Episode 243 - Ducktricity (with Miles O’Brien)

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:27]Hello. Hello, Jake. Uh >> hello.

[00:00:30]>> Uh I thought I had something to say to you right off the top, but I don't.

[00:00:32]How's it going?

[00:00:34]>> Good. It's very It's very chaotic at my house cuz we had a power outage like uh 45 minutes ago, half an hour hour ago or so, and I wasn't sure if it was going to come back on for us and it did just in time. But then I was like scrambling and I I went and made I made a drink. I'm going to show you in a second here. And I was like I had the shaker and just before like I was ready to pour, I dropped the shaker and like there's just >> there's just like tequila all over my kitchen right You cleaned it up or did you just yell I dropped tequila?

[00:01:00]>> Uh, some of it. Some of it. It's not done yet though. So anyway, we got here.

[00:01:04]I got here on time. We're okay.

[00:01:06]>> Strong likelihood you'll either lose power or have to go clean up. And it will just be me. And thankfully Miles O'Brien is hanging out with us. How's it going, Miles?

[00:01:13]>> You might have a drunk dog, too. Who knows? But uh, yeah.

[00:01:17]>> Gosh, guys.

[00:01:18]>> We've got a lot of animals.

[00:01:19]>> This is great. I did five days without power this past winter in in the blizzard.

[00:01:25]>> Whoa.

[00:01:25]>> And and I will I will tell you, no. No BS. Uh, can we say swear words on this show?

[00:01:30]>> Yeah, >> you sure can.

[00:01:31]>> Oh, no [ __ ] I I had better weather in Antarctica. I came home to Cape Cod.

[00:01:36]I'm kid you not. It was like 20° and sunny there. I came home 5t of snow, 5 days without power. It was crazy. And you know, I don't know. After all these years, why are we putting wires on sticks still? What the hell? Why? Why is that a thing?

[00:01:53]>> It's a great question.

[00:01:55]>> I don't know. Just throwing that out there.

[00:01:57]>> Yeah.

[00:01:58]>> I mean, your last guest, right, doing the the what's his name? Rush. The >> the Rush. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:02:02]>> Starchaser guy. Why Why can't he do that here? Laser beam power to us.

[00:02:07]>> Oh, here we go. Be kind of, wouldn't it?

[00:02:09]>> Right.

[00:02:09]>> There we go. Now you're going to get us the space solar power people and we're going to It's going to be a whole thing.

[00:02:13]So, >> that is a thing. You know, if you don't mind frying ducks that are flying through duck fricacy. It's >> the funniest visual I've ever had. I've never It's like Think about it, right?

[00:02:26]You know, you know.

[00:02:28]>> Yeah. Miles, you're running a little hot. Can you turn your game down like two DBs? Penguin poop in the chat. Very help. Penguin. Penguin poop in the chat.

[00:02:37]How about you're saying, "Hey, you're here on the internet with these guys.

[00:02:40]You get you get live audio feedback from people named Penguin Poop." So, that's >> Can you hear me? How's that? Still hot.

[00:02:46]How's that? Is that better?

[00:02:47]>> Yeah, you're good when you're not eating the mic. Okay. All right. All right.

[00:02:50]Poop. That's enough of that.

[00:02:52]>> It's good. It's a It's a hot start here.

[00:02:54]Jake, what do you got? Show us that training.

[00:02:57]>> What do I got now? We've lost miles.

[00:03:00]>> We've lost miles, but >> it's a hot start.

[00:03:03]>> Well, we'll get through this. Yeah. So, obviously I mentioned tequila. I just made a classic mark today and did the full full shebang. So, >> we're back.

[00:03:11]>> Here's the real question. Are we live?

[00:03:12]>> We're We're so live.

[00:03:14]>> Yes.

[00:03:14]>> Yeah.

[00:03:14]>> We're live. Yes.

[00:03:18]>> This is how the sausage is made, people.

[00:03:21]>> All right. Jake, did you pour this into Is that the tiny glass that you're using today? Was that all that was left after you threw a bunch of it on your floor?

[00:03:27]Is that what happened?

[00:03:28]>> No. No. I I saved it. Uh but you know.

[00:03:32]>> Okay. All right.

[00:03:33]>> Yeah.

[00:03:34]>> Sure.

[00:03:35]>> Without doing a playbyplay. I recovered it.

[00:03:38]>> Yeah. Fair. Fair. I've got a similarly colored drink. I've got some veraca today. My favorite summer.

[00:03:44]>> You guys are going deep. I feel like a light.

[00:03:46]>> Sanjana. What do you got? What do you got over there, Miles? Well, I'm on Cape Cod, so I have Cape Cod brewery.

[00:03:53]>> Look at that.

[00:03:53]>> And it's summer. It's a heffen vasa.

[00:03:56]>> A heffen vasa, which to which you say gazite, I guess. Um and and uh it is um I'm going to open it.

[00:04:06]What the hell? But the one thing is I will say this in this part of the world, summer is actually spelled s u m mm ah.

[00:04:13]Summer.

[00:04:15]>> The summer people are coming, right? So this is >> it's Memorial Day just like us here.

[00:04:20]Jake was confused by this last week. We talked about >> I thought about that.

[00:04:24]>> It all goes to [ __ ] >> Yeah.

[00:04:26]>> Anyway, those summer people.

[00:04:29]>> Well, cheers, J. This is a It's a great treat to be with you.

[00:04:33]>> It's the fact that this is the first time you've been on the show is a real crime to be honest.

[00:04:37]>> Well, we can atone.

[00:04:39]>> A total crime.

[00:04:40]>> Yeah.

[00:04:40]>> Got a lot to talk about. Where do we start, Jake? I'm going to give you the pick of the litter. We got a We had a Starship flight. We had some moon base updates to sort through, I guess. And what else? Well, Miles went to Antarctica the time that he went to the South Pole.

[00:04:53]>> Yeah. Yeah, there's that.

[00:04:55]>> Let's uh Why don't we dig into Artemis first? I think there's there's some juicy stuff there. That feels that feels the the the news. I don't know. I don't know if that's a word, but feels like we're there's stuff to chew on there.

[00:05:06]>> Uh what did you guys think of the LTV Awards? Did they land the way you thought they would land, or what are you surprised about?

[00:05:15]Yeah, I I'm listen I I think the the overall conversation is excellent, right? This is this has the impremature of of Jared Isaacman obviously, you know, if if you know, creating um devices and specs that are within reason, right? And you know, maybe we don't need the robot arm on the doom the buggy, right? And maybe it doesn't need to go quite as fast. you know, being reasonable about the specs for this is is really nice to see, right? This is not a blank checkbook era. And uh I think you know what they're laying out there is you kind of go, "Oh, that that actually makes sense." And you know, I haven't seen a lot of that in recent years coming out of our favorite space agency.

[00:06:02]So, you know, this is you know, what do you think? I mean, I listen, the fact that we're having a real discussion about a lunar outpost is is fabulous, right? And and you talk about a connection to Antarctica. It's it's it's like thinking about the moon as McMmero or Amanson Scott as opposed to let's put a flag in, leave some footprints, and go home. So, I I think that the scientific possibilities are tremendous, and it's just we're going to we're going to learn so many things about what it's like for human beings to be in space. It's so I think what they laid out overall looks looks good. What do you guys think?

[00:06:39]>> Jake was shocked that the money was so cheap, right?

[00:06:42]>> Well, yeah. I mean, was what? This seems kind of low.

[00:06:47]>> Yeah. Well, because I was trying to remember back we had um because we had Lunar Outpost on the show not too long ago and I correct me if I'm wrong, Anthony, but I I think the numbers he was bandandying about were in the the billion range. It was over >> for sure. It was a a number measured with a B. Yeah. And so, um, I'm very curious to see like what they're how they're reacting that and they have to change their operations obviously. Um, and I'm also curious about because the they were talking about 1 billion and they had that the full-size rover and then they just get this award like not too long after that show and it's like a totally different rover. So, I did they have that in their back pocket? Was that like a like a an alternative to the bid or was they was that scrambled together?

[00:07:29]I don't really know how that kind of played out, but I think largely I I agree, Miles, like getting it down scoped to an achievable first milestone is like a much smarter way to go about it. So, I think overall it's going to be positive. Yeah.

