Off-Nominal - 76 - Walter Cronkite was Faking It

Episode Date: September 9, 2022

Jake and Anthony are joined by Rae Paoletta, Editorial Director at The Planetary Society, to tell some stories from their trip to Artemis 1, the Off-Nominal meetups, and Rae’s encounter with a snake owner, licensed in the state of Florida.TopicsOff-Nominal - YouTubeEpisode 76 - Walter Cronkite was Faking It (with Rae Paoletta) - YouTubeLaunch of Apollo 4 first Saturn V as seen LIVE on CBS w/ Walter Cronkite - YouTubeOff-Nominal on Twitter: “a wild colangelo has appeared with a @PAYOLETTER”Off-Nominal on Twitter: “check out all these anomalies”Off-Nominal on Twitter: “we should be easy to spot”Off-Nominal on Twitter: “hey @ChrisG_NSF @BCCarCounters what if this piece gets too wet”Off-Nominal on Twitter: “we are still on the beach so come join us after you file your stories, friends”Follow Raerae paoletta (@PAYOLETTER) / TwitterRae Paoletta | The Planetary SocietyThe Planetary SocietyPlanetary Society (@exploreplanets) / 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

CLS and go for main engine start. Hello, friends. Welcome to a live event that is actually happening. That is actually going to happen today. It's actually, it's for real. We're not going to ditch this and recycle for two days from now and then three weeks from now. Hi. The only leaks this show may suffer is a drink leak under my desk here.

That's about it. I feel great about this show and the theme because Ray showed up. at our meetup at our at our at our at Artemis one and we booked her right then and there we were very professional about this she said when am I going back on the show and I said how about a week and a half from now and she said yes let's do it that's great yeah I mean it was great as all good creative things happen under the influence of Jimmy Buffett's delicious Landshark Lager I mean that's the stuff of dreams right there I mean what word do you need to kick off a good podcast idea if my dad is watching if if my dad is watching if if my dad is

watching, he just like got super engaged because you said the magic word to Jimmy Buffett. So you should be on the podcast. Dial-in. Dial-in. Can call him up. Please come talk about Jimmy Buffett and why. Should we start with Dr.

Well, because we got a lot to get to here. I think we should. I got pictures. I got video. I've got a lot of content here, Jake. You prepared a multimedia experience? Yes. Across channel,

multimedia edition of the office. Off nominal we've got today, folks. Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. What do you got, Anthony? What do you got going on right now? Oh, in the spirit of the off-nominal beach party that we'll talk about, and also because I sound and feel like crap, which may be obvious. I feel like I went with a sensible choice of a seltzer. So we were drinking a lot of silcers on the beach. I usually don't drink them, but I do love them on a hot beach day. They're very refreshing. So I got a two robbers peach. I said pineapple one over there too, which I'm less in love with, but it's the last one left of this box. So that's when it gets drank.

But I needed something that's a lot of water because I just, I got to flush this. So, yeah, that's what I'm going with. The hydrate ratio is always comforting with the hard self-use. Yep, very high. So, I was not raised strategy, though. I saw pre-show, what you got over there? Yes, this is full dehydration mode that I'm in with the wine.

I feel like last time I was here, I had the red wine taste. I got to keep up the tradition. This is a lovely Temprenio from Spain, and it's really, really nice. It's Vina alberdi, and it's a 2018. Was that a good year? You know, we're easing it to fall here. It's in New York. I just felt like it was weather appropriate.

And like I said, I just have to keep up the red wine tradition here. You are now the nominal Somalié. Oh, my gosh. I've been bonding that for so long. I can tell that you know something about wine because you have like the the pro wine glass. Like most people have this like the round one, which is like, that's what I think a wine glass looks like. And this is like, no, this is a this is a expert mode wine glass. I'm going to see more of it when I'm drinking it.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. This makes me just feel like a bond villain. I mean, how can you go wrong drinking? Yeah. And I'm sure if we if we ask like someone who's like really, really, really. into wine or maybe even you can tell us like there's probably some special uh flavor sensation that is you know encouraged by the shape of the glass and the smell and the taste hit you at different

like there's some nonsense about you know how it's just wine but yeah you're really getting full profile here and also you're getting the extremely medicine look to honest and and you can do you can do the swirl the like oh yeah i have to swirl it first you have to swirl it first and then smell it and then drink it, which is all part of the experience, right? It's all part of the off-malon experience you're going for here. All right. So I have a gimlet today.

You know what? We got fun facts in the chat. Sorry, I'm in and off mute because there's a guy literally doing housework right behind my wall, and you're going to hear it the whole show. It'll be a bit. But you have been studying at first level, Salmoye. I don't know who this is in the chat. Is this from planetary society?

I'm a planetary society. My employer. Oh, I know who that is, but who's doing it? I think Jake froze, too, which is a fun bit. But he is smiling. Yeah, we're going to leave him like that until he's back. Yeah, that's fine. Is this true?

You've been studying? Well, yeah, it's not really, I can't say it's a Somaliate test, but it's like a wine specialist. Somaliers are the real, real pros. But I'm just like a baby wine. person. Baby wine person. I'm going to add that one right now.

Hold on. I'll write the title down real quick. Yeah, just add that. Baby wine person. Yeah. Anyway, I think Jake, Jake has Starlink now, which is a fun bit about this show,

which was we were seeing how long he could go before he freezes in this laughing face. And we found out exactly how long that was, which was two shows. I was thinking we could just polygram and then. Well, he's gone now. Here, I'm going to switch you guys. Oh, he's back.

Hold on. He's back. He's back. He's back. Hey, welcome back. So this could be a spotty episode because there's, there's some clouds rolling in. And Elon hasn't installed the anti-cloud Starlink service prevention. Packet loss.

A severe packet loss is happening. Your packet loss. Yeah, I heard, I heard thunder. and then it was like, so that's how that goes. So we're going to do our best. But so as I was saying, I have this. This is a gimlet, which I decided to have last minute

because I lost my head of state today. Rest in peace, Liz, you know, you served a long time. And I thought I got some London gin in my closet. So I made a bit of a British drink today. So this one stole Liz. It's good. Poured one out. It's good.

