Episode Title The Late For Changeover Show 10 Jan 2024
Date: Jan 10, 2024
Special event alert. Get out of bed and run! Get on your feet and run. It’s late for changeover.
Your weekly space news and variety show. I’m the host Marty Smith and I’m joined by our man in the closet, Jake Wall. What’s going on guys? Good to see you.
And our favorite teapot, Kevin Falcom. 15 and 0, Go Blue. We’re here to bring you the latest headlines and updates pertinent to all Guardians and to the other lesser branches as well.
So take your seats, get informed, and have a laugh as we present Late for Changeover. Alright, well let’s get it out of the way. Congratulations to Michigan Wolverines.
16 and 0, right? Are they in the 15 and 0? 15 and 0. National champions. First time in 27 years. I guess I never realized that Greasy.
Who was the coach when Greasy won back then? Lloyd Carr. Lloyd Carr. He just started a couple years because they fired Gary Moeller for the strip club incident, which nowadays, that’s just a Wednesday night.
Yeah. And they hired Lloyd and he was there for two or three years and still had a lot of Gary’s players. And they ended up winning the Natty.
That was Charles Woodson. Glenn Steele was an All-American. Brian Greasy.
That was what, 97? 97, yep. We split it with Nebraska because that was Tom Osborne’s last year. God, that’s crazy back then.
I was thinking of Colorado’s national championship when we split with Georgia Tech. It’s like Georgia Tech. Are you kidding me? Yeah, I’m with you there.
AP, UPI, all that shit. You know, back then those voters. So, yeah, congrats.
You’ll hear that fight song a little bit later when we talk mid-shift conversations. So, my gentlemen, it’s good to have you. Eric is filming some extra content for OnlyFans down in Mexico, I believe.
Yeah. Yeah, I don’t know. I think he’s doing a whole dinner cruise series.
Yeah. Or Dinner Fairy. That’s right, Dinner Fairy.
At some point, he’s going to outgrow us, right? Like he’s going to make his millions and we’re just kind of… Oh, he’s just doing this on the side. He’s for retired. Yeah.
He’s actually like a consultant. Yeah. He’s a consultant in his real life job.
And then OnlyFans pays for the sugar mama. Because she’s the brains in the outfit. Eric’s just… That’s pretty obvious.
Eric’s going way above in his league right there, man. I’ll take his coverage. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. We had the privilege of going to dinner at their house. And I was like, Eric, how the hell? Oh, it’s amazing.
With those spindly ass thighs, how’d you pull this wonderful woman? Oh, is he a little top head? Yeah, is he? She’s beautiful and delightful. And financially smart. Oh, my goodness.
It blew my mind. It gave me hope for me. Really? At this point… You know, I’ve gone feral at this point.
Everybody knows that. He actually is living the life that I aspire to. And I know I can never get to.
I’m like, ugh, I’ll never get to travel. You know, what are you talking about? You know, I’ve mismatched my money. He is not.
And Mike Johns is sick. I was trying to come up with something. I don’t have anything big burn.
He’s sick. If he has a swooty-boo, he can just stream from the toilet. She’s like, I can’t come because I stubbed my vagina.
Moving a couch. That’s what he did. That’s how we’re going to remember it.
The old vagina stub. Moving the couch. That was the best of us, man.
You can’t just have a conversation with the robbing down there. Oh, gosh, yes. It’s got to hurt.
Yeah, I don’t doubt that. But, but good to see you guys. And should we jump into the news here? Oh, yeah.
Since there’s no history. There’s no history. Eric.
Eric is Mr. History. Viewership has tripled. On that note, just put that in the comments of Marty, please.
No history. It was funny last week. You miss the T five because he came on before the show and he’s go, I got something kind of boring.
And I was like, you got to get some history that we can all like talk about. He goes, okay, I’ll do that. But this one’s kind of boring.
So last week when I was like, all right, Eric, hit me with your boring history. Oh, please. Give me that boring crap.
I don’t know why we didn’t even do it. We didn’t even do it. I don’t know why, but I don’t remember.
So. Went long bullshitting about other stuff. We were sitting a lot of things.
Yeah, that’s true. All right. Let’s do some space stories here.
This one is shit. I didn’t put it down here. No.
This one is from space news dot com. So Pentagon agencies team up in upcoming launch of hypersonic tracking satellites. So you guys might know a little bit about this.
So satellites developed by the missile defense agency and the space development agency. And I’ll I’ll I’ll describe the difference between the two agencies later. We’ll be part of a national security space mission currently projected for the second quarter of two thousand twenty four.
So let’s look at this picture, which I know you guys are familiar with. However, however. So this picture shows the blue is kind of well.
The the upper left with NGP and NGG, which is next gen polar and next gen geo satellites, then the existing DSP slash Sibbers, which I don’t know how long those those last couple of DSPs. But man, those guys will not give it up. Look, you got to hand it to those engineers.
Honestly, they are the best job security. And we got a we got a sensor degradation of sixty five percent, but they’re still sensing. They’re still.
I mean, there’s people that have been contractors up there for 30 years at least. Like, remember, like rocket for launched, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah.
Oh, yeah, we’ve been up there. But it’s a simple design and it’s just it’s enduring. Yeah.
But the Sibbers program with the heels and the geos. Right. So they’re detecting the missile launches and then comes along this HB TSS.
So we’ll talk about that in a second. MDA’s National Security Mission designated USF 124 includes six satellites designed to track hypersonic missiles. Now, I can’t remember if this goes into it, but hypersonic.
They’re the ones that can maneuver. Right. They’re that fast.
And then when they reentry and they and they they can maneuver along instead of just taking a straight. What’s that? It’s when they just it’s not a ballistic arc. Yeah.
You could that’s it from from that first like if you just look at from that boost phase, you can naturally think of how that boost phase line will play out. Can you see right? You can. I do this.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
I mean, if you look at that boost phase, it just does a beautiful arc, you know, kind of thing. But if you can reenter and glide, then you have the ability to maneuver and do other things. Now, I’ll I’ll explain things like I’m explaining them to my daughter.
