Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: And welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori with you.
Speaker 2: Back with space historian Robert Zimmerman. His website is behind
Speaker 2: the Black dot com linked up at Coast tocoastam dot com. Robert,
Speaker 2: what's the update with the Artemis program to get us
Speaker 2: back to the Moon?
Speaker 3: I would strongly expect that the NASA components of that,
Speaker 3: that's the SOLS rocket and the Orion capsule are going
Speaker 3: to be canceled sometime in the next year. The NASA
Speaker 3: spend like sixty billion dollars on these thing about it
Speaker 3: and making it like a half a dozen capsules, and
Speaker 3: the rockeymond isn't paid something like between twenty five and
Speaker 3: thirty billion dollars to make a half another capsules. You yeah, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, when you think about it in those terms,
Speaker 3: it's absurd. And the same thing with the SLS rocket.
Speaker 3: The rocket each launch, depending on who you ask, they
Speaker 3: estimate the cost of each launch is somewhere between one
Speaker 3: and four billion dollars each launch. And the cumbersome design
Speaker 3: of the SOLS rocket means you can do launches more
Speaker 3: than at best, and it's really never going to be
Speaker 3: this at best once a year, more likely once every
Speaker 3: two or three years. You want to have a space
Speaker 3: program a program once again, you can't do it with
Speaker 3: that kind of turnout. It's just not conceivable. It it's
Speaker 3: just not fast enough. Right now, SpaceX is developing Starship
Speaker 3: Super Heavy, which is more capable than SLS, is going
Speaker 3: to cost a tenth of the money, I mean, maybe
Speaker 3: more than that. Like we're talking about only a few
Speaker 3: million dollars a launch, three usable million, not billion. And
Speaker 3: it's designed to be manned. It is going to be
Speaker 3: used as the lunar lander when the NASA eventually gets
Speaker 3: to the and so this is definitely the future. And
Speaker 3: I really do expect that the problems in the SLS
Speaker 3: Orion program in Artomius are significant and were worrisome. NASA
Speaker 3: is planning to fly the next mission of Artemis on
Speaker 3: SLS using an Orion capsule with a crew on board,
Speaker 3: and they want to fly it around the Moon and
Speaker 3: back to Earth. However, there are serious questions about the
Speaker 3: heat shield that Orion uses on return to Earth. In
Speaker 3: the first unmanned flight in twenty two, Ryan came back.
Speaker 3: He came back seriously damaged it. Boy had been a
Speaker 3: crew on board, they would not have been earth But
Speaker 3: the damage was serious with one of my large chunk
Speaker 3: sections of that heat shield came off. Never seen damage
Speaker 3: like that before, and there are a lot of reasons why,
Speaker 3: but NASA has made the decision that the first manned
Speaker 3: mission with Orion, they're going to use the same heat shield.
Speaker 3: They're not going to introduce the changes until the next mission.
Speaker 3: On top of that, the Orion capsule that flew that
Speaker 3: unmanned mission did not have an environmental system. In other words,
Speaker 3: there were no people on boards, they didn't bother and
Speaker 3: stall one. The first time Orion's environmental habitable system to
Speaker 3: keep people alive is going to be used is on
Speaker 3: the very first time people fly in Orion. These are
Speaker 3: the kind of things that FAA does not allow SpaceX
Speaker 3: to do, and for good reason, and SpaceX agrees you
Speaker 3: should know what you're doing. And so because of the
Speaker 3: various issues with the heat shield and with the environmental
Speaker 3: system and issues with SLS, NASA decided about a month
Speaker 3: ago to delay that first unmanned that first manned mission
Speaker 3: around the Moon, delay it from the end of this
Speaker 3: this year to the spring of twenty six, about a
Speaker 3: three to four months away. I already said on my
Speaker 3: website the minute they made that announcement that twenty six
Speaker 3: launch date is not realistic. It's not going to happen,
Speaker 3: because it's traditionally this program is they were supposed to
Speaker 3: be launching by twenty fifteen, establishing a base on the
Speaker 3: Moon in twenty fifteen. They didn't get their first launch
Speaker 3: up until twenty two, seven years later, and that's now
Speaker 3: two years later, three years later, and they still haven't
Speaker 3: done a second launch. No man mission, it's for sure,
Speaker 3: and so I really am expecting that Jack eisaman In,
Speaker 3: Jared Isisamgan who's now in going to be in charge
Speaker 3: of NASA. He's a private sector guy, a billionaire. He's
Speaker 3: talked about how he just doesn't like how NASA operates
Speaker 3: and when it comes to building things. I really think
Speaker 3: he's going to take a step in and make some force,
Speaker 3: some major changes in the entire program. This does not
Speaker 3: mean Artomist will go away, or our goal to go
Speaker 3: to the Moon will go away, but it will change.
