This Week in Space 166: Live From the Swamps, ISDC 2025

Summary

This Week in Space 166: Live From the Swamps, ISDC 2025

Release Date: June 20, 2025
Host: Rod Pyle and Tarek Malik
Location: International Space Development Conference (ISDC) in Orlando, Florida
Podcast Network: TWiT.tv

---

Live from ISDC 2025

Rod Pyle and Tarek Malik kick off Episode 166 by welcoming listeners live from the bustling International Space Development Conference (ISDC) in Orlando, Florida. With an audience of thousands attending the event, the hosts set the stage for a dynamic and informative discussion on current space developments.

• Rod Pyle: "This week, we are coming to you mostly live from the National Space Society's International Space Development Conference in blustery Orlando, Florida..." [03:13]

---

SpaceX Starship Explosion

A significant portion of the episode delves into the recent explosive failure of SpaceX’s tenth Starship test. Rod and Tarek analyze the possible causes, focusing on the Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel (COPV) failure, which led to the rocket's catastrophic explosion on the test stand.

• Tarek Malik: "They think that the rocket exploded before they were able to do the test." [07:34]
• Rod Pyle: "This looks like a nuclear bomb." [08:18]

The discussion highlights the challenges SpaceX faces with iterative testing and the pressures of meeting ambitious timelines set by NASA for lunar missions.

---

Discovery of Missing Baryonic Matter

The hosts shift gears to discuss groundbreaking studies published in Nature and Science, announcing the discovery of missing baryonic matter in the universe. Contrary to dark matter, which remains elusive, this discovery pertains to regular matter that was previously undetectable due to its distribution across vast cosmic structures.

• Tarek Malik: "This cosmic web that reveals like the larger structure of the universe. So it's a piece in the puzzle..." [16:18]
• Rod Pyle: "You heard it first here from Tarek Malik, who clearly passed ninth grade science." [16:57]

They explore the implications of this discovery for understanding the universe's formation and evolution, emphasizing its significance in astrophysical research.

---

Black Hole Modeling and AI

Rod and Tarek examine a contentious topic involving the use of artificial intelligence in modeling black holes. They reference comments by Nobel laureate Reinhard Genzel, who raises concerns about AI's ability to accurately interpret noisy scientific data without human oversight.

• Rod Pyle: "Because they're both relative." [04:28]
• Tarek Malik: "The AI robot thing, we're going to call it Ultron for now..." [17:42]
• Tarek Malik: "Is it accurate to the black hole, or to all of the extra noise and junk?" [19:02]

The conversation underscores the debate within the scientific community about the reliability and ethical considerations of relying on AI for critical research.

---

Blue Origin’s Upcoming Crew Launch

A highlight of the episode is the announcement of Blue Origin's next New Shepard launch scheduled for June 21, 2025. The crew comprises private citizens, including a married couple and other non-professional astronauts, marking another milestone in commercial space travel.

• Tarek Malik: "Blue Origin's next New Shepard launch is going to lift off." [20:03]
• Rod Pyle: "If you had a choice... Blue Origin's a real rocket." [22:27]

Rod and Tarek humorously discuss the high costs associated with these private flights, estimating prices between $500,000 to $600,000, and ponder the feasibility for average individuals to afford such experiences.

---

Astronaut Communication with Families

Responding to listener questions, the hosts elaborate on how astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) maintain communication with their families. They explain the use of Internet Protocol (IP) phones, email, and social media platforms that facilitate real-time interactions despite the distances.

• Rod Pyle: "Use Internet?" [36:14]
• Tarek Malik: "They have, like, weekly time built in... to call people." [37:57]
• Tarek Malik: "John Grunsfeld calling into car talk..." [38:14]

This segment highlights the technological advancements that enable astronauts to stay connected, enhancing their well-being during extended missions.

---

Audience Questions and Interactive Segment

The podcast features an engaging Q&A session where listeners pose questions ranging from budget-friendly space camp alternatives to the feasibility of simulated space experiences. Rod and Tarek offer practical advice and share personal anecdotes, fostering a community-driven atmosphere.

• Listener Matt Schultz: "Envious, our Space Camp visits, wants to know how to do something like that on a budget." [29:03]
• Rod Pyle: "You went once in '84... it's been about five years since I've went." [30:08]

Additionally, humorous exchanges about space jokes and personal experiences with spacesuits add a lighthearted touch to the episode.

• Rod Pyle: "Why were Time and Space invited to the family reunion?" [04:25]

---

Blue Origin vs. SpaceX and Future of NASA Missions

A detailed discussion ensues about the competition between major aerospace companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX, especially in light of recent setbacks with the Starship program. The hosts speculate on NASA's reliance on these private firms to meet upcoming lunar mission deadlines and contemplate the potential roles of other players like New Glenn and Vulcan.

• Tarek Malik: "They changed a lot all at one time. And then it failed and kept failing." [44:00]
• Rod Pyle: "So, Blue Origin's a real rocket... it's simpler." [23:30]
• Rod Pyle: "China will get there... before the end of October 2029." [75:44]

The conversation underscores the intricate interplay between private enterprise, government funding, and international competition in shaping the future of space exploration.

---

Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks

As the episode nears its conclusion, Rod and Tarek reflect on the various topics covered, reiterate the importance of ongoing dialogue in the space community, and encourage listeners to stay engaged through multiple platforms.

• Rod Pyle: "Thank you, audience of hundreds, percentage of hundreds. And thank you out there in podcast land..." [74:23]
• Tarek Malik: "That's right. We got a new season of Fortnite Festival..." [82:36]

They sign off by promoting their presence across various social media channels and inviting listeners to subscribe and support the podcast through the Twit Network.

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Rod Pyle: "This looks like a nuclear bomb." [08:18]
• Tarek Malik: "This my favorite swan monster, how are you today, sir?" [02:53]
• Rod Pyle: "Why were Time and Space invited to the family reunion?" [04:25]
• Tarek Malik: "Because it was 'relative'." [04:29]
• Rod Pyle: "Because they always talk about how everything's expanding, but nothing ever comes together." [05:59]
• Tarek Malik: "They have to hit a button... to exercise your muscles." [34:22]
• Rod Pyle: "Why don't you just build new ones?" [61:00]

---

Conclusion

Episode 166 of "This Week in Space" offers a comprehensive overview of pivotal events and developments in the space industry, enriched by the hosts' insightful analysis and interactive segments. From the challenges faced by SpaceX’s Starship program to the exhilarating advancements in private space travel with Blue Origin, the episode serves as an essential listen for space enthusiasts seeking to stay informed about the rapidly evolving cosmos.

Transcript

[Rod Pyle]

This week on this Week in Space, we're in Florida at the International Space Development Conference in Orlando, and we're going to be talking about starship and the.

[Tarek Malik]

Universe'S missing matter and questions from you. No, not Rod. From you.

[Rod Pyle]

Be here or be square.

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[Tarek Malik]

Race the rudders. Race the sails. Race the sails. Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching.

[Rod Pyle]

Over.

[Tarek Malik]

Roger, wait. Is that an enterprise sales solution?

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[Tarek Malik]

Podcasts you love from people you trust.

[Rod Pyle]

This is Truit. This is this Week in space. Episode number 166, recorded on June 20, 2025 live from the swamps. ISDC. Hello and welcome to another episode of this Week in Space, the from the Swamps. Live from the ISDC edition, I'm Rod Pyle, Editor Chief, Bad Aster magazine, among other things. And of course, Tarek Malik's eternal tormentor. Speaking of my favorite swan monster, how are you today, sir?

[Tarek Malik]

I'm doing well. We're live, yes, from isdc.

[Rod Pyle]

Let's hear it with the thousands, thousands in our audience yes. You are our first live audience. Thank you very much for coming.

[Tarek Malik]

You can't see them, but we're in actually, like, a stadium. This is just a big set and it's like there's 30,000 people outside.

[Rod Pyle]

This week, we are coming to you mostly live from the National Space Society's International Space Development Conference in blustery Orlando, Florida, where it's. I don't know, what is it outside? About 92, but it feels like it's 117 with thunderstorms.

[Tarek Malik]

They closed the pool over at Lev. Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

Oh, because of lightning.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, they forced everybody out. Second.

[Rod Pyle]

Second day in a row I missed my chance to have you go swimming. Well, so just two days at this conference, my. My little chum Tarek will be walking the red carpet.

[Tarek Malik]

Yay.

[Rod Pyle]

To accept his Space Pioneer Award for excellence in journalism.

[Tarek Malik]

Thank you. Thank you. I'm very honored. I appreciate it. Thank you, isdc.

[Rod Pyle]

We have a manual. Before we begin today, please don't forget to do us a solid and, like, subscribe and all the other podcast things you do to keep us on the air. Because we love you and we need you to love us. Show us some love. Now I have some space jokes. Are you ready?

[Tarek Malik]

I'm ready. I'm always ready for space jokes. I don't understand. I'm going to laugh.

[Rod Pyle]

Hey, this from Jamie.

[Tarek Malik]

All right, Jamie.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, we'll see if now we have an actual laugh test. We can't fake it.

[Tarek Malik]

I know.

[Rod Pyle]

Hey, Tarek.

[Tarek Malik]

Yes, Rod?

[Rod Pyle]

Why were Time and Space invited to the family reunion?

[Tarek Malik]

I don't know. Why?

[Rod Pyle]

Because they're both relative.

[Tarek Malik]

Oh, yeah. The nice thing. Joke. I get it.

[Rod Pyle]

We get it. We got some polite chuckles. Okay. From Dolores Fantasy. I don't know if that's a real name or not. Hi, Tarek.

[Tarek Malik]

Yes. Right.

[Rod Pyle]

I'm looking for a book that's been recommended to me. It's about Pavlov's dogs and Schrodinger's cat. Do you know it?

[Tarek Malik]

No, I don't.

[Rod Pyle]

The librarian said that rings a bell, but I'm not sure if it's here or not.

[Tarek Malik]

Oh, okay, okay. Because, like, when you ring the bell, if you explain, he knows you can eat.

[Rod Pyle]

Okay.

[Tarek Malik]

But then, like, you don't know if the cat's dead or not in the.

[Rod Pyle]

Pavlov's Cat.

[Tarek Malik]

Cat. No, no. Schrodinger. What? I don't.

[Rod Pyle]

Schrodinger's cat.

[Tarek Malik]

Okay, that one. I think the Lord is a good joke, but, yeah, you gotta, like, get a PhD for that.

