 There tomorrow's space today. We got some pretty exciting news. Hey Mike. What do we got on the docket today? Oh, man, so there's been a leak at the International Space Station, but it's okay We don't need to be alarmed and we're gonna go through in detail of where this hole is what their whole contingency plan is and What they did to make sure that the astronauts were safe everything's okay, but we got to talk about you had me there for a second I'm gonna explain that and Jared. I'm pretty sure you had something you wanted to bring up today Yeah, I'm pretty excited because we have two spacecraft that have just found their targets and they're setting up for a super science Doubleheader on New Year's Eve super science on New Year's Eve All right, and then also I'm pretty sure we have some pretty lovely guests in today and who's that we do We're going to have an interview a little bit later with the one and only Dave Mastin from Mastin Aero space And he's actually gonna be able to talk to us today, so it's gonna be great Yeah, and in case you didn't notice he's not a computer screen. We didn't upgrade to like three million P. This is flesh Before your eyes all that and that's getting awkward all that and more on tomorrow's face tomorrow starts right now I'm just gonna go ahead and dive right into it because you mentioned that there are two spacecraft who now have their eyes Set on some targets. Yes. I want to learn more about that. Yes Well, the first one is a Cyrus Rex, which is a spacecraft that was launched back in 2016 and a teddy now to grab a sample of an asteroid to return To the earth in 2025 and it's going to an asteroid called Bennu Which is named after the If you could believe this it's named after the Egyptian god of the sun rebirth and death all of them So all of them. Yes three in one So multi-tasking Yes, very good And it finally got its first image from its long-range imager of Bennu. It was about 2.2 million kilometers away Yeah, totally would have been easy to find it with it right there now by October So in about a month OSIRIS-REx should be close enough that it will actually start resolving surface features on Bennu We're really excited about Bennu because it's not only is it a near-earth asteroid It's actually a potentially hazardous object as well It has a 1 in 2700 chance of hitting the earth sometime in the 22nd century So so this is actually the type of asteroid that we really want to study Because not only is it the leftovers from the formation of the solar system It's also very similar to a lot of the near-earth Asteroids that cross the earth's orbit and are potentially hazardous objects So if we study this you can actually kind of maybe figure out what we would need to do in order to deflect an object like this So that's really super cool with that there and then so awesome if that wasn't enough for you Our little our little spacecraft that can new horizons, which is still zipping out of the solar system It's spotted its target from a hundred and seventy two million Kilometers away long range system its target is 2014 MU 69 which I believe in an episode earlier this year. We figured out how to designate That with that there and it was just an absolute mess but they I Know right, but they do call it and they gave it a nickname. They call it Ultima Suleh So Suleh Suleh So which is sort of related to the medieval concept of an unexplained World very far away sort of like uncharted territory And it's a classical Kuiper belt object Which is it's very very cool both figuratively and literally It's going to fly by on December 31st. So a New Year's Eve But what's also going to happen on December 31st a couple hours before that is Osiris Rex is going to go into orbit around Bennu as well So on December 31st you have Osiris Rex going into orbit around Bennu and then like two to three hours later new horizons will do its fly By of 2014 MU 69 how is that even possible? Does Bennu have enough mass to be able to support something orbiting it? Yeah, you can you just orbit it at a super slow speed the orbital velocity the orbital velocity of Osiris Rex around Bennu Will be like five centimeters per second. Oh It'll be zipping So Hope you didn't have plans for New Year's though. Yeah, I know what I'm doing Right, that's pretty cool. All right, man. Well, I'm excited to see that All right, so I'm sorry. I tried to focus on your story, but really my heart's just been racing because you mentioned You mentioned there was a leak on the ISS. Yeah, and you have some explaining to do Damn near put me in the grave. Well, it's okay Let's all just take a deep breath. Everything's okay. So what happened is NASA and Roscoe's most detected a very minute leak on Wednesday night and the crew was already getting ready for bed and everything like that so they decided just to let Them sleep and worry about it in the morning because it was you know Enough of a minute leak that it didn't put the crew in any danger But the next morning after they all woke up and everything like that They had to go module by module sealing the hatches to try to find where this leak is coming from and they determined That it was coming from the Russian segment of the space station. So It was actually Alexander Gerst who found the hole was actually Alexander. Yeah, thank you There it is. There's the hole right there It's actually inside the orbital module of the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft And the orbital module thankfully is not the piece of the Soyuz capsule that will return to earth That's the descent module. So hopefully even with this hole They should still be able to return home, but I mean after they found the hole Sergei Procopiev Immediately got to work and at first they just put on some cap top tape Well, that was good enough for a little bit the first day then after that they used some epoxy and some medical patches You can see them doing a little bit of the repair work, and that's the the after it almost looks like a bigger hole now But that's actually covered in epoxy over with a wet paper towel Oh man, do they have any plans to fix it permanently or well that depends They need to do a little bit of studies and they used some ultrasounds and they actually found two more holes on the outside of the vehicle So what that means is that they figured that this hole was probably caused by a very very tiny piece of Micromedia right debris or even a space debris or something like that However, there's something weird going on because Roscosmos through the the conversations between the ground between mission control in Moscow and mission control in Houston The Roscosmos guys were saying that that hole might have already been there It might have actually been drilled into the orbital module when it was still on the ground And they're thinking that some sort of impact on the outside is what caused Those two other holes that are on the outside might be where the the leak is actually Venting out from and not necessarily from that hole because it did not puncture all the way through the vehicle And so even when they looked into that tiny little hole they could see metal near the end of it So it wasn't a completely open open hole, you know, they couldn't look out into the space from there Well without asking something too obvious I mean, what are some of the potential hazards of having these little leaks around the ISS? Well, thankfully this is not the ISS itself. It's just one of the visiting vehicles If the leak gets a lot worse then they could potentially seal off the Soyuz MS-09 and you can see in this graphic here Where the position of Soyuz MS-09 is it's currently docked at the Ross vet module, which is closest to the orbital the US segment And you can see the progress 70 vehicle, which is docked right next