TWiS 201: Born to Explore - With Jay Gallentine

0:00Coming up on this weekend's Space, NASA's Artemis II has an April 1st launch date and that's no fooling, there is also a report about the Moonlanders for Artemis and there's some issues there that we'll talk about and we get into down to brass tax all about going to Jupiter, Saturn and beyond with author Jay Gallantine of Born to Explore all about John Cassani, that legendary engineer and JPLR and his missions like Galileo, Cassini and more. Check it out. Podcasts you love. From people you trust. This is TORT. This is This Week in Space, episode number 201, recorded on March 13th, 2026, Born to Explore. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of This Week in Space, our Born to Explore edition, which is going to be every bit as cool as it sounds. I'm Rod Pyle, editor-in-chief at Esther Magazine. I'm here with my goodest pal ever, littletarkmailicofspace.com. How are you, sir?

1:00I'm doing well, except I'm not good, Rod. I'm great. Because you're here, obviously, because you're here today. Is your mother sitting on the other side of the desk again? And she says to be nicer, Rod. So on your best friend here. Nice try, mom. This week we're going to be speaking with JPLR, what are the premier authors of Robotic Space Histories? And by that, I mean about Jeff Propulsion Laboratory's incredible adventures on Mars and in the outer solar system. He is the guy, the expert, the man. But before we start, please don't forget to do it. So solid, make sure to like, subscribe, and support this podcast with all your might, because it means the world and beyond to us. Now, very quickly, a fresh space joke with the name missing, because, right, poppy to the world instead. So if it was you right in and take credit, please. Hey, Tark. Yes, Rod. What do you call a fight between a Martian and a social media introvert? I don't know what. What do you call that? Alien versus Redditor.

2:02I like that one. That is good. I think we might have actually used that before, because I had a flag on it that it was used, but I don't remember it. I don't remember it either. So I don't remember what I have for breakfast. I'm getting a little dose of the research. I've heard that some folks want to banish us from the other webs on this joke time in this show, but you have the power to help by sending us your best, worst or most of different space jokes at twistetwitt.tv. And we'll blame it on you on the air. And now on to headline news. headline news. I nailed that one. I know it. I felt good. I felt that one. John's loading his head. Tark and I virtually attended a press conference on Artemis two yesterday. And it was in general good news. There wasn't S-bomb dropped to one point. But not in a way that said, oh, well, I'm mad at the spacecraft or the mission. It was just kind of describing some of the things I've been going through.

3:04So why don't you give us an update on that, Tark? Yeah. So this is your weekly Artemis two round up and as of today, as of today. It is Friday the 13th. We're recording this as of today. But all systems seem like they go for an April 1st launch. No, that's not a joke for Artemis to after NASA's flight radius. Oh, wait. So I didn't even put that together yesterday. They're announcing an April fools launch. Well, it was the day before Friday the 13th. So I guess that's okay. Yeah, what is it? They tripped. But you would do phobia trip this to anyway. And so, so yeah, so you know, of course, we've got the story about space.com, but everyone and their space mother has it as well. That rollout for Artemis two is now scheduled for March 19th. So that's a week just just under a week now away as we're recording this. And they're going to get the rocket out to the pad. They will not be doing rod another fueling test. Because they feel like they've got it all set.

4:05And as Lori Glaze said in the press conference, the next time she wants to fuel the rocket is the time they're going to, if it looks like it's good, she wants to be able to push the button and send it on the way to the moon with its four astronauts on board. So March 19th, I rolled out to the pad, a couple of weeks to turn everything around, get everything on clean up, get ready, the launch window opens on the first. They've even added a second an extra launch day on the second. So now they have continuous launch opportunities from April 1st to April 6th for this 10-day mission. And they can launch probably about four times within that six-day window, depending on what happens. So not launch for a time. They have four launch opportunities to launch if they go out of that. They can't go every single day because it's, you know, the NASA's biggest rocket, you know, since the Saturn 5. So it takes a lot of gas to make sure they get it ready to go. So a lot of good news. Good news. They've fixed the helium issue. They think they understand the leak for the hydrogen leaks and that that's going to be fixed as well.

5:06And they know what caused it. And so I mean, all things seem like they've got it sorted, which is really good news for all of them. And the National Space Society had their man at the press conference at Kennedy Space Center, Bert Dict of our office out there in the East Coast because we're coming for you, space.com. All right. Oh, and I did want to add there was a moment where it's a John Honeycutt. John Honeycutt, yeah. Yeah, was asked a question about, you know, okay, one of the odds is success versus failure and all that. And he, a quite memorable way said, well, at this point, we're looking at about one and two and everybody kind of, wait a minute. You're telling me it's a coin because the way it sounded was he was talking about total emission success. Yeah, yeah. Which means that, you know, every little thing works, including the fact that they, you know, had some new tea dispenser on board or something. But what, you saw the faces of some of the people of the crowd or like, wait a minute, you're telling, tell us we have a 50, 50 chance of astronaut survival.

6:08That's not what they meant. Yeah. And they did walk that one back a little bit afterwards. Not a little bit, quite a lot. John Honeycutt spent quite a lot of effort trying to kind of dig out of that one and two whole because this all started when Bill Harwood, the space reporter, asked what the risk, the risk was of the mission because in a recent OIG report this week, which we didn't really talk about too much. There were some, there were pretty specific risks numbers for the Artemis 4 moon landings and the different landers and what failure was, you know, for those missions themselves. And so the question was asked by space reporters, well, just reporters, right? Because what are the odds? What are the odds? And NASA has given those in the past for missions. And they steadfastly did not want to give those. And so what John Honeycutt said was, it's not one and two, but it's, or he said it was one and two, but then he said, it's not one and 50, which would mean that it would be like, you know, safer than the one and 30 that NASA's think is acceptable risk of an accident happening.

