WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.080 --> 00:00:03.000 How'd you like to listen to dot net rocks with 2 00:00:03.080 --> 00:00:04.799 no ads? Easy? 3 00:00:05.360 --> 00:00:08.560 Become a patron For just five dollars a month you 4 00:00:08.599 --> 00:00:11.320 get access to a private RSS feed where all the 5 00:00:11.359 --> 00:00:14.599 shows have no ads. Twenty dollars a month will get 6 00:00:14.599 --> 00:00:18.440 you that and a special dot NetRocks patron mug. Sign 7 00:00:18.519 --> 00:00:35.159 up now at Patreon dot dot NetRocks dot com. Hey 8 00:00:35.359 --> 00:00:38.799 guess what, geeks, it's the new dot net Rocks space 9 00:00:38.920 --> 00:00:40.560 geek Out for twenty twenty five. 10 00:00:40.600 --> 00:00:43.240 I'm Carl Franklin and I'm Richard Campbell. How many of 11 00:00:43.240 --> 00:00:45.960 these have we done? Now? Like five or six? Man, 12 00:00:46.039 --> 00:00:50.280 it's five or six? Yeah, of the annuals, it's more 13 00:00:50.320 --> 00:00:52.240 than that, I think. No, well, it's over one hundred 14 00:00:52.280 --> 00:00:54.840 geek outs to be clear. But these sort of annual summaries, 15 00:00:54.880 --> 00:00:57.039 it's been a bunch. I don't know. 16 00:00:57.200 --> 00:01:02.159 However, this is show nineteen hundred in eighty two, and 17 00:01:02.280 --> 00:01:04.439 before we talk about what happened in nineteen eighty two, 18 00:01:04.599 --> 00:01:08.760 we need to mention that our editor, Brandon When was 19 00:01:08.799 --> 00:01:12.359 born in nineteen eighty two. That's clearly the most important 20 00:01:12.359 --> 00:01:15.879 thing that happened, absolutely the most important thing. But some 21 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:21.079 other things where the Falklands war between Argentina and the UK, 22 00:01:22.680 --> 00:01:23.719 the release. 23 00:01:23.400 --> 00:01:29.280 Of et that Space That Space, Yeah, yeah, sorta spacey. 24 00:01:29.879 --> 00:01:33.120 The tragic crash of Air Florida Flight ninety into the 25 00:01:33.120 --> 00:01:37.719 Potomac River which killed seventy eight people thriller by Michael Jackson. 26 00:01:37.760 --> 00:01:44.079 That album was released, So G I. Joe was relaunched. 27 00:01:44.120 --> 00:01:47.480 I know that you're so interested in that. Anne Rand 28 00:01:48.200 --> 00:01:54.000 passed away. On March six, the Commodore sixty four was launched. 29 00:01:54.120 --> 00:01:56.200 I'm sure you're going to talk about that, so I'm 30 00:01:56.239 --> 00:01:59.079 passing it over to you a little bit for tech 31 00:01:59.280 --> 00:02:02.599 and computing, okay, Yeah, So of course the commerce sixty 32 00:02:02.640 --> 00:02:07.200 four was released. It was five ninety five wow, which 33 00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:09.919 they kind of undercut the whole market when they did that. 34 00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:11.919 And they way they did that is that they owned 35 00:02:11.960 --> 00:02:14.240 they had vertical integration, They owned the supply line, including 36 00:02:14.280 --> 00:02:18.719 the processor moss, which is a very end of the 37 00:02:18.719 --> 00:02:21.439 sixty five or two called the sixty five ten, and 38 00:02:21.479 --> 00:02:23.319 so they were just able to apparently the component price 39 00:02:23.400 --> 00:02:25.719 was down like an one hundred and fifty dollars range, 40 00:02:26.199 --> 00:02:27.159 so it's just we were able to. 41 00:02:27.240 --> 00:02:29.319 That's why that machine did so well. I mean, sixty 42 00:02:29.360 --> 00:02:33.199 four K just a really unbelievably good price. 43 00:02:33.400 --> 00:02:35.840 Well I never had a Commodore sixty four, but what 44 00:02:35.879 --> 00:02:39.159 I remember about it was it booted up into basic YEP, 45 00:02:39.199 --> 00:02:42.479 and you had to run like all the operating system 46 00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:45.599 things by writing a little basic program. 47 00:02:45.879 --> 00:02:49.360 Doing they were combs. Yeah, yeah, there were commands. That's right. 48 00:02:49.599 --> 00:02:53.319 It was my after school job was preparing sixty fours wow, 49 00:02:53.400 --> 00:02:56.319 and repairing sixty four fifteen forty one's like, they repaired 50 00:02:56.360 --> 00:02:59.599 the drives they had flaws in them. They sold the 51 00:02:59.639 --> 00:03:01.560 funny They're not exactly sure how many they sold, somewhere 52 00:03:01.560 --> 00:03:04.280 between twelve and seventeen million units over twelve years before 53 00:03:04.280 --> 00:03:09.080 the discise. That's just unbelievable. It's incredible, incredible success, just huge. 54 00:03:09.560 --> 00:03:12.240 Nineteen eighty two is also the year that the Time magazine. 55 00:03:12.240 --> 00:03:14.240 Remember Time magazine, I do. They used to do a 56 00:03:14.280 --> 00:03:16.240 Man of the Year, and in nineteen eighty two, the 57 00:03:16.240 --> 00:03:18.599 Man of the Year was the personal computer. Yeah, they 58 00:03:18.639 --> 00:03:21.319 still do that because the person of the year person. Yeah, 59 00:03:21.439 --> 00:03:24.680 you know, that was the idea. This is also the 60 00:03:24.800 --> 00:03:27.800 year the following companies are founded. I just went with 61 00:03:27.840 --> 00:03:35.080 the ones you would know immediately, like some microsystems, Yeah, Compact, Adobe, Autodesk, 62 00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:46.240 geez Electronic Arts, Yeah, LucasArts, Lotus micropros semantic like clearly 63 00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:50.800 the explosion, right, the expansion of all this. This is 64 00:03:50.840 --> 00:03:55.000 the year that Microsoft releases their competitor, VisiCalc called multi 65 00:03:55.120 --> 00:03:57.840 Plan for the Apple two and for CPM machines, which 66 00:03:57.840 --> 00:04:01.120 would later become Excel and I mean might be a 67 00:04:01.120 --> 00:04:06.000 separate product. Multiplan was built in this cross compiling way. 68 00:04:06.080 --> 00:04:08.919 This was Charles Simons's great vision, so they could compile 69 00:04:08.960 --> 00:04:11.919 the multiple platforms, which meant it ran equally slow on 70 00:04:11.960 --> 00:04:15.919 all of them. Yeah, that's right, And that's why you know, 71 00:04:16.079 --> 00:04:18.439 next year nineteen eighty three, when I Lotus one two 72 00:04:18.439 --> 00:04:21.040 three comes out, we'll just clobber the market because it 73 00:04:21.040 --> 00:04:23.560 was built for the IBM PC of fast, fast, fast fast, right. 74 00:04:23.639 --> 00:04:26.040 But A two is also the relatively the year they 75 00:04:26.040 --> 00:04:30.000 rebrand PC dos to MS dos because you're trying to 76 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:32.480 focus on Microsoft. Is the year that word Perfect comes 77 00:04:32.480 --> 00:04:33.920 out version one of word Perfect. 78 00:04:33.920 --> 00:04:36.519 What I remember about word Perfect is it wasn't really perfect. 79 00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:38.759 Yeah, no, nothing nothing ever was it was? 80 00:04:38.839 --> 00:04:42.600 It was it was user interface challenged, that's what I remember. 81 00:04:42.680 --> 00:04:44.319 It was all you had to learn the shortcut case. 82 00:04:44.319 --> 00:04:47.959 That's what it was. All about was the short those 83 00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:53.360 terrible for us? Also the year the aerial font is created. 84 00:04:53.759 --> 00:05:00.000 Wow was that Adobe No indefinitely And the first evidence 85 00:05:00.079 --> 00:05:03.240 of a computer virus called the elk Cloner, written by 86 00:05:03.279 --> 00:05:07.360 a fifteen year old named rich Strinta, and it propagated 87 00:05:07.480 --> 00:05:11.920 via Apple I floppy disc. Wow. Nobody knew that it 88 00:05:11.959 --> 00:05:15.000 was at that time right beyond comprehension. But it wasn't 89 00:05:15.040 --> 00:05:17.439 really uh, it didn't really do anything bad. It was 90 00:05:17.480 --> 00:05:20.439 just a propagator. Yeah, just a propagator. Yeah, just a propagator, 91 00:05:20.519 --> 00:05:22.759 as they often were back right. This is the year 92 00:05:22.800 --> 00:05:26.480 the movie tron came out with all of its CGI 93 00:05:26.720 --> 00:05:31.079 graphics and you know stories of hackers and oh my user. Yeah. 94 00:05:31.120 --> 00:05:33.680 I mean to this day I often still say greetings 95 00:05:33.680 --> 00:05:37.879 programs directly from that movie. And I'll end with a 96 00:05:37.959 --> 00:05:44.240 science thing, which is Richard Feiman describes quantum computing in 97 00:05:44.360 --> 00:05:48.399 nineteen eighty two. Man, he was awesome. He still is amazing. Guy. Yeah. 98 00:05:48.439 --> 00:05:51.639 On the space side, this is Space Shuttle Columbia's third 99 00:05:51.680 --> 00:05:53.959 and fourth flight. The third flight is in March. It's 100 00:05:53.959 --> 00:05:56.600 the first time they fly with an unpainted tank, saving 101 00:05:57.120 --> 00:05:59.959 several hundred pounds of weight because the spacecraft is wild 102 00:06:00.199 --> 00:06:02.000 overweight and will not be able to do the missions 103 00:06:02.160 --> 00:06:04.439 that it was designed to do. They'll never be able 104 00:06:04.439 --> 00:06:06.480 to do a polar orbit with any of them. Actually, 105 00:06:06.600 --> 00:06:08.920 and this was the heaviest one by far. 106 00:06:08.959 --> 00:06:12.360 How much weight did they shave off by not painting? 107 00:06:12.519 --> 00:06:16.800 It's a thousand pounds. The tank's really ridiculous. Yeah, wow, 108 00:06:16.920 --> 00:06:18.920 I don't where the And they'll re engineer the tank 109 00:06:18.959 --> 00:06:21.439 to meet it even lighter. Like they were always trying 110 00:06:21.439 --> 00:06:26.120 to shed weight. The spacecraft was always too heavy and 111 00:06:26.399 --> 00:06:28.879 limited a lot of its capabilities. It was the only 112 00:06:28.879 --> 00:06:30.879 time they ever landed at the White Sands Air Force 113 00:06:30.879 --> 00:06:32.600 Base because they were supposed to land at Edwards but 114 00:06:32.639 --> 00:06:35.519 it was flooded and that's bad, so they wand over there, 115 00:06:35.720 --> 00:06:38.639 and that meant that they had to send over all 116 00:06:38.680 --> 00:06:41.279 of the equipment to pick the shuttle up and put 117 00:06:41.319 --> 00:06:43.279 it on the seven forty seven to fly it back 118 00:06:43.319 --> 00:06:45.959 to Kennedy. Wow. So they would quickly realize this was 119 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:49.199 a really expensive and difficult proposition. You should always landed Kennedy. 120 00:06:49.360 --> 00:06:52.000 But on the fourth flight same year, in June, so 121 00:06:52.199 --> 00:06:54.480 only a few months later, this is the final of 122 00:06:54.519 --> 00:06:57.920 the test flights. They would landed Edwards Air Force Base. 123 00:06:57.959 --> 00:07:00.759 So they did on total calumbated four test flights with 124 00:07:00.959 --> 00:07:06.199 just two astronauts in pressure suits with ejection seats to 125 00:07:06.279 --> 00:07:08.759 validate the vehicle, and that finishes in nineteen eighty two. 126 00:07:09.079 --> 00:07:13.160 That last flight at Edwards, Ronald Reagan and Nancy are there. 127 00:07:13.240 --> 00:07:15.439 They meet the astronauts, they make a big speech and 128 00:07:15.480 --> 00:07:18.959 while at the end of the speech, the Space Shuttle 129 00:07:19.079 --> 00:07:22.360 Challenger flies by overhead on the seven forty seven on 130 00:07:22.399 --> 00:07:25.399 its way to Kennedy. The next Shuttle has been built. 131 00:07:25.759 --> 00:07:29.040 Very cool. That wasn't timed or anything. Emily, Yeah, I 132 00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:31.120 know pretty sure. Maybe just a little bit a little 133 00:07:31.160 --> 00:07:35.240 bit of timing there. Over in the Soviet side, Vanera 134 00:07:35.360 --> 00:07:40.000 thirteen and fourteen, their Venus Explorers land. They launched in 135 00:07:40.040 --> 00:07:42.160 eighty one. They took about four months, so they land 136 00:07:42.399 --> 00:07:45.439 early nineteen eighty two. You've seen the photos from these. 137 00:07:45.480 --> 00:07:48.199 These are the famous panoramas with the little saw tooth 138 00:07:48.360 --> 00:07:53.720 edge of the landing ring. And Vanera thirteen survived one 139 00:07:53.800 --> 00:07:56.480 hundred and twenty seven minutes at four hundred and fifty 140 00:07:56.480 --> 00:07:59.160 seven degrees celsius. That's eight hundred and fifty five fahrenheit. 141 00:07:59.319 --> 00:08:03.040 That's crazy enough. To melt lead and eighty nine atmospheres 142 00:08:03.079 --> 00:08:07.040 of pressure. Venera fourteen. You know there's a Pepe's pizza oven. 143 00:08:07.319 --> 00:08:10.519 It's almost that hot, almost that hot. Yeah, I think 144 00:08:10.560 --> 00:08:13.160 it's like six hundred degrees six hundred and fifty degrees. 145 00:08:13.199 --> 00:08:16.680 That's a yeah, it's good, an unbelievable pizza. Yeah, but 146 00:08:16.759 --> 00:08:19.480 you know, you know you're in there for very long. No. 147 00:08:20.160 --> 00:08:23.560 Vanara fourteen landed a week later, did the same sort 148 00:08:23.600 --> 00:08:25.839 of panoramic picture. The funniest storia. This whole thing is 149 00:08:25.879 --> 00:08:28.800 one of their mission. One of their probes was to 150 00:08:28.879 --> 00:08:32.919 test soil compressibility on venus. But the arm is fixed 151 00:08:32.960 --> 00:08:34.360 in place. When it swings down, it has to hit 152 00:08:34.360 --> 00:08:36.080 a particular point, and it turned out to the point 153 00:08:36.080 --> 00:08:38.279 where it was going to swing down is exactly where 154 00:08:38.279 --> 00:08:41.159 one of the lens caps had popped off. So it 155 00:08:41.200 --> 00:08:50.320 measured the compressibility of the lens cap. Geez, unfortunate. Oops, Yeah, 156 00:08:50.360 --> 00:08:50.720 I don't know. 157 00:08:50.840 --> 00:08:54.879 Was that really critical science? The compressibility of soil on venus. 158 00:08:55.679 --> 00:08:57.639 We changed the way they could build a lander, right, 159 00:08:57.679 --> 00:09:00.759 They went with a maximum surface area lander. Dude, and 160 00:09:00.840 --> 00:09:03.440 everything can we do that makes sense? Legs? Can we 161 00:09:03.480 --> 00:09:05.360 can put more experiments down and stuff like that, not 162 00:09:05.440 --> 00:09:07.039 that they ever did, but that was that was the 163 00:09:07.080 --> 00:09:10.799 thanking last one, not least on the space side. Hallie's 164 00:09:10.840 --> 00:09:14.399 comment after seventy years comes back into view. Nineteen. 165 00:09:14.480 --> 00:09:17.879 I remember seeing it, yeah, yeah, right off in the distance, 166 00:09:18.080 --> 00:09:20.279 and I remember my father saying it's not going to 167 00:09:20.320 --> 00:09:22.279 be back for seventy years or whatever it was. 168 00:09:22.600 --> 00:09:25.240 Yeah, yeah, when, so when what would that be? Do 169 00:09:25.320 --> 00:09:27.679 the math quite quick, it'll be twenty thirty two. We 170 00:09:27.799 --> 00:09:31.639 might see it, man, maybe, Yeah, that's only what's seven 171 00:09:31.679 --> 00:09:34.159 more years from now? Yeah, Wow, we'll be getting old. 172 00:09:34.200 --> 00:09:36.799 That's crazy to think. Yep, to think that's only we're 173 00:09:36.840 --> 00:09:40.399 old people. So we're getting old. All right, there's your 174 00:09:40.440 --> 00:09:42.679 history bit. Okay, you're right, I better know. 175 00:09:42.960 --> 00:09:45.799 Yeah, I do have a better no framework, play the 176 00:09:45.799 --> 00:09:46.440 crazy music? 177 00:09:54.039 --> 00:09:54.919 All right? What do you got? 178 00:09:55.039 --> 00:09:58.080 So I'm looking on a GitHub for ISS trackers. Oh yeah, 179 00:09:58.120 --> 00:10:01.559 it turns out there are twenty eight look repositories matching. 180 00:10:01.720 --> 00:10:04.879 Cool that people's doing experiments to write software to figure 181 00:10:04.919 --> 00:10:05.759 where the ISS is. 182 00:10:05.919 --> 00:10:12.559 Yeah, that's right, and their Python, JavaScript, HTML, Typescript C 183 00:10:12.679 --> 00:10:15.679 plus plus one and C plus plus one in dart 184 00:10:15.720 --> 00:10:20.080 one in Jupiter notebook. Most of them are Python. Yeah, 185 00:10:20.120 --> 00:10:21.360 seventeen of them. 186 00:10:21.080 --> 00:10:23.480 Three of them JavaScript. It's cool, but there you go. 187 00:10:23.600 --> 00:10:25.000 It's awesome. That's what I got. Okay. 188 00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:27.519 I haven't checked them out, of course, because I write 189 00:10:27.519 --> 00:10:28.279 and see sharp. 190 00:10:28.159 --> 00:10:29.519 Well, and you can just go to a website if 191 00:10:29.519 --> 00:10:31.519 you want to know where the iss is right. True. 192 00:10:31.639 --> 00:10:34.240 And there are apps too, specialized apps for the phones 193 00:10:34.279 --> 00:10:36.559 that you can sure access as far as you want. 194 00:10:36.600 --> 00:10:38.559 So you got somebody talking to us today, Richard. 195 00:10:38.759 --> 00:10:41.080 Yeah, I grabbed a comment off the last Space geekoutse 196 00:10:41.159 --> 00:10:44.679 that was nineteen thirty round dust time last year. And 197 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:46.720 well this comment is much more recent. It's just from 198 00:10:46.720 --> 00:10:49.720 a couple of months ago. This is from Tom. I said, hey, 199 00:10:49.759 --> 00:10:53.639 this October, the internet is full of Alien Invader three. 200 00:10:53.759 --> 00:10:56.840 I at lists, but the World News channel so surprisingly 201 00:10:56.879 --> 00:10:58.440 devoid of anything about it. I would love to hear 202 00:10:58.559 --> 00:11:01.840 Richard's opinion as an all around respected sensible guy. 203 00:11:02.399 --> 00:11:05.559 Well, wait a minute, it's December nineteenth, which is the 204 00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:08.399 day that it's going to be supposedly invading the earth. 205 00:11:08.759 --> 00:11:10.360 This is the closest approach day. 206 00:11:10.720 --> 00:11:12.440 Let me just open the window and see if I 207 00:11:12.440 --> 00:11:16.200 can see it, see if we're being inundated with aliens here. Yeah, 208 00:11:16.399 --> 00:11:18.960 pretty I got the news on I don't see anything. 209 00:11:19.039 --> 00:11:22.200 Pretty sure, you'll be fine, Yeah, you'll be all right. Yeah. 210 00:11:22.279 --> 00:11:24.919 So it's called three I ATLAS because it's the third 211 00:11:25.039 --> 00:11:31.159 interstellar object detected. The previous two were Amuamua and Borisov. 212 00:11:31.279 --> 00:11:33.840 And the second name, ATLAS is actually the name of 213 00:11:33.879 --> 00:11:36.720 the detector, which was the Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert 214 00:11:36.759 --> 00:11:39.480 System or ATLAS. This is based out of Chili and 215 00:11:39.559 --> 00:11:43.399 its job is to find objects that might collide with 216 00:11:43.519 --> 00:11:46.440 the Earth. And this is not a very big object, 217 00:11:46.600 --> 00:11:49.759 maybe about a half kilometer across, but it is booking. 218 00:11:50.399 --> 00:11:54.240 It is because it's not not a Solar System object. 219 00:11:54.240 --> 00:11:57.080 It's an interstellar object. When it was detected, it was 220 00:11:57.120 --> 00:12:01.279 moving at fifty eight kilometers per second, right, is really fast, 221 00:12:01.279 --> 00:12:03.440 and of course the Sun's pulling it in, so it 222 00:12:03.600 --> 00:12:05.720 accelerated it. When it made its closest plasts on the 223 00:12:05.759 --> 00:12:09.320 Sun in October, it was going sixty eight kilometers per second, 224 00:12:09.399 --> 00:12:11.720 so we would not have a lot of time to 225 00:12:11.799 --> 00:12:13.879 respond to this. This is kind of a worst case scenario, 226 00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:17.240 but the good news is it missed us. Obviously. 227 00:12:17.240 --> 00:12:19.039 The fly by is now is it something that we 228 00:12:19.039 --> 00:12:20.919 can see in the sky like a comet. 229 00:12:20.720 --> 00:12:23.480 Only if you have a telescope. It is a comet, 230 00:12:23.960 --> 00:12:26.159 no two ways about it. We know it's an interstellar 231 00:12:26.200 --> 00:12:29.200 comet because we've had a bunch of different spacecraft studying 232 00:12:29.200 --> 00:12:33.000 it now and observatories. Its composition is a little odd. 233 00:12:33.080 --> 00:12:35.240 It's a little different than stuff we are used to 234 00:12:35.320 --> 00:12:38.279 from our Solar system. It's full of carbon diox frozen 235 00:12:38.279 --> 00:12:41.200 carbon dioxid which means it was probably formed in an 236 00:12:41.360 --> 00:12:44.600 orked cloud around a different star somewhere. It's probably been 237 00:12:44.600 --> 00:12:46.399 out there for billions of years, so there's no way 238 00:12:46.440 --> 00:12:49.639 to know for sure. Certainly from our galaxy, it's not 239 00:12:49.679 --> 00:12:53.519 going that fast. But the reason for the alien thing, 240 00:12:54.519 --> 00:12:59.440 it's most likely a cosmologist, a fairly famous one, a 241 00:12:59.440 --> 00:13:01.799 guy named or his name is Abram, to call him 242 00:13:01.799 --> 00:13:06.639 Avi Lobe. He's a Harvard cosmologist, very well respected until 243 00:13:06.639 --> 00:13:08.279 the past few years, when he's just kind of kind 244 00:13:08.320 --> 00:13:11.080 of whacky on the whole aliens are coming thing. He 245 00:13:11.120 --> 00:13:13.960 said pretty much the same thing about a Muamuha, that 246 00:13:14.039 --> 00:13:16.519 this could be a spacecraft, although it wasn't. It was 247 00:13:16.559 --> 00:13:17.360 just an asteroid. 248 00:13:17.559 --> 00:13:20.759 It didn't help that social media was full of pictures 249 00:13:20.799 --> 00:13:23.639 that looked like it had lights and a bridge. 