Three, two, one.. Ignition!

The Houston contact with a death to one. Touch down to club B. Herbert. Hey Thijs. You're back. I am. Yes. How was France? In one piece. In one piece. France is and stays beautiful. Yeah? How was the weather? The weather was strange. Oh. It was really strange. It was very sunny and very, very cold. Sunny and cold. Yes. Doesn't sound like France. Sounds like Iceland. We had temperatures around, the last day it was 11 degrees centigrade and quite fierce winds. We went up to the Puy-de-Saint-Cy, which is the highest mountain of Auvergne. And we couldn't reach the top because of the winds. Oh really? It was just too dangerous. I tried to walk the last maybe couple hundred meters and I turned back because it was... Too much wind. Too much wind. And it was sunny. I couldn't stay upright. Interesting vacation. And it was very sunny, nevertheless. Yeah. Well, nice. Like sunscreen weather, you know? I am. Well, enough about the weather. Yeah. Would you care to introduce our guest of today? Yeah. He's called Edwin Vermeulen. Welcome, Edwin. Hi, Edwin. Thank you. Hi. He's from APP. APP. And you know what business they're in? They do igniters for rocket engines. The 321 ignition part. That stuff. Yes. Yeah. Right. How many seconds? It's a match to the cigarette that is a rocket. Oh, yeah. So how many seconds after the word ignition is spoken, does your work end? It ends. It depends on the stage. But in principle, it ends in one and a half seconds after the ignition. Or as the French say, top. They say, 321, top. And then we see fire and that's our job. And then you're done. Then we're done. We've done some. We've done something right. But typically in the last years, we also have products on second and third stages of rockets. So then we have some more time to wait to see our work. But in principle, yes, we are done after the countdown. Yes. Wow. Yeah. So we're going to talk about ignition, igniting things. Yeah. And that's always fun, right? It's very fun. Because it's this very particular niche. But it's also fireworks. But it's also fireworks. Yes. And very, I would assume, complicated. It can be. Is it okay to be? For us to be this funny about ignition? Or do you think it's a very serious business? No, no, no. It's okay. Of course, it's okay. Of course, when we talk about fireworks, there are some, I would say, connections to bad things that have happened in the Netherlands with fireworks. And we try to get as far as we can from fireworks. It's not really what we do. But I understand that the general public sees it as a similar technology. And in fact, it is. So no problem. At all. Yeah. And we understand it's not like regular fireworks. And it's not destructive or anything. But most fireworks do not go to outer space. That's right. Yeah. Well, not always the ignition is necessarily going to space. No, no. Some of it is. So, yes. Yeah. Well, it's like what goes up doesn't necessarily goes up a whole lot. Yeah. True. True. And, well, we're going to talk about that today. Yeah. Yeah. But first, we do some news of the week. Yeah. Definitely. What's your story? Well, it's been the same one for the past few weeks almost. That's boring. Yeah. That's very boring. But it's sort of like a developing story. It's that American moon mission. Yeah. Because it seems like they really want to do it. Yeah. But does it also seem they're really going to do it? Well, great you asked. That's my question. Great you asked. I saw this video by NASA. And, I mean. I always love NASA's PR campaigns. They have. I say it's easy to want to do it. It's a little bit harder to really do it. Okay. Yeah. It's just NASA already went to the moon. So, it's like, you know, they got some. They're pretty legit. Let's call that. Okay. Yeah. And they're. So, they have great Twitter accounts and social accounts with beautiful pictures from Hubble and all the things that they do. And millions of people follow it. So, it must be okay. And so, it must be okay. Okay. I came across the new video, We Are Going. And I got to say that, you know, video-wise, they really improved. I'm not sure because there's like a reality star now running the country. Yeah. That really, you know. And there's a video. So, who can doubt the. Who can doubt the video. So, let's all listen in to this, to the promotional video for this moon mission. To me, it really seemed like after this video, they really can't go back anymore. Okay. Give it to me. This is the next episode of the Moon Mission. This is the next episode of the Moon Mission. This is the next chapter of human space exploration. Humans are the most fragile element of this entire endeavor. And yet, we go for humanity. We go to the moon and onto Mars to seek knowledge and understanding and to share it with all. We go knowing our efforts will create opportunities that cannot be foreseen. We go because we are destined to explore and see it with our own eyes. We turn towards the moon now, not as a conclusion, but as preparation. As a checkpoint toward all that lies beyond. Our greatest adventures remain ahead of us. We are going. We're going. We are going. We are going. We're going. Listen to that music. Listen to what they're saying, Herbert. I'm a believer now. Yes, you're a believer now. Those drums. Those synths. Yeah. I know it's going to happen now. It's really great. You can leave this to the. To the Americans to promote it. Sure. But you know what I like about it? It's, this is the promotion, but it's not just the US. It is, China is saying we have to go. Europe is saying we will have to go. And why is that? I think because we have to answer a very complicated question. What do we do with the International Space Station? And how long will we maintain it? And what will be after it? And how long will there be support for a microgravity lab circling the Earth? Right. Yeah. Sure. But frankly. I have less trouble believing the Chinese that they're going. Yeah, sure. Why? I mean this. How? Because the Americans have a history of making plans and not living up to them. But they also have a history of making plans and do living up to them. Once. Wow. I have to, I think I agree with, I have to agree with Herbert because, because the problem of the Americans is they have to fix a budget every year. Yep. That's it. And I was once in a conference in the US and there was a European guy complaining about we have, in Europe, there is not so much money. You have to do all this space stuff. You have so much more money in the US. And then a US guy, he took the word and he said, yes, but you have a policy. You agree on what to do with the money for three or five years. You have plans. And we have to discuss it every year again. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean. The Americans have a Congress whose job is to cut and then cut and then cut some more. The Chinese have a Congress that is just an applause machine. A what machine? A applause machine. Oh, an applause machine. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Well, like this video. But I mean, Cassini, Voyager, so many of these missions that they went, you know, don't, don't say that the Americans only went to the moon. They, you know. No, that's true. But going to the moon is so much more expensive that there can be even more cutting there. Yeah. Well, that's interesting because Edwin just noticed. Yeah. There is some news. There's some news to be. Yeah. There's a leaked document. It's about how much this moon mission is going to cost. Yes. Yes. What I read. I'm not sure what it's. I can check it. Double check it here. It seems to, it seems to be from a, from a, from a good source is that we are talking about 37 rocket launches to, to the moon to, to create something of a base. And we will need, I think until 28 or we, the Americans will need six to eight billion a year to support, to support the program. Six to eight billion a year. A year. Six to eight billion. A year from, it seems from now on almost. But if I just look at this graph that that's been leaked first human mission 2024, and then in order to create that base every year. Yeah. How many launches did you say? 37. 