to it So if they through these different studies if they find out that the leak gets worse or if the vehicle gets scrubbed There's a nice beauty shot of it right there. That's MS-09 Then there's a couple of contingency plans in place if they cannot return home on this vehicle Which they think they can because it's just the orbital module and that's going to be thrown away anyway Once it separates from the descent module, but if they can't come home on MS-09 Then Roscosmus is going to send either an uncrewed Soyuz vehicle so that you know The those three crew members can come home or they're going to send up the next couple of missions with only two crew Members on board instead of three so that those three crew members who flew up on MS-09 can return home one by one There also is one other optional contingency plan There is possibly a chance that if you know so MS-09 gets scrapped that those guys might be able to return home on the crew dragon So but that's like the the least you know the reliable option right now Yeah, that'd be amazing if you know crew demo and they're actually bringing people home too Weirdly convenient, but awesome and at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. Well. Thank you for explaining that I hope it gets all patched up no more no no more holes Yeah, let's just go ahead and stop beating up these these objects. They're doing so much work Although as far as I know this is the first leak like this They've ever detected and it really says something about the space station This wasn't a leak at the space station itself, but actually one of the visiting vehicles Yeah, it says quite a bit two decades on orbit, and this is its first like major leak Exactly and this is the premise of how a lot of sci-fi movies go horribly wrong, right? So yeah, keep your eyes out. No no disaster this time. Thank goodness. Yeah, okay. Yeah, cool And okay Jared, so I'm gonna throw it back to you because speaking of things in our solar system apparently Whatever stuff our solar systems made of is not that special. Yeah, we're not special. It turns out Thank you for tuning in and very sorry. There's nothing unique about our solar system. It turns out well So this was concluded by a study that was done using the Gemini telescope in Hawaii It's on top of Mauna Kea. It's a eight meter telescope, and it's one of the largest infrared telescopes You actually get to use here on the surface of the earth and they looked at 18 planetary systems that were within 450 light years because the closer they are obviously the better data we can get from them and Stars are super bright compared to the objects around them So that makes it really difficult to actually see the objects that are around stars I mean we've only directly imaged a couple exoplanets because the fact that the glare from a star is just So significantly brighter than the light coming from a planet that you just it's so it's really difficult to see So the researchers actually kind of did this really cool thing where they decided instead of looking at regular stars They were going to look at white dwarf stars. We talked about white dwarfs last week We did that basically they're sort of the the remnants of a star that is puffed off the outer layers of its atmosphere and Actually, some white dwarfs end up leaving the material of their solar system around them They don't actually blow it out and they don't clean up after themselves. Yeah, they don't so so they basically like wreck their system But then the debris from that system stays there Yeah, so they were able to figure out which of these white dwarfs had that debris and orbit around them And then they did a really cool thing called spectroscopy This is that's when you look at the light that's coming from something and you actually see Where certain dark lines are at in that light and those dark lines are elements absorbing that wavelength of light That's epic and certain elements absorb certain wavelengths So you can actually look at the wavelengths from this the white dwarf and then Compare that to the wavelengths from the debris field in front of it And you can actually separate the two and you can figure out very precisely what's actually there So in some of the systems, they found that they were extremely rich in carbon nitrogen and water Those also I'm very familiar. Yes, and then they also found that some of the systems were rich in silicon Magnesium and calcium So this is the same stuff that makes up our own solar like looking in a mirror Yeah, so basically we are absolutely nothing special It turns out that that systems out there are very similar to what we have in our own solar system right here So so that's got to mean something special though the fact that you know these solar systems that are so much farther away from us They're actually pretty similar. I mean that's got to be that's got to be notable, right? Yeah, that kind of tells us that the building blocks that you need in order to make a planet like earth or rampant throughout our galaxy That's kind of and you can even extrapolate that and say rampant maybe throughout the universe exactly So that kind of that kind of makes the idea that you know, maybe there's the potential to find more earths besides the one we're on right now So let me let me poke a hole in this if I may Okay, the data set is from stuff that was in a like a 450 light-year radius, right? Yes, yeah, so that's our stellar neighborhood So are we seeing this data because all the the solar systems in our neighborhood are made out of the same stuff that come from the similar The same nebula the same. Yeah, that's that is a very good point Which is that we are sort of in the same I guess interstellar cloud of stuff that could have formed But what they're hoping to do a little bit later down the line is actually do this same study with the James Webb Space Telescope So that way they can actually look even further out and get even better data and really narrow it down So this is sort of like the beginning of that study, but it's a very promising beginning because a lot of what we find Sort of in the processes after these stars are dead with these white dwarfs We also find that with discs of dust and gas around them as well So so we have targets that are further away. We just need a more sensitive instrument in order to do that That's where James Webb will come in so good old. So stand by because maybe in a couple more years We'll confirm that but that actually is a really good point that that I think is a good one to bring up Well, this is still important though Because with a lot of the exoplanets that we've seen we haven't been able to tell what their chemical composition is So now that we have a way of doing that and with the common combined with James Webb Hopefully we'll be able to figure that out for at least stuff in our galaxy Yeah, and what's really cool about this too is that because this is the leftovers of a system getting ripped apart We're basically looking inside of the exoplanets as well. So we're not actually we're not looking at the surface or the atmosphere here We're looking at basically a planet exactly ripped apart and the materials inside of it It's what's on the inside that counts when it comes to determining these types of compositions. It's really what it's important Thank you. Yeah matters what's on the inside What seemed to be a somewhat depressing story of we're not special turned into you know what it just really all depends Is what you are on the inside? I just think that's so cool that we're similar though It just means that we're all interconnected. Yeah I mean the more I think connections you can make with things that are seemingly so distant away from us I think the more it kind of just brings the cosmos together. Yeah, I know it