Right. Yeah. So the old missiles used to go boost and then just come straight back down.
Right. Yeah. Now these boosts and they come back into the atmosphere and then they can, like it says, pull up and now they can maneuver along.
So we can’t shoot them down as easy. So that’s the whole thing. For the satellites or missile tracking sensors by L3 Harris for this space development agencies tracking layer constellation.
The other two satellites, one made by L3 Harris and the other by Northrop Grumman are part of missile defense agencies, hypersonic and ballistic tracking space sensor program. So not to get too complicated here, but the tracking layer is envisioned as a global network of sensors to provide a defense shield against Russian and Chinese ballistic and hypersonic missiles, which can maneuver. So when they were just coming back in ballistically, we had a pretty good shot at trying to shoot them down.
Now they can maneuver around and glide and we don’t know where they’re going. So we have to develop our technology, increase our technology so they can shoot them down. Both the tracking layer and HBTSS, hypersonic and ballistic tracking space sensor.
That’s the, that’s on the slide right there. Hypersonic and ballistic tracking space sensor program, which is a horrible acronym. They could have come up with some, I mean, Sibbers was a horrible, horrible acronym, but it’s better.
I mean, what do you call this? HBTSS? HBTSS? HBTSS? Somebody wasn’t feeling very froggy with that. I know. Come on, L3 Harris.
You gotta do better. But if I were a smart investor, knowing the longevity of Northrop Grumman and Sibbers, I would probably take my money on L3 Harris and HBTSS. HBTSS.
HBTSS. Both the tracking layer and HBTSS are pieces of a planned multi-layered missile defense architecture. The fire control technology that HBTSS is seeking to demonstrate is required to be able to intercept hypersonic weapons.
So all that looks good. That’s what they’re planning on doing. Not for, what, a couple years, I think, 2024, or this year.
Now, here’s the problem. The joint MDA-SDA launch comes as a Congressional Defense Committee continue to pressure the Pentagon to clarify the responsibilities of each agency when it comes to missile tracking. Some lawmakers have suggested SDA, Space Defense Agency, which was established in 2019 to rapidly develop and launch next-generation space capabilities.
Some lawmakers have suggested that they should take over the mission entirely from a missile defense agency, while others, so it depends on who you’re getting paid by, right? So while other lawmakers argue that MDA needs to retain that authority due to its decades of experience tracking ballistic missiles, Kelly Saylor, S-A-Y-L-E-R, Saylor, a defense analyst at the Congressional Research Service noted in a report earlier this year that one of the issues to watch is how MDA and SDA work together, even though they report to different bosses. MDA is part of the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, whereas SDA reports to the U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations and to the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition and Integration. Do you guys see a problem there? Nope.
Good. I came from the program, Marty. I came from the MDA.
I know you did. Right. It should stay with MDA.
MDA, so I was in the digital engineering realm, models and simulation, that sort of thing, and the MDA was substantially farther ahead. They’re communicating. They’re talking.
They want to get this right, because the capability between NGG and a MIO track custody layer and this HPTSS is an absolute game changer. You’re talking cradle to grave tracking. Like, we cannot mess this up.
I think they’re going to get it right, man. There are some really smart people that are in on this early. So, while Kevin froze up, to break all those acronyms down.
I’m pretty confident that they’re going to get it right. What do you mean by they’re going to get it right? They’re going to work together. I think they’re going to enable each other.
They’re going to do what MDA does best. They’re going to do what SDA does best. They’re going to mesh.
They’re going to figure it out. There’s just too much at stake. There’s too much on the line.
Well, SDA’s acquisitions thing. So, it makes sense to rapidly acquire the prototype, rapidly field the capability, and then hand it off to the operational guys that are fueling it, maintaining it day in, day out. But, hold on a second.
For the civilian random, like the four random civilians that we have out there, what Kevin was talking about, when you launch a missile, what you need to do is track that object from launch all the way to impact. So, you can target it appropriately, right? So, you launch it, certain satellites pick it up. They track it.
They can no longer see it at a certain point. So, they hand that information over to another agency or another capability, like MEO, medium Earth orbit satellites, that then track that not burning object. And then, right? And then, they take all that information and mix it together, and then they’ll track it as far as they can do it, and then they’ll hand it over to agencies that have the potential of shooting it down or intercepting it or doing something about it.
So, to fully do that capability, there’s multiple groups of people and capabilities to do that. You’re right. And I think if there’s a hand-off portion, right? Yeah.
That would be great. But with no clear lines, the problem is, is like, okay, now we’re over budget and we’re behind schedule. Which one of you two agencies, how do we resolve this, right? How do we get forward in this? What do we have to cut? What do we have to not test as much? And that’s where the issue is going to come in.
And we’ve been around long enough, you, that when there’s competing issues for money, there’s somebody like, hey, who’s fault is this? And they’re both like the SDG guys, right? And these aren’t the only things they’re paying for, right? Right. Right. And this is going to go into billions if it’s not already.
Oh, no, it already is. And that’s why I left. I didn’t want to leave.
They shelved my program, which is probably a two-year turnaround. Really? Oh, really? Yeah. I’m like, dang, man.
Like, I love the job. I love the team. Love the mission.
I’m just like, I don’t like job security wise. I’m like, man. When they’re making those, when those are making those decisions up there congressionally and they’ll start blowing down and then we’re down here doing the work and they’re like, uh, okay, we had to streamline you.
And they’re like, oh, God damn. And people don’t realize the downstream effect that that causes because as soon as you pause something, it’s significantly more difficult to pick it back up. So because there is a technology gap in that pause and there’s an experience gap in that pause.
And then, you know, it’s right. It almost would be better to almost dial, keep the, keep everything going, but dial back the funding a little bit and just keep it maintained and then pick it, bump it back up. But that’s where they’re, that’s where they always go, right? Funding is always the first.
Well, they just go done. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I don’t know. I just, it seems like we’ve witnessed too many fights contract wise.