[00:07:43]>> And generally historically very unNAS, right? So, I like this. I like I like this about it. And uh you know, what do they do? Look at their design and just use every other part to save money. I don't know. Something like that.

[00:07:57]But, you know, it only has to last a year. I mean, the specs are reasonable and and uh, you know, reasonable is a good thing when you're trying to do something like this because it isn't uh, you know, we don't have a um, you know, we choose to go to the moon moment here, right? We're we're just trying to cobble out a scientific enterprise at a time when science is under siege everywhere else.

[00:08:19]>> Definitely was not a we choose to go to the moon moment because that was the clunkiest event of the Isaacman era. It was just it felt so clunky to me.

[00:08:25]anything that what happened there weird.

[00:08:28]Anything that was supposed to have like, you know, prominence in the event felt like very underplayed. Uh the the major announcement was in the middle. It was it was weird. There was a weird recap of like last time that felt like previously on ignition and it was like the moon phase plans and then then we got into it. The one thing on the money front, I I think it might be how we do math because previously the LTV awards themselves had to arrange launch and landing and that's been removed. This is just the contract for the rover and then everything's going to fly on blue moon.

[00:08:59]And then the other aspect is I don't know that we have a ton of detail yet but I assume this is like the initial rover acquisition and some initial service whereas the LTV contract previously was a this is how much money is available for all the awards over time which could have been a 10-year period of services. So it still might get to that but it's we're only actually talking about the thing that matters now not like the we've been awarded a contract that could be worth $3.5 billion. It's just, you know, we're building this one rover. So, >> you know, this is this is why you're so good at what you do, Anthony. You actually understand that crap. It's amazing. You know, you go deep into the budgets. You actually figure where the apples compared to the apples. I love that about you.

[00:09:43]>> Oh, I appreciate that.

[00:09:44]>> You know, the reason the reason I don't know all the details yet on this, but here's my half tape with a wine in my hand.

[00:09:52]>> Boldly stated, plausibly be maintained.

[00:09:54]But, you know, I mean, the re it's it's too much >> splitting of the launch and landing is is the key part though because >> yeah, other people that have been annoyed at this for on the clip side, which I I do want to talk about clips a little bit, but >> I know people that have worked in and around the lunar programs and have been continually annoyed >> that NASA isn't just buying launches to the moon and then manifesting whatever's available on them. that they have to you have to bid a task order for both a lander and the way to get it to the moon was a thing that in the early days was causing a lot of turmoil internally and these definitely would be contracts that would be way more inflated if they had to contain all that complexity. Now we've put all the eggs in the blue moon basket.

[00:10:36]>> I hope that crane works out and the fact that we've rebranded the Griffin mission that NASA previously wanted to >> pound into the lunar regalith and is now like moon base. What is that one? Moon base 2. Is that Griffin? We're doing that now. So, yeah, congrats. You got you you've removed a payload and been upgraded to a moonbased mission, whatever the hell that means.

[00:10:53]>> Just like that. Boom.

[00:10:54]>> Boom. We're back.

[00:10:56]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:10:57]>> What does that mean when something is a moon base mission? Has anyone figured out? Is this I'll know it when I see it.

[00:11:02]Moon base one, two, and three. None of these are about the moon base. Moonfall is more about the moon base, apparently.

[00:11:09]>> I guess that moonfall thing is kind of interesting, huh?

[00:11:12]>> Pretty cool, honestly.

[00:11:14]>> Yeah. I don't know. Oh, I you know here here's the question. What you know what is a reasonable timetable in your mind for all this because we still we still need you know a heavy lift operation here to make this all practical right >> which kind of gets us into the starship discussion I guess. I don't want to get ahead of ourselves.

[00:11:33]>> Guess what didn't come up the other day?

[00:11:36]>> Heavy lift.

[00:11:37]>> No, there was no there was zero Starship any at all in that in that presentation.

[00:11:42]>> There was a there was a render on a slide I think but yeah.

[00:11:44]>> Okay. Did they mention it? I don't know.

[00:11:46]>> I don't know.

[00:11:47]>> Wow. They were they worried about pumping the IPO or something or I don't know.

[00:11:52]>> I just think it's I think it's a we we've been we've been talking about this idea, Jake, that you know, Blue Moon sticks a landing and all of a sudden, you know, ho ho ho, I've got the machine gun now is is like the moment that that they're in. Like they just got they have a shitload of lunar landers coming up.

[00:12:07]>> Yeah. I you know it you don't as a nonrocket scientist just looking at those two designs I mean I think you know it seems seems what makes more sense on paper right I mean wouldn't you agree >> both have crazy cranes >> the one crane is an elevator and the other one goes like over the top of the rover it's like an excavator arm I guess which is kind of cool honestly my sons are going to love that >> doesn't it just looks like the center of gravity is a little more where it should be right I Maybe maybe um >> maybe maybe not. What >> the engines are so heavy like center of gravity on those things is so messed up.

[00:12:45]Like it's not intuitive, right? Like >> it may not be what it looks like, right?

[00:12:48]>> Yeah. Like watching the Falcon 9's land is the same thing. Like how do you keep it stand up? It's like well the center of gravity is about 10 inches off the ground. Like it's like it's all it's just a giant hunk of steel at the bottom and a thin aluminum tube going up, right? So it's like it's a very different situation. But um no, but I I do wonder though. Yeah, I do wonder like thinking about what you're saying there Anthony is like are we seeing now the the drawbacks of the monolith design, right? Because like the Starship is everything design is like has benefits like like any other monolithic engineering endeavor, right? Like you kind of get everything for one one idea, but if the idea is slow, everything is slow, right? Like the the entire program is now kind of like behind schedule because they've had a couple hiccups and starts on the launches now, right? And maybe we're seeing the downstream effects of that. That's kind of a thought at least.

[00:13:39]>> Well, it seems to be a pace limiter at this point if you hinge everything on that to say the least. The the the tall pole in the tent as they often say, right?

[00:13:48]>> So, I don't know. I uh you know, I didn't that last test that was a mixed bag to say the least. Right. What was your take on it?

[00:13:57]>> FA's take was it was a mishap. So, >> not so good. Not so good.

[00:14:02]Yeah, I think I said mixed when I saw it, but yeah, it's >> it feels worse a week on than than it did the days after.

[00:14:10]>> Yeah.

[00:14:11]>> Yeah. I don't know.

[00:14:12]>> I don't know what I expected, though.

[00:14:13]Like, it is it is I I thought it was interesting how much SpaceX talked up, oh, this is a a new vehicle like to cuz all right, roll the clock back 10 years, okay? Right.

[00:14:25]>> And and let's get all the people that were hot about, >> oh, Falcon 9 Block 5 is not a whole new vehicle. we don't need to fly all these certification flights and now SpaceX is like we got a brand new vehicle here and we're all like it's the same thing though isn't it like it's really the same thing like we're back we've everything's reversed you know uh >> but they did harp on that quite a bit and I'm not saying that's not true because you look at the list of changes you're like god damn that is a different launch vehicle that is a new I mean it comes off the pad hot compared to the other ones the other ones were >> what was it like 45 extra tons of payload mass or some crazy number like it was >> wild so it's awesome to see that cuz I know that was a concern that people had, which was, hey, Starship isn't launching a lot of payload.

[00:15:04]>> And I've always handwaved that away because I'm like, that's the same that it's always been. They're not worried about that part yet, so they're not going to work on that part yet.

[00:15:12]>> But the fact that >> Why aren't you worried about Why aren't you worried about payload? You're just going to wave your hands on that one a little bit?

[00:15:17]>> I totally am going to wave. They're absolutely going to figure it out. Like that they did enough math that like this is physically possible. Yes. Because SpaceX only ever works on the next thing they need to if they have their math that like yeah this will work out in the long run but the next thing we need to solve is this part and >> well where they where are they going to find the payload Anthony there it's in it's the checks in the mail miles it's fine >> take a few bolt nuts and bolts out and >> yeah but I mean you look at how much they just trimmed off this vehicle it's crazy like >> yeah it was like something like one ton per Raptor engine was removed in this design like that's so there's you know there's 33 tons right off the >> Yeah, but we're going for 150 metric tons, aren't we?

[00:15:55]>> Yeah, but look at I mean, I'm just I'm banking on Well, I think it's down to 100 now. So, >> oh, 100. Okay, then scale back a little bit. Yeah, until they get to stretch it away, right?

