The Vergecast - Uphill to Pluto both ways

Episode Date: July 10, 2015

We're back in the Bohn Zone as Dieter is in charge of the proceedings this week. Tom Warren is on hand to catch us up on Microsoft's Nokia woes, and we welcome Vergecast rookies Sean O'Kane and Loren Grush to discuss the future of space. And of course, Sam Sheffer is on hand to check hype throughout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello. And welcome to the Vergecast. Nelai is not here, but I am. That's all you really need. What is this place? And I have brought rookies with me. To my left is Lauren Grush. Hello.

Grush, Grush. Crush with a G. And to my right is Sean O'Kane. O'Kine? O'Kine with an O'Kee. O'Kine with an O. Okay. And we have non-Rookies with us as well.

on Skype is Tom Warren. Hello. How's it going, Tom? I don't know if you can see me, but hello. I can see you. You're waving your hands. You're wearing Apple headphones despite the fact that you're our Microsoft expert.

Quick, where's my Microsoft? Tom is coming to us from interrogation room number two. Yeah. Sam Schaeffer. Yeah. Can you hype check Tom's interrogation room?

I can't see it, so I'm going to have to give it a zero. Have a light. Zero. It's an appropriate hype check. Nilai is out this week. I don't know. Hanging out on a beach sitting on a log. Typical mili.

Logs life. Oh, like a worn out beach log? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I don't know. Is this the pun cast? This is the pun cast. Man, we had some killer puns.

Puns have been running rampant. Our producer, John Lager-Mercina, wrote a story. And he had three, you know, fewer than three, really good hear puns. Embedded puns. Yeah. embedded puns. And then, of course, there was a giant all profile. That was pretty great. Which in itself, had restraint

without puns, but the rest of us can I just say we need to take Josh Jezza and Michael Zlanco and everybody else who worked on that and removed them from the office? They've been sitting in that office all day like following up to publishing that really great big feature. And they need to like get out and like see the world again

and smile a bit. All dressed up and no place to go. It's my favorite. All right. I like to imagine that Nili is sitting on a beach writing article comments in the sand. They just wash away every morning. If anybody's listening that has Photoshop open, please Photoshop Iverge into sand. A stock shot of sand.

Get that Nelai picture of him on the boat. Right. I'm done. Okay. So today we have Tom here so we can talk about Microsoft. And later we're going to talk about space. space, because a lot of space stuff. So the big news, Tom, why don't you give us the rundown?

Some crazy stuff happened. Yeah, not a lot happened this week. Well, goodbye. Thanks for listening, everybody. Yeah, so Microsoft wrote off their Nokia phone business acquisition to the tune of $7.6 billion. So quite a lot of money. Yeah, do you know what the original acquisition cost?

$2 billion. Right. Okay. So they originally paid $7.2 billion and they're writing off $7.6. Which is probably because they used, I mean, I'm not a financial expert. I used to work at bank, but it's probably because they used foreign cash and the foreign exchange has probably changed within that year. So the money is altered. That's what I'm guessing.

So, I mean, you're leading with the $7.6 billion. Plus, there wasn't there like another $850 million? million or $750 million, like, expense cost or something? Yeah, that's the restructuring. Yeah. But, like, the bigger deal, at least in terms of, I don't know, human effects is that they fired 7,800, 700 people. Yeah.

Wow. Which is a lot of people. And a lot of those are from Finland. I was going to say, is that worldwide or is that U.S.? It's worldwide. There was like one town in Finland that had like 2,600 people laid off. Oh, okay. So that bar is really crowded right now.

So Finland was pissed off when Microsoft acquired, knock his phone business. Yeah. They're probably not so happy that half of a particular town has been decimated. But, you know, that's an unfortunate consequence of this kind of messy acquisition, really. But so, yeah, so that's the core sort of details. But it's kind of like what does that actually mean in the grand scheme of things? So Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella, put out on memo.

to the troops and they put it on Microsoft.com and stuff. It doesn't really say a lot. It says some things, but it's kind of very vague about the future. Yeah, like super vague. Yeah, it's very super vague in all places. But like kind of digging into it, the key thing to the takeaway is

they're going to focus on business stuff. And they say that it's a hardware, a combination, their strengths of a combination of a combination of software and hardware. Yeah. But they don't specifically say that they're going to, make a business phone. Just what they're going to give them.

Yeah, I just want to read what he wrote because we've been doing a lot of T leaf reading based on this. So he says, I am committed to our first party devices, including phones. However, we need to focus our phone efforts. Near term, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Near term, more blah, blah, blah, blah. We'll run a more effective phone portfolio. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

We'll bring business customers, the best management, security and productivity experiences they need, value phone customers, communication services they want, and Windows fans, the flagship devices they'll love. Does that mean like there's going to be three models of phones they're going to make? There's going to be one? I mean, I think Bloomberg reported that there'd be one to two

phones in each of those segments. So business value and flagship. Right. That seems probable, but I think it's more likely to be one or two phones a year for two years and see how we go. But yeah, that's the

sort of gist of it. And essentially that brings their, so Microsoft controls over 90%. If you believe some people, it's 97% of the Windows phone market. Right. Of the actual shipments of those devices. So that's, that's a lot. I don't know, man. I just got an LG Lancet review unit sent to me.

It's, uh, I should have brought it on the cast. It's pretty small. It's pretty sweet. Pretty cute. Have either of you ever used a Windows phone? No. Not longer than a few minutes. Right. At trade shows. There's the whole problem.

Well, as someone who hasn't used Windows phones a lot and has spent nearly a decade away from Windows as an operating system, like what confuses me here is we've watched 2015 be like a year of Microsoft. They had this really crazy PR push and like a lot of announcements after CES. We were writing articles about how Microsoft is ready to be loved again. And then they had a pretty good MWC. They were very visible there. and they've got a whole bunch of new stuff coming. So where does this fit in? It feels like a stone that just got dropped.

It feels like the remnants of Steve Balmer. Right. Because if you believe some stories, Nadella initially opposed this transaction. And I mean, it's pretty clear from what he's done this week that he opposed it or opposes it. So it feels like a leftover. it was like Steve Ormer's last, like there's two devices and services.

Let's buy Nokia and it's mapping business. And the board said, well, you can have the phone business, but we don't want the mapping business. And that's kind of how it ended. And I don't know, like I feel like they didn't really have much choice back then anyway, if Nokia were going to move towards Android. So it's kind of like they're in a sticky situation. They always kind of seem to be with Windows phone anyway. But where does it leave it?

Well, so my big question is, where does it leave it in terms of Microsoft's ability to straight up make phones? 8,000 people is a lot of people. You know, at its height, I know Palm had like 10, maybe 12, and towards the end it was way, way smaller, but it still requires lots of humans who know how to make things. And they have to make the software, and they have to make the hardware, and they have to design the hardware. It has to not suck. Yeah. Do you think Microsoft is capable of making good phones right now? I think that, I mean, they've obviously got good eugene.

experience with the surface stuff like that that was pretty rough to begin with right it's progressed um if they could transfer that and they've kept like the key talent on the phone side then they should be okay for the flagship i would be interested to see if these value phones or however they shake out if they actually end up with Microsoft fully designing them and manufacturing them and it's not just a part of like foxcon just producing it and Microsoft labels it right which is kind of what Nokia is doing with its tablet and the potential future phone next year. And that would, that would seem like probably a wise thing to do if they're going to do sort of budget handsets. They don't have to invest so much money in that. Right. So here's my question about the budget.

So we've seen Google try and make Android 1 budget handsets and they haven't gotten quite as cheap as a bunch of other people have been able to make Android phones. But what they have done a pretty good job of is going to like random phone manufacturers using random chips that are super low end that are nevertheless capable of running Android like you know media tech blah blah blah whatever um so the next version of windows windows 10 running on a phone like doesn't that require quite a bit of juice like what does windows 10 on a phone look like right now well at the moment it's pretty rough um it's in preview it's supposed to be debuting like sort of september october time with a couple of new devices

but it's pretty rough especially on low end devices actually which is unusual because usually when you use a Windows phone it's the same experience pretty much from the high end to the low end obviously it's a little bit of speed changes and stuff but for the most part

it's pretty solid experience but from my testing of low end devices mid range and the high end ones it's pretty significant difference at the moment that is beta software so who knows but I've never seen Windows phone in such a rough state, even through all the betas previously.

