This Week in Space 163: The Trials of Starship

Summary

Podcast Summary: This Week in Space 163: The Trials of Starship

Release Date: May 30, 2025
Hosts: Rod Pyle (Editor-in-Chief, Ad Astra Magazine), Tarek Malik (Editor-in-Chief, Space.com)
Guest: Mike Wall (Space.com Reporter)

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1. Introduction and Guest Welcome

The episode, titled "The Trials of Starship," delves into recent developments in space exploration, focusing primarily on SpaceX's Starship program. Hosts Rod Pyle and Tarek Malik welcome Mike Wall, a seasoned space reporter from Space.com, to discuss the current challenges and progress of SpaceX's ambitious endeavors.

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2. Discovery of a New Dwarf Planet

Timestamp: [03:31]

Rod Pyle introduces a significant discovery reported by Keith Cooper, a UK-based space reporter who is also releasing a new book on science fiction. Scientists from the Advanced Study Institute in Princeton have identified a new dwarf planet located in the distant reaches of our solar system, approximately 44.5 times the Earth's distance from the Sun—placing it within the Oort Cloud. This object, designated 2017 OF$_{201}$ (referred to as "Bob"), is notable for its substantial size and nearly spherical shape, raising questions about its classification as a dwarf planet.

Mike Wall's Insight:

Mike Wall expresses excitement about the discovery, highlighting the ongoing search for Planet Nine. Although this newly discovered dwarf planet doesn't fit the criteria to be Planet Nine due to insufficient mass to account for observed gravitational perturbations, its discovery aids astronomers in narrowing down the possible locations of the elusive ninth planet.

Notable Quote:

"The existence of this kind of all by its lonesome seems like it's not in line with the model of what Planet Nine would dictate that there would be these solo super extreme objects all on their lonesome because the perturbations of that planet would have those things get a little bit clustered."
— Rod Pyle [05:08]

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3. NASA's Psyche Mission Update

Timestamp: [07:41]

The hosts discuss NASA's Psyche mission, which aims to explore a metallic asteroid believed to be the core of an ancient protoplanet. Recently, NASA confirmed a switch to a backup propellant line to restart Psyche's Hall-effect thruster after issues with low xenon fuel pressure. Despite the setback, the mission is on track to reach Psyche in 2029.

Mike Wall's Commentary:

Wall emphasizes the mission's significance, noting that Psyche offers a unique opportunity to study the building blocks of planet formation up close. He underscores the resourcefulness of NASA engineers in addressing technical glitches, though he remains cautiously optimistic about the mission's ultimate success.

Notable Quote:

"This is a really crazy object that they're trying to see. It's a metallic asteroid that we haven't explored anything like it up close."
— Mike Wall [06:04]

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4. Advances in Chinese Rocket Technology

Timestamp: [11:04]

The conversation shifts to international developments, focusing on China's strides in reusable rocket technology. Tarek Malik highlights the achievements of Chinese private companies, particularly Space Epoch, which has reportedly succeeded in a controlled vertical descent of a booster stage—a feat reminiscent of SpaceX's reusable rockets.

Rod Pyle's Observation:

Pyle describes Space Epoch's "Hiker 1" rocket, a reusable vehicle capable of carrying 10,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit. He notes that Space Epoch's design shares similarities with SpaceX's Starship, including stainless steel construction and vertical landing capabilities.

Mike Wall's Analysis:

Wall points out the competitive edge China holds in space exploration, mentioning their recent interplanetary missions and plans for a Mars sample return by 2028. He acknowledges the challenges faced by Space Epoch but recognizes their progress as a testament to China's growing capabilities in the space sector.

Notable Quote:

"China is very overtly challenging American dominance in space. And it's the whole ecosystem. It's not just military launches, but these private companies too that are sort of tied in with the military."
— Mike Wall [16:04]

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5. Japan's Resilience Lander Moon Mission

Timestamp: [17:41]

The hosts discuss Japan's upcoming lunar mission featuring the Resilience Lander. Scheduled to attempt a moon landing on June 5th Eastern Time, this mission is Japan's second attempt, aptly named to reflect their determination despite previous setbacks.

Rod Pyle's Highlight:

Pyle showcases an image captured by the Resilience Lander depicting Earth rising over the Moon. He emphasizes the mission's significance as a testament to Japan's resilience and persistence in achieving lunar exploration goals.

Notable Quote:

"The company says that they are resilient and failure will not stop them. So you know, best of luck to Japan in this next private moon landing attempt and we'll see how that goes next week, next episode."
— Rod Pyle [18:03]

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6. Solar Activity and Aurora Predictions

Timestamp: [19:02]

An alert is issued regarding heightened solar activity, with expectations of spectacular auroras visible across dark, clear skies. The Space Weather Department Prediction Group has forecasted a KP index of 6 over the weekend, with potential conditions reaching KP7, which are ideal for auroral displays even in mid-latitude regions.

Tarek Malik's Note:

Malik humorously notes that metropolitan living may hinder optimal viewing conditions but encourages listeners to seek out dark, clear areas to witness the auroras.

Notable Quote:

"You could see Aurora is all the way down to like the, the northern states, maybe like the mid, mid, mid latitude ones."
— Tarek Malik [20:15]

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7. SpaceX's Starship Test Flight 9

Timestamp: [21:01]

The core segment of the episode revolves around SpaceX's Test Flight 9 of the Starship spacecraft. The flight is characterized as a partial success, with several milestones achieved despite encountering significant challenges.

Flight Details:

• First Stage (Super Heavy Booster): Successfully reused from Flight 7, albeit with four engines replaced. The booster executed a successful hot staging and was intended for a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico but ultimately sank.

• Upper Stage (Ship): Reached suborbital trajectory but failed to maintain integrity during reentry, leading to its disintegration over the Indian Ocean. The deployment of dummy Starlink satellites was unsuccessful due to payload bay door malfunctions.

Mike Wall's Breakdown:

Wall assesses the test flight as a mixed outcome. While the booster demonstrated SpaceX's reusable technology advancements, the upper stage's failure to sustain controlled descent underscores ongoing technical hurdles.

Notable Quotes:

"They couldn't fully open the kind of PEZ dispenser, payload bay door, so they abandoned that try."
— Mike Wall [24:04]

"They're trying to do experiments with it too. They brought it in at a different angle of attack so that there would be more drag on it to test out a new kind of landing strategy."
— Rod Pyle [08:35]

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8. SpaceX's Future Plans and Challenges

Timestamp: [26:16]

The discussion transitions to SpaceX's ambitious plans for Starship, including the development of the Raptor 3 engines and the establishment of multiple launch sites in Texas and Florida to support a high-frequency launch cadence necessary for missions to Mars.

Mike Wall's Perspective:

Wall highlights SpaceX's "fly it, fix it" philosophy, emphasizing the company's ability to rapidly iterate on technology through frequent testing. He remains optimistic about SpaceX meeting its aggressive timelines but acknowledges regulatory hurdles that may impede launch schedules.

Rod Pyle's Concerns:

Pyle questions the feasibility of SpaceX's proposed launch frequency, drawing parallels to historical space race timelines and emphasizing the need for sustained testing and regulatory approvals.

Notable Quotes:

"Their whole model is fly it. If something goes wrong, then you fix it. That's how you learn is by flying and seeing mistakes in flight with these vehicles and they're churning out lots and lots of them."
— Mike Wall [33:08]

"How quickly does that series of tanker flights have to occur? And the second half of that question is, do you see from what you guys have seen of Starbase, the newest city in Texas, how far are we from having the logistics to do that kind of cadence?"
— Tarek Malik [34:33]

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9. Starship's Role in NASA's Artemis Program

Timestamp: [47:44]

The conversation shifts to the potential role of SpaceX's Starship as a lunar lander for NASA's Artemis program. While Blue Origin's lander is also a contender, Mike Wall expresses confidence in Starship's capabilities due to its extensive testing and SpaceX's resource allocation.

