 What's up tomorrow? Today, Athena, what is on your mind? We have dwarf mergers that are feeding stellar formation, and I love stars. Oh, and I love feeding. And Mike, what about you? What are you excited about today? Oh man, I'm really excited about NASA investing in some of my favorite space projects, and it's gonna be awesome because these things are really going to happen. Ooh, that makes me so excited. And Jared on the observation deck, what do we have out there? Well, we've got Chuck Ryan on to talk a little bit about the space shuttle you've never heard of. That sounds exciting, because I haven't heard of it. So today, tomorrow starts right now. Good morning. How's everything up in the sky? Greetings, friends of tomorrow. My name is Jade, and I will be your host for today. We have Athena with some really exciting news, but before we launch into that, we are actually gonna have us a few launch minutes from Mr. Mike himself. Mike, what do you got for us today? Oh man, so first off, we have a launch of a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket, and it was awesome. This launched from Launch Complex 40 in Cape Canaveral, Florida at 05-18 Coordinated Universal Time on Tuesday, August 7th. Its payload was the Mariputa, also known as the Telecom-Poor Communications Satellite, headed to geosynchronous orbit. And this flight was really cool because it was the first flight, rather the first reflight of a Block 5 Falcon 9. And it just so happened to be the very first Block 5 Falcon 9 that was launched back in May 11th, which through the Bangabangu-1 satellite. And this was just beautiful footage. I really loved the helicopter on this one. And it happened to be the 15th space launch for the year. And something else that was really cool about this is they were able to land successfully on the drone ship. The, of course I still love you, drone ship in the Pacific Ocean. And it was the 28th successful booster landing for SpaceX. Ah, and of course they delivered the satellite successfully. Yes, that's always important, of course. And you know what, you're right. You know, it just, even though we've already, you know, kind of done the whole launch it and land it back down on, of course I love you, it just, it never gets old. You know what I mean? So by the way, amazing job. I know these launch minutes are relatively new, but you know what, Mike, you're killing it. But we did kind of cheat a little bit. We were a little lucky. And why is that? I think there was initially supposed to be two launches you were gonna cover today. Isn't that correct? There was, there was. There was a scrub late last night of the Delta IV Heavy, which was carrying the Parker Solar Probe to a solar orbit. And hopefully that will be launching within 24 hours. So late tonight or early tomorrow morning, depending on where you are in the world. Otherwise, if that 24 hour turnaround doesn't work, then hopefully we'll have a new launch date parking for that very soon. But something I did wanna say about this particular launch is I have to say that Lauren Lyons is my favorite host of the SpaceX webcasts. And I was so happy to see her get to host this one itself. And just the footage on this one was just beautiful. It really was. It really was. So thank you so much for sharing that with us. And you know what? Fingers crossed on the Parker Solar Probe. I know it's just waiting for its vacation. It's a very sunny vacation. So awesome job. Now, Athena. Well, it's me too. Since we've been keeping track of it, there was the 21st launch for the United States over all this year, 21st orbital launch for the United States. If the Delta IV heavy had taken off, we'd be at 22, but we'll hopefully be able to report on that next week. Well, we look forward to it and we expect it. So if it doesn't go through and doesn't work, then you know what? We're blaming you, Mike. That's just how it is. That's what you signed up for on this show. Full responsibility. She would know. Yes. You better be nervous. I'm very nervous. All right, Athena. And it looks like we have some star-making fuel, maybe, or? Yes, so it's dwarf mergers, which gets me really, really exciting because I kind of feel like dwarf galaxies are totally underappreciated. So this gets me really excited because there's so much potential in dwarf galaxies alone because they contain a lot of hydrogen gas. And you know, they tend to get outshined literally by other galaxies. Like the Milky Way galaxy because they're just so much more luminous. They're really bright. And dwarf galaxies are kind of hard to trace sometimes. But there was a few research papers I was actually reading recently about dwarf mergers that when sometimes you have a dwarf galaxy, if it actually gets pulled in by the gravitational pull of another galaxy that's much larger than it, it can cause it to whip its tail out into interstellar space that can stretch to about a billion light years in length. And this literally can seed new star formation, which is super exciting because for a lot of us out there, we wanna try and find life beyond Earth. We wanna find other planets. And exoplanets are found around, well, other types of stars and other stars that are out there. So this gets me really excited. This right here actually is a computer simulation. So the astrophysicist behind this study, her name is Sarah Pearson, and it's really cool because I recognize her name and I know her from Instagram, which is really cool. This was her study that actually got her PhD. Literally, I was actually talking her on my way over here. So this is a computer simulation of a dwarf galaxy merging with another galaxy that's much larger than it. And this was the first time that there was a computer simulation directly matched up with real observational data. So this is really, really exciting. And it shows that a lot of times that from this hydrogen gas that's found in these dwarf galaxies, when they merge like this, it will start to form and it'll cause literally the necessary seeding elements for stars to form. So this is a very exciting study. Right now, we actually still don't even know really how galaxies gain a lot of their mass. So the more that we can understand about this, the more we'll understand just about what's happening elsewhere in the universe. The fact that this actually is happening so near to us and actually the small Magellanic cloud is what's actually merging with the Milky Way. We've actually stripped gas from the small Magellanic cloud and that's actually what's caused a lot of the stars that we know that have formed here. So again, I mean, star formations. This is a gorgeous picture of actually a dwarf galaxy. And this is just, it's up in the right hand corner. It's just a zoom in image. But I thought it was really pretty. So I wanted to share it with you guys. Not actually specifically to this study, but I wanted to just show you guys an example of a dwarf galaxy because they're very, very dim. But again, they contain all the elements for new stars. So again, this is super exciting. I can't wait for more of this research to come out because again, like with more stars forming, more potential for planetary formations to happen. Maybe around these stars and maybe other planets and with tests and all