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This Week in Space 192: Space, 2026!
00:59:11
What's Coming in Spaceflight This Year
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- [00:00]
Tarek Malik
Coming up on this Week in space. It is 2026. That's a brand new year for a lot of new space. Will Artemis 2 reach the moon? What will Jared Isaacman, NASA's new chief, do? And there's a medical evacuation going on on the space station. We got all that and more. Tune in.
- [00:18]
Rod Pyle
Podcasts you love from people you trust.
- [00:22]
John
This is Twit.
- [00:25]
Rod Pyle
This is this Week in Space, episode number 192, recorded on January 9, 2026. Space 2026. Hello and welcome to another episode of this Week in space, the Space 2026 edition. Happy new Year, everybody. We've missed you, hope you've missed us. I'm Rod Pyle, editor in chief, Bad Aster magazine. And I'm here with the man of the hour, tarek malik of space.com.
- [00:52]
Tarek Malik
Hello.
- [00:53]
Rod Pyle
Hello.
- [00:53]
Tarek Malik
Happy New Year. Right. It's, it's a 2026. Are you excited?
- [00:59]
Rod Pyle
I was till just a second ago.
- [01:01]
Tarek Malik
Yeah, that's supposed to be that air horn. I don't have an air horn sound.
- [01:04]
Rod Pyle
You know, what do they call those things? Zuzu Bellas or something?
- [01:07]
Tarek Malik
I think it goes.
- [01:10]
John
There we go.
- [01:13]
Rod Pyle
And that is John, our trusty man behind the scenes.
- [01:16]
Tarek Malik
He said he wasn't going to talk this episode and then he just starts off first thing.
- [01:20]
Rod Pyle
I like it when he talks. It's one of some of the most intelligent moments we have. So this week we're going to look ahead at the year in space flight. What's coming, what we hope is coming, and what might be a non starter. But we'll, we'll get through as much of it as we can. But before we do, we need you to get through to your favorite podcast delivery service and give us good ratings. 5 stars will do. 4 stars, that's all they take. 10 if they'll allow that. We, we get pretty good ratings. I've been, I've been checking them and reading the comments and there are a few people that don't like me, but that's, that's normal for my life. So I'm quite happy with that.
- [01:57]
Tarek Malik
I love you. I love you.
- [01:59]
Rod Pyle
Okay, let's get feelings mutual, kind of. But yeah, so go give us a couple and we'll be very happy and we'll reward you with a new space joke.
- [02:10]
Tarek Malik
Yay. From first of the year, Lee Wilson, you get the coveted first joke of the year.
- [02:17]
Rod Pyle
Hey, Tarik.
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Tarek Malik
Yes, Rod?
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Rod Pyle
What did Al Shepard do when NASA told him he wouldn't actually orbit the Earth?
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Tarek Malik
I don't know. What did he do?
- [02:25]
Rod Pyle
He went ballistic.
- [02:30]
Tarek Malik
I Love it.
- [02:30]
Rod Pyle
That's an aerospace engineering joke right there. Ballistic trajectory, up, down, no heat shield needed. Okay? Now, I've heard that some people want to send us into a ballistic trajectory into a brick wall when it's joke time of this show. But you can help by sending us your best, worst or most indifferent space joke, just like Lee did to us@TwistWit TV. Make that your New Year's resolution. Don't break it. Don't forget us. We love you. And now it's time for headline news.
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Tarek Malik
Headline news.
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Rod Pyle
You've gotten very good at that.
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Tarek Malik
It's all. It's all headlines, actually. Right, because it's all what we think we want to see this year. Yeah, but I have to say. But we got one story above all.
- [03:14]
Rod Pyle
So the last few times I've listened to the podcast, you've nailed the headline news thing. So kudos to you.
- [03:19]
Tarek Malik
Thank you very much.
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Rod Pyle
You know, you just have this ingrained sense of showmanship that we value so much.
- [03:26]
Tarek Malik
No, no, I know. It's my. My mentor, P.T. barnum. Right. That gets it all. Gets it all done.
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Rod Pyle
False modesty on your part. All right, let's talk about being sick in space.
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Tarek Malik
That's right.
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Rod Pyle
The first that we can remember in a very long time declared space emergency for health. And in terms of actually causing anybody to come home early, it's the first in the history of the iss and I think, at least on the US side, the first ever.
- [03:55]
Tarek Malik
That's the first ever. It's the first ever. There was one mission friend of the show, Robert Perlman, I think mentioned this in a note on Salute 7. They came home early, I think maybe because of. I think that was because of spacecraft problems, though. No, I don't think it's coming.
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Rod Pyle
I think it was. I think. I don't think someone was smoking the system or something.
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Tarek Malik
I don't think someone was sick. But this is. In 25 years of continuous crewed operations on the International Space Station. There is a medical issue. I'm not going to say emergency, because they're not like. Like they would be home by now if it was an emergency. They're calling it in an evacuation, but not an emergency deorbit on the International Space Station with the crew, 11 crew. So that is Mike Fink, Xena Cardman, both of NASA, Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Oleg. And I'm going to get his name. Is it part Partan? Is that how you pronounce something? Like the. The Russian cosmic guy? Yeah. And they've Been on the space station since August and they were nearing the end of their six month mission and they were preparing.
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Rod Pyle
Supposed to come back till May.
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Tarek Malik
Yeah. Well is that, is that how long they're gonna be up there for? I thought they'd be launched in August.
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Rod Pyle
That shocked me too. But that was Mike's article.
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Tarek Malik
Yeah, so. So they were, they were somewhat entering the home stretch, but they were getting ready for two spacewalks outside the space station with Cardman and, and Fink there and, and that's when NASA made this announ. Thursday. Actually no, it wasn't late Thursday. It was late Wednesday, Wednesday, because Wednesday was the day before the spacewalk. The spacewalk was supposed to be yesterday. NASA postponed the spacewalk saying that they were thinking about returning the crew home early because of this medical issue. They won't say who of the four and they won't say what and they won't say what it is. But we can, we can glean some things. There was a big press conference yesterday. Actually it was Jared Isaacman's first big press conference, right to have for you know, as, as NASA's head honcho, the new the space agency where he just came out, right, and said, you know on to be safe, we're bringing them back because there's an issue with this medical issue with an astronaut. It came up yesterday. It is, we know that it's not because of an injury according to James Polk, NASA's chief medical officer, but it is related to just living in the microgravity environment is what that I thought was interesting.