Rod Pyle's Input:

Pyle underscores the competitive landscape, noting that Blue Origin is potentially poised to land their "Mark 1" uncrewed lander on the Moon by the end of the year, presenting a simpler alternative to Starship's more complex system.

Mike Wall's Assertion:

Wall reiterates his preference for Starship, citing its rapid development pace and SpaceX's track record of overcoming challenges through iterative testing.

Notable Quotes:

"If I had to choose, I would probably still go with Starship just because of the resources that SpaceX is able to deploy and the kind of monomaniacal focus that Elon has on this vehicle."
— Mike Wall [48:16]

"Blue Origin just has a lot more straightforward lander system. And it's a lot easier and simpler of a mission. Let's do that because it's there and it's ready."
— Rod Pyle [52:53]

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10. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

The episode wraps up with the hosts and Mike Wall reflecting on the future of space exploration. They express optimism about upcoming missions and the continuous advancements in rocket technology, while also acknowledging the competitive and challenging nature of the space industry.

Notable Quote:

"It's just, we all want that sci-fi dream to come true. I think for the technical people or the like folks who are a little bit more skeptical. It can be frustrating to kind of listen to these presentations and just say. It just seems kind of blithely."
— Mike Wall [44:11]

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Key Takeaways:

• Starship's Development: SpaceX's Starship continues to make progress with reusable technology, though challenges remain, particularly with the upper stage's controlled descent and payload deployment.

• International Competition: China and Japan are making significant strides in their space programs, introducing competitive technologies and missions that parallel those of Western counterparts.

• Upcoming Missions: NASA's Psyche mission and Japan's Resilience Lander represent pivotal steps in understanding our solar system and extending human presence beyond Earth.

• Future Challenges: Achieving ambitious goals like Mars colonization and lunar landings will require overcoming technical, regulatory, and logistical hurdles, necessitating sustained innovation and collaboration within the space community.

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Notable Quotes Compilation:

1. Rod Pyle:
   "The existence of this kind of all by its lonesome seems like it's not in line with the model of what Planet Nine would dictate..." [05:08]

2. Mike Wall:
   "This is a really crazy object that they're trying to see. It's a metallic asteroid that we haven't explored anything like it up close." [06:04]

3. Tarek Malik:
   "You could see Aurora is all the way down to like the, the northern states, maybe like the mid, mid, mid latitude ones." [20:15]

4. Mike Wall:
   "Their whole model is fly it. If something goes wrong, then you fix it. That's how you learn is by flying and seeing mistakes in flight with these vehicles..." [33:08]

5. Mike Wall:
   "If I had to choose, I would probably still go with Starship just because of the resources that SpaceX is able to deploy and the kind of monomaniacal focus that Elon has on this vehicle." [48:16]

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This episode offers a comprehensive overview of current events and developments in the space sector, providing listeners with in-depth analysis and expert opinions on the trials and triumphs of modern space exploration.

Transcript

[Rod Pyle]

Coming up on this Week in Space, there's a new dwarf planet out beyond Pluto. Ispace is closing in on the moon. And what's the deal with starship? Why does it keep exploding? We'll find out with Space.com's Mike Wall. So tune in.

[Tarek Malik]

Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is turkey. This is this Week in space. Episode number 163, recorded on May 30, 2025. The trials of Starship. Hello, and welcome to yet another episode of this Week in Space, the Trials of Starship Edition. I'm Rod Pyle, still editor in chief at Ad Astra magazine. I'm joined by my fellow space thug, Tarek Malik, who's still the editor in chief of space.com. hello, partner.

[Rod Pyle]

Space thug. Wow. I don't know how I feel about that. Rod, how are you doing today?

[Tarek Malik]

I'm okay. I've been a thug for a long time. And today we have the very good fortune to be joined by Mike Wall, the Sam Spade of space reporting. How are you, Mike?

[Mike Wall]

Doing good. How are you guys?

[Tarek Malik]

I'm good. You know, I was looking up like, ace reporter names from the Pulp era and Jimmy Olsen's all that came up, and I thought, well, Sam Spade sounds. Sounds cool.

[Rod Pyle]

Jimmy Olsen is a photographer. He is not a reporter.

[Tarek Malik]

No, he was a cub reporter.

[Rod Pyle]

I thought he was a photographer. He was your photographer.

[Tarek Malik]

AI said he was a reporter. Anyway, before we begin, as if we're going to. Please don't forget to do us a solid and. And run away right now or as soon as the show is over, and make sure to like and subscribe and do the other things that will keep us on the air. Because we love you and we know you love us, at least until what you're about to hear. And now a space joke from David Barnard.

[Rod Pyle]

David.

[Tarek Malik]

Hey, Tarik.

[Rod Pyle]

Yes, Rod?

[Tarek Malik]

What happened after Doge audited NASA?

[Rod Pyle]

I don't. I don't know. I don't know.

[Tarek Malik]

They launched a new wave of SpaceX employees.

[Rod Pyle]

Oh, that's too soon.

[Tarek Malik]

I was gonna say. Is that too soon? Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

Hey, this is the week, though.

[Tarek Malik]

But, you know, as a person who was laid off in the round of layoffs prior to that for jpl, I feel like I have the right to make a joke.

[Rod Pyle]

He's. He's done.

[Tarek Malik]

Now let's see how the hate mail.

[Rod Pyle]

Elon is out at the White House. Today is like the last day, only.

[Mike Wall]

It takes it till he takes. And he's still. He's still staying on as an advisor. They are are careful to say now.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, sigh.

[Tarek Malik]

Now, I've heard that some people want to blow our flight termination system when it's joke time in this show. But you can help by sending us your best worst or most indifferent space joke to TwistWit TV. Until then, we're gonna, we're gonna continue on. And Mike, do you have any space jokes?

[Mike Wall]

I do not. I, I don't want to, but can't kind of get on your corner at all.

[Rod Pyle]

R. Is that going to rain on your parade? It's.

[Tarek Malik]

It's a lonely corner. You're welcome to it. All right, and now it's time for headline news.

[Rod Pyle]

Headline news. Headline news. I got it. Yeah, down now. I got it.

[Tarek Malik]

Oh, Scooter X tells us on the discord that Elon's on live TV right now. What?

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, he's talking to the President, getting the big sign off.

[Tarek Malik]

That's. Oh, that thing. Kiss, kiss, hug, hug thing. Okay, you on? All right, well, instead let's go to a Space.com story which was probably written by one of you two guys about a new dwarf planet, but it's not planet nine.

[Rod Pyle]

No, no, no. This is, this is actually written by Keith Cooper, who's a UK based space reporter. And this one is pretty interesting, by the way. He has a new book coming out. It's really exciting about sci fi, but. But yeah. So these scientists have, I think they're in the Advanced Study Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton found what they say is a dwarf planet that is 16 times in an orbit that is more than 16 times the size of the Earth's. So it's like way, way, way out. In fact, the closest it gets to us to, well, to the sun is 44 and a half times the earth's orbit, which is like Pluto's orbit. So, so the closest it gets is like Pluto's orbit and it's even further out there. So it's like way out in the Oort cloud and they call it 2017 of and then there's like a number at the bottom of it, 201. We can call it Bob, I think that's fine. But, but this is like an exciting discovery because, you know, is it a planet? Is it not a planet? Is it a dwarf planet? We went through all of that back in 2006 when they demoted Pluto. But the fact that they're still finding these new kind of roughly spherical bodies out there, you know, know, bodes well for, for the search for other planets. Now everyone wants to find planet nine and they said that it's out there beyond Pluto somewhere. But it sounds like this isn't it because the, the, the masses don't really add up. But at least they can rule this out as not planet 9 because it doesn't explain the perturbations that they've been seeing in some other objects. And we can look elsewhere. We know where else to look. So it is.

