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This Week in Space 188: A New NASA Leader Rises?
00:58:50
Trump's NASA Chief Pick Jared Isaacman Meets Congress Again
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- [00:00]
Leo Laporte
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- [00:25]
Tarek Malik
Resilience isn't just about bouncing back. It's about being ready. It's how you show up every single day. Because every name in your system is a person who trusts you and every password is a door you're responsible for locking. And when the threat comes, and it always comes, you hold back the chaos. Learn more@cohesity.com Resilience.
- [00:54]
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- [01:28]
Tarek Malik
On this Week in Space, Russia breaks a launch pad and pulls a cosmonaut from his next space flight. Time flies faster on Mars, and billionaire Jared Isaacman is once again running for NASA's top job. And Mike Wall from Space.com is here to explain it to us. Check it out.
- [01:45]
Mike Wall
Podcasts you love from people you trust.
- [01:49]
Tarek Malik
This is Turkey. This is this Week in space, episode number 188 recorded on December 5, 2025. A new NASA Leader Rises well, hello and welcome to this Week in Space. The A New NASA Leader Rises Question mark Edition I'm I'm Tarek Malik, editor in Chief of Space.com I'm flying solo this week because Rod Pyle is off on a spacewalk somewhere in the world, and I hope he sends a postcard. But it's all right because I'm not by myself. Dear listeners, this week we're going to be joined by friend of the show, Mike Wall, and friend of me as well, I hope our space flight and tech editor@space.com because we are going to talk about billionaire Jared Isaacman's return to the Senate Hearing room to try and secure NASA's top job. But before we start, please don't forget to do us a solid, as Rod likes to say, and make sure to like, subscribe and all of the cool podcast stuff because we count on your support to make all of this fun space stuff happen. And of Course. Keep the lights on and those electrons pumping. And now, of course, we're not going to delay it. We're onto a space joke, that Tarek J. Malek edition. And this one I found online from the Adventures of Parson Carson, who is apparently a priest who likes space jokes. And I'm going to throw this one to Mike. Hey, Mike.
- [03:09]
Mike Wall
Yes, Tarek?
- [03:10]
Tarek Malik
What does a space turkey say?
- [03:14]
Mike Wall
I don't know. What does a space turkey say?
- [03:16]
Tarek Malik
Hubble.
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Mike Wall
Hubble.
- [03:18]
Tarek Malik
Right, right. Like gobble, gobble instead of gobble. Yeah, got it. That's all you all get. It's like Thanksgiving. And we've all got, like, Thanksgiving karma, you know? Turkey karma. That's all you get. Wow. I didn't even get, like, a laugh track for that. Come on, John. Come on.
- [03:32]
Mike Wall
You know, I actually heard some laughter in the background. Would you rather give me. Would you rather be giving you this?
- [03:40]
I'm not.
- [03:41]
Tarek Malik
Good. That's only reserved for Rod. Only for Ro. All right. I've heard that some people want to turn me into a turkey when it comes time to jokes. Then you see, you see what I did there? It's a callback. It's a call when it's joke time on the show. But you can all help. You can make it better because you can send us your worst or best or most indifferent space jokes. Whis tv. That's Twiswit tv. Just like all those other talented people did before me so that I don't have to go fish for some stinkers myself. I thought it was great. Thank you, Parson Carson. And now it's on the headline news.
- [04:17]
Headline, headline news. I'm pretty sure I got it there. So. All right, all right, Mike.
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Thank you very much.
- [04:29]
Mike Wall
Why I feel so special.
- [04:33]
Tarek Malik
How come Mike gets applause? I didn't get applause, did I?
- [04:35]
Mike Wall
He's the guest.
- [04:36]
Tarek Malik
All right, well, our top story of the week is actually your top story of the week, which is why we wanted you to join us at the top. And that is what's the deal with this cosmonaut that got kicked off the SpaceX Crew 12 flight? Right. What's going on there?
- [04:51]
Mike Wall
Yeah, it's still, like, a little bit mysterious, but he has been kicked off. That. That has been confirmed by. Yeah. Like, by the Russian Space Agency. Oleg. Like, Artemyev is his.
- [05:01]
Tarek Malik
Artemyev. Artemyev. Okay.
- [05:03]
Mike Wall
And he's. He's a spaceflight veteran. He's flown to the space station three different times, I believe. And he's. Yeah. So he's. He's pretty high profile. Like, I think he's, he actually holds a post in the Duma as well, I think back in Russia. So he's, he's, he's a pretty big name in space flight and he was supposed to fly on SpaceX's Crew 12 mission to the space station, which is, which is supposed to launch early next year, but then he was like abruptly pulled from the flight and he was replaced by another cosmonaut. And we don't really know all the details except there, there was like a Russian language media report that said he had been caught doing something while training at like spaces, like Space X's headquarters in California. And it's sort of, it's murky, you know, like we asked NASA what happened. We asked SpaceX what happened. They didn't respond or they didn't tell us. They said, you know, like talk. Yeah, talk to the Russians basically. And what, what the Russian media kind of reports are saying that he, he like photographed some of the hardware at SpaceX HQ and he wasn't supposed to. And it's just really hard to know what's going on, whether it was nefarious or not or it was just a simple mistake. Like there's no accusation. I mean, it's not like the Fed swooped in and like grabbed him for trying to, to steal all these proprietary secrets or something like that. I mean, it may have been so simple that he just, he didn't know he wasn't supposed to be photographing things in that particular area. You know, SpaceX does have some proprietary concerns about their tech and stuff like that. So it's still kind of up in the air. But we do know that something happened and he was pulled from the flight kind of. It's like pretty odd that he'd get pulled this close to the launch, which could be just a couple months. So that does suggest that something weird did actually happen.
- [06:46]
Tarek Malik
I have heard of like NASA being hacked and information being stolen in the past, but I've never heard of like an astronaut or a cosmonaut, like being the one guilty of the crime. Have you, have you ever heard of that before? Because.
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Mike Wall
No, you pitched it.
- [07:01]
Tarek Malik
It sounded absolutely crazy to me.
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Mike Wall
Yeah, no, and that's sort of, it's, I never heard of it either. And there are all these stories and I mean most of the time you hear about, there are some high profile ones where it's like, they're like at like NASA, like I think it might have been Langley or something like that like a few years back, like some like a Chinese spy Left like a thumb drive in the parking lot or something and somebody found it and put it into their laptop and it was, it was that, that enabled like. Yeah, like a big hack and intrusion. There are stories like I remember the.
- [07:29]
Tarek Malik
Teenager, the teenager that hacked NASA just because he could and then he got.
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Mike Wall
Yeah, yeah, right, there are stories. But if, if you want to try to hack, I mean it seems like you'd go the low profile route like that, right? Not use like, like one of your nation's most most famous cosmonauts on a very public in, in a. Like While he's at SpaceX HQ and all that stuff. It seems more likely to me that this was just like a misunderstanding probably and not that he was actually on there on a secret mission to like photograph Space X Tech and bring it back to Moscow, but that's speculation. Like, I don't know.