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Rod Pyle
They were clear, contrary to what we thought at first, that it was not related to the spacewalk prep.
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Tarek Malik
Not related to the spacewalk.
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Rod Pyle
When I talked about it, and I think we both assumed, or at least I assumed something to do with the pre breathe nitrogen bubbles, you know, who knows what. Yeah, but not that. So when you say it's related to microgravity, you know we think about, okay, osteoporosis. It's not that because that's a long term thing.
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Tarek Malik
Blood clots, vision problems.
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Rod Pyle
Well, are blood clots a microgravity thing though?
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Tarek Malik
Yeah. There. An astronaut a few years ago suffered from a deep vein thrombosis.
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Rod Pyle
Was that caused by being in microgravity? Because you can get that sitting on an airplane.
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Tarek Malik
I guess it occurred. I mean they were up there for months at a time and then it happened. So apparently it can happen there.
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Rod Pyle
Well, but it can happen to me right now if I, you know.
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Tarek Malik
Oh no.
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Rod Pyle
So, but, but, yeah, but, but the normal stuff we Think of, I'm guessing it's not those because those are all kind of long term. We'll deal with it when you get home concerns. So yeah, so it's got a scratch in our heads. But, but to say just real quick, I thought Isaacman really did well. It was, as you point out, his first big press conference. He was calm, he was collected, he had clearly done his homework and studied the hell out of this. And you know, for a guy who's as young and certainly new to NASA as he is, I thought he presented a very steadying kind of performance that made people feel good about his, his term at the agency.
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Tarek Malik
Yeah, well, you can see, you can see, I think, why a lot of people were really backing him because he did, he did kind of hold himself in, in high regard. No, wait, that's not right. He did held a good, on good account. Is that what I'm trying to say, Rod?
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Rod Pyle
Something like that, you know, like a good job.
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Tarek Malik
You did a good job. And in a way of being both, both, you know, protective of like the, the facts they can't share, like who the person is, exactly what the nature of the issue is, but also giving all the information that they had at the time, you know, and being very clear what to expect. He said for everyone that's wondering, these astronauts are coming back home in the next few days. As of yesterday, the day prior to our taping, Isaacman said that they were looking at making a decision or at least knowing the details of what a potential undock and reentry procedure would look like within 48 hours. So I would take that to say that we could get an Update around the 6:00 clock timeframe today. We usually record on Fridays, everybody, so Friday, you know, 6 o' clock to get some sort of, some sort of forward information about what to expect about when they're going to be able to come back to Earth. And he also said that NASA's looking at how to move up the launch of Crew 12, a mission that has already seen a shakeup on its crew because a Russian cosmonaut got pulled off over some kind of inappropriate activity with like taking I guess, images of stuff or whatever, you know, during training. You know, there's that whole thing. So, so now they're looking at moving that mission up somehow, but they're also trying to launch mission to the moon with astronauts in the next, in the next few weeks, the next month. So Isaacman says that that Artemis 2 mission will not be affected at this point in time because they would launch from neighboring launch pads. SpaceX launches from 39B, Artemis 2 will launch from 39A, for example. You need the range clear for that stuff. And then of course Crew 11 has to splash down off the coast of Florida sometime in between there. So, you know, a lot of, a lot of moving parts right now that we don't have all of the final details about it, but unprecedented situation on the International Space Station right now. The astronaut thankfully is stable and it's not like it must not be life threatening because they would have come home by now if it was something like that. And, and it will be interesting to see both, you know, how they, how they fare coming back to Earth, as well as how NASA astronaut Chris Williams and the two cosmonauts that are on the space station right now will be able to kind of keep the station and the lights on until the next big handover crew comes over. So.
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Rod Pyle
So we're outnumbered by Russians on the space station.
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Tarek Malik
Well, there's that, but also Chris Williams is the only like, like NASA astronaut to oversee the US segment which is much larger than the Russian segment. It normally has like four other people in it.
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Rod Pyle
I was going to say that's a lot of maintenance work for one. So let's go do some maintenance on our ad right now. We'll be right back after this. Quick break. Standby.
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John
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- [14:37]
Rod Pyle
All right, we're back. And let's Talk about Artemis 2. Will it happen in weeks? Will it happen in months? Will it happen at all? It'll happen, but you know, we're all anxiously awaiting and we'll be traveling to cover this launch which is supposed to take place in February. Long delayed, highly anticipated. One of the things I found interesting about it, and of course being as old as I am, I have to compare it TO, to Apollo 8, which went into a 60 nautical mile orbit over the moon. This one, depending on.
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Tarek Malik
Did you watch the Apollo missions, Rod? You've never, you've never loaded that over over the rest of us?
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Rod Pyle
No, it's just, it's a natural comparison, you know, because it's a lunar flyby. This is not going to go into orbit. It's going to be a big loop free return trajectory, which is good when you're testing a new spacecraft because they don't have to, they might have to do some adjustments, but the trajectory is basically set for re entry from the moment they go into trans lunar injection to head off to the moon. The thing I found kind of fascinating is depending on which launch window they use, they may pass behind the moon at an orbit of trajectory of about I think it was 4,300 miles or it could be as much as 9,000 miles, which is going to make the moon a lot smaller in the window than it was in the Apollo days.
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Tarek Malik
Oh, you want to, you want me to comment on that?
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Rod Pyle
I was just thinking about the status of the mission, dude.
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Tarek Malik
I was just thinking about how rosy a picture you say to, oh, it's so great that they're going to go on free return, so it'll be fine. And it's like, well, if they fire the engines and it goes way, way bad, they're not on a free return anymore. So let's hope that that doesn't happen. Knock on wood.
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Rod Pyle
Well, they'd have to have a massive screw up when they left Earth orbit.
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Tarek Malik
Otherwise they've got, there's a plan though, there's a contingency where they've got some wiggle room to flip around and come back. So, but that's, that's, you know, that would end the mission, so they want to try to avoid that.