So that might be slightly to do with the fact that it's all out in the public now and everyone's getting to test it. Right. But it seems rather rough for having something that's going to need to ship on phones in like three or four months time. All right. Most depressing hype check ever right now at this moment, Windows phone. With Sam's face. He can't even bring himself. Was there ever hype around Windows phone? Yeah, of course there was.

Come on. Yeah. No, not for years. Tell me it. Back in the early Metro days? I mean, I remember, I remember back at like NGagget when they announced Windows phone, like when they redesigned it and it was all metroed out. That was exciting. And then there was like the Dell streak and the Dell venue. And I was like, do not tell me that the Lumia 920. Yeah. That was probably the peak of a type. I would say now it's like two, three. It's just like people are crying out for a Snapchat app. Like that's, that's it for in the night. Because they just haven't done a good flagship phone. They've never done a competitive phone that's competed against the iPhone or one of the top Android. It's always come just before, but it's never been quite as good as what came a month later. Well, and I think a lot of people really loved back when, oh, live tiles are new.

Everybody really liked that idea because it was when everybody was trying to serve up information sort of at a glance for the first time. And just like, well, yeah. I will say that widgets on Android have always been since their inception just an ugly horrible failure. And so Lifetals are like a nice version of that. But there was no app ecosystem to back it up. Right. Which there still isn't.

Right. It's definitely been influential though in terms of design. Yeah, the flat design. Because iOS and the material design and stuff has definitely taken stuff from the Metro design. What I'm just realizing is there must be like product placement people that work at Microsoft. Or maybe they don't work there anymore. who must be really, really mad because every Lumia phone has shown up in, like, TV shows, movies, they have, like, crazy product placement for all these phones that...

Yeah, it's actually kind of insane how good it's been. Like, do they... Why? I mean, does nobody else care to place products? I mean, Apple wouldn't pay to place products, but... Don't say all... I don't know, but all you ever see anybody use on TV is a Windows phone. Yeah.

Which kind of takes you out of the reality, right? Right. Well, that's what... It's not actually. Like, oh, I'm definitely... watching something. That's part. I mean, Apple stuff shows up in these TVs and TV shows and movies, but it's typically done more subtle. Yeah. Or they like they put the sticker. Whereas, whereas like a Lumia phone shows up on Parks and Recreation and the shot like starts

on it. And then they zoom out. Right. Like, oh, okay, I get it. I'm supposed to buy that. Yeah. But I, that's seems so strange to me. I think Apple's product placement works in a way that they actually just give the devices to people. Right. Sure. Or like, they just have them sitting around because they work in Hollywood. It's like GoPro or like any other ubiquitous kind of thing. Yeah. Okay, Tom. So like what's next?

You were a big long thing. Did Microsoft give up on Windows phone? Like what's happening now? Like what do you actually think is going to happen? Well, can you answer that question, right? You wrote that headline. Are they, have they given up? Oh, I think they gave up on it a long time ago.

See? Like that. Sneaky. Like, I don't think they ever really invested in enough to take it too seriously anyway. I mean the thing with Windows phone over the years, Windows Phone 7 came and then it was like Windows Phone 8, reset everything, and then Windows Phone 8.1 was supposed to save the day, and then Windows 10 was supposed to say.

So it's like a long list of waiting and waiting for them to reset and change things and revamp things. And it's never really been a mobile operating system that's matured. It never really got the features quick enough. 8.1 kind of got them to a good level. but then everyone else just jumped in front Apple announcing you know like they're sharing stuff

and touch ID and whatever you all the various features of Android and stuff they've always been ahead and they've always been ahead and they never really caught up and they never really matured the OS so I don't think they ever really invested enough into the software to be honest and you can see that at the moment

because Windows 10 shipping the end of the month on desktop PCs and it's not shipping on mobiles and we don't know when shipping We're only thinking the end of the year. Wow. So they can very well just delay it again and then maybe just never even do it. Well, so that's my question.

It should speed up because everyone who's working on Windows 10 should move across to the mobile side. Right. But I don't know whether, I don't know. Okay, so here's my question. I'm going to ask you, Lauren, because you're a nerd, but you're not like a super gadget nerd. No. Can you give me, as someone who's not, like, enmeshed in the politics and the, the strategies of how Microsoft works.

Can you give me a single good reason why Microsoft has to make a phone? Why didn't they just kill it completely? Why is it still? Oh, yeah, now we're still in it, guys. No, because, I mean, honestly, it's either Android or iPhone for me. That's, like, all I hear about and all I care about. So I don't see why anyone would try to compete with that at this point. What do they get by pretending that they're going to, maybe not pretending, but by saying, yeah, no, we're still going to make some phones. We're going to make some business phones. We're going to make some flagship phones. Like, what do they get? They're pedaling hope.

It has some thing different. I guess there's still, there's still a small. What do you think? How many, how many active Windows phone users do you think there are, Tom? Half a million, one million across in the entire world. Yeah, it's way more than that. Yeah, it's way more than that. Like five, ten million? Something like that. Yeah. So they can't. just completely cut me. Yeah, that would be really foolish. Like Tom said, they should just make the phone, do the thing. I say this all the time. What they should do is just make a really nice phone. Yeah. And also they should make a really nice laptop. But then OEMs would get pissed at them, but I say this a lot. But yeah. That's a really good idea. I think that's what they're going to do. They're going to make a really nice flagship phones. And the people that really care about

Windows and one windows across everything will buy them. They'll make my... So I'm sorry to interrupt Tom. Um, something's happening over at the hype desk. I don't know what is going on. Does this happen every episode? Uh, no. I mean, I watch. Uh, uh, and what, what, what is happening over here? Becky, Becky's at the hype seat now.

Oh, yeah. You guys sharing the hype seat. Hi, Becky. Yeah. She's the office manager at Birge. She's the best. Becky sends the best emails of anybody on the staff. Yeah.

They're aggressive and she doesn't look back. They're aggressive and they're funny. Yeah. She doesn't look back. Thank you. Becky, what could Microsoft do to get you to buy a Windows phone? What could Microsoft get me to do to buy what? A Windows phone.

A Windows phone. Do you know what a Windows phone? Yeah, do you even know what that is? Yikes. A Windows phone. What could they, they could take windows off of it. Wow. Ouch.

They could. This is why she's the best of you. Yeah. Maybe they could make some puns in their, in their advertising. That would entice me to maybe support them. Right. John? Yeah.

our Windows pawns. So when, I don't know, when Apple closes the door, Microsoft opens a Windows phone? Yeah, something like that. Yeah.

When Nokia closes the door. Sorry, Nokia. Yeah. They also need a better icon. Really? Wow. Oh, yeah.

They just invested a lot of money into redesigning that too. I think it's really. I miss the old one. Make me a Windows phone with the wavy window on the back of it. Oh, God. Now I'm in.

I mean, I'll pick that up in the store. Oh, they're squares. Squares. But in a parallel grab, isn't it? It's not all parallel, but the four sides aren't parallel. So they just need like shapes. They're like having shapes together.

It's a quadrangle. I just wanted to say rhombus. Very basically designed quadrangle. So you're here, you need to hype check something since you're in the hypec. Oh, yeah, great. What can I hype check? I don't know. It's up to Sam.

Oh, Sam. What can I hype check for you? Hype check your hypesy takeover. hype. Hive. Thanks, Sam. It was really fun sharing your seat. I'm also going to share this with you.

