This Week in Space 162 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.

0:00:00 - Tariq Malik
Coming up on this Week in Space. There's a launch date for SpaceX's Flight 9 starship. A general is now in charge of Trump's Golden Dome. Blue Origin's launching a rocket on a rocket and we're going to get to the bottom of what Lunar Landing Day could be as a national holiday, and it's all thanks to one man. So tune in.

0:00:26 - Rod Pyle
This is this Week in Space, episode number 162, recorded on May 23rd 2025, lunar Landing Day. Hello and welcome to another episode of this Week in Space, the National Lunar Landing Day edition. I'm Rod Pyle, editor-in-chief of Ad Astor magazine, and I'm joined by my fellow space lunatic, Tariq Malik editor-in-chief at the one, the only, the amazing space.com. Hello, partner.

0:00:54 - Tariq Malik
Hey, I see what you did there with the moon, and now we're all the cleverness of an eight-year-old in my 50s.

0:01:07 - Rod Pyle
In a few minutes, however, speaking of clever, we'll be joined by Dr Robert Slater, md, who is the prime force behind the Lunar Landing Day Initiative, and this is a cool one. This is something that's inspirational. It's a feel-good thing, it's good for everybody. It's good for education. It's good for everybody. It's good for education, it's good for STEM, it's good for the country.

It makes us stop or remember what we've accomplished and probably scratch our heads and wonder why it's taking us so long to accomplish it a second time. We did it the first time in nine years and we've been working on it for longer than that now, but that's another story. So before we start, please don't forget to do us a solid, to make sure to like and subscribe and the other podcast things to tell the world how wonderful we are, speaking of which we are, what Tariq, we are wonderful. I'd never actually stopped to look at this week in space reviews before yeah, no, but I'd look it up. And on LinkedIn we got a number one space podcast All right, and most other surveys I saw we were down between 8 and 12. But we got a number one, no.

0:02:17 - Tariq Malik
Yay, yeah, we did it. I can retire. I'm going to retire early. Number one podcast, everybody. You heard it here.

0:02:25 - Rod Pyle
Yeah, on that big fat pension you're going to get. And now a space joke from Jamie Marsh. Jamie, hey, Tariq, yes, rod, a friend said she wanted to become a star. I told her to be serious.

0:02:43 - Tariq Malik
I love it. I love it. That's a little chuckle.

0:02:46 - Rod Pyle
I've heard that some people want to seriously send us in a deep space joke time on this show, but you can help Send us your best, worst or most indifferent space joke at twis@twit.tv. Now it's time for.

0:03:07 - Tariq Malik
Headline News. Headline News. I got that down.

0:03:11 - Rod Pyle
This is kind of like the Craig Craig, craig Newmart thing on Leo's show.

0:03:17 - Tariq Malik
I don't know.

0:03:17 - Rod Pyle
Except I'm not as tired of this one yet. So I can't believe you put this first. But Golden Dome, go for it. Brother, I didn't put this first, you put it first, I didn't put this in. Oh no, yes.

0:03:30 - Leo Laporte
I did yeah, you did Okay.

0:03:35 - Tariq Malik
So, but no, yeah, actually, you know what, can we skip one and go to the next one? Let's go to line. I want to skip because it just happened today. Let's go to line 23,.

0:03:42 - Rod Pyle
John, you're going to get us in trouble with the administration, but go ahead.

0:03:45 - Tariq Malik
No, let's go to 23 really quick because hours before we started recording today's podcast, spacex made it official and they have picked the launch date for the next Starship mission, starship Flight 9, the launch is set for no earlier than Tuesday. The launch is set for no earlier than Tuesday, so that's May 20,. What is that 27th? Yes, tuesday, may 27th, and it's going to be at, I guess, about. It's going to be at night, 7.30 pm Eastern time, 6.30 pm Central time, and this is interesting in two different ways. And there's another story on um, uh, online 24 too, if you want to grab that one there too, john, because, uh, so this will be SpaceX's third Starship launch of the year, and they're hoping it's going to be their first successful launch of the year because, as you might remember, in January and then again in February or March, flight 7 and Flight 8 failed to deliver the Starship to their vehicle because the upper stage had some kind of wicked shimmy or something like that, and they both broke apart and blew up. They weren't able to accomplish the mission.

So they were hoping that this third time of a new and improved version of the flight would actually work, and so the FAA, a day prior, so earlier this week, gave them the approval for this Flight 9 with a bunch of caveats, number one of which was that SpaceX completed their assessment of what failed on Flight 8.

They did that and they posted all of the results of that today as well, which I still haven't sunk my teeth into.

But if you want, you can head to SpaceXcom slash launches and see it there under the Flight 8 update.

And then the other approach is that the FAA kind of wanted them to change their trajectory, so you may see a little bit of a different path on this flight than in the past, because they want to make sure that the airplanes are staying pretty far away from it so they don't get grounded if there's an anomaly. And then also they want to make sure that there isn't any kind of debris over flight or fall, as we've seen in the last two flights over Turks and Caicos, which was at the request of the UK government, over the Bahamas, etc. Which we've talked about in the past too, because it's the world's largest rocket. You don't want it falling on your country, and so they've made some tweaks in that regard for this flight and we'll see if they finally and we'll see if they finally make a successful trip with this Flight 9, this new, larger and modified version of Starship, their second version of it to date, and then, if they can take the next steps, of which there are many, for the other test flights, et cetera.

