The commercial space revolution

This is the contact with a death to one. Touchdown. Hi everyone and welcome to... Space Cowboys Podcast. Number 10. That's right. Number 10. Hi Herbert. Hi Thijs. Hi. And welcome to all our listeners. How have you been? I've been great. Yeah? Yeah. A lot of things are happening. Would you like to talk about football? Football? Soccer, if you will. Soccer, yeah. No, let's not do that. That's on my mind right now. Soccer is on your mind, yes. Go look at what the Amsterdam team did against Madrid. That's what Herbert is talking about. I was talking about there's a lot of space stuff that has happened. Oh yeah? Tell me. And so we talked about this and we thought that it would be good to do a sort of like a roundup and see where we are on certain things. Because of course SpaceX has happened, but certain things that it correlates with are sometimes delayed or... Or still going on in the background. Absolutely. And invite Juri because he knows much more about some things than we do. Exactly. So we have our in-house space nerd Juri here with us to help us out. Good to be back again. Hey Juri. How's it going? Yeah, it's going great. Yes. So we're not even having stories of the week this week because everything's a story of the week. Yeah. We have only stories of the week. Only stories of the week because we have to just catch up. And next week we will go back to our regular format with an interview. This week we will... Yep. We will... Just discuss what's going on. Because, I mean, people have been talking about a new space golden age. This is completely different. That's what it is. Yeah. But it is what it is. Yeah. And it's starting. It's getting started. Everything's getting commercial and we're leaving low Earth orbit once again. Yeah. It really feels like we're on the brink of a new manned space golden age right now with all these new manned space programs popping up, not just in the US, but all over the world. Different countries, you mean? Yeah. It still has to materialize. Yeah. But because... You see the sparks flying, but the engine hasn't been ignited fully yet. I'm very enthusiastic myself as well. But this morning I realized what we're seeing now, let me just reveal a couple of little things. An Israeli moon lander, a Chinese moon lander and such things. It's all been done in the 60s, man. Yeah. That's of course true. There's nothing new. Yeah. I mean, it feels new because there's new enthusiasm. There's new enthusiasm and everything. Yeah. But nothing has been done so far that's really new and a step further than we've ever been. Yeah. It's not there. Yeah. And it's funny because I was thinking about it like, oh, wow, the Dragon Capsule docks with the ISS, which in essence isn't that much different from anything I saw over the past 20 years going to the ISS. Yeah. But still, there's enough new stuff involved. And it's not single players anymore. It's not just single entities doing it anymore. That's the fun thing about being a bit older than you guys because... May I ask, what year were you born? I was born in 1958. I'm 60. 58. 58. Yeah. And I'm in 82 and you, Joeri? 88. 88. 88. So I was looking up at the moon on the 20th of July 1969 when Neil Armstrong was walking around there. You were 11. I was 11. Yeah. That's right. You were... I mean, to me, that sounds completely absurd to look up to the moon with the idea that a person is walking around there. A guy is walking around there. I can hardly imagine how that is. I was 11 years and two days, to be precise. I can only imagine looking up to the sky and seeing the ISS passing by. Yeah, I have seen that, of course. Thinking about the fact that there are six people aboard there and totally being wondered about how this is possible. But looking at the moon and thinking that there are people out there, well, that's a different story. That's right. There's only four people. There's only four people left, right? So when I read about all the supposedly new things that are happening now, I'm telling you I'm yawning. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, you're down to the ground. Well, is there anything you did get excited about when it came to the SpaceX Dragon capsule? All those things. Yeah. But I do realize they're not really new. I mean, well, what's new is that Israel is going to land on the moon now. Yeah. That's exciting enough. Yeah. But okay, in the 60s, the Russians were there with all kinds of moon rovers. Yeah. The Americans were there with people in cars, mind you. That's insane. Yes. Playing golf on the moon and everything. That's a different story. Yeah. And that still has to be repeated. Yeah. Yeah. Shall we first talk about the Dragon capsule? Yes. And what happened there? Yeah. Yeah. Just to do a catch up. For those who haven't been paying attention because you're too busy with school or work or whatever. Dragon capsule. Joeri, can you explain what it is? So, yeah, let's go back to 2011. I think that was the last time the space shuttle launched. And after that, the US basically lost their own ability to go to the ISS. They had to buy Soyuz seats, seats from the Russians. But meanwhile, they still had the... Not having a car and having to rely on your neighbor. Exactly. And it's quite expensive and it's money going to the Russians, which is always a... It's a touchy point in the US, especially after what happened in Crimea. So, they decided to go for their own manned capsule to reach the ISS. But instead of just creating their own, NASA decided to hire a number of smaller companies to create a new kind of capsule. And they decided to go for SpaceX on the one hand, fund their Dragon capsule, create from the... already existing Dragon capsule, a new manned capsule. And they decided to fund Boeing, which also had an idea lying around for the Starliner or a CST-100 that we have. And funding was provided for those two companies. They started working on it. And after many, many delays, of course, this always happens in spaceflight, delays, delays, delays. They were finally able to launch the first test version of the Dragon capsule last April. Saturday. And I'm not sure if you watched the launch live? I did not. It was in the middle of the night, local time. Yeah, it was early in the morning in the Netherlands. I did watch it. No, no, I did watch it. Where was I? I was... Why was I watching this? I don't know, but I was definitely watching this. When was this, Sunday morning? No, Saturday morning. Saturday morning, yeah. And it was one of those SpaceX moments that will stay in my memory, I think. The first one was the first time that one of the... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty exciting, in my opinion, because you can really feel the energy in the room when it launched, when the capsule actually separated from the second stage, things like that. And then on Sunday, you had the docking. Yeah, that's what I watched live. Yeah, the docking. Dockings are usually, in case of a Soyuz, I think they're quite boring. It takes a long time. It takes a long time. There's a little white dot in the distance. So you first see this little white dot in the distance in the blackness of space approaching the ISS. And then it takes quite a long time. By the way, as a camera guy, because by the way, we're on YouTube. We're on video too. I always find the lighting in space so ugly. It's so harsh. It's super harsh. It's black and extremely white. It's black and extremely white. It's really bad. Extreme contrast. Yeah, just like when Elon Musk shut his roadster up into space last year on the Falcon Heavy. He said, you know it's real because it looks so fake. And it's true because the camera, the quality of the footage was pretty horrible. Anyway, continue. This little white dot coming closer. It appears. It has a few holding points. Where they check if everything's going okay. And if it's not going to crash into the ISS, which is something you would want to avoid, of course. And then after it took, I think, one or two hours or so before it finally reached the ISS. And then we saw these close-ups of the new Dragon capsule. And it's completely different than the previous Dragon capsules, which were just used for cargo. And it's also what Elon Musk said. He said that there's... Because this one's for people. This one's for people. So it's completely redesigned. Elon Musk said that there's probably not one part that's the same as in the previous Dragon capsules. It's a completely new capsule. And it looks a little bit like a Tesla Model 3. Have you seen the inside? On the inside. Have you seen the inside? On the inside. On the inside. It's completely empty. If you compare it with the inside of a Soyuz. It's spacious. It's spacious, empty. Which is full of manual switches and buttons and everything like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a clean, sleek interior with a few... It's a software-driven thing. It looks like a Tesla in space, really. Exactly. Yeah. So fun. And I mean, yeah, he likes minimalism in design, of course, Elon Musk. Gets updates every week. Probably software updates. Yeah. But then it docked and you had to wait for two hours before finally the astronauts could ingress the capsule. Because you have to do leak checks. You have to do all kinds of checks. And then you saw the first images from people actually floating inside the Dragon capsule. And that was a special moment. Yeah. Because then you know it's real. Then you know Dragon or SpaceX, a manned Dragon capsule has finally arrived at the ISS. After all those years of hard work. So it's the return of the US own space capability. Yeah. That's how it was sold in the media. This is the return of the US in space, in manned space. That sounds like that's the way it's sold. Like it's actually something different. What do you mean? You're telling me that's the way it's sold. I detect some skepticism there. Or am I mistaken? But it's what you said in the beginning. This is not the first time that the US has launched a capsule. And it's an unmanned capsule. But it was hard. But it does make them less dependent on the Russians, right? This is the first step, of course. So right now, up to now, it's been a great success. It has to land, of course. It has to successfully detach from the ISS and land. And we're recording this on Wednesday. It's coming back on Thursday, right? Tomorrow. The 8th of March. Yeah. Most people, when they hear this podcast, it should have arrived. How will it arrive? It's a water landing. It's a water landing. Yeah. Splashdown. Yeah, it's a splashdown in, I'm not sure. I think it's the Pacific. But I'm not entirely sure. We'll have to look that up. And just for my understanding, to go back, you saw these people floating around, right? Did they already check out what was in there? Did it work? Was it a fully operational thing? Was it more autonomous? Were they just looking around? Yeah, they were just looking around. It's not like they're pushing buttons. Or you're using the screens. And they also had these... Because it's an autonomous vehicle, so to speak. Yeah, it can talk on its own. Autopilot. Autopilot. Again, isn't new as well. Because the Soyuz can do that as well. Okay, okay, okay. But I saw this picture of one of the astronauts with this plush Earth ball. I really love that ball. And I wanted to instantly order one. Yeah. But yeah, exactly. I was not the first one. So they're called Celestial Buddies. Yeah. So you... You were supposed to be able to get one on Celestial Buddies. And it was so funny because... So I watched the docking and I saw parts of the launch and I was pretty invested in this story. But it was indeed until I saw that fuzzy little thing. Did you all see the fluffy little ball? Yeah. The Celestial Buddy. I'll give you that. It's the first fluffy little ball in space. The first fluffy little ball in space. This one's for you guys. Yeah, I just wanted to... I just wanted to show you guys. What Elon Musk said about it because he was a big fan too. And... But I think if... For members of the public, the real fun thing would be seeing the little Celestial Buddy, little tiny Earth, humanoid Earth thing floating around in zero G. I think the public will probably be most excited about that. And this was right before it actually happened. And then you saw it bumping around. They threw this Celestial Buddy. That's the name of the... of the... the plush doll. They threw it in the capsule before it went up to the ISS to see as some sort of reference point for... for visual reference points for what the Gs were doing to it all. If you look at the Soyuz launches, they also have this small little zero G indicator every time they launch to the ISS. Yeah. So they have this little thing which is basically like a personal... a personal doll for one of the crew members. They have it hanging around. They have it in the capsule. And when it reaches the zero G environment, so when the third stage is coupled loose from the Soyuz, then you see it suddenly floating around. And then you know they're in space. Beautiful. And it's beautiful. And it's the exact same thing with this plush doll. You just saw it floating around at a certain moment and then you knew it's in space. It's in zero G. I was like, oh, that's adorable. And then it's... And it's what I love about some of these SpaceX missions is that they... that Elon Musk just adds this one little visual element or something that artsy that's like weird to make it human in a way or to make it just fun in a way. Like launching a Tesla Roadster. Like launching a Tesla Roadster or just putting little jokes. And playing David Bowie during the webcast. Exactly. And so the Celestial Buddies, yeah, they sold out. They suddenly saw a spike out of