Yeah. Yeah. I get it. I don't get the monarchy thing at all, but this is an obvious disagreement to me and Jake. So, right? Frozen is in his, this is going to be fun to see how he freezes. All right. We're skipping.

We're skipping him. No worry. I would like to talk about the off nom. Well, where should we start, right? Which angle should we go in? Because we've got the Artemis side of it all to cover. We've got the everything that's surrounded Artemis. and I'm not sure which is more fun.

Let's start with the science stuff, right? Let's start with our. Okay. What the hell? I'm just kidding. That's not my first question. But seriously, what do you make of all this that's going on where we're at here? We're what?

Two weeks out since we first tried? No, one and a half weeks. Time is a warp. And now they're keeping it out there. They're going to try to fix it. They're going to see what happens. What do you make of this? So, I mean, I think the way,

is they're going to try for September 23rd, or September 27th, if one of those dates work out. But, yeah, I mean, it was super disappointing to go because I really want to see the big rocket take off. I want to see it do the thing. And I really, really hope for the best with it. I mean, I will never, ever forget the anxiety of sitting in the NASA Press Center watching the first launch attempt. And it was like every couple of minutes, we'd hear updates coming in. The announcer, by the way, from NASA did a tremendous job. He really killed it.

Yeah. Tough gig. Yeah, tough gig to deliver that kind of up-to-the-minute news and sometimes disappointing news. And it's funny, when I was sitting there, I said to my colleague Casey Dreyer, I was like, this is reminding me of watching Yankee games with my mom when I was a kid where she had the superstition. She was like, if I'm watching the game, they're going to lose. And then she would just like stop watching it and go do something else. And after a while when there was a hydrogen leak, and then they fixed it, and then they found something else, and they didn't know if it was frost or if it was a crack in the engine,

I was like, oh, my God, I'm watching the Yankees right now. I need to get out. I can't do this. I've ruined it. So I'm personally, it's my fault. I'm very sorry about that. So you took it to the full sports fan level of, like, the things I'm doing affects the universe enough that if I keep eating these peanuts or whatever, you know, if I sit in this

particular chair, then, you know, the Yankees, Derek Jeter will have a nice play here. You went straight to that rather than any other explanation. I mean, I just think that's the easiest explanation. Maybe not the most rational ones. But no, in all seriousness, I do think that it'll be interesting to see how the month plays out. You know, we are early in September. Let's see if NASA, I think they also have to secure a waiver as well. There's a number of different things where Artemis 1 actually goes off.

But my personal feeling... Oh, hold on. Where'd she go? She's back. I'm back. I was searching Jake back into the little box and I screwed it up. Yeah. Anyway, you think it's going to work. I don't know. I really, I want it to work. I want to believe, you guys, I do want to believe. But, you know, there are a number of things that the NASA engineers are just going to have to work to address. And it's going to be tough. As we've seen, this is a really complicated rocket.

And there are so many different factors to help that don't even have to do with the rocket itself. I mean, we were all just in the Florida weather. I mean, we were getting, we didn't have the cushy press site, you know, room to hang out in, Ray. We were living it on the beach and just getting rained on all morning. Yeah, rain on and then hot, I was reading. We were out in the elements, Ray. This is where we were. You can see the elements right behind us.

That's the storm right there Yeah, that's the one that rained on it After it had its issues So, you know, we watched that the whole time We were tracking it of like, oh, this is definitely going to rain on the rocket So I don't know I mean, what do you guys think is going to happen? I'm going to flip it back to you

Oh, well, Jake Mayerman and I'd be frozen again So I do think they're making the right call Because keeping it out on the pad Let's them test fixes, which is like, I would rather them stay out there, try out what they're fixing before they have to decide what to do. And then whether or not they get the extension and they can actually try for the end of the month, at least they've tested the thing. And they roll it back. They're going to be confident that that is not going to be the thing that breaks next time. So, like,

I don't fault them at all. A lot of people are just saying, just like roll it back right now. And it's like, if this is the only spot you can test this thing, keep it out there, test it. Like, don't talk to us again until you've tested this and then figure out what to do. And then if it works out, then you can launch, great. But if not, you know, we're right back to where we are. especially like today at the press conference we're talking about how rolling it adds more more wear and tear to the vehicle too right so like if you are at the pad and there's value you can add there then do it like take the take the opportunity for sure which is like the other aspect of all this that all of these things can only be worked on in certain spots like batteries can only

be swapped in the VAB but these things can only be tested at the pad and those things can only be tested while they're you know rolling on the way out there and this that and the other thing like the way that all these little parts come together is the is the frustrating part of this vehicle where like nobody in particular, there's not a name that you could say, like, you did a thing wrong on the SLS program. Everyone did great at their parts, but nobody was really concerned about how all those parts came together,

how all of the different criteria played out with a lunar launch window, and how that impacts the mission team trying to manage the way that they're gonna fly. And it's admittedly like a bigillion variables to orchestrate all in the right order. But I don't know, it's been a little overwhelming the last week because it is all of the criticism of SLS in one big storyline. Like political decisions, technical decisions, architecture decisions, the scheduling decisions, everything is here to be had if that's like the thing that you want to get all hot and bothered about. I couldn't do it. Let me tell you.

The fact that there are people whose minds are just not anxious is an experience I will literally never have. So it was really interesting to see that there were something like 91 engineers, I think we heard in the first attempt on the pad trying to troubleshoot issues. I cannot believe that. I mean, if a minor inconvenience comes up in my life, I will be thinking about it 24-7 and I will be playing back every embarrassing thing I could have said or done. Like, that's just how my brain function. So kudos to anybody who had a hand in this and those engineers. Shout out to all of you. because wow, that's a skill.