37. Yeah. That looks, looks right. So 37 launches is, is, is insane. And also building a new mission that, that new base that's, there's not even a concept for it yet. But, but, but I would say technically this is, this is totally feasible, you know? Okay. 37 launches. Of course it is. Not, not a problem at all. We have to learn how to, how to live on the moon, but I think technically we could do it, but I think it's more, do we want it? And it's not just the US. Do we want it in the world? Is there a cooperation between countries, between Europe, between, between Japan? You say it's necessary to have that cooperation. It's necessary. What it all comes, it comes down to is can the money be produced? Right. Right. Well, maybe if the American. If the Americans go, then, you know, if they sort of chart the path to the moon and then maybe invite everybody over, like, Hey, party on the moon. Yeah. Yeah. Build your own outpost. Like it could be feasible. Yeah. Could be feasible. I don't doubt it's feasible. I just doubt it's going to happen. Yeah. It's just, I think it's very interesting that when we started this podcast almost half a year ago, there was no conversation about this. There is, it was more like, Hey, there are some general ideas of what the Americans would like to do. And then suddenly two, two months ago. They're basically just saying like, Hey, we're going to the moon again with humans. Like, Whoa. Okay. And here we are. But so, so far nobody has shown the money. 1.6 million extra, a billion, sorry. 1.6 billion extra. They showed some money, but not the money. Yeah. No. Yeah. It's not the money. Yes. Yet. We'll see. We'll see. Yes, we will. Keep following this podcast and maybe you'll find out. You won't hear it anywhere else. Tune in next time. Exactly. When you hear Miss Piggy say. Herbert, you had a story of the week as well. Yes, I have a couple. Oh, okay. Remember when I told you about where Voyager was going? Yeah, we did a whole show about where Voyager was going. Sure. Yeah. With Ed Stone, the head scientist. This little story about where it was going for the next 100,000 years. When it would be in the vicinity of what star. Mm-hmm. And the idea being that it wouldn't be within one light year of any star almost ever. Mm-hmm. All right. So now somebody has done some calculations on Starman. Oh, the one sent up by Elon Musk. Yeah, that's the dummy put in a Tesla Roadster sent up by Elon Musk and now moving its way along in the solar system. Mm-hmm. And somebody started to do calculations on that. And there's a video about this from the video. It's called Channel Primal Space. Okay. Which we recommend not only the channel, but also this particular video. Mm-hmm. And well, to give you an idea. Writing's not. Oh. No, I'm going to give you an idea. Okay. First I have to play the ads, but yeah. Go ahead. We have a sponsor after all. Get Grammarly now. Yes. The question was, when will Starman be back in the neighborhood of the Earth? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The answer is that will be in the year 2091. Okay. No sooner. And then they started doing more precise calculations. And I'll stop there because just go watch a video. Mm-hmm. And everything will be told. 2014 has slowly made its way out to an as- 2020. Well, I'm not sure where, what did you say? 2029 is the first time? 2091. 2091? 2091. 2091. 2091. Really? Why so long? Because space is big. That's why. Wow. Eventually. Yeah. I love Primal Space. It's a very cool channel. So definitely check it out. He actually made a 3D model of it. Yeah. It looks like he actually did some extra animation of the whole thing. Yes. It's really cool. And calculations. So it's all science, you know? Yeah. And he's predicting that by 2035, we're going to have, like, full-blown Mars bases. Beautiful animation with buses driving around. Oh, I see all these cars driving around Mars. I'm not really sure if that's going to happen that quickly. Oh, no? 2035. Sure. Okay. So that's Starman. Another story is about Beresheet, you know, the ill-fated Israeli lunar probe. That crashed on the moon. Yeah. And some NASA moon satellite has produced a picture of the moon surface where you see the impact crater. Oh. That Beresheet left behind. Is it big? No, it's not very big. It's about 10 or 20 meters or so. Check that out in the show notes. In the show notes. Yeah. We put it there. So that's something you can just go watch. Yeah. And then there's this funny story. There is a Chinese science fiction film, The Wandering Earth. And that's about humanity trying to change the orbit of the Earth. The orbit of the Earth? Yes. Let's go change. Let's use Earth as a spaceship. And get it closer to the sun so we have nicer weather? Attach some thrusters, you know, and go our merry way. Could we technically move it away from the sun just a little bit so that we reduce the effects of global warming? Yes. In principle, yes. In practice, it's a bit harder. Okay. So how are they proposing to do this? Well, the idea is in about a billion years or so, the sun will not blow up, but it will swell up. Mm-hmm. It will become bigger. Yeah. Engulfing the orbit of the Earth. So we'd better go someplace else. Get the F out? Yes. So you, yes. And you can move persons to some other place. You can also- Our oceans will be boiling. In principle, in theory, you can move the Earth to some other place. For instance, the orbit of Mars. Oh. Yeah. You just have to use the right thrusters. Right, Edwin? Right, right. Really. So we're going to put- It would be a great challenge to- To put thrusters on the Earth and fire on them at the right moment each time. Because the Earth is going around. Yes, the Earth is rotating. So it's interesting to see how to connect them and when to give the thrust and the pulses. Yeah. Don't forget the igniters. No. No. They will also be needed. So I will start working on this business case tomorrow. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. You have one billion years. Yes, yes. I've got some time. So I'd better get working. Yeah. Better hurry. So, but the fun thing is Ars Technica, one of my favorite blogs, produced some data on what- Different methods you could try and use. So you could try and use Falcon Heavy rockets. And there it gets very amusing because if you use Falcon Heavy rockets, you're going to need- What was the number? Let me see if I can find this. Oh, yeah. We would need, I'm quoting here, 300 billion billion launches at full capacity. So what you basically do is- Three billion billion. Yes. Okay. Sounds like a lot. Just calculate how many days and for how many years you would do one launch a year. But don't forget, you mount it upside down, right? Of course. So you don't actually do a launch of the rocket. You pointed the other way. Yes. Yeah. So you need that many launches. And then the material, I'm quoting again, making up all these rockets would be equivalent to 85% of the earth, leaving only 15% of earth. In Mars orbit. Isn't that great? So that's maybe not very feasible. You can try- So we would have to mine asteroids. Okay. So we have to mine asteroids, get all the, I guess, hydrogen. Does it run on hydrogen, the Falcon Heavy? Yeah. Oxygen and kerosene. Okay. Okay. So we have to find a lot of that. Can we find that somewhere else? We have to find a lot of oil. So we have to see where to get that. Or water and do electrolysis. Yes. And make, yeah. And then- There's an alternative. Oh. Yes. Let's go to the alternative. Yeah. Alternative. Because you can also use ionic thrusters. They need a lot more time, but you could mount a ionic thruster about 1,000 meters up, but still rigidly attached to the earth because it's the earth that you want to move. Yeah. And then you start firing not exhaust gases, but you start firing ions. Okay. And you use a lot less material at a lot greater velocity. Okay. Okay. Again, I did not study physics at all. I studied history. So do you need to shoot things out into space in order to thrust the earth into a- Well, that helps. Okay. There's many, many principles that you can use. It's just that you have to, it's like a balloon, you know, you have to push something to the