[Rod Pyle]

Okay. Which is definitely not okay. From Jim Reed. Hey, Tariq.

[Tarek Malik]

Yes, Rod?

[Rod Pyle]

Did you hear the two antennas on the ISS got married?

[Tarek Malik]

No. No, I didn't.

[Rod Pyle]

The ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was fantastic.

[Tarek Malik]

I love it. I love it. I love it.

[Rod Pyle]

Okay, well, you're. You're an audience of one. All right. Sorry about that, Jim. For Matthew. I've only got two more for Matthew McCormick. Hey, Tarek.

[Tarek Malik]

Yes, Matthew?

[Rod Pyle]

Did you hear about that amazing book they're reading up on the iss?

[Tarek Malik]

No, I did not.

[Rod Pyle]

Apparently it's impossible to put down. That was a big zero. Last one. Why? O. Oh, yeah, see, we got the sound effect box that superseded all you guys from Beer and Amin. Hey, Tarik.

[Tarek Malik]

Yes, Rod?

[Rod Pyle]

Why don't cosmologists throw good parties?

[Tarek Malik]

I don't know. Why?

[Rod Pyle]

Because they always talk about how everything's expanding, but nothing ever comes together. Wow.

[Tarek Malik]

I thought there was going to be a big bang joke.

[Rod Pyle]

He didn't even break two grins over there.

[Tarek Malik]

I know. Yeah. Alan, come on, man.

[Rod Pyle]

All right, well, I've heard that some people want to feed us to the gators when it's joke time in this show, but you can help send your best, worst or most endeavor space joke to us at Twist. TD tv. That's twis. TWIT tv. Now, while we can still talk. Oh, we have to go to headlines. This is going to be a painful week for headlines.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, well, maybe it. I guess it depends on. On what you. What you want, you know, to talk about. So.

[Rod Pyle]

Was that you or me?

[Tarek Malik]

That was me is the computer.

[Rod Pyle]

So see, this is because you're on Windows.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

Notify you constantly. I need another driver.

[Tarek Malik]

There was a window came up. I tried to make it go. I failed. It popped up another window. It made a ding. And that's why we're live.

[Rod Pyle]

And why they call you Mr. Technology. Okay, so this is a headline for which I have very little written because it's sort of self explanatory and it's called Starship Kablooi.

[Tarek Malik]

Yes.

[Rod Pyle]

What did we see? And why aren't we hearing anything about the cause this?

[Tarek Malik]

Actually, no. So I've got news on this because it actually. Since the last time we talked.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, you. You're Mr. News, so please.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, well, as ISD started. So to celebrate the first day of ISD 2025.

[Rod Pyle]

ISDC.

[Tarek Malik]

You mean ISDC.

[Rod Pyle]

Thank you.

[Tarek Malik]

What did I say? C is important. SpaceX tested their. Their tenth starship. The actual starship part. Not like the super.

[Rod Pyle]

Right. The upper stage.

[Tarek Malik]

And they. They.

[Rod Pyle]

They did.

[Tarek Malik]

They Were getting ready for a full six engine, like, you know, static fire. They did one engine before and it was great. And as they were doing it, he said, and I quote, because this is actually pretty fresh, it says that the, a sudden energetic event occurred, which means it exploded.

[Rod Pyle]

Right?

[Tarek Malik]

The rocket exploded before they were able to do the test. And, and so like when you and I were talking and mapping out the episode, we didn't know what was the cause. We were like wondering why it takes so long. We did find out about an hour before we sat. We got video of it. If you're watching the stream right now, it's absolutely. I mean this is like a. It's like a.

[Rod Pyle]

This looks like a nuclear bomb.

[Tarek Malik]

It is massive. They think that a. I'm going to get this wrong if I try to pronounce it a composite overwrapped pressure vessel which contains the gases nitrogen they use to pressurize the tanks. They think it failed.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, this is what caused the Falcon 9 explosion.

[Tarek Malik]

This is interesting because they say very specifically that there is no commonality between the COPV, that's their, their talk used on Starship and SpaceX's Falcon rockets. Except that SpaceX's Falcon rockets also use a COPV.

[Rod Pyle]

So commonality, except it's the exact same.

[Tarek Malik]

Technology, the same type of tank, but a different actual tank. And so this was what caused, I think, the failure in flight of the cargo launch. They had a COPV failure which allowed, I think fuel to get between the layers of the COPV wrapping and then ruptured the tank. The whole thing exploded. They lost the flight in midair. And so it doesn't sound like this is the same type of failure. It seems like maybe it was just had a manufacturing defect and it didn't hold up to the pressure and then it just ruptured on the pad. But it's kind of interesting that this failure is one where it was just sitting on the pad preparing for a test and blew up when the last time that happened, they lost Arabsat. Do you remember that?

[Rod Pyle]

Or could it be sabotage?

[Tarek Malik]

Well, I mean, it could be, you know, a lot of things.

[Rod Pyle]

That rocket company that supposedly shot their rocket with a hunting rifle from the roof of their building, if you recall.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, yeah, I saw that report too.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

Are we naming names? Is that.

[Rod Pyle]

No, because it was hooey. But you know, it's fun to think about.

[Tarek Malik]

There is more fallout. So from this test, it caused extensive damage to the actual test site, in fact, according to this update from SpaceX.

[Rod Pyle]

But it wasn't on the launch pad. It was on a test, it was.

[Tarek Malik]

On a test stand for starship. And so, so the, the, the interesting thing here, because you know, they really need to ramp up their pace when it comes to the tests themselves is that they need to be able to test things quickly and whatnot. But, but it destroyed the test stand. It destroyed the test. Then there were fires all around and it caused widespread damage all around it. Of course they have other tanks there, they have other storage stuff, other, other equipment. And they said that while, while no one was injured, luckily no one was, was everyone is safe, that there's no hazard to the community itself, that they haven't been able to actually get on site to, you know, they're going to do it when it's safe to do so. So it sounds like it's extensive damage that needs to be repaired. Is it extensive on the level of we've just destroyed our launch pad and we have to rebuild it the ground from scratch like they did for the first starship launch. I'm not sure because they could just build another test stand somewhere nearby. But we're going to have to say, and this is going to be a hiccup because it caused damage on the ground for the next test because the FAA will require an investigation that, that, that affects any kind of property damage and this is included in property damage there which doesn't fall in line with their typical failure requirements, I think.

[Rod Pyle]

So I said it's pretty profound property damage. So what do you suppose would have happened if they had lost a first stage out at the same facility?

[Tarek Malik]

Well, I mean the first stage is like a lot bigger.

[Rod Pyle]

It's like double the capacity with Saturn 5, which is already the size of a small nuclear weapon.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, I mean that would have, that would have just destroyed like the whole area.

[Rod Pyle]

That would have been a bad day.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

Anthony, do you want to go to break earlier? Continue. He just stuck his thumb in the air. That means going to break. Okay, we're going to go to break. We'll be right back. Go nowhere.

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[Tarek Malik]

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[Rod Pyle]

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[Rod Pyle]

Cancel CT mobile.com need to work out sign language or something. Okay, we're back. So next story up, missing universe matter found. You know, I wasn't aware we were missing anything.

[Tarek Malik]

Well, neither. Neither.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, I knew about the dark, but apparently we are.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, actually this is funny because there are actually two studies this week that all point to the same thing on Monday, there was a study that was announced in Nature, I believe, that said, hey, we found some of what we think is missing matter. And then as of, I think it was yesterday, Thursday, it's in Science, another study came out and it was yet more missing matter. And you would think, okay, well, missing matter, it must be a dark matter discovery because we, you know, dark matter makes up most of the universe. We can't see it, we can't detect it.

[Rod Pyle]

That's all the rage.

[Tarek Malik]

It could, it could be like around us right now, like the force, I guess, Rod. But no, this is actually baryonic matter. So that's like all of the, the matter that, that we see, that we can touch and stuff. Neutrons, protons, they call those baryons. So everything. And we've been apparently missing like a third of it. Like we couldn't see it. And these scientists have been able to conclude that, you know, our galaxy is one of a lot of galaxies. They're all in a huge bunch of clusters. Then there's a bunch of other clusters of galaxies. And they found these tendrils of material through those galaxy clusters that they've been able to detect, to measure. And they said, yeah, so apparently this is where all that matter is. It's in these, these gossamers tendrils connecting clusters of galaxies on structures that are much too vast for me to even comprehend right now. I can see like the window screen in your eyes when you're trying to think about it right now, Rod.

[Rod Pyle]

And so, no, I was thinking I was kind of working on a joke about the government banishing the man or, you know, through ice raids, but I thought that was probably bad taste, so I didn't go there. Okay, but what are they going to do with it?

[Tarek Malik]

Well, I mean, I think what it does is it gives them a really good picture of where at least the, the types of material that we can touch and that we can observe is residing. This cosmic web that reveals like the larger structure of the universe. So it's a piece in the puzzle about how that formed, about when all of that actually happened, you know, as opposed to like in the earlier epochs of the, of the universe 13.8, whatever billion years ago. And so that can help them inform both, all of their modeling for how the universe could evolve over time, how the universe has evolved and how galaxies form from like that great ether of the cosmos. So big, big heads.

[Rod Pyle]

You heard it first here from Tarek Malik, who clearly passed ninth grade science. So credits to you. Okay, next, black hole conundrum so this one is interesting. We have this.

[Tarek Malik]

You pick this.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, well, but it's from space.com.

[Tarek Malik]

That'S from live Science. Technically, they wrote it. We did not. But I appreciate that you, that you follow.

[Rod Pyle]

Trying to give you credit. So there was an AI image created of what was considered to be the latest and greatest thought of what the. Was it Sagittarius? A star at the center of our galaxy. The big star is impossible. Is it? And. But one particular Nobel laureate was pushing back. So what's his complaint?

[Tarek Malik]

Well, this is interesting. This story was written by Joanna Thompson, by the way, who also writes for Space.com so maybe we can claim some credit there. Yeah, but, but yeah, this, this Nobel laureate, his, his name is Rich Reinhard Genzel.

[Rod Pyle]

Yes.

[Tarek Malik]

And, and he, he won the, the Nobel Prize for physics in 2020. And he says that, hey, this is great that the AI can do this. And, and what they, they did is they put a bunch of data that looked like it was really noisy. Like it had a lot of, of stuff that is really hard for human scientists to pull out and sift and find. Like, what is the actual science that's hiding in here that I can tease? Most of the time the science will say, you know what, it's too noisy. I can't trust this data. I'm going to throw it out. Well, they gave it to the AI robot thing. And the AI robot thing, we're going to call it Ultron for now. Because Ultron says, hey man, I can, I could totally see all the data in here. Like, you humans don't have anything on me, and I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to do it. But, but Reinhardt says, hey, man, like, how accurate was that assessment of this noisy data?

