Off-Nominal - 71 - Full-On Frenemy Territory

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

Anthony is joined by Christian Davenport of The Washington Post and Loren Grush of The Verge to talk about Loren’s JWST birthday present, Artemis 1 getting its initial launch dates, the occasional Long March 5B reentry, and everything else that has been going on in the world of space news.TopicsOff-Nominal - YouTubeEpisode 71 - Full-On Frenemy Territory (with Christian Davenport and Loren Grush) - YouTubeAn uncontrolled Chinese rocket booster will fall to Earth this weekend - The VergeRussia reportedly tells NASA it’s staying with the ISS until at least 2028 - The VergeNASA hopes to keep ISS operating despite Russia pullout threat - The Washington PostRogozin out as head of Russia's space program; NASA plans joint flights - The Washington PostNASA rebukes Russia for using ISS as Ukraine propaganda - The Washington PostNASA’s massive new SLS rocket gets first tentative launch dates - The VergeNASA's Artemis return to moon now has launch dates - The Washington PostMost Americans think NASA’s $10B space telescope is a good investment, poll finds - The VergeNASA delays launch of rover designed to search and drill for water on the Moon - The VergeNASA Will Inspire World When It Returns Mars Samples to Earth in 2033 | NASAFollow ChristianChristian Davenport - The Washington PostChristian Davenport (@wapodavenport) / TwitterFollow LorenLoren Grush - The VergeLoren Grush (@lorengrush) | TwitterFollow 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

DLS and go for main engine, start. Hello, friends. Welcome to Off Nominal with a very special guest host, of two special guest hosts, actually. Well, Lauren, you're in the Jake spot, so I think technically you're the guest host. Yes, sorry, Christian. You got, Christian got the feature, but you got the guest host role. So you also are going to have to show Christian the Ropes because you're an off-nominal,

legendary alumni member, I would say. Wow. A lot. But Christian has this is his first time, so how's it going? Great. Happy to be here. It's like to be here with Lauren. She deserves that seat. You know, she's a pro. We also need to do the water framing down there for your epic backdrop. Yes, as we discuss, this is, it's still a work in progress. Actually, I've noticed this plant. I had to throw the plant away. Those are real plants. They're not fake plants.

Those are real plants. Yes. As you can see, the area gets a lot of light. So I just got to find the right plants that thrive in this environment. But it's an ever- It's a fast-paced environment. Growing process. Yeah, exactly. Well, what are we doing this show? Lauren, is your private bartender back with your drink yet? Yeah, he just dropped it off.

And I asked him what the name was. And he said it was called the cosmonaut, which I think is so appropriate for this week. I have absolutely no idea what's in it. So we're going to find out together. That's a fun game. There's a grape. There's a grape in here. There definitely should be vodka in there.

I think there's absolutely going to be vodka. It's just vodka and a single grape. Oh, it's delightful. It's definitely a vodka drink. I wish I had a better palate so I could tell you what I'm tasting, but I don't know. It's sugary and fun. Kristen, did you... I can get you the recipe.

Yeah, the Cosmonaut recipe. Kristen, did you pop anything special open? I got a DC. What, DC. Yeah, and I apologize. I realize I'm doing this all wrong because I have like a whole thing of fake flowers here, but that it's out of sight. Put that in the background.

Not doing that right. I went with the classic gin and tonic. So it's kind of like a cosmonaut, but it might be. We don't know. We don't actually know. That could be gin and yours. No. I refuse to drink.

gin. And hopefully my husband knows that after 10 years of being together. Well, I was about to go really dark and say, if the Long March 5V reentry goes wrong, it might be the last one. A very dark start.

I'm sorry. Are you tired of the Long March stories at this point? Not me. Actually, I feel like I missed out because I was on book leave last year when the new cycle was at its craziest. So I didn't really get to participate. And so now I'm like kind of like, yeah, let's go. But I don't think it says people aren't as hand wavy this time around. So I'm a little disappointed. It does feel different than last time.

Why is that? I don't know. Maybe people learned. You know, like maybe they read all the The first time was a surprise. The second time was there was a lot of explanation and now it's just like, yeah, they still are doing it. Right. It's what they do. Yeah. People get, I mean, people like lose interest pretty quick. So.

This one should be interesting, though. There's like legitimate pieces of these have come down before. I always find that interesting, right? Because it's like, oh, I don't know, people are like, look at how many starlings get deorbited or look how many. We've seen the images of like, set of falcons. and nine upper stages coming back in, right? But like, this one like lands long pieces of metal on houses. Well, and I feel like, too, the last time NASA, like Bill Nelson put out a statement, didn't he?

I don't think he said anything this time, too. I mean, he hasn't sort of raised awareness of it. Not yet. He did, I did just get his statement on the chips, the chips act that just passed. But nothing on the booster. Usually it takes a couple days, though. Last time even was like pretty late. I don't know.

I was looking and it was on the day that it was supposed to, I couldn't figure out the exact timing, but I think it was the same day that it was deorbited. So it was around the same time. Yeah. Maybe I'm mistaking it with the whole ISS situation where it took them like a week to be like, not cool to bring those flags to the ISS.

I don't know. There's been slow responses to those things, but I think I might just be crossing my geopolitical streams here. No, and I think when it comes to like commenting on another country, you know, he's going to want to go to the White House or the State Department. Like there are a lot of, you know, boxes to check. I feel like he's a former senator. He's got to be careful. I bet that's what they do. Yeah, I mean, that's the shtick. We had we had Eric Berger on a couple weeks ago with a big debate on like, is Bill Nelson a good administrator or not?

