Off-Nominal - 234 - FREEDOM! (with Lori Garver)

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

Lori Garver, former NASA Deputy Administrator, joins Jake and Anthony to talk about NASA’s Ignition event, and the unbelievably fast-moving space policy landscape. Topics Off-Nominal - YouTube Episode 234 - FREEDOM! (with Lori Garver) - YouTube Ignition - NASA NASA Unveils Initiatives to Achieve America’s National Space Policy - NASA Lori Garver on X: “Acknowledgement of shortcomings in the current Artemis plan is healthy & a welcome change from past NASA leadership. The focus on Artemis spin over substance has been troubling since its inception. However, expressing confidence that we can add a flight in between & make two…” Follow Lori Lori Garver Lori Garver (@Lori_Garver) / Twitter Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age: Garver, Lori Amazon.com: Books 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

DLS and go for main engine, start. Well, Jake, the news never stops, and our strategy pays off to, let's leave a lot of room in the schedule, and then on a very short notice, randomly loop in one of our favorite guests of all time, Lori Garver, who's got an excellent new background. How you doing?

Yeah, look at this. Fantastic. A lot of times people don't have good backgrounds, but this is a good background game. You've got a book signing thing. What is the one in the... Yeah, your tour, your tour. What do you got?

Okay, so yeah, that's my book cover from launch party. Everybody signing it who's there. Flown flags on shuttles. I've got so many of those. Some of them are on eBay. I've got, I've had people write me. Lloyd Garber, I think someone stole your flung flag because I bought it on eBay and I can send it to you. It's like, no, no, no, that's fine.

That's me. Dismissive. The pin montages are. one that it's every shuttle pin and then one is every space station expedition pin through the time that I was deputy. Wow. But I was saying, I mean, yeah, those government jobs, especially NASA, the pay isn't outstanding, but the pins are great.

Yes, are that hold down bolts from the STS-134 mission on the shuttle that are bookends, stuff like that. that's a great that's a great book I'm going to check eBay for those at a couple years are you the one that's selling all the flight jackets on eBay is that you? Is that your secret identity?

Never had one. Never had one and I've been thinking I should just buy one because maybe if I just reserved a suborbital flight I could walk around and one. Yeah, good. We lost you there, Anthony.

Or is that me? Am I gone? We aren't hearing Anthony. Oh. How about now? It's not me. Okay. Usually it's me.

It was me, apparently. All right. I don't know. We're back. We got it. We're back. Oh, boy. What do you got?

Would you bring a fun drink, Lori? Yes. So what, say you were a, not a captain on a ship at sea, but the first mate. And the captain was not all you'd hoped for. and you went through some really trying seas for years and years out in the desert, what would you be? A salty dog. I'm going to be a salty dog today. Such a little on a nose.

Definitely not an analogy in any way. Amazing. A salty dog. Okay. Wow. What about you? Hold on. What is a salty dog, though?

What's in that? Oh, great juice and vodka with salt on the rim. All right. Okay. Sounds like your kind of thing, honestly, Jake. It's also lovely and very refreshing. Because it's very hot here in Denver. It's March and it's 86 or something.

Well, baseball seasons upon us. Sounds warm. It's a lot, Jake. It's a lot. What did you got? Would you got something? Do you got another mead for us, Jake? No, I got, I picked this up at a gift shop.

I had some friends visiting this week and we went to all the touristy stuff. but this is passion fruit liqueur, maraca. So I found this and I was like, I love passion fruit. And so I was like, what can I make with this? And I asked Chad GPT to give me a cocktail recipe. And it was like, don't overthink this man. Just make a margarita and use that for the thing. So that's what we got, Passion Fruit margarita.

Nice. Did it actually say don't overthink this man? Probably. It kind of implied it because the other one that gave him was a rum punch. I'm like, that's not, I don't need your help for that. not your thing we often try to have thematic drinks on the show

with salty dog Jake will have like uh meads kitchily named after Jupiter moons or something and so there's a lot of news this week out of DC

big NASA event and we've also we've been on the search for Jared Isaacman's problematic trait right because he's getting all the good press all the time and we're like, how could he be a nice guy

and not get the billionaire flack? And we finally found it as he rolled out the name of this event, Ignition. That man is an R. Kelly fan. He's still kicking it with R. Kelly. So I said, I'm going to be sipping on some Coke and rum in honor of Jared Eisenman's favorite song, Ignition remix, obviously, by R. Kelly.

So I went some Coke and rum. It's the freaking weekend. I'm going to have me some fun. I don't know if either of you get this reference. Well, someone out there will. Not enough, but I get it. It's in there. You can throw it on later.

Maybe he's just really good at separating art from artists. I don't know. Maybe he might be. It's good at a lot of things. Turns out. Turns out. This is a crazy, like, there was so much news this week, and yet a lot of it had been presage for, like, you know,

month. It's felt like a longer rollout yet a more stark announcement in that one day, which is kind of a weird balance that some of this we heard about and then all of it happening at the same time in a very long day. Yeah, before I think people are saying, what else is there to say? He said all these things and then it's like, oh my gosh, it's a nine hour thing. And then there's a day. And it turns out there's a lot to say. Yeah. This press conference really snuck up on me because it's like, oh, I got, you know, whatever email and I just kind of like scan it. It's like, oh, nine o'clock tomorrow we're going to talk, you know, I have a press call. I'm like, oh, cool. I'll tune that in and, you know, I'll have

my coffee or something. And then it's like, oh, no, this is all day. I don't, I don't have time to watch all this. I don't go to work and stuff. What do I do? So I was like scrambling this week to try and like read all the articles. I'm like, oh, my gosh. Yeah. Yeah, it was like a marathon. He really went for it. that's pretty good. Great production value. They had a lot of good prepared videos. I'm amazed at the amount of content that was produced for the event.

