Off-Nominal - 27 - Space Policy Fugue State

Episode Date: February 11, 2020

Jake and Anthony are joined by Laura Forczyk to talk about all the drama, from the NASA Authorization bill making its way through the House, the latest in Starliner anomalies, and Laura’s new book, Rise of the Space Age Millennials.DrinksFueled By Gravity - Connecticut Valley Brewing Company - UntappdPassmore Pale Ale - Nelson Brewing Company - UntappdTopicsSpace Policy Edition: Is the Moon a Stepping-Stone or a Cornerstone for Mars? (with Laura Seward Forczyk) | The Planetary SocietyHouse Subcommittee Clears NASA Authorization Bill, But It’s Just the Beginning – SpacePolicyOnline.comThe House Battle for Artemis — AstralyticalStarliner investigation finds numerous problems in Boeing software development process - SpaceNews.comPicksRise of the Space Age MillennialsApollo: The Panoramas Hardcover book by Mike ConstantineOuter Space Jewelry Celestial Jewellery Handcrafted Galaxy Accessories – Yugen TribeSpacepodFollow LauraLaura Seward Forczyk 🌙💫🚀 (@LauraForczyk) / TwitterAstralyticalRise of the Space Age MillennialsFollow JakeWeMartians Podcast - Follow Humanity's Journey to MarsWeMartians Podcast (@We_Martians) | TwitterJake Robins (@JakeOnOrbit) | TwitterFollow AnthonyMain Engine Cut OffMain Engine Cut Off (@WeHaveMECO) | TwitterAnthony Colangelo (@acolangelo) | TwitterOff-Nominal MerchandiseOff-Nominal Logo TeeWeMartians Shop | MECO Shop

TLS and go for main engine, start. Miko, welcome to space. All right, so on the podcast today, we have three, three millennials. How's that? And two people from the Philadelphia area. And two Philadelphians. This is great. Is there a more colloquial term for someone from Philadelphia besides Philadelphia?

Johns. Johns, yeah. Two Johns. Isn't Yins guys? No, that's Western PA. That's different? Come on, man. That's Pittsburgh.

shit. Pennsylvania is all the same to me. It's all very far away and very small. So we have on the line today, Laura Forsick, who is a good friend of ours. Welcome to the show, Laura. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, we're really excited. You've been busy lately, I think. Yeah, it's been quite busy. Lots going on for you. It's been a busy year so far. Yeah, totally. So we brought you on to talk a little bit about some, well, you've got a new book out, which we want to learn a little bit about. But you know what? There's also been some, it's been a bit of an eventful week for space news and lots of policy stuff and action going on for stuff that's going on. So I think we'll probably have some good things to talk about today. There's always plenty to talk about in the

space world. Yeah. I had a very fun tweet about all the drama going on today that we were going about. So I'm pretty excited for it. Why don't we do drinks first? Anthony, what do you got today? So I complained a few episodes back that my corner store didn't have any space beers like whenever I went in there and then every time I've went in there since there's been a space beer so I don't know if the guy from the store down the street listens or if there's just

random chance. This one's called fueled by gravity. It's pretty trippy looking it's like definitely a space beer by somebody who doesn't like really know a lot about space I think. Just draw some galaxies on it. There's like some Disney magic on

the can here. it says when galaxies collide. And it's, uh, it says double galaxy, not tied to the beer type because that's a New England style India pale ale. You would think it was like a double dry hopped. I don't know. I don't know why it says double galaxy. This is the part of the can that I was like, what is going on with this thing?

Uh, but yeah, 8% is going to be, it's a big one. Maybe it's just got a lot of action inside. And that's why, like, because like when two galaxies come together, it's like a lot going on. Let's see what happens. Uh, Laura, you got something. fun that you're drinking? Well, I'm pregnant. No beer for me.

I'm just drinking water, but I got it in a SpaceX bottle. So I don't know if you can really see. So just water for me. It's sucking down water lately. Man, I would kill for a SpaceX water ball. That would be really good right now. They sell them. Yeah, but so I bought some shirts from their store a while ago.

And like you have to, I don't know, at least from Canada, I had to like get friends together to like chip in because the shipping cost was like, oh, it was outrageous. Yeah, it was. It was highway robbery, so. I thought you were like, oh, I've been to a couple conferences. I don't pay for space swag. No, no, no, no. I'm an independent podcaster now.

I just get everyone to send me stuff. Actually, this is I did get at a conference, so, you know. So I have, it's a, from a brewery in the interior of British Columbia, Nelson, BC, it's the Nelson Brewing Company. I don't know a lot about Nelson. I've been there, like, once. I think they have a lot of. marijuana there. That's all I really know about it.

But this is... A little random fact for it. It's what I know about it. There's going to be some interior BC's people that are going to email me. This is Passmore Paleo, and it's got an otter on the front. Look at this. Lovely otter. It's a really cool art.

This is a paleo. It's only 5.5%. So I have to drink twice as fast as. That's because they make it for when you're smoking a lot of weed. Yeah. Apparently. That's about right. Yeah, Grant says.

Our pint. are people. Anyway, so that's what I got. And it's cans today. It's unusual for me. I usually have like a big bottle. Is it a tall boy? It's, yeah, tall 473 million. I always thought it was funny that we call them tall boys, but it's just the regular size you get when you go to like a bar. Yeah. You ever find that funny? Like 16 ounces is like a standard bar drink for beer, but it's like, oh, you got a big one at home. So one of the, the regular beers should just be called small boys then. Small boys. That's why I usually have those.

Yeah, okay. Well, cheers. Should we get into this hot drama? Is this a hot drama alarm episode? I think it might be. Hot drama. Where do we want to start? Where do we want to start?

It's been a week in space. It has been a week. So do you want to talk about, I heard you today, Laura. I listened very, I wanted to, I crammed it in. I listened to your planet. radio episode on the way home today, which is very good. So lots of fun stuff happening in the house. I kind of have like one question, just maybe you'll start this off with.