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Rod Pyle
I. Is that upper stage powerful enough to do a direct abort before they pass?
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Tarek Malik
It wouldn't be, I mean it wouldn't, it would take a while to get back, but they would be able to come back. So it Depends on how far away, if I remember they are. But let's hope that happens. We're talking about an update on the mission as of right now from everything that I can find and also from our friends at Ars Technico with Eric Berger, who was in the room where it happened, by the way. NASA's on track for a February launch. You know, as of now. We just talked. There's a lot of things happening, like you got to get the astronauts back home from the space station. But the window is from around the 5th of February to the 11th of February, 2026. And NASA has been saying that they're committed to at least aiming for that window initially. But Isaac Min has said that he is waiting to say, like, concretely, we're going to go during that window or attempt make the attempt until they get the SLS rocket and the Orion, which is, you know, it's all assembled out to the pad. And at that point in time, which was about last week, he was saying that, you know, that that was going to happen in about, you know, 10 days. So we're looking at next week, as we're recording this, to expect rollout. And then once it's on the pad and they start doing tests, they can say, yes, for sure, we're going for February, or no, we're going to skip to March or even, you know, hopefully if the stars align, April, because one of the launch windows is on my birthday. Wouldn't that be a nice present from NASA to me? Anyway, so it sounds like things are going okay. And the reason why I brought up Eric Berger and Ars Technica is because today he's got a really great story. And I will have to add the link here because I don't have it, but he actually apparently was in the meeting yesterday with NASA and the folks where they're all looking at the heat shield for Orion and discussing any questions that Jared Isaacman might have.
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Rod Pyle
How did they manage not to invite us to that meeting?
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Tarek Malik
I know, right?
- [18:26]
Rod Pyle
I want to know about the heat shield, which is our next topic.
- [18:29]
Tarek Malik
And it's like the start of the new year. You would think that it probably got lost in the mail. Rod, I'm sure that that's what happened.
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Rod Pyle
Surely they know our greatness.
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Tarek Malik
No, they wouldn't overlook it. I mean, I'm awesome. My mom tells me so every single day. So. But I get it from the mirror, the tldr. The TLDR is that Isaacman is convinced and satisfied with the rationales that NASA and the engineers have laid out that they feel they understand what happened. You know, we've talked about this with the heat shield, with the cracks and whatnot over time that it was exacerbated in part by the steep angle of re entry from Artemis.
- [19:06]
Rod Pyle
Well, cracks and gouges, I mean they're actual bits of. And just to, to touch back for a second. This was a problem on EFT1 back in 2014. It was a problem on Artemis 1. This is a different heat shield in the Apollo days. It's built out of shaped blocks instead of stuff injected into honeycomb like did with Apollo. And it's a different formulation of Avco, which is the compound they use for the heat shield. As I've related before talking to the program Manager Back in 2014, we first saw this problem at least then he said, big problem was the different formulation of avco from the 60s because the EPA came and said, oh, you can't use that chemical process anymore. I think that's crazy because it worked and we saw it work over and over and over again. But whatever the case, the heat shield has experienced and it's supposed to char and eventually burn away. That's why it's called an ablative heat shield. Unlike what the shuttle had, which were just heat resistant tiles. But you don't want it to char, to blade away as much as it has. Right? That's the problem. Yeah, these big chunks coming out of it.
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Tarek Malik
So, so, so it's interesting, you know, I think that, you know, we're all wondering like how they're going to become comfortable with a lot of this. The solution that we had heard in the upfronts for the mission back in September is that they're changing the angle of attack and they'll come in at a shallower angle. It won't be as, as, as hard on the, on the, on the heat shield itself. And therefore it should address a lot of the issues that they were having.
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Rod Pyle
So, so my understanding of that means it's lower temperature but a longer, a longer reentry.
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Tarek Malik
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So, so, so that, that's kind of where we are right now. The rocket is stacked, it is assembled. They've already done an initial dress rehearsal with the Artemis 2 crew. That's Reed Wiseman and Vic Glover and Christina Cook and Jeremy Hansen. They've done that. Once they get out to the pad, they're probably going to do it again and probably do some, some other leak checks and tests because remember the leaks rod, those hydrogen, hydrogen leaks, you know.
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Rod Pyle
10 days in the press building at Kennedy I have another hydrogen leak. But as we were discussing yesterday, that was what shuttle mission was that? I think it was 130 or something. So the shuttle had been flying a long time. That equipment was aging, possibly not maintained as well as it could have been over the years. This is all brand new, recently renovated or, or installed stuff, so hopefully we won't have those problems. But you're right, I mean, it's a first outing with the crew on this rocket and with the spacecraft system and they're going to be very cautious.
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Tarek Malik
Yeah, it's going to be interesting. It's interesting. Did you book your hotel yet for.
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Rod Pyle
For that mission in Houston, you mean?
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Tarek Malik
No, in. Oh, you're going to Houston, you're not going to Florida?
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Rod Pyle
Because I, you know, I can't justify spending the money to go to Florida and wait for two weeks or a month or whatever. You can because you work for a very generous, wealthy, benevolent employer and unlike some people. So, yeah, I, I figured I'd just wait until we knew it was going and then meet you in Houston and then we can party hardy.
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Tarek Malik
Yeah, yeah. Well, then it'll be exciting. Let's, let's hope that they, they're actually on a regular day, night, cycle and like their morning isn't four in the afternoon or something like that. That'll suck so.
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Rod Pyle
Well, better than the two or three in the morning for us.
- [22:28]
Tarek Malik
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So. So, yeah, so. So I think all signs, points, yes. I mean, people seem fairly confident that Artemis 2 is going to happen. I think that's, that's going to be, by the way, our biggest mission of the year. I don't think that you can beat sending people around the moon for the first time in over 50 years. Hands down.
- [22:47]
Rod Pyle
That's going to be in high def.
- [22:49]
Tarek Malik
That's the, yeah, that's the mission of the year, right? Or was there something else you're looking forward to?
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Rod Pyle
No, I think that's it for me. And, and just to, to pull the old man card again. When Apollo did this, we had two choices. We had beautiful color footage in 16 millimeter that we didn't see until after they got back and it was processed. God, God. Pity the lab tech that had to do that because one follow up and it's all over. And we had crummy black and white overexposed TV until later missions. So this will be glorious television and I plan to enjoy at least the first look somewhere in private because I'll probably start bawling like an infant. Second, that comes on screen.