0:06:44 - Rod Pyle
Is this intended to be an orbital?

0:06:44 - Tariq Malik
flight. As I've read it, the goal is to recreate the earlier trajectories to get to the Indian Ocean and do that soft landing in the ocean. And this is going to be, however, the first full reflight of the booster, of the super heavy booster. I think they've only replaced a few engines of the 33.

0:07:06 - Rod Pyle
I think two engines in the rest.

0:07:07 - Tariq Malik
Yeah, hardly any, and they've test fired it. That brings them into the.

0:07:11 - Rod Pyle
Bring the rocket down, hose it off and clean the ashtrays mode Very close, yeah, okay. So for the next one, we have China in a sky near you Now. This story calls for enforcement by the space thugs. Here's my Martin Lawler provided space thugs mug, we're going to go out there and tell those people stop flying over six American states and dumping fuel up in the air because it scares people. And I have to say this is an experimental fuel dump, at least that's how I read it, reddit. This reminds me a little bit of plans in the night late 1950s that both Russia and the U? S had Soviet union in those days. To nuke the moon because it was a sign of technological superiority, was supposed to scare the other guys. Hey, we'll do this big nuclear explosion on the moon. It'll send up a big plume and a flash and everybody will go. They're powerful people. This is a smaller thing, but one has to wonder was it necessary? Was it accidental? Was it deliberate? Because it was quite a show apparently.

0:08:13 - Tariq Malik
Yeah, I don't know. I know we've got this story from Live Science, but Spacecom also had it and it's unmistakable. You see this brilliant white streak in the night sky and it's going to spark some questions, and so this actually came from a. I'm sure I'm going to pronounce this right, zhukei. I know I'm pronouncing it right a 2E rocket.

I know you're not that a Chinese commercial company called Landscape launched. It's a methane-fueled rocket and it launched from the Zhikuan satellite launch center. It carried six satellites into orbit, including a radar spacecraft and a space science payload, and its upper stage reached about an altitude of 155 miles when it carried out this experimental fuel dump, which spacecraft watchers like Jonathan McDowell and others have chronicled, and that fuel then froze into this brilliant ribbon of crystals that then reflected all of the light back at the Earth. So it was a bit of a surprise for everyone to see, and that's what created that. Now, as you say, they must have expected it to be visible from somewhere. You don't dump fuel that high and then expect it to go unnoticed. Or perhaps they thought it might get what's that called, where it goes straight from liquid to gas Subliming.

Yeah, maybe they thought it would sublime a lot faster, but they showed everyone that they have methane-fueled burr to spare. Apparently, they can do this dump, and now we know what this is going to look like.

0:09:47 - Rod Pyle
And there is nothing sublime about that. So I have to say I went out during COVID if you extend the COVID years, there were two comets that were supposed to be visible and fairly interesting. One was green and I don't remember the name of either of them, but I drove out.

I saw the green comment that was well good for you. Los angeles, I drove hours at about the time you get away from the la light bloom. You're either driving into the one from phoenix or las vegas or san luis obispo, so there's really nowhere to get full dark around here unless I take the boat out into the mid mid pacific. But I did go out where it's pretty dark and I saw one of them which looked like a tiny greenish, barely visible q-tip held at arm's length, you know it was really nothing.

Where was this when? I know right, because this looks very, very cool. Okay, we are going to surprise, go to a break and we'll be right back with the rest of our headlines. Don't go anywhere.

0:10:52 - Tariq Malik
So we got rocket on a rocket well, do you want to do that or do you want to do golden dome? Now, we skipped over golden dome, but we should go back to it oh, if you must, well, let's go back.

0:11:02 - Rod Pyle
let's it. So they selected a Space Force general to lead the ambitious and likely grossly underestimated in terms of budgetary terms and likely delay prone Golden Dome program. It's an ambitious idea. For those of us old enough, it kind of strikes back of a strategic defense initiative, otherwise known as Star Wars, but of course we're much advanced since those times. Israel's done something like this. Maybe we can do it, but this one's a little more ambitious than Israel's because it is supposed to include catching things coming out of orbital trajectories, right?

0:11:37 - Tariq Malik
Yeah, yeah, this is a pet project that the Trump administration announced, I think during his administration, his what is that that administration announced? I think during his administration, his what is that? That State of the Union thing, or his. You know, when he took office, he said we're going to create a golden dome around the country. It's a missile defense shield, very much like, you said, israel's Iron Dome, and it's going to cost $175 billion.

0:12:04 - Dr. Robert Slater
But we didn't hear.

0:12:05 - Tariq Malik
I know we didn't hear too much about how it was going to work until an event at the Oval Office this week where Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth unveiled the overall plans, which basically means that they're going to spend this $175 billion is what they're setting aside for it.

It's going to take three years to develop, even though, like as you said earlier, Rod, it might take a lot longer. And he named Space Force General Michael Gutzlian, the vice chief of space operations, to be the one to go ahead and oversee it, and he said it is time that we change the equation and start doubling down on the protection of the homeland is what Guttlin said during the actual press conference itself. But they've got their work cut out for them, because this is something that dates back to the 80s with Ronald Reagan's Star Wars missile defense plan. In fact, Trump name-dropped Reagan during his kind of opening comments about why he wanted to do this, make the country safer, etc. But I don't think he said Star Wars by name, and of course, we didn't get orbital lasers or any of that kind of thing from Star Wars, or did we? Rod, Do you know anything?

