This Week in Space 131 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
00:00 - Tariq Malik (Host)
On this episode of this Week in Space, we beam into perhaps the most important debate of all time Star Trek vs Star Wars. Join us, it's fascinating.

00:12 - TWiT (Announcement)
Podcasts you love.

00:14
From people you trust. This is TWiT.

00:20 - Rod Pyle (Host)
This is this Week in Space, episode number 131, recorded on October 4th 2024. The Star Wars vs Star Trek food fight. Hello everyone, and welcome to yet another episode of this Week in Space, the Trek vs Wars edition. Yes, we've been ginning up for this for a long time and we just couldn't put it off any longer, because I know I know what's best for this. For a long time, and we just couldn't put it off any longer, uh, because I know I know what's best. I'm rod pile, editor-in-chief bad-ass magazine. I'm joined, as always by the elegiac tarik malik editor. Editor-in-chief of that rosetta sona space news website, spacecom hello rod nanu nanu right.

01:02
Do you know what alijac means?

01:04 - Tariq Malik (Host)
no, I was gonna just skip it and I assume everyone knew that. I knew, but what does, alijac? I thought you were just like sneezing in the middle of saying allergic, but I looked it up.

01:14 - Rod Pyle (Host)
It's it's uh, not entirely positive, but I can't remember what, because it was a couple days ago today.

01:20 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I'll take offense.

01:22 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I will take offense for sure today, however, we are tackling that greatest of human debates star trek versus star wars. Which one is?

01:33 - Tariq Malik (Host)
the best. Did you see my, my jim kirk, as a t-rex t-shirt? Can you see that here in the video? Oh, oh, look at that. So I dressed the part. I dressed the part you did.

01:48 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah Well, actually you know it's getting kind of hot in here, so let me just I need to. No, oh no.

02:00 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Oh, so is this going to be a one sided discussion? Then Maybe I'll just Wow. So is this going to be a one-sided discussion? Then maybe I'll just wow. For people who aren't watching rod just like took off his is like shirt to reveal basically like a full command red. Let me do the tng uniform there we go.

02:17 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I look like william reicher after, uh, an excess 30 years of way too much drinking. But anyway, there we go. And I have to tell you I I had bought this. I'm wearing my my star trek next generation tunic. I bought this a couple years ago for something and put it away and never wore it, and then I pulled out last night. I thought this is perfect and it's got a little bit of a zipper in the back. But I tell you, getting on the first time and then trying to get it off was not a pretty thing is it a onesie?

02:48 - Tariq Malik (Host)
for like oh is it?

02:50 - Rod Pyle (Host)
well, it doesn't have have like feet on it or a snapping crotch or anything. It's just. Yeah, it's a thing with a zipper in the back, it's a tunic, you know, yeah, sure, but um, yeah, it's like, uh, if, if you're, if you're listening audio, it's like ten pounds of sausage in a five-pound sleeve.

03:10 - Tariq Malik (Host)
So um, you, but you wear it. You wear it. Well, I wear it probably. Yeah, so I think that's worth like three chairs. Man, you know, everyone forgets I got my Star Trek chair right here. Wait, can I? Can I move so people can see it?

03:22 - Rod Pyle (Host)
there it is so all right, go ahead and show me up anyway. Um, I'm sure some of the listeners have opinions no worse to track. You know, that's you, anthony, uh, but um, as I've said before, well jammer b says that star wars is for kids oh, it's like, if you ever be here, you're my man.

03:44
As I've said before, there's no faster way to start a food fight than to walk into a NASA facility cafeteria I'm thinking JPL in particular in my case and sit down at a table and in the midst of a conversation, weave in that question which one is better? And man, they just go at it. It's somewhat generational, and sometimes the scientists versus the engineers, you know, you get kind of different stuff, but it can be, it can get ugly in a hurry. So, without further ado, let's jump into this. Before we start, of course, as you're tired of hearing, please don't forget to do us a solid and be sure to like, subscribe, thumbs up and all the cool podcast things for us, because we have space jokes I've missed it.

04:30 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I've been looking forward to it all week I know me.

04:32 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Me too, I've been looking forward to, to your chuckle. Um hey, tarik. Yes, rod, I once had a wookie steak, but you know what was wrong no it was a bit chewy.

04:49
Oh, well done, well done. Why can't jedi? Why can't a jedi send photos in an email? Uh, why not? Because attachment is forbidden. These are good. Yeah, good, I got a couple more. What? What do you call a Sith Lord that likes to buy stuff, what I don't know? A shopping mall, m-a-u-l. I love it. Hey, tarek, yes, ron. How does Luke Skywalker get the most icely? How how does he do it? He walks.

05:24
That one took me a while. That one took me a while. That one took me. We gotta see, are there no? Star trek ones how many more of? Uh no, actually here's one, oh, there's two. Um uh, star trek characters make the worst sports fans. They always root for the away team.

05:45 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Hey Tarek.

05:46 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yes, rod, why did Captain Kirk relieve himself on Prospero 4? I don't know why he wanted to go where no man had gone before. That's actually pretty good. That's good. That's a good one's a. Just just to keep up our perfect record. Here's a lame one to end on what is a pirate's favorite star trek character. Uh, what what? Rod tasha?

06:11 - Tariq Malik (Host)
yar. That's good. By the way, fan favorite tasha yar came back and, as a romulan, you know, I think they really could have done more with her. But, uh, what are you gonna do?

06:20 - Rod Pyle (Host)
there were some difficulties, I think. So I wasn't working on the show at that point, but the friend that got me in for Deep Space Nine was working on it and I guess there were some challenges there.

06:31 - Tariq Malik (Host)
With Denise Crosby or with, like, the showrunners, yeah with Denise Crosby.

06:36 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I don't remember the details, but I just remember hearing that she was kind of absorbed by this big black pond or something. Right, yeah, the goo thingamajig, which was actually, uh, embodiment of light or something 300 pounds of graham cracker, like oreo powder that was mixed up with milk. That she disappeared in, which was great, until you came to the set the second day and it was still there. It didn't smell very good anyway. Um, save us from the dark side, said your best, worst, or more so different space joke to twist at twittv because we need to go on the headlines so we can't sit around here making up jokes for you guys. We have important things to do here. Yeah, okay, we need, we need your help. Headline News.

07:29 - Tariq Malik (Host)
That sounds like my podcast. I always expect to hear BBC right after that.

07:34 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, this kind of reminds me of Jeff Jarvis' thing for his university Craig Craig, craig Newmark, but I have to remember that we're going to use it, so I don't read right into it. So this isn't probably the most important headline, but I thought it meant the most to me. And since we're talking about Star Trek partly today, Voyager 2.

07:58 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I think you mean V'ger 2.

07:59 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Sometimes abbreviated V'ger. Yes Is shutting down one more instrument. I feel like we're watching this thing disappear off into its almost 13th billionth mile, with little pieces flying off as it goes, but it's remarkable that it's still working. Tell us what's going on here.

08:18 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Well, yeah, so Voyager 2, 12.8 billion miles from Earth out there in interstellar space, NASA scientists over at JPL had to make the difficult decision this week to shut down one of its remaining instruments because of power. Basically, these are powered by decaying plutonium from their RTGs, their radio thermal generators. Right Is that right. And of course they're 47 years old. So I think they lose four Watts of power every year and they didn't have a lot of Watts to begin with Like what a year older than you, right?

09:01
No, it's like six months older than me. So cause they launched in august, right in or in an august and september of of 77, and I was born in april that you know.

09:12 - Rod Pyle (Host)
It's funny. They've actually shedded a little bit of mass since they've launched, unlike you. Um, wow, yeah, sorry, uh, but so rod went there after talking about his uniform? I don't.

09:25
Well, I've already admitted about my mess, but but it's, it was um, it was the uh, the plasma science instrument on yeah, yeah, yeah, on on on voyager 2, which is a shame because it's it's one of the, as I gather, one of the more important things to be studying out there. But there is another instrument that can be used in kind of a workaround to do more or less the same thing, at least according to the person that I wrote to. So that's a good thing.

09:54 - Tariq Malik (Host)
And they were and this was the instrument that was like the one that says okay, yeah, you've left the heliosphere, so you're in intercept with the speller space. So it's you know. Thanks for the thanks, for the thanks for the memories plasma science instrument. But, and it was interesting, thank you and good night.

10:08 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I didn't realize it could only do a measurement once every three months, because that's the period of time or the interval in which the spacecraft would execute a 360 degree turn for something to do with its alignment with earth.

10:20 - Tariq Malik (Host)
But anyway, it's an axis that's pointed towards the sun. So, earth, but uh, anyway, it's an axis that's pointed towards the sun, so, yeah, okay, thank you all right I thought we were talking about spitting stuff in space.