[Tarek Malik]

I got your. Your perturbations, pal. You know, as a show that. I think that's very appropriate as a show that's hosted by two roughly spherical bodies. So there we are.

[Rod Pyle]

Speak for yourself, my friend. You know, although I'm a giant ball of gas there. Is that so?

[Tarek Malik]

Oh, ew.

[Rod Pyle]

Is that an overshare? Should I not have said that?

[Tarek Malik]

Mike is looking at us thinking, you know, I could have gone out and cleaned up after my dog in the backyard today, but instead I came on the show. Mike, feel free to weigh in on any of these, by the way, if you like.

[Mike Wall]

Yeah, no, I was just thinking, I mean, I'm excited about the whole. Yeah, the whole Planet nine story is a pretty cool one. And I've kind of followed it from, from the outset. It's, it's been a number of years now where they've been looking for it, and it's just, it's still just really crazy to me that there could be this giant planet that's like the size. It's basically thought to be about like Neptune sized in our own solar system, and we can't find it. If Nibiru.

[Tarek Malik]

It's Nibiru. It's hiding behind the.

[Mike Wall]

Yeah, it's going to cause the apocalypse in 2012. Oh, no, wait, that, that came and went. But yeah, I think, I think it's just another reminder that there's just so much cool stuff. And like, usually when we think about like the sort of mysteries of space, we think about far away space, but there's even a lot of stuff on our own solar system that we don't have mapped out, which is just really, really cool, I think.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, I think that just to put this into perspective for people, the orbit of this object is something on the order of, oh, I just had it up here. It's like 26,000 years. That's how long it takes to make like an orbit and a place to have birthdays. I know. And we were talking about Planet Nine earlier. 24. I was wrong. 24,256 years. It's as far out as 157 billion miles, as far as close to the sun as 4.4 billion, 4.14 billion miles. And the issue you asked earlier about Planet Nine is that the, the existence of this kind of all by its lonesome seems like it's not in line with the model of what Planet Nine would dictate that there would be these solo super extreme objects all on their lonesome because the perturbations of that planet would have those things get a little bit clustered. And so that's what they're trying to resolve right now.

[Tarek Malik]

You love that word, don't you?

[Rod Pyle]

Clustered or resolved?

[Tarek Malik]

Perturbations.

[Rod Pyle]

Perturbations.

[Mike Wall]

Almost twice.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

All right.

[Rod Pyle]

And by the way, three times it appears.

[Tarek Malik]

Guys, since it's a friends and family casual Friday with us, I think Tarek will just continue through the headlines after the break. Okay?

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, sounds good.

[Tarek Malik]

Okay, Psyche switch. NASA has confirmed that it had to switch to a backup propellant line, which I didn't even know Psyche had. Yeah, to restart its hall effect thruster, which is an electric propulsion system which they had to shut down in April due to low fuel pressure. It was being starved of its xenon fuel, or at least the pressure was getting down low enough that it was a problem. But it'll still arrive at Psyche in 2029. Yay.

[Rod Pyle]

Yay. So no, this comes straight from NASA. You know, they've been trying to figure out what the issue was with this kind of fuel pressure glitch that they had on Psyche. This mission to a super. It's like metal, right? It's a metal asteroid that is a really valuable target. I think it's like billions of dollars worth or hundreds of billions of dollars anyway.

[Tarek Malik]

Well, you're just throwing those figures around today like nobody's business.

[Rod Pyle]

I know, I know stories about how it's worth, but, but, but this, this latest means that they've, they've been able to swamp from that what they think might have been a leaky thruster line to, to a backup line that now should recover what they were hoping to for that, that pressure in order to keep up the sustained a thrust in order to get there on time. So, you know, huzzah for the engineers. I think it shows you that the folks behind these missions are very resourceful and able to figure these things out. But it was a little bit of an. I mean, Psyche is not that old and it's a little early for a glitch like this. So hopefully it's not a problem that's going to come back later on to, to, to bite them too. You know, like at rendezvous et CETERA Yeah.

[Mike Wall]

And this is, this is a really crazy object that they're trying to see. You know, I mean it is a metallic asteroid that we haven't explored anything like it up close. And, and I mean part we're going to see it. Why, why NASA just, they've, they've dedicated this entire mission just to this one object is because it's possible this is like the stripped away core of like an ancient protoplanet. So it like could allow scientists like a way to kind of look inside planets. Like this is like the building block or this is what the inside of of a young planet might actually look like. You know, it's like, it's just like a chance to see like the core of a planet in kind of broken down form. So it's just pretty interesting. And so yeah, let's keep our fingers crossed that Psyche makes it because we've never seen an object like this up close.

[Rod Pyle]

Stripped away core of an infant Florida planet is my new band name.

[Tarek Malik]

For those of you out in radio land, you got to listen to Mike because he has a Ph period D in this kind of stuff.

[Rod Pyle]

Tarek has a minor kind of, kind.

[Mike Wall]

Of this kind of stuff.

[Tarek Malik]

But Tarek has a minor in astronomy and his bachelor's degree and Rod ended up drifting out of astronomy at UCLA after maybe if we find the lizard, it's too hard. Okay, let's go to a quick break and we'll be right back. Hold your thrusters.

[Mike Wall]

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good.

[Rod Pyle]

In this world, stop with Mint.

[Mike Wall]

You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment. Anyway, give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first 3 months only, then full options available, taxes and fees extra. See full terms@mint mobile.com.

[Tarek Malik]

All right, let's talk Chinese rockets. Because when I see Chinese rockets, I have to double check and make sure I'm not looking at SpaceX rockets.

[Rod Pyle]

Why?

[Tarek Malik]

Well, Chinese rocket maker sepic, which is I think space epic.

[Rod Pyle]

Space Epoch. Space Epoch.

[Tarek Malik]

Oh, cpac. Okay, well that's even worse. Claims to have performed a successful asset and descent controlled vertical descent of a booster stage. By golly, that looks a whole lot like a smaller starship first stage. So this, this comes after a string of similar attempts by various Chinese private companies. Quote unquote because most, you know, the way things work over there, they have hooks into the military usually to do something similar to what SpaceX is trying to do with Starship, which is what we're going to be talking about later. And as we've seen with Starship, it looks like it's pretty hard. So it was interesting to see these guys apparently succeed with their test.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, this is really good actually, John. If you scroll down, you'll find there's like a little embedded Twitter video in there that, that for folks that are watching the stream to see. And this is.

[Tarek Malik]

Oh, that's loud with sound.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, but, but this is a company that is trying to do what we've seen SpaceX do pretty routinely, right. They've got a vertical launch and a vertical landing. This is a stainless steel rocket, which is what sets it apart from maybe some of the past vertical launch, vertical landing attempts and trials that some of these companies have done. And what we're seeing is this huge stainless steel rocket kind of touched down soft land in, I think, the waters off of Hainan island, and then it sinks to oblivion. It looks a lot like the Terminator giving a thumbs up at the end of T2 to me because you've got like the fire and everything. I like it, I think it's great. But, but it's, it is a fairly advanced milestone for this company, Space Epoch, as they plan to pursue reusable rockets. Now it does when you see there's some new photos of it online in the ocean, like in the water, and it looks like it's pretty rough. The fins look like they're really, really rudimentary and whatnot. But I think what they've, this, they've, they've been able to, to prove is that they got the gimbaling right because this was a launch from the ground. They, they shut the engines off, they relit the engines, they gimbled them around to get a stable landing and a splash down. So that's a, a big milestone in and of itself and it'll be very interesting to see where Space Epoch goes to next if they're going to go for full reusability or just partial reusability, like what SpaceX does with Falcon Nines and, and then what that means for either commercial launches in China or, or government launches in China too.

[Tarek Malik]

Mike, what do you think?