Uh, oh, this was, uh, MDA didn’t come through on this or SDA is behind on this. They’re just like, God dang, this thing is going to be, and then not only those two organizations, but now you’re going to get us space for us. Uh, right.
Fighting with the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. Who wins on that? I don’t know. So I don’t know.
Uh, hopefully they get it right. I had a note here. Uh, it’s like playing two starting quarterbacks, right? I’m trying to handle it all.
Hand it off. It’s like, oh, it was, it was, it was really good. It’s actually a super good analogy, Marty.
Damn. No starting quarterback, right? Yeah. Thank you very much.
Yeah. That’s really good. No, it’s true though.
It. Money’s the ultimate factor, right? And you have. That.
Over promise factor with contracts. And when it starts to slow down there, there’s a panic in the government, which I don’t blame them, right? I’m just not on that side of the coin. And it, it’s ramifications.
So like, you know, you shelved my program. Okay. You know, you, you let people go lay them off, whatever.
They’ll find work there. There’s tons of work in this, in this space. But like, yeah.
If you come back in here and say, Hey, we want to want you to come back, like, you’re going to pay me. You’re going to, you know, do you have the resources? Like it’s, it’s not just the, Hey, we’re gonna start it back up. Let’s go.
It’s, oh boy. Yeah. And Jake, Jake hit on that technology wise.
Like it’s been a year and a half. What, what Red Hat, Linux are we at? You know, like what do I have to do? I mean, and cyber is the biggest player in all of this, man. Cyber is just a bear.
It’s a beast. Did you move companies teapot? Yeah, I did. I left Parsons, man.
I did not want to. That’s the other thing. I think if you move companies and that like, let’s pretend like, well, Parsons is my current company, but let’s pretend like Parsons maintains that contract.
But yet they’re like, Hey, this contract slowed down. We don’t have anything for you. We don’t have anything with your expertise level in the company.
We got to let you move on or we got to let you go space nerds. We’re like deuces fine on it. I mean, it sounds calloused, but that’s true.
And then two years down the road, Parsons still has that contract and they’re like, okay, we’re giving you 14 million now. Right. Pick it back up.
And you’re like, dude, all my guys left the company. Yeah. And even the half that I was able to retain an employee, they’re now working on machine learning or they’re now working on.
Yeah. You’ve lost all the exercise position. I can’t pull them off of that.
Right. You’ve lost all your inherent knowledge from that program. Yeah, they’ve gone because even though they wanted to stay, they can’t, you know, you can’t, I want to get around, but I don’t want to also be out of work.
That’s exactly. And even if they are in the same company, they’ve moved onto a different contract. So they’re not just sitting around waiting for you to turn on that financial spigot again.
Right. Right. Now, the good thing about this, as far as contracts go, I’ve always said, and you can debate me on this, but I’ve always said the two most important contracts in space are GPS and missile warning.
Right. And I used to get excited when it, when you were watching a, oh, North Korea lots of missile and you like, oh, good, good. You know, what was the, uh, what, what, what was the name of the, uh, program where you’re, if your program has to go for congressional review.
None. McCurdy. McCurdy.
And normally three or four of those things. No. It’s probably more like six or eight.
If you total them up. Right. For a program to even get to a none McCurdy evaluation, it’s done.
Like so blatantly. It’s so blatantly over budget and underperforming. It’s unbelievable.
You might surprise one. Yeah. Maybe.
Yeah. Yeah. Sivers is just like, hold my beer, bitches.
I got seven. But it’s all going all the way back to the eighties with star Wars, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s vital. It’s critical.
Yeah. And so it goes to programs. Well, always now funding grudgingly grudgingly from Congress, but they’ll always get funding.
You’re not going to shit can it now. I’m very, very interested how star link is going to affect the GPS. So I would have fully agreed with you with GPS and, and missile warning.
That’s good point. Honestly, missile warning is in my mind out. I’m very interested to see how star link and the positioning of star link will affect that because they have.
Missile warning. Thousands. Oh, not missile warning of GPS.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And they’re putting it, they’re putting them up to areas notoriously with no coverage. Yeah. Yeah.
He said it. Yeah. I’m putting them there, you know, with the deserts.
Yep. I don’t, I think, I think redundancy is the key to space power in this instance, in this instance. Like I think there are too many vulnerabilities with star link, even the government side.
I’m interested to see how that will affect the GPS. Yeah. Yeah.
It’s capabilities or secure monopoly on everything. Yeah. Right.
Yeah. That makes sense. So I mean, if star link can provide the same timing, why pay the government? Yeah.
Yep. So yeah, it’s a good point. So anyway, I thought it was interesting.
And I was a great combo fellas. I wish Mike would have been on because he had some contract stuff that he wanted to talk with, but you know, he got the pod flu, I guess. Scooty poos, scooty poos gets you every time, man.
Every damn time, man. Jake knows. Yeah.
I know. Okay. Let’s talk about, let’s talk about another one.
This one’s interesting. Just because the latter half of it. So for military.com moon landings are now going to be done by commercial companies.
They got several who are trying to get up to the moon. But this one company says it’s moon landing attempt is in jeopardy because of an engine problem. And actually I got a updated version of this military.com article that said it ain’t going to make the moon.
So Pittsburgh based Astrobotic technology was aiming to be the first private businesses success successfully land on the moon. Something only four countries have accomplished. A second lander from a Houston company is due to launch next month.
But NASA gave both of these companies millions to build and fly their own lunar landers. So I know NASA has I can’t remember. They have a plan to go back to the moon and I can’t remember what it is.
But these companies are buying and NASA’s giving them millions of dollars to try to figure out a better way to go. Well, uh, Astrobotic. All right.
They they launched on Monday and the spacecraft separated here. In fact, I’ll do this. I don’t know where Jake went.
Scooty poos, man. Gotta get you. All right.
Are you seeing the lander there? Yeah. Okay. That’s a astrobotics peregrine lander peregrine.
Isn’t that a little like like a penguin kind of thing? The peregrine? No idea. No. You’re smarter than me.
You should know that. You’re history guy. Come on.
I’m not a history guy. Well, I am kind of a history guy. Not pretty much anybody who was an officer in the Army is history guy.