This like house authorization bill that has been drafted, it's early. How much of it in like a percentage measurement do you think is going to actually happen? That's what I want to start you off with. I think most of it is just fine. you know, most of it's non-controversial. They had some really good stuff in there about space situational awareness and, you know, space suit technology and small sats. And, you know, a lot of that is just not going to raise alarms for anybody. So I see the majority, it's a 102 page bill. So the majority of that is going to pass no problem. If it gets to vote, you know, there's still the question of, you know, how busy Congress is going to be with other things to actually worry. about NASA. But it's the controversial points where, you know, we can get into some of the details about what is controversial. That's going to change a little bit, not only because it'll change with amendments in the House as it goes on to the committee and then onto the full House,

but the Senate has some differing opinions. So that's, those key points are likely to change a little. It's kind of like, I don't know, and maybe for listeners that aren't up on the policy. this new, this new draft of an authorization. Here, let's have the Canadian explain it. Let's have the Canadian explain it. So, yeah, jump in. Let's see, let's see how well it translated. But basically it's like, to me, this is like the first time that the house has really

had a chance to respond to everything that Artemis has put forward. Because as much, like, there's been so much going on with Artemis. It's hard to, like, remember that it's only like 10 months old. Like, that was 11 months ago, Artemis did not exist. The old, like, capability-based, whatever you want to call it, moon to Mars program. That was what was the sort of program of record, right? And so this has happened so fast and it missed the last, like, budget bill. So this new House authorization bill is the first time Congress has really had a chance,

not Congress, the House has really had a chance to respond to it. So is that like what should we read into that in terms of like, like, I have a hard time trying to understand how there was this much of a disconnect on, like, the core programs. And we didn't really hear too much about it in this 10 months. Like, I don't know. Help the Canadian out here. Well, we, I mean, it's, there's not been a ton of, like, huge differences over the last

couple years between the different sides of Congress. But you do hear about it in the, like, Lars, breaking down this hearing from how long ago was that hearing that you were doing this deep dive on it? I forget how long ago it was, but you hear about it from the people they call to these hearings when they're talking about space policy. They call, like, their own set of people and then make them say the things that they already want them to hear. So whoever the Senate chooses and whoever the House chooses, that's like the real nitty-gritty policy stuff where you're like, oh, I see where this is going. Yeah, to clarify, so throughout the year, committees and subcommittees can hold hearings where they call witnesses to give. expert testimony. And in some cases, those witnesses will give testimony that the Congresspeople

want to hear and have already known what they're going to say ahead of time. In some cases, I don't know if it's some cases. It's probably every case. And it does depend on who they're listening to, both within these hearings and outside of these hearings. I mean, you can tell just by the tone of what comes out of the legislation, how much, for example, Boeing is very, very successful at lobbying behind the scenes to get what they want, and less so some of the other emerging space companies. They are very successful at it. That is an understatement.

I do like, though, that you, throughout the last year or two, I'd say, there's certain members that are coming from the new space districts that are playing the same games. And I do appreciate watching that happen, because for so long the narrative has been like, oh, here comes, old space lobbying in Congress again. It's like, no, no, no, the new guys can play this game, too. They just haven't been around as long. So now there's like a couple of, you know, senators, a couple of people in the house that are like from Seattle area, right, or the areas where

all these new space companies are that are starting to do the same thing. And you're like, okay, I see where this is going. Yeah, you can see example, Blue Origin plays the game well. You know, they're a relatively new company on the scene, but they've really strategically placed their offices, their facilities in key areas to get, for example, Alabama senator and stuck Congresspeople on board, as well as teaming up with some of the larger, more established companies for a human loiter lander system, for example. They have a team formed with Lockheed Martin Draper and Help Me Out. Was it Northrop Grumman? Was it? Northrop. Yeah. So just the fact that they decided not to go by themselves,

decide to team up with some big players. I mean, they're playing the game really well. Yeah. I was joking that they were collecting states because they just opened up that the engine test facility in California, right? Yeah, at Edwards. At Edwards, right?

So they've got like, I think they've got like most of the big ones now. They're in Florida. They've got Texas, Washington, California, Alabama, Florida. Yeah, they're collecting states. Picking them off. Yeah. They're really smart about it. Turns out when you get a couple Bill,

everything gets a little easier. Yeah, it totally does. Hmm, okay. But that still wasn't enough to just persuade this house, though, right? Because the house authorization, though, as it's currently written, actually decides against this idea that NASA should solicit proposals from these companies or teams of companies and instead own the lander system themselves.

So it's really going back to the Apollo mindset of NASA must build their own human lander. So even though, you know, companies like Blue Origin and they weren't the only team to propose, but even though they're pretty smart about it and we don't know much about the proposals, it's all proprietary at the moment, that wasn't enough to persuade key house members of this subcommittee to, you know, let them have the chance of doing this whole, you know, as a service kind of thing, NASA purchasing things as a service rather than NASA owning the hardware. Yeah. There's nothing better in all of this. We got to give a shout out for our board.

J.B. showing up at this hearing in the house. I love that. As a member of public, and he said, because it's open to the public, like, he just rolled in there. Oh, my old committee, I'm just going to sit in the back over here and watch what's going on. I love that. Yeah, for context, the current NASA administrator is a former member of the house, former member of the committee. And, and he, you know, administrators don't usually attend these hearings, not unless they are witnesses themselves, and it wasn't even a hearing. We're talking now about the one on January 28.

of this year. It was a markup for this bill. It wasn't even a hearing. So there were no witnesses. And the administrators don't usually show up to them, but he just showed up because he's a member of the public, so he can't. It's like, it's basically like imagining when you have like the big bodyguard standing behind you with his arms crossed. And it's like, doesn't say anything, but sends a big message. That's kind of how I saw that. I love it. But it's also the strength of having a politician run NASA is knowing how this works, going to these, you know, these sessions, shaking the hands, making the rounds, doing the politician things that I cannot see Charlie Bolden or pick your favorite

administrator doing this, just not having the, you know, not being an ex-astronaut or whatever it is. Like, that's just not what you're doing, but he's just comfortable in that environment to go in and say, like, we got to, we got to fix this thing, you know? I just, I love it. I love me some J.B. It was good. Yeah, he did well with that for sure. Yeah, so it's interesting. So you mentioned that, you know, you mentioned this blue origin sort of we talk about the proficiency they have with, you know, their influence on Congress, but how they didn't, they didn't win this particular round of, like, lobbying, right?