250 00:13:23.200 --> 00:13:26.200 And you know, yeah, none of this is true. Yeah, 251 00:13:26.240 --> 00:13:28.720 it's not true. We can barely image the thing for 252 00:13:28.799 --> 00:13:32.519 crying out loud like it's it's only barely visible. We've 253 00:13:32.759 --> 00:13:34.600 had a bunch of good sensors, because we have so 254 00:13:34.600 --> 00:13:36.440 many good sensors pointed out it, so we know how 255 00:13:36.519 --> 00:13:38.759 close a large tacoma is, that it has a tail, 256 00:13:39.039 --> 00:13:41.919 that it's acting just like every other comet acts, except 257 00:13:41.919 --> 00:13:45.759 that it's moving dramatically faster, so it'll be whizzing back 258 00:13:45.759 --> 00:13:48.519 out of our solar system fairly quickly. So Tom, I 259 00:13:48.519 --> 00:13:50.840 hope that answers your question, and thank you so much 260 00:13:50.879 --> 00:13:52.840 for your comment, and a coffee of music, Cobi. It's 261 00:13:52.879 --> 00:13:54.279 on its way to you, and if you'd like a 262 00:13:54.279 --> 00:13:56.120 cofee of Musicobe I read a comment on the website 263 00:13:56.159 --> 00:13:58.360 at dot at Rockstock Calm or on the facebooks. We 264 00:13:58.360 --> 00:13:59.879 publish every show there, and if you comment there and 265 00:14:00.120 --> 00:14:01.720 in the show, we'll send you a copy of music Go. 266 00:14:01.879 --> 00:14:04.159 Music to Code, by of Course, is a collection of 267 00:14:04.200 --> 00:14:07.360 twenty two soon to be twenty three, twenty five minute 268 00:14:07.360 --> 00:14:10.600 long tracks that are designed to keep you in a 269 00:14:10.600 --> 00:14:14.559 state of flow while you're writing code and they're still 270 00:14:14.600 --> 00:14:17.600 going strong. Like I said, I get several orders a 271 00:14:17.679 --> 00:14:21.720 day now still. So if you want to get it 272 00:14:21.720 --> 00:14:24.960 yourself without writing a comment on the website, you can 273 00:14:24.960 --> 00:14:28.240 go to Music Too Coode, buy dot net and purchase 274 00:14:28.320 --> 00:14:33.480 the collection an MP three, flack or wave formats. And 275 00:14:33.559 --> 00:14:37.480 with that, sir, I'm handing over the microphone to you, 276 00:14:38.240 --> 00:14:40.519 because the geek outs are all Richard. 277 00:14:41.120 --> 00:14:43.120 He does a lot. It's a lot of writing. For me. 278 00:14:43.440 --> 00:14:45.399 You do a lot of research and a lot of writing. 279 00:14:45.679 --> 00:14:48.480 And this is about space. So we're going to recap 280 00:14:48.519 --> 00:14:51.240 the year in space. 281 00:14:51.080 --> 00:14:53.519 All right, twenty twenty five, and of course we're recording 282 00:14:53.519 --> 00:14:54.879 this from the nineteenth. It is still gonna be a 283 00:14:54.879 --> 00:14:58.480 couple more launches because SpaceX you make me crazy. But 284 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:02.960 this particular moment, there were This is a record year again, 285 00:15:03.159 --> 00:15:06.039 three hundred and eighteen launches worldwide, of which three hundred 286 00:15:06.039 --> 00:15:09.679 and seven are successful with eleven failures. And that's all. 287 00:15:09.840 --> 00:15:13.320 That's the whole world organizations, not just SpaceX. 288 00:15:13.440 --> 00:15:17.240 Yeah. China, yeah, China, India, you know there, there was 289 00:15:17.320 --> 00:15:23.039 launches all over, although clearly SpaceX is dominant. Of those 290 00:15:23.080 --> 00:15:26.720 three hundred and eighteen launches worldwide, one hundred and sixty 291 00:15:26.759 --> 00:15:31.039 five of them so far are Falcon nines. They did 292 00:15:31.080 --> 00:15:32.879 new Falcon heavies this year. They're supposed to do two 293 00:15:32.879 --> 00:15:34.799 more before the end of the year. Like we have 294 00:15:34.840 --> 00:15:36.879 a week left and they're going to do they're going 295 00:15:36.919 --> 00:15:38.200 to hit one hundred and sixty seven. 296 00:15:38.519 --> 00:15:40.720 Are either of them going to be Falcon heavies. 297 00:15:41.000 --> 00:15:42.960 There's no Falcon heavies flew this year at all. They 298 00:15:43.159 --> 00:15:46.159 didn't need them. Yeah they were. The goal originally was 299 00:15:46.200 --> 00:15:47.759 one hundred and fifty. They bumped up to one hundred 300 00:15:47.759 --> 00:15:49.279 and eighty. Now it's going to be about hundred and 301 00:15:49.279 --> 00:15:51.559 sixty seven, which is still incredible. It is one hundred 302 00:15:51.559 --> 00:15:54.799 and twenty two starlink missions, so that's the vast majority 303 00:15:54.799 --> 00:15:59.960 of them. So forty three other kinds of missions, various payloads. 304 00:16:00.200 --> 00:16:03.399 Two boosters recovered, two of them were thrown away, one 305 00:16:03.480 --> 00:16:05.879 was lost in a drone ship failure. So the more 306 00:16:05.879 --> 00:16:09.080 starlink satellites there are, does your bandwidth speed go up 307 00:16:09.120 --> 00:16:11.559 because I know you have starling? Yeah, it's actually creeping 308 00:16:11.600 --> 00:16:13.919 back up again because the number of users has gone up. 309 00:16:13.919 --> 00:16:16.600 There are at eight million subscribers now. They doubled in 310 00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:18.639 just over a year. Last year we were talking about 311 00:16:18.639 --> 00:16:21.639 They got to four million in the summer of twenty 312 00:16:21.679 --> 00:16:24.399 four and by November twenty five they were at eight million. 313 00:16:24.559 --> 00:16:27.240 So that does impact. Although I mine, not that I 314 00:16:27.320 --> 00:16:29.879 use mine all that much because we're so far north, 315 00:16:29.919 --> 00:16:32.399 I really haven't had a lot of performance problems. Yeah, 316 00:16:32.600 --> 00:16:35.399 but in the busier areas obviously it matters. But yeah, 317 00:16:35.399 --> 00:16:37.960 the network continues to grow there. They've launched over ten 318 00:16:37.960 --> 00:16:40.159 thousand satellites. Now they've got more satellites than the rest 319 00:16:40.200 --> 00:16:43.200 of the world combined, like twice over. Wow, that all 320 00:16:43.240 --> 00:16:45.039 of those are operational. He was about somewhere in around 321 00:16:45.080 --> 00:16:49.559 seven thousand operational. To go this quickly, they have launched 322 00:16:49.559 --> 00:16:51.960 three or four times a week. They have shortened the 323 00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:54.799 turnaround of a pad down to fifty five hours, so 324 00:16:55.039 --> 00:16:57.519 two and a half days they can launch and then 325 00:16:57.600 --> 00:17:01.960 launch from that pad again. Wow, really efficient. The Falcon 326 00:17:02.039 --> 00:17:05.039 nine booster, which was originally planned to be ten reuses, 327 00:17:05.640 --> 00:17:08.440 they have continued to stretch that. They stretched that with starlink, 328 00:17:08.640 --> 00:17:11.279 so starlink being a maximum load, launch as heavy as 329 00:17:11.319 --> 00:17:13.839 and go about seventeen metric tons and still get the 330 00:17:13.839 --> 00:17:16.839 booster back. Their current record now is thirty two landings 331 00:17:16.880 --> 00:17:20.799 from one booster. Wow. Yeah, that's so cool and it's crazy. 332 00:17:21.160 --> 00:17:23.319 First, I remember the first time we watched that happen 333 00:17:23.359 --> 00:17:25.240 where it didn't crash. I think we were at a 334 00:17:25.279 --> 00:17:28.079 conference or something like that. Yeah, and we were watching it. 335 00:17:27.960 --> 00:17:29.960 And it's like, holy cow, they stuck the landing. 336 00:17:30.079 --> 00:17:33.359 And they stuck the landing. It was just like amazing. Yeah, 337 00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:36.160 it didn't look real. I mean it literally looked like 338 00:17:36.200 --> 00:17:37.319 a cartoon or something. 339 00:17:37.400 --> 00:17:40.720 Yeah. On the week of December fifth, there were five 340 00:17:40.799 --> 00:17:45.079 launches and five landings in the same week. Wow, over 341 00:17:45.119 --> 00:17:48.559 five days. Wow. It's just it's nuts. And look, this 342 00:17:48.599 --> 00:17:52.640 has not been a good year for Elon Musk personally. No, 343 00:17:53.200 --> 00:17:54.680 the things that he got up to this year is 344 00:17:54.720 --> 00:17:57.279 upset a lot of people, including me. Like the guy 345 00:17:57.279 --> 00:18:00.880 who flew his sports car into space That was pretty cool. 346 00:18:00.960 --> 00:18:04.880 I liked Elon. Yeah, tearing up the US government not cool. 347 00:18:05.960 --> 00:18:11.160 Arguably buying an election not cool. But the impact of 348 00:18:11.319 --> 00:18:14.119 SpaceX is hard to ignore. Rumor is that they're going 349 00:18:14.160 --> 00:18:17.519 to IPO next year, which is interesting, and I got 350 00:18:17.559 --> 00:18:20.319 some questions online for folcusing what you know, if they IPO, 351 00:18:20.400 --> 00:18:22.480 how is this going to change the company? I suspect 352 00:18:22.480 --> 00:18:24.160 it's going to be an IPO the same way that 353 00:18:24.680 --> 00:18:26.480 Facebook's a IPO, which is they're going to have a 354 00:18:26.559 --> 00:18:30.559 small amount of ownership available. So it's not really going 355 00:18:30.599 --> 00:18:32.559 to be a publicly owned company per se. They just 356 00:18:32.559 --> 00:18:34.720 want to raise some more money. I suspect Elon's going 357 00:18:34.759 --> 00:18:37.920 to maintain control of the company for better or worse. Yeah, 358 00:18:38.039 --> 00:18:40.039 I want to move on from Saceing as quickly as possible. 359 00:18:40.079 --> 00:18:44.319 But it can't not talk about Starship. They did six 360 00:18:44.440 --> 00:18:48.039 launches or five launches this year. It didn't necessarily go 361 00:18:48.200 --> 00:18:49.519 all that Well, mind. 362 00:18:49.359 --> 00:18:50.640 Us what starship is again? 363 00:18:51.319 --> 00:18:56.839 You know? So Starship is there the really really big rocket, 364 00:18:56.839 --> 00:18:58.960 biggest rocket ever built, Bigger even than. 365 00:18:58.960 --> 00:19:01.960 Saturn five, bigger than the Falk and heavy. 366 00:19:01.799 --> 00:19:04.160 Much bigger than you know. That's three and a half 367 00:19:04.839 --> 00:19:08.319 some meters in diameter. This is nine meters diameter. This 368 00:19:08.359 --> 00:19:12.799 is a massive sixty five meters tall. It's huge. And 369 00:19:12.839 --> 00:19:16.119 the goal is one hundred percent reuse. So not just 370 00:19:16.160 --> 00:19:18.799 the booster flying doing its two and a half minute flight, 371 00:19:18.839 --> 00:19:21.440 flying around and coming back, but also the upper stage 372 00:19:21.440 --> 00:19:24.000 going into orbit, doing its thing, and then re entering 373 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:29.480 and landing. And so we had test flights seven through 374 00:19:29.599 --> 00:19:33.519 eleven in twenty five. In twenty four where they were 375 00:19:33.559 --> 00:19:36.440 all the Block one the original test articles twenty five 376 00:19:36.480 --> 00:19:38.799 they were all Block two, so they only did five 377 00:19:38.880 --> 00:19:44.839 flights of Block twos. The first one in January. The 378 00:19:44.880 --> 00:19:49.160 booster landed successfully. And by the way, the starship Booster, 379 00:19:49.440 --> 00:19:52.279 as huge as it is, does not have landing legs. 380 00:19:52.880 --> 00:19:56.559 They catch it out of the sky wow, with a 381 00:19:56.559 --> 00:19:58.960 pair of arms they called chopsticks, so they don't have 382 00:19:59.000 --> 00:20:03.000 to carry the weight of the legs. Wow. That which 383 00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:07.440 is amazing. But the first block to spacecraft had problems 384 00:20:07.480 --> 00:20:09.920 and by the time it was near the top of 385 00:20:09.920 --> 00:20:13.440 its apogeea that never fully goes into orbit, there were 386 00:20:13.440 --> 00:20:16.480 propellant leaks and it blew to pieces of a rain 387 00:20:16.559 --> 00:20:20.839 to breed out across the Caribbean. Jeez. Not good. So 388 00:20:20.839 --> 00:20:23.839 then IFA eight was in March, just a couple months later, 389 00:20:24.200 --> 00:20:26.240 and it was almost identical of that. It did the 390 00:20:26.279 --> 00:20:30.160 same thing they did land the booster, but they starship 391 00:20:30.200 --> 00:20:33.599 itself broke up in orbit and fell like to Earth. 392 00:20:33.759 --> 00:20:37.720 So the day after my birthday, August twelfth, I was 393 00:20:37.759 --> 00:20:42.319 outside watching the lackluster Percy had met to your shower. 394 00:20:43.079 --> 00:20:45.160 It was about ten thirty pm. And I saw this 395 00:20:46.039 --> 00:20:49.799 very strange, blurry dog bone shaped light in the otherwise 396 00:20:49.839 --> 00:20:55.279 clear sky that seemed to be rotating, and I posted 397 00:20:55.319 --> 00:21:00.519 it on Facebook and somebody posted back, that's no moon. 398 00:21:02.440 --> 00:21:07.799 What it was was a solid rocket booster from a 399 00:21:07.839 --> 00:21:12.960 SpaceX launch that was in Florida that day, and I 400 00:21:13.000 --> 00:21:16.400 could or was it a booster or was it no? 401 00:21:17.119 --> 00:21:19.880 Well for STARTU, SpaceX doesn't use solid rocket boosters. 402 00:21:19.519 --> 00:21:23.319 So it was a rocket deorbit burn. Oh yeah, so 403 00:21:23.799 --> 00:21:26.519 it was the Arian six rocket getting set for a 404 00:21:26.559 --> 00:21:30.680 deorbit burn. But it was really cool and other people 405 00:21:30.720 --> 00:21:34.599 saw it too, and everybody's kind of freaking out on 406 00:21:34.640 --> 00:21:37.839 the social media's but it was just wild. 407 00:21:37.920 --> 00:21:39.960 Yeah. But de orb burn's good news. That means they're 408 00:21:40.079 --> 00:21:43.200 very specifically putting it down somewhere safe. Sure, right. The 409 00:21:43.640 --> 00:21:46.960 modern requirements now for an upper stage after a certain size, 410 00:21:47.039 --> 00:21:51.359 especially is that you save enough fuel after putting your 411 00:21:51.400 --> 00:21:53.680 payload into space to deorbit yourself. 412 00:21:53.759 --> 00:21:55.839 I mean, it's all good news, but the fact is 413 00:21:55.839 --> 00:21:58.240 is that a lot of people saw it and thought 414 00:21:58.240 --> 00:22:01.039 it was a UFO and didn't understand it right, So. 415 00:22:01.279 --> 00:22:03.599 It pays well, it was a flying object, it just 416 00:22:03.680 --> 00:22:04.960 wasn't actually unidentified. 417 00:22:05.119 --> 00:22:08.519 Well, it was unidentified to us, but not to everybody else, right, 418 00:22:08.599 --> 00:22:12.920 So it was fun and you know, it's that's why 419 00:22:12.960 --> 00:22:15.799 it pays to educate yourself about these things, so you're 420 00:22:15.839 --> 00:22:18.720 not making up stuff that you don't understand when you 421 00:22:18.720 --> 00:22:23.279 don't understand something, All right, slash soap box back to you, Richard. 422 00:22:23.440 --> 00:22:26.440 Yeah. So the rest of the Starship tests coming into 423 00:22:26.440 --> 00:22:29.279 the second half of the year got better, although there 424 00:22:29.319 --> 00:22:32.119 was an incident in the test flight ten. They had 425 00:22:32.160 --> 00:22:35.599 Ship ten and during its testing on the ground at 426 00:22:35.640 --> 00:22:39.839 the test stand, it exploded, which is not good, destroyed 427 00:22:39.839 --> 00:22:42.559 the stand in the process, right, and so delayed the 428 00:22:42.559 --> 00:22:45.640 flight for a month or so while they built another 429 00:22:46.279 --> 00:22:47.960 ship and had to test it in a different way. 430 00:22:48.480 --> 00:22:52.039 But the flight itself in August went fairly well. The 431 00:22:53.799 --> 00:22:56.240 booster was deliberately splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico. 432 00:22:56.640 --> 00:22:59.440 The ship actually got up to its peak orbit, desployed 433 00:22:59.440 --> 00:23:02.599 these Faate Starlink satellite so the little door opened on 434 00:23:02.599 --> 00:23:04.839 the side of the ship. They popped out these They 435 00:23:04.839 --> 00:23:06.519 were all going to re enter, but they just showed 436 00:23:06.519 --> 00:23:08.599 that they could displease them, and then it actually landed 437 00:23:08.640 --> 00:23:10.720 it on its intended target in the Indie ocean within 438 00:23:10.759 --> 00:23:13.079 a few meters enough that they were able to put 439 00:23:13.119 --> 00:23:16.119 a boy out there with a camera that was able 440 00:23:16.160 --> 00:23:20.079 to film this thing re entering, although the ship itself 441 00:23:20.119 --> 00:23:23.720 was fairly damaged by re entry, but it worked perfectly well. 442 00:23:23.920 --> 00:23:27.119 So cool. The very last launch in October of a 443 00:23:27.160 --> 00:23:29.279 Block two because now they're moving on to Block three, 444 00:23:29.799 --> 00:23:33.480 worked almost flawlessly when exactly we're supposed to deployed. It 445 00:23:33.559 --> 00:23:38.279 simulated satellites and then landed right on target with almost 446 00:23:38.319 --> 00:23:39.960 no damage on it at all. So they clearly off 447 00:23:39.960 --> 00:23:41.920 Block two wired in, so now time to move on 448 00:23:41.920 --> 00:23:43.640 to Block three. And that was also the last time 449 00:23:43.680 --> 00:23:46.440 they would do a flight off of Pad one. This 450 00:23:46.480 --> 00:23:49.599 is in Bokachika, Texas. This was the pad that on 451 00:23:49.640 --> 00:23:51.880 the very original flight they bore a hole into the 452 00:23:51.880 --> 00:23:55.039 ground because it took off so slowly. And then they 453 00:23:55.400 --> 00:23:58.920 upgraded and so forth. But the Block three version of 454 00:23:58.960 --> 00:24:03.960 Starship is dramatic bigger again, it's longer, taller, and they've 455 00:24:03.960 --> 00:24:07.079 been building a second pad Nick cleverly named get this 456 00:24:07.480 --> 00:24:12.279 Pad two. And this one has a flame diverter, so 457 00:24:12.319 --> 00:24:14.839 instead of being a set of legs with a water 458 00:24:14.920 --> 00:24:16.799 to spercial unit to control it, they've actually had a 459 00:24:16.799 --> 00:24:19.039 popper flame diverter. It also uses water as well, but 460 00:24:19.079 --> 00:24:22.799 it's a better design all around, much more complex landing. 461 00:24:22.920 --> 00:24:25.680 You know, Elon always had this idea that he didn't 462 00:24:25.720 --> 00:24:28.440 want to have big infrastructure on the ground because he 463 00:24:28.480 --> 00:24:29.839 wanted to be able to go to Mars and take 464 00:24:29.839 --> 00:24:31.920 off again and so forth and not need to build infrastructure. 465 00:24:31.920 --> 00:24:33.559 And it's just like it's not feasible you actually have 466 00:24:33.680 --> 00:24:38.160 this infrastructure. So at this particular point, they are in 467 00:24:38.200 --> 00:24:42.559 the development of Block three, including a new larger booster, 468 00:24:42.759 --> 00:24:45.920 although in November, the first of the Block three boosters, 469 00:24:45.960 --> 00:24:50.799 called Booster eighteen, during testing had some kind of explosion. 470 00:24:50.799 --> 00:24:53.119 It wasn't a duratic one. It was just burst and 471 00:24:53.319 --> 00:24:56.240 damaged the vehicle enough that it was scrapped. And so 472 00:24:56.279 --> 00:24:58.759 now they're getting another booster together for IFT twelve, which 473 00:24:58.799 --> 00:25:02.160 will be sometime early next year year, and they're going 474 00:25:02.200 --> 00:25:05.440 to do the current plan is IFT twelve and if 475 00:25:05.480 --> 00:25:09.319 T thirteen where the sort of finalizations of the design. 476 00:25:10.200 --> 00:25:13.319 They expect IFT thirteen to be the first full orbit 477 00:25:13.359 --> 00:25:15.480 of Starship, to put it properly to orbit, and then 478 00:25:15.519 --> 00:25:18.240 to deorbit it and catch it to show that they 479 00:25:18.240 --> 00:25:20.839 can do all those things, and all subsequent flights of 480 00:25:20.880 --> 00:25:25.200 Starship currently outlined are focused on making the Moonlander for 481 00:25:25.279 --> 00:25:28.039 the contract they've gotten with NASA. Tell me about that. 482 00:25:28.119 --> 00:25:31.000 Let's a push forward. This was a couple of years 483 00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:33.279 ago with the Artomis program so forth, and we're going 484 00:25:33.319 --> 00:25:34.680 to talk about Moon a little later on. It's not 485 00:25:34.720 --> 00:25:36.480 a lot happened Moon related stuff this year, just a 486 00:25:36.559 --> 00:25:41.519 few things. There was competition to develop a moon Lander 487 00:25:41.519 --> 00:25:43.640 for the Artemis missions, and the whole point was to 488 00:25:43.640 --> 00:25:46.839 make a reusable Moonlander, and the only company that offered 489 00:25:46.839 --> 00:25:51.519 a potential reusable lander is SpaceX And what is a 490 00:25:51.559 --> 00:25:53.759 modified version of Starship, which is kind of nutty because 491 00:25:53.759 --> 00:25:58.000 it's enormously tall, so you got to land at somewhere 492 00:25:58.119 --> 00:26:00.400 very level or have some very adjustable leg something we've 493 00:26:00.440 --> 00:26:03.039 seen any of these things. It's also huge, but it 494 00:26:03.079 --> 00:26:05.240 has a massive payload and it would be fully reusable, 495 00:26:05.279 --> 00:26:07.000 but you got to refuel it. Not that anybody's ever 496 00:26:07.039 --> 00:26:09.599 done that before, and how many refuelings is it going 497 00:26:09.640 --> 00:26:11.160 to take? But this is all stuff that needs to 498 00:26:11.200 --> 00:26:11.920 be developed. 499 00:26:12.640 --> 00:26:15.400 Also, if you think of the previous missions, the Apollo 500 00:26:15.440 --> 00:26:18.920 missions that went to the Moon, those capsules were fairly light, 501 00:26:19.200 --> 00:26:21.680 and they were small, and they yeah small, did require 502 00:26:21.680 --> 00:26:23.599 a lot of energy to get off the moon, but 503 00:26:24.039 --> 00:26:24.559 I mean. 504 00:26:24.519 --> 00:26:27.759 And even then the landing platform, the descent stage was 505 00:26:27.839 --> 00:26:30.400 left behind, the ascent stage was lifted off. And look, 506 00:26:30.400 --> 00:26:32.319 if you're going to build a base on the Moon 507 00:26:32.880 --> 00:26:35.240 that you're going to have multiple people going to, you 508 00:26:35.359 --> 00:26:38.640 can't keep leaving pieces of your land or behind each 509 00:26:38.680 --> 00:26:41.200 time you do it, right, yeah, right, Like, how are 510 00:26:41.200 --> 00:26:43.039 you supposed to keep using the pad if you keep 511 00:26:43.119 --> 00:26:46.079 leaving pieces on it? So you need a fully reusable 512 00:26:46.160 --> 00:26:49.000 lander and that's what SpaceX has proposed. They're behind schedule, 513 00:26:49.079 --> 00:26:52.279 but so is everything related to the Moon, right and 514 00:26:52.319 --> 00:26:55.279 they so now apparently they're we're going to see developments 515 00:26:55.319 --> 00:26:56.160 in twenty twenty six. 516 00:26:56.559 --> 00:26:59.079 So do you think they would just seems to me 517 00:26:59.160 --> 00:27:02.000 that they would take us smaller craft first to build 518 00:27:02.039 --> 00:27:04.640 the landing for the bigger craft. 519 00:27:04.759 --> 00:27:07.359 Doesn't look to make that. No, that's not what they're doing. 