The Space Race is Back | Lemonade Stand 🍋

16:37Aiden:And maybe you can speak to this. My understanding is that this is seen as pretty successful because ultimately what they get is a comparatively cost effective option from SpaceX compared to the previous era where NASA was paying for like in-house or proprietary designs of these ships.

17:00Atrioc:Yes. And what's really interesting about this Artemis program is that it's now a hybrid of those two models. It's really strange. So basically, yes, this commercial era has been very successful. To put it differently, the truth is SpaceX has been really successful. They have brought the price down. I mean, you can do missions for like$100 million now compared to the billions it would take in the past and is taking for Artemis, right? So SpaceX has succeeded at making crude launches and general space travel vastly cheaper than anyone else. So in that sense, massive win for NASA. And now we, America, there's a space program.

17:36Atrioc:So now we get to Artemis, which is this program everybody's talking about. So now this is straight up NASA again saying, hey, for decades now, we've only focused on low Earth orbit. We've focused on getting satellites into space and launching telescopes and the International Space Station. Artemis program is specifically to get a sustained presence on the moon. Our goal now by NASA explicitly is we are going to make a moon base. And so this is what this launch is. This is Artemis 2. This is one of the, what the, you know, the thing that we're talking about, this moon mission. This is the second of the five currently planned missions where we are progressively working towards getting a moon base.

18:14Atrioc:So this one, this one's just a flyby though, right? That's my understanding. They're not. Yeah. Yeah. They're just studying the moon. Yeah. So there's, there's five currently like concrete missions with obviously their, the intention there'll be more in the future. Artemis one, I believe happened two years ago. That's an uncrewed test of the rocket system and Orion and all this stuff that they shoot into space. So two years ago, it was like, let's just make sure this can get into deep space. This is Artemis 2. So this is round two of the whole program. And this is why we are sending humans to the moon, but not onto the moon, right?

18:44Atrioc:They're flying around the moon. And really, the core mission here is test that all this stuff works, test that humans survive, test that we can get in and out of deep space, all these things with actual humans, right? so what i think is actually the the really exciting one is artemis 3 is meant to happen next year 2027 and that's going to be a test to dock with the commercial moon lander which we'll get into it a sec and that'll take them to the moon and back but basically they're going to do like a docking and undocking sort of romantic gesture in space and then artemis 4 so even on three they're not landing on the moon correct they're not even going to the moon they're mid orbit they're really teasing this moon landing don't be so impatient this is a problem you're

19:28Aiden:always you're always on your phone you always need something in the 70s in the 60s i'm looking at my phone i'm swiping up why isn't it the moon yet it's two three four okay okay which which artemis number do boots hit the ground four so the plan is early 2028 we're going to the fucking moon

19:48Atrioc:human beings are landing on the moon on artemis 4 we are on two right now so again one is just hey can our shit get into deep space let's double check that two is can our humans get into deep space let's send them around the moon they're gonna look at it they're literally gonna look at it it's gonna be cool and it's gonna be hype and we're gonna show we're ready to do this artemis 3 is testing that basically the system that's going to get them to and from the moon artemis 4 is when they are on the moon artemis 5 would in theory be later that year or the following year, like late 2028, 2029. And that's like, they're not only going to the moon, we're starting to establish the base.

20:20Atrioc:They're sending hammers and they're going to start. Yeah. And just hammers because we're going to use moon rocks. Hammers and flex seal. You want to use the local delicacies.

20:29Aiden:It feels like such a long timeline for something that is all done on sound stages. It's just, it is crazy. You know, I got a question for you as a recent space expert, because I watched project Hail Mary in Hong Kong with, Oh, yeah. Are they scouting hot school teachers for solo missions for this? The goal is to get a quippy school teacher. And he goes like, I don't know if I can be on the mission. I don't fucking. Sorry, I've got a lot of baggage about this movie. I got a lot of. Everybody loves it. I'm like the only person who doesn't like it. It's got I'm going insane. To be clear, I do like it, but I don't think it's one of the top 50 movies of all time.

21:04According to IODB, it's a very Redditor loved movie. But are we going? I think we're going to ask Senator Mark Kelly.

21:12Atrioc:incredibly decorated air pilot space commander senator we're gonna have to ask him hey did they were you someone who was back on earth disillusioned and then a british professor said follow me and took you into a lab that was like hidden behind some bushes she's german in the

21:29Aiden:movie oh is she okay i'm going off of interstellar by the way kelly was kind of like a ryan gosling type mark kelly do you think would you describe the new candidates for the moon missions to be uh

21:40Atrioc:redditor core i've had tons of important questions did when they asked you to command your first mission were you sitting on the front porch of an old kind of cabin smoking a cigarette and when they came up you said sergeant it's been a long time you know i gave that all up because that's the only people they hire it's ones who said they've given it all up moon model mission out of duct tape and string to like showcase the nasa's plan and then everyone agree with it and made you the greatest i'm sorry let's i say sir there might not be a humanity

22:14Aiden:left line item budget and seeing like a hundred fifty thousand dollars for original han zimmer soundtrack they played in the cabin that would actually be worth it if we had an original nasa han zimmer soundtrack for each art of his mission but fixed cost i swear to god if han zimmer keeps driving up the price for two years han zimmer always goes cost plus yeah he's Classically cost plus. I will say the,

22:40Atrioc:have you seen the stream at all? Have you seen the stream? Yeah, yeah. There was 150 ,000 on Twitch yesterday when they hit the, so they hit the record for the farthest we've ever been from Earth. Yeah. We hit that. Cool milestone. And there was 600 ,000 people watching on YouTube. Yeah, YouTube was massive. Massive. It's like a huge, I mean, this is like, this is genuinely an incredible moment of people being excited about space and realizing this. And we, like, I don't want to say the hard parts are done, but getting to here to Artemis 2 is a lot harder than from No part. No, it was very cool.

23:07program you know it was like a global chat everyone was pretty excited and uh and i heard this is the first one where they had the ability to stream 4k video while they were doing it that was the idea i didn't seem 4k to me but i guess i don't know that's what i read yeah and so it was

23:20Aiden:uh and it was pretty cool i okay i had a question so there's this timeline that we have for this set of missions to land on the moon again but isn't uh china has their own set of missions they're trying to get there in a faster period of time or a similar period of time yeah i i don't

23:37Atrioc:I didn't write down like all the exact timelines. Basically they have been, they have been sending landers that are going to the moon. They landed on the, I want to say far side of the moon or South pole. I forget which, but they did that before us. They like landed a robot, did it first try. Yeah. Their space program has matured insanely fast. They also now have their own international space station. They've had for a few years there. The U S is like trying to set up these space accords so that we can all agree. Everybody will sign a pledge to say, this is how we're going to deal with taking land on the moon and how we're going to do with disputes and getting rid of how you're going to dispose of things in the space area if it falls to earth or the moon or whatnot.

24:17Atrioc:It's called the Artemis Accords and China won't sign it. And so there's genuinely a space race going on now. China has explicitly said that their goal is to land someone on the moon before 2030. So there's a genuine race going on here. Our best timelines right now for Artemis 4 is early 2028. We have someone on the moon. But what's crazy is, in fact, let's get into this. The thing that's really strange about Artemis, there's three components that are going to get us to the moon, okay? Versus the SLS, the space launch system. This is essentially the rocket and all the things that you imagine that, you know, take our payload into orbit.

24:58Atrioc:This has been a NASA-directed thing. It's with a whole bunch of traditional kind of aerospace contractors. It's been very expensive and very slow. But we have a thing that, as of a couple days ago, we successfully launched somebody into space, right? Then there's Orion, which is the capsule that the crew are in. So generally with space, you have the giant rocket that gets the payload into space. Then the payload goes off and does its own thing. So Orion is what the human beings right now in space are in. They're driving the thing around. They're going to come back. However, NASA's part of the whole role does not include getting Orion, which is where the people are in, to and from the moon.

25:35Atrioc:So that piece, which is a pretty important part of going to the moon, we have getting them into space. We have them being in space, and we need to get them to the moon and back. That part is going to private contractors. so they put out contracts for companies to pitch that they could get orion the capsule to and from the moon guess who won the contract it was spacex so spacex they wanted to give two different providers the option to like get orion to and from the moon in 2021 they gave the three billion dollar contract to spacex and it was they wanted to give it to multiple people but they said they have the funds so blue origin which is jeffy bezos's company jeffy b very very unimproven company so far although they're starting to do basic things right we've talked about this a little bit in the past they sued and they said that's not fair you can't just give one contract we weren't being seriously considered um and so in 2023 nasa gave them a three billion dollar contract to develop a lander for artemis we should five i don't think we were considered i don't understand i don't think lemonade stand was considered for making a lander and we should

26:39Aiden:sue this fuck i knew i forgot to do something yesterday this is only from the loose description that i've been giving but been given but this sounds like when x or twitter said they were gonna sue because advertisers were leaving the platform i it it they sued because they didn't get picked uh i don't i don't know enough details i know that the the i mean this is weird because I knew about this from my dad growing up and like military contractors and stuff. But my understanding is that like, it's a pretty, it needs to be as transparent as possible because these contracts are so valuable. And if someone gets picked really instantly, almost everybody will sue because they're like, Hey, this needs to be like really above board.

