Off-Nominal - 86 - Is That Callisto?

Episode Date: December 1, 2022

Jake and Anthony catch up on Artemis I and everything else going on in space news lately.TopicsOff-Nominal - YouTubeEpisode 86 - Is that Callisto? - YouTubeArtemis I | FlickrArtemis I Flight Day 13: Orion, Earth, and Moon | art001e000… | FlickrFlight Day 14: Orion's Solar Array Divides Earth and Moon | FlickrPrimal Space on Twitter: “Orion has now reached the Moon, here's how it will get back to Earth on the 11th of December.”T+235: Artemis I, 2022 Midterms (with Casey Dreier) - Main Engine Cut OffWhy we have the SLS | The Planetary SocietyESA - Ministers back ESA’s bold ambitions for space with record 17% riseFollow JakeWeMartians Podcast - Follow Humanity's Journey to MarsWeMartians Podcast (@We_Martians) | TwitterJake Robins (@JakeOnOrbit) | TwitterFollow AnthonyMain Engine Cut OffMain Engine Cut Off (@WeHaveMECO) | TwitterAnthony Colangelo (@acolangelo) | TwitterOff-Nominal MerchandiseOff-Nominal Logo TeeWeMartians Shop | MECO Shop

TLS and go for main engine, start. Hey, Anthony. How's it going, buddy? Good, man. How was your Thanksgiving? How was your American Turkey murder day? Wow, that escalated very quickly. It was delicious, and it was almost a national animal instead of the bald eagle, thanks to Ben Franklin.

I don't know if you know about that. Do you know about that? I don't know about that. Ben Franklin, I think, was leading a group of people who said that instead of bald eagle, turkey should be like the animal that we identify with. I would love to know the logic reasoning there. Like, because like, Turkey's lovely or whatever, but like there's nothing like more statuesque than an bald eagle.

Oh, for sure. It's like the bird, you know? I feel uniquely qualified to comment on this topic. Okay. Let's hear it. Because number one, my team is the Eagles and it is the best bird of all the birds in the national football league. Number two, I grew up pretty close to where Ben Franklin was hanging.

out forever. I don't know if you know this about me. We have a shitload of turkeys out here. Like, even where I grew up over in Jersey, like there's just wild turkeys all the time. Is this just proximity bias then? He was just like, what birds should we do? He looked out the window and there were just turkeys everywhere.

Yeah, they were everywhere. And I think they're one of the smarter birds. I don't know if that's true. I don't know. I think he was digging that. All the more reason to eat them, I guess, right? Yeah, exactly right. For sure. Okay, cool. That's good, awesome.

Now I know. Turkey, number two bird in the U.S. Number one to some. Yeah. Uh-oh. Is that Alexa? Whoa. Is that Calisto?

That was my Google home, and it was trying to tell me the scores of some sort of sports game. I don't know. That was really strange. It picked something up. Anyway. I will not say turkey anymore. Sorry, Google. I apologize.

It was like, no, it's the Eagles. For a hot minute, I forgot we were recording this and we were live on the internet. So that's funny. We were just talking about Turkey. Welcome to the Turkey podcast. What are you drinking? Let's go. Let's get to that.

Let's go for that. I just have some red wine, some caverny, Sauvignon. Is this leftovers? This is related to Thanksgiving, yeah. Okay. Okay. That's good, yeah. Well, then it's a leftover day because I also have leftovers.

I'm sporting some Dosecis today because I went to. Steve, Ioki, and Dosecchi's. Okay, yeah, that's the second thing I want to talk about. So the first thing, the first thing I want to talk about is that we went to Cancun for a couple of days this week. And so we emptied the mini bar and I brought these home. So I have these. And also this happens all the time in Mexico. So there's always like some like, you know, promotional event that you put like this happens in Canada,

the US. They put a special edition can for something. But I never know what the events are. It's always like I get some. I had one like can of Coke that was like, if Mexico wins, I won't shower for a month. That's what it said on the side in Spanish. I was like, if Mexico wins what? Anything.

Why is showering? What is the showering? I don't know. Who is Steve Ayoki? I don't know who Steve Ayoki. You don't know who he is. No. Okay.

Well. Should I know he is? I mean, it's not a requirement by any means. But as, let me just say this. As quintessential as turkeys are to at least the northeast of America, a Steve Ayokie Dosaki's can is the most Cancun thing I could ever imagine. Okay. Yeah.

Like, if you held it up and were like, where did I get this? I would have bet Cancun and then Las Vegas like that, in that order. Okay. Yeah. It's like a magician or like a street fighter or something? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, pretty similar.

Okay. Cool. You got it. You nailed the essence. You're like, you're actually, you just did like the AI art generator thing where like none of the details are right. but the vibe is correct. That's what you just did.

Okay, good, good. Tweet me who Steve Aoki is, everybody. That's what I don't want to know. Wrong answers only. All right. I think he died. Did he die? Did he, oh, geez.

Am I thinking of something different? If listeners, if you can't tell, we don't really have a time. No, he's a lot. Who am I thinking of? He's definitely a lot. Who am I thinking of? Who's the other? Chris Angel?

Chris Angel is who I'm thinking. of you, David Blaine. All right. Anyway, Artemis 1 happened and we continue to completely avoid talking about it. Yeah, we have dodged this. It's almost a meme at this point.

Yeah, well, we'll talk about it now then. So it launched. Yeah, there's some stuff that happened, I guess. I don't know.

What are you, what are you thinking? I've been like, I don't know, I've been feeling pretty good about it. I think for all the... Avich is who I was thinking of. Avichi died.

Different. Different. Different. All right. Sorry. Real time follow up. Avichy died. All right.

Sorry. I don't know. Okay. No, so I was thinking, I think that it's gone pretty well considering. Like, all the lead up to the launch, there was just like, they just like refining all brand new problems all over again. And I thought that was going to continue. And I think there's been a couple little weird things.