0:13:16 - Rod Pyle
Well, I mean all kidding aside, though they did do a lot of research on high-energy chemical lasers and stuff, which was pretty impressive. I guess the question that occurs to me here is has anybody said the words fixed price contract or cost plus contracts? Because that is going to be, and because I guess this will probably be a somewhat dark budget, it could get really expensive really fast if they do cost plus, which the force loves to do.

0:13:42 - Tariq Malik
There's $25 billion earmarked to help start the funding for this program.

Oh, you mean like more than nasa's whole budget this year yeah, pretty, pretty much, yeah, in the one big beautiful bill, uh legislation that the house, I guess, signed off on, uh to go forward. So that's the, that's the initial big conglomerate bill that has a lot of trump's agenda stuff, uh, in it, um, and then of course they're going to need to, you know, develop, um, a lot of Trump's agenda stuff in it, and then of course they're going to need to, you know, develop a bunch of space-based interceptors, a bunch of you know monitoring satellites, et cetera. That all could be part of this. The Congressional Budget Office has outlined in a report that you know the lower estimates are on the $161 billion cost front, but it could even go all the way up to 542 billion, or that's more than half a trillion dollars, if things don't go as planned and as you just alluded to, it could cost a lot more than that, depending on what type of contracts they set, what the success rate is for that stuff and what defines success as well.

0:14:44 - Rod Pyle
Now, just so it's said. You know I'm not trying to beat up on this particular administration for this idea, because, as you point out, it's it's been tried before and you know there's some wisdom probably to having this kind of defense system. I think what sort of bugs me is how much is going to be thrown at this when we're struggling to get this return to the moon now, is returning to the moon as important as defending the country? Probably not, but we've been diddling around with this since 2004 in one form or another, with a break for asteroid redirect, which didn't happen either, and you know we've got this surviving.

0:15:21 - Tariq Malik
Don't get me started on aim the surviving hardware, which works.

0:15:27 - Rod Pyle
We've got a moon rocket that costs a bunch of money but it works. We've got a capsule, the Orion, which costs a bunch of money but it works. We have a launch system that's still, I think, trudging towards completion, the big overblown. What am I thinking of? There's a specific name for it, you know the, the contract that's gone way out of control for the, for the gantries launch platform, oh, the mobile launch platform. Give me a break, but you know we're really close. So can you guys, just, you know, maybe give nasa a little bit extra money now, get them over the finish line? If you hadn't said we're going to beat China back to the moon, I wouldn't really care so much, but you said it, and now it's going to be embarrassing if you don't. And just saying yeah, we'll just go to Mars instead doesn't make that any easier to do. And we're going to have somebody on the show, I hope, in a few weeks, who's going to talk about the difficulties of extended space flight.

Okay, stepping off the soapbox, I'm going to skip down to a story that I found very interesting. That's only vaguely space related, that I like to call ai doom, so open. Ai has announced a new ai processing center to be built in abu dhabi that would be larger than the country of Monaco Now, admittedly, monaco's about as large as my neighborhood, but still we're talking a processing center. That's a square mile. That would suck up five gigawatts of power, or roughly equivalent to that generated, according to the press, by five nuclear plants. I'm presuming that's an average measure. Rated, according to the press, by five nuclear plants, I'm presuming that's an average measure. Um, that's still a lot of power, and if you're not building nuclear plants to power it, that's a lot of fossil fuels burning so that people can, you know, query, claude or open ai and get the result. Yes, you ought to eat rocks in your salad to get minerals and you know. And it's like there's an awful lot of stuff happening, ai that probably doesn't need to be there burning up resources.

0:17:31 - Tariq Malik
I asked Gemini, the AI on my phone last night if it was actually on the phone or in a bunch of servers somewhere, and it said it was in a bunch of servers somewhere. And I asked it very plainly does this mean that this conversation is burning down the planet? It said you know it's good you're thinking about that because, yes, yes, it takes a lot of power. So, uh, so, something to think about, for sure, you know.

0:17:55 - Rod Pyle
Although it is a desert question and I went on to claude yesterday and it rejected my request, not because I didn't like it, but it said we don't have the resources to handle this now because somebody was probably asking for fart jokes or something.

0:18:08 - Tariq Malik
Um, uh, let's pick one more, your pick of the oscars here we're gonna go to our new segment oh, all right, all right, let's do rocket on a rocket okay, rocket on a rocket yeah this is kind of weird.

0:18:23 - Rod Pyle
Did you want to do it or did you want me to do it? No, I want you to do it.

0:18:26 - Tariq Malik
All right, all right, all right. So this week we also got the announcement for Blue Origin's next private spaceflight, the NS-32 mission. No, Katy Perry is not going back to space. However, they are launching a rocket on a rocket, and it's not the rocket that you think, it's actually investor Mark Rocket, who is one of six different people who are going to be launching on the New Shepard suborbital mission. They don't really have a date that I'm aware of yet, so they are waiting to set that one up, but if that name sounds familiar, Mark Rocket is an entrepreneur from New Zealand who is the CEO of a company called Kia I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right Aerospace President of Aerospace New Zealand, and he was a seed investor in Rocket Lab and we all know how well that turned out, because they are just launching rockets like there's no tomorrow, and I think he might have been a director on their board for a while, until 2011, if memory serves. But he will be aboard this crew.