Yeah, and you can't fault, I think personally, like you can't fault if these are groundside issues. You can't be like, oh, well, the ground system screwed up. It's like, well, this is also the first tank they've received that they can do tests on. And I feel like that's a huge part of it, that they didn't have a tank to take out and test their systems with before, you know, two or three months ago

when they were actually rolling this out, or I guess at this point, four or five months ago when they were doing the wet dress rehearsal. But you see all these other programs, Vulcan, obviously Starship, they always have these test tanks that they can take out to their hardware and actually give it the run through. And that's the part that makes me concerned

where we've got like a two-year gap between this and the next mission and like, are these things actually going to be fixed by then as well? Or, you know, are they going to be right back here in two years where they've changed stuff on the pad or it's just been two years

and apparently there are soft goods that have issues of various sorts? Are they going to like break by then because of their own wear and tear, that's the concerning part when you look like long-term. Yeah. How's it? I enjoy your Starlink purchase, Jake. Yeah, I'm loving it right now.

Great ad for Starlink. Clearly not sponsored. It works great like 95% of the time, but it does not handle thunder yet. And so, you know, I did a two-hour stream like just before this and everything worked fine. We're going to start having Anvil Cloud rules for all. I was just thinking this is just like that one storm that was coming over the beach towards the Artemis launch site. And it's like right turn the launch window, this is what's going to happen. So I got a one hour a week.

I need there to not be rain. But that's how it was. But I do like how I can pop back in after being disconnected and catch like one sentence. And I'm like, I know exactly what point. You already have a take. All right. What's your take? No, in that last bit there.

Yeah. I want to hear the take. I know. I absolutely agree. It's just like the cadence of this is going to cause a whole bunch of other problems. like so like the launch for the first time is going to be a problem every single time. So I'm like writing my my show for this right now in the Lee Myristen's feed. And I'm a little stuck because it's like I'm trying not to have it be like just a big

dump on this on this rocket. You know, like just like here's how bad it is. Because it's not useful to anyone to just like complain about it. Right. And it's not new information a lot of the time. But there, you know, there was really a startling sort of coming to get. of all the different circumstances of this history of this rocket that just sort of all showed themselves in like one week, right? And it was hard. So yeah, it's going to be, I feel bad for NASA. I'm going to

put that way. I feel bad for the operators on this who are just trying to show up and do their job because they're working really hard. And they have been giving, given a rocket that is just not super optimized for like regular frequent operation. Yeah, it's hard. It's really hard. So, yeah, that's my, that's my polite take, I guess. And these launchers just make it really weird where the, I don't know, do we know how long it takes? Like, what is, if they hot rodded this and they rolled it back, change out the flight termination system batteries and rolled it back out,

what the quickest they could do that is. Probably mid-October, I would guess. Right. So they can't even, like, they couldn't even make that next launch window if they wanted, which means they're always skipping a launch window if they're, they've rolled out to the pad, which is... And that's what they said at the one of the press conference. Like, if they rolled back on September 5th and swapped out the FTS batteries,

they would not be able to make the next September window. It would be two windows from now, which is this another weird constraint that some decision about this rocket from 12 years ago is imposing on this current operation. And the decision to use the crawler as like, let's build this over here and then roll it all the way out there really slowly. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Maybe in today's day and age where Bechtel's catching some shit from Bill Nelson, I don't know, like, hey, what if we didn't, like, new plan, we're going to build it on the launch pad so we never have to roll it in and out again. It starts to look if you're like, another billion going to Bechtel to fix their new mobile launcher, like build a new building over 39B. I'm like, the trade space, I feel like is closer than you might realize. Huge tent. Fly into Bocca people, build a tent, and we're good to. go. Like, let's do it. Yeah, yeah. I think that's really big takeaway from this episode. Build a big tent around the project. Huge tents. Solve the problem. I mean, we don't have, we don't have to belabor all the

different constraints, but to give you an idea of how, how tough that is for the operators, you can theoretically launch the moon every day, right? The moon is always in some spot. So you just wait for the earth rotate within, you know, somewhere in that 24-hour cycle, the Earth will, your launch site will be in the right spot to launch out and go to the moon. So you can. I feel like there's more things. There's more things. Well, but this is where you start theoretically.

There is a trajectory from Earth to the moon every day from the same launch site. But then when you layer in all the first some just, you know, standard mission constraints, but then performance on ICPS and performance on Orion and power on Orion and cycling of the tanks and how much hydrogen they have in the pad and wear and tear on the view. You layer in all those things. The SLS takes those daily launch opportunities and you result with three every two months. Like that's how tough the operators, I thought how tough a job the operators have been handed because of the design of the rocket, right?

And that's a lot. That's hard. Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah. So, yeah, that's, you know. that's what they're up against. And I don't know, I don't know how to charitably cast that as a story.

Right. Again, like, it's no, it's not a, like, I feel like people always are like, why is everyone criticizing NASA and these people so much? They're working hard. It's like, no one's saying that. They're just like, they were, like, flown to the island of Misfit toys and told to build a launch vehicle out of it.

You know, it's like, it turns out it's not the best launch site, you know? I don't know. Jake's inquisitive now. I think we change the weather in Florida. Like, let's just make a... Yeah. Just get into the clouds. No more clouds.

It would help Starlink, quite significantly. It would also help Starlink. I mean, this is the genius said. This could be an FCC program. We wouldn't even get into NASA's budget. So... I'm just saying we've got to consider the clouds. Consider the weather.

Change the weather. Change the future. That's a tagline. Change the weather. Change the future. Sure. Aren't there all those weird studies about like, if we like sprinkle a whole bunch of like sodium aluminum into the clouds,

we can like change the weather? Wasn't that a big thing like back in the 60s when when people thought technology could just like alter the universe? Yeah, I think the physics works. I think it's more of like a logistics problem. I remember being at an LPSD months. If you went to some corners of the internet, that is an active program being taken on by the Illuminati.

Yeah. I remember going to LPSC once where that was a thing. They handed out this press release and it was like, like they came into the press room and gave this document. It was like, this is a big, big release media you need to be there and go to this room at this time. And it was like a solution to climate change by like shooting salt at clouds or something.

