Off-Nominal - 232 - Repurpose, Reprogram, Reconfigure, or Reassign

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

Jake and Anthony sort through the news mayhem that has been the last few weeks. Topics Off-Nominal - YouTube Episode 232 - Repurpose, Reprogram, Reconfigure, or Reassign - YouTube The US Senate empowers NASA to fully engage in lunar space race - Ars Technica Congress extends ISS and tells NASA to get moving on private space stations - Ars Technica NASA and SpaceX disagree about manual controls for lunar lander - Ars Technica NASA has shuffled its Artemis rockets. But what of the lunar landers? - Ars Technica NASA shakes up its Artemis program to speed up lunar return - Ars Technica Episode 68 - Pop It Back Up There - Off-Nominal We got a leaked look at NASA’s future Moon missions—and likely delays - Ars Technica Follow Off-Nominal Subscribe to the show! - Off-Nominal Support the show, join the Discord Off-Nominal (@offnom) / Twitter Off-Nominal (@[e-mail]) - Spacey Space Follow Jake WeMartians Podcast - Follow Humanity's Journey to Mars WeMartians Podcast (@We_Martians) | Twitter Jake Robins (@JakeOnOrbit) | Twitter Jake Robins (@[e-mail]) - Spacey Space Follow Anthony Main Engine Cut Off Main Engine Cut Off (@WeHaveMECO) | Twitter Main Engine Cut Off (@[e-mail]) - Spacey Space Anthony Colangelo (@acolangelo) | Twitter Anthony Colangelo (@[e-mail]) - jawns.club 🐘 Off-Nominal Merchandise Off-Nominal Logo Tee WeMartians Shop | MECO Shop

TLS and go for main engine, start. Welcome, everybody, to try number three for Artemis. Let's go for it. Let's see if this is the right month. Our flight readiness review. Are we ready? Our flight readiness review. Yeah, yeah.

John Honeycutt just serenated us with his flight readiness review. And we're going to follow up with that. See if they're right. 10 seconds in before I had a John Honeycutt dig. I love it. And construction noises. So we're doing great. We're killing it.

We are delivering on this show content. This show will feature a hot takes, a vibe-coded app to look at the trajectory of Artemis 2, since NASA won't let us see it, and I have it. Somehow, breaking news, I have the trajectory, and I made a thing to visualize it.

That's good. I should hide at least one thing on this screen. Is there any non-Arthumus stuff we need to tackle as points of business? You got any firefly? You want to cover Firefly takes? I don't have any Firefly takes. No, Firefly is not on my radar.

No. So, no. I mean, my only one was that the launch appeared to be a thing of like, let's give it one more try and see if we're going to continue on this whole thing. We're going to fly this. That was one of those. Had that feeling? Yeah. Yeah.

It was like a payload or a mass simulator style payload from Lockheed. on this last of the non-block 2 Firefly alphas. And it's like, all right, see if you get this one and we'll keep our orders in place. I don't have confirmation of this or any birdies telling me that. I just, it smacks of like, okay, flight seven, we're doing a mass sim. That's not a great, that's like you're in timeout and you need to prove that you're a good boy before they'll let you come out. That's a Project Hail Mary. Oh, yeah, there you go.

Not sponsored, but we could be. No. for the right price. I was just complaining about that today because the Spanish translation for that movie is Projecte Fin del Mundo, the Project End of the World, which is like just so much worse. Like just like way, way, way worse. Well, not just depressing, but just like it kind of ruins it. Like Project Hail Mary tells you like, oh, there's like a desperate move.

We don't know what it's for, but that's, okay, that's like enticing. That's interesting. And then it's like the Spanish one. leaves in Mexico. It's just like, it's the end of the world. It makes it gives a good, is that the way that you say Hail Mary in in Mexico? No, because it's like an idiom, right? It's an idiom. That's what I mean, though, is that. Okay. But even, okay. So if they're, well, okay. And this is it like a football idiom? I was going to say, the next time you talk to somebody who would use this idiom in everyday speech.

And if they like football, ask that one time Aaron Rogers won a game, that several times that Aaron Rogers won a game by bombing the ball at the end of the last play. What is that play called? like see what they say because I also like being that this is the end of the world play I kind of enjoy that as well I also wonder how much of like oh it's Latin America and you can't just bandy around Catholic idioms

at will you know you gotta be a little careful with that it's fair yeah anyway did you bring some meat or something what you got yeah I got something yeah it's just a bottle I had for the the peppermint stuff.

So I got lots of that left. So it's crack one day. I didn't have any other better plans. No better plans. I was like, I'm just going to open one of these. I've got myself a victory beer that I have not had on the show before, which is called Victory Royale, Jake, because I feel like on this space policy front,

that's what we have here in front of us. Oh, okay. This is going to be a fun show. Yeah, we have almost no outline for this other than, as I said in the pre show, I made a declaration that we should talk about only Artemis until Artemis 2 flies, but I didn't mean it like this. I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled that this is how it went, but I didn't mean it like this. So my idea here is I'm wondering if we can do some Artemis war games. I like that.

That's fun. I want to like gain this out because so like, like, all this news happened and I was like it's very shocking obviously all these changes and stuff and then the authorization bill comes and I was like wow they got like some congresspeople on board and not just any congress people like the congress people on board to some of these ideas which is like also shocking because that really doesn't happen so I was like trying to parse all this and trying to figure it out and I keep going back to like I keep having these questions like what about this what about this what of this there's all these I answered questions and I was trying to come up I told you like

two days ago. I'm like, oh, I'm working on some takes, but I'm like, I got some ideas. And I was like, literally sitting here like my desk, like writing stuff down. I try to like sort this out. And I got nowhere. I'm like, I have nothing. I'm like, I just, I don't know what you mean. You got nothing. We've been talking for almost 10 years and you every time you have art of mistakes. How do you have nothing? That doesn't even make sense. That's not even factually accurate. Because I don't know what's going on. Okay. All right. All right. Let's work through it. Let's work through it. So that's why I'm thinking the war games thing would make sense right so like instead of like trying to like look at this bill and the

press conferences and go oh this this is what that means let's like walk through because that the biggest thing for me is timelines all these ideas sound really great on paper but when i try and like pace them over the likely timelines of a you know the flight schedule artemus three and four specifically be the tenure of Jared Isaacman and C, the tenure of Donald Trump, and then also like, budget, you know, appropriation schedules.

