This Week in Space 204 Transcript

Rod Pyle [00:00:00]:
Hey, space fans, it's Rod Pyle here. We're going back to the moon at last. And we're taking you with us. But first we got to talk about all the changes NASA has announced in the past few weeks. It's a big deal. It's big news, and it's coming from Jared Isaacman, our favorite NASA administrator. Join us.

Rod Pyle [00:00:26]:
This is This Week in Space, episode number 204, recorded on March 27 for April. April 3, 2026. A New NASA.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:00:37]:
Hello and welcome to another episode of this Week in Space. This one from the field at the Johnson Space Center. I'm Rod Pyle, editor in chief at AST magazine. I'm here with the one, the only, Tariq Malik of space.com. Hello, Rod. How are you doing? I'm good. How are you, partner? Doing all right. Doing all right. So this is our new NASA edition.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:00:55]:
We're going to be talking about some of the recent changes and shakeups at the space agency coming from our new NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman. But because we're here in the field and we just had a magnificent launch of Artemis 2, we're going to talk about that. And let's start with you, Tariq, because you were actually at the launch. I was. I was. And for once. And you laughed through the whole thing. I know you saw the video. Yeah. You giggled. Yeah.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:01:20]:
You can see the video at space.com I forgot to have them show it to you, but I forgot to give you the link. But no, yeah, the space, space line. I mean, it all, it was a gorgeous day at the Kennedy Space Center. They had a, an absolutely flawless countdown. There were like a couple of little minor, minor, minor glitches. But really, Rod, I mean, compared to the tanking tests that we've seen, compared to the, the, how many leaks. There were no leaks at all.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:01:49]:
Can you imagine? No leaks at all on the SLS rocket. And they were able to get off the ground on time? Actually, not on time. They were about 10 minutes late. They went through the window. There was a question as to whether or not that was a planned hold. Did you find out? Well, they, the, the window opened at a certain time, but they've got some, they had, they had planned holes and then they could come out of it whenever they felt like. And there were a couple things that they were working, really kind of minor things that they were waiting. There was like a temperature sensor, for example, on, on the, the, the launch port system batteries. There was another, there was Another kind of really minor thing that they were able to.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:02:24]:
Oh, there was a there issue as well. The eastern range was no go for a while different than the actual launch range that you know, the launch firing center, the launch control. And they were able to work through that too. And excuse me, but if I understand correctly that was they couldn't verify that they'd be able to get a destruct sequence signal to the rocket, to the flight termination system. So they had to go get an old piece of shuttle hardware out of the VAB and pull it in.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:02:48]:
But it sounds that was what they planned to do and that's what they said they were going to do. It does seem like they had another piece of equipment but on the Cape side at the Space Force Station side that was also vintage that they were able to use. That's kind of what I took away from the post launch briefing. But the, the result was a bit of a 10 minute slip. But they didn't set an actual launch time until 10 minutes before they actually launched. So they kind of waited in a plan to hold before they came out of that. And it was absolutely amazing. It was so loud, Rod. It was so loud. How loud was it? Well, we were, we were closer to this pad about three miles than I was to the starship launch, which folks listening and maybe watching you might have seen the video of when I was out there for the starship launch out in Texas.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:03:38]:
We were about five miles away or so there. So. So but this one, I mean you could feel it in your bones, Rod. And it was so bright, like I had to actually look away. But you could feel it because I didn't get to go. I could feel it. But I am here at Johnson Space center, which is important because this is where we're. So we got a tour of mission Control today. Yes. And we got to see what happens in mission Control when the crew is sleeping, which is not a whole lot, but it's still a very exciting thing to see. I did want to add by the way, just after launch I spoke to friend of the show, Jerry Griffin, who is an Apollo flight director who was at the launch. And I said so what are your impressions having overseen all the Apollo flights? He said it was the smoothest countdown he could remember ever seeing. It was the only time there wasn't some kind of a material hold in terms of something long or unplanned that really made a difference. He was impressed by how the rocket performed. But his favorite part was the other current flight directors said can you come in the back room here. And he said, all right. And they introduced themselves and I guess we were Flight director.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:04:37]:
You introduce yourself by number. Yeah. Hi, I'm cliff. I'm number 87. Oh, hi, I'm Jane. I'm. I'm flight director number 107. Jerry said, hi, I'm flight director number six. He's very proud of that. But he said he was just thrilled and I guess he's going to be back there for splashdown. So that's going to be great. I think I'll be here for splashdown. You're heading home early, but let's talk about how the mission's going so far. So they got into orbit. Yes.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:05:01]:
Everything went well? Yes. They thrust into their higher orbit, which was I think 1400 miles by 120 or something. By 115. Yeah. Which is their checkout orbit. 24 hour orbit. Actually, no, by 130. 130. Because they changed it for their approach. No, 115. 115. No, that's right. It doesn't matter. Yeah. And that matters to them. Right. They did their translator ejection burn last night and they're on their way to the moon, which is just. It gives me chills. Yeah. Today is flight day. Three crew just woke up. So they are beginning kind of their first cruise day with. I was talking to NASA last night, everybody, and, and I asked in the press conference because it was a frenetic 48 hours. NASA had told us from the get go that these first two days, these first 48 hours of the mission, that's like make or break and it is packed. So they launch into space within four hours of launching into space.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:05:55]:
Victor Glover, the pilot, is manually flying the Orion spacecraft around the inner, the upper, the interim cryogenic propulsion stage to test rendezvous and all of that. So just be clear, they separated from the upper stage of the sls. Yes. And then much like they did in the Apollo days with the S4B stage, they maneuvered around it. They did. They backed the maneuvering systems.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:06:17]:
They backed back the way about 400, 400ft. They did a big flip so they could face it. And then they came up really close. There's an actual docking target inside the upper stage, the one that they would use for the actual lunar landers that they're going to have to do. He got up real close about 15 meters or so away from that. And that checked out really well. So then they turned all the way around to the side of icps to look at a painted one on the side of it and an American flag. Vic Glover said, oh, look at that pretty American flag, you know, California boy Ra, you know. So that's my, that's my eagle sound everybody. Anyway, so, and in all where he said that it was, it was handled very well, that it was very precise. And Howard Hu, the Orion program manager here at the Johnson Space center said last night that that is like music to the flight controllers and everyone that put their heart and soul into building the spacecraft at Lockheed, at NASA, that, that it. To hear that their vehicle performed exactly as it was expected to, even better than was, was really great.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:07:21]:
They did have some trouble. Should we talk about that? Sure. Well, shortly into this day they, they had a bit of trouble with the probably most attractive new feature of this spaceship to me. The toilet. Right? The enclosed toilet cubicle. That's right. It's like a little room. In the old days when you did your business, you just did it in front of friends behind the seats, maybe a curtain or something. Yeah. Now they have an actual cubby and it's the size of a small porta potty, I guess. Well, if you go inside in the floor of the space.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:07:57]:
It's in the floor. Yeah. You're restrained sideways and you do your business, but only if the fan's working well. g on a small jet, not like a jumbo jet. Right. Maybe one that is like two seats per side. Private. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the size of this bathroom. It's a small jet size bathroom and they call it a hygiene base. So they can actually go in there, they can get cleaned up and it has a toilet, very small version of the space station toilet and has your, your vent for urine thing. And that's the problem that was happening. The fan was having problems starting. Right. And so I guess someone had to pee and they couldn't use it.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:08:32]:
And they, they spent the first couple hours trying to figure that out and what they found out was that it was a controller issue with the fan that needs to be primed. So you pour some regular, just plain water into it and you get it ready like you're jiggling the handle so that you know that the plunger is going to go, you know, on the, and then they, they turn on like suction. Everyone has their own little funnel that they use. There's one for each member of the crew. And then it, it pulls your urine away from you, it goes into a tank, then they vent it overboard. This is a 25 million dollar handle jiggle pretty much. Okay. But, but Christine Cook, the, the mission specialist, she was. They were able to figure it all out. They had it sorted before, like the day was out. So they fixed it and it was all, it was all okay to go.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:09:12]:
And regardless of the challenges, this is better than the Apollo era where they used a plastic bag called the top hat. That's right. And you can imagine what the rim of the hat is for and how you took care of things so much improved. And they're very happy about that. They're happy that it's working. And then they had one other problem. Yeah, they had a water valve issue. Inside. There's four big water tanks in the service module of, of the, the Orion capsule. The service module is built by the European Space Agency. They're very proud that the vehicle is working obviously too. But during ascent, there's a valve between two of the. So there's two tanks and two tanks and there's a valve that connects the two of them. And that valve that connects the two of them failed shut. So like they can't open it. There are other valves on the tanks that are connected to the Orion capsule. So they can get, they can get all of the water, but it's a crossover. Exactly.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:10:01]:
It just, it connected all four tanks together. So the issue that happened, they were worried about is that when they did the TLI burn, the trans lunar injection burn, that's the go for the moon burn, they were worried that if they had another valve issue, they might not like, basically like lose some access to the water. And so they had the crew fill up extra bags full of water, you know, for that, that, that convent, that, that, what do you call that contingency, if you will. Didn't happen. No, no issues at all. But now they've got seven plus liters of water available in drinking bags or I guess they're collapsible urine bags. They're called collapsible CCUs contingency. Collapsible ur what they're called because you got some kind of cool acronym for it. You can't just call it a peabag.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:10:46]:
So, so yeah, so they were able to get, you know, that all sorted. So at this point, they're asleep, they're speeding to the moon. How long until they actually go behind it? We have to worry about losing signal. Yeah. So flight day three right now as we're recording it, they will take four days to get to the moon. So they get there on flight day six, which is going to be Monday, April 6th. Right now in the after, like the Midday is, is when, when they're going to do it. NASA says 1pm Eastern time is when they actually loop around the moon. So that's really exciting because today they're actually, as we're recording this, they're practicing their lunar science. Like how they're going to do the cameras, which windows are they going to look at of how do they record their, their personal observations? They keep calling their eyeballs Mark One cameras. Right. So that's like Buzz Aldrin is Mark Cranium. Yeah.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:11:35]:
They, they want them to describe what they see. And they're going to see parts of the far side of the moon because of the illumination periods that the Apollo astronauts never saw. Well, I think also because they're so much further away, they're going to be able to see higher and lower in latitude. Right. Because they're not skimming over the surface. But that also means, and pardon my celestial mechanics, which are about zero, but I think that range about 4,600 miles above the backside of the moon. That means the blackout will be longer than it would be if they were orbiting closer. Well, because it will take them longer. That's the slowest they're going to be going on this flight now. Like the fastest they were going was just after TLI.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:12:11]:
Well, but when slowest should be a parallel, which would be two thirds of the way between the Earth and the moon, where they slow down, leaving the Earth's gravitational field and then speed up so they go to the Moon. 
Well, maybe that's what it is. I don't know. This is what this is. I'm telling you what happens when I'm telling the physics. I'm telling you what Judd feeling NASA asset flight director, told me last night, smarter than both of us. So he had said that the fastest they're going to go was when they did the acceleration. They got up to about 25,000 miles an hour. Then they, they will get down to about 1300 miles an hour on apogee around the far side of the moon. Really?Okay. And then, and then on the way back down, they'll accelerate back up to 20.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:12:46]:
So at that speed, they will be blacked out for quite a while. Yeah, I think it's a few hours, right? About two and a half hours. Yeah. So that's a lot. So it is quite, quite of a period for that. I think the entire flyby, it'll be about six hours when they're on a bit of a white knuckle time. Oh, I'm sure it Will they have a lot of confidence in the vehicle so far? Well, and they don't have to do. Apollo always had to do their burns to enter lunar orbit and leave lunar orbit when they were on the back side of the moon, when we couldn't hear until they came out of that blackout. There's nothing to do here. There's nothing at all. Do data measurements and enjoy yourselves.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:13:22]:
That, that burn which happened at. Oh, I'm going to get this time wrong. 7:49pm last night. Right. Thursday night. That burn was not. That was. No, that was Eastern time. Sorry. So that burn put them on a path to the moon, but it also put them on the path back to the Earth. Right. And so now that means that on flight day 10, which is April 10, around the evening time. So after the next episode of this Week in Space, you can be like, oh, Rod and Tariq, they're great. What a great update they just had on the mission. Everyone's really excited now. Please tune in to NASA. We'll turn to NASA and we'll see what happens with the rest of the mission.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:14:00]:
So we won't know that when we record the next episode if they've actually landed because they'll still be on the way down. And if I seem pretty distracted, like maybe I'm not in the whole episode, that's probably going to be why, you know, so, so everyone, listen up. Rod, listen up. John, I'm going to listen up. So you can't go anywhere because we'll. We'll have live coverage. It was, it was. It's been really exciting so far, how smooth it's been. We got the first clear photo. John has it. I think he might be able to show it. The.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:14:30]:
We have this picture from Reid Wiseman, commander of the mission. That. That is absolutely. That's the one that shows Earth dark with the cities lit up. Well, no, they actually. It's an entirely daylit site of picture that they released out and, and it's absolutely stunning. And you know, when he, when they did their final poll for launch, they said, we're go for launch. Reid goes on and says, we're going to go for all of humanity. They all said that. For all of humanity. And they've been really hyping that. We're all in this together, Motif, you know, for feeling for the mission, which I think is really nice to see. And, and so I'm really excited. You know, it is a bit of a slower pace now that we're on the way out to the moon. And so in addition to the practicing of the science stuff, they're, they're doing some CPR demonstrations. How do you do that? Yesterday they did some exercise. They have this flywheel device like a rowing machine, but no backs to it, and you just kind of go up and down. They, Reed Wiseman, they like that workout a lot. And, and they're doing other tests too, so.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:15:30]:
First time we've left Earth orbit in 54 years. Big deal. I don't know how, how you reacted. Well, I do know how you reacted. I was watching you. I was on News Nation kind of co hosting the launch, so I, I had to keep it together. But I, and as I, I enjoyed doing the show, but I kind of really wished I was sitting in my lounge chair with a glass of bourbon and shedding a little bit of a dewy eye tear because it's been a long wait. Yeah, well, that, I think that to me, it didn't come real until they said, okay, we're going to come out of a 10 minute hold. And now I'm on the press, in the, in the press site inside behind my desk there thinking, okay, I've got 10 minutes to get out to where we picked the spot to observe. And I, every step I took to get closer off the mound, closer to the clock, like I started to get like all choked up and like almost a bit teary eyed.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:16:22]:
Now you saw like the recording of my, my reaction. That was excitement. Yeah. And then after that it's like, okay, they're in space. We saw srb, sep and, and all of that. And then that was, it was a picture perfect blue sky and it's like, okay, back to work. And then we went back and like doing live updates, doing all that stuff, figuring out what, what went wrong. But, but it was the walk up to the observing part where I thought I wasn't gonna be able to keep it together. 
All right, just together. You did us proud.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:16:53]:
And it's been a remarkable few days and a remarkable demonstration of American technology and people have issues with the SLS rocket, but it works, the capsule works, it could be more affordable. We'll be looking in the future, as we'll be discussing later, into how we can try and make this cheaper. But you know what? It's still cheaper than Apollo was and everything worked. However, in closing, I have to say the most amazing piece of technology I've seen the last couple of days was the check in at the lovely Days Inn that we're staying. Oh yeah, we are in the same hotel, everybody. So we're staying in separate rooms. Thank you. Separate rooms. We're staying in the Days Inn, which, well, if you've ever done time in prison, you kind of get the idea of what the place is like with the little sandpaper.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:17:38]:
But when you go into the lobby, there's a little desk over here where there used to be clerks and it's closed and they have this little robotic kiosk like an ATM picture, an ATM with a big video screen on it with a person from a very nice lady, in this case from India, who sits there for eight hours at a time waiting for somebody to come up and check into the hotel. They take your credit card, they a couple of keys and all that and it works. It's just, it's weird, strange because they're staring, they're staring through the computer screen at the room the whole time.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:18:12]:
So I walked into the hotel and I went to check in and there's an empty desk. And I was like, oh, that's, there's, that's not the desk. There's like a business center. And then I look over and then the part that you check in is also empty. There's no one in there and it's all dark. And then suddenly the screen goes hello, yeah. And then I hear like hello, can I help you sir? And then you realize that the screen is talking at you and it is, it's a live person but, but they're just not there. So that was zero agent our high tech excitement for the week.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:18:35]:
So one last thing, one last thing. We gotta wrap up. So it is not lost on us. John, John is saying, oh my God, they won't stop talking. No, no, the, the one last thing. It is not lost on us that today as we're recording this, NASA, the government, the White House released their fiscal year budget request for 2027. Also it's not lost on us is that it includes a 23% cut for NASA from the 23, 24 billion that they were requested for last year down to 18.8 billion right now. Big cuts for science, another 40% again for science cuts across the board. So we are just trying to learn what this is going to mean.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:19:16]:
So we'll probably be talking about it later. But I want to let you know hat you should go look at it too because there are some deep cuts, including potential Future stuff beyond Artemis 4. 5.  So. All right, well we'll be back in a few minutes to discuss the new NASA under Jared Isaacman. So go nowhere.

