 Coming up, Cygnus completes its mission. SpaceX is set to return to flight. We look back on 2016 and upcoming 2017. All that and more. Stay tuned, tomorrow begins right now! Welcome to tomorrow 9.39. Ben is currently behind the camera and doing things like this, so totally not distracting in any way, shape, or form. I do want to make sure that everyone who has contributed $10 or more to this particular segment of this particular show gets a huge thank you from me, because I'm the only one on camera. This is actually coming from, of course, all of us here at TMRO, pronounced tomorrow. These are the people who, like I said, have given, usually these people have given us more than just their money. They have given us their time and their love and affection. So I appreciate every single one of you. Thank you, thank you. These people also get chances to get into our Slack channel. Which is a really varied talk about distracting thing. But it's a really great place to get to know the inside track of what's going on tomorrow. Also joining me on air right now is, I have a Jared and I have a Mike. There we are. And Ben Higginbotham, of course, will be joining us a little bit later on in the show. And that's the camera that I'm supposed to be looking at. So here we are. In any case, we do have a couple of launches since last time we were on air. I don't even know what the first one is. It looks like it's an Atlas V. This is the Gozer. I love this launch. Yeah. Let's look at some footage. Two, one. And liftoff of Noah's Gozer. America's most advanced weather eye in the sky. So this launch took place on Thursday, November 19th at 2342 Coordinated Universal Time from Cape Canaveral, Florida. And this satellite, it's acronym for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite R. Now once it reaches orbit, and that shot right there of seeing the payload actually be deployed is just beautiful. I've never seen something like that. But once the satellite becomes operational, it's actually going to be renamed Goze 16 in the first two months of its operation. And it's joining three other operational satellites that will give us the most advanced weather data that we've had to date. So congratulations to the United Launch Alliance for that successful launch, and to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for hopefully collecting better data than we've ever had before. Good job on those acronyms, Mike. Appreciate that. Fantastic. Very well done. I was kind of stuttered there on the Noah one. I had to... It's all of those A's. There's just so many of them, and they can mean anything. All right. We had another one. This one came from, is this China? Yes, this was a Chinese launch. Let's go ahead and check out the footage. This launch took place on Tuesday, November 22nd, at 1524 Coordinated Universal Time from the Xi Chang Space Center. And this particular satellite is the fourth geostationary data relay satellite in a series called Tian Lian. And Tian Lian is kind of like NASA's tracking and data relay satellites or TDRS satellites. And that'll help them to be able to mitigate from space debris and just be able to trap objects in space to avoid collisions. So congratulations to China for that successful launch as well. Very... Oh, and by the way, this was a Long March 3C rocket that launched that rocket, which is the very toxic kind. It had only had two boosters on it. That's why somebody in the chat room was saying, don't breathe in the red smoke. So a Long March 3C, because we've already gone over the Atlas V and what have you, explain what's the 3C... Or I don't know. I don't understand what this rocket is. Does that make sense? Sure, sure. So with the Long March rockets, the Long March 3 series of rockets, the letter designation at the end of it usually determines how many boosters they're going to fly with. I believe that the 3A has no boosters at all. The 3B has four boosters and the 3C only has two boosters, if I'm remembering correctly. I'm remembering this off the top of my head. No, no, no, that's totally fine. It's just weird enough to be believable, if anything. I'm sure somebody in the chat room will let us know if you're wrong. Okay, all right, good. Now I know a little bit of something that 3C does not mean three or C doesn't mean three either. Perfect. All right, so there was a launch that was supposed to have happened that kind of happened. Yeah, give me the bad news, Mike. So those other two launches were one we were missing the show, but this launch was a so-used launch, a so-used you launch, that launched a Progress spacecraft, but it unfortunately failed. So first let's check out the launch footage. And liftoff. We have liftoff of the 65th Progress Resupply Vehicle beginning a two-day journey to the International Space Station. Now, this launched on Thursday, December 1st at 1451 coordinated universal time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. However, six minutes and 23 seconds after launch, the mission control lost telemetry for the vehicle. And by this time, the third stage of the so-used rocket was firing, kind of like the animation that you see on screen there. And that firing of the third stage was supposed to last nine minutes, and then the spacecraft would separate from the third stage. They didn't receive any confirmation of the stage separation. They did receive confirmation that the antennas on the Progress spacecraft did deploy, but not the solar panels. And then later on in the day, both the Progress vehicle and the third stage re-entered the atmosphere over the Tuva region in Russia and exploded. So unfortunately, this is a problem that they've been having with the so-used third stage. Similar to the accident that happened last year with the Progress M27M is what its designation was, where they had a fairly violent separation. It doesn't look like it was that sort of case. It seems like that there wasn't a separation, and all the extra weight of the third stage might have been the reason why it fell out of its initial orbit and really had more of a suborbital flight instead of an actual orbital flight. Yeah, but they didn't receive any more information from the Progress spacecraft. With the accident last year, we were able to see that cool footage of it spinning round and round and round in orbit before it finally re-entered the atmosphere a few days later. So the Russians don't know exactly why this accident happened, and they of course formed a state commission to look into this. But I do want to note that this was the second to last Soyuz-U rocket that they were going to use. The Soyuz-U rocket uses the really old avionics equipment that is analog. It's not digital. It's analog system. And like I said, this was the second to last Soyuz-U that they were going to use before moving over to their new Soyuz-2 vehicles, which do use a digital control system. And I also do want to note that the analog system was built in Ukraine, and by the time that this particular unit was delivered to the Russians, all of the drama over the Crimea region was already happening. So this is just one more example of the decline of the Russian space industry and quality control issues not being as effective as they should be. And thankfully the space station has plenty of food and plenty of supplies. They did lose a new Orlan space suit for EVAs and a couple of Russian experiments as well, including a greenhouse experiment. But otherwise everyone at the station is safe, is fine, and they're going to be getting a cargo flight later on this month from the Japanese to hopefully restore some of the water and food supplies. So as far as everyone at the station goes, everything is fine, but we will need another progress vehicle soon to help for re-boost operations at the space station. So that is what this mission was about. The U wasn't necessarily for unmanned per se, although that this particular Soyuz was going to the International Space Station for a new supply mission. Is that correct? That's correct, yes. But the International Space Station as sadly they have run into this before or not running into it, I'm not really sure how to not word that in a bad way. That sounds weird for a rocketry. But they've come across this issue before and they're going to be okay. Everyone up there is safe and sound and happy and has plenty of non-fresh apples to eat. Yes, unfortunately. I mean that's usually what it comes down to. Okay, so Jared, do we have a return to flight possibly? Yes, a possible return to flight. Not being on as much wood as we can, frankly. But SpaceX looks like they're getting ready to return to flight on December 16th and they're going to be doing the return to flight out of Vandenberg Air Force Base here in California and like I said launch is set for December 16th at 2036 Coordinated Universal Time. Now this will be the return to flight for the Falcon 9 rocket after the pad explosion on September 1st during the anticipated static fire for the launch of what was to be the AMOS 6 satellite. Now, this is going to be a mighty big payload where they're carrying 10 satellites for the Iridium Corporation as a part of the Iridium Next program. Now basically what this is is these are 70 Iridium Next satellites that are going to form the newest, most advanced satellite phone and emergency location services constellation in low Earth orbit. Now, they have a contract that was signed in 2010 with Iridium. This is one of the oldest SpaceX contracts that they have with the commercial supplier and in addition to that, they'll be launching 10 of these satellites at a time. So that means they're actually going to be carrying 6, excuse me 8600 kilograms to polar orbit 625 kilometers above the Earth. So this is a mighty big payload to be lofting and they're going to be doing this as their return to flight. Now there is an anticipated drone ship landing, but no word on whether that December 16th is going to hold or not. But we'll find out as soon as they start testing the pad in just a couple of days. Gotcha. Hopefully that'll be just two weeks away. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I didn't even say the day, did I? Today's December 3rd. Hi everyone. All right. So, Mike, in the meantime, something has actually gotten up to the International Space Station, is that correct? Yes. So a successful cargo mission was from Orbital ATK. And what we're talking about is their Cygnus spacecraft designated OA-5, nicknamed SS Allen Point Dexter. So after 29 days at the International Space Station, now we can go ahead and roll this video of the separation there. After 29 days, it was created on Monday, November 21st, and then actually began another week-long operation in orbit. And during that week-long operation, it conducted the Sapphire II experiment. Oh, yeah, the fire one. Yeah, yeah. The fire to see how I was really excited about this one. Man, we talked about this so flipping long ago, I nearly forgot this is still a thing. Because the Sapphire is a background name, right? Yeah, I didn't write down what that background is for right now, but this is actually a video of one of the samples. This is number seven out of nine samples that they took during that mission there. That's so cool. And, yeah, it looks really cool and really interesting how the flame is kind of forming there. All the experiments are really interesting though. I think my favorite is the one with the piece of paper that slowly was burning. But Lisa Stojanowski has talked about this as well. And what you're seeing on screen there is a CubeSat called Leamer 2. And the Cygnus deployed four of these Leamer 2 CubeSats for SPIRE Global after doing the Sapphire experiment. And these CubeSats collect maritime and weather data. Now, after it deployed those CubeSats, it ended its mission on Sunday, November 27th, when it fired its engines to slow down, lower its orbit, and then eventually re-enter the atmosphere. So, even though we've had this progress failure, all of the operations for the Cygnus vehicle were completely successful. So, congratulations to Orbital ATK for that. And I do want to mention just real quick with that, the whole CubeSat thing that they launched for SPIRE Global, that was set up through NanoRacks, which has a CubeSat deployer on the International Space Station. But when they did this, the Cygnus vehicle actually raised its orbit to be in a higher orbit than the International Space Station so that these CubeSats that they deployed would stay in orbit longer than the CubeSats that they deploy from the International Space Station. Those usually re-enter after just a couple of months. So, this was a first for them, and just another example of the whole public-private partnerships that are able to allow things like this to happen. So, very excited about that, and I want to see a lot more. Nice. Awesome. I sadly can't, I still can't find the sapphire back in them, but we will. We'll get on that a little bit later. In the meantime, Jared. Yes. This is, I don't even know how to describe this, because we watched part of the webcast as they were doing it, and I was like, this is like, this is like Amazon for rockets. Yes. I was so excited. So, you know how you'll go to a car company's website, and you can build your own car. Yes. If you want to, like using custom one off your own car with it? Right. Well, United Launch Alliance has announced a website called rocketbuilder.com which you can actually go to and configure your own one-of-a-kind Atlas 5 and figure out just how much it's actually going to cost you. It's almost like Kerbal meets Amazon. Yes. And here you can see I was actually putting in for a tomorrow set to see what we may need for 6,300 kilograms to geosynchronous transfer orbit, because I figure if we're going to have a satellite, it's going to be a big one. Because Ben likes big satellites. He cannot lie. So, that's very important to make sure that they have that there. Yes, he dances to that. Thank you for that. You can put inputs, like payload weight, faring size, orbit, and boosters needed. And just to let you know, in case you wanted to actually purchase one through this website, an Atlas 5 in the 401 configuration will start you off at about $109 million. There you go. Mini Stoge in the chair room says, so how much does it cost to launch a mini Stoge into orbit, you know, for tomorrow? We can figure that out. We could actually calculate it. Well, I would imagine we could just find out. We could just put mini Stoge on top of an Atlas 5 in the 401 configuration. So, 4 meter payload faring, no solid rocket boosters, single engine, Centaur upper stage. And there you go. It would just cost us $109 million. So. And there would be plenty of weight left over, you know. It's like giver protection and food and supplies. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, we could put it in like a small little space. So, let's contact Copenhagen Suborbitals and get their little capsule. Right. We could put Stoge in it. Because she would actually be able to walk around. What's the Patreon reward level for that? Yeah. What is the Patreon reward level for that? There's a level there. I guess, yeah, I guess we could put a rocket builder Patreon level, right? $27 million per episode? Patreon.com Okay. Mike, you've got some interesting updates coming out of XCOR. What's going on over there? Yes. Yes. This is some very good news. For those of you who don't, you can sign up for email updates from XCOR Aerospace. And they released a kind of November in review report. And with this, they've actually been actively at work on all of their different projects. And a lot of this were worried that, you know, since they've had to go some of their staff and been restructuring a bit that, you know, there might be a chance that the link space plane that they've been trying to build could be cancelled. That is not the case. So what they've been doing is they've been redesigning. Well, first of all, they did a lot of structural work and did a lot of the structural work for the main vehicle itself. But what they haven't been doing a whole lot of work on is the control surfaces. So they halted all work on physical work on the link spacecraft in order to look at the design for the different control surfaces. And we have a couple images here from their launch report where they're looking at the flaps that will be on them. And what they have done is they have two different types of flaps that are on the wings and the smaller ones are what they're calling trim flaps, which are also going to be a type of aerobrake so that they can slow down when they're coming back down on a descent and getting in a type of glide where they can control the vehicle and come back to a safe landing. Now until they design or rather finish the design on these control surfaces they're going to halt all physical work on it. But in the meantime, they've also been working on a bunch of engines. One of which is the contract for United Launch Alliance, which is the big engine in the bottom of that graphic or excuse me, actually the one right before the big engine there. That's a hydrogen engine for an upper stage. But the larger engine is a methane based engine. And they also have kerosene based engines as well. And the larger engine is a possible application that they're trying to market through Orbital ATK to be used on the space launch system which could be used for like the exploration upper stage. So they're doing a lot of work at Excor Aerospace and I'm very happy to see that that is the case and that they're, you know, even though it might seem that work has slowed down on the link space plane actively working on the design for it and making sure that they don't have to redesign the entire vehicle to make sure that they can actually control the vehicle in the atmosphere. So I'm very happy about that and there was a whole bunch more news in their updates as well, talking about different G-Force training that they've been doing with Jet Aircraft and their different commercial astronauts that they're going to have, which I didn't even know they had commercial astronauts until this email update. So things are picking up quite well and a lot of the different legislation that they need to for some of their three different space ports that they plan to use is coming along really well and I'm really excited for the future and it looks like that Excor is still in the running to compete with Virgin Galactic for suborbital space tourism. Very, very, very cool. Speaking of Virgin really quickly we sadly don't have any pictures or footage at the moment but just so you know earlier today the Virgin, their unity was gliding for the very first time after being released from White Night 2 or VMS Eve and they have some gorgeous pictures on their particular Twitter account and I'm sure all over the internet right as we speak. So congratulations to them. It's really great to hear that Excor is still going on. I don't know if they're