- [08:01]
Tarek Malik
Yeah, and I guess for, for our listeners who may not be aware, there's like a lot of rules obviously that, that are in place when you have people from different countries visiting when it comes to space technology. It's why we almost didn't see the livestream of, of Artemis 1 because Boeing was saying that there were itar restrictions, these, these legal restrictions about what kind of technology can be transmitted and shared. And that's what I thought this was initially, but it doesn't really sound like it. Is that from what we've been hearing or any other kind of classified type of thing, it might just be A, you know, SpaceX is a private company. Don't go taking pictures of their private stuff, you know, kind of.
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Mike Wall
Yeah, that's, that, that's possibly. I mean it seems like that's more likely that it's an objection by SpaceX and their, and their protocols were breached. Not necessarily kind of US national security protocols. We don't, we don't really know though. That's, that's, that's the thing because people are being pretty quiet about it. It is kind of, I mean like, I'm sure none of the sides want this story to be publicized. It's pretty embarrassing for the Russians obviously have to have to pull one of their high profile cosmonauts from a high profile mission like this. And yeah, I mean everybody else involved is probably just like they don't want to publicize what exactly happened, have to explain it. So yeah, I mean, like, who knows?
- [09:15]
Tarek Malik
Well, speaking about embarrassing moments for the Russians, this, all of this came out like just after Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving had its own bit of, of snag for Russia. They Launched a new crew to the International Space Station on a Soyuz rocket. But then something unexpected happened. Can you, can you let people know what happened there?
- [09:34]
Mike Wall
Yeah. So it was a successful launch there. It sent two cosmonauts and, and a NASA astronaut to the space station. It all worked out. They got there right on schedule on Thanksgiving. But, but shortly after the, the actual launch at like, at the pad, this, this old pad at like Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which is the only paddle that supports Russian launches of crew and cargo to the space station. There's sort of this like mobile servicing platform that, that goes under like the rockets there.
- [10:04]
Tarek Malik
It's a 20 ton concrete platform, right?
- [10:07]
Mike Wall
Yeah. And it's, and it, and it kind of slides under the rocket when they need to service it pre launch and then it's supposed to like slide back afterward to get out of the way. And what, what happened was like, fell into the flame trench after launch, shortly after launch. The, the, yeah, like the rocket launched and you can see it, there are photos of it like lying in pieces all mangled on at the bottom of the flame trench after the launch.
- [10:29]
Tarek Malik
Yeah, we have a Photo on line 23 there, John.
- [10:32]
Mike Wall
So, yeah, so it seems like somebody messed up, maybe they didn't put like a braking pin in place to that, that kept it from rolling back down into the pit. Or maybe that pin broke or something, something happened like, we don't know, something that happened that wasn't supposed to happen. And the whole, this platform just tumbled into the pit. And so it takes that pat out of commission for the near future. We don't know how long. Russia has said, you know, we, we can get spare parts from somewhere and get this back up and running. They didn't really put a timeline on it. I mean, I've like read a few different things, anywhere from like three months to a year or maybe even more to get that pad back up and running, to get that, that platform kind of like either spruced up or to replace it somehow. But it is, it is kind of a big deal because this is, this is the only pad that the Russians use to launch things, both, both people and cargo to the space station. So. Yeah, I mean, like, what does that mean for the space station? Well, it's probably not a disaster because we actually do have launch capability from the U.S. obviously. I mean, we're just talking about like this, this Crew 12 mission from SpaceX which will take four people to the space station early next year. There are also. Yeah, there are also Cargo missions from SpaceX they like launch Dragon cargo missions. There are a couple other cargo craft that launch. There's, yeah, there's like Northrop Grumman Cygnus, which is an American craft. There's like a Japanese, it's like a new Japanese freighter that just debuted.
- [11:57]
Tarek Malik
Htvx.
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Mike Wall
Htvx.
- [12:01]
But yeah, I mean there are only two crew capable kind of spacecraft that go to the space station these days and Soyuz and Dragon. And than Soyuz is very much in like limbo right now. So.
- [12:13]
Tarek Malik
Yeah, I should mention, by the way to everybody that the bulk of these stories, because I'm biased and I'm in charge this week, come from Space.com, but we do have a follow up on this story from the New York Times. And John, that's line 22. Because Russia has this long storied history when it comes to space and Rod could like regale us with all of their, their, their records. You know, first in space with, with Sputnik, first in space with people, with Gagarin, first woman in space, first space station, like all of these things. First living creature, right? With the, like the poor space dog.
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Mike Wall
You know, dying creature to.
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Tarek Malik
Let's, let's have a, let's have a moment for Leica.
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Mike Wall
Yeah, very sad.
- [12:58]
Tarek Malik
Okay. All right, so storied, storied space history, right? And then, and then now here they are 60 plus years later, they only have one launch pad that can launch people. At least the United States has two, right? They've got the Cape Canaveral pad and, and SpaceX's KSC pad and, and it's out of commission because they broke it now. And, and I'm just wondering what that says about, about them. I mean, Russia's fighting a war with Ukraine, right? And, and then they've had a, I guess a history of mishaps. They had the Soyuz with the leak on it, the, I think there was like one time where they had to go out and cut off an antenna because they were worried about it with like some weird interference on a spacewalk. It just seems like there's been a lack of investment in that industry that has left it in the state that it's in now.
- [13:47]
Mike Wall
Well, that's kind of, that's kind of the like thrust of the past few decades after the kind of fall of the Soviet Union. You know, I mean we like, like as that New York Times article noted, it's been like four decades or so since they've had like a successful planetary mission. They, they like just tried to, to like land a lander on, on the moon not too long ago and it crashed. It is just one of those things. You know, it was a tough transition from independent Russia or to the independent Russia from the Soviet Union in the early 90s. And there's been, I don't know, maybe like a breakdown of the expertise or some of those people just kind of, I mean after like the Soviet Union fell, people, people scattered and went to different places. I mean I'm not a historian either, so I can't, can't speculate on the causes. But in the past three decades or so you have seen like the kind of storied old Soviet space program kind of flounder while, while other, while the rest of the world has kind of moved on. And you know, I mean China is now the United States's chief rival in space. A lot of people would say, I think most space experts when they talk about who do we have to fear losing out on in the final frontier. It's, it's China. I mean, so yeah, that's, I mean you've seen kind of like the rise of China in concert with. It's not like the fall of the Russian space program. They're still very good at certain things, but they certainly aren't making the same strides China is or at the same rate.
- [15:06]
Tarek Malik
Well, so Russia is taking a break from human space flight. Probably a good reason that NASA has this, these other capabilities with SpaceX and Boeing.
- [15:17]
To what they are. But we gotta take a break too and we're gonna come right back after that. So we'll see you then.
- [15:24]
Leo Laporte
Hey there, it's Leo laporte, host of so many shows on the TWIT network, thinking about advertising. In 2026 we host a network of the most trusted shows in tech, each featuring authentic post read ads delivered by Micah Sargent, my co host and of course me. Our listeners don't just hear our ads. They really believe in them because we've seen established a relationship with them. They trust us. According to Twit fans, they've purchased several items advertised on the Twit network because they trust our team's expertise in the latest technology. If TWIT supports it, they know they can trust it. In fact, 88% of our audience has made a purchase because of a twit ad. Over 90% help make it and tech buying decisions at their companies. These are the people you want to talk to. Ask David Coover, he's the senior strategist at ThreatLocker. David said Twitch hosts are some of the most respected voices in technology and cybersecurity and their audience reflects that same level of expertise and engagement. It's the engagement that really makes a difference to us. With every campaign you're going to get measurable results. You get presence on our show episode pages. In fact, we even have links right there in the RSS feed descriptions. Plus our team will support you every step step of the way. So if you're ready to reach the most influential audience in tech, email us PartnerWIT TV or head to TWiT TV Advertise. I'm looking forward to telling our qualified audience about your great product.