She's taking his beer. There's nothing better than watching Sam have his moment taken from it. That's great. I'll share the wealth. Bye, Becky. Bye. Okay, but seriously, Tom, do you really think they're going to make the flagship phone that you're hoping for?

and if so, like, the whole strategy is, because he's like, where are the apps going to come? The apps are supposed to come from like Windows desktop app makers instead of trying to convince mobile makers. The flagship phone that I would love is running Windows phone, runs iOS apps, and has all the customization of Android. But no one can and will be it to do that. Because Windows phone is a base OS is great. Yeah, but it's easier to port over iOS apps now, and it's easy to run Android apps, basically. So, like, in theory, they'll make a phone that'll just take anything anybody makes, screw it. So that seems like a beautiful dream that'll never fail because right once run anywhere

is always perfect, right? Like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen with all that stuff because they announced that they announced it seems like a weird time to announce that they're writing off their Nokia acquisition and, you know, pairing down all their phones because it's kind of like Windows 10 mobile isn't out yet. and we're kind of, we're getting to the point where they're like, this is our vision for phones and PCs and they're like, now they're just kind of, I don't know, going back on it, I guess. Yeah, so either we're consigning themselves to the desktop.

Right. So are we supposed to believe that like actually they could have been making phones this whole time and then they don't, they didn't ever really need Nokia and so now they're just like firing all those people and and writing off all that money because like, oh, it turns out that, you know, we could have just been doing this the whole time and now we're going to or, or are they lying to us and they're not actually going to do anything serious

with the phone, but they just are afraid to come out and say it? Yeah, I think a lot of the acquisition was like the ball and stuff. So he thought that they could do all the devices

and services and do the whole thing, be an Apple, be at Google, be at Microsoft. But I think that is more realistic in the company's vision. It's like going up against Apple is not going to work. Going up against Google

in certain areas is not going to work. And I think also part of the, like the part of that memo is really interesting because um nadella's talks about the phone stuff and that's what everyone's focused on but if you look at it more broadly over the last month he's actually killed off their ad business right he's killed off their mapping business yep and now he's killing off their phone business the only thing that they needs to do next is kill off their search business and then they're not competing directly with with google anymore right and then

which is kind of a weird like what like this is a weird situation of If you look at the businesses that they're pulling back away from, is stuff that Google dominates. They obviously don't feel like they can compete. I don't think they'd kill off the search business, but it's an interesting thing going on. I don't know whether there's any potential partnership with Google and Microsoft on the horizon. That would be wild.

Something crazy about that. It'd be wild, but if you just look at the moves, they're very interesting in the fact that Nadella is removing the blocks of like the friction points between Microsoft and Google. Phone being a big one. Right. It's obviously being one, but it's not one that really Google needs to worry about. I think Google's happy that Bing exists, right?

Yeah, it keeps a regularization. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But the ad business and phone and mapping and stuff, like it all takes away because Microsoft can strike a deal that says, you know, we'll get YouTube on their maps. And this is all very speculative. but it's an interesting twist to note that when he's reorganizing strategy for a new financial year,

those are the things that are sort of taking the back seat. All right. Last question. Windows 10. Is it going to do better than Windows 8? Oh, yeah, for sure. Is it going to be good enough to be like, oh, hey, Microsoft is back. Hooray.

Yeah, it's just way better. It's just more coherent. You pick it up and it feels like Windows 7, but a lot of fresher and modern and stuff. There's some cool features and they can stream your exports games to it all that sort of stuff I think they've done a pretty good job

on it the only thing I'm worried about with it is that it's just a work in progress it's a little bit rough around the edges on occasions and they're really It kind of feels like

Still It's still rough It kind of feels like instead of quality They're rushing for a particular date Which is kind of In the Sinovsky era

It was more driven by quality I'd like to think. Right. Whereas now it does seem like they're like, we need to hit back to school. We need to hit a holiday and stuff, which is, they do. Yeah. But I guess they've re-engineered the whole of Windows so that they will have regular updates. So it shouldn't be as noticeable as previous versions.

Do you feel like... Do you feel like Nadella hyper-focusing can make that happen then? I mean, do you think he's doing the right thing to be able to make it work the right way? It should when it does come out? I think it's going to be... It's going to end up. It's going to shake out as. basically Chrome where it just updates and you don't even realize it's updated.

Yeah. And it just, you know, that's the way that Windows, that's the future of Windows. It's going to go through a bumpy six months, I think, just because some systems are going to have driver issues and stuff like that. But I think the end result is giving me a lot better version of Windows. It's a lot more usable now. All right. Tom, I'm going to let you go. I have to go in the money zone.

But thank you so much. Thank you. I have no jokes to leave you with. Bye, Tom. Bye, Tom. All right. Now it's time for the Cheing. Sam, do you need a new mattress?

Yeah. Yeah, but I bet you hate mattress shopping. Yeah. So I need to tell you and everybody about this new online mattress company. It's called Lisa. They're like Tom's shoes, but for mattresses. Now, the insanely cool Lisa mattress is sold exclusively online. You can't get it in a store.

It ships compressed to your door for free, so you take it out of the box and poof, it explodes into a full-sized mattress. Sounds exciting. Maybe it doesn't explode. We'll say it expands. And it has three unique foam layers for cooling supportive sleep. So it keeps you cool because it's hot out, especially in New York. I need that right now.

And it smells. Lisa gives you 100 nights to try your mattress, risk-free. And for every 10 mattresses that they sell, they donate one to a shelter, which is pretty great. So go ahead and go to their website and go to L-E-E-E-E-E-E-E. E-E-E-E-S-A-com slash Vergecast, and you'll get $75 off your purchase. That's 75 off your mattress at L-E-E-E-S-A-com slash verge-cast. What kind of mattresses did they use in space?

Oh, that's where memory phone came from. It was one of those things that they developed for space, and then now we have it here on Earth. Yeah, it's like one of those, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like Tang, even though Tang, I think, isn't really one of those things that they do for space that. But, yeah. Belcro.

Wasn't Velcro? Sure. Belcro was. Anything amazing was developed. The International Space Station. It's actually, there's a really funny, there was a conference this week about the International Space Station. And at a panel, someone was asked, what, you know, what's the reason for doing this? And there was just silence.

And it was all these NASA people, and you know they had, it was just one of those things where I think everybody hesitated. No, it's just like, what's the worst thing at the moment? What's the reason for doing this? And they're up there like, oh shit. No, they were definitely, no, they had to gather their thoughts because everything they say is like totally taken apart. So they're just like, okay, how do I answer this question? And that piss people off.

And it was the first panel after Musk, Elon Musk was interviewed. So they knew a lot of eyeballs were on. But what if for real, like, they all actually like think they've pulled one over on us. And like, we've paid them to do insanely cool space stuff. And so they're like, oh no. they've thought it through. Well, we're at a really weird point right now because I think a lot of, I think you're seeing

more NASA people and just more people in the space industry in general willing to admit that like while the science being done up there is amazing, you know, it's really hard to pin down what we get from it sometimes. But there are, you know, you see these reports

it's like, oh, $14 for every dollar spent up there. We get back. You know, like there's reason to believe, but we're coming to the point where the international space station can only last until 2024. And they still haven't, I don't think, finally extended it that far, right? Wait, what was that?

International Space Station, it can last until 2024. I don't know if they've actually extended it officially. Oh, yeah, I'm not sure. But there's no real plan of what they want to do after that. Okay, the problem is a marketing problem. Because nobody really talks about what we can do with space. It's just like what we are doing with it. What do I get?

Yeah. But all we're doing, like, all I, like, we're doing experiments up there. like, oh, we're going to test this in zero G. And we're going to test, like, I don't, like, defragged me in zero G. What happens to the development of an Ova in zero G? What happens to all my experiments are like sex and reproduction based? But, like, is it really that important to do all the stuff in zero G? Sometimes, yeah.

