Episode Title: The Late For Changeover Show 07 Feb 2024
Date; Feb 7, 2024
Special event alert. Get out of the bathroom and run! This is Late for Changeover, your weekly Space News and Variety show. I’m Marty Smith and I’m joined by Big Burn Mike Johns.
All right, all right, all right. And our man in the closet, Jake Wall. What’s going on, guys? We’re here to bring you the latest headlines and updates pertinent to all Guardians into the other lesser branches as well.
So take your seats, get informed and have a laugh as we present Late for Changeover. Did you sign up for your OG Guardian pin or something like that? Did you get brought into the original Legacy Guardian club? Oh, that’s right. Yeah, that’s right.
We need to get there. I haven’t. I haven’t signed up yet.
Maybe I’ll go look, maybe I’ll go do that just to present. I’ll be like, I present to you your grandfather Guardian. Yeah, exactly.
I wanted to talk, and I’m going to talk about it next week, but I wanted to talk about, I wanted to continue on going to get my ID card last week. And the other thing that struck me is just walking around. I’m like, oh, that guy has a beard.
Oh, that guy has a ball cap. Oh, that guy has a fucking Russian hat. This guy has no beard.
Oh, this guy has, yeah, it was crazy amount. I’ll talk about it now. I just couldn’t find the picture.
Do you remember years ago when they sent that meme out about, I think it was a National Guard. It was like some National Guard group photo. Remember that? Like nine different uniforms.
Yeah, it was like five different uniforms, four different headgear, and one fat Colonel stand on the side. Well, she had her hands in her pockets. That’s right.
She had her hands in her pockets. And I was like, oh, that’s so true, right? But now look at the active duty, how far that circle has come back. And now the active duty doesn’t have one fucking uniform that they can all, you know what I mean? Somebody has a fleece, somebody has a Gore-Tex on, somebody has tennis shoes.
Well, not only that, but like just even the blouses, there’s summer weight and winter weight, but summer weight don’t have any pockets. Oh, they don’t. No, because I was given a, I gave this poor kid a hard time.
I’m like, what’s going on with that blouse? It was my uniform top. I was like, yeah, I go, is that a maternity blouse, man? You got no pockets. He’s like, what do you mean? I go, maternity blouses, they don’t have any pockets.
Yours doesn’t have any pockets. I go, I can understand the pants, but I don’t understand the five. He’s like, these are warm weather, man.
I was like, oh, okay. Bullshit, he probably had on maternity weights. He probably did.
How could you enforce anything nowadays, right? If a guy wanted to wear like the maternity uniform, he’s like, man, I’m feeling pretty pregnant today. He’d be like, no, you’re not. Get back in uniform.
He’d be like, uh, fucking eel. I’m complaining. You know, how many people are too shy.
A little bloating. Yeah. So I’ll try to find that picture for next week, man.
I guess that’s, that’s such a classic dig on the garden reserves and now active duties. But this is the standard old man argument of back in my day. We didn’t have any beers or any uniforms.
We all wore the same green olive drab uniforms with the Velcro on them. You know, I’m with you. I’m with you, but it’s, uh, it’s funny cause I fully understand making that making fun of the garden reserve.
And now they have become the garden reserve. Oh, absolutely. That’s what I was saying.
Um, and you know, you can’t offend anybody who’s currently in cause they’re like, yeah, it’s comfortable. I like not shaving. I like not shaving.
I like not polishing. I like no Grasso. I like no, you don’t know what’s up with the clear thing.
Hail Odin. You got to be a religious waiver. I honestly don’t know what all of them are, but I know the religious waiver.
It’s a religious waiver. Viking, the Viking religion. Well, there, there’s the religious waiver.
There’s the health thing with the bumps, right? You know, there’s always had a problem. But all of that’s taken to the maximum extreme because nobody’s going to shut it down. Right.
Dude. I always had a problem with somebody with a shaving waiver and that their stuff, those guys that had bumps on their throat that you could see from like, sure. Yeah.
20 yards away. You’re like, right. Right.
There’s other guys that were like clean, shaven, lined up, lined up. You’re like, yeah. Okay.
Like, oh, you edged. Is that make the bumps go away? Yeah. The bump.
And then if anything, you should just have a neck beard because that’s where all the bumps are. Yeah, exactly. Right.
Right. Well, we had a throat here. Turtle neck.
Remember when we had Rob Smith on there, he’s like, that’s all bullshit. Right. He goes, I’m black.
I didn’t get bumps. You just talk and shade it. So, but it’s, it’s, as soon as you crack that door, it’s going to be taken full advantage of her.
Just like a Dniff on a Thursday afternoon. So, uh, I thought this came out. Uh, I thought this was interesting too.
Cause last week, uh, I, I, you know, I play call of duty mobile, you know, for, you know, it’s, it’s nice. You can play little five minute matches and stuff like that. Uh, Mike, you said you saw this in Reddit.
So I’d love to hear you saw Reddit, but I get the little alert, you know, and a message, you know, some of the messages are a, we’re doing maintenance or, you know, you, you won this, you know, 10 credits or whatever. Something. So I get this.
Smoked by a nine year old. I know. I know.
And I always mute it. Cause it’s always like, okay. And I was like, how old is this Indonesian kid? Who’s just kicking my ass.
Uh, so I get that, right? That’s the message I get your fresh start is just a step away. And I’m like, Oh, what’s that all about? I open up the message and this is the message ready for an even brighter future. It starts here.
Looking for a new challenge, a rewarding career and an even brighter future to the U S air force has everything you need to get started here. You have the power to build the future you truly strive for with hundreds of careers to choose from an educational opportunities. And you get an unmatched benefits package with low to no cost healthcare tuition assistance, cash bonuses, and more ready to take the leap.
Oh, I’ll press go. And I get the special operator guy, right? Oh, that sounds exciting. And then, uh, if you watch a video, you get like, uh, some token, the draw for some uniform or something like that.
Here’s the commercial that they run on it. There are times when you run into the fire and times when it’s up to you to bring it, bring, I know, bring it. Look what he’s calling engine.