Come on. Well, that’s true. And it’s funny because I remember my freshman year learning history from Matloft.
If you’ve ever read Matloft history, it is the driest, boringest history you’ve ever read. It’s like the Civil War. They had 3,000 troops and 2,000 troops, and they advanced towards each other.
You’re like, God damn, there’s no nothing here. I mean, oh, hydration is the key to space power. Round two.
What is that mug? That’s not the official podcast mug. Yeah, it’s not the official podcast mug. This is handmade.
I know that. That’s true. You’ve shown that before, right? I had to go.
I do. I do already. Sorry.
It was one of those days. Next one will be. Yeah, it’s always next one.
The peregrine is a falcon and predator bird. Oh, it is. Oh, I thought it was.
Oh, maybe I was thinking of like the puffin. The fastest flying bird in the world. Oh, I did not know that peregrine falcon.
Yep. Look at that. I was listening.
I apparently you were researching too. That’s pretty good. That was all in here while I was pouring booze.
Astrobotics contract with NASA for the peregrine lander was a hundred and eight million dollars for that thing. Which is which seems like a bargain, actually. Yeah, it seems pretty cheap.
It seems pretty cheap, really. That’s awful for us to say. Oh, man, that’s good.
And so what a deal. Well, all right. So Monday’s moonshot also demonstrated the long delayed initial test flight.
Move to Vulcan rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. This rocket is essentially an upgraded version of ULA’s successful Atlas five, which is being phased out along with the company’s Delta four. Jeff Bezos rocket company Blue Origin provided the Vulcans two main engines.
ULA declared success once the lander was free of the rocket’s upper stage nearly an hour into the flight. Now, this is this is an update from New York Daily News just a couple hours ago, about four hours ago. U.S. aeronautics company Astrobotic Technology said a fuel leak gives its lunar lander no chance of becoming the first U.S. spacecraft of more than 50 years to land on the moon.
Trouble began soon after the aircraft launched Monday from Cape Canaveral. The Paragon was supposed to arrive on the moon’s surface February 23rd. But Astrobotic said Monday.
February 23rd. That’s like a month and a half. What kind of orbit are they doing? Anyway, Astrobotic said Monday a critical loss of power threatened to render the unit helpless by today, by Wednesday, actually.
A recalculation early Tuesday afternoon indicated the lander still had 40 hours of stored power but would fall short of its lofty goal. The problem was, let’s see, the problem was they had an issue with one of the valves that didn’t shut. So it basically lost all its propellant.
All right. No, that sucks. Yeah.
So it has no propellant. It has power, but it has no power. Fuel leak.
It has no fuel. Yeah, it was a fuel leak. Oh, here it is.
A valve between the helium pressure and the oxidizer failed to reseal, causing the ladder to rupture. Much like a Boeing emergency door. Much like Flight 23.
Oh, yeah, Boeing emergency door. Oh, that’s good. Right? We’ll never know what happened.
Black boxes are erased. Yeah. Have you erased them? I thought you couldn’t erase them.
I don’t understand that. We recorded over it. Come on now.
You got some ABBA recording. Oh, it’s like, I don’t know how that got on there. It could be worse, I guess.
That was a mistake. Yeah. The ship still had enough propellant to operate as a rocket and is gathering useful information for a planned 2024 project.
So it’s just an orbit. It’s just, it’s better than Flight 23, but it’s not much better than Flight 23. Too soon, Marty.
That’s too soon. Come on. No, man.
Nobody died. Whatever. I would love for somebody to comment on that if they knew what I was talking about.
That would be awesome. Too soon. Now, listen to this one.
I thought this was interesting. Landing on the Moon has been a series of hits and misses. The Soviet Union and the US racked up a string of successful moon landings in the sixties and seventies before putting lunar landings on pause.
China joined the elite club in 2013. India did it last year. I didn’t know that.
Did you know that? How did we miss that story? You guys got to bring these stories up. This is a good idea. I’m too busy watching a national championship.
Yeah. Yeah. I apologize.
India passed China in the population too. Good bit ago. Well, yeah.
Right. Right there. They’re battling for.
Supremacy. Watch out. Now in China’s fallen off my friends.
Come on, China. You got better. You can do better.
Well, COVID put a, put a kibosh. For a little while. They’ll recover.
Maybe. Maybe to reinvigorate their Yao Ming eugenics project. They might.
They might. Uh, but last year saw Landers from Russia and a private Japanese company slam into the moon. An Israeli nonprofit crashed in 2019.
So here’s the, here’s the interesting, interesting part. So astro bio, astrobiotics, astrobiotics, astrobotics got their lunar lander up there, but it ran out of fuel. So it’s just going to orbit.
It’s not going to make the move. But besides flying experiments for NASA, astrobotics drummed up its own business packing the six foot tall, which is what you see right there. Paragon lander with everything from a chip of rock from Mount Everest.
Why? Right. Why would somebody pay for a chip of rock on Mount Everest to be put on that lander that you see on the screen? Because I touched the highest point ever. And I chipped it off and now it’s three inches shorter.
And toy size cars from Mexico that will catapult to the lunar surface and cruise around. I wish I had that kind of money, man. I know it doesn’t even make any sense.
So they are just giving each other a blow every day. Yeah. Here’s the thing.
Like if somebody in the future finds this and they’re like, what the fuck? What is wrong with these people? And they’re going to go like, oh, they value this more than anything. This was the greatest thing ever. They worship this and even people nowadays are like, why the hell do we do that? We don’t even know.
And how much did you pay to put that on there? You paid that. Come on. All right.
So they also paid for the ashes and DNA of deceased space enthusiasts, including Star Trek creator, Jean Roddenberry and science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clark. Yeah. So ashes and DNA, I don’t know which one is which, but they bought room on that lander that you see on the screen to put that on there, assuming that it was going to the moon.
Is it going to at least orbit the moon? No, I don’t know. I don’t know what orbit it’s in. It’s just chucked off in the space.
