This Week in Space 143 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 - Rod Pyle (Host)
On this episode of this Week in Space, we look at SpaceX's Starship in 2025, and what to expect Is this Elon's year. Stay with us. Podcasts you love From people you trust. This is Tweet. This is this Week in Space, episode number 143, recorded on January 10th 2025. King Starship. Hello and welcome to another episode of this Week in Space, the King Starship edition. I'm Rod Pyle, editor-in-chief of Bad Aster Magazine, and, as always, I'm joined by my good friend, tarek Malik, editor-in-chief at Spacecom. Hello, my friend.

00:42 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Ahoy ahoy Rod, where are you today? Yes, well, ahoi ahoi Rod. Like, where are you today? Yes, well, this is a different setup.

00:48 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Living. I mean, I'm very fortunate to live in the part of Los Angeles I do, kind of smack dab in the middle of the San Gabriel Valley, so no evacuations yet where I am, but the air was so bad I figured I'd better come down to the shore. So Long Beach always has dirty air, but compared to what's going on up North, it's it's actually breathing air you can't see, which is lovely. So, yeah, um, and yeah, the the fires are every bit as bad or worse than you heard. So, oh, we should start a good time here. Um, so our, our best wishes and hearts go out to everybody who's either displaced or has permanently lost something, and I think at this point for the county overall they're probably up to 15,000 structures, yeah, and 10 people.

01:38 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Sadly, you know the fatalities, it's really, really sad. We'll talk about that in a bit under headlines. I think yeah, but for anyone? Listening, you know our hearts go out to you all.

01:48 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Getting back to good news, we have Leonard David with us today who, fittingly for the King Starship Edition, is the king of space reporting. How are you, leonard?

01:57 - Leonard David (Guest)
Welcome. Okay, well, thank you for having me again. I know about King, but I always have my opinions. I'll try to come up with new ones.

02:09 - Rod Pyle (Host)
All right, that will work for me. Before we start, however, a little bit of housekeeping. Don't forget to do us a solid Make sure to like, subscribe and other good podcast things to let the world know that we're wonderful and that they should come listen to, because we want to share the love with everybody. Also, of course, as I mentioned last time, it's time for the 2025 Twit Audience Survey. This is an annual survey that helps us understand the audience so we can improve your listening experience, because that's what we care about. It only takes a few minutes to do, so go toittv survey to take it. Don't wait, uh. Take it before it closes mid-january, because it'll make us better and it'll make everything better. So come on down, give us your answers and, uh, and we'll love you for it. And even though we do love you, I'm sorry to say I have a space joke oh no, this is from yes stan breed love.

03:07
Hey tarik, yes, rod, why did the rocket suddenly jump off the launch pad?

03:13 - Tariq Malik (Host)
uh, I don't know why it had a specific impulse that's a good one. That's a. That's a smart one.

03:21 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You got to be smart for that one pretty small drum roll yeah I am smart, smrt yeah yeah, now I've heard that some folks have their own specific impulse to end this podcast when they hear my jokes. But you can help send us your best, worst or most different space joke at twisted twittv. All right, let's go do some headlines, headlines, so uh we don't have the list.

03:45 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I was gonna say where's the, where's our song?

03:52 - Rod Pyle (Host)
there's my aussie friend, all right. So, speaking of wildfires, uh, jet propulsion laboratory in pasadena is up in the foothills and uh, as I was talking to you guys about before we started, I've lived here most of my life and we always had fires. With these big santa ana winds that are katabatic winds that come roaring down the san gabriel mountains and head towards the ocean and they bring with them this hot, dry air and the air compresses, the base of the hill so it gets even warmer and it's really conducive to fires. But those fires have never gone beyond kind of the baseline of the mountains. They don't encroach into the city much, which includes where jpl is, and this year is a whole different story. So very bad news for altadena and, of course, pacific palisades out of the west side of la, but apparently okay news for jpl. Now, that said, a lot of people that work there have lost homes and been displaced and and tons more have been evacuated. So that's horrible, but the physical facility seems to be okay from what we've seen.

04:57 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Right yeah, in fact, uh, uh, as of uh earlier this week, they they shut down uh. Laurie leshen, the director there, uh said that they were shut down, but today she said that JPL is untouched by fire because of all of the first responders that have been working in the area. But of course, the community is devastated. She said something like 1,000 folks are still evacuated there. More than 150 have lost everything completely and are displaced long term, so they're really hoping to be able to weather as well as they can. What's going on? Of course, this is where the Mars rovers are operated out of, where Europa Clipper is operated out of, but you know, the protection of life is the highest priority. Not so much like that. But as of now it's still closed, but it hasn't been damaged at all from the fires themselves.

05:46 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, there was a lot of concern on social media about that, you know, because it is the NASA Field Center we have out here.

05:53 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah.

05:54 - Rod Pyle (Host)
But we've all spent time at JPL and I was trying to think of, I could think of I have not walked the entire lab edge to edge, but I've been most parts of it a number of times and I can think of a couple of wood buildings, but everything else is either steel or big, thick cement like nuclear-proof bunkers. So other than the landscape, it's hard to imagine that it could be too terribly tortured by fire.

06:22 - Leonard David (Guest)
I think the only thing I've heard is kind of a rumor, but I think the DSN folks that have to keep a vigil on the spacecraft you mentioned, I think some of that got transferred to maybe some other. Goldstone yeah, I think Goldstone. Yeah, I think Goldstone. So I think that may be one issue that from impactful for spacecraft that are in route or on. I think. I don't think I've seen any new Mars rover imagery, out of perseverance or curiosity. I think that's partly why so.

07:04 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Leonard says DSN, he's referring to the Deep Space Tracking Network, which is a series of three dishes, sort of equidistant, placed around the planet for monitoring deep space missions that are normally operated out at JPL. But I think you're right, leonard, I think they have sort of an auxiliary control out in the Goldstone Tracking Station which is out in the Mojave Desert. Speaking of Mars rovers, mars sample return, that's right, we hope. We hope. What's the story?

07:37 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Well, as our dear listeners and viewers might recall, last year, like we found out that NASA had to overhaul their Mars sample return plan, you know they had a big report. They said it was going to cost what? $11 billion, which was too much, bill Nelson, said the NASA chief. It wasn't going to be able to happen before 2040, which was too late, bill Nelson said. And this week we found out that NASA has not yet made a decision on what to do about it. That was what their big announcement this week was.

08:05
However, they did say that they're going to pick one of two different options. Both of them are less than $8 billion, so that's a pretty big cut from the $11 billion they thought that the original plan was going to do. One of them could be a JPL homegrown approach to Starfall Return that would use kind of the same type of sky crane technology to land a lander on the surface that they used for Perseverance, for Curiosity, and that is capped, I think, at about $7.7 billion US dollars. But they don't have the whole program kind of all set up. The other one would be like in some sort of embrace of commercial provided missions.

