This Week in Space 173: The Return of the Malik

Summary

This Week in Space 173: The Return of the Malik

Date: August 15, 2025
Hosts: Rod Pyle, Tarek J. Malik
Podcast: All TWiT.tv Shows (Audio)

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Episode Overview

This episode marks the return of Tarek J. Malik after his travels, as he and Rod Pyle dive into the latest space news. Major topics include the successful third flight of ULA’s Vulcan rocket, bold proposals about using Juno for an interstellar visitor, the prospects of a future Pluto orbiter, the passing of legendary astronaut Jim Lovell, and wide-ranging discussions on commercial space, lunar power, spaceport booms, and quirky Mars "helmets." As always, the pair blend humor, science, and a healthy dose of nerd culture throughout.

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Key Topics & Insights

1. Tarek's Return & Singapore Adventures

[03:41–07:45]

• Tarek returns from a trip to Singapore, sharing stories about celebrating their National Day, sampling local food, and space-themed surprises (like "Moon Juice kombucha machines").
• Cultural differences between Singapore’s lively National Day and Norway’s more reserved festivities are contrasted.
• Rod jokes about being left to host solo, and the duo riff on early 2000s rocket plane projects that never quite materialized.

"We celebrated National Day in Singapore while we were there. It was their 60th anniversary, and that was interesting to celebrate that kind of a holiday in another country."
— Tarek Malik, [04:35]

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2. Remembering Jim Lovell

[07:45–09:55]

• News of Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell's death is discussed with shared anecdotes.
• Rod recalls Lovell’s humility and approachability at events.
• Tarek notes how Lovell’s book "Lost Moon" and the "Apollo 13" film inspired a generation of space journalists.

"He'd say, 'Tell me about you.' That moment for me is like, why the hell would you want to know about me? But a really nice guy and just a big loss to the space community."
— Rod Pyle, [08:20]

"A lot of space reporters cite that book and then the movie as something that really got them into wanting to write about this stuff."
— Tarek Malik, [09:12]

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3. ULA’s Vulcan Rocket: Third Successful Launch

[09:57–13:25]

• Vulcan completes its third, most powerful launch, including a new military navigation satellite and anti-spoofing technology.
• This solidifies Vulcan as a viable competitor to SpaceX for US military launches.
• Tarek describes his own Vulcan model (with repair stories), and Rod explains ULA’s future plans to recover engines and reduce costs.

"This finally gives it its place as the second US launch provider, which is good because we want dissimilar systems in case one goes down."
— Rod Pyle, [12:21]

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4. Could Juno Chase ‘3I Atlas’—the Next Interstellar Visitor?

[15:33–18:33]

• Harvard’s Avi Loeb proposes using the Juno spacecraft to chase the new interstellar object, "3I Atlas", as its mission near Jupiter nears end.
• Tarek and Rod debate the feasibility, noting Juno’s limited fuel and the extreme speed of Atlas. Tarek points to the importance of having future "standby sentinel" missions.
• European Space Agency’s plans for a future quick-reaction interstellar probe are discussed.

"It really does feel like a long shot. It's nice that they're even looking at it because...Three I Atlas is moving something like 37 miles a second."
— Tarek Malik, [17:06]

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5. Back to Pluto: Persephone Mission Proposal

[20:24–25:21]

• NASA is considering an ambitious mission, "Persephone", to orbit Pluto, which would give us a prolonged close-up study versus New Horizons’ flyby. This would take 27 years to arrive, potentially requiring 50 years total for full science.
• Key objectives: mapping the planet, searching for subsurface oceans, and comparing geological changes since New Horizons in 2015.
• Technical and funding hurdles: need for at least five RTGs, current lack of sufficient plutonium, high mission cost, and extremely long operational horizon.

"One of the key targets they have is to determine if there's possibly a warm subsurface ocean on Pluto, as we found on so many moons in the solar system..."
— Rod Pyle, [21:01]

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6. Virgin Galactic’s Next Steps: ‘Delta Class’ & Profitability Challenges

[28:10–33:05]

• Construction of Virgin Galactic's Delta class spaceplane (for commercial tourism) is delayed to 2026.
• Motivation: to improve reusability, flight cadence, and clear the backlog of paying passengers.
• Rod questions whether the business model can ever be profitable given costs and current pace.

"This thing's going to have to really, no pun intended, take off, fly frequently and spawn a bunch of twins."
— Rod Pyle, [29:00]

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7. Quirky Mars Rocks: ‘Helmets’ & Pareidolia

[33:05–38:05]

• Perseverance rover spots a funky, helmet-shaped rock formation, sparking speculation and jokes.
• Hosts discuss how humans tend to see familiar shapes in alien landscapes (pareidolia), referencing past Mars anomalies.
• Rod recounts a humorous Star Trek set story, and they daydream about discovering true biological fossils or life—a “dinosaur femur moment.”

"There is not a wishing hat in Harry Potter. It is the Sorting Hat... Calling this rock a hat is extremely generous."
— Tarek Malik, [33:29]

"We're all waiting for that dinosaur femur moment... What happens to space budgets if you discover a big fossilized bone up on Mars?"
— Rod Pyle, [37:38]

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8. Artemis II: Progress & Lunar Race with China

[40:33–44:35]

• Orion for Artemis II is fully fueled and integration proceeds; first crewed lunar flyby since Apollo now set for no earlier than February 2026.
• The hosts debate whether China might attempt to beat NASA with their own crewed lunar flyby, noting China's recent successful rocket engine tests.
• The logistical and political hurdles involved in sticking to the NASA timeline are highlighted.

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9. Lunar Nuclear Power: Strategic and Legal Questions

[44:51–48:22]

• NASA’s plans for a 100 kW fission reactor on the Moon, following China’s similar announcement, sparks strategic speculation:
  • Is this to lay claim to lunar real estate or establish exclusion zones under the guise of safety?
  • Technical and funding challenges are acknowledged; political will remains uncertain.

"If you get there first, do you get to declare the first big exclusion zone since the Outer Space Treaty prevents you from grabbing property?"
— Rod Pyle, [46:57]

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10. Commercial Space Stations & the ISS Replacement

[48:22–52:36]

• The US issues new executive orders pushing for more commercial space stations and a downselect of contenders.
• Discussion includes Axiom, Voyager, Blue Origin’s Orbital Reef, and upstart Vast.
• Concerns raised about lack of true hardware progress, possible agency funding/leadership turmoil, and the ticking clock on ISS’s lifetime.

"This suggests that like in the absence of having definitive leadership at the agency...this is a way to say, go do this, here's something to go and set some rules on..."
— Tarek Malik, [51:26]

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11. Global Spaceport Boom

[55:16–59:49]

• New spaceports in Canada, Scotland (SaxaVord), and Portugal are highlighted.
• Rod questions if there’s enough launch business to justify the proliferation, given closures (ex: Cornwall, SpinLaunch), and competition from mega-launchers like SpaceX Starship.
• Tarek remains optimistic, suggesting more regional ports could aid smaller companies.

"Having more players might give smaller companies more access...But we saw, for example, with Cornwall ... their anchor customer was Virgin Orbit—and then they shut down."
— Tarek Malik, [58:00]

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12. Dialup Retrospective & Tech Nostalgia

[59:55–61:56]

• Side tangent: The end of America Online’s dialup service is lamented, with anecdotes about early internet providers, pricing, and the strange world of 1990s’ online community (AOL, eWorld, CompuServe, NetZero).

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13. Would You Fly on a Suborbital Spaceplane?

[61:56–62:46]

• Producer John Ashley, when asked if he would fly on Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin, quickly responds, "God, no.” Rod and Tarek affirm that they would, but only once the designs are proven.

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14. Closing Banter & Listener Engagement

[62:58–68:44]

• More reminiscing about early internet access hurdles, differences in provider models.
• Tarek shares plans for making convention costumes with/for his daughter.
• Show closes with reminders to subscribe, join Club Twit, and support independent tech journalism.