10:35 - Rod Pyle (Host)
It's just amazing, I mean, when you think of these poor things out there. They use, uh tape recorders for data storage and retrieval. So tape has been running over that little head uh the tape data mechanism for almost 50 years and I can tell you, having lived through the age of 8-track and cassette, they never lasted that long, especially with cassettes, because a little felt thing would always fall off inside and it wouldn't work. So I'm just astonished that these things are still going. And it's interesting and I think I've mentioned this before as well, but I was talking to the chief engineer, the uh sorry, mission manager, years ago for a book one of my 20 and we were talking about the rtg that's a nice flex there.

11:19 - Tariq Malik (Host)
If no one has heard it 20 bucks, 20 bucks. I got like eight of them.

11:23 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So I said what's? What's? Uh, you know, because the half-life is, you know, 44 years or something. I said shouldn't be lasting longer. He said it's not really that, it's not really the degradation of the plutonium strictly, but it's the, because the plutonium pellet is surrounded by, uh, bimetal housing which is how the thermocouple works.

11:46
Yeah, and the degradation is in zero-g. There's little stalactites going from one piece of metal that slowly grow towards the other and they begin to short them out, and that's the primary mechanism by which these things fail. Anyway, by hook or by crook. Now we were hearing before that they expected the Voyagers to both be pretty much done and gone, as far as radio contact was concerned, by 2025 just next year and now we're hearing the mid-2030s, and I guess part of that's because they they've got this program of sort of triage going on yeah, yeah, and it's a little sad because this instrument they turned off voyager one had one and it stopped working in 1980.

12:28 - Tariq Malik (Host)
So that one conked out three years after launch and then they turned it off in 2007 to save power. I guess they were hoping for it to come back in if a miracle happened in space, and so this one on Voyager 2 was really like the last one standing out there and they had been really trying to hold off turning it off because they've turned off other instruments before. Yeah, yeah.

13:00
Voyager 2 still has four working instruments on it, so that's good, but their days are numbered because, like we were just talking about, the power won't hold.

13:10 - Rod Pyle (Host)
And amazing beyond that, I guess, to me, is the fact they can still maneuver these things. You know that they've got thrusters and gyros that still work. All right, let's move on. This is cute, tarek, this is yours. These are all spacecom, by the way, vulcan salute, let's do it. So ula launched its second vulcan centaur rocket ever today. Was it today or yesterday?

13:37 - Tariq Malik (Host)
it was today, it was today, yeah a few hours, a few hours late, a few hours late on the cert 2 flight. It was actually a pretty explosive, uh a flight. This one is from spacecom. We did, we did we say that other one was from jpl. On the CERT-2 flight. It was actually a pretty explosive flight. This one is from spacecom. Did we say that other one was from JPL?

13:49 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I just I had a calm drop. Yeah, I said they were both from spacecom.

13:55 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Oh, yeah, the other one we were showing JPL site, but this is our coverage, but everyone else was following it too, but it was a gorgeous, gorgeous morning launch from Cape Canaveral this new United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket. Now, for the folks that might not remember, this is their second one. The first one was in January. So this is certification two and this is the flight that was supposed to take Sierra Nevada they don't call themselves that anymore Sierra Space Systems Dream Chaser space plane on its first maiden voyage. But the space plane's not ready yet, so they put a mass simulator on it and this is like their key, crucial test flight to make sure that the rocket itself, as a new heavy lift booster, is ready to fly national security missions.

14:45
So the Space Force was watching this really, really closely, as well as other missions. In the future, ula wants to replace their Atlas five workhorse rocket with this booster and and so they really had to have everything go right on this. And, anthony, if you could scroll down like a little bit on that page there, because there's something really interesting that happened at the 39th 2nd March, and I think I have a gift a little, a little, a little further, a little further for folks watching here it is, so is this our gift.

15:14 - Rod Pyle (Host)
No, you have to get past all your freaking commercials.

15:16 - Tariq Malik (Host)
You got to get past all the ads. Oh my gosh, there's so many of them. There are, isn't it embarrassing?

15:20
Some more, some more, some more. Here it is here.

15:23
It is here, it is Okay. So this is a gift that we made of the actual launch for people who are watching on our video stream. And 39 seconds after liftoff, what looks like one of the SRBs and I've got a model behind me over here Solid rocket booster. Yeah, the solid rocket boosters. They can have up to six, I believe, on this to increase the uplift capacity of the rocket, and this one only had two.

15:49
But it looks like one of the nozzles failed on the SRB, on the solid rocket booster, and so you see this big flare up and then on the way uphill it had more debris get burned off. Tori Bruno, ula's CEO, says that failure doesn't seem to have affected the launch any, because the two twin BE-4 engines on the first stage were able to kind of keep going properly. And then the upper stage that Centaur upper stage compensated for whatever lift dropout they had from that failure and were able to get into the perfect orbit that they were hoping to, which I think is a Sun synchronous orbit. So that mass simulator is out there in the void doing whatever now, forever and ever.

16:32 - Rod Pyle (Host)
And you remind us that they're using Blue Origin engines on this thing.

16:36 - Tariq Malik (Host)
That's right. These are the Blue Origin BE-4 engines that Blue Origin has designed for their new Glenn rocket too. This means that this mission is now two for two with this, with these rocket engines for for blue origin, after all the trials and tribulations they had bringing them to a service. So I would say that it does seem like everything looks good for the new Glenn version, because these these engines do seem to be performing as expected for Vulcan center.

17:03 - Rod Pyle (Host)
And we're just seeing the end of this clip as it's trailing up. It's a nice-looking rocket.

17:08 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I mean I have to say you know it's a white. We just saw on the video the SRB separate there and of course they can have it.

17:17 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Did you notice that the right-hand one was the color of the burn was actually different?

17:22 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, and I think one of them at work. She was out as well. Interesting.

17:27 - Rod Pyle (Host)
All right. Well, it's time to transport ourselves to an ad break, and we will be right back, stand by.

17:34 - Tariq Malik (Host)
All right, two more quick. That was really smooth how you did that, by the way, wasn't that?

17:38
Yeah.

17:39 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I should have gone. Take me out of here, okay, solar flare that. Take me out of here, okay. Uh, solar flare we have now. This is going to be interesting and are we going to see, possibly at lower latitudes, a an aurora tonight?

17:54 - Tariq Malik (Host)
that is the big question. But basically x7 is huge, right? No, no, no, x9, x9.05 oh. So earlier this week we had an X7.1 solar flare. I'm a doctor, not a radiologist.

18:09 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Sorry, go ahead.

18:10 - Tariq Malik (Host)
That kicked off a CME that was going to come and give us a bit of a glancing blow, and we always hope that when these CMEs and their particle clouds hit the magnetosphere, that they do amp up the auroras that we can see, and maybe they extend far lower than the polar regions in the Arctic and we can see them in the States. So that was coming. This weekend, and one day before we recorded this episode, which was a Thursday, the Sun fired off another one, an X9. It's the strongest solar flare directed at the Earth since 2017. There was, I think, like an X14 that was picked up on the far side of the Sun, not facing the Earth earlier this year, but this is the strongest one that's been facing us and we've got some video of it here from NASA on our spacecom story and, of course, solar dynamics observatory. A lot of other satellites are watching the sun all the time for these things and the hope, at least for sky watchers, is that when the CME because they do believe there was a halo CME that popped off of this one reaches Earth this weekend, that it will amp up the solar weather, the Northern Lights, the Southern lights as well, and we might get a pretty good show, if folks might remember this.

19:29
Similar thing happened this one-two punch earlier in May and we saw just dazzling auroras all the way down to Alabama, which was crazy. I don't know if it's going to get that strong this weekend, if they materialize at all, and that's the question that the Space Weather Prediction Center is asking right now. They think that we could get up to a G3, geomagnetic storm level three which is fairly strong and intense. The ones in May were, I think, g4 or higher, and so you know, we're just kind of waiting to see how is it going to hit us, is it going to be causing any disruptions to satellite signals and whatnot, and is it going to really make those Northern Lights visible? When it happened in May, it was cloudy and rainy all weekend here in New Jersey, where I typically work from in New York, but hopefully we'll get some good weather and then we can see like what's what.

20:22 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, all I can say is shields up, and we we did get a note on the discord from from our good friend, jammer b, who used to send us notes on the on the chat when he was still in studio, saying, as as he will, radiologists are doctors, aimed at me. And what I miss about his his, uh, private messages or messages on the board when he was still here, was that after most of them, I could hear in my head you moron, so anybody knows that. Okay, let's, let's wrap up the headlines.

20:55 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Uh, space launches next I just got I just got one quick note like a programming note for space fans everywhere that next week's going to be a pretty sporty and exciting one, if you like launches Sporty.

21:05
Yeah, on Monday, october 7th, we will kick off the morning with the Hera launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9. That's a mission that's going to go to the asteroid Didymos and Dimorphos. If that sounds familiar, it's the one that NASA's DART spacecraft smacked in the face a couple of years back. So they're going to launch this mission to go there and see what's left of Dimorphos or, I believe, is the the name of the moon that NASA hit and and they'll it'll study it over time. Then, of course, if actually a few hours later, blue Origin is going to launch their brand new rocket ship, the RSS Carmen Line. It's what they called it. Are you serious? They called it. The RSS stands for reusable spaceship but they named it Carmen line how unlyrical, yeah.