08:49
That's really unclear as to what that would be, if it's going to be something like a Starship that lands to do the return or some sort of mix of Starship and GPL or other types of agency stuff, and that one, I think, was capped at about 7.1 billion, so a pretty significant savings overall for sample return. Still, though, the goal would be to get it by like 2035, 2039. So still before 2040, but maybe only just, and so they will decide in 2026, actually so in 18 months or so from now, so that's not anytime soon, but hopefully they will be able to figure something out in time to make the window that they want to launch that by the end of the decade.

09:43 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So in a decade or so that they want to launch that like by the end of the decade. So in a decade or so we can compare our hard won, widely gathered Martian samples to the ones the Chinese bring back in 2027, right yeah yeah, we'll have to see.

09:56 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It's really interesting, though, that when they announced this, rocket Labs CEO Peter Beck put out a little note saying hey, you know you open it up to competition, maybe we can get it there even cheaper than all of this stuff. So we know you open it up to competition, maybe we can get it there even cheaper than all of this stuff. So we're going to have to wait and see if that's going to be an open season on the commercial front to be able to come up with different ideas beyond what we have here.

10:11 - Rod Pyle (Host)
so and although we've said it before, um, just so it's said. At least according to some of our sources, the actual numbers given from jpl to nasa headquarters for this was a range from 6.5 to 11 billion on the high end, which was not how it was represented at the press conference. Thank you, mr Nelson.

10:33 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah Well, bill Nelson says if you're going to tell him 11 billion on the high end, then that's how much it's going to cost overall.

10:39 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, he's probably right but still, you know, give the guys a break. Okay, let's wrap this up with Bill Nye, our own Bill Nye, the science and twist guest guy, that's right. A medal of freedom.

10:54 - Tariq Malik (Host)
He got the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is, I think, one of the highest civilian honors. Right that you can get.

10:59 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I think it is.

11:01 - Leonard David (Guest)
And Bill Nye was our first.

11:01 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Where's ours? No, where is ours. I feel like Chewie in wars right.

11:06 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, leonard should get it first, that's right. Yeah, that's right uh.

11:09 - Tariq Malik (Host)
But you know, congratulations to bill nye and and even the folks at the planetary society where he's been, like at the, the helm for for a good long time. Uh, but the president, uh, and the white house said that bill nye has inspired and influenced generations of american students as bill nye, the science guy and then because of that, his dedication in science education continues through the work at the Planetary Society. They get a big name drop from the White House as a vocal advocate for space exploration. So that was why they selected him. He was one of a good many people, many different people I think Hillary Clinton was on that list and a few others to get this middle of freedom. And of course it's kind of the last big hurrah of the outgoing administration to recognize individuals that they want to spotlight. So you know, it's nice to see someone at the society get that honor, but we've got to get you, rod, that honor from the National Space Society to make it.

12:04 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, let's get it for the NSS. I don't need it personally. Actually, what we should ask for is a a pardon for the space joke segment for the show. Yeah, there you go, all right, um, let's, uh, let's go run to a break and then we'll be right back with our main subject king starship standby. So, gentlemen, I ask you, two professionals quote unquote. That's just rhetorics benefit.

12:31
Is this the year of Starship. Is this when we're finally going to see? I mean, we've seen some amazing things, but is this the year when it really blows the lid off? What do you think?

12:41 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Should I go first? Sure, yeah, well, I mean, I think we talked about it last week, our last episode, when we were talking about our big picks for 2025, um, but this is the year that they they plan to really ramp up their test flights, maybe up to 25 uh launches this year. We're not sure. In fact, as we're recording this podcast, spacex is days away uh from a january 13th uh test flight for flight seven, which will largely fly a similar profile of their last couple of flights, but it's going to be a brand new starship, one that has a lot of upgrades, a brand new flight computer, all of that. I'm sure we're going to talk about that a little bit.

13:21 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So excuse me, but you need a new design a new design? Well, because they've all been new A new version of it.

13:27 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Because the design is largely the same, but it has enhanced flaps and stuff that we can talk about in a little bit. But I think the fact that they're kicking off this year strong, by the way, we should point out. We didn't talk about it in headlines, but they're not the only new thing. Blue Origin is going to launch New Glenn in the next few days.

13:43 - Rod Pyle (Host)
It's kind of a big story and I realized after I cut to the break I thought, oh yeah, new.

13:47 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Glenn, you skipped it. I messed up the order. I apologize, that was on me. This will be the year of big giant rockets too, not just Starship, but I think Starship is the vanguard. It's been two years since they've been flying and they've flown six times now and by the end of the year they could be at at what? 31 flights. That's crazy for like a brand new rocket, for the world's biggest rocket. I'm excited about it. I don't know about you lettered. How about you?

14:19 - Leonard David (Guest)
well, yeah, I mean, but it, yeah, it's just amazing that they had four flights last year and you know that one flight bringing it back to the launch tower and proving that part of it. And you know, the next big thing I mean from a logistic standpoint that will kind of make or break. You know, lunar operations is really refueling in orbit, and that one is tricky. A lot of people talk about it. A lot of people have been waiting for it to happen. We've had little experiments and this and that, but the scale of what spacex wants to do there is going to be, uh, that's going to be a turning point and uh, you know, once you're off the planet and you got a lot of fuel, you can go a lot of places. So one hopes that you just can't discount the SpaceX crowd. Every time I go on the live cam, I don't care what time it is, there's somebody working on the thing. You know Sunday morning and they're busy.

15:28 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I guess the fact that there's a cottage industry with live views of what they're doing all the time tells you that there's always something going on there.

15:37 - Leonard David (Guest)
No, I have lost track, to be honest with you, about Florida Starship launches. Uh, uh, starship launches. I don't think the faa is still, uh, a big part of the assessments. Or I mean, how close are we even with the florida operation?

15:57 - Tariq Malik (Host)
uh well, we can talk about that now real quick. But as I understand that they've, they're either complete with, they're very near complete with the tower there yeah, it is a new environmental assessment that I haven't heard an update on where those stand right now, but it sounds to me that because they already have been launching heavy from there and they've built basically a second pad at 39a, um that it might be an addendum but they just have to do a, a final follow-up of it. I guess we're going to find out find out in the new administration how they streamline that process, if at all, to get through it.

16:31 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I'd like to jump the queue, but since Leonard brought it up, Leonard, have you heard any more refined numbers on how many refillings it's going to take to get the human landing system version of Starship to the moon and back?

16:45 - Leonard David (Guest)
I have, I've read them and I don't believe any of them but, I I'm not quite sure what the number is anymore.