"What better entertainment can you get for $10 a month than this show?"
— Rod Pyle, [68:39]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "We want to be like the new measles. We want to be something that everybody just gets and has to have."
  — Rod Pyle, [01:15] (On podcast virality)
• "Elon, step up. You came from an alien spacecraft and now you can by proxy at least return to an alien spacecraft."
  — Rod Pyle, [18:33]
• "Calling this rock a hat is extremely generous."
  — Tarek Malik, [33:29]
• "We're all waiting for that dinosaur femur moment."
  — Rod Pyle, [37:38]
• "Dad? Yeah, I don't want to wear this."
  — Rod Pyle, [66:55] (On the heartbreak of making costumes for kids outgrowing them.)
• “God, no.”
  — John Ashley, [61:56] (On flying with Virgin Galactic/Blue Origin)

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Key Segment Timestamps

• [03:41] Tarek’s Singapore trip and cultural reflections
• [07:45] Remembering Jim Lovell
• [09:57] Vulcan’s successful third launch and future
• [15:33] Juno probe/3I Atlas proposal and interstellar challenges
• [20:24] Prospects and aims for a Pluto orbiter ("Persephone")
• [28:10] Virgin Galactic’s Delta Class: delays, profit challenges
• [33:05] Mars "helmet" rock and pareidolia
• [40:33] Artemis II update and lunar race with China
• [44:51] Lunar reactors and "exclusion zones"
• [48:22] Commercial space station selection & ISS replacement
• [55:16] New international spaceports and their prospects
• [59:55] Farewell to AOL dialup: tech nostalgia
• [61:56] Would you ride a suborbital spaceplane?
• [62:58] Listener banter and closing

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Summary

This episode is filled with infectious banter, deep-cut space trivia, and astute observations on where both public and commercial spaceflight are going. It’s equal parts news digest and nerd hangout—whether you want insider gossip on Artemis II or just to reminisce about 1990s dialup. If you’ve missed out, this summary will have you caught up in no time.

Stay spacey!

Transcript

[A]

Coming up on this Week in Space, the Vulcan rocket rides again. Should we send a Juno spacecraft to an interstellar visitor? And will we ever orbit Pluto? We'll find out on this Week in.

[B]

Space podcasts you love from people you trust. This is turret. This is this Week in space, episode number 173, recorded on August 15, 2025. The return of the Malik. Hello, and welcome to this Week in Space the Return of the Malik edition. I'm Rod Pyle, editor in chief, Bad Aster magazine. I'm here with that returning master of all he surveys, Tarik J. Malik.

[A]

Hello. Hello, Rod. I'm back. I'm back. Did you miss me? I missed you.

[B]

You know, when I put it as Return of the Malick, it sounds like an episode of Radar Men for the moon. Do you even know what that is?

[A]

I infer that it is a pulpy sci fi.

[B]

Yeah, it was a night film series series that had Buck Rogers spaceships in about two shots for the entire 12 episodes. I think it was with spark sputtering out the back. And then the rest of it was just guys and fedoras running around with snub nose 38s. Even as a kid, it was boring.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

Wow. It was hard to do. Only three years out of the studio when I was born, so it tells you how old I am. All right, before we start, please, please, please, don't forget to do us a solid. Make sure to, like, subscribe and the other podcast things to let the world know that you love us so they'll listen to this show. Because we want to be. Well, we want to be like a contagion. We want to be like the new measles. We want to be something that everybody just gets and has to have. John's giving me a dirty look, but hey, you know, that's what we want. So there you go. And now, ladies and gentlemen, another space joke. A reprise from last week by Scott Ulrich, who was a little bent that we didn't give him a rim shot for his joke. So here we go. Here's his response.

[A]

Scott.

[B]

Hey, Tarek.

[A]

Yes, Rod?

[B]

Tarek. Why did I say that? In the future, humans mine asteroids in a cluster of small space stations, all powered by nuclear fuel. One day, the nuclear fuel fuel on station K is depleted and the nuclear rod has to be replaced for a new one. Not knowing what to do with the depleted rod, the engineer heads for the common refuse area and asks the clerk what to do. His response? Put it over there. See the big fat rod pile?

[A]

Oh, I got it. I got it.

[B]

The joke's on you, Scott, because I've lost £40 in the last year. But. But fine. There you've gotten even with.

[A]

I thought it was like, rad pile, like. Like a. Like a radiation.

[B]

It's actually the. The rods are the control rods that you put in. Slow down the reaction. We got you, Scott. And it came from Tarek, not me. All right, Now, I've heard that some people want to thrust control rods into us when it's joke time on this show. Ow. But you can help. Send your best, worst or most different word salting space joke to us. A twist that at TWiT TV, nuclear.

[A]

Rod should be your new band name, by the way.

[B]

Band? Me?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I don't think so. I had a. I had a rock band when I was 8, and the Beatles were the hottest thing, and we called ourselves the Rat Finks. Alas, it went nowhere. Okay, now on to headline news.

[C]

Headline news, Headline news.

[B]

Now, our first headline is Tarek's trip. He has just returned from the blustery. No strike that scorching equatorial region of Singapore. How was your trip, sir?

[A]

It was great. I come to you from the future, Rod, because.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Yeah. Singapore is 12 hours ahead, so it's tomorrow over there right now. But no, it was great. I had a nice two weeks off. Didn't look at work at all.

[B]

Yeah, I noticed.

[A]

Rod was desperately waiting for me to get back. I listened to the podcast. I thought last episode was great. The one about Mars terraforming. That was really exciting. And then the Yunusa before that was also great. So I think you did fine without me, Rod. I was worried you wouldn't eat me when I came back, but it was nice. We celebrated National Day in Singapore while we were there.

[B]

Oh, that's a big deal, huh?

[A]

It was their 60th. Their 60th anniversary, and that was interesting to celebrate that kind of a holiday in another country. So it was really, really fun. We said there was fireworks. We had lots of food, lots of sales, too. I got some shoes for 60 bucks. It was great.

[B]

The last National Day type thing I did was in Norway, which is, you know, there were costumes and bands and all that, but because it's Norway, and I loved being in Norway, the people are a little more buttoned down than they are in a place like Singapore, I think. So it was kind of a very serious sort of holiday. At least that was my impression. I was only in Oslo, so who knows what it's like nationally. How was the weather in lovely Singapore.

[A]

Oh, it was very hot. I mean Singapore is a tropical country. So you know, if you don't. I like I mentioned I said off, off screen earlier, I went to the gym almost every day and if you don't go out to exercise before 7, it's too hot already because it's in the 90s like almost every day and almost 100% humidity. So got caught in the rain a few times. A lot of rainstorms, like thunderstorms around like the afternoons. But overall it was, it was, it was a lot of fun. And it cooled off a lot near the end of the trip which was very, very welcome after like a week and a half of sweltering temperatures. But, but it was, it was a lot of fun. We saw a lot of history stuff and what I really like is when we go there, there's a lot of space themed stuff that you wouldn't expect. So you can go, there's like a credit card company and want you to sign up for them and it's all space, you know. Or there's like a local design artist house where they're sell really cool design stuff. And then there's the Moon Juice kombucha machine right there. So that's always like a lot of fun is to see like where, where space falls in to different cultures and it's, it's, it comes up in some of the more surprising bits.

[B]

So they still have a tiger bomb gardens there.

[A]

Tiger bomb. I'm not certain if I saw that there. Like if. Was it a sponsored gardens?

[B]

Well, mind you, as I've mentioned before on this show, my last visit to Singapore was 19, so it may well, may very well be gone. There was one there and I think one in Penang in Malaysia.

[A]

We went to the battle bunker on this trip which was a World War II British Command center built into the. One of the larger mountains in the bay. And that was where they used for.

[B]

About three hours before they were overrun.

[A]

Yeah, it was, it was, it was three days but, but yeah, I take the point. But it was very, very informative about what the fall of Singapore was like. So.

[B]

Hmm, that was a bad time.

[A]

I'm still waiting for the spaceport to come out of there. I wrote a story the first trip I ever went back in 2004 about how space Adventures was going to launch space tourist flights out of Changi Airport. And with that rocket plane they were building way back when.

[B]

Remember that everybody was building rocket plane.