Oh. I don't know if anyone has opinions, but I feel like, yeah. It'll, It is good that there is somebody that can navigate, like, political situations, but it is an extremely sluggish navigation of them, especially with the ISS situation lately. It's like, I don't know, just it, the sluggishness has me sad many times. I think what I will say is going all the way back to Jim Bridenstein's nomination and how everyone was in an uproar about that because he didn't have a science background. I think it's becoming more clear that a politician in charge is pretty useful in a lot of areas just because it is a very political job. And you know, so I will hand it. I'll give him that.

I think he does do a lot when it comes to the behind the scenes work. But yes, in terms of me and my daily reporting life, I am frequently frustrated with the time frame that it takes for statements to come out for sure. I don't know. They do come out on like SpaceX. That's true. Yeah, but that's such a good point because, I mean, Jim took so much flack for being a politician, you know, and he has a background. He has a precedent and track record for ways he's voted.

You know, his, you know, I remember his confirmation, like it came down to one vote, and people thought, like, the vice president was going to go out, have to be there and break the tie. And finally, he got it. And I think it's fair to say he was an effective leader in large part because of his political contacts. And I think the same is true with Nelson as well. He doesn't communicate as much and is sort of out there the way that Jim is, but kind of have to think that behind the scenes he's doing that. Yeah, Jim was like the better spokesperson for like the newer side of the industry that cared about new things, whereas like they both knew how to navigate the backroom

dealings, right? And arguably it's more important now because, like, the congressional pork is back back in action. So, like, Nelson definitely knows, I mean, even with the James Webb stuff that went around where they had this, like, really bizarre event that night before all the images were released. But, like, having the political savvy to know, like, oh, this is a good bone to throw the administration when I can, like, get into a conversation about, yeah, this was over budget. But look at these amazing images. And maybe we can get a little extra and get more support for the next telescope. Like, you can capitalize on the, on the good parts if you know who to invite to the right meetings is probably a huge part of what's going on. I don't know,

you're as someone from the Washington Post, definitely closer to the right circles to like know how these invite lists get made, but that feels like a huge part of it. Yeah, I mean, in some ways, like being NASA administrators, like being the president of a university, your job is to give speeches and to raise money, except for NASA, you're raising money in the form of dealing with Congress, getting appropriations, dealing with the White House. And I think he's pretty effective at that. I mean, Jim certainly was. You know, the other thing that came up that was interesting when the images from the

Web Telescope were released, and obviously that was something that, you know, Biden did, and there's all this controversy, you know, should that have been the president, should that have been sort of a scientist or an engineer? I thought it was pretty interesting that it rose to the level of the president. And I mean, that gives it a microphone, you know, that is pretty loud. And I heard from Republicans even who were like, no, no, no, that was the right call. And I think Nelson helped facilitate that for sure. I actually think it's weird that Biden wasn't involved even earlier.

I think that was kind of more of my surprise is that it was such a last minute addition when I feel like it just, it would have, it made sense this was such a slam dunk that I would have thought that Biden would have wanted to be involved earlier. than I think we got the notice on Sunday that it was going to change to the Monday announcement. Yeah. And I mean, think of everything that's going on with inflation. The pandemic is still. There's all this bad news all the time. And it's like, come on over to the space world. Like, you know, we're talking about the future and it's optimistic.

And, you know, like, Webb was amazing, you know, like embrace that. There's nothing like a space picture that brings all of me. my friends out of the woodworks who are not space people to text me and be like, oh, my God, have you seen this? And like, not only have I seen it, I've been reporting on it for the last seven years. And it's my birthday. So give me a break. Yeah.

Weirdest birthday ever. Has to be. No. Well, in terms of space, space getting in the way of my life, I remember I went all the way to DC once on my birthday for a Moon Express announcement. And that was an odyssey of a day. And I should have just stayed home. But that's another time.

The only Express slower than Excella is Moon Express. That's a Northeast Corridor joke. You said it. You said it not me. For everyone out there listening in the Northeast Corridor. That's a joke for you in particular. Moon Express, man. What a throwback.

I know. Yeah. I haven't heard a peep from them lately. I wonder what's going on there. I don't know. That brings up this whole clip situation, this commercial lunar payload services. This is like only been reported,

I think parabolic arc is the only one publishing a lot about it yet on Mastin space seemingly going under at this point. I don't know if either of you two were keeping tabs on this, but uh... Program's like in a pretty precarious spot right now, I would say. Uh, because they've got a lot of eggs in the basket of like intuitive machines, has three flights, astrobotics got two, vipers getting delayed a year, it's costing like half a billion dollars.

I, I don't know if this is like inside the Beltway, uh, are off nominal source inside the Beltway, like how much of that, is that ever going to attract the wrong kind of attention in political circles where a program starts creeping up to like having a B in it? You know, oh, you're getting close to a half a billion now. When does it attract bad attention? Because before a while, Calypso is like under the radar and that was a good thing, but I feel like it's not keeping that status. Well, do you remember, Lauren, there was a press conference in Dr. Zabukin, like said from the

beginning when they announced clips. And he said, we're going to take shots on goal. And sometimes we're going to, we're going to make the shot, sometimes we're not. And he was very clear from the beginning that, you know, we're going to try, we're going to fail, we're going to move fast. And I guess it's debatable whether they're moving as fast as they wanted to. And clearly they were talking in that context of, you know, having missions that didn't quite work out, as opposed to companies not working out. But I think that's just part of it. you know, companies like Maston and Moon Express that they try, but they're, you know, maybe the money is drying up.

