This Week in Space 91 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.

00:00 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Sunday Sunday Sunday coming up on this week in space, rod and I are going to talk about 2023, the year that was in the final frontier with our favorite guest, leonard David. So be there, be square and don't get lost in space.

00:15 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Podcasts you love From people you trust. This is Tweet. This is this Week in Space, episode number 91, recorded on December 15th 2023. 2023 in space. This episode of this Week in Space is brought to you by Bitwarden, the open source password manager to help you stay safe online. You can get started with the free teams or enterprise plan trial, or get started for free across all devices as an individual user at bitwardencom. Slash Tweet. Hello and welcome to this Week in Space, the second holiday special edition. I'm flanked by my indescribable pal, tarek Malik, editor in chief at spacecom. Say hello, dr T.

01:02 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Hello, hello, happy happy end of 2023, rod, is it really?

01:09 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, okay, I had. Today we're joined by that Santa Claus of Space, leonard, david, yeah, I mean Leonard. How the jolly ho, ho, ho, heck, are you?

01:18 - Leonard David (Guest)
I'm pretty good, I'm trying to grow my beard here in the winter Colorado. Yeah, that 9,000 feet up here. It grows faster than I can trim.

01:28 - Rod Pyle (Host)
It doesn't look like it's a challenge. It's a, it's a.

01:31 - Leonard David (Guest)
Well, it's, it's a challenge, because I don't touch it, I'm afraid.

01:37 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So you were those guys where, when I'm talking to you at the bus stop, I can see what you had for breakfast.

01:42 - Leonard David (Guest)
If I study, yeah, it's getting pretty weird, you know, and I kind of rely on the food in my beard, you know, in case I get off on the second island Snacking yeah.

01:54 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I do. Well, all right, before we proceed, I do want to say, with a note of sadness, that we must tell, tell you that our engineer and co-producer, ant Pruitt, is no longer with the show and oversaw the production of, I think, our first hundred episodes, roughly if you include the ones that were in beta. He's a great partner and he helped us grow and learn, which Tarik especially needed. Well, I guess I did, wow, wow. So dramatically reduced revenue. As you've, I'm sure, heard, if you've listed other Twitch shows, they had to reduce costs. Nance position was a part of that reduction. We really we miss him and we wish him well, and his family and Ant, I hope you have a great 2024. We love you.

02:39
Well, I was going to say that, but I thought it was weird. It's worth noting that we can see more belt tightening next year, including things affecting this show. I don't improve, and I'd like to make a heartfelt request that you consider joining Club Twitch to support this show and other great programming. It's just $7 a month and for that you get all of Twitch's best stuff, ad free, and a lot of extras that you won't see elsewhere. Give yourself the gift of engagement this year and sign up. All right, we have a show to do, but first drum roll, we have a space joke. So this was from oh, good Lord.

03:17 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It's the last one of the year, right Cause we're off for the holidays.

03:21 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, brian Tanner, that's who gave us this one. Okay, all right, brian. Okay, hold on to your retro rockets. Did you hear that the residents of the ISS have been directed to festoon all lavatory facilities with holiday decorations?

03:37 - Tariq Malik (Host)
No, no, I did not hear that. Why, why, why is that the case?

03:42 - Rod Pyle (Host)
You need to look a lot like Christmas everywhere you go.

03:48 - Tariq Malik (Host)
That's good I don't like that one. Okay, that works, that works.

03:54 - Rod Pyle (Host)
That's a new effect. Somebody smash that elf. Okay, and because I always have to, here's the lame follow up. Why do the Americans win this base race? Why, because the Soviets were stalling. I love it. I love. It All right, very good, let's get to some headlines.

04:17 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, yeah.

04:19 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So, Tariq, tell us what's going on. Well, both of you, if you wish, tell us what's going on with Bennu. We got our samples back a few months ago and we've been waiting for somebody to slip a screwdriver into that airtight container and pry that damn thing apart ever since. What's happening?

04:36 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Well, they got it open. This week actually is the annual AGU conference, the American Geophysical Union Conference. There was a nice big presentation this week at the conference about all of the fun samples that they're talking about and they announced this week that they found some really weird stuff in the samples themselves. They've got these. What do they call it? It looks like a cauliflower-type texture of these tiny particles and they're just really super surprised. You know they've got these weird carbon signatures. They've got organic kind of signals that in there. You know which is.

05:18 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Don't give us all that science talk Be more general. No, they actually.

05:23 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Dante Loretta, the head scientist. He said something in this conference that really struck me. This is from Life Science, by the way, our partner site. He said that the Cosmo, the Cosmo Chemistry community. I didn't even know that was a word, Cosmo Chemistry.

05:41 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Not the way you pronounce it.

05:43 - Tariq Malik (Host)
That they're gonna go to town. But they're really excited. These are really tiny centimeter and millimeter slides they call them Hummocky boulders that have this cauliflower texture and they're really sticky. They cling to everything that they touch, he said, and they're just trying to understand what this means for the evolution of organic molecules in our solar system, what that could mean for life on Earth, because we're all made of organic stuff and all of that. And you know, it's just these samples are making their way around now. So this is kind of the tip of the iceberg, because they're samples in London, they're necessarily delivering them to universities too and they're just gonna be diving into these for many, many years. But this early stuff, you know it's three billion years old, these samples, and these are the first scientists to touch them, you know, ever.

06:35 - Leonard David (Guest)
Yeah, Loretta's got a great book. He finally I guess he finished the epilogue of the thing because we all got draft copies of his book called Asteroid Hunter and it's a really good read. He's a very good writer and he explains, like you did there about what the goals of bringing back those samples from Baneu could mean, and it's a great read. He is very informative and Dante apparently has some kind of equipment that he just got, you know, money for and it's installed in the basement of the university and it's pretty. In Arizona, the pretty heavy research that's gonna happen with those samples. So great.

07:30 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Go on going for it. Yeah, they also ran them through like a spet.

07:35
I'm gonna show them I'm pronouncing this wrong a spetoscopic analyzer and you know which kind of studies, how it reflects different wavelengths of light and they are really puzzled because there's this dominant kind of blue signature that they're getting from some scientists that are studying them and they don't know what's causing it, like what, why it has this blue glow under this analysis and they're trying to figure out what that means for anything and they hope that they'll have some more in time to talk about it in the spring.