I know they had some communication dropouts. But it's been like super minor stuff. And so I don't know. I feel like it's gone reasonably well. I was, but. 85% you know how I'm like a weird launch window selection conspiracy theorist historically

do you remember my like I sit in the press room at Falcon Heavy and I was like they could totally launch right now if they want but I think they want to wait to the end of the window to be in prime time or whatever I was fairly convinced that they the way that the launch windows stacked up that they thought there probably would be another one or two attempts before they would get off.

Like, they would go and they would, especially after the storm, maybe find, you know, another hydrogen leak or something. You think they didn't believe they would be able to launch when they did? I thought they were picking that day so that they could, in the middle of the night, sort out their issue. And then they would take a fly on whatever. It was a runway.

Yeah. Launch on the runway. When was the first daytime? Was it last, last? No, it was not Black Friday. It would have been like this week, right? Or next week? I thought Black Friday,

Because it was like the one that they could do. The first week was all dark. Maybe Black Friday was like a 10 a.m. or something. Right? Yeah. Something like that. It got into daytime. So I was like, okay, maybe they'll try these first two and then.

Because it didn't, it was a pretty launch, but it wasn't really. Like. Yeah, it wasn't ideal. Like lunches aren't experience to be at, but not great on TV. No, it's hard to film. You know? Hard to film. Hard to film.

Yeah. So I don't know. That felt weird to me that they were. I mean, now they get to get home for Christmas and not worry about Artemis 1. So it's great time for them. But it didn't feel right that it flew in the middle of the night. I'm sure that they will never tell you this, but I'm sure they're disappointed that they didn't get the, you know, like there was so much pomp and circumstance. That dog and pony show that was August 29th.

Oh, yeah. They would have been so much happier if they could have pulled it off. But yeah, I don't know. The good news is that none of that, none of the picture aspect matters because they have like these pictures from Orion. Yeah. None of the, oh, they didn't get pretty daytime pictures of the launch matters when you have a selfie of Orion with the Earth and the Moon system.

Yeah, that photo is actually awesome. Like that one there is, that's the photo of the mission. I'm annoyed that they post this a little bit late for me to do my monthly album. Mart for Miko. I suppose I could change it. No one's holding me to it. I could make it this one instead of the one that I picked. And I might. So don't, don't quote me on that. But. All right. All right. Yeah. You get, you get real perspective on this thing. Yeah. Yeah. That is, I mean, I've always said this, but any, any shot from space that includes the spacecraft in the frame is, it's an immediate winner for me. So these, these Gopros have been, been great.

Okay, that's a funny part I want to mention. Like, you know how there's always that thing about how the hardware that goes to space is like, you know, Yeah, a generation old or whatever. And it's always kind of obscure because it's like chips and things that you're not necessarily buying. When it's GoPro's like,

man, that's the one that's at the bottom of this box behind me because I have a 10 now or whatever, right? Like that one hit home when it was like, that's a hero four? Like that shit didn't even do higher than 1080P or whatever. Yeah. It's almost like,

you make you wonder if they're like a special rad-hardened Gopros or something like that, but it's like, no, I don't think so. They integrated Orion like last decade quite literally. So it's like, you know. Yeah, it's so true. I don't think, I don't think this is one of those situations where they have some sort of robust, well-hardened, been through the, been through the paces kind of GoPro.

This might have just been an old GoPro. It also kind of just feels like the most tack-on situation where they're like somebody one I bet I could put a GoPro on the end of that solar panel. Like it has that vibe entirely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a cool perspective, for sure. I suppose we should remember this is still on paper and in practice a test flight. Like, you know, this is not, I am presuming and I'm prepared to be wrong because, you know, it's this program.

But I'm presuming that when there's people on there and they're headed to the moon, it's going to be a slightly different situation, I think. slightly different situation in terms of photographs. In terms of not having a 2014 GoPro on the size of the thing. Oh, yeah. I mean, it will least be four years newer. Yeah, it would be a 2018 GoPro. Yeah. The other funny aspect about the pictures is that there's all these epic outside views.

But no, no GoPro, other than the one that's rigged up to show the internal crew cabin cameras. There's no perspective like out the window. Yeah, you wanted to look at the window. I think we talked about this. Yeah, you did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I feel like that would be one that the astronaut office would gate keep on.

Of like, no, any shots with the window frame, that's, that's us. That's an astronaut job. Yeah. Yeah. The union stepped in on that one, right? Yeah, totally. It would be so funny if it was like a rider in their contract. Like, no pictures of window frames.

If the camera wants to join the union and it has seniority, then we'll let it do it. But otherwise, no. if it has to go with. It's like a, yeah, it's like a sag kind of situation. No pictures of window frames unless it's taken by an astronaut's fingertips. I don't know. That's a good shot there too. I like,

I haven't seen that one. I think I miss that one. Yeah, these are sweet, man. Yeah, it's a, I mean, cool imagery for sure. It does certainly, oh, another aspect. Let's talk about distant retrograde orbit. I got to find that. tweet that you had about how weird it was.

I should have put this in the show notes. It's super weird. It's like, I don't know. It's not even, it doesn't feel like a real orbit. Well, it's an Earth orbit, right? Kind of isn't, I guess. Yeah, it's an Earth orbit that does interesting things. Like, you know, zigs and zags outside, inside and outside the moon.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I thought that they would be more gatekeepery about it being a lunar orbit. but they were firmly, like Jim Free was tweeting, we've exited the sphere of influence of the moon on our way to distant retrograde orbit. And I found that kind of, I liked the honesty there of like they weren't trying to say, no, we are certainly in lunar orbit with this mission, like, I don't know,

something about the way that this all has been positioned over the last several years, I feel like an older NASA would have more stridently say, no, it is a lunar orbit, you know, and there would be the weird nerds on Twitter saying, no, here's a paper from, you know, whatever that it's not actually a looom. I don't know. I don't think they need to because like you can still say you went to the moon because they did. Like, you know, like, so for the for the gen pop common parlance claim, it's fine, right? Orion went to the moon. We flew all the way to the moon. We went there. We took pictures of

it. We were by the moon. We came back. Like, everything's fine. Right. You don't need to, you don't need to lie about it to gain any extra mileage, right? Like, you don't need to be like, It's a lunar orbit, really. It's not just going to the moon. So I don't know. I don't know if that's really... You're not feeling it? Where did you tweet this, man?

