Off-Nominal - Origins: Jim Bridenstine

Episode Date: June 15, 2020

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine joins Jake and Anthony for the first episode of Off-Nominal Origins. We talk about how he got interested in space and aviation, his time at Rice University, his years as a Navy pilot, his continuing fascination with the Rocket Racing League, and a whole lot more.And yes, obviously, we talk about the time Jake and Anthony started a weird little sideshow at IAC 2019 with The Jim Bridenstine Fan Club.DrinksDiet Mtn Dew® - MTN DEW®TopicsSpaceX’s DM-2, NASA TV, YouTubeThe Jim Bridenstine Fan ClubOff-Nominal 24 - Jim-AdjacentThe Space Review: Rocket racers, shuttles, and TulsaX-29: The Most Aerodynamically Unstable Aircraft Ever BuiltPicksArtemis: Andy Weir, Rosario Dawson, Amazon.comThe Man Who Ran the Moon: James E. Webb, NASA, and the Secret History of Project Apollo: Bizony, Piers, Amazon.comFollow Jim@jimbridenstine on TwitterNASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine | NASAFollow 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-NominalLet’s Make Space Better - Off-NominalOff-Nominal - YouTubeOff-Nominal Logo Tee (WeMartians Shop, MECO Shop)

DLS and go for main engine, start. Welcome to space. Administrator Brydenstein, welcome to Off Nominal. Well, thank you. It's great to be with you always. We're really excited to have you on here. You're a bit of a legend around our show, and I know our listeners are going to be super excited about this. Right off the top, I wanted to just congratulate you

and the whole NASA team on a really successful DM2 flight. It was pretty thrilling to watch. Well, I'll tell you, it was a... I was a bit nervous. I'm not going to lie about it. But it was very exciting. And, of course, it went as good as it could have gone. Bob and Doug, I just think the world of them,

they're continuing to do good work on the International Space Station. I know a lot of people are celebrating, but we got to get them home safely. They're not even halfway through the mission at this point. So we'll get them home safely and then we can celebrate. Yeah, that's good. And, you know, I think if everything goes as smoothly as the countdown and everything for the launch, you should be in pretty good shape.

Yeah, no, absolutely. We're excited about it. Yeah, you got two days worth of countdown jitters in your system there. But DM2, how was that? It's kind of like I felt more nervous the second day for some reason. I think I didn't quite believe that it was happening already on the first day. So it didn't hit me until three days later. And I was like, oh, my gosh, this is actually going to go off today.

Yeah, well, what's fascinating is the first day, you know, we had on NASA TV, we had about 5 million viewers. And we were just shocked because it was a record. But because of all of the anticipation, that was on a Wednesday, on Saturday, when we tried for the second time, we had over 10 million viewers on NASA TV live. which NASA TV doesn't usually get good ratings. It's not our primary focus, I'll say that. But for this particular day, it was not,

and it wasn't just NASA TV. We trended on social media. We trended on Twitter, one, two, three, and four. We were, of course, on all the networks, all of the news networks. We broke records for viewership on Discovery Channel, and science channel. It was seen by everybody around the world.

It was really remarkable. And I'm just so proud of the team. I think the production went well. A lot of people don't realize the importance of doing these very high-profile, stunning achievements. It's really important for our country as we step into leading the world in space exploration and getting international partners to join us. having them increase their budgets the way we're increasing our budget.

And of course, all of that will build upon this success. I could tell that you were really feeling it after the launch. I think we saw you get a little bit teary in one of the interviews. I don't know if you can speak to that. Yeah, that happened. It happened once. I generally try not to do that. You know, all the interviewers, they always put a microphone and a camera in your face,

and they're like, so tell us how you feel. And I'm like, well, I feel good. I think we're in a good spot. No, but how do you really feel? And they just keep going after it. But this particular interviewer asked me about Bob and Doug, Bob Benkin and Doug Hurley are two astronauts. And when I started thinking about them and talking about who they are

and what they've done in their lives and here they are, you know, getting ready to go again this time. on a brand new rocket. This was the fifth time in human history, I should say the fifth time in American history that we've put American astronauts on a brand new vehicle. So it was exciting. And yeah, I don't get emotional until you start

having me talk about the people. Then sometimes it gets me a little bit emotional. So I mean, as thrilling as it was, it was also, we should probably just spend a little bit of time talking about some of the stuff going on around DM2. I know that it was a little bit bittersweet with the demonstrations and stuff. Can you maybe speak a little bit to, you know, what's NASA's role in sort of keeping the energy level up and keeping things positive? And what can NASA do to help out with everything going on? Yeah, it's an important point.

And yeah, you know, obviously a lot of the channels when the launch was going on, It was split screen. And it was split screen for a reason because of the demonstrations and protests. Obviously, we have seen police brutality. We have seen social unrest. We have seen violence. And in these last few weeks, it's been really hard. And that's, of course, on the back of the coronavirus pandemic that has affected everybody so deeply.

And so, you know, when the coronavirus pandemic broke out, we moved very rapidly to have people work from home, which was not unusual for NASA. We have a teleworking capability that is probably the best in the federal government. And so it wasn't that big of a deal to go to telework. But we wanted to protect two missions specifically in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. The two missions that we needed to protect were commercial crew, the launch of the crew dragon and Bob and Doug. We also needed to protect the Mars 2020 Mars Perseverance launch. And so we were very aggressive in anything that wasn't one of those two missions. It was mandatory telework.

everybody needs to go home and work from home. And other than those two missions, which we protected. So, I mean, that was the backdrop. But then, of course, as we got closer and closer to the launch, obviously we had the killing of George Floyd, and we had the protests and the unrest and then the violence. And it was just, yeah, there was a lot happening. But I did think it was important to continue with this mission because, you know, if NASA has done anything in its history, it's stunning achievements in the midst of turmoil.

And that goes back to 1968. You know, we think about the war in Vietnam and the protests on college campuses and at the nation's capital. We think about the difficult time we had. It was the middle of the Cold War. It was the height of the Cold War. There was obviously injustice back then, the civil rights abuses and the civil rights protests. There was a lot of turmoil in 1968. Assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.

It was a tough time. And yet we landed on the moon. And for that moment in time, when we landed on the moon, everything stopped. And people paid attention to this stunning achievement. that had never happened before in human history and just made everybody look up in awe and wonder. And so I think that's kind of the legacy of NASA. So we thought it was important that we give people an opportunity to maybe pause and reflect on what we can do when we all work together. You know, at NASA we have a unity campaign.

