the truck and it pulls out this big, big, big state one tank. That is a huge, okay, I didn't properly approach. appreciate this and scale to the truck. That's an enormous vehicle. Wow. So again, you know, this was not,

it wasn't really clear like to what extent of hardware was inside to this date. So I feel like it's funny because if you can zoom in on this photo, this is a very visual episode. There's a guy towards the top. Yep. Oh, yeah. He's kicking over the edge. He's actually on a lift. He's taking a picture of the stage.

He's driving by. We ran his license plate. Call security. There's an industry watcher here. Exactly. Exactly. You know, but yeah. So that thing rolls out.

And also present at the time were a couple of cranes. and so it pretty quickly became clear what was going to happen. You know, they got the big crane and then the smaller one, and obviously they start hooking it up and eventually bring it vertical. And so then that started the Tank Buddy era for a few weeks, which was just things going on on X and people being excited. about this hardware showing up, there it is.

So, you know, they pulled this thing out to the yard. They actually threw it up onto what I think is a structural testing stand. If you zoom into the bottom of the photo there, you can see there's pistons around. They're covered up with, I think, plastic or bags or something at that time. But I think the idea was, I think this is more commonly called like a can crusher setup. So it looked like they were in they were about to do a fair bit of testing on this thing. And you can see in this photo here, they're adding some hardware to the side as well, which looks like plumbing of some kind. It's like a muffler.

Yeah, it kind of looked like that. They had also added some hardware to the top as well that got covered up by that that hat there on Tank Buddy. You noted that it was raining. Did it get too wet when it was out there? Or was it okay to get this wet? They got that cover on pretty quickly. So it didn't get too wet. A day or so, I think.

It was fine. It was a little bit wet. I could be wrong. But it wasn't, I think that first day where it was raining was the first real time in the weather cycle that it had rained on it. So again, this is more like, you know, you're photographing random. things in a parking lot that you're not really sure. Each one of these, it looks like you're more in the facility than you were the previous round of photos.

Yeah, this one is like you're inside the building. Did you just find like better vantage points or did someone start letting you into the parking lot? Because it certainly seems like you're getting closer. You know, these are all publicly accessible. The nice thing about it is, again, kind of like Starbase is that there's public roads that run right next to the complex. And so, you know, there's fences and stuff.

but I can just, you know, lifting my camera over the fence, getting as close as I can. I mean, it's just different. I have an operational, I have an operational question. Are you ready for an operational question? Mm-hmm. We're ready. So that looks like you're like live tweeting those photos as they come, but they have your watermark on them.

What is the process to get the watermark in time to live-tweet them? Because that looks very fast. Never use photography software. I have not. Do you have a laptop next to you and you're like transferring from the camera and the laptop and doing a thing and then posting you? What's going on there? No, I have a Wi-Fi-enabled camera and I can pull the photos from the camera to my phone

and then use Lightroom mobile to put the watermark and edit it and that sort of thing. And then they go up straight from my phone. Yeah, it's a pretty quick workflow. Wow. Photography's come a long way. It's pretty handy But it's not like I'm live tweeting

Stuff These are going on You're taking the photo Doing stock trades And then tweeting Is what you mean Yeah They added

They added the downcomer Buy by bye The plumbing's on the system Yeah You know So That's a different topic Obviously

No I'm not doing that We'll get there. It is interesting, right? Yep. It's curious how much engagement you get on social media from people who are interested in the stocks. They're out there. It's a thing. And the grand finale, you've stopped short of the grand finale here, Pat.

Yeah, so, well, so there's a little bit of mingling of two stories here. And so it's, I guess what I will say, we can wrap up the tank buddy situation. Sure again. I, yeah, I went by on my way to work one morning and expecting to turn the corner and seeing our friend standing tall with his hat on, maybe with some more things tacked to his torso sensors or plumbing or whatever. the case may be he's not there it's a black tarp over most of him and it's not a very tall black tarp either man you got close man just three couple weeks you were just torn up about yeah it's you were burst into pieces your fibers were fraying you're you're I don't know I'm gonna try to keep going on this Jake um I basically discovered that it had collapsed um which

which was disappointing, obviously, but really interesting to see. And thankfully, I was able to capture that one photo, which clearly shows that there's unfortunately rubble. This was not like a, you know, laying it down gently situation, unfortunately. So and that was it. I mean, I posted them up and not really knowing what happened. Could guess and speculate, obviously, but didn't know. Just knew that it had collapsed.

