0:00

Coming up on this weekend's

0:02

space, we'll talk with Emily

0:04

Carnian Bruce McCallis III about

0:07

their new book Starbound and

0:09

whether we're going to the

0:11

moon, Mars, or somewhere beyond.

0:14

Plus a big sneak peek

0:16

at the American Space Program.

0:18

And also, Trump wants to

0:20

go to Mars and more,

0:22

so tune in. This

0:24

is this week in space

0:26

episode number 145 recorded on

0:29

January 24th 2025 We're starbound

0:31

Hello and welcome to another

0:33

episode of this week in space

0:36

the starbound edition I'm rod pile

0:38

editor-in-chief bad-aster magazine and I'm joined

0:40

sadly by dark malek Saturday chief

0:43

at space.com. Hello my friend. Hello,

0:45

rod. Hello, rod sadly. He says

0:47

it with a big old smile.

0:49

So it's you know you love

0:52

me I always smile on him,

0:54

right? You know, I was looking

0:56

the other day at that picture

0:58

we took at the Economist Summit

1:00

last year. We have your hat

1:03

halfway off and you're laughing and

1:05

I'm laughing as I'm pointing at your

1:07

stuff. That's my favorite picture of

1:09

us, okay. With clothes on anyway.

1:12

Oh my gosh, oh, wow. This

1:14

week, we'll be talking with the

1:16

authors of a fine new book

1:18

called Starbound, Emily Kearney and Bruce

1:20

McCandless. He was Bruce McCandless the second.

1:22

This is Bruce McCandless the third. And

1:24

I can't say that more than twice

1:27

in a row without following it up.

1:29

But before we start, please don't forget

1:31

to do as a solid. Make sure to

1:33

like, subscribe, and all the other cool podcast

1:36

things to show the world how much you

1:38

love us. And this is your last chance

1:40

to take the 2025 quit audience survey.

1:42

This annual survey helps us

1:44

understand the audience. So we can

1:47

improve your listing and viewing experience

1:49

because we care. It only takes

1:51

a few minutes. So if you

1:53

would do so for us, please

1:55

go to twit. TV slash survey

1:57

to take it. Don't wait because

1:59

we're in the closing. minutes here

2:01

metaphorically speaking and it'll help

2:03

help us to make the

2:05

show and quit even better

2:07

now we are joke bound

2:09

jokes weeks this week's I

2:11

see what you did there

2:13

this week's joke from Adam

2:15

and Adam says I tried

2:17

to start a hot air

2:19

balloon I tried to start

2:21

a hot air balloon mission

2:23

on the moon but it

2:25

never took off I'm sorry,

2:27

I sort of mangled your

2:29

joke. I didn't write it

2:31

properly, so I was having

2:33

to interpret as I read.

2:35

All right. Now I hear,

2:37

though, that some people want

2:39

to go beyond starbound and

2:41

leap into a white dwarf

2:44

when they hear our jokes.

2:46

But you can help send

2:48

us your best, worst, or

2:50

most of different or unique

2:52

space joke at TWIT.TV. These

2:54

are PG13 rated, so just

2:56

bear that in mind, because

2:58

we've gotten a couple that

3:00

weren't. And now it's time

3:02

for headlines. Headline news. Well,

3:04

we have a new president.

3:06

We have an administration. We have

3:08

a new administrator. Yes. Or will

3:10

soon. We have an interim right

3:12

now. Well, we, I mean, technically

3:14

that's new, right? Yeah. And we

3:16

have a president that wants to

3:18

go where? All right. Well, well,

3:21

we are going to Mars. Apparently.

3:23

So this week, this week, that's

3:25

one of the big stories of

3:27

President Donald day Trump, now the

3:29

47th, as well as the 45th

3:31

president of the United States in

3:33

his inaugural address on Monday of

3:35

this week, said that he wants

3:37

to see astronauts quote, plant the

3:39

stars in stripes on the planet

3:41

Mars. He called it our manifest

3:43

destiny. And as he said, Elon

3:45

Musk, who was there in attendance

3:47

at the capital of rotunda, pumped

3:49

his fist up and gave two

3:51

thumbs up. in a probably the

3:53

cheesiest smile that I've seen, but

3:55

very, very appropriate. He's excited that

3:57

we're going to go to Mars,

3:59

and that's what he wants to

4:02

do. Yeah, and we've been talking

4:04

about this since 1949, at least

4:06

formally, with Ron Braun's Dasmar's project

4:08

book, later published in English and

4:10

53. And we've been talking about

4:12

it since before the mercury program.

4:14

We were talking about it during

4:16

Apollo, during the shuttle program. We've

4:18

had all these design reference missions

4:20

that have come ago and we've

4:22

flown this mission and file cabinets

4:24

for decades. It would be nice

4:26

to really go. Yeah, it's very

4:28

interesting because during the actual campaign

4:30

to become president, Trump said a

4:32

few times that he would like

4:34

to see astronauts land on Mars

4:36

like by the end of his

4:38

term or that, you know, he

4:40

said that he would like to

4:42

see. the United States land on

4:45

Mars by the end of his

4:47

term, which was, you know, you

4:49

can say, okay, launch a mission

4:51

to Mars, it'll get, you know,

4:53

you'll launch on the 20, in

4:55

the 2026 window, it'll get there

4:57

in 2027, that could do it,

4:59

but he didn't say, he would

5:01

like to, you know, he says,

5:03

he would like to, you know,

5:05

he says, and I quote, in

5:07

the inauguration, and we will pursue

5:09

our manifest destiny. into the stars,

5:11

launching American astronauts to plant the

5:13

stars and stripes on the planet

5:15

Mars. Now he doesn't put a

5:17

date in that one. So, you

5:19

know, in the earlier to comments,

5:21

it was, we'll get to Mars

5:23

before the end of my term,

5:26

but it wasn't like astronauts, and

5:28

now we're saying astronauts, but not

5:30

a date. Now that would, that

5:32

would mean that you have until,

5:34

what, January 20th, 2029, to put

5:36

astronauts there, for one thing, and

5:38

some sort of big vehicles to

5:40

get there. But it's interesting, and

5:42

it might be like a hint

5:44

of what's to come. One thing

5:46

we didn't talk about in this

5:48

discussion is that the you mentioned

5:50

the new NASA administrator. Trump has

5:52

picked Kennedy Space Center director Janet

5:54

Petrow as the interim NASA administrator

5:56

skipping over associate administrator Jim Free.

5:58

in Washington, a big proponent of

6:00

Artemis in Washington. So that was

6:02

like an unexpected twist this week.

6:04

Skipping over with a bit of

6:07

a hiccup, they did announce Jim

6:09

Free and then they announced Petro.

6:11

That's right. That's right. Yeah, NASA

6:13

actually changed their website to say

6:15

that Jim Free was the acting

6:17

administrator and then had to change

6:19

it again to say that no,

6:21

he's actually. Still associate administrator Janet

6:23

Petro is the acting administrator. So

6:25

well, I want to share something

6:27

with you for those who are

6:29

watching the stream This is the

6:31

new mug I got from loyal

6:33

listener an old friend Martin Loller

6:35

Martin my new space thugs mug

6:37

And it's kind of the the

6:39

other space hipsters except it's only

6:41

got two members so far me

6:43

and Martin grand puba you have

6:45

a grand puma mug. Yeah, well,

6:47

so that's my horrible illustration, but

6:50

anyway I kind of feel like

6:52

we're headed that way in some

6:54

fashion. Do you want to do

6:56

you want to do line two

6:58

next or go to line four?

7:00

Well, I guess the one thing

7:02

that we would mention just because

7:04

we are talking about the administration

7:06

change is that there are, in

7:08

addition to having an interim NASA

7:10

chief, there are already other echoes

7:12

being felt or reverberations from the

7:14

administration, many listeners may have heard

7:16

about the Trump executive orders to

7:18

end all DEA operations, diversity equality.

7:20

and is it or is it

7:22

equity equality? And inclusion initiatives across

7:24

all the agencies. NASA was not

7:26

immune to that and there was

7:28

a letter that went out from

7:31

Petro's desk that basically quoted a

7:33

form letter that the administration sent

7:35

to all of the agency directors

7:37

that would say that everyone has

7:39

to stop. So so they've they've

7:41

shut down their whole operation or

7:43

are in the works of shutting

7:45

that whole thing down now too

7:47

and it's the first. of what

7:49

we expect to be many different

7:51

changes to come at the agency

7:53

as the new administration and eventually

7:55

their pick for a new administrator

7:57

take root. Now there was some

7:59

talk I don't remember it was

8:01

I think it was in the

8:03

Atlantic maybe about this also releasing

8:05

either some individuals or some positions.

8:07

Now I assume if you work

8:09

in a DEA-related office that that's

8:12

going to get closed. But how

8:14

else does that affect the workforce?

8:16

Well the executive order does say

8:18

that they have until January 31st

8:20

to roll out the plan to

8:22

to let the people that are

8:24

employed by those offices go. So

8:26

it's very clearly like there will

8:28

be departures from NASA from all

8:30

of the agencies if they have

8:32

a specific office that was geared

8:34

at that sort of program. There's

8:36

also a whole thing about they

8:38

have to inform on other people

8:40

if they may have changed the

8:42

name. Yeah. There's a whole, it's

8:44

a big mess. You know, that's

8:46

a little more uncomfortable. Yeah. But

8:48

hey, if there's money in it,

8:50

give me a phone number. I'm

8:52

just joking. I'm just joking. One

8:55

of Earth's seven weirdo quasi moons

8:57

was recently named after a competition.

8:59

This was a headscratcher. Yeah. Because

9:01

it was named after the goddess

9:03

of door hinges. That's right. That's

9:05

right. That's right. This was a

9:07

story that at Space.com from Monisha

9:09

Revasetti, our astronomy editor. But yeah,

9:11

they named it Cardi... I think

9:13

I'm going to pronounce it right.

9:15

Cardia. Cardia, the goddess of the

9:17

Dorianch. And it was named by

9:19

Clay, I think, Chill Cup, man,

9:21

I'm really bad with names at

9:23

the University of Georgia because they

9:25

won the naming contest with the

9:27

IOU, which is of course in

9:29

charge of naming objects. The object

9:31

is called 2004 GU9. The IAU

9:33

ran a naming contest with Radio

9:36

Lab, another, another. science radio show

9:38

to see exactly what they would

9:40

they would call it and this

9:42

is the name that won so

9:44

you know cardia door hinges so

9:46

next time I won't be named

9:48

after the goddess of spark plugs

9:50

or sponges or something well I

9:52

mean laugh at you but it's

9:54

better than 2004 g you nine

9:56

you know true but you could

9:58

just call it Jeff and be

10:00

done with it yeah yeah for

10:02

tari that's a good name for

10:04

any object you know in space.

10:06

So I've got a couple of

10:08

objects right over here in my

10:10

bathroom that I named Tark. Oh

10:12

my god. No, no, it's too

10:14

early. It's too early. But enough

10:17

about my plunger. You picked the

10:19

last one. Yeah. So, you know,

10:21

we got to pick. Well, we

10:23

did we talked about Elon and

10:25

Mars. Okay, no, let's go. Wait,

10:27

you could do both of them.