16:54 - Rod Pyle (Host)
It was six, it was 12, it was 15, then I heard as high as 24, which, yeah, it's just insane yeah, um, I don't know.

17:04 - Leonard David (Guest)
You know the the thing about about Florida is fascinating to me because I always remember when I'm thinking about heavy lift rockets leaving Florida. I'm old enough to remember Brinkley, jet Huntley and David Brinkley on the first flight of the Saturn V, and the line was from one of them was. That thing was so loud I didn't know if the rocket was going up or florida was going down. You know I love that line, I've always remembered that. But boy, you know, you get both uh bezos and musk flying out of florida. That's a huge capability of new development. And again, you know I keep my eye on China. I mean we're going to see some also booster upgrades there as they move toward their heavy lift.

17:59 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Okay, wait a second. What we are already starting to see? Yes, we see some booster upgrades. Yes, we see some attempts towards recoverability and, yes, we see some stuff that looks exactly like starship yeah, that's right.

18:11 - Tariq Malik (Host)
What a coincidence well, you know, if I don't fly, it we should take a beat to explain to folks who maybe don't, yes, or aren't as familiar like what exactly starship is before we're talking about so, um, so, just just, I guess really quickly. Starship is a next generation heavy lift uh reusable uh launch vehicle that spacex has been developing. Elon musk announced a version of it uh in 2016 uh at the mexico uh iac conference, and at the time it was called bfr big bleeping rocket, or big Falcon.

18:46 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Rocket, whatever you want to call it. You fill the blank as you see fit.

18:50 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Exactly this is vibe, but the concept was to build a giant rocket capable of being a workhorse to carry up to 100 people at that time. I'm pretty sure that they're looking at much fewer numbers of people aboard.

19:04 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Oh, excuse me, but before that it was the interplanetary transport system Transport system. Before that it was the Mars Colonial Transporter.

19:12 - Tariq Malik (Host)
That's right. It's had a lot of names before they settled on Starship and Starship is the name of the entire launch system. So the ships, the spacecraft, are called ships. The big boosters are called super heavy, so it's a super heavy booster, the ship.

19:27 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Actually now the booster is just called booster Because they suddenly got so clever. It's like booster and ship and I thought that's one of the most uncreative things I've ever seen, but okay.

19:40 - Tariq Malik (Host)
So the concept is that both vehicles are reusable. The booster would be caught by this giant kind of chopstick-type machine at the launch pad and then the starships themselves could either land upright on the moon NASA has picked it for Artemis III to land the first astronauts on the moon of the 21st century and then SpaceX, as we'll talk about in a bit, is hoping to also catch these boosters back on Earth. So that's like the run-on Next generation, like super advanced stainless steel, which makes it look really retro, sci-fi and fully reusable, which should drive down costs. Now SpaceX wants to launch 25 this year. They need to really amp that up to do a lot of the tests that Leonard's talking about before they can launch people, maybe by the end of the decade on the moon.

20:28
Nasa says by 2026, that seems really early to be able to do that 2027, pardon me and then they'll be able to pursue that. Meanwhile, spacex has sold at least two of these flights on Starship one to Polaris Dawn owner, jared Isaacman, another to possibly Dennis Tito, who has reserved a trip around the moon. They did have another one We'll talk about Dear Moon in a bit but so they're using it for more than just NASA and more than just Starlink, but we'll talk about that stuff.

20:57 - Rod Pyle (Host)
That's Starship in a nutshell. Just to be clear, as I recall, Tito bought two out of a minimum of eight to 12 seats, right yeah?

21:04 - Tariq Malik (Host)
So that's a partial one for him, one for his wife yeah yeah, and it's.

21:10 - Rod Pyle (Host)
It's been a long time coming and the timelines have always been very aggressive and never met, and we're used to that with musk now. So that's okay. You know I mean people like to bash him about that, but he's doing it and he has, single-handedly, with the help of an awful lot of good people at his company, of course, kind of reinvented how launch works and what it costs, and you know how many times you can set up a single rocket and bring it home. So you know not taking anything away from him, it's just sometimes, if you're writing about it, when you hear another one of these dates and his voice is kind of like can you tell me what you really believe and not what you're thinking right now?

21:49
but you know we roll with the punches speaking punches let's roll with a commercial right now, so stand by, we'll be right back. All right, partner. Uh, do you want to talk about uh upcoming flight seven or recap some of the previous test flights?

22:05 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I guess just because we were talking about it.

22:07 - Rod Pyle (Host)
And, leonard, please let me know, like if you've got thoughts too, but I let her tell him when you want him to, to shut up and let you know yeah, no, he's, that's good, you know pull the rope starter on tarik and you know he goes one point about elon musk and being the titular head of the whole program.

22:25 - Leonard David (Guest)
It'd be nice to know more about the team you know. I mean you know.

22:32 - Rod Pyle (Host)
What team?

22:33 - Leonard David (Guest)
Yeah well, I'm not sure how many people they've got. Who's in charge of whatever it is. I'd love to know more about the kind of people they have they brought in. Everybody should stand in the spotlight on the successes they're having and the promissory note of you know more successes to come, so it'd be good to know more about the people. That's my only complaint there. On the other hand, alon, when you think about him, when he got into this job of Mr Rocket, I mean, all I remember is PayPal and all of a sudden he's taking the everyday ass, not around in the shop and other people describing unbelievable capability in his own mind engineering mind and I've heard him even kind of keep his own with a national academy of science symposium or something where a lot of rocket experts there and he held his own.

23:40 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It's pretty impressive but he's the chief engineer at space and early on.

23:43 - Rod Pyle (Host)
They were trying to trip him up and let's bear in mind this is a guy with a bachelor's degrees in physics yeah who is a self-trained engineer.

23:52
So that's, that is impressive. But that said, leonard, that's a really good point, and certainly I mean there are many people whose names are attached to this who have given a lot of their of their life essence to this project. I don't know what. Did you call it the operational conscience of Elon or something? Tom Mueller was the chief propulsion engineer and he did, I mean, he kind of invented the Raptor. From my understanding, uh-huh, hans Koenig, is that how his name is pronounced? He's gone. Yeah, well, mueller's gone too.

24:36 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Well, they got Bill Gerstenweier from NASA in charge of space operations. You were talking about Starbase. Spacex launches these missions right now, these test flights from quote-unquote Starbase Texas, which is a testing facility in South Texas near Boca Chica Beach, where they are trying actually to make it its own city right now. But former NASA human space flight chief, catherine Luters is in charge of that place at SpaceX now running it. So they don't have they have a lot of NASA experience running a lot of these things, even at their PR level too, because some NASA PR folks are on that team too, but a lot of it is mixed in with the homegrown expertise.

