This Week in Space 168 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, NASA has a new chief, there's an interstellar icy visitor from beyond, and what's up with that big beautiful shuttle plan to move Discovery from the Smithsonian to Texas? We'll find out, so listen in.

0:00:21 - Rod Pyle
This is this Week in Space, episode number 168, recorded on July 11th 2025. Survivor NASA. Hello and welcome to this Week in Space, the Survivor NASA edition. I'm Rod Pyle, editor-in-chief of Ad Astor magazine. I'm joined by my fellow space worrywart, Tariq Malik, editor-in-chief of space.com. How are you partner?

0:00:44 - Tariq Malik
I'm doing well, Rod. How are you?

0:00:45 - Rod Pyle
doing today? Well, I'm okay. I've missed you for two weeks, since we were hanging out in Orlando and me getting COVID and you not getting COVID.

0:00:53 - Tariq Malik
I did not, I did not, my dad did. Yeah, sorry about that. I know he shook your hand. You're the super spreader.

0:01:00 - Rod Pyle
Rod, it's possible, although the timing as I worked out, the timing when I got it, when other people got it, probably wasn't me, but it could have been.

0:01:08 - Tariq Malik
It's not as if there weren't like seven other conferences going on at the same time.

0:01:11 - Rod Pyle
Yeah, so for those who might, have missed our on-site edition of the show. We did a live podcast from Orlando, florida, for the International Space Development Conference where Tariq got his Space Pioneer Award. It's right here. Fun was joined by all. Oh, let's see it. Where is it? It's right here, you can see it. Well, hold it up so we can see your, your fancy, copper, copper mars pewter mars I love it.

0:01:35 - Tariq Malik
I love it. There is finally the groupies. I know I'll put it right back where it goes, so yeah, so we both have one, we both have Mars globes.

0:01:46 - Rod Pyle
But it was great fun and a few of you showed up to be in our live audience. Now I just want to Tanya yeah, I just want to Our massive live audience. I just want to say up front here Well, I guess it's behind that. We had intended to be in a more traditional setting but because getting a single Ethernet wire into that room costs $1,000 a day at that hotel, we were forced to set up in the operations room, so it was a little ad hoc. We were behind a table, there were some chairs pulled up, a few people walked in looking around like this is where they're doing their thing.

But everybody enjoyed it and, just as importantly, the National Space Society leadership enjoyed it and said please next year, do this formally, we'll get you an auditorium and blah, blah, blah or something along those lines. So for those of you who did make it, thanks very much for coming. We have more Space 2.0 shirts for next time and we'll dress it up more and get you finger sandwiches or something. And for those that didn't come, shame on you, make it a priority. All right, today we're going to dive into headlines because it's been a while since we've done that we kind of did it.

0:03:02 - Tariq Malik
Well, it's been a bit of a whirlwind of a week too.

0:03:04 - Rod Pyle
Yeah, it's been like on fire the last couple of weeks. But before we start, as always, don't forget to do a solid, make sure to like, subscribe and the other good podcast things to keep us on the air. And now a space joke from my fellow national space society heavyweight Dave Dressler. Dave hey Tariq. Yes, Rod Einstein had a theory about space and it was about time too I get it.

We got the laughing mouse all right now. I've heard that some people want to pull us out of space time when it's joke time on this show, but you can help send us your best, worst or most indifferent space joke at twisttv. And now on to the headlines on an episode we like to call survivor NASA jammer b says that was a thing. Thanks a lot. All right, so yes, I took off my safari hat, because here we are now.

0:04:33 - Tariq Malik
So by golly, what a whirlwind it's been. It's been like a week, I thought it was over. And then yesterday there was a whole Senate thing and everything too. That was kind of a bombshell, wasn't it?

0:04:41 - Rod Pyle
I know right, it would have been talked about, but I don't think any of us believed it would happen.

0:04:45 - Tariq Malik
Yeah, there's some stuff too, it's not through yet.

0:04:47 - Rod Pyle
But so in your mind, just before we jump into that, what do you think the odds are? We'll get the extra money.

0:04:52 - Tariq Malik
Oh yeah, Do we, are we going to mention, do we have to mention the bombshell? First Are we not going to talk about the? So there's a fight right now on Capitol Hill to give NASA more money than what Trump wants to give NASA Well and more money than we've seen since.

0:05:08 - Rod Pyle
In relative terms, since like 1966.

0:05:12 - Tariq Malik
Yeah, so I mean that's loggerheads, if you have to find an example of what it is right now, and I think it's going to be a bit of a fight to see where they can get, because there's folks in the House, representatives in the House, that really want those budget cuts and everything. And if the Senate saying they want to give more in the house is saying no, I don't know how they get anywhere. And then of course, you know we've been under a CR for how many, how many years continue resolution yeah, I mean like forever so

0:05:39 - Rod Pyle
so we'll see if they ever get it so you know, the weird thing about this is and we'll talk more about it but you're looking at the white house under trump, who started the most recent back to the moon program, which was kind of a continuation of constellation back in the aughts, um, the artemis program. They say, yeah, we're going back to the moon, no, we're not giving you money to do it. Yeah, so that's weird. And then you know, it steps up this, this senate, I mean, and they've got, you know, valid motivation. They've got districts who want money, depending on what state you're in, but it is spread out over many, many states.

And and the puzzling part to me is you've got this back to the white house who says we're going to beat china the moon. You know we don't like china very much. He's says we're going to beat China the moon. You know we don't like China very much, he's a dictator. We're going to show them that capitalism and democracy rules and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but we're not going to spend the money to do it. And then you've got the Senate saying, well, yeah, we'll spend the money. So I wonder, do you think it's possible, because of the way Trump operates, that maybe there was a thought there and maybe some back channel conversation about look, I'm going to say I want the budget cut. You guys go ahead and put the money back so I don't look bad and all is fair.

0:06:55 - Tariq Malik
No, I mean, I think that there's a lot of posturing on like cutting the budgets, just to say that we're going to cut the expenditures, the budgets, just to say that we're going to cut the expenditures.

But I do believe that they were serious, that it wasn't like we're just going to do this so that people see it, but we'll roll it back again later on. And you mentioned something about not giving NASA the money. What they were doing in that initial budget, it wasn't that they weren't going to give it for exploration, it's that they were going to redistribute everything and cut the science out so that they would pay for the exploration part of it. So I think that I mean there's, of course, there's talks about all the Artemis stuff, about shutting down SLS after Artemis III and all of that. That would be significant cuts. But I think that you could make a case that said that they were trying to shift everything towards exploration, you know, even though they were going to gut like the only rocket they built to do it, uh, right now.

0:07:49 - Rod Pyle
So I don't know well, that my head is spinning from this week rod so I'm trying to like find out what the objectionable is, you know?

oh, we can cut sls because we love elon and he's got a big rocket that'll be working soon but then we don't, but then we don't love it, and then we hate Elon and we're never going to use that, but we're still not going to give money for the SLS, which, I will just remind everybody, is the moon rocket that we have and this is the tariff president, right. So we've seen this brinkmanship, this kind of seemingly arbitrary stuff. So I think the smart money here is to put a tariff on the moon.

0:08:27 - Tariq Malik
There you go, there you go. The sad part is, I wish this was all like a new thing for this term. Obviously, we saw a big push for space in the first administration, but remember we've talked about this before.