21:52
And it's like a lowercase line, like it's not even all capitalized and they could have gone like Von Carmen line, I don't know why. And then the picture they show is just the booster itself. So I don't know if they're going to reuse a capsule, but it's an uncrewed launch. They're going to debut it on October 7th and this is like another crew rated vehicle, so they'll be able to launch two of them, I guess close together, and it'll carry 12 experience, probably some for NASA. They like to fly stuff on these, but Kármán line that feels like a thumb in the nose at Virgin Galactic to me. Rod.

22:27 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Oh, interesting.

22:28 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Because Blue.

22:30
Origin's rockets can go above the Kármán line and Virgin Galactic's can't. Oh, and then on October 10th is the big show SpaceX's Falcon Heavy is going to launch NASA's Europa Clipper mission to that moon that we can explore, but attempt no landing there, right Rod, and so that should be really, really exciting. Big caveat for both of these SpaceX launches they've been grounded technically because of the second stage anomaly during reentry on the Crew-9 launch, which was last week as we're recording this, and we haven't heard if the FAA said, yeah, go ahead, you can launch, or if they're gonna give them a pass to launch, uh, while they do their their investigation. This was an upper stage issue, post spacecraft separation, so I think the chances are good that they'll say yeah, it's fine, it's interesting you were talking about these, the suborbital space tourism companies.

23:22 - Rod Pyle (Host)
it was just editing an article something that you're no stranger to about Space Perspective, which is a company of, I think, tucson right, yes, yes, that, yeah is ginning up to send people on high altitude balloon flights, and we're talking 100,000 feet. So it is, you are high enough to see the curvature of the earth and it's and the blackness space.

23:46
I guess yeah, and I guess you'd call it a space-like experience. But there's, you know, an interesting conversation we had there that we didn't have enough chapter, enough column just to go into in depth. But when you're talking about spending, in this case probably $125,000, $150,000 for the balloon ride, versus now half a million dollars for Virgin Galactic for as long as they're still able to do this or Blue Origin, what's high enough? There's 100,000 feet versus 100 kilometers, which is the Kármán line, which is what Blue Origin goes to and what Virgin Galactic kind of scrapes beneath, I don't know.

24:36 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Would you pay $125,000 to $150,000?. The experiences are very different.

24:38 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, because you're up there for like seven hours with the balloon ride, sipping champagne and wandering around, and I think that the space perspective capsule has like a bathroom on it.

24:49 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It has this huge wraparound windows. It has barco lounge like seating. You know that, so I it's like the, the, the box seats of, of, of and it has snacks, yeah, which I know is important to both of us I don don't know, I don't know, I'm of like two minds. Number one that seems like a nice staid, kind of what's the word? Ferris wheel approach to space travel.

25:14 - Rod Pyle (Host)
That's a good point.

25:16 - Tariq Malik (Host)
But there is something that comes with going up, climbing on a rocket and launching into space on your back or, I guess, on a plane, a space plane, because they do pitch up to get that experience. But I would, I would kind of I don't know how much is enough Like when I get real sick, right away like on a roller coaster, because then then maybe I don't want to go all the way to orbit, and so these suborbital things would be enough for me. But then like would it be too short and would be enough for me? But then like would it be too short? And then I'll forget about it.

25:46 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I don't know. It's really hard to. It seems to me that the Blue Origin flight is kind of the perfect middle ground for everything for me, just because and I admit this is the you know immature side of my brain that's still eight looking oh look at the rockets, somehow the idea. I mean, I've always felt that this is a little bit of editorializing, so pardon me, but I've always felt that.

26:14 - Tariq Malik (Host)
You no Rod no.

26:17 - Rod Pyle (Host)
The Blue Origin system looked a little. It's less complex than what Virgin Galactic is doing. It doesn't have any of that feather maneuver and all that, so it feels safer to me. I don't know that it is, but going up in a balloon with a gondola, you know that it has a couple of soft failure modes and all that, so if something does go wrong it just slowly comes back to earth and so it's probably safer. And it's interesting the older you get and the less of life is ahead of you, the more concerned you are about personal safety. But probably we should be less concerned because hey, there's not much time left anyway. Make room for the young and become Soylent Green. Let's go to another ad break and then we'll come back for the whole reason that we're here.

27:02 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Soylent Green is people Rod Come on.

27:04 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Stand by. All right, and frankly, I think I'd probably come back as Soylent Gray, but that's just my thought.

27:13 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I don't think Captain Kirk would want a suborbital experience. I don't think so. I don't think that he would be, even though the real Captain Kirk launched on Blue Origin, I don't think that the character of Captain Kirk, of James Kirk, would be satisfied with just like a suborbital rocket launch. We should talk about, by the way, william Shatner, as part of this discussion. Actually, we didn't put that in the notes, but I think that maybe we could talk a little bit about it Well, first let's get into the conversation. Let's get into it.

27:41 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Now that we've burned almost half an hour talking about headlines. So Star Trek versus Star Wars. This is a long-term, age-old debate and I thought I'd pull up, before we start, just a couple of of comments I found online about this Cause I thought, well, what other people think that are smart? So I went to a part of Reddit where they're actually smart people and was it the spacecom.

28:10
Reddit. No, no, there are no smart people there and and there's some interesting comments. So one said the war is over and forgotten. Nowadays, both fandoms focus on hating their own franchises. So I thought, okay, it's a good point. There's another. Star Wars is the hero's journey, with a lot of mythos and archetypes. Star Trek is fully automated space communism with futuristic secular humanism space communism wow, yeah, that's a rough a little more mundane.

28:42
So star wars is dungeons of dragons, wizards of knights in space. Star trek is the promise of humanity. I like that one yeah um, now you can see my colors. Another, I see Another. I see it as Star Wars is sci-fi fantasy and Star Trek is sci-fi adventure.

29:00 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Not quite, I don't know. I had a choose your own adventure Star Trek book as a kid, but not a Star Wars one.

29:05 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, there you go. Here's next to last. Star Trek explores human issues, morals of exploration and ethical questions. Doesn't say anything about Star Wars and my favorite because I thought of it. The difference is maturity.

29:21 - Tariq Malik (Host)
All right.

29:25 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So, as you point out here in the first, the opening line, tell me when you saw it and under what conditions of what your reaction was for.

29:35 - Tariq Malik (Host)
For each one yeah sure, all right, okay.

29:38
So I first became aware of Star Trek when I was like, I guess, in in elementary school. My cousins were watching a horror movie and it was really, really scary for me, which I found out later. It was a probably the crawling eye or something. No, it was that one that's like the Monsanto company that makes the zombie virus. The warning sign it was warning sign. They were watching the warning sign movie and it was really scary for me.

30:04
So I went to a different part of my aunt's house and they had like a little black and white TV in the sewing room and I was flipping the two channels that it got and it was Star Trek. And that was how I watched my first episode of Star Trek. I didn't even know what it was. It was in the middle of the episode. I can't even tell you which one it was because the picture was so faint, but you could see the great bird of the galaxy, right, the Enterprise ship although I know that's Gene Roddenberry, you know like briefly in the snow static screen. And that was enough for me and that was it. I was like hooked to try to figure out like where that was. I think it was on Fox, like Channel 5 or whatever.

30:41 - Rod Pyle (Host)
And here's the difference between your childhood and mine. You had more than one television. Yeah, when I was a little kid I hate to go old man talk here when I was a little kid we had one. It was supposed to be black and white, but it was actually kind of green and white, yeah, tv with about a nine-inch screen and a huge box around it and, you know, rabbit ear antennas, of course, and all that junk over the air. Only Then the big deal was we got a portable black and white TV on wheels Wow, different rooms. And then we got a 13 inch sony trinitron.

31:21
That was, I think, in the in 68. It was like 1300 or something. I was horrifying when you think of how much that is today, but so that's my memory. Yeah, but I in 60. Well, actually it was in the first year of Star Trek. My sister, who's about five years older than me, and I used to struggle over the time slot because they programmed Star Trek against Lost in Space. Oh, wow, I of course was the Lost in Space fan because I was still a little kid.

31:48 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Oh danger.

31:49 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Will.

31:49 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Rodinson.

31:51 - Rod Pyle (Host)
She, being more mature, preferred Star Trek and I have to say in hindsight, loss of space pretty miserable. And you know we talked about this when we did our favorite space TV shows thing. But later in life I took a class from a guy who had directed a number of loss of space episodes, like shortly after the pilot. Actually he got involved very early and I said you know, every now and then I'd be watching. Like when the carrot man episode came on, there was a guy who was a big styrofoam carrot with a carved out face and he's his face painted orange. He was the same guy that played, uh, the trader on the trouble with tribbles episode, I think, and it was just, it was beyond dreadful. I mean, there's no other way to say it. It was. I lost his face at his worst moment.