one side and then you go for yourself, you go to the other side. So you don't have to bring it into space. You have to bring it. You have to bring the force to the earth. Personally, I think only with nuclear technology, you would come close to something that works. Yes, let's just explode a bunch of nukes. That's one thing. That's one technology that's lacking in this story. But let me, let me get back to the story. Sorry. Sorry. If you use ionic thrusters, for your non-physician's mind- Out there, yeah. You can, suppose you're on a little cart. And you throw a big, heavy, like a basketball thing away. You will push back with your cart and gain some velocity. But what if- No, no, no, no. Let me finish it. Yeah, okay. Sorry. So you, one way to get a certain velocity is to throw away this basketball. It's a heavy thing. Yeah. An alternative thing would be to use ping pong balls. Right. And you're going to need a lot of them. And you're going to, you better throw them away at a much higher velocity in order to gain the same speed. Yeah. Now that's the difference of using a Falcon Heavy on the one hand or ionic thrusters on the other hand. Yeah. So you use ionic thrusters, you use less material at a higher velocity. And then going back to the story and quoting, you would need to eject the equivalent of 13% of the mass of the earth at a higher velocity, remember. To move the remaining 87%. Okay. To the orbit of Mars. Could we now just shoot out water? Well, that's basically what you're doing, man. Oh yeah, that's true. That's right. If it's iron, yeah, true. Wow, great. Okay. So there was no nuclear technology tried in these calculations, but I'll tell you what was. There was also the idea of using gravity slingshots. So we discussed Voyager. We're getting back to Voyager now. Voyager gained a lot of speed to use Jupiter and Saturn for slingshot effects. And this increased Voyager's velocity, but it's decreased the velocity of Jupiter and Saturn, although not measurably. Okay. So what you could do, I mean, this is just entertainment, but okay. Insightful entertainment. Yeah. So you could take like asteroids, you change the orbit of the asteroids, maybe using rockets, and then do it in such a way that the asteroids fly past Earth in such a way that the velocity of the asteroid is diminished and the velocity of Earth is increased. Okay. That's another principle that you can use. Yeah. And maybe this is the point where I can say, go read the article. And see how it works. Yeah. And see how it ends. Yes. It's all good, clean, scientific fun. All right? Okay. That's my last story of today. I guess we should now then go on to our main topic of the day. Thank you for that, Herbert. Oh, wait. We have one more story of the week and we can- Edwin's. Yeah, Edwin. What's your story of the week? Yeah. Maybe you don't think it's about space, but in the end it will be. Good. Because this morning I read in a very famous newspaper, I think it's made somewhere in Germany. I read it- The people right next door over there. Right. I can see them type away right now. Yeah. Right. And I read an article about a Dutch big brewer. I don't think I'm allowed to- Sure. It's a podcast. It's Spotify. Go ahead. Yes. Can we? So it makes my life easier. Yeah. I read an article about Heineken. They will put 3D printers, additive manufacturing printers alongside their beer manufacturing lines, their beer production lines. And I started to read this and then I thought this is really relevant. And this is interesting because why do they do this? They do this because if the line breaks down, of course we are panicking because beer supply is stopping, they can immediately make the missing part or produce it along the line. They don't have to keep big stocks. If it's an old machine, they don't have to call an engineering office. Can you design it for me? Because I cannot buy it anywhere. They have it there. They have it available. They tried this, what I read. They tried this in Spain. They tried this in Spain in a production plant and it was quite successful. And they also interviewed a Dutch manufacturer of 3D printers. And what he said was something that was why I bring it here. He said a few years ago, everyone thought we would have these printers in our homes and do a lot of fun stuff with it. And maybe some of the people, I don't know, I don't think it happened. But what most people don't see that in the industry, 3D printing or additive manufacturing is really taking off. And we see this clearly. In our business, we see and also we are making parts today. We are making parts with 3D printing that are used inside rocket engines. But complete rockets are 3D printed now, right? Right, right. With metal or what's that? That's right. Because a few years ago, it was you could have fun with all kinds of plastics. My dad has one of those printers. But it's really metal. I have a part with me of stainless steel. By all means, show it. You have a suitcase over there with all these goodies in it. Bang. There you go. It's open. Great. You're sort of tethered with your headphone to the table. By all means. There's a couple of stuff wrapped in bubble wrap. Yeah. What is this? This is a part of stainless steel. I just got it from one of our engineers. This is actually flight hardware, by the way. This goes inside quite a big igniter. I just brought some small ones. And this is part of what we call the pyrotechnic igniter. So the igniter has a part that looks like a rocket engine. And this part needs to be started also. So we have an igniter inside the igniter. And this pyrotechnic igniter has some part that contains, again, pyrotechnic material, explosive material. And this is made of stainless steel. It's because it is a really complicated part. But we can make it in a very efficient way with 3D printing. But it becomes really, really hot. The pressures are enormous. It has to survive two minutes of, I would say, hellfire inside a rocket engine. What temperatures should we think of? Well, temperatures typically inside a rocket engine are way above 3000 centigrade. So it will melt a little bit, but it will keep its functionality. Can I see it? Yes. And this contains explosive material? No, this is just... No, because I couldn't bring it. This is just a filter. This is just a cup. And we would bring in explosive material. And this is just a cup. And we would bring in explosive material. And this is just a cup. And this is just a cup. And this is just a cup. So there's a lot of explosive materials inside. But in the past, we were not able to make this. We had a problem with these igniters. And today we can make it with steel. We can make it with all kinds of other materials. And this is 3D printed? Yes. And looks like such a complicated thing. Yes. So this really makes the life of your company a lot easier, and a lot more profitable, maybe. Yes. It brings a lot of things. In the past, people said you can design anything you want, because you have much more freedom of the shape. Yeah. But it also brings that you do not have to send spare parts or all kinds of materials around because just right from the powder you go to the product. But we also have, in many cases, we have to cast, make cast iron or cast products. And making all the tools to be able to do that costs a lot of time. And now we can make a product. If we have a design in two or three days, we have this, we can test it. If it's not okay, we can make a new one. Two or three days later, we have another one. Rapid prototyping. How long did it used to take? Well, this typically, if it's a casting, would typically take eight to 12 weeks. Eight to 12 weeks to two or three days. And the other thing is you need to invest in a casting, in casting tooling, which typically costs 10,000 or 100,000 of euros. And now you can say you don't need an investment. Because typically today we do this not in our company. We use specialized companies who have the latest machines. The newest ones. We send them a digital file and we get the product back within a week. So this is way, way past the early 3D printing applications. Like you can 3D print a stirring stick for your cup of