- [16:54]
Tarek Malik
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Mike Wall
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Tarek Malik
He's talking to you britches. I'm not that.
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Mike Wall
Right Santa, you know my elf Drewski here.
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Tarek Malik
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- [19:09]
Tarek Malik
Speaking of China, Mike and the rise of that nation's space program, they had a bit of a snag, but also a success this week, too, because they tried to launch a reusable rocket for the first time and had some mixed results. Did you follow that story or.
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Mike Wall
Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's. It's probably more of a success than most people are kind of viewing it as. It's a Chinese company called Land Space, and.
- [19:37]
They'Ve been developing this rocket that looks a lot like the Falcon 9 from SpaceX. It's got nine engines in the first stage, and its first stage is designed to be reusable. And they actually launched it for the first time just a couple of days ago, and it successfully reached orbit with the second stage and the first stage tried to come back to Earth for a landing like the Falcon 9 first stage does. It, it blew up, but it made it most of the way down. You know, it, it actually was on course, like, where it, where it like actually exploded was not too far from the designated landing pad and it almost made it to the ground. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's an explosion. It didn't land successfully, but it was a first try and it actually reached orbit and it almost kind of stuck the landing.
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Tarek Malik
I think we've got. John, I think in that story there's like a, there's like a little video in there too that we can, we can see it's an expandable X version. So it's crazy. It's absolutely crazy because you see it come in right coming back.
- [20:31]
Mike Wall
Yeah, no, it's like a SpaceX launch. We're all used to seeing this, but it's only SpaceX that can do this now. And now there's actually this Chinese company that's trying to do it too. So it's a first try. It's a failure on the landing, but I wouldn't doubt that they're able to stick the landing relatively soon.
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Tarek Malik
I think SpaceX tried.
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That was the sound, because.
- [20:56]
SpaceX tried what, like three times to land before their first Success. And that was when they switched from, they were targeting the ocean ones first and then they decided to try to do land landing and they nailed the land landing on the first attempt.
- [21:08]
Mike Wall
Yeah, I'm trying, I'm just looking that up. How, I mean, how many times they actually failed during, during landing tries. They had, their first successful landing try was December 2015. I remember that. It was a land landing. They had tried a few times before that and failed. So that's just, that's, that's rocketry, right? That's trying. That's, I mean, you try and if you fail, you figure out what went wrong and you try it again. That's, that, that, that's been the SpaceX approach and it's, it's worked very well for them.
- [21:33]
Tarek Malik
It's very interesting though, how similar, like you were talking about how similar this, this rocket, I'm going to pronounce it wrong. Three, like usually three. So I apologize to everyone everywhere about that. Brett Tingley, friend of the show at managing editor, he pronounced, he taught me how to say it and I, well.
- [21:53]
Mike Wall
He used to live in China.
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Tarek Malik
Yeah, that's right. That's right. So that was that land space rocket. That's great. I have one science story I wanted to touch on before we move on to our main section, and that is, you know, for folks wondering, time travels faster when you're on Mars. And I thought this was like, fascinating. Mona ravacetti@space.com brought this one to us and it was a new study by, by scientists who realized that on average, time passes on Mars477 millionths of a second faster every day or I should say sol, right, because that's Mars than it does on Earth. All because of Albert Einstein's like, theory of general revitality. And I could show you all of the equations, but I'm going to be really honest, everybody, I don't understand them, right? And, but, but it has to do with, with just like the gravitational in like, like vagaries of, of, of three or four other bodies there that make it just the way that those, that those gravitational influences of like the Earth and the sun and Mars and, and its moons all like, like, interact. These scientists, Neil Ashby and Bhajunath Patla at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, those are the folks that tell you if an inch is an inch and a mile is a mile. Right? And a second is a second. But not on Mars, apparently, because it's 1,477 million faster or shorter or something like that. So.
- [23:24]
Mike Wall
Well, that's yeah, that's that. I mean that's what relativity says, right? Time is, is all relative. And people who have seen interstellar, you know, when you go to a planet that's close to a supermassive black hole, time slows down, right? Because you're in the presence of an immense gravitational field. Just, just, just like all the sci fi stories, if you're traveling at an appreciable kind of fraction of the speed of light, time is slower for, for you, right? So like if you're in a spaceship and you go 50% the speed of light and you come back to Earth, like, like everybody on Earth is like way older than you are. Time has not moved as fast for you. So this is, this is like one aspect of that, but on a much, much like lower level, obviously.
- [24:01]
Tarek Malik
I feel like the reverse. I read a story like this, I feel like I'm way older than everybody else. I have to tell you, they said that Patlow, the scientist said that there's this three body problem, like that's really hard to solve, right. People have been trying to wrangle with it with gravity and planets and whatever, forever and so they're saying that this is actually a four body problem, which makes it even harder. There's Mars, which you're talking about, there's the sun, there's Earth, and then there's the Moon and all of those things working like in like trying to calculate all of those. That's what like gets complicated when you factor in the distance between Mars and the sun and the eccentricity of its orbit, which makes the variations in time larger. It's, it's just crazy that the time can move differently on a planet. And what makes Mars so special? To me, that's the question. Because if it's, if it flows differently on Mars, on Mars, does that mean that it's different on like Jupiter?
- [24:52]
Mike Wall
Yes.
- [24:55]
Tarek Malik
Or God forbid, Uranus. Right.
- [24:57]
Improv Podcaster
So.
- [24:57]
Tarek Malik
No, no. Thank you for laughing, Mike. Thank you. No, it's nice to know that we have the same.
- [25:03]
Mike Wall
What's kind of interesting about the study too is that, you know, they're talking.
- [25:06]
Tarek Malik
John is shaking his head at my Uranus joke right there.
- [25:11]
Sorry, go ahead. I interrupted you, Mike.
- [25:13]
Mike Wall
No, I was just saying this has practical applications as the authors noted in the study. I mean stuff like GPS and for comms and stuff like that, like from planet to planet, like you have to have the timing down really like to, to the microsecond or, or like have an adjustment if you know the timing is off. So that's Right. So actually knowing what the difference is on Mars, how much faster it moves on Mars will allow you to make those adjustments to, to kind of mount better Mars missions, which, I mean, it doesn't make a difference. Now we have just, just a few operational spacecraft at Mars. But if you have like whole fleets and say we have like a human city on Mars and we have all this infrastructure there and you have GPS there for people, then that's really going to make a difference that you know what the difference is.
- [25:58]
Like how fast time travels on Mars compared to on Earth and you can make the adjustments for like interplanetary communication and all that stuff to keep the civilization going.