NASA wants to be there to support them, but, you know, they can't lift up every single company. And then, you know, in this new sort of commercial space industry, there are going to be companies that thrive and companies that go under. And that's just capitalism, right? That's, I mean, that's not a sign that, you know, that the program doesn't work or that the economy's, you know, floundering. It just means that some are going to make it, some don't. The people at, you know, at Mass, I think there's a lot of talent there. I remember visiting

those guys in Mojave years ago, and they're like in some garage, and it was like two doors over from X-Corps, you know, since we're doing blast to the past. The bone yard of old new space. And which is right next to the real boniard. But, you know, there's some real talent there. can't help but think that they'll have no problem like finding jobs and they'll be, you know, just sucked up elsewhere for sure. The way I've always thought about clips is it's kind of like a nice to have. I don't know if it's necessary.

I mean, the way they advertise it, it's definitely, you know, fully in the Artemis program, but it's very clear that the focus is on, you know, SLS, Orion Starship. So yeah, what you said, what you had mentioned about what Zuber Srebukin said, like, it's always kind of been an experimental thing in my mind. And I think because the numbers are low enough, I mean, they're high for anything you and I will ever see in our lifetime, but low enough in terms of, you know, do we need a congressional inquiry into this situation? You know, I can't imagine it's that high on any lawmakers radar, but perhaps I'm wrong. Well, the little, okay, I should further explain. The Vipers inclusion in clips or the

attachment of Viper to Clips is what makes me nervous because the other ones are 70 million dollar missions right and it was like we're going to buy part of this flight you're going to have to find other customers to get to your final number because 70 million dollars these things are flying on Falcon 9 like there's not a lot of room left in your budget for a moonlander if you're having to also buy Falcon 9 flight for that so right and Viper gets added do you have a Viper? No I'm just going to say Vipers no kind of contradicting what I just said Viper kind of elevated things a little bit because it does feel a little more essential to the Artemis, the entire Artemis mission because it is looking for resources that we would potentially use in the future.

So that seems a little more vital. And I think Eric didn't, Eric had a story about how people weren't necessarily happy about Viper being a eclipse mission. And so, you know, I think with each step that they take, maybe it'll get more visibility. But we're also so far away from the whole sustainable part of Artemis that I think Vipers delay is not super detrimental to what they're working toward right now. Yeah, and I guess I'm more worried about the way that Viper got included in Eclipse being significantly different than the other ones. having like bad backlash against the smaller missions because now we can point to this half-billion dollar mission that's still delayed and like it has to go right whereas the other ones are you know okay well some of these companies are going to fail some are going to fail when they get to the moon

but this is like they're delaying it for testing so that it goes right and it just it is completely at odds with like the original idea behind clips and I like they basically just you know freighted the concept of clips uh or freighted the concept of Viper into clips so that no one would pay attention. And so I'm like, is this going to sabotage everything? I don't know. One of the things I heard about it was that, and Jim did this by design, and is a little inside baseball, and I'm not 100% sure this is accurate, but I'm pretty sure, is that what Brian Stein did was he put clips specifically not in HEO, in the human exploration mission to operation director. He put that in science for a reason, for a couple of reasons,

make Keo and science sort of they're joined at the hip on this. And I think it makes it harder to kill, too, if it's a science mission. And that was, you know, when we talk about the benefits of having a politician, he was thinking about that when he did that. At least that's what I've heard. I think that was extremely smart just because there has always been this division between the human spaceflight initiative and the science directorate. And I think sometimes the others don't see the other one is necessary. And so by combining it, you know, I think it makes it more of a one big NASA family more so than before. I'm trying to pull up images of the get-along shirt meme. Have you ever seen the get-along shirt meme? No. The two kids in the in the get-along shirt. This is, this is

a, this is a, heo in science with clips. Or it looks like my kids, so. I can buy that. On the topic of human spaceflight, I'm looking at my watch here. It is July 28th. And boy, howdy, we aren't a month and a day away from a projected Artemis 1 launch date. How did we get here? Like, where are we at on this? You guys feeling confident about it? Are you feeling weird about how the wet dress rehearsal ended?

I'm weirdly feeling confident about it. I did feel weird about how the wet dress rehearsal ended, but I was surprised that They decided they were done, but all indications I'm getting are that the date is sticking at the moment. So, but of course, you know, there's still a whole month for something crazy to happen. So like when I say confidence level, I'm at like 50% maybe. I bought my plane ticket today. I've had a hotel for a while, but I bought the plane ticket, you know, got that where you can change it, you know, whatever level of the ticket that you can't do with it. I could see them going out on the 29th for sure.

I don't think they're going to launch on the 29th. I think they're going to push to what are the next day, September 2nd. Labor Day, basically. Yeah, of course, down there for Labor Day. But I don't think they'll go on that first day. I mean, given everything that happened with the wet dress rehearsal, I don't see them getting through a smooth countdown. I think they're going to use, like, the launch,

at least the first attempt or the first couple of, attempts as test to kind of run through the procedures and see how it goes. Yeah, I could see that. Also, because that would be the most annoying situation for us because we would be there the 29th and then we'd have to wait three days for the next attempt. So that makes sense to me. And of course, it's going to be like really, really hot. At least it's not a three in the morning, though.