So hat tip to whoever those people are, because they're probably a good chance they listen to this show. That's our demographic of people who make media and tech things for NASA. That was impressive. Yeah, that was good. You put everybody to work. Especially the content that, yes, there were. was some announced previously, but it was kept on the DL. And clearly a lot of people involved and having been in that position,

knowing what NASA reacts to, at least in my time, boy, that's a heavy lift on its own. It was great. Yeah. So we were talking just in the pre-show about two weeks ago, Anthony and I had the conversation because that was following the authorization bill and the kind of the earlier changes to SLS that was announced. And Anthony and I were, we felt far apart on that episode. I don't think we actually were, but it sounded.

It felt like we were far apart on those things. And then, Laura, you're saying that you came somewhere in the middle. So I'm really excited to kind of like unpack that. And I have, I have like, I don't know, kind of a framework for how we can talk about this. And I want to see what you guys think about this. So I'm kind of looking at these changes and I've got five buckets of topics. So I've got the gateway cancellation. We've got clips, you know, ramping up.

I'm putting that kind of in its own little bucket because I feel like that's got its own weight. We've got this Mars, nuclear Mars mission. We've got changes to commercial stations. which is pretty big and then SLS. Changes too in a verbal admonishment of commercial stations, I should say. Yes. That was brutal. Pretty tough words for commercial stations.

A lot of verbal admonishing going on. Yeah. So what I thought we would do is because I'm trying to think of why Anthony and I were apart. And I think it's because we had different, you know, rubrics on what we were grading these on. And so I was thinking about looking at these from three perspective. and I want to go through them and then we can all like score it.

That's my plan on this. And what you think it achieves in this. We've assembled a panel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So here's the rubric. Okay, so one I'm passionate about this one being on here is leadership. So like how how much does this decision, you know, like embody the virtue of leadership? Okay.

Is it bold? Is it brave? Right. One is quality. So this is like putting aside the execution. Assume it all goes through. exactly as plan. Is it, is it a good plan? Like, is it actually something that we want? And then the third thing is feasibility, which is the, where the rubber hits the road, right? Like, is it actually

something that is achievable. So those is my three kind of like rubrics that I was thinking about. And I think that's why Anthony and I were apart because we were looking at different ones. But yeah, I was, I was dumbed out here with the Mission Accomplish banner. It rolled out behind me. Like, we did it, folks. We already, we already did it. I was laughing that it was kind of like, you were excited because you got Christmas presents. And I was sad. because I was not going to get Christmas presents next year. Or that you couldn't play with them for at least five years. And then they were going to get returned.

But, you know, that's how it goes. Okay, that's my plan. So I don't know, which one you want to start with? Which, Laura, you pick. What's your, what's all the five topics? I love a matrix strategy for our discussion like that. Moon base doesn't seem to be in there. I would have just.

Well, it's gateway. But to put that under gateway. Okay. Jake's just downplaying it. It's gateway canceled, but it's actually a reformatted gateway program. And I think feasibility needs at least a layer under there of for schedule. Because a lot of this, I think, is very feasible, but not on the schedule. Yeah.

Provided. But I think that's part of, and this is what I think Anthony really nailed on your discussion, where I do feel like I was between you two, you were each convincing me, that maybe baked into that schedule is some strategic value. So that's good. Yeah. Meaning, like, I think my thing was, it is a forcing mechanism of... If you don't think they can do it, then, you know, that'll take you down a different path.

Jared Eisenman's, as an overarching thing, I want to reiterate this, his superpower is being able to have people go up and stand in front of a podium and say a true thing that has been evidently true from the outside for so long, and yet they have been unwilling to say it. And that's both ways, right? Like, everybody's saying we can hit these schedules for so long. But say it and be revered for saying it. And saying it in a way that is exciting, probably even to people who a little bit, well, yeah, okay, we fucked that up a bit.

But, you know, you're right. let's go forward. I think that's a really valuable thing because there were so many times I was ready. We had documents. Charlie, you need to say the problems with consolation. You need to ignore, oh, I couldn't do that to the workforce. That would just be so sad.

It's like, well, why are we canceling it then? We aren't giving any reason. So for me, this is cathartic. This is envy of this leadership at NASA, wishing we had any of the last X number of administrators ago. You know, it's really, I want to say this because I'm going to have, no, quips, but they're, they're really, it is overall as a leader, as an exercise, you guys have discussed many times, does the mass administrator matter?

I think it was the first question we asked you. They knew. They could. Maybe they just haven't used their power. You got somebody. You're right as hell. leaning into their power, which I told you was always possible. Yeah.

So, yes. Perfect place to start Jake's crazy rubric. Let's go. You're the show man, Jake. What do we, pick an order for us. All right. Well, I mean, yeah, let's do Gateway slash Moon Bay. So just as a quick summary.

So Gateway is, quote, paused and possibly repurposed on a later day, but, you know, vaguely not quite canceled. I don't know how the terminology was funny on it, but they're essentially canceling it. We've got PPE going to the Mars thing. 100%. Not even the scale, Jake once out of us, but I love that it's 100%. I don't know the scale. Yeah, he didn't even tell us the scale.

I don't know. What do you want? She gives us 100 across all the board, all boards? 100% all boards? I'm going to tell you, as I love to spill the tea, that the transition team going into the Biden administration. I was not part of it. They talked to me several times and they were hand-wringing very, very serious people looking into Artemis, seeing that we can't deliver on all this. They said, we can't do a lander and gateway. Which should we cancel? I'm like,

gateway. Like, how many chances do we get? And he said, oh, but what about our international agreements? You know, hand-wring. And, you know, this is part of it. must be made. And unfortunately, the way that went down with the White House getting the press conference from Kristen Fisher and so forth, I was boarding, yes, here's the answer. She said she'll get back to you. Outline why, if you can't say Gateway yet is going to be canceled in favor of on-surface activities, then at least say it doesn't. line up. It doesn't make, and they, Bill Nelson got a hold of it and here, here we are, how many billions later. So this is long-awaited for, I'm sure we all agree. Yeah. I'm 100% if that's

a scale, Jake. What are we doing on the scale? But give me, give me your breakdown though. So all three scales, you're 100%? You're all in. Leadership, quality, and feasibility. That's what it needed. It needed leadership and maybe an administration that really is well. to say to international partners our way of the highway. Quality. I don't know how that really plays here, except that it didn't make sense, and now it does, so that's quality.