going strong per se but at least they're going on. Somebody else in the chat room said, oh wait they're still around, that's awesome. So it's really great to hear all this news of people returning to flight and people continuing to fly and really sort of pushing through any sort of hurdles that anybody has come across including having to maybe get rid of some people or just refocus on different things as it were and speaking of refocusing Yes. Jared. Yes, let's move away from the earth. Sure. So it's all we've been talking about is stuff on the earth. Boring. This is boring. Who cares? Who cares? What about Mars? Sure, what about Mars? Because we're all excited about Mars, right? Yes, I'm also excited about Mars. Absolutely. Tell me why I'm excited about Mars. This sounds like a Ben story because all I read was something about Issa and Gas and then that sounded like a Ben Farr joke. Yeah, it does sound like Trace Gas, especially considering that you can sample Ben sometimes in the studio. Not that we want to but it just does end up happening. The European Space Agency's Trace Gas Orbiter has been returning its first set of data, basically calibration data that is telling us that all the instruments on board are working correctly. Now it has a five-year primary mission which is to search for the origin of atmospheric methane on Mars. Of course we know that there is methane in the atmosphere and methane can come from two places. It can come from a geological source of active volcanism or which is, you know, that would be a very exciting discovery to happen on Mars or you can come. Because if that's where Spock went to die, then yes, it would be very exciting. Or volcanism, describe that one first before you move on. Volcanism, oh, volcanism. Got it. Basically, sorry. Yes, from active... Volcanism. Active geology involving... Volcanism. Yes, I got you there. Want to make sure? Good. It almost went over my head but then you did the hand and I was like, oh, okay. Okay, so from volcanoes or... Volcanoes or biological life. Like cows. Yes. Like cow farts are a great source of methane. So there could be cow farts... Not so much cow farts but like bacteria farts. Okay. And this is some imagery from the cameras that are on board of trace gas orbiter and you'll notice that it's four strips. Yeah. And the strips are there because there's four separate cameras aimed in four specific angles. So what that does is that allows them to actually generate 3D maps from a single camera. Okay. So instead of having to have a stereoscopic system, so instead of two cameras very far apart from each other, they figured out how to angle these cameras so that you can actually generate 3D data that looks a little something like this. And it's unbelievable what they've been able to do with it. Now the imaging suite of course includes those cameras which allows the high resolution 3D mapping and in addition to that it also carries stereoscopic image or stereoscopic sensors on board. So basically looking at light, breaking it down and seeing from light what exactly is in the atmosphere. And that's, you know, that's such a cool thing that we can actually do that with spectroscopy. So very cool stuff. Now trace gas orbiter is going to use arrow breaking over the next year to circularize its orbit to about 400 kilometers above the Martian surface. And there's an example of that 3D data that you can get just from the camera with a minimal amount of processing. Oh, I get it now. Okay, good. That is unbelievably awesome that they are able to do that with one instrument. They don't have to use multiple instruments like most spacecraft have to end up doing or multiple passes from different orbits at different angles. Nope, they can just do it straight up just going over once. So very very awesome. Very convenient. Yeah. Very cool. That was smart. Yeah. The European Space Agency was very smart to figure out a system like that. Those guys were awesome. Yeah. Good thinking. Yeah. I'm so impressed right now. All right. I think we all learned something today. Okay. So that's about it for news that we have this week. Of course we will be back next week with more news. But coming up just in a moment is Ben's going to be joining us and we're going to be talking about 2016 in review. We're only going to be talking about the space stuff, so it won't be a depressosode, I promise. All right? So stay with us. We'll be talking about 2016 and 2017 coming up. We'll be right back. Behind the camera now, he's just off to my left still being distracting. So that's fantastic. It's the only mode I know. It's the only mode I know. Apparently. Oh, good guess. Anyway, we're going to go ahead and thank our Patreon Premier members one more time. Thank you. One more time? One more time, yeah. Apparently because I'm trying to say things and read things and do things all the same time and it's not working very well. Same team. And then we're also going to thank our Patreon producers. These are the people who are giving us $5 or more to this particular segment of this particular episode. These people also get the free worldwide shipping from our swag store, which is really kind of fun. Ben and I totally did not grab mugs, but you can grab these really cool mugs or there's some pins or there's some that is not a good advertisement. I don't know why you did that. Why'd you do that? Or you could grab some pens. I didn't grab a mug. I'm still in the little thing. All right. Don't grab a mug. We're still on the slate. They can't see us. It's totally fine. We should be on the slate for the next like 10 minutes. Oh, by the way, we just said it on air. Or as my producer is reminding me to say that you too can also have your name in this wonderful show. I am stretching ever so slightly. Not a big deal. By going to patreon.com slash T-M-R-O-K That's about as close as I can get. That's it. We switch cameras at that time and I always forget that part too. Not a problem. Don't mind that piece. This is exactly why you joined us live. You never know what's going to be edited out of the show. Oh, we're not editing that out of the show. I know. But you don't know what else has been edited out of the show. So, Mike was dancing before the show. He was doing little dance like this and I was sitting there going like as she's trying to do her introduction it was fun. So distracting is what it was. It was fun. It was distracting. Okay, so 2016 has been the year of I don't even know what what the actual F most things have. It's been a year of a lot of launches. There have been a lot of launches so that's the we're going to focus on the happy things. We're going to focus. Well hang on space, Mike. You created a document, a Google Docs document that kind of outlines some of these launches. You want to go over some of what you wrote? There's so much. There's so much that happened in 2016. There's so, so much. And if I can hear my, there we go. Oh, there we go. Yay! So, I actually started this list at the beginning of the year just to kind of keep track of for my own fun of all the different launches this year and then divide them up by country and kind of have a final tally to know who has launched the most into space this year. And it's been interesting over the past couple of years, you know reading different years in review articles and saying that, you know the Russians had the most space launches this year or the Chinese had the most space launches this year and so I wanted to kind of keep track and know how many launches that everyone was doing and the final tally so far this year, now there's still 13 launches that are scheduled for the month of December and if all of those go off, yeah, yeah, that's just for the month of December and if all of those go off successfully then December will be the most launches in one month for the year of 2016 but so far this year what we have is 72 orbital space launches, successful orbital space launches, I'm not counting the suborbital flights and to kind of divide this up by country China and Russia both tied for 18 successful orbital launches this year the United States is leading with 19 successful launches this year and then I also want to mention that Korea has had six successful launches the European Space Agency has had seven successful launches North Korea and Israel are tied with one successful launch this year and then Japan has two successful launches with hopefully a third in about a week with their HTV cargo vessels so I'm really impressed with the amount of launches that have happened this year one launch that I was really looking forward to but it hasn't happened and probably won't happen until April was a launch from Iran but they have their much larger similar rocket which it would be able to deliver twice as much of the payload as they previously could and would be powerful enough to send up their own one person Mercury class capsule in the space so that was something I was really looking forward to but didn't quite happen this year because of problems with their upper stages but in any case I'm really impressed at the successful launches this year and how the United States finally over the past five years has lost to either China or Russia for most amount of orbital launches in a year so so far the United States is holding the record for most amount of launches and with that I'm including not only NASA launches but all the commercial launches as well that are from United States companies from the launching from the United States