Rod Pyle [00:19:34]:
All Right. So the big topic here, Jared Isaacman comes out swinging. So we've had kind of two blockbuster press conferences of NASA. The first one was a couple of weeks ago talking about, okay, here's how I'm overhauling the Artemis program. That left our head spinning a bit with the stuff we've already discussed, but they locked the SLS development at the stages at now, instead of planning for an advanced upper stage. And perhaps more importantly to us, rejiggered which Artemis space mission is going to land and win. So Artemis 3, which was supposed to be our first, Artemis 2 is still the lunar flyby, and we're seeing that now. Artemis 3 was supposed to be the first landing sometime in 2020-282028-72028.

Rod Pyle [00:20:23]:
That is now going to be an orbital mission, which is going to rendezvous and hopefully, hopefully dock with one or both of the lunar lander contenders, which would be SpaceX's landing system and Blue Origin's blue moon. Kind of got my money on Blue Origin, but we'll see. And then Artemis 4 would be the first landing, Artemis 5 be the second landing. And I think there'd be some component of at least leaning into lunar bases for. From five onward. Right.

Tariq Malik [00:20:54]:
Well, from. Yeah, that's, that's what we're going to talk about. That's what this new announcement. I was there in D.C. for this event. That's what I called it, their big ignition event. But to set the stage, like you said, Jared Isaacman gave that whole big, we're changing up the Artemis program. When they had finished rolling Artemis back to the pad, right, to say that Artemis 2 is gonna be on the pad.

Tariq Malik [00:21:15]:
And by the way, we're gonna do all this stuff to make things faster and smoother, they added that mission. I guess it's weird. They, they redesignated Artemis 3 to be an orbital mission and then moved it up a year to 2027 so that we don't have to wait two years for the next SLS launch. It'll be next year. And they'll, they'll do the docking, the docking test, and they, they, they move the landing to Artemis 4, and then maybe we get Artemis 5 at the end of that year if things work out. So, so that was a big rejigger. They also said that, that they're going to, they're not going to build the Exploration upper stage, which was what you meant by locking the design. That's it.

Tariq Malik [00:21:54]:
What we have now, what we see on the pad for Artemis 1, for Artemis 2, what we see launch on those Missions. That's the design of the SLS right now for at least through Artemis, Artemis 3 and for Artemis 4 and 5, the landing, you know, in the, in the week since that, that initial stage and coming up into this one, they selected Vulcan Centaur 5 upper stage to be the new upper stage for SLS. So when they go to the moon with Artemis 4, Artemis 5 and beyond, if they're going to keep using that, we'll talk about that in a minute. Yeah, they'll have, they'll have the Centaur 5.

Rod Pyle [00:22:29]:
So, and excuse me, but the Centaur has been under development one form or another since the 1960s, right?

Tariq Malik [00:22:34]:
Yeah, I mean, it's got proven track record for different Centaur upper stages. They, I think they actually included Centaur stages right on the shuttle for Galileo.

Rod Pyle [00:22:43]:
No, they, they, they were going to, but the idea of having this bomb slashing around in the back of the shuttle didn't go. So they, they went to solid fuel.

Tariq Malik [00:22:54]:
But, but, but the, the, the TLDR is that there's a lot of lifetime proven and so you don't have to iterate from scratch, which is what the delays have been for the exploration upper stage, just to try to figure out what that's going to be. It's like they've got this one, they got the design, it works for heavy lift for Vulcan. Go ahead, we'll use it. And, and now that's a lock for that one that goes. That, you know, that's a lot of changes already for Artemis. A lot of changes. And, but there's more.