And then so feasibility, PPE, going, freedom, nuclear electric, with Mars helicopters We can rate that separately. That wasn't even on your list. No, it's another one. He's got it.

That's item three. Oh, okay. I think it's very feasible, especially since, as you guys have covered very well, he's got at least the Senate on board. And here again,

I will say just that brilliant leadership so this could go under that. We don't know. I will await Jared's book in, I don't know, 50 years. He's for young. And to hear how that went down, you know, was there what I recommended? And again, working for a president that sort of gives you a wider birth on this, just call it and say, oh, my goodness, this is how bad and dumb this is for the nation.

Do you want to be tied to this, Senator or something? You know, like I just feel like transparency helps in so many ways. And when as soon as he had, because we're not covering Starship here, but I haven't been on it since that. That was really the, that broke the third wall of we don't talk about things that NASA doesn't do well. And once he went there and visibly was personally angered by what he learned, I don't know if it's true or not that he didn't know how bad things were before then. but it was very effective. That was the moment, Starliner, you're talking about. Starliner.

That was the moment. Oh, did I say Starz? Yeah, I mean, they're kind of both in a bad spot at the moment, but we'll leave the one. Let's do the one really bad one. The Starliner press conference was that first moment where it was visible that he was doing things differently and going out and actually just talking plainly and straight up.

And I don't know if it was planned that that was like the week before the Artemis call, but that felt like the first moment where it was like, we're going to do like truth and reconciliation for a month of like, yeah, none of these plans were ever feasible and we couldn't say it. The end of the press conference yesterday when Amit said we couldn't talk about these things because of our constraints was fucking unbelievable to me. Like, I was stopped in my tracks that he said this out loud was that we knew this for a long time and we couldn't say it because of our constraints. Now, Jared's points is those are self-imposed constraints. I guess Amit's point would have been, it was congressional constraints or something,

but the fact that they so openly said the thing that we identify, which is, yeah, Jared's making everybody go out and say the truth. It's like, it's just a mind-blowing sentence that I'm going to probably print out and hang on my wall. It was a real moment for me, too. We didn't have anything like that. Charlie would never have said, you can't say X or Y. was opposite, you know. Yeah. Say what you want. It was like the unified front thing.

It was three years for three billion. Woo-hoo. But that is clearly an indictment of the previous leadership. I mean, they have not shy away from saying the previous administration a bunch of times. Will there be things that people want to say now that they can't say, sure. You know, there's always going to be that. To your point about the schedule, right, this is really easy to go out. if you're emboldened to go say the truth, it's really easy to go out and say these things made no sense

and we're correcting the wrongs of the last 10 years. But when it's your schedule in two years that hasn't flown these things, how well are they going to be doing with the truth telling at that moment? That's going to be the true make or break thing for them. I called it magical thinking and he came back at me. We all do respect and I. Starting to Twitter wars out there. You move out of D.C., but you can still kick up some dust in the D.C. circuit. You were both very respectful, and a couple people commented,

how nice that you can have leaders on, you know, other political spectrums having this substantive discussion. It's almost like you both legitimately care about developing space more than just getting a partisan win for your side. I know he does, and that's why I just want to be super clear that the leadership is stunning. in a positive way. But what are you guys? You're supposed to. Yeah, what's your grade, Jake? Give me, and do your scale, Jake, that you wanted to, you never told us what the scale was.

Now it's percentages. Yeah. If it's a 10, if it's a 5, what's top? Five, five, I guess, to reason about, but I don't know. It doesn't really matter. It's just giving your vibes. But, no, I'm obviously into this. And I think that, well, I would knock one point off of leadership only because Gateway

kind of canceled itself. It was like a pretty obvious target in some ways. Like, I mean, as soon as Russia invaded Ukraine and was not going to be part of the IGA, it was kind of like, what are we doing this for? Like this is obviously supposed to be like the like, which one of us from Canada? Jesus Christ. This is like you're complete heretic. You're never going to be allowed back in the country.

No, no, no, no, no, no. Because we got the Artemis Accords. The IGA was for Russia. Oh, you got a seat on Artemis II is what you got. That's what you got. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, everything's fun. You're fun.

The payoff of everyone's saying, what are we going to do with our arm? It's like, who cares? Jeremy Hanson's flying around the moon pretty soon. Is that your point? Well, I mean, that really worked out for us that you had to pay us before we paid you. And we're fine with that. You owe us one. No, but like as soon as Russia had invaded Ukraine and they were not any part of the IGA,

it was like, well, this is kind of a silly thing because the Artemis Accords is like replacing it and Russia is the only difference and they're not part of it. And then there's like, then like super stuff happened. and it was like, oh man. And then like Dragon X-L, you know, it was, well, not real. It was very obvious that this was not going anywhere. So I do, I'm glad they did it.

But, yeah, I'll take one point off of that. You are so unfair to the, to the fact that. Four to five is a great leadership. No, this one point is bullshit. This is a bullshit one point. Gayway got $10 billion, pretty much, eight months ago. And no one else has. even been willing to say anything negative about it in the leadership of NASA for how many years.

That's why he gets four and five points. Jay, you have to take. That's an honor student. Man, we are. This is the maddest that me and Lori have ever been at you in this whole show, especially because so many of the things that they said about Gateway, you could probably have copy and pasted sentences we've said on this show about Gateway and put it in that press conference and it would have been the exact same content.

Like, they're doing the thing that we've been binging about for years. giving self room for something else being even better. Fine. I'll tone it down. Yeah. My blood pressure is hot right now. You definitely got it. You definitely got it.

Quality, great. Yeah, get rid of it. Feasibility feels pretty feasible. All of a sudden, everybody wants a moon base. So, rock and roll. And that's the part he said openly too, which has been a, my line of thinking, was, given the choice, no one would pick orbiting the moon. everybody will figure out what to do on the surface.