0:08:41 - Rod Pyle
The first Trump administration.

0:08:42 - Tariq Malik
The first, yeah, the first Trump administration. But back in 2004, we were there when they unveiled Constellation and said that this was going to get us to the moon by 2020, no less, you know, and it's going to cost $100 billion. And then, at the same time, congress still never gave them the money to do that.

0:08:59 - Rod Pyle
Well, but to be fair, it may be the remnants of Constellation that does get us to the moon, except for the Altair lander.

0:09:06 - Tariq Malik
But the point was that the problem it's the same problem. Nasa is saying it's going to cost this much, Congress and the administration at that time not really putting the money where their mouth was to say that it was important. And then administrations change and priorities change and then we go through the dance over and over and over again.

0:09:25 - Rod Pyle
Whereas China just says here's what we're going to do for the next 10 years. Any questions? Okay, shoot him.

0:09:30 - Tariq Malik
Good Moving on. Oh, you're going to get us sued, Rod.

0:09:37 - Rod Pyle
China can't sue for that kind of thing. All right, let's go to a quick break and we'll be right back to talk about the maybe sort sort of kind of new NASA interim administrator. Stand by. So so it's only been a few weeks since jared isaacman was pulled from consideration, which, as far as I know, never happened before, at least not at that short a juncture before it's supposed to happen. So he will not be our nas administrator.

Janet Petro, who is a longtime KSC official, had been thrust into that role. Is that me? What was that? That's our timer, it's okay. And so she had been filling it, I think you know she kind of had to toe the line between being as responsible as possible towards NASA's priorities and also responding to the White House priorities, and she kind of appeared to fall in line as not a Trump supporter but a Trump policy enabler when it came to NASA. Enabler, um, when it came to nasa. And then out of the blue comes a an appointment of a new interim NASA administrator, sean duffy. I was in a meeting with a bunch of national space society heavyweights when this news came out, which I informed them and to a person they said who, sean deffrey duffy, the secretary of the department of transportation that's right. That's right, it's a wednesday night, that you know.

0:11:11 - Tariq Malik
So we we always record these on fridays normally, and this actually happened wednesday night and so, uh that that it went out and I tell you. So NASA now has their first reality tv show star alum chief with Sean Duffy. Kill me with a spoon. I had to do a crash course to actually understand who he was and luckily, like Mike Wall, our spaceflight editor has a great roundup of Duffy. Obviously he's a transportation cabinet secretary, a former CNN, I think, like a, like a, like a pundit, right fox, fox or fox cnn so that's that's like 180 degrees off.

Well, apparently he was. Also he was. He was a political commentator on on cnn and he was obvious.

0:11:57 - Rod Pyle
Yeah, oh, that I didn't see. Yeah, and and so reality tv star fox tv star uh congress right, he was in congress congressman and wisconsin right and then, possibly most importantly, uh, widely perceived as a trump loyalist, which is probably what got you forgot you forgot uh, uh, uh, world-class, uh.

0:12:21 - Tariq Malik
title holder in logging in like lumberjack sports, because he grew up doing that as a kid.

0:12:28 - Rod Pyle
So yeah, he has titles. It's awesome. That part is pretty awesome. Vladimir Putin, you can see me riding my horse with my muscles going.

0:12:37 - Tariq Malik
But it's interesting because it doesn't. Reading through his career and again, I'm sure that you've seen, if you follow NASA, a lot of overviews of who Sean Duffy is. But Mike Wall has a really good rundown of his career. Overall you don't see a lot of. I think space is great and I'm going to really get into the nitty gritty of it of an interest he has had career-wise in space or space exploration. Or, if there just wasn't anyone there and this is an appointment of convenience which would make a lot of sense to just say, hey, I've got this guy. He's very supportive of my policies with transportation. He's doing some work on FAA safety enhancements and stuff. In the wake of the troubles that we've been having, especially in New Jersey, he's got a lot of work ahead of him.

Yeah, and so you know we'll give him NASA on the interim basis so that we can have somebody in charge regularly. Janet Petro can go back to KSC which she has done this week to oversee the space center there, and then you know they can proceed with the administration's plans for NASA, which you know from a budgeting appointment. You know we were just talking about that not great From a staffing appointment. Not that great either. We've got some news on that today this week from Politico too, to talk about. Move on the isaac from the israelian discussion, because we saw that come to a head over the weekend again with trump complaining about isaac man, uh, and I guess his democratic donations. Again isaac been shot back saying hey, it was never a surprise, it was always in the document for a year yeah, yeah and so can I just jump in for a second?

yeah of course.

0:14:21 - Rod Pyle
So there's there's two schools of perception that I'm hearing from the pundits I talk to. One is oh good, they finally brought somebody in to oversee the dismantling and destruction of the space agency we created and love over the last 60 years. And on the other side, well, he's a cabinet-level guy, he's got access to the president, he can lift his phone and call him up. He doesn't have to go through a switchboard to get to him. Blah blah, blah blah. So maybe there's there's something there.

But one of the big questions, as scooter x pointed out, discord is how the hell is this guy going to run dot, which is already stressed to the limits and understaffed, and nasa? So on the dot side, they've got, you know, rebuilding, faa, infrastructureaa infrastructure, bridges and rail, which of course, trump said oh, he's going to build beautiful bridges. I don't really care if they're pretty, I kind of care if they don't fall apart when I'm driving over them. So there's a lot going on there. And then to hand him the premier space agency on the planet Earth which has, even if they get the increase, it's still only about 70% of Space Force's budget. And I'm sorry, but Space Force they've got some build-out to do, which is understandable. They don't fly people, so why are they getting 30% more money than NASA does and, in best best estimates, or about double what NASA does in the leanest estimates? This this is not okay.

0:15:46 - Tariq Malik
Yeah, I don't know, I don't know, I don't have an answer for you because this again, I'm trying to figure out how this is going to work. So I see the argument that he'll be there in the cabinet meetings and can say this is what we're doing at NASA, this is what we need for whatnot but hey.

0:16:03 - Rod Pyle
China's going to land on the moon next week.

0:16:05 - Tariq Malik
Did you guys want to try and, you know, maybe get there too yeah, you know the, the or, or, or, you know how about this, this, this, this black hole, um, uh, research that we have to to get out before someone else gets it out, you know, and then they become the first to take a picture of xyz I don't't know, you know, but it's. Or how about we honor our partnerships and actually fly Europe's Moon rover, or?

0:16:30 - Rod Pyle
Mars rover. So I just commissioned an article from a space journalist we both know we'll see if he decides to do it about. I want to talk to ESA and others, maybe JAXA as well, and say how do you guys feel about this? Because if I were you, I wouldn't trust us as far as I could spit, because we keep backing out of programs that we commit to and China doesn't.

0:16:54 - Tariq Malik
It's funny. You should say that because one of our writers, Daisy Dobrydzevic, just got back from the ESA Living Planet Symposium in Vienna and heard a good amount from scientists there who are saying, yeah, we have to step up because the US isn't going to do it anymore. And one of my writers heard at AAS that a lot of scientists are getting calls from overseas saying, hey, if you're not getting the stuff you need in the US, we've got needs for scientists like you, you know, and that brain drain and you've got work for the military I mean civilian program in China.