Rod Pyle [00:23:21]:
So salesman.

Tariq Malik [00:23:22]:
That's right. So what happened this month or what happened at NASA ahead of this mission is that Isaacman got together with Lori Glaze and a bunch of other officials in the different branches of human exploration and science as well, I should say, and basically said, look, here's like our big plan. Back In December of 2025, the, the Trump administration released an executive order saying, you know, maintain American superiority in space. And to do that you need a moon base. And that was like, like get it done. And this was their answer to that. They called it their ignition event. And as you said at the outset, it's moon bases or bust.

Tariq Malik [00:24:06]:
Right now everything is going to be aimed at that. And one big thing, because you mentioned Artemis 4 and 5 after Artemis 6 or maybe during Artemis 6, it sounds like, according to Lori Glaze at NASA, in this event they want to go pure commercial. So it's, you know, they're going to let people launch just, you know, companies compete for both the launch vehicle and the lander. Not just like, you know, the, the lander. It seems like, so it seems like things are going to change.

Rod Pyle [00:24:34]:
But excuse me, when you, when you say launch vehicle, compete to fly SLS as a privately.

Tariq Malik [00:24:42]:
No, I think from what I, from what I got in this, in this event, you know, SLS has a lock through Artemis 5 and Orion, you know, that, that architecture to get to the moon. Because we're still just talking about landing right now through 20, 28, 20, 29 maybe, then, then after that for Artemis 6, which is when a lot of the phases for the moon base, it's a three phase program, then they're going to start just saying, you know, hey, we will buy the ride to the moon, we will buy the ship to the moon, we will buy the lander to the moon or rent it, you know, like the service thing with, with cots and all of that. And that's going to fundamentally change the access. So. But in the meantime, they want to stand up. I mean, it is crazy, Rod. I mean, were you watching, right, the event. I was there and I was like flabbergasted.

Tariq Malik [00:25:28]:
They're talking about 29 missions to the moon over the course of like a decade, 22 landings on the moon, spread across, not just human missions, but spread across robotic and humans. And you've got rovers, not just one rover, one big beefy pressurized rovers. But you'll have a pressurized rover from Japan because they've teamed up with Toyota. NASA's, you know, all excited about that. You'll have an unpressurized one for moving cargo around. Maybe you'll have robotic ones for that. You'll have a bunch of these little hopping landers called Moonfall, which is like the worst science fiction movie ever to name your mission after, right? So, I mean, I like it, but we know that I shouldn't like it, right? And, and, and, and, and then meanwhile, and we haven't even gotten to this and I know we are, they like added a surprise Moonlander mission with, in intuitive machines, like they got a new lander and that's going to happen, you know, in the next few years for NASA. A lot more Eclipse missions that are going to support all of this.

Tariq Malik [00:26:28]:
And, and they are working and this might be very interesting to like the space wonks. They're working with SpaceX and Blue Origin to tweak the orbits that they're going to use because basically SpaceX and Blue Origin said, look, man, this, this near rectilinear, like lunar orbit is really hard to get to. And the abort scenarios are really cringy. Something goes wrong, you don't get to your ship and you know for like a week to get up to there because of the way that the orbits are lined up. So they're looking at lower orbits to the moon, which makes it easier to get access. And that could change if like, if they go straight for the South Pole or if they go to other places too. So we could get a different set of locations. It's, it's, it's like a huge change.

Tariq Malik [00:27:10]:
Everything is changing. And, and it's very interesting to see how that's going to play out because the timeline is tight. We're talking about stuff going to the moon by 2030. 2032 is when the moon base will be starting to be assembled. So that's, that's how many years? 20, 20. That's like six years. In six years there could be a base on the moon if this plan fully comes to fruition. And it's something like $20 billion they want to invest to get this done.

Rod Pyle [00:27:36]:
Which when you think about it, it's not very much, you know, given, given that the International space station was 150 billion. Arguably how they're going to get a moon base done for 20 billion.

Tariq Malik [00:27:47]:
Let's flashback. Let's flashback 12 years. Wait, hold on. Can I add 10? 14 year 14. Wait, no, wait. 2004. How long ago is that? 12 years?

Rod Pyle [00:27:57]:
22 years.

Tariq Malik [00:27:58]:
22 years. Oh my God. Anyway, yeah, so I can't do math everyone. This is why, right? So let's flashback 22 years. And it's, it's 2004 Sept. Or whatever it is. And Mike Griffin, then NASA chief, says we are going to go to the moon and we're going to replace the space shuttle with Project Constellation, right? No, Project Constellation is from Starfield. We're going to, we're going to, we're going to replace it with the Constellation program with, with the Antares or the Ares rockets and whatever.

Tariq Malik [00:28:30]:
And it's going to cost $100 billion. It's Apollo on steroids. And of course that money never came. And now Jared is saying we're going to have a moon base in six years for 20 billion. Now they've already spent 100 billion on, on SLS, so I guess there is that. But it's still like it's an order of magnitude, it seems like, I mean,

Rod Pyle [00:28:48]:
let me just say that Project Horizon, which was being written about 1958, von Braun study to build a military moon base back then in those dollars, that was going to be 7 to 8 billion. So if we can do a moon base for $20 billion, huzzah. I say, yeah, all right, let's huzza ourselves into a break and we'll be right back. Stay here. So we're going to have a moon base, but what we're not going to have, apparently is an orbiting lunar station.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:29:14]:
Yeah.

Tariq Malik [00:29:14]:
Which rip Gateway.

Rod Pyle [00:29:16]:
Poor Gateway. It's been up, it's been down, it's been sideways. I don't know the exact status of the hardware. I know that there are at least one or two units that have been partially, mostly built.

Tariq Malik [00:29:27]:
We'll talk about that. Because they have built the power propulsion element.

Rod Pyle [00:29:31]:
Yeah.

Tariq Malik [00:29:31]:
You know, with the thrusters and I believe they built the habitation element and they might have been assembled and put

Rod Pyle [00:29:36]:
together and now they're talking about, oh, we'll just land those on the moon. How hard could it be? Wait, what?

Tariq Malik [00:29:41]:
Yeah, yeah. So, well, do we want to talk about the, that part of the gateway right now and, or is it, is it too much of a spoiler for later? We'll say this, we'll say this. You can't have one and the other. You know, Jared Isaacman said during this, this event.

Rod Pyle [00:29:58]:
Well, sorry, what you're saying is you can't have both.

Tariq Malik [00:30:00]:
Right.

Tariq Malik [00:30:00]:
You can't have a moon base and a space station and pay for it all in the next six years. And what Jared Isaacman said is that they are going to stop priority work on Gateway. They're not canceling it outright, but it's pretty much kind of dead. And they're going to put all of their priority on the moon base because that's what the executive order says to do for the new space policy for, for the United States. And in order to do that, they're going to stop, you know, stop work on developing that, but also they're going to see what they can reuse for the moon base. So maybe they use the habitation module or they can adapt it for use on the lunar surface. Maybe they work with the Canadian Space Agency who were building the robotic arm for, I don't know, some new Canada arm three on, on the lunar surface. They have to figure all of that out.