25:16
I think they went in the. How long has it been since 2019? Five years, four, six, almost six years right, six years is in September of 2019. When I went, there was temporary tent structures over a lot of what they have now. They have built up what is an amazing facility with like a bunch of different high bays to assemble the Starship vehicles and the boosters. That's why you've got folks like Captain Leuters, like Bill Gerson-Meyer making sure that they're on track for all that, gwynne Shotwell making sure that the company overall is doing things right, and I think they just closed out. It was a record year. It's been like 135 flights, 34 flights last year on Falcon and Falcon Heavy and I guess they're going to up that with all these flights this year with Starship.

26:06 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So speaking of tents.

26:08 - Leonard David (Guest)
Yeah, it didn't help Elon a little bit. I'm still trying to figure out what the source was, but I'm trying to skip the moon. Elon Musk it's a sidetrack here. He's got the contract to haul the Artemis III people there, so I'm not sure where Elon's thinking on the moon. I think that's a good argument.

26:35 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You're talking about his advice to Trump, right?

26:37 - Leonard David (Guest)
Yeah, I'm not sure about skipping the moon, but uh, I think I, I'm, I'm in the camp. Where can't do the moon? Mars is going to be really hard, uh, you know. So, uh, I think, I think there's a lot of capability that they can show spacex and also blue origin at the moon and really fine tune the whole private sector. And then you have all the cislunar economy people on the outskirts of this thing and we'll see how this all plays out. But yeah, I don't know where that I think Arctechnica was the first people to report Elon's kind of non-moon vote.

27:29 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Well, he actually Elon has said Starship is like the backbone of Elon Musk and SpaceX's vision for interplanetary flight. He, historically and very well known, wants to settle Mars. I don't want to say colonize, because that sounds like, oh my gosh, we're all the great colonizer, but he wants to-.

27:49 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Conquer, conquer Mars. He wants that, but they have shown grand visions of starships out at, like Saturn and Jupiter, I remember when I first saw that Saturn shot I thought, wow, I can feel the skin roasting off my bones as we pass Saturn because of the radiation environment. But hey, whatever works for them.

28:09 - Tariq Malik (Host)
you know, yeah, but the reason that I bring it up is because he has said that while they're working on this plan to build starships, enough starships do the fueling tests that they want to do the 15 or so refuels for a trip to Mars, for Artemis III in 2027, land people on the moon. He would like to in 2026, send an uncrewed starship to Mars to kickstart that whole part of it. And he said that himself, Leonard, on the Twitter. Well, the X now right on on X, and that was what really started that discussion on his personal social media platform yes, exactly, exactly.

28:47 - Leonard David (Guest)
Yeah, I do worry about again. We've talked about in the past the Pied Piper problem here of getting a lawn out there so far on his dreams and dragging a lot of people along with him. I'm one of them, but you know, I've been there on a couple of things where somebody that had the big dream, had the big vision, dies or something happens and you're never. You know it's a disconnect and you know all these starships that he's flying. I mean the next one could blow up on the pad, I don't know.

29:23 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Well, you say that, but in 2015, they blew up a rocket right filled with NASA stuff and they came back less than like within that year and started flying again. And they blew up another rocket on the pad. They blew up their own spacecraft, their own Test Dragon spacecraft on the pad. They've been flying how many?

29:39 - Rod Pyle (Host)
That's true, but let's remember, in this case we're talking about a rocket that's got the size of a medium-heeled tactical nuclear weapon. It is. So blowing up the rocket takes out the pad as well 400 feet tall. I think 800,000 pounds of propellant.

29:54 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, now Gwen Shotwell says it's only going to get bigger right and it's already the world's we didn't say this.

30:00 - Leonard David (Guest)
It's the world's largest rocket.

30:02 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It's the world's biggest rocket. It's the world's most powerful rocket it's everything it's like all the things superlatives. Enter that here so.

30:11 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So this current one is is revised, the last one, as you alluded to earlier, and I think in two or three flights, maybe sooner, they're talking about adding what is it? Another 20 feet to the fuselage of the upper stage.

30:25 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Bigger tanks.

30:27 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, and at some point I suppose they'll probably increase the diameter of it, because I have a chance to talk for a moment. Let's go to another commercial, anthony, get that done, and then we'll come back and, uh, let's talk about test flight seven coming up. Stand by, so we have another test flight coming up in a matter of days, we hope. Test flight seven. We've got some new goals here. We're not just gonna fly a banana this time like we did in the last one. They're gonna actually fight payload um, which I'm gonna let you guys uh kick around, but let me just kind of kind of do a quick rundown here. So, um, uh see, we've got, uh, a raptor version 3 being tested, I think 30 vehicles, 30 cameras on the vehicle.

31:14
This time, ship the upper stage will have catch pins, not not so they can catch it this time, Ship the upper stage will have catch pins, not so that they can catch it this time, but so that they can see how they do aerodynamically in flight and make sure they don't burn off when they're coming home. They're going to deploy 10 Starlink simulators, their little PEZ dispenser thing up in the cargo bay. They're going to refly. This is the first reflight of used engine. Uh, I guess on the booster engine 314 and uh, a faster. This is. This sounds scary, but this is typical elon speak faster and harder, catch a booster with a steeper and harder, re-entry what. What do you guys think?

31:57 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Well, I mean we forgot the part where they're carrying 25% more fuel on this vehicle, so they've increased the fuel.

32:04 - Rod Pyle (Host)
On the booster or the upper stage.

32:05 - Tariq Malik (Host)
They said, redesigns to the propulsion system include 25%. So it's unclear if it's on the booster or if it's on the ship itself. But they did also improve the quote-unquote vacuum jacketing of the feed lines as well as a new feed line system for the Raptor vacuum engines. There's a new. There's a new ship computer, a flight computer, basically a bunch of things to increase its ability to stay in space for longer periods of time, which you would need for that. I mean this seems like a lot of stuff. That is like a new iteration. I mean they're not calling this Starship V2 like they did for Dragon, because it seems like they've gotten in place.

32:47 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Would you want to call something that looks like this V2? I don't think so.

32:50 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I guess, so right, I guess so.

32:52 - Leonard David (Guest)
Version 2, Mark 2.

32:54 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, but there's a few other advancements that I'm really interested in. That's the fact that they moved the location of the forward flaps on the ship vehicle and they reduced their size so that they shouldn't see the amount of burn through that they saw at the, at the flap hinges, uh, which is really dramatic. Footage from previous ones, uh. They've also, uh increased, I believe, the um, the communications, starlink networks, starlink networks with all these extra cameras, so that they can have more than 120 megabits per second of real time HD, which is pretty crazy for this kind of a vehicle. It's super, super visibly instrumented and it not only gives them very clear ideas of what's going on with the, with the spacecraft, uh as it's flying through space, or the booster on its way back down, but it gives us all just some spectacular views, uh of it. I mean it's mesmerizing to watch and everyone should be looking for that in flight seven, to see how it all uh shakes out, because just seeing that glow on re-entry is pretty spectacular.