How does that all? And when I put all those pieces into play that it, it looks very different. And so I'm trying to like, I don't know, that's why I want to do. What do you? Let's do it.

I'm here. I'm here to work out, work it out with you because I'm, I'm feeling great. I'm optimistic. This is the positive version of you can just do things. They, You are like so much more positive about this than I am.

It's actually really interesting. Yeah. They did the thing that you and I have been saying we should do. And I think the trio of us talking about this, I think we talked about it probably 18 times with Eric Berger on this show about canceling the Gateway and SLS1B and doing the right stuff. I feel like I asked Jared Isaac about it on Miko when he was five minutes before he was nominated as NASA administrator. like this is the fan fiction that so many of us wrote and it is so clearly the way out but we didn't

factor in what if you got congressional approval for all of this and and somehow wrapped it up in language of like the way out of this is canceling the future of SLS but doing four times more SLS right now like that that was a turn that I did I had no idea was in the cards yeah it's definitely strange it's definitely not so I'm seeing it I'm here I'm locked in I need you to get there with us. The naming didn't come down the way I thought it was and the timing didn't either, but I still got my Artemis 2.5. I'm still happy about that one. You got that and a confirmation basically that Dragon X-L is never to be?

Yeah. When did we have the Artemis 2.5 take? Was that like two prediction shows ago? I feel like it was... What do you mean? I don't remember. We did that on a prediction show. We were talking about like our guest.

for that year for what was going to happen. And I don't know, I wrote it down somewhere where I was like, they're going to insert a mission man after Artemis 2 before Artemis 3 because they can't just, they can't, there's too much happening on Artemis 3, right? And I called it Artemis 2.5 at the time. Was it one of our favorite pop it back up there? Might have been. Might have been.

Yeah. When we put the, the, uh, the, uh, didn't that have? Because this had, this is where Artemis 2.5 came from. Uh, or sorry, this was three and a half. Artemis 3.5. This at the time, pop it back up there was Artemis 3.5. Pop it back up there.

Yeah, because we popped this graph up here about eight times on this show. Because Eric had this PDF that said, the cadence and the content. Yeah. So what did we get here? Did we get cadence? We got cadence minus Gateway.

Yes, because Artemis 2, FY25, Artemis 3, crew flight to Lunar surface. They changed it, though. Like, we really did get 2.5. Yeah, I mean, we didn't get either of these plans. I'm saying in the spirit of cadence versus content, we're getting cadence. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so that's interesting.

And I want to, a clarifying point. That was four years ago in that episode, by the way. The way they described this is it sounds like they moved up Artemis. well I don't know because that's the most ridiculous thing that they're going out and fighting about by the way that they're going we didn't delay the landing we pulled the other ones forward like that yeah just seed the ground on however people want to frame it in the headlines but like the the numbering is confusing because artemus three is now artemus four basically and artemus three is a new mission yeah so fundamentally what they did is they took the existing schedule and they added a flight at the beginning of 2028 right so like because if you take that out the schedule looks pretty well the same, right? No, they added 2027. I thought it was early 2028 for Artemis 2. 2028 is two lunar landings.

You're not even getting your head around how ridiculous and fan fiction this schedule is, okay? 2026 right now is Artemis 2. Artemis 3 is next year, Leo rendezvous, and then with one or both landers, and Artemis 4 and 5 are both in 2028 lunar landings. Oh, okay.

So they added two missions. And so what's the notional date for the new Artemis 3? 2027. Do we have more specific than that? Let's see. I mean, there's no way it's early 2027. So I'm assuming it's like half to maybe quarter of four. Mid mid, mid, 2027.

All right. So in like 15 months, that's what they're targeting. So they add that mission in and then they're saying, I guess the original Artemis 3 moves forward in the year because it's like very much like an early 28 thing now, which is like not what it was before, right? It was kind of just 2028. It was generically 2028, yeah. Yeah. And then they brought forward Artemis 5 or Artemis shit. Okay.

Artemis 6, which is now 5 or 4. There's now 5. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Artemis 4. I brought forward Artemis 4. Now they're calling it Artemis 5 at the end of 2020.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know why we have to do this direct mapping. None of it is direct mapping. So I would just bail on whatever you're trying to do in your head, I would bail on it and only think about the new thing. Well, I'm trying to figure what the, I'm trying to do the diff on this, man. I'm trying to like get this. This is a not. This is a full on rebase. And the lines of code in the talk and says flights, minus three plus five, whatever it says, right?

All right, 100% we're going to make a Git repo. I'm going to kick this off in the background right now, real quick. Okay, so that's like the initial announcement, right? We're going to inject two flights into this. We also get the summary of we are no longer developing EUS nor the ML2 to support it. And then later we got Centaur is going to be the new EUS. Confirm now. And then other than that,

the rocket stuff hasn't changed anymore. Everything else out of that was like lunar base stuff or like high level program stuff, right? Did I miss anything? Well, the gateway arm of this. Yeah. Which is like unofficially, yeah. They haven't dove head first into that conversation yet. Which is funny because they have, right?

They've specifically changed some of these missions away from what would have been gateway missions. They've canceled the thing that carries all gateway modules at the moment other than the first one. So a couple of options they have is a straight outright cancellation. Other option is launch that first module, call it Gateway, and that is all that Gateway is. It does not have all these other modules. The third option is transpose it somehow into being the thing that I'm a little bit afraid of. We've done some modifications,

and we've turned this into a Leo baseline habitat to bridge the gap between ISS and a commercial space station. Yeah. There's something to be shaken out there. I'm interested why they are more cautious about making large pronouncements about the gateway than they have been all these other things. Because of international stuff, right? Yeah, a notable care that we have for international relations right now, Jake. Sure. I think all that tells us is that it's not sitting on, it's not sitting on the Secretary of State's desk right now. I was going to say, yeah, It's more of a Marco Rubio thing, which seems better if you're someone who's a gateway stand.