So you posted a bunch of rocket lab rubble and then collected your check from Elon. It's just like a ULA sniper thing. That was it. The first guy to post a picture of the Rocket Lab rubble on Twitter. And then Rocket Lab later that night posted a press release

stating that they were doing overnight some hydrostatic pressure testing. And there was an observation, I guess. Oh, man. It's never a good sign when your press release title doesn't say news.

it just says update. There's never been a case where that's good news, ever. No. Like, I always think that's funny, because it's like, just say what happened. Just put in the title. I'm like, you're about to write it. Just put in the title.

You don't want it to stand out on a scan list of all the headlines. Yeah. So, you know, in this press release, they kind of indicated that this, I mean, implicitly, I think, if I remember correctly, I haven't read it in a few days, but they implied,

that it was flight hardware. But I don't know. I mean, they're in a test campaign. You have to figure that some of their tests may end up destroying the vehicle. So whether it was actual flight hardware, who knows. But they did say that, you know, they have other tank ones or stage ones in production. Presumably that's inside of Middle River. Haven't caught the doors open recently, so I can't tell for sure.

but, you know, this is why we test, right? Space is hard. Kick them off the show. I don't know. I'm about to hang up on you. Well, go on. Go on. Go ahead. Listen, Jake needs a geography lesson first.

We never oriented him to where this is. I'm going to pull up the map. To me, this is somewhere between Nashville and Boston. That's about as I can get in here. There we go. Baltimore. Center left here. Middle River, just outside the city over here.

See this, Jake? This little dotted area. Yeah. And you got Martin State Airport, which is unfortunately located, probably advantageously located for other things that are going on. But if you wanted to fly a drone around Rocket Labs Middle River site, you cannot do that. Hypothetically, if you wanted to do that.

All right. Here's your whole context. So go back to that and like where is the, is it on the water then? so they can barge stuff or is it all right? Yep, if you go basically right next to that airport symbol to the left, right down, right there, right at Darkhead Cove Road and Chesapeake Park Plaza, that turn, that building right there on the left is it. This guy.

All right, nice. So Tank Buddy was sitting out right at the edge of that asphalt, you know, out from the building. notably this is really freaking far from the launch site Jake if you were wondering we are we are like a hundred miles as the crow flies and it's like 19 hours of driving to get there

it's three and a half if you're in a car but if you're telling a big piece of rocket hardware it's going to be a lot longer than that probably four hours from anywhere that you are if you it is by the water there's I guess some question and again forgive me not an expert but they may be putting parts of this on a barge

to take it down there but I'm not sure I would hope so I mean they're across the bay from it so that would be a better shot for sure no sense building on the water if you're not going to do that I guess right does Wallace have like a docking facility though I don't even know yeah there's some docks yeah it's not Doc where Pat used to hang out and watch rocket launches. Is that old, that old, fall in the park?

Yeah, is that still a thing? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, okay. You would know if you ever came down to wallups, but I guess you have no issue, just watching from afar, pretending to be a fan. Man, so far. He's an armchair industry watcher. So far.

It's so far. Man, I drove, like, first of all, while we're on the topic of Chesapeake Bay the Chesapeake Bay Bridge is terrifying is a terrifying bridge just a quick note Can you bring the map back up again

where's the Chesapeake Bay? I'm talking to one... Yeah, no. Are you talking about the Bay Bridge, which is in Maryland? Or the Chesapeake Bay Bridge tunnel? No, not that one. The Bay Bridge. The old Bay Bridge.

The Maryland Bay Bridge, yes. Terrifying bridge. Like, I'm, I'm not. I'm usually not a guy that gets freaked out driving on bridges, but, and I've been on that bridge a bunch of times, but then when I went to the Pentagon, I went in that direction. And for whatever reason, I don't know if it was like time a day or I was in the left lane, so I was close to the non-existent wall on this bridge. It's a terrifying bridge.

What does this have to do with you going to wallops? I was just thinking about driving in that area. I was just driving in the area. Sorry for talking to a guy who's proud of Maryland and I would just like to comment on this for a minute. Let me just tell you how stupid your bridge is. Your bridge sucks. It's terrifying.

