Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos's return trip to space

Hello everyone and welcome to a new episode of Space Cowboys. Welcome yourself, Thijs. Oh, well, thank you, Herbert. Thank you so much. Everybody is welcome to listen in on this beautiful day. Yes. To this beautiful podcast. Right. Live from Earth. Live from Earth. Oh, it's not live, but semi-live, recorded from Earth into outer space. Okay. Yes. Right now we're live. When people hear this, it's no longer live. No. Yeah. We usually record this and then we beam it out. There's no live version of this anywhere. No streaming version. No. We cut out all the bad words that Herbert says all the time. We don't. Herbert cusses all the time when the mic is off. So, yeah, you don't know that about Herbert, but now you do. Okay. I confess. We are here together in the studio. However, our guest today... Is someone. Somewhere else. Is somewhere else. Where is our guest? Actually, I have no idea. I do know. He's called Eric. Erik Laan. Hi, Eric. He's a space engineer. Hi. And a space educator. Does a lot of very nice work. Yeah. Eric, where are you anyway? Yes, where are you? I'm in Delft. Oh, you're in Delft. Yes. Okay. Great. And Eric is big on the Twitters as well and always seems to be... Yeah. He's always on top of anything that happens space-related. That's right. You know him from Twitter. I try. I try. Yes. So, thank you, Eric, for your service. Yes. And I once met Eric in person. I'm very proud of that. I think I met Eric in person as well. But you're not sure. No, I think we met at ESA, one of the NL Space Days or the Space Days, something like that. We just quickly shook hands. It's been two years ago, I think. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's okay if you don't remember, Eric. It's okay. I hear it in your voice, but it's okay. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. It's okay if you don't remember, Eric. It's okay. I hear it in your voice, but it's okay. It's okay. I remember you. And so today we're going to talk… Okay, well… Yes. This is going to be one of those episodes where we bring everybody up to speed of what's happening, because so many things happen. So many things happen. Sometimes many things happen. And it's good to reevaluate where everybody's standing, because… Piles of news. …because of all these piles of news about space exploration. Yes. And what's next and where we should go. So we're going to go through stories of the week and then we'll take it from there. Let's go. Yeah. Who wants to start? Because… Our guest, I guess. Our guest. Yes, dear guest. Would you like to start? Yes. Well, the story of the week, for me it's obvious that that is the Falcon Heavy launch. That was two days ago. It was the third launch of the Falcon Heavy launcher built by SpaceX, and it was the most challenging one. Yeah. It was the most challenging one so far, as Elon Musk has pointed out. Yeah. Why was that? Why was it so hard? Well, it was the most lengthy launch operations that they had. So normally they launch something and then, I mean, within the hour the satellite is deployed and it's on its own. And then the launch is a success, despite maybe the satellite is being a failure. But then for SpaceX it is done. But this time it took six hours that they had to put 25,000 people on the launch pad. And then they had to put 24 satellites in total into space. And all those satellites, they had different requirements for orbits. And so there was a whole timeline of when all those satellites were being deployed. Okay. But the number itself is not a record, is it? Because they did 60 something a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. Even hundreds. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The PSLV rocket by the Indians, they had, I believe, over 100 CubeSats. But these were all 24, like, satellites. Yeah. So 24, like, and not huge satellites, but there was some nano satellites there, but some micro satellites, some bigger satellites, a few hundred kilos. So it's the diversity, also maybe in orbits. Yes, yes. But why is that so hard? Well, you have to… Because you have to pay attention. Yeah. You have to pay attention. It has to follow a timeline. They have to restart the upper stage. And this time they had to restart it four separate times. But they have not before restarted this upper stage so many times. So there was like a new thing, but that all… They have to restart the upper stage? Yes, yes. It only dawns on me now. That's really something. Yeah? Yeah. Mostly a rocket burns up and then you're done. And they have to restart the upper stage. Okay. Yeah. And so to release all these things, because they had a lot of things on board. They had a lot of things on board. For example, it has a bit of a military shade on it because there's many satellites built by military departments from the US. Yeah, that they couldn't say anything about? They couldn't say anything. But some were like just science experiments also performed by the US Air Force. For example, they want to look at the solar weather. Also the influence of solar weather on all the military satellites they have. Yeah. And so there is a science department within the Department of Defense and they had like an experiment to look at the sun with a very new technology, a new lens they had developed. So all kinds of technology demonstrations, science experiments they have been doing. Also with new propellants, the so-called G-PIM satellite, which is a demonstration satellite to show… Yeah. The green propellants, the work of them. Oh yeah, we talked about that last week. Yeah. G-PIM. G-PIM. Yeah, there was this alternative slightly more safe fuel that NASA was testing. Oh, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So normally they have hydrogen on board for all kinds of attitude control and hydrogen is carcinogenic and it's very… Hydrazine. …difficult to work with. Hydrazine. Hydrazine, yes. What you said sounded like hydrogen. But it's not that. Hydrazine. Hydrazine. Hydrazine. Hydrazine. Hydrazine. Hydrazine. Hydrazine. Okay. Well, yeah. Hydrazine. Sure. Okay, great. Yeah. And they had it on board as well. Yeah. And they had the light sail on board? Yes. Yeah. The Planetary Society experiment. Yeah. Yeah. Talked about that last week, two weeks ago. Maybe two weeks ago. Two weeks ago. Yeah. Not really sure. A lot. Time goes by so fast. Yeah. And something peculiar that you came with, Herbert. What else did they have on board? Me? I'm going to help you. Yes. The remains of the ashes of many people. Oh, that's right. Hey, your idea to tell this story, Herbert. Dead people. Dead people on board. Yeah. Dead people on board. Yeah. That was a really weird story because there were actors there and astronauts and a whole bunch of- Ashes. Famous people that I don't know the names of by heart. Ashes of cremation and not the complete ashes because you can buy a place on a ship and you can only send maybe a