Just find a pictures of you with a machete. No, it's on the We Martians account. Okay, I thought it was. That's a different account. Don't look at that one. You're doing, you know, gardening out there in Yucatan. That's my serial killer account. Don't look at that one.

I'm not supposed to tell people with that one. I have a lot of Twitter accounts, and I only share them with some people. Oh, man, there it is. I got it. DRO is so weird. This is the one. This is the thing.

It's got like an animation. Let's do full screen on this sucker. So it's kind of, let me start it over, Jake. Because this is very, again, audio listeners, show notes. You're missing out. It comes flying by, and then it just sort of cruises out there, and then it goes on the side. And then a couple days later right now. Actually, as we record this, they're going to do this next burn that then shoots

them down towards the moon and then flunk, that one's the best, because it just hits the brakes. And it's like, the moon just flipped you right back to the earth. Honestly, that little maneuver makes it for me. Other than that, it's boring, you know. I'm trying to, it's too small to see on this. But so does it, when it goes, the outbound from the earth, does it go on the outside of the moon? I was trying to figure that on too.

Because this one goes around the moon, right? Yeah, the return one has to go in front of the moon. so that it pulls the velocity back, right? I guess someone would have to go behind it because... It looks like... Because you'd want it to pull as well. I don't know. I don't know how much we should judge this on a scientific level.

I don't know. It looks like a pretty accurate little... I just mean the resolution we're looking at here is not the best. You know? I'm like doing KSP in my head as I watch this and I'm trying to remember. I'm like, well, if I wanted to be that, I would have to go on that side. Yeah, exactly. So, okay.

Good. So, I mean, DRO, cool, cool thing, I guess, right? But I see why we're going to the NRAHO after this. Yeah, if you talk about NRAHO being like not that useful than orbit, it's much more useful. Way more useful than this. Yeah, for sure. This one's like, I guess, cool for storage, you know?

Yeah. Good place to keep stuff. Why did they choose this one? I feel like we've talked with this, but I always forget. Why did they not do NRAO right out of the gates with for this one. Yeah. Was it a,

is it like an ICPS performance? No, because the next one's going there, right? Yeah, the next one's going there. Asteroids. Phillips saying asteroids in the chat. Yeah, this is the orbit that we would have tugged that asteroid to for sure. But maybe it was just too late in the process.

That wasn't going to be this mission anyway, right? Was it just that they don't actually, maybe the, we're just going to totally do conjectures here, but was it that there are a lot more launch windows to do, we don't have to keep watching this thing. A lot more launch windows to get into this orbit than it would have been to get to NCHO. Which, but by the way, like, let's reassess all of our previous shows about how particular SLS is on launch windows.

That makes it even harder if that's, you know. Have we seen what a launch period would look like to NRHO? Because then there's even, if there's any NRAO, and then there's like, I'm rendezvousing with the gateway, So I need to be in the correct plane when I get to the moon. Well, I bet you, I bet you enter H.O is a little forgiving on that one because you come in over the top probably and then you loop all the way down. Like you go way the hell down there, right? And when you're way at the, you know, the apple moon or whatever you want to call it, the top orbit, you can probably spend that that inclination pretty easy.

That being said, service module kind of weeks off. So I don't know, maybe you can't, right? But getting a little tight on the margins if that's, you have to do too much work. I'll be curious about that. Because again, like, that's, I mean,

that's the stuff we've been talking about forever with SLS, and especially, right, your whole show about the particularness of SLS around these kind of launches. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. That's going to be really curious.

Like, theoretically, you should be able to launch to an NRA just as often as you go to a DRO, as long as you point in the right direction and have it's not a delta V, right? I just don't know if it would be. Well, I'm saying the Gateway one in particular is interesting because you're going to need to

have, it depends again what the margins are. And I guess at that point, when you're doing when you're doing Gateway Rendezvous, right, theoretically we have the bigger upper stage. So margins are a little better. But you're bringing after cargo with you. I don't know. This is not our job, but.

No, no. All right, NASA employees, please send us. Good for storage. Otherwise, you know. I'm kind of fun. I'm kind of happy they tried it because it's just sort of fun and weird. I've never seen them before. I'm like add that to the repertoire of things that I know and remember.

So that's good. Yeah, I guess I mean, the same way that Capstone is going to NRAO to like prove that it exists. Yeah, yeah. Like I guess it's cool now that we've done this. Yeah, yeah. Like five years from now when we have some new listeners that are joining up and they're like, what is DRO?

And I'm like, oh, you remember when we did Artemis 1 all that? Yeah. I'll find this tweet, maybe. Sometime before. this two five years from now but um yeah man yeah so so i had the c dryer on miko this week oh i want to hear this no no i want this is exactly where i want to go so i want to hear this yeah well i think the main thing uh that that we talked about was like we have talked artimus one to death you know and i almost had no idea what to say about it because everything had been said about it

you know, and especially through that early August, or late August situation where every criticism of SLS was like right there for the taking. You can probably hear Will yelling in the background. Is he kind of loud? There's a pace puddle going on back there? Base puddle, yeah. So the only thing I'm really struck by with Artemis I, now having been on this side of it, right?

And there's still have the mission to go, you know, I'm going to assume everything goes as well as it is here. I'm thinking about what are the things, now that we are in this part of SLS, where we're not debating the existence of it anymore, what are the things that I'm going to key on? And I'm left with, like, the only thing that matters at this point is

how much momentum the landers can build up and execute on between now and, like, six years from now because SLS exists. It's not going away, right? Casey's written about extensively how much political support SLS has. And I should pull out this one quote that I read from, he has an article why we have this space shuttle. I'm not space shuttle, Jesus.

To relevant. Why we have the SLS. So this is an article from beginning of August. and in his very Casey Dreyer way, he has this table of the funding that has been given to NASA every year since 2012, right? So we have the request, the proposal from the House, the proposal from the Senate,

and the final appropriations. This one line down here, every single, or was it? Oh, man, I lost it. There we go. The trend is clear. Since its inception in 20, both the House and Senate have added additional funds to the SLS program, not just in some years, but in every single year of the program's existence, regardless of which party controlled the chamber and regardless of financial or scheduled performance of the project.

