Off-Nominal - 90 - This is a Complete Conspiracy

Episode Date: January 13, 2023

Brendan Byrne, of WMFE and Are We There Yet?, hosts the first edition of The Off-Nominallyweds, a game to find out if Jake or Anthony knows the other one better.TopicsOff-Nominal - YouTubeEpisode 90 - This is a Complete Conspiracy (with Brendan Byrne) - YouTubeSubmit questions for Anomaly FeudFollow BrendanBrendan Byrne (@SpaceBrendan) / Twitter90.7 WMFE - Public Radio for Central Florida – Primary provider of NPR and Classical MusicAre We There Yet? : NPRFollow 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, everybody. Welcome to the Game Show edition of Off Nominal. What are we doing today? This is a weird thing that we're doing. And we're struggling through it. We have some connectivity shenanigans happening already. So, you know, bear with us.

SpaceX got to get their stuff together is all I got to say. Well, there's that. And then there's the fact that our beloved game show host, two minutes before I went live, said, by the way, what are the rules? We gave him a list of questions and didn't brief him at all on how it works. We just expected that he knew

his 1960s-era game show formats. I don't know. Brendan Byrne, welcome back to the show. Thank you for being a trooper and doing this with us. Thanks for having me. Can I make a quick observation about this? I would love nothing less. Nothing more.

So I love the show. I love the show and I watch it and you guys have like some really interesting guests and like these reporters that are fantastic like, you know, Lauren Grush and Jeff Faust and Marina Corrin. So I love that you have that on the show. And then I love the fact that you decide to do this goofy episode. You're like, oh, who can we call? Oh, Byrne'll do it. Just call Brendan. So thank you for not inviting me to the serious stuff and then having me on for the goofy stuff.

Really? Thanks a lot, guys. Who seemed, no, you're not giving yourself enough credit. Our thought process was, who's enough of a professional that they could pull off such a beloved duty as hosting an official game show? Who seems official is really what the workflow was. All right, all right. You got a radio voice. You need that.

Happy to be here. And also, who could we trust with our intimate personal details is also a key part of this. There were some intimate questions that came in. My goodness. All right. Before we talk about this game, we're going to forget about our drinks if we let it go too long. Brendan is the first person, just to reiterate how much professional Brendan is. He commuted for this show.

He drove to his office for this show. So I would just like to know if you smuggled anything in or I don't know what the policy is at a radio station. Honestly, I've never been inside one. I did not. I've got water because I was going to smuggled some people. beer and when I pulled up I saw my my CEO was in the parking lot so I was like I probably should be like I'd have to walk through

the hall and see like for the first time I come into work this week I'm talking to you guys on my computer and drinking a beer in the office at 4 o'clock on Thursday so I did buy some Robo Not Red from Plylanda Brewing that I was going to share with you guys but I'll have that once they get home

yeah you can keep that for when you get back after the commute yeah you are driving so it's really easy if you walked in with like a 40 like through the hallway. What the hell's going on? I mean, it's radio, so I always assume there was like a glass of scotch on every radio guest because you'll never know.

It's always like a... What about you, Jake? I made a Mai Tai today, so just simple. Well, not... It's like a honeymoon drink. Yeah, you know. Just to get into the 60s cocktail vibe here.

I have a goblet of... red wine because I didn't feel like I forgot the bottle downstairs so I was like I'll just fill it up a little extra and then I forgot the rest of it down there so I just well hey at least it's a bottle with lemon not a box that is true last time I was slumming it this is Cabernet but is uh I forget what kind because it's downstairs but it's very delicious so um all right if just a couple months ago I made a Google form and I asked everyone to submit questions to this Google form because we're going to play a couple of games on... The plan was two different games, right?

We got off nominally weds, which is a newlyweds-inspired, inspired game, and Anomily Feud, which is a family feud-style game. I'm going to say... We got a couple hundred responses, okay? Yeah, and I would say, less than half of you understood the prompts. There were stuff in there that did...

None of you have watched these shows before, So I don't even know if these episodes will be funny to you because you're just putting stuff in there about our opinions of rocket propellants. So I saved about probably more than half the list to a different document called discussion prompts. And we're going to just circle back to those whenever we're in need of a show

because none of them fit. So I just wanted to start with that. I appreciate however many of you submitted. If you recognize a question you submitted, congratulations, you understood the prompt. Anyway, if you have not watched the newlyweds before, as Brendan apparently has not, Jake. How does this work? Okay, so we got a few questions here and Brendan is going to ask them. And then Anthony and I are

going to write down our personal responses to that question. So if he asked, you know, what is your favorite, I don't know, what is your favorite planet? I will write on my sheet Mars and I will not say what it is. And then Anthony is going to try and guess what I wrote on my sheet. I will hold up the response in front of me. And then that's how we're going to score. Who knows who best? So it's a test to see if I know Anthony better than Anthony knows me or vice versa. So that's kind of the game.

And we got, we picked, I think Anthony picked a few questions. I picked a few questions. And then we gave the rest of the list to Brendan for wildcards. And so those are ones that we haven't really had a chance to prepare for. So we'll see which five he culls from that bizarre list of stuff you guys put together out there. So it was some really good ones on here. It was really hard to pick five.