10:29

You're the one. You're the one

10:31

that always grinds on me about

10:33

red. All right. a couple a

10:35

couple of things in the very

10:37

very very fast we're going to

10:39

be in order there was there

10:41

was a really fun story from

10:43

from from well not just from

10:45

space space com but but across

10:47

about the first meteorite impact caught

10:49

by a doorbell camera is not

10:51

something and you can hear it

10:53

so it's like you're you're looking

10:55

at someone's doorstep and then all

10:58

the time like poof like something

11:00

falls out of the sky there

11:02

you go that's the sound into

11:04

something metal right Well it hit

11:06

the concrete I saw a different

11:08

angle and it's like the walkway

11:10

up to the house is what

11:12

it looks like. And then it

11:14

looks like it would hurt. Yeah

11:16

it left a big attraction like

11:18

a big mark. I love it

11:20

I love it and that was

11:22

that was in Prince Edward Island

11:24

by homeowner Joe I think I'm

11:26

gonna pronounce it right Valadium who

11:28

noticed this this like a chalky

11:30

mark. you know that what we

11:32

now know is this it meteorite

11:34

impact and he went back and

11:36

looked and to see what it

11:38

was and saw the video of

11:41

it and it's not something they've

11:43

ever heard before they've they've They've,

11:45

they've, it's a brand new thing.

11:47

And so the University of Alberta

11:49

went and confirmed it, that it

11:51

was a meteorite, and, and now

11:53

we've, he's, I wonder if he's

11:55

gonna lose sighted it over so

11:57

you can have like the impact

11:59

on it. You know, like, forever

12:01

preserved. That's what I would do.

12:03

So you could charge an extra

12:05

$500,000 for the house and it

12:07

goes up for sale. There you

12:09

go. There you go. Last one.

12:11

Last one is just a note,

12:13

SpaceX launched three Falcon 9s this

12:15

week, culminating in a January 21st

12:17

launch. Actually, they launched one hours

12:19

before our recording. What was their

12:22

400th Falcon landing? Never 400. So

12:24

it feels like not too long

12:26

ago we were doing 300, you

12:28

know, halfway through last year, and

12:30

now we're at 400, which is...

12:32

Absolutely crazy. So I mean it's

12:34

amazing that a company like that

12:36

can even launch 400 much less

12:38

land them and bring them back.

12:40

Yeah I keep waiting for the

12:42

next ULA launch and I still

12:44

haven't heard any news about when

12:46

they're planning to launch the launch

12:48

the planning to launch the Vulcan

12:50

again. I heard that it's gonna

12:52

be sometime in the spring. Are

12:54

they still for sale? I haven't

12:56

heard anything on that in a

12:58

while. So we'd have to we'd

13:00

have to see but but I

13:03

heard yeah the Nux Vulcan rocket

13:05

rocket's gonna be sometime in the

13:07

spring for it's gonna be sometime

13:09

in the spring for it's gonna

13:11

be something. It's gonna be a

13:13

four it's gonna be a four

13:15

it's gonna be a four it's

13:17

gonna be a Space Force National

13:19

Security launch, which is what they

13:21

wanted to get accredited for. So

13:23

yeah, so that 400 landings, that

13:25

was Starlink mission, 27 Starlings in

13:27

space, many more, I think they've

13:29

launched like 60 in a space

13:31

this week, which is crazy. Well,

13:33

before you know it, we'll have

13:35

the same number on Starship. Yeah,

13:37

yeah, hopefully. All right, well stand

13:39

by everybody we'll be back at

13:41

just a few moments with Emily

13:43

Kearney and Bruce McCandless to talk

13:46

about Starbound All right, welcome back

13:48

everybody. We are here with Emily

13:50

Kearney take about Emily Emily Emily

13:52

is the co-author of the book

13:54

we're going to be talking about

13:56

today and the grand czar mistress

13:58

whatever of Space Hippers 60,000 members

14:00

strong on Facebook which is a

14:02

remarkable group, definitely the place to

14:04

be, if you're interested, in all

14:06

things, space. And with her is

14:08

her co-author, Bruce McCandless, the third,

14:10

God, I almost said the second,

14:12

I'm sorry, the third, who is

14:15

famous in his own right, and

14:17

is your primary purpose in life

14:19

as a lawyer, other than the author?

14:21

Yeah, I was a lawyer for 25

14:23

years and retired back in 2019, and

14:26

so, since then I've been writing, yeah.

14:29

Retired? What's that like? Yes,

14:31

sir. Well, I am still

14:33

working, but... You retired into

14:35

working harder, probably. A little

14:38

less anxiety. I mean, you

14:40

know, practicing law is an

14:42

all-consuming sort of thing, and

14:44

it's hard on the nervous

14:47

system. I'm enjoying riding a

14:49

lot better. Well after the show I'm

14:51

going to have to talk to you

14:53

about the switch in revenue from Lawyer's

14:55

Law. Yes. Because it was certainly a

14:57

wake-up call for me moving television to

15:00

read the books. That's funny my wife

15:02

wants to talk to me about that

15:04

too. Really? Will she be joining us

15:06

today? She'll be joining the conversations with

15:08

you. So Emily had Bruce have written

15:11

a wonderful new book called Starbound.

15:13

Wish you should definitely check out

15:15

if you get a chance and

15:17

I... I guess I haven't told

15:20

you guys. I think you're shortchanging

15:22

it. It's starbound a beginner's guide

15:24

to the American Space Program from

15:26

Goddard's rockets to Goldilax planets

15:28

and everything in between. Let's

15:30

see the whole thing. And

15:32

publishers love their subtitles. And

15:34

we'll be writing a review

15:36

on it in at Astro coming up

15:39

next quarter. And it's very very

15:41

favorable, deservedly so. There it

15:43

is. Let's see that cover. Very

15:45

good. viewers and listeners because you're

15:48

gonna want to go find that

15:50

on Amazon if you can find

15:52

it wherever bookstore Amazon we'll

15:54

take we'll take the sales anywhere you

15:56

can not anywhere you might from it's

15:59

the publisher of Nebraska Press. Oh,

16:01

okay. Okay. Is it, but it's

16:03

not part of the outward Odyssey

16:05

series. It's it is. It is

16:07

indeed part of the outward Odyssey.

16:09

My God, you broke the cover

16:11

convention. We did. You're the first

16:13

ones, I think. There was a

16:15

pitched battle in that regard, and

16:17

we managed to score this great

16:19

painting by Chris Calli that that

16:22

is not in the, in the,

16:24

in the, in the painting, actually

16:26

the background is. more of a

16:28

purple color and that was going

16:30

a little too far for the

16:32

UNP folks. So they wanted it,

16:34

they made it black, as you

16:36

can tell. But we're so excited

16:38

to have that image. It's such

16:40

a beautiful painting and of course

16:42

it's the artist's take on Gene

16:44

Cernon's Apollo 17 famous photograph of

16:46

Gene Cernon. I like that publisher

16:49

who's just done such wonderful things

16:51

over the years. I mean, it's

16:53

an incredible series working with great

16:55

authors, great editors. I don't have

16:57

a book through them yet. I've

16:59

negotiated with them a few times,

17:01

but everything I've heard has been

17:03

just glowing reviews in terms of

17:05

working with them. That said, covers

17:07

are always difficult. Yeah. Well, yeah,

17:09

now with this one, this one,

17:11

we're hoping folks judge this book

17:13

by its cover because it turned

17:16

out really well. And we're pleased

17:18

with it. And we should mention

17:20

for viewers who may not know,

17:22

there may be two or three

17:24

of you out of the tens

17:26

of thousands that watch and listen

17:28

every week. that Bruce's father was

17:30

an astronaut and in fact was

17:32

Bruce McCandless the second the first

17:34

astronaut to fly free and untethered

17:36

which I remember watching that back

17:38

at the time and feeling this

17:41

growing pit of terror in my

17:43

stomach because you know the way

17:45

I mean the way it was

17:47

portrayed the news it's like oh

17:49

this is exciting it's new it's

17:51

different he's flying free he's testing

17:53

on this little one-man spacecraft and

17:55

all that and I'm thinking there's

17:57

no rope. Exactly. I imagine you

17:59

may have been thinking the same

18:01

thing as a young man. You

18:03

know I was a I was

18:05

22 I guess at the time

18:08

20 maybe almost 23 I was

18:10

in Great Britain studying I was

18:12

doing a master's degree over there

18:14

and I was sitting in a

18:16

bar basically some some buddies watching

18:18

it so I didn't feel a

18:20

whole lot of terror. I remember

18:22

being, you know, interested, amazed by

18:24

the whole process. But I wasn't,

18:26

I wasn't scared. You know, dad

18:28

had spent 20 years or so

18:30

working on that thing and we

18:32

were just glad he's finally getting

18:35

a chance to test it out.

18:37

He was confident in it. And,

18:39

you know, as far as we

18:41

were concerned, if he was okay

18:43

with it, we were okay. But

18:45

I will I will echo your

18:47

your sentiment that while NASA portrayed

18:49

it as is not such a

18:51

big deal There were others like

18:53

recalculators if you know NASA was

18:55

was sort of peddling a line

18:57

there That wasn't completely right. It

18:59

was a pretty dangerous thing to

19:02

be doing and and maybe that's

19:04

why we're not doing it anymore.

19:06

You know Yeah, it was affected.

19:08

Yeah, and what year was that?

19:10

It was 84. Yeah, so that

19:12

was two years before a challenger

19:14

and I was talking to somebody

19:16

the other day in a conference

19:18

about the IMAX film, The Dream

19:20

is Alive, narrated by Walter Cronkite.

19:22

And what a sunny that takes

19:24

take that was on the shuttle,

19:27

you know. Oh, it goes up

19:29

all the time. It's easy. You

19:31

just, you land it, you hose

19:33

it off, you gas it up

19:35

and off you go. And then

19:37

after Challenger, suddenly. I think we

19:39

all got a serious dose of

19:41

reality. I love, I'm sorry, I

19:43

feel like I'm interrupting, I love

19:45

how you put that because I

19:47

never thought of it, it was

19:49

very optimistic, wasn't it? And that

19:51

movie was one of my gateway

19:54

drugs. When I was a kid

19:56

into like the space. I want

19:58

to get into your book, but

20:00

that first time. I'm seeing the

20:02

first launch in that movie where

20:04

they don't do the countdown, there's

20:06

no voiceover, it's just the sounds

20:08

of nature, a couple of shots

20:10

of alligators swimming past, and the

20:12

next thing you know, the caboom,

20:14

the shuttle igniting, and off it

20:16

goes. I just, I had tears

20:18

streaming down my face. Yeah, that's

20:21

the very beginning of the movie,

20:23

right? That's, and then how it

20:25

starts? It actually starts with a,

20:27

I think it starts with a

20:29

landing. But yeah, it's a remarkable

20:31

film and I still love it

20:33

along with Hill, Columbia, but good

20:35

luck catching them at the IMAX

20:37

Theater. Okay, I need to shut

20:39

up about this and get into

20:41

your book. We just talk about

20:43

the episode of what we're talking

20:46

about. It's a great read. It's

20:48

a great read. It's a fun

20:50

read. I want to assault you

20:52

by calling it breezy, but it's

20:54

easy. You know, it's an easy

20:56

access piece, which I suspect is

20:58

exactly what you were going for.

21:00

So Emily, I know you're a

21:02

space you're a. Feels like it

21:04

was written not just by space

21:06

historians, but by historians in general.