Yeah, that brain drain is going to be real, so you know.

But the other thing, the thought that's ringing in my mind from this naming, is that is it that they're in a normal process, like without all of these layoffs that have been going on?

Would it have been that there was enough folks kind of keeping the ship running that you could have like that mouthpiece in the cabinet you know that mouthpiece administrator in the cabinet that would help steer things, get the money or whatever sorted and whatnot, while the long-term uh agency you know staff, you know just kept everything proceeding properly and on on track?

I could see that argument if there weren't these mass like push to get people out uh of the agency and I mentioned it earlier, but we could talk about it now a little bit. You Politico has a report that says something like 2,000, 2,100 senior level management type or senior level expertise type employees are leaving NASA, either through reductions, through deferred resignations, through early retirements from that push, because they don't want to be there anymore, or the agency has pushed them out through these layoff efforts and that is a substantial loss of expertise when you're trying to do these big things like go to the moon and everything spread across the different centers. I guess they all have headcount targets to reduce. I didn't know that until reading that piece how specific they were, something like 500 people at Johnson, 500 people at KSC.

0:19:10 - Rod Pyle
And that's a lot at an organization that size, especially when you're talking about senior level. I mean, I was talking to some JPL friends a few days ago and the place is like a morgue. And of course, on top of this, on top of all this stuff, they're doing a review of jpl's management by caltech and that was very alarming to a number of us, basically saying, hey, we're putting out this is nasa, we're putting out a request, a request for information, not an rfp, not a request for proposals, but a request for information, which basically means they want you to come in and give them advice for free and then they ignore you and you never hear from them again, because I've been through that process a couple of times. But a request for information about who should run JPL and how. Now Caltech's been running JPL since it was JPL.

Nasa came in in the fifties and conjoined, but I think it was fifties, early sixtiess, early 60s. But because of its history, caltech still ran it for NASA. Now that's the only field center that works that way and I can understand why people have some reservations. But it's created this very unique collegiate culture up there that I think to some people possibly including some people at NASA headquarters. It's elitist and, like you know, northeastern kind of blue elitist kind of thing.

Well, it's where they dare mighty things right, but it's created this culture that you know NASA did very well overall during the Apollo years, but since then there's been a struggle. The stuff you see JPL do and I'm a little biased, but I mean when you've got rovers that work for 15 years, when you've got orbiters that work for longer close to 20, when you've got Voyagers coming up on 50 years you have to respect what they do. Is it inexpensive? No, is it reasonable? It depends on how you look at it, does it work?

It is simply remarkable and it's the envy of the entire planet. Remarkable and it's the envy of the entire planet. So, to gut a place like that yeah, there's a few senior managers I can think of that. Probably it's it's beyond time for them to consider retirement, but those aren't the ones that are going to leave, they're going to keep their paychecks as long as they can I should know two things.

0:21:18 - Tariq Malik
Number one when rod says that he might be biased because he worked there at at caltech and jpl for a number of years. Well, partly that and partly because I I just want to mention we saw that at NASA Watch, which is doing a fine job tracking all of these things that is coming down from management, from management and from the agency, the directors that they're getting. So you know, hat tip to NASA Watch and Keith there for that spot.

0:21:46 - Rod Pyle
Who's able to extract and pass along the ugliest of news. Okay, speaking of ugly news, let's go to a break and we'll be back to talk about the big, beautiful shuttle. Stand by, it's going to be big, it's going to be beautiful, it's going to be the most amazing shuttle you ever saw and everybody knows it. It's going to shuttle you ever saw and everybody knows it. So part of the big, beautiful bill included 85 million dollars, which is a drop in the bucket to move the space shuttle discovery from the smithsonian udvar hazy center in dc oh, you're flying one that's cool to um, to mention, not on camera to to houston. So this came from ted cruz and cornyn, right? Yeah?

0:22:30 - Tariq Malik
ted cruising and and and I have my reenactment. So here is the space shuttle in this input in the swissonian and the big beautiful bill says here's 85 million. We're going to grab this and we're going to take it all the way over here and put it in texas except that we don't have a shuttle carrier plane anymore. We don't, we don't, yeah, maybe we can do it by truck?

0:22:49 - Rod Pyle
Oh, that'll cost $2 billion. Maybe we'll do it by barge? Oh, that's very dangerous. Oh, we hadn't thought of that. And, by the way, that $85 million isn't just to move it, it's to create a place for it to live at space center houston, yeah, which is going to cost a fortune. And if I may add one more opinion, then I'm going to cut you loose on this. If you have tracked how space center houston which I love, they're a great place have treated the saturn v they have, which is over on the campus of, uh, the johnson space flight center.

You know it sat outside for 35, 40 years really decaying, and then they finally put it in a building, which is fine, but it was basically.

If you've seen those ads for the general metal shed, you know they bought a big metal shed, dropped it on top and said here you go, it does protect it, but it's a rotten way to display something as remarkable as Saturn V. Ksc did it much better and I realize there are financial constraints and all that, but what does that bode for a space shuttle compared to say what Los Angeles is doing, displaying?

0:23:58 - Tariq Malik
a launch configuration.

Yeah, so yeah for folks. We've talked around it, but we haven't really specifically talked about the details. But the Big, beautiful Bill, which is this massive, what is it called? A policy bill for the administration. It has all these different directives and laws in it for what the Trump administration wants to do and, as part of that kind of omnibus package, ted Cruz and Corwin of Texas included this measure that would set aside $85 million for the move of Discovery. Discovery is the most flown space shuttle when it comes to museums, which means that the Smithsonian kind of is keeping it as pristine as possible as if it just stopped on the runway after its final flight in 2011.

0:24:51 - Rod Pyle
And, if I may say, it's the space shuttle that I got to get aboard and sit in the commander's seat of back in 1997.

0:24:58 - Tariq Malik
They never let me touch anything. Thank you for bringing you know what. That's so much better than flying on the zero G flight. I knew you were going to go there. It's so much better, and you keep lording that one over me. But that's all I've got.

0:25:11 - Rod Pyle
Well, and you have more people coming to your website than we have reading our magazine or coming to our website. You get a far better paycheck than a certain editor in chief. I know you command the respect of the world and get invited to all these cool things.

0:25:26 - Tariq Malik
I'm lucky if I get some stale donuts for free you know. Well, maybe if they move the shuttle they'll let me touch it. Finally, I don't know, I don't know. That sounds a little creepy the way you say it. Well, well, that's what I'm trying to say. I just want to touch it. Yeah, well, the way that they kind of chose, as I recall, because it was really interesting to watch, is that all of these, the Smithsonian, you know, would get kind of like the initial nod, to showcase as the National Museum of things.

0:26:01 - Rod Pyle
That's where the Wright Brothers plane is, that's where Station One is To be clear, as I recall, once something of NASA's comes back to Earth by charter, doesn't it automatically revert to ownership by the Smithsonian?

0:26:16 - Tariq Malik
Well, when they retired the program, when they delivered it to the Smithsonian, it's like it's. It's like if all like. Like with all the museums, it's like theirs now.

0:26:26 - Rod Pyle
Right, I mean. What I'm saying specifically to the Smithsonian is Apollo capsules, you know, unused engineering twins for the robotic probes and so forth. Basically, when NASA says we don't need this anymore, first rights go to Smithsonian and if they take it, they now have ownership and or possession of it permanently.

