Gauging NASA's New Energy

Hey everyone and welcome to a new episode of Space Cowboys here with Joeri and me. Hi Thijs. Thank you Joeri. Hey. And thanks for listening in everyone. Welcome back. Today we're just going to go over a whole bunch of things that have happened and that will happen in the next coming years. I think today we're going to focus a lot on Artemis, the moon program and actually how to get there. There seems to be some excitement and then you also brought like a whole bunch of little stories from all over the world. Rockets in Iran. Rockets in Iran. An interesting launch from Russia. Exactly. All those kind of news stories. Yeah, exactly. Great. So let's first talk about, yeah, okay, so America is going to the moon. That's the idea. The first woman is going to step on the moon. And they call this the Artemis program. And I think a year ago we didn't even know about it yet. There was this big announcement. Trump, you know, wanted to go to the moon. Who knows how we will look back at this moment now that Trump wants to go to the moon, right? Maybe it'll be the same like the Rice University speech from Kennedy in the 60s. Exactly. Who knows? Who knows? Only time will tell. Time will tell. But it does seem like... At least from the outside, it looks like it did bring back some purpose at NASA and a goal and some clarity on what to do because they had been building on these gigantic, huge projects for a very long time. Exactly. It looks like this consolidates a few of the programs that have already been running for years at NASA. I mean, as it was in Orion, well, the basis of this program was already laid out in the Constellation program back in the early 2000s. And you also see the Lunar Gateway program, which is also part of the Moon program. The basis of that has also been laid out a few years ago. So it looks like it's consolidating all those different kind of programs into one unified vision for the future. And, of course, Trump has accelerated the whole program. Originally, the U.S. was supposed to land on the moon in 2028. That has been brought forward to 2024. So there's a real sense of urgency at NASA. Right now. Right. Yeah. So they're hurrying up. And when it comes to just gender equality, NASA is making big strides as well. Because right before we started the show, you said that right now they... Well, you explain. And then I'll listen in. If you go to the live stream of NASA right at the moment, of course, for all our podcast listeners, that doesn't matter right now. But you'll see, you'll witness a unique thing. You'll witness the first space wall. Outside of the International Space Station by two women. And I'm looking at it right now. I mean, it's a blurry shot from way up there. Oh, there they are. For some reason, I can't turn YouTube up further, which is too bad. But, yeah, the first two women. It's kind of strange. The first two women holding a spacewalk together. And it's kind of strange, I must say, that this is a new thing. Right? You would expect. It's... That happened a long, long time ago. Yeah, well, the first spacewalk, the first spacewalk by a single woman was done in the 80s. It was actually a Russian woman who performed her first spacewalk by a woman. And, of course, the whole spaceflight community has always been dominated by men. So most of the astronauts were men. So we've had the few first female astronauts on the space station in the last few years. And this was... This was something that was planned to happen. Originally, it was planned to happen earlier this year. But then they had some problems with spacesuits that didn't fit. And now, while we're in this surge of spacewalks on the International Space Station, the moment has finally arrived. Well, it's happening. What are they doing, actually? Well, this is part of a series of spacewalks that started a week ago. And the goal of these spacewalks is to replace a number of batteries on the International Space Station. The current batteries, they arrived there when the space station was originally built. They're nickel-hydrogen batteries. And, well, you know what happens with batteries after you charge and discharge them for quite a while. Everybody knows it from their phone. They get old, and they're not as effective anymore. So NASA and its partners are currently in the process of changing all the batteries on the spacewalk. And they're now in the process of changing all the batteries on the space station to make sure that the whole power system is durable and is ready for the future for the next 10 years of operation. Are they fixing the camera by any chance as well? Because the live camera of Earth was down for the past few weeks. No, that is not part of this spacewalk. And actually, the spacewalk that's currently on today, that's more like an emergency spacewalk. Because after the first two spacewalks, they found out that there was a problem with one of the components in the electrical system. So... Yeah. They changed a few batteries. Then this component failed, and they decided to replace this certain unit. Ah, yeah. So that's what they're currently doing. If the spacewalk is successful, they'll continue with changing out the batteries from the old nickel-hydrogen to lithium-ion. The same kind of batteries that everyone has in their phone. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay, great. Yeah, so that's what's happening. Let's listen in for one last time. Yeah. I have Jessica holding... Oh. Yes, so next week... I've got all my... Ooh, it sounds exciting. I mean, I guess... Yes, next is SSRMS Egress. So, Christina, if you need a GCA for that, you can work with Luca. Okay, I did not... Next is SSR. Christina, if you need a GCA for that, you can continue. It's a bit like listening to work with Luca. Okay, I have no clue what just happened. Luca is one of their colleagues in the spacewalk. Luca Parmitano, he's an Italian astronaut. But, yeah, to be honest, I sometimes watch these spacewalks. They last for six or eight hours often. It's not the most interesting part of spaceflight, to be honest. No? I mean, it's just watching someone work. It's not like they... Everything moves really slowly. High above the Earth, though. High above the Earth. Sometimes the views are beautiful. Very often, also not. It's blurry. Yeah. Most often, you're looking at someone exchanging a cable for 20 minutes or someone bolting down a nut somewhere for 10 minutes. Oh, God. That's funny. Okay, so back to the moon, then. Yeah, that's way more interesting. Yes, not low Earth orbit. So, how are they getting there? That was an open question until half a year. No. Let's put it this way. Jim Bridenstine, the head of NASA, he said, well, we don't know yet. It can be anything. But I believe now he has said that SLS is still the preferred method to get anything to the moon if it's by NASA. Yeah. So, the whole moon program now consists of a lot of elements. We know, of course, of SLS, the huge rocket. I mean, it's 112 meters high. It's huge. Is it bigger than a Falcon Heavy? It's taller than a Falcon Heavy. And it's also much more powerful than a Falcon Heavy. Oh, yeah? Falcon Heavy. Okay. So, that is an integral part of the whole program. That's supposed to bring the Orion capsule into space. So, that's the second. The Orion capsule? Yeah. The habitat? No, no, no. Yeah, the capsule in which they live and in which they return back to Earth after a moon mission. So, that's the second part of the whole program, the Orion capsule. Separate from SLS, of course. Yes. So, we've seen some progress on SLS. In the last few months, we've seen the first mock-up being created inside the Vehicle Assembly Building in Kennedy Space Center. So, there's progress, but there's also news about delays, more delays of the SLS. Yeah. And so, the news is that it's probably going to be 2021 now. I mean, it was the first launch, right? It was supposed to happen, what, 2012, I think, originally, something like that. Yes. Yes. Every year, there's a... You can wait for it as if it's Christmas. There will be an announcement of a delay of SLS. Yeah. And again, so now it's 2021, has slipped again. First launch. If they want to get... What was the first flight of the Saturn V when it came to... I think it was 68, probably. Oh, wow. So, it is possible to... Yeah, but the whole Apollo program was much more fast-paced and there was much more money available back at the time. Yeah. And at stake, I guess. Right? Yeah. Yeah, that's true. So, okay. So, there was SLS, Orion. Orion? Well, Orion has also made some progress because in the last month, NASA announced that they created a new contract with Lockheed Martin for another six to ten capsules. So, there will be a production line of Orion capsules, meaning that there will be a capsule ready almost every year. And, of course, that's important for the future. Then you always have a capsule. So, there's a new capsule lying around which you can use for a new mission. Yeah. So, there's been progress there as well. Then we have the third component and that is the Lunar Gateway. Yeah. Lunar Gateway. It's essentially a space station in orbit around the Moon. Really dope. Dope idea. Yeah. And I believe it's also an international project, right? So, it's NASA, ESA and a whole list of other groups. Yeah. So, the core section of the Lunar Gateway is the Lunar Gateway. The Lunar Gateway will be provided by NASA. Yeah. Of course, the important sections will be built by commercial partners. So, there's not a propulsion unit but also a power unit that's going to be built by Loral Space Systems. There's going to be a habitation module which will be built by Northrop Grumman. Okay. So, all these elements are currently being created. Yeah. And Roscosmos and JAXA. The Canadian Space Agency are also part of it. Yeah. They've been invited. Russia. Yeah. They've been invited to tag along, provide hardware, provide funding, provide modules for the Lunar Gateway. And the whole idea behind Lunar Gateway is that the capsules that will be launched towards the Moon will first dock with the Gateway and will then, after one or two days, the capsule will undock again with Lunar Land. And then, we'll go into the right orbit around the Moon and land at the right place on the Moon. So, it's a bit like a base camp. The base camp you use before you go up a mountain. Yeah. And of course, when we went to the Moon, when Apollo 11 went to the Moon, there was also of course a lunar orbiter with Michael Collins in it so that Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong could go down. Yeah. Yeah. So… Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's not crazy to think that there should be something, but it's cool that this time it will be some sort of like permanent thing in orbit. Yeah. You can use it as a refueling station to go wherever, maybe. Well, it could also be a stepping stone for Mars. Yeah. It's a bit like an outpost beyond low Earth orbit from which we can jump to other places in our solar system. Exactly. Let's listen to Jim Bridenstine actually explaining this. He was in a conversation with the everyday astronaut, Tim Dodd. Tim Dodd. He's been on fire. Yeah. He's been on fire. He was talking to Elon Musk that we were listening to later, and Jim Bridenstine, I think both at the same visit at SpaceX or something like that. I don't know what happened, but he suddenly went from just a YouTuber to somebody who's talking to like the… He's like a local… He's a famous space flight journalist right now. Yeah. Exactly. And I saw that he… I mean, he has a full team behind him. Six people work for him now just for like the whole project marketing, doing stories, full content. It's like… It's so cool to see somebody just grow from his just… What was it? His living room, his bedroom. Yeah. But it's… Yeah. I remember the first Falcon Heavy launch. He was doing a live. And I remember… So he was doing like the… I think the only sort of… He had the official channel and then he had a thing that was like a live channel. Yeah. And then he had a thing that was like a live channel. Yeah. And