32:37 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It's so funny that you say that and I said wait, wait, wait and I said how did you come to the?

32:42 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I mean, somebody had to look at this script and say, yeah, that's good. It's like it's like the GM executives gathering around the Pontiac Aztec and saying, yeah, that looks great, let's go for it. And he did confirm for me that it was often a case of script being driven by dumpster diving. If they walked down the lot and found a bunch of props from some other horrible B film that had just wrapped and they were tossing stuff and they found stuff they could use, like, in one case, aliens wearing white sequined top hats and black capes and black socks over their face, then they rewrote the episode, much like roger corman. So that's how they got some of their horrible stuff. I'm sorry, what were you gonna say?

33:23 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I was gonna say that it's interesting that this lost in space versus star trek that caught, which is totally it's. You know we could. We could do that too if you really wanted to, but both franchises have seen resurgences in like the last, like like decade, where you have lost in space not only uh, come up with the 1990, what 1998 uh uh movie uh, which you know I think is worth watching, but it's not great.

33:45 - Rod Pyle (Host)
But I think it's fun uh, which will be the loss of space the lost in space 1998 one.

33:51 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's, it's decent, it's decent and the robot's awesome. But then, of course, they have the Netflix show too. And then, of course, for Star Trek, we have how many new shows out now and how many new shows and films coming out in the future, and it's about time. I think that that is one of the big things for Star Wars, because for Star Wars, we had three movies and that was it for 20 years. You know, and um and uh. And for star trek, you always had something on, starting in the 80s, uh, uh, after the resurgence following the, the films themselves as they came out.

34:24
So yeah, they just turned them out like pop, star wars and I I. I recognize that I didn't talk about that, but my first exposure to star wars was actually going to see the three amigos in the movie theater and seeing the trailer for Spaceballs in front of it.

34:42 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Oh, good Lord.

34:43 - Tariq Malik (Host)
And then my cousins explaining to me that they were making fun of Star Wars, so I had to go watch that and I think I was like seven or eight.

34:50 - Rod Pyle (Host)
This is what I think of Spaceballs. Look at that. Huh, Huh, Ah nice. What is that? A phaser Mark two, right? No, this is the original phaser from a deep space. Did you ever see? You were a deep space nine watcher, weren't you?

35:05 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Oh God, I've watched that series like three, four times.

35:07 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Remember trials and tribulations.

35:09 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yes, yes, yes, yes. In fact, I bought the.

35:10 - Rod Pyle (Host)
VHS. This was made for that episode.

35:13 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I bought the VHS double tape set for that.

35:16 - Rod Pyle (Host)
This was made for that episode. Oh, I love it, and the phaser comes off and everything, yeah, so I made off with this after the thing wrapped. Actually, it's not true. I bought it. I bought it.

35:28 - Tariq Malik (Host)
But I bought it out of the production. I bought the Trouble with Tribbles episode and a little Tribble that would purr in a nice little display box back when all we had was VHS at and I kid you not the Star Trek Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton in Las Vegas and it was so much fun and none of my friends wanted to go with me, rod, when I went, and I don't understand why, because you could go to Quark's.

35:55 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Wait, you asked both of them and neither would go with you.

35:59 - Tariq Malik (Host)
We were. There was like 10 of us on that trip together and I was the only one that went, but anyway, I had a good time. I also found out that I'm a direct descendant of uh of of patrick, uh of jean-luc picard, because the borg were after me time traveling in that experience.

36:14 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So I I don't know you always look more for angie to me. Um, let's go to an ad break, we'll be right back. So I think we need to kind of, uh, ground ourselves in this. We've sort of been all over the place and I just want to finish, um, very quickly, my star wars side of my experience.

36:31
So I had seen star trek as a kid loved the show, was very anxious to see Star Trek the motion picture, and I say that profoundly because it was a very serious thing, a very long and very serious thing, and that came out about the same time as the first Star Wars movie, episode four. And so I had seen, because everybody was going to see Star Wars. I was in my late teens, almost 20, ran off to the movie theater and that opening scene of the first Star Wars was freaking, transformative, very craftily designed. George Lucas is not, in my book, a great director, he's kind of a working, working man's director, I guess. But the visual effects on that film were something we had never seen before. So you see the, the little, uh, princess leia's ship goes, go scooting by overhead excuse me, that's the tantalum four rod.

37:28 - Tariq Malik (Host)
That uh the the tantalum four rock tansive. Okay, oh yeah, wow, anthony, coming in corrected did jammer b correct you?

37:38 - Rod Pyle (Host)
no, not yet.

37:39
No, um, and then the, the imperial star cruiser, comes in, being a big triangular thing, and very cleverly done, because in that opening scene, before we know anything about anything about the star star wars universe, little point and it gets wider and wider, and wider and wider and wider, and then it starts firing on the other one with, you know, laser beams that are more or less aimed in the right direction, but it was a spectacular shot and I, I kid you not, I think I saw that movie 11 times just to see that opening scene.

38:11
The rest of it less so, but that opening scene was pretty, pretty amazing. So, you know, as as kind of a baseline though, I would propose that if we're going to compare the two franchises, if you're taking the high watermark for those two franchises and this may people may not agree with this, but it seems like the popular sentiment is people may not agree with this, but it seems like the popular sentiment is the high watermark of Star Wars is Empire Strikes Back and the high watermark of Star Trek at least if you look at the whole franchise, the movies has got to be Wrath of Khan.

38:45 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I disagree profoundly. Do you now Star Trek VI, the Undiscovered?

38:51 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Country is the best Star Trek movie of all time. I'm going to pop Ribbit and eye patch on the middle of your forehead, just for that.

39:00 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It's too long, it's slow. No, it is amazing. Okay, but wait a minute.

39:07 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wrath of Khan. So reportedly, shatner and Ricardo Montalban never did a scene together. Live, they were both talking to C-stands, as one does when you're in a movie and the other actor's busy what's a C-stand, but those two guys oh sorry, it's a grip stand for a production.

39:24
It's a big middle stand that's got arms on it and you usually stick a little cutter or a cloth circle or something on the top of it at about eye level so that you know you're you're talking in the proper eye line if the other actor isn't available. But to see william shatner, uh, who's, let's just say, shakespearean in scope, ranting at the screen and ricardo montalban strutting around with those 50 year old, massiveold, massive pectorals of his, which I thought were plastic, but they were real he was amazing, wasn't he?

39:56
Yeah, but the interplay between those guys was sensational and of course, we had the famous God from Kirk. But I thought that, you know, it's like watching these two big armor hams strutting around stage spouting all this Shakespearean bluff at each other.

40:11 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I just thought that was unbeatable star trek, rather, has the best uniforms, has the best uniforms well, if you like frill.

40:18 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, and I will say that I will give you first for star trek six, the under-deserved country. Uh, christopher plumber yeah was definitely.

40:26 - Tariq Malik (Host)
He was the high watermark for acting on that show and and I'll just point out one thing about star trek, uh, rafa khan, because I have like three versions of that film the only Star Trek film that has its own off-Broadway musical that I have seen in person, which was Star Trek, the Wrath of Khan, the musical. Saw it last year with Zadie and my wife Jasmine and it was amazing Absolutely, and people were dressed up in Star Wars stuff. There, too, there were Jedi and crew members for the Enterprise living together watching an amazing performance, and it brought us all together.

41:03 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Maybe this is an indication of the core of our argument. So for Star Trek, we have a participatory Thinker's Live show and for Star Wars, as I've noticed recently on my Instagram feed, for the Los Angeles market, we have a burlesque show for star Wars, which the ad features a svelte young woman with a long gown, you know, cut up on one hip, holding out a lightsaber, sort of delicately. And I thought burlesque star star wars. I can't wait to see. Job of the hut in the bikini. Um, so, so sorry.

41:41 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, we, we got a oh god, I almost a coffee coffee out all over so.

41:49
So let's look at some categories hey, hey, don't fat shame Jabba man, come on, you know, everyone is entitled to wear what they want to wear when they go to the beach.

42:04 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, I tell you and I felt like Jabba the Hutt, putting on this costume this morning and getting it off later is going to be a trick. Oh my God, the coffee went up my nose. Okay, so let's look at some categories. So so we talked about best potential, best of the best, although jammer b, who may be the only person on discord today, says voyage home.

42:23
Yeah here and you know it's interesting. So that was star trek, 4 of the movies. And you got to the point in that movie where you're kind of you know you were looking at the whales in the tank and you're looking at scotty and saying I can't really see the difference anymore. But that's just me. Hello computer, more fat, more fat. Shaming. Scotty had gotten pretty large by then. Um, so for intellect, you know for the kind of the smart sci-fi, you know for the kind of the smart sci-fi intellectual angle, which one do you sign?