520 00:27:07.920 --> 00:27:09.599 The way they're solving the problem of not having a 521 00:27:09.680 --> 00:27:12.039 landing pad is by putting thrusters high up on the 522 00:27:12.119 --> 00:27:14.640 craft so that it doesn't dig a hole in the ground. 523 00:27:15.279 --> 00:27:16.720 But they do need to find a level spot to 524 00:27:16.799 --> 00:27:19.640 land there's lots that needs to be figured out on 525 00:27:19.720 --> 00:27:23.119 this and starting with or just as you said, adjustable fee, Yeah, 526 00:27:23.119 --> 00:27:25.960 I mean just the idea of a sustainable life support 527 00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:28.920 system right Like right now we have the space station 528 00:27:28.960 --> 00:27:32.119 which has a life support system that is constantly refueled 529 00:27:32.160 --> 00:27:34.200 every couple of months. We keep adding stuff to it. 530 00:27:34.200 --> 00:27:36.160 If you're gonna have a life support system that sits 531 00:27:36.200 --> 00:27:37.799 on the Moon for an nextated period of time, like 532 00:27:37.839 --> 00:27:40.400 we've never done that. We don't have good long term 533 00:27:40.440 --> 00:27:42.640 life support systems yet, right We've had we have them 534 00:27:42.680 --> 00:27:44.359 work for a couple of weeks at a time, that's 535 00:27:44.359 --> 00:27:46.920 what the old Apollo missions did, and we have the 536 00:27:47.000 --> 00:27:50.279 space Station one. But they build a long term, you know, 537 00:27:50.720 --> 00:27:52.960 self contained life support system we can last for months. 538 00:27:52.960 --> 00:27:55.240 That will be a breakthrough when that hasn't been achieved yet. 539 00:27:55.359 --> 00:27:58.079 Solar energy on the Moon is kind of moot because 540 00:27:58.200 --> 00:28:00.119 you're not in the sun all the time. 541 00:28:00.319 --> 00:28:03.279 Yeah, it's fourteen days of daylight fourteen days of darkness. 542 00:28:03.519 --> 00:28:07.240 Yeah, so you need battery backup or whatever you're going 543 00:28:07.319 --> 00:28:08.759 to do to store that energy. 544 00:28:08.920 --> 00:28:11.599 That's a big battery and it's awfully cold when you're 545 00:28:11.640 --> 00:28:15.680 not in the sun. Yeah, pretty much. There's two solutions 546 00:28:15.720 --> 00:28:19.039 to this, and we're jumping ahead again. Okay, sorry, going 547 00:28:19.079 --> 00:28:21.680 to the South pole where the sun's always shining because 548 00:28:21.680 --> 00:28:25.200 you're not because of the angles. It's one workaround or 549 00:28:25.319 --> 00:28:28.039 nuclear power, and there are solutions there too. But let's 550 00:28:28.039 --> 00:28:30.240 put SpaceX to bed for the most of the rest 551 00:28:30.279 --> 00:28:32.039 of this conversation because there's lots of other things to 552 00:28:32.079 --> 00:28:34.039 talk about. Talk about some of the other things out 553 00:28:34.039 --> 00:28:36.519 there now that this is necessarily all good news. So 554 00:28:36.640 --> 00:28:39.200 let's talk about United Launch Alliance. So these are the 555 00:28:39.240 --> 00:28:41.079 guys who used to operate the Shuttle. This is a 556 00:28:41.119 --> 00:28:44.640 combination of Boeing and Lockheed Martin working together. It's an 557 00:28:44.640 --> 00:28:48.319 independentity going. When we did this last year, we talked 558 00:28:48.319 --> 00:28:53.720 about how ULA had finally launched their Vulcan rocket twice actually, 559 00:28:54.160 --> 00:28:56.400 and they were projecting in twenty twenty five. According to 560 00:28:56.400 --> 00:28:59.000 the CEO, Tory Bruno, they're going to have twenty launches 561 00:28:59.039 --> 00:29:01.960 in twenty twenty five, ten of Atlas five, which is 562 00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:05.440 the old rocket, and ten of Vulcan, the new rocket. 563 00:29:05.880 --> 00:29:09.000 So what actually happened in twenty twenty five. There was 564 00:29:09.119 --> 00:29:14.079 one Vulcan launch. It was a military payload launch and 565 00:29:14.160 --> 00:29:17.759 it had problems itself, although it was successful. And the 566 00:29:17.880 --> 00:29:22.000 issue here is that Vulcan does use solid rocket boosters, 567 00:29:22.039 --> 00:29:24.160 and their second launch, one of the solid rocket boosters 568 00:29:24.319 --> 00:29:27.640 spit off its nozzle. The rocket was able to compensate 569 00:29:27.680 --> 00:29:30.279 and continue to its flight successfully. It was very close. Thing. 570 00:29:30.400 --> 00:29:33.519 Now you are saying Vulcan not Falcon, right with the Vulcan. 571 00:29:33.599 --> 00:29:36.400 Vulcan as in where Spock is from. That's right, that's 572 00:29:36.440 --> 00:29:40.000 what they call the Vulcan. Okay, And so yeah, they're 573 00:29:40.039 --> 00:29:42.160 having production problems with the Vulcan. They only flew once 574 00:29:42.160 --> 00:29:45.240 that everybody's very annoyed, especially the Air Force who supported 575 00:29:45.319 --> 00:29:47.119 Vulcan ahead of Falcon nine. 576 00:29:47.839 --> 00:29:52.759 And the rocket still doesn't work. Jul did fly five 577 00:29:53.039 --> 00:29:55.400 of the ten Atlas fives they promised. One was a 578 00:29:55.480 --> 00:29:59.279 Viasat satellite, which is a normal payload, and the other 579 00:29:59.400 --> 00:30:05.359 four were all Kuiper satellites. These are Jeff Bezos is 580 00:30:05.519 --> 00:30:10.039 alternative to Starlink. So, and if you're following along, Atlas 581 00:30:10.039 --> 00:30:13.720 five is the rocket that used engines actually from Russia 582 00:30:13.799 --> 00:30:17.319 or Ukraine, really the RD one eighty that are no 583 00:30:17.440 --> 00:30:19.759 longer available, and so there are only ten of these 584 00:30:19.839 --> 00:30:22.119 rockets left. There's supposed to only be five left, but 585 00:30:22.119 --> 00:30:25.279 now there's ten. Speaking of Kuiper, this is a subsidiary 586 00:30:25.279 --> 00:30:28.200 of Amazon. This is an alternative to Starlink. They started 587 00:30:28.240 --> 00:30:31.880 back in twenty nineteen. This year for some reason, because 588 00:30:31.880 --> 00:30:33.680 I like the name Kuyper, it's a good name. They 589 00:30:33.720 --> 00:30:37.960 renamed Amazon Leo okay, and that nice. So and again 590 00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:40.599 this is just a large network of satellites to provide 591 00:30:40.640 --> 00:30:43.960 Internet service. So the FCC authorized into fly three thousand, 592 00:30:44.000 --> 00:30:46.160 two hundred and thirty six satellites and they are allowed 593 00:30:46.200 --> 00:30:48.279 to begin service after they have five hundred and seventy 594 00:30:48.279 --> 00:30:50.839 eight satellites, of which, according to the terms of the FCC, 595 00:30:50.960 --> 00:30:53.240 they have to have half of that two hundred and 596 00:30:53.279 --> 00:30:56.680 eighty nine flown by July of twenty twenty six and 597 00:30:56.720 --> 00:30:58.480 the rest by July twenty twenty nine. 598 00:30:58.559 --> 00:31:02.519 Do you have any idea how many any Internet satellites 599 00:31:02.559 --> 00:31:05.359 there are in orbit right now? I mean, if you 600 00:31:05.400 --> 00:31:06.160 had to guess. 601 00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:10.519 Yeah, like you said, Starlink's around seven thousand, okay, right one, 602 00:31:10.559 --> 00:31:14.960 Web has twenty or thirty. This couple of Thermaia, there's 603 00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:18.160 there's a handful of others, but starlink is the dominant. 604 00:31:18.240 --> 00:31:21.519 Some eight thousand tops maybe it's they figured the seven 605 00:31:21.559 --> 00:31:22.359 thousand operational. 606 00:31:22.400 --> 00:31:25.279 Now they've flown ten thousand, but they're already rean to it. 607 00:31:25.319 --> 00:31:28.039 So I remember when Starlink first came out that a 608 00:31:28.119 --> 00:31:30.200 bunch of astronoment we talked about this on the last 609 00:31:30.319 --> 00:31:32.680 last year yep or the year before, maybe a bunch 610 00:31:32.720 --> 00:31:36.119 of astronomers were really up in arms because yeah, they 611 00:31:36.119 --> 00:31:38.160 were polluting the view. 612 00:31:38.359 --> 00:31:40.240 They're putting streaks in from Earth. 613 00:31:40.519 --> 00:31:44.799 Yeah, and if you couldn't do a long term exposure 614 00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:49.000 of a celestial body without getting streaks, so is that 615 00:31:49.319 --> 00:31:51.839 even you don't even more of a problem. 616 00:31:51.920 --> 00:31:53.759 But how come you don't hear about that anymore? Well, 617 00:31:53.799 --> 00:31:59.119 two things happened. The first is SpaceX worked pretty hard 618 00:31:59.240 --> 00:32:04.039 to make their spacecraft no longer reflective, so you don't 619 00:32:04.079 --> 00:32:07.799 have the light streak anymore, but it's still a blocking streak. 620 00:32:08.759 --> 00:32:12.119 But the reality is contemporary astronomy uses software anyway, and 621 00:32:12.160 --> 00:32:13.240 software can remove them. 622 00:32:13.319 --> 00:32:17.759 Okay, So now I have seen the Starlink sure satellites 623 00:32:18.480 --> 00:32:20.559 in the sky, and they are reflective. 624 00:32:20.759 --> 00:32:23.640 They are reflective when first deployed. Once they are actually 625 00:32:23.720 --> 00:32:25.440 in their orbits, they rotate so that they are no 626 00:32:25.480 --> 00:32:28.839 longer reflective. Oh, Okay, good on them, considering a seven 627 00:32:28.880 --> 00:32:31.359 thousand of them. If they were all reflective right now, 628 00:32:31.480 --> 00:32:33.160 you'd see them all the time. 629 00:32:33.160 --> 00:32:35.880 Yes, right, right, okay, Well that's good news. 630 00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:38.880 Yeah. So at this point with the launches, the four 631 00:32:38.960 --> 00:32:41.400 launches this year, Kuiper's up to one hundred and eighty 632 00:32:41.400 --> 00:32:43.839 satellites launch. They did four on Outlas fives, has done 633 00:32:43.880 --> 00:32:47.599 three on Falcon nines in twenty twenty six. They have 634 00:32:47.759 --> 00:32:51.119 a bunch more planned, four more Atlas fives, an Arian 635 00:32:51.359 --> 00:32:54.799 six and a Vulcan and a New Glen and we'll 636 00:32:54.799 --> 00:32:56.319 talk about New Glen in a minute, but the New 637 00:32:56.359 --> 00:32:58.759 Glens is the biggest rocket. So where the Atlas fives 638 00:32:58.759 --> 00:33:01.279 can only lift twenty seven of them, the Eugle Internet 639 00:33:01.359 --> 00:33:05.720 lift forty nine. So they're on track to meet their 640 00:33:05.799 --> 00:33:10.400 FCC goals and proposed that they'll have initial functionality by 641 00:33:10.440 --> 00:33:12.759 the edit twenty twenty six, so there will be a 642 00:33:12.759 --> 00:33:16.960 competitor to Starlink supposedly, okay, and a heck of a 643 00:33:16.960 --> 00:33:19.599 lot more satellites. Right We're going to fill up a 644 00:33:19.640 --> 00:33:21.400 lot of space with satellites. The good news is there's 645 00:33:21.400 --> 00:33:25.039 a lot of space up there, and the reality, of 646 00:33:25.039 --> 00:33:26.440 course is that This is always going to be an 647 00:33:26.440 --> 00:33:28.920 ongoing project. In order to keep latency low to make 648 00:33:28.960 --> 00:33:31.359 this a usable Internet service, you have to fly them 649 00:33:31.359 --> 00:33:34.279 low enough that they're constantly re entering. Typical lifespan for 650 00:33:34.279 --> 00:33:36.799 these satellites is going to be five years and then 651 00:33:36.799 --> 00:33:39.720 they're going to re enter. So you have to get 652 00:33:39.799 --> 00:33:42.519 up those three thousand satellites and then keep replacing with 653 00:33:42.559 --> 00:33:44.599 the rate that they're just that they re enter. Now 654 00:33:44.599 --> 00:33:46.880 when they re enter, do they just crash in the ocean. 655 00:33:46.880 --> 00:33:50.000 There's no recovery of these satellites, is there. They burn up? No, 656 00:33:50.079 --> 00:33:52.839 they burn up. These things are only a few hundred kilows. 657 00:33:52.839 --> 00:33:55.119 Nothing makes just the ground. Ah okay. The only time 658 00:33:55.119 --> 00:33:57.279 we run into issues with things reaching the ground is 659 00:33:57.279 --> 00:34:01.920 when they are in metric tons of as right, large 660 00:34:01.960 --> 00:34:03.920 second stages are the only things that reach the ground. 661 00:34:03.960 --> 00:34:05.319 So when they burn up, are they going to look 662 00:34:05.359 --> 00:34:05.920 like meteors? 663 00:34:06.039 --> 00:34:08.679 They do? They do? Yep, yeah, little meteor so you 664 00:34:08.719 --> 00:34:11.519 could see a starlink meteor shower. You might, but you know, 665 00:34:11.559 --> 00:34:13.280 you're only it's one or two at a time, and 666 00:34:13.320 --> 00:34:15.480 they're not very big, so they're not you know, typically, 667 00:34:15.679 --> 00:34:18.199 something that makes a nice street cross the sky is 668 00:34:18.199 --> 00:34:20.800 a couple of metric tons. Okay, yeah, and these are 669 00:34:20.880 --> 00:34:23.159 under a ton, so there they're not going to make 670 00:34:23.400 --> 00:34:26.239 much visible at all. Okay, all right, we'll talk about 671 00:34:26.280 --> 00:34:29.719 New Glen because this is the Blue Origin rocket that's 672 00:34:29.719 --> 00:34:33.000 been under development for decades. While SpaceX has been doing 673 00:34:33.039 --> 00:34:35.760 all the flying, there was this big rocket. Now, the 674 00:34:35.800 --> 00:34:37.599 design of New Glen was a good design in the 675 00:34:37.639 --> 00:34:40.599 sense that it's a big rocket. It's a seven meter rocket, 676 00:34:40.719 --> 00:34:43.000 so much larger than Fulcan nine, but not as big 677 00:34:43.000 --> 00:34:46.199 as Starship. And last year when we were doing this year, 678 00:34:46.239 --> 00:34:47.599 they were say they were going to fly in Deceeber 679 00:34:47.599 --> 00:34:49.960 twenty twenty four, which they did not. They flew in 680 00:34:50.039 --> 00:34:53.280 January of twenty twenty five. After over ten years of development. 681 00:34:53.800 --> 00:34:56.800 They only flew a prototype spacecraft, a carrier thing called 682 00:34:56.880 --> 00:35:01.119 Blue Ring, but it flew and it was gorgeous and 683 00:35:01.159 --> 00:35:04.039 again a massive rocket, like one of the largest rockets 684 00:35:04.039 --> 00:35:09.400 ever flown, big proper heavy left rocket. Later they later 685 00:35:09.480 --> 00:35:11.719 in the year, in November, they did their second flight, 686 00:35:11.920 --> 00:35:13.719 and this time they actually took a payload, a two 687 00:35:13.719 --> 00:35:16.480 space refoo to Mars called Escapade. We'll talk about that 688 00:35:16.519 --> 00:35:19.119 in the Mars section. There was also a vias that payload. 689 00:35:19.199 --> 00:35:23.800 But more importantly, on the very second flight of New Glen, ever, 690 00:35:24.559 --> 00:35:26.960 they landed a booster no kidding, They stuck it on 691 00:35:27.000 --> 00:35:29.840 the on the on the landing ship jackline about four 692 00:35:29.880 --> 00:35:30.920 hundred miles out to see. 693 00:35:31.039 --> 00:35:32.920 So did they do that of their own accord or 694 00:35:32.920 --> 00:35:35.760 did they get some help from SpaceX to figure that out? 695 00:35:35.800 --> 00:35:38.679 Oh no, those we're talking about Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. 696 00:35:38.719 --> 00:35:42.360 Those guys are not buddies. Okay, so nope, yeah, you 697 00:35:42.360 --> 00:35:43.199 wouldn't know that. 698 00:35:43.320 --> 00:35:46.039 I mean, yeah, yeah, they they they sends nights to 699 00:35:46.079 --> 00:35:47.400 each other on a regular basis. 700 00:35:47.400 --> 00:35:50.639 But yeah, uh no. You know, the thing about it 701 00:35:50.679 --> 00:35:52.159 being done before is you can do it again. It's 702 00:35:52.159 --> 00:35:54.159 a bit but New Glenn had a big advantage that 703 00:35:54.239 --> 00:35:58.960 Faulcon nine does not have, which is it New Glenn's engines, 704 00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:01.079 the b E four's and the size of the rocket 705 00:36:01.159 --> 00:36:04.519 meant that they can actually throttle to a hover. Now 706 00:36:04.519 --> 00:36:05.960 you don't want to hover for very long, but it 707 00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:09.400 means you have enough control over flight that you can 708 00:36:09.960 --> 00:36:11.960 literally get it to a hover beforetside the ship and 709 00:36:11.960 --> 00:36:13.280 then move it over and landed, which is how they 710 00:36:13.320 --> 00:36:16.599 did it. Falcon nine can't do that. What made Falcon 711 00:36:16.719 --> 00:36:20.039 nine so challenging the land is that at the lowest 712 00:36:20.039 --> 00:36:22.440 thrust of a single engine, when they're down to the 713 00:36:22.519 --> 00:36:25.639 landing weight, it's too much thrust. It'll go back up, 714 00:36:26.159 --> 00:36:30.000 and so they had to do a perfect slam landing 715 00:36:30.119 --> 00:36:32.719 oh right, or what they call a suicide bird. You 716 00:36:32.800 --> 00:36:36.760 have to continuously accelerate so that you got zero velocity 717 00:36:36.800 --> 00:36:41.639 the moment you touch the ground. It's incredibly hard to 718 00:36:41.639 --> 00:36:43.480 pull off, and it's why it took so many tries 719 00:36:44.039 --> 00:36:47.239 to get the calculation exactly right so that you are 720 00:36:47.280 --> 00:36:50.280 at zero velocity when you reach that drone ship. Math. 721 00:36:50.559 --> 00:36:54.159 That's the challenge with Falcon nine. Math is huge, huge math. 722 00:36:54.239 --> 00:36:57.519 I remember that thing's moving, yeah, and your weight is changing. 723 00:36:57.559 --> 00:36:59.559 You don't know how long your burns were, Like you're 724 00:36:59.639 --> 00:37:02.880 timing has to be continuously adjusted to be able to 725 00:37:02.880 --> 00:37:04.920 do exactly the right burn, to be able to stop 726 00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:07.280 at the exact moment when you're at the surface. And 727 00:37:07.519 --> 00:37:11.480 New Glenn didn't have to do that. But let's be clear, 728 00:37:12.119 --> 00:37:19.639 that's the second orbital class booster to actually be landed, right. 729 00:37:20.280 --> 00:37:23.199 The starship boosters have never Starship's never gone into orbit, 730 00:37:23.239 --> 00:37:26.039 so it technically doesn't qualify, although they did successfully catch 731 00:37:26.039 --> 00:37:28.599 the booster. More the ones and Refly one in fact, 732 00:37:28.679 --> 00:37:32.920 and the next flight expected in January twenty twenty six 733 00:37:33.039 --> 00:37:36.119 of New Glenn will be the reflight of that booster 734 00:37:36.199 --> 00:37:39.639 that was caught. It landed in November, so they're on it. Wow. 735 00:37:39.920 --> 00:37:43.880 They've also announced a heavier version of New Glen. So 736 00:37:44.039 --> 00:37:47.519 the existing configuration of New Glen, which is seven meters rocket, 737 00:37:47.679 --> 00:37:51.639 has seven B fours, the big engines on the bottom 738 00:37:51.840 --> 00:37:55.960 and two vacuum engines on the upper stage. Did they 739 00:37:56.039 --> 00:37:58.800 call it B because it's a big engine? Is that 740 00:37:58.800 --> 00:38:05.599 what it stands for? Four? It's a Blue origin engine? Okay, yeah, 741 00:38:05.840 --> 00:38:07.239 it's not as much fun. By the way, those B 742 00:38:07.480 --> 00:38:09.119 fours that are on the New Glen are the same 743 00:38:09.159 --> 00:38:13.679 engines that the Vulcan rocket uses over on for Ula. 744 00:38:14.239 --> 00:38:15.840 So they've now said there's going to be a heavier 745 00:38:15.960 --> 00:38:19.719 version of New Glen with nine primary engines on the 746 00:38:19.760 --> 00:38:24.119 booster and four engines on the second stage, which should 747 00:38:24.119 --> 00:38:27.440 be able to carry substantial payloads to the Moon and 748 00:38:27.559 --> 00:38:29.679 to other heavy lifts. And we're going to talk about 749 00:38:30.239 --> 00:38:32.880 new heavy lift things coming because we're now having a 750 00:38:32.920 --> 00:38:36.800 collection at heavy Lift rockets. So yeah, next flights in January. 751 00:38:36.880 --> 00:38:38.960 It's going and it's going to lift a the Blue 752 00:38:38.960 --> 00:38:42.159 Moon mark one lander to the Moon. And at this moment, 753 00:38:42.199 --> 00:38:45.360 there's only three missions scheduled in twenty twenty six for 754 00:38:45.400 --> 00:38:47.679 New Glens. So they're not flying anywhere near the frequency 755 00:38:47.719 --> 00:38:50.880 of Vulcan nine, but they're getting there. Oh that's good. Yeah, 756 00:38:51.000 --> 00:38:53.599 So we've talked about SpaceX, we talked about ULA, We've 757 00:38:53.599 --> 00:38:57.480 talked about Blue Origin. There are a bunch of other 758 00:38:59.199 --> 00:39:02.760 flight platform out there, different rockets and so forth. Electron 759 00:39:03.039 --> 00:39:04.880 is a light is a light platform. Left they had 760 00:39:04.880 --> 00:39:08.920 seventeen flights this past year. Flyerfy Alpha had a SUCSS 761 00:39:08.960 --> 00:39:10.719 flight in twenty twenty four. They had one attempt at 762 00:39:10.719 --> 00:39:13.119 twenty twenty five when they failed. There's a bunch of others, 763 00:39:13.119 --> 00:39:15.719 but none of them have removed a lot of mass 764 00:39:15.800 --> 00:39:18.039 yet they're still at the beginning. So there's an interesting 765 00:39:18.079 --> 00:39:20.920 space you know, evolution going on right now. But other 766 00:39:21.079 --> 00:39:24.639 companies are trying to build recoverable rockets. They just haven't 767 00:39:24.639 --> 00:39:26.840 got anywhere. And I will talk about them when they start, 768 00:39:27.119 --> 00:39:30.000 you know, nail and payloads, but at this point they happened, Okay, 769 00:39:30.320 --> 00:39:32.360 all right, let's take a break, all right, we'll be 770 00:39:32.440 --> 00:39:37.719 right back after these very important messages. Stick around. You know. 771 00:39:37.880 --> 00:39:40.920 Dot net six has officially reached the end of support, 772 00:39:41.000 --> 00:39:43.960 and now is the time to upgrade. Dot Net eight 773 00:39:44.079 --> 00:39:48.079 is well supported on AWS. Learn more at aws dot 774 00:39:48.119 --> 00:39:55.599 Amazon dot com, slash dot net. And we're back. It's 775 00:39:55.639 --> 00:39:58.960 dot net Rocks the twenty twenty five Space Geek Out 776 00:39:59.000 --> 00:40:02.440 with Richard Campbell. I'm Carl Franklin. That's Richard Hey, and 777 00:40:03.320 --> 00:40:06.079 we were just taking a little break and then talking 778 00:40:06.119 --> 00:40:09.000 about some more things in space in twenty twenty five. 779 00:40:09.079 --> 00:40:11.760 Yeah. So we've done all the we've done all the platforms, 780 00:40:11.800 --> 00:40:14.599 all of the rocketry. For first half, let's start up 781 00:40:14.639 --> 00:40:18.199 talk about the International Space Station. I love it because 782 00:40:18.239 --> 00:40:20.800 this November was twenty five years of the station being 783 00:40:20.800 --> 00:40:23.559 continuously occupied. That's two hundred and ninety people from twenty 784 00:40:23.559 --> 00:40:24.239 six countries. 