Like, even if you're out there listening to this and you look up pictures, it will not really do justice for how it feels to be driving very fast on the left lane of this because it looks like it's built of nothing and it's super high. It is a very high deck. And then there's this turn.

If you're driving east to west, there's this turn at the end that's like extremely elevated. I don't know. And there's, like I said, I'm not usually a guy that gets freaked out by these things. And I was just like, this is the worst bridge in the world. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a big chipping panel that runs underneath of it, too. Which wouldn't this, wouldn't have neutron go on to that?

That's probably why I thought of this. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. But you're right. I mean, this is a bridge. that they close regularly when the wind blows too hard. Yeah.

So. Good. Because it's terrible. I'm with you. Yeah. I avoid it. I avoid it. I take the Delaware route down to Wallup, so we can do that. If you want to, we can meet at a park and ride, and you can ride with me so you don't have to drive the three hours.

I mean, yeah. To see a rocket launch. Listen, I've been there, but, you know. I'll come. I'll be there again. I'm just, it's like, you know, electron's super cool to see. But, uh,

no more antaris for now. I mean, I'll go down for the new Antares when it's ready. I'll be there for that. Yeah, or neutron. Yeah, for sure, neutron. Any day now. I want to talk about this about wallops, because when you and I were there together years ago,

it was like right after that tent had gone up. Was it me and you there? Caleb was there. Some, me and somebody drove by this tent. I think you were with Caleb, but we did cross paths briefly at the press site. That's probably what it was. I'm thinking of it. Yeah.

So this tent went up like early on to, hey, we're going to launch Neutron from Wallops. And the thought was like, oh, they're going to build it in a tent like Star Bay style. And so and then like in the intervening years, all I've heard is, hey, it's really hard to hire people down here and get them to work on stuff. And then they announced Middle River. The confusion came from. Yeah. So did this completely supplant all everything but launch down in Wallops?

Is that the, is that the thought? And like, why you were surprised that the hardware was rolling out of Middle River, or not surprised by the fact that it was, but like, we were waiting to see what they were doing in there. And then it turns out that production's happening there. No. So they're going to do integration at that facility. They're manufacturing with the, you know,

big 3D printer. There's an acronym for it, AFP or something, I forget. But essentially to manufacture those stages out of the carbon fiber and then, you know, totem down to wallups and put everything together in that facility. So they have now, it's not just a tent. It's a much bigger building now, like a true, legit building that they have there. So it's definitely, The operation is definitely ramping up. Ramping up. All right, geography, Jake. Here we go.

Back to the map. Baltimore up here, right? You see it in the I-95 corridor as it is. So I'm going to zoom in down here on the Delmarva Peninsula towards Wallops. Okay? So we got Wallops Island, the launch sites on the beach. And then there's the old ferry dock as the map pin over there. That's where Pat would watch launches from.

And then there's this one road, the Causeway. And if you go a little bit up, there is the neutron production complex. Yeah, there's your tent. Yeah, I don't know why I call it a tent. It always looked like that, right? No, it was, you know, kind of a tent. I'm probably not actually a tent,

but it looks like they did, with this satellite photo, they had broken ground on the new building that's there now. I think they call it the AIC. Yeah. So if you want, you could pull up some photos from the hungry hippo, which if you caught wind of that, essentially that was the clamshell

faring for neutron that was manufactured in New Zealand, which was loaded onto a barge and went all the way around the world, through the Panama Canal, up to the port of Baltimore over about a, I think it was 35 days or so, trip. And I had taken some photos of that vessel being docked at the Port of Baltimore in Dundalk, mind you. And watching that be unloaded from the vessel that it was on, which has a very weird, like, Norwegian name or something. I'm not sure what it is, but I can't pronounce it. So what was cool about that, though, is another example of the industry watcher sort of thing, right?

That, we have photos of Hungry Hippo being loaded onto the vessel in New Zealand because of industry watchers, right? we know what vessel it was on because of industry watchers. They're not announcing this stuff, right? This doesn't make it on to a press release. Or if it did, it would have been, you know, like a week later, right? And we wouldn't know where it was, where it was going, when it was going to get there. But throughout that entire sort of 30 to 35 day period, we were literally watching that vessel on marine traffic and watching its trip.