Boeing seems to be the biggest beneficiary of this kind of policy. And you talked a little bit about this on another interview, but kind of linking this to something that's very generational. And this is kind of what you wrote a book about. So maybe I'll kind of bring your book into. this here. So you wrote this new books called Rise of the Space Millennials. Is that the full title? Space Age Millennials.

Rise of the Space Age Millennials. Rise of the Space Age Millennials, which is basically a nice kind of research project. I haven't got mine yet. I'm still waiting for it in the mail. Sorry, it takes a long time to get to Canada. It also costs me 20 bucks to ship it to Canada. It was worth it because you supported the Kickstarter. I did, yeah, yeah. I'm pretty excited about it.

So basically it's like a research product. You interviewed a ton of young people about this. And you mentioned a little bit about how that is kind of part of what's happening with this kind of lobby group because of the way old companies are sort of inspiring people versus new companies. Do you want to talk a little bit about kind of what you mean by that? Sure. Yeah.

It is sort of generational. So if you hear a lot of the rhetoric from the Apollo era and even after and even to the current day, you hear politicians and leadership. within NASA, talk about how we go to space for geopolitics and America First or American leadership and all of these little catchphrases that try to invoke national pride within Americans to support space. But I found, interestingly enough, and it didn't specifically ask about national pride. Well, no, I take it back. I did. So let me back up a little bit. So I asked, I interviewed over 100 millennials, and I asked a series of questions, and this just happened to be

One question to take up one chapter of the book of why do we go to space? What are the what are the justifications? And then I did list a bunch of justifications that they might possibly relate to. And national pride was one of them. And very, very few people responded with the national pride. I think it was like, you know, maybe like two or three percent responded to the national pride saying that it was something that they really felt was a reason that we go to space. And more commonly, if people mention, national pride at all, they mentioned that that was a motivator of the past. Whereas millennials,

and I only interviewed millennials, so to define millennial, because some people think it's a label, it's not a label, it's a demographic, it's an age range, 20s and 30s right now. So the way I define it in the book is born between 1981 to 2000. And there's some differing definitions, but that's how I defined it. And to people born in our generation since we're all millennials here, that does not ring true at all, the national pride concept. In fact, millennials tend to be more interconnected internationally. So we're talking to Americans and Canadians right now on my screen. And it's just, I interviewed people mostly within the United States,

but I did interview people in Europe and Canada and a little bit in Latin America. And it was just a wide range of kind of responses to that question of, why we explore space, very wide range. In fact, I said to someone today that it could actually be expanded to a whole book of what are the justifications for going to space that people really relate to. And millennials related to... That would be Jake's favorite book in the entire world. I might do that.

I already have an idea for a second book, but maybe that's my third book. I don't know. But that had that, like, it was surprising just how many different reasons people gave for going to space. And of all those reasons, national pride was not one of them. So the politicians right now, they really cling to this whole idea of national pride. And maybe because of their position, maybe because they are entrusted with American taxpayer funds to promote American taxpayer interests, to, you know, stand ahead. And American relationship, et cetera, et cetera. That's their job.

That's their mindset. But even outside of the politician mindset, you still have that very core idea in a lot of the older generations that think that national pride is the reason we go to space. And you see this with this whole space race. And I'm doing air quotes here, space race with China, for example, or even some people still want to do that with Russia, even though Russia is a partner of ours in space. They really want to have this conflict, this adversarial thing. And not to say that there isn't an adversarial relationship when you get to the military space operations, but I'm not necessarily talking about military. I'm talking more civilian space operations. And it doesn't really ring true for millennials at all.

Millennials want to do cooperation. I have a whole chapter dedicated to international cooperation in space and how millennials really uphold that to be of value, something that we want to promote something about bringing together the human race and bringing together the planet rather than having it be an adversarial relationship. It's a good point because it is like that it's kind of at the crux of the space policy that everyone hates these days is the kind that's very insular and acts as if NASA is the only thing that exists in the world and that, you know, You know, it's like a NASA first kind of situation, and it just smacks of the self-interest that people hate in politics, you know, and it doesn't make real sense when you think about architectures or the ways that you would do a mission if you could just pick your own way to do a mission. You wouldn't choose any of these political ways.

So it's just like, I don't know, I'm real demotivated by the recent string of politicking in space, because it's just like, we're still stuck in the same old space policy, can't decide which ones first. We can't decide how NASA should build stuff. And I'm just like, ah, it's going the same way. I kind of had this as my last hope for something to snap us out of this like early a space policy kind of fugue state we're in. But I don't know. I'm not sensing that that's happening here. Yeah, still unknown at this point as to what we were joking about this. We did a podcast, Anthony and I about on the We Martians feed and how someone, someone listener had asked me when I was going to make a new podcast.

about the Artemis program. I said it is nowhere near stable enough for a podcast to be made about it yet. But maybe we'll get there. We'll get there one day. We'll see. I did look up on our timeline and it was a year ago, like right now that there was the whole idea of, was it a year ago or two years ago of flying astronauts on EM1? It was February.

What year was that in February? Let me see. I think it might be like right now. Oh no. Damn, that was a long time ago. That was three years ago. Three years ago. Is that right?

I don't know if that's right, maybe. Yeah, SLS has been around for a while. And if you consider SLS beginning back in the Constellation Program and calling it Arrm, what was it, Aries, you know, Aries and Orion and now SLS on Orion, it's been around for like two decades. It's just the same iteration and the same concept. Yeah, that we were all like, oh, maybe they should fly astronauts on EM1. Wow. Can you imagine?

That's so weird to think about like that sometimes. Can we do a quick while we're on this topic of space policy, not really making any moves? I have been always on record as supportive of Bridenstein being the administrator. I was all in on him from the beginning. But I also at the same time was saying, I don't think administrators really matter that much. I think that they're kind of at the, they're held to the standards of a bigger system than themselves. They can't influence a lot of change. I would like to do a quick retrospective on whether I am wrong or not or whether even with my favorite person in the office, it's still not a thing that can really exercise a lot of influence on the thing.

