This Week in Space 166 Transcript
Please be advised that 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)
This week, on this Week in Space, we're in Florida at the International Space Development Conference in Orlando and we're going to be talking about Starship and the universe's missing matter, and Questions from you no, not Rod from you. Be here or be square.
00:19 - TWiT.tv (Announcement)
Podcasts you love From people you trust. This is TORET.
00:26 - Rod Pyle (Host)
This is this Week in Space, episode number 166, recorded on June 20th 2025,. Live from the swamps ISDC. Hello and welcome to another episode of this Week in Space, the From the Swamps live from the ISDC edition. I'm Rod Pyle, editor-in-chief of Ad Astra magazine, among other things, and, of course, tarek Malik's eternal tormentor, speaking of my favorite swamp monster. How are you today, sir?
00:54 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I'm doing well. We're live yes From.
00:56 - Rod Pyle (Host)
ISDC. Let's hear it with the thousands, thousands in our audience. Yes, you are our first live audience. Thank you very much for coming.
01:08 - Tariq Malik (Host)
You can't see them, but we're in actually like a stadium. This is just a big set, yeah, and it's like there's 30,000 people outside.
01:14 - Rod Pyle (Host)
This week we are coming to you mostly live from the National Space Society's International Space Development Conference in Blustery, orlando, florida, where it's I don't know what is it outside About 92, but it feels like it's 117. With thunderstorms.
01:26 - Tariq Malik (Host)
They closed the pool over Atlanta. What, yeah? Oh, because of lightning. Yeah, they forced everybody out Second day in a row.
01:35 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I missed my chance to have you go swimming Well, so just two days at this conference, my little chum T Tarek will be walking the red carpet to accept his Space Pioneer Award for Excellence in Journalism. Thank you, Thank you.
01:51 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I'm very honored. I appreciate it. Thank you, ISTC. We have a manual on us.
01:58 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Before we begin today, please don't forget to do us a solid and like subscribe and all the other podcast things you do to keep us on the air, because we love you and we need you to love us. Show us some love. Now I have some space jokes. Are you ready? I'm ready, I'm always ready for space jokes?
02:16 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I don't think I'm gonna laugh hey, this is from jamie.
02:18 - Rod Pyle (Host)
All right, jamie. Yeah, we'll see if now we have an actual laugh test. We can't fake it, I know. Hey, tarek, yes, rod, why were time and space invited to the family reunion? I don't know why.
02:34 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Because they're both relative. Oh yeah, it's an Iceland joke, I get it.
02:37 - Rod Pyle (Host)
We got some polite chuckles. Okay, from Dolores Fantasy. I don't know if that's a real name or not. Hi, tarek. Yes, rod, I'm looking for a book that's been recommended to me. It's about Pavlov's dogs and Schrodinger's cat. Do you know it? No, I don't. The librarian said, hmm, that rings a bell, but I'm not sure if it's here or not.
02:58 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Oh, okay, because when you ring the bell, pavlov's dog salad, yeah, you know it's gonna eat, but then, like you don't know if the cat's dead or not, in the box, cat cat, no, no, schrodinger, what? I don't schrodinger's cat. Okay, that one. I think the delores is a good joke, but yeah, you gotta like get a phd for that.
03:14 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I think, which is definitely not okay from jim reed. Hey, tar, yes, rob, did you hear the two antennas on the iss got married? Uh, no, no, I didn, I didn't. The ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was fantastic.
03:27 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I love it. I love it.
03:29 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I love it. Okay, well, you're an audience of one, all right. Sorry about that, jim. For Matthew, I've only got two more For Matthew McCormick. Hey, tarek. Yes, matthew, did you hear about that amazing book they're reading up on the ISS? No, I did not. Apparently, it's impossible to put down.
03:44 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Oh, I'm a space woman. That was a big zero Last one.
03:51 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Oh yeah, see, we got the sound effect box that superseded all you guys From Birin Amin. Hey, Tarek, why don't cosmologists throw good parties? I don't know why, because they always talk about how everything's expanding, but nothing ever comes together.
04:08 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Wow, I thought there was going to be a big bang joke. We didn't even break two grins over there. I know Alan come on then, alright?
04:16 - Rod Pyle (Host)
well, I've heard that some people want to feed us to the gators when it's joke time in this show, but you can help Send your best, worst or most indifferent space joke to us at TWIS, at TWIS, at TWITTV. Now, while we can still talk, oh, we have to go to headlines. This is going to be a painful week for headlines, isn't it?
04:36 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Well, maybe I guess it depends on what you want you know to talk about. Was that you or me? That was me, it was the computer. See, this is because you know to talk about. Was that you or?
04:44 - Rod Pyle (Host)
me. That was me, it was the computer. See, this is because you're on Windows. Yeah, I have to notify you constantly. I need another driver.
04:50 - Tariq Malik (Host)
There was. A window came up. I tried to make it go away. I failed. It popped up another window. It made a ding and that's why we're live.
04:58 - Rod Pyle (Host)
And why they call you Mr Technology, okay, okay, so this is a headline for which I have very little written, because it's sort of self-explanatory, and it's called Starship Kablooey. Yes, what did we see? And why aren't we hearing anything about the cause this?
05:11 - Tariq Malik (Host)
actually. Well, no, so I've got news on this, because it actually since the last time we talked Well, you're Mr. News so please, yeah, yeah.
05:23 - TWiT.tv (Announcement)
Well as ISD started, so to celebrate the first day of ISD 2025.
05:25 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Isdc you mean ISDC, thank you. What did I say? So C's important. Spacex tested their 10th starship the actual starship part, not like the super bright the upper stage and they were getting ready for a full six engine. Like you know, static fire. They did one engine before and it was great. And as they were doing it, they said and I quote because this is actually pretty fresh it says that a sudden energetic event occurred, which means it exploded. The rocket exploded before they were able to do the test, and so when you and I were talking and mapping out the episode, we didn't know what was the cause. We were wondering why it takes so long. We did find out about an hour before. We said we got video of it. If you're watching the stream right now, it's absolutely. I mean, this is like a 14-story building. This looks like a nuclear bomb test. It is massive. They think that a I I'm gonna get this wrong if I try to pronounce it a composite, overwrapped pressure vessel which contains the gases nitrogen they use to pressurize the tanks.
06:36
They think it failed well, this is what caused the falcon 9 explosion this is interesting because, uh, they say very specifically that there is no commonality between the COPV that's their talk used on Starship and SpaceX's Falcon rockets, except that SpaceX's Falcon rockets also use a COPV tank.
06:56 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So there's no commonality, except it's the exact same technology.
06:59 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It's the same type of tank but it's a different actual tank, and so this was what caused, I think, the failure in flight of the cargo launch. They had a COPV failure which allowed, I think, fuel to get between the layers of the COPV wrapping, and then it ruptured the tank. The whole thing exploded, they lost the flight in midair, and so it doesn't sound like this is the same type of failure. It seems like maybe it was just had a manufacturing defect and so it doesn't sound like this is the same type of failure. It seems like maybe it was just at a manufacturing defect and it didn't hold up to the pressure and then it just ruptured on the pad. But it's kind of interesting that this failure is one where it was just sitting on the pad preparing for a test and blew up when the last time that happened, they lost Arab sat. Do you remember that? Or could it be sabotage?
07:44 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, I mean, it could be a lot of things, that rocket company that supposedly shot their rocket with a hunting rifle from the roof of their building, if you recall.
07:52 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, yeah, I saw that report too. Are we naming?
07:56 - Rod Pyle (Host)
names. No, because it was hooey, but you know it's fun to think about.
08:01 - Tariq Malik (Host)
There is more fallout from this test.
08:08 - Rod Pyle (Host)
There is more fallout from this test. It caused extensive damage to the actual test site, in fact, according to this update from Space Anchor. But it wasn't on the launch pad.
08:10 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It was on a test stand. It was on a test stand for Starship, and so the interesting thing here because they really need to ramp up their pace when it comes to the tests themselves is that they need to be able to test things quickly and whatnot, but it destroyed the test stand. It destroyed the test stand. There were fires all around and it caused widespread damage all around it. Of course they have other tanks there, they have other storage stuff, other equipment, and they said that, while no one was injured luckily no one was everyone is safe and that there's no hazard to the community itself, that they haven't been able to actually get on site to.
08:51
You know they're going to do it when it's safe to do so. So it sounds like it's extensive damage that needs to be repaired. Is it extensive on the level of we've just destroyed our launch pad and we have to rebuild the ground from scratch like they did for the first Starship launch? I'm not sure, because they could just build another test stand somewhere nearby. But we're going to have to say and this is going to be a hiccup, because it caused damage on the ground for the next test, because the FAA will require an investigation that affects any kind of property damage and this is included in property damage there which doesn't fall in line with their typical failure requirements.
