This Week in Space 228 Transcript

Please be advised that this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word-for-word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-free version of the show.

Tariq Malik [00:00:00]:
Coming up on This Week in Space, there's a new crater on the Moon. Boeing may not be down and out yet with their Starliner ship for NASA. And what's a HOTOL? We're going to get down and dirty with a British spaceplane history with Rob Coppinger, aerospace journalist, and his new book, HOTOL and Skylon. Check it out.

Rod Pyle [00:00:25]:
This is This Week in Space, episode number 228, recorded on September 18th, 2026. What's a HOTOL? Hello and welcome to another episode of This Week in Space, the What's a HOTOL edition. I'm Rod Pyle, editor-in-chief of Ad Astra magazine. I'm here with my old pal Tarek Malik, editor-in-chief at space.com.

Tariq Malik [00:00:50]:
Hello, hello, Rod. Hello, hello. I'm all dressed up. I'm, I'm so excited. I, by the way, I just came back from a, a USC rally Because USC is playing Rutgers.

Rod Pyle [00:01:03]:
Because you look like a human fruit bowl.

Tariq Malik [00:01:05]:
I'm so excited. Oh, first time since 2012. I'm so excited. So, so football is the one with the skinny brown thing, right?

Rod Pyle [00:01:13]:
Yeah, I always get those mixed up. All right, but to get back to something that people actually care about, we will soon be speaking with Rob Coppinger, the editor of Spaceflight magazine for the British Interplanetary Society and, uh, also a, a general space journalist and, and a master at both of those things that Tarek and I struggle and I— to keep up with. All right, but first let's go to a space joke from I'm Not Saying Who. Hey, Tarek!

Tariq Malik [00:01:43]:
Oh, I'm Not Saying Who. Yes, Rod.

Rod Pyle [00:01:46]:
Where do you go when you first enter Earth orbit?

Tariq Malik [00:01:49]:
Uh, I don't know, where do you go?

Rod Pyle [00:01:50]:
Why, you check into a hotel.

Tariq Malik [00:01:52]:
That sounds like you're the one that came up with that joke then, right?

Rod Pyle [00:01:58]:
Uh, might be. And that's a joke that, uh, maybe 3 people on the planet Earth will laugh at. But hey, after all this through the show, what's a hotel with you, right? That's right. Now I've heard that some folks want to cancel our funding with this joke time in this show, but you can help by sending us your best, worst, or most indifferent space joke at twistedtwit.tv, and we'll be happy to blame it on you. When we use it and the cancel your funding line applies to that.

Tariq Malik [00:02:23]:
That's good. That's going to come back later.

Rod Pyle [00:02:25]:
Because, yeah, because there's a story there about, oh, very promising, but—

Tariq Malik [00:02:29]:
That's what we call in the craft foreshadowing, everybody. Foreshadowing.

Rod Pyle [00:02:33]:
Or a poor landing for a joke that you had to explain. All right. Let's go on to headline news.

Tariq Malik [00:02:47]:
Getting close. Getting close.

Rod Pyle [00:02:50]:
Well, you were right on in real time, which means you'll have slid off in—

Tariq Malik [00:02:54]:
No, no, I was ahead. I was ahead.

Rod Pyle [00:02:56]:
Barely, barely.

Tariq Malik [00:02:57]:
Yeah. Okay. All right.

Rod Pyle [00:02:59]:
That's as far ahead as you've ever been in anything. So we have a new crater on the moon.

Tariq Malik [00:03:04]:
That's harsh, man.

Rod Pyle [00:03:06]:
Named McGettchen Crater.

Tariq Malik [00:03:07]:
McGettchen.

Rod Pyle [00:03:08]:
Who is that named after?

Tariq Malik [00:03:10]:
You know, you know, actually, I don't know who it's named after. Maybe the discoverer of the crater.

Rod Pyle [00:03:14]:
You put the story in here.

Tariq Malik [00:03:16]:
Yeah.

Rod Pyle [00:03:16]:
Fuck it.

Tariq Malik [00:03:17]:
Well, tell us that story. You know what? It's so funny. We were getting ready for the show notes and I was like, you know what? The one thing I didn't check check on this story is who named the crater. And I bet you Rod's going to ask me about it. And then you did. It was the very first thing. It was the very first thing. But really, really shortly, this is a new crater that was just discovered over the last couple of years.

Tariq Malik [00:03:38]:
And it's a large crater. It's about 728 feet wide. It is 141 feet deep. That's like a 14-story skyscraper building. That's how deep this thing is. And they discovered it in between April and May. Of, um, of 2024. Well, they just— they discovered it recently, but they, they think that it formed in April or May of 2024, so 2 years ago.

Tariq Malik [00:04:02]:
So something hit the Moon, and, uh, and they think it was, you know, either a fragment of a comet or, uh, or, or part of a, uh, an asteroid that did it. And, and now they've got an opportunity, Rod, to really look at the interior of the Moon. in a way that they've only dreamed of.

Rod Pyle [00:04:22]:
Right.

Tariq Malik [00:04:22]:
A very fresh, fresh one, because when we've seen these little things happen before, it's like a small, little, tiny meteoroid. So there's like a flash and then it's gone, or it's a spacecraft body, so, but still relatively small. But this is a big, you know, nearly 1,000 feet wide, uh, uh, crater. And there have been at least 2 studies that, um, that have come out about them. And NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is the one that, in fact, you know, they used to, to discover it. And it looks amazing. It's got all this kind of white light material all around it, or at least lighter gray, uh, which is that ejecta that they can see. They can get like a blast mark in it in these images that they, they've been taking of it, and it's absolutely amazing.

Tariq Malik [00:05:03]:
You know, they've been, uh, studying the Moon with LRO for 17 different years, and so they've got this massive database and this map of the Moon, and now they can see how it's changed in that time very starkly with this thing.

Rod Pyle [00:05:16]:
And it's named after Thomas McEachin. Born 1936, died 1979. Didn't last long. A pioneering lunar geologist, volcanologist, and former director of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.

Tariq Malik [00:05:31]:
There you go. That's good.

Rod Pyle [00:05:32]:
There you go.

Tariq Malik [00:05:34]:
So, all right.

Rod Pyle [00:05:36]:
So moving on to what's gotten to be—

Tariq Malik [00:05:40]:
The first question is the one I don't know.

Rod Pyle [00:05:43]:
A tired news article. Big news on Starliner coming.

Tariq Malik [00:05:48]:
This is good.

Rod Pyle [00:05:49]:
Now, the news I saw on Starliner was, uh, Gwynne Shotwell, president of SpaceX, being interviewed, who said, hey, Boeing, you got money, fly that sucker. But, uh, as we know, it probably will not even fly to the space station. So what's the news?