[Rod Pyle]

Making stuff up?

[Tarek Malik]

You are building an assessment or a model of this black hole based on data may be faulty because we can't check it.

[Rod Pyle]

So excuse me, but I think part of was this complaint that the AI was taking in all the noise with virtually no parsing.

[Tarek Malik]

Exactly. So it takes it all in and it says, I can just do it. I can use this data to make the model. And they're using data that other scientists would have filtered out because they don't think that all of that data is useful. And so the question is, is this final model, which is a much more refined simulation of a black hole, truly accurate to the black hole, or is it accurate to all of the extra noise and junk that scientists would normally throw out? But the AI says that it doesn't have to throw it out because it can have a larger, I guess, think on it or whatnot. I don't know how robots work.

[Rod Pyle]

But it's yet another example of AI telling us foolish humans, get out of my way or I'll kill you. Well, okay, that's chilling.

[Tarek Malik]

I had a couple. Are we going to go to another thing or do we have more things to talk about? I have more things.

[Rod Pyle]

Oh, another break, you mean? No, we got five minutes. I was gonna. Why are you gonna talk about the Blue Origin launch?

[Tarek Malik]

Well, I was just wondering like, if you were gonna skip, if you were, if you didn't like my extra headlines. So take it away. Okay, great.

[Rod Pyle]

I love your headlines.

[Tarek Malik]

All right. Yeah, well, I just thought that it's a very active weekend. Actually, sadly, there was a, another a bit of private news. So we've got a new crew for Blue Origin. They are launching on, on 21st, which is Saturday the day after we're recording this actually. What is that? It's NS. I think it's their 30.

[Rod Pyle]

33.

[Tarek Malik]

33. Now they all sound to be private citizens for the most part. Leland Larson, Ali Kohner, Carl Corner. I think they're married and, and more. And it just seems like it's a bunch of private folks that found a way to buy their tickets to go to space. So that's great. You've got some private astronauts here. Cyan Partner is here. I think Dr. Green here, she, she flew actually in January, yesterday in May, so she flew here a few weeks.

[Rod Pyle]

Anybody told us how much this costs yet?

[Tarek Malik]

We, I, they don't know how much it costs. I know that it cost like 100,000 plus 150,000 to inquire about being on, on a flight. So you got to show your serious.

[Rod Pyle]

Get into that kind of business.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

Just to ask questions.

[Tarek Malik]

Sell a third of your house first and then, and then you can put that part down.

[Rod Pyle]

But they're saying in general, like they're guessing 5, 600,000, I think.

[Tarek Malik]

I, I wouldn't.

[Rod Pyle]

And it's going for millions.

[Tarek Malik]

I would, I wouldn't surprise if it's at least a half. It has to be as much as whatever Virgin Galactic is raising their prices to pay. Right. You would expect.

[Rod Pyle]

When are they going to fly that thing?

[Tarek Malik]

Next year. They're hoping by next year to start the initial test for, for spaceship. What is it? Spaceship Delta. Yes, Spaceship two Delta. I don't know how they're gonna, what they're gonna call it anyway. The, the tldr, is that Blue Origin's next New Shepard launch is going to lift off. It's going to be. They have the husband and wife pair are Ally and Carl Coiner. You've got a philanthropist, Leland Larson, entrepreneur. Freddy Be Resigno Jr. A lawyer and author o o lobby Asalis and a retired attorney, Jim Sicken. No, no surprise person on this flight.

[Rod Pyle]

No, I think a beekeeper is pretty weird.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

I think it be interesting if they brought their bees on board and they got loose during their zero like that.

[Tarek Malik]

Episode of the Simpsons where all the ants get loose and they fight over who's the queen.

[Rod Pyle]

I. I'm too old to watch the Simpsons. Well, I was mature at that time. Of our hundreds of people in our studio audience almost. Would anybody mortgage their house to buy a flight on either of these? Okay, maybe a lot of headshakes. Yeah, we got what? What?

[Tarek Malik]

Only if she was dying, she says.

[Rod Pyle]

Okay, how about, let's see if you had a choice if you were going to be gifted between going on the Blue Origin vertical rocket ride or Virgin Galactics. You know, we're going up like an airplane and then we have to like origami our spacecraft so it can come back with dragon, all that. Which one would you prefer to fly?

[Tarek Malik]

See, everyone wants to ride a rocket.

[Rod Pyle]

Blue Origin gave us money a couple years ago. This is a good set of answers.

[Tarek Malik]

Oh, for the nss.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, is it? So in general, I mean, I agree. What about you, Rick? Yeah, so I agree with you. But for me it's because I grew up during the space age and Blue Origin's a real rocket. I don't want to fly on a plane that goes real high. Nothing against against Virgin, but just the idea of being strapped into a rocket that goes straight up and comes straight down, first of all, it's, you know, more romantic to me. But second of all, it's simpler.

[Tarek Malik]

Biggest windows built for space. By the way.

[Rod Pyle]

The only thing biggest windows go wrong is the parachute doesn't work. And that's bad.

[Tarek Malik]

You know, there are two, there are two versions of the Blue Origin New shepherd for Estes, there's two. The first one they released is High Fidelity. It's made of hard plastic. I love it a lot because you can auger it in and it's still like you can still keep flying it over again. But then they also made a very high high res kit to build where you build all of the parts including the little engine mount on the inside rod is like, are you done? Yeah. And this is so this is space toys, video games. There's a New Vulcan one. Now, they just announced.

[Rod Pyle]

Now, I used to fly model rockets, but the idea was you toss the instructions away first because they are much more interesting. Right. Says James. So we discovered that Skyrocket Barbie could fly.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

With enough power, you want a goldfish. Because we wouldn't want to say it didn't. We launched a large turkey drumstick, a solid colander, and I built my first large F engine class.

[Tarek Malik]

A solid colander.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, With a lot of holes. It goes up about 10ft, but it makes a big mess when it does it. But my favorite was my first F engine class rocket, which is a larger, you know, like the size of your wrist or something. And I got the kit and I thought, okay, for the first time in my life, you know, add me, right? I'm gonna follow the instructions. But I thought, the nose cone's kind of loose, so I'm going to put some little cardboard flaps on there to hold it. Not realizing that with an F engine which instead of going that those things were going to flip over and it veered off, over towards a little league field where they're actually playing a game.

[Tarek Malik]

Oh, no.

[Rod Pyle]

It augured in on the first baseline, leaving a smoking hole. And like a. I actually walked over and to the guys and said, excuse me. They had stopped play, of course, and all these little kids standing around with big grins on their faces because this thing came out of space and smashed into Billy, you know, stupid enough to actually go over and pick it up. And there were a lot of dads cradling bats, giving me evil looks. So that was the end of my rocketry career. And speaking of which, that's the end of this segment. We are going to go to a quick break and we will be right back. So stand by.

[Tarek Malik]

Great.

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[Tarek Malik]

World.

[Rod Pyle]

Now for our big resounding wrap up headline. One that you like to call. Hey, it's summer.

[Tarek Malik]

Oh, yeah, I thought, I thought we were just talking about offline that we were gonna save it for the end, but no. Oh no, that's great.

[Rod Pyle]

I didn't follow.

[Tarek Malik]

It's. It's Will. School's out.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

Of this week.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

For my daughter.

[Rod Pyle]

Clearly from our hotel here. Yes, everybody that was in school is here.

[Tarek Malik]

So. So this is just a casual reminder to everybody that the summer solstice is Tamamura as we're recording this. So today is June 20, so tomorrow is June 21. That is the official start of the new season on Earth. So for us here in fabulous Orlando.

[Rod Pyle]

Florida, you could be a druid.

[Tarek Malik]

For everyone back in fabulous New Jersey, back home, you know, it will be summer, which means, you know, camping, whatever trips and apologies to everybody in Australia and South America or whatever. It's the start of winter for all of you all. So. So no, no Christmas in July for them. But. But that means that with summer brings shorter nights, the days are going to be longer. So if you really want to get your sky watching in, really go out, find some good dark skies if you're going to camp, there's a lot of instincts. There's a new supernova for everybody in this, the southern. The southern hemisphere in the sky. So you've got, you've got those longer nights now. You can go up and check them out. It's really, really cool stuff. We should talk about that next episode, actually.

[Rod Pyle]

We should.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

And speaking of dark skies here, if you live here in Orlando, how far do you have to drive to not see like the big globe and Disney World and all that?

[Tarek Malik]

I do not know.

[Rod Pyle]

Gotta be hundreds and hundreds of miles. Oh, all right. So our first listener question comes from Matt Schultz.

[Tarek Malik]

Oh, are we gonna explain about the questions? Okay, yeah. So. So now that that's headlines. Yay. Now to the list.

[Rod Pyle]

You forgot the headline news sting.

[Tarek Malik]

Yes. Yeah, I know. Now we're gonna shift over to the questions because we asked people last week and this week, every day this week to please, please send us questions.

[Rod Pyle]

Yes.

[Tarek Malik]

So, so now we wanted to hear from what, what our listeners wanted to know about space. And so now Rod, you've got some questions. So let's, let's do it.

[Rod Pyle]

Thanks for actually setting that up. So from Matt Schultz says he envies us our space camp visits.

[Tarek Malik]

Matt.

[Rod Pyle]

Now I went once in 84 when it was still for little kids, which.

[Tarek Malik]

Means you're an amateur.

[Rod Pyle]

Barely fit into anything.

[Tarek Malik]

You went it, like, five times for five weeks. Not five times, because I did two weeks twice.

[Rod Pyle]

You did two weeks?

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, once. I did two weeks one time.

[Rod Pyle]

God, what a dweeb. So anyway, he says, envious, our Space Camp visits, wants to know how to do something like that on a budget. And he wanted to make a point. I don't know where he got the idea that I have an opinion about this, that he doesn't identify as an analog astronaut. He says, I agree with you. Cosplay is not an issue. Have fun and be proud of what you're doing and call it what it is. Just don't claim that you're an astronaut. It's an insult to the real deal. So, okay, Matt, we got it.

[Tarek Malik]

You guys would get along.

[Rod Pyle]

So you get along with. With a lot of grumpy people and the dead. So you've been to Space Camp more times than I can even imagine. So what advice do you have for him to go on a budget?