So I think we're just going to do it all. And so I hope you guys have no plans until 9 o'clock tonight. In case anyone thinks we did not prepare Brendan for this. We didn't tell him the rules of the game, but we did provide him a giant list of questions. And I also ordered something off Amazon to send to his house, which is literally called in the description a Bob Barker microphone. So we are professionals. That was only $20, Brendan. So please never plug anything into the audio out.

cable port of that. I tried. None of my XLR tables would actually fit. It's a knockoff XLR microphone. We're going to bring that to the KSC visitor center or the media complex next time we go to a launch

and we'll have some fun with that thing. All right. I don't have any game show theme music or anything, Brendan. So I guess the floor is yours. All right. Well, let's just jump jump into it. So the first question is, what is your least favorite episode of your own podcast? Whoa. Okay. Now, okay. I had a hard time with this one. I was thinking a long time about which episode Anthony did that he doesn't like.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, we don't have to discuss. Write down your answers. Discussions after this part. And if it's one of the ones that I was on, I will be. offended. So just keep on. Say if it's one of the ones that I was on, Anthony, I will also be offended. All right. I wrote down mine. All right. All right. Jake, do you want to go first?

Jake, what was yours? So I have to guess Anthony's first. Yeah. Guess Anthony's least favorite episode. Because I was, I was going through the, like, his list of episodes trying to see if I could find. Because there's one I could remember that was like, it was with a guest. And I don't remember who the guest was.

And it was someone who just like was not like answering questions beyond like yes or no. And so Anthony was like really struggling to like get content out of them. I could just tell. But I couldn't find it. And I think it's probably for the veteran because I don't want to throw something out of the bus. Yeah. I remember that feeling about a show, but I forget who it was. So that'll be fun for people to try to dig into the archive and.

Yeah, yeah. Go back and listen to everybody. Who the non-compliant guest was. So I had to go with my next best option, which was a guest I don't mind throwing under the bus and I will say Robert Zubran. I knew you were going to say that. Okay, go on. That's it. Is there more explanation

needed to that one? You just, you don't like Robert Zubran. He's just a bit of a wild card and, you know, I don't know. Big get for your 19th show is all I'm saying. It was a big get for your 19th show. Yeah. You knew which episode it was. Now I'm wondering if I got it right. You did not get it right.

And I debated the easy answer here of being the first one because everyone hates the first one and whatnot, right? I also said that the show would be short and weekly, neither of which are true anymore at this point. So I screwed that up. I went through the whole list. I thought about some of the options you listed. This one, I did a show about canceling Resource Prospector in like 2018, like right before

Artemis really started kicking off. And I was just reading a little bit. I listened to a little bit of it. And like, none of that mattered. It was so dumb. Like, I had no vision for what the future holds. It's one that if I could delete out of the archive, I would, because it just didn't matter at all,

and I think it should just go away. So, all right. Resource prospector. Anthony, what do you think Jake's worst, the least favorite episode? There's two that I honed in on. One was early on, Jake was infatuated with Bigelow Aerospace. and thought that they held the key

to unlocking habitation in space, right? And it was like, a mere months later, I think, before he spent all his money on Skinwalker Ranch or something and then folded the company. So that was in the running, but I do think the Mars One investigative reporter show that you did is your least favorite because you felt bad about it while you were doing it a little bit.

You felt a little bit bad about it. I did feel a little bit bad about it, yes. Unfortunately, that is incorrect, though. I went for the old standby. Ah, you did the episode one. The episode one was just like, I bit off more than I could chew. It was like an episode about like the entire SLS program and what was the time, the journey to Mars from. Like, like I tried to cover everything, like everything that was happening, you know, like, and it was so it was like 58 minutes or something.

Like it was this really awful long monologue. And I very quickly, the next episode realized I need to interview people if I want to have good guys. time. But you did get something right about that. If you look at the description of that episode, you go on at length about like, why, why are we doing Mars? And no one knows why we're doing Mars. And I'm like, well, the show has not changed. That is still the thing about the show.

So, yeah. All right. Nothing. I guess I need the mic. No, you don't have to. It was more of a gag thing. You don't have to hold it. It looks annoying.

Honestly, now that I see it, this was a bad decision. Yeah. What I was, I was interviewing somebody, too. I think I was, yeah, I was interviewing, I think it came yesterday. I was interviewing, like, Terry Vertz for a piece I was doing. And, like, Amazon showed up and I was not aware. And the dog, like, completely ruined all of my tape because she was barking during that interview. So thanks for that.

I ruined a Terry Verts interview. Amazing. That sucks. He can be spicy. He could be spicy. Well, he was very spicy. So I was trying to edit out, like, dog barts and stuff. Sorry, man.

You can build me for that. All right. Next question. What is the other person's best space hot take? Best space hot take. Yeah, okay. If I write my own hot take. You're writing your own hot take, and I'm answering first. I guess I should phrase it that way. The way that it's written, I'm sorry. I tried to go off script and confuse you. That's all right. So there's a couple that I feel like we cross over on, Jake.

which is how outliery SpaceX is and how it warps everyone's view of the entire space industry. But I'm going to go back to what your description of the first episode of your podcast was, which is like, as somebody so in support of Mars, wait, am I giving my answer for Jake, right? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

Well, you're trying to guess. I'm guessing. I'm guessing what you're taking. No. I've got you wrote your on the board your take from day one yeah we should have done any preparation but we were distracted by these shit questions that everyone sent

anyway your day one take was like no one has a good enough reason to go to mars and even I someone in support of going to mars doesn't know why we should go and you're so adamant about it that I feel like it's it's got to be crem de la creme for your take Is that hot enough to be a hot take?

I don't know. I don't know. For most people. That's not what came to mind. Oh, all right. It's not what came to mind for me. What is it? Let's flip that one.

This isn't here. It's easy to land on Mars if for NASA. Yeah, I should have wrote a... I'm tired of all this nonsense about how hard it is and how there's this like, no, NASA, you're really good at it. You've done it a lot. And stop quoting that 50% rule. August.