[A]

At one point back in the early aughts.

[B]

Shuttle's the only one that really worked.

[A]

And equatorial space. I wasn't able to catch up with them. They were based out of Singapore. They may have moved to Australia, but I wasn't able to catch up with them on this trip. So it's too bad.

[B]

All right. Well, on a sad note, we have lost Jim Lovell, famed for Apollo 13, for his steady leadership, bringing it back from the moon damaged and crippled, and for his duration, long duration flight on Gemini 7 with Frank Borman, where they sat in that little teeny tiny capsule for two weeks without being able to stretch their legs. And for a lot of other things and for just being a really, really pleasant fellow. I had the pleasure of spending an evening with him, gosh, probably a decade ago, close to it, at a conference. And, you know, he's one of those people where you start once you get the nerve. I'm always a little tongue tied around those guys once you get the nerve up to ask about, you know, some part of their mission and talk a little bit. But then he'd say, tell me about you. That moment for me is like, why the hell would you want to know about me? I didn't do anything. But. But a really nice guy and just a big loss to the space community.

[A]

Yeah, I was really sad to hear that. I saw Buzz Aldrin's kind of In Memoriam post on social media and it was really sad to hear of his passing. I don't think I've actually ever had the pleasure of meeting him in person ever. And so I did read Lost Moon in high school on a trip to Yosemite, which was absolutely riveting at that time. And of course it was before Apollo 13 came out. And I know a lot of, like this general, my generation maybe of space reporters who cite that book and then the movie is something that really got them into wanting to write about this stuff going forward. So.

[B]

Here we go. I've been waiting for my, my rundown to update and it just. Fine. It's been reconnecting for the last 10 minutes. Okay. Yeah. What Buzz wrote was on Facebook, grieving the loss of one of my best friends, Jim Lovell. His extraordinary legacy is cemented by many space missions. Gemini 7, Gemini 12, Apollo 8 and Apollo 13. Our mutual respect had no limits. The Gemini 7 mission we flew to. Sorry, Gemini 12 mission we flew together, paved the way for the Apollo missions. So that from. From Buzz and I think that was pretty touching.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now onto something a little more hopeful. Vulcan rides high. Finally. Yeah, we've. We've had our third launch for United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket, the replacement for the Atlas V. This was their most powerful VER version yet, which, you know, being third out, we'd expect, had a Centaur upper stage four solid rocket boosters carrying the first new naval positioning satellite for the US military in 48 years. And also, with a wink and a nudge, it's carrying experimental hardware that's hardened against advanced spoofing and jamming techniques from the bad guys, quote, unquote. So basically, they're testing some methods to try and make these things more robust in, in the event of attack, of jamming or what have you from our adversaries.

[A]

Yeah, that means they're Certified now fully 100 for national reconnaissance, for military satellite flights. I mean, that's great. Especially after they, I mean, they had that, that first test flight. What was that? Was that like last year now? Right. And then the second flight that had the big sputtering anomaly from the. The SRBS on the side and still managed to write itself and, and get to orbit with its dummy payload at that point, that was like the practice for the Sierra Nevada dream, the Dream Chaser launch. And so I got a model of it right here. Right. Right there. Of course you do. Behind. Behind my desk.

[B]

Of the Vulcan.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I'll bet that was given to you, right?

[A]

It was, it was.

[B]

Because you get all the cool stuff.

[A]

And I get, you know, ULA sent it to me before the first launch, and I think it might have been during COVID is when they sent it. And you know, the, the Vulcan, this one that launched, I think, had four boosters, right. Strap on solid. And it can have up to six. And so it can have up to six boosters. And when I opened the box, because I think they had repackaged it, the DHL or whoever delivered it, they were all like, in pieces. They had all broken off the model. And you only offered to send me a new one. And I'm like, that's fine. I just got some super glue. Next time.

[B]

Yes, send it courtesy of rod Pyle at 519 South. Yeah, okay.

[A]

So. So even my version had its hiccups going forward.

[B]

Oh, that's the segue you were looking at.

[A]

There you go.

[B]

So this did allow space force. I think, actually, after the second flight, they ordered up to 24 new missions for Vulcan, which is good because it needs to start flying more often. So this finally gives it its. Its place as the second US Launch provider, which is good because we want dissimilar systems in case one goes down. You've got a backup SpaceX the other. Yeah, SpaceX the other with the Falcon 9. I don't know if Vulcan can ever match that cadence. Can SpaceX within probably two weeks will be up to 100 flights. Just this year, I think they've already passed that big 98. I know they were. They were at 100 with the Starship launches. But anyway, right in that ballpark. And. And ULA is still working on how they're going to recover those. Those engines that will pop out of the bottom of the Vulcan and parachute back to Earth and be grabbed by a helicopter or something. So they got a lot of work to do. But that will save them about 65% of the cost of a new booster. So that's good.

[A]

Yeah, and they're looking kudos to Vulcan, by the way. You said this one had a Vulcan sent a Centaur upper stage. It's called the Vulcan Centaur rocket. I think it's always going to have a Centaur upper stage, right? Because I think so. Because it's called the Vulcan Center.

[B]

You must be right because you own Space.com? all right, let's go to a quick break so I can bury my embarrassment. We'll be right back. Stand by. Today's show is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and and auto policies. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Let's map out this week's amazing destinations and travel tips.

[D]

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[B]

That's not the itinerary we're following.

[D]

Well, I'm departing from ATT and embarking on a new journey with T Mobile. They paid off my family's four phones up to $3200 and gave us four new phones on the house.

[B]

Bon voyage.

[C]

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[A]

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[B]

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[B]

So, from Vulcans to aliens, aliens, other.

[A]

Aliens, aliens from Jupiter. I call this one Beyond Jupiter.

[B]

Juno, alien hunter. So our good friend and frequent source of entertainment on this show, Avi Loeb. And Avi, I don't mean to say that you're not serious. It's just you do bring robust conversations to us and others. Avi has proposed for 3i Atlas.

[A]

That's the new one.

[B]

That's the new interstellar object slinging through the solar system is proposed repurposing an existing NASA probe, perhaps Juno, which is now orbiting Jupiter, nearing the end of its life. Jupiter within what, I think a year, year and a half?

[A]

Well, if, I think if the budget goes through, it's on the chopping block. So yeah, so this is, it's. Its days are numbered one way or another because it's supposedly to be shut down.

[B]

This would be a way to repurpose it, but of course that's going to require money. But the idea would be to redirect it with whatever remaining fuel it has to go do the best intercept trajectory it could. So to get a closer look at three I Atlas now, you got to have a certain amount of gas to match trajectories. I don't know if it can do that. I'm not sure anybody's worked that out yet, but it would be a whole new life for Juno Cam. Yeah, but I wonder how much of the slim remaining, assuming that the bill goes through or the budget goes through as the White House attends, of these slim funds left for planetary science, how much would that eat up?

[A]

Well, you know, it's really an interesting thought experiment about what spacecraft do we have stationed throughout the solar system that we could target towards this. But I think I would love to see us slingshot by it. But it, it really does feel like a long shot. It's nice that they were even looking at it because as they point out in this Houston Chronicle article that you had found the Three Eye Atlas is moving something like 37 miles a second, really, really fast. So, you know, even, even catching up, you're talking about some kind of long distance flyby where you're going to have to be zooming in, get the camera ready and all of that. And you are right, that takes Like a lot of money. And the fact that the agency is looking at shuttering it because of the cuts that they are facing on the planetary science side really don't bode well for that kind of mission. However, the European Space Agency is planning an interstellar probe, basically a mission where they would put a spacecraft in a sun synchronous orbit as like a, like.

[B]

A, like a reserve standby sentinel, right?

[A]

Yeah. And so, and so then if we have another one, they would be able to just send it at a moment's notice to start that, that type of process. I think that's a better approach. But maybe you want more smaller versions of them so that you could have a bunch of them out there, so. Because you don't want to miss these opportunities when they pass by. But, man, you'd have to, you'd have to launch something like 50 miles a second just to get there, you know.

[B]

Elon, step up. You came from an alien spacecraft and now you can by proxy at least return to an alien spacecraft.

