Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - It’s Rocket Science: Testing PlanetVac in the Mojave Desert

Episode Date: June 6, 2018

Join Mat Kaplan in California’s Mojave Desert for special coverage of not one but two rocket flights and a real world test of PlanetVac, the innovative, radically simple way to collect surface samples from other worlds.  PlanetVac replaced one foot of a Masten Space Systems Xodiac rocket for back-to-back hops across a test site.  We also talk with Masten CEO Sean Mahoney. Planetary Society Chief Scientist Bruce Betts also made the trip.  He’ll also open a super massive contest for PlanRad listeners in our What’s Up segment.  See images and video of the PlanetVac Xodiac flight test and learn more here:  http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/2018/0606-planetvac-xodiac-test.htmlLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Join me in the Mojave Desert for a test of PlanetVac, this week on Planetary Radio. Welcome. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society, with more of the human adventure across our solar system and beyond. And with a special episode this week. Did you hear our March 7 show that introduced PlanetVac? Did you hear our March 7 show that introduced PlanetVac? Bruce Betts and I visited Honeybee Robotics, where this innovative and radically simple way to collect sample material from the surface of another world was invented. But even the cleverest invention is worthless,

unless it can prove itself in the real world. On May 17, Bruce and I set out for the Mojave, 90 miles due north of Planetary Society headquarters in Pasadena, California. Our destination was Masten Space Systems, where a fully functioning PlanetVac unit has replaced a foot of Masten's Zodiac rocket. Founded in 2004 by Dave Masten, the small company won the Northrop Grumman Lunar X Challenge in 2009 through the precision flying of its Zoe rocket. Nine more years have passed. Mastin now has the Zodiac vehicle. That's Zodiac with an X. The Zodiac has flown five times in a single day. It's part of Mastin's progress toward the XL-1 rocket that will be capable of landing 100-kilogram payloads on the Moon.

Actually, the Zodiac that Bruce and I went to see has had all four of its feet replaced by PlanetVac hardware, but only one of these was connected to the gas supply that enabled it to suck up, or rather blow, loose Mars simulant material into a small sample container. Bruce and I arrived at the Mojave Air and Spaceport shortly after 7 a.m. Soon we were standing in what Masten calls its aviary, the high bay, where rockets are assembled and tested, short of actually igniting the engine. Launch Coordinator Ruben Garcia was about to begin a safety briefing for the rocket crew and assorted guests,

including a video crew and other representatives from NASA and the Planetary Society's own videographer, Merck Boyan. The briefing would cover a long list of technical precautions, but there were other considerations I wasn't expecting. Drink water, please. Use sunblock if you need it. We are going to be out in the sun. For those who haven't been out to the test site, it is an unimproved test site. There is no shade structure for you.

Coms brief. We're on these open radios. There's actually a lot of airport activity today, our testing and then other tenants. Keep it on topic. Keep it professional. We don't ever have an issue there. If we have to resolve a technical, we'll do it by cell or we'll meet face to face, depending on where we're at in the checklist. Watch out for wildlife. Weather has been up and down, up and down. We have venomous snakes out here, we have spiders, all kinds of critters hiding in the cracks. Look where you're leaning when you're leaning against the wall, when you're reaching in for something. You know, look before you stick your hand in there. They don't like us, we don't like them, leave them alone if you see them. Don't harass the animals. If we

encounter something that we can't move, we're not going to move rattlesnakes. We've had them out there, we're going to stand down, we're going to call airport security and have them come out. They have a rattlesnake removal team. They'll come out and do it. Hopefully we've been active enough that they found other places to go and have a tape. They don't wanna be our test site cause it's too loud. Call a hold if anything's unclear, that's hold, hold, hold. Call a hold for any safety concern, again that's hold, hold, hold.

And if you hear a hold, hold, hold, and this goes for everybody, whether you're a guest or you're managing the team, stop what you're doing. Don't proceed to be given clearance. If we have to evacuate the test site the how to bunker will be our first rally point if the how-to bunker is compromised the western robot will be our alternate rally point for our guests who have not been out there make sure we take the time and confirm that they understand where each of those two points are use the roads to get there

don't run through the desert unless the road itself is compromised. The desert is riddled with holes from the squirrels and other animals who roll an ankle and become a casualty. Use the roads, the improved roads, the graded roads. Justin and Catherine are doing the honeybee payload ops work. And it will be one radio for the two of you your call sign says honeybee i'm excited i don't smile so but i'm excited everybody can test that this should be a fun day enjoy it please make sure you have earbuds once we get ready to light the engine it is louder than to be expected it's a little rocket with a big noise. With Ruben's safety briefing completed, we were ready to roll out onto the desert. Bruce, tell me, where are we headed?