27:19You didn't give us a fair shake. Yeah. Everyone needs to have a fair shake. And yeah, I mean, it's like this happens for like down to like who puts the wastebaskets in a building.

27:26Aiden:I see everybody, everybody needs to give it, be given the appropriate amount of time to to win the contract whether it be blue origin or a small company run by jonah hill and miles teller like it's right yeah jonah hill miles teller you and me and me let's all our military contracting company yeah i think we could launch a rocket

27:44Atrioc:i don't know the rep are we referencing the movie again there's a it's this episode's gonna rip

27:53Atrioc:okay so blue origin you know and it kind of makes sense right like spacex is the one who's delivered. The only other company you contracted with for this type of stuff, Boeing, fucked it up insanely hard. So it's like, yeah, you'd probably go with SpaceX. But Blue Origin protested. They came back with a good contract. They were given an offer. And so now there are two competitors to, again, the third very, very, and very, very, very important and very hard part of this whole thing, which is getting the capsule to and from the moon. It's not just you're getting it to and from the moon. Remember, you need to get a thing near the moon to then take it to and from the moon with lots of fuel.

28:28Atrioc:That's a hard fucking problem to deal with. And so both of them are now competing to try to develop the lunar lander that will get this thing to and from the moon. And that needs to happen by 2028 in two years. And so how is SpaceX doing? Well, they're doing fucking terribly. You know, Starship, the giant ship that they've been talking about, that Elon has been promoting, that's their pitch for how they're going to get it to and from the moon, a variant of that called the HLS, the human landing system. So I want to show you this image. If you pull this up, Perry, this is bonkers. This is the plan for how SpaceX is going to get is going to get Orion to and from the moon.

29:06Atrioc:First off, SpaceX will launch a starship into orbit to serve as a propellant depot. To put that differently, they're going to launch a starship into space whose whole goal is just to store fuel. Then SpaceX will launch multiple additional starships as tankers, which will deliver fuel to the depot starship that they have in space. This is estimated to take 10 to 20 launches they're going to need to send of starship to go up to fuel the one that they have in space. Finally, the HLS starship, the one that will actually go to and from the moon, goes into orbit, will dock with the depot starship, receive all the fuel, and then go to the moon and start hanging out in the in the moon's orbit at this point later on nasa's own program will launch orion into space orion will go to lunar orbit and they will connect in orbit around the moon at which point starship will take it to the moon they get out they do whatever they want to do starship will boost back up and continue to hang out in lunar orbit so it's not just that SpaceX is like launching a thing that's going to take them there.

30:11Atrioc:It's like at least 20 launches of Starship, one of which is a fuel depot, 18 or whatever of which are tankers. And then the third one is a specialized to take them to and from the moon. Now that all sounds awesome in paper, except they haven't launched a single Starship. This plan takes like 20 launches of Starship, including two different variations. But okay.

30:34Aiden:So SpaceX is a company that has done a ton of successful launches yes but it's just of different rockets or of different equipment than this specific model that they need to develop for this project yeah so the ones you see with spacex are

30:48Atrioc:falcon it's those big rockets and there's falcon the shalken heavy and and that can take uh crew to and from the iss it can take a ton and has taken tons of satellites into low earth orbit that is different than one getting into deep space around the moon and two starship is meant to be way way way way bigger they just want to have a much larger payload uh in part for this mission and in part because spacex sees that as an important part of their future i'm like why why do we need this giant tanker in 20 launches for a moon lander that's you said they're only handling the part between the artemis ship and the moon and back yes and they need all this i

31:28Aiden:want to scrutinize this like that's my first reaction it sounds stupid i'm sure but in reality is like, I don't work. I know nothing about this. I want to say this is... Well, I learned for himself. I, as a simpletant, can probably just ask the right question.

31:41Atrioc:It's like one piece. You just need to remember how much you love your friends. Yeah, exactly. And then you'll be able to get to and from the moon. I think the main thing is this is... Am I crazy? Well, because they didn't have this for the moon lander in the 70s. So what is the... I think it's twofold. And honestly, we could ask Mark Kelly a little bit because it does seem crazy to me. I think the idea is that SpaceX is saying what would be like the ideal version. And the ideal version is that you have this massive ship that can take a huge amount of payload to and from the moon. Back in the Apollo program, we were like getting, we were getting astronauts there with like a rover and they would explore and then they came back.

32:15Atrioc:But the plan of the Artemis mission is to establish a moon base, right? It's a different beast. We're not just trying to get humans there to like say hello and plant a flag. The idea is we are going to ship an enormous amount of stuff there so an actual base can be established, ideally on the south side where there's frozen water, like there's ice. and that's going to be really important to like maintaining a base and getting more fuel and all this stuff um i think i you know this is obviously i'm not an expert to be able to say this but it's it's revealing like how complex this stuff is getting um and this is this is spacex's proposal

32:47Aiden:and there i never thought it was easy i'll put that out there i i figured i figured this was hard yeah i mean it's just the moon you can see it from your freaking house and so you can go i mean you

32:57Atrioc:go to like the starship hls wikipedia page where this where this is and and there are some like cool graphs here's one where from nasa's perspective they're like sending orion into space and then they're going to and from the moon via the starship thing but elon and spacex are behind and that's what's kind of crazy about this they're now currently a year behind a year ago they were supposed to do a test just to test this idea of these things refueling each other in space that hasn't even been tested starship hasn't gotten up and back so while you got to give credit to spacex they've been a phenomenally successful like just bat like incredibly influential and successful company with aerospace so the past you know two decades now they are behind on this and they're seemingly pretty far behind and so what nasa is doing the the secret to space refueling is somehow hidden in uk politics because that is what ilana spent 90 percent of his time yeah it is it is certainly i'm wondering if maybe they're connected like he's trying to find it's funny reading about this and being like the complexity of this company is going way way way up and then he's but that's way way less about space but if doge can cut out the inefficiencies of nasa then this suddenly becomes an easy thing okay get tying it back to artemis just real quick right now artemis is going to the moon and back this is entirely the nasa program right but starting on artemis 3 onwards that's when the private companies are required because they are the pieces that are going to get you to and from the moon right right now spacex is behind so even though while spacex won the original contract for artemis 3 the one happening next year that is now open instead of just being spacex nasa has basically said hey we're open to whichever company gets there first same with artemis 4 same with artemis 5 like it's now kind of up in the air of if blue origin proves they can do it first they might be the ones to get to the moon even though in concept spacex is supposed to have the next two locked down have they proven what has

34:55Aiden:blue origin proved up until this point like they got katy perry in space but besides that what else what's their track record in being able to compete even space i believe they got to low earth orbit

35:09Atrioc:this is where i i don't know enough to say confidently but i mean they're way behind i believe they have one successful low earth orbit launch um but it's just you know it's nowhere near near and prove it's nowhere near proven compared to SpaceX doing hundred of them but so tying this all back to China and I want to ask Senator Kelly about this because he mentioned we have to beat China to the moon in like an interview he did about this China again they're planning for getting to the moon by 2030 I have a I have a quote here from um my New York Times article yes so getting to the moon by 2030 our plan is to be landing on the moon in 2028 but it depends it It requires either SpaceX or Blue Origin to have an extraordinarily difficult chunk of this process done.

35:53Atrioc:They're currently behind, and they are going to potentially be the barrier between us actually hitting that timeline or China getting there first. Yeah, they say Chinese astronauts are aiming for a first million in 2030, as you said. In theory, many months after the U.S. But the Artemis program has been proceeding in fits and starts, while Chinese space program has been driving forward with formidable focus. and even nasa acknowledges that it may lose this round they may be early and recent history suggests we may be late this is isaac man the guy from nasa yeah so it's clearly like it like if timelines go like you say according to plan the u.s is ahead on this landing well i don't i guess i wonder what it matters if it's a few months difference here yeah i mean i would like to ask if there's the symbolism of it there's there's potentially it's like whoever gets there first like gets the prime territory yeah i don't know i don't i don't know how it works yeah i mean country wants to build a base near the southern pole where it can extract resources like frozen water hydrogen and helium each wants to build nuclear power nuclear reactors on the moon to power lunar bases and each wants to launch missions from the moon to go into deeper space yeah so there's i mean this is the explicit goal of this by nasa is that we build a moon base which helps serve as the launching point to go to mars so there's the long-term focus here i just hope those crazy bastards close to the moon it's like first of all true second of all if i want to go to mars i never book a flight with a layover i want non-stop and i do not want to be stopping at the moon it's a pain in the ass the moon's airport fucking the moon's airport is underdeveloped you know how expensive mcdonald's is in that place it's not good it's just so maybe you could have a fucking moon stop but i'm going direct i fly direct right you're a bit of a direct guy Yeah.

