This Week in Space 217: America in Space

Summary

---

This Week in Space 217: America in Space

Date: July 3, 2026
Hosts: Rod Pyle & Tarik Malik
Episode Theme:
A lively, in-depth celebration of America’s 250 years of space achievement, reflecting on historical milestones, latest headline missions, unsung moments, and personal favorites from the golden age of Apollo to today's private sector spaceflight.

---

1. Overview

• Rod Pyle and Tarik Malik mark America’s semiquincentennial (250th) anniversary with a spirited exploration of the highlights and personalities behind the U.S. space program.
• The episode combines headline space news, nostalgic anecdotes, jokes, critical discussion of current events, and a whirlwind tour through America's most memorable moments in space.
• Topics span from NASA's latest rescue mission, the evolving world of UAP (UFO) research, the impact of science fiction culture, and a personal tour through U.S. space “firsts.”

---

2. Key Discussion Points & Insights

A. The Swift Boost Mission: First Commercial Satellite Rescue

[06:00–14:40]

• Swift Space Telescope “Rescue Mission”:
  • NASA's Swift Boost mission aims to save the aging Swift Space Telescope from decaying orbit due to increased atmospheric drag caused by solar activity.
  • A new company, Catalyst, built "Link," a refrigerator-sized spacecraft with three robotic arms and a suite of thrusters, to rendezvous and reboost Swift.
  • The mission represents a landmark: first commercial demonstration of satellite servicing for a space telescope.
  • Launched on the final Pegasus XL from Kwajalein Atoll, carrying a price tag of $30M for launch, hardware, and ops.
• Notable Quotes:
  • Tarik: “Can you imagine, when’s the last time the government did anything in nine months?” [12:03]
  • Rod: “This is the Skylab scenario all over again… It’s not like they didn’t plan for it.” [08:31]
  • Tarik: “It could be a wave of the future where this is a regular thing.” [12:05]

---

B. UAP/UFO News: Avi Loeb to Head National Intelligence Panel

[18:10–26:11]

• Harvard Astronomer Avi Loeb Appointed to UAP Panel:
  • Loeb, a polarizing figure due to his extraterrestrial claims, will chair the UAP Science Advisory Council for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
  • Controversy surrounds his assertion that certain meteoric remains and interstellar visitors are alien tech.
  • Discussion of the government’s mixed transparency strategy: declassified UAP files are public, but new meetings under Loeb are private.
• Notable Quotes:
  • Rod: “He’s now heading the UAP Science Advisory Council… [it] has stressed his reputation a bit.” [19:21]
  • Tarik: “If they’re going to have... discussions about the nature of the data... people can actually watch and see how that sausage is made.” [23:02]
  • Rod: “We’re still waiting for that killer image… everybody’s got a smartphone… and yet we’re still seeing smudgy junk.” [24:22]
• Memorable Moment:
  • Banter about aliens manipulating digital vs. analog tech for blurry images. “There’s a really obvious explanation for all of this—it’s the fact the aliens know exactly what kind of equipment we have...” –Tarik [25:08]

---

C. Independence Day & Pop Sci-Fi

[26:25–29:38]

• Marking the 30th anniversary of the movie “Independence Day”—a cultural touchstone that shaped how many Americans view aliens and American space ‘heroism’.
• Discussion includes Roland Emmerich’s directorial choices and how 1990s tech gaffes became plot devices (e.g., uploading a virus to an alien ship).
• Analysis of how pop culture mapped onto real-world perceptions of space and America’s place in it.
• Notable Quotes:
  • Tarik: “It’s one of the last big disaster movies that was nice and campy, and not so self-serious.” [26:40]
  • Rod: “It took every 50s and 60s sci-fi trope that ever was…” [27:07]

---

D. 250 Years of American Space Achievement

[31:18–79:13]

1. U.S. Flags in Space

[31:18–36:49]

• From Apollo 11’s flag on the Moon to Viking 1/2 flags on Mars and the giant Vehicle Assembly Building flag, the podcast reflects on the symbolism and technical quirks (e.g., sun-bleached, toppled flags).
• Rod: “Basically these were inexpensively produced... probably bleached out to this little patch of brittle white stuff by now.” [32:12]
• Banter over “faked” moon landings and static-charge-induced flag waving.

2. Early History: From Captured V-2s to Explorer 1

[36:49–41:01]

• U.S. space efforts rooted in WWII–era German V-2 rocket tech, leading to Redstone/early Mercury missions.
• Explorer 1: first U.S. satellite, key scientific discovery (Van Allen Belts).
• Rod: “We stole it from the Germans after WWII...300 rail cars worth of V-2s.” [36:49]

3. American “Firsts” in Space

• First U.S. in Space: Alan Shepard, Mercury-Redstone.
• First U.S. Spacewalk: Ed White, Gemini 4.
• First Docking: Gemini 8 (Armstrong & Scott), high-risk, nearly catastrophic spin.
• First Humans on Moon: Apollo 11—Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin (Buzz also: first to urinate and conduct communion on lunar surface).
• First Large U.S. Space Station: Skylab—highlighting its size compared to Salyut, iconic “jogging in space” image.
• First Soft Mars Landing & Imaging: Viking missions, 1976.
  • Notable: Detailed retelling of Viking’s first image, audience’s emotional reaction.
• First Space Telescope Repairs/Servicing: Hubble, now echoed by Swift rescue.
• First Commercial Spacewalk: Jared Isaacman, through SpaceX.

4. Notable Mars Missions

[45:23–62:18]

• Mariner 4: Delivered first close-up images and atmospheric data from Mars; emotional impact as it ended the era of Martian fantasy.
• Pathfinder and the Internet Age: [73:54–74:27]
  • The 1997 Mars Pathfinder mission exemplified a turning point in public engagement (crashed NASA servers!).
  • Rod: “That was really when JPL first upped their game online so we could follow the mission...famously crashed the servers.” [72:13]

5. Personal Favorites & Reflections

[71:04–77:18]

• Rod's Top 3: Apollo 11, Viking 1, and Pathfinder.
  • “Apollo 11 was a huge moment. [...] Viking 1 was a huge moment... For the third one, I think, Pathfinder." [71:56]
• Tarik’s Picks:
  • STS-114 Return to Flight (first shuttle launch he covered),
  • Deep Impact (crashing a probe into Comet Tempel 1 on July 4th),
  • Curiosity/Perseverance landings (engineering marvels and professional catharsis).
  • “Curiosity... the way they designed that 2-ton, car-sized rover to land on Mars for the first time—yet a third way to land on Mars—was crazy. And it worked. Flawlessly." [74:45]
• Other Notables: Voyager’s grand tour, reusability (“Blue Origin’s first; SpaceX’s game-changing Falcon 9 vertical landing”), and Artemis as today’s pinnacle of return-to-the-moon aspirations.

6. Reflections on Progress: Then and Now

• The hosts trace U.S. progress from government-dominated efforts to today’s public-private cooperative model, highlighting SpaceX, Blue Origin, and the promise of rapid innovation.
• Recognition that much was left out but a sense of awe persists at how far U.S. space efforts have come.
  • “The minute that they said they're looking at doing this, then—what if China sends their own...rover to the moon? Well, we have to get there. Oh yeah, yeah, we've got this other cache...” – Tarik [42:43]

---

3. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If you’re under 60, put on your Boomer filters, because I was there for the whole space age...” –Rod Pyle [03:28]
• “You can help by sending us your best, worst or most indifferent space joke at Twiss at twit.tv…” –Rod [05:10]
• “It’s not a privilege to be elderly, but it’s a privilege to have seen the thing from the beginning.” –Rod [03:28]
• “Watching the shuttle move from the hangar to the pad was a borderline religious experience.” –Tarik [68:25]
• “And that was the mission where... within the first five minutes, the photos just start rolling in—here’s another planet, we’re there now. And that was absolutely spectacular.” –Tarik on Curiosity/Perseverance [76:39]

---

4. Timeline of Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |-------------------|----------------------------------------------------------| | 06:00 – 14:40 | NASA Swift Boost “space rescue” mission | | 18:10 – 26:11 | Avi Loeb/UAP government developments | | 26:25 – 29:38 | Independence Day movie & US pop sci-fi culture | | 31:18 – 36:49 | U.S. flags in space—a survey of iconic symbols | | 36:49 – 41:01 | V-2s and the roots of American rocketry | | 41:01 – 45:23 | Satellas: Explorer 1, Vanguard, and early satellites | | 45:23 – 52:19 | Mariner 4’s Mars flyby & shattering Martian myths | | 52:25 – 56:16 | Gemini/Apollo highlights, “American firsts” | | 57:17 – 67:22 | Later milestones: Apollo 11, Skylab, Viking, Shuttle | | 68:25 – 71:56 | Shuttle nostalgia, SLS/Starship, Artemis | | 71:56 – 77:18 | Personal favorite missions (Rod & Tarik share their top) | | 77:18 – 81:14 | Looking ahead: Future dreams, closing banter |

---

5. Tone and Style Highlights

• **Conversational, witty, and sometimes self-deprecating—**much like classic TWiT banter (e.g., jokes about missed events, “Boomer filters,” and self-mocking about typos and space reporter mishaps).
• Career nostalgia and humility regarding technological progress—especially the leap from the government-centric “space age” to today’s rapid private sector advances.
• Deep technical knowledge, historical context, and personal anecdotes—from seeing the shuttle in person to iconic moments of discovery.
• Openly critical and lovingly irreverent about popular theories, government transparency, and the foibles of “space bureaucracy.”

---

6. Takeaways / For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

• This “America in Space” extravaganza traces the arc of U.S. space history, from German V-2 rockets to today’s high-tech commercial lunar ambitions.
• The episode balances latest news (Swift rescue! Avi Loeb’s controversial UAP panel) with reminiscence and insight into both famous (Apollo 11!) and overlooked milestones (Pathfinder’s digital debut; first commercial satellite servicing).
• Listeners are treated to personal selections, witty banter, and societal reflections—making for an entertaining, complete, and patriotic tribute suitable for the Fourth of July.
• If you remember a favorite American space moment, it’s probably celebrated here, and if you don’t—you’ll come away with a new appreciation for the many ways America has shaped space exploration.

---

Closing Thought (Rod):

“You wasted another hour with us, particularly this week, just sort of expostulating, if that’s a word, about our favorite missions. So thanks for bearing with us for episode 217 that we’re calling America in Space.” [79:13]

---

Transcript

[Tarik Malik]

Coming up on this week in space, NASA's Swift Boost mission launches on a daring rescue flight to save the Swift space telescope. Avi Loeb is now going to lead the UAP panel for the White House and the US government. And what's the deal with 250 years in space and the American space program? Rod and I are going to talk about the greatest hits of America in space for the semi sesquicentennial. I think I got that right. Tune in and check it out.