[00:16:05]>> Experience says this. They'll figure this part out. Like, this is the easy compared to all the things in Starship.

[00:16:11]That's >> Merlin doubled in thrust over its lifetime, right? So, yeah.

[00:16:15]>> Yeah. So, >> so you're you're okay on payload. What about um how you feeling about, >> you know, heat shield issues on ship?

[00:16:24]>> Heat shield looked great when it came back in.

[00:16:27]>> Yeah.

[00:16:27]>> Um >> yeah. Are we going to end up with a shuttle problem there though, you know, with tiles falling off, or do you think it'll be robust enough to, you know, kick the tires, light the fires, and turn it around like a 737?

[00:16:40]>> I mean, that that part feels a lot off, but >> yeah, >> but they they've flown this thing a lot with missing heat shield tiles, and it comes back great every time. Like it doesn't look great every time, but it doesn't look >> Oh, you're sound sounding like NASA now.

[00:16:53]>> That foam. The foam hits the tiles all the time. It comes back without tiles all the time. What could happen?

[00:16:58]>> No, but they intentionally did it, you know, nine times or whatever. I am amazed. I will give them This is the one biggest piece of credit I'll give SpaceX is that me and everyone else, I don't know, I don't know a single person that agreed with SpaceX after they landed a single suborbital Starship and immediately said, "We're good. We're moving on to the next part." I don't know anyone that was supportive of that.

[00:17:18]We all were like, "Just fly five more.

[00:17:20]Like, you got a while before anything else happens." They totally were right.

[00:17:23]Every time they get to that part of the flight, Starship looks great. So, I can't retroactively. I give them A+ on that decision to just totally move on.

[00:17:35]>> I didn't expect to be in the same holding pattern, though. This is the part that feels worse for me a week on is that like as it set in that like oh [ __ ] they have to fly this flight again and it's going to take a month or two.

[00:17:46]>> That sucks.

[00:17:47]>> Yeah.

[00:17:49]Doesn't he once at the FAA? I thought he I thought he was trying to you know grease the skids at the FAA. What happened there?

[00:17:56]>> Yeah. He fired everybody unfortunately.

[00:17:58]So >> didn't he? Yeah.

[00:18:00]>> There's no one to sign the paperwork.

[00:18:02]But >> there's no no one to sign for it really.

[00:18:05]>> It is wild though. 12 flights in and we're still not going to orbit and delivering things, right? Like that that >> 15 billion, gentlemen. 15 billion. That that is a that is a significant investment, right? I would say that's way beyond what he predicted, right? Was the what was the number initially?

[00:18:22]Single billions, wasn't it?

[00:18:24]>> Something. Yeah.

[00:18:26]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:27]>> I don't know how many flights before Falcon was delivering payloads. Like it was pretty quick.

[00:18:32]>> Yeah. I mean, >> depends if you think of Wheel of Cheese's payload, I guess.

[00:18:36]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:38]>> But two or three, >> no more than >> if not one. Uh, depends on how you score it.

[00:18:47]>> I mean, [ __ ] dude. Blue moon might land on the moon before Starship's orbital.

[00:18:51]Still, we still are in that spot. That That is a plausibility.

[00:18:54]>> Yeah.

[00:18:55]>> Yeah. I wouldn't bet against >> probably will be on the moon before Starship.

[00:18:58]>> Yeah. No, I I I think you got you're you're on to something there. That's crazy. You tell me that five years ago, I'm like, you're nuts. You're totally nuts.

[00:19:06]>> Yeah, you're insane. Yeah, >> that sucks.

[00:19:09]>> I mean, >> but it's also good progress. Like, this was a new vehicle. It looked great. The engine looked great. The heat shield looked great. I The pad looks awesome.

[00:19:14]The >> launch pad looked awesome. Yeah.

[00:19:16]>> Yeah. So, like there is progress, but we also still are in a holding pattern about the next part of the flights. And that's the part that hurts worse.

[00:19:25]>> Yeah. So, they do a redo and then what what happens after that, you think?

[00:19:32]orbit.

[00:19:33]>> You think they'll get That'll be the next one will be an orbital flight.

[00:19:36]>> No, I think the next one's going to be exactly this flight again, >> even with the booster.

[00:19:39]>> No, I'm sorry. The one the one after they do a redo. That'll be the first one.

[00:19:43]>> Probably booster catch ship orbit.

[00:19:46]>> Yeah, they got they got to get to that soon. I feel like the the skipping the Indian Ocean going all the way around and bringing the thing back to Texas feels like a an important milestone that I might have been taking for granted and we're still not close to it. And I'm a little >> Yeah, >> I don't know. That's what I'm That's what I'm worried about. I think that one feels a little strange still, like why haven't we got there yet, you know?

[00:20:10]>> I have a crazy Starship theory to roll out >> in in about uh on that, Jake. On launch site and and re-entry type stuff.

[00:20:19]>> Oh, so really?

[00:20:20]>> I got a whole thing. Well, we could do it now if you want.

[00:20:23]>> Yeah, Lay it out us. Lay it out.

[00:20:24]>> All right. There's this, you know, there's they're buying land in Louisiana and that's a thing that that came out recently was that Starship or SpaceX is buying land in the Louisiana area for a polar launch site for Starship. I don't know if that part came out, but for a polar launch site of Starship, that's where they would fly polar. You got about thousand kilometers over the Gulf that you can fly before you hit land so that they got the right amount of room >> if there's a handful.

[00:20:49]>> Is that the minimum? Is that like the FAA minimum thousand kilometers of fetch over the ocean? I don't know if they have an actual stated minimum. But >> looking at every other place, that's about what we need before it's comfortable for >> Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Anyway, I never knew that number. Thank you. I learned another thing from you.

[00:21:06]>> There you go. You can Google maps.

[00:21:08]>> First the budgets, now this. Yeah.

[00:21:10]>> I forget what was the time we were doing that, Jake. We were doing distance math on on that at some point.

[00:21:17]>> Well, we're trying to see if it was going to hit me. So, >> well, that >> Yeah, you're you're going to get some.

[00:21:25]>> I think the the sunsync orbit's going to go safely to the west. Yeah, it's going to go over the estimates, so we'll be okay.

[00:21:31]>> All right, I've got this is that's turned into a longer theory than I remembered that it was. But there's three three different components here.

[00:21:37]One is that they're getting this new launch site area. Uh if you look at uh where they might de-orbit ships from and try to catch them, that place actually looks to be the best. If you're talking about launching to suns synchronous orbit or polar orbit at all, right? You launch south. If you wait half a day, you could be coming back up the Gulf and then fly over all water. You don't really have any overland re-entry there where you do with Texas, you do with Florida. You could fly instead of what they're planning now, which is fly over land, overshoot the launch site, and then drive and then come back to the launch site with powered propulsion, you would undershoot the launch site or the landing site and then push to the the launch mount.

[00:22:20]>> So, that that works out well. Another thing is a blog post that I've been desperately trying to find that I believe John Goff wrote like eight years ago, and I I need to find this. It's somewhere on their Selenium boot docs.

[00:22:33]I'll try to put a link in the show notes, but it was about orbital depots, propellant depots, and it was I think this came about, he was writing a lot about uh where you might put orbital propellant depots to be useful. And it was around the same time that Mars Insight launched and it where did it launch from, Jake?

[00:22:55]>> From California. Yeah, >> from California. Polar launch for a Mars mission, which everyone was like, "What the hell?" And it turns out that when you're flying not to Earth orbit, you could launch from anywhere as long as you're pointing the right direction when you do your boost, right? So I'm putting these two things together and I'm like, they want to fly an absolute shitload of data centers to polar orbits. They need a polar orbit launch site. We sort of have this working theorem on this show where any flight of Starlink or orbital deep orbital data centers, any propellant left over would go and refuel a depot. What if they did the John Goff thing and and had like eight different orbital depot planes in polar orbit that you could fly to and then refill that depot? You have eight different planes.

[00:23:40]So every couple of hours on a polar launch you could reach one of the depots, right? You just got to wait. You don't have to wait a whole day to come around again. Or honestly for mid inclination, like if you look at the ISS launch windows, those are very few and far between. Probably got one per day.