21:08

I mean your your context your

21:10

take on history overall. So which

21:13

one of you is the world

21:15

history historian or was it both?

21:17

I think it's a mix of

21:19

us both honestly. God Bruce is

21:21

going to kill me for saying

21:23

this. Bruce is a couple years

21:25

older than I am. He probably

21:27

has a better perspective. on, I

21:29

see, okay, I love the 1970s

21:31

in space. That's kind of an

21:33

era that I focus on a

21:35

lot. You can definitely see a

21:37

lot of my imprint on that,

21:40

in that chapter, in the book.

21:42

Fun news flash. I wasn't alive

21:44

for most the 1970s. Right. So,

21:46

and really, and this, I feel

21:48

like this sounds awful. It's not

21:50

ageism, but as far as Bruce

21:52

is concerned, you know, It's been

21:54

really cool picking his brain about

21:56

certain things that happened during the

21:58

decade because... I don't have

22:01

sort of a perspective on the

22:03

1970s culturally because I wasn't there,

22:05

you know, and, you know, and,

22:07

you know, and this, and I

22:09

wanted that to be a part

22:11

of the chapter sort of, you

22:13

know, okay, this is what was

22:15

happening in space, but this is

22:18

what was happening in the background,

22:20

you know, you had, you know,

22:22

inflation, a lot of sort of

22:24

upheaval. you know socially and politically

22:26

and also in the background you

22:28

had you know the women's rights

22:30

movement yeah the civil rights movement

22:32

going on and things like that

22:35

and it was cool to talk

22:37

to Bruce because he had a

22:39

lot of perspective on that I

22:41

really didn't have frankly because I

22:43

didn't really live through that era

22:45

so I don't know what it

22:47

felt like really at the time

22:49

if that makes sense so I

22:52

think both of us had a

22:54

lot of input and I can't

22:56

speak for Bruce, but I think

22:58

he would agree that we wanted

23:00

the book to sort of have

23:02

a cultural, you know, sort of

23:04

have, you know, okay, this is

23:06

what was happening in space in

23:09

the time, but culturally we wanted

23:11

to talk about what was going

23:13

on in the world and in

23:15

the United States, because obviously that

23:17

does affect what was happening in

23:19

space policy as well. Like if

23:21

you look in, you know, and

23:23

there are certain, I won't go

23:26

too deep into it. unpleasant truce

23:28

that we sort of delved into

23:30

as well that you know it

23:32

happened but you have to sort

23:34

of discuss it so I hope

23:36

that answers the question yeah it

23:38

does and one of those ugly

23:40

truths is going to be that

23:43

Bruce actually mentioned the movie Iron

23:45

Sky but we'll talk about that

23:47

later which was written by a

23:49

guy who I hired for his

23:51

first production job and I called

23:53

him after I saw the movie

23:55

and said Michael What happened? Anyway,

23:58

we'll talk about that another time.

24:00

Bruce, do you wanna jump in

24:02

there before Tark asks his burning

24:04

question? Oh, about history and context.

24:06

Yeah, that's, that's, you know, Emily

24:08

and I aren't. engineers or scientists.

24:10

I think we could describe ourselves

24:12

as cultural historians and that's how

24:15

we sort of come out the

24:17

subject and I was interested in

24:19

talking about space as reflected in

24:21

films and books and as she

24:23

says in politics. So that's, you

24:25

know, I think we do a

24:27

pretty good job of grounding various

24:29

space missions and decisions in what

24:32

was going on in the US

24:34

and the world during the time.

24:36

Yeah, it's really a, sorry Tarak,

24:38

I'm jumping you one more time,

24:40

but it's kind of a remarkable

24:42

blend of really fun detail and

24:44

the general overview, which isn't easy

24:46

to do. Yeah, well, it is

24:49

not easy to do. We were

24:51

aiming for a, actually for a

24:53

much shorter book along the lines

24:55

of Columburgis' Soviets in space and

24:57

just didn't, we missed miserably because

24:59

it ended up being much longer

25:01

and we ended up foregoing an

25:03

index and glossary and various things

25:06

for the sake of the narrative.

25:08

And frankly, we could have written,

25:10

you know, another 75,000 words easily,

25:12

but. you know, along the lines

25:14

of creating a beginner's guide, you

25:16

want to at least strive for

25:18

some some brevity. So, yeah. Well,

25:20

I do resonate with that. And

25:23

the last book I did, I

25:25

did write another 75,000 work that

25:27

ended up thrown back in my

25:29

face. Do we need to go

25:31

to a break? Are we okay

25:33

to continue, Anthony? You can just

25:35

give me a nod. Okay, let's

25:37

go to a break and then

25:40

we'll be right. Tarak, you're up

25:42

at bat. Standby. FanDool takes the

25:44

NFL playoffs to the next level.

25:46

Because right now, new customers can

25:48

bet $5 and get $300 in

25:50

bonus bets if you win. That's

25:52

$300 in bonus bets if you

25:54

win your first $5 bet. The

25:57

FanDool app gives you everything you

25:59

need for live bets, same game

26:01

parlays, and so much more. Plus,

26:03

when you win, you get paid

26:05

instantly. Just visit FanDool.com/bet big to

26:07

join today. And get started with

26:09

$300. and bonus bets. That's FANDUEL.com/bet

26:11

big. Make this playoff season unforgettable

26:14

with Van Dool, an official sports

26:16

book partner of the NFL. Must

26:18

be 21 and up in present

26:20

in select states. For Kansas, in

26:22

affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or

26:24

18 and up, and present in

26:26

DC. First online, real money wager

26:28

only. Five dollar first deposit required.

26:31

Bonus issued is non-withdrawable bonus bets

26:33

which expire seven days after receipt.

26:35

Restrictions apply seven days after receipt.

26:37

Restrictions apply. See terms at Sportsbook.fandule.fand.com.

26:39

G. help line m.a.org or call

26:41

eight hundred three two seven fifty

26:43

fifty fifty for twenty four seven

26:45

support in massachusetts or call one

26:48

eight seven eight hope n y

26:50

in new york i'm no tech

26:52

genius but i know if i

26:54

want my business to crush it

26:56

i need a website now thankfully

26:58

blue host makes it easy i

27:00

customized optimized and monetized everything exactly

27:02

how i wanted with a i

27:05

within minutes my site was up

27:07

i couldn't believe it Plus, Blue

27:09

Host keeps me protected 24-7. No

27:11

more worrying about hackers. I just

27:13

relax and focus on my customers.

27:15

So, whatever your hustle may be,

27:17

secure your online presence in 2025

27:19

with Blue Host. Head to Bluehost.com

27:22

to start now. Well, I kind

27:24

of have a twofer, because I

27:26

usually always start off our interviews

27:28

with a basic question, Emily, and

27:30

Bruce, about like when you ever

27:32

got interested in space, but it

27:34

seems in this case... Emily, you're

27:36

a return, a return visitor and

27:39

Bruce, you know, you seem to

27:41

have a lifelong attachment to the

27:43

program. But I guess just to

27:45

start there, is there, was there

27:47

one driving force that grabs you

27:49

about space exploration either as a

27:51

kid or as an adult that

27:54

got you into it or is

27:56

it just something that that evolved

27:58

over time? I

28:00

think I can guess Bruce's answer. I

28:02

know, right? I feel silly asking the

28:04

question because it's like so obvious. How

28:07

did you get interested in space? There's

28:09

actually more to it. I mean, I

28:11

wasn't tremendously interested as a kid. I

28:13

actually got interested when I started writing

28:16

the story about my dad. My dad,

28:18

toward the end of his life, had

28:20

decided. Okay, maybe my story is worth

28:22

telling. I'm going to maybe write an

28:25

autobiography, but he'd waited a little too

28:27

late and by the time he really

28:29

got started, he was already ill and

28:31

wasn't able to do much on the

28:34

story. So I decided I'd try and

28:36

do it for him. And that necessitated

28:38

a grounding at least in some space

28:40

history. The more I got into it,

28:43

the more excited I got about it

28:45

and things that I had heard as

28:47

a kid started to make sense and

28:49

resonated with me a little more and

28:52

I would really say that that's when

28:54

I got interested in space despite the

28:56

way we grew up down there around

28:58

JSC. And that was only, you know,

29:00

five years ago, so. Boy, you picked

29:03

up a lot of knowledge in that

29:05

time. I feel a bit chagrined. Emily.

29:07

I think I've told the story before,

29:09

but I'll tell it again, that my

29:12

gateway entry into space flight was in

29:14

1981. I lived not very far from

29:16

Kennedy Space Center, and as a kid,

29:18

you know, the space shuttle was brand

29:21

new, and one day my mom was

29:23

like, hey, the space shuttle's going up,

29:25

you know, and I was like, and

29:27

I had a peripheral knowledge of what

29:30

the space shuttle was, you know, I'd

29:32

seen, probably it on TV, stuff like

29:34

that. Sure enough we go outside and

29:36

we look over to the east and

29:39

there's the space shuttle. I mean there

29:41

you could see it from where we

29:43

were we were probably about 120 miles

29:45

out and you could see you know

29:48

these orange flames kind of going up

29:50

and I was like oh my god

29:52

and I couldn't get over the fact

29:54

that there were human beings on top

29:57

of that. I mean that just blew

29:59

my mind. for me was the aha

30:01

moment and later I was like man

30:03

what year was that you know and

30:05

I triangulate it because I was real

30:08

little when that happened and I sort

30:10

of did some digging and I was

30:12

like that was STS too because we

30:14

had just moved to Oldsmar Florida at

30:17

the time so it was STS too

30:19

with Engle and truly so that was my

30:21

gateway and it was real cool because I

30:23

think it was 35 years to the

30:25

day of STS too I met Joe Engle

30:27

General Joe Engel, rest in peace,

30:30

he passed away last year. And also

30:32

truly also passed away last year, I

30:34

never got to meet him. But yeah,

30:36

that was my like, oh my God,

30:38

I'm obsessed moment. And I've been into

30:40

it since I was a little kid, you

30:42

know, and it's just that I've just loved

30:45

it since I was a child. And it's

30:47

always been a passion for me. Yeah. So

30:49

I hope that answers it. It does. And

30:51

I think you were there when you

30:54

met angle. That was at Spacefast space

30:56

fast, right. Right. I think I met

30:58

him actually for the first time.

31:00

I did see him at Space Fest,

31:02

but I met him at an astronaut

31:04

scholarship foundation event. It's a funny story.

31:07

I used to drink. I was at

31:09

a teaky bar of all things. I

31:11

was at a teaky bar in Coco Beach.

31:13

And the ASF event was taking place

31:16

there. Me and a friend of

31:18

mine were at the bar, you

31:20

know, drinking has one does. And

31:22

we look over and there's freaking

31:24

Joe Engel just sitting there with

31:26

his wife. Genie, who's also wonderful.

31:28

And I'm like, oh my God,

31:30

it's Joe Engel. It's my lifelong

31:32

hero. And my friend's like, just

31:35

no say hi to him. And

31:37

I was like, no, I don't

31:39

want to say hi to him.

31:41

I'm going to start crying. And

31:43

my friend's like, just say hi

31:45

to him. So I was like,

31:47

OK. So I went over and

31:49

of course I said something stupidly.

31:51

General Engel, you're one of my

31:54

heroes. You know, you got me

31:56

into space. They were very tolerant

31:58

of my ridiculous. Joe was fair.