It's been going on now for a number of years. and we're working every day at NASA to make sure that the people who work at NASA, that they have the ability to, you know, we're putting together discussions and opportunities to discuss the social issues of the day. We're certainly giving people health and wellness opportunities to take care of themselves and deal with the stresses. And when I talk about the stresses, there's a lot of stuff. stress out there when you think about, you know, just in my life. I mean, I have, you know,

three kids, a wife and a mother-in-law that lives in my home. My mother-in-law is in a wheelchair. She has multiple sclerosis. And so it's one of the, she's in her 70s, so we have to make sure that she doesn't get coronavirus. So a lot of people around the country and around the world are dealing with these very challenging issues. But really, I think what NASA can do is bring people together for a moment in time and say, look, the future looks so bright. Look at what we can do in the midst of this, and look at what the future holds. And a lot of my communications during those days, it wasn't just about launching American astronauts on American rockets,

which was critically important. It was also about what comes next. We're building an international coalition to go to the moon sustainably with the purpose of getting to Mars. And I think that message was well received. People are ready to do something much bigger than ourselves. And that's really what NASA can bring to the situation. Another aspect that I was kind of hyped up about with DM2 is that this is the start of commercial crew flights to the ISS, but you've also seen SpaceX talking up, you know, other missions with axiom space and things like that that are going to bring up astronauts from nations that don't have a space program maybe, or astronauts

from nations that do, but don't get to fly too often. And I do feel like sometimes that that bit is overlooked that it is increasing access to space for a lot of different nations around the world, not just our own, which is incredible as your catchphrase goes, you know. But it is, it definitely has more far-reaching effects than it's talked about day-to-day, which is a really cool kind of a meaning behind the flight, really. Absolutely. And you've heard me say it before, and I'll keep saying it. I know your audience has probably heard me say it a million times.

But the goal here is NASA needs to be a customer. We need to be one customer of many customers in a robust commercial marketplace for low Earth orbit. and we need to have numerous providers that compete on cost and innovation and safety. And if we can achieve that, it's transformational for human spaceflight in general. What was so successful, I'm knocking on wood because the mission isn't over yet, but what was so successful in the launch of commercial crew is that NASA did not define the requirement. We defined high-level requirements.

We said, here's what the payload needs to be. be, here's what the safety needs to be, but we want commercial industry to come up with ways to get to space at a lower cost and more innovative than ever before. Of course, from that competition, we ended up with two competitors, SpaceX and Boeing, and now we're seeing the reusability of the rockets. That's very salient. Everybody can see that. But there are things that SpaceX did that NASA never would have done on its own.

The idea of using super-cooled liquid oxygen to get more thrust and more specific impulse for every unit of mass, that had never been done before, and NASA probably would not have done that on its own. The idea that we're going to have nine engines on a single rocket to boost our astronauts to space, that's something that NASA probably would not have done. The idea that we would take composite overwrapped pressure vessels and put them inside of a liquid oxygen tank and have that done safely. That's something NASA never would have done on its own. But what we did is we set the high-level requirements, and we made the providers prove through engineering and testing. Prove to us. prove to us that this is a safe vehicle, and they did it. And that's what we're so proud of.

The level of innovation that came from this launch, and of course that doesn't even, the reusability itself, the idea that you put legs on a rocket and you harden the engine section so that it can come back Supersonic and you have guidance, navigation, and control to land it,

you know, these are things that, are transformational for rocket launch in general. And I think everybody now is going to have to figure out how to keep up with that. So again, NASA sets the high-level agenda. NASA says you have to prove to us that what you're doing is sound from an engineering perspective and it's sound from a testing perspective. And if you can prove it, we will go with it.

And we did. and I think we're all better for it. But again, now there's customers that are not us that are in the mix. And that's so positive for our program. You mentioned Axiom. You know, Axiom is working with Tom Cruise in the making of a movie. Still waiting on his other movie that was supposed to come out this summer. But I'm pumped for this.

I'm still waiting for Top Gun 2 here. But I'm also pumped about this. I'm not going to throw shade at this. I'm pumped for Tom Cruise to go to the ISS. Who am I kidding? Yeah. Well, you know, there was a time when Tom Cruise made a movie called Top Gun 1, the first one, and a sixth grader in Arlington, Texas at the time, saw that and determined he was going to be a Navy pilot,

and that was me. And it changed the course of my life. So if Tom Cruise can make a new movie about space exploration, maybe a movie on the International Space Station, and a sixth grader somewhere in the United States or somewhere in the world can see it and be inspired to be the next astronaut or be inspired to be the next Elon Musk. That's exactly what we're hoping for. And that's what space exploration is all about. It's about inspiration.

It's about saying to the next generation that there is so much more to do. We need you to go into the STEM fields and learn what you need to learn so that we can continue to explore deeper into the solar system. And that's what I'm hopeful for with the movie. But again, again, we're talking about NASA being a customer. And if Hollywood is interested in going into space and making movies, that means NASA is doing something right. We are a customer that drives down our cost to the taxpayer.

It enables us to use our resources to go further, to go to the moon and on to Mars. But as you also mentioned, And it also opens the door to private companies, universities, international partners. There's so many opportunities right now that are popping up because of the success that we've had. So it's all very good. So you mentioned a couple things there that are perfect segues for us. Number one, you said that our fans have probably heard you mentioned a couple things before. Not only have they heard it, you have a particular love from our fan community.

so much so that when we were coming down to IAC last October, was it October? I think in D.C., we had a listener out there, Kevin, who made us a batch of pins that had eventually led their way into your hands. And I say eventually it was like right after the opening ceremony, I think, that somebody handed you one. And we eventually got a chance to hang out and talk during the week. The Jim Bridenstein fan club pins became some sort of underground weird little thing at IAC. I don't know if you've seen the updated version of those, but we do have a website set up, the Jim Briansteinfan.com. If there is a new one since the IAC, I have not seen it. It makes me a little nervous, so I don't necessarily want to advertise for it, but I will

tell you, I'm honored. I'm honored to have a fan club. I don't really understand it, but I'm honored. Neither do we. That's the best part. It barely exists, but this is it, if you've got one. But one of the things that Jake and I were talking about back when we were at IAC was we hear you a lot in these different situations where you're talking about launches or you're in these different panels or in Congress, back in Congress, I should say. But we don't get to hear a lot of stuff from you about what got you into space. We heard a little bit there on the Top Gun side of things. So we thought it would be cool to have this format that we're calling the Origin series where we talk to people like yourself in the space industry about what got them in the space industry. to space. So we thought we could have a little discussion around some of your history, the different things that you've done that led you to NASA today. Oh, yeah. But one other thing I should mention,

Jake, you might have a prop for this as well. One of the bits that we do in the show is that this is our casual space show where we tend to drink a beer or something and talk about space, but this would not be right if we both weren't drinking Diet Mountain Dew right now. Nice. We actually, I've never had this in my life, but I'm about to drink this as we talk about your history. So it'll change your life. We'll see. I've got to get this open without exploding it on my desk. Yeah, all right, we're good. All right, we've officially cracked the Diet Mountain Dew. I'm about to have my first sip. But maybe you could tell us a little bit about your early, you know, we heard your bit about Tom Cruise there in Top Gun, which was mine as well. But was that the time that got you into space and aviation? Or was there something else early on in your life that got you hooked? So I'll tell you, when I was in first grade, this is fascinating.