7:12Of course, everybody's brain had locked up at that point, because he said one and two, which is not what they mean. And so it was, it was a really, I mean, and they came back to it so many times, the reporters did that the PR, the PR person running it, she pretty much just said, look, we're done. We've already talked about that. If you have more contact us later, and we'll get, we'll get it to you later. So, so it's interesting. I mean, even, even we have a story on it today by Mike Waller, our spaceflight editor, about how, you know, yes, it's risky. NASA, NASA doesn't want to say, Lori Glaze even said, like, we're not going to say one in whatever. She said that during the briefing. They're not going to give that kind of number to it, because she knows that people are going to let's onto it and say, you know, you said, you said, and they don't, they don't want that to be done. And I did notice that the PIO's last name was Kraft. And she was Rachel, Rachel Kraft. Rachel Kraft, Rachel Kraft. And most PIOs, and I do wonder as often happens, if she's related to Chris Kraft, there's a lot of generational trickle down in the field centers and sometimes the headquarters. And she seemed to have that Chris Kraft kind of,

8:14all right, we're done with this topic. We're moving on, speaking, moving on. Well, let's just very quickly hit the OIG report as it pertains to the ever elusive human landing system. Oh, sure. Well, why don't you take this one since I kind of dominated the other stuff? Well, well, I mean, they're both late. We don't have one yet. We don't need them to. But SpaceX is kind of, to pay how you look at it a lot later than Blue Origin. Blue Origin started much later than SpaceX did. SpaceX has not even flown an orbital mission with Starship yet. It was fully successful. They have not demonstrated cross-fueling in orbit. They have not demonstrated leaving Earth orbit. And they certainly haven't demonstrated anything close to landing on the moon. Nor have we seen anything, at least I have it, in the media that shows me the human landing system designed with legs. We've seen renderings, but I haven't seen any metal bending. So at this point, I'm thinking 2030, 2032,

9:16whereas fingers crossed, Blue Origin's going to fly their mark one path fighter mission in third quarter of this year. Maybe, you know, I mean, that's the first one we'll have to see if they're sticking to that or not. They are showing quite a lot of hardware for New Glenn, which is the rocket that's going to be going there. Now that Tori Bruno is over there and working on the team. So if everything goes according to plan, and the fact that NASA has this new strategy of really trying to open up and accelerate everything, they asked them for a pair down approaches. I would not be surprised if we get more information about what the Mark II Lander will look like, as we get closer to a potential Mark I launch. Now, their new Glenn launch has been delayed. They've got one coming up. So how that's going to ripple down for the rest of the year, we'll have to see, because we thought that it was supposed to launch at the end of last month. But speaking of starship, by the way, the next starship launch, which is the first test of the V3, to hopefully showcase more reusability also delayed.

10:18Now it's in April, when it was supposed to be this month, according to Elon Musk, also news that came out this week. You know, it's not my money, but I'd trade some of the reusability work just to see orbital refueling work and a lunar lander. I would just like to be able to send stuff to the moon and just send it all at once, like we did in 1968 and in 1969 and in 1970. That's true, but let's bear in mind, if you really want a sustainable program, you probably aren't going to do that, you know. You need to be able to deliver things in a modular fashion. Actually, Rod, I'm going to stop you right there because we've got Jay Galantine on the line and we're going to talk all about John Cassani and his born-to-explore legacy. Let's go up to that. This episode of This Week in Space, brought to you by Threat Locker. Hi guys, sorry to interrupt, but let me tell you, I would love to Threat Locker. We had such a good time at Zero Trust World in Orlando last week. I wish you'd been there. You would have had a blast. Did you see my space suit? Don't worry, I paid a lot of money for that. I'll bring it out in Halloween.

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13:20Ranked Threat Locker, number one in application control. They got GetApps, best functionality and features award in 2025 and on and on. Get unprecedented protection quickly, easily, and cost effectively with Threat Locker. Visit Threat Locker.com slash Twitter to get a free 30-day trial and learn more about how Threat Locker can help mitigate unknown threats and ensure compliance. That's Threat Locker.com slash Twitter. And now back to Rod and Terrick and space. And we are back with Jay Galentine, Rogish Space reporter, racon tour, space writer, video guru, and marathoner, incredible athlete. Now are you Jay? I'm doing well, Rod. It's been a while, so thanks for having me on. You're welcome, very glad to have you here. Thanks for coming on. And it was probably the sloppiest introduction you've ever gotten. But you are, you're kind of a legend in parts of the internet. If you go to specific corners,

14:21don't Jay Galentine or the voices go down. Because you've written books that I think deep dive is putting it mildly. You've written primarily about robotic space exploration, which I love. And when you do a book on a topic like that, you go all the way to the bottom of the ocean and back many times to get your story. Is that a fair assessment? It is a fair assessment. And that's my disease. And that goes back. That goes back a long way. The there's a story that I wrote that got my writing career. It was the writing sample that got me my first book contract. And it was about Craig Breedlove, if anyone remembers him. He was the guy back in the 60s who would take a surplus fighter jet engine and build a car around it and go out to the Bonneville salt flats and try to set the land speed record. And it was just one of those hobby writing pieces

15:23where I was just writing for my own personal enjoyment. And in the beginning, I was just kind of making it up because I had read this entry in the Guinness Book of World Records about there was this guy who was trying to set a speed record. And he lost control of his car and left skid marks that were six miles long. And that's really all I knew about it at that point. And I was just kind of making up a story around that. But the more I did that, the more I wondered what had really happened. And it turned into this research with talking to people who were subject matter experts on the salt flats. Then it turned into research talking to people who were members of the hot rod community. I finally found some people who were there that day. There was a bit of adventure, but I finally found Craig Breedlove himself after calling literally every single Craig Breedlove in the United States. There's a separate story. I think I went through seven before I got to the actual Craig Breedlove.