[Jammer B]

This episode is brought to you by Black Hat usa. If you listen to this show, you go deep on the technical detail. Well, so does Black Hat. For nearly three decades it's been where the security industry's most rigorous research gets presented and pressure tested. More than 100 hands on trainings taught by practitioners who've actually deployed in live environments, not lecturers reading from slides. And hundreds of peer reviewed briefings that go well past the overview into the real work across the four areas defining security, right AI and autonomous threats, cyber conflict, systemic resilience and identity. This year, Black Hat's briefings pass includes all keynotes and main stage access plus business hall entry. You also get breakfast, lunch, arsenal live tool demos on demand session access and admission to the midnight in the war room screening. Black Hat takes place from August 1st to to the 6th in Las Vegas. If you want the depth this show gets into in person with the people doing the work, this is the room. And we'll be there too. Prices rise on July 17, so book before then. Use the code TWIT for $200 off your briefings [e-mail] US26 that's B L A C-K H A T.com US-26

[Rod Pyle]

podcasts

[Sponsor Voice]

you love from Peter, people you trust.

[Tarik Malik]

This is trit.

[Rod Pyle]

This is this Week in space. Episode number 217 recorded on July 3rd, 2026. America in Space. Hello and welcome to another episode this week of Space, the America in Space edition. To go along with our 250th national anniversary.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yay.

[Tarik Malik]

It's a semi, semi quintennial questing centennial thing.

[Rod Pyle]

I'm Rod Pyle, editor chief at Aster magazine. I'm here with my pal Tarik, Mr. Red, white and Blue himself. How are you?

[Tarik Malik]

I'm doing well, Rod. Happy, happy 4th.

[Rod Pyle]

Show us your your patriotic shirt.

[Tarik Malik]

This is my shirt. It's a space shuttle. Like with the flags and the stripes and all that stuff. Very good, very good. Very, very excited.

[Rod Pyle]

Hey, before I continue, have you seen pictures of the Just about Finished shuttle exhibit in la.

[Tarik Malik]

Yes, I've seen pictures. I haven't been there. Chelsea. Chelsea. Goad went for us. How come you didn't go?

[Rod Pyle]

I wasn't asked. I had sent them an email a year ago saying, hey, when it's ready, let me know. We'd like to run around.

[Tarik Malik]

Oh, God. I could have gotten you in. You know that. If you had, you know, I could have gotten you in for that.

[Rod Pyle]

I didn't know what the date was until after I saw it. Oh, you should have thought of me.

[Tarik Malik]

I. You know what? That is an oversight on myself as a partner in this podcast. I am ashamed on the eve of the anniversary of our country's birth. Tanya, another American. Fellow American. Yeah. Appreciation of our national space program. I'm sorry.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, be that as it may, today we'll be speaking with us us only, as we take a July 4th inspired look back at America's history of spaceflight, which is a remarkable one, by far the most remarkable on the planet Earth. The hallmark missions, and of course, our personal favorites. So if you're under 60, put on your Boomer filters, because I was there. I was realizing as I was writing this, I was alive for the whole space age. I was only two when it started, mind you. L1, actually, but I was there for the whole thing. I thought, wow, what a. What a privilege. It's not a privilege to be elderly, but it's a privilege to have seen the thing from the beginning.

[Tarik Malik]

That's like me in Star wars, right? I was one month old when Star wars came out.

[Jammer B]

Really?

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah.

[Sponsor Voice]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

Wow. All right. Well, son, sonny boy, first let's have a space joke from friend of the show and retired attorney Bruce McCandless III.

[Tarik Malik]

Bruce?

[Rod Pyle]

We know who Bruce McCandless II was.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

Hey, Tarek.

[Tarik Malik]

Yes, Rod?

[Rod Pyle]

Why did the astronaut lawyer quit NASA?

[Tarik Malik]

I don't know why.

[Rod Pyle]

She was tired of trying spacesuits.

[Tarik Malik]

I love it. I love me a good. But. That's a good one. That's a good one.

[Rod Pyle]

Nothing from Anthony on the board.

[Tarik Malik]

I heard, I heard. There we go.

[Rod Pyle]

Okay. Or how about this? Hey, Tarek.

[Tarik Malik]

Yes, right.

[Rod Pyle]

What do astronauts have to constantly tell their gullible offspring?

[Tarik Malik]

I don't know what.

[Rod Pyle]

There's no such thing as a free launch.

[Tarik Malik]

He was ready with that one. I did.

[Rod Pyle]

Keep it coming. Keep it coming. We like Bruce. He's a lot of fun. He's working on a. Another book project now that I'm not sure I could talk about, so I won't. But it's going to be very Exciting. Now, I've heard that some people want to stuff us into spacesuits without helmets and show us to the nearest airlock when it's joke time in this show. But you can help by sending us your best, worst or most indifferent space joke at Twisswit tv. And we'll be happy to blame it on you in the air and give you all due credit. But now let's go on to headline news.

[Tarik Malik]

Headline news. Am I getting my mojo back? Right?

[Rod Pyle]

I think you got that one.

[Jammer B]

Yeah.

[Tarik Malik]

I was getting close now. Getting close. Yeah, yeah, they said I nailed it. All right.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, right, right below the box of shame for me. We can tell which way the fan sentiment goes on this show. Mr. Mr. Suck up. You all right? Swift Rescue. Not Swift Water Rescue, but Swift Rescue. That's right, that's Swift Reboost mission successfully launched finally. Yeah, on a Pegasus off a plane.

[Tarik Malik]

On, on. And there was no live stream either.

[Rod Pyle]

The very last L 10 11. Well, you know, I kind of get the impression that the, the big news space companies, you know, the ones we know like SpaceX and Blue Origin are becoming less fond of having live streams.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll tell you, I'll talk about this in a bit. So this was from, I think that this is from Josh, dinner [e-mail] and friend of the show and whatnot. And this has been a long time coming, if you might recall. I think we talked about this on the show before. I'm going to try to get some of these folks on, on the channel or on the, on the podcast so we can talk about it because it's a very fascinating mission. This is a first of its kind mission, NASA's Swift Boost mission. Powered by a catalyst. It's a new company out of, I think, Arizona. They have this spacecraft that they call Link. And in the space of nine months they have, which means September 2025, NASA gave them a 30 million contract, $30 million contract to go and rescue the Swift Space Telescope which is falling out of space. It's a. It hunts for gamma ray burst, these most powerful explosions in the universe. And it's got very fine pointing like an ability. Like it swiftly pivots itself, spins around like that. And it's been up there since like what, 2014, Rod?

[Rod Pyle]

I think so.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, like that. Yeah. So it's been up there for a while. It had two year mission, it's been extended over time and it works fine, but it has no thrusters like the Hubble Space Telescope. It doesn't have Any thrusters, reaction wheels. It's just reaction wheels to spin itself around. And because we've had a lot activity, solar activity, when all of that solar wind hits the Earth, it puffs up our atmosphere, makes it thicker, which means you get more drag. And Instead of being 350km up, now it's slowly falling out of space a lot faster than NASA expected. And they were hoping for a lot more science out of this mission. It's totally fine the way that it is.

[Rod Pyle]

It was launched in 2004.

[Tarik Malik]

2004, yeah. I was off my whole decade. Yeah, it's been a long time. 22 years old. Okay. And so what they've done is they said, hey, if you like, if they do nothing, it falls out of space. Right. And if they do something, it doesn't work. Well, it was already going to fall out of space, so.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah. But can I just point out that this is the Skylab scenario all over again. We had a more than planned active solar cycle this time. We just passed the peak, we think you never quite know, but we're there or close to there. And because of that the atmosphere swells up and that causes more drag. So that brought down Skylab a couple years earlier than they had planned on, which is why the shuttle couldn't rescue it. And it's affecting the Swift satellite here in this current cycle. So it's not like they didn't plan for it.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, well, they knew that it would happen like eventually, but they, the fact that it was happening a lot faster, you know, they thought that they would have more time, a few more years at least of science. But the clock has been ticking. So by October, they expect that the spacecraft will have fallen so much over half of its distance, about 186 miles above the Earth to the point where they, there's no hope to ever rescue it. So they said, well, let's, let's try this. We've got $30 million, we'll give it to this company, Catalyst, and we'll see if they can do something about it. And so what they've done is they've built like a small set, it's about the size of a refrigerator or so. You know, it's, it's, it's not, it's not too large. It has three robotic arms, it has three hall thrusters and about 26 kind of fine tune thrusters and a bunch of sensors on it. And they're going to send it. They have sent it. That's the success part of this, of this, of this story. They've launched it on the final ever Northrop Grumman's last ever Pegasus XL rocket. It's an air launched rocket from the, the Stargazer L1011. So there's a, an infographic of, of how it, how it worked when they launched it and so they've launched it off there. It's going to eventually rendezvous over the summer with the spacecraft never designed to be approached by another spacecraft after it was put in space. The Swift Space Telescope. And it's going to find a place to grab on and there's lots of risk. So many things can go wrong. But if it goes right, they have demonstrated for the first commercial space rescue of a satellite, the first commercial rendezvous and servicing of a satellite and, and the ability that they could scale this up for something even larger for commercial satellites for, for a few of these. There's, there have been some, some, some other attempts or demonstrations because their intel set uses this with, or viasat I think uses this. They've, they've done it twice on a larger satellite. But this is the first space telescope kind of commercial servicing mission that we're ever going to see and it might not be the last. They could actually build a bigger one to go to Hubble if it works. So that's gonna be very interesting. So the next few weeks are checkouts and then it's gonna raise its orbit over several months to get to, to get to Swift and then boost it up. It should be the whole orbital raising maneuver thing, if it finds a good place to grab on, should be something in like, like two or three months. So.

[Rod Pyle]

And Swift is still stable at this point.

[Tarik Malik]

So Swift is stable, but it's been in like a. Yeah, it's been in a power down mode. So in February they stopped doing all of the science so that they can serve as much power to keep it like in a good stable position. Because the last thing that you want is your falling satellite to be tumbling in a way where now it's almost impossible to catch it with, with this spacecraft. So it's in a very stable, controlled position and that's what really makes this, makes this possible. But it's going to be really interesting to see, see, see how this develops because it could be, be like a game changer. It's the first of its kind ever. And in nine months. Can you imagine when's the last time the government did anything in nine months? Rod, Right.

[Rod Pyle]

Painted the reflecting pool.