It just was easier before when you could say, I don't know, we'll build an airlock or something. And now it's like, I don't know, we'll lay a habitat down on the side. Like, you want a pressure vessel? We'll build one and we'll just put it on the surface instead of in orbit. Or, you know, Jackson was always planning a rover. They were on it. Jackson was on it way before anyone.

They're like, we'll just start working on a rover in whatever that means in their system. And we'll talk up the fact that we're going to do a pressurized rover for 10 years. And then eventually everyone will come around to being on the surface. And we'll be lined up perfectly for this. So credit to Jackson. Here, this evolved only as a place the SLS and O'Rang could go to when it couldn't go to the surface. So, you know, if you look at the winding path to get us here, and I was there at the time, and I remember where I was sitting when Gert and Suff first brought this idea to me individually.

Charlie wasn't even in the room, so I was just, like, laughing. I was like, no, no, no one cares about that. No. And I'm like, well, you know, it's a good step because astronauts are used to only being so far away, we need to like spend time being farther away. Every astronaut would be so mad. They would be so mad if they're just sitting on the space station. They do. I mean, that was gurst and stuff.

That is what is just, you know, there's so many of these things that are ironic. but it didn't come about because astronauts wanted to be farther away from in space. Not a good enough reason. And then Mars, I don't happen to believe space policy should be driven by what astronauts want to do. That's maybe another whole show. But yes, this is what they want to do. Right. I mean, right now we have both an astronaut and ahead of NASA.

What? I mean, the head of NASA is an astronaut, not in the way that yours was. Well, not a NASA, not a NASA astronaut. Yeah, yeah. They have, but I love that everyone's, you know, quick sidejack to your SLS comment too, though, real quick, because they subtly floated the cancellation and, and obviating of SLS completely under the radar when they said,

hey, we might not use the ICPS for Artemis 3. We might save that for Artemis 4, which means, and I think this is true per some other reporting that SLS itself could just get Orion into Leo and they don't need an upper stage to do that. They could they could boost it and have Orion do the circularization burn to the low Earth orbit that they would need to do for Artemis 3, which then also means that, I don't know, have it's Orion ever been into Leo without SLS before? Yeah, it did the one time when they made that a whole thing. And then there's, I don't know, did this come up in the call, in the, in the call, the Lauren Grush-Bloomberg story about

Starship taking Orion from low Earth orbit to low lunar orbit as a plan that is in the works? I don't know if that came up in ignition or if it was just her reporting. I don't believe it did. I mean, if that's also part of the plan, then you don't need the SLS for any of that. Yeah, yeah. To 100% Jake. That's my rating. If you do it underhanded, though, it's not good leadership.

Agree. Agree. Okay. All right. The five out of five leadership was canceling EUS. That was the five of five leadership right there. Okay. Is this the second one?

Sure. It's going to. Because we're all going to agree about that. Yeah. It's thank you. Neither of these things could come soon enough, right? Truth. And the fact that this quickly into his tenure gives,

gives extra leadership points. Six out of five. Next, Jake. Next item. We got to hear, we talked about the story, but we need to hear Lori's take on quality and feasibility of the new Artemis architecture. Well, she said feasible and she called bullshit on your inclusion of the word quality in this. Well, you're conflating terms, Artemis versus Gateway to Moonbase.

I mean, the SLS architecture for on that. Talking on the And that's where I'm going to need to separate feasibility from schedule. Love it. The, I think it is feasible.

I believe that adding Artemis 3 going into Leo is a step, sigh of relief to a lot of people. But it does, when you pull on a thread, as with so many of these things, it really opens up the trade space.

And it's not clear, like, you just raised, you need SLS them for that. Or is that more about giving pressure to the lander people? Like who, you know, having it be an actual competition. In my world, I was told SLS would be, and it was in law, flying to Leo by 2016. So, you know, all these discussions about, oh, it's the law. Oh, yeah. And you know what?

Orion's going to serve a space station. That's in the law, too. So, like, these, it just, it's a question of, by the time I left in 2013 and my exit interview with space news, I said I thought SLS was behind at least a year or two. NASA put out a press release and the head of Boeing program put out a statement saying they were ahead of schedule and that was for us the last July launched in 2018. So it is hard for me to believe. If in fact we can do them on annual cadence, what the hell have they been doing? Yeah.

And it was this just we, I mean, I totally understand block one like that makes so much sense. and giving them a shorter deadline of which someone's going to remember it and hold them to it is important. But then you've got the landers, the feasibility of a moon base, based on the current architecture, which isn't really different, other than the very positive gateway doesn't exist anymore. And we can maybe use some of what was developed there. I'm probably not going to put that as high. Yeah. It's a lot. It's a lot when you have two and a half years left of an administration where you are in a highly polarized environment.

It's probably going to get more polarized in November, right? Probably. It's almost an open presidential election a year from that. Yeah. Yeah. And so keeping the momentum is important. It's another reason I think cadence or saying there'll be cadence is great. Here, the disconnect for me is, and you guys have said this too, people can't help.

But he's increased the cadence. Well, he's increased the hope for the cadence, you know? He's asked for high cadence. We'll see. Yeah. And even he says that. You have to execute. Yeah.

I was thinking about what you. said Anthony about like, you know, this being a forcing function, which I do agree with. And there's a, there's a scenario where that plays out like perfectly, right? Where it's like, he calls for a higher cadence and then Artemis 3 rolls around and Axiom is ready and SpaceX is ready and Blue Origin is ready and Boeing isn't. And then it's like, that's like the gift because you can go, I ask for this. Everyone else delivered. Where are you? And then you have like a lot of like capital to like go after that, the bad part of the program. Right. But the, the risky part is that like, what have none of them are ready?