I have no idea, but there's going to be a rocket flight there, and it's going to be near Mojave, California. And we're in a caravan following... We're following the Zodiac rocket on the back of a trailer, and I believe they've got liquid oxygen hanging out in the pickup bed. So it's not your usual caravan, at least not for me. It was a beautiful morning. There would be another hour or two before Zodiac was ready to fly. In the meantime, I introduced myself to the founder of Mastin Space Systems. I'm David Mastin. I'm the founder and chief technology officer of Mastin Space Systems. Honored to meet you. I love the artwork that your rocket does in concrete here. Yeah, we like to call it a trinitite without the radioactivity.

I know. I said to somebody, it's like a miniature nuclear site. Well, yeah, I mean, we're putting a large amount of heat and pressure on a small spot, and that's essentially what you do with a nuclear weapon, and although that might be a large spot, but yeah, I mean, we just, we heat this stuff up to, you know, the point the concrete is actually melting, and that's just because we turn on the rocket engine. Even looks kind of glassy. Yeah, yeah, it is. I think it's beautiful, which means basically the rocket's doing what it should. Exactly, it means that everything's going correctly. Right behind us here, they're about to put one of your rockets on the pad and we'll be watching

a test in a few minutes. Is this as exciting as ever? Well, it's always exciting to see a rocket launch, but one of the things we're actually, I actually started the company to do is to make rocket launches boring. Yeah. Like, this should be so regular, so often occurring that it just becomes a regular part of life,

not it's something exciting. I mean, our aviation geeks, myself and many of my friends included, who do get excited by 747s taking off, but most of the world doesn't, and that's the way we want it for rockets. I remember an old cartoon back when we thought the space shuttle was going to be flying all the time and very cheaply, and it was a cartoon in the LA Times, and it was two guys sitting on their front porch in rocking chairs, and there's a shuttle going up behind them, or actually landing.

And the guy says, well, there's the 507. Well, that's exactly what we're trying to do, is we'd like to do it, book a ticket 24 hours before you fly. And it's not a big deal, and hopefully maybe even pay cash for it. Space is hard. Rocketry is hard. It's been a long road getting to here. And we've got a long road to go yet, but we're making a lot of progress. How do you feel about not only your progress, but just the progress of the industry and where we're headed with this ultimate plan for a rocket like that or one of its descendants in the not too distant future making trips to the moon? We're preparing to actually make trips to the moon very soon.

I believe NASA is talking about the early 2020 timeframe, possibly 2020 or 2021. And we're hoping to be able to participate in that. Otherwise, I mean, in terms of overall timing, honestly, one of the things about aerospace that we've learned over and over again, and we see over and over again is you say two years and it takes five or more. I guess I'm going to be cautiously optimistic about how we're moving forward. But still, you could see things moving forward. Oh yeah, we're definitely seeing things moving forward. I mean, between our own demonstration of reuse of a rocket, we have one vehicle that's

done over 227 flights, no major repairs or rebuilds. We're seeing SpaceX landing and reusing their rocket boosters on a regular basis. We're seeing Blue Origin coming up to that. They've just finished their eighth flight a week or two ago. Overall, I mean, the field's looking really good for actually getting around to it. Let's get the reusability down. Let's start working on operability. Thank you, Dave.

I hope to talk to you again when you're on the moon. Thank you. Radio check. Ops copies. Video, radio check. Video copies. Ground crew, radio check. Ground crew copies. Video, radio check. Video copies. Ground crew, radio check. Ground crew copies. Engineering support, radio check. Support one, check. Support two, check. Copy that. And Honeybee, radio check. Honeybee copies. That last voice belonged to Justin

Spring, the Honeybee senior Project Engineer we met last March. We'll soon hear from the other Honeybee engineer we talked to back then. Catherine Lucek carried the simple wireless remote that would tell PlanetVac to begin collecting once it had been flown to the right spot by the Zodiac. That target was a low bin Justin and Catherine would carefully fill with Mars simulant and then groom with tender care. Once it's all full and flat and we're happy with it, we'll smooth it one last time and then we will get out of the way. The Mastin folks know not to disturb the simulant. Ruben likes it nice and flat just so he can tell what happened during the flight. So for example, when the plume leaked through here, you could see a little divot right here,

and that was really our only sign that it had actually leaked through. We're putting the Mars Mojave simulant into the sample bin so that we have an area for the planet back to land. Yep. It's not all just going to blow away out here? No, it's surprisingly stable. You will see a lot of dust. Probably don't want to breathe this stuff, right? No.

