Episode Title: The Late For Changeover Show 15 May 2024
Date: May 15, 2024
Get off your back and grab your cat because you are late for changeover, your weekly space news and variety show. I’m your host Marty Smith, and I’m joined by Mr. History, Eric Perot. You guys are so important that I gave up the WNBA game with David Clark, I had to get off the bandwagon.
Oh yeah, good call. Off the bandwagon. We got smoked.
Our man in the closet, Jake Wall. Never forget that cat. And our little mule, Juanito Lopez.
Get past when I notice everybody, almost done. Yeah, you get party behind you. So take your seats, get informed and have a laugh as we present late for changeover.
All right. Yeah, very good. I don’t know what all the names you can just call me there, but I think I recognized a couple of them.
Holy cow. Eric’s dying up there. He’s choking me out.
He’s laughing at it all. So I was thinking, if I had a Boston accent, that opening could be misconstrued. I think you’re right.
You got your cat. Are you coughing on a cat? Eric, did you have anybody that you worked with that had like the thickest stereotype accent? Oh, I’m sure there was one or two. I can’t remember any of them, though.
It’s been a while. Go ahead. What’s his name? Jake, the guy we were on that.
That’s the problem. I can’t remember his name. Crowley.
Crowley. I think his name is Bobby Crowley. Lucas has got a thick one, but Bobby Crowley doesn’t have a Boston accent.
He’s got more of a New York accent or Jersey Jersey. Yeah. What a quarter in the media.
Bobby Crowley had the most bullshit of all his career. Holy shit, Eric. What’s the matter with you? Something went down, bro.
You’re going to get a cough button. You’re blowing my hand. Oh, man.
I apologize. Asbestos or something. Well, what came in that V8 letter? Yeah, right? I need a hundred percent disability by God.
That’s the problem. That’s the problem. We saw that.
We saw. I physically watched them. Yeah.
I’ll vouch for it. There’s a story about that whole packed act that is like being underutilized or something like that. They’re not getting enough.
I don’t know why they cut the claims off. You know, they had the, oh, you got to get your claim in. But I was like, why? Why? Why don’t I just claim whenever I claim when it happens? That’s right.
Right. Well, I went through the whole interviewing process with the lady and she said, your symptoms aren’t being looked at as part of the backpack yet. And I said, okay.
She goes, well, you did get to talk to somebody. Okay. Call me back.
And then she just said, if some of these things, your AFib and your heart stuff. What she’s, what she’s really saying is we need a few more people to die with your symptoms before we’re willing to pay. You know, it’s all good.
I heard the day. Again, the Burg Air Force faces and find that there was no burn pits there. They found nothing wrong with the silos.
There’s nothing wrong with the silos that haven’t been used in 20 years, but that’s okay. So. Did you guys know that May is National Pet Month? Legitimately.
I was going to make a joke and I was going to look up, what is National Pet Month? And I would be like, Hey gentlemen, it’s National Pet Month in October. But no, it’s May is National Pet Month. What a coincidence.
So Jake and I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago and I forgot to, I forgot to bring it back up. So I’m bringing it back up right smack dab in the middle of National Pet Month. Cause Jake had a story about a snake.
Oh, that was awesome. Are you gonna tell that snake story? Yeah, you want me. I want you to tell that snake story.
This should be good. Okay. We, I think it goes back to the story that you told when you were driving and the guy in the back was drunk and telling the cop that, Hey, I got pulled over by you last week.
Bill drove the golden nugget. Bill’s brilliant idea. Let’s clarify.
Bill and three other dudes lived in a house, basically a military frat house. While we were deployed, Bill whole job was to pay to rent and he had checks had written out all the checks that the guy that whose name was on the lease, everything. Long story is when you’re a 10 guy.
Okay. So we were all deployed. Like as fighter squadrons, you just deploy.
Yeah. And then there’s maybe 10 people left behind. Like you miss out if you’re left behind.
Oh yeah. His whole job was to pay these, he had all the checks, had everything, just never sent them in. So the rest of the crew gets home and they get evicted.
You’re out. About a year before that, Bill being a Florida man had brought pre 9 11. He had brought in his fucking cargo shorts pocket, a red tailed boa constrictor from Florida up to Alaska as a pet.
How is it surviving in that weather? How did he get it on the plane? In his cargo pocket before Marty before 9 11. Oh my God. Wow.
Yeah. Like a metal detector or anything. You know, that’s it.
Yeah. Right. So he proceeds the cargo pocket, this thing and bring it up as a pen.
Long story short, his freaking get, they get evicted. His brilliant idea is to live in the nugget for the next six months in the car because yeah, in the gold Camaro in fucking Alaska. That’s not real smart.
Nope. He shows up at my front porch. I was roommates with this great man, Dan shown he’s, but Bill shows up with one of the green laundry bags and a big dog bowl.
And he’s like here, you’ve always been nice. The nicest to her. And I’m like, what are you talking about? And I opened up this freaking laundry bag.
It’s that red tailed boa. And I’m like, what the hell do I do this? He goes, well, I can’t keep her. I’m living in a car.
And he gave you no choice. It just like, like drop the baby off at the fire station. Just like, here you go.
How big is this thing by now? I mean, is it all at this time? It’s not that big. It’s maybe two and a half feet long. Not bad.
Like mice. He’s eating mice at this time. This is the same one that you had an orchid, right? The one that that’s a good story.
Well, in Aurora, the one in Aurora. Yeah. Yeah.
So I had this thing for years actually. Really? I got it. He was really mellow, but he got up to about six and a half feet long.
Tell me your name. And we’re stroking it. Oh, dude.
He was awesome. He was mellow. He was.
I would desensitize. He never struck it. He only struck it one person one time.
And it was a kid that was dicking around with a McDonald’s toy. No. And it was white and he was going to shed.
So he had cloudy eyes and I told the kid, I was like, don’t mess with him. He’s grumpy right now. Don’t do it.
And the kids look and then just hits the glass right in front of him. Oh, no. Yeah.