sounds squishy, but it's it's nice It's really on many levels It's very cute. All right, so that concludes today's adorable stories except for the leak that was terrible And so after the break we're actually gonna go ahead and go right into our interview But before we depart I want to go ahead and give a humongous shout out to our escape velocity citizens These amazing people help make the show happen they contribute ten dollars per episode and They support us and if you are interested in helping out the show there are several ways you can subscribe and ring the bell That's literally like a click which takes like a nanosecond down there somewhere You know you're you know, we're awesome If you want to keep helping us be awesome and helping us spread the awesome to the world Then you can contribute if you would like to then you can go to patreon.com Tmro, and you will never miss out on another terrible joke that has to do with space and beyond again All right, we will see you in just a little bit, but stay right there Welcome back to tomorrow now this week We are joined by the one and only Dave Mastin and thank you so much for being here today Man so excited to have you here. Well, thank you for having me Yeah, so we've had you on the show quite a few times and we've talked about a lot of the different projects that you guys have Been doing so is there any updates that you can give us with like zero be or zodiac? So in terms of our sub-overload vehicles, they're just still flying along Zodiac is pretty much where zodiac is what we're using for all of our flight opportunities programs work And we're continuing to work with that. We're doing some work with NASA I'm not sure how much I can talk about right now but you know, we've got a couple of task orders that we're working on to get some stuff ready and Hopefully help NASA and JPL and Actually, there's multiple multi-center Program going on now We're just gonna help them land a lot better a lot tighter landing ellipses and much more interesting places Well, let's talk about some of those interesting places because there have been a few updates regarding NASA's lunar catalyst program And you guys have a new vehicle That is a being part of that the XL one and the XL one T the technology demonstrator for it. Oh, yeah Yeah, so that's a catalyst. We're doing we're doing a lunar lander and we're also doing a Terrestrial-based version of that lunar lander So that's so XL one is the obviously lunar lander XL one T for terrestrial or test bed or you know, whatever Is what we're using Tmro to just On basically make sure that everything is going to work correctly So that we can test things out because we're very much test-based organization was like yeah, okay You can sit down do all the analysis you want But the reality is you got to get out there and actually do the testing and do test flights And then you know whether stuff is going to really work or not Are we going to get any updates when you guys start flying the the terrestrial vehicle? So I'm sure we will Right now the vehicles actually being built we just did a number of things with Doing the assembly we had some issues with Getting the tanks properly cleaned But that's been resolved now and so we're integrating the tanks in the vehicle I say actually NASA Marshall is actually doing most of that workforce right now right and It's been it's been great because we you know, we it's like well How do you clean a tank for the? particular propellants we're using and with the particular tank materials we're doing and We all scratch their heads and there's some people actually know what they're doing over a Marshall and like yeah Oh, you know you do this and you do this and you do this and like okay. That's great Wow, wow excellent. I wonder if they can help out roast cosmos at all with some of their dirty tanks that they're having But tell us a little bit more about XL one. What is its purpose? What is it for? So XL one is a small lunar lander. We can take Take about a hundred kilograms to the surface of the moon We are Right about what's considered preliminary design level. It's you know ready for a PDR preliminary design review Yeah, we're just trying to close out a few things for that And we hope to be a part of the commercial lunar payload services In fact, I rule really we've just sort of totally oriented our company towards that right now So that's like, you know 90% of what we're doing is going to the moon The other 10% is supporting all the stuff that we need to do to go to moon and So yeah, so You know XL one is a small lander. It will be supporting the commercial lunar payload services We'll be able to take some small scientific instruments to the surface of the moon We have a number of planned emissions for it But really what we've designed it around was a basic capabilities like okay. Here's the basic capability We can go to the moon. Here's our upgrade path. Initially. We'll have to do You know pretty much the similar thing is like the Apollo landing site selection, you know, we need a certain amount of daylight we need You know certain sun angles we need You know basically we can't land on the poles, you know, that's certain orbital mechanical or orbital mechanical Orbital considerations in terms of being able to line up to a landing site and so forth and so Basically, we're you know landing within the mid latitudes Or you know even near near the equator, you know, definitely not near the pole After that, you know, we have an upgrade path for being able to last into the night into the winter night Upgrade paths for being able to go to the polar regions Probably some improvements we can do to up the amount of mass we can carry and Then after that, we're also as again a part of the catalyst thing. We're also looking at how to Get to a much larger lander as well So if you're looking at a mid-sized lander and a large lander When I say large lander like humans on the moon type of size lander, okay Getting on that path Would there be any sort of sample return that you guys would be able to do as well or would it just be cargo delivery? So initially it's just the cargo delivery. It's basically get the spacecraft down onto the surface Do your science and then as you know, hopefully you land, you know early in the lunar day Last for you know 13 days or so and then as the Sun goes down locally We basically just turn off and it's done But as we get into our mid-sized lander then we're going to start looking more at the reusability aspects because you know mass and space systems reusable So with our next larger lander We'll be looking at that reusability aspect and having the performance to be able to go down to the surface of the moon do some experiments do some work collect some samples and Come back to you know some place to eventually, you know back to earth. I'm more of a fan of having midpoints, you know and do the Sort of the hub and spoke system where the hubs are actually in orbit around each of your major gravity wells And then you spoke down to the gravity wells instead of having to have one vehicle to do So you have a lander that does landing it goes from well say a deep space gateway down to the surface of the moon and then back to that or You know to a station in low-earth orbit down to the earth and back and then you know something in between the two Between those two stations and yeah, and that's how I think the infrastructure needs to work out And I think that's ultimately what's gonna end up being the best in terms of overall cost well, I wanted to move then to Your larger lander that could potentially bring humans are we talking about Zeus or is this we are talking about Zeus, okay? Okay, yes, there's actually a question from the chat room. I would like to ask this is from Stradi He asks are you looking