[Tarek Malik]

Well, I mean, I think that the. The. I. I would say it's been about five years, maybe more than that, since I've went. I think Zadie was like 6.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, I went in 1984. Yeah. Your experience is a bit more recent.

[Tarek Malik]

It's hard because the only Space Camp, there used to be one here in Florida, and then there was another one in Alabama. And, yeah, they closed the one that was here very close to Kennedy Space Center a long, long time ago. And. And so the only place, really, to get that authentic experience, by the way, the one in the movie, in the 1980s. I keep looking at my camera on the computer. It's over there, the one in the movie. They used the Kennedy Space center for it.

[Rod Pyle]

But you forgot to say horrible movie.

[Tarek Malik]

No.

[Rod Pyle]

Okay, anybody here see Space Camp when it came out? Opinion. See, she grew up. Tarek. No, she grew up and realized it was good.

[Tarek Malik]

It has Marty McFly's mom in it. It has Tate Donovan in it, who was super cool when I was a kid.

[Rod Pyle]

Okay, Right, sorry. That's enough. So for anybody who didn't see it, there's a bunch of kids. There's kids in Space Camp. And, oh, let's go sit in a real space shuttle while it's being fueled for flight. Demerit 1.

[Tarek Malik]

Jinx sent Max into space.

[Rod Pyle]

The hideous robot. And then they. They are in there, and suddenly. Oh, my God, there's a launch emergency. The solids have ignited because a firefly exploded or something. We have to let the shuttle go so it doesn't explode. Explode. It was just ridiculous.

[Tarek Malik]

I think it holds up. I think it holds up.

[Rod Pyle]

Liked it.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah. Now because there are no space shuttles flying, it's a historical document, obviously.

[Rod Pyle]

James, our, our volunteer chief is holding his nose. I think that's pretty clear assessment. Anybody else have opinions about Space Camp? Did anybody like Space Camp? There's a lot of indifferent shrugs in Ronnie. Really? Oh, no, no, the movie.

[Tarek Malik]

Wow. I mean, people are allowed to be wrong. It's. I mean it's a free country. So that's all right.

[Rod Pyle]

Okay, moving right along.

[Tarek Malik]

But no, to help, to help, to help, to help out. Yes, that would be nice if there, there are other types of experiences. Like one of my, one of my friends was like a Space Camp counselor, but it was like a local satellite one. So there are those types of experiences that you can get, I would say.

[Rod Pyle]

But are they still doing the satellite ones? I thought they shut those down.

[Tarek Malik]

Well, I mean, it may not be. I mean she was, this is when she was in high school and I wasn't. We weren't. We were in high school.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, that was a long time.

[Tarek Malik]

A long time ago. Yeah. Now that. I think that was a really long time ago because, because the Huntsville, you have to go there to be able to be in and maybe like the.

[Rod Pyle]

Cool stuff's there too.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah. But you know, you maybe don't go during the summer. That's when it's super, super hot demand. And if you're an adult, like we are, the, the programs aren't. You don't have to go for the full five days. You can go for two days actually. And it's a, it's a more affordable type of a trip and then you can get in, get out. I would always though, always recommend that you spend at least an extra day to go to the museum, take the tours of the, the Marshall Space Flight Center. Really, really cool place. I saw the design for shuttle C there, like in the mock up, you know, Remember Shuttle C?

[Rod Pyle]

The automated, the Shuttle C. That didn't happen.

[Tarek Malik]

The automated, the automated space shuttle cargo variant. They were going to go. I was so thrilled, but I was like 17 back then, so. That was a long time ago.

[Rod Pyle]

Long before you went gray.

[Tarek Malik]

I shaved so I look baby faced today.

[Rod Pyle]

Before we continue, by the way, there is a, a humanoid thing over my shoulder which I want to point out.

[Tarek Malik]

Vision body.

[Rod Pyle]

It's called the vision body. EMS electro muscular stimulation and actuation activates 98% of the body's muscles and Will help with bone density. So the idea here is that you put this on an astronaut. This is one of the exhibitors at the International Space Development Conference. You put this on an astronaut while they're in space. And instead of having to exercise two hours a day. And I'm just guessing here because I didn't talk to them to any length, but you'd put this on and hit a button. And if it's like the one that I've used on the ground, you go like that for a couple hours. But it exercises your muscles and keep you from dying.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, she was here earlier. Yeah, Kristen.

[Rod Pyle]

She started giving me a very long explanation. I kind of went, yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

And the concept and I think it's really interesting because obviously I was in the space health track yesterday.

[Rod Pyle]

Yes.

[Tarek Malik]

Where they were talking about having to genetically engineer astronaut. We should have that guy on the, on the show, by the way, because we're talking about like, like building astronauts from actual scratch so that they can survive for a long time.

[Rod Pyle]

So like giving them cockroach genes so they can withstand gamma rays.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, it's like, it's like that kind of thing, you know, or, or super thick bone, extra arm, you know, so they don't lose the bone mass. But, but that this would be an alternative to both. Not, not just, not just the, the two hours a day. Not having to do that.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

It's more than just like I, I don't want to cram two hours of. Of workout every day, but it keeps your muscles.

[Rod Pyle]

Want to do a half hour workout. I don't know about you.

[Tarek Malik]

I did, I did last night after a long day here at isdc. I keep looking at the camera. Go, go back to the hotel and I'm like, I'm gonna go work out because the gym's across from the.

[Rod Pyle]

You really said that to yourself?

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah. I ended up having a Diet Coke and a slim Jim and then I went to bed, I watched Serenity and, and fell asleep.

[Rod Pyle]

That's my kind of diet.

[Tarek Malik]

All right. Speaking of Duke, I hope you don't see it.

[Rod Pyle]

Somebody that doesn't need to diet. We have a question for Tanya Wyman, one of our on Discord. I can't get the question about ask what.

[Tarek Malik]

I couldn't get it to work on my computer.

[Rod Pyle]

Okay, continue your side commentary. Asked us about astronaut downtime and family contacts. She said after hearing Colonel Nick Cade's comments. We had Nick Hagg astronaut and space Force Guardian on last week comments about the astronauts downtime on the International Space Station. Sharing meals and Talking about updates from their families. I was curious as to how the astronauts on the International Space Station stay in touch with their families and friends. What technologies are used for this and are they limited to a certain number of messages or minutes per day? Now, for. For some stuff, they use ham radio, but I don't think that's for family.

[Tarek Malik]

Right? No.

[Rod Pyle]

Use Internet?

[Tarek Malik]

No, they use what. What. What used to be, like, so high tech. It was called the IP phone, and it was like a device where they could use.

[Rod Pyle]

It's a photophone, right?

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah. And I said, what does IP stand for? And this is like, about 15 years ago. And it's like, well, it's the Internet protocol phone. And I said phone on the Internet. Like, surely, surely, you must be joking. But no, it's basically the same technology that we use for Skype.

[Rod Pyle]

Right.

[Tarek Malik]

And during the Apollo days, they always had that box in the family's house, right. That would play, like, the live audio, the clock box. And NASA does have that. So it.

[Rod Pyle]

Wasn't that an open phone line back to mission control?

[Tarek Malik]

I. I believe they had a phone line back then.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

But now. Now they have. They have an Internet protocol phone and a computer where they can call people and. And see, like, what's going on. I've heard of astronauts, actually. I think there's a. There's one of John. John Grunsfeld calling into car talk, right? Yes, yes, he called in to talk about that. So they. They have, like, weekly time built in. They might even be daily. It depends on how they set their schedules up with their flight surgeons for. For contact, where they can build, Tanya, that time to. To call people, call their friends or whatnot. And it is run through a computer that has that Internet protocol on it. I don't know if it's Skype or if it's Zoom or. Or some other kind of proprietary thing that NASA sets up as a portal. But. But I know that it's very similar to, like, what Rod and I are using to record the show today, you know, to. To arrange and do that. Plus they can also do audio as well to make phone calls to, like, we. I have Ringcentral that my company uses. You know, it's a version that's similar to that type of thing. And NASA, if you're out there and I got it wrong, call in and let us know on the show.

[Rod Pyle]

But this is gonna say, why haven't they called us yet?

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah. And. And so. So that way they can be as. As connected as they can. And they. They also can Send email as, as you normally they've got their own accounts. They can send email to talk to their family. Up up until I guess with the, the mid 2000s, they still had a lot of film cameras and stuff up there, but they had digital cameras. Now they, it's prolific since 2007 after that's have been able to or not 2007, 2009 astronauts have been able to tweet and use social media directly from space. They set up some kind of like a machine initially in mission control so that people didn't have to keep doing it manually but now they can do it themselves. And I think that that's amazing that they can have that direct connection not just with and their loved ones, but they can share that connection directly from space. Johnny Kim on the space station right now, you know what he did this week?

[Rod Pyle]

I do not. Will you tell me?

[Tarek Malik]

One of the, one of the astronauts, one of his crewmates, they were, they were, they were complaining about how much they miss sushi in space. So they spent a meal time trying to recreate sushi and he shared a photo on it.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, you, you sushi.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, but it looks like it and it's big. That's like the kind of thing that gets people really engaged is like what kind of food is the astronauts eating or the astronauts eating. And they were able to get connection directly. So it's not just for family and friends. They're able to do that and they can share video, live video now too.

[Rod Pyle]

So you're a very excitable man. We're going to go to a break. We'll be right back. So go nowhere.

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[Tarek Malik]

Thanks.

[Zoe Saldana]

And here's my old phone to trade in.

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I feel like I have to give you something in return for karma.

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That's okay.

[Zoe Saldana]

I don't really have much in my purse. Oh, let's see. Hand sanitizer. It's lavender.

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I'm good.

[Tarek Malik]

Seriously.

[Zoe Saldana]

Let me check this pocket. Oh, mints.

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Oh, I have raisins. I'm a mom. Wait, wait one sec. I've got cupcakes in the car.

[Tarek Malik]

It's our best iPhone offer forever. Switch to T Mobile, get a new.

[Rod Pyle]

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[Rod Pyle]

We'll even pay off your Phone up.

[Tarek Malik]

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[Rod Pyle]

CT mobile dot com. All right, so I think it's time for us to get a question from our very large studio audience. Would anybody like to ask a question of people that probably know less about space than they do? Oh, good.

[Tarek Malik]

Sir, this is James.

[Rod Pyle]

What? Oh, so he's asking about my badge for this conference, which says rod, quote, hot unquote, pile a steaming rocket into space. So this came from one of our conference organizers.