It would not be more clear that this is stick it, you know. You can set your watch to it, basically. But for like, you know, in the early part of this table, right, when it was 2015, I think it was still, even for you and I who tend do not get, we don't love these arguments about like should SLS? the less exist. We don't stray away from them, but it's just like, at a certain point, it's not that interesting anymore. In the earlier part of that table, that was more viable to have that conversation because there was presidential transitions and not a lot of forward progress, so it felt like

there were moments where different paths could have been taken, right? Now that we're here, we're 10 years on from that table. It has flown once. There's hardware and flow for all these other ones. if you're somebody who is not an SLS fan, but is a fan of the rest of the Artemis program, or if you're a fan of the Artemis program, including SLS,

all that matters to you is how well the landers can deliver on what they've said. And I'm saying landers, because I'm saying Starship and the SEL, the sustaining LULO development, that second lander, right? If they can perform, and we have landers there at the gateway,

whenever we want to go, the SLS debate or like the utility of it or or whether it remains the main way to get to the gateway becomes irrelevant because like if we have a lander there that's ready to go every six months, figuring out how to use it every six months is probably the easier part than getting a lander that's usable every six months. You know what I'm saying? Do you see what I mean? Like the lift to get from here to available lunar landers is much harder than convincing Congress to buy a dragon flight that goes up to a starship to fly to the gateway every couple of months

in addition to the SLS flights that are already going, you know? At that point you're having an argument like you're having with commercial crew that we should have multiple ways to get to the gateway rather than just relying on SLS. Like that's a very politically achievable solution, but it requires the landers existing, being useful, being ready. And I think even if you caught the news from last week that SpaceX's second optioned flight with crew on it is going to be at the gateway

for Artemis 4. Previously Artemis 4 was like, we're just flying to the gateway, bring in the habitat, hanging out at the gateway. I had always assumed, yeah, if the lander's there, they're not going to not get in the lunar lander. Like, they would totally get into the lunar lander if it was there, but it wasn't, you know, in Dr. Z's words, a level one requirement. but it was never ruled out. And I think that's what I'm realizing is that like if you care about this program,

you just want to see momentum build up and at this point it's not about deciding these huge architectural changes. It's like build momentum and then optimize as you go because fighting about whether SLS should be the only way to get to the gateway or not is like you're never going to win that argument. You're just going to have to show that there's enough stuff

to do that SLS can no longer keep up with the task at hand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think you're right. The only thing I would say, though, is that that, like, that would depend. Let's say you assume that the landers do, like, perform and they start coming and they're there. Then that turns the attention right back to where it is pre-Artimus one, right? Can Ness? Keep up? And if it can't, and I don't mean like it flies once a year, but there's two landers a year. So we need something else. I mean, I mean, mean, it flies at all. Like, because if we still have problems where, like, it can't, you know, operate very efficiently and efficiently enough to meet a lander in orbit, like, then you have weird problems where the lander's got to come back and fuel and then we've got to, like, if that starts happening, it's like, that's the bad, that's the scary outcome. Yeah, yeah.

For the program for me, because then it's just like, it's not can SLS keep up? It means can SLS even do the job? Yeah. Right? Like that's, and that's the, that's the more interesting question to me. That's like an academic difference to me, though, because in that scenario, yeah, kind of, like that scenario also requires, we'll use Starship as the example as it should be. Yeah, the outcome is same.

Yeah, but it's almost more embarrassing that way. I mean, it definitely is more embarrassing because. Very, very interesting. Like, we missed a launch window and SpaceX is like, all right, we'll send up 19 more starships to refuel the one that's up there, you know, between now and when you're ready to go next. Like, that is such a stark difference. if that is the way it shakes out. Yeah.

And I think Artemis 2 will probably be fine because it's the same config, right? So there's, it's just a repeat. Artemis 3. Is that ICPS as well? Oh, man, I think so. I can't remember now. But yeah, I don't know.

I think that one will be okay. But yeah, if there is struggles with that, that becomes, they do need a couple new elevator doors. Yeah. And some new lawn. They need to re-sod the area. Artemis 3 is block 1 still. Artemis 4 is the first EUS, because that will also co-manifest the, you want to pop it up again?

This is the pop it up again. It's up again. Artemis 4 is the first one to co-manifest the habitat for Gateway. Right, right. Assuming, gateway, yada, yada, aster, aster, aster, aster, astric. Yeah. Now, the nice thing for you and I is that we can probably stop talking. talking about this question for at least a couple of years.

Right. I hope. Yeah. We can now turn our attention to the landers. I think you're definitely right about that, right? Because the rest of it's in flow, we can just kind of watch it. It's fine. It's fine.

And then when Artemis 2 tries to launch and it takes 17 weeks to hit its daily launch window, then we can go from there. But yeah, for now we get to talk about landers again, which is fun. Yeah. I mean, if I'm SpaceX, if I'm whoever wins the second thing. Who's going to win the other one, Jake? Let's just pick one right now. Let's call a shot so we can use them as an example.

Is it going to be blue solo? Is it going to be some reconstituted Lockheed Martin proposal that doesn't include blue? Is Dynetics going to defeat the laws of physics? I think blue is going to get it. I think eventually they got to win one. And they were so mad about the last one. Can you imagine how mad they'd be if they missed it again? like if they lost to dynetics or like yeah no they're they're gonna put it's but they might

even just give it away like they just need to get they need to get flying something that was the lesson right has a blue origin logo on the side of it as part of this program where they're going to lose their minds so i think i think they'll i think they'll get it i do think that they maybe did a little bit too much political chess last time uh and keep it simple do you do your thing do your way and don't charge a ridiculous amount for it. Yeah. I mean, if they just like tweak the design

and then lower the price, they could have slipped in no problem, but they didn't, right? Yeah, because really like, you know, we had a weird tug from Northrop Grumman

that was taking a blue moon lander down and they were just coasting on Lockheed Martin's ability to create a pressure vessel. Yeah, and actually, so that is a good point though. What I didn't think about is it wouldn't be the national team. So they have to redo the whole,

yeah, the whole thing. There's a whole new thing. now. So now, depending what that looks like, could be a different story, right? I have a hard time thinking it would be a three-stage lander.