[A]

So, you know, if anyone had like the, the, the potential to be able to launch that kind of mission, I would put it on SpaceX. You know, they just announced today, hours before we started recording, that they're going to launch their 10th Starship later this month, next weekend, as we're recording August 24th. Mark your calendars. It's gonna be a Sunday night launch. They're gonna, they're lucky that Sunday Night Football's not running now because they'd have to fight for an audience, I guess so.

[B]

Gosh, I guess that means the lunar land is just around the corner. Well, far be it for me to, to criticize anybody who's done as much as he has and people in the industry in general, because it's very hard, it's very easy to criticize them. But those days, they really need to step up the pace.

[A]

There is a new story, by the way, in the New York Times today. It was the headline story this morning. I'm not sure if you saw it, about the fact that they're me in New York Times. Well, I'm just saying it's all about SpaceX and their taxes and how, how, because of recent legal shifts during the first Trump term where they removed the deadline about when you can, like, win your losses, your financial losses as a company can be applied, that you can basically keep applying them in perpetuity. So the fact that SpaceX was able to cite $5 billion in losses prior to that, after that that cap was removed, means that they don't have to file any income taxes now. It's a very interesting read. I don't know how exact it is because SpaceX is a private company and all of their, like, you know, they don't have to report out like a normal public company would have to with their quarterly returns. But it's a very interesting story about like the financial side of how these companies work and, and how they have to pay taxes as well.

[B]

If only I could take a page from that playbook. All right, speaking of the outer solar system, that's a pretty cool segue Back to Pluto. Question mark.

[A]

I love this story.

[B]

NASA's pondering a new mission to the last planetoid in the solar system called Persephone. Not the mission.

[A]

You called it a planetoid and not a planet.

[B]

Well, I shame trying to split. I didn't call it a dwarf, okay. I called it a planetoid. So that kind of covers everything. So Persephone, if funded and flown, which is, you know, that's a bit of a Hail Mary, would have to operate for up to 50 years to fulfill its, its full mission package. And unlike its predecessor, New Horizons, however, which is a quick flyby, Persephone would go into orbit around Pluto for about three years, which means they can map the entire planet. One of the key targets they have is to determine if there's possibly a warm subsurface surface ocean on Pluto, as we found on so many moons in the solar system, in the outer solar system. Because Pluto's moon Charon is so large, Stella is so large that soft, that the tidal forces in this might keep an inner ocean liquid enough and warm enough not just to be liquid, but maybe even possibly have life in it. So there's, there's a lot of maybes and sortas and kindas and going on there. One of the things they have observed, well, two things they observed. One, there's a bit of a planetary bulge, which tells us, I guess, that there could be an ocean down there. And also that the cratering is so light, there's been a lot of surface restructuring over the billions of years has been out there. So that could have been from cryogenic volcanoes, cryovolcanoes shooting liquid up through the crust. Also, it'll be looking for hotspots and possible changes to the surface morphology. Since New Horizons went by in 2015, this flight would take 27 years just to reach Pluto.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Which is would be the longest planned time for a single mission. The Voyagers of course, gone longer and require. So that's a challenge because keeping funding for anything for a decade is hard enough. And the last Capper would require five RTGs to power it. And we don't got that much plutonium.

[A]

So we got, we got it. We got to make more, right, don't we? Did we just have someone on telling us how we need to make more, right, how we restarted?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

This was like a really interesting.

[B]

Russia still got a bunch. We could. Well, never mind, go ahead.

[A]

Well, we'd have to be partners again. No, this was an interesting study because this was written by my friend and colleague Nola Partner, I was going to say Nola Taylor Tillman. And she actually went to the 10 year anniversary conference of the New Horizons mission, the flyby back in. Man, it's hard to believe 2005 was when they did that 20 or 2015. I can't, I can't add 10 years. Malik. Sheesh. But, but it's hard to believe that it's, it's only been 10 years since then, or that it has been 10 years since we did that last. Because I remember being in the audience when they unveiled that first photo from, from the flyby, the first close up one, and on Instagram no less.

[B]

It was July 14, 2015.

[A]

2015.

[B]

Get your decades straight.

[A]

Get my decades right off to my. This is why I'm not an astronaut rod, right?

[B]

This is why we aren't astronauts or scientists or engineers.

[A]

But, but it was really funny because, you know, they actually, there were so many different studies about what they've learned from that mission, what we could learn. And the fact that we have, like you mentioned earlier, that baseline now, you know, being Pluto being explored from 2015 from the flyby, all the photos, the maps, the new areas that we have close up imagery of, then you can compare how that changes and evolves over time. I guess in 40 years, right. If another, I imagine it would take a decade to build as well. But Alan Stern, the PI of New Horizons, we've had them on the show, friend of the show, obviously has been talking about an orbiter almost immediately after that flyby. Like now we have to go do this. And Persephone, the Queen of the Underworld, if you will, feels like that next logical step. So I would like to see that happen because that's a really cool system like of its own. And it feels like if you have a spacecraft in orbit around Pluto that is now a bit something that you could repurpose to look a little bit deeper into the outer solar system too, as like a station when it's not busy doing reconnaissance work on Pluto and its five moons.

[B]

Well, and they did mention that after the three year prime mission, they would like to have the option to continue on to the outer solar system and look at some Kuiper Belt objects. So that's, that's there as well. All right, let's take one more quick break and we'll be right back. Stay, stay in your place.

[D]

25 years ago, a small group of business and government leaders met in Washington, D.C. they envision the creation of an independent nonprofit organization with a mission to help people, businesses and government mitigate the growing threat of cyber attacks. Today, the center for Internet Security embodies that vision. For 25 years, it's worked with a global community of IT and cybersecurity experts to develop the CIS benchmarks and CIS critical security controls. These proven security best practices defend against common cyber threats and streamline compliance with industry frameworks, regulations and standards. Today, CIS provides cybersecurity services, threat intelligence and critical resources to help public and private sector organizations alike strengthen their Cyber defenses. Visit cisecurity.org today. That's the letters cisecurity.org to find out how CIS can help your organization as we create confidence in the connected world. Time to explore this week's cosmic theories and space discoveries.

[B]

Honestly, Nova, I didn't scan the data.

[A]

But I did switch to T Mobile with their new Family Freedom offer.

[D]

That's not the mission parameters.

[A]

Well, I'm teleporting away from AT&T and launching into a new dimension with T Mobile. They paid off my family's four phones up to $3200 and gave us four new phones on the house.

[B]

Wow.

[D]

Warp speed.

[C]

Introducing Family Freedom. Our lowest cost to switch our biggest family savings all on America's largest 5G network. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com FamilyFreedom up to $800 per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phones via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement eg Apple iPhone 16128 gigabyte $829.99 Eligible trade in eg iPhone 11 Pro for well qualified credits end and balance due if you pay off early or cancel Contact T Mobile Whether.

[B]

You'Re into comedians roasting each other's life choices or turning yesterday's bad decisions into today's funny stories, Amazon Music's got the most ad free top podcasts included with Prime. Download the Amazon Music app and get in on the joke or go to Amazon.com adfreecomedy that's Amazon.com adfreecomediDy to catch up on the latest episodes with out the ads, here's one I like to call a regenerated Virgin.

[A]

Is that coupon? Are you making a body joke there?

[B]

Not me.

[A]

This is a family show. My mom listens to this show. Rod, come on.

[B]

Well, what better? Virgin Galactic may ride again in 2026. Construction of their Delta class space plane replacement for their previous space plane is proceeding apace. It was recently delayed from 2025-26. But you know, we really, I don't think know a whole lot about its status except that what they're saying, I guess the, the thing that leaves me scratching my head just looking at their, their business model unless it's changed, is how they're ever going to get into profit with the tremendous backlog of, you know, they've got people paid up for flights, hundreds of them and so on and so forth. This thing's going to have to really, no pun intended, take off, fly frequently and spawn a bunch of twins. Right?