the exciting stuff like once James Webb launches, seeking for exoplanetary systems in life. So anything that has to do with trying to find other stuff out there that makes me excited. Exactly. Totally. So this is super stoked. Yeah, and I love the fact that you mentioned that dwarf galaxies often, they're not necessarily overlooked, but they don't get as much attention because they're not as glamorous as like Andromeda or the Milky Way. But there's still so much to be learned, like you said. I mean, even when it comes to exploring exoplanets and then learning more about galactic evolution, I mean, there's so much knowledge to be had. So, I mean, thank you for highlighting the underdog, not necessarily, not saying dwarfs or the dwarf galaxies are underdogs, but for bringing light to this really amazing research. Yeah, just got real excited about this. The dwarf galaxy, right? I mean, we have our own, it's the small Magellan clock. Yeah, it's like our little, I mean not to be demeaning to it, but I always imagined it like our little puppy, you know? It's like our little puppy or like our little brother, you know, it's just like, hey, you know? And then like Andromeda's our big scary sister, like she's coming at me. Yeah, oh, and when that merging happens, that's gonna be insane. You know what I'm gonna Milky Way, whew! All right, Mike. Wish I could be alive. We'll see. All right, so you know what? I can just tell you're bursting at the seams with excitement because apparently NASA's gonna be funding some of your favorite missions potentially. Yeah, and a lot of these missions, you guys, well, some of them we've been talking about on previous shows and some of the people watching might already be familiar with these, but they've invested some money for research and development for lunar landers, also for the commercialization of the International Space Station. And there's been some progress too from Sierra Nevada for one of their contracts already, provide habitats for the lunar orbiting platform gateway. So, oh man, I'm really excited about all of this stuff. For the lunar landers, of course, they were invested a little bit of money into Blue Origin. This is for their propulsion and the navigation radar for it, but they also gave some money to Astrobotic, who is gonna be getting studies for the lander's engine as well as their navigation radar. So kind of the same contract as Blue Origin. And United Launch Alliance also got a contract as well, and this is for their ACES upper stage. Oh man, something that's really cool about this is it's going to fund the integrated vehicle fluids flight demonstration, which is the demo flight of the whole system that they have that would be able to reduce the boil-off so that they don't lose fuel. And it's also a necessary technology that they need in order to do transfers, fuel transfers and refueling in orbit so that they can eventually possibly have their own lunar lander one day. We do have a couple of other images that is from some of the other stuff. There is also some funding that they got for their mid-air retrieval demonstration of the Vulcan engine. And there's also a bunch of contracts that were put out for the International Space Station. Axiom Aerospace got some. There's the ACES engine and there's the refueling that they would be doing with that. And eventually, actually one of our favorites, Mastin Aerospace would be working with them to do the lunar lander version of that. But for the International Space Station, in order to lead the handover of the International Space Station from NASA to the commercial sector, they've awarded a lot of different study contracts to companies that are already involved. And something that I really like about this is not only is it gonna be for existing stuff like the commercial cargo vehicles, but a lot of habitats and different studies on how to manage the space station. Axiom Space is one of the companies that is getting funding for this, Bigelow Aerospace for their whole X-space concept, which you see on screen there is getting money. Boeing and Blue Origin are also getting money as well. And it's kind of unclear what the study would be exactly for Blue Origin for it. But also, there is some really interesting stuff going on with Sierra Nevada. Oh my goodness. They have made a lot of progress on their proposal for the lunar orbiting platform, the first piece of that being the power and propulsion element. And oh my goodness, they have something that I like about this and the way that all these contracts work that I'm talking about is they're fixed price contracts. So NASA doesn't award any money to any of these companies until they see results. Sometimes it is just a study, a paper study needing to get data or whatever might be necessary. Some of it is demonstration missions and some of it's actual full blown missions. So now that Sierra Nevada has made progress with the different pieces of their plan for the lunar orbiting platform, they have received a little bit of money for that program, which is actually called the Next Step 2 program. Oh man, but Northup Grumman Innovation Systems has also gotten money for a continued operation of Cygnus. Sierra Nevada also is getting money for their Dream Chaser cargo vehicle. And there is a bit more as well for the Lockheed Martin and Boeing habitats that could potentially be added to the International Space Station or would be for the lunar platform. This is a cutaway of Lockheed Martin's habitat and could be flunked on the first or second exploration mission of Orion. So there's a bunch of different things that could be done here. And seeing NASA being serious about handing over the operations of the International Space Station to the commercial sector gives me hope that we'll be able to extend its lifespan even further and get the full use out of it. In fact, there was a survey put out recently that said that we need to utilize the space station until at least 2028 just to finish the NASA experiments that are on the books right now. And a lot of that is the different tech demos and stuff that we need in order to ensure that humans survive to the trip tomorrow. So that's why I'm excited about all of this stuff. And I'm really happy to see NASA putting money into research and development and doing it under a fixed price system and milestone based. So you don't get any money for it unless we see results. Exactly. And that's why, I mean, first of all, I mean, thank you for telling us about all of those amazing things. It's kind of like Christmas in August, to be honest. And no, you're absolutely right. The fact that they're basing this on actual deliverables, I mean, that's how progress gets made. At the end of the day, money speaks, you know? And this partnership between government and commercial, like you said, I mean, it's the way to go. It's not either orb. It has to be a fusion of both. So I'm really excited to see, you know, some potential additions to the ISS or at the very least just using it to its full efficiency and making sure it lives out that lifespan. So we could see the culmination of all these amazing experiments that, you know, so many people put so much effort into. So. Absolutely. Yeah, so thank you so much. And I would really like to know, I'd