[Tarik Malik]

Oh yeah, oh yeah, there's that, there's that. No, this is really, it's a, it's a really interesting demonstration to, seeing how fast they can do this. And this comes on the heels of some other fast responsive stuff. I know I'm kind of getting too long. I just, I'm really interested in this mission. I think it's, it's very, it could be a wave of, of the future where this is a really regular thing now and not just a repeated demonstration over and over.

[Rod Pyle]

Now, does that price tag include the Pegasus or not?

[Tarik Malik]

It includes everything. It includes the Northrop Grumman Pegasus launch, the Stargazer flight.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, they must have gotten a discount on that launch then.

[Tarik Malik]

I suppose so. I mean this is, this is, this is out of Kwajalen Atoll, right? They, they, they loaded the spacecraft up at Wallops Center.

[Jammer B]

That's.

[Tarik Malik]

We talked about it on the previous episode. That's where I was one of the weeks looking at it, kind of talking to the scientists, all of that. And then now the Swift mission is based out of Penn State and so there's, they've got a control center there and the Catalyst folks are out of Arizona and they've got their own control center. And, and then of course they launched the Northrop government launched it out of quads. So it's going to be distributed around a bit as they, as they get things sorted. But the whole price tag was the $30 million. They included everything. I suspect the reason we didn't get a webcast is because of kind of the rocky nature of the, the air launched rockets that Northrop Grumman inherited from Orbital Sciences when they were the ones that were doing that. Remember the, was it the Taurus xl? The ones that failed? It was like a back to back failures with oco and there's another one after that. So I'm figuring that they didn't really want to support that, but I'm sure it's also pretty expensive to support a live stream out of the Southern Pacific like that. And the visuals aren't great.

[Rod Pyle]

Depends, you know, if they had done Starlink off the top of the plane, of course, then that means putting a Starlink unit on a plane that you're probably going to ret. Yeah, like right now, but. And you can't call it quaj unless you've been there.

[Tarik Malik]

Oh, I'm so sorry, Rod. Okay.

[Rod Pyle]

I haven't been to Kwajalein, but I was in the next atoll over in the same Republic and they look pretty

[Tarik Malik]

much the same in the Marshall Islands, right?

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, it's like a Walmart parking lot surrounded by water. It's I mean, it's just absolutely pancake flat to the point that if you have so much as a sniffle of a storm, you get washovers from the Pacific side to the lagoon side.

[Tarik Malik]

Well, and that's actually another good point. We thought this mission was going to launch over the weekend. The Sunday of the week that we're recording this, it got delayed to Tuesday because of weather, and then it got delayed day upon day upon day because they had some really rough weather there and they were finally able to get it up and out the door.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, since we sort of overindulged ourselves on this story, let's indulge ourselves into a quick commercial break and we'll be right back with the rest of our headlines and today's show. So stay there.

[Jammer B]

Hey, everybody. Hey, guys. This episode of this Week in Space brought to you by Helix Sleep. I'm happy to say I am a Helix Sleep customer. We've had our sleek sleep mattress for about a year now. We love it. We're especially now the summer's here and the nights are getting hot. Nothing beats a Helix sleep mattress. I think you owe yourself a total refresh, especially when it comes to sleep. That's a third of your life or more. If you're still tossing and turning, if you're dealing with night sweats, if you're waking up with that nagging back pain, it's time to stop compromising. You owe it to yourself. You don't have to settle for a mattress made overseas with questionable materials when you could be resting on a Helix. Oh, we love our Helix mattress. Every one of them is hand assembled, packaged and shipped right to your door from Arizona. And they do it in just a matter of days after your order. It's to order. The beauty of it is that Helix makes the process completely personal. You can jump right into the Helix sleep quiz, which acts like your own personal consultant to match you with a mattress perfectly suited to your body and your sleep style. Not just about the feel, though, it's about the science, actually. Helix put their beds to the test. They did a Wesper sleep study. The results were incredible and matched my results almost exactly. So in this Wesper sleep study, Helix measured the participants sleep after they did what we did, switched from their old mattress to a Helix mattress. Now, here's what they found. 82% of participants saw an increase in their deep sleep cycle. Mine doubled. Actually, that's huge because that's the most important of all the sleep cycles. Participants on average achieved 25 more minutes of deep sleep per night. Participants on average achieved 39 more minutes of overall sleep per night. Wow. You know what? Bottom line, you're gonna wake up feeling great, feeling better, feeling well rested. That is worth. That is priceless. For 10 years, Helix sleep has consistently ranked at the top across the top independent review sites. This is how we found them. They've been tested and reviewed by all the experts. Forbes, Wired, we looked around, I shopped around and man, I looked at those reviews, I was blown away. Plus I loved it that Helix delivers the mattress right to your door. Free shipping in the US you can rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges, they call it. They're happy with Helix. Guarantee you get a risk free customer first experience, ensuring you're completely satisfied with your new mattress. And by the way, we are. We were go to Helix. We love it. Go to helixsleep.com space right now, 20% off site wide during the 4th of July sale. That's helixsleep.com space for 20% off site wide. And I know even though you have that special URL, do enter our show name this week in Space at checkout so they know that we sent you. The offer ends July 12, but if you're listening after that, you still should check them out. There's always great deals. Helixsleep.com space use that URL so that the guys get credit Rod and Tarek so that Helix knows you saw it here mentioned this Week in Space. And when you check out to helixsleep.com space. Thank you, Helix. Now back to this Week in Space.

[Rod Pyle]

Next up, welcome to UFO Land. I was gonna make a tinfoil hat and I.

[Tarik Malik]

We should have. We should have.

[Rod Pyle]

So our not friend of the show because he never came on because he had an exclusive deal with Netflix, but our pal Avi Loeb, Dr. Avi Loeb of Harvard, who has long been the promoter of Notions theories. I don't know what you'd want to call them. I'm trying to be kind here about

[Tarik Malik]

these alien spaceships outside.

[Rod Pyle]

Interstellar, interstellar visitors. These rocks, they're pretty clearly rocks coming from outside the solar system. Slinging past the sun may actually be alien technology. To the point that on the last one he said, you better look out because they're right out where they could plant spies to stare at us and listen in on everything we do and, you know, figure out how they're gonna make us into dinner or whatever. But Dr. Loeb, who is a respected member of the astronomical community, although that's been stressed a bit by his various theories, is now a Member. He has long been a member of the Saul foundation, which is a kind of pro UAP research group, but is now part of the office or heading the office of the Director of National Intelligence. Not, sorry, the UAP Science Advisory Council is what he's heading under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. How's that?

[Tarik Malik]

What, what's UAP stand for again?

[Rod Pyle]

Unidentified Anomalous pp.

[Tarik Malik]

Phenomena. Phenomena.

[Rod Pyle]

Phenomenon. There we go.

[Tarik Malik]

Phenomena.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. UFOs.

[Tarik Malik]

It used to be aerial and then. And now it's not anymore. It's not. Right.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, because of oceanic involvement. So, yeah, so here he is. If you're watching the video stream, this

[Tarik Malik]

is really, it's really, it's really interesting because he's had a bit of a rocky last few years because he keeps making a lot of those really wild claims about. Everything is proof, proof, proof of alien visitors or high tech visitors or alien spaceships. The spheros that they found at the bottom of the ocean, saying that they were conclusively, like from, like artificially made rather than being.

[Rod Pyle]

And excuse me for jumping in, but that one, I think is the one that really sort of went off the diving board. Because, you know, if you're talking about some observations made of a cometary object that's slinging through the solar system or an asteroidal object, that's one thing. This was literally pulling up some little concretions, some little metallic balls off the ocean floor off of Papua New guinea, where there might have been an extraterrestrial or, excuse me, an inter. Interplanetary. Interstellar. Interstellar object broken up in an air burst as it was coming in as a meteorite. But I mean, that same day he had them in his hand. He said, see, these are clear proof of alien technology. They're bbs. Yeah, that's the shape things melt into when they're burning up.

[Tarik Malik]

It's very much like the shotgun approach that the administration has had with the UAP phenomenon. Because Trump did announce, you know, when he was campaigning and then after he was elected that he would release the UFO files, if you will. And, and then they did. The DOD put a, put out a special website. It's war.gov/ UFO everybody, you know, and, and you can see basically everything that's unclassified that they put in there. And it's like, it's like everything. I mean, like, it's balloon sightings and all sorts of stuff, plus those really wild Navy videos where they, they have like the audio of the pilots talking about things. So you can see all of that stuff there. And, and so they've released like three different tranches of, of these files as they're updating it over time and declassifying things. And so what I understand now is that they want Avi Loeb to run this panel to look at all these files and then make either some kind of conclusive determination about what is what or about what needs to be done to further investigate the phenomena themselves. So it's, it's. I'm not sure we're going to get more, though, because NASA had an independent commission about this. Congress had an independent commission about this. I think the only thing that's different now is that all the files are now out there at this website for review.

[Rod Pyle]

Okay, but, but NASA's charge for that commission was to look at ways to study the data, not to actually study the data. So I don't know if that one counts as much.

[Tarik Malik]

Okay, okay.

[Rod Pyle]

But, but I don't know. You know, I haven't read what the exact charter for, for this new group is either. Presumably it's to try and figure out what's what and who's who and all that.

[Tarik Malik]

According to the reports, you know, from Guardian, from the other folks, it's. They're going to be meeting privately. They're not going to be having public meetings. So that, that's a departure from the hearings that the DoD had, because the DoD had their own thing and, and that, that NASA did, too. But you kind of want to know, like, what's going on. I, I would advise that they, I mean, if they, they're not going to ask me for advice, Rod. Right. They never do, is that I know. Right. Don't know who I am. But I would advise that if they're going to have some sort of discussions about the nature of the data that they're looking at, that they do it in a way where people can actually watch and see how that sausage is made, because as they've learned with some other files that maybe we're not going to talk about at all because it's not really relevant. But the minute that you put something behind a closed door and say, trust us, the public's not going to buy that. And so I think that they need to be as open as they can with these discussions. When we had our communication specialist on in a recent episode, that was what she said was like the number one thing. You have to be as completely transparent as possible when dealing with the, the ins and outs about official documents here and what to do, because people will not trust it.

[Rod Pyle]

Otherwise so. Well, if I could just say about both releases on the government website, I refuse to call it Department of War.

[Tarik Malik]

You know, and I need a minute. Take a drink. Take a drink, Rod. Drink some water.