16:24It's easier these days to find people. And I just wanted to know everything. And then I had written a piece later on about something else and someone was reading it and they said, J, when you tell the story, you seem to want to tell the whole story. And I said, yeah. And I don't know why, but I don't seem to be able to sleep fully at night until I've done that. Well, Tariq has a question that he's just burning to ask you. Yeah, yeah. You didn't leave me a slot in our rundown for it today, but I'm going to ask it anyway. But one thing that I do like to ask everybody who comes on the show is kind of how they found the path to space, right? Because it sounds like you have had a different approach than maybe Rod and I had in the past, for example.

17:25And so I'm curious. Oh, you mean failing calculus, yeah. Well, you know, I wasn't going to say that, Rod, you know. So, but I saw the minor certificate that I got in astronomy at home the other day. And it just drives it home that that was not supposed to be a minor. It was supposed to be something else. But I'm just curious how you got your start. Was it something that had bitched when you were young or did you find it as a part of this evolution into deep diving into history that picture interest? Hmm. The Genesis moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's something that I definitely try to get to the bottom of when I'm writing about these topics is what is the Genesis of a mission? You know, we built this huge spaceship, the size of a cargo van that went to Jupiter and we called it Galileo. And why did we do that? And why did we do it then? And why did we do it the way that we did it? And on every mission that I write about,

18:26I'm always trying to find that one little big bang moment of when this idea first erupted from the ether. And my interest in space, I couldn't tell you exactly when, but I do remember the moment pretty vividly. I had a father who was a pretty quiet guy. He was an FBI agent, actually. And he was a consummate G-man and that he didn't talk much, but he spent a lot of time observing and watching other people and kind of studying their interests and never in a creepy way. But he was the guy who could give you the Christmas present that you never recalled mentioning that you were interested in, that kind of thing. And he came up to me one day when I was about 10 and he handed me this book, which I still have called Apollo expeditions to the moon. And it was all about the moon landings. And I said, oh, why are you giving me this?

19:27And he said, well, I just thought you might be interested in this. And then he went away. And that was just consummate J's dad. Just keeps it minimal, gets the point across and all this. And I spent a long time not even reading that book, but just leafing through the pictures. And certainly I had heard about the moon landings, probably from the space unit in school or something like that. And it was something that had just kind of washed over me. But my father being the observant kind of guy that he was surely noticed that I had more than a passing interest. If there was a space documentary at the video rental store, I might have been interested in that or something that was on cable TV, he is the kind of person who would have paid attention to the sort of media that I consumed. And he gave me this book, my first book on the space program. And I ended up reading it and just wanted more and more and more and more.

20:28And that was the genesis moment of my interest in space. Now, if this is the book I'm thinking of is the one that was published by NASA, correct? Yep. And every chapter was written by some different A-CAD or a manager. That's right, yeah. It was not the most pleasant read as I recall. It was good. But it was also a good lesson to guys like us to say, storytelling and consistency matter. But yeah, so it was a great and seminal book and all this. Can you just give us a quick rundown of the books you have written? Yep, OK, so the first one that I wrote was called Ambassadors from Earth. And it's about kind of how we got our start exploring the moon and the planets and the moons of those planets of the solar system, just how we got off the ground, why we were doing what we did, what we were studying, how we figured out how to navigate a spaceship to Neptune using mostly gravity. It's pretty heavy on James Van Allen and Voyager.

21:32And a little bit on the Soviet Union through Corollia's time. And that was for the University of Nebraska Press. And I really thought it was going to be a one book deal. But the early peer reviews were really promising and they had sent it out to a couple of people to have them review it anonymously. And the feedback was really positive. And they said, hey, how would you like to do another? And I'm stupid, right? So I'm like, oh, sure. I'll just, I'm just going to launch into it. And I had completely ignored how I had dropped everything to the last five years to write this book, had spent the first four months at least really spinning my wheels trying to figure out how to do this. And then that won the American Astronomical Society's Emmy Award for the Space Book of the Year, which was a huge shot of the arm, completely unexpected.

22:33And then the second book that I wrote for the press was also about robotic pilotless lunar planetary exploration that's called Infinity Beckoned. The title is subject to incessant mocking by my colleague Francis French. But I love that title. I have to title. And that is about our first intensive explorations of the inner solar system, so the moon, Venus, and Mars. It's pretty heavy on the Soviet side, which was definitely challenging in part because of my very limited Russian vocabulary, which has maybe gotten a little better. And part because the Soviets have been much more secretive, it's obviously harder to find people, find sources from that era. But I was really bound and determined to get to the bottom of certain stories. That one also goes pretty heavily into the Viking life detection experiments

23:35from when the US sent these two Viking landers to Mars that landed there in 1976. And a lot of my topics are driven by selfish reasons, honestly. I had read some about Viking. And I had come away with a lot of questions about why those experiments were chosen. And why they were built the way they were. And those questions fed right into how I wrote that. I really wanted to tell the story from the people who built these. And I ended up working with every single surviving member of the core biology team to tell the story of Viking. And then that one was done. And the press said, hey, not bad. You turned it in on time. How about a third? And I said, hey, folks, that sounds great, but I need a year off. So took a year off, did laundry, cleaned up my garage.

24:36And then I started on this third one called Born to Explore. And I happened to have a copy right here. It's actually not the book I set out to write. It's by and large a biography of this man, John Cassani, who I like to say is the most important person in planetary exploration you've never heard of. So it's a look at his life, work, and philosophies in parallel with a look at really the most problem played of the missions that he managed, which was this Galileo to Jupiter. And that's been it so far. Yeah, I have a fourth one in the works. Didn't mean to interrupt there. But it's all the stuff that didn't fit into Born to Explore. So we're going to be looking at how we got into building Mars Rovers. And that's underway right now. OK, well, before you do that, and before we go any further, we're going to roll our way over to a break. And we'll be right back. So stand by. Thanks, Rod. Thanks, Tarek. This week in space brought to you today by Melissa, the trusted data quality experts.