[00:23:54]this. You've got one every couple of hours in in the southerntherly direction. And you're also synced up with an easy catch location. And it's also not that bad for if you're doing propellant reloading. It you kind of minimize the losses that you get going to polar orbit because you're biggest loss is the payload loss that you get going up to orbit. But if you're getting refilled when you're in orbit, all orbits to some extent, if you can really manage it, are the same. So you could launch to the moon out of there. You could launch to Mars out of there and it is the most frequent location that Starship might be launching.

[00:24:28]>> H So I kind of feel like everything's everything's polar >> or bipolar depending on who you are. But um um what help me guys guys have you have you Anthony you you you know budgets and math. We we've established that in this program. Have you done a back of the napkin about these data centers in orbit? Honestly, the amount >> he's going to be so number waving this away.

[00:24:56]>> The amount of mass, the amount of up mass, the the, you know, the fact that the uh the chips fail frequently and you got to keep servicing all that, all the issues associated with, you know, cooling something like this. Does it do you really think it makes sense?

[00:25:14]>> Unfortunately, I do. We got there.

[00:25:18]>> I was a huge skeptic at first and I got there. So >> yeah, I want to hear it. Tell me. Tell me.

[00:25:22]>> Tell us, Jake. Hit us with the theory.

[00:25:24]>> The And if this is redundant to your audience, if it's boring to them, I >> I think this was a Discord. I'm curious.

[00:25:29]>> So, >> yeah. Well, we talked a little bit about it in the last show, but the I'll give you the shortest version.

[00:25:34]>> So, >> from a like a you know, the first principles approach, there's more sunlight in space and that's always true. Right. Right.

[00:25:45]>> So then you you really what you have to do is you have to look down at like your inputs, right? And if you're building data centers on the ground, your inputs are real estate and construction services for people to make the thing and uh you know any kind of legal bureaucracy, regulation, permits, all that kind of like you know red tape you have to cut through. Those are your inputs there, right?

[00:26:05]>> And then your inputs on the space side are rockets and satellites, right? M >> and think about which which of those groups you want you want to be in control of or which ones you can be in control of. Right? And so >> all right >> if you're if you're building data centers on the ground, you are always going to be a consumer. You have to go out and buy a data center. If you're building them in space, you're building the factory that makes the data center and you can spit them out at whatever rate you want and no one stands in your way. If you can bring down launch costs and you can bring down satellite cost, you can all those things are in your control, you can close the business case. Whereas on the real estate side, all those prices are going up and they're out of your control. So it's like in the in the long the long view of things, eventually data centers will make more sense in space even if they don't today.

[00:26:52]>> So what does a launch what is the you know what what's the cost per kilogram that makes this business case work?

[00:26:59]>> I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what that number is. That's >> it starship if it works.

[00:27:03]>> You say napkin math or not? Okay.

[00:27:06]There's no napkins. But but the the point the point being is though is like it it depends on you controlling the whole supply chain, right? So if you control the rocket and you control the satellite manufacturer, you're like just you're outputting data centers at a controllable rate and all the costs you control and all your IP are vertically integrated. It's beautiful. It's >> all vertically integrated. There's no NIMI in space.

[00:27:26]>> Not yet.

[00:27:27]>> Well, there is, but >> yeah. What are you gonna go ahead and stop me, right?

[00:27:33]>> Just try. Just try.

[00:27:35]>> I I can see why they get there. I don't know. I don't know if it like the the the one thing that stands out to me is like you know the IPO documents had like they had that addressable market number and it was like a little bit of this from space a little bit of this from what and they had all those little things and then it was like this giant block at the end that was like 90% of the addressable market they just called it enterprise applications and didn't really go down to what that actually meant. I'm kind of like okay what is that? Let's just let's talk a little more about what this number means because if that doesn't pan out none of this makes any sense but >> that's a big handwave.

[00:28:04]>> Yeah.

[00:28:04]>> Yeah. Yeah. It's a choose your own adventure because anyone reads it and goes, "Oh, yeah, of course." Like the enterprise applications that I think of when you say that, not what you do.

[00:28:12]>> Yeah.

[00:28:14]>> Interesting. Interesting. Wow.

[00:28:16]>> Yeah.

[00:28:16]>> I don't know. I'm still a skeptic. I I need to maybe I should listen to your or watch your Discord or where is it? Where where do I find that?

[00:28:23]>> I think you should honestly best best way to believe this is just become a software developer like Jake and I and experience this in real time as makes your job much easier and much better.

[00:28:32]>> You're seeing it unfold before your very eyes. You're like, "Oh, I would pay a lot of money to continue to do this."

[00:28:39]>> Yeah, >> exactly.

[00:28:41]>> So, that's a cheat sheet to like buying any of this.

[00:28:45]>> Yeah.

[00:28:45]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:46]>> So, >> anyway, >> so yeah, >> I have this ridiculous polar orbit theory. So, >> I I like the theory for Mars.

[00:28:54]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:55]>> I like it for Mars. the moon.

[00:28:58]Maybe I need to talk to some smarter people about that cuz you the polar orbit locks you into like I can only go in like that direction, you know, >> so >> well at least at least SLS has like this going on and so like you only need like a little bit of a plane change to like go to anywhere >> because they still have all those other constraints that gives them one exactly one time to go.

[00:29:19]>> Yes. So >> luckily they never have to meet.

[00:29:21]>> You're thinking KSP style, Jake, where you could just go around again and then try it.

[00:29:26]>> Well, as long as we're doing skepticism moments. What about fuel depots? Are you guys in the skeptical department on that or have you worked out the the napkin on that as well?

[00:29:40]>> A marketable service or as a as a part of a system like Starship >> as a part of a system like Starship.

[00:29:46]Yeah, let's start with that. I think for Sergeant seems to work. Yeah, >> it's going to work. Really?

[00:29:52]>> My my mind was changed when somebody called me a couple of months ago and was like, "You're thinking about it wrong.

[00:29:57]Don't think about how many flights it takes to refill a Starship to do an HLS landing.

[00:30:03]>> Just think about the fact that they will keep a depot always filled up and then use it when they need to." And I'm like, "Oh, so if Starship flights are half Starlinks, half data centers, and half propellant to a depot and they keep it always topped up and whenever they need it, they can go dip into it, then it doesn't it's probably incalculable how many Starship flights it took to fill up the HLS to then take it to the moon because it's just noise amongst all the other Starship stuff that's going on."

[00:30:33]>> I see. I see what you're saying.

[00:30:35]>> Yeah.

[00:30:37]>> Yeah. It's almost like it you could almost do the argument on the ground too, right? Like how could you possibly launch SLS? You know how much how many trucks of fuel is going to take to fill it up? It's like well yeah, but they fill up a thing ahead of time and it's there and when they're ready go, right?

[00:30:50]It's a good example.

[00:30:50]>> So what what about the boiloff though?

[00:30:52]What you you don't think that's a that's a solvable thing?

[00:30:56]>> Man, you keep asking us about the questions that Jake and I have filed under things such as radiation in space where we go, I don't know, other people will figure that out.

[00:31:05]the dressable market.

[00:31:07]>> I think I think we literally have a episode called called Boil Off Truther, don't we have that?

[00:31:12]>> We do.

[00:31:16]>> Oh my god.

[00:31:16]>> We can't tell. I mean, honestly, honestly, Miles, like >> we are we are none of our opinions on this, and I speak for Jake in this, are are firmly held beliefs. They're just currently where we're not worried about things. And so if somebody brings us a a credible argument for like, no, you should be deathly serious about this and this is a major problem, we're we're here for it. The only one we're there for is the physics of spin launch making no sense in in the world. I think that's the only one we feel very strongly about. That that is an absolutely insane idea. Otherwise, I think we're open, but we're not necessarily worried about them because we just >> don't have enough.

[00:31:51]>> Everybody has their own opinion about it. And then neither side seems to have sufficient amount of data to really prove it. So we're like I guess >> and and and we have like many examples where like two very smart, trustable, dependable engineering people have told us opposite answers and you're like well nobody knows.

[00:32:06]>> Yeah. But like a mission will happen that forces an answer like we're we'll find that one out, you know, when we're faced with it because these other things are not stopping.

[00:32:14]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:32:15]>> Which of these things if you were to rank these questions, Miles, what are the ones you're most worried about?

