TWiS 200: Our 200th Episode Listener Special! - We're Talking to You!

Coming up on This Week in Space, NASA's Artemis program gets some new details on how it's evolving the moon is safe!

From Asteroid 2024, why are four, and it is episode 200 of This Week in Space and Rodney are dressed to the nines and answering your questions.

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This is Droid.

This is This Week in Space, episode number 200.

Recorded on March 6th, 2026, our 200th episode listener special.

Hello and welcome to another episode of This Week in Space, our episode 200 listener special edition.

Wow!

Yeah, somebody spent five minutes on that.

I'm Rod Pyle Editor Chief at Astero Magazine.

And I'm here with my 200th episode anniversary man, the one, the only, the legendary, Tark Malik of Space.com!

Woo!

Right?

Yeah!

Hello, right?

Hello!

That is the first and last time bunch of groupies are going to make a noise about you.

This week, we're speaking with you, albeit directly, and your space jokes questions about the show.

Or space, or us, or insults for Tark, or whatever you got.

Or for Rod?

Actually, I was going to say we didn't get any insults for Tark because your mother is a smart woman that she has hacked my email and took them out.

Everybody loves me.

It's sad, but it's true.

Anyway, this one's for you gang, listener gang.

Now before we start, please don't forget to show us your love and like and subscribe and thumbs up and stuff for this podcast with all your might.

Because it means the world to us.

And now, a fresh space joke won a many for today from our friend Claude.

Claude!

Hey Tark!

Tark!

Oh my god!

Episode 200, and we're still here.

Okay, yes, yes, Rod.

Why did the sun go to school?

Why?

To get brighter!

Ah!

That's good.

That's good.

Makes sense?

Very cognitive.

I've heard that some folks want to turn us over to our robot overlords for proper disposal with this joke time this show.

But you have the power to help us by setting us your best.

You're worst.

You're most in different space joke to twist at twit.tv and we'll be happy to blame it on you when it goes near.

Now, let's go to headline news.

Should we?

Comment on what we're wearing.

headline news.

That's nice.

That's nice.

Why?

Whatever would we say about what we're wearing?

I don't know.

We're very fashionable today.

Well, it's our 200th anniversary.

Actually, wasn't our first episode with John Dalancy?

I think it was.

Wasn't it?

You even when we came out of beta?

I mean, like first ever.

No?

I don't think so.

I don't know.

I don't remember now.

Now you have me wondering.

Let's look.

I was thinking about him today with a talk to you offline about others.

I've got a race to the moon.

Venus is back.

SpaceX versus the world.

John Dalancy was out there.

All right.

All right.

But hey, nice try for your old man memory.

I mean, more like me.

Okay.

Tark.

Malik.

Yes, Rod.

Yes.

Tell us all about what's going on with Artemis.

Oh, big stuff.

Big stuff from Artemis this week.

Well, as we all, you know, the last time we talked, we got the big news that NASA is changing

up all of the Artemis program.

And this week we found out that they fixed the issue.

They fixed the issue on the helium, the helium system on the upper stage.

So that's really good.

And we're thinking that we're, we're going to see roll back to the pad sometime

in the next couple of weeks, which is really good.

They're still looking at April 1st.

So that's your Artemis 2 update.

They're on track.

They fixed whatever it was.

And we're, yeah, yeah.

So that's exciting.

But we also got Artemis program news in the form of a NASA update that kind of laid out

how they're going to change things in a step by step process.

So when we last spoke, Rod, it was, hey, you know, everything's delayed.

We want to accelerate the timeframe.

And we're going to not, you know, fly Artemis 3 to the moon.

That'll be for later.

So now we know that the current system of SLS, the block one system with the,

it was at the ICPS, the inter, inter, inter, the interim interim.

That's the word interim cryogenic, a propulsion stage.

That's going to be a lock until Artemis 3.

So they're going to fly the first three missions with the rocket as designed right now

and that interim upper stage to do all of their tests.

So Artemis 2 goes around the moon, Artemis 3 goes into orbit.

We expect to get one, if not two different landing,

our rendezvous operation systems, depending on starship and the blue,

the blue moon landers, the blue, yeah, the blue moon mark two landers are ready.

And then for Artemis 4 and 5 is what they said this week.

That's going to be the one that has a new upper stage.

And it's most likely going to be a commercially kind of competed upper stage.

And there's some talk at least through ours and some other other sites.

I think Bloomberg had it as well that they're looking at the Vulcan Centaur upper stage

because that's like the most advanced Centaur as like the potential go to

because it's more powerful than ICPS and could have the lift capacity that they need to get to the moon.

The ICPS has genes in old aerospace.

Was it originally the upper stage of the Delta 2 or something?

You know, I recall it was something like that.

It wasn't a Centaur, but it was like a reused version that was like,

okay, we're going to build this now, but we're going to replace it because it can't get us

to the orbit of the moon that we would need to land.

That is why they had the near rectilinear orbit in the first place because

it wasn't a lock that they were going to get the exploration upper stage.

But what the NASA announcement said this week is that that exploration upper stage,

it's gone.

There is no EUS, if you will, coming for space launch system,

because that was part of Block 2 and that's it.

There is no Block 2.

It's just what we have now is what we're going to have for the foreseeable.

Artemis IV, Artemis V, get that new upper stage and we're going to find out what that means.

They did mention that changes are coming for the other plans.

Gateway is not really mentioned at all.

Are they going to do that?

Are they not going to do that?

Is it going to change in some way or fashion?

We don't really know.

But they said that that stuff is all being looked at right now and that they'll have more later.

But now we know exactly what's going on with the upper stage for Artemis III.

It's not going to have the new one.

It's going to wait for Artemis IV.

Now we know what's going on with those things for this week.

For this week.

Yeah, it could change again.

We'll see because there's hardware for Gateway already built.

Right?

Yeah.

From partners and stuff that's already underway.

Oh, they also in that nest update this week, they also said the mobile launch platform 2,

which is being built, it's also done.

Like they are stopping everything.

They're going to save money.

It's been super delayed.

How much have they spent on that thing like a billionaire or something?

Oh, it's in the hundreds of millions if it isn't the billion plus.

And also, I was talking to one of my writers, Josh Dinner,

and he was telling me that looking at the contract that it was like 90 plus percent paid out already.

So that money is out the door.

But if you're not going to have another iteration of space launch system,

which is why they needed that, then you don't need it.

Right?

And it'll go the way of the...

Remember the one that they built for Artemis?

Or enough for Artemis for Aries?

For Aries 1X, that special launch tower?

I can't really.

Yeah, they built it.

And it just sat there.

And then they took it apart because they don't need it anymore.

Like they spent all those millions of dollars on it.

And it's too bad.

And they launched that mission after they canceled it too,

which is really sad.

Artemis 1X.

But it's nice to get some new details about what's happening on Artemis 2.

And I think we're going to get more as it develops,

as Jared Isaacman really lays down the law saying,

we need to do this.

I think I'm sure there's going to be a hearing in the near future

because of the Authorization Act is making its way through the Congress,

which I think I don't think I have something on that.

But that happened this week too.

And speaking of the moon, dot, dot, dot.

That's right!

The moon is safe.

You know, we don't have to worry in 2032 when we have our big moon base

when you and I, Rod, are reporting live to all our fabulous listeners

from the moon and recording this.

But John, you can come.

We'll let you, you know, as long as you're nice to me.

No, I'm good, Doug.

But for those future, those future moon astronauts,

they won't have to worry in 2032 when asteroid 2024,

why are four swings by?

This is the asteroid that was discovered in 2024,

like it's name mentions, that was really like a will it,

won it, hit the Earth for a while,

and then the odds of that kind of dwindled,

but the odds weren't zero for it hitting the moon in 2032 when it flew by.

Now NASA says that we don't have to worry about it.

Now it's just going to miss us all entirely.

We can go about our day and feel safe from this asteroid.

Let alone like all the other asteroids that are out there,

but this one is okay.

At least as far as the moon's concerned.

So you know, if someone tries to sell you asteroid 2024,

why are four insurance, you got to tell them, you know, it's all right.

Or those, those hats like they had when Skylab was coming down.

So what's all this about a new hiring initiative

under Jared Isaacman?

Yeah, this is an interesting one because I didn't,

this is something I didn't see coming and it seems very,

it seems very like, huh.