32:00

engaging and easy and I think

32:02

genie I would describe as more

32:04

tolerant. Yeah she was nice but

32:06

she's cool about it because she

32:08

she understands I mean she thought

32:10

he was the hottest thing too

32:12

but yeah I met them in

32:14

2010 and we spent I was

32:16

working at JSC for a while

32:18

so we spent her for my

32:20

time together and I kept saying

32:22

you know we ought to write

32:24

a book on you and And,

32:27

you know, I think if you

32:29

ask nuts or like this, but

32:31

particularly Joe with that kind of

32:33

home spun down home. Oh heck

32:35

gosh, scolly shucks kind of thing.

32:37

It's like, oh, nobody wants to

32:39

know about me, what I did.

32:41

I said, no, they really do.

32:43

You flew the X-15 for God's

32:45

sake. It did a barrel roll

32:47

in it among other things. But

32:49

he was just like, ah, we

32:51

never got it together. But it

32:53

would have been fun. Because it's

32:55

a hell. No, I think that

32:57

it helps put kind of the

32:59

book in perspective for I think

33:01

our listeners and our readers, if

33:03

they kind of know that history

33:05

and where you come from. Plus,

33:07

I dig it. I just, I

33:09

love everybody's stories about space when

33:12

they, they got bit by the

33:14

bug. But that does lead me

33:16

to my next question, Bruce and

33:18

Emily, about why now for the

33:20

book, obviously, as we're recording this

33:22

episode. This was NASA's big week

33:24

of remembrance, you know, for the

33:26

tragedies, but I know that that's

33:28

not why the book was coming

33:30

out. I'm just curious, why choose

33:32

to release the book, and you

33:34

know, at this point in our

33:36

grand space adventure right now? I'll

33:38

give that a shot. One, there's

33:40

a couple of different reasons. One

33:42

reason is that I just read

33:44

Colin's book, so it's Soviets in

33:46

space, and I thought, you know,

33:48

this is fantastic, this is a

33:50

great introduction to things like Lunacod

33:52

and Vostok and you know, you

33:55

know, these crazy names that you

33:57

see and are sort of intimidating,

33:59

but you read Colin's book and

34:01

things sort of start to fall

34:03

into place. But people are really

34:05

excited about getting excited about the

34:07

American Space Program, not only because

34:09

of Elon Musk and SpaceX and

34:11

Blue Origin and that sort of

34:13

thing, but also at the time,

34:15

Emily and I were very excited

34:17

about Artemis, which had just sent,

34:19

the artists wanted just gone around

34:21

the moon. And we were thinking

34:23

that fall of 2024, we might

34:25

be seeing more excitement about Artemis,

34:27

and it might be a great

34:29

time to release a book. And

34:31

that didn't work out. You know,

34:33

we're waiting obviously on Artemis too,

34:35

but generally speaking, you could say

34:37

we saw a market opportunity and

34:40

we saw an educational opportunity to

34:42

sort of fill a niche that

34:44

wasn't being filled. There are a

34:46

couple of, you know, there are

34:48

some other books that are general

34:50

histories of American space expression, but

34:52

they tend to be longer and

34:54

they're a little bit out of

34:56

date, I think. So there was

34:58

that but there's also a feeling

35:00

and this is something that informs

35:02

Emily's group space sisters the feeling

35:04

that This enthusiasm this fetishization almost

35:06

to the American space program is

35:08

a it's a nice antidote to

35:10

a lot of the corrosive political

35:12

bickering we see in the United

35:14

States I mean this is something

35:16

we can all be proud of

35:18

we should all know about I

35:20

know lots of people who can

35:23

recite every statistic possible about the

35:25

New York Yankees or about the

35:27

men's professional, you know, men's soccer

35:29

team, our national team, but can't

35:31

tell you the difference between Markier

35:33

and Gemini programs. And I think

35:35

that's a shame. I think that's

35:37

something that we all need to

35:39

learn about and take pride in

35:41

and, and, you know, where is

35:43

a sort of national merit badge.

35:45

That's sort of, sort of a

35:47

nutshell, I think, why we wrote

35:49

the book. That's very well put.

35:51

Well, I don't have anything to

35:53

add. That's really great how Bruce

35:55

put it. The only thing I

35:57

might have to add is that,

35:59

you know, we wanted something to

36:01

be, you said breezy earlier, and

36:03

I actually like that, we want.

36:05

something that was kind of easy

36:08

to read that was approachable we

36:10

didn't want like a textbook basically

36:12

because and that's not a slam

36:14

against any other writers I've read

36:16

a probably thousands of space books

36:18

in my life and and a

36:20

lot of them are fantastic some

36:22

of them are more like reference

36:24

guides you know they have a

36:26

lot of statistics numbers and stuff

36:28

on them which is written by

36:30

engineers yeah yeah Yeah, and in

36:32

my day job, I work as,

36:34

I'm a technical writer for my

36:36

day job, and one of the

36:38

biggest challenges is translating stuff written

36:40

by a software engineer into like

36:42

actual English, you know, for a

36:44

user to understand. That's a big,

36:46

that can be a challenge, you

36:48

know, and we wanted to do

36:51

something that sort of translated, you

36:53

know, this stuff for just anybody,

36:55

you know, we feel our book

36:57

is for everyone, you know. It

36:59

really feels like you're having a

37:01

conversation. Right? Not that you're reading

37:03

like a history or an encyclopedia

37:05

entry. I was really struck by

37:07

that tone. And the self-referential nature,

37:09

I bet, just like some bits

37:11

where you talk about that you're

37:13

writing the book and we're not

37:15

going to do that in this

37:17

book, you know, because we're here

37:19

to talk about this and we're

37:21

done with this subject. And I

37:23

thought that that was very engaging

37:25

in a way that I hadn't

37:27

seen in a recent space book,

37:29

I think, as a way to

37:31

put it. Well good and I

37:34

will say that the one other

37:36

space book I know of that

37:38

that is is engaging in and

37:40

not written by an engineer is

37:42

it's one of my favorites it's

37:44

Ross book Amazing stories of the

37:46

space age which I I is

37:48

is is unbelievably entertaining and interesting

37:50

about some of the hijinks that

37:52

are military services we're up to

37:54

in. pre-NASA days especially and Rod

37:56

so kudos to you that's a

37:58

great book. I appreciate that and

38:00

and I was having a moment

38:02

of that feeling when I was

38:04

reading your favorite space conspiracies and

38:06

I loved was the alarm strong

38:08

a robot. You guys made that

38:10

up, right? Just check it. Okay.

38:12

Because that was a really good

38:14

one. I thought, man, we do

38:16

our next best conspiracies episode. We're

38:19

gonna have to include that, but

38:21

I guess not. I have some

38:23

good ones that I've researched in

38:25

the past. This, I don't think,

38:27

this one didn't make it to

38:29

Starbound. There was the STS1 clones

38:31

one. They didn't launch Young and

38:33

Crippen, but they launched like robot

38:35

clones. Oh, I love it. I

38:37

love her. I'm dead serious. This

38:39

was an actual conspiracy theory and

38:41

it was released on cassette tape.

38:43

Wow. And so these were supposed

38:45

to be meatbag clones, not robots,

38:47

right? She just said robots. I

38:49

don't know. I don't know if

38:51

it was a meatbag or a

38:53

robot. I need to look. It's

38:55

been a while since I researched

38:57

this one, but it was my

38:59

main memory of it was it

39:02

was on cassette. I have to

39:04

say I never heard the black

39:06

night conspiracy. I have to say

39:08

I never heard the black night

39:10

conspiracy. Oh yeah. I don't know.

39:12

That was a new one. That

39:14

was a new one for me

39:16

as well. When our writer found

39:18

that one because you know I

39:20

I was always like I'd always.

39:22

I heard the one about the

39:24

Air Force has one, but I

39:26

didn't know that there was a

39:28

whole black night thing that was

39:30

separate from that. It's its own,

39:32

it's its own religion. We should

39:34

do our story on that. Oh,

39:36

Dr. Clickbait, you calm down. Okay,

39:38

we got another break to go.

39:40

So stand by everybody. We'll be

39:42

right back. From the first whistle

39:44

to the final drive, Fandel takes

39:47

the NFL playoffs to the next

39:49

level. Because right now, new customers

39:51

can bet $5 and get $300

39:53

in bonus bets if you win.

39:55

That's $300 in bonus bets, if

39:57

you win your first $5 bet.

39:59

The Fandelap gives you everything you

40:01

need for live bets, same gay

40:03

parlays and so much more. Plus,

40:05

when you win you'll get paid

40:07

instantly. Just visit fandul.com/bet big to

40:09

join today and get started with

40:11

$300 in bonus bets That's fanduel.com/bet

40:13

big make this playoff season unforgettable

40:15

with fan dul an official sports

40:17

book partner of the NFL Must

40:19

be 21 plus and president select

40:21

states for Kansas in affiliation with

40:23

Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus

40:25

and president DC first online real

40:27

money wager only $5 first deposit

40:30

required bonus issue does non withdrawal

40:32

bonus bets which expire seven days

40:34

after receipt, restrictions apply. See terms

40:36

at sportsbook.fandool.com. Gambling problem, call 1,800

40:38

gambler or visit Fandool.com/R.G. Call 1,888,

40:40

789, 77, or visit CCPG.org/Chat in

40:42

Connecticut or visit MDG gambling help.org

40:44

in Maryland. Hope is here visit

40:46

gambling helpline m.org or call 800,

40:48

3275050 for 247 support in Massachusetts.

40:50

Or call 1, 1, 878, 878,

40:52

7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7,

40:54

7, 7, 7, 7, 7, and

40:56

1. hope and why or text

40:58

hope and why in New York.

41:00

So we've got a lot of

41:02

other stuff to cover here but

41:04

I just wanted to to jump

41:06

back in on the I guess

41:08

it's a conspiracy theory I don't

41:10

know that they actually put an

41:12

interior lock on the shuttle door.

41:15

Tell us that story because I

41:17

thought that was fascinating I mean

41:19

they're all fascinating but that one

41:21

really caught my attention. Well, yes.

41:23

From what I can tell, this

41:25

is a true story that one

41:27

of the missions of payload specialists

41:29

became very frustrated with his machinery

41:31

not working the way it was

41:33

supposed to. He'd spent a lot

41:35

of time and had a lot

41:37

of people who were depending on

41:39

him to get some results from

41:41

this equipment on the flight and

41:43

became so despondent. He threatened, I'm

41:45

paraphrasing here to... to leave the

41:47

ship. And the way you do

41:49

that is you open a hatch

41:51

of some sort and that's not

41:53

a good thing to do. 160

41:55

miles up above Zambia. And so

41:58

it was decided that there should

42:00

be some sort of way to

42:02

secure the orbiter. And it's been

42:04

a while since I looked at

42:06

this, but I think there was

42:08

actually a lot put on for

42:10

at least some of those missions

42:12

that the commander would have to

42:14

have authority over. And I don't

42:16

think that's apocryphal. I think that

42:18

actually was the case. I've gone

42:20

down a couple of rabbit holes

42:22

and it seems to be the

42:24

truth. It's amazing that somebody would

42:26

consider leaving the shuttle and yet

42:28

those cosmonauts hunched down in the

42:30

mere space station for all those

42:32

many months and years, which from

42:34

your telling of it was a

42:36

little bit of a flying junk

42:38

yard. a little bit of a

42:40

space slum if you will. Well

42:43

that's right yeah that's so I

42:45

think I where did I get

42:47

that that was you know Brian

42:49

Burrows book Dragonfly I think he's

42:51

talking is it Gary who's Gary

42:53

Is it Lininger? Is that who

42:55

I'm thinking of? He had some...