37:33Aiden:It's like, I don't know if I'm picky. I'm going to take what I can get on this one. And I'm going to be on Mars. Okay, and it'll be nice. Whoever is first to establish a lunar base will be most likely to have a greater say over what others can do on the moon. Humanity still operates by first-come, first-served rules. Well, yeah, it's moon rules. It's moon rules. You think there's rules on the moon? I mean, I guess, like, if someone makes a base in a spot, you can't do anything about it. You'd pick something else. Oh, you could fight them with moon rocks. Or worse, I guess. I guess with Trump, I never fucking know.

38:07He might declare a fucking moon war.

38:09Atrioc:I came up with a new business idea. Who's the president right now dot com. Where am I going to be selling? Doug, how is this a business? How is this a business? What are you selling? Shirts. It either says it says the current president's name and it says below. This is the current president. Don't you think that can be misconstrued as a political support? and not like a... No, it's a fact. It's like a fact machine. Well, because what we're going to do, we're going to launch a new product that's what's the longest river. And that way, anything you want.

38:39Aiden:The thing is, you at home might have a business idea that's worth doing. Unlike Doug, you might have one that actually adds value. And if you want to sell things to customers from all around the world, Shopify could be your little gateway to being able to do that. That's how I can do this. What ifs into... With Shopify today. Sign up for your$1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash lemonade. Go to shopify.com slash lemonade. That's Shopify. Say it again. That's shopify.com slash lemonade. This episode is brought to you by Indeed. Stop waiting around for the perfect candidate. Instead, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs to find the right people with the right skills fast.

39:22Aiden:It's a simple way to make sure your listing is the first candidate C. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs have four times more applicants than non-sponsored jobs. So go build your dream team today with Indeed. Get a$75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. K-pop Demon Hunters, Saja Boys Breakfast Meal and Huntrix Meal have just dropped at McDonald's. They're calling this a battle for the fans. What do you say to that, Rumi? It's not a battle. So glad the Saja Boys could take breakfast and give our meal the rest of the day. It is an honor to share. No, it's our honor.

39:57Aiden:It is our larger honor. No, really. Stop. You can really feel the respect in this battle. Pick a meal to pick a side. And participate in McDonald's while supplies last. We have laid the groundwork, I think, but we have Senator Mark Kelly joining us who will undoubtedly know more about this than we do. Well. And we'll... Speak for yourself, okay? I watched Hail Mary. Tell them about the layovers. I might ask him. You might be ready for that conversation.

40:31Atrioc:All right, let's get into it. Senator Mark Kelly, thank you so much for joining the program. We've been gassing you up about your incredible history, and we are really excited to talk with you about the Artemis program, about NASA, about your experience with all of this. Yeah, and we already learned in our little pre-show chat here that the actual moon landing is Artemis 5, not Artemis 4. So it's good that we brought on a real expert. Is there or did I get that wrong? There's no way of no. I will ask Senator Mark Kelly, I guess you start and maybe just, you know, the quick kind of overview of what this current mission happening is, why it's important in your eyes.

41:05Atrioc:All the good stuff from an actual expert on this. Well, let me start with Artemis one, which was a few years ago where we flew the Orion capsule with nobody in it. I think they may have a mannequin sitting in one of the seats. No humans on board and basically did this mission, right? Go around the moon with Orion, which was a spacecraft, which is the capsule, launched on a rocket called SLS, which is a rather big and powerful 8.8 million pounds of thrust rocket to get this thing all the way to the moon and back. and that launched a few years ago now i think maybe i don't know three or four years ago and uh this is the second mission so this is the same mission done with all the life support systems you need on board the extra redundancy and the spacecraft that you want for crew members uh so four crew members to go around the moon on a what's called a free return trajectory which is when they do their translunar injection burn, that's also their deorbit burn, which normally, like on the space shuttle, you do in orbit around the Earth.

42:16But this thing comes back from the moon at 25 ,000 miles an hour, hits the atmosphere. Not much you can do about it. And, you know, hopefully on Friday they'll get home safely. Artemis 3 and 4 are going to be missions in low Earth orbit testing out the landers provided by probably Blue Origin and SpaceX. And then the fifth mission will be down to the surface of the moon with astronauts. So that's the summary. And then missions after that should also be down to the surface of the moon and where we can build what I would say is kind of a more of a permanent presence there, like we did in low Earth orbit with the space station, which was always my destination when I went into space.

43:02Aiden:So what would you say is the importance of us doing that and maybe also the speed at which we do it? I know we were talking earlier before we had you on about China also racing to establish a presence on the moon as well. So if you could speak to both of those things. Well, I mean, it's always good to be first, right? And I know we were obviously we were first to the moon in the 1960s, regardless of what all those nuts out there say that we never went to the moon. You faked it six times. That's what I heard. Yeah, six fakes. I mean, the Soviets congratulated us. The people we were in the competition with.

43:41That was also staged. They were also in on it, I think. It's always sad to see that people don't believe reality. Anyway, I do not want to see Chinese astronauts walking around on the moon. before we get back there again here. So does that really matter? I think it does. Some people might say, well, big deal. We, as the United States of America, we have been always on the leading edge of technology, doing hard things, exploration. Hey, we're the only people that successfully land stuff on Mars, right? The Russians have tried a lot of times, and they always crash. And, you know, we're good at this stuff.

44:33The Chinese are sort of competition, you know, with us now on a lot of different levels, a lot of technology, a lot of innovation. In some military technology, they've gotten a little bit ahead of us. My goal here on the Armed Services Committee in the United States Senate is to get us to catch up. So why is this important. So if we're going to be explorers, which is just in our DNA, it's in our nature to do that as humans. We always want to see what's across the ocean, what's over the next hill, what's on the next planet. We're going to go out there and explore. And if we're going to explore Mars someday and the rest of this solar system, we got to make a more permanent step off of this planet.

45:21So it's important we do that. And we get something out of it. People sometimes say to me, why do we spend all this money in space? Well, first of all, NASA's budget is pretty small. It's less than 1 % of the federal budget. But the money isn't spent in space. It's spent here on the ground, good-paying jobs people can raise a family on, but also jobs that produce advancements in technology. And NASA doesn't just create stuff, you know, it creates industries. So that's why we need to do this. Ultimately, I don't think we have a choice. And I think America needs to continue to lead in this kind of endeavor.

46:03Atrioc:What do you think of the big hurdles between us landing on the moon in the next couple of years? We talked about how the, you know, Artemis program will have SLS launch Orion, and then that will dock with one of the landers that is either from SpaceX or Blue Origin. It seems to a non-expert like myself that there's an enormous amount still to be done and tested. And I'm curious from your perspective, do you feel like we're 10 % of the way there, 90 %? Like what are the giant bottlenecks? Like how does, you know, the average person, yeah. Well, I think you got to figure it out. There's some, we got a lot of stuff we got to do before we're able to get there and put people down to the surface.

46:41We've got a build these landers and test them in low earth orbit. One of the other challenges is that when we designed Artemis as a mission, you know, missions to the moon, multiple ones, we decided that we want to make this system like kind of reusable. And to do that, it's not like Apollo. And Apollo, the lander and the service module and the capsule all went in one unit, you know, on a Saturn V rocket, the biggest rocket ever built at the time. This is separating the crew, putting the crew on a human-rated SLS to get the crew to the moon in an Orion capsule, join up with the lander, and then get this system back.

47:33And to get that lander there is on a Starship or New Glenn rocket by SpaceX and Blue Origin, you have to refuel it multiple times in low Earth orbit to get enough propellant on board, to get that big of a mass there. That's a challenge. We haven't done in-flight refueling. And I am really concerned about whether... I know we can eventually do it, but what's the timeline going to be? What's going to be the cost? So I've got, I've got technical concerns. The both these companies say they can figure this out, but I'm paying close attention. Can I ask about that? So, so NASA used to be entirely done in-house, and now there's a ton of it done by private contractors through blue origin, SpaceX, Boeing.

48:28What are the pros and cons of that? What are your thoughts on the transition to that? Is there a good thing? Well, let me clarify something there. You know, we did this commercialization thing during the Obama administration where instead of having, and you say NASA used to do these things in-house. That's not exactly accurate. We had contractors. But we also had a lot of oversight over the contractors. The change happened during the Obama administration where President Obama said, hey, we have all these innovative companies out there. Why don't we just kind of throw the money over the fence to them?