08:08 - Leonard David (Guest)
But, rob, we're back to what you said Two fasteners that didn't open and you know I actually One of my trips over to Lockheed Martin I'm up here in Colorado, so I get over there quite a bit. I was worried because I was actually involved in looking at the sample when they were putting the spacecraft together and I thought did I do something?

08:35 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I was gonna say what did you touch that?

08:36 - Leonard David (Guest)
Was it my fault?

08:39 - Rod Pyle (Host)
There's an eight-inch beard hair stuck in there. Yeah, I know.

08:43 - Leonard David (Guest)
I think I jammed the damn thing. I asked Lockheed Martin to make sure I didn't do something that I was not aware of. But yeah, that's kind of an embarrassing situation to get that far and have two fasteners and they gotta do a macro clean on these tools to open this thing. Because that's the surprise, what is in there? How much I got? How big are they? If they're skirting around the edge of this research literally with leftover stuff on top of the whole canister, God knows what's inside there.

09:24 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, we should point out. So, like Leonard and Rod pointed out, they're using tweezers to basically pick up the bits that are in this little flap that's stuck open, because they have to get these special tools approved to open those stuck fasteners still. And so they're waiting on that, and so it's all still like a TBD, like all of the actual meat of the stuff inside. If you're on the video now, there's a nice little picture of that canister with the top there's a lot of stuff caked on top that they're using.

09:55 - Leonard David (Guest)
Yeah, meanwhile they've been fighting this whole government shutdown right in the middle of all that. They had the government shutdown. It was not quite clear what was going to happen with the samples because of the NASA federal government activity at Johnson Space Center, but that seems to be okay. But, yeah, what a great story. And it's a Pandora box. I don't know what's in there. I think this is going to be. Who is that reporter that went into Al Capone's? I think it's Al Capone.

10:32 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Oh yeah, Al Capone's fault. And here it is Nothing.

10:37 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Was that Haraldo?

10:38 - Rod Pyle (Host)
That was Haraldo, riviera. Yeah, yeah, haraldo, one of his finer moments.

10:42 - Leonard David (Guest)
We don't want a Haraldo moment on Ben new, so I think we got a winner there.

10:49 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, you guys sort of locked me up at Hummocky and Clingy because it reminded me of the first relationship. Okay, next one we have InstantLife from Spacecom. Okay, so, mark, this story was weird. It's a weird thing, even by the standards of space stories. It's weird. So we like to think that life formed on Earth about four billion years ago, give or take, maybe earlier on Mars. I'm a big fan of pan spermia, the idea that life started on Mars and migrated to Earth, and mainly because it kind of kicks over the flower card of religion and philosophy for a while. But be that as it may, in a universe that's about 13 billion plus years old, how much earlier might life have occurred elsewhere? Our intrepid reporter asked how about instantly? Might have occurred soon after the first stellar creation and death cycle of stars, because you need carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, or, or, or do you? This article went on to talk about possibly life forming from some periodic table of dark matter and then went into the multiverse and string theory and I might have started there.

12:01 - Tariq Malik (Host)
you're making it sound like it's a crackpot thing. Let me, let me explain. Let me explain so. So we, like you're gonna help, okay, go ahead, mr Science.

12:11 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I'm all ears.

12:13 - Tariq Malik (Host)
The one of one of our, our longtime collaborators and contributors. Paul Sutter is an astrophysicist and an astronomer, and you know each month, oh, and now I've offended him, I'm bad.

12:23
No, he's. He writes these columns About this just the general state of research, and and likes to push things to the, to the next level, and these, these types of questions, you know, finding out what's possible because to you and I, and maybe maybe the bulk of the people, we, we all have a very specific definition of what life actually is right, because we see it all around us and it's the only example that we have right now.

12:51 - Rod Pyle (Host)
And are you telling me that you and Leonard are the only life examples?

12:55 - Tariq Malik (Host)
No, I'm gonna kill myself around, you know, like when we look around, like my cats and like whatever the microbes in the stream, and yeah, and all of that stuff we have, that's the for people of earth, that's the example that we have, but the life that we're looking for out in the universe can be very, very different in fact, as, as Paul Mentioned you know here, depending on what your definition of life is. Yeah, I mean it could be really stretched, you know, to to understand like what's out there, like pre-ons and that kind of thing, things that are Self-replicating over time. And that's what he's looking at, because you know, 90, what 97%, 90, 96% of the universe. We can't even see it because it's dark matter. And one of the Questions that Paul, you know, in his role as scientists, considered in this piece is what does that even mean?

13:44
Because we we lump all of dark matter into like one giant bucket and and we know that all of that stuff was created, like during the Big Bang, but we can't see it.

13:55
But the matter that we see here just on earth, we've been able to split it up into different elements and the different, you know, different materials alone, and so are there different flavors of dark matter, are there organic Versions of dark matter, like the organic molecules we're just talking about from asteroid Bennu? And if that's the case, was that stuff created along with all of the rest of the dark matter in At the Big Bang, you know, just seconds after all that? Because we wouldn't even know it was there, because we can't see it, because it's invisible, right so? So I mean, it's a it's a really interesting kind of question that I it's gonna be hard, I think, to Even measure or quantify that, because again we're talking about dark matter, the possibility of, like dark life matter, you know, from that dark matter and I don't know how we're ever gonna find it, man, so it doesn't really matter.

14:47
All right enough for you to pick it right.

14:50 - Rod Pyle (Host)
For those yeah, well. I thought it was. You know, I saw it at first. I saw it in life science and I thought what's it doing there? It should be on space calm. Although it said it came to space calm, I think that was a typo, but I thought this is such a cool story.

15:02 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Right till I got down to the string theory part, I thought I think, I think, if we want to find life beyond earth, we have to have a very open mind of what life could be. And and just the thought that the conditions, or at least the materials that make up the building blocks for what we call life, could have been there from very close to the start, like seconds after the Big Bang, I think is just crazy. You know, and it's just, it's a nice reminder that you know, the universe is 13.7 billion years old and it's ginormous upon ginormous upon ginormous like we need a reminder.

15:39
That is ginormous, okay and we are like this tiny little drop right that of life in this whatever Like sea of a cosmos will find something out there, or it's gonna find us, but either way, I mean there's room enough for all of it.