so very interesting now something else that I wanted to kind of ask the chat room and the audience is the whole relationship between the Russian Space Agency and the European Space Agency or more specifically Arian Space licensing the Soyuz rocket to launch from French Kiana now I count those Soyuz launches as a successful launch for Russia because they still built and manufactured the rocket and still have teams there at French Kiana to make sure that all the procedures and operations for launching the rocket go successfully and with that there's a lot of different payloads that were launched on other Russian rockets that were launched from Baikonur or Plisik but that were European payloads so I was just focusing just on the rockets themselves not necessarily payloads so my question for you guys yeah but this is where that's tricky though because yeah Russia made the rocket but Russia didn't actually fly the rocket right it was Arian space that flew the rocket so yeah Russia made the rocket so we count that for a European launch or should we count that as a rocket right because that's a clever interesting nuance there right so ignoring payload completely once they built the rocket they handed over to Arian space not quite that simple and they said here go fly this from Arian space's own launch complex mind you not even from a Russian complex so I mean it flew out of French Kiana so okay then yeah whoever it flew right should that's a really whoever controlled it this is a really well this is where it gets tricky too because Russia was there helping control it what uh mhmm sorry I'm just counting real quick so when space launch system launches will it be a US launch even though it will have an ESA European space agency supplied service module yes it will still be a US launch what I'm saying is like the people so shuttle who made shuttle NASA didn't make shuttle who built the who built rockets right we don't count exactly we don't count that as a bowing launch we count that as a NASA launch because NASA controlled the shuttle sure so all right so then that would be I think that's fair whoever whoever was the primary controller of the launch vehicle is probably it was their launch right I mean it was their pad their infrastructure because a launch is so much more than just a rocket right it's all the ground systems it's all the people it's all the infrastructure planning all the jazz I think it's who controls the vehicle the vehicle controls the vehicle no you who you understand what I'm saying don't get technically I mean but no I mean you have to get technical on this stuff you really look at like no I mean it's not I guess it's what I'm saying is it's nuance it's not black and white right so it's who control the vehicle so all right who did control the vehicle if we're saying the vehicle didn't control the vehicle they had Russian engineers there the Russian engineers were also controlling the vehicle so maybe it was Russia even though it was from an ESA launch facility but then it was a Russian controlling the vehicle so is it now a Russia launch this is where this gets nuanced and confusing yeah and so let's say for a moment that we do count those so-used launches from French Guiana towards Arianespace or rather the European Space Agency if my count is right then there were four so-used launches from French Guiana this year and that would take away four launches from Russia and give those to the European Space Agency which would mean that they have the European Space Agency had 11 successful launches and Russia only had 14 successful launches so that's where I'm you know up in the era I don't I don't think this is easily answered I'm curious you asked as well I'm curious to know what the chat room thinks like with chat room comments how do we count some of these launches where the vehicles built by one country and then flown by another company but country but with support from the first country flying potentially a payload from a completely third different country and possibly a fourth different location of a country for the actual launch itself right so which who that's all sorts of messed up thank you exactly that's exactly what I'm trying to say mighty genius says who's on the launch certificate because if it hits someone or something that they're the ones that are paying the bill actually who is on the launch yeah Stoge kind of said the same thing which is that according to space law and insurance things the state responsible for the launch is the one where the launch has occurred so it's physical location of the launch itself then must be right so it doesn't matter who controls the launch is the actual literal location of the launch pad is the country that is responsible for the launch so the controller is irrelevant locations was relevant according to space law yes okay so interesting what do you guys think then yeah yeah what do you guys think what who is responsible who who should we tally this in under all right let's let's uh one other interesting point is at current rate there are 72 launches which means that we averaged one launch every five days or so I'm rounding at that point so every week more than once per week we had a launch yes go into space and we still have you know 13 scheduled yeah because even the lowest launch there are two months there were only four launches in but that's still one a week right if on average yeah I just think it's all sorts of incredible that I mean we look at space and sometimes you know it gets inter wound with like uh politics and whatnot and sometimes you get depressed of like where you want the space program to be but when you look at what humanity as a whole is doing and launching something to space every five days that's incredible yeah that's absolutely incredible we put something in space every five days throughout the last year on average that's a cadence that that probably was matched at the beginning of the space race well so then looking forward is that same are we gonna have that level of cadence wait wait wait wait so at the beginning of the space race you think we launched that because we tried to launch that off and we were launching a lot during the space well we were failing a lot too are you that's why that's a space like you only included successful launches right right yeah by we you're talking the Russians and the Americans right sure yes okay I don't mean I'd have to look at the numbers I'd have to collect something because yeah I'm not I'm not sure how I honestly don't know what the frequency was of successful launches at the beginning of the space race and I mean the first several orbital launch attempts from America like what the first like seven were the complete failures uh with the vanguard rockets yeah vanguard was a spectacular failing not so much at delivering payloads yeah actually as Dennis says space tonight needs to dig deeper and gather more data actually it seems like we are nerding out over this day to something hardcore so if you don't mind space Mike other questions that are coming up of leave I ask how does this year's expected 85 launches compared to last years so how did we do and actually be kind of curious to know how we did trending over time over like the last few decades like how did we do from the beginning of launches we'll say reasonable beginning of launches because you could all go all the way back to like ancient China and these little little things but like much what yeah let's talk let's talk like so use forward right so we can draw a line there so so use forward yeah why can't we do the rocket cart come on if we choose the rocket car to be a thousand at a time I'll classify that under suborbital launches it could work going back by the way based on the law those so use rockets launching from French Guiana since that is a French territory means those launches go to France really yes and this is where those nuances get interesting oh my gosh so technically speaking technically speaking you need to add France into this list if we're going to count that not as Russia and we're going to look at space law but also like if we're looking at like just what Mini Stoich said like that certificate I think that goes to France then right we'd almost have to argue like what the actual like we're lingering on this way more than about okay we're thinking too hard about this Ariane Space has investors all over the European Union so are they really a French company still or are they a European Union company oh man this gets okay this is getting way we're going to stop that so leave your comments curious to know what you think or if you have a real answer like can you actually know what's going on because we're like I don't know I don't know what category to put them in what I want to know is what I want to ask the community is what were some of your favorite launches this year and I think we should kind of go around the table and talk about what our highlights were for this year I'm not even sure it should be launches I think your favorite moments in space right your favorite moments of 2016 Jared I'll put you into the hot seat and start with you Donna I'm going to go to you too just so you know oh my gosh what was my favorite you know I can you come back to me because I got to think I got to think through both crewed space human spaceflight and and robotic spaceflight so can you come back to me in a second yeah you only get one moment okay do you have a favorite moment of 2016 favorite just a favorite