So one big thing is protein crystal formation, which is, like, used for drugs, developing drugs. Since there's no gravity up there, it can form much more, like, full in space. So there's stuff like that. And actually, there's a whole branch of, you know, of the international space season called Cassis. I can't remember what it stands for at the moment. But that's their job is to market to companies about why they should do their research in space

because there are a lot of different benefits of not having gravity up there. But that, I think that for now is just kind of like, that's very, what's the word I'm looking for? It's fun and it's exciting, but it doesn't have a huge long-term benefit. But there are long-term benefits of space exploration that I don't think people focus on quite a lot.

And that's really where I think NASA should be focusing and be like, how can we make money from sending rockets into space? That's it. That's the long-term benefit is we can make bank on space. How else do we get people to care? I mean, this is a battle NASA fights daily, hourly. Even Congress is, you know, you have representatives who are saying, why are you in charge of doing Earth science when you're NASA?

So you should be doing space. Ted Cruz wants to only focus them on space. And they're in the best position to study the Earth in a lot of ways. And it's like they fight this battle on every single front. Yeah. So I think they're kind of tired of it sometimes. Hype check space, space profit, and people saying, why are we in space? No.

Hype check space profit. Space profit. Yeah, space profit. Making money off space. Hype check it. I don't think the point of going to space is to make money. That's what I'm saying. It's not.

But that's how you get people. to care about it. It's the easiest way to convince people, yeah. And there's some cool, there's some interesting ways like internet from space is a good one. And then, uh, there's some ideas of how we can get energy, maybe like a solar farm in space. Yeah. Asteroid mining. Yeah, stuff like that. I mean, there's a lot of interesting stuff, but it's just not marketed well. And I think that it's really one of the massive big problems. I think the needle is moving and has moved a lot in the last couple years anyways. Way more people are interested in the general idea now. Right. than we're like five or six years ago.

And this is because of SpaceX, right? It's a couple things. Yeah. Yeah. No, SpaceX's definitely very much part of that. But I think it's just, yeah. It's easy to rag on NASA, but NASA's done a lot of really good stuff, too, that, like, people have gotten behind.

Like, you look at the Curiosity Rover and that had more attention than a lot of national and international events that are more entertainment focused. My parents will get upset. But I think a lot of it also has to do with, like, the cancellation of the shuttle is because now we're thinking, well, what are we doing? like it's it's a very barren wasteland at the moment in terms of what NASA's working on right so that's kind of reminding people like oh hey aren't we supposed to be like the number one nation for space travel and we're not really do you want to tell the people why your parents are mad oh my parents are former

NASA engineers okay and they worked on shuttle for quite now they're retired living off that sweet sweet NASA coin that NASA pension is like that funded their pool okay so I want you here to explain this to me like I'm super dumb and there's like a lot to to talk about with SpaceX trying to, you know, reland the rocket and it failed. It's been a busy couple weeks. The reaction to that, you had great stories about, like,

people are, like, not having quite the right attitude. But so here's my really dumb question. The shuttle was a thing that we put into space and then took out of space, and we had some horrific tragedies with it, but we had a thing that, you know, we put into space and we took it out of space. Why don't we, what's wrong with that sort of model that we're like, no, we need to like put a rocket up and then bring that same rocket vertically back down?

It's politics. Okay. Well, I mean, it's a lot of things. But, you know, I think one of the main, you know, catalysts for the cancellation of the shuttle program was the last disaster. It definitely, it spurred things into motion. Right. And then, you know, Bush came in and was like, oh, we should go back to the moon with the consolation program. and then Obama came in and it was like,

no, we're not going to do that. We're going to go to Mars and an asteroid instead. And then this weird hybrid thing happened to form their new launch vehicle. So that's kind of one of the main issues with NASA is you have a lot of good people there, but they're all kind of at the whims of each administration. And that's the main problem of government. But is a shuttle type thing with like wings and it lands like an airplane the best way to land a space vehicle? Well, so, I mean, the shuttle, that's basically, it was good that it was reusable, but that was basically just a bigger version of the thing that sits on top of a rocket.

And so it's good to land that, sure, but we can recover some of those capsules anyways. Landing a rocket itself, really the engine and the aeronautics and everything inside that, but the fuel stage as well is where the value really comes in. Because it's that stuff that you just lose every time. And that's kind of the criticism of, I mean, there's a lot of opinions about the new, the space launch system, which is basically, it looks like a huge Apollo rocket. Okay. It's what's supposed to take us to Mars, but it looks completely different from the shuttle. It's basically like a large heavy lift vehicle. Right. It's a big ass rocket. With that tiny little Orion spacecraft that got tested last year, the NASA built on top of it. But that's, so you just talked about how like the government can get in.

these weird sort of swings and that affects NASA, which is why we've ended up with, so space, it's nice to see NASA, you know, building a new thing. Yeah. They,

they have a plan. They want to, plan, they want to go to Mars by like the 2030s, is, you know, maybe. And so they're like,

okay, we're going to go build this thing. By the way, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I do not believe anybody when they say they want to go to Mars. Everybody says,

it's the easiest thing to say. It's so easy to say. It requires a lot of suspension of disbelief. People think it's just a matter of going there, setting up shop and having, and having like oxygen and and that's it, you know, but it's, there's so much more to it than that. It's how do you sustain yourself on there?

And just even getting to Mars is so complicated. Yeah, that's the thing. Like, like all those questions like, how do you survive and sustain on Mars? Like, I think that's incredibly interesting. I just, I think that whenever anybody says, hey, we're going to Mars,

they're lying through their teeth. I just, they're just not, it just doesn't illustrate the scope involved. You know, it's, it's so many different factors. And the technologies,

they're there, but they haven't been tested for space yet, you know, so and that's, that's huge. Like, you have to miniaturize everything. So maybe we have ways of, you know, uh, stripping oxygen from the atmosphere, but how do we put that on a spaceship? That's, that's huge. The thing is, it's always going to seem really impossible to believe until we get a little bit closer to it. So it's like, for that big question of it, it's like we kind of have to suspend it while we talk about the little stuff in the meantime. Yeah, but in the meantime, we're going to have four more presidential administrations between now and then. Well, that's why it's so, yeah, exactly.

That's why it's so important that we have private spaceflight now. And why we're watching with bated breath every time one of these companies launches something into space. And we, you know, if you're rooting for this whole idea to keep going, you hope that they are going to make it safely. Right. And for the most part, they had up until the last year, last seven or eight months. Because, you know, Musk talks about going to Mars too. And so it's like, I don't believe him either. Like I want to believe, I want us to get to Mars, of course, but yeah, we have the government's problem of, you know, rotating administrations. And then, I mean, it's just going to take a lot more money and, you know, a workforce than Elon Musk has at the moment to really do what needs to be done to get to Mars. So maybe some kind of hybrid effort. I see something like that in the future for if we are ever to get to Mars. It would be a very big collaboration. Sam, hype check Mars.

why haven't we been back to the moon? Oh my God, that's a great question. All right. Well, that was like the most passive-aggressive, hateful hype check ever. It's like, it's politics. I'm ignoring your hype check. Your hype checks have sucked this entire podcast. I'm just going to talk about whatever I want to talk about.

That was my counter-ch check. Counter-hite-hick? Well, I mean, the only reason we went there in the first place, or went into space in the first place was because we were afraid Russia was going to do it first. And now there's not, you know. We don't have that impetus driving us forward. It disappeared a long time ago, and that's why we stopped going. For anything?

It would help. It would help. There are. Help what? To go now, the reason everybody's so focused on Mars is because to go back to the moon now would take, you know, another 10 or 20 years. Which is, no, come on. Yeah. It took us 10 years to get the first?

To go back to the moon? Yeah. No, no, no. That's not true. It is very possible to use existing launch vehicles, like the Atlas 5 or the Delta 4 to get to the moon right now. Right. To get there and, like, set up shop. in a way that people talk about.

If you're going to go back to the moon, like set up a base. Yeah, but the point is we're just not, you know, using our efforts to do that right now. No, no, no. The point is what I'm asking is why would we want to? Like, what's on the moon that's cool? Well. The moon's worth a lot of money. Yeah, that's the other thing is NASA doesn't really advertise, like, like.