42:57

Jerry Lininger. Lininger. Yeah, he had

42:59

some bad things to say about

43:01

Mir. You can read, you know,

43:03

Shannon Lucien spent, Shannon Lucien spent

43:05

a bunch of time on Mir

43:07

as well, and she has a

43:09

pretty benign view of the whole

43:11

thing. So I don't know, it

43:13

depends on who you believe, but

43:15

there are certainly reports that it

43:17

was a very unpleasant place to

43:19

live for any length of time.

43:21

I heard those stories about smoking.

43:23

Those are the ones that I've

43:26

heard on mirrors. I had to

43:28

say, I have to say, I

43:30

was, I was always struck about

43:32

the story about locking the shuttled

43:34

doors because when I was in

43:36

the, when I was a, a

43:38

wee 15 year old at Space

43:40

Camp for the first time and

43:42

met one of my best friends

43:44

who is now an aerospace educator

43:46

at Penn State. Her name is

43:48

Sarah, hey Sarah, you know you

43:50

do your simulator at Space Camp

43:52

in the shuttle and she drew

43:54

the Go Space Crazy card and

43:56

was trying. was trying desperately to

43:58

open open the hatch and we

44:00

had to like duct tapered down

44:02

to the mid deck seats to

44:04

get her to get her to

44:06

stop. And I just remember this

44:09

being struck, but why would anyone

44:11

ever think that they would want

44:13

to open the door? So anyway,

44:15

that was a little bit of

44:17

a, I did not know that

44:19

with the card you could pull.

44:21

Yeah, you know, because they came,

44:23

I've been, I mean. Bruce did

44:25

you go to Space Camp Emily

44:27

you surely did at one point

44:29

I did not wish I had I'd

44:31

love to do it as an adult I'm

44:33

hoping I can sign up for that at

44:36

some point yeah yeah it's it's great plus

44:38

it when you do the adult one you

44:40

can actually like have like a dinner with

44:42

a bar and then go into your simulation

44:45

which is a great mix I should say

44:47

says you but when I went we had

44:49

to eat chili mac and sleep in the

44:52

kids bunks oh wow but no I went

44:54

I went four times for four weeks as

44:56

a kid and then once as a kid.

44:58

We're here to talk about the book.

45:01

Yes, yes. Well, we were, we were,

45:03

but I didn't want to ask, well,

45:05

I have a whole shuttle follow-up too,

45:07

and I think that this is

45:09

a question that Rod put down,

45:11

but you know, Emily, you mentioned earlier

45:14

about how you know, you got bit

45:16

by STS2 and like the space shuttle,

45:18

you and I think are both of

45:21

an age where we kind of feel

45:23

a bit left out, I know, right? The

45:25

space shuttle was a big bus

45:27

to space. I also like, I

45:29

have like multiple space shuttle models

45:32

made out of wood, made out

45:34

of paper, made out of plastic,

45:36

whatever I can get my hands

45:38

on. And somewhere around here is

45:40

a Braun poster. I don't know

45:42

where. But so I had many

45:44

versions. And so, so I guess

45:46

that the question is, you know,

45:48

a lot of people think, oh,

45:50

the space shuttle, it was a

45:53

big bust to space. or whatever,

45:55

but it has a special

45:57

place, I think, for the three

45:59

of us. maybe not Rod, I

46:01

don't know. And what really made

46:03

it special, because of course now

46:05

they're in museums, and I'm just

46:07

curious about where that program really

46:09

stood out for the two of

46:11

you, because it did seem like

46:13

it had a bit of a

46:15

special position to you personally. I'll

46:17

get started. Well, I think I'm

46:19

saying this. You know I'm aware

46:21

that the shuttle wasn't perfect since

46:23

I became more interested in like

46:25

space history I've done research I've

46:27

talked to people who are bona

46:29

fide spatial experts people who like

46:31

Dennis Jenkins, you know that he's

46:33

like the space shuttle guru You

46:35

know people like Jennifer Lavisor at

46:37

Smithsonian things like that You know

46:39

I've talked to them and I've

46:41

gotten more of a. view of

46:43

you know what the shuttle was

46:45

viewed when it was being designed

46:47

versus what it was when it

46:50

actually went up you know and

46:52

as we know when it went

46:54

up you know we did not

46:56

get the return on the investment

46:58

probably as was promised you know

47:00

it was more expensive and more

47:02

complicated than anybody imagined during the

47:04

1970s it was being billed as

47:06

this is the answer to everything

47:08

you know this before flights a

47:10

year Yeah, exactly. 500 flights by

47:12

1992, like we're gonna, you know,

47:14

from both sides of the coast,

47:16

and this is, and it's gonna

47:18

make payloads so cheap that everybody

47:20

will be able to have a

47:22

satellite, you know, and you and

47:24

I can fly on the shuttle,

47:26

it's gonna be that easy. It'll

47:28

be like an airplane. Didn't quite

47:30

happen like that, but I do

47:32

view, I view the space shuttle

47:34

as the, there's this book, I

47:36

think, I hope I'm not running

47:38

her name Amy Kaminsky, Amy Kaminsky.

47:40

I think that's her name, the

47:42

people's spaceship. I do view the

47:44

shuttle as the people's spaceship because

47:46

it did launch, you know, the

47:48

first astronauts, the US astronauts, who

47:50

really represented the country on. I

47:52

view it as the people's spaceship.

47:54

It ushered that era in, which

47:56

was incredibly important, especially to somebody

47:58

like me growing up, who was

48:00

like, wow, there's women astronauts, you

48:02

know, there's, I was obsessed, when

48:04

I saw the dream is alive,

48:06

we talked about the movie, I

48:08

was obsessed with Judy Resnick, I

48:10

wanted to be her as a

48:12

kid. I did too. Yes, she

48:14

had awesome hair. She was gorgeous

48:16

and she was killing it, you

48:18

know, and as an astronaut, and

48:20

I was just like. God, I

48:22

want to be like that someday.

48:24

She's so bad-ass, excuse my language.

48:26

So that was tremendously inspiring, not

48:28

just to me, but to probably

48:30

thousands and thousands of kids all

48:32

over the world, not just in

48:34

the US. And also, I know,

48:37

you know, there were obviously two

48:39

major accidents for the shuttle, and

48:41

I'm not trying to minimize that

48:43

by any stretch, but it did

48:45

do so many amazing things. Look

48:47

at what, you know, Bruce's dad

48:49

was able to bring... a vehicle

48:51

that he'd been testing for like

48:53

20 years forth and it it's

48:55

still it it may have not

48:57

been used forever but it's still

48:59

an in to me an amazing

49:01

accomplishment because it showed that could

49:03

be done that's something we could

49:05

do in the future still I

49:07

think it's incredible what excuse me

49:09

but I think that's really an

49:11

important point which is I mean

49:13

they've been trying to do this

49:15

since the Gemini days when Gene

49:17

Cernon was supposed to test something

49:19

similar but I mean obviously in

49:21

our future we're gonna have to

49:23

have to have to have to

49:25

have one, two, three person propulsion

49:27

units. So Bruce, your dad really

49:29

kind of pioneered the way for

49:31

that. With great courage, I might

49:33

say. Well, yeah, thank you. And

49:35

there, last time I looked into

49:37

this, there was a company in

49:39

Colorado that was, you know, doing

49:41

some, had actually received some sort

49:43

of a contract from NASA to

49:45

start looking at ways to build

49:47

an improved jet pack. Because I

49:49

agree with you, something like that's

49:51

going to be needed. I mean,

49:53

not every company that goes into

49:55

space is going to have the

49:57

resources of a shuttle orbiter. that

49:59

can move over as freely as

50:01

that one did. And they're not

50:03

going to have the, maybe not

50:05

have the time or money to

50:07

have droids that can go out

50:09

and fix things. And so I,

50:11

and if nothing else, you'll see

50:13

jet packs use the same way,

50:15

maybe segues or scooters are used

50:17

now for tourist purposes. We have

50:19

space hotels and that sort of

50:21

thing. So I think there's a

50:24

place in the future for jet

50:26

packs. You know, unclear exactly what

50:28

it is, but I think we'll

50:30

see them again, yeah. I should

50:32

point out by the way, we've

50:34

been talking about this propulsion unit,

50:36

we've never called it the man

50:38

maneuvering unit at the MMU, right?

50:40

For a while, that's what we've

50:42

been referring to for everyone that's

50:44

been wondering about it. And there

50:46

are safer thrusters, I think, on

50:48

some of the spacesuits that the

50:50

astronauts use now as an emergency

50:52

weight. Well, would you say safer,

50:54

that's an acronym? You've been explained

50:56

that. Yeah. So basically, if you

50:58

get into a tumble or drift

51:00

away or drift away or something,

51:02

you hit that, you hit that.

51:04

Well, that's a good question. I

51:06

would say that the MMU lives

51:08

on, and it's just that it's

51:10

safer these days. Now, whether it

51:12

has some sort of a homing

51:14

capability, I don't know. I've read

51:16

where Draper was trying to come

51:18

up with something like that at

51:20

one point that would automatically get

51:22

you back to the space station

51:24

or wherever, but I'm not sure

51:26

the safer units they have now,

51:28

have that capability. I guess they

51:30

must have some kind of control

51:32

over it there. One of the

51:34

things that Bruce, you bring to

51:36

mind is that there were designs

51:38

with some of the private stations

51:40

for that tourist EVA, but the

51:42

jet pack is like, it's like

51:44

a little bit of a ship,

51:46

so you're in a bubble rod.

51:48

They're like those old von Braun.

51:50

Pods from the Disney special. That's

51:52

what they look like. No, I'm

51:54

serious. Snow cones. Yeah, they and

51:56

and the whole whole thought is

51:58

a little robotic arms out the

52:00

front. Exactly. And it pops out

52:02

and it goes around and it

52:04

comes back and then you've done

52:06

your spacewalk. So, um, all right.

52:08

That's enough of my interrupting. Go

52:10

ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. So,

52:13

no. Actually, you're throwing back to

52:15

me, it's time to go to

52:17

a break. So, very opportune, and

52:19

we'll be back in a moment.

52:21

Stand by. From the first whistle

52:23

to the final drive, FanDool takes

52:25

the NFL playoffs to the next

52:27

level. Because right now, new customers

52:29

can bet $5 and get $300

52:31

bucks in bonus bets if you

52:33

win your first $5 bet. The

52:35

FanDool app gives you everything you

52:37

need for live bets, same game

52:39

parlays, and so much more. Plus,

52:41

when you win you get paid

52:43

instantly, just visit fandule.com/bet big to

52:45

join today. And get started with

52:47

$300 in bonus bets. That's f-a-n-d-u-e-l.com/bet

52:49

big. Make this playoff season unforgettable

52:51

with fandule. An official sports book

52:53

partner of the NFL. Must be

52:55

21 and up in present in

52:57

select states. For Kansas, in affiliation

52:59

with Kansas Star Casino, or 18

53:01

and up, and present in DC.