Tariq Malik [00:06:04]:
Well, this story actually comes from Ars Technica, and, and it's like a preview of sorts because actually it's really funny that you mentioned Gwynne Shotwell. NASA just ordered, I think, 3 more ISS crew flights from SpaceX today, uh, in a new crew agreement. So, so I think that this story from Eric really kind of resonates over at ours because he has inside information that says that NASA is going to announce—

Rod Pyle [00:06:31]:
Friend of the show, Eric Berger.

Tariq Malik [00:06:32]:
Yeah, friend of the show, uh, very talented writer. He's got people, he's got people in the know, you know, just don't ask him where he gets that information. But these people have told him that NASA is going to announce, uh, in the, the near future the procurement of at least 2 more than agreed-upon Starliner flights. So they're gonna— they're, they're committed to Starliner flying American astronauts into space. Uh, they're going to also, as part of that agreement, uh, help them off— uh, you know, complete the thruster issues and pay for that development and that completion. And, uh, and then—

Rod Pyle [00:07:07]:
Which is not, not part of the deal. Wait, wait, wait. Do I smell lobbying here somewhere?

Tariq Malik [00:07:14]:
Where? Hello? Yeah. And also support the certification of the launch on a new rocket because they want to be able to use the vehicles, I guess, after the Atlas Vs are out. They don't got a lot of them, although they supposedly did have enough for these flights. But it might be that they need those rockets now for some national security flights to move them up. This is interesting stuff if, if, uh, if it bears out, because it means that NASA is going to keep Starliner in the pipeline. It does seem to suggest that Boeing is committed to keeping it as a product as well, uh, to fly. And if that means it's just for NASA or it could be for others, that remains to be determined. And it's this part about certifying it for different rockets that I find really interesting, because that would suggest that there is a future for Starliner beyond the remaining Atlas Vs, because that's what it was designed to fly on.

Tariq Malik [00:08:07]:
And beyond the space station, like what you said, is rapidly closing in on its end date at the end of the decade.

Rod Pyle [00:08:13]:
So I guess beyond Boeing, this is sort of like throwing half a broken bone over to ULA as well, right? Because they are supporting a few, potentially a few more perhaps launches of the Vulcan. Maybe that's what they're certifying it for, but maybe on the Falcon 9 as well?

Tariq Malik [00:08:31]:
Well, SpaceX has already said they're going to sunset the Falcon 9 as soon as Starship is fully operational.

Rod Pyle [00:08:37]:
Well, they said But then Gwynne in that address said we're not going to stop building Crew Dragons. So what does that mean?

Tariq Malik [00:08:45]:
I don't know. Maybe they're going to pack like 7 of them in a Starship and launch everybody at the same time.

Rod Pyle [00:08:49]:
Well, that's one way to handle life support.

Tariq Malik [00:08:52]:
You can launch them on a Falcon Heavy too and just send them off to the moon.

Rod Pyle [00:08:55]:
So yeah, you know, the Falcon Heavy, we just saw launch for the, for the Roman Space Telescope, but it's been kind of amazingly underutilized, especially considering And we haven't really talked, you know, maybe we should do an episode on this, but there have been studies and plans reviewed on how we could be doing the Moon without the SLS using New Glenn and/or the Falcon Heavy, just with multiple launches and rendezvous. But that's a story for another day. What is a story for today, which you've already kind of primed for us, thank you.

Tariq Malik [00:09:28]:
That's right.

Rod Pyle [00:09:28]:
Is the next flight of Starship.

Tariq Malik [00:09:30]:
Starship.

Rod Pyle [00:09:32]:
When?

Tariq Malik [00:09:32]:
When? September 28th. September 28th. So it's been a bit of a whirlwind with Starship this week because SpaceX actually announced an earlier launch date, September 22nd, uh, which would have been, uh, coming up just next week. I guess that would have been next Tuesday, and as we're recording this, and then they have decided without really explaining why to push it back to the 28th, which is a Monday as we are recording this. Um, and so just so people are aware This is another critical— I guess they're all critical, uh, flights for, uh, for SpaceX, but this is like a step apart. This is Flight 14. This is SpaceX's first attempt to enter orbit with a Starship rocket. Uh, it's going to be carrying operational version 3 Starlink satellites.

Tariq Malik [00:10:19]:
Those are the big ones, so don't care about, uh, a couple dozen of those, and deploy them as part of operational Starlink business. So that would make it actually a customer flight, but SpaceX would be its own customer in this regard. And it's going to be the long longest mission to date as well. It's going to last 10 hours, Rod.

Rod Pyle [00:10:36]:
10 hours.

Tariq Malik [00:10:37]:
And, uh, and they'll launch and they, um, they're not going to attempt to land, as I understand it. Um, but, uh, they're not going to tend to, to recover either of them. Yeah, yeah. Because they, they really want to, to do things a step at a time, which is a bit different than what they were trying to do with the V2, where they did everything all at one time.

Rod Pyle [00:10:56]:
Oh, let's call it version 2. That's much less—

Tariq Malik [00:10:58]:
So the version 2, pardon me, pardon me. I got, I got it on the brain because, uh, this, this week was one of the anniversaries, was a Anyway, the, the, the, oh, it was the something 3 launch. It was a V2 launch test out of White Sands of one of the monkeys. No, no. It was the, the, the one of the monkeys before it. Our, our, our, because, oh, man. Our, not Arthur.

Rod Pyle [00:11:24]:
Amos?

Tariq Malik [00:11:25]:
Anyway, it, it, it, it, it failed and it killed him.

Rod Pyle [00:11:28]:
Amos? Artemis?

Tariq Malik [00:11:29]:
No, it's, it's not Able either. I—

Rod Pyle [00:11:33]:
Orangutan?

Tariq Malik [00:11:34]:
All right.

Rod Pyle [00:11:35]:
Well, in any case, so whatever A-word flew, uh, we'll be back in just a few moments to discuss the HOTOL and Skylon spaceplanes out of the UK with Rob Coppinger. So stick around. And we are back with the one and only Rob Coppinger, who is a space journalist and edits the premier magazine of the British Interplanetary Society, Spaceflight.

Rob Coppinger [00:12:00]:
Hi, Rob.

Tariq Malik [00:12:01]:
Hello, Rob. Welcome.

Rob Coppinger [00:12:02]:
Hello.

Rod Pyle [00:12:04]:
I met Rob for the first time at, uh, the Artemis II flight, which was fun. But you and Tarek go way back, I gather.

Rob Coppinger [00:12:13]:
Yeah, actually, that was the first— that was the first time I met Tarek, actually. First time I met Tarek in person was, was at KSC, Kennedy Space Center, when we saw the launch.