[Tarek Malik]

I just got that.

[Rod Pyle]

Who every year comes up with something more interesting. So, first year it was Rod Pile, cigar aficionado. Second year it was Rod Pile, ladies man. This year I was just glad that it didn't say Rod a steaming pile of. Because that's kind of what I expect from Sean. So I felt very gratified. He said, would you like me to do another one? And I said, no, I think this one's very descriptive. So I. I appreciate that, Mr. Dressler.

[Tarek Malik]

I can. Mine.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, what was your question?

[Tarek Malik]

The next live show that he has.

[Rod Pyle]

Are we ever going to do this again?

[Tarek Malik]

That's up to you, man.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

Rod is the brains behind getting all the equipment here.

[Rod Pyle]

No, I brought the games. It was just the budget. That too, I guess when we come visit you in Singapore. That, ladies and gentlemen, was Dave Dressler. See, now I'm. Now you got me looking at the computer screen. Who is a big wheel in the National Space Society and has been traveling the world for the last couple of years and recently went to Singapore to get married.

[Tarek Malik]

Oh, congratulations.

[Rod Pyle]

Dave. And his new bride, who he'll be seeing in six months.

[Tarek Malik]

Have you had chicken rice yet, Dave?

[Rod Pyle]

Well, you know, he's.

[Tarek Malik]

So.

[Rod Pyle]

He goes to Singapore every year because.

[Tarek Malik]

My wife is in Singapore as well.

[Rod Pyle]

Singapore.

[Tarek Malik]

So.

[Rod Pyle]

Okay, yeah, okay, enough of this insider stuff. All right. From Ken Kramer. Ken, Starship, where art thou?

[Tarek Malik]

Where art thou?

[Rod Pyle]

General question. Starship, where's the beef? He says it's supposed to be all but replacing other rockets and taking us to the moon, but it just keeps exploding. So that's a pretty blunt question. Yeah, I don't really know if there's an answer for that, except on one side of the fence, you have. Well, it's iterative improvement, and that's how we do things. On the other side of the fence, you have the popular media which says, why does this thing keep blowing up? So I guess one answer is, especially lately, the last few explosions, they had just upgraded the whole thing. So they're on the third generation of rocket engines.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

Which are more. Much more powerful and much simpler. They're on the second set of upgrades, the upper stage starship, and they're on the second upgrade to the booster. Right.

[Tarek Malik]

I think that the. The Raptor 3 engines aren't on the ship yet. I don't think that they are.

[Rod Pyle]

Oh, okay.

[Tarek Malik]

I think that they were going to do that later in the year.

[Rod Pyle]

Okay.

[Tarek Malik]

But, but, but to your point, when, when, like. So we were on explosion number four. Right. Is that right? Yeah, we had. We had a. We had January's Flight 7 marches Flight 8, and then Flight 9 was the one that just. That just broke apart. Yeah. And so Flight 10 is the one that just blew up on the pad. And all of these started, like, what Rod was saying, with new. Like lots of new things. They made the ship bigger so that they could have bigger fuel tanks. So that they would have more fuel on board so that they could do in flight maneuvers which would allow them to normalize their orbit and actually stay in space rather than do the, the kind of suborbital Texas to Indian Ocean flights. So that's number one. They change that, they change the, the way that the, the elevons or canards or whatever they're called. Yeah, the shapes of those, those little fins that do the navigation, they make them harder so they wouldn't do as much burn through for them. They, they tweak some of the heat shield design, including building in some intentional burn through spots to test heat shield stuff. They have. They even added some new active cooling stuff which I think means that they have coolant going through.

[Rod Pyle]

Right. They're gonna have fluids.

[Tarek Malik]

They changed the brains of, of the ship. They did some, some changes to the aft end of the ship, which I think created a lot of problems because it made that vestibule with like the pressurized fuel.

[Rod Pyle]

Right.

[Tarek Malik]

Gets caught, caught inside it.

[Rod Pyle]

That went boom.

[Tarek Malik]

The, the TLDR is that they, they changed like a lot of something that had worked six times before all at one time. And then it failed and then it kept failing. And it's, it's, it seems like it slightly. The first few were because of the gas getting caught in this vegetable thing in the bottom of the, the basement of the, of the boot of the ship. But you know, this, this, this thing with the tank, if that's what it is, that's a whole other ball of wax. Is it the new tank? Is it different? Did they change the nitrous? The copv?

[Rod Pyle]

Copv?

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

Somebody say copd. That's not right.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah. So, so, you know, I think that a lot of the, the pressures here is that the, that they have made big claims for what they're going to use this rocket for. Big claims. And they.

[Rod Pyle]

Especially in terms of timelines.

[Tarek Malik]

In terms of timelines, yes, because NASA has picked them to land people on the moon. NASA wants to do that by 2027. Now. Remember when it was 2025? Remember when it was 2020, Rod?

[Rod Pyle]

I remember it was, I think it was going to be 2018. This thing was going to be flying. Well. Yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

And so, and so, so I think that there's a lot of factors that are pushing them to say, yeah, we can still make this timeline. But it, but then things keep failing. Like, like you said, by the way, the. Where's the beef? I do like the Wendy's reference to that old commercial there. Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

So I was wondering how many people are going to remember that? Yeah, you're barely old enough.

[Tarek Malik]

So, so, so I, I, I think that there's this, there's problems, you know, if, because now you can say flight test failures, I get it. But a failure on the pad when it's just waiting, that's a whole other thing. And so is there an issue that they're flying too much and too fast on two different programs? You know, they want to launch, I think, 50 plus rockets from both Vandenberg and, and Florida this year. They sign on for 50 plus, I think for Starship too. I want to do 25. I don't know if we're gonna get there, you know, but they, they have a machine that churns these out, Right. So they could, they could turn around and say, look, we figured it out. We got a lot of smart people, a lot of smart people there. And this is a company now.

[Rod Pyle]

The boss is back in town.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, there is that too.

[Rod Pyle]

We'll see for if that makes a difference. And I seem to remember the space shuttle was going to fly 54 times a year.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah. Every two weeks.

[Rod Pyle]

Didn't quite make it.

[Tarek Malik]

Did not. All right. The most time they flew four times. One time, five times. There's one year that they launched six.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

Flights.

[Rod Pyle]

I think so. Yeah. Or five, maybe from Thailand. Thailand we have from my pal Steve Rossi, who is a writer and a former. He's a Hollywood refugee like I am and has done many other things.

[Tarek Malik]

This is a long question.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, yeah, so he wrote in on Facebook and said, hey, you know, your, your, your episode a couple weeks ago, you were kind of over this with Casey Dryer from Planetary Society came on Talk about the budget for NASA. And he said, you know, you're basically overseeing the demise of our favorite space agency and eulogizing NASA in episode 160. 64. And you were still making jokes.

[Tarek Malik]

Who you were making jokes?

[Rod Pyle]

We were, yeah. In the episode not about NASA at that point, but we have our opening segment. So he, I think he kind of conflated the two. And what I was trying to get across in this answer was that that might have come off a bit weird to him. But you know, it's like, so when, when my parents died, it was very difficult time, obviously, but my sister and I have a fairly dark sense of humor together. There's a certain point when you're going through all this stuff that humor can begin to emerge. Now people around you may look at you and think, wow, they're really horrible people. But when you're surviving years of this thing. That's kind of how you get by. So my feeling was we're kind of getting by watching all this weird stuff happen by just trying to keep a certain amount of lightness about it. Or we're just gonna like well yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

You can laugh or you can cry.

[Rod Pyle]

They'll park my car in my garage and turn the engine on and wait until I take a nap.

[Tarek Malik]

That's supposed to make jokes like that, Rod. That's what he's talking about. Well, on the phone that's true. It's exactly what he's saying.

[Rod Pyle]

I kind of can't help myself. So it's kind of like, like self tough love, you know. I don't know. I mean, you know, whereas disheartened about this as anybody. Well I don't know for quite as disheartened as Casey Dryer. He was pretty.

[Tarek Malik]

It's dire. We record those sessions differently. So like we actually talked to Casey before we did the, the news things and by then we needed true. We needed like a distraction. So.

[Rod Pyle]

And it's not a fade of complete yet either. I mean this is the proposed budget.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah. Right.

[Rod Pyle]

Your senator still some votes have to go. There's a lot of states with a lot of interests and a lot of money and there's a lot, a lot of Ted Cruz and things like that that are going to push back. So as upsetting as it may be, we don't know yet that it's going to be upsetting in the end. We're pretty sure it's not going to be great. No, but it might be a one billion dollar cut instead of what they're proposing.

[Tarek Malik]

I think that the, the TLDR out there is. We don't mean any harm, Steve. You know we, we, we understand your take on it but you know there's a just. We're trying to be positive to the point that we can. Right. That's just these questions.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's fair. I'm going to skip the Jenny Wong question because I'm probably gonna like too long about that. Yeah. So let's ask from Alfred Jones.

[Tarek Malik]

That's good. I don't know. Yes.

[Rod Pyle]

Rod, what's it like to [e-mail]? it seems like it could be an exciting job. Is it hectic? Fun? What would be your next best choice? Oh, I can kind of answer that because I talk to you every week.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

And we talk about the show for about 10 minutes on Thursday and then I say how's work? And you go you don't know the day I pass. And it sounds pretty. Pretty tough.

[Tarek Malik]

Well, no, it's, it's, it's. It can. It can be stressful, as always, especially when there's like, a lot of things happening all at the same time. But we have a good team. We have the biggest [e-mail] that we've ever had since I've been there. And I've been there for almost 25 years, actually. Wait. Yeah, 25 years. And, and so, you know, I think that the, you know, the, the evolution of the Internet there.

[Rod Pyle]

Most of your adult life.

[Tarek Malik]

Pretty much, yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

Wow.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah. So those were 25 years. Wait, 2001. 25 years is next year. So I've been there 24 years.

[Rod Pyle]

I am now doing the longest held job I've ever had in my 68 years, which is seven years. I've never been anywhere that long before.

[Tarek Malik]

Someone asked me when.

[Rod Pyle]

I don't know how you can do it.

[Tarek Malik]

Well, I started as an intern. I think people know about that. So I was the intern first, and then when Jim Banky left the company, then I became the. The writer in 2004. And then I just kind of sat there and made myself indispensable until. Until you end up getting in charge, right?