09:28 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I think I say it's pretty profound property damage. So what do you suppose would have happened if they had lost a first stage out at the same facility? Well, I mean, the first stage is like a lot bigger. It's like double the capacity of a Saturn V which is already the size of a small nuclear weapon. Yeah, I mean that would have just destroyed like the whole area. That would have been a bad day. Yeah, anthony, do you want to go to break earlier? Continue. He just stuck his thumb in the air. That means going to break. Okay, we're going to go to break. We'll be right back. Go nowhere. Need to work out sign language or something? Okay, we're back back. So next story up missing universe matter found. You know, I wasn't aware we were missing anything.
10:10
Well, neither, neither Well I knew about the dark matter, but apparently we are yeah.
10:14 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Actually this is funny because there are actually two studies this week that all point to the same thing. On Monday there was a study that was announced in Nature, I believe, that said hey, we found some of what we think is the missing matter. And then, as of I think it was yesterday, thursday, it's in science another study came out and it was yet more missing matter. And you would think, okay, well, missing matter it must be a dark matter.
10:40
Discovery because we, you know, dark matter makes up most of the universe. We can't see it, we can't detect it. That's all the rage. It could be like around us right now, like the force, I guess, rod, but no, this is actually baryonic matter. So that's like all of the the matter that, uh, that we see, that we can touch and stuff neutrons, protons, they call those baryons, so everything and we've been apparently missing like a third of it, like we couldn't see it.
10:59
And these scientists have been able to conclude that, you know, our galaxy is one of a lot of galaxies. They're all in a huge bunch of clusters. Then there's a bunch of other clusters of galaxies and they found these tendrils of material through those galaxy clusters that they've been able to detect, to measure, and they said, yeah, so apparently this is where all that matter is. It's in these gossamer tendrils connecting clusters of galaxies on structures that are much too vast for me to even comprehend right now. I can see, like the Windows screen in your eyes when you're trying to think about it right now, rod.
11:37 - Rod Pyle (Host)
No, I was thinking I was kind of working on a joke about the government banishing the matter, you know, through ice raids, but I thought that was probably a bad taste so I didn't go there.
11:46 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Um, okay, but what are?
11:48 - Rod Pyle (Host)
they going to do with it?
11:49 - Tariq Malik (Host)
well, I mean, I think what it is is. It gives them a really good picture of where at least the the types of material that we can touch and that we can observe is is residing this cosmic web that reveals, like, the larger structure of the universe. So there it's, a piece in the puzzle about how that formed, about when all of that actually happened, as opposed to in the earlier epochs of the universe 13.8, whatever billion years ago and so that can help them inform both all of their modeling for how the universe could evolve over time, how the universe has evolved and how galaxies form from that great ether of the cosmos so big, big head start.
12:28 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You heard it first here from Tarek Malik, who clearly passed ninth grade science, so credits to you. Ok, next, black hole conundrum. So this one is interesting. You picked this one. You picked this one. Yeah, well, but it's from spacecom.
12:40 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It's from Live Science, technically from spacecom.
12:46 - Rod Pyle (Host)
That's from live science. Technically they wrote it.
12:47 - TWiT.tv (Announcement)
We did not, but I appreciate that you that you follow trying to give you credit.
12:49 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Um, so there was an ai image created of what was considered to be the latest and greatest thought of what the uh was a sagittarius, a, a star, a star at the center of our galaxy, the big E. The star is in the middle, is it? But one particular Nobel laureate was pushing back, so what's his complaint?
13:14 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Well, this is interesting. This story was written by Joanna Thompson, by the way, who also writes for spacecom.
13:19 - TWiT.tv (Announcement)
So maybe we can claim some credit there.
13:23 - Tariq Malik (Host)
But, yeah, this Nobel laureate his name is Reinhard Genzel, yes, and he won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2020. And he says that, hey, this is great that the AI can do this. And what they did is they put a bunch of data that looked like it was really noisy, like it had a lot of stuff that is really hard for human scientists to pull out and sift and find, like, what is the actual science that's hiding in here that I can tease into my models? Most of the time, the science will say you know what? It's too noisy, I can't trust this data, I'm going to throw it out. Well, they gave it to the AI robot thing, and the AI robot thing we're going to call it Ultron for now, because, uh, ultron says, hey, man, I can, I could totally see all the the data in here. Like you humans don't have anything on me, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to do it. But but reinhardt says, hey, man, like, how accurate was that assessment?
14:16
of this noisy data making stuff up you are building an assessment or a model of this black hole based on data that may be faulty, because we can't check it.
14:26 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So excuse me, but I think part of it was this complaint that the AI was taking in all the noise. Yeah, virtually no parsing.
14:33 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Exactly. So it takes it all in and it says I can just do it, I can use this data to make the model Right, and they're using data that other scientists would have filtered out because they don't think that all of that data is useful. And so the question is is this final model, which is a much more refined uh simulation of a black hole, truly accurate to the black hole, or is it accurate to all of the extra noise and junk that scientists would normally throw out? But the ai says that it doesn't have to throw it out because it can have a, a larger, I guess, think on it or whatnot.
15:06 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I don't know how robots work but it's yet another example of ai telling us foolish humans get out of my way or I'll kill you.
15:14 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Well, okay that's uh, that's chilling. I I had a couple, are we? Are we going to go to another thing or do we have more things to talk about?
15:22 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I have more things? Oh, another break, you mean. No, we got five minutes. I was gonna. Why are you going to talk about I have more things? Oh, another break, you mean. No, we got five minutes.
15:28 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Why Were you going to talk about the Blue Origin launch? Well, I was just wondering if you were going to skip. If you didn't like my extra headlines, Take it away, Okay great, I love your headlines.
15:35
All right, yeah well, I just thought that it's a very active weekend Actually. Sadly, there was another bit of private news. So we've got a new crew for Blue Origin. They are launching on 21st, which is Saturday, the day after we're recording this. Actually, what is that? It's NS. I think it's their 33. 33 now. They all sound to be private citizens, for the most part Leland Larson, ali Kooner, carl Kooner I think they're married. It just seems like it's a bunch of private folks that found a way to buy their tickets to go to space. So that's great. You've got some private astronauts here. I think Dr Green was here. She flew actually in January, in May. Has anybody told us how much this costs? Yet we don't know how much it costs. I know that it costs like $100,000 plus $150,000 to inquire about being on a flight.
16:34 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So you've got to show you're serious about it.
16:35 - Tariq Malik (Host)
You've got to get into that kind of business. Yeah, Just to ask questions. Sell a third of your house first and then you can put that part down.
16:41 - Rod Pyle (Host)
But they're saying in general, like they're guessing five, 600,000,.
16:44 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I think I wouldn't say it's gone for millions. I wouldn't surprise if it's at least a half. It has to be as much as whatever Virgin Galactic is raising their prices to pay Right, you would expect. When are they going to fly that thing? Next year, they're hoping by next year to start the initial test for, for spaceship. What is it? Spaceship Delta? Yes, spaceship 2 Delta. I don't know what they're going to call it. Anyway, the TLDR is that Blue Origin's next New Shepard launch is going to lift off. It's going to be. Yeah, the husband and wife pair are Ali and Carl Koiner. You've got a philanthropist and beekeeper, leland Larson entrepreneur, freddie Rasigno Jr, a lawyer and author. Oh, a lobby, a solace and a retired attorney jim sicken.
17:30 - Rod Pyle (Host)
No, no surprise person on this flight. No, uh, I think the beekeeper is pretty weird. Yeah, I think it'd be interesting if they brought their bees on board and they got loose during those zero g like that episode of the simpsons where all the ants get loose and they fight over who's the queen I'm too old to watch the simpsons.
17:41
Oh well, I was mature at that time. Um, of our hundreds of people in our studio audience, almost would anybody mortgage their house to buy a flight on either of these. Okay, maybe a lot of head shakes, yeah, kind of we got what, what?
17:58 - Tariq Malik (Host)
only if she was dying.
18:00 - Rod Pyle (Host)
She says okay, how about? Um, let's see if you had a, if you were going to be gifted between going on the blue origin vertical rocket ride or virgin galactics, you know, we're going up like an airplane and then we have the like origami or spacecraft, so it can come back with drag and all that. Which one would you prefer to fly?
18:23 - Tariq Malik (Host)
would you prefer to fly?