[Rod Pyle]

All I've got is coffee here. You know, we're still waiting for that. That killer image, that killer video, some right in your face. Okay, here it is. And as we've said week after week, you know, everybody's got a smartphone and they're all multi megapixel. They take great pictures and take great videos. They will include metadata that tells you where it was and when it was and all that. And yet we're still seeing smudgy junk, the best of which really is the stuff from the military. And that's mostly FLIR data. So that's not so great. And what's frustrating to me is besides the fact that we're just not getting the better stuff is. Oh, God, where was I going at that thought?

[Tarik Malik]

Well, there's a really.

[Rod Pyle]

Grandpa had a grain fart.

[Tarik Malik]

There's a really obvious explanation for all of this, and it's the fact that the aliens, should they be there, know exactly what kind of equipment that we have. They know what the. The smartphones can see. They know what the FLIR data can see, and they just run a. Whatever interference schedule that makes it look like Nessie. Or why do they let people do

[Rod Pyle]

it with photographic film?

[Tarik Malik]

Because then. Then. Right. Then they run whatever light interference to make it look like the smudges again. Because that way.

[Rod Pyle]

The right answer is they can. They can interfere with electronic technology, but not analog technology. I don't know.

[Tarik Malik]

We just keep waiting. We don't know, right?

[Sponsor Voice]

We don't know.

[Rod Pyle]

We keep waiting. Well, it's hard to manipulate silver particles and gelatin, but it's a lot easier to, I would think, to manipulate electronic stuff. But we're getting a little off beat path here.

[Tarik Malik]

I don't know, we should have a whole other episode about aliens and what we think they can and can do. Who am I to tell the aliens what the limits of their technology are? You know, not.

[Rod Pyle]

I'm watching the video stream of producer Anthony over on the board wishing he was on Mac Break Weekly right now.

[Tarik Malik]

He's like, we gave them the option to not have a show today, and this is what we got.

[Rod Pyle]

That's very good. All right, last up. I don't know why this is America 250, but it is the 30th anniversary of independence Day, Roland Emmerich's last decent movie.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

The Same guy that brought us Moonfall, for God's sake.

[Tarik Malik]

I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. It's a mea culpa because there were actually like a lot of other science stories that we could have put in here. Like the fact that we've got a new exoplanet that's 25 light years away that just might be habitable. But I skipped it because it's the Independence Day episode and we have the Independence Day movie anniversary. And I just think it's a really fun. It's one of the last like big disaster movies that didn't go that was nice and campy and not so self serious because you know, it really worked.

[Rod Pyle]

It just worked. I mean it took every 50s and 60s sci fi trope that ever was, jammed it into one movie brilliantly and was so good. And I can't believe this is the same guy that did Moonfall, which is Redfall.

[Tarik Malik]

Our, our writer, Jeff Spry. This is a Space.com story. The, the past story, the obby lobe story, by the way, was from the Guardian. But our, our writer Jeff Spry spoke with Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin about making the film. And so, so this, this, this piece really goes into like what they were thinking about which landmarks to blow up and how do they make, to make it. I actually wrote a term paper about the, about this film because I love disaster. I think I've talked to you about that before and, and all through the ages and I have a brother.

[Rod Pyle]

You're living a disaster movie.

[Tarik Malik]

Well, there is that too. Right? But, but Independence Day is one of those disaster movies that tries to like purport a way to buck stereotypes and whatnot and by the end of it has in fact gone back to reinforce said stereotypes. You know, about everything. And, and if, you know, if you just watch it for the funsies, you don't see a lot of that stuff like the, the, the single father abandoning his kids or the fact that they, they have strong women characters who end up just being there for their husbands. And it's a really mixed message, but there's a lot more going on in that movie than just aliens blowing up the world.

[Rod Pyle]

And if I may say, it was the 90s when this was released. Right. Do you remember drawers full of adapters just to try and figure out which Charger worked with which unit you had or how you were going to plug your SCSI drive into whatever the other standard was for hard drives, Blah blah, blah. We had multiple drawers of adapters yet These guys fly up in their. Their captured flying saucer to the big alien mothership and plug in and boom, they upload a virus, which just happens to work because apparently we knew the alien operating system. So, you know, there's. There's some stretches in there. And the Randy Quaid character was a little over the top. I'm here, Mr. President, you know, but all in all, it was a very fun movie. And I thought the alien was the best. I mean, I haven't seen anything that good since. Just even the way his legs were creepy. The second was horrible.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, second one. Not the greatest.

[Rod Pyle]

That school bus chase that went on for, what was it, 40 minutes?

[Tarik Malik]

For a long time with the queen

[Rod Pyle]

driving around the desert because they didn't have any money. All right, let's run to another break. Let's get out of the way, and then we'll come back and actually start our episode 20 minutes in standby.

[Tarik Malik]

There's a reason they say Snap Judgment changed the sound of storytelling. The story, the music, the voice in the dark heard on NPR stations across the country. Time called it one of the best 100 podcasts ever. The kind of stories you can't wait to tell somebody. Snap Judgment from kqed. Tap to listen now to Snap Judgment from KQED on Spotify.

[Rod Pyle]

Snap, snap, snap, snap.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

When you're seven eleven's hottest fire chicken sandwich. People think you're intense.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, yeah, I'm hot.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

No.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, intense.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

Want to see if you can handle the heat? Then try me with pickles or spicy mayo and jalapenos. Oh, and it's all just $4.99. That's a deal. Almost as hot as I am. Almost. Sweets? No, spicy. See for yourself. $4.99 and only at $7.11. Follow up through 82546 participating stores only while supplies last visit store for full terms.

[Sponsor Voice]

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling. Smart move. Another smart move getting help from one of State Farm's 19,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.

[Rod Pyle]

All right. 250 years of the United States of America. Look what we've accomplished in that time. And we went from just a few short months after my birthday, my actual like zero plus one birthday went from nothing to becoming the premier space power within less than 10 years.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

And we've done some pretty amazing stuff. And you put a little item in here or prompted me to, about US Flags in space.

[Tarik Malik]

US Flags. The American flag, Gold.

[Rod Pyle]

The one people think of, of course, is Apollo 11. And there's a picture on line 35, what it might look like. But basically these were inexpensively produced, commercially procured, small nylon American flags. And the thought is that they probably bleached out to this little patch of brittle white stuff by now.

[Tarik Malik]

I mean, are they even. I mean, they're. Are they even still standing? Some of them might be. Right.

[Rod Pyle]

Fell over when they took off. Looks like I didn't give Anthony the

[Tarik Malik]

right link because there wasn't a link in there. I put, I put this link in there today, so.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, that doesn't have any of the bleach flags in it, but that's okay. So Apollo 11s fell over as far as we know. The other one stayed upright because they moved them further away from the lunar module, but they're all still up there, just baking away in that severe ultraviolet.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

What I kind of was confused by when they said, oh, it's just a flag made out of nylon. It's like. Well, then the first lunar day should have cooked it because it's like 250 degrees Fahrenheit out there. So it must have been something other than just nylon because otherwise they put it up, when it starts smoking, it just curled into a little glob.

[Tarik Malik]

Right. Clearly they faked the moon landings, Rod, because why else would the flags be waving on the surface of the moon? Right.

[Rod Pyle]

Apollo 16.

[Tarik Malik]

How could it unfurled the conspiracy.

[Rod Pyle]

People often miss that one. Which blows my mind because it's probably the most aha moment they could get. However, it's a stat static rich environment. And when you walk in a synthetic fabric spacesuit within a couple of inches of a nylon flag, which is also charged, it's going to go like it did. But no, it must be the air in the, in the stage.

[Tarik Malik]

Okay. Oh, oh, here's some nice pictures. Yeah, these are nice. These are the ones of that show, both Neil and Buzz walking around. The really rare ones.

[Rod Pyle]

Oh, they're setting up the flag, I think.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, yeah, they are. They are, yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

For those watching the video stream, we're, we're showing the flag set up from Apollo 11. And I was there. Okay. But besides that, we have the flag painted on Viking 1.

[Tarik Malik]

So it's on, on the surface of Mars.

[Rod Pyle]

Right, on the surface of Mars.

[Tarik Malik]

Viking 2 as well.

[Jammer B]

Right.

[Tarik Malik]

Or no, they didn't get one.

[Rod Pyle]

No, I got one. Just landed in a different spot. I mean, I mean, I think every piece of American hardware has an American flag on it somewhere. As do the.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, but apparently not all of them say NASA. Right. Like the Pathfinder lander.

[Rod Pyle]

Did they not put NEST on that?

[Tarik Malik]

It just says JPL on the picture. I heard that Dan golden was really mad about.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

Well, he was.

[Rod Pyle]

And that's why when they tried to put JPL etched out of the wheels for Curiosity, headquarters said. Which is why they put it in Morse code instead, which I thought was brilliant. In fact, I remember I called you from JPL while I was up there covering that for Brody. Yeah, Dave Brody and said, I. I don't know if this has come out yet. And it was. I don't know, it was my first attempt at a scoop hot dog.

[Tarik Malik]

A scoop.

[Rod Pyle]

Right side the space shuttle sides of every Apollo spacecraft. Sides of. Presume the Dragon spacecraft, although I've never actually looked.

[Tarik Malik]

It is. Yeah, it is on the Dragon spacecraft. It's on the other side says SpaceX on one side and then there it's on. It's on the side. And the, the crude ones have the NASA worm on them, whereas they used to have the, the just the meatball.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah.

[Tarik Malik]

So the great big giant flag on the vab. Right.

[Rod Pyle]

Which is pretty remarkable if you've never seen it.

[Tarik Malik]

What about interstellar space? Are they on. Are they on Voyager?

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, they gotta be.

[Tarik Malik]

Not on Titan because that's the Hoi Jin spacecraft. That was.

[Rod Pyle]

That's true. And, and actually, I don't know for sure about Voyager Pioneer. However, they do have messages to the, to the aliens on them and, and

[Tarik Malik]

not on Venus because the Soviets landed there, not us, so.

[Rod Pyle]

Not yet.

[Tarik Malik]

Not yet.

[Rod Pyle]

Actually we did. We did, yeah. Pioneer.

[Tarik Malik]

How did I not.

[Rod Pyle]

Pioneer Venus Pioneer. Venus had four atmospheric entry probes. Only one of them survived a hard landing because one had a parachute. The others, I think were just descenders.

[Tarik Malik]

Like spikes.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tarik Malik]

And they.

[Rod Pyle]

But one of the small ones that did not have parachute went down and actually survived the impact and transmitted back for over an hour, which is longer than the first Soviet Venera probes did.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, that's long, soft landed.

[Rod Pyle]

But. So we did actually, we did have a landing on Venus. It just wasn't.