really like to know what the community thinks. What's their favorite piece of space technology that's gotten some research money recently? Yeah. What part of the deep space gateway do you think would, what are you rooting for? Boeing, Lockheed, Bigelow, Sierra Nevada? But let us know what you think for sure. Yeah, definitely. Let us know in the comments because I mean, there's a lot of exciting stuff, you know, as we heard from Mike, there's a lot of exciting stuff getting funded and researched. So, you know, let us know, what are you most excited about? What, you know, tickles you? So, I guess speaking of tickling, you know, apparently we have some ultra hot Jupiters that are a little bit more like stars than we previously might have thought. Yeah, so I'm not sure how that's to do with tickling, but that would mean either, but go with it. Just go with it, pretend like it made sense. Yeah, so I got super, super excited about this one because I have never heard about this before. It's, so super ultra, ultra hot Jupiters, they're planets that are very similar to Jupiter in size, but I like to call them kind of a yin-yang planet because their atmosphere is like split in half because half of it is very, very hot because they orbit really, really close to their star and the other half is really, really, really cold. So they actually have like these crazy atmospheres and they say that it's more of like a star planet hybrid because its atmosphere is a lot more like atmospheres that are found on stars, which is insane. I didn't really actually know about this and it's because the water molecules, so the hydrogen and oxygen actually get torn apart from the radiation of the star close to it that it actually causes it to have this completely different atmosphere and it's around, they wrote this down, it's 2000 to 3000 degrees Celsius on one side, it's on the day side, so the side that actually faces the star. So here's like, this one is actually just an image and artist rendition of what it looks like, but it's just crazy because it is a planet, right? But half of it, it has this crazy atmosphere, very similar to stars, but then that other side, that's around 980 degrees Celsius, that's the side that's known as the night side faces away from the star itself and its atmosphere is a lot more like planets. So what some theories are right now that scientists are believing is what causes this is that the winds coming from the day side are blowing literally these torn apart molecules into the night side and it allows for them to recombine and then form clouds. They condense and form clouds, so the hydrogen and oxygen molecules will recombine and condense to form clouds, creating more of that planet like atmosphere. So it's super interesting, these are known as ultra hot Jupiters and this hits home for me because they're very similar, they're compared a lot of times to brown dwarfs and brown dwarfs are known kind of as like failed stars because they no longer can sustain nuclear fusion and they're very, very cold but they do still get off, give off some form of heat, they do give off radiation and maybe you guys know about this, maybe you don't but Trappist One, who gets excited about Trappist One, that is found around a low mass star, a brown dwarf star and those planets are so similar to Earth and they orbit really close to the brown dwarfs. So I mean this gets me excited because it's just so trippy when you think about it that there's a planet that half of it is similar to what a star is like, half of it similar to what a planet's like and to me this just gives a whole new understanding to what planets are out there that we might actually end up finding and discovering. I mean especially to mention it again, James Webb, when that launches and then what Tess is doing right now, finding exoplanets, I think that this is a whole new classification out there. Like I said earlier known as star planet hybrids. So one thing that they're looking to research coming up soon is to actually try and probe the night side because it's been a bit difficult to try and gather some more research on that but I really hope that we'll be able to do that in the future because my goodness, imagine living on a planet where like one side you actually can survive in the dark side because it has these clouds, it has a planet-like atmosphere and then the other side it's like a star, like I just, I can't even, and that fluctuation of temperature, 980 degrees Celsius to 3000 degrees Celsius. So it's just nuts. I got really excited when I read about this study. That's literally what I'm excited about and yeah, I'm just wondering what you guys think. Have you guys heard about this? Let me know. I've literally never heard of this before until again recently when I read about this, I knew about Ultra Hot Jupiters but as far as having this split atmosphere, that's just crazy. So I called it a yin-yang type of planet because half of it is, yeah like I said earlier, half of it's like a stellar atmosphere, half of it's like a planet atmosphere. So super exciting. I think it's gonna bring a whole new understanding to what we think about planets out there and maybe even how life might exist on these. Like you never know, especially with like extremophiles, like whoof, so that's how I feel about it. I got really excited. I made, I'm out of breath. It just goes to show though, yeah. It just goes to show the whole evolution of planets and under the right conditions, how they can evolve into stars and how stars under the right conditions can evolve into other different types of stars or eventually black holes. So it's fascinating. Exactly, I mean it just, it takes the concept of the HR diagram and it just puts so much more dimension to it because one thing I have to say, Athena, I just, I love how you always bring it back to, well there could be life or it could support life. We'll learn more about life that exists outside of our planet. So I just, I have to give you props there because. That's the root of astronomy, I think. That's how I feel. It's always about trying to find what more is out there. I mean every single research study I read, it's like, okay well this is obviously tied to a better understanding of how we're here, why we're here, where we're going and is there more out there? Because there definitely is, it's just a matter of finding it and when we will. Sorry, I know you're saying something that's about getting excited. No, no, no, I was trusting, I was listening. Yeah, no. Well that's why I focus on the technologies so that when we do discover life out there, we have a way of getting there. And there you go, we are all, you know under one umbrella of a mission and you know you've got your technology, you've got your theory and I've got the great dad jokes that bring us all together. So there's that. I love it. But thank you, I mean I think this goes along with your theme of your last story, you know, dwarf galaxies oftentimes not too paid attention to by the general public, but again, you explained how interesting they really are and then you have hot Jupiters. I mean, come on, you're not really a star, you're not a planet, like you know, what's going on with you and yet you brought the relevance to it. So I mean, thank