That's true. That's true. All of the launch times are reasonable, which is a, you know, true anomaly. probably shouldn't say that word hopefully the only kind I don't know I'm feeling I don't feel

I'm not mad at them for the way that they ended the wet dress rehearsal but I am mad at them for some of the quotes I've seen going around from different people within NASA saying how we successfully completed the wet dress rehearsal and we're looking all good for the launch I'm like like you had to do a bunch of stuff in the VAB to like

finish your tests or finish I guess it was on the launch pad where they were still finishing a test or two. When do your launch reports happen, if not for weather? Like, T minus 6. You know, it's never T minus 47. Oh, we have a hold and we're going to abort today. It's always like right when you're just about to be excited that your plan's actually working out and you're launching that day

and you don't have to move your flight home. And so the fact that they didn't even approach that time period just as like, I don't feel great about it. It's funny. Like, on the one hand, NASA's always criticized for being too cautious, too methodical, too bureaucratic, too slow. And here they are, it seems like there's like a real sense of urgency. Like they're going for it.

Like, you're right. They didn't finish everything, but they're like, let's not like, you know, make, you know, it doesn't have to be perfect. It's good enough and we feel like we've got enough data. So let's just do it. Let's, you know, like the candle and go. And like in a way, it's very un-NASA and that they're kind of trying to move fast. So, yeah, I mean, could that present problems down the road?

Yeah, but, you know, it's interesting that they're moving this way. Mm-hmm. I think the timing is also interesting because we are very close, well, presumably we are closer to a starship launch at the same time. So, you know, having these launches almost back to back would be very politically interesting to see. I don't know if that's playing into the motivation at all to, you know, move up, but it will be interesting depending on the outcomes of both launches and exactly when they

launch in relation to each other, you know, what people will be saying and what kind of message that sends to the lawmakers in charge. Yeah, well, two things on that. One, I think some of the time pressure that you're talking about, Christian, is like, it's a bad situation for SLS in the way that these launch windows lay out, because if they roll out to the pad and don't, they go for these launch attempts, but they don't launch. Because of the way they have to roll back to the VAB, reload the flight termination system, get everything closed out again for launch. They can't make the late September window.

They would have to skip all the way to October. So if you're not doing everything you can to meet that first window that you have, you're waiting another two months, which is, it's just like, it's a factor of never really considering this vehicle to launch more frequently then like their goal is once a year eventually. It's like, I don't know, that's another thing that no one ever intentionally designed that way, but the limits that it places upon you operationally is kind of horrible. And no one's going to dig that down that deep in the details other than us three and some people that are watching right now.

Nobody really cares at that level. But it's not a good sign in terms of like the day-to-day operations that you're having to make decisions because there's such long lead times between different events. that that I feel like puts more pressure on let's make sure we get this first attempt even in the realm of possibility because if we end up making the first attempt September 2nd we've got like one shot at this thing before we've got a two months stand down yeah that's a great point I also wonder if I was just to say I also wonder if they looked at their schedule for like what it would take to do a full you know wet dress rehearsal again and what if that pushed them into a like later time frame and you know, if that may, if that kind of schedule factored into it too, and maybe like the benefits of doing that wet dress rehearsal probably, probably were diminishing in that point, you know, in terms of what they would get and whether or not it was worth pushing the schedule back even further.

Yeah, to get the extra 10 seconds of data because it's like, okay, what if we go out and we, here's an idea, let's do another wet dress rehearsal, but if it works, let's just turn on the engines. Essentially what they're doing, right? Like, we got it, we got, we know the whole vehicle works. We could load all the propelling in. We were, had full control the vehicle. So if we can fix this leak and we can do that thing and we get to T0, then let's party and take vacation around the holidays. That sounds great.

So it's not the worst. Um, but what you were saying, Lauren, about the, the convergence of Starship and SLS. Um, I think in, in an era two years ago, if this launch happened two years ago, that could be the storyline. But, uh, Starship is like dependent on. on SLS existing right now to the extent that they're getting a lot of money from NASA to develop Starship because of the program that exists because of SLS. So it can't straight up be like a this or that competition anymore. Even if SpaceX feels that internally, even if we feel that internally, like, they can't just,

Elon can't stand in front of Starship launching and be like throwing middle fingers up saying like, this is the thing, not SLS, right? Like, because he has to now play the NASA game that if I want astronauts to go on this ship and land on the moon, they have to get there by way of SLS because that's how it is. It makes it a really interesting, like they're going to be seen much more complimentary, or they should be anyway, than they would have if this was two years ago, and SpaceX had not been selected for human landing system. I think in the short term, yes, but in the long term, it's going to be,

it just, I mean, and it all depends on Starship's performance, and if what Elon promises actually, you know, manifest. But I think long term, it would be politically harder to justify. But yes, I agree. They are full in front of me territory at the moment because of the HLS contract. And so I find that it would be a very funny position for everybody to be in. Sorry, I'm writing down the title real quick. On that long term, I don't know if you guys caught it,

but Representative Adderholt from Alabama gave this. speech at ISSRDC yesterday and it was like, you know, he's just usually all in SLS. That's like, you know, like Senator Shelby, Acolyte, all SLS all the time. And he gave the speech. It was much more, you know, to broad about so much going on in space and even sort of address the old space, new space thing. And I, you know, I'm looking at that. I'm just sort of wondering how the commercial space sector, SpaceX, sort of receive that,

that, you know, this SLS backer is now trying to to embrace commercial space, which he sort of came out and said he was going to do. But then in the long term, what Lauren's talking about when SLS, whatever, how much it costs a lot? Was it $4 billion or $2 billion or $1 billion, whatever that number is? And however you slice that, but it's once a year. And if Starship is realized to its full potential and is much less expensive and can fly to higher cadence and makes SLS irrelevant, you know, how that all plays out because then it sort of then there is a political situation where you're like it's it's untenable it's just untenable and even jim brianstein you know when to ask about that would be like