Tariq Malik [00:12:22]:
That's right.

Rob Coppinger [00:12:23]:
And, uh, but I've been, uh, very lucky and honored to write for space.com Various times over many years. Um, it's a great website.

Tariq Malik [00:12:32]:
That's right, that's right. And that was where you told us at Artemis II that you have a book coming out, a book that we're going to be here to talk about. Yeah, uh, about spaceflight. I'm so excited. It's so great to see you again, Rob, and I'm so excited to see the book come out now.

Rob Coppinger [00:12:46]:
So yeah, it's been a long— it was a long journey for me and, um, had some twists and turns at the end.

Rod Pyle [00:12:53]:
Well, that's Pretty normal for the book process. I'm going through that right now myself. But I believe before we get into that too deep, Tarek has a question.

Tariq Malik [00:13:01]:
Yeah, yeah. So we're going to talk about the, the book and of course your, your thoughts and, and, and career in a minute. But my, my first question that I do try to ask everybody that comes, uh, on the show is what their first kind of inspiration or brush with space has been. I mean, is it something uh, Rob, that, that kind of grabbed you when you were a little kid, or did you find it later as a passion, which has happened? I, I, and, and I'm just kind of curious which part of the spectrum are you on when it comes to your interest in space?

Rob Coppinger [00:13:34]:
Well, I think, um, I think the, uh, my earliest memory had quite an impact on me of all things space was I was watching the TV and, um, they brought up a film from Skylab and one of the astronauts was trying to run around the interior circumference of the Skylab. And I must have seen— already seen 2001 because I had this sort of, as close to an epiphany as a child could have, of making that connection between the famous Stanley Kubrick film and, uh, and what I was seeing in real life in front of me. And I think that was, that was, uh— that was, I think, really probably made me feel something special about space. And then I think really I had a— I came to like science as a child, and then that became engineering. And then I think really it's what interests me about space is the technical challenge of designing the rockets and spacecraft.

Tariq Malik [00:14:37]:
Right.

Rob Coppinger [00:14:37]:
And that's what really As I got older, that's what really engaged me.

Tariq Malik [00:14:43]:
That's amazing. A rare Skylab citation, Rod.

Rod Pyle [00:14:47]:
Yeah, we don't know.

Tariq Malik [00:14:48]:
That's probably a first, I think, for the channel.

Rod Pyle [00:14:51]:
That is a great piece of film. I don't remember if it was Conrad. I think it was Conrad who was trying to run. It was sort of the opposite of centrifugal gravity. He was trying to run fast enough, I guess, to keep himself glued to the perimeter of that thing, which was 33 feet in diameter. So it was a It was still to this day the biggest single volume in space.

Tariq Malik [00:15:10]:
Mm-hmm.

Rod Pyle [00:15:12]:
So Rob, how did that lead you to— as is well known to anybody who listens to the show with any regularity because we blather on about it all the time, Tarek and I were both kind of interested in the same kind of things you were in the same general way that you were, but were defeated by higher mathematics and our original goals, and that's how we ended up being brilliant storytellers, at least in his case. Uh, what led you to journalism?

Rob Coppinger [00:15:37]:
Well, so I, I actually went on to do an engineering degree, and I was a— was a— uh, so the maths didn't quite defeat me, and I, I, I became a production engineer in the UK's car industry, uh, and that's what I did in my 20s. But then, as what— during my years in the car industry, I just felt that it wasn't something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. And I'd always been a bit of a bookworm and loved to write as a child, and I considered journalism as a teenager. So I just thought, what the hell, I'll try it. And we used to have a magazine at work called The Engineer. So I phoned them and spoke to the news editor and said, how do you get into journalism? And he told me and 9 months later I was working for them. So, which worked out very well. And I haven't, you know, it was the best decision I ever made.

Rob Coppinger [00:16:28]:
Both of the companies I worked for when I worked in the car industry, they've both since gone bust.

Rod Pyle [00:16:32]:
Well, I was going to say, excuse me for jumping in, but what years were you in the car industry?

Tariq Malik [00:16:39]:
1990s.

Rod Pyle [00:16:40]:
That was not exactly the bright shining moment for the British car industry, was it?

Rob Coppinger [00:16:46]:
I think Rover— I can't remember when Rover went bust, but it was in the 1990s.

Rod Pyle [00:16:52]:
Yeah.

Rob Coppinger [00:16:52]:
And that was a big loss to the supply chain.

Rod Pyle [00:16:55]:
Yeah. And that was presaged by years of British Leyland gathering every other company it could get. Sorry, I know I'm going on a tangent here, but I've had some—

Tariq Malik [00:17:02]:
That's not about space, Rob.

Rod Pyle [00:17:04]:
had 7 British sports cars, so I suffered from the 1950s up through the late 1970s with those things. And yeah, it was an arc that was moving in the wrong direction. But I digress. I'm sorry, go ahead, Rob.

Rob Coppinger [00:17:20]:
Yeah, so my first magazine was a general engineering— it was what was called trade press or business-to-business, B2B. And we were writing about the current affairs of the UK manufacturing industry. And one of my beats was aerospace. And I've always had a personal interest, as I said, I've always had interest in space and aerospace. My father took us to air shows when we were children. And so when the opportunity came up, I joined Flight International magazine, which at the time was the oldest, uh, continuously in print weekly English language aviation magazine in the world. And, um, I had, uh, 6 very enjoyable years working on that title. And then after that, I've— since then I've worked in various different magazines, obviously written for space.com.

Tariq Malik [00:18:16]:
Yeah.

Rob Coppinger [00:18:16]:
And, uh, written for, uh, um, various, uh, outlets. And, um, 5 years ago I was very fortunate to become editor of the British Aeronautical Society's members magazine Spaceflight, which celebrated its 70th year this year, and in our October edition was the 70th. So Spaceflight Magazine actually predates the Space Age by an entire year because obviously Sputnik came— was launched in October 1957.

Tariq Malik [00:18:44]:
Well, happy birthday! Wow.

Rod Pyle [00:18:46]:
And I will mention Spaceflight, uh, and honors to you. Spaceflight Magazine is a monthly, which I would find absolutely crushing. I think I could do a bimonthly. I do a quarterly now. I think I could do a bimonthly, but a monthly is— you're skating by the skin of your teeth if you don't make your deadlines exactly right.

Rob Coppinger [00:19:07]:
Yeah, it's a lot of work, but as they say, if you enjoy it, it doesn't feel like work.

Rod Pyle [00:19:16]:
Is that really the case?