Like it was some whack of a thing. And there was a whole, anyway. We'll get there eventually is my thought. That's kind of what I feel like. I feel like that's where we're ending up as much as we all want to end up there. Like, I don't know. Anyway, that's a different side jag.

Well, we did all the fine stuff. What do we do? Yeah, we should talk about the meetup because we had, regardless of all this stuff, we had a great time doing hijinks in Florida. Let me start off with a bit of Jake photography hour here. Jake only takes pictures in square. He doesn't use the other modes on his camera. He only uses square.

This is a great picture. This is a great picture. This is the industrial. This is the first picture he wanted to try. This is his first. Hey, we should take a picture. Let's use the most industrial-looking, horrible background I've ever seen in my life as the backdrop. Like we're just in the port of Brownsville where they tear down those ships.

This looks great, guys. Let's use this picture. So I was a little cranky about that. But it turned out. You were very cranky. Did it great. You're very, very grumpy at this one. But I still think it's a great picture for what it's worth.

Yeah, Pat's looking great in the back too. So very important. Very important. I didn't realize you were such a square hater. I didn't understand. The anti-square movement was so. It's like using digital zoom. Do it later.

That's all I'm saying. I could do it later or I could do it right now and just, you know, the best part is no part. That's what I'm saying, right? I don't want to edit my photos, man. This is 2022. You just fire and forget. Come on. Let's go.

We got lots of pictures to take. I will say. We had a great turnout. We had like this whole little area of the deck taken over. Ray showed up before I did. So you can probably speak better to the first part of this meetup than I can because thanks you, American Airlines. Do you want to tell us about the first part, Jake?

What was going on out there? What did I miss? Yeah, it was fun. You know, we had like, it's funny because we couldn't make a reservation. And I was like so worried. So I'm like, I don't know, man. It could be like 30 people showing up. I have no idea.

I didn't do any kind of RSVP system. So like I was really asking for it. Yeah, we had to be able to sign up on an email list, which is a low, low confirmation solution. Yeah, yeah. I don't think 150 people are going to show up to this. No, no, no, no. I don't think so either.

So we just like, we showed up there a little early and we found a couple people that were already there, you know, like I think Kurt was there. And so we were looking around and we found that little spot in the back corner. And, you know, we could fit up there, but there were some other people. And we were just like, wow, if we just like piling into this little deck area and just sort of like slowly start like pressing out and be like, let's just win this space. And we just like kind of squeezed, squeeze it out. And there's a pre press, a pre press process. Yeah, yeah. And we eventually just forced everybody to leave. And then we had the space. So did the conversation drive people away is what I want to know. No, I think the conversation was was lively and inviting. I think it was very, it was very fun to be at. I feel like it's probably the area. to have the conversations we were having. I feel like target market-wise, they all live there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And we had like that Falcon 9 was being offloaded on a crane over in the distance, and that was kind of fun. There was a cruise ship that rolled out. It was a cool ambience. I was really happy about it. We had a really good turnout. And lots of good shirts, lots of good shirts. Lots of good shirts.

Oh, yeah, I got that pick. Let me pull it up. This is a marketing opportunity for Jake. He had just an immensely complex. Yeah. Huge turnout on the shirt. Two of these people are named Noah as well. That's the funniest part.

Two of them are named Noah. And so watching them introduce themselves to each other was maybe the funniest thing I've ever seen in my entire life. In this album. It was this under a square shot. Those are the Noah right there. I don't take it. This guy was not with us. No, he was not with us.

No. He was like, where am I right now? What's happening in the meeting of the Noah? Right. How did you get to the meetup? I knew you were going to ask you this question as easy as possible. I came prepared. So we'll get to that in a minute.

Let's see. Where do I begin with this? So we had a wonderful, fantastic event at Rec 225, which was a really cool barring restaurant. We at the Planetary Society had a member event. It was a great meetup, lots of fun, conversation, and drinks and food. And after that, to get to your little shindig, I got in Uber and had a really interesting experience. It started before you got in the Uber from what I've heard.

Yeah. I just want to make that part clear for the people that are listening that might think, oh, this all turned out, this happened mid-ride. No, not at all, actually. It pretty much started before I even got in. I opened the door for the person that was waiting for me because I had called an Uber. And approximately how many other ubers were in that area where you were about to get into an uber? Was there a big crowd?

Were there a lot of ubers around? You know, I don't remember, but this person was for sure waiting for me and they were the only person in the parking lot of this restaurant. So no confusion there. Like, no one else was coming to see an Uber at the time I was out there. I wouldn't know. And, yeah, I opened the door and apparently it really alarmed my Uber driver who said that she was almost going to pull. out her cattle prodder. And then I thought she was kidding. And she was not laughing. So that was a surprise for everyone involved. And then what did you do right after that? Yeah, just in the car.

And I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to do. What do you do? I mean, really. So I understand the reaction and I admire that you're confident that you're like, I can take this lady. That's no problem. I live in New York. It'll be fine. No, it was maybe against my better judgment to still go in the car. But I did live to tell the tale. A few minutes in, she started to ask me about pets. And I told her about my dog. He's right behind me, actually, I think.

I should pull up some face-up pics. And she told me about her various snakes and her possible additions to have venomous snakes in her home. And now I know all her snake's names and all the afflictions that they had. and now I know pretty much everything about how to legally own a venomous snake in the state of Florida. It was a riveting conversation. I wasn't fully prepared, I must say. And my cat just jumped across the screen. She was just like, I'd like to know what the snake's names.

I knew that people were going to ask me this. And that's why I literally wrote down notes. I'm not kidding. I went to the floor. Oh, wait, that's you. Let's see that pad. Let's see that no pad. I wrote down the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's rules for obtaining venomous snake licenses. And I fact-checked everything.

Were we close? When we were guessing at the meet-up, were we close? How many, two questions? Do you like snakes and do you live somewhere? That was what we thought the two questions were, but. Do you like snakes? Are you sure? Are you sure?

That's right. The snakes all had. really interesting names though. Like they were, they all seemed to have a lot of significance. They were, gosh, one of them I think was named like cinnamon.