I was like, Oh, it’s a little white thing wiggling around. Yeah. And you can’t see.
Right. You know, but that, that snake got so big that it would just bump its shoulder and pop out of the cage and then just go on in my house in Aurora. And then once it got hungry, it would just, it would literally slither out of the couch while you were watching a movie.
And it would just be like, well, what are you doing, buddy? Get out of here. Did you lose your cat and your dog and your rabbit? No, that, that was the thing like at six and a half feet long and like that big around, you’re, you’re buying rats. Oh yeah.
It’s eating big stuff. And I was like, all right, I can’t deal with this guy anymore, but he just fricking would get out whenever he wanted at that point in time. That’d put bricks on top.
I would fricking get a special cage, but he’s like, nope, he was high up in the corner. Six foot of muscle. Oh yeah.
But he was very well behaved. He was honestly like, how long do you have? Um, steaks scared the shit out of me anyway. Like 10, 10 years, nine years, 10 years.
Do you think maybe he outlived bill? Oh, definitely. Bill probably at least. What’s the longest.
He was prime primer. You tell me. I got CO2 poisoning.
Oh yeah. We, he was gone for like two months. Yeah.
And I was like, I have no idea where this thing is. He’s probably dead somewhere. Oh yes.
And I even put a rat in his cage. I had a rat living in his cage that had made a little nest in the corner and everything. Thinking that the snake would be like, oh yeah, I’m going to fricking.
Nah. That’s not going back in that cage. That is nuts.
Something may have got to hit. Yeah. I ended up giving him to one of the back shop kind of Intel guys.
I use guys at one of the guys that worked in the server room at, um, at a Buckley. But. Oh really? Yeah.
So this guy, the snake went from Florida to Alaska. Yeah. Call it.
The whole time I was in tech school. Wow. With me.
To California. That’s a well-traveled snake. Were you married? Did your wife like this? I was about to say, yeah, she didn’t mind the snake at all.
Really? Like I said, he was mellow. Like you could pick him up. No, thanks.
No, no worries. Totally mellow. You just push his face out of your face.
No, no. But he was getting big. Like to the point where I used to have him just on my forearm.
Like just on the forearm hanging out, playing video games, that kind of thing. And then at one point he’s like, Oh Jesus. you’re getting too big.
And I looked up how big they could get. I was like, okay, well. Yeah.
As long as you keep feeding him. He’s like 10 and a half to 12 feet. I was like, or something like that.
I was like, all right. Time to call it. I’m not feeding baby pigs.
See the animal story. I remember the pet story. I remember it wasn’t my pet, but I was in.
Alpha battery. Fourth battalion first field artillery. And we had a first sergeant who was a frock first sergeant.
So he was an E seven, but he hadn’t gone to school for it. So he wasn’t a diamond wearer, but he was kind of a, he was kind of a. You know, I don’t know, not the highest caliber E seven before they picked him for first sergeant. So when he made it, there was a lot of resentment and he wasn’t very good at it.
You know, he wasn’t, he wasn’t ready for it, but he wasn’t very good at it anyway. So we were the alpha battery outlaws. And the battery commander and somebody, one of the NCOs thought up, Oh, we should get calling cards.
Cause we used to go out in the middle of the night and like go to other batteries and like cut their wire and shit like that and fuck with each other. So he’s like, Hey, we can drop these calling cards off. And so the calling card became this quote from outlaw Josie Wales.
So it was that whole plum mad dog mean quote, you know, he makes that. So they made up a bunch of business cards with this outlaw Josie Wales on it. So somehow on a, on a battery one, there was a stray dog and the first sergeant took him in and then called the dog Josie and treated that dog better than a lot of the fricking soldiers in the, in the battery, right? So there’s a lot of lower enlisted guys that hated this guy.
He just hated him. So one guy in particular, when he was PCS and the night before he was, he was supposed to fly the next day, he got that dog that used to be kept in the company area, the battery area. And somehow he got that dog and spray painted it before he flew like the next morning.
And I was like, that was pretty me. Cause you walk in the next morning and like, what’s the matter with the dog? It’s got a dog that do nothing man. It was like a Labrador or golden lab color.
So it was blonde and it just had all this spray paint. And he was kind of hung, you know, just hanging in his head and walking around and you’re like, Oh, that’s fucked up. But it’s understandable.
That’s the one, you know, that poor dog. It was sad for the dog, but it was like, I don’t think the first son got the message, but it was too bad. But said he had a dick owner.
I had a story for you concerning dogs. It’s, it’s tough though, man. It makes me into a bad guy.
But it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, you wouldn’t have thought it doesn’t make you in a bad guy, but it’s something that you wouldn’t have thought we would have had to do. Right. True.
True. So Clark air base volcanoes blowing. We evacuate.
They immediately evacuate all the families prior to the big eruption. And they tell the families, you’re going to be coming back. Don’t take your pets.
We can’t take your pets. You’re going to be coming back. Well, they’re gone.
They’re not coming back. Base housing is left totally unattended. So we get back from our evacuation point on the island.
We come back. We reconstitute the base. Cops take over the housing area and they divided into sectors.
We call them sectors. So, you know, one group of cops had sector A, B and C. And when they finally got to packing out the housing, we had the, uh, what do they call those guys? Uh, transport, not transport guys, but TMO guys. TMO guys.
Yeah. They always put two cops with the TMO guys to escort them into the houses. Well, on two occasions, the cop as well as one of the TMO guys got bit by a dog that had become rabid.
The dogs were becoming rabid because they were starving to death. Nobody’s feeding them. Nobody’s drinking them.
Do you remember how many days it may have been before since it happened, they evac and then you guys went in. Yeah, we were on, we have act. Had to be like seven days.
We left. Oh man. From Clark, we went to a farm, uh, a college.
Um, it’s a farming college on a dead volcano, which is even funnier. But anyway, we come back. It’s like a week later and the dogs are in bad shape and the summer walking around, some are running around.
So I was tasked with a senior man, um, to put dogs down. So I ended up putting like six dogs down that were rabid and showing aggression. That was, that was a tough day, man.