15:52 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So yes, reverend. Okay, let's move on. Yeah, let's move on to our last and possibly best story, which Tariq likes to call UFOs. Ufos, the two exclamation points of New York Times. Congress orders UFO records to be released within 25 years, but not as open as we hoped for this beginning to sound like the Kennedy Assassination. What's going on?

16:15 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, well, you know this has been. I mean, we've been talking about UFOs for a while In fact, I think, leonard, you do it.

16:20 - Rod Pyle (Host)
It's the guy, yeah, yeah.

16:23 - Leonard David (Guest)
Leonard is an alien.

16:24 - Rod Pyle (Host)
It makes it easier.

16:25 - Leonard David (Guest)
Yeah, I, I got. I got communication this morning, so I'll let that All right.

16:32 - Tariq Malik (Host)
So so basically in the defense bill that was passed for the, you know, for the funding of the government, this measure did get a push through and you know the Senate has been actually asking for a much more open release of all of the government's UFO materials. We've been talking about all the meetings that the government has been having, that the Pentagon has been releasing, and that NASA's report that got released in September about what it's found to and and this was like a little bit of of you know some pros and some cons, because a lot of the members of Congress, at least in the Senate, they're a little upset that it was watered down To the point where the military can basically say well, you know if it's gonna, if it's going to Endanger national security or release. You know capabilities, you know that the military wants to keep secret. They don't have to actually Disclose any of their UFO records, but the bulk of the ones that wouldn't fall in that bucket are Are dain to be released within 25 years of their first, their first filing. So like the minute the Navy pilot sees a UFO with something conventional right their eyeballs or whatever, then they have 25 years to release that to the public, the big kind of like the Double-edge here for this bill that went through them is that the people that had the side, if it's going to, you know, hurt national security or or, or you know, break some of those those technology release rules where we don't want the are, you know, enemies or are are are Other folks to know like what kind of sensing material that the defense department has?

18:12
It's the defense department, so they can basically say everything you know would fall under that bucket If they don't want to release anything at all. And I think that some members of of Senate, or a little like Chuck Schumer in particular, were really upset about that. They wanted kind of like a nice clean, open and transparent release of all these materials. So you know, they're trying to try to get, get the conspiracy theorists to kind of back down by saying, hey, here's all this information and now the military and the government has this loophole, they can still make it look like they're hiding stuff. So I don't know, I don't know what's gonna happen of it. You know we'll see how this stuff gets released, but it was in there in the defense bill and I thought it was worth talking about today.

18:51 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Leonard, you must have something to say here.

18:54 - Leonard David (Guest)
Well, you know there's a lot to say. It's pretty interesting. It's a journalistic story of reporters are trying to get to the bottom of this pit that is endless, decades-wise, and we'll see what's going to happen this year or next year. I mean the idea about full disclosure is pretty interesting. I mean, at some point you know if these people are on the right track, we are going to learn that we've been visited. What does that mean sociologically? There's some new papers floating around. Actually, on spacecom this morning I think they posted a thing I wrote about a really interesting paper about just different kinds of intersections with understanding. We're not alone what that means sociologically and I don't think we're there yet and it depends on you know well, the article kind of talks about. You know it depends on the scenario of what we're going to get.

20:00
But from a journalistic standpoint this story is a treadmill. It's been going on and I'm losing weight on this thing. Treadmill. I'm tired of the reporters. They know somebody that knows somebody that knows somebody and we. You just can't expect the public to dive in on this thing unless we got some some hardcore data or whatever that's going to be.

20:28
And how this comes out in the government framework? I have no idea. But you know I'm tired of you know, and I respect a lot of the reporters because they are trying to get to something, but what the hell it is, I don't know. And then you have, if it's really real, what the ramifications are for the public. It gets back to the search for life and it gets back to what you were talking about. I mean, just you know. You know the unknown, unknown of you know, maybe we got it wrong here. We based our whole psychology on what life is and because that's where they're, we're here and know what we are, but looking elsewhere in the universe and trying to understand what dynamics may be going on out there. It's, it's a great story, but it's a treadmill and I'm telling you, man, I'm down to 112. I don't know.

21:31 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, it's not helped by. Was it last was this year or last year when that gentleman Grash was giving his testimony and everything was well? A friend of a friend of mine said that he heard from his ex-wife's cousin that you know something it's like well did you see anything yourself, sir? Well, no, I don't think I did.

21:52 - Leonard David (Guest)
All right. He's come out and said he's actually changed the tune there, which is a little worrisome if you really try to follow what, what the hell he's he's saying now, compared to the testimony, the things have changed a bit there you still have. You know, there's a kind of industry of people trying to promote the disclosure, full disclosure thing, and it's it's. It's just from a psychological thing why I keep trying to follow this. At some point we're going to know we're not alone, and I want to. I'm really trying to understand what the dynamics of that situation is really going to be, what the public would think. I'll get to your, you know, rod, who cares Maybe maybe it's just, you know, it's just one of those, you know.

22:47
Ok, well, you look at all the polls. The public thinks we're. You know, we've got visitors, we got aliens. They've already assimilated, so maybe it maybe won't have an impact. But you know, man, something's going to have to happen next year.

23:04 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I was going to say 2024,. You heard it right. The mania and I was someone actually catches a real photo. That's not like the Bigfoot Magruder video or whatever that is. You know this that it's going to be an actual picture with a selfie. The billions of selfies they get taken every year.

23:21 - Rod Pyle (Host)
They'll finally get one. So so we're just over a third of a way through our show. We haven't even gotten to the year. We've got to move along, but let's take this moment. Happy holidays, everybody. Let's take this moment to take a break for our one of our favorite sponsors, and we will be right back.

23:42
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25:35
Yeah 183, I believe so far we're not done. There's one taking off of Vantaburg tonight, that's right. That's right.

25:45 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It's probably going to be. There's still two weeks left in this year too, so we've got some room to grow Now.

25:50 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I'd like to point out that well over half of these are just SpaceX. That's right, and you know we talked about this before. But you know Elon Love and Hatem feeling different, which very few people do, I'm sure you know. If it wasn't for SpaceX and Elon Musk, the United States would probably be down at like 40 or 30. You know, there just aren't that many rockets going up that aren't SpaceX, falcon 9s and Falcon heavies.