0:26:54 - Tariq Malik
Yeah, if they take it, then they. But it's also with like Enterprise at the Intrepid and Atlantis at KSC, visitors to Complex and Endeavor at California Tennis Center. Once they have it, they have it right. It's theirs. It's theirs. It's theirs. As I understand it and I was talking to our historian friend Robert Perlman about it today like what you're saying is like that's accepted. You know they accept it. Nasa signs it over to them. It's like you're signing over a car that you sold so that you can get a new car, except that in our case, if our new car is not a a nice giant, winged, reusable space plane, that's a bunch of capsules and a rocket that took, you know, 18 years to to build anyway.

Um, so, um, not that I'm salty about that at all well, can I just insert a point real quick yeah.

0:27:40 - Rod Pyle
Yeah, yeah. So the crews in Coronet are like, okay, texas deserves, houston deserves its own space shuttle. Damn it, you sent one to LA, you sent one to New York, et cetera, et cetera. We want ours. Oh wait a minute, texas, you have the full fidelity mock-up shuttle called Independence used to be called Explorer at Space Center Houston, already on top of one of the two shuttle carrier planes. It's virtually indistinguishable to the lay eye from any of the other shuttle orbiters and it's already sitting on top of this very specialized plane, one of the two that would have been able to carry it discovery back to texas, where they still flying, which they're not. You have a shuttle. It's really it's. It's big, it's beautiful and it's got a gantry so people can walk inside of that one, which you can't do with the other ones yeah, yeah, yeah, you can walk inside it.

0:28:35 - Tariq Malik
I think you can go inside the carrier plane too I haven't seen that exhibit uh at all. I haven't had the chance to go inside it looks really cool.

0:28:41 - Rod Pyle
I've seen it from the outside. But yes, you can go into both decks of the shuttle or see both decks of the shuttle from a gantry walkway which is an interesting thing, and then you can go all the way through the carrier plane.

0:28:53 - Tariq Malik
Yeah, as you pointed out earlier, there are two of those carrier planes that we built, that NASA built, and one of them is there at Johnson Space Center. The other one, I think, is in Edwards Is that where it's not called Edwards anymore At Armstrong.

0:29:06 - Rod Pyle
I think, Armstrong but it's Mothball.

0:29:08 - Tariq Malik
I could be wrong, I could be wrong. Oh yeah, it's been Mothball and so we don't use that anymore. And there's equipment that they used to build to put the shuttle on top of that. They don't have that. It to build to put the shuttle on top of that they don't have that. It takes like five cranes to do, and so there's a lot of questions about where you would do it and how you would transport it and get it across. I mean, it took forever to get those shuttles on the ground. Streets like the from the LAX to California Science Center like it, go up a whole, a whole bunch of streets they had to cut down like major, yeah, removing lampposts are cutting down trees when it was here remove pieces of buildings when it was here in New York, when they, when they, when they delivered enterprise to New York, it was at the the airport forever.

Then they put it on a barge and then it had to come all the way over. Then they had these huge cranes.

0:30:06 - Rod Pyle
It was crazy but at least they didn't have to drive it through the streets of manhattan yeah, oh my gosh I would imagine wow um that taxi driver's honking behind it the whole

0:30:16 - Tariq Malik
time. So 85 million dollars is not going to cover like of that Backing it out of the hangar that it's in at the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Center, transporting it across somehow, getting it from wherever it lands to the Johnson Space Center and then building whatever building they need. It's not going to cover that at all. Maybe they think they're going to get more money later in the future. It's not clear. But the last thing you want to do is start it halfway, run out of money and then it's just stuck outside or in a shed or whatever for years, which is what happened at the california science center.

0:30:54 - Rod Pyle
We got endeavor. It sat in a metal shed for what? 15 years, 12 years, um, with plans to do something better. So they have now done this something better. They excavated and are building this big, fantastic building that will display it in launch mode with an external tank and solid rocket boosters. They're not going to have vapor coming out of all the vents, which I had asked for, but they said it seems like you can't afford.

0:31:21 - Tariq Malik
That seems like a no-brainer. I mean, they could add that later.

0:31:23 - Rod Pyle
Well, because they'll add it in post right, a living, breathing thing, yeah yeah um, but that structure alone and the engineering and design for it, I think, is up close to 200 million dollars. Yeah, and they're 85 million they're going to get that won't even pay for the move. Leaves it sitting. I bet you money sitting outside or in a even pay for the move. Leaves it sitting. I bet you money sitting outside or in a tent building for the next 15 years while they figure out what to do.

0:31:46 - Tariq Malik
Yeah and the same is true here in New York, because Enterprise was supposed to be on its own special barge. Next to they have a submarine at the Intrepid, encased in glass and visible from both sides of the river. Where it is Right now it's on top of the Intrepid in what was initially like it's a temporary shelter that has since become permanent that is protected with the corrugated metal Isn't that convenient.

0:32:12 - Rod Pyle
Oh, that's what we really meant to do.

0:32:14 - Tariq Malik
We'll just call it permanent. Yeah, and that one got damaged during Superstorm Sandy. The tail got damaged because of the structure on top, the tail of the orbiter, of the orbiter, yeah, the very top, the vertical stabilizer. Pardon me for calling it a tail, I apologize. So there's a lot of open questions about it. Now, there was a development yesterday and we've got another line, john, for this, if you've got room to share, it is line 26. And this came up during a Senate committee appropriations hearing the day before we recorded this episode.

0:32:59 - Rod Pyle
Look, a whole page of text.

0:32:59 - Tariq Malik
we recorded this episode. Look a whole page of text. Well, the part to call out is I believe it was Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, during this budget markup, and he says that this bill, this transfer bill of discovery. He says, and I quote according to Robert Perlman at Clark Space, it's not a transfer, it's a heist. A heist by Texas because they lost the competition 12 years ago. Robert said that no, dick Durbin, senator, dick Durbin, come on man.

So like they are trying to take the money out right from this, bring the Space Shuttle Home Act that is in the Big Beautiful Bill and say like we're not going to do this and as part of so, they're talking actively about pushing against that that act right now. Um, how they do that, I'm not sure, because now that act is law right, because trump signed the big beautiful bill on july 4th, which which I think means they have to execute it, uh, right now, unless congress changes the law which I guess they can do as well to pull it out. I'm a little murky. Somebody please listening out there, explain how they would do that to me. So we'll see what happens.

But I mean, that's some strong language, it's a heist, and so we'll have to see what happens in the weeks to come, because the feasibility thing about it is it alone that ownership point that you brought up earlier could lead the Smithsonian to sue. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen there, but I guess we're trying to see where the chips are going to fall, because they don't seem that they're already done.

0:34:42 - Rod Pyle
You see, the little, the little brush, fire and discord jammer. You say and sue them, take it to court, yeah. And you say you mean a law, just like the tick tock ban. Yeah, speaking of bans, we need to go to a commercial. There's no conjunction there. Sorry, we're right back. Stand by.

0:34:58 - Tariq Malik
Well, that was a we, if we sound real salty. I'm sorry. I just think it's a stupid idea to move the space shuttle out out of the smithsonian. It's just, it's like dumb, but that's well and it comes.

