Off-Nominal - 45 - Nauka Got Milkshake Ducked

Episode Date: October 12, 2021

Jake and Anthony are joined by two returning favorites, Loren Grush and Miriam Kramer, to talk about Loren’s time away from the space news grind, and Miriam’s excellent podcast following Inspiration4.DrinksCometa, Irish Red Ale, from The Beer Company. in YucatanAurora Boreal, from The Beer Company. in YucatanBigelow Green TeaChamomile tea2016 Azienda Agricola Marianot Garblet, Barolo DOCGTopicsOff-Nominal - YouTubeEpisode 45 - Nauka Got Milkshake Ducked (with Loren Grush and Miriam Kramer) - YouTubeEpisode 40 - SpaceX Play Place - Off-NominalNelson: “Watch the Chinese” – SpacePolicyOnline.comInSight: how NASA got its next Mars lander to the launch site - The VergeCrumbly Mars Rock, Not Hardware Flaws, Scuttled Perseverance's First Sample Attempt - Scientific AmericanMoment Nauka's thrusters fired changing ISS' attitude. Both live cameras with real time telemetry - YouTubeSpaceX Starship Playist - YouTubeInspiration4 - HomeBook Deals: Week of August 3, 2020PicksThe Next Astronauts Part 5: The Launch - AxiosCountdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space - NetflixDune Novels – The Official Dune WebsiteApogee of Fear! -- NASA VERSION. Written & produced by Tracy Hickman, Directed by Richard Garriott - YouTubeFoundation | Apple TV+Joey Roulette (@joroulette) / TwitterFollow LorenLoren Grush (@lorengrush) | TwitterLoren Grush (@grushcrush) • Instagram photos and videoslorengrush Profile and Activity - The VergeFollow MiriamMiriam Kramer (@mirikramer) / TwitterAxios Newsletter SignupFollow 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. Buenos dees me, amigos. Hello, welcome. I didn't expect them to do the whole thing. We're back. We're here. We had a bit of a hiatus. We were offline for, when was the last show?

Like six weeks ago? Was it? I'm trying to remember because it was not quite. Was it not quite into September? Was it like end of August? I can't even remember anymore. I don't know. But that might be just me because I did a lot of stuff in that.

Yeah, you've changed your entire. entire lifestyle since then. I turned my life upside down, shook it into a different garbage can. And then, yeah, I'm here. So this is the first off nominal for my new studio here in beautiful Yucatan state in Mexico. How's it feel? Feels good, but there's not enough furniture. So here's the thing about moving to different country is that it's not very convenient

to take furniture with you. And so when you get a new unfurnished place, you have a lot of work to do. I think Miriam and I can also relate having both just moved during the pandemic. Meeting in the middle of the pandemic will do that to you too. Yes. Okay, good. I'm glad I'm not alone in this. But it's good, man.

I'm really excited to like get back in the routine because it's been a little, you know, it's been a little messy for me at least. And we are here with two off-nominal legends. Yes. Lauren Grush has returned to the space beat. You're back? your first week back, right? And you're catching you here? Yeah, it's technically my second week back because I came back last Friday and for a one-day work week. That's a way to do it. Yeah, it was a,

it was a strategy. Not sure it worked very well, but it happened. Knees in. That's, yeah, exactly. And Miriam, you're back very quickly. This might be the quickest return to off nominal of any guess. No, I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to be back. I don't think I was able to. to even talk about the podcast with you guys the last time I was here. So it's good to be public with it. But the reason that you in particular are an off-nominal legend

is that you came on the show. We had a great time. We developed a whole bit about the SpaceX Playplace. And then you told that to, I believe it was the mission manager at SpaceX. I did. I did. I felt like listening. I yelled because I was so excited

at that moment. I was really hoping that that would be the reaction. I feel like that phenomenal guys are really going to like this. Like you're really going to hate me for it. It's one of the two. Yeah. No, why would we hate you for that? It was a number one, it was a fantastic bit.

Number two, it's totally accurate. It just felt over. And then seeing it, it was so funny. It was like seeing seeing it in person. I was like, this is extremely accurate. Like, it's the only way I can think to describe it. It was like this whole bit that we had developed. And I was like, oh boy, okay.

I'm going with it. Oh man, yeah. No, that was great. I was super, super stoked when I heard that on the podcast. Oh, I'm so happy about that. I was like, yeah, stupid joke is real now. SpaceX knows it. For better or worse, they know what it looks like now. I'm running some technical things. I was going to see, yeah, we're getting some echo or something somewhere. I think you fixed it. I think you fixed it. Okay. We'll let the people know. We'll work in the issue live on. We'll let them let us know.

there's any further problems. Well, we got a packed schedule here tonight, Jake. We've got a lot of chaos to get into. So let's hear what kind of Mexican drink have you brought? Yes, I have some great ones. I'm so excited for this. Okay, so I was, I moved to this new place like literally like five days ago. So I'm still like learning the neighborhood here.

And there was this beer store about two blocks away. And it's just like the sign was amazing. I sent it to you, Anthony, but it was just like a white sign above the store in Helvetica font that said the beer company, period. And like that was that was the sign. I was like, this is my place. I know this is what it is. So I went in there and I found some stuff. And this is a local beer from Yucatan.

It's called cometta. I don't know if you can see that up close there. It's pretty. So it's space themed cometa. Amazing. Yeah. Irish red ale and it says on the side here.

You had it horizontal. I thought it was like a death ray or something shooting into the sky. I was trying to show the word, right? I got it. I got it. Come and everything's fine. And then it says here in Spanish,

once you go craft beer, you can't go back. And I was like, okay, there we go. That's it. But I was looking up this brewery. I'm like, okay, what is this brewery?

Like, it's called Cervesa Villamil. And I looked it up and it's, there's the store. So this is the beer company. Oh my God, you went inside there. It looks like a trap. It has a period. The sign has a period.

That's an entire sentence. It's really great. So I looked up this brewery and it's like it's not a brewery. It's just, it's a home brew. It's like a guy in his garage started making beer and then he got it into the store somehow and he makes all the labels space beer. I wonder how he got it into the beer company, very high standard storefront. I know, I know.

And that's the other one I got. a backup. This is Aurora Boreal from the same place. Oh. Nice. I'm beautiful. I love a good cosmic beer. So I'm excited. This,

I don't know, it might be garbage. You never know, right? But we're good. So that's what I'm drinking today. Lauren? How about you?

So I was saying to you all before this started, but I have my first cold since January of 2020. And got a COVID test. Don't know if I got it. I don't think I'd do. but I'm drinking green tea. Bigelow, is that what happened to the company after the whole downfall out in Las Vegas? That's hilarious.

You got the most on-brand tea and you just didn't know. My cousin just brought this over for me before the podcast. I didn't get a chance to actually look at it. So that's kismet. Amazing. Miriam, the best mug that has ever appeared on this podcast. I too am drinking tea. It is like a weird grumpy catman that has three gumpy cats looking at the moon.

I've had it for many, many years. I rarely drink from it, but I figured it was appropriate for tonight. So I have camomile tea. I am growing a space, a future space cadet. I'm pregnant. So also not on the alcohol train at the moment. So it's all already with Lauren for very different reasons. I'm not pregnant.

So just throwing that out there. Okay. Just to make it very clear. Jake, I've got me a nice bottle of Barolo here because my dad brought some over recently and I said that I liked it. So he sent four of them to my house. So now I have four of these bottles of Barolo and they're delicious. Wow.

I'm pulling out the wine today. Yeah, he like shipped it to my house, which is, if you know anything about Pennsylvania liquor law, it's very hard to do as well. So, and he did it totally legally, apparently. But the wine killed the audio again. What's going on tonight, Jake? I don't know, man. What's going on? We're back.

The audio's back, I swear. I'm not switching shots ever again on this show. We're doing a four-up for the rest of the night. Okay. All right. All right. So the premise for this show is that Lauren Grush has just stepped out of a nine-month-time machine, and we need to get her back on track.

Please. Because it's been very eventful. So I went through all of the headlines of the year. I scrubbed through all the documents that I do for headlines, pulled out important storylines. So I thought it would be fun to start with just a quick game. if you can, as many as you can name, the companies that have went public via a SPAC in 2021. This is the worst thing you could do to me.