you. I mean, now I'll pay more attention when I see a headline having to do with a hot Jupiter or a brown dwarf, you know? Yes. Great. Awesome. So before we toss it to Jared who is actually gonna be interviewing Chuck Ryan of Shuttle Resolution, we wanna give a huge shout out to our lovely Escape Velocity citizens. These awesome friends donate, or I'm sorry, contribute $10 per episode. They help make the show happen. So thank you for supporting us. If you are interested in becoming a citizen of tomorrow, go ahead and head on over to Patreon slash T-M-R-O and don't forget the dot com, patreon.com slash T-M-R-O. Thank you. And now we're gonna go on a short little break and when we return we have Jared Head and again he is interviewing Chuck Ryan. We've got an exciting interview lined up with Jared on the observation deck so I will go ahead and throw it to Jared. Jared, what do you got for us today? All right, well thank you everybody out on the news deck. We're now here on the observation lounge of station 204. I'm Jared and we're gonna be talking to Chuck Ryan today. Chuck, welcome. Great, it's a pleasure to meet you. Yeah, good to meet you too. Good to be on the show. Yeah, and we're gonna be talking a little bit today about sort of what we're calling the space shuttle you've never heard of. But before we get into that, tell us a little bit about yourself because you have quite a colorful history with things. Colorful, I guess you could use that term. Well it all started on Halloween 64 when I was born in Orphan on the day of the first astronaut fatality. Captain Theodore Freeman was flying his T-38 jet and ran into a snow goose landing in Ellington Airfield outside of NASA in Houston. And that, I didn't know that until later obviously, but I like to mention him because he's one of these astronauts. He was an astronaut candidate for Apollo and he gave the ultimate sacrifice and very few people hear about him and I like to make sure that everybody knows the sacrifices that have been made for the space program. And yeah, I was riding NASA at eight. I actually moved from California at the end of the runway at Moffat Field Ames to Michigan on July 16th, 1969 underneath Apollo 11 on its way to the moon. Another just bizarre coincidence. Yeah. And at eight I was riding NASA trying to volunteer and I learned what it took to be an astronaut. So I got my advanced scuba certification at 13. I was flying airplanes over my house at 15 without my parents knowing it. That's a heck of a thing to be doing without your parents knowing about it. We were at the end of the runway too. So, you know, hi, I suspected my dad kind of knew, but then at 18 I sent a duty felt letter to NASA and by the time I arrived in California with a decrepit British sports car, they said, yeah, you wanna volunteer? Sure, you know, because constant hiring freezes and budget cuts and so forth. So I've worked on eight different programs at three NASA centers at this point. I got to work on the quiet short haul research aircraft. That was my first one as a volunteer. Then I was picked up as a civil servant and got to fly on the Kuiper Airborne Observatory which is a modified C141SP with a one meter infrared telescope in it. That's awesome. And, you know, they gave you, I'm like 20, they gave me flight suits and jackets. I have my NASA nameplate. I'm flying on this aircraft exploring space. As one does, you know, in the early 20s. So. Yeah. I also worked with, in the beginning with the SOFIA program which is the Stress Viric Observatory for Everett Astronomy. It's a 747 with a 10 foot diameter telescope. Bigger. And then the big wind tunnel at Ames. Okay. I got accepted to Cal Poly to study Astronautical Engineering. My branch chief group leader went there so I can go there. And during the summers, I would work in Houston and I got to work with the Lunar Mars Exploration Office planet surface systems, Space Station Program Office and the Mission Operations Directorate. And that was wonderful. You know, that was really, I got to support a couple shuttle launches. I got to meet Gene Kranz who is just a fantastic symbol of the program. And then I created, then the trouble started. I created, I was very gung-ho and saw the challenges facing NASA and I wanted to do something about it. So I created this university-based organization called SPAN, Support and Promotion for the Activities of NASA. And the idea is we would do outreach education and small engineering projects. Well, we did all that but then the phrase that should never be uttered was and that is, how hard can it be? It's just a structure. A shuttle is just a structure. Really, when you boil it down. And we're engineers, kind of. It's just the students. It's just sheets of stuff. Just a structure. No problem, right? Problem. So we started to build this shuttle mock-up and the school wasn't exactly happy with it. They weren't making money and there's a two-story structure materializing at the hangar. There's news up there all the time. So they politely asked me to move it off campus and it wound up in Santa Maria on a migrant strawberry farm. And at a certain point, I realized it took a level of commitment that was just going to be everything, you know. So I had a support building I moved into and just started working on it. And I got a call from the fire rescue department at the Kennedy Space Center and they said, we've learned about this. We've needed one for a long time. Chuck, your country needs you. NASA needs you. And that's a quote. Now, talking about telling the wrong, the right person, the wrong phrase or the wrong person, the right phrase. That was it for me. That was the swashbuckling mission that I really wanted. Like, it's on now. It's on. Here we go. In fact, the name of my mock-up was the resolution. But when they asked for it, I added the exclamation mark to the end of the name. And that was it. It was on. So construction continued. Most of the original structure had been destroyed. So it was almost like building a new shuttle. And this is what NASA calls a shuttle crew compartment trainer. So it's from the nose to the cargo bay. In fact, they wanted a little bit of cargo bay, too. And you could rotate it into launch configurations to practice rescuing the astronauts on the pad or post-landing. You could use it for the suit techs, the close-out crew, the guys that strap them into their seats. There was just the one little, there were a couple of problems. First of all, NASA has these in Houston, these crew compartment trainers. It takes dozens of people two years and one to two million tax dollars to build one. I was alone with no money and on the wrong side of the continent. So if you can imagine the front of a 747 and you have to get it from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean, that's not so bad. Except that every rail guy from coast to coast said no. It's impossible. If you even attempt to send it, we'll turn it back at the Mississippi. So I sent it anyway. Wow. Three months later, it had to go as a highway. They had to stop rail traffic through the United States. And I'm plotting it each day as I work on the seats and switches in Utah. And when it got to the Mississippi, that was the nail-biting experience. Yeah, this is the moment. It sailed