Tariq Malik [00:19:19]:
Well, no, you want to be having fun, right? You know what I always say, if you're having—

Rod Pyle [00:19:23]:
No, no, Tariq, I talk to you every week midweek and I can't say you're having fun every week.

Tariq Malik [00:19:29]:
Okay, not all the time.

Rod Pyle [00:19:30]:
That's right. Yeah, not all the time. But Rob is because Rob leads a good clean life.

Tariq Malik [00:19:35]:
And he has a new book.

Rod Pyle [00:19:37]:
Yes.

Tariq Malik [00:19:37]:
Hotel. Hotel? How do you pronounce this thing? I don't—

Rod Pyle [00:19:41]:
Oh my God.

Rob Coppinger [00:19:41]:
Hotel.

Tariq Malik [00:19:42]:
Hotel. I have never heard it in audio before, so I've only read it.

Rod Pyle [00:19:46]:
Everybody knows that. It's a book about, uh, British spaceplane industry.

Tariq Malik [00:19:52]:
Hotel and Skylon: The Story of Britain's Spaceplanes. We should say the name.

Rod Pyle [00:19:56]:
Yeah, and spaceplanes are, you know, they're, they're always an interesting topic because there's something that, in a sense, especially in the context which you're looking at it, should have existed beyond the shuttle and one flight of, of Buran. But there's also a lot of good reasons that every Tom, Dick, and Harry doesn't build a space plane, because they're really hard.

Rob Coppinger [00:20:22]:
They are. They're extremely hard. I mean, the theory of space planes goes back also to right to the beginning of the Space Age. And for the people out there who may be thinking, well, am I interested in reading about British space planes? The book does go back and look at space planes, the origin of the Space Age, It's, um, back in the 1930s, obviously, with the success of the aviation industry, that people were saying, well, why not just fly to space? And so the book really goes back and looks at those early ideas. And then, uh, there's a chapter of the book called The World of Space Planes, which looks at— in the 1980s, there were a lot of space plane projects.

Tariq Malik [00:21:03]:
Mm-hmm.

Rob Coppinger [00:21:04]:
And, uh, so it might seem a bit, well, you know, was, was the British government going out on a limb? and funding something that nobody else was doing. Well, no, that wasn't the case. Obviously, the United States had the space shuttle operating from 1981, and there are a whole series of other space, space, space plane projects ongoing. And in fact, there's been many space plane projects since, but like HOTOL and Skylon, they either didn't get off the drawing board or they didn't get past some level of technological development. And obviously, I suppose the latest we're seeing is Dream Chaser, which sadly is still not uh, launch and will now not go to the International Space Station, which is a bit sad.

Tariq Malik [00:21:42]:
Yeah.

Rob Coppinger [00:21:42]:
Hopefully we'll see Dream Chaser launch soon. And so really, so for those who would like to read about the sort of the span of the history of space planes from the early 20th century through to right up to the present day, and I think this book will be of great interest. And, and the, the aspect of it is about the British engineers, because at the heart of the story, these British engineers who had this realization, this dream, this vision in the '80s, and they really dedicated their lives to it. And so you follow these— as you follow these engineers through the decades, the '80s, the '90s, 21st century, you'll also— what I wanted to do is I wanted to put their story into context. So, you know, while they were trying to work on, uh, Skyline in the 1990s, which was sort of a success, it's a HOTOL. HOTOL stands for horizontal takeoff and landing. And while they were working on Skyline in the '90s, You had America had the X-33, the X-34. Japan had HOPE.

Rob Coppinger [00:22:41]:
And these sort of shuttle programs, spaceplane programs also ultimately petered out. But the difference with Skylon is the people behind it went on and they continued developing key technology well into the— well, until just a couple of years ago, until unfortunately the company they operated reaction engines went into administration. But even now, their technology is still being taken forward. And I think this is a story we'll hear more about shortly.

Rod Pyle [00:23:08]:
All right. Well, speaking of stories we need to hear, let's go to a quick break with our sponsors and we'll be right back. So stand by. Rob, you sort of touched on this, but there's actually kind of an interesting history leading up to all this. And of course, when the Germans said, hey, why don't we just go to space as long as we're flying? Then of course the next statement in the late '30s was, hey, as long as we're up in space, why don't we drop bombs on New York with a skip bomber? Because that would be fun. So that was the, the, the Sanger Silverbird or Silver Vogel.

Tariq Malik [00:23:40]:
Yes.

Rod Pyle [00:23:41]:
Um, which, you know, was a brilliant idea, but, but modern aerospace people tell us it wouldn't have worked for a whole variety of reasons, but they are way ahead of their time. And that one had a semi-horizontal launch on an inclined track with a pusher module, which may or may not have worked out. Then of course we had the X-15 in the 1950s and 1960s, which were—

Tariq Malik [00:24:02]:
Dinosaur.

Rod Pyle [00:24:04]:
That's X-20, my friend.

Tariq Malik [00:24:05]:
Oh, I'm sorry. We're going to get there.

Rod Pyle [00:24:07]:
X-15, which was brilliant, flew 199 times with one lost craft in the process, and it really worked very well. It just— they'd constrained their goals, right? This was a small experimental Very much a one-place space plane, so to speak.

Tariq Malik [00:24:24]:
Neil Armstrong flew that, right?

Rod Pyle [00:24:26]:
He did.

Tariq Malik [00:24:27]:
Among others.

Rod Pyle [00:24:28]:
He did. And we had the X-20 Dinosaur, as Tarek ejaculated a moment ago.

Tariq Malik [00:24:34]:
Come on now, Rod. Come on. Come on.

Rod Pyle [00:24:36]:
That is a fair use of the term. That is a fair use of the term of excitement and passion or something, which also never flew. They got to the mock-up stage, but it was to be launched on top of a Delta booster, was it?

Tariq Malik [00:24:51]:
I thought it was in it.

Rod Pyle [00:24:52]:
Yeah, Titan III. Titan III, that's right.

Rob Coppinger [00:24:55]:
Yeah, dinosaur was mentioned in the book. And, um, because what happened was, was, um, the inspiration for Hotel actually began at a British Interplanetary Society meeting. This was quite strange because as when I started working on the book, it was going to be for a different specialist publisher, but then ultimately it was published with an organization that actually is in— it's, uh, is inextricably linked with the story of HOTEL and, uh, and Skylon. Because what happened was at the, um, at this meeting in the early '80s, it was actually a, a Frenchman, I think, come over from the French Space Agency, and he gave a presentation at a British Interplanetary Society meeting, um, uh, talking about Hermes, which was the French proposal for a European space plane be launched on top of the, of the yet-to-be, uh, well yet-to-be-developed Ariane 5 rockets. And, um, 2 key figures in the book, Alan Bond and Bob Parkinson, were sat at the back of the room, and they both said to each other, why are we just trying to recreate Dinosaur? And surely we can do better. And it was actually that conversation that began the process, uh, that led to horizontal takeoff and landing, uh, hotel. Because of course, the question is, is the, the real dream— while space planes look cool, the real reason why they're seen as so effective is because it's aircraft-like operations. So in a way, space plane was a solution to the problem that, uh, Elon Musk and SpaceX are solving with Starship.