Speaker 3: I have recommended in essays on my website that NASA
Speaker 3: stop trying to be China to the Moon. We've already
Speaker 3: gotten there. We don't have to prove anything. But what
Speaker 3: we should do is be focused on doing whatever we
Speaker 3: can to build this aerospace industry in space. Get it
Speaker 3: as robust as possible, because if you do, and this
Speaker 3: is where the space stations come in. If you do,
Speaker 3: then you have the capabilities to do anything you want
Speaker 3: in the Solar System much more effectively, much more quickly.
Speaker 3: It might start a little slower, but before you're done,
Speaker 3: you'll be wiping the floor with the Chinese, the British,
Speaker 3: everybody else. So that's what I have suggested they do,
Speaker 3: and I think we'll do some variation there. It's going
Speaker 3: to be a political decision because canceling sos a lot
Speaker 3: of money goes to professional districts. I say he won't
Speaker 3: have a problem because because these private rocket companies, they're
Speaker 3: sending money to many districts also, and if you get
Speaker 3: them going, you kind of won't have anything to play about.
Speaker 2: Companies like SpaceX get their brain power. Did they rob
Speaker 2: it from NASA?
Speaker 3: Absolutely not.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: Actually, I would say that almost nobody at SpaceX has
Speaker 3: come from NASA because NASA teaches the wrong lessons. It
Speaker 3: teaches process has to be followed. It teaches you don't
Speaker 3: do you don't build, fly fail, build again, fly fail,
Speaker 3: build again. You know, actually fly rockets and see how
Speaker 3: they work and fix it. NASA follows the philosophy whereby
Speaker 3: you have to design it so well that it might
Speaker 3: take a decade to design it. But when you fly,
Speaker 3: you don't need many test missions. You've done it all
Speaker 3: on the computer. Not only do I think that approach
Speaker 3: is bad because you really never computer can never cover
Speaker 3: you in every aspect. It's much slower and much more expensive.
Speaker 3: And that way of working is not something that SpaceX
Speaker 3: wants or any of these private companies. What they instead
Speaker 3: want is young people coming out of colleges who have
Speaker 3: had who in college were given the chance to play
Speaker 3: with engineering, to cut metal, to build things, build satellites,
Speaker 3: small satellites, build engines, a variety of things, just to
Speaker 3: learn how that's done and then get into the roll
Speaker 3: up in their shoulders and actually build things for these companies.
Speaker 3: Now a NASA has provided a thing relatively few people
Speaker 3: to these companies, and I think that's generally been a
Speaker 3: good thing.
Speaker 2: But with all the experience that the NASA engineers had
Speaker 2: over the years, getting to the moon and vice versa
Speaker 2: and everything else. We didn't tap into that.
Speaker 3: He's probably George. Let's put some time on this. The
Speaker 3: engineers that got us to the moon and landed in
Speaker 3: the nineteen sixties, they're all gone. They're all retired, passed on.
Speaker 3: Many of them were in private companies like Grummin, which
Speaker 3: is no longer in business and you know, was absorbed
Speaker 3: by other companies. The companies that exist now that used
Speaker 3: to be the big space companies that did all that
Speaker 3: stuff are companies like boe I don't need to talk
Speaker 3: at great length about the problem that Boeing has right now.
Speaker 3: They have been unable to get anything accomplished with Starline
Speaker 3: and their manned capsule. It's just disgraceful the kind of
Speaker 3: mistakes they have made. And so I think that that
Speaker 3: kind of talent isn't there. One of the things SpaceX
Speaker 3: has done and all these startups is it's tapped into
Speaker 3: the young generation. There's a story, for example what I covered.
Speaker 3: SpaceX wanted to get some new software people who's developing
Speaker 3: reusability and landing. They went to a game conference, a
Speaker 3: video game conference where there's a lot of software people
Speaker 3: and it asked anyone who is working on space. We've
Speaker 3: got some software needs to be written, and you guys
Speaker 3: can come at this with a different approach and you
Speaker 3: know how to write software. And they got some people
Speaker 3: from that. Those they look in different places, and of
Speaker 3: course everyone would like to work in space, and you
Speaker 3: know SpaceX is the top, so they get the people.
Speaker 3: No NASA. And when I give talks to colleges, I
Speaker 3: can repeatedly tell them why of the students there don't
Speaker 3: get a job at NASA, You're going to be in
Speaker 3: a dead end. Get jobs in these private companies. You'll
Speaker 3: cut metal, you'll build things, you'll fly things, you'll have
Speaker 3: a lot more fun, and you'll have a career in space.
Speaker 3: Think about sols once again. At Orion, they've been building
Speaker 3: that damn rocket and capsule now for twenty years and
Speaker 3: it's ugly flown. If you're an engineer, you spent your
Speaker 3: whole career and you're now retiring in university. So the
Speaker 3: thing take off, the people on board, that's not satisfactory.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I NASA what we have this. Unfortunately, there's
Speaker 3: still a cultural attitude that NASA is the top, the one,
Speaker 3: the gray, they're the ones to talk to. They are not.