26:20
And it's kind of jaw dropping when you realize that the next contender, by a wide margin, is China and then Russia after that, and you know a few others here and there. We'd be looking at not just being outproduced by China and just about every industrial area, but also being outlaunched, which you know doesn't really matter. It matters some more to some than others. But from a national security perspective and so forth, not having this capability and having to pay our friends at United Launch Alliance and other places billions and billions of dollars just to be on standby every year, which is what they used to do, was crazy. So this is quite an achievement and hats off to SpaceX.

27:02 - Tariq Malik (Host)
You know it is for for a company that nearly 20 what was it? 2007, 2008, that that had just about out, that that almost that almost fizzled out because they, they couldn't get that first fucking one off the ground Until, like what was it? The fourth try, just to see, to see where they are now is is mind-boggling, and I think I'm not sure if I've ever told you but I used to be a very, very much I'll believe it when I see it kind of person. You know.

27:28
And when, when there are all these private companies saying that they were gonna have rockets and they're gonna be able to reuse them Well, we had seen it before and it yeah, well, and, and, and we had seen a lot of PowerPoint things in, like the early 2000s and mid, you know, mid, you know, getting up to the close of that, and then in 2010 is when that that that Falcon 9 flew for the first one, and then a Little while later they flew it again and again, and now we have to sometimes three Falcon launches a week now, as they're building out their Starlink catalog, and it's almost like it's taken for granted.

28:02
And you know, like, I think they're at 94 or five at this point, because they hit the 90, the 90 mark for SpaceX alone in Just like the first week of December, and and they're they're hoping At least this is, you know from Elon Musk to break a hundred next year, in 2024, with with the campaign that they've got planned for that, and so I think it's just an an interesting Milestone, you know, to say like, even though we've had a lot of launches this year, there's probably gonna be a lot more in 2024 and and and beyond, because there's more companies ready to try for space stoke, aerospace, relativity space and Astra, if they, if they kind of get out of the financial stuff that's going on right now. They've all got plans, you know, and meanwhile Rocket lab has plans for another rocket that's going to be coming online in a couple years. That will add even more launches to that too. So I think what we're seeing is a significant rise in.

29:02 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I have a question for Leonard about those other companies. So for years Blue Origin started two years before SpaceX, and for years We've been watching them build these big plants in Florida and Texas and Washington and all these trucks of stuff go in the front door and I keep waiting for a big rocket to come out the back door. But it's kind of like getting news out of North Korea. What do you know? Because you know everything.

29:26 - Leonard David (Guest)
Well, no, I don't. I don't know. You know I've asked Blue Origin Things and you know they have a hierarchy of public affairs there and you're not gonna get much. Well, let me, they want to stop their thing.

29:39 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Let me stop real quick, because when I started, when I started at space comm and I called Blue Origin just to introduce myself and say hi, it's me, I'm the new space and I love, I love and I said this is like when I was a little baby space reporter and I said, and I said I'd love to have an interview just to kind of see how things are going in with the state of Blue Origin. And they told me Verbatim, you should call that Leonard David guy. He seems to know what we're doing.

30:08 - Leonard David (Guest)
That is weird. Yeah well, I've lost the thread there, I'm sure, but you know, I think it's encouraging all these groups. I mean, look at, look what we've gone through and I can't. I, I really can't follow Astra and some of these other groups are trying to get their vehicle together and stocks and you know, you know who's gonna survive this week and being melded into somebody else and so it's.

30:38
You know it's encouraging it does? You know? Again, a history kind of thing is, Aviation went through this kind of thing. I mean you had a lot of Curtis Flyers, you had a lot of airline companies that were started and cratered and Amalgamated and other things. So you know, in some ways it seems to be a pattern that we go through with these entrepreneurs and it's great.

31:06
You know, in the end of the day, you know Launch costs are gonna go down, which is what everybody has been bitching about for decades. And you know, with I Don't want to get into it, but with the launch cost coming down, more goes up and then you have a more orbital debris. You got space pollution issues. You've got some other issues that I'm, as I fade out in my career, here I'm spending more time on space pollution and what we've got To deal with in the next decade. It's too late already in some, some cases too long. So we're in trouble on a couple points. And but space acts great. You know I will say anybody that has not read Walter Isaacson's book on the lawn, for you know, you need to read that book.

32:10 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah he.

32:10 - Leonard David (Guest)
He got this guy and you know, like Rod said, you know you love him, you hate him. You wonder what the hell he's doing. I started my whole book review with an animal song called Please don't let me be misunderstood, that's a lawn musk. What a talent. And where he's gonna take us I don't know. But all the other ancillary things are right Ancillary things around his psyche and his persona. It's really complicated, but Walter did a amazing job there of being with him for a couple of years. Yeah, it's a great, great read.

32:50 - Tariq Malik (Host)
And, like I said, like I used to be very much like Taking all these claims for what these companies say that they can do, rod, with a grain of salt, you know, saying I'll believe it, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then SpaceX and yeah, I said that they're gonna launch a rocket, and it was like okay, and then they're gonna land a rocket, and it's like, well, okay. Then they launched a triple core rocket and landed those rockets, and then they started reflying all the rockets and then they're building like a giant starship and I mean, I still have, I still I mean and I've seen the thing launch with my own eyes, like this ginormous, ginormous rocket, which I think we're gonna talk about in a little bit too, as what all standouts for the next, as soon as you let me.

33:26
Okay.

33:29 - Rod Pyle (Host)
By the way, I sent you about 40 messages on slack in the last two minutes which you, which you're handily ignoring. So yeah, over there to your left, I'm talking to you.

33:38 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Tark. He sent me everyone. I wish I could screenshot this. It's just a bunch of question marks over and, over, and over again.

33:45 - Rod Pyle (Host)
I was trying to get you to turn your head because you just ignore things. All right, speaking of Elon, we had. We had our, our starship test this year, a second one just a few weeks ago and Our arguably it was successful. The press, of course, loves to jump on our rockets. Always blow up sounds like the right stuff. But yes, it exploded. The first stage exploded probably due to damage from the staging, unless somebody's heard something different, and the upper stage Was self-terminated, we think, because it lost radio contact with the ground and if you don't know where you're going, you're supposed to blow up. But it did launch properly. All the 33 engines lit up and fired all the way until the exhaustion of the first stage.