When I was in first grade, they asked us to draw a picture of what we wanted to be when we grew up. And the picture that I drew, I drew a picture of an airplane, and I had a guy standing in front of the airplane with a hat on. I guess I thought that pilots wore hats or whatever. Of course they do. Yeah, right. At the bottom of the picture, I wrote, I want to be a pilot. And I spelled it, I guess I knew how to spell the word pie. So I spelled it Pi, P-I-E-L-E-O-T.

I want to be a pilot. And, you know, that was in first grade. I actually remember drawing that, but I had forgotten that I had drawn it. But my mom saved it for so many years. So I drew that in first grade. grade, I knew I wanted to be a pilot at least that early. I almost thought you were going to say you drew yourself in a suit. No, I had a hat. I guess in first grade, pilots have hats. And I, you know, I guess airline pilots do. That's probably where I got it.

So I, let's see, in fifth grade, my parents put me in a summer camp. that was at the University of Texas at Arlington. And what that summer camp did is it taught you how to use a wind tunnel. And so I learned about Bernoulli's theory of flight. I learned about, you know, camber and aspect ratio and, you know, what makes flight possible. That was in fifth grade. And boy, that really got me even more interested in aviation. What else did this camp do?

Was it just wind tunnel camp or were there other events going on? No, it was a wind tunnel camp. It was about... I have never heard of such a thing. That's amazing. Yeah. Every day we would go in and we would play with the wind tunnel and we would change the shape of the wing and see how it affected lift and drag and do those things.

I loved it. If we weren't in the middle of a pandemic right now, I would sign up for wind tunnel camp right now. Yeah. Like, I would find one near me and go overnight, for sure. Well, a lot of people don't realize. NASA has the biggest, most powerful wind tunnels in existence. And, of course, we have the arc jet, which is out at the Ames Research Center in California. We're able to accelerate to wind speeds of multiple thousands of miles per hour.

And it's not even really wind speeds. It's more like particle acceleration. but it's a pretty impressive capability. I take it that's not the one that was in Arlington for you. No, no, that's not what it was. This was more of just a big fan with some flow and some, I don't know how they made the colors change somehow as the wind flowed over the wing.

But it was fascinating. And then so that was fifth grade. And then after that, that's when the movie Top Gun came out. And I'll be honest, I was very disappointed when the movie Top Gun came out because I thought at that point, everybody is going to want to be a pilot. And it's going to be a lot more difficult for a guy like me to become a pilot. If everybody in the – everybody in my age wants to be a pilot, it's going to be a lot more competitive and difficult. And for a period of time, it actually did become very, very competitive. do. I went to college. I obviously went to middle school and high school. I always had that desire to

be a pilot. I never had the money to go learn how to be a pilot, but I had the desire. I went to college at Rice University. I had three majors, economics, business, and psychology, none of which had anything to do with aviation. But I really did. I really enjoyed economics. Most of which, though, are direct relevant to running NASA, I'll say. Yeah, well, that's true. Economics and business, for sure. I think the other one's got some space. I've seen you in Congress. Yeah, I've seen you in Congress. Yeah, well, there's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot you could, I'll tell you, Congress is a study in psychology in itself, right? For sure. You've got a double major in that alone based on what you've done here. I'm interested in how you chose Rice. There's the obvious space connection with JFK's speech,

happening there. Yeah. Were you drawn to it for some other reason, or was that just a cool side effect, or was that the reason that it peaked your interest? So I was recruited by Rice. I was a swimmer in high school. I was a swimmer my whole life. And I got recruited by a number of different schools.

Rice was one of them, and I took a recruiting trip there. And they offered me a partial scholarship for swimming, not a full scholarship, but a partial scholarship. And I just, I thought it was, of all the schools that I visited, it was, I just liked it the best. I thought it was, it was just a, it's small in numbers, large in, you know, physical size. Of course, there was the JFK speech there. The Rice Stadium at the time was the largest stadium in Texas. Jerry's world had not been built in Arlington at that time.

Talking to an eagle fan here, Jim, watch it. I know, I know. Well, so I, you know, I was, I just really liked Rice when I visited. And so I wanted to go there. I studied economics and business. I had a shoulder injury my sophomore year. My sophomore year had a shoulder injury, so they redshirted me. and then they offered me a half scholarship if I would stay a fifth year.

And so I was majoring in economics and business, and I figured if I stay a fifth year, I can swim because I was still improving, and I could also pick up a third major, which of course was psychology. So that's what I ended up doing. And then when I graduated, everybody who goes to Rice and studies economics and business, this, they all interviewed to go into like investment banking or business consulting. That's pretty much the normal path. And I did all those interviews.

I had good interviews. I had good offers. But as much as much as I was happy about the offers, it wasn't what I wanted to do. I could not get excited. And this is, I think, a very important message, especially for young people. I personally could not get excited about becoming an investment banker, even though the money was good. And again, nothing against investment banking. That's something that's critically important, but nothing against business consultants.

Again, very important. But personally, I just could not get excited about it. And so I called my dad and I was like, Dad, I've got good job offers. I need to decide what I need to decide. I'm going to do here. I said, but I'm just not, I'm not excited about doing any of these jobs. And my dad said, well, what do you want to do? I said, well, I still want to be a pilot. I want to wear a hat. That's what Jim said. Exactly. I want to wear a hat. And my dad was very clear. It was like, well, I'm not paying for that. And so I went and I talked to

the Air Force recruiter, the Navy recruiter. I looked at Army. Army was pretty much only helicopters. I wanted to fly jets. So it really came down to the Air Force or the Navy. Now, this is a story I don't often tell, and I'm not really proud of. This is exactly the kind of stuff that Jake and I were looking for when we invited you. This is great.