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28:45because obviously part of the job, but also in a whole interaction with him. I was a very baby reporter before I even left school. But for folks who don't know who is John Kasani and why did you choose to make him the center of Born to Explore? Like what really captivated you about this NASA guy? He's just everywhere. So he's been in every one of my books and it seems like every mission that I went to work on or every person that I talked to, Kasani would pop up somewhere. He was at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1956, two years before NASA even came along. And he worked on everything. And he started out as sort of a line engineer just with an electrical engineering degree and worked his way up to be in charge

29:48of managing these billion dollar space missions. Nobody ever said anything bad about him. Everyone seemed like they were ready to walk on boiling Tare to pursue whatever it was this guy wanted him to do. Just, you know, he just cultivated this incredibly loyal team of people. In an almost magical way to get them all facing in the same direction and all of them seeing a common goal, he tried to retire multiple times. And each time the NASA hierarchy would invent new jobs for him because they didn't want him to leave and they saw him as way too valuable just because he understood everything. His philosophies have been in part canonized in these standard reference manuals that JPL uses

30:48when they're conducting space missions. And now that he's gone, his go still seems to inhabit all of the buildings and hallways and meeting rooms of JPL. He's still invoked on a continual basis and what would Kasani have done? And what would Kasani have said about this? Just such a central figure, just such a cornerstone of the success of JPL's chronology of missions, that it was just really surprising to me that no one had done a biography about him. And when my book manuscript was too long, I had all this material that was looking more at his personal life and his philosophies and his family background and everything. And I saw a real opportunity to add all that in. I feel like I had this opportunity to change

31:50sort of another space book, with all respect to my colleagues, change another space book into something that no one had done before, which was, as Rod had mentioned at the top, a deep dive into this guy's life and work. Yeah, and as you mentioned, I mean, you had talked to him for your kind of other work and you mentioned about his work on Voyager and Gallo and Kasini and whatnot. But I guess in terms of who he was as a person because he passed away in 2025, right? Which is what readers probably don't, or listeners probably don't know about. But clearly, you've had a lot of dealings with him. So how did that happen that you were able to kind of get the insight into what drove, what was really like a life long space icon in John,

32:55before he did pass away there to get that all done. That took a long time. So I first started talking to him in 2007. I was working on ambassadors from Earth, I was about two thirds of way through it. And I wanted some perspectives on two things. Why in Voyager, there were project managers that got replaced every year and a half or something like that. I called him the revolving door project managers. Like, wouldn't you want one person who kind of sees this thing all the way through? So I wanted some perspective on that and Kasini had managed Voyager in its critical pre-launch stage. His job was really to get it off the ground. And then the other thing that I wanted to ask about was the origins of the Voyager record because I wanted to tell, I guess an abbreviated story of that because it's already been told in a book by Carl Sagan and the record team. But I just wanted some additional insights on it. And I knew from Carl Sagan's book

33:55that Kasini was the one who had come to Sagan with an idea to have something. Some kind of message from Earth to the cosmos on the Voyagers. And I called Kasini at home, cold. And he asked me why I was calling him at home. And I said, well, because you're whatever age and I kind of figured you were retired. And he's like, no, I just come from work an hour ago and I'll be back there tomorrow morning. He's like, I have an office, Jay, you know? Yeah, so he's like, you know, can you call me tomorrow at work? You know, once again, this incredibly important guy who takes a phone call at home, doesn't say no, says, can you call me tomorrow? And it's not, can you call me next month? It's called me tomorrow. And he was just so accessible like that. You know, I'm this first time author who has published nothing. I'm a nobody.

34:55And he's ready to talk to me within 24 hours. And so we talked about those topics and then there's always follow up. And then anytime I quote someone or talk about their work, I try to get out a chapter draft to them so they can review it and comment on it. And so there was this continuity of communication with him that went on for multiple years until I contacted him again when I was working on my second one, Infinity Beckoned. And it was a similar kind of a thing. There was a project called Voyager Mars that he had worked on and I was trying to gain some insights on that. And whenever we would finish talking, he would ask about my family or ask about me. And just, there was just always some get to know you time. And he was just so personable like that and just seemed to have a genuine interest in pretty much anybody he interacted with. And then when it came to born to explore,

35:57he was going to be certainly a lead actor or lead actress as I call them for my books. People who are more prominently profiled, there's more words devoted to them. He wasn't going to be the focus of the book, but I had scheduled a week of interviews out in Pasadena. And he would only meet me at Italian restaurants. And we talked a lot about his childhood and whatnot, but it was still kind of on the same level as all of the other people that I had interviewed. And then in 2021, I had a scheduled phone call with him just to follow up on some various topics. I think I had half a page of questions or whatever. And I had a question for him that I'd finally like strapped on the Huevos to ask him.

36:58I said, well, John, you've done all this amazing work and I know now that you were brought up in this very Catholic household. You went to Catholic schools and you went to Jesuit schools and your kids went to Catholic schools. And I'm just kind of curious about the role of religion in your life and whether your faith was able to get you through some of the low points in these missions. And that was like maybe not a Hail Mary, but it was one of those kinds of questions that I would not have felt comfortable asking had I not been talking to this guy for over a decade. And he went totally quiet for like 30 seconds. And then he said, now that's a very interesting question. And at that point, he really started opening up to me

37:58and what I thought was gonna be a half an hour phone call went over four hours. And he opened up on, he had this first marriage that was a little bit of a minor disaster. And talking about his family and his dad getting mad at him and these different motivations, these different challenges that he had endured over the years. And I just had these goosebumps when he was talking about how in the Jesuit schools that he went to, how they really taught him to be a person for others. And you're always looking to be a person who can help, a person that people can talk to. And you're engaging in respectful argumentation was the term that he used.