at either crew rating the Zeus or developing an advanced crew lander? And you kind of answered that with with the Zeus, but what are what sort of requirements? Would you need to do in order to human rate that? We're not sure what the real requirements are for human rating and neither is anybody else because there is a human rating document or a set of documents, I guess but even Nothing NASA's built has ever conformed to that so What are the real requirements and you know, maybe we'll look more at what you know has been Levitan bowing and SpaceX for the capsules there But for the immediate near term the development is Not so much on the human side. What we'll probably do is we'll bring somebody knows how to do the human stuff You know, there are a couple of companies who really specialize in making things human compatible and but you know the biggest thing is Getting a vehicle that can land and take off again And then we'll be able to figure out what we need to do to make that even safer Is there a lot of synergy going on between Mast and aerospace United Launch Alliance and big low air space and space systems by the way Excuse me. Yeah, never been Aerospace I forgive me. I apologize that I didn't mean to offend you. That is a big difference But no seriously is there a synergy going on between you and United Launch Alliance for their whole cislunar 1,000 plan So there's certain amount. I mean, we've done a lot of work with ULA in the past Look forward to doing low work with them and going forward Not sure exactly where we are with that right now because there's not a whole lot of money for Zeus right now Hopefully as we get moving forward that'll change again You know, we're waiting now that NASA's back on the go-to-the-moon kick We can start talking to people but now we're waiting for NASA To formulate those programs and not just talk about going to the moon But actually have programs to do it and help some of that funding and even with Cislunar 1,000 It kind of seems to me like unless there's a customer. It's not really gonna happen, but so that's a big thing It's like, okay, who's that first customer who's gonna start paying for some of this and we're starting to see a lot of potential And it is this is gonna be really big We're starting to see the companies who are going to be doing more of the infrastructure things who are going to be creating Bases and places to maybe even live and being able to do construction on the moon and that's going to be important for this So as we start seeing this come up now, we're starting to see okay, maybe there are going to be customers There are going to be possible industries that can That will be best served by being on the moon As we start seeing this forming then we can start saying okay, well they need transportation We're that transportation bit and maybe we can start seeing a Cislunar economy Growing and that's really what we're hoping for right now, and we're starting to see the signs of it So interesting now even though the Massen space systems is an expert in in landing technology There is a question that I would like to share from YouTube. This is actually from Mack Malkawi He asks have you ever considered a survivable Crasher or impactor? Not really just because we know how to land so well, so why should we not land it's The only difference between an impactor and a lander is landing gear But actually it's not so much. It's not the Amount of landing gear is just how you design the landing gear I guess and then software Software is really where all the landing stuff is that's that's you know the key part of landing is Being able to you know balance the vehicle and get it to come to zero velocity just as you reach zero altitude That's that you know that's the real key to landing and that's That's hard. I remember I have my pilot's license. I did some Aerobatic training at one point and you know the big question. What is the hardest maneuver you've ever done in aerobatics? land Landing is actually the hardest maneuver you will ever do in an airplane It's guess what it's the same thing for a spacecraft. That is the hardest maneuver Interesting from our chat room astro YYZ asks what has been the most challenging part in qualifying for formal space Qualifications, I'm guessing it means qualifying like for the different contracts like lunar catalyst and stuff like that There I mean there's so many different things. There's you know actually qualifying space hardware Which is means that you know supposedly you can use it in space and if it's actually space qualified You can say that and you go through a number of tests and then other companies were willing to buy your stuff And take it into space kind of thing So I don't know there's that aspect and of course the most challenging part of that is just facilities Thermal back chambers And actually designing and remembering you're not in the same environment. What is exactly your environment? There's and there's so many unknowns that we just really don't know about the environment still And then like you said, yes, and it's qualifying for the NASA Contracts because they have well for example commercial lunar payload services program has put out a draft request for proposal And within that they you know say hey give us 30 pages of Here's why we need to select you as part of how to why we need to select you you have to do Five thing you have to prove to us five points one that you have a schedule and reasonable schedule that you are going to have a spacecraft ready in the next three years To do the landing and that you have a reasonable mission You have to demonstrate that you know understand All the regulatory environments around landing a spacecraft on the moon by the way, that's really complex and even more complex is the fact that there is a Administration put out a thing saying hey, we're changing how it's all done Hmm great So, you know we're sort of in floods like okay Well, you know before the RFP came out and before the president signed this executive order We at least knew which agencies were doing what now we're saying well No, you have a different agency Completely different agency than any of the others we dealt with and said so there's some complexity there The nice thing is we're trying to simplify it and make it a one-stop shop so that you know right now I have to go to the FAA Noah and the FCC for all the licenses I need going FCC is for the radio so that I can communicate back and forth from the moon No, it is because Noah handles all the if you have any remote sensors so cameras Yeah, you know we know it has to review that to make sure that you're not going to accidentally take pictures of Israel At a certain resolution or any other country for that matter that might create some kind of problem And then the FAA of course is for the safety of the launch And so one of the important things of safety of launch is how does the payload work with the launch vehicle? through this whole RFP was there any sort of Requirements as to which vehicle it might launch on like is this specifically for like SLS or is it so this draft this draft Out RFP is and it's specifically not SLS it is specifically not. Yeah, it is you must so This gets back to there's Government contracting there's certain requirements about how much of your stuff is made in the United States And because launch is such a large part of that it's pretty much you have to have a US based provider launch provider So if you're really really tiny you can go on rocket lab because rocket lab does have a USA Presence mm-hmm, and it's considered a US company, even though they're also a New Zealand company or SpaceX or Yolei or I guess you could also do horrible ATK So no yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah All this Officially together