well let's wait and see what what happens in the future right now it's not launching but so we're committed to sLS but i think that's going to be fascinating and that may come i don't know like sooner than people think what do you think because i was thinking we're stuck with sLS so at least Artemis 4, you know, but beyond that. Right. No, I think that's about right. I think that's about right. That's a fun little bet. Like, what's the first numbered Artemis flight that flies on a thing that is an SLS? Don't even make it Starship specific. Just generally, does the name last long? Because it's like multi-layered bet. Does the name last long enough to have numbered flights at high? Does whatever else is flying

last along enough to have numbered flights on it? That's a many-layered bet. I don't know. Artemis, well, this is the whole other aspect about like the time delay between these Artemis flights is gigantic. Like the thing that's annoying me the most is this gap between Artemis 1 and 2. I haven't yet done my homework again on that Eric Berger show that we had recently. We were comparing where the core stage is for Artemis 2 to where the core stage was for Artemis 1 at the same time, right? like how far, you know, where are they at tracking to, they're going to deliver the core stage in the spring,

how far is that from what launch stage should be? But there's this huge gap that's in this schedule because they're going to be reusing a bunch of components out of Orion on the next flight. And what's driving me nuts is like, if you, at the time, you know, there's been money going to Orion this whole time. It's been clear that SLS is holding up first Orion's flight. Could we have not like grab parts from somewhere else on a

production line to pull the second one forward and have this time gap between Artemis 1 and 2 shortened, or are we really stuck with this like almost three-year gap, whatever, it's two in a couple of months or something like that. That's what's driving me nuts because that's like a lifetime in space world. Well, you know how it goes. Whenever you have to change a decision like that goes through many managers and hierarchies and whatnot. But what I wonder about is, you know, I think back to that Jeopardy question,

about Artemis that nobody was able to answer. I don't know if you guys saw that. And how I don't think anybody that I know outside of the space world really has any kind of concept of what Artemis is. And so what is it going to do for the public consciousness of this program if they launched this year and then it's two more years before the next one launches? Like, you know, maybe that's not such a huge problem, but it definitely isn't going to help elevate this program to, you know, a nationally beloved program.

Yeah, there's not going to be a lot of SLS T-shirts in like Gen Pop the way there are shovel T-shirts. No. I think it is a huge problem having that delay. I mean, I, it's, well, I wonder a couple things. First, like, will people care about Artemis I? Will that be a thing? Like Demo 2 with Bob and Doug,

I actually do feel like that for a moment, like got through to people and really sort of entered mainstream culture and the public's consciousness. And it was sort of a great thing that happened in the middle of, you know, the George Floyd and all that, like here was a ray and the pandemic. But like, you know, an uncrewed mission in orbit around the moon.

I mean, for us, this is huge, right? And it's like one of the first things we're talking about. But A, well, people care about that. And even if they do, they're like, okay, that's cool. So when are we now, when's the next one? And then they're like, oh, it's two years away. Yeah. I think people are going to be confused.

Yeah, I think it's a real problem. Yeah, I just like, I think just we're going to, you and me, Christian, are going to have a hard time describing like why people aren't on this particular rocket. I think that's going to be something that we deal with in the next. over the next month. Do you remember the hot minute where there might have been people on this flight?

Boy, do I? I kind of forgot about that for a minute. Yeah, that was like, oh yeah, it was EM1 at the time. It had a bad name. Oh, my God, I forgot about that I forgot about. I forgot about EM1. Why was that going to happen? Why was it all the sudden important to put people on this just for fun?

Just because that's how our dads did it when they flew the shuttle and that's how their dads did it before them and the good old boys down there want to just put the boys on the rocket? Is that what it was? I think it was a very political move because I think it was right after Trump. Trump had just taken office

and they were looking for a very visible win that they could say that they did. And I think back then, maybe it was like a 2019 launch date or something crazy like that, you know. Back when we thought it was going to launch before 2020. So I think that was why they were hoping to expedite that because it would have happened in the first term.

But that is all speculation. Yeah. Fun fact, Robert Lightfoot is the one that sent that memo. That was a real moment in time. And didn't Gersk is the one who killed that? I think if I remember Gersh was just not. Or they did a study. They did a big study about it.

And then ultimately we're like, no, we can't talk. They were like, no. That was the one where maybe we'll file Orion on Falcon Heavy. or, you know, I think it was all in that same era, right? Yeah. Oh, that came, that came under Bridenstein, though, when they were thinking of flying right. I remember because he casually announced it during some congressional meeting that I was falling to sleep. And I was like, oh, oh, this just got really interesting.

Yeah. Yeah, nothing would have been different if there was, I don't know, okay, let's run that. If people were on this, then what? Like, we're still in just as bad as situation. The next flight's just as far away. I guess you could do something. Well, you can't really do anything different with it, though, because that's still the little upper stage.

Yeah, and they aren't landing. So I think that would also confuse people about why they're just slingshotting around the moon. So, yeah, I don't know. I don't have more to say beyond that. Well, it's an interesting thought process. So if there were astronauts on it that would put, I mean, I'm just thinking politically that would put a human face on it. You know, you'd have whoever it was like, you know, Victor Glover and Christina Cook.

Yeah, making Victor Glover, yes. You know, like I know they haven't announced it, but Victor's, he's got to be on the Artemis 3 mission, right? It's going to be Victor. 100%. Oh. That dude's been having his guns out next starship like for months on end. He's been basically like a TikTok influencer down at Starbase just posting. Yeah.