Name some satellite companies. Any of them. Pretty much. Yeah, but I know of rocket companies who. Yeah, yeah, they're in the list. I got everyone that went via SPAC. There's one, two, three, four. Rocket Lab.

Nailed it. Virgin Orbit. Nailed it. Ash? Nailed it. Mm-hmm. Now you're topped out of the rocket companies. Yeah, I think that's as far as I go.

All right, now we get into the imaging. We got black sky, spire, planet, satellite logic, and red wire. So there's your SPAC updates. You're back. No offense to the satellites, but... Just not your beat, not your favorite. Well, I mean, it's like my beat, but financial, like this... I'll give that to Michael Sheets.

He covered all the specs, you know? Yeah. That's a really good quiz for Sheets. Yeah. Spack beats a rough one. All right. So I got a serious. It's a little dry.

Jake, I was wondering if maybe you could catch Lauren up on some planetary news. We had like all, everything arrived at Mars. You left and everything arrived at Mars. Yeah. I was okay with missing that. I had to handle all of the launches last summer.

And that nearly destroyed my mind, heart and body. So I was happy. to miss all of the landings. The landings were worse, Lauren. Yeah, there's a lot worse. I was just absolutely spent in February. I just couldn't believe it.

I mean, for the Mars podcast guy, it was like, it was like the freaking Decadal Super Bowl. It was like, there'll never be that many Mars events in the same week ever again, ever. One can hope. Yeah. Okay. Is there anything of, like what should she?

know about this? Because we all perseverance went great. Oh, I've got one thing that you should know. This is a thing that is important. Bill Nelson, the administrator of NASA, will always 100% of the time refer to ingenuity as that little helicopter.

100% of the time. I just remember the name of it. You think that's what it is? He just forgets it? I don't know, man. It's like, he's kind of an old guy, right? And it's like sometimes in the in the in the olden days that's just how you refer to little things you know it's just

so cute like and the little helicopter you know like oh my god you do a pretty good Nelson cadence it's just slow down that's all you have to do it's really easy I mean like watching him at 1.25 speed is optimal I guess it's just it corrects all of the difficulty it's perfect that is 100% required um any other Well, Curiosity did bang its instrument on a rock. That's one thing that happened. Oh, right. Yeah, fill around that.

Was it useful? Should they have done? No, it was an accident. Oh, it was an accident. Okay, I think I missed the storyline as well. It was very quiet. They don't like to renounce those ones. That's good.

That's a good off nominee. The other off nominee was Insight, if you remember, this spacecraft that is sliding into the night. It at one point, to revive itself, dumped an entire scoop of dirt on Regolith, people are going to get mad at me for that. Yeah. Where did it? Tried to land on the solar panel to shake some regolith off.

Yes, it did. Things went great at Mars once you left. Insights had a rough time. I think Insight might be my fault because I've never been more like involved with a launch than insight. Like I followed it as it transferred or as we transfer.

it to California. What's that? You wrote in the plane, right? Yeah, that was actually one of the cooler experiences that I got to do. But then I was there for the launch where that you couldn't see it at all. It was just all along. And then I was there for the landing. And I think that's probably the most I've ever done for a single mission, you know, all the way through. And so I think because of my involvement, I might have transferred a curse of some kind, you know.

Yeah, I mean, that mission is, that mission's, it's had some challenges. But then I also remember, I'm not totally out of it, perseverance had an issue with its first scoop, right? No, no, it was a, it was a fortuitous sample acquisition of the Martian atmosphere. Oh my God, I loved that spin so much. I loved that so much. I put it in a story. I was like, you know what? Like, sure.

Wait, wait. Was this a joke you made or did NASA say that? No, NASA made. In a press release, they were like, oh, we were going to get a sample of the atmosphere anyway. You can't fire me. I quit. Whoever came up with that, which deserves some kind of PR price. The funny thing with that is that, like, it is like a thousand percent.

spin, but it's also true because like the atmospheric science are like, great, yeah, we'll use that. Sure, bring it back. Absolutely. Yeah. No problems with us. That's fine. Oh, man. Delightful.

It was good. It was very funny. I mean, because you've never heard them talk about like getting a sample of the end. No. With the drill? Yeah, not with the drill system. Like, it's just incredible. They've been very like on top of the, the messaging with this mission in the early time.

Like they're there, it's a. it's a lockdown system and they're very, very careful about it. And so, like, I'm still having got a good answer on that whole sample thing. Like, I'm just like, why did you automate it all? Like, why wouldn't you check before you seal it? Oh, well, so we're just going to...

Take learns a little programming and here he is. Yeah, I don't know. So I'm going to work on him still for that one, but we're still, I was like weeks ago and I have no answer yet. You mentioned that you are, you transferred some sort of cursed insight and there's people in the chat wondering if that if you've been anywhere near james webb's space telescope um i'm so sorry yeah so the good news is that they it's on its way

now so like things have gotten together since you've been gone well okay how about this when i did see it we had a lot of glass between me and the telescope i've never been in the clean room with it i was in the clean room with insight so maybe whatever happened that was enough of a blestead blockage to stop the curse. So you were not the person who left a wrench in JWST. No. I don't even own a wrench, so. That didn't happen.

That was a fake thing. I just wanted to see if you were alarmed because on J.DWST has had like some bolts shaking loose in it. It's had some things go shaky. So I don't think I've talked to a single person who has followed JWST who is confident. The launch. And I don't mean that in a bad way. It's just like there are so many variables to that unfurling process that I think everyone

just knows that we're not going to sleep for weeks. It's not just the launch. Yeah. Okay. Hopefully like, yeah, great. Hope the launch works as always. Which is not guaranteed. Yeah.

And then it's like, oh, but like, wait. It has to like, get. a million miles from earth and then it has to do all this stuff without any input from it's just it's I'm not it's a clencher for sure. It's a clencher for sure. It's a clencher for sure.

All right we've got some ISS drama as well that I feel like is real ripe for some. You have to make sure you catch up on this Lauren. Yeah. And there's a lot. Okay. So number one the ISS has been leaking I think since you've logged offline. Yes. And they keep saying that they've fixed it And they at one point had tea bags that they let free in, I think it's Vesda. Zvezda leaking.

And they waited until it floated to a wall. And they were like, well, that, I don't know, it might have been Bigelow tea. I'm not exactly sure. Yeah. Had to have been. And they. It's the best one for leak detection. It is the best one.

The official tea of the international space. We should get them a deal of some sort. Anyway, so it's been leaking the entire time. No one's fixed it. Are you alarmed by this? Um, no. Well, okay, one thing it reminds me of is, um, before the pandemic and I moved and everything, uh, I did a comedy show in New York called How to Become an astronaut or like, uh, and I did it with a comedian. She's amazing, Karen. And what, we just did a bunch of like playful games and one of them is your PR nightmare. And it was like, you had to prove that you could, you know, stand up to, scrutiny over some kind of mess up. And our PR nightmare was

that you found a hole on the space station. But it was the hole that they had found in the soy use. But now we're just finding holes all the time. So there's that one. And then

Nauka has now went up to the space station. How would you describe the cool stunts? Yeah, no, the sweet flips The sweet flips. The sweet flips. Oh, wait, I did forget though.

It almost didn't stay in orbit. Oh, right. That's the drama that got overshadowed real quickly by the actual other dramas. Yeah, it launched almost Jake merchandised this opportunity. He had a save Nauka shirt that was good for 12 hours. That's a funny shirt because like for there was a narrow. window of time where everyone was like rooting for NACA and then NACA lost all all like all support yeah and then I'm not got milkshake ducted

I had to take the shirt down very quickly I think so no one wanted everyone I had I could just re-released it and crossed out NACA and wrote ISS that would have been a better shirt I actually followed that one in real time I was writing and I remember looking on Twitter and be like, oh. Yeah, that was, that was an attention grabper. And so the result of it was that it was aggressively trying to undock from the space station. And I just find that so disturbing, like, at its core. There's something about it that, because it wasn't that far from ripping apart some parts of the space station.

Yeah. That's rough. But of course, I'm sure, well, I remember a little bit, but Nassau was like, yeah, it was fine. It was five. It was just 45 degrees. Yeah. But then it came out to be like way more than that, right? It was like multiple flips.