I'm still mad about it. I whiffed. I whiffed. What do you got, Jake? That is a good one, though. That is a good one, though. Okay. So, this take,

what I'm thinking of is becoming colder and colder by the minute. But I'm going to give you the hot take credit because you were ahead of the game and that it's that NASA should buy the Russia or the ISS. Yes. That was it. My opinion,

I'm supposed to be keeping this floor here. I'll write it down somewhere. My opinion, so you have two assignments. Number one, find whatever interview it was that was super boring that I did. Number two, find the episode of Off Nominal in like 20, whatever it was where I said we should buy, we should pay whatever the price is to buy the Russian segment off of Roscosmos.

Because, man, if we did, this would be so easy today. Yeah, yeah. It was a couple years ago now, I think. It was several years ago, yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right? It might have been an episode. It might have been a Miko episode with Eric Berger now that I think about it.

Well, there was one where you referenced it on an Eric Burger episode. You were like, I'm bringing it again. Yeah, and that was like last summer, I think. Maybe it's done before that. All right. Well, Jake wins on that one. So let's see. Let's see what we got next year.

All right. Number three, worst idea during the Gemini program. That's a great question. Yeah. This is why I love Gemini, though. There were so many dumb, dumb, stupid dumb ideas on this one. All right. Should I draw a little illustration of mine?

Absolutely. I will if you will. It was a second. Let's see how good of a drawer I am. Yeah, I already didn't leave myself enough room for this. So it'll be a little slightly stylized. This is great content for the audio listeners. We're going to keep doing this.

Just to make you go watch YouTube. You know, for the time. It matters to no one, but apparently my internet's back. Just got a text message. So there we go. So there we go. And do the second half of the show from there. Keep yourself company for a bit.

So, all right. Do you want to go first, Anthony? I think Jake's right now. Is it Jake? I don't know. I really should be paying attention. Jake, you're up, you're up. Yeah.

So I'm guessing there's a good chance to have the same answer here. but I think that you would agree that the ejection seats were the worst idea in Gemini. Oh, the paragonin. That was a pretty good idea. This is a dumb idea, okay? Landing gear. Why are we doing this? Why were we ever doing this?

What a dumb idea? Look at this. That's Brendan. Look at this. like why was this an improvement because it's not like we were moving away from parachute landings right like Apollo was going to use parachutes in the ocean so we had all this infrastructure for landing in the ocean

and they are like what if we put a inflatable wing that shoots out the side and then we land on the desert because we can't use actual wheels so we have to just land in white sands or whatever that's what a dumb stupid dumb idea But I agree. What I had written down for you was ejection seats because you're much more into the crew safety than I am. So I figured you would be particularly peeped about ejection seats. Yeah.

I just would have never worked. No, no, no. There's a runner up to the third possible answer here would have been a 14-day mission in capsule. I thought the other one I had bookmarked was the hole through a heat shield thing. I guess this was less Gemini, right? Oh, yeah.

More man orbiting laboratory. Man orbiting laboratory, yeah. All right. Well, that's 1-1. I tie it up here. All right, right. Moving along. Best canceled NASA program.

Best canceled NASA program. I feel like we should establish some ground rules for that, though. Does that mean? Yeah, I was thinking about this. Does this mean canceled at any point in its progress or canceled, before any progress was made. Or not any progress, but like, was the shuttle mission or shuttle program canceled in this way?

Right? What if we defined as, like, canceled too soon? But that's what I'm saying, right? Like Apollo 18, does that count? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or are we doing, like, are we digging deep here into the, you know? Into the DCX stuff.

Yeah. The Venture Star, is that one? I don't know. All right. Whatever. If you don't want to set ground rules, I'll just take my best guess here. All right. And while you do that, I'm just going to point out, I like that the Gemini Glider is now the fourth guest of the show.

Yeah. It's still up there. I just want everyone to really understand that. It probably would have been a better host than me, so you should have asked it to do this. All right. I got my answer written down here, Jake. but I'm telling you yours first so I for a brief second I'm like

maybe it's exomars maybe Jake's annoyed that Xomars could have been in the running um Voyager Mars is one that came to my head uh that was like the Apollo applications Mars effort right

um I kind of feel like you have a weird and not discussed soft spot for the Constellation program. I just have that feeling. Is that true? No. I feel like you maybe just had a secret soft spot for it. I like to make fun of the rocket because it's ridiculous. To explain, to explain that, like I feel like when you were getting into space, right,

back when you thought Bigelow, Bigelow was the future to the, to space habitation. I feel like you probably were reading the NASA DRMs, or was that what they called? The design reference missions, right? For like the Mars. Like the thing, like Martian. The Martian was based on these reference missions at the time.

And I feel like you probably were super into it. So you remain, and that was constellationy, and you remain a little bit, a little bit kind to the constellation program. Damn, whatever Casey Dreyer and Lori Garver say. No, no. No, no, I don't have any particular soft spot for it. Well, what you got?

Total misread. Total misread. You were close. Close. You were almost there. Oh, man. Apollo applications. Wow.

Just generally. Voyager Mars came from that, which then became Viking, right? So, but there was a point where they were drawn up plans to put an Apollo capsule on the surface of the moon. For some reason. I don't know why. Like a robotic, it was a dumb idea. And then they were like, the atmosphere is not enough.

And they're like, okay, I guess we'll do something else. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. They just moved on. All right. All right. So with no ground rules at all about what is canceled or not, I just had to go with my gut here and say that Anthony's number one Skylab fan.

It's got to be Skylab. All right. I didn't necessarily think that would fit the ground rules because, well, here's why. I didn't consider it canceled, right? The shuttle was late. So it got canceled by the atmosphere, less so bureaucracy. So I felt like that was a cheat. So what it actually is, Jake?

Shuttle Centaur. A beast that never got to fly. This would have been amazing. Two great rockets, one of which, you know, is the most storied planetary mission rocket of all time. And the other one is the shuttle. and imagine if we didn't, like, imagine what would have went right and what missions would have flown if we had a centaur.