over and it not only got to NASA. NASA lost it at one point, I will say. It got hooked up to the wrong train and taken back up to Jacksonville. And so I get to Florida. It arrived at Kennedy the day after return to flight. I think it was STS-114. And as one shuttle launched, another one entered, they both kind of looked at each other, I like to think. And what they did is they hooked it, the resolution in three building-sized pieces on this 89-foot rail car. They hooked it up to solid rocket booster segments coming from Utah. So it even had, and they not only took it into NASA, but there's what's called the controlled access area around the vehicle assembly building and the orbiter processing facilities, the hangars. And it went right through there, hooked up to SRBs. And then they separated it. So shuttle SRB SEP was actually on a train. Gotcha. And it became the only other shuttle to be amongst the fleet at Kennedy. Wow. So this handcrafted shuttle, your handcrafted shuttle was at Kennedy Space Center for a time. Yes. And the understanding was that it'd be taken off to be finished. So I had to have a police escort through NASA and that was quite a little spectacle. And then we got it reassembled and it was being worked on. And see I was cold most of the time in Florida that's like this windswept tumbleweeds and so forth. I was buzzing the farmers in a plane with Bart Simpson on the tail, I told ya. But Florida was a different animal all together. And by animal, I mean alligator. But there was a lake adjacent to where the shuttle was. And it was off grid. So I had to use solar power to power the tools and lights and so forth. And I was incorporating it into the shuttle to be solar powered also. And yeah, it was 100 degrees and 100% humidity every day. And the lake was beautiful, but it wasn't even refreshing, it was hot. And the first night there, I saw what looked like contrails on the surface of the water in the sunset from all the alligators swimming in it. And I'm like, well, I can't swim in that. But as time goes on, you realize, hey, I'm top of the food chain on this planet. So I little by little started, you know, until finally I'm just swimming, I don't care. I did have a dive knife and a scuba fins and a mast to give me a fighting chance. And the alligator would literally come over when I did this. I don't know why that was. Still don't understand that. But then I was in it during Hurricane Wilma. But then Tropical Storm Fay sailed toward us like a warship and anchored over NASA for four days and four nights. That lake next to the shuttle just grew until the shuttle was in the lake. In the flashes of lightning at night, waves were crashing over the nose of the resolution in a maritime-like tragedy. But that wasn't the cannonball that sunk the ship. As we are all aware, every four to eight years, a new president comes into office and basically cancels whatever manned spaceflight program was going on. And that's what happened here. The constellation program was canceled and the shuttle was prematurely retired. And it was very frustrating to be right at the finish line with the amount of effort and hundreds of companies had pitched in coast to coast donating material equipment and services for the resolution. And this is what I would like the legacy of the resolution to be, is that I'm not alone in this. Maybe a dramatic example, but I'm not alone. I stand side by side with my NASA brothers and sisters in this. Tens of thousands of engineers, scientists, and support personnel and contractors spend decades with tens of billions of tax dollars ultimately to have their program canceled by a politician. And I think NASA has been used as a political football long enough for 50 years to list some of the programs that were canceled. Apollo 18, Apollo 19, Apollo 20, assured crew return vehicle, not to mention a shuttle launch complex at Vandenberg, but that's Air Force side. Lunar Mars Initiative, Constellation. How long is this madness going to continue? And I feel it's time to get NASA in the hands of a decadal survey, a panel of scientists and engineers that come together every 10 years. There was a precedent for this at JPL. This is how they handle the unmanned missions. And it works fine. And I'd like to see that happen because as you know, we have the STEM program in the United States. And that is a way to artificially motivate people to go into science and math. And I'm what they call a child of Apollo, growing up during the moon mission or being born during all of that. And you didn't have to artificially motivate us. We were on it. Yes. So, and it was our generation that the Apollo generation passed the torch to. And that's one reason I created SPAN. That's why I did the resolution and that's why I'm here today is to carry that torch on. And what do you think it's gonna take in order to carry that torch or to pass that torch on to future generations? Well, like I said, getting NASA in the hands of a decadal survey is the way to go. Because then we wouldn't have this every four day years having it canceled and starting almost from scratch. That's no way to get things done. And we need a consistent effort. I was thrilled during the Apollo Soyuz Test Project and doing things with the Russians. And it does need to be an international effort to go to Mars. Space is laid out like a lesson plan I always saw. First there's suborbital, orbital, the moon, Mars. It's a nice lesson plan. And I don't think we should jump steps. I think when I worked with the lunar Mars office we talked about the in situ resource utilization that we're gonna use. And the idea is as you land you have a little process, a plant so to speak, not a plant but like a industrial plant that will harvest oxygen and hydrogen out of the regolith or the Martian soil. And that way with hydrogen and oxygen you have everything. You have air to breathe, you have water, you have rocket fuel and oxidizer. But that takes some skill and it takes practice. The moon is three days away. So it's a safer way to go about it. Mars is much farther, it's a much higher level of difficulty that we shouldn't just jump into. Yeah, and do you think that in trying to kind of figure out where we should go to something like the recently revived National Space Council, does it kind of fit in with that? Or is it a little different from kind of what you're thinking about to help out? No. The National Space Council is made up of a lot of Defense Department individuals, people from Transportation Office, and I don't see how that's helpful. That's not my call of course. But that's not, I wouldn't have made that decision and I don't think that's necessary. Yeah, I was just seeing there's, they've got the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and a lot of people in sort of the interior of the U.S. government working on that. I am adamant that's, I'm Trek not wars. I want NASA to be exploration and discovery and not defense. Yeah, pretty cool. So do you still work for NASA, by the way? Because one of our viewers, Stormer on the chat room is asking if you still work for NASA. Not currently, I was actually on my way back to school. I was in school and decided to change schools. I wanted to go back to the Midwest. And I thought, well, I'll