So here we are, right?

NASA and the United States Office of Personal Management.

By the way, I didn't know this,

but we have a US Office of Personal Management.

I didn't know that.

It was just a labor department.

They have announced this new joint initiative called NASA Force.

So you've heard about Space Force, this isn't that.

This is NASA Force.

NASA Force.

That's right.

You do it much better than I did.

And so this is a special, like as I understand it,

in the Office of Personal Management,

there is this US Tech Force initiative to try to recruit talented people

in information technology, tech computers, you know, engineers, scientists,

like that kind of thing.

People that would have high, high tech skill-related jobs.

And so this is a initiative in that force

that is geared to try to bring people into NASA.

And the reason that I said is that this news kind of caught me by surprise

like a moment is because we lost 260,000 federal jobs last year,

you know, because of the Trump administration cuts.

And a lot of those cuts, not all of them obviously,

but a lot of those cuts were at NASA as they retired.

Officers, they closed some offices.

They were looking at streamlining a lot of things.

They canceled a lot of contracts.

We've talked a lot about that on the show.

And now because of the need to accelerate Artemis to like,

as Jared Eisenman has said, he says that they need new people.

They need people that are dedicated.

They need people that are eager.

And in order to do that, they have to hire more people.

They just laid off like tens of thousands of people, you know?

So imagine if those people were still here.

And so that's like the big moment for me is that this is like a situation

that it feels like an own goal.

That not just NASA, but like the administration really has gotten itself into,

because now it's like, well, we need these people

if we want to do the things you want to do.

And so their goal is to just recruit as many people as fast as possible

through this NASA force so that they can continue,

as Isaacman says, to attract the next generation,

hey, that's the TNG of innovators and technical experts

who are ready to solve the toughest challenges in exploration,

science, and aerospace technology.

So there you go.

Very good.

This could be our big chance to go get jobs as janitors at NASA.

They'll need janitors on the moon, right?

I call it.

I call it.

I pick one more story and then we'll break and get to the meat of our episode

for our dear listeners who we love and cherish.

Well, I will stop with this.

We're going to talk about Maven real quick.

So this is just a little bit of an update that we got this week

on the loss or potential salvation of the Maven orbiter around Mars.

Now, if you don't remember back in December,

NASA lost contact with Maven when it flew behind Mars

and then it had to wait through solar conjunction for Mars

that come out from behind the sun until February,

basically just after Valentine's Day,

to try to call Maven again because it's been silent since December.

I know, right?

It's really sad.

This is an orbiter that was designed to basically investigate

where Mars's water went through its atmosphere

and how its atmosphere interacts with the solar wind

and all of that to see what happened, why it's so dry.

What's the whole Mars?

Exactly, right?

That was like the goal.

And it's done very well.

I also also tried to investigate the methane mystery

of what's going on about that on the planet.

So it's not rod, everybody.

It's not rod.

I checked.

So we had him checked out is what I'm trying to say.

So the doctor said it's fine.

They saw me from orbit.

But so we've been waiting for an update

about what NASA is going to do because at some point

they have to call it is Maven dead

and like lost in orbit around Mars

or is it salvageable and can they resurrect it?

So what we heard this week is that last month

after those initial efforts to try to resurrect

or revive the spacecraft, reestablish contact,

they commissioned an anomaly board

and that board reviewed all the work

and that's the update.

The update is that they had a meeting last month

and they looked at the results from the trials.

So it's not very promising.

If you've got all your chips set down on Maven coming back,

I don't know what to tell you.

It doesn't look like it's great.

And it's really sad because that was a mission

that was run out of Goddard.

It was doing really, really awesome science.

And I was there with Jim Green, friend of the show,

for its orbital arrival is really exciting to see

back under the Charlie Bolton Air.

Okay, very, very quickly

because I know you're just bursting

at your non-existent buttons in that tunic

to talk about at the Blood Moon eclipse.

Oh, I wasn't going to skip it,

but since you said.

You know, we had a total lunar eclipse this week

and it's the last one until 2028, 2029 for the world

and for us, it's the last one until 2029 in the United States.

So if you're like me, you didn't see anything

because it was totally clattered out over my house.

It was in there.

I pre-dawn one on Tuesday, March 3rd.

But we got photos from people around the world

who saw amazing, amazing things.

You've got the moon dipping into the Earth's shadow,

turning red as it always does.

You know, and then of course coming back

so that we don't have to be afraid

and that we can actually, you know,

know that there will be seasons coming

because, you know, we need the moon for our seasons

and our tilt and all that fun stuff.

Okay, let's tilt our way into a break

and we'll be right back with our listener messages stand by.

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And now back to Rod and Terrick.

All right, we are back with our

200th anniversary episode

200th anniversary.

Listeners special.

And we're also going to talk a little bit about

if we have time, our biggest depression

since we started the show.

Can you do that again, please?

What the blah, blah, blah, blah.

But there it is!

Speaking of having the doctor check them out, okay.

And we've been doing this since January 2022,

Tariq and I realized yesterday

we were just on the phone.

So it's been a while.

I've gotten old and gray.

I thought we'd be on the moon by now.

A couple of times.

Right.

Elon told me we'd be on Mars four times.

I know.

I know.

I guess he was wrong.

Well, hey, so for expert advice,

let's go to Mark Pachalski.

Mark.

Is that right?

Question for you.

If you consider having sci-fi authors as guests,

you've had authors on before,

but generally written and produced documentaries.

You might talk to them about how their stories

relate to real science.

How much they use proven science versus made up science

and fantasy.

I thought about this when Tariq mentioned

sci-fi stories a few episodes ago.

So it's related to the subject being discussed.

And that was probably the Jack Pit Debit stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We were talking about Jack Pit Debit.

So you know, fun story.

I actually spoke to Alan Steele one time through email.

Alan Steele.

It sounds like an adult video star.

No.

So Alan Steele wrote a series of,

I think I talked about it when we were talking about

Jack Pit Debit.

And Alan Steele, I might even told this story.

But when...

I might be snoozing.

One of his stories,

it's a whole thing about where some dissidents went out

to colonize like a moon.

And then the regime goes after them

and then they have a big thing when they all get there.

And one of the commanders,

the book starts out with him landing on Titan

and surveying his domain

as they have won whatever battle on Titan

from these dissidents.

And it was just as Cassini's,

Huygens, Huygens had landed on Titan

and I was asking him if they were...

He was surprised,

or if it sounded exactly like what he thought it was going to be like.

And he wasn't surprised.

He thought it was just fine.

But it was exciting.

I didn't know you could use...

Sci-fi authors are smart.

I know, right?

Yeah.

But that's a good point.

In fact, it's really important now

when we look at what's happening this month

because...

Hail Mary is coming out

by Andy Weir, the film.

And I've seen it.

My feeling is that it's very good,

but I can't talk about details about it yet.

And...

Well, it's a million light years of space talking to a rock, right?

Well, that's the book, right?

So if you've read the book,

you know what it's about.

So I'm not going to talk about the movie itself.

But...

Thanks a lot.

Well, I can.

You know, you have to wait until the movie comes out later this month.

Fine.

All right.

I'll tell you my thoughts about the movie itself,

specifics when I can talk about it.

So...

Aren't you vicious?

But the book is great.

The book is a really fun read.

Everyone should read the book.

And...

But that's what I'm saying is that maybe we can get Andy

on to come talk about it.

That would be fun.

Yeah.

And who only would have to travel to this, which is good.

All right.

Let's go to a space joke from Kyle Dietrich, Kate Tarris.

Kyle.

Yes, Rod.

Why did the space tourists want to go to Saturn?

I don't know.

Why?

To go ring shopping.

Ah!

I dig it.

I dig it.

Wow.

Wow.

Okay.

Let's go to...

Because of the rings.

Let's go to the question.

Did you know that it's because Saturn has rings?

Are you done?

No.

I guess you want to move on.

No, no, no.

I personally want to hear more.

Well, and here is more.

My good friends.

From Ralph, whose last name unfortunately got cut off of his message.

Sorry, Ralph.

You can email him.

No, he didn't have his last name in the message.

He can figure out me.

Yeah.

Well, it was in his email address, but I couldn't quite decipher it.

Anyway, congrats on 200 episodes this week in space.

Wait, you read all these emails, Tarris?