space moment spacey related moment obviously I why wouldn't I have one what's your favorite spacey related moment of 2016 so this one's a little bit more on the personal side that's fine yeah it's okay the there was a SpaceX January launch that was coming out of California and my birthday is always in January because that's when I was born I guess that was a silly statement but sometimes that's March I usually celebrate it right around that time and for the for the very first time Ben and I had decided to bring with us kitty and Dada to Disney World because we almost always go and it was all planned out it was planned to a T and it was every day every hour not quite that bad but yes not as much as kitty would have liked there was a launch that managed to slide that that particular launch slid into that vacation and I looked at Ben and I said well I mean if it was just me I might stay I might actually even go to Vandenberg because we we lived only a couple hours south of Vandenberg I said but I have to I have to go with them I can't I can't deprive them of their vacation that would just be silly and so the three of us went and to Walt Disney World to Walt Disney World and that particular day as per schedule we were supposed to be at EPCOT we were and we actually delayed our lunch a little bit so we could sit outside of where we were supposed to go to lunch we just happened to be underneath one of the monorails and watch the launch on our cell all together kind of all so nerdy awesome this teeny tiny little and you couldn't see Jack Squat neither could we at Vandenberg you could see exactly what they could see you probably had a better view than what they had while it was ultimately it was very bittersweet because it was an awesome moment for the three of us to sort of be there all together kind of sharing this moment in a really weird kind of public space trying to explain to people while we're screaming at our phones in light rain if I remember correctly and missing you because it was right around my birthday so it was like a weird bittersweet sort of thing but it was really awesome I do remember that so we finished the launch it was all successful we couldn't see any of it because it was foggy that day so alright do that and as soon as the mission ends I'm already like picking up the phone to schedule my flight down to Florida I'm like what is the fastest you can get me there get me there now and I did I jumped on a plane I drew from there straight to LAX I had my luggage already packed flew down and I got in at like what two in the morning or something like that I just know that you like waited and came straight to the park to meet us there something like that yeah it was I was one unit of exhausted but yeah I made it that made it down there and then did I miss your birthday or did I know I made your birthday but I missed the beginning part of the trip yeah there you go but you made the birthday made the birthday yeah so I mean like it's kind of a weird it's a weird favorite moment because of it's not even necessarily a favorite moment but it definitely sticks out so distinctly in my mind sure yep it was a very good kid he says it was he says life yeah yeah if if I may I think some of my favorite moments from this year was back in April I believe it was the CRS-8 mission that SpaceX launched where they successfully landed on the drone ship for the first time that was huge I was with my father and my grandfather showing them this and I was just like they're going to try to land on the ship and they're just like oh okay that's cool and then when it happened all three of us you know got out of our chairs and we're just like yeah it's just good they did it they did it yeah that was a huge deal I mean we'd already successful landing in December of 2015 but to land on the drone ship that just blew my mind and you know leading up to that particular launch too like Elon and other SpaceX officials are just like you know it probably won't work this time either but you know we're going to keep trying until we eventually get it you know it seemed like it was going to be another close call that you know and it was successful it was such a surprise and just the fact that I was sharing that with my father and grandfather made that especially a special moment to me also the ITS announcement for the interplanetary transport system and getting to come to the studio and to see everyone you know in person we just had such such an amazing time that was that was incredible that was definitely one of my highest space moments of this year and going to get to tour the SpaceX headquarters as well that just was a dream come true thank you very much so we don't have a camera in the control room yet but I'm going to toss it to Dutta because he can talk yeah he now he's glaring at me what was your favorite moment of 2016 and we'll all sit here and stare awkwardly at the camera as you answer well I was going to say drone ship landing thanks Mike you can have the same favorite moment you weren't with Mike it's okay that really was an incredible moment and I was watching online I think it was at work and tried to get a couple people a couple people involved in watching it and I had to restrain myself from standing up in my cubicle and shouting yeah it was an absolutely incredible moment to finally see the realization of all the hard work all the explosions all the fire all the bent metal and repaired you know drone ships and I mean that one moment crystallized everything that SpaceX had been trying to do for years to be able to reuse a rocket okay now we got one back we got one back awesome and I'm still waiting for that next step for them to be able to actually refly a rocket but that was that was an incredible moment alright Jared you ready? yeah I've got two alright I'll allow it so one of mine was the end of the Rosetta mission so just because that had been 12 years in the making and just the unbelievable results and data that came from the Rosetta mission just blew everyone away it was the little probe that could and those cute little animations that went with it yeah it just really hit you so hard the fact that 12 years of work finally came to a conclusion and 12 very hard years and very well earned data with that but for me the biggest one this year definitely had to be the announcement that we had detected gravitational waves that's the big one for me simply because 100 years ago Einstein with the theories of relativity came up with the mathematics that basically said that we basically said gravitational waves are a thing but even Einstein himself said we're never going to be able to detect them much too small for us to even contemplate detecting and then here we are 100 years the centennial celebration of the publishing of the paper that allowed us to describe gravitational waves we find them it's just 100 years of looking and hunting and trying to find the heartbeat of the universe itself and we did it and we found it and we found two of them not just one two we got two and then we get to upgrade the laser interferometry gravitational wave observatory LIGO again and now it's running again and we'll have to see what amazing results it's going to give us I like a comment from Destructure 1701 I'm loving the diversity of opinion on the most awesome thing this year you're all right in how fantastic a year this has been in space stuff and it really has absolutely what about you Ben what were you saying adding mine I actually have I think three distinct moments and one of them was very recently I'm trying to remember if the first one actually was this year if it was last year but New Horizons was this year right last year it was last year okay so but all the data is still coming back right so some of those pictures I think came in this year which is why I'm thinking it was this year the imagery from Pluto and see blah blah blah planet but the imagery coming back and like just the awesomeness that is Pluto and how unique and incredible of a celestial object it is and Sharon Sharon how do you Sharon however like the two like that one is almost like part of it got ripped away I mean just the imagery from those two is mind numbingly awesome the geological diversity of Pluto there is no other place in our solar system that has that kind of geological diversity it's incredible I'm loving the imagery that came back and about the imagery up until New Horizons was approaching it was a very small number of pixels that's all we knew about I'm excited I'm also excited in 2017 looking forward to getting our camera in the control room so we can actually see data that's going to be fantastic we can finally hear him but soon we'll be able to see him too that was number one even though that was a year right the flyby happened last year and then one could argue well it happened that's been a decades long mission that's like Rosetta it took so long to actually make it happen the difference though is Rosetta kind of went and stayed there whereas New Horizons was going so fast it had to go ok goodbye but they're going to be retasking New Horizons it lives on they're going to be retasking it with new innovative missions of things that it can go forward to hopefully get to so that will be really cool they already did the engine burn for it to fly by a Kuiper Belt object on January 1st, 2019 it's going to be awesome I know I'm super excited for that the second thing that I was really excited about that I just think is one of those it's me