You can mine the moon. You can mine the moon. You can mine the millions of dollars. There's some complicated way of kind of like trapping radiation that comes from the sun, another energy form of energy production. But the main thing is think about how people colonize the earth, you know? Like, let's say you want to go to someplace further or farther. You go to someplace closer first, set up shop there, and then move on from there.

That's kind of the idea is, how are we going to know how to set up a colony on Mars before we try it somewhere first, you know? Right. Like, we should think of the normal way we colonize the Earth to do that in space. just less killing. Yeah. I mean, there's no aliens up there.

Well, I mean, you say. Yeah. But I think people are so focused on Mars because it's like a lot of people don't see a reason to go to the moon because they don't have that sort of specter of,

oh, we could potentially live there someday, like as a colony. Yeah. And so everybody's like, well, if we're going to go back to the moon, why don't we just go to Mars? It's like a,

it's like a motivator in a weird way. I don't really agree with it either. That's why we're so focused on Mars. It was like when Obama announced that we were going to go to Mars and an asteroid, he was like, why would we go back to the moon? We've already been there. Right. And I was like, that's such a terrible way.

Because it never happened. Oh, no. If we had kept going there, it would totally make sense to invest a lot in it. But it's just like, it's kind of like when you, when you don't do that paper and then you write at the last minute before it's due, it's like we all of a sudden everybody got interested in space again. It was like, oh, we can't just go back to the moon. We've got to go bigger than that.

I've got to write like five more pages on it and make it look like it was really good. Oh, my God. That's so true. Okay. We got to talk about SpaceX for real and about this crash. But before we do, I want to tell you about our other sponsor of the Vergecast today, Zero, that's spelled X-E-R-O. It's a beautiful set accounting software, but it's on the web. It's built to help small businesses be more productive and successful.

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It's good. Yeah. Thank you for that. Thanks for having me. Yeah, goodbye. SpaceX. Okay, so the thing that they've been doing is trying to prove that they could reuse a rocket. Yeah. And they've got a bunch of different kinds of rockets now, or two. They're really, I mean, they're really just using the Falcon 9 at the moment. So it's the Falcon 9. That's all there you. So the idea is that the thing gets up into space, Hooray, and then it needs to like just come straight back down, like a rocket in reverse.

Yeah, so. But they want to land it on a floating platform because landing it on the land is too simple. Yeah. So whenever. Well, it's less risky. Yeah. If you're going to try and land it, even at like a spaceport, one slight miscalculation, all of a sudden that thing just went 300 miles north of your spaceport and now it's over.

There's a lot more nothing in the ocean than there is in like Texas. Okay. Yeah. But that's huge because right now when you launch a rocket. that's it. You're just sitting that rocket up and it's not it doesn't go recovered when you're done with it. So if he's able to do this and then use that rocket body to go for another launch, that's that's never been done before. So again, I have really dumb questions. Why not just strap a big ass parachute to it? Or like five, oh, why not why not have giant inflatable things that that blow up around it like they did when they landed the thing on Mars and just have it crashed on into the ocean and then all the inflatable balloons? like shrink down and then the rockets back. Like, why do we need to like, is it because it's cooler to just land the rocket

vertically? Well, yeah. Speed and weight are big. Yeah, speed and weight. But that's funny that you say that because there are designs. So SpaceLex isn't the only one talking about reusing rockets. Okay. And ULA has a plan, which is kind of sketchy and we don't really not know much

about it, but... ULA is Boeing and Lockheed Martin. And they're designing their next rocket called Vulcan. and that has some elements where parts of the rocket would come down, use a parachute, and then helicopters would swoop in and kick it out. They need to get Michael Bay on board with this,

because it's actually a really crazy idea. It's literally a cartoon drawing right now. Yeah, that's all we know about it. This rocket's not going to launch until the end of the decade, maybe in the 2020s, and they're only talking about recovering the engine and the aeronautics at the bottom. They're not recovering the big fuel stage.

Right. And it's literally, it's doing kind of what you were saying. it has a parachute that will come out save that really bottom cap of the engine, everything, and while that's floating down, a helicopter literally swoops in. And catches in. I'm going to show you this picture.

Sam, you've not been excited about hype checks all day. But tell me that you cannot be hype about a helicopter catching a rocket midair on its way down back to Earth. Vitter didn't happen. Well, I mean, it's just a concept. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, this is. You can hype check like, ephemeral concept? Can you hype check a theory? The whole point of hype is that you're measuring the value of a thing that doesn't exist. Hype is a thing.

You can't touch hype. You can't feel hype. Have you ever shaken my hand, Deeter? You cannot eat hype. You can't put it on your body. You can't smell it. You can't hear it. It's a thing that imbues all of us.

It's in the air. It's everywhere. It's untouchable. It's unknowable. And yet you can still put a number on it. That is the point of the hype check. You should do marketing for now. HIPP check, a helicopter, catching a rocket descending from space.

10 out of 10. Thank you. You really, you earned that one. That was an epic, epic monologue. That was amazing. I would love to put some dramatic music behind that and play that while I go to sleep at night. All right. And then get Shailaboff to ramp it up.

Just do it! Okay, so this is literally, they're catching, like, they're catching parts of the market. This is literally in their white paper. This is ULA's drawing. Nobody has... This is something I would have drawn when I was like eight years old.

And like, you guys. And then we'll put a tank turret on it. So it's, I mean, it's good that they're working on this too, but the problem is this still doesn't save you as much money. And especially considering United Launch Alliance costs more to send a rocket to space. They just, they don't build it on the cheap like SpaceX does. You're saving less.

SpaceX right now is talking about if they can land... Right now, SpaceX, charges about what it's like 60 or 70 million dollars for a cargo launch for NASA I'm not sure if that's right actually it's somewhere in that range yeah because uLA is up in like the for a rocket launches in like the 100 range so say SpaceX is like 60 70 million per launch if they can recover that stage and reuse it now we're talking about six million a launch right it's like it's like on that order of savings that is so drastic yeah yeah that's insane okay so SpaceX is trying to land the rocket and it's been hard.

Right. But I shouldn't say that. No, no. Please, I feel like everybody just completely misread what I wrote. Well, we're going to, I want to talk about it a little bit clearer. Yeah, that's another day. So why is it failing or not working? And then why is it not working out for them?

But more importantly, I think is like, why do we need to like demand more and demand that it's start? Well, I think it is demand the wrong work. I think about it wrong. It was getting really close. I mean, the reason I think a lot of eyes were on last week's launch was because this was their third time to do it. And the second time that they did it, like, it got on that ship. It was like.

It landed. It landed. It landed. Like a thrust. It's like a thruster just kept going. Yeah. Basically. It gave it too much sideways motion.

It was like there. And then just went, and then exploded. It's made wonderful gifts and vines. Great internet fodder. Wait, so did we say what actually happened last week? We still, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no.

Like for like the people. Oh, yeah. Explain to us what happened. So, well, yeah. It's crazy that it was only a week and a half ago. It feels like a month ago. I was actually on a plane, which was terrifying. We were about to take off.

And then I was watching on my phone. And yeah, so when it was up, it was about to end. I think it was right before stage separation, which is when the two parts of the rocket break apart. Right. It's the right way. Yeah. It just disintegrated.

It looks like some sort of oxygen tank or something in the top stage. Right. Rupured. And it just caused explosions all the way down. And this was an Elon Musk space X. Yeah. On its way up to resupply the International Space Station. Yes.

Yeah. And it was a pretty routine launch for them too. Can you, Lauren, explain how the hell Elon Musk just has the ability and power to just make a thing and it's like, I'm going to resupply the ISS, NASA. Like, what's up? Oh, they bid for it. Yeah.

That's how that works. There was a lot of work leading up to this. I mean, they've had a contract with NASA. So this was their seventh resupply launch for the ISS. So they've done this. What he did is he went to NASA headquarters and just did donuts and his Tesla. So they came out like, dude, let me launch your things. Go ahead.