- [26:06]
Tarek Malik
Yeah, NASA does want to build the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter and I guess Elon wants to send like a bajillion people to Mars on starships. Right? So speaking of starships, we're going to get to that in like a minute, everybody. But you know, we've got a big meaty section coming up ahead of us. So I think, John, what I'd like to do is let's just throw it to a break a little bit early so that we can talk all about Jared Isaacman, his bid to be the leader of NASA and a billionaire and the guy that we all pay every time we get a cup of coffee. So we're going to go to that right now. Let's welcome our back. Hey everybody.
- [26:39]
Leo Laporte
Leo laporte here and I'm going to bug you one more time to join Club twit. If you're not already a member. I want to encourage you to, to support what we do here at Twit. You know, 25% of our operating costs comes from membership in the club. That's a huge portion and it's growing all the time. That means we can do more, we can have more fun. You get a lot of benefits ad free versions of all the shows. You get access to the Club Twit discord and special programming like the keynotes from Apple and Google and Microsoft and others that we don't stream otherwise in public. Please join the club. If you haven't done it yet, we'd love to have you find out more at TWiT TV Club TWiT. And thank you so much.
- [27:25]
Mike Wall
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- [28:26]
Improv Podcaster
Star Theater presents real customer reviews performed by a real serious improv podcaster. Tonight's review, Spatula for the Stars. When I'm dead and civilization eventually collapses, this spatula will remain. It will be the only rune uncovered by some unknown species of the future upon which they base their assumptions of our existence. Eggs. They will posit. These extinct people like to eat their eggs scrambled, omeletted and fried. They love to eat eggs and this was their primary tool for cooking them. Now come, let us teleport to the Intergalactic Museum and put this device in the Milky Way exhibit. Five stars. Zachary, thank you for listening to Amazon Five Star Theater. A spatula of such enduring majesty. Truly the perfect gift for my co hosts. May they wield it nobly in the Breakfast wars to come find your perfect gift this holiday on Amazon.
- [29:32]
Tarek Malik
Okay, Mike, I forgot to introduce you to everybody, but for folks who are just joining us right now, I know John is like poking his finger at me. I was gonna have you introduce yourself to everybody in this section, but I just roped you into headlines.
- [29:45]
Mike Wall
You're just too excited.
- [29:46]
Tarek Malik
I was. I pulled a rock is what I did. So. Ron, it's harder than it looks. You make it look easy, my friend. If you're listening out there, so don't. Don't. You can't see John shaking his head, but he's shaking his head in a proven approval give. Give folks a reminder of who you are so that they know the expertise from which you speak.
- [30:08]
Mike Wall
I'm. Yeah, like, I'm the spaceflight and tech editor@space.com. i've been here for a long time. Since like 2010, I think now. So I've been here for about 15 years and yeah, and I occasionally come.
- [30:19]
Tarek Malik
On this podcast and Mike's first space shuttle mission that he ever covered was. Or that saw it launch was STS135.
- [30:27]
Mike Wall
Which was the final one, which was.
- [30:28]
Tarek Malik
The last one, which launched on the first attempt and which drove me crazy because everyone else had the same experience. And I had to wait two weeks in Florida for my first one, sleeping on a friend's couch because I couldn't stay in the hotel anymore. So it's.
- [30:43]
Mike Wall
I just. I just have good karma, I guess.
- [30:45]
Tarek Malik
I know you gotta come to all the launches, you know, so. So, so thank you. So, 10 years, 10 plus years, folks, of experience doing this. 15. My gosh, I can't do math. This is why I'm not an Astro.
- [30:58]
Ad/Promo Voice
Not.
- [31:00]
Mike Wall
Yeah, time travels faster on Earth than Tarek thought it did.
- [31:06]
Tarek Malik
Jared Isogun is back in the news. Billionaire, philanthropist, super cool guy. Pilot, supersonic pilot. It's got the world's largest private space force. I kind of teed it up earlier, but he founded Shift4, the payment company, which is that, you know, they make that device at the coffee shop that you tap or at the airport with your credit card that processes the payment.
- [31:32]
Mike Wall
And I actually just recently found out what Shift four means. If you do Shift four on your computer, that's the dollar sign, right?
- [31:40]
Tarek Malik
Is that what it is? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It's all about the dollars.
- [31:48]
My mind is blown. Well, he took that joke and cashed it all the way to the bank because that guy's a billionaire and has flown to space twice on SpaceX missions. First with the Inspiration4 flight, and then again with Polaris dawn and now missions that he financed by himself. By the way, he also owns the world's largest private air force. And I. I've read that that they use those jets to train military pilots on too as well. And they do air shows and stunts and. And he flies them. His call sign is a rook, by the way. So very cool guy, very nice. I've spoken to him a total of one time in person. But, Jared, if you're listening, you are always invited to come on the show.
- [32:31]
So give us the skinny. So what happened this week and why is it different? Right. Because I feel like we've been on this merry go round before.
- [32:37]
Mike Wall
Well, it's the second time for him because he. I mean, he was officially nominated for. Yeah, for like the post of NASA chief, I think, on Inauguration Day when Trump was. It was one of the first things he did was say, you know, this is my choice for NASA administrator back in January. And he was. He had a confirmation hearing, or rather nomination hearing in the Senate on April 9, I believe it was. And that went pretty well. And he was sort of like, he looked set to be confirmed in like the first week of June.
- [33:07]
Tarek Malik
Yeah.
- [33:07]
Mike Wall
But, but on May 31, Trump made an announcement that he was pulling his nomination. He cited a couple of reasons. You know, he said he just recently learned that Isaacman had donated to like, Democratic politicians in the past. And he also said he was worried about the alleged close relationship between Isaac man and SpaceX chief Elon Musk and said that could be a conflict of interest. And those, those are the reasons that, that he gave for pulling the nomination.
- [33:33]
Tarek Malik
Those are the reasons that he gave. But this all happened, this all happened. Right. Coincidentally after relations between him and Elon Musk soured.
- [33:41]
Mike Wall
Yeah.
- [33:42]
Tarek Malik
And they got in a big old test.
- [33:44]
Mike Wall
Yeah, yeah, that, that was well documented. And, and yeah, so I mean, we can't know what the real reasons were if, if that's the extent of it. But that's like, those are the reasons President Trump gave. But then he had a change of heart in like early November and renominated him. Like again, we're not sure what changed, what, what information came to light or how, how his decision making kind of evolved. And so like that he's, he, he came and just did, did his second nomination hearing like this, I guess on Wednesday, on the 3rd of December. And again, it went, it went pretty well. This, it's, it's just pretty, it was surprising when the nomination was pulled on May 31 because Isaac man, like, as you're saying, he's, he's got a lot of space flight experience. He's actually commanded to private astronaut missions and he, he's like, very well respected in the spaceflight community. He seems to actually care about a lot of this stuff. And it seemed like he had like, a lot of like, kind of like bipartisan support and support from the space, the spaceflight community, both, both industry and people at NASA and stuff like that. So it was just really surprising when, when it got pulled. But you know, it's, it's like Washington, there's lots of like, maneuvering and lots of stuff we're not privy to. What's, what's going on, power plays and stuff. So we don't really know. It's just sort of like, whoa, he got pulled and now he's back and it seems like he's on, on target to get confirmed again. But yeah, I mean, like, wait and see. And he's just, just like you never know what's going to happen. As we saw the first time around, of course, right.
- [35:11]
Tarek Malik
Right now, transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and, and see if he was, he said what was, he was a reality star. Star, right.