18:30 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Everyone wants to ride a rocket. Blue Origin gave us money a couple of years ago. This is a good set of answers. Oh for the NSS. So I mean I agree. What about you, rick? Yeah, so I agree with you, but for me it's because I grew up during the space age and Blue Origin's a real rocket. I don't want to fly on a plane that goes real high. Nothing against Virgin, but just the idea of being strapped into a rocket that goes straight up and comes straight down. First of all, it's more romantic to me, but second of all, it's simpler.
19:01
Biggest windows built for space by the the only thing the biggest windows go wrong is the parachute doesn't work.
19:06 - TWiT.tv (Announcement)
That's bad you know, there are two.
19:13 - Tariq Malik (Host)
There are two versions of the blue origin new shepherd for estes. There's two. The first one they released is high fidelity. It's made of hard plastic. I love it a lot because you can auger it in and it's still like you can still keep flying it over again. But then they also made a very high, high res uh kit to build, where you build all of the parts, including the little engine mount on the inside. Um rod is like are you done? Yeah, oh, and this is so. This is space toys, video games. There's a new vulcan one now they just announced now.
19:43 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I used to fly model rockets, but the idea was you toss the instructions away first because they're much more interesting, right, says James. So we discovered that Skyrocket Barbie could fly with enough power. We launched a goldfish Wow, because we wouldn't want to say it didn't. Um, we launched a large turkey drumstick, a solid colander, and I built my first large f engine class, a solid colander yeah, with a lot of holes sideways you know it goes up about 10 feet but it makes a big mess when it does it.
20:22
But my favorite was my first f engine class rocket, which is a larger, you know, like the size of your wrist or something, and I got the kit and I thought, okay, for the first time in my life, you know, add me right, I'm gonna follow the instructions, but the nose cone's kind of loose, so I'm gonna put some little cardboard flaps on there to hold it, not realizing that with an f engine which, instead of going to go, that those things were going to flip over, and it veered off over towards the little league field where they're actually playing a game, oh no, it augured in on the first baseline, leaving a smoking hole, and, like a moron, I actually walked over and went up to the guys and said excuse me, and they had stopped play, of course, and all these little kids standing around with big grins on their faces because this thing came out of space and smashed into Billy.
21:09
You know, I was stupid enough to actually go over and pick it up, and there were a lot of dads cradling bats giving me evil looks. So that was the end of my rocketry career. And speaking of which that's the end of this segment. We are going to go to a quick break and we will be right back, so stand by. Great. Now for our big, resounding wrap-up headline, one that you like to call hey, it's summer.
21:31 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Oh yeah, I thought we were just talking about offline, that we were going to save it for the end, but no, no, that's great, I didn't follow it's school's out as of this week for my daughter.
21:47
Clearly, from the hotel here, everybody that was in school is here. So this is just a casual reminder to everybody that the summer solstice is tomorrow as we're recording this. So today is June 20th, so tomorrow is June 21st. That is the official start of the new season on Earth. So for us here in fabulous Orlando, florida, who could be a druid For everyone back in fabulous New orlando, florida, could be a druid for everyone back in fabulous, uh, new jersey.
22:05
Back home, you know it will be summer, uh, which means you know, camping, whatever, trips, uh, and apologies to everybody in australia and south america or whatever. It's the start of winter for all of you all. So, uh, so no, no christmas in july, uh for that. But. But that means that with summer brings, uh, shorter nights, the days are going to be longer. So if you really want to get your sky watching in, really go out and find some good dark skies. If you're going to camp, there's a lot of new supernova for everybody in the southern hemisphere in the sky. So you've got those longer nights. Now you can go up and check them out. It's really, really cool stuff. We should talk about that next episode actually we should.
22:44 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, and speaking of dark skies here, if you live here in orlando, how far do you have to drive to not see, like the big globe, disney world and all that? I do not know. Gotta be hundreds and hundreds of miles. Oh, all right. So our first listener question comes from matt schultz oh, are we going to explain about the questions?
23:06 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Okay, yeah, so now that's headlines. Yay, now to the listener question.
23:10 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You forgot the headline news. Thing.
23:13 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, I know, now we're going to shift over to the questions, because we asked people last week and this week, every day this week, to please send us questions. So now we wanted to hear from what, uh, uh, what our listeners wanted to know about space. And so now, rod, you've got some questions, so let's, let's do it.
23:33 - Rod Pyle (Host)
thanks for actually setting that up. So from matt schultz says he envies us our space camp visits. Matt now, I went once in 84 when it was still for little kids, which means you're an amateur, barely fit into anything.
23:45 - Tariq Malik (Host)
You went Like five times For five weeks, not five times, because I did two weeks twice. You did two weeks, yeah, once I did two weeks one time.
23:54 - Rod Pyle (Host)
God, what a dweeb. So anyway, he says Envisus our space camp visits, wants to know how to do something like that on a budget and budget. And he wanted to make a point. I don't know where he got the idea that I have an opinion about this, that he doesn't identify as an analog astronaut. He says I agree with you. Cosplay is not an issue. Have fun and be proud of what you're doing and call it what it is. Just don't claim that you're an astronaut. It's an insult to the real deal. Okay, matt, we got it. You guys would get along, so you. I get along with a lot of grumpy people and the dead, so you've been to space camp more times than I can even imagine. So what advice do you have for them to go on a budget?
24:38 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Well, I mean, I think that the I would say it's been about five years, maybe more than that, since I've went, I think Zadie was, maybe more than that since I've went, I think Zadie was like six.
24:47 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, I went in 1984, so your experience is a bit more recent.
24:52 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It's hard because the only space camp there used to be one here in Florida and then there was another one in Alabama, in Huntsville. Yeah, they closed the one that was here very close to Kennedy Space Center, a long, long time ago and so the only place really to get that authentic experience by the way, the one in the movie in the 1980s I keep looking at my camera on the computer and it's over there the one in the movie they used the Kennedy Space Center for it.
25:18 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You forgot to say horrible movie. No, okay, anybody here see Space Camp when it came out Opinion. Well, now I can see. See, she grew up, tarek. She grew up and realized it was terrible.
25:34 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It has Marty McFly's mom in it. It has Tate Donovan in it, who was like super cool when I was a kid. Okay, right, sorry, that's enough.
25:42 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So, for anybody who didn't see it, there's a bunch of kids. There's kids in space camp and oh, let's go sit in a real space shuttle while it's being fueled for flight. Demerit one. Jinx sent Max into space, the hideous robot, and then, they, they are in there and suddenly, oh my God, there's a launch emergency. The solids have ignited because a firefly exploded or something. We have to let the shuttle go so it doesn't explode. It was just ridiculous.
26:09 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I think it holds up Now because there are no space shuttles flying. It's a historical document, obviously.
26:17 - Rod Pyle (Host)
James, our volunteer chief, is holding his nose. I think that's a pretty clear assessment. Anybody else have opinions about Space Camp? Did anybody like Space Camp? There's a lot of indifferent shrugs in it, Ronnie, really, oh no, no the movie Wow.
26:36 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I mean people are allowed to be wrong. I mean it's a free country, so that's all right. Okay, moving right along, but no, to help out out yes, um, that would be nice uh, if there there are other types of experiences, like one of my. One of my friends was like a space camp counselor but it was like a local satellite one. So there are those types of experiences that you can get. I would say, but are they still doing the?
27:01 - Rod Pyle (Host)
satellite ones.
27:02 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I thought they shut those down well, I mean, it may not be. I mean she, this is when she was in high school. We were in high school. Yeah, that was a long time ago. A long time ago. Yeah, that was a really long time ago. Because Huntsville you have to go there to be able to be in A lot of the cool stuff's there too. Yeah, but you maybe don't go during the summer. That, yeah, but you maybe don't go during the summer. That's when it's super, super hot demand, and if you're an adult, like we are, the programs aren't. You don't have to go for the full five days. You can go for two days actually, and it's a more affordable type of a trip, and then you can get in and get out. I would always, though always, recommend that you spend at least an extra day to go to the museum, take the tours of the Marshall Space Flight Center Really really cool place. I saw the design for Shuttle C there, like in the mock-up. You remember Shuttle C?
27:50 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I remember the Shuttle C. That didn't happen.
27:53 - Tariq Malik (Host)
The automated space shuttle cargo variant that they were going to build. I was so thrilled, but I was like 17 back then, so that was a long time ago, long before you went gray, I shaved, so I look baby-faced today.
28:05 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Before we continue, by the way, there is a humanoid thing over my shoulder which I want to point out Vision body. It's called the Vision Body. Ems Electromuscular Stimulation and Actuation Activates 98% of the body's muscles and will help with bone density. The idea here is that you put this on an astronaut. This is one of the exhib's muscles and will help with bone density. So the idea here is that you put this on an astronaut. This is one of the exhibitors at the International Space Development Conference. You put this on an astronaut while they're in space and instead of having to exercise two hours a day and I'm just guessing here because I didn't talk to them to any length but you'd put this on and hit a button and, if it's like the one that I've used on the ground, you go like that for a couple hours, but it exercises your muscles and keep you from dying yeah, she was here, uh, earlier christian.