Rob Coppinger [00:26:34]:
They are trying to solve the problem of rapid reusable launch access to space. And the space plane was sort of the original solution to that. But obviously SpaceX has done a great job of, of, of solving that with its, with its vertical launch and vertical landing capabilities. And actually SpaceX is featured extensively in the book because the whole series of reasons or strange synchronicities in timing, in the fact that, uh, an aspect of the book is a sort of what the book is almost sort of what-if history. Because in 2009, the Reaction Engines, this company that was— this company that consisted of HOTOL veterans, um, who'd started this company, uh, almost 20 years earlier, um, they had received £1 million, uh, from, uh, the UK government through European Space Agency. And at the same time, uh, that they received this award and it was announced, and the British government's press release talked about space as, you know, uh, Skylon flying in 10 years' time. About the same time, within a few weeks of each other, Elon Musk was making a speech about his plan for reusable rockets. And so you could almost see, in hindsight, you can almost see a sort of a race between Elon Musk and his rockets and, uh, and this British space plane.

Rob Coppinger [00:27:53]:
And so in a way, so what I've done with the book is you follow those two, you follow these two paths, and obviously, of course, ultimately Elon Musk won that race. But what he also showed was that reusability was possible, and all the benefits that come from reusability have been proven, absolutely proven by the Falcon 9, which isn't even fully reusable, it's only partially reusable.

Tariq Malik [00:28:14]:
Yeah, you know, um, I'm curious, Rob, about HOTOL in, in particular, because Skylon, you know, is, you know, has a lot to To build on the concept. And I remember being— and we should probably talk about the particulars of each of them in a little bit. But I'm curious, for our listeners who maybe are not as up and aware of spaceplane history, could you kind of give an idea of the specifics of what HOTOL was? Like how large, for that original design with British Aerospace, was it? What was that? that kind of target? Because obviously, you know, the Space Shuttle and what that HOTOL design is, they're very different types of things.

Rob Coppinger [00:29:03]:
Yeah, absolutely. The Space Shuttle was always going to be vertically launched. The Space Shuttle was going to be a 2-stage vehicle, though obviously they ultimately went to what they called a 1.5-stage with solid rocket boosters, solid rocket boosters and the external fuel tank. Um, HOTOL is very much a sort of long, slender, uh, aircraft, if you call it that. It had delta wings at the back, rocket engines at the back. It had a, a, a fin on its, uh, on it, on top of its nose. And it was a much longer, slimmer, slender vehicle compared to, compared to the shuttle. Um, like the Sanger, uh, Silverbird, it— the early designs had it being accelerated to a couple hundred miles an hour on a special laser-guided trolley.

Tariq Malik [00:29:52]:
Hmm.

Rob Coppinger [00:29:53]:
And they've used the trolley because then it makes the landing gear simpler. You can then just design the land— so because you've obviously got a very heavy vehicle at the beginning with the payload and all the fuel, and then if you then don't use landing gear on the takeoff, the landing gear doesn't have to be as muscular, as it were, up with all that weight. And so then it means that you can have a much lighter landing gear when you come back to land. And of course, it's accelerated by the trolley, launches, takes off, accelerates rapidly to 5 times the speed of sound, and continues up to, to sub-orbit or orbit, deploys its payload. And then, like the space shuttle, just simply glides back and lands at a runway. It would need a longer runway than normal, But, but not, not— there are lots of airports that have these sort of runways of a required length.

Tariq Malik [00:30:48]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Rod Pyle [00:30:50]:
So, all right. Well, why don't we fly off to a break and we'll be landing in just a few seconds. So don't go anywhere.

Tariq Malik [00:30:56]:
So that, that, that's amazing. And it makes me sad that we don't have one because, like, I know that HOTOL was, was very large. I think it was like twice the length of a space shuttle. You mentioned it was larger than the shuttle and Skyline was going to be bigger than that. And we're going to get there.

Rod Pyle [00:31:11]:
206 feet. I just told you.

Tariq Malik [00:31:12]:
Yeah, 206 feet. That's twice the— a space shuttle is 122 feet long, I believe. So how about some accolades for pulling that one out, right? So, but Rob, you know, why don't we have one? You know, what happened with HOTOL? Did they just find out it was harder to design a space plane of its ilk than— than it was at the beginning? Or was it because it was one of the first of a really truly robust direct-to-space concept that it just wasn't workable with like the technology that we had at the time?

Rob Coppinger [00:31:51]:
I think, I think the, the story is really, it's a very British one, and the fact that, um, essentially, so the 2 engineers that I mentioned, Bob Parkes, Alan Bond, they went to work at British Aerospace, sort of the UK's equivalent to Boeing or Lockheed Martin. And they were able to convince the managing director, the chief executive at the time, of the benefits of this idea. And I think obviously there was a debate at the European level, the European Space Agency, about what they do for a future launcher. Obviously, they were in the process of deciding about the Ariane 5.

Tariq Malik [00:32:24]:
Mm-hmm.

Rob Coppinger [00:32:25]:
And the head of British Aerospace in turn, and colleagues of his were able to convince the UK government to put into funding— to put funding in for what would normally be called a, like, a Phase A study. It's a feasibility study. Can this actually work? But what also a key part of the program was Alan Bond's concepts of an engine. And, uh, it's the idea of, um, sort of— it's called the Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine. And the idea was that it would essentially suck in air and cool it down to almost liquefy it. And the oxygen in the air would be used, uh, in combination with hydrogen from— that was stored on board the, the hotel. And then this would save on the amount of propellant you needed. And so this would make it possible to get to orbit, uh, with a space plane.

Rob Coppinger [00:33:24]:
And, and so they carried out this feasibility study and Um, what happened was, was Margaret Thatcher— I think probably a prime minister, probably the most well-known UK prime minister, uh, in the United States— Margaret Thatcher had talked about maintaining the UK science budget and perhaps, you know, increasing the science budget, and UK was going to be a science leader. And then of course, straight after a general election she cut the science budget.

Tariq Malik [00:33:56]:
Oh no.

Rob Coppinger [00:33:57]:
And, and, uh, this all sounds familiar.

Tariq Malik [00:33:59]:
I know, it sounds too familiar.