So then we had people looking at webcams at the Panama Canal and seeing this thing going through the Panama Canal. You're Panamanian industry watchers to get down there with their cameras. That's right. We had people looking. We knew then because of industry watchers, particularly a guy named Murray Jay from New Zealand, was very helpful in figuring out how I could lay eyes on this vessel and see. hungry hippo getting unloaded, you know, knowing which birth it was at. Where do I need to set up my spot to see this thing? And so I don't know. You know, it's good. And I don't know like it.

We have much more content of this thing moving than we would if we just watched what Rocket Labs press releases did. Now they released some great photos of Hungry Hippo coming into wallups, but again, you know, we didn't know. When that thing got unloaded in the port of Baltimore, I literally was sitting there about a mile away watching them loaded onto a barge. And so I could then confirm, okay, here's the tug that's attached to this barge. This is the vessel we need to watch now.

Where's this thing going? And actually, we didn't know where it was going. We thought it could have gone to Middle River first. But, you know, and everybody was speculating and plenty of people had differing opinions and things like that about where this thing was going. But it ended up, you know, you could then obviously on the AIS for the vessel see that it had updated its destination

to Wallops and it's, you know, then we knew where it was going. So Micah and a guy named Fran, who's covering things down at Wallops as well, were able to watch it approaching the island, watch it come in to the inlet, watch it approach the dock, take some great photos of that. And I don't know, it's cool. It's rocket hardware.

Like, my one regret of all of this is I forgot to get a selfie with Hungry Hippo. But maybe I'll be able to get one when it's integrated. But, you know, it's very cool. So that's your, so the, and Dundalk, you know, I'm trying to call it back to what you, what you would initially were talking about doing your history or your, uh, uh, uh, your geography lesson. But Dundalk's right there in the Port of Baltimore. Came down the Chesapeake Bay under the Bay Bridge.

There were people who were photographing it from a lighthouse, taking some video. One guy, I guess, manages a lighthouse or something. I don't know, but he had a drone fly up and and watch this thing come down. I don't know. I think you keep the lighthouse. I'm sorry. I think it's much more up-timed than that, right?

He runs a social media for a lighthouse, I guess. I don't know. But it's fun. And I think this is, you know, this is another example. Like I said, like, you don't need to be, like, working for a news organization. Like, if you're interested in this stuff, get a camera and find the hardware. Like, if you happen to live in these areas, I'd love more people to. Don't let your dreams be doing.

Even you're having a hard time hiring people on the eastern shore. But wallups is another one where it's exciting. Like Rocket Lab, you know, obviously they've had a lot of success with electron and neutrons sort of the next era. And it's happening right in the Mid-Atlantic. So I think it's neat. I think other people should be excited about it as well. We know as space industry observers and fans, obviously,

that what gets put out by the company is one thing, and then what's actually going on is another thing. And I think to me, it's, as a space fan, it's a lot more fun to have this extra information out there, to chase this stuff down, to see what the latest thing is, how are they progressing through their testing, things like that. And I think it gets people excited, too. I like that you're out here taking big stance for

Yeah, yeah Like as if we're I'm representing every lady ourselves Yeah Representing lowercase J Yeah That's great Man neutron's gonna kick ass though

From from wallups Like are we even gonna be able allowed to go to the actual press site for Neutron I feel like it's too big to be standing Where that press site is Well I mean it's Is it that much bigger than in TARIS from a

pull up the map pull up the map let's see how far it is to measure distance it's so close dude it's crazy you've seen those people watching Soyuz is from like 100 feet away right so let's use Russians as our safety they don't have OSHA in Russia

yeah yeah noted caring about their population current leaders of Russia yeah it's probably fine. Hold on,

hold on. Jake's requesting some. Yeah. I need you out there to radar road here, Jake. I'm going to orient you again. All right. Here's the,

here's the, here's Wildeis Island. Everyone, you got to watch on YouTube today, I guess. Yeah, this is a visual one. So you'd zoom in,

right, all the launch sites on the beach. And then right out here, there's this joint called Radar Road, which is where the press site historically has been out by the radars.

And there's some buildings and stuff out there. So like, two, the launch complexes, you're two miles, almost on the dot. 3.28 kilometers. Okay. Yeah. I mean, KSC is like three something.