That will include a few other people Jamie Aleman, Gretchen Green, Paul I think Ayers is how you, or Jerez, pardon me and I met Medina Jorge, George Jorge, probably and Jesse Williams and those other folks. Aleman is a Panamanian businessman, an attorney, who has been an ambassador to the United States, so probably just going as part of a joyride. Green is a radiologist, life coach, explorer and space camp alumni like me who bicycled across the US at age when she was 16 to help fight hunger. And Jairus is an entrepreneur and real estate developer who has been passionate. So a lot of kind of space tourists there. And I believe that Medina Jorge is an award-winning yeah, she's a middle school and high school STEM teacher who has led more than 60 space and zero G flights, so she's been on some experiments, you know, like those zero gravity flights that do the simulated. Now she'll experience the full on microgravity again, weightlessness, for like four minutes or so, unbroken, instead of the 30 second snippets that she got on those education flights.

So, and her seat was sponsored by the Pharmacias Simularius, a Mexican company committed to social impact and accessible healthcare. And then, finally, Williams is a Canadian entrepreneur and adventurer. So a bunch of he's visited the seven highest peaks, including Mount Everest. A bunch of adventurers paying for their joyride to space, A couple of STEM and deep space investors on board too. It's going to be an interesting crew, but not, as say, PR open as the Katy Perry flight might have been. This is interesting. While you were finishing your story, I was seeing John doing calisthenics to try and stay awake. Know, uh, as the as the katie perry flight might have been.

0:21:14 - Rod Pyle
So this is interesting while you're finishing your story, I was seeing uh john doing calisthenics to try and stay awake on the board all right, all right.

0:21:24 - Tariq Malik
Well then, don't pick rocket on a rocket. You picked that one too.

0:21:27 - Rod Pyle
All right, I thought it was cute, but then I still is our new segment that we like to call the weekly world news. So the weekly world news is back. It was a publication that was widely available in a supermarket near you for decades, with ridiculous things like bat boy and vampires on the moon and world's fattest cat saves Christmas.

0:21:55 - Tariq Malik
I have it framed aliens on the moon and world's fattest cat saves christmas I have it framed.

0:21:56 - Rod Pyle
Yeah, and aliens on the white house lawn and my favorite was a picture which I had framed of a b17 found a lunar crater and I think it was clavius.

0:22:06 - Tariq Malik
So they had a 17 or 170 mile wide b17 filling the crater anyway, and I saw one where a mars rover found a bunch of mummified, like a mummified family of, yeah, and the nice thing was, at least back then you know, it was really clear that they took pictures and I saw one where a Mars rover found a bunch of mummified like a mummified family of Russians, and the nice thing was, at least back then you know, it was really clear that they took pictures and just cut them out with scissors and slapped them together.

0:22:24 - Rod Pyle
The angles are wrong.

0:22:25 - Dr. Robert Slater
The lighting was wrong.

0:22:26 - Rod Pyle
It's all just kind of in good fun, but maybe, maybe there's more than a little truth here. So in an explosive interview, it was revealed that us senators are aliens some of them.

0:22:41 - Tariq Malik
so let me explain eight eight us senators are aliens you've given it away.

0:22:48 - Rod Pyle
Who is an alien? Stunned the world by revealing that five us senators are extraterrestrial, were extraterrestrials in 2019, and pil P-Lod just dropped another bombshell. He spoke to reporters after he met with President Trump in the White House just days ago and I wonder it didn't say here, but I wonder if Trump has sympathies for the people that are ruling Venus because we're working to kind of make our planet similar. Okay so P-Lad named eight senators who hail from planet guten. Pilad is from planet z-ban. Isn't that some kind of a, a restorative ointment? I don't know but he can.

He says he can recognize a gutanian when he sees one, and among them, unsurprisingly to most of us, is mitch mcconnell, contacted at his office in Washington DC. The Weekly World News tells us that Senator McConnell took the high road making a full and immediate disclosure saying it's all true, we are aliens, and I'm amazed it's taken so long for the public to find out. I knew it, or so we hear.

0:23:53 - Tariq Malik
I knew it.

0:23:53 - Rod Pyle
That's going to be my stock disclaimer every week. So we hear I knew it.

That's going to be my stock disclaimer every week. Listeners, if you enjoyed this segment, tell us. If you want us to never speak of it again, tell us, because we do listen and we're still waiting. Now we have gotten some feedback on should we do a movie versus science segment. It's exactly 50-50 now, one pro, one con. So we're waiting for those cards and letters letters because we know there's, you know, 10, 15, 20,000 of you out there who listen to this show with great anticipation every week and we need to hear from you and, by the way, we need your space jokes. Okay, that's enough of that. Stand by and we'll be right back in a few minutes with Bob Slater of National Lunar Landing Day. Stand by and we are back with Bob Slater, dr Bob Slater, md, I should say, who is an orthopedic surgeon in solo practice in Sacramento, California. Hello, bob, thanks for joining us.

0:24:55 - Dr. Robert Slater
Hello guys, Nice to be here. Thanks for hosting me.