teaspoon or something. Do you know this, Eric? Do you know the details of this? Not for this specific mission, but I know that the Americans, they have done more cremated remains sent into space. I'm looking it up right now. So this is not the first time that they've been doing that. I've never really understood why people would like to do that. Because it's awesome, Eric. Yeah. Because it's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. Yeah, because it's the idea. Yes. Your ashes going into orbit. Would you like to do that in the future with your own ashes? I might because it doesn't hurt. Who cares? I see it as a bit of an orbital debris. Actually, that was my first response as well. Yeah, that was my first response. Yeah. And I don't know from the story I have on my screen right now, I don't know if the ashes, I suppose it's some kind of a capital. It's a capsule or something. They're individual canisters containing the cremated remains of Climax. Yeah. And do they stay in orbit or do they go into an orbit that is so low that it decays and you burn up in the atmosphere? They will burn up. Yeah, they will burn up. So they will orbit until they re-enter the atmosphere and then they become a shooting star. So then somebody makes a wish because of that shooting star and then is that not a beautiful story? Right. Are we being cynical? We're not becoming cynical. No, no. Because you see this tides ruse. A ruse star coming down. Yes. And a child will wish upon that star and will later become something beautiful. And then the wish will certainly become reality. Yes, because it will be on my ashes. Yes. I see that Bill Pogue, former NASA astronaut, he was also on the support crew for the historic Apollo 11 moon mission, of course. He has also lived aboard Skylab, the space station. And so he was on there. Masura Tate. Tomito, a two-time all-star player, a Japanese baseball player. Well, there you go. And another NASA colleague, Marge Kruger. Well, now. Now you know. So that was not the sole reason for the Falcon Heavy. The Falcon Heavy mostly went up for defense, right, Eric? That's the sense. Yes. Yeah. That was the main reason why it went up for a defense mission. Okay. That's a big one. That's a big one. Yeah. And then the Falcon Heavy, which is the only one that all the media are reporting on, is what was on it. All hitchhikers. Yeah. We're all hitchhiking, but that was the only thing that was unclassified. So. Okay. Yeah. And the center core, again, this is an interesting story about the center core. Again, they were unsuccessful in recovering it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the first time the Falcon Heavy ever launched, it went brilliantly, but the center core, they lost it. Then the second time, it again went brilliantly. The center core landed on the... On the drone ship as well, but then... It got sliced. Yeah. On the way back to Florida, choppy weather, the choppy waves made it plunge into the ocean. And so then this time, I think it landed completely next to it. You saw it explode on the water, I think. So again, for the third time, but it doesn't really matter. I'm pretty amazed that this thing is flying at all. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I thought before the launch that it would be very difficult to put it on the barge safely. Yeah. They were basically preparing for failure. It was really one of the capabilities for... And why was that? I mean, why was it more difficult than some other time? No, because just the payload of Falcon Heavy was so full compared to the previous launches. But how does that make the return trip more difficult? They had to go way farther, I believe, right? They had to go farther. Ah, I see. So they had to use more fuel to get the upper stage. Yeah. So they had to use more fuel to get the upper stage into an orbital tractor. And then you have less fuel available to steer your way back home. And less fuel. So they skipped one of the entry burns. And so they had a very tough landing burn, a longer landing burn. But then, yeah, it's more difficult to really point to the barge on the ocean. So it's still remarkable that they got so close. It was only like 10, 20 meters off. But, you know, it's always... It's 1-0. It's a 1-0 thing, you know? Yeah, that is true. It's like either it lands or it doesn't. Yeah. No, true. Okay. Do we now cover the Falcon Heavy? I think we covered the Falcon Heavy. More or less. Yeah. Good enough. Because there was other big news. Or maybe not. But it was the... I was so amazed by the puff of methane on Mars that Curiosity suddenly detected. And it was really... You don't know if this is really a sign of life or not, because methane, you can come from some biological process... Some geological processes or from biology. Yeah. But what I thought was so remarkable was just like, well, if we do find aliens one day, this is probably how the news will come. There will be like an anomaly somewhere. There will be a puff of methane. Yeah. Yeah. A puff of something. A fart or something. Yeah, exactly. Like, hey, this is weird. We don't know what's going on over here. Yeah. Maybe suddenly E.T. waving into the camera like, hey, here we are. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But it will be like this weird headline of like, hey, that's weird. That's odd. And then you start exploring, diving in deeper, I guess. And then it will... They will pop up. I mean, in this case, you can't really say anything about it because there was a poof of methane that Curiosity sniffed. And that was super weird. And it was in the middle of Gale Crater, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then it was gone. Yeah. And then it was gone. It was not... They tried to redo the experiment. They tried to see if there was anything left still. And then everything was back to normal. Didn't they go back and have another puff? They tried, but it was back to normal. Back to normal. All values. Okay. Yeah. So it was... Let's see. It had spiked to 21 parts per billion. I don't know. That's a lot, supposedly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's supposed to be a lot, supposedly. And then it went back to... Yeah. It's supposed to be a lot. Did you know, I compared this to the concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere. Okay. That's about 400 parts per million. All right? Yeah. Yeah, that's true. So that's more than a thousand times a higher concentration than the methane that Curiosity detected in the... Which is more thin to begin with. Yeah. Yeah. It's really incredible that you can detect this and then it's still much higher than... You can decide it's much higher than usual. Than usual. Yeah, exactly. Incredible. Yeah. What do you make of it, Erik? Well, the methane on Mars, yeah, that's a very interesting thing. I remember that the Mars Express mission from the European Space Agency back in, I believe, 2003. They were, I think, the first to measure it from space with