0:35:12 - Rod Pyle
You know, in other times it might not be quite so contentious, but it comes after a year at least. If you're in the trade of reporting this stuff, I mean, I feel like I've been through hurricane sandy. It's just this constant battering of they did what he said, what huh, what's happening? Oh, we're not going to get back to the moon. Okay, I guess I should have expected that. Wait what? They're cutting the budget, but they want to get.

0:35:34 - Tariq Malik
Well, maybe with duffy, like their, things will be a little bit more laser beam, like, the messaging will be clearer.

0:35:40 - Rod Pyle
I don't know we may not like it, but at least it might.

0:35:43 - Tariq Malik
Yeah, we may not like it, but at least it'll be like a clear picture of what's happening next story.

0:35:48 - Rod Pyle
It came from outer space. Oh, it's a good this is 31 atlas. Yeah, a new visitor of the solar system which I guess has turned out to be another comet. How dull can I, can I?

0:35:59 - Tariq Malik
issue a correction? Sure, it's not. It's not 31 atlas, it's 3i atlas.

0:36:05 - Rod Pyle
So oh, okay, I is for interstellar so I wondered what that was supposed to mean, because there hadn't been 30. Okay, 3i atlas. Yeah, thank you for the correction. I stand stupefied. Yeah, I'm swinging through our solar system from interstellar space. Third subject to be identified, the most famous of which was umuamua, which is made most famous by harvard astronomer avi lobe because he contended it's an alien machine, anybody can see it, everybody knows it, it's big and it's beautiful. Um, which you know, an assertion that was enhanced by an observed very slight accelerations that swung around the sun. Uh, should not have been accounted for by physics. But, of course, as other people pointed out, hey, if stuff melts in the back half, which is facing the sun, it's going to give it a propulsive burst. But no, no, obby feels it's for sure, aliens.

0:36:59 - Tariq Malik
Along with this, is picked up out of the ocean, off of this is really exciting because in less, in less than 10 years, we have found three interstellar comets or objects interstellar probes, please, well, well, come on now.

You know we don't know enough, but but we're already learning about this new one. So this new one, like you call, like you said earlier, is called three eye slash atlas. It is the the third interstellar object that humanity has ever discovered passing through our solar system. It was discovered, I think, I want to say like earlier this year by the Atlas Detection Network and it follows, as you said, the 2017 detection of one interstellar, oumuamua, and 2-eye Borisov, which we saw in 2019. And so, with the initial studies of it so far and it's still very fresh, we haven't been studying it for very long it does look like it's potentially water, ice water, like water, ice, rich, which you would expect from a comet, but they think that it's actually like the oldest comet we have ever seen in the history of observing comets three and eleven billion years, I think, which is a broad estimate, but yeah, I think it's three billion years older than our solar system alone.

Right, so that's crazy well, maybe more if it's 11 billion yeah, yeah, so so back to the day one and and and this is like a July surprise they discovered it on July 1st. So yeah, you said, actually you said maybe 11, but like they're saying like 7 billion right now. But they could refine that, because these are all very early, in fact.

0:38:39 - Rod Pyle
I just saw it and actually we could do the rest of the episode with you just pointing out my mistakes. Oh well, no, there's so many of them, you were right, you were right.

0:38:48 - Tariq Malik
Who knows how old it is man, who knows? By the way, you mentioned Avi Loeb. He does have a post out on Medium about this object, saying that it's still really unclear if it's a comet or something else like an asteroid, that it seems to have a spherical.

He mentions it could be of technological origin as well there, but it's not like upfront. He's really looking at kind of the data and the haze that it doesn't have as much dust around it as you would expect from a comet, but it could be a rocky body, something more like that. But this is. It's really interesting. They think that it came from a completely different region of the Milky Way than the other two that we've seen so far, which would be very interesting to see.

0:39:26 - Rod Pyle
I should have downloaded a sound effect from Earth versus the Flying Saucers.

0:39:30 - Tariq Malik
Have you ever seen that?

0:39:31 - Rod Pyle
movie.

0:39:32 - Tariq Malik
A long time ago.

0:39:33 - Rod Pyle
Yes, is that the one where they?

0:39:34 - Tariq Malik
land in DC.

0:39:37 - Rod Pyle
It either opens or it opens with the aliens broadcasting somehow miraculously across the entire planet. People of Earth, attention, look to the skies for a warning. And you know I like and respect Dr Loeb. He was the chair of the astronomy department at Harvard on his first round of all this. Later he wasn't, but you know, chairs do change.

But it just got weird and at one point I was trying to get him on the show, as you recall, yeah, and he said, oh, I'm sorry, I have an exclusive, an exclusive contract with netflix. And I thought, oh dear, because that's how it starts, right, that's how all the weirdness begins, with an awful lot of people. And I was trying to hang in there with him, trying to have an open mind, which you know is a challenge for me because I'm a curmudgeonly old man. But you know, when he chartered that ship and went off the coast of Papua New Guinea because supposedly Space Force had detected what might have been an interstellar object hurtling and slamming into the water just off the coast, and they did some dredging and they came up with a handful of little concretions, little babies, you know that's reason for that's interesting.

But when stuff goes through the air and melts, a lot of weird things happen and immediately, you know, within days, two days, he's. He's out on the news saying look interstellar machines, it's proof of aliens. Come on, you're not doing yourself or the scientific community any favors here. Okay, sorry, I'm done ranting.

I did want to add. You know this is a great workout. It wasn't discovered by Vera Rubin, but it's being investigated by the Vera Rubin Telescope, which is just a couple of weeks active, and they are expected to use both the Hubble and the Webb Space Telescope to investigate. So this will probably be the best investigated object of its kind. And I just wanted to make the point, in this age of science cuts, that the Vera Rubin telescope has already found in what three weeks, 2,000 new asteroids. And you know part of the reason Rubin telescope has already found in what three weeks, 2,000 new asteroids.

Yeah, and you know, part of the reason for that telescope and for looking for asteroids is to find out which one's going to slam into the planet and ruin your day, along with maybe another 3 million people. So that's kind of oh, look at the GIFs on Discord. They're burning it up here. This is important, so it's tangential to what we're talking about. But the work that you know hubble's given us decades of these incredible things that have inspired the public like crazy. The web has continued that and now we've got the, the vera rubin, which is going to keep you from seeing your city wiped out.

So, you know, these are important.

0:42:24 - Tariq Malik
Yeah, yeah, and in specific relation to 3.1 Atlas, to this interstellar object, they're just getting started. It's not like we've missed the boat, that this is it that we're going to know about, this Did you say 3.1, atlas, 3.i, oh, 3.i, oh, my gosh, I stepped right in it.

that was entrapment. You all heard. You all heard online, right? You all heard that rod tricked me. So I just sit here like a dum-dum, as I usually do. I'm just here doing my own thing. No, no, that three eye uh.

Atlas, um, uh, is, is is getting closer to the sun as it passes through, so it will start to heat up. The scientists say that they're already seeing activity begin. Michelle Bannister of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand is saying that this is a really exciting time and that, with some of the biggest telescopes already observing it, they think that they're going to be able to both refine their ages, you know, estimation for it, their composition, knowledge of this thing for it, their composition, knowledge of this thing where it came from in our Milky Way. They could learn a lot from that over time. And they name drop the Rubin telescope, like you said, rod, because it's the most powerful camera that we have on the planet looking up into space and and so we're going to find some really unique things and hopefully get some really great images of this object right now as it passes through. Cool, all right, let's not-.