I have a feeling it would be a one-stage lander. But, who knows? Anyway, point is, if I'm either of those teams, right? If I'm spacefx on blue, if I'm Lockheed, whoever you are, like, put a note on the bulletin board that's like

we touch the mooner surface the lunar surface before artemus two lights its engines like that is and whatever touch the lunar surface right intact or not i don't care but like i want some pieces of metal that we created in this factory on the lunar surface before artemus two lights its engines because yeah that the storyline if it doesn't happen is like you know eric burger's headline would be like artemus two worked where the hell's my lander you know that's that that's going to be, you're going to get the eye of Sauron on you at that point. Well, yeah, I mean, honestly, so Artemis 2 is what, 20, late 2024 right now, right? And by the, by Berger's law, that means early 2025 at least.

So if, if two and a half years from now, like, Blue is still not like anywhere with anything, that's going to be really embarrassing too. So they kind of have to, yeah, I mean, this has always been the story with Blue. though, right? They need to get moving and they haven't so far. Yeah, I really think it's it's Starship, right? And, you know, like, I don't know, vibes on Boca Chica right now are different than they were this time last year. They sure are, yes. I haven't, I haven't done the deep dive there. I don't, I don't really deep dive there anymore. It's just, it's too much noise. I can't, I can't find any. So I have to kind of

wait for, for big signs. But yeah, it definitely feels slow. Like, Compared to all the, you know, there was that period when they were rushing up to, um, was it the first stack? I think maybe they, the first time they put it all together. And they were, Mark one. It was just like a lawn, long display.

Yeah. And like Elon was like down there like 27 hours a day just like screaming in the yard. And like it was like all hands on deck. They were like flying people in from other buildings and other cities and like, you work, work, work. Everybody has to work every day. It was like, print out. your code and send it to me.

Yeah. And so, you know, there was a pace there that was interesting. And they kind of hit a wall and then it all just stopped. And it hasn't felt like it's picked up again. And that's interesting. I don't think it's, I don't think that's unhealthy though. Like, I do think this is a healthy. Yeah.

I feel like they are, they are in like the mathematical limit kind of graph, right? where it will always, it's like an asymptote, is that the one that like always approaches, but never will touch the axis? Yeah, like, I think that's them with like the way that every other company develops this kind of hardware, that they are getting closer to like, we have no idea what's going on in the blue origin hanger. Or like ULA today tweeted that that image of like a, what was it, a centaur adapter going out the door, but it was like completely clothed, you know? It's like, what? This is not really a useful picture for us. I got to forget where that was, but at some point, we wanted them to become, like, it's not, you can't always move fast and break stuff, especially when you're pumping wrenches into your vehicles.

I mean, there's diminishing marginal returns on, on overworking, right? Right. I think it's what I'm getting at. Is that like, is this, is this era that we're in now just like them, being a little tidier, Elon is over at Soma, like, you know, now's the time to fix all the stuff that you've been avoiding because there was, people were worried about other things down there. We actually know what we're doing and we can work towards a plan rather than we haven't yet figured out our plan and we're just iterating constantly.

It's hard to figure out what exactly is where they are on that spectrum, but, you know, a couple months ago, it was like, we're flying by July, we're flying by October, and now it's like we're firing up incremental engine counts until, you know, we're flying. we get to 33 and then hopefully that time it launches. So. Well, I guess at some point they have to approach that, right? Especially now that they have. So when did the, when did the space or the NASA contract land?

That was April last year, April 21. Yeah. Okay. Because at some point, like when those NASA requirements start coming down the pipeline, and it's not just Elon's requests, right? That's going to change some things because we've seen lots of NASA the people go down there and inspect it, and they're all very impressed and everything. But like, at some point, they're going to be like, okay, but can you just like test it

once before you blow it up? Like, can you please, we need some, we need some data here. And it needs to be robust. And we need to be able to put it in a document so that if we have, if, if someone dies on this at some point, we need to be able to go back through a paper trail and show that, you know, we did our due diligence. And that takes time, right? Whether they, whether SpaceX likes it or not.

And then there's the Kremlinology of like Gwen Shotwell is now in doing the star base thing, right? And again, that could be like, that could be the sign that it's going from backyard experimentation to operations. Or it could be the sign that like, I don't know, she's board of L.A. and wants to go hang out in Texas and get a tax break or something. I don't know. Like, there's a hundred ways to read that. You can have all these theories for sure.

It's useless information. Actually, at this point, that Quinn is now running it. Yeah. Because it's just like, yeah. Oh, it's doing so well that they're ready to operationalize it. So they brought in the ops person. Oh, it's doing. so poorly that they have to bring in the big boss.

And like, oh, like, every spectrum has an answer on that. It's like, yeah. Oh, man. It's a choose your own adventure kind of situation. But anyway, like all that's to say that it's balls in their court now, you know. The Artemis program does as well as Starship does from right now until either another lander is picked and does better than it or until they land on the moon. That's what it is, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

again the anti-s-l-s-l-s crowd like you've done it you know asl-s flew and is not the big story right now then big story is like does starship you know put your money where your mouth is is this a is this a capable lunar lander or not is the entire artemus program right now all right yeah I don't know that's that's a good thesis that's a good thesis I like it quick quick a little intermission how useful do you think this photo is to show off parts of Vulcan. Look at this amazing interstage adapter. You can't see any of it because it's behind this curtain. I'm like, okay, thanks for the pick. I'm not convinced that isn't the old Starship carbon fiber tank that they blew up. Amazing. I'm not convinced you. Yeah, I love that. That's a good photo. Love it. Hey, Europe had this

ministerial situation. They did. And they got some money. Some. Some. Yeah. Not that much. Did you read the spin on how much they?

