This Week in Space 141 Transcript
Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
00:01 - Rod Pyle (Host)
On this episode of this Week in Space. It's our holiday special. What's it like to celebrate Christmas in orbit? What was your favorite space toy? Will Tarek ever look older than 14? Join me, producer Anthony, the amazing Aunt Pruitt and little Tarek for a holiday romp. Next on this Week in Space
00:20 - TWiT.tv (None)
Podcasts you love.
00:22
From people you trust.
00:24
This is TWiT
00:26 - Rod Pyle (Host)
This is this is this week in space, episode number 141, recorded on december 20th 2024. The twist holiday special 2024 tiny tarx christmas, turkey.
00:46 - Announcer (Announcement)
Was the week before Christmas and all through the Warwick not a creature was stirring, not even little Torek. He slept like an angel in a body so jolly as the fire was crackling. Like his space tron plays folly. He had warm thoughts of Twiss episodes past and he stirred in his slumbers. But even nightmares don't last. So join us, my friends, for a tale so whimsical that you won't want to leave, not even for a crimsicle. Twas the week before Christmas.
01:25 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Hello and happy holidays everybody and welcome to this Week in Space, the holiday special edition. Yay, wait a minute.
01:33 - Tariq Malik (Host)
You said my YouTube channel is a folly Rod.
01:37 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I heard that in there, I'm Rod Pyle, editor-in-chief of Anastom Magazine, and I'm joined, as always, by the jolly tiny Tim Tarek, editor-in-chief of Spacecom. Oh my God, hello my friend.
01:51 - Tariq Malik (Host)
You said body, so jolly is what you said. Oh, I'm crying.
01:57 - Rod Pyle (Host)
It's all the writing, and we're joined today by the amazing Anthony Nielsen and our founding producer and blast in the past, the astonishing Ant Pruitt. Hello, gentlemen, hello everyone. Thank you for coming in. I know that Anthony lives to be on camera, so we're very glad that we pulled him in here today. Yeah, look at him, dip out and. Ant we've missed you.
02:21 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
Hey, I've missed you too, but I've been listening to the show pretty regularly so I can keep up with some of the stuff y'all had going on and continue to shake my head and all of this stuff.
02:33 - Rod Pyle (Host)
If you're listening to the show, you must, uh, have an astonishing amount of time on your hands. Now, before I forget, please don't forget to do us a holiday solid, that didn't sound quite right. And make sure to like, subscribe and all the other cool podcast things, because we need your love and we, we live and die by your attention. So we're counting on you. And now our gift to you a space joke from brian tanner. Are we ready? I'm ready, I'm ready. Astronomers recently discovered a giant object in space that resembles a turkey. They're calling it a gobble, your cluster I love space puns okay, so.
03:17
So thank you, brian. Here's mine. Hey, tarik, yes, rod, how did s? Santa?
03:23 - Tariq Malik (Host)
beat China to the moon. I don't know how did he beat China to the moon. He slayed the competition.
03:30 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Oh, it's a spelling joke, All right. Now I hear that some people want to set fire to the nearest Christmas tree when they hear our jokes. But you can help by sending your best work or most worst or most space joke like mine apparently to us at twists at twittv. Alright, we need to go to some headlines, but before we do I have a housekeeping moment here, because we got kind of an interesting inquiry from Michael Clary Michael, Hello Michael who said how many Apollo moon ships could you send to the moon on a?
04:08 - Tariq Malik (Host)
starship. Oh yeah, you did a bunch of math for this one, didn't you?
04:12 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well as much as I'm capable. We've had this conversation before, haven't we? Why didn't Rod stay in astronomy? All right, so here's a fairly easy challenge, and I'm sure that somebody out there because we have a few rivet counters in the cosmos will be able to tell me where I slipped up here. But the Apollo 11 command module alone was 11 feet tall without the escape tower, and that's gone by the time they reach orbit Although if it's in a Starship it wouldn't be. But let's just say they're not going to have an escape tower because it would do them no good inside a Starship cargo hold. So a Starship's cargo hold being 56 feet tall, it would hold just over five command modules and a few bananas if they were stacked vertically. Now, that's just a single stack, though If you dumped a bunch in there, I'm sure somebody who knew how to do calculus could tell me the total number. But heavens to Betsy, not me anymore. Okay, Volume, you mean Resetting here.
05:10
Yeah yeah, because I sort of envisioned him dumping them in like a salt shaker instead of actually organizing them properly. If you had the command module and the service module it's propulsive and power unit you could barely fit two of them stacked atop each other inside, um. And since the command module, service module stack had a diameter of about 12 feet and starship's cargo bay has a diameter of 26, I think that's a tight fit. Three in there, maybe six, but if you add the lunar module, which is what it takes to transit and land on the moon. So Apollo 11 on Apollo 8 just had the command and service module. The lunar module is 18 feet high and 14 feet in diameter. With its legs folded, you could stack the whole command module, service module, lunar module stack in there. Ant's just shaking his head inside and with some fiddling, because we all know elon could fudge things on starship, maybe three of those.
06:12
And since the command module, service module, lunar module stack would go to the moon all on its own and return, starship would only need to carry them to low earth orbit or thereabouts abouts. And the weight of that stack the mass wet-fueled is about 97,000 pounds. Starship's supposed payload capacity is between 220,000 to 330,000, depending on whether it's expendable or returning. So it could potentially carry those three fully-fueled spacecraft stacks that would get nine people to the moon and back. However, we still have to get them out of earth orbit and send them to the moon, which is what the remaining fuel in the s4b stage used to be for the saturn 5.
06:53
Listen to me, uh, so you could probably use either a little solid oh, I'm listening solid rocket kick motor, um, or well, well, so the s4B had 220,000 pounds of thrust and burned for about five minutes to get them out of the earth or on the way to the moon.
07:09
But because a single Raptor engine on Starship has about half a million pounds of thrust, you could probably burn that for a minute or two or burn three of them for just a little blip. So anyway, this is very inexact, but I was trying to give you the best answer I can, michael. In any case, somebody, michael, looking at you, should call nasa and tell them to dust off the remaining capsules and lunar modules and service modules which is sitting in museums and as we've seen from a number of movies, like was that one, moonfall, moonfall, where you take a space shuttle out of the museum and just kind of dust it off and clean the window and the next thing you know you're launching. We could take all these things and send them off to the moon and think of the money we'd save.
07:59 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, that's right. That's right. Of course, you did need to have the moon falling so that it changes gravity, so that you can get off the ground with only two main engines, or something like that, yeah, it has to be full of nano bumblebees, but whatever.
08:10 - Rod Pyle (Host)
What a horrible movie. Okay, so there we go. Let us get going on some headlines, because as long as we've got Ant in torture mode here, we might as well continue with it, because he's sitting there thinking headline I watch football during this I'm thinking, I'm so grateful for my beer, yeah, but you only had one all right.
08:37 - Tariq Malik (Host)
So, tarik, uh, why don't you give us your first one, then I'll, then I'll roll, yeah, yeah, so it, it is the season. Uh, of course, cook your spacecraft.
08:41 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, that's right, right, wherever you're having lots of holiday roasts and nasa's gonna do it with the parker.
08:44 - Tariq Malik (Host)
The season, of course, to cook your spacecraft. Well, that's right, you're having lots of holiday roasts and NASA's going to do it with the Parker Solar Probe and for the first time ever, we're about to get our closest, get up, close and personal with the sun. On Christmas Eve, so just when everyone's sitting down for dinner we usually have tamales at my house actually NASA's going to fly by and make its closest approach with the Parker Solar Probe. Ars Technica has this really good story about how we're going to fly, quote-unquote, inside the sun for the first time and some background.
09:16
The Parker Solar Probe is NASA's most ambitious and intrepid mission to the sun ever. It's been slowly getting closer and closer and closer to the sun with a series of flybys. It even flew by Venus a couple times, I think, et cetera, so that it can touch basically like the surface, that photosphere, kind of gaseous, those layers, you know, because it's not like a rock or whatever the sun, so that we can understand like what makes it tick. And on December 24th I think it's like at six in the morning, it's really early Eastern time it's going to fly within 6.1 million kilometers, so that's 3.8 million miles. Remember we're like what 92, 93 million miles away from the sun on the earth, so very, very close by, and it's going to withstand temperatures of up to like 2,500 degrees, which is crazy.
10:07
And the goal is to basically understand how this sun has been changing over time.
10:12
You know, get this up close, like how its weather is behaving, how everything in terms of like the heat dynamics are all working, so we can understand how these stars work and hopefully make sure they don't fry us all with solar storms. And it's just, it's just really amazing. It has this huge, thick plate on the front as like a heat shield, uh, to hopefully it will survive. In fact, as you and I are recording this rod and anthony, uh, they are like getting their last signal from parker solar probe until it flips around the other side. So it's gonna go dark for at least signal wise, for the next like week or so, until December 27th really, and that's when they're going to find out one way or another if the spacecraft survived like this super close flyby of the sun, so very exciting stuff. Of course, we're not going to know one way or another for another week, until after Christmas, so maybe we'll have a nice belated Christmas present. I just dropped my mouse on the floor.
11:04 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
I hope you didn't hear that I swear in a chair break or a mouse drop is yeah, remember the chair.
11:13 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I bought extra parts and I put a new bottom on it and it doesn't even wobble anymore so and you wouldn't believe the amount of drama with it.
11:23 - Rod Pyle (Host)
we're going back and forth. He's saying I don't want to get the parts. And if I get them, well, what do I do? And how do I? And I said just get the new air piston for it. They saw that no, no, it's not that, it's a thing and all that. I said okay, bolt some wooden blocks to the foot struts, It'll be fine. Let's roll to a break.