And then there was one that was, there was an all white snake. And then, oh my gosh, what was the last one? You guys probably know better than me. Loki. I thought, Loki,

was the other one? I think it was like Snow White or something. Yeah. Disney came up until cinnamon. I feel bad. I'm like letting her down that I don't remember the snake's name. But Loki, I do remember

because I was going to name my dog Loki. And that was the point that I brought up with her. And I was like, please don't, you know, like, I'm just trying to be friends with you now because this has gotten off to a rocky start. Oh, there's Keiko. There he is. And he's here in the back, too, for emotional support. Oh, yeah. Look at that.

But, yes, that was the snake encounter I had. And it was really, you know, it was one of the Uber rides I've ever had. I'll say that. One of them. Wait, did you, I want to hear of these notes on how do I get a venomous snake? Okay. Yeah, this is the kind of fact that I can expect from the editorial director of the planetaries. You don't get promoted for nothing, Jake.

No, I think honestly, as a second career, if anybody in Florida is looking to obtain a venomous animal or for some reason, like a few monkeys, like there's like a woolly, some sort of woolly, what's a woolly monkey, a spider, Venice reptiles, it's all for some reason the same category. I could legally give them some very unprofessional legal advice if anyone's looking. So, you know, getting up, began me. I just read myfwc.com a lot is what I'm finding out. Yeah, so I'm going to ask you both because I knew you were going to do this, but now I'm going to flip the script

on you. How much do you think it is to keep your license for Venomous reptile in the state of Florida? I'm closing this browser tab. Per year? Oh, yeah. $89. Oh, no, no. It has to be less than that. I'm going to go, I'm going to say this is like a, this is a, we don't like taxes situation. And it's going to be like $14.99 or something. It was a whopping $100 a year. Oh, on the mark, 100 even. Wow.

That's what it seems. Unless I am. I win that one. I'm feeling good. One nothing. All right. Yeah. I am more ready to license. A snake? I don't know why the snake's getting the license. I'm getting the license, but... Yeah, the snake is not getting any license. The snake must be contained at all costs. Okay.

In order to obtain the venomous snake, how many hours do you need with supervised, under the supervision of someone who already has a venomous snake in order to get said pet in your Wow. How many hours? Jake, you go first.

I went first last time. You got to knock it out in a day. It's eight hours, eight hours. Eight. Oh, I don't think so. I'm thinking this is like a two-weekend affair. I'm thinking 20, 20 hours. Wow.

We're going to be blown away. That is stunning. It's a thousand. A thousand hours? A thousand hours of experience working with the species they would like to possess. You have to be one-tenth of the way to a master, per that theory about 10,000 hours.

A thousand hours. I'm just realizing in real time how this is. I love this. This is my favorite segment we've ever done on the show. What do you have to do during those 1,000 hours? You just hang out with the snakes and the person that has the license? Yeah, you give you a thousand-hour train.

training course, there better be a curriculum. Yeah. What I see is, you know, you need to document it very carefully. And they actually do have a sample of what they want the documentation to look like. And it's basically like a timesheet, but you're with a venomous animal. Supervision. Jake, real quick, we are on episode 76 of Offnominal. We did how many happy hours, like two months worth?

we maybe did like 16 of those or something, maybe 12. We went to Falcon Heavy, we did IAC together, we did Artemis 1. There is no way we've spent a thousand hours together. No, we haven't. Like, think about the amount of people in your life that you have spent a thousand hours with. It's not that many. Not that many. Especially no one works in offices anymore.

Like, there's almost no one you've spent a thousand hours with that is not related to you by blood or marriage. I like the idea that the state of Florida doesn't think that you and I are, are, are, are we know each other enough to have a, uh, uh, off-nominoling podcasting license? No podcast license for you. Maybe that's an asses problem. I don't know. That might be. That might be the thing. Okay.

Is that the end of the quiz? Are there more, are there more, are there more facts? Yeah, that's the end of the quiz. You both failed. Two questions. I appreciate it. A thousand. I was close on the money, on the money angle, but I would never have just a thousand.

It's a ridiculous amount of time. Oh, my Lord. I don't even know what to say to that. I mean, I'm just, I'm in awe. I'm also like, I love how the disparity between a thousand hours and a hundred bucks. Like, all good. Yeah, right. It's a high up front.

It's a high barrier to entry and low, low, you know, keeping you in the club payment. It's like, we got you. six months of a full-time job and gives a hundred bucks. Like, why $100 at that point? You shouldn't make these people pay. They've done enough. Yeah, and that's scratching the surface. Like, you need to have all these, from what I read, at least, you had to have all these

other kind of facility requirements. Somebody needs to come inspect the space. And you know, it's like, I would like to just know what is the compelling reason that you need one of these animals in your home? What's up with that? I don't know. I can't answer. Same state with the people from Tiger King.

So, yeah. Maybe you want to rescue it. You want to rescue it from an Oklahoma Zoo is what you really want to do, right? God, all right? Well, I'm never getting a venomous snake. That's for sure. I don't think I want a non-venous snake either. I'll be totally honest.

Yeah, I'm fine. No snakes. I'm good with no snakes. And she asked for the new driver. She only had the non-venous ones. So, you know. Oh, she's working towards. she's working. I think she probably brings up this

conversation every time because she needs to find that mentor. Oh, that's a good point. I didn't think about the network she's in search for the mentor because where do you find somebody? You know? I didn't think about the network. Are you finding today? Are you finding a licensed venomous snake owner? Well, because when you get an Uber, they always, shout out to the Uber drivers.

They always tell you their side gig. They always have a side gig. They always tell you about it. So, I don't, I think she's doing the wrong thing. think she needs to take ubers. I don't think she should be driving. Oh, to meet, like, other potential all of them. Because you find out five seconds. For sure.

Yeah. Is there like a LinkedIn for that or just like for the venomous snake, you know, support network? Just like a subreddit maybe. Probably, I'm sure. Yeah, if you were to take a guess. If you were going to take a guess at the social network in which the Florida Venomous snake.

licensed individuals would congregate. Do you have a guess as to which network? It's definitely a Facebook group. I'm thinking that or next door. Next door seems like a good spot. What about Twitter spaces? Twitter space.