33:54 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So I mean, overall, this seems exciting the glow and the little melty bits that are flying away from it. Well, that shouldn't happen with these new things.

34:01 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Because they've got a right, leonard. They have a new. They're testing new heat shields on this one.

34:06 - Leonard David (Guest)
Yeah, so that's good and you know, learn as you fly, fly as you learn. I mean, he's really, you know, slogging that and he's proven that and I think the only thing that hangs out there, I'm fascinated by the Pez dispenser with the Starlink. If I read it right, I thought they auger into the Indian Ocean. They're not going to go into orbit, right?

34:31 - Tariq Malik (Host)
No, they're not. When we say Pez dispenser, it is what it sounds like. It's a slot on the hull of the spacecraft. In fact they loaded them into that slot and they think that they're designed to kind of spit out these flat Starlink satellites in a line and then they're going to trail the ship on its way back down to the Indian Ocean, and so they will burn up over it If things go south.

34:59 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Because they're just mass simulators. They're not they're not active satellites.

35:03 - Tariq Malik (Host)
There is a no Tams for parts of like offshore New York. Yeah, for that stuff.

35:09 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Actually.

35:09 - Tariq Malik (Host)
no, that's fine, we know, tams is notice the airmen to stay out. But no, I got that wrong. That was the no time for the Blue Origin flight, their blue ring simulator, so I'm getting all my private space flights mixed up right now.

35:20 - Leonard David (Guest)
There's so many Boy we're headed for a great time, for sure, you know. The only thing that I think is worth noting here is I'm getting back to this. Here is again, I'm getting back to this how, how much fun we're having watching this guy do this stuff. I mean, it's amazing to me. I mean, even in the saturn program, and I don't remember that many changes happening that fast and uh no well, do you remember there were fixes but there were fixes to the saturn 5 but there weren't major design changes.

36:00 - Rod Pyle (Host)
It was like okay, we got to change the flex joint on engine on the first stage engine so they don't rattle through. But it wasn't like, hey, let's change the entire configuration of the upper fuselage yeah I did want to point out that, uh, I don't think it's on this flight, but they're ramping up the test, active cooling as well, which is something that it's on this flight.

36:24 - Tariq Malik (Host)
yeah, it is on this flight. Okay, what they've done is they've enhanced the TPS system that Leonard was talking about and then, as a backup, they put an active cooling system on some tiles to see how that works too, as like a backup, to see how it performs cooling system on some tiles to see how that works too, as like a backup to see how it performs.

36:39 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So the explanation of that it was first. The first time I saw it talked about anyway was on the dinosaur program back in the late 50s, early 60s, which was an air force, uh, mini space shuttle that they were working on. That never flew they. They did a mock-up and a lot of studies and built bits and pieces and tested them but never actually flew the thing, which is a shame because it would have put us into winged spaceflight a decade earlier Well, almost two decades earlier than we actually did. But it's basically using fluids either as a behind the backplane or as an active spray in front of the tiles to create this. This effectively a cooling field, right?

37:22 - Leonard David (Guest)
yeah, yeah, one thing about that that I'm I'm not clear on, but it I I'm going back to gemini. You know the idea that you can use starlink to monitor the entire reentry all the way down to the terrain surface. Right, there was a moment there with Mervyn. You know where the plasma buildup around spacecraft. You always have the dead zone. The astronauts couldn't talk through. Nobody knew if they were okay, do they survive the entry? And all of a sudden we're seeing all the way down from you know the plasma buildup, watching the whole thing happen and I don't know what. What happened there.

38:09
But you know that was a big deal for the military back in the early days because they were worried about. You know, if you're launching a warhead, are we going to lose contact with the warhead? If we, oh, maybe we shouldn't fire that or we try to orient it some other way. Um, so I'm very curious about how, uh, this, this capability has evolved of watching a plasma surrounded vehicle come in all the way down to the surface and we see the whole thing. That's fascinating to me. I don't know what happened or what new capabilities are involved.

38:49 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, and I guess, to some limited degree, perfecting your system of monitoring all aspects of flight from earth orbit, yeah, would give you some forward information for setting up relay satellites around the moon and mars that you're going to eventually need. Because mars, you know, if they're going to do what they want to do at mars, they're going to certainly need telecommunications or broadband system, and we don't want to lay cables on mars like we did across the atlantic. You can just set up satellites. And then, of course, the chinese have got the magpie satellites orbiting the moon already, which, in my opinion, we should have done back in the 60s like we planned, but we didn't here in the us right um, but let's uh, yeah, let's jump to an ad and we'll be right back, so stand by.

39:38
So hey, let's talk about bulk. If I did my count right, they have something like five more starship, and when I say starship I guess I mean upper and lower stage, although I don't think the numbers are the same for them. But they've got a bunch more either finished or near completion, is that right, yeah?

39:57 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, I can weigh in. I mean, I would be surprised if it's only that many. By the way, I did go back and there is one tile that has active cooling on Flight 7.

40:05 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Oh.

40:06 - Tariq Malik (Host)
There is just one.

40:07 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So that's like a four-inch thing, okay.

40:09 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It's an experiment. Yeah, so it's an experiment, to see how it works.

40:12 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, that makes sense, because you don't want to do a big patch of them and have them burn through right. Yeah, burn through.

40:16 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Right, yeah, exactly, yeah, so and then they're they're, they're testing some new.

40:19
They they said that they're. They have a multiple metallic tile options, so there's different types of tiles and then one of them has the, the active cooling, to test different different materials for re entry. Um, but when I was out there back in not not just in in 2023 for the for the flight one test, which is the one that they blew up because of lost a bunch of engines they had at least five or six at that point in time. Those are probably all flown by now. They're gone right and, like I mentioned, they have the high bay out there. They have two of them. I think, if not more, that they've been building all of these different boosters and ships, for Gwen Shotwell last month said that they are looking at not Gwen Shotwell, the spokes folks that they're looking at building like a ship every day or so eventually to scale up the mass production.

41:09 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Wait, wait, wait, wait wait. Or an engine, an engine, every day An engine yeah, I think they actually are up to an engine a day, but I think it was a ship was I don't know 10 days or something. It was really fast. It's still crazy, I mean, when you think about how long it took to build each of the shuttle orbiters at Rockwell.

41:27 - Leonard David (Guest)
Yeah.

41:28 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Wow.

41:29 - Leonard David (Guest)
Yeah.

41:30 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I guess the big question, though, is that we haven't heard a lot about life support. Now I asked this question.

41:35 - Rod Pyle (Host)
More radiation mediations.