coffee. Exactly. A beautiful windmill. My dad was very proud of his beautiful windmill that he 3D printed two weeks ago. Yeah. He bought one of these plastic things. A miniature model thing. A miniature windmill. I was like, dad, I'm so proud. I'm so proud of you. But this is... Can you build something practical? I'll see him tomorrow and then I'll tell him about the igniters for space rockets that are now being 3D printed. Yes. And it's like Herbert said, it's complete rocket engines. We are now working in Europe on a new generation rocket engines. And I've seen turbine blades, 3D printed combustion chambers, injectors, all kinds of parts. And they're structurally sound. Well, this is something we need to... It better be. Yes. But we need to find out. Because some people, they still treat 3D printing as welding. They say you weld all kinds of little powder particles together. So we have to do all the inspections you typically do with welding, which makes it again costly. But we are now trying to find out if we can go away from that. If we can say, okay, if we know the machine, if we know how to set it, we know that the product will be right and will have the right quality. This is something we are learning now in the coming few years. And then we really need to have this next generation of rocket engines with a lot of 3D printing inside. It's sort of an off topic question, but I think I'd like to ask it. What sort of new jobs do you think this will create specifically for the 3D printing? Because you have... Your pipeline is changing that way. It is the complete business model that will change. Today you see we use 3D printing still in the same business model. So we are a supplier of subsystems and they go into systems. And the systems are supplied to a main contractor. But in the end, if we have a design and we are smart in designing ignition systems, you could imagine that we just give a license to a customer and they print the product itself. You just sell the model and you sell your license. So rocket engines or anything sort of machine will be more of a license than an actual object. Wow. So I think many companies like us, but I think this is in a... Reduced shipping cost. Reduced shipping cost from testing and a lot of manufacturing into more a knowledge house and where you design and where you test the product. But in the end, you license a certain design. Yeah. But I think we still have a way to go still. Wow. Let's talk igniters. Yeah, let's talk igniters. This is great. This is... Already it's great. This object. No. How does an ignition look like? Like give us... First, like the 101 on ignition. You brought a couple, right? Yeah. I brought a couple. You brought a couple and give us just like students first time in your class. But students is a good start because I always say when I was a student, I had this stove in my, I don't know, in Dutch it's for noise in my... A gas stove. Yeah. And it didn't light from itself. So you had to use a match. So you put on the stove and then gas starts to flow. And if you are too quick, the match will be blown out of it. So the gas and nothing will happen. If you wait too long, the effect is even better. You will lose your eyebrows and your hair because... And so ignition in the right time in the stove was really important. And this is exactly our job. We have exactly at the right time to ignite a rocket engine. A typical rocket engine can, for example, have liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen flowing in. We have... We cannot be too late because then everything is freezing cold and nothing will be lit anymore. We cannot be... Uh... Too early. Otherwise, there is not enough rocket fuel already present to ignite. Too late. Yeah. Yeah. So our job is to do... To design a flame. And it's not just a flame because it works rapidly between half a second and one and a half seconds. But it's a flame that has a power that is dependent of the time. So it's not just a big bang. If you look at it, you will think it's just a big bang. But in practice, we measure and we say, okay, the first two or three milliseconds has to be maximum power. And after 0.5 seconds, we have to go back to 50% of the power. And after one second, it has to, let's say, diminish and go out. And you can get it down to the millisecond. Well, not that accurate. To a tenth of a second. Yeah. And it depends a bit on... We have all kinds of technology to do that. But let's maybe to explain it a bit better. I take one of, let's say, the oldest designs we have. And we still sell that for Ariane 5. Okay. Here we go to the suitcase again. I go to the suitcase. Yes. Yeah. The Mary Poppins bag of... Let's see what comes out. Space grease. Pops out this time. More bubble wrap. That's for sure. I have a special, very special device with me. Well, this is... I need two to explain everything. Oh, it's... This is half of it. It's an opened up igniter. Yes. It reminds me... It reminds me of spark plugs in your car. Well, that's a very good comparison. Because in some of our igniters we use spark plugs. It also reminds me of nothing I've ever seen before. I have to unwrap more. Well, this is a very special one. Because this is the only igniter ever we received back after a space flight. Oh, this one has been in space? This one has been, well, on its way to space. Because it was a... It's a bit of painful history of Ariane 5, which is today the main satellite launcher from Europe. Yeah. But this was on the first flight of Ariane 5. Which went wrong. Which went wrong. And in the end, the rocket engine has been recovered. And we got our parts back, which worked because it was ignited. Let me get this straight. Ariane 5 fails. Yes. The rocket engine is retrieved from the ocean or something? From space. From... From... From the swamp. I think in South America somewhere. Okay. And then they dismantle it and send all the parts back to the manufacturers? Yes. Because that's the best you can do if you have a failure, you know, is to learn from it. Let's go and look it up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ty's done some quick googling. Quick googling. And... Oh, that's not going well. Beautiful fireworks. That's not very normal. Not very normal. At an altitude of about 3,700 meters, the launcher veered off. Off its flight path, broke up and exploded. But it was ignited all right. So if I can say that. Yes. Well, that's something, of course... You did your job well. Well, some people, of course, in our company, were really focused on the ignition and they were really, really happy at that time. After 10 seconds. But then, of course, we understood that the launch failed and it was a complete disaster also for us. And nobody is happy then. Nobody is happy. No, sure. Because you have to go into an investigation. You cannot launch satellites. I don't know. It's our... Oh, really? Business comes to a standstill. Yes. We had a production contract. We were anticipating very nice amounts of igniters we could deliver and nothing happened. Are there provisions in your contracts for what happens then? I mean, do you get compensated or is the risk entirely yours? No, there is something in between. So there is in a contract, there is arranged for that you accept some burden that you save for a few months. Yeah. And then in a few months, we accept that we have delays. But there is also, like in any contract, I would say there is a clause that says if there is really big trouble, we sit together and we find a solution. Yeah, I find it interesting. Yes. Last week, Jeff Bezos' presentation two weeks ago, he said that delay... He really made a big point about delays. He said there's so many delays in space when anything goes wrong or when the weather is not good, where delays are costing a fortune. Is that true? Yes, it's true. It's true. And we check a lot. We check a lot. We check a lot. We check a lot. And we cannot... I always compare a rocket with an aircraft. If you develop an aircraft, you roll it out for the first time, you take a spin with it, a few meters, maybe 100 meters. Then you do a starting, you try to take off, but you don't do it. Then you fly a little... We cannot do this with a rocket. The only thing we can do is we can start it with all the propellant on board, with all the rockets on board, and we have to make it work. You have to sort of push the button and then... And that's the reason we need to stop if we... I understand what you mean, but I think it's not entirely true because we've seen tests by SpaceX, for instance, where they went with one of the test rockets, many of those, they went maybe 10 meters up and then back down. That's right. 