From Christian Davenport:

Can I second this? I love the podcast. Garrett and Mike Massimino ARE funny. Not just astronaut funny. But funny funny. Go listen.

From Garrett Reisman:

'Mission Specialist' was a designation we used during the Space Shuttle Program to refer to astronauts who were not either the Commander or Pilot. So Mission Specialists did not directly operate the flight controls on the Shuttle, but we did serve as flight engineers, robotics operators, payload operators and spacewalkers.

So 'Mission Specialist' was a bit of a misnomer since we were really generalists - trained to do all those things. Only once you were assigned to a specific flight did you specialize and train intensively on the tasks you were to perform on that mission.

Today NASA considers all astronauts to be simply 'Astronauts' and there is no longer a distinction between 'Pilot Astronauts' and 'Mission Specialist Astronauts' as there was back in the Shuttle days.

From Christian Davenport:

We get these sort of future prediction questions a lot...trying to look 20-30 years in the future. I like to narrow them a bit to see what's possible in 10 years, which seems a more reasonable timeframe. Within a decade, I think we will have people back on the moon, including the first woman and person of color as part of NASA's Artemis program. We'll see multiple companies working with NASA to escort astronauts to and from the surface and to supply them with supplies, as NASA seeks to build a permanent presence there, as I wrote about in our series. We will see low Earth orbit flooded with thousands of satellites used for the Internet as SpaceX's Starlink constellation continues to grow and others, such as Amazon's Kuiper constellation, get going. We should also see commercial space stations starting to proliferate and replace the International Space Station, which is expected to be deborbited in 2030. Not bad for a decade's work!

From Garrett Reisman:

No.

From Garrett Reisman:

Yes, for long-duration spaceflight in a microgravity environment, artificial gravity offers a lot of advantages to alleviate or eliminate various physiological issues associated with adaptation to microgravity. Also, there would be many practical advantages too, including:

• Locomotion (walking) becomes more natural

• Fluids separate (air-liquid) and there is natural convection

• Terrestrial tools and processes are easier to adapt

• Items remain where they are placed

But using rotation to create artificial gravity would require a combination of rotation rate and diameter that would present significant engineering challenges.

Consider this table which gives combinations of speeds and rotation rates to create an artificial gravity level equivalent to ours on Earth:

​

So either your spacecraft has to be huge or spin very fast. And spinning fast will cause you to run into problems associated with the limits of human physiological tolerance.

So it's not easy!

For Garrett: will you continue Two Funny Astronauts for a second season? It was a very entertaining podcast!

Thanks for the AMA

What do you two see as the future of space travel, space tech and innovation and how do you think it will evolve? Do you guys have some tech you all are excited for and what predictions do you all have about space tourism

Theoretically, assuming money being no object but we had to build it as fast as possible, how quickly could we build, man and launch a manned flight to Pluto? And how long would it take to get there?

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What is the future of space travel?

If you sneeze in antigravity - does it give you whiplash?

From Garrett Reisman:

Yes! I'm still the technical consultant for the show and we are just wrapping up the principal photography for season 4. Stay tuned!

From Christian Davenport:

I'm really looking forward to launch of SpaceX's Starship rocket. It has the potential to radically transform the industry (again). The vehicle is now fully stacked down in Boca Chica awaiting a wet dress rehearsal (basically a fueling test) and then a static fire of its 33 main engines. If those go well, we could see a launch at some point (pending the FAA approval of course). Elon has said it's possible it could come in early March, but there still some hurdles to clear first. There's also the first crewed flight of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, robotic missions to the moon under NASA's CLPS program, progress toward the Artemis II mission. I outlined what's to come in space in the coming year here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/01/08/year-ahead-space-nasa-moon/

Hi! Organic electronics is a technology that utilizes organic molecules or polymers to create electronