Off-Nominal - 28 - Don’t Sneeze in Their Mouths!

Episode Date: March 17, 2020

Jake and Anthony are joined by fellow space podcaster Brendan Bryne for a self-quarantine edition of the show. Jake developed a new bit for this grab bag episode with talk of Schrödinger’s Gateway, SpaceX’s DM-2, and a whole bunch more, including (obviously) COVID-19 and its impact on space. Also how Brendan’s cat almost ruined OSIRIS-REx.DrinksMoon Boots - Sideward Brewing Co. - UntappdSip of Sunshine - Lawson's Finest Liquids - UntappdCorona Extra - Grupo Modelo - UntappdTopicsoffnominal - TwitchNASA takes Gateway off the critical path for 2024 lunar return - SpaceNews.comESA - European Robotic ArmNASA confirms Crew Dragon almost ready, mostly paperwork left | Ars TechnicaSpace in the time of the coronavirus - SpaceNews.comESA - ExoMars to take off for the Red Planet in 2022Virginia Student Earns Honor of Naming NASA's Next Mars Rover | NASAMars Rover 2020's Name Reveal - YouTubeBlue Origin (@blueorigin) / TwitterNASA declares Starliner mishap a “high visibility close call” | Ars TechnicaSLS: $17 Billion And Counting, with First Launch Still a Year Away – SpacePolicyOnline.comInside Elon Musk’s plan to build one Starship a week—and settle Mars | Ars TechnicaEpisode T+149: Let’s Talk About Starship with Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut - Main Engine Cut Off06 - I’ve Got Like 35 Loons | Off-NominalPicksNo Man’s SkyExtremities • A podcast on AnchorShort Wave : NPRWalkabout the Galaxy – An irreverent and informative tour of the latest, greatest and most interesting discoveries in astronomy.Follow BrendanBrendan Byrne (@SpaceBrendan) / TwitterByrne’s Beard (@byrnebeard) / TwitterAre We There Yet - 90.7 WMFEFollow 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

There are no two humans that I would rather self-isolate with together than you two. Brendan, Byrne, welcome back to the show. Oh, thank you. We are like quantumly entangled in that we experience Falcon Heavy together. So I feel like that was a very bonding moment for all of us. And then the fact that we were audio people at an event where there's a few minutes of audio, but not a ton. We really have just a brotherhood since those days long ago at this point. And I've been milking that Falcon Heavy audio that we recorded for a while.

I'm sure you have too, right? Been milking it, you put it in your intro music. Yeah. Confession, I don't even think I record any audio. Wow. Oh, there you go. I hope my basketball is watching. Plenty of people did, so it's not like you missed anything.

Yeah. And so welcome to the first ever video cast off nominal podcast. So if you're just getting this in your podcast feed, it'll be no different for you, except that you'll probably feel like you're missing a lot of the hand gestures. That's okay because we probably do that anyway. But if you're watching at home, thanks for joining us. This is really exciting. We are really, really bad at video.

And so this is like a miracle that it's even happening. Anthony and I have tried this a couple times, and it's been dodgy. It looks like that we're, you know, kind of on the way here. We're still not good at it, so don't get any, don't get excited that this is going to be a normal situation. We thought this would be fun to put some good life out into the world when everything is crazy. But we're definitely going to have to do some sort of seminar with Tim Dodd at some point in the future because he's just a professional. He was on Miko a couple days ago and I was talking to him like, yeah, man, we were just really intimidated by any video thoughts. And then we see him roll into these events with like such a setup.

with his like four band Wi-Fi like things I don't know what he does man it's crazy he's got telescopes and stuff that he's driving like a mech you know it's amazing so we're gonna have to do some of that but I think we're holding it together here totally yeah this is the best this is the best video production I've ever seen this is hands down just fantastic you too yeah what it looks like inside of our homes so yeah that's great so we've got we've got listeners in the discord who are our patrons so they're chatting with us we're watching that chat. We also have people in the Twitch stream who are chatting from the outside world. So this is a pretty cool experience. We got lots of good feedback coming in for this one. The heckling will be double probably. We'll see. Jake has decided to only watch one of the chats because he can't double heckle. Yeah. Well, I can't watch the Twitch stream, which is like five seconds behind life for me. And then it's like, it throws me off. I just, I need to close that window. So that's all on you. Should we show off our drinks?

This is a visual component today. Yeah, absolutely. Brendan already texted us photos, so we got some spoilers, but I would like you to show the listeners because those cans looked amazing. Yeah, this is my new favorite brewery. It's a local one here in Orlando called Sideward, and this one is called Moon Boots. And that logo, just really cool.

The two guys that own this place, Austin and Garrett, they're both brothers and huge space nerds. So I told them to listen in. So if they're not too busy slinging drinks to people who got stir crazy already, hey guys, your beer's fantastic. It used to be called Space Camper, but they got sued. So now it's Moon Boots. That's awesome.

Yeah. Who did they get sued? They get sued by Space Camp, I assume? Yeah. Well, not sued. There was a cease and desist in a potential lawsuit. You always want a cease and desist. That's preferred, I think, because it means, like, they've noticed you and they've appreciated

what you've done, but you just can't. It's the polite way to just back off, right? Yeah. Anthony, what do you got? I was inspired by our guest here, Brenda Byrne from the Sunshine State. I got a beer called Sip of Sunshine. Oh, I'm using this camera tonight. Look at that.

Sip of Sunshine. Wow. Where's that from? I don't think Florida. Let me check. This is great. Oh, are we not supposed to start drinking? I started drinking already.

Oh, no, you can. Absolutely. this is from Connecticut which is surprising for a sunshine beer but I like this little dude on the look that little dude yeah he looks fun I would have a beer with IPA so

going in on it Jake what you got? I went for the gimmick today and got one of these I only one of us show up with the corona not one I got a lot actually

because this is pretty thin beer so instead of one big Jake bottle I got, I don't know, six regular human-sized bottles, I guess. So yeah, cheers, Corona. But I didn't get any limes because they're gone. People panic bought them. The limes, really? Yeah.

So I guess I have lime juice. Is that the same thing if I just squirt lime juice into the top? I mean, the one thing you need to do during coronavirus outbreak is like make sure you're hydrated and prevent scurvy. So I could see why all the limes were gone. It's one of those things where you just kind of buy what you think you might need, right? That, that. You joke, but we did go out shopping the other day, and for some reason my wife put a lemon in the basket, and I was like, what are we going to use that for?

She's like, I don't know. I just put it in there. So we have this giant lemon. She bought all the lines. Yeah, surprise citrus, people that don't even need them. Oh, man. Okay. Well, cheers, guys.

This is great. So what do we, you did a little bit of planning here, Jake. I did the absolute bare minimum amount of planning that you can do and still call it. planning for a podcast. So you've done the Are We There Yet thing? Is that what it is? Shots fired.

Are we getting behind the scenes work here? Oh yeah. Okay, so we kind of had like a bit of a grab bag episode going here. And I was like, well, so you know, should I make like a structure? But I also remembered that we're on camera

and so I thought we'd do something fun. And so I've made some cue cards here. I'm going to tilt the camera down. And on my desk here, I have 10 cards. I see it like a whole game set up. Oh my gosh. 10 cards that are numbered.

And on the back of each one of these cards is a topic to talk about. So I thought maybe, I don't know, maybe Brendan could pick one. Maybe the listeners can pick one, pick a number. And then we just go for it. Should we throw this one out to the Twitch chat? And let's just give them a second to catch up to us. Let's see. Twitch or Discord chat.

Just type numbers. Give us a number between one and chat. By the way, while we're waiting for this response here, I did notice you got a great mute button there, Jay. Mm-hmm. Look at that mute switch. This is a fantastic, it's as far as I can pull it, because it's a very small little screen here, but.

A lot of sevens, Jake. A lot of sevens? Getting a lot of sevens. Sevens coming through? Yeah, I see a seven was the first one in the Discord, too. Okay. Overwhelming sevens, yes. We'll do seven, so the first topic is.

Lunar Gateway, wow. All right, well, that's about all we have to say about that one. Yeah, that, that, that, that. I even drew a little moon and a little lunar gateway. What do you think? You drew the two things that have contracts for them right now that are, that's basically the full extent of the lunar gateway as per the current planes. It's some solar panels and some sort of spacecraft chassis.

What do you think? Yeah. Yeah, so Lunar Gateway. I don't know. I kind of threw it on here because, well, it's off the critical path now. I feel kind of sad about it. I feel like it's not really getting a lot of press on what that means, but this feels like a very deliberate step down the long, dark road to bad place.

I don't know. What do you think? You've been so heated about the Lunar Gateway thing. You were like, I don't know, I just heard you ripping on it a lot lately. So I'm with you that it's desoped. We're getting in the chats, we're getting a lot of RIP gateway. So I think everyone's kind of reading the writing on the wall. I don't know though

Brendan you're the man on the ground there sort of Brendan's like we only launched stuff from Florida we don't know you have the buildings where it would sit before it was launched yeah I mean it's not it's not

getting the love that it's that it should be getting at this point in time looking at budgeting and all that good stuff but it's still a part of the messaging which I guess is just as important, right? Anytime you talk about Artemis, you hear Lunar Gateway and the halo rectal linear orbit or whatever it is. I'm a halo, yes, that's the orbit right there.

There's the title to write that one down. I think our lukewarm, very tepid sort of takes on this is a very good indicator. Yeah, I could just hear the excitement dripping off of Brendan's tongue right there. Oh, wow. Yeah, no, I just, like, it just feels like they're punting it outside of the current administration. So, you know, most of it won't be up to 2026. That's virtually never in administration land. So, yeah.

Now, as a Canadian with big vested interest in the robotic arm that would be on Lunar Gateway, are you nervous about the fact that Gateway is being shelved while at the same time, Issa is launching a robotic arm? I am a little nervous about Issa's arm, that's for sure. Those guys need to stay in their lane, man. What's going on there? But, yeah. No, I honestly don't know what Canada's going to do because we made such a big to do about,

it was like, what was it, like a 20-year commitment they made? It was some god-off long-term commitment. It's $10 over 25 years. Yeah, $10 over 25 years. And all this commitment to the arm and then, you know, see ya. We'll see. I mean, NASA's not saying see ya, but they affect the arm. I think it's a critical, like, I think.

joke about messaging, right? But I think it was a critical part in how NASA was getting some pushback and some criticism that Artemis wasn't this international collaboration and they could point to gateway and say, no, look, this is. We're collaborating with our international partners. We've got all these other countries that are on board with this. And if it's gone, then, you know, the folks that need to ask the people for money, don't really. I don't really. have that anymore. So it'll be interesting to see what happens and how the messaging kind of changes from a congressional standpoint and saying, well, yeah, we actually do have a plan in place and then if it's not there, do they still get money? So it'll be interesting to see.

It feels like a temporary descoping of Gateway because we're at this point where it's like 2024 or bust. So anything that's not needed for 2024 is just scrap it. But like it's still in motion. So I fully get that within a year we're back on Gateway Path because 2024 is not panning out, especially considering the chaos element that early 2020 and late 2020 is on everything political at this moment. It's like, 2024 is not happening. So whenever everybody accepts that, gateway's back in the conversation and hopefully Max Stars make it to progress.

Hopefully Northrop is still doing their plans for extended Cygnus essentially. Because that's really the only two things that are in motion right now, which is fine. Well, NASA announced two scientific experiments just what late last week. So, you know, they're still moving forward. That was a distraction. That's what they call it? It's like sugar-coating it, right? So, yeah.

Hmm, okay. Well, we don't have much to say about that. Got that one out of the way. Yeah, got that one out of the day. Who gets to pick the next number? Who picked seven? Yeah, geez. Twitchman, Twitch chat loves Gateway.

All right. There's a J.B. Pin in there. Oh, how'd that get in there? I don't know. Brendan, why don't you pick the next number? number? Let's do three. Three. Okay. I think Anthony's going to like this one. DM2. Yes. DM2. So, do we have a date yet?

May 7th is the last one I've heard? I hear that date, but is it like... Are we looking at your chest the whole time or do we get to look at you again? Hi. I'm just showing off my new sweater. What do you think? Yeah, I hear May 7th. a lot. But I only heard that, like, from Eric Berger's Twitter. So, and I'm not to say that he's like, he's usually right, but. I was going to say, such an unreliable source, the guy that's like hanging out in Bocachika with Elon.

Yeah, no, he's great. So I just like, but like, I always like it when he, like, he gets the scoop and then, and then everyone's like, oh, yeah. Of course, obviously he's right. And then they confirm it, but I haven't seen the, you know, the confirming of that yet. So, I don't know. What are you hearing, Brendan? That's totally in your Florida. It's on the ground on this one, for sure.

Yeah. Yeah, I was told not to take any vacations around that time. Okay. Or plan a big move or something like that. Good general advice for right now. That's just... Yes, especially now. But even before this, I was hearing what Eric's hearing.

Without divulging too much into that. It's going to get pretty crazy because that is like tied up so much. in this schedule where you don't know how things are going to shake out overall and man I'm even wondering with you know we've got a Soyuz flight in like two weeks coming up two or three weeks and there hasn't been a whole lot of talk about

what their quarantine situation is but that's really the big variable I'm wondering is how many people do they need to mobilize to get DM2 from where it is now it's already in Florida so that's a certain amount of travel angst that is over but but what does it look like from where it is now

to the launch pad how many people does that involve are they going to be kind of, you know, sideline until this whole thing shakes out. That's just the huge variable right now that we don't know. And then beyond that, when it comes time for launch, is, is Brendan going to be allowed to go see the launch? Are we going to be allowed to fly down to see it? I don't know, man. It's going to get really weird.

But at the same time, it's, like, so important that they get this thing off, given the fact that we're right up against the wall here with the Starliner situation continuing to be total mayhem. I mean, this is a priority for NASA. and regardless of, you know, what kind of factors they have in place, there's this four-stage kind of crisis management thing that NASA has, and right now they're only at stage two. And it will be interesting to see,

but I think there was going to be quite a few exceptions for DM2. I know for CRS-20, there were exceptions made for the teleworking practice, the folks that were supporting that mission were still working, the press site was still open, you know, we were all there. Well, I wasn't. That one was a late one. I don't go to late ones. But yeah, it will be interesting to see how the travel is going to impact that. And especially quarantine. I talked to NASA about quarantining. And it's all on the wheelhouse of the Russians. So they basically go by whatever they say. Right now it's what a 14-day quarantine. They could extend it to 21 days. But it's fascinating to see how this will. have an impact on that because these dates we were getting was before this kind of story broke open so um yeah we have a question in the twitch chat from martian i don't know how to read the second half of that username that uh does space travel count as domestic if it's orbiting americans

like what's the deal what's that classification i know that buzz aldrin and them had to like file their customs forms going to the moon yeah but what's the deal with the usss you know the u.s uh orbital segment. That's a really good question. I don't know. I don't know. It's not licensed by the FAA, and I assume it would be an FAA thing, right? So maybe they're exempt? Who knows? Who knows? They'll get

exempt either way. Who knows? Just tell someone which one there can go. J.B. will show up at the hearing in person again. I mean, they must have, like, Doug Hurley and Bob Bacon, like, in bubbles right now, like, hermetic bubbles, like, to be

Like, you cannot get coronavirus right now. New assignment. You get to test the spacesuit from here until launch. Congratulations. Yeah. I mean, there are signs throughout, like, through Johnson Space Center and Kennedy Space Center that are, like, let's say, you know, protect the crew. And it's, you know, all of these things that you can do to make sure you don't, like,

like, don't sneeze in their mouths or whatever, you know, just, like, standard stuff that you don't want to do. But those are starting to come up. And that's how a lot of people that I've talked to at KSC are like, yeah, this is coming up because we've got the protect the crew. That's not an actual thing. I need to see a, protect the crew. Don't sneeze in their mouths, Photoshop, with Doug and Bob. And I need like a testimonial from the astronauts being like,

ever since these signs went up, the amount of stealing in our mouse has really gone down. We appreciate it. Oh, wow. Yeah. A lot of good title opportunities here already. So, you know, I'm loving this episode. Doing good. Okay, excellent.

It's only going to get better, Anthony. I've only had one beer. They only had a half of beer. Yeah, this stuff's thin, too. I'm not used to this. I can drink about 100 of those before the episode. I usually have what you guys are drinking, but, wow. Last time we were about to pick a new thing,

there was a big surge of number nines. Number nines? Number nines. Okay, all right, all right. Let's take a look here. Number nine. We need some music for this part. Number nine is.

Burns beard. Burns beard. I just wanted to put that in there to say, look at that thing. It's glorious. It's looking good, man. You said you got some work done on it recently? I did, yeah. Shout out to Chris A, my barber.

He's been working on this thing for a few years now. So, yeah, I did a... Warranty status with the beard? Like, what's the protocol? Well, my mom is a nurse, and I went to visit her yesterday. I saw her, and she told me I had to shave it in case I needed a respirator, and I basically told her it's not going to happen. but so Mama Byrne doesn't like the beard right now,

but Mama Byrne never liked the beard, so. She's just using this as a new angle to try to get you to shave it. New angle, yeah, she's like, it's going to kill you, I told you, yeah. You're married, so I can't use that anymore. Let me try the medical angle. My wife likes it. My wife told me I can never shave it. I shaved it once, and I have a very fat cheeks.

I look like a chipmunk underneath here. You showed me a picture once of you without a beard, and there was like a picture of like two or three people and I didn't know which one was you. So yeah, you got to warm people when you do that. I'm trying it out now. This is the first time I've ever grown it out. I'm like, what am I like? I think I'm three months in.

It looks really good. And I've been trimmed and stuff, but yeah, I don't know. Anthony always has a very sophisticated tight beard. It's always looking good. It's just the maximum extent of it. This is like glacial maximum for my beard. that looks good Jake keep it up

and for those people out there it's it's the beard right here the beard in your heart that really counts wow okay uh all right

well we should get another topic going here so who's uh who's picking next number one and he's going to pick number one okay this might be a short one because we kind of touched on it already virus uh...

uh... yeah we did touch on it but there are there's a couple other things that came up with like a lot of these uh we talked about the cruise side of things, but there was some talk about people that operate robotics,

you know, on curiosity and some other teams that are testing protocols for working from home and then communicating with Mars, which is just like a really cool situation that's like, oh, let me just VPN, essentially VPN into Mars, which is just like a weird, that's a weird thing that happens these days. Did you, on the Mars beat, did you pick up anything with like the operational side, how this is impacting it? Yeah, as far as I know, they were doing tests last week to fully plan a planning session for curiosity remotely. And I know they kind of do that partially already. I spoke with some of the scientists who are in the planning groups who do it all from LPSC

when we're there and stuff. But I think they're still, like, you know, they may be in the planning group remotely, but there's still someone at the control room pressing the buttons, right? And so I think they're trying to put that outside and testing it. And it seems like I haven't heard anything. bad. So hopefully that's all good for them. Maybe we'll have some remote ops, remote, remote, remote ops. Well, I just saw a story from Ken Chang at the New York Times that the European mission has been delayed to 2022, partly due to coronavirus due to staffing being out. So I'm starting to see some real

impacts. Now there's only three missions launching this year. Less and less by the day. Jake's job is getting easier for the summer. It really took a load off for the summer coverage, that's for sure, because I'm not going to have much work coming out of the other two. So, yeah, the coronavirus, I mean, for XOMARs, that was really, like, the straw that broke the camels back, I feel. Like, there was a lot of other stuff going on, obviously. But, I mean, they had to go to Italy to get fixed.

So, like, talk about awful timing, right? So how are you going to fly a bunch of engineers into Turin to fix it or whatever? So, yeah, it kind of sucks. Is there a number on one of them cards that has? Ex-O-Mars on it because I feel like we're just transitioning seamlessly here breaking the flow of your game A little bit, yeah, I have all here, yeah, we can transition, I have this one. Unless I don't want to cut off coronavirus to assume, but like everybody's talking about. Mars drama.

Hot drama. I don't want to hit that. It's not. No, it's not hot drama, but it's a little more, it's a little more than lukewarm drama. It's like the tail end of a shower drama. Okay. I'm not touching that one. The whole thing where it was like coronavirus was the camel's back, whatever that thing is for Exomars, is that accurate?

Or is it the scapegoat? You know, because boy, did it seem to unravel quick for Xomars where it was, you know, parachute, parachutes. And the testing that was supposed to happen in Oregon was delayed and delayed and delayed. And then all the sudden, like the week leading up the decision, it's like solar panels are delaminating. The proton has a thousand bolts installed the wrong. way or with the wrong metal or whatever and the parachutes weren't tested. What happened there, Jake? Do you think that was a little too like tight and tied up of the PR of Exomars and then all

a little bit? Yeah, yeah. Especially because they, they, um, even in the press release, so we knew about the parachutes and we knew about the coronavirus and we knew about the rocket had just come out. That news about the proton rocket was being all kind of buggered up. But, um, so they, they launched that. And then in the press release, they kind of also buried. that there was all the software testing for the lander wasn't done.

And there was some hardware, like some electronics in the lander that failed some tests and needed to be troubleshooted. So they kind of threw that out with the bathwater. And so, yeah, maybe it's kind of a lot of stuff. Well, I mean, so in the Twitch chat, BR spies said that COVID prevented them from like rushing to the finish line and saying maybe we could make it. And that's true. Like in the world where coronavirus didn't happen, do you think that they would have? pushed for it or do you you think that they maybe would have said nah

not not the time for it they might have um yeah it's really I mean it's tough to tell right but I feel like they might have just because this has been delayed so much like this has been moved back launch windows like

five or six times all in um really kind of twice if you consider being late in the game like it was going to launch in 2018 then it got pushed 20 and now 22 but I don't know feel like they would have gone for it. But I also don't know, and we'll never know how bad that rocket problem was either, right? Because I've kind of heard two stories now where it's like, oh yeah, just some fasteners. You flip them out. It's all fine. And I've also heard like, no,

it's every fastener. And the whole rocket has to come apart. And now it's going to be grounded for like whatever a year or something. So yeah. So maybe they took a bullet for us Cosmos. I don't know. But either way, we got no mission this year. Does Mars drama also include Mars 2020, now renamed? Brendan's favorite rover? Or is that a separate topic? I don't know the damn thing. Can you say it?

Perseverance, yeah, of course I can say, and I spell it phonetically. But there it is. Anyone that's just listening to the podcast needs to go check out the Twitch stream because Jake has all these great little drawings. Actually, you know what? After this, take photos of them all, send them to me.

They will be the chapter art. this episode. Perfect. Can you pop that one up? That one was really good. I like that. Look at that. It says Mars 2020 or a person to yours or whatever.

Brendan, this is your confirmed favorite rover. Sure. It's got the mic on it. You've been tweeting about this thing for four years. I have to maintain some sort of unbiasedness to my reporting. But yes, I'm super excited about it.

Yeah, it's going to be cool. It's the only American one. And you do the public radio show in Orlando where it's launching from there. You're okay. Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm really excited about the microphone. This is going to be super cool.

And I've had a chance to do a little bit of reporting on it. I haven't produced a piece yet because we're a little busy with something else right now. But the microphone is going to be super exciting. And I had a chance to talk with the PI and also Bruce Betts from the Planetary Society who's been advocating for microphones for decades now, starting all the way back with Carl Sagan. Like literally, they had one on, was it Mars Polarlander had the microphone from? Yeah, yeah.

Which it's such a cool, like, such a cool public relations thing is to hear what another world sounds like. So yeah, so it was really fun to do the reporting on that. And I'm really excited to share that. I will have a full conversation with the PI on my podcast. But yeah, it's super exciting. Did you get a chance, or maybe you will get a chance to visit any of the stuff in Florida. I know for past missions, you've gotten to go

bunny suit. Yeah. Is it Osiris Rex that you got to go in there? Yes. Yeah. Osir's Redge was really cool. I've seen Tess. Tess was really fun. But yeah, I'm expecting that we'll be able to see that. They had a media event out there at JPL, so you guys should come down, getting bunny suit with me. We'll go, we'll go check it out, check it out. Jake's not got travel hindlets. I could theoretically drive, so we'll see how things turn out. I'm actually, I'm curious to what they'll, if they'll even allow that.

Like, this is also, this is an astrobiological mission, right? So, I don't know, maybe the planetary, I mean, planetary protection is pretty strict already. Maybe it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's. Yeah, I don't think coronavirus is going to tip them over to be too protective of us. We found, we found coronavirus in Jesero Crater. Well, I think I told you guys this story, but when I went to go see Osiris Rex, they had this whole thing. There's this whole briefing about planetary protection. and how you couldn't bring any nylon into the clean room.

Because what they're looking for was, like, chemically the same as nylon, or there was some molecule in nylon. So, like, we had to pull, like, all of our, like, camera straps off, and, like, all of my recording gear had no straps on it. Everything had to get wiped down. Like, we're doing this whole thing, and then all I can think about is, like, that morning, finding my cat, like, inside my entire gear bag.

I'm like, I hope they didn't say anything about cat hair. So if we find cat DNA on Benu, it's probably my fault. Maybe that's what broke that thing that's malfunctioning, that Canadian instrument. It's a hairball. Yeah, busted the laser. It's crazy how much goes into that stuff. So that's a really good point about, you know, if there's this kind of radical disease out there, radical virus, like, will they even let us get in the bunny suits and go see?

see it. Yeah, maybe not from like astrobiology standpoint, but just like they don't want to take any risks right now, right? Like the last thing you need is like being like the critical phase of Atlo and and half your team gets sick, right? So yeah. Okay. I hate the name by the way.

Oh, you do? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I hate it. Oh, I didn't hear this take yet. I'm trying not to be too upset about it. But it's just like it's just so hard to say and spell. like it's just hard

what would you have picked of the nine any of the other eight yeah it was it was rough and I've even heard like non-native English speakers are like really struggling with it so which is sucky because it's also an international mission in a way

but yeah I know I just I've misspelled it so many times already yeah I misspelled it I almost misspelled it on this thing I did I like I love the kid who named it and if you go back and watch the naming ceremony, the kid was miced up the whole time,

and his reaction to all of the pomp and circumstance is fantastic. Go back and watch it, and watch when they present him the giant boarding pass. And listen, his mic is on. It's a hot mic, and he's like, wow, that's so big. This is so dumb. Why do I have to hold it? I was like, I love you, kid.

You're saying what all of us are thinking. And so after that, I'm like, I'm like, this kid's my hero. He's fantastic. And you didn't know, like, whether to stand up when he was shaking hands, like, do I stand up? Should I stand up? And he doesn't. And then he goes, oh, man, I should have stood up. I really should have stood up.

And so this poor kid is immortalized now with these comments. And I just, I love him for it. It was, because he was so honest. And so I like the name just because of that. It looks cool as hell on the rover. That nameplate that they put on it? Oh, yeah. It does.

That looks badass. It's a really cool looking rover. I'll probably grow to love it. Like, let's be honest, but I don't know. I would like to anyone. I also like the press conference when they announced it when they scripted the kid to throw the softball Artemis question. Did you? I lost it at that where it was just like, he read the poem.

And then Thomas Rubikin is like, oh, do you have any questions for me? He's like, tell us about the Artemis program and the plan to put the first woman and the next man on the service of the mirror. And he's like, oh, I'm so glad you asked about that. I'm like, oh, my goodness. Come on, you guys. It was really bad. But, yeah. Anyway, I hope I'd grow up like the name, but I'm not digging it so far.

Sorry, NASA. Damn. What else he got for us, Jake? Oh, should we do another voting? Yeah, let's get the listener. So we got, what we got left here? We have. Let's see the board here.

Two, four, five, and ten. So far, the only thing that's been picked is things that have already been picked. Let's see. Two is the winner in the Discord. It's actually, yep, two. Two it is. Two is the one. Blue Origin.

Look at that little feather. You like that? So good. Jake, this is really good. This is really good. This is the going pro production quality. See, this is a white card stock piece of paper that I cut into four pieces with a pair of scissors. And then I used a Sharpie to draw a,

a feather. So your Patreon money at work. Brendan, what are you seeing on the ground there? Because we were finally getting some sneak peeks of blue urge and stuff. We've seen like fairings and launch control rooms and stuff. This is all the stuff that's been in your backyard secretly for so long. Yeah, we haven't seen any of it. Jake, we're still looking at your sweater again. It's a cool sweater, man. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, we haven't seen any of it. We're still only just getting what we get on Twitter, which is kind of crappy.

so yeah you're in the dark blue origin PR is listening you know who I am because I've sent you dozens of emails it is interesting that they're finally doing all of this kind of rollout you know and it's partially they do have somebody that finally is the head of their PR team which is interesting they have not had that forever and now they do have ahead of PR it's shocking they went all these years without a head of a PR they have a human being that you can chat with sometimes And then the other part is that they actually have stuff done. Like they have a factory that has stuff in it, and they are showing it off, and it's wonderful looking. They have the control room built.

They finally have stuff to show, and they are showing it, which I think is a good thing for future stuff. You know, like when they have things to show, they will show us. It's not like they're always going to be totally closed-lipped about stuff. Yeah, and, I mean, you can drive by the factory, and, I mean, you guys went. down there when you were here, but anytime I cover a story out there, I always take a quick drive down spaceport way or whatever it is. Space Commerce way. Wilbur Ross would be very disappointed in you. Yes.

And just you kind of just to see that thing come together. And the most interesting thing that I've seen with the release of all these videos they've been doing is launch control. Because you know, like if you've been there, you know where that launch control is going to be. It's up on the top level with those glassware. Windows and like, man, that is going to be, for those folks that are going to be on console there to see a launch from that vantage point, it's going to be just incredible.

So maybe they'll let me in. Maybe. We'll see. Yeah, no, I'm really excited about it. They're not just showing the factory, like, built and, like, done, but it's doing stuff. Like, it's building things, right? So that's a good sign that they're making progress. And holy crap, like the scale of it, like when you look, when you see that faring come out of that oven, it's like, holy crap, like this is going to be a big effing rocket.

Big pharing. Yeah. And the control room, to me, looks like, I don't know, it looked pretty high tech. Kind of looked like some sort of minority report stuff, you know, like it was pretty intense. I do like that they've put a lot. You can tell that the, we're looking at it here on the, on the Twitch stream. the lighting in here. If you go,

oh, that's a lot of audio. If you go to this late in the video, about 25 seconds into the video, you see that the lighting is curved with the whole desk lineup, and it's like this amphitheater kind of vibe to it. And it's just rad looking. That is real cool.

It's a good looking control room, for sure. Yeah, love to see it. I'd love to see it. He's so bitter. It's great. Love it. You guys think we're going to get a, New Shepherd with people on it this year? If we don't, I'm going to be so mad.

Yeah. That is domestic travel, though, right? Oh, good point. Yeah. Because that is FAA licensed. Yeah. And also getting people there. I mean, you can't just drive to West Texas.

It's the middle of it. Well, you could, yeah. Takes a while. I mean, these people that are going to be paying the money for it won't be. I guess they'll have their own private planes. They can get them there. It is interesting. what they are, like, okay, if we're going to go in on this suborbital tourism thing,

the only way that I can't be mad at Blue Origin is if they are taking so long so that when they start flying people, they immediately start flying like multiple times a month, even just once a month. And they hit the ground running from that because if you're looking at the landscape here, they're competing with Virgin Galactic, who is flying once every blue moon at this point with mostly pilots. One time they flew up Beth Moses. Once in a blue moon.

I didn't even need to do that. they're flying very infrequently. They don't have all the seats in yet. They've got all this stuff in progress, right? They're making very slow progress. So if you want to come up and, like, surpass them in this, because they've already got pomp and circumstance, Richard Branson and all that, you've got to just start flying regularly.

And you will get people that currently have tickets booked at Virgin Galactic to say, oh, I could be up in like six months. I'm just going to pay them 100 grand, 200 grand, whatever it comes out to be. Yeah. That's the only way I can be not mad at them for the pace of the shepherd. I mean, there's also been some chatter about letting, kind of, like, letting scientists ride with their suborbital payloads. I've spoken to quite a few folks that have had payloads on there,

which is super cool that during testing they're allowing these suborbital payloads. But for scientists to be able to go on there and conduct these experiments with this really extended microgravity is like super cool and the scientific community is definitely jazzed about it. And maybe the local media community would be jazzed about it too if you let one of us come with you. So if I can't get into Blue Origin, maybe you can just send me up on New Shepherd.

I'm really banking on somebody from Blue Origin listening to this. We got a couple listening right now. There are a couple. There are a couple. I don't know if any of them can help you out with those sales. Yeah, it might be a different department, but yeah. No, I'm really excited about the NASA researcher thing too because it just enables different science. And I think even if you don't know what you're going to use it for, when you have access to different ways to do science, like stuff happens.

You just add a little chaos to that mixture and you get some new stuff out of it. So I'm sure there's probably a ton of researchers. that are like, yes, NASA's going to pay me to go to space. This is amazing because just extend this grant to a spaceflight opportunity. So, yeah, super cool. Yeah, it's exciting. It's going to be really cool. It's all cool stuff.

What are we got on the floor, Jake? We got another one here. Brendan gets a pick. Brendan, who I do a pick? We got four, five, and ten. Let's go with five. Five, all right. Yeah, I like it in the corner there.

This one's a funny one. that is not funny. It says... Oh, geez. As zero of zero tests, success. So this is a command line drawing that says, run test, Boeing, running, past zero of zero test, success. So...

Lightenem on fire. Oh, God. Fire. It's a tough one. I thought about it for a long time. That was the one I spent the most time on. it's relevant to your profession now it is yeah as i'm learning web development stuff and i i now know what code coverage is and why yeah you're wondering why that tweet of mine was really good back in the day yeah i was like i'm like i'll learn this one day and then i did and i'm like whoops that's not good so um i don't know this has been hashed out a lot obviously

i don't think we need to spend a lot of time on this but i'm just kind of curious you know now we have you on the phone here brendon like uh what's what's your your feel on this pulse because it's definitely in your neck of the woods too. Starliner being a little dodgy. Yeah, I mean, it's, it sucks because I mean, the people that I interact with here are the ones that are really invested in this and, you know, they are just as disappointed as the rest of us are that things aren't going as planned. And we've learned from, you know, this joint investigation and from other things we're hearing that, you know, this isn't, it wasn't a mistake on the part of some technician on the ground level. This was a systemic issue from somebody above, you know, writing the testing protocol.

And that's kind of, that's what, that's what sucks the most about this, is that, you know, it was preventable, could have been preventable. But, you know, hindsight is 2020 and, yeah, you know, everybody's disappointed, you know. it was a beautiful launch and it was a good launch i'm kind of sad about i didn't realize it until you guys asked me these questions i'm really sad about it's like i remember blushing that that was that was great i i remember so i funny story i i i watched the launch from kennedy space center and then i had to run because i was supposed to have a story on all things consider an npr that wasn't finished, of course, because I'm like, I've got plenty of time to do it, because it's an early

morning launch. So, like, I had to run back to the studio and do it, and I went to go say goodbye to Emory Kelly, who was in the bunker next to me from Florida today, and I was like, Emery, I'll see you later, great launch, and he was like, dude, where the F are you going? Like, it's not going where it's supposed to, and I'll be, watch.

The story just started, so then I had to, like, definitely get back, because I had a time slot on ATC and, like, had to completely write, right this story about it. But yeah, I'll never forget, like, it was like 7 o'clock in the morning, Emery, like, where the, are you going?

Amazing. You're not done. Get back in there. So, yeah, it was sad. I did the same thing because I'm on the West Coast, so it was 4 a.m. So I got up and I watched it. And I was mad about the live stream because it was like, just like a static shot at the control room. I was like,

this is the worst. And then like, whatever, detached from the centaur. And I was like, okay, bye, I'm going to bed. This is a disaster. I'm so bored. And then I just happened to like crawl into bed and look one more time in my phone. And it was like, oh, I didn't get up again. And I just stayed up the whole way through and went to work and it was brutal. But yeah, that was a rough morning.

So the news this week was that it's going to be months. Oh, yeah. Like months. What was the designation they gave it? Like high visibility close call? Yeah, yeah. I think that was the biggest news out of out of that conference was that's a big deal. And we were kind of asking for some historical context. Like, how many times has this been

done before? I mean, when, I think it was Luca Parmatano, when he got water in his EBA suit was a high visibility close call. Like, that could have been loss of life. Like, that is an intense designation. And I think that kind of got lost a bit. But it's like, that's, that means, and there's a whole reporting thing that has to go into. it now, it's a big deal. It's a really big deal. Yeah. Yeah, and I feel like that's, that's sort of the, you mentioned the reporting thing. And I feel like that's kind of what we're waiting on now, is that, you know, people like you have to go to work and put their noses to the ground and, uh, we have to, we have to FOIA. So they, they, they won't release it publicly. No. They will make it

public if it's foyer. And if anybody has ever done a FOIA, it's super difficult. That's a freedom of of information. Freedom of information action. It's basically anybody saying, I want this information. NASA makes it like exceedingly impossible. Like my FOIAs have been successful, like maybe 10% of the time just because I've given up at some point because it's like, I can't get you what you need. And we don't have the money for an attorney to fight this kind of thing. So I think it's high visibility enough in the press corps that someone will be able

to do that and take it. But it's not just going to be out in the open, which is very disappointing that it's like that. We're getting a question from optimistic Martian about what that designation actually means like organizationally because it sounds like kind of like political speak, but it really is a big deal for the political organization that NASA is. It kicks off a series of reviews that NASA can do and it gives them more access to Boeing's info than they would otherwise have. And then I'm wondering if how much does that impact the like public facing side of it? Like you're saying you have to FOIA it. Does that change at all when it is? when it does get this special designation,

or is it still as impenetrable as it would always be? I know it changes NASA's interaction with the company, but does it change NASA's interaction with the public? That's a good question. I can't answer because I've never been around for one of these. Yeah, there's been like four, right? Yeah, so I don't know. I think in my story on this,

I linked to a PDF with the report. I'll send it to you guys so you can share it in the show notes. And you can look, I mean, this is like hundreds of pages. long document looking into what happened to the water and the space suit. I mean, with, you know, multiple departments and hundreds of people involved in it. It's going to be a very time-consuming thing. Now, we pushed on this press call to say, what does this mean? And Doug Laverro was like, it just means that we're looking into it and it's very serious. We don't know the specifics of what's happening.

But it's definitely more work than the joint task force. Yeah, I wonder if that could be part of it, that it allows them to have the resources time and money-wise to actually do the bigger investigation. Because that would be a big part of it, right? They can't do anything they're not authorized to do. So if they declare this, they might get more freedom to say, yeah, you know what, this subset of people are going to be working on that full-time

for six months or could be right into that. That's a good point. Yeah. So, yeah, we don't know at this point. But I know that there's quite a few space journalists out there that are really good with public records requests, that are, you know, working the grindstone on this Joey Roulette. He's real good covering the kind of government side of this stuff and looking into it. So if you're not following him or reading his work in Reuters, I definitely suggest doing that. He's also a former WMFE intern, by the way.

Oh, wow. I see, I see. Okay. It does open up a huge opportunity here for SpaceX because if Boeing's kind of stuck for a couple of months here and SpaceX gets DM2 off and then they start getting crew flights off, it could be the moment that we look back on as like that's when the tide turned. You know, when it finally, we got over this whole new and old space thing

and it just things changed. It could be this moment where it's such a visible difference in like the organizational slowdown that happens at Boeing because it's not just Starliner that this is happening. Yeah, I was going to say, I think the tide has turned, and I can take a guess it to one of the remaining cards is, but I think the tide is

turning for old space. You're absolutely right, Anthony. That's a perfect segue for the red card, actually, yeah. So I got four and ten left, so which ones should we do? Let's go 10, because that's the

bigger one. SLS Yeah With the dollar signs I love it SLS with dollar signs Yeah so is Is the tide turning

Because we got another OIG report We'll add it to the I have a pile of OIG reports On my desk here That I'll never read You'll read one day Yeah yeah

One day I'll read these They are They are It's a compelling read It is a compelling They all are That's the problem I'll save you some time Jake

The last six That have come out about SLS, just shred them and read this current one and you've read them all. Basically, that's what I, like, that's kind of what I want to, I don't want to get into the specifics of it. Like, if you want the specifics, just go read the space news article on it. It's like, NASA thought it was this much money. OIG says, no, it's way more.

A big surprise, it's, it's $49 billion instead of $44 billion. And then, whoops, we lost $5 billion. So. Brendan's doing, he's got some prop cooking here, Jake. Oh, no, I was, I've got my cooler in here. right. He's like, we're talking about the last time.

I thought he was like old the O-G thing. He looked like he was rifling through like a file cabinet. He's like, oh, I actually FOIA at Marshall's emails.

Yeah. No, but the, I guess like what I want to kind of ask is just like, I don't know. What do these matter? Like,

do these matter at all? Like, what is the, that nothing ever changes from them. And so I kind of wonder why they keep doing them. It just seems like a busy work now. I think they're helping get more public interest because now this kind of takes a lot of the reporting legwork out of what we have to do.

The OIG has already looked into all this stuff, has all these documents, put it together, presented to NASA, and NASA has an official response to it. And so that makes our job a little bit easier, and then it gets that information out to the general public. Now, I think the most interesting thing about this OIG report is that this cost overrun now, triggers a congressional review. Who is the executor of that and who's making sure that happens? That's another question. But based upon these baselines that they've provided for this program, and now the OIG has said that they've gone over these baselines, they have to go back to Congress once again and say, this is why it's happening and this is how we're going to change it. Congress is a little busy right now, so whether or not that will happen anytime soon,

but there's still this trigger that they have to go back and tell them why they spent so much money. And I think that's the interesting thing about this recent report. I should have read the articles about this, because this is a big deal. This was what happened to James Webb like two years ago. Yeah, yeah. And now I'm doing the timeline math now.

So they have 18 months to reappropriate on the new baseline. And that means they have to do it in the next budget cycle because two budget cycles will be too far. And so either they have to, continuing, like do a CR on this budget through the election, through inauguration,

and slip it in right before that 18 months, or they have to get it, you know, they're going to have to wait, which is too far. So they basically have to do something, right? Yeah. Yeah.

That's my limited understanding, but... Yeah, the policy aspect of this is, I think, what is the interesting part of the story. We know it's behind schedule and over budget, but now this is a real consequence of that scheduling issue and budgetary issue.

So it'll be fascinating to see what happens. I mean, nobody has come out and said, you know, we need to take this to, you know, we want to hear from NASA about this. No senator or congressman has done that. Again, because they have their hands full with all sorts of other stuff right now. Yeah. But it'll be interesting to see if someone comes out there and uses this as a way to kind of chop SLS down. If there's a, you know, a politician out there that wants to do it, this is probably their chance.

Yeah, totally. Lull. Lull. Yeah, not much to say about it, I guess. What you got behind the last door, Jake. Last one. Starship.

These illustrations are just incredible. Here's the, is this SN1 popping its top, I think? That's what that one is, right? SN1. Yeah, so I had your picture of that. I don't know, it's been, it's kind of a fun one. We'll end on a fun note because there's been some serious topics. but lots of crazy stuff happening down there.

Anthony, you did a great show with Tim Dodd, which I'll recommend to everyone. So if you are somehow an off-nominal listener and you're not a meiko listener, you should download Anthony's podcast, Managing Cutoff, and listen to the interview with Tim Dodd, the everyday astronaut, because you guys went over a ton of Starship stuff, and you speculated, you dove deep. It was great. I loved it. We talked about schedules.

We did predictions. Yeah, yeah. How's your prediction? holding up. I'm feeling all right about it. You know, I did, I was, uh, you know, you're the pessimist in the pair. I was the pessimist. Uh, I said that it was going to be, I'm banking on a major redesign between here and flying to 20 kilometers like SpaceX is hoping. That's essentially where my thing hinges on, because I said it would be a year until they fly to 20 kilometers from the day that we recorded it, which was like February 28th or whatever. That's really it,

is that they've been fighting all these welding issues and they've been doing all this welding stuff outside. They're moving more and more inside as they go. And now we see they've done in the last, you know, since that episode, they've blown up another tank. They had this like pressurization issue that then launched it off of the mount pretty high, which is incredible. Then it landed and the top flew off. It was an amazing looking failure. Yeah. No, you drew the one where the top flew off. Oh. You drew the one before that. You're forgetting. They blew the top off one. The other one, they blew the bottom off and the whole thing went flying and then the top flew off. I can't keep track of all this SpaceX explosions. I love it. So it is really fun to watch,

but I am like just keeping my eye on when's that next redesign because that's the best part about SpaceX is that every time we think, oh, that's the design. And then something happens, they do a bunch of work and they change it up because they're like, hey, we were wrong about these four things. And we're like, oh, that makes a ton of sense. So I'm pumped about it, though. Yeah. Brendan, you might be a little sad about this one though, because they're, there was a lot of activity in your neck of the woods. And now they've shifted over to Bocchica. I divert to you guys for coverage on this because it is no longer here.

And that is very sad as well. That we don't have that and we can't sneak over there. They are still building like a launch mount at 39A though. They are, yeah. And that's really cool. But you can't really drive over onto 39. Yeah, if you want to sneak a peek at it. You have to get under the KSC trolley tour or whatever they do.

Yeah, you're going to go through that and sit through the pomp and think of that. Or buy a boat, man. Yeah, or by a boat with a, yeah, a telescopic lens. I love, I love, I love this whole story because, I mean, you guys know from meeting me before Falcon Heavy, and I was a pretty big SpaceX pessimist, and they're never going to be able to do this, and, you know, Falcon Heavy is always six months away and all that stuff, and, and, uh, I don't have to see what the stuff that they've been able to accomplish. I kind of just sit back and say, yeah, they're doing really cool things. And yeah, if he says he can do this, they're probably going to be able to do this.

So I'm just excited to watch the development happen, even though it's not here. So it'll be back. It'll be back. Yeah, I still got a launch from there. I always go back to Anthony and I, we did that show about Starship when it updated. And we looked at the old timeline. So when they had the event down in Bocachika, and we dug out the old original timeline. to be like how off were they?

I was ready to just rip into them like how bad it was, but it actually wasn't too far off. I think the only real big thing is that they are way behind on super heavy in my opinion, but at least compared to that timeline, but Starship is more or less kind of tracking where they thought it would be.

It's changed 100 times, but their schedule has not. Yeah, that's so that's... And that's the beauty of their model, right? That's just design, adapt, blow up, adapt, you know, that's what they do. Raise funding, adapt. Yeah. Raising a lot of money. A ton of money. A lot of money.

Yeah. Yeah. That is the most encouraging thing is that they've got Starlink and Starlink is doing so well. Like, I think we're all taken for granted the fact that Starlink has become, like, they're basically operating. They're operating the largest constellation of anyone ever. And they're doing it without any of us noticing. Just totally silently. Amazing. Amazing. It's amazing. Some people are noticing. Oh, yeah, yeah, okay. Okay, totally there are people noticing.

I meant like, operationally, we have not noticed any differences in the way that SpaceX handles themselves or operates launches or they're just like, they just started doing it. They kind of spun it up in stealth, right? Yeah. And like it happened like in months. Like when was the first Starlink launch? It was like late last year, right? Yeah. And it's like, we heard nothing and nothing and nothing.

And they're like, oh, by the way, here's 60 production satellites on the launch mount ready to go. You're like, well, where did you get those? They're like, there's another 60 in the truck on the way. Hang on, hang on. We're like, we're making the 6 a day. And we're getting this entire rocket back, and then we're going to send it up again with the next 60. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, this rocket's going to make it back before the truck does.

And then, oh, my goodness. So they're moving quick for sure. Well, Anthony, we're getting near the end here. Do you want to dig into some picks? What do you think? I would love to dig into some picks. This is going to be the self-isolation picks edition. Yeah, I'm wondering.

Tell Brendan about Picks. I hope you're remembered. I'm trying to remember if we remind. No. I don't know. We didn't. We just assumed that he remembered the model from two years ago. I have no idea what we're doing, but we'll just, we'll do it live.

Wasn't Brendan the first guest? I think you were, right? Likely, because we started this just a few months before Falcon Heavy, and then we went down to Falcon Heavy, and then we got Brendan on. I didn't realize. We felt bad that Jake left so many loons in your house that we had one. And that was the name of the episode, wasn't it? Yeah, I got 35 loons in my pocket or whatever.

Yeah. You still holding on to that. money for me? I'm coming to get it. It's somewhere here. Your best friend is also here too who wouldn't stop barking at you. So, Cassie, do you want to say hi to Jake? Yes, we went to all. I'm sorry. I'm asking if

Falcon Heavy was the first time we all met. That was the first time we all met in person. Yes, it was. Do you want to say hi to Jake? Come on. We went drinking at the play of Linda Brewing Company. I had the weird beer with Pat, our friend Pat, listener Pat. The weird beer. It was like

I'm trying to remember. It had a lot of ingredients, but it was strawberry, jalapino, polano, I think, like, cinnamon. Like, it was weird. It was like, they were like, what's all the stuff that's on sale at the grocery store? Oh, dog on the stream. Sorry, listeners, you don't get to see the puppy. She doesn't want to see you, Jake.

She still doesn't like you. I'll see her. If not for DM2, I'll see her for Mars 2020. How's that? There we go. There we go. And I need that money back because the stock market's not doing. Yeah, I got you, but with interest.

I need that Canadian dollar because it's holding up better. So, Picks. I've got an emergency exit for Brendan in the terms of Picks here. We've got a question in the Twitch chat for Brendan, specifically about how the space poop ebook is coming. Yeah, that's right. after consultation with the folks that have done this for a living the space poop book is not happening but the space poop portion will be looped into a book proposal I'm working on now which is a larger portrait of life on Mars a larger portrait of poop yeah it's more than just pooping

anymore so I realized I couldn't write a whole book it's more than just pooping it's more than just pooping. That's the title of the book. Living on Mars, it's more than just pooping. So, yeah, so the proposal's almost done, and hopefully I'll have some news on that in the next few months. But I appreciate whoever asked about my space poop. That was Lecoe in the Twitch chat. Thank you very much, Lecoe. I'm sorry, maybe I'll just, I'll dedicate the poop chapter to you for asking. It's going to get a chapter. It'll get a chapter. It'll get a chapter. It'll get a chapter. Okay, so Picks is what we do, Brendan. We just, we have a general space pick that we've been enjoying, book, article, podcast, video.

In my case, mine is in the theme of self-isolation. It is a game that I'm willing, not willing, I am ready to dig back into. I have not yet, this is one of those preemptive, well, it's a post-emptive preemptive pick, and it'll explain why. There was a game that came out a while back called No Man Sky. That is this, like, an incredible game where you could explore the universe, and everyone was hyped for it, and then they downloaded it. It was incredibly hyped.

It was incredibly hyped. And everyone downloaded it and went, what am I supposed to do in this game? There's nothing to do in this game. What the hell is going on? And I played it when it originally came out, and then I kind of was not playing it anymore. Apparently it's like totally turned around.

And the dev team, it's kept working on it, made a ton of updates, and I'm looking forward to digging back into it in the next week or so as we just all sit in our houses. It sounds really cool, Brendan. I don't know if you've played it. You seem pretty pumped about it. I bought it release day.

Like, I took the day off first. Have you circled back on it since? I circled back to it a few months ago, but before the most recent update. Got it. And I was still kind of like, eh, but now I've heard again. So I think I might be diving into it with you since I'll be working at home from at least the next two weeks. It sounds really good, and all the updates sound really cool. And I love that story, you know, as a developer myself.

I love the story of, like, small teams working on the thing. I think there was a whole great story where, like, the fan base was so happy. they bought a billboard across the street from the office of the dev company and said like thank you for fixing the game which is really good I love that kind of stuff okay so no mask I was super hyped about that game and never actually um bought it because I like I don't usually buy things on the release day unless I'm like there's a very few things that I would do that with and this was not one of them and so like it came out and then I was reading the reviews and like no no don't do it it's not good it's not good and I never bought it so and I left my memory so it's glad I'm glad to hear that it's that's fact. Cool. I have a pick. This is actually a pick that I'm forwarding from a listener. So shout out to Radishes from the Discord.

He connected me with a podcast called Extremities, and I said, yeah, cool, I'll listen to that. And then I put it at the bottom of my podcast queue, and that was like, I don't know, a year ago. And I finally got to it and listened to the first kind of mini-series they did. it's a podcast about kind of living in weird remote isolated places so i thought it was also very um very close to the theme of this of this self-isolation podcast um but they did the first kind of series on a place called pitcairn islands which is like this british territory in in the spacecraft grade yard it's like in the middle of the south pacific like far from everywhere it it takes you like two weeks to get there even if you want to go there as fast as possible because

there's no airport like you've got to fly to zealand and then fly to tahiti and then get on a boat and ride a boat for 12 days and like it's crazy um so the uh the podcast is is it's really interesting it's a scripted podcast so it's kind of like um you know you go through uh all this kind of history and they weave it in with kind of life on the island and and you can kind of see what it's like but I know, it's kind of cool because it's like living in these weird places kind of reminds me of living in space. So I'm excited to dig into the second series. So, yeah. So wait, you just started it.

So like you got like just the Pitcairn. How'd you say it? Pitcairn, yeah. There's like five or six episodes of Pitcairn. Yeah, that's what I'm saying here. And then there was one kind of standalone one on the. Howland Island? Yeah, I read about, I listened to the Howland Island one.

And then there's something else coming after. They go into Spallbart and stuff. Smallbar is really cool because. that's where space-related, that's where a lot of the, like, North Pole ground stations are. Right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Spalbard. There's a lot of polar bears there. I know that much. That's a random fact about Spallbar.

Yeah. Yeah. If you go out into the wilderness and Svalbard, you bring a gun because... Polar bears. Yes, that's my pick. That's it. All right. Exremities. Love it. Extremities. Brendan, I don't know if you got a pick because we surprised you, but it's okay if not. You can just pick No Man Sky.

Yeah, I like No Man Sky. I will say I've got to give a shout out to my colleagues in NPR who have been crazy, busy covering the coronavirus, but they normally do really fun science stuff. I've had an awesome opportunity to work with them on space things, and they put out a really cool daily podcast now. It's a science podcast. Right now it's mostly coronavirus stuff, but normally they have some really interesting topics, and it's a daily science podcast. Science Podcast. So there's an appetite for daily science news. It's called Shortwave. It's like 10 minutes long and it's fantastic. So a shout out to all those, the NPR Science Desk who puts that together and give it a listen. It's a lot of fun. That's awesome. Yeah. And you've been doing, do you want to plug your show too? Because you've upgraded, are we there yet a little bit? It's like it's on the radio now. Is this like an official thing now? Talk to you. It's on the radio. I went the opposite direction of most shows that go from radio to podcast. I went podcast radio.

So, yeah, it comes out once a week now. It has to come out once a week. Like before I was doing the podcast, I'm like, eh, I don't have anything this week. We'll just skip it. So if anybody subscribes to it, there's actually some consistency now. And there's a lot more real estate to fill.

So we have this really fun segment called I'd like to know, and I have a panel of two planetary scientists and a cosmologist from the University of Central Florida. So if you have any questions, you can just email them to us, no matter how dumb or stupid or sci-fi or whatever. And we take your questions and hopefully try to answer them. So it's been really fun putting it together, and it's been really fun being on the radio. Yeah, I like the new segment a lot.

It's fun. It's kind of like Spunky. Those three sound like they're pretty fun to hang out with. And they are really fun to hang out with. And they have their own podcast called Walk About the Galaxy, which if you really want to get into some kind of of deep, nerdy, astronomy stuff. It's a really, really good podcast to listen to. Sweet.

Okay, we got lots of picks out of you then. Yeah, we didn't even tell him, and he's like just to shit him. Who gets? Everybody gets picks. All right, well, this has been awesome. Brendan, I can't wait to see you again this summer. One way or another, we're coming down, I think. Yeah, please too.

We got some more beers to drink down here. We do. This new brewery, apparently, we need to go to. Oh, it's fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, the other brewery, I took you two closed down, so I'm blaming that on you. Did that the Plilinda one?

No, no, the Ocean Sun. One with the Falcon. Oh, yeah, that one, yeah, the Ocean Sun one. Yeah, yeah. That was closer to your house, right? That was in Orlando, that one? Yeah. RIPBerry.

Yeah. Is that the cat that almost ruined Osiris Rex or is that your cat, Jake? Here, yeah, he got in somehow. Who's cat is that? The new segment on Arnominable. Whose cat is that? I love it. Hi, Katie.

This is awesome. The first off nominal has dogs and cats. But, you know, Jake, that Canadian science instrument Osiris Rex is not working. Because there's cat hair and the LIDAR. Yeah, this is the one that destroyed Osiris Rex. I don't know a better way to end it, Jake. Brendan, we love you. Thanks for having me, guys.

This is so much fun. Bye, Jake. Bye.