the Fourier spectrometer on board. They found also these very low concentrations of methane. And actually no other experiment has ever since really detected these levels. And they have a special orbiter around now, the ExoMars orbiter that is preparing for the ExoMars lander. Okay. As a communication orbiter. But it also has a methane spectrometer on board. And I know that they have a very hard time detecting the methane again. So it's very... Oh, yeah? Yeah. Yeah. It's a very difficult thing. So they found it actually with this Curiosity measurement, but they couldn't detect it again from space with the orbiter. So the concentrations are very low. Yeah. But I think, yeah. And which orbiter were you specifically talking about? The ExoMars. Yeah. The ExoMars. Oh, ExoMars. Yes. Yeah. Because I have the New York Times article in front of me here. Because I remember when it happened a few days ago, I believe it was also sort of like half classified. Scientists had sort of found it out, but usually they do decent studies and then they publish it when there's anything to publish. In this case, it was just Curiosity that did something and it just sort of leaked. Methane leaked. True. Yes. The news leaked like the methane itself. And I think it's a very interesting thing. And it says here that Mars Express passed over Gale Crater the same day as Curiosity saw that spike. And it has some results. Like it was looking down as well. So maybe... Okay. Yeah. So it has not yet reported its own results from that day. Scientists working on the two European orbiters, the New York Times writes, are still analyzing recent measurements. And until that is done, Marco Giurana... So Giurana says, who is in charge of the Mars Express instrument, we cannot say anything more. So it's sort of like the puff came and the puff went. And everybody's like, what the hell? And now nobody knows what really happened. So stay tuned. Stay tuned. We will... One day we will understand what this puff was. Yes. One day. One day. One day. Now on to Herbert and his long list of fun facts in space this week. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pomp, pomp, pomp. A couple of tidbits. Where shall I begin? Oh yeah. There's this survey that was done by... Drum roll, please. The Center for Public Affairs Research. They surveyed 1137 US adults and asked them stuff about space. Okay. And what comes out? I'll tell you. 86. Sorry. What did they ask? 60. Lots of stuff. Listen, 86... No. Once again. 68% think it's important to monitor asteroids, comets and other events in space that could impact Earth. It's very or extremely important. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So almost 70% of people says it's very or extremely important to do that kind of research. Yeah. It's about robots. And well, comets, asteroids, plunging down on Earth... And destroying us all. And destroying... And destroying the climate... Yeah. Killing dinosaurs and what have you. Yeah. And... So people don't see it as a science fiction. People think it's actually very important. At least to... Yeah. ...do research and protect yourself... It's because of... ...against such events. It's because of deep impact and armageddon. In it's gonna be... Yeah, but it's also about... It's also about... It's an... It's a feeling of self interest. Yeah. us this could affect us but most people are not that aware of it i think are they well apparently they are yeah i guess they are now maybe they're yeah but but let me go down the list because or up the list um in the order that ars technica publishes it i read it there um they also think it's um very or extremely important to um 59 of them do to conduct scientific research to expand knowledge of the earth solar system and the universe um short way to put this astronomical research yeah science all right to do science so a lot of people are pro science that's good next on the list very important say 47 percent send robotic probes with without astronauts to explore space more astronomy okay more astronomy yeah so 50 on robots the earlier one was um like using telescopes and this last one was um do astronomy by um spacecraft okay now it gets interesting because 42 percent prefer to continue funding the international space station that's the first item of manned space flight that's true yeah okay next on the list um is uh 34 percent like search for life on other planets that's another astronomy thing yeah so so one-third of people thinks it's very or extremely important to look for life yeah and then this last one i'll mention only 27 percent no i'll do two more 27 percent prefer to send astronauts to mars and only 23 percent mention return astronauts to the moon yeah so manned space flight is relatively low on this list yeah it doesn't say like astronomy research is high on the list yeah that i i i i don't think so it's a good thing i think it's a good thing i think it's a good thing yeah it doesn't say like astronomy research is high on the list yeah that i i i i don't think so that is very interesting and that's right and that's fun because if you talk to astronomers most of them will have the same ideas because doing unmanned research into space and and the universe give you a lot more science bang for your buck than if you send people up it's way too dangerous and expensive to yeah keep people alive in space yeah yeah and we may think it's awesome and it is but it's not it's not it's not it's not it's not it's not it's not it's not it's not it's not it's not it's not it's not it's not it's not it's not it's not it's not it's not it's not manned spaceflight um but the interesting thing is uh in in america at least uh the idea is you have to send people up in order to keep the public interested yeah and make your mark on history i guess yeah it's not true yeah that's fascinating yeah so that i wanted to do it to talk well there's a difference between of course keeping the public interested and what you think is important from a policy standpoint so i think it uh it's it's important to keep the public interested and what you think is important to keep the public interested and what you think is important that our i don't know that our water is clean that doesn't necessarily i mean it means that i want to read about it every day so so sending people into space is awesome television just saying absolutely eric what do you think yeah i mean putting putting people in space for human spaceflight as i call it i don't never use i never use the term manned spaceflight because i think also women should go in space a very good point into space uh but uh yeah the human aspect it always triggers the the imagination more and i just found out also two days ago with this falcon heavy launch that was uh in the morning at breakfast and my my my kids were at home because there was a day for study of the teachers so we had the kids at home and i said well let's let's go watch this launch on television cool uh as a breakfast yeah