[Mike Wall]

Yeah, no, I think it is, I mean, it is pretty remarkable that there, there are like a number of, of these Chinese companies that are doing these sorts of things, you know, I mean, trying to do Reusability, which, which we've seen SpaceX kind of master. And, and, and you are right to say, you know, they're like what a, like Chinese private company is, is quite a bit different than what an American private company is in this context because a lot of the, these, like Chinese public companies, they are kind of public companies because they are, they are kind of sponsored by the government and like getting funding from the government. But still, all that being said, and the fact that they do tend to look to SpaceX for inspiration, this is not the first time we've seen like a very SpaceX like rocket launch or be designed by a Chinese private company. Yeah, I mean, and what, like what we just saw is impressive. But, but keep in mind it's still a big leap to go from doing a test like this that goes maybe a few miles up to actually going to space and coming back down again and keeping the whole thing together. And I can also having the system be mature enough to actually deploy a satellite or do something else. They're still a ways away from that. I mean, you think back to what SpaceX has done with Starship, this is kind of reminiscent of what, what they did in the very early days with what's called Starhopper, the very first little thing that looked like a flying, kind of like a silo, basically, like a little mini silo. So the water tank, which they turn.

[Rod Pyle]

Into a water tank.

[Mike Wall]

They turn into a water tank. So that was like, what, like five years ago? Something like that. I'm off the check, but. So that's roughly the stage that these guys appear to be at. But of course they can use what SpaceX has done to get a leg up and to, to probably move faster based on what they've seen SpaceX do.

[Rod Pyle]

And to be clear, this is a prototype of what they want to build called. It's a rocket called Hiker 1, which will be a reusable rocket that can carry 10,000 kilograms to low Earth orbit. It's interesting that they're like one of like five or six different Chinese companies that are developing reusable rockets. So as opposed to like what we've got, SpaceX maybe some engines and blue origin right now, right in the U.S. yeah.

[Mike Wall]

And yeah, I mean, it does just kind of shine a light on what China is doing. China has become extremely, very ambitious and pretty aggressive. I mean, if you talk to folks in the US space sector and with the military, space folks especially, they talk about this all the time. China is very overtly challenging American dominance in space. And it's the whole ecosystem. It's not just military launches, but it's these private companies too that are sort of tied in with the military, albeit like one kind of step removed. But China is making big advancements. They just launched their second ever interplanetary mission Tian went to, which is going to go to go sample an asteroid and then move on to a comet. They're actually looking to launch a Mars sample return mission in 2028. And they may actually get Mars samples back to Earth before we do, even though we've been planning that for a while and we already have perseverance that has collected these samples. But we're, we're currently arguing over whether or not we have the money to bring them back. So it's all, all of these fears, you know, I mean, military space and exploration. I mean China is very, very ambitious and is doing a lot of stuff. So, yeah, I'm glad people talk about.

[Rod Pyle]

I'm glad Mike mentioned Tianwen too, because I forgot to put that on the list of big.

[Tarek Malik]

So I'm so impressed, Mike, that you use the soft button called inspired by SpaceX as opposed to ripping off.

[Mike Wall]

But yeah, there's another company.

[Rod Pyle]

There'S ispace, the Chinese company, ispace, not to be confused with Japanese company, Japan's I Space. And they're building Hyperbola 9, which looks very much like starship.

[Mike Wall]

Yeah, it's like a full size version, right? Or close to it. Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

Is that our next story or is that something different?

[Rod Pyle]

No, no, that's another ice base. So no, the next story is the actual ice space of Japan. And this is just a fun, fun one for folks who are watching or if you want to chase it up later if you're listening, because they have their newest photos of the moon from their Resilience lander. And as we meet in our next episode, Dear Listener, they will either have succeeded.

[Tarek Malik]

Dear Listener, singular.

[Rod Pyle]

We only have one Listeners. Listeners, everyone. The the legion of of this week in spacers that are out there. As of our next episode, they will either have landed successfully on the moon or not. We're going to have that with you. But here is an image of the the Earth, the full Earth rising behind the moon as seen by the Resilience Lander. We are less than one week from their landing on June 5th Eastern Time. It'll be June 6th in Japan. This is their second time trying to land on the moon. And that's why they've named it Resilience because the company says that they are resilient in and failure will not stop them. So you know, best of luck to Japan in this next private moon landing attempt and we'll see how that goes next week, next episode.

[Tarek Malik]

And finally we have perhaps more Awolowas coming.

[Rod Pyle]

This is an alert to everyone. Just if you, if you look up this weekend in a really dark, dark part of the sky, you might see some awesome auroras. There has been a, there's a corona hole that has been sparking, letting a lot of radiation and plasma out from the sun and it's all buffeting us this weekend. In fact, There was a G3 geomagnetic storm earlier this week which really rose levels. Now we didn't really see a lot come out of it, but they're saying that there could be a lot more over the weekend. They actually put a, there's like a KP index that the Space Weather Department Prediction Group puts out and they said that we're at like KP6 right now for the, for the weekend. That's pretty high. KP7 is like amazing conditions. So, so just be on the lookout. You could be see Aurora is all the way down to like the, the northern states, maybe like the mid, mid, mid, mid latitude ones. But we'll have to wait and see if that does in fact happen. If you want to maximize your chances though, you got to get really far away from city lights. You want dark skies and of course clear weather. So hopefully no rain because that'll ruin everything. So.

[Tarek Malik]

And that will probably put myself and Mike out of the running because we both live in metropolitan areas that by the time you escape the light from them, you're driving into the light of the next one. And so yes, a great week for solar flatulence. So let's, let's go to, let's knock out this next break and then we'll be back to talk about nothing but starship. Starship standby.

[Rod Pyle]

Starships are meant so fly.

[Tarek Malik]

So we had, whenever you're done. We, we had our test.

[Rod Pyle]

Nicki Minaj, man, come on.

[Tarek Malik]

We had our. What, what's a Nicki Minaj?

[Rod Pyle]

Well, the singer of starships. Okay, let's continue, let's continue.

[Tarek Malik]

So we had Test Flight 9, the highly anticipated Test Flight 9, which was not a failure but not a success either. It had successful elements. They reused the super heavy booster with, with all of, but, but four of its engines out for their second flight, which is pretty impressive. I'm just going to digest here. Went up, had a successful hot staging which has been a bugaboo a couple of times. Upper stage reached the desired suborbital trajectory. And then it all started to come apart as the audio and the video is about to, to relay to. So, so this is good, but it's not what they're hoping for, right?

[Rod Pyle]

Do you want to start with me or should we go straight to Mike? Mike is the one that wrote the story. Mike.

[Tarek Malik]

Mike's the smart one in the room, so why don't we just let him to.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, Mike. Mike, why don't you recount where Flight 9 rates in the, I guess the retinue of Starship flights so far.

[Mike Wall]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

What happened? What happened?

[Mike Wall]

It's, I mean, I would say they would probably say partial success, kind of like Rod said, you know, and they're always quick to say, I mean, I'll, I mean, these are test flights. You know, Starship is a very ambitious project and we're still in the venom that it's, it's, it's still under development. So they don't expect perfect success in all this. And so there definitely were some, some things to point to as, as very positive signs. I mean, one of them is that they did re fly super heavy, the giant first stage booster for the first time. And that's, that's a big milestone because the entire point of this vehicle is to be fully reusable and rapidly reusable. So this, this, this one flew this past January on Flight 7. And it came back to the launch pad on that flight and was caught by the chopstick arms of the launch tower. And they refurbished it, took four engines off, put new ones on. But yeah, 29 of the 33 Raptor engines were the same as the, as Flight 7. And it, it, it did quite well. You know, they also did some experiments with this booster on this flight. So they didn't try another chopsticks catch. So they, they kind of diverted it out for what was supposed to be like a hard ocean splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. Or are we supposed to call it, what Gulf of America?

[Rod Pyle]

Gulf of Mexico.

[Tarek Malik]

They just said the Gulf, which I thought very politically adroitable.

[Rod Pyle]

We'll say that, we'll say that.