[Tarik Malik]

Do you think it has an American flag on it?

[Rod Pyle]

Not anymore.

[Tarik Malik]

There could, there could have been an American.

[Rod Pyle]

900 degrees, I imagine.

[Tarik Malik]

Can you. I'm going to find out. I'm going to ask NASA I want

[Rod Pyle]

to Know project now.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah. Yeah, we, by the way, like, just like last month we had Flag day. So that's what got me thinking about a lot of this stuff is like where all the flags are. So very, very cool. Very cool.

[Rod Pyle]

So how did our space age begin? Yes, well, like so many things, we stole it from the Germans and a World War II. There's a bunch of V2s that are still sitting around in Germany. They had started launching them in 1944. They launched over 3,000 of them. 9,000 casualties were they impacted. But tellingly, 12,000 people died, making them slave labor.

[Tarik Malik]

More people, right? More people in the making.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, so knock on Dr. Von Braun there. But these things pioneered guidance systems, missile guidance systems, regenerative cooling, which I didn't actually know till I looked it up this time. So you use fuel to actually cool parts of the rocket engine and that preheats the fuel so it helps it burn more efficiently. Ignition systems for the rocket nozzle, high speed flight turbo pumps, which is something that was new and lots more. Interestingly, the British tried to cover the early attacks on London by citing gas main explosions to the point the public took to calling V2's Flying Gas Mains. So I guess that didn't work. But after the war, Operation Paperclip, the US and the Soviets had their own version. But in our case, we brought back over 300 rail cars worth of V2s and V2 stuff that we sent out to New Mexico for research flights, the most notable of which crashed within walking distance of a graveyard in Mexico. I forget which city it was near. Was it Roswell? No, Mexico. Not New Mexico. In Mexico.

[Tarik Malik]

Oh, in Mexico.

[Rod Pyle]

It was our first missile attack on another country.

[Tarik Malik]

Oh man.

[Rod Pyle]

Ended up in Mexico and they sort of forgave us for that. It didn't kill anybody. But anyway, the v. So the V2 was kind of our, our stake in the ground, our beginning. And it led directly to the Redstone. And the Redstone, which is what launched the early Mercury flights, was really just a reskinned V2. Yeah, same, same basic engine design, same basic fuel tankage and pumps and all that. So that was our way of making it look less like an evil German rocket, more like a, like a space quasi American rocket. Yeah, so that's, that's my nod to the beginning of the space age. What's yours?

[Tarik Malik]

Well, well obviously it's their first satellite. Right. We have the, the, the.

[Rod Pyle]

Our embarrassing tale of our first satellite,

[Tarik Malik]

but it made the first discovery of the Van Allen belts with Explorer.

[Rod Pyle]

Explorer 1 did, yeah. Our first satellite was Vanguard, well, which ended up falling off of an exploding rocket and rolls into a stop next to a dumpster.

[Tarik Malik]

I should say, I should say first science satellite, first successful satellite for successful satellite. But that one really always struck me because you've got the, the, the picture of, of all of the folks, you know, holding the rocket up because they're all excited and holding satellite up, the satellite up and, and then, and then of course you make this big discovery about the radiation bells that we all rely on every day to protect us from the getting cooked alive from the cosmic radiation. We didn't know about that until that satellite went up there. More than just beeps and boops. It's actual science and it was like a big discovery at that point in time. So I forgot Vanguard 1. Yeah, it's popped off. Yeah. And the whole montage in, in the right stuff where they show all that stuff.

[Rod Pyle]

Who built Explorer 1? Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

[Tarik Malik]

That's right.

[Rod Pyle]

That's right.

[Tarik Malik]

And it was just they dare mighty things, man. They dare mighty talking to a friend

[Rod Pyle]

of the show, Rob Manning yesterday for about an hour, day before yesterday, telling me about all the new exciting stuff they're doing. So we have to have him back because he's got some, some good stories to tell. But yeah, so, so, and that's a very cool picture because it's Von Braun Pickering and I forget who the third guy was holding.

[Tarik Malik]

Talk about. Are we gonna talk about Promise? Are we gonna talk about that? We should have talked about that. Oh, no.

[Rod Pyle]

Oh, in the headlines, you mean? Yeah, well, I asked him about that and he said, you know, they don't know very much yet. Yeah, yeah, so, but, but let's, hey, it's, it's our show. We can freeform for a moment because we only have two minutes left for the next break.

[Tarik Malik]

Well, yeah, so, so we were just talking about jpl and one of the bigger news items that I did pass over was a moon base update because we found out that NASA's going to be putting them out every month now about an update on what they're doing for the moon base program. And Jared Isaacman said regarding JPL that they are going to pull what I believe is. It's not promise. It's called something else.

[Rod Pyle]

There's an engineering twin for.

[Tarik Malik]

There's an engineering twin for the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers and they're going to rename it Promise and send it to the moon. So they're looking at the possibility of doing it. And Jared Isaacman said that. He says that he is optimistic. That's what. Optimism. That's what it's called. Yeah, it's called optimism. So anyway, interesting stuff there. So if they, there's a lot to

[Rod Pyle]

figure out there because that thing was designed very, very specifically for Mars and Martian conditions and the moon's different. You know, it's a hard vacuum. Mars isn't. It doesn't have any weather. Mars does. The dust is different texture and consistency and of course the temperature extremes are much worse. Mars gets down to I think about -280 Fahrenheit. Never gets up much above 70.

[Tarik Malik]

They'll just put more nukes on it, that's all.

[Jammer B]

So.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, we don't have any more nukes.

[Tarik Malik]

At least they've got a pipeline going. They've had, they're working on it.

[Rod Pyle]

But I don't think that they've got

[Tarik Malik]

like the government will find it, Rod. The government doesn't have it until.

[Rod Pyle]

And you can use stuff besides plutonium. They've used other, other nuclear elements.

[Tarik Malik]

They've got, the government has all of that stuff that they just don't want to tell.

[Rod Pyle]

But it's got a, you know, if they're going to put it down to the south pole, it's got to survive viper like temperatures. So we're talking what, minus 300 or something.

[Tarik Malik]

Oh, and all the time and really big swings and. But the reason that I say all that stuff about how they'll find it, even if it doesn't seem like it's there, is because the minute that they said that they're looking at doing this, then you. That they're going to say, oh well then what if China is going to send their own nuclear giant rover to the moon, you know. Well, we have to get there. Oh yeah, yeah. We've got this other cash, you know, so they're under Fort Knox or that place in Cascadia or wherever they, they have the, the plutonium store.

[Rod Pyle]

So let's keep guessing. Yeah, yeah, it would be interesting.

[Tarik Malik]

Also let me know when I'm right. Department of War or Department of Energy

[Rod Pyle]

standpoint, I guess it's easier to go from Mars, the moon than from the moon to Mars because the gravity is significantly less as well. So the machinery should all work very well. All right, let's. Let's fly to another break and we can catch up on our discord chat while Jammer B tries to call us to account for everything we.

[Jammer B]

Everything.

[Rod Pyle]

Every mistake you make and we'll be right back. Stay with us.

[Sponsor Voice]

Tomorrow morning is knocking. Stock your fridge now. How about A creamy mocha Frappuccino drink or a sweet vanilla smooth caramel maybe, or white chocolate mocha. Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries. You want to get your backyard summer ready, but you don't want to break the bank. Wayfair gets it. Planning on dining al fresco or relaxing poolside? Wayfair has everything you need to prep your space. Shop now and save up to 70% off during Wayfair's 4th of July clearance. Score huge deals on outdoor furniture, area rugs and more.

[Tarik Malik]

More.

[Sponsor Voice]

We're talking thousands of products for every style and budget. Plus surprise flash deals. July 6th. Don't wait. Shop Wayfair's 4th of July clearance now through July 6th at Wayfair.com Wayfair Every style, every home.

[Tarik Malik]

Uncovered windows can make your home feel up to 20 degrees hotter. Stay cool and save up to 50% off custom window treatments during the 4th of July mega [e-mail] from outdoor shades to room darkening blinds, finding the perfect fit is easy. Get free samples, expert design help and professional measure and install services or diy with confidence and support every step of the way. Shop up to 50% off site wide, plus huge savings on door busters right now during the 4th of July mega [e-mail] all right, is it because Explorer 1 didn't orbit? Is that. Is that why they're. I'm getting called out for that?

[Rod Pyle]

Is it did orbit.

[Jammer B]

Yeah.

[Tarik Malik]

That's what I thought.

[Sponsor Voice]

Right.

[Rod Pyle]

Stayed in orbit for. I. It. It may still be. I don't think it's still functioning. But it was Vanguard.

[Tarik Malik]

That's still in line too, right?

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah. Well, Vanguard finally flew after Explorer. Vanguard's a sad story, but it was a noteworthy effort. All right. What do you want to do next?

[Tarik Malik]

Let's talk. Well, We've only got 15 minutes left.

[Rod Pyle]

I know. You know, we got to talk about Mariner 4.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

So Mariner 4, at this point, it's 1965. As far as we know, Mars may still have canals and thoats and trees and gimcracks and gerworks and God knows what else living there because we can only see it through our largest telescopes. It's still kind of a fuzzy, fuzzy, flickering blob because the atmosphere. We didn't have space telescopes in 1965.

[Tarik Malik]

You can think Lowell, Right. For all of the cats.

[Rod Pyle]

So, yeah, Lowell, Percival Lowell. Turn of the century, late 1900s. Early or late 1800s? Early 1900s. Had written a series of books. Amateur astronomer, but amateur with a 24 inch refractive telescope in Arizona about life on Mars and advanced civilizations. You know, there's a little bit of Avi Lobe in Percival Lowell. Every book became a little more fanciful

[Tarik Malik]

and out there, well, you find a planet, I guess you get a lot of street cred, right?

[Rod Pyle]

Well, no, that was later. And it was that his observatory, not him. But okay, that was.

[Tarik Malik]

Oh, that was Clay Tombaugh, my boy, 40 years later. Yeah, my apologies, my apologies.