then he had a thing that was like a live channel. Yeah. And then he had a thing going on from like the… An outside view sort of as a journalist. Yeah. And he provided all the interesting context. All the interesting background. All the nerd stuff. All the nerd stuff. You could totally nerd out on his channel. Yeah. Exactly. And it was so funny because he was just amazed by how his channel was blowing up as he was hosting. So I think he had like at a certain… So it started at 10,000 people watching and he's like, whoa. And then it was 20,000, 30,000. And he was just like, holy shit. What's happening? What's happening? What's happening to my channel? Yeah. I mean, that's… And that's probably why he was so good at it. I mean, we're talking about the internet. Yeah. It's kinda cool how... It's kind of cool how he was able to get to know the world. Right. Yeah. I mean, I was like, okay, let's listen to his conversation with Jim Bridenstine about… Cool. Yeah. About the Gateway. So these applications have absolutely… Let's… Have changed the world. Yeah. There we go. Uber, for example. Right. Right. So these applications have absolutely changed the world. Right. Well, the Gateway is a system on which you can build applications. Right. So let's talk about what those applications are. It's not just about access to the moon. of those applications could be deep space transports that could go deeper into space beyond the moon. The Gateway is evolvable so that it eventually becomes the ship to get us to Mars. Right, it could become like an Aldrin cycler. That's right, and Starship could be a part of that. Right, absolutely. Starship. Starship could be a part of that. So something like a Starship by SpaceX could dock at the Gateway, maybe, eventually. This was a scoop. We didn't know this before. Yeah, and I like the idea of how Brian presents it. It's like, okay, so it's just a platform for which you can build applications. I think the International Space Station does something similar right now, but it feels closed off almost to companies. You have to work through a very specific process that was set in motion years ago, and in this case, if it's almost like a well, we're going to have this thing, it's like the it's almost like regular governments building highways. They don't care about what you really drive over it. You have to obey certain rules, of course, and restrictions. But they built the highways. People decide when to drive and what to drive over it. Yeah, and do visitors when we agree with it. Yeah, exactly. Starship had its since our last Space Cowboys we had its big reveal. I mean, it helped. There was a star hopper. Yeah. And there was, of course, a big presentation by Elon Musk doing it. Where are we on the Starship? Oh, so the next model, which is also a test model, of course, it has been revealed. It's also the model that will perform a bigger hop more kilometers up in the sky, even escape the Earth's atmosphere for the first time. So about 100 kilometers up in the air and then land again on the same spot. But what is most interesting is also the politicking behind this. I'm not sure if you've caught anything or caught any of that. Not really. Although there was a reason why James Bridenstine was at SpaceX. Exactly. Because, well, SpaceX is very, very enthusiastic about the Starship, of course. I mean, SpaceX has made everyone almost enthusiastic about space travel again. Let's put it that way. I mean, it's kind of clear. And the Starship is, of course, the stuff of dreams. The ship with which we can escape Earth and with which we can go to other planets. I mean, this is the stuff of dreams. And to be honest, it looks awesome. I mean, the stainless steel, shiny Starship. I mean, it just looks awesome. It's a design icon also. Exactly. But SpaceX is also working on something else. Sometimes we tend to forget the Dragon Capsule. Okay. Their own capsule. Is it a competitor of Orion? No, it's not. Okay, so why not? So how can you have two capsules and not the competitors? Well, of course, Orion is procured by NASA with the sole purpose of the Artemis program. It's getting humans back to the Moon, escaping low Earth orbit. The Dragon Capsule... Or the far solar system they said before. And the Dragon Capsule... So we have the original Dragon Capsule that was supposed to... that is currently bringing supplies to the ISS and also bringing something back to Earth. And it has evolved into a manned capsule. But it's currently only to be used to ferry astronauts from the Earth to the ISS and back again. And NASA has a contract with SpaceX where SpaceX will provide this service to NASA. But they've been behind schedule for a quite a while. They were supposed to fly the first humans earlier this year. But they've had some setbacks. The capsule exploded. It exploded, yeah. And NASA has also not been working along that well because their security measures are very stringent. So, of course, SpaceX would like to move fast, but they have to keep up with all the security measures by NASA. So the first flight is now planned for somewhere in the future. So the first flight is now planned for somewhere in the future. So the first half of 2020. But in NASA's AFU, the program is delayed. So Jim Bridenstine tweeted just after the Starship reveal, just after all the PR from SpaceX because of Starship, he tweeted, great news, but we would like to see the same kind of enthusiasm for the Dragon program. Because we're paying you for that, SpaceX. We're paying you. And we expect results. We want to see something. What did he say? Do you have to tweet? Of course. It's all politicking because Jim Bridenstine also knows. So it was like, okay, so hey, Elon Musk, cool rocket. You have a really nice toy. However, we have paid you for a certain thing. Where's all the enthusiasm about that? Yeah, so what did he say? Jim Bridenstine said, I'm looking forward to the SpaceX announcement tomorrow. The announcement for Starship, of course. In the meantime, commercial crew is years behind schedule. NASA expects to see