Tariq Malik [00:30:52]:
SpaceX had a contract to build a cargo tug. What does what. You know, obviously that's probably not going to be needed anymore. What does that look like now? So there's a lot of those types of things that have to be used up. But like the power element, the power module, which is already built, that's actually going to be reused in a new surprise Mars mission that was announced and I think we're going to talk about it later. It's a very exciting nuclear mission, but they announced the nuclear mission to Mars too, as part of this also launching in 2028. Rod. So it's, it's really, there's a lot.

Tariq Malik [00:31:25]:
And we haven't even started talking about private space or commercial space stations at this point too. But the moon thing is interesting because it's, it seems like they were, it's like the stepping stone approach that we would have expected before the Artemis program. And that's what I find very interesting. It's like, look, we'll send a bunch of affordable in quotes because they all cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Like uncrewed landers, robotic landers. We'll do a bunch of them. We'll make them bigger. We'll have, we'll, we'll have them set up, you know, cell towers and other communication stuff, do all the trials, stuff that we were told was going to happen during the Constellation program.

Tariq Malik [00:32:04]:
They'll get Viper there. Right? Viper is now part of.

Rod Pyle [00:32:06]:
Finally. I love Viper. That was hard to watch.

Tariq Malik [00:32:11]:
So it's all, it's all, it's all very much like on a track, which is interesting to see because that's what you would expect and it feels very familiar.

Rod Pyle [00:32:19]:
We need to move along because we have a lot of things to talk about.

Tariq Malik [00:32:21]:
I know, I know there's a lot, there's a lot that happened.

Rod Pyle [00:32:24]:
So. So as we've become used to, China was invoked as the.

Tariq Malik [00:32:28]:
Not directly though. I see Hector of the East, a geopolitical.

Rod Pyle [00:32:34]:
Geopolitical rival, unquote.

Tariq Malik [00:32:36]:
So Jared does not say China. He says our rival. So.

Rod Pyle [00:32:39]:
Yeah. And nobody listening thought that was Russia because their space programs on its knees. So good to acknowledge that. Good to look it in the face and say that's a real thing. You know, it seems like we, we need that kind of competition stuck on our face to really get things done. I mean, not in the robotic program that's been brilliant. But, but in human spaceflight, it does seem like it slows down whenever there isn't somebody sort of saying, hey, we're gonna make you look bad. No, you're not.

Rod Pyle [00:33:14]:
We know we've ignored the moon for 50 plus years, but we're gonna go back. Yeah, we'll show you. And you know, and I can get behind that, actually. I, I know I'm sound like I'm making fun of it, but I, I think that's what it takes, then embrace the suck and go for it, you know?

Tariq Malik [00:33:29]:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't think that there really is a race. I think it's all personally manufactured. I think it's a list of priorities. Right. So it's a race if you make it a race. And what they're doing now is making it a race because they can get the, the dollars approved for it. And I understand that.

Rod Pyle [00:33:46]:
Well, but I mean, let's, let's not ignore. I mean, there's the geopolitical stuff on the ground here which you can argue, you know, will people look to China as the leader in the 21st century if we're not able to get back to the moon. Moon, since we've already been there and all that kind of stuff. But there, there are also considerations, as we've discussed before on the show, about what happens if the Chinese land their first. There's the first mover advantage.

Tariq Malik [00:34:10]:
Yeah.

Rod Pyle [00:34:10]:
Who gets to set the exclusion zones? You know, how do you handle bringing stuff back and deorbiting it if you're going to do that?

Tariq Malik [00:34:18]:
But yeah, and I mean, that's a, that's a, that's an after effect though, right? That's like what's going to happen after. But I don't see, I don't see a lot of, a lot of flag waving from national media in China saying that we're gonna beat America to the moon. Right.

Rod Pyle [00:34:38]:
Hold on.

Tariq Malik [00:34:39]:
No, I see, I see going back, I mean, I'm, I don't, I don't follow a lot of that stuff.

Rod Pyle [00:34:44]:
Yeah.

Tariq Malik [00:34:44]:
But I, I don't see, like when I was growing up in the 80s and you would hear about the Soviet Union and they've got bombs and you gotta watch out for that. That was really scary because I saw that on the news.

Rod Pyle [00:34:54]:
Yeah. The reason you're not seeing it is because it's not being, it's not being publicized over here. But if you read their white papers, there's.

Tariq Malik [00:35:00]:
Oh no, there are white papers.

Rod Pyle [00:35:01]:
There's plenty of white. We're going to show those, those gringos one thing or another.

Tariq Malik [00:35:05]:
A white paper, like, is one thing. Of course, like, I would expect that because that comes from the government. I'm just saying, like, like in Xinhua, I don't see every single day we're going to beat America back to the moon in China daily. I don't see, you know, those, those Americans don't know what they're doing. Ha ha. Look now their rockets four years late for their, for their, for Their next crude launch. Meanwhile, we're going to like, test our crew capsule. You know, hopefully, you know, by the time that this.

Rod Pyle [00:35:31]:
Okay, it may be a little quieter than that, but I can tell you when I was getting ready to Release my BookSpace 2.0, still for sale in China, I did get a nice note from a quasi government agency saying, we have a few requests for changes in your chapter about the Chinese space program. And of course, as you'd expect, they were pulling up the flag and having it wave victoriously in the breeze and all that. So, yeah, it's very definitely on the government agenda.

Tariq Malik [00:35:58]:
So maybe I'm naive, you know, but I feel like if we made something a priority on a national, you know,

Rod Pyle [00:36:08]:
if we would have been there years,

Tariq Malik [00:36:10]:
we would have been there. Right. If we really truly wanted to go now, I would love to go. I think that our listeners would love to go, you know, but if, if as a country it was really important to us, we would have been there and we would never have left from the first place.

Rod Pyle [00:36:25]:
Just hasn't been a priority.

Tariq Malik [00:36:26]:
And it hasn't. And it hasn't been a priority. And so, so this, this, this perception that, that we have to race to beat them there, because that plays well. So that makes it a priority. But I mean it, that, that was the case back in 2004 when they, China started launching people into space with Yang Liwei. And, and then, you know, we, we just didn't do it because they didn't,

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:36:52]:
they didn't fund it.

Tariq Malik [00:36:53]:
Now maybe we're in a different position. They got a, an administration that really wants to see this happen because, you know, the President would like to see people on the moon before he leaves office again, which is what happened last year.

Rod Pyle [00:37:03]:
And we hear that. And yet then came that big slashing side through NASA's budget early in the year, which was supposedly going to leave Artemis alone. Well, yeah, this can't cripple the agency and not damage that program.