0:24:59 - Rod Pyle
So, before we get into the topic du jour, the idea of being a surgeon I find absolutely terrifying. It's like flying a plane with a pamphlet you know I mean. How long does it take before you settle into a career like that and think okay, another day at work?

0:25:19 - Dr. Robert Slater
Yeah, I decided in sixth grade I was going to be an orthopedic surgeon because I was in a key race and I broke my tibia and I thought that's pretty cool, you can put people back together again. That's what I want to do. And then in high school I blew up my knee ACL rupture, like a lot of people have experience with. So that got me interested and so I knew from the beginning where I was going. So how do you get into it? You do four years of college and four years of med school, and then six years of residency training and a year of fellowship and then you're ready to start practicing. And then eventually you keep practicing and you get a little better at it which is why they call it practicing.

0:25:58 - Rod Pyle
I guess Tariq. I just want to point out over dr slater's left shoulder is a prominent book. No, the other, the other left shoulder, is a prominent book that sold over 50 000 copies. Yeah I have that book so bought me a boat and everything okay. Enough of that promotional stuff wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

0:26:20 - Tariq Malik
Do you mean that I should have like a rod pile honorary like display over over here?

0:26:26 - Rod Pyle
of course, right right, right where your your bathrobe or negligee or whatever that is in the corner it's a curtain.

0:26:34 - Tariq Malik
I just haven't replaced it. I have the other one.

0:26:37 - Dr. Robert Slater
I'll put the book there instead. It'll be better.

0:26:39 - Rod Pyle
Yeah, it's only been two and a half years, partner. Okay, so let's get on to it. So Tarek has his trademark patented trademark question that he wants to ask, and then we're going to move on to.

0:26:50 - Tariq Malik
Yeah, it's not every day, Bob, that we get an orthopedic surgeon on the podcast to talk about, like this week in space. So I'm very curious about what your path to what I assume is a passion for space exploration, like what that path is like. You know, was it something that you did find when you were young? Is it something that came up later? You know where you got bit by a space bug as an adult, you know. I'm just curious what your first encounters with that space kind was like.

0:27:19 - Dr. Robert Slater
Well, thanks for the question. Thanks for having me here, guys. I was six years old, living in Illinois, when Neil and Buzz first stepped on the moon. It was a hot July night. We were living outside of Chicago and on the back porch watching and we being my parents and my two siblings, and they kept telling me at 10 o'clock at night is when the first steps happen in central time. And they kept telling me, bobby, bobby, you got to watch this, you got to wake up. This is important, this is history, and I'm so glad that they did because I actually have an independent recollection of that whole event and those first images.

So I've been excited about space exploration my whole life but, as we just talked about, my career path was otherwise. I was never smart enough to be an astronaut and I'm not sure I could grant myself into one of those rockets. So I applaud those that can do it. But I have a deep passion and a lot of enthusiasm for space exploration and I've been a big fan of your podcast, and space.com is amazing. It's great source of daily updates on what's happening in the universe and in space. So thank you, guys, for what you do.

0:28:31 - Rod Pyle
And I'll bet he likes at Astro magazine too.

0:28:34 - Tariq Malik
So, let's.

0:28:35 - Rod Pyle
let's move into the important thing here. Not that your career path isn't important, but this is why you're here the Lunar Landing Day Initiative. What is it? How did it come about? Tell us the story.

0:28:48 - Dr. Robert Slater
Even though they're my employees and even though they know I'm so passionate about space. I walked into my office on July 20th 2023, and I said, hey, team, what happened on this day in history? And there was silence. Nobody knew. No, no, it's me asking you Really. July 20th 1969. Nobody knew. And since then I've asked lots of people and nobody really remembers that. Now some people do remember. Once I remind them that that was the day that humans landed on the moon for the first time. They say, oh, now I remember that. I thought that was sad. I thought that American history, the decade that we made that happen, we ought to celebrate, that we need more things that are positive news these days, especially. So that prompted me to start thinking about how we could do that, and I launched the campaign and we've been going strong every day for two years since.

0:29:51 - Tariq Malik
And I guess the the you mentioned. It's been going on for two years, bob, I'm just curious. You know what's your end goal. Do you want it to be a national holiday? Is that what you do, right? Is that like an Apollo 11 holiday? I'm all for extra holidays in July, by the way. Absolutely right.

0:30:12 - Dr. Robert Slater
This is the drive Lunar Landing Day will be a new federal holiday. I'm all for extra holidays in July, by the way. Absolutely right. This is the drive Lunar Landing Day will be a new federal holiday. There are 11 currently on the calendar that are recognized as official holidays, meaning a federal holiday, and this will be a new federal holiday. We all ought to celebrate that, and so that is the charge. That is what our now ever-growing national coalition is working hard towards. We made great progress and we work on this every day.

0:30:41 - Rod Pyle
That's pretty cool. Now can you tell me? I mean, you talked about what happened at the office, but was it really just that, or was it a larger sense of just understanding? You know what this meant to US history Because I was watching too. Sense of of just understanding. You know what this meant to us history because I I was watching too a little older than you, but, um, you know it was such a remarkable moment and I think it was surprise. I was, I think, 11 or something, but even then I realized what a big turning point this was, matched only by watching Viking 1. The first image is Viking 1, but Apollo 11 is such a special place in our memories.