53:03

First online, real money wager only.

53:05

Five dollar first deposit required. Bonus

53:07

issued is non-withdrawable bonus bets which

53:09

expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions

53:11

apply seven days after receipt. Restrictions

53:13

apply. See terms at Sportsbook.fandual.fandelion.com.com. help

53:15

line m.a.org or call eight hundred

53:17

three two seven fifty fifty fifty

53:19

for twenty four seven support in

53:21

massachusetts or call one eight seven

53:23

eight hope n y in new

53:25

york i'm no tech genius but

53:27

i know if i want my

53:29

business to crush it i need

53:31

a website now thankfully blue host

53:33

makes it easy i customized optimized

53:35

and monetized everything exactly how i

53:37

wanted with a i within minutes

53:39

my site was up i couldn't

53:41

believe it Plus, Blue Host keeps

53:43

me protected 24-7. No more worrying

53:45

about hackers. I just relax and

53:47

focus on my customers. So, whatever

53:49

your hustle may be, secure your

53:51

online presence in 2025 with Blue

53:53

Host. Head to Bluehost.com to... start

53:55

now. So I've got a bunch

53:57

of other stuff I want to

54:00

ask but I do have to

54:02

direct a question to Emily and

54:04

this may apply to both of

54:06

you. There is a very specific

54:08

and it's it's not overwhelming a

54:10

demonstrate in the book but just

54:12

because I know you Emily and

54:14

I follow hipsters. there's a very

54:16

deep interest in Skylab which is

54:18

something that a lot of people

54:20

kind of overlook. So because of

54:22

my age of course I was

54:24

fascinated by Gemini and Apollo the

54:26

time Skylab came along I was

54:28

when I was in college but

54:30

shortly to head off to wasting

54:32

a decade in the entertainment industry

54:34

so that was a different thing.

54:36

But it really it didn't get

54:38

the kind of coverage I thought

54:40

it deserved and I forget which

54:42

book it was but I was

54:44

writing a chapter on the Skylab

54:46

2 mission, which is where the

54:48

astronauts went up to repair it

54:50

because it was quite imperiled in

54:52

space. And the off the books,

54:54

I guess I'd call it courage

54:56

or perhaps near insanity that Pete

54:58

Conrad showed in getting that solar

55:00

panel swung out when I really

55:02

looked into that, I thought, holy

55:04

crap. And years later I was

55:06

talking to Jerry Griffin and I

55:08

said, who's a, for those who

55:10

don't know, he's a flight director

55:12

during the Apollo and. years and

55:14

I said he said I said

55:16

I know you weren't on console

55:18

then because you're in DC but

55:20

did you ever hear anything about

55:22

like the reactions of mission control

55:24

from when Conrad was like not

55:26

saying on the radio exactly what

55:28

he was setting up to do

55:30

which is a long story but

55:32

basically they tied a cable out

55:34

the solar panel and got their

55:36

backpacks underneath it and stood up

55:38

real fast and it snapped and

55:40

the panel deployed and they went

55:42

hurling off into space fortunately they

55:44

were tethered. But it must have

55:47

given the guys on the console's

55:49

heart attacks to see that. But

55:51

you do have a keen interest

55:53

in Skylab. Yes, it's kind of,

55:55

it's been pointed out to me

55:57

that my interest in Skylab is

55:59

borderline obsessive and strange. you know,

56:01

there were no obviously there were

56:03

no women on Skylab and it

56:05

happened before the crude missions happened

56:07

before I was alive. So I

56:09

don't have the perspective of having

56:11

been around at the time, but

56:13

I've done a lot of research.

56:15

I've talked to pretty much all

56:17

the remaining Skylab involved people, including

56:19

the astronauts, the ones who are

56:21

still alive. I think I've talked

56:23

to everybody except Conrad, unfortunately. I

56:26

would have loved to have talked

56:28

about that. I love Skyla. I first got

56:30

into it as a kid because I,

56:32

of course I was a nerd. I didn't

56:34

have a lot of boyfriends or a social

56:37

life when I was little, when I was

56:39

younger and stuff, but I remember I saw

56:41

a picture of it in one of my

56:43

space books. And I think I ripped the

56:46

picture out and just put it on my

56:48

wall, because I just thought it looked cool.

56:50

It looked like, you know, and I didn't

56:52

know back then it was sort of spare

56:55

parts of Apollo. I had no idea. I

56:57

just thought it looked really cool. And I

56:59

just always thought it was so interesting. I

57:02

was like, wow, people lived in space

57:04

in the 70s. That's so, you know,

57:06

I mean, that's so like, wow, you

57:08

know, that's neat. And as I got

57:10

older, I began to appreciate it. This

57:12

is why, honestly, this is why I

57:15

have such a passion about the program.

57:17

I really believe it's the link between

57:19

Apollo and the shuttle, because if you

57:21

look at, you know, the final mission,

57:24

Skylab 4 or 3, some of them

57:26

call it 3, you know, somebody like

57:28

Ed Gibson, the science pilot, he was

57:30

doing things sort of like at the

57:33

Apollo telescope mount, he was

57:35

doing things that were kind of analogous

57:37

to what they were planning to do

57:39

on the space shuttle. you know, which

57:42

it was very long kind of observations

57:44

and shifts, things like that. I mean,

57:46

that really taught NASA, you know, and really

57:48

space flight in general, you know, how are

57:51

we going to work in space for, you

57:53

know, extended periods of time? And how are

57:55

we going to work in an online lab

57:57

or an on orbit, I'm sorry, laboratory? you

58:00

know like the space shuttle which

58:02

by that point in 1973-74 they

58:04

were envisioning the shuttle to do

58:06

those things and of course we

58:08

saw later in the shuttle they

58:10

had you know space lab they

58:12

had neural lab they had space

58:14

hab which was also sort of

58:16

a small on board scientific laboratory

58:18

so And obviously later we saw

58:20

people living on Mir and now

58:22

we have the ISS. The ISS

58:24

sort of is a direct ancestor,

58:27

I should say, or direct ascendant,

58:29

I should say, of the Skylab.

58:31

So, and I think Skylab, David

58:33

Hitt has a really excellent, he

58:35

wrote homesteading space, the wonderful Skylab

58:37

book, which is also published on

58:39

the University of Nebraska, but David

58:41

Hitt has a great talk about

58:43

like what Skylab taught me about

58:45

Mars. And that kind of says

58:47

at all, I think Skylab is

58:49

really going to teach people, the

58:51

lessons they learn from Skylab medically,

58:53

scientifically, and otherwise it's going to

58:55

teach people how to live long

58:57

term on, you know, the moon

58:59

or Mars, which is where obviously

59:01

places we're looking towards. So. I

59:03

hope that summarizes it, but yeah,

59:05

I just love it. And plus,

59:08

there was a ton of drama

59:10

with Skylab. People don't, there was

59:12

so much drama with that program

59:14

that some of it's a little

59:16

petty, it's funny, you know, and

59:18

I just, it's just a wonderful

59:20

story and we just don't look

59:22

at it. Isn't there a mutiny

59:24

of some kind? Just had to

59:26

go there. No need to respond.

59:28

Yeah, there was cursing on spacewalks

59:30

too back then, Rod. So, yeah,

59:32

it wasn't a mutiny. It was

59:34

a disagreement. Yeah, it was a

59:36

workflow issue. I try to, yeah,

59:38

it was a work-put. Yeah, it

59:40

was a work-flow issue. Yeah, it

59:42

was a work-flow issue. Aren't they

59:44

all know, really? That's what I

59:46

call let that it work. day

59:49

job. That's what if you have

59:51

a disagreement with a you know

59:53

a project manager on how something

59:55

should be written you have a

59:57

workflow issue. It's a beautiful way

59:59

of putting without saying disagreement. Better

1:00:01

than an airflow issue. Fine. So

1:00:03

Bruce do you have a favorite

1:00:05

favorite era? Well, the funniest era

1:00:07

is Skylab. I like talking to

1:00:09

Emily about that because I like

1:00:11

talking about the fashions and the,

1:00:13

you know, the brown, the brown,

1:00:15

the brown, the brown, the pumpkin

1:00:17

color. At one point there was

1:00:19

talk about putting an entertainment console

1:00:21

in Skylab and we'd like to

1:00:23

talk about what would have been

1:00:25

included, Herb Albert and the Tijuana

1:00:27

brass would have been playing, I

1:00:30

suppose. There's a shower and you

1:00:32

know there's some some beefcake photos

1:00:34

of Jack Alsma looking out of

1:00:36

the shower and so I like

1:00:38

talking about that I like Gemini

1:00:40

as well just because I like

1:00:42

those heroic space fairs and they're

1:00:44

you know they're chewing gum wrapper

1:00:46

pressure suits and some of the

1:00:48

photography from back then is so

1:00:50

cool you know the Edwards spacewalk

1:00:52

in particular and that yeah so

1:00:54

I like that I think I

1:00:56

think Skylab and Gemini would be

1:00:58

my favorites. I think that film

1:01:00

of them running around the perimeter

1:01:02

of the interior. Barely able to

1:01:04

maintain foot contact. I was at

1:01:06

KSC recently and I was wandering

1:01:08

through the museum and got to,

1:01:11

I forget which Gemini capsule it

1:01:13

was, was one of the Gemini

1:01:15

capsules. And I'm looking in that

1:01:17

thing, thinking about those two guys.

1:01:19

sitting in there for two weeks.

1:01:21

And, you know, for anybody who

1:01:23

hasn't seen the inside of a

1:01:25

Gemini capsule, you can imagine the

1:01:27

smallest British sports car you've ever

1:01:29

seen, like an M.G. Midget, where

1:01:31

your shoulders are almost touching, and

1:01:33

add to this, in this case,

1:01:35

you've got a hatch that's just

1:01:37

about touching the top of your

1:01:39

helmet, in their case, their helmets

1:01:41

were soft, but I mean, I

1:01:43

can't... even begin to imagine this

1:01:45

doesn't include the conversation about elimination

1:01:47

of waste materials and eating and

1:01:49

moving around and stuff. Wow, I

1:01:52

mean, opening bags, you know, those

1:01:54

guys were true Superman. Yeah, this

1:01:56

is, I was talking, I'm not

1:01:58

going to say who it was,

1:02:00

I was talking to an Apollo

1:02:02

astronaut years, as one does, years

1:02:04

ago, and he was discussing one

1:02:06

of his crewmates just floating by

1:02:08

with a bag on him and

1:02:10

I'm like. Why did you tell

1:02:12

me this? Like I, and then,

1:02:14

the person's at the same event.

1:02:16

So every time I see this

1:02:18

guy walk by, I'm like, I

1:02:20

think of him attached to a

1:02:22

poop bag. I believe it was

1:02:24

called the top hat. Yes. Yes,

1:02:26

for reasons that we don't need

1:02:28

to go into. Okay, Bruce, before

1:02:30

we run a time here. We

1:02:33

should do a whole episode on

1:02:35

that. On the top hat with

1:02:37

the built-in glove. for other reasons

1:02:39

we won't discuss. Bruce, I want

1:02:41

to ask you about your other

1:02:43

books. You've got either one or

1:02:45

two novels, and of course, the

1:02:47

cool book, Wonder's All Around, you

1:02:49

wrote about your dad. Yeah, Wonder's

1:02:51

All Around? Sure, that's a book

1:02:53

about Bruce McAN less a second

1:02:55

in his career, and of course,

1:02:57

the MMU flight, and his work

1:02:59

on deploying the Hubble's face telescope,

1:03:01

which, as you know, continues to

1:03:03

send us some very cool images.