now. I don't remember where they are. Well, that brings me to another question. I have The through all the different I mean through the entire history of your company Have you had any sort of international? Customers or had any dealings happen to work through itar So the fact is when you're in aerospace and defense you have to work with itar Well, you like it or not We have actually sort of not really done a lot of working with Outside the US specifically because we didn't want to mess with itar We're starting to come out of that bubble. We're starting to Actually talk to some European Interests on ESA and various companies in Europe Just because we have to And and sort of funny story not so funny story, I mean itar is Most of the reason why you cannot get a good high-end GPS receiver from a US company There are no US companies making high-end GPS receivers Yeah But yeah, so I mean so we're we're starting to you know talk to folks outside the US We haven't traditionally because of the I mean basically every time we deal with it You go get permission from the State Department We did get permission from the State Department a number of years ago for payload user's guide for our Suborbable test vehicles like like zero be and so yeah, I can yeah So that we did get itar approving distribute that anywhere in the world. No problem. Nice but we did that a number of years ago now and Probably need to look into whether we can still can or not like does that have a time limit or something like that There's not a time limit, but you do have to be careful about how much you edit Mmm, and at what point does that now become a a different document that needs to have State Department take because of upgrades on the vehicle or yeah because of changes So like you know if we are there enough changes that we have to say this is no longer the same document We have to review review this and And I think we're actually still using the same payload users guy. We haven't updated it yet So we but we do need to update it soon. So All right, I have a really hard question for you now and this comes from twitch This is from Hannie's Warwarp who asks where does Mastin space systems fit in among all the other launch providers? Why would someone use Mastin instead of SpaceX or anyone else? Well one we're not a launch provider Unless by launch provider you mean our little suborbital vehicles that Basically are really more about testing landing technologies than anything else or Any number of things where you know going up You know a thousand or two thousand meters and then coming back down is fine and it's all you know subsonic is fine We have talked about Taking those vehicles supersonic, but we really haven't found a good We haven't found a need that pays the bills to do that yet We've been talking to some folks about that. So maybe that will happen in the future, but yeah, I mean we're not putting up satellites That's not what we're doing and we've really you know I've done a lot of work on reusability and it's hopeful that maybe we do some launch vehicles, but the market just hasn't Yeah, I don't know we just the market really hasn't been interested in the small and Reusable they've been interested very much in SpaceX and you know the the medium and heavy class and making those reusable But the small things everybody's been investing in throwaway vehicles and I don't understand it I don't know why but yeah, they're not you know investing in the reusable vehicles. So We've just pivoted away from that and just whatever You know, we know how to land. Let's go land on the moon. That's a big thing coming up and that's We're gonna make our dent there. So awesome. Well, this next question is from the tomorrow chat room from astral girly I wonder who that is and they ask what is the most enjoyable part of your job Most enjoyable part of my job Good heavens. I'm not so sure that's there's that's a tough question because I mean Let's understand before mast and space systems I could not get myself out of bed before 10 o'clock in the morning unless I was going to fly an airplane So yeah, my previous jobs were not I mean and the thing was I like those jobs, but I couldn't get myself up out of bed now the alarm goes off at 455 in the morning and I'm still up and at them. So There's something enjoyable about it Most enjoyable though, you know, I don't know how to Some days orbital mechanics is what I really like and you know guidance laws and the technical stuff other days Well, I mean just earlier this week NASA administrator of Rittenstein was out visiting basically doing a California tour and so got time to spend time got to spend some time talking to him along with some other Executives from the the Mojave area and that was really enjoyable. But definitely like that So Yeah, there's there's just so many things live in the dream live in the dream Of course, there's also all the bad things, you know, I like okay Well, I'm actually in management. So I feel with people and not good with people So there's the least enjoyable part Well, I did want to ask another questions moving on to us Something else that you've been working on this question comes from Stradi in the tomorrow chat room And they say speaking of launchers is broadsword still on the table. So we are still working on broadsword And for those who don't know what is broadsword? Okay, so broadsword is a Engine that we're developing with the help of originally DARPA and now NASA To bring a locks methane 25,000 pound class engine To the market and so locks methane highly reusable We believe That the marketplace for in-space engines is really good And the 25,000 pound will it scratch some itches for some potential lunar landers and Martian landers Perhaps built by NASA perhaps built by others So, yeah, so I mean we've been doing a lot of work with that It's still going on right now. We're under a tipping point contract To continue development of that. We just got a brand-new chamber. Oh, the other major thing is the Engine is all 3d printed the entire thing like Now I'm not gonna say I can't say 100% of it cuz I'm sure there's gonna be some parts that aren't 3d printed But yeah, the major components of the engine are all 3d printed We just got a serial you're printing it out of we're bringing out of aluminum. Okay and we have a wonderful partnership with a company called Elementum 3d that Their specialty is making alloys and Interesting doing interesting things with material properties and materials So, yeah, so part of the tipping point contract was actually exploring some metal matrix composites That you can make with 3d printing interesting Unfortunately the one that we really were hoping for it turns out it doesn't work as well. We got Well, maybe we can make it work. I don't know what we'll see But at least you've been given the opportunity to explore what we've had a chance to explore that We have actually found a better alloy and they've gotten it to 3d print so we're not using the basic casting alloys like 3d printers usually use We've moved beyond that. We've got a much better alloy that we think that will provide us that right balance between thermal conductivity and strength and everything else that Will make give us a really lightweight Highly reliable reusable engine Wow Now that kind of brings me even though it's an unrelated project since you mentioned DARPA What's going on with excess one are you guys still a part of the excess so no so about Years ago now Yeah, I think it's been about two years now You know phase one came to an end You know we completed all the tasks under phase one Phase two was a down select phase So we went from three Three different companies working on three different things for phase one and DARPA said, okay, that's all wonderful and great We think This other