It's maybe lower down on the list of priorities. So it hasn't made it fast the NASA Secretary of State, whatever that person is. There's no head of state that we can go and capture or kill in the gateway right now. Yeah, the reason they haven't said anything is because Jared called the Secretary of State said, hey, what do you think of this? And they said, are you really bothering me with this right now? Not the time. Never call me again.

Yeah, hung up the phone. So that's, yeah, that's why I think there's nothing going on there. But that's fine. I'm not super concerned about gateway because I, to me, we were gateway cancellation inevitable lists you and I. So this is just, yeah. Okay, so that's the rocket news, which is mostly what I want to talk about because I think that's the most important thing.

And then we get this bill. So this is a NASA authorization bill. and I'll try and summarize what's on there too, but film me in my blanks because I'm getting old. So we got approval for, you know, authorization for the administrator to change up the plan. I felt that language was very vague. It was like the administrator can like look at all the stuff he has and then move it around because he's the administrator, which is like not really like, yeah. You want me to read the legalese directly?

That was already already the job he had. The administrator may repurpose, reprogram, reconfigure, or reassign existing programs, platforms, modules, or hardware originally developed for other programs. Repurpose, reprogram, reconfigure, reassigned. There's nothing in there is canceled. That's the name of this episode right there. Repurpose, reprogram, reconfigure, or reassign. Can you, we should make one of the shirts with the big white text? Yeah, yeah.

You know what I'm saying? That's right. Yeah, yeah. Repurpose and reprogram and reconfigure. make one. The perfect merch. Perfect merch. We got to make one.

Okay. So like that. Can you pop that back up there for a second? I want to read the rest of them. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So yeah,

no gateway. It has not met flight rate. So identify alternatives for a new upper stage. Yeah. Give them the green light to standardize the SLS rocket. This is the one. So I'm feeling less excited about this authorization than I think people are making it out for it. And I want to know.

It's like, I feel like there actually isn't a lot of like difference between this. Like this is kind of like highlighting things that was kind of already true. And I don't know. I want to, I want to think about that first. Okay. So this doesn't really like this doesn't cancel US, right? It says, US is not meeting flight rate.

We recognize you're going to use something else. You can move stuff around because of that. but like the appropriations really is what defines that right so this is kind of like it feels kind of wishy-washy in that sense you mean because they could still like congress could go and spend money on the eos even if NASA yeah but NASA is not it's no longer per an authorization bill required to use the thing for the art of his program yeah yeah and I think that's within NASA's power to say well great yeah we'll fund it whatever but I'm not flying out on the mission because it doesn't work right or doesn't exist in this case I mean it's not NASA's department to figure out

if that money is going to be allocated to them or not. So yes, sure. Yeah. And so, like, you could theoretically see, I'm looking for, like, how Congress is going to stab this in the back, right? You could theoretically see something like they fund it and they say, okay, we get it. It's not meaning flight rate and you're not going to fly an SLS. You're going to do this with it instead.

Here's some money. And then, you know, they give some new direction for some stupid thing. I don't know what it's going to be. Develop that, that's a side thing or I don't know, something like that, right? That's theoretically possible within the confines of this authorization bill, right? Is that a question or rhetorical? I don't know. I'm asking you.

Yeah. I mean... Yeah. Okay. I'm not saying that's what's going to happen. I'm just, I'm trying to like understand it. I feel like you're in,

you're in some phase of, of denial right now. Like, that this is actually happening. I am such a cynic about this stuff. This is really happening. I don't trust, I don't trust any of it.

It's hilarious. I, um, I think I understand what your hunch is and I, I can put a point on it. Because it's, it's closely related to why I'm optimistic about this. I think to some extent,

there's two ways to look at it. There's a positive spin and a negative spin, or not negative spin, but a, you know, like you said, a cynical spin on it. And I believe either one. So the positive spin on this whole thing is Jared Iser been coming in and trying to shoot for lofty goals

and inspire active change on the part of NASA to say we can be better than this. No one's particularly happy with this plan or roadmap or flight rate. I'm going to get all these officials out there and actually say, yes, this is a vehicle that doesn't fly a lot. We need to change that. We've got to instill some motivation to this program using things that people give credit to private sector a lot of times, right?

That Elon Musk goes out and he makes crazy statements about what SpaceX is possible of. And then, you know, he himself says, well, we take the impossible, we make it late, and that's like a great catchphrase. So you only do these things by shooting for really lofty ambitions, and if you get halfway there, damn, you did great job. That's the version of this that I think Jared Eisenman is publicly displaying, that he's going out and being that kind of inspirational figure.

On the cynical side, this is totally calling everyone's bluff on this program by saying, I would like to remind everybody that when SLS was floated, it was an annual cadence. We're saying we're flying about once a year, hopefully sometimes twice a year. In intervening eight years, that has slipped to like, yeah, it's going to be in every three-year thing. Once a president, yeah. Once a president. And this whole push from Jared Eisenman is really getting them back to, like, you said you'd fly once a year.

That would fix a lot of the ills of the program per everybody's assessment. Everybody here, even the managers say we need to fly more to make this possible. I'm going to clear all the path in front of you so you can go fly once a year. Go prove that you can. I feel like a little bit of this is the public face is inspirational figure and the internal face is, let's do it. You said you could do this. Prove that you can do it. And NASA has been on this whole prove it push for a while.

Remember the idea of, was it the commercial space station's thing in the summer and the Sierra Space ISS contract? of like, yeah, we might buy a flight from you after you go and fly one. They're in this era of go do the thing and then we'll take it and run with it. And this is an extension of that. It's like, you've said you can do this. Go do it. And if you can't, then we're going to have to talk about the program. But I'm going to give you everything in your power that you can go.