1:03:05

of the Andromeda galaxy released this

1:03:07

week, which was made up of

1:03:09

not new photographs, but old photographs

1:03:12

stitched together, I guess, or old

1:03:14

images stitched together from Hubble, and

1:03:16

it's pretty astounding to see the

1:03:18

level of detail if they managed

1:03:20

to capture in that sort of

1:03:22

photo montage or however you would

1:03:24

describe it. So it talks about

1:03:26

that, and his career as a

1:03:28

fighter pilot, and also as a

1:03:30

conservationist, he was a big... environmentalist,

1:03:32

conservationist kind of guy. And then

1:03:34

my other fora into space related

1:03:36

matters is a science fiction novel

1:03:38

called Sower Lake, which I wrote.

1:03:40

years ago and it involves the

1:03:42

Tunguska incident back in 1908 and

1:03:44

conspiracy theories and that sort of

1:03:46

thing. I was gonna say talk

1:03:48

about conspiracy. Yeah. I'm gonna look

1:03:50

that one up. Yeah so thanks

1:03:53

Rod I appreciate you bringing that.

1:03:55

Oh sweat and thank you for

1:03:57

the shout out about the project

1:03:59

Orion chapter in your book. I

1:04:01

was very pleased to see that

1:04:03

because I think that was my

1:04:05

favorite to write. Yeah, how fascinating

1:04:07

was that? That's the idea of

1:04:09

pulse nuclear blasts to propel a

1:04:11

spaceship, right? Isn't that my remember?

1:04:13

Yeah, and on the high end,

1:04:15

you know, this on the low

1:04:17

end, this thing was going to

1:04:19

be able to be lofted on

1:04:21

the upper stage of a Saturn

1:04:23

V, but on the high end,

1:04:25

they were talking about something between

1:04:27

a hundred thousand or a million

1:04:29

tons, which is basically like launching

1:04:31

a neighborhood. I mean, so you

1:04:34

could imagine all these guys in

1:04:36

their barco loungers there, you know.

1:04:38

getting drinks from the stewardess and

1:04:40

that kind of thing. I mean

1:04:42

this was the 50s and 60s

1:04:44

after all and you know it

1:04:46

could have worked the only problem

1:04:48

was it you know would have

1:04:50

killed probably 20 or 30 thousand

1:04:52

people every time you launched it

1:04:54

because nukes. Okay Tark I'm sorry.

1:04:56

You know fun fun fact fun

1:04:58

fact Larry and Evan and Jerry

1:05:00

Pinnell built a and Orion spaceship

1:05:02

to help save the world from

1:05:04

elephant creatures in the scientific novel

1:05:06

football, which was really exciting. Oh,

1:05:08

okay. I didn't know that. Yeah.

1:05:10

Well, they had their characters built

1:05:12

it. Well, the characters built it.

1:05:15

Yeah. They also, they also like

1:05:17

put space shuttles, they like. welded

1:05:19

them into the ship and then

1:05:21

they could deploy them like little

1:05:23

space fighters. It was really exciting

1:05:25

when you get to that part

1:05:27

in the book. Shades of Moonfall.

1:05:29

By the way, before you ask

1:05:31

your wrap-up question, I have to

1:05:33

say, there was a quote that

1:05:35

really stuck out to me and

1:05:37

I don't know which one of

1:05:39

you came up with this, but

1:05:41

it was about Isaac Asimov, do

1:05:43

you know what I'm going to

1:05:45

say? Yes, I do know what

1:05:47

you're going to say. The science

1:05:49

fiction, science fiction writer, writer, writer

1:05:51

Isaac Asimov, Isaac Asimov, those pros

1:05:53

stylists who could make even the

1:05:56

most exciting ideas seem like a

1:05:58

early dinner with the in-laws. So,

1:06:00

no, I'm so glad you said

1:06:02

it because I read tons of

1:06:04

Asimov as a kid and people

1:06:06

worshipped it like they did Heinlein,

1:06:08

but I thought, you know, Asimov

1:06:10

is to written science fiction, boy,

1:06:12

we're going to get hate mail

1:06:14

for this, is to written science

1:06:16

fiction as Stanley Kubrick is to

1:06:18

science fiction movies. I don't think

1:06:20

these guys really like people very

1:06:22

much. They just kind of wanted

1:06:24

us out of the way. So

1:06:26

did these cold... You know, they're

1:06:28

good hard science fiction, but they're

1:06:30

cold. Oh yeah, yeah. And there

1:06:32

are lots of Asimov chauvinists out

1:06:34

there, so I'm sure you'll get

1:06:37

some letters. But you know, and

1:06:39

I had to deal with them

1:06:41

all through high school and college,

1:06:43

you know, people who'd say, well,

1:06:45

you just don't understand what he's

1:06:47

talking about. And that may have

1:06:49

been true. I wasn't interested in

1:06:51

finding out because it just wasn't

1:06:53

compelling, but anyway. And you know

1:06:55

what they're thinking is, oh, you

1:06:57

poor little insect. You know, it's

1:06:59

as much a personality thing. I

1:07:01

apologize. This is not all engineers,

1:07:03

a handful, but I work with

1:07:05

a lot of them, and it's

1:07:07

a little bit more of a

1:07:09

personality thing than it is us.

1:07:11

Okay, Tarak, I'm sorry. I was

1:07:13

very, I was very frustrated with

1:07:16

Isaac Asimov, pops up. as like

1:07:18

a like a guide to say

1:07:20

oh you died because you got

1:07:22

the puzzle wrong and I was

1:07:24

like you know I gotta blast

1:07:26

you with my magic mutton chops.

1:07:28

Isaac Isaac I'm done I'm done

1:07:30

you can anyway that was like

1:07:32

Was he gloating? Was the character

1:07:34

gloating that you... He was just

1:07:36

kind of saying that you really

1:07:38

should do better, you know, and

1:07:40

maybe look at this next time.

1:07:42

So I was just, I got

1:07:44

frustrated because I got stuck and

1:07:46

that was the... Okay, dude. Anyway,

1:07:48

it's a question, because we've only

1:07:50

done about a third of them.

1:07:52

It's a lot left to go

1:07:54

here. I don't know why you're

1:07:57

surprised, Rod. It's like that every

1:07:59

episode. Yeah. Well,

1:08:01

it dawned on

1:08:03

me that Starbound

1:08:05

comes out at a very interesting

1:08:07

time in terms of a space

1:08:09

exploration. You know, we've been talking about

1:08:11

how it's a chronicle of the American

1:08:13

space program and all of these great

1:08:15

programs. We landed on the moon. We

1:08:17

had the space shuttle, a fabulous machine.

1:08:20

But now

1:08:23

we're kind of at this big crossroads

1:08:25

bit. We've got Artemis -2. You mentioned

1:08:27

you were hoping that it was

1:08:29

going to go to the moon. And

1:08:31

there was a question coming, I

1:08:33

swear. But it just seems like

1:08:35

it's very on point now,

1:08:37

and that your goal of kind of getting

1:08:39

people up to speed seems like a

1:08:41

very appropriate message for this. And

1:08:44

I'm curious where you see

1:08:46

this area, because in two years, in

1:08:48

2027, we're going to be at 70

1:08:50

years of the space age. And

1:08:52

I'm just wondering where you see the

1:08:54

book fitting in, and are we

1:08:56

in like a new renaissance of

1:08:58

sorts, where it can be

1:09:01

a foundation for a new generation

1:09:03

that has their own progression to

1:09:05

go? Yeah. Yeah, no, that's

1:09:07

a great question. And I

1:09:09

think you're onto something. I think that

1:09:12

the newfound prominence

1:09:14

of Mr. Musk

1:09:16

and Mr. Isaacman.

1:09:18

And frankly, I

1:09:20

think President Trump,

1:09:23

for whatever reasons, maybe

1:09:25

personal visions of grandeur,

1:09:27

would really love to

1:09:29

see, as he said, the

1:09:31

American flag planted on Mars. So I

1:09:33

think there's going to be a lot of

1:09:35

activity, a lot of talk about space

1:09:37

and where we're going, and whether we're going

1:09:39

to the moon first or going to

1:09:41

Mars first. And this

1:09:43

is a great book for

1:09:46

somebody who wants to get

1:09:48

sort of caught up and

1:09:50

inserted into that conversation. I

1:09:52

hope anyway. And I think I'm

1:09:54

probably like you guys, and I'm just fascinated to

1:09:56

see what's going to happen in the next six

1:09:58

months to a year in terms of where

1:10:00

we're going with Artemis and

1:10:02

how much influence Elon Musk

1:10:05

is going to have on

1:10:07

the administration and what the

1:10:09

president decides he wants the

1:10:12

space program to look like.

1:10:14

I pretty much agree with

1:10:16

what Bruce said, you know, I

1:10:18

think our book is kind of,

1:10:20

there's this great article years ago

1:10:22

I read by David Clow, you

1:10:24

know, it was called Space History,

1:10:26

I think at the handoff. in

1:10:28

a relay race, you hand off

1:10:30

the one to someone else. David

1:10:32

Clow, who doesn't realize what a gifted

1:10:34

writer he is, I keep telling him

1:10:37

and he just kind of goes, man.

1:10:39

Yeah, I love that article, but I

1:10:41

thought the metaphor, the handoff was great,

1:10:43

like the relay, you know, the person

1:10:45

with the baton handing it to someone

1:10:47

else. And I think we're kind of

1:10:49

at the, our book is sort of

1:10:51

at the handoff, if that makes sense,

1:10:53

because we're sort of like, like, like,

1:10:55

this is where we're at right now.

1:10:57

You know, we're at the sort of

1:11:00

a precipice and we're just leaving it

1:11:02

there. I don't know if we'll ever

1:11:04

write a follow-up, but we're sort of

1:11:06

at a precipice where, you know,

1:11:08

we've got a lot of stuff happening.

1:11:10

We're not sure if we're going to

1:11:12

go to the moon or Mars right

1:11:14

now, but I think it kind of

1:11:16

leaves at a nice spot, you know,

1:11:19

as long as we don't end up

1:11:21

destroying ourselves in the process.

1:11:23

And that's all I'll say. I'll say.

1:11:25

I'm saying this because I have

1:11:27

other projects I'm interested in.

1:11:29

I just don't know if Bruce

1:11:32

would ever write with me again or

1:11:34

I don't know if he'll ever write

1:11:36

with me again or if we'll ever...

1:11:38

Bruce you can send us an email.

1:11:40

No, I say that just because,

1:11:42

you know, whenever you write with

1:11:44

people, you know, you're always like,

1:11:46

man, will they ever work with

1:11:48

me again, you know, afterwards? But

1:11:50

no, seriously, it was awesome to

1:11:52

write the book with him, but

1:11:54

I think... If we just leave the book

1:11:56

where it is now, you know, it kind

1:11:58

of just sums up. where we're at

1:12:00

at at the moment, sort of a

1:12:03

precipice of history, which I think is

1:12:05

a nice way to leave it, you

1:12:07

know. I ask myself that same question

1:12:10

about Rod every week. How is that?