Putting dogs down. Can I ask how like with the pistol or shotgun? Oh my God. Jesus.
Well, we weren’t, we weren’t, it was a slug. We were using. Yeah.
Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah.
Uh, but it still put a big nasty hole in it. It wasn’t pretty. So, but we, we, that’s tough.
But that’s something you never would think. No, it was going to happen. You know, that many pets that were left in a pretty big base housing.
And what are you going to do? Just leave the door open and let a rabid dog or freaking. There’s no, uh, rescue. Do that to the local population.
You can’t do that. No, I mean, some were already out in their fenced in yards that were still there. Some where we came back, we’re already, you know, partially.
But like you said, like you said, it, it, it shifts from a thought exercise. As soon as somebody gets bit and then you’re like, okay. Yeah.
We got to take care of the product. We got to protect ourselves. Got to take care of the problem.
These things aren’t getting any better. Nobody can come take care. I mean, at least, at least the, there was a reason behind it, right? It wasn’t just because like, Oh, this dog’s not free.
Yeah. I’m here to kill the dog. So it’s not like, Oh, this dog’s not trainable.
So I’m just going to go shoot it. Yeah. It’s one of those things that you never in your lifetime go.
I’m going to be walking around, you know, killing dogs. So I’ll just talk. What, uh, what year was that? 91.
Wow. Was it 91? Oh, wow. I didn’t even realize it was that long back.
Cause I got, I got to beat 92. Okay. And that was my Sunday back.
So yeah. That was like the last straw for Clark too, right? Oh yeah. That’s close.
Because they had that local terrorist shooting a couple, a couple of them or something. Well, they had a coup. I was in downtown Manila during the coup.
The earthquake and the volcano, right? Yeah. Well, the earth was constant with the volcano. We had earthquakes happening every day.
We interviewed, uh, I interviewed Derek Lucas and he talks about doing that time where he was shoveling. He had to get, they had to get up on the roof and shovel that ash off to get the weight. It was too weight.
Yeah. He said it was like snow. It was some of the hangers.
The whole flight line looked like it was, it was bombed because all the hangers, you know, aluminum, some guys, they had all collapsed. Oh, no way. That’s mud flows came through the APS parking lot where all the cars for sale.
Oh man. Just slid them all across the park bed. Oh, it was pretty wild.
I came back, my car. It was a little fricking, uh, it was a convertible with a soft top. Oh, no.
The Suzuki. Samurai. The little square one.
Samurai. The Samurai. The whole thing was all collapsed and fricking ash up as high as the seat, man.
It was awful. You know, if, if one of the biggest guys in the air force at that time, Eric Perot chose to buy one of the smallest cars on the market at that time, a Suzuki Samurai. That little bad boy went everywhere, man.
Did it have pink, uh, like stripes and shit on it? Oh, they all had those crazy. That’s what I thought. I thought they all did.
No, this one, it was just gray. It was, it was a solid gray. I should say silver.
It was like a silver. I’ll show you a picture. I got that.
Are you sure? Those silver ones had those like Dixie cup, blue and purple stripes. Not when Eric bought it. He was someone.
He mended up. But you talk about a great assignment, man. That was, that was a fricking amazing assignment.
Especially for a cop. For a cop. It was amazing.
Lil Mule. Speaking of, uh, of animal stories, little Mule, do you have a animal story? I don’t know. I have to tell it.
What’s the pet story. What’s the pet story that teapot? So I had gone to Alaska, right? Um, remote. So my wife’s taking pine teapot got orders to Vandenberg.
So they needed a place to stay. So him and, um, his wife were staying at our house. We had, uh, we had extra room.
So say that. So we had this hamster and Mr. Nivels. And by this time, Mr. Nivels was already like five years old.
Yeah. That’s good. So I ended up being ordered back to Colorado.
I send the orders to my wife’s like, Hey, whenever you want to start leaving. So my wife preps the house to rent it. By that time, teapot has an apartment.
He’s letting my, my family stay with them. To, uh, to buy his wife. So my family’s saying that Mr. Nivels goes there.
Well, there’s ends up being a fire going on in his apartment. So they all get out and Mr. Nivels is inside. The smoke, everything, whatever.
Come on. He still, he survived that. Like he comes out.
Wow. He was just slipped out the whole thing. He’s great.
After that guy, bro. I was like, I was like, man. All right.
So I’m not sure what’s going to happen with Mr. Nivels. But I thought, I thought my family was going to leave them behind. Like, okay.
PCS in Colorado. Well, they take him with them. He does a three, a three day road trip back to Colorado.
He’s fine. He, this, this hamster ended up living extra other five years. Oh, geez.
Mr. Nivels is hardcore. He’s hardcore. And like, No wonder you call him Mr. Nivels.
Um, that last month he was just like, we knew he was getting older. So he was just sleeping. Maybe count his wheel and you know, just do a psych jog.
You know, and one day he looked like a fat boy program in the air. Yeah. And he was a teddy bear hamster.
Moving their shoulders more than. Well, he has a teddy bear hamster. So he was, you know, fluffy.
And he was nice and fluffy, but gray. And you know, one day when we start smelling like a funky smells like, man, what’s that smells like? Have you guys cleaned out? Mr. Nivels cage is like, no, you know, he’s older. He’s resting.
So he let go. And really start smelling. No, man.
Mr. Nivels passed away. We never even knew it. He died of peaceful death.
And his sleep. Unloved. Unattended.
Peaceful. No recognition. Just another 10 soldier on the battlefield, man.
In the front yard for all the public. No taps. No nothing for the nibs.
He has more than most space nerds. So, man, I got to know which one of you hardcore air force veterans named him. Mr. Nivels.
That was my daughter. That’s awesome. That’s a great name.
I love it. Right. Right.
Right. But I mean, I mean, that was a good one, man. That was a good one, man.
Fire. So I’m that fire. I mean.
It was probably all that smoke inhalation. He might have gone for 20. Well, singed up forever.