You have my permission and the congressional approval to go fly SLS three times before I'm not the administrator anymore. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I understand how what I'm saying sounds like I didn't get that. But I do understand that. The, I didn't connect. I didn't connect why that's related to yours. It's because it's actually unbelievable. No, no, no, no. I wanted to tie that with a bell. Well, I think the strategy is not unbelievable. It's a totally valid strategy. And one that I think is awesome. Like I have been begging for an asset administrator to stand up and say, this is a piece of shit, fix it. Like, you know, like I've just been, I was what I've been wanting this whole time. So I was delighted to see that happen. But what I wanted to understand, though,

is that like, this off bill came down and everyone kind of like, like, I feel it got conflated. It was like, oh, Ted Cruz approves of everything that Isaacman wants to do. And I'm like, I don't know if that says, it sounds like there is an alliance here of some kind where they're both going to get benefit of it. But like, I don't, I am not seeing Ted Cruz on on, he's, well, I think he's on the plan of like, okay, I mean, I'll give you my shot. You give me more flights. I feel good about that. We're talking about a lunar stuff. Like, this sounds like it could work out. And two more years of the ISS, Jake. And two more years that like, I think, you know, Ted Cruz came out of this with a win, I think. And so obviously he's going to be supporting this bill. But I think everyone was kind of being like, oh, he flipped Ted Cruz. Like, Ted Cruz now is ready to like shut this down. I mean, yes, Jake, less than a year ago, he fully funded the gateway in a random ass bill in the middle of summer. Yes, he flipped Ted Cruz. He absolutely flipped Ted Cruz.

No, no, no, no. I think it's more complicated than that. The way I'm hearing it talked about is like... You sound like you hung out with Ted Cruz when he flew down to your neck of the woods at one time. You're either with SLS or you're against it. And Ted Cruz was with it and now he's against it. That's like how it's being talked about. Like this is...

And I'm not... This is a good bill like in a sense of like this progress. I'm not denying that. Looks great. But I wanted to understand. Like I really looked at it and I'm like, you know, Ted Cruz did really well on this. That's why he's all over it.

He's got more SLS lights. He's got a lunar program office for the base coming down the pipe. Like, U.S. is not his district. He doesn't give a shit about it. Neither is ML2. Like, he did really well on this bill. And like, they cut out all the parts that are not Texas shaped. And, you know, so he's like, he's like, great.

I love it. You know, so I want to get. It's clear to talk about that. But that's why, to me, it's more confusing than why he was so into the gateway over the summer. And, and... Well, gateway is that a Johnson, right? I know, but this, reportedly, you know, this offer was out there for Ted Cruz to take sooner than last week that we could flip the gateway into being a lunar surface thing.

And that was not appealing at some point in time. Or maybe it wasn't worth the political capital, though. I don't know. Like, they fully funded the gateway and reaffirmed the Artemis 4 and 5 in that bill. That was like very annoying at that point in time if you're somebody who is trying to come in as the NASA administrator make changes the program. So. Yes, yes. I think I said this in the pre-show last week or maybe two weeks ago, but I would like to canonize it in the in the show.

There are several Republican members of the government. I don't know what level in what office or state who are very lucky that Jared Isaacman is the head of NASA because he would be an absolute snake of a politician. Like, that dude has what it takes to operate on a political scheme. He would have wrecked whoever he ran against. Yeah. I don't know what he was going to run for. It sounded like he was heading to politics before this came back about. But boy, does he have it.

Yeah. Okay. So this is where I want to get to the war games part of it, right? So I think I feel clear like what's happened. We've done a good summary. So the job before Isaacman now is he has to do. what we just talked about, right? He needs to clear the path. Because this, you know, achieving these next four flights in the next three years, this insane thing is like a, it's a non-trivial task.

And he has to get NASA on board and it has to convince the people who think that's a bad idea. I'm sure there's someone like that in NASA who thinks it's not the right way to do it. And then he needs to like change the institution, the operations, the process, clear all the red tape, you know, grease the skids, like make it make it possible for the teams to actually do that. And then he needs to convince Boeing and Lockheed to build two more rockets that they didn't have to build before in the next two years, two years, well, two years, really. And he needs to convince, who else, he needs to give in SpaceX and Blue Origin and Axiom to get their shit together fast, right? Because if Artemis 3 is happening in mid-20,

27, that means that we need one or both landers in Leo in the next 15 months, which like, that's a lot. That's a big thing. So how do you see what do you, like, how do you see in the first steps that? Like if we talk about the end of this year, so 2026, what do you think happens this year? That gets us, you know, through the midterms, whatever appropriations may or may not happen. And then gets us into 2027, which is. like, so if it's mid-2020-7, like we're talking, we're stacking that rocket.

It's like we're moving, right? So I, I understand that first year goes. I fully understand the disconnect between you and I now on this particular, on this particular situation because I think you're overthinking all of it. I truly do. I think under the old roadmap, everybody could, could guarantee that they weren't the reason that the thing was late because the milestones were so far out and so murky. Yeah.

Yeah. And the goal of this shakeup was, I've given no one any reason that they're not ready when they say they can be. Like, you all have the full capability of going as fast as you possibly can because that's when we need your stuff. And you've all promised me that you could do that. So I'm going to just make everyone flip their poker cards over on the table. We're playing face up because we put all our chips in, and it is what it is. Like, I truly do feel like there's some. I kind of see this in the interviews that Isaacman's giving,

that there feels like some sort of overly hopeful fan fiction elements that he talks about where, like, all of a sudden, we're wishing things into the roadmap. But on the other end, it just feels like, yeah, I've anointed this is the roadmap. And everyone has told me that their part's not the reason we're going to be late. So now we're going to see who's the reason we're late. Like, can these people get, so I don't even know if it's, I can't really parse your question because I'm like, well, I think the goal is. I agree with that.

I'm with you on that. So now what do we think is actually going to happen? Yeah. Okay. So he has to do his fart part first, right? He has to, something has to change. He's got to do his part first.

His fart first. It's meat strong. Like there's got to be, I'm thinking, like, requirements changes for the missions. Like maybe NASA's going to be like, hey, we're going to ease off on a few of these and take this thing off the play. Like, you know, he has to do something on the NASA side. anything that's going to be like slow bureaucratic stuff's got to get parsed out. So he's got to do that work, right? I assume he started before all this.