Where are we at on this? Personally, I don't think we're ready to tell yet because it takes like you got to see, like, think about all the past like whatever, five, six, seven administrators, their legacies, would you have been able to see them in the moment? I don't know. Like, it's tough to... It's a good point, yeah. Yeah. Like, it really depends on kind of where... Once he finishes his mandate and moves on, like, what sticks, right?

Yeah, I think James Webb is one that... Doesn't have a lot of influence on the whole process overall? Yeah, I don't know. What do you think, Laura? James Webb was pretty influential. Like, if I think back to historical administrators, I'd say he's probably the most influential that I can think of. But I'm no historian when it comes to administrators.

If it comes to people who aren't in... administrators, you know, Von Braun, I'd say that Renner Von Braun is probably the most influential non-administrator within NASA. Lori Garver, probably a close second with the recent stuff that she's done. Definitely more kind of behind the scenes influential, absolutely. Yeah. I just, I had a lot of hope with like the way that he was going to shake things up and it is like he's saying a lot, there's a lot happening, but it's not producing outcomes, right? We kind of are still stifled by these different hangups in the process that aren't. by having the right person in an administrator job.

What about like one way that I think maybe he is going to leave an impression that we weren't expecting or that it isn't the obvious one is sort of like he's so far been doing a pretty good job of holding old space to account. Maybe he hasn't shaken, you know, like, you know, they're still getting tons and tons of money for like SLS budget goes up every year no matter how much criticism you put at it. But we also have been seeing, you know, Boeing's not just getting a, free ride on this anymore. And I think he's been doing a pretty good job with that. So I don't know if that's the kind of thing. Like, does he make enough change on the culture that that sticks after him? That's an interesting question, I think. Yeah, he's he's not a millennial. He's, I think,

Generation Xer. But, you know, he definitely has that perspective where he wants to modernize. And he wants to have those commercial partnerships that are currently in question with the House authorization, though. But he definitely seems like he's much more open and willing to have those public-private partnerships and to bring in some non-prime contractors that we're so used to seeing and make it more of a kind of a cot's kind of contracting mechanism where it's fixed price. I think he's definitely more of an advocate of that for some things than previous administrators have been.

I think that's a legacy that might continue on, even though it didn't start with him necessarily. Is there anything like that you saw in your research for your book that sort of what younger generation sort of, expects from a leader of NASA? Like is that role even maybe be cast differently in sort of these younger perspectives? That's interesting because I didn't ask specifically about leadership within NASA. What I did ask about was what inspired people and people are inspired by what they see, what's happening in front of them. And so millennials grew up, most of us, the middle to older

millennials, I'd say grew up seeing space shuttle, seeing, you know, international space station and seeing that be things that inspired us on the human spaceflight side. And then on the non-human spaceflight side, we've seen rovers and probes and all these really cool things that NASA does. But aside from just, you know, and I'm a fan of the International Space Station, but aside from just going around and around Earth, what has NASA done on the human space light side? We don't have Apollo to look back on to say, wow, that was amazing. What we do have is, you know, Elon Musk and Blue Origin and all these fantastic news

based companies that are doing things, you know, breaking edge technology, like doing things that are just amazing right in front of our eyes, you know, usable rocketry and the small set revolution. And that was something that really inspired people. So if you have leadership that is a bit more charismatic, like Elon Musk, like Richard Branson, that are actually following through. They're not just talk. They're actually doing things. That is really inspirational. That's what inspires millennials. It's not, you know, promises that we're going to do something eventually. It is actually doing something and doing something innovative. So it's not going to be necessarily a repeat of Apollo that is going to excite millennials or even excite the general public of any age. It'll be,

you know, breaking edge technologies and innovative things and new things that we haven't done before. And I have a separate chapter in the boat that talks about how, even though a lot of millennials want to go back to the moon, Mars is what really sticks out to them as something that is really inspirational because we've never done it before. That kind of stuff. That if it's not just talking about Mars, not just going to Mars in the future, but actually physically going there or physically going to the moon or physically building a cis lunar station that actually sends people out beyond where we've done before, that kind of stuff, doing it rather than talking about it. That's that's sort of like the two big things that I kind of perceive, you know, if I think about your book and the questions

is trying to answer, the things that really stand out to me is like, yeah, like you said, action is really like inspiring to to young people. But I also think that, um, sort of transparency and, um, sort of upfront speak. Like, nothing frustrates me more than when like something, they're like very clearly trying to obfuscate what's happening with like messaging. Like I just like, I lose it. I'm just like just stand out in front of your mistakes. Like if you, if you make a mistake, it's like way more inspiring.

If you like, put your hand up, be like, what we goofed and this is how we're going to fix it for next time. Like that is like a really like inspiring thing for me. And I think that, um, well, least in J.B.'s case, he's been doing a pretty good job with that. But also in some of these companies, right? Like, SpaceX is not afraid of their failures in any way. And that is like, yeah, okay, sorry, I'll take it back. I'll walk it back a little bit. They've been upfront about some of their failures in ways that we have, we're not used to, right? So just having fun with, like,

their booster crashing videos, for example. Yeah. Something very, that is not something you'd really see from like Boeing, right? Like, call it. Definitely not. Call it. They don't, they don't really want to show you that when it works. So. it's it's kind of interesting but uh you're still mad about this week i'm still mad about this week yeah this is the pacific northwestern and you coming out yeah yeah well a little bit i mean it doesn't really cross the border that much i'll let's be honest but it was a weird boeing week because so this is where the jb thing comes in he you know like looking back on this whole bowing fiasco that has now occurred this week which was another two issues coming out

the Starliner flight that went badly, it went even worse, turns out. Now there's two other issues that came up that were rumored about before, but now they've actually confirmed.