[00:32:20]I I the the the the the onorbit refueling idea to me seems very problematic. But maybe I'm not thinking like you guys I got to start thinking about the way you were you are. Maybe that's it just you know when I consider the boiloff when you consider the you know the potential for you know these are volatile compounds that are being transferred in space and and the the sheer number uh of launches required to keep that depot topped off and this is a you know a ship that still hasn't demonstrated even orbit yet. So, it's it's hard to imagine it, but you know, give it a few years, maybe maybe it'll all seem like uh no problem. I don't know.

[00:33:04]>> The a more fun question will be, what will happen when the first orbital depot explodes in space?

[00:33:11]>> Yeah. Well, it's going to, right? That is going to happen.

[00:33:15]You can bet on that.

[00:33:16]>> A big tank full of methane and ox >> liquid methane liquid oxygen. and and what's the what's the temperature delta on any given orbit? You know, 300° or so, right? I mean, that's that's that's going to be very interesting to figure out how to make that thermos work, right?

[00:33:33]>> How has this not been a plot line on for all mankind yet?

[00:33:37]>> Should have absolutely been one of the season two >> brings down the Starlinks and data center, the whole network all in one go.

[00:33:43]Just >> Oh my god, >> that's apocalyptic. You better you better call the writer's guild right now and and protect that idea. It's good.

[00:33:53]It's a good one.

[00:33:55]Let's all be uh we'll do that. Let's get right on there. We'll protect that that story line. Could be big. Listen, you are huge. Of the three of us, one of us gets the others on TV sometimes. So, >> this is your department, man.

[00:34:07]>> They've called you back a little bit, right?

[00:34:09]>> Yeah. I'm worried I'm taking your uh your your gig.

[00:34:12]>> No, no, no, no, no. It's okay. It's really okay. There's plenty. That's the thing about CNN. It's always on. It's always on.

[00:34:19]>> True. That's definitely a thing about it.

[00:34:22]>> That was a design goal. Yeah, >> that was kind of the thing. May he rest in peace. Ted Ted saw that vision.

[00:34:29]>> Yeah, the vision.

[00:34:32]>> Man, Jake, you depressed me, man. I haven't even thought about that. The whole depot explosion thing. The depot explosion. That's terrifying.

[00:34:39]>> God, I guess I'm a dummy downer. I'm I'm Yeah, of course it will. Of course it will.

[00:34:44]Everything SpaceX has ever made has blown up at least once. So, >> right.

[00:34:52]>> Has a Starlink. Has a Starlink blown.

[00:34:53]Yeah, I guess it has. [ __ ] >> I think so.

[00:34:56]>> Is that right? Is that a true >> Starling fail? I think the Starling failures are a little higher than we know, right? Aren't they Aren't they failing faster? I don't know about blowing up, but >> but they fail at a pretty high rate.

[00:35:09]>> Are you star Are you guys buying the stock? Are you going to buy the stock?

[00:35:16]>> I I will not be. No, >> it's going to be a wild IP, >> but it's not not because of SpaceX. It's because I don't buy IPOs and I don't buy individual stocks anymore. That's the one reason, right?

[00:35:26]>> So, it'll it'll get b my uh my S&P 500 ETF at some point.

[00:35:30]>> Yes, there you go. Yeah, >> it's gonna be crazy. doesn't feel like yeah kind kind seems a little nuts to me but I think he's cashing out >> just I don't know how much money he has >> I don't know doing what he's >> he doesn't know what to do with that >> I don't know I just don't you know once you get to a certain amount of money do you really need a trillion dollar pay package really what does that get how many more Gulf Streams can you own how many more houses >> a lot of headlines >> you know >> at a certain amount of money the only thing you can buy is companies so Right.

[00:36:04]Yeah.

[00:36:05]>> You may as well own the one you like.

[00:36:06]>> It does. Yeah. I I guess I just don't I don't understand the mindset, but that's why I'm poor.

[00:36:13]>> I mean, one day a trillion dollars won't be that much money.

[00:36:17]>> Pretty soon, right? Well, no. I mean, I think about this all the time. Like, I have this uh >> Someday we'll all be rich. We'll all be trillionaires >> relatively, right? I mean, roll the clock back when you were a kid, right?

[00:36:28]How much did anything cost? And now you say that amount of money and you're like, "That's ridiculous." That's like how much did going to the movies cost when you were growing up? Miles, >> uh, it was like a buck or less.

[00:36:39]>> Look up, right? Movie tickets now are 15 to 25 times that. So, like, >> we're not that many multiples away from a trillion dollars feeling like a million dollars >> because a million dollars used to feel like an insurmountable amount of money and now now a billion dollars feels like that to a lot of people, which is my this is my root problem with billionaires should be a legal thing.

[00:36:58]It's like how often do we adjust that number is is the biggest question I need people to answer.

[00:37:03]>> Inflation adjusted billionaire limit.

[00:37:06]>> Yeah. Like because a billion used to be absolutely crazy. Now if you own one really good company, you're going to be a billionaire, >> right?

[00:37:14]>> I can't figure that out math.

[00:37:15]>> Not a dime.

[00:37:15]>> But I think the Elon thing, the trillion dollar pay package, it's like I to some extent Elon's personality is like that's kind of just fun to say that. Another thing is staying in the headlines has never been a bad thing for him. And a third is like >> it works pretty well.

[00:37:31]>> What else is he going to do to get entertainment in his life? He's got a lot of entertainment kicking around. So, >> but isn't isn't one of the criteria for getting the trillion dollars? He has to have a million people living on Mars.

[00:37:42]Isn't that right?

[00:37:43]>> Yeah.

[00:37:44]>> Is that one? Yeah. So, no problem.

[00:37:46]>> If you're filling out the paperwork and Elon says, "I want this in there." You go like, "All right, yeah, sure.

[00:37:50]Whatever."

[00:37:53]You just seed that battle to win the one that you care about.

[00:37:57]>> Yeah. Not dying on that hill. Million people on Mars. Yeah. Well, >> at least they still care about Mars.

[00:38:04]That was a That was an open question.

[00:38:07]>> Seems Yeah. Do they I guess, right?

[00:38:11]>> Yeah. Yeah. Anthony, you just said that they that thing in the pay package didn't matter and wasn't real. So, do they actually care about it?

[00:38:17]>> Yeah. I should have said that they remember that Mars exists, I guess, is what I should have said.

[00:38:23]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:38:24]>> Well, >> anyway, >> well, I I I think, you know, focusing on the moon and a and an outpost is it, you know, taking aside all the stuff we've gone through. I think it's really exciting. You know, this is something that would have been nice to do in 1973, right?

[00:38:39]>> Yeah.

[00:38:41]>> Think where we be now.

[00:38:43]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:38:45]>> Spirit.

[00:38:46]>> Yeah.

[00:38:50]Cap Weinberger. That was the guy. He was the one who went after Apollo 18, 19, and 20, you know, turned them into lawn ornaments, you know.

[00:39:00]>> Oh, we put him inside now.

[00:39:01]>> That we still that we still enjoy to this day.

[00:39:04]>> Yeah. I speaking of good movie, I I always thought a good movie would be um asteroid coming to the planet, you know, that part. But uh the um space program had kind of fallen by the wayside and they didn't have a way to stop it. And so they had to get all the retired Apollo guys into the green thicker in in Houston and stack up one of the Saturn fives sitting in Huntsville or Houston and launch it to save the world. That'd be a good one, right?

[00:39:32]>> I mean it in in uh >> copyright movie.

[00:39:37]>> What was the Moonfall was? Moonfall was the movie, right? That's where they did that with the shuttle. They had to like pull it out of the California Space Center.

[00:39:43]>> Oh yeah. Yeah. They kind of they kind of rift on my idea.

[00:39:47]>> Yeah.

[00:39:47]>> I like the Apollo one better because we can get Chuck back. Get Chuck out of here.

[00:39:51]>> Chuck Chuck at the problem. We'll solve it.

[00:39:55]>> Yeah. Just Jeez.

[00:39:59]So, >> oh Jake, we had a bit to do that I didn't think about at all.

[00:40:03]>> The Artemis 3 crew. You were gonna you wanted to call your shot on on who?

[00:40:08]>> Do you have names?