Tariq Malik [00:37:16]:
This is the interesting thing that also came up is this, this trimming of the fat, as you, as you put it, with the workforce. Because Jared Isaac was asked very directly, what is the impact? I think Eric Berger asked the question, like, like the agency's workforce has been through, like, such trauma. Yeah. With all these layoffs, all these forced retirements, yada, yada, yada. And, and like, how are they going to do this when they're, they're so redoing? In fact, I saw like one of their star climate scientists just quit at Goddard because of, of where Things are.

Rod Pyle [00:37:52]:
Oh yeah, yeah.

Tariq Malik [00:37:54]:
And so, but, but Isaacman says that you know, really you have to look at it. You know, first of all, all of the cuts that the, the administration has really requested they got rejected and Congress gave NASA more money. And so that's one thing. And then they had the big beautiful bill which I think they're calling some kind of tax. They have, they changed the name on it of it now they don't, they don't call it big beautiful bill anymore. But that included more money. I think he said something like 10 billion for NASA to use for this type of stuff. So that perception that the money's not there is to Isaac been not correct.

Tariq Malik [00:38:28]:
The money is there but it has to be moved and put into the parts that are really going to make this happen. He didn't come out and say they have to cut science missions because we're, you know those, those missions are still funded too like Hubble and James Webb etc, like that stuff is still there. And, and so they're trying to, to move things around. It sounds like, and I think he said that and I, I have to check this, but this is what he said is that NASA spent $250 million last year to keep a canceled program canceled. And I'm not sure what he was referring to like, like if that sounds really silly, but it might be a bit more complicated than that. Like one that they were, they were trying to save, you know, that kind of a thing. And so you know, it's like that kind of thing that he's looking for savings across the board where they can move things around.

Rod Pyle [00:39:16]:
Well, if you've got to go check something, why don't you go check it while we take this next break. And we will be right back. So go nowhere. Now let's get into the real beef. Nukes on Mars or nukes to Mars. I should say so. So we had in a stunning announcement, we had news that we're going to send a nuclear powered spacecraft to Mars in two, count them, two years or less. Which means we got to start building real fast.

Rod Pyle [00:39:44]:
Now I do this every time, so bear with me. But this country worked on nuclear power propulsion in the 1950s and 60s, early 70s, very successfully, all on the ground. But we did demonstrate that nuclear thermal propulsion, which is where efficient reactor heats up a certain kind of fuel, a gas usually to great velocities, so that it's three to four times as effective as something like Saturn V chemical propulsion. It worked. And you could fire the thing for hours and hours and Hours and hours would be, which means continuous acceleration, which you don't get with chemical rockets either. So huge advantage and game changer. The solar system that was canceled in the early 70s for a bunch of reasons. I won't go into it here.

Rod Pyle [00:40:26]:
And we haven't really done anything with it since. Now we are hearing, okay, was it

Tariq Malik [00:40:32]:
canceled really for a bunch of reasons or was it just because of money? Right. Is it always because of money?

Rod Pyle [00:40:37]:
It was money, but it was also the environmental movement. There was a lot of concern about launching that amount of fissionable material, which there still is, but it's not being talked about right yet. Because if that rocket goes haywire on the way up, you get whether it's uranium or plutonium or whatever you're using scattered throughout the atmosphere and people get cancer and die. So that's bad. We kind of saw that in China with the Soviets years ago when one of their nuke orbital nuclear reactors reentered and broke up. So, so this is a big deal. But this is nuclear electric. So it's a nuclear reactor creating electricity to power an electrical propulsion system, which is fine.

Rod Pyle [00:41:16]:
Yeah, not yet tested in space. Works well in principle, but you have to have this thing pretty much ready in little over a year to get integrated and ready to fly in two. Now we do have the Kilopower reactor which has been our development for space use for a number of years, which followed on another space based reactor program before it, that was canceled and then it was picked up and canceled again. So we arguably have a power source which is a huge leg up, which means maybe you just got to hook an electrical propulsion system onto it and go, what do you know?

Tariq Malik [00:41:53]:
Well, funny that you should say that because if only NASA had an electrical power propulsion system lying around. Oh wait, they built one for Gateway. So, you know, I actually asked the director of the fission program and his name is Steve, I think it's Corner. I apologize for mispronouncing the name, but I asked him the specific thing that you're hinting at in this ignition event and I was like, look, 2028 is not far away and you're talking about that that's the next window to get to Mars and that's a target. Now they have to meet that deadline if they want to go to Mars. And we haven't even talked about the fact that they're going to send like helicopters to Mars. So I really hope we talk about that too. So.

Rod Pyle [00:42:37]:
Oh yeah, well, that's the payload for that mission, right?

Tariq Malik [00:42:40]:
The payload is called Skyfall which is we went from the worst sci fi movie name to like one of the best James Bond movies movies names. Yeah. And they're going to basically land at least three ingenuity legacy helicopters and they're gonna drop them just like instead of a sky crane, they're just gonna have it take off from the air as it's falling to the surface. Just like Dragonfly, but in miniature, which is very interesting to see.

Rod Pyle [00:43:06]:
Well, the Aeroshell, I don't know if it's the same size as what was used for perseverance of Curiosity, but it's the same exact design, at least visually.

Tariq Malik [00:43:13]:
We do have a video. I don't know John, if John can show it of what that mission would look like. Yeah, but yeah, so, so this is, this is the actual video for folks that are watching the stream.

Rod Pyle [00:43:26]:
Well you can see that we just say actual video, actual simulation.

Tariq Malik [00:43:29]:
So the actual simul, the computer generated. This is the NASA's depiction of it where they're showing the three helicopters basically.

Rod Pyle [00:43:36]:
I thought it was six.

Tariq Malik [00:43:38]:
Well, I think the original design was six and, and like the current one now that they're showing is three here. So it backed last fall in the fall of 2025 when it was a concept it was six, but now it seems like it's three because that was before they had a nuclear propulsion thing. Now what we're not seeing here, but what we saw earlier in the stream, which was a depiction of the reactor, is that they've, they've kind of melded the, the thruster drive of the propulsion element of the gateway to whatever this micro reactor that they're talking about. And so my big question was is there enough time to do all that? Because you would assume you have to test everything. It's not like they have reactors lying around, but it sounds like they are looking at like whatever proven micro reactor that they've, they've seen with the like the military and just figuring out the interface between that and this ppe, the, the gateway thing. And once they get that hooked up they can just launch the whole thing into space and it's on a big long boom with its radiators and all that because they knew that they have the radiator tech down for the, from 20 whatever plus years of the space station. Then they just put the payload bay at the tip of it or whatever and then off to the Mars they go. And it might not just go to Mars.

Tariq Malik [00:44:54]:
If you want to talk about that, we can talk about that too.

Rod Pyle [00:44:56]:
So wait, that mission or that System would go somewhere else.

Tariq Malik [00:45:00]:
Mission might not stop at Mars. I mean, they're going to Mars. What? This is what he said. This is what he said.