you know, and then it's like, oh, this actually wasn't anyone's problem. What are the chances that SLS that's gotten $30 billion and 15 years ahead isn't going to be. I mean, they say the parts are at the Cape. You know, that shouldn't be the long pole. I think that's the genius maneuver is that, you know, your era of NASA, Lori, not your fault, but just when you were there, right? Maybe it is your fault. I don't know, you tell me, there was this unified front thing that has lasted up until now

where there was no. distance between NASA and the contractor or even the fixed price contractor in the commercial crew program. There was no distance between them. And therefore, it was no one's responsibility to say whose fault it was. So NASA would say, well, you can ask the contractors because it's fixed price. We don't control it. And they would say, well, you should ask our customer because they're the ones in charge of PR. And you could just play, you know, PR chicken in the way that everyone's also been playing scheduled chicken. And they've broken from that. lies. Everybody lies. But then

they've broken from that where Jared's point has been, NASA's got X amount of responsibility in this stuff, and we can be honest about our side of it. And his strategy is, I'm going to list out all the things that people have told me on their schedule. And I'm going to say, SLS, you've told me since the beginning that they could fly once a year. Go ahead and do it. Starship, you said you'll be ready next year. I'm going to I'm going to pencil you in for that. Okay. Blue Origin, you're doing all this

stuff. Pencil you in for that next year too. You've all said this. So somebody go do it. And NASA has... What will you do? I'll just play Jake in this if and when they don't deliver. That's the question. But he's separating himself from that. He's separating NASA from that. He's saying, we're the customer. We're expecting it because you said it. He didn't say the schedule. They said the schedule. What I'm writing down is my plan for NASA is all the schedules you told me. Axiom, you're going to be ready for the spacesuit. I'll write it down. But then, but there was no distance before, right? It was It was like, Axiom schedule is our schedule and Starship schedule is our schedule. Now it's like NASA's expectations are this.

You deliver on it. And that gives them space to say, well, they didn't deliver, so we get to go figure out a new plan. I'm just going to say that it's not necessarily a panacea, OMB's strategy, when we got forced to do SLS and we hadn't requested it in the 2011 budget, we're going to the 2012 budget. You know me. I'm like, cancel it again. They're behind. They're not doing it. Like, just double down.

I'm like, Russ Boyd out there. And OMB said, no, we are going to give them exactly what they requested, exactly what we said. And we're going to do that every year. So when they aren't there in 2016, we can say, you failed. Well, you know what? That's not very satisfying. They got what they asked for and more. That's why I find one of the things I love that Jared is saying is $25 billion is enough to have a first.

rate space program. And a little slush fund. There's a little, little, one big, beautiful bill slush fund that he's got. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, that really didn't work for us with OMB. And I think maybe because it was a longer period of time before they deliver. And also, we, we did not have the leadership. That's why I give such high marks for leadership, because I really think even then you could have said, okay, then these are the milestones. And besides, the bill said, to the greatest extent, practicable. And as we've discussed, practicable means, you know,

it is possible. And it wasn't. What they were saying wasn't. And that has been proven out. So we've got to prove it again. Okay. Happy to see it. Yeah.

I'm just, you know, so I'm just like, you know, Anthony, I don't think we're a part on this. I just, we're looking at it differently, right? Because it's like, I love the threat, right? And there was, there was like a not even thinly veiled threat in this press conference, right? Or he was like, you need to deliver.

And if we don't, what do you say? There's going to be some uncomfortable action if you don't meet your deadlines. And then he looked at everyone in Congress. You all know what I'm talking about. Like that was like literally, that's like not even like a paraphrase. And so like there's a threat on there. And the thing about threats is you have to be able to follow through. Right.

And if it's, if it's one contractor, great. Cut it out. Execute the program. But like if it's all of them, you can't just cut them all out and restart Artemis. in 2027 or 2028, right? It's game over. Which is why you made redundancy in competition, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

All right, so let me segue that way segue that. Let's segue, yeah, redundancy in competition. Let's segue, let's use this as a little bridge between this program and the commercial space stations. Yesterday was a, was this yesterday? Two days ago? Tuesday. Day more. Two days ago.

Their hearing was yesterday. The CLD, Leo, hearing. That's right. Um, axioms making out like a fucking bandit in this whole thing because they're getting absolutely no pressure on their spacesuit. Every time it's brought up, it's very, very pushy, like, or very like, you know, not pushy, I should say. And that's the only spot in the art of this program where there has not been redundancy inserted. And I kind of get it because Jared Eisenman going out and saying, let's do another space suit contract would be him saying, let's get SpaceX a

spacesuit contract. I'm the fucking guy who paid for it the first time and wore the dance. thing out in space. I kind of get that that he doesn't want to go out and do that. But they're getting no pressure on the spacesuit front. He said made his suit for no cost in seemingly zero time. I mean, I was also the guy that was like openly saying I couldn't invest in

SpaceX and he bought it. He paid for the thing. Like yeah. So I get that. But also now they're saying oh well you know what we'll do? We'll just buy AX1, the module that they're planning for the space station. This whole plan seems like purchase AX1 off of Axiom and then let

everyone go be a commercial space station developer. The JSC Mafia runs deep, Jake. Please give me your take. It does. It really does. Yeah. Yes. That's an interesting thing to think about because it's just like, oh, well, Gateway

gone, like Johnson takes a hit. Why aren't they like screaming foul? It's like, well, they're doing just fine. They got a bunch of XEAS. They got an axiom purchase order from NASA for a Hensw on. And they got lunar, Luter back. Vipers back on it. Yeah.

So the Leo CLD plan, is that the next thing? Yeah, I just wanted to throw some shade at the axiom spaces. Yeah, so the shade. That's incredibly interesting and probably important again. We won't find out for a while. But this plan does not get a 5 or 100% in my view. And I think we will disagree on this. I'm with you.

I know we've discussed this, and the market for microgravity, a combination from tourism to biopharma to silicon chips hasn't proven itself. To have the leader of NASA go so far out and say this market is not developed enough when he has not talked, because clearly, Yes, you're getting the CLD partners lining up saying nice things about the overall plan. Again, back to this point of you can't say everything. There's still people now who feel they can't say anything. You don't want to cross Jared, obviously, is incredibly, incredibly. It shows a lack of, I think, thoughtfulness of this whole plan. So if we are the nation's space program and human space flight is a core tenant, he keeps saying space station, you know, presence in Leo is absolutely critical.