Turtle circle. Twitter circles. It's NFT people and it's the venomous snake hangouts. All right. I'm moving on. I'm being our editorial director here, Jake. We have spent a significant amount of time on snakes. This is a crossover topic here.

This is a crossover topic of Artemis 1 and the hangouts around Artemis 1. All right. It was freaking empty the night before launch. This is Preacher Bar that's always popping. And there was nobody there. And then we go out to launch in the morning on the beach. And there was like pretty much nobody there. Yeah, we didn't have to work hard.

Even our, when we were hanging out here with our group of people on the beach, right after they scrubbed, somebody came up and was like, I just was waiting in Titusville for the launch, and I'm here now, and it was like 20 minutes after they scrubbed. Yeah. So you should not be able to drive that far if it was packed. So where the hell was everybody? Is it just a Monday morning, and that's a weird time?

Did NASA overhype it, and nobody cared? Did nobody actually know? So I will say that Saturday, the second attempt, was busier. Labor Day weekend makes sense. Yeah, that's the confounding issue. I think if you went around the beach and asked though, there were a lot of people there because it was later in the day, they were just hanging out for Labor Day. I think.

Yeah, yeah. And I also hear that trying to drive, even on the Monday, all the folks leaving Kennedy Space Center got like hammered by traffic. So going from. That's not surprised about. On the base. Yeah, going into Titusville was apparently way, way busier than we were down in Cape Canaver. So I don't know if it was that friendly local news reporter that gave the advice, right? So someone had them on local news, some expert.

And they were like, where should we watch the launch? He's like, go to Titusville, Titusville, Titusville, Titusville. You are no one unless you're in Titusville. And we're hoping all the work is followed that advice and ran off that way and left Cape Canaverville nice and clear for us. That's my, that's the story I choose to believe because it's funnier. But yeah, there's a there's some questions there for sure, right? Because it's a big launch. I guess it's a big launch.

Big time. How busy was the Apollo 4 launch? I don't know how to. That's what this one is, right? If you have to draw a comparison, like this isn't Apollo 11. This is Apollo 4. It's the first all up, Sauer. Can we look up Apollo 4 crowd size?

Yeah, I don't know. A lot of trivia on this episode. Yeah, this is a true. Trivia episode. Trivia heavy. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I'm looking at up.

We're all researching. I don't know. Yeah, I don't see it. I know. No one will have documented that. No one even remembers that launch, right? That's the one where Walter Kronka had to hold the windows up because they hadn't set up the press site to hand with a blast.

What if he was just doing that? Like, what if he was just doing that? No, but wasn't that before they put in the water suppression? And they're like, holy. Wow, this rocket is actually pretty big. Maybe we should do something about that. And he was like, my God, those sound, you know, like the... What if he was just doing that, though?

Like, that would be a funny bit. Yeah, that would be a really funny bit, Dave. The next launch, like me and you set up a little tent on site. And when it launches, like, holy shit, everything's coming down. Shaking it ourselves. Yeah, yeah. That's commitment to the bit, truly. Not respected either way.

Real or not. Yeah. I like that we've just accused Walter Cronkite of being inauthentic too. It's really good part of this show. Totally. This is why we didn't get press credentials because we think Walter Cronkite was speaking. T-minus one minute, 16 seconds and coming. Is this actually the thing?

Is this him? Yeah, yeah. Let's listen to audio. There was no video. Oh, it wasn't video? I thought he was holding it. Now listen in. All engines are running.

We have lift-off. We have lift-off at 7 a.m. Eastern Standard. This just says with them. Oh no, it says it here. It says that's Jack King talking. A bird and shaking here. A bird and shake. Is that it?

It's terrific. The golden shaking. This big glass window is shaking that we're hard to come with our hands. Look at that rocket cold. Remember the clouds of 3,000 feet. Great bit. Now I'd be thinking that this was like this weird conspiracy there as a bit. Also, do we know if he had seen another launch in person before?

You probably had. I think he had. I'm pretty sure you watched for this. Right. Or even the Saturn one B. Apollo 1. This was the first like full Saturn 5. It was the first first one.

I just wondered if he would have been as overwhelmed by any launch. There's many ways in which this in historical reference is funnier than it is in real life, which is just like a great clip that I like to run through all those scenarios. I mean, I told you what my ultimate goal would be with the Rockets is I think all Rockets should have Googly eyes on the sides. Like, they're like, everyone can see it. And it goes off and they're like, poeh, you know, right? We talk about science communications.

Like, what better way to get people interested in space than Googly eyes, like giant Googly eyes? Right. There is a company on Earth that I know for a fact would do that. Yeah, someone get on that. All we need to do is acquire the Googly eyes and ship them to Texas, and they'll be fine. They'll know what to do.

Okay, but now we have an engineering problem, though, because the rockets are round, and the Google eyes would have to be big enough to see them from the camera and once you like tape them around the round part the Googly bit would be like stuck because of the bent.

This is an engineering problem. We need to put some engineers on this. This is the only solution. We need sphere of the glugly eyes. The irises would have to be round two or like flexible. We can solve this. I think I believe this.

Yeah. Yeah, very. Yeah. Very solvable. We've launched number rockets than that. More complicated. send the Google eyes. On the scale of things.

Totally off. Google hydrogen, which is harder. We'll think of a rock. We can put a man on the moon, but we can't put googly eyes on a rocket. It's a shame. We've stopped dreaming, folks. America has stopped dreaming.

What we're doing on this show? The show is on the rails. We all need this because it's been a really weird week and a half. We need this. It's been a hard week. Snakes, we need googly eyes. We know what you need. We need Walker, Walker, Walker, can't even say his name.

Walter Cronkite, truthorism. We need it all. All right, Ray, you were sleeping the night before launch because you're a professional who needed to be there much too early. No. I slept like 45 minutes, dude. Okay, well then maybe you plausibly were watching our hijinks overnight on the internet. Wait, well, I don't know.