Rod Pyle [00:45:07]:
So they're going to drop off the aeroshell and then go do something else.

Tariq Malik [00:45:11]:
They'll drop off the, the aeroshell, the Skyfall stuff, will do their little flitting around as a team on Mars. Meanwhile, he said that they're looking at other, other places to go afterward because you have put a nuclear reactor in space with a long life thruster system in space and you don't have to stop when you get to Mars because you could just keep going. And so that opens up, I mean, if it has other payloads on it, like cameras, sensors, that kind of thing, it could just keep going. It could change its orbit. It could orbit Mars for a while and then go somewhere else, maybe Jupiter, maybe Uranus.

Rod Pyle [00:45:51]:
Or it could just fire its guns in a straight line and do the Kessel run in less than 10 parsecs.

Tariq Malik [00:45:58]:
There you go, There you go. I think it was 12 parsecs, wasn't it? Anyway, a long time. So, so it's very, it's very interesting to see like what's going to happen. I think there's a lot of, of a lot of open questions about how easy it's going to be because I think you and I both want to see this happen. Like the whole thing. I want moon bases. I want, I want. We'll talk about space agents in a bit.

Tariq Malik [00:46:26]:
I want, but I want a mission to Mars. I want to see more helicopters on Mars. That sounds great. And they're saying that they might try to get these helicopters that get there to do ground penetrating radar or other types of things, or it could just be a bunch of clones and we get a lot of nice views of Mars. But they, I'm sure it's going to be harder to get everything together for this Mars mission than we think. You need a rocket. What's going to carry it? How heavy is it? You talked about the safety issues. How are they going to sell that to the people that do not want to see nukes in space? We saw with Cassini, we saw with New Horizons, we saw it with all of them.

Tariq Malik [00:47:02]:
Right. Voyagers as well. And so, and this is a reactor. It's not like an rtg, you know, which is like a slug that they wrap in lead and if it falls in the ocean, they can just go get it, you know.

Rod Pyle [00:47:14]:
Well, and it's really. Well, right. I mean, just, I think they actually wrap it in ceramic. But, but that, that fuel cask is designed to survive reentry without any damage and be something you can retrieve if you can get to it in the Ocean. I think Apollo 12s may still be

Tariq Malik [00:47:31]:
down there and they've even, they've even. I think the Soviets had some that failed and then they went and got it right. And I think there was a military payload that failed that the Air Force went to go get something.

Rod Pyle [00:47:41]:
But I guess my question is, with something as large as the kilopower reactor, can you actually shield that sucker?

Tariq Malik [00:47:47]:
I don't know well enough. This is a question, right?

Rod Pyle [00:47:49]:
They'll have to.

Tariq Malik [00:47:50]:
Yeah, yeah, they sounded very optimistic, but I mean, is it optimistic and oh, yes, we can do it. We can choose to go to the moon. But in this decade, or is it an optimistic. Like Elon Musk says, we're going to be having people on Mars with Dragon in five years and it's going to be great, or in two years we'll be ready to go. We'll send seven starships a year, a month to Mars. You know, is it that kind of optimistic or is it the practical kind? I don't know. I don't know right now. Is the money going to be there? Is it really not as hard a budget issue that, that as Isaacman says, or is it going to be difficult? I'm sure there are.

Tariq Malik [00:48:24]:
There are potholes that we haven't seen yet, so.

Rod Pyle [00:48:28]:
Well, let's let our reactors go critical and power ourselves into yet another break. And we shall return shortly. All aglow, standby.

Tariq Malik [00:48:37]:
Hey, look, it's me and not Rod coming back.

Rod Pyle & Tariq Malik [00:48:39]:
Yay.

Rod Pyle [00:48:40]:
Because he's awesome and he's going to talk about space stations.

Tariq Malik [00:48:43]:
So we've talked about. Yeah, we're talking about space stations. We've talked a lot about how Gateway is kind of gone. You know, maybe they dust it off later on, but Gateway is gone. They're going to reuse all the stuff. So that's one space station we're not going to have. You want another space station we're not going to have Rod. Yes, well, the International Space Station, because it's like, it's like 30 years old, right? 25 years old.

Tariq Malik [00:49:05]:
And it's going to, it's supposed to end in 2030, maybe 2030.

Rod Pyle [00:49:10]:
There are conversations buzzing around, not within NASA, I don't think, but without NASA about, oh, let's fire it up into a graveyard orbit or, sorry, a. What would you call it, like a caretaking orbit.

Tariq Malik [00:49:24]:
So that's much more politically correct. When I go to the old folks home, please don't call it the graveyard folks home.

Rod Pyle [00:49:31]:
Okay, so into a higher orbit that's stable. So it'll be preserved there as a museum that people can go to do once space flighters routine and all that. And you know, that would be kind of cool and interesting. Of course by then it will have been abandoned for decades and probably be dangerous as heck. So that's a problem. There has also been talk about trying to preserve it in some way to bring it down. Not quite sure how they plan to do that. Maybe with starship.

Rod Pyle [00:49:56]:
I don't. I'd have to look at the diameter of the, of the modules.

Tariq Malik [00:50:01]:
They're all 15ft wide for keeping them

Rod Pyle [00:50:03]:
in a museum, but you know, that's, I mean, we could barely find enough money to send Viper to the moon. Bringing home the space station or boosting it to a higher orbit is an expensive proposition.

Tariq Malik [00:50:13]:
Well, the, the, I think you hit it on the head. It has a finite life and Jared Isaacman is very clear that it will end at some point in time and that some point in time is within the next 10 years. And what we heard from, from NASA's Space Station Directorate is that the plan to have a successor when you have two private space stations, that NASA will be like a customer of that, that that bet did not pay off, that the companies aren't there, that the market isn't there for them to have a business plan. And so NASA can't afford to have two different destinations and fund them as a customer. This was.

Rod Pyle [00:50:56]:
Destinations? Are you talking about Voyager and Blue Origin?

Tariq Malik [00:50:59]:
Yeah. Well, you got, you've got, you've got Voyager, you've got Orbital Reef, right. With Blue Origin, you have the, you have the vast space station, you have the Axiom Space station. I get a little confused over who merged with who with their plans, you know, but you've got all these wild ideas, but you know, they're nowhere near being done. And we're four years away from the initial end date. You would need modules in space. So what NASA has decided to do is to procure either through commercial contract or their own. I think it's through commercial contract from what I can understand, a core module.

Tariq Malik [00:51:37]:
So a new core module, brand new module that will be like the nexus of a new space station. And it will have lots of ports on it, docking ports for other stuff. And they want to see that at the International Space Station in the next couple years. And where that module comes from, I don't know. Right. Because it's not a long time to build a new module from scratch. But in the next two, three years they want to have that at the space station. They will support it, they will operate it, they'll kind of own it, but they will have had commercial companies build it and then that's the base.