Let me, all right. Let me zoom us down to KSC, I guess. I'm already going. It depends on the pad you're talking about. With KSC, the pads are so far. Yeah, but let's go to the closest one, you know. All right. So, turn basin.

Yeah, I think it's like three miles. Yeah. Turn basin to 39. A is 3.04 miles, 4.9 kilometers to the pad. So it's a lot closer. So that's like, that's like if you're thinking about the Kennedy Space Center, that's like sitting at the press site and watching the launch at the junction of the roads where they split to the two pads.

That's that close. It's crazy. It's really close. And Electron kicked ass from that close. Antares definitely did because that had the big RD engines that felt like it. Yeah, no, I mean, I'm... I say it every chance I get. If you can get down to wallups for launch, it's well worth it.

Because you can get so close. There are public spots. Then there's actually one, there's a public spot, Arbuckle Neck Road, that is even closer than the press site, which they'll typically, they'll probably close that for Neutron. But, yeah, I think, I mean, I don't think there'll be an issue for the press site for Neutron. Are they still going to have, like, the initial, oh, it's a. methane rocket, so the exclusion zone is like 10 times the size until it's getting better. I mean, there's been more reporting about that lately, and I feel like they're getting a little

better on that. And you're shrinking it down finally? I don't know. I hope. I mean, I have to be a little better than, like, Vulcan and New Glenn have been a little better than Taryn 1 was. So, I don't know, presumably that will be better by the time. But Neutron's huge, man.

That's a monster. Yeah. It's a big rocket. That's going to be wild to see from there. I'm pumped. I'm very excited for that. Yeah. Saving my desire to drive on the four-hour route through middle of nowhere. I'm saving it up, Pat, for the neutron launches.

It's going to be good. It's going to be good. When's it going to be? What's your best guess? Put in your NDB prediction. Yeah, well, if you're a member of the Discord, you will have seen an absolutely wild prediction that I put in during the pre-show. Yeah, you really, if you're not a member of the Discord, You really need to be because you missed out on this really funny. I mean, I'm going to put it out there right now.

For every little possible circumstance that might cause his prediction to fail for like 10, 20 minutes. Listen, sometimes people in the Discord, they want to make predictions that are going to get them points regardless. And I like to make it so specific that my prediction has to be the shortest window of time that has been narrowed down to on a prediction, which was, that Jared Isaacman will be flying two-seater jet, and in the other passenger seat will be Donald Trump or the currently serving president of the United States at the moment Artem's two lifts off. And they will be within visual range of the launch vehicle

while the SRBs are lit. That is my... Yes, at altitude. Important detail. Anyway. I don't know, man. I felt... Neutron was weird because you could tell,

I have many questions about at what point they are, Rocket Lab got weird when they went public, which presumably you have to some extent, but they only do updates on their quarterly calls, right? They don't issue updates in between, which I guess like some of that is required. I don't know, is all of that required? Like, are they,

they really have to say nothing except for outside of their quarterly times? Because I feel like they reverted to only announcing things on the quarterly results. I mean, I think legally they just have to be very careful about like, saying unsubstantiated things, right? Like so the earnings call is nice because they say a thing and they go, here are the numbers. And so like you can tell if we're lying or not. Like it's much more like evidence based.

You can't just like in the middle of a quarter be like, things are really good. Like by now. When they had that tank failure at Middle River, they had to file something with the SEC too related to that, which is crazy. And then they say like more info with the, yeah, with the earnings call coming up, which is like how many weeks away? It's only about like a week or so. Yeah.

So early February, I believe. Anyway, my point was, there was definitely. Yeah, they're going to say so. But there was a period of time at which I think it was pretty evident that they, to us, the industry watchers, they were not going to be flying on the schedule that they were sticking to. And then they kept sticking to it on those earnings calls. and to me I was like, well, maybe they don't have like the actual underlying data to say they are definitely slipping so that they are still in the clear to say that we're actually still targeting that because we haven't went and updated our date yet. But they were so sticky on that date for so long that I was like, I guess they're doing really well. And then I felt like then recently the last couple calls, it got slippier as it went.

And then this thing happened that is obviously not the green lights tomorrow will be schedule. And I don't know, are they a year away from launching now? they a year and a half? Year and a half feels plausible to me. Yeah. I think it's a new rocket. It's got to be later than everyone thinks it's going to be right. That's just the nature of thing.