41:37 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, and I asked that question specifically to Elon Musk in 2019, and he kind of brushed it off at that time saying, hey, they know life support already, they've got Dragon. They'll just scale that up for whatever. But it's not clear what the interior for crew.

41:50 - Leonard David (Guest)
That's a big scale.

41:52 - Rod Pyle (Host)
It's a big scale, right. As we learned in the space race, not everything scales like, oh, let's say, rocket engines.

41:58 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, yeah, everything scales like, oh, let's say, rocket engines, yeah, yeah, I guess the question I would have for Leonard then, based on the iterations that we've seen since 2023 with Flight 1, and maybe since 2016, since they first announced it, how they changed the design over and over again, how different do you think the end of 2025 Starship so like the last one that they launched, say like in December, if it's number 25 of the year or 12 or whatever do you think that's going to be substantially different than what we're going to see on flight seven in terms of, like, different types of things that they're still testing at that point, or would they already do? You think that they're going to just keep changing it the whole time, every single flight? It?

42:41 - Leonard David (Guest)
sounds like his plan is to just learn as he goes and change, iterate constantly through the whole flight sequence of all these starships. So you know you just can't discount this guy that he has the master plan and he can pull this off. Now, one thing that's fascinating about the coming in and reentry and learning about reentry that's obviously going to have a big part to play in the Mars landing. You know where you got center atmosphere, but you know he's going to, he's going to know a lot more about that ship and reentry capability. So if anything will be over, you know what they need for Mars, but you know they're really, you know, I don't know, I've been trying to. I don't want to go back. I sort of want to go back to mars, sample return at some point here.

43:40
But uh, there's a lot of discomfort in some of the people that, uh, you know, are kind of getting to a point where they're not sure if starship doesn't uh do what it they hope it's going to do, what is the fallback? Where are we going to go? I think we're very fortunate that Blue Origin is doing its thing on its own and is part of the lunar program. And one thing that didn't show up in the Mars sample return press briefing is? You know, maria Zuber led the team that put this report together. Well, you can't get the report. It's got proprietary information, according to people that told me at nasa, and it'd be great to know exactly where they came down on a lot of these issues and take out the proprietary thing, redact whatever you need to do. Let's see what they really said. Uh, anyway, uh, yeah, I'm still a little bit taken aback by the Mars sample return activity and basically kicking the can down at NASA, the new administration.

45:20 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Jared Isaacman yeah.

45:22 - Leonard David (Guest)
His allegiance to Elon, what kind of this guy's going to have to go through the hearings, and you know what kind of tactic is he going to have to take to make sure that he gives everybody, all the private companies, their day in the sun, whether it's on Mars or other places.

45:46 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, I just want to add you know, as long as we're talking about MSR and weird mission cancellations, I myself and a lot of people that I work with are still not quite over the whole cancellation of the Viper lunar rover. And far as we know and I think it's actually been made public now you know the problem wasn't the rover. It was done, tested, integrated and pretty much ready to go. They had a little more work to do on it was the landing system for master botic. So you know, since elon's got to test the human landing system versus starship anyway, let's just stack about 40 Vipers in there, land that thing and just send rovers everywhere, like little spiders.

46:28 - Tariq Malik (Host)
They got to test their 40-foot or 90-foot, whatever it is elevator right.

46:34 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, but what better way than by loading a Viper on it and lowering it to the surface? You know that's right, that's right.

46:46 - Tariq Malik (Host)
So you know, I think that there's still a lot more to come. Uh, leonard, leonard, leonard is right, leonard is right. Spacex is probably the first company where, uh, that I felt that the believe, I'll believe it when I see it mantra, uh, like you can probably take that they will eventually.

46:56 - Rod Pyle (Host)
We saw it yeah, we saw it right. I used, however. However, let's touch on dear moon, cause they said we're going to circle back to that. So we believed it when we heard it. Now it's not happening. What happened to that?

47:07 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, so dear moon was the first starship mission around the moon that SpaceX sold, and that was with people with people on board. It was the Japanese billionaire or I assume billionaire uh yusaka mazawa oh, he's a billionaire. Yes enough that he bought two tickets to to the space station so that he could fly his personal cameraman with him.

47:30 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Um, should I should I whine once again that I produced a rock video for him back in the uh, I guess it was the late 90s for, like I don't know, two thousand dollars or something, because he had no money to spend. And then gosh, suddenly he had money to spend.

47:46 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I never heard from him again well, well, you know, he, he, he flew, he, he flew the space station. But this was after he announced dear moon. Dear moon was a, a private flight. This was just as starship was was getting you know, together. It sounds like he invested a lot of money to help for the development of Starship, from what I've heard, to help finance the testing and the assembly and the design of everything, and the idea was that he would get to fly himself and eight or so other people artists, dancers, musicians, et cetera around the moon. In fact, you were just talking about everyday astronaut Tim Dodd. He was one of the people that got picked to go on that flight and the timeline extended Leonard was talking earlier about the ambitious timelines.

48:34
They thought they'd be flying within a few years. That clearly didn't happen and after he bought his own trip to the space station he kind of said you know what I'm done waiting, I'm going to cancel the mission and move on. It seems like that bug, that need to fly in space, may have been satisfied for Bezal by his trip to the space station that he chronicled with his partner that flew with him, that he chronicled with his partner that flew with him. So I guess that's where that is. But as we've seen with the failures of SpaceX's flights, like the Falcon 9s, that they lost on the pad in flight but then they were able to bounce back of it, that wasn't the end of the Starship program. And then they went on to sell the Artemis 3 landing to NASA, plus another uncrewed one as a test, and then a flight to Jared Isaacman, potentially the next NASA administrator to be the first crewed spaceflight of Starship.

49:29
Now, whether or not that's the case, that Isaacman will fly that first crewed spaceflight, I doubt. If he's going to be on there for the next four years. They might want to move it up. He said that he's going to table those until afterward, but but it stands that. You know mazawa got impatient, flew, uh, to the space station, but the program is still there. They've, they're, they're scaling it all up and, as we talked about earlier, the ship's just going to get bigger I, you know the moon looms big time this year.

49:58 - Leonard David (Guest)
I mean, with uh, we've got Firefly ready to fly. I keep thinking about if I was hired to be the NASA administrator and walk into that place. What kind of situation are you really grabbing onto? You know, just a few months ago the Academy of Science did a pretty good heavy look at NASA as an organization and pretty much I mean that's a pretty damning report about what they found. You know, nasa at the crossroads Unfortunately, in my career of writing I don't know how many NASA at the crossroads reports I've had to review or something. But uh, that one was pretty, pretty, pretty bad. And uh, so you know, jared's walking into a, an organization that you know.