28:52
But she started giving me a very long explanation.
28:54 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I kind of went, yeah, and the concept and I think it's really interesting because obviously I was in the space health track yesterday, yes, where they were talking about having to genetically engineer astronauts. We should have that guy on the show, by the way, because we're talking about, like, building astronauts from actual scratch so that they can survive for a long time.
29:14 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So like giving them cockroach genes so they can withstand gamma rays?
29:18 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, it's like that kind of thing, you know, or super thick bones, you know, so they don't lose the bone mass, or super thick bone, you know, so they don't lose the bone mass. But that this would be an alternative to both not just the two hours a day, not having to do that, it's more than just like. I don't want to cram two hours of workout every day, but it keeps your muscles. I don't want to do a half-hour workout. I don't know about you. I did last night after a long day here at ISDC. I keep looking at the camera, go back to the hotel and I'm like I'm going to go work out because the gym's across from the. You really said that to yourself. Yeah, I ended up having a Diet Coke and a Slim Jim and then I went to bed. I watched Serenity and fell asleep. That's my kind of diet.
29:57 - Rod Pyle (Host)
All right Speaking of.
29:58 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I hope you don't see it.
29:59 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Somebody that doesn't need to diet. We have a question from Tanya Wyman, one of our listeners on Discord. I can't get the question, what? I couldn't get it to work on my computer here. Okay, continue. Your side commentary Asked us about astronaut downtime and family contacts. She said after hearing Colonel Nick Haig's comments. We had Nick Haig astronaut and Space Force Guardian on last week comments about the astronauts' on the international space station sharing meals and talking about updates from their families. I was curious as to how the astronauts on the international space station stay in touch with their families and friends. What technologies are used for this and are they limited to a certain number of messages or minutes per day? Now, for for some stuff they use ham, but I don't think that's for family. No, they use internet for family.
30:46 - Tariq Malik (Host)
They use what used to be like so high tech. It was called the IP phone and it was like a device where they could use. It's a photo phone, right, yeah. And I said what does IP stand for? And this is like about 15 years ago. And it's like, well, it's the internet protocol phone. And I said phone on the internet, like surely you must be joking. Uh, but no, it's basically the same technology that we use for skype, right, and during the apollo days they always had that box in the family's house, right, that would play like the live audio box. Um, and nasa does have that.
31:18
So wasn't that an open phone line back to mission control I believe they had a phone line back then, yeah, but now, now they have, they have an internet protocol phone and a computer where they can call people and see what's going on.
31:31
I've heard of astronauts Actually I think there's one of John Grunsfeld calling into Car Talk, right, yes, yes, he called in to talk about that. So they have weekly time built in. It might even be daily, it depends on how they set their schedules up with their flight surgeons for contact where they can build Tanya that time to call people, call their friends or whatnot, and it is run through a computer that has that Internet protocol on it. I don't know if it's Skype or if it's Zoom or some other kind of proprietary thing that NASA sets up as a portal, but I know that it's very similar to what Rod and I are using to record the show today, to arrange and do that. Plus, they can also do audio as well, to make phone calls too. I have RingCentral that my company uses. It's a version that's similar to that type of thing and NASA, if you're out there and I got it wrong, call in and let us know on the show.
32:27 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I was going to say why haven't they called?
32:29 - Tariq Malik (Host)
us yet, yeah, and so that way, they can be as connected as they can. And they also can send email, uh, as, as you know, they've got their own accounts. They can send email to their family. Uh, up up until I guess with the, the mid 2000s, they still had a lot of film cameras and stuff up there, but they had digital cameras. Now they that's prolific since 2007. Have been able to, uh, or not?
32:54
2007, 2009, astronauts have been able to tweet and use social media directly from space. They set up, uh, uh, some kind of like a machine initially in mission control so that people didn't have to keep doing it manually, but now they can do it themselves, and I think that that's amazing, that they can have that direct connection, not just with their family and their loved ones, but they can share that connection directly from space. Johnny Kim on the space station right now. Do you know what he did this week? I do not. Okay, will you tell me? One of the astronauts, one of his crewmates. They were complaining about how much they missed sushi in space, so they spent a mealtime trying to recreate sushi and he shared a photo on it.
33:34
Zero G sushi. Yeah, but it looks like it, and that's the kind of thing that gets people really engaged. It's like what kind of food is the astronauts eating, or the astronauts eating, and they're able to get that connection directly. So it's not just for family and friends. They're able to do that and they can share a video live video now too.
33:53 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You're a very excitable man. We're going to go to break, we'll be right back, so go nowhere, nowhere, all right. So I think it's time for us to get a question from our very large studio audience. Would anybody like to ask a question to the people that probably know less about space than they do? Oh good, sir, this is james. What, oh so he's asking about my badge for this conference, which says rod quote, hot unquote pile a steaming rocket into space. So this came from one of our conference organizers I just got that, and it's not open who every year comes up with something more interesting. So first year it was rod pile, cigar aficionado. Second year it was rod pile, ladies man. This year I was just glad that it didn't say rod a steaming pile of, because that's kind of what I expect from sean. So I felt very gratified. He said would you like me to do another one? And I said no, I think this one's very descriptive. So I I appreciate that. Uh, mr dressler, I got mine. What was your question, mr Dressler?
35:03 - TWiT.tv (Announcement)
What was your question? It's the next live show that he does.
35:07 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Are we ever going to do this again?
35:08 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It's up to you. Man Rod is the brains behind getting all the equipment here.
35:13 - Rod Pyle (Host)
No, there were no brains, it was just the budget. That too, I guess, when we come visit you in Singapore. That, ladies and gentlemen, was Dave Dressler Now you got me looking at the booters who is a big wheel in the National Space Society and has been traveling the world for the last couple of years and recently went to Singapore to get married.
35:34 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Oh, congratulations, that's all.
35:37 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Dave and his new bride, who he'll be seeing in six months.
35:41 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Have you had chicken rice yet, Dave?
35:43 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well you know, he's, so he goes to Singapore every year because my wife is from Singapore as well Singapore, Okay, yeah.
35:53
Okay, enough of this insider stuff, all right from Ken Kramer. Ken, starship, where art thou? Where art thou, indeed? General question Starship, where's thou? Where art thou? Indeed, that's the general question. Starship, where's the beef? He says it's supposed to be all but replacing other rockets and taking us to the moon, but it just keeps exploding. So that's a pretty blunt question. Yeah, I don't really know if there's an answer for that, except on one side of the fence you have well's, iterative improvement, and that's how we do things. On the other side of the fence, you have the popular media which says why does this thing keep blowing up? Um, so I guess one answer is especially lately, the last few explosions, they had just upgraded the whole thing. So they're on the third generation of rocket engines, yeah, which are more, much more powerful and much simpler. They're on the second generation of rocket engines, which are much more powerful and much simpler. They're on the second set of upgrades, the upper stage, starship, and they're on the second upgrade to the booster right.
36:51 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I think that the Raptor 3 engines aren't on the ship yet. I don't think that they are. Oh, okay, I think that they were going to do that later in the year. Okay, are, I think that they were going to do that later in the year, but to your point when? So we were on explosion number four, right?
37:08 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Is that right? I think so. Flight 10.
37:12 - Tariq Malik (Host)
We had January's Flight 7, march's Flight 8, and then Flight 9 was the one that just broke apart, and then Flight 9 was the one that just broke apart, yeah, and so Flight 10 is the one that just blew up on the patent. And all of these started, like what Rod was saying, with lots of new things. They made the ship bigger so that they could have bigger fuel tanks, so that they would have more fuel on board, so that they could do in-flight maneuvers which would allow them to normalize their orbit and actually stay in space, rather than do the kind of suborbital, uh texas to indian ocean flights. So that's number one. They changed that. They changed the, the way that the elevons or canards or whatever they're called, yeah, the shapes of those, those little fins that do the navigation, um, they make them harder so they wouldn't do as much burn through for them, them. They tweaked some of the heat shield design, including building in some intentional burn-through spots to test heat shield stuff. They even added some new active cooling stuff, which I think means that they have coolant going through. Right, they're going to have fluids.