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

I failed up, if you will, I think, is how that works. But. But no, the. I think it's exciting because there's something new every day, which is great. And there's always something. And I get to meet a lot of really great people. I'm a more manager thing now. So now it's like juggling schedules for who's covering what conference or launcher or everyone wants to go to the conference in Hawaii, so who gets to actually go? Which actually happened one time. And I just said, you guys can fight it out and figure it. I'm not gonna get in the middle of that one there.

[Rod Pyle]

It reminds me of. I think there was a zero G flight I was supposed to take.

[Tarek Malik]

Oh, my gosh.

[Rod Pyle]

This thing for this video that I did for you. And then the next thing I knew, you were taking the zero G fl.

[Tarek Malik]

I'm pretty sure I made it clear.

[Rod Pyle]

I spent a week shooting and editing. Okay, all right. Okay. I'm not gonna argue about that.

[Tarek Malik]

You know, some of the. Some of those kids, like, they work at Northrop Grumman. I know lockheed and at SpaceX that.

[Rod Pyle]

If I made with them on that zero G flight, they might have taken.

[Tarek Malik]

Me up with, you know what, Zero Gravity Corporation.

[Rod Pyle]

Yes.

[Tarek Malik]

I don't think that you have had A live radio show or a podcast recording on. On your thing. And I know that you're having the first musical expression, like a performance art piece, like. We know that. That's coming up. Yes, but podcast, Right.

[Rod Pyle]

So my question is, if you had to pick one of us and Mass was a consideration, which one of us would go?

[Tarek Malik]

Us and who? Us and who?

[Rod Pyle]

No, if they were between us and they were concerned about Mass, there's no.

[Tarek Malik]

Show without you, Rod. You would have to go.

[Rod Pyle]

Oh, God.

[Tarek Malik]

Right.

[Rod Pyle]

Thank you.

[Tarek Malik]

Just so I can stop hearing about it.

[Rod Pyle]

Gosh.

[Tarek Malik]

For the next 25 years.

[Rod Pyle]

We'll be right back. We'll be right back.

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[Rod Pyle]

All right.

[Tarek Malik]

By the way, I feel no shame as editor in chief of the publication for stepping in and saying, yes, I'm gonna go on that flight, if it's.

[Rod Pyle]

Any editor in chief.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, that's right. Well, because when I was a space flight writer and they started in 2005 or four offering those flights.

[Rod Pyle]

Yes.

[Tarek Malik]

The choice was not given to me to even go to the junket for it. It was given to the multimedia editor at that.

[Rod Pyle]

Okay. But of the two of us. Of the two of us, who gets more goodies? I've been editing magazine for seven years and so far out of it. Mainly I've gotten to meet you. For what that's worth.

[Tarek Malik]

Some would say. Priceless, I think.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah. Okay.

[Tarek Malik]

So.

[Rod Pyle]

So I. There's another question here from YouTube actually.

[Tarek Malik]

Okay.

[Rod Pyle]

Yes, related. Last topic. Why? Didn't feel my chair moving for a minute. That was weird. The last topic. If SpaceX can't meet their deadlines, are we going to be able to fill the void with New Glenn and Vulcan? Yeah. Or even, dare I mention, the very expendable super Expensive sls.

[Tarek Malik]

Who's this from?

[Rod Pyle]

I'm sorry, I'm not sure. It says dms.

[Tarek Malik]

Dms?

[Rod Pyle]

Wow. Anthony, who's that from?

[Tarek Malik]

That's a punk rock name.

[Rod Pyle]

He's nodding.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, okay.

[Rod Pyle]

I guess it's from a punk rock thing. What's the answer? But yes. Well, yeah, I mean, I wouldn't put a lot of money on Vulcan for frequency of flight, but.

[Tarek Malik]

Well, we'll have to see.

[Rod Pyle]

Or New Glenn.

[Tarek Malik]

We'll see how that goes out. Well, New Glenn could surprise you. You know, there are reasons that companies go slow and then either at all, they, either, they either go slow because they want to get it right and then once they start getting it right, they always get it right or they have problems. And I don't think it's the former for. It's, it's the, the latter for, for New Glenn. I think they want to get it right and they want to make sure that everything is ready to go. It's really funny that you mentioned this, the stuff with Starship, because there was a panel at the recent Mars Humans to Mars to Moon to Mars, the HDM conference where, yeah, where they, Blue Origin really just outlined their plans for going to the moon and how they're doing their Mark 1 Lander by the end of this year. And I think that's really telling. You know, if you see Blue Origin launch their, their lander to the moon and land it it this year, the Mark two, the one for crew is just a scaled up version of that. It's not like any substantial departure in terms of, in terms of a technology. And, and there was that whole big speech, remember with Mike Pence in the first Trump administration where he got up there and told the National Space Council, look, you know, it's, it's, it's either moon or bust by any means necessary, which was the wake up call that Boeing may not be you and it may not be you. Boeing with your rocket. That's taken 18 years again. It worked the first time. That's great. Right, but, but it's on the chopping block right now, so to speak, in terms of missions with, with the budget. And if that, if it does go away and Starship is delayed, someone has to fill that void and it's whoever builds the rockets the fastest and the, the landers the most dependable the fastest. And that gets there. It may not be Starship because they have to test more. Right, right.

[Rod Pyle]

So, so I have to ask my, my question. I, I bring up every time about Blue Origin, which is, is Kind of juvenile on my part. Does anybody hear of any inside intel on Blue Origin? Okay, so you live in Florida. They got that big plant up at ksc. Every week there's trucks rolling up there and unloading big spools of stainless steel and tanks and machine tools and all this stuff. Stuff. And it's like there's industrial constipation going on. All this stuff is going to the front of the building.

[Tarek Malik]

Or is it that they're building it?

[Rod Pyle]

One little rocket came out the back, and it's like, where's all by the way?

[Tarek Malik]

For people who haven't ever been down to Canaveral to see Blue Origins factory. It's massive.

[Rod Pyle]

Oh, you got invited inside.

[Tarek Malik]

I've never been inside. I've never. I've pulled over.

[Rod Pyle]

How do you know it's.

[Tarek Malik]

Because I drive over there and I. I pull over to the side of the road and I stand there and I scream, let me in. Let me in. Don't you know who I am?

[Rod Pyle]

Little pig. Little pigs.

[Tarek Malik]

But no, you can see it. You know, Jeff Bezos posted like a drone shot of how big it is. It's like a mini. I've never been inside. No, it's like a mini machine.

[Rod Pyle]

You know what you're talking about?

[Tarek Malik]

Well, they've shown photos of what it's like inside.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, they have shown photos what they want you to think.

[Tarek Malik]

Okay, Okay.

[Rod Pyle]

I think it's just a big empty building.

[Tarek Malik]

Okay, that's what. That's what Rod thinks. Okay, we'll see Boeing or Boeing. Blue Origin, let us in. You got to prove Rod wrong. I think you've got at least four new Glenns already built and waiting to fly in there. Rod thinks it's just a bunch of cardboard with, like, you know, with rockets, R O K E T on the side. He's the case.

[Rod Pyle]

He's joking. Blue Origin. Please send another check. Okay, back to Jenny Wong now says reading one of your books. Rod, please elaborate on the story about the Saturn Phi's main engine. Oh, she's reading Innovation the NASA way. 2014.

[Tarek Malik]

I had that book Everyone should have education.

[Rod Pyle]

The Saturn V's engine and how the designers managed to keep it from exploding. Also, why don't they just build new ones? So let's answer reverse order. A lot of people ask why we don't just rebuild the Saturn V engine or the Saturn V that matter. And the answer is, yeah, the engineers, the room are going, it was a revolutionary design for its time, but it is not a revolutionary design for today. It's a Functional design, but everything was expendable, everything was custom. Building a Saturn V engine was essentially a work of creative art.

[Tarek Malik]

When you say everything was custom, does that mean that each engine was custom made like you?

[Rod Pyle]

Well, they really were, yeah. The parts were not interchangeable, so they had a, a, a design that worked for all the F1s. But if you go and look at the parts, these were handmade by people with incredible skill sets. So two things. One, we don't really have the plans to redo do those today in the detail we need. In fact, when they wanted to redo the gas generator to see, because for a while they were thinking reviving the Saturn V, they had to go to a museum and pull the gas generator right off of there and measure everything and build from that set of blueprints. So there's a lot of just material that's not there, factual material. There's all the people that designed and built it who are either dead or extremely old. And it's an older, inefficient design, so you wouldn't want to redo it. Specific to her question about how they stopped them from blowing up. So this was Rocketdyne back in the late 50s, early 60s. The F1 was originally conditioned, commissioned as an ICBM engine. So they're going to build a rocket with an F1 or multiple F1 engines.

[Tarek Malik]

That's one way to get funding for your space program.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, this is before NASA was involved. This is the Air Force saying, yeah, we got to loft nuclear bombs over to Russia and they're big and they're heavy, so we need a great big single chamber rocket engine. So they're working on it. Then the Air Force said, you know what, we changed our mind. We don't need that after all because our bombs are small now. And so they had other ways of delivering. So NASA picked up the F1 contract to continue developing with Rocketdyne. So Rocketdyne is building these massive rocket engines out at Santa Susana in Southern California, not far from me. They're firing them and they blow up and they fire it and it blows up. They fire it and it blows up. And these are the days of graph paper and slide rules, right? And really basic computers. So they would go out and pick up the pieces and go, look at that, see how it bent there and try and figure out what went wrong. But they just could not get a hold of it. And I, I don't remember. It was a couple hundred of these things, I think that they blew. Do you happen to remember it was A lot. It was a lot of these engines building exploit kind of like what Elon's doing.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

But this is on a, you know, government contract. And they were sort of running out of time, patience, and money. So finally the very clever engineers said, okay, let's get ahead of this, because what was happening was they fired the engine. The, the combustion chamber was so big because it was an order of magnitude bigger than what they'd done before. As it turns out, you can't just scale up things that explode bigger and expect them to behave the same way. So they, they'd fire the fuel down, they, they ignite it, and it would start burning, but it would start burning unevenly. So they'd get these acoustic waves crashing back and forth in the combustion chamber, and then the whole engine would shake and go kaboom. Very spectacular, by the way, to see. So they actually started putting little charges of black powder up inside the combustion chamber. So they would fire the engine, hit this thing, and then they would set up the acoustic vibrations on their schedule and measure what happened. And so through a combination of redesigning the injector plates. This is really getting technical, isn't it? And a few other things, they were able to. They still had that problem of uneven ignition, but they were able to damp it down to like, a couple of milliseconds. And that was just because these guys said, basically, hey, let's roll a hand grenade in the engine and see what happens at the time.