49:07Let them do this. Let's leave them alone. Let them do the innovation without this vast organization that's going to monitor everything they do. So think of it this way. We had a company, let's say it was Boeing or Lockheed Martin or Rockwell for the space shuttle, others. And for every one of those company employees, there was like a government employee kind of watching what they're doing. So we got away from that. We let them not only build the rocket as a true contractor, we sort of let them own it. Like it was their thing and we're buying a service. So that's the model we went to. and with the landers certainly we're kind of in this same model but we've always had contractors the big question is how how much does nasa leave them alone to do their job and so far with the space station with the commercial cargo and then commercial crew programs it has worked really really well yeah there are delays along the way but i i gotta say i think you know spacex in particular has done a really good job meeting the moment and really bringing down the cost of what it takes to get not only cargo to low earth orbit, but getting people there as well.

50:29Aiden:Are there, besides the cost savings, have there been any other notable benefits or improvements or is that really, I mean, that being the main benefit from this all? I'd say it's probably the main benefit. You know, the thing about, like, risk assessment and how safe something is, you usually don't know until you start having, like, failures. But the Dragon capsule, which launches on a Falcon 9 rocket that goes to the space station with people, has been, you know, very safe so far and very successful. But also they've driven, because of the reusability of the first stage, they have driven down the cost.

51:09And also because they're able to turn it around and fly it without like a huge army of people, they've got the cost down of getting stuff into low Earth orbit to, down by an order of magnitude. 10 times, I think, compared to the space shuttle. Certainly, every space shuttle mission costs about$900 million to fly. SLS is rather expensive as well, because we just build so few rockets. But SpaceX builds a lot of rockets and launches a lot of things into space, so they've got the cost down. And that's been, I'd say, the biggest benefit, does not have the capability of the space shuttle, right? The space shuttle, by far, the best spacecraft ever in terms of the ability to do things.

51:57You could take seven people into space. You had a cargo bay the size of an 18-wheeler truck, basically. Yeah, it was about 30 feet long, so maybe not that quite long, but you could carry 35 ,000 pounds into orbit in that payload bay. It had a robot arm where you could do stuff. You could put people on it. You could move modules around. And it had an airlock where people could go outside. So best spaceship ever built, in my opinion, decent rocket ship, horrible airplane. Okay. I want to airplane you've ever flown.

52:36Atrioc:I really want to ask because I don't, it's not every day, probably maybe twice a week only do I get to talk to an astronaut. So I want to, you, you were on four missions. You commanded two of them in my heart. You commanded the last one. I don't believe in mission 135. You're the final commander of the shuttle. I, so kind of open-ended, it's a little trite, but what's it like being in space? And I'm curious also if you could relate that to the current mission of, you know, Artemis 2, we're going around the moon, we're testing this capability to be able to land people there. And, you know, when I, when I go to the NASA website, they list 40 different scientific experiments that are really valuable.

53:14Atrioc:And I get that conceptually, but like, what do you, what are you actually doing? Like if you're an astronaut in space, like are you, is it, is it like chemistry class in high school? Is it crazy? What is the experience like of actually being in space? You were there for like 50 days, right? Something like that? 54 days, all my flights went to the space station. My first flight, we brought up a lot of cargo and people. So a lot of my time there was spent transferring that cargo. But first, before you transfer to the cargo, you had to take the module out of the payload bay with the robotic arm, which I did.

53:46I was one of the robotic arm operators. and you had to connect that module to the space station. So you got to do that. And then you got to open the hatch and there's all kinds of work. And then you got to transfer thousands and thousands of pounds of cargo, put it all in the right place. And then you got to put that module back into the space shuttle payload bay. On my second mission, it was the return to flight mission after the Columbia accident was the second one. So we had to test all this new capability. We also had a logistics module. um my third and fourth i brought up the japanese laboratory and had to get that installed and outfitted and then on my fourth was the alpha magnetic spectrometer and during all those missions we were doing spacewalks not me because i was always the pilot or commander of the space shuttle and they don't let us go outside for obvious reasons um we got other people that can do that and do you want to is that a bummer no i would have loved to yeah yeah it's kind of a bummer were you like peering through the glass yeah that's gotta be brutal you know so you know what i'm watching for is let's like what's the bad thing that's going to kill these people you know at any moment right you know so it's a very tense eight hours plus Oh, my God.

55:11When you have people outside that you're, you know, it's remarkable that we've made it this far and done all these spacewalks, I think, well in excess of 100 now. And we haven't, you know, had somebody seriously injured or killed. So you're really, really busy during these space missions. And shuttle crew members aren't doing a ton of science. It's the space station people that are, you know, that live up there for, in case of my twin brother. I mean, do you think I have a lot of time in space, 54 days? My brother has 520 days in space. Oh, my God. Over a year? A year and a half? That's insane.

55:47Aiden:Oh, my God. Yeah, it's a lot. I did want to ask you, just because of the shuttle era that you were flying in, is there sort of a mental preparation or a nervousness that you had to deal with? Because in the wake of things like Columbia or Challenger, I'm just wondering, like, the nerves that must go into operating a mission like that. Yeah, I mean, you realize the risk, right? I mean, when you consider the number of people that flew on the space shuttle, 14 of them, and I don't know what the total number is. But, you know, it's, you know, probably a few couple, a few hundred. You know, 14 of them are dead.

56:32it. Out of 135 missions, we lost two orbiters. So it is a risky thing to do. You get it. You understand that there is a lot of personal risk for you. The way I think about this is like, what's the reward? Not to me personally, but to our country in our ability to do this and do exploration and, you know, push the boundaries of technology forward. There's a tremendous amount of progress that we can make. So it's worth it, even though there's risk for me personally. But especially like on my second flight on the heels of the Columbia accident. Yeah, I remember, especially during re-entry when Columbia started to break up, you know, we knew, you know, after entry interface and at what Mach number the vehicle started coming apart.

57:31I remember, you know, you know, saying to one of my my commanders, Steve Lindsay, I remember, you know, us recognizing that this is the time that they lost communication with the ground. You know, because the Columbia started to disintegrate at that point. And those were our friends. Three of my classmates died on Columbia, my astronaut classmates. Um, you know, I'm also the person that happened to, you know, recover their bodies in East Texas. So yeah, you think a lot about it. But you also you have to do your job. And the space shuttle is a very, it is a very crew intensive, you know, vehicle.

58:15So you got a lot to do.

58:16Aiden:Yeah, so it kind of demands, I mean, demands attention and focus. I imagine not a lot. You can't be thinking about a lot else. No, no, you can for brief periods of time, but usually you're pretty hard at work. So, I mean, you've spoken a couple of times about the kind of the, I would, the patriotic or like romantic value of the space missions, like the more, the nature of human exploration and the value of it from that perspective. Outside of that was something like the Artemis missions and us landing on the moon or establishing a more permanent presence on the moon. Could you name some of the more, uh, maybe like tangible potential benefits of us having something like that, like access to a specific resource that wouldn't be accessed otherwise development of a specific technology that wouldn't be developed otherwise.

59:10Aiden:Like what are the more, uh, like, yeah, tangible benefits of, of this type of mission, would you say? Yeah. Like going down to the surface of the moon and establishing a presence there. Hey, you know, some people will make the argument that we can pull like, you know, tritium off out of the lunar regolith, which is, you know, helium three isotope of helium that would be used in fusion power plants if we get to fusion power. Right. Yeah, I've been saying that.

59:41Atrioc:That's amazing, Doug. Yeah, I mean, I guess that could be a thing in the future. You know, I think, you know, it's more about like establishing a presence, developing technology that will allow us to go to Mars someday. We'll learn more about the moon by being there. You can learn some of this with robotics and it certainly is is cheaper. But I think there is a, you know, fundamental thing about all this, about, you know, sending people that there is there is value in doing that. What's your timeline, your personal timeline on what you think we will ever put a human on Mars? Will it happen? Is that something realistic to hope for in my lifetime?

1:00:28Hey, you know, it depends on how we do it, right? You know, and certainly we, I'm going to make a kind of an offhand comment here in a second. It's kind of, I'm just joking, but, you know, I think doing a real mission and getting people back, I think there's a chance I could see it in my lifetime I would like to but the other option is you do the flight of the lone eagle oh the no return flight one person one way

1:00:58Aiden:you get somebody there and they don't come back

1:01:01Atrioc:somebody's gotta be down for it I'm joking no I am sure I am sure we would find the volunteer I'm not sure we want that kind of a person on a mission But, you know, in the astronaut office, we used to like joke about that a little bit. You could always do the flight of the lone eagle. One man, one way. Well, it seems reasonable.