38:14
They changed the brains of the ship. They did some changes to the aft end of the ship, which I think created a lot of problems because it made that vestibule with the pressurized fuel that gets caught inside it, the part that went boom, the TLDRs. They changed a lot of something that had worked six times before, all at one time and then it failed and then it kept failing and it seems like it's different reasons slightly. The first few were because of the gas getting caught in this vegetable thing in the bottom of the, the basement of the of the boot of the ship. Um, but you know this, this, this thing with the tank, if that's what it is, that's a whole other ball of wax. Is it the new tank? Is it different?
38:56 - Rod Pyle (Host)
did they change that? You're talking about the the nitrous, the copv yeah, they come on say COPD. That's not right yeah.
39:03 - Tariq Malik (Host)
So you know, I think that a lot of the pressures here is that they have made big claims for what they're going to use this rocket for Big claims, Especially in terms of timelines In terms of timelines? Yes, because NASA has picked them to land people on the moon. Nasa wants to do that by 2027. Now Remember when it was 2025?
39:23 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Remember when it was 2020, Rod, I remember I think it was going to be 2018, this thing was going to be flying around.
39:28 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Well, yeah, and so I think that there's a lot of factors that are pushing them to say, yeah, we can still make this timeline, but then things keep failing, like you said. By the way, the where's the beef? I do like the Wendy's reference to that old commercial there.
39:41 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I was wondering how many people are going to remember that You're barely old enough.
39:47 - Tariq Malik (Host)
So I think that there's problems, you know, because now you can say flight test failures, I get it, but a failure on the pad when it's just waiting for another test, that's a whole other thing. And so is there an issue that they're flying too much and too fast on two different programs. You know they want to launch, I think, 50 plus rockets from both Vandenberg and Florida. This year they signed on for 50 plus, I think, for Starship too, they want to do 25. I don't know if we're going to get there, you know, but they have a machine Right so they could, they could turn around and say look, we figured it out, we've got a lot of smart people, a lot of smart people there, and this is a company. Now the boss is back in town.
40:30 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, there is that too. We'll see if that makes a difference. I seem to remember the space shuttle was going to fly 54 times a year. Yeah, every two weeks Didn't quite make it.
40:38 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Did not All right the most time. They flew four times, one time, five times. There's one year that they launched six flights, I think so.
40:44 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, or five maybe From Thailand. Thailand we have from my pal, steve Rossi, who is a writer and a former. He's a Hollywood refugee, like I am, and has done many other things. This is a long question. Well, yeah, many other things. This is a long question, well, yeah.
41:06
So he wrote in on facebook and said, hey, uh, you know your your episode. A couple weeks ago you were kind of over this with casey dryer from planetary society. Came on, talk about the budget for nasa and he said uh, you know, you're basically overseeing the demise of our favorite space agency and eulogizing nasa in episode 164 the demise of our favorite space agency and eulogizing nasa in episode 164. And, uh, you were still making jokes. Oh, you were making jokes. We were, yeah, in the episode, not about nasa at that point, but we have our opening segment.
41:33
So he I think he kind of conflated the two, and what I was trying to get across in this answer was that that might have come off a bit weird to him, but you know it's like. So when, when my parents died, it was very difficult time, obviously, but my sister and I have a fairly dark sense of humor together. There's a certain point, when you're going through all this stuff that humor can begin to emerge. Now people around you may look at you and think, wow, they're really horrible people. But when you're surviving years of this thing, that's kind of how you get by. So my feeling was we're kind of getting by watching all this weird stuff happen by just trying to keep a certain amount of lightness about it, or we're just going to like well, yeah, you can laugh or you can cry, they'll park my car in my garage and turn the engine on and wait until I take a nap.
42:22 - Tariq Malik (Host)
You're not supposed to make jokes like that rod. That's what he's talking about. Well, on the phone, that's true.
42:28 - Rod Pyle (Host)
It's exactly what he's saying I kind of can't help myself. So it's kind of like like self-tough love. You know, I don't know. I mean, you know we're as disheartened about this as anybody. Well, I don't know for quite as disheartened as Casey Dreyer.
42:41 - Tariq Malik (Host)
He was pretty, it's dire, it's dire stuff we should also find out how we record those sessions differently.
42:48 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So like we actually talked to Casey before we did the news things and by then we needed True, we needed like a distraction and it's not a fait accompli yet, either I mean this is the proposed budget a fait accompli yet, either I mean this is the proposed budget. Yeah right, senator, still some votes have to go through congress. There's a lot of states with a lot of interests and a lot of money and there's a lot, a lot of ted cruz and things like that that are going to push back. So, as upsetting as it may be, we don't know yet that it's going to be upsetting in the end.
43:16
We're pretty sure it's not going to be great no but, but it might be a $1 billion cut instead of what they're proposing.
43:25 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I think that the the TLDR out there is. We don't mean any harm, steve, you know we, we, we understand your take on it, but you know there's we're trying to be positive to the point that we can right.
43:40 - Rod Pyle (Host)
That's just. Yeah, I think that's fair. I'm going to skip the Jenny Wong question because I'm probably going to like too long about that. Yeah, so let's ask from Alfred Jones. That's good, I don't know.
43:51 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yes Rod.
43:52 - Rod Pyle (Host)
What's it like to work at spacecom? It seems like it could be an exciting job. Is it hectic? Fun? What would fun? What would be your next best choice? Oh, I can kind of answer that because I talk to you every week, yeah, and we talk about the show for about 10 minutes on thursday and then I say how's work? And you go, you don't know the day, and then it's all right, it sounds pretty, pretty tough well, no, it's, it's, it can.
44:13 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It can be stressful, as always, especially when there's like a lot of things happening all at the same time. Uh, but we have a good team. We have the biggest team at spacecom that we've ever had since I've been there, and I've been there for almost 25 years. Actually wait, yeah, 25 years. And and so you know, I think that the, you know the, the evolution of the internet most of your adult life pretty much. Yeah, wow, yeah, so those were 25 years is next year. So I've been there 24 years.
44:40 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I am now doing the longest hell job I've ever had in my 68 years, which is seven years. I've never been anywhere that long before.
44:49 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Someone asked me when I don't know how you can do it.
44:51
Well, I started as an intern. I think people know about that. So I was the intern first and then, when Jim Banky left the company, then I became the, the, the space light writer in 2004. And then I just kind of sat there and made myself indispensable until until you end up getting in charge. Right, yeah, I failed up, if you will. I think is how that works. Um, but uh, but no, the. I think it's exciting, cause there's something new every day, which is great, and there's always something um, and I get to meet a lot of really great people. I'm a more manager thing now. So now it's like juggling schedules for who's covering what conference or launcher, or everyone wants to go to the conference in hawaii, so who gets to actually go, which actually happened one time. And I just said, you guys can fight it out and figure it.
45:34 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I'm not going to get in the middle of that one there it reminds me of, I think there was a zero G flight I was supposed to take. Oh my God, this thing For this video that I did for you. And then the next thing I knew you were taking the zero G flight. I'm pretty sure I made it clear. I spent a week shooting and editing. All right, all right. Okay, I'm not going to argue about that.
45:57 - Tariq Malik (Host)
You know some of those, some of those kids like they work at Northrop Grumman.
46:00 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I know Lockheed and SpaceX, and if I had made better friends with them on that Zero-G flight, they might have taken me up with them.
46:07 - Tariq Malik (Host)
You know what? Zero Gravity Corporation. Yes, I don't think that you have had a live radio show or a podcast recording on your thing, and I know that you're having the first musical expression like a performance art piece. We know that that's coming up, but podcast.
46:26 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So my question is if they had to pick one of us, and mass was a consideration which one of us would go us and who no, if they were between us and they were concerned about mass there's no show without you, rod.
46:37 - Tariq Malik (Host)
You would have to go. Thank you, just so I can stop hearing about it for the next 25 years, we'll be right back.
46:45 - Rod Pyle (Host)
We'll be right back.
46:46 - Tariq Malik (Host)
All right. By the way, I feel no shame as editor-in-chief of the publication for stepping in and saying, yes, I'm going to go on that flight, isn't any editor-in-chief? That's right? Well, because when I was a spaceflight writer and they started in 2005 or 2004 offering those flights, the choice was not given to me to even go to the junket for it. It was given to the multimedia editor at that point.
47:11 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Okay, but of the two of us, who gets more goodies? I've been editing the next magazine for seven years and so far out of it, mainly I've gotten to meet you, for what that's worth.
47:22 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Some would say Priceless.
47:23 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I think yeah, okay, so there's another question here from YouTube, actually, okay, yes, related last topic. Why didn't I feel my chair moving for a minute? That was weird. Related last topic. If SpaceX can't meet their deadlines, are we going to be able to fill the void with New Glenn and Vulcan, or even, dare I mention the very expendable, super expensive SLS? Who's this from? I'm sorry, I'm not sure it says DMS, dms Anthony, who's that from? That's a punk rock name. He's nodding. Yeah, okay, I guess it's from a punk rock thing. What's the answer? Yes, I mean, I wouldn't put a lot of money on vulcan for frequency of flight, but well, we'll have to see for new glenn.