- [35:22]
Mike Wall
He was on Real World Boston. Yeah, There you go.
- [35:25]
Tarek Malik
There we go. Championship lumberjack.
- [35:28]
Mike Wall
He's a Timber Sports all star.
- [35:30]
Tarek Malik
Yes, there you go. So he's been, he's been running, he's been, he's been running NASA kind of on the side while also running the transportation department. He also had a big fight with Elon Musk, I believe earlier over Artemis. Right?
- [35:45]
Mike Wall
Yes. So there's just, there's, so there's, there's all this drama swirling around everywhere. So. Yeah, I love it.
- [35:50]
Tarek Malik
I love the tea. Right.
- [35:53]
Yeah.
- [35:54]
Mike Wall
So there was a fight between those two like, like a couple months ago. Duffy said that he wasn't satisfied with the pace of starship development. You know, that's, that's the giant SpaceX mega rocket that's going to be the lander for Artemis 3 to put astronauts down on the moon in 2027, 2028. Ish. He publicly said he wasn't happy with the pace of the development of starship, wasn't sure it was going to be ready. So he said we should reopen the kind of competition for the landing contract for Artemis 3. And that made Elon Musk very upset and he called him Sean dummy and a bunch of other stuff, talked about he's got a two digit iq. All this stuff, this kind of tweet storm that we're used to seeing from him when he gets upset. Elon Musk. And so yeah, that's, they obviously has been, there has been friction between those two and, and you know, like obviously there is a relationship between Eisenman and Musk if people have brought up concerns about it. Eisenman has always said it's a business relationship which is undeniable. You know, he's bought two flights from SpaceX.
- [36:48]
Tarek Malik
He's bought five flights, right? Five. He originally, he bought four Polaris flights.
- [36:52]
Mike Wall
And that first inspiration and inspiration four. But we're like, we're not sure if those, if those additional three will happen, if he's like the NASA chief or whatever.
- [37:00]
Tarek Malik
But yeah, he'd have to put them on hold.
- [37:03]
Mike Wall
Yeah, he's flown on two of them that he has bought and paid for. But he, but, but he's always said that there's no personal relationship with him. You know, it's the same relationship that NASA has with SpaceX when they buy flights from them and so on. So.
- [37:14]
Tarek Malik
Yeah. Senator Ed Markey, you had a story on this in space.com, this is line, what is this? Line 37. John, you had a story on this, I think just yesterday about Elon. Senator Markey. He keeps asking. Yeah, he asked this. He like really pressed Isaac, man, it was uncomfortably long in April where he kept asking him over and over again, was Elon Musk in the room when Trump offered him the position the first time? And he said in probably as many ways as the human brain can comprehend, like, that he accepted the job from the president, like, in, like it was just from the president that he was talking to, you know, but he was in, but not saying anything about anyone anywhere that was anywhere.
- [38:04]
Mike Wall
Yeah, he, he, he like, he danced around the question. He said, like, I was talking to the President of the United States. My, like, interview was with the President Elect and all this, because this, this is about a conversation that, that happened in December, late 2024, like before he was inaugurated.
- [38:18]
Tarek Malik
He already, I tell you, it's, it's like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, man, the way that he pulled that off. So, and, and so, so clearly, clearly.
- [38:27]
Markey was prepared for that in, in this hearing and got his answer finally right. He asked.
- [38:32]
Mike Wall
Well, he, he didn't get the answer. He, he asked him again. I, I, it's just, it's all very strange, you know, I mean, it, it seems pretty obvious to people listening that, that Musk probably was in the room. And we got to, I've got a few more details. I mean, like in the second hearing this past Wednesday, Eisenman said, like the interview he had with Trump in December or late November, whichever it was, was in a ballroom type setting. So there are lots of people in the room and he is not going to say who it was because it wouldn't be fair to all those people in the room to bring them into this because it was just with him and Trump. So if, I mean, I would think as a reasonable person, if somebody won't say whether Yellen was in the room, he probably was, because if he wasn't, then you just say it. But like, I don't know, I mean, it's, it's, it's just weird, it's weird to be so fixated on it on the one hand, from Markey's perspective. And it's also just kind of odd not to just say, yes, he was in the room, but there were like a thousand other people in the room, so it wasn't a big deal. It's just, it's just one of those little quirks of this story that there's this back and forth between them. That, that will not end, apparently.
- [39:31]
Tarek Malik
I think Markey's concern says that there could be some kind of conflict of interest because he would be the leader of NASA, but he's also been a customer of SpaceX, which is one of NASA's biggest contractors.
- [39:42]
Mike Wall
So yeah, he, he made those conflict of interest kind of concerns very clear. He said, I have conflict of interest.
- [39:51]
Tarek Malik
Okay, all right, I'm sorry, I was trying to like.
- [39:55]
Mike Wall
And yeah, and he asked Isaac, man, how much he paid Musk for the space flights. Right. And we didn't get an answer apparently because there's an NDA involved, maybe there's a non disclosure agreement. But then Markey asked Eisenman if he would ask to be released from the N. NDA if, if he is confirmed as NASA chief. And like Osman said he would have no problem with, with asking to be released from the NDA. So like, I don't know, it's like, I don't know if any of that will actually come to pass. And he will get.
- [40:22]
Tarek Malik
He did say, he did say it cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Is that, is that what he did say? So, but, but, but less than the 250 million that he raised for St. Jude's Hospital?
- [40:32]
Mike Wall
Well, yeah, well, yeah, yeah, that, that was from Marky. Marky asked if it was over like 100 million, 200 million. And we didn't hear from Isaac, man. He, I mean all he said was like, like it wasn't cheap, that he didn't get a discount from SpaceX and that they actually raised more money for charity than he paid.
- [40:50]
Tarek Malik
Yeah, yeah, that's great, that's great. Well, we got, we got more. I got more questions for Mike about, about Isaacman, but he does seem like he's got a lot of support both from these lawmakers as well as from the. And I'm going to ask you about that in a bit, but first let's go to a quick break.
- [41:08]
I had a brain freeze, you know, because apparently I'm lost in space. We'll have a quick break and then we'll be right back.
- [41:13]
Leo Laporte
So. Hi there, Leo Laporte here. I just wanted to let you know about some of the other shows we do on this network you probably already know about. This week on Tech. Every Sunday I bring together some of the top journalists in the tech field to talk about the tech stories. It's a wonderful chance for you to keep up on what's going on with tech, plus be entertained by some very bright and fun minds. I hope you'll tune in every Sunday for this Week in Tech. Just go to your favorite podcast client and subscribe this Week in Tech from the Twit Network. Thank you.
- [41:46]
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Tarek Malik
Zoe. This thing weighs a ton.
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Mike Wall
Drew Ski, lift with your legs man.
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Improv Podcaster
Santa, did you get my letter?
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Tarek Malik
He's talking to you Bridges. I'm not.
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Of course he did.
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Mike Wall
Right Santa, you know my elf Drew Ski here. He handles the nice lift and elf.
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I'm six' three. What everyone wants is iPhone 17 and at T Mobile. You can get it on them. That center stage front camera is amazing for group selfies, right Mrs. Claus?
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Mike Wall
Keep your old phone or give it as a gift.