looking forward kind of thing was the it's announcement it really really needs a new name seeing someone lay out ok so I have to do this claimer I work at SpaceX if you use an opinion on the show we're not that of SpaceX they are our own opinions have nothing to do with SpaceX whatsoever but watching the future unfold like that watching someone go this is my vision for how humans make it to Mars and by the way we're building it right I was surprised that the room was as quiet as it was when they're like here's the engine firing and here's a giant part of the tank that we built the hard part that was incredible that was a really awesome moment at least I thought in space of like we're doing this guys this is happening we're going forward with this and the third most incredible moment happened very recently and this was I got a personal tour of the Griffith Observatory I gotta tell you I've always kind of he's gonna be embarrassed I was kind of was moderately interested in astronomy I almost said astrology astronomy but some of the things that solidified this for me were first off your tour your passion was mind numbingly mind blowingly awesome Ben and I when we first moved to California we went to Griffith it was one of the very few Ben's father actually grew up in Southern California and these are kind of his old stomping grounds and Ben and I don't get out of the house much you might be able to tell that by how lovingly tan we are I thought that was just your native Minnesota coming out but Ben's father has said a number of times like have you got to Griffith and we were like well whatever we'll get there and we did once and I don't remember why we decided to do it because we were like we live in Anaheim it's where we're on the other side of town it was crowded I think it was a hot day if I remember correctly we walked in we were like this is busiest snot yep that's the sun I know what that does yep that's the moon I know what that does yep that's a thing that I can't look at because you know it's the sun or it's not the night or I don't know what's going on anymore went outside said yep that's smog I know what that does and we left yep we were maybe there a half an hour now I think it was a little longer than that but it wasn't very long it was not very long and most of that time was parking walking up the fricken hill and then walking back down they don't find in our fricken car parking in Griffith is awful parking there's just no way to get around it there is no way to get around it but they can build a parking structure no but it doesn't matter but how many dollars are you going to give us to do that the point oh I'll give you a lot of dollars that's true I'll give you a lot of dollars for that give you a lot of dollars for that stupid things of like the pennies that go down the hold you're like look kids here's gravity good all those pennies are going to make a parking structure that would be nice anyway yeah no we I could sort of felt like we I didn't feel like we did it but I kind of was like yep been there neat anyway and my parents were coming out for Thanksgiving and as my dad aptly pointed out eight days is a little too much and we needed something to do with them and they had never been to Griffith we never brought them to Griffith and you kindly made the offer to say hey well I'm going to be here on a certain day and my shift ends at a certain time but we're open for a few hours after that if you want to come by right around the time I'm doing this thing I can you know punch out from work and I can give you a tour and I was like great somebody else from my parents to talk to you and I'm kidding if they were wonderful I'm kidding and if my in-laws are kidding or watching you know what I mean I'm joking I'm being really harsh on my parents but I feel a little bit bad it is good comic relief it is it is I do love my parents and they love me it's fine but no it was better than Ben and I who like I said went there and said yep that's the sun yep that's the moon yep that's smog and let's get out of here it was better than any sort of tour I could have given and yeah so there it was it was absolutely incredible there was a moment almost 10 years ago now where I was doing research on the space shuttle and my passion for space was rekindled and that's what started this show I have not had that same moment until I did that tour with you and there was a passion for space a different type of passion that was rekindled and I had a vague interest in the stars as a child but not to that level and it was that same like oh my god this is awesome the whole like one inch away or one inch away the big picture was absolutely awesome the symbolism of the planets was incredible I thought that was really cool and then seeing how a lot of this one thing you didn't mention but I was making the ties to is how all of this ties and pulls into society and culture one way or another even the symbols for men and women are actually planetary symbols which I had never connected those dots before and I was absolutely blown away and I'm going to hear by volunteer your time on the show if you're ever in town and he happens to be working see if you can get a tour from Jared it is the most incredible thing I have done dare I say all year I do I do it was awesome and I was talking about it for a very long time in the car I continue to say amazing things about it I'm even wearing a shirt from Griffith Observatory she is as well it was great that was one of my top moments of 2016 in space I'm glad I was able to do that for you it was so much fun the only thing is that I wish that the telescope had been open for you guys to look through it was stupidly windy that night that's okay I'm not sure how much that actually would have added to the experience it was it was that dot connecting moments and like those we said the same thing from when we brought Kat and Dutta to Disney World you want to leave them wanting a little something you don't have to show everybody everything the very first time we live here we can go back it's only two and a half hours you guys are coming back we're bringing the Duttas on December 31st because you do a presentation yes and we missed it because we were in the car freaking LA traffic forever and we missed it by five minutes welcome to my commute to work but it was also like Thanksgiving like commute time it sincerely took us nearly three hours to get from Anaheim to Griffith it was ridiculous yeah a Destructor 1701 I would oh visiting F9021 in front of space so here's the thing I would actually flip those so visiting Falcon 921 the landed vehicle is awesome and very cool but it's kind of on a busy street and you're not there's not like a lot there right it's that and you can't do anything there's also no parking there either there is no parking there either whereas at Griffith there's Griffith the experience is a little different it's the same like you can't figure out how to get there slash park so that all is the same it's a full LA experience it's a full LA experience way too many people you can't park everyone's angry at everyone else but there's a lot more to do if you're ever in the Los Angeles area I cannot recommend enough going to Griffith the hard part is when we went the first time there are no tour guides you just have to kind of find someone at Griffith that can talk to you about the stuff and if you can't find anyone you're completely on your own and that experience isn't as good that yeah that's a little frustrating it is an as you go kind of place in terms of how you can experience it but that's where people like me come in which is to facilitate the understanding with people I think if you walk in and you want to talk to somebody this is going to sound really crazy but sincerely I think you should walk and be like hi I'd like to talk to somebody who works here please somebody who works here anybody work here somebody works here because then somebody will be like shut that crazy woman up and they will send somebody to you by the way they'll say shut that crazy woman up even if Jared is doing it or if I'm doing it but that's the thing Ben's totally right and to to be fair Jared did give us an amazing tour but you also introduced us to people where they have made they're a little bit stronger in some areas than you are on Griffith property as well so we talked about meteorites nearly ad nauseam I got to the point where my mom tapped out before I did but I did get to the point where I was like I cannot input any more information I feel like I full and I just we were watching real time cosmic radiation yes that was cool anyhow that was one of my awesome moments if you're ever in Los Angeles absolutely recommend going up to Griffith if you can find someone like Jared to walk you around a little bit if you can find the person they're more than happy to do it that's why they're there and I will totally give you a tour Jared at Tomorrow.TV there you go what are you looking forward to really quickly because the show is running long now what are you looking forward to in 2017 oh no no that's the neat thing about having an internet show we can go longer we can go short but we don't want to drag on what are you looking for I know we have to take a break and then we're going to come back and comment I'll continue oh that's a good idea yeah let's do that so we're going to take a quick break and when we come back we're going to talk about 2017 actually I'm going to roll 2017 and a couple