Rob Coppinger [00:34:02]:
And so HOTOL ultimately was, was a victim of that. Um, wow. In the feasibility study, they weren't ultimately able to show that it could deliver the payload to orbit that they wanted to. Um, but I think really what's been shown since, and this, uh, is that the, the fundamental technological concepts were all valid. And the, this, the synergetic air-breathing rocket engine is a valid design, but that came much later, uh, with Skylon and the assessments the European Space Agency did and the United States' own Department of— well, as it was then known, Department of Defense— its own assessments of the Skylon technology, which, uh, included— which involved DARPA and very much gave a big thumbs up to the whole concept.

Tariq Malik [00:34:49]:
Yeah, yeah. Wow.

Rod Pyle [00:34:52]:
Well, and, and, you know, one looks back at the history of the shuttle, which at one point was going to be a flown first stage and flown second stage, and the first stage would land, uh, like an aircraft as well and dust it off and clean the ashtrays and put in some more gas and fly it again kind of thing. You look at the early hopes for the shuttle and you look at what they finally flew, which, you know, a lot of that was budget constraints, but also we were really At the time, the '70s, late '70s, pushing the limits of technology kind of to the breaking point. And if you look at some of the stuff around Challenger and even Columbia, one could argue to the breaking point, although those were avoidable. And I wonder if you could say the same thing kind of in general about HOTOL and eventually about Skylon. Was it just— were the expectations too high for the time?

Rob Coppinger [00:35:43]:
There was an incredibly prescient comment in, um, a number of years ago, a secret report, a secret assessment of the SABRE, of this Synergistic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine. The acronym is SABRE. And there was a secret British assessment of the SABRE and HOTOL technologies in the 1980s, which was declassified in the early 2000s. And a very prescient comment in it was that the hotel would not be flying until the 2020s. Now, of course, what's so amazing about that is that here we are in the 2020s and we have a fully reusable rocket that's not, not long going to be fully operational. And so if only they'd been— if only they'd really thought things through and looked far enough ahead. And the theme of the book is a failure of imagination and a failure to—

Tariq Malik [00:36:38]:
Yeah.

Rob Coppinger [00:36:39]:
to challenge, um, conservative thinking about what's possible. And, and so if they— if the British government just putting a little bit of money every year over, you know, 20, 30 years, there could have been a British or European space plane now challenging Elon Musk. And instead, Elon Musk has now become a trillionaire because he's going to corner the market in space access with Starship.

Tariq Malik [00:37:04]:
Can I ask really quick, Rob, like, what— why pick HOTOL and Skylon out of out of all of British aerospace history to call out? Is it just the weirdness of these vehicles themselves, or that you just have a thing for spaceplanes, or that you were really hoping to see one of them fly, and then they had just both kind of similar fizzle-out trajectories, or at least as of now, as we're recording this?

Rob Coppinger [00:37:32]:
Well, I remembered HOTOL as a child. I mean, it got a lot of publicity at the time, And it seemed very exciting, and, uh, the prospect of, um, of a British space plane. Obviously we had Concorde flying at the time, and I suppose in a way it's sort of like a space Concorde.

Rod Pyle [00:37:49]:
Hmm.

Rob Coppinger [00:37:50]:
I think, um, I think what happened was I always thought they were— it was a good story. What I felt was it was a good story, and over the years I actually thought about writing this book about 20 years ago.

Tariq Malik [00:38:03]:
Yeah.

Rob Coppinger [00:38:04]:
And, um, essentially what brought me to write it now was really SpaceX has proven that reusability works. It works in spades. And, and I think for me, as I said, the theme of the book really is about people not, you know, people not challenging this conservative thinking and not being prepared to, to, to be more imaginative. As the, the motto of the British Enterprise Society is, from imagination to reality. And And I think there was too little imagination. I think that if, if it, you know, we could— people just assume reusability was too expensive and not viable, and Elon Musk has absolutely smashed that idea.

Tariq Malik [00:38:51]:
Yeah, yeah. How do we get to Skylon? Is it a matter of just, uh, you know, there's a resurgence in early commercial space days? And Reaction Engines is like, you know, there's this idea, not, not too bad, would be really sci-fi, we can build one.

Rod Pyle [00:39:09]:
Before we go there, uh, why don't we do a quick break? Because I, I suspect this is going to be a beefy answer. So, okay, stand by. All right, we'll, we'll glide back in in a moment.

Tariq Malik [00:39:18]:
Well, you know, I guess just to restate the question there is, is I'm curious how we get to Skylon from HOTOL. And then was it just kind of the heyday of everyone had an idea for a new kind of spacecraft? And this was a unique idea that hadn't been run down in the modern era with the technology that we have now? Or did you see it as like a, like an earnest play to do something different with spaceflight? Because SpaceX had rockets, of course everyone knew what rockets were and capsules and all of that, and so did a lot of other companies that either came and went. And as you said, SpaceX kind of won supreme out of that initial development. But Skylon was trying to do something very different and with reaction engines. How did that come about?

Rob Coppinger [00:39:57]:
So Reaction Engines was a company started in about 1990. I think actually it was the name of Alan Bond's consultancy, and then, and then they formed this company himself, uh, and 2 hotel veterans, 2 former hotel, uh, engineers, Richard Varville and John Scott Scott, who's no— sadly no longer with us. And these 3 gentlemen just basically wanted to continue the dream. They believed that the timeless space plane had to come. They believed in the HOTOL technology. Um, the Sabre engine was Alan Bond's own intellectual property, which he was able to, um, yeah, he was able to, um, take with him. The book explains more about how that all happened. He, um, he had sort of redesigned the engine to avoid patent and secrecy issues, but, um, it's, uh, it's too long, complicated for now.

Rob Coppinger [00:40:51]:
But, um, the, uh, so essentially right at the beginning of the 1990s, you had these 3 guys, and it was very much sort of startup situation. So you went from HOTEL, which was the government-funded program with essentially a major aerospace prime contractor, and then you go to this very much startup situation, these 3 guys. And the book explains, Richard Varville talks about renting out the room in his house to keep the, keep the lights on and buy, uh, personal computers. Because of course, back then, what we don't realize is that personal computers for an— for, for engineers were a fantastic tool, you know, while other people were using them for games. Um, personal computers back in the— even back in the '80s, uh, provide— delivered, um, computational capabilities that had previously only been possible, only been available to governments and their, and their sort of supercomputers in, in these laboratories. So they basically— these guys just got together. But what's also interesting about the book is they had a lot of goodwill Hotell have been so inspirational. So, for example, they, you know, they had help from academics, universities who used their university funding to pay for PhDs that, you know, on one respect were perfectly respectable topic, but just happened to also be very useful for Skylon.