I added this email to the rundown.

Did you not know?

See, I do some stuff, people.

I do some...

Oh, somebody...

I do see the emails.

I just made up always wristwatch.

Congrats on 200 episodes this week in space.

I wanted to know who were some of the more interesting guests you had on the show so far.

I'll start with John Dalancy.

It's fun.

Always good to have to be able to hang out with Q and his weirdness.

I thought having Bill Nion, like on our first televised one, that was really fun, too.

Pam Melroy?

Yeah, she was great.

And she was in charge of NASA at the time.

Yeah.

Wasn't that exciting?

That was a deal.

Thank you.

There was that time that she photobombed the episode before.

That was a Greg Autrey's request.

Yeah.

When I talked to Eileen Collins, it was really, really nice.

You were out for that one.

I don't know.

If you remember, but we had Eileen on when her book had come out.

She's a wonderful person to tell.

Oh, man.

It was so exciting.

It was really a highlight for me because Ralph, that her mission, STS-114, the last one,

was the first return to flight mission.

And that was the first mission that I ever covered as lead reporter back in 2005.

And so, wow.

That was 21 years ago now.

My space career at Space.com is old enough to drink, you know.

And then some.

One place all that time.

That's impressive.

Well, you know, try not to think about it because, man, that's a long time.

That's like a, if it was like an old time 1950s job, that's a pension.

You get a gold watch.

Right?

Yeah.

I know.

Instead of a swatch, like you're probably going to get.

But more recently, I would point out, you know, that becoming Martian interview.

That was a lot of fun.

A TV turtle for Dragonfly was great.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

The young lady we had on for Mars Bio Terraforming, whose name has jumped out of my mouth.

With the mushrooms.

So.

No, no, no.

Well, the mushrooms show, yeah.

But the other one was for Pioneer Labs Terraforming.

Or that one.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, I hate to leave people up, but we don't have time to sit here and watch

other games, but they've all been pretty good.

They've all been great.

They've all been great.

We don't want to pick favorites because like we, we invite people on the show because we think

we think that they are really interesting people and that we really dig the stuff that they're

doing.

And we want to share it with you.

And it's going to get better and better as we move into 200 plus.

Tucker Drake.

Tucker.

Yes, Rod.

How does NASA ensure the ISS has a smooth course around the planet?

I do not know how.

By using an orbital sander.

I think that's about the right response.

Okay.

Let's do one more.

Becky Clark.

Hi, Becky.

I remember several years ago when Rod tried to talk with Leo from that base up in the Arctic.

That was marginally successful.

The best, hopefully, if you get to go again, you'll have better communications.

Producing a this weekend space episode from there would be super.

However, referring to a few episodes ago, my suggestion, she says she must vote no on the mud

wrestling.

Because there's a lot of mud up there and it's very slimy.

Didn't pass.

I'll say that.

They've got something else.

They do.

Let me do a belly jump.

Yeah, they got.

So when we were there, we had, is it Intel SAT?

The SAT phone.

Yeah.

You had a SAT phone, I remember you said.

Yeah.

And, you know, you'd get a satellite for two to three minutes and then it would go out.

And the phone might or might not track the jump to the next satellite.

So it was very frustrating.

Yes.

Now they have Starlink.

And you know, that kind of takes some of the adventure out of it because I was trying to upload

stories to you, darkspace.com.

And you don't think about it because we have cheap broadband now, right?

But every time, because we're paying by the megabyte.

Oh, wow.

Six bucks of megabyte.

That takes you back, man.

Yeah.

It was like you were waiting for that ping, ping of the modem or something.

So I'd log on.

And before I could push the button to upload your the story.

The satellite's gone.

Sick.

No, this was.

It was still through satellite, but this was strictly.

Email.

Yeah, but before I could send that email about 90 megabytes had transferred back and forth

with all this handshaking and Yahoo had to send me all their commercials and everything.

And we tried to block it.

I mean, it cost them a small fortune just to supply you with stories.

It's really fun out.

What was that?

I want to point out if you ever want to send a nice gift to the Mars Institute, Dr. Pascal Lee,

you could pay that bill.

Sorry.

Well, I was going to say it's just funny because that was like what?

That was 2023.

Yeah.

I think I want to say.

So it's been.

It's been three years since that.

And in that time, like space-based internet is, it's not just SpaceX and Starlink.

There's like a few others.

I think Intel's not still building out their constellation as well.

But like, I have team mobile and they signed the deal with Starlink.

I used it the other day.

I just get it, you know?

Yeah.

And now I finally get reception in my kitchen.

Thank you.

You know, I got broadband and everything, but it would always lose it in the kitchen.

Well, the SpaceX stuff is only for texting.

No.

It's supposed to be like, they have a whole new separate thing now.

That is just for like internet and connectivity for cell phones.

And they're launching their own network too.

Yeah.

But it's not going to compete with everyone else.

But I just think it's really interesting that it's become super ubiquitous.

When I go on overseas trips or whatever.

Yeah.

Well, I know, right?

That's my daughter's studying for the SATs.

When I go overseas, I have like 100% data and it's all included now.

You know?

And it hasn't for quite some time, but now you don't have to worry about it,

because you know you're going to be connected.

Well, we know all about your phone plan now.

Well, speaking of my phone plan, when I was out the desert with my son last week

doing astronomy and other things,

this is a east of Joshua Tree.

Joshua Tree.

Yes.

Which is pretty bleak.

And no.

So, you know, I'm in China.

I'm in the bottom of a canyon.

I'm walking around with five bars of 5G.

I go out to the California High Desert and I got nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing for hours at a time.

But suddenly I got that little Bing pop-up saying Starlink.

So I also have T-Mobile.

So I tried to Starlink text to my dear woman and went right through.

Nice.

That was impressive proof of concept.

I think we'll work.

Okay, let's do one more joke and then we'll break.

Yeah.

From Barry Hayworth.

Hi, Barry.

Barry.

Thanks for...

I think he sent us like 20 jokes or something.

Yeah.

I say old chap.

How did new horizons get to Pluto so fast?

I don't know.

I don't know how.

It got a gravity assist by Jov.

Ha!

Hi, Jov.

He says.

Hi, Jov.

If I had had a better...

If this was Leo, he'd have a good British accent, but it's me.

So you got nothing.

Whenever I hear, like, by Jov, I think of Jupiter ascending.

Did you ever see that movie?

No.

It's got...

What's her name?

Mia Lecunis and Chaneteen.

That's right.

Yeah, that's right.

Wow.

Look at John.

Actually.

The pop-size stuff.

Hey, actually...

The Wokowski siblings.

Yeah.

The Wokowski siblings made that movie.

And it's fun.

It's fun.

A lot of people tell you that it's bad.

And I'm not going to disagree with them.

But it's a guilty pleasure.

Like Pluto Nash.

The adventure's a Pluto Nash.

Oh, really fun.

I love it.

I love it.

Pluto Nash.

I know it is such a hideous movie.

What about your upper report?

Oh, I love that one too.

So that one's got a fun twist ending that I'm not going to spoil for anyone if you haven't seen it yet.

So...

You are good.

Twist, dad.

Okay.

Let's twist our end to a break and we'll be right back.

Stand by.

Hey, is that a...

Is that a...

Is that a...

Is that a...

Disney Plus?

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All right.

Here's a good one that actually doesn't apply today, but we'll do it anyway from Jan Wilde.

Jan.

Okay.

So what is the name of the lava lamp type device that looks like jellyfish on your set?

Where did you get it?

I'd like to get one.

Oh, you got to turn your background off so the people can see it.

No, because I got a green screen blocking it.

Give away the secret.

It's from Amazon.

If you look up jellyfish lamp, you'll find it there about 20, 25 bucks.

And it's just a plastic tube that you pour water in and you put in little rubbery plastic jellyfish.

But they're really cool and they look like little aliens.

So I thought that was pretty fun.

I thought it was just a lava lamp.

It's not just a lava lamp?

No, it's got little jellyfish kind of moving up and down in it.

I'll show you next week.

I have no idea.

I'll go over it and lick one or something.

I'm sure she's super toxic.

And I'm sorry.

What's the little toxin between friends?

And then although it's too late for right now, she said baby for episode 200,

you and Tara could both invite your wives, girlfriends, and kids to say hi.

Why is it girlfriend's?