We don't care. And so it is, is it a joint venture? sort of thing between SpaceX and NASA? Who is supplying the supplies inside the rocket? Microsoft. It's packed full of Lumia films. Maybe that's why it's exploded.

Oh. Terrible thing. So, yeah, NASA, it's like a shipping company. It's like NASA's paying them to ship this stuff. Wow. Wow. Yeah. So, and it's, it had like science experiments from school kids in it.

There were no humans on board. There was a really heartbreaking story I read somewhere about one of those school experiments where it was like they had had their experiment originally on the orbital. So orbital is another company that's been doing resupply missions to the space station. And they had a rocket blow up on the launch pad in October. Oh, no. And that was another resupply mission. And one of those supplies was this like, I can't remember what the school it was. But it was like these kids had this science experiment that was supposed to go up to the station and it blew up.

And so, you know, there were all. these stories written about a lot of those things that were lost, but it was, you know, these particular kids, it was like, oh, you know, you learn to lose, you get better, like, space makes you realize that, like, it's all a process and like this. And then they ended up sending their next version up on the CRN. And they were there for the launch. And so where the rocket, where the doctor. Peter.

Sometimes kids, you lose and you lose again. And then the third time's a charm. The real, the real heartbreaking part was they were there. And they, so from the ground, by the time the rocket actually exploded, it was so far up that it was like really kind of hard to see. Like from our computers and our phones, we had the benefit of a Zoom lens. But on the ground, it kind of looked, oh, that's just like the state separation. It was just kind of a dot in the sky. And so they had turned around and started walking away, like, claps, high fives.

They were like, we did it this time. It didn't blow up. And then they were getting people, like, tweeting and texting at them and, like, consoling. and being like, oh my God, I'm so sorry, I can't believe you lost this again. I had no idea. So it was like, it was like an extra punch. Wow. Why doesn't NASA do their own resupply?

Politics. Yeah. I was going to keep saying by that. What? Well, okay, so the main way that they resupplied the ISS for years was the space shuttle. And now that it's grounded, they really don't have a launch vehicle of their own. And the space shuttle costs a lot of money. Yeah.

A lot of money. They put all their efforts into it. And so then basically they've been using. the Russians. So NASA is just like the government will get like NASA can get enough money to like get SpaceX to send the stuff up but they can't get enough money to develop

their own rockets. Is that the story? They have the money to develop their own rockets but they're putting that effort into the space launch system right now. So they are they are working on it but it takes time. So when the space shuttle was retired they didn't have anything like on the docket that was going to take its place right away

so that was the main problem. And that's why they spent the last decade paying Russia for saying, you bring our supplies up to the space station, you bring our astronauts up to the space station, and it hasn't come cheap. It costs $70 million per seat to send an astronaut to a NASA astronaut to space with Russia, which is part of why SpaceX and all these other private companies are lobbying to, and why NASA set up a commercial program, or crew program, to get these private companies to bring these astronauts to space for them, instead of paying Russia $70 million ahead going forward, but that's not going to happen until about 2017.

But we did learn today that now we know the first four astronauts who are going to test out those. So right, it's SpaceX and Boeing are the two companies that got awarded that contract last fall. Was it really? Yeah, it was in September. And so they're currently working on remodeling versions of spacecraft they've already done so that they can fit crew in there. and in 2017, they'll be the ones launching NASA astronauts to the space station. But it is a slightly terrifying because a modified version of the rocket that blew up will be taking humans. Well, but they just got to figure out what caused it to blow up. We still haven't heard what the cause is yet.

So have you read the Muske biography? No, I haven't. So they went into like the, you know, a lot about SpaceX and a lot of like everybody from NASA was just horrified. at how fast they went and how quickly they bought off the shelf components. And, you know, they just, they, they didn't sit around to, like, do triple testing and figure out that there's three different redundancies for every single system. They're just like, nope, we made a rocket. Put it up in space.

Yeah. I mean, that's a little bit over a simplification, but that's, that was basically this. Yeah, right? I can tell you from some inside sources that it's, you know, some people are big fans of Musk at NASA and. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure. Especially in the early days, they had a lot of pushback.

I mean, Neil Armstrong. on the first person to ever walk on the moon testified saying that NASA shouldn't be awarding them this contract, that they were doing these things so fast and so unchecked that it was a mistake to do this because eventually lives were going to be in their hands. And Sam just sent me this link the other day. The 60 Minutes interview with Musk from like four or five years ago, before they had even done the first crew, excuse me, cargo launch. And I can't remember the 60 Minutes interviewer, but he's asking Elon Musk what it felt. for like to see Neil Armstrong slam SpaceX in front of Congress.

And Musk was in tears. Like he was just like so like distraught. Dieter says he wasn't in tears. So I don't think he was. He had watery eyes. And some people have got shiny eyes. He has shiny eyeballs. I think I think Elon Musk just has shiny eyeballs.

He's under a lot of stress all the time I imagine. And I think most of that interview was that. But after that question, you can see it working. Shiny eyeballs, man. I'm saying he's got different emotions in your. and I do. So my big conspiracy theory. Oh my gosh.

Here we go. Which one? My big conspiracy theory. It's actually not. No, no, no, no. There is a conspiracy theory out there that ULA, because it's competing with SpaceX, used a laser to blow up the rocket because, you know,

would help their competition. That's not what I think. It's much more mundane than that. But in the biography of Musk, we found out that SpaceX often tests things on its rockets that it's not telling anybody about either things that they're eventually going to put into the rocket like systems that they just haven't really developed yet that they just want to test in in situation or they'll test the way that the government does it like say they do

something different with the separation they'll test they'll do theirs but they'll also test the government's version of that in the same launch they won't tell anybody about it and then when they go to the government to tell them like oh here's how chief louis can do this thing also like we actually tested it and we know that it works better they do it that way and so so my theory is you look at the the footage of the explosion it looks like the dragon capsule actually got away that had all the cargo and stuff in it it looks like it does and it also looks like they're a little booster fires

I don't believe this they're not supposed to have a way right now they're working on a way to move the capsule away from the explosion to protect the crew because NASA's requiring them to build a system them like that for the commercial crew program. And we saw them test that on a launch pad a couple months ago in that really cool little video where they blew the dragon capsule out into the water.

I'm gonna say your email address right now on the Lurgecast and tell people to direct their counter conspiracy theories. I just think the dragon made it away. I don't think the capsule survived or anything because I don't think it had a parachute. No one saw it come down. Oh man. I don't think that. I think it burned you to the car.

No, we've been talking about this. We were talking about it all week. I mean, yeah. I think that I think they got, I think the Castle got away from the explosion. That is the hardest, like, no, like, you're totally wrong. I've ever heard. They would test that on a NASA launch. They wouldn't do that.

But it's not a test. It's like, they just. Yeah, but they wouldn't test like some fringe new, like, but they leave the system on. I mean, they're already. Something that would jeopardize emission like that. Like the pad abort worked. Yeah. It was a little bit inaccurate, but it worked.

So, like, all you have to do is, like, build it. And if, like, a rocket explodes, silver lining, we tested the, you know, in-flight abort. And now we have some data for the. actual test. They're not going to use it to like, you really want this thing to be true. He wants it so bad.

Look at the footage. It looks like the dragon got away. All right. One more space thing. Oh, wait, I can't end, I can't end this on your conspiracy theory. Yeah,

sorry. GoPro. No, I know. I want to talk about Pluto. Oh, yeah. I'm going to be in Maryland

next week for that. Yeah. That wants used to be a planet, but not anymore. Right. Talking about problems. Pluto almost had it or the New Horizons thing

almost had a big problem. Oh, yeah. So New Horizon spacecraft was launched nine years ago. Yeah, yeah. To go explore, was Pluto. No, Pluto wasn't a planet by then. To go explore. That was, yeah, it was still a planet.

I think it's still a planet. The New York Times wrote its article about the decision in the Hayden Planetarium to remove it for a planet in like 2001. Oh, wow. It might have really picked up the press like nine years ago. Man, I'm super old. Yeah. I remember.