Like, I literally slept like 4,5 minutes, so I don't know. It's all, like, just a weird dissociative state that I can't really remember. We were hanging out at the Offnominal Beach House, and NASA Space Flight, our friends were doing their live stream. We were sitting here with this great. What does this sign say, Jake? Faith is daring. It says, it's daring the soul to go beyond what the eyes can see. It's very inspirational.

Super inspirational. Air TV had some really great time. So we're hanging out. It's raining. It's pouring. And I don't know, we may or may not have been drinking and had the great idea of what if we sent a super chat to NASA Space Flight and asked a ridiculous question to see what they did with it. Just to under the All-NOM account, just to know what would they do?

I don't think they'll take down us, right? They won't DMC Amy if I play this. Will they? We'll find out. They will. I think... I've got a bunch of seven over top. A big one here, almost a $75 super chat here.

From off nominal asking... Is that a phenomenal beat off nominal? I'm not sure. 73. Hi, guys. And the old jack. And hi. Yeah.

Asking, what happens that the rocket is too wet? Probably asking it earlier about whenever it was pouring rain down at 39B. Hold on. Wait for it. You know, that's actually, that's actually a good question. That's actually a good question. That's where Chris decided to think that was actually good question because I need to fill time right now. Only NASA Space Flight could run with that and actually make a content.

So yeah, those are consummate professionals. Even though that must have been what, three in the morning, two in the morning? Like some god off hour. It was pretty rough. Yeah, it wasn't it wasn't operating hours. Let's put it that way. I was doing at the press site by that time. We had to show up at 2.30 in the morning.

Yeah, that was 20 minutes after you got there. I don't know how I did. That's fun. That's really fun. Yeah, that was so wild. Oh, my gosh. I can't believe I was there for like six hours. What was I even doing?

That was our question. Yeah. Honestly, I don't remember. We were at the beach for 12 hours and it flew by. And I can't believe how long we were there. What was everyone doing in there, right? You know what, though? I did go outside a lot.

I went onto the grassy area and just looked at the rocket, and I got destroyed by mosquitoes. I don't know about you both, but there is something about me. The mosquitoes are like, yes, that one. It's the one. I was going to say, I think they, like, sensed the Jimmy Buffet land sharks,

and they were like, that's a delicious and refreshing. beverage. I want some of that. And then there I was to suffer. Just sitting out in the turn basin getting eaten. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I got just absolutely demolished by the mosquitoes. You know, it's all part of the Florida experience though. Yeah. I had the same experience. I got obliterated by mosquitoes there too. And I was so surprised because I came I came from here in Mexico where I thought we would have more mosquitoes. And I was like, this will be a reprieve. It'll like less bad than what I have because it's rainy. These.

in here too and they're everywhere and I get I'm the same I'm like a delicious snack for those mosquitoes and I went to like a brewery later in the week and it was like I was there for I don't know an hour and I had I still have them like they're still healing they were like red welts that lasted for days and days and really brutal man I don't know what the florid mosquitoes are something else there's something special yeah I agree you know what they could give you though you got to watch out they could give you go fever Shut down Sorry guys

Oh man Bruttle What else do we got We got any other funny hijinks We should talk about Jake The flag The flag was great We had a flag

Ray Oh tell me about that We had Jake Jake made two flags So we had We had flags to fly on the beach I forgot mine Oh that's so festive

Jake still has one I forgot mine Yeah Yeah you were supposed to take one and I was going to keep one. I'll get it. I'll get it next time. Yeah. Yeah. So now I have to remember

both of them. I'm not going back to this rocket launch though. I'm not going back to this one. Number one, if they make this new window, I literally can't. What if it slips to like November? I'll consider it, but I just don't know. I feel like I'm not going back

for this one. I'm kind of You've given all you're going to give to SLS. Is that what it is? I don't have an institutional budget, like some of us on the show, may or may not have an institutional budget. You know, we're just lowly independence out here. So, you know, I've never gotten a promotion in my time running this. So.

Me neither. It's getting personal. Nobody, we're going to edit that. We'll take that out. We'll take that out. Any other takeaways we should cover? Ray, you were talking about sitting there looking at the rocket. I went to, I drove to Titusville to just look at it before I drove back to Orlando.

I can't decide if it's a cool-looking rocket or not. Where does it rank? Hmm. Hot or not this rocket? Hot or not the rocket? Hot or not the rocket? Oh, God. Um, I think I have to quote one of my coworkers saying that it's a very rockety-looky-looker.

rocket. It just really looks like what I would envision, like, as somebody, if I didn't know anything about space, I'd be like, that's a rocket. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? It's not like really sleek. Like, if you worked at Disney and someone was like, please draw a show about rockets and you knew nothing about it and you drew a rocket

cartoon, that's what it would look like. Absolutely. Yes, that's the Pixar version of a rocket for sure. That's it. Yes. I agree. I agree 100%. It's got the side boosters really do it, right?

Because it's just like, that's where the rocket parts are. Yeah. It would be especially rocket looking if like the orange tank actually had windows in it and that's where the people hung out and it was just the rockets in the side. Yeah, that would be. That's how you can make it extra special. I like the look at it.

Main engine three. Main engine three is what all screwed us all over. Yeah. I wasn't even that, right? It was the other, it was the other sensor. engine three sensor did you guys see the there was like a bat at one point

yeah we were all about the bat yeah we were big on the bat we were like hoping the bat was what caused the foam crack and that it would be like Batgate or something no the bat was just there because it's like almost spooky season it wanted to share the festivity

it's dawn it's spooky season this is orange I have to be here like that's where I live You guys have your Halloween costumes yet? I don't. My son has a Buzz Lightyear costume. So. Yeah.

No, we don't have Halloween here, so I don't have to do that anymore. That's great. Yeah. You have a lot more work to do, though. You got to, like, set up a whole of Frenda and stuff. I've watched Cotechola. I got, I don't know, Frinda and pictures of my grandma on and paint my face like a skull. There's a whole thing.