company not us is going to do a better job. So anyway, that's Boeing has that contract It's now called XSP. It's the I don't even know what XSP stands for but I Guess experiments space playing I guess yeah probably Yeah, and Dave from what I understand they've completely changed the program and and what they're looking for out of it and I don't know Don't know a whole lot about it because now it's DARPA and Boeing and They don't exactly talk a lot about these things But there's no chance that they would use like your landing software or anything like that So it doesn't look like any yeah, it doesn't look like anything that we're we're doing is going to have any part of that Because yeah, the Boeing space plane program is really about horizontal landing anyway So, you know, you're gonna use I mean Boeing knows how to land things on runways. They've been doing it for Dang Just shy of a century now. Yeah. Yeah, I mean wow Yeah, what 80 90 years now something like that. Yeah, well, and what were they called before it was just ARPA before right? Oh, so I was just talking about the Boeing part. I mean Boeing's been landing your aircraft for years So yeah, but they have that figured out ARPA ARPA. Yeah, ARPA has been doing stuff for a long time, too But but yeah, I know that's yeah, they don't need our software to land an aircraft Well, let's shift gears here a little bit from YouTube Cosmic lettuce asks is mass and space systems doing anything with cube sats or micro sats? And what do you think about these? Um, so I love I love the small sats It really fits into What I sort of got into the mass and space systems for and the reasons why you know, I started medicine spaces with the idea of being able to use the technology and processes that we had Developed in the Silicon Valley just so those of you who may not know I come from the Silicon Valley Back in the dot-com boom and crash You know and doing like a lot of software work and work on electronics my Specific role. I actually did a lot of work with storage area networking switches So, you know the whole rapid development processes that we had in the Silicon Valley Sometimes good sometimes not so good But you know and just taking that and and making things small or a more compact and less expensive And and continually doing that and it's like the same thing was going on with the small sats and surprise surprise a lot of Smallsat activity came out of I believe with Stanford with Professor twigs Where you know Hey, you can do these things if you can do some standardized really small things and then we can you know It's a lot cheaper and you can do things a lot cheaper and then obviously several companies came out of the whole Silicon Valley area building the small sats and I think it's wonderful Right now about the only thing we're planning on doing though with small sats is You know, we're gonna be booking some launches to go to the moon here in a few years Actually, we should probably be booking launches in about a year from now if clips goes well And we will probably have some additional payload rate room And we'll probably make that space available for small sats that might want to go into orbit say around the moon Maybe So yeah, so that that would be what we you know About the only thing we'll really have to do with it besides, you know cheerleading Sure, sure Well, I do have one last question for you regarding to the room to the moon And this actually comes from our chat room from rebel ace fries land who asks Will you stay a tech contractor or do you see mass and space systems being the builder of an entire space vehicle for the moon? Not just the lander Well, I don't know what the difference between an entire vehicle and just the lander I don't like that's I mean, we are more of a systems integrator We do the engine development because when you're landing vertically, we believe that you know, you really can't outsource your engine very well You can try maybe you can get away with it We've done some outsourcing work on some other systems in the past and it's like engines avionics You know at least the guidance navigation control flight software Those things are things that you really need to have in-house to do vertical landing Otherwise you could run into some difficulties or it may be end up being as expensive or more expensive To do that You know to to to shop that out In terms of the overall development, but we are primarily systems integrator If we do happen to find the perfect engine that will work perfectly and we can just you know buy it We will do that route because we are you know, we're more of a systems integrator. And so yeah, we're doing the lunar lander Launch well, you know, quite frankly SpaceX and ULA Do that really well One's more expensive than the other but on the other hand, you know reverse it and one When they say they're going they're going to go and the other one I don't know Well, where can people find out more information and how can they get involved? Um Well, let's see getting involved If you happen to be in college, uh, we do have a an internship program Pay attention to twitter facebook and so on And we periodically put out our notices saying hey, it's time for uh, you know internship opportunities to Send us your resumes and whatnot um I Have this strange feeling that we're going to be hiring soon For reasons i'm not going to say here, but I I know that we're going to be hiring soon So, you know, make sure your linkedin profiles are up to date and You know pay attention to us on linkedin Awesome And yeah, so that's that's basically the Just of that awesome. Well, uh, so excited for these updates And and we definitely wish it wish you the most success We're very eager to see to see even more updates about whatever this secret project might be that you're going to be hiring for Oh man, well, thank you very much for joining us today and before we move on to comments from last week's show We do want to give a huge thank you to the escape velocity citizens These folks contribute ten dollars per episode for the show But there's also our orbital citizens who contribute five dollars per episode for the show You guys helped them make the show happen and thank you so much for supporting us We would not be able to do this without you There's many ways that you can help the show including sharing these videos with your friends and Liking subscribing hit the bell so you're notified whenever we upload a new video because we're awesome And you guys are awesome for supporting the show. So thank you. Thank you so much Stay tuned though, and we will get to your comments and questions from last week's show Science It both draws us together And tears us apart Brings discoveries to cure us And threaten us it is neither good nor evil It is what we decide to make of it. There is so much more to learn And we are curious Together let's explore the science Of tomorrow Welcome back a long time no see We are actually going to do my favorite part of the show Which is when we dive into your comments and questions concerns and everything and all of the above Last week's show. We actually covered a really interesting company called made in space They do all sorts of 3d printing and micro gravity and we actually interviewed justin coogler Really exciting stuff got to learn a whole lot of good stuff And so just go ahead and uh dipping right into it The first comment we wanted to bring up was from rebindra mishra, and this is a comment straight out of youtube Uh rebindra mentions love the show best part is rocket launches Sorry, i'm a big sucker for big fiery things that take off into the sky you and i know That's a big mood It's a vibe rocket animations and other cool stats like number of stages fuel intended orbit or destination Etc would be great and while