And how terrible of an idea this was to further increase the deadliness of the space shuttle, put an entire hydrogen-fueled centaur in the trunk. Great. That's a super great idea. Yeah. That's it. Boy, swinging a miss on these expansive ones here. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're mostly swinging and miss in here. But, I mean, that's fine. You guys haven't really known each other. Give us something easy. For Christ's sake. Which NASA facility would you rename it for yourself? Which NASA facility? This is a really funny question.

I love this question because there's like, do you hate the namesake of the current one? Do you think one could be doing better than it is? Like, what is the reason? All right. So I think you're up first for an explanation of my. answer, Jake. Okay, I actually struggled with your answer. I had to think about it for a while because I couldn't, you're, I don't know, you're very

straightforward and I couldn't find like a good, like, clever answer that he would do it. And so I had to kind of just go with my gut and be like, you just pick like what's easy and close to him because he's a local guy. So I'm going to say wallups, the Anthony Colangelo Walbs. Yes. Let me explain. Let me explain. Do you know who this is named for? No, actually, I don't even know. It's like some Earl from the 1600s that got the land given to him by the king of England.

And then it just, that was Wallops Island and then it became the Wallops. So it's not even named for anyone good in space. It's, it is my local spaceport and it has a dumb name and I think we should just change it. And everyone would be much, much, it would be so much better. So. Okay. You nailed it. You on the other hand, right? The easy one would be JPL, which, you know, it's maybe a rough time for them of late, as we discussed after the whole psyche incident.

Maybe it needs a new leadership. Yep. I think that might be true. So I don't know. I'm probably going to end up picking JPL. The other ones I considered was, I feel like one that would be an achievable one, even right now, we might be able to pull this off, we might be able to rename Stennis to the Jake Robbins Center. So that would be a good candidate. I'm trying to think who else you'd have a disdain

for. I bet you think that it's silly that LBJ has Johnson Space Center named after him, considering he just existed at the right time. So I'm going to say you would change Johnson to be the Robbins Center. That is a good guess. That's a good guess. But you keep passing over your gut instincts, though. No. Because this is the real obvious.

For Fultion Levertoe. Darn it. You do go the easy way out a lot of times. I should update some of my future guesses here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. I'm just being honest here. I'm just being honest.

What about you, Brendan? Is it Brendan Space Center? on the space coast. Has to be. Has to pick the local one for you, NPR guy. Yeah, I think the local one. Yeah. Don't mind the assassinated president.

Don't mind that guy. Yeah, yeah. That's the hardest one to remain. Who takes Kennedy's name off anything, right? Yeah. All right. I really like this next one, and I just lost it. So, um, okay.

So what single missions launch from space history? do you most wish you could have witnessed? Yep. That's an interesting one. All right. I thought there was a really good one. I feel like I know what your answer is, but I would feel bad if I didn't float the idea that your answer to this would be insight.

Considering your history, having flown two there and they're just standing in the fog for an hour. I wish I had thought of that I went When I read this I was like That's insight right there But I am playing to win So I didn't I didn't

I didn't officially make that my answer Although it should be your answer That's the best joke you've made this show So we When Ray Pelletta was on a few weeks back We did the whole Walter Cronkite Was lying bit about Apollo 4 and that would be a really good one as well.

Like that, that seems like an easy answer. But I'm going to guess, I'm going to guess you were going to go something super unique that nobody was able to really witness and say like the most epic of the N1 explosions would have been the one that you wanted to watch. That would be pretty fun to watch. Darn it. Yeah. Yeah. But not as fun as what? Well, I just, I went, I went pretty standard here.

I mean, this is probably not going to be too controversial, but. Apollo 17? Yeah. Last one. Night launch. Right. Scientists on board. I think that'd be pretty, I don't know.

There's probably some two years after that one on the space coast there. Last Apollo rocket took up, right? Last Saturn 5. All right. That wasn't even on my map. I figured. Wow. Well, because we talked about night launches being generally disappointing, like for SLS.

Like, that was a disappointing situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, can't really see a lot. This is a hard one because there's probably like five to ten good answers that beat both of us a pick, right? Like it's pretty tough. So I mean, you could have just put Viking on there. That would have been a totally, totally fine answer for me. I would have loved to see Viking or Voyager or, you know, there's a ton of stuff for a shuttle.

Okay, but for you though, so I just kind of went with my same reasoning here and said you'd want to see your local homeboy, Paula 12, Pete Conrad. No? Oh, yeah, that's good. good. I felt like, so my problem with Apollo 12 is that it was cloudy enough to create lightning to make them flip SCEA to hawks. So it would have been a shit view, you know? Yeah, but you would have seen lightning strike the Apollo Rock. But not through the clouds. There would have been all, it would have been so cloudy. I wouldn't have seen it. So what I thought was it would be cool to see a Saturn 5, but why not go and see Skylab take off? That ridiculous launch, right?

What a weird rocket. Oh, yeah. Yeah, like go look at a picture of Skylab launching. It's a super weird looking Saturn 5. Where did the anomaly happen? Was it close enough that you would have seen like the pieces falling off when the... I don't know. How nice was the weather that day? Because the side of the rocket faring came off, not the faring, but like some panel and that's what exposed like the solar panel thing.

Yeah. Yeah. And there was like the whole problem with them getting, it's like the thermal issue they had. There was a whole thing about that. So, yeah. I mean, this would have just been a fun. That's a fun looking rocket. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I wouldn't have picked Apollo 12 so glad you mentioned that. That would have been a cool one to see. What's your Apollo 12, love? So I talked to Jerry Griffin about it and he was one of the mission controllers and told me about that whole SCE to OX thing.