42:56 - Tariq Malik (Host)
off on? I think that it has to. We are biased. I don't know why we're trying to have a Star Trek versus Star Wars discussion when we clearly both enjoy Star Trek better, but I think that Star Trek is more and let's, just because it has a whole, like every, it's a merit-based system, right? You have to know what you're talking about to become an officer, an ensign or whatever, unlike podcasting, as we can prove. Yes, and in Star Wars, you're born with midichlorians Yay, right, which is you know and that With born with midichlorians Yay right, with what? Midichlorians? That's what makes people strong in the forest. They have a high midichlorian count. These little organisms that live inside us.

43:43 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Where did that come into the conversation?

43:45 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, that came in the first prequel in Phantom Menace, and now they try to backtrack it by just calling it an M count. They don't call them midichlorians anymore, but it just retconned everything, and so it's like you don't. There's no meritocracy, uh, a system ever. You can't just go to school to become a jedi or a sith. You have to be born with this stuff, and the rest of us are plebs and yeah, you know at your mercy or whatever.

44:11 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So well, that kind of brings up a good point, I guess of. To me, star trek was always kind of a morality play and star wars was more of a fun fantasy romp. So I have to give intellect to star trek generally, although what I could also say. I mean star trek spawned an incredible fan movement. I remember during the I think it was the oj simpson trial, there was a juror that showed up, oh yeah, in her starfleet uniform and she was being grilled by the judge, I guess for jury selection, and she said I'm here to represent my crew and my people and he's like next, let's go.

44:48 - Tariq Malik (Host)
let's go, anthony. Let's go to line 40 or 41, either one of those, uh, for the one of those for the run sheet. And we'll talk a little bit about that rundown, because nowhere in Star Wars that I know of will you see a cameo by an astronaut, whereas in Star Trek you had astronauts in the next generation. Mike Fink and Terry Vertz, who we've talked about, were in the final episode of Enterprise. And here's Samantha Cristoforetti the only astronaut who has a Barbie doll that I own dressed in Catherine Janeway's uniform from Star Trek Voyager on the International Space Station.

45:39 - Rod Pyle (Host)
When I woke up this morning, my first thought was not.

45:40 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I wonder if tarik owns any barbie dolls. That's, that's, that's, uh, it's a, it's, it's an action figure of uh, there you go, official official isa. Uh, samantha, christmas ready, but let me finish my point though.

45:49 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So we have. We have this movement associated with track of people wanting to be you. You know part of this bigger, greater dream, so they do. I mean I'd call it cosplay, but it's almost like a lifestyle of you know. I'm part of the Federation because that's more exciting than my real life. Have the whole Jedi thing in Star Wars, which I never really fully got my head and my heart wrapped around, actually inspiring real life religions and philosophical movements yeah, which is pretty remarkable considering that it's basically a space soap opera. That was astonishing when I saw that.

46:29 - Tariq Malik (Host)
One thing that I think that we should probably point out too, is that the circular nature of both of these franchises right, because little roddy pile, you know, watches uh don't use that nickname.

46:42 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I hated that nickname.

46:43 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Oh sorry, I'm so sorry, little rod pile, uh, uh, watches, watches the, the first seasons of star trek in the 60s, um, and then star wars comes out in 77. And then everyone is like, oh my god, we need to have the next star wars. And then Star Wars comes out in 77. Then everyone was like, oh my God, we need to have the next Star Wars. So then like what was it? Desilu or CBS or whoever it is is like, well, paramount, we've got Star Trek, let's do that, so they make the motion picture to try to make them be the next Star Wars. Then a bunch of these other kids see Star Trek and they're like, wow, I'd like to go in space. Then they become astronauts, like Samantha Christopher Reddy, who then appear on Star Trek. And then when Star Wars the Force Awakens came out, they broadcast it opening night on the International Space Station. They have a movie projector up there where they can watch movies.

47:34
So it's like this whole big circular thing that just pushed us all. They've launched lightsabers to space on the space shuttle.

47:43 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, I do want to say I want to back up a step on the Star Trek movie side. So the series 65, 66 or 66, 67, 72 episodes, I think, or was it 73? I think it was 72. You know, for its time spectacular because we hadn't seen anything like that on TV, because I'm old enough to remember what TV for science fiction was like before Star Trek, and it was pretty awful. You know, the rockets had sparks flying out the back, that went down, the smoke went up and it was pretty miserable stuff.

48:19
Then Star Trek, the motion picture, comes out, as you point out, sort of paramount's answer to star wars, and with great anticipation I trucked over to one of the big local theaters and sat down and was very excited about this and, let's just say so, screenplay, the core of the screenplay, by alan dean foster. So you know it's going to be good science fiction. It was a very intellectually stimulating movie but it was long. Yeah. Then they released, decades later, the director's cut and my first response I'm looking at this it says 12 extra minutes of footage you haven't seen. It's like wait, you added more shots of sulu staring out at the great expanse of V'ger with his head going back and forth like like one of those little little puppets on your on your dashboard of your car, and so I personally, I loved V'ger.

49:05
I thought the visual effects were great. Um, it was interesting though. Remember the wormhole sequence. That's just like orange. Um vector graphics, yeah, with the asteroid, yeah. So robert abel visual effects, who were behind building the enterprise 1701a, were commissioned to do the effects for that movie. That's all they got done, and this was after spending almost two hundred thousand dollars on that ship, which in 1977 was a lot of money and it's the best of the ship miniatures I've seen. It was hands down the best I got to work with that beautiful thing for a weekend. But you know, for Robert Abel to grind out millions of dollars in this one kind of crummy effect. Then they brought in the it was the same company as Star Wars, it was Destroylite and Magic, I think to do the rest of the effects. Once you got inside of V'ger, that was. It had a big screen. That was pretty spectacular.

50:06 - Tariq Malik (Host)
The music is great too.

50:07 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I mean.

50:07 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Star Wars has Jerry.

50:09 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Goldsmith versus John Williams. Yeah, that is hard.

50:11 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It's a hard duo. I would say the one big drawback for that film, because all of the Star Wars films are all original. Right, they all came out. It wasn't a TV show and maybe because it was when I saw it. I was very close to the TV show when I saw the film and I was already watching the Next Generation and to me V'ger was just a souped up version of the robot from the TOS episode. Was that one where they meet another robot that's looking like its?

50:38
creator.

50:39
Yeah, the nomad, I am nomad.

50:42 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You will be sterilized.

50:47 - Tariq Malik (Host)
So, but I don't know We've truly been debating everything.

50:53 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, we're kind of shuffling through this, so this must be a good time for an ad break and we'll reposition ourselves and be right back.

51:01 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Let's do ships next. Ships huh, ships, ships, ships. We should talk about ships.

51:07 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So let me do a right turn and just say of the spaceships of my youthful memory, the Discovery from 2001,. A Space Odyssey kind of takes the cake, because you can actually think of that as being something real, as opposed to these push button gravity. What's making my feet just stick to the floor? I don't know. It's just a thing I push this button and I have gravity. Gravity plating Rod clearly, right, yeah, okay, it's just a thing I push this button and I have gravity, gravity plating rod.

51:34
Clearly right, yeah, okay well, and I actually I. So rick sternbach was one of the art directors on uh, next generation and we were doing a stand-up kind of a presentation together and afterwards I pulled him aside and I said so because I never met him when I was working on the show. He was always over at the lot and I was always over the effect stage. But I, I was always over at the effects stage but I said explain to me how this goofy push-button gravity works. And I expect him to chuckle and go. That's no big deal. He went into this long explanation about, I don't know, quark germinators and all this kind of stuff, but I'm like wait, you actually memorized this.

52:09 - Tariq Malik (Host)
You almost had one on DS9. There was this. You almost had one on ds9. There was going to be the? Uh the gravity free room, but for one of the characters because she had a disability and couldn't walk on normal 1g on the space station so she would have a zero g room, uh, but of course the uh.

52:22 - Rod Pyle (Host)
They cut that character out because of the uh the effects budget it would cost yeah, I was going to say, and back then I think I think an expensive episode was about a million three. Yeah, which by which, by today's standards, is like you simply laugh. All right, you want to talk about spaceships?

52:38 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Let's talk about ships. The ships is what really got me more into Star Trek than into Star Wars, because you have ships that are really iconic. The Enterprise People know what you mean when you say the USS Enterprise. They never watched the Enterprise. People know what you mean when you say the USS Enterprise, even if they never watched the show and NASA's first space shuttle was called Enterprise because of Star Trek and the fans who wrote in to tell NASA they have to name the shuttle that.

53:07 - Rod Pyle (Host)
It was just the. This was the glide and landing test.

53:09 - Tariq Malik (Host)
This is the glide. Yeah, you can go see it you can go see it in New York over here and it's amazing, and even the first vertical ethics ship was called Enterprise lost yeah, and and so those ships.