38:59That it's okay and often good to disagree with people, but you need to have the facts behind you. You need to look at the argument from the other person's perspective and really think about why they're making that argument. And the more he talked, the more this light was going on in my head, which was saying, this explains everything in this guy's career. What's his background and his upbringing? I'm like, John, all these things that you've told me about adopting this boy that kind of nobody wanted and loving him so much that he calls you, Pop, and having this open door policy and anybody can call you, anybody can talk to you. You're not up in this glass tower. I mean, I mean, that just explains everything. Like when were you not a person for others? And he was like, oh, well, thanks.

40:01I appreciate that. It was just kind of all shocks about it and everything. But I came away from it going, you know, man, this would just, this would just be perfect. This is nothing I've ever read in any other space book that really helps explain who this guy is and why he operated the way that he did. That's awesome. Well, we're gonna operate our way into a quick break and we'll be right back. Stand by. This episode is brought to you by Focus Features. Would you let AI pilot your plane, raise your child, decide your future? On March 27th, Focus Features presents the AI doc or how I became an Apocalypse Optimist. Critics and audience said the Sundance and Southwest Film Festival's called it, the most urgent movie of our time, the AI doc or how I became an Apocalypse Optimist rated PG-13, only in theaters March 27th. Your little one grew three inches overnight, adorable.

41:02Also expensive. Sell their pint-sized pieces on Deepop and list them in minutes with no selling fees. Because somewhere, a dad refuses to pay full price for the clothes his kid will outgrow tomorrow and he's ready to buy your son's entire wardrobe right now. Consider your future growth spread budget secured. Start selling on Deepop, where taste recognizes taste. Payment processing fees and boosting fees still apply. See website for details. Spring is here and the shopping list is long. Time to make a lows run. Buy three bags, get three free. Stay green, one cubic foot garden soil. Plus, right now, members can earn four times the points on an eligible purchase. Start spring off strong with these deals and more. Our best lineup is here at Loves. Valentiy 325, while supplies last. Soil offer excludes of Laskin and Hawaii. loyalty program subject to terms and conditions. See Loves.com slash terms for details. Subject to change, point booster subject to exclusions and more terms apply. One time on the offer. So Jay, you mentioned that John had passed recently. I guess I've known him not quite as long as you did.

42:05I think I've probably met him in 2014 or so. But because I live out here, I was able to see him more often possibly. And I can only imagine kind of knowing the rock and tourist side of him that if there is such a thing as ghosts and if they're able to haunt places like the halls of JBL, can you imagine what he'd do? Or the ghosts everywhere. But as kind of just a quick peek into his personality and how he was so effective. Did you have the experience I did at the JPL archives when you'd pull up the file boxes, Mark Cassani, with a big red restricted on the side? I don't think I ever saw anything that said restricted on the side. So I'm going to have to get those box numbers from you. Well, they may have taken them off, but this was a Mars book in 2014, I think. And I asked for a number of books at Cassani. And I think the name is Julie of the woman who ran the thing with JPL archives.

43:06Like so many NASA things are horribly underfunded. Wheeled out this cart and said restricted, restricted. And I said, what's that all about? She said, well, you can look at them, but we can't let you have copies. And I said, why? And she said, look at a few, you'll understand. And I guess the way I'd put it is, John had no problem speaking to power in the way that they needed to be spoken to. So when there were problems with wage or when there were problems with Galileo, if it was something where he felt that headquarters was piling on his people a little more than they should, he wasn't shy. And I thought that spoke volumes about the kind of person he was, not that he was unkind, but that he protected his brood. And he made sure that they were covered at all times. Yeah, I think he first made sure that his brood was doing the right thing. And that he was on the correct side of the argument with that. But I would also agree that he was pretty candid

44:07in a lot of his memos, which I think you need. I think there's a lot of corporate speak anymore. And the phrases are escaping me right now, but it seems like with a lot of memos and emails, these days that there's a lot more reading between the lines that you need to do in order to understand what someone is really telling you. Maybe they're trying to be nice, but part of me. Well, they're usually trying to avoid a trip to HR. Yeah, and there's definitely some of that, which was not as much of an issue back in the 70s and 80s, of course. But I think part of it too is that people aren't as certain of their position sometimes. When they're trying to make an argument and it's a weaker argument. And I think that just helped keep projects moving. I think part of his job was just to keep these things on track and keep the momentum going, proceeding towards launch day.

45:09And I've got to believe that when every day counts, it's like every day where nothing happened is a lost day. And they're all chasing that planetary alignment and that period, that daily firing window, when they need to get this thing off the ground. And that is a movable. And so why not be more candid? Why not be more direct? Because you're going to get things done faster. So I do have a follow-up. And I hate to steer away from the core of the book. But I just have to ask, can you relate the goat story to us? Oh. So I've explained the goat story many times. I'm sure. It's definitely one of my favorites. And actually, I got my hands slapped by my publisher for making late changes to the goat's story. They were some of the last conversations that I had with John actually before he was hospitalized. But basically, in the wake of the challenger disaster,

46:13he was helming the Galileo mission to Jupiter and the whole mission had been sidelined. And... Because it was supposed to launch on the shuttle. Yeah, so for folks who don't know, Galileo was supposed to be the first planetary mission to launch from the belly of the space shuttle. And the mission had already been a victim of the shuttle's development because the shuttle's cargo-curing capacity kept changing. The dimensions would change. The weight budget would change. And the Galileo mission had already been redesigned something like four times to accommodate changes in the shuttle's own development. And here we are in January of 86. And the challenger disaster has occurred. And the Galileo team thought they were five months from launch. And John, who always described himself as more of a leader than a manager, he actually never thought of himself as a good manager.