Rob Coppinger [00:42:10]:
There was, back then, the UK used to have major wind tunnel capabilities. the Skyline guys had friends at the National Wind Tunnel, and they were able to put Skyline through the wind tunnel, um, gratis. So, so that— so it's an interesting story of these guys, of people carrying on the dream and working out of there, you know, just like, um, just like the Apple guys are working out of the garage. Steve Jobs and his friends working out of a garage with their early Apple computers. It was these guys working from home developing the technology. Eventually, um, in the beginning of the 21st century, they were able to get some angel investors, and with that, they really started tackling the really tough, uh, challenges. In particular, um, when you're traveling at Mach 5, the air coming into your engine is so hot it would melt a normal engine. So you have to, you have to take all the heat out of it, and they use what's called a heat exchanger.

Rob Coppinger [00:43:08]:
So they had to develop the heat exchange. So they were really focused on the critical technologies and solving those. And it was that work that really impressed the European Space Agency, impressed the UK government at the time, and also would go on to impress the UK authorities. And in particular, DARPA funded work actually in America, in Denver, Colorado, just outside Denver, where they actually conducted engine— well, subsystem engine tests of the SABRE engine in the United States because there was— because the confidence in the technology was that high.

Rod Pyle [00:43:44]:
And what was SABRE an acronym for?

Rob Coppinger [00:43:47]:
Synergistic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine.

Rod Pyle [00:43:50]:
And you may be one of the only people in this quarter century that remembers that. So congratulations for that.

Rob Coppinger [00:43:57]:
I had to write it a few times.

Rod Pyle [00:44:00]:
So we had this revival and as I gather Rolls-Royce was kind of in and out a couple of times, or at least once, in terms of working with them on this propulsion plant?

Rob Coppinger [00:44:13]:
Yeah, so Rolls-Royce was involved in the 1980s on HOTOL, and then in the 21st century they eventually came back as an investor into— as confidence grew in the scale and technology that reaction engines had, that brought in more investors. Um, BA Systems became an investor in Reaction Engines. Um, Rolls-Royce became an investor in, in Reaction Engines. And these were major turning points in the, in the, uh, in the lifetime of the, of the company. And, um, the story— my book explains all this because there were people at Rolls-Royce who were against Hothall and Skylar Sabre. They had no confidence in it, and I think there was something they saw as a sort of failed project from the '80s they wanted to avoid. But ultimately, even Rolls-Royce had to come back into the project because it had— it was seen as having such potential. So it was very sad that a few years later, essentially like so many, uh, startups, um, uh, they ran out of funds.

Tariq Malik [00:45:21]:
I'm curious, um, after writing the book what you see ahead in the future. Is there— I mean, like, as you mentioned, Elon Musk and SpaceX, they're on the cusp of reaching orbit for the first time after 10 years of development.

Rod Pyle [00:45:36]:
With Starship.

Tariq Malik [00:45:37]:
With Starship. With Starship. Yeah, that's what I— okay, let me finish talking. I got my dramatic pauses, right? Um, but, uh, but, uh, I'm, I'm so— so we see that timeline and that's a big milestone that's coming up, but is Is there a future for such a large winged reusable spacecraft now, or, or is that technology still a bit out of reach because the will, like you mentioned, the, the far— the forward thinking, the, the long-term investment just hasn't materialized there, uh, at that point in time? Or, or is this just like, it's, it's an interesting story from, from history that hopefully we can learn some engineering lessons from and then develop the next big thing?

Rob Coppinger [00:46:20]:
Well, there is a happy ending to this because, um, what happened prior to Reaction Engines going into administration, it had been part of a project, European Space Agency project called Invictus. And the project has changed slightly, but, um, over the last 18 months, uh, there's been a company called Fraser Nash, which is a consultancy, which has been the, um, the lead on this, on a new Invictus project, which is to study a— hypersonic aircraft that would fly 80,000 feet. And this company has Reaction Engines engineers working for it. And Reaction Engines was going to be on the consortium for Invictus. Unfortunately, obviously it went into administration. But we now know that the intellectual property— Reaction Engines intellectual property— has been bought. Now, I haven't found out yet who's bought it. Oh, that's good.

Rob Coppinger [00:47:17]:
The most likely candidate, the most likely candidate is Fraser Nash. And also we're looking for, uh, it looks like there's going to be a follow-on program. European Space Agency did want to do a follow-on program to Invictus. Invictus was very much sort of design phase, and that actually finished. The 18-month project finished officially in August. I'm now trying to find out what's going to happen next. So Skylon, the hotel, the Sabre engine technology, the Skylon technology It lives on. It's in a new— it's now owned by a new owner.

Rob Coppinger [00:47:47]:
There's a European Space Agency project to develop, develop this hypersonic aircraft, which, as the European Space Agency and the UK Space Agency's own announcements about this project clearly identify as a forerunner to a space plane.

Tariq Malik [00:48:02]:
Mm-hmm.

Rob Coppinger [00:48:03]:
So the dream isn't dead, it's still with us. And I think— and this is where I think people realize we need a space plane, and perhaps Starship is not the final solution. And that's because, as we've seen, Starship is— there's going to be a new Starbase in Louisiana. And the reason why it's in Louisiana, it has to be as far away from the population as possible because they're concerned about, um, what would happen if a returning first stage booster, Super Heavy booster, went out of control and crash-landed. And also, actually, even Elon Musk himself in the last week has talked about concerns over bringing the upper stage ship back and how concerns about debris from it falling on a populated area means they have to be very careful about bringing it back to Boca Chica, Texas, which is in a particularly densely populated area. But still, they have concerns. A space plane glides back to a runway. That's all it does.

Rob Coppinger [00:49:04]:
It's already spent all its fuel. It's like shuttle, it's just gliding back to its, its runway. And also, you only need a runway, uh, to fly it from. So with a space plane, yes, you need hydrogen and liquid oxygen, and you would have these sort of tanks set up. But you basically, for a space plane, you want a hangar, a runway, the propellant, and you could— and the runway would have to be a longer runway than normal. But essentially, that's the basics. That's all you need for your operations. And when the space plane is coming back, it just needs a runway to land on.

Tariq Malik [00:49:39]:
Yeah.

Rob Coppinger [00:49:40]:
And so I think for the— and also, if you have a fleet of space planes, they can also, just like Starship, they can fly multiple times a day and again just fly back and glide back to their runway. So I think for all these reasons of operational safety, space planes make sense and they shouldn't be discounted. And the reusable vertical landing rocket is not the end of the matter.

Tariq Malik [00:50:02]:
Can I ask, do you prefer spaceplane as one word or space plane as 2 words? Because the book has one. The book has one word, right?