34:29 - Tariq Malik (Host)
That's a record. By the way, that's a new record for simultaneous engines firing.

34:32 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, especially if you're a Russian, yeah, from the one and and it's in hot stage, which is the first time they had tried that and that was fairly successful. They didn't destroy the launch pad, they didn't launch any car-sized chunks of concrete into people's homes down range. So a lot of good things happened and yet the press still kind of jumps on. And if they mentioned those good things and I'm talking more about popular press here, not ours technique or something, but popular press if they do mention this successes, is kind of like Well, but this part worked by the blue up.

35:06
It's a little frustrating and you know we're all sitting here watching SpaceX and thinking, okay, guys, you're building that lunar landing vehicle. You've got looking at my watch, just this much time left I get things in order for that 2024 25 landing we're supposed to have, which we, of course you know we're all rolling our eyes about Leonard. Look peer into that crystal ball that's in front of you, or sort through the bird bones in your beard. Yeah, tell us when, a when, when we're gonna see our next Starship launch and be when we're gonna have our Starship lunar landing vehicle.

35:42 - Leonard David (Guest)
Oh, yeah, well, okay. Well, I'm looking in the crystal ball and it rolled off the table and broke. I'm not gonna have much to go with. Yeah, you know, it's FAA's engaged. You know, I'd say the one thing that I really found a little Appalling is not the word, but it's something. You know. Faa really got right on those guys after the launch and said miss out, hmm, yeah Well, yeah, okay, it's a miss out, but you know, on the other hand, if you listen to the lawn, you know he's checking off boxes here and he's getting more successful with that vehicle. And so, yeah, 33 engines going at once. Man, I, you know they were lucky to get five Saturn, five engines going at once. Yeah, I'm old enough to remember how much problem they have with that and and so 33 of those damn things going off and and, and you know, and and figuring out that you need a water daily system on the launch pad is very big. Well, I think a lot is.

36:54 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I knew that in the beginning and they chose not to do it.

37:00 - Leonard David (Guest)
You know, I got a bunch of people out there with with hoses garden. Oh, you know, put that thing up.

37:07 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Anyway, I think. I think, though, like, when you look at it yeah, when you look at, like this, the year that was for a spaceflight the fact that this private company that we've been talking about launched the, the world's largest and most powerful rocket not once by far, but they launched it twice in the same year, and and they got farther the second time. You know, then they did it with the first. So it is a progression. Is it going fast enough for their plans for, you know, private trips around the moon, and and to meet their obligations to NASA? Probably not right now. They have to solve a lot of other challenges that are beyond just launching the rocket into orbit, because they have to do refueling and all of that stuff.

37:51 - Rod Pyle (Host)
But the next, that's a big one, by the way, because at this point we the number of refuel flights we hear keeps getting larger and larger.

38:00 - Tariq Malik (Host)
That's pretty critical and they're going to do like an internal vehicle test Of that technology, the very first one on the third flight, which could happen in january. So They've got a lot. I mean, I've you seen the, the images? I've been out there.

38:13 - Rod Pyle (Host)
They have what? Do you stand a star base? All right, they have three or four of these things lined up beyond the launch and more boosters.

38:19 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I mean they're all like they're not ready to go. Yeah, yeah.

38:23 - Leonard David (Guest)
But how many of those are you? If you're NASA, though, I'm sorry. You know at some point there's cut bait on this spacex Deal, because you know, if you know, they got their own problems. The gao just did another study. You know, at the all the quagmire of, you know, like you know again, you know I'm getting old, it's a gomer pile effect. You know, surprise, surprise, you know it's Well, my god, they're gonna be over costing, and you know technical issues and all this. So you know, I don't know where this intersection comes of, where NASA Feels like they're ready to do the moon landing and they got no way to get the people down on the moon. Right seems to be a negative.

39:12 - Rod Pyle (Host)
But it also seems like spacex the, the pace of development on this lunar lander and who knows what's happening at Blue Origins. It does seem like it's giving NASA proper and bowing in particular, a little bit of cover. Well, and the space suit makers, in terms of, you know, it'd be great if we had a lunar lander, but you guys need EVA suits and you haven't actually built a new, yeah, through EVA suit since 1988, I believe, which is a long time ago.

39:41 - Tariq Malik (Host)
They also need support on all their rockets. Nasa needs life support on Orion, for Artemis 2, which they're still working on, and SpaceX needs it on the, on the, on the starship. You know all the way there and all the way back, and, and then we need space seats, and then we need rovers and then all the things. So I don't know, there's still a lot. There's still a lot.

39:59
You don't look like a cheerful elf anymore, but what I said is they'll get there eventually, probably on the timeline, but the fact that they're building it, I mean the alternative right now is NASA's second option, with which I think Blue Origin and a couple of others are competing again for that second slot for the other lander. And and there, where's that hardware? We haven't seen any of that stuff being like at all.

40:25 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, I'll leave you with one word, and that is China. All right, we have to go for a break. We'll be right back with the launch that didn't happen yet of you LA's Vulcan. Don't go anywhere, we'll be right back, alright. So, speaking of Vulcans, I'm doing my, my, my Vulcan finger thing here.

40:46
United Launch Alliance is working on their replacement for the Atlas 5 for an awfully long time, speaking of late projects and you know part of this is predicated on we got to change engines on the Atlas because they were running Russian engines and Russian beta Ukraine. And one thing came to another and Congress said you can't buy engines of Russia and Russia said we're not gonna sell you engines anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was it for the Atlas. And the Atlas was expensive to build and although it was redesigned About, I guess, 15 years ago, you know the roots of the Atlas go back to the 50s and ICBMs, so this is not a cheap way of building a rocket. Tori Bruno himself in an interview said you know, frankly, we sort of saw the light when we saw the SpaceX was doing and we had to kind of Rejigger how we were doing things, both in terms of cost, process time and everything else. So hence the Vulcan. And what was the first projected launch date for the Vulcan? Do you guys remember?

41:46 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I was gonna be earlier this year. It was supposed to be earlier, I thought it was, but prior to 20 originally.

41:51 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, oh, yeah, wow, but you know it's it's hard to build rockets and and they were although ULA has been doing it for an awful long time, and I know they were working on a partial recovery system I last I read they were gonna eject the engines and parachute them down and catch them. Yeah, helicopter and all that stuff. Where do we stand with Vulcan, you guys?