[Rod Pyle]

But. But Lowell, you know, he was a bit of a fanatic and people up through, say 1930 were still kind of into it. And gradually the scientific community turned, turned against him and said, look, this is nuts. You know, we can, we can tell enough from observing the planet that we know it's got a very thin atmosphere, it's very cold, carbon dioxide rich. No, no, the canal is built by creatures. And look, they double every year and all this stuff. So, so that was kind of the state of the art. In fact, we were still using maps that dated back 6, 50, 60 years of Mars to plan the flyby and the photopass when Mariner 4 launched. So 1965, it does its flyby of Mars. On July 15th, we got back 21 very low res pictures. I think there were like 100 lines. Yeah, transmitted 21 and a half actually. But it was clear enough to show us that basically it was the moon in red, you know, very thin atmosphere. So after the Flyby, as Mariner 4 cleared the other side, the other limb of the planet, so it goes behind the planet and then it pops back into view of us by radio, if you will, we were able to measure the radio waves through the edge of the atmosphere, radio occultations, and let us know. It has about 1% of Earth's atmosphere. So, yeah, not much going on there. Dry, cold, dead as far as we could tell. But that was a remarkable thing. I was alive then. I don't remember it, but I do remember vaguely because I was a science fiction fan. Even at that age. I would have been, I think, seven years old. I was reading Ray Bradbury and other authors like that. And this just destroyed that whole Martian empire overnight, you know?

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, it's a big moment. It's really interesting because when I first started in my space career, I went to a talk with Isaac Asimov and he gave a talk from Sri Lanka, Mr. Cyber. Wait, Clark or Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke, Pardon me? Arthur C. Clarke. He. And he gave a talk from. From beamed in from Sri Lanka at the American Museum of Natural History, where he talked Even then. And this is like early 2000s, about the wild bushes on Mars that are clearly visible in the orbiter photos that we can see. Really? Yeah, yeah. And, and it was a really weird moment at that point in time that, you know, they were still that belief that it was there. But imagine being in that room where you get those little ones and zeros that you got to color in, you know, gray or not gray to see that this is Mars.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

And.

[Tarik Malik]

But, oh, no, there's no canals, you know, there's no.

[Rod Pyle]

So. So what Tarek's referring to is when the, when the first data came down from Mariner 4, the scientists didn't want to wait for the JPL lab to assemble a photograph out of because it was digital download. And so this, this back then had to be very painstakingly and slowly recreated. So they took the, the paper printout of just the ones and zeros or the numeric values, whatever they were for color, and cut it into strips and then glued them onto a piece of cardboard, ran down to the local art store and bought some pastel pencils, these kind of oily crayons. Here it is on the video stream. Thanks, Anthony. And colored up this first image from Mars. And it, you know, it doesn't tell you much. It's basically saying, hey, look, a bright albedo here, less albedo over there. But it was a really cool thing and it's still there. So if you go to visit JPL in the comms building where you can see it.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, you can see it.

[Rod Pyle]

You just think, wow, that's a whole. Truly the end of the analog age right there.

[Tarik Malik]

There's like a whole alcove, kind of mini museum to that whole era of planetary exploration there. It's really, really cool.

[Rod Pyle]

If only the tour is easier to get.

[Tarik Malik]

You know, they have open days. If you ever are in near JPL during when they're gonna have those open days, go to those open days. They're really good.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, but you got to get online when they open up the ticket.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

Giveaways, like within 30 seconds because they're gone in the first five minutes. That's I think, what, 15,000 tickets? Yeah, yeah, they go like that.

[Tarik Malik]

Like, like Taylor Swift's wedding invite list. Right. That's going on right now at Madison Square Garden. Right.

[Rod Pyle]

So what's a Taylor Swift?

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, she's getting married. Okay, okay, well then let's. All right, okay, we'll move on. So she hasn't gone to space yet.

[Rod Pyle]

We're not going to get through our list as always. But I did want to point out, among the Mariner missions, the first one actually was 1962 was Mariner Venus, which is what they called a squiggly line mission later. Basically just sent back electronic measurements of plasma and magnetism and that kind of stuff. So it's just an oh, look what we get on the, on the magnetometer chart kind of mission. But it was notable that it succeeded because at that point both we in the Soviet Union were hurling these probes out towards the moon, towards the nearest planets without a lot of success. So this was a big success for us. Then Mariner 5 also went to Venus. Mariner 6 and 7 went to Mars. Mariner 10 went to Venus and Mercury. So it was a remarkable little program that, that ended. The Voyager 1 and 2 were supposed to be mariners, but they decided that they were sufficiently more ambitious that they were going to call them something else. So they were going to be. There was another name before Voyager Journey or something weird like that.

[Tarik Malik]

Journeyman Journey. Yeah, to the journey.

[Rod Pyle]

But Voyager 1 out. And that was a good name. So anyway, that, that, that's the quick and dirty on the Mariner program.

[Tarik Malik]

Well, let's, let's, let's fast forward because I do want to spend some time. We get to pick and pick our favorite ones, right?

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah.

[Tarik Malik]

And so, so we're going to, we'll do a quick, a quick whirlwind. I'm sure I'm going to miss a few things about the American firsts in space because of course there was a lot of, of competition in the early days of the space age. You've got the space race and Americans were not first in space. And so to our, you know, really,

[Rod Pyle]

in anything, in anything 60s sort of lifted us up.

[Tarik Malik]

The Soviets had the first satellite with Sputnik. They had the first animal in space with Laika. They had the first person in space with Yuri Gagarin.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, they had the first animal body in space. Like it didn't even make it to orbit. Well toasted, but.

[Tarik Malik]

Oh, that's so sad. It is sad, but they never plan

[Rod Pyle]

to bring her back.

[Tarik Malik]

I named my space dog Laika in Fortnite. Anyway, so a lot of firsts there. A lot of, a lot of firsts. But, but the Americans came in just, just behind for a lot of things. Our first American in space, Alan Shepard. In of May of 61, you had the, the first American spacewalk. After the first Soviet spacewalk with, with Ed white on Gemini 4. The first docking. Right, the first docking in space.

[Rod Pyle]

We did that first docking and almost ended the Gemini program. So that was Gemini 8, where Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott went up in a Gemini capsule to dock with the Agena stage, which was an upper stage used before that by the Air Force for satellite launches. And they docked, and suddenly they started to go into slow spin. So they thought, oh, the Agena's fouled up. They tried to turn it off. It didn't work. So they disconnected because they didn't want to get stuck to it with torquing and all that. And then the tumble sped up, and by the time it had been going on for about eight minutes, they were tumbling at one revolution per second.

[Tarik Malik]

I can't imagine that.

[Rod Pyle]

And that's a point at which you

[Tarik Malik]

start to pass out, right? Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

And had they died, it would have just kept spinning faster, faster until it depleted all this thruster fuel because there's no. No friction up there. So Armstrong had the wherewithal and the. And the conscious thought to turn off all 16 thruster breakers. I only know these facts because Jerry Griffin and I were just talking about this for his book. Turn off all 16 thruster breakers, then fire the re entry system, which you're not supposed to use until you're ready to re enter. And that stopped the tumble. So our first docking was almost our last.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, but it was first. It was the first first there it was in that. In that space race. So then we, you know, we eventually got to, oh, go ahead, I want

[Rod Pyle]

to let you march forward, but we have to do one more break, and then when we come back, it's all yours because you have a lot of stuff to go through. So, yeah, yeah, let's run off to a break. We'll be right back, so stay with us.

[Tarik Malik]

These days, you've got two choices. Buying a new car or making the one you've got run like new. We know which one we choose. That's why at Firestone Complete Auto Care, we have thousands of ASE certified technicians nationwide trained to spot an issue with your car before it becomes a problem. No matter the make or model, get more out of your car. Firestone Complete Auto Care. Call or go [e-mail] to book today.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

At Pfizer, we are committed to listening to and learning from patients and their care teams so that we can work to help address their unmet needs. From early discovery to clinical trials through approval and use of our medicines, patients are at the heart of everything we do. Learn [e-mail].

[Sponsor Voice]

I get so many headaches every Month. It could be chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

Botox prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for Those who have 14 or fewer headache days a month. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and headaches. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions including als, Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert Eaton syndrome, and medications including botulinum toxins as these may increase the risk of serious side effects.

[Sponsor Voice]

Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-844botox to learn more.

[Tarik Malik]

Go. Alright. All right. Okay. So. So from the first docking in in 66, then we're going to just fast forward all the way up to the first moon landing with astronauts. You've got Apollo 11 with Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong. We all know that story, right? Because that's what we hear in all of our history books. If you've watched in the shadow of the moon, you will discover that Buzz Aldrin was the first person to pee on the moon. Because as he walked down the ladder, he paused and he went in his suit, which was a nice little fun fact that I never expected to hear from Buzz Aldrin. And there he was. And we talked about it in the roundtable afterward about that. You had the first scientist on the moon, Harrison Schmidt, on Paul 17, who we just saw.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, you weren't there, but we just had.

[Tarik Malik]

Oh, that's. You saw him at istc, Space Development Conference.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, let's not forget Buzz was also the first to perform any kind of religious ceremony on the moon. He did communion shortly after landing.

[Tarik Malik]

That's right, that's right.

[Rod Pyle]

Very quietly. Little, little teeny cup and a little teeny bit of liquid that sort of slowly dribbled in and out of it. But you know, so many people talk about the first man and as we've discussed the show before, there was some sensitivity around who was going to go out first. But I maintain they touched down at the same time.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

So they were the first two people on the moon. That's what matters.

[Tarik Malik]

There you go. So we had our first space station with Skylab. So that was great, but that wasn't a big first. Right. So we weren't really first for that because the Salyuts were already flying at that.

[Rod Pyle]

No, but it was when you look. I was looking at a chart the other day that compared the Salyuts and the Almazas to Skylab and they're tiny.

[Tarik Malik]

They're so small, they look like three

[Rod Pyle]

garbage cans stacked together. Then you get this 80 foot beast

[Tarik Malik]

called Skylab where you actually get. And you will never forget, you know, was it Pete Conrad running around the circle? Right. You know, those are like. Those are like iconic, iconic things that they. They love so much in reality that Kubrick put it in 2001, you know, so. So that's why you see that jogging scene, because.

[Rod Pyle]

And Skylab is still the largest single pressurized space ever put into orbit.

[Tarik Malik]

Well, I guess, until Starship.

[Jammer B]

Right.

[Rod Pyle]

Go America.

[Tarik Malik]

But, but so we, We've had a. I don't know. It's going to be big. It depends on how they configure it, if they. If they want to do that. So we had a lot of other firsts, you know, the first successful Mars landings with Viking. I don't know if we want to count Mars 2 or not.

[Rod Pyle]

And then let's talk about the Mars 2 and 3 things. That's fair game. So the Soviet Union was the first to reach Mars. They did put hardware on the Martian surface in a little crumpled smoking heap with Mars 2. Mars 3 landed successfully.

[Tarik Malik]

And it beeped for like 15 minutes in 1973.

[Rod Pyle]

3 was it?

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

What year did it land?