[A]

Well, I know that they're planning, they're building at least a couple of the ships and they're looking at again, like you mentioned, like fall of next year, fall of 2026 for those, those first flights. And the whole point of this new class of spaceship, they're called the Delta classes. I like to think that they took a page from Star Trek Voyager which named their new shuttlecraft the Delta Clipper. But the reason that they're doing this is because they want to be able to fly more often with the vehicles that they have. And I guess they've kind of reached their limit with the, the first version of Spaceship 2. So they've, they've redesigned it or worked to rejigger it so that it is a bit more amenable to flying over and over and over again and it carries more passengers and I, I, does it, will it actually?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So, so they have to, you know, you can't, you can't run down that backlog. What is it, six people plus the pilots, I think.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, but I don't think that they were actually flying like all that many on, on the flights. They flew like one full, one or two full, full flights and then they were seating over some space racks for gear and, and experiments and that kind of thing.

[B]

And excuse me for, for jumping in here, but you know, so that was the replacement for the original one that Bert Rutan built. Now we're replacing that. I mean, I've, I've heard, slash seen nothing but do we assume that there were, they were starting to see bits of structural failure or cracking or something in the composites?

[A]

Well, I mean, I, I think that they were just realizing that maybe they didn't have the turnover like that. Like the space shuttle. Right. Supposed to fly what, twice, once every two weeks.

[B]

Supposed to fly 54 times a year.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[B]

And like every five days.

[A]

And it turned out, it turned out that, that they needed a substantial time during, during, you know, redevelopment, what was it called, refurbishing, refurbishment, you know, for each flight. It may be that they needed like a lot more time to just go back and, and get everything refreshed, do the planning for the flights, to work with the FAA for those flights, et cetera, to make sure that they didn't have any, any issues on that one. Now this all was, came out from their Aug. 6 conference call where they do their, their financial results. So they, because they were a public company, they do have to have those discussions and they said that a lot of the, the, the Delta ship systems and structures, like their wing assembly, like they're going to be complete by the end of this year. So, so it seems like they're, they're really making progress, but they're not flying. They're putting all of their effort into this new system to get it up as soon as possible rather than still be flying the old ones and getting the revenue in from there. One of the interesting that came out during the, an earlier update and I'm not sure if we talked about this much on the show, but they're talking about changing their pricing structure for spaceship flights that in January they're hoping to reopen the reservation process so that people can start making reservations again, but that they'll do it in like flight batches so that they can tailor either the pricing to the people that are interested in flying, which might, you know, say, you know, Rod, if you're a multi mega trillionaire, then you know it'll cost you $1 trillion. Whereas if you know, I'm Joe Schmo on the street, but I raised a few hundred thousand dollars in capital, it'll cost, you know, $150,000. I don't know, I don't know exactly how. It sounded very vague when they had that call, but they're thinking about that while also finishing the ship. And we should be seeing some of those changes roll out as well. Having any kind of insight into pricing on the Virgin Galactic side is interesting because we don't have that on, on the Blue Origin side at all. As to how much people pay. So.

[B]

All right. Helmets on Mars. Because we love us some helmets on Mars. So a kind of weird hat, like rock formation has been spotted. An image is taken by the Perseverance rover. It has a pointed peak and nodular texture, not. Not unlike medieval armor. Or maybe the wishing hat from Harry Potter. The lumps appear to be water.

[A]

Okay. Oh, you gotta stop. We gotta stop.

[B]

What?

[A]

There is not a wishing hat in Harry Potter. It is the Sorting Hat. And it's like you put the hat on and it sorts you into your, your, your house at Hogwarts. Okay.

[B]

And it didn't look like this anyway. But it's.

[A]

Calling this rock a hat is extremely generous.

[B]

Yeah, but it is weird.

[A]

It's weird looking for.

[B]

Sure, they think, geologists think that the lumps or water calls caused fearules like we saw on the Mars Exploration Rover missions where we saw these little concretions that were.

[A]

The blueberries.

[B]

Magnetite. Magnetite.

[A]

I thought they were hematite.

[B]

Hematite, thank you. Which is formed in the presence of water. So this looks like, you know, the, the artifact from some standing body of water. But it is weird. Now we've seen a lot of weird rocks on Mars and they have been interpreted as everything from heavy artillery to, I kid you not, Bigfoot, doors, lizards, spiders, lizards, bunnies, you know, anything. Oh, the. Well, the bunny was.

[A]

The bunny was like a piece of.

[B]

Parachute material that was a piece of insulation. Yeah, but, but nonetheless, you know, people see this stuff and of course it's a natural human trait to interpret them as something familiar. And as I've gone on about way too long in the past, when I was up on Devon island at Pascal Lee's base up there, where there are no human artifacts except for the tents we were living in. You do you know, your brain starts getting hungry for seeing things that are familiar. But the people seeing this aren't on Mars. They're on Earth sitting in their living rooms, their Paris basements or wherever, and they're saying, look, something NASA's keeping a secret. What's going on? I want truth and clarity. So, you know, it's not a hat. It's a really weird looking rock. But, you know, I guess it'll hopefully get a little closer and find more of theirs. There's our graphic up there that shows its very vague resemblance to, To a medieval battle helmet. I, I don't know. I'm trying to figure out what it actually does remind me of. It's like somebody took a bunch of tissue paper, soaked an Oatmeal and stuck their fist in it or something.

[A]

It reminds me of a Horta. Remember the Hortas from Star Trek? No, it's like a. Yeah.

[B]

Sorry, I'm giving away my age here. Yeah.

[A]

I had a screensaver that had a hoarder that would eat holes into your screen.

[B]

A Star Trek that was almost as good as the Barney Blaster screen saver I had. Where you got. They had a shotgun and you could shoot Barney over and over.

[A]

I still, I used to have that Star Trek screensaver. I paid $7 for it and it was on floppy disk, so that's how old it was.

[B]

John Ashley has a very strange look on his face.

[A]

I think I'm looking at the Horta. I was like, oh, that's. Yeah, we should, we, we should mention that Hortas are like, they're silicone based rock creatures that lived inside caves on an alien planet in the original series and they were like lumps of living rock, so.

[B]

Or it was a stuntman under a carpet covered with latex, which is what it actually was, crawling back and forth. And apparently William Shatner, who was a practical joker back in the day, especially in the 60s when Spock had to do his pain pain scene where he touches the hoarder and channels his pain. There it is, looking like a bucket of snot on the.

[A]

This looks exactly like this rock, man. I tell you. Life on Mars confirmed.

[B]

So anyway, as I was saying, so Shatner was up in the rafters. They cleared the stage. This is the way the story goes anyway, because Nimoy, you know, didn't want a bunch of chuckling while he's doing it. Just as he was about to do the line, Shatner up on the rafters goes, pain, pain is only William Shatner can. And apparently Nimoy was not thrilled by that. Or he was either up in the rafters or riding his bicycle. He loved to ride bicycles on stage. Riding his bicycle. Anyway, not really a story worth spending a lot of time on, but yeah, I think, I mean, the moment we're waiting for, and this was told to me by none other than the chief scientist on the Curiosity mission, John Grassinger. He said, look, it's fun to look at this stuff. It's fun to come to your conclusions. We welcome any publicity we can get, but we're all waiting for that, that dinosaur femur moment.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because what happens to space budgets if you discover a big fossilized bone up on Mars? Now, in the current administration, I don't know what would happen. We'd probably, you know, have to figure out how to name it after somebody. But in general terms, suddenly you get a bunch of money and maybe even astronauts up there. So, yeah, let's find more.

[A]

Can I. Like, what if, if instead of an astronaut or astronaut, a dinosaur bone. Right. A Mars, a sore or whatever.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They found like a tuft of grass, like just like growing. Maybe it's like red grass or whatever because of the.

[B]

How about a rose? A red, red rose.

[A]

Like they, they found, like with the little prints on his little asteroid. So. No.

[B]

What did you put your coffee this morning?

[A]

If they found that, like, would it have the same effect? I mean, for us it would, right? It's life on another planet. Yeah, we'd all be freaking out. But would there be a race to go get that, that, that grass?