42:12 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Well, we actually heard from Tori Bruno, you know, just just this week, actually was it was it earlier today or was it yesterday?

42:20
Anyway, they did a wet dress rehearsal that they've done to actually for the, the first Vulcan rocket called cert one, I believe, is the mission, and, and they didn't get the signals like the readings that they wanted during the first one, which over, which was over the last weekend, and so they were able to get through one earlier this week, just a day or two ago, and and they say that that it, you know it, they got the data that they wanted from from that fueling that they're.

42:47
They're on track now, for I believe it's a January 9th, if memory serves, or January 8th, it's one of those two days, I believe it's it's and, and that's that's a Partially because they have to. They're carrying a mission to the moon I've been the parent peregrine lander and they actually have to launch during certain windows for that, and the next window after their December 24th Target is January, that first week of January, that early January there too. So that's where we are right now with another sticks to that, because I do believe they have to do a full static fire, or at least an initial static fire on the pad to to get comfortable with it. So that's like the next big milestone to see how they do at their pad. As they get they get ready for lunch. But at least everyone's Christmas Eve is safe, you know, from from a new rocket launch but you know the main thing about that thing.

43:41 - Leonard David (Guest)
You know I gotta help them. I hope it works. But you know, having a lunar mission on top of that thing for the first flight.

43:48
Yeah he's 40 right off and this you know could bode well or bode bad for the commercial lunar program of the clips program that NASA's you know we're riding on and there's a number of other. You know lunar landers that NASA's put some money into and you got the private said this is a crapshoot. You know we're at a point where that thing, you know you got NASA running around with a lot of these. You know low-cost launchers trying to Snuggle on there and save money and they're trying to do the best but anyway that that launches beyond ULA. It really is a signal about private involvement in lunar exploration as far as NASA's concerned. So it's a. It's a, it's a big mission In a lot of ways, so that that one worries me a lot.

44:48
And you mentioned China going out and you know that's the story. I Continue to say and I will drop over dead saying it China is the story. They are calling the tombs. They're gonna do Mars sample return. They're gonna do more lunar sample return. They're getting more gutsy about their international space station. You're gonna see more modules go up. You may see next year what. Now it's Flip. But they're on their own Hubble Telescope near their space station that they hope to launch.

45:25
And you know, I just see them as like, and they just launched their experimental x-37b Copycat or whatever Shenlong, shenlong, rate the Shenlong space.

45:37 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, I like copycat better. I think that's more apt.

45:40 - Leonard David (Guest)
Well, we don't know you know we don't have a lot of detail what that thing does. I think the US military knows exactly. They probably got pictures, you know it's up there. So anyway, and we are, x-37b Superliner military space vehicle is on the pad, Going through shenanigans there. We're not sure what's going on getting that off. So yeah, it's. It's really what a great end of the year, you know. Yeah, forecast of things to come.

46:14 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Well, and it's worth mentioning, I think, that especially for for Leonard and I, because we're old dudes- yeah, you know it's pretty clear that the US NASA in particular, but the US in general seems that mostly because of money from Congress seems to work better when we have somebody to be pissed off at and to push against and we saw it during the space race, we saw it during the Cold War with with Reagan's strategic defense initiative projects, otherwise known as Star Wars, over and over and over again. When we've got somebody to shake a fist and clench our teeth at, we pick up the pace, get off our behinds and get things done, if not at least in the peacetime sector. Things seem to really drag and, by the way, gentlemen, we've gotten through Three of our 19 stories.

47:03 - Tariq Malik (Host)
No, I was looking at that. There's a lot that happened this year, yeah, yeah.

47:08 - Rod Pyle (Host)
so let's, let's roll on, but first let's go to our next ad break and We'll be right back after this message from our sponsors Stay with us. Speaking of the moon, we had Chandrion three this year was was fabulously successful. We have follow on to the partially successful Chandrion two and the very successful Chandrion one. This is India Making their their spaceflight chops and general technological might felt. And I mean, on top of that it's an extension of the story which we can go into later if we have time. But they're planning a crude spaceflight For as early as maybe late next year or two years hence. But let's talk about Chandrion three. Lunar Orbiter, lunar lander, lunar rover Did cool stuff.

47:57 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, they won this summer, I would say with With this, with this launch. You know, chandrion three was the, the, the comeback story for the India space research organ organization after their initial Chandrion two lander. Vikram, you know, failed to successfully land on the lunar surface a few years ago and and this was kind of a repeat of that, with a little bit more robust Systems and whatnot from the things that they had learned. And in In in the summer they was it, but the around August 23rd or so, that was when their Vikram lander landed, not just with the lander but with a little rover as well, probably on and and it Did phenomenal at last. It actually a little bit longer than they wanted to. They hoped it was gonna come back After its first lunar night. So far I don't think that it did.

48:50
But one interesting thing that happened just recently, because we thought that mission was over and they had learned everything that they wanted from it, of course the orbiter Vehicle was, was kind of still up there. They brought that thing back. So the, the cruise stage that delivered the, the lander and and the rover to the moon. They brought it back to Earth orbit just to see if they could do it, and that was a big success for them too, which means they can now go to and from the moon, you know, with these, with these vehicles, to get ready for the inevitable Chandrion four and and beyond. So very, very, very great success story, I think it's. It's it's just kind of a model, you know, they, they went to the, the Mars with the Mars orbiter mission for like a tenth the cost, I think, of what NASA's Maven mission was at the time.

49:39 - Rod Pyle (Host)
They were, they were both kind of going there at the same Public figure was 80 million dollars, but they had some command and control help from NASA and JPL, so I don't know what the real numbers were. But yeah, yeah, I was gonna ask Leonard about that, these, these costs, and that the fact that over half well, over half they're workforce is women, which is kind of cool. Yeah, of course, part of that's because they pay them less, so it's, it's kind of a big bag.

50:04 - Leonard David (Guest)
Yeah, but well, the other thing it stood out, and that Indian mission was the Russian crashing the Luna 25. Yeah, a couple days prior, right, and you know it was a dud, and you know, the Russians trying to get their, their lunar legs underneath them again. After Such a pioneering effort by the well after, starting it right?

50:28 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, they were they were cranking those out.