the same level of enthusiasm focused on the investment of the American taxpayer. It's time to deliver. Especially the last sentence. It's time to deliver. But it wasn't necessarily SpaceX who delayed the commercial crew program. No, because we're also waiting for Boeing. Yeah, exactly. So it's kind of like a... But it did get... And so I see... I see Jim Bridenstine here on the 11th of October. So that's a week ago when we're on Starship. Like three weeks ago. So after this tweet, Elon Musk invited Jim Bridenstine to come over to the SpaceX factory. To battle it out in person. Yeah, well, you've seen the interview. They were very amicable. Cordial, yeah. It was all politics, of course. And Elon Musk tweeted that the first test, the next test of the Dragon capsule will be somewhere in November. And that the first manned flight, will be somewhere in March 2020. So they're making progress. Elon Musk time. And they're showing it. Elon Musk time. So it's going to be Christmas and summer. That's cool though. Yeah, but I know NASA is feeling the hot breath of the Senate and Congress in its back. Because they paid for one last Soyuz flight to the ISS in March. And after that, they don't have any seats on Soyuz anymore. Yeah. And that's the only way to bring their astronauts to the ISS at the moment. And they really don't want to leave the ISS free of US astronauts. So they need someone to bring their astronauts up to the space station. So what is, in the short term, the best American solution for them? Buy more Soyuz seats. No, yeah, but if it wouldn't be Soyuz, like if it would be their own thing, do they have anything coming up? When it is commercial crew, like, do they have a timeline for getting astronauts up to the space station? They're completely dependent on SpaceX and Boeing. And SpaceX has said, OK, the first flight will be in March. Boeing has said, maybe we can do it earlier. But then the first test of the Starliner, don't start you. So we have Starship and Starliner. Starliner is Boeing's capsule. It's a bit like the Dragon. OK, so it's Orion, Dragon, Starliner. And then SLS and Starship and Falcon. Yeah, there's so much going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Starliner is Boeing's capsule to bring humans to the ISS. And they have a first test lined up somewhere in December. And the first manned test a few months after that. So it's going to be a race. We don't know who will win. But it is in NASA's best interest to let this move along as smoothly as possible, because they're dependent on it. And I really wonder. I mean, we have elections coming up in the United States almost a year from now. And I really want to know. I think Jim Bridenstine, he has, of all of Trump's appointees, he has surprised me the most. Because he's somebody you seem to be able to work with. In a positive way. In a very positive way. And really kicked a lot of butts. I mean, NASA had become so risk averse that, I mean, of course, they went through multiple disasters, but also just the end of a lot of programs. And then these huge, huge epic programs that were delayed and delayed again, like James Bond. We have like SLS. That it's not weird that they became risk averse over the past few years. But they also needed somebody to just say, like, hey, let's go focus on something again, instead of just being bureaucrats who are trying to not break anything all the time. FRANSESC CAMPOY- And to be honest, I mean, the last year we've seen some incredible progress in all these programs. I mean, James Webb is, of course, still delayed. And it's much more expensive than we originally thought. But the Moonlander program, it's coming along quite nicely. So we see progress with SLS delayed. But then again, we see progress. We see hardware, actual hardware. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah. Europa Clipper, even. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Europa Clipper is doing much better. So we have progress on the Orion capsule. We see the first firm contracts for hardware for the Gateway. We even have launch dates already tentatively assigned. The first studies. MARK MANDELAAN- So we have a lot of progress. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah. MARK MANDELAAN- We have a lot of progress. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah. MARK MANDELAAN- And then there's also a lot of progress on the FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah. MARK MANDELAAN- So we're working on that. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah. MARK MANDELAAN- So everything is moving along. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Whenever there's a presidential switch, sometimes certain people are kept for a little bit, just so that current projects can be finished. Who knows? Who knows where Jim Reinerstein will go? FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah. MARK MANDELAAN- So we have a sole Trump appointed that will survive if somebody new would come in. And who knows? Maybe it's another eight years of Trump. And then it's so funny because the moon landing by the first woman on the moon would be in the—right now it's scheduled for the lame duck session of Trump if he gets reelected. So if he gets reelected, then the last hooray of his second term would be the first woman on the moon. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Trump. MARK MANDELAAN- The irony. FRANSESC CAMPOY- The irony. MARK MANDELAAN- It's the irony. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah. MARK MANDELAAN- But as—you always have to respect the man. Like, he—for his knowledge of television and media, like, he—that is well planned. Now it still needs to happen and these women should not blow up going there. MARK MANDELAAN- Hopefully. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Anyway, hopefully. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Back to Elon Musk. And back to Elon Musk and the everyday astronaut because I just wanted to chime in this one thing and I'm not sure if we have any more to share about SpaceX and I think we've covered most of it. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah. FRANSESC CAMPOY- There's this one. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah. MARK MANDELAAN- This is an interesting interview that I would like—I would like to encourage everybody to watch it. I think it's—it's again—so it's again by the everyday astronaut. It's again by Tim Dodd with Elon Musk and it's so—it's such a different interview with Elon Musk than any interview I've ever seen. So it makes it instantly the best interview I've seen with Elon Musk. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah, because— FRANSESC CAMPOY- By just the dude. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah. FRANSESC CAMPOY- By just the dude, you know? MARK MANDELAAN- Because interviews with Elon Musk, to be honest, they can be a bit awkward sometimes. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah, awkward. You always put them at double speed on YouTube so you can get through them. MARK MANDELAAN- And watching Elon Musk do a keynote. FRANSESC CAMPOY- It's also not the best. The information he says—he shares is fantastic, but he's not the best speaker. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah. But then you have Tim Dodd, who is on the same level— FRANSESC CAMPOY- Of nerdness. MARK MANDELAAN- Of nerdiness. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah, nerdiness. MARK MANDELAAN- —as Elon Musk. And those two connect really well. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah. MARK MANDELAAN- So there's been neither a full-flow stage combustion engine that's seen flight, nor has there been a methane engine. Certainly in a rocket scenario. I think there may have been some little test things, but no actual rockets. So I'm very confident that CH4 is the right fuel. So maybe aerospike is right, even though it's not been done before. But you just have to show that your combustion efficiency is not affected and that you're straightening the flow sufficiently. FRANSESC CAMPOY- So they're really talking— MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah. FRANSESC CAMPOY- —about the get-to-your-expansion ratio. They're really talking about how this rocket works. MARK MANDELAAN- They're talking about specifics of the whole engine. Not even the rocket, just the engine. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Well, your boost stage is primarily in atmosphere, and your upper stage is primarily in vacuum. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Then you can specialize for a vacuum nozzle and a sea-level nozzle. MARK MANDELAAN- Right. FRANSESC CAMPOY- And then you widen the aerospike. MARK MANDELAAN- Right. FRANSESC CAMPOY- It's only if you want to try to do single-stage reusable, then— MARK MANDELAAN- So you see Elon Musk's eyes light up, being able to talk about something like this. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Elon Musk. MARK MANDELAAN- All right. Thank you so much. MARK MANDELAAN- I would love it if somebody could show like, hey— FRANSESC CAMPOY- So here—so I think they had an interview of 10 minutes. I think that's the official thing. So here we are at almost 12 minutes, and Tim Dodd, the interviewer, is like, OK, thanks, man. Thanks. We're finishing up this interview. So again, that little moment, he's like, yeah, yeah, sure, here. MARK MANDELAAN- Awesome. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Aerospike. MARK MANDELAAN- Aerospike with Elon Musk. FRANSESC CAMPOY- All right. MARK MANDELAAN- Thank you so much. FRANSESC CAMPOY- I would love it if somebody could show like, hey— MARK MANDELAAN- He tries to say goodbye, and Elon Musk's like, no, I'm not done with you. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Listen to Mark. You can do this different thing, and this would be a better move. That would be thank you, please. MARK MANDELAAN- Right. Yeah. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah, of course. Absolutely. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah, totally. MARK MANDELAAN- Hey, thanks for your time again. FRANSESC CAMPOY- OK. MARK MANDELAAN- I mean, I don't know. I can bill you later. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Goes back to the mic. And—oh, sorry. Then we get a commercial, which is not—but it's a funny interview. People should watch it, because it's like, Elon Musk is then trying—Tim Dodd is trying to end the interview. Elon Musk doesn't really—lingers, like, I don't know where to go next. I'm just standing here, and I just want to chat some more about— MARK MANDELAAN- I want to talk about rockets. FRANSESC CAMPOY- I want to talk about rockets. So the interview continues for about just as much long, again, like another five minutes. Simply— MARK MANDELAAN- I'm seeing—that was like—it was almost like awkward back then, because it was like, you're insane. And now it's like, hey, look, I'm not insane. FRANSESC CAMPOY- They're both looking at the rockets. MARK MANDELAAN- You know, obviously, I'm insane, but— FRANSESC CAMPOY- And so they don't—and he doesn't leave. And they just—they keep on chatting and looking at the rocket and just hanging out. It's really cool. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah, but it's awesome. FRANSESC CAMPOY- They both went to a different level that you don't see them at. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah, exactly. And—but the whole interview does show Elon Musk's passion for innovation. I mean, because Starship— FRANSESC CAMPOY- You can call it that. You can also just call it nerdiness. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Like, it's nerdiness. He loves rockets. MARK MANDELAAN- There's a thin line between it. But it does show, because once again, Starship is innovating something new. It's doing something new. It's using methane engines, methane engines that are skilled that we haven't seen before. And methane isn't even the most effective, the most efficient fuel, but the way in which he's using it, the way in which the whole engine is designed, it is damning. And it's impressive to see. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah? MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah. There's also another video from Tim Dodd, the everyday astronaut. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah, he's really into rockets. I'm a little bit more into exploration itself. He's super into rockets. MARK MANDELAAN- And it's a 45-minute video about why SpaceX's Raptor engine, the basis of Starship— FRANSESC CAMPOY- I couldn't get through that video. MARK MANDELAAN- —is the best engine ever. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Really? Yeah? MARK MANDELAAN- You should watch it. FRANSESC CAMPOY- OK. MARK MANDELAAN- You should watch it. FRANSESC CAMPOY- OK, thanks. MARK MANDELAAN- Exactly. So let's just summarize. So SLS still happening, delayed. Next year is going to be another Falcon Heavy launch and I think a Starship test next year as well? FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah, so the first real BFR and— MARK MANDELAAN- The way it was used to call. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah. MARK MANDELAAN- So the big Falcon rockets. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Sure. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah. Launch will be next year. We'll see the first commercial crew launches, so Dragon, Man Dragon and the Starliner. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Hopefully, if all the tests go well, yeah. And the Starliner, yeah, will also happen. And then I guess it's all just stay tuned for how NASA does it with their big projects, like how it all goes. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah, so the next big update will be the— FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah. MARK MANDELAAN- —the next big update will be the commercial partner that will provide the lunar lander, so the actual lander. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Oh, yeah. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah. FRANSESC CAMPOY- But they already created a lander, right? And they're making commercial—so they're making commercial landers, and they have to yet— FRANSESC CAMPOY- Someone has to build it and the contracts will have to be finalized, somewhere in the next month. MARK MANDELAAN- Okay, so they haven't—in the next month. So they haven't—just haven't given the contract yet. Yeah. FRANSESC CAMPOY- And that's the last part of the lunar program. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah. Exactly. FRANSESC CAMPOY- That needs to be finalized. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah. And then eventually, I think, ESA has been talking about a scientific base on the moon. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah, the lunar village. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah, the lunar village. So I guess we need to get somebody in here to talk about that. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah. Because the whole concept of the lunar village, it's incredibly interesting, and I really would like to know how ESA is going to move this project forward. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah. MARK MANDELAAN- So I guess we need to get somebody in here to talk about that. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah. MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah. FRANSESC CAMPOY- I was talking to you about a series about Mars, for this show. Maybe a series about the moon is actually really cool. MARK MANDELAAN- Let's start out with the moon. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Let's start out with the moon. That's where we're going first, again. MARK MANDELAAN- That's where we're going. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah. And that's where everything starts, right? MARK MANDELAAN- Yeah. Yes. So you could do the M-1 command. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah, let's do it. MARK MANDELAAN- So we can say that we have a 50-second, 60-second perception that that's the moon and today we are talking about a star on the moon. FRANSESC CAMPOY- Yeah. Sounds like a very interesting project. Let's see if we can... Yeah, I was talking to you about a series about Mars for this show. Maybe a series about the moon is actually really cool. Let's start out with the moon. Let's start out with the moon. That's where we're going first again. That's where we're going first, yeah. Yeah, okay. Let's do the moon first. Yeah, cool. And then, Joeri, as always, you have a list of little things that are worth mentioning. So if you can please pull up your list of all the things that people need to know about, because you're always one big surprise full of... What should we start with? You had something about Iran. Iran. It was nice and political and about rockets. It's not so much space as it is weapons, I guess. It's more weapons than space, but still it's interesting. Rockets are rockets. So a few months ago, we saw something going wrong at Iran's launch site. There was this big explosion, and it's probably a Safir rocket that exploded. Before... Before it launched. Safir. S-A-F-I-R. Yes. R. Sorry. And it's a rocket that Iran has used a few times to launch a small spacecraft into orbit. Yeah, they've been working on this program for a very long time. Yeah, since 2008. Okay. And it's originally based on a missile. So it's always questionable whether this is really a space program or whether this is a covert way to test their weapons. But they wanted to launch a small communication. And so they launched a small communication satellite nonetheless. That was the plan. They had a bunch of success. And just quickly on Wikipedia, they had a bunch of successes in 2008, unsure. But then 2009, 11, and 12, they had successful launches. And then everything went awry because earlier this year, they had two failures. And then this one failed as well. So basically, the whole failure isn't new. But it was something that followed just after this that was very