- [23:32]
Tarek Malik
Not, not Just that. But I think that there's like something like 24, 28, 27 cameras all over Orion for the way out there. We saw those spectacular views on the way, on the way to the moon and back from Artemis 1. The moon's going to be a lot smaller in the window and in the camera view. I was described, it was described to me as as if you held a basketball at arm's length. That's how large the moon will be at its biggest. But they'll have some, some telephoto lenses and stuff that they can zoom in and enhance just like any great CSI show.
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Rod Pyle
So can you imagine with how many.
- [24:08]
Tarek Malik
27 cameras on the, on the spacecraft? That's just. They're gonna have like seven or 14 or something inside the ship.
- [24:15]
Rod Pyle
Imagine that you have this overwhelming desire to pick your nose around the moon and you're just waiting. Are we on camera? Which one is it? Seventeen? What is it? That would be very. Okay, that's a little out.
- [24:27]
Tarek Malik
Well, they have a toilet inside Orion. And as I understand it, when they set the toilet up, they set up like a little curtain around it. You could always go in there, rod, and pick your nose. If you absolutely have to do it on your way to the moon, I would hope you have other and better things to do. Right, so.
- [24:44]
Rod Pyle
Well, I have strange hobbies. All right, speaking of strange hobbies, let's jump to an ad and we'll be right back, so stand by.
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John
Hey, everybody, Leo Laporte here with a. A little bit of an ask. Every year at this time, we'd like to survey our audience to find a little bit more about you. As you may know, we respect your privacy. We don't do anything, in fact, we can't do anything to learn about who you are. And that's fine with me. I like that. But it helps us with advertising, it helps us with programming to know a little bit about those of you who are willing to tell us your privacy is absolutely respected. We do get your email address, but that's just in case there's an issue. We don't share that with anybody. What we do share is the aggregate information that we get from these surveys. Things like 80% of our audience buy something they heard in an ad on our shows or 75% of our audience are it decision makers. Things like that are very helpful with us when we talk to advertisers. They're also very helpful to us to understand what operating systems you use, what content you're interested in. So, enough. Let me just ask you, if you will, go to TWiT TV Survey 26 and answer a few questions. That should only take you a few minutes of your time. We do this every year. It's very helpful to us. Your privacy is assured, I promise you. And of course, if you're uncomfortable with any question or you don't want to do it at all, that's fine, too. But if you want to help us out a little bit, twit TV survey 26, thank you so much. And now back to the show.
- [26:14]
Rod Pyle
All right, let's talk money.
- [26:16]
Tarek Malik
Yes, money.
- [26:17]
Rod Pyle
And money makes the world Go round. No bucks, no Buck Rogers.
- [26:21]
Tarek Malik
That's right.
- [26:22]
Rod Pyle
Made famous by Tom Wolf's famous book. So it looks like, fingers crossed, NASA will be almost at their full budget for 2026, like within, I don't know, tens of millions of dollars or $100 million, which in the NASA budget is not a huge amount of money. Congress has made its interests known and said, no, we're going to give them the money they asked for. White House stopped trying to cut the budget. But that doesn't mean it'll get signed into law, correct?
- [26:51]
Tarek Malik
Yeah. Yeah. There's this interesting they call it a minibus bill, according to Space News, where I know. So as opposed to an omnibus, which is like everything, right. This is very targeted for NASA, I believe, also for NOAA and the National Science foundation are included in this minibus. So it's those three agencies in terms of an appropriations package, and it was released on the 5th, so earlier this week that they had settled both in the House as well as in the Senate on a budget for NASA that's about $24.4 billion for the fiscal year that we're currently in, fiscal year 2026. And what that means, though, is that a lot of the cuts, well, the majority of the cuts, like the really deep ones that the Trump administration had put out last year, saying we're going to cut all this stuff and it's going to be, you know, super, super draconian to Earth science. We're going to cancel all these missions, yada, yada, yada. 20 cuts for James Webb, for Hubble, like, like all of that just really severe, you know, you know, clawbacks or cutbacks. They're going to say no to all that. This is going to fund a lot of that stuff going forward. However, there are some, there are some, some, some issues there. It is a little bit less, like you mentioned, about $400 million less than what NASA received in 2024. And then in 2025 under a continuing resolution that was about 24.8 or 24.87 billion. So, you know, but it's still roughly on the level, year on year. And it is, if I could just.
- [28:31]
Rod Pyle
Make a point, their expenses should be reduced roughly commensurately because they let go of so many people.
- [28:39]
Tarek Malik
Well, you probably, probably, you know, for that as a case. But the administration, Trump administration, wanted only $18.8 billion. That's $6 billion less than what the Senate and the House want to give NASA right now. So that is like three space shuttle missions, you know, or like an entire space shuttle program for the year. That's like the kind of thing that they were talking about cutting out and yet and then taking a lot of money from science. A lot of money. Money from science. Yeah, most of it. So that they could try to push this moon program. So. So I think what this means is that, you know, the Senate and the House are state or they're planting a flag to say this is where we stand on NASA's budget and where we want to see the spending go because of the people that we represent in our, you know, our home districts or our, you know, our home space centers, etc. Etc. And this is what we want to see because they are both on the same page about this. So most likely they will pass. And I think, I think in the House side, it may have already passed, or in the Senate side on one of the sides, I think I saw a headline today that it had passed and now it's, it's going to the other side for that. So now Trump could always veto it. But having what appears to be bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate would suggest that they could overcome a veto and make it, make it law anyway. So I think, you know, while the judge or jury is still out on if it's going to save that $6 million from being cut from the budget, I think it's pretty safe to assume one way or another they're going to get that money for the next year and be able to keep some of the stuff that was on the chopping block.
- [30:15]
Rod Pyle
Speaking of the chopping block, by the.
- [30:17]
Tarek Malik
Way, I'll point out this is, this is not NASA, but this could be crucial for the NASA or the National Science foundation because there are two huge, you know, US LED telescopes on Earth, the Magellan Telescope and the other one that is like, escaping me right now, and I apologize. 30 meter telescope, that's the one that were set as priorities for US Astronomical science and research. And they're under construction now and there was a report out in 2024 from the administration that they may not be able to fund one or both at all. And they've already started building them. So if this National Science foundation budget is preserved at what it was expected to by the science foundation, then hopefully they can, you know, keep that going and maintain a world class level of commitment to astronomical science. Because China has not only built the world's largest radio telescope since the, the Arecibo one was destroyed, but they're committed to building the largest optical telescopes as well on the, on the planet. So that competition is there in that arena as well.