100 meters up and then back down. Yeah. What's the difference? The difference is that you need to develop a rocket to be able to do that. And the things you refer to is a... A feature of the rockets of SpaceX that they have to come down and you can test that. Sure, you can. But many other... Or I would say every other rocket in the world is not designed for coming back. It's a one-way thing. Yeah. And it cannot do that. Yeah. Because you require a lot of additional computer intelligence, other hardware, et cetera. The moment you ignite it, it's going. That's... Well, there are several steps in starting the rocket. It's different for every rocket. But I always take Ariane 5.0. I always take Ariane 5.0 because I know it is one of the best as an example. And 5? Ariane 5.0. Ariane 5.0. Ariane 5.0. Excuse me. Yeah, sure. First, the rocket engine in the middle is started. This is a liquid rocket engine, meaning you have liquid oxygen and hydrogen. This is started with our igniters. You can stop this engine. If something is wrong, you can stop it. They check for seven seconds whether the engine is running okay. And then they start the big boosters that are on the side, the similar ones. Which can't be stopped. And they can't be stopped. And the difference is one is hydrogen and oxygen. And the other, the boosters are solid rocket fuel. Solid rocket fuel, right. And that's like a match. That's like a match. Once it's ignited, it can't be stopped. You cannot stop it, no. And... So back to the object in front of you. I'm sort of amazed that it came out of that fireball that I just saw on this YouTube video. Yes. Because it survived that fireball. Well, but in the end, it's just an example of what we make. What you see is a product. What is the size? It's about 25 centimeters long, a diameter of about 10 centimeters. Cylindrical. Cylindrical. Yeah. On the outside, you see two connections for, I would say, the ignition. So if you have the countdown, the computers at zero or start at top or ignition, they give an electrical signal. This goes to this. It's just two wires. You know, sort of like a ground and a... It's just a current. Yeah, just a current. Just a current, a small current. And it's redundant. So if we have one computer failing, it will still start. And this current will ignite a very, very amount, milligrams of explosive powder. Powder? Explosive powder, which is inside this little product. Okay. So the current makes a spark or something? The current makes a wire... Glow? Glow. Yeah, go to high temperature. Okay, yeah. There is a very small amount of explosive powder, which is then ignited. How much? Well, just milligrams. Milligrams. But this is the first step. Then we ignite, and you can see it here in the one eye, it's opened up. Then we ignite a few grams of an intermediate charge to, let's say, to increase the amount of energy. This is all milliseconds that we... Okay. But it's still... I'm counting three stages already. Yeah. Three parts of the process. Electrical current, a glowing wire. Yes. Onto with a powder, milligrams of powder. And then a bigger amount. And then a bigger amount of powder. Same powder? No, different. Different stuff? Different again. Fireworks though. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Okay. And then? Continue. Then you have this amount of energy. We are still in the milliseconds timeframe. And then we ignite a certain amount of also rocket fuel. Okay. But now you're pointing to what I would say is a macroscopic amount of stars. Yes. So now we have something that is, well, let's say in this case, 200 or 300 grams. And our biggest igniter has 220 kilograms of this stuff. Oh, wow. And this is really rocket fuel, but it's tuned that you can use it for ignition. So it's much faster in many cases. Sometimes it has a certain, I don't know, certain properties. And this burns for, let's say, one and a half seconds. One and a half seconds. One and a half seconds. And it's the fifth stage in my counting. Yes. And so it's solid fuel? This is solid fuel. Yeah. Okay. But we also have other, we also use igniters where we have gaseous fuels. So we use igniters where we do not have rocket fuel inside. So maybe on the outside, it looks more or less the same, but we have spark plugs and we have oxygen and hydrogen. Because like you said, Herbert, you cannot stop this one. So this is also true for the igniter. It's rocket fuel. You can stop it. It's burning. It's going. And if you want to have multiple ignitions of rocket engine, which you want to have on an upper stage to go in different orbits or to put off different loads, you want to be able to reignite. In that case, we change technologies. And then it shoots out over here? Through this tube. Yeah. You have a tube that brings the hot gas or the flame, if you want, into the combustion chamber. And that's the job? Into the combustion chamber of the rocket itself. And then the rocket fuel of the rocket engine is finally really ignited. Is finally really ignited with this hot flow of gas. Yeah. And so where in the rocket is this thing? At the bottom. At the very bottom, bottom? No, it's in the injector. So the rocket, it's hard. Yeah, I understand it's hard. No, I can say it. There is a combustion chamber. Yeah. And you have combustion of the rocket fuel with pure oxygen. And then you have to make sure that the gas that comes out of this combustion goes as fast as you can get it. Because this is the way the rocket is propelled, that you make hot velocity gas. And for this, you have this nozzle, you know, you know the shape, the bell shape on the end? Yeah, at the bottom of a rocket. So the thing you always see, this bell shape is connected to the combustion chamber. And we are on top of the combustion chamber. Ah, yeah. You're on top of it. On top of everything. And getting this exhaust velocity as large as possible is the same as I was explaining when it was about moving the Earth. Right. You're throwing away stuff and the faster you throw it away, the faster you go up. Right, right. Exactly. Exactly. And so I'm looking at a picture of the space shuttle. And help me out. Because if you look at that bottom, at that bell shape, you always see something shooting, sparks shooting out under it. Yes. Yes. Are they igniting it from the outside in? No. Oh. It's possible. That's just theater. That's to make it look as if it's... Looks cool. Because that's very often when it says ignition, I always, you saw the sparks sort of at the bottom. I was like, oh, are they now igniting this flame or something? What happens is that when the rocket is started, you open the valves for oxygen and hydrogen. And this mixture is highly explosive. So normally when the engine is started, all the mixture... also the propellants, the propellants, the propellants, the propellants, the propellants, the propellants, the propellants, the propellants, the propellants, the propellants, the propellants, the propellants, the propellants, the propellants, the propellants, the propellants, the propellants, the propellants. And the mixture also, the part that already came out of the rocket engine ignites. But to be sure that nothing really, I would say no cloud of hydrogen-oxygen mixture goes somewhere else, they have these sparkles. Just to make sure that everything burns. Ah, to burn it off. Oh, yeah. Okay. Great. Yeah. Yeah. I see it now. Wow. Okay. So that was a quick course on ignition. And I actually, I mean, the viewers at home can't see it. I will take a picture of it and at least we'll put it on Twitter. I'll put it on the screen. On our Twitter accounts and link it in the show notes so that people can look at this thing. Because I do think that you sort of need the visuals almost to truly understand it. But it's super interesting because now I do. Yeah. Yeah. What I couldn't bring was the largest, well, we have one, this is for the Ariane 5 rocket. There is also another European rocket, which is called Vega, after the star, not after skipping meat in your dish. And... Yeah. We ignite all three stages of this Vega rocket. The Vega rocket is an all solid, so it has every stage a solid rocket fuel. You need a much more powerful igniter for that. So the largest igniter we make weighs about 150 kilograms. It is a rocket motor in itself. Yeah. But I couldn't bring it. It didn't fit in my suitcase. No. But even in your car, I guess. Did you just say that the biggest one you have is 220 kilograms? 