11:41 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
before I say something to embarrass you. I had a question about this. Oh yes, Do you have questions about this?
11:46 - Rod Pyle (Host)
No, yes, yes, yes Okay.
11:48 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
All right, jeez. So you said it's going to flip around. What's the point of it flipping around?
11:55 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Oh, so I mean when it comes around the other side, basically when it finishes the flyby, it's going so close to the sun and it's such a harsh environment that it's not going to be able to get the signals out because it's facing, it's like all hunkered down. Basically, for this flyby it has like a small instrument package about 110 pounds of instruments on board that it's going to be recording all of the information and stuff of the sun.
12:21 - Rod Pyle (Host)
But today I think that's a little insulting. What Telling Parker that it has a small package?
12:26 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
I just, it's a huge spacecraft, multi-billion dollars okay we can only get this, these bits there, so I'm curious to see how they tested it, if it's rated to be able to withstand that much heat.
12:40 - Rod Pyle (Host)
A great big blow toward. Well, and what's interesting is so the shield is, uh, I don't know, it's a combination of graphite and carbon composites, a bunch of other stuff, right dark, but it's, you know. It can forestall heat from that direction. But, if I recall, the photosphere itself is very hot. It's not just you know what's coming to the surface of the sun with illumination, it's actually the photosphere itself. So the whole thing has to be somewhat armored. What temperature is it exposed to at its peak, do you know?
13:09 - Tariq Malik (Host)
They said up to 2,500 degrees is what they said. That's hot, yeah, it's pretty hot. It's like re-entry. They basically put it inside with a jet engine thing like a supercharged rocket engine, and then just turned it on and said, all right, did we cook it?
13:26 - Rod Pyle (Host)
no no, oh, it's fine, all right, good, good for the side. Roll that thing out with these little smoking tendrils coming off of it. Oh, let's go back okay it is going.
13:35 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It is going fast, though it's going to be going like one percent the speed of light because of the acceleration, like 430 000 miles an hour. That's really really fast.
13:48 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So one sixth of 1%.
13:48 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Can I go to break down and pay some?
13:50 - Rod Pyle (Host)
bills, please and thank you, ant, had questions.
13:52 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I just do my best.
13:53 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, but we can't earn your big fat paycheck if we don't pay some bills. Oh wait, you don't get one. Okay, we'll be right back. We'll be right back. Stand by Christmas and Hanukkah and so forth in space. Yeah, you have a tale for us.
14:08 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I just wanted to remind everybody that the holidays are coming and I guess for the first time, it's going to be Christmas and Hanukkah on the same day, which is pretty exciting, which means that the astronauts in space are going to be having a big, nice holiday too. And I just thought this was a nice time to remind everyone that Christmas has been celebrated and the holidays have been celebrated in space for like 50, almost 50 years now, right With the, or more, no, almost 60 years, yeah, yeah, since the Genesis reading from Apollo 8.
14:43 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, I was gonna say Apollo 8 was the first public demonstration, the first public one. Yeah, that's right, that's right.
14:50 - Tariq Malik (Host)
And since then you had astronauts build like Christmas trees out of food cans on it, and then you've had-.
14:58 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Sounds like my childhood.
15:00 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Other astronauts celebrate Hanukkah in space too, and we've got, like what? Seven people on the International Space Station right now from Russia and the United States, among others. So I just want everyone to think about you know, if you're celebrating the holidays or if you do celebrate at all, that you are not alone. There are people up in space doing the same exact thing. You can find all about it at NASA, although it's really strange because even like last year's big holiday overview that has all of these little bits and blurbs and photos of how they all have Santa hats on the space station and stockings and stuff like that, all of the NASA pages are 404-ing, which is weird. So I had to go back to the Wayback Machine, which is what you see, anthony, scrolling through if you're watching the video there. But astronauts who celebrate Christmas do get two Christmases in space, because they celebrate Christmas on December 25th and they celebrate Russian Orthodox Christmas with their Russian crewmates too, so they get like a double holiday there.
15:59 - Rod Pyle (Host)
But one involves alcohol potentially involves alcohol potentially.
16:04 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
Well, I wonder what your communication is like for the families there in space back to Earth on the holidays. Is there anything special for those folks, For the astronauts?
16:13 - Rod Pyle (Host)
talking to their families.
16:14 - Tariq Malik (Host)
That's a really good question. And you know they have quote unquote internet protocol phones, which is just like Skype, as I understand it right, so they can actually call whenever they like if they have free time and are able to, and then sometimes they'll catch people. That's why you hear astronauts sometimes just call ham radio operators for fun, because they've got free time and they're able to do that. But there are also scheduled check-ins with family that they have time where they know they can just call their family whenever they like. They've got their own computer in their sleeping quarters too right, that they can use to do email and all of that, and so they. They do a lot of events, uh, that way.
16:54
Uh, and it hasn't always been that way. Obviously they haven't had these internet protocol phones like the videos and whatnot, um connections over the past, and until um, until constant TDRS-type communication, they didn't have direct contact all the time at all. Now it's just unbroken and it's taken for granted over time. So they do need to make sure that they schedule that. And then they get cargo. We just had a recent cargo mission there to the space station. They get presents and stuff in those too Special foods.
17:24 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Lightweight presents yeah, they get presents and stuff in those two special foods like lightweight presents. Yeah. So I do remember back around 2006 I think I was working on an apollo book and, uh, in a similar way, all the the nasa websites went dark, even historical ones, which is weird, because it's not like there's a national security issue there, but apparently they had shut them down to deal with security issues, which I don't understand, because the stuff had been public for 50 years. Specifically, I was looking up stuff in the saturn moon rocket, so I poked around and the only place I could find it was on a chinese server, which is perhaps why they were trying to shut it down and protect it.
18:04
I mean cow's kind of out of the barn 50, 60 years later. But uh, yeah, it was interesting. All right, uh, I think we could squeeze in one more yeah oh, this is so depressing I know, I know let's let nasa go out of business for a week because?
18:18 - Tariq Malik (Host)
because we want them to get to the moon first, but not if it costs any money yeah this is like just a heads up to the avid space fan is that right now in the United States there's a whole big political debacle going on about should we fund the government or not, and there is a government shutdown looming as we're recording this, which means that if the Congress doesn't set a budget or agree on a bill, then the government is going to go into either a full or a partial shutdown, most likely a partial one over the weekend.
18:49
And the reason I bring it up is because NASA obviously is part of the government and NASA oversees all the space things and of course the FAA oversees a lot of the commercial space things. And so if you were hoping, if this happens, and you were hoping for unfettered great access from NASA for this flyby, for example, that we were talking about earlier with Parker Solar Probe, just be aware that you won't hear anything from like the public affairs team at all from NASA. You won't see anything from you know from official space station sources etc. Because they're not allowed to work during that period. Usually there's like a little blurb or a message. We've got a link to the NASA shutdown page and I just wanted us to let our readers or listeners know, because maybe you can call your congressperson and say hey, you know, it's the holidays.
19:41
you know, learn to work together or something so that we can all breathe a little easier. If they go into a shutdown, it means the folks at NASA don't get paid until it gets done. The astronauts in space, the people that make these missions work the people that make everything else work.
19:57 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
Trevor Burrus. The decision makers are going to get paid. Those decision makers are going to still make their money.
20:02 - Tariq Malik (Host)
They care, they give a crap there is that and the people that do work on mission-critical things the International Space Station, for example mission-critical lives at stake. It means that those people have to go to work and they just won't get paid, but they are expected to go to work. That kind of a thing.
20:20 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So can I just weigh in here as a freelancer and I don't know how you feel about this, cause I know you're you're freelancing as well. But you know, when I hear people so some of the people I knew at JPL were making well into six figures, like 300 grand a year, and I'd hear the talk about oh my God, I'm going to have to go a week without pay and I, you know I get it, you have a job, you should get paid, all that kind of stuff. But just from my perspective, subjectively, going from assignment to assignment, there's no contribution matching for Social Security. I mean, freelancing basically sucks, except that it gives you time-wise, it gives you a better lifestyle in some ways. But when you're on it, you're on it 24 7 and it's a beast.
21:06
So I guess I don't know how another way to put it I have a certain lack of sympathy for people that will not do that one extra shift at work because they might get paid a week later. I mean, when I was working for disney, which I did for years, I was lucky if I got an invoice paid in three months and they say, yeah, boy, we're hustling on it. It's like guys, you know, it's been a really long time. Give me a break here, so so anyway, this is.
21:32 - Tariq Malik (Host)
This is all kind of a non sequitur, and I apologize if it seems off I'm just saying it's the government they're supposed to work, rod, they work for us, right well and, yeah, we see how that's working for us.
21:43 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
I don don't have anything nice to say about our government, so I'm just going to recuse.
21:50 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Anthony, you're cruising. Give us an opinion here.
21:54 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
I'm spinning plates man. You know I gotta I'm not going to touch this one.
21:59 - Rod Pyle (Host)
He works for the private sector, so he's got a whole different. The other thing I found weird about JPL and just be fair, jpl is the money goes to caltech and then they manage jpl. So you're not a civil servant, you're just an employee, you know. But, um, if, what was it? I was working on one of those books that I did and there was something about. It was a deadline. They had a shutdown on on monday or something and you know I said, well, it's okay, I'll keep going. They're like no, no, it's against the law for you to work if we're not paying you that day. It's like try to stop me. You know, because I was in it for the mission, I wasn't oh, he's a maverick.
22:41 - Tariq Malik (Host)
He's a maverick, he's a loose cannon. Believe rod pile. I was doing that for the same reason.
22:47 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You're here, tarek, because we believe in the mission, right, I do.