Rob Coppinger [00:50:11]:
Yeah, it's one word. Yeah.

Tariq Malik [00:50:12]:
Oh, that's really sci-fi. That's really sci-fi. So I knew the answer the minute I asked it. So, Rod?

Rod Pyle [00:50:20]:
Well, I have to agree on that one. Did we miss any nuggets in the book that you'd like to, to cover, Rob?

Rob Coppinger [00:50:29]:
I think, um, I think what I'd say, I think for your audience, again, I'd say don't feel as though you're right, you're going to read about a, a British story and, um, about British people that seems distant and, um, and something you wouldn't have any interest in. It is, is a book that looks at the, the span of the history of the space plane, and as I said, it puts it into context. So there's a lot about Dream Chaser in there, as well as, uh, mentions Virgin Galactic's efforts with its spaceship, uh, uh, suborbital space planes. So you'll see, uh, Hotel on Skyline within the context of all these other competing ideas. And I hope also people will enjoy the fact that the theme of it, the theme of it is about, um, people taking that extra leap of faith.

Tariq Malik [00:51:20]:
Yeah.

Rob Coppinger [00:51:20]:
And saying, no, we can do something extraordinary And we need to go for it and develop these, these really ultimate machines that can access space for everyone.

Tariq Malik [00:51:29]:
Yeah. And as you mentioned, as you mentioned, there were other space plane ideas that were also not realized. And I think you've inspired another episode in the future of This Week in Space, Rob, that, that Rod and I are going to have to take away and sink our teeth into later. So.

Rod Pyle [00:51:45]:
Well, thank you for that. And I think since you have experience in the automotive world, I think your next book I think the next book should be A Story of Excellence from Austin Healey to Austin Allegro with a foreword by Jeremy Clarkson. What do you think?

Rob Coppinger [00:52:00]:
I'm not sure. I'm not sure Jeremy Clarkson would want to— I think I might have to fight Jeremy Clarkson to write that book. He wouldn't just want to write the foreword.

Rod Pyle [00:52:10]:
He's busy raising baby pigs on his farm, making his new show. Well, I want to thank you, Rob, and everyone in the audience for joining us today for episode number 228. that we call What's a Hotel? Uh, Rob, where's the best place for us to keep up with your current work if we're not a subscriber?

Rob Coppinger [00:52:29]:
Uh, unfortunately, you'd have to be a subscriber. The British Hotel Society does welcome international members. We have many international members. The society has many online events, so just because you're not inside the UK or in London doesn't mean you can't participate. And we have 3 different publications you can subscribe to, so do feel free to go to bis-space.com— sorry, bis-space.com— and have a look and see if you wish to join.

Rod Pyle [00:52:57]:
What are the other 2 publications, just so I know?

Rob Coppinger [00:52:59]:
Uh, the Journal of the British Archaeological Society is a peer-reviewed scientific journal, uh, that's as old as the society. The society is 90, 93 years old. I should have mentioned that as well, as well as the magazine being 70 years old. And the other magazine Well, we have a couple of things. Space Chronicle is a, is a, as the name suggests, it's a space history quarterly magazine. It's a 40-page magazine that comes out 4 times a year. And we also have, for members, we have, um, Odyssey, which is a, uh, which is a monthly, it's a cultural, it's a cultural magazine, fiction, poems, um, movies, all the sort of cultural aspects of, of the space world.

Rod Pyle [00:53:39]:
And these are all in print?

Rob Coppinger [00:53:43]:
Odyssey is digital. Chronicle is— and Chronicle, Javis, and Space Flight are all available either in print or PDF. It's entirely up to you. You can choose what you want on the website through the shop.

Tariq Malik [00:53:59]:
But what about Hotel and Skyline? Where should people go to get the book, Rod or Rob?

Rob Coppinger [00:54:05]:
It's Amazon, only available on Amazon. So, uh, there you go.

Tariq Malik [00:54:09]:
So we'll make sure we'll get that link in the show notes so that folks can know where to go pick it up.

Rod Pyle [00:54:13]:
So thank you very much. Yeah, at a quality bookseller near you. All right, so Tarek, as long as you've pulled the attention back to yourself, where can we find you doing your thing these days?

Tariq Malik [00:54:22]:
Well, you can find me at space.com as always. Uh, right now we're counting down to Starship Flight 14 as well as International Observe the Moon Night on September 19th as we're recording, which is tomorrow. So be sure to look up for that and appreciate the moon. You can find me on socials @TarekJMalik. If you like video games, you can find me on YouTube at SpaceTronPlays. I try to do a lot of space stuff there. And if you like football, you can find me at the USC versus Rutgers game where we're going to beat the Scarlet Knights and it's going to be amazing. The first time in 14 years that I've been able to go see a football game.

Tariq Malik [00:54:56]:
I'm so excited.

Rod Pyle [00:54:57]:
Awesome. You know, if I had a choice between being a Scarlet Knight or a Trojan and all the connotations that are associated with that, I think I'd be a Scarlet Knight.

Tariq Malik [00:55:08]:
Yeah, well, just saying, you would lose. You would lose. But it's okay, it's okay.

Rod Pyle [00:55:11]:
Of course, as I always do. And you can always find me at pilebooks.com or at astromagazine.com or my work at nss.org. Uh, finally, remember you can drop us a line at twistandtwit.tv. We appreciate your comments, suggestions, Questions, jokes, and insults hurled at my partner Tarek. New episodes of this podcast publish every Friday on your favorite podcatcher.

Tariq Malik [00:55:31]:
I don't appreciate those jokes, but it's okay. Keep listening.

Rob Coppinger [00:55:34]:
You don't approve that message.

Rod Pyle [00:55:36]:
On your favorite podcatcher, so make sure to subscribe, tell your friends, and give us reviews. We'll take whatever you got. You can also head to our website at twit.tv/twist- twit.tv/twis. Got that right second time. You can also follow the TWiT Tech Podcast Network @twit on Twitter and on Facebook and twit.tv/twit. on Instagram and at the TWiT website. You can join Club TWiT, which if you haven't yet, you should, because there's all kinds of good goodies there besides this show without advertisements.

Rod Pyle [00:56:09]:
Tons of other stuff that you will love and enjoy, and it's a bargain at twice the price. And of course, while you're doing that, swing over to the British Interplanetary Society and give them a look because they're worth your love. All right, everybody. Thank you, gentlemen. It's been a pleasure.

Tariq Malik [00:56:25]:
Thank you.

Rod Pyle [00:56:25]:
And we'll see everybody next week.

Tariq Malik [00:56:27]:
Thanks for staying up so late for us. Thanks.

Rob Coppinger [00:56:29]:
You're welcome.