Yeah, he's great. And I'm kind of thinking, I don't know, that's Jessica Meere or Christina Cook. I think it's Jessica Meir. I was thinking Jessica Watkins would be the one. The flight experience. Yeah, but you know, we'll see. It's a while away. That's a couple of years.

Man, yeah. All right. Well, sorry for that little trip down memory lame. I have two other things on my mind. Number one, do we guys want to talk about Mars sample return at all and these helicopter rovers that happen? Sure.

Okay, first I'm going to pull up this picture because this is a hilarious picture for me because it definitely just looks like they just straight up drew wheels on ingenuity. They just like cut and paste half-width perseverance wheels, put it on ingenuity and ship this. I don't know. This is almost 100% not with.

this thing is going to look like. I'm taking bets on that. But this is a very cool announcement. I'm pumped about this. Do you have any takes from how we should see this announcement? I support more helicopter. Like you always think of NASA is like they're stuck in their ways and they're going to do it and they have like you have SLS. This is this rocket on this legacy technology. It's been in development for more than a decade and they're like, this is it. And yet here they're like, actually, wait, ingenuity, like, why don't we use that and throw out all the plans and improvise, adapt, overcome? I mean, I love that, that they're like being nimble and flexible and adapting to new technologies and circumstances. So I think just from like the philosophical

standpoint of NASA's thinking, I think that's, you know, that changes. And I, you know, I'm being somewhat critical of them. I think they actually do that a lot, much more than they get credit for because obviously, you know, they've had a huge success, you know, track record and landing on Mars. But I thought that was really cool that they're like, no, we have, there's a better path. And this is the way. And so now we're going to do it this way. I'm just thinking, you know, in terms of when these things will actually launch, you know, granted, perseverance was on time. But are we really going to be on time with this 2028? I believe that was the projected launch date for the lander with the Mars Ascent vehicle on top of it.

So, you know, whenever you delay a Mars mission, that's two years that you have to wait. And that extends things even more beyond the 10 years that, you know, curiosity has been on the surface. So is it optimistic to think that we will be sending the vehicles on time in 2028? is that like a reasonable time frame? Are you worrying that? Are you worrying that? Yeah, okay. So that's the thing is that they're,

because they're ditching some of the samples on the surface in one spot. And then I think they said if something went downhill with perseverance, they could drop the rest of them out on the surface. So like, it works case scenario. I hope there's a big red button that's just like eject samples in case anything starts going down and they're like, we got to get these out. Yeah, I mean, that's definitely a risk. when you're taking, well, there's like multiple layers of this, too,

because it's the European side of the sample return that's also involved on this part, right? Where Perseperance is there doing its thing, but now we've got a sent vehicle, a return orbiter, two. I mean, the fact that they're putting two helicopters on the fetch part is like, okay, so we're really worried about redundancy on these things. They've got wheels because we're not confident

we can land right over one of these samples. but it's also a really far, it's really far away. Like they could hypothetically use ingenuity now to test some stuff out if they had any unanswered questions that they hadn't gotten to yet on these initial flights of like, what are the performance characteristics, what can we can we refine some of our models so that when we go to build these things, you know, they have a couple years before they really need to start cutting metal for these helicopters.

So that's helpful. And correct me if I'm wrong, is it not, it's not funded yet, right? Like, there's no budget for this, or is it? I think the last time there was Mars sample return budget in last years. Okay, so it was in there. Now, here's the 4D chess part of it. I don't know if you two have heard, but there's a European Mars rover that currently does not have a way to land on Mars. This was going to have, previously, there was going to be two landers going down to Mars, one for the ascent vehicle, one for a fetch rover.

Now there's just one lander. Hypothetically, there is probably not hardware yet. At least Jake tells me there's not hardware yet, but there may be budget opening up for what was supposed to be a lander to take a rover to the surface, to be a different lander that takes a different rover to the surface. So I wonder if this is rearranging. Did they mention something in there?

I think they mentioned something like that, but don't quote me on it. But I remember there was talk about the Rosalind Franklin rover during the press call on Wednesday. So that is floating in the air for sure. But if this is a way, like, you know, Christian, what you're saying is that let's use some learnings of like this awesome new thing that we have on Mars. And we can make the sample return program better, more efficient, but also open up some budget to, you know, stick it to the Russians and take this rover down to the surface

of Mars. Like, that's got to be a huge point of pride for many people to be like, no, we got to get this rover to Mars just to make a point. Like, I don't know, there's got to be people motivated to do that as well. I am personally, and I have no involvement on this mission. So. Well, and just the headline on the press release, you know, wasn't, it wasn't, it was like a very, it was, NASA will inspire the world.

I mean, that's what it was out, right? You know, it wasn't about a little of a new architecture. It was like, we're going to inspire the world. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mike Pence wrote this headline personally. I think I made a joke about that with somebody.

I was like, Lauren Gresh will inspire the world when she eats lunch today or something. Like, I was like, I can't write that headline for myself. Yeah. Not wrong, but definitely, like, could have had a better headline here. So, oh, man. Should we talk about the Russians since I just mentioned them and this ISS situation? though is it a situation no this one isn't but i just want more people on the record of uh about

how quickly we should bail on the russians being involved in the space station even if they're not going to do it themselves because i've been on about this forever and every time one of these situations comes up i'm just like god we got to get we got to figure this out um well side set that one for a minute and i don't know i just feel like it's it would be irresponsible if there were not a couple of people at Johnson Space Center working on whatever plan would be necessary to replace the Russian segment tomorrow just in case the hardware itself failed, but also just in case more chaos ensues for the next eight years. I believe Wayne Hale said the same thing at an advisory council meeting back when the war began. He was like, just to be, you know, we got to do our

due diligence here because of what they were saying. But I haven't heard any. movement on that, seen any movement on that. I think the way NASA is operating, they just very much want this to keep working. And until they hear any kind of official notice, you know, they're just going to keep the status quo going. But I think you're right. I think there's we should, NASA is good at planning every kind of contingency. And this seems like a pretty big important contingency to plan for. Yeah.