There's much more aggressive simulants that have glass bits in them, and then you really don't want to breathe them. What is that high-tech leveling tool called? Broom handle. Let's get some more on the back side there. I've heard of engineering sandboxes, but I didn't know it was this literal. This is a literal engineering sandbox, a Mars sandbox, just in case there's anything off. But the Mastin rocket's very, very good at landing precisely. That's what they do.

So we'll see that it's probably going to land the sampling cone right about here with the back shell there. Last time it landed, it bounced back just a little. Phil, let's add some more up front here, and then we should be good. We moved behind giant concrete blocks about 100 yards from the launch pad and watched while the mast and ground crew attached a protective tether to the top of the rocket and filled the Zodiac's oxidizer tank with liquid oxygen. There would be two flights. The first would move Zodiac only a few meters to where it

could drop PlanetVac into the waiting test bin full of simulant. After several more careful checks and with our earplugs firmly inserted, it was go time. I've compressed what you're about to Mass not to all. Exiting countdown. Start. Six. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Ignition. Okay, that was awesome. It is. It's really, really cool. Slight roll bars there.

Copy. Honeybee, go ahead and coordinate with ground crew and do your test. Ground crew, let me know when you're ready. Ground crew is ready at the vehicle. On your mark. Sampling in 3, 2, 1. There it goes. Woo-hoo!

Yeah. That dust means we're getting stuff. Looks like good sample at the vehicle. Honeybee confirms. We can see it from back here. Looks great. Okay, safety ops and video, let's confirm that the vehicle is in a good position for return

flight. Are you hyped now? I'm hyped. Yes! So that looked exactly like it ought to look. That looked exactly like it ought to look. That looked exactly like it ought to look. The vehicle did turn a little on the way down, but I think we're fine. Yeah, so if we had seen nothing of the gas coming out, that maybe meant that it didn't go well. But because we saw all of that dust coming out, that means there was dust in the sample container to be blown out.

So my best guess is that thing's got to be pretty full. Three, two, one, ignition. Zodiac had returned to its original position on the now glowing pad. It would be a few minutes before we could learn if PlanetVac had done its work. I walked back to a beaming Dave Mastin. He was with Mastin Space Systems CEO, Sean Mahoney. Successful test? Nominal? Looks nominal from here. It's just another day in Mojave.

Congratulations, guys. Thank you. I would say that I mentioned at one point that I was hoping to make everything boring. Unfortunately, my heart rate still goes up every time we fly. It's just rockets. That was thrilling. It really was. It's the team here that's making all this stuff happen. So the folks you got a chance to talk to today, the engineers,

the people who are supporting actually making this thing happen, the members of the Planetary Society that are supporting, the folks at NASA that are supporting. There's a lot of people that are behind the scenes that really help all this happen. So it's still very exciting. That is the sound of liquid oxygen being vented from the oxidizer tank on the Zodiac vehicle now that it has completed very successfully, apparently, those two flights. And in a few moments here, the honeybee folks will go out and collect their dirt.

At long last, we were allowed to approach the now inert rocket. Still hot under there, huh? Yeah, it's still hot. You can do the old spit test and see if it sizzles. So we're going to wait until these guys take their photos and such, and and then we're gonna pull out our sample container and see what we got. It almost still looks molten there. I guess just turn to glass. Yes, concrete turned to glass. Tell me what Justin's doing now. Justin is removing the sample container from the back of PlanetVac so we can see how much we collected. Here it comes. Oh boy, let's see. That's pretty full there. I'm super stoked guys. This is a great sample. Mastin, great job. Thank you for bringing this home. Donors,

thank you very much. This is on you. Yeah, we're super excited. We're going to take it back to the shop and get a read on how much this is exactly. But this is a success. Way to go. Go PlanetVac. Go back. Go back. PlanetVac exceeded expectations, collecting more than 300 grams of Mars simulant that morning. It would do it again a week later in front of other guests, including Planetary Society members and others who had contributed to development of the system. Will PlanetVac someday be sent to the Moon, to Mars, or even beyond? That question can't yet be answered,

but Honeybee Robotics and Mastin Space Systems have demonstrated that it is up to the job. I want to thank both companies for allowing all of us to witness this test in the Mojave Desert. We should also thank NASA for its support of the work. After a break, we'll talk with Masten CEO Sean Mahoney about the opportunities that have opened for a small rocket company at the dawn of commercial space development and exploration. This is Planetary Radio. Where did we come from? Are we alone in the cosmos? These are the questions at the core of our existence.