150. 150 kilograms. Yes. And that's... And what I'm looking at here is what, a couple of hundred grams? Yes. But let's say the total product weighs a few kilos. Oh yeah? Yeah. Oh, they're pretty heavy. Yeah. They're pretty heavy. Yes. Because the pressures are... Well, pressure is typically 100 bars inside the igniter. And we have to... So, you have to choose the right materials. You have hot temperatures. To contain it all. You have to contain it. You have to... Before the start, the temperature of the engine is very low because it has liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. And afterwards it gets really hot. So you need some material. Yeah. It's not as light as you might expect for a product for space. No, because I was going to say, there's of course a premium of making it as light as possible because everything that goes up needs fuel to be brought up. Right. And this is more or less, at least from the technology of the end of the 80s, this is as light as we could make it. Yeah. And we're redesigning some of these products because we can use new materials. We have new solutions. So I'm pretty confident that we will, in a few years, we will be able to reduce the mass considerably. But yes, our products are typically not as light as people expect from space products. And what sort of... Where is this market then going? If you're saying... What sort of propellant were we using? And you said 80s technology. And where are we going? And what's the advantage or disadvantage? Propellant? Propellant technology, you can... This is a complete debate and you can talk about this forever. You see that, for example, in Europe, we use... On Ariane 5, we use hydrogen and oxygen, which is of course in the end, a very clean propellant. Yeah, I was about to say. But we use on the boosters on the side of the Ariane 5, we use solid propellant, which is very effective and relatively simple, but it's a bit less clean. If you go to Vega, it's all solids. If you go to abroad to... If you go to abroad to SpaceX, for example, they have kerosene and oxygen. Which I... It always strikes me as not so sustainable. I mean, just from a exhaust... Well, you are right because the problem is really... It's very difficult to make a rocket that has a positive payload. So what does it mean? It's very hard to make a rocket that can take any, yeah, well, useful things because... It's so hard to lift the rocket itself. It's so hard to lift the rocket itself. Yeah. And it's a thing for propellants that have sufficient power. Enough energy density to get something up. Right. And this is something which is really a difficult combination if you look into, let's say, very clean propellants, unless you use hydrogen. What is the cleanest propellant? Well, hydrogen because... Oh, you would say water? Because you have combustion with oxygen and you make water. You make water, yeah. And which ones use this? Sorry? Which famous rockets use this? Well, Ariane 5 uses hydrogen and oxygen. Space Shuttle did. Space Shuttle did. Yeah. They go up... The main engine at least. I find it amazing that they go up on a tower of water. That's basically how you shoot something into space. It's wonderful. And so all the other... And then kerosene, is that the worst for the environment? I don't know how to rank them. You know, if it's not... I believe solid rocket fuel is not very good either. No, but you have, for example, hydrazine, which is used... Not only in rockets, but also in jet fighters and... That's so poisonous that you'd better burn it. Yes. So all these... So you see if you want to have something with a lot of energy, it brings something... I would say it has a drawback. It has a drawback. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. It's always going to happen. Hey, tell me about the history of your company. How long has it been in existence? Well, we are founded... We were founded in 89, at that time by TNO, because... It doesn't... Dutch research organization. Yes, the Dutch research organization. They were working with the Dutch industry, a company called Stork. They were working on this project of these igniters I showed to you, and they needed to have a lot of this rocket fuel. And they were not able to do that in their lab anymore. So they founded a little company in the beginning just to make rocket fuel. And during the years, the owner, first TNO and later on Stork, joined as owner and said, okay, we should make a real company out of it. So they should start assembling the products. And in 2005, that's also the time I joined from Stork to APP, the APP company, we decided we should also be able to design our products ourselves. So really from 89 to 2005, we were growing, but being primarily a production company. And since 2005, we also do a lot of product development R&D. So we have a lot of capabilities in-house. Yeah. And we've been doing that since then. Despite that, we are still a small, quite a small company. 50 people. 50 people. I don't think that's a small company. I have a small company. Maybe I should, I'm not sure if we said this already, APP means aerospace propulsion products. Yeah. And you were the only one in the world that focuses on specifically this. Yes. Who knows what they're doing in China, but still. Well, I've been once, I can tell you the story. I've been once to ISRO, to the International Space Station. Yeah. And they're a very big Indian space organization. And I visited them and they invited me to talk about igniters and see if we could work together, which is very hard because it's rocket technology. But we had a discussion. And I saw some igniter standing and I said to them, oh, you have some people working on igniters. Yes, yes. You are now a guest of the igniter department. And they had 80 people working there in their igniter department. Yeah. And we at that time, 25. And it's like most of the big companies, they're not specialized in this. So they do this every 20 years once. And we say to them, we do this every few years. We are able to design a new product to use newer technologies. And you as a customer can benefit from that. And I think this is what some of our customers understood. And this is really why having a specialized company makes sense. Yeah. And it will probably, as the commercial space revolution keeps on going and going, this will probably help. It will happen more and more. Yes. But it's a challenge because there are different philosophies. I think it's quite a lot of people know that Elon Musk has the philosophy to do complete vertical integration. So he says, I want to do everything myself. So he, SpaceX makes its own igniters. Yes. Yeah. My personal belief is that on the long run, this is not the right strategy. Because if we look back to car industry, if we look back to aerospace industry, they also had this phase in which. Yeah. An aerospace company that made the complete plane themselves or the complete car. And in the end you see that there are specialized suppliers, which. Yeah. The engines, the chairs, the whatnot, the software. For some reason it's in the end, it's more efficient. It's more, it's better, higher quality. But maybe it's for SpaceX, the good choice for this moment. But in Europe, typically we work with specialized suppliers and I think we will have a, this also improves our chance to survive. Our chance to survive in the coming decades. Yeah. So space business has been booming last couple of years. Right. Is business booming for you? I would say a little bit less. What we see is that we typically deliver our products to well, to European launches that are on the side of the market where we launch large satellites and the big, the big, the booming of the business is in, on the small satellite side. Yeah. So we talked about them last week. Yes. You talked with Jeroen from ICS, yes, on that. And we see that on the side of the larger satellites, the market at this moment is really slow. And we have a fierce competition from, not only from SpaceX, but also from other countries. So we need to have a new launcher in Europe. Russian, Chinese, Indian. Yeah. So we need to be, become more competitive. And it means that we are currently, we have been developing a lot of new products. 