go through Los Angeles and I have the book about the resolution that I wrote on a Lakota Reservation in South Dakota, which was very interesting. And I wasn't going to write the screenplay, but it just kind of happened. It was kind of therapeutic maybe. And I thought, well, I'll go to LA and pitch that for a little bit. So I'm here doing that before going back to school. Gotcha. So you are kind of going from NASA to movies with it there. I guess that's a way to say it. Just this one. Just this one, okay. So you're just going to give it a shot and see what happens. Right, right. I mean, it's really a no brainer, I think. And there hasn't been a NASA movie for the last 48 years of our history. Apollo 13 was about 1970. Hidden Figures was about 1960. The new one about Armstrong is about 1969. So, and more people have given their lives during the shuttle era than the Apollo generation even. So it's really time for us to have a movie, a NASA movie for our generation. So something a little more in line with what people may be a little more familiar with. Sure, sure. We've been living off Apollo heritage. Certainly shouldn't be forgotten. It should be celebrated. But also, you know, there's a whole generation of shuttle flights that, you know, is a legacy also. And that's what's great about this story is that you see what happens at NASA in the background and it actually parallels what had happened to the resolution. So with the idea of like making like a shuttle era movie, what do you think would be like sort of the best spot to do that in? What would be like, what would be that mission that you'd really want to focus on? Well, that's why my oddball story is great for that. Because I moved through Ames and Johnson Space Center and the Kennedy Space Center and you see what's going on at NASA. In fact, I was, you know, I volunteered at NASA at 18, partly because there were so many budget cuts and hiring freezes. I was there during the Challenger accident. I had my, the resolution, getting ready to leave for Florida during the Columbia accident. I was actually, had the privilege of getting on board Columbia, getting dimensions for the resolution at one point. My cohort, Casey Caten-Chipwadia, who was in Spain and we became brothers through the whole thing. He was subsystems manager for crew escape hardware at the Johnson Space Center. And he was on the investigation for Columbia. In fact, took off from grad school to do that. Just one of the finest individuals I've ever had the privilege of meeting. And that's one of the things that happened after the cancellation of constellation and the premature retirement of shuttle is people left NASA in waves and it was just heartbreaking, you know? And certainly not what we want. Was it like a true brain drain at the end of that program for NASA? Is that kind of how it went? No, it was having everything canceled after continuously, after so much effort is people got fed up and the United States is grounded right now. And that's sad. And that's certainly not a situation that you want. And it's almost like we don't have astronauts. We pay the Russian space program to take our astronauts up. So really there are American cosmonauts at this point. And that's, you know, for what's supposed to be the greatest country in the world, that's just not, that's not what you want. We do have a question from our Twitch chat room from Hattie's Warwick, which is, what do you think about all the new rocket companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin and others? Do you think that that's sort of something that's gonna help out with that? Elon is hot right now. I think it's wonderful. Of course, NASA goes outward and explores and discovers and then commercial space comes in behind that. That's a logical sequence. And then even tourists and commercial ventures. So I do think that SpaceX is gonna be a player in it, for sure. And we didn't have that. When they canceled the Lunar Mars Initiative back in the late 80s, we didn't have Elon and SpaceX. So this is going to really help us. It gives us more of a chance of actually making it happen. So that's wonderful. Blue Horizons and things like Virgin Galactic. That's gonna be great to raise awareness when tourists finally get to go into suborbital flights. But sure, this is certainly gonna help. Yeah. And kind of just to go back a little bit and talk a little bit more about shuttle resolution that you built. What ended up happening with resolution? Cause you talk about taking it to Kennedy Space Center, but what did, what did, what actually truly happened to resolution? Well, the Tropical Storm Fae damaged it. There was water damage. And the planks of the, it's surrounded by scaffolding, if you can imagine. And the planks were being blown off during the high winds and waves crashing over it. It was just awful. And while it was being repaired, the shuttle program was basically ended. And NASA came out to the survey and it was really, there wasn't a need at that point. So we looked around for an outfit to take possession of it so it would get good use. And there was a camp, like a space camp kind of thing that was materializing in Florida. And they had taken possession of it. Unfortunately, that fell through and the resolution became basically a shipwreck. And I'm reminded of the story of Ernest Shackleton and his ship, the Endeavor, the endurance. At the South Pole. At the South Pole. It was crushed to splinters in the ice there. And it's not the tragedy of the ship that is remembered. It's the perseverance of the captain and crew and the story of that. The resolution started out as a shuttle trainer, but it became much more than that. It had 3,000 miles on it at the end. I mean, it was really kind of a ship of discovery for me. And the funny thing about it was too, and I took pictures along the way, it had been moved a dozen times. And because housing developments come in and you have to move it again moving a two-story building, not fun at all. Not easy. But I would take pictures out the main hatch. And it had seen so many different landscapes from coast to coast. It had gone through the shuttle launch complex at Vandenberg along the Pacific. It went through Los Angeles and through Houston, through the Kennedy Space Center became part of the, you know, briefly, the only other shuttle would be part of the fleet. So it really had a journey and it has kind of an impressive logbook, I think. Yeah, and people would see it as it was being transported, right? Yeah, I would, yes, of course. A lot of people didn't know what it was and we were gonna put like shuttle stickers and stuff on it. But the idea was, you know, we were trying to keep a low profile with the railroads seeing that they didn't want it to go. Gotcha. But when we loaded it, and even when it was shrink wrap, there were people running out there with cameras, you know, because the flight deck, and it was vertical, each of these segments were vertical, and it's a really a different feeling. Even in a shuttle trainer, to be in a vertical configuration, it has this feeling of earnestness, like we're gonna be underway, you know? You're on the stack, we're ready to go. It's time to light it and we're gonna get to T-Zero as soon as we can and make it happen. Exactly, and