Speaker 3: And the last thing that should be happening is depending
Speaker 3: on NASA to engineer anything, build anything, or design anything.
Speaker 3: Where NASA should be doing, which is now doing mostly
Speaker 3: is if it wants to get a lure land to
Speaker 3: science instruments on the Moon, it hires a private company
Speaker 3: to do it, like Blue Ghosts from Fireflight. It's gonna
Speaker 3: fly and we got two. They put the NASA instruments
Speaker 3: on it. NASA gets to do the research. But this
Speaker 3: is a private company that has its Luna land and
Speaker 3: it's making money on it because it it rented some
Speaker 3: of the payload space to this Japanese private Luna landa
Speaker 3: company it can so that they can fly as well.
Speaker 3: And so we're gonna have two landers and they're privately
Speaker 3: so they're privately owned. And so yeah, NASA is NASA
Speaker 3: is not the agency it was in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 3: and it hasn't been for probably five decades.
Speaker 2: What's going on with missions to Mars?
Speaker 3: All right? So we have two rovers on Mars right
Speaker 3: now that are functioning, Curiosity and Perseverance. I cover them
Speaker 3: on a regular basis because especially Curiosity, it is roaming
Speaker 3: amid mountains and we've never had a rover really roving
Speaker 3: about mid mountains on a mountain side. So the views
Speaker 3: of spectacular and I always approached this from a first
Speaker 3: point of view. I think my readers will prefer that
Speaker 3: as well, you know, so I post pictures to try
Speaker 3: to get a sense of that Curiosity's been there for
Speaker 3: more than a more than a decade and it's still
Speaker 3: functioning and working well. It's climbing mount shop in Gale
Speaker 3: Crater and it's doing really good work, and it's once
Speaker 3: again the views of spectacular the other over perseverance, it
Speaker 3: has finally left the crater to zero that it landed within.
Speaker 3: It landed in zero crater because there was this delta
Speaker 3: that had flown in through a gap in the Creator's
Speaker 3: rim that filled part of the crater floor, and it
Speaker 3: was very intriguing to look at from orbite images. While
Speaker 3: they spent the last two or three years since landing
Speaker 3: exploring that delta and the rim of the crater. They've
Speaker 3: now climbed the rim and they've climbed down onto the
Speaker 3: other side and they're moving west into a region of
Speaker 3: more that is known to have a great deal of
Speaker 3: minerals of potential mining value and they're going to be
Speaker 3: exploring that area at length. That the area west of
Speaker 3: zero Crator is a very high potential mining region and
Speaker 3: Pervance is going to explore that over the next few years.
Speaker 2: It's exciting, though, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh? You know, when I look at pictures coming
Speaker 3: back from Curiosity and I post them, I don't see
Speaker 3: other websites doing this that cover space, and I'm surprised.
Speaker 3: You know, on almost a weekly basis, I can post
Speaker 3: a spectacular image showing the barren, alien environment and landscape
Speaker 3: of Mars and from the positions that we've never had
Speaker 3: spacecraft in before. You know, all the early rovers landed
Speaker 3: in very flat, safe places, so the views were not
Speaker 3: particularly interesting. Curiosity and Perseverance are in are in very
Speaker 3: interesting terrain, producing very cool visuals. So I posted because yes,
Speaker 3: it's exciting. It's it's science fiction but real, you know.
Speaker 3: And I am surprised that I seem to be the
Speaker 3: only one in the space business who does this on
Speaker 3: a regular basis. But I do, and it's really fun
Speaker 3: when I do it. It's it's like the last one
Speaker 3: for Carrio. People go to my website and do a
Speaker 3: search for curiosity. You'll see a lot of those pictures.
Speaker 3: The last one was looking out on their future route
Speaker 3: along the side of the mountain. That's contoying along the
Speaker 3: side of the mountain right now, and in the distance
Speaker 3: you could see, of course, the rim of the crater
Speaker 3: twenty thirty miles away in the age and the floor
Speaker 3: of the crater, and they're like two thousand feet up
Speaker 3: from the floor right now, So up there they're climbing.
Speaker 2: Are we going to continue to land on asteroids?
Speaker 3: Robert, Well, there are no, there are no. Let mean
Speaker 3: we phrase that we have right now one mission heading
Speaker 3: towards the potentially dangerous asteroid Apolfice. That's the Osiris Rex
Speaker 3: mission renamed Osias apex. It it went to Benu, it
Speaker 3: got samples, it delivered defense of samples to Earth, and
Speaker 3: then they repurposed it to go to to Apolfas now
Speaker 3: is potentially dangerous. It will make a close fly by
Speaker 3: the Earth in twenty nine. It's not expected to be
Speaker 3: able to hit the Earth for at least two hundred
Speaker 3: more years, if not many more years after that. Is so,
Speaker 3: the dangerous is slim.
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