nowhere. Saw a spike in their sales. Sold out, I believe, even before the thing was launched because they didn't even have that many. And now we have to wait. We have to wait until... But didn't they know that it would be on TV? They knew nothing. They knew absolutely... The only thing they saw first is like, hmm, somebody is... Because it's a commercial opportunity. It's huge. It's huge. And they missed the huge... Elon Musk should have told them. They should have told them. Because they could have made a lot of money. Exactly. And so now they're out of stock until late April. It's too bad. Late April. So they have a couple of other versions of Earth. One that shows the continents better. And it's adorable. It's an adorable little plush thing. So... I hope to get my hands on one. Yeah. In a few weeks, then I would guess. Okay. You must bring it and show it to the camera here in the studio. Sure. We'll throw it around, all right? Exactly. And so far, as long as it doesn't crash, everything went according to plan. Perfectly. Perfectly. No hiccups. No hiccups at all. So this is the first step. But they still have a lot of work to do before they can finally launch with humans. I think that's planned for July right now. But that's in... July. That's super fast. Yeah. That's an Elon Musk planning. So I put my money on somewhere in the third quarter or the fourth quarter, maybe even October, something like that. So this was the final test before... Oh. There's one test remaining. Okay. For a capsule to be human rated, you have to have some sort of launch escape system. So whenever something goes wrong during the launch, the capsule has to quickly separate from the failing rocket. And basically evacuate from the rocket. So in the 80s, we've had a launch malfunction with the Soyuz. And then you could clearly see how a launch escape system works. It's just an extra rocket which sits on top of the capsule. And that fires whenever the rocket fails. So then you get instantly pushed away from the failing rocket. And then you can quickly escape the possible explosion that's about to follow. So they have to test this principle. I think they're going to test this in June. So they're going to launch a Falcon with a Dragon capsule on top of it. And then push the launch escape button and have it separate the rocket mid-flight somewhere above the Atlantic and test if it can really separate from a failing rocket. That's going to be some spectacle. That's going to be some spectacle. They're going to use an older... They're going to use an already used Falcon. So they're going to throw it away because there's so much force. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's so much separation in this explosion that it's probably going to be destroyed. It'll be an interesting test. So they're going to use an old Falcon 9. Yeah. I think the one that was launched, the thing, the one that launched Beresheet and the Indonesian telecommunications satellite. Oh, I feel a little bridge coming up, but it's not the time yet. Yeah. Not yet. Not yet. Because we're going to talk about Beresheet. We will. The Israeli lander on the moon. First things first. Yeah. But first things first, because wasn't there some other capsule that was being developed? I mean, I think that's already, SpaceX is now the first, but Boeing was also working on something. Yeah. Boeing is working on the CST-100, which is also- The CST-100. Yeah. Starliner for- Yeah. Starliner is a much better word. Let's call it Starliner for now. Starliner. It has the same function as the Crew Dragon capsule. It was funded by NASA to bring astronauts to the ISS and back again. And they're going to launch the first version of it, which is also an unmanned test version to the ISS. So it's basically the same thing as the Dragon. In April, the planning is now, but let's see. It's always delay, delay, delay in space flight. And why have two launch systems? Yeah, that's what I'm wondering. Two reasons. Competition helps to decrease prices. But I said that's something that Elon Musk is thinking. I mean, he is the competitor in this case, right? Yeah. So NASA thought, okay, if we fund two capsules, maybe that'll bring prices. I'm guessing down after the first version has launched. Because they've spent a few billion dollars to let these companies develop these capsules. But if they're tested and if they're approved by NASA, NASA will have to buy a capsule every time they want to go to the ISS. So you have to buy two capsules per year probably. That does not have a monopoly, I think. Yeah, you don't want any monopoly. And on the other hand, you don't want to be completely dependent on one provider. Because if something happens with one of those capsules, you can always remain flying with the other capsule. So better put some big money in first and have two capsules developed and then later reap the benefits. Yeah. So who owns the Starliner then? Is it Boeing or is it NASA? Well, NASA buys Starliner from Boeing. NASA buys it. As a product. It's a product. Yeah. As a car. Yeah. Sort of, yeah. And how much do they spend on it? For now, that's just a development budget. So I think it's $2.6 billion for... For the Dragon capsule and it's $4.5 billion for the Starliner capsule. So why the difference? I don't know. I really don't know. Probably, but that's a guess. I'm not exactly sure. Probably because SpaceX already had some experience with the cargo Dragon, which has been flying from 2010 up until now. So maybe they could use that kind of experience to kickstart their development and spend less money. But Boeing had to start from scratch with their CST-100 Starliner capsule. For our listeners, if you're a little confused about all the words, I put a cheat sheet in the show notes. It's like a picture of all these different capsules next to each other, the Soyuz and the Starliner and everything. Because at a certain point this week, I thought, I don't even understand anymore what's going on. Because I knew, of course, the fact that NASA did not... Yeah. Yeah. They did not have this capability. But then we're constantly talking about the commercialization of space now and private industry getting involved in this. But Boeing and Lockheed Martin have been involved in space travel for the past decade, since the early 80s. The first... In the 70s. 70s, maybe. It's the same. Maybe it's the same. Who knows how long. So it hasn't really changed. What's the big difference here, then? Because in the 50s, the US Department of Defense funded... I'm not sure. I'm not sure what the old companies were named. I think U's... Corporation, yeah. The McDonald Corporation, all these precursors to Boeing and Lockheed Martin to create intercontinental missiles, which are basically the starting point of the whole space race. So right now it's exactly the same. They're funding other companies to build something for them. But the new part is that they're not going to own the capsules. They're basically going to buy capsules from other parties. Because... Did NASA own the space shuttle? It was their program. Yeah, I think so. But it was built by a different company. By Lockheed and Boeing. Yeah, I believe the decommissioned space shuttles have been sold by NASA. Yeah, so the program was theirs. All the funding that went into that was theirs. And I think the actual product, the space shuttle, was theirs. With all kinds of contractors, of course. But right now, so you have these two companies that have created their own space shuttles. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They have their own capsules. But they can also use those capsules for different purposes. So SpaceX can offer their Dragon, their Crew Dragon capsule for space tourism. Boeing can do exactly the same. But can they also sell them to the Chinese, for instance? No. But that's because of ITAR, which is a regulation from the American Congress. And it entails that the US companies aren't allowed to export. And that's why they're not allowed to export any high tech to the Chinese market. Because of fears that they'll copy and use those for military purposes. And by the way, it also very often prevents foreign journalists from doing stories on American rockets. I speak out of my own experience. We always wanted to do certain stories, whether it was at SpaceX or at NASA. And whenever you are a foreign journalist and you come to the American space program, then ITAR is about the first word that they say. Because you really have to put a lot of effort into getting through all these checks before you can do it. Yeah. It's not like you can just visit any rocket program. Yeah. But the space shuttle, I was looking into this yesterday evening because I also didn't understand it. I think it was because the Starliner is again, is it by Boeing itself or is it again by a consortium? It's Boeing. It's Boeing. Yeah. It's Boeing's products bought by NASA. And then. Exactly. Okay. And so it's the Dragon capsule not being sold, but being rented. It's more like an Uber. Very expensive. Yeah. You buy a capsule, you buy access to the capsule and to the International Space Station. Okay. But it's completely different. Yeah. You hitch your ride. Yeah. It's completely different than, for example, the Orion capsule. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a capsule that's also in development and that a lot of people tend to forget. Another one. That one's being built by Lockheed Martin, but that's- Is it on your cheat sheet as well? That's NASA's project. Which one? Sorry. The Orion. Orion. Yes. Definitely on the cheat sheet. It's there. Okay. Because the difference with Orion that people might have heard of because it already went through a bunch of tests, the difference is long term, right? You can go to Mars with Orion if you want to. It's a deep space exploration vehicle. Yeah. And these other two that we were talking about are more for low earth orbit. Yeah. Yeah. And that's mainly because of radiation shielding and things like that. So I think Elon Musk tried to go ... He had some plans for a red dragon to land on Mars and he had some plans for a circumlunar dragon to go around the moon, but those never materialized those plans. So they've been canceled. So right now, these two capsules, Starliner and Dragon, are only meant for low earth orbit. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Finally, I was confused about the acronym. So it's USA, the United Space Alliance. That was a space flight operations company and it was a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. They made the space shuttle. Nowadays you have the United Launch Alliance. Yeah. And they launched the Atlas and the Delta rockets. Yeah. And they launched the Delta and Atlas rockets. So it's interesting how they ... Because they were working on these space programs, these private companies made a new joint venture. Yeah. They launched a new joint venture in order to supply NASA with their products. And now SpaceX is of course just a company building their own things and selling the space in there instead of the rocket itself. Yeah. They're just like a cab or like an Uber. You buy access to the ISS. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So you said in two months from now ... No, three months from now, you said ... Yeah, April. April. Yeah. April. Yeah. April. Yeah. So you said you're going to have the unmanned test of the Starliner. Then in June, if everything holds, the escape test from the Dragon. From the Dragon. Yeah. And then in July ... If it all goes well. Yeah. Put your money on somewhere in fall, the first manned mission for the Dragon. And then a few months after that, probably the first manned mission from Starliner. Yeah. And right now, if everything goes well, we'll have the first real ISS crewed mission with a Dragon capsule. Yeah. Yeah. And then we'll have the first manned mission with a Dragon capsule somewhere in December 2019. Okay. But I don't think that's going to hold. Oh. Okay. And so then Orion, when do you think that's going to ... That takes years, I guess. Yeah. So the first unmanned mission is planned for somewhere in 2020, I think July 2020. Oh yeah. And by the way, who's going to deep space at all? Yeah. The first ... Yeah. That's a completely different ... What do you mean, Herbert? Well, it's a very speculative thing. You just told us that the Orion is for deep space missions. Yeah. Well, who's going there? What are we going to use it for? We don't have a lot of concrete missions right now. That's a pretty good question, Herbert. So we have in 2022, the first manned mission for Orion that's going around the moon, or it's a round trip to the moon and back. Okay. But it's not going to land. That sounds like a test mission. Yeah. And after that, it's pretty vague. Hmm. Yeah. Because NASA does want to go to the moon. Maybe let's talk about that a little bit. Yeah. Because the role of NASA in this case ... I mean, there's been a debate about NASA, I think, ever since, well, early this century, I guess, when the second shuttle got into its disaster. Yeah. NASA has been focusing on the James Webb telescope, these big, big projects, of course, getting to the space station was a problem. And there's been this sort of identity crisis with NASA going on, where on the one hand, they do the most wonderful and epic things, but on the other hand, they're also seen as a slow, well, government entity that doesn't always reach the successes. Yeah. And politics didn't help, of course. Yeah. With one president declaring that they would go to the moon, another ... Mars, even. ... that they would go to Mars. Yeah. Yeah. Being reversed again. Yeah, exactly. And ... So ... And then, of course, the space launch system, which is basically, I would say, it's the Falcon Heavy of ... It's a big, effing rocket for NASA. For NASA. It was ... If SpaceX wouldn't be there, then SLS, the space launch system, would be the big new thing of NASA. I read an article from yesterday. It's not super hard, but it looked like, again, that NASA is reassessing the date for its first launch. It was supposed to be, what, a couple of years ago? Right around now. And now, I believe it's, again, that they still can't confirm a 2020 launch date. They're reassessing it. SpaceNews.com is reporting this this week. And I'm just thinking, like, really? So we're slowly waiting this month for the second launch of the Falcon Heavy, putting an Arab satellite into orbit. But the SLS? That was supposed to have already been here? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, the SLS is going to be here for years, is being postponed and postponed again. Then what is the ... What's the role of NASA in this case, right? Yeah. And I thought it was interesting because I just want to show you this quote from Bridenstine. Bridenstine? Bridenstine. Bridenstine. Bridenstine. Bridenstine. Sorry. The new NASA commissioner. About a year ago, he was ... Appointed by Trump. Appointed by Trump. He's a guy without any scientific background, right? Yeah. Yeah. He's a guy who has a very, very close relationship with space. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they're really enthusiastic about space. What I always love about space, as a general thing, is that it cuts through all sort of political ideologies. Basically, everybody seems to be excited about space. Look at the ISS, Russia and America working together. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. It's a- Europe even. Yeah. It's a global undertaking and everybody's always excited about it. That's true. And Trump is really trying to put some effort into it. I mean, I think every President has, you know ... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. some speech somewhere where they announce something so that if it does happen then 50 years later they can go back to that one president who said we shall go to the moon not because it's easy because it's hard as long as you have a speech somewhere where you said that and where you claimed that then you can at least if it does happen then you know you're safe better lay down some claims first yeah better lay down some claims see if it happens yeah so uh breidenstein keeps on saying that um uh yeah nasa wants to go to the moon and wants to go there sustainably so let's listen in um at the same press conference uh where elon musk was about the dragon so you know we just heard elon say he'd he'd be interested in having a permanent presence on the moon for sure we should do it well that's um that's the that's the very first space policy directive given by the president of the united states to me as the nasa administrator that we're going to go to the moon and we're going to go sustainably so what that means is um when we say sustainably that means we're going to stay and of course the objective here is not just humans but also landers and rovers and robots and humans and uh and and utilizing our international partners and utilizing our commercial partners and uh there's no doubt spacex spacex has some really amazing ideas about what they could help us do at the moon and what they could help the coalition of international partners do as we develop this together but the president's space policy directive is clear we're going to the moon we're going sustainably we're going with international partners we're going with commercial partners we're going to utilize the resources of the moon that's a critically important part of the agenda why we have to be able to live and work on another world for long periods of time we have to be able to use those resources of another world which is and so i mean those are big plans of course and uh and trump also relaunched the national space council which is basically the national space council which is basically the national space council it's part of the white house it's part of the executive branch of the united states where so trump it was it was defunct for 25 years i think under clinton uh it uh yeah they they they nullified it and uh trump uh brought it back um when another next president will nullify it again might you might might be too skeptical yeah exactly and and the thing of course is breidenstein here um basically uh breidenstein sorry that breidenstein it's sort of like a german and we're too close to Germany here, so I get confused all the time. Bridenstine says that he wants to go there and go there sustainably, but there's not really a big budget increase going on here. You need billions and billions. I mean, there's a reason that nobody ever went back. The money wasn't there. The money still isn't there. Yeah, they added $1 billion to the NASA budget on a budget of $19 billion. It's too little. Yeah, well, it buys you a mission to Enceladus, for example, the one I am always rooting for. That's $1 billion. Without people on board. Without people on board. But then if you want to build landers, and what did he say? Rovers and people and mining and solar panels or whatever. It's like, I love the idea, but put your money where your mouth is. And that's sort of the thing. And so how do we... I believe it when I see it. Yeah, exactly. How do we think that this is going to be a possibility? I mean, there's something to say that maybe the cost of space would be a little bit more expensive. It went down over the past decades. I find it very hard to see because it's not such a mix right now. The cost of launching a satellite has gone down. Has gone down a lot, yeah. But not the cost of launching people. To the moon. But then how... So this is a good little bridge to the Israeli mission to the moon. Because I love that orbit that they did. It's like a super weird orbit. Maybe, Herbert... Very elliptical. Yeah, maybe you can explain. I mean, how... Does this save money as well? And is this maybe some sort of way to get to the moon cheaper? To get things like Bridenstine a little bit closer? I'm going to have to gamble a little bit. I believe it's an orbit that gets more and more elliptical until it reaches the moon. So they shoot it out. It comes back. Yeah, yeah. And then right when it sort of falls towards the earth, you fire those rockets again. Fire once more. So then the elliptical orbit becomes larger and larger and larger until you reach the moon. Until you reach the moon. Until you reach the moon. Yeah. without a big... Like a Saturn V. You don't need a very powerful rocket. That's the idea. So you can reach the moon with less power. Exactly. You spread out the amount of power you invest so you can do with a smaller engine. Yeah, it's the same idea for a lot of interplanetary missions. For example, the Rosetta mission. To