48:15 - Tariq Malik (Host)
We'll see how that goes out. Well, new glenn could surprise you. You know there are reasons that companies go slow and then either they. Either they either go slow because they want to get it right and then once they start getting it right, they always get it right, uh or they problems, and I don't think it's the former, it's the latter for New Glenn. I think they want to get it right and they want to make sure that everything is ready to go.
48:40
It's really funny that you mentioned this about the stuff with Starship, because there was a panel at the recent Mars Humans from Mars to Moon to Mars, the HTM conference, where Blue Origin really just outlined their plans for going to the Moon and how they're doing their Mark 1 lander by the end of this year. And I think that's really telling If you see Blue Origin launch their lander to the Moon and land it this year. The Mark 2, the one for crew, is just a scaled-up version of that. It's not like any substantial departure in terms of a technology. And there was that whole big speech, remember, with Mike Pence in the first Trump administration, where he got up there and told the National Space Council look, it's either moon or bust by any means necessary, which was the wake-up call that boeing may not be you and it may not be you going with your rocket.
49:36
That's taken 18 years. Again, it worked the first time. That's great, right, um, but, uh, but it's on the chopping block right now, so to speak, in terms of uh missions, with, with the budget, and if that, if it does go away and starship is delayed, someone has to fill that void and it's whoever builds the rockets the fastest and the landers the most dependable, the fastest, and that gets there, and it may not be starship, because they have to test more, right so so I have to ask my my question I bring up every time about blue origin, which is is kind of juvenile on my part.
50:09 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Does anybody here have any inside intel on blue origin? Okay, so you live in florida. They got that big plant up at ksc. Every week there's trucks rolling up there and unloading big spools of stainless steel and tanks and machine tools and all this stuff and it's like there's industrial constipation going on.
50:31 - Tariq Malik (Host)
All this stuff is going at the front of the plane. Is it or is it that they're?
50:33 - Rod Pyle (Host)
building it. One little rocket came out the back and it's like where's all this stuff going?
50:38 - Tariq Malik (Host)
For people who haven't ever been down to Canaveral to see Blue Origins factory.
50:44 - Rod Pyle (Host)
it's massive, it's absolutely, but since you got invited inside. Inside I've never been inside. I've never I've pulled over. How do you know?
50:51 - Tariq Malik (Host)
because I drive over there and I pull over the side of the road and I stand there and I scream let me in, let me in. Don't you know who I am? Little, big, little pigs. But no, you can see it. You know, jeff bezos posted like a drone shot of how big it is. It's like a mini. I've never been inside. No, it's like a minion machine. You know what you're talking about. Well, they've shown photos of what it's like inside, showing photos of what they want you to think.
51:15 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I think it's just a big empty building.
51:17 - Tariq Malik (Host)
That's what Rod thinks We'll see. Boeing or Blue Origin, let us in. You've got to prove Rod wrong. I think you've got at least four new glens already built and waiting to fly in there. Rod thinks it's just a bunch of cardboard with, like you know, with rocket R O. K E T on the side, he's just joking blue origin.
51:38 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Please send another check. Okay, back to Jenny Wong. Now it says reading one of your books. Rod, please elaborate on the story about the Saturn V's main engine. Oh, she's reading Innovation the NASA Way 2014. I had that book. Everyone should have that book. Mcgraw-hill Education the Saturn V's engine and how the designers managed to keep it from exploding. Also, why don't they just build new ones? So answer reverse order. A lot of people ask why we don't just rebuild the saturn 5 engine, or the saturn 5 that matter, and the answer is yeah, the engineers. The rumor going uh-uh, it was a revolutionary design for its time, but it is not a revolutionary design for today. It's a functional design. But everything was expendable, everything was custom. Building a saturn 5 engine was essentially a work of creative art. When you say everything was customable, everything was custom. Building a Saturn V engine was essentially a work of creative art.
52:32 - Tariq Malik (Host)
When you say everything was custom, does that mean that each engine was custom made?
52:36 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, they really were. Yeah, the parts were not interchangeable so they had a design that worked for all the F1s. But if you go on to look at the parts, these were handmade by people with incredible skill sets. So two things.
52:50
One, we don't really have the plans to redo. Do those today in the detail we need? In fact, when they wanted to redo the gas generator, um to see, because for a while they were thinking of reviving the saturn 5, they had to go to a museum and pull the gas generator off of there and measure everything and build from that set of blueprints. So there's a lot of just material that's not there. Factual material there's all the people that designed and built it who are either dead or extremely old, and it's an older, inefficient design, so you wouldn't want to redo it. Specific to her question about how they stopped them from blowing up, so this was um rocket dine back in the late 50s, early 60s. The f1 was1 was originally commissioned as an ICBM engine. So they're going to build a rocket with an F-1 or multiple F-1 engines.
53:39 - Tariq Malik (Host)
That's one way to get funding for your space program this is before NASA was involved.
53:43 - Rod Pyle (Host)
This is the Air Force saying yeah, we got to loft nuclear bombs over to Russia and they're big and they're heavy, so we need great, big single chamber rocket engine. So they're working on it. Then the air force said you know what? We changed our mind. We don't need that, after all, because our bombs are small now, and so they had other ways of delivering.
54:00
So nasa picked up the f1 contract to continue developing with rocket dine. So rocket dine is building these massive rocket engines out at santa suzanna in southern California, not far from me. They're firing them and they blow up and they fire it and it blows up and they fire it and it blows up. And these are the days of graph paper and slide rules, right, and really basic computers. So they would go out and pick up the pieces and go, oh, look at that, see how it bent there and try and figure out what went wrong. But they just could not get a hold of it. I don't remember it was a couple hundred of these things. I think that they blew. Do you happen to remember it was a lot? It was a lot of these engines building exploit, kind of like what elon's doing. Yeah, but this is on a you know, government contract and they were sort of running out of time, patience and money.
54:44
So finally, the very clever engineers said, okay, let's get of this, because what was happening was they fired the engine.
54:51
The combustion chamber was so big because it was an order of magnitude bigger than what they'd done before.
54:56
As it turns out, you can't just scale up things that explode bigger and expect them to behave the same way. So they'd fire the fuel down, they'd ignite it and it would start burning. But it would start burning unevenly, so they'd get these acoustic waves crashing back and forth in the combustion chamber and then the whole engine would shake and go kaboom Very spectacular, by the way, to see. So they actually started putting little charges of black powder up inside the combustion chamber. So they would fire the engine, hit this thing, and then they would set up the acoustic vibrations on their schedule and measure what happened. And so, through a combination of redesigning the injector plates this is really getting technical, isn't it and a few other things they were able to, they still had that problem of uneven ignition, but they were able to damp it down to like a couple of milliseconds. And that was just because these guys said basically hey, let's roll a hand grenade in the engine and see what happens at that time.
55:52
So that's the answer to that.
55:54 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I don't think they want to do that for all the new stuff. So not anymore.
55:58 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Okay, here's a question for you. Yeah, apparently from the emergency operating system, from Jenny Carpenter, who is a teenager where can I try on a real space suit and learn more about space flight? And said you've gone to space camp 19 times and practically lived there. Well, it's that question.
56:16 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Base camp is one place you know that you can go around. I've been to like a bunch of side science fairs where they actually have like we're not where nasa goes on tour and they they bring like a glove box there, yeah, and you can actually try on the the gloves and do tasks inside the box. That's really cool and you can see how the gloves work. The gloves are really interesting for spaces because they're they're they're harder to use than you would think and, like astronauts must have like grips of steel to be able to use them when they're pressurized, because I've only used them when they're not pressurized. You know they're astronaut tough.
56:45 - Rod Pyle (Host)
well, that's not on the back of that, that's right.
56:50
If you don't remember that, please go back to our most previous episode and you'll get the whole I wore a space suit Once I was doing executive training at Johnson space center and we'd have people come into like mission control and we'd show Apollo 13 and talk about leadership and all that was really fun. For some reason I can't remember what the exact deal was, but they gave me an apollo era space suit to take in the next day. So I'm back at my hotel, the hampton inn or something, with this million dollar suit okay.
57:19 - Tariq Malik (Host)
So when you said that you wore a space suit, it wasn't like it was like official thing. They just like you had it at the hotel room and you tried it on is what you're getting.