22:50 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
I do, and because he wanted to come make fun of us.
22:54
Yeah, as someone that used to work in the payroll industry, I totally respect the labor laws of all of the various states here in the U? S, but I also respect the people that have, um, what my grandparents would say gumption, and want to Uh so, every now and then, if it meant going beyond the 40 hours because they were passionate about it, I couldn't, I wouldn't stop them. You know, I didn't force anybody, but if they, if they chose to, just as you said, hey, that's, that's great character that this country was supposedly built on.
23:36 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Well, I feel like we got like really away from I'm finding less of it.
23:40 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
Sorry, you got me pissed off right now.
23:42 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I'm finding less of it in the current young generation, but that's just my experience.
23:47 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Let's go to an ad break Just to put a pin in it. Government shut down. Bad there, Okay.
23:54 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Let's go to an ad. We'll be right back, okay.
24:02 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Why am?
24:02 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I remembering a certain young person whose name I will not mention going. I have to show up to work at before 11 every day it's like yeah hey, in college you know I can't help classes that started before noon.
24:15
I thought that was amazing so I would work at griffith observatory until about midnight, get back to uclas about 1, and I had either Russian or calculus at 7 am in the morning. That's my walking upstairs both ways, walking up the hill, both ways in the morning. But worse was when you started in television production and I don't think it's changed much the expectation is you're the production assistant, you're the new guy, know, and we want you here at 4 30 in the morning with the coffee and the snacks and all that other bs, the film and the camera load and so forth. And, by the way, you get to open the stage and unload it all yourself before the union guys show up at six and start eating donuts and unfolding their director's chairs to sit down and take an early break before they have to actually lift a finger at 11 in the morning. I mean literally sometimes the Teamsters no offense, teamsters got to have them.
25:12
The country runs on Teamsters. But in this context the truck would show up, they'd drop the tailgate and he'd set up a director's chair and take a nap until six o'clock or eight o'clock. When we packed it up and he left, he didn't lift a finger to unload or anything, and I thought you know to to a lot of my my cohort it was like, wow, that guy's lucky, I want that job and I thought that's the most boring thing I've ever seen.
25:39 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Okay, I'm sorry, we're isn't this podcast about space? Yes, and I have a space question for everybody we're starting with you all right all right, we're starting aunt.
25:51 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You be kind now, or the spankings will begin. What's everybody's first space memory?
25:59 - Tariq Malik (Host)
yeah, I saw. I saw this on the rundown earlier and and that was how exciting. Well, how exciting for you, whoa. That must have been a big moment for you. Rod Pyle, coming in hot, everybody Coming in real hot. All right, real salty no.
26:14
I was thinking about it because I was trying to figure out what it was, because I remember when I got into Star Trek I remember a lot of that stuff. We've talked about that in the past but I think that it was when I might have been in like third grade this is how the earliest I can remember uh, because my mom was a teacher. I'm not sure if I told everyone that she's a teacher. She's a child psychologist now, but but she was an elementary school.
26:37
No, she used to pay me, uh, five dollars for every test I would take when she was studying. To get that, by the way, it was, I was raking it in, so wait you were taking her test for her. No, like, uh, like to test, like when they, when they diagnose kids, they gotta like test them, or whatever so to practice like she would do.
26:56 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Oh boy, I bet she had a field day with you oh, you know what?
26:59 - Tariq Malik (Host)
she never told us what we scored. So I guess, hopefully it was good. No, but I remember that she came home and she said that we were gonna make rockets and and, and then we had a friend who had a farm story and we went, we went out and launched them from our farms. These were like s, these rockets, but they weren't. They weren't like kits, right like we, we got paper towel tubes and built them out of, like ourselves, like from, from, like like a, I guess, like schematics or something. And that's what I remember as, like the first, we're gonna do something that's about space, but we're gonna do it ourselves.
27:35
And then we went out to the farm because there's farms all around stockton, uh, growing up, and we launched them and we were able to go chase them like you do, because that's what you do with an Estes rocket is you chase it and capture them. And of course we couldn't fly them again because these were, they weren't coated in anything you know how like the Estes ones have like a coating on them, and so our motors burned straight through the sides of the paper towel tubes. But it was still a lot of fun and I think at least one of them fell on a roof, because you can't have a a launch without something getting lost. Uh, and, and that's like one. I remember having a really great time, uh, on on on that whole thing, and after that we were launching rockets like they were going out of style, so, and then we're here 50 years or 40 years later, you know, so yeah you're not that old yet.
28:22 - Rod Pyle (Host)
And how about you Was it? Was it our first episode?
28:28 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
No, not quite. It's actually two things. And I want y'all to just consider the context of me being in the black community in small town, south Carolina, back in the 80s and 90s. Okay, so just consider that. So my first experience with space that I can remember was 1981, 82, somewhere in that area, and it was Empire Strikes Back with Star Wars and what is space? That's a spaceship, and that stuff blew my mind, okay I am your father you know just this.
29:10
I had, no, no recollection of anything beyond the blue sky. I just didn't, um, and then the next thing, uh, that hit a little bit closer to home, was the the challenger, and I think that was, I think it might've been about 10 or so at the time, because January of 86. Yeah, cause McNair. Mcnair had Carolina ties, oh.
29:37
Ron Ron McNair on the right, and I can remember when that happened. And see again, consider the context of where I was from we were watching challenger, okay. And when that happened, see again, consider the context of where I was from. We were watching challenger, okay. And when that event happened, I remember initially not really feeling a thing because all I had to to refer to was star wars. Stuff blows up in star wars and people just sort of moves on.
30:02
You know, I didn't quite understand the gravity of how big and tragic that was at that time. How old were you then? I'm thinking I was like 10. Yeah, something like that. Um, but I remember watching it in class in school because we everybody turned on the television and you know we pulled it up. And I remember when it happened the classroom just went quiet and I was confused, you know cause everybody was so quiet. But I didn't get the gravity of it, you know, until a little bit later and talking to my teacher afterwards about it and going home and speaking with my mother and my grandmother And's like, oh okay, these people, you know they gave their life right there.
30:48 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
You know, yeah, yeah, that's my two. Was that the one that was supposed to have big bird originally?
30:54 - Tariq Malik (Host)
it had well it was going to have it. Had it had the teacher on it.
30:57 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
It had a, yes, it had a teacher, it had a teacher.
30:59 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
But like I thought I heard something that originally they were thinking about having, like, oh, it's big part of the educational content.
31:04 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
Yeah, I don't know, I could maybe I missed what's the lady's name?
31:08 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I remember mcnair, but I can't remember to teach mr mccullough, that's it, yeah, yeah which you know as awful as that was, when the footage came out shortly thereafter of the camera cutting over to the parents of Krista McAuliffe who's a civilian right, she's not a test pilot, you know she signed the waivers, but it's not really the same thing and her parents are staring at the sky and the mother has tears streaming down her eyes because I think she's getting it.
31:39
The dad's just got this kind of dead look on his face. This kind of dead look on his face and it's like what a horrible moment to go there for this triumphal, joyous thing to see your daughter, the teacher, go into space and do and you know if, if anybody's ever seen the imax film, the dream is alive. That was done a couple of years before challenger happened. You know we were living in this kind of fantasy zone of oh, the space shuttle, it's a routine system, it's our space truck up to orbit and um, that film and nasa's public relations in general made it was trying to make it seem very normal and routine. They were planning at one point of flying 54 times a year.
32:18 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Haha, they I think averaged three.
32:21 - Rod Pyle (Host)
They once every two weeks. They said, yeah, they were just going to hose it off, fuel it up and go go like Starship. But it was a little ahead of its time. It was really complex, and have you ever actually seen a shuttle in person? Have not, sir. So if you get a chance, they have one in LA and it used to be flat. So you'd walk on its landing gear, you'd walk underneath it and there's just acres of heat tiles over your head and you really finally get the idea of how incredibly massive these things are. They're now moving it into a vertical configuration, which will still give a sense of its size, but it's huge, it's complicated. It's covering these little silica foam tiles and if you flick them with your fingernail hard enough, they crack. So the fact that the thing worked at all is a real testament to to fine engineering. But yeah, it was incredibly dangerous and that was a sad day. All right, I'm depressed, real weighty.
33:13 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
Thanks everybody.
33:14 - Rod Pyle (Host)
End of episode um, anthony, do we have time to uh hear from you before we go to break?
33:20 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
yeah, uh, yeah, so like probably Star Wars on TV Also. So my dad's Danish, or yeah, on my father's side they're from Denmark, and my aunt used to send Lego sets and I definitely had one of those like early space kits.
33:44 - Tariq Malik (Host)
The blue ones, the blue and the white ones, or the Blacktron ones. I had all of them.
33:47 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
I think a little bit of both. I was looking at a page over here.
33:53 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah that kind of looks familiar but definitely this kind of look.
33:59 - Commercial Audio (None)
Yeah, the Blacktron, this is familiar.
34:00 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
Yeah.
34:04 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I had one of those sets the one right above it, anthony, this one right here I got.
34:09
I got like deathly ill with like some sort of like severe flu and I was out a week and my parents got me this to like help me get through it. And my best friend came over after I had spent like three days building it and said does it fly? And and said, does it fly? And threw it off the top of the TV and it shattered. And I never, because I had thrown away the directions, because that's what you did back then.
34:28 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
And I could never build it again.
34:31 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
So that's good stuff. That's good stuff. I think I had the one above there Like the first one, yeah, yeah.
34:37 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So when I was a young man, they had Lego, but all we had were white and red bricks, gray plates and wheels. That was it. They didn't even have kits, they just had like a box of Lego. It's like, okay, use your imagination, Make something. What do I do?