comments together stay tuned we'll be right back more launches I think I was totally prepared for in any case this is what happens we take one week off and then Carrie Ann doesn't know what's going on anymore so let's get to our tomorrow premiere members these are the people who I keep thinking throughout the entire show as because they've been giving us the most money and so their name keeps popping up over and over and over again then we also have our producers these people are giving us $5 or more they get the free worldwide shipping from our swag store and uh yeah that's all and their names keep popping up over and over in the show but do not fret we also have our patreon plus members these people are giving us $2.50 or more and they get early access to after dark which is a thing that comes up after the show which is really cool look at all of you people so many names look at all of you people yeah it's really impressive we love you all we do I love that you love us but there's even more than that these are our patreon patrons oh my goodness this is magical I hate you all except for you people you're the only people I love thank you so much here's your name in the show we'll see if it moves around next week these are the people who get the name of the show they get they also get the name of the show what? if you want to circle your name on the show you should go over to patreon.com slash tm that's a big deal patrons you are the only one that Carrie Ann loves the only rights that's a big deal I'm getting light-headed I got the right camera this time so you guys all can shove it and in case like I said before that's why you watch live this is all sorts of awesome and you've got a standing ovation from Dada and I believe you need to host all of the shows from now on because that was epic who wants to start off with their favor what are you looking forward to most in 2017? oh my god you're going I've got two things was that okay? I can kill your asking permission I did like three for 2016 and spent half an hour so we've got two things coming up this first one will probably be for pretty much a majority of you but hopefully Falcon Heavy flying just do it already and also just do it 27 engines firing concurrently 27 engines this is how you can tell that I am still not a complete 100% space geek because you're like super excited about all the power and all I could think is all those people's windows somebody's going to have to buy windows and that's a very scary thought to me and then finally the James Webb Space Telescope is going to be assembled and then packed up and sent down to French Guiana for launch in 2017 the telescope that ate the budget is finally going to get ready to fly and we can finally open up the budget to be fair it ate the budget and then it ate it some more and then it ate some future budget and then it ate some more of that and then it ate itself and then it ate itself it almost did it almost ate itself question based on space law does that mean we can blame James Telescope's problems on the French I think maybe sounds good to me James Webb space mic for you favorite upcoming 2017 moment I'm not sure if it's going to be a particular moment but I'm really looking forward to the commercial crew development over 2017 hopefully SpaceX will be able to have their first test flight of the crew dragon vehicle although it will be unmanned on that first test flight I believe and I'm just looking forward to what sort of progress gets made this year and you know it needs to hurry up and be completed so we can get these two vehicles online and have something else other than the Russian Soyuz capsule because with the Soyuz FG rocket they do a lot that is the vehicle that they spend the most amount of quality control time on because it's sending up humans so that's why the Soyuz FG has a 100% success rate because they spend so much time making sure that that particular rocket and that capsule will work now even so though we're not having so many problems with the Soyuz rockets that I'm really worried that some sort of loss of life event could happen in the near future so I'm really rooting for and looking forward to the updates from the commercial crew program to get other vehicles up and working to have some sort of alternative to just relying on the Russian Soyuz vehicle so I think that's what I'm looking forward to most other than of course Falcon Heavy. Virgin Galactic flying. So they flew like today what do you mean by flying? Well, they're six months out, right? Good one. It feels like they are getting closer to be there. Yeah, they've done what, four captive flights they did a freefall flight this morning they're getting back on the saddle as it were and I'm actually looking forward to seeing how they progress and watching them mature and figure out better safer ways to do things and continue their test program and I was there for the original the second qualification flight for the X Prize when the Spaceship One did its parabolic flight and it's been a long time coming I've been really excited about seeing what the next step was and they they keep pushing it obviously for safety reasons because their technology isn't matured but I'm really looking forward just to finally seeing them actually do the thing. That was 2006? 2004. Thank you. Carianne? I wasn't positive that I was getting my dates correct but thankfully everybody in the chat room kept shouting a whole bunch of acronyms and I recognized what they were so I'm going to go with those. There's the GLXP and the SLS so I'm super excited for SLS which is the space launch system I very nearly did say senate launch system to fire or not fire or blow over or blow up or go forward it's pushback but there's a lot of qualification work to do. There's a lot of milestones that are being worked towards in 2017. I'm super excited to see whether or not that gets canceled I'm super excited to see whether or not that gets dismantled I'm super excited to see whether or not that gets pushed forward who knows maybe we're going to strap 27 engines to SLS like I don't know. That would be even more awesome with what could possibly happen with this now. Just a bunch of tape considering the transition to the Trump administration. There's so many things I don't think anyone knows I think we could take a bunch of Dungeons and Dragons dice and just roll and just pretend that somebody knows something Oh, Nat 20. Exactly. Chris. Exactly. But on a slightly more serious note and something that is a little bit more near and dear to my heart, the Google Learner X Prize GLXP someone in America going back to the moon right? Sure. Why does that have to be America though? Does it? It doesn't. It doesn't. But someone going back to the moon. I say it like that because other countries have gone back to the moon have put other rovers on the moon China, Jackson and have produced some really amazing things this particular I guess no, you're right. I apologize Google Learner X Prize just because X Prize is based in America does not mean that. So all the teams come Yes, so I strike that for the record, I apologize what I just mean is that yeah, you're right. Somebody going back to the moon and the whole Google Learner X Prize is getting a rover onto the moon and taking pictures and roving and staying overnight and sending information back and it's a proof of concept sort of situation going on. For commercial space, I think that's the interesting thing this will be the first time that I'm aware of that a government's not doing it I don't know that there hasn't been any other time that a commercial entity has done it No. I can't think of a commercial entity doing a mission specifically beyond geosynchronous orbit So that'll be that you're right Absolutely incredible. Right. That's the part I'm excited about Sorry. I don't want to offend That's not what I meant. But yeah, so those two things I am actually quite excited about And then in 2017, I'm the last one, right? Yup. So for 2017, this is going to sound nerdy and self-serving a little bit but the thing I'm most excited about is orbit 10 a lot of what we've been working for for years now has kind of led to this next season of Tomorrow The studio space I'm actually looking at a giant graphic a 25 foot wide graphic Well, what was a 25 foot wide graphic on a wall for those patrons, I do recommend logging into patreon.com and taking a peek. We have pictures of the set when it went up and then fell back down Those are all sorts of incredible We're getting it fixed. No fault of our own. So the new set is going to be incredible We've been working this year diligently on tweaking the format to find something that works and we're very close, if not have found it I mean we're really working hard and working very long hours to try to make this something absolutely incredible for orbit 10 and I'm very very very excited for what we're able to do at that point and hopefully help continue to get humanity excited about visiting the stars and exploring the stars and doing things out in the solar system more so than just I have problems down here getting people to look up and that's why we're here. We want everyone here to look up Obviously you're watching the show, you're looking up but we want to get more people to look up. Whether they watch it to you or not as irrelevant, I just want to inspire the planet to look up and I am so excited for what we are building and what we have been building for the last while and that's what I'm