i was like around nine o'clock in the morning yeah so excellent time but the first thing my daughter asked oh are there people on board i said no these are just 34 satellites and they're doing nice experiments but then she lost interest i mean she well she watched the launch but it was less less of less exciting for just some fireworks and then if there were people on board you know so so it does it does really weigh in exactly because they might die and that's exciting yeah or they might live and exciting too oh yes of course that's true yeah yeah but one one linguistic point yeah um which i i read some uh some time ago a couple of days ago about the dutch language uh gender stuff oh like manned space flight you know what the point eric made just now uh that man and manned and all that um have um become general neutral gender neutral gender neutral okay because you're not going to say woman space flight or person space flight i think men men came up with that rule i like human space flight better yeah you i mean in english it's human space yeah human space okay it doesn't sound no no at all okay there's no no good let's not devolve into a discussion about dutch but actually i would support that um no one one thing one more thing about that list what i what i thought was actually almost like the most ironic thing about that whole list is that the bottom two are exactly the ones i didn't the bottom three the ones you didn't that you mentioned return astronauts to the moon only 23 says yeah it's very extremely important however it is the policy of the united states right now to return astronauts to the moon to establish the permanent human presence on other planets and to establish a u.s military presence in space and it's so funny because those are the bottom three yet though they are the top three of the cur of sort of like the new trump's administration's policy so that's the the there you have it i'm not sure how politically motivated these answers are but it is kind of funny to see that especially those three specifically those three bottom issues are the top three yeah uh priorities of the us government right now so yeah interesting we'll put it in the show notes and you can have yes for yourself harvard the next one all right yeah um uh fun um uh item here um is uh the you know the winklevoss twins eric you know the winklevoss twins yes i know them how do you know them what do you know mom uh well i know them from the the movie on facebook that's right exactly that's right they're the the guys that said one day um you know this facebook thing that mark zuckerberg is is working on it was actually our idea yeah it was it was their idea and now they're big bitcoin uh they um entrepreneurs yeah uh they they sued mark zuckerberg they won um lots of facebook shares worth about 65 million and when facebook went public they these shares were worth about 200 million or so so filthy rich and in 2009 or something maybe 2010 or 11 they bought a million dollars worth of bitcoin oh god which was at ten dollars or thereabouts at the time so they have 100 000 bitcoins they're filthy rich in bitcoins now as well this is beyond the point of filthy this is like they're just they're billionaires yes right now they're billionaires in bitcoin um so and they're so rich they could afford to buy a ticket on richard branson's rocket as tourists yes tourists so they're going to space Well, if Branson makes it to space. Yeah, if he finally is going to make it this year, right? They said actually July 19th. I'm going to Google if they're still up. So continue, Herbert. Yeah. A couple of years ago, they bought their tickets, paying $250,000 a piece, and they paid in Bitcoin. And the Bitcoin was at $800 then. All right. As we speak, the Bitcoin has risen in value to about $12,000. So they have, in retrospect, they have paid about 15 times too much. Yeah. Way too much. Tyler Winklevoss published this by tweet, adding, I won't make that mistake again. Yeah, exactly. And I'm wondering why he made the mistake in the first place, because they bought their Bitcoins, assuming that it would go up in value. And now they're surprised that it did. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So, well, weird. It's their problem, not mine. By the way, Virgin Galactic, I quickly Googled it. Can't find it yet. They promised to finally take up tourists this year, I believe on July 20th, 50 years after the moon landing. They said it once in February, but there's no update on that yet. I remember that also, that Richard Branson said something like that. Yeah. And that he would be on that flight, the first flight. He would go for Virgin Galactic, that he would be on it together with his family, also to demonstrate, look how safe it is. I'm doing this. But I haven't heard much from that news anymore. We'll see. It's the kind of thing that's always next year. Well, you know, like I said a couple of months ago, I visited the site in 2010. And back then. The actual launch. The actual launch site in New Mexico, near Truth or Consequence. Very nice, nice little town in the middle. It's called Truth or Consequence? Yes. It was named after a radio show in the 50s. There was a radio show called Truth or Consequence in America. And there was some sort of contest or whatever, something weird happened where the town said like, if we win this or whatever, we will rename ourselves. According to the name of the radio show. And so it happened. So Truth or Consequence, it's a hot spring town. So you can go there and just chill in these hot springs. There's all these spas that they built. And then about, I think it was like a half hour, like an hour drive from there, there's the Virgin Galactic base, the spaceport, Spaceport America, as they say. Clear, open skies, almost bright skies, almost throughout the year. They get like, I think, they're a mile or like two miles up. So that's also good. They get that for free, as the guy said. But when we were there in 2010, we constantly thought like, hey, this is going to happen any moment now. And then, of course, they had the accident. One guy died. Yeah, lost his life. Test pilot. Yeah. And now it's 2019 and we're waiting for it. So, Eric. Okay. We have to wait for it, right? Yes. It's a bit, I think, a bit of a disappointment. If you go even further back in time, it was 2002 that Spaceship One won this X Prize for suborbital flight. Yeah. And then Richard Branson jumped on that plane and said, okay, let's now do it. It was really, yeah, only a few years away, as it was projected. Yeah, exactly right. And now we are 17 years later. And yeah. Still hasn't happened. Yeah. No, no. We'll see. We'll see. Okay. We'll talk about space tourism a bit more when we discuss Blue Origin. But first I'll have my last news item. And that is, today is the, our recording day is 26th of June. Okay. On the 2nd of July. So that's six days from now. There'll be a total solar eclipse. Oh. It will be in South America. I