And it came out through this NASA aerospace safety panel. Aerospace, what's the second? A? Advisory advisory panel? I always forget that one. So it came out from that

that there was these other two issues and then everyone started getting all crazy about how we weren't told about this, and then J.B. called the press conference the next day. I assume that was his doing. I don't think the Boeing VPs would have said, well, you know what, let's schedule a call with the NASA administrator tomorrow. I'm pretty sure that was a NASA directed situation. So he responds really well to criticism. I think better than most administrators have done in the past and says, you know what, let's just get on a call. We'll talk about this. Because I could have easily seen NASA saying,

the investigation is not going to be over until February. We'll talk to you then. And just shutting everyone out for the next month. But he at least said, let's talk for an hour and still report at the end when the investigation's done. But let's talk about these issues for like an hour on the phone pretty open way. Yeah. That was cool to see. Yeah. He had a couple really great lines from it too. Like just like opening up with just like, we saw a lot of stuff go wrong. The quote was like, we saw a lot of anomalies on this flight, which I was like, who, okay, that's how this call's going to go. And then they're super inspiring one at the end, right? We should never be a afraid of the truth. I was like, I was like standing up and applauding when I saw that one. So

it was good. I thought that was a line from like a Washington Post Super Bowl ad. Democracy dies in the dark. We should never be afraid of the truth. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What do you make of these Boeing failures, Slara? Well, in the greater context, it's really frustrating because we've been waiting for commercial crew to happen for so many years now. And I wanted this year to be the year to see both Boeing and SpaceX fly astronauts to the National Space Station. So it's frustrating to me to see any company fail in a way that's probably going to delay the ultimate goal of sending astronauts back to the International Space Station using American rockets. And unfortunately, you know, things go wrong in space.

And I do appreciate transparency when things go wrong. I had heard about this issue through the grapevine. And I didn't know the details of it until they came out in that press conference. But it kind of made my jaw drop to realize that something so catastrophic could have gone wrong and they didn't tell us. And at the same time, I feel like that's also like a standard within the space industry. If you think back to the shuttle days, for example, and you hear those stories that people tell, whether it's the ashthots or the engineers or the flight controllers, there are stories about things that almost went wrong and didn't. So I feel like it's going back to those days where it's a whisper network and maybe you don't want the public to know because,

a public perception. You want to have your best face forward kind of thing. And so NASA is trying to project that best space forward with, you know, two successful companies chosen through the commercial crew program to lead astronauts back to the National Space Station, which we haven't been able to do some space shuttle. So I can kind of understand their desire for secrecy, but times are changing. And we've seen how now, hopefully, things will be a bit more transparent. And we do see a lot more webcast, live webcasts, which is really appreciative. And I think that, you know, this will be a lesson for some of the prime contractors, not just Boeing, but some of the other ones.

So to be a little bit more transparent in some of the things that go wrong, especially when human lives are at risk. Yeah, I would, so I have to amend my previous Starliner take, which was that the first issue is terrible. But if given sufficient national priority to get astronauts fine in the ISS, that I think I might let it slide for them to go up on the next flight with people. After these two have come out, I have no longer believed that. Like, there's serious stuff that, if the timing issue was a simple thing that got screwed up and we were facing either having no humans on the ISS, on the US segment of the ISS, or flying on that second flight of Starliner, I'd been like, you know what,

let's go for it. Yeah. But now it's like, oof, I have no idea what happens from here, but they should definitely get this right before flying anyone and obviously they're preparing for it. That's the crazy part. So there was that story of them putting aside $400 million to prepare to fly an uncrewed flight again. And they knew all of this stuff that was happening, but they didn't say that's why they were taking the $400 million. Right? Because it seemed kind of weird, like, oh, I guess they just started being safe that NASA is going to make them fly again. But now it's like, oh, they definitely know that they're going to have to fly again at this point. They knew exactly what was going to happen.

Yeah. Yikes. Yeah, there's a lot of like takes about, oh, it's just, it's just some accounting wizardry. Right. Yeah, tax stuff. Yeah, it's early in the year, tax stuff. I don't know. I don't know.

That's really bad. Yeah, totally. We got a shout out to Eric Berger for just tearing into Boeing lately on Twitter, too. He's been like finding all these things that they had in their original, the original pitches for commercial crew, which was like, we're expensive because we're going to find every issue and really make sure we get it right. It's just not aging well. Eric's great with the investigative journalism side.

Yeah, he is. Yeah, he's mad at himself there, right? Because he had this scoop earlier in the week, and he posted this article about there was another issue with the thrusters, but it was downplayed so much from Boeing that he didn't maybe take it further than he would have otherwise. God, I don't even know. Like, there's a certain part of this story that I don't even know what to say about it because it's so bad. It just breaks my brain.

I don't know what to say. Yeah, it hurts. I have no idea what my take is on this yet. Well, my take is I'm really hoping to see SpaceX fly astronauts to the National Space Station this year. That's what I want to see. I don't know what's going to happen with Boeing. Hopefully they'll figure it out. But I'm really excited to see SpaceX take up some astronauts this year.

I mean, I think we're on the cusp of what is hopefully a big change of Boeing, right? They've been, they've got other stuff going on besides space stuff. So they're undergoing some cultural change, and hopefully it's for the better. but can't get worse it's pretty much rock bottom here um there's a good question in the chat la la la la laura i want to post to you this is coming from one of our listeners who's listening in uh radishes um what are you hearing from the millennials you interviewed about the job of like companies especially these new ones and community or communicating like diversity and inclusion um like is that is that something that's that's coming up and so the people you're talking to yeah not all of them

I didn't specifically ask about it, but several of them on their own initiative brought up. So one of the chapters, one of the questions I posted on that I made into a chapter was the differences that people see, that millennials see with their older generational colleagues. And a lot of people brought up the differences being that they see millennials as being more inclusive. And they, some of them defined it differently. Some of them defined it within gender, gender inclusivity, more initiatives to get women into aerospace. Some people define it more broadly in terms of, you know, sexual orientation and identity and race and ethnicity. So in the beginning of the book, in the introduction before I even get into the meat of the book, I talk about a lot a little bit.

I talk about the different ways that people might have biases. And I talk about ageism and I talk about sexism and racism. And I go into all these different isms. And I don't specifically talk about it too much in the book because that's not what the book is about. I'm also don't feel qualified to talk. I'm not a sociologist. I'm a physicist. So I don't necessarily feel too qualified to talk about some of the more social science stuff,

even though most of my book is social science. But I do want to mention it in my book to make sure people are aware that, you know, as a woman in aerospace, I'll have a different perspective and a different experience than you two in aerospace would. And a black woman's going to have a different perspective. And a, you know, a gay person is going to have a different perspective. You know, someone who's transgender. all these ways that people will experience bias or privilege or opportunity. It's all different,

but millennials are very much aware of it. So that's one thing I ended the introduction section of the book about is that on a positive note, even though there are all these isms, millennials are not only more aware of it, they're more than willing to talk about it. They're more willing to bring it up as something that not only exists but needs to proactively change. So different One person brought up like a, what did they call it, some kind of book journal club for specifically for minorities. I don't remember what minorities she mentioned, but, you know, different ways where it's specific minority involvement. So lifting up people who are in the minority to give them more of a voice or to give them more of a community. And I think that's a wonderful thing.