47:15I thought it was an excellent manager, but definitely is more of a leader in terms of the vision and the alignment of the troops. So he knew that it was critical to have the support of the families of the people who were working for him. And on previous missions, he had done these picnics. Basically, these all day picnics for the people on the mission team, as well as their families, just as a big thank you, acknowledging to the families how long of hours these people were putting in and how hard they were working. And he thought strongly that just a real first-class blowout picnic with great food and games and prizes would help rally the troops. I think he was right, but the problem was that he couldn't get any money out of JPL for this. And so he came up with the idea to sell tickets

48:18and he wanted to have a ticket selling contest among the different technical divisions. So the JPL is this matrix organization, as you surely know, Rod. So there's all these different disciplines like guidance and navigation, documentation is one of the disciplines, propulsion, structure, thermal control. And he had, forget how many. I wanna say it was about 10 people who reported to him who were representatives of these technical divisions. And one day at a regular meeting, he announced that he had this picnic in the works and he was trying to get it paid for and there was going to be a ticket selling contest among the different technical divisions. And Cassani had been looking for a way to spice it up. And so he said, so what's gonna happen? Is starting a week from now at this next meeting, everyone is going to have to report the ticket sales

49:19for everyone underneath them. And the winner is going to get a bottle of wine for the week. The loser is going to have to take home the booby prize. And with that, he called for that guy in the back of the room to please walk the booby prize forward. Everyone turned a look and it was a live goat. John and his wife Lynn had bought it the previous weekend for $15 cash at a livestock auction about half an hour outside of Pasadena. And they'd taken it home and Lynn had put a diaper on the thing so it could walk around the house wherever it wanted to. And then John had brought it to JPL that morning and had been keeping it in a large refrigerator-sized box outside of his office. People were bringing it vegetables from the JPL cafeteria. He said, if you have the lowest ticket sales for the previous week, you're going to have to take the goat home

50:19for the following week until you report your ticket sales again. This was actually the second time that he had done this ride. Did you know that? No, it was the one time. I thought one would be enough because I remember him saying it was kind of difficult to get rid of a goat once you had one. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So a lot of people laughed and Cassani made it very clear that he was very serious about this. One of the technical division representatives, Dennis, was outraged. He was genuinely outraged that a prestigious aerospace environment, such as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory would ever stoop to something so bad and low and terrible. And at one point, that guy actually lost the week's ticket sales contest

51:20and just flightly refused to take the goat home. He was like, no, I'm just not going to do it. This is awful. I just can't believe you people are doing this. But it was a hit. And the ticket sales really exploded and the team was able to have the picnic that they wanted. Now the sad story about this is that the goat didn't make it to see the picnic. Oh no! Yeah, so the goat was visiting someone. I forget if it was a JPLer or who exactly was keeping the goat. But basically, their neighbor's dog smelled goat and hopped the fence and actually ate the goat. Oh my gosh! So the day of the picnic, John was not about to say that that's what happened because it just would have killed the vibe, right? Whoa! So he got up and made brief remarks about how the goat wasn't able to be there that day.

52:22Oh no! And that in the smallest nutshell that I can get mustard today is the goat story. Okay, the goat had a prior booking. Well, we're gonna go our way over to our last break and we'll be right back with Mr. Balik's next question stand by. Zootopia 2 has come home to Disney Plus. Let's go! Get ready for a new case. We're the greatest partners of all time! New friends. Joey Desnake. And your last name? Desnake. Dream team, new habitats. Zootopia has a secret reptile population. You can watch the record breaking phenomenon at home. Zootopia 2, now available on Disney Plus rated PG. Here right now you can get Disney Plus and Hulu for just $4.99 a month for three months with a special limit to time offer in March 24th. After three months plan out over news at $12.99 a month terms apply. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast, smart move. Being financially savvy, smart move. Another smart move, having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose

53:23to bundle home and auto. Bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Covered options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. Refreshing wild cherry cola meets smooth cream. The treat you deserve. Pepsi wild cherry and cream treat yourself. Well, Jay, I did not know that a goat was so integral to the Galileo missions team morale. You know, until now. So I guess RAP, that was a true goat of legend, if you will. But what, you like that one, right? No, Rod, yes, I love it. But what you mentioned earlier, how like a lot of your focus for Born to Explore is about the work that John had with that Galileo program. You've already talked about how it was delayed

54:27after the shuttle accident. And obviously that created a lot more work for the team. But I know that it wasn't all Rosie. Galileo is probably one of the first missions that I growing up paid attention to independently before I became a space reporter. And being very excited about its whole thing, going to Jupiter, sending the great imagery home with its big main antenna, dropping a probe into the planet. We're really excited about it. But I imagine just because of your experience talking with them, that it wasn't all roses and what do you, what do you, what do you have? What are good things? I don't know. You know, I imagine it wasn't all like that. And I'm curious how he as a leader approached those hiccups because when you're in it, you know, our listeners may not realize it. But you do a space mission. It's not like you're in it for a year or two. You're in it for a haul for a while. John was on his way back from one of the Voyager launches.