785 00:40:24.440 --> 00:40:26.599 Was it that supposed to be decommissioned sometime soon? 786 00:40:27.280 --> 00:40:29.519 Originally they talked about twenty twenty five, but they've extended 787 00:40:29.559 --> 00:40:31.960 now to twenty thirty. Oh that's good. And as we 788 00:40:32.039 --> 00:40:34.960 talked about last year, SpaceX has the contract to de 789 00:40:35.280 --> 00:40:38.719 orbit the space station. Okay, that's very intentional and there's 790 00:40:39.079 --> 00:40:41.039 you know, you say, well, why deorbit it, why not 791 00:40:41.199 --> 00:40:43.079 just leave it up there, sell it off or something, 792 00:40:43.119 --> 00:40:45.840 and the reality is that it's wearing out. Okays, things 793 00:40:45.880 --> 00:40:46.719 are breaking down. 794 00:40:46.639 --> 00:40:50.400 So it's it's too expensive to repair, to bring it, it's. 795 00:40:50.360 --> 00:40:55.320 Kind of impossible. The biggest issue is Zavezda, which is 796 00:40:54.199 --> 00:40:58.360 the main control unit, a Russian unit and one of 797 00:40:58.360 --> 00:41:00.599 the oldest one that was launched in two thousand. It's 798 00:41:00.599 --> 00:41:04.159 actually older than that. It was actually built originally in 799 00:41:04.159 --> 00:41:07.840 the nineteen eighties as the core for the second mir 800 00:41:08.000 --> 00:41:11.280 space station MIR two, which is actually derived from a 801 00:41:11.400 --> 00:41:16.119 salute design. The Soviet Union flew seven or eight salute 802 00:41:16.119 --> 00:41:20.880 space stations over the decades. In fact, every single space 803 00:41:20.920 --> 00:41:25.559 station with the exception of Skylab, has flown with a 804 00:41:25.639 --> 00:41:28.119 salute core of one form or another. Obviously, all the 805 00:41:28.159 --> 00:41:32.199 salutes mirror the original that was originally a salute core, 806 00:41:32.320 --> 00:41:34.239 with a bunch of add ons to that, as well 807 00:41:35.079 --> 00:41:38.920 be Internet and the Tiangong space station, the Chinese one 808 00:41:39.079 --> 00:41:42.960 derived from a salute design, and this Vezda module was 809 00:41:43.000 --> 00:41:45.920 originally a salute modified to be a mirror, then modified 810 00:41:45.920 --> 00:41:48.639 to do this, so it was already twenty year it 811 00:41:48.679 --> 00:41:50.719 was almost a twenty year old hull when it was 812 00:41:50.760 --> 00:41:55.920 flown in two thousand and it's leaking air. So the 813 00:41:55.960 --> 00:41:59.760 first detection of leaks were in twenty nineteen. Now that 814 00:41:59.800 --> 00:42:02.239 the this is Vesta modules quite large. It's made up 815 00:42:02.239 --> 00:42:05.280 of three parts, and the aftmost part is where the 816 00:42:05.320 --> 00:42:10.719 progress supplies the shuttles come in. They where they dock, 817 00:42:11.079 --> 00:42:15.000 and there's a tunnel that connects from the central module 818 00:42:15.119 --> 00:42:17.079 through to that progress booster, so you can take supplies 819 00:42:17.079 --> 00:42:19.119 and so forth. And it's somewhere in that tunnel is 820 00:42:19.119 --> 00:42:22.079 the leak. They've tried multiple repairs, they've not been able 821 00:42:22.119 --> 00:42:25.880 to get it nailed. It loses about a kilo of 822 00:42:25.920 --> 00:42:30.199 air a day. Wow geez. And so yeah, I believe 823 00:42:30.239 --> 00:42:34.400 it's just the Russians say it's fatigue. It's cracks from fatigue. 824 00:42:34.519 --> 00:42:37.159 It's just that old. It's taken all the shocks from docking. 825 00:42:37.639 --> 00:42:39.440 It's The current procedure right now is to keep that 826 00:42:39.480 --> 00:42:42.440 tunnel closed off during operation, so it just loo. It 827 00:42:42.519 --> 00:42:45.519 depressurizes on its own and then they put air back 828 00:42:45.559 --> 00:42:48.320 into it. It's relatively small, but when they do open it, 829 00:42:48.360 --> 00:42:52.000 they close off the US section just for safety's sake. 830 00:42:52.400 --> 00:42:53.599 But the fact that they have not been able to 831 00:42:53.599 --> 00:42:56.519 get that control is they've now this past year, they 832 00:42:56.639 --> 00:43:00.599 stopped commercial flights to the space station, so the Axium 833 00:43:00.719 --> 00:43:03.960 four flight, which was tourism to the space station, which 834 00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:05.880 is how Axiom was making money. They're trying to build 835 00:43:05.880 --> 00:43:08.880 their own space stations separate from the International Space Station. 836 00:43:09.360 --> 00:43:12.360 That whole flow has been cut off because of this issue. 837 00:43:12.440 --> 00:43:14.559 So they don't they're just they're losing enough air that 838 00:43:14.559 --> 00:43:17.159 they're trying to be careful. These last few years of 839 00:43:17.159 --> 00:43:20.440 the station are problematic. There's also an argument of rather 840 00:43:20.480 --> 00:43:22.000 than re enter it, why don't we take the newer 841 00:43:22.039 --> 00:43:24.760 pieces off. One of the problems that the space station 842 00:43:24.920 --> 00:43:27.039 was designed to be assembled, but it wasn't designed to 843 00:43:27.079 --> 00:43:31.239 be disassembled. And what is very common in space is 844 00:43:31.280 --> 00:43:33.719 when you put two metal surfaces in close contact to 845 00:43:33.760 --> 00:43:36.239 each other, like you would for an airtight seal, they 846 00:43:36.239 --> 00:43:39.800 actually weld together and they won't come apart. Huh yeah, 847 00:43:39.960 --> 00:43:42.239 wait a minute, I thought space was cold, not hot 848 00:43:42.320 --> 00:43:44.920 enough to weld metal. Well, this is cold welding, right, 849 00:43:44.960 --> 00:43:49.000 This is cold welding. Absolutely, yeah. It is the cold soak. 850 00:43:49.039 --> 00:43:51.119 And what it is is that they've when you have 851 00:43:51.239 --> 00:43:55.000 no normally when you have metals and you're in an atmosphere. 852 00:43:55.320 --> 00:43:57.800 As soon as you shave them, and they're pure metal, 853 00:43:57.840 --> 00:43:59.679 they oxidize. They create a little coating on top of 854 00:43:59.679 --> 00:44:01.880 the text them. Right now, when you put them together, 855 00:44:01.880 --> 00:44:03.719 the oxidized layers, they're not going to meld together. But 856 00:44:03.760 --> 00:44:07.440 when you're in space, when you're in a vacuum and 857 00:44:07.480 --> 00:44:10.920 there's no oxidation happening, there's really almost no difference between 858 00:44:10.920 --> 00:44:12.639 those two pieces of metal when they come in close 859 00:44:12.679 --> 00:44:15.400 contcent he eventually they just bond. That's so weird, and 860 00:44:15.440 --> 00:44:18.039 there's no way to unbond them. Yeah, it's one of 861 00:44:18.119 --> 00:44:21.639 the mainy weird things that happen in space. Well, I 862 00:44:21.679 --> 00:44:23.599 had no idea, Yeah, And so it's you know, I've 863 00:44:23.639 --> 00:44:26.840 always thought, well, just take the newer, take the laboratories off. 864 00:44:26.840 --> 00:44:28.800 They're newer, Like, why would you given you that up? 865 00:44:28.920 --> 00:44:31.400 Can't can't get them apart, can't do it. It's just 866 00:44:31.480 --> 00:44:33.320 no way to get them off. Yeah, sort of thing. 867 00:44:33.440 --> 00:44:36.599 So it's going to deorbit in twenty thirty, and it's 868 00:44:36.599 --> 00:44:39.559 going to be intentionally de orbited in twenty three and 869 00:44:39.639 --> 00:44:42.320 probably just crashed in the ocean after it burns up. 870 00:44:42.320 --> 00:44:44.360 That we're putting it down in Point Nemo, which is 871 00:44:44.400 --> 00:44:47.119 an area in the South Pacific furthest away from any habitation, 872 00:44:47.599 --> 00:44:49.559 at the same place they put the Mirror space Station 873 00:44:49.679 --> 00:44:51.679 back in the day. It will be a sad day, 874 00:44:51.719 --> 00:44:54.119 but it will have been an operation for thirty years, 875 00:44:54.159 --> 00:44:55.880 like it's been through a lot. Pretty cool. 876 00:44:56.079 --> 00:44:58.559 Yeah, and are there any other plans to build a 877 00:44:58.639 --> 00:44:59.480 new space station? 878 00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:01.679 I see you're just getting ahead of my story. Friend. 879 00:45:01.800 --> 00:45:05.119 Well, you know that's the natural question. Yeah, so I'll 880 00:45:05.119 --> 00:45:07.000 answer that question. Well, we've got to do a couple 881 00:45:07.079 --> 00:45:09.360 more space station things. We'll get there. Okay. 882 00:45:09.440 --> 00:45:12.480 This December, for the first time ever, all eight docking 883 00:45:12.519 --> 00:45:15.400 ports on the space station were occupied. They had two 884 00:45:15.480 --> 00:45:18.960 progressed cargo supply station ships up. They had two soy 885 00:45:19.079 --> 00:45:23.199 used crew capsules in plus the Signus resupply vessel and 886 00:45:23.280 --> 00:45:26.719 a cargo Dragon and a crew Dragon and the new 887 00:45:26.840 --> 00:45:31.480 Japanese htv X. So, yeah, they put eight docking ports 888 00:45:31.480 --> 00:45:33.760 on the figure. They never run out. They filled them all. 889 00:45:34.199 --> 00:45:38.239 No park, Yeah, no, it was an interesting moment. Obviously, 890 00:45:38.320 --> 00:45:40.480 those the sing this is probably the first to go. 891 00:45:40.639 --> 00:45:42.519 It just re enters, so they typically fill it with 892 00:45:42.559 --> 00:45:45.000 garbage and it's and then it burns back up, but 893 00:45:45.159 --> 00:45:47.280 and the hdv X will do some things, they'll move 894 00:45:47.280 --> 00:45:51.920 that out. Therefore, we talked of there will be two 895 00:45:52.000 --> 00:45:55.639 crew dragons this year ten and eleven. Eleven is the 896 00:45:55.679 --> 00:45:57.760 one that's currently there, and there's two soyas is up. 897 00:45:57.760 --> 00:45:59.760 They're both still up, but I need to talk about 898 00:46:00.119 --> 00:46:02.360 twenty eight which is the current last say years, it 899 00:46:02.440 --> 00:46:06.280 launched no problem, but after the launch it was discovered 900 00:46:06.320 --> 00:46:10.000 that the launch platform that it flies from in Baikanar 901 00:46:10.159 --> 00:46:13.559 this is in Kazakhstan Okay had an accident. Oh that 902 00:46:13.599 --> 00:46:17.840 has taken it offline. It's very serious. So the Soyus 903 00:46:17.840 --> 00:46:19.719 design is from the sixties, right, it's been a long 904 00:46:19.800 --> 00:46:23.480 time and they so they literally put a kind of 905 00:46:23.679 --> 00:46:26.519 match up into all the rocket engines to launch them. 906 00:46:26.519 --> 00:46:30.119 And to do that, there's this slide out platform. So 907 00:46:30.159 --> 00:46:32.920 they bring the rocket into the pad on its side 908 00:46:32.960 --> 00:46:36.239 on a train and then they stand it up over 909 00:46:36.280 --> 00:46:39.480 a flame trench, this giantic lighter that somebody has to 910 00:46:39.639 --> 00:46:43.840 like what well, in order to get to those engines, 911 00:46:43.880 --> 00:46:46.960 there's this slide out platform that comes in underneath the 912 00:46:47.079 --> 00:46:49.159 rocket and there's a bunch of work that's done there. 913 00:46:49.199 --> 00:46:51.199 This is how they arm a bunch of things and 914 00:46:52.119 --> 00:46:55.079 do a bunch of tests and do the ignition. Well, 915 00:46:55.159 --> 00:47:00.000 during the launch of MS twenty eight, somehow that platform 916 00:47:00.079 --> 00:47:03.719 forms slid out from its protected helding area, got blasted 917 00:47:03.719 --> 00:47:06.000 by the rocket, blown off its rails and into the 918 00:47:06.039 --> 00:47:08.800 flame trench. It's destroyed, Oh my gosh, and it has 919 00:47:08.840 --> 00:47:12.880 to be rebuilt. So at this moment, there's no way 920 00:47:12.920 --> 00:47:17.280 to launch a soy Use or a progress rocket capsule 921 00:47:17.639 --> 00:47:20.280 to the International Space Station. That is the only pad 922 00:47:20.320 --> 00:47:24.119 that can do it, and you can't go to any 923 00:47:24.159 --> 00:47:26.000 of the other pads in Russia because they're not in 924 00:47:26.039 --> 00:47:28.920 the right angles for actually getting to the International Space Station. 925 00:47:29.000 --> 00:47:32.360 So they have to repair this one, and it begs 926 00:47:32.360 --> 00:47:35.599 the question will they There's only five years left of 927 00:47:35.639 --> 00:47:39.760 the station, and the Russian economy is not in good 928 00:47:39.760 --> 00:47:43.239 shape right now. They got into a little mistake, i 929 00:47:43.280 --> 00:47:47.719 would say, a little excursion in Qukraine. It's been going 930 00:47:47.760 --> 00:47:50.679 on for years and it's destroying their economy and this 931 00:47:50.760 --> 00:47:53.039 is a lot of money to repair this thing. So 932 00:47:53.079 --> 00:47:54.519 there's a question of whether or not they're going to 933 00:47:54.559 --> 00:47:56.079 be able to fly, and there's even a question of 934 00:47:56.119 --> 00:47:59.039 whether it was an accident. You know, it's one thing 935 00:47:59.039 --> 00:48:02.639 to just demandon this's nothing, to have a mysterious accent 936 00:48:02.679 --> 00:48:04.079 and not be able to do anything well. 937 00:48:04.159 --> 00:48:10.239 Russia isn't really known for unexplained accidental terminations of things 938 00:48:10.280 --> 00:48:10.760 in people. 939 00:48:11.000 --> 00:48:14.119 And you would presume that we can operate without the 940 00:48:14.199 --> 00:48:16.400 sole use because we just use crew dragons, which is true, 941 00:48:16.480 --> 00:48:18.320 that's the no question of that. But can we operate 942 00:48:18.360 --> 00:48:21.800 without the Progress? Now, we can do cargo resupply with 943 00:48:21.840 --> 00:48:23.760 any of the other methods like the Sickness and the 944 00:48:23.760 --> 00:48:27.920 cargo dragon in htv X, but the Progress is one 945 00:48:28.039 --> 00:48:31.679 thing that nothing else does, which is that it refuels 946 00:48:31.800 --> 00:48:37.559 the Zevezda module for station reboosting. There's automatic connections between 947 00:48:37.599 --> 00:48:40.639 Progress and that Zvezda module the pump fuel for that 948 00:48:40.960 --> 00:48:42.960 exactly that process for doing reboosts. 949 00:48:42.960 --> 00:48:46.360 So SpaceX couldn't build something similar, I mean in the 950 00:48:46.400 --> 00:48:49.039 next five years, or retrofit one of the falcons to 951 00:48:49.320 --> 00:48:49.719 do that. 952 00:48:50.199 --> 00:48:53.239 We're gonna that's the question. Do we find a way 953 00:48:53.239 --> 00:48:56.559 to fly Progress anyway like repair that, figure out how 954 00:48:56.559 --> 00:48:58.719 to repair that as as strained as the relationship is 955 00:48:58.719 --> 00:49:01.079 with the Russians, or do we up with other reboost 956 00:49:01.119 --> 00:49:07.199 options We've experimented with reboosting with the existing cargo dragon, 957 00:49:07.360 --> 00:49:10.119 but they're not really set up for it. They're not 958 00:49:10.239 --> 00:49:12.639 on the right axis, they don't mount to the right point, 959 00:49:12.920 --> 00:49:16.280 they're not designed. The docking ports on the Russian side 960 00:49:16.320 --> 00:49:18.920 are different from the docking ports on the US side. 961 00:49:19.639 --> 00:49:21.800 So it is an open question right now. 962 00:49:22.159 --> 00:49:27.199 Is there a deadline after which they'll run out of fuel? 963 00:49:27.440 --> 00:49:30.280 Yes, The big issue is how often you need to 964 00:49:30.320 --> 00:49:35.679 reboot the International Space Station, and so they really only 965 00:49:35.719 --> 00:49:39.480 do this once a month or so, so they're going 966 00:49:39.519 --> 00:49:41.039 to have some fuel to be doing it for a while. 967 00:49:41.119 --> 00:49:43.519 So they have a little bit of time, but not much. 968 00:49:43.559 --> 00:49:46.360 And it's quite but you've got to communicate. The Russians 969 00:49:46.400 --> 00:49:48.280 aren't being too communicative. But if they're going to come 970 00:49:48.320 --> 00:49:51.840 bring progress back online versus, are we going to have 971 00:49:51.880 --> 00:49:55.320 to come up with an alternative. So yeah, it's an 972 00:49:55.320 --> 00:49:58.320 open question. And this only happened in November. There's no 973 00:49:58.360 --> 00:50:01.480 good answers right now, and it and it genuinely jeopardizes 974 00:50:01.519 --> 00:50:02.519 the International Space Station. 975 00:50:02.679 --> 00:50:05.239 So if they can't refuel, does that mean everybody has 976 00:50:05.280 --> 00:50:06.480 to come home and we're done? 977 00:50:06.519 --> 00:50:10.000 Well, that's exactly it. If they that space station is 978 00:50:10.039 --> 00:50:12.960 not designed to operate without people on board. If they 979 00:50:13.000 --> 00:50:15.039 fully evacuate it, there's a concern that they would not 980 00:50:15.079 --> 00:50:18.519 be able to reoccupy it. And you do not want 981 00:50:18.519 --> 00:50:21.119 that thing re entering under out of control. That is 982 00:50:21.199 --> 00:50:25.760 a four hundred ton vehicle that is the largest thing 983 00:50:25.800 --> 00:50:29.880 ever flown into space. It needs to be control re entered. 984 00:50:30.199 --> 00:50:32.559 And we don't actually know the situation right now. Now 985 00:50:32.559 --> 00:50:36.679 there's time. We probably got a year to figure this out, 986 00:50:37.360 --> 00:50:39.239 but it does need to be figured out, and we're 987 00:50:39.280 --> 00:50:42.000 just you know, we're happen to be recording when nobody knows. 988 00:50:42.800 --> 00:50:45.440 So it's and just in case you didn't know this, 989 00:50:45.519 --> 00:50:49.480 but getting an ISS tracker on your phone or download 990 00:50:49.519 --> 00:50:52.159 one of those apps or something which will notify you 991 00:50:52.199 --> 00:50:55.960 when it's going to go overhead. And it's a great 992 00:50:56.000 --> 00:50:58.360 thing to bring your kids out on the front lawn 993 00:50:58.480 --> 00:51:01.960 and look up and see this dot, you know, and 994 00:51:02.000 --> 00:51:06.559 it whizzes by dot whizzing overhead, and to know that 995 00:51:06.639 --> 00:51:08.800 it's going how many thousands of miles an hour? 996 00:51:08.840 --> 00:51:09.000 Is it? 997 00:51:09.039 --> 00:51:11.960 Twenty thousand, twenty five thousand, yeah, twenty five thousand miles 998 00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:12.519 an hour. 999 00:51:12.440 --> 00:51:15.239 And there's people on it, and there's people on it. 1000 00:51:15.239 --> 00:51:18.639 It's just it's just one of those Star Trek kind 1001 00:51:18.639 --> 00:51:20.920 of moments that you can share with your kids. 1002 00:51:20.639 --> 00:51:23.719 That look, there's people on that thing. Well, and for 1003 00:51:23.840 --> 00:51:27.840 twenty five years now there have been humans in orbit NonStop. Yeah, 1004 00:51:27.880 --> 00:51:31.559 it's amazing. Speaking of other failures, remember star Liner, Yeah, 1005 00:51:31.679 --> 00:51:35.360 refresh my memory. Though. Starliner is the alternative to Crew Dragon. 1006 00:51:35.440 --> 00:51:37.800 This was supposed to be the low risk option, and 1007 00:51:37.840 --> 00:51:41.519 this is by who, built by Boeing Boeing, Yes, okay, yes, 1008 00:51:41.719 --> 00:51:44.559 and so they've spent so the NASA spent twice as 1009 00:51:44.639 --> 00:51:47.559 much on it as they did for Crew Dragon, and 1010 00:51:47.679 --> 00:51:50.719 data has just been a steady series of failures. In 1011 00:51:50.840 --> 00:51:53.119 twenty four and June at twenty twenty four, they finally 1012 00:51:53.119 --> 00:51:55.400 did a flight to the space station with Butch Wilmar 1013 00:51:55.440 --> 00:51:57.559 and Sunny Williams on board, right, and then the launch 1014 00:51:57.559 --> 00:52:01.119 itself went very well, but they the capsule it still 1015 00:52:01.159 --> 00:52:03.119 started having problems as soon as it got there. And 1016 00:52:03.159 --> 00:52:05.039 at the time when we were talking about this twenty four, 1017 00:52:05.440 --> 00:52:08.039 they didn't really have all the details yet, but it's 1018 00:52:08.079 --> 00:52:10.519 now come out as to how serious the situation was, 1019 00:52:10.559 --> 00:52:13.960 and the situation the issue was these control thrusters so 1020 00:52:14.119 --> 00:52:17.679 around the Starliners made up of a capsule with a 1021 00:52:17.719 --> 00:52:20.280 service module mounted on the back. The service modules dropped 1022 00:52:20.320 --> 00:52:23.239 before they re enter, and that service module has all 1023 00:52:23.280 --> 00:52:24.880 these trusters on it, and they put them in these 1024 00:52:24.920 --> 00:52:28.559 four little bays they call dog houses, and each one 1025 00:52:28.599 --> 00:52:32.760 of them has seven thrusters along with the primary boost engines, 1026 00:52:32.800 --> 00:52:35.159 the engines that actually put it into orbit. That might 1027 00:52:35.199 --> 00:52:37.119 be part of the problem because it was never tested 1028 00:52:37.119 --> 00:52:40.960 properly in integration. It appears to overheat when it's fully assembled. 1029 00:52:42.039 --> 00:52:45.599 And so as they were coming in towards the space station, 1030 00:52:45.719 --> 00:52:48.400 they were at v Bar, which is about two hundred 1031 00:52:48.400 --> 00:52:51.039 and sixty meters away or eight hundred and so feet, 1032 00:52:51.320 --> 00:52:53.800 they had they had two boosters to two of the 1033 00:52:53.880 --> 00:52:56.800 thrusters fail and at that point they're one failure away 1034 00:52:56.800 --> 00:53:01.480 from having to aboart according to the rules, right, and 1035 00:53:01.599 --> 00:53:04.320 both the failures were on the lower side of the ship, 1036 00:53:04.639 --> 00:53:07.480 and there were the thrusters that push aft right each 1037 00:53:07.800 --> 00:53:11.199 doghouse there's four of them, have two aft thrusters, two 1038 00:53:11.800 --> 00:53:14.519 forward thrusters, and then three radial thrusters that pushed the 1039 00:53:14.599 --> 00:53:15.360 side or rotate. 