Yeah. It's interesting. So it's just kind of the follow up to the question is like, as we're on the cusp of like, some of the space tourism stuff and things that may make space more accessible to people to actually go, there's probably a risk of like that still being, you know, it's not $80 million to go to space anymore. Maybe it's maybe it's $100,000, but $100,000 is still a lot of money. It's still a house. And it's still, that could still buy us a lot of who gets to go, right?

And so maybe that's the thing that hopefully the new space companies are thinking about is are there ways to to make, if, Space is going to be more accessible. Is it more accessible to everyone, right? That's kind of what. Yeah. Well, first step, I want to know where you're going to buy a $100,000 space ticket because I want to buy that. I'll put a down payment now for that because that sounds really cheap to me. Just wait for those new shepherd prices.

That is one thing that was discussed in the book. A lot of people brought up space tourism and how they themselves want to go to space and how the fact that new space companies, especially with the reusable rocketry and lowering costs to space and increasing access to space will bring the masses to space. So a lot of people saw that as very inspirational. Either they wanted more people in general to fly in space or they themselves personally wanted to fly in space. And I think that there are whole other topics that could be covered about, you know,

accessibility and inclusivity when it comes to space tourism and some of the other plans that we have for, you know, maybe settlements on the moon or mass spaceships to Mars, you know, all these things that just aren't covered in my books. There's always so many things I can talk about. But it's important things that we really need to discuss. You know, what about some disabilities and not just physical disabilities, but other disabilities? And all the different ways that we need to be reminded that, you know, not everybody has the same access that you and I might have.

And, of course, the price tag. Yeah, I can't afford a $100,000 ticket right now. We'd definitely be a down payment. We get enough shit from not buying houses yet, let alone space flights. Yeah, exactly. For all the houses our generation aren't buying, though, that means you should have a bunch of money saved up, right? That's not how it works.

I thought that's how it worked. I don't know. I have a mortgage or whatever. I don't know about that. I have a mortgage and kids. So I want to pivot a little bit. Laura, you also are a, you own a company called Astrolical, which is space consulting.

And you do career consulting as part of it, which is a really cool kind of aspect of what you do. I am recently someone who is going pro in the space industry as a space podcaster. Thank you, thank you. It's so far. Yeah, you thought we were getting you on here for a space discussion. It's really just a session with Jake to just really work out the kinks. I wanted a free career counseling session.

How's that business going? And what kind of services? I'll ask it a different way instead of just turning this in an advertisement. What are some interesting things that you hear from the younger generation in terms of what they're navigating? Like what is the most common kind of question that you kind of get from that sort of thing? Sure. We're to clarify. The space consulting is open not only to younger professionals, but also to mid-level.

In fact, I think I get more mid-level professionals than I do younger students and just graduated professionals. Mid-level professionals who want to switch careers and join space. So it's quite a mix, actually, of generational thoughts. This is separate from my book. It is something that I do to help people sort of give back to the community, try to get them involved in space, because I really truly believe that space is for everyone of all, you know, all backgrounds and all disciplines.

And with the students, a lot of the questions have to do with, I want to work for NASA or I want to work in the United States, but I'm not a U.S. citizen. And those are some of the hardest things to deal with because the truth is it is very restrictive with ITAR restrictions and just with, you know, the need to be a U.S. citizen in general, either for a civil servant position or some other of the contractors, it is very difficult to give advice and to stay positive, especially if they've been trying to get into the United States to work.

And maybe they're from a country that doesn't have any space involvement or all or minimal space involvement, and they just don't have opportunities that they would in the States or in another space hub. Otherwise, I think a lot of it is just a limitation of what they've been told they can do. And I had this same problem, too, when I was a student, I am an astrophysicist, and I was told that I couldn't intern at Kennedy Space Center unless I was an engineer. Now, for the record, that is not true at all. It wasn't true when I was an undergrad, and it's not true today. But that's what I was told. I was told that you have to be an aerospace engineer to work at NASA, and it's not true. But people don't know it's not true, so they keep spreading that information that you have to be a STEM major. my battery, I'm running low on the phone.

Oh, you're good. And that is really, really common. I speak to a lot of classrooms of students or summer camps in the summer, and it's just something that's perpetuated by people who don't know any better, that you have to be a STEM major. You have to somehow be a scientist or engineer to work in space, and you do not. So I had people coming to me saying, well, you know,

I graduated with, let's just say, a law degree, and I want to work in space, but I'm not any good at math. What should I do? You know, like, that's just an example. They don't know about space law. They were never taught that in their classrooms. You know, maybe they're pre-law or something.

I don't know. My parents are both lawyers, and they didn't know at all that space law existed. So I'm just using that as an example, because even though legal community is so huge, people don't know necessarily that space law exists, so they think they need to be a scientist or engineer or some other STEM field. So that's a big one,

is convincing people that they don't need to go back to school for an engineering degree. they can actually work in space doing whatever it is that their expertise is. Yeah, it's almost the case that the more advanced space itself gets, the further along the timeline of development that we get, the more general all of the jobs are going to be needed. Like, you need an increasing amount of varied jobs, the farther we get into the course of space development throughout history.

Totally. Yeah, the first job in the space world was an engineer, but as you go down, that percentage drops. drops and drops, right? Yeah. I'd actually say it was an astronomer. That's fair, fair. True. Well, she's taking it way back.

Astronomer and baby, if you want to go way, way back. Just a few thousand years back, you know, no biggie. That's good. Cool. Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of listeners who are in that situation. We get a lot of emails like that sometimes. It's just like, hey, I want to, we're very not qualified to give that advice. So I have totally.