1:01:22Aiden:It seems like that is something we could do. You're kind of implying that's something we could do now. Like we could get somebody there. That's right. That's my that's my point. If we really wanted to get somebody there, we could do it. We don't want to do that. We're not going to do that. We're going to get people there. We're going to bring them back. you know even Elon talks about you know sending people there like on a one-way trip and building this entire you know civilization on Mars and you know there's a lot I agree with Elon on on like you know how he's built his space company and it's been very effective and you know brought down the cost I don't think we should ever really entertain that I mean Mars is a shit planet.

1:02:04I mean, it's really a shitty place to live. I mean, good, good, good place to visit. You know, it doesn't, uh, yeah. Yeah.

1:02:17Atrioc:I would love to, to expand on that because the narrative is, you know, the, the real value of Mars long-term is that it could be a genuine civilization that is self-sustaining. Right. And that, that's certainly what Elon has talked about. Like, Do you feel that that is like an unrealistic goal or maybe not the point or how is that long term for Mars? First of all, as a goal, I think it's really, really hard. I don't even think it needs to be a goal because, you know, and I called Mars a ship planet, right? You think we got problems here on Earth like with Mars. You should see Mars. I mean, no matter.

1:03:01how bad it gets on Earth, it's always going to be easier to live on Earth. I mean, even if the big rock hits or we have the super volcano, it will always be easier to survive here for some people than it will be for anybody to survive on Mars long term. I mean, you know, Mars is, you know, the atmosphere is 90, you know, I don't know, 97%, 98 % carbon dioxide. I'm thinking you want Mars all to yourself. I live in Los Angeles. It's 95 % carbon dioxide smog. And I'm fine. I'm living great. So it can't be that hard. Nope. It's less than 1%. Even in LA, you know, we've got, you remember that whole thing about like 80 % nitrogen, about 20 % oxygen.

1:03:48Yeah, that adds up to about a hundred percent. The carbon dioxide, despite going up a lot, right? Trillions of tons of carbon. And that is, regardless of what non-scientific people say about this, that's causing our planet to heat up. The Martian atmosphere is almost all carbon dioxide. So it would be really, really hard to live there for an extended period of time. I don't think that should be the goal.

1:04:17Atrioc:But you think there's a lot of value in just going to Mars? Like that still has immense value in your eyes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We'll have to solve some really hard problems and we would have the impetus to try to solve those problems and trying to send people there. And they would have to stay, you know, if they want to stay for more than like a couple of days, they're going to have to stay there for like over a year because of the orbital mechanics and the position of Mars compared to the earth and where the sun is. So you got to stay a long time and it's going to be challenging. We can miss your flight late to the terminal.

1:04:49Atrioc:it's the most embarrassing you go to you go to only rebook next year you go to the united terminal and you're like surely you have another flight today we have no directs back from mars i i was

1:05:02Aiden:wondering like because going to mars was kind of the the big space dream for or like narrative for me growing up as somebody who was really interested in space. And I do like, I am interested in that being the connection or the potential benefit of going to the moon now that it's like this easier launch pad for getting to Mars down, down the line outside of these things though, for exploring other parts of the solar system, other parts of the universe. Are there any notable things that, uh, you know, NASA is looking to do as far as like, uh, like probes going to other places, other, other areas of discovery.

1:05:47Aiden:I'm curious what else might be getting worked on outside of these things. Well, I mean, long-term, I mean, a lot of people hear about like Elon's, you know, desire to do this and, you know, he's kind of singularly focused on getting a person on Mars. I like that part of his plan, by the way. We talked about the, you know, staying there for forever and building a civilization. When you talk to Jeff Bezos about why he built Blue Origin, I don't think he talks about this, you know, much publicly. And what he, the reason he's doing this is, you know, also very ambitious. But, you know, he's doing this, he built that company and is trying to compete for these, whether they're national security satellites being launched or landing people on the moon because of resources.

1:06:37You know, we do have, you know, limited resources on Earth. You know, things will over decades and decades, it'll be harder to, you know, find certain elements, you know, that we need for our civilization. and in some cases those elements and materials are readily available in space on asteroids um could you bring back those to earth could you get them in low earth orbit maybe you change the trajectory of something and get it into a leo orbit and then mine those asteroids and bring that stuff to back to earth yeah we're not doing that in a decade or or maybe 10 but maybe in you know, 40 or 50 years, we could do that.

1:07:22So that's his motivation to get out there into the solar system. And I think it's got, you know, I think there's a good argument to try to develop the technology to one day be able to do that. Can I ask a business question? Because we talk about Blue Origin, they're getting involved in this, about SpaceX getting involved in this. What the hell happened to Boeing? Why has Boeing been such a fall off in terms of their ability to contribute? I mean, I'm wrong. You can tell me that's the outside. I mean, I'll tell you what happened to Boeing. Boeing was competing for getting crew members to the space station and they built, you know, this Starliner spacecraft that couldn't bring Butch and Sonny home because it was kind of janky.

1:08:14Right. That kind of had some problems. And that wasn't their first problem. They had software problems before that. And then they had reaction control system problems when it got on orbit. And there were some serious concerns with it. So it had to come home without its crew. They just have not been able to deliver. So I would say they performed rather poorly. I think they're trying to rebuild their space business at this point. We're going to see what the administrator decides to do, you know, with Boeing Starliner that, you know, hasn't had a successful flight yet.

1:08:53Aiden:With what you were talking about with Blue Origin earlier, with this potential long, long-term goal of building the technology that allows you to extract and bring back resources from things like asteroids, is there any thought that you have as a senator? Like with someone, you know, a private company that's this big or a person like Jeff Bezos as a private citizen being the vehicle for something like that? Like what's the balance between government stepping in to, I guess, have have control over that type of technology or that type of resource acquisition versus this private company being the vehicle that that technology exists at all?

1:09:46Aiden:Do you have any thoughts about the kind of balance between those two things? Well, I mean, it's typical of the U.S. government to invest in technologies that get a return, you know, outside of what a private company would normally expect, right? So businesses usually want to return on their investment in like, you know, five years or less. You know, sometimes you see companies that push that out a little bit. And it's often when you get to like basic scientific discovery and scientific research, it's the U.S. government that invests in those projects where the return might not be for 10 or 20 or 30 years.

1:10:28It is interesting that in Blue Origin with Jeff Bezos that, you know, he is thinking out, you know, multiple decades. I think that's kind of unusual, you know, for a company. But he's also a guy who's worth hundreds of billions of dollars. So he can write checks there and invest in his company with a goal that might not even be achieved in his lifetime.

1:10:56Atrioc:I think we have time for a few more questions. Yeah, okay. Can you mind if I ask you some questions about – first of all, very simple question. What job do you think is harder being an astronaut or being a senator? Because you're a senator now and I have some questions about that. Or a podcaster. Which of those three? Oh, those three. Or a podcaster. Podcast, no. I don't know what it's like to be a podcast. In a lot of ways, they're very different, right? Being an astronaut is a highly technical job where you're learning how to operate one of the most complex systems ever built by humans, right?

1:11:34The space shuttle, also the space station, very, very complex. and you're working together generally in a small team. You know, as the commander of the mission, you're also especially working a lot with mission control and the engineering team. With being a senator, it's almost like everything is part of your job, like every issue that our country faces, every problem, every way that citizens interact with their government and everything we do as a government is part of the purview of being in the Senate. So in a lot of ways, it's very, very different. You also got to work to find consensus. I served 25 years in the military, you know, very orderly.

1:12:32There's a person in charge. Now, when I was generally in charge of things, I always want people to like push back on me and, you know, question, you know, the, the approach, but you know, the, being in the Senate is a, the way I take on this job, it's like a 24 seven job. Don't get a lot of time off. Um, because these issues that our country is currently facing especially are so significant. We have really significant challenges. I think we can solve these challenges, but it is a all hands on deck moment. You know, you said there's two different to compare, but from the way you described it, it made Senator sound way harder.

1:13:13There's some of the way you described it there. It sounded, it sounded more difficult. Just extremely different. I will say, I think you're at the forefront of one of these challenges, which is the, this first amendment battle. So I wanted to ask you about that. So, so you walked, you appeared in a video and then Pete Hegseth secretary of war called it sedition. And then your Navy pension and rank were on the line. Can you walk me through what happened and what was going through your mind in that situation? My understanding is there was a court. Okay. Sorry. Oh yeah. Yeah. I'll walk you through it.

1:13:42So myself and a four other or five other, you know, one Senator of some house members, so Alyssa Slocken and four other individuals, we reminded members of the military that they are not to follow illegal orders. So when orders and the law are in conflict, you comply with the law. A basic thing in the U.S. military, everybody's taught it. We put out a video, president didn't like it. He immediately goes to, they should be hanged, executed, prosecuted. I mean, the guy couldn't even get the order right. I was going to say, that feels wasteful, if anything. Yeah, so then he tried to indict us, and the grand jury returned a unanimous, basically take a hike decision.