And the secrets of the universe are out there, waiting to be discovered. But to find them, we have to go into space. We have to explore. This endeavor unites us. Space exploration truly brings out the best in us. Encouraging people from all walks of life to work together to achieve a common goal. To know the cosmos and our place within it. This is why the Planetary Society exists.

Our mission is to give you the power to advance space science and exploration. With your support, we sponsor innovative space technologies, inspire curious minds, and advocate for our future in space. We are the Planetary Society. Join us. Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan, returning to Masten Space Systems in California's Mojave Desert. We have lots of time before beginning our trek

to the rocket test site. I used some of that time to talk with Masten CEO, Sean Mahoney. Here's our intriguing conversation. Where are we right now? I like this big room. It's our intriguing conversation. Where are we right now? I like this big room. It's great for radio. Excellent. Well, it is what we call the aviary. It's the building that we use for our free-flying vehicles once they've been constructed and are ready to fly.

So we've got a couple of bays here where we can store not only our legacy vehicles that have flown hundreds and hundreds of times, including the newest vehicle, which is Zodiac, which we're working on today. And this is the one that has that one funny foot out of the four there. It has, there's a lot of interesting things about Zodiac. In this case, I got a new pair of shoes. This is another rehearsal on our flight operation to actually do a sample. So we're working with Honeybee Robotics and their PlanetVac system that is designed to be able to put on an extraplanetary vehicle

and without having to deploy something, actually be able to collect a sample and then can be processed and used for whatever else. Tell me more about this vehicle, this rocket. Zodiac is the fifth free-flying rocket-powered vehicle that Masten has built and flown. If folks have been following the development of reusable rockets, Masten won the Northrop Grumman NASA Centennial Challenge Lunar Lander Challenge XPRIZE. Well done. I think I got all of them in there.

Back in 2009, and for that, we actually built and flew two different vehicles. The first was Zombie, and the second was Zoe. Since that time, Zombie has been upgraded and retrofitted, and her flight envelope was expanded from the 50 meters by 50 meters that we did for the LLC, the Lunar Lander Challenge, to flying, I think her max altitude was over half a kilometer and 750 meters downrange. Zoe, unfortunately, did burn up on the pad the day before it won first place in the Lunar Lander Challenge.

So that's a whole other story about how we rebuilt the vehicle overnight in order to be able to go back out and compete and win that X Prize. But then we built another series of vehicles to allow us to go higher, to allow us to go faster, and primarily to find ways that we can serve customers now. And Mastin has had a real focus on making sure that we're able to create value with the services that we have. And so when I joined the company, I didn't even realize, I didn't know we would be doing PlanetVac. But we did know that a reusable rocket

changes the game. It changes the way you do development. It changes the cadence. It changes the timing. It can change the pace of space development. Zombie and now Zodiac are the vehicles that we use where we can bring out people that are developing science instruments, that are developing exploration technologies, that are developing prospecting technologies. They can get actual flight experience on a rocket-powered lander, which is a very unique thing

because nothing lands quite like a rocket lands. I remember that competition. I remember what you guys had to go through to win that first prize. There was a lot of competition and a lot of those teams that just couldn't pull it off, which once again says, I mean, I guess we're not actually in space right now, so maybe not space is hard, but rocketry is hard. Rocketry is hard. And my background, I'm more from the entrepreneur and emerging market space than from the space space.