I think I'd want to see it knowing what happened. Knowing that? Knowing that. Knowing that everything's going to be fine. But yeah, I think any Saturday 5 would just be awesome to watch. So very cool. well all right i like this question too this is a really good one if you could go back in time and get any deceased historical space figure to join you for a show on off nominal who would it be

oh man there's some good ones there are some good ones um who went first last time uh i think i explained last first last time right jake is yeah jake gets to go first okay um honestly just just like just guessing at this point it doesn't really matter that's the fun part of this game it's hard to grow up as long as we keep score it's fine and i think it's 2-1 jake i'm not even doing that so i'm doing it by feel and jake's way more on it than i am so okay so i'm guessing first yeah uh well i i struck out of my last one so i'm going to stay on the same path and hope that uh best one out of two or p conrad's got me p conrad yes he's the most off-nominal of all the astronauts.

Yeah, totally. I mean, if you're going to pick an astronaut to come on this show, it's got to be the guy that had pornography on his freaking his checklist on the moon. That's got to be the guy you picked, right? He was into hijinks. He made a comedic comment about how short he was when he got off with a third person on the moon made a self-deprecating joke about how short he was,

which is hilarious to me. And then also he was born in Philadelphia. So how can you not love? that guy. I don't believe in reincarnation, but I should look up when he died, is all I'm saying. I think it was in the 90s. Oh, I don't know. Maybe. Maybe. There you go. He was born in 1930 and died in 1999, so not true. Too late. So one other one I considered, by the way, just to comment on this, because I think it was fun to room on is a guy named Kraft Eric, who is the designer of Centaur.

Okay. Now, what's interesting is he was in his 20s during World War II when he worked at Pena Monde. And is how he said it? How do you pronounce that place? Pena Monde? Pena Monde. Penamundi, whatever. So he was like a low-level worker there.

And then we paper-clipped him out, and he went to Convair and built Centaur. and I feel like he was low level enough that he would have dished some dirt on the whole Von Braun situation and I feel like if he was still around like we could get some really good stuff out of him and he has all these amazing stories from developing Centaur so that would be fun but that's like so niche

it's ridiculous now you Jake I feel like you're a man who likes a slightly mysterious guest Right? And then that like, like, I feel like it's hard to avoid wanting Yuri Gagarin to be on the show. No, I'm whiffing on this Jake stuff. You're a total mystery to me, apparently.

Yeah, yeah. It's not it? I mean, that's a pretty good at it. It's not a it. Because I figured we don't know really anything about him. No one ever is able to talk to him, right, in his whole life. Like, we never knew really anything that's going on there. We could probably get some stories out of, like, what was really going on.

I don't know why all my historical ones are like, what can I expose about fallen empires? It's like my whole beat here. The only problem with Yerga Garan, so I have this like one of a favorite story of mine from being a hockey fan. In the hots when the Oilers were doing really good, Eminton Oilers, go oil. They had a player named Ladislav Schmid, who was a defenseman. And there's a story about how he, because he's Czech, I think, and he like, came over and was, you know, joining the NHL and didn't speak like any English. And so he kept, like, the coaches are always asking them, like, what do you think about this?

Like, how do you feel about your, you know, just doing coaching stuff? And he just kept responding, hockey good coach, hockey good coach. And so I feel like that's what a Yuri Gagarin interview might end up being like, Rocket Good, Rocket Good, guys, Rocket Good. I don't know. He's just so cheery and I don't know, what was his English capable of? Okay, that's my thing. So what's your actual answer? Okay, so I thought about what is the intersection between my love of planetary science and Mars and wacky, off-nominal guests, and this is what I could come up with here.

Oh, yes. Okay. Percival Lel Lowe. I can't center. That's good. Lord Jack Parsons, the steely-eyed missile man. SCE to Oaks guy is pretty good. What the hell is that?

There we go. Holy smokes. Percival Lowe. Yeah. So Percival Lowe, of course, is the guy that was good. was convinced that there was people on Mars and went and built a whole observatory that ended up finding Pluto instead. And Jack Parsons was the guy who was like split his time between Scientology, sex cults and founding JPL.

Oh, that's right. Yeah. Just casually. Yeah, just casually did that, you know, so that was my guess. That's good. The other one would have been, who was the Chinese guy that was like involved early? Day's JPL. Yeah, the other guy in the suicide squad,

Chen Chusin, yeah. There it is. That would be a good one. All right, that one was a thinker, Brendan. Oh, good. This one is probably the most off-the-wall question, and I love it so much. Because the other ones have been totally right down the middle.

There were a lot of off-the-wall ones, though. So if someone forced you to destroy any currently operating planetary exploration spacecraft, which would you destroy? I like how punitive it is. Yeah. All right. You're my, I'm going first, right?

No, you're going first. I'm going first. And I'm actually like really having a hard time with this. And I couldn't come up with an answer on this one. So I'm going to, I'm going to just wing it here on the air and see how it goes. But I can't think of the thing that like you particularly, don't like in the planetary portfolio. George says Zuma.

Yeah, he's too much. So I've decided that you're just like, you're all in on just causing chaos. Oh, I love it. Yeah, and so you're just going to do something like perseverance and just like. Wow, that's way more spiteful. I figured you would say like one of the Chinese missions

just to like stir the geopolitical pot a little bit. Maybe, yeah, yeah, maybe. No, what I actually said was a mission that I feel like we got all we need to get out of it. And at this point, like, Juno is an easy target. They're into extended missions now. The engine didn't work right anyway. They've done a couple fly-vis of the moons. Let's get on with it and just finish dragon fly out, would you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, Juno. It would have been so much of an easier answer like a month ago when Insight was like needed the mercy. And we just do a mercy killing. Yeah.