We bring the full power of the U S air force to the fight tactical air control. So it’s cool. Uh, yeah, I, I, I agree.
Um, you know, at first I was like, are you kidding me? Um, but you start thinking about it and you’re like, you know, this guy’s sitting here playing call of duty. Yeah. He’s like, yeah.
But the only ones they advertise are tack peas and combat controllers. Well, yeah. And then put them wherever they want.
Sure. Sure. Call of duty doesn’t include supply.
It’s not cool. Like warehouse management. Where’s this creative stuff? Yeah.
I mean, once you’re, once your vehicle gets blown up, they don’t show the main danger coming out there. Like, yeah. Patch this thing up.
Your mission for the next 16 hours is to replace this panel. Yeah. You’re a security additional duty.
Come on. You got it. You got to put the flashlight back in the toolbox correctly.
Yeah. What’s the, what’s the vehicle inspection form? Feel this out. You know, I had a guy in the army of private, uh, he, he turned in their vehicle inspection, uh, form was a dash 10, right? Every vehicle had a dash 10 and he would turn it in.
He would wait for like 20 minutes and he would turn it in. Uh, you know, no false detected. I was like, how the fuck do you do that that fast? And he’s like, well, take it.
You get your hands a little dirty. You crumple it. You don’t, you don’t crumple it like this, but you fold it, you know, like you’ve gripped it a lot.
And then you sign off on it. It looks like you’ve gone through the checklist. Son of a bitch.
So, uh, like I said, at first I thought, oh, these corn balls, man. But then I was like, that’s whoever came up with that is creative as shit. Well, think of the return on investment.
It was probably relatively inexpensive to run that ad. And then think about how many people have their phone in their hands and are playing that game. It’s got to be one of the most popular games.
It’s out there. Yeah. And see a real life depiction of what I, what I’m doing, uh, you know, digitally here and then maybe I could do that.
And if they wash out of combat control or pair rescue, they’re just going to go into a different career field. Sure. So then go combat camera, like Ron Demond did.
Yeah. Ron, if you’re listening, I just, uh, you know, well, he told us that he said that. Yeah.
But he didn’t wash out. I know he got hurt. So.
Oh yeah. Uh, there’s a lot of fun jobs in the air force. There’s like a lot of kind of cool jobs.
It was interesting. Now going back to getting my cat car or my ID card, you know, the guy who’s sitting there helping me, you know, he’s, he’s an air force. Right.
Yeah. Cause he’s got the stupid gold letters. And I always think I was like, yeah, you can’t read it.
Uh, Marty’s Marty’s over here. yeah, I’m way up on him like this. I’m like, yeah.
You want to get away from my breasts? I’m like, yeah, I’m just trying to read your name, and I said, what is the plans for all the support functions for space force? And he said, nope, space force and I get like the Marine Corps. Yeah. Oh, that was the best explanation I’ve ever gotten.
Nerd department of the air force. Yeah. Right.
So all these guys are going to get sliced off doing space force jobs or supporting space for us, but being air force. So. Yeah.
Uh, anyway, let’s get out of the news. Uh, I remember when I joined the air force and I went to, I think what it was called was IQT back then in 2000, 2001, whatever it was, I think it was IQT. Right.
Then it changed to EUST, then it changed to space 100. Well, it went, it went through, it was fundamentals, orbital mechanics. He sought when I got there in early 2000, which was enlisted space operator.
All right. Maybe it was Esau. Maybe it was.
And then it went to ESPT and those were all IQTs, initial qualifying trainings. Okay. All right.
But yeah, they changed it. It was Esau. I just, I couldn’t remember the original name and then it went to EUST.
Now I think it’s space 100 or I’m not sure, but Esau. Very good. Mike.
And when I got there, I think I went late 2000 or early 2001, but that movie, remember that movie enemy of the state with Will Smith and Gene Hackman, right? That was like a couple of years old. And this was before I knew anything about space. And you’re watching that movie and they’re moving satellites to fall around town.
You know, they’re like, Oh, like satellites, zoom it over here so we can get a better look at them and get that wire diagram of that building. And you’re like, wow, we really can do a lot of stuff. And then you start going through orbital mechanics.
You’re like, we can’t do any of this stuff. What are you talking about? You just used all the fuel ever assigned to that vehicle in one maneuver. You just made it into a rock.
Well done. Yeah. Well, that dovetails into this first story from aerospace forces magazine.
So are you guys ready to have your sons join the space force to be gas station attendants? That’s what I want to set you up for. Fuels. When it, when it comes to refueling satellite space force faces hard choices.
Yeah. Now that’s a little misleading because they don’t, they don’t face any hard choices yet. Right? They’re just talking about the nozzle or the receptacle.
So as Pentagon space forces leaders plan for future dynamic space ops where satellites can maneuver as needed and get refueled to prolong their service lives. Industry leaders are preparing to deploy new technology and finalizing their concepts of operations. What they agree is an incredibly hard mission area in orbit refueling in orbit refueling requires some kind of port or interface for satellites to receive fuel.
The Pentagon has extensive requirements, of course, for such receptacles for aerial refueling, but standards for a satellite equivalent are still being hashed out on January 29th. Northrop Grumman announced that space systems command had selected its passive refueling module or PRM as a preferred refueling solution interface standard. Lauren Smith Northrop’s program manager for in space refueling told air and space forces magazine that the plan is to have the PRM flying on satellites in orbit by 2025.
They’re going to have a they’re going to have a nozzle on there or a locking gas cap. Yeah, basically. Yeah, but they had some demos and something like at the Space Symposium last year.
Did they really? Yeah, they had that kind of stuff. And then I went to the UK Space Symposium and they were discussing that also. I mean, I understand that’s that’s a really easy thing to add into the design.
Is it? Oh, here’s the gas tank. Yeah, we don’t know what’s coming into it. Well, they’re doing rendezvous options all the time with the ISS.
The dragon goes up there, what, once a month and docked in resupply and all. Like I said, it’s the same thing. You just need gas and then you put the gas in the spacecraft.
And I understand they got to come up. And this reminds me a little bit in a second, I’ll tell you, but they got to come up with some kind of standard. Right.