55:30He was in a rental car with his boss and found out from his boss that not only was he supposed to continue being Voyager's project manager, but he would be Galileo's project manager. And John was really excited about this in the beginning because he was going to have this mission like from its inception. You know, and all the others, he had come in at some other point. And it turned out to be that that was just too much work. There were some problems with having Voyager sort of settle down into the mission and preparing the command sequences and whatnot for it that there was no way that one person could do all this. So he focused on Galileo completely. There were a lot of wrenches thrown into Galileo that had nothing to do with the work that JPL was doing. A lot of it had to do with the space shuttle. You know, we've already talked about how the capacity of the shuttle kept changing. Another thing that kept changing was the booster rocket

56:33that Galileo was going to be carrying with it. So the spacecraft was going to write up in the shuttle's payload bay. And then once it was ejected, there was going to be a supplemental stage on the back of the spacecraft that would ignite and send it to Jupiter. And there were different options that were on and off the table for various political, budgetary, and safety reasons. And every time that changed, the mission had to be redesigned and not only the spacecraft itself, but the design of the mission itself. So how many orbits of Jupiter are we going to have? And what targets are we going to study? And how are we going to be approaching the different moons and what are going to be the sun angles and all these things? You know, all that work has to be redone whenever the mission changes. And it was getting pushed back in time. It was originally going to launch in 82

57:33and then it moved to 84 and then it moved to 85. And each time John found a way to keep the mission going, basically. And at one point, the mission and the spacecraft was actually split into two. So there was going to be a launch of the main spacecraft and then there was going to be a separate launch to carry this descent probe that was going to be dropped into Jupiter. And years later, after Galileo had ended, John was talking to someone at some industry conference who had worked on Galileo, who's an outside vendor. And he said, you know what we call you, Cassani? We call you the man who lives in a world with no corners. Because every time we thought that there was going to be some kind of showstopper, you know, again, nothing that anyone like deliberately, maliciously introduced, just some complication. Like, oh, they are no longer going to be able to use

58:34this high energy liquid hydrogen stage to get to Jupiter. I guess the Galileo mission is over. Nope, psych. You know, Cassani pulls another rabbit out of his hat and rallies his troops to think in different directions and they come up with a way to keep the mission going. And Cassani told me that a man with no corners was the greatest compliment from those people. And I think that right there, just encapsulates just how determined he was to never give up and never keep going, or never, excuse me, to never give up and always try to push forward to launch day. That's pretty cool. We're sort of running short on time here. So I think I'll give you the choice. We can either talk about how Cassani and team work past the really, really punishing issues with the intent on Galileo or the Cassini project.

59:37Maybe we should move on to Cassini. Yeah, Cassani was no longer project manager when the intent issues cropped up. Oh, okay, okay, well, that makes sense. So he, you know, he kind of flirted around with various roles and, you know, and after Galileo, he did some other work, but then he came back to manage Cassini at the time that that mission was spinning up. And so this was going to be a massive spacecraft, you know, the size of a large cargo van that was going to go out and orbit Saturn. And it was going to have a probe that went and landed on the surface of Titan, you know, extraordinarily complicated mission, long life mission was going to take years to get to Saturn, obviously. And there was a problem. There was a problem because there was all this money that wasn't going to be available. So there had been budget cuts, there had been other aspects of the mission that had to be cut, you know, and Cassani's job

1:00:40at that point on Cassini as project manager was really to get the spacecraft off the ground. And he had to make some hard decisions in terms of compromises on how the spacecraft was going to be built. So there was going to be the main body of the ship, which they call the bus. And this was going to have its computing brain and radio equipment and thrusters for maneuvering and all that stuff. But it's there to conduct experiments, right? And so the instruments that conducted these experiments are of two different types. There's some that you want on a stable platform that you can steer for taking pictures or taking a very precise reading from an object. And there's others that you want kind of twirling through space because they're sort of sampling the environment as it were. And those are what we call fields and particles experiments. So they're looking at sort of that local environment,

1:01:43plasma, dust, radiation, all these different things. And you don't want to just grab a sample because you kind of want to look at the environment around the spacecraft. And so there was going to be this turntable that had all of these instruments on it that could sweep through the local space environment. And Cassani realized that the way that he could keep the numbers in check for the budget and get this thing off the ground would be to delete both of those and rigidly attach the instruments to the body of the spacecraft itself. I consider that to be the most controversial decision of his entire career. There was a huge backlash from the scientific community on that, one of them who was a plasma scientist, later complained to me quite understandably that for all of the time and money

1:02:44that we scientists spent coordinating our observations based on these new limitations, they probably could have paid for the boom arm and the turntable to be put on there. But Cassani's response to that was like, look, at that time, we didn't have the money. It's like, I've got this much money to get this thing off the ground. And so I can take off the boom and the turntable and rigidly attach the instruments or we can not launch. So you're going to have this in a limited fashion or you're going to get nothing. Yeah, and it was just one of those where he kind of went into dad mode and I could still hear his voice from talking to him about that. It's like, because I remember here in my dad say something like that, it's like, well, you can have this or you can have nothing. You get what you get and you don't get upset. Yeah, it's like, do you want to go to Saturn? You know, this is what we're going to have to do to go to Saturn.

1:03:45And I know you don't like it. But as Cassani once said, you know, the ideal solution is one that makes everybody equally unhappy. And so if everyone is equally unhappy, then I've done my job. That's the best I could do. I spent my life doing exactly that. That is awesome. That is awesome. It's hard to call it, but you know, we got the more point it got to Saturn. Yeah, I would just point out that the one time, the first time I met John Cassani was actually when I was at University of Southern California. So I was really happy to see the little note about how he was on the steps of the student union at USC, right? Just had to get that in there. I know, right? It wasn't the steps of UCLA. But I actually was studying astronomy at USC.

1:04:45And they said that they could go to see Cassani in the clean room if you were able to get there on time. And I had missed my class's date and was able to get in my friend's class's date to go and there wasn't room in the car to get me. And of course, I don't have a car in Los Angeles. So there's no Uber. And there's no lift because it's like 95 or whatever it is, 96. And so I missed Cassani in the clean room and I was so bummed about it that, oh, I want to say like a year later or so, he gave a talk all about how great Cassani was going to be because I think it had just been shipped at that point in time. And for Saturn at the Griffith Observatory, and EC Crop was there. He's been on the show as well too, right, right? And so that was when I met him for the first time, as someone telling us how great going to Saturn was going to be and we've got this giant spacecraft and it's going to be amazing. And I was so excited.