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. 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. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, it's a good one. But the new launcher, the Ariane 6, it is called, still has to... Next year it will be launched for the first time. Are you supplying its igniters as well? Yes, for the first stage. So the ones on the table, some of these versions you will see back on this Ariane 6. We also have a complete system on the upper stage, which is a totally different system with spark plugs and even with valves and tanks to make restarts. So we have a lot of interesting stuff on there. But it's really important that we see that this rocket will be sold in this commercial market. Oh, yeah. It could be that the rocket that you do a great job of supplying, the igniters, but it all depends on if the actual rocket will be a success. Yes, because it's a commercial market. So the launches need to be sold. And we see a lot happening. So probably in a few years, this market for larger satellites will come back a little bit. But there are also new answers to be found for launchers. For the smaller satellites. Many questions on how to launch all these smaller satellites that are announced for the coming decade. I believe what I read, the coming decade, 12,000 smaller and bigger satellites. Incredible numbers, yeah. It's one digit or maybe even two digits more than we were used to in the past. And also larger rockets can be part of the answer. But it's still, it's very much open. And they all have to get up. And then do you earn money by just selling the individual products or by licensing the products? No, by selling the products. Yeah, selling the individual products. Oh, yeah. So the more rockets there are, the more business you have. The more business we have, yes. Yeah, exactly. Wow. And you hinted that like spin-off products that you're manufacturing. Could you tell about those? Yes. If people ask me, what is your company about? I always say it's chemical technology in a box. So our mechanical engineers are working on the box and the sensors, et cetera. And the chemists work on the chemicals inside. So this is rocket fuel, but when we change chemistry, we can give it other properties. And we have, for example, developed in the recent years, fire extinguishing products. Fire extinguishing products. Which is ignition in reverse. It's rather funny. So we ignite when it goes into space. But if there is a fire on earth, we try to extinguish it. But it's again, it's a box with chemical stuff in there. But it makes, for example, a powder or very clean nitrogen with which you can extinguish this. Yeah. Such a fire. It still says whoosh, in some way. It says whoosh. It has still, you said it has still these ignition devices. It has still a chain. So it really, if you look at it from a distance, it's really our type of product. But the application is totally different. Yeah. You know how to really ignite things and then extinguish them again. Yeah. Making things burn and making things burn. Who better can extinguish if you know how it's ignited? Yeah, true. So now you have a fire extinguisher. Well, we have, we work with... For specific purposes, I would assume. Yes, we work with two startup companies, one in Amsterdam and one in Noordwijk. And we have developed with them specific products. The company in Noordwijk, we work with, they have developed a complete system to extinguish fires in computer servers. Oh. And you want to have a very clean extinguisher for that. Is that a very common thing? Fire in computer servers? Well, it is common that you, in large data centers, you have a fire extinguishing, system. Oh, yeah. For example, you have huge bottles of carbon dioxide that can blow away the oxygen in the data center to save your servers. Sure. That sounds clean. But if you are a small enterprise, you don't have this. But maybe you have this one rack or two racks or three racks that are critical to you. And you want to have a fire extinguishing in that. And this is what our partner, our customer, I also have to say, in Noordwijk, has developed. And what we make is, again, the gas generator that is inside. And it makes a pure nitrogen out of a chemical substance. So you never have to maintain it. It's not under pressure. We tested it. It stays in perfect condition for 12 years. No maintenance at all. You put it on your server rack and you're fine. You're good to go. And I think this is a... Wow. And so we brought in our knowledge on gas generators. And this company added all the... They had the idea in the first place and they added all the knowledge. They added all the knowledge on sensors and how to build it on a server. So I think this is a great... For us, it's a great... Great application. Application. Yeah. I have a product idea for you. Oh. Well. Oh? Airbags. Yes. We... Let's say it in a bit of a negative way. I think we missed the boat when airbags were... It's 20 years ago. I don't know. Yeah. When it became mainstream. People were thinking about airbags and we should have stepped in at that point. At that time, we didn't. I don't know why. I wasn't there at that time. Stuff happens. Yeah. So, but we are typically looking at airbag-like applications. There is one which is really... I cannot... It's still a bit of a secret so I cannot tell too much about it. But we are really looking in that type of application but then special applications. So fire extinguishers, airbags maybe. Yes. Anything else that you're branching out into? Well, one of the... We talk about space today. One of the... I couldn't bring it but one of the very great products we have is the... I'm really proud of is something will be launched next year and goes to Mars. Oh. Because we make also... It's also for us a new product. Parachute deployment devices, they are called. Okay. I always say they are little mortars, little guns. And we put the pilot shoots in there and if a capsule of ESA, European Space Agency, will come close to Mars, our parachute deployment devices will shoot out at exactly the right speed a small parachute. We will... which will pull out the larger parachute. Oh. We'll do this two times. Once for the supersonic parachute and once for the subsonic parachute. And in this way, Europe, because it's a European project, wants to land on Mars next year. Oh. And if it goes well... What sort of mission is this? This is the ExoMars mission. Oh, the ExoMars mission. Okay. There was already one phase in 2016. Yeah. The second step was meant for 2018 but we were not ready yet. Delays. We were ready but there were other... Yeah. Parts not ready. And now it's 2020 because of the timing. You have to go... You cannot go just at any moment. And this is really an exciting product because you said it in the beginning. Normally we say, three, two, one, ignition and we say, ah, our product worked. And now we have to wait for months and months and months. Yeah. And then we even have to wait for minutes and minutes because there is a transmission of the signal. Because you're not going to... It'll take eight minutes. You're not going to push a button. No. It's going to have to be an automated process. Yes. And especially this process, the landing, if you remember, went wrong in the 2016 mission because a sensor already thought that the