[B]

Would people really freak out? Back on April Fool's Day, And I think 1993, America Online, which was at that time the premier online service, posted a story saying, life found an atmosphere of Jupiter and I was over the moon. I was elated. I was 23, skidoo. I was like, oh my God, it finally happened. They finally did it. And I thought, wait a minute, it's April 1st. And sure enough, the next day they said April Fool's joke of my very rare angry letters to Steve Case saying that was not cool. But, you know, there was very little public reaction. And at that point, they were like a major news source for people.

[A]

Yeah. So by the way, RIP America Online dial up connection, they shut the doors on it this month. That's the end of it.

[B]

No.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And actually a lot of us kind of went snicker, snicker, but I guess there was still a number of rural people. Not a number, a bunch of rural people still using it because they don't.

[A]

Have points to do. So 0.1%, 0.1% of Internet users, like, relied on that service. So hopefully they'll be able to find some other way to, to get access to get whatever information they need.

[B]

And taxpayers took away my landline, which I didn't really want, but a couple of radio stations I work with used to insist on you having a landline, primarily coast to coast am. There's a show. And, you know, I called Pac Bell and I said, look, I can see the wires going from my house to the pole. They said, yep, too bad not doing it. Okay. To the moon, Alice. Moon. Maybe to the moon. The Orion capsule for Artemis 2 has completed initial fueling and is now being outfitted with its launch abort system. So now it's not only full of dangerous chemicals, but soon will be packed with explosives.

[A]

Rocket explosives. That sounds really dangerous.

[B]

But I mean like things that go bang up in the rocket if the nozzle clogs. So the capsule will soon be a fully loaded hot potato prime to launch sometime no earlier, as they like to say than February 2026 and no later. John.

[A]

I think maybe it's time for a break first.

[B]

Oh, okay. Let's break right in. Stand by for the rest of this amazing story. Go nowhere.

[A]

Time to examine this week's breakthrough research findings.

[D]

Honestly, I didn't review the studies, but I did switch to T Mobile with their new Family Freedom offer.

[B]

That's not the scientific method.

[D]

Well, I'm conducting an experiment by leaving AT&T and testing a new hypothesis with T Mobile.

[B]

They paid off my family's four phones.

[D]

Up to $3200 and gave us four.

[B]

New phones on the house. Eureka. Moment.

[C]

Introducing Family Freedom. Our lowest cost. To switch our biggest family savings all on America's largest 5G network. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com familyfreedom. Up to $800 per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phones via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement eg Apple iPhone16128 gigabyte $8,029.99 Eligible trade in eg iPhone 11 Pro for well qualified credits end and balance due if you pay off early or cancel contact T Mobile.

[A]

This is one of the most spectacular.

[B]

Venues with all kinds of characters and hospitality scenery. These people in this gita task valley, they love when you come to see.

[A]

What they have to offer.

[B]

I'm JJ Harris, Ellensburg rodeo clown and I want to invite you to the rodeo. Come hang out with us in Ellensburg.

[A]

Great rodeo, great time. Two performances on Saturday.

[B]

One is the extreme bulls of the year event. Do not miss the Ellensburg Rodeo August 29th through September 1st. We'll see you there. As I was saying, so the capsule is getting ready to go and will fly no earlier than February 2026 and they say no later than April. But we'll see. And you know, remembering the first Apollo program, these delays were constant. So this isn't a big surprise, especially with the much lower funding this has. So my question is, do we think China will attempt a flyby, a crude flyby in the same time frame, very quietly prepared to beat this mission? Given that they've said for many months their craft are ready to go. Recently hot fired their lunar module They've already tested their, their crew module. In any case, this would be the first crewed mission to fly beyond Earth orbit since Apollo 17, 1972. The next step forward is a move to the vehicle assembly building, or BAB will join the now being prepared. Sls go Tarek.

[A]

Well, no, I mean, it is interesting now as we are recording. In fact, today China conducted a static fire. It's their first one of the seven engine long, March 10th rocket that will launch astronauts to the moon. So, I mean, I think it's an open question now whether or not they're fully ready for that kind of a crude trip. I don't know. I don't know. But now, you know, NASA's given themselves a good two months of wiggle room for Artemis 2. Now remember, Artemis II was supposed to launch at the end of last year and then in September of this year, and now it's February, April of next year. So, you know, hopefully, like that's a really reliable target. And it does seem like the pieces are coming together for that. So, you know, hopefully we'll be all set. And actually, as we're recording this, we're about six months out from that opening of the window in February. Like, if you target mid February as a good launch target for Artemis 2, we're about a half a year out from that. A lot can happen in that half year. A lot of stuff can come together. You know, hopefully your rocket, right, for one. Yeah, we'll come together.

[B]

I think it's been mostly ready for a while.

[A]

Yeah, Well, I think the boosters are stacked and everything, so.

[B]

Yeah, that'd be great. And the solids are ready. Okay, so I have another moon question for you. Yes, we talked about the 100 kilowatt nuclear reactor that was recently announced by.

[A]

Acting administrator Sean Duffy. Yes, about. Must do it and, and claim that for the moon, I think, for the.

[B]

U.S. well, so here's my question. So. So just a few months after the Chinese announced theirs in May, we go, yeah, well, we're going to do one too. Now, we were already working on one with the Draco project out of DARPA that was 40 kilowatts and that got scrapped. And I do have not. I've been querying people, you know, is that technology moving forward to speed up the 100 kilowatt reactor? Nobody seems to know. So my question is, I mean, we know that we're probably going to need nukes to do things, especially down on the south end of the moon, but anywhere on the moon, because you've got Two week nights and batteries only go so far. Right. So you need nuclear power and at this point that would come from efficient reactor because RTG is, don't make enough energy. That's fine. I'm also wondering if one of the two, two following things is a possibility. One, might this be an attempt to lay the groundwork for what happens if slash when the Chinese actually beat us returning people to the moon, or in their case reaching the moon with, with a human crew. And then we could say, well, you know, we're really planning for the long term and that's why we have a nuclear reactor. So it's, it's good for you. You got there, we've already been there. We're going back for the long stay. A and or B does putting a nuclear reactor, fission reactor in the right part of the moon, let's say Shackleton Crater, give, if you get there first, do you get to declare the first big exclusion zone since the Outer Space Treaty prevents you from grabbing property? And I was talking to Rick, Janet about this the other week. So yeah, he had his thoughts. But you know, doesn't this give you a chance to say, okay, here's an exclusion zone, a danger zone, whatever you want to call it, don't come in this radius because it's a only vaguely shielded reactor. I'm just spitballing here and if it goes boom, it would be very bad for you. You know, that way we are de facto claiming territory. What do you think?

[A]

Well, I mean, it's a good argument. I mean I think that the argument on the other side is okay, why, why are you putting this there if you think it's so dangerous, how are your astronauts going to go and plug into it? Right. If it's so dangerous to, to, to come within. I think you said like 100 miles, I think on that when you were talking to Rick about that. But yeah, so I think that it does. I mean the, the knowledge or the party, the, the interest is certainly there. I mean you saw from Duffy's statement about having to go and claim this for the United States or the American conquest.

[B]

Yeah, it's conquest of space.

[A]

That, that is, that is, that is welcome to 1950. The effort is, is to, to put this on there so that they can just say this is our space now because we have this thing here and you can't use it. So. But if they're really going to back it up with money, the question for all of this is are they really going to back it up with money? Yeah, it's One thing for him to say it for, for them to put it in a letter to say go do this thing, but are they really going to pay for it? And I have doubts. I have doubts because between now and, and when they can actually get something that they can put on a rocket, that's probably how many funding rounds that Congress has to go through that the administration resolutions. Exactly. So, and, and is that something that, that this kind of project can survive? I don't know. I don't know.

[B]

All right, so we had, I don't know how much chance you've had to catch up with stuff since you got back, but we had an executive order recently that also talked about space stations. We need more commercial space stations. Hurry up.

[A]

That's right. So I did see that.

[B]

Yeah, it's a bit of a head scratcher because we already have the, the not cld. What's the program for space stations?

[A]

Commercial like destinations.

[B]

Right, Destinations. Something like that. Cd. Anyway, we, we have a NASA sponsored program for Axiom and Voyager. Is there a third?