read about that. Argentina and Chile. And Chile. And not just anywhere in Chile. No. So where? Well. I believe it's going to go over one of the observatories there. Is it? Yes. So one of the observatories is going to clearly look into, look at. I sort of missed that. Oh, I saw a headline somewhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Eric, do you happen to know? They're probably going to point the thing. I know that there is. Eric, go ahead. No, what I do know is that the European Southern Observatory, the ESO, they have organized a trip for a number of, I think, people on Twitter that they selected to go there. Oh. And to like, yeah. Experience it. To experience the solar eclipse. But I'm not sure if there is like really an observatory in the path. And I would doubt that those observatories would actually look at the sun. I mean, they could look at the sun at the moment of eclipse. But if just the sun comes behind the moon again, then you destroy these type of telescopes. Yeah, kind of right. Let me tell you this. ESO will air a raw, I'm quoting from space.com, will air a raw feed of the total solar eclipse from the Atacama Desert in Chile. The live stream won't include commentary, but it will switch between sources to show the views seen by three telescopes. Bad weather or poor internet connection could change that, ESO officials said in a description of the webcast. The webcast will start at 3.15 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, which is 19 hours, 15 minutes GMT. Okay. Okay. Nice. And it will start one hour and 24 minutes before totality. Live views will continue until the eclipse ends. Nice. You can watch it at, this will be in the show notes, eso.org slash public slash live. Have you ever seen an eclipse? Yes. I witnessed, personally witnessed a total solar eclipse twice. Twice. Yes. And you, Erik? What's your count? Also twice. Oh, man. And you? Yeah, twice, I guess. But one, I couldn't see anything because it was cloudy. There was one in France. Oh, man. 1999. 1999. And then the other one was in the States two years ago. And that was brilliant and perfect. Both times. My old hometown in Oregon. Both times. I saw one. The weather was cloudy and the clouds opened up just in time. Both times. Oh, yeah. Really? Once in Finland in 1990 and once in, I was in France in 1999. Were you on the coast? I was near Verdun. Oh, okay. And you, Erik, what are your two eclipses? Well, 1999, I was somewhere in the east of France and it was completely cloudy, but it was still such an impressive experience that you really, you could see the shade. Come in over the hills. Come in. I couldn't even see the sun, but it was a very impressive experience. It was special as well. Yeah. Yeah. It was. So then I decided that 2002, I went on a trip to Zimbabwe and Zambia. Oh. It was an eclipse. To see the eclipse. And it was brilliant. I mean, it was blue sky and just magnificent experience. Yeah. Yeah. Very nice. So. In Finland, I went to see the eclipse in 1990 and I discovered not just the eclipse itself, but I also discovered that there's a community of solar eclipse hunters who show up each and every time. Awesome. Exactly. If possible. They're addicted to the eclipse. Yeah. You go there, you find the same people over and over again. It's really funny. Yeah. Really cool. You should interview Fred Espenak. He is the solar eclipse specialist. He's now retired. He used to work at NASA. Oh, good idea. But he keeps a very interesting website on all the eclipses that go on worldwide. Yeah. Very good idea. Okay. Thank you. MrEclipse.com. Yeah. MrEclipse.com. Awesome. Thanks for that. Hey, let's talk Blue Origin. Yeah. Let's talk Blue Origin. Okay. Because I asked Erik to take part in this podcast. It was probably when Blue Origin presented their Moonlander, or at least I got the idea at that time and then started looking around for something to tell us about Blue Origin. So Erik, here you are. Yeah. Let's talk about the original business case for Blue Origin because I seem to think that this was space tourism, wasn't it? That was the original thought and the idea of course came from Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon. Yeah. And as a youngster, he always was fascinated by space, also like Elon Musk basically. Yeah. And he, about 2000, he started this company after he saw a science fiction movie and he discussed it with a science fiction writer. He said, okay, I want to start a space company. He wanted to open up space for more private access. So basically tourism. Yeah. But I think not strictly tourism, but also had to look at space as also a space where you can do economy. Where you can do off earth. Do business. Do business. Have facilities to manufacture stuff and to have people live there. Yeah. Basically extended land from the earth. So that's what also the name Blue Origin comes from. Blue Origin then the earth is the origin, the blue earth. Okay. That's the starting point and then space is just extended, yeah, land basically to live and to work. Yeah. And that was the origin of the vision. An extension of earth. Yeah. Yeah. And so he started back in 2000 and for many, many years it was really a secret what he was doing. And it was obvious that he was buying land somewhere in Texas, that he would buy pieces of land and they all added to each other to make a very big area. And it was all, yeah, a big unknown what he was up to. And also the people working for him. They were all silent. Yeah. Yeah. And then at some point he came out saying, okay, I have this rocket, this new Shepard. I'm going to do suborbital tourism first. And that's the first step towards that vision of bringing the extended space under the reach of private people and private enterprises. Let's talk about that first because we just told one another that Richard Branson is promising this space tourism thing. For next year and it's always next year. So how far is Jeff Bezos towards realizing this? Yeah. I think actually he's further than Richard Branson. And this new Shepard vehicle that he has built has now performed 10 suborbital flights to an altitude up to 107 kilometers. So really above the Karman line. Yeah. And so he has reached space. He has reached space and he has reached it with a capsule that can have six people in. And the expectation is that somewhere in the second half of this year that will actually happen. And to have the first really commercial suborbital flight. I would bet my money on the new Shepard from Blue Origin to have that first achievement. But he hasn't sold any tickets, has he? No. He hasn't gone that route. And I think that's also a good choice. If you see the ticket sales for Virgin Galactic that started like I think back somewhere in 2007 or 8. People have down paid 250,000 euros. And they haven't received anything in return until now. I know they've been to many parties worldwide. All these wannabe astronauts basically. So there's kind of a community of those people