This is so not going to get a leadership. Okay. I don't know. Three, quality. One. You can say it to five. feasibility. Again, with the timing.

I mean, George Wrightsides asked. great question at yesterday's hearing of Joe Montobano, you know, wait, let me understand this program. You are starting now to put out an RFI and then an RFB for a module that is supposed to attach the station with all the station requirements, by the way, those are not small. The whole reason Axiom wasn't in the lead was because attaching to NASA's space station, the international space station requires so much in the way of cost that these other simpler commercial Leo destinations don't. Now you're making them backup have to attach to a space station, which you still see is going to

deorbit in 2030, maybe 32. I don't think this is the most thoughtful part of the point. lamb. And the markets for Leo commercial development, you know, they've raised billions, literally, from private sector markets. And now you're turning on them and saying, no, that does not bode well for partnerships that you want to have on the moon. And you think the markets for microgravity Leo are underdeveloped? How about those lunar commercial markets? way, way less developed. So the success of commercial cargo and crew was we knew there were customers beyond NASA or even just government.

And to come in so quickly and dismiss, I've been hearing about, yeah, low gravity markets for 40 years longer than, is he 40? Just barely, I think. And so I'm as question as any how slow it's been, but there's lots of reasons, and I'm sure people could tell him those reasons. And NASA is a big part of it. You know, we've only had a couple hours of astronaut time because the space station is so onerous to operate. You know, there's a lot of substantive reasons, and there's a lot of promise, and the costs need to come down. And I thought it was really interesting how much he hammered on the transportation costs still being so high. It is very true.

And that's why we need more competition in Leo to drive this down. So I see economics fear building out. But obviously, he's got a president who has said, we got to land on the moon in my term. We also have to have these helicopters in Mars in my term. I mean, it's funny. Everything imagine that is going to be done by the end of 2028. imagine now. So this one's tough. This one should be evaluated and walk back. And I think a sign of a good leader is you're willing to walk things back. I feel like we're already hearing words like

yesterday's hearing. Like, well, the path could still be that, you know. So we'll see. But lower marks on this one. Jake, I think you're muted, by the way. You're trying to make, you're trying to make comments, but it says guest has muted themselves, which, I mean, maybe you, maybe you should be with your shitty space station takes that'll just vamp over you for, since you muted yourself. I don't know, it says guest has muted themselves. I don't know why it says that, but you did. So, he's back. Well, Anthony, your, your take on this last, I recall, was they weren't worth doing. They should be go and Leo stuff and go beyond.

Yep. the best thing you can do for the Leo market is sync the ISS and let's see what happens. Like, I don't know, Jake's gone. He hates that take. I don't know. He was back. He didn't know he's back. I think the, I think you're right that the optics of just totally ripping into the economics of a Leo market, they went really aggressively to do that. And I was like, you probably didn't need to do that. You probably could have just said, we're not getting sufficient funding. Actually, let me back up a step and tell Jared what he should have done, which was my take this whole time. If you want to keep dunking on Bill Nelson, dunk harder on Bill Nelson and say,

there was a geopolitical moment when you could have went and got a shitload of money for low Earth orbit, ISS replacement stuff, when your partner on the space station invaded an ally, and we got into this big fight with them, and you could have went and got a billion dollars funded that way, because it turns out geopolitics of Russia was good moments to get funding for Lower Earth Orbit initiatives historically. There were two good years of that. It was 2008 and 2014.

And Jesus Christ, was it 2022 or three? And 1957. Well, yeah, that too. Yeah, it turns out. Yeah, in the late 80s. Yeah, the early 90s of the ISS. All of the good moments. To Domain previous administrator over,

but this may be, to your point about the JSC axiom, it seems to me that if there is a weakness with leadership is, you know, this has not been in the NASA environment for long. And NASA has been in the environment for long and they're very good. They're excellent. And being able to convince him there's no markets, there's plenty of facts out there that could show that. they want their space station.

They have never really bought into deorbiting it. Yeah. Yeah, it's more of a gamut to extend the ISS than it is to sink the commercial stations. So susceptibility to maybe, you know, other JSC flyboy astronauts who think this is their terrain, they're smart and they're just going to take bites. They're going to tell you what you want to hear for Moon. they clearly were willing to sacrifice gateway, but you're seeing two years just like you are, and they're like, we can find our way. That's good.

That's an upgrade on my theory of, oh, that's good. This is, because I was like, yeah, I agree about the commercial space station market, but yeah, let's do it in a way that solidifies the ISS as the place. Shit. Well, and it's totally, yeah. One out of five across the board. This is all wrapped up together, right? because it's like you have, you know,

Isaacman has to spend a lot of political capital for the moon stuff. He's like, he's putting his chips on the table for that, right? And so you got to, where do you capitulate? And this one kind of, this kind of makes sense in a like a multi-dimensional way. So it's like,

well, okay, well, commercial stations wasn't working, but we can't really cancel it because we don't have enough capital for that, you know, political capital to do that.

And we don't want to make JSC mad. And we don't want to make Ted Cruz mad. And so we're going to do this thing where we, buy the Axiom module so they're happy. We'll put this other thing down the road. We'll extend the ISS and like, it will, okay, we have a plan, but it's not really a plan. And then just please stop talking about it. Look at the moon. Look at the moon. Look at the moon. And then, you know, 2028 will come by and not much will have changed. And here we are. Right. So that that's your JSE mafia take for sure is that one right there. But I think it's so short-sighted because you've

undermined the very investors who were willing to take a bet on commercial space. And they were also able to talk about doing things that couldn't matter to everyday people. The thing that isn't on your list, I've got to give a shout out to Earth Sciences. If you felt sorry for anyone on the briefings, first it was poor Dana who had to brief the CLD thing. And then it was Nikki. She's talking about science and she goes over Earth like, well, you know, we're looking at how many solar raids are going to come and hurt astronauts. So, you know, where, oh, they are also clearly able to talk about disastrous.