Some kind of industry standard. And it reminds me of Tropic Thunder, right? When what’s his name is explaining the difference between beta and VHS and white porn. Went with VHS because it’s easier.
And he did that whole diet drive about both competing technologies and how VHS won because of porn. This is what this story reminds me of. Maybe that’s a little far fetched, but I think you understand where I’m coming from.
It’s a bit of a reach, but we’ll give it to you. It is. You got to decide on the right delivery system.
But it’s something that needs to be done, right? Yeah, right. Because fuel is what limits a lot of our longevity up there. I would argue with more technology.
Like we’re not replacing spacecraft because we’re running out of fuel or we’re replacing spacecraft because the technology has advanced so far forward that the technology we were using five years ago is now obsolete. And even if you were to go up and refuel a DSP satellite, let’s take the movement out of it and all that kind of stuff, you have much better sensors that you could strap onto a new one and launch and get more capability out of it now as opposed to just refueling it. Well, sure.
Yeah, but using DSP as an example, we all know that the majority of the jumps in technology came from actual software updates, right? They had sensors that were way advanced, but we couldn’t process that amount of data. All the information is just pumping down. We don’t have the speed to process that.
So software technology was jumping. It would be interesting to see. I would imagine that MIO or LEO satellites would need more fuel to stay up longer to course correct because they’re always having to fix those orbits.
Geos don’t fix orbits that much, right? But some of those other ones, like GPS do, they’re constantly orbit correcting. And not to mention NRO or any of those satellites that are pulling up wire diagrams on buildings and stuff. They got to zoom around here and there.
According to Will Smith. According to Will Smith. An SSC official later told Space News that SSC selection did not mean that Space Force would use just the PRM interface exclusively.
And an executive with a company called Orbitfab, a startup that has developed its own port called the Rapidly Attachable Fluid Transfer Interface, or RaFTY, told Air and Space Forces Magazine that its interface will go on Space Force satellites too. So even though SSC said, hey, this is a standard, I guess we’re going to use other ones too? Well, commercial applications and stuff like that. So this is the RaFTY from the company Orbitfab.
That is an interesting picture, but I don’t know if one site, I don’t know how it works. But it does say RaFTY right here. So, for what that’s worth.
So I’m on their Orbitfab website. And literally I’m looking at it and I scroll down a little bit and it’s like backed by Northrop Crummon, Lockheed Martin. And I was like, oh, they’re the same company.
Northrop just came up with their own. So this, who is this guy? Smith. They said Northrop will retain the intellectual property rights to the PRM, but the government, which helped fund the technology’s development, will have usage rights and can distribute the technical specifications to other contractors who will not have to pay a licensing fee.
Harris said RaFTY by Orbitfab, quote, is available for 30 grand to anyone that wants refueling. It’s just like, let’s sell to any of you guys. Give us 30 grand, we’ll sell it to you.
Between RaFTY and PRM, more refuelable satellites will likely launch in the coming years. It is interesting. It would be interesting to go over, maybe I’m too locked into DSP and the beds and shooting hydrazine and all that stuff.
Pumping the plenum. Yeah, the plenum tanks, right? Pumping the plenum. But it would be interesting to see what fuel, are they talking about main thrusters? Are they talking about position? I’m sure it’s something decomposed hydrazine.
It’s going to be from a low level station keeping maneuver fuel. It’s not going to be solid rocket boosters or anything. But it is interesting because usually all these satellites have enough fuel for their planned life.
Service life, yeah. Right? And at the end of that service life, usually the technology, like we talked about earlier, that they went up with is already superseded. But I guess keeping a satellite limping around while refueling it saves millions in launching a replacement, I suppose.
Depending on the application for like commsats, it would make sense because if you’re out there doing internet service at GEO, you could be doing that for 20 years and not really have to upgrade the technology. Yeah, that’s a good point. So I’m sure there are very useful applications for it.
I’m not shitting on it in any way. But I would say in my experience, most satellites get replaced because of their sensor systems being obsolete as opposed to loss of fuel. But then I thought… Man, they’re talking about, like on their website, they’re talking about having multiple fuel depots up there.
Oh, yeah, I’m getting to that. And then… Oh, okay. I’m getting to that.
The cis-lunar ones, too. No, that makes sense. Straight lunar? Or… No, it’s just like literally putting a fuel depot around orbiting the moon.
Oh, I thought you’d not have… And then… I don’t know what that cis means. No, the cis-lunar ones is orbiting the moon, a fuel depot orbiting the moon, and then the other one coming back down and refueling stuff. So… The… Actually doing the refueling is another story, and Northrop and Orbitfab are already taking different approaches.
Orbitfab’s plan is to have operational fuel depots or what it calls gas stations in space. So, in the next few years. But the depots themselves won’t refuel satellites.
Instead, they will stay in place and shuttles, quote-unquote, will maneuver between the two so that the client, such as the Space Force, doesn’t have to burn fuel getting to the depot. It’s not only burning fuel. I mean, you take a satellite out of its… Let’s just talk geo for a second.
You take a geosat out of its orbit to get it back into its position. That’s months or weeks or whatever it is. Yeah, it can take a long time, yeah.
So, yeah, you don’t want that thing coming out of its position. At least I wouldn’t want to if I was a commander. Well, and from an ops cap perspective, you probably don’t want to take it out of mission.
Yeah, right, absolutely. It’s going to come to you and give you gas. I mean, fuck it.
Very good. So, there’s Orbitfab’s artist rendering of its gas station in space, right? I like it. And here are three E3s in here going… Yeah, the orbital mechanics.
Months of this. Bunch of cowboys coming up for gas. But I’m interested to see… So, I like the idea, because I think it could really advance some technologies out in space, just having this on-orbit capability.
Sure, yeah, absolutely. Open up so many different avenues to innovation stuff. It’s very interesting.
Yeah, it’s just more traffic, right? Man, can you imagine the complexity of the rendezvous ops, though, that they’re talking about, with that little fuel shuttle satellite? I don’t know, man. It seems like we didn’t recover our stages of our rocket because it was too difficult. So, we just… You know, the early parts of the space program.