See, I had the same problem with this, though, because I thought for a second, I'm like, well, maybe Jake wants to take out, like, one of the Mars ones that's right on the edge so that it would inspire some investment in Mars. But then I was like, no, but I know that you're also somebody who's like, well, it wouldn't matter anyway because they'll figure it out with the current assets because there's not that much coming down the line. We wouldn't need to build anything like that for what we have coming up. So then I'm like, all right, I don't really think I've ever heard Jake care about the sun at all. so I think you would just let Parker fly into the sun. Wow, okay, okay, no, not the answer. Not the answer we had here. No, and it's funny because like for someone like me,

there's probably no answer I can write. That's not going to get me letters, but, um, so I decided to just go all in. So this, this one here is spicy. Are you starting the pot? This might be a hot take, but what about this? Voyager. Wow.

One final exit of the solar system. We've gotten all we need. out Voyager. Let's be honest. There's nothing left for Voyager to give us. It's done its job. And as much as I love it, it's taken up the big antenna quite a bit, not quite a bit. It's the only antenna I can use. And so it's taking it up some now. All right, that's resourceful. I thought you also might say New Horizons for a similar reason. And the general, I don't think you were superviving with New Horizons over the years. That's a pretty good guess, too. That might have been a close second. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

I suck at this game I'm terrible alright what is the most overhyped rocket hmm there's a lot of them this is going to be a funny one

so I all right I mean in terms of you Jake I feel like you tend to not get sucked too far down into like the new rocket startup

rabbit hole right so like you know You don't even get that hot and bothered about spin launch. Like, you're like, whatever. That's fine. I'm 100% sure your answer is Starship. Ooh. That would be spicy.

Yeah. I don't even spicy. You actually think that. Whatever you wrote down is not correct. You think Starship is overhunt. And I know it. Well, it's not what I wrote down. Well, you got it wrong.

You're not far off, though. Falcon Heavy So good Everyone thought This rocket was going to change the world Even me I made a stupid podcast About this rocket

And what is it done Just like the DOD took it over And it flies once every 30 months Like what is the deal with this rocket What a waste Jake Like it's fun to watch Do losers come back

I get it But I need more than entertainment For my rockets shit man is that a is that a hot take that you're like I mean I feel like I could I could understand

and I could feel like I could also put up an argument for you know yeah no it's it's pretty hype but it's also like I guess my problem that I'm held up on is like

the one area that it took over of the military industrial complex as big launches it like completely took over and eliminated the rest of the industry. So, like, that's a legitimate thing, you know? Yeah, a little bit. All right.

What do you got for me? We got to pick up the pace a little, I feel like. Okay, yeah. So I thought that I just picked the rocket that's currently getting a lot of press attention, but you don't like it just went with Virgin Galactic's spaceship two engine, whatever that is. God, he's so. I'm an open book, and Jake is a total mystery. That's what we're learning here.

It's what, three to one? Four to one. That's four to one, Jake. Four to one. All right. This is another off the wall one. Have fun with this one. What astronaut are you most disappointed in?

Such a funny question. It's funny to consider it because the standards at which everyone holds astronauts to. When you say the words disappointed, Brendan, it's like, wow, I've never considered being disappointed in an astronaut. And whoever you pick will not be on your podcast if they are still around. That's 100% true. I think I'm guessing first, Jake. A couple of things ran through my head when I'm thinking

about Jake and astronauts, right? I'm thinking about Oleg Artemiev throwing a satellite into a solar panel on the ISS. That was pretty disappointing. Bill Nelson just generally Jeff Bezos

who was the pilot of that SR 71 at Udvar Hazi Was that you called out by name In the museum Do you remember who that was? I'm not going to remember it now But no the guy that got in a drunk driving accident

That one Was it? I thought it was like Oh was it a drunk driving thing I thought it was like the cross state lines murder plot or whatever somebody died next time you go to the Udvar Hasi Center

Brendan have you ever been there to see spatial discovery I haven't but I'm going this summer so I will check it out okay yeah that's our 7th 71 there and it's got an astronaut name on the side and then you should look it up when you get there pull Wikipedia up and remind us who it is

and then you'll discover a great true crime story but this is it this of all the ones that I have answered for Jake this one is so easy Harrison Schmidt is a complete disappointment to you. He is your favorite astronaut. He remains your favorite astronaut. And he is hilariously bizarre at this point in his life in a disappointing way for you. I wish I had thought of that when I did this. How did you not think of that? What is happening on this show? You're just

writing down wrong answers so that you win by a blowout. This is a complete conspiracy. What did you write How did you write down? Victor Glover, because I love him too much? What did you write down? Well, you were close. You were close. Jeff Bezos. I said it.

This is an outrage. This is an absolute outrage. I thought we'd have so much fun. We always have so much fun talking about the astronaut gatekeeping. It's like we definitely need to include all the suborbital passengers as this list. And then I just thought about Jeff Bezos spraying champagne on those girls when William Shatner was crying. And then I'm just like that.

That's all I can think about now is that moment. my god i'm so i'm so annoyed i'm so annoyed this is a conspiracy what i think mine was do you already cheat and know what my answer is i followed the same logic of of what i just said and also my previous answer and said richard branson amazing not at all correct but amazing it's i don't think my problem here's my dis where's my disappointment is sourced is in my answer paris and schmidt right is that it is someone of high esteem who then gets things catastrophically wrong and and takes with them a whole chunk of society, right? Gene Cernan, national disappointment for this takes in the last 10 years. That's my problem with

him. They're like days after the shuttle program ended. He was in Congress like, we got to keep flying the shuttle. We got to keep doing it. And once we're doing it, then we figure out what's next. And I'm like, okay, that's a terrible strategy. He had that whole thing where he made Elon Musk cry on 60 minutes because he was shitting on SpaceX. I don't know if anyone remembers that. But Elon actually cried on 60 minutes because Gene Sternon was like, this sucks, SpaceX sucks, they're never going to do anything interesting. We should stop sending money their way.