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Tarek Malik
Nice. My side of the tree is slipping.
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With no trade in needed.
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- [43:58]
Tarek Malik
All right, Mike So let's get to the meat and potatoes about Jared Isaacman. So we know about his background. Guy loves space, is super, super wealthy, put that wealth to both professional use to make all sorts of, like, you know, entrepreneur things, raise lots of money with a passion project for St. Jude's and then, of course, flew his private mission to space. And he's the. He financed the first private spacewalk. We forgot to mention that at the outset. So he's done a spacewalk as well.
- [44:28]
Mike Wall
Yep.
- [44:28]
Tarek Malik
Which was actually pretty exciting to watch, even if they didn't float all the way outside.
- [44:33]
So.
- [44:35]
What really, I guess, drives a lot of the support for Jared that maybe we didn't see for acting administrator Sean Duffy or others? I mean, I think 36, 39 astronauts signed on to say that they really love him. A lot of industry companies signed on to say that they really loved him ahead of these hearings this week. What is it about him that has kind of really put the support firmly behind him in what seems like a bipartisan way?
- [45:08]
Mike Wall
Yeah, he, like, checks a lot of boxes that he really seems to genuinely care about space flight and exploration. He's a very smart and accomplished guy. Like, as you noticed, he actually founded Shift 4 when he was, like, 16. Like, I believe. 16. Yeah. Imagine so. And then he. He, like, loves space flight. He's been. He's. He's a private astronaut. He's been to space. He has. He is very thoughtful. He has real ideas about things and cares about them. You know, he puts things, like, out on. On. On Twitter, and he engages with people. He engages with the community and has ideas about things. He seems like a genuine, sincere person. And so, like, across the kind of spectrum of people. I mean, he. He is an entrepreneur and a billionaire. And so he. That. That appeals to a lot of people who know. Well, he knows how to get things done. He is very smart and knows how things work in the real world, but he also has spaceflight experience. So he has a genuine passion for space and all that stuff, which appeals to the spaceflight community and has been.
- [46:05]
Tarek Malik
Through the actual training. Right. Because he commanded those missions.
- [46:08]
Mike Wall
Well, yeah. And. And I mean, not. Not to pile on Sean Duffy. I don't know Sean Duffy at all, but he's not a spaceflight person. Right. He got this job. He has no experience in spaceflight. That's not his fault. But he was tapped for the job. So just as, like, like, yeah. I mean, as a contrast with. With Isaacman, it's somebody who is the Secretary of Transportation who was given the, like, NASA interim chief job by Trump. And then you compare that with Isaac, who is somebody who has been to space and cares about it a lot and is like a private astronaut and has all these ideas. So it's just a different level of kind of experience and like commitment, I think, which people like really see.
- [46:45]
Tarek Malik
With Jared Eisenman, I was very struck in his comments. He had prepared comments that you can, I think, I think you can read them online.
- [46:52]
Mike Wall
Yeah.
- [46:54]
Tarek Malik
Where he was really approaching NASA from a very balanced point of view. Right. You would, you would think that someone like Jared Isaacman, you know, big hardware guy, has flown in space. You know, really, I think he was, he had bought the first crude flight on starship as part of the Polaris program. That was one of the flights. It was supposed to be the last one.
- [47:16]
And so that he would be approaching NASA from a very spaceflight oriented. I'm speaking as like a spaceflight person. I was the rocket ship person@space.com at the beginning. Right. And I see everything as like, you know, if it, if it looks like a nail, everything looks like a nail if you're a hammer. So.
- [47:33]
But he seemed like, to have a very like, like wide and.
- [47:41]
And what I'm trying to say is like a wide approach to NASA. He talked about the importance of the science and keeping things funded over time. He talked about the centers. I think he was asked at one point about, directly about the Goddard Space Flight center and its role because you know, we've written about that a lot@space.com and what's going on there with budget cuts and layoffs and building closures and stuff like that. And he really, he really seemed to be taking like a balanced approach. That's the word, balanced to what the, the end results need to be to have a successful space program there.
- [48:15]
Mike Wall
Yeah, no, he definitely has ideas about that. He, he is like if, if he's confirmed, you know, he will be constrained by, by whatever budget NASA gets. That's not up to him. He can fight for certain things, fight for more money, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he'll get it. So his power to control what, not what is coming down the pipe for NASA funding wise is not great. But he's already talked about some of his priorities. There's this document.
- [48:46]
That he wrote, Project Athena.
- [48:48]
Tarek Malik
I guess I was going to ask you about that.
- [48:50]
Mike Wall
Yeah, so that kind of talks about what his ideas and priorities might be. And that's something that was apparently leaked by some of the political operatives who maybe didn't want him to become like NASA chief or get renominated. It's all very murky, but it's this like 62 page document about. It's this like kind of ever evolving document. He has said, he like said in the most recent nomination hearing that it's like not a final thing. It's all, he's always amending it as he thinks about things and new information comes to light. But it's like it's kind of this document that outlines his priorities, his ideas for how NASA should move in the future and what, what like what he may do if he's confirmed. But it's not like a policy document per se, it's like a list of ideas and stuff like that. And that, that like tells us a little bit about what he thinks. And there are some controversial things in there.
- [49:36]
Tarek Malik
What are some of the positives and what are some of the controversial things that were in that, in that report that you.
- [49:42]
Mike Wall
Well, I think some of the controversial things are like he's, I mean he comes from the business community so he says in there some things about, you know, just, yeah, just kind of doing more offloading of certain types of earth science observation stuff to private satellites or to non NASA satellites, you know, buying earth science data from other satellites as opposed to launching new NASA missions to do that. You know, and that's a way that's, I mean that's, that's neither positive or like nor negative in an objective sense. It depends on your perspective. You know, it's like a way to cut costs while potentially getting some of that same data is one way to look at it. If NASA doesn't have to spend money on building a new like just kind of climate change mission, but can instead outsource that to a company or to multiple companies that already have satellites like in orbit or will build them, then that could be viewed as a positive. But if you're somebody who thinks that, you know, well, we, we need dedicated missions to do this and it's NASA's expertise that can get the best data. So we need to do that. Then that, that would be a negative. Right. So, but he's, he has ideas like that, ways to cut costs. He's very into tech advancement. One of the things in there is like we, we need to develop like nuclear electric power, propulsion, that, that sort of thing.
- [50:56]
So just ways to, to prioritize developing new new propulsion technologies that will help keep the US kind of kind of moving forward and being like kind of the top space nation in the world. He's, he's very into how can we get that tech advancement going and keep it going?
- [51:12]
Tarek Malik
Yeah, I have like a burning question about China and the United States on the moon, and I'm going to ask it after we take an early break right now. So let's do that and then we're going to come right back to it.
- [51:25]
Mike Wall
AI agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed. But agents make mistakes. Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice. Rubrik Agent Cloud is the only platform that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails.
- [51:44]
Leo Laporte
And rewind mistakes so you can unleash agents, not risk.
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Mike Wall
Accelerate your AI transformation@rubrik.com that's R U B R-I K.com you know you've reached.