But we're all casual right now drinking Diet Mountain Dew. got me loosened up here. So, so I, you know, I went down to the Navy recruiter, and of course they, I took what was called the ASVAB,

and it basically is a standardized test that tests that tests you on different things. And the recruiter was like, oh, man, you're perfect for, you could be a nuclear engineer technician. You know, my score was like really high. They were like,

you could, we need you to join. We need you to be a nuclear engineer technician. I said, I want to be a pilot. How do I be a pilot? Well, you've got to talk to the officer recruiter. And so I went and I had to take another test. So the officer recruiters for the Air Force and the Navy, you had to take what's called a flight aptitude test. And the Navy test was four hours long, and the Air Force test was six hours long. And so I had to make a decision, which one do I take first?

That's amazing. to take, I know, I intended to take both tests and then pick. But to me, you know, the first test I take, I'm going to take the short one. So I took the Navy test first and I did really well on it. And I was qualified. And I kind of just forgot about taking the Air Force test at all. Somewhere in a room, there was a Navy recruiter that says, no, look, we got to make the exam shorter. trust me, it's going to work.

And that person is now reaping the benefits. You never know how these things work out. You never know. But I fully intended to take both tests. But when I did well on the Navy test, then I started rationalizing to myself. You know, if I go into the Navy, I can fly off of aircraft carriers. I can land on aircraft carriers. I thought back about the movie Top Gun, which was about naval aviation.

So to be quite frank, I never took the Air Force test. I went into the Navy, and I'll be honest, I loved it. I loved being at sea. I loved flying military airplanes. I went through primary flight training, intermediate flight training, advanced flight training. after primary is when you select your platform. And I had what are called jet grades. I qualified to fly jets.

So it's called the Naval Standard Score. If you have above a 50, then you're qualified. And so I qualified. And in the class before me, everybody who had a Naval Standard score of 50 or higher, everybody got to go to fly fighters. And that's really, that's all I wanted to do my whole life, since I was a little kid. And after primary flight training,

I had the score was a 50. I can't remember what it was, but it was a 50-something, so I was qualified. And everybody in my class, except for the number one person, everybody in my class got drafted into E2 Hawkeyes, which is like a kind of a fat hot dog-looking airplane

with two propellers and a big radar dish on top. It is the only plane that looks like it's a one. wearing a hat. That's exactly. That has to be what it was. Super fud. The E2 Hawkeye had a hat. And so it wasn't what I wanted, but it's what I got asked to do by the military.

And I obviously, I took it. And I was not happy. But I had worked so hard to become a fighter pilot. And I was going to fly an E2 Hawkeye. But I'll tell you what I learned. And this is important. You know, when you're flying an E2, think about what an E2 pilot does. We take off an aircraft carrier.

This is what we did in Afghanistan and what we did in Iraq. We take off an aircraft carrier and then we fly into a country and we're in contact with all of the troops on the ground. So you've got a forward line of troops on the ground. Those troops, they need close air support and they need, and that's what we do in the Hawkeye. do command and control of a theater of battle from an airborne platform. And so we're talking to every airplane that's in the sky. We've got planes that are, you know, F-16s, F-15s, Air Force.

We've got F-18s in the Navy. At the time, we had F-14s in the Navy. So basically, you take control of all these different aircraft, and you talk to the troops on the ground and you find out what they're up against. Are they up against tanks? Are they up against armored personnel carriers? Are they up against just people? I mean, what are they up against?

And what do they need as far as close air support? And so in the Hawkeye, we do, we find the right asset with the right weapon system to take the right target at the right time so our troops can be safe and keep moving. And so what I'm saying is, you know, not only are you, not only are you commanding and controlling all these airplanes, you're in the sky yourself, so you're flying an airplane, commanding and controlling a theater of war from an airborne platform, you're making sure that the airplanes that are going to go to the target,

that they have the right fuel state. And if they don't, you've got to get them front side tanking. So you're controlling the tanker plan. You've got to get them backside tanking because once they come off target, they're always thirsty. So you've got to control the tanker plan on the backside. You got to make sure you have the right weapon with the right target. GPS guided weapons don't move.

Tanks move. So you've got to have a laser guided weapon for a tank. And so we're doing pretty much the command and control of the theater of battle from an airborne platform. And that's something that had I gone right into the fighter community, I never would have had that experience. And I will tell you, I am so glad that I had that experience.

Nobody likes war. War is terrible. Nobody likes it less than the people have to fight in it. But to have an understanding of the logistics, you know, I hear, generals talk and generally when people start talking about war the generals start talking about logistics right well that's what the e2 hawkeye did how do we manage this from an airborne platform and it's command by negation in that airplane you have a lot of authority and if you we call it the voice of god if somebody comes over the radio and says hey we don't want you to do that then you

don't do it but but it's command by negation until you're told no you keep prosecuting the war. So we did that. I did that, you know, 2002 we deployed it to Afghanistan. I was with a squadron VAW 113, the Black Eagles. We were in Afghanistan in the early days. Operation Enduring Freedom is what it was called.

Then we rolled over into the Persian Gulf, and we had Operation Southern Watch was underway. So it was basically a no-fly zone so that Saddam couldn't deliver weapons on his own people. And so we were there for a number of months, and then we were coming home. We spent Christmas of 2002 in Australia, and then we were coming home on New Year's Day. New Year's Day, I woke up and we're actually heading back. We're actually heading west. I'm kind of confused.

Why are we heading west? well we were going back and that's when the operation what was at the time it was called operation shock and awe and then it became Operation Iraqi Freedom so we were part of that as part of that for the first couple maybe three weeks of the war in Iraq and then we pulled out of the Persian Gulf and came home a lot of people remember the infamous the infamous mission accomplished banner that was on my aircraft carrier the USS Abraham Well, that was on, were you there? Yeah. Well, I flew off the day before because they had to get the E2s off the deck.

They had to get the E2s off the deck so that they could make room for all of the media and all of the you know, the president's personnel and the president himself. So no, I was not there the day he came on board, but I was there the day before. Wow. And I got to watch I got to watch all my buddies on TV. And then, of course, it turned into a huge political nightmare. that nobody saw coming. So can I ask you, so I did some research on Wikipedia,

so this may be very, very wrong, but we'll go with it. But it says you made something like 33 carrier landings. What is it like to land an airplane, on an aircraft carrier? Maybe you've done it in the dark. Like, this to me is like one of the most like crazy human experiences we can have today. And I just, I would love to hear firsthand. Yeah, it's, it's not right, quite frankly. especially in a hawkeye.