BTS deed up. I remember the fire of all four. These smoking pellets on the corner telling this story.
Let me tell you. Oh my God. Fresh carrots.
We got dehydrated. And you’re loving children. We had to hydrate them with our own shit about us.
Our own spit. Just to get them hydrated. Now that one story though, I do have a sugar glider and.
All right. And so sugar gliders, peanut yogurt, whatever. And one time I had the bright idea of feeding an apple with the peel.
Wait a minute. What was this thing again? A sugar glider. It’s essentially a flying squirrel.
Oh, I don’t even know. I’ve never heard of that. So anyways.
Australian or New Zealand or something. Yeah, they’re from Australia. So it’s actually a type of.
You can search sugar. I’ve learned something. So anyways, there’s a day where I was like, you know what? I’m going to give them a piece of apple and it had to peel.
Well, you’re supposed to take off the peel because it gets stuck. So. So I didn’t know this until the vet told us when it was too late.
They have a symbiotic. They have a symbiotic relationship. So.
With koalas. So the koalas peel them for. In the real.
So anyways. And in return, the sugar glider goes out and claims a female koala. So.
I was like, I got somebody need to meet. So anyways, I feeded this apple and it actually got stuck. It starts throwing up like water to hold the tank.
So two days later, it gets really weak. The thing about sugar gliders, they bond to you. So I was, I was the sugar gliders favorite.
It was like, come hang out with me, whatever we take it to the vet. And this whole time I’m driving and it’s just holding onto my finger. Hugging at the whole time.
Oh man. Just weak. And then the passenger seat like.
No, no. He was just hanging out with me. What was his name? That one.
Mr. Nibble’s too. Oh man. This son of a bitch looked into your eyes as he died.
It did. It did. It was so dehydrated that the vet’s like, okay, I’m injected with some water.
Like maybe. But it’s like, Hey, we got to put it down. And like, it’s like this sugar gliders hearing the whole thing.
It’s just holding and pressing onto my finger. Even harder. And I’m looking at it.
I’m like, and dude, my family’s looking at me. Everybody’s crying. And I’m like, I’m like, I’m not going to cry.
I’m not going to cry. Holding it in. Did you admit to your, to your act? Like you’re active role in the.
You’re viable. You are viable. Well, that’s that’s when this, I was the last thing you fed it.
And then she asked if the peel was on there. I was like, yeah. I was like, well, you’re not supposed to do that.
Sugar glider. Murderer. This deaths on you.
Murderer. But he’s, he’s anti rodent. That’s the second one.
Right? Wow. Are there more? How many more? How many more? There are going to be. We had hedgehogs.
We’ve had, we’ve had all kinds of stuff. And they will stop that. None of them ever come back.
Now, the meat. Now the meat. Keep moving.
A Maltese dog. And we had a Vandenberg. I told the kids, take care of it.
Hey, you got to take care of the mouse. Security forces. 12 gauge slug came by.
No, no, I’m not. I didn’t do with that. No, I would.
So, um, the kids went and pick up the shit. Like, you know, the backyard and how I would come back from the schoolhouse. I just had one day where I was like, Oh my God.
That’s it. I was like, we’re taking a field trip. Got the kids.
I grabbed the dog and we go straight to the SPCA. Wow. And I just dropped it off.
I’ve gave some donation money. Here you go. And everybody’s crying.
But I, I said I had to keep my word. It hurt me. He’s given the dog out.
Because it was a good dog. Your post sugar glider. This is pretty.
Pretty sugar. Wow. The beginning.
It was the beginning. Was this post? Mr. Nibbles? No, there’s Mr. Nibbles. so there was a pattern way back when red flags.
So, yeah, but I was serious because after that, though, the kids were on top of all the pets at the back, but it’s just like, if I except for the one they left in the fire. Well, yeah, but it survived. Until four days later.
Five years later. I don’t know. Maybe my kids have some trauma.
Like they’re traumatized from that. That field trip. But yeah, dropped off the ball again.
Wow. I didn’t want to, but I felt like if I didn’t. Then, you know, why you sure took that whole.
Well, Eric started it, but you sure took it. You know, I just said, spray paint. A lot of.
And in fact, actually the snake made it the best of all of our stories. it’s still probably holding strong. No, who’s the damn name of the snake? What was the name? This from jungle.
This snake from the jungle book. that’s cool. Of course.
What else would it be? But you said that snake was what? Nine years with you. Yeah. All right.
Let’s get off of animal death stories. Let’s get off of animal serial killer. Juanita Lopez here.
I know you two are voting for this. Let’s go to the news. I’m not part of that state.
Let’s go to the news, man from space news.com. Look at this contract. Millennium space lands a 414 million dollar contract to build missile tracking satellites. You ever heard of millennium space? Neither have I because this is millennium spaces.
First award as a prime contract for space development agencies proliferated constellation. Millennium space, a subsidiary of Boeing won the 414 million dollar contract from the space development agency, SDA to produce specialized satellites aimed at detecting and tracking hypersonic missile threats. So I don’t know what kind of sensor they’re going to come up for that with that.
And also it’s like can ours not. But I don’t want to talk around classified. So under the agreement, Millennium will build eight satellites equipped with advanced infrared and optical sensors provide the ground system and support in orbit operation.
So this sounds like a whole kit and caboodle here. This is a whole other stock that’s coming in. Yeah, I’m MTC.
Smell some Nunn McCurdy’s in their future. And Boeing and Millennium are like, we don’t even know what that means. That’s not on us.
We’re just taking the money that’s given to us. That’s all. Part of the reason I did this story too, is because I’m telling you at the year end, I am going to compile all the acronyms.
Right. And see which one is the worst one. This has a chance to be the worst one.
Millennium satellites are for a program called. Fire control on orbit support to the war fighter. Or fire control F on orbit.
Oh, oh, support to the war fighter or foo fighter. That’s what they’re calling it. Foo fighter.
And Jake’s look says it all. That’s what I thought too. Now, you know, somebody sitting around that conference table going.
That’s right. That’s my idea. That’s a good one.