57:29 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yes, so it's a training suit. Now, mind you, astronauts don't look like me, right? So I've got this thing and I'm like I'm practically scraping off skin to get into it, right, I put the helmet on and I kept it on just long enough to look in the mirror and look at myself and think I could have been a contender, and then took it off so I can start breathing again. But I did get a chance and it was a training suit yeah, it was, you know, an al7 or whatever the, the eba suits was.
57:57
It was really like quite a moment, I think. I think that's awesome, I think that sounds great because I know as close as you've come is wearing your space camp jumper uh-huh, that's right, that's right.
58:06 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I still can't fit into either. I still have my no, no, he's right. I still have my no, he's right.
58:12 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You wear it late Saturday nights, right? Oh yeah.
58:17 - Tariq Malik (Host)
That's always the choice. If I ever start for the YouTube channel to do a face cam, maybe I wear the jumper yeah, it fits. It fits better now that I've gone on my diet, so it's good. Both Rod and I are on diets and they're both very successful. How much have you lost 20 pounds.
58:38 - Rod Pyle (Host)
That's almost as good as my 35.
58:40 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I know, I know right, so I'll get there. I'll get there, rod.
58:43 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Okay.
58:44 - Tariq Malik (Host)
But to answer the question, you know you could always go to a work event and steal the space. You take it home, try it on and bring it back the next day, like Rod did or uh, at space camp. They have those kinds of experiences as well, but that's like a whole other big investment that you may not want to spend. Uh, some of the students like they get picked to go on the arm and then they get to wear the special space suit and and and do that. I did not get to do that. I had to keep my friend, uh, sarah, from going space crazy. We had the duct tape to a chair because she could kind of open the hatch in that. Uh, uh, in that scenario, you were dying to do that, aren't you? Well, no, it wasn't my idea. I think that the counselor is the one that told us that we had to do it.
59:25
You know actually what kind of a cool don't okay, don't give rod any ideas, because now he has tape, um. But like I was saying before, like I had gone to like world science festival type, no, no, no, uh type, uh type of events to try on the gloves and I thought that was cool. There was a company and I think they still do it. It was run by teddy southern in in brooklyn, new york, final frontier design, and they actually had a spacesuit experience. It cost money, like a few hundred dollars.
59:56 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Because all those YouTubers got in there and said look spacesuit?
59:59 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, and do you remember Miriam?
01:00:04 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yes, that's the one I was watching.
01:00:05 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, well, she's not a YouTuber. She was on our team and we went there and this just shows. We went there and they, they said who's going to go in the space suit? And I said I think miriam should do it. I could have called dibs on that too, rod, but I'm not fully selfish. It's only when you're involved, is what I'm saying, right? So, uh, but no, so. So for a few hundred dollars, you were able, I think. Maybe, maybe it was like 600 at that point in time, but you were able to put on the suit. They would pressurize it. And there is. In fact, she went to space recently. Right, she has the daughter Delta. She flew on for galactic.
01:00:41 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yes, I don't remember, don't admit, you don't remember.
01:00:47 - Tariq Malik (Host)
So she's actually worn that. I think she wore it to the Explorers Club meeting when they put it on and she had to go and Teddy Southern, the designer of the suit, is walking after her carrying the air conditioning unit. Oh yeah, she doesn't overheat, she can breathe Exactly. It was really, really cool to see that suit there. So that's another option is that there are places you can go that offer that kind of an experience and you can simulate that too with the ones that where they go on the diving expeditions, where they go on those tours and you wear the special helmets, like that's a similar type of a suit to wear, not a space suit, but You're talking about where you basically put the thing on and then go down.
01:01:25
I saw a video that I didn't know that was the thing that you can do, but it looks really cool. It is.
01:01:28 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, it's kind of like snuba. You know you can go diving, but only ten feet. So we have a bunch more questions. We're sort of running short on time, so let me skip down to wizarding on discord. Who?
01:01:41 - Tariq Malik (Host)
is there wizard Ling?
01:01:42 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Wizard Ling comes in fairly often With a series of questions. Any thoughts on whether Issa or maybe India or someone else will step up to partially fill gaps left in NASA funding? Kind of have to. Yeah God, what a horrible thing to have to ask for the mission's planned and now defunded Any news in that regard? So so it's interesting. He asked that because remember we had Rob Manning on the JPL chief engineer. They did cooperate on the Mars orbiter mission from India, which was about a third of what it would cost to do here, because labor costs in India are less and the majority of the workforce for that was women, who they paid even less, no comment there. So that was a tremendously less expensive mission with JPL still doing operations and control. So they have some experience, at least on the robotic side, working internationally.
01:02:34
So I guess the question here is then you? So let's fast forward to Viper. Yeah, right, so the moon volatiles, right? Rover, that's supposed to go out and do prospecting, which is built, which is built and finished and mostly integrated. We know some people that are helping oversee that project. They said, yes, it's ready to go, and then it gets canceled. So you'd expect an international partner to say, well, we'll launch it. I mean, you've got it finished, we have rockets, so why has that happened?
01:03:04 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I think that the answer will come over time. Things are still in flux because the NASA budget's not set yet, and so, because it's not set, there's still hope for things to get turned around so that the cuts either aren't that bad or maybe fiber gets reinstated somehow. Astrobotics still isn't ready to fly, so the lander's still not there, so that may have been an informed choice by NASA, I guess at that point, because it was supposed to launch in October of last year. But as we were talking, I think in the last episode's news roundup, the European Space Agency is looking at what can be done now Because, like you were saying, back then they got jerked around a lot with ExoMars and the fact that we said that we were going to join them on Mars. Then we said we're going to fly them to NASA and now they're pulling out altogether.
01:03:51
Now they don't have a ride to go to Mars now and they have to figure that out. Meanwhile, you know that India has already gone to Mars once. They got a rocket that can do it. Wait what Right? So you could see that kind of cooperation build over time. And there are other agencies that have gone to Mars China is one of them and this is something that could force that kind of collaboration sooner with Europe and others. For that, because of the uncertainty about whether NASA is going to be a good faith partner or not, depending on things.
01:04:29 - Rod Pyle (Host)
And you give it a segue to the next question the uncertainty about whether NASA is going to be a good faith partner or not, depending on things and you give it a segue to the next question. However, I have to comment when I said earlier, dms that was the Dallas Mars Society. That's what I question kept Mars Society Okay. So Wizardling's second question is then we'll try to maybe use this like this is a question as an opportunity to show off their capabilities and spend more on space science missions. I think they're spending plenty on space science missions and they follow through and they plan 10 years at a time and the budgets of the budgets, and it's an autocracy and you just do it.
01:04:57 - Tariq Malik (Host)
China is working with Pakistan to host their first international partner on their Tiangong space station.
01:05:02
They are building a Hubble level space telescope within reach of the Tiangong space station so they'll they'll be able to service it over time. They've already built the world's largest telescope, a radio telescope on on on earth that has a lot of scientists trying to get it and they are the first to bring back samples from the far side of the moon that scientists have to go around us regulations to try to be able to, to, to study over time, which we've talked about as well. The pursuit is there, you know, and I think that it's going to really be up to how both the priorities are set in funding and in prestige on the federal government side and the Trump administration side to say this is what we're going to do and this is why, so that we can maintain the leadership. I will point out that Janet Petro, acting NASA chief, at Paris Air Show this week, talking about how they aim to keep NASA at the forefront of aeronautics research at a time where the budget is going to cut the aeronautics research budget by 40%.
01:06:03 - Rod Pyle (Host)
That seems like kind of a bold claim.
01:06:06 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah. So it's kind of you can't have that cake and eat it too if you're not going to pay for the cake or the ingredients to make the cake, or like the plate to put the cake on when you're done before.
01:06:16 - Rod Pyle (Host)
China does in 2029, which they will do, as I say often, without doubt before the end of October 2029, because that's the 80th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and we are not even close to being on that timeline, in my humble opinion.
01:06:40 - Tariq Malik (Host)
No, probably not. I don't think so. Yeah, I hope I'm wrong. Anybody here think that's wrong Some?
01:06:45 - Rod Pyle (Host)
other player could come up. You're saying with SLS, you know, on the lander, okay, we've got to wrap up here pretty quick. Oh, so Wizardling's last follow-up, which we kind of already answered, is so it comes to one question, I guess Is anyone stepping up to fill the gaps left by NASA's funding being cut? And the answer is no, not so far. Dallas Mars Society follows up by saying if you go on a two-week mission simulation at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah or at Flashline in the Arctic, up to next where I was, the crews have to wear analog simulated spacesuits. So when you're going outside the HAB module you do this simulated. That's for Jenny's question.