53:23
To me I think we're like the iconic draw, these big, like space going vessels that had the torpedoes on it. You don't have torpedoes really in in Star Wars. You know they, going faster than light, meant something right, like you had, like your different warp factors, but it was dangerous because you had to have the, the reactors, like the, the engine room stabilized and everything. The warp core, like it was. This whole, everyone was working together to keep those ships going. But in Star Wars I just the ships are a dime, a dozen. They blow up all the time to get another one. There isn't like any like big identity, you know, do you know like all the ships by name? But we're star trek fans so we might be biased.

54:03 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You know there's there's the venator class I know that you know for the imperial star cruiser. I do remember on the on the star trek side there was one the scene um, I think it was in Next Generation For the big battle scenes. They used to sometimes have us go out and buy Hallmark Star Trek ornaments To stick them up in the background. Well, because you just needed stuff in the frame. This was all pre-digital generation, but there was a slightly larger one that uh I I only saw once. I wasn't there when they were shooting it, but I wandered off into the uh storage area and there was a little reliant class ship called the uss raging queen which was used only in the background. But of course they had to have their little moments of amusement in a 12-hour shoot day, that is but but you're right.

54:53
You know, that's a really good point. You don't think of Star Wars.

54:56 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I mean the Millennium Falcon yes, the Falcon yes, but name one other.

55:01 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Other than that and the Death Star Luke's X-Wing maybe.

55:05 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, I guess the Super Star Destroyer, another one, I don't know it, I don't know, I don't know they, but it's, it's like everyone, it's like all the chips are on the Falcon. It's why it's in almost every single movie, right, it's? You know, it's the one constant. All the other ones can get blown up, or you see them, the tie fighter, tanya w42. Yeah, that's right, a twin ion engine fighter by the way very impressive of you, anthony.

55:34 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Do we have one more ad or are we clear?

55:36 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
We're clear.

55:37 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Okay, Well, we're at 56 minutes dude. I told you I told you, you were so worried.

55:45 - Tariq Malik (Host)
We were planning Everybody listening. We were planning this episode.

55:48
And.

55:49 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Rod does this great. Not very well apparently.

55:50 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Rod does this great planning. Well, maybe this can be part one and we can come back at it later. Right, we can talk about the TV shows versus the TV shows.

55:57 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, let's let the people tell us on Discord whether they want us to come back. That come back, that's right. Much less come back for this, but but I think you know. Just to close the point, I think you bring up a good point, which is the enterprise certainly is iconic. I have to say, though, when next generation came out the series and I saw that that herman zimmerman designed for the enterprise d, I was not thrilled. You don't like the galaxy class ship, the clean lines of the 1701a god, I'm such a nerd versus that d with that kind of weird, uh, organic orifice. So I won't go into what I really think it looks like, but it was just so you know that's the deflected dish rod.

56:39 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Come on now, it was just dumb.

56:40 - Rod Pyle (Host)
It protects them and space does that the problem with the D was you had to be really careful what angle you lit it from, because you'll see in the show it always looks good because those guys, one of whom was a dear friend of mine at the time knew how to light that thing at its best. But you see, on a video box cover or something at the time, you'd see that they'd have the B team come in and just toss the model up and grab a cover shot instead of pulling a frame out of the show, and they would bring the key light around onto the deflector dish which completely obliterated it and it just looked awful.

57:13 - Tariq Malik (Host)
it was a really hard thing to light, but anyway, that's but by the way, in the weeds I'm going to point out real quickly just in our discord, wizardling uh is is talking about home one which is one of the iconic support rebellion ships uh I think admiral akbar uh commands oh, he's the, the reptile guy, right yeah, it's a drop, you know. So that's him, that was his ship, that was his ship. That's a good, that's a good call out.

57:37 - Rod Pyle (Host)
We're something that's a really good one, so um well, and if we're talking about iconic ships, the exp Expanse the Rosanati, the.

57:45 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Rosanati, yeah.

57:46 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, that's quite an impressive one.

57:48 - Tariq Malik (Host)
We are getting all of our franchises.

57:51 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, I feel like we're a couple of pigs rolling around in the mud here a little bit, but let's talk about acting, shall we Acting? Okay, so, when I think of the first, so, star Trek, of course, as a kid even, I remember looking at William Shatner, thinking this guy is so heavy handed and so obvious and so indicating. And it wasn't until much later, decades later, that I realized. Well, you know, shatner has a style, quote, unquote that could be a little heavy handed most of the time. Without him the rest of the ensemble wouldn't have worked. Yeah, so that. But I thought of the actors of the original cast. I thought, uh, leonard de moy by far was the most skillful I won't say talented, but skillful in terms of how he he nailed that character for spock in a way that nobody else in that original cast did now, I learned anyway in the, in the first pilot too, you know he was.

58:51 - Tariq Malik (Host)
He was well the first pilot, he was kind of excitable it wasn't until the.

58:55 - Rod Pyle (Host)
The series kind of got into like episode six or seven that I felt he really settled down. And then, of course, in star wars I mean what can best darth vader being voiced by, uh, james ear, james Earl Jones?

59:06 - Tariq Malik (Host)
yeah, who passed away just last month, right, yeah, so on the other, hand the young, oh good Lord, the lead character.

59:14 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I'm blanking on his name, well, luke Skywalker.

59:17 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Luke Skywalker. Yeah, mark Hamill, mark Hamill, thank you. Voice of the Joker and the animated.

59:21 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well and again but here's another guy that really matured into his skills. I, I felt this as the young luke skywalker I, I to me he was. He was kind of foppish, you know it was not as appealing.

59:34 - Tariq Malik (Host)
He's really complaining really as a parent as a parent yeah, like I loved star wars. Going with the kid I wanted to be luke skywalker, you know, with like, yeah, yeah, I wanted to to be adopted like, by, by, uh wait a minute.

59:48 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You know how could you not want to be han solo?

59:51 - Tariq Malik (Host)
well, because I thought, like you have a laser sword, you know who wants. Uh, who wants a jalopy, beaten up ship, uh, that that doesn't when when you can have a laser sword and mind powers, but then, as a parent watching it years later, all I can think of is how whiny he is the entire time and how entitled he is and how much he looks. Just like our children, I know, and he gets asked to do a simple chore Wash the brand new equipment that we need to farm to survive.

01:00:26
And he's like I want to go to T know, come on, you know. Do you know who doesn't whine? You know who doesn't whine, scotty, he will fix it for you, and he will fix it fast because he knows that the life of the crew depends on it. You know, maybe wesley crusher noted but the guy turned oh, all right, don't go there. Maybe they could be friends and in in.

01:00:47 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So why do we have a 15 year old on the bridge driving the ship? Because he's the very best we've got. It's like what are?

01:00:52 - Tariq Malik (Host)
you talking about, because our target demographic needs to see exactly, exactly. I mean, oh, I was, I was, I was there for it. I was of the age, uh, of of wesley crusher. On the ship I was like, yeah, that's me. Where can I get that sweater? I still want that sweater.

01:01:09 - Rod Pyle (Host)
It wasn't you but I have to tell you you grew up to be better looking than him I don't know, I disagree nice beard anthony pop in here, will you please? He just transported in, so what? What do you mean? You didn't get through through star trek the original series how can you not enjoy all those fluorescent colors and those mini skirts? And you know, just so slow and slow. Did you watch? The first did you watch the first season of next generation?

01:01:44 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
you talk about slow that was bad, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean until they got the cool collars, it was not. I'm actually re-watching uh tng uh and I'm on the last season. I think I'm like five episodes from the end and the last season's not too great either. It's like I'm starting to lose attention last season. I'm starting to lose attention last season, of which, oh, tng, yeah, yeah, oh what is that?

01:02:11 - Rod Pyle (Host)
you got a hole in your head oh oops, I forgot a green screen.

01:02:12 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Is it a green hat? What is that? A green?

01:02:13 - Rod Pyle (Host)
hat that was having a bad moment there. Um, okay, well, I guess that's fair. I so, uh those of you who have seen the next generation series and to end, will remember a two-parter called the best of both worlds, yes, which, for my money, was the best show, the best episode of the series, and I was uh blessed to be able to be on set for a day of that during the post. For me at the end I'm not there yet okay, well, there was a poker game, you get. It was the big emotional wrap-up and I was there to watch that, watching brent Spiner have the assistant director ask girls out for him who were standing around watching. It was a very strange moment there, but I love the episode. It's the Borg encounter and it was a a seasoned ending and beginning two parter, so it was the end of one season, beginning of the next.

01:03:04 - Tariq Malik (Host)
At the cliffhanger, captain William Riker, the first officer is facing down their former captain, who's been turned into a Borg.

01:03:15 - Rod Pyle (Host)
He just told you not to spoil it, for I know he just told you that doesn't spoil it. And at the critical moment he goes Mr Wharf fire, he's gonna fire on his own captain, right? So this was like a delicious, one of the best cliffhangers I had ever seen. So year later. So I run out because I I hear the laser disc edition has finally been released and I gotta have it. Big, shiny specular platters, you know, 13 inches across from my laser display, or horrible way to watch movies. Put it in, get through the first hour and my good pal, rick berman the producer of the show, who's not a good pal, who made very questionable decisions frequently, in my opinion cut out that scene. Wow, they felt oh, it flows better without it. It's like what this is like, one of the biggest moments in star trek history, and you removed it to smooth that. So it must have been a contract issue or something, because nobody in their right mind would cut that scene out.