Yeah, that was my funny. That was the funny part to me. They were like, we've got a 16% increase. And they were like, in economic times like this with war and inflation, that's an incredible increase. I'm like, oh, for one of those, it's an incredible increase. For the other one, it's less impressive. And didn't they ask for, like they got, whatever, 16%, they asked for like 25% or 30.

They asked for like 25 or 30. It was a huge ask. Yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, inflation is 12%. So they got a 4% boost on a, yeah. Well, that's how it goes. But they got some good stuff done, though. I think, I don't know, I think it's a largely successful ministerial,

even if you can dilute it a little bit. That's pretty good. I'm mostly bummed that the, I really wish that there was the human spaceflight component to this. Yeah. That was the part that didn't come, right? that last year there was this whole thing, Luca Parmatano had a manifesto. They called it a manifesto,

which just amps up the intensity whenever you're doing manifestos. And it felt like it was in the run-up to a grand unveiling of we're going to do a human spaceflight program. And then you look at the difference between what they asked for and what they got, and the shape of that is a human spaceflight portfolio. Yeah, yeah.

But I mean, like, when did that manifesto drop, though? That was... Just like a year ago. yeah a lot of stuff happens since then totally totally yeah it was it was there was three months between it dropping and ukraine and ukraine yeah so yeah a hundred percent what happened but it just to me is like they they have you know a significant amount of their money put over towards the aryan five vaga programs for a homegrown launch um and they are starting to more fully embrace the small launch market that's growing in Europe where we've got, you know, RFA and a couple other

competitors. I haven't followed that, but that was kind of a win, wasn't it? Yeah, there's been a couple of programs over the last couple of months that have gotten additional funding towards those companies. There's more signs that there was always a question of like, you know, since these are competing with the Aryan space vehicles in some classes and less classes now that Soyuz is out, how much will Aryan space or how much will Europe embrace the existence of these launchers? But there are no launchers that are bigger than, you know, a ton.

I think RFA is about a ton. So they still have to, and, you know, I guess you could debate have to there, but they still have to support the higher level launchers, Arien 6 and above. So that ties up a ton of money that I think they would spend, you know, if there was a thriving commercial launch market in Europe that was not Aryan space, they could, yeah, the same argument as SLS, I guess, to some extent that like, Is this what you choose spending money on versus the part that industry is not capable of doing? Does the European commercial industry still have some growing up to do?

Like can that be what? Like you got to you got to give these little ones some time to develop a bunch of stuff and try it and blow it up and fly it and then have some people that, you know, spend 15, 20 years there and invent some great stuff. And then they go on and start new companies. And those companies can go on. You know, you need to have that sort of generational. change at some point, right?

Because it's a less mature industry than what you guys have. It might not even be that far away, though, right? So ministerials in ESA, they do every three years because, you know, hurting that many cats is tough. And so they go every three years and they decide how much each country is contributing and where their money's going. So let's play it out in our minds, right? There's a couple of these commercial launch companies that are coming online in the, you know, small launch segment up to a ton. and three years on from now, Jake, what's, as the person who cares less about rockets of us of the duo here,

could you tell me what every small launch company is currently doing? No, I cannot. They're currently making bigger rockets. They're just like, we missed by a zero. Like, let's go up a size. So three years on, if RFAs fly in this one-ton launch vehicle, I hope that they're one-ton or otherwise this whole segment is totally done. Rocket Fagnet.

Let's see. I think Adrian has been to their factory a couple of times, right? Quick fact-check moment for me. Launch vehicle. Yeah, about a ton to a ton to sunsynchronous orbit, a ton and a half to lower Earth orbit. So three years on from now, they're flying that a couple times. They have announced, you know, effectively the Rocket Lab Neutron version of their offering. And you see these companies, whichever ones are successful, start to grow into

a bigger market at that point is is it that ministerial? Is it the next one when Europe is like, okay, you know, we're seeing how the industry's going. These companies are successful. They're flying out of French Guiana. Like, let's shift the strategy here.

To me, that seems plausible that that's maybe a ministerial or two away. And this one was just a little too early. Yeah, it certainly could be, yeah. So the only thing that the big question I would have would be is the like how how safe of a path safe the right word is how easy is it for a small launcher to make that jump to the you know to add the zero like you say I know everyone is trying it

relativity is trying it and and rocket labs trying it and like they're all they all want to do that but they haven't done it yet right even a lot of these even feel like they're they're even really early because like relativity's like we're going to make a bigger one you haven't even flown the first one yet. Like, you know, it seems like they're really, they really kind of skipped a whole bunch of steps here. And so is that transition viable? And can Europe just go ahead and try that or do they want to sort of see what happens with the US and see how the market goes? And I don't know. It's interesting. There's a lot of this launch industry just sort of like exploded all of a sudden really fast and no one knows what's going on. And it's all just changing

every day and it's interesting to see and just the Europe having like a few years even just like two four or five years whatever behind so they have that kind of a little bit of hindsight compared to the US is kind of interesting I don't know it's an interesting narrative to me but the other aspect that I wanted to bring up because you have more insight is the Rosalind Franklin situation can you give us a previously on previously on XOMRs previously on yeah well okay so one day of Vladimir Putin woke up and he was very angry and very upset and he invaded Ukraine. And so, yeah, so that whole program fell apart. You missed the part.

Every day he woke up dreaming about that. And then one day he decided it's done. He just did it. He didn't tell anybody. He just ordered it. Yeah. Nobody believed our entire intelligence industry that was like, yeah, no, that's totally going to happen in 10 minutes.

And they were like, nah. So the Rosal and Franklin Rover, XMRs program was very dependent. on Russia. They use their rocket. They use their landing pad. They use their entry capsule. The rover was European and the instruments were mostly European, but everything else was basically a Russian. I'm calling a quick timeout. Didn't we bail on this previously? Yeah, XMAR's cursed. Yes. And that actually is an important part of the story. So, yeah, so this thing has been under development for 10 years because the first time the U.S. They went and did perseverance instead.

And so Europe scrambled. And then they found Russia. And Russia's like, we'll help you. And they're like, great, a new friend. And then they build a whole thing around that. And it was like ready to go. Yeah. It was going to launch in September, right?