[Tarek Malik]

Wow.

[Rod Pyle]

So that's the answer to that.

[Tarek Malik]

I don't, I don't think they want to do that for all the new stuff. Stuff. So not, not anymore.

[Rod Pyle]

Okay, here's a question for you.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

Apparently from the Emergency Operating System from Jenny Carpenter, who is a teenager. Where can I try on a real spacesuit and learn more about space flight? And since you've gone to space camp 19 times and practically lived there when I. Well, to that question.

[Tarek Malik]

Base Camp is one place, you know, that you can go around. I've been to, like, a bunch of site science fairs where they actually have, like, we're not where NASA goes on tour. And they, they bring like a glove box there.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

And you can actually try on the, the gloves and do tasks inside the box. That's really cool. And you can see how the gloves work. The gloves are really interesting for spaces because they're, they're, they're harder to use than you would think. And like, astronauts must have, like, grips of steel to be able to use them when they're pressurized. Because I've only used them when they're not pressurized.

[Rod Pyle]

You know, they're astronaut tough. Well, I saw it on the back of a comic book.

[Tarek Malik]

That's right. If you don't remember that, please go back to our most previous episode and you'll get the whole.

[Rod Pyle]

I wore a spacesuit once. I was doing executive training at Johnson Space center and we'd have people come into like Mission Control and we'd show Apollo 13 and talk about leadership and all. It was really fun. For some reason I can't remember what the exact deal was, but they gave me an Apollo era spacesuit to take in the next day. So I'm back at my hotel, the Hampton Inn or something with this million dollar suit.

[Tarek Malik]

Okay, so when you said that you wor. Spacesuit, it wasn't like it was like official thing. They just like you had it at the hotel room and you tried it on is. Is what you're getting.

[Rod Pyle]

Yes. So it's a training suit. Now mind you, astronauts don't look like me, right? So I've got this thing and I'm like, I'm practically scraping off skin to get into it, right. I put the helmet on and I kept it on just long enough to look in the mirror and look at myself and think I could have been a contender and then took it off so I could start breathing again. But I did get a chance. It was a training suit. It was, you know, an A07 or whatever the, the EBA suits was. It was really like quite a moment.

[Tarek Malik]

I think, I think that's awesome. I think that sounds great because I.

[Rod Pyle]

Know as close as you've come, it's wearing your Space Camp jumper.

[Tarek Malik]

That's right. That's right.

[Rod Pyle]

I still can't fit into either.

[Tarek Malik]

I still have my. No, no, he's right. That's. That's right. Well, at Space Camp you wear it.

[Rod Pyle]

Like, like late Saturday nights, right? You probably. Space Camp jump.

[Tarek Malik]

If they ever, if I ever. That that's always like the choice. If I ever start for the YouTube channel to do like a face cam, like maybe I wear the, the, like the, the, the jumper. Yeah, it fits. And if it's, if it's better now that I've gone on my diet. So it's good. So both Rod and I are on diets, everyone. And they're, and they're both very successful. So how much have you lost? £20.

[Rod Pyle]

So that's almost as good as my 35.

[Tarek Malik]

I know, I know. Right? So I'll get there. I'll get there. Okay. But no, to. To answer the question, you know, like, you could always go to a work event and steal the spacesuit, take it home, try it on and bring it back the next day like Rod did.

[Rod Pyle]

Or.

[Tarek Malik]

You know, at Space Camp, they have those kinds of experiences as well, but that's like a whole other big investment that you may not want to spend. Some of the students, like, they get picked to go on the arm, and then they get to wear the special spacesuit and do that. I did not get to do that. That I had to keep my friend Sarah from going space crazy. We had the duct taper to a chair because she could kind of open the hatch in that. In that scenario.

[Rod Pyle]

You were dying to do that, aren't you?

[Tarek Malik]

Well, no, it wasn't my idea. I think that the counselor is the one that told us that we had to do it.

[Rod Pyle]

You actually.

[Tarek Malik]

But kind of a.

[Rod Pyle]

Cool.

[Tarek Malik]

Don't. Okay. Don't give Rod any ideas because now he has tape. But like I was saying before, like, I had gone to like, World Science Festival type.

[Rod Pyle]

No, no, no.

[Tarek Malik]

Type of, Type of events to try on the gloves, and I thought that was cool. There was a company, and I think they still do it. It was run by Teddy Southern in, In Brooklyn, New York, Final Frontier Design. And they actually had a spacesuit experience for. Oh, I mean, it cost money. I like, like that, like a few.

[Rod Pyle]

Hundred dollars because all those YouTubers got in there. They said, look.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, and remember Miriam? Yes, Miriam.

[Rod Pyle]

That's the one I was watching. Yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah. Well, she's not a YouTuber. She was like on our. And. And this, this just shows, like, we went there and they said, who's going to go in the spacesuit? And I said, I think Miriam should do it. I could have called dibs on that too, Rod, but I'm not fully selfish. It's only when you're involved is what I'm saying. So. But no, so, so, so for a few hundred dollars, you were able. I think maybe. Maybe it was like 600 at that point in time, but you were able to put on the. The suit. They would pressurize it. And, and there is, in fact, she went to space recently, right? She has the daughter, Delta, she flew on for.

[Rod Pyle]

Oh, yeah. Yes.

[Tarek Malik]

Why don't I remember it?

[Rod Pyle]

Don't admit you don't remember.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, so. So she's actually worn that I think she wore to the Explorers Club meeting when, you know, when they, they put on it, she had to go. And Teddy Southern, the designer of the suit, is walking after her Carrying the, the air conditioning unit. Oh, yeah. She doesn't overheat and breathe. Exactly. It was really, really cool. Cool to. To see that. That suit there. So that, that's another option is there are places you can go that offer that kind of an. An experience and you can simulate that too with the ones that. Where they go on the diving expeditions, where they go on those tours. And you wear the special helmets. Like that's, that's a similar type of a. A suit to wear. Not a spacesuit.

[Rod Pyle]

But you're talking about where you basically put the thing on and then go walk around water and walk around.

[Tarek Malik]

I saw a video. I didn't know that was the thing that you could do, but it looks really cool.

[Rod Pyle]

It is, yeah. I mean, kind of like Snuba, you know, you can go diving, but only 10ft. So we have a bunch more questions. We're sort of running short on time, so let me skip down to Wizarding. On Discord. Wizard.

[Tarek Malik]

Wizard. Ling.

[Rod Pyle]

Wizard Ling, who comes up fairly often with a series of questions. Any thoughts on whether ESA or maybe India or someone else will step up to partially fill gaps left? NASA funding kinds of.

[Tarek Malik]

Have to. Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

God, what a horrible thing to have to ask for the movie missions planned and now defunded. Any news in that regard? So, so it's interesting he asked that because remember we had Rob Manning on the JPL chief engineer. They did cooperate on the Mars Orbiter mission from India, which was about a third of what it would cost to do here because labor costs in India are less and the majority of the workforce that was women who they paid even less.

[Tarek Malik]

Less.

[Rod Pyle]

No comment there. But. So that was a tremendously less expensive mission with JPL still doing operations and control. So they have some experience, at least on the robotic side, working internationally. So I guess the question here is then you. So let's fast forward to. To Viper.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, Right.

[Rod Pyle]

So RIP the Moon volatiles, right? Rover that's supposed to go out and.

[Tarek Malik]

Do prospecting, which is built, which is.

[Rod Pyle]

Built and finished and mostly integrated. We know some people that are helping oversee that project. They said, yes, it's ready to go, and then it gets canceled. So you'd expect an international partner to say, well, we'll launch it. I mean, you've got it finished. We have rockets. So why hasn't that happened?

[Tarek Malik]

I think that the answer will come over time. Things are still in flux because the NASA budget's not set yet. And so because it's not set, there's still hope for things to get turned around. So that the cuts either aren't that bad or maybe, maybe Viper gets reinstated somehow. You know, we Astrobotic still isn't ready to fly. So the lander's still not there. So I, that may have been an informed choice by NASA I guess at that point because it was supposed to launch in October of last year. But as we were talking, I think in the last episode's News Roundup, the European Space Agency is looking at what can be done now because like you were saying back then, they got jerked around a lot with ExoMars and, and the fact that you know they, they we said that we were going to join them on the Mars then we said we're going to fly them NASA and, and now they're pulling out altogether now they don't have a ride to go to, to, to, to mar. To Mars now and they have to figure, figure that out. Meanwhile, you know that India has already gone to Mars once. Yeah, they got a rocket that can do it. So wait, what? Right, so, so you, you could see that kind of cooperation build over time. And I, you know, and there are other agencies that have gone to Mars. China is one of them and this, this, this is something that could force that kind of collaboration sooner with Europe or, and others for that because, because of the uncertainty about whether NASA is going to be a good faith partner or not depending on things.

[Rod Pyle]

And you give it a segue. The next question however, I have to comment when I said earlier dms, that was the Dallas Mars Society.

[Tarek Malik]

Dallas Mars Society. Okay.

[Rod Pyle]

So Wizardling's second question is then will China maybe use this like this is a question as an opportunity to show off their capabilities and spend more on space science missions? I think they're spending plenty yeah space science missions and they follow through and they plan 10 years at a time and the budgets of the budgets and it's an autocracy and you just do China.

[Tarek Malik]

China is working with Pakistan to show to host their first international partner on their Tiangong Space Station. They are building a Hubble level space telescope within reach of the Tiangong Space Station so they'll be able to service it over time. They've already built the world's largest radio telescope on, on, on Earth that has a lot of scientists trying to get it and they are the first to bring back samples from the far side of the moon that scientists have to go around us regulations to try to be able to, to study over time which we talked about as well. The, the pursuit is there, you know and, and I think that the, it's going to really be up to how both the priorities are set in funding and in prestige on, on the, on the, the federal government side and the Trump administration side to say this is what we're going to do and this is why, so that we can maintain the leadership. I will point out that Janet Petro, acting NASA chief at Paris Air show this week, talking about how they aim to keep nino NASA at the forefront of aeronautics research research at a time where the budget is going to cut the aeronautics budget, a research budget by 40.

[Rod Pyle]

That seems like kind of a bold claim.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah. So, so it's kind of you can't have that cake and eat it too if you're not going to pay for the cake or the ingredients to make the cake or like the plate to put the cake on when you're done.

[Rod Pyle]

And you're talking about prestige and geopolitical power, soft power and so forth at a time when we got how many years to return to the moon before China does in 2029, which they will do, as I say, often without doubt, before the end of October 2029, because that's the 80th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and we are not even close to being on that timeline, in my humble opinion.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, probably not. I don't think so. Yeah, so I, I hope so. I hope I'm wrong.