[A]

Well, it was, it was, it was Axiom Voyager and then there's the orbital reef that Blue Origin was, was working with folks on. And then you've got Vast in the wings building their own thing.

[B]

So, so this, this new order, as I read it anyway, says okay, we're going to reassess that and then eventually down select to one or more ideally two providers. So Rick Janay brought up the idea which I thought was interesting. Is this a way to no knock on the people doing it, but separate the wheat from the chaff and give money to vast since they seem to have run from what limited data we get the foot race to actually have their prototype ready and pressure tested and all that. And I thought it was interesting. I mean it's hard to believe that they would abandon Axiom since they're so integral to the Artemis landing and Voyager, you know, just went public and has spent a bunch of money on this. But I don't know. Do you have any additional thoughts on this?

[A]

I think that it's a lot of talk this, this suggested. When I, when I saw the headline for this that was like, I guess they're trying to show that they're serious and like that they're planning for, for the future. It could be that they're trying to put another by any means necessary moment behind the destination plan because it's, it's pretty clear that the space station, the International Space Station at least has an expiration date. You know, NASA's been talking about Deorbiting it by the end of the decade. I think it's still a bit unclear exactly when that's going to be.

[B]

You know, it's kind of a, it's a bit of a gooey expiration date because it doesn't have to be then.

[A]

It doesn't have to be. No, but you also don't want to have a blowout or some other like, like, like age generated thing.

[B]

Thanks, Russia.

[A]

Yeah. When they're clearly seeing some warning signs. I think there was that like the, the leak stuff that was going on on the Russian segment in the last month or so. So, you know, this, this suggests that like in the absence of having definitive leadership at the agency, of saying this is who's going to be in charge for good. Because, you know, Sean Duffy is acting administrator for now and you know, as after the, the, the dropping Jared Isaac Min, it hasn't seemed like the, their, the current Trump administration's really, really doesn't.

[B]

Seem to be a fire under that.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. They're not really, they're not really, really, really running to figure out who's going to lead the agency permanently during the administration. That this is a way to say go do this, here's something to go and set some rules on and then they can, they can make it. But to your point, they've had these funding rounds with, not, with, not, not little to show for, but we haven't seen anything get launched, I'm going to say, right, like there has been a genesis moment like with Bigelow Aerospace, where they just went and launched their own, their own module, you know, for, for testing sake. And then they went and did it again, right, to really stand out. And then they built an inflatable, an inflatable room that is now a permanent part of the International Space Station. Now they backed off from that whole project and then, you know, Robert Bigelow, you know. Exactly. So this could be a way of re. Crystallizing the effort to say, hey, we are going to just fund whoever's ready now. And if vast isn't part of it, but they're ready, then we can, we can have this order behind us to say we'll go buy your station or access to your station, whatever the new model is going to be.

[B]

And it's weird that none of these contenders are expandables. They're all rigid. If it, if it was making great progress, it worked, clearly worked. Anyway, we have to go to break. Sorry, John. Let's go to a break.

[D]

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[B]

Let's map out this week's amazing destinations and travel tips.

[D]

Honestly Will, I didn't plan any trips, but I did switch to T Mobile with their new Family Freedom offer.

[B]

That's not the itinerary we're following.

[D]

Well, I'm departing from ATT and embarking on a new journey with T Mobile. They paid off my family's four phones up to $3200 and gave us four new phones on the house.

[B]

Bon voyage.

[C]

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[B]

Alright, quick break. Knock knock. Who's there? Amazon Music Amazon Music who? Amazon Music where Prime members can listen to top comedy podcasts ad free. No awkward interruptions, just non stop laughs from your favorite shows. It's free, it's funny and hey, it's better than my knock knock jokes. Download the Amazon Music app and let the good times roll. Or go to Amazon.com adfreecomedy that's Amazon.com adfreecomediDy to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads.

[A]

I have a I have a quick question for you Rod about recent news. So this is very off the cuff. Like Rod doesn't know I'm going to ask this, but I'm very curious what you think about the the recent announcement of some new spaceports beyond the United States that are coming up because we had a story at space about the, the new Canadian spaceport up in the far north.

[B]

Looking at it. Yeah.

[A]

And, and then I believe that Saxavoord in Scotland is making, making a lot of progress.

[B]

I just edited a story on that.

[A]

And so that'll be like allegedly the first vertical launch for commercial flights. And then you have Portugal apparently licensing their, their first spaceport. I just saw this today, so I don't know too much about their, their effort too. But I'm very curious what you think about the rise of the, of new European spaceports given the, the, the, the, I guess the push for commercial stuff in the United States.

[B]

Well, I, you know, I look at Spaceport America and every, every contemporary picture I see of it is a building standing with naked tarmac in front of it and nothing going on. And I just wonder is, is there enough business to support these things? Of course, the notable emissions are places like Guyana in South America, which is coastal to the east coast and the east coast of Africa, Equatorially, which is a brilliant place to launch rockets. But of course, you know, you have to work out things with local governments and all that. But so the, the executive. Was it the executive order that also talked about spaceport construction?

[A]

I think, oh, I could be wrong about that. I didn't see too much about that. I only knew about the space station.

[B]

I think that was part of it. No, it was, it was, yeah, it was another recent document that is trying to streamline. They want to move the Office of Space Commerce away from NOAA and under transportation or something. I've got all the stats around here somewhere. But anyway, it's, hey, let's, let's speed up the space force because spaceports. Because not only does that let you launch rockets and there's business in that, but it also helps support the businesses that do that and they tend to cluster in those areas and more people get jobs and it's all good for everybody. But this feels a little bit like that sucking sound that will be created when starship starts flying multiple times a day and they gotta find cargo to fill up that thing that's the size of the International Space Station inside. So, you know, do you have enough business? I mean, we've seen what Europe is doing in terms of launch. It isn't much. There are small companies lining up to join the queue. But I don't know. What do you think about pipeline?

[A]

I think it's exciting. I mean, having more players Might give smaller companies more access. Right. I know that like equatorial space, for example. I mentioned them earlier on the show out of Singapore when I went to go meet them. They were working in an industrial park in Singapore and hoping to have a launch site somewhere. Now I believe that they found a place in Australia and that that's what they're. They're working for. But I know that they were like trying to figure out where in Singapore or like the nearby area could we find a place to do it. And the, you know, the more companies like that having a place that's closer to them rather than shipping something all the way to South America to like the Guiana Space center or all the way up to. In terms of sounding rockets to Sweden. Right. For, for their, for their spaceport up there or Alaska, you know, would probably be very, very helpful. So, you know, it may be that there's some companies that will just really be able to stick. But we, we saw for example, with. What was the other one? It was, it was it the one that was in Cardiff, Cornwall with the Cornwall spaceport where their anchor customer was Virgin Orbit. And then that they shut down after the first failed launch. Right. Or second failed launch. And so, so they weren't able to. To make that work. And to your point, like Spaceport America put a lot of stock in Virgin Galactic a lot as being a flagship customer. And, and, and I don't think it's really turned out the way that they had hoped that it would. Now they still have spin launch and they also do a lot of sounding rocket work out of there.

[B]

Went away.

[A]

The one that the, with the big spinny. Spinny thing that does. Yeah, the centrifuge.

[B]

I just done an article on them and then I read about a month later that they were shutting down.

[A]

No. Oh, that breaks my heart.

[B]

So no more fastballs into space. Hey, before I forget, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Moose espionage on discord. Questions are 0.1% quote about dial up. He says with 100 million households in the US that's still 100k households. No, this article in the Guardian states there is still 175,000 dialogues.

[A]

I wasn't trying to Moose. I wasn't trying to belittle or, or, or say that, that, that, that, that's, that's that. That it wasn't that many people. I was just. That was what the, the I think the article had said was that there was 0.1% of people still. But it was to Moose's point It's still like thousands and thousands of people. Hundreds of thousands of people. People. So.

[B]

Okay, Moose, you got your on air apology.