- [31:32]
Rod Pyle
Yeah. And that, that's a whole episode as to, you know, besides the thing we talked about a lot, which is the competition to get the United States back to the moon before China goes their first time. Then there's, you know, science in general, aerospace technology, astronomy, astrophysics, all this stuff. And I suspect we're going to find at the end of the day we just can't do it all.
- [31:55]
Tarek Malik
Yeah.
- [31:56]
Rod Pyle
And China seems to be able to, but we'll see.
- [31:58]
Tarek Malik
I had a very interesting discussion with my daughter on the way to school this, this morning. We'll do share well all about this whole, this whole issue about being in a space race with China to the moon. But are we really or are we using it as an excuse to try to get there or not, you know, or versus where things were in the space race against the Soviet Union to get to the moon where there was a full on acceptance of the commitment to do this thing and you know, and the hard thing. And we go again to the thing with the money. Right, the money and government only. Yeah, the government with the government doing it and really pushing the money and the funding for it all. And we don't see that funding level commitment, I don't think.
- [32:44]
Rod Pyle
No, I mean not specific to the Artemis budget, but in NASA budget terms in general we're spending a tenth to do ten times as much as we were in those days. So yeah, it's a very pallid reflection of what was going on then. And we're seeing it, you know, we're seeing the results of that. And speaking of which, do we have time before the break for this? I think so. Of the things that appear to have ended up on the cutting room floor looks like at least according to New Scientist magazine, Mars sample return appears to be dead on arrival and final. Congress's compromise spending bill appears to signal the end of that program at any price point. Although I Don't think this necessarily curtails the request for commercial participation. Right.
- [33:39]
Tarek Malik
Yeah, yeah. I think that that is like a key point. In fact, this compromised spending bill, it still kind of supports the White House's plan to kind of zero out the more sample return plan as it was. Right. Which was the really complicated. Let's go pick up the pieces that the Perseverance rover saved. And we talked with Jim Green all about how detailed that plan was set out and how it was geared for the future. What seems to be the case is that they're hoping that commercial companies will step up and come up with an easier way to do it. Because if China gets there first and brings back those samples of, of Mars, it's likely going to be something that's a lot simpler. Or they land, they grab the dirt and they get in the capsule and they get it, bring it back instead of something so complicated to go pick up a bunch of samples, you know, that are in a pile somewhere on.
- [34:37]
Rod Pyle
The surface of or on the rover.
- [34:39]
Tarek Malik
They're on the rover or on the rover. Right. So, so at least one company, Rocket Lab has put out a statement saying that they really think that commercial companies are going to do that because Rocket Lab wants to do that. They want to do a Mars telecommunications orbiter and as a precursor to show that they can land on the Mars. And they've already sent two of their own little small vehicles, the Escapade probes for NASA to Mars with Blue Origins launch late last year. And I think we're going to see a lot more of those types of ideas get fruit because if, if you do the commercial aspect where it's cheaper, so if they fail, it doesn't hurt as much then, you know, I think that they'll, they'll do that. They've been doing it on the moon. They've had one full success out of like four attempts maybe. And there's more that to happen later this year. I think we're talking a little bit about that. So that could be a model that could work. Plus what some of the critics, or not critics, but the proponents of this bill are saying is that, well, the money that you save on this really complicated, more sample return, you can now go back and revive the Venus prohibitions that, that were on the, the proverbial chopping block, you know, or, or other different missions to asteroids, etc, that, that we were tabling for now, that kind of thing.
- [36:00]
Rod Pyle
All right, well, let's, let's table ourselves while we go to a break and we'll be Right back. So stand by, let's talk starship because starship, you can't talk about space without talking about starship. So we got touch the sky, right? Well call the Grammys. We have a lot of, a lot of milestones to hit this year. We're still crossing our fingers and hoping that they actually get the human landing system for the Artemis 3 flight done in time. Although I think at this point there are easily as many bets on blue moon from blue origin as there are starship. But we have some conversations about a newer streamlined, possibly doesn't need refueling or as much refueling starship. But let's talk first about the other things. So we need to get a full set of orbital operations. We need to get a catch about the booster and the upper stage, although that's not critical for H.L.S. make a point. And we need to get probably either way a proof of refueling capability in orbit which so far they haven't even shown they're close to.
- [37:06]
Tarek Malik
Well this, this is supposed to be the year for starship really. You know, last year was a bunch of test flights. We had three of them that failed and then they had the successes that they had near the end of the year. So that's great. This year we need to see a lot more of that. Elon Musk and SpaceX have said that they, they fully expect to do a complete orbit of the Earth in, in 2026, probably pretty early because the version three of the Starship rocket is being assembled right now. The super heavy is built and stacked now at their Boca Chica complex down there at what is it? Star Base. Right, yeah. And in, in South Texas. And so they are expecting in the first quarter of 2026. So that's the next few weeks or months to have that test flight in the can. And this would, this would be another big recreation where they, they, they launch, they launch the super heavy and the Starship stack. They do the, the kind of half orbit land in the Indian Ocean land hopefully the super heavy back and don't have any other issues with either vehicle. Then that would probably do some deployments and stuff and other experiments on the way. Then you do the full orbit and then we'll see if they're going to try to do refueling by the end of the year. I think that Elon Musk has said that he expects to at least some of the trials by then. But you do want to see that ramp up in demonstration to give you some confidence. Now if they're able to launch at least one every quarter, then that's four starship test flights this year. They could do more. Right. They could launch one every couple months or so or one every month, which would be crazy.
- [38:47]
Rod Pyle
But, but excuse me, but let's just get some perspective here. If we're going to do refueling for the hls, they got to be able to launch within hours or days.
- [38:55]
Tarek Malik
Yeah, yeah.
- [38:56]
Rod Pyle
So they got a long way to go in a short.