[00:40:09]>> Yeah. Are you are you who do you think >> I have selected a crew? Yeah. And we're going to see >> I'm going to see what percentage out of out of four. How many do I get? Right.

[00:40:20]That's my idea. But I don't know. Do you want to Do you guys want to take some some cracks first or what do you >> No, you do yours. I'm going to do this live.

[00:40:27]>> You do yours. I want to do it live.

[00:40:29]>> Okay. Okay.

[00:40:29]>> I don't know. I don't know.

[00:40:30]>> Okay. So, uh yeah, I didn't really know enough either. It was actually fun going through the the active astronaut core and like learning about them. So, that was kind of a You should do this. I'm saying you should do this. Uh, this >> No, I should I have a general idea. I'm gonna do it right now, Jake.

[00:40:47]>> All right, go.

[00:40:47]>> Okay. So, my my my design strategy here was to like this mission is a nuts andbolts mission. It's like we're going to Leo. It's not not far. It's not hard. We're going to be like testing space suits, testing landers. Like, this is a down like this is a working mission. This is not a This is not a play mission. This is not a Oh my god, look at the pretty moon pigs. No moon joy in this mission, right? This is like a working a working mission. So, I was looking for people who had good like experience, like lots of experience, I think, is like a a winner here. And lots of spacew walk experience, I think, is a winner here. And just kind of like a diversified like pallet of of different perspectives on, you know, testing out new stuff. That was my design strategy of picking this. Um, I went I I almost I really wanted to pick Mike Fininky as like the commander.

[00:41:44]>> Um, but I don't know about that injury man. I don't know. I don't know. They haven't really that out yet. So, I think he's he might be off the list here. So, for for commander, I went I went down >> guy. That's too bad. He'd be he'd be a good choice.

[00:41:58]>> I think he would have been. Um, >> but I went down and I got to group 18.

[00:42:03]There's a guy named Steven Bowen. You know Stephen Bowen?

[00:42:07]>> No.

[00:42:07]>> This astronaut? He's got like 10 spacew walks under his belt. He is Let's Let's pull up the uh Let's pull up the old um Yeah, the old the old resume here. 10 spacew walks, 65 hours of EVA time. All right. Captain in the Navy, good leadership, flown on a shuttle, flown on flown on Dragon. Feels like a well-rounded, experienced kind of guy.

[00:42:31]Uh 226 days in space. Looked like a good one. I'm picking him for CGI. My guess, >> man. He could he could have been right, right? He's got it right.

[00:42:40]>> Yeah, he could have been.

[00:42:40]>> Look at that.

[00:42:41]>> Right.

[00:42:43]>> That's the one thing going through the active astronaut core, you're like, you're like, "What kind of different people do we have here?" And it's like everyone in them is just a military engineer. Like this is like, "What's your claim to fame?" "Well, I test flew jets." And you're like, "Okay, all right. We We know how it goes.

[00:43:00]>> Yeah. Not too many poets.

[00:43:02]>> No, no, no, no. Uh pilot, I'm going for Nicole, man. Uh I think that she's got a good >> good stretch of experience there as well. Kind of the same idea, right? It's like >> um good EVA experience. She's flown I think flying on Dragon is going to be a clutch pilot job. I think having that experience as like a new >> SpaceX command system is going to help you with the lander, right? I think that's going to be valuable experience to go across there, >> right?

[00:43:30]>> And she's got lots of lots of time in space as well.

[00:43:33]>> That's a bold thing that you're banking they go in the lander, which is definitely >> I think just in general just in general, I mean working with SpaceX and working with their team and like that's just going to be important crossover. I think that'll work, right?

[00:43:47]>> Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense.

[00:43:50]So far your rational is good.

[00:43:52]>> Yeah. Then for MS1 and two, so I got um Woody Hoberg who's a newer astronaut and he's like a programmer and like kind of a tinkering engineer looking guy. Got a you know like a a little bit of um a little bit of space flight experience.

[00:44:10]I'm double checking that. Yeah, he's got some time in space. Phone and dragon. Uh but it feels like a really good kind of like problem solver kind of guy to have.

[00:44:18]So that's what I'm going with that one.

[00:44:19]And then the last one I'm doing uh Andre Douglas who was backup crew for Artemis 2. And I feel like it would be a shame to waste all the training that we did for Artemis 2. And he's brand new. So there's like your rookie, right? You have that you have a a rookie coming up the the ropes with it, too. So >> that's my crew selection. Artemis 3.

[00:44:37]>> Not bad.

[00:44:38]>> We'll see a couple weeks how close I get.

[00:44:41]>> All right. Should we should we, you know, monetize some way?

[00:44:46]>> How many do I get right? Tell me how many I get right. There's your There's how you you're building on this guest.

[00:44:51]>> If you get them all right, what should you should get? Something. I So I I have one >> an incentive flight from Jared Eisen.

[00:44:58]Yeah.

[00:44:59]>> Yeah.

[00:45:00]>> An incentive flight. Yeah.

[00:45:02]>> Let me fly you on a less cool thing to celebrate.

[00:45:07]Um that'd be fun though. I would I would uh I would definitely like to watch you take a an incentive flight. Uh I don't think you're allowed though. You're a foreign nat. So, >> yep. Yeah.

[00:45:18]>> The one the one problem you have, Jake, is that you are forsaking the one rule, which is that someone in leadership at the astronaut office often assigns themselves to the mission.

[00:45:28]>> Now, the the quagmire here is that Scott Tingle is not a an active astronaut anymore, I think. Right.

[00:45:36]>> Is he on this list? I don't think he's on this list.

[00:45:39]>> I don't think he is. No.

[00:45:40]>> No. So, the assistant to, which is actually the title, assistant to the chief of the astronaut office, uh, is Randy Breznik, who has still been hanging around as an active astronaut.

[00:45:53]>> Yeah, >> I almost picked Bre.

[00:45:55]>> So, he could do a, you know, Dick Cheney.

[00:45:57]>> That was a tight one. That was a pick himself, right?

[00:45:59]>> That's what I mean. I think I think that could be the guy.

[00:46:01]>> That makes sense.

[00:46:02]>> Yeah, >> they call his number.

[00:46:04]>> Well, you you also have to factor in this dynamic, though. Not picking yourself for Artemis 3 might mean Artemis 4 is available, >> right?

[00:46:13]>> I think strategically you might want that, but you know the time frame for Artemis 4 right now, we're not getting any younger, right?

[00:46:23]>> That's true.

[00:46:24]>> If you had to pick a year for, you know, Artemis 4 and a lander, what would you say?

[00:46:31]>> Or a decade even?

[00:46:34]>> I'm 50/50 if it's this decade.

[00:46:36]Yeah, >> I don't think it's this decade.

[00:46:38]>> I don't think so.

[00:46:40]>> Well, it depends. I think the decade changes over. Jake, are you a zerobased or a one based?

[00:46:45]>> Are you a zerobased decade guy?

[00:46:48]>> 2030 January 1.

[00:46:49]>> Are you a Y2K guy or not? You know, >> the millennium actually begins. You know who I won, right? You know, technically >> January 1st, 2030. January 1st, 2030 is the start of the new decade. Yeah. Okay, >> then I think 2026 Oh, so I did I will mention this too. Um there was a what is our current working thesis that this the landings are in 2028 is the last thing that have been stated by NASA.

[00:47:22]>> Yeah, late.

[00:47:23]>> Yeah, that's that yeah within the the confines of the Trump presidency, right?

[00:47:28]>> Not coincidentally. Right. That's >> I did notice though, right?

[00:47:32]>> In this event, there was a little bit of wiggle room added where uh when they did previously on ignition, the phases that they showed, they said phase one was now to the first human landing and then phase two was whatever else it was and phase three was the habitation thing and phase one stretched now to 2029.

[00:47:51]>> So, oh, >> it was I felt like it was a little >> It's already slipped.

[00:47:54]>> Yeah, it's kind of a soft launch >> indicate Yeah. that that >> they were they were hoping uh they were hoping Trump was asleep during that portion of it, right?

[00:48:02]>> Which is a good bet.

[00:48:04]>> Good bet. Especially with how clunky that that event went.

[00:48:08]>> That's right.

[00:48:09]>> I don't know. 2030 sounds both I don't know. It sounds a little soon to be honest.