interesting. Because Trump. Oh, shit. Trump again. Yeah. He tweeted something. He tweeted something. He tweeted a picture of the launch site. Yeah. And we saw pictures from the launch site in the days before that. They were shot by Digital Globe, which has a commercial Earth observation satellite somewhere. So we know of the quality. We know of the great quality of these Digital Globe satellites. But then Trump tweeted another picture. And the details were amazing. The details. Of this image were amazing. So there were two options. Either this was shot by a spy plane or by one of their very secret keyhole satellites. What is a keyhole satellite? So back in the 70s. Now we have to. God, these stories. Yeah. Back in the 70s and 60s, the US had military spy satellites. And they returned small capsules back to Earth with photo film. I can see it. Yeah, you can see. But then in the 70s, they switched to another electro-optical. So basically big digital cameras up in the sky. And they improved those satellites over the years. And they were called the keyhole satellites. And we're now at the keyhole 11 series of satellites. So quite a lot of increments. And these satellites are very, very secretive. We don't really know anything about them. We know that they're probably based upon the Hubble Space Telescope platform. They have these huge mirrors. And they have the quality. They can see things that are a few centimeters across from space. It's crazy. I'm looking at the picture that Trump posted. And it's crazy. You can see anything from car doors being open to people. It's super tiny. And it looks like because the inclination of the image, the shadows. So there were a few experts that looked at the inclination and the shadows. And they deducted that this was probably shot by one of the keyhole satellites. Because it was just at the right angle at that time. So Trump, he made a picture of a satellite imagery that wasn't supposed to go out into public. Because this is highly secretive. Yeah, he doesn't care. He doesn't care. And of course, now we know. The United States was not involved in the catastrophic accident during final launch preparations for the satellite. So we don't know. We don't know. We don't know. So that was the Saphir launch at Somnuan launch site in Iran. I wish Iran best wishes and good luck in determining what happened at Site 1. Sure, dude. Sure. The whole interesting thing about it is the quality of imagery from those keyhole satellites is amazing. And I didn't really know how good they actually were. Yeah, so it's like pointing the Hubble telescope at Earth. If you do that, then nothing happens. Actually, it's super blurry. But if you have specialized digital... digital cameras that do this then you get this this kind of quality this kind of quality crazy so let's wave maybe they see us hey guys hey guys okay awesome uh so uh rocket exploded and in the end um iran has to go back to the drawing board i guess to probably figure out what happened yeah and then um yeah last but not least uh russia russia russia yeah so russia i mean the last year russia was uh was quiet there weren't a lot of launches nothing really happened in the russian space program it was being declared dead left and right yeah this year has been different okay really picking up the pace and one of the launches that um uh occurred in the last few months was a launch of a tundra satellite now the tundra satellite i'm not going to go into much detail because it's a it's an early warning uh satellite not a lot to tell about but do you know what an early warning satellite is uh i don't know i have an idea but if by all means you okay floor yours uh these early warning satellites since the 60s both the us and russia have been launching early warning satellites they basically appear at the earth and they try to spot nuclear missiles being launched yeah they before they land anywhere yeah they're focused on heat signals uh so whenever they see something which is very hot could either be a forest fire or an explosion but also the exhaust from a nuclear rocket uh an alarm will go off somewhere so uh russia the order of the soviet union and uh the and the us are um are a warrant of an impeding uh missile coming in their way exactly and so they could take countermeasures or whatever exactly exactly so tundra is one of these newer satellites and uh both the us and russia have these satellites up in the air but the interesting thing is this reminded me of a story a story about stanislav petrov do you know him uh no let me see wait wait wait just let me see i think i got the name right did i got the name right i think it's what stanislav stanislav lieutenant colonel stanislav petrov in air defense yeah the soviets and there's this interesting story about oh yes yes who who yeah the man who the man who prevented nuclear war three because he saw i believe the story was he saw one of these launches so we have to go back to 1983 yeah and this was a time when uh the cold war was going on and uh the war was going on and uh the war was going on and uh the war was raging there was a lot of uh a lot of fear that something might go wrong and stanislav petrov was working for the uh missile defense forces and he was tasked with monitoring the results of the oko system the the early warning system that came before tundra and at a certain moment all alarms went off in his console yeah something was wrong according to the alarm systems a missile was going one missile was going from the us towards russia and if he if he if he if he just followed protocol uh you would have to you would have to call his superior and the superior would have to call the the president of the uh of the soviet union and they would retaliate by sending a lot of missiles back to the us and at first he didn't really believe the system because by sending a lot of missiles back to the us and at first he didn't really believe the system because he didn't expect the u.s to just send one missile their way you would expect them to send a few hundred their way