Yeah, that’s my idea. I got that. Let’s call it foo fight.
So there’s an artist rendition of what those things are going to look like. It doesn’t look like they’re in geo now, does it? But it doesn’t, you know, article doesn’t go into that. The article doesn’t go into that.
Well, I got two of them right there. So yeah. Yeah.
Foo fighter, which seeks to demonstrate technologies in support of a network of satellites being developed by SDA, known as a proliferated war fighter space architecture. The PWSA is an ambitious effort to create a resilient network of hundreds of small mass produced satellites operating in low earth orbit. So it’s Leo to support military operations, including the detection and tracking of enemy missiles.
SDA plans to launch the foo fighter satellites in the first quarter of fiscal year 2027. Derek torn near SDA director said in the statement foo fighter or F2. Believe me, they’re going to be calling it F2.
Right. Yeah. Nobody’s going to come in and go, let’s keep calling it foo fighter.
And somebody’s going to go, that’s dumb. Go with F2. Yeah.
We’ll demonstrate advanced missile defense capability by incorporating fire control quality sensors into a prototype constellation. The program will provide an operational demonstration of fire control efforts separate from a complimentary to our missile warning, missile tracking and missile defense efforts already underway. So obviously this is square like Juan said in the MTC bucket.
The missile missile tracking control bucket. But for a bunch of satellites that are going to be kind of commercial sort of off the shelf, right? Not really, but 414 million for eight of them. You know, it’s amazing to me is there is absolutely no operational security with these things and what they’re doing in space.
So what do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean by no operational security? You just told me what the missile does, right? Early warning. Oh, but I didn’t tell you what the sensor does. I didn’t tell you what the sensor does.
And that’s the difference, right? Just from open source, our adversaries could walk out and grab all the information they need and go, okay, now I know what it looks like. All I got to do is fly something that I have up there, whatever that might be, and frickin take that thing out. Yeah.
But that’s active warship right now. Okay. She does satellites and stuff.
That’s active warship. And you can’t shoot it down without no work. And the debris field caused by that.
Because think of all the, imagine that explosion or every bit of chunks of debris is not going down. It’s staying there and spreading. And China did that.
Five, seven, eight years ago. And the whole international community was pissed. So China, to demonstrate what they call an ASAT, an anti-satellite missile, Eric, they demonstrated on one of their own and blew it.
They launched it and they blew it up. And then subsequently made a million little, small little pieces up there in that orbit. Yeah.
Right. I would still think there would be more operational security on what these descriptions of these things do, even in open source. Well, put it this way.
We know they have cameras up there in space, right? Right? That they’re looking at. And I think the unclassified version is, I don’t know, a meter or something like that. You know, they have that resolution.
I think it’s less, but let’s just use that as a working thing. I think they can see a meter, you know, across. But that’s the unclassified version.
They don’t tell you the classified version. Sure. That makes sense.
Yeah. They know it’s up there. We can’t hide anything that’s up there because they have, they have tracking stations.
We have tracking stations. I get that. But you’re not going to know its functionality right off the bat without some type of researching over a period of time.
Right. Yeah. But when it comes to that, though, it’s like how many people have found.
Just lost cities from Google earth. Right. And this is satellite images, right? So like, like, although you might have more sensors, sensors out there to track specific type of targets and whatever.
That’s one thing. But like, as technology evolves, I’m very curious on like how when it comes to national defense and stuff, because using commercial technology, that’s like just everything. That classification might be out the door.
Who cares about what we’re revealing? Obstet wise, when you can float a balloon over the entire United States and just have a guy up there with a pair of binoculars and like, I got something down there. You don’t need technology for that. You got me there, man.
To be fair, you’re right. We do say a lot of that stuff. We say too much.
But we, but we do. A lot of us, like we do our fair share of dicking around. Sure.
Right. And you can say like, you’re their fair share of dicking around. Shell game stuff like random.
You know, random other crazy stuff. Well, I know you guys. And we could tell specs about the, the stealth bomber or the B1 or something like that.
You still got to stop it. Yeah. I mean, it’s still like up there.
So, but yeah, that’s a good point. And yeah, I, I always used to joke as like, I wish somebody would offer me $100,000 to give them some secrets because most of the shit’s out on the internet. Anyway, I was like, dude, go get a Google.
You can figure out everything. You pull enough open source stuff. You’re going to have fricking associated classified material.
Right. So it’s crazy. So good on millennium space.
Yeah. Good on millennium space. So, uh, $414 million.
Don’t piss that away. That’s a hell of a contract. Keep their people employed anyway.
Yeah. Right. Right.
Um, okay. In the past on this show, we have talked flying drones. We have talked remote control ground vehicle.
We’ve talked robot dogs. Yes, we have. But there is one domain that we have not talked about when it comes to drones.
So I got a couple of stories here. How about that domain? The first of these stories is from stripes.com. Hold on. Show me the banner, baby.
There you go. Maybe maybe is testing. In fact, they’re done testing it tomorrow.
Maybe test surface drone that can dive for days at a west African exercise. So we haven’t talked drones in the water. No.
Very few. Uh, the US Navy is testing an autonomous drone that can operate above and below the surface in a bid to help African countries battling piracy, the illicit drug trade and other illegal activities in the Gulf of Guinea. That’s pretty cool.
Anybody know offhand where the Gulf of Guinea is? Standby. I do not. Uh, but, uh, it’s for this.
Uh, the Triton, right? The Triton drone by a company called Ocean Arrow. Right. So that’s what it looks like.
I got a video to go with this to explain it. Rear Admiral Michael Mattis, director of strategic effects, US Naval forces, Europe, Africa, said last week, quote the Triton drones introduction during the open game express multinational exercises designed to determine whether it’s suitable for long-term sustained use in the region. The exercise, which ends tomorrow.
Tomorrow. What’s the date tomorrow? 14th. Oh, I’m sorry.
The 15th. 15th tomorrow. Oh, it ends.