So a lot of people don't realize the challenge in flying a hawk eye. So first of all, like you said, it's got a hat. So tons of drag. Well, if you have tons of drag, that means you have to overcome that drag. So you put tons of power to overcome the drag. So it's a very, it's the engines are very powerful for a plane that size. Now compared to a 747, no. But for a plane that size, there's a lot of power there.

And then to top it off, you've got each, you've got 13 and a half foot propellers. And both propellers spin the same direction. So what happens is you've got all these different forces on the airplane. So when you add power, you've got what's called P factor or propeller factor. It's basically for every action, there's an equal. opposite reaction. So when you add power, your propellers are spinning one direction. That means your plane wants to spin the other direction. Then you've got slip, stream, swirl, so the air that's coming from your propeller is actually swirling around and it hits the tail of your aircraft.

So every time you add power, you have to put in a full boot of right rudder, or else your plane is going to sink like a rock because you get out of, your plane gets out of balance. So you put on power, if you get below glide slope, you have to put on power and put in a full boot of right rudder. And of course, you're controlling, you know, you're controlling your, um, your, um, your attitude with your, with your left hand. You're controlling your power with your right hand. And you're, you're controlling, um, your yaw with your, with your feet. And so it's literally, as you're coming down the glide slope, it's like riding a bicycle. You're really moving every limb that you have trying to keep on speed, on center line and on glide slope all the way down.

It's the most challenging and difficult thing I think I've ever done. And the Hawkeye is the worst of the worst because it's so easy to get out of balance just because you've got four rudders to compensate. You've got to have this thing fit in the carrier, in the belly of the carrier. And so in order to do that, you can't have a big rudder. You've got to have four rudders. You've got four rudders. You've got all of this slipstream swirl coming off the.

props making you out of balance. Then you're adding power, taking power off. And it's just like riding a bicycle all the way down. Now it's bad during the day initially. At night, it's even worse because you don't have reference to the horizon, especially when there's a cloud cover. There's no no reference to the horizon whatsoever because it's just so dark. But it's an experience I'm glad I had. It's an experience I'm glad I don't have anymore. Yeah, I did. But I did, when I got back from those two wars, my skipper, the commanding officer of my squadron wanted me to go teach what we call airborne battlefield command and control, which was the

mission we were doing in Afghanistan and Iraq. My commander wanted me to go teach that at what we call carrier airborne early warning weapon school. Cause is what we call it. And basically it's a sister command to top gun. So the top gun guys go and they do the fighter weapon school. We were doing what we called at you know, Top Dome is what some people called it, but basically how do you do the command and control of the theater? So I get back from the war. My commanding officer wants me to do that. It's in Fallon, Nevada, which is kind of in the middle of nowhere. And I'm getting married. My wife and I are about to get married at the time she was my girlfriend. And I was like, look, I just can't go to Fallon,

Nevada. It's in the middle of nowhere. My wife is not going to be happy. That's the first place we go after we get married. And my commanding officer said to me, what if we can get you a transition to the F-18 Hornet. And I said, well, if you can do that, I'll be there tomorrow. You were like, first, does it come with a hat? Does it come with a hat? Indeed. It came with a hat, and I took it. And he got me the transition. Now, I will be clear, my job flying the Hornet, I was at Target. My job was, you know, at a top gun, you have a bunch of Navy pilots flying F-18s, and they transitioned to the F-16. just to have dissimilar kind of air-to-air combat.

But my job, I transitioned from the E2 Hawkeye to the F-18 Hornet. I flew at Top Gun, and my job was to be shot down. So I was literally a target for the Top Gun instructors that were transitioning from F-18s to F-16s. Now, when you get shot down, you get to fly home at under 500, feet and faster than mock. So I wasn't terribly disappointed when I got shot down. Jim, I know we're not on video right now, but Jake and I are just so that we can cue each other a little bit here. And you should have just seen the way his eyes popped out of his head when you said that. Yeah, it was a little bit stressful, but also a lot of fun. I'm glad I did it. I did it for

three years. Where was that, when you were flying that low altitude stuff, where was that at? Were you one of those guys going through Star Wars Canyon out in California or something like that? Well, it was Nevada. But yeah, there's a lot of mountains and a lot of canyons in Nevada. And, yeah, those low level, if you watch, you know, I watched the trailer for Top Gun 2, and it looks like it's filmed out there in the desert of Nevada. And you can see, in fact, when I watched the trailer, I could actually see the low-level route that we used to fly when we were flying out there.

So obviously they're still doing it. So, yeah, you're flying right over the mountain. mountain tops and down into the valleys trying to make sure that you're out of what you're trying to do is you're trying to get out of the problem you're you're you're a you're a dead bandit so you just want to remove yourself so you got to go home but how do you get home you got to fly home at 500 feet so that's amazing the dead that you ever any moments that got really hairy when you were that low actually no it was that That's all daytime VFR visual flight rules kind of flying.

The hairy times that I have were at nighttime in bad weather. And that, you know, icing. I'll tell you, icing will, people don't realize how dangerous icing is. But I had an icing situation in the E2 Hawkeye one time where we had one, one propeller was not heating. The heating element wasn't working. And so it was building up ice on the propeller and slinging it off. Yikes. And every once in a while it would sling the ice right at the side of the airplane, and it felt like we were going to blow up. It was pretty intense.

Jeez. And then, of course, I've had a couple of very difficult carrier landings as well at nighttime, always at nighttime. Daytime, it starts to get somewhat easy, but nighttime is always a challenge. Well, I'm glad that you finally got to fly jets, though. That's good that you didn't get stuck in the Hawkeye for a while. I mean, I had to do that. I had to get that done. And then, so then, you know, at that point, when I, when I got done with the tour in Fallon, Nevada, where I was flying the Hornets, I did that for three years. At that time, my wife and I had already had, we had our first baby, and we made a determination that in the interest of our family, we were going to leave the Navy. So after nine years of active duty in 2007, I went to work for a company called Wiley Laboratories. In this case, they were located in Orlando, Florida.

And I was basically a government support contractor helping the Navy purchase flight trainers, not just simulators, but no kidding, weapon system trainers. So we got to train the pilots, but we also have to train the pilots how to do the mission, that airborne battlefield command and control mission as well as air-to-air combat and everything else. So what I ended up doing is going to Wiley. I supported the government in the acquisition of weapon system trainers and flight trainers. I did that for a number of, I guess, about a year and a half. And at that time, that's when my wife's mom got multiple sclerosis.

And she was kind of, you know, things weren't going well. She was going to be in a wheelchair. And my wife's dad had already passed away. And so we had this big burden to move back to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I actually went to high school here in Tulsa, Oklahoma for two years. My wife was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. her family was here, not just her mom, but also her brothers. And so we really wanted to move back.