50:31 - Leonard David (Guest)
They were doing really well. And you again, you look at icky, the, the space science group that worked hard on the payloads and and it just did not come together and they had a software glitch and they lost it. So, yeah, you know, but they're committed apparently to go ahead with the next series of lunar missions and you know, hopefully you'll get it right. I like to see. You know they got such a talent, you know, frankly, a Talent base over there. You know whether you hate Russia, love them. You know, whatever it is, they got a great science background and you know, from a From a research standpoint and the science that they can do with their landers, it will be impressive if they can ever get some things to work technologically. So I'm I don't count Russia out, but they really got a black eye on Luna 25. That's for sure, because they were they were a success.

51:37 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, and that had to be kind of embarrassing and they were launching, I believe, the first, the very first Luna probes. Were they 1960 or 1959?

51:47 - Leonard David (Guest)
They were really early, oh early man. No, no, you know, as a kid I grew up, you know, watching my San Diego Union front page. You know the Farsight of the moon taken by a Russian spacecraft. I mean, you know it was pretty exciting time and we have never seen the far side. So, yeah, yeah, I was. They come back. I think the other big story that nobody's paying attention to NASA, you know it's finally given a go ahead to try to do returns samples with the Chinese. This is a big thing, you know, getting around the political Wolf trap problem and having Funded research. I just got that. I just got that. Okay, I'm a minute. It's some of the coffee starting to hit now, so I'm. Anyway, you know we got a beginning of what I hope is gonna be an exchange program between NASA and China, because I think If China is successful in getting Mars samples back, let's make sure we got the bureaucracies in place, because you know they're probably be successful. One would hope Somebody will bring samples back, because that's God. That's another god-awful story there.

53:14 - Tariq Malik (Host)
But but just it. Just, I think, to clarify really quickly the samples Leonard was talking about. That's a new agreement to share the, the lunar samples from the Changi five sample return mission, right, so, but it is as, as, as you mentioned, it is like a really significant like Kind of cross pollination sharing moment because of the political issues that we've had cooperating with the US, has had cooperating with with China in in the past, and so so it'll be interesting to see how that Moves forward as China continues its own lunar programs, as NASA continues its own to for sample return, etc.

53:53 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, and you know, mars sample return is an interesting topic to me because I wrote a chapter and I think it was there at Planche Robots a couple years ago Looking at Mars sample return. What are you laughing at?

54:05 - Leonard David (Guest)
That book sold. At least I have written about Mars sample return. Most of our life has been writing Mars sample.

54:11 - Rod Pyle (Host)
That book sold at least 2,000 copies. But you know the Russians were looking. We've been looking at this for decades. As you point out, the Russians were looking at it for decades. The Russians had a big, heavy, fully pressurized for their crude electronics version of this ready to go, at least on paper in the 1970s, started building it. It would have been a monster. It's really complicated to do this and that, of course, never flew. We talked about it and talked about it and looked at it and scratched our heads and got the Vikings there in 1976, which was amazing. Two urbaners, two landers, very successful, but they didn't bring anything back and you can only do so much when you're there. So, leonard, or either of you guys, what's the latest? I'm cringey to ask this. What's the latest realistic cost estimate on Mars sample return? Oh man, I have to look that up.

55:05 - Leonard David (Guest)
No, they're up to 11 billion yeah.

55:09
And I've been monitoring. You know the person that should get a lot of exposure, but you know she does show up at the various meetings and Lori Glaze. She's running the planetary budget and, frankly, she's running around trying to calm everybody, whether you're a Venus person or you're a Mars person or you're a Ropa or whatever Her messages stand by. Budgets are bad. We're going to see a real nosedive here and the money is not going to be available to do the kinds of things that everybody has been working very hard to do, including Mars sample return. At $11 billion, this thing capsizes the entire budget. Now they got protective tissue somehow rhetoric wise around spending that much money without damaging the rest of the whole planetary space science program. I think that's a lot of hand waving. This thing is in trouble big time. This independent review board pretty much put a nail on the coffin on that thing and go back to bare wood. But what is bare wood for Mars sample return? You know you almost get to the point. Where is this really worth it?

56:34
Yeah, Is this really a program that should go ahead.

56:40 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, and that independent review board found in September that there was a quote, unquote near zero probability of launching between 2027 and 2028, as per this latest assessment.

56:52 - Leonard David (Guest)
So they're looking at 2030 now Again 2030,.

56:55 - Tariq Malik (Host)
It's always 10 to 20 years out, Always.

57:00 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So the Mars sample return rocket will cross paths with incoming modules from the International.

57:05 - Leonard David (Guest)
Space Station in 2030.

57:08 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Tariq, why don't you pick our next story, since we're kind of reaching the thin ice here?

57:13 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Yeah, we got a lot. You know, I would say one of the things that I really want to highlight we're talking about sample return a lot, and we mentioned it earlier at the start is just how amazing the OSIRIS REC's mission was this year to bring back the samples from Bennu. You know, we're already getting like a taste of what the science return is and it's, by all accounts, it sounds like they might have a massive amount of samples as soon as they can get the container open, which is a little bit of like a funny little twist to it, but they'll get it open eventually, even if they got it.

57:55 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Just to be fair, there are people that were I think I was looking through letters the editor the other day on Ad Astra and somebody had written you know, I'll show those guys how to put a screwdriver there and crack that thing open. And it's like you know, there's a lot of stuff to consider. If you're going to put a tool in there, you got to make sure it's not going to react with the sample. If you pick up the container and start shaking it, you got to make sure that's not going to damage the sample. So this is very precious stuff that we're not going to see again for a long time and I'll tell you.

58:23 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I'll tell you, I had flashbacks watching the return. I mean, our editor, brett Tingley, was there. I think, leonard, you were there right, oh yeah. And I was there for the landing and I had flashbacks back to when, Leonard, you were out there for Genesis in Utah waiting for the.

58:38
Genesis capsule to come back and we were all kind of in our little spacecom mission control like tracking the live stream and I remember to this day when our content editor Tosh said, as they caught it on camera, is it supposed to be wobbling like that? Because the Genesis capsule had not deployed its parachute? And then it just crashed into the desert floor and was just all shattered. And then they still got some samples and some science out of it, which is great. But you always have that in the back of your mind.