Just complete lack of vision for what was next in the world. And great astronaut disappointment in the takes of astronauts. But like at that point, what do you expect people? I guess people are saying Valentina Tereshkova, that's a pretty good answer. That is a really good answer. Yeah. Dave is pointing out that Tereshkova is a complete worldwide disappointment. We went with national disappointments.

Yeah. So we both got that one wrong, Jake, for multiple reasons. And we did. I did consider ransom. We're going into the ones that I've hand-ticked now. So we do these like, because these are wildcard ones. Should we move like quick like like rapid fire? What should we do?

No discussion? We can do rapid fire. Yeah. Let's do rapid fire. Yeah, we should do rapid. And I take this one just because of the. it was written. Which of Jake's two arms,

if he may have had more, which of Jake's two arms did Anthony grab when the Falcon Heavy demo launched? And I want to know if Jake remembers this happening, and Anthony remembers doing it. Are we going to hold it up on three? Yeah.

All right. Run. Two, three. Right. What? We literally got to go to the tape. I gotta go to the tape. First, I have to find this damn video. I was like, I was there with you.

I don't remember that happening. You were watching the mission. I was, no. You were to my left. No, I don't think that's true. I think I was to your left if you were looking at the video. You know what I'm saying? Hold on.

There we go. I'm rolling the tape, Jake. All right. You're in this video too, Brendan. This is very appropriate that you're here for. We're going to know right away. Yeah, here it is. Are you right?

Right arm. That's the right arm right there. Look at that. That's the right arm. Caught. I don't know if there's any contact with your left hand, but it may have been, the answer may be both. Okay. All right.

So the only thing I'm getting right is my memory in this game. All right. When they eventually make an off-nominal, the movie, who, which actor do you want to play you? all right this one we do need some explanation on i feel like uh i shall explain first jake you are hmm you're gonna say some something are you did you write down your answers already no i'm i'm thinking i don't think of what i'm like i'm like actors actors who are actors who can you think of who is in movies oh man is this going to take you the rest of to the show to figure out.

Oh my goodness. Okay. Well, we're just going to go for it then. He's going to take an hour. He can't even think of who he wants to play us. Nailed it. You're going to say some shit for me like Joe Pesci. And for you, you're going to say Brad Pitt.

Those are what your answers are going to be. Wait, what about me? He didn't decide me. I figured we had to do both of us. Who would I want? I get that right, though. I'm getting that one right. But am I asking who I think you would think should play you?

Yes. Yeah. And then you can also say who you think. I got this right. Just for the clarity, it is 4-3 at the moment because I'm making a late game comeback. But Jake, who do you think I would want to play me and I would want to play you? I'm like not good at actors. Okay.

So, yeah, Tom Cruise, you're right. That would totally be. Okay. And for you? George, son Spunky, and then I'm trying to think of like a tall person. I'm only giving you credit because I gave that one away. And I only guess me for you. So you only get credit if you guess you. And honestly, I think this is a pretty good answer.

Brendan, you're going to, you're the casting director. Jake's, I think, forfeited at this point. Yep. Have you forfeited? Will Arnett. He's Canadian. He's hilarious. It would make a great movie.

Tom Cruise and Will Arnette would be wonderful. Okay. All right. All right. That's a tough one for me because I used to work with the guy who was, I'm not even kidding, you like a splitting image of Will Arnett, like height, appearance, voice, mannerisms, everything. Like, it is, it is Will Arnett in a secret special sublife that he has. That's how big Canada is.

I could see that. I can see that. And yes, everyone would say in the chat, Tom Cruise, because of the height and the awesomeness and the Scientology. Because of the awesomeness. All right. Favorite bad space movie or TV show? Jake loves Geostorm. Don't even write it. Don't even write it. Four, four, four, four, baby. I'm making a comeback. You're going to get this one, though.

Bad movie, bad movie. Your favorite? My favorite bad movie. Was Geostorm with Gerard Butler? Is that that that one? Yeah. My wife loves that movie, too, Jake. Oh my God, I have no idea. 2001. 2001. That's a hot take saying it's a bad movie.

We've been on this beat for a couple weeks. The one that I, my least favorite bad movie is gravity. Okay. I hate gravity. All right, we've got two more left. So what's the final score? What's the score going in? No.

We're going on here. All right. Star Wars, Star Trek, or Firefly? What's your favorite? All right. I'm ready. Anthony is wars. Wars.

Jake is Trek. This is why we work. Are we tied up? We're tied up. Five five. Going into the last question. So I was going to pick something so that you could plug your favorite podcast episode. But I think we got to get something a little bit harder here on this one.

Going off the board a little bit. So I'm going off the board here. Let's see. Where's he going to land? Ugliest rocket. We're going with the ugliest rocket. Ugliest rocket. Nice.

I have to look up what the name of it is. Hold on one sec. Of yours? This is good information. The one I'm thinking of, I just can't remember the name. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, there it is. I wonder how he looked up the name of his ugliest rocket. What is the identifying information on that? Oh, boy, I actually struggle mightily with what you think ugly rockets are. What do you think mine is? I feel like you know mine. I don't think you like New Shepherd. Oh, that's not correct.

I did not like Aryan 4. It looked like somebody put it together in the garage, and I cannot believe that it flew to space multiple times. That's pretty accurate. It was like, what if four countries made a state? without talking to each other and then sent it all to Australia to stick it together. That's what it ran for. Oh, Jake, I, man, this is really tough.