1:14:31You're not indicting these people. I mean, unanimous. That, like, never happens. Now Hegseth is trying to reduce me in rank and take away some of my pension. I retired as a Navy captain in 06. After 25 years, he's trying to bust me. me down in rank, so I sued them. But here's the thing, you know, this isn't really about me. This is about the other two million retired service members out there that this administration, this president, wants to take away their rights to speak out against the government. And, you know, that's wrong. And I think it's unconstitutional. And they're in violation of my First Amendment rights.

1:15:11And just by extension, every other retired service member—I've heard from service members, retired admirals and generals, that they have now changed what they are saying and doing because of this administration going after me. So a chilling effect? So I'm not on me. Right. But I think I know it does on others, as they've told me. And it's probably a lot of people out there just, you know, they're clamming up because if you say something this administration doesn't like, they're going to come after you. You know, they fired, Hegseth fired over 20, I think, admirals and generals. You know, either because of the color of their skin, because of their gender, or because he doesn't think they're sufficiently loyal to him and this administration.

1:16:02The oath is to the Constitution. The oath is not to a person that we all take when we get sworn into the military.

1:16:09Atrioc:I think we're near in time. We want to respect your time. I'm curious. Yeah. Just kind of like what, as we talk every week, and you just mentioned, world seems a little scary right now. It does feel like an all hands on deck moment. And I think for a lot of people, particularly at our age, it feels like you can't do much, you know. And I'm kind of curious what kind of message you would send to folks. And this could be about the NASA side and what's going on in science or generally what's going on with the country. And I'm curious, yeah, what you would recommend to people in this moment and how to handle it.

1:16:41Well, the first thing they should do is they should vote. You know, young people vote at a kind of an abysmally low rate. Tell you a quick story. When my wife, Gabby Giffords, was first running for Congress, I would come out here and campaign with her on the weekends. And we'd go to we went after going to like the third nursing home, like third weekend in a row. I'm like, Gabby, why don't we go to all these nursing homes? And she says, well, that's where the voters live. because retired people vote, young people don't vote. So the first thing is like vote. I mean, and vote in accordance with your best interest in mind.

1:17:24You know, most people are like just generally hardworking, middle class, you know, people. And we've had policies in this country for decades that really leans in the direction of helping the wealthy. Millionaires and billionaires at the expense of, you know, the rest of us. A very small percentage of our country, I don't know what it is exactly, but, you know, a very small percentage at the top now owns as much wealth as the middle class. And it wasn't always that way. It's getting harder and harder for people to buy a home. People used to buy their first house when they were in their 20s. Now they're 40.

1:18:06And that is because of choices that this government that people voted for made. They voted to put these people in office, and they made choices that helped millionaires and billionaires at the expense of everybody else. So I would say vote and figure out who's going to do the better job that's going to help you and your family and people like you. And then, you know, if you can, if you got extra time, you know, get involved in, you know, in issues and try to contribute some way, you know, to, you know, public service. You know, it doesn't have to be running for office or serving in the military, but just figure out some way that you can help.

1:18:51Aiden:I appreciate your time very much. It was very nice having you come on the show.

1:18:56Atrioc:Thanks so much, Senator Keller. It was fantastic. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for having me on. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Have a good one.

1:19:03Aiden:There was a possible need for a correction at the end of the interview, but the Senator set the record straight. Now, Jack is on my phone here, but Jack, Artemis, my understanding, did Jared change this like here in the last couple days? Well, what I'm seeing is three was the original plan landing. That's right. Let's get back to that. Four and five are landing, but you said five was the first. That's my current understanding is that three and four are going to be, well, maybe they're just thinking about doing, I thought they were going to do, when I talked to Jared last time, he was talking about doing three and four as a LEO test, and five would be the lunar landing.

1:19:54Maybe it just hasn't been announced yet. Yeah. So I don't know. Maybe I'm making news for you guys here at the Lemonade Podcast. Well, let me just say that there's still discussions whether Artemis 3 or 4 will both be low-Earth orbit tests of the Blue Origin and SpaceX lander. You got to do those separately. And maybe five would be the first one to the surface of the moon. or maybe you could go down to the surface of the moon on the fourth one if you get a successful test

1:20:24Atrioc:in leo of one of the landers you you know better i've i saw actually different descriptions as well when i was researching this yesterday and i know that it's like you said three was supposed to be landing that got moved to so i imagine that's changing and probably you have the more up-to-date version than what the internet currently has but cool that's great as a backup yeah i might have i might have the inside scoop i might be you know sharing stuff that nasa won't like me to be share but you know what? I don't work there anymore.

1:20:54What are they going to do? Fire you? What are they going to do? They can't fire me now. You know, and when I sent the gorilla suit to space, they couldn't fire me then either because I had already left.

1:21:06Atrioc:You sent a gorilla suit to space? I didn't know about this. Oh, you got to Google the gorilla in space. You watch the video of my brother, you know, racing around the space station in the gorilla suit. That was you? I've seen this. Wow. Yeah. Is that you or your brother? That's your brother? That's my brother in the suit. You said in the suit? And it's my gorilla suit. Wait, I've seen this. I sent him a gorilla suit. This is. Well, the first one I sent blew up on a Falcon 9 rocket. So I had a. I had a pivot and get a new one off of Amazon and sent it up on a Suez. That's so funny. Wait, did you, would you consider, instead of saying up on the rocket, just put the delivery address as international space station on Amazon prime, they have to do two.

1:21:52It's required. Yeah. I don't. Yeah. No, I wouldn't have got there then I had a, and it wasn't, you know, people think I smuggled that thing on board and smuggle it on board. I, I sent it right through all the legitimate NASA channels. And then when I got the video of the gorilla in space, I immediately sent it to NBC news. and then nasa was like nasa was like why did you do that why did you send this i'm like why did why the hell why did you think i sent a gorilla suit to space to get the video

1:22:25Atrioc:that's awesome wait just just so i'm understanding you delivered the cargo and then your brother is in the suit is that the order yeah my brother i sent the gorilla suit on a russian rocket to the space station okay while my brother was there for a year okay and then that gets delivered while he's there. Wow. That's awesome. Yeah. You know, most people, most people will send up to their family members, like, I don't know, some fucking dried out bananas or something or, or pistachios, fancy nuts. But I've actually been to the space station four times. I knew what the space station was missing.

1:23:08Everyone up there craves a gorilla. Oh my God. Everybody needs it. Every place on earth needs a good gorilla suit. True.

1:23:18Atrioc:Awesome. Thank you so much. Really, really genuinely, sincerely appreciate it. Thanks so much for chatting with us. All right. We'll see you guys.

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1:24:37Atrioc:That was awesome. That was really cool. Yeah. I super like, I, that's the type of guy on ironically, it's the type of politician. I would let him cut me up and put me in a briefcase. So I hope he doesn't want to use that power for that. Sorry. It's kind of, I was kind of zoned out.

1:24:50Aiden:I'm not going to lie. I kind of came back in on that. Yeah. Mark Kelly is Jamal Khashoggi-ing Doug. Okay. Yes. That's the Jamal. Mark Kelly would do what to Jamal Khashoggi? breaking news you were saying he's kind of a boy because he was he was shooting the shit on football before it started yeah before we started he was pretty like not pr or you know a five when he was talking and i had the thought we were talking about this i mean you guys don't know he was obama's choice to replace joe biden when joe biden was clearly after the debate and they stepped down and that was my thought during the interview was like i think he would have done a better job i think i think we might have a better shot of not having trump right now had mark kelly ran his resume is just badass yeah astronaut into marine into yeah flip but he like he like

1:25:38Atrioc:flew in combat he was like it's badass stuff yeah and then now senator cool dude really cool dude

1:25:43Aiden:oh you know what would be even cooler is if we made gigantic conjectures about the iran war hours before the deadline not even hours we are 24 minutes away from the supposed deadline at which point the Iranian civilization will no longer exist.

1:26:00Atrioc:And you might be wondering, why don't you guys wait 30 minutes to see what happens? You have a hard out. I believe you have a dinner.

1:26:07Aiden:Okay. It's not a dinner. It's the Yard podcast. Oh, you guys are going to talk about it there. Yeah. So if you want, we're doing the live coverage. Live coverage of what's happening in Iran will be on the Yard. And we're going to give you the pre-show. Well, aside from the short intro that we did at the beginning and the deadline of this incredible threat of the entire country, the entire people of Iran. Pakistan is apparently asking the U.S. to delay its decision for another two weeks, like requesting a two-week ceasefire, and Pakistan has tried to be the intermediary between Iran and the U.S.