i like this increased launch cadence It bugs me that these companies slash countries are still Using and plan to use in the future expendable rockets burning toxic stuff like solid fuel and hyper goals Did i say that right? Yeah, that's that's old tech in the range of falcon 9 slash heavy and upcoming bfr and new glen I don't see how this will lead to a better future in spaceflight Uh mike i figured this would be a very interesting Kind of topic for you to tackle in terms of i mean this is actually pretty important You know sustainability and in the age of trying to be more green Well, I feel like um rebindra brought up two types of fuels solid fuels and hypergalls I agree with him with hyper hypergalls. They are very toxic and i mean A lot of the chinese launches i mean people will go and recover these stages that you know These expendable stages that will crash on land and they're going right up to them when they're still Spewing this orange toxic smoke and it's oh my gosh. Don't don't breathe it. Yeah, don't breathe that in Not that anyone listens, but as far as solid fuels I feel like we understand solid fuels really well And there's a lot of really useful purposes that we can get out of that So maybe not necessarily for human launches. I don't think I want to see humans on solid rockets ever again, but For a lot there's lots of uses so as far as expendable goes I think there's still a long future for solid fuels But I would like us to see us getting towards something that is not only safer More environmentally friendly, but is also sustainable and that sustainability is a bit of a question because I mean We got plenty of water so we can you know have plenty of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen But using some of these other fuels like a lot of them use a liquid oxygen and kerosene or even some more exotic ideas of Using liquid oxygen and methane, you know, we might not necessarily be able to do that forever. So I find it really funny that that this was That this was sort of a cast asunder into old tech When falcon nine is also using, you know, liquid oxygen and kerosene Which the first rocket to actually put something into space the r7 use liquid oxygen and kerosene So if we want to talk old tech Let me tell you and there's lots of problems with liquid oxygen and kerosene as well You have to deal with coaking. I was actually going to bring that up I mean, it's not a perfect solution. So there's gotta be some setbacks there as well And there that's the reason why things are starting to switch over to liquid oxygen and methane It's yeah, it's in addition the in in situ resource utilization. That's really a big one But also it's much cleaner burning. So your components you don't have to go back in and and actually like clean them out as much as you do Because when you locks and kerosene together, it coaks up it generates this like soot This kind of carbonized Residue that sticks on everything. Um, and that's not good if you want a reusable vehicle. So The beautiful thing about the beautiful thing about methane is it's a hydrocarbon so it can clean the plumbing as it's being used Yeah, I didn't think of it that way. That's pretty that's that's clever How about that and I know a lot of people um in our chat room are talking about hybrids and stuff And there's there's a lot of problems that come with hybrids And mostly it's in stability and storage and things like that. So Hybrids really aren't you'll notice that there's only one thing that will go to space. Maybe That's using a hybrid engine and that would be spaceship too. Um, so Yeah Well, i'm glad we uh, i'm glad we cleared that up. Yeah Um, all right. So, uh, the next comment is also from youtube from jack speed 439 They state how does knowing about habitability on jupiter a planet? We can't inhabit help us inhabit other gas giants that we can't inhabit It's interesting and I believe in collecting information just for the sake of knowing But if a planet has the gravity of a tiny star then we know nothing about what will make it habitable Let the stoning begin line up to the left And I believe this is a question in reference to um, I think it's it might be in reference to a story I did about learning about more about jupiter's interior last week. Um, in which case. Yeah, I did want to clarify Yeah, maybe the planet themselves is uh, the planet itself is there we go Itself is not habitable That doesn't mean that the gas giant might not have moons that could potentially be habitable in terms of I mean we're looking at Europa or Enceladus all potential hosts for life and although It's unlikely we would find anything that would live on a gas giant. Um, those gas giants still do influence their moons And so the more we know about the host planet inevitably the more we're going to learn about a moon that could potentially harbor life But I like that you mentioned, you know knowledge for knowledge sake, which is something I think we try to advocate for um, you don't always have to have an agenda although it makes sense and makes it You know more relevant. I guess but just you know, I want to throw it out there that by studying jupiter You literally study the entire solar system because jupiter is one of the besides the sun jupiter is one of the most important Parts of the solar system for the formation of everything solar system I mean you don't have the materials put into the place where they are There's two main influencers of that uh that we think of at the moment and that's solar wind Moving material around and then jupiter in what we think is its migration from somewhere in the inner solar system To the outer solar system basically pulling material away from the sun and helping generate the planets shepherding things along So it's literally one of those things where if you study jupiter you actually end up studying the formation of everything In our solar system and that is critical to understanding what went where and also The exoplanets that we're seeing right now With kepler and other things like that and the ones that we can get spectra of and other things like that They're jupiter sized planets So it's really good for us to be able to study jupiter in great detail And then study these exoplanets in great detail compare and contrast and see if there's anything that lines up Also very importantly see if there's anything that's radically different between them So those are that it's so important when you study those things. Absolutely. Yeah, couldn't have said it better myself Actually, we have a question from honey's forewarp in the chat room stating Could a rocket ever make it out of jupiter's gravity well from a floating station on the surface? Pretty darn Yeah, I don't know if even sea launch could do that. Yeah, I don't think so I think jupiter. I think even with our best rockets we have right now. It's just too much You need too much energy expended in order to yeah, it's not even efficient at that level It would be crushed all the materials that we could even build the best materials We could build here on earth would be crushed for whatever the surface of jupiter is Yeah, maybe a diamond core. So game a lot in our chat room is saying an orion style rocket Which is a project of ryan, which is basically chucking nuclear bombs out the back of your spacecraft Predating them and then riding the shockwave That could definitely I don't even think a nuclear thermal rocket could pull that off honestly So just because it's a tremendous amount of velocity. Yeah, actually, I wonder what the escape was actually All right, here we go dumb you got to move 60 kilometers per second in order to escape jupiter's velocity We don't have anything that has moved that fast ever Like like like maybe a quarter of that speed Yeah So like Voyager 1 and