Disasters, non-climate change, but addressing. Yeah. So this is fundamentally something that is in NASA's charter that the public continually does care about it and it's tied to our economy in in bigger ways certainly than a moon base in the next few years and NASA's walking away that's that's a pretty tough tough thing to do but yeah just not discussing it yeah well I mean that's that's a whole other show I think Lori is like the because this whole conversation is like inside the box of like human spaceflight, which is great.

And there's, you know, and that's always going to be like the flagship product of NASA. But like there's a whole bunch of other things they do. And not hearing a ton of that, you know, like the planetary science side too, I feel like is is not like not in a great shape. But I don't see a lot of really good signals from. Never three words a terrible say in a row. So is freedom next? Isn't that what we're on it?

Yeah, nooks to Mars. Let's do it. As I won freedom. Oh, gosh. You were the one that shouted freedom earlier in this show. If it were a game, like seeing how these puzzles fit in, that's where a lot of the brilliance I love comes from. You know, we started PPE with our famous tech program that everyone hated.

And then they made it gateway. Well, so it gets another. Oh, 100%. Wow. Well, I mean, we have it. We built it. Mars helicopters, like, okay, 2028, probably not. But, you know, Jared had said we will never again not send something to Mars in a window.

Well, I was looking back, there's very few where we have missed. So I don't know what that critique is other than I guess now. Which, again, don't know. But, you know, when I came in an 08 on transition team, Charles Alachi came a brief curiosity. It was supposed to launch in the 10 window, and he said, we're just, we're not going to make it. If you press us to do it, it will fail. We have found problems, and he needed 400 million more to make the 2012, and we said yes. And they made 2012.

We did perseverance in 14. You know, we did, they were, Mars community is very good at keeping to that, and JPL delivering. They're expensive. So pulling this off, that would be amazing. I'm not sure I give it 100 on feasibility, but I like its uniqueness. And it is, I think it's a very elegant solution to a lot of problems. And it would be publicly supported if it's not, you know, if they can really do it in that period of time. Yeah. I like everything about it, although I find it weird to, like, there's,

there's so much, like, pragmatism with it. It's like repurposed the PPE, so we don't waste that, do a thing with it. I've been talking about nukes this whole time. This is a great opportunity to put the nuke on there and do that. Like, it's like, oh, yeah, all these things coming together. And then they're like, oh, and we're also going to, uh, in this like slap dash, like, MVP thing, we're going to just, we're going to just take on EDL and throw a few helicopters in there. It's like, what? Exactly. Why don't you just going to waste that? If they just said this is a nuclear tech demo, we're going to send it to Mars and bring it back and do all. I would have been like, that's awesome.

Like, you don't need to do anything else to that. It's already cool, you know. The big leaf to Bill Nelson and his little helicopter that he loves. And it's already paid for it. I don't know. It feels like that's going to derail it, you know. Yeah. It was fixed price and then doubled.

So we'll probably double again. Or some kind of fixed. Whatever Mansour is called now, we'll need a lot more. more money to change. Whatever max ourselves. I am a weirdo in that I care so little about nuclear propulsion. I just don't, I can't

get up for it personally. I'm not like mad about it. It's fine. But I'm not at all down the rabbit hole of like this will solve all of our problems because none of our problems in space history seem to be like the lack of nuclear propulsion. That's never been the thing that I'm like, God damn it, Constellation didn't work out because we didn't have nuclear propulsion.

None of the none of the things are what I would lay at the feet. But I mean, I do think it's, you know, Jared leans into the things that NASA should be doing. And I would agree that that fits in that category of like a thing that the investors, like the CLD investors wouldn't be spending money on is anything with the word nuclear in it. So I'm fine with that. But you're sad about the helicopters, Jake. Or you just think it's going to.

I'm not sad about it. I just think it's a weird conflicts of requirements. And I feel like if this mission doesn't go forward, if it doesn't go forward, if it doesn't go forward or if it's delayed, it's not going to be because of the nuke part. It's going to be because they're like, oh yeah, we're doing planetary EDL and three helicopters and like, we're trying to get JPL on board and they're obviously working through some things. And like, you know, it's like, you could have just, you could have been increased your chance of success so much higher if you had not mentioned that part. I'll take the Mars helicopters. Don't get me wrong. But yeah,

I don't know. It's weird. Yeah. Why not just fly like Mars telecom or orbiter on it or something? Yeah, there's other ideas that I think they, I don't know, is this making, is this, is this, is this the MSR piece offering? Don't worry, JPL here. Well, you know, some of this you can see and I have commented on it is, is PR value and flash. And, you know, that's not all bad. One of the things that NASA is good at. And I think we argue somewhat effectively. Our brand is believing in doing things that may seem beyond your reach.

I describe that differently than doing the near impossible. But to me, it is in human nature. And I have part of my long time support and belief in this stuff is that reason. But how the difficulty if you step back and the feasibility is low on so much of this, certainly within the timeframe. is the backlash. And what does that do to Nass's brand over time? And then pragmatically to leadership of the other party

and how they feel about it and how much grits for the mill we are giving the people who don't want to do this stuff. I just happen to look at the comments of the New York Times article. It was an excellent article that almost, every response is what are we doing this for? And, you know, we haven't connected. We're all in the bubble. We are in the bubble.

So to me, one of the reasons I'm always interested in driving down costs and operational costs especially is because we want to do these things that maybe not everyone is interested in. But those things the public are investing and should have return. And new technology is a great return. An economic benefit from the potential of microgravity research is a return. Her science is a return. A couple dudes walking on the moon, less so. We've all seen the few research, you know, bottom, bottom of what should be NASA's priorities. This is this space version of, It's the economy, stupid. That doesn't matter today because we are excited.

And that's why I wanted at the beginning of the show to really tee up the positive leadership vibe that Jared is exuding. That is just letting that wash over us for a few days, please. Before we realize, you know what? It's a lot of risk. And, you know, I see Jerry playing chess when others have played checkers. I love that. But 3D chess is what happens in a couple years. He, there are several members of Congress of the Republican Party that should be very thankful that Jared got the nomination again because that dude would have, he's a political shark to line all this shit up.