1040 00:53:15.679 --> 00:53:18.199 So they could have just been floating in space right 1041 00:53:18.239 --> 00:53:20.679 off the bow of the space station. 1042 00:53:20.840 --> 00:53:24.400 They were very close. Yeah, and then a third thruster failed. 1043 00:53:25.039 --> 00:53:27.239 At this point, according to the rules, they should have aboarded, 1044 00:53:27.280 --> 00:53:30.559 but they didn't. NASA, I think they had go fever 1045 00:53:30.679 --> 00:53:33.760 the way they waved it off. And then a fourth 1046 00:53:33.800 --> 00:53:37.519 thruster failed. Jeez. Right, they're now fully immanual control. And 1047 00:53:37.559 --> 00:53:41.760 at this point they're all aft thrusters. So there's two 1048 00:53:41.840 --> 00:53:44.320 on the lower and two on the port side. So 1049 00:53:44.400 --> 00:53:46.519 if they fire the other ones, it's going to spin 1050 00:53:46.639 --> 00:53:50.840 the craft. Right, so there's a debate of j we 1051 00:53:51.039 --> 00:53:54.000 aboard and now then question is can they even safely aboard? 1052 00:53:54.159 --> 00:53:57.119 Could they safely re enter? Right? They're not sure if 1053 00:53:57.119 --> 00:53:59.320 they can get in a proper position just to re enter, 1054 00:54:00.159 --> 00:54:03.119 And so the on the ground side at Houston, they 1055 00:54:03.159 --> 00:54:06.239 decide to reset the computer, turn it off, turn it 1056 00:54:06.280 --> 00:54:08.679 back on again. The universe will fix. That's it. And 1057 00:54:08.719 --> 00:54:11.480 then the interview with Butch Wilmore about this. He's really 1058 00:54:11.519 --> 00:54:13.400 not keen, like what if this thing doesn't come back? 1059 00:54:13.440 --> 00:54:16.079 Like I'm stranded, right, and he doesn't want to give 1060 00:54:16.119 --> 00:54:18.639 up control. But they do it, and in that reboot, 1061 00:54:18.920 --> 00:54:22.239 two of those thrusters come back, so it's like, Okay, 1062 00:54:22.320 --> 00:54:23.960 that's in. Now it's controllable. 1063 00:54:24.239 --> 00:54:27.639 So it was a software glitch, not a not a 1064 00:54:27.719 --> 00:54:28.679 mechanical glitch. 1065 00:54:28.760 --> 00:54:32.800 Well, this is exactly right. The thrusters were overheating and 1066 00:54:32.840 --> 00:54:36.320 the software was locking them out, so resetting the software 1067 00:54:36.360 --> 00:54:38.480 would bring them back, because once they get locked out, 1068 00:54:38.519 --> 00:54:40.920 they won't necessarily ever bring them back. But as soon 1069 00:54:40.960 --> 00:54:45.320 as Wilmore starts to do approach, another thruster fails. Good lord, 1070 00:54:45.719 --> 00:54:49.199 So they do another restart, and that time all but 1071 00:54:49.400 --> 00:54:51.719 one comes back and they're able. And at that point 1072 00:54:51.880 --> 00:54:53.480 even Wilmore doesn't have to do it. They now are 1073 00:54:53.480 --> 00:54:55.519 in the automatic dock rules, and so they turn an 1074 00:54:55.519 --> 00:54:58.960 automatic dock dock to the space station. That's why the 1075 00:54:59.000 --> 00:55:01.039 state the docking took so long. 1076 00:55:01.239 --> 00:55:04.079 Now is that thing still up there? No, no, no, 1077 00:55:04.400 --> 00:55:07.719 this all got resolved in twenty four and twenty five. Okay, 1078 00:55:08.000 --> 00:55:09.559 but you remember they were only supposed to be there 1079 00:55:09.599 --> 00:55:11.719 for a week and then come back and ended up 1080 00:55:11.719 --> 00:55:14.039 being there for nine months. Yeah, and I know they 1081 00:55:14.039 --> 00:55:16.880 came home, but I didn't. I didn't pay attention enough 1082 00:55:16.920 --> 00:55:18.280 to know how they came home. 1083 00:55:18.480 --> 00:55:20.760 Well, they came home on a crew Dragon. Okay, so 1084 00:55:21.480 --> 00:55:23.679 after months of tinkering with it, trying to figure out 1085 00:55:23.719 --> 00:55:27.239 what to do, they decided NASA against Boeing's best wishes. 1086 00:55:27.400 --> 00:55:30.239 Boeing wanted to said this, fine, bring him back. NASA 1087 00:55:30.320 --> 00:55:31.920 is like, nope, we're not bringing them back. And so 1088 00:55:32.119 --> 00:55:34.880 Crew Dragon nine is currently ten and eleven up there, right. 1089 00:55:34.880 --> 00:55:37.400 But Crew Dragon nine they took two of the astronauts 1090 00:55:37.440 --> 00:55:40.119 off so that Sonny and Butch could come back on 1091 00:55:40.199 --> 00:55:43.039 that and they came back in March of twenty twenty five. Yeah, 1092 00:55:43.079 --> 00:55:45.079 and then they were able to catch up with everything else. 1093 00:55:45.239 --> 00:55:47.199 Some amazing television by the way. 1094 00:55:47.119 --> 00:55:50.840 It's crazy. Yeah. Now, star Liner did come back right 1095 00:55:50.960 --> 00:55:54.159 in September. It landed without anybody on board, completely successfully. 1096 00:55:54.199 --> 00:55:56.920 So presumably it would have been fine if they had 1097 00:55:56.960 --> 00:55:58.480 come back, but he didn't know for sure. But they 1098 00:55:58.519 --> 00:56:01.039 didn't want to risk it. Yeah, wasn't worth the risk. 1099 00:56:01.079 --> 00:56:03.719 Nobody wants to lose astronauts. Those guys don't want to die. 1100 00:56:04.000 --> 00:56:05.760 They ended up nine months on the space station, which 1101 00:56:05.800 --> 00:56:07.840 is very happy for them. They loved being up there. 1102 00:56:08.159 --> 00:56:12.159 Yeah, I remember their interview and they said, we were 1103 00:56:12.239 --> 00:56:15.280 happy to be there. You know, the more hours on 1104 00:56:15.320 --> 00:56:16.840 the space station, the better for us. 1105 00:56:16.920 --> 00:56:18.800 The better. These are astronauts, they're weird. 1106 00:56:18.840 --> 00:56:21.280 Right, Yeah, that's what they live for like they should. 1107 00:56:21.079 --> 00:56:26.280 Not normal humans. They're not normal at all. So at 1108 00:56:26.280 --> 00:56:29.079 that point that this year there's been no star Liner flights, 1109 00:56:29.079 --> 00:56:32.000 not at all, not in twenty twenty five, I wonder why. 1110 00:56:32.480 --> 00:56:35.199 Yeah, the negotiations, This isn't the only problem going hap 1111 00:56:35.320 --> 00:56:35.519 in the. 1112 00:56:35.599 --> 00:56:38.320 Last few years. No, Bowe's don't have a good time, right, 1113 00:56:38.400 --> 00:56:40.960 all kinds of problems, and there was other issues with 1114 00:56:41.000 --> 00:56:43.599 starlight or helium leaks and things like that. So the 1115 00:56:43.679 --> 00:56:46.679 current plan now is to fly Starliner back to the 1116 00:56:46.679 --> 00:56:50.119 space station as a cargo flight, okay, in April of 1117 00:56:50.119 --> 00:56:52.920 twenty twenty six, and if that goes well, then they'll 1118 00:56:52.960 --> 00:56:55.920 start crew flights. But here's the problem. The original contract 1119 00:56:55.920 --> 00:56:59.679 they signed more than a decade ago, was for six 1120 00:56:59.760 --> 00:57:02.679 flight and there's not enough time left in the space 1121 00:57:02.719 --> 00:57:07.840 station to do those six flights. So they I don't 1122 00:57:07.840 --> 00:57:09.639 know how they're going to renegotiate the terms on all. 1123 00:57:09.800 --> 00:57:12.360 They returned some money something like that. Good luck with that, 1124 00:57:12.559 --> 00:57:15.800 something like that, Yeah, good luck. Another vehicle for really 1125 00:57:15.840 --> 00:57:19.440 to space station is Dream Chasers. This is Sierra Nevada 1126 00:57:19.480 --> 00:57:22.840 Corporate now call this Elciera Space which has a little 1127 00:57:23.719 --> 00:57:26.960 like shuttle like vehicle called dream Chaser. So who's behind 1128 00:57:26.960 --> 00:57:30.119 that company? So Sierra Nevada, it's their own company, and. 1129 00:57:30.119 --> 00:57:33.239 They write, is there any evil genius behind that that 1130 00:57:33.280 --> 00:57:33.519 we know? 1131 00:57:33.760 --> 00:57:36.039 No? No, no, This is an old fashioned space company 1132 00:57:36.039 --> 00:57:40.719 man like Boeing, right, but a smaller one. And they've 1133 00:57:40.719 --> 00:57:43.440 been working out dream Chaser for decades. And they were 1134 00:57:43.480 --> 00:57:46.039 originally in the commercial crew development, so they were supposed 1135 00:57:46.039 --> 00:57:47.639 to be one of the alternative crew, but they got 1136 00:57:47.679 --> 00:57:50.840 caught after phase two in twenty twenty four in favor 1137 00:57:50.880 --> 00:57:53.280 of Starliner and Crew Dragon. Yeah, maybe they cut the 1138 00:57:53.320 --> 00:57:55.840 wrong one right because star Liner was such a mess. 1139 00:57:56.199 --> 00:57:58.480 But in twenty twenty six they got a slot in 1140 00:57:58.519 --> 00:58:02.280 this second commercial resupply services, so instead of flying crew, 1141 00:58:02.400 --> 00:58:05.840 fly cargo. And there's a case for Dreamliner because it 1142 00:58:05.920 --> 00:58:09.800 lands on a runway, it undergoes a lot less acceleration 1143 00:58:09.920 --> 00:58:12.159 than a capsule. So if you have a delicate experiment 1144 00:58:12.199 --> 00:58:14.800 you want to bring back to Earth, Dreamliner might be 1145 00:58:14.840 --> 00:58:16.280 the only way you could do it. 1146 00:58:16.840 --> 00:58:18.760 Because it lands like the Shuttle used to land. 1147 00:58:18.920 --> 00:58:22.000 Yeah, lands like the Shuttle exactly right, A lot gentler. 1148 00:58:22.239 --> 00:58:25.360 And how big is it relative to the other It's 1149 00:58:25.400 --> 00:58:26.199 quite a bit smaller. 1150 00:58:26.239 --> 00:58:29.280 It's bigger than the capsules. It's a little space plane, right, 1151 00:58:29.719 --> 00:58:32.519 It's nowhere near as large as shuttles. Enormous, right, This 1152 00:58:32.559 --> 00:58:34.639 thing would fit in the shuttle bay a little bit easily. 1153 00:58:34.760 --> 00:58:36.199 It's supposed to be launched on the top of an 1154 00:58:36.199 --> 00:58:39.039 Atlas five, right, or a Vulcan. But it took um 1155 00:58:39.039 --> 00:58:40.719 time to actually get it ready. So they were supposed 1156 00:58:40.719 --> 00:58:43.760 to fly to do some They they in twenty sixteen. 1157 00:58:43.800 --> 00:58:46.679 They win the contract to do cargo resupply, got seven 1158 00:58:46.719 --> 00:58:49.400 flights to the ISS starting in twenty twenty one, and 1159 00:58:49.440 --> 00:58:51.679 they just weren't ready. Then they delated twenty two, then 1160 00:58:51.679 --> 00:58:55.679 they delayed in twenty three. They only finish flight flight 1161 00:58:55.719 --> 00:58:57.119 testing in twenty twenty four. 1162 00:58:57.400 --> 00:58:59.360 Is there any evidence that Boeing has got its act 1163 00:58:59.400 --> 00:59:01.000 together after all this nonsense? 1164 00:59:01.159 --> 00:59:02.719 Things are getting better, but this is not bowing to 1165 00:59:02.760 --> 00:59:05.320 Sierra Nevada like Boeing has turned the corner. 1166 00:59:05.360 --> 00:59:08.280 I know, but I but I didn't ask that when 1167 00:59:08.320 --> 00:59:10.719 we were talking about Boeing in the Dreamliner and all that. 1168 00:59:11.239 --> 00:59:13.920 With Starliner. Now, I don't know if Starliner is actually 1169 00:59:13.960 --> 00:59:16.719 going to get any better. We'll see, Like obviously they 1170 00:59:16.760 --> 00:59:18.840 didn't do sufficient testing. The cut corners here and there, 1171 00:59:18.840 --> 00:59:22.360 and it all shows on their airliner side. They've absolutely 1172 00:59:22.360 --> 00:59:24.280 turned the corner and the Max has been straightened out, 1173 00:59:24.360 --> 00:59:26.639 like Boeing seems to be putting They've got a new CEO. 1174 00:59:26.719 --> 00:59:28.480 They seem to be putting things back together. That might 1175 00:59:28.639 --> 00:59:31.800 be profitable one day, right, but I don't know the 1176 00:59:31.800 --> 00:59:37.440 star Line are salvageable right Anyway, Dreamliner was supposed to 1177 00:59:37.480 --> 00:59:40.960 fly in twenty four, but it was supposed to be 1178 00:59:40.960 --> 00:59:43.199 on the first Vulcan flight and that got bumped for 1179 00:59:43.239 --> 00:59:45.880 a national security flight. And then the Vulcan has been 1180 00:59:45.920 --> 00:59:48.599 delayed so they haven't been able to fly, and so 1181 00:59:49.280 --> 00:59:51.400 then they bumped it out to May of twenty five, 1182 00:59:51.400 --> 00:59:54.679 and then it's September twenty five, and finally now NASA's 1183 00:59:54.679 --> 00:59:56.920 amended the contract the CRS two country to say, hey, 1184 00:59:56.960 --> 00:59:59.599 we're going to just do one free flight, will pay 1185 01:00:00.079 --> 01:00:03.599 for you to fly Dreamliner a dream Chaser once. Do 1186 01:00:03.639 --> 01:00:05.880 you think without resupply, do you think. 1187 01:00:05.719 --> 01:00:09.000 Any of these delays have anything to do with just 1188 01:00:09.039 --> 01:00:11.760 the state of the economy and the government shutting down 1189 01:00:11.880 --> 01:00:13.280 agencies and things like that. 1190 01:00:13.400 --> 01:00:15.679 I think there's certainly an impact of that. And also, 1191 01:00:15.960 --> 01:00:19.440 you know Sean Duffy, who is really the Cabinet Minister 1192 01:00:19.480 --> 01:00:24.280 for Transport, not really the NASA administrator just did a 1193 01:00:24.320 --> 01:00:25.960 different view in all of these things, and so that 1194 01:00:26.039 --> 01:00:28.280 everything's been kind of up in the air. Although as 1195 01:00:28.320 --> 01:00:33.280 we're recording this, Jared Isaacman is now the new Massive Administrator. 1196 01:00:33.280 --> 01:00:35.880 He was originally supposed to be earlier in the year, 1197 01:00:36.000 --> 01:00:37.800 then they walked away from him, and now they've come 1198 01:00:37.840 --> 01:00:40.239 back around to him again. And this is the guy 1199 01:00:40.280 --> 01:00:43.239 who did inspiration for he's actually flown in space. He's 1200 01:00:43.280 --> 01:00:47.000 the first, you know, non astronaut to do a spacewalk. 1201 01:00:47.199 --> 01:00:50.039 He's for civilian to do a spacewalk. Like he's a billionaire, 1202 01:00:50.119 --> 01:00:53.079 so he's, you know, weird, has his own air force, 1203 01:00:53.760 --> 01:00:57.920 but he's very much into space and so we'll see 1204 01:00:58.119 --> 01:01:00.599 what this does. And he's certainly playing on the angle 1205 01:01:00.639 --> 01:01:02.960 of the US needs to get to the Moon ahead 1206 01:01:02.960 --> 01:01:05.360 of the Chinese, and to try and stay ahead of 1207 01:01:05.400 --> 01:01:08.920 the Chinese. That's sort of his vision, all right, So 1208 01:01:09.400 --> 01:01:11.840 I mean dream Chaser. Hopefully they'll get a flight. It's 1209 01:01:11.880 --> 01:01:19.920 cool to have a new little space plane. But we'll see, 1210 01:01:19.960 --> 01:01:21.960 And especially when we talk about the alternatives of the 1211 01:01:22.000 --> 01:01:25.480 International Space Station, Chaser has a role to play. That's good. 1212 01:01:26.960 --> 01:01:29.280 One more thing related to the International Space Station. That's 1213 01:01:29.440 --> 01:01:31.639 HDV X. I mentioned it as one of the vehicles 1214 01:01:31.639 --> 01:01:34.000 that was currently at the space station. This was a 1215 01:01:34.039 --> 01:01:37.840 successor to Japan's contribution to the International Space Station, which 1216 01:01:37.880 --> 01:01:41.119 was the HDV supply vehicle. Their goal, and this is 1217 01:01:41.119 --> 01:01:44.440 such a good goal, cut the cost of the HDV 1218 01:01:44.519 --> 01:01:47.280 in half while supplying the same number of supplies, and 1219 01:01:47.320 --> 01:01:50.599 they pulled it off. Wow. They simplified the vehicle so 1220 01:01:50.679 --> 01:01:53.039 it actually carries as much still as a four thousand 1221 01:01:53.119 --> 01:01:57.119 kilogram payload, same as the HDV, but simplified. And so 1222 01:01:58.119 --> 01:02:01.320 that was the test flight happened this year, it's passed, 1223 01:02:01.880 --> 01:02:05.440 and so next year they'll fly twice two more htvx's. 1224 01:02:05.519 --> 01:02:08.159 So that's great, it's great, all right, we could learn 1225 01:02:08.159 --> 01:02:09.079 a lot from the Japanese. 1226 01:02:09.159 --> 01:02:12.719 Yeah, very practical internation. Not for the ISS. Let's talk 1227 01:02:12.719 --> 01:02:15.599 about the Chinese Space station, says the Tiangong Space Station 1228 01:02:15.719 --> 01:02:18.920 against variation on the mirror concept with the Salu base. 1229 01:02:19.639 --> 01:02:21.960 They flew their first components in twenty one, two more 1230 01:02:21.960 --> 01:02:25.920 modules in twenty two and started putting crews on this point. 1231 01:02:25.920 --> 01:02:28.119 Their three modules up there. It's about one hundred metric ton, 1232 01:02:28.159 --> 01:02:30.800 it's about a quarter the size the ISS. They've had 1233 01:02:30.800 --> 01:02:33.840 ten resupply missions and ten crew missions on board. There's 1234 01:02:33.840 --> 01:02:37.000 supposed to be another module coming next year, space telescope, 1235 01:02:37.039 --> 01:02:40.239 similar to Hubble. We'll see if that actually happens. They 1236 01:02:40.320 --> 01:02:48.760 have begun hosting international experiments. Belgium, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Peru, Russia, 1237 01:02:48.800 --> 01:02:52.960 Saudi Arabia, Spain all have experiments on the Tiangong space station. Wow. Cool. 1238 01:02:53.079 --> 01:02:56.119 There is a Pakistani astronaut currently in training to do 1239 01:02:56.159 --> 01:02:59.119 a short flight, probably only a week in between the 1240 01:02:59.159 --> 01:03:03.840 two recent two crews onto the space station. It's sometime 1241 01:03:03.880 --> 01:03:04.360 in the future. 1242 01:03:04.519 --> 01:03:07.440 So US and Canada not invited to the party. 1243 01:03:07.880 --> 01:03:11.639 No, there's an embargo against all Chinese space technology in 1244 01:03:11.679 --> 01:03:14.199 the West. That's a shame. So that's why even the 1245 01:03:14.880 --> 01:03:17.840 Europeans started out being interested in sending astronauts up there, 1246 01:03:17.840 --> 01:03:19.639 and it became a problem, so they've backed off on 1247 01:03:19.719 --> 01:03:20.039 that too. 1248 01:03:20.159 --> 01:03:22.480 That's really a shame. I mean, that's that's a way 1249 01:03:22.559 --> 01:03:25.519 that you know, nations can get together for common goals, 1250 01:03:25.639 --> 01:03:27.719 and it you know, worked for a while with the 1251 01:03:27.800 --> 01:03:29.000 US and Russia. 1252 01:03:28.679 --> 01:03:31.559 And yeah, you know, and it also leads to this 1253 01:03:31.599 --> 01:03:34.519 interesting situation now where Russia is generally a pariah in 1254 01:03:34.559 --> 01:03:36.639 the world community, and yet we still have to cooperate 1255 01:03:36.639 --> 01:03:38.599 them on the space station. So I think that's the 1256 01:03:38.679 --> 01:03:41.440 concern with the Chinese is clearly the goals aren't aligned. 1257 01:03:41.599 --> 01:03:44.119 I guess we don't know a lot about this station. 1258 01:03:44.280 --> 01:03:47.159 They don't talk. The only thing we do know about 1259 01:03:47.239 --> 01:03:49.360 is this year, a very unusual thing happened a few 1260 01:03:49.360 --> 01:03:53.239 hours before the Cenzo spacecress was supposed to take a 1261 01:03:53.280 --> 01:03:56.400 crew back down c Shenzo twenty. They found a crack 1262 01:03:56.400 --> 01:03:58.719 in a window. Oh, it looked like there've been a 1263 01:03:58.760 --> 01:04:01.239 debris impact of some kind, and they considered it unsafe 1264 01:04:01.239 --> 01:04:04.000 for re entry. So the crew that was supposed to 1265 01:04:04.000 --> 01:04:08.159 return in Shenzo twenty instead took Shenzo twenty one down. 1266 01:04:08.239 --> 01:04:10.480 So they returned with that, which meant that the crew 1267 01:04:10.519 --> 01:04:12.519 that was up there didn't have a safe vehicle of 1268 01:04:12.559 --> 01:04:14.840 return on since the twenty was still there. Wow, but 1269 01:04:15.199 --> 01:04:18.400 the Chinese be the Chinese. Instead of taking six months 1270 01:04:18.400 --> 01:04:20.880 to get Shenzo twenty twenty two ready, they got it 1271 01:04:20.880 --> 01:04:22.920 ready in three weeks and put it up there without 1272 01:04:22.920 --> 01:04:24.400 a crew on board. So that I now have a 1273 01:04:24.440 --> 01:04:27.119 safe return, and they also send up repair equipment for 1274 01:04:27.119 --> 01:04:27.960 the twenty all right. 1275 01:04:27.880 --> 01:04:30.480 So when you say a crack in a window, yeah, 1276 01:04:30.599 --> 01:04:33.159 did that happen in space or on the ground. It's space, 1277 01:04:33.480 --> 01:04:35.760 so probably a piece of space debris or space junk 1278 01:04:35.800 --> 01:04:36.599 like you said. 1279 01:04:36.400 --> 01:04:38.639 That's right. Don't you think they would. 1280 01:04:38.360 --> 01:04:42.719 Make some kind of material besides glass or plexa glass 1281 01:04:42.719 --> 01:04:44.360 that could withstand us. 1282 01:04:44.519 --> 01:04:47.199 Well, these things are very tough. Believe me. It's tough 1283 01:04:47.280 --> 01:04:52.239 enough that it only has a crack, right, It didn't depressurize, 1284 01:04:52.320 --> 01:04:54.679 it's just now the concern is will the stress of 1285 01:04:54.760 --> 01:04:56.519 re entry make it worse? 1286 01:04:56.719 --> 01:05:00.480 You know, transparent aluminum, I think is the answer. 1287 01:05:00.920 --> 01:05:03.440 This stuff is pretty tough. But you know these little 1288 01:05:03.559 --> 01:05:07.639 flex of painting thing they're moving, man like. The velocity 1289 01:05:07.719 --> 01:05:10.920 is tough. So the current problem now is so that 1290 01:05:11.119 --> 01:05:13.599 they've brought twenty two up without a crew so that 1291 01:05:13.679 --> 01:05:16.320 they can evacuate the space station if they needed to. Okay, 1292 01:05:16.360 --> 01:05:18.719 but they only have two docking ports, so twenty's on 1293 01:05:18.719 --> 01:05:20.800 one of them, twenty two's on the other. They can't 1294 01:05:20.840 --> 01:05:23.639 bring up a new crew on twenty three without getting 1295 01:05:23.679 --> 01:05:26.840 rid of twenty So the plan is to attempt to 1296 01:05:27.000 --> 01:05:31.400 repair on the damaged window on twenty they've already done 1297 01:05:31.400 --> 01:05:34.599 a spacewalk to evaluate this and then send it down 1298 01:05:34.800 --> 01:05:38.000 empty to see how that goes before twenty three goes up. 1299 01:05:38.039 --> 01:05:40.239 So this is going to play out in the next 1300 01:05:40.280 --> 01:05:40.679 six month. 1301 01:05:40.719 --> 01:05:42.760 You know, it's one of those windshield repair places that 1302 01:05:42.880 --> 01:05:44.440 might be able to fly up and do that thing. 