that bought the tickets. And they're going to be able to get back to the world. And I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. And I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. Even the people that just sold tickets. I think they are. They are telling the truth. They are to theave lot of money. They are to the free. They are to the free. So I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. Yeah. I think that's a good thing. That's where everything is going. If people really want money. A lot of people do. Yeah. So what I would say is we need to protect the emerging Ch Mort Eggs of the world. And this goes back to... You are Wolfgang illness on works. Yeah, and he was a completely pensioner, but reallypretentious in Canada and you know that we have a great story with the perfect world and whatever these you know, these things happen. I think Jeff basically just, yeah, he will sell those tickets and he will sell them, I think, for more or less the same price. And he doesn't need the down payment, I think. He has money, sufficient money to fuel his endeavors. Because he's the richest person on earth. Yes. Yeah. What I didn't know is that he was already working on it since 2000, you said. Yeah. Because I guess I identified other people with space more than him. So I always saw him as a latecomer. But I'm hearing from Julia that he was working on this for years already. Yeah. Visionary, actually. Yeah. Because I saw him talk about the Moon Lander and I was sort of skeptical. Like, oh, really? Like it was a little bit new to me. He was talking about his backstory and that he was always interested in space and all that stuff. So I thought I'd take it with a grain of salt. So shall we jump to this Moon Lander? Because that's what got me going in the direction of Erik Laan, finally. Should we take this thing seriously? Yes, very much. This Moon Lander, they have been working on this Lander for about two or three years. And so there's a high detail in that. And they've also developed the so-called BE-7 engine, which is necessary for this Lunar Lander to be able to land safely on the Moon. And the thing with this Lander is this BE-7 engine needs to be highly trottable. So you want to restart to be able to restart it, but also be able to restart it with a fraction of the thrust of its maximum thrust. And they've developed this Moon Lander. They've shown already tests that this is a good engine. So they do have hardware. It's not just a design. They do have hardware. Yes, yes. That's one of their prides that they say, we do things with hardware. And that's what you see more in the new space business, that there is earlier steps towards making hardware. The same you see with SpaceX. And basically the old space works still in a way that you first prepare a lot of documentation on what you want to build. And then you do all kinds of analysis. And then only at the final stage, let's make hardware. And then things go wrong and you have to go back to your design and then things get very expensive. But this new space, one of the things that's different is that they go earlier to bringing and making hardware because they understand that many things go wrong. When you do hardware. So Blue Origin, they have lots of hardware in-house. So this Moon Lander, I think this is a very likely candidate for this 2024 Moon landing, if it happens. But isn't this too big a step for Bezos? He's been working on suborbital flight all the time so far and suddenly he shows up with a Moon Lander. And he's talking about a new space. And he's talking about going through the Moon. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, if you look at the people that he hired, and I know some of them, they come from all kinds of... They're very good engineers that worked on many missions already. So he has the expertise that he just drawn in Blue Origin. So it's all about, in the end, the people that you need for building such a Lander. And he has the right team. And does he have the capability? I mean, or does he need to... Does he need to sell his Moon Lander to some other party? In the end, he needs to sell it, of course. And his prime objective is now to sell it to NASA for this 2024 Moon landing. But I know that there is also commercial interest in landing on the Moon. And yeah, the question is, is that really a viable business case? And when will that business case really be there? And how many... How much business can you expect from it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I remember there was a company about eight years ago that was called the Golden Spy Company. And it was run by Alan Stern, which is also the scientist behind the Pluto mission. Yeah. New Horizons. Yeah. He set up a company, the Golden Spy Company, and he was going to sell tickets for two people to the Moon for $1.5 billion. I remember. Oh. And so... So it was just a trip around the Moon, right? No, it was really landing on the Moon. Also landing. Okay. Okay. Yes. Yes. So... All right. And basically he showed that there was commercial interest in it. So there are people that have that kind of money that would like to spend it to be like for a week on the Moon. And what was the price again for such a trip? $1.5 billion. $1.5 billion. For two people. Yeah. Two people. Yeah. Well, there's always billionaires around. Yeah. Just need a couple. Yeah. There's a market. But for a Moon lander, I thought it was such an odd... If the goal is to sell it to NASA, it's such a specific goal that the whole development of that thing must cost so much money. And then he's betting the barn on just trying to sell it to NASA. One of the things that you see in the space industry that's being discussed about this going back to the Moon is not to do it like in the Apollo days. To go there and to put a flag and go back, but to stay there and to build a colony. Yeah. A service station. A service station. And to industrialize the Moon. And so that's where Jeff Bezos has his eyes set on for the future that there will be facilities on the Moon. And so he just takes, okay, what do we need first to get that fission working that we have facilities on the Moon, facilities on the Moon. Yeah. For all kinds of material harvesting. Yeah. We need to land there first. So that's... He's just taking the first step. We need a rocket. We need a lander. Yeah. Yeah. And a spade. Yeah. Exactly. And yeah. So the next thing is, well, he will have habitats. Yeah. That he will sell. Exactly. I'm certain that he will take that also. Oh, funny. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I mean, now it starts making sense. He's working on something that he might actually have a vision. He certainly has. Yeah. Yeah. The only question is when it comes true. And he has more as I said on the Moon also. Like Elon Musk, he is really into Mars. Yeah. To go to Mars with this... Aim higher in a way. But Jeff Bezos is more into the Moon. And what do you think? Who has the upper hand? Well, for just accessibility, the Moon will be first. And I think Elon Musk also acknowledges that. He said, okay, for his BFR, the big Falcon rocket that he's being developed. Developing in the end to bring people to Mars. People asked him, well, do you think, will you go first to the Moon? Or Mars is the Moon? We will, before we take off for Mars, we will certainly go first to the Moon with this thing. Yeah. Because it's so close by. And if something goes wrong, it takes two, three days and you're back. But if you compare technology achievements, Elon Musk certainly has the upper hand because he can reach orbit and Jeff Bezos hasn't shown that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. They still haven't reached orbit, right? Yeah. That's true. And they have this new rocket that they are also developing. It's called the New Glenn. This is Blue Origin again, right? Blue Origin, yes. And that's basically a rocket that will likely fly somewhere 2021. But that's, yeah, I mean, there's nice pictures of it or you can find on internet. Yeah. What is the difference between New Glenn and New Orbit? New Glenn and New Shepard. No, New Shepard is the… New Shepard is suborbital. Suborbital. Suborbital. So that's about 18 meters tall. Okay. Which is 170 kilometers. But this New Glenn, that will be a rocket of 82 meters tall. Wow. It will be able to put 45 metric tons into lower orbit or 13 metric tons to geostationary orbit. Yeah. And so it will be the competitor of the Falcon Heavy in that regard. In a way, yes. Yes. It will be a competitor to Falcon Heavy. And they all… The upper hand they have with New Glenn is that it will have a fairing of seven meters where Falcon Heavy I think has about 5.6 or 5, 7 meters. And so seven meters fairing. And actually this Blue Moon lander that they developed, it could fit in this New Glenn rocket. Aha. Yeah. And so it's a rocket now that could actually fit this Blue Moon lander. Well that's important. Yeah, that's important. I mean it could fit in the SLS if that's ever… If that's ever going to happen. Ever come up. Yeah. SLS, the space launch system that NASA is developing. Yeah. So to turn this around, no rocket in existing at this point could harbor the Blue Moon… Yes. Moon lander. Exactly. Blue origin. Yeah. Blue Moon. Yeah. It's called the Blue Moon. Oh, so it's called the Blue Moon. It's called the Blue Moon. My bad. My bad. Never mind. All right. And what is strange is that it's… So it's one of those top companies but it hasn't had the same level of achievement yet as the other ones. Yet people are already talking about it. So when… Because it's Bezos. Yeah. So because it's Bezos. So he almost has like endless resources so to speak because he's just so rich. Is that then where it ends? Like doesn't he need to show some like quick success now? No, I don't think so. I mean that's what you see. He funds his company like with his $1 billion a year from selling his Amazon shares. A billion a year. Yeah. And what you basically see is that he doesn't need other investors. So he doesn't need like marketing campaigns to show how good he is and what his plans are. He just… Yeah. He doesn't need to keep selling his Falcon rockets. No, no, no. He just needs to assigns from NASA over and over again in order to keep developing his idea for a Mars mission. And Jeff Bezos doesn't even need that. He can just pump in a billion a year into his Blue Origin. But I think SpaceX is now valued at about 30 billion. 33… Oh yeah. SpaceX is valued at 33 billion. Is there… That was recently because of SpaceX. There was some private investment I believe because of a fundraising effort. They could see like okay so probably around 30 billion. Can we say anything similar about Blue Origin? Blue Origin? Yeah. If you look at SpaceX it's now what you say 30 billion dollars evaluation. But if you look at how many people work there, I think it's about 6… 5 to 6,000 people. Mm-hmm. If you look at Blue Origin, my estimate and this is just an estimate is about maybe 1,000 people. So it's a factor of five smaller than SpaceX for what I think. Google is helping out on this one. It says 2,000 but that's indeed… Oh, 2,000. Yeah, 2,000 people. But still that's a lot less. And… Yeah. Yeah. And so maybe the people that work there would eventually also they would like to see these rockets fly. I guess they're just… It will take a couple of years and then Blue Origin will be just as normal as a player as SpaceX is. Yeah. I think they will just with this new Glenn rockets. Yeah. I'm very sure this rocket will be there. They have developed the engine. They've been public about it, the BE-4 engine. That works. And so it's a question of now building this huge rocket. Yeah. And I'm sure they will get to the launch pad with this rocket. Yeah. And they will go public when they think it is needed. Maybe that's 10 seconds before the launch but… Yeah. This launch will happen with this new Glenn rocket. My guess would be 2021. Okay. And there is also already customers lined up for in their manifest to go to space. So… Why though? Because these customers now have existing options already. Yeah. So these type of customers, they like to have multiple providers for launches because launching satellites is still in a risky business. You still need to cover your insurance when you put an expensive satellite on a rocket. And so it's just basically also demand from the insurance companies to…if you have many launches like these telecom… Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's really the providers that the insurance companies tell those companies, okay, you have to make sure that you diversify your launcher portfolio. Okay. So that's why they just go also to new Glenn. Yeah. Yeah. What will happen now that there's such a big battle between these newcomers, what will happen to the old ones? What will happen to the Russian rockets so to speak? Yeah. Or the ULA, like all these things. Yeah. For the Russian rocket. the proton and they're developing the Ankara five rockets. I have, uh, I'm not so positive about where, where that's going to, that they can, uh, that they can compete with the level of, uh, innovation of innovation. And also the, the, the, the power that is now in, in, in space X, it will be very hard and they will, they will still, I mean, they will still have this, this, this launch is just for national, um, access to space. Like the Europeans have also this drive to have a European access to space. That's one of the drivers to have Arian launchers. Yeah. So even if Arian six, uh, becomes a commercial failure, it is, it will still happen because Europe wants access to space. Yeah. Point. That's no, uh, but in this, this commercial, uh, sector, I, I think Arian six, Arian six will be able to compete. Um, but proton, I doubt that, uh, and ULA, they, they are going for also a new rocket, the Vulcan. Okay. Not to, not to, um, and there's also Falco, but this is the Vulcan Vulcan Vulcan. And they actually have the, the, the same engine as the, uh, new Glenn. So the BE four engine developed by blue origin will fly on this Vulcan rocket. Yeah. Blue origin is selling rocket engines. Yes. Yes. To the competitor. So that's, uh, yeah, but I think, uh, ULA, I think ULA has a special place, I think in, in the, in, in the space, in the, in the United space space program, especially also in the, in the defense, uh, uh, launches. So they have special, uh, permits to do special launches for the military of defense. Okay. And I know the Falcon heavy has now with the last launch also, uh, gone for the, the qualification for these type of launches, but ULA has, has them already. They've got long heritage with Atlas five and Delta four to do these, uh, type of, uh, launches. Mm-hmm. Um, so they will still have that position. I think that they, that they, that they have very reliable. Okay. So until they start making crappy rockets and the other ones are better, then that's when that would, would shift. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not a, not a, I guess the market, this market, uh, gives a little bit less about shiny new rockets as long as it works. Exactly. And heritage. I mean, yeah, I mean, if you look at, for example, those, those expensive NASA science missions, uh, if you look at, uh, the James Webb space telescope that will be launched on Arian five. Mm-hmm. Uh, and, but that could also launch on a ULA, uh, rocket, but this, yeah, this is all negotiation to NASA Asia. But I mean, these type of missions, they really want to make sure that these launches go well and they, they, they're not going to put that on the first new Glenn or the first. So. Concerning James Webb, is there any sort of rocket with a zero, uh, with so far a, a zero explosions so far, like a hundred percent success rate? No, I don't think so. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I made a whole lot of nous going forward. So this launched from, my next project to launch James Webb, that's I don't care about anything else. I said that early on the show. I'm already tense about that launch. Yeah. Like I will not be able to sleep. Yeah. Yeah. We'll just go up. It, it, when it goes up in 2006, mountain, whatever it is, exactly. Yeah. Will it ever even get launched? Yeah, yeah. There was news about James Webb actually this week as well, the, the, they crossed some, they pass some sort of checkpoint and I don't know what it was, every year about James Webb. It's like, another critical checkpoint passed for the James Webb telescope. Yeah, sure. When is it launching? When is that thing launching? I don't care about anything else. But thanks, Eric, for the insight. You're welcome. Yeah, it felt like, to me, before the show, as if Blue Origin was just, like you said, because they were so secretive about it, that it's hard to get engaged with it because you don't know where it sort of is going. Like, yes, okay, a new rocket. Yes, new rocket. But the Moon Lander, to me, was sort of like a weird, was kind of weird, like, okay, a Moon Lander, sure, but I get the strategy better now. It was one of the first times they even did a press conference, I think. Right, yes. It was the first time he stood on stage with a purpose. Whereas Elon Musk is putting out videos all the time. Yeah, yeah. And all these videos get picked up by news organizations and networks. I think something as simple as a Twitter header of SpaceX is Mars being terraformed. And it's like, it's instantly clear, like, oh, that's what these guys are doing. Yeah. It's like, it's a long-term goal, but it is. Yeah. Eric, for those listeners who stick to the end, you know what's weird? We haven't talked about your background yet. I told people he is a space engineer. Yeah, a space engineer. Exactly. But just quickly. Ionorbit.com. Yes, ionorbit.com. That's what you run. And hope so. And I welcome you on the show again in the future. But for future reference, what have you worked on? I've worked on many European Space Agency missions. What did you put in space? That's the question. There is... Something with your fingerprints on. My fingerprints are, for example, on the Oh My instrument on board NASA EOS Aura mission that launched back in 2004. And that was the... I don't know if you heard about TropOmi. I've also worked on that instrument. Okay. It's an instrument that looks at the atmosphere of the Earth to measure the ocean layer, concentration, all kinds of air quality parameters. And the Aura mission? The Aura mission did the same, but then back in 2003. So I've been one of the people working on building that instrument and testing it. So my background is really the system engineering of optomechanical engineering. And I'm also a member of the International Association for Space. Okay. It's something not many people can say. I helped build something that's now in space. No, no. I envy you, Erik. Yes. Unless you shoot your ashes up. Yeah. I'm not planning to do that. No. And you won't be able to say that you did so, unless you send your pinky in ash form. I would not do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I still need my bitcoins to go up in value a bit more. Before you can pay. Okay. I'm going to have to face this way. Exactly. Exactly. Erik, thank you so much for being on the show. It's a pleasure. And I hope to welcome you in the future. Okay. And thanks to all our listeners. Yeah. Thank you, everybody. Thanks, Erik. Yes. See you around. I think one little mention. I think we... Do we have a show next week? I think we might not have a show next week. Yes, we do. Okay. And I'll be doing that one with you. With you. I will not be there. There will be a big summer space update. Yes. And from then on, we will be bi-weekly. Yes. And from then on, we will be bi-weekly. Yes. Bi-weekly. Bi-weekly. That's right. Yes. For the foreseeable future, I think, actually. Okay. Yes. Fair enough. Especially in summer. Especially in summer. In the summer to begin with, and the rest remains to be seen. Yes. And I'll be back... Let's see. When am I on the show? When am I on the show? Because the 3rd of July... So next week, I'm going to be in an airplane. And then two weeks after... I got it here. I might be... It'll be the 31st of July, I think. Yes. So I'll be gone for a little bit. So I'll be gone for a little bit. So I'll be gone for a little bit. So we have a... A month from now. A performance by Juri on the 3rd of July. And then we'll have... And maybe the conversation with Arno. If I am... If you can reach me... Arno Wielders. If I am not in the jungle somewhere... Yep. Just call in. ...in Cambodia, then I will call in. 17th of July. Yes. And then 31st, you'll be on for sure. Yes. I will talk to you all later. And we'll take it from there. Herbert, you will be here, back here, next week. I'll be minding the... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... The... juicy sump collectible. Dr. Michael School of Music