[Rod Pyle]

Anybody here?

[Tarek Malik]

Some other player could come with sls.

[Rod Pyle]

I, you know, on the ladder. Okay, we've got a wrap up here pretty quick. Oh, so Wizardlings, last follow up, which we kind of answered is. So it comes to one question, I guess, is anyone stepping up to fill the gaps left by NASA's funding being cut? And the answer is no, not so far. Dallas Mars Society follows up by saying if you go on a two week mission simulation at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah or Flashline in the Arctic, up to next, where I was, the crews have to wear analog simulated spaces when going outside the Hab module. You do this simulation.

[Tarek Malik]

That's for Jenny's question that he's answering.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah. Which is true. However, you know, that's not a real spacesuit, quote, unquote. Yeah, it's kind of like a jumpsuit with a helmet. So, I mean, you get the simulated experience, but if you're talking about a real spacesuit, you got to go to space Camp.

[Tarek Malik]

Jenna, you could build one yourself too and like win an asset contract.

[Rod Pyle]

Finally, Aunt Pruitt, our old friend who used to are producing, said, when is Mr. Malik going to get a Functional desk chair. Okay.

[Tarek Malik]

You've been, you've been tattling.

[Rod Pyle]

So the background here, he's got a really cool Star Trek gaming chair. And for the first two years of this podcast, he'd be sitting and it's like, I don't know how hard is it to replace the wheel? But the wheels would fall out and suddenly there's nobody in the frame because he's fallen out of his area.

[Tarek Malik]

I had it up on blocks for a while. So yeah, not fall over.

[Rod Pyle]

And wouldn't call you Mr. Technology, but.

[Tarek Malik]

I didn't know that you could replace the base of an office chair until what, two years ago is when I.

[Rod Pyle]

Did it last year and that's why you were reporting.

[Tarek Malik]

And then I, and then I did.

[Rod Pyle]

You built rockets. We'd be in real trouble.

[Tarek Malik]

And then now the new replacement is, is, is falling apart and the wheels are falling off again. And it's just one wheel. And in my defense, I thought it was me because I was a bit heavy and overweight and, and, and maybe, maybe because I don't remember what the specs were on the chair. You know, it is a gaming chair. I thought they were built for some thick folks, but I guess not. And, but I lost all that weight and still this is coming up. So I just think that it's a shoddily made chair. And so I think that's, that's, well.

[Rod Pyle]

Maybe shoddily made, but they're 900 now.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, well, they don't make that chair anymore.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, you can still get it.

[Tarek Malik]

And the, the pleather, the pleather comes off too. So for, for people who haven't seen it on, if you haven't watched our show, the chair is like this teal blue, like, like the science colors. Star Trek. Trek and, and black and white. And it's not, it's not real leather.

[Rod Pyle]

It's like Star Trek across the back with the star.

[Tarek Malik]

And it has a UFP logo on the back. It's very, very nice. But the seat is, is like all of the little like that, that colored covering is just flaking off now. I mean the chair is like six or seven years old.

[Rod Pyle]

Has plastic dandruff.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah. And so, so you, you like, I'll get it sticks to you. So you'll get up, up to go like have. No, I'm like on your, on your pants and you, you'll go and have a cup of coffee and then you'll find little flakes of the chair like, like all on the stairs down. It's really weird.

[Rod Pyle]

So this sounds like a personal problem.

[Tarek Malik]

Well, you asked. I did, but the only person I said that the chair was broken is this guy, which means that he's been, he's been speaking out of school and talking about, and talking about things I.

[Rod Pyle]

Told him make fun of.

[Tarek Malik]

I sent him, I sent, I sent him a text message to say, day the chair broke again. And, and that is the only person that I did. So. Ant, I know who you talking to. So.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, no, actually, I think we talked about in a show a couple of days ago. Does anybody have anything else they'd like us to discuss? Well, of the 50 people in this.

[Tarek Malik]

Room, I want to say that Allan is here and I really appreciate Allan coming in from, from Charlotte, North Carolina. Right. Because Alan told me. Yeah, this is Alan. Alan.

[Rod Pyle]

Alan. You've given meaning to our lives. I, I was like, thank you for that.

[Tarek Malik]

I was talking to Alan in a panel earlier. He introduced himself to me and, and I just wanted to thank you for coming not just to the show, but also to isdc because he said that he came here in parts of thousands of listeners because he heard, he heard, he heard us on the show and, and thought that'd be a fun conference to come to. Thank you very much, Alan.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, yeah, so I have a question for you. Oh, yes, sir.

[Tarek Malik]

One of the next squad is going to be out of kc. Well, it's not Sunday, I can tell you that.

[Rod Pyle]

Kennedy anymore. So Dave Dresser's question is next launch out of ksc. And my understanding was there was nothing for the rest of the week. There wasn't Atlas scheduled for Monday. Yeah, I don't know if it went or not.

[Tarek Malik]

No. Well, the ALICE is the corporate two launch and done. It's not official yet. And since they had the, the, the, the glitch from the first attempt, it sounds like it may not actually happen because it's not on the docket yet.

[Rod Pyle]

And I can't believe there's a whole week without SpaceX launching.

[Tarek Malik]

At least, there's got to be. At least there was a Starlink. There was a Starlink that was slated for Sunday, like am, like one in the morning.

[Rod Pyle]

Okay.

[Tarek Malik]

So, but we went into this, we went into this day thinking they were going to be like two launches today and, and I think two more over the weekend. And it sounds like it's all cricket from here on out. AX4, they announced yesterday was going to be delayed indefinitely because of the leak on the space station.

[Rod Pyle]

Right. Which is interesting. Yeah.

[Tarek Malik]

Which we'll have to talk about a little bit more because It's a bigger deal than we thought it was going to be.

[Rod Pyle]

Okay, so I have a question for you guys in 10 seconds or less, and this is for a space 2.0 unworn t shirt from my 2019 book, space 2.0, go.

[Tarek Malik]

I don't even have one.

[Rod Pyle]

Did I promote this enough? Who is the sixth man on the moon real quick.

[Tarek Malik]

Again?

[Rod Pyle]

Nope. Wow. Really? I'm shocked. Huh? Alan Shepard. Dave Dressler, you are a winner. That's the second T shirt you've gotten for me on this trip. Okay. Okay. Huh? Oh, you're right. It's Ed Mitchell.

[Tarek Malik]

Oh, no. Give the shirt back.

[Rod Pyle]

You guys are gonna have to share the shirt. Wow.

[Tarek Malik]

The space.

[Rod Pyle]

At the same time, I want to thank everybody for joining us today for episode number 166. Wait, 165 or 66? I got it wrong on 66, isn't it?

[Tarek Malik]

Because that's where we get our kicks. Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah. That we like to call from the swamps. Live from the International Space Development Conference in Orlando, Florida, Live, Tarek, where can we continue to follow your amazing career? So I hear online.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah. Well, you can find [e-mail] as always, on the Twitter with the X and the blue sky. At Tarek j. Malik on YouTube @spacetron play days, if you want Fortnite.

[Rod Pyle]

Because he's trying to make a. A retirement plan. Yeah, that's right. Video game.

[Tarek Malik]

That's right. That's right. That's right. We got a new. New. A new season of Fortnite Festival. Lots of new updates for the summer.

[Rod Pyle]

Let me just take a quick break here. We have Isaac Arthur in the back.

[Tarek Malik]

Isaac. Hello.

[Rod Pyle]

So Isaac Arthur is the National Space Society president. He's also a YouTube phenom with. Do you have a million subscribers yet? Only 820.

[Tarek Malik]

20,000. Only 820, 000 people.

[Rod Pyle]

That's close to what we're getting. So you know how to make a living off this stuff. So he's playing Fortnite.

[Tarek Malik]

Yes. And Fallout 76. Soon to be Outer Worlds. Because the Newman's chances are.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah. Yeah. What do you think the chances are? That's a good 401k plan for him. Him? We're playing Fortnite on YouTube to make a living. You'd be shocked how many people, like, want to watch people just play games.

[Tarek Malik]

You'd be shocked, Rod.

[Rod Pyle]

I am shocked.

[Tarek Malik]

From the expert himself.

[Rod Pyle]

You know, I was afraid you were going to come over and support his point of view. Okay. Well, there we go. And always remember, you can drop us A line at Twist. Twit tv. That's Twis Twit tv. We welcome your comments, suggestions and ideas anytime.

[Tarek Malik]

Time.

[Rod Pyle]

And I will answer email because Tarek doesn't read his.

[Tarek Malik]

I answered Daniel's email. Yeah, Daniel says that I have really horrible timing on the the headline news ding. Because. Oh, that because of the delay. And I said, well, hopefully, well, but.

[Rod Pyle]

We saved you this week because we forgot to run it. New episodes. This podcast publish every Friday on your favorite podcaster. So make sure to, like, subscribe, tell your friends, give us your views. We'll take five stars or a thumbs up or a tongue sticking out or whatever you got because we love you and we want you to love us. You can also head to our website at Twists. Twit.

[Tarek Malik]

Twit Twist. Twist.

[Rod Pyle]

Twit tv. Twists. Which is what I was trying to say. And oh, don't forget, don't forget, don't forget they're counting on you to join club twit in 2025. Besides supporting the Twit Network, you'll help keep us on the air and bringing you great guests and horrid space jokes. And you can get all the great programming with video streams on the Twit Network ad free on Club Twit for only. Anthony, it's not $7 a month. $10 a month for only $10 a month was 7. It's 10. Sign up now because it'll only go up. And you can follow the Twittech podcast network at Twit on Twitter, Twitter and on Facebook and Twitter TV on Instagram. Thank you, my friend.

[Tarek Malik]

Thank you, Rod.

[Rod Pyle]

Thank you, audience of hundreds, percentage of hundreds. And thank you out there in. In podcast land and on all the live streams we're on. Anthony, what is the full list of of live streams that we go out on now? So.

[Tarek Malik]

So Discord, YouTube, Twitch X, LinkedIn, Facebook, LinkedIn.

[Rod Pyle]

TikTok. Wow. No, you didn't say TikTok. Is there one more a Kick. That's a lot here on Kick.

[Tarek Malik]

Yeah, I know people on Kick.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah. All right, thanks, everybody. We'll see you next time. Take care.

[Tarek Malik]

Thank you.

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[Rod Pyle]

Your schedule.

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