yeah and after a while he saw four more signals so in total five missiles but he still didn't believe it so he didn't follow protocol he said this can't be right yeah this this this this this could be an error this could this should be an error he said here he says here 23 minutes later i realized that nothing had happened so 23 minutes yeah because they didn't 23 minutes later i realized that nothing had happened so 23 minutes yeah because they didn't see anything else the the radar systems didn't see a missile coming his way so he gambled but it was his gut feeling that it couldn't that it wouldn't be right he made the right call in the end yeah because he prevented world war three by not retaliating exactly by sending thank you missiles that way yeah and everything went back to normal exactly so how did you come how did you come up with this when it comes back to uh uh uh what just happened in russia um because i was on the one hand i was thinking about the dangers of these kind of systems and tundra is very it's it's it's the same kind of system it it looks for heat uh for heat pulses in on the earth but it's also automized there's an artificial intelligence system behind it and then i thought okay so we don't have any stanislav petrov's anymore it's just a computer it's just a computer making these kind of decisions but not to launch the strike though no probably no i i understand your uh your concern yeah yeah yeah it's like of course of course but i mean an early warning system in general if it's just doing the warning then the actual decision will forever be with the people making those decisions hopefully it's i ran across this this uh article here by business insider which interviewed somebody who said well even if um stanislav petrov would have called it in still there would have been you know there was another decision to make yes of course everybody could follow protocol like i don't know if you've seen uh uh chernobyl on hbo so who knows what could have happened indeed yeah don't put too much trust in soviet protocols but but so where where is this the tundra program now then what what how far are they in well they just launched something no this is this was the third uh launch ready of the program yeah so it's it's up and running it's already but this is this is for this is for any rocket attack i'm i gotta say though yeah of course yeah it's it's for any kind of missile missile launch yeah but because i'm i'm thinking like if if we detect nuclear missiles flying right now and then something has already come really really wrong you know like you don't you i i can i hope you can see a nuclear war coming somewhat yeah if it's just one missile there's always the chance that you might be able to bring it down with yeah with uh with an anti-ballistic missile rocket yeah and i saw that uh i saw this video by um uh was it kurt kazak about what happens if uh if uh a nuke falls on a city i actually once the calculated that for amsterdam and um i don't know once during my journalism school i thought i let's do something with nuclear war so i went over all over amsterdam see where the nuclear bunkers were and oh cool yeah we would all die that's still the that's still the general conclusion this general conclusion is like yeah we still be pooped and this is a really very interesting question because we can actually try to think uh and i think the red cross is now um again working on a campaign to rid the world of nuclear weapons it's like i know it's sort of like a segue from what this show does but hey they're often launched on rockets yeah so uh but it's it that question of how do we actually handle the fact that there's still thousands of nuclear weapons on this planet and the only thing that they can do is and horribleness, even though the world has, compared to the 1950s, stabilized incredibly. I mean, the amount of wars is a handful of what it was back then. We don't have two superpowers on the brink of nuclear war anymore. Can we please just now, maybe in the 21st century, start getting rid of these horrible things? Maybe in an unpopular opinion, could it be that the nuclear weapons actually deter people from starting wars? And with that, ladies and gentlemen, and with that. I said it's a non-popular opinion. No, it's true. I think it's just maybe then three nuclear weapons will also do the trick. Yeah, but not, I mean, we currently have, we don't need total annihilation. I think we have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world a few times. So let's, even destroying the world one time, I think that's already too much. So if you... If you can just threaten people with one nuclear weapon, like, I will flatten your capital, you know, with you in it. That'll be enough. That'll be enough, because whether you flatten a bunch of cities, like, why would you discuss anything with that? So, like, why would you play poker with that? Like, I don't know. You don't want to bet the whole fucking world on your... No, let's not. Yeah, unusually male egos. Anyway. So let's use those rockets. Let's for a better cause and launch something like weather observation satellites. Yes. Yes. Glitter. Glitter in space. Non-plastic glitter so that we have more stars or something. I don't know. We talked about, on this show, we talked about this billboard in space. Somebody was planning to put a billboard in space. There was this Japanese satellite where you could order a meteor shower on demand. A meteor shower on demand. Who wouldn't want that? I... I... I'm not really sure. If... Maybe for children? That would be great. That would be great. But on the next episode, we're going to check in on if you can still order a meteor shower from space. Julie, thanks so much. I think we should do our moon series. Yes. Yes. Let's... Definitely. Let's do that. Thanks so much for being here again. Thanks for having me. Yeah. And thanks, listener, for listening in. We'll see you on the next Space Cowboys. Keep an eye on your feed. See you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.