01:04:11 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I am really going off. I went. I went to see a best of both worlds anniversary, like it came out on my birthday a few years ago and it was in it. It was there, and then there was like a nice little intermission and then then we watched the next episode.

01:04:23 - Rod Pyle (Host)
There was a hue and cry after I returned, returned my laser disc. Many other people do the same thing, so I think that's why they put it back. I will just say, you know, I love that episode, that two-parter but when you actually re-watch it now, with these four or five crew members, you know, going after their captain, endlessly walking down these corridors, kind of looking around I mean there is absolutely no tension in those pre-combat moments at all and then a borg will walk by and he'll be like hey, what's up? You know there's no. And I kind of get. I mean the borg were cool because they were this kind of disassociated. Who the evil?

01:04:58 - Tariq Malik (Host)
soviet union kind of uh phenomenon well, they don't feel pity or remorse and they absolutely yeah, well, they're decentralized.

01:05:05 - Rod Pyle (Host)
And and then when the Next Gen movie, first Contact, came out and I heard they were going to have a Borg queen, I thought, oh, that's not good, you're kind of destroying the thing that made them special.

01:05:15 - Tariq Malik (Host)
But she was incredible. Oh my God. First Contact was, I think, the best out of all of the TNG and Jonathan Frake's first movie directing job that was his first one. I thought clock stoppers was his first one. Clock stoppers is a teen adventure film about.

01:05:31 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Maybe he did that one before, but very early in his career as a director. Anyway, other than the tv episodes, what a masterful job. And then he follows it up and, as he puts it, if you talk to him about it, the movie that put him into director jail thunderbirds, which is a shame, because I mean I thought first contact was absolute masterpiece.

01:05:53 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah you got your a b plot. You got uh uh wharf uh getting space sick, going out on the on the hull to fight, to fight the board uh. Spacesuits, spacewalkswalks, everything. Time travel, everything.

01:06:08 - Rod Pyle (Host)
A rarity in space movies and television. The space suits were padded up enough. They were very hot to wear but they looked kind of pressurized instead of the usual baggy, floppy, loose cotton suits, jumpsuits that people wear for movies. Anthony's leaning back in his chair and giving us that kind of how longer you guys gonna talk?

01:06:28 - Tariq Malik (Host)
man, we could talk all day, didn't we try to record like a half an hour video about this once on?

01:06:36 - Rod Pyle (Host)
your boat. Yeah, somebody's microphone was turned on in terms the microphones, and so is me talking and then you going, so we got to cover a few more points here. Thinking about looking at these from from a standpoint of iconography. What are your impressions like which one is more kind of locked into Western culture at this point?

01:07:01 - Tariq Malik (Host)
until so, which? Oh, it has to be Star Wars, though, I think, when you talk about the lexicon, even now, even now in this renaissance that we are in, if you're gonna use big words.

01:07:11 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I'm gonna leave the room.

01:07:12 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Sorry, go ahead with star trek where you have it and all different levels. You know my, my daughter, thinks of the one of the new star trek animated series, prodigy, as like her star trek, because she really got into star trek through that show and it was meant to do that as a new audience thing. But I think that, hands down, star Wars is like the biggest lexicon. I mean it has its own theme park. There isn't a Star Trek theme park. You have to go to a set, visit you know kind of a thing or a convention. But there are these, you know, vast, vast, uh, uh uh impacts from star star Wars that I think that I think it just transcends.

01:07:49
I think that there is a very close, hot, uh second for Star Trek. Now, uh, it was harder than when I was younger because, um, you didn't have that famous. I was the only one of my friends that really liked it. Did I ever tell you that I won a Star Trek contest on the radio Rod? Did I not tell you that I won a star trek contest on the radio rod? Did I not think?

01:08:09 - Rod Pyle (Host)
so, but am I going to have to envy you even more than I do for you?

01:08:11 - Tariq Malik (Host)
no, no you'll think this is funny. When I was 15 years old, star trek 6 came out and in 92 and the radio station was giving away tickets to the premiere in sacramento. Remember I grew up in stockton, about uh, uh, 45 minutes away, and uh and actually growing up in Stockton may explain a few things, because Star.

01:08:29 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Wars is probably the most exciting thing that happened in your life after birth.

01:08:35 - Tariq Malik (Host)
So, I called in and I answered the question, which was what was McCoy's nickname with his former girlfriend on the Salt Monster episode? His nickname was Plum, by the way, and I got it right Plum. Yeah, she called him Plum, I don't remember that at all. And so I got the answer right and I won the prize, which was like a limo that would drive you and a guest to the premiere, and then also you won a free trip to space camp. I'm 15 years old and I just won a free trip to space camp because of my star trek knowledge right and all the books that I was reading and all the you know it was all paying off and everything was coming up like like malik, right, it was wonderful.

01:09:16
And then they go off the air and they're like what's your name? Tarik malik? Where are you? I'm 15. Oh no, you have to be 18 to win the prize. Oh no, and I'm sorry.

01:09:31
So thanks for calling hang up see you around then the, the announcer, comes on, he says, oh my gosh, the, the contest is still open because the guy, the, the, the. You know tarik, who answered, wasn't 18. You have to be 18. Girl calls in hi, you know it, tarek. Who answered wasn't 18. You have to be 18. Girl calls in Hi, you know it's Mary Jane, whatever, whatever, yeah, the answer is plum. Oh, yeah, yeah, you got it. Didn't even change the question. Didn't even change the question. Oh, by the way, I'm calling for my dad. Oh, okay, it's okay, if you're calling for your dad, your dad, dad must be 18. So she got to go to the movie and I had to go in the rain to the stockton royale and watch it there.

01:10:15 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So anyway, that's my, that's my star trek six, but I mean going to the rain to to see the movie is not nearly as much of a loss.

01:10:18 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It's not getting to go to space camp, for god's sakes well, I did get to go to space camp later that summer.

01:10:23
So uh, so that was right, yeah, we had to pay for it, but uh, uh, but uh, I, I could have, I could have, I could have gone on my like, like in the Star Trek trappings and everything. There's a whole alternate universe where I went to that premiere and like became like a super Star Trek meg, star trek megastar or whatever. You don't know. You don't know what happened. No, no, okay, that's my, that's my spiel.

01:10:47 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I felt I had to, I guess so I agree with your assessment, way back there, of the iconic value wizardling is right.

01:10:53 - Tariq Malik (Host)
In discord, I was cheated out of awesomeness.

01:10:55 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Wizardling, you are correct, right but only temporarily, because you are the most awesome thing on podcasts this is known.

01:11:02
This is known at least when you do your show, your episode intros, um, but I I have to say I mean star trek. I think, of course, you know, depending on who your favorite captain is, there's a lot of strength of character there that's worth exploring. Spock's morality is worth exploring. The prime directive is certainly worth exploring, yeah, but in star wars, although they I feel like, uh, it's a little bit like Trek, every other sequel kind of misses the target a little bit, but the whole following of the big hero's journey mythos is kind of compelling, yeah I.

01:11:37 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Just there's not as much variety, because that hero's journey is one family, yeah.

01:11:42
Or one small, small, small part of what is hinted at as a wider galaxy, and they've tried on the Disney slash, the Star Wars side, to really expand that and it's been very hit or miss. Whereas in Star Trek you get it, there's a pipeline that gets officers up there. You know what caliber they are. Now you have all these ships and you can make up your own ship and your own crew and they can go have their own adventures, because they've got this philosophy uh to to, uh, uh, uh, still from. Okay, anthony, anthony brings up andor the tv show. He's right, that's a really great but a star next to.

01:12:20 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I thought it was a splat no, no, that's a great andor. I haven't seen it now, was that before after mandalorian, which is I didn't see either it came out after.

01:12:28 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Mandalorian is awesome too the first season but Andor is about the start of the rebellion with Cassian Andor from Rogue One, which was another really awesome movie that filled in some gaps, oh okay so wait, a, wait a minute.

01:12:44 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So rogue one was the one. Uh, the young lady is the protagonist, right, yes, and then. So you've got her, you've got the uh, her dad built, designed the death star the stormtrooper who kind of comes over to to her side of things in the, you know the no, cassie nandor is like the spy that like recruits her because they have to get in to find her dad. Her dad is the designer of the Death Star okay, all I remember is is wasn't, oh, it wasn't Rogue One.

01:13:16 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Rogue One.

01:13:16 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Rogue One is the movie where she meets up with Luke Skywalker at the end, who's now an older adult up on the bluff at the end that's, that's uh, that's uh, uh, that's uh.