And so I started applying for jobs in Oklahoma here. And I'm here in Oklahoma right now because we're all working, we're working remotely. So I could either be holed up in an apartment in Washington, D.C. or I could be with my wife and kids. I chose to be here with my wife and kids. So we moved back to Tulsa. I took a job at a nonprofit air and space museum, the Tulsa Air and Space Museum.

And of course, I loved it because I had that moment when I was a kid, when I got to play with the wind tunnel and I got to see I was inspired to go into the aviation field. And I was able to maybe create that same moment for other kids. And I love seeing, you know, the kids, their eyes would light up when they would see, you know, the wonder of flight. And, of course, it was an air and space museum. We had a planetarium. And so it wasn't just about aviation. It was also about space.

I was able to share the history of Tulsa. Tulsa built the bay doors on the space shuttle. I mean, if you go back in time, we built all the external components on the Saturn Rock. We built the Baydors on the space shuttle, the big devices that pick the space shuttle up and make it vertical for the launch stack. I don't know. Just a lot of stuff. All the trust structures on the International Space Station were built in in Tulsa, Oklahoma. So I got to tell that story.

I don't know that either. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. And the devices that maneuver the solar arrays on the ISS were built in Tulsa. So I just really love telling the history, but also the inspiration, the future. What does the future look like? And while I was at the museum, that's when it got announced that as the space shuttles are retiring, they were going to be looking for a home for space shuttles.

And so I started a campaign, land a shuttle in Tulsa. Obviously, that didn't work. We never got a space shuttle. But certainly I worked really hard to try to convince NASA that Tulsa was the place to put a space shuttle. and and during that time I got an interest in running for office wait wait wait wait we've missing one thing Jim we got to talk about it

we got to talk about what the hell was going on with the Rocket Racing League because that was some crazy stuff we need to talk about there's a rocket racing aircraft with your name on the side of it and this seems like the most bat-shit crazy thing I've ever experienced in my life Yeah, it's a little bit wild. Yeah, so when I was in, when I was in Southern California,

flying with the Navy, I bought a house, and then I did a cash out refinance on the house, and I made an investment into a little organization called the Rocket Racing League. I saw an advertisement. It was actually an article in Popular Science magazine about this organization called the Rocket Racing League. And it just, it just fascinated me. The idea, I mean, imagine I'm going to, man, we're at 49 minutes already.

I need an hour on this alone. But the, we can have you back. That's fine. Yeah. So imagine, imagine, you know, in the Navy, you know, I was leaving the Navy as these helmet-mounted virtual devices were coming out where all of your flight information, your targeting information, everything was presented in your helmet visor. Well, what the Rocket Racing League was doing is they were taking that same technology,

except instead of presenting in your helmet visor targeting information, it was basically your racetrack in the sky. So you could have, you know, think of three rocket-powered airplanes flying side by side and presented in the helmet visor of each pilot is his or her racetrack. So one person could be flying through circles, one person could be flying through squares, one person could be flying through pentagons. and so you can maintain close proximity, side-by-side proximity, and yet safe separation. So when you fly in formation in the military, you've got a lead and you've got to follow.

And if you don't have a leader and a follower, you'll end up hitting each other. You need to have a leader and a follower. But what the Rocket Racing League was doing is they're taking this technology so that you don't have to have a leader and a follower. You can actually always be changing positions. and as long as you're in your lane, you'll never come in contact with another aircraft. So I was fascinated by that.

Okay, now that sounds cool on its own. That's what I'm, this is what blows my mind about the rocket racing league. That is a cool product. Why do we need rocket engines strapped at the back end of the steps? It's because he wasn't satisfied with jets, right? I know it is the only upgrade you can make, but still. So, so it's a velocity aircraft.

So it's a Burt Rutan design. It's got an aft wing of forward, canard. This was the design that we had. And so it's a very stable aircraft, which was important. Because when you have a forward canard, you really can't stall the main wing, which is important if you're going to be

flying a rocket-powered glider, this is a rocket-powered glider. So when you think about these rockets, they're either on or they're off. There's nothing in between. And you only have about a minute of burn time. So you turn your rocket on and you accelerate to VNE, which is velocity,

never exceed because the structural limitation on your aircraft, you accelerate to VNI, and then you turn your rocket motor off and now you're a glider. And then you wait until you're too slow and then you turn your rocket motor on and then you glide again. So it's a constant, you know, thrust glide, thrust glide, thrust glide. So in a rocket racing race, each of the rockets, you never know who's really ahead because even though the rocket might be behind, they might have a little more thrust, they might have a little more energy left. So it ends up being really who can manage the energy state of their vehicle the best

with the thrust glide dynamic, which means there's constant lead changes in the race itself. But bottom line is for your audience to know what we're talking about here. We're talking about, think of a NASCAR race. I mean, that's all it is, a NASCAR race, except instead of racing an oval on the ground, you're racing in a three-dimensional track in the sky with both vertical and horizontal direction and the the racetrack that's presented in the helmet visor of the pilots was actually also

presented on the TV screen at home because you guys watch pro baseball and you can see the strike box on the on the on the television screen the virtual strike box or you can you watch pro football and you can see the virtual first downline on the television screen. television screen. Well, we could take what's presented in the helmet visor of the pilot, and we can present that on the television screen. So when you're watching at home, you can see the exact same track that the pilot sees in his helmet-mounted virtual display. So I thought this had all of the makings of something that would be tremendously exciting. Remember what the goal is. It's still a goal. You're going to get me in trouble here, but it's still a goal of

mind today. The question that we're trying to answer is, how do you advance rocket science and space technology in the private sector apart from the whimsical budgets of politicians? Now, the politicians are not going to like me saying that, but look, I used to be a politician, so I think I have a little luxury to say that. You got some street cred, right? I do. I have the street credit. But the reality is we have seen program start and program start. We go back, to the, you know, there was a NASA program called, you know, the space exploration initiative in the 1990s, and it was about going to the moon and on to Mars and it got canceled. And then we had the vision for space exploration in the early 2000s. And it was about going to the moon and on

the Mars. It took too long. It cost too much. It got canceled. And then we had the constellation program, which came out of the vision for space exploration. And of course, that got canceled. So the question is, how do we continue to advance rocket science and space technology in the private sector where you're not subject to the whimsical budgets of politicians? So when you think about what the rocket racing, the business model was revenue from ticket sales and merchandising, television rights, corporate sponsors, and video gaming. And if the revenue streams are sufficiently strong, then we can continue to advance the technologies. And if you look at what NASCAR has done or what IndyCar has done, they have advanced motor sport. They have advanced motor technologies so much simply because they've got revenue streams to do it. And that's what the goal of the rocket racing was, advancing rocket technology and space technology with the revenue streams that are going to be sustainable for the long term.