By the way, esa really quickly. Esa is planning a mission that's going to position a spacecraft near the sun, like in a solar orbit, that will wait for a visitor like this and try to rendezvous with it. So that'd be interesting to see too if they were able to get that off the ground.

0:44:03 - Rod Pyle
Now would that possibly also be able to see some of these solar close NEOs that are so hard to observe?

0:44:11 - Tariq Malik
As I understand it, it's like a tech demo mission to see if they could actually intercept an interstellar object. So if they want to add that to it, they could, I suppose, but it's not approved.

0:44:22 - Rod Pyle
Hey, just send me up, I'm wide enough to intercept anything. All right, I want to do one more real quick, before we go to our last ad break. And it is no to Pacific rocket landing. So Air Force and possibly Space Force although it said Air Force in the story has shelved the plan to build two rocket landing experimental rocket landing pads on Johnston Atoll in the Central Pacific, which we've talked about in the past, due to environmental concerns.

0:44:49 - Tariq Malik
Yeah.

0:44:49 - Rod Pyle
So they wanted to be able to test, you know, this rapid deployment by rocket, presumably Starship or something like it, from point to point on the planet.

0:44:59 - Tariq Malik
They never said Starship.

0:45:00 - Rod Pyle
They never said Starship yeah yeah, well, and I point to point on the planet, they never said starship. They never said starship. Yeah, yeah, well, and I guess you could do it with a falcon 9 if it was reconfigured, but whatever. Um, so they want to build these two experimental pads on johnston, which is good because it's out smack dab. If you, if you looked up on a chart, quote middle of nowhere, unquote, it would be johnston atoll. It's roughly equatorial, it's out in the central pacific and, as I've mentioned a few times, the show. I've been there once for an hour or so, 900 miles from hawaii. Right, yeah, within the first five minutes you reconnoitered all of johnson atoll. It's basically a big dining room table in the middle of the pacific. There's I don't even know that there's trees there anymore. It it's literally just this flat atoll, no mountains.

0:45:45 - Tariq Malik
Did you say a big dining room table?

0:45:47 - Rod Pyle
Is that what you meant? Yeah, it's like this big rectangular thing just sitting there. Oh, okay, there's no vertical relief, there's no land features, partially because it was scraped down to make a runway, which was what it was used for during world war ii, but also because it's an atoll which is basically just a coral butte that rises up out of the ocean and then gets eroded and turns into this flat thing, that's, you know, roughly one to three feet above sea level. It's a dump. Okay, it was used for for the military live there well.

Well, give me a second here. It's used for for trans shipping weapons loads. It was used for trans-shipping weapons loads. It was used for, I think, nuclear storage. At some point it was definitely used. When I was there, they had a little shed at the end of the runway where they burned biological weapons that were no longer needed or wanted.

So it's Not been a pretty sight, you know, it's basically like a super fun sight in some ways, and so, while I support environmentalism in general, there are just some instances where you want to say, guys, you know, yes, I know there's a few seabirds there. There's a couple of species specific to the reefs, few as they are, but you know there's a lot of atolls in this in the pacific ocean, and you know how thoroughly have the complainers really studied what damage it might do to have rocket landings there? This would probably be every three to six months at most, and there's a lot of noise and fury for a few minutes and then the rocket's down, depending on whose rocket it is. Let's say it's spacex. Methane and liquid oxygen are not going to harm this thing.

The noise might, but the compounds no. You know, it's basically cow farts and breathable air coming out of that rocket combusted by the way, um, and since they weren't, as far as I know, weren't specifically talking about using it as a launch pad, it was a landing pad. You don't even have the the kind of uh impact you have from a launch where you have to store fuels and all this stuff. They basically just be tipped over and put on a barge and sent back refurbishing.

0:47:53 - Tariq Malik
So this feels a little extreme on the environmentalism side and personally I that sounds great if the rocket works, rod, but this is the world's largest rocket that we're talking about. And if it doesn't work, and it hits that that atoll and it explodes and it's as small as you say it is, that's it for that atoll and all the birds right. So, like there, there are worst case scenarios that I think you're not thinking about that are very front of mind. Yes, I've been to Central Park.

0:48:23 - Rod Pyle
So do you remember Tom Lehrer, who was writing songs in the 50s and 60s? He was a satirist. He wrote a song called Poisoning Pigeons in the Park. It's all about a Sunday stroll where he's poisoning pigeons in the park for his delight. That would be tragic and awful. However, there's a lot of pigeons in Central Park, wow.

0:48:42 - Tariq Malik
So I guess my contention is Everyone is hearing where Rod stands on the birds.

0:48:45 - Rod Pyle
I know, I know and I'm generally a liberal, but bear with me, you know there's a lot of seagulls. Okay, there's a lot of show birds, Some people would say.

0:48:54 - Tariq Malik
why do you even need to use this at all for the rocket cargo landings?

0:48:58 - Rod Pyle
on SpaceX. You see what's there. Why would you do to use this at all, at all?

0:49:02 - Tariq Malik
There you go right, because because SpaceX lands their rockets on barges, just build a bigger barge, build a borrow or rent sea launches platform. You know where they used to launch those and landed on there, I mean, there's a lot.

0:49:18 - Rod Pyle
But then you can turn the water around the barge well there's that too.

0:49:21 - Tariq Malik
That's why we don't have a sea dragon, because they were gonna do all that. I'm just saying. I'm just saying there's a lot of other things that could be entertained to say. This is a little bit more sustainable than like like this whole thing where, again, if it works right, like nasa's been launching rockets out of a nature preserve for like 60 years, you know, if it works right, like NASA's been launching rockets out of a nature preserve for like 60 years, if it works right. There are some things that I guess people can get comfortable with. If it doesn't work, if NASA launched a bunch of stuff out of there and they came back and blew up and lit the whole of Merritt Island Sea Refuge or whatever on fire, we'd probably be talking about different stuff. Same thing at Wallops.

0:49:58 - Rod Pyle
There's a whole seashore village there you know, all right, you add tall hugger. I'm just saying, you see of course their pad.

You know, of course, jammer b jumps in on discord and quotes lyrics from poisoning pigeons in the park. They call it impiety, lack of sobriety and quite a variety of unpleasant names. And then judy had to come in with from another song, I think, called the bomb. So long, mom, I'm off to drop the bomb, so don't wait up for me. We'll all go together when we go, okay I love the community, I love it.

Yeah, unfortunately I can only see discord, so pardon me, for for those of you on the other platforms, I I need to adjust my system so I can see you better. I got locked out and have to reset my password for that one, so oh, please, I know, and he hasn't bought a lighter replace the negligee over his right shoulder, but today is prime day.

0:50:49 - Tariq Malik
It's the last day of prime day. I'm going to buy the light today. I haven't bought it.

0:50:52 - Rod Pyle
Okay, so I got to send we'll wrap up here.

0:51:03 - Tariq Malik
Yeah, the next one we'd like to call hey, give me back my job, man, take it away, brother. Well, yeah, so wait, wait, which one are we talking about? Because there's like three. So there's like a whole package. There's like three other things that happen, and part of it is just jump right in and roll around political part of it is from space.