I've often sent to... Like make a podcast, I guess. That's one way. That's a backdoor in. I definitely sent your website to some people, so that's good. Yeah, I appreciate it. I do consulting to, you know, governments and businesses and individuals, and most of the individuals that come to me is for career consulting.

Some of it's for some small projects, but mostly it's people who want to work in space, and I really help them. I'm currently in the process of creating a course so I can reach a broader audience. Because I'm kind of expensive, so a lot of people can't afford me. So I want to create a more affordable means of getting the information out. I love it. The interesting thing with who's going into space, not literally into space, but into space careers, is so tied into what's influencing you as you're deciding what's interesting in life, right?

So, like, I do feel like the part of our generation that had boring space growing up was less likely to get into a space career, naturally. Whereas when you're growing up and you have a lot of like dynamic stuff happening in the industry like we have right now, I'm interested to see what the boom from that is like when stuff is so pop culture again with SpaceX and Blue and everyone else that's really exciting that, you know, people are like regular people are talking about and it's in Super Bowl ads and there's like all of this excitement around it. What is that bump going to be like similar to what the bump was like in the space race era where you had this boom of technology? And weirdly enough, a lot of the

technology was outside of the space area after Apollo and all that, right? It was in computers and all these other electronic fields that came out from it. So is this going to be similar in that it's going to have a bunch of excitement about, you know, all of the things related to going into space, but it's going to have all these offshoots into new areas of technology? Or is it going to be, because we kind of see this more extended timeline, is it going to be a lot more excitement around space with people then joining space companies? Yeah, and I think you've already seen a little bit of it. You've seen record-breaking 18,000 applications to the last astronaut class that NASA solicited applications for. You see, what is it, 600-plus people signing up for Virgin Galactic tickets,

and Blue hasn't even started selling tickets yet, so we don't know their numbers. And you see, you know, things popping up. Mars, one, is an example of, you know, when that was kind of a scam, but that was one that was highly popular in the public where lots of people applied to, you know, go to Mars. And then you also see things popular. helping up like, you know, people who are in the mining industry want to get into space mining and finding ways to, you see a huge profit business now in Earth observation applications. So using Earth observation data for agriculture and real estate and all these different

wines of new fields to get into that people who may not have ever thought about space before are using it on a daily basis. Maybe they don't even think about it. They just think, oh, I'm going to pull up the app right now to tell me where I should be planting my field, you know, or where I should be fishing or where I should be moving the logistics of my trucks or ships or whatever. You know, people take it for granted, just like you and I take, you know, cell phones for granted. We take it for granted and maybe don't even think about space jobs. They just think it's doing the job that I'm, you know, that I'm doing in my field and they don't think about it as a space job. Yeah, yeah. There's so much cool stuff like that. Like even just where my family

grow like where I grew up in southern Alberta it's very agricultural lots of you know wheat barley canola all this kind of stuff they grow and planet has a presence there in southern Alberta Canada Planet Labs goes and they you can buy this service for them where they take a picture of your farm every day and you can you get it just like sent to your inbox it's like your farm from space every day and that's like a package service that they offer and so that's like a place where the last place I would expect space to be interesting is like my wife's dad and like his barley field like Like I just, I never expected to hear from there, but like it's touching that even that community.

So I think that there are definitely going to be spin-offs from that. Hopefully we get like that Apollo boost like you talked about. I think, wasn't it? Robert Zuberd always talks about that, right? How the amount of PhDs that came out of STEM fields after the Apollo. Jake does a great Robert Zuber impression, which I was trying to remember. You know, he always talks about that most important thing that came out of Apollo was just like all the PhDs and like the stuff that those people went on to do because they were so excited about. landing on the moon. So hopefully that's good business for you too, right?

I just, I love the cyclical nature of that where, you know, Apollo created a bunch of computer engineers who went on to build computers and then the internet and that created a bunch of billionaires that then went back to space. It's so like, oh, we nailed it. Just took 40 years. That's, that's a very succinct way to describe history for the last 50 years. I love it. Yeah, I missed a couple things, but nothing big. Nothing big. Oh, man. Okay. Should we start looking at some picks? We should. I just want to mention that we don't have a lightning round,

but when's the last time we did a lightning round? Oh, wow, yeah. We should have done that. We used to do this segment called Lightning Round where Jake would write 10 really snarky questions, and I feel like we've forgotten about it for the last six months, but it's really good. So I just wanted to bring it up.

That's a good segment we should bring back. Yeah, okay. I'll make a note of it, yeah. Lightning Round, oh, wow. I got a pick, though. You want me to do my pick? I want to see your pick, yeah. This is an old one.

I have a strange sense that I've picked this. on the show before, but I couldn't find it in the show notes. This is called Apollo, the Panoramas, and is this giant book? Wow. What I think this book is compared to my head. This was like a Kickstarter from, I don't know, five years ago, six years ago or something.

There's this guy named Mike Constantine, who's done, like, he's stitched together all the panoramas from Apollo throughout, you know, every different mission. And I think he was, they used some of his photos at, like, National Air and Space Museum, when they needed a large panorama of Apollo or whatever. He was doing this online for a while, but then he put it all into a book a couple years ago,

and it is just like as amazing as it sounds. It's this large, of course I opened to a page that wasn't a panorama, randomly, but let me get to an exciting mission. An exciting mission. You know, not Apollo 11 with that flat

landscape. Yeah, yeah. Get Torres-Litro up there. You get this whole, I don't know how in-frame this is for the video, but you just get this like there's a little human over there all the way over there on the moon you know and then there's like some hardware out on this side and you get this totally different sense for these missions where you you understand the topography of where they were at and he's got maps in here that show the lander sites and what they were doing and all that it's awesome and it is an amazing way to just like experience missions that we've all read everything there is about but there's some of these shots that you see the lunar lander in the distance and it's like a pixel like a tiny little pixel right because it's all right they've driven kilometers away from it and you're like, oh my God, these guys were way out there. So it's an amazing book. Moonpans.com is where to get it.

Don't look on Amazon because it's like, we've got one copy for 200 bucks, but he sells them directly from moonpans.com, which is like a great brand name that's going to exist someday. Non-stick. It's the best regular. So that's mine. That's great pick. It's huge.