- [38:59]
Tarek Malik
So they do have a second pad at, at Kennedy Space Center 39B, which I believe the environmental studies are concluding there fairly soon. Like they just did some more openness, open calls, I think, for the public. And then they have the second tower at Boca Chica that they're completing as well. So that they can have when that's done.
- [39:21]
Rod Pyle
Are they going to retire the original or will they be launching for both?
- [39:25]
Tarek Malik
From what I understand, they're actually going to stand down from the original to give it upgrades that they're already adding to the second one that they have there at Boca Chica. So they'll, they'll pause on one, they'll upgrade them just because they've changed how the boosters are and their configuration, things that are there to maximize success and then, but they don't. It doesn't sound like it's going to take that long to redo a lot of that stuff. Not like how they had to rebuild a test stand after they blew up a starship, you know, you know, last year. So all that being said, it sounds like they've got a pace that they're shooting for and that they're somewhat on track for that. There was some issues with the super heavy booster that they're going to launch for V3. There was some buckling during some early pressurization tests that address that. We'll see how that develops. Because this is a larger vehicle. V3 is the biggest starship that's gonna, we're gonna see to date. It has some new tweaks, some new improvements, and hopefully it'll go a lot smoother than what we've seen with the past, the past changes of iterations.
- [40:29]
Rod Pyle
Because there's nothing like assuring mission success by lengthening the airframe by another.
- [40:34]
Tarek Malik
Well, the reason I bring that up is because January a year ago saw the first launch of the V2. I'm just saying version two. I shouldn't say V2. The first launch of the version two Starship. Yeah, and, and that, that's the one that, that failed during, during, during flight. And then they had changed so many things. They had to really go back and try to figure out what was going on. It took them a few tries to figure it out and isolate it.
- [41:01]
Rod Pyle
Well, I'm having an ADHD moment here, which is completely unrelated to what we're talking about. I just. While you were going on about this, I clicked on your icon on the Google page. Are you familiar with your picture there?
- [41:15]
Tarek Malik
What Google page?
- [41:17]
Rod Pyle
On the rundown.
- [41:19]
Tarek Malik
Oh, on our page here.
- [41:20]
Rod Pyle
Yeah. Tariq Malik is at the top. You probably. Yeah, it would be over to your right. You have a lot of hair. You look like you're about 14.
- [41:27]
Tarek Malik
Oh, oh, that one. So, yeah, so that is clearly at a space shuttle mission because we're at pad 39, I believe that's a. If memory serves.
- [41:36]
Rod Pyle
Was that like the first space shuttle mission?
- [41:38]
Tarek Malik
Yes, it's probably from STS114, the first one that I went to go see, so. Which would have been in 2005. Exactly 20 years ago. I had a lot more hair back.
- [41:47]
Rod Pyle
John slamming something on the desk. I think it's. He wants me to move to the next story, which is while we're, while we're hoping and praying for a starship to catch up for Artemis 3, we do have Blue Moon flying this year. Blue Origins prototype Lunar lander. This is their entrant ultimately into the human landing system.
- [42:11]
Tarek Malik
Well, this is Mark 1. This is Mark 1.
- [42:13]
Rod Pyle
The one they're landing is Mark 1, which is not human rated and doesn't have the full load of stuff they need obviously to do that. But if they do build the crew rated version, it would be by far the largest and heaviest spacecraft ever landed on the moon.
- [42:27]
Tarek Malik
Question is, until Starship, I guess, right?
- [42:31]
Rod Pyle
Yeah, yeah, until. And if starship. But can they, can they hit a schedule to possibly. Is there a discussion of it being swapped in for Artemis 3?
- [42:43]
Tarek Malik
I mean, it depends. Right. It depends on if NASA has two different teams of Artemis astronauts training on these lander systems. Yeah. And how far along the actual crude landing system actually is. They have been competing for this contract for a number of years and in fact got NASA to reopen the contract.
- [43:00]
Rod Pyle
By suing?
- [43:01]
Tarek Malik
Yeah, by suing after. After losing the bid to SpaceX Starship. So one thing that we've seen from Blue Origin is that they tend to only fly when they think there's like a 9999 9, you know, that they think it's really going to work. And we've, you know, they've only launched two blue gan. Blue, blue, Blue. Oh my gosh, they've only launched two blue Glenns. I'm calling them Blue Glenn, New Glenn. No, they've only launched two new Glenn rockets so far. Their first two, and they nailed the reusable landing on the second try. It took SpaceX 4 or 5, I think, for Falcon 9. And although they did catch that super heavy booster, that was pretty spectacular that first time, because I don't think anyone thought it was going to work as smoothly as it did.
- [43:46]
Rod Pyle
No.
- [43:47]
Tarek Malik
So, but comparatively, it seems like Blue Origin is, is getting to the finish line a little bit faster with a finished product when they, they're, they're expecting it to be ready, so they don't need to iterate too much.
- [44:01]
Rod Pyle
Yeah.
- [44:01]
Tarek Malik
That being said, Blue Moon Mark one is months behind schedule. We thought that it was going to launch in at least November, December of last year, if not before. And so and then they pushed it to sometime like in Q1 or maybe Q2 of this year. I think it's in the summer now that I'm thinking about it. But, but you do want to see that get advanced because the further along that is in the year, the further along any other type of crew test is going to be. NASA added an uncrewed landing on the moon test for SpaceX's Starship. Before they can send people, they have to fit that in somewhere to the, to the schedule for testing. You would expect something like that for, for a Mark 2 blue moon as well. And, and then, you know, SpaceX has how many years, five years of flying people? Six, five and a half years now of flying people under their belt in terms of experience, Blue Origin has had only suborbital experience, a very different type of experience, I think.
- [45:03]
Rod Pyle
However, I assume this is going to light a bit of a fire under SpaceX to possibly put a little more of their back into it to get their stuff.
- [45:12]
Tarek Malik
And former acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy put it really plainly when he reopened the landing contracts for all of that. I think the Blue Moon is going to be one to watch because that could be, as you say, very telling about where Blue Moon is in the maturity level of their crewed lender. We'll probably hear a lot more about the crew lander in the run up to that mission. And as you said, it's the biggest to date to land. All of the other flights that we've seen in terms of commercial lunar payload services have been much, much smaller vehicles. And so this would be a big step up in terms of capability on the science side as well.