We just let them burn in or we let them crash into the ocean. Elon said, hey, I can pinpoint land this thing on a freighter in the middle of the ocean. So, if he’s doing that with atmosphere, it would almost seem easy to come up there and do a docking maneuver.
Docking maneuvers… I mean, that was the biggest thing. Well, and there again, they do that every month, you know what I mean? Right, yeah. With ISS, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. So, meanwhile, on the same release announcing the PRM selection, North have revealed that it had received a contract from Space Systems Command to develop… Yeah, there you go. The Geosynchronous Auxiliary Support Tanker or the GAS-T.
A spacecraft that will have enough fuel to maneuver between satellites and refuel them. So, this whole thing is going to go satellite to satellite to satellite. So, this… I know it’s a terrible picture of it, but this is the artist’s rendering of North of Grumman’s GAS-T.
And I think this is the satellite and I think it’s connecting up to it or something like that. I would imagine they had a much better name for that, but then the lieutenant that came up with it got yelled at because he needed something that the general could remember very easily. Right.
Or the lieutenant came up with it and they’re like, that’s the dumbest idea. And some general goes, hey, GAS-T, I like it. And they’re like, well, that fucking lieutenant got it.
That’s going to stick. Yeah, that’s going to stick. So, exciting things for those who have a Fuels AFSC, if you will, right? Shout out to Sean Fishburne, former fuelie right there.
Yeah, look at what your grandchildren are going to get to do. They’re going to get to go up there. You know, there was a terrible, there was a terrible, terrible show.
I remember watching as a kid. I think it was late 70s, maybe early 80s. And it was called Far Out Space Nuts.
You can look it up. It had, I think Gilligan was in it. Bob Denver was in it.
And it had like a skipper character. And these two guys were trash trucks in space. And they had a spacecraft that the front of it would open up like a trash truck.
And then it would just, I guess they were just throwing trash out into space. And these guys’ job was to go around and collect it. That’s what this story’s all about, right? That’s going to be the next big thing we need to solve is the trash up there.
But nobody wants random satellites coming close to their satellites, you know? But who’s going to go up there and collect it up? They’re like, I will for a trillion. Yeah. Well, technology’s like this.
If you have these gas pumpers, whatever you want to call them, going up there, rendezvous with other satellites, they could probably go up, rendezvous, attach, and then pull them back down. I would imagine these things are relatively expendable. And once you start making it financially feasible, you can start doing that.
And this is that technology jump, that innovation, that idea like this will start. Yeah. If it gives it, I mean, it would even just have to give it a push.
If they just pushed some of that stuff down. Down, it’d burn it. Yeah, because I mean, if it’s taking fuel over to that location, it’s refuelable itself.
And then just one big boost and then the opposite boost and let it fly. If you are a believer in extraterrestrial and UFOs and all that stuff, you think they’re flying in this like, look at this garbage all this shit all over their planet. They probably have garbage all over their planet.
That’s why they’re here. It’s like, hey, humans figure this shit out so we can take it back and think back. Let’s move on to more hype news for the Space Force.
Space Force, Space Force, right? This is from Business Insider. Thank you, Jake. Space Force is sending one of its guardians into space for the first time in its history.
It’s for your history. The US Space Force is sending its first member into space. Colonel Nick Haig is set to pilot a NASA mission to the International Space Station as early as August.
And there’s our man. There he is, Nick. Two NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut will join the Crew-9 mission aboard the Dragon, a SpaceX spacecraft.
Upon arrival at the ISS, Haig will pivot to serve as a flight engineer. The crew will conduct a wide-ranging set of operations and research activities for the duration of their more than six-month mission. Seeds.
We’re doing seeds. That’s all we’re doing. Remember? Seeds experiments.
This will be Haig’s first launch as a Space Force guardian, but his third launch in total. He transferred from the Air Force to the Space Force in 2021 according to his NASA profile. So he’s already been to space twice before.
You know? That’s badass. But Space Force is like, hey, we’re finally sending one of our guys to space. The first, first Space Force guy.
Now, I wonder if the other services are going to start having to do that. The Space Force is going to wrestle that away and say, no, if you’re going to have an astronaut go, he needs to transfer over for at least X period of time. Yeah, that’s a good point.
Because I mean, all the services have astronauts now. Do they? Yeah. But once they go into the astronaut program, like NASA’s astronaut program.
Yeah, but you’re still, you’re still considered a military member. We’ve all been independent and not independent today. What’s the other one? With Bruce Willis and Armageddon.
Armageddon. There you go. You need someone on there with the weapons.
And the military guys are the only ones qualified. Well, that’s a good point. I mean, it hasn’t been since like the Apollo program that you’re like, oh, they took all these pilots and made an astronaut.
Now, you don’t have to be a pilot to be an astronaut. So I don’t know. I don’t know about you, but it seems like the Space Force is trying awfully hard to market itself.
Like they have the like the leaders have this need to go get us out there. Tell the public about us. I mean, shit.
It was. I mean, this colonel’s already been to space three times, but Space Force is like, hey, our first Space Force guardian. It’s like, yeah, it’s old.
I’m getting bored of it. You know, in October last year, remember they had the article out about the first Space Force to complete Ranger School. And they’re like, oh, okay.
Why is he doing that? But all right, good. Good on them. It just seems like they’re trying so hard, like little brother, you know, they’re just, we got to tell us and tell them how good Space Force is.
And then, you know, I don’t know why I didn’t cover this, but Space Force in January, they announced their 2023 Polaris award service level recipients. So the Polaris award, remember writing annual awards. Remember how pain in the ass that was, right? Quarterly awards was bad enough.
But if you had a guy who was, or I were putting them up for annual, go add two pages to the singing. All right. What did you do? I got habitat for homeless.
What else did you do? Well, the Polaris awards. The Polaris award is an annual awards program that is built from the four guardian values of character, connection, commitment, and courage. There are four individual award categories representing each value and a team excellence category that signifies all four values.
So they have the character award, the connection award, the commitment award, the courage award, and the team excellence award, all different awards. So now, Jake, I need you to write a commitment award. Yeah.