- [51:56]
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- [52:25]
Improv Podcaster
Amazon Five Star Theater presents real customer reviews performed by a real serious improv podcaster. Tonight's review, Spatula for the Stars. When I'm dead and civilization eventually collapses, this spatula will remain. It will be the only rune uncovered by some unknown species of the future upon which they base their assumptions of our existence. Eggs. They will posit. These extinct people like to eat their eggs scrambled, omeletted and fried. They love to eat eggs and this is this was their primary tool for cooking them. Now come, let us teleport to the Intergalactic museum and put this device in the Milky Way exhibit. 5 stars Zachary. Thank you for listening to Amazon 5 Star Theater. A spatula of such enduring majesty. Truly the perfect gift for my co hosts. May they wield it nobly in the breakfast wars to to come find your perfect gift this holiday on Amazon.
- [53:32]
Tarek Malik
Okay, so you just said I was going to ask you all about Project Athena and we know like the pros and the cons for Jared Isaac been. But I do know that like the big question that has been on like the Congress's mind has been is the United States going to get people back on the moon before before China does? China wants to do it by 2030. Rod thinks they're going to do it earlier for, for one of their anniversaries. But.
- [54:03]
NASA, NASA, well, Sean Duffy, I should say has been talking about and saber rattling about this, this race that we're in with to get astronauts back to, back to the moon with China and how we have to get there. And it's really, really important. Does.
- [54:20]
Does Isaac man have a plan to make sure that Artemis 3 is on track or what does he think about Artemis, the Artemis program overall? Is that the right approach and does he think that we are in a space race and that we have to win for China or is. No, he's telling them what we want to hear.
- [54:36]
Mike Wall
Yeah, well, he was asked about all these things in that confirmation hearing or the nomination hearing on Wednesday and he did say, you know, he views that this is a competition with China, that we must win. I don't know, it's important for national pride, national security, that sort of thing to get our astronauts to the moon first, to beat China to the moon. But like again, you know, he's sort of, he's bound in a lot of ways by what Congress dictates and how much money they get for Artemis and all this stuff. It's not entirely up to him, even if he is concerned. So what passed in the like the big beautiful bill that was signed on July 4, this big spending bill.
- [55:19]
It directs NASA I guess to. Or it allocates money to keep going through Artemis 5 like I believe it is. I mean so there's always this push and pull in like the original 2026 budget proposal that Trump put out earlier this year. It said that we should stop Artemis after Artemis 3. We should get astronauts on the moon and then get, then kind of transition to something else that's more sustainable, not as expensive, whatever. But that's so that there's always this push and pull. Nothing is set.
- [55:49]
Tarek Malik
Congress put that money, they put that funding back in.
- [55:51]
Mike Wall
They also, yeah.
- [55:52]
Tarek Malik
Put some funding back in for Gateway. Right. Because I think Gateway was originally slash.
- [55:57]
Mike Wall
And this is what people, this is why Rod, for instance, and a lot of other people think China has the upper hand in the return to the moon because we're always dealing with this push and pull back and forth. We do, we have the right architecture. Let's cut this. No, let's put it back in. Whereas China is just working on this like Apollo esque kind of lunar landing program. They're just working away at it kind of piece by piece, step by step and don't have the same push and pull. They've got this plan and they're going to affect it. They're able to do more long term planning without a lot of disruption because they have a very stable, I mean it's probably not the best governing system in the world from our perspective. It's like one party rule, not a true democracy. But the, the outcome of that system is they can plan over the long term because it's very stable for better or for worse. Whereas we have all of this back and forth push and pull and NASA gets pulled in all these different directions. I mean it was not too long ago that they were told to send astronauts to an asteroid, right? And then don't get me started, you.
- [56:52]
Tarek Malik
Know, my feelings on the evolution of the asteroid redirect mission.
- [56:57]
Mike Wall
And then no, actually we're just going to capture an asteroid and bring it back around and it's just all this stuff, right?
- [57:01]
Tarek Malik
Capture a piece of an asteroid. It was a boulder, yeah. But then lamest way to go to an asteroid possible.
- [57:09]
Mike Wall
So they, they're at the whim of like the policymakers and they just have to react a lot of the time. And so it's hard for them when, when you see NASA's falling behind, you know, you have to put it into the proper perspective. They are doing what they're told to do by these different administrations and different congresses that come in. They don't get to make the policy, they have to react to it. So it's just tough for them.
- [57:31]
Tarek Malik
Wow. Well, very, very interesting. Is he ready to scrap SpaceX's contract then or. There was so like the day after his hearing on the Hill, there was another hearing in the House and this one was aimed specifically at the Is the United States ready to beat China in space? And.
- [57:54]
From what I heard and from what Brett Tingley wrote for us on that, the answer was resoundingly no. You had Mike Griffin, former former NASA chief, who was actually the, I think he became NASA chief the second one that I, I covered when I was just a baby space reporter trying to make suborbital flights into, you know, the news. That's a really, really pained.
- [58:18]
What is that metaphor? I apologize to everybody that you had to hear that. But, but he was a straight shooter from what I remember, you know, from interviewing him and whatnot. And he said pretty, pretty emphatically that the plan that we've got now isn't going to work. And we've heard the same things before. We heard them in the Obama administration when the Augustine commission looked at the Constellation program and said, hey, you can build a moon lander or you can build a rocket to get to the moon and not land, but you can't do both, you know, which seems to be weird. That seems to be where we are now.
- [58:52]
And it just seems like Isaacman would be really inheriting still that quandary that we was dealing with for like 20 years.
- [58:59]
Mike Wall
Yeah, yeah.
- [59:00]
Tarek Malik
A solution.
- [59:01]
Mike Wall
Yeah, it's pretty interesting. What, what like you're talking about that like story Brett wrote about like Mike Griffin's objections. He, there's a faction of people who agree with him that the, that the starship system that NASA chose for the first moon landing is very, it's very complicated. Right. It's complex. Like for every, yeah. For every mission that lands like a set of astronauts on the moon, you need like a dozen or so refueling missions to, to go up to that starship and put enough propellant into it to get it to the moon and to land on the moon and to be able to launch back off the moon again. And that's like, so it's not just one mission, it's like a dozen missions. And like, whereas back in Apollo we just had, we had launched a Saturn 5 with a lunar lander on the top and it would go and do its thing and then launch off the surface. And so that, that's the approach that China is taking and that's what we were talking about earlier. You know, it's like simple versus complex. And I mean everybody knows that if like Starship works out, if it, if it does do what SpaceX says it can do, it'll be absolutely revolutionary. Right? If it can be a rapidly reusable, fully reusable rocket, which we've never seen, that's that big and that powerful, it's going to be amazing over the long haul. It could take people to Mars and the moon and launch dozens of times per day, whatever it is like. But that's sort of long haul. What, what, what people like Mike Griffin are saying is for the short term, if we really want to beat China to the moon, then we should have a simple system that we know works quickly like the Apollo system.
- [60:24]
Tarek Malik
Oh my gosh. We have heard this argument before too, and we heard it in the 60s with Wernher von Braun wanting the long haul, fully reusable system that would secure your legacy in space for centuries. It just seems like we're in this cycle because that's why we got Apollo, is that was the straightforward, quick thing to beat the Russians.
- [60:48]
Mike Wall
Right?
- [60:49]
Tarek Malik
So, so that's what got the dollars. Right?