But he's got to work through all that kind of stuff there, right? How long does it take for the benefits of those changes? Let's say he does it perfectly. They refine all the requirements. They reduce it down. They reduce the scope. They throw stuff out. They throw up processes.

They hire better people. The NASA have forced thing or whatever goes through. Right. How long does the benefits of those. into, how long does it take for those benefits to trickle into the contractors, Boeing, Lockheed, space, explore, and Axiom, right? How long does it take for that to hit them so that they are starting to see, to collect the benefits of this new faster pace? All right. So, an actual hardware look, right? I feel like the, bizarrely, the SLS side hardware is not the issue,

right, which is probably a key aspect of this. Like, many of the, you know, the pieces are either shipped to the Cape or would be soon. Depends on what you're talking about, isn't it? Like the solid boosters, yes. They're in storage already, I think. Forever. Can't see. I think the core stage is on its way there soon. I think it has not the engines, but it has the tanks are there. They exist. The ICPS exists because they shut down that production line already. So that one, that one exists. I think the, The key thing for Artemis 3 is the Orion docking system. That's the hardware element there of like assessing where that actually is in flow.

Well, the heat shield, I guess, is the aspect from this flight that we would learn, right? Although, if you're coming back from Leo, it doesn't matter as much. You've taken some heat load off. Yeah. Well, maybe, yeah. That's another good reason. The new Artemis 3 scope is part of that, I think, the requirement's listening. But they moved all the schedule up, so it's like not really requirements less.

it's actually requirements adding. But the only thing that they couched a little bit in the Artemis 3 announcement was Axiom if they're ready with the suits. They like kind of did even this little bit of body language of the little head bob, right? So they do seem confident that one or both landers could have a test target in Earth orbit in in 2027. And then remember, we can't just, the flights are now condemned. enough that we have to talk about them in parallel, right? Like, they can't finish Artemis 3 and then

start working on Artemis 4. So if, if we're talking about these, you know, the new requirements, benefits, or whatever we want to call it, the effect of Jared Isaacman trickling down, like, that's got to, this year, it's got to hit them for Artemis 3 and 4 and probably 5, right? So that's my first question is I want to think about like, how long does it take for the benefits to those companies to get it? And then following under that, they have to take those changes and then make their own changes too because they're also part of the problem right and so what is Boeing lockheed space X blue origin and axiom going to change how are they incentivized to change things like that those are other questions I have right and then mapping it over this timeline so that's like the rest

of 2026 you get in 27 like we're flying now so that's got to happen pretty fast yeah yeah and then I want you to think about midterms and budget for this year because that's the this is the year that that's going to happen, right? So we're going to have the midterm election in eight months. So we all know what that does to the appropriations. We're not going to get any new money this year probably, right? We might get something in January, February next year, maybe, right? So NASA's not going to get any money. They have to, they can only work with what they got this year and go down. That's probably fine. Connect the dots, baby. Ted Cruz dropped the whole bunch of change on the gateway program that can now be to read the exact language.

What is it? Reprogram, repurpose, re-configure, or reassign existing programs, platforms, models, or hardware. All of that is what was funded in the summer. And that was several billion on top of what NASA already had. So if you're trying to run that against the program just over two years, right? If that's the Isaacman Slush Fund that could be used in the next two years, then that's... Is that not just the lunar program office, though? like the lunar base program office.

That's what that money is going to be for. That's a hell of an office, man. I'd love to work there. If they're spending all those billions on just the office. They're breaking ground on the lunar base in Isaac means. Breaking ground. Hell yeah, baby. Yeah, but I think that's my point, right?

That if that, if that, if this whole thing that you're a doubter on on the Ted Cruz turn is true, then lunar orbiting platform slush funds. sometimes sometimes the chat just uh just gets to you that's good yeah if you're looking at you're right they're going to have i don't know not we don't have any answers that's the other frustrating part jake is that no one actually told us do you need more money to do this or is it fine more game in this because i'm trying to see like so what are the possible outcomes right so um because we get if we get into 27 is like the the ultimate question i'm trying to get to get to

to here is when you know if okay so isaacan's calling their shot you told us you could do it go i'm clearing all of roblox go right i i don't have a tremendous amount of faith that boeing or lockyed are gonna be able to deliver on four flights in the next two and a half years um i'm not sure that space x and blue origin can deliver that fast that much axiom i don't only have a lot of faith in that either like you know there's no i don't know i don't think they're going to be able to do it so when when when does it become apparent that they're missing the deadline? This is honestly the craziest turn, Jake, because as you as you describe this, man, I can't help but think Isaacman is a master at this. Like, he's taking a bunch of checks that other people

wrote and tried to cash him. I'd be like, it's not NASA's fault. Everyone wrote me these checks, you know? Like, it's the gym free. We have, we have signed commitments from a contractor that they're going to be ready. Like, Isaacman's like, everybody told me that they can get their shit in order. Right, right. But then they don't. And so what? Right. So then what? Let's assume he's game that out. He's like, this is what I'm expecting to happen. And I have a plan for that. Let's assume that he's playing for the plan. The plan is he's gotten at least one other Artemis flight in when he's administrator, which would be an absolute miracle. Maybe. Maybe. Depends on how much they've failed to meet these expectations by, right?

because I'm trying to like map it out to when these failure points happen and then he has to And then what's the adjustment from there? He has to react and say, okay, look, it's March 27. I wanted to have Artemis 3 flying this summer and they are not going to make it. So here's the change that I'm making, right? And then you have to go and let's let's assume that he's like trying to do the trying to do God's work and just get this damn rocket out of existence. Right. Let's assume he's trying to go for that.