Sergeant John’s. All right. I need that probably by tomorrow.
See, I’ll be there. The only commitment award. I always think of when I heard commitment is that team America world police, when he’s like, get in the limo, prove your commitment.
He’s like, suck, Mike. You’re like, whoa. That’s the only commitment award that person’s given.
Well, he may have gotten the courage award from that, too. Well, that’s a given, yeah. But now you got to write all these awards.
And, you know, I’m not going to go over the award winners because, you know, good on them for winning the award. Yeah. Holy shit.
It’s just like Space Force. He’s like, just calm down. Just do your shit, right? You don’t need to tell.
But that’s how that’s how Air Force Space Command was, too. It’s like, we got to prove ourselves to the rest of the Air Force, the pilots and the cops and the maintainers and all those guys. We got to show the space is bad.
And that carried over into Space Force. We got to show the first Guardian who has ever rode a horse. I’m sure it’s a tale as old as time, right? I suppose, but I just don’t see the Army or the Navy.
Definitely. They’re doing their bullshit, too. They’re doing their bullshit, too.
They’ve got all this same nonsense. I can remember when an awards package came down and it was some excellence in space thing. But I mean, the people that won it were like astronauts.
And the deal came in. It was like, hey, I want to put in this airman for this award. So I was like, Jesus.
So I go and I grab her. I grab her annual package and I gather some things, start putting things together. But then I looked into the actual award and some of the recipients.
These people have been to the moon. It was like, dude, I seriously can’t submit this award in good faith. Like, no matter how good this airman was, 16 hours with Habitat for Humanity.
Yeah. It’s not going to be competing against Johnny Kim, the Navy SEAL astronaut pilot doctor. Did you submit the award or not? If you wanted to do it, here’s all the here’s all the stuff.
Knock yourself out. I’ve got some integrity here and I’m not going to do it. I tried that one time and I almost got sent home from a foreign country.
Because I told my commander, I was like, we’re not going to put anybody in for quarterly awards. We just got here. They’re just doing their job.
I was on vacation with you that time. I’m going to send you back. So I’m going to say, you son of a bitch.
So I’m like throwing. You know, part of that is just so mid-level commanders can say, hey, I’ve submitted my guys. Well, that’s the thing.
I knew I was right. And if they came down on me that I would be like, look, this is not in the true spirit of this award. And there again, if you guys want to submit somebody for, you know, for squadron, you know, if you want to do it for the squadrons overall benefit, knock yourself out.
But I’m not going to waste my time or her time or anybody else’s time doing this shit. Well, maybe that’s where they chose. What’s his name over you? Yeah, there you go.
That’s why I got, that’s why I got shit on too. I don’t know. I just, I just.
Because we’re already cranky. I think space speaks for itself, even though, you know, the rest of services make fun of it. Even though Eric, if he was here, would make fun of it.
But they, they, I mean, the things that space does is pretty, pretty cool, pretty badass, pretty interesting stuff. And it’s all behind the scenes. I mean, it’s support to support.
You know, there’s, there’s, and it’s not, it’s not going to be until space gets offensive capability that people will be like, holy shit, space for it’s badass. They could send the space laser down and kill a hundred thousand people at a time. You’re like, yes, that’s right.
God damn it. Until that point, we don’t have to keep proving ourselves as a force. And this, this is what this sounds like.
We’ve had that discussion though. It’s the mentality of we have to be a war fighter. Yeah.
And it’s right. Nobody can be support anymore. Right.
Right. For every trigger pulling individual, there’s two dozen people like Intel and freaking support and medical and all. I mean, there’s certain people that are essential to that one person pulling that trigger.
And they issue those damn VR goggles after all those guys that rely on that satellite connection. And they’ll be like space force, you suck. They’re like, Hey, what’s wrong with my GPS? This thing doesn’t work.
So yeah, they’ll appreciate it. Well, how many times do you guys see KIA on a space guy’s awards package or EPR or some shit or sortie? Sorties were bad too, right? He flew so many sorties. I loved writing in sorties though.
I wrote stories all the time. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. It was dumb. Anyway, good on Colonel Haig.
No offense to Colonel Haig, but it’s just. Just be the silent, confident guys. That’s what I would like to see Space Force 3. Like the little brother.
Hey, look what we got. Look what we got. And you know, they even have a, they put out that call.
So did you go to seal or like Ranger or any of those? Why would a Space Force person need to do that? Other than just so Space Force could say, Hey, we’ve got a Space Force seal. Credibility in that community, I guess. He wasted all that military training time and money.
And he’s never going to do it, you know? So, I don’t know. I don’t know. Anyway, let’s go on to, let’s go on to another benefit provided by your U.S. military.
From taskandpurpose.com. Asbestos, cancer-linked toxins reported in Air Force nuclear bases. How long? For days? For weeks? For months? No, for years. Let’s see.
So this one, oh, geez. Can you see that? I hope not because I just screwed my whole screen up. Nice.
This, the Air Force is currently investigating its nuclear launch science. It’s investigating its nuclear launch science for potential cancerous risks, but the service has been aware of toxic dangers at the facilities for years. As most stories that we do on this show, right? So that’s, I think that’s Minot.
You know, that’s the capsule. Have any, either of you guys ever been in that? No. I’ve never even seen them either.
I’ve just seen pictures. No, it says it’s Malstrom. Oh, it’s Malstrom? Sorry.
Sorry. Yeah. It was a Minot, Malstrom and.
FE, yeah. Yeah, FE one. According to a new report by the Associated Press, the AP obtained several Air Force documents dating back decades through a FOIA request.
The documents show that not only did the Air Force know of the dangers many chemicals in the nuclear missile bases posed, there had been repeated leaks or spills that impacted personnel in the launch control centers at that facilities, which is what you’re looking at, the entrance to one of those facilities now. Let me move that back to that. That’s wrong.
That’s wrong. There we go. The ground-based ICBMs are located at three facilities in the Midwest, FE Warren, Malmstrom in Montana, Minot in North Dakota.