If you just ask 100 people and then double it, you're probably right. That's probably what's going to end up happening. Yeah. I mean, you know, you say that. But at the same time you have, you know, Musk obviously doing his thing, like Elon time, you know, and having aspirational goals for what you're working on, right? I think is probably what it is. You're trying to have, you know, these goals that are going to push the team, right? I would imagine. And so obviously you get into the scenario where you're making a tough to reach goal,

but it's probably pushing a team harder. Yeah. Well, I mean, and that's the thing about if you, if you announce an early date, the worst thing that can happen is if you slip. And if you announce a late date, then the best thing has happened as you slip, right? Like it's, you know, like, you're, if you, you want to, you want to kind of beat your expectations, right? So. Yeah. Yeah. I guess I'm the only one out here putting a date out.

That's I'm saying a year and a half sounds right to me. And you two just are scared of a prediction. I'm going to predict you today, I guess. I'd say 2027 is, is, yeah, I would agree with that. Yeah. So they said, um, prior to this tank issue, uh, that they were going to have new, on the pad at wallups by the end of Q1. And then a launch thereafter.

So you can figure they're probably targeting sometime Q2 or something like that officially, but that was the wording that they used. Now that they've had this issue with this stage one tank structure, I would imagine, yeah, it's got to push at least a couple quarters, if not a year. Yeah. I hope not. And again, and again, like, you get into the same green lights issue. It's like, okay, well, they had this, this thing broke.

And so now it's not going to be this quarter. It's going to be maybe two quarters from now. But that, again, assumes nothing else is going to go wrong. And something's going to go wrong. It's normal. It's a new rocket. There's just be 100 problems between now and the launch, and they're going to have to, you know, iteratively go through those.

And that's fine. It just takes longer than you think. It's hard to protect, right? There were a lot of people, I feel like that had a little bit of Starship PTSD. They were like, oh, no, large composite tank had a, had an issue. Like, they're going to bail on composite tanks. Stainless steel neutron wind, right?

Yeah. But I'm like, I mean, electrons doing its thing. So, yeah. Didn't you ask anybody that could do a carbon? Last week about that issue. Oh, yeah. If it was, if they were going to switch to stainless steel. Yeah, I mean, it's a funny outcome, you know.

It would be funny. It's a funny outcome. Yeah. Well, they said, you know, in recent interviews before the, the tank issue, they were saying that they were going to try to manufacture, and I could get this wrong, but they were going to manufacture one vehicle last year, which would have been, you know, 2025, obviously, three in 2026 and then five in 2027. So that can give you some idea, and they did say that they had at least one tank in production at the time of.

of this failure. So maybe they pivot to that instead. And they've got Hungry Hippo. One of the things we didn't look at is in one of my photos, when I saw the stage one tank for the first time, I did actually catch a glimpse of what looked like stage two in the building by walking a couple hundred feet down the road and getting a different angle on it,

on the open door. So I believe there is a stage two inside. And I think they'll probably end up. That's going to be one of the things I'm looking out for over the next few weeks is, yeah, will they be moving that down to wallups at some point? You know, there is a trailer. There are some mounting brackets in the yard that they could potentially be using for that. So, you know, there's real hardware that's here, right?

So I think it's reasonable to think that, you know, maybe it won't cause. that much of a disruption to their schedule. But who knows? We're only going off of what they tell us and what we can snag via, you know, funny angles into open doors. Listen, man, I promise that the second you get a whiff of there being hardware at Middle River again,

I will drive and I'll meet you in this parking lot and I'll hang out. Yeah. We should do a live off-nominal from this parking lot. We can do that. I mean, you have to remember, though, like it is just a building. Yeah, I know.

That's the point. We're going for it. A parking lot. That's funny. That's content. It's not like a taco truck or something, some couches. There was a food truck down there the other day that they had for the employees. It was kind of funny to see.

But, you know, just funny you mention that. And you just roll up there and get shoulder to shoulder with some of people. Yeah. It was only a couple days. after the tank thing. So, you know, I like to talk to any of them. Yeah. You should have been up and be like,

you killed tank, buddy. Like, you got like really emotional about it. You got, you got to get a show. You know, you got to go to a thrift store and get a polo with like an old like rocket lab like polo that. Oh,

that's funny. Like pawned off and then show up there and then like, yeah, hey, what are you working on this week, Ted? And then just like, you know.