[Tarik Malik]

I don't remember.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, you have a computer right in front of you. Look it up. And it worked for exactly 10 seconds. Sent back a piece of an image that was mostly just static and striated lines. And it actually had a little cable attached. Mini rover, so gimpy thing that would kind of sort of. It was like a turtle.

[Tarik Malik]

1971.

[Rod Pyle]

71.

[Tarik Malik]

Thank you.

[Rod Pyle]

So it was an ambitious mission. Didn't work. And then 1976, Viking 1 and Viking 2. Massive spacecraft. Orbiters and landers. The orbiters were an evolution of Mariner. Yeah, Mariner 9, specifically. And then the landers were completely bespoke hardware. And as I've told the story on. On here many times, so I'll keep it short, I managed to get into the auditorium at Caltech to see that first the landing and the first picture coming back. So we waited out however many minutes it was 10 or 12 minutes until the signal came down from Mars saying landing successful. Then that first picture which came in vertical stripe after vertical stripe from left to right because the camera was a little can shaped affair with an open slit and a mirror that pivoted up and down. That's how they built the images out. Wasn't just a single photograph.

[Tarik Malik]

And that was like it is now.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah, that was amazing.

[Tarik Malik]

And you know, at the press corps, special moment. That's a special moment to be in like the little audience there as the first, like just, just seeing it from the Curiosity and Perseverance ones is always really exciting. Yeah. So it's a great opportunity.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, and it was the first, the first spacecraft successfully land and actually do anything on another planet. We had landed Surveyor on the moon by then. So it wasn't like we didn't know how to land things on other bodies. But Mars was a big deal. And it's still, you know, I was reading an essay about this the other day and I've said it many times. I think, you know, Mars has a sense of place that the moon doesn't, that orbit doesn't. There's a horizon, there's an atmosphere, thin

[Tarik Malik]

as wind, there's weather, winds, there's dust

[Rod Pyle]

storms, that kind of stuff. So while I wouldn't want to live there, it certainly does if you're going to send people there for a long period of time. It's got more of a sense of place than just about anywhere else we can actually go and stand. Except maybe Titan, but that's another episode.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, I want over to you. Well, you know, I, I think we should just accelerate like a bit more. There have been a lot of other. First, you know, since then we had the rovers with Pathfinder and Sojourner. You had the first bouncy house rovers on, on, on there. You had Voyager 1 and 2 become the first interplanet interstellar objects that we've sent out. You know, someone else is going to see that and be like, is that artificial or is that a natural phenomenon? You know, well, about that.

[Rod Pyle]

I mean, I mean, what if you're an alien entity? What do you see when you wrap your, your robotic claws around Voyager?

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, well, I mean it's, it's, it's a spacecraft. I don't think we have pictures of it, do we? The grand tour, you know, there's, yeah,

[Rod Pyle]

there's a, there's a media file.

[Tarik Malik]

Well, you'll, you'll, you'll see the spacecraft with the big boom and the big dish struggling, if you're Hoyzer1, to send little beeps and boops back. And of course the, the golden record where we, we very, very smartly put exactly a nice pulsar diagram of where we live in the, in the, in the universe so that people can come and find us free meat here.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, and we very thoughtfully included a phonograph cartridge with the record. Like that was going to make a difference to a civilization that has tentacles and looks like jellyfish that they're gonna figure out how to play that record.

[Tarik Malik]

But I'm sure they will. I'm sure they're, they'll figure it out. We had the first space tourists. But this was one I wanted to ask you about, right, because in 2001 when. Oh come on, Tarek, when the million Dennis Tito flew to the space station. So, but he was, he, you know, he, so we, we. That whole thing happened. Does it count as the first, you know, like American thing? If he's like a citizen but they've launches on a Russian Soyuz, does that count? All right, question.

[Rod Pyle]

I don't. That's a good question.

[Tarik Malik]

I'm gonna say no. I'm gonna say no because he flew to Mir, right? Yeah, he flew. No, well, he flew to the iss. It was, there was a, there was a British woman who flew as like a, like a passenger. She won a contest. Helen Chapman, I think, right. She flew, she flew to Mir. But, but Dennis Ito was the first spacers. But Space Adventures broke it brokered that. So that's a US Company Anyway, it's a, it's a bit of a weird kind of a place there. But what is unambiguous is that the first private spacewalk was entirely American made done. And that is much more recent. That is Jared Isaacman, now the administrator of NASA, a American billionaire. You know, the, the guy behind all of your Shift 4 payments at the supermarket or wherever the checkout stand. That's him. And he, he paid SpaceX, another American company to make all that stuff happen. And now I was gonna say let's

[Rod Pyle]

not discount Elon Musk out of the conversation. He's transformed.

[Tarik Malik]

Well, that's what I'm saying.

[Rod Pyle]

He's transformed.

[Tarik Malik]

Launch the. They've revolutionized both space tourism as well as access to space for all of that. That kind of gets us up to the present. We skipped a lot. I mean a lot, a lot. And so, and it's very, this is very spaceflight heavy, this entire discussion because Rod and I are spaceflight People, you know, and, you know, like the first reusable rocket. We didn't even talk about that. That was Blue Origin. And they beat SpaceX by like a month, right from when they announced their launch and landing. And then SpaceX finally was able to get the landing that they needed with the Falcon 9 in that December of 2010.

[Rod Pyle]

Wait, wait, wait, you're saying Blue Origin beat them with the announcement because they.

[Tarik Malik]

No, Blue Origin did a vertical launch, vertical landing test that was successful, but it was like a suborbital test and they managed to get it done before Elon was able to do in SpaceX,

[Rod Pyle]

which is fair because that company's two years older than SpaceX.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

So Jammer B ever sticking his thumb in our eye, says, iss, the operative initial there is the.

[Tarik Malik]

I, I guess it's true.

[Rod Pyle]

However, I would just like to point out that the United States paid for. Depending on whose books you look at and how they're calculated and how the numbers are parsed out, between 70 and 80% of that station was our money. And what the Russians contributed was aging, creaking hardware that is now cracking and leaking.

[Tarik Malik]

But it's a.

[Rod Pyle]

So let's not overdo it.

[Tarik Malik]

It's a good, it's a good point though. That's why, like, I was, I was really like on the fence about what, what to include on all of that. You know, the. We didn't even talk about the Space Shuttle, the first reusable spacecraft ever. Right. And. Which is a marvel. Well, no, the orbiter is reusable, but

[Rod Pyle]

even the orbiter, I mean, it needed months of repair and refurbishment between. You're right.

[Tarik Malik]

Not. You're right, I am not going to knock the Space shuttle. It was the first of its kind so tantalizing that the Russians copied it. You know, bolt for both. Exactly, exactly. And, and, and, and just, and I'm not sure if anyone listening has ever had the chance to watch one fly. But for, for me, I grew up with that like from like my little baby space reporter days. And I mean, like when I was a kid, I had little models that I would make over and over. And Rod has heard the story about how I wasn't allowed to use like model glue in my models. So I had like snap tight space shuttles and I had to use tape to hold some of my models together because I couldn't use glue. And then to actually.

[Rod Pyle]

Why couldn't you use glue?

[Tarik Malik]

My mom didn't trust me. I think she thought I was going to glue my hands together or something.

[Rod Pyle]

She probably thought you were going to sniff it. No, because you got great, great results when you sniffed airplane glue.

[Tarik Malik]

I was especially. Never. I would never.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, you couldn't help it.

[Tarik Malik]

The. The. That's actually pretty. That's a. She probably didn't want me to. To pass out while I'm making your

[Rod Pyle]

space adventures became much more colorful with a tube of glue. Not that we're recommending it.

[Tarik Malik]

From doing that to then, like, going down to Kennedy for work and like, watching as they moved Atlantis or Discovery from the hangar facility to the VAB and then out to the pad, that was like something else. And it is like, you know, a borderline, like, religious experience. If that's something that you've dreamt of forever of, I would love to go to space. But that was like, the next best thing to be able to do that.

[Rod Pyle]

So I think the thing about the shuttle is that when you first saw it, it's like, this can't work. Yeah, this should not work. The physics of this and the aerodynamics don't make a lot of sense to us.

[Tarik Malik]

So much bigger than you think it is.

[Rod Pyle]

It is so much bigger. So I saw the approach and landing tests up at Mojave, and then I saw the Endeavor being pulled through Los Angeles over the museum. So that was kind of my bookend of the project. I think I saw three shuttle launches. They were remarkable. I did not get to see SLS

[Tarik Malik]

Tarik, which, you know.

[Rod Pyle]

But, yeah, the thing about the shuttle, you know, when you go to one that's on its landing gear somewhere, which la's is not any longer, it's now vertical, which is another story. But when you go stand underneath one, you really get a sense of how big it is, right? You look at this vast expanse of these little delicate silica tiles that are just the. The thinnest crust of black heat rejecting material over this. This glass foam. And you think they actually flew this thing and landed it without any engines coming.

[Tarik Malik]

It's worth. If you're ever. If anyone's ever in there, it's worth going to see Enterprise because you can walk underneath it at the Enterprise, and it is. It is something else. But you bring up some really good points, too. Obviously, Artemis. Artemis 2 was a sight to behold. That first American return to the moon of the 21st century. Watching the SLS go up the Saturn 5, we did not talk about. Even though we talked about Skylab, right, that moon rocket, the biggest and most powerful of its time. And now we've got starship even bigger, even more powerful, maybe it will actually fulfill like its purpose of getting to the moon or not. We'll have to see because they just powered it up this week. They powered up the next. The starship number 13, you know, so we'll see how that goes. But we could go on and on about all this.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, let's not forget the irony of the space launch system, which is more powerful at launch than the Saturn 5, but doesn't have nearly the throw weight.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, yeah. Because it's trying to get. Trying to, trying to get bigger. I don't know.

[Rod Pyle]

It's upper stages. Wimpy.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, we'll have to see. We'll see how that goes. They've got a new plan. They got a new plan. Let's end. Because we've already gone way beyond let's end with like maybe like two or three of your favorite personal missions. We've talked about these big milestones. What if you have to pick three of their. Your favorite. It doesn't have to be because of like their historicness or not. What is. Well, journalist.

[Rod Pyle]

Historical value.

[Tarik Malik]

Historical value. I am notorious. People don't know, but Rod knows I am notorious for like spelling errors like that of all time. And I actually now I talk. Yeah. At work. They know that I will always have all these misspellings and I have to be watched for it. And I've been talking into my phone to send memos and they joke. They joke that the robot that does the auto transcribe is better at spelling than I am.