Documents obtained by the AP found internal reports of asbestos urgently marked priority from 1992, as well as reports of asbestos leaks in missile silos in 1989. One incident in 1987 saw a leak of polychlorinated biphenol or PCBs in the form of a sticky, oozing substance causing headaches and nausea among those impacted. There’s a joke in there.
PCBs, right? Yeah, exactly. The sticky, oozing. The PCBs, we didn’t know that those were going to kill everybody until what? We didn’t know they were forever chemicals, right? But we’ve known asbestos.
Yeah, that’s the thing. We’ve known asbestos is killing people since the 9th, like since the early 90s. And they’re still like, it’s a priority.
Let’s file it appropriately. Hey, the asbestos is covered in this lead door is scraping off. Maybe we should report that.
You do have people doing a 20-year career. You could, as a missile maintainer. And it sucks that those in command didn’t know, right? I mean, like you said, we didn’t really know the effect of PCBs until 20, 30 years later.
And then they’re like, hey, I’m getting cancer. I’m like, whoa, this PCB thing must be a problem. But they didn’t know back then.
No, maybe they should have known. I don’t know. I don’t know how you’d know if you don’t know.
But now it’s coming on to roost. So launch control centers or LCCs located dozens of feet underground are cruised around the clock with crews spending hours inside a confined space with the risk of exposure to toxic chemicals. I think they spent 24 hours down there, don’t they? Yeah.
Isn’t that one of their shifts? They’ve changed up their alerts time and time. There were 72-hour alerts for a period of time. But yeah, so their alert schedules change.
I don’t know what it is now. So but they’re down there for a day or maybe more. Yeah.
In the last year, several former personnel came forward saying they had developed cancer. In response, the Air Force launched a series of measures to test the current LCCs. Launch Control Centers and to see how many people were impacted by the hazardous material.
Earlier this summer, Air Force Global Strike Command, which is a badass name. That’s a great name. Air Force Global Strike, which oversees the nation’s intercontinental ballistic missiles said that it had detected two cases of elevated levels of PCBs in the LCCs at Minot and Malmstrom.
A cleanup of all three nuclear facilities was ordered. A December update by Air Force Global Strike Command found that four instances of elevated levels of PCBs have been detected in the LCCs at Malmstrom and FE1. Additionally, the service is trying to accurately count exactly how many current or former missile personnel develop cancer.
That expanded survey was announced earlier this month going beyond people who work directly in the LCCs to the wider group that worked on ground-based nuclear missiles. Cops, maintainers, all those guys. I wonder how many of these guys are reporting to the VA and they’re like, hey, I got cancer from something.
And they’re like, well, prove it. Right? And so they do a report like this, and God knows when it’s going to be done, but when they come out and they’re like, this direct contact with this stuff has caused cancer, that’s just going to flood, right? And rightfully so. Those guys should do it.
But then you’re going to fight with the insurance agents called the VA to try to get claims. You’re going to have a class action lawsuit and wonderful commercials. Were you a member of the missile community in 1994 to 2008? I should have categorized all these because that brings me right back to the Camp Lejeune water thing.
The fuel leak, right? Was it Red Hill or something like that? I ran across another one. Well, there was Hickam, the base house. Yeah, the Hickam.
Then I ran across another one where I think the Marines were finding a claim because of cockroach infested barracks. Well, there was an article out here the other day on the PCBs. Any military base with a flight line was using those for years for fire control.
The foam, we did that one. We did that story with the foam. The guys over in Turkey with the black oozing stuff, they couldn’t figure out what that was.
Well, 3M just had that ear protection. One for a long time. The lawsuit against 3M.
They were lying about the protective level of that. But don’t worry all you prospective prospects. The military will take care of you.
Don’t worry. Speaking of prospective prospects, a final story from the Associated Press. This is just in time for the upcoming draft.
The headline is no diploma, no problem. Navy again lowers requirements as it struggles to meet recruitment goals. The US Navy is starting to enlist individuals who didn’t graduate from high school or get a GED.
Marking the second time in about a year that the service has opened the door to lower performing recruits as it struggles to meet enlistment goals. The decision follows a move in December 2022 to bring in a larger number of recruits who score very low on the armed services qualification test. Both are fairly rare steps that the other military services largely avoid or limit.
Even though they are all finding it increasingly difficult to attract a dwindling number of young people who can meet the military’s physical, mental, and moral standards. Under the new plan, Navy recruits without an education credit will be able to join as long as they score 50 or above on the qualification test, which is out of 99. The last time the service took individuals without education credentials was in 2000.
The other services have largely balked at such changes. So I don’t know. I think the very next step though is they have to open up the old school Shanghai tunnels under bars, you know.
Portland had it, freaking North Carolina had it. Remember like all the way back in the day, people would get drunk in bars close to ports and they would just get kidnapped and wake up three days off the street. Yeah, they’re like, welcome to the streets.
I mean, welcome aboard. Well, that’s the next step, man. I mean, if you go back to, if you go back to Vietnam era, maybe even before, but that was when judges could go, hey, you either go to jail or you go on list, you know.
Go to war or go to jail. We’ve all sung that games. I don’t know.
I don’t know. It just seems like, I mean, because there are, on one hand, it’s a desperation move. On the other hand, I’ve known a lot of guys who didn’t graduate who are very smart dudes, right? Oh, yeah.
And not graduating doesn’t necessarily mean, hey, I was too dumb and I flunked out. You know, it could be, there was a gang who bullied me or there was, you know, my teacher came on to me, so I dropped out. You know, there’s a number of reasons why they didn’t finish high school or GED.
And it doesn’t always mean that they’re dumb. Now, there are dumb ones, right? There are dumb guys. Most of the time it means they’re dumb.
And that’s where this is going to make them. Sure. You’re going to be able to find a few shiny rocks in the, you know, levels.
But I don’t know. Can you see a connection of the dots of, we did that story where like foreigners, you know, whatever, whatever you want to call them, who can come in and they can serve and get citizenship, right? This seems like hand in glove with that kind of policy. Like, oh, you don’t have a GED.
You have a green card. Come in and you do four years and you can be a citizen after that. I think that was a big for Puerto Ricans, mainly.