But they never meet.

You know, if we had anybody in our lives that actually loved us, we'd probably do that.

But you know, we are each other's biggest fan.

What?

And I love you, Tara.

They just don't care about being on the podcast.

No, your family tolerates you.

Let's be out of it.

You know, if I go to Sherry, my beloved, and say, wow, some really interesting things happen in space today,

she kind of stops tick-tocking whatever she's doing and looks at me and goes,

and it's this look that's very non-committal.

It's kind, but it's distant.

And the message is, make it quick, buster.

I'm doing something more interesting, like, you know, looking at different ways of putting

Snare all in your salad online or something.

Snare all.

Oh, wait, wait.

You mean, that's a joke of her trying to poison you.

Exactly.

Good.

You're catching them fast.

So nobody wanted to come.

Even my dog decided not to come upstairs with this.

I don't know about you, but that's my story.

No, like my daughter's in school and doing work.

Actually, I know she's probably playing Dungeons & Dragons right now because this is like when they meet,

so that she will not be on the show.

We're fun to be on the show.

Okay.

And then she said, she goes on.

Also, what happened to the smiling alien to the left of the ray gun female over your

right shoulder?

See, people are paying attention.

That's right.

You moved it, huh?

Well, that was Big Lou, the moon robot, made by the Marks toy company, which I was gifted in 1964, I think.

It was $9.95, which was a lot of money then.

Probably, I think they'd be about $80 now.

Yeah.

And it was this three-foot tall, styrene thing that instantly starts snapping off of them,

breaking, but it was very cool.

And they are now worth about $2,000 if you have them in good condition, which is absurd.

So the answer is he was moved to the floor because I was doing the interview for a TV series installment.

And I just felt it was a little much.

A little, a little, a little two out there, right?

A little two out there, but he will refine his place of honor.

And finally, Lord, please remember to take it easy on Tark.

He seems like a sensitive guy, right?

Thank you, Jan.

And, unless, of course, is part of your stick, like Abbott and Castello, or Carl and Marri and Lisa Wolfe,

of Hollywood 360 Old-Time Radio.

And yes, I'm Carl and he's Lisa.

And this is our stick.

And I'm very nice to you offline.

And you have plenty of slings and arrows for me when we're offline.

That's right.

Tell them, tell the world.

The gloves come off.

The gloves come off when the light goes off.

I tell you, right?

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

The recording light.

Oh, okay.

I thought we were getting back with the mud rust thing.

Because like his mind just goes straight there, everybody.

That's why.

So lights out.

You know, I mean, okay.

Maybe I had a more exciting team.

I'll tell you, I would tell you that.

I know.

Jan is right because when I was, when I was young and grown up, I had three older cousins, all boys.

And so they used to pick on me a lot.

And to me, it was like.

I had imagined that to me.

To me, it was like, hey, people are paying attention to me.

This is amazing, right?

And, but they would call me all super wimpy and everything like that.

And my mom would say, he's just sensitive.

So it's true.

It's just a sense of lead.

But I, when I, when my son was, uh, found he had 80, 80 HD, pretty mildly.

And I was diagnosed then with ADHD.

I went back to my elementary school records.

Because I thought, I wonder my report cards look like.

Because I don't think my parents ever paid any attention to it.

And they just kind of look at it.

I go, yeah, that's our son.

He's a loser.

And, uh, sure enough, from, uh, first to second grade up all the way through fifth, I think.

Ron's a sensitive boy.

He's very quiet.

He's very smart.

We put him in the front of the room.

Oh, wait.

No, he's not.

We put him in the back of the room.

Oh, wait.

We put him in the front of the room.

So I was an undiagnosed, uh, goofball back.

The front of the room and the back of the room is where teachers send problem kids to like,

yeah.

Well, we're back then.

Now you'd get your own special.

That's because I was special.

You just ruined my entire self image.

Thank you very much.

That's like when I was in kindergarten.

I got an A on a paper.

And everyone was like, oh, wow.

You got an A.

And I'm like, no, Mrs. Ken Cleaney was trying to show me how to do A's because my A's are all.

So that's why it says A.

Wow.

You don't get grades again.

That was a highlight of elementary school for you.

Mine was winning the sixth grade handball tournament because the champ managed to out himself

because he made a mistake.

And so suddenly my wretched, miserable playing was a winner.

All right.

How did he?

How did he?

Like, did he throw the ball and then jump on it and then hit him?

No, he hit it with the edge of his fingers that went off in the wrong direction.

So they said, you're the winner.

I was like, what?

Sports and me.

All right.

From Martin Lawler, good friend of the show.

Marty.

Martin Lawler.

What was Dave Bowman's biggest fear in 2001, a space odyssey?

I don't know what.

A case of halitosis.

Oh, man.

I don't know.

You smell like it coming.

Okay.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Well, he only have like one of their friend, right pool, Frank pool.

Yeah.

What else do they have to add?

He got, he got the ice in the first couple of hours of the movie.

I did.

They do find him in 2001 though, out by Pluto or something like that.

They find his body.

Body.

They never made a movie of that, right?

Just.

No, no, they did not.

But they bring him back alive by cloning or something like that.

Wow.

That spoiler alert.

By the way, if you've read that 20 year old book, so that's, that's, that's extraordinary.

Okay.

Let's do one more.

James Hirschberg.

James.

Excellent.

New Pascal show.

And of course, I've already read the 200 plus page report and appendices he mentioned.

This is a fan who actually read the National Academy's human tomorrow's report.

Yeah.

He did the homework.

Look at that.

That's a big deal.

Yeah.

He knows the same.

I don't, we didn't.

Well, I downloaded it.

I did look at it.

So.

I know how you look at things.

Um, uh, wait.

Rod, hold on.

I'd type it.

What?

Huh?

Um, so Rod is describing a planning call that we had last night.

Everybody.

No, those are all our plan calls in which, in which at the same time, my staff was asking

me to, to solve a headline issue that I had to figure out about Artemis program.

And I was also trying to line up some stuff for the shark.

I don't, I don't multi task very well.

So.

I was going to say, I've never had a phone call with you where you were, where you weren't

multitasking, which I, I own and take personally.

Okay.

Let me continue.

The sooner the sorties, yes, 30, 30, 30 or 30 supplies 400, I guess that's referring

to the daytime.

Mm hmm.

Better.

Good.

And it goes on to say, I'd love to hear how he or other knowledgeable guests, which would

leave you and me out of it, would answer the question, would humans get to Mars faster

through us?

People's Republic competition or presuming political feasibility collaboration.

Cheers.

Enjoy Apollo 9 again.

Well, I'd have to say competition, right?

Did they collaborate?

Like, nothing gets done.

Like, it'll just not day collaborated.

We collaborate with.

But I mean, if we, yeah, if the company's collaborated, it'll go a lot slower than

you think.

You know, we collaborated on the ISS and probably ended up costing well more than it would

have.

I mean, it cost the US well more than it would have had it just gone solo in the end of

the day.

Yeah.

However, I was talking to somebody about Buzz Alder in the other day and he and I had a series

of long conversations about this, I don't know, I think it was very COVID actually.

You and Buzz, are you and the friend that you were talking to me and Buzz?

Okay.

And he was a big is a big proponent of cooperation with China.

You know, you know, I understand the Wolf Amendment, NITAR and all the concerns.

But when somebody of Buzz is intellect comes along and says, this is a really good idea.

You know, somebody of my intellect, which is vastly inferior, probably ought to sit up and

say, okay, let's consider that.

So well, I'm sure there would be IP theft or let's just say IP reappropriation because

they don't view IP the way we do.

They don't view patents protection the way we do and all that kind of stuff.

By the same token, NASA generally is pretty transparent anyway.

So it's just a fence tech you're worried about and there is a lot of crossover there.

I don't know.

You know, on the other hand, God love the US.

We do best when we're competing with somebody or being challenged or somebody said, nan

or nan or nan or on the playground, I better than you.

We proved that in the space race many times since then.

So it may be that it takes that kick to the grain to get us to wake up and get back

to the moon.

If we had a leadership, I mean like government leadership, that was very streamlined

and functional in a way, not so much that everyone agrees.

I'm not talking about like a single party type of a thing.

I mean, like where?

Well, no, you know what I mean, like, they're all working together to try to get the best

thing.

So it's all, it's.