[Mike Wall]

But so they were doing experiments with it too. They brought it in at a different angle of attack so that there would be more drag on it to test out a new kind of landing strategy where they could use less fuel for the landing burn and stuff like that. And that seemed to work. And it almost kind of reached the desired end goal, which was the hard splashdown. But it kind of blew up during the landing burn about Six minutes into flight. That's probably mostly good for them, I think they would say. And ship, the giant upper stage, it was supposed to stay together for about 65 minutes and come down for a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia. And it reached space, like you guys were saying. And it was on the desired trajectory, which was an improvement over the previous two starship flights where ship, I would say it was disappointing how ship. How ship performed on those two flights. It didn't hold together for it. It BW up about 10 minutes into flight or a little less than that on both of those flights.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, very shortly after separation.

[Mike Wall]

Yeah, yeah, it did. It didn't survive very long after separation. And it like rained debris down on the Turks and Caicos and on the Bahamas. You know, people probably saw all those videos coming in from people in those areas, which is like this huge artificial meteor shower streaking across the sky. So that didn't happen on this flight. It made it to space, but it didn't make it all the way to the end. You know, they're trying to do experiments on this one too. They had these dummy Starlink satellites on board, eight of them. I think that they wanted to deploy as like a first, as a key test to see that the upper stage can actually deploy satellites that didn't work. They couldn't fully open the kind of PEZ dispenser, payload bay door, so they abandoned that try. They were also going to do like an in spate relight of one of the Raptor engines on the upper stage, which has six of them that didn't. They couldn't get that to work either because they had an anomaly like around this time or where they kind of lost attitude control with ship, they said.

[Rod Pyle]

A fuel leak, they think, right?

[Mike Wall]

Yeah, that's what they said during the launch webcast. And then when you read the kind of flight recap that they published after the fact, it doesn't really give a main cause. It just kind of says they had an attitude control error, I believe is the terminology they use. So I guess it's kind of TBD what caused it, but it seemed like leak was the kind of go to explanation like at the time, but we'll have to see. And so they were not able to control it for landing, for splashdown. And it just kind of came back uncontrolled. And I mean, if you can't control how it's reentering Earth's atmosphere, that's not great. It's going to break apart Earth's atmosphere is going to tear it up, it's going so fast. So that's presumably what ended up happening. They lost contact with it 46 minutes into flight and presumably pieces of it are now at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. But so, yeah, I mean it's a mixed bag. Like the, like the previous two flights have been on both flight 7 and flight 8 there were huge successes with Super Heavy both. They did chopstick catches on both of those. So they've made big strides with the first stage, I think. Ship though, still quite a bit of work to be done, I think.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah.

[Mike Wall]

And it's just, it's, it's just interesting, you know, I mean there, yeah, there is a big like the kind of Starbase talk from, from Elon yesterday where he gave one of his kind of semi regular, here's our Mars plans and here's how Starship fits into them. He gave one of those talks yesterday and it's very ambitious. We can like talk about that some if you guys want to. But I think on these flights, let's.

[Rod Pyle]

Point out, in the past, every year he's given these talks and they've been live, right, with reporters there. This was not a live talk. It seems like it was recorded.

[Tarek Malik]

I think he wanted to make sure that they were able to do what they always do when you visit Hawthorne, which is they put the press in a little tiny box up in a riser and then shove 80 SpaceX employees in front of you that go yay, Yay. But yeah, that talk was a little Reminiscent of 2016, I thought.

[Mike Wall]

Yeah. And it was interesting because we were told there was going to be the update prior to the Flight 9 launch and then there was just no update after launch. We didn't really hear much about the talk. It just didn't happen. And then Elon said on X that they were gonna, they're gonna air it shortly and then yeah, they ended up posting up. It's like a 42 minute video. They end up posting it on, on X yesterday. So I'm not sure what went into the decision of how to kind of broadcast it out, but it like did seem recorded and it was, it was a presentation to SpaceX employees at Starbase. I don't. There are probably a few select reporters who were invited to see it, but it wasn't like a general call to the press or anything like that.

[Tarek Malik]

But not Tariq Malik.

[Mike Wall]

Tark did not get it. I didn't get an invite. Tarek didn't get an invite.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, I know, I'm sure. It was lost in the mail. I'm sure I'll find it in a little bit. Right.

[Tarek Malik]

Well, thanks, Mike. That about does it for this episode.

[Mike Wall]

No, sure.

[Tarek Malik]

I have to say I was watching on a couple of my favorite space groups on Facebook and elsewhere. You know, I'm old, so I still use Facebook, waiting for somebody to say it. And they said it about a half an hour after the broadcast terminated, which was it only took the Saturn 5 two flights and then it carried people, which is a valid point. But you're talking about a massive, massive budget and a whole lot more people working on it and the traditional cost plus budgeting for that. So obviously a very different creature. But one does begin to wonder how many more it'll take to get this right now. Do you know when they're gonna fly just Raptor 3s? Do they have a date for that?

[Mike Wall]

I think by the end of the year. During the presentation, Elon said that they're also working on version three of Starship. What launched on Tuesday was version two. I believe version three is the first fully mature version that he thinks can go to Mars, will be capable of fast reuse and be reliable and be able to, to be refueled in Earth orbit, which is a huge part of this whole project. You know, you like launch these ship upper stages to Earth orbit. They, they get, they do a rendezvous with like a tanker which will just, you know, just be like a modified starship upper stage filled with fuel. And then they'll, they'll fuel up and then they'll kind of jet off to Mars, hopefully in giant fleets of. That'll be like hundreds of these things at once.

[Tarek Malik]

Thousands.

[Mike Wall]

Yeah, you said, you said thousands. But yeah, yeah, I mean we like, we can talk about the ambition that, that is always kind of inherent to these talks. But yeah, so, and it's, it's, it's an entirely different vision, it's entirely different expectation of what starship will do compared to the Saturn 5. Right. I mean when it, when it launched people, it was launching three people. What, what like Elon wants to do is launch hundreds of people. He like, wants to turn the starship upper stage into a craft that can hold maybe 100 people. That seems ambitious, but dozens at the very least. So there's got to be a whole different type of life support. It's got to keep these people alive for months on the way to Mars. It's just another order of magnitude of complexity and difficulty that's involved. And that's one of the things that you need to talk about, when you talk about Mars plans, it's just like, I mean, you can't wave away what's going to be needed on this upper stage to be reliable enough to carry people. What's currently launching doesn't have any life support in it at all. It's just, it's just like a shell of a spacecraft. And that's, it's a big.

[Rod Pyle]

Elon Musk told me in 2019 when I asked that question that that was going to be simple and they didn't have to deal with it because just like already done it on, on Dragon.

[Tarek Malik]

Just like dozens of tons of radiation shielding, they, they need. Let me break in here for a second. We're going to run to another spot and we'll be right back.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, I wanted to ask about the pacing because currently it is May 2025 as we're recording this episode. And this was the third test launch that had some failures in it. The first two obviously failed in January and March of this year. And Elon said shortly after the Flight 9 launch that the next one that they could start launching in three to four weeks, which feels very soon given that as of today, just before we started recording this episode, the FAA announced that they have to do another mishap investigation. And, and we're on a timeline where, you know, again, it's May 2025. NASA wants to have people walking on the moon by the end of 2027. And they still have with the Starship lunar lander and 20 refuelings. Yeah, and, and, and we still haven't seen anything about like refueling or, or, or, or life support or, or any of that. The starship still hasn't gone around orbit. So I'm just curious how you see the rest of this year rolling out if they're going to try to do, you know, a launch every, every month or so, which would, you know, in four weeks. That's what we'd be looking at.