Yeah. You have a lot of work to do. Yeah, yeah. We got OG Halloween. out here. Right. Number one, what is your Halloween costume? Number two, tell us what you're working on.

What should people check out about you? I need all the Ray content here. Well, I was going to save it as a surprise, but I feel like every Halloween I really try to outdo myself. I guess I might as well just do it on this podcast. A licensed snake owner. Legally authorized snake

owner in the state of Florida. With your time sheet with you? I'm going to be, it is animal themed, I suppose. I'm going to be Remy, the rat for Ratitoui. Oh, it's so good. His little chef. Yeah, tiny chef. Yeah.

So good. Yeah. That's a great one. Last year I was a duo lingo owl, which was, you know, I did the whole thing myself. Like, I really went all out. And it was really, really good. So this year I was like, how am I going to beat that? And, you know, I haven't seen a ton of red costume, so I'm excited for this one.

Has the Duolingo seen that? Because I feel like, okay, because I know a lot of people that work there, and I was going to make sure that it's on their radar because that's, they were super happy about it. Yeah, they were really happy about it, which was very, I felt really honored to, to have that because I'm like, what is spookier than the guilt? that you're not fulfill your dream of learning a new language. Guilt is the spookiest thing, really, if you think about it.

Wow. That's haunting. Wow. It is haunting, yeah. I get that scary every day. Duo is always yelling at me, man. It's always telling me. What dual language, of course, are you taking?

I'm taking Spanish because I'm trying to, you know. Working on the whole thing. I'm trying to integrate into my space. trying to make October 31st worth it. Yeah. I want to be able to say Dia de mortals properly,

you know, so I got to get in there. You got to get in there, put it some work. What else are you working on, right? Yeah. What does the editorial director do?

And what is your organizational relationship to Jason Davis? Yeah. That's what we really tracking here on the off-nominal beat. Jason's awesome. Yeah. Jason's actually been doing a lot

of amazing articles for us recently. So right now we are, and he is writing a piece, he's working on a piece about Dart, which is going to be another really cool thing for us to talk about in the near future. I'm really excited personally for the spacecraft to smash into an asteroid moonlit. That'll be fun. So that's something that we're looking forward to just at Planetary Society in general. You know, we're all about planetary defense. So what is the what is the planetary society?

editorial stance on calling it Diddy Moon still. What? Yeah, what's the house style there? That was the informal name for it, right before it was like, what is it, dimorphous now or whatever? Yeah, dimorphous and diddymos. Yeah, but for a while, Diddymos' moon was called Diddy Moon. Yeah.

And that was bad to put the Kaibach on the website. You know, it's not on the style guy, but I'm going to have to do my research and, you know, Ducos and they figure out what's going on with that. I am excited for the resurgence of the word moonlit to be in popular culture, because I just think moonlit is like a really cute, nice little word. It is a good word. That's adorable. I would love to just be a little like moonlit in Saturn's F ring, just like Beth Ray, she's a little moonlit. That's an odd point.

That's so poetic. A little moonlit in Saturn's Effing. Too good. Yeah. Jake, you're working on your Magnus opus over there. Is that even the phrase? Magnum opus. Magnum opus.

I can't talk to. Magnus opus. Magnus opum. Yeah, I got to sit on it. I'm still trying to find, okay, it's like I'm trying to find a way to like not be a big downer, provide new useful perspective or information and, I don't know, be entertaining. I guess there's a lot of stuff I'm trying to balance there. So I'm sitting on it.

So I'm like pretty behind. I haven't done an episode in like a month. And so I'm going to start getting revolt soon, but I'm working on it and we're going to get it out. So, yeah. I feel similarly backlogged. Yeah, I feel similarly backlogged. I have not been in podcasting shape this week, but I've got like, no. Got a lot, a lot in the hopper.

So, yeah. I do want to give a little shout out. This is a trivia-heavy episode. If you go to off-nom.com slash trivia, we are still accepting suggestions. for games that we will play in the near future. Right, you're going to love this. Jake and I are going to play a newlyweds-themed trivia game with each other. And then we're going to take those questions, filter out which ones make sense for which game,

and we're also going to play a family feud-style game where we're getting answers from the listeners or viewers, and then we have to figure out what they said. So some great game show content coming your way. Offnob.com.com. You can put in questions now if you want to put them in there. eventually we'll go and we'll get your responses. So think about that when you're typing into questions that you probably have to answer that one.

And I have literally no timeline for this. I made it up in a 10-minute span last week and didn't tell Jake about it until I posted it. So I have no timeline, but this is going to be very fun. So do that. And we keep forgetting to plug next week's show every week, Jake. Yes, we need to be better at that. Do you remember who's coming on next week?

we're having an old friend come back. Yeah, yeah. So Matt Russell from the Interplanetary podcast will be joining us to talk about some Europe rockets, right? Some Vega C, is that the one we're talking about? Yeah. I've been losing touch of the European rockets. But Matt got to go to Kuru to watch this launch and had some interesting job responsibilities while he was there. So that was kind of cool. And we're going to talk all about what it was like to cover that. So I'm stoked. Always a good time with our friend across the pond.

And get in the Discord. If you're not, we never plug this, Jake. We're terrible pluggers. Terrible plug. Yeah, YouTube membership, $5 a month gets you access to our Discord. It is rad in there. I screwed up our bot this week and everyone is roasting me. So if you want to join our Discord and make fun of me for my mistakes, this is your

opportunity to do it, only $5 a month. I will sell myself for that. You can come in and join us. We actually have tons of great, great conversation. We're our Discord is amazing. They're amazing people. I have a ton of fun in there every day. So pop on by. That's it, folks. Ray, thanks so much for hanging out again. You are the best. Thank you. We love you. And we're really looking forward to who you choose as your snake mentor. Thank you both so much. And this is the pleasure. I'm always happy to come back. And let me know if any time you want to bring you up here, I'm here. Oh yeah, for sure.

All right, see you, everybody. Bye. One, two, three, four, five, five, four, three, two, one, end of death.