Now, I've been here at Mastin longer than I've been anywhere else. So I guess I am now, my friends have told me, I can't say I'm not a space guy, but my origins did not come out of the space world. And it is difficult. It's extremely difficult in the world of making a business out of space. And we have been fortunate to be successful as long as we have. We've seen great companies that have come and gone. And it is really difficult. There is no silver bullet. You can always look at a situation and say, oh, well,

this is where this thing went awry, or they made the wrong decision here or there. It's really hard to know how to plot a course in this environment because it costs money. If you're building an app that's relatively easy, you know, beer, pizza, and an internet connection. If you move to hardware, a lot of startups avoid hardware because of the complexities because they didn't know how aptly named hardware was. And then you get to what I refer to as energetic hardware. When you start loading things up with significant pressures,

the force that comes out of these vehicles is not something to be treated lightly. We find ways to manage that risk appropriately, but it's still energetic hardware. And so it is difficult plotting a course as an entrepreneur in this space. I think of some of your former neighbors, right here in Mojave at the airport

on this great property, XCOR among them. A company that had great people, was headed toward a great product. They are basically no more. On one hand, if we speak about this from the principle level, creative destruction is the foundation of capitalism and we have to accept that a failure of a business is is certainly an option you could have a bad beat essentially and that could put an end to your your plan so yeah it is it is difficult and we've seen, and we worked with XCOR closely. They were one of our supporting contractors on the big XS1 program. We worked closely at the kind of industry level with them and the Commercial Space Flight Federation.

And so there's a lot of areas where we really appreciated working with them. I mean, to a certain degree out here in Mojave, there's also some level of camaraderie and mutual support. September 11th of 2012, we had a bad day of operation. No one was hurt, but the vehicle came down, but not exactly in the way that we wanted it to come down. I'm out in the field trying to make sure, A, the team's taken care of, and B, let's figure out what we need to do. Immediately I was getting emails from other people, tenants on the airport. They weren't tweeting about it.

They were letting us do our thing. But they were paying attention, and they knew that we were flying, and they were watching the flight, and immediately got several notes of support and encouragement as soon as it happened. And it's the same thing. We've offered the same. So there's a lot of great innovation that happens out here. For folks who haven't been out to Mojave, the center of the airport is the Rotary rocket.

You can see it from a distance. And it's a big spaceship-looking thing. And I call it the testament to failure. The fact of the matter is, Rotary Rocket is another company that had a great idea that's not around anymore. But the work they did helped form the basis that Masten is now able to benefit from. The fact that the spaceport exists as a spaceport. All of us, when we come and we do the best work that we can, help move the bar forwards, hopefully we get to come back and do the next turn and the next turn,

but sometimes things don't cut your way. So for Mastin, we are extraordinarily fortunate. Hopefully we've been both lucky and good to be in the position that we are right now. The Lunar Lantern Challenge was in 2009. By the end of 2018, we expect there will be several companies that will have a contract to deliver payloads to the surface of the moon. And that is exactly where I wanted to go. The goal, where you hope Zodiac or its descendant will be taking your company and your customers. And you're not the only one who wants to go to the moon,

and that's very fortunate. How'd you know I want to go? I could tell. I can tell. The people that come out to Mojave at this hour of the day, they have to want to go. The direction for the company, the day they have to they have to want to go uh the direction for the company um we've the company started with this idea a of reusability which i know now everyone's like oh of course you can reuse rockets it wasn't that long ago that that was not a foregone conclusion it also started with the idea of a software approach to space development. Iterate, test frequently, things like that. It's a different development model, and that's what we have matured over these vehicles and other programs that we've done to date. Why? What does all of this get you? Well, when you have exquisite control of a rocket-powered vehicle, you can then do things with it that you couldn't necessarily do

before, and it's in two camps. One is you can reuse that vehicle in a way to reduce your cost for launching things. We've seen some examples of that and the other side is you can get to places that are hard to reach. Places where helicopters and planes and parachutes may not meet the actual requirement. Places where there aren't runways. And so from the landing side of our application, the big and immediate opportunity is delivering payloads to the surface of the moon. And the technology has application in other areas as well, but the moon is tongue-in-cheek. We developed a couple of moon-first T-shirts.

We've been focused on let's get regular commercial access to the moon. And once that exists, all of these other applications of that transportation service will have a chance to blossom. If a program to get one flight to the moon is a billion dollars, that's a bit of a large lift. If you can get a quarter of a billion dollars to deliver something to the surface, then you really have a chance to open up that ecosystem. So it's a zero billion dollar market going to the moon. Why is it zero billion? Today it's zero. It will be a billion-dollar market. It's just today it's zero billion, but it's going to be a lot more soon. And we have heard something similar from, well, one of your competitors at the East Moon Express. They share your goal.

