Main Engine Cut Off

Richard Parker, Head of Space at Canopius, and John Farnsworth, insurance broker and space advocate, join me to talk about the (seemingly) most mysterious topic in spaceflight: insurance!

This episode…

Artemis I scrubbed its way through its first and second launch attempts, and is now undergoing repairs on the pad, ahead of its next launch attempt. I talk about the initial attempts, general thought…

Jonathan Barlow from the NASA Ames Research Center joins me to talk about Astrobee—the free-flying robots on the International Space Station that test new technologies, sensors, and operations, and a…

Northrop Grumman and Firefly announced a partnership to develop a new first stage for Antares—the same first stage that will power Firefly’s larger launch vehicle, Beta. It’s a great partnership for …

Mike Loucks and John Carrico of Space Exploration Engineering join me to talk about astrogation, mission planning, missions they’ve worked on, how they interact with teams of all types, and everythin…

Rick Mastracchio, former NASA astronaut and current Director Of Business Development at Northrop Grumman Space Systems, joins me to talk about Northrop Grumman’s Commercial Space Station concept that…

NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program is in a tricky spot right now. VIPER has been delayed a year, new task orders are being awarded to new teams like the one led by Draper, and Masten is…

Some thoughts on where we are now that Dmitry Rogozin has been dismissed as head of Roscosmos, and that NASA and Roscosmos have signed a seat exchange agreement for future flights to the ISS.

This epi…

Our good friend Jake Robins, host of WeMartians and my cohost on Off-Nominal, joins me to talk about Psyche missing its launch window, the state of the SIMPLEx program, its troubles with launch slots…

Eric Berger of Ars Technica joins me to talk about the Artemis Program’s space suits, expensive launch sites, maybe-cheaper-but-at-least-not-as-delayed launch sites, vehicles, and its manifest over t…

SpaceX’s plans for launching Starship to orbit from Boca Chica cleared an environmental review with the FAA, but more than 75 mitigations are required in order to receive a launch license to carry ou…

Boeing completed Starliner’s long-awaited Orbital Flight Test-2 mission to the ISS, but about a week after landing, NASA announced its intent to buy more Dragon flights from SpaceX.

This episode of Ma…

Mike Gold, Executive Vice President of Civil Space Business Development and External Affairs at Redwire, joins me to talk about his previous role at NASA, where he served as Associate Administrator f…

Brent Sherwood, Senior Vice President of Advanced Development Programs for Blue Origin, joins me to talk about Orbital Reef. We talk about the long history leading up to this architecture, the nature…

Brad Cheetham, co-founder, CEO, and President of Advanced Space joins me to talk about their upcoming CAPSTONE mission. We talk about how the mission came to be, what it’s been like working with NASA…

Andrew Maximov, founder of Precious Payload, joins me to talk about what he and his team have been working on, what they see as the missing pieces in the industry, and why they think they are buildin…

Amazon is purchasing up to 83 launches from Arianespace, Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance—in addition to the 9 Atlas V launches they bought last year—to deploy their Project Kuiper constellatio…

The White House has finally submitted its fiscal year 2023 budget request, which has big implications for NASA’s Commercial LEO program, and their newest announcement, the upcoming Sustaining Lunar D…

A follow-up on my last show with Debra Werner about the war in Ukraine and all the fallout from it, both political and industrial. Everything from the NASA budgets for 2022 and 2023, NASA telling ast…

Debra Werner of SpaceNews joins me to talk about Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, the ways that it is affecting the space industry, how their last invasion had similar effects, and how the situa…