a comet. By ESA. By ESA. That one also used some gravity assists from the Earth, from Mars. That's not what Beresheet is doing. No, it's not a gravity assist? Oh, okay. I don't think so. What is it then? Because what celestial body is there to assist you? The Earth. The Earth? No, no. The Earth itself. I mean, you're circling the Earth. Yeah. The idea of a gravity assist is that you approach some third celestial body that accelerates. Yeah. Is that just a matter of definition? I mean, the idea is the same, right? That you fall. The thing that you are circling is not going to accelerate you. No, but if you, at the right moment, fire your rockets, then you can escape. But that's not a gravity assist. No, no, no. That's just a mid-course correction. A mid-course correction. No, I'm just looking for definition here. But I ought to have looked this up before. But just speculating. Yeah. I think they might be using... They might be using something like Yonik motors. Do you have any idea, Juri, technically? Maybe I'll just try and look it up just a couple minutes from now. It's a good idea to look it up. But the whole idea is, of course, perfect for these smaller missions, but for human missions... Maybe one... Before you continue. So first, there is a lander going to the moon by Israel. Just for people who haven't heard, it's super cool because Israel has never been to the moon with any sort of object. This time, they are going. And it's a remnant of the Google Lunar X Prize, right? Google Lunar X Prize basically invited all these teams to come up with a mission to go to the moon. Nobody won because nobody came up with the right plan. However, it did spawn all these new startups who now have all this knowledge on how to get to the moon. And then this Space IL, this beer sheet launcher, lander, sorry, is one of the things that came out of this program. And they're going there. I believe to inspire the kids of Israel. That's the official mission. It's not a research-intensive mission because it's only going to last two days on the surface of the moon. So it'll die quite quickly. Okay. And the interesting thing is that it's a privately funded mission. And that really is something different because up until now, all the lunar missions were government-funded missions. Morris Kahn is his name. Yeah. Israeli billionaire. He funded it. Yeah. And the total budget for the mission is $95 million, which, I mean, for a billionaire, it doesn't matter. It's still a lot of money, but it's $95 million to shoot something to the moon. It's still quite a lot, right? It's quite a lot, but it's overseable. Like if you've got billions, then $95 million is, you know. Peanuts. Well, I mean, yeah, he made a name for himself in this case. And I believe, Herbert, did you not say that there was some sort of library on board? Yeah. But let me first get back to... Oh. This rocket engine thing. Yeah. And how it got there. I'm not reading anything about Yonik Motors, but there's some kind of engine that they are supposed to have fired. So that sounds very much like a conventional rocket system. Yeah. So at first it went up on a Falcon 9, right? It first went up. Sure, sure, sure. It was shut out on February 22nd. Into some orbit. Yeah. So for a couple of weeks. And now they're stretching this orbit from the... Day to day. By firing the rocket engine at specific points. Orbit raising. All right. Yeah. They call it, I think. So that's not... One and a half months. That's not Yonik thrusters. That's a totally different principle. That's where you... Firing is not the right word there because you're just spewing out... Yeah. It's a constant, very small push. Very constant, very long duration. Yeah. Very, very tiny push, really. Yeah. So this is different. It's a regular kind of rocket engine. But since they're firing it many times, you can use a smaller engine instead of blasting one big blast and give it escape velocity to the moon. Yeah. Is it basically like somebody hanging on a swing where basically a kid goes back and forth and just at the right moment... Many pushes. You push it forward and it comes by and you push it. Yeah. It's a nice comparison. Yeah. Yeah. So that's something. Okay. So that's... Yeah. Okay. That's the propulsion. Yeah. Thanks for the enlightenment. Yes. And now what they have on board is, well, maybe like an encyclopedia. Not just any. I read. It's English language Wikipedia. And it has on board. And not just that. Let me see. They have etched 30 million pages worth of archives as human history and civilization. I'm reading this from Boing Boing. That's a blog that I have. Okay. Covering all subjects, cultures, nations, languages, genres, and time periods. They have 25 DVD-sized, 40 micron thick discs on board. Is this all just on an SD card or what are we talking about? Well, 25 DVD-sized... Oh, 25... Oh, sorry. 40 micron thick discs. Discs. So that's actual discs. Why? I even have a... Let me see. I mean, there's a golden plate on Voyager. Yeah, yeah. But, I mean, super... Super like the 70s. If you're here, I'm not entirely sure if it's... These are the discs that I'm looking at. If these are the real discs that you're looking at. They sort of look like discs. But I also read that it has the memories of a Holocaust survivor, Israel's national anthem, the Israeli flag, and a copy of the Israeli Declaration of Independence. Anyway, 200 gigs worth of content, including a text in XML of English Wikipedia. So they have it in two formats. That's for any extraterrestrials that might... You can read XML. You can hash XML files. That's easy. But it's... Well, it's... It's a sample of human heritage that they're dumping on the moon just to leave something behind. That's nice. That's the idea. And so you said it will die after two days. After two days. So it'll... That's sad. But they do have this passive laser reflector. So people from the Earth can shoot their laser to the moon. Oh, yeah. And do some measurements with that. So it'll... On the flat Earth, they can do that. It'll continue to have some scientific value after the initial mission is over. Oh, yeah. And by the way, you will remember that this Chinese lander that's on the back of the moon right now... You too. Thank you very much. You're good with names. It shot a selfie. And, well, Mars rovers are taking selfies all the time while they're on Mars. Now, this Beresheet thing took a selfie while still... While still in space, while on the way... Oh, you're kidding me. With the Earth in the background. Oh, that's a beautiful shot. Wow. So I see the Israeli flag. Sorry, can you show that to me again? It's the Israeli flag and the Earth. It has some text on there saying, small country, big dreams. Isn't that cute? I mean, it's a crazy picture. Yeah. It's indeed like... And I'm assuming it's not in Photoshop. No. And again, you sort of know it's real because it looks