34:56 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
Well, my first memory On your tablet with a chisel.
34:59 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, what's yours, Rod Ow First memory.
35:01 - Rod Pyle (Host)
My first memory is and I don't know which Gemini mission it was but I remember standing in the orchestra lounge at the music center in LA because my father was a French horn player in the Philharmonic Nice, so I used to go to work with him. I didn't really give a hang about the music, so much. That came later. I'd just stay in the lounge and play with my Legos or whatever. And all the musicians you know, different crowd then than it is now. They're still nice people, but back then they were mostly guys, mostly war veterans, mostly. You know, hey, kid, come over here, here's a cigarette, what do you think? And they were very nice to me.
35:37
But I was hearing on the PA system this crackly noise and I said, dad, what's that? And he said and it's the gemini space capsule. Actually dad didn't talk about walter cronkite, that was just me. But uh, it was, I think, gemini. It must have been gemini 10 or somewhere around there. And I thought, oh, that's kind of cool. So I went home and would have jumped on the internet had we had one, but instead I went to the school library and got the. I was looking for any space book I could find in our elementary school library, which at that point was funded pretty well, and all they had was like the big golden book of rockets and everything looked like a silver banana from the Von Braun fever dream of how you know. It was just awful. But finally, an issue of Weekly Reader, which is long since gone, I think, had an article about the gemini astronauts, and so that's when I got interested.
36:28
But my first really kind of white hot memory was apollo 8. So we had, we had all been. It was like today with, with, uh, artemis, counting down the months, how many more months delay? How many more months delay? Oh, apollo, one months delay. Oh, apollo 1 fire. Oh, that's a tragedy. But come on, I want you to hurry up because I want to see it happen. Very selfish as a young man. So Apollo 8 goes out to loop the moon and I knew enough to know that it was a big risk they were taking, and much more than they were telling the public, because I was what? 12 at that point, 11.
37:06
I was 11 at that point and I thought you know, they got no lunar module, they got one engine with two igniters on the back of that thing, and if they get into lunar orbit and can't get it restarted. They're staying there forever and that's not good and there's no possibility of a rescue. There wasn't a single rocket stacked or anything, a separate rocket stacked. So that mission I followed in excruciating detail. And, uh, the reading of genesis from lunar orbit. I'm not a religious person, nor was I particularly then, but there was something really magical about the reading of that kind of prose from orbit in a time when nobody had even gotten, had left earth orbit before before. So that was, that was breathtaking.
37:46
And from that point on I was hooked and, much to Ant's dismay, hopelessly enamored of the space program. Bless your heart. And then, of course, apollo 11, you know, I mean knowing that was happening. And from there on out I announced to my parents I was not going to school on moonwalk days and because I was basically raised like a wolf cub, they were like, yeah, okay, whatever, and they'd go off to work. I said you go to school today? No, okay, there's a longer story there of non-attendance at school. It became a habit. Let's go to a break before the cops show up.
38:24
Oh, it explains a lot. It would be better. We'll awesome. All right, what we've all been waiting for space toys. My bells fell off. I guess that's better than if it was spelled differently. Um, let's talk about space toys, so I'll start this time. Over there, if you're watching the video stream, there's a little green robot, not not the silver space girl, but the green robot. That's big Lou the moon robot by the Mark's toy company. $9 and 95 cents in 1965.
39:00 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
Uh, he is made a very cheap price. Speaker 2. Was that like a hundred bucks in today's Speaker?
39:07 - Rod Pyle (Host)
1. Yeah, probably, thanks, dad. Well, thanks, dad, I think you're up there. Um there, um, yeah, it was. It was a fair amount of money, came in a five foot high box.
39:18
It was a remarkable thing for a kid, just because of its scale. So he had blinking lights in his eyes, a whistle in his forehead I never understood that a gun sight in his forehead where a man's breasts would be. He had two little dart guns which I found very, uh, austin powers of him. Of course I was no austin powers. Then he had a his. If you can see, if you watch the video, his arm is up on the astronaut shoulder. Um, that's a, a grabbing claw. It has a little little wire and a spring. He had a bell with a Morse code table above it, you know, hole in his back. He had a hole through his midsection with a squirt gun and two rubber dart launchers, a missile launchers, on his feet. There was no motor there, oh, and a small crank in the back of his head with a tiny phonograph record. I kid you not that you would crank, it would go. My name is Big Blue. I have yours to command. That was it.
40:21
So I played with that thing to death and, of course, being styrene. You know, stuff broke within the first couple of months. It's broke, dad fix it. But it was a cool space toy and probably up there with what was the other one I had a space, a moon truck. Now, mind you, when I was a little boy they were just kind of inventing plastic. We had just come out of the Bakelite days, which was this baked plastic-like thing that was so brittle if you looked at it, crooked, it snapped in half. So early plastic toys were not particularly ambitious and if they had something electrical in them it was pretty astonishing. And of course, being a kid, it's like change the batteries, what? So every toy you had within a year was ruined because it had battery leakage in it and you'd pick it up and no mommy.
41:10
My eyes burn because you've got battery acid on your face. But those were my two memories, and then I got into rockets and all that stuff later. Tarek, I'm sure you have a stirring memory for space toys.
41:23 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
Were those, those pictures you sent, oh no, I'm sorry I forgot.
41:27 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yes, but the big one, boy. Talk about getting swept up in the show, but the big one is boy. Talk about getting swept up in the show, but the big one is Major Matt Mason, mattel's man in space. So this is one of the first action figures ever actually made out of rubber and it's an astronaut that was probably about five inches tall, had bendy joints, the arms and legs were just wire, so of course they broke within six months. Had a little plastic helmet with a visor, that up and down, then all these accessories, so here's look at this.
41:58
Here's the four astronauts Matt Mason's on the left, jeff long is on the right. He was. This is Mattel creating an African American astronaut in 1968. Which what? They were ahead of NASA, yeah, yeah, like way ahead of NASA. And here's Callisto. When they weren't selling enough of the astronaut dolls by themselves, they got into aliens and it got stupid. And there's another alien there, if you can switch Anthony, captain Laser. So this is interesting, completely out of scale with the others Hard plastic. Where they were soft plastic, turns out I later found it was some japanese toy line that went out of business that mattel bought and said, hey, cynically, hey, we can just sell this, those little idiots with our matt mason stuff. But for the first couple of years matt mason was kind of following the nasa moon prescription. Here he is on his moon sled, wow. So you know if you were into the hard nasa stuff. It's like, yeah, this is pretty close. They had a space station, which you're looking at now. That's a moon crawler that's neat.
42:58 - Tariq Malik (Host)
But barbie dream house but like on in space.
43:02 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, then it got into aliens and tentacles and all that kind of stuff and it kind of lost its way. So that doll right there. If you were to find it today in very good condition, it would cost you about 600 bucks, wow wow commercial yes, so let's, anthony. Thank you for reminding me of the cues I gave you.
43:21 - Commercial Audio (None)
Here's a commercial from my childhood meet major matt mason, mattel's man in space, bravest astronaut. Yet he lives on the we may all be there soon, and he gets around with a jet, until Sergeant Storm in his red uniform. Major Matt worked all alone. Now, together, they face the dangers of space and seek to learn the unknown. The machines that they drive seem almost alive as they transport the adventurous pair. The new astrotrack whips through the black and Firebolt even goes where they meet Captain Laser, his space gear ablaze with energy stored from the stars. He's a giant, it's true, but a friendly one who spent his boyhood on Mars. Oh my gosh, he's so huge, an exciting place, the world of space. As all the astronauts know, this world is swell. It's made by Mattel.
44:17 - Rod Pyle (Host)
With it. How far can you go so?
44:19 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I can see why little rod would like that.
44:21 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So in in that era many commercials were shot in 16 millimeter. They look like it. That was all handheld, as you can see. The ads were horrible and the reason you see the kid is because I think only just a couple years before the ftc had passed a law saying, look, you can't show these toys doing stuff that they can't really do, because before that toy ads, you know, they were taken off and flying through the air and all this stuff. And the ftc, federal trade commission, said, yeah, they don't do that. You got to show the kid holding with a string. So suddenly ads got very lame.
44:53 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
But to compare the production value of that to today, it's like aunt's kid could do that without even waking up from his slumbers you know, I'll tell you the first thing I thought that commercial and even when I saw commercials back then you know it wasn't in 60s but just in the 80s seeing similar style commercials, I look at it and I'm like, oh, that kid's rich. Did you see the set in them?
45:19 - Tariq Malik (Host)
and it's like this is their room and like dang, that kid's loaded someone on the discord mentioned that in the background you see the silhouettes of all the parents having a party in the background thank god those little suckers aren't in this room.
45:33 - Rod Pyle (Host)
All right, who wants to go next?
45:35 - Tariq Malik (Host)
thank you, anthony, for reminding me of the very cues I gave you and forgot about, you know you, you reminded me of, like, my first big space toy that I had for like a hot minute. Uh, when I when I was a little kid, because my my parents for christmas bought me, uh, or santa bought me. I think it was my parents. I think that you know you want to keep the big one from you, not from Santa.
45:57 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
Can I tell you something there, Mr Tart?
45:59 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Oh sorry.
46:00 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
Yeah, from Santa, from parents, that's usually the same.
46:06 - Tariq Malik (Host)
No, no, santa's real, santa's real Ant. What are you talking about?
46:14 - Rod Pyle (Host)
don't, don't ruin it don't ruin it for no one.