most excited about for 2017 is what we're able to do from there We're going to continue to do amazing things in space We're going to continue to land rockets We're going to continue to create innovative new launch systems We're going to continue to push commercial crew be it SpaceX, Boeing, Virgin X-Core whatever these micro-satellite launchers, rocket labs all of these companies I'm super excited for and I'm really excited to be able to bring them on this show and talk about the incredible things that they're doing and take an optimistic look at the future that's what we do here optimistic look at the future I don't think I'm going to take a break because the show has gone long enough and I do want to get to a couple of comments so last week's show was J.P. Aerospace and that was the balloon castles in the sky let's start with give me one second here Ben, it's time to be Capcom this week Well, I'm going to tell it we're going to jump around Let's start with Hans 611 That's comment 3, Dada The first comment that Ben has chosen for us today with an incredible icon It's so happy, check this out It's from Hans 611 This one comes off of YouTube It says I feel Everyone is playing with candles We have these few lunatics like this guy and the EDM or EDM We're going to use electronic dance music to get us to space We should and the EM drive guys etc they'll look back and be like Maybe, the EM drive stuff is starting to look more and more realistic possibly We're still out on that one but there's an article being published for peer review so it's actually moving forward like in a scientific manner it doesn't mean that it's valid yet but it does mean that things are continuing to move at a forward pace even though it seems it seemingly breaks physics as we know it but you know what, the best kind of physics is the stuff that breaks physics as we know it because that means that we didn't know everything that we thought we knew and it's completely possible that there is something that we don't know that actually will help us in the future it's also completely possible that it breaks things that you can't do, that doesn't work don't know yet, so that'll be cool That'll be cool What's the next comment that you would like to discuss Benjamin James? Let's just continue down in order from there Alright, so after that, this one comes from Shiro off of Reddit It says but this was a surprisingly fascinating interview I hope they can scale these balloons up though I suspect the hypersonic flutter problem might be a tough one to solve Yeah Getting a balloon to go Mock 10 He really liked to use mock numbers I think that's actually a very complex way to describe it because you have to then explain the speed of sound through air density and how it changes and then you have to explain, well it's mock 10 at sea level so I don't Ground speed mock 10 Well, sea level mock 10 Well, speed at what you're going across the ground is at mock 10 Ground speed Yeah, but your ground changes altitude so your pressure changes Am I thinking there's something different then? Yeah Am I confused myself? Yeah, because the speed of sound changes with air density so even if you're thinking ground speed if it's the ground in a mountain that speed of sound is different at a mountain top as it is at sea level so you have to refer to speed of sound at sea level as opposed to I guess when I talk about ground speed I'm talking about the actual physical speed by which you are moving actually moving Yes, but it would be physical speed at which you're moving if you're referring to mock 10 it would have to be physical speed at which you're moving at sea level specifically Right, because in your scenario you wouldn't take into account the altitude because you could say ground speed but you could mean ground speed and what is it? Colorado? No, not Colorado Yeah, Colorado is high You have to change your baking the way you bake things in Colorado because you're so flipping high Right, so the ground speed the speed of sound at the ground in Colorado is different than the speed of sound at say Cape Canaveral Yes ground level Since there's no sound in space wouldn't the speed of sound up there be zero? I don't think it's actually because there's this common myth that there's nothing in space and that's not true either There is actually very distant things so I don't know what that translates to the speed of sound It's a whole lot of very little It's a whole lot of almost nothing A whole lot of very little Accurate Anyhow, there you go I don't know how I diverted there Alright, there you go Last, finally, let's close this So this year I think we've had either it's very close to the most number of shows or the most number of shows and this I believe will be our longest show ever Alright, last comment Wait, did you want to do the last comment? There's two Oh wait, there are two? That's why I'm asking Oh yeah, let's do last two, I'm sorry I didn't see the page break The two's fine This one also comes off of YouTube This is from, I don't know that I can pronounce this Arestidus Is it Arstidus? Arstidus Arstidus, like yes I'm sorry, I apologize John Powell's configuration is an excellent way to send payloads from the surface of Mars to the solar system John Powell's configuration is probably the only way all the dreams for human presence to Mars can be redeemed Colonization of a planet without a magnetosphere like Mars is kind of a joke I do really like the idea of launching rockets from one of these large balloon platforms It's a balloon castle, Mike? Yeah, a balloon castle, excuse me So launching a rocket from the yard of the balloon castle I hope my terminology is right there for you Ben I think that that's a really cool idea and even if you can't get over some of the engineering problems to actually put one of these balloon castles into orbit from that altitude, even from the altitude of that they are sending their balloons at right now, where they're taking you know, they're sending up those pond sacks or sending up chairs for Ikea to take a really awesome video of even from that altitude, launching a rocket from that point, you really don't need this really, you know, giant huge configuration to, you know launch a certain amount of weight I mean, there are a lot of benefits of being able to launch stuff from that higher altitude and less atmosphere and get things into orbit for a lot cheaper, so that's what I'm probably the most excited about with John Powell's plan is to eventually, once they have these larger balloons to have some sort of platform that they would be able to launch small rockets from, I mean just imagine like a sounding rocket, a small sounding rocket would be able to get something to the moon from that altitude, so it's just a, lots of possibilities and my head kind of explodes with all the cool things that you could potentially do with that, so I don't know if it's the only way, that's definitely not the only way but it's one of the ways that we could do a lot of cool things in space Alright, also Before we move on to the last comment I did want to well caffeinated to the room caffeinated back when the show apt timing, because let's make this particular show longer, back when the show was in Minnesota, caffeinated was our technical director and we ran the show out of his coffee shop, the Crow River Coffee Company and we even had blast off blend coffee back when we were space vidcast he was an integral part of getting us to orbit 10 so a huge thank you to caffeinated and welcome back, good to see you in the chat room, all sorts of awesome Alright, and our final comment from last week's show This one also comes off of YouTube, it says from Luke S Van Hoot Hoot Hoot Hoot Hoot Hoot Hoot Hoot Hoot, that's so interesting You could be able to bounce it up better that way So I'll attack It says, the idea of quote unquote launching a balloon instead of a rocket inspires me a lot I'm actually working on a pretty efficient concept of airship, however, this kind of work is not my specialization, but I'm quite sure that it'll work somehow, that's why I've quite a few questions to ask and yes, of course I want to share my concept, perhaps it will give John new ideas as well, anyway I did my research regarding my concept, but I never got it to J.P. Aerospace I never, yeah, I never got to J.P. Aerospace, there we go, once again thanks a lot tomorrow for the great info I will certainly try and get in touch with John Yeah, that's why we're here I think the more people I would also argue, if you've got a really good idea do it, find a way to execute on it I think that's more people doing stuff Not everyone will be successful, but more people doing stuff increases the chance of success if that makes any sense Alright, Tepcom, why don't you take us out? Yeah, right If I may, if I may I just want to say real quickly the very first comment that we skipped I just want to read this real quick, Karian is rad I love having the fellow ladies Karian's perspective, Karian is rad and she deserves all of that respect We'll talk on that It's time to say that We'll talk on that in After Dark Next week's guest and take us to break Yes, next week's guest is actually Justin Park from intergalacticeducation.com I suggest you look into the website it's actually very interesting and then that way you guys can be prepared for our questions for next week's show which will be 9.40, oh my god so exciting, anyway, stay with us we'll get back to you with more things in After Dark