1:26:50Aiden:I'm not... Wait, actually, update. Yeah, it was live. Trump has agreed to the two-week ceasefire with Iran, delaying threat of large-scale bombing command. So this is exactly what almost anyone would have predicted that based on his actions, where he constantly does a massive threat, then backs off. I think what's worth mentioning here is that not only did Iran not really respond to this threat, so they're not taking it seriously either, there's almost a point where, there is at a point where this kind of language is too far anyway. You know, it's like it sets a standard for what you're representing as a country to the world.

1:27:27And having the president, whether or not it's part of a 5D chess negotiating strategy of like just threatening to destroy other civilization, to bomb power plants, to bomb bridges, to hit civilian targets. Like that's it's bad on that front regardless, even if we all collectively know that he backs out on these situations. Like, I just think personally, I'm I find it to be reprehensible. I think it's I think it's whack. I think it's.

1:27:51Aiden:yeah i i mean i almost find it it sounds ridiculous because of the weight of the threat and like what he's saying but i i almost feel out of gas even remarking about it because it feels like i'm saying that about this guy all the time it's like i expect him to expect the kind of worst possible reflection of our country through this dude so i almost you know in a weird way i almost rather not talk about it because that feels like i have to talk about it every week i don't know if that's no that's fair i think that's fair but it's like yeah it's like oh wow he said the unfathomably insane thing about like wiping a civilization off the planet it's like even if you were in the camp of like this is iran's the iranian people's chance of getting out under the thumb of their repressive regime it's like okay well it's killing all of them That's a perfect example.

1:28:47Atrioc:All of the bridges. How in the fuck does that liberate people? That's an insane. It's just war crimes. You've also lost their support. That's what I'm saying. Because I have a guy in Iran who's been talking to me and giving me updates. And he, you know, I haven't been against this war since it happened. And I've been saying that. And we had a disagreement. We've been disagreeing. And it's like hard for me to disagree with the guy who lives there. But I'm like, I just don't think this is what America should be doing. And he has been telling me, I don't care about Trump's, what his goals are. I need whatever chance we can do to get rid of the regime and I think that's a fair stance to take I just don't think we should using our lives on it but even he is now starting to be like this there's no plan like this is this is because I think when it's becoming obvious that Trump's goals are not that where he he might say a few things like people of Iran is for like stand back and stand by we're coming to help you out like he said at the beginning now that that stuff is so obviously not even close to what their goals are it the actions he's taking are directly hurting that effort.

1:29:45Like if he does actually strike power plants or bridges or the civilian lifestyle in Iran will plummet to horrible conditions. And it's already bad, but I mean, we get horrible. And so, and, and, you know, if they strike oil targets, Iran has threatened to strike oil targets throughout the Middle East. And that, I mean, the damage catastrophe globally from that interaction would be horrendous. And it keeps escalating largely because of his escalation. Again, everything he's asking for is to open the Strait of Hormuz, which was already open before we started. So I don't know, man. I think once that guy pivoted, the guy I've been talking to you in Iran, I realized that there's no one, there is no one seeing an upside here.

1:30:28Because that guy was like the last defender.

1:30:30Aiden:And now, okay, so something that I've been trying to follow a little bit is kind of the longer term economic consequences of what's happening right now, right? Because I think there's this there might be this loose idea that in the past month that if you look, you know, it doesn't hire gas prices at the pump, maybe, but an otherwise seemingly functioning society. And I was watching a video breakdown about this and to kind of capture why some of the economic consequences haven't been really realized by regular people yet. One, in reaction to this, a lot of countries around the world are releasing these stockpiles of oil that they have in order to keep prices like as regulated as possible.

1:31:21Aiden:So as a country, you often keep a security, like a reserve of oil in order to deal with turmoil in the market or to get through periods like winter months where energy demand is higher and people need to heat their homes. And you might release some of that stockpile then that you've saved up in order to keep prices somewhat normal for people in order to navigate those times. But in reaction to this supply shock now, most countries around the world are selling off massive chunks of their reserve oil supply in order to keep prices normal. But people are already running out of that supply. And we've now are hitting the time in April where the ships that were providing oil through the strait across the country because these ships move so slow.

1:32:18Aiden:These ships are now not arriving in countries around the world. And the ramifications of not having that oil are starting to hit this month. the timeline so the first the first wave of reactions of uh climbing oil prices yeah uh is has been more like speculative but now the actual reality of people running out of oil because of this uh because of the constraint around the strait right are starting to hit in the month of april with no exact sign of when this is actually going yeah i mean look gas prices are already up like 51 % globally. It's less in America. Uh, fertilizer prices are up 77%. Like this is, this is all while we're still in the early phases of like people figuring it out and like using reserves and draining reserves, the entire, uh, coalition of countries that came together in this emergency to release SPR reserves all at once.

1:33:13It was like 400 million barrels combined, which again is like four days of usage. It's like, it's not a lot. They're, They're putting it out along with other sources. But all this is combining to be not enough if this keeps going on. But what's weird is some countries are getting through. There was a guy, there's that guy, Citrini Research. He sent somebody out just on a boat with a cigar and a pack of beer to go and watch the straight. And he was like filming footage of it. Their tankers are going through, but they're going through this Iranian tollboot they set up where they're just paying a yuan

1:33:50Aiden:and getting through yeah there's certain countries that are considered friendly and are allowed passage or have been allowed to negotiate like pakistan being one of the friendly nations has been able to send like more tankers through i think like 20 or something yeah whereas like japan has recently negotiated and they've been able to send two tankers through france sent one through uh and then other countries like are are not sending anything through but even in the even in the place of like this limited these limited amounts of tankers from specific countries that are allowed to get through that's nowhere near the total oil capacity that there was of the straight yeah of course yeah do you guys know what like is there a point at which iran can't threaten

1:34:36Atrioc:the straight man you know loose understanding right you can do it with so little with drones whatever right but it presumably at some point if you bomb enough things they can no longer threaten the strait i would like a world where we're not obliterating the fucking country

1:34:51Aiden:obviously but i guess there's this weird trade-off that i don't fully understand of in your in the length of time that it takes you to damage enough military targets in iran they are also able to fight back and damage facilities around the Gulf in retaliation. So whether or not those are like, you know, related to energy production or like loading ships or desalination plants, like every bit of retaliation that happens in the Gulf has lasting consequences outside of this. Like say we, everybody sat down their arms and went back to normal right now. the capacity of energy coming out of the strait has already been greatly reduced because of the amount of damage that has been done to facilities already yeah is it like guerrilla drone operators

1:35:44Atrioc:like how are they threatening the strait given how much military you know everything has been bombed by the us and israel directly and that is there is a zero uh percent chance no matter how much they bomb they can stop it as long as the regime is the same and so unless you somehow get regime change because they're there they can do it with a ten thousand dollar drone which is nothing okay as long as they have any income which they still do they have just set up a network that is like you can disperse i've seen it they can set it up with like sheet metal one of these drone launchers and then you can send it out and all it has to do is threaten one ship one time and then the rest of the ships are too afraid they can't get insured nobody will insure a ship to go to the strait if there's a chance of it blows up because the loss is so catastrophic it's billions

1:36:27Aiden:dollars a loss i think there's an also unconfirmed reports of the straight mean mind yeah my understanding is that that's not actually i don't think that's actually like confirmed but it's a

1:36:38Atrioc:fear gotcha gotcha i mean that's it's impressive that they're still able to threaten this like stretch of water despite how much bombing has happened to them like it's wild yeah but i think that's just a miscalculation on the part of getting into the war like i think they have they don't have a navy they're not like it doesn't matter like the fact is that there's 90 million people here and they have a regime that has enough money coming in to always threaten that straight forever like it's just it's a fact of their geographic location and so it's just weird that it wasn't you know there was a new york times article that came out that was um deep diving into the the lead up to this war and all the different people in the cabinet that were talking And, you know, one of the things they said was Hexeth, Rubio, and obviously Netanyahu, and then the Israel government that came in, basically made the pitch that this would be easier than they thought it would be.

1:37:31They would achieve so much militarily that they wouldn't be able to threaten the strait. And that has clearly been untrue. Yeah. And it feels like a big miscalculation.

1:37:38Aiden:Yeah, I think it was, I was reading this earlier, was in the, so Netanyahu is in DC, and they have the head of Mossad on like a call as well. And Israel is pitching like the goals of doing this. And the second set of the two additional goals that they had tacked on to like reducing Iran's nuclear threat were regime change in Iran, like and replacement of the government with a new secular leader, like and fueling a popular uprising in Iran for that to happen. And it was the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, and Rubio both said that this is basically ridiculous. Rubio literally said it's bullshit, like that these goals are completely unlikely to be accomplished if we attack Iran this way.

1:38:32Yeah, Rubio said that these goals, like Israel is basically trying to convince the U.S.