50:55
You, you do wonder whether it's fundamentally fit to even pull off any kind of lunar program. You had then backtrack, like you said, uh 2027 now for artemis 3. Uh, questions about the, the, the re-entry, uh, shield on orion, uh, it, we got some real headaches coming up. Or, you know, we're going to see the private sector get to the moon. We're going to see two what I think it's two of this intuitive machines will perhaps go off in February. Then we have the next week it's the Firefly.

51:37 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, Firefly and iSpace's resilience all launching on the same flight on Talking 9. So excuse me, but I don't want to get too far away from this. Leonard, maybe you could go back and tell us about this NASA fitness report a little bit, because I read it, but we haven't talked about it really on the show.

51:55 - Leonard David (Guest)
Well, you know, norm Augustine is typically brought in to do these kind of reviews. You know, this poor guy had to one more time take a committee of blue-ribbon technologists around NASA and they were a little squirrely about what they saw. You know, the infrastructure at NASA is getting too old. A lot of problems, things are taped together. There's a lot of concern there and I think he's been more. I heard more concerns on that report and it kind of came and went. Very few people read it. I read it. I've listened to norm augustine like three times now at different meetings giving a briefing on what they found. And it's not and it was not a uh, uh, you know a good thing. And then you have on. Just the other day you've got the guy from florida who's desantis wants to bring nasa headquarters down to florida. I'm sure that, of course he does because there's nobody at nasa headquarters.

53:09
That's what he said. They're all gone, you know. But I think you, I that kind of kind of rings hollow you, you really need to have some kind of presence in washington dc to mark up the capitol hill, to get the money but it does make you wonder what's going to happen to some of the other field centers.

53:27 - Rod Pyle (Host)
They've got lewis, they've got goddard, they've got ames out in california, they've got a lot and and they're all specialized in something and they all do good work, but they were all put there in the 50s and 60s, and the 50s some of them under naca, and then the 60s under nasa. Yeah, and you do wonder and I you know I'm painting a big bullseye on myself here but are they all necessary? I know that the states want them to stay there. I know that the people that work at them want to stay there. I know that the people that run them want them to continue to be in existence because they all have a legacy and it's jobs.

54:04
It's jobs, yeah, but is there a positive and productive route towards some kind of consolidation, or is that just going to destroy it?

54:14 - Leonard David (Guest)
You know, I think the report kind of you know, as far as I remember, in reading the whole thing, I I don't think they came up with a whole you know, do this and that it didn't give you a checklist of how to fix the problems. They identified a bunch of them and said they got to spend more time on this and that. But boy, you know, you got an agency. Is what? 25 billion dollars. We're at 25 billion for now yeah, the question is always that money spent wisely.

54:44 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I mean that to me is quite, and I think that's what gets us back to Starship. Right, we mean this the NASA, nasa, the new, the incoming administrator for NASA, is going to be facing all these problems like you're talking about, uh Leonard, with infrastructure, with aging plans, with, uh uh, maybe, the slow pace of missions that is being outstripped. Meanwhile you've got the SpaceX's. I guess right now just SpaceX, because it's been a while for Blue Origin to get to the pad with New Glenn. It's been a while, like we're still waiting for the second flight of Vulcan at United Launch Alliance and others. But you've got this iteration machine that is the SpaceX people building these Starships left and right with their stainless steel pipeline. Will that mentality?

55:30 - Rod Pyle (Host)
We're really stuck on stainless steel today.

55:33 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It's shiny right.

55:34 - Leonard David (Guest)
Yes it is.

55:35 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I mean, it's like I look at my refrigerator and I think you know they're building Starships. Okay, okay.

55:39 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So anyway, I'm just telling you.

55:41 - Tariq Malik (Host)
So you know, do you think that's going to rub off? Right? It's a new administration. If they see Starship after Starship maybe two this month succeed, will they finally say, hey, you know, we got to take a page out of that. Like what are they doing that we're not, and how did they get there?

56:03 - Leonard David (Guest)
Yeah, but you see, in NASA, with these private, you know government, they obviously see issues that the private sector can maybe help a nail or get rid of and do it cheaper and faster an eel, or get rid of, uh, and do it cheaper and faster, and that's short. We're back to cheaper, better, faster in some of this activity. At least the buzzwords are there, but we'll see. I I do think of the nasa administrator. I love them all. Uh, it is like they're on the valdez ship trying to make sure they don't steer in and get the oil out of the rocks.

56:43 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, For our listeners. The Exxon Valdez was a big oil spill a long time ago. It was a big, big story when Rod and Leonard were younger men.

56:54 - Leonard David (Guest)
I had to do a study on that guy and the captain and be interesting. That guy and the captain and, uh, be interesting, you know. But you know I I just slow turning nasa. That's a tough one because you, we're back to the field centers, there's jobs, you've got uh, the, the congress people, the lawmakers up there. They have a lot of nasa people in their districts. You know it's just going to be a rough go, but one hopes that NASA has the fortitude and the money to bring in the private sector on a much more fast pace than we're seeing today. So, on the other hand, you flip it around and I'm not happy with some of the deliveries that the private sector has so far delivered to NASA.

57:50 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, well, who is?

57:52 - Leonard David (Guest)
Yeah, well, and it goes to show you that there's some issues here with. Astrobotic had its problems earlier last year. Intuitive Machines as much as they quarrel about how successful it was, I mean it was not what they had hoped. And then we have Firefly going and Ghost Rider in the Sky and I've seen some punsters go. That's the name of the mission. They have a ghost ghost of a chance of making it.

58:26 - Tariq Malik (Host)
But no, we got a knock on wood. Where's the wood?

58:29 - Rod Pyle (Host)
oh my god no well, but you know, just to kind of circle back to starship for a second, you know one thing I think that kind of gets overlooked sometimes when people are writing about starship is the unbelievable capacity this thing provides. Each starship has as much space in the payload bay as the pressurized parts of the space station in total, so it's like the world's largest, you know sky lab revisited. So besides the fact that you can take, you know, 20 rovers made out of concrete up to the moon, if you want, in a single flight or, as I Leonard, you weren't on with us, but I calculated the other week, somebody's, at a listener's request, how many Apollo command service module, lunar module, stacks you can fit inside of a single starship, and it was at least three, even fully fueled, which would be pretty impressive.

59:27
You could get nine, nine people out to the moon and back.

59:30
I think the goal is 100 metric tons yeah, but it also, you know, we kind of come back to this idea now. We have vast flying this year, we hope. But they're right, unsupp, nasa unsupported space station module, which is interesting to me. You know, as we talk about private companies, the two or three companies that are being funded are still a few years out, at least a couple years out. But vast, which does not have nasa funds, to my knowledge, is going to fly their first module this year. That's pretty impressive. But when you think about the potential of three or four starship upper stages to link up and be a space station and they've talked about that too, yeah, I mean yeah, and I mean that goes back to the 60s with, with the design of skylab, which is just a repurposed upper stage of the saturn 5.