They share your plans. You imply that by the end of this year you may be able to talk about some possible clients. Absolutely. the end of this year, you may be able to talk about some possible clients. Absolutely. There's been some movement that has been public movement that has finally come to pass on this idea of taking things to the surface. So the NASA Catalyst Program has been running for a while where we have NASA resources to kind of meld with ours. And it really has been a melding. They work with us just in this year. A lot of the plans have finally come together to have a NASA contract for commercial delivery to the surface of the moon. They're calling that CLPS.

Right now, the draft RFP is out, and we're working towards, NASA is working towards having a selection for an IDIQ contract. IDIQ? IDIQ contract. IDIQ? IDIQ contract. It's indefinite duration, indefinite quantity. It's the way, kind of funny, it's the way the government buys pens. They have a general contract, and it says the pens are whatever price, and then once you're on that contract, the government can essentially,

you don't have to negotiate. You just call up and go, okay, well, send me 10 pens. Applying that model to spaceflight is a different approach. What that means is we will have a rack rate price for delivery, and NASA can essentially issue a task order and say, great, we want to take this size payload. We want one of those. It's a firm fixed price. It sounds more like space, even getting to the moon, is being commodified. That is the direction of the future. And NASA now, by setting up this program, has identified this is a thing that we want. We're committing multiple years and multiple, it's a $2.6 billion program over 10 years. So that's not nothing. And they're looking to get 10 to 15

flights out of that. And yes, there are future vehicles that are in construction now. They're not here in the aviary because this is for ones that are already built, but there are a few more vehicles that are in process and will be hopefully flying here in the near future. How do you feel about the general direction of space policy in the United States? I get the feeling you're relatively pleased. I am very pleased. Overall, it has been a great turn that I have seen just from my limited time. I'm eight years in the business and I have seen the shift. I've seen the acceptance of we can take a different approach to accessing and using space. And that is at the public level, that's at the company level, that's at the big

company level, it's at the billionaire level, it's at the NASA level, it's at the DOD level. There is definitely a shift that has happened. Even in that small period of time, I am bullish on this opportunity, not only for Mastin, but for other companies as well, to really unlock the potential that exists. How about the opportunity to work with another relatively small company like Honeybee to combine forces in the way you have here? I mean, it's right there on the leg of that spacecraft. Excuse me, that rocket.

No, we get so many different names for what we want to call it. Call it a vehicle, We get so many different names for what we want to call these. Call it a vehicle. It has been great to work with Honeybee. We have worked with groups from student groups. We've worked with competitors. It is a small, let me just mention, if you don't know this already, it is a very small world. Customers will wind up being competitors,

will wind up being, sometimes you're working together and sometimes you're working on different teams. It's all part of it. You've got to be able to understand that and not get too caught in your mind of, oh, well, they're a competitor. No, we're all trying to move this thing forward together. In this case, we were supported by NASA

has inside of their space technology mission directorate this flight opportunities program. NASA is putting 250K, I mean 250 and 300K into a demonstration program. It's a grant to a payload developer. There's a group known as the Planetary Society. I think you're familiar with them. They also were able to come and bring some financial resources to support the work that had already been done at Honeybee. And so while it is great working with a small company, it's also great working with large government groups. It's great working with public nonprofits, finding the ways to bring teams together to actually make things work. It's been great.

And thank you and thank all of the supporters that supported the Planetary Society in this as well. You're very welcome. On behalf of the society and our members, I know nothing about your prior entrepreneurial experience, but you're now with this small company in the desert, small team. What's the feeling as everybody works toward shooting at the moon? Right now, today, I am trying really hard to keep my enthusiasm chained up a little bit. It has been many, many years of working towards the point where there is a real opportunity for us to apply the technology and apply the business practices that we had to that end goal of landing something on the moon. And it's real today in a way that it has never been in the history of the company.

So the flip side of that is there's a lot of work. And so there's a big mountain for us. And so there's a combination of enthusiasm and a little bit of trepidation. But, and this is a key thing for entrepreneurship and a key thing, especially in space. This isn't our first time at this. Iteration, iteration, iteration. We've got five vehicles that have been built and flown. We've got multiple contracts.