[Mike Wall]

Yeah. And I mean, I think that's what they want to do. That's the SpaceX way. Right. And that's why they're kind of unbowed by, by these difficulties that have cropped up on the past, on the past few starship flights. No, it is a, it's, it's a development. They, their, their whole model is fly it. If something goes wrong, then you fix it. That's, that's how you learn is by flying and seeing mistakes in flight with these, with these vehicles and they're, they're churning out lots and lots of them. So I like, I don't doubt that they could hit the like every three to four weeks milestone with the launches but you know, they do still have to, to abide by, by the rules and the regulations and they do have to do the FAA investigations and they like do have to get launch licenses and like launch license modifications. So this, this ambitious timeline is not entirely up to them. Right?

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Wall]

So I don't know how often they'll be able to fly, but I think they, they've demonstrated that they can build these things fast enough and test them fast enough that they probably can launch one every three to four weeks if, if like the regulations allow. Yeah, you know, I mean we shall see. It's really hard to predict. They, they have and they, they're incredibly talented. Obviously SpaceX has done amazing things, the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy so you shouldn't doubt their ability to get stuff done with starship. It's just what will the timeline be? You know, and that's, that's, that's, that's obviously what NASA. I'm sure NASA is very worried about the Artemis 3 timeline, 2027. They're, they're probably worried about whether like the Artemis program is going to be allowed at all, are going to be funded at all. Based on what we saw in, in the budget like a couple weeks ago from the Trump administration, they've probably got a lot of anxiety on a lot of different fronts about like kind of how they're going to explore the, the moon and beat China back to the moon, which they've been called upon to, to do by lots of different people. So yeah, it is an open question and we'll just, we'll, yeah, we'll just see. I mean I, I like, I wouldn't like bet against SpaceX based on what they've been able to do in the past, but the timeline thing is very difficult.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, so, so I have a, an overarching question here. So we're talking, we, I don't think we, we yet have a number of tanker flights required for a lunar mission. Right. Still hovering between 16 and 24.

[Mike Wall]

Something last I saw pretty, yeah, it's pretty contested. No Elon Musk would, would, would dispute that. Although he says eight right? Yeah, I think so. But, but, but NASA people have come out and said 12 to 16 if I recall correctly.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, I think at least 16. So yeah, given that a two part question, one, you know, this thing's filled with cryogenics so it's loitering up there in orbit waiting for Tankers, how quickly does that series of tanker flights have to occur? And the second half of that question is, do you see from, from what you guys have seen of Starbase, the newest city in Texas, how far are we from having the logistics to do that kind of cadence? Because this, this kind of harkens back to Wernher von Braun's ideas about a space ferry, where they're going to fly it out of the Central Pacific off of a crummy little atoll out there and we'd fly him eight times a day and blah, blah, blah, and it doesn't feel like it's that much closer than it was then. Although, you know, his cadence is pretty impressive. But we're talking about having to launch multiple times in a week, right, because of the boil off.

[Mike Wall]

That's probably true, but yeah, and so they're thinking about that already. You know, I mean there's, yeah, there's, there's already Starbase, but they're also kind of outfitting their Florida site for Starship too. So and that will theoretically be up and running within like a year or so to host Starship launches from the Space Coast. So they'll have Starbase and they'll have, they'll have Florida as well to launch starships from in the relatively near future. So I'm sure that'll, yeah, that'll help a lot. And they're going to be building vehicles both in Texas and in Florida too, so that should help quite a bit. I mean they are going to need like a lot of launches, but that's built into the whole, to the system, you know, I mean, if you listen to the presentation yesterday, Elon, talking about sending, yeah, I mean, several thousand ships to Mars and back to Earth again every 26 months when the two planets align. That's built into the system. You can question how realistic it is or what the timeline is going to be, but that sort of crazy cadence and huge numbers that's built into the system, that's built into their Mars settlement plan.

[Tarek Malik]

Okay, so I realize that none of us on the call right now are aerospace engineers, but one begins to wonder, can this really become the one size fits all space system or is he going to have to come around to saying, okay, there are things it's better at and things it's not so great at. And one of those maybe is, you know, these requirements for multiple refuelings before certain, certain uses. And I haven't heard how many tanker flights are required for a Mars flight, although I read somewhere it's actually less.

[Mike Wall]

Yeah, I mean, like, you can go ahead, Tarek. I've been talking a lot.

[Rod Pyle]

No, I was gonna say, I was gonna say that that actually came up in the presentation rod that that Elon gave yesterday and is. He did say that a Mars flight would be, you would need less refueling for that. But we heard that when, when friend of the show and president of the Mars Society Robert Zubrin was on back in March, you know, he said that maybe they need a smaller version of starship and that he likes to call Starboat. I was at the Humans to the Moon and Mars conference this week and he gave the same kind of presentation where he envisions a smaller starship, one fifth the size to be the lander craft for Mars or for the moon. And therefore you'd have a scale and use the starship as the actual in space depot. That that would fuel up the lander over and over again to be able to reuse it. But to your point, about, about logistics and infrastructure and I think Mike kind of touched on this, there's like two things that SpaceX says that they're doing to meet that number. One is that they're building Raptor 3 engines like there's no tomorrow. They've already, they're already on like 30.

[Tarek Malik]

Or 40, which are they down to like one per day or something? It was one per week. And then I saw somewhere in a respectable outlet, one per day. And I thought, is that possible?

[Rod Pyle]

I mean, they've got a system in place for all of that and this is apparently their sleekest engine yet. And they're building what they call these gigabays, these ginormous kind of vehicle assembly buildings to be like an assembly line for these ships. And so that's one way to combat just the need for ships, is that they've got these giant production lines both in Florida that they're building and the one that they have that should be coming online in Starbase. And then they've got two launch pads now because they're almost complete with the second megazilla in Starbase, and they're building one of those in Florida. And the concept that Elon said, and correct me, Mike, if I'm wrong, is that they would launch a mission into orbit and then the booster comes back, they catch it on the Mechazilla and set it down, and then they launch the next one to go up and refuel that one, and then that comes back and then that booster gets caught and then they move that to the side and then the ship that did the refueling Comes back, they catch that at one of those, those pads tank it up, put it on the first one again, launch that up. And that's, that's their whole big cycle is just to keep doing that over and over and over again. Elon says that he wants them to be able to do it in an hour. That seems crazy.

[Tarek Malik]

So it takes longer than that to turn around a jet.

[Rod Pyle]

I know, right? So, but, but still they, they have a concept of it and you know, like Mike says, if I had heard it, you know, years ago, it'd be like, that's crazy. But we saw them catch the rocket. So we've seen them re fly that rocket. So we'll have to see how it turns out.

[Mike Wall]

Yeah. And it's just kind of interesting to talk, talking about. Well, there are some people who are advocating for a smaller starship. It would be more efficient, be easier. That's not, that's not the way that they're looking. I mean Elon, I know getting starship bigger and bigger. And he, in the talk he teased that the future version might be 467ft tall. They want to make it bigger because he's so fixated on like we're going to need a million tons of mass to Mars to set up a self sustaining city. So we need the biggest, most powerful ship we can get. So that's what they're working toward. Not like trying to find more efficiencies. Yeah, it's gigantic. So it'd be even more powerful than the one that we've got now, which is already the most powerful thing that's ever flown. So they aren't looking to scale down and make it more efficient. They're looking the other direction.

[Tarek Malik]

So after Elon's venture into American politics, am I the only person here that thinks he probably wouldn't want to live in a city that was Elon town? I don't know, I'd be a little worried about that. But we could talk about that after the next break because we're due for a break, so standby. Just an aside, and I've said this a number of times on this show, but I don't think I have. When you were on mic, did we ever talk about the Wernher von Braun worst science fiction novel in history?

[Mike Wall]

I don't think so.

[Tarek Malik]

So he, in the late 40s, while he was cooling his jets in White Sands designing ICBM nose cones, he wrote a science fiction novel called Mars A Technical Tale. And boy, that title just fills you.

[Mike Wall]

With lust to read.