So I've heard that, yes, they are. Those discussions have been going on for a long time. there's all kinds of planning. They don't want to talk about it publicly just because of the signal that sends to Russia, right? They don't want to send that signal publicly that, oh, yeah, we're totally ready to go without you. Because that's not what they want. We're also going to leave after 2024. They just, they want to keep it going.

That's the simplest thing to have the partnership continue. But yeah, no, they are totally do that and looking at ways to boost the station, whether it's with Dragon or. Cygnus, although I'm told that's actually, it's really difficult to do with that, that they just don't have the performance for those vehicles to give the station what it needs, particularly the fact that it's got to maneuver so much these days to avoid debris, let alone just the regular sort of orbit keeping that they have to stay in. So they really don't want this to go away. And NASA, so they're just like being very quiet about it. Yeah, it's a tough balance because if you're NASA, like this is your best opportunity to use the situation to play politics to get funding for commercial Leo development.

But you can't let that get out into the public and start rabble rousing in the way of whoever the head of Ross Cosmos is at any given moment. So, I don't know. I guess maybe they're not even motivated to use that in political circles to, you know, get some extra funding because it doesn't look like it in the budget line items. but maybe that's something else that you can go to dinner at the right place, Christian, and like overhear them, give it someone some ear on it. So it's interesting because Mike Gold, who's at Redwire now, you know, and he's part of one of the teams that are building the commercial stations. It was like full on talking at our ISSRDC saying like, oh, well, this just shows you

why we need more commercial participation and maybe not with a commercial, you know, free flyers, but actually more commercial help on ISS. So he jumped right into that lane right away and like, you know, with both feet. Yeah, always be closing. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like I didn't expect the new head of Roscosmos to immediately step in dog poop in the way that happened in this last week.

I thought Ragozin heading out would like chill things out a little bit. This new guy doesn't have a Twitter feed as far as I know. I don't know if anyone's discovered. I think he's a bit of an unknown entity for, for, you know, the space reporting world. So because he was a new player and saying these things, I think maybe people took that as more legitimacy, you know, but ultimately, you got to read into the way these things are phrased, right? The decision was made after 2024, you know, after so many threats to leave the ISS, it just kind of went with the general playbook

of how these things normally go. It seemed like somebody copy and paste it a line out of like whoever did the report last time. They were like, oh, just reuse that part because that was less than a year ago when we submitted the report on what our plans are. And I don't know. I can't expect anything else out of whoever's in charge of Roscosmos.

Like, I'm not super hopeful that the new guy's going to be a lot different than Rogozin was. But I think if he is less publicly antagonistic beyond this, that would be helpful for NASA to like stay out of the way and not have because every time one of these situations comes up like you know it gets picked up everywhere and then NASA has to ask answer a bunch of questions about the partnership or why they're working with Russia or random stuff about the war right now and if there are less opportunities for that then it just keeps it less you know a hot button issue and then the people that actually work at NASA and Roscosmos can keep flying the space station without being bothered by all this. So hopefully that's how it goes if we want everything to be chill, but I don't know. I guess we'll have to wait to see if Borisov, whatever's name is, signs up for a really hot Twitter account. Yeah, somehow I don't think he'll be antagonizing

Elon on Twitter. I think that will be offering tea. Yeah. I'm not upset about it. Oh, man. What else are you tracking? Is there anything else on your do you're tracking? Is there anything else on your docket of things to follow here? Or are you just consumed by Artemis 1 logistics? That is a big one. We could, well, we did mention it earlier, but, you know, people are literally tracking Long March 5B at the moment. So there's that this weekend.

That'll be fun. Yeah, should we take bets? Is there like Vegas odds on where this is going to land? It probably is. The Pacific? Pacific. Last time it was like half an orbit away from landing in New York, though. So.

I think that was, was that the second one? I think it was the first one. I remember that one, like, passed over New York at one point. And I was like, oh, because I was in New York at the time. I was like, glad I wasn't aware. So it'd be pretty well. I remember when the, was it Chong Gong One that was deorbiting uncontrolled, like the original space station.

I remember seeing that, like a night pass of that when it was on its way back down. And the apparent speed of it because of how low it was, was unbelievable. Like, if you've seen an ISS pass, has kind of a slow, you know, high airplane speed to it based on when you're sideline. But when something is at this height of like 180 to 200 kilometers, it is ripping across the sky. So if you, I don't know if anyone has, now that we have like a good track on where this thing is, if there are, if like heavens above or anyone has sighting predictions, but if you get a chance to see this thing, it's unbelievable. I don't know how bright this one is compared to Tongong, but it was like one of the coolest orbiting things I've ever seen in my life. So highly recommended. I should pull that up. I love the ISS tracking. Like when I'm on the alerts and whenever it goes over, I take the kids out and watch it. It's awesome.