So the exercise ends on Friday. It includes launching and recovering the drone from the expeditionary sea base, USS Herschel Williams and conducting vessel boarding searches and seizures. These activities will help determine if Triton can be used reliably in a region where it isn’t easy for the Navy to quickly source supplies and repairs.
The 775 pound, 14 and a half foot long. So it’s not that big. I thought it wouldn’t be bigger.
Looks, uh, yeah. The Triton surface drone is manufactured by Gulfport, Mississippi based Ocean Arrow. Now there’s also a drone called Triton by Northrop Grumman, but it’s an aerial drone.
Are we really running out of names? Hey, did you check out our naval drone called the Triton and some of those guys like you called yours a Triton. We already have a Triton. We called ours first.
No, we called ours. Triton A and Triton S. Let me tell you, we thought of Triton way before you thought of Triton. By the way, the Gulf of Guinea is off the coast of Ghana, Liberia and Cameroon and Nigeria.
So that’s the west. It’s in the armpit. Yeah, it’s in the armpit.
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. As it goes up.
Right. Here’s a little video of, let me lower this point because for stream yards, very good at producing volume. So this thing’s got wings of some sort to it.
It’ll explain it here in this video. I’m joined by Oscar Rojas, Vice President of Global Operations. What do you say? Good afternoon.
Good afternoon. And thank you so much for taking a look at the Ocean Arrow Triton. It is the world’s only dual modality unmanned system.
It is both a unmanned surface vehicle and then upon receiving a signal within 60 seconds, it can dive down and become an unmanned underwater vehicle. So the dual modality capability allows us to be able to perform many different functions for the end user. So what are the mission sets? For the oil and gas industry, we have advanced sensors where we can inspect oil and gas pipelines.
We can do cable inspections and some of those critical infrastructures. So as you transition those capabilities that we perform for industry, they can be used for military use. The Triton has side-scan sonars and forward-looking sonars where we can start to visualize the seabed and do hydrographic surveys.
In this case, we look for underwater infrastructures, but we could also potentially go look for sea mines that may be in a certain area. The other thing that we can do is on the surface, it can serve as a platform to give you maritime domain awareness. So we say that the Triton provides an unblinking eye in the maritime environment because of its advanced ISR capabilities and advanced communications capability where we create a mesh network on the water and then we send all those signals near real-time right back to the in-user control center.
For the last year and a half, we are transitioning from research and development and training and evaluation over to operational use. And the main reason why is we have now matured the threat detection and obstacle avoidance capabilities of this vehicle. So it is finally a truly semi-autonomous vehicle.
It can think and move and do things on its own. For example, on the surface, if it sees a vessel coming near it, it automatically, on its own, without having a human making a decision, it can dive down and not become a hazard to navigation. And once it’s underwater, we also want to make sure they can do… And not become a hazard to navigation.
Because it’s navigating underwater. Depth is about… Working depth is 100 meters, but it can go down to 200 meters. And as you’re going down, if there is a coral mountain, the obstacle avoidance allows the trying to, on its own, change the altitude and go over that mountain or go around the mountain in order to not damage itself.
Wow. That’s pretty cool. And he went on to say a couple other things about how they’re adapting it and those kind of things.
And he asked, do you have a bigger version? And he said, right now we’re meeting all DOD specs, so we haven’t built it yet. And everything with these is yet. Future weapon systems on board too, I bet.
What are you talking about? That’s not weapons. I say future weapon systems. Sure.
Well, we started off with unarmed drones in the air. Well, we started off with hot air balloons that were just like, hey, this is fun. What if we drop the hand grenade on these guys? Yeah.
And then, I mean, the cartels were using air drones to do drugs. And now that one, that one… Well, they’re also using… They’ve got some… They’ve got some coast guard, man. Yeah, some sea drone stuff.
That’s cool. Okay, here’s the second story. Dar… Banner.
Seamless transition. Thank you very much, Jake. I appreciate that.
DARPA’s Autonomous Mentorade drone. Now, this is a bigger drone. I thought maybe… Are they trying to vie for the Navy’s contract? But they’re different.
They’re different functionality. That Triton, they said, only travels like four knots an hour. It’s slow, right? So I think their design… Because I thought, well, why don’t you just drop a ton of these around the ship, and now you’ve got sensors out to miles.
Nobody can get close. That’s not how they’re being utilized. So they’re just dropping them off.
And these things can loiter for a month, wherever you drop them off. They can dive down and, you know, all this other stuff. Now, this Mentorade, now we’re talking, right? We’re now we’re talking some serious… To me, it looked like a sunfish, though.
Well, yeah. We’re talking some serious offensive potential here. He’s going to call it Mr. Bubbles.
I like that. Sorry. Northrop Grumman Corporation has built its Mentorade, uncrewed underwater vehicle, which will operate long duration missions and carry payloads into the ocean depths in partnership with DARPA.
DARPA launched a Mentorade program in 2020 to improve underwater vehicle design, including developing techniques to increase payload capacity. Second time they’ve used payload and conserve energy. So rather than me try to describe this, let me show you the part of the Mentorade video.
The company said the test demonstrated hydrodynamic performance at sea, including submerged operation using all UUV propulsion and steering modes, including buoyancy, propeller, and control surfaces. Our successful full-scale Mentorade testing validates the vehicle’s readiness to advance toward real-world operations once it is rapidly assembled in the field from… That’s a bomber in the water, baby. It came from Atlantis.
He added that the combination of cross-country module transport, field assembly, and subsequent deployment demonstrated a first of its kind capability for an extra-large UUV. I would say the Trent-o-Tron, Trenton, whatever the hell it is, it’s out. Northrop Grumman shipped the Mentorade prototype… Whatever it was.
The Trenton’s does. Different mission set. Different mission set.
These of delivery and assembly supports the possibility of rapid worldwide deployment without taking up valuable dock space at naval facilities. I saw that rock in the background. Sending vehicles directly to their intended operating areas saves energy that would otherwise be expended during transit.
Warner said, once deployed, the vehicle uses efficient lighting force and is powered by buoyancy to move through the water. The aircraft is designed with multiple payload bays of various sizes and types to enable a diversity-enabled mission. She could say aircraft.