1:12:12

What did I mean? About whether he'll

1:12:14

work with me again after every week?

1:12:17

You're my hero. I think I'm like,

1:12:19

oh God, they probably are like, if

1:12:22

they ever want to work with me

1:12:24

again, but no, my, my thing more

1:12:26

was I think we left it in

1:12:29

a nice. You guys don't need to

1:12:31

break up the partnership because you're doing

1:12:33

a great job. Oh, thank you. We

1:12:36

like to wear it loose. Yeah, you

1:12:38

know, it's interesting because you wrote about

1:12:40

a lot of present-day stuff, but you

1:12:43

were smart about it because you didn't

1:12:45

automatically put date triggers in there. Date

1:12:47

yourselves. Yeah, because I found about two

1:12:50

years after Space 2.0 came out, I

1:12:52

suddenly realized, oh my God. This thing's

1:12:54

horribly out of date, as of now,

1:12:57

SpaceX has flown 16 times or something.

1:12:59

And unfortunately, that happened right before the

1:13:01

pandemic. It's a $20 book, and I

1:13:04

went back to publisher, and they said,

1:13:06

if we did a second edition, it

1:13:08

would be 60 bucks. I went, oh.

1:13:11

And I imagine, I don't know if

1:13:13

you'd face the same thing or not,

1:13:15

because you don't have as many color

1:13:18

plates, but it's daunting dealing with the

1:13:20

publishing industry. And I think Nebraska is

1:13:22

about as good as good as good

1:13:25

as it gets. Yeah, they're very good,

1:13:27

but they have their own financial

1:13:29

restraints, you know, just like any other

1:13:31

publisher. And Rod, I mean, to be

1:13:34

honest, I mean, our book was

1:13:36

out of date, you know, 30 minutes

1:13:38

after it was published. I mean, so

1:13:40

much is happening these days. Yeah. We

1:13:43

did try to avoid being specific in

1:13:45

some respects, but we've got that embarrassing

1:13:47

list of predictions at the end that

1:13:50

I know we're all going to be

1:13:52

wrong. As I was reading it, I

1:13:54

thought these guys are doing a pretty

1:13:57

good job of future proofing themselves right

1:13:59

until I got to the point where

1:14:01

you were talking about NASA 2025 and

1:14:04

I thought well who could have guessed?

1:14:06

You know now that the grenade's been

1:14:08

rolled I guess we'll have to

1:14:10

see what's what's happening. Emily do you

1:14:13

have anything you want to promote while

1:14:15

we got a few seconds here?

1:14:17

No you did mention space hipsters. Yeah

1:14:19

all I'll say is we got I

1:14:22

think we got almost 66 thousand. people

1:14:24

in the group now, which is freaking

1:14:26

crazy to me. Everybody who's a member

1:14:29

send a dollar a year to Emily.

1:14:31

Okay. No, you don't have to know.

1:14:33

We have the Hipsers Book Prize,

1:14:35

a Facebook live event on Saturday tomorrow.

1:14:38

You can see the banner here for

1:14:40

that. Yeah, if you have any

1:14:42

interest in space flight past present future

1:14:44

space for everybody. We don't, we do

1:14:47

not, we want everybody to be in

1:14:49

the group, regardless of. your level of

1:14:51

knowledge where you're coming from your background

1:14:54

we welcome so feel free to join

1:14:56

us look us up we are on

1:14:58

Facebook but yeah we have our own

1:15:01

guidelines we allow anybody race sex creed

1:15:03

whatever as long as you behave yeah

1:15:05

come on yeah just space nice good

1:15:08

thing is you can drop almost any

1:15:10

question there is somebody's gonna have an

1:15:12

answer which is really cool and the

1:15:15

next fun thing is somebody else

1:15:17

is gonna come behind and say that's

1:15:19

not right it was like this because

1:15:21

there's a ribbon counter in every

1:15:23

room but you know that's part of

1:15:26

the fun exactly and no but yeah

1:15:28

we got we welcome you into the

1:15:30

group we're very equality focused just to

1:15:33

be nice to each other follow the

1:15:35

rules and that's one thing I do

1:15:37

love about the group is if I

1:15:40

have a question because obviously I

1:15:42

mean I don't know everything I I

1:15:44

know I'm trying to get into astronomy

1:15:46

but I'm a total novice at

1:15:48

it and yesterday I asked a question

1:15:51

about something and within like 10 minutes

1:15:53

somebody had an answer and I was

1:15:55

like, holy crap, that's amazing. So it

1:15:58

was a wonderful resource. So that's really

1:16:00

all I've got. So if you ask

1:16:02

them why you can't see an eclipse

1:16:05

of Saturn, they'll be happy to tell

1:16:07

you. Bruce, do you have any other

1:16:09

things coming up or coming out? We

1:16:12

should know about? No, I'm working on

1:16:14

a couple things. I'm actually working on

1:16:16

a book about the Second World War

1:16:19

right now. So that's not, I guess

1:16:21

that's not really germane to our

1:16:23

program today, but that's what I'm up

1:16:25

to. But for the meantime, in the

1:16:28

meantime, I'm working on promoting. Starbound

1:16:30

and I'm going to the the award

1:16:32

ceremony that the everyday astronauts putting on

1:16:34

here in Austin I'm going to go

1:16:37

check out and hear Charlie Duke speak

1:16:39

on Sunday so that's about it. Is

1:16:41

your World War II book Pacific Theater

1:16:44

or European or both? Pacific, yes sir.

1:16:46

Oh we have to talk. I

1:16:48

love to talk to you about it.

1:16:50

I went out in the 90s and

1:16:53

shot a documentary of all those

1:16:55

god-awful islands. Pallew and Tarawa. Uh-huh. Saipan,

1:16:57

Guam, Tinney, all that stuff. Yeah, I'm

1:16:59

right in the middle of that stuff.

1:17:02

Yeah. I love to talk to you

1:17:04

about it. Yeah, that'll be fun. All

1:17:06

right. Well, I want to thank everybody

1:17:09

for joining us today for episode 145

1:17:11

that we'd like to call Starbound. Emily,

1:17:13

beyond your Facebook group, do you have

1:17:16

somewhere online we should be looking at?

1:17:18

You can find me on pretty much

1:17:20

every social media except X. I'm not

1:17:23

on. But I'm sorry, that sounds really

1:17:25

bad. Believe me, it's a trend. Yeah.

1:17:27

No, I'm on Blue Sky, I'm

1:17:29

on Facebook, I'm on LinkedIn, if you

1:17:32

wanna do businessy conversations, I'm on LinkedIn.

1:17:34

Pretty much Instagram, wherever you can

1:17:36

find me, I'm online, so. And Bruce,

1:17:38

you have a cool website, what's it

1:17:41

called? Yeah, thank you. So I'm on

1:17:43

various social media sites, but I don't

1:17:45

do very much on them. But I

1:17:48

do have a website and I'm glad

1:17:50

you brought it up because you can

1:17:52

find source notes. notes on sources for

1:17:55

the book on WWW Bruce McCannless.com and

1:17:57

hopefully that's that's helpful if you're interested

1:17:59

in reading more about Bernard von Braun

1:18:02

or you know the the mirror space

1:18:04

station we've got some some sources for

1:18:06

you so go check that out. That's

1:18:09

great. I was having a conversation

1:18:11

with somebody that I work with about

1:18:13

von Braun the other day and It

1:18:15

wasn't an argument, but we did

1:18:17

get into a little bit of a

1:18:20

shoving match, because, you know, there was

1:18:22

the age-old question of, well, he was

1:18:24

bad in Germany and all that, and

1:18:27

then I like to remind people, yes,

1:18:29

but he was NASA's first champion of

1:18:31

civil rights in the workplace and squared

1:18:34

off against George Wallace, so give

1:18:36

the guy a break. Tarak! Where can

1:18:38

we find you flying a flying and

1:18:40

tethered these days? Oh, I just

1:18:42

noticed that by the way that if

1:18:45

Bruce had a P in his name,

1:18:47

you could spell space with your name.

1:18:49

That'd be awesome. So I'm sorry. I

1:18:52

thought I was the one here with

1:18:54

ADD. Good Lord. No, you can find

1:18:56

me at Space.com. As always, I am

1:18:59

on the acts also on Blue Sky

1:19:01

and Instagram and LinkedIn too. I always

1:19:03

forget about LinkedIn, but no, it's pretty

1:19:06

important. And I guess if people are

1:19:08

interested. in Fortnite this weekend because of

1:19:10

its bond rate where you can actually

1:19:13

become a towering kaiji monster. So I'm

1:19:15

very excited about that. Wow, okay.

1:19:17

That's so sad. Says the guy with

1:19:19

a T on his sweater so people

1:19:22

remember his first initial. This is

1:19:24

so I remember my name. What are

1:19:26

you talking about? All right. And of

1:19:28

course, please remember you can always drop

1:19:31

us a line at TWIS at TW.TV.

1:19:33

That's TWIS at TWIT. TV. We welcome

1:19:35

your comments, suggestions, ideas, criticisms, criticisms, pushback.

1:19:38

whatever you want just send it along

1:19:40

new episodes this podcast published every

1:19:42

Friday on your favorite pod catcher so

1:19:44

make sure to subscribe like give us

1:19:47

five stars thumbs up spit your

1:19:49

eye whatever it is you want to

1:19:51

send our way we'll take it don't

1:19:53

forget we're counting on you to join

1:19:56

club twit and twenty This is our

1:19:58

big goal. Side supporting Twit, you'll help

1:20:00

keep us on the air and God

1:20:03

knows everybody wants to do that. Okay.

1:20:05

And my sister did. Well, see, bringing

1:20:07

you great guests and my horrid space

1:20:10

jokes. And if you do join Club

1:20:12

Twit, you get all the great programming

1:20:14

with Video Streams on the Twitter network

1:20:17

ad free on Club Twit as well

1:20:19

as some extras that are only available

1:20:21

there, but it's a secret. So

1:20:23

you'll have to join up to see

1:20:26

them seven dollars a month. What else

1:20:28

can you get for $7 a

1:20:30

month? I ask you. What else can

1:20:32

you get for $7? I think you

1:20:35

can get like a maybe like half

1:20:37

a lane at the bowling alley. Yeah,

1:20:39

or one large latte. A couple of

1:20:42

gallons. A blooming onion. Hold the cream,

1:20:44

bring me this away. Oh, and oh,

1:20:46

blooming onions are more than seven

1:20:48

bucks now. I have one not too

1:20:51

long ago. Anyway, it's a tough time

1:20:53

for pod for podcasters, so sign

1:20:55

on up and send us your dough.

1:20:57

and Twitter. TV on Instagram. Thank you

1:21:00

everybody. Thank you, Emily and Bruce. It's

1:21:02

been a real treat. And if you're

1:21:04

not gonna do another book in the

1:21:07

next year or two, we're gonna need

1:21:09

to have you back on. So I

1:21:11

can ask the other 18 questions I

1:21:14

had. I'd be happy to rejoin you

1:21:16

guys. Thank you very much. There's a

1:21:18

lot of fun. Pleasure. All right. See

1:21:21

everybody. Wait, do we have to get

1:21:23

a screenshot? Yeah, but we have to

1:21:25

end the show first. Oh, oh, yes,

1:21:28

yes. Oh, sorry, sorry. I thought

1:21:30

we were done. I thought we were

1:21:32

done.