1303 01:05:44.519 --> 01:05:46.039 You know, they come to your house and they yeah, 1304 01:05:46.039 --> 01:05:48.800 apparently they come right to you. Right, it's free. 1305 01:05:48.920 --> 01:05:52.880 It's safe lass or safe light or whatever. This space 1306 01:05:52.920 --> 01:05:54.599 station was only designed to last for ten years, so 1307 01:05:54.639 --> 01:05:55.920 it flew in twenty one, so it was supposed to 1308 01:05:55.920 --> 01:05:57.480 go to twenty thirty one. They might ex sended to 1309 01:05:57.480 --> 01:06:00.079 fifteen to twenty thirty six, so there's no certain amount. Well, 1310 01:06:00.119 --> 01:06:01.719 it's exciting. We don't know a lot about it. It's 1311 01:06:01.719 --> 01:06:05.199 exciting though. Yeah, it's good to know. An interesting point 1312 01:06:05.320 --> 01:06:08.880 if we don't get a new station is that community 1313 01:06:08.880 --> 01:06:12.000 will continue to remain in orbit after the International Space Station. 1314 01:06:12.039 --> 01:06:13.559 But it might be just because of the Chinese space 1315 01:06:13.559 --> 01:06:16.199 station up there. But in twenty twenty one NASA did 1316 01:06:16.280 --> 01:06:18.840 start the commercial space station program. So it's the idea 1317 01:06:18.880 --> 01:06:20.760 of we're not going to build a space station. You're 1318 01:06:20.760 --> 01:06:22.480 going to build a space station, and we're going to 1319 01:06:22.480 --> 01:06:26.760 rent time on it, right, And eleven teams applied and 1320 01:06:26.840 --> 01:06:31.360 they've now consolidated that down to three teams. And this 1321 01:06:31.440 --> 01:06:35.360 year they updated the partnership of proposals. They've actually dialed 1322 01:06:35.400 --> 01:06:38.519 back the goals. So the original plan was to have 1323 01:06:38.559 --> 01:06:42.320 a permanently crewed station, and now the new requirement is 1324 01:06:42.719 --> 01:06:45.280 a man tended station, so station that can operate with 1325 01:06:45.280 --> 01:06:47.840 nobody on board, which is an important feature because the 1326 01:06:47.840 --> 01:06:51.199 space station International Space Station can't do that and can 1327 01:06:51.480 --> 01:06:53.760 operate with a four person crew for at least a 1328 01:06:53.800 --> 01:06:59.440 month at a time, and they want a demonstration. They 1329 01:06:59.519 --> 01:07:01.760 planned to at least two designs. The goal is to 1330 01:07:01.800 --> 01:07:06.360 have more smaller stations rather than one giant station. I 1331 01:07:06.440 --> 01:07:09.920 really love the idea of the ISS being. You know, 1332 01:07:10.079 --> 01:07:13.920 every country, every nation that participated, made a module that 1333 01:07:13.960 --> 01:07:18.800 fits somewhere on it for a particular purpose, and that's 1334 01:07:18.960 --> 01:07:21.679 just a wonderful thing. You know, the nations get together 1335 01:07:21.760 --> 01:07:23.880 and do that. So how how are we going to 1336 01:07:23.920 --> 01:07:27.519 have that sort of cooperation if there're a lot of 1337 01:07:27.760 --> 01:07:29.760 smaller ones. Is every country going to have their own 1338 01:07:29.800 --> 01:07:32.119 little space station? I think you'll probably see that there's 1339 01:07:32.159 --> 01:07:37.280 going to be common platforms like your basic docking, fuel supply, maneuver, propulsion, 1340 01:07:37.280 --> 01:07:39.320 and so forth, and then you add a module to 1341 01:07:39.440 --> 01:07:42.599 it for various experiments. Look, the problem with building one 1342 01:07:42.639 --> 01:07:45.199 big station is it only can handle one class of experiments, 1343 01:07:45.199 --> 01:07:48.199 typically micro gravity experiments. If you want to do other 1344 01:07:48.239 --> 01:07:50.280 classes of experiments, if you want to do something more 1345 01:07:50.320 --> 01:07:54.239 in manufacturing, or you want to start simulating gravity, do rotation, 1346 01:07:54.360 --> 01:07:56.400 so forth, they not compattle with each other. I see. 1347 01:07:56.719 --> 01:07:59.280 So having more stations means you can try a larger 1348 01:07:59.400 --> 01:08:00.159 array of things. 1349 01:08:00.239 --> 01:08:03.000 Right, And so you have these specialized stations that's for 1350 01:08:03.119 --> 01:08:04.920 particular purposes. 1351 01:08:04.599 --> 01:08:06.960 Right, And often having people on board is a problem, 1352 01:08:07.079 --> 01:08:08.880 Like it's better to not have anyone board where you're 1353 01:08:08.920 --> 01:08:10.440 doing a bunch of these things and they'd have people 1354 01:08:10.519 --> 01:08:13.360 come up and evaluate it, take stuff away, do the 1355 01:08:13.440 --> 01:08:15.719 human stuff on it. So we have a choice. Then 1356 01:08:16.000 --> 01:08:19.680 that's pretty good. There's three companies currently, three groups currently 1357 01:08:19.720 --> 01:08:21.800 competing for one of these, and I'll talk about and 1358 01:08:21.800 --> 01:08:25.000 there's a fourth that's sort of an odd one. We'll 1359 01:08:25.000 --> 01:08:26.920 talk about that in a minute. So the original is 1360 01:08:26.960 --> 01:08:29.279 axiom Space is a bunch of X space station folks 1361 01:08:29.319 --> 01:08:30.600 that have been working for a while. These the guys 1362 01:08:30.600 --> 01:08:34.039 who've been flying tourists to the space station until that 1363 01:08:34.199 --> 01:08:38.000 was shut down this year. Right. And their original plan, 1364 01:08:38.159 --> 01:08:40.039 which I always thought was a good one, was to 1365 01:08:40.159 --> 01:08:44.279 deliver components to the International Space Station to expand it 1366 01:08:44.319 --> 01:08:47.680 with the intent of removing it before the space station 1367 01:08:47.840 --> 01:08:50.279 is re entered. Wow. So they were going to bring 1368 01:08:50.319 --> 01:08:53.000 up the habitat and a lab and an observatory and 1369 01:08:53.000 --> 01:08:54.920 so forth, and only at the end to add this 1370 01:08:55.079 --> 01:08:58.039 payload power thermal element that can actually do the free 1371 01:08:58.079 --> 01:09:01.199 flying and then separate from the International Space before was reacity. 1372 01:09:01.840 --> 01:09:04.479 Out of the new circumstances, they've changed the plan basically 1373 01:09:04.560 --> 01:09:06.880 to get directly to a free flying space station by 1374 01:09:06.880 --> 01:09:09.640 twenty twenty eight by flying that payload power thermal the 1375 01:09:09.680 --> 01:09:11.760 primary control all but first, and then adding and have 1376 01:09:11.920 --> 01:09:15.680 to it later. We'll see. They always struggled for enough funding. 1377 01:09:15.720 --> 01:09:17.239 That's why they were doing all the tourist stuff to 1378 01:09:17.239 --> 01:09:19.279 try and make money. They're not working on space seats again, 1379 01:09:19.279 --> 01:09:21.880 another attempt to get revenue streams. It's a challenge to 1380 01:09:21.880 --> 01:09:22.800 have enough money to do this. 1381 01:09:22.920 --> 01:09:25.600 So space tourism is a topic that we always talk 1382 01:09:25.640 --> 01:09:27.720 about on the key. Yeah, is that is that a 1383 01:09:27.720 --> 01:09:30.680 segment that's coming up later or is there anything else 1384 01:09:30.720 --> 01:09:31.439 to say about it? 1385 01:09:31.520 --> 01:09:34.000 Not really, because I mean we're the only we have 1386 01:09:34.239 --> 01:09:37.920 had tourism in the form of using crew dragons, right 1387 01:09:37.960 --> 01:09:40.439 the SpaceX capsule to send people up for a few 1388 01:09:40.520 --> 01:09:42.800 days at time have been an affilities, all driven by 1389 01:09:42.880 --> 01:09:46.960 Jared Isazingcman, by the way, the new NASA administrator. It's 1390 01:09:46.960 --> 01:09:48.520 all a question of if you've got one hundred million 1391 01:09:48.520 --> 01:09:50.640 dollars a show to spend on your with three of 1392 01:09:50.720 --> 01:09:53.960 your friends, right to get to a space station. 1393 01:09:54.239 --> 01:09:57.239 Doesn't make any sense to build a separate space hotel, right, 1394 01:09:57.279 --> 01:10:00.760 you might as well have something up there for other 1395 01:10:00.800 --> 01:10:02.359 purposes that people can visit. 1396 01:10:02.880 --> 01:10:04.800 Yeah, I mean we might get to that point, but 1397 01:10:04.880 --> 01:10:08.720 you're still talking billions. It's just too much money. There's 1398 01:10:08.720 --> 01:10:11.159 only so many people that willing to do that, all right. 1399 01:10:11.199 --> 01:10:13.520 So we talked about Active Space. Let's talk about Blue Origin. 1400 01:10:13.720 --> 01:10:18.239 So another competitor in the space station area. Their concepts 1401 01:10:18.279 --> 01:10:23.600 called Orbital Reef. So they partner with Sierra Space. That's 1402 01:10:23.680 --> 01:10:27.279 the dream Chaser guys, as well as Boeing. 1403 01:10:27.479 --> 01:10:30.520 And there's there a crazy billionaire behind Blue Origin. 1404 01:10:30.359 --> 01:10:34.079 This is Jeff bezos is long term project. Apparently he's 1405 01:10:34.119 --> 01:10:37.279 been selling a billion dollars worth of Amazon stock every 1406 01:10:37.359 --> 01:10:40.239 year to fund Blue Origin. Although now they're starting to 1407 01:10:40.279 --> 01:10:42.920 make money, right, The got New glenwork and you're taking payloads. 1408 01:10:43.439 --> 01:10:46.640 That's something and it's important that it's funded because the 1409 01:10:46.720 --> 01:10:50.840 current estimate by Bezos himself is to spend one hundred 1410 01:10:50.920 --> 01:10:53.840 billion dollars building out orbital REEF, which is what they 1411 01:10:53.880 --> 01:10:56.560 call the cost of the space the International Space Station. 1412 01:10:56.760 --> 01:10:59.600 Although that expenditure started back and that's a lot of 1413 01:10:59.640 --> 01:11:03.039 Amazon on Prime movies. Yeah, but you figure he's worth 1414 01:11:03.119 --> 01:11:05.000 two hundred and fifty billion, so he could fund the 1415 01:11:05.039 --> 01:11:09.520 whole thing himself, and he doesn't need to. But he 1416 01:11:09.600 --> 01:11:11.439 wants to be flying by twenty twenty seven. And he's 1417 01:11:11.439 --> 01:11:15.479 got New Glenn because his design is using these is 1418 01:11:15.720 --> 01:11:20.000 using that width of New Glenn, the seven meters, and 1419 01:11:20.039 --> 01:11:23.920 then using inflatable habitats. They figure one of their modules 1420 01:11:24.000 --> 01:11:26.680 will be almost like a quarter of the size of 1421 01:11:26.720 --> 01:11:29.680 International Space Station, although so big you're going to have 1422 01:11:29.680 --> 01:11:33.000 to fill it up with stuff, which is something they 1423 01:11:33.000 --> 01:11:36.479 actually have tested. So this year they completed what they 1424 01:11:36.520 --> 01:11:39.000 call the human in the Loop testing where they've actually 1425 01:11:39.039 --> 01:11:43.359 built out mockups of the interiors of orbital reef to 1426 01:11:43.479 --> 01:11:46.399 show all of the common workflows for doing science and 1427 01:11:46.439 --> 01:11:48.359 where to sleep and where to eat and all of 1428 01:11:48.359 --> 01:11:51.319 that sort of stuff. So they finished that qualification now, 1429 01:11:51.319 --> 01:11:53.720 so they're pretty close to actually starting to build hardware 1430 01:11:54.439 --> 01:11:56.239 and to fly in the next couple of years. Wow, 1431 01:11:56.319 --> 01:11:59.239 that's cool, it's exciting. Yeah, they've really come a long way. 1432 01:11:59.279 --> 01:12:01.079 And the fact that new ends flying is the important 1433 01:12:01.079 --> 01:12:05.439 part because he couldn't lift it anyhow. Next is Starlab Space. 1434 01:12:05.479 --> 01:12:07.880 So this is originally a partnership between Lockheed Martin and 1435 01:12:07.920 --> 01:12:11.680 Voyager Space. Lockheed Martin has mysteriously disappeared from this today 1436 01:12:11.720 --> 01:12:15.039 it's now Voyager Space. They call themselves Voyager Technology and 1437 01:12:15.279 --> 01:12:18.760 air Bus of all folks. They've signed the agreement. They 1438 01:12:18.760 --> 01:12:24.560 have Grumman on board. North Grumman owns the Signus cargo ship. 1439 01:12:24.800 --> 01:12:27.720 So because northro Grumman had originally made their own proposal 1440 01:12:27.800 --> 01:12:32.399 did not get selected. Starlab's intent is to use Starship 1441 01:12:32.720 --> 01:12:35.279 to do the launch and also to have an inflatable 1442 01:12:35.319 --> 01:12:38.279 habitat and to be man tended. And they are only 1443 01:12:38.439 --> 01:12:41.399 the beginning of doing their human loop testing, so they're 1444 01:12:41.439 --> 01:12:43.920 just building mock ups now, so they're fairly far behind 1445 01:12:44.079 --> 01:12:48.039 Ortal Reef. Again, these are all a few years away, 1446 01:12:48.119 --> 01:12:51.000 so we'll see the most interesting story on the space 1447 01:12:51.039 --> 01:12:54.960 station side. I lasted the end which is Vast is 1448 01:12:55.000 --> 01:12:56.920 the name of the company Vast. This started in two 1449 01:12:56.920 --> 01:13:00.680 thousand and one by a tech crypto bil millionaire named 1450 01:13:00.760 --> 01:13:05.880 Jed Mcallib. Did you say crypto or crypto crypto crypto billionaire. Yes, 1451 01:13:06.000 --> 01:13:09.399 made his money on bitcoin and has decided to sucked 1452 01:13:09.399 --> 01:13:13.880 it out of everybody else's wallet something like that, and 1453 01:13:13.960 --> 01:13:15.800 decided he wanted to build a space station. He wants 1454 01:13:15.840 --> 01:13:20.000 to get to artificial gravity, so rotating space stations. But 1455 01:13:20.039 --> 01:13:23.600 he started with this goal called Haven One's company's not small, 1456 01:13:23.640 --> 01:13:26.279 eight hundred employees, a whole lot of X SpaceX people 1457 01:13:26.279 --> 01:13:29.920 apparently there wow. But their initial vehicle, Haven one is 1458 01:13:29.960 --> 01:13:32.079 supposed to be a single launch space station that you 1459 01:13:32.119 --> 01:13:35.600 could launch on a Falcon nine. So fourteen metric tons 1460 01:13:35.680 --> 01:13:37.880 is in the realm of what the what Falcon nine 1461 01:13:37.920 --> 01:13:41.039 could lift, but short life man like it should be 1462 01:13:41.039 --> 01:13:43.840 able to function for about three years but only be 1463 01:13:44.000 --> 01:13:46.479 inhabited for the way they did the math was one 1464 01:13:46.600 --> 01:13:49.840 hundred and sixty astronaut days. Yeah, so that would be 1465 01:13:50.439 --> 01:13:54.399 four astronauts ten days at a time, four times kind 1466 01:13:54.439 --> 01:13:57.560 of thing. But it fits within Sean Duffy's requirements of 1467 01:13:57.600 --> 01:14:01.600 thirty days of usability. And they actually have built a 1468 01:14:01.640 --> 01:14:05.920 hull and it's painted and prepped and pressure tested, and 1469 01:14:05.600 --> 01:14:11.199 the life support systems have been tested. They earlier this 1470 01:14:11.319 --> 01:14:14.479 year in November, flew a test article a five hundred 1471 01:14:14.560 --> 01:14:19.199 kilo on the Falcon nine a testing power, propulsion and 1472 01:14:19.239 --> 01:14:22.920 communication systems for the station. So they believed to be 1473 01:14:22.960 --> 01:14:26.680 able to launch next year. No earlier than May, but 1474 01:14:27.000 --> 01:14:31.680 possibly next year this initial product, and it's guy far 1475 01:14:31.840 --> 01:14:35.279 enough alone that NASA has now gotten involved and they 1476 01:14:35.279 --> 01:14:38.159 are signing on to the round two of the Commercial 1477 01:14:38.159 --> 01:14:39.199 Space Station program. 1478 01:14:39.279 --> 01:14:39.520 Wow. 1479 01:14:39.640 --> 01:14:43.399 Their intent the next design, what they're calling Haven two, 1480 01:14:43.720 --> 01:14:46.439 would be more like a mirror design, need to be 1481 01:14:46.479 --> 01:14:50.399 lifted by the Falcon nine, heavy, bigger platform, but also 1482 01:14:50.520 --> 01:14:54.319 multimodular to be more persistent. So granted they came out 1483 01:14:54.319 --> 01:14:57.399 of nowhere, they've got no heritage, but they have just 1484 01:14:57.439 --> 01:15:01.600 simply gotten to work building a manned, tendable station in 1485 01:15:01.880 --> 01:15:05.600 short amount of time. That's pretty cool, pretty amazing. Yeah, 1486 01:15:05.680 --> 01:15:07.319 should we take another break, and then we'll do the 1487 01:15:07.399 --> 01:15:08.239 last bit of this. 1488 01:15:08.640 --> 01:15:12.159 Yeah, sounds good, and we'll take another break for these 1489 01:15:12.279 --> 01:15:18.960 even more important messages, and we're back. It's the twenty 1490 01:15:19.000 --> 01:15:23.640 twenty five Space Geek Out. We're Richard Campbell, I'm Carl Franklin, 1491 01:15:23.760 --> 01:15:28.239 the guy asking the dumb questions. And Richard, as always, 1492 01:15:28.279 --> 01:15:31.079 has done lots of research and got his notes together, 1493 01:15:31.119 --> 01:15:33.279 and he's talking about the year in space. 1494 01:15:33.520 --> 01:15:36.560 All right, we're done with stay stations, Thank goodness, thank you. 1495 01:15:36.680 --> 01:15:39.680 Let's talk about the moon stuff. Okay, yeah, all right, 1496 01:15:40.079 --> 01:15:43.199 So not much happened with Artemis. That's the you know, 1497 01:15:43.359 --> 01:15:47.640 the big Space Shuttle derived rocket that can take the 1498 01:15:47.640 --> 01:15:50.399 Orion capsule to the Moon. They flew an unmanned one 1499 01:15:50.439 --> 01:15:53.159 around the moon. Artemis two is the next mission. It's 1500 01:15:53.159 --> 01:15:55.439 not going to fly until twenty twenty six, and that's 1501 01:15:55.479 --> 01:15:58.199 actually going to do a recreation, especially with Apollo eight mission. 1502 01:15:58.199 --> 01:16:01.039 They're going to do a free or Richard return around 1503 01:16:01.039 --> 01:16:04.800 the Moon with four passengers on Orion. So not much 1504 01:16:04.800 --> 01:16:06.680 to say on there. But what did happen on the 1505 01:16:06.680 --> 01:16:10.399 Moon in twenty twenty five is three different landers. Well, 1506 01:16:10.439 --> 01:16:12.880 the first one is called Blue Ghosts. This is built 1507 01:16:12.880 --> 01:16:15.920 by Firefly Aerospace. They also make the Alpha rocket, which 1508 01:16:15.920 --> 01:16:18.439 they have flown successfully once and also failed on, but 1509 01:16:18.479 --> 01:16:20.640 it's not big enough vehicle to actually send anything to 1510 01:16:20.640 --> 01:16:23.399 the Moon. So this flew on a Falcon nine with 1511 01:16:23.479 --> 01:16:27.720 another moonlander called how Kudo R. This was in January 1512 01:16:27.760 --> 01:16:31.800 twenty twenty five. The Blue Ghosts did twenty five, got 1513 01:16:31.840 --> 01:16:34.279 them into low Earth orbit, spent twenty five days doing 1514 01:16:34.319 --> 01:16:37.039 their checkout. We did a translunar burn, took them four 1515 01:16:37.119 --> 01:16:39.560 days to get to the Moon, did an orbital insertion. 1516 01:16:39.640 --> 01:16:42.239 They spent sixteen days in lunar orbit to time their 1517 01:16:42.319 --> 01:16:46.520 landing perfectly, so they landed the beginning of a lunar 1518 01:16:46.600 --> 01:16:49.279 day because they don't have the ability to survive at night. 1519 01:16:49.399 --> 01:16:51.560 So you're gonna get fourteen days out of this thing. 1520 01:16:51.600 --> 01:16:53.279 That's all they can get if they landed right. And 1521 01:16:53.319 --> 01:16:56.319 they did a march second. They put it down a 1522 01:16:56.439 --> 01:16:59.319 mere Chrisium in a that's a three hundred miles wide 1523 01:16:59.319 --> 01:17:01.439 basin on the edge of the visible disc of the Moon, 1524 01:17:02.159 --> 01:17:03.640 and they timed it so that they would have a 1525 01:17:03.680 --> 01:17:06.640 full fourteen days to do operations. They had ten signs 1526 01:17:06.640 --> 01:17:09.479 payloads on totally about two hundred pounds worth of stuff 1527 01:17:09.880 --> 01:17:13.439 and it operated flawlessly until March sixteen when this lunar 1528 01:17:13.479 --> 01:17:16.399 sunset happened and it went cold. And that's the end 1529 01:17:16.439 --> 01:17:20.239 of that. That's it. That's the best news story we 1530 01:17:20.319 --> 01:17:22.840 got out of all the lunar landers. Was Blue Ghosts 1531 01:17:23.039 --> 01:17:28.199 Firefly's first attempt and they nailed it. So Hakudo R, 1532 01:17:28.239 --> 01:17:31.840 which flew on that same Falcon nine, was actually Mission II. 1533 01:17:32.359 --> 01:17:36.159 There had been a previous attempt, Mission one in twenty 1534 01:17:36.199 --> 01:17:39.640 twenty three, which had crashed onto the Moon having run 1535 01:17:39.680 --> 01:17:43.159 out of propellant on its way down. Unfortunate, So this 1536 01:17:43.319 --> 01:17:45.479 was their second attempt. This is a company called I Space, 1537 01:17:45.560 --> 01:17:48.960 is a Japanese commercial space company, and they used a 1538 01:17:49.000 --> 01:17:53.039 totally different approach, so they took them longer to get 1539 01:17:53.119 --> 01:17:55.720 to the Moon. They did a flyby on February fifteenth, 1540 01:17:56.239 --> 01:17:59.439 finally got to lunar orbit in May and circularized by 1541 01:17:59.479 --> 01:18:02.479 the end of May. They attempted their landing in June 1542 01:18:03.079 --> 01:18:06.439 and crashed agains. This time it was a laser range finders. 1543 01:18:06.479 --> 01:18:08.239 They got further down. They did not run on a fuel, 1544 01:18:08.439 --> 01:18:11.479 but they did lose control of the vehicle and so it 1545 01:18:11.600 --> 01:18:15.800 impacted hard and nothing was functional. Unfortunate second try. I 1546 01:18:15.880 --> 01:18:21.079 hope they go again. Third lander, Intuitive Machines. This was 1547 01:18:21.199 --> 01:18:24.880 their second attempt. Also, they had flown in the first 1548 01:18:24.880 --> 01:18:28.039 one and in one on landing when the legs had 1549 01:18:28.079 --> 01:18:30.479 broken and it tipped over. This time they flew on 1550 01:18:30.479 --> 01:18:34.319 a Falcon nine in February, did their lunar did their 1551 01:18:34.680 --> 01:18:37.680 lunar insertion on in March, and got straight to a 1552 01:18:37.760 --> 01:18:41.680 landing attempt, lost contact, possibly due to lunar dust the 1553 01:18:41.760 --> 01:18:44.920 terminal dessense phase, and when they got communications back, it 1554 01:18:45.079 --> 01:18:47.840 was once again laying on its side, just like I 1555 01:18:47.920 --> 01:18:48.319 am one. 1556 01:18:48.520 --> 01:18:51.760 The Falcon nine is the one that can land vertically. 