01:13:28 - Tariq Malik (Host)
The last jedi, I think, is what you're talking about. I don't think so, but okay, anyway, the last jedi is when she, when she trains but you're thinking about the force awakens, yeah, at the end of that. That's when she meets luke.

01:13:39 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Uh, ray, ray meets luke okay, so that's the same one where the um and I'm I'm sorry guys, I don't know the names these characters because I prefer, like real science fiction instead of children's shows.

01:13:53 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
But just, but there's a character, and or without watching anything like it doesn't really matter. You don't need to watch rogue one because that's actually and or is before that, but it's like. Okay, but it's not really about anyone in particular.

01:14:06 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Point I was going for was there was an actor in the film I'm thinking of where she meets luke at the end. Uh, who's uh pilot? He's kind of like the new han solo, yeah, poe dameron, yeah, who comes in and his acting style he, you know, he was kind like he should have been this young swaggering I don't know Italian clock carver or something. His acting style was so different from virtually everybody else. He had this kind of Bronx accent and it's like this guy doesn't belong in this movie. He's tearing at the shreds dramatically.

01:14:42 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I think that that was the point about those new films were to humanize them and make them a little bit more down to earth. There's a really great scene in the final.

01:14:50 - Rod Pyle (Host)
They're just money machines.

01:14:51 - Tariq Malik (Host)
No well where Poe Dameron and Finn, the former stormtrooper turned rebel, meet each other as they're getting ready for the big battle and they just they're like you know, general, general, you know, nice to meet you, you general, because they have all been promoted as generals. That's like 20 something, 30 something year old, like like newbies, and how crazy that is. And everyone forgets that's what happened to luke and leia and and han solo. They all just got promoted to generals automatically.

01:15:16
You know, in in those, in those films, and that's just crazy. You don't get just promoted to like starship captain in star trek unless your captain dies trying to defeat this time-traveling Romulan overlord that has just showed up and rewritten your entire timeline in Star Trek 2009. And he earned it. That was Thor, by the way. He earned it. He became acting captain, saved the whole ship. Also little James T Kirk, and he was only captain for like nine minutes. You know that's what he did.

01:15:45 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, that's really well put because you do. That is something that always irritated me about star wars and and, frankly, a lot of sci-fi television. You see this, these, you know, beautiful, looking early 20s. It's a little bit like the baywatch cast right, comes strutting onto the stage and they're they're talking with the maturity of their years and the, the, the. The conceit behind it is oh, they're the very best we've got. It's like, what about these guys in their 50s, the guys and women in their 50s who have been doing this all their lives, that have won major battles and, you know, have the equivalent of military PhD is, oh no, we're gonna get this 22 year old kid because he won a bar fight or something. We're getting the signal that it's time to stop blathering because the force is strong with this one so yeah, so so in.

01:16:35
In summary, um, this is my summary, I want to hear yours, of course, for star trek in general and the motion picture specifically, because it was kind of the beginning of that whole big phenomenon beyond the original show, I got to give it props for a strong classic science fiction story. Little long, but the V'ger conceit, besides the whole Star Trek universe that preceded it, was pretty strong science fiction, if not the strongest movie script. It was kind of highbrow. It's kind of classical almost in nature. And for Star Wars, you know, fun space opera, kind of like the equivalent of visual pop music, and Andrew Lloyd Webber a little bit like popcorn to me, but fun.

01:17:27
The one thing that I would give Star Trek a very soft demerit for us, excuse me Star Wars a soft demerit for, is you really can't have a Star Wars movie without a war in it. Not only is in the title, yeah, but it's it's throughout the movie franchise, whereas Star Trek off and on tried to kind of back away from that because Roddenberry was very, very much a humanist and that was not what he liked. Gen and um d, space nine, that the ratings just soared every time there was a fight, yeah, and kind of plummeted every time.

01:18:09 - Tariq Malik (Host)
There was just a morality, that's why you get the jem hadar war, uh, and and that totally rewrites the the arc of ds9 uh, when you get that war going on.

01:18:19 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So so give us your expert summary well, I think.

01:18:23 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I think that if I have to make the case, there's a reason why I will build Lego starships to end all, but I don't rush out to buy the latest, greatest Lego model for Star Wars. I think that for a lot of reasons, both from my own youth experience and the promise of the future and how wide embracing that Star Trek really is, the clear winner. However, I would say this both of these franchises get people excited about space in one way or another, and if that was the only metric, I think that they're both winners right, but I think that Star Trek just has had much more of an impact on space exploration overall. That resonates with me personally very strongly and because of that it has a bit of a higher rank in my mind, and I've heard a lot of astronauts who said that they were inspired by watching Star Trek as a kid.

01:19:24 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Now they get to actually fly in space, um, and it's very circular that way, but um, yeah, astronauts and engineers and scientists of various stripes, but especially working in the space trade, do cite star trek. I can't say I've heard many of them cite star wars, even though it probably got them into science fiction I'm sure I must have done something. Maybe that was the gateway drug for the next generation, if you will, to get interested in Star Trek. I never thought of it that way.

01:19:52 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, yeah. We should ask people what they think. What do our listeners think? Who would win in a battle? Should we do a part two or three or four? Should we do a TV one?

01:20:03 - Rod Pyle (Host)
or a radio play. We're turning into another this Week in Tech episode at three hours and wishing we'd just get on with it, all right. Well, so I do, pursuant to that, do want to thank everyone for joining us for episode 131. That was just such a profound thing, I had to clear my throat. Star Trek versus Star Wars T. Star Trek versus Star Wars Tarek. Where can we find you fulfilling your prime directive these days?

01:20:29 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Well, you can find me at spacecom, as always, or on the Twitters at or X I guess I keep forgetting that at Tarek J Malik. This weekend, for one day only, you'll find me at Pace University for the spacecom Space Force Hackathon. We've got some students that are going to go ahead.

01:20:45 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Space Force Hackathon.

01:20:45 - Tariq Malik (Host)
We've got some students that are going to go ahead. Hold on, I haven't heard anything about this. What are you doing? Yeah, I'm learning all about it too. It's a special event that we've teamed up with the Space Force to do. Hopefully we'll have more on it at spacecom on who wins. But we've got a bunch of teams that are going to tackle some kind of space programming challenge and then there's two folks who are going to go head to head to see who can build a computer like an actual pc computer the fastest, uh, with a three-hour time limit, and that's going to be really exciting. So if you're, you see it about 40 minutes. Okay, it took me two days and I cried because I got, I got stuck.

01:21:18
I actually put a tablecloth over, so I'd have to look at it for the rest of the afternoon. Wow, before I came to it. I'm going to tell that story tomorrow too, but it's going to be at Pace University, if anyone wants to come and cheer on me, so this is interesting.

01:21:30 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I mean, you run spacecom and yet this is something you just found out about. Who said that?

01:21:35 - Tariq Malik (Host)
No, no, I've known about it. I've known about it. I've been working with our events team on it. But the Space Force and our events team have been putting this on in partnership with Pace University. That is cool, so I'm going to go and just watch these computer eggheads at work. Probably all of them have passed differential equations, so I'm going to not hold that against them.

01:21:55 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, I was giving a talk.

01:21:56 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I'm going to carry that beef to my grave.

01:21:58 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I was giving a talk to a group of either 200 or 300 Mexican students yesterday who were doing this very cool, uh, space settlement, design competition, that the national space society runs, and uh and that that that came up differential equation they said. They said so why are you a journalist instead of an engineer? I said because I'm not smart enough to be an engineer. I got the differential equations. That choked. And then, of course, one of the co-hosts goes oh well, you. So you're saying you couldn't get through the book of Hunkabunka.

01:22:29
And I'm like dude, no, really, someone asked me if I would go for my PhD in something I'm like no, you know, I considered it so as I was winding down my master's degree at Stanford, I went into my advisor who had been very kind to winding down my my master's degree at stanford. I went into my advisor who had had been very kind to me getting through my my master's. I say, you know, I'm thinking about moving on towards a doctoral program on the education side. And he leaned back in his chair and smiled and he had worked in television himself and he said go back to hollywood, that's.

01:23:02 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I don't know man, if it gets zero on the page, I'm like I'm going to do it.

01:23:07 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, he was just letting me know that it probably wouldn't be worth me even trying to stick around. And, of course, speaking of sticking around, you can find me at the National Space Society, at nssorg or pilebookscom or at astromagazinecom. Please do remember to drop us a line. I'm sure there will be a few coming by the time this is all over. At Twittv, we welcome your comments, suggestions and telling us that we were full of beans on this comparative episode between Star Wars and Star Trek. New episodes of this very long podcast published every Friday on your favorite podcatcher. So make sure to subscribe, tell your friends and friends and give us reviews. We'll take whatever you offer. And don't forget, of course, you can follow the twit tech podcast network at twit on twitter and on facebook and twittv on instagram. Thank you very much for for putting up with us today. Thank you and, uh, may the force be with you. I love it.