Puerto Ricans, Guamanians, Samoans, I think. I knew guys who were all from there signed up in the army. And I don’t know if citizenship was guaranteed them after that, but maybe it is.
So maybe this is all part of that. But I don’t know. It just seems, I guess I got to do something or draft.
I think what’s the other one? South Korean was a shocker to me. They can join the Air Force. Really? Yeah.
Yeah. Do they get nationalized after they join the Air Force? I don’t remember. I remember multiple times over there going, oh, yeah.
Hey, where are you from? They’re like here. I’m from here. Oh, really? Yeah.
Huh. I’m going to look it up. But yeah, multiple times.
There’s a whole bunch of possibilities to that. I mean, vets are over in South Korea, hooking up with South Korean women, and boom, they have a kid. And the kid then has dual nationality.
And the dad could have retired, stayed there. Any number of things could have happened. Well, that was, damn, who was a comedian? He said that.
I can’t remember who that comedian was. But he stood up. He was like, hey, I’m half Korean.
I’m half American because my dad was in the army. I mean, it’s a real thing. That’s a good line.
Yeah, between Koreans and Germans. That’s how it was all during the Cold War. But I don’t know.
I guess you got to reach out to something. But yeah, I think they’re missing the underlying argument with all this stuff about why people aren’t joining. It’s not that you’re tapping the right population.
That’s exactly it. I think there’s many more factors that go into that, not the least of which is that they do all those surveys with Gen Z and all that stuff. And they’re like, hey, what would you think if there was a draft? And I’m like, fuck that, right? They don’t want to serve it.
But there’s no history of service, necessarily. And there’s no pull to service, especially when we’ve gone through the whole minimum wage argument that we’ve gone through over the last decade, or maybe not that long. But that whole argument about living wage and stuff.
And now you want to step in and take an E1’s pay? Yeah, or at least you can get three hots and a cot. I mean, that appeals to a certain group, maybe the ones who dropped out of high school. But to the general populace of the young people, I don’t think that.
I mean, they don’t want to work at any fast food, because it’s beneath them. I mean, what is the military going to be to that? Yeah, well, I mean, there’s more to it. But yeah, you’re definitely right in that.
Just everything that’s been going on has been fucking with this military recruiting thing. And I don’t think that hiring in people without high school diplomas or GEDs is going to solve their issue. They need to solve the overarching issue of why people aren’t joining to begin with.
And they’re not joining because they don’t want to go to war for some bullshit. They don’t believe it. I agree.
And going back all the way to Vietnam, the war thing has been hard to sell, and we continue to go to wars over stupid shit. And you’ve got Congress coming out right now. I mean, what was his name? Schumer saying that, hey, if we don’t give Ukraine money today, then your kids will be fighting in Ukraine two years from now.
No one’s going to like it. It’s like, dude, you guys are missing the whole point of this whole shit. That’s a really intuitive point that you brought up about Vietnam.
Because we can all read the history books and we can all study about what the populace was, why we were in Vietnam in the first place, why it was just kind of a worthless, the populace saw it as, why are we there? And then the institution of the draft, they had people over there. And you fast forward through 20 years of being in Afghanistan and Iraq, pulling out of Iraq, giving them all our equipment, and why the hell we have three soldiers die a couple of weeks ago, what are they doing here? What do we do it anyway? And so if there’s one thing that all the independent news stuff has come out and the internet has enabled is to ask these questions like, why are we over there at all? Why do we have these posts everywhere? There’s no point in them anymore. Well, and is there any tangible gain for that country? Right? Is that country going to be better off after the war or better off after our influence? And I think growing up, I was always gung ho, not knowing all this other information that was out there, right? But I think it’s good that it’s out there and the young people are like, I don’t want to join an organization that’s just going to send me off to something that doesn’t make any sense to have a Senate majority leader threaten that I’ll have to go fight Ukraine for what? Not for America.
Yeah. None of this stuff is for us. It’s all for political influence.
So I think they’re seeing that. I mean, just to be low pay food stamps, live in toxic environments, you know, right? We just got done talking about that. We also discussed prior to this, the retirement program.
It’s a 401k, but it’s based off of like, what, 4% of your base pay. Yeah, right. Right.
So like 4% of a thousand bucks a month or 2000 bucks a month. It’s not the two biggest incentives are VA loan and education. That’s it.
Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, if you can’t and that could strike a chord with a lot of the younger generation because the younger generations like my daughter is like, I don’t know how the hell we’re going to buy a house. You know, when minimum house prices for decent places to live are approaching 300 grand. You know, yeah, you could get something somewhere else, not in Colorado, unless you go way out East Colorado or way out West Colorado, but you’re not going to get, you know, 150 grand starter house.
You got to go to Nebraska or Kansas or something like that. But then you go there, you’re not going to earn the salary. So that may appeal to that younger generation like, oh, I can buy something with nothing down for four years of my time.
Okay. All right. Yeah.
And I don’t have to graduate high school. All right. All right.
Now we, now we’re talking about the loan interest rate at like 1%. Right. That would, that would solve a lot of the bullshit going on right now.
And then I bet people would sign up to get that benefit. You know, we were always lucky because we, we worked in an environment that had a TS clearance. Once you obtain that TS clearance, that was, that was the money in the bank, right? You know, with contractors, that’s money in the bank is all they need you to have is that TS clearance.
That was worth as much as a VA, VA loan. But you go in and, you know, to, to one of these shots, you know, Swatty. No, man.
We brought that up the other day in that, you know, they’re being a contractor. You never know when the funding is going to run out or whatever, you know, it’s, it’s the pros and cons of working for the government as a contractor. But we’ve got that benefit as space nerds in that.
Okay. Cool. You know, unfortunately in Colorado Springs, they’re always looking for us.
Everybody’s looking for us. Right. So as soon as the contract’s up and they’re like, Oh, what are we going to do? Yeah, fine.
Yeah, wait to put your badge for the next one. That’s exactly it. I went to, I applied to, did I tell the story before? I applied to a Raytheon job and they’re like, Hey, okay, we’re going to interview you.