I'm sorry.

You're talking about the Chinese government.

I'm saying that if we, if we didn't have so much infighting of people trying to stay

in power and get the one-ups in our own country, if we were like, had everything solved

here, then I think that cooperation would really go well.

I just don't see that happening because the, I don't see our leaders feeling any urgency

to get anything done when they're in charge because why would you want that to change?

And so they need to have an external influence and like right now China is it and it's getting

things done.

And that's it got more money this year because of like the fears for that and the lobbying

about that type of thing.

So I think that I would be on the other side and that it would actually, they need that

conflict and that challenge, even if it's just like a pride challenge, not even like

a national security one to say that we got there first and did the other thing, you know.

Oh, you said that in a very Kennedy-like way and do the other things.

Not because they are easy but because they are Chinese.

Yes, what?

Yeah.

So unfortunately, he, he, he asked how Pascal or other knowledgeable guests would feel

about this.

So we're going to have to hold on that.

That's our opinion and we're standing by it and let's go stand by a break for a couple

of seconds.

We'll be right back.

Can I stop for a minute really quick just to go back to James?

Sure.

All right.

Well, one thing that you skipped in James's message is that he said cheers, enjoy Apollo

9 again.

I said that at the end.

Oh, well, did I miss it?

Oh, the nice, based out.

I think you were napping.

Well, but I just wanted to point out that it's the anniversary this week as we're recording

of Apollo 9, right?

Yeah.

On Monday or Tuesday was the anniversary of that mission that helps at the stage to go,

to go to the moon.

How's that?

Well, and maybe what he's referring to is the fact that Artemis 3 is now Apollo 9.

Yeah.

Oh, wait.

There is that.

There is.

But you know what, if that gives them time, not just to test the lander, which is way

better than testing it out the moon, but also to work on that heat shield, then I'm

all for it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I agree.

I mean, I think that I'm just listening to a streamer yesterday all about the heat

shield not being ready for, for it, like in a way that would really make you comfortable.

You know, I know that Jared Isaacman is comfortable with what he's heard from the assessments

from Artemis 1.

But I'd like to see those arguments too.

I haven't seen that in the rationale to see like why they're okay with the cracks and

how the new orientation for the return reentry profile is going to solve all of that and

everything.

So.

Yeah.

All right.

From Tonya Wyman.

Tonya.

Tonya, who attended last year's live recording of this show.

Yeah.

It's a wonderful, special, special, development conference, which we should do again this year

at the International Space Development Conference, TARC.

About the work on that.

I will, I will work on that.

So.

All right.

You check.

Okay.

Tonya, this might be too late for the show.

It's not, but I've composed a pretty poor lemur if you want to include it.

I actually tried AI to compose it, but that was even worse.

So this is purely from the drugs of my brain.

Oh, without further ado, every Friday, I get my fill of space.

From the twist podcast, this is just ace.

Rod is the man.

He tells jokes as he can.

And TARC says headline news to keep pace.

Congratulations, gentlemen.

Well done.

I love them.

It's really good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We take our feelings and we can get them, Tonya.

Well done.

Well done.

We appreciate that.

I mean, if somebody told me to do a limerick, I'd have to be reminded what the heck a limerick

was.

So that was quite good.

Thank you.

All right.

Lauren Cook.

Lauren.

Yes, Rod.

What did the aliens say when they found Pioneer 10?

I don't know.

What did they say?

Humans, please stop sending us pornography and instructions on how to get to your house.

It's creepy.

No, that's good.

That's good.

Because if people don't know, right, then they had gold plaques on the Pioneer probes

and the Voyager probes.

Had those gold plaques with naked people with, yeah, with, with depictions of, of unclowed

that I think we're supposed to say, uh, uh, humans as well as like, uh, also, directions,

uh, both our directions and the, uh, hydrogen signals, yeah, yeah, so just to be clear, you

know, this is a gold plaque flat piece of gold coated, I think it was copper or brass.

And it had line drawing etching representations of a human, a female figure in the humans

holding his hand up as a, we come at peace.

And, you know, they didn't have clothes on because if you're going to show what mammals

look like to the aliens, you shouldn't, you know, they're going to look at the clothes

and say, oh my God, what odd scales they have or whatever.

But there were people that got upset because they said, but they're unclowed.

And Carl Sagan had to say, yeah, we talked about that, you dumb, dumb.

So anyway, you know, this was a long time ago, this is 70s.

Just like how in the 60s, Apollo 8 goes around the mood.

They read Genesis very moving moment, and then the American atheist society or whatever

they're called complaints, yeah, Sue's NASA saying, how dare you mix, you know, religion

and I, I believe the church is a separation of church and state myself, but this wasn't

the transgression of that.

This was meant to be an emotional, emotionally compelling moment.

You know, I heard a funny thing about those, those golden plaques too, because they, you

know, they can paint, they contain, uh, like, like audio, they put in songs and, in sounds

that's the records.

The records.

So these spikes are different.

Oh, that's right, right, right.

I was talking about the records.

I just had the postcards and voyage or had the records.

That's right.

That's right.

And a phonograph cartridge.

Oh, there you go.

So then does it have any structure that I build a phonograph?

It.

No.

It kind of does, but how do you, you know, how do you relate those instructions to an

alien culture?

So I, I don't think we, I think we might have talked about this in the show once.

There was an engineer a few years back who said, okay, I'm going to pretend I know nothing

about LP records and phonographs.

And I'm going to take a reproduction of the Pioneer 10 album, which you got a hold of,

which is a phonograph album, but with binary data on it and try to figure out how to engineer

a way to decode that and it took them, I think about a year and a half.

Yeah.

So he got the audio first.

That was pretty easy.

But decoding video or photo signals from that was kind of chore.

So of course, if we did it now, it would be different.

I mean, these days, I just saw something the other day that you can, you know, store

something like 10 terabytes on a crystal, the size of your pinky finger nail or something.

Isn't it crazy how small it is and how like, but cheap.

I mean, I got terabytes on this computer I built.

And years ago, it would have been like an extra computer of hard drive for something like

that.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

Yeah.

So, um, so anyway, yes, it is creepy.

Yeah.

The TLD, by the way, about what I was going to say about the, the image before I clearly

was mistaken about what we were talking about, apologizing clearly, is that the discussion

I had seen is that we had included a lot of photos, but without context.

And so there's pictures of people caught like in mid running or jumping that if an extraterrestrial

intelligence sees it, they're like, oh, these people can fly.

You know, check that out.

That's pretty cool.

You know?

So maybe they have no gravity on their planet, um, maybe that was what I was going to say.

So I like it.

All right.

From Lauren Waxman.

Lauren.

And this is referring to that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Different Lauren.

No, this is all the same, though.

Are you done?

No, probably not.

Oh, okay.

So Lauren, this is referring to Pascal's Mars episode.

Have we reached peak hubris?

Okay.

We can't even take care of our own home.

I don't get it.

I saw this.

I was asking.

Yeah.

Why are we going to Mars?

And the answer is Lauren, as I think we were, we're talking about in the episode.

The title of the Zemo was terraforming Mars too about doing that.

I think that's right.

Oh, okay.

Thank you.

Good point.

Um, so, you know, what we were talking about, Pascal is exploring and doing science and

perhaps a small bay, a sortie oriented base where you could have 5, 10, 20, um, researchers

doing their thing, not that we're particularly advocating terraforming Mars.

Now, certainly there are people that are.

And my response, and I know there are people listed in this podcast.

There are certainly people at the National Space Society who would look and say, Oh, Rod,

you're so naive.

But you know, when you've been up to the Arctic desert and looked around at all that bleak,

empty land, which is just rock and dirt and little bits of fungus here and there, you

think to yourself, there's a lot of good, usable space left on earth that as challenging

as those conditions are, they're still better than a place else out in the solar system.

So I don't say we shouldn't eventually move off earth.

We're going to have to someday, you know, when the sun decides to start growing and wipes

out our planet and so forth as we discuss with Jim Green on the show.

But we got a lot of time before we, before that becomes the peak driver.

Reminder, don't tell you a five year old that because it'll be a very hard discussion.

Yeah.

Well, and don't let your seven year old watch the 1953 version of the war of the world

just before bedtime because there will be no bedtime because he's convinced that the

Martians are going to get here.

Anyways, he says, I don't get it.