New Horizons are about a quarter little over a quarter of that speed Um, even when they were going away at their fastest, uh, they were nowhere near 60 kilometers per second. So holy moly I was yeah, I'm glad you you googled that because I was curious what the escape velocity would be I'm not going to jupiter Not today folks All right, so uh, last but certainly not least, uh, we have a comment from youtube from kevin f kevin says Hey guys, don't know if this is interesting But a company called nammo incorporation with esa isa will start rocket launches from norway You should be able to google it for more info I got excited because I didn't think norway would get into spaceflight The rocket is to be launched in september this year and I did google it Because I first of all, I think this is a cool throwback to the first comment Which about you know sustainability of other countries launching rockets and I googled it and it turns out yes indeed I pulled this straight from their website It says the space activity is currently under expansion with development of a new generation Of hybrid rocket motors for isa and the norwegian space agency as well as development of green propulsion systems with small thrusters Utilizing h202 hydrogen peroxide yummy cool stuff stuff you put on your your cuts and hybrids Hybrid rocket motors. There you go. I'm wrong I was completely wrong It's a group jared wrong. I was wrong. Your evil plan has been revealed so good Then you're next Well, interesting I definitely hope that that happens because the norwegian space agency has been around for several years and they are a member of isa But you know A lot of the smaller member states, you know, you don't really hear a lot about what they're doing individually It's just like okay. They're contributing this much towards isa's budget or maybe they're doing this You know a small part of a project or something like that You know, you only really hear about like the german space agency dlr and stuff from uh, uh, france from the from cnet The french space agency Um, and other than that you don't really hear much about the other individual space agencies within isa So if if this takes off i will be very excited to see that Yeah, and it's really cool because there's lots of those little little sort of i don't want to Okay, maybe not little countries I'm sorry, i'm sorry space race. This norway company is now having to compete with kopenhagen sub orbitals There's a there's a scandinavian space race. Oh my gosh Uh, but it's really cool that all of these countries, uh, nicks on the little, um, thing Look, look, we get it. I just use these countries are like the size of of state in the united states I'm thinking in terms of in terms of landmass not in in ambition Um It's really cool that these there's a lot of these countries that are actually starting to really sort of like develop their own small sat launches Absolutely Like i know like i know there's multiple companies now looking at launching from somewhere in what england Around there or up in scotland in that area those those areas and um, there's also It's just amazing how like everything's opening up all of a sudden I know and it's amazing too and i know we cover it on the show a lot But just kind of the evolution of the technology needed to develop these systems It's becoming more accessible. Yeah, and it's becoming more efficient. And so yeah, you're right Like the global participation in space is increasing and it's all exciting I used to I used to feel kind of like bad or sorry for myself that I wasn't alive during the mercury gemini and apollo programs But there's so much stuff happening from the ground up right now that if you want to be part of some sort of mercury program Just look at the stuff that's going on worldwide We're in we're in Truly the beginning of the golden age of spaceflight because in aviation in the 20s and 30s the golden age of that That's when everything just it expanded out and and it became accessible To people and we're really we're on we are I think we're a little bit past the cusp of the golden age of spaceflight now And we're kind of in the in the beginnings of it going on the up. Yeah, it's on the uphill And it's really I think over the next especially 15 to 20 years. It's really going to be one of those amazing things What a lovely what a lovely tone to say goodbye to by the way And I also wanted to point out that I really like comments like this where where it's you guys that are Showing us and teaching us something because I actually did google it and you know It's it's amazing input like this that allows us to have these great conversations with you So thank you if you have any suggestions ever or if there's something you feel we should look up or research Please let us know All right, so um, we are going to go ahead and sign off But before we do we are going to give a big Stink and hug to our citizens of tomorrow and uh, these actually include us is weird. We look like a cult We're going to go ahead and start off by giving Thank you so much I prefer organized group that meets every Saturday Okay Escape velocity citizens these lovely people to Contribute ten dollars in episode. We also want to give a lovely shout out to our orbital citizens who contribute five dollars per episode Our sub orbital citizens who contribute two dollars and fifty cents per episode And that's definitely huge. Thank you so much. I'm just gonna go ahead and stay here and install Noises with my mouth until you can read all of your names because there's a lot of them Thank you. You are the tomorrow army. Oh my gosh I love it. All right. And of course last but not least our ground support citizens Which contribute one dollar to two dollars and forty nine cents per episode again Just gonna go ahead and leave that there. Look at all of you We're just gonna have to pause at this point because oh my goodness. This is just yeah Blows my mind blows my mind if you need more encouragement to uh sign up, which is by the way if you'd like to go to www.patreon.com Tmro you too can get your name on this screen that you can easily pinpoint and read in two Seconds and I will get all of these names tattooed on me at some point So in case you needed more she's committed now. I'm committed all of them We're gonna put them all on a little microchip and then we're gonna put it somewhere On the set here so that you can ride with us as we head out to wherever we're going. Well, that's a better idea You know what x-ray on the tattooing I just got excited lots of other ways that you guys can help me contribute again Share this around like subscribe hit up our community forum where you can share ideas in length and we can have even more in-depth discussions And that's at Community dot tmro dot tv. Yep. That's right. Yeah, so join us there and you can discuss with us directly We can actually speak with us. We also have a discord channel as well Or channel or is it I don't know We're on discord So look us up. We're we're there and we have a lot of fun and it's really cool It's open for everyone, but if you sign up as one of our patients you get to access to all the special rooms the juicy stuff Yeah, I see what we really think about Who are we talking to next week? Well next week we actually have mike lewis from nano rax And we are gonna go ahead and interview him and learn a whole bunch of cool things about what he's doing When it comes to nano rax and of course, that's going to be next saturday at 1800 coordinated universal time every saturday ever remember or learn that But i'm glad that I have folks here that can help me out. All right. Well, that concludes today's show Thank you so much for joining us as always It was truly a party the pleasure is always ours and we will see you next week until then