[00:48:14]>> It's like the over under for me, you know?

[00:48:16]>> Could be. Yeah.

[00:48:17]>> Could be.

[00:48:18]>> Remember under under could be October 2029, right?

[00:48:23]Well, so how much visibility do you guys have on Blue Origin and where they are right now?

[00:48:28]>> They're they're tough. It's it's really hard to know what they're up to, right?

[00:48:33]>> The fact that the lander went to all of a sudden fall when it seemed not >> not a terrible bet that it would have flown pretty soon and then another launch jumped it on New Glenn. Now they're flying an Amazon Amazon batch and this dropped back to the fall and at least it got its moonbased classification. So that's fun. It's become moon base one. Uh yeah, that's that I wonder why. What is it? Because it made it through environmental testing. So what is it that that is delaying it now?

[00:49:04]>> You never know with those guys. They're tough.

[00:49:07]>> Tell us. Tell us people, you're out there.

[00:49:09]>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I la when I was on Miko with you, you know, whenever that was last year or something, and I was complaining that, you know, in my day, back in my day when we were covering the shuttle program, you know, there was >> the movies were a dollar.

[00:49:24]>> Yeah. And I would ride my horse to the Kennedy Space Center to cover the missions. In those days, you know, we had a reasonable amount of visibility in the program, you know, and we we could poke, you know, ask and get permission to poke around the orbiter, go to the VAB, just see things. And now we got none of that anymore. Nothing, you know, it's it's like watching >> a double-edged sword of commercial space. Yeah.

[00:49:51]>> Yeah. But, you know, it's commercial, but in the end, taxpayers are paying a big piece of this, right?

[00:49:59]And it seems like a little more visibility should go along with that.

[00:50:04]When I was on the NASA advisory council, I I was briefly had, you know, during the uh Charlie Balden era, I was on the NASA advisory council, you know, sort of advising them on, you know, media and communications and I that was early days and I was I kept telling them they've got to bake into the contract with Elon that, you know, some visibility into the process, you know, live access to launches, you know, all the things that he has ended up controlling with his own people and his own feed and um limiting access. You know, reporters really can't get in there generally. And I think that's wrong. I mean, we as taxpayers should be outraged, but there's there's so much other stuff to there's there's such a fire hose of stuff to be outro raged at. It just >> everyone's outrage doesn't make the cut on the list. Yeah, >> it just doesn't. Right. Space is like that anyway, right? But especially now, >> I mean, I don't know. You guys, you guys don't care that much. Maybe because you guys you can figure it out.

[00:51:04]>> You you care deeply.

[00:51:06]>> Yeah.

[00:51:06]>> Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm a I I'm a big supporter of like the idea of there's value in having a public space program and the more public the better. So I I you know the costs I I get it. I know why we went there. But >> I do lament the the loss of >> of because like I always say it's the incentives, right?

[00:51:25]the the public space program is for us and the private one sometimes looks like it might be but it isn't right like that's that's and that'll always be true it'll never ever it'll never be different than that so yeah >> it's it's by their grace that we get to see anything that we see right >> SpaceX would not exist had it not been for taxpaying money from NASA we can you know that's obvious right so >> it seems like there should have been some guarantee of some level of visibility along with that deal. But >> yeah, >> and you know, the fact that we're just kind of guessing at things kind of stinks, right? We should know.

[00:52:04]>> We should.

[00:52:05]>> Yeah. To some extent, the the Isaac Man era seems to have started with this like truth and openness momentum about it.

[00:52:14]>> Yeah.

[00:52:15]>> But the thing I felt at the time, and I still kind of do, is that that was easy when it was being truthful and open about the things that happened before you. And it gets a lot harder when it's the things that are happening under you.

[00:52:25]>> And that's when your administration you clam up.

[00:52:28]>> Yeah. Right.

[00:52:29]>> Right. That's going to be the real rubric. Like >> I the first sign was how quick did they tweet a photo of the Orion heat shield.

[00:52:37]That was pretty quick. They tweeted it one one from when it was underwater.

[00:52:40]That was very quick. Like that was about the first photo we could have gotten out of that. So that was a good sign.

[00:52:44]>> Yeah.

[00:52:44]>> But like also >> that's cuz the heat shield looked good.

[00:52:47]Like if it looked like [ __ ] how quick would we have >> Hard to say, right? Hard to say.

[00:52:52]>> Yeah.

[00:52:53]>> And that one that that's like a shared responsibility, right? Like I know that Isaacman he made the call to like not cancel it, but he never made the decision to go forward with the A2 heat shield as it was. Like that was that was a previous administration decision and he just didn't undo it. Right. So there's a there's a little bit of a difference there. Like you you kind of you can kind of play it both ways. If it looks great, you take the picture and and do the victory lap. And if it looks bad, you go, "Well, if these bozos in the last administration hadn't done this, this and that." You know, like >> he has no qualms about saying the words the previous administration to be honest. That's been a phrase that has been said more in the Isaac era than any other era at NASA.

[00:53:34]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:53:35]>> Well, it is a contrast. There's no question.

[00:53:37]>> Generationally, if nothing else, right?

[00:53:40]>> Yeah.

[00:53:41]>> Yeah. The one question I have from the this uh event that happened was what are are all clips missions moonbased missions or are moonbased missions all eclipse missions but not all eclipse missions are moonbased missions? Like I don't have a rubric for this yet. What makes a moonbased mission? Cuz it just felt like they just rebranded.

[00:53:59]>> Get into the budgets and figure this out. Who where's the money coming from?

[00:54:02]>> I think they rebranded some [ __ ] to be like we have three moonbased missions happening in the next two years. And it's like well one you rip the payload away from. One wasn't even your call that this mission existed and you just threw a $6 million payload on it and called it eclipse mission. And the other one was a thing awarded several years ago and is going nowhere close to where you're going to put the moon base. So what is what about this is a moon base mission?

[00:54:23]>> This is this is like when they when they just took Artemis and stamped it on everything and like yeah eclipse is Artemis. Yeah.

[00:54:30]>> But that's the other question. When you call it a moon mission, does it go under Carlos's department or does the clips guy still run that?

[00:54:38]>> Are you accusing NASA of marketing? Are you >> I'm shocked that there's gambling in this establishment? I'm shocked.

[00:54:47]>> I can't say it's a bad thing, but it also just >> Yeah. And then the one not named Moonbase, Moonfall, they're like, "By the way, we're going to establish a perimeter on the lunar surface with these things that JPL's flying." That was wild. A little wild little segue.

[00:55:00]>> Wild. Well, that that'll keep the Chinese away, won't it? Right.

[00:55:03]>> I'm sure I'm sure they would have no problem being like, "Oh, no. We just uh we we actually took some regalith from elsewhere. We placed it in this spot on the moon, so now technically this is our keep out zone.

[00:55:13]>> That's our regalith.

[00:55:15]>> They're going to construct new craters on the moon."

[00:55:19]>> Yikes.

[00:55:21]>> That's Yeah, that's You know, they're saying what how many square miles were they talking about? It was like a big footprint, right?

[00:55:30]It was uh if we were prepared, we would have had the actual numbers in front of us, but >> yeah, it's big. It's a big footprint, but I mean, so >> very large.

[00:55:39]>> Some of the finest moon ever get.

[00:55:42]>> We're here at Moon Base.

[00:55:43]>> We love Moon Base.

[00:55:45]>> We Some people say it's the best moon base.

[00:55:50]Many people >> Chinese tried to do it. They >> couldn't You got pretty good Trump these days.

[00:55:57]Um couldn't do it.

[00:55:58]>> Yeah.

[00:55:59]No, no, no. It's it's it's you know it would be a what what do they call it? A sphere of not influence or whatever it is. You can you know keep out Yeah.

[00:56:06]safety zone.

[00:56:07]>> Keep out zone. It's the no trespassing zone. And I I guess the question I have is, you know, the moon is a pretty big place. Is it really going to be will there be a conflict over Oh god, I really like that crater. You know, that's my crater. Are we really going to Is that what it's going to come to? It could, right? I don't know.

[00:56:25]>> North America.

[00:56:26]>> So that's another question. Will the Chinese be there by the time we get there?

[00:56:30]>> Almost guaranteed.

[00:56:33]>> What do you think?