Now, obviously, you can tell I was really into it. I was a passive investor. I was not an executive. But as a passive investor, they got to the point where they were going to fly their first demonstration of a rocket racer at Oshkosh. And I asked them if we could put, if I could get a sponsor, if I could put my name on the wing of the aircraft. And they said, sure. I was doing my MBA at the time. I was doing an executive MBA at Cornell University,

and in my class was the marketing director for DKNY. And so I asked her if they'd be willing to put their name on the side of the rocket, on the wing of the rocket, if you will, rocket-powered airplane, I should say. And they did. So they gave, I can't remember how much. It wasn't a big chunk, but they gave some money to put their name on the rocket. and the Rocket Racing League let me put my name on the wing. And we went from there.

Eventually, when I was running the Tulsa Air and Space Museum, we got to the point where we actually flew two rocket racers at the same time at an air show that we hosted at the Tulsa Air and Space Museum, which was also, it was an amazing event. Buzz Aldrin came to it. Richard Gariot, astronaut. I guess he's a cosmonaut. His dad, Owen Garriott, was a NASA Astero.

astronaut, Richard Garriott, flew on a Russian, he's a video game developer, very wealthy guy. Jim, believe it or not, on the last episode that we did of this, we mixed them up and Richard Garriott corrected us on Twitter. Oh, you're kidding. That's how great they are. They are wonderful humans. Yeah, fantastic. Yeah.

So Richard Garriott came to the, came to the, what we called the Quick Trip, Air and Rocket Racing Show in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Buzz Aldrin came, John Harrington came, another NASA astronaut from Oklahoma. So anyway, we had a really great time with it. Bottom line is the Rocket Racing League, I think, was ahead of its time. It required a lot of capital, and that level of capital never got raised. We had some really cool prototypes that got developed, and then it ran out of money. And it really, what really got, I think what, again, I was just a passive investor that loved it.

But I think what ended it was the financial crisis that ensued 2007, 2008. It became almost impossible to raise money. And then, you know, if I would have had more, I would have been given them money. So what it sounds like to me is that you are setting up with the return of Rocket Racing League. and if the past month or two is any indication, you are the king of bringing cool space things back because you got that worm slapped up on the side of the DM2 booster recently.

Well, look, I love the worm. I grew up with the worm. My favorite airplane growing up was the X-29, which was a forward-swept wing aircraft. I don't know if you guys remember the X-29. I remember that one. I've got a NASA history book about that one that I still need to read.

Yeah, it's a beautiful airplane. I grew up with that plane hanging on my wall, and on that airplane is the NASA worm. And so I figured if I had any power whatsoever as the NASA administrator, I was going to figure out a way to bring back the worm. We were very excited about that. We were able to do that on probably the most spectacular and the most watched rocket launch in decades, which of course was the first launch of commercial crew with a Falcon 9.

rocket and a crew dragon at the top. We did a whole episode about great space logos in response to that coming back. So we were pretty thrilled to see it on there. So we were, I know, I don't know. I don't hear many people hating on that. So I hope that it comes back in full because it's my preferred space logo. We're getting close on time here, but we do, typically when we do this show, we do something that we call picks where we tell listeners like, here's something we've been reading or

listening. I'm curious if you have maybe a favorite nonfiction, space documentary or book or something and a favorite sci-fi series or book or anything like that that you want to share with you? Yeah, I'll tell you, Andy Weir wrote a book called Artemis. I know everybody's familiar with The Martian just because the movie was so famous. But Artemis as a book was also really, really good. And obviously we have a new moon program that we've called Artemis now. I would say that it's a great, it's a great read. It's the kind of book that will get the next generation excited about space flight and space exploration and development. I mean, that's really the key. What I loved about the book Artemis is it was about development on the moon. And that's,

that's really the next big thing that we have to achieve, which is how do we sustain human life, and not just sustain, but also thrive on the surface of the moon. And how do we build the technologies necessary to go to Mars? So I would say as far as a book, that's probably would be my pick. Are you going to do the solid landed goods thing? I saw you tweeted out the other day about doing pricing for the moon base based on a per ton basis. And I know that's a key part of Artemis is the slugs is the unit of currency for a solid landed good, right? Right. No, I'm sorry. I'm losing my iPod here or my AirPod. So, yeah, so when we think about the success of commercial crew, again, it's because we set those high-level requirements, and then we let the private sector go innovate.

And because they innovated, we're now reusing these rockets in a way that makes it, the cost is going to come down and the whole architecture is going to be more sustainable for the long term. So what are the high level requirements we need to set to get cargo to get payload to the surface of the moon? I think the thing that we have to do is we have to look at it as a cost per ton delivered to the surface of the moon. And if we can establish the right parameter there and then let the private sector go figure out how to deliver, on that. I think that's how we're going to have the best success for the long term. And yeah, you're right, slugs. I forgot about that. That was their currency. And then, let's see, as far as sci-fi, what was it, movies? Was that your question? Well, you did that one. How about like a nonfiction? You got like Apollo documentaries or anything

like that, historical stuff? Oh, yeah. I would go with, there's a book that I love. I can't remember the author but I read it I read it when I was in Congress it was called the man who ran the moon and it was about James Webb the man who ran the moon and so James Webb obviously was the NASA administrator that spent eight years getting us to the moon and a lot of people don't realize he came from a political background he was not you know a career technical person he was he came from he was the he was a staffer for a congressman from North Carolina.

He went on to be a staffer for a senator. Then he went on to be appointed a deputy secretary of treasury. Then he went on to be the director of what's called, at the time it was called the Bureau of the Budget. Today it would be OMB. And he was the director of the Bureau of the Budget for Harry Truman. And so all that time, whether it was

Roosevelt or Truman, he was serving the administration and the executive branch. And then Harry Truman didn't run again. And in comes Eisenhower. And all of the Truman folks got to figure out what are they going to do? Well, James Webb went to Oklahoma, and he ran an oil company for Senator Robert Kerr, who was an Oklahoma senator. He ran an oil company. He made millions of dollars in Oklahoma.