It's literally like maybe what, 16 inches tall by like 24 wide or something. It's a big book. I don't know. I didn't measure it. That's very inaccurate. I bet it's 16 by 20. How many centimeters is it? I don't know.

Do the math. Laura, we gave you like a couple hours notice because we forgot to tell you about it. But did you manage to scrounge a pick together? Yeah. Well, I didn't realize I was going to be on video, so I'm not wearing it. But one of my, I'm a, I have a thing for space jewelry. And so my husband for Christmas, he got me, a brand I hadn't heard of before, but they make amazing stuff.

I was browsing their website recently. And it's called Yugin Tribe. And it's not a new brand. I'm not aware of it until Christmas, but it's beautiful space jewelry. So he gave me, my husband gave me a couple necklaces and a couple of earring sets from this. And it's just, he got me this necklace that is the moons of the solar system. And obviously there's too many moons to fit on a necklace. But it was like some of the top Jupiter and Saturn moons.

It's beautiful stuff. And I get a lot of compliments on it. So, yeah, I'm a sucker for space jewelry. You can't tell what the headphones on, but I'm wearing, yeah, stars right now. Oh, cool. That's a Swarsky crystal. This is rad. What's it called against, right?

I missed the... Ugen Tribe. You can try. Okay. We'll get the link. Yeah, it's just beautiful. That's great. I have a podcast to share today.

And I think I've talked about it, but I went back and looked. I don't think we've shared it as a pick, but it's kind of funny because in a weird way, it might be like an early, early part of the off-nominal podcast. So it's called SpacePod. It's a planetary science one by host. I listen to that one. Yeah, Carrie Nugent. She's awesome.

She's like an asteroid scientist and she does these planetary episodes. And they're short, which is like the best thing about them. They're like between 10 and 20 minutes long. So like, unlike the interviews that I do with scientists where it's like this 50 minute Odyssey into every stupid thing that they do. She just like zips in and out and just she's super congenial and really it's really good to listen to. But they they do a drink at the beginning of the episode. So it's not often alcohol like we usually do, but she has these kind of really fun random drinks that they try. And some of them are awful, which it makes it a pretty funny,

a pretty funny podcast to listen to. So yes, listen to space pod is on Twitter. Listen to SpacePod. And then it's just called SpacePod, a really great show that I should, probably call her and do some collaboration or something, but... Sounds like maybe that should be a guest on the, you know, on the drinking talking about space thing. Yeah, I feel like we should get her on this show. That's probably pretty topical, yeah. Totally get it done. Yeah.

Cool. We're really good at booking guests. We're awful at it. You know, it's tough with like one, we do this podcast once a month and like, it makes the slots like really... Every time we bring one person on, we add five people to the list that we want to bring on. Right. And so the list. We're like, oh, them too, them too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we'll never get to them. We'll just never. It's, yeah, we need to be more pro, go more going pro. The problem is that we're now, this is episode 27, I believe. So we're running out of people that are our friends that we can convince to join us late on a Saturday night and talk about space stuff. We're rapidly approaching the time when we have to explain this to total randons. Yeah, totally.

Which is a problem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Well, I'm honored to be a guest late Saturday night on your show. It's just like there's, I have like anxiety about like, hey, do you want to come on our podcast? It's weird. We do this thing.

It's normally on a weekend. And I know that this is, if this is your day job, like, that's not exciting to talk about anymore at this point in the week. But somehow, everybody likes joining us. Yeah. It's a good time. I feel lucky. It's fun.

Jake, do you want to do a going pro update? You did one last time. Yeah, I don't have much to share yet. I mean, I've, I've. You're like working on all these crazy projects. So. He's tired. He's tired of all.

So my boot camp is, and I'm doing this web development boot camp, or I'm learning some skills to make this show better and do other stuff and all the kind of fun projects. But I'm in my midterms now, so I'm super busy six days a week, 10, 12 hour days right now. So I'm just like zonked out. I don't even know what day it is most of the time. But it's going really well. That's your update.

It's going great. And I'm very excited for the future. And hopefully I'll have more concrete things for the listeners to hear about, I don't know, in a few weeks. I love it. It's a solid update. Laura, you got to tell everyone where to get the book because I don't think, I think we skipped that part when talking about the book earlier. Yeah, so the book is available on paperback and ebook on Amazon, ebook on Barnes & Noble,

or you can get an autographed copy from my website, which is astrolidical.com. I'm in the process of recording an audiobook, which will be out sometime this year. Are you doing the actual voice? Nice. I am. I am. I got myself this fancy mic and everything. How are you enjoying that? I'm really curious. I want to kind of do some of that work, but it would be interesting. You know, with my husband telling me, I've got an awesome voice. You know, he's like,

pumped up my confidence. I'm like, I can do this. It's the editing it all together that I haven't gotten to yet. That'll be the tricky part. Yeah. That's the worst part. Which luck. Yeah, I love audiobooks. And every time I'm listening, I'm like, man, that's got to be a real project to get this all recorded. Yeah. Read every single word exactly as it is in this book. Well, the fun thing is, you don't have to read it exactly as there. Actually, a lot of the Because you're doing it yourself. So you're doing it as like a fun thing. You can actually add and change to it.

You know, make it slightly a unique product. I like that. I like that style. Yeah. It's more of like, here's my topics I'm going to hit. And then let me read this and riff on it a little. I feel like that's how I would do. All right, you're inspiring me to do some audiobook stuff.

Thank you. You got all the equipment in front of you. I know. You're set up. All right. No more excuse. That's our exit strategy. audiobooks.

Yeah, totally. Voiceover work 40 hours a week. Laura, this has been awesome. Thanks so much for coming on the show. I can't wait to get your book in the mail once the Canadian postal system catches up with the time. I should just send you a PDF. I can do that right now.

Yeah, it's going to go. It would have been way cheaper. It's going to go on my bookshelf here, this very small, well-illuminated shelf that has a Lego rocket on it. But, yeah, that's where it'll go. Where's your space station? Didn't you buy the ISS thing?

Yeah, I have not had time to build it. It's literally still in the Lego bag on my kitchen table. That's how busy I've been. That's sad. It's like my present for when I finish. It's kind of how I'm saying it. But yeah, that's it. Okay, bye, everybody.

Bye. Thank you.