I don’t think it’s in the lunar orbit. I don’t think it’s just going to go burn up in the sun. That could be worse, right? Just throw the sun, man.
Let’s go. I mean, cooler. It’s still a cool story.
I mean, like Jean Roddenberry going full on. Even if it had made it to the moon, it’s just going to sit there on the moon. I mean, that’s still kind of cool.
I think. I think it’s ridiculous, but it’s still all right. That’s cool.
I guess if you got a million bucks like it, you want to take these ashes up there? Yeah, for a million bucks. Okay. Is that what they charged? I don’t know.
I don’t know. They might have been like some nonprofit publicity. Oh, no, they were trying to recoup some money, etc.
It was like, oh, we’re selling shit off. So the estate of Jean definitely is down a couple of buckets. It said cargo fares for Paragrin range from a few hundred dollars to one point two million per kilogram.
One point two million for two pounds of whatever you want to put on there. How much is the average? I don’t know what they earn. You better hope it’s not all of it.
It’s just like a freaking one of those necklace earns or something like that. Yeah. Or it’s in the remote control car.
Like we could save you some money. I’ve got this Ziploc bag here, which is lightweight. Exactly.
Really light. Really light. Yeah.
Well, you can’t see a problem with that. I get it. You know, good on the company trying to recoup some of the money.
Yeah. Well, we got some we got some space, throw some stuff on there. Can’t see a problem with that.
Right. Well, there was a protest. This one is crazy.
Who do you think protested the ashes going up to the moon? You’ll never guess it. So, yeah, the Navajo Nation recently sought to have the launch delayed because of the human remains. The Navajo Nation.
They said it would be a quote profound desecration of a celestial body revered by Native Americans. Who was in a room? So like, you know what? No offense, please Navajo Nation. But it’s just like, oh my God.
Don’t come for us. But good night, guys. Come on.
Obviously not a fan of Star Trek. Well, apparently not. Which I think they were.
Like. Just dust to dust, man. Like the ratio of dead body dust to moon dust.
It’s whole. Insignificant. You know, and it does go back.
Hey, you know, such a mainstay of Western movies in the 60s and 70s, right? There’s like, oh, Indian burial ground. Can’t go through Indian burial ground. Yeah, that’s right.
That’s such a trope. But maybe it’s true. I don’t know.
I mean, I can understand. As a creating. Earthside.
Right. Right. Yes.
Let’s not desecrate burial grounds. OK. Oh, no, we worship the moon.
Sprinkle a little ashes. And we can’t have any human remains up on the moon. And a little bit of ashes versus the 14 vehicles that have crashed and just rotting up there.
Like, you didn’t have a problem with those. You didn’t go to Japan and be like, hey, guys, the Israeli one. It’s like a cartoon rocket stuck in the.
Yeah. You know, still in the eye. Still smoking.
That’s not desecrating. That’s what you have a problem with. But that’s actually really interesting.
I would like to know more about why. Like, is there a deeper like story behind that? Because isn’t the moon and the earth kind of the same? Didn’t like a crash happen and the earth formed and the moon? Like, aren’t they split off like. Yeah.
Aren’t they like. Yeah. I’ve heard that.
I’ve heard that theory before. But listen to this. One of the space flight memorial companies that bought room on the CELES.
They said in a statement that no single culture or religion owns the moon and should not be able to veto a mission. More remains are on the rocket’s upper stage, which was boosted into a perpetual orbit around the sun, reaching as far out as Mars. Wow.
So people are paying. I don’t know how to become space trash. Do we have to track that shit? Apparently.
Yeah. We literally had this conversation today because right. We do that software that tracks all the space.
Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Right. Right. My coworker Vinny goes, I would pay for that just so you guys and he’s significantly older.
Well, I don’t know. Maybe two years older than all of us, but significantly older than all of us. He goes, I would pay for that just so I could have like Vinny debris.
Number four. Nice. Like you’d have to track that and modify your mission according to this chunk of my ashes.
I was like, Oh, good call. Tracking tracking his buck. Crack man.
Great. Really good. Yeah.
Yeah. Dig it. So I thought you guys will find that part of the article funny because I saw it and I was like, are you kidding me? This article should have been all about that.
Yeah. You know, screw their leak. Screw their loss of propeller.
It should have been all about that, but that’s America. That perpetual orbit around the moon is kind of cool. Around the.
Around the sun is kind of cool. Going up to Mars. I mean, Jesus.
That would be great if they could have like, Oh, he’s coming back in seven years. You’ll be able to see him again. Seven years.
Yeah. A little Haley’s common action. A little Vinnie’s Comet.
Look at Vinnie’s buck crack. I can see it. Well, let’s finish up.
I was going to go into a depressing one. About asbestos and cancer leak toxin. Let’s say that one.
Let’s save that one. You want to say that. All right.
Yeah, let’s say that. Because I actually know people that are active in that. Okay.
We’ll see. Well, let’s let’s finish on a good note. So from stripes.com. Miss America field features an Air Force officer who champions cancer research.
Okay. So pretty good story. That’s I don’t know what year that was taken, but this is Madison Marsh.
She is now a second lieutenant. Madison Marsh. Madison Marsh was shooting for the stars four years ago when she entered the Air Force Academy as a cadet with a pilot’s license and the dream of becoming an astronaut.
These days, Marsh is the second lieutenant pursuing graduate studies in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy school through a special Air Force partnership program. And she’s a Miss America contest. So she.
She’s rising her way to the top. No, I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding.
So. All right, Madison. She was named Miss Colorado in May last year.
She became the first active duty officer to vie for the Miss American crown. An Air Force Academy spokesman said the competition will be held January 6th through the 14th. So this week at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, I didn’t know she was Miss Colorado.
That’s pretty cool. Yeah. It said it’s so on her name tag on her.
It does. It does say that. So let’s see.
So that’s her. Smart. Attractive.
Would you save some shit for the rest of us? I know. Kind of like one of those. Like save some shit for the rest of us.
Come on, LT. What about the troops? Yeah. She is an embarrassment of riches.