46:16 - Tariq Malik (Host)
No, that wasn't santa tark, that was your weird uncle. Harry, no, I don't. And anthony I. I forgot to put this in the in the rundown, but it was. It was the transformers, omega supreme. And for the, the 80s kids out there, that you might, you might. Someone said that w says that you destroyed his childhood aunt with that, with that Santa comment. The Omega Supreme is a space base. He is a rocket, a giant rocket from the planet Cybertron that ends up transporting all of the Autobots back to Earth. He's like their big space rocket and there's a train that would drive around Omega Supreme and then the main robot would be in the center and then, if you wanted to convert him from the giant rocket set into a robot, you would transform them all and it would be amazing. Right, and I was so excited because all I wanted was omega supreme. First of all, his name. There you got a picture of him, his name.
47:18 - Rod Pyle (Host)
He looks like a roadkill bumblebee oh my gosh, he's amazing.
47:22 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Look how awesome that is a cartoon character. You just missed my whole thing about how he was a transformer from the planet
47:29 - Rod Pyle (Host)
cybertron. I was taking a small nap so you know when tarik gets excited.
47:33 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I just hear this there, it is, there, it is. Look, look, look at From the planet Cybertron.
47:33 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I was taking a small nap, so you know when Tark gets excited. I just hear this there it is, Look, look.
47:37 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Look at this picture, wow.
47:40 - Commercial Audio (None)
Look at it, wait a minute, right.
47:41 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Isn't that spectacular. It's this giant rocket with its own mission control base and then this track around the rocket, that a little kind of tank drives around, and it was motorized. And when we bought it, uh, when I opened it up like it wouldn't go, like the the track, the little car was broken. Okay, excuse me, how, how tall is that thing? Oh, I don't know, like it's not, it's it's. It looks huge here, but it's like maybe two feet tall something like that.
48:09
So I just want to point out my toy is bigger than yours, okay, oh my god, oh see we can't get through an episode, you know, but I just I thought that this was like the most sci-fi thing I had ever seen, with the tracks on the back like wings, and he has like a claw in one hand which is the crane from the, the actual rocket base, and this big blaster arm on the other and uh, and it was just awesome and he had a little figure that would go in the little tank that drove around, so it transforms into the base it transforms into the base yeah, it's the base and then it transforms into the giant robot.
48:41
So I mean it's clever.
48:45
Yeah, it was great, and because the tank didn't go, we took it back to exchange it for another one, and unfortunately they didn't have any. They didn't go, we took it back to exchange it for another one and uh, and unfortunately didn't have any. They didn't have anything at all. Uh, to to be able and they weren't going to get more. So we ended up bringing home the gi joe headquarters base and then I played with that like almost every day for like the next 10 years, so uh, until I got into high school. So this was, this was my big space toy that got away. I, I should say for me, you know what, I'm a grown-up person now. Rod.
49:17 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I could buy that for myself. You're a grown-up person now, but you're still shedding crocodile tears over this Ant. I'm suspecting your first toy of greatness was like a leather football or something right, probably not a space toy.
49:31 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
No, not even close, not even close, not even close. Um lump of coal. Actually, I believe it was just a bicycle, a bmx bicycle that I had wanted whoa yeah, that's a pretty good gift. Yeah, that was because I went outside outside.
49:52 - Commercial Audio (None)
Excuse me.
49:55 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It hurts right here.
49:57 - Rod Pyle (Host)
We got we got it back in my day. We got basically locked out of the house at eight in the morning. It's like don't come back till dark. Okay, I'm just saying this pasty complexion spent a lot of time out in the sun earning it's cancer. Okay, sorry, go ahead.
50:13 - Commercial Audio (None)
No time outside chasing around bags of air because that's what you do and spent a lot of time out in the sun earning it in cancer.
50:14 - Rod Pyle (Host)
honestly, okay, sorry, go ahead no time outside chasing around bags of air, because that's what you do.
50:18 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
No, no, no no, no, I think that the only space related thing that I can remember getting like early was um transformers sky warp. Uh, it was a toy skyborg sky warp, sky warp. Oh, of course, the southern drawl coming out there, um, but the one thing I do remember about it was was two things I didn't know what the heck of transformers was, and but I was glad to have it. Um, and turning it into a robot from a like a I think it was like a tomcat jet was it a jet yeah I think so.
50:57
Yeah, it turned into a tomcat jet and then going out and playing with it with the other kids in the apartment complex and whatnot, and found out another kid had one and his was called thundercracker and I was jealous. That's like the memory that I have around that I was like oh, Thundercracker sounds way cooler. It was the exact same thing, just a different color and a whole, much cooler name.
51:24 - Tariq Malik (Host)
We can call you anything you want. Those were like. Those were Skywarp Thundercracker and.
51:30 - Commercial Audio (None)
Starscream, those were like the main Decepticon planes.
51:37 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Okay, Try to keep your inner geek under wraps, Leo.
51:42 - Commercial Audio (None)
And then in 1964, he's talking Wait a minute, cuz it's called.
51:47 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, it's not called this Week in Space. Whistle in the head. Okay, Anthony, you're up man space whistle in the head.
51:58 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
Okay, anthony, you're up, man. Uh, so I did have like those estes model rocket kits that we launched a few times smelled like eggs, right uh-huh um. Speaking of that, in the morning yeah, uh, but also there was um a video game that I was playing on the iMac as a kid called Escape Velocity.
52:14 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
Mm-hmm.
52:14 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
Huh, and it was like an open-ended. I don't know how to describe it, but it's basically like you could either do space combat or merchant stuff. You could buy resources on one planet and, you know, take it to another planet and uh, you were on solo these graphics look like they're from 1984.
52:41 - Rod Pyle (Host)
how old are you, anthony?
52:44 - Tariq Malik (Host)
he said I mac when he was a kid on imac.
52:46 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
Remember when I was like, like the most amazing computer, yeah what color was your iMac? Well, we had the, the original, um, blue, bondi blue, the bondi blue, yeah, yeah. So, like, this must have been like mid 90s, um, and you could also like, if you're really, you know, nerdy, you could like modify your own sprites and, like you know, just modify the game, but like see you could like it was really cool you could buy upgrades for your ship, uh, you know, like some torpedo launchers and whatnot.
53:17 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Um, you could see, it was definitely inspired by, uh, star trek it looks very privateer, like uh, like that privateer where you could do all that stuff too.
53:25 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
So yeah, that's awesome.
53:27 - Rod Pyle (Host)
It was a lot of fun so I had forgotten uh, until somebody mentioned sts that I also got an stes model rocket when I was about eight, the Alpha, which was, I think, the only one they sold at the time. Yeah, and it was before they had the plastic fins on it. So basically, they gave you a cardboard tube, a sheet of balsa wood and a wooden nose cone, and you had to go out and buy paint and glue, wooden nose cone, and you had to go out and buy paint and glue, and I spent probably a month sanding the fins to a perfect bezel bevel and sanding the nose cone and painting it, priming it and painting it again, and all this junk. And I went dad, can we go fly the rocket? They don't do that around here. It's like well then, why did you buy?
54:09 - Commercial Audio (None)
it for me.
54:11 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So it sat on the shelf for the next 15 years. And then finally, when I was an adult, more or less working in production, we started going down to Mile Square Park because head dad bothered to check. No offense dad. No offense dad. But you could go down to Orange County and fly anything you wanted.
54:28
And the weird thing was Mile Square Park which hey guess what it's a mile on each axis is filled with weeds. So we go down there in the middle of the summer and you're looking at this thing that spits fire out of its back end to get in the sky and you're looking at these acres of dry weeds and I'm thinking this is not a good mix. And sure enough, second or third launch, and at this point I graduated to just buying massive boxes of rocket parts and just throwing stuff together. We flew salad colanders, we flew turkey drumsticks, we flew sky rocket Barbie strapped to a rocket, because following instructions isn't particularly fun, but making stuff up is, especially if you don't know whether it's going to fly horizontally or vertically or what. But of course the third or fourth launch of fire started. So we had to go out and Trump stamp it out with our feet. But a very fond memories of my delayed emergence as a rocketeer.
55:19 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Can I? Can I do a show and tell, or do we have to break? I have a quick, quick thing to show everybody.
55:24 - Rod Pyle (Host)
What's it rated?
55:25 - Tariq Malik (Host)
No, it's like what do you mean? Rated E for everyone? That's like the rest of the show.
55:29 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Just checking, anthony, do we have another ad or are we?
55:32 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
clear. Oh yeah, we do. You said that we do have another ad.
55:35 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Let's get out of the way before Tarek's big reveal, cause I want to be ready for this. Actually, pay attention.
55:42 - Tariq Malik (Host)
All right, all right, all right, I want to show off because I got this. So we were talking about Estes rockets and you can see I don't know if you can see behind me, but I have my here's, my SLS rocket right here, my old. This is not Estes, but this is like the first SpaceX version of the model rocket that they put out, and then, way off in the corner, you're going to see the big mess. I think that everyone probably knows about it already. But, way off in the corner is Can.
56:09 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
I do it.
56:09 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Oh, let's see if I can do it.
56:11 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
Right there.
56:12 - Tariq Malik (Host)
That big black box is the new SpaceX rocket. I haven't launched it yet because I'm afraid I might break it, but in this box you can see it says it's from Estes. I opened it from the bottom and I've actually not looked at it it. But in this box you can see it says it's from Estes. I opened it from the bottom and I've actually not looked at it yet. But I'm really excited about this one too Because, like Rod was saying, there used to be a space shuttle. Here comes the unboxing.
56:36 - Commercial Audio (None)
Yeah, here it is.
56:36 - Tariq Malik (Host)
There used to be a space shuttle where you could launch a NASA space shuttle. And here it is. Here it is. You see all the dots there. It is Right there.