59:11
And to watch it go as near flawlessly as it did they did have, I believe, some like a drug parachute issue, but they didn't prevent the thing from landing Luckily was just absolutely swimming. And knowing Dante Loretta personally and having spoken with him and gotten to know him and a lot of the rest of the Osiris-Rex team, was just really heartened to see that go the way that they had hoped it would go after so many years to get out to the asteroid, to try to get the samples and to come back. And it was kind of the kickoff for what has been a really amazing fall and end of the year for asteroid science. We had the Psyche asteroid mission to the metal asteroid worth whatever, which was a billion dollars in metals, went off without a hitch as well.

01:00:05
We had the Lucy spacecraft, which is out to visit multiple asteroids in the solar system swing by its first target and find out that it wasn't just one, but it was multiple asteroids, which is crazy. And so those findings just keep coming and it's all just really exciting to kind of see what our solar system is made of with much more detail, and now with hands on with all of these samples going around, Well, and with Lucy.

01:00:35 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So that was asteroid 152830. That was actually turned out to be another one of these weirdo contact binaries right yeah, dinkinesh.

01:00:44 - Tariq Malik (Host)
I think its name is Dinkinesh actually.

01:00:46 - Rod Pyle (Host)
These things come together slowly and they just kind of bump into each other and they stick. So instead of annihilating each other, they go up and go. Hey, how are you doing? Let's get together. And there they are, for keeps.

01:00:57
Well, we've done it again. We've run up the top of the hour with a bunch of stories left. So I say we put these into a sample return container and set them aside until we can afford to bring them home. And I want to thank both you guys for joining me for this holiday moment. Leonard, we really appreciate you coming along. I know your life's been very busy and I appreciate you making time for us and hope you'll come back when we do our wrap around. Rest these stories, because it's fun having you here and, frankly, you give me a perspective on UFOs. Slash UAPs, slash dot, dot, dot, whatever you want to call them. I don't get anywhere else and I appreciate that.

01:01:40 - Leonard David (Guest)
Well, I got a lot to learn. There's a lot to explore and I hope the journalists that are working hard on this story crack it open.

01:01:48 - Rod Pyle (Host)
No, I hope so too, and I'm counting on you to do that. And Tark, where can we find you delivering lumps of coal this holiday season?

01:01:55 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Well, you know it is the season for tamales, so, if everything goes right, I will be celebrating the holidays with my family over in California. We'll be having some some tasty, tasty tamales and ringing in that new year. But but I'll miss everybody, all you listeners out there, and I'm looking forward to what may be an even busier, which I find hard to imagine 2024 in space exploration next year. So a lot to look forward to. Artemis 2 and the solar eclipse are just the tip of that iceberg in 2024. So you'll want to watch out and get ready for it.

01:02:35 - Rod Pyle (Host)
And Tark, I just want you to know. I'll be going to Dallas for the solar eclipse, but because spacecom never invites me to anything they do, including the Genesis landing, no, I'll be nice, I'll invite you. Leonard, you have a great website where you break stories all the time.

01:02:50 - Leonard David (Guest)
I try or.

01:02:52 - Rod Pyle (Host)
L.

01:02:52 - Leonard David (Guest)
Well, there's a break. There's a lot of, a lot of things happening at once and keeping an eye on it is it's fun, but it's can be frustrating. And 2024, I agree, wow. I don't know what's going to happen, but, man, it's going to eclipse this year.

01:03:10 - Rod Pyle (Host)
So is it? Is it Leonard David dot com? Yep, all right.

01:03:15 - Tariq Malik (Host)
And Mars Boy on Twitter.

01:03:17 - Leonard David (Guest)
I think right.

01:03:17 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Right Leonard. Oh yeah, Mars Boy.

01:03:20 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Mars, mars Boy, I'd like that. That makes me feel young and that's why I said it. Of course, you can always find me at pilebookscom and at astramagazinecom, where all my stuff hangs out. Please don't forget us. Don't forget to drop us a line at twist at twittv. That's, tw IS at twittv. We love getting your comments, suggestions, ideas and your jokes. I forgot to do the joke pitch this week, but that is your jokes, because that last one I thought was a, was a real slam dunk. I thought he really knocked it out of the park.

01:03:53 - Tariq Malik (Host)
Which would you say it's out of this world.

01:03:54 - Rod Pyle (Host)
The IS. You are disintegrated. We love getting your comments, except for TRX. Don't forget to check out spacecom, the websites and the names. The best thing going online and next best thing is national space society. At annisesorg we just revamped our website Great expense and effort. It was a oh gosh nine months, I think, with our great web designer, david Crump, and I think finally. You know, when I started working with the NSS again, I joined him in the 80s and I kind of came back in the mid 2000s and I looked at the website and it looked like something had been optimized for Netscape 3. You know, it was everything practically burlap and pushpins and we updated it once and it was better, but now it looks like a true 21st, the verse third, the 21st century website. So check it out. Nssorg both are good places. Satisfy your Space Flight Cravings.

01:04:55
New episodes of this podcast publish every Friday, except for the next two on your favorite pod catcher. We're taking Christmas break, so be sure to subscribe, tell your friends and give us reviews. Folks, we need numbers. We're trying to stay free to everybody to listen to and if we're going to do that, we need numbers. We could use club twit members, but probably more important than that is we really need numbers, we need subscribers, we need you to share the faith with your friends and show your love and click those buttons, thumbs up, subscribe all that junk, because otherwise we can't keep doing this and if we can't keep doing this, tark and I won't be able to hang out together on Fridays. That's my plea to you, don't forget.

01:05:38
You can get all the great programming on the Twit Network ad free, on club twit for just $7 a month. They're facing tough times, so do us all a favor and go over and sign up. You can get one show for $3.99 or all for $7. And you can follow the Twit Tech Podcast Network at twit on Twitter and on Facebook and twittv and Instagram. So, tark, I'd like to ask you to hang around for a bit longer, because we're going to cover a couple more stories that club members can find in the twit plus feed, so you're going to stay with me. Yeah, yeah, let's do it. Thanks very much, everybody, and happy holidays. Those are my jingle bells out of tune as they are Happy.

01:06:23 - Leonard David (Guest)
New Year.

01:06:24 - Rod Pyle (Host)
Yeah, we'll see you guys on the flip side, take care.