probe was really close to Mars but it was more far away. So it's one of the parts of the mission that everyone is really very... Anxious about. Anxious about. Yeah. And we are in the heart of that. So it's really... It's really a fascinating new product. And it's one that's going to get a fair amount of publicity, I guess. It certainly will. It certainly will. So this is one of the coolest things, I think. I guess. So I really like the spin-offs we have because this is also for us as a company important. But also to go to Mars, which is... That's really something special. Yes. And the nice thing about this particular spin-off is that it's still a space product. Right. Right. So it's still your core business, actually. It's still our core business because space is not just a technology. It's also to know how to deal with all the complicated requirements on the cooperation that you need to make a complete space project work. And of course, we like the spin-offs but space is in the core of what we do. And you'll remain doing that. So when we see those small parachutes shooting out, it'll probably be an animation, though. They don't have live cameras there. But hopefully you will hear it. Then I'll think of you. Yes. I hope at that time in a very enthusiastic and positive way. Yes. And maybe give you a call. If we see a press conference saying that the parachutes didn't deploy, then we know who to call. Let's be more positive. There can be many, many reasons for that. It will not be us. Exactly. Great. Herbert, you got any last questions? Well, we discussed many recent developments and expectations. Any things that you care to mention about developments, future developments in your field that may be important? Like reusable rockets? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's of course the obvious question. That is what we should talk about, I think. Yes, the question is all the time, when is Ariane or Vega reusable? And it's really about the business model. So what you see in Europe, we work on reusability. Many projects have been started. We also are part of a European project where we work on a new generation of rocket engines that can be reused. And actually our products can be reused. You know, it's here on the table. You see, it looks fine. Yep. It looks fine. We can go right back into space. We could refill it and it could go back. So I think we are technologically, we are ready for it. The point here is, does it make sense business-wise? Because we have a very, out of Europe, we have a very small market we can access because we, if you compare it, for example, to China or to the US, there is no real home market. You see, there are some government missions with some government satellites, but that's it. You see, both in China and in Russia, in the US, you see a very big home market, which is not accessible by outsiders. So market for satellites for the US Air Force, for example, or all kinds of launching opportunities that only national... But isn't the question a bit simpler than this? The question should be, is it cheaper to make a new one than to refurbish the old one? At this moment in Europe, it's cheaper to make, a new one every time. Yeah, I thought so. And it's because we have these relatively small market and it's also because some of the technologies that are available in the US are still not available here in Europe. And maybe also because refurbishing will involve some complicated processes of testing and everything. No one knows exactly what the cost is of refurbishing at SpaceX. We don't know it. It's not clear. We just, we try, of course, we would like to know, we don't know. So it's a matter of that. But we still think that we should invest in reusability. So we have in the end of the year, we have an ESA conference. Because you don't want to miss that boat. Right. Because we think if we can lower the price of access to space, as we call it, there will be more business. And if there is more business, it will make more sense to introduce reusability. Sure. So in the coming years, we will work very hard on making rockets reusable. Yeah. Good idea. I mean, if the rest of the world is starting to use rockets, Yeah. Good idea. I mean, if the rest of the world is starting to use rockets, if we're going to do it, especially in the United States, then Europe has to do it. We have to do it, but we have to carefully see at what moment and under what conditions will we introduce it into the commercial, in our commercial products. Yeah. But we need to have it. Yeah. And we need to invest in it. The business case needs to be there. Right. Yeah. Right. Clear. What is this conference you talked about? What's the ESA conference on? Well, there is every three years an ESA conference in which ESA presents its plans. But ESA is not an EU institute. It's, you are as a country member of ESA. So the countries that are a member of ESA need to decide, do we agree with the new plans of ESA for the coming three years? And even more important, do we also put the money on the table that is needed for that? Yeah. So at the end of this year, you have this conference, Space 19 plus, and we will see there are many, many proposals of working on rocket reusability next to many other proposals, of course. And this is what I really would hope, that we support these new developments to be sure we are ready for the future. Yeah. I'm going to take a look out for that conference. It's going to be interesting. Every three years though? That sounds like not enough. No, it's actually quite good because we have, like I said, compared to the US, we have quite a steady policy. And also as industry, we can build on that. It's not changing every year. The plans are not changing. So it helps us also to work consistently on missions, to work consistently on new developments. Yeah. That's, I think, really important. So does ESA have epic music? Going. We are going. The Americans are going, are we? I think we have just to admit that the Americans are better at making epic music. I think you're right. Maybe Europeans are better at actually doing something. Oh, just such a European patriot. Are you going to vote tomorrow? That's the question for the European elections. Okay. Yeah, sure. Do your civic duty. Hey, Edwin. Thank you so much for being here today. Edwin Fimola of APP. Yeah, this is really wonderful. And it's learned so much again today. We did. And we need to take, not forget to take a picture of these and throw it on Twitter. That's great. Yeah. Thijs, thank you. Thank you, Herbert. Next week, we're going to talk to Arno, right? Arno Wielders. Yeah. Yes. And we're going to talk with him about the American Moon and Mars plans once again. Yeah. Yeah. Also a full show. I wound up in a discussion on Twitter with him. So we're going to hash that out. I believe, I think he's more of a believer than I am. So we'll have another of those discussions. Yeah. And then maybe throw in a question or two about Mars One because he was involved. In Mars One. Yeah. See if he wants to answer it. But I'm not sure if he wants to talk about that at all. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see. And I just got confirmation on Jonathan Lunine from Cornell University. We're going to talk to him soon. I'll talk to him next week. We'll publish it somewhere in the next few weeks. About the. The Enceladus Life Finder mission. Oh, that's fine. The mission that wants to look for life on Saturn's moon Enceladus. I want. Oh, I love those. Yeah. I want to talk to him about this. It's basically the most promising place in our solar system to look for life. The moons of the large planets are such beautiful, crazy worlds. And they're beautiful. And he doesn't seem to be able to get the mission off the ground, literally. Oh. And. Maybe he needs a couple of igniters. Exactly. And. And one billion dollars, which is. Oh. By all means. It's not that. It's not that much if it's about finding life in our solar system. Maybe. That's true. It's. It's. That's going to be a great conversation, too. So keep tuned in the coming weeks for that as well. Dear listeners. Thank you all. Love to see you back. Same for you.