Quote. I lost my mom about five years ago to pancreatic cancer and I started a nonprofit almost immediately afterwards with my family to raise money and awareness of pancreatic cancer for people in our town. My God.
And she’s philanthropic. Teapot. What have you done for this world? I feel like a piece in your trash right now.
Okay. That’s what I feel like. That’s incredible.
Yeah. At first I’m a little jealous. I’m like, oh, okay.
She’s going to Air Force Academy. I’m a little jealous of that. And she graduated from.
Okay. Good. She got she got a pilot slot.
Right. But she said she started to realize that her bigger passions were making policy and cancer research. So that’s why I ended up at the Kennedy School in September.
March started a two years master degree program in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School through the Air Force Institute of Technology Civilian Institute programs. While in Massachusetts in Massachusetts, she will also work with the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and a professor from the Harvard Medical School to research early detection of pancreatic cancer. God damn.
Do the real deal, man. I’m getting the hats off to that. The real deal.
My goodness. And she’s competing for Miss America this week. You know, I think the 14th is the actual show.
All right. But she’s out of Walt Disney World. So that’s freaking ridiculous.
I’m going to ask her a question. She’s going to drop a 27 minute monologue that are going to make people’s like that explode. Like, oh, okay.
You want to ask some super questions? Let me break this down. I don’t know. There’s there’s always that like stereotype of.
Well, patching that one girl, the Iraq. Remember that back in the day. Iraq.
We need more. We need more dictionaries in the Iraq or whatever. That would solve the war.
Great. And then you look at that. Unfortunately, that’s the stereotype of the Miss America.
Miss universe. Miss whatever. You look at that and then you look at this as this.
It’s amazing. The LT is as a contestant. You’re like, holy crap.
So it changed my whole mindset. Right. The potential of these people.
Well, and then a lot of those candidates are are pageant candidates. Yeah. You know, they do a lot of stuff because they’re like, hey, this will look good on your resume.
This will look good on your resume. You know, go, go volunteer at the dog shelter or whatever. Her mother died from pancreatic cancer.
They started a nonprofit and she’s going to get educated on policy to do that. Not only that, which is amazing, right? And some of those other candidates do a lot of amazing stuff too. She went through the Air Force Academy.
She graduated. From the Academy and whatever you think about it, the Academy life sucks. Well, I’ve used a basic training, right? Yeah, you’re right.
You’re right. And every summer you got to go do something, right? So and you got to play a sport or a club sport or something like that. So it’s not easy.
And and she got slotted as a pilot, which she gave up. It’s like, I’m good. Okay.
That, that right there, that pilot slot, those are coveted slot. Yeah. You got to be top whatever fits in 10%.
Yeah. A pilot slot. Yeah.
Well, she was good. So I, like I said, I first started reading this and it’s like, it’s like when I hear about Eric going, Eric, I played football in Turkey and like, yeah, you fuck it. You weren’t even doing, you weren’t even doing your duties.
You were just sharking duties, right? And so when I started playing football, I played Johnny fuck around and get paid for it. I’m in. Right.
So I started reading this article. I’m like, oh, here we go. Another pretty blonde, you know, but you start reading through it and you’re like, second Lieutenant Marsh.
Good on you, man. That’s, that’s pretty bad ass. What you’ve done.
Sorry about your mom, but what you’ve turned that into. That’s amazing. That’s amazing.
And I didn’t know she wouldn’t miss Colorado. I didn’t even know we had a miss Colorado. Well, we have a miss whatever state, but well, yeah, but I mean, I didn’t know when it was.
Do they do that every year? Yeah, I think so. Okay. You really need to be work on the like more misogynist or something like that, right? Yeah.
Come on. Yeah. Come on.
All right. The Air Force and Space Force are populated with many 24 hour ops centers working extended midships in these centers can lead to health problems and irritability at the least. But it can also lead to some of the best conversations I’ve ever experienced at zero 200 hours in the morning.
Right. Oh, man. So we’re starting a new segment tonight called Midshift Conversations.
You know, if the listeners ever want to give us a topic, that would be awesome. We could probably be delightful. Wouldn’t it? I know.
That’d be awesome. So I don’t know how to cut that. Either way, they do our national championship talk, but but that’s the topic of the day and to support teapot.
We’re going into random football. Cut talk. That’s true.
That’s right. Right. Let’s talk national championship.
So I was with a guy. I was watching I was watching Ohio State, the bowl game that they played in. And the guy sat next to me and he goes, who are you pulling for? I was like, well, Ohio State’s like the Raiders for me.
I always just kind of I always default against them. I don’t know. I’ve always had enough.
I love that. You’re a good man, Marty. Well, I’ve always had an affinity for Michigan and Notre Dame.
Plus, my wife is from Kalamazoo. So okay. Well, that’s right.
I forgot about that. Well, Willie and I were roommates for a long time and we still work together. He’s Notre Dame.
I yeah. Oh yeah. Well, it’s new.
Yeah. Yeah. And he’s white.
So he’s a good Catholic boy. Yeah. Notre Dame all the way.
Right. But I have heard Notre Dame’s fight songs so much because we used to play as roommates. I would be in one room playing NCAA football and he would be in the other room playing NCAA football.
And we would like that way together. Notre Dame’s fight song. Oh yeah.
Yeah. I was going to ask you, can you say the fight song? There were years there that I think they’re just ranked just on nostalgia. I’m like, oh yeah.
Yeah. Like you don’t play anybody and yet you’re constantly ranked in the top 10 at the beginning. Michigan’s the same way.
Come on. That’s true. But Michigan comes back and earns it on occasion.
You know, Notre Dame throw them into the big boy leagues and let, let them earn that fricking thing. You know, so I think. If what I am.
They’re coming to the big 10. They’re going to have to if, if Clemson Miami and Florida leave the ACC and then that’ll be Carolina and Virginia. Like they’re going to have to suck it up and it’ll be the big 10.
Yeah. Fuck Notre Dame. All right.
There. But here’s the record. This is also from a place of spite because they just pounded the crap out of the beavers in like the fucking cheese it spicy for label.