Okay. I remember when Pluto was a plan. What I was a boy. I walked up hill the Pluto Both ways. It's like one of the last major bodies that we know about at the edge of the solar system

and so New Horizon spacecraft was launched nine years ago to get there and it takes a long time to get there so it's just getting there next week and a couple million miles out a couple days ago. On Saturday on July 4th of July it like had a glitch and just like

shut down. It just shut down. Peaceed out which is supposed to do. Right. Yeah. So what happened was it was like handling two big like operations to gear up for the flyby that's coming up.

And apparently it was like, oh, too much to handle. And then it switched to its backup computer and like sent backward to NASA like, help me. Oh, so it's just like me. I'm just like, nope, I'm just going to sit here for a minute. I'm not going to do what I'm supposed to do. It like had too many tabs open. Yeah, yeah. He's like, nope, no, no.

Horizon spacecraft had too many tabs open and Chrome. Yeah, just went, nope. And then the next day, NASA reopened Chrome. And it said, do you want to restore all your tabs? And it did, and we're fine. And now we're going to go to Pluto. But it freaked out NASA because to get a signal to New Horizons right now, it takes four and a half hours.

Yeah. So nine round trips. So about how long it takes for me to start Chrome on my desktop is about the same. Yes. Hopefully it's not draining New Horizons battery. Right. It's nuclear. So I don't, it's going to take it.

If anything can do it, it's Chrome. So we're going to, how close are we going to get to Pluto? How good an image are we going to get at this? I can't really. I mean, we're going to get as good an image as we have of any other major celestial body in our solar system. I'm careful not to say planet. It's basically,

the Pluto system. It's flying by, though. It's not getting into orbit. So we're going to have like one day of, well. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of other spacecraft we send out to these other planets, you know, actually orbit and stick around.

We have Cassini's been orbiting Saturn and its various moons for years now. And Don, Don is at series in the asteroid belt. Yeah. Yeah. So this is just going to keep going. because there's a lot of stuff past Pluto. Part of the reason why Pluto was demoted as a planet was because it's very similar to hundreds and hundreds of other big rocks out

past where sort of the light really gets to visibly. So New Horizons is going to go past that and explore a lot more of those. But it's going to hang out in that belt. It's not going to go like rendezvous with Voyager and like. No, it's going to keep going to. I think there's another rock it's going to. Yeah, it's got some other. I can't remember the name.

Like asteroids basically right out there in the Kuiper belt. But it's, I will say this. Like Pluto, a lot of those other big objects, there are some that are as big, and maybe even bigger than Pluto past Pluto. Right. But those are all typically like, you know, kind of potato shape. They're like a little lopsided. They're not as form.

What do you got against potato shape? No, that's fine. No, but Pluto looks and is made up a lot like planets. But it's also a lot like the moons that are in their soldiers. system, which is why it's sort of in this sub, this dwarf planet territory. But Pluto's pretty cool. Like, it has its own moon, even though it's so small. But they rotate around each other.

They rotate around a center of mass. So instead of the moon rotating around. Which technically all the things do. Even the Earth and the Sun, it's not like we just orbit around the sun. There's like a tiny little bit off the center of the sun. We both orbit at that point. But it's much more drastic with Pluto. You can like see them like rotating around this like invisible point.

Yeah. So we're getting all these pictures back from New Horizons, but we're going to get a really high-resolution one, like main image of the planet for the first, the planetary system, the Pluto system, there we are, for the first time. And it's also got a camera called Lori L-O-R-R-I that's going to scan on the level of like 100 meters,

or a resolution of maybe like a meter per pixel or something like that. Okay. And like in 100-meter blocks and scan the whole, all of Pluto and then make like a really high-resolution map of it. So I can 3D print, Pluto after this? Basically, yeah. Hopefully. That's the main goal of sending it up.

But I mean, it's going to be... What's the point? And then I could sell it. What's the point if we can't print it? And therefore, we should go to space. Yeah. Yes. The main profit of space travel is 3D printing. 3D printing Pluto.

All I can definitely say is that we are... We are going to hear that Pluto is a planet like truthers. A lot after next week. When we see, because it already looks like really impressive. Well, not from scientists. No, no, no. I mean, the people who have been bummed that Pluto isn't a planet, it's going to be

like, it's going to be endless starting to see. I didn't have that much of a connection to Pluto until it was gone, I guess. We make really weird attachments to things in space, whether it's robots or rocks. You know, a couple, two, three thousand years of like nine planets. Yeah.

And, like, forming. It messed up that pneumonic device that I used for it. Yeah, yeah. My very educated mother just served us nine. Just served us just served us noodles. Nudels. about that.

Noodles. Yeah, but someone to be the point, she's still serving us something. It's not good. Yeah. Oh, yeah,

true. We need to get her to like, just saved us nicely. Yeah. Yeah. She shouldn't just have to serve. Yeah. Served us.

We'll come up for the later. Yeah. It's cool. It's really cool, though, because this is the last, like, major thing in our solar system

that we haven't visited. Yeah. So we're going to have, like, really good understanding of everything after this. Until Europa. Well,

yeah. Well, well, you've like, imaged, it and measured it and stuff. I mean, we want to really swing it back to Mars.

There are arguments to be made that, like, as much as people are pushing NASA and everybody are pushing to go to Mars, there are other places in the solar system that would be better to look for life. Yeah. And maybe even better to actually live. I'm pretty convinced that Europa is full of killer

alien. I mean... Did you see that movie Europa report? Oh my God, loved it. Yeah, it was pretty good. For like a B-movie, horror movie... It was so good. That they shot on, like,

no budget. It was actually really good. Yeah. Yeah. But I, I would love to, there's just like, there are so many, there are so many other planetary bodies that we know have like wells of actual liquid water like Europa. Yeah. And Ganymede has an ocean under it now. Yeah, that's so cool. It's like there's water throughout our solar system. And they just never thought that would be possible before. And so now it's kind of changing the idea that, you know, so when we search for alien life, we look for planets in these places called habitable zones, which is basically where they orbit around a star where water can be liquid. But now it's kind of changing the definition of what a habitable zone is because these planets in our solar system are so far out from the sun.

And yet liquid water can still exist out there. That means that maybe life is much more prolific than we thought. When we started exploring the solar system decades ago, we didn't think that water was that we thought it was like life. We thought it was really hard to find. And it's like everywhere we turn now, we find water. Yeah, it's really crazy. Water, it's just so hot right now. Yeah, big year for water.

Lauren. Hype check water. Life sustenance. Lauren, would you, two questions for you, specifically you? Specifically me. Yes. Wow. A, would you go to space?

Of course. Okay. And B, do you believe in aliens? Do you believe that aliens exist? Yeah. Cool. That's it. I'm with you.

Have you seen contact? No. Oh, such a good news. I've seen Independence Day. So Independence Day is like contact but with more cigars. Yeah. Yeah. It's actually exactly the same movie.

There's this great line in contact that Ellie says and she's like, if it's just us, then it's such a waste of space. And I totally agree with that. Is that a space pun? It can be. Do you want it to be? I don't think so. How about you guys? You haven't hype checked Pluto yet.

What is Pluto? It's like a little turd at the end of the solar system. Oh, wow. Harsh. Oh, my God. Just wait. Can I quote you in that? Sam, you're going to get so much hate now.

There's a reason why I got demoted. Oh, my God. Yeah? Well, I mean, Pluto deserved it. I'm going to tweet that. Pluto deserved. Does anyone know about our other planets moons? Like, you know, there's some other stuff.

Yeah, you're Rupa. Yeah, but there's some other stuff in our solar system that I don't think it's enough credit. What do you think would generate more hate? Pluto is, Pluto deserved it, or space is hard. I'm tweeting, there's a reason it got to move right on.

I would go to space. Yes. And there's definitely life out there somewhere. There's definitely not very complex life out there somewhere. Okay, fair. We don't know that. I think there definitely is. And I also think somewhere there's complex life.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's just two minutes. That universe is infinite, guys. How could we possibly think it's just a... I really want to know what you think. I would go to space, although I would need a good reason. Like, would you like go in a Virgin Galactic? Yeah.