Tariq Malik [00:52:13]:
They outfit it, they get it kind of ready to serve as its own kind of Space Station. 2 they get some partners and some other companies that want to add and own their own special modules. Then those come up and they add them and they dock it, they outfit it. Over time it separates from the space station. It's its own thing. Now you have another space station. That's the new plan. It's very different than hey, we're going to be a customer.

Tariq Malik [00:52:34]:
I'm sure that these private companies are going to be all ready to go with the destinations because of space tourism or whatnot. And they said that they believe that they the the banking on space tourism which they really thought that there'd be more of, just didn't pay off. And then that NASA was limiting these companies because they were saying hey, you have to have a professional astronaut in the commander seat. So your Peggy Whitson's, your Mike la's right of Axiom, that sort of thing. So that or you can't go to the space station and that is like a 25% cut to revenue that these companies are taking to fly the missions because they can't sell that seat. So now they're going to say you can sell that seat and you won't have the professional astronaut now. And I think a lot of that is because SpaceX has done that exact same thing with Isaacman twice. Right.

Tariq Malik [00:53:22]:
As well as that Fram 2 mission over the poles.

Rod Pyle [00:53:25]:
But neither of those docked with the

Tariq Malik [00:53:26]:
space station, which they didn't. But they were fine. Right? They worked appropriately. So NASA is open to that.

Rod Pyle [00:53:35]:
I'm sorry but just let me ask question here. So being fired into a pre calculated trajectory and orbiting and coming home, even if you're firing up to a higher orbit like Isaac did is a little different than running a document the space station.

Tariq Malik [00:53:52]:
You're right, you're right. Although what it sounds like to me is that from NASA's description they are comfortable with two things. Number one, the automated rendezvous systems that SpaceX has implemented with Dragon, it's a highly automated vehicle. Right. And, and so NASA is comfortable with that and they're also comfortable with the training that they and SpaceX will give to whoever this commander is or this pilot is for These missions for that kind of an approach. So. So we'll see, you know, we'll. We'll see how that.

Tariq Malik [00:54:22]:
How that pays out. There's not a lot of time for someone to buy a mission like that, but I'm sure they could figure it out going clearly. So.

Rod Pyle [00:54:31]:
All right, well, it looks like we got time for one more juicy story. We haven't talked about the NASA workforce, which Isaacman. And I gotta say, you know, I was a big fan of Isaac when going in. I was concerned when he got the job because it kind of began to hit us, you know, what he was up against, because he went into a very different environment than he would have originally when he was first being considered. So we had Doge come in and kind of run its chainsaw. Famously graphical image of Mr. Musk, thank you very much, through NASA, causing a lot of early retirements and a lot of layoffs and so forth.

Tariq Malik [00:55:11]:
Facility closures as well.

Rod Pyle [00:55:12]:
Yeah, facility closures and cancellations of programs.

Tariq Malik [00:55:15]:
Yeah.

Rod Pyle [00:55:16]:
And attempted cancellations of programs. And it was ugly. And they lost a lot of their upper brain trust. Now, one could argue that for the cost of one senior manager or tech engineer or something, you can bring in two younger people, but, you know, they don't have the institutional knowledge, much less the practical experience that these other guys did.

Tariq Malik [00:55:38]:
Yeah.

Rod Pyle [00:55:38]:
So there are some people who say, well, you know, they're just cleaning out the chaff and they're just cutting out the deadwood and all that. And there's probably some of that to be done. If you've ever worked in an NASA field center, you know, you will notice some, quote, deadwood, unquote, arguably. But, you know, when you're trying to ramp up for this. This lunar program, and there's hardly anybody anywhere within 10 miles of a NASA facility anymore that's ever left Earth orbit or overseen anything leaving Earth orbit other than robots. Not the best time to be hacking and swinging your way through. So Isaacman announced. Announced a new initiative to bring in people, which I'm going to let you discuss.

Rod Pyle [00:56:18]:
But is this, you know, is this still a hot concern?

Tariq Malik [00:56:22]:
Well, I think that was. That was what I was trying to get to earlier about what's the workforce really feeling from Eric Berger's, like, discussion and a question, you know, and it sounds like there is an excitement, at least from what Isaacman says, from what he's been talking to a lot of people at these different centers. But there is an acknowledgment that they lost a lot of people and that they're not going to get to the moon by 2028 with this base or, or to all of the other initiatives that they're trying to do unless they have some, some more, more people who are committed to that. And I think it's called NASA Force. Is that what they called it? I think so, yeah. It's, it's a NASA Force initiative. He announced it actually, I think in early March with the Office of Personnel Management in like a big production to say that we need to recruit actively and get people on board for this because, you know, they've lost all of these people and it sounds like Isaacman and NASA through the funding pledges. Of course, these are just pledges from Congress, from Senate, the Senate and the House who are offering them more money than what the Trump administration has requested to hire and whatnot.

Tariq Malik [00:57:38]:
That they're taking that as kind of like a mandate to be able to, to staff up where they need for this presidential kind of space policy directive. So for the moon base stuff, to make sure that they're doing it, they've moved the gateway team over to the moon base, for example, they've, they're pivoting on the space station thing so that they can support a future beyond the space station. They need to ramp up. What do they call that request for proposals, RFPs. I mean, part of this event that we're talking about, they released like a, a ton of requests for proposals for, for all of the, the, the different things that they'll need. The infrastructure for the moon, the, the services for Artemis 6 and beyond and that sort of thing. But you need people that can vet all that stuff, meet people that can come up with the initiatives for all of that stuff. And that's what they're looking for with this, this program.

Tariq Malik [00:58:33]:
And it's going to be an ongoing thing to try to get all staffed up by the end of the year or beyond.

Rod Pyle [00:58:39]:
All right, well, I want to thank everyone for joining us for this episode, which we like to call a new NASA. Tariq, where should we look for you as we roll into Artemis 2 and it does its thing?

Tariq Malik [00:58:49]:
Well, you can find me at space.com you know, I'm very excited to be on a mission for the first time in a long time. That going to take more than a couple, more than a couple of days. So you'll find me there. You'll find me on the, the socials @tarikj Malik on YouTube after this is all over with. That's great because I got to work @spacetronplays and then hopefully enjoying a rest after a frenetic few months in the run up to all of this.

Rod Pyle [00:59:17]:
So fat chance. I know you too well for that. You of course you can find me at pylebooks.com or at adastramagazine.com. Remember, you can always drop us a line at Twist Twit tv. That's twis@twit.tv. We welcome your comments, suggestions, jokes, observations, ideas, insults, whatever you got. We'll respond to new episodes, this podcast publish every Friday, and your favorite podcaster, so make sure to subscribe. Tell your friends to give us reviews, friendly ones, five of anything, stars, old shoes, worn out cars, you name it. And you can also head to our website at twit.tv/twis.

Rod Pyle [00:59:50]:
That's twit.tv/twis. Finally, you can follow the Twit Tech Podcast network on Twitter and on Facebook and @twittv on Instagram. Thank you very much and we'll see you on the other side.