56:47 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Wow Okay, all right. Okay, now wait a minute. This is cheating. That's already built. I know, I know.
56:52 - Tariq Malik (Host)
That's the thing is that now they come already made, oh man, which it kind of takes some effort. But what they do, rod, is that they release this version here for us, that that want to just grab it, launch it, and then the shuttle will come off and fly back. It's made out of foam, it looks like, so it'll glide back to Earth and then the nose cone pops off from the external tank right there, and that's where the parachute's going to come out. And this is for what this is for 183 meters.
57:24 - Rod Pyle (Host)
600 feet is what it says It'll fly and it's got a little nice diagram on the back.
57:27 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Now they also make use, they also make a um, they also make like buildable ones. It says uh, c5 to c6 engines rod so, wow, 600 feet off of that, that's yeah yeah, and so so, like the, the, the, the, the reason that I I had this, I was saving it because I haven't launched. I usually try to wait until the baseball season is over to go to the school diamonds to launch from. But, I haven't had a chance for this one yet.
57:52 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
I have a Little League story. Is that what it is?
57:55 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Say it again, Ant.
57:56 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
Because you didn't want all the baseball fans laughing at you.
57:59 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Oh no, no. So the last time that we went, I took my Blue Origin rocket, which also comes. They make two versions of that too. They make the hard plastic one and they make like a build it your own set. And I had the pre-built one and I was using underpowered engines for it B motors instead of the C motors and it didn't go high enough, and so it augured back in where all the kids were playing soccer, and when I realized that the parachute wasn't going to come out, I just started shouting get out of the way, get out of the way, and then pow right in the field, and then, of course, it pops back, but it survived. It's a really hardy rocket.
58:35
That version is really good.
58:37 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
So you mentioned the one that you just showed was pre-built. But have they done some market research to say, you know what? There's no sense in us having it all just pieces where the person has to put it together themselves, or what's the reason behind that?
58:53 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Seems like they build them for two different audiences.
58:56
And so for Blue Origin in particular, they released two different versions. So there's like a build it yourself version that's a little bit more expensive, and then there's like the kit one itself, and so they build it so that people that maybe don't have the patience or if they have, like kids who just want to go out and launch ready they make it so that they can just grab and go. The SLS is like that too. The one drawback from the SLS rocket that I have because it's a very beautiful model is that you don't build anything yourself. It's all pre-made. You put some stickers on. I think that's about it so that's kind of interesting.
59:35 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I wonder what, what aunt brought up, if there was some market research and not just with model rockets but across the toy industry that says yeah, hey, kids don't like to do mechanical hand-eye stuff anymore, they want to play games.
59:47 - Tariq Malik (Host)
They want code. But for the Saturn V, for example, I think you can buy two different ones because I also have a pre-built Saturn V?
59:55 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah but you know who's building those Saturn Vs? We see it online all the time in places like Space Hipsters. They're guys my age.
01:00:02 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
I was going to say they're not kids.
01:00:04 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
No, and they're not kids. No, they weren't, and they're sure not my close friends. Wait, anthony's got something. I was just saying like there wasn't a whole lot of building, so like might as well get it ready. It's like you're just like kind of gluing the top on and the fins. It's like oh, okay, so it's 10 pieces.
01:00:22 - Tariq Malik (Host)
There's not, there's not a whole lot to them right yeah, well, for the ones that you build, it really depends, because they have different skill levels. Yeah, if you scratch, build.
01:00:30 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You can get into stuff that's like level 10 where you've got. I mean, I built a glider once that I just designed in my own head, which is never a good place to spend time. It was probably five feet tall with about a four foot wingspan, and I bought like a foam model of a 747, just cut the dickens out of it and a big shipping tube for the rocket, and I had the. The wings were on wooden dowel hinges with enormous rubber bands going up to the front and a rubber band holding together below. So when the parachute charge fired it burned through that rubber band. The wings were supposed to flip forward and it would glide back and it kind of did for a second before it went vertical and augured in but you know, that's the thing.
01:01:13
I don't expect these suckers to fly more than once, and I did. I did have one that was a masterful design, if I do say so myself, called the bat rock, so it's about five feet tall, about three and a half inches diameter, so it had a main tube about a foot tall which held the engines that use three D engines I think then two wooden struts going up to another tube section at the top with a very large nose cone, and I had a five foot diameter parachute that I had taken marking pens. I'm giving up on this thing.
01:01:45 - Tariq Malik (Host)
The holidays.
01:01:46 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Don't believe in you rod, and uh, we will, we still, I believe so I made a five foot batman signal like the search light thing and I have to say when that thing went up and deployed it worked perfectly and the whole rocket range stopped. Everybody went whoa and they started clapping. It was my finest moment other than being with you guys. Now have we heard about Anthony and his toys, Space toys.
01:02:12 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
Yeah, well, I mentioned Legos earlier than I did the video game.
01:02:16 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Okay so that's it. Okay, that's good, that works. Tarek, you were about to tell another story and I stopped.
01:02:23 - Tariq Malik (Host)
No, I was just going to say that because I actually spent a lot of high school building model rockets and not launching them because I didn't have anyone to go launch them with and also my launcher broke, no um, so I would just build them and uh and ant, like some of them, like they and anthony, some of them were really difficult, like there's like a starfighter one where all the pieces are super intricate. And then what we didn't talk about is they pre-made ones. In the back end of them they have like a slot where you just put the motor in and you screw like a holder to hold it in place. And on those ones that are really detailed, you actually have to build that holder yourself and hope that you assembled it correctly so that the motor will stay inside that and the glue will hold it in the tube enough that it will take the whole rocket off and not just like launch straight out, because that has happened to me before where I forgot to glue it in and then it just takes off.
01:03:16
You know, yeah, I had a friend of mine who bought the scaled mercury, which I also have in the basement I haven't built it yet, but the mercury capsule and it's quite large and it's very intricate. And not only do you have to build it, like I'm just saying to all the specifications make sure that the fins are mounted not just straight but also in the right configuration so it doesn't spin or twirl, but then you have to paint it so that it looks accurate, because it's all unpainted and unfinished so you want it to look pretty.
01:03:44 - Commercial Audio (None)
And.
01:03:44 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I just found out today from Zyla Foxland, the YouTuber, slash creator, slash rocketeer. She does high altitude rockets. She's the one that basically launched a Christmas tree on a suborbital rocket. She's launched like a giant pumpkin, people and whatnot, and she just has created what is, in effect, an Estes kit for high altitude rocketry. So you can buy a kit for 250 and design and build your own uh, high powered rocket, uh, and then try to go get certified for that. I'm very excited about that.
01:04:15 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So so I just want to point out tarik is constantly grinding on me about time and so forth, but when he gets talking at 65 minutes, I'm sorry I get.
01:04:28
I'm gonna close the toy chapter by just saying one thing we didn't, and we're adults, so we probably weren't supposed to be playing with toys at this point, but that's never stopped me. Uh, friend, uh, gary hutzel, who was I met when I was in tv and I worked for him over at star trek, so he was a very clever visual effects guy. When we were launching these rockets I built this physical launch platform that had flame deflectors and launch towers and all kinds of you know, blinky lights and stuff. Just for fun. He used his RadioShack I think it was a Trash 80 computer and designed a launch sequencer so it would automatically launch the rocket. So it had a digital countdown thing and then oh, sorry about that and then it would close the relay and off the rocket would go.
01:05:18
But he had, so he had like three different voices and all this other stuff that we thought was very clever. But then he added a randomizer so, which is of course what we always use. So you'd press the button to go 10, 9, 3, 5, 4, 7, fire, and that was just too much fun and the dads around us didn't seem to approve too much. You guys are irresponsible. Oh, we did fly one time out at hansen dam, which is another legitimate rocket range. We're flying out of there and probably an eighth of a mile away from us are these guys flying their rc airplanes and I don't know if you've ever been around them, but they get very serious. So they're wearing jumpsuits with patches and they've got ranks and they have a commander and lieutenant commander and all this.
01:06:07 - Tariq Malik (Host)
These are grown men, you know don't yuck on young man, come on if you're selling insurance and you want to get it.
01:06:13 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Sorry, I don't mean to offend anybody, but but these guys are ridiculous. So one of the the trim ramrod straight guys, come striding over like a robot. He says, hey, hey. I said what he said are you the rocket guys? And I said, yeah, you're endangering our aircraft. I said what are you talking about? We're launching over this way. Well, you know we have free range to fly where we want and your rockets are like missiles.
01:06:38
And of course, the second he says that, me being me, I'm like oh, that's a good idea so after that, we started aiming for them yeah, oh no, now they didn't have guidance systems, but you could still kind of sort of lean them over that direction and if you were fortunate you might have a mid-air collision. Um, and you know, their, their little toy planes cost like up to five thousand dollars because they're fan jets and all this kind of stuff. So I get that they were a little irked at my three dollar scratch built death missile.
01:07:08 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
But you know, move, move your setup, don't make it, yeah, that I would aim at them too, because they're just they're being a little anal.
01:07:17 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You know it's like come on these are space and these are our hobbies and how?
01:07:21 - Tariq Malik (Host)
how old were you, rod? How old are you when this was going on? 28, 28 all right?
01:07:26 - Rod Pyle (Host)
well, you expect me to be grown up even now? I was just saying Give me a break. What was the SnapTite space shuttle?
01:07:37 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Oh yeah yeah, we didn't talk about that. I had a whole list of things. The SnapTite was one of the first models I ever built, but I wasn't allowed. I think I've told you all this before.
01:07:45 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Um, I was not allowed to use models that required glue yeah, what was with your mother and she just knew you were gonna. You did your nostrils with the glue and start one of my favorite models I ever had.