Glad to hear Pascal League is a voice to this and I love your show.

And that's the important thing.

Yeah, that's it.

She loves the show.

Loves the show.

Thank you very much.

But, you know, the terraforming argument is an interesting one.

And on the one hand, you've got the rocks have rights, crowd, which, and I'm being a bit

glib about this.

But the idea is, you know, that other planets are sacrosanct.

We shouldn't do to them what we've done to our own planet, so forth.

Usually you have the argument of, you know, what, there's nothing there.

We may discover microbes, which would be a big moment.

But other than that, these places, especially the moon, are pretty sterile, pretty dead.

We don't know about insolidus and Titan and other places yet, but certainly of the planets

that we've reconed pretty thoroughly, there's not a lot going on there.

We didn't find the civilizations we all hope for as younger persons.

And, you know, why is that not a resource to be used to help the species survive?

I think I like Lauren's argument, though, about like the, not so much the should we or

shouldn't we for Mars.

But we got stuff that we can do here, you know, in Star Trek, they go and they call

a night, well, settle, right, they go and they build outposts on other planets and moons

and whatever, because like, they just, they ran out of space, but not in a bad way, right?

They had trials and tribulations, but then they cleaned the planet up.

And then it was all, all mice and, you know, no one had a want for anything.

And like, the atmosphere was all taken care of how boring.

Right.

So then let's go somewhere else and like, like, make that place a new home.

I like that approach, like, I think that we will eventually have some kind of settlement

on the moon and on Mars and maybe out in Titan and all the fun places, right?

But I would hope that we wouldn't stop working on Earth to like, make it better for everybody

and not just for the people that have the money and the space and the, the, the, the

Amazon's and all of that stuff.

Yeah.

Well, we like the Jeff Bezos notion, which comes from Gerry O'Neal and others about,

hey, let's just move the heavy industry off Earth and keep it this beautiful, verdant

garden.

And just so it's said, you know, I know this was a terraforming response.

But if you don't terraform and you're sending people to Mars and the moon, they're surviving.

Yeah.

You know, this isn't, let's go take a stroll by the canals and look up at the twin moons

of Mars.

It's, hey, let's put on our pressure suits, leave our habitat, which has three meters

of soil over it to keep the radiation from frying our gonads and go take a walk in the

toxic soil and vacuum of Mars.

So, you know, humans are very fragile things.

I guess for me, the question is, which comes first?

Do we manage to alter, you know, through transhumanism, alter human beings enough to survive

in these more hostile environments?

Or do we alter the environment to help our weak little water-filled sex of muscle and

salt body survive?

So it's a question.

Can I, can I just a quick non-sequator?

You mentioned canals on this.

But we do have another, another break coming.

Oh, okay.

Really quickly.

Oh, really weird thing happened to me this week because Ron went to canals on Mars and

that got my tinfoil hat antenna going because I was driving, I think I was, I was driving

home from droppings 80 off at school.

And as I passed this guy's house, where this house, some people pulled up and got out of

a car and no joke was wearing a tinfoil hat.

Like, I'm serious.

Like, I did a double take and I stared at the guy just to see, and it was a tinfoil

hat twisted in a little point, you know, on top of you, Ron, because he looked like

a Hershey's kiss.

Oh, yeah.

It was just so funny to see.

That is so weird.

I didn't take a picture because that's inappropriate.

So.

Oh, you're so correct.

All right.

Let's, let's tinfoil hat our way into a break here and we'll be right back.

Okay.

Hey, Tark.

Yes, Ron.

Jumping right into it from Stan Bredlove.

Stan.

I wish I had a cool name like that instead of the goofy one I have, which is going to come

up later, by the way.

All right.

Stan, Tark, what did someone say when astronaut Buzz Alderman was voted off dancing with the

stars?

I don't know.

I don't know what did he say.

Man, what a buzzkill.

Oh, he actually got some chuckles there.

Okay.

Very good.

Yeah.

John's got a million of them.

Very hammer.

Wow.

He is.

He's going.

Very hammer.

Yes, Mary.

I'm waiting.

Very hammer.

Uh, he says, I'll keep my eyes out for other funny space jokes, regardless of whether they

original or not.

For example, did you spot the central pun of the project Hail Mary Book and Film?

I saw it pretty much immediately as I read the book and was surprised and I mentioned

to my Catholic friend that he had not in case you don't know what I'm talking about.

The story is about Ryland Grace aboard the spaceship Hail Mary or to put in another way,

Hail Mary full of grace.

That's right.

That's right.

Looking forward to the upcoming episode.

You have a lot of interesting news discuss this time around.

I certainly didn't think of that as reading the book.

No, at least they kind of, they acknowledge that that's why it's called Hail Mary, Project

Hail Mary in the book when, you know, that's that's because they're, it's their, their

big past, like their big long shot, you know, they're right, but we're in a praise thing.

Ryland Grace is in the spacecraft.

So it's full of grace.

I'm really embarrassed.

I'm really embarrassed because I just got that right now and when Rod, when Rod explained

it to me, I just got it.

So Barry, thank you, I read that book like in like a few weeks ago all the way through

and I read a couple of years ago and you know, like a lot of any where books, I enjoyed

it.

I didn't, I didn't get the sense of revelation.

A lot of people do and I have to say the same thing was true of the Martian.

I enjoyed it.

Yeah.

And I, I was thrilled that it made its way out of fan fiction.

That will never happen again, quite in that way because of all the AI books, probably

like the market, I suspect, but yeah, you know, it was a good book.

It just, again, I feel like there are plenty of others that are peers to that that didn't

get a tenth of recognition and didn't buy their authors a mansion in Chicago, you know.

Yeah.

I thought there would be like, like, there was like a secret twist in, in Hail Mary and

I kept reading it, looking for that twist and then it got to the end and I was like, oh,

I guess that's just the story.

And I enjoyed it.

Don't get me wrong.

I enjoyed it.

But I actually thought that it was about a different thing that was like the central thing

that was happening rather than what was happening.

And so because I thought that and I had no reason to think about that that was the case.

But I, some reason I had that in my head that this was what the book was going to be about.

And okay, the next chapter they're going to reveal what it is, the next chapter.

And then I got to the end and I'm like, oh, I guess it wasn't, it wasn't about that at

all.

But did you enjoy the movie?

I, I think I told, I said it already.

I did.

And did Spock die at the end?

I just, and also Luke is, or Vader is Luke's father.

Just don't tell anybody, right, because there's a, okay, hey, Tark.

Yes, Rod.

From Mark Puchowski.

Mark!

Why are astronauts hungry when they reach space?

I don't know.

Why?

Because they already had a lunch.

Yeah.

That's an oldie, but a goodie.

I dig it.

Here's Ralph.

So you put Ralph on as well.

So we can skip this one.

Yeah, that's why I was confused.

All right.

All right.

Oh, yeah.

We have already done that.

Okay.

Now, Tark helped me pronounce this name Heidi.

Tucson.

Tucson.

Tucson.

Tucson.

I think it's Tucson.

Yeah.

You know us be it all.

I didn't tell us if we got it right or not.

Tucson.

Yeah.

She can, she can send us a message from parts that you morons.

Congratulations on your 200th episode.

I've been a regular listener for a while.

I often road trip to see family.

My trip is exactly one podcast episode away.

So see, it is good that we go for an hour, Tark.

Why are you banging on me about it all the time?

I think we're almost over an hour pretty soon.

Yeah, I know, but still, you know, we, we got to keep our road trips.

Going and don't forget, we're also date night fodder for that other couple.

That's right.

That's right.

I can tell you, I can tell that you enjoy working with each other and that makes it fun

for me too.

Thank you for your work putting it all together.

Hold on.

Let me pat my own back.

Okay.

A question for your ask us anything episode.

If I was sending three consecutive lunar missions over the next five years and ask you to name

the three missions, what would you name them?

So my candidates were Huey, Louis, and Dewey, one, two, and three, or aethos, porthos,

and aromas with Dartanian is the fourth.

Yeah.

Wait, those are your choice, B.

Yeah.

They'll be mine.

You chose one, two, and three, like, well, I'm saying you can just call the missions one,

two, and three.

I mean, that's what a lot of engineers would do.

It's like, why are we getting these silly names?

Let's call it one, two, and three, like with Artemis, you know?