01:07:22
He's answering Jenny's question. Yeah, which is true. However, you know that's not a real spacesuit, quote unquote it's kind of like a jumpsuit with a helmet. So I mean you get the simulated experience, but if you're talking about a real space suit, you got to go to space camp jenny, you can build one yourself too and like win a nasa contract finally, aunt pruitt, our old friend who used to be our producing tech, said when is mr malik going to get a functional desk chair?
01:07:45
you've been okay, you've been, you've been tattling. So the background here he's got a really cool Star Trek gaming chair and for the first two years of this podcast he'd be sitting and it's like I don't know how hard is it to replace the wheel, but the wheels would fall out. And the next thing you know you're walking and suddenly there's nobody in the frame because he's falling out of his chair.
01:08:06 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I had it up on blocks for a while so it did not fall over.
01:08:08 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I had it up on blocks for a while, so it did not fall over. I wouldn't call you Mr.
01:08:12 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Technology. I didn't know that you could replace the base of an office chair until what? Two years ago? Because when I did it last year, and that's why you're a reporter.
01:08:21 - Rod Pyle (Host)
And then I did, Because if you built rockets we'd be in real trouble.
01:08:23 - Tariq Malik (Host)
And then now the new replacement is falling apart and the wheels are falling off again and it's just one wheel. And in my defense I thought it was me, because I was a bit heavy and overweight and maybe because I don't remember what the specs were on the chair. You know, it is a gaming chair. I thought they were built for thick folks, but I guess not. And but I lost all that weight and still this is coming up. So I just think that it's a shoddily made chair.
01:08:51 - Rod Pyle (Host)
And so I think that's. That's maybe shoddily made, but they're $900 now.
01:08:55 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, well, they don't make that chair anymore. Well, you can still get it. And the pleather? The pleather comes off too. So for for people who haven't seen it, if you haven't watched our show, the chair is like this teal, blue, like the science colors of Star Trek, and black and white, and it's not real leather.
01:09:14 - Rod Pyle (Host)
There's Star.
01:09:15 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Trek across the back with the logo, and it has the UFP logo on the back. It's very, very nice, but the seat is like all of the little that colored covering is just flaking off now. I mean the chair is like six or seven years old, it's. It's your hair has plastic dandruff, yeah and so so you, you're like I'll get it sticks to you, so you'll get up to go like have a good day or no, I'm like on your, on your pants, and you'll go and have a cup of coffee and then you'll find little flakes of the chair, like like all on the stairs down. It's really weird.
01:09:48
So this sounds like a personal problem well, um, you asked, I did, but the only person I said that the chair was broken is this guy, which means that he's been, he's been speaking out of school and talking about, and talking about things I told him make fun of. I sent him, I sent, I sent him a text message to say the chair broke again and and and that is the only person that I did so and I know who you've been talking to.
01:10:13 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So yeah, no, actually I think we talked about it a show a couple of days ago. Does anybody have anything else they'd like us to discuss?
01:10:21 - Tariq Malik (Host)
well, of the 50 people in this room, I want to say that alan is here and I really appreciate alan, uh, coming in from Charlotte, north Carolina, right, because Alan told me Was he the guy.
01:10:34 - TWiT.tv (Announcement)
Yeah, this is Alan.
01:10:37 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Alan, you've given meaning to our lives.
01:10:40 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Thank you for that.
01:10:40 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I was talking to Alan in a panel earlier. He interested himself in me and I just wanted to thank you for coming not just to the show but also to ISDC, because he said that he came here in partners.
01:10:51 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Tens of thousands of listeners.
01:10:53 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Because he heard us on the show and thought it would be a fun conference to come to. Thank you very much, Alan.
01:10:59 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So I have a question for you. Oh, yes, sir.
01:11:03 - TWiT.tv (Announcement)
I'm proud of the next launch it's going to be out of.
01:11:05 - Rod Pyle (Host)
KSC Well it's not. Sunday. I can tell you that it's not Kennedy anymore. So Dave Dresser's question is next launch out of KSC and my understanding was there was nothing for the rest of the week. There wasn't an Atlas scheduled for Monday. I don't know if it went or not.
01:11:21 - Tariq Malik (Host)
No, the Atlas is the Corporate 2 launch and it's not official yet and since they had the glitch from the first attempt, it sounds like it may not actually happen because it's not on the docket yet and I can't believe there's a whole week without SpaceX launching.
01:11:36
At least there's gotta be, at least there was a Starlink, that there was a Starlink that was slated for Sunday, like a like one in the morning, okay so, but we went into this, we went, we went into this day thinking there were going to be like two launches today and, I think, two more over the weekend, and it sounds like it's all crickets from here on out. Ax4, they announced yesterday, was going to be delayed indefinitely because of the leak on the space station.
01:11:57 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Right, which is interesting.
01:11:59 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, which we'll have to talk about a little bit more because it's a bigger deal than we thought it was going to be.
01:12:03 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Okay, so I have a question for you guys In 10, in 10 seconds or less, and this is for a space 2.0 unworn t-shirt from my night 2019 book space 2.0. I don't even have one. Did I promote this enough? Who is the sixth man on the moon? Real quick again, nope nope, wow, really, I'm shocked. Huh Alan Shepard, dave Dressler, you are a winner. That's the second t-shirt you've got from me on this trip okay huh, oh, you're right it, it's Ed Mitchell.
01:12:50 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Oh no, Give the shirt back.
01:12:52 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You guys are going to have to share the shirt. The space historian got the space. I want to thank everybody for joining us today for episode number 166. Wait, 165 or 66? I got it wrong 66, isn't it?
01:13:10 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Because that's where we get our kicks. Yeah.
01:13:12 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, that we like to call from the swamps. Live from the International Space Development Conference in Orlando, florida. Live Woo Tarek. Where can we continue to follow your amazing career? So I hear online.
01:13:25 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, well, you can find me at spacecom, as always, on the Twitter, with the X and the blue sky, at tarik j malik, on youtube, at spacetron plays, if you want fortnite because he's trying to make a a retirement plan yeah, that's right video game, that's right that's right. That's right. We got new new um, a new season of fortnite festival, uh, lots of new updates for the summer and okay let me just take a quick break.
01:13:49 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Here we have isaac arthur in the back of the Isaac hello. So Isaac Arthur is the national space society president. He's also a youtube phenom with do you have a million subscribers, yet only 820? Only 820 000. That's close to what we're getting, so you know how to make a living off this stuff. So he's playing Fortnite yes, and Fallout 76.
01:14:20 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Soon to be Outer Worlds.
01:14:28 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So what do you think the chances are that's a good 401k plan for him, or playing Fortnite on YouTube to make a living. You'd be shocked how many people want to watch? People just play games.
01:14:36 - Tariq Malik (Host)
You'd be shocked, Rod. I am shocked From the expert himself.
01:14:43 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I was afraid you were going to come over and support his point of view. Okay, well, there we go and always remember you can drop us a line at twis, at twittv. That's T-W-I-S at twittv. We welcome your comments, suggestions and ideas anytime and I will answer your email, because Tarek doesn't read his.
01:15:03 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I answered Daniel's email. Yeah, you answered. Daniel says that I have really horrible timing on the headline news ding because of the delay and I said well, hope, well, we saved you this week because we forgot to run it.
01:15:15 - Rod Pyle (Host)
New episodes of this podcast published every Friday on your favorite podcatcher, so make sure to like, subscribe, tell your friends, give us reviews. We'll take five stars or a thumbs up or a tongue sticking out or whatever you got, because we love you and we want you to love us. You can also head to our website, twittv, slash twist, which is what I was trying to say, and don't forget, don't forget, don't forget we're counting on you to join Club Twit in 2025.
01:15:47
Besides supporting the Twit Network, you'll help keep us on the air and bringing you great guests and horrid space jokes, and you can get all the great programming with video streams on the Twit Network ad-free on Club Twit For only Anthony. It's not $7 a month, $10 a month For only $10 a month Was $7, it's $10. Sign up now because it'll only go up and you can follow the TwitTech Podcast Network at Twit on Twitter and on Facebook and Twittv on Instagram. Thank you, my friend, thank you Rod, thank you audience of hundreds, percentage of hundreds, and thank you out there in podcast land and on all the live streams we're on, anthony, what is the full uh list of of live streams that we go out on now?
01:16:42 - Anthony Nielsen (None)
uh, so discord. Youtube twitch x. Linkedin facebook link.
01:16:48 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You say tiktck, wow. No, you didn't say tick tock. Okay, is that one more a kick? That's a lot of here on kick yeah, I know people on kick yeah, all right, thanks everybody, we'll see you next time.
01:17:03 - TWiT.tv (Announcement)
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