0:31:16 - Dr. Robert Slater
Right, so I was a history major in college, so, yes, I absolutely appreciate the historical context. This was, of course, the height of the Cold War. This had major implications in that regard. This was a triumph of technology, developing all the technology we even have. When JFK gave his initial address in joint session of Congress in 61, just three weeks after the first suborbital flight of Al Shepard and to pull this off was really amazing. So, yeah, this is very important. This was the first time that humans stepped on another celestial body. This was four hundred and ten thousand people in all 50 states working to make it happen. This was so important and we really ought to honor it and cherish it and promote it. So we need to celebrate that and we also need to promote interest in STEM education for the next generation, which we can talk a little bit more about as one facet of this whole campaign.

0:32:18 - Rod Pyle
Yeah, I do want to talk more about that. Just kind of touching on what you said, though, I learned about you from Jerry Griffin because I'm working on a project with him, but interviewing him and a number of other people, both astronauts and folks who are working in mission control and elsewhere, through the space age and during that period you know, between 1968 and 1972, the one thing I found that I was impressed with and felt, and that most of them kind of agreed with, was the further away I get from those events of the space race, the more astonished I am that it worked. Because you think about this technology, you know it was baselined in the mid 60s, which means that most of it was kind of growing out of the 1950s. We were just getting integrated circuits, we're just getting transistors, we were just getting many things that would make this work, and then some of it was not all that up to date.

I'm sure you've seen the inertial guidance Was it the IUS? The computer on the Saturn V and that upper adapter ring Right when, instead of looking like a briefcase like it does on the command and lunar modules, it looks like you could park a compact car inside of it. So you look at this technology and you think they went all the way to the moon, supported these guys on the way down there, all the way back, managed to rescue apollo 13. It just boggles my mind.

0:33:46 - Dr. Robert Slater
By today's standards, that's really astonishing isn To think. I mean, we've all heard many people tell us this, but you know the amount of computing power we have in our wristwatches? You know it is an order of magnitude more than they had in the entire Apollo spacecraft. It's really astonishing. We didn't even have the technology built when we started the campaign to make it happen, so we had to develop the technology, orbital mechanics and everything else that went into that design the spacesuits is astonishing.

0:34:17 - Rod Pyle
It is, and actually that's interesting quote. You said you know the watch or the iPhone having more computing power than the Apollo or NASA. I actually was corrected. I was doing a talk with Alan Stern and I use that quote and he turned to me and said said actually that phone you just held up has more computing power than the planet Earth did that was pretty remarkable.

So before I let Tarek jump in because he's got them things to say, let's go to a quick break and we'll be right back with Bob Slater standby you know, one thing that it really it really reminds me of too is how harrowing those flights were.

0:34:56 - Tariq Malik
The first flight, of course, right, I think that Neil Armstrong was almost out of fuel when they had to make the landing. And there was the epic story that Buzz Aldrin talks about with the pen to replace the toggle switch so they get off the moon and come back to the Earth. Because there was that whole other alternate reality speech that Richard Nixon had put together, you know, in case things didn't go as well as they did which I think we have a copy of that speech on space.com if anyone wants to read it. You know. But I'm curious, bob, about the supporters that you've found so far over the last two years. You know if you've gotten a lot of buy-in or support from you know astronauts or the folks there. You know what traction have you seen so far? And are you worried about the crazies coming out and saying that we never landed on the moon and trying to say, oh, let's not go there, we're not doing that.

0:35:59 - Dr. Robert Slater
I'll have Buzz talk to them directly and he can not do it.

0:36:02 - Rod Pyle
There you go. All he has to do is growl.

0:36:05 - Dr. Robert Slater
Yeah, right. So thank you for the question. We've made a lot of progress. It's been it'll be two years in July that we've been working on this and in that time, yes, we've got several moonwalkers who are definitely on board and said, yes, use my name publicly. We have Buzz Aldrin himself who said, yes, I support this endeavor. We should make this a new federal holiday. Should make this a new federal holiday.

We have Charlie Duke, who everybody on this podcast knows was at Capcom at the time and later walked on the moon and drove the dune buggy with John Young on 16. Charlie supports this. We have Fred Hayes, infamous Apollo 13 mission. We have the last living moonwalker, jack Schmidt, subsequent New Mexico US Senator, who said publicly yes, this ought to be not just a national holiday. Jack says this should be an international holiday. This was something where all of humanity was finally united, just briefly. So we have the NASA flight directors, gene Kranz and Jerry Griffin, who just mentioned, publicly saying, yes, we're on board. So we also have a really wide coalition, and that's what I'm particularly excited about. We get literally every week more people going online to LunarLandingDaynet and signing the petition, saying, yes, I support this, add my name to the list, please. We have people from all walks of life that support this. It's really exciting, and then we can also talk a little bit about the legislative aspect, if you'd like.

0:37:38 - Rod Pyle
Yeah, I'd like to know more about that and the specific goals. Besides just celebrating, I know you have some other goals with regard to STEM, education and so forth. Now, when you look up your proposal, one also comes across National Moon Day and International Moon Day. What makes this different than those two things?

0:37:59 - Dr. Robert Slater
So those are basically resolutions, and it's not a holiday. This is going to be a holiday. This will be a paid day off for federal employees. Be a paid day off for federal employees and with a federal holiday, then each individual state can decide whether or not they will honor that or have a day off, and individual companies can do that as well. That's how it works when you have a federal holiday, whether it's Juneteenth Day, the most recent federal holiday, or any of the others 11 that are currently on the books. So that's how it works.