[Tarek Malik]

Doesn't it and it was so bad it wasn't published till 2006 and I bought it immediately and started reading it and indeed it was wretched. But the appendix for that, which he spent a lot of time on became the Mars Project book, which was quite well regarded. It was really the first technical workup given what they knew then of how you might do all this. But the best part of the novel, the most outstanding part, is when he's talking about the ruler of Mars who is called 1948 the Elon. Yeah, which is just crazy, you know, just creepy. So I imagine this big dome city and he did, you know, once again he's another guy talking about, yeah, we're gonna have these big domes on Mars and it's like, yeah, because it's good to have a magnifying glass to focus all the radiation on you so you can be toasted in three days. I assume it's more complex than that, but what interested me in this talk, I mean normally I'll see a headline about Elon and it's, you know, kind of tearing him up a little bit and what's he saying, what's all this? Usually when I listen to the whole thing it makes more sense and he comes across as being more thoughtful and, and more with it than he would in some of his tweets and so forth. This one, this talk yesterday, a little less so, I guess, but just because so much of it felt like a repeat of the Starry Eyed. Yeah, we'll have it done in six months, no problem. And I want it to be true. I'm not fond of his politics, but I want it to be true because I want him to succeed. Because other than Bezos in his very much slower paced way, nobody else has ever tried to do this. And it's a remarkable thing that one guy said, I'm going to build this rocket that is going to outfly and outlift and outperform the Saturn V over and over and over again and I'm single handedly going to build a city on Mars.

[Mike Wall]

Well, and it's not just one guy, it's also like the richest person who has ever lived basically. So he has the resources to do it.

[Tarek Malik]

That does make a difference.

[Mike Wall]

Yeah. And to say it's just Elon too. We should give more credit to the SpaceX engineers and all these. They have so many talented people there who are making this happen and all of the craftsmen and all the folks down in Starbase who are welding these things and they're doing Yeoman's work well. And Gwynne Shotwell, for God's sake.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, yeah, she's holding that thing together.

[Mike Wall]

They have so many talented people, you know, and like it's some people from.

[Rod Pyle]

NASA as well, you know, Kathy Kerners, Gerstemeyer, Gersten Meyer.

[Mike Wall]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's, I mean part of it is there's, there's a tendency just for Elon to be, to be conflated with SpaceX and he, he, well he kind of tends to do that. Yeah, he tends to do that himself. Like he's the, the lead rocket engineer. I think he has said that multiple times. But yeah, we like, we should give credit to all the SpaceX people because they're very talented. But yeah, I mean I also want Starship to succeed. I also want a very bright future in space where we can have this amazing rocket that can send people to Mars and to Enceladus into Europa and all this stuff. Like we all want that sci fi dream to come true. I think for, for the technical people or the like folks who are a little bit more skeptical. It can be frustrating to kind of listen to these presentations and just say. It just seems kind of blithely like yeah, yeah, like you were saying Tariq, you know, oh, we don't have to worry about the life support because we figured that out with Dragon. It's like Dragon is a great vehicle but it's very different from Starship.

[Tarek Malik]

It's a golf cart.

[Rod Pyle]

By the way, as we're recording it. This is, we are. Today is the five year anniversary of the Commercial Crew of Demo 2. The first time SpaceX ever launched astronauts into space. That was, that was to five years ago today. We were in the middle of a pandemic.

[Mike Wall]

It seems like just yesterday and also like a hundred years ago in certain ways it's just crazy that it's already been, it's been five years.

[Rod Pyle]

Can I point out something though about the talk? Because you know Rod, you kind of touched on something that this talk sounded like it was a lot more review than anything new. And there was some meat there, there was some timeline stuff, there was some, some, some discussion about the new, the new, the new version of Starship. But I was just struck right now. We were talking about this, about the, the fact that it is more review now with this talk than, than new means that they've, they've got a lot actually happening. You know, there was a point in the talk where Elon is talking about how well we needed to shift to the Hot stage. And then he just points right next to him which is the, the new, the new hot stage design for the, for the, you know, so they're very.

[Tarek Malik]

Soviet looking, by the way.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, they, they, they, they. And I think that is a key difference that just struck me now in hindsight is that compared to, again, like to that six years ago when I was there in 2019 and saw Starship 1 just standing up there, which sadly is no mark dropping. I know, right? Oh yeah, yeah. You know, so between then and now, they have, they have gotten a lot more under their belt. And so the shape of what it is, people know what that's like. They've seen it launch now nine times and so they're familiar with that. And so now it's like just talking about iterating that and making it, you know, X inches longer, making it whatever, you know, the, the, the thrust, you know, engines this, that and the other. Rolling out the V3 will be very interesting with the new, the new Raptor.

[Tarek Malik]

Engines, let's say version three, because V3 sounds dangerously.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, version three, version three sounds World War II.

[Tarek Malik]

Okay, I have two points I want to make. First one is I've decided after listening to Mike for this better part of an hour that we need to nominate him for a Space Pioneer Award. Because if they'll give you one, I know, right? Or me, for God's sakes.

[Rod Pyle]

I don't know if he wants to be part of a club that'll have us as a member.

[Tarek Malik]

National Space Society's next to highest honor. So above that is the Wernher Von Braun Award, which is sitting in the lobby of SpaceX under Lucite. But Mike, I think we should get you one of these, one of these little metal globes. My last question is, Mike, where is your confidence at this point about Lunar Starship actually being the lander of choice for Artemis 3 or 4 with blue origin hot on the heels?

[Mike Wall]

Yeah, well, I mean, I've definitely got confidence in what we've seen from Blue Origin so far. They've already launched New Glenn and they're very capable people. But I would still bet on Starship just because it's already flown, it's got nine test flights and just the amount of resources and the pace they work at. I'm not saying anything will be ready necessarily for Artemis 3 in 2027. I'm not saying, I'm just blithely confident in hitting that target date. But if I had to choose, I would probably still go with Starship just because of the resources that SpaceX is able to deploy and the kind of monomaniacal focus that Elon has on this vehicle and the ability and he's shown already that he's willing to put so much into this. And I think that's going to be the same going forward.

[Rod Pyle]

They're going to do it one way or another, regardless of it. I think that's the lesson to learn there. Yeah, I don't think, though, Rod, to your point. Sorry, go ahead, Mike.

[Mike Wall]

No, I was going to say maybe it'll, it'll take like 25 more test flights before or, I don't know, 50 more test flights before they put people on it. But yeah, they will, they, they will launch them and maybe, yeah, maybe it'll be three years, but they will, they will, they will do all they can to get it.

[Tarek Malik]

Well, and I do have to say I, I have, sorry, Tarek, but I have a little more confidence in the lunar lander. I mean, I'm not fond, again, non engineer, I'm not fond of this tall, skinny design with what we've seen so far, landing legs in terms of landing with stability on a very rugged surface. But you know, the nice thing is you're still, at least in the last plan I saw, you're still launching the astronauts in Orion and they're meeting up with lunar starship either in Earth orbit or lunar orbit, riding it down, riding it back and they don't have to re. Enter in it, which is one of the scariest things about starship is, you know, when they're going to get reentry settled. So at least from that standpoint, it gives me a little more confidence. But man, you know, two years is not very long.

[Mike Wall]

It's, it's, it's not, it's not. And can they've, they've got a lot to do in those two years and it'll probably. How, yeah, how far they're able to advance will be dictated by how often they're able to launch test flights because that's, that's how they learn.

[Rod Pyle]

Rod, you're the, you're the expert. What was the, how long was it between Gemini and Apollo? We know eight years from this Gemini.

[Tarek Malik]

Flight was 66 and the first Apollo flight was 67. That was orbital Apollo 7. Apollo 8 was 68. So that was fast.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

But you know, we were also willing to take a lot more chances then. It wasn't that they weren't concerned about the astronauts alive, but this was basically a wartime footing.