[00:56:34]>> This is another one of those where it's like I don't worry about it because I have no idea. They could be like imminently launching a fully functional mission or they could be mired in engineering problems and not be looking at this for 2036. I would believe both stories if someone >> with any molecule of intelligence told me that.

[00:56:53]>> So the Chinese are like Blue Origin. We have no idea.

[00:56:58]It's all opaque to those.

[00:57:00]>> The fact that Isaacman was out there saying they're doing, you know, they're flying to the moon next year was uh which is a thing that I think people surmised but have no data on and then he's just out there like 2027 crude lunar expedition from China. Is it going to be Artemis 2? Is it going to be Apollo 8? What do we think?

[00:57:17]>> Orbit. They go in orbit. They go flyby.

[00:57:20]I don't know. You know, it would it would make sense to do Apollo 8, right?

[00:57:26]>> They might fly both and tell us about which one went better. That might be their style.

[00:57:30]>> That's right.

[00:57:30]>> There you go. Yeah. You You'll only hear about the one that succeeded. Yeah.

[00:57:35]>> Yeah. It's like the old Soviet days, right?

[00:57:39]>> Interesting.

[00:57:41]>> All right.

[00:57:42]>> This was good stuff. Miles, what are you working on lately? What should uh where are you at these days? We didn't even talk about Antarctica. We totally failed our mission to talk about give us a give us a little rundown on you went to Antarctica. What should people go read and watch from that?

[00:57:55]>> So I, you know, as you may know, I I always wanted to go to space to report from space and uh there's a long story there. The short story is that Colombia ended that dream. Um and we were going to announce it like, you know, 10 days after the the landing should have happened. So, I I spent so much of my journalistic career thinking that would be like the ultimate journalistic experience. But in the end, going to the Thuait Glacier, the quote unquote doomsday glacier, journalistically was amazing because as much fun as it would be for me to be floating around in the space station and trying to relate the excitement of space, that glacier is of great consequence to the entire planet. And being there and seeing scientists trying to understand how quickly it's melting and why and you know could we forecast when it's going to collapse was uh the thrill of a lifetime. I I will say two months on an icebreaker. I didn't you know when when I said I really want to go to Antarctica and it turned out to be two months on an icebreaker Korean icebreaker. I I was a little concerned that that would be u a little longer than I like. The honest to goodness truth is, gentlemen, whatever you may say about the great Elon Musk, his Starling product is a gamecher.

[00:59:07]Had I not had Starlink, I wouldn't have gone because I was able to report live on top of that glacier. It was amazing.

[00:59:13]It was amazing.

[00:59:15]>> Yeah, it is uh it's life-changing for many people. So, >> have you all been?

[00:59:23]>> No, I would love to do that.

[00:59:25]>> Yeah, that's a that's a bucket list trip for me, too. I wanted to do almost the exact same thing. I wanted to go and like do a summer there and walk around with scientists and pick up like meteorites and you know >> Oh god, that's a fun trip. Yeah. Go to Allen Hills, do all that. That's that's supposed to be amazing trip. That's very >> and make podcasts. Yeah. I don't know.

[00:59:44]>> Yeah. Yeah. But now, you know, the truth is nothing's off the grid anymore. You know, we put the Starlink up on top of the ship and and we had we had like 60 up. I mean, I I do worse in a Holiday Inn in Cleveland and uh >> I don't have 60 up right now. So, >> I know. I assume I mean, it was like amazing.

[01:00:03]>> He was the only user.

[01:00:06]>> That's true. It helped. It helps, right?

[01:00:10]>> He had a satellite all to himself.

[01:00:13]>> My own Starlink.

[01:00:16]>> My very own.

[01:00:18]>> So, it was amazing. And um it was a thrill. And if you get a chance, uh, Anthony, thank you for putting the Substack out there if you want to read about the adventure. And I'm doing I'm actually doing a series for PBS right now where I'm calling Resolve to Solve.

[01:00:31]It's 10 halfhour episodes which will be glombmed into five one hours on PBS starting in August after NOVA. And my elevator pitch is it's Anthony Bourdain meets Sir David Atenboroough. get to know the scientist, understand the problem they're trying to solve, and then get into the science and try to introduce people to science and scientists, which, you know, has been overlooked by the media over the years.

[01:00:58]>> I don't know if you could have said a sentence more relevant to my interests.

[01:01:02]>> You might like this. You might actually like this series.

[01:01:04]>> Hell yeah. I wouldn't be shocked if either of my children ended up with a slight British accent from David Adenboroough. the amount of Planet Earth and and Blue Planet and whatever else BBC puts out that we watch.

[01:01:16]>> Well, you're you're you're raising your kids, right?

[01:01:18]>> One of one of which is named Miles. So, >> whoa.

[01:01:22]>> Yeah.

[01:01:22]>> Smart kid. Smart parent.

[01:01:26]>> Anyway, this has been fantastic.

[01:01:29]And I, you know, I'm day drinking with you guys. I love this.

[01:01:32]>> I know. Out on the cape.

[01:01:35]>> Out of the cape. Summer drinking summer right here.

[01:01:40]Great stuff. Uh, yeah, you got to hang out with us more often. We always have a great time.

[01:01:44]>> I am Anytime. This is fun.

[01:01:47]>> Should I do my thing?

[01:01:48]>> Next time, >> next time I come, I'll know the astronaut office and all the people in there. You know, it's a whole different thing yet.

[01:01:56]>> Play the game. Yeah.

[01:01:57]>> Let's see if my thing works, Jake. I got to see if it works.

[01:02:02]>> I don't see any flippy flippies.

[01:02:03]>> I know. I pushed the button. I don't know if it's hooked up still. It worked last week, didn't it?

[01:02:07]>> Oh, what is it? There we go. Here we go.

[01:02:09]>> I got a flip a split flap display that sometimes shows our current guests.

[01:02:15]Let's see. That worked.

[01:02:16]>> It's It takes so long.

[01:02:20]>> I thought I thought I think it didn't have the latest data because I'm pretty sure we have a June 11th one, but it says mystery.

[01:02:26]>> This is like being in an airport in 1964 waiting for your flight to come down, right?

[01:02:30]>> Uh or the Philadelphia train station uh just not that long ago. It was It was great. 30th Street Station used to have a huge one and they took it out for some reason.

[01:02:39]>> Oh, they did? Cuz that I I That's what That's That's one of the coolest stations.

[01:02:43]>> Made famous by that movie Witness.

[01:02:46]>> That's true.

[01:02:46]>> Remember that scene? Oh my god, that's good. Anyway, >> um >> anyway, >> but yeah, that's a great station. Back in the day when we built u you know, public infrastructure with uh some care and attention.

[01:02:58]>> No one would ever credit Philadelphia with having good public infrastructure.

[01:03:01]So, thank you for that.

[01:03:03]never almost never been. We used We were the last subway system on Earth, I believe, that used actual coin tokens to get through a turn style. So, >> really, >> don't don't think so about that. We do have a subway.

[01:03:17]>> Uh anyway, Jake, next week uh you know more about this than I do.

[01:03:21]>> Yeah. Uh Lindy Alakin Stanton's coming on uh to talk about her new book, Mission Ready. Uh so she's the principal investigator for the Psyche mission. So, I'm sure we'll talk about uh like her book's about managing big projects and so uh I feel like this really came out at a good time talking about like >> how can JPL do missions better, you know, is is a very topical question right now. So, I'm really excited to talk to about this.

[01:03:46]>> Um yeah, >> I'm gonna I'm gonna watch that one. I I was going to put that in my Kindle. Have you read it?

[01:03:51]>> Uh I just started so I'm not super deeply.

[01:03:54]>> Yeah, let me know. Well, good.

[01:03:58]Awesome stuff. Well, thanks for hanging out with us, Miles. Uh, you got anything else?

[01:04:02]>> Pleasure.

[01:04:04]>> I don't think we have anything else unless you want to come and uh vote on the your favorite crew to be Artemis 3 in our Discord at offnom.com/isord.

[01:04:13]Support the show, hang out with some cool people, and get in on the insane levels of space prediction betting >> without spending money.

[01:04:23]>> Surely this can be monetized.

[01:04:27]>> Yeah. All right, y'all. We'll talk to you next week. Bye.

[01:04:30]>> Bye.

[01:04:30]>> Pleasure. Thank you so much.