yeah, I had the privilege of seeing 13 shuttle launches while I was in Florida, and I would park in the launch control center parking lot, which is basically as close as you can be, and it was fantastic to be able to see that. Of course, I was green with Envy the whole time during every flight, but yeah. So what was your favorite thing about shuttle resolution? Was it coming up with it? Was it building it? Was it moving it? It was, I can't speak for everybody else, but I wanted a swashbuckling mission, a special way to serve, you know? And I had grown up with Tales of the Military, you know, I don't know if you've ever seen MASH, you know, and you see these people, and they were doctors, medics, and so they're doing something good in a bad situation, you know, and they were suffering and my father was in the Navy, and it was always my intention to serve. And this was my way to serve. This was my unique thing to do for NASA, and the shuttle resolution story isn't over. This is the finale of it, me being in Hollywood trying to get this movie made, because it could really have an impact, I think, and it's fun and serious and fatalistic, and it has all the elements that everybody wants, so. Yeah, and in kind of thinking about that ability to give service and with that, we've got a really good question from our own Mini Stoge here in the studio, which is asking, what advice would you give to citizens who wanna help with NASA programs? Like, what's the best thing that those of us who aren't involved in NASA can actually do that makes a meaningful impact with NASA? Well, there used to be letter writing campaigns, but I, and that's always helpful, talking to your representative and Congress personnel. And I think we really have to see what the problem is and see that it's being used as a political football, and really to get on board with this idea of getting NASA into the hands of a decable survey. And I think that's really a great way to go about it. And just by going to the NASA website a lot, the NASA Twitter pages, the more you're looking at NASA and the more support they have, the harder it is for the politicians to say no to their programs. And Chuck, for folks who'd like to get more info about you and the story of Shuttle Resolution, how can they do that? There's shuttleresolution.com, no exclamation mark in that one. It's also, there's Chuck Ryan on Twitter. There's also Chuck Ryan Facebook and a Resolution Facebook page. So multiple places you can go to find out about it. Yes, and I'm doing, it's in work right now, a YouTube series called From NASA to Florida, From NASA to Hollywood, sorry. And the idea is, have you ever thought about leaving your life and going to Hollywood and try to have a movie made? Well, it's kind of like that, except that we're coming from NASA kind of. And like my car was stolen with all my luggage in it at one point since I've been here. So, get to update my wardrobes. Yeah, that's, I suppose one way to do it. And I didn't get the car back, but. So, yeah, look for that from NASA to Hollywood and that should be entertaining at the very least. All right, well, thank you so much for coming on our show today, Chuck. Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate you coming on and talking to us about Shuttle Resolution. And now our viewers know about a space shuttle that they might not have known about, that actually does exist, so. Does exist. Yes, so thank you so much for that. Thank you. Before we go to our break, we wanna thank our citizens of tomorrow, especially of the escape velocity variety. These folks give us $10 or more per episode. But of course, we also have our orbital citizens as well. These folks give us $5 or more per episode. And you get a lot of goodies no matter what level you're at. So if you'd like to help contribute to our show, head on over to patreon.com slash T-M-R-O. And now we are going to take a break. So there's more tomorrow coming up right after this. 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. Well, hello again, Samaro. Welcome back. So we are actually gonna start delving into the comments from last week's show. And in case you were there, maybe you weren't, we actually got to interview Peter Beck of Rocket Lab, a really, really fascinating interview. You guys seemed to love it. I know Jerry did for sure. So good. So let's just go ahead and dive right into what you had to say. The first comment is actually from Marnix Jansen on YouTube. They stated, though I think Mike did a good job, I have to say that boy, did I hate those launch minutes. Way too much text. Couldn't follow it all. No time for questions from the others. It was a bad plan, perfectly executed. What? It was a bad plan, but it was perfectly executed. So, okay, so pretty much, yes, it's like you could jump in the water. I think it's a little bit differently today. Exactly. And we still want to have things be quick and concise for the launch minute, because that's just a nice, a really nice thing that we like. But then afterwards, we'll have a little bit of wrap up where we can talk a little bit more about it, talk about how we feel about the launch was, what our favorite part of it was, answer any questions that might be in the chat room and just talk amongst ourselves about it. So in the future, we're going to try this out where we'll do the launch minute and then kind of have a little wrap up afterwards to talk about each one and maybe a little bit more depth if there's even something to talk about. Sometimes like with a Chinese launch, we might only have that bit to say for the launch minute and not really have much to say about it afterwards. So really depends on what launch is, what type it is, all that sort of thing. But so I hope that you guys liked what we did today where we discussed the launch afterwards a little bit. Yeah, exactly. And that's like the philosophy of tomorrow is constantly improving. I mean, the idea of launch minutes is actually pretty ambitious when you think about it. Like that's so much information to try to condense into a minute and then not completely stumble over every other word. So I mean, personally, I think you did great first time. And again, thank you for the feedback. We always take it into account and you and your comments is what helps us make a better show. So moving on, the next comment is from Francisco Pinto, also via YouTube. Francisco stated, Mike, what a good job. Assuming it was not previously recorded, of course. The interview with Peter was probably the best I've seen in 2018 and I've seen them all. Jared is doing such a good job. The show is getting very professional. Impressive. I just hope you have more views to produce the audience you need. Yeah. If we could just roll it all in, it'd be pretty great. Yeah. All right. I mean, of course, that's why we have, you know, Patreon and we're able to do all these amazing, fancy things, you know, support from viewers like you. But yeah, no, I mean, I think that they actually bring out a good point, Jared, your interview skills are just on fire. Well, I mean, like the nice thing is that everyone we bring on the interview is like really fun to interview and really great to interview. It's not, I mean, it's just- And the comments feed it so