1557 01:18:52.079 --> 01:18:56.720 Right, Well, the Falcon nine booster returns after flying, all right, 1558 01:18:56.760 --> 01:18:59.520 but it's not going to do that on the Moon. No, 1559 01:18:59.600 --> 01:19:01.960 it doesn't go to the Moon. Its job is to 1560 01:19:02.000 --> 01:19:04.159 get that vehicle up in the lower Earth orbit, where 1561 01:19:04.159 --> 01:19:06.600 it then flies itself to the lower Moon orbit. Okay, 1562 01:19:06.760 --> 01:19:08.520 well they started, Yeah, they can put it in a 1563 01:19:08.600 --> 01:19:12.159 lunar orbiti'tion ne really, No lunar orbits are funny, all right. Anyway, 1564 01:19:12.600 --> 01:19:15.359 Intuitive Machines is kind of tall and gangly, and it 1565 01:19:15.560 --> 01:19:18.279 bloody thing tipped over again. Something went wrong on the 1566 01:19:18.359 --> 01:19:21.119 landing once again, they hid some solar power, so it 1567 01:19:21.159 --> 01:19:23.520 actually functioned for about thirteen hours and they ran as 1568 01:19:23.560 --> 01:19:26.079 much experiments as they could. It had a couple of 1569 01:19:26.159 --> 01:19:30.439 rovers on board that weren't able to be deployed. Two failures. 1570 01:19:30.439 --> 01:19:33.199 For like you kid, you know, you don't have the 1571 01:19:33.279 --> 01:19:36.800 luxury like Elon does of landing the falcons on Earth. 1572 01:19:37.199 --> 01:19:39.359 You can't really do that on the Moon because you 1573 01:19:39.399 --> 01:19:40.039 get one shot. 1574 01:19:40.520 --> 01:19:43.119 You get one shot, and you only you know, these 1575 01:19:43.159 --> 01:19:45.359 are small vehicles. They are a few hundred pounds, they 1576 01:19:45.359 --> 01:19:48.960 only have so much fuel. It's all remote control, right, 1577 01:19:49.000 --> 01:19:51.880 you have your it's automated. You have to land yourself. 1578 01:19:51.920 --> 01:19:56.079 And they're just learning. It's hard. That being said, take 1579 01:19:56.079 --> 01:19:58.159 a look at Blue Ghosts what Firefly did, and it's like, 1580 01:19:58.279 --> 01:20:01.560 guys nailed it is possible. That was the first you know, 1581 01:20:01.840 --> 01:20:05.439 what Blue Ghosts did. What Firefly did was the very 1582 01:20:05.479 --> 01:20:09.199 first successful landing by a commercial company on the Moon. 1583 01:20:09.760 --> 01:20:12.720 And finally on the Moon. This is something I talked about. 1584 01:20:12.840 --> 01:20:15.279 We've talked about originally some of the basis on the Moon, 1585 01:20:15.319 --> 01:20:19.840 which is European Space Agencies moonlight missions. So this is 1586 01:20:19.880 --> 01:20:23.560 the moonlight lunar communications and Navigation Services Mission. What it 1587 01:20:23.720 --> 01:20:27.000 is is a set of orbiters around the Moon to 1588 01:20:27.079 --> 01:20:33.279 provide communications and basically equivalent a GPS navigation information. The 1589 01:20:33.399 --> 01:20:36.279 idea is so that spacecraft going to and from the 1590 01:20:36.319 --> 01:20:40.119 Moon don't have to carry redundant navigation and communications gear. 1591 01:20:40.399 --> 01:20:43.319 They'll carry some, but they'll count on this network to 1592 01:20:43.399 --> 01:20:46.640 do their communication, so they can carry more useful payload, 1593 01:20:46.640 --> 01:20:48.640 don't have to do quite as much stuff. And it 1594 01:20:48.680 --> 01:20:50.800 was only a proposal when we first talked about this 1595 01:20:50.880 --> 01:20:55.079 with twenty seventeen twenty eighteen, but this year they sent 1596 01:20:55.119 --> 01:20:57.840 out the contract to tails Alinia, who are actually going 1597 01:20:57.880 --> 01:21:00.760 to build those navigation satellites so they. 1598 01:21:00.600 --> 01:21:04.199 Can replace all that navigation gear with what's essentially a garbin. 1599 01:21:04.399 --> 01:21:07.279 Well, which typically right now, if you go to the Moon, 1600 01:21:07.319 --> 01:21:11.000 you have multiple redundant navigation systems. Most likely what you 1601 01:21:11.039 --> 01:21:13.079 do is you have a system that works with moonlight 1602 01:21:13.359 --> 01:21:15.560 and a backup one that can run without it. So 1603 01:21:15.600 --> 01:21:17.720 if some reason moonlight was down, so you reduce weight 1604 01:21:17.760 --> 01:21:20.319 on the spacecraft, you don't have to carry as much gear, 1605 01:21:20.520 --> 01:21:22.840 which means you can carry more working payload. That's the 1606 01:21:22.880 --> 01:21:27.439 whole idea. So this is the way they make this work. 1607 01:21:27.439 --> 01:21:29.840 They're focusing on the South Pole because that's where all 1608 01:21:29.840 --> 01:21:32.039 the interest is right now, is trying to get to 1609 01:21:32.159 --> 01:21:34.560 Shackleton Crater and see if we can extract water ice 1610 01:21:34.600 --> 01:21:39.279 from the Moon. And so one satellite for communications, four 1611 01:21:39.359 --> 01:21:43.319 for navigation, so that you can do triangulation between the four. Now, 1612 01:21:43.439 --> 01:21:46.720 they don't orbit the way you would think because the 1613 01:21:46.800 --> 01:21:50.039 lunar gravity is so irregular. In order to have stable 1614 01:21:50.159 --> 01:21:54.039 orbits that don't need constant fuel, use use highly elliptical 1615 01:21:54.159 --> 01:21:59.439 orbits they call these elliptical lunar frozen orbits. For the 1616 01:21:59.479 --> 01:22:02.039 navigation satellites, they'll have a period of twenty four hours. 1617 01:22:02.039 --> 01:22:04.760 So they go from point from start at one point 1618 01:22:04.960 --> 01:22:07.239 close to the North pole, then go out ten thousand 1619 01:22:07.279 --> 01:22:11.319 kilometers away from the Moon, mostly looking at the South Pole, 1620 01:22:11.359 --> 01:22:14.279 and then come back and that takes about twenty four hours. 1621 01:22:14.319 --> 01:22:17.560 And so those four mean that over the period where 1622 01:22:17.560 --> 01:22:19.319 you'd be landing, if you time it right, you'll be 1623 01:22:19.319 --> 01:22:21.319 able to see all four of them. To be able 1624 01:22:21.359 --> 01:22:23.840 to continuously triangle at your location when you're landing or 1625 01:22:23.880 --> 01:22:27.920 when you're moving around. The comsat would only be a 1626 01:22:27.960 --> 01:22:30.680 period of twelve hours, so it's not continuous communications, but 1627 01:22:30.680 --> 01:22:32.800 it's enough that you don't have to carry the heavy 1628 01:22:32.840 --> 01:22:34.760 transmitting gear to go all the way back to Earth. 1629 01:22:35.119 --> 01:22:37.840 You just communicate with the satellite in the windows where 1630 01:22:37.880 --> 01:22:40.159 you can see it, which will be ten hours a 1631 01:22:40.279 --> 01:22:44.239 day roughly. So they're fully funded. They'll be funded. The 1632 01:22:44.359 --> 01:22:46.640 East member states have committed funding through to twenty twenty eight, 1633 01:22:46.640 --> 01:22:49.199 which it'll be in full service construction starting now in 1634 01:22:49.279 --> 01:22:52.680 twenty twenty five. So there's going to be a navigation 1635 01:22:52.760 --> 01:22:55.640 network on the Moon. Wow, that's really cool. It's cool. 1636 01:22:55.720 --> 01:22:59.840 It is it's really exciting, and it speaks to building infrastructure, 1637 01:23:00.119 --> 01:23:03.279 not just one and done missions, but adding infrastructure to 1638 01:23:03.319 --> 01:23:05.079 make every other flight easier. 1639 01:23:05.239 --> 01:23:07.439 Well, and you're probably going to talk about this next, 1640 01:23:07.479 --> 01:23:10.720 but you know, Elon wants to go to Mars and 1641 01:23:11.119 --> 01:23:13.039 wants to use the Moon as sort of a jumping 1642 01:23:13.079 --> 01:23:13.680 off point. 1643 01:23:13.960 --> 01:23:15.279 But it's a good training ground. 1644 01:23:15.520 --> 01:23:18.039 Yeah, okay, it's a good training ground. But it's kind 1645 01:23:18.079 --> 01:23:23.039 of like, you know, not that much closer to Mars 1646 01:23:23.159 --> 01:23:25.920 than we are, you know, But that's not the point, 1647 01:23:26.079 --> 01:23:29.000 is it. It's more about the fact that there's low gravity, 1648 01:23:29.119 --> 01:23:36.319 so launching from Mars would be less you know, energy expensive. 1649 01:23:36.359 --> 01:23:38.239 I guess I'll but you still have to get the 1650 01:23:38.239 --> 01:23:41.520 supplies there. Here's the real issue. The real issue is 1651 01:23:42.119 --> 01:23:45.880 right now, for every space flight, especially all the manned ones, 1652 01:23:45.920 --> 01:23:48.560 we bring every breath of air, every drop of water, 1653 01:23:48.720 --> 01:23:52.199 every scrap of food, everything with us when you launch, 1654 01:23:52.600 --> 01:23:54.880 all of it. And so to go to the Moon, 1655 01:23:55.039 --> 01:23:57.560 it's just so many supplies, right, And to go to 1656 01:23:57.560 --> 01:24:00.479 Mars even more so. The whole goal of what we're 1657 01:24:00.479 --> 01:24:03.119 doing on the Moon is to start using resources on 1658 01:24:03.159 --> 01:24:07.239 the Moon, starting with water. Water is a kilo for 1659 01:24:07.319 --> 01:24:10.079 every leader. It's a lot of weight. And so if 1660 01:24:10.159 --> 01:24:13.279 you could actually start to extract water on the Moon 1661 01:24:13.720 --> 01:24:15.520 or on Mars, you don't have to carry as much. 1662 01:24:15.600 --> 01:24:17.439 And this is why we were talking about earlier. The 1663 01:24:17.520 --> 01:24:20.359 South Pole is an optimal place because not really doesn't 1664 01:24:20.399 --> 01:24:24.279 have the ice cap, but it has sunlight twenty four 1665 01:24:24.319 --> 01:24:24.880 hours a day. 1666 01:24:25.199 --> 01:24:29.000 Right, Yeah, So shackledon Crater is a massive crater, huge 1667 01:24:29.039 --> 01:24:33.359 city size, big city size, billions of tons of water 1668 01:24:33.399 --> 01:24:36.479 ice proposed to be inside this continuously shaded crater. But 1669 01:24:36.600 --> 01:24:39.239 the rim of the crater at certain points almost has 1670 01:24:39.239 --> 01:24:43.920 sun all month long. In that twenty eight lunar day, 1671 01:24:44.359 --> 01:24:46.359 there's always sun on the crater because it's right on 1672 01:24:46.359 --> 01:24:49.119 the south pole, and so it's a place where you 1673 01:24:49.119 --> 01:24:52.319 could have the solar power and also have access to 1674 01:24:52.359 --> 01:24:55.640 the ice. So it's again this is all very experimental. 1675 01:24:55.680 --> 01:24:57.600 We should do this mostly with robots before we send 1676 01:24:57.640 --> 01:25:00.359 people down there, but we should be experimenting with trying 1677 01:25:00.399 --> 01:25:02.600 to get ice, and there are missions coming up in 1678 01:25:02.640 --> 01:25:05.199 the next couple of years to actually go and extract 1679 01:25:05.239 --> 01:25:07.680 that ice. It's just I got to understand how cold 1680 01:25:07.720 --> 01:25:10.920 those shaded areas are. This is like negative two hundred degrees. 1681 01:25:11.039 --> 01:25:14.399 That ice is hard, and we don't know what form 1682 01:25:14.439 --> 01:25:17.239 it's in, right, We don't know if it's powdered, if 1683 01:25:17.239 --> 01:25:20.000 it's crystals, if it's block like. We just don't know 1684 01:25:20.039 --> 01:25:21.920 how it was created. So we don't know what shape 1685 01:25:22.000 --> 01:25:23.840 is in and what's going to take to actually extract it. 1686 01:25:23.920 --> 01:25:26.359 So there's a lot of experimentation to be done before 1687 01:25:26.359 --> 01:25:27.840 we go further down the path. But if you can 1688 01:25:27.920 --> 01:25:31.920 do it, you can start to extract resources, and then 1689 01:25:31.960 --> 01:25:33.640 we start talking about the other resource of the moon 1690 01:25:33.760 --> 01:25:37.159 is all kinds of metals, all kinds of materials that 1691 01:25:37.199 --> 01:25:38.840 are easy to work on if we can get them 1692 01:25:38.920 --> 01:25:42.399 up there. So it's the beginning of making a space 1693 01:25:42.439 --> 01:25:45.000 faring civilization, and the Moon is a great testing ground 1694 01:25:45.039 --> 01:25:46.960 for that, sure, and you can carry that to Mars. 1695 01:25:47.600 --> 01:25:50.159 That being said, not a lot happened in Mars in 1696 01:25:50.199 --> 01:25:53.920 twenty twenty five. It's an off year for easy flights. 1697 01:25:55.039 --> 01:25:56.760 That being said, there was a flight to Mars. It 1698 01:25:56.800 --> 01:25:59.560 was the New Glen launch of Escapade. This is a 1699 01:25:59.600 --> 01:26:02.479 space This is two spacecraft called Blue and Gold, are 1700 01:26:02.479 --> 01:26:05.840 relatively small that are doing atmospheric analysis on the Moon 1701 01:26:06.399 --> 01:26:08.079 on Mars, and they're gonna they're gonna take them a 1702 01:26:08.119 --> 01:26:10.199 year and a half to get there, but they launched 1703 01:26:10.199 --> 01:26:11.840 this year. And it's about all that happened on the 1704 01:26:11.840 --> 01:26:16.399 Moon on Mars except for one other thing. This is 1705 01:26:16.479 --> 01:26:20.239 new news, relatively speaking. Okay, So there's a set, there's 1706 01:26:20.279 --> 01:26:23.960 a there's a relay network, a set of spacecraft around 1707 01:26:24.199 --> 01:26:26.159 the Mars right now. Some of them are older, some 1708 01:26:26.199 --> 01:26:29.039 of them newer. There's a spacecraft called Odyssey, there's the 1709 01:26:29.560 --> 01:26:33.680 use vehicle called Express. It's a reconnaissance orbiter. There's Maven, 1710 01:26:33.720 --> 01:26:36.680 and there's a trace gas orbiter and one of the 1711 01:26:36.680 --> 01:26:40.399 These are all sensor sets orbiting the Mars that collect information. 1712 01:26:40.439 --> 01:26:43.000 They've gotten pictures of landslides and detected water and all 1713 01:26:43.000 --> 01:26:46.159 those sorts of things. But they also relay data from 1714 01:26:46.239 --> 01:26:50.920 the various landers, things like perseverance and curiosity. Instead of 1715 01:26:50.960 --> 01:26:53.560 having to communicate directly to Earth, they send their data 1716 01:26:53.680 --> 01:26:56.920 up to these various orbiters who then relay it back 1717 01:26:57.000 --> 01:26:59.479 to the Earth. Right again, like we're trying to do 1718 01:26:59.520 --> 01:27:02.279 with moonlight over on the Moon. We have infrastructure on 1719 01:27:02.279 --> 01:27:06.319 Mars to make things easier, and it's the Maven spacecraft 1720 01:27:06.359 --> 01:27:09.560 that's in trouble. So this was originally proposed in two 1721 01:27:09.560 --> 01:27:11.159 thousand and six, it was selecting two thousand and eight. 1722 01:27:11.199 --> 01:27:13.600 It flew in twenty thirteen, arrived at Mars in twenty fourteen, 1723 01:27:13.640 --> 01:27:15.760 so it's been operating up there for another for a decade. 1724 01:27:15.840 --> 01:27:18.640 It should be good for another five plus years. Its 1725 01:27:18.760 --> 01:27:23.199 main original job besides this communication relay, was studying the 1726 01:27:23.199 --> 01:27:25.880 magnetic fields of Mars, because one of the problems with 1727 01:27:26.039 --> 01:27:30.520 Mars is this magnetic field is largely missing. There's evidence 1728 01:27:30.560 --> 01:27:32.800 that there was liquid water on Mars, that it had 1729 01:27:33.119 --> 01:27:36.159 a useful atmosphere, a dense atmosphere, but the lack of 1730 01:27:36.159 --> 01:27:40.960 a magnetic field has allowed solar particles protons to strip 1731 01:27:41.000 --> 01:27:43.439 that atmosphere away and we're trying to figure out why 1732 01:27:44.039 --> 01:27:46.359 it will help us understand why the Earth hasn't had 1733 01:27:46.359 --> 01:27:47.960 that happen. And there's also a case fore this might 1734 01:27:47.960 --> 01:27:50.920 have been happening with Venus as well, and so part 1735 01:27:50.960 --> 01:27:54.720 of the experiments that Maven does is it flies into 1736 01:27:54.760 --> 01:27:57.720 the atmosphere of Mars on a regular basis, and it's 1737 01:27:58.079 --> 01:28:00.960 specifically designed to be able to do this. It's solar 1738 01:28:00.960 --> 01:28:03.159 panels point forward, so it's stable in that way, but 1739 01:28:03.199 --> 01:28:05.520 it has to turn to be able to send data 1740 01:28:05.560 --> 01:28:09.720 and to collect power and so forth. And so it 1741 01:28:09.800 --> 01:28:13.680 was set into a one hundred and eighty kilometer by 1742 01:28:14.039 --> 01:28:16.960 forty five hundred kilometer orbit, which is a dip into 1743 01:28:17.000 --> 01:28:18.960 the atmosphere it comes back out. And the way it 1744 01:28:19.000 --> 01:28:22.039 happened to be aligned when they did this back in 1745 01:28:22.079 --> 01:28:26.199 December is that it flew behind Mars relative the Earth, 1746 01:28:26.239 --> 01:28:29.079 so we couldn't see it as it went into that dip. 1747 01:28:29.199 --> 01:28:31.720 But when it was supposed to come back out, it 1748 01:28:31.800 --> 01:28:35.520 didn't reconnect and call home, so we were trying to 1749 01:28:35.560 --> 01:28:37.960 figure out what was going on. I didn't get telemetry, 1750 01:28:37.960 --> 01:28:40.399 so then we went in did the raw data analysis, 1751 01:28:40.439 --> 01:28:44.479 and it looked like something happened while it was doing that, 1752 01:28:44.560 --> 01:28:47.680 and it's now tumbling. The signal sort of came and went. 1753 01:28:48.479 --> 01:28:52.079 Wasn't strong enough to maintain a carrier, and so maybe 1754 01:28:52.119 --> 01:28:55.479 a fuel leak or an engine misfired or a reaction 1755 01:28:55.560 --> 01:29:00.000 wheel is defunct. But we've had problems with it before. 1756 01:29:00.760 --> 01:29:02.680 In twenty two and twenty three it went into safe 1757 01:29:02.680 --> 01:29:06.680 modes with problems with its inertial navigation, and it was 1758 01:29:06.680 --> 01:29:09.960 able to recover. But this is a particularly inopportune moment, 1759 01:29:10.319 --> 01:29:12.520 not only because it's now skimming the atmosphere. Sure every 1760 01:29:12.520 --> 01:29:14.039 time it does is it gets a little lower orbit 1761 01:29:14.359 --> 01:29:16.640 and they'll lose it, but they don't get it handled quickly. 1762 01:29:17.600 --> 01:29:20.239 But also we're about to go into sun conjunction, so 1763 01:29:20.279 --> 01:29:22.880 the Mars is moving to a point where the Sun 1764 01:29:22.960 --> 01:29:26.439 is between us and between the Earth and Mars, so 1765 01:29:26.479 --> 01:29:28.439 we're not going to be able to communicate it with it. 1766 01:29:28.800 --> 01:29:31.840 So we only have a few weeks to try and 1767 01:29:31.840 --> 01:29:33.880 figure out what's happened with Mavin and do and get 1768 01:29:33.880 --> 01:29:36.479 it recovered, or likely by the time we can talk 1769 01:29:36.520 --> 01:29:39.960 to again, it'll be gone. Wow. So and there's a 1770 01:29:40.000 --> 01:29:42.520 question about replacing it, getting another mission up there, and 1771 01:29:42.560 --> 01:29:44.560 this is a tough time to be talking about new missions. 1772 01:29:44.560 --> 01:29:47.920 So sure, yeah, so that's going on. Okay, a couple 1773 01:29:47.920 --> 01:29:49.800 more things. I got to talk about James Web. Yes, 1774 01:29:49.880 --> 01:29:52.920 although not a lot of excitement around James Web these days, 1775 01:29:52.720 --> 01:29:56.039 it's now doing the hard work it is. You know, 1776 01:29:56.319 --> 01:29:58.960 last year we talked about they were doing cycle four 1777 01:29:59.159 --> 01:30:02.439 and how they there was twenty three hundred proposals. We're 1778 01:30:02.680 --> 01:30:05.720 asking for seventy eight thousand hours of observation time, noting 1779 01:30:05.720 --> 01:30:09.159 there's only eight thousand hours in a year, so they 1780 01:30:09.159 --> 01:30:11.479 had to select down. They've now done the cycle five 1781 01:30:11.520 --> 01:30:14.560 proposals and so well, there were twenty three hundred proposals 1782 01:30:14.560 --> 01:30:17.439 in cycle four, there is twenty nine hundred proposals to 1783 01:30:17.560 --> 01:30:21.119 cycle five, so huge demand for the thing. And the 1784 01:30:21.159 --> 01:30:24.000 crisis in cosmology, which we talked about a lot last year. 1785 01:30:24.000 --> 01:30:25.439 I'm not going to go in too much detail because it's 1786 01:30:25.479 --> 01:30:28.199 not resolved, but it's also kind of good news. The 1787 01:30:28.239 --> 01:30:30.600 crisis in cob osmology is how do we figure out 1788 01:30:30.600 --> 01:30:33.760 the age of the universe. And there's two differential strategies, 1789 01:30:34.399 --> 01:30:37.640 and James Webb helps make one of them more accurate 1790 01:30:37.680 --> 01:30:40.800 than the other, and they are now overlapping less like 1791 01:30:40.840 --> 01:30:42.880 it used to be that they were both they overlapped 1792 01:30:43.439 --> 01:30:48.159 in time within their areas of their circular area of probability, 1793 01:30:48.520 --> 01:30:52.520 and now they're not overlapping. The indication here is that 1794 01:30:52.520 --> 01:30:54.279 we're going to have to develop new science to make 1795 01:30:54.319 --> 01:30:56.119 sense of any of this. All right, So I got 1796 01:30:56.119 --> 01:30:56.520 a question. 1797 01:30:56.640 --> 01:30:59.279 Yeah, when we visited the James Webb Telescope as it 1798 01:30:59.319 --> 01:31:02.439 was being built for it was long Doddard. Yeah, at Goddard, 1799 01:31:03.199 --> 01:31:06.159 one of the things that we talked about was, you know, 1800 01:31:06.239 --> 01:31:10.079 their ultimate goal was to be able to look back 1801 01:31:10.600 --> 01:31:11.800 and see the Big Bang. 1802 01:31:11.960 --> 01:31:13.720 Well they couldn't look back to be a bag with closer. 1803 01:31:13.960 --> 01:31:17.960 Yeah, as close as they could get. And how far 1804 01:31:18.039 --> 01:31:20.159 back have we gotten? Pretty time far? 1805 01:31:20.399 --> 01:31:22.000 In fact, one of the stories that came out this 1806 01:31:22.119 --> 01:31:26.319 year is we've identified a supernova from when the universe 1807 01:31:26.399 --> 01:31:28.960 was only seven hundred and thirty million years old, which 1808 01:31:29.000 --> 01:31:31.920 is yeah, so yeah, under a billion, like we're talking 1809 01:31:32.000 --> 01:31:36.680 we think it's thirteen point eight billion years old. In 1810 01:31:36.800 --> 01:31:39.319 twenty four they found a supernova that was one point 1811 01:31:39.359 --> 01:31:42.199 eight billionaere That was from one point eight billionaears in 1812 01:31:42.279 --> 01:31:45.600 the at the beginning of the universe. So now they've 1813 01:31:45.640 --> 01:31:47.920 gotten further back. Like, the problem is that you get 1814 01:31:47.960 --> 01:31:51.399 to a point where light didn't work the same way. Right, 1815 01:31:51.439 --> 01:31:52.960 there was too much energy in the universe. It was 1816 01:31:53.039 --> 01:31:55.279 just all white. So you can only see so far back. 1817 01:31:55.279 --> 01:31:58.600 But we're seeing much further back and we're finding errors 1818 01:31:58.640 --> 01:32:01.560 in our math. That makes sense. We have to update 1819 01:32:01.600 --> 01:32:05.119 our math. That's always good though, that means good things. Yeah, 1820 01:32:05.199 --> 01:32:07.359 this is where new science comes from. Like James Webb 1821 01:32:07.439 --> 01:32:10.520 is doing its job. It's challenging our assumptions about how 1822 01:32:10.560 --> 01:32:13.720 things work. That gravity behavior may have changed over the 1823 01:32:13.800 --> 01:32:16.119 duration of the universe, that mass may have changed over 1824 01:32:16.119 --> 01:32:20.239 the duration of universe. Like really tricky concepts. 