so fake. It looks so crazy. Yeah. It's very... Awkward looking. I have to say, they're good with PA. Yeah. If you're going to space, you better be good in PR. Yeah. Yeah. PR is... I mean, I remember Juno arriving at Jupiter a few years ago. Yeah. And it took very long before the first pictures came out. And I think, actually, to this day, like, there are spectacular pictures, but it takes a long time before you see them really and being Photoshopped and all that stuff to make them presentable. Yeah. And I think that's the thing. I mean, if you don't have pictures on your... Like, awesome pictures to show for, then the general public will tune out. They will not even tune in. You have to sell your mission. You have to sell your mission with cool pics. So, yeah. It looks good for the Israelis here. Fun thing to mention at this point. In three weeks from now, so that will be on the 27th of March, we'll be recording Space Cowboys podcast number 13. That will be, I guess. Yeah. With Michel van Baal. And he's a PR guy from the Technical University of Delft. He's a space engineer himself by education. And he's going to talk to us about PR in space. Oh, cool. Cool. Yeah. And actually, so... It's going to be fun. It's going to be a lot of fun. And this Israeli space lander, the moon lander, will not even have landed yet. Because it won't land until the 12th of April. Yep. It's taking quite a long time. Yeah. It takes a very long time. That's what happens when you're going by... Small pushes. Yeah. And not any sort of like big, big things. Wow. And I believe maybe this strategy of going there by bits and pieces has been driven by it being a commercial mission to keep costs down. Oh, yeah. Okay. A very real deal. By the way, in all honesty, the Chinese lander on the back of the moon, I sort of have already forgot that. It's like, oh, yeah. That's what I mean. He's still there. Still. Yeah. There's so many things going on. How... You said... Has it also taken a selfie? I think I saw some pictures. I believe it did. Yeah. I saw some pictures of it. At least it photographed this plant. Yeah. You two took a picture of the lander and the lander took a picture of you two. So they've been photographing each other. Oh, really? Yeah. Back and forth. That's not called a selfie. That's somebody else. Yeah. Funny. I'm sort of going through all the things that we needed to talk about because we had a bunch. Are we... So what next? Well, what next? There's one thing that I just wanted to ask you about, Jureem, that you maybe know. Have you ever heard of the Dream Chaser? Yeah. Yeah. So do you know instantly what I'm talking about when I talk about the Dream Chaser? Yeah. Yeah. Because especially when we talk about all the different capsules and all the different things that are going up, I suddenly saw this, the Dream Capsule, which looks a lot like a mini space shuttle. It's a mini space shuttle. It's like a mini space shuttle. Yeah. It looks super cool. It will be launched vertically on Atlas 5 or Ariane. 5 rocket, right? And what is this thing? Where is this thing? And when is it ever going to happen? So I told you that in 2011, we, or at least the US, lost our access to space. So they tried funding a number of companies. And one of the companies that they funded in the first round was also Sierra Nevada, which is the creator of the Dream Chaser. So they worked on a manned version of the Dream Chaser for a short while. And in the second round, they were withdrawn from funding. So all the funding went to the Dragon Capture from SpaceX and the Starliner from Boeing. But they kept the project alive. And now they've applied for a second round of commercial resupply funding, which is the program that sends cargo to the ISS, of which the Cargo Dragon is a recipient, but also Northrop Grumman space. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And this is basically a new capsule that was created to have more downmass from the ISS to the Earth. What does that mean? Downmass is making sure that you can actually bring stuff from the ISS back to the Earth. Oh. Because the Dragon Capsule, of course, has a little bit of downmass. The Cygnus Capsule just burns up in the atmosphere. So it's great for putting your trash in and making sure it's out of the ISS, but it's not great for bringing stuff back to the Earth. stuff back to the earth and the um sierra nevada dream chaser that's perfect for a lot of down mass so you can really bring some stuff from the iss back to the earth like research like research it's like payload you can bring back yeah yeah so because it cannot be too heavy or too light or whatever in order to get something back and this is a little it looks like a space shuttle it looks like a mini version of the space shuttle so it looks like a little plane yeah and so it can land horizontally it gets like the space shuttle gets launched vertically yeah and goes back down horizontally so it might find a niche for itself yeah and so yeah they already found a niche for the dream chaser have you ever did you ever hear of it no the dream come take a look come take a look you have to you have to see this it's and they've already found a little niche market because they can launch um what can they launch they can launch scientific experiments into space and bring them back to the earth so they've already been contracted by the united nations of all uh organizations to launch scientific experiments for third world countries into space to make sure that they also have access to space and it yeah what herbert what do you what do you think it made me think um of the hermit's capsule that's very much like the uh space shuttle that was developed in the 90s i think a long time ago yeah 20 years ago about yeah because it looks it looks like the like a like a like the size of a chestnut yeah airplane it's that's it's that small and they're going to launch it i think in one or two years the first uh cargo resupply mission to the iss will launch with the uh dream chaser uh and it'll become one of the many vehicles that can resupply the iss and so also bring stuff back yeah and so sharon nevada is is then one of the other players in this whole field do they do more that you know of no for now no no uh it's just uh northrop grumman which also creates the sickness capsule but that's only for cargo and it burns up in the atmosphere yeah and they they do a lot of defense uh yeah the the non-competitive the only thing they're focusing on right now is space tourism right no there's also they're creating a launch a launching system. Yeah. I think it's called New Glenn. Yeah, New Glenn. Yeah, exactly. New Shepard is their capsule. New Glenn is their... But the capsule is meant for space tourism and then New Glenn is meant for launching satellites. And they're going to be direct competitor for SpaceX, Arianespace, the European launching company