Because I forget if you, if you're thinking about like the design or the hodgepodgeness of old rockets. Hmm. I'm pretty stumped, but I have sent messages about this in the Discord before. That doesn't really help me. I don't think I read the Discord enough. I kind of feel like you hate like Thor Abel or something really weird from like

KSP history days. That's just like a strange looking rocket. You know what I'm talking about? You know that one? Should I pull it up? Yeah. I think you might get this one. I think that might be so I wrote I wrote it like this. Delta B? Is that the same rocket?

I think it might be the same. same rocket. Is that true? Pretty much. Yes. Did I nail this? Delta B. Thor, Delta B. Yeah. That's what I mean, you know, well, this is going to go to Brendan to decide. I'm going to put these split screen, Brandon. Highbreaker. I'm going to put these, I'm going to put these split screen real quick. Hold on. Let's just, let's really inspect what's going on here. Okay. Is this the same rocket, Brendan? Uh, full screen. Yeah. Yep, I say, I say it is. And the other reason I'm saying that is because you bribe me with this microphone. So I'm going to decide.

I think Anthony wins. I paid $20 to win this game 5'4. And I will contest. Even though I won, I'm still contesting this game because Jake didn't answer Harrison Schmidt on that one answer. And that is straight up. This is a rigged game. Hey, as we discussed in the prep for this, that's the game.

That's the game. That's the game. That's the game. Oh, that's a great, great point, Brendan. We're going to book you for a future show as well. That'll be more fun than this one, because the format is a lot more fun. I mentioned that we're doing Family Feud version of this, right? Anomily Feud.

But what that requires is all of you to answer these questions. I have reset my expectations for how well you will answer these questions based on how well you submitted the questions. But if you go to offnom.com slash feud, and luckily for you, however you spell feud, we'll get it right. Because I know people probably won't spell it right. Because sometimes I'm like, I don't know, is it you first? Go to offnon.com slash feud. You get this Google form, and then you will be able to answer all these questions.

We have not yet determined who will slog through this Excel sheet and format at all and figure that out. We're not going to put that on Brendan. We don't need to give him more homework. We'll make someone in the Discord do it. Yeah. Whoever our favorite is, I'll send you a $20 microphone, and you're, you're, you're, You're going to slog through a Google sheet. There are works.

Offnom.com slash feud. Answer the questions. We need your answers so that we can calculate what everyone else there thinks. And you're going to get many of the same questions that we answered today, including some other ones that we did not talk about that are particularly funny. Just looking, is there a particularly funny one in here, Jake? That was something we didn't talk about. We talked overrated robotic missions.

That would be fun, one to see what people think is overrated. we're going to see how well we know the audience. So, yeah, answer it up. Anyway, Brendan, what have you not do lately? Because you've not been on the show for a while. So you're probably cooking something up over there. Not really. Just been doing my thing.

Yeah, no updates. I've actually been filling in for my boss, so I haven't had too much time to actually go out and do reporting. But she'll be back February 1st, and I'll be back on the Space Beat. So this is a really fun, on time to chat space with my space friends. So thanks for the invite.

We did nothing topical, so I feel like you're not prepared for going back on the beat. But also, since Artemis, nothing's happened. So you're in luck. There's been no other stories. It was space adjacent with this show. So that's close enough. Well, I feel like you were probably lying that you haven't been up to anything. Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've got some cool podcast episodes in the K-N. Got some fun ones coming up. Yeah, I really was not prepared for this. Yeah, I'm not doing anything. I just meant that you recently appeared on Jake's podcast and then forgot about it, like five minutes later. Yeah, it's true.

I was just on Jake's podcast. That's right. Yeah. That's right. You and our good friend, Emily, both making an appearance. So it's our We Martians' annual kickoff, do it every year. with the three of us. And we talked about the moon.

There was some good moon stuff happening right now. Moon's hot. Moon's spicy right now. It's good. The moon's so in right now. The moon's so in right now. And that reminds me, I'm going to get Anthony back on my show.

It's been a while since you've been on the show to talk. It's been a while since I've done my own show because nothing was happening. But then this week, all of the small rockets blew up. So I feel like I've got one percolating here. Two divergent storylines with ABL and Virgin orbit losing a rocket. So that's, Pretty big. And then we got a rocket lab coming up in a couple weeks. So I'm trying to figure out my travel schedule to get down there for that one to the Anthony flight facility,

the Calangelo flight facility. That'll be great. And relativity. Karen won. Karen won soon, too. That'll be a fun one of the same. Hopefully that's after you're back on the Florida Space Beat so you can go watch it. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I got to go out there. Actually, I have a podcast that you have put together. I got a tour of the facility that was like super cool. Like, they let me touch the second stage. It's frigging awesome. So if that thing breaks, it's probably because I touched it. So last week, we did predictions for the year with Lauren Grush.

And I feel much better about mine now, which was that return one will fail after Max Q. And I feel like this is going to be fantastic content when it does fail after Max Q and I can blame it on you personally. Yes, I touched it. Did you touch it in like a Mike Pence way where you just like placed your hand gently on it? They were like, do you want to touch it? I was like, no, I don't want to touch the rock. I'm like, okay, I'll touch the rocket. This is a shocking scoop that we've got on the show, Jake.

The relativity lets people touch the rockets. This is huge. We were going to blow this thing wide open. Oh, thank you so much, Brendan, for putting up with us and hanging out in your office when you didn't mean to be hanging out in your office. Yeah, now it's fun. Thanks for me here for a while. It'll get my office away.

I feel like you have to show up like once a week. All right, everybody. Submit your answers. Don't disappoint us like last time. And we look forward to figuring out what you actually think about space. So, Godspeed. See you, everybody.

Bye. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 2, 1,000, end of death.