Like it was like a 540. It was like if you did that on a snowboard, you're pumped. It's like that's how far it was. It ended 45 degrees from where it started because it went all the way off. Oh my God. Sweet flips. It was not really a joke. I was sending Anthony screenshots from that old N64 video game 1080 snowboarding.

that's what I was sending him. That's right. I was like, we're halfway there. I'm mad halfway there. Someday when those astronauts retire, we're going to hear about what it was like, you know. I know. I'm just like waiting for the book.

Yeah. Someone's going to put it in the book. Or they just saw the earth going through. Did someone look out of the window at that? Like, what? Oh, my God. That was so insane. Yeah.

This is terrifying. It's like, it sounds really scary. In the wake of that, Dimitri Ragozin on Twitter, called Bill Nelson Sleepy Bill. Also fake, but he did. Here's what he did do. He did blame Eric Berger for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.

I did see that as well. That is an actual thing that happened. I missed this one. What happened with that too? Yeah. I did not see that one. Lauren is more up to speed on this situation. I guess I would do a little more online than I should have been.

I am not super connected to the little fight going on between Eric and Dimitou Rico's right now. I'm not either. I think I somehow have missed this one in the Twitter replies. I just saw that he replied to him once and it was about... Oh no. It was several times through different replies to other people. And I think Eric offhandedly told someone that Ragozan can't come to the U.S. because of the invasion of Crimea. And Rigozan decided to tell Eric that he can't go to Russia because of his decision to invade Iraq or something. That's the gist of it. I think I might be getting some details along. That's an actual thing that Demetriou goes in the head of the Russian space program.

It's tweeted. Well, I mean, it's not that much of a reach because, I mean, Eric is in Houston. Houston is where George Bush is from. And George Bush did invade Iraq. It's only like one degree apart. It's like one Illuminati party away. It's like one Kevin Bacon away from moving Iraq. I'm from Houston, too.

I'm so screwed. Also her fault. Oh, man. That is quite. That's getting a lot. hard to tell the fake stories from the real stories here. I mean, that's pretty fake. I thought like one, the funny part is

like the tweet that is less believable was the real one. Yeah. That's the disturbing part of that. What else should we oh, the green run, the SLS green run. Oh, God. The irony of the SLS green run is I was like

an hour away from it. I guess I can really tell everyone when I did this past year, But I left New York last September, went to New Orleans for a hot minute because that's where my parents live. And they had a condo that we could stay in. And so New Orleans is not that far for Stennis. And I almost made the trip out there. But then I was like, I don't know if they'll just like let me stand on the side of the road and watch this thing.

And now I'm in Austin. But yeah, for a brief minute, I was pretty close to Stenis and Michoud. Well, did you know that you had two chances to go to the green? Yeah, I did. Okay. And I skipped both of them. Yeah, you missed two times. Oh, man.

I respect that choice. Honestly. You were not there, Miriam? You did not make the truth. No. No. I can't remember exactly what month it was. We were already in Nashville at that point.

I live in Nashville now. It was like February, March is like when it was going on, right? Yeah, it was pretty early. Yeah. I mean, here's what you haven't missed is that they're still sort of clinging to a launch date in next month, which is not going to happen. But they're like, they're like slowly. It was like, do I have to book a flight? It was so funny because like that was back in February when they announced that the, well, when the test failed, like when it didn't go through the eight minutes, right?

And right before that, they had just said, we're all out of margin. There's no margin left in the schedule. If anything goes wrong, we're not making November. And then like the next day, that test went wrong. And then we were all asking them. They're like, no, no, it's fine. We're going to be fine in November. We found margin.

We just like kept asking them. And then like, it's still like only last week, Bob Cabana was like, it's probably not going to be this year. It wasn't even like for sure it's going to happen in February. It was like, yeah, probably not 2021. Okay. Everyone else knows that. No, why do you think they haven't?

What's your theory on this? Why they haven't? Yeah. I think that they don't know. Haven't gotten around to it? Like it's, I think it's literally just like, okay, we need to like solve these problems and then we'll figure it out. Yeah. I think that it's literally just like putting off the PR of it.

Because I mean, it's the same thing. If you have to announce a delay. Like, it's like, I wonder if that's a better strategy because I just remember getting so fresh away with those commercial crew dates. They were just so unrealistic. and they keep changing them, you know, and it was like, that's not true either. And for a while it was kind of just like, why bother? You know, if they're not going to be any close to reality, then maybe just say TBD, you know, until it is actually somewhat close. I think that makes perfect sense, especially just like with, I don't know, like with something like the like 2024 with like the moon landing hopeful idea.

like it's it's just at this point there's so much working against it that's like it's obviously not going to be in 2024 but we can't say what date they're aiming for because they haven't told anybody so it's just this it's an interesting thing i i hope that they wait i actually do i agree like i hope that they just wait to tell us until they have like something more firm yeah i figure it was tied to the lander because they're waiting for some moment where everything unravels and they say well the lander's not going to make it until 2026 so art of us one is now 2022 and then we'll re-baseline it. And they can blame it on the continuing resolutions or whatever.

You know what I have found interesting is now that they've chosen SpaceX's starship for the lander. That has now become, 2024 has now become a rallying cry for SpaceX fans. And so when you say you doubt the 2024 landing, you're saying you doubt the SpaceX will get to the 2024 landing. I've seen a noticeable shift about that. And I thought that was a unique, really interesting.

By that you mean you've gotten some tweets? interesting, isn't that? Well, I said something a couple of months ago. I was like, oh, are we still pretending 2024 is going to happen? And I got a lot of hate not like from probably the same people who would have agreed with me maybe last year, you know. And it wasn't even directed at anybody. It wasn't directed at SpaceX.

It wasn't directed at, you know, any contractor in particular. I just thought that was interesting. Was it a bunch of Twitter accounts that had Starship in the profile picture? Probably. And then a Bitcoin ad. in the profile was it to be those guys? Yeah, but now we can be like, but the spacesuits. Yeah, it's the spacesuits.

That's like SLFs and maybe Orion too. I think the space suits were always the problem. We're never not a big problem. I remember writing about this like when they first announced Artemis. I was like, so what are they going to wear? You can't just go onto the moon in like close. You could. It would suck.

I mean, like you wouldn't have to go outside. You could just sit in, it's like going somewhere and stay in your hotel room the whole time, though. It's like a bit rough. Yeah, yeah. You did miss a ton of starship stuff, though, Lauren. Were you keeping up on these flights?

Yeah, but I'm excited now because I'm in Austin, and as they ramp up towards their first orbital flight, I really do plan on being there for that whenever that takes place. Yeah, you're not. But yes, catch me up on all the Starship stuff, if you can. Who wants to? Who's a Starship fan? Well, they...

I have the list. I wrote it all down. You wrote down all the things of the events of the year. Yeah, I wrote it. All right, we got... Go on with the list. I mean, should we, wait, should we do another game show where we match the serial number to the result? You mean, like, the nimp numbers?

of the spaceship to what happened. Absolutely. Starship serial number nine. Does anyone remember how this one resulted? How this finished. So serial number eight was the one that almost landed. And that was last year. And then serial number nine.

Or blew up? No, you're thinking of a later one. Hold that, keep that one. Stifle that one away. Which one was the one that got them in trouble with the FAA? Was that nine or was that eight? That was all of them to some extent. I think eight was the one.

launched against the will of the FAA. Which one was the one that they landed safely? No, it's not there yet. We're doing student number nine. How did this one end? I'm mad at all of you because this is the best ending of all of them. Oh, is this one that exploded and shattered like parts all over the desert? No, that's later too.

This is the one that landed on its back. Like it did such a crazy flip that it spun out and landed on its back. And that one also exploded and landed everywhere. So that is a factual thing. You now prove yourself to be like the number one starship fan. Oh, I just wrote it down. I've been, I just looked it up.

Cereal number 10 is Jake's favorite per his answer. The funny part is you all guessed different ones. So serial number 10 was Jake's favorite that landed, waited eight minutes, and then exploded. Yes. I loved that one. Round the horn.

Did it land? Yeah. Yeah. It landed. It landed. It didn't. It exploded, but it landed, but it was not a success. It landed, but it was not a success.

It can still land and not be a success. The landing was a success. Every rocket that's exploded is landed too, so that doesn't really. I mean, soft landed. It's soft landed, though. Okay. I think my favorite thing, though, was Deeter, one of my editors, is like, you always have to stay for the post-ending credits.