- [45:54]
Rod Pyle
All right, well, I think we're close enough to call it even to go to Our last break. So go nowhere and we will see you on the other side. While we're talking about the moon, of course we have to talk about China, which is viewed as, I wouldn't say the US's adversary, but that's if we're in a new space race, that's who we're racing with in the United States. And China has had a very impressive record with the moon in terms of uncrewed flights. Pretty flat fast flight cadence and America did that in the 60s, but we haven't done it quite like this since then. And the achievements especially of landing and operating on the far side have been very notable. And for this year we have plans to test fly their new Apollo style Mingju capsule, probably on a long March 10th launch vehicle and also the Chang' e 77 lunar missions. So take it away, brother.
- [46:51]
Tarek Malik
Well, yeah, like, like you said, there's a couple of different fronts now. China, as we talked about in the, in the past, wants to send astronauts to the moon. So to do that they need a different spacecraft that is this Meng Zhao and I'm sure I'm pronouncing that wrong spacecraft that they hope is going to succeed, the Shenzhou that they've been using for a long time and they've, they've got the, the, this long March 10th rocket that they hope to be their, their new Saturn 5. To do that, to reach. You said 2030, right, is the goal for, for China on the moon, for astronauts. But they already have their space station and by the way, and I don't know if we're going to get to it, they've got their own plans there. We've talked about the, the health scare on the space station right now with the American, the American astronauts or the, the NASA, the crew, 11 astronauts, they had their own issue with a spacecraft that was damaged and they had to do some big swap outs in 2025. So no stranger to space station issues there, but they're going to launch their first space telescope pretty soon as well and it's going to be serviceable and I think it launches later this year too. So both these things are happening this year and the reason that that's important is because that's going to be a human serviced telescope, but it will kind of rendezvous with the space station and be serviced. So they've got these two different programs that should be making big strides this year. The, the, the, the test of the, the, the capsule on the human space flight side and then the space station capabilities. And then like you mentioned, the Chang' e 7 mission which as I understand it, is going to collect samples of the south pole. Is that right, Rod?
- [48:25]
Rod Pyle
It's going to land, they say, near the rim of Shack Crater which is in the south polar area. And it has a lander, a rover and a hopper. Yeah, and I think any of those mobile systems can do some sampling, although I'm not the hopper might just do evaluation, but it's a prospecting platform primarily.
- [48:45]
Tarek Malik
Yeah. So that's a hotbed of, of, of a destination because that's where NASA wants to go to for its crude lunar base.
- [48:54]
Rod Pyle
Well and now we have another race which is probably, I can't even call it a race at this point but. Viper, question mark.
- [49:02]
Tarek Malik
That's right.
- [49:03]
Rod Pyle
Where will that come in? It's also a south polar region prospecting system.
- [49:08]
Tarek Malik
But that's not launching this year, right? It's not.
- [49:11]
Rod Pyle
I, I don't think they have a new launch date.
- [49:13]
Tarek Malik
No they don't. So. But, but it'll be very interesting to see it. Those are three different tracks. You've got Orbital, you've got the, the Crude Moon Ops, and you've got the, the, the robotic operations all happening in 2026 so they to sleep on. Plus China is also going to be collecting their first asteroid samples to return to earth with their Tianwen 2 mission. And I believe that rendezvous with its asteroid. I'm gonna get this wrong. Where is it? Here. I apologize everybody. Did I not. Where is it?
- [49:51]
Rod Pyle
I don't know.
- [49:52]
Tarek Malik
I don't know where it is.
- [49:52]
Rod Pyle
What are you looking for?
- [49:54]
Tarek Malik
The Tianwen one. I, I put it in a different place.
- [49:57]
Rod Pyle
The asteroid mission, the ash. Oh, it's line 46.
- [50:00]
Tarek Malik
Line. There it is. Yeah, the near Earth asteroid. Come, come. How do you pronounce? Yeah, it arrives in July 2026.
- [50:17]
Rod Pyle
Wow.
- [50:19]
Tarek Malik
I, I know, I know. So it'll, it'll arrive at the. This, at this asteroid. This is their second kind of planetary science mission that's not moon based. Tianwen 1 was the Mars mission that sent an orbiter, a rover and a lander to, to the Red Planet. They actually recently announced some, some water on the, on Mars science from there too. So very interesting stuff that's going on. A lot of stuff from China this year. Be very exciting.
- [50:44]
Rod Pyle
Well, the clock is ticking and as you guys keep reminding me with a sharp stick, we don't have a lot of time left. So. Tarek, why don't you pick the next story, all right?
- [50:53]
Tarek Malik
Oh oh.
- [50:54]
Rod Pyle
Although I just should say we should just to be fair, we should probably Try and jam the Starliner in there. I don't think there's a lot to say but it's, it's worth, it's worth remembering.
- [51:05]
Tarek Malik
Well, yeah, actually I put, I put a note about there but Starliner is supposed to, to make their, their starliner1iss quote unquote operational flight by Boeing in April. No earlier than. No crew, just cargo only. So it's another kind of full up test run to see if a lot of like the, the new procedures that they've worked in to avoid the thruster cutouts that they were seeing that got Sonny Williams and Butch Woolmore, I don't want to say stuck but you know like extended stay on the space station.
- [51:40]
Rod Pyle
You know the space station extended stay in.
- [51:44]
Tarek Malik
Yeah. And so, so, so they're hoping to make sure that that's all fixed and then I guess they'll fly one a year. The astronauts might fly later on in the year at the other, other half. So I don't think you count Starliner out to be honest. I think that they showed that they can do it and then they have that in their hip pocket when these commercial space stations take root and need more than just SpaceX to get people there. So I'm going to stick a flag in the dirt and say that they're, they might be, have a lower run rate and be out of there. But not just Starliner, supposed to make their first flight this year to the space station. We're looking at a free flight of the Sierra Nevada, not Sierra Nevada, Sierra Space Dream Chaser as well, Cargo only.
- [52:27]
Rod Pyle
Version for the foreseeable future.