Oh, did they win? Yeah. Yeah. Whatever it was.
Yeah. The fricking strawberry pop tarts bowl or whatever the crap was. It was like Kansas state one.
And they, and they, and they dropped the mascot down into a toaster and then it came out of the heart and like the players were eating it. I was like, dude, that is genius. That’s ridiculous.
I mean, as dumb as some of these bulls are at least. Right. But you know, at least embrace it Marty, big biggest racket out there.
Those bowl game managers are presidents. They’re making a million, $2 million. Like that’s why they don’t want to give it up, man.
That is a huge racket. Well, and that was smart because I remember saying that, you know, before the playoff system and we were having a conversation about that. I’ve made ship conversation and they’re like, leave all the bowls.
Just use them as playoff games. So which is essentially what they’ve done. Yeah.
They’re kind of doing that now. And now I think it’s going to be in 16 for some of the teams. Is it next year? Some of them are full on bullshit though.
Yeah. They’re like, Oh, I agree. Yeah.
Insurance company has enough money to buy a bowl game. Yeah, exactly. And we’re, can we get somebody that’s at least above 500 average? Come on.
I mean, you’re talking about nostalgia. You talk about nostalgia and let’s go back to where it was the big eight. The big eight champion always played in the orange bowl.
Yeah. I think it was big eight and highest independent. I think.
And Rose Bowl was always big 10. Rose Bowl. I think that was the beginning of the end.
Right. Yep. And I, I don’t know if the cotton bowl had a. Well, It was 10 pack 10, but.
Yeah. That’s right. It was packed 10.
And so we let call her out. I think that was the beginning of the end. That was.
Colorado in when they weren’t pack. It was Colorado and Utah. Yeah.
When you dominated. For whatever reason. Utah is gonna dominate the Big 12 too, watch, watch.
Oh yeah, dude, Whitty Hand can coach, man. Yeah, it’s great. Did you see his hair, he grew out of his hair this year? He got awesome flow.
Him and Mike Gundy, best hair in the game. Best hair in the game, man. We can appreciate that, we can appreciate it like all.
I do gotta tell you, it’s a flow of locks. From watching the national championship game. My eyes get all big, like damn.
You talk about- I’m not checking out your girl. Checking out that flow, baby. You talk about Apple not falling far from the fucking tree when they showed Harbaugh’s parents.
I was like, Jesus, that’s just an older Harbaugh, man. They’re a fucking spitting image. He’s 50-50.
I think his brother coaches are Ravens is the one who doesn’t really look like him all. No, uh-uh. But Jim- Do you guys know Greg McElroy? He has a college football podcast.
He had such a funny Harbaugh story. Oh yeah. It’s probably a minute and a half long when he met Jim.
Check it out, man. It is so funny. Jim is just a different cat, man.
He eats, lives, breathes, shits football, man. Yeah, but look at his dad. He gets up there and he’s like, who fucking has it better? And they believed him.
I don’t know how they believed him. Three seconds. Harbaugh said it.
They saw it. You play football, you coach football, then you die. Yeah, they live it, man.
They are the epitome of it. What did his family do? Because they were supposedly like, kind of broke growing up, or? Yeah, his dad was a coach for years. Yeah, just the coaches didn’t make money.
Yeah, okay, okay. That was before the big money coaching came on. Yeah.
Well, I think they’re sitting pretty now. I don’t know, some, I guess. Well, but you know Harbaugh’s got a year left and then he’s gonna go some more.
I think he’s gone. I think he’s, I mean, he took us to the pinnacle, man, from where he was. He’s already talking, or there’s rumors about him going to NFL.
I don’t know if that’s from his scam or from the NFL. He hired a, he has an agent that negotiated with Michigan and he has an agent that negotiates with the NFL, ye. And he’s big time.
And that, there was a story that leaked about 10 years, 125 million from Michigan that came from his NFL agent to set the market. Because I think he wants the Chargers. And I think, because the Chargers are notoriously cheap.
The Spandos family. I actually, you guys know Craig Thompson? You guys are running to Craig Thompson? I don’t know. Old Air Force buddy, big time Chargers fan.
He called me to congratulate him. He said, I hope we get Harbaugh. I said, that’s Harbaugh’s number one destination.
But the Spandos have got to pay. Dude, he went to the Super Bowl with freaking Kaepernick and Alex Smith. Imagine what he’s gonna do with Berber.
I know, right, right. Yeah, you pay him 15 million and say, please. But San Francisco spent a lot of money or was willing to spend money.
Well, there’s a salary cap. But, if Spandos is not gonna let him go out and get who he wants. But you know, the interesting one to me, not even Chicago is Washington.
So, his brother’s in Baltimore. The commander’s job is open. You can move your parents and kind of split the difference, right? I mean, I feel like, and Dan Snyder doesn’t own the commanders anymore.
I’m like, ooh. But, Washington. I know it might be open too.
Washington’s a bigger reclamation project though. It is, it is. Now, New England’s interesting because I don’t know what pick they have, but they’re top five pick, right? Yes, yeah.
I mean, shit, he can pull whatever quarterback he wants. He’ll pick JJ. Even though I don’t know if JJ’s ready.
I was, it was funny, because going into that game, yes, I had an affinity for Michigan. But, the game worked out perfectly because I’m thinking of the Broncos. And, I’m like, okay, I don’t want Panax to look too great.
Plus, his injury history, he may fall to 12 for the Broncos. He might. And, but then, I was like, if he plays good and he goes up, then maybe we look at McCarthy.
And, I was like, ah, fuck, we already had Greasy. And, Greasy did not turn into Greasy, man. I know, but he didn’t turn into a great pro product, right? So, JJ’s legit four, five.
People don’t realize that. He’s fast. He’s got a cannon.
He just, his injury is- He sprayed a few throws yesterday, though. I saw that. Yeah, he did, he did.
He was erratic, and that’s the problem. I don’t know how he fixed that. He doesn’t have the greatest receivers in the world, but he had some guys open.
Well, when you’re throwing them, like, oh, shit. Yeah, I was failing a little bit. But Panax did too.