And then February Ukraine happens. So that falls apart. And now they got to go back to the drawing board. But so they asked for a bunch of money on it. And they got pretty much all of it. I'm pretty sure. And so the new plan now is Europe will be rebuilding their own landing pad, like platform for the rover to drive.

off of and the entry capsule. And then I think they're looking to you guys for help on a rocket. But that part is still up in the air. I think that part is expected to be a U.S. contribution, not a purchase. And so they're still waiting for NASA to help with that. Yeah, I think there's like, and you know how these work. There's like, first they ask and then someone thinks about it and then they agree on the phone and they agree on a letter.

And then they're going to, yeah, and then they're going to. Yeah, and then they write a letter and they go, I want to do this. And then they write a letter back and say, I also want to help you. And then they go and ask their bosses and then their bosses write letters to each other. It's a whole thing. They have to order the little desk flags, but that takes a while because of the supply chain. You know, they always got to have those desk flags when they sign stuff. Yeah, and inflation has gone up 16% here.

So it's hard. So that's where it is now. And I think that is basically exactly where I thought it was going to go. So I was pretty pleased to see that. I didn't think that Europe was going to let Russia ruin the program. It's just not a good look. Russia's hated in Europe right now. And if you said, yeah, we're going to put this rover in the museum in London because Russia took the rocket away, like there'd be an outcry.

And there should have been. That's the right way to think about it. So I knew that they were going to come through and find a way to make this happen. I was pretty sure that they were going to build the lander and the thing themselves because exactly like you said, the United States already pulled out of the rover building part of it with them, right? So the, you know, getting JPL to help with all that kind of stuff, they've been down that road with XMars and they got burned. And so I kind of think, you know, between that, between Russia and just wanting to, there's like a little, probably a little bit of

like we wished Skiaparelli had worked and we got to avenge Skiaparelli basically. Like, we need to, you know, we can't land on Mars over and over and over. again, they keep messing it up. And so they have to get it this time. Third time's a charm. That's what I think. And number one, I am here for that. Like, I am very excited for the day that anyone but JPL lands on Mars because that feels

like it feels like the great filter of our time. Like can anyone successfully do it? And yeah, Bagle 2, Biggle 2, whatever. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, our solar panels always work. Or what was it? What didn't deploy? Was it a solar panel that then trapped the communications thing?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, on top of it. Yeah. Yeah. So you thought they were going to build the lander all along? Because that, okay. I thought, like, they probably wouldn't. But I'm not smart about these things. I don't have any insight.

That just seems like the right thing to me, based on all the different, you know, all the different circumstances that led to that program just felt like it was the only real, viable option. And, yeah. And I guess timing wise it's not that much better, right? If they were to get the lander from us, like we just thought to build it too.

Probably not. Yeah. It's not like JPL has the staff. JPL's ground. So yeah. So yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's,

I think that's the right way for the forward for them. It will be interesting to see how that timeline develops because what are they saying now, 2028 or something. I see, yeah. can they hit that timeline?

I don't know. Is that enough time for six years? It's a while to build a thing. I assume they can, but it's also, you know, Europe's not JPL. So we'll see.

We'll see how it goes. Nor is JPL at the moment, though. Nor is JPL right now. Does it have to give APL a call? The other PL. Okay, but that's cool. Like, maybe the lander will work by then, but is the rover,

going to be good by then. That is another excellent question. It might work, but is it going to be good by then, you know? I was looking at that and there was like, you know, there are some parts on that rover that were at least designed more than 20 years ago. Some of them are. We have a reminder in the chat that the JPL Christmas party is imminent. So, you know, we'll find out.

I'm just thinking, if I'm on the Roseland Franklin team, I'm sending some people to the Christmas pose them as like waiters and wretches at this at this restaurant while everyone just listening on conversation yeah anyway sorry so the rover like parts of it are going to be not not that good well it's just like all the requirements were written with technology from you know 20 the original launch date was 2018 right so go pro hero 6 era actually not No, that was not the original one. I think it was even earlier than that. So it might have been, you know, it's been pushed back.

Like, it's going to be, I think at the end of the, if it launches in 2028, if you compare it to the original launch window, I think it'll have missed like six or seven Mars launch windows. Like it's, it's a long, long time between when this idea was conceived. Like this was this one called XOMARS some year? Was this called 2016 and then 2020? I think at some point, when they were both like on deck to launch like. like two windows apart. They might have been calling them 16 and 18, yeah, but now they don't do that.

Yeah. But yeah, no, it's just like, so all the requirements were a long time ago, and they've written stuff and the team, the team will be aging out. Like there'll be people that started this project that are going to retire before it launches, and then that's kind of interesting too.

And the technology is the same way. And if you change the technology, then you have to redesign all the parts to go with it. And that's like a whole thing. And there's already going to be so much expense from building the landing platform, on all this rocket. So I think a lot of that stuff is just going to be like, you know, polished up, test it again.

And it doesn't mean it's going to be like bad science. But I'm sure that some of the people working on would love the opportunity to tweak some these instruments a little bit now, you know. So. To some extent, though, like none of the instruments matter for this thing. To your point earlier, like the success criteria is this rolls off the landing platform. And it has like a voodoo doll. of Vladimir Putin on it, you know?

Like, that's the success criteria for Rosalind Franklin. Yeah, no, it absolutely is. The drill's got to work, too, I think. The drill is pretty clutch. But, you know, if the data on the cameras is like a little bit smaller resolution, like, whatever. Yeah, totally. You give a team of planetary scientists a brand new opportunity to rover

to put on marginale. They will get stuff done with it. Do not worry. They will find a way to make that data useful, and then they'll do their thing. These people can coax information out of the weirdest old cruddy noise you've ever seen. So I don't have any problem with that. But I mean, like I said, I'm sure they would be happy to change some things out if they had the money and the time.