- [60:51]
Mike Wall
That's what, yeah, well, that's, that's the basic argument, like, and people have said Artemis is supposed to be different than Apollo. I mean, Apollo was a flags and footprints program, right? It was to beat the Soviets to the moon and to show the developing world, like, a lot of whom were coming out of like, dependence there. There are all these independent countries in that time frame. And we were trying to convince them to join with the US and not the Soviet Union, where the technological leaders, national security imperative, all that stuff. But now it's supposed to, it's supposed to be different. It's supposed to be, we're supposed to build like a base near the lunar south pole and learn how to extract water ice and helium 3 and be sustainable and use it as a stepping stone to Mars and all this stuff. That's how it was supposed to be envisioned. But now we're hearing the same space race talk and we have to, but just updated for a new generation. Now it's like, well, this is a space race. We have to beat China to the moon. And that's sounding a lot like the Cold War space race with the Soviet Union. And that's just shifting what Artemis was supposed to be. So do we really want to beat the Chinese to the moon? Is that the overriding goal? Or do we want to set up a sustainable base near the south pole? Is that the overriding goal?
- [61:53]
Tarek Malik
Why can't we have both? I want both. Right.
- [61:58]
Well, say what you will about Starship, a lot of people criticize it. And you know, I know we talked about it a lot on the show, Rod and I, because, you know, it kept blowing up. But, you know, we said that about when Elon Musk came out at the National Press Club and said, hey, I'm going to build a rocket and it's going to be reusable and, and I'm going to land it and it's going to fly maybe 10 times. And now he's at like 30 plus times and with no signs of stopping. If they set their mind to do something, they're going to do it. And he, he is the world's richest person on the planet. So they're going to figure it out eventually and we'd probably want to be part of it and not excluded from it as a, as a country because, you know, it's going to be the biggest ride in town right now. So I guess we'll see how that all goes and how that turns out. I guess I have one burning question, one last burning question about Isaacman. Is he gonna chop up Space Shuttle Discovery and send it to Houston. Because you had another story earlier in the week from Senator John Cornwyn where it seemed like he told the senator or the senator says that he did.
- [63:03]
That he would go ahead and follow that big beautiful bill law that Cornwyn and Ted Cruz included, the provision to send what they say is Space Shuttle Discovery to Houston from the Smithsonian, rip it out of Udvar Hazy and mail it there, you know, without taking it apart, when really it does say just a flown US Spacecraft is what it says in the bill.
- [63:26]
Mike Wall
Discovery.
- [63:27]
Tarek Malik
So clearly, clearly, clearly the senators asked him all about that, right?
- [63:31]
Mike Wall
Well, like, I don't know. We don't know. All we have is, is like a press release from Cornyn's camp saying that that Isaac man agreed to that, that, that, that he's on board with it. And like I was expecting that to come up in, in the nomination hearing on Wednesday. But like nobody asked him about it. So, yeah, like, I don't know. I haven't seen anything. Like, I haven't looked super hard on Twitter or whatever. X. Whatever. But I haven't seen an official statement from Isaac man about his stance on.
- [63:58]
Tarek Malik
I'll tell you my theory, Discovery. My theory is that he was not asked about it and that it was planned that the senators would not ask him about it. To not put this guy. That it seems like the senators, because some of the, I think even I think Cantwell, the Democratic minority lead on this committee, said that she plans to vote for him. You know, that she had voted for him last time and she plans to do it again. He seems to have a lot of support from them, from industry, from astronauts, from, you know, the folks that the, that would do the science too, who think that he can really like do this thing. And that that question is such a hot, hot button question that they agreed not. That's my tinfoil hat moment. They agreed not to ask him, to not put him on the spot. That's my, that's my conspiracy for everyone for this episode, you know.
- [64:46]
Mike Wall
Yeah, I would, I would not be shocked if that were true there because yeah, it is like a hot button issue and I don't know if they needed more of. Yeah. More hot butt issues.
- [64:59]
Tarek Malik
In true rod pile form. Mike, I actually have like 10 other stories I wanted to ask you about, but we are out of time and I feel like I keep asking you about Isaacman to come. I guess the final question I'd ask those just what's next? When could the Senate vote? I've heard as early as Monday, as we're recording this on a Friday.
- [65:20]
It seems like the Senate wants to push his confirmation through by the end of the year so that NASA starts fresh 2026 with the new leader.
- [65:29]
Mike Wall
That's what I've heard too, that they, they want to do. They. It could happen as early as next week like a confirmation vote and that's, I mean there is a kind of a deadline hanging over all this. People want a new, a permanent or kind of permanent ish. Like I mean however permanent that post can be with the change of, of of presidents every four years, theoretically they like want a more permanent kind of, kind of NASA chief in place for the Artemis 2 mission which is supposed to launch early February. They just want to have that continuity. They want to have that certainty of okay, now we've got all. They've got everything in place. It would be nice to have a permanent presence in the top job when this really high profile astronaut moon mission launches early next year.
- [66:11]
Tarek Malik
That is, that is so close.
- [66:14]
Mike Wall
Early February, I. Yeah, it wouldn't be shocking if it got pushed a little bit. Early February seems like a stretch, but you never know.
- [66:20]
Tarek Malik
I wanted to get pushed to April 25th because I want them to go to the moon on my birthday but then I guess I'd have to work on my birthday and that would stink anyway. But it'd be exciting because we're going to the moon. Yeah, I think we're gonna have to see and leave it there. Let's hope we get a NASA chief for Christmas, everybody. And thank you all for joining us Today for episode 188, the episode that I'm calling a new NASA leader. Rises, rises. Question mark? Mike, where can we find you? Desperately trying to find out what Isaacman is doing to secure this bid for NASA chief online.
- [66:57]
Mike Wall
Just go to space.com, you can find me all over the place there. I am theoretically on X, but I don't post very much. Yeah, I would just go to space.com if you're interested in.
- [67:06]
Tarek Malik
Yes, also look him up on Amazon, everyone. He does have a book and it's all about the search for life. So please check that out. You can find me@space.com as always. Also on the Twitter and the X and well, I guess it's. No, it's not Twitter anymore. X and all social media. Tariqj Malik, you can find me on YouTube at Space Run plays if you like video games. John and I were talking all about Fortnite and the alien conspiracy that's going on in that game. It's really exciting. And of course you can always find Rod Pyle in absentia@pylebooks.com or at Astra magazine because he's the editor in chief there. But I want to give him a plug anyway. And remember to drop us a line here at this Week in space@Twisswit TV. That's Twiswit TV. We welcome your comments, your suggestions, your ideas, your jokes because they gotta be better than that turkey of one that I had this week. It seems like it did not go over well. So we that's we love getting your comments and Rod answers every message. I promise I do see them and I'll do my best. I'll be better. That'll be a New Year's resolution early from me. New episodes publish every Friday on your favorite podcaster. So do make sure to subscribe and tell your friends and tell your enemies too, because we could really use every every ear that's out there and give us some reviews. 5 stars or a thumbs up will do. And thank you so much. You can also head to our website at TWiT TV TWiS and you can follow the TWiTech Podcast Network at TWiT on Twitter, oh pardon me X and on Facebook and on Twitt TV and Instagram.
- [68:44]
So we'll see you. I guess my script ends there everyone. So we'll see you all next week.
- [69:01]
Mike Wall
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