Like, I would go be a space tourist. Oh, that's another discussion. I'd go be a space tourist. I'm not saying Dieter, would you strap in and go to Mars? But like, you would go to like... No, I would. But like, I, like, straight up, like, Mars doesn't need me. It needs moms. It does not need me.

True. Yeah. I am less positive that there's complex life. Complex is tough, but like, I don't know. The numbers game is just, even if you, even with the Fermi paradox, the numbers game is just too good. Yeah. Especially if you believe that the universe doesn't end. I think, I am more confident that there's complex life out there than I am that we will ever in the, until mankind and the Earth dies, it will ever encounter it.

I've seen UFOs. I have. And I'm going to sound insane. It's fine. It's totally fine. I've seen UFOs. I mean, what I perceive to be UFOs. If you don't know what it is, then, yeah.

I mean, look, it could be government testing their aircrafts, whatever. But let me just paint this picture. All right. I was maybe eight years old. Okay. And I was living in Central Jersey, a different... Eight-year-old in Central Jersey. A tiny reliable witness.

Tiny little high-east. Hey, hey, hold on. Okay. And I was with my father. my older brother Mike in my backyard. Both good guys. And over, over the distance, like, as far as we could see in the distance. Oh, so it was really far.

There were three triangles in a triangular formation. And I shit you not, you can ask my brother and my dad. And then my... You know, a Megfighter looks like. Maybe it was Russians, because Megfighters kind of look at the triangle. But in the middle of New Jersey. And they were just sort of hovering in a triangle formation, three triangles in a triangle formation, just sort of hovering over in the distance.

And what did you do about it? And then my dad, got his video camera out and we zoomed in and they that's how we were able to tell that they were the individual things were were triangles where's this video uh somewhere deep deep in a basement somewhere was it was it was it not confiscated by the government we gotta see this video yeah it's probably gone you got us you got to bring this video in i want to see it have you guys never seen something that where you were like what the hell is that thing yeah of course i have and then i realized oh wait i'm 12 i don't know what i'm doing not in the sky though it was a kite well no i take

that back three Kites. If something had the technology to get here. Did they zoom off? Did they land? They did they. So it was in a development. It was in a development and they went too far. Like we couldn't see.

Yeah, basically. Oh, they knew that you were watching. Basically. Yeah. If we had the tech, or if somebody had the technology to get here. So why do you think they wanted to go to New Jersey? They would definitely come see Sam first. I don't know.

They wanted to buy Sam's Nike's. Who do we need to? We need to talk to this guy, Sam. Yeah. That's like, look, all I'm saying is that there are probably aliens out there. They're definitely aliens out there. Yeah, we're just never going to talk to them. Yeah.

I don't, I mean, how can you predict that? I can totally predict. You know, NASA thinks we're going to encounter aliens soon, too. They, they, the, I can't remember who it was, but one of the NASA administrators are like, we're going to, like, find aliens in the next 10 years. Deider, do you think it's more. I think we'll find life. Which I don't know how you fall for that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Is it, last question. Last crazy space question. All right. Is it more plausible? Where have you been the entire podcast? The last five minutes, like, oh, yeah, here I am.

I'm in it now. He was really bummed in it, now. The hype woke up. Is it more plausible that in some fourth dimension, there is, like, the Star Wars universe exists, or that we're going to, like, you know, come in contact with aliens? What do you think is more plausible? Oh, gosh. Same question.

Yeah, wait. Is it, though? So that the entire Star Trek universe exists in another dimension. or that we're going to just encounter like aliens, like in the sense of an alien. Oh, it's way more likely that we'd encounter aliens than that precise replica of Star Wars universe exists. Although, actually, if you do properly believe in the multiverse,

it's actually the opposite. Because if there are infinite universes out there, then one of them, by definition, would have to match the Star Wars universe. And in our universe, it seems like it's way less likely than a certainty that we're going to hear from aliens. No, but. Therefore, therefore, Star Wars exists.

exists out there for sure, but we're never going to talk to aliens. No, no, no, no. This conversation really derailed. That's not correct. If you believe in the theory of the multiverse, then every single possible universe exists. And that means a universe exists in which we would come in contact with aliens. Yeah, but that's not us. That's a different universe.

It could be us. Mike drop in the form of a laptop closing. Now that you close your laptop, why don't, actually before... Do you have to do the money thing? Before you get to socialists, I want to look. to the camera that podcast listeners can't hear. I don't want to say one thing. You ready?

Yeah. Virges hiring. Verge.com slash jobs. Do you want to come sit any seats with us? We are hiring a reporter out on the West Coast in San Francisco. We are hiring... Transportation? Transportation.

Man, car reviewer, car reporters. So many things. A lot of things. A ton of video stuff. So check it out. Virge.com slash jobs. every level actually from like entry level

first you know green reporter all the way up to grizzled video veteran director and car reviewer so like come come apply sit here send us an email with what you think of us yeah and talk about aliens and the video team in our forums right now

which are fun and a cool place to hang out and comment on things convincing no it's true they are it's fun I've had fun in the forums last couple of you've been posting like what's your favorite thing to read it's been fun to Rossi Foster because I basically just ripped off today in tabs.

But it's cool because it's just a handful of people that kind of check it every day. And that's all I really wanted. You build a small community. Yeah, when I'm away from Twitter, I want to see the stuff that I didn't get to, like, store myself to read later. But the video team is doing a Q&A in the forums right now in the lens in our photography and camera forums. And you should go there and ask questions and they will tell you which cameras they use. And they will not tell you what music we use because that's just, that question gets tired. Okay, Sam, socialists.

well if you enjoyed this podcast you should probably go on iTunes and rate it probably five stars because five stars is better than four and tell us tell us if you think we'll see aliens yeah tell us if you think we'll see aliens and also just like the star wars universe be for bust that for me please um you should also wait i thought on star trek no star wars don't even uh you should also you should also find our other podcasts uh one of our podcast is called What's Tech and is hosted by the wonderful Chris Plant. And that explains technology, various forms of technology in layman's terms. It is a great show. You should definitely listen. And we have another new podcast called Verge ESP. That is available on iTunes as well. That is hosted

by Emily Oshita and Liz Lapato. It is dope also. Check it out and rate at five stars because you're already there. Please go listen to ESP because I want Emily and Lopato's chemistry to just like like win everybody over and end up, end up where it needs to be, which is a buddy cop movie. It's so good. I like that. There's so much fun together. And then for the social window that I'm going to make you

wait out. Hurry up. We're at Comic-Con right now. If you're listening to this podcast in the next few days, Comic-Con is happening in San Diego. We've got a bunch of reporters out there. We're doing video and reporting and lots of things are going to happen there.

So follow us on Snapchat. We are the a real verge on Snapchat. We have a story up today. Brian has taken over the account and you get to see Batman's costume and a whole bunch of other great things. You should also add us on Periscope. If you use Periscope, just add the... No, it's not the Verge.

It's just at Verge. I Periscope today. Chris Ziegler is riding around in a McLaren this weekend. And you can hear that engine roar on Periscoped within the next 20 hours. And Instagram.com slash verge. Man, just always sneak the extra one. If you don't follow us there already, I know you, if you're using this podcast, if you're listening to this podcast and you don't use Instagram, please send me an email to samethevurge.com and explain to me your life.

But you should follow a verge on Instagram. We are Instagram. I'm going to read those emails. Explain to me your life. And that's it. We will be back next week. We're going to talk about ComicCon. We're going to talk about a lot of stuff.

But until then, you should follow us on Twitter. We are. Verge. I am Backlon. Lauren is Lauren Grush L-O-R-E-N. Sean O'Kane is S-C-E-E. O-K-A-N-E-1. Yeah.

Easy. And Sam-Cheffer is Sam-Cheffer. Thanks for watching and or listening. Bye. Hashtag Bach.