Yeah, so we talked a little bit about about, about jpl and and, like thePL and the kind of early discussions, it seems to change management there.

But there was also this report from Politico and I talked about it earlier in the chat where there's something like more than 2,000 senior staff are set to leave NASA, all because of some of the job cuts and the push to do that. And yesterday, when we talked about the, when I mentioned the Senate had this appropriation meeting there was some pushback on a lot of that reduction there and trying to make sure that there is funding for the science, there is funding for the research and for all of the people that would allegedly be not allegedly that are being pushed out of the agency right now. And so you know, I just I think it's a little bit interesting to see how that's going to go. But the big question that I think I have is that let's say that uh, uh, push to recover the some 47 of NASA science funding. Uh, that's, that's going to be cut. Uh, it gets back into there. Uh, are those people that are departing going to come back to nasa, right?

0:52:32 - Rod Pyle
that's not clear to me and that's one of the the points this political and excuse me, but is there a a reasonable pipeline to allow them to come back?

0:52:40 - Tariq Malik
Yeah, yeah, right, I mean so, because the Senate amendments at least in this early stage and of course they got by the way this whole thing got like hung up. They didn't finalize the vote because of disagreements over the closure of the FBI headquarters office, so they didn't make any headway. They're going to have to do it again and vote on the 17th, I think, to try to get this budget process going. But the big question there is if the Senate succeeds in getting this money back for NASA so that, as you said earlier, has now more money than uh, than ever before uh, to try to execute the science missions and the space flight missions and all of that uh.

Will those 2 000 people be able to come back? Will they want to come back, uh, given that that the experience that they've had uh through all of the doge cuts through the administration, cuts uh through this kind of um, a very strong-armed uh process that is happening right now? Or will the people that have their jobs now, that are worried about them, be able to stay? And those are questions that are still all really in flux, I think, right now as we go through this process. So I just want to have a note to discuss that a little bit, a little more to remind people that there is potential, those people can get those jobs back or those jobs could be saved. But it really moves at the speed of Congress, which I think we've all seen. Yeah, exactly, not the greatest, not the greatest.

0:54:17 - Rod Pyle
And I just want to add one note about JPL that I meant to say earlier. It's had its critics over the the years. There are people that don't like this system there because the caltech involvement and all that. However, they are not civil servants, they're caltech employees, which means there's no connection there are, the benefits are fairly minimal.

I mean, you know you get medical and you can buy membership to the academic club at Caltech the Athenaeum, that's about it and you get access to a 401k. So basically it's like working for any other small company that says, hey, we'll give you a 401k without a lot of extra benefits. This is not a knock on Caltech. This is just to say you're not going to save a bunch of money by bringing it into the NASA fold, even if it's through a contractor, because they're already kind of living on on short ends and the pay is well below industry standard.

0:55:05 - Tariq Malik
So give me a break and on the on the flip side, there was a Supreme court decision earlier this week that basically cleared the way for the the Trump administration to do a lot of the government mass firings, both with contractors and federal employees. I believe the government mass firings, both with contractors and federal employees, I believe. As I understand it. So, like that's what, when I say, like it's really weird and hard to understand, like where things are, it's because they've got this, this kind of sign off from the Supreme Court to do these government layoffs. You have the senators saying, no, we want to give them more money so that they don't lose the brain drain, lose the brain drain to other folks. You've got a new NASA chief that's coming in that could add either some stability or some rubber stamping, depending on what happens over the next few months.

0:55:51 - Rod Pyle
And then you also have or just pour gasoline and drop a match. Yeah.

0:55:55 - Tariq Malik
And you have thousands of people who have already said you know what. I'm just going to take the buyout, I'm going to take the push, I'm going to go, or they've already been laid off and they may not be. That may be talent that is irrecoverable for the time being, and all of this is all happening at the same time and it is really hard for me to understand and wrap my head around it on a day-to-day basis and I can only imagine what it's like to be on the ground floor in these centers doing the science and finding out all this stuff and trying to figure out what it means for you and for your job. So we're going to hopefully get through that. In fact, isaacman at ISDC, he said that remember About how it's a really tough time right now, but there is a tomorrow on the other end. One way or another we're going to get there and able to figure it all out.

0:56:48 - Rod Pyle
And I just want to make a point that I've kind of touched on before. But for anybody who's visited or worked at NASA facilities, I think there's this perception amongst a large percentage of the public I won't say in which states which thinks that they're, that NASA employees are elitists and that they're making tons of money. And there are these incredible settings with all this, this largesse and so forth, and it's like stop believing what you see in movies. It ain't like that. These are run down, grungy facilities.

Um, at both uh, johnson space center when I was there working briefly, and at jpl when I was there working longer, you know these are like surplus steel case desks from the 1950s, from the korean war, old beat up file cabinets. You're in a little teeny office, in my case, with no windows, back to back with somebody else who, basically, if you rolled you'd have to say uh, leaving. So when you rolled your chair they'd roll that back, they'd roll their chair forward to get out of your way. I mean it's, it's dumpy, you know, but it's what they do to get by with what they have. And this was before these cuts. This was years ago. So you know, these are not there. Intellectually they're high-end jobs, but in terms of pay and conditions it's basically like working at a foundry but I'm not break.

Don't support this kind of thinking yeah, I'm not.

0:58:11 - Tariq Malik
I'm not laughing at you. Your your your description of what what it was like reminded me about. Like the like during the shuttle era, when you go to the round robins at Johnson and they would have you in a little cubicle that they had made from those kind of portable bulletin board type things. You know. So you'd be in there with a bunch of wire chairs, with the astronaut for like five minutes.

0:58:32 - Rod Pyle
Well, if you were lucky. Yeah, it was kind of like visiting somebody in the state pen at JPL.

0:58:37 - Tariq Malik
But building nine was nine was awesome. Man building nine with all the mockups, if you went to a press thing.

0:58:42 - Rod Pyle
You basically had banquet tables set up and, uh, power strips, duct tape to the top of them and you were sitting like a foot away from the next guy. Yeah and um, you know, passing breath and COVID, back and forth. Okay, just want to insert something here. And then, Tariq, last story is is your pick of the Oscars? All right, we want to send congratulations to Nick Haig, who was just promoted to general.

0:59:05 - Tariq Malik
General Haig, sir, friend of the show, yeah, wow.

0:59:10 - Rod Pyle
We'll have him back. But Angela Roscoe, who's the one who set all this up for us, wrote me today and said hey, just want to let you know Nick was promoted to general.

0:59:19 - Tariq Malik
So congratulations general. He is the very model of a modern Space Force. General right.

0:59:25 - Rod Pyle
Big salute from this week in space. There we go. Do you want me to sing that for you?

0:59:34 - Tariq Malik
I thought I was really clever saying that.

0:59:36 - Rod Pyle
Oh, you're always clever. It went over like a dud, so you're always clever. Excuse me.

0:59:39 - Tariq Malik
I'm sorry, it went over like a dud, so all right.

0:59:43 - Rod Pyle
John was just sleeping, it's okay so.