I think it's better, Jake, if you get like, get like, polo from some program that was ran out of Goddard that is pretty dingy looking. It looks like you've been around the industry for a really long time, and this is just like this shirt that you wear now. Yeah, they had this talk to me when they went to tubble, so, you know, it's pretty important.

Pat and I met that guy when we went to Goddard, by the way. So what you just did is a real person that we met. So he was awesome. We're going to look him up again. Yeah, that was a great day for sure. But I will say on the topic of employees and that I did cross paths with a couple. And they were really excited about that tank being out in the yard. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears is what they were saying.

So, you know, it is one of these things where you do feel bad, obviously. And of course, like I said, they're testing it. And they know this is a potential outcome. But, you know, it probably doesn't make it hurt any less. yeah but yes the next time they are

they are and they're learning a lot dropping the locks dome of SLS like there's going to be a lot of these things it'll be fine yeah

it's fine that hurts so that like I said we're going to be watching for stage two to come out of there hopefully and I'll keep you posted

yeah I'm coming I'm coming down for that yeah yeah hell yeah it's good stuff where should people follow you

love your stuff I'm on X I think that's where I've been posting these photos. That's where a lot of the space industry watchers congregate. Congregate, that's the word I was looking for. So it's Space Pat underscore O.

I do have a YouTube channel as well. And I put up videos. I haven't put up videos in a while, but anytime there's a launch out of wallups, you know, I've live streamed a haste launch or two onto that channel and then as well as NSF. and well actually electron not haste on NSF but yeah so I work with with NSF on that and I also run the website rocket launch. Live so yeah yeah yeah this is a great great site this this is the API the power all the Discord yeah we're waiting on that electron launch that's supposedly happening today but I don't know if that's slipped or not it's been slipping a lot But no, that's a site that basically, you know, it's actually coming up on 10 years that I've been running that site, which is crazy.

2017, yeah. And, you know, Anthony, actually, I owe Anthony a little bit because he gave me a little nudge early on that said, you know what, this is actually worth doing. And so I appreciate you, Anthony, for that back in the early days. Hell yeah. It's on my calendar. I've reciprocated that. That's like one of the, one of the main things on my,

my ICAL, man. It's not called ICAL anymore. It hasn't been called ICAL for about 10 years, but it's, yeah. So I, you know, I was watching the dates of these launches

and tracking them. So I'm like, well, why don't I just publish this? And then, you know, that was, like I've said,

I'm into web development loosely, I guess, not so much anymore, but enough to maintain the site still. And so it was just kind of a crossover between two things that I liked, web development and following the space industry. And same thing with photography and videography.

I like doing both of those things and what better of a subject than the space industry. So, yeah. Love it. Awesome. Well, what do we got, Jake? What else is going on in our world? I'm glad we made this happen. What we got next week?

I don't know if we're following your directive to only talk about Artemis II before Artemis 2, but we'll see if we can get through it. But we've got an author coming on next week to talk about a space infrastructure book, so it should be fun. And then we'll talk about Artemis 2 some more?

I think I'm going to turn this conversation into Artemis 2 because it's about going to the moon. So, yeah, well, I think we'll get there. Well, by next week, we'll know if the wet dresser result did or did not happen. Yeah, and then it'll slip. and then we can talk about Artemis all the way until April. So, yeah.

Yeah, all the way until Jared Eisenman is flying Trump in a jet above the launch. With Donald Trump into this second seat of his mig. If it's the big, it's the best. That's the best scenario. I feel like you should get more than funny internet points if you forecast that that actually happens. All right. I'll take whatever you want to send my way. A lot more than internet points.

If that actually happens, the secret server. this will be calling Anthony, but who's your source? It just was a thought that floated through my brain yesterday. And I was like, I was going to text you it, Jake. And then I was like, I'm going to save that for the pre-show when I can put this into the prediction list in Discord. Love it. I mean, it'd be hilarious.

It would be a hilarious event. It would be very funny. Very America 250 at the moment. If anything, it's good for the SNL skit that comes after it. So it's going to be fantastic. Yeah, which would just be a video. of him gripping this seat as Jared pulls some sort of maneuver.

All right, y'all. We will see you next week. Bye. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, guys. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, end of death.