01:07:56 - Tariq Malik (Host)
We were at pick and save and it was 20 in like the 80s, early 80s, because when I'm thinking quality toys, I'm gonna pick and save.
01:08:03
Well, hey all right, all right, I don't judge anyone. I mean that's what we did. Okay, we went to pick and save, to shop and they had one, uh, one paper tab and slot, uh, space shuttle and shuttle carrier aircraft and it was like four feet long. It was huge, this thing, and I loved it. I wanted to glue it together so that I could hang it up above, and my mom said no, I wasn't allowed to use the glue, so I, uh, I could use.
01:08:34 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So he just started licking all the pieces I used.
01:08:37 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I used cellophane tape and I taped it together and then I hung it up and it hung up on the ceiling for years until we moved.
01:08:44 - Rod Pyle (Host)
And then you know I know here's one of those stories of heartbreak no, my parents threw out my cardboard toy. It was awful I will.
01:08:52 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It's a good lesson that if you're going to move house, move the stuff you like. Yourself is all I'm going to say, because when I started asking about them and thought later on, uh, it was just like I don't know where that stuff went. Obviously it got thrown out, you know so. So now, now I know, I guess they expected you to outgrow it um, but no, the snap type, the snap type shuttle was like in the same vein.
01:09:13 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I had a little table, so the great thing about making models and, again, as I pointed out, my parents kind of had a general idea that I was alive and existed somewhere, but it kind of ended there. So of course we had testers, airplane glue and of course it was the incredible, incredibly toxic stuff. And you're working a little closed room. When it's three inches from your face you're thinking, oh, this model looks pretty good and you've got one wing in the side because you're seeing green elephants, you know well, I will tell you like why did nobody think that was a bad idea to be inhaling Sulfates or whatever they were?
01:09:49 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I will tell you that I got. I got a, a, a model of the Star Trek six, a NCC one, seven, a one, a space shuttle, which is the best one that they've ever built, or a Star Trek five, and it's the best one they ever made. But the galileo, that's what they ever made.
01:10:08 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Uh, it's a revel model of the starship enterprise okay, because I thought you were gonna, you're gonna, try and bend me to is the best enterprise of the best movie and no, definitely no this was great, but, but.
01:10:17 - Tariq Malik (Host)
But I and by then I had just decided, you know, I was allowed to use contact cement, um, and I got it half built, half built, uh, and then the nacelle, that goes, the little arm. It snapped because I wasn't careful and now I can never put it together. And all those parts are still half built in the closet at my parents, my mother's house, because Tarek enough glue will fix anything. You'd think that it would. And yet I was so careful painting the saucer too. I was so bummed so bummed.
01:10:47 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You know people that follow instructions just drive me bats, I'm sorry. I mean for Ikea, I get it because they're always one screw short, so you better follow directions up to that point no-transcript wonders in the last 40 years of uh glue technology uh 30 years and we'll see if we can put it back together again.
01:11:23 - Tariq Malik (Host)
So all right that's fair.
01:11:24 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Hey, we could do that as an episode. We'll sit and work with you to put it back together and then ant can just rumble over and over in your ear loser, loser micah does a crafting corner.
01:11:35 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
Yeah, stream, every month.
01:11:37 - Tariq Malik (Host)
You could join him and just like wow, what an idea and then I got a lot of legos with pity in his eyes, because we got a lot of space Legos in my cover oven.
01:11:48 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Ant, did you ever do the model?
01:11:50 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
airplane thing. I did not do model airplanes, but I did do a couple model cars and you guys talked about this stuff, right?
01:12:00 - Commercial Audio (None)
now.
01:12:02 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
It's making me think back and I'm like I should go to walmart or somewhere right now and go grab a model, because it was so freaking soothing, it's therapeutic, huh, just to sit there with the light and try to put everything together and then getting down the painting and all that. I really did enjoy that back in the days all right.
01:12:22 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Hey, why does space matter? This is a whip around. Why does space matter to you? If it does, let's start with that.
01:12:31 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
No, you don't want to do that bro. Yes, I do Look here. When we started developing this show, I remember having meetings with said leadership. He was like, yeah, I helped out but I don't give a crap about. I was straight up, and you know, I enjoy working with you all. But the stuff that I had heard about space never really made any sense to me, never interest me, and I'm glad to have met you all because you at least make it somewhat interesting. But in the larger scheme of things I just don't care. I hear about all of these millions of dollars these couple of private companies are spending to launch this way out away from the planet and all I think about is that money could have been dumped into cancer research stuff like oh, this old thing again you know, or that money could have been dumped into cancer research stuff like oh this old thing again, you know, or that money could have been gone it could have gone somewhere else
01:13:32
because I'm not seeing what we're getting here on our green grass or brown grass or wherever we are on this planet. I'm not seeing how it's benefiting us right now. Yes, we can have different technologies develop and whatnot that we could use down the road, but when I walk through that gum, san Francisco, or here in Santa Rosa, and see all of the issues that all they need is some money to at least try to resolve said issues and then turn on some newscast of this rocket was launched into space just as a test and it costed a gazillion dollars that stuff bugs me, you know.
01:14:18 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So this is a classic conversation which it deserves an episode of its own. Yeah, but the return? So just go back to apollo, which but this is this holds true pretty much moving forward the return for each dollar invested just in raw cash terms to the national economy was between 16 and 25 dollars. So one to 24 ratio. Then, when you start looking at the specific spinoffs cancer research and wound healing and different pharmaceuticals and stuff it's a really compelling conversation.
01:14:56
But in the bigger conversation, there was a time in the 60s when NASA was funding more education in the country than the Department of Education was. And as a driver, yeah, that's awesome. So it's at this point they're working with one half of one percent of the federal budget. And yet as a driver of technology and research and education and so forth, the numbers are really compelling, and especially when you go overseas. So when I went down to ecuador, when I went to um about a year ago norway, other places people there think we're crazy. They think nasa's the greatest thing that's ever happened. They can't wait to come work for that agency. So where I'm going with that is the amount of inspiration it gives young people, except you, aunt. It's really it's. It's kind of astonishing to me because I knew I was into it, because I'm a space geek, but just in general. So it's a longer conversation. I don't mean to bury your point, because it is a valid point, but honestly, if I was going to point at something, you know it's very. There's an incredible value of the inspiration it gives a country to achieve something like a lunar landing.
01:16:12
If I was going to pare something back, I would shoot down the F-35 in a heartbeat, not needed, overblown, entering an era where almost everything's going to be flown by drones. Okay, let the combat pilots ride in and say, well, that's not going to be flown by drones. Okay, let the combat pilots ride in and say, well, that's not going to happen. But this thing's coming up on a trillion dollars. We'd be living on condos on the rings of saturn by now if we had that kind of money for space. So I, you know I can't completely disagree with what you're saying. I do think there's a misallocation to mismanagement of funds, like most people do. Yeah, but holy christ, you know how much do we have to spend on defense? Because china's going to find a way to get those designs and build their own anyway. So maybe we just shouldn't build it in the first place and give them the chance?
01:16:57 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
okay, I'm sorry you know, I, I again, I see when spacex sends one of their rockets up into the air and that thing literally comes back down by itself and lands. That's amazing and it blows my mind every time I see it, because I may know two people that actually know how to parallel park their car, but we're able to do something like that. We're able to do something like that, that is just outstanding, you know. But at the same time, how can we apply that technology to these people that don't know how to parallel park their car?
01:17:35 - Rod Pyle (Host)
well. But if you look at that exact rocket, you're talking about the falcon 9 and realize that it's launching the batches of of 20 starlink satellites at a time.
01:17:46
And, as steve jervison, who we've had on the show, who was an investor, heavy investor, in SpaceX, which is a good thing, starlink's a good thing, well, and his point was how many Einsteins and Gandhis and Mother Teresas are out there that we're going to be able to reach with global high-speed internet, bring into the educational system that we're not talking to today, and he gave me a bunch of numbers that I've forgotten about. How many people don't have comms access even today, and so forth. I thought that's a really interesting point. I'd never thought of it that way. So there's, you know. Talk about spinoff benefits.
01:18:19 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
I mean, besides making our full president, unless they are destroying the ozone layer as they burn out, because they only have like a five-year orbit life right.
01:18:29 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, but at the rate he's replacing them, it doesn't matter. And let's remember, those are controlled re-enrollments, they don't just come back.
01:18:36 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
No, but there's like it's pollution too, the pollution part, yeah Like if we are breaking the ozone again.
01:18:45 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, yeah, okay.
01:18:50 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I mean again this is a longer conversation, but go, I need to be back on the show again.
01:18:52 - Rod Pyle (Host)
That's right, we're talking about it. Go to a manufacturing complex in Pittsburgh or Detroit, right, and watch that cranking out 24 hours a day these plumes of crap, and then compare that to a rocket that goes.
01:19:04 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I'm not, I mean maybe the the blue origin stuff's better, because it sounds a bit defensive.
01:19:08 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So their life is supposed to be longer, right like yeah and honestly I mean space debris re-enters every every, every minute of every day. You know it's. These are bigger than most, but they're parts of of old, blown up rockets, chunks of frozen fuel. There's crap coming back all the time it. It's just part of the background noise. I mean, compare that just to the methane thaw that's happening in the permafrost up in the Arctic, where these enormous clasts of icy methane are now thawing in the atmosphere and it's like the farting of a billion cows all at once or something. To me that's much more of a concern than rockets going up.
01:19:45 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Well, you of a billion cows all at once, or something to me that's mature of a concern you, you say that but starship is a methane rocket, and so so new glenn is a methane rocket yeah, but that's, that's cows, don't burn their farts those rocks or like we lay fiber down once versus like shipping up, like sending up how many satellites every year to replenish them?