[Mike Wall]

Yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

And Apollo 8, you know, by all rights in today's world. Apollo 8 flew probably two years sooner than it should have because it had one engine service propulsion system on the back of that capsule to get them into and out of a lunar orbit. And if any of a dozen things went wrong, it was a simple engine and it did have a backup igniter, I think. But had anything gone wrong or it didn't need an igniter. But anyway, had anything gone wrong with that, they'd still be there and that would be very sad. So that those guys, you know, when you talk to. I was interviewing former flight director Jerry Griffin about this about six months ago, you know, and even he said we were just kind of going at warp 9 and nothing was going to get in our way. And like I said, it wasn't that they weren't concerned about safety, but they were willing to take much bigger risks. You know, that's part of the conversation too was what is your risk tolerance? What's NASA's risk tolerance versus versus SpaceX's risk tolerance versus the Artemis astronauts risk tolerances. And usually, at least in discussions I've had, the astronauts are the ones that are willing to say, just, just let us. Here, send me a waiver. I'll sign whatever you got.

[Rod Pyle]

Let's get, let us do our job. Yeah, yeah. I don't think that you can count out Blue Origin just yet. By the end of this year, if everything lines up, Blue Origin will have landed their mark one uncrewed lander on the surface of the moon. Yeah, right. And. And SpaceX still has to do that with, with a starship. Right. And if that goes well, you know, they're in the landing. They're in the landing. What is it? Program or whatever it is. Yeah, to be another lander along with, with SpaceX. And there was some other, like one other company, right.

[Tarek Malik]

To I think Northrop Grumman was signing one.

[Rod Pyle]

But so they were in a partnership. Just keep an eye on that because a decision point can come to say, hey, I know we said we would do X, but here is one that's already done it and it's, they've got their other rocket that will get there and it's a lot easier and simpler of a mission. Let's do that because it's there and it's ready. And that is a race that we have to see if SpaceX is able to catch up on on that because it's a much simpler system. They're not trying to do all the free reusable stuff. We'll have to see how that goes.

[Mike Wall]

Yeah. And it's just worth highlighting. I think that's really exciting that we have two of these private, crude moon landers that are in development right now and are planning to actually fly to the moon in the next few years. That's something to actually celebrate.

[Rod Pyle]

Plus China. Plus China, Rod. We got to get there. We got to get there before China.

[Tarek Malik]

Okay, so this is another question for Mike. This is my last question for you, Mike. My contention is that China will take any risk, and I used to say, short of loss of the crew, but I was corrected by one of the large minds in commercial spaceflight who said any risk, leave out the concerns about crew to get Taikonauts on the moon by 2029, because that's the 80th anniversary of the People's Republic. What do you think?

[Mike Wall]

I think they're definitely willing to take more risks than we would. I also think you have to think about how embarrassing it would be if they lost a crew on a moon mission, though. So, like, I don't think any risk, because if they. If they race to beat us and in so doing lose, lose three people, that would just be a huge black eye. And I mean that. I'm not sure that the Chinese Communist Party leadership would want to endure that. That would be really bad for them to lose face on the. On an international scale like that.

[Rod Pyle]

So I would agree, because they are riding high right now. They have landed the first missions on the far side of the moon. They have returned samples from the southern pole of the moon. They have done all these new things, success after success after success, and to kind of risk that momentum, you know.

[Mike Wall]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

While they're kind of watching us struggle, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

[Mike Wall]

And I. They're very capable, and I think they're only getting more and more capable. I mean, they've. They've just built their own space station in the last few years, and everything works pretty well, as far as we can tell. So they've. They've got a really good human spaceflight program that they've built just. Just recently. So I don't doubt that they can do it, But I also think that they're not going to rush it because failure would be a really, really big black eye.

[Tarek Malik]

Well, it's a lot harder to cover up now than it was in the Soviet days when they'd announced the success after it was. Was successful.

[Mike Wall]

Yeah, you got all these amateur trackers watching every spacecraft and seeing what's happening everywhere. So, yeah, really, really hard to. To actually Hide like a big failure like that.

[Tarek Malik]

Well, I want to thank everybody, and especially you, Mike, for joining us today for episode 163 that we call the Trials of Starship. Mike, remind us where you can get your book, because we didn't talk about it out there.

[Mike Wall]

I don't know. I'm sure it's still in some.

[Tarek Malik]

You follow your publications the way mind people ask.

[Mike Wall]

It's like six years old at this point, so it's probably still around somewhere, but. Yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

Are you. Are you close to retiring on your royalties yet?

[Mike Wall]

No. And then what? What, just be a full time podcaster?

[Tarek Malik]

No, I'll be a full time book writer. I did that for a few years. It was horrible.

[Mike Wall]

What? Yeah, yeah, it's actually Hachette. It's. It was.

[Tarek Malik]

I mean, at least you. You went with a major publisher. It wasn't like it was Bill Finkelheimer's publications or.

[Mike Wall]

No, no, it was like a. And all that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it wasn't self published or anything, but I would. I would just misar too much if. If I retired and just sat in a cave pounding away at a keyboard. Anyway.

[Rod Pyle]

That's great. I really do. Yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

Just saying that because he's on. What? No comment. Okay, where can we find you? Flying Suborb.

[Rod Pyle]

Some people know which side the toast is buttered is all I'm saying. Right there. No, no, no, no, no. You can find me at. At the Twitter. At space. What? At [e-mail] as always on X and Blue sky. At Tarek J. Malik, if you like video games at Spacetron Place. Although I'm gonna be away for a few days because I'm going camping this weekend. You will find me in the mountains trying to catalog, you know, I don't know, bugs or whatever and hopefully seeing the northern lights. We'll see. We'll see. Fingers crossed.

[Tarek Malik]

I have a hard time picturing you camping. You're so adverse to discomfort. But I have a good time.

[Rod Pyle]

Little scout, my friend. I grew up camping, okay?

[Tarek Malik]

And don't forget, you can join Tarek and me. And I wish Mike Wall would join us at the International Space Development Conference in June where we plan to record a live episode of this fine show for your heckling delight. It's in Orlando from June 19th to the 22nd. I'm sure, Mike, that Tarek will be happy to pay your way to attend. Get more [e-mail], and of course, you can always find me if you should be so misguided. To [e-mail], my increasingly aging website, or astromagazine.com and remember, you can always drop us a line at TwistWit TV. That's TwistsWit TV. We love getting your comments and suggestions and we answer each and every email. New episodes of this podcast publish every Friday on your favorite podcaster, so make sure to subscribe, tell your friends and give us reviews. Will take 5 of whatever their denominations are. And don't forget, we're counting on you to join Club Twit in 2025. As I say every week, besides supporting Twit, you'll help keep us on the air with our great guests and my horrid jokes. It's very important. You can once again buy annual subscriptions. So I say go there, click the button, provide them with whatever information they need. John looks like he's queuing up to tell us exactly what's needed there.

[Mike Wall]

But also join the club officially tomorrow. Price increase goes up for the club officially.

[Rod Pyle]

Last chance Charlie's June 1st.

[Tarek Malik]

They're only going to have a few.

[Rod Pyle]

That's not tomorrow.

[Tarek Malik]

Okay?

[Rod Pyle]

That's Sunday. That's two days.

[Mike Wall]

Oh, is it?

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, you get the idea. Anyways, no, no. No PhDs. Besides, Mike's on this show. And don't forget, you can follow the Twittech Podcast network. Yeah. At Twit on Twitter, on Facebook, @Twit TV, on Instagram. I stepped in that one. Thanks everybody. It's been a pleasure and we will see you as always next week. Ta ta. No matter how much spare time you have, TWiT TV has the perfect tech news format for your schedule. Stay up to date with everything happening in tech and get tech news your.

[Rod Pyle]

Way with TWiT TV.

[Tarek Malik]

Start your week with this Week in Tech for an in depth, comprehensive dive into the top stories every week. And for a midweek boost, Tech News Weekly brings you concise quick updates with the journalists breaking the news. Whether you need just the nuts and bolts or want the full analysis, stay informed with Twitt TV's perfect pairing of tech news programs.