And the United Nations did pass a resolution honoring Moon Day, as they call it, which is great, but it's, in my mind, a little bit like the polite golf clap and yay, we went to the moon. And this is going to be a whole lot more than that. This will be an actual day, like the 4th of July, one of the greatest days in American history. Everybody knows July 4th 1776. I don't have to ask people what happened on that day. Everybody knows this is going to be like that, so Tarek at the end of the episode.

0:39:02 - Rod Pyle
I'll bring this up again. But we really have to encourage our hundreds of thousands of listeners, our dozens of thousands of listeners.

0:39:10 - Tariq Malik
Millions, hundreds of millions, and space.com has to suggest the same thing of listeners, or dozens of thousands of listeners, millions, hundreds of millions. To support this.

0:39:13 - Rod Pyle
You gotta think big and space.com has to suggest the same thing because this is a really good idea. Plus, who doesn't love an extra holiday, right yeah?

0:39:21 - Tariq Malik
Well, it won't be a holiday for space.com, because it's a space holiday, right? So we'll have to work it but that's all right.

That's all right. I no, you know, I'm curious, like how you see that being a teachable moment. So it would be this fun festival I can think about, like parades and you know, when we have our Fourth of July there's the town closes down, there's fireworks obviously, and food and whatnot, and but you do want this to be a bit of a learning experience and I'm curious if that kind of programming would dovetail with the types of STEM and outreach that NASA has been doing, or would you see it as more of an opportunity to get people perhaps acquainted with just the realities of space exploration overall, not just the moon landings themselves? So as a springboard to the wider realm of science, technology, etc.

0:40:18 - Dr. Robert Slater
One of our mottos is celebrate the past, promote the future. This is a major facet of our national campaign. We need to promote STEM education more than we already do. The national literacy rates are rather astonishing. We are actually losing track against our world competitors, both allies and competitors. For example, I mean, the literacy rate in this country is 75% and of that, 56% read at the sixth grade or lower level. You look at China and Russia they're at 97, 97 and 98% literacy respectively. This needs to be a push for STEM education If we start having fireworks and parades and everything that's exciting on that day. But it also will be a stimulus for the next generation of kids to say wow, we did that, we went to the moon. I want to be part of the mission to go to Mars and beyond and develop satellites that go out and study jupiter's moons more. That's a really important part of what we're doing.

0:41:19 - Tariq Malik
The educational outreach component is essential I can imagine like a national moonwalk on on on that day. You know where it's like a marathon, but then also maybe like there's like everybody does their Michael Jackson best yeah.

Well, that's you know. On the anniversary, on the, let's see in. Was it 99? In 99, yeah, I was an intern at the LA Times. That was when they put Buzz's boot prints at the Yorba Linda Presidential Library for Nixon right, Because they made their own moonwalk of fame and I could see like a national moonwalk of fame and because Nixon wanted to pretend it was his accomplishment.

But I could see like on the first official federal holiday, the government opens a national moonwalk walk of fame, right. So it's a moonwalk of fame, not just like a space walk of fame, which I know I think exists in Florida, but it would be all the people that have walked on the moon and, as Bob has mentioned, the people to come, because we are going back to the moon. There will be more moonwalkers. Some of them may not even be professional astronauts, but they'll be professional explorers or scientists or something like that, and and that is a legacy to come that we should be prepared to, I suppose, celebrate in one way or another. So it's not just a you know, I guess that was what we're doing now in this kind of digital age where if it's not on TikTok, it's not happening.

0:42:44 - Rod Pyle
So I think one thing that's important to comment on here, at least to me, is I think this is a real opportunity. You've kind of already hit on this, but it's kind of an opportunity to remind people why would this? This date is important, what happened? Why it matters now? Because we're in a culture, as you probably have seen, that there was a post, a poll recently it was Ipsos and there was another one, two polls, that were looking at denier rates in our country. And you know, when you have a generation or two going to people like Steph Curry and Joe Rogan for not just news but the truth, quote unquote I think you're in trouble. And you know, joe Rogan, if you're watching this, we'd love to have 5% of your success, but but stop supporting the moon deniers because it's junk. Um, can you comment on on how this might be used to sort of pull up the page?

0:43:39 - Dr. Robert Slater
one of the quotes that I love and I've heard charlie duke say it at occasions more than once is for those that say we faked it, why would we fake it nine times? Ridiculous, ridiculous, so, and Buzz will just knock you out cold if you tell him you nailed Charlie man Silly and we ought to stay away from that. But this is all about education, so let's educate those that think it didn't happen and get them excited about it. I think if they really knew what happened, they would get excited about it. Their kids would get excited about it. They'd say like I want to be the engineer that makes that happen, develop the next great technological breakthrough. I want to be part of the medical team that makes sure the physiologic aspects of these missions are studied and optimize the health of the astronauts.

There are so many ways to spin this. It's really and that's really the key 410,000 people in every one of the states made this happen. It wasn't just a few people. It wasn't just three white guys walking on the surface, two white guys in one orbiting on the mission. That's not what this is about. This is about everybody the seamstresses that sewed the suits, the bus drivers that got everybody to work on time. This is a team effort bar none and we need to reinvigorate that enthusiasm in this country.