I think that I would like to call them Apollo, the sequel, episode, whatever, right?

And then episode four, five, and six, like from Star Wars.

I think it'd be fun.

But it has to have Apollo, the sequel in it, right?

No?

I hate you.

Lunacod?

You're called Lunacod?

No.

Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

Also from Heidi.

Crickets.

And that was really an awkward.

That's the first awkward science I had to rod in 20 years.

Yeah.

So I won't be the last.

Also from Heidi.

Hey, Tark.

Yes, Ron.

What is the lunar lander say to the moose that left to come back to Earth?

I don't know what.

See you later, crater, and the moon said, don't be anir, lunar lander.

I like that one.

Wow.

Luna plastic is a good idea.

John, are you having a gastric trouble?

I'm just going down this whole list of sound effects we have that you'd never used.

That's right here.

Yeah.

Oh, those are ones I sent.

I don't know.

They're in here.

Oh, that's probably three months.

That's SpongeBob.

Wow.

Hey, did you know that Mr. Crab is like the bad guy from Highlander?

Did you know that?

Oh, I did see that.

Yeah.

Actually, it's like it's like paid his whole like kids through college.

My kid got into SpongeBob.

And so I started watching it years ago.

And as with Bugs Bunny, as you get older, you realize this show is made for two audiences,

the kiddies, and the adults.

Yep.

And Bugs Bunny, there's a lot of time to cheek stuff.

The kids just kind of go, I don't get it.

And the adults are going, wow, that's crazy.

Did you know that the boy's act for Mr. Crab's, a.k.

Clancy Brown was in the Shawshank Redemption as one of the prison guards.

Yeah, that's right.

He's also one of the stars of Earth II.

Wow.

One of the first.

What?

I don't know.

I'm being excited.

One of the best single seasons of TV that ended on a cliffhanger ever, so.

I could tell you we're in a big fan of loss, huh?

So I mean, I enjoyed loss.

I just thought.

But I was still married.

My wife was.

Need more space.

Watching loss.

I'm very excited about it.

And, you know, it was an entertainment guy.

I'm watching this with slightly different eye.

But I remember thinking these writers, you know, the jokes on the audience.

Like on episode 14, they're thinking about episode 16, okay, what kind of weird stuff

do you want to throw at the wall and see if it's six this time?

I'm sure they had a through line, but you sure wouldn't guess it by watching that show

because it was like, what kind of wild junk can we call up with next week that we'll

never be able to explain?

And then they kind of just dropped it at the end of the whole series without really

struggling back completely.

And it's like, yeah, that's a whole other.

We can have it watch us for what?

Six or seven seasons with, okay, what's the big.

So you're waiting for that 1950s Twilight Zone comic book wrap up, right, the twist

ending.

And it just kind of stops.

Yeah.

And they're going, I followed the show for seven, see, okay, moving on.

I feel like I should just spoil like that show just to spoil it because just when you

do it, do it.

They're all in purgatory and they're all dead.

It's there.

I've done it.

Clearly.

And that's nothing.

That's that 1950s comic book Twilight Zone ending where Rod Serling comes out and

says for your consideration, from Byron Poeton, who lives at Camino Island, Washington,

which is right across the channel, Byron from Whitby Island, where my parents lived for

many years.

And I spent time.

So hello Byron and Camino Island.

It's a great name.

It's a great name.

I love where you live.

I wish I lived there.

I'll change my moon missions to Byron.

That sounds great.

The name of the poet's load Byron, right, Dante.

That'd be great.

Okay.

I'm done.

Good.

Continue Rod.

Byron.

He's brain-tripping.

Yeah.

Actually, that's very just right.

Okay.

From Byron, what is the best proof we actually went to the moon?

Oh, that's a long one.

I'm old enough to have watched the moon landings, as am I, when I was a boy.

So these images are ingrained in my mind.

One of my three answers is that the movie, The Martian, is proof.

The movie was made with CGI was fairly well-advanced and yet the simulations they asked

not to walk down Mars were terrible compared to the videos of astronauts on the moon.

Well, they were certainly higher resolution, but whatever.

Also one person said, oh, yeah, how did they film the launching of the lunar module?

What they read, they could still transmit from the rover.

So yes, the rover had a TV camera on it, which was generally not turned on unless they

had stopped because they had to reorient a little umbrella-shaped radio dish back to earth.

It's amazing all that work, by the way.

Trying to get TV transmitted 240,000 miles with an intended dish that's about the size

of a parasol is not an easy thing, but they did it.

So on Apollo's 15, 16, and 17, which are the three rover flights, they did aim the camera.

Huh?

Which are the rover flights?

Right, yeah.

The three rover flights.

They aim the camera at the lunar module, went over, got inside, and then it was time

to take off Ed Fendell, who was the technician back at Michigan Troll, who was remote controlling

the camera because they could do that.

This is 1960s tech, by the way, would try to anticipate the, I think it's what, 1.5 second

delay between the earth and the moon, and he missed it on 15, he got really close on 16,

he nailed it on 17, and we watched that sucker go all the way up into space.

Now is that proof we were actually there?

There are people that look at that video and said, oh, there's no rocket blasts coming

from the lunar module thing.

Look at how it wobbles on the way up, right?

Yeah, hanging from a string.

Yeah, right.

And it wobbled because of the uneven, just burning of the fuels, because they had tank on

one side, a tank on the other for the hypergolic fuels, anyway.

So I buy that, although at this point, so I used to go when I do coast to coast, say

I'm from time to time, and we get the calls the second hour, and my favorite of which

I think I've told you before was, I was outside, and there was a bright light above my house,

speaking to me in the voice of Buzz Aldrin, you know, I agree that Buzz is pretty close

to omnipotent, but probably not that close, but anyway, you know, there are always moon

deniers that call on that show, and I used to go this big song and dance about, go to

the museum, see the rockets, they're the most expensive exhibits in aerospace history,

go to the national archives like I have riffle through thousands of photographs and hundreds

of hours of audio and all that stuff.

Now it's much easier.

Number one, since of all the Soviet Union, we know that the Russians were tracking everything

we did, and they were able to use Doppler radar to see Apollo coming around the side

of the moon, and they were able to down like the transmission, so they knew we were there.

Had they realized we were not actually there, or it was robotic, you don't think they would

call this out, since then, of course.

But that's the whole point of the feet was to make them think that we did it, Rod.

Since then, we have had India, China, and ourselves among others orbiting the moon with

high resolution cameras, and we have photographs of not just the rover tracks, not just the

landing stage of the limb, but in some cases, trails of footprints, the footprint across

the moon.

That's pretty good.

You know, it would be hard for tracks.

I guess you could have a robot with, you know, big foot feet type things going, stomping

around the moon, but it would be pretty hard to fake.

So the obvious history and lineage of that is there, so that's my proof.

Oh, the reflectors are still there.

The laser range.

Yeah.

And anyone can shoot a laser for a range, if they know where it is, and they can get the

flash back.

So, you know, and we saw them on video, deploy that stuff, so.

So what Taric's talking about is the Apollo astronauts put out laser retro-reflective boxes,

which had these little kind of honeycomy looking mirror cells on them, a bunch of them with

this, that they laid out on the surface.

I think I don't know.

They were like 24 inches on each side or something, 18 inches, they weren't huge.

But if you know exactly where it is, I'll speak for yourself.

If you know exactly where they are, you can aim a laser beam at it from Earth through

telescope, and it actually comes back the exact same direction it goes out and you get

that pink back and you go, ah, that's how far they're three seconds later, we get, yeah,

they measure the distance of the moon within about six inches.

But they also tell us, somebody put them there.

That's right.

It's not just some shiny rock.

So, yeah, there's all kinds of, ah, reasons to believe that this happened, and many

if you were not to.

But in my opinion, and the opinion of some of our guests, it's just not as sexy to believe

that NASA could do it.

It's much more fun to say it's all a conspiracy, right?

And because we're in a generation, we're like a generation removed, if not more, you know,

from that era.

It's easier for people to believe that it didn't happen that was a big old setup, you

know.

It'll be interesting to see how people treat Artemis III, especially now with like the

fact that, like you can create stuff with AI or whatever, yeah, will anyone truly believe

it.

Actually, that's a good story.

Well, I think there is a lot of generation.

That's a space.com story.

No one, everyone forgets you heard that idea.