You can tell I like it. I'm from Oklahoma. He made millions of dollars running this oil company in Oklahoma. And then John F. Kennedy eventually gets elected. And John F. Kennedy is serious about getting to the moon. And of course, he picks Lyndon Johnson as his vice president. Lyndon Johnson is very serious about getting to the moon. And Lyndon Johnson and Kennedy are trying to figure out,

who do we get to run the moon program? Who's the best person we could get? And it's actually Robert Kerr, the senator from Oklahoma, who gives them the name James Webb. And he gives them that name because, look, if you're going to get to the moon, you can't get there without the money. James Webb understands how the House of Representatives works. He understands how the Senate works.

He understands how the Treasury Department works. He understands how the Bureau of the Budget works. He understands how to make things happen to get things done to get to the moon. And because of that, he was able to have success. And so I really, I really, I mean, I enjoyed reading that book when I was in the house. I wish I could remember the name of the author, but I can't offhand. I'll let you guys Google. It sounds like a pretty, uh, the man who ran the moon.

It sounds like a pretty familiar path for you. Yeah, well, that's the thing. Like people say, can you have a political person? And I don't consider myself a political person. I consider myself a Navy pilot. But I did serve for a period of five and a half years in the U.S. House of Representatives. And I think I understand a little bit about how Washington works. And if you do that, you can make the efforts to get to the moon.

Look at our budget right now. Our budget right now is the highest budget request we've had in history, in nominal dollars. So when I was nominated, the NASA budget was, I think it was around $18 billion when I was first nominated. And here we are two and a half years later. And our budget request before the House and the Senate right now is $25.2 billion. Now, that doesn't come without a lot of new content. Like we're building a human landing system, a commercial human landing system. system. And we're going to the moon commercially with payloads. Today, you guys probably saw

we announced astrobotic is going to deliver a viper to the surface of the moon. So we're commercializing how we do business. The commercial crew program has demonstrated how that can be successful and driving down costs and increasing access. And we're going to continue using those models to achieve the development of the moon, which is where we are right now. But I really believe that to achieve these kind of things, you know, if I came into this job, not knowing how D.C. worked inside and out, and again, there's people that know D.C. better than me, for sure. But man, you've got, there's a lot of landmines in this job when it comes to the political process. And I think, I think it's got to be navigated. So, Jim, I'm getting to the bottom of

my diet Mountain Dew here. We're getting, close on time. This has been an awesome conversation. So we just want to say thank you again for joining us and spending the time. It was really cool to learn a little bit about what makes you you because it certainly adds a lot to your NASA story. So one last thing. I know you guys have to run, but I think it's important. When I was in the House of Representatives, I was on the Armed Services Committee, Strategic Forces Subcommittee. That dealt with all of our national security space capabilities. I was on the subcommittee on the environment within the science committee. That subcommittee oversees NOAA. Half of about 40% of Noah's budget is space-related activities.

And then I was also on the subcommittee on space, which oversees NASA. So between Department of Defense space and NASA and NOAA, I was dealing with space issues all the time. I got frustrated. I drafted a very comprehensive space reform bill. That bill was called the American Space Renaissance Act. I drafted it alone and unafraid in my office, and I put it in a hopper, and it got lots of attention. It never became law. It had no chance of ever becoming law because it touched every committee in Congress. We had tax provisions in there, so it had to go through the Ways and Means Committee.

We had insurance provisions in there, so that would have to go through the Financial Services Committee. We dealt with every issue that you can think of within the space industry, and so it would have to go through every committee in Congress. And as you know, it's difficult to get anything through a single committee, let alone all the committees at the same time and then passed on the floor of the House, passed in the Senate. We built that bill in my office as a repository of the absolute best space reform bills so that America could remain preeminent in space and explore like never before. And while that bill never became law, what we were able to do, we were able to take provisions from that bill. And whenever there was a must-pass piece of legislation, whether it was defense appropriations, a National Defense Authorization Act, transportation appropriations, a transportation authorization, NASA authorization. Any bill that we knew that was going to pass, we would take the appropriate provisions from the National Space Renaissance Act,

and we would shove it into those bills, and I would offer amendments. Sometimes those amendments would be on the floor of the House. Sometimes they'd be in committee. Sometimes I would just try to bake those amendments into the bill before they even had to be amendments. And so we were able to pass a lot of that bill in other pieces of legislation. So people say, I just want to kind of finish the narrative here because, yes, I've had an interest in space, but if you don't get the politics right, you'll never be able to accomplish what you want to accomplish in space.

And so the politics matter here. And I'm not talking about partisan politics. This is not partisan. It's apolitical. But we have to get the policies right in an apolitical way. We have to have support from Republicans and Democrats. And I've worked very hard to build the support. I had lots of friends in the house on both sides of the aisle that are still really good friends today.

You maybe couldn't see that in my confirmation process in the Senate. No kidding. That was an event in space media for sure. It sounds like logistics. We talked about logistics before. That's what it is. I shudder even remembering the process. I mean, you do bring it back into a good way, right?

Because last couple weeks ago when DM2 was happening, we were talking about how these events can be a way to bring people together. And there were a lot of people there from previous administrations, from different parties that were all pushing in the same direction of commercial crew being a good idea. So I thought that was a really nice note that obviously it has its roots all the way back to the George W Bush administration. So to have so many people from the last 20 years of NASA history come together in support of that program was a good sign of what you're saying here. That it's not, there's policy and there's politics. And I think that that focus, you know,

from you and others that you work with is why we came to IAC with the JBFC PIN. that we ended up handing you. That's the stuff that people really recognize. Well, I appreciate that. And I'll tell you the, you know, when I was going through that confirmation process, there was a number of House Democrats that stepped up and wrote a letter supporting me. I think there's at least a dozen on that letter. And look, those are friends of mine that I'm going to have for a lifetime.

It's not political in a partisan sense. it's often political in a parochial sense but not partisan and as long as we can keep as long as we can keep everybody inspired i mean that's the whole that's the whole purpose here if we can keep everybody inspired keep it apolitical apartisan i should say um then we can then we can move forward in a meaningful way and and it can go it can go beyond anyone administration it can go beyond any one lifetime. This is a multi-generational effort that we have to be aware that we're trying to achieve here. And if we can keep that focus, we're all going to be able to succeed in exploration. Perfect way to end it, Jim. Thank you so much for coming on, for dealing with our antics through

IAC, and then now when we're talking about Diet Mountain Dew and hats on fighter jets and stuff like that. Anytime. I love what you guys do, so keep it up. Thank you so much. And yeah, hopefully, maybe we'll do some roundtable on Rocket Racing League, because I feel like there's a lot of stones left on turn there. So maybe we'll put some together in the future there, Jake. Absolutely. One day. One day. One day. One two, three, four, five.