[A]

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I. I have fond memories of the dial up noise, you know, of all of that. And then getting in trouble when people call your house and they either kick you off the Internet or. Or they. My father once called the house from overseas and couldn't get through because I was like, on america online for $6 an hour. I don't remember how much it was. I thought it was 20 bucks.

[B]

It was either six or eight bucks an hour. And you got floppy disks and everything from your local newspaper to a bag of tomatoes at the market. I mean, they were constantly showing up. And then, small aside, then I got my floppy disk set for eWorld, which was Apple's attempt at having their own online community. They basically licensed the back end of the aol, but they put this very cool kind of cartoonish front end on it. And they put bots in all the chat rooms and so forth. And I really liked that. The problem was the only thing in the chat rooms besides you was a.

[A]

Bot most of the time.

[B]

And it just never really took off. And I miss eworld, so. John, Ashley. Hello. We have never asked you if you would fly on Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin.

[A]

God, no.

[B]

Wow. Wow. Want to think about that for a second?

[A]

Yeah, I did.

[B]

God, no. Okay. Because Tarik and I would both. Would both take Blue Origins rocket. Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Well, we take either, but, yeah. However, I would not want to be on the first flight of the Delta.

[A]

I would like to have my own personal spacesuit, though. Like an orange one. I think it'd be cool to have an orange one instead of a blue one. Because they're both blue. Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic. I think they're both blue. They're jumpsuits.

[B]

So you're such a contrarian. Well, yours would be patterned after some video game character, right?

[A]

Well, no, I think it's a nice orange one. Although I think there are nice orange spacesuits in Fallout 76. I think a fluorescent pink starfield. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I could.

[B]

Because there's been orange ones. The shuttle had orange ones. You need something different.

[A]

Yeah, I can see that.

[B]

I want an Apollo Al 7 EVA suit. Be the clunkiest thing in the room, but it would look cool. Well, do we have anything else?

[A]

I have, like, an aside. I just think we were talking about Internet access, and I'm just remembering the days you had to have a service provider before you could Actually access the Internet. Remember you would have your dial up connection and your dsl, but you also had to have a service provider like America Online or CompuServe or Net. Oh my gosh, the first, the first big one. Net. Net something Netscape. Judy on in this. So no, but you, you. I think I remember signing up for Netscape for a while, but then my friend gave me like a free one. But you had to have their ads in the browser, in the browser at the top to be able to get your extra minutes or whatever it was online. So. And then that all went away. That all went away when we got the first wireless connection or whatever.

[B]

So WI Fi. Yeah, dsl. Thank God. All right, well. Oh, imagine.

[A]

Imagine how that, that frontier in space, right? You're on a moon base, but now you have to like choose between Starlink and whatever the other Starlinks are gonna be.

[B]

You know, it would be 15k dial up. Actually on Discord, they're saying it's net zero and netcom.

[A]

That might have been net zero. Remember the ads on the top of the bar and you can never get rid of it.

[B]

So you people that wouldn't spend real money.

[A]

All right, some of us were like baby reporters living in a studio apartment with a fold down bed out of the wall. Right. And bars on the window in Long beach when we were kids. So young. Young and starting out.

[B]

So yeah, that may have something to do with the place you choose to go to school, whether or not you need bars on the window, but that's a different discussion. Actually, I'll be welcoming a student who's coming here from overseas tomorrow to attend usc.

[A]

Yay.

[B]

Escorting her to her new apartment where my girlfriend's daughter is going to help her get established and so forth and tell her where to walk and where not to walk around usc, because that matters.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Don't walk all the way to Compton like I did. That was a bad idea.

[B]

Would the streets start having three digit numbers? It's time to turn around and go home. Speaking of three digit numbers, I want to thank everybody for joining us today for episode 173 that we like to recall. Return of the Malik. Speaking of the Malik Tarek, where can we refresh our memory of what you're up to?

[A]

Well, you can find [e-mail] where I'm trying to get my feet back in order as always on the Twitter and or pardon me, on the social media feedback in order. Well, yeah, I realized how weird that sounded the minute I said it. And I mean my feet back under me, right? Or get my order my things back.

[B]

In order your feet back under. All very good.

[A]

I'm still jet lag man. Like it was a long flight, but you can find me on the social media. Tarek J. Malik and this weekend I'm making a costume for my daughter for a convention. So I'll be doing that for a costume of what she wants to be a character from some anime cartoon show. So like a steampunk thing with giant pink hair. So I'm making a foam wig that I can spray paint pink so that she will look awesome, but I've never done it before. So everyone wish me luck because I just watched a lot of YouTube do it.

[B]

I remember very specifically making costumes for my kid. I made this fantastic Buzz Lightyear costume once with a backpack with lights and sound makers and the little wings folded back with elastic just in case he ran into things and all that. And then about four years after that, I made him a beautiful costume. He looked at me and said, voice having recently dropped because I clung to his youth a little too long. Dad? Yeah, I don't want to wear this, but oh, Judy C. Wants to know what time is it for you now?

[A]

Well, Judy, we're based out of New York, so. So it's Eastern time, so it's three o'. Clock.

[B]

What she means is it's by Singapore time. You're in.

[A]

Oh, by Singapore time. Oh yeah, yeah, it would be 3am for me, like right now. But we, we did get back about look more than a day ago, so I'm. I slept a lot of yesterday, so.

[B]

No more whining, all right? And you can of course find me at pilebooks.com [e-mail] and I did actually look at my website the other day and thought, huh, I haven't updated this a couple years. I probably ought to get around to that. Speaking of updates, you can always drop us a line at Twisted Twit tv. I'm just banging through the segues this week.

[A]

I was going to say, is it as old as dial up?

[B]

We welcome your comments, suggestions and ideas by whatever venue, whether it's dial up, DSL or fiber, and we will answer all our emails. New episodes of this podcast publish every Friday on your favorite podcatcher, so make sure to subscribe. Like tell your friends, give us reviews. Say it to the world, say it to the mountain. We'll take five stars or five of whatever currency they they prefer. And finally, as I say every week, don't forget, we're counting on you to at least consider joining Club Twit this year. Besides supporting the network in general, it helps keep us on the air and it helps keep our bosses there happy. And it helps keep the whole operation running. I think last I heard, 25 of the revenue was coming from Club Twit. We could do better. Tarek and I are members. You could be a member to sign up. Send us your shekels. And what. What more, Tarek, I ask you. Actually, I asked both of you. What better entertainment can you get for $10 a month than this show? Yeah, other than maybe pounding a nail into your foot or something.

[A]

Well, I don't know about that. I mean, if you like that sort of thing, Rod, maybe get help. But. But. But you make a good deal because you can't even get a movie for $10 a month.

[B]

Oh, my God, no. It's like 30 bucks. Okay, John, you're making a bunch of faces. What. What can you get for $10 a month that's more fun than doing this show?

[C]

Two cups of coffee.

[B]

You and your coffee. So for those who have.

[A]

You can't get two cups of coffee. Not good cups of coffee.

[B]

Yeah, you can.

[A]

You can.

[B]

He's probably a McDonald's coffee drink. Some people swear by this swill. Oh, no, Duncan, that's the one I don't get.

[A]

No, I'm not gonna make a brand.

[B]

Study out of it. And I finally went to a Dunkin Donuts. I thought, this just tastes like the regular swill. You get any of these places? Oh, we're gonna get hate mail now. Anyway, let's face it, $10 a month isn't much. So drop all those other subscriptions and give us one. All right, thank you everybody. It's been a real pleasure. Keep those cards and letters coming and we will see you in just seven days. Stay spacey. Get tech news at your pace with TwitTV's perfect pair of shows for quick, focused insights. Tech News Weekly brings you essential interviews with a journalist breaking today's biggest stories. But maybe you need more. That's why I'm here. Dive deep with me on this week in tech. Your first podcast of the week and the last word. In tech, industry insiders dissect everything from AI to privacy to cybersecurity in tech's most influential and longest running roundtable discussion. Short or long, streamlined or comprehensive, Twit TV keeps you well informed. Subscribe to both shows wherever you get your podcasts. And head over to our website, Twit TV for even more Independent Tech Journalism.

[A]

SA.