So then mid-27, he's trying to convince Congress to like, I am going to do worse than what I did last year. I'm not just going to repurpose, reprogram, reassign. I'm going to re-extradite this thing into hell. Like, you know, like, I don't know what that looks like, right? And then if there is a hostile Congress next year, that will be interesting. And then you move Artemis 3 to when it. can actually happen, which is like maybe 2028, does he kind of like maybe get one flight off,

like even in the end of the best case scenario, you know what I mean? Yeah, and there does seem to be a willingness to sort of flow with what's available when, right? Like, we'll try to dock with one or hopefully both landers. And it's a little bit of, to me, okay, well, what systems have to be actually in place on that lander to call that successful? Do you need a full eclos system or do you just want to dock with a starship shaped thing in orbit? Yeah. And that's fine. That's kind of what I thought was going to happen.

Like before all this, we all knew the original plan was not tenable. Like so, you know, there's no official source on it, but you kind of think like, well, what's actually going to happen? Well, the lander's not going to raise. So they're going to try and do something. We had this Artemis 2.5 idea. That's exactly what this was, right? But I'm just trying to see, like, if, if you. are the parochial interests for this rocket, like to me, this just sounds like I do is run

out the clock. And you can kind of get away with not really that much damage. Except for having all of your future things canceled. Right. Like if this, if this action isn't taken up by the parochial interests and embraced, then all you've done is flown your last SLS vehicle and your last ICPS. Yeah. Yeah. And you have nothing else beyond that. Right. Now, on the lander front, it gives you a good target of, the most embarrassing thing would be that the lander companies can't meet that schedule. Because all they've done is talk shit for years about the SLS schedule. Having the rocket stacked in the pad, being like, lucky to Boeing being like, we're ready. Yeah, that's absolutely the most embarrassing chance possible.

And then the incentive on the lander side is there to not be embarrassed because the other one might be. you. And then that's even more embarrassing, right? And that I think does... We're going to have some really vicious company cross-stock. Brutal. Brutal. Yeah. Brutal. I mean, they're out there chirping over asteroid emissions. Yeah. So, yeah, it's going to be brutal because, and I also do think that SpaceX is more vulnerable to blue origin pressure than they let on, you know? We thought this years ago, too, we thought a lot of the Starship, you know, some of the early tax of the program dropping the diameter and trying to speed things along did come about at a time when New Glenn's performance started to stack up and be like, oh man, this is like a more of a

competitor than we thought it was. And then, you know, all of a sudden this whole, as you might not know, SpaceX already is only working on the moon at the time when New Glenn starts to have the momentum and a moon landers on its way to a testing center. I think they are more vulnerable to that pressure than they let on. Yeah. Yeah. And that would be even more so if an SLS Orion is stacked, Starship is still fumbling about in Bocchika in this way.

And then you've got, you know, blue origin hardware that's meeting up with an Orion in orbit. That is a apocalyptic scenario if you're on the Starship lander program. Yes. Absolutely. But what is a lander at that point? This is the thing for that 2027 mission. That is, you know, is, that's where your requirement question really comes

in like what is required to be on that lander to facilitate an Artemis three missions successfully? Do the astronauts need to be able to enter the vehicle and take their helmet off or is docking with it and it doing handling characteristics and getting an understanding of how the systems integrate? Is that enough?

Do I need to open the hatch? And then, you know, the other aspect is are those landers the same landers that they're going to meet back up with the next year to go land? Or is that a version of it and they will fly another one to be the actual land? Are those the landers that will go do the uncrewed demo after Artemis 3?

Would those actually go on fly? These are all the questions that I don't know if they have a real sense for how to answer it to us yet, or if they even know the answers, but I would hope that they do tell us at some point. Yeah, and I think all that is just evidence that this timeline is, I mean, I'll use the word made up, right? But it's aspirational, it's notional, right? It's like it's one of those you set the date and then see if everyone can meet it kind of thing, right? Which is fine. But I think that highlights the uncertainty factor, which to me makes the endgame very cloudy.

But I guess maybe a lot of a different way for you then. So like, okay, it's January, 29 and you're swearing in a new president. what, you know, Isaacman's like, see you later, whatever. Let's assume he resigns because whatever. What do you think is like the best, like the best outcome for that day? I mean, if you asked me three weeks ago, I would have said today's situation. Cancelled Gateway, canceled, I'm not even kidding. Like, canceled EUS, canceled Gateway and you're unchained from compared to what the roadmap was before.

That was an amazing case scenario previously. So you're taking the harm reduction approach. I'll take it a win right now, absolutely. All right. I'll play that game. That's definitely harm reduction approach. From there, knowing that we're there already. Yeah, I mean, I think if we've gotten another launch of SLS, Orion,

to go do something with an actual docking system in place, I don't know, even then, that's kind of weird. If they will along an actual uncrewed demo before the end of 2028, that's a win. Because that means that the critical systems are far enough along to actually go fly that. I mean, in SpaceX's case, they've gotten through what is a horrible stretch for Starship and continues to be. I mean, I kind of was interested in the way Jeff Fowse does it again. You wrote this article this last week about, you know, Starship slips in the schedule. I was like, oh, that's not the way anyone ever writes this.

Let me try to find this. Slips, yeah, yeah, because usually it's like, oh, it was never a hard target. Like, this is just when it happens. Yeah. First, Starship V3 launch slips, right? This is the, like, Elon Musk wrote, it'll be in about four weeks. Four weeks from March 7th is April 4th. The statement came nearly six weeks after his previous prediction of Starship's next launch.

Starship launch in six weeks. he said another post January 26th. Six weeks from January 26th is March 9th. So just the way that this was written about, right, is indicative of this being a really rough time for Starship. Like, it will have gone almost six months from the prior launch. Where are they at with actually working on propellant transfer? Like, they're still a ways away from having enough in order to actually pull this thing off.

but if so if they if between now and the end of 2028 they get a full propellant transfer architecture going a lunar landing variance of starship and landed on the moon i kind of i kind of would classify that as shocking based on what we've seen the past couple years yeah because i guess our our baseline before this was that we weren't going to get another sLS launch in the trump administration Yeah, right. Yeah, we got to have Artemis 2 and then that was it, right? Yeah, Arvestree was definitely, it was nobody believed in 2008. It was mostly 2028, but everyone knew it was going to slip into the last two years of the decade. But that was also the problem with the roadmap as it was, was that there was enough room to hide in that schedule and that everyone was playing scheduled chicken with each other.