1:38:40Aiden:to do this or like why it's good, right? And they're saying one or two of the things of the four things that they said were there. We can fuel a popular uprising in Iran and we can replace the leader of Iran with a new secular leader and a new secular government. And Rubio in like in the room said it's bullshit. Yeah, there was a there was a quote I pulled out, which was from the president turned to General Cain, which is one of the general for this. It said, General, what do you think? General Cain replied, sir, in my experience, this is standard operating procedure for the Israelis. they're going to oversell it and their plans are not always well developed they need us for this and that's why they're hard selling uh but then mr trump weighed the assessment and said regime change would be their problem it was unclear whether he was referring to the israelis or the

1:39:26Atrioc:iranian people or the american but the bottom line was that his decision was go to war would not hinge on whether parts three and four of netanyahu's presentation were achievable he didn't like he didn't care if that would but it turns out it's his problem it turns out it's all of our problem Like there is no evidence that it's happening. And without it, they could bomb the strait forever. Like there's just no way to stop it. The way the drones have changed warfare, it means you can't, you can threaten more with no money than you ever could before conventionally. It's what's changed everything in Russia, Ukraine.

1:40:00It's what's changing everything here. And so, yeah, I think it's, I don't know, it's pretty disastrous. I wonder what's going to happen. But I guess we can all at least, now that we've recorded through the 5 p.m. period, be happy that he did not fucking...

1:40:12Atrioc:Unless he got the time difference wrong. Right. He's like, oh shit, I'm at Pacific time and we get to do it all over again. This is one of those things where like, I've never obviously been good at talking about politics, but like, this is one where it's so beyond stupid and awful. I'm with you. I don't even like, what do I always fucking say? No, I agree with you in that I actually like talking about politics and I make videos about politics. And I've been uploading less lately because the biggest story in the world is this Iran thing. And the main thing I have to say is that it's bad. And I don't know what else, like it's very frustrating.

1:40:42It's actually frustrating. You know, an interesting angle on it that we can take, we have a few minutes left, is that I think a lot of people are feeling this way. And there's been a push in the past day, ever since that tweet, to talk about invoking the 25th Amendment. And I want to give a little tiny presentation on that because I looked into it. Because the idea is like, hey, this has been one year. The guy is one year in. We have three years left. He is getting clearly worse. I mean, you watch a Trump speech from 2016 versus now. He just looks and sounds worse. And I thought he was great in 2016, but he just is a clear difference.

1:41:15And I think these tweets that he's making, I know you said that like he always does crazy stuff, but they're crazier. To me, this is crazier. Talking about the things he's saying, I think this is even worse than it was before. And so the direction is bad. So a lot of people, not just Democrats, there's Democrat senators, but also Marjorie taylor green uh alex jones tucker carlson uh a lot of people have come out in the past 48 hours and said 25th amendment is ass that's a direct quote from one of them and 25th amendment is it was created after jfk uh was shot and it's like cover succession of the president and because it was like we we wanted a living one right yeah it was like hey well he's not really as useful

1:41:58Atrioc:when he's not when they did it's like nobody liked nobody liked when we did weekend at bernie's with jfk they popped jfk's corpse in the oval office and realized nothing was getting done yeah so they passed they ratified the 20 founding fathers just didn't think about this one they never thought if someone would die and so uh the first three articles of it are basically like what if he's shot what if he's sick whatever but the fourth one is like hey what if he's unfit for office What do we do? How do we get rid of them? And the bad news I have for everybody watching is that it requires one man to be all in.

1:42:32J.D. Vance. Vice President is required. There is no other way around it, even if you had all of Congress agree. The Vice President must invoke Article 25 or 25th Amendment in order to do it. And then he must be agreed by all the heads of the different cabinets. And if they do that, then they can get him out.

1:42:51Atrioc:jd vance i know would never change his values in order to gain power you know what that's a decent point maybe he fucking will he fucking we fucking read his book on book club and in the and in his book he seems like a pretty nice stand-up guy with like good values it's crazy and we talked about how upsetting it is to watch somebody who seems like a person who came out of his hard background become this kind of chameleon in office yeah I mean, a guy who compared Trump to Hitler is now his largest defender, but they asked him about it today. And he went all in defending that specific truth social, the one about civilizational wipeouts.

1:43:28So I don't know. I don't I don't get a lot of sense that he's the best guy for the job. So I'm very, you know, rallying behind what Mark Kelly said, man. I just think people got to vote. I think, you know, I don't think this is a partisan show, but I'm just so fed up with this guy one year in. And I really hope that there's a the Senate changes. That's the thing that was impossible. And now 54 percent chance, which is above 50 on all the betting markets for Democrats to take the Senate. And if they do that, you know, maybe in a world where J.D. Vance pivots again, it's possible.

1:44:02Aiden:I think the one thing I have been thinking about is, I mean, I naturally I am concerned about things like what he had just made some executive order about mail in ballots. Right. Trying to restrict mail in ballots nationwide. Yeah. And I would say other news around him trying to avoid losing in the midterms or potentially running a third time. like these seeds of those things happening, not necessarily it explicitly happening yet. But with this idea of my vote being under threat or like our collective ability to vote being under threat, I, I, my fear was enforced by so many people around him being so lock in step with him.

1:44:54Aiden:But it's interesting to see as more and more people actually challenge him or fall away, even within his own party, It's actually giving me a little bit of more faith than I used to have of like the institutions holding up. Like if if these people that are Republicans are starting to fall away from supporting him, at least vocally, especially in the media, people like Tucker, who have someone like Tucker Carlson, who was diehard for getting Trump into power.

1:45:25Atrioc:i i watch go if you if you want like cathartic someone who used to support trump is now hate him his tucker's most recent video on youtube tucker on trump's desecration of easter and i watched like seven minutes of it this morning and he's like he does this you know trump did this tweet and it's the one where he says open the straights you crazy bastards praise be to allah and he like fucking the he does the adolf hitler like shaking as he puts puts glasses on and then and then reads it word by word and said this was on easter praise me to allah using the f word on easter and his whole thing is like it's about how it's immoral but entirely because it's very anti-christian which is a funny angle he is fucking brutal i'm not here to be never would have taken a year ago extremely yeah direct trump directly it's kind of wild to watch i think that's the thing it's like

1:46:19Aiden:I'm not here to be a Tucker guy and be like, yes, finally, Tucker, speak out. Tucker, be the next guy up. I think I'm not aligned with Tucker on Tucker on most things. I mean, you're like pretty much. We call you mini Tucker off camera. Well, catch me after 9 p.m. I'm talking. I'm talking. I'm speaking the good word. I think lemonade stand here on one side. Your mother Tucker family. My point is my point is if these like figures in right wing media head take public like word or step against Trump, people get more comfortable with falling, like taking their support of Trump away. And I think they're doing, and I think that's the part that makes me, I don't know if hopeful is the right word, but maybe a little more confident that my vote will, is not as at as much of a risk as I thought it was maybe like two or three months ago.

1:47:08For him to like radically subvert the democratic process requires him to have some measure of popularity which is eroding so fast exactly and so yeah i i also am uh you know i like i'm i'm more i don't even know if i'm gonna vote for him again it's like at this point he's really testing my limits like you've had my three votes before mr donald but after this tucker video i don't know it might be out uh but i think that's it

1:47:39Aiden:for Lemonade Stand this week. We'll be back. You know, I'm with this specific topic. Things are changing quickly. Even in the amount of time that we've been recording, they agreed to the two-week ceasefire and I'm sure things can change pretty radically a week from now. So, yeah. Thank you also for supporting our trip to China. We just got back. I mean, I'm fucking tired. I'm going to, I've been going to bed at like 8 p.m. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Getting up at 2 a.m., jet lagged all the shit. It's been rough. But our trip to China was really, really awesome and we got to do it because of your guys' support and funding.

1:48:11Aiden:And if you guys want to check out our extra episode every week on the Patreon, you can go to patreon.com slash lemonade stand. As well as a ton of, yeah, if you join the Patreon, there's a ton of China stuff that we recorded there walking around different parts of the cities and talking about it. And so check that out. Space is fucking sick. Yeah, you know, you kind of won me over on this episode on space. Like I think I want to read more about it and your passion was infectious because I do think it's very exciting. And there's like weird drama between the companies.

1:48:39Atrioc:it's so interesting we need to talk about it and I didn't I kind of didn't want to bring it up you mentioned it Boeing has sucked a large one with this project their portion of the whole thing he seemed a little you didn't want to throw him under the bus I know we gave him the bone for Boeing yeah I was like hey Boeing sucks and he was like well dude it's wild it's wild they're like too big to fail right now because nobody else can make it's anyway crazy space space is wild

1:49:07Aiden:thanks for joining us Thanks everybody. Bye guys.