We've worked with all these different organizations. We've had different contract structures that we've worked with. So we're at a position now. And we've, by the way, we've grown the team and shrunk the team. So we've been through these cycles. And so while we know that there's a big mountain ahead of us, we at least are confident that we have learned some things over the 15 years of the company, and we're poised well now to take advantage of this opportunity in a way that

we never could have been able to before. We feel really excited and energized about this near future. It's going to be fun to watch. I'll just wish you the best of luck and more important, the best of success. And thank you, Sean. Thank you and thank your listeners. And yeah, it's going to be fun to watch. It's going to be really fun to do it. And we're always looking for more folks that want to do it. So if you want to move from the watcher to the doer, you're a doer. You're participating in all this stuff.

I hold microphones in front of people. Everyone serves their role in helping us move this thing forward. So thank you very much. You're very welcome. Sean Mahoney, CEO of Mastin Space Systems. We've put lots of great resources on this week's show page, including a link to the brand new Planetary Post from Robert Picardo. It features video footage of the planet-backed Zodiac test. You'll find it all at planetary.org slash radio. What's Up with Bruce Betts

is next. Time for What's Up on Planetary Radio. Bruce Betts, the guy that we've heard a little bit of over the course of this episode, out there at the PlanetVac Zodiac test. He's the chief scientist for the Planetary Society. Welcome. Thank you. How are you doing, Matt? Very well. I sure enjoyed that trip. Me too.

It's always nice to watch cool rockets and successful sampling prototype experiments. And I have a prize for the contest this week, which is related to that test. We'll reveal that in a couple of minutes after you've told us all the other stuff that you tell us every week, including what's up in the night sky. Oh, I can hardly wait. So in the night sky, we still got Venus dominating low in the west after sunset, looking super bright.

Turn yourself all the way around and you will see super bright Jupiter over in the east, southeast. And then we've got Saturn coming up not too long after sunset, looking yellowish low in the east. And then around midnight, a little before midnight, Mars coming up, getting brighter and brighter and brighter over the coming weeks. So check it out. We move on to this week in space history. It's been 15 years since the launch of Spirit, the Spirit rover that had several good years on Mars. Still on Mars, just not working right now. 15 years. So we're coming up on the opportunity anniversary too, I guess. We are. We're just doing one after another, the way those launch periods work.

So we did Mars Express last week, I believe. Yeah. I've got a guest for you coming up here. Random Space Factor. Wow. Who was that masked man? I'm going to college! That was my son, Daniel, doing, to quote him,

bad singing version of Random Space Fact. I think that was quite bad. Thank you, Daniel. Excellent. Yeah, chip off the old block. Well, except that when he actually wants to, he sings magnificently. Yes. When I want to, I still sing the same as when I'm trying to sing badly. I've heard him sing extremely well on stage in Broadway musicals. All right.

So we move on to the fact the supermassive black hole at the galactic center, the center of the Milky Way galaxy, has about 4.3 million solar masses. So its mass of the black hole is 4.3 million times the mass of the sun, which already is pretty darn massive. And you know what that supermassive black hole is saying right now? What? What's for lunch? Now you're just making me hungry. That's a good one. Thank you.

We move on to the trivia contest. I asked you, what hardware did the Planetary Society provide to the Phoenix Mars mission? How do we do, Matt? Wow, what a response. I'd love to think it's just you and me, but I suspect that book, Chasing New Horizons, from its authors, Alan Stern, the principal investigator for the New Horizons mission, and David Grinspoon, who contributed to the mission as a scientist and worked on the book with Alan. I think that's probably what pulled in a near record number

of entries and so many people who had wonderful things to say about the radio show. I am so far behind on saying thank you to so many of you, but I'm going to try and get caught up. Random.org- Just say thank you. Thank you. No, it has to be more personal. Random.org selected Michael O'Dell from Lake Mary, Florida, who I think hears us there on WMFE Orlando, which we are very proud that Planetary Radio is part of that station's lineup. He said it was the DVD that the Planetary Society created and was mounted on the surface of the Phoenix Lander, correct?

That is correct. Would you like more information or are we going to hear more information? I got a little bit, but tell us what you've got. Well, I'm personally familiar with it. It was a silica glass mini DVD containing over a quarter million names of people who wanted to send their names to Mars and members of Lander Society and Visions of Mars, a collection of Mars fiction, art, and radio, as well as greetings to future explorers from Earthlings, including Carl Sagan and Arthur C. Clarke. We had several listeners refer to it as the first library on Mars.