1:05:45And then we got to watch there in September of what, 2015, when it plunged, 2015, 2018, when it plunged into the thing. Oh, for the grand finale. Yeah, for the grand finale. So it was like one of the bookends. And John was there at the start for that mission because that's one of the, that in Galileo where like some of the core ones for me when it comes to Planetaries, so I just thought it was really interesting when I found out that we're going to talk to you about him and your book. It was interesting how those stories are all intertwined for things. Jay, were you at JPL for the end of mission for Cassini? I was not. No. That would have been great. I should have made arrangements begged to get out there for something I should have gone. Yeah. Sorry, the Queen Mary is blowing their horn. But they do that every two hours.

1:06:45I mean, you know, it was, there was a long build up to a very short ending, but it was pretty amazing to watch the emotions of the, mostly the engineering and science staff up in the balcony as they're watching. All we had on the screen, there was no video, but they had this line, like, you know, which you get the squiggly, squiggly line science instruments. It was just the radio signal. It was kind of this peak. And then as it began to burn up, you just watched this kind of fall off and go to a flat line. Oh my God. I mean, people were sobbing because it's like watching your dog, you know, take us last breath in the vet or something. I mean, it was really quite moving. Speaking of quite moving, what's your next book you're going to be about and when can we expect to enjoy it? Well, thanks for asking. The working title is, and then magic happens. And it's looking at how we got into building Mars Rovers. So why did we build them the way that they did?

1:07:45They've got those little six wheel distinctive chassis on them. Where did that come from? How did we teach rovers, how to think, how to navigate, how to avoid hazards. And I've been working with some fascinating people on this. I've spent some time with Don Beckler, who invented that six wheel chassis. I've spent some time with Tom Rivalini, who was the key engineer behind the airbags that we used to land on the surface of Mars. G. Scott Hubbard, who was at NASA Ames, who had the original idea for a low-cost lander, which was what turned into Pathfinder. I've got the inside story of the Rover naming contest, actually, and interviewed the woman who won the contest about writing her entry and the experience that she had and whatnot. And the most interesting thing that I found

1:08:46is the surprising relationship between Mars Rovers and the Roomba. Yeah, I love it. Okay, well, that one's got a big dot, dot, dot, effort that's going to keep us interested. And I'm just going to point out that he said that he interviewed the woman who named the Rover, and they were kids, Rod. They were kids when we started. To be specific, this was the Sojourner Rover on Pathfinder, right? Yep, yep. Yeah, that's a really sweet story. Well, Jay, I want to thank you from the bottom of our little dark hearts for joining us today. An episode 201 that we like to call Born to Explore. Where can we track your activities online and get a little more look at your future adventures coming up? Yeah, I have a Facebook page that is facebook.com slash readable history. And I try to put updates there when there's something worth updating.

1:09:47That's the big place. I don't have a website or anything like that, because it always seems like, well, I could create a website or I could work on this next chapter. And then I always end up working on the next chapter. But Facebook.com slash readable history is the going to be the most direct connection for news. Boy, it's music to a publisher's ears when they hear an author say, I don't have a website, but that's okay. I mean, whatever works for you, but speaking of such things, is there a way for people to get signed copies of your current book? Yeah, they could message me through my Facebook author page. And I am fulfilling those requests. So they could send me a direct message, and I'll get back to them. And that is something that never gets old. I tell you, it's always a thrill when someone's interested in what you spent years working on and once a sign copy. It's as much of a pleasure for me as I hope it is for them. Well, when you have as many books on Backlist as I do it,

1:10:49at this point, I just said, look, I'll mail you a book plate. Okay, just lick the back and stick it in the front cover because half of mine I can't even find anymore. Tark, where should we find you in Webland? Oh, Rod, Rod, you can sign my books. It's okay. It's okay, Rod. It's all right. I'll bring him to ISDC. I'll give you a signed copy of my book. Oh, wait, oh, I feel like the moly one now. So, no, no, I haven't written any books because I'm a lazy boat. So, there are a lot of work. I tip my hat to anyone that has an intention to spend longer than a hamster like me. So, but no, you can find me at space.com, as always, and apparently in two or three weeks, you'll find me in Florida quite possibly for the launch of Artemis II. This weekend at 3.30, you will find me playing Fortnite because the dark Voyager astronaut is going to do something fun that's real spacey in that game. And I'm really excited about it. And I guess that's about it.

1:11:49It looks like you and I got a date in Houston for Artemis, Rod. Yeah, I hope so. Oh, on Twitter. It depends on how you mean that. On the socials at Tark, Jay Malik, by the way, I forgot that. Okay, don't worry, forget that. And of course, you can find me at pilebooks.com or at astermagazine.com, which I lovingly edit every quarter. Also, if you're in the Southern California area, this is my last commercial, I promise. Please consider joining me for a talk I'm doing on Apollo and Artemis at the Bowers Museum in Orange County. On Thursday, March 19th at 10.30 in the morning, go to Bowers.org, that's B-O-W-E-R-S.org. And look in the program section, it's actually on the landing page. And you'll see my listing. And for your space smarty pants out there, I'll be giving away some books to whoever can answer some of my pithy space questions. Remember, you can always drop us a line at TwistedTwitter TV. We welcome your comments, suggestions, and ideas of jokes. We're short on space jokes. I burned through about 20 of them last week. So you guys owe us some space jokes. Don't get them off of AI.

1:12:51Make up your own or try and find some good old timers. But we've seen the AI ones and they're not very good. New episodes of this podcast publish every Friday on your favorite pod catcher. So make sure to subscribe, tell your friends, and give us reviews. We'll take a thumbs up, a fist in the air, a poke in the eye, whatever you got. You can also follow the Twitch tech podcast network at TwistedTwitter and at Facebook and Twitter.tv on Instagram. Thank you very much, everyone. And we will see you next week. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile, the message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything goodness world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying no judgments, but that's weird. OK, one judgment. Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Up front payment of $45 for three month plan,

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