And then when you piled in the EUS stuff and every gateway requirement that thing had, where to fly Artemis 4, you needed Orion, SELF, EUS, ML2, a piece of the gateway, the gateway itself, gateway logistics, all of the space suits, all of them had to happen at the same time to fly. It was insane. This is one of those missions we're talking about in hindsight. We're back, yeah, of course it was canceled. But we've said that in, you know, I think pop up there, we listed all the things that had to be ready to fly any given mission.

We can't even roll an SLS out and John Honeycutt tell us, we're going to sit on the pad until it launches and it rolled back the next day. We can be proud of having called that shot, I think, for a long time. Yeah, we've been beating that I drone for a while. But Jake, where we're at with this now, I also want to just mention that, like, if SLS, I don't think an annual cadence makes it more likely that SLS can nail its launch window plus or minus two months. Because that's right now where we thought this would fly. What was the first attempted date? February?

February 6th, I think, yeah. Yes, it was the Super Bowl weekend time period. So we might get it off in less than two months after that first attempt. And that was trying one time. Well, not even trying one time, right? Going out for one launch campaign, thinking you'd be out there for two launch campaigns, having only been out there for a couple of days. So I don't think annual is that much better that all of a sudden,

all of the ills of this program will be solved, and they will be able to accurately hit their launched window, which is another restraint on the landers. Like, how long can they stay fuel up in lunar orbit, ready for the crew? And then you roll this thing out and you've got a seal that's going to burn two months of your time because of the logistics involved and then have you wasted that landing attempt. Yeah, yeah. So there's still a schedule's chicken, but the other one had so much room to hide

that everybody could say, oh, we're making progress, but we're not going to be the thing that's slow. You should go ask X, Y, or Z. And then you would go ask that person to say, oh, no, well, I mean, we're, you know, we're still working out a couple things, but we're definitely going to be ready before that person over there.

It's definitely, it's definitely a playing with fire kind of strategy, though, right? Because. Top potato. When you inevitably don't meet this deadline, yeah, it's, it could be fireworks, man. It could be some, there could be some shit that goes down. Yeah. But that's, I think, the expert part of this way to do it,

is that I'm going to arrange everything possible on the NASA side and take, and go out and say it's NASA's responsibility. Because it is. I give Jared credit for that, saying in both the Starliner scenario and this, like, we can do better internally. We can manage this.

We can be more realistic. We can say the things that we actually should go out and say about these programs. Because I do think that's Jared's, like, the thing that he's been best at in the last two months is we're going out to this podium, we're going to say how it was, we're going to be honest about what it is,

and we're going to give our real feelings, not the PR statement that we would have given before, whether that's good or bad, and just air it out. And by making everybody who said, we're here and ready to support the Artemis program, it's like, great, this is the plan now. And you've said that you're a year away.

Let's get to it. So let's figure out where it fails first. You have more to work with if you end up... It's a fail-fast strategy. It is, it is. But you have actual answers rather than poster boards that say how fast you can do something.

You have proof that you can say, SLS told me they could fly yearly, they can't. They literally cannot. I've given them every reason. I've given them $10 more billion. I've unlocked $10 billion downstream because I canceled these other programs and they still couldn't fly every year.

So now what? Now what do we do? You know? I'm here for that. Yeah. So what I'm hearing then is that we're on different, We're in different places because I was looking ahead being like, there are no more gains to get from this.

And you were saying, we got the gains already. We don't need any more. It's already a win. Yeah. I honestly think if I sat here the day that he got sworn in, if nothing else changes from this going and forward, you're like, we've got it. Yeah.

Tell me, though, if we came on here the day that he was sworn in as administrator, and I said to you, Jake, by the end of his term, this authorization bill will have, passed. You would have been like, that's good progress. That's solid. We're moving in the right direction. You would have chalked it up as an incrementalist win. See, what, what has Jared Issa been done for me lately? The last four days. That crazy interview that I skimmed through. Oh my God. Yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. Well, I can get on board with that. I'm very curious, though.

is that this is like, I think it's easy to criticize this plan as being like, I don't believe any of these launches are going to happen in Jared Eisenhower administration. And then you go look at what every NASA administrator said before, and you're like, they all were just talking some crazy shit that never turned out. But they were saying it,

and everyone else was saying the same thing at the time. And Jared's out on a limb in a lot of ways. So it's easier to pick him off. But the parts that I would criticize of, the roadmap are just as fantasy land as, you know, SLS is real commercial launch, heavy launch doesn't exist, right? That Charlie Bolden quote was as fantasy land as this Jared Eisenstein is. They're going to launch four SLSs in the course of three years. Is nutty and he's allowed to say that it's possible because people have said that it's possible. That's the port and a

Death Star, Jake. They've said they could fly annually. They said that Centaur 5 would slot in easily on this vehicle. They've said that these landers can be done on this timeline. Everyone has said that this is possible. Axiom says they're going to be ready. I've given them all authority to go and be ready, and no one was. Is that Jared's fault at that point? Yeah, it depends on you play it, but I can see this strategy. Yeah. We did it. I guess, yeah. Well, we'll see. I guess if you do the opposite, like, worst case scenario situation where it's like these contractors realize they're under threat. I'm sure they realize it, but like they get it. Like, shit, like, this is happening.

Like, we're not going to meet any of these deadlines. And now we're, we're under threat, right? Like, what's the, what's the survival response from the Orion team and the SLS core team and the RS-25 team and the, hell, even the RL10s are happy. They got a lot more RL10s. They're about half happy, yeah. Yeah, they're half happy. Twice as many flights, half as many engines.

They come out of the wash, right? There you go. They're like, wow, the accounting just worked out. That's great. I was talking to somebody recently that was like, we should just bring that stage from the Saturn 1 back with the six RL 10s. It was the Saturn 1 upper stage, right?