Indeed. So, Michael, Michael O'Dell, congratulations. You got yourself that signed hardcover copy of Chasing New Horizons and a 200-point itelescope.net account, that worldwide network of telescopes that anybody can use. You know, in Australia, every year they do this huge three-day live thing called Stargazing Live. And they just did it a few days ago, earlier in May. And they just did it a few days ago, earlier in May. There's a wonderful segment that features iTelescope and some young people using the system to get some beautiful images of a distant galaxy. They had more than 40,000 people down under who were watching the sky on the evening of May 23rd. And I got to tell you, I'm pretty envious. That is very cool.

We'll put up a link to that YouTube video because it is pretty cool. The whole stargazing life thing is very, very cool. We did, of course, get some more stuff. Ken McAdams in Apex, North Carolina, he said while he was researching this, he found a page on our own website, planetary.org, that lists many, if not all, of the space missions, planetary science missions that have names on board. And if you can't recall if your name's included, there are links that take you to lists of some of the people. So we'll put that link up as well.

Jordan Sorensen in New York, New York, he says that it's especially amazing that we sent a DVD because he already can't play his DVDs on his own computer. Obsolescence. Well, hopefully future explorers will have more resources. We also included text defining the standards that were used on that mini DVD. That's excellent. That's like how they included the stylus with the golden record on the Voyager missions, Voyagers 1 and 2. This is my favorite one from Adam Kajokar in Calgary, Canada.

This may be the only DVD in the universe that my dog won't be able to steal and eat. Glad we can make it happen. Mel Powell has been getting into our secret files, apparently. Mel in Sherman Oaks, California. He says, rumor has it, a stray post-it note with Bruce Bett's grocery list was accidentally stuck to the DVD case before it was shipped. I can neither confirm nor deny that. Robert Laporta in Avon, Connecticut. Too bad it was not the Mars microphone that the Mars polar lander carried. It crashed, of course, before we could hear the sounds of Mars.

But we're working on that, right? Can we say anything about that? Yeah, we're working with the Mars 2020 SuperCam team, who is including a microphone that will not only be able to hear Mars sounds, but do a little bit of science with their instrument. When they zap a rock with a laser, it'll hear the crack. We're working with them on the education outreach side. But yes, we think we will finally get sounds.

And Phoenix actually included a microphone, but due to technical issues, it was never actually obtained data. We'll keep trying. Dave Fairchild, our poet laureate. Silica glass is what scientists use to fashion a small DVD that sits on the deck of the Phoenix on Mars, embedded in icy debris. It carries a fourth of a million of names that range from the small to the great. Our members are listed because you all gifted this Top Hits 2008. I think he's getting even better. It's good stuff. I got one more to follow up with.

This from Mark Pretty in Hearst, Texas. It gives me giggles that we sent Mars thoughts to Mars as a sort of time capsule for our future selves, likely, or a glimpse of humanity for aliens. It could happen. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, everybody. Oh, and by the way, thank you, Mark Sulfridge, who I failed to credit last week. I simply forgot when I used a whole bunch of his interesting facts about the amazing

life of John Young, who we were talking about last week. And now we're finally ready to go on to the next contest. It's about time to engage people's imaginative brains out there. What would you call the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy? If you had a chance to name it, what would you call it? We will judge based upon whatever our whim is at the time, things like cleverness, pseudo-realism, and humor. Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. I am thrilled. I wish I could enter this. Tell

your friends, everyone, don't hog it. I can't wait to read the best of these. You have until Wednesday, June 13th at 8 a.m. Pacific time to get us the answer. We have a pretty special prize. Well, we have itelescope.net, the 200-point account with a couple hundred dollars, US. You heard us talk from the Mojave about what happened to the concrete pad that the Zodiac rocket basically cooked. I have a piece of concrete turned into glass that we will give to the first place winner of this latest contest that Bruce has just given us. I have it in my hand.

It's very cool. It's black glass on top and concrete on the bottom. And it's pretty delicate, but we'll pack it very carefully. I think we're done. All right, everybody, go out there, look up at the night sky and think about your favorite shape of pasta noodle or why there are so many shapes of pasta noodle. Thank you and good night. You know, I love the shapes, but they all taste like pasta. He's Bruce Betts. He's the chief scientist for the Planetary Society,

who joins us every week for What's Up? Arrivederci. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, and is made possible by its rocket-powered members. Mary Liz Bender is our associate producer. Josh Doyle composed our theme, which was arranged and performed by Peter Schlosser. I'm Matt Kaplan at Astro.