Like, if he did, because there was all that reporting that, oh, I'm just due politics if I got, didn't get that nasty job. Such a dynamic public speaker, clear thinker, clear speaker. And I know the bar maybe isn't that high for recent NASA administrators, but just sometimes you just got to go with the wins. I think you said that. That's why I was running to be NAS administrator in this administration. Absolutely. You could trip over the bar.

This is the easiest job, and I would have never done as well as Jared Eisenman has done. Yeah. I mean it, though. If he did get involved in politics, man, that would have been crazy because this seems like... He absolutely might. He absolutely might. Yeah, I mean, he still could. And that's like...

And doesn't he live in Pennsylvania? Yeah, I mean, he grew up in Jersey, so I'm back on the Jersey side. So he is an Eagles fan, so go birds. As is Christina Cook flying around the moon soon. Go birds. Did we get through your list check? No, I think we missed one. We did?

No, perfect. Yeah. No, got it all. Oh, clips, I guess. Clips ramp up. Yeah. Oh, lightning round. No comments, but numbers.

Clips. I'm a fan. Okay. No, no words. Leadership. I mean, it doesn't take much. One. Doesn't take much.

Okay. Okay. He said 21 by the end of next year. Let's do something more fun. How many will there be? 21 by the end of next year. Landers before the end of 28 and two of them are going to be crude. I'm going to say instead of 21, there'll be 10 and non-crued by the end of 28.

But I will make sure you know there's only been like six. Yeah, that's a lot. 10's a lot. I was going to say it's not a lot. 10's a lot. Holy shit. I don't even know if there's 10 moonlanders. Nestle is supposed to be able to do the impossible.

Near impossible, sorry. 10 is impossible 6 sounds near impossible to me by the end of 28 and 2 with crew what you got 2 years 2 and a half 2 and a half years

I'll go for Are we counting successes or attempts No this was just Yeah then we're going to go 21 for 21 Jake I think clips has a 40% success rate So I'm going to say it'll be 60% by then. I'm going to say like five for eight. That's my number.

I'm saying six total. One of them is a HLS-sized lander. And three are, no crew for sure. Three are successful. So what happens in a new administration comes in, say, as a Democrat, you haven't landed on the moon. You said you would. You haven't gone to Mars with that window.

You said you would. you've I mean this is this is it man get the mission accomplished banner out who cares we already canceled gateway that's where I'm saying we already did it Lori we've already done it

100% we've already done it victory also was this the show where we discovered that Jim Bridenstein was that was his boat the one with the W Bush Mission Accomplished banner that was the ship he was stationed on at the time I don't think he I think he flew the planes off of that

But that was, yeah, so he could have been there for that event, which is just a really funny, funny thing. Like, you know somebody involved in that. Mission accomplished. Yeah, that's what I'm saying, though. You come in. The next transition team's there, and we've already canceled Gateway. The world is different than it would have been if we were in the same position and Gateway was still around. If we've made other achievements.

If we've made other achievements, I don't think I can just toast to us. once it were SLS being canceled without a replacement. So, you know, how did we not discuss SLS and what will replace it and who's going to land first, blue or SpaceX, and when will that be? Who cares? We've already canceled Gayway. I'm going to say it 300 times in the next year. Yeah. That's it. That's all we got. I was sort of being real. Yeah. I was ignoring. It's not, it wasn't real. it's a lot of money for something not real

but we've already spent it yeah but it's still I don't think they spent a lot I don't think they actually it's a slush one now well I think Maxer and Northrop Grumman

got their module money oh yes yes yes gateway I meant I meant Dragon Excel yeah it's all the other it's Dragon XL it's EUS it's an ML2 it's all that money that's that was like

we're freed of that at least just the architecture and you know NRHO this is I mean the I guess you guys have said it. I don't know why we can't. The obvious path here is to get out of from under SLS O'Brien over the longer term.

And that is worth a tremendous amount, a tremendous amount. They're going to ship of Theseus, that's what I was saying. It's like you just swap out one part at a time. And then at the 10 years from now we'll say, this is the space launch system. And it's just a starship and a dragon. And how about the. timing one week before Artemis 2.

Yeah, definitely some coordination. You know, Artemis 2 has to go well for any of this. That's true. That's true. Correct. So, you know, all props. All props, because it's a tough thing to go out

and put so much on this team. And I just really have loved how he's able to walk this line of NASA is an unbelievable agency. We are accomplishing great things. We can do it because we did it in Apollo. And so we're back. What is it?

We'll do it again. Here's some donuts. Go. Oh, shit. Lori, what else? You want to point anyone that's listening to a thing that you're cooking up? Oh, I just am here waiting for you to call and ask me to be on your show. I'm really weaning myself out of social media.

The X thing is just, it's so hard for a liberal pro-space person right now. I get such hate. I get such hate. And, you know, a lot of it is misogyny. A lot of it is, you know, you ruined the space program. You, like, a little, little. tough. But so, so yeah, you can find me whenever you call me and I am on. Okay, great. I am writing the same musical I was last time I talked to you with, who was my son at the time is now a daughter.

And she, uh, cookie mouse, uh, book. Space age. Did we talk about that? Then we talk about the, if you give a mouse a cookie version of the SLS story that we were going to do? I think we have. Yeah. That's a book, Jake. It's a reference. But our music is called Space Age and we're aiming for a sort of Book of Mormon for NASA. Oh, shit. That's in our wheelhouse.

It's coming to the opening. It writes itself for that. Yeah. Jake will break the embargo to come to the premiere. Yeah. Oh, yeah. All right. Well, until then, I guess we're seeing if people launch to the moon next.

week. It could have happened by the time we record this, Jake. I'm going. Are you going? Not right now, but Jake's embargoed. We'll call you in from operations and checkout if you're still hanging out there. Yeah, yeah. And I also loved Project Hail Mary. I still got to go see it. I'm going tonight. I'm going today. Review next week on this show then, Jake. All right.

You're in for a treat. All right, Lori, thanks for hanging out with us. Everybody else. We'll see you. Hopefully people are flying to the moon. Bye. Bye, everybody. 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2,000, 1,000, end of death.