Panax did too. But Panax got his ass whooped. Let’s be honest.
Panax got hit. Panax can throw effortlessly. I mean, Jesus.
That game before, against Texas, I mean, like, holy shit, this guy’s lighting it up. He’s throwing, he’s on one side, throwing it 50 yards just for a 10-yard gain. I was like, yeah.
And that’s why I didn’t bet on the game, because I’m like, if we don’t get to Panax, he’s gonna light us up. Like, so I’m like, I’m not betting, because Panax plays out of his mind, but what did Mike Tyson say? Everyone has a plan to get punched in the mouth? Michigan punched him in the mouth, man. He missed that wide open dude on fourth and seventh, because he heard footsteps, man.
Yeah, he did. That was bad. Yeah, that was bad.
Props to Washington. Love Kaitlyn DeBoer. Big fan of Panax.
They’re running back, playing all hobbled. Dude, they gutted it out. Michigan’s a better team, man.
Best defense in college. It was fantastic. I cried.
Come on now, I cried a little bit. Did you? Oh, yeah. Okay, can you do the fight song? Because I hear it so often, but I don’t know the words.
Hail to the victors valiant. Hail to the concrete hero. Hail, hail to Michigan, the leaders and best.
Hail to the victors valiant. Hail to the concrete hero. Hail, hail to Michigan, the champions of the West go blue.
Woo-hoo-hoo. Oh, my. Nice.
I don’t even know if the Bieves have a fight song. We love a good fat pounding. We love it.
Hey, your coach left, man. That’s tough. Lots of potato salad for Reeser’s goods.
I don’t know. Is it spicy potato salads? There’s a plan. I mean, we got microwave burritos and spicy potato salad, you know.
That’s the Reeser Stadium. And it’s- That’s a win. That’s a win, man.
Yeah, yeah. It’s a solid picnic choice. Well, I mean, they had a good team, though.
I mean, mid-season, they were looking really tough, actually. The Bieves? Yeah, they were looking good. I mean, I love them.
But then, you know, it’s a long season. They had to keep going for them, but. Yeah.
It’s heartbreaking every time. But, like, getting back to what you were saying, I think, I hate to see it, but it’s going to be an adjustment to watch Kyle’s football from here going forward. Because, I mean, Jesus, I mean, what was the commercial they ran, speaking of NIL, with that basketball player, that female basketball player from Iowa, right? I saw her three or four times.
I was like, Jesus, she’s making millions. Oh, the girl from, the two girls from LSU, the gymnast and Angel Rees are making bank. The female, they make a lot more money.
Oh, yeah. Is Angel Rees, did they find her? Is she back playing again? Oh, she’s, she’s averaging like 21 and 10 or something. Why did she leave for a while? I think maybe physical, mental, maybe she just needed to get checked a little bit.
Like, yo, but she’s so good. Oh, last year that, that Iowa, LSU, like, I’m not a big, like, women’s college basketball fan, but they’ve gotten really good. And, like, both of them are back.
Caitlin Clark and Angel Rees, like, I’m going to watch that. Is why I watched it. I was like, oh, yeah, this shit, man.
She’s draining 3, she’s driving. Like, Angel and Caitlin just talking shit to each other. Oh, let’s go.
That was kind of cool. Yeah, that was cool. Yeah, I loved it.
I loved it. I have a hard time watching female college basketball players with the big lashes. Just like, it’s an adjustment.
You got to put that on before you play. You can’t, like, yeah, it doesn’t help. Like, if you sweat, I don’t know, I don’t.
I don’t know, it’s just an odd pudding. It’s like, you know, it’s like watching the lingerie bowl. They got to train those eyelids too, man.
Novel, the lingerie bowls, have you ever watched the lingerie bowl? No. You never have? For some reason, my algorithm, I paused one half a second too long on the lingerie bowl or whatever that is. And after that, for like two weeks straight, I’m like, jeez, man.
And then I was pausing a little too long again. Come on, Jay. Suggested watches.
Break the algorithm, break the algorithm. Look at puppies, look at puppies. Oh, it reminds me of like, it sounds awesome, right? You’re like, oh, I got a lingerie bowl.
But then you watch them, and it’s like that old Seinfeld episode where they’re naked and they cough and you’re like, oh, that doesn’t look that great. And the line is clashing and you’re like, not much sexy about that, really. Just make it an old flag football game with clothes.
Okay, I’ll watch. That’s what they should’ve done. That’s what they should’ve done.
Yeah, that makes sense. It sounds better than it is, so. All right, I don’t know how I’m gonna splice that in, but I’ll figure it out.
Work your magic. So that was a good, that was a good mid shift conversations talk there. Yeah, now we’ll break, cut, then we’ll get back and then.
Mid shift conversations. All right, so. I got so many good one of you guys.
I have so many good mid shift conversations. So do I, I do too. We spent a whole mid, like, thinking of, I don’t know, ridiculous names for it.
Now it’s full on sexual harassment, but it was ridiculous names for intercourse. And that, and that’s literally how worse. Oh, our mid shift, we’re based on that.
We did, we had a mid shift one time where we were just doing limericks. Yes. And so you do a limerick and then you go for like 10 minutes and you try to think of something else.
Yeah. You come back and do another limerick. It was ridiculous.
It was hilarious. It’s so much, I love, that’s a guilty pleasure. I love a dirty limerick because it shows, it does show a little bit of skill.
Like you gotta be like. You gotta be clever, right? Yeah, you gotta be word, word clever and it takes time. And yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I know we could, we could do this every week. So, all right. So that was this week’s mid shift conversations again.
All right. This thing’s gonna be all cut up, so who cares? Right? On behalf of all of us here, I’d like to thank you for listening today. Please like, share, subscribe, and let us know how we did in the comments.
And make sure next week that you are not late for changeover. Oh, are we doing late for changeover? I don’t know, I kinda like it. I kinda like doing it.
We like it. All right, let’s rock it. Late for changeover.
And make sure next week that you are not late for changeover. Late for changeover. Man, thanks for the week and I’ll see you next week.