Yeah. I guess Aerojet comes out, right? They got more RS-25s in the book. How are they going to? Oh, my God. I mean, the other thing is that I think we should not discount the ISS extension to 2032. That's Boeing prime contractor. Yeah. That's a lifeline to Starliner. Yeah. Like, that has been an under noted storyline in this.

Yeah. Can you see like something where, you know, the primes come back and say, yeah, we can, we can do this new schedule. It's going to be this much more money. Like, you want to fly twice as many as LS this term. This is how much the budget has to go up by. And then like Congress like doesn't meet it on purpose. Right. And they go, no, we're going to find it the same we did last year. We're going to plus it up like we do every year by 5% or whatever the stupid number is. We're going to just give you a little bit more than NASAS for it and just figure it out. And go, that's what we got. It, you know what? Iran's expensive.

There's shit going on here. We got a lot of debt. You get what you got last year. And then Boeing goes, yeah. Sorry, Isaac, you didn't give us the money we need.

We can deliver the old plan if you want, right? Can you see like that kind of jockeying happening? And then it's like you don't get anywhere, you know? I don't know. Yeah, but the previous one was everything took twice as long,

so they got twice as much money for half as much stuff. Like there's still an inexplicable, where did all the money go? Comprehending that we have a lot of times, right? Like when this launch slips a year and a half, where does that Orion money go to? If the next Orion isn't ready. Dollar is just coming out of the account, man. But do we not work on the other stuff?

Like, as Orion, why isn't the Orion that's what they said would be ready this year for the other launch, when the other launch was this year not ready if you got all the money for it on that schedule? I can never understand this. And I don't have anyone that will be able to explain this to me, even Casey Dreyer. Yeah. That's the great. Got to get Randy back to talk about how. the government money works because it's different, right?

I think it's easy. They're just going to tell you we had to keep all these people on staff. It's an unacceptable answer, though. What happened to the work on the Orion that you said you were working on, on the timeline you said you were working on it before? The work took longer. Before I let this go by, I was going to see if, oh, I forgot to hit a allow. I was trying to have, trying to create a Git directory with the Git history as an accurate representation of the changes to the Artemis program over the years. And I want to check in to see if that's ready yet. I'll post that after the fact that if that's able to be created. I would love to see that, the Artemis Program repository with like PRs for each programmatic change.

That's really funny. That's an audience of 14 people that just happened to listen to this show. It's just a JSON file with like all like that. configurations. Well, we'll figure it out. That would be a really fun project, actually. Well, it might be done by the end. I keep having to allow searches, but.

Just feed it all the different Jeff Faust articles and be like, piece this together into a Git repository. The Starship V3 slips was a moment. I was like, oh, all right, Jeff. Let's roll with that for a second. I don't feel good about Starship, Jake. Quick check in. No.

Check in on the vibes there. I mean, we had this discussion. I don't feel good about SpaceX at all. Starlink mini, great product, though, as you appreciate. Starlink regular, also a great product, mostly. So, yeah, it's just that cascades down to Starship, too. It's just, yeah, it's taking a long time. I don't know.

I don't know what else to say. Everyone has already said it. We don't need to add anything to that, I don't think. No, just not great vibes. I'm not feeling it. I don't know. Like, where do we think they're going to be? be by the end of the year if they're expecting to have a lander.

I mean, good news is the lander rendezvous and Leo gives them the ability to not have propellant transfer worked out by that mission because they can launch the lander to Leo. Yeah, but the one with it, though, is like still the same year. I know. It's barely later. It's not different from before. That timeline doesn't change internally for SpaceX. that doesn't change.

The old plan is you had to have Artemis 3 propellate transfer ready in 2028. The new plan is you have to have Artemis 4 propellate transfer ready in 2020. Yeah, good point. And actually it's early 2028. So it actually moved up like three months. It moved up a few months actually.

Oh, unless they're the second one. Unless they don't make it, yeah. Right. They're Artemis 5. That's your Isaacson strategy, which I believe. Part of me wants to know, like, Jared, do you believe that you could fly as many SLSs in this time? You're saying this, but do you really believe that? I can't.

He's too smart. If I told him that when interviewing him, and when he was not the administrator, he would be like, no. No way that's happening. Yeah, he can't, that's the game in politics. He can't reveal your actual true line of thinking, right? You got to disconnect. You'd be like, listen, man, we're going to work really hard. It's a hockey interview all over again.

right. Yeah. Just going to play our game. We're going to puck the deep. Just gets shots on the netman. Yeah. The body's on. I believe in this team. You know, we've worked really hard. It's a good team. We've got her shoulders backs and it's, I think we're just going to go out and play our game and, you know, see how it goes. Got them. Hell yeah. Got them. I don't know. I'm here for it. I'm here for the strategy of make everybody commit to it. It's the off nominal dream, though. No matter what happens, we got content, baby. Oh, let's go. We have content. Yeah.

We're going to have some spicy tweet wars. We're going to have some dueling press conferences from different companies. We're going to see some freaking janky prototype landers for sure on Artemis 3. It's going to be just vaguely lander-shaped pieces of steel floating in Leo that have a vaguely docking port-shaped circle on the top. And it's going to be fun. Yeah. Let alone if all of it's going to work for the first time. Yeah.

All right. Well, we'll leave you with one other scenario which we won't expand upon, which is the China threat is real and the money comes in, maybe. Let's go. All right. There we go. If you want to support the China dream come to upnom.com slash discord where you'll hear more China takes. Uh-huh.

And takes on AI, which is currently vibe coding my Artemis. get history. So we'll see if I put that up on. We do talk a lot about AI. Yeah. And Anthony never gets my back in those conversations. Sorry. I don't open that thread up, but I'm with you. It's me against the rest of them. And nobody knows that. They don't know it because I'm so busy doing work with it all. You're being so productive. Yeah. You don't know time for shenanigans. We have an assistant that works for us for real now, Jake. Yeah. Yeah. The once fabled intern now is real. just like SLS is real. Thank you, Charlie.

We should get Bolden on the show. What do you think about Artemis for? Yeah. Let's do it. All right. That'd be funny. All right. Thanks, everybody.

See you later. Bye. Bye.