[Rod Pyle]

Some of your texts to me look like they're coming in. And Klingon, I guess. I mean, no surprise here. Apollo 11 was a huge moment. I was able to see it live. Viking 1 was a huge moment, as I've already discussed for the third one, I think, Pathfinder.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

Because that was really when JPL first upped their game online so we could follow the mission online, famously crash the servers and blah, blah, blah.

[Tarik Malik]

What date, what day the Pathfinder land on Mars, Rod?

[Rod Pyle]

Was it July 4th?

[Tarik Malik]

July 4th, 1997? Independence Day. Look at this. We're coming full.

[Rod Pyle]

But I think what was so cool for that was they created some good media around it. They hadn't done seven minutes of terror yet, which is I think NASA's best ever. But they'd created some very good media around it. There was a lot of video of friend of the show, Rob Manning with his crew of engineers and scientists designing this thing. And I remember watching. You've seen him. I'm sure his, you know, his beard is still black. His Hair is black. We all had black hair back then. He and I are the same age. But they were having so much fun. And we talked to him about Pathfinder on the show a couple of times. They were kind of flying under the radar. NASA had approved the money, they knew it was going on. But it was an inexpensive mission. I think 80 million all in which was nothing in those days. And you know, they're kind of being left alone until they're getting to the final strokes. And then it's like headquarters goes, hold on, we got to have a review here. So they go in for a technical review and there are a lot of raised eyebrows in that room primarily about the landing schema, which was the whole beach bouncing beach balls surrounding the, the rover thing. But it all worked. It worked brilliantly. It only worked for a matter of weeks once it was on the surface. But it was remarkable. Inexpensive, small, fairly low tech, demonstration mission. And to me that was remarkable. How about you?

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, well, yeah, I've got, I've got like a, like a list. I'm not going to do like the traditional ones like Apollo 11. You talked about those with. I think already, I would say that STS114 return to flight, that stands out. That's the first mission I ever covered myself and the first space shuttle I ever saw launch. That was really great. Another tie in STS121 the year later in 2006 because it launched on July 4th of that year. Right. And no, STS121 was on July 10th. Pardon me, 2010, 2010.

[Rod Pyle]

What we're looking at here is. Oh, that's the data today. Never mind.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, that. So, so STS121, it was in 2010 and it was, it was one that really struck and I think that might be the one that my mom got to see too because we were able to get her to go see one.

[Rod Pyle]

So yep, watch the video stream and

[Tarik Malik]

there it is with the American flag right there. They got a lot of pictures with that. Deep impact crashed into comfort temple one on, on July 4th in, in like the 29, 2000 whatever it was. So, so that was really exciting. It says the date right there to whatever, whatever date that was fourth of July and, and, and Artemis too I think is really great. But the, the one that really knocked my socks off has to be curiosity and the lending because the way that they designed that 2 ton or whatever it is car sized rover to land on, on Mars the first time, you know, yet a third way to land on Mars. You've got powered, powered Engines with the Viking landers. Yeah, you had, you had, you had the, the, the inflatable bags with Pathfinder, with the Spirit, with Opportunity. And then it's like you're gonna drop something with a rocket powered sky crane and lower it down and let it, you let it do it that way. That was crazy. And it worked flawlessly. And then twice. Yeah. And so perseverance. I'll lump them in together. But that was the mission where, I mean, I'm all alone in the newsroom because it was like overnight that it had happened and you know, Mike Wall and you are probably a JPL doing those things and it lands and you publish everything and it's the crack of whatever dawn and you're like, I can breathe now. And we'll prepare for the next day, what comes next. And then within the first like five minutes, the photos just start rolling in. No waiting for, for printouts, no waiting for colors or whatever. It's just, here's another planet, we're there now. And that was absolutely spectacular. It was cathartic from a professional sense to have done that whole thing and seen it go through, but then just watching the achievement that they were able to do and then repeat it with perseverance is just crazy. So, and so if they can get this promise version onto the moon and we see it from the South Pole, maybe it doesn't. You don't have a sky crane because you don't need that. You know, you're not going to be

[Rod Pyle]

using parachutes, that's for sure.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, yeah. So, but, but having that. Because the other, the biggest rover ever sent that didn't. That wasn't driven by astronauts, was what, Lunok 2. Right. Still up there.

[Rod Pyle]

Heavier than Curiosity.

[Tarik Malik]

I'm not sure if it was or not. You know, I know that. Doesn't Richard Gary own it? Doesn't have a deed. Bought. He bought the rights to it.

[Rod Pyle]

Yeah. That's bizarre. But at times what he bought was rights to radioactive waste on the moon because that thing had polonium heaters in it.

[Tarik Malik]

A time is coming where people are going to be able to just like on their own, go to the museum and drive rovers on the moon, you know, drive rovers on Mars or whatever. As long as you got some time to kill because you got to wait for the signals to do whatever. And we have a story today on the site by Mike Wall about where we could be in 20, 20, 22, 76, something like that. 2176. Yeah. In the next 250 years. And I think that we'll be past Mars by that point. It won't be always 30, 30 years off at that point in time. And I think that we might be on other, like on Venus and Titan and maybe on, on our way out of this solar system, Rod, you know,

[Rod Pyle]

so curiosity was 130 pounds heavier than Ludicod 2.

[Tarik Malik]

There you go.

[Rod Pyle]

But I was. I'm amazed they were that close in mass because Lunokhod2 wasn't able to do very much. Well, that's so closing note. That is a testament to American engineering. And as I've mentioned before, back in the 60s when we were. The Russians at that point were just flinging probes throughout the near solar system, it seemed like every month. And they still had to use pressurized vessels because they were using vacuum tubes and very hot electronics. So they needed pressurized vessels to protect and cool them, and we did not. So that was one reason our probes are able to achieve more. But. But I will give a tip of the hat to the Soviet Union. Their exploration of Venus was amazing and brilliant. Worked really well. Well, you wasted another hour with us, particularly this week, just sort of expostulating, if that's a word, about our favorite missions. So thanks for bearing with us for episode 217 that we're calling America in Space.

[Tarik Malik]

Space. Space.

[Rod Pyle]

So, my friend, where's the best place to keep up with your retirement plans as a game master?

[Tarik Malik]

Well, you can find [e-mail], as always, on the socials, @tarikjmalik, on YouTube, @spacetronplace. I just got a space cat in my Fallout 76 game. His name is Mr. Pebbles and he is amazing.

[Rod Pyle]

Mr. Pebbles?

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah, he's the first.

[Rod Pyle]

You named him Mr. Pebbles?

[Tarik Malik]

No, his name is Mr. Pebbles. He's the first cat in space in the Fallout Universe, in all the games. Not like full set. The French cat. I think that was the first act.

[Rod Pyle]

If I had an animal in space and I was going to name it Mr. Pebbles, it'd probably be a goat for obvious reasons, or maybe a rabbit, but okay.

[Tarik Malik]

But, you know, this weekend you will find me, I think, like a lot of my fellow Americans out, hopefully watching some fireworks in the sweltering New Jersey heat. It was 104 degrees in my car yesterday, which is crazy for New Jersey. And we're just hoping that there's not going to be rain because there's supposed to be thunderstorms during, during the fireworks. So, you know, fingers crossed.

[Rod Pyle]

If you saw a lightning storm during fireworks, that would be awesome. Get them at the same Time. And of course you can find me at pilebooks.com [e-mail] and for the 4th of July, you will find me huddled in a corner with my poor old diver door curled up in my lap, shaking as the idiots nearby drop M80s and other loud fireworks in the very wide concrete drainage channel we have behind our home, which of course amplifies nechos of sounds horribly. The only worst place is going to my boat with him, which has fireworks off the fantail, the Queen Mary. So I guess we'll just stay home and try and survive it here. And yes, we've tried the thunder wrap and the hemp chews and everything else.

[Tarik Malik]

Are there like earplugs? You can put ear muffs.

[Rod Pyle]

Well, they have a thing that wraps tight around their head, holds their ears down, is supposed to help, but he just, he's not with it. What he needs is to be all 70 pounds of them curled up in your lap, shivering.

[Tarik Malik]

Go out to the desert, okay? Take that dog and give him some peace and quiet.

[Rod Pyle]

That's a good idea. Yeah. Remember, despite that, another good idea is to drop us a line at Twist tv. We welcome your comments, suggestions, ideas and jokes, and we answer each and every email unless they get lost or something. New episodes. This podcast publish every Friday in your favorite podcaster. So make sure to subscribe to tell your friends and give us reviews and join Club Twit. I have not talked about it for weeks, but if you like this show, or maybe you like another show and you just listen to this one with your teeth gritted, whatever the case may be, join Club Twit because it's good for the network, it's good for us, it's good for your soul, and it keeps independent journalism alive. And God knows we need more of that.

[Tarik Malik]

And you'll get to join us in Discord and talk to us while we record the show.

[Rod Pyle]

That's true. That's right. And eventually we're going to do like special things for Club Twit because we keep threatening to do that. And you can follow the Twitt tech podcast network at Twit on Twitter and on Facebook and Twitter TV on Instagram. It's been a hoot, my friend. Thank you, Tarek. Thank you, Anthony, for pinch hitting today

[Tarik Malik]

and for like suffering through. I mean, it is like almost 3:30

[Rod Pyle]

now, so only in your time zone.

[Tarik Malik]

Yeah.

[Rod Pyle]

And thanks to everybody listening on Discord and YouTube and the other channels that, that we're on. We love and appreciate you all. Happy fourth of July. We'll see you on the far side.

[Sponsor Voice]

Have no fear. Chosen Foods is here to defend your favorite foods from the forces of seedy oils and sketchy ingredients with cooking oils, salad dressings and mayo, all powered by the good fats from 100% pure avocado oil and simple, delicious ingredients. Chosen Foods the most memorable gifts aren't found, they're made. Zazzle is a custom marketplace where you pick any product, a mug, a card, a tote, a phone case and make it personal. A photo, a name, an inside joke. The kind of gift that actually fits the person. That's what 30 million customers have been coming back to Zazzle for over 20 years to find right now. Save 25% on your first [e-mail] that's zazzle.com make it zamazing a burst pipe?

[Rod Pyle]

A dead water heater? The AC calling it quits? Who do you call? HomeServe is an easy way to handle unexpected home repairs with plans covering stuff

[Tarik Malik]

basic homeowners insurance usually won't.

[Rod Pyle]

Instead of scrambling for a contractor, you make one call to get the repair process started. Join the millions of customers who trust HomeServe right now. Go to HomeServe.com podcast for 50% less your first year. That's HomeServe.com podcast.

[Tarik Malik]

Savings compared to Renewal Price void in Florida.