She called it aircraft, yeah. I mean, if it could fly, if it could go in water and then also fly, yeah. Mentorade is designed as a new class of long-duration, long-range, payload-capable UUV ready for continuous operations in dynamic maritime… Well, man, test that out.
… is working with the U.S. Navy on the testing and transition of this technology. Space ghosts! Yeah, kind of, yeah, space ghosts. Yeah, close to ghosts.
Right, very good. Good one, Eric. That’s awesome, man.
That’s a good pull, so. But yeah, that thing looks very potentially dangerous, right? No, no doubt. I mean, imagine you’ve got 15 of those fuckers and you’re like, hey, we’re going to go bomb… I was like, no, what are all these things on the bottom of the ocean? I mean, like, God, who knows what they can put in there? So, but I can also see the Triton, right? It was called the Triton.
Triton. Trumptron. The Triton will probably be the forward sensor for something like the Manaree.
Wow. All drone stuff, right? I mean, they’ve got side scanning radar. They get, you know, all the side sonar, front sonar.
And they’re like, oh, there’s one. And here comes this fleet of Manarees. You can see them escorting Navy convoys, man.
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So the Triton will be controlled by the Marines and then the Manarees.
Yeah, that’s pretty cool. You’re going to put the control on the Marines? Hey, man. What is? They got to go clear the area.
Somebody has to do it. You know, Marty, it’s that one guy we left on the island, you know? Oh, yeah. I remember that story.
Yeah. Right. He’ll be the guy controlling it.
Yeah. The one guy out there. Yeah.
The one guy. So he’s got the remote rocket launchers on the ground. He’s got the shit under the air.
That’s a powerful man. That’s one dude on the island, man. Yeah.
I didn’t think about it that way. Good one. All right.
Let’s talk about the services doing, you know, doing what they do and do it well. Right. Yeah.
That’s the best way to say it. That’s the best way to say it. So this first story is from stripes.com. The Coast Guard offloads $185 million in cocaine and marijuana on return from their deployment.
The crew of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Mohawk offloaded a huge haul of cocaine and marijuana on Friday at Port Everglades. You know where that is, Eric? Port Everglades. I do.
Where is it? In Florida. South on the Atlantic side. South on the Atlantic side.
Way south. All right. No way.
Post Everglades that it and other agencies and service branches seized during a deployment patrolling the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean. So this wasn’t just like a normal Coast Guard cutter, right? This was a big ship. So this is the Mohawk.
Nice. So that’s a bigger one. And it had all these different agencies on it.
So that was kind of interesting, too. I wonder if it was kind of used as a base as Navy, CIA, whatever, you know, kind of bounced between that ship and everything else. I’m sure DEA was part of that little point? Yeah, probably.
The 13,803 pounds of cocaine and 3,700 pounds of marijuana have a total estimated street value of $185 million. The Mohawk is a ship with a crew of 100 sailors based in Key West. Imagine that basing, right? What’d you get, Julie? What’d you get? Key West, man.
I don’t want to say. I’d much rather go to whatever they held. They renamed Julie.
Oh, yeah. They renamed Julie. Coast Guard’s going to sell the marijuana to the state of Colorado for some funding for another boat.
Good job, ghosties. Why not Coast Guard? Up by two liters, no. I mean, obviously, they got a lot of money.
Medical’s legal in Florida. That’s true. That’s true.
Medical’s legal in over 50% of the state today. That’s right. So all the states are bartering for a piece of the haul.
Oh, they’re pissed. Federal, they just changed it, too. It’s no longer… That’s a lot of glaucoma going untreated now.
The Mohawk, a ship with a crew of a hunter-sailor’s base in Key West is part of a task force that includes U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Air and Marine Operations, the U.S. Navy, along with the Royal Netherlands Navy and the Royal British Navy that patrols the Caribbean and Atlantic for drug smugglers. As part of this latest deployment, the task force detained 10 people accused of drug smuggling according to the press release. The story went on where they got this semi-submersible.
They found it, and they brought them up, right? And they arrested a couple guys there, and it had, like, 600 keys of coke on it. So, you know, the creativity of the cartels is driving the response. It’s really crazy, you know? No doubt.
Manner A’s… They’re going to find some of those drones. Oh, yeah, wait till we deploy the Manner A, baby. Yeah, man.
All right, last one. The cartel’s going to get all of them, and then it’s over. This was pretty cool, because when I first read it, I was like, why call the Air Force, you know? Really? Do you just need a glory story? But this was actually pretty interesting, so… This was from Task and Purpose, an Air Force pararescue team dropped onto a cruise ship to retrieve a sick child.
So, a call came in of a seriously ill child aboard a Carnival cruise ship, Vanisia. The ship was 350 miles. That seems like an awful long way for a cruise ship to go.
350 miles off the Atlantic coast of Florida. To reach it, they launched two HC-130J tankers and two HH-60J helicopters, each with two Manpara rescue teams on board. So, for most ocean rescues, the Coast Guard is typically the first maritime response force, but the medical condition of the child on the Vanisia required immediate care, and the distance from shore required helicopters, because you couldn’t send planes out there, right? They required helicopters capable of refueling several times, a specialty of Air Force rescue helicopters and their tankers.
Reaching the ship for remote location required three air-to-air refuelings, three times to refuel. That’s a long haul. Both HC-130J circled overhead as the HH-60s hovered over the ship, first dropping para-rescue men aboard and then recovering them with the patient and his mother.
The helicopter flew the boy to a Florida hospital and returned to Patrick about eight hours after launching. So, that’s why they called, because they didn’t have anything that they had planes, but the planes couldn’t land and pick them up. So, that makes sense.
What about the Coast Guard? Wouldn’t the Coast Guard have had the same capability? Coast Guard’s busy busting drugs, Ben. Yeah, man. There’s no time for sick kids.
I don’t know. Do they have that? I mean, for ease of support, Air Force can rely on Air Force, hey, refuel these helicopters. True.