well. Exactly. You guys come up with really good questions. So even if like, where there wasn't too much plans and there usually is, which is nice, there's always great material here. It's like the perfect storm all the time. It's not all me. I mean, it's mostly you, but it's kind of everything. No, I mean, it's a very small part, but it's also the guest that comes on, the stuff that we get from the guest, the preparation. You as the viewers, adding to the conversation. You guys are like the sprinklers. They're the frosting. We're the cupcake. Okay, cupcake. Yeah, that makes sense, so. All comes together. And then we're just the stuffed cupcakes. Tremendous amount of glitter thrown on top of it. The edible kind though, because I believe the inedible would leave you with some, yeah. You know I will though. You know I will. Okay, moving on. This is also from the tube. This is from Ann-On. Hayabusa too. Can you interview Elizabeth Tasker, the Brit astrophysicist who is working on JAX's Hayabusa too mission, which launched in 2014. And right now it's hovering over a tiny 900 meter asteroid 100 million miles away. It has 14 tiny robot rovers and cameras to map the entire thing out. And it'll bring samples back to earth in 2020. All for 150 million dollars. Gambat, yo! Pshh! Wow! Yeah, that's pretty amazing. Guns blazing. So, yeah. I gotta say that would be great. I mean, the Hayabusa too has been a really cool mission. So, yeah. Wow. It's sick. Yeah, so we could get them on then, absolutely. Yeah, and then I think, you know, when Mike was mentioning all of the projects and missions that NASA is now funding and putting some more time into, somebody actually mentioned the Hayabusa missions and stating, you know, kind of all of the really, really neat things to come out of that. So, I mean, Elizabeth, if you're out there, we have a seat warmed up just for you. It's cool. I'm sure it's staying on. Yes, yes I am. And I just want to say the kind of build on this comment that we got from it, if you viewers know someone who you think would be a really great guest to have on the show, you should get in touch with us and you should hook us up with them. Yeah. So, just saying. Give us a long introduction, man. Or maybe it's you. At this point, we're just reaching in the dark and, you know, just give us some, slide us some intros. That would be pretty great. You know, we're here. Help us help you. Yes. All right, and then last but not least, this comment is from Johnny Spacer. He's an escape velocity citizen and this comes straight from the tomorrow community. Johnny states, I was late to the party. But not too late to hear Peter's preference for robots in space over humans. I found this interesting to say the least and a bit taken it back. All in all, he's right. We humans are extremely fragile and high maintenance. Because of this, I think we need to utilize robotics, AI, and telepresence to the max. I'm not saying no to humans. I'm just saying let our tools, AKA our robotics, AI and telepresence, build our habitats before our arrival. That way we can have a relatively safe place in space from which we can survive and thrive. And then expand further out into our destiny. I like that. I like that. I love that all of that was written in there because all of that was so relevant. Yes. Because I feel like so many times when we ask that question of robotic or human, there's a lot of opinions of human because we're all so eager, obviously, to go and to get space. But I think that formula of a plan to get the robots there, have them build first and then we join. I definitely vote for that. I think it's a really good idea. Yeah. So yeah, when he said that, I'm glad that Johnny Spacer repeated that. And I thought that was pretty interesting as well because I mean, echoing that sentiment, I mean, I appreciate the ambition and kind of the big dream of one day humans in actual elongated space travel. But before we get ahead of ourselves, I mean, Johnny Spacer said it quite eloquently here. We're pretty darn fragile. And we're pretty darn high maintenance. I mean, I know we bring up tardigrades on a hot on this show, which I'm not complaining about, but look at those guys. Look at how tough they are. They don't need fancy space suits that costs stupid amounts of money. And so, why not send our robots out first, let them deal with the brunt of it and then kind of fix it up for us a little bit. Send tardigrades first and then we go. Let the robots handle it. So that's what they're there for. Robots don't complain when they run out of air. They don't, you know, put in, they don't give you a one-star review when you fly them first. When you fly them through 10,000 rads. They don't need toilets. There's no interpersonal issues. So there's no drama. Yeah. Robots are chill, man. Robots are just like really good people. I can't wait. I cannot wait until the very far future when we become the robots. Okay. Now we're getting back on to this guy. Okay, hologram. I was going to say. You kind of already are, I guess, right now. I agree with that so much and it's simply because of my sinuses. So that's why I'm so excited about that future is because if it can get rid of sinuses, yes. You see, all major innovations stem from some sort of just, you know. Discomfort in the human race. Necessity is the mother of invention, I think, right? That's right. That's how it goes. It sounds like a lot of syllables. Of invention. Curiosity. Well, stop father. Marketing. Well, so that concludes comments from last week. Be sure to drop your comments below so that we can address them next week. And before we actually head out, we want to give a humongous thank you to our citizens, especially of the escape velocity, orbital and suborbital flavors. Escape velocity, citizens contribute $10 an episode. Orbital contributes $5 an episode. Suborbital, $2.50 an episode. And of course, our ground support citizens, one, two, two, 50 an episode. And again, as Jared had mentioned, as we like to mention throughout the show, you guys are what makes this show happen. So thank you from the bottom of our little hearts for supporting us. And if you would like to join the family, please head on over to patreon.com slash T-M-R-O. As always, do not forget to subscribe and ring that cute little bell that's in one of these corners. Is it here or there? Is it up there? Well, go ahead and click on it because we're, of course, awesome and we love you. So with that being said, make sure you tune in next week because we are actually going to have Emery Stagmer, I think, hey, Vax, on the show. And amongst many things, he's the lead satellite flight software engineer for NASA's La Crosse Satellite. But I'm sure that we will delve into a whole bunch of things about that individual. Anytime Vax, yeah, anytime he comes on here, it's just literally like, hey, Vax, what do you want to talk about? And he just goes for it, so. Because if anybody knows it, Vax does. Okay, sounds good. All right, so we'll keep the seats warm and we will see you next Saturday at 21 UTC. That's right. Wait, no, 1800 UTC. 1800 UTC. I was saying, I'm like, whoa. We also have a science episode next week. And we also have a science episode next week. Yeah, there you go. Which starts at 2100 UTC. Yeah. Okay.