and many other commercial space launch companies. For satellites. And so to sort of wrap our listeners' heads and my own head around all of this, because you have commercial developments going on in space tourism, in getting people to the ISS and in getting satellites up and now even getting to the moon. So basically in all these different levels, there's like commercial involvement going on right now. Yeah. And if you try to figure out what is new right now, I think that's the main point. Space used to be something that was only for government agencies. And now you see that space is opening up to the wider public and is also becoming available for commercial companies. But still, but still, no commercial company can do this on its own. No. All these commercial guys need government assignments. Nobody's going to Mars without the government pumping huge amounts of money into an expedition. Yeah. Mars One. Oh, no. Wait. Oh, no. Wait a minute. Oh, no. Maybe a separate podcast. We'll talk about that later. No, but yeah, you're right. So you need these governments and then... And the fun thing is when you talk about Bill Rashid, for instance, it's said to be a privately funded mission, which is slightly different from a commercial mission because there's no business model. No. No. Somebody's pumping money into this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a government. But okay, it's a billionaire. But nobody's making money off it. No. But these companies are taking steps by themselves in a certain way. I think that's also a difference. It's moving in the right direction. Where first it was governments taking a step and then asking private companies, hey, can you join us and do this for us? Nowadays, it seems like private industries are the big dreamers here. But you just wake me up when Elon Musk says, I'm funding this. I'm funding. this mars mission yeah exactly right yeah yeah no it's it's a money it's a money you have to rely on nasa for that and that's maybe why uh breidenstein is also saying that um constantly repeating we need our partners we need our commercial partners because they the money has to come from somewhere whether whether or not you're doing anything because if you're if you're going to the moon or you i mean satellites we all understand has a very valid business model and we're all paying for it yeah um but going to the moon you heard about hydrogen three mining but it's all completely like oh sorry helium three my bad um helium three and and it it's it's it's or asteroid mining asteroid mining it's by by far not not interesting right now even when elon musk says i'm funding this mars mission i will know where he got the money from that's from hundreds and hundreds of government-funded launches of spacex missions spacex rockets yeah that's that's where he's making his money so if he ever is able to fund the mars mission it'll be with government earned money so indirectly it will still be funded by the government yeah exactly exactly and then that won't change in the short term no right no not at all no no did we miss anything guys did we miss anything yep we did oh what do we miss inside oh inside yep yeah inside that's a little news uh news news piece yeah there's something wrong mars lander yeah uh which has um which is going to uh drill into the surface of mars and do all kinds of measurements temperature for instance to find out how mars is composed and how it behaves how the temperature changes with depth for instance going to drill as deep as five meters something like that um 15 or 15 feet or maybe more yeah and anyhow um yeah that drill the drill got stuck yeah and i was made by a company in germany i believe uh could be yeah and then they're not helping out to figure out what's going on yeah you know i was very surprised because they're telling me that's what i read in in various blogs um the cause of the drill failing may be that it's encountered some gravel or rock and i was thinking what else would you expect to encounter down there yeah i think they they didn't expect to encounter rocks this quick uh or this fast in their mission uh and i'm wondering if they have a backup plan for this if they're able to uh drill in another direction or maybe drill through those pebbles uh not going to move the whole thing i mean it's a lander that's not able to move no so it it is this uh uh it is this location and i think they have to find a way to drill around the rock and then they're able to drill through the pebbles and then they're able to drill through the pebbles and then they're able to drill through the pebbles move the land move the drill something like that i'm not sure but we'll be checking yeah we'll be checking it out because it's a super cool mission it is yeah yeah government funded and um one of our earlier guests is involved um rule irkins of t-minus who was here last week last week yeah he's been working on this uh mission indirectly he did some some assignments some contracting work oh yeah yeah very cool yeah well thanks for that as well sure and i think that wraps it up i think that wraps it up when it comes to this commercial revolution that's going on even though it's only the first baby steps actually of this whole uh thing but we're going to be here we're going to be here to report on it oh yeah yeah talk about it and chat about it and order fluffy dolls of the internet oh yeah that are being sent looking forward to we should brand our own like maybe your body i mean you should get a space cowboy action figure yeah space cowboy action figure and get it get it into one of these capsules that's what we need to do yeah thanks guys thanks to all our listeners uh by the way if you want to support the show you can do so on patreon go to patreon.com space cowboys please do yes to support this show you can follow us on spotify itunes youtube because we are also on video yep i'll wave at the camera hi guys and we're gonna see you next week uh herbert um i got a couple of scheduling things going on so i don't know if you're going to be able to see me in the next week or not i'm going to be able to see you in the next week or not i'm going to be able to yeah we'll do that after the show oh um but we have we did a really great interview with um uh no with ed stone from voyager we sure did we sure did and we have that interview ready to release um it's going to be a question if we're going to release that next week or the week after so okay yeah it's coming up very soon it was a great conversation about yeah about the forager mission and he was there for basically its entire life to witness it firsthand 40 years 40 years and uh was a yeah we uh we interviewed him through skype So stay tuned for that. We're looking forward to that one. Yeah. Or the week after. Okay. Thank you all for listening. See you next week. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.