Yeah, it’s all self-contained. Launch two tankers, two helicopters, and go. You don’t need any of them.
Yeah, do the Coasties have mid-air refuelers? I think they do, man. I truly think they do. It’s the C-130 stuff, same kind of principle, I think.
But at the same, I don’t know how the call came in, but I don’t know if a medic or, you know, in need of a medic… I wonder if they’re medics or… …is first on the Coast Guard’s list. I’m sure they got them, right? Sure. But, I don’t know.
Maybe the Air Force is like, we’ll take it, we’ll take it. We got it. Well, the Coast Guard’s only like 100 miles.
Oh, we got it. All right. We need a good story.
That’s cool, though. Hey. It is cool.
So, yeah, good on them. Good on the Coasties, good on the PJs, you know. The next story we’re going to have is two PJs received, you know, a frickin’ Silver Star… Dropping on the boat and saving the kid’s life.
I love how Eric always comes back to, when they do something good to get a medal. Because whatever trauma you have in that story… Congrats for doing your job, Joe. That’s my point.
Man, here’s your medal. I know. That’s what I’m saying.
I’m making fun of you, because that’s exactly what you’re saying. This is a man who doesn’t believe anybody deserves a medal. In my era, we called that… You should be out walking the fence lines.
And in my era, we called that Wednesday. We just did our job. And you may get a pat on the back when you turned your weapon in.
I don’t know. Good job. The chocolate donuts, Eric’s guys.
You leave that chocolate donut alone. He did a good job. Come on, now.
I only ate a few donuts at a time, man. Well, you needed those empty calories late in the day. The little donuts.
To get you to that second workout, right? Eric, hit me up with some U.S. military history. Blow my balls off with one. You know what? This is a good one.
And here’s the thing. Based on what you fellas just said, this is going to be dedicated to my security police brothers and sisters for them. All right? So this story… I will support your own.
Yeah, this is big. This will be something that you guys weren’t aware of. All right.
So were you guys familiar with the U.S.S. May of Hawaii’s rescue operation? Was that after Vietnam? It was. But right after when the Khmer Rouge, the communist forces in Cambodia took over a ship? Oh, the Cambodians. Right.
Right. Right. Right.
Well, here’s the piece. I am familiar with that story. I tell you.
So ultimately, the Marines are tasked and they go on and recover everybody. Well, wait, you’ve got to set the stage. Wait.
I’m setting the stage. Relax. This is my history.
Well, you just so before that the first time security police were tasked with a high, high priority rescue mission was in May of 1975 when the SS my ways merchant ship was seized by camera Rouge communist forces in Cambodia. When diplomatic efforts failed to secure the release of the my ways on May 13, General Burns and his seventh Air Force staff developed a contingency plan to retake the my goes using an assault force composed of men of the Air Force 56 security police squadron. Oh, I didn’t realize.
Yeah, 75 volunteers from the 56 would be dropped on to the containers on the decks of the my ways on the morning of 14 May. In preparation for this assault five hh 53s and seven ch 53s were ordered to proceed to the top of Royal Thai Navy airfield for staging. At approximately 21 30, one of the 21st SOS ch 53s call sign 913 crashed in route to the utapo killing 18 security police and its five man crew.
The trailing ch 53 jolly green helicopter landed and dismounted its security forces to assist a crew of the downed aircraft. After the crash, the decision was made to employ a USMC assault element rather than the SP forces. The 18 SPs who perished in the crash were listed as having died in a training accident, although all were awarded posthumously bronze stars with a valor, a V device for valid.
They were listed as a training act. No way. And that was the first time that cops would have been in an assault force.
I would have loved to seen had they been able to finish the assault and see what the outcome was because I would love to go. It was a success. You know what I mean? Well, sure.
Yeah. So and by the way, that was coincidentally the last they called the Marines for the United States in the Vietnam War. Yeah, that was after we were pulling out or about to pull out and there was a correct may have 75 man, but a part that you didn’t know about because if you read about cops, yeah, nobody knew the initial group were security police.
Yeah. Wow. Good on here.
Well done, man. Yeah. Did you see how he initially treated Eric? This is why we don’t bring stories anymore.
That’s that’s how I bring out the best of them though. See, he tried. Oh, he tried.
You just want to let him go. Well, he told the end of it first. I was like, what? Wait, wait, what? Well, and they all died.
That was because the part everybody knew that you didn’t Tarantino it a little bit. Yeah. Everybody knew that the Marines come in and successfully took the ship back in.
But they did. But it is also one of those events that not many people know about. That’s because it was a merchant marine ship too, right? Yeah.
And they were holding it kind of hostage. I think they were holding an hostage. So crews.
Yeah. Yeah. So what’s the deal with the merchant Marines? Eric, sorry, good story.
I appreciate it. Well, I don’t understand what the merchant marine’s task is. Or I don’t know.
Because if you can’t accept it to their academy, he either be a merchant marine or join any service as an officer. And it’s like a standard service. Yeah.
An officer at Buckley that was a merchant marine. Oh, really? You got commissioned. Sounds like we have to do a story on the merchant marine stuff.
I just seem like a bunch of sailors with a bunch of tattoos and a bunch of VD. That’s what I see from all you did was combine Navy and Marines. Oh, geez.
I bet you they have foul mouths. Did you at least sprinkle a little bit? They probably curse like a sailor. That’s awesome.
I gotta say probably 65% of the time their mothers are not proud. But they’re proud of their mothers. Oh, my problem.
We got the tat right there. That’s right. That’s too funny.
Oh, shit. Good one, Eric. Thanks, gentlemen.
I think we’re at NDIP. Let’s see. Yeah, NDIP.
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 changeovers.
See, Eric was dying to do it, Jake. No, no, he’s not. Oh, man.
Thanks for the stories of death and to everyone watching. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next week.
Shut up. And Eric. Juan has his tack in his hand.
Remember, for a long time, they have those signs. By the way, the Nuggets are beating the Timberwolves 35-33 right now. Thanks for listening.
We’ll see you next week.