1825 01:32:19.960 --> 01:32:23.439 And any new anything new about dark energy and dark matter. 1826 01:32:23.560 --> 01:32:25.199 Well that's the arguments that are going on right now, 1827 01:32:25.199 --> 01:32:27.680 but no, nothing being resolved. The problem here is we've 1828 01:32:27.680 --> 01:32:32.039 done the observations. It's question everything we know. Now you 1829 01:32:32.119 --> 01:32:34.520 have to work on possible solutions and do further testing 1830 01:32:34.560 --> 01:32:36.800 and that takes time. There's no two ways around it. 1831 01:32:36.840 --> 01:32:39.800 But James Webb is doing its job. It's in demand. 1832 01:32:39.920 --> 01:32:44.560 It's awesome. Yes, Okay, last couple of things. There's a 1833 01:32:44.560 --> 01:32:48.640 company recently formed called K two Space, and what they're 1834 01:32:48.640 --> 01:32:52.399 talking about is taking advantage of the new heavy lift 1835 01:32:52.479 --> 01:32:57.039 vehicles like New Glend and Starship to build big satellites. 1836 01:32:57.399 --> 01:32:58.800 You know, for a long time, the push has been 1837 01:32:58.840 --> 01:33:02.399 smaller and smaller status lights because they're cheaper and our 1838 01:33:02.560 --> 01:33:04.880 ministurization works so well. But they're saying, let's start big, 1839 01:33:04.960 --> 01:33:08.039 big one. They call them Mega class, so three meter 1840 01:33:08.199 --> 01:33:11.279 by three meter platforms like that would only fit in 1841 01:33:11.479 --> 01:33:15.399 really large spacecraft. They've already raised two hundred and fifty 1842 01:33:15.439 --> 01:33:18.399 million dollars. That's enough money to fly something, and they 1843 01:33:18.399 --> 01:33:21.319 have a contract with the Space Force for demonstration flight. 1844 01:33:22.119 --> 01:33:24.079 One of the key pieces of tech they have with 1845 01:33:24.199 --> 01:33:26.840 them is a very high powered hall of Thark thruster, 1846 01:33:26.960 --> 01:33:30.560 so twenty kilowatt Halifac thruster that takes a lot of electricity. 1847 01:33:30.560 --> 01:33:33.479 Those are big solar panels, so you would be talking 1848 01:33:33.520 --> 01:33:36.319 about building really big satellites. I think this is super 1849 01:33:36.319 --> 01:33:40.199 exciting that we're shining looking at things like New Glen 1850 01:33:40.439 --> 01:33:43.000 and Starship and saying what can we build that would 1851 01:33:43.000 --> 01:33:44.920 actually take advantage of these heavy loads, and that's what 1852 01:33:44.960 --> 01:33:48.439 these guys are working on. That's cool, and that leads 1853 01:33:48.520 --> 01:33:51.239 us to our last topic, which I wish I didn't 1854 01:33:51.279 --> 01:33:53.319 have to talk about a bunch of people in asking questions, 1855 01:33:53.399 --> 01:33:56.960 especially a fellow named Kieran Lanning who pinged me online 1856 01:33:57.000 --> 01:34:03.039 to say, hey, what about space based power and this 1857 01:34:03.119 --> 01:34:05.359 whole AI in orbit thing? 1858 01:34:05.560 --> 01:34:07.600 All right now, I don't know how real this is, 1859 01:34:07.640 --> 01:34:10.159 but I did see something on Facebook. So take that 1860 01:34:10.359 --> 01:34:12.800 from what it's worth, because there's lots of BS. 1861 01:34:12.800 --> 01:34:13.439 You know what it's worth. 1862 01:34:13.520 --> 01:34:16.199 It's on face that it was either China or Japan 1863 01:34:16.479 --> 01:34:21.920 has successfully built a solar station in space that is 1864 01:34:22.000 --> 01:34:24.039 beaming energy back down to Earth. 1865 01:34:24.159 --> 01:34:26.319 So is that BS or is that real? No, they've 1866 01:34:26.319 --> 01:34:28.319 done it, but that's never been hard to do. It's 1867 01:34:28.359 --> 01:34:31.279 a question of scale, right right, when are you going 1868 01:34:31.359 --> 01:34:34.079 to get to meaningful amounts of power? And this feeds 1869 01:34:34.079 --> 01:34:36.159 into and we'll talk about this a lot more on 1870 01:34:36.199 --> 01:34:39.760 the Energy Geek ount this whole issue about the stress 1871 01:34:40.399 --> 01:34:44.119 that artificial intelligence has put on the power grid. Yes, 1872 01:34:44.239 --> 01:34:46.279 and so one of the proposals and has now been 1873 01:34:46.319 --> 01:34:49.000 companies farmed like Starcloud to say, let's just put it 1874 01:34:49.000 --> 01:34:52.680 in orbit, let's put data centers in orbit and power 1875 01:34:52.720 --> 01:34:54.279 off of solar panels. 1876 01:34:54.319 --> 01:34:55.960 You know, the thing that you won't have a problem 1877 01:34:55.960 --> 01:34:58.760 with is overheating, because it's freaking cold in space. 1878 01:34:59.159 --> 01:35:02.119 That The problem is it is cold in space, but 1879 01:35:02.279 --> 01:35:04.479 there's no atmosphere, so it's very hard to get rid 1880 01:35:04.520 --> 01:35:07.560 of the heat. You've got. What are the heaviest parts 1881 01:35:07.640 --> 01:35:12.000 of the International Space Station are its radiators. When you 1882 01:35:12.039 --> 01:35:13.640 look at a picture of the space station, you'll see 1883 01:35:13.640 --> 01:35:16.640 these big white panels that are always pointed differently than 1884 01:35:16.640 --> 01:35:19.000 the solar panels. Pole panels pointed one way, these light. 1885 01:35:19.119 --> 01:35:22.560 Those are heat radiators. They're trying to dissipate the heat 1886 01:35:22.600 --> 01:35:25.960 of charging the batteries. Because they spend forty five minutes 1887 01:35:26.000 --> 01:35:28.479 in sunlight forty five minutes in darkness, they're constantly switching 1888 01:35:28.520 --> 01:35:31.319 between solar power and battery power, solar power, battery power. 1889 01:35:31.600 --> 01:35:34.640 So it has its own challenges besides scale and money. 1890 01:35:34.760 --> 01:35:37.960 Well, no huge problems. So first off, if you're going 1891 01:35:38.039 --> 01:35:40.840 to be the low enough orbit that you can actually 1892 01:35:40.880 --> 01:35:44.439 have reasonable latency for a data center, then you're always 1893 01:35:44.479 --> 01:35:46.560 going to be in shadow unless you put yourself in 1894 01:35:46.560 --> 01:35:49.199 a sun synchronous orbit. So a sun synchronous orbit means 1895 01:35:49.239 --> 01:35:52.720 you stain in an orbit where you are always in sunlight. 1896 01:35:53.479 --> 01:35:55.560 The problem that, of course is the planet is moving 1897 01:35:55.640 --> 01:35:57.239 under you, so you're always going to have to be 1898 01:35:57.319 --> 01:36:00.800 changing your connections to what you relay against you budget landing. 1899 01:36:00.880 --> 01:36:02.279 And also you're probably gonna have to be either in 1900 01:36:02.319 --> 01:36:04.600 Antarctica or the Arctic, right, you're gonna have to be 1901 01:36:04.600 --> 01:36:05.439 at one of the poles. 1902 01:36:05.640 --> 01:36:08.119 No, it'd you always be in sunlight, right, No? No. 1903 01:36:08.359 --> 01:36:11.680 A sunsynchronous orbit is basically an orbit where you are 1904 01:36:11.960 --> 01:36:14.439 orbiting at a rate that the Sun stays over you. 1905 01:36:14.560 --> 01:36:17.800 It's okay, but you might be orbiting, but don't you 1906 01:36:17.920 --> 01:36:20.479 also have to stay in geosynchronous orbit so that you 1907 01:36:20.520 --> 01:36:23.439 don't beam energy back down to Earth at the same spot. 1908 01:36:23.520 --> 01:36:25.960 That's only if you're doing yeah, no, if you're if 1909 01:36:25.960 --> 01:36:29.000 you're a geosynchronous orbit, then you're always in sunlight because 1910 01:36:29.039 --> 01:36:30.319 you're far enough away from the Earth. It's not a 1911 01:36:30.319 --> 01:36:32.720 big deal. Okay. The downside is it's six hundred milliseconds 1912 01:36:32.760 --> 01:36:35.199 of latency. So a data center is stupid up there, 1913 01:36:35.279 --> 01:36:37.399 just doesn't make sense. It's a great place for power, 1914 01:36:37.600 --> 01:36:39.119 it's a terrible place for a data. 1915 01:36:38.920 --> 01:36:41.000 Center, all right, okay, right, two different things. 1916 01:36:40.880 --> 01:36:44.319 Yeah, two totally different things. Right, So but these whole ideas, 1917 01:36:44.399 --> 01:36:47.119 let's use solar power for data centers, which you know, dude, 1918 01:36:47.319 --> 01:36:49.039 that's fine. Dude on the ground. It's just you'll need 1919 01:36:49.079 --> 01:36:52.680 such huge batteries that it makes no sense. Yeah, so okay, 1920 01:36:52.720 --> 01:36:54.479 you could go into it. There is a lower sun 1921 01:36:54.479 --> 01:36:57.479 synchronous orbit. It's a it's a funny inclination, so it's 1922 01:36:57.640 --> 01:36:59.960 limited amount of boost to get there. It's also done 1923 01:37:00.000 --> 01:37:01.920 stable orbits are always going to be burning fluid to 1924 01:37:01.960 --> 01:37:04.880 do it. And then you're going to deploy some huge 1925 01:37:04.920 --> 01:37:07.560 solar panels because you want a lot of electricity to 1926 01:37:07.640 --> 01:37:10.880 run your data center. Well, all those solar panels create 1927 01:37:10.880 --> 01:37:13.960 additional atmospheric drag, so you're going to need even more 1928 01:37:14.000 --> 01:37:16.960 fuel to try and stay in orbit. And it's hard 1929 01:37:17.000 --> 01:37:20.359 to move something that big without breaking it. And that's 1930 01:37:20.399 --> 01:37:22.079 not even the heavy part. The heavy part's going to 1931 01:37:22.079 --> 01:37:24.319 be the cooling of those computers. It's hard to cool 1932 01:37:24.359 --> 01:37:27.520 them on land, Trying to cool them in space is 1933 01:37:27.720 --> 01:37:30.800 hugely problem at it. So the sensible thing if you 1934 01:37:30.840 --> 01:37:33.079 really want to put a data center in space, would 1935 01:37:33.079 --> 01:37:36.359 be to actually put the power up a geostationary orbit 1936 01:37:36.359 --> 01:37:38.760 where you'd never have to move it and then relay 1937 01:37:38.760 --> 01:37:40.079 to the data centers. Are you going to do that? 1938 01:37:40.119 --> 01:37:42.399 Just put the data center on the ground, right, What's 1939 01:37:42.399 --> 01:37:44.960 the diff're because the cooling is easy. You don't have 1940 01:37:45.000 --> 01:37:47.439 to lift all that stuff up. Like the logical thing 1941 01:37:47.439 --> 01:37:48.960 to do if you really want to do this stuff 1942 01:37:49.000 --> 01:37:57.159 in space is to build geostationary orbit power because then 1943 01:37:57.159 --> 01:37:59.279 you don't care about the latency. You're just beaming electricity down. 1944 01:37:59.319 --> 01:38:00.880 And it'd be great if you would drive that forward. 1945 01:38:00.880 --> 01:38:03.800 But if when you do the math on what it's 1946 01:38:03.840 --> 01:38:07.079 going to cost to lift those solar panels up, this 1947 01:38:07.239 --> 01:38:12.680 makes no sense. This is the pets dot Com of 1948 01:38:12.720 --> 01:38:15.239 the AI bubble. And let's let's face it. 1949 01:38:15.279 --> 01:38:18.560 I mean, the AI companies are facing an economic crisis 1950 01:38:18.600 --> 01:38:22.000 right now because they're not profitable and you know, and 1951 01:38:22.039 --> 01:38:29.880 they're basically subsidizing our fast responses from lllms and it's 1952 01:38:29.960 --> 01:38:34.159 not sustainable. So and it may may come to a 1953 01:38:34.239 --> 01:38:34.920 head very soon. 1954 01:38:35.000 --> 01:38:37.359 Yeah, and that's what I'm saying. It's it's this is 1955 01:38:37.399 --> 01:38:39.760 the pets dot com, right The last stage of the 1956 01:38:39.800 --> 01:38:43.760 dot com boom was these really dumb websites, this really 1957 01:38:43.840 --> 01:38:46.880 dumb data center idea is how you know, we're out 1958 01:38:46.880 --> 01:38:49.680 of ideas on how to do this faster, like the 1959 01:38:49.760 --> 01:38:51.359 time it's going to take you to do this at 1960 01:38:51.399 --> 01:38:54.800 scale and space you could have built more power plans online, Like, 1961 01:38:54.960 --> 01:38:57.479 what are you doing right? It's just it's another way 1962 01:38:57.479 --> 01:38:59.720 to raise money and to keep people distracted and to 1963 01:38:59.760 --> 01:39:02.119 keep people excited while you're at the tail end of 1964 01:39:02.319 --> 01:39:04.520 and that's a crazy bubble. We'll go further into that 1965 01:39:04.560 --> 01:39:06.760 when we talk about the power problems and the energy I. 1966 01:39:06.720 --> 01:39:08.760 Was just going to say, that's a really good teaser 1967 01:39:08.880 --> 01:39:11.359 for the next geek Out, which is the Energy geek. 1968 01:39:11.079 --> 01:39:12.720 Out, And believe me, I'm going to do that at 1969 01:39:12.720 --> 01:39:14.399 the end of the Energy geek Out because in a 1970 01:39:14.439 --> 01:39:17.199 lot of ways, it's a distraction. I expect because of 1971 01:39:17.279 --> 01:39:20.960 the time it takes to build any of this, this 1972 01:39:21.039 --> 01:39:23.680 whole bubble will be over before any of it comes online. 1973 01:39:23.680 --> 01:39:25.920 I think you're right about that. And it's not just 1974 01:39:26.640 --> 01:39:30.279 we who think that. I mean, everybody is predicting the 1975 01:39:30.439 --> 01:39:34.920 AI bubble shell burst very soon, if it hasn't burst already. Yeah. 1976 01:39:35.000 --> 01:39:36.720 They At the beginning of twenty twenty five, it was 1977 01:39:36.760 --> 01:39:40.399 all about the AI powerhouse. By the end of twenty 1978 01:39:40.439 --> 01:39:42.319 twenty five, it's all about the AI bubble. You can 1979 01:39:42.399 --> 01:39:44.960 see it coming. It's pretty obvious. And this is just 1980 01:39:45.039 --> 01:39:48.319 the silliest part of it. So far right. I'm all 1981 01:39:48.520 --> 01:39:50.439 for space based power. If we want to build it, 1982 01:39:50.479 --> 01:39:53.840 that's great. It's expensive, right, That's why the proposal was 1983 01:39:54.039 --> 01:39:56.720 Actually mature technology is on the Moon because all the 1984 01:39:56.880 --> 01:40:00.319 ingredients to build solar panels are on the Moon, and 1985 01:40:00.399 --> 01:40:03.479 that reduced gravity. You'd actually make better crystals on the 1986 01:40:03.479 --> 01:40:06.199 Moon than you would on Earth. And then it's not 1987 01:40:06.359 --> 01:40:10.079 that hard to get back to geostationary orbit from the Moon. 1988 01:40:10.560 --> 01:40:12.800 It's really quite easy because the green gravity is so 1989 01:40:12.920 --> 01:40:15.880 much lower. So it would make sense to construct those 1990 01:40:15.920 --> 01:40:19.399 panels up there, send them back to geostationary orbit, assemble it, 1991 01:40:20.199 --> 01:40:21.920 and then beam the power to the surface, which is 1992 01:40:21.920 --> 01:40:24.039 one of the things that Bezos was talking about. Yeah, 1993 01:40:24.159 --> 01:40:27.319 this is all possible, but it's not. Also, it's a 1994 01:40:27.359 --> 01:40:28.560 decade away or more. 1995 01:40:28.680 --> 01:40:31.199 And the beaming of power is done by microwave. Right, 1996 01:40:31.239 --> 01:40:33.560 that's the best idea so far. If you're going space 1997 01:40:33.600 --> 01:40:36.000 to space, you can do it with a lasers because 1998 01:40:36.039 --> 01:40:38.760 it doesn't vacuum doesn't diffuse it. But as soon as 1999 01:40:38.760 --> 01:40:41.319 you want to go through an atmosphere, you're much better 2000 01:40:41.359 --> 01:40:43.720 off using microwaves because they go through the atmosphere. And 2001 01:40:43.800 --> 01:40:45.640 the problem with microwaves is you want to beam that 2002 01:40:45.720 --> 01:40:49.119 to a place on Earth where there's nobody. 2003 01:40:48.760 --> 01:40:51.159 That's going to get in that way of that beam, 2004 01:40:51.239 --> 01:40:53.760 because you may fry well, I mean that put a 2005 01:40:53.800 --> 01:40:56.520 fence around. Well, it's not going to be dense enough 2006 01:40:56.520 --> 01:40:58.840 to fry anything you play. It's not going to cook 2007 01:40:58.880 --> 01:41:00.279 birds in flight, like, that's not. 2008 01:41:01.199 --> 01:41:03.880 I was worried about people, not birds, but no birds 2009 01:41:03.920 --> 01:41:05.199 you could actually eat. 2010 01:41:05.560 --> 01:41:08.720 Well, it's not going to damage aircraft, like, none of 2011 01:41:08.760 --> 01:41:11.560 those things would happen, But you would still want to 2012 01:41:11.560 --> 01:41:14.239 put a fence around that, like you shouldn't be walking 2013 01:41:14.239 --> 01:41:16.760 around in there, but it's not likely to do any 2014 01:41:17.199 --> 01:41:22.720 substantial harm. Microwaves aren't dense enough to do that, not 2015 01:41:23.119 --> 01:41:25.800 at that scale. We you know, go back and listen 2016 01:41:25.800 --> 01:41:28.600 to the Space based power geek out. We talked through 2017 01:41:28.640 --> 01:41:32.000 all of this, although at the time, you know, starship 2018 01:41:32.079 --> 01:41:34.079 was just an idea. Like if it's only when we 2019 01:41:34.119 --> 01:41:36.359 get down to this couple one hundred dollars a kilogram 2020 01:41:36.399 --> 01:41:39.720 to lowerth orbit that even becomes vaguely feasible. But I 2021 01:41:39.720 --> 01:41:43.640 would think the more practical thing to do would be 2022 01:41:43.800 --> 01:41:46.560 to get mature the technology is on the Moon to 2023 01:41:46.560 --> 01:41:49.319 be able to do construction there because here's the fun part. 2024 01:41:49.399 --> 01:41:52.079 As soon as you've got space based power working at scale, 2025 01:41:52.119 --> 01:41:55.479 it's not just zero emission energy landing on the Earth 2026 01:41:55.479 --> 01:41:59.960 and that's awesome, it's also infrastructure for flying spacecraft around. 2027 01:42:00.159 --> 01:42:03.359 You know, every space vehicle to be able to maneuver 2028 01:42:03.560 --> 01:42:08.079 has to carry some kind of propellant, some kind of engine, 2029 01:42:08.279 --> 01:42:11.800 and some kind of power source. When we use chemical rockets, 2030 01:42:11.800 --> 01:42:14.560 we've combined the compower source and the compeller pealant together. 2031 01:42:14.960 --> 01:42:17.199 But if you think about an electrical engine, like a 2032 01:42:17.239 --> 01:42:20.199 Hall effect thrust or an ion engine, your power source 2033 01:42:20.239 --> 01:42:23.079 is typically solar panels, and then you have a high 2034 01:42:23.079 --> 01:42:27.279 density fuel or propellant like xenon, and the engine is electric. 2035 01:42:27.359 --> 01:42:31.760 It accelerates the zene on at high velocities. But solar 2036 01:42:31.760 --> 01:42:33.960 panels are heavy and they take up a lot of room. 2037 01:42:34.560 --> 01:42:36.960 So what if you could eliminate those by having the 2038 01:42:37.000 --> 01:42:43.159 power plant be a stationary thing. So geostationary orbit power system. 2039 01:42:43.800 --> 01:42:46.119 You're flying spacecraft back and forth between the Moon and 2040 01:42:46.159 --> 01:42:49.239 the Earth, and you could actually beam the power onto 2041 01:42:49.279 --> 01:42:51.199 that thing so it doesn't have to carry the weight 2042 01:42:51.199 --> 01:42:53.560 of its own big power plant for running those engines 2043 01:42:53.600 --> 01:42:55.920 at high power, so it can decelerate. It's really smart, 2044 01:42:56.079 --> 01:42:59.640 it's interesting, and it speaks to a more complex future 2045 01:42:59.680 --> 01:43:02.199 where we build out this infrastructure in space that allows 2046 01:43:02.239 --> 01:43:04.680 us to move vehicles around. You might be only running. 2047 01:43:04.760 --> 01:43:10.039 You imagine if we started putting spacecraft into Mars cycler orbits. 2048 01:43:10.520 --> 01:43:12.560 So this is like, once you get up to speed, 2049 01:43:12.880 --> 01:43:15.039 it'll fly you to Mars in about six months and 2050 01:43:15.119 --> 01:43:17.479 back to the Earth in about thirty months on its own. 2051 01:43:17.520 --> 01:43:19.239 It doesn't need any more energy after that, but you've 2052 01:43:19.239 --> 01:43:21.199 got to get it up to speed. Well that's the 2053 01:43:21.199 --> 01:43:23.279 point where you'd be close enough to that space based 2054 01:43:23.359 --> 01:43:25.439 power that you could actually beam the power on board 2055 01:43:25.439 --> 01:43:27.479 to run that engine, to get it to its speed, 2056 01:43:27.520 --> 01:43:29.760 and you never need to run it again. Interesting. 2057 01:43:29.920 --> 01:43:32.800 Yeah, these geek outs are always interesting to me, Richard. 2058 01:43:32.920 --> 01:43:35.720 I always learned many, many things. So thank you for 2059 01:43:35.760 --> 01:43:38.319 your research and your time and effort that you put 2060 01:43:38.319 --> 01:43:39.079 into these things. 2061 01:43:39.720 --> 01:43:42.880 Yeah, you know, they're some of the hardest days at 2062 01:43:42.920 --> 01:43:44.840 the end of the year, but they're rewarding to to 2063 01:43:44.840 --> 01:43:47.079 get all this together. So I'm glad to have it done. 2064 01:43:46.960 --> 01:43:50.000 And everybody appreciates it. So thank you. All Right, that's 2065 01:43:50.039 --> 01:43:54.640 it and we will see you next time on Dot. 2066 01:43:54.600 --> 01:44:16.680 Net dot net. 2067 01:44:16.800 --> 01:44:19.720 Rocks is brought to you by Franklin's Net and produced 2068 01:44:19.720 --> 01:44:23.560 by Pop Studios, a full service audio, video and post 2069 01:44:23.560 --> 01:44:27.720 production facility located physically in New London, Connecticut, and of 2070 01:44:27.760 --> 01:44:32.720 course in the cloud online at pwop dot com. Visit 2071 01:44:32.720 --> 01:44:34.880 our website at d O T N E t R 2072 01:44:34.920 --> 01:44:38.840 O c k S dot com for RSS feeds, downloads, 2073 01:44:39.000 --> 01:44:42.680 mobile apps, comments, and access to the full archives going 2074 01:44:42.720 --> 01:44:46.119 back to show number one, recorded in September two thousand 2075 01:44:46.119 --> 01:44:48.800 and two. And make sure you check out our sponsors. 2076 01:44:48.920 --> 01:44:51.960 They keep us in business. Now go write some code. 2077 01:44:52.279 --> 01:44:57.479 See you next time. You gotvans. 2078 01:44:57.880 --> 01:45:02.720 And my mess home, then 2079 01:45:02.800 --> 01:45:04.880 My taxes in line credit