- [52:28]
Tarek Malik
That's a cargo only or a science platform version right now. But with the rise of these commercial space stations, I believe they are now more actively exploring the crewed variant that could be out there. Plus Neutron, not Neutron, but Rocket Lab is going to launch their new neutron rocket this year which will be a medium to heavy lift, well, medium lift vehicle on the Falcon 9 type level which will be interesting to see because it launches out of Virginia. It's gonna be the biggest rocket ever to launch out of Virginia. Yeah.
- [52:58]
Rod Pyle
So is there any plan for that to fly cruise at some point?
- [53:02]
Tarek Malik
Not that I'm aware of, but I wouldn't put it past Peter Beck and the Rocket Lab folks to be drawing up plans for something like that. It is very novel. I like the hippo payload fairing, you know, waka waka waka. The whole second stage is inside the first stage. I think that's crazy.
- [53:18]
Rod Pyle
He's kind of the closest thing we have to another Elon without the ketamine, don't you think?
- [53:22]
Tarek Malik
Yeah. You know, he has ridden a motorcycle powered by rockets in Australia. Can you, can you. Yeah. You know, crazy.
- [53:30]
Rod Pyle
It's hard to throttle those things back, but more power to him. Yeah, he's. He's a crazy guy, but he's accomplishing good things. Boy, there's a lot of stuff left to talk.
- [53:40]
Tarek Malik
Yeah, well, we can say so here's, here's. I'll do a rapid fire. What. What else everyone else should be looking forward to. Okay. We talked a little bit. Yeah, we talked a little bit about. We talked a little bit about the moon Intuitive machines. It's going to hope for their third clips moon landing on. I guess they're going to try to aim for a lunar swirl later this year with their Nova C lander. Let's hope that that works because.
- [54:02]
Rod Pyle
Excuse me, let's give a little context on a lunar swirl. So these are really interesting geological features on the moon that have a much lighter albedo or brightness than the rest of the surface. So that's unexplained. Could be age or it could be because they have fairly intense for the moon anyway, magnetic fields. And the thought is that the magnetic field might repel the dust that would fall on that area and darken it. But I hadn't even heard of lunar swirls until I was researching this piece. So there's a great deal of interest in those areas.
- [54:34]
Tarek Malik
It.
- [54:34]
Rod Pyle
It probably won't impact the human program at all, but it's certainly interesting from a scientific and geological angle.
- [54:40]
Tarek Malik
Yeah, I prefer a Dairy Queen vanilla swirl myself, but what are you gonna do? So, but they're not alone in terms of like the small commercial letters because Firefly Aerospace is hoping to recreate create the success they saw last year with a blue Ghost moon lander on the.
- [54:56]
Rod Pyle
Moon with intuitive machines is hoping to create any success. That's right, success of the lunar lander.
- [55:02]
Tarek Malik
And so they're hoping to launch earlier in 26 than the others and deliver, I believe, a communication relay satellite you have here and an ESA orbiter to the moon. So that'll be pretty exciting. And India's Ganga Yon astronaut program, is that how pronounced Gunganyan? Gunganyan. So it's hoping to make its own strides this year with an uncrewed test of their new crew space capsule. So we talked about the China one, this is going to be the India one because they hoped to launch it earlier this year and they had some parachute tests last year. Japan's moon mission to Mars. They got these, these Martian moons exploration mission launches I believe this year. And it's going to collect samples and bring them back in 2029. And Europe's HERA spacecraft goes to examine the aftermath of the US smack in the face to asteroid Didymos that we did for the DART mission. They're going to go back and see how things are, are, are looking now. It's supposed to arrive around those asteroids in November of 2026. And meanwhile, James Webb Space Telescope turns five this summer. Let's all celebrate. And we're trying to see if a private mission can get to the Spitzer Space Telescope before for next fall because they're supposed to reboost it so they give it some more life. But it has to fly by September, this private mission to go up and reboost it or they're not going to be able to save that space telescope. So be very interesting to see how that all goes. Lots of things to look forward to. That's the rapid fire kind of things that are on my list and I'm sure there's like a bajillion other things. NASA's X59 is going to start all of their big main test phase for supersonic flight. Maybe boom supersonic starts flying people. That'd be great.
- [56:46]
Rod Pyle
So what a great name for a company. Boom Arrow.
- [56:51]
Tarek Malik
Yep, yep.
- [56:52]
Rod Pyle
That's truly inspired. All right.
- [56:54]
Tarek Malik
I fly United a lot and United has ordered at least five of those supersonic jets. So I think about the one day that I win the lottery and can afford that flight.
- [57:03]
Rod Pyle
So yeah, me, me too. Well, I'm, I'm still hoping before I die to do a Earth Earth point to Earth point flight on Starship. But I somehow I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think I'll last that long.
- [57:18]
Tarek Malik
Nancy Roman. Nancy Roman. Space telescope launches this year too, right? Do you have that here? That's the one thing we talk about.
- [57:23]
Rod Pyle
We hope so.
- [57:23]
Tarek Malik
Let's hope so. We'll talk a whole episode on that in the future.
- [57:26]
Rod Pyle
All right, well let's wrap this show by thanking everybody for joining us for episode 192 that we'd like to call Space 2026 target. Tarek, where can we find you as you did today prognosticating these days?
- [57:39]
Tarek Malik
Well, you can find me@space.com as always on the social medias at tarikj Malik the J is silent but important. And, and if, and if, and if, and if you like kitschy video game videos, you can find me on YouTube @spacetronplays and hopefully this year in Florida, in Houston for Artemis 2, the first crewed flight around the moon this century. That'd be exciting.
- [58:09]
Rod Pyle
Tick tock. And of course, you can always find me at pylebooks.com or@astermagazine.com or hopefully soon in Houston with Tarik covering the actual Artemis 2 mission. Remember, you can drop us a line at Twistwit TV anytime you want. We appreciate your comments, suggestions, ideas, insults, and above all, jokes. And we do answer each and every email. And to everyone and all, happy New Year. Thanks for hanging with us. It's been a great two years and I expect at least 10 more. John, make a note of that. Yeah, you're gonna stick with us 10 more years.
- [58:44]
Tarek Malik
Seven seasons in a movie, right?
- [58:46]
Rod Pyle
Don't forget, you can follow the Twittech podcast network at Twit, on Twitter and on Facebook, @Twit TV, on Instagram, and we are streamed on just about every service known to mankind. So there you go. Thanks, everyone. We'll see you next week.