So.

There's a generation of two of people that will take Steph Curry as being the ultimate,

you know, like, giant and Kim Kardashian and say, well, they don't think it happened

and then it didn't happen.

Paul Venzio wants to say, hey, Tom, yes, yes, that's right.

Why wasn't Shoemaker Levy nine named Shoemaker Levy Sagan nine?

Uh, I don't know why.

Because Sagan just wouldn't comment, commit, comment.

I thought it was going to be like a comment pun.

Well, it kind of is.

There's no way to read it.

Oh, commit, commit.

Yeah.

I got it now.

Our turner sent us two slings and arrows directly to our personal hearts, the personal

view.

Hey, Tark.

Oh, yes.

Hey, Rod.

Yes, Rod.

Why couldn't Tark rescue the Robinson family when the Jupiter two broke down?

I don't know why.

Because he got lost in space.

Now, does this mean that he's called your cell phone, gotten that message you had on

there for the last 17 years?

I don't know.

It's possible.

But also, it's possible that he watched one of my YouTube videos because that's how

I sign off all of my YouTube videos and one of your 17 loyal fans.

There is a brand new, lost in space puzzle game.

That's right now.

It's only $10.

And I can't wait to play it.

So you play as a doctor, the boy John, um, Will Robinson.

You play as Will Robinson with the robot and the doctor.

And so you have to try to find your family.

I'm really excited about it.

Can I have my doctor Smith moment?

That was it. You missed it. I don't so he was he was

uh, huh? And you know, I just want to say we we discussed this before to the first show. We should do a lot of show

Yeah, we should our first season. The show was in black and white

Mm-hmm, and it was kind of this airman Alan did the same thing with voyage of bottom and sea and other shows first season black and white

very serious

For the first handful of episodes Dr. Smith is a bad guy. He was really good as a bad guy

He was planning to kill the crew and then he gets stuck on the spaceship, but you know, he he he was good

And it was actually engaging to watch and then

They transitioned to color and you had carrot man and the space piece. It just went right off the rails and

We'll save the rest of it for who do you think did the adaptation better?

Do you think that the

1996 movie was good or do you think that I was at 98 and then do you think that the net flow?

Like show was was was better. I don't like that. Like show was was better than the movie, but

Neither of them really grabbed me. I thought Parker Posey was the best Dr. Smith like hands down out of the two of that is true

Yeah, absolutely awesome. So

Also from Mark Turner aimed at my soft tissue

Hey, Taric. Yes, Rod. Why couldn't Rod read all his space jokes. I don't know

I don't know because he had too big a pile of them

Because it's his name everybody. I've never heard a joke about my last name before. That's did you hit do you remember?

He mentioned that he was gonna get back to his name at the start of the show remember it's foreshadowing

boy, so

When I was a kid, of course, I got a lot of goma pile

What's brown and lays on the ground rods pile?

Hammer rod. I mean, it just went on and on and on

I think I've said this before, but I thought I had escaped it when I hit my 20s

And then full metal jacket comes out and that goofball private pile ends up murdering his drill sergeant

Now I'm private pile again. So I'm not even going for pile USMC. I'm not just private pile

Which is all in a way to say I would rather have the last name Malik then pile

Just saying

Well

All good things must come to an end. We've had a blast. That's a Star Trek reference

Because we but we're in Star Trek

Outfits, I think people who said that before Star Trek, but that's okay

That shakes very guy like okay, everyone wants to give him a lot of credit. Sheesh, so

Yeah, who we now

Suspect may have just stolen other people's writing because he was a hack, huh? I didn't see that

I didn't know those articles come around every decade or so

But I do want to say thank you to everybody for joining us today for episode 200 our annual listener special

Thank you, Tark. Thank you so much, John Ashley for hanging in with us these last couple of years

Yeah, very unenthusiastic thumbs up

And thank you to our listeners because without you there, we wouldn't but it would be very lonely of us just sitting here talking to each other

Well, we wouldn't be at episode 200 if we didn't have listeners, so thank you all well

We might we're both pathetic enough that we might just get on every Friday and have a

Terrick what's new in your world

um

Tark where should we look for you in the universe?

Well, you can find me at space.com as always right and and on the on the on all of the socials at Tari

Jay Malik on YouTube at space drawn place

There's a whole new space season in Fallout 76 that just launched this week

I'm very excited about that and this weekend

You might find me at my first yoga class if I can get into it that'll be pretty exciting to see and I'm gonna be going to the

Lego store to build my own free lightsaber check your local Lego stores 12 to 2 o'clock on Saturday

Oh, and here's a video game on screen for the high brow of us. Oh, yeah, yoga. I just space about a year

The space the space the space theming in the currencies in a fortnight's really exciting

So I'm gonna be playing that because the new update just went live yesterday. I could barely contain my excitement

Travel distance while under the stealth

Oh

That's the audio from you. That's me. Yeah. Yeah. By the way in two years

You'll find me here with rod with our episode 300 special. There you go, right? That's right 100 in a hundred weeks

So yeah, roughly

Yeah, I studied under a woman that we called the yogaator because she was absolutely brutal

The room was warm. It was you know stretch stretch push push. Oh, what was that snapping sound?

You're tendon. Okay, push more. I mean, it was I went home crippled from that thing every night and I was thinner in a good shape

Then so you know anyway who cares about that but what you should care about is that you can find TARC at the places

He just mentioned and you can find me at pilebooks.com or at astermagasy.com and

If you actually want to find me and you're in the Southern California area

Please consider joining me for a talk on a Pallow and Artemis at the Bowers Museum in Orange County on March 19th at 10.30 a.m

And you can go to Bowers.org and look for the program section to see the listing they do charge a fee. It's for charity and

I'll be doing a book giveaway

Yes, many copies of space 2.0 will go to people who can answer

Relevant space trivia questions are you gonna sign it? You got to sign it. You got to sign my books

But I have so many of them you bring them

And I'll bring them to the ISDC in your car hint hint

Where we can do an episode together hint hint because people are asking us to hint hint

Remember you can always drop us a line at twist at twit.tv and

We welcome your comments suggestions and ideas and space jokes and those space jokes because I'm running out actually

I think I strip the inventory on this. Well, we shouldn't have used all of these

And I you know some have been in there for months and I thought you have no one to blame is except for yourself his own hubris

I've never had anybody in the top of the mountain and he said

What? I

Don't know where I was going with it. Wow

Hey, guess what? Yes, new episodes of this podcast. Well bitch every Friday at your favorite pod catcher

So make sure to subscribe to your friends. I give us reviews. We'll take five stars thumbs up

Your center digit whatever you want to give us we'll take it and you can also head to our website at twist at twit.twit.tv

Slash twist

That is twit.tv slash twist and you can follow the twit.tod podcast network at twit on Twitter and a Facebook and twit.tv on Instagram

Thank you everybody from the bottom of our hearts small nor old and black as they may be my case

Because we love having you here. We love doing this show and I don't know about you Tark

But this is kind of the highlight of my weeks had to say. Oh, yeah

Yeah, I know it's a highlight of yours because I talked to you on the other days

God, I can't believe it just happened and then you're all happy when you come on here. Yeah, I get I get a good old time

Good old time with Rod also with John sometimes, but mostly with Rod. So

And we miss Anthony too. They're both really really good and helpful and I'm glad to see aunt's doing well for those of you who remember

Aunt Pruitt who was our first board up

He is making his way through

Television and motion picture fame. I think John is he doing mostly commercials or also bit parts

He was a bit parts and commercials that the last one he was in was for a

Super Bowl commercial I think yeah, he had like two frames. Yeah, but I mean, you know

He's a good-looking guy. He's he's built like Arnold Schwarzenegger. So that's what kept to the parts, I guess

And I think he got his son on screen too, didn't he?

Can't say for that don't know about that, but anyway, well, aunt

We love you and we're glad that things are going well. Tark, you have any final message for our beloved audience

No, thank you all for sticking with us to 200 episodes

You know, frankly, I thought that I would have fallen on my face by now about as many times as I've fallen off the chair

But at least no one makes me remember that right

One time, yeah, if you want to be part of the chair

I think it happened like twice I think we're gonna be a loop of that somewhere

But I'm digging up in the archives. We'll save that for another episode

Okay, thanks everybody. We'll see you later. See you next week