They need to just get at least a little bit of Ukrainian involvement and make the whole thing Ukrainian colored. Yeah, that's a good point. It'd be really cool if there was like a Ukrainian instrument on it. That would be, that'd be pretty rock. I don't even need to be an instrument, honestly. just a little like Zelensky statue. Just a flag, yeah. Maybe get those flight suits back from the ISAS.

A piece of a Russian tank that a farmer stole. Amazing. Incredible. Yes. Yes. Build the landing platform out of Russian tank metal. Honestly, like, yeah. When the war started, there was a conversation in Discord about that weird church in Russia

that's built out of like Nazi tanks. Am I misremembering that? I don't remember. I know, I remember the church. I don't remember the details were, though. But, yeah, there's, I mean, there's stories like that all throughout history, right? I mean, that would be pretty good. A church downtown here in Married a big Catholic church built in like whatever, 1600 something.

And the flagstones on it are some of them, you can still. see just you walk down the street right there you can see the Mayan inscriptions on them they like literally took the stones out of Mayan pyramids and then built churches out of them so it happens it happens well yeah well we did it Jake

we did it we made up a show on the spot spoiler we were like what are we talking about yeah yeah yeah maybe we're at an interesting time of the year maybe we should uh take a couple extra minutes to talk about what's coming up on the show. Yeah.

Everyone's favorite time of year. Yeah. We got some more good ones. Okay. So let's pull up the old calendar here and see if I can refresh my memory. But we have, you know, it's obviously everyone's favorite show coming up. It's the off nominees. So it's not next week, but it is the week after that.

So two weeks from now, that's coming up. So tweet, I'd say you can tweet us your ideas. I mean, you guys kind of do all year anyway. We'd love to see those. And then hopefully we don't miss them. Sometimes we always miss one, and it's always embarrassing. But so that's coming up. What else?

What else we got? Next week, I'm very excited for. So our friend Marina Corrin is coming on the show because she had never seen 2001 of Space Odyssey and finally watched it. And I just cannot wait to talk to her about this. She just posted like. Entirely unsatisfactory. Yeah, there's just 10 a. Like two hours ago she posted this.

So I haven't read it yet, but, uh, 2001, a space Odyssey is precious, beautiful, and entirely unsatisfactory. I cannot wait to talk about this. We're going to devote the first half hour of,

uh, to screaming apes and obelisks. That's like, yeah, just to, just to pay a good homage to it. We won't actually start the content until 30 minutes in. So I had this,

uh, and we'll talk about this at length next week, I'm sure, but I, we, you know how, uh, I don't know what substitute teachers

were like in Canada, but occasionally you'd get one who'd want to come and show some relevant movie to the class that they're subbing for, right? We had this teacher, Mr. Barrett, and he would, he subbed a couple times for our English class. And my wife was in this class with me, but she doesn't remember this as much as I do. He came in and he, this was like senior year of high school. He played 2001 for us, but every three minutes, he would pause it and go on an, extremely long rant about why that scene was like the most impactful scene in the movie. So it took like, you know, I don't think we ever made it halfway through the movie because he was stopping so frequently. And I just remember the one that opened the pad bay doors part.

And he was like, all right, let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. Open the pod bay doors, Hal. Open the pod bay doors. Like such an extravagant rant about this movie. So it's like, you know, I can't separate this movie from from that guy's rants. And I feel like Marina's going to have a couple of those. But in the opposite direction. I mean, I only watched it for the first time, I think maybe three, four years ago. Like, it was pretty recently. I was doing the podcast already.

So it was that. I needed to. It was like, same thing with Marina. I was like, I need to do with my homework. I'm like, I can't like be in this job and not have seen this movie. So I need to go watch this stupid movie. I'll probably have to throw it on sometime in the next week to just partake. But there's like some spectacular elements to it.

So I'm excited to. You know, I want to hear from her what the good stuff was and see, like, if we trimmed down to just that, how long would this movie be? Yeah, yeah. So, anyway, after the off nominees, we're all for a couple weeks for our winter break. But in the new year, we'll be back with, we're going to do some predictions with Lauren Grush. Bloomberg. Lauren Grush of Bloomberg, no. Bloomberg.

Blumen, Grusha, Bloomberg. Yeah. So, anyway, what else are you working on? Man, I'm on like a curse right now with Weim Martians. I've had two interviews in a row that have fallen apart because of sickness, one on my end, one on a guest's end. And so I'm like in a bit of a dry spell right now. And I'm trying to recover.

But there, there should be some stuff coming eventually here. I do plan on doing a post-Artumus show. So look forward to. that one. We'll talk probably some more about some of the stuff we covered today, but it look a little more, probably a little more critically on the rest of the program, not just the rocket and all that kind of thing. So we'll see. Yeah. Well, the Casey Drier show. Hopefully the pass down goes a bit. Yeah, right? Don't pre-record that. I'm not. I'm definitely not. Casey Drier of Planetary Society joined me on Miko. We also talked about the midterms,

which I think was a fun conversation because nobody talked about it. Yeah, like I think we mentioned this last week that, you know, there's been very little conversation about them and what they mean for space and does it matter. And I don't know, part of it, it feels like, you know, what we're talking about with where the Artemis program is, is at now, that like, there aren't these large overarching questions of where are we going, which way are we going? What is the program of record? You know, my, my stipulation is, yeah, we got to sort out that ISS thing still. Yeah. That's a whole other, whole other department. That's a whole other episode that we have to make up.

Well, how was your Steve Aoki beer? That's pretty good. You know, it's Dosakis. Yeah. Have you figured out what he does yet? No, I kind of don't want to know. It's more fun if I don't know. He's a painter.

He does 3D printing. He does AI art. Strictly AI art with stable diffusion. He posts the pictures on Twitter and it says, AI art by blah, blah, blah, technology with inputs from me. You can't spell A-Rkey without AI, Jake. I did the inputs. I came up with the inputs.

It's all on my own, and it's my creativity. It lives in these inputs. I love how mad you are about AI art. That's so funny to me. I just got a laugh at the credit. It's like, someone made this with my input. Couldn't have done it without me. So, anyway.

Oh, man. It makes me laugh every time I see it. All right, everybody. Thanks, everyone. Bye. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,000, end of death.