Yeah. To that point, I think was my favorite star, Starship landing because there's Starship, you know, the test. Because I had my, my kid and we were watching it together. He's like two and a half. And we were watching it. He was like, oh, Mama, Rocket. And like was talking to me about it. And so I was a little, I was a little distracted and I was a little bit late in getting my story live. So I got to see it explode before we published my story. Didn't have to do the update of that. Yeah. You didn't have to do the update.

It was like just, I loved it. I loved every second of that. I was so grateful to have been on parenting duty at that moment. That's fantastic. Thank you, Simon. Seria number 11, Lauren's favorite, that it obliterated itself in heavy fog. So the Schrodinger's starship. This one made a lot of people mad because they're like, what happened?

Did they blow it up? Did it blow up? It just blew up. Yeah. It doesn't matter. I want to say it's my favorite. it to avoid the tweets tomorrow. I'm just saying it's the most memorable.

I like that you think you would get tweets about picking a favorite starship. I mean. Could you win, yeah. And then Cere number 15, they skipped right on. And that one worked. That one still exists. And now we're on 20?

20 is the one that's been a long. Yeah, 16 got a place right down there in Bocahika. I think it's still hanging out. 16 and 17, they all went to a new farm. Didn't 16 still exist? I think it's a nice display. Is it? Maybe it got taken apart.

I can't remember. I can't remember. I can't remember, man. Now I'm going to get the tweets. There's two days. Yeah, 20 exists and it got put on top. They made the largest rocket that exists. Oh, right.

It existed for about 12 minutes. And then they took it off and then got some good photos. That photo is going to like live in empathy, though. Yeah, it is. Very much is like, that's how you built the Brooklyn Bridge. That's what that looks like. Yeah, yeah.

All right. Here's what will be helpful for me. What all we got to do between now and launch? What are all the tests that need to happen from now? Yeah. I feel like Anthony, you know that. That would be helpful for me too, actually. I'm just going to raise it.

Isn't it just paperwork? Like, figure out this whole environmental situation. No, you have plenty of tests, cryoprofen tests, and satellite tests. I'm not, don't get me wrong. Don't get me wrong here. We're not those guys. We have people that keep us up on that. Yeah.

We made a channel in our Discord where they post these updates so that we can read them and synthesize. I need to call Tim Dodd and just be like... Yeah. No, no. He'll give you the whole list. Tim Dodd will know which engine is at which stage of development. He'll be like, well, listen, B-B boosts, our boost 7 is,

it's in the left, back southwest corner of tent two right now. And they're worried about that one, but I think they're going to get under control. Bless him, man. Bless him. That's good. Yeah, no, I think it's, there's probably a bunch of those tests, but it's this whole environmental thing that now is a, as a new once again, Texan, are you going to be submitting some public comments?

You're going to go to the thing. You should go to the thing. Oh, my God, you should go to the thing. Wait, when is the thing? Where is the thing? Is it in Texas? Is it like in D.C.? I would expect it to be in Texas.

Yeah, it was in the environmental review. Isn't it like this week? I don't know. Lauren, you got a new, we've just assigned you this story. Yeah, I still have a book to write. When is the thing? You should go submit a comment about the bird or whatever that's going to be in trouble from it. Mm-hmm.

There's a bird. Is there a bird in danger? Texas bird. There's the, yeah, there's some endangered species. there some bird. I don't, I can't. Okay. No, it's virtual. The hearings are virtual, but they were, they already happened.

Oh. I thought they extended it. Oh, you're right. Hold on. This is from, it was that they extended the comment period, though? But they probably already had the local politics stuff. Yeah, I was hoping for some local politics reporting from Lauren. I'm like talking to people outside and stuff.

I'm not, I'm not that deep into Texas yet. Well, While you work on that, the last item we've got, I think the last big topic is human spaceflight, because a lot of people went to space. Yes. There was a lot of suborbital stuff, which we talked about last time with Miriam. I think we talked about some of those flights. A lot of drama, a lot of hot feelings around those suborbital flights, and then all sunshine and rainbows around Inspiration 4 of late.

Yeah. Miriam, you were the closest to this mission. And it was the sunshine and rainbows that it seemed like the wide reception of this one. Like, how do you feel about the difference in the way it was received? It's been really interesting. I mean, it's like, I think that a lot of it is that people just have a lot of feelings about Jeff Bezos. Like, that's, I think, where most of the big, big feelings came from with the suborbital flights this summer. and just like his sort of bombastic thing with this with his flight I think that kind of like stoke the fires of the internet and created like just the perfect storm yeah like just like the terrible thing that all of us witnessed with with that coverage but then by the time that like inspiration four rolled around like it was funny for a lot of the time I felt like I had been so for the podcast of second season of how it happened from actually

Yes. Oh, it's weird. It's like you're here to talk about it or something. It's funny, right? I'm like, looking at. It's weird that we don't want to talk about it at all because we definitely want to talk about it. No. No, so like for much of the time that I was following them, it felt like I was like one of the only people that was following them.

Because it was, it felt like such a, it's weird to say it's about a space X mission, but it felt like an under the radar like mission. because like so what was interesting was like so much of the air was sucked out of the room by these like big suborbital flights that once Inspiration 4 rolled around everyone was like oh like normal people cool like billionaire I haven't heard of but seems to want to do some good in the world like sure like it was very it was very funny like to contrast the reaction It was harder. It was harder to have feelings about inspiration for. Yeah. Whereas it was way easier to have feelings about Jeff Bezos. You could come at it with any bias that you had, like for Jeff Bezos.

But like inspiration four did it in such a way that it was like they tried to kind of like anticipate whatever criticism they might get. Like that it was just a joyride for Jared or whatever it was. Like the man didn't take us for us for us. like he took three people he didn't know he took three strangers to space so i mean that's that's something three days and anthony described as as threading the needle on on being a billionaire like just just between like you know getting getting the the fact that he is just kind of buying like he's he was playing make-believe astronaut like that was what he was doing right and yeah and that's cool and you but then also adding all the good stuff in there it's like just perfectly you know he found that sweet spot

Yeah, yeah. I also think it's interesting enough, yeah. The test for me is going to be next week when Shatner flies, because I think, I think what it is, is that we had people to root for universally on Inspiration 4. Like, you watch Haley Arsno for five minutes and try not to root for that lady going to space. Yeah. Like, it's impossible. Yeah, absolutely. Any of them.

And I would argue, Jared, like, I think that was part of the reason why I was so, like, obsessed with this mission. And I was just like, you guys are all really like normal people. Like you're chill. But I think it's even, I think that's why I'm saying Shatner, right? It's that it's a wildly successful guy that's been around forever. But there's a ton of people that are going to root for Shatner going to space because it's Shatner going to space. And it flips the way that your brain thinks about it, even if you could, you could, a lot of the criticism that people had about Jeff Bezos going to space, you could also throw it Shatner. But people are fans of him and they like him and they want to see him go to space.

So there's that difference that like Jared was able to do something that got people on his side very quickly. And yeah the right way. Didn't feel manufactured. Well, and Jared also did a good job of like, so I mean, well, overall the mission messaging was like really on point. It was very well thought out. They, they thought ahead of time and how they wanted to do it. They executed a plan. But he also like did just a good job of of keeping them on message all the time.

Like, you know, you know, Miriam on your show where you're like, how much does this? cost, he's like, I'm not telling you, right? And I don't think it's because he's like embarrassed of the cause. I think he doesn't want it to derail the message. The message is not about how much it costs. The message is about what he wanted to do, right? And so even when you have like you have a character to root for on the new Shepard flight, like Wally Funk was awesome. Like that was so cool as you got to go to his face. Yeah. But it's so hard to be excited about that when like in the next breath, Jeff Bezos does like a tone-depth thing. Like, thank you Amazon employees. You paid for this. Like, oh my God, dude. Like no.

you can't jaw dropped when I heard that. Yeah, that was quite the line. It's hard to like balance those things together, right? I think another thing that's interesting is that I'm sure it was probably easier to be cynical towards the Blue Origin flight because of the outsized amount of coverage about it, you know, like all of a sudden Anderson Cooper cared, you know, all of a sudden all the major anchors were down in Van Horn, you know, and then. you have inspiration for which I think is objectively harder to do and harder to pull off.