0:59:47 - Tariq Malik
I'm going to shotgun like three really quick ones to close out the day, TikTok okay. Yep, go for it. And so just a big heads up. If you didn't know, there is a private mission at the International space station right now. It is axiom four, commanded by the always awesome peggy whitson. We gotta get her on the show rod. Um and uh and it has india's first one I, I, maybe, we, maybe we did and we got to get her again, you know, um, I'm glad I'm not the only one that forgets.

Yeah, they, but they they, they they launched a couple weeks ago and they will be undocking from the International Space Station on Monday. We believe they'll be landing within the day or two later to come back to Earth, so by the time we have our next episode, they should be back on the ground. So congratulations to them. The India Space Research Organization Agency's first astronaut to the ISS, so that's really exciting. Poland and, I believe, hungary as well, so it seems like that mission has been going very well. They've been cooking up a lot of great space food for them on the station with Johnny Kim's Twitter post, so it's been very exciting, and they've got a lot of science. That they've been doing too. Meanwhile, there is a report from Space News and Jeff Faust, who is in Tokyo right now, which is exciting. I would like to go there one day. Why is he in Tokyo? I don't know, because now Space News is behind a paywall and I've already used my three articles for the month.

Your budget's like mine does have a report out of there stating stating that there are more discussions now that the next Starliner flight Starliner one which is supposed to launch sometime in early 2026. Now, instead of late 2025, will actually be a cargo only flight, and so you know, I don't have many details of this again because I couldn't actually read. The article is behind the paywall and I'm looking into trying to get an access to that with my company so that we can actually bring that good stuff to you as well. So Space News is great $20 a month, I think. It's on sale right now for $14 a month. That's not a plug. No one's paying for us for that. I think Jeff is amazing, but that'll be very interesting if they do that, because that's been a question that we have had for a while.

Will Space NASA require Boeing to fly another uncrewed test flight that is spotless with Starliner or not? And it seems like they areusters and those dog houses. We actually tried to get more information about them and they're saying you know that stuff we said back in March when we pushed the launch to 2026? That's the only update that we have right now, which seems like strange that they don't have an update about that. So keep your eyes peeled and listening for that. We don't know what's going to go on Jammerbee. They likely won't take the seats out. They'd want to keep a dummy in there to get that like what it feels like for the astronauts to get some measurements for that. And finally we'll end on a happy note, rod, did you know that the James Webb Space Telescope celebrates its third year of operational science this week?

1:02:54 - Rod Pyle
I did once I read your story header.

1:02:56 - Tariq Malik
That's right. We've got a story there on line 39, john, in case you want to show the very pretty picture that is the cat's paw nebula, uh, four thousand light years from the earth, yeah, I know, in the constellation scorpius, uh, and, and they just released it this week to show these close-ups of the toe beans, uh, that are all that are on the cat's paw can we see the cat itself?

that are that are on the cat's paw? Can we see the cat's paw, nebula? Well, john's working on it. Come on, man, you got to be patient.

1:03:24 - Rod Pyle
It's in the political. There we go.

1:03:25 - Tariq Malik
There we go, there we go, and, and so this is. You know, webb has got a five year nominal primary mission. We're three years into it, and so you know it's been doing amazing science. I think my jaw dropped with this mission when they launched it because it had such an intricate deployment phase and it all went off spectacularly. Oh my God.

1:03:48 - Rod Pyle
Over 400 separate articulations had to go perfectly for this thing to work.

1:03:52 - Tariq Malik
I know right it sat on the ground for years.

1:03:54 - Rod Pyle
It was behind schedule.

1:03:56 - Tariq Malik
It got all messed up during testing, when they broke it and they had to fix it again about?

1:04:00 - Rod Pyle
was was the galileo probe to jupiter when, because it sat so long, the lubrication dried out on that deployable antenna that they would never do again. Yeah, it was a big wire umbrella. They get up there, the antenna gets hung up halfway through deployment and they got to work on the low gain for the next 12 or 15 years, however long it was active.

I mean just because of driving back and forth to to ksc so many times and not servicing that thing before it deployed simple oversight. So yeah, when you do that kind of stuff, it makes everybody nervous yeah, so a happy, happy, operational birthday to the James Webb Space Telescope.

1:04:38 - Tariq Malik
These images are fantastic. It's discovering new exoplanets and pushing back our veil of the Big Bang, absolutely spectacular. You wonder where your tax dollars go? It's this stuff right here.

1:04:52 - Rod Pyle
Well, and I was going to say look at that image and try to understand what kind of impact that has globally when the world sees this kind of stuff that until very recently, only the United States could do and even at this point still really at this resolution anyway the only the United States could do. I'm not a bragging nationalist here. I'm just saying, if you're looking to exercise geopolitical soft power, if you're looking to lead in space soft power, if you're looking to lead in space like I keep hearing from every freaking administration that comes and goes, particularly this one if you're looking to be global leaders in space, flight and science and education and all that stuff, this is how it's done. So you know, give them the money they need. Okay, do you have anything else?

1:05:35 - Tariq Malik
Well, like NASA says in the announcement for this photo, it's the cat's meow. That's it. That's my kicker for today.

1:05:43 - Rod Pyle
That is a sad kicker.

1:05:44 - Tariq Malik
All right, somebody look on the floor. I think Rod's eyes rolled out of his head.

1:05:51 - Rod Pyle
I want to thank everybody for joining us today for episode 168 that we like to call Survivor NASA, as you heard the second time we played that video. Tariq, where can we see you watching over our favorite space agency online?

1:06:06 - Tariq Malik
Well, you can find me at space.com, as always, on the Twitter and the blue sky at Tariq J Malik. If you like video games, I'm on YouTube at Space, ron Plays. Superman is in the game now for Fortnite and Superman. Our favorite alien right from the planet Krypton, hits theaters this weekend. I'm going to go see Superman on Sunday. It's going to be great.

1:06:27 - Rod Pyle
Your sixth grade teacher must be so proud. And of course you can find me at pylebooks.com or at adastramagazine.com. And remember you can always drop us a line because we do answer our emails at twis@twit.tv. We welcome your comments, suggestions and ideas and probably I will answer them. New episodes of this podcast publish every Friday on your favorite podcatcher. So make sure to subscribe, tell your friends and give us reviews. We live and die by your reviews, well, and by you joining Club Twit. Five stars or a thumbs up will do nicely in addition to your monthly or annual Club Twit membership. And, by the way, I should mention, you can join Club Twit.

Now back to annual memberships as well as monthly ones. Or do I have that backwards, john? No, we have yearly. That works. Yeah, I just want to make sure I got the order right, because it helps your favorite network of podcasts stay on the air and bring you all these great shows. And if you've listened to the other ones, you know how swell they are. And then, of course, there's always us um, and with club twit you get special benefits. You can see behind the scenes stuff like Tariq falling out of his chair over and over and over again.

I like to put it on a loop for repeating so I can just keep watching you dump out of your chair and other behind-the-scenes stuff along with ad-free content. So you know you just skip right over those, because John is a nimble-fingered editor when it comes to doing what he's got to do. No $10 a month. Now I got to change that. $10 a month, monthly and yearly. Sign up and do it. You can also follow us on the TwitTech Podcast Network, at Twit, on Twitter and on Facebook, @twit.tv on Instagram. Thank you everyone, it's been fun and we'll see you next week.

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