And I did a phone interview. And I was like, you know, I don’t necessarily know how to write requirements. I can contribute to writing, but I’ve never written requirements on my own.
They’re like, Oh, we’re not even necessarily considering you for that job. There’s three others jobs that we’re considering you for. And I was like, what? And they just, they’re just, they’re hiring the clearance.
Yeah. They’ll teach you whatever they want you to know, but they’re hiring the clearance. So that was the benefit that we had.
But yeah, some of the, some of these other things, it’s like, well, it still is going to appeal. It’s like, it’s, it’s like the boxing game, right? It still is going to appeal to those who are really down and out. You can build yourself up through the military.
Well, and to a certain degree, but with, with this specific article referring to the Navy, I don’t think they’re going to get their return on investment, you know, just to be able to take a number up. The training belt of a queen, someone who can’t, who can’t write a simple, you know, three page paper to graduate from high school or, you know, any other variety of things like you finished high school. It’s kind of like, you know, getting a degree, you know, you show that you can finish a program and you pick up these various skills that matter in the bigger scheme of things, you know, being able to do math, put together a sentence that makes sense, all that kind of stuff.
And when you’re doing this, I mean, as soon as these floodgates open and people do start coming in the door, they’re just not going to get the return on their investment. And then the people that are, that they’re hiring, they’re going to hire for two to four year enlistments. A lot of them are just going to cause problems.
Well, and that’s part of the, that’s also part of the military’s problem right now is not necessarily hiring or not only hiring people, but retention, the retention. Yeah, the retention is an issue. Right.
Because people know, hey, I can come in, I can punch in for four years, I get out, I get all my benefits and, you know, I’m good. That’s, that’s, and that’s, that’s exactly the reason why they have those benefits. But to try to get them to go further, you know, that’s a tough one.
So, I don’t know. It’s funny because I, I took the tech as, I knew a lot of good guys who never graduated and they were competent. And Mike took the tech as, anybody who doesn’t graduate is a moron.
They can’t even put a sentence together. Well, I didn’t, I didn’t say anybody there. There are going to be, you shiny up.
Security forces will take them all. So, you know, they’ll just hang them up. How many years does the Navy need them for? Right, four and done.
Right. Yeah. Are they two and done? They freaking make it to one or two deployments.
And that’s all it’s worth to us. Fine. And you also have the risk of, you sign a guy up who, for whatever reason, he didn’t graduate, he didn’t get a GED.
Is that guy going to, I mean, if he couldn’t comply with the requirements to get a high school diploma or a GED, is he going to be a good fit in a military environment? Well, and well, you get into this, I mean, some people are just dealt a shitty hand in life, right? Like there’s, they, they just, it’s, it sucks. And there’s, there’s going to be some people that go in in the military and do this. And there, again, they’re going to be your shiny rocks.
They’re going to come out and they’re going to be like, Oh man, my life actually has a vector now. And I’ve got to, I’ve got something to grasp onto. And I don’t want to fuck this up.
Cause it’s getting me, it’s going to take me somewhere. You’re going to have those guys to grab out of that bowl and run with it. Get them out of that environment.
You and far between. And when I look at it in reality, I don’t know. It reminds me of a story.
I had a, I had a soldier, we were in an assembly area and we didn’t have any chemical test kits. Right. And this guy, he was a specialist.
He was an E4. He’s a great guy. He was an earnest, you know, hardworking guy, but he wasn’t the smartest guy in the world.
Right. And I was like, Maloney, I need you to run over there to Bravo batteries. See if they have any test kits.
Ask captain. I don’t know. It’s captain Jones.
I think his name was asked captain Jones. If he has any test kits that we can. So he ran off.
He ran. Right. Cause we didn’t have comms set up.
So he ran. He came back like half an hour later. I like Maloney.
They have, they have any of those test kits and he goes, Oh, I forgot to ask him. He took off and he ran. I was like, dude, he ran over there, read back and then why, why’d you run over there in the first place? So you might be getting that guy, you know, which is, I love the guy.
He was so, he was so, like I said, earnest and hardworking, but he just wasn’t that bright man. But he was, he was, he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t help it.
He would run forever if he told him to run forever. Just don’t tell him to do a task at the end of that. So, yeah, maybe that’s what you get into the Navy.
I don’t know. There you go. anyway, uh, on that note, I think where it ended up, guys, you guys, any, I was going to try to do a recap.
I was thinking of doing a recap. What’d we learn today? Oh, but I’m not sure if we’re there. I don’t know if we’d learn.
We didn’t have a chance to do any, uh, I want those mid shift conversations. well, we had one this week. Like Mike said that last week was definitely a mid shift.
That was a good one. Well, we got to have someone that’s going to, that’s going to get pissed. Cause that’s, that’s part, that’s part of the fun of the mission.
Yeah. Whatever you want. I’ll take the other side.
I’m good. I’ll do that. That’s true.
You are a very good contrarian. That’s true. Mike is a correctarian.
You’re a contrarian. I just want you all to get along. don’t play it off.
But it is, it is interesting cause Eric, Eric believes what he hears on the news. Mike takes the position of the higher ups because he was a weapons guy and stuff. He likes to support that.
Jake is a revolutionary. He doesn’t believe anything he’s ever told. And I don’t know.
I got to be more of a puppet master. Maybe I don’t know. I, I just want you to prove it and not, not just in writing.
That’s true. And there’s, there’s nothing worse than having Jake do something for you. And he goes, you know, he’s not fully on board.
I’ll do it though. Let’s do it. Go on.
I’ll follow. He will, but he’ll be judging you the whole way. Yeah.
On behalf of all this here, I’d like to thank you for listening today. Please like, share, subscribe, and let us know how we get in the comments. I’m just going to do it by myself.
We’re not going to do a group thing. And make sure next week that you are not late for change over. Oh, thank goodness.
Yeah. So you’re relieved of that. So you can tell your friend that Jake is gone.
We’ve tried it. I’ve tried it for two, for too long now. We can’t get it together.
Oh man. Thanks for the week. And I’ll see you next week.
All right. We’ll catch you later guys.