01:20:05 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I don't know yeah, the the difference here is the reach. So when I was up in the arctic for that month a couple years ago, we used uh, uh iridium satellite phone and I could get in fact I was using it to call into the show. Yeah, I remember the leo show. I remember I could get like 90 seconds and then it would start to kick it and it was gone. Uh, last year they went up and they finally have starlink and they're up at 80 degrees, so they're pretty far north and it was perfect.
01:20:34
So, you know, is that important? Well, for that project it is. What I'm getting at is when you start looking at the populations that are living north and south of what are these traditionally convenient places or profitable places? More importantly, so you know, south south america, there are places there that have trouble getting a signal, certainly africa, but um, there's, there's a whole bunch of areas that aren't wired in. So you know how many of them could afford the starlink uh terminal and whatever monthly fees there are? I don't know. I would hope at some point and I know they talked about it, spacex talked about it that they would end up, you know, gifting to certain parts of the world access to this for a certain amount of time.
01:21:17
So people can get up to speed, but I mean like to to anthony's point.
01:21:21 - Tariq Malik (Host)
You know they the the reason that you get the. I know that we're kind of really long. We probably need to wrap up soon, but like the hey, I got all day guys.
01:21:31
The counterpoint is that, you know, to Anthony's point is that, yes, there's this great spinoff People get a lot of connectivity, but these satellites are flying in an intentionally low orbit to give you that connectivity, which means they die faster, which means that they have to be launched and replaced a lot faster. And this is 44,000 satellites, it's not 15. It's not 30 over time, wait wait, it's not 44,000 satellites.
01:21:57 - Rod Pyle (Host)
There's nowhere close to that now.
01:21:59 - Tariq Malik (Host)
That's the final satellite.
01:22:00 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, that's what he says, that's what they're targeting.
01:22:02 - Tariq Malik (Host)
They have clearance to fly that many, and so you know, right now they're at like 5,000 to 6,000, something like that.
01:22:11 - Commercial Audio (None)
It's still crazy.
01:22:13 - Tariq Malik (Host)
And you can't shake a fist, you can't shake, shake, shake.
01:22:16 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a satellite.
01:22:19 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is there were models for straddle lights that are much more sustainable, that you could field for longer ports of time.
01:22:26 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You're satellites that are much more sustainable that you could.
01:22:28 - Tariq Malik (Host)
You could field uh, uh for longer ports of time. You're talking about within the atmosphere, within the atmosphere and and there's other options. What w and r discord chat is saying? That it is short-sighted to look at starlink and other mega constellations as the only solution.
01:22:38 - Commercial Audio (None)
He's right no they're right yeah they're right, there's lots of other things I'm like but space.
01:22:42 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I think that space gives us the realm to discuss those kinds of things. We wouldn't be discussing them if we didn't have space, if you put up straddle lights.
01:22:51 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You know all those drones around New Jersey are going to go up and attack them.
01:22:56 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I got a whole lecture yesterday from somebody in their 20s about how those have to be extraterrestrials and I said, excuse me, there's no drones in New Jersey. Why would extraterrestrials and I said, excuse me, there's no drones in new jersey why would extraterrestrials put navigation marker lights on their drones?
01:23:12 - Rod Pyle (Host)
or if it's for an actor, you know, you put it in stealth mode, but instead you got blinking red and green lights no, you hide in plain sight, man, you hide in plain sight.
01:23:19 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
This is like for the aliens forever this is really a holiday special because you know, right, well, but red and green blinking red and green blinking lights.
01:23:29 - Rod Pyle (Host)
That's a holiday, I'm just saying you know like it's always.
01:23:31 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
Like. All right, let's not talk politics at the at the christmas table I'm just saying that rod is the one throwing up.
01:23:38 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Drones aren't politics.
01:23:39 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
I'm just saying aliens aliens I'll say this regardless space, my real sort, I guess, lack of interest and just sort of slight hate or annoyance with it came, more so when we started talking about trying to live on Mars and I'm like that's so far away, distance wise.
01:24:06 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, you're talking about Uncle Elon's fever cream, right?
01:24:10 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
Yeah, and unfortunately, I should say unfortunately.
01:24:13 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Oh, my God, oh please no.
01:24:14 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
People listen to that dude, a lot of people listen to that dude, and so what's the trickle-down effect of that? And I'm thinking this is not a good idea when we have so many bigger problems in our own damn backyard, you know. So, yeah, that's, that's why I have a beef with space. Well, but take like that.
01:24:34 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So two things.
01:24:35
One, elon, ain't private, I know he may soon become part of NASA, but he's not yet. Yeah, but two. You know what he says is what he says when you look at what NASA has been saying and other organizations that study this stuff. It's like look, we want to do sorties to Mars, we want to do expeditions, we want to get boots on the ground, explore the planet, see if there's life there, and all that. And then the general design is then we'll come home. You know, we may have a small base there someday, probably in the 2050s. Blah, blah, blah.
01:25:09
Then Elon comes along and says yeah, I'm going to build a city there. In a week, you will notice that the amount of money he's putting into this stuff is slowing down and the amount of government money is cranking up. Of course, but that's because of Starlink and Starship and going to the moon and all that. Yeah, government's not really caring about the whole Mars thing. That's his dream. Now we'll see if that changes under the next administration, but at this point but you're right, he has a big voice and people pay attention to it it's like, oh, maybe we should build a city on Mars. And if you have this conversation and again separate episode, it's a lot harder than he makes it sound. And when I interviewed Gwynne Shotwell over there I realized that I don't know squat about space.
01:25:44 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
I interviewed Gwynne Shotwell over there.
01:25:45 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I realized that I don't know squat about space. Well, and I asked you know the president of SpaceX? I said so, where does your commitment end? And she said look, we're the railroad. Somebody else has to come build the town. No-transcript, that's the hard part. And SpaceX is saying well, somebody else will do that, we'll just get them there. Yeah, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. I think it's still a fever dream, anthony. Why does it matter? Anthony's thinking? What matters?
01:26:32 - Tariq Malik (Host)
is finishing this episode. That's what I'm thinking. It's like almost four in the afternoon here now.
01:26:41 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Don't whine, anthony, anthony.
01:26:44 - Announcer (Announcement)
Oh well, that ends well, my friends. We're so glad you made it to the end. Little Tariq's Christmas is sure to be good. We'll send him a rocket made from rotten wood. So be well and be merry, our beloved listeners, as we spend our holiday beneath hearths that glisteners. We'll see you in the new year with more tales to amaze and clear out your cobwebs from the holiday haze. Happy holidays to all, and to all a good night and as you leave your media warren, please turn out the light.
01:27:23 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I want to thank everybody for joining us for episode 141, the Twist holiday special Ant. Where's the? Where's the best place we should go to keep up with your efforts? I assume Patreon, yeah.
01:27:34 - Ant Pruitt (Guest)
Yes, please and thank you. Go to aunt Pruittcom slash Patreon or patreoncom slash aunt Pruitt. I have a community there of folks that I love talking to every day. You can join the Patreon for free, you know. So yeah, check us out.
01:27:50 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Patreoncom slash ant perot but for those of us who aren't at, we could say we'd rather you not join it for free. So after you join club twit, you should go send money ants way so he can keep up the good works that he's doing. Anthony, do you have a web page that we should be looking at? No, I've never asked no.
01:28:09 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
Come on, don't really what I'm surprised the man's got a freaking amy social media presence um, I patreon, yes, a nielsen on x, aunt nielsen on uh, blue sky and emmy, you gotta tell yeah oh, let's hear it. Um, yeah, no, uh, I worked at forbes, uh, I don't know, 12 years ago and uh, we did like a local. It's a local amy, it's not not a national.
01:28:47 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It's still an Emmy.
01:28:49 - Anthony Nielsen (Guest)
They're hard to get.
01:28:51 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I didn't realize you were working at Forbes.
01:28:53 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You were nine years old. That's pretty amazing. Tarek, where can we follow your, your misspent time?
01:28:59 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Well, you can find me at spacecom, as always this holiday season, watching the Parker Solar Space Probe, hopefully not burn up in its close flyby of the sun. If you like Fortnite, if you like video games, you can find me on YouTube at SpaceTronPlays. It's Winterfest today, spacetronplays. It has landed on the Fortnite island, and so it'll be really exciting to see it, because all I want for Christmas is, you know, peace on. Earth and all of you right.
01:29:25 - Rod Pyle (Host)
And Fortnite and, of course, for more dignified pursuits, you can find me at pilebookscom or at astromagazinecom. And remember you could always drop us a line at twist at twittv. That's twis at twittv. We love hearing from you and we answer all our emails. As you well know, new episodes of this podcast publish every Friday on your favorite podcatcher. This one will be up in a few hours, so make sure to like, subscribe and give us reviews, good reviews. You can do whatever you want, but I'm imploring you Good reviews. Tell the world how great we are so we can keep doing this.
01:30:01
Finally, don't forget we're counting on you to join Club Twit this holiday season. Besides supporting the network, you'll help keep us on the air and bringing you the great guests like all of us today and my horrid jokes. And you can get all the great programming with video streams on the Twit Network ad-free on Club Twit, as well as some extras that you can only get there for just $7 a month. That's nothing Cost me that much to wake up in the morning. For a limited time, you can refer new subscribers to get free time for your own Club Tweet subscription. So that's a nice inducement, and you can follow the TwitTech Podcast Network at Twit on Twitter and on Facebook and Twittv on Instagram. Everybody, thank you for not just joining us today, but for staying with us for this very long episode. Everybody, big wave, goodbye. Happy holidays. We'll see you soon Take care.