01:00:16
yeah do we think there's a piece of real heat there, or is this just chit chat?

01:00:20 - Leonard David (Guest)
I mean, maybe I, I remember you've written about nova, I mean back in the old days of nasa, remember that, uh, the super saturn 5 and I, I, I have to go back and look at the scale of what nova was, because they got pretty far down in design. I don't know if Starship and Nova are comparable.

01:00:43 - Rod Pyle (Host)
They're kind of similar, except I think Nova had eight engines.

01:00:46 - Leonard David (Guest)
Yeah.

01:00:47 - Rod Pyle (Host)
But they are F-1 engines. They were huge.

01:00:49 - Leonard David (Guest)
Yeah, yeah, and with the track record of the Saturn V, nova was there and you know again, we just didn't pursue that. But yeah, the volume that you know again, it's all dream machine stuff. If you get the machinery going and we can dream big time. It's a game changer. And it's just, you know, easy to say but hard to do Change the game.

01:01:21 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Well, vast is in that SpaceX Starship thing of you know, if to say but hard to do, change the game. Well, vast is in that SpaceX Starship thing of you know if you build it, they will come.

01:01:26 - Leonard David (Guest)
So that's why they're doing this.

01:01:27 - Tariq Malik (Host)
That's why Starship has been, you know, was so big so early. It's because they wanted to build it so that they could figure out and push things forward.

01:01:35 - Rod Pyle (Host)
That's true, although they got NASA money pretty early and Vast is running out there completely unprotected.

01:01:58 - Tariq Malik (Host)
So that's that's. That's impressive, all right type of Starship Flight 7, of two, count them two private moon missions for I-Space and Blue Ghost Firefly. That is just a spectacular link. Plus there's like a bajillion SpaceX launches to boot on top of that. So it's going to be a really interesting time to see. I really I hope that these Starships to be a really interesting time to see. I really I hope that these starships go off.

01:02:22 - Rod Pyle (Host)
They are impressive to see and I highly recommend, if anyone is in the South Texas area, go down there and check it out, because you can just get across the street and and marvel at what is the world's biggest rocket, and you can come visit Tariq and myself and the condo that we're going to rent so that we have a permanent home base to watch the launches from. And Leonard, do you want to throw in some money? We'll include you too, I'll. I'll fill the. I'll fill the alcohol in the refrigerator.

01:02:49 - Leonard David (Guest)
I'll bring my own cot. No, that's okay, oh all right.

01:02:54 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, I want to thank you guys for joining us today for episode 143 king starship. I don't know where I came up with that name, but it seemed fitting. Leonard, where should we look for your prolific space reporting, especially on starship?

01:03:08 - Leonard David (Guest)
well, uh well, spacecom I've written on this topic and uh, have some new things coming up, uh uh. Inside outer space is sort of my own website that I try to keep people happy with posting things that I don't see in other places. Probably too critical in some times. You know, I get little.

01:03:30 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I think it's perfect actually.

01:03:33 - Leonard David (Guest)
Too pessimistic. You know, I have my wait a minute column that I love. Wait a minute. This doesn't make sense.

01:03:42 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, and it's the only journalistic website I've ever seen that's based on the color brown.

01:03:48 - Leonard David (Guest)
Yeah right.

01:03:49 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Which always gets my attention. You know it's an easy eye-relieving background to read from, and occasionally the color matches the stories. Tarek, where can we find you playing with your starship these days?

01:04:03 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Well, you can find me at spacecom, as always On the Twitter, at well X, pardon me at Tarek J Malik, also now on Blue Sky, but I don't know how you say it. Is it Tarek J Malik? Whatever that stuff? The add-on afterward it is. Yeah, At Blue Sky and I'm just learning all that stuff. And then I will be at the American astronomical societies meeting and before we meet next I will have learned what the breast and the best and brightest I have to say about discoveries in astronomy.

01:04:33 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I'm really excited about that. Where is that?

01:04:34 - Tariq Malik (Host)
That will be in national Harbor Maryland, so I'll be there in upcoming days. So that'd be really exciting to check out.

01:04:39 - Leonard David (Guest)
Look, Harbor Maryland, so I'll be there in upcoming days, so that'll be really exciting to check out. Look for the Vera Rubin Observatory to crank out the first picture coming up, the ground-based thing in Chile, and that promises to be pretty exciting to saw.

01:04:51 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, I will definitely take you up on that.

01:04:54 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, and as the vast come down anti-climax, you can find me at pilebookscom or at astromagazinecom, where we host what is now the world's best space magazine, although I do hear that, uh, all about space is putting about an annual edition well, we got we got uh we got some bookings coming on the pipeline, so I think our spacecom manual is coming up pretty soon too, so I'll be really excited about that yeah, well, good luck touching ad astra.

01:05:22
And uh, remember you can drop us a line at twist at twittv. We welcome your comments, suggestions on ideas. We answer all our emails and we especially appreciate your space jokes, because if you don't like mine, feed us some better ones. New episodes, this podcast published every friday on your favorite podcatcher. So, to make sure to subscribe, tell your friends, give us reviews, thumbs up, likes, whatever the currency is, five stars, we'll take. We'll take whatever, whatever goes, and you can also head to our website at twittv, slash twis. Finally, don't forget, we're counting on you to join club twit 2025. Besides supporting twit, you'll help keep us on the air, and I know for at least one one couple, we're the date night for them.

01:06:07
So we have to stay on the air. So step up and be counted. Seven dollars a month. I ask you, what else can you do for any gratification whatsoever for seven dollars a month? Not much. That won't even really buy you a deluxe frappuccino at starbucks, because I got my first one in years the other day, and I think it was nine dollars by the time there was tax added on. Of course, I got a huge, but that's on me.

01:06:34
And uh, with club twit, you also get uh programming, uh with video streams ad-free, as well as some special features that are only available there. So only somebody who's not fit to be a space cadet would overlook joining Club Twit, because it's the deal of the century and we're counting on you, uh, and don't forget to go fill out the uh, the twit survey, which, uh, I I don't have the url anymore, anthony, what is it? Twittv slash survey? I guess I probably could have figured that out on my own. Gentlemen, thank you very much. It's been a pleasure, leonard. We love having you on and, uh, I hope you come back soon.

01:07:22 - Leonard David (Guest)
Well, I get to learn more things from you guys. I appreciate it.

01:07:25 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Thank you. Give Barb a big hello from us, if you would.

01:07:29 - Leonard David (Guest)
You bet, she says hi and goodbye.

01:07:34 - Rod Pyle (Host)
And I guess that's our key to say goodbye. I'll see you guys later. Take care.