0:44:57 - Tariq Malik
What's that legendary story? Real quick Rod about that, was it? Kennedy was touring the pad and asked someone that was working by, just like a janitor or whatever, what they were doing there. And he's like helping us go to the moon, you know, it's like that thing that everyone plays a role.

0:45:14 - Rod Pyle
The one you're thinking about was was it John Young? One of the then future moonwalkers, was up on the gantry and saw a worker inside a panel on the S4B, I think it was and the guy looked at him the astronaut, who was not wearing his usual regalia and said who the hell are you and what are you doing up here? And the astronaut said I'm flying in that thing in a few days. And he said I just want you to know nothing on. This rocket will fail because of me. Wave the flag.

0:45:49 - Tariq Malik
It's a different story, but both are good.

0:45:52 - Rod Pyle
Well, mine's better, let's take a break and we'll let you come back and and you can try your next one.

0:45:57 - Tariq Malik
Hold on well, yeah, you know, I think we're at the point in our talk, bob, where I want to know what we can do, like what can the people listening uh, do do to either get involved in this project, celebrate Apollo 11 as like their, or just the moon landings themselves? You know, what would you advise? Should they be calling their representatives in the House and Senate to say, hey, let's make this happen? Obviously, signing the petition is is, is, is, it's. You know, maybe up there, uh as well, like what, what? What's the next steps there? Right?

0:46:37 - Dr. Robert Slater
so several things that can be done. First is, yes, please lend your support. Go online lunarlandydaynet, sign the petition. Uh, the more supporters we have, the more it convinces everybody how much support there is for this. Secondly, the bill has been drafted and is being circulated in Washington DC on Capitol Hill. To make this happen, there's a House version and a Senate version, which are the same but circulating in both chambers of Congress.

Now Our coalition has made two in-person travels to Washington DC, one in last November and one in this March. So we're trying to get the word out so everybody listening can contact their members of Congress and say this is a great idea. Please support it. We've contacted every one of the 100 US senators, every one of the 50 governors and five US territory governors. We've tried to make it known at the local level as well, and people can do that as well, whether it's the county board of supervisors, the state assembly members, state senators. All of that helps. So the more people we have talking to their representatives, the more momentum we are going to generate for interest and support for this Very important.

0:47:57 - Rod Pyle
So when you and I spoke while we were booking the podcast you also mentioned, I think you were looking for some hands-on help for what you're trying to do. Can you tell us more about?

0:48:02 - Dr. Robert Slater
that I'd love to have that. We've recently worked out a deal with a publicist, teresa McFarlane, who is going to help us with making our admittedly rudimentary website now much better. But I wanted to grab that domain name while it was still available last November, so anybody that wants to please contact me. We'd love to get you involved. We need, in particular, help with that sort of PR work and website design that type of thing sort of PR work and website design, that type of thing.

0:48:36 - Rod Pyle
Well, I want to thank you very much, and everybody listening, for joining us today for episode 162, that we like to call Lunar Landing Day Exclamation point, because this is very important To the moon. Remind us, bob, one more time where we can find information and contact you on this initiative.

0:48:53 - Dr. Robert Slater
Please contact me at LunarLandingDay.net and we look forward to any and all support. We're really building a great coalition and we look forward to success in celebrating this with a Lunar Landing Day barbecue every July 20th going forward.

0:49:10 - Rod Pyle
That's fantastic. I can kind of see the back, the business end of a Saturn V being used to roast weenies somewhere.

0:49:17 - Tariq Malik
Let's light this candle.

0:49:18 - Rod Pyle
Tarek, where can we find you entertaining the masses these days?

0:49:21 - Tariq Malik
Well, you can find me at space.com, as always, on the Twitter and the blue sky at Tarek J Malik. This weekend is Memorial Day weekend as we're recording this, so hopefully relaxing and enjoying the holiday and watching that clock tick down to the next Starship launch that's coming up and that'll be great to see. I think we'll have more on that next week, next episode.

0:49:44 - Rod Pyle
Fingers crossed on that. And of course, you can always find me at pylebooks.com or at adastramagazine.com, where I like to hang out. And in June you can find Tariq and myself and Bob. It'd be great if if you showed up at the national space societies international space development conference in warm, embracing Orlando, Florida stepping into a wet mattress, but that's okay. You'll be in a very nice resort hotel with fantastic air conditioning. So if you're interested in joining us there, where I'm going to be handing Tarek his very nice, very expensive award, go to ISDCnss.org.

And remember you can always drop us a line at twis@twit.v. We welcome your comments, suggestions and ideas and answer each and every email, new episodes, this podcast published every Friday on your favorite podcatcher. So make sure to subscribe, tell your friends and give us reviews. We live or die by your reviews. We also live or die by you joining Club Twit and we're counting on you to sign up this year and if you do it soon, you can get grandfathered into the current rate, which is going to go up in a couple of months, and they are once again offering annual plans. So there's all kinds of good reasons for you to jump into club twit, but the main good reason is me and Tariq that's right.

0:51:02 - Tariq Malik
Well, mostly me coming to you that's of course.

0:51:07 - Rod Pyle
That's what your mom would say. Um, so thanks everyone. Uh, we'll see you next time. Take care.

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