I actually was able to see a pass in New York City once, which that was really cool. Like I walked out of my office out in the financial district and was able to spot it overhead, which, you know, in New York feels like impossible, but it was, it was bright as, you know, very bright and clear. Did you tell any random about it? I was like, I was the only one looking up, you know, because New Yorkers never look up. And so I was just like, you know, mesmerized by this point of light in the sky and everybody he's walking past me thinking

no one's going to talk to you what's this lady doing oh man oh wait you mentioned the chips act Lauren I haven't really been doing a lot of reading about the chipsact is there anything good

should I know anything about this chipsect as our last segment of the show here I was looking through it too it really what it feels to me is a lot of keep doing what you're doing NASA I don't know it was a lot of codifying things

that NASA is already doing and just making them more official. But that's my, it was more of a skimming. So if Christian has more of a take, I'll gladly see the floor. Well, it was interesting. There was one thing about like they want to report on the second mobile launcher, you know, which is like, you know, gone off the rails.

And, you know, obviously that would support SLS Block 1B. I don't know, maybe there's something there just because, you know, SLS, obviously guys got so much congressional support and yet they're upset about the tower. So, you know, that's interesting. I don't know. The thing like that I've been thinking about lately, and this is maybe a little bit off topic, but we spend so much time talking about SLS and Starship and Orion and all the

astronauts. And yet, you know, and this is my fault because I don't really write about this stuff. So I've been thinking about it a lot more. It's like the technologies we need to build that sustainable presence. And right, we talk about the science director and we talk about here. but we don't talk about like the science technology mission directorate and what they're doing, but they just awarded these contracts, right? The early stage contracts for nuclear fission reactor on the moon and like ISRU and all that stuff.

And it's like I don't think Congress is paying attention. I don't think that's getting the funding. So we can talk about like the core stage for SLS2. Where is that? But it's like, you know, sustainable presence. Like I don't we're like they're not funding that, you know, this sort of infrastructure stuff, which isn't like as sexy, but it's like that stuff is really important. And it just feels like that that's not getting the attention it deserves.

Well, and that was what got me excited about this whole return to the moon push to begin with was because, you know, the whole we're not going to just leave flags and footprints on the moon. It was a lot about going sustainably. And I thought, I mean, yeah, it became a talking point after a while. But ultimately, it seemed like the way to push things forward. if we were to go back to the moon. And that has all but fallen by the wayside, it seems, at least in the public realm, because you're right.

Like, we're kind of just focused on getting there and getting back and just, you know, because SLS has taken so long to come to fruition. So it would be nice to be like, okay, so when we go, what are we going to do? You know, what's the plan? Because right now it does seem like the plan is up until Artemis 3, Artemis 4, and then after that it gets murkier. That fission reactor thing was very interesting because the first two companies or groups that were awarded

was like old space, old nuclear engineering. And then the third one here, I'll zoom way in, was a joint venture between intuitive machines and X Energy, which are both under the IBX brand, which funds Axiom space, intuitive machines and X energy. So it's all that same family. So like low-key,

IBX has all of the interesting stuff that's going on in like the next five or ten years because we, as we're talking about, space station is in some trouble geopolitically and axiom spaces positioned really well for that whole thing, but they've got three missions going to the moon with intuitive machines and then this nuclear fission project

with a different company. I don't know. It's like, I don't know what's going on over there. I don't know how much money they got in the bank. I don't know how this is all working out, but I don't know, a lot of hope over there. So it seems like a cool group to keep some tabs on. Yeah, for sure. That's, that's, you have good instincts because I think you're right. Like, go to that.

I think there is some, you know, some stuff happening. It's just not, it hasn't surfaced. It's not at the public level yet. But, you know, just the mining and blue origin buying was that company, Honeybee, and hiring up all the ISRU talent. and just like, I mean, dealing with the regolith and that dust is a huge problem. I mean, that's like, anyway, and well, and we'll have Viper, but now that's delayed. So I don't know.

I think that I'm kind of just being like we should maybe start paying a little bit more attention to that stuff. I wonder if it would be beneficial to kind of put more of that stuff front and center rather than just, you know, the launching and the rockets. It's, you know, I don't know how I'm, I still try to figure out how the average person engages with NASA, you know, because I've been in the trenches for so long. But I wonder if that, if, you know, focusing on that kind of stuff would be more beneficial to the long-term strategy for Artemis, but or if they're just kind of not focusing on that right now because it's so many years away in the future. maybe maybe in a month or two once artemus one launches like let's uh circle back on that one we have plenty of time to think about it but uh all right we're at the end here um is there anything you two want to direct people to christian i don't know if uh i know you can all read your writing over at washington post or anything else that you want to point people to if they

do not yet partake in the christian davenport universe experience yeah um i mean that and and in And Twitter, you know, we're all on space Twitter. It's our little family, our little tribe. So check us out. All Lauren, for sure. Yeah, Lauren, what you got cooking? No, just same. Go to my, yeah, I'm on Booster Watch this weekend.

And, yeah, Twitter as well. So I go in, I notice I go in cycles. Sometimes I tweet a lot. Sometimes I'm like, me, well, when I go, hide in the shadows. Same, same, same. Next week on the show, Jake will be back. He's coming home, he's traveling home today.

We have Dr. Justin Walsh coming on. This one's going to be awesome. He is co-PI on a project. He works with Dr. Alice Gorman. They're doing, I don't know if you two have heard of this, but they're doing this ISS archaeological project where they are taking, like, or they use high-res imagery from ISS of, like,

different workstations, and they try to research how those areas have changed over time and what they can learn about the way that the space station is used versus how it was designed and the way that people thought it would be used when it was on the ground, and then how it's changed now that it's been up there for so long. I'm pumped for this one. It sounds like super nerdy and very interesting. So that'll be next week if you want to check it out, and I'm sure it'll be super cool. But until then, thank you both for joining us today for filling in for Jake.

it's always a pleasure to have you both on. Thanks for having us. Thank you. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, end of death.