And you didn't have nearly the same level of attention. And so I think it just provides this skewed idea of what private space is to the public. It's like probably if you ask the average person, everybody knows that Jeff Bezos went to space this summer. I doubt everybody knows that the inspiration for mission happened. It's definitely true. It's also interesting. It was, I think part of it was also tough, like, from the, from the inspiration four side of it. Like, I don't think they were able to, like, rustle up as much media coverage as they would have wanted.

And, like, part of it was sort of, like, the deal that they had made with, like, Netflix and sort of being on lockdown wall in Florida because of, you know, just like being with their families and, like, trying to get ready for space. So they weren't as, like, out there. as maybe they could have been. But it was just, it's, it's really, it was, it's really fascinating to see the difference in coverage for sure. Yeah. I think they're getting the coverage after though. Like I, I, like my mom watched the Netflix documentary like and message me like, this is a

really good documentary. This is a cool mission. I'm like, wow. Like, didn't expect you to watch that, but okay. I'm glad that it reached you. That's good. Their final episode is really great. Yeah.

That final episode was amazing. I thought, especially. I'm behind. I haven't watched that one yet. That one's, yeah, I was a big fan of that one. It was just cool because, like, I don't know, they had a ton of access at the end there. It was, like, funny to watch the first few episodes

because I was like, oh, like, I know all of these meetings. Like, it wasn't in them, but, like, I, like, know, I, like, can track what it was. The funniest thing is you can see me and a producer and the airplane hanger for the firejet thing at one point. Oh, really? I'm like in the background looking like a troll like right here like following around the crew

All right Netflix star Miriam Kramer Yeah you credited? Definitely not Is IMD publicly edible? You're credited in my heart No, I was there I was there in Montana watching them fly these jets I do want to

This is like We're laid enough in the show that I can semi do my pick Which is Miriam's podcast because I Absolutely loved it and I found it interesting to compare to the Netflix series In that the The added like glitz and glam of a major video production I think makes everyone feel observed in a way that they don't feel as human As as you walking around

talking to them or like the little moments where you're, uh, you were sprinting to get to the Tesla and you were like out of breath, but you put that in the show. Like all of the, the moments that you're talking from someplace or you're just talking with them feels like completely unguarded. And you really got the feeling across of like, you're friends with someone going to space and what's it like to talk to normal person going to space. And I don't think that came through so good in the Netflix series. Not bad, not in a bad way. I just think, this is like an audio. As a person who likes an audio medium, like it feels much more personal. So I super, I feel like maybe you also, you mentioned that you felt like you were watching friends to go to space by the end.

So it's interesting to know, like, I guess I'm wondering how long the series took, not end to end, but like with them. Like how much did you know them? How much time did you know them before they went up? I mean, so I started talking to Jared in February. I remember I had my first conversation with him. Also, that was really kind of you to say. It makes me very happy. So I started talking to him pretty much right after the announcement happened. Like they announced February 1st and I talked to him like, I think the next day.

And I sort of immediately was like, oh, I think this is, I think this is a podcast. And I like pitched it at Axios. And I was like, this guy is really interesting. He's not what I expected. I expected sort of this like, you know, bomb back. like what you would think. But when I talked to him, I was like, you're like kind of a normal dude. Like you're just easy to talk to, which shocked me showing my bias a bit. So we started talking to him in February. And then we started talking to Sion and Chris right before their announcement.

So I think that announcement happened at the end of March. So I think I started to talk to them like a week or two for that. And then I talked to the three of them in separate calls pretty much weekly through August. Through August. So yeah, I mean, we were, and then we had Haley in there too. I just didn't have like a specific like set up thing with her every week that we would sort of like take interviews when we could. in part because St. Jude was very involved with Haley's media and they were protecting her from having too much stuff on her time, which makes perfect sense. So anyway, yeah, so we, that was like the bulk of the reporting was just doing these interviews weekly.

And then we went to Jared's house in New York, his apartment, did like a long interview with him there. We did a long interview with Sion when we were out at third. SpaceX and then we did a long interview with Chris remotely. And, you know, like, I don't know, it was weird. I met Jared's wife. I met Monica. I met Chris's wife, Aaron. Like, I, like, I felt like I knew, I felt like I know them.

Like, there's sources. So it's sort of a different kind of relationship. But I don't know. Like, when I was watching them launch, I was like, oh, my God. like I know these people. Like this is very emotional and weird. It must have been similar. I mean, you probably knew them a bit more than we knew Bob and Doug,

but I felt that way watching Bob and Doug launch because we had been talking to Bob and Doug for so long before that happened. And I'd interviewed them multiple times in person. And so it's just, it adds an extra layer when you get to know them at that level to see somebody that you know that. well launch. And I've actually talked to people who've watched their spouses launch. And I think that's got to be probably one of the most emotional experiences you could ever have. I don't envy it at all. It's got to be terrifying. I mean, it's like, if I was that scared and I'm

like, these are my sources. Like, can't imagine what they were really like feeling on the ground. Yeah. There's that, this is not a spoiler alert, but there's a moment in the Netflix series when they go up onto the launch tower and there's a moment of Chris and Erin did you say. Erin. Yeah. Aaron. Where they're talking. And this is like the reality show feel to the series that I was like, okay, it's interesting.

But there's a moment when they're on top of the launch tower and it hits Aaron really hard that like, holy shit, we're really high. And there's a rocket that's going to go right here and you're going to go to space. And that felt like the most real moment of the series where, because it's not. never like the grandiosity of any given moment that it makes it hit for when you get into situations. Not that I've been in a situation where I'm going on rocket, but like it's a little mundane seeming things that make it feel crazy. And I'm sure from up there when you've got like the FAAB there and the scales wild and there's like you can see all of the rocket launch pads on Cape Canaveral, there's, that's a crazy moment. Also it's cool that you can go on the roof of

that launch. That is cool. Yeah. I just that's like exactly sort of what we wanted to do with the podcast. It was like, to me, it was always, like, this actually very small story about four people doing something really wild and extraordinary. So that was, like, the grounding focus for us the whole time. I don't think that the Netflix documentary actually, like, had the ability to do that, not to say, like, I really enjoyed it. Like, it's, I'm not saying it's bad.

It's just that it was telling a bigger story than those four people. Yeah. Yeah. And for me, I had the leeway to tell the story of just the four of just sort of being like really hyper focused on them and not necessarily telling this big story about how we're all going to space or, you know. That was, so that was like a grounding thing also. Anyway, thanks you guys. We're all going to space thing has been bugging me because it's not even that accurate on those.

mission. Yeah, no, it's not. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's that story that's like both you have to tell it that way, even though it's wrong. Like, it's like, okay, no, space isn't now like open for business and like get your ticket here, go on down to the, the SpaceX booth at the airport. Like, that's not how it is. But it also is like the road to that is this road, right?

So like you're, yeah, I'm not fighting that. You have to tell it that way, but it is kind of funny. Yeah. It's definitely closer, but I don't imagine I will go to space. I think that's a pretty fair assessment, you know? Yeah. I actually might bet money on Lauren Grush going to space. I'm not sure, you know.

Would you, I guess would you, like, I'm putting would you aside on my bet. Oh, I mean, I've always said that I would probably accept if that was something that was. If the next billionaire is like I want to take a space journalist. honestly every time i saw you going out to truth or consequences i'm like oh honestly i thought i hope they don't invite her like i don't want lauren grush getting on that spaceship yeah we care about your safety too much yeah that's that's the other thing we've talked about this so many times i think as journalists you know the ethics of it um you know would you want to go?

How would it feel to say no? There's so many different variables to it. And also, you know, we can absolutely not afford to do it. So it would have to be some kind of comp ticket. And, you know, how do you just, is that ethical? Do you disclose it? You know, and there can't be any quid pro quo involved at all. So I doubt any of the companies would go for that, you know.

so it's it would I think that I don't know but we'll see I mean we're closer than ever before so I'm sure they'll be thinking about it at some point and what is that Anthony you always say we we overestimate what's going to happen in a year and underestimate what'll happen in 10 I don't that's a Bill Gates quote I thought but you always tell it to me though no I do I think it's it's is it two and five two and ten I forget short and long is the point short and long and so who knows man maybe 10 years from now when when Lauren you're that's some you know you're the editor-in-chief of I don't know some big organization Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times best stellar.

The book career takes off. You guys are very sweet and optimistic. Because an author going to space is a different thing than a journalist. That's true, actually. Wait, what did you say? An author going to space is just an author going to space. It's not a journalist. Yeah, get on Dear Moon.

That's true. This is too far. I would say no to Dear Moon 100%. Yeah, I don't know if I'm into that quite yet either. A little early is what I would say. Anthony, how are we doing? Should we get into some lightning round stuff? What do you think?

Oh, you got a terminal count. I have a lightning round. A terminal count is the name of the segment. Yes, terminal count. Jake hasn't done one of these for like two years, maybe. Oh, boy. two years. It's been a while. Well, but in the last show, I kind of mentioned

it and Anthony told me how much he missed them. And I didn't realize, I didn't realize that they meant that much to him. So I put in the effort this time. We have a, we have a terminal count. Let's hear it. I have it split. So it's, it's five questions for each of our guests here. Related

to our show topic. And I'll see, we'll see what kind of shenanigans. I need another beer for this. We're going to open up another one though. Okay. Lauren, we're going to start with you, and this is the calibration question. This is to make sure that we're on the same page for what terminal count is. The most important planetary mission to make headlines in 2021 was.

The most important? Yes. Terminal count, lightning round. This is a line. I mean, perseverance, I guess. I will accept any Mars. Okay. That's funny.

Okay, good, good. Juan done. Okay, Miriam. Oh, boy. Inspiration 4, 4 crew members, 3 days in space. That's 12 crew days in space. How many poops did they have? Oh, I hope the number was zero.

I really do. I kind of think maybe it might be pretty close to zero. Like a lot closer to zero than it is to 12. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, if you're motivated, you can not poop for three days. I think they were motivated. Space constant.

to pace you is what I've heard. And their toilet broke and that seemed to be a problem. Yeah. And they like somebody tried. Like they did like the whole steak and eggs thing before they laugh. Like I, I would. I would be a little surprise if it were more than like two. I think total poops, total poops.

Two total poops. I'm not going to ask them this. I just want you to know. I will never ask. But if you had to bet who pooped, is it the same person, I am not going there. You cannot make me into the same person. I think the question is how many

upchucks were there? That was more. I bet there was more. Yeah, more. And the thing is, the more you upchuck, the less you have to poop. So that's true. You got to clear it out.

All right. Lauren, what space venture should Robert Bigelow pursue next? Ooh. What are the chances? Amazing. I think maybe green tea. Green tea in space. Zero G infusible.

Because I don't think you could do it. I don't think you could do a tea bag in zero G. No, I guess not. I think it would need to be some sort of like French fresh kind of situation. Or use a spoon. Yeah, you'd have to swirl it. A tea centrifuge? A tea centrifuge?

Yeah, just constantly. This is a problem for Bigelot to solve, not us. When we book our flight, that's our experiment, is how to brew tea in space. I would have also accepted those little mylar balloons you get at birthday parties. That was all. Miriam. Okay. The inspiration for mission's nickname was the blank show.

What is blank? The blank show. Blank show? Wow. It's a nickname for the Inspiration 4 mission. Official or a Jake nickname? Nothing is official on this show. I don't know.

Okay. What is it? The correct answer is the Haley Arsino show. Oh. That would have been a blank, the blank, blank show. The blank blank show. Yeah. I'm giving her credit for that one because you said one blank.

Okay, all right. Yeah. No, maybe if you'd said two, I would have thought. It would have immediately clicked. It clearly wasn't the poop show because it was only two poops. It was not the poop show. Warren. How many Atlas Fives did Amazon buy to launch their Kuiper project?

Oh, God. This is cruel. That's a great question. You know, I actively tried to avoid work. Yeah, I know. That makes this question so good. I want to say 10. Oh.

the correct answer was all of them. I think it's nine. It was nine. I was close. I would have said five, so. Yeah. Okay, Miriam, there were a lot of space first made claim to by the Inspiration Four mission. Yes.

Which ones were lie? That's why it's my favorite segment. You don't need to bank on any inside information for this because they were just right out there in public and some of them are lies. So what's it what's one lie that you can, that you're, is it the all civilian nature of it? That one's on the fence. That one you can, you can make some arguments for it. I think I definitely heard them say that it was the highest orbit since Apollo 17, which is. Yes, that was.

That did. They definitely not true. They did say that. higher than that more than once. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Many times. Yes.

I also heard youngest person in space a couple times, which might have just lost a lot of times. It's youngest American. Youngest American. Youngest American in space or youngest American. It's youngest American in orbit. Yeah. Yeah. It's the youngest person, right?

No. It's youngest person in orbit then. Youngest person in orbit? Youngest American in orbit. Why? Who was in orbit? Who was younger than her? I think it was one of the early,

Soviet cosmonauts. I think German Tied off was like 26 or something. Wait, but then still not American. It's still. Right. Yeah. All right. Fair enough. But you know who Haley beat out? Sally Ride. That's true. She wasn't previously the youngest American

in orbit. Didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. That was a very informative question. It's almost like I'm writing a book. Yeah, right. We're getting to that. That's the next segment. Lauren, the most exciting upcoming launch in 2021. What is it?

Oh, absolutely. James Webb. But I think that's a trick question because it might not actually launch in 2021. The correct answer is ARCA 10C. That is the correct. If the stodgy Romanian bureaucrats let them just get to work. You got to make a free ARCA, sir. You got to make the free ARCA.

Just cross out Nauka, like perfect. In a cage full of water. It's great. Oh, man. Okay. Miriam, photographer John Krause, chronicle permission on the ground, but he did not go to space with inspiration for.

Is this A, an injustice, B, straight up crime, C, completely unfair, or D, all of the above? It's all of the above. It's obviously all of the above. They had room. They could have put him in there. He may not have had a seat.

He may not have had a seat. had a space suit, but John would have done it. It would have been like that scene in contact where they weren't, she wasn't supposed to have a seat the whole time. It was actually. Exactly. But that's John. That's John.

He was meant to float the whole time. That's perfect. Now, gross injustice. Gross and justice. Gross and justice. Straight up crime. Okay. Two questions left.

One for each of you. Lauren. When the movie, the challenge comes out. currently being filmed on the International Space Station with acclaimed actress and director from Russia. When the challenge comes out, how high will the tomato meter read on Rotten Tomatoes? Great question. Great question. I'm going to say, let's do 64.

We got to write this down so that we can check. It's good. It's not a splat, but it's like. Yeah, what's fresh? Is fresh 60? It's like, what? What's Fred? What's certified fresh?

If you're over 50. It's just 50-50? Okay. I feel like that should be 60. I feel like 60-40 would be more fair, but that's okay. Okay, so 64, it's, they're going to be like, was it necessary to go to space for this? But it was still really cool. Yeah.

Yeah, Parlay bet. How much time of the movie is filmed in and around space? like do you think it's going to be a quick segment or is it going to be like half the movie um i would say i i'm going to say like oh wait didn't wasn't this answered i think it was like 40 minutes or something oh wow that's pretty long i thought i saw that don't quote me on that but i think i saw 40 minutes of footage in space yeah yeah that's so funny i think it's like the the tomato meter is going to be like around like where lauren said it well i think that's that That's a great prediction.

But then the, like, the audience is going to be like 99. Oh, you think it'll be like mom? I think it's going to be like way up. Like, it's like, it was in space. I mean, the thing that makes me think that is that Tomopesque is still on the space station. And I think if anyone can save this movie, it's him. Someone's going to, he's going to start. And it's going to be a comedy.

He's got some hijinks up there. And you can also account on Putin to mobilize the bot army to rent that. A fair point. Solid point. Yeah. How tragic though if it was like 12% like what would be the like why do we spend all this money? I mean, I don't know.

Not everybody loves space. Yeah. You got to beat Tom Cruise. There you go. And they are. I made a very selfie tweet about that the other day too. And Lauren, Lauren,

apropos to your book too because like, yeah. I actually just wrote about it when you were tweeting about it. It was like, oh my gosh, it's history repeating itself. Amazing. Yeah, you two are on this podcast that broke the news that Tom Cruise is going with Axiom to the space station. Oh, yeah. Thank you, Jim Brianstein for giving us information that was not supposed to be public. Yeah, Jim.

Nailed it. But yeah, so that actress on ISS, only the second woman that Russia has sent to the ISS, 20-19-4. One professional cosmonaut and one guest. That's who they've sent. We have as many on this podcast as. as Russia has set to space. And yet they have all the big women firsts. Right.

They do, yeah. Yep. All right. Final lighting round terminal count window question here. Okay. Lay on me. This one's a bit of a sappy one. You ready?

I'm ready. How many times did you cry watching the Inspiration for mission? In person, Netflix documentary, listening back to your own audio. Oh. I know. Me and my producers got choked up, like, putting the episodes together. Like, there were, there were a few times where we got pretty, like, emotional with it. Because it's like, I don't know, you hear, like, Chris talk about his kids and his wife, and you're just like, okay. For me, it was watching Cyan get selected on the video call on the, I was like, I'm out. The Netflix series generally hits pretty hard.

Yeah. Yeah. I know, I cried a lot. I couldn't tell. Is this because I had a kid now? Like, was that hitting me different? Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

It's a rough series. It's a pretty rough series if, you know, you're putting yourself into situations. It hits, it's really different. I watched the video of her, not of her, I did see that where she was told, but when she told her friends over the Zoom call, that was one that, the one that, to me, I was like, oh, my God. Yeah. Like, having to be.

dream like that for your whole life and then getting to tell everyone that you're going to do it. That's so cool. Yeah. I remember I got choked up with her during our like long interview at one point because she was just she was talking about how it's like she feels all of this pressure and all of this weight as like a black woman doing this and and like it wants to be an example and wants to be this role model. And I was just like, oh my God, like this is so powerful and emotional. and so many people are going to hear

themselves and you. And it's just, and I think that was like true, especially with Zion. She worked so hard for so long to like go to space. So I'm going to mute myself. Sorry, my cat. We have a surprise guest on the show. Yeah, I know.

But she's worked so hard to get to space. And it's like, I don't know. I just like, I feel. like I had dreams fulfilled just by watching her build the dream. So it was really very sweet. But yeah, I lost it there for sure. Yeah. And then anytime Chris would talk about his family, I would just be like

oh no. Oh, no. His reaction on the Zoom call when he gets told that he got selected is hilarious. It's so relatable. Cool. Like his reaction like nice. Nice. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. I like space.

So funny. The way he talks about he's just like, I was really surprised. like, I know, Chris. I know you were really surprised. Well, how much do you think that it was? Maybe I misread this in all, both your podcast and the Netflix series, but did he, he didn't tell anyone that he entered the lottery? No, because he had just done it on a whim.

Right. So, like, yeah. I think what I was wondering was, was he processing the fact that now he has to explain to his entire family, not only did I enter this thing that you didn't know about. Yeah. Because he looked, it looked like, he wasn't, like, overwhelmed with the feeling that he was going to space. He was overwhelmed with what have I dug myself into here? I've explained now.

Yeah, I know. I mean, I think I'm going to have to cancel Dungeons and Dragons now. I think he was just like, he was kind of like, oh, man, like, I need to tell Aaron. Like, right now. I mean, the thing was, this was, it was interesting. This wasn't in like the Netflix documentary, but like, his, he wasn't initially picked from the hat. Like, it was. Yeah, they glossed over that, yeah.

Yeah, like, it was an anonymous friend of a very good friend who gave. him the ticket basically. And they were on that call too. And they weren't, but that was not, like, I don't know, I was sort of hoping for a reveal, to be honest, because I was, I still don't know who it was. It was the same person that won the New Shepherd auction. Yeah. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Oh, I hope that's, like, I want that to be off nominal canon now. They're the same person. There's just this one person. The person who keeps winning and won't go to space. And then we'll do it. You think that person is one of the two guys that's flying next week? No. Well, maybe.

I mean, they're definitely not getting nearly as much coverage. It's a solid point. It seemed to be what was scaring them. They didn't want to be, they didn't want the heat. I mean, who would want that heat, honestly? There was a lot of heat on that mission. There was so many eyes on it. It was wild.

It was rough. Was it to cover? I don't know what Shatner's going to pull as much eyes as you think it will, to be honest. But maybe that's how he likes it, is what I'm saying. Like, per your theory, maybe Shatner would, one, I was like, oh, I don't want to be the first one. Because he sounds kind of nervous. Shatner has that money. No, Shatner's a guest.

He's not a paying customer. Yeah. He's like a Wally Funk. I look up William Shatner's net worth, I guess. It's, I mean, look, Star Trek was popular, but it's not, he's not, he's not Tom. He had the movies? They probably did some.

I feel like he's wealthier than you think William Shatner. If he had that much money, he wouldn't have to do price. He did a lot of ads in the last 20 years. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. That ticket went for how much, though. That was what, 80 million? What was it?

28 was 28. 28? I don't know the William Shatner's got 20 million to just like. To blow on a joy. But even if he has 30, he's also 90. Yeah, that's true. Might as well spend your money before you. Take it with you.

It's all I'm saying. You just need 29. God. Is that it? No, we need to hear about Lauren's book. We need to hear about Lauren's book. Yeah. Did you finish the book or did you come back to work and now have twice as much work to do?

The latter. No, I got a very good portion of it done. There's still quite a lot to do. And then there's also quite a lot of rewriting to do. So I was never going to finish it in the time that I had off, but I got a lot done. And now it's just going to be a very interesting few months coming up as I juggle it all and kind of figure out a new schedule for things. This week was an experiment. And I learned a lot about how to do my job and also write on the side.

And so I will hopefully do better about it moving forward. But yeah, I'm really happy I took the time off. I know that a lot of people don't have that ability to do that, so I feel very privileged to get to do that. But I'm also thankful. The pandemic was really tough. I'm sure Miriam can attest to this too. You know, when it came to our jobs, we didn't really, there were a lot of people who had breaks to kind of relax and just, you know, take a moment. And I felt like with journalists, even though we wrote about space, it was still very much like, okay, well, you don't have an experience.

like your job is online, you know, just feel you're, you need to keep going. We need to tell everybody, you know, what's going on with COVID and stuff. And so it was kind of like pedal to the metal all throughout the pandemic. Hi, Fendi. He was fine until just now. Lauren, you're right. I'm so excited to read your book. Yeah. So taking that time off was also a bit of a mental break to just from the job that I had because it was, 2020, I thought, I thought to myself, I always am wrong about this. Like, I thought this about Trump. I was like, oh, we'll never write about space under Trump. He couldn't possibly care about it. And then it turned out the busiest four years ever. And then with 2020, I was like, oh, no one's going to care about space because of COVID.

And then it turned out to be one of the busiest years ever. So I just need to stop making predictions like that. When's the book come out? Right now it's scheduled for 2023, so yeah, I still need to finish the first draft, then they'll be rewriting, and then hopefully summer of 2020, it'll be out.

Right after Artemis won. It has a name. I noticed I was sleuthing around online a little bit. Wait. Doesn't it have a name? Does it have a name? I thought it was still just Artemis 1. No, the book.

The book. The book. The tentative title is the six. It's great. It's a good title. Yeah. I've also learned what is the name of a Broadway show about the six wives of Henry the 8th.

It's also the nickname of Toronto, Ontario. Why? It's a lot of potential there. The area code is 416. Oh, got it. That speaks to how few area codes Canada has. Haven't you, haven't you listened to the Drake song? Can be.

I was running through the six with my woes. Okay. I also refer to 856 as the six. Little Canadian for you there. How do you like that? Cool. Okay. Picks.

Did we even do picks? Miriam's podcast. Yeah, you've done yours. You've done yours. Miriam, why don't you go then? Oh, okay. I'll do a quick. I got a quick pick.

I have been reading Dune for the first time. And I would just like to recommend it to anybody who has not read it. It is like, okay, cat. Just like literally like about show his butt to the camera. About to get real inspiration for it. how many times is my cat poop in the course of this episode yeah

so I have loved it it's a great it's a great book and I'm very excited for the movie which I feel is cast perfectly so I'm really

looking forward to seeing it yeah that's I mean quick easy the book and the movie a book from a long time ago it's great I've still never finished it.

I've always started the book and I'm like, this time is the time. Yeah, it's like I did that two or three times and now I've finally gotten through the barrier and somehow I'm just like, oh, great, just fucking move it. Like, yeah, there's something that happens somewhere. I'll read it in 2023. Perfect. Okay, awesome. Lauren, you got one?

Yeah. Have you, has a pick ever been Apogee of Fear before? Probably. The only chance would have been when Richard Gary was on the show and I don't think he did it. Yeah, I love Apogee of Fear. It's just like, now that they're filming another movie, just a great chance to talk about it and watch it over again. It is such a, such a movie.

What is it like eight minutes, 11 months? It's not, well, like it is eight minutes, but two minutes. of it are just 3D footage. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Didn't we watch it in the after show of Richard Garrett's? Yes, we did. We did. Yeah, yeah, we did watch it.

But I guess my future pick will be the challenge once it is available on streaming. Okay. And what's Tom Cruise's? It's edge of tomorrow. Is that the one that's going to space? Wait, is it? Isn't that the one that's rumored to be the one? That's going to space.

It's done line, right? That's going with him. Reportedly. And then that was the one who did Edge of Tomorrow, right? Is that movie out? Is that the one that's lived, die, repeat? Because I think that one's out. That is out.

The day after tomorrow? Edge of tomorrow is the movie. Edge of the day. It's a movie. The day after tomorrow. I don't think they've announced what the movie would be. I don't think I've seen that yet either. I'm going to go with the edge of day after tomorrow.

They haven't even heard it yet, right? So even though Tom Cruise called inspiration for them. Maybe he fell through. I heard about the pooping situation up there and he was like, I'm out. You want to know? He's like, what am I walking into here? Not clear enough for me. What has been the latest from Tom Cruise?

Is it? Nata. Yeah. He talked to the inspiration for people. That's it. Like we don't have any updates. He talked to them. When they were up there.

Yeah. So I don't know. He's probably trying to get like the deeds on the capsule. You should have asked him about that. You know about Dragon, yeah. Tom's what Tom Cruise is up to. Yeah. I tried.

They also talked to Bono. They did talk to Bono. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cyan got a pretty cool gift from Bono. What was it? What was the gift?

She did like a live stream thing on Twitter of opening gifts. People sent her. Was it a frame picture? him and Tim Cook touching fingertips? It was like an LP, like a record. I can't remember who the artist was, but he sent her music to listen to on LP and a little note.

Yeah. You got to feel pretty good when you wake up in the morning and get a package from Bono in the mail. I mean, really. Yeah. Can't complain about that. New level. Okay, I will just obligatory

pick of the Netflix special for inspiration four because we we talked about it in the last episode like the inspiration four mission and we didn't actually pick this somehow so that's uh make sure we get that one in there um and then also i did watch the first episode of foundation this is oh i did too uh apple tv um you know sci-fi thing and it was it was interesting i'm gonna watch the second one i'm gonna keep going with it i i don't know how i feel about the story yet it's like pretty high concept for me like i it's very dune-like, you know, it's like... Yeah.

I think my biggest critique was that there were just so many cuts. You know, it was like one scene would last 30 seconds, and then it was off to the next scene, just because there was so much information. I've never read the series, right? I've never read the series, so I don't know if it's true to it or not, but it just felt like they were trying to pack in a lot

into, what, an hour and a half, something. Yeah. It's one of those shows that tries to take a giant, book and making a show. It's like watching Game of Thrones, right? Where like, you know, one, one character, like, John Snow has, there's that 50-minute episode and he's in it for four minutes, right? Like, because they got to just bounce around. But the show was beautiful, though. Like, it is stunning. I think I saw it some comments somewhere on Twitter that's like any screenshot, any frame from that whole episode could be like a poster

on your wall. Like, it was just, just really stunning. So yeah. I'm going to watch it again. I'm going to keep going. watch it again, you're going to watch the whole series again? Just the first episode, yeah. Over and over. Yeah, I don't want to risk getting a bad one later, so I'm just going to watch this one over and over again. To decide if I need to read first before I watch that one. Yeah, I don't know yet.

Discord is saying you need to read it first. Oh, yeah? Okay, thanks to us. I mean, I've only heard amazing things about it, you know, so I probably should stop watching and read it first. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Ask Discord if I should read Dune first.

Quick vote. On Dune first. Tell her yes. Dental Foundation. There you go, Discord. That's the question of the hour. We'll see what we get back from that. Okay.

All right. Plugs. We got Miriam's podcast, how it happened. Covering inspiration for a great show. Next Tuesday, I'm going out to the Nassar Center, which is where they did all of their sentinel training because it's very close. to me. And I've been meaning to go out there. And then turns out I've been emailing with the guy that's in the Netflix series, who's the director of space training there. So that's going to take a little

tour. I'm going to do my best Miriam Kramer and try to do some like live walking around audio. So you finally get to use all that gear you buy. I know. I bought an entire this, this black case that's right here is like a thousand dollars worth of road audio gear that I bought in March 2020. Oh, wow. Oh, tragic. It's barely been out of that case, so I'm very excited for that. People are asking if I'm getting a ride. I don't know, but that's my angle.

I am trying to get a ride, unabashedly trying to get a ride in the simulator. We'd consider doing that for an episode of spacecraft once, doing this interview. You should definitely do it now that we know Chris threw up on it. That looked rough. I'm not going to lie. get motion sicker so I am hoping that that's fine. Have you ever been to Epcot and done the mission to Mars ride? I feel like that's pretty similar. Pretty similar. Yeah. I have a look, did you ever look sideways in that? I did.

And it gets crazy. Doesn't it feel wild? My mom was freaking out. She did not like that at all but I was like yeah. But it just like spins you all weird. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of cool. Anyway, go to Epcot. Oh, we are going Epcot. Artemis 1. Yes, we are. Oh, yeah. We'll all go on Mission of Mars and look sideways. There's some off nominal lore about Epcot. Oh, my God.

Yeah, it's related to drinking in Mexico. And, yeah, anyway. So Lauren plugs. We got a book coming out in a lot. In a while. It's forever. So in the meantime, they're just going to have to satisfy themselves with reading your excellent verge coverage, which is back.

I'm so excited. I had my-Jor Roulette moves on to another publication to take out a different writer somewhere else. Yeah. was joking with me. He's the space reporter substitute for now. We just watch movies when he comes in. We just kick back and watch movies. That's what I want to plug. I want to plug how amazing Joey was. And while I was away, I didn't have to worry one bit because he was just absolutely killing

it on the beat. And so I'm very thankful for him. A lot of scoops. Yeah, he did a fantastic job. So I was going to say, you know, you did a good job as a space reporter when you are both loved and hated by the SpaceX fandom at the same. That is how you know you've like just threaded the line. Absolutely. We got to get him on. We got to reach out to him. Cool.

I don't have much to plug. I don't have much to plug. So I actually sort of took an unexpected, expected unexpected hiatus in September from doing stuff because, well, I thought, I thought ambitiously that I would be able to continue podcasting while I moved to a different country and stayed in an Airbnb and all this stuff. But I could not. I couldn't pull it off. I was in this Airbnb. It was so funny, you guys,

because I was like, it was an old colonial in downtown Merida in Yucatan here. And it was like 14 foot ceilings. Everything's made a concrete and tile. It was like walking into a tin can. Like you could like snap your fingers and it was like, oh,

good sound effect. Yeah. So like I concocted this like, I concocted this blanket for it. Like literally like, because it was this huge Airbnb. be and I didn't need all the bedrooms. So I tilted up the beds into like a little cube and like made like a blanket for it to try and record some semblance of a podcast. And there was like it's a busy road.

And Mexico is just noisy like in general. It's just the default baseline noise level. Mexico is just a little bit higher. And so there was like motorcycles and guys selling I don't know bread on bikes honking horns. And it was quite a thing. So I could not record podcasts. But I'm back now. So my plug is please. I hope you didn't forget about me. All right. Well, thank you both for being on your, you are true, off nominal legends,

as a set of us. And hopefully you'll be back in the not too distant future. No, thank you. This is, this is helpful for me. And now I'm all caught up

and I can actually do my job now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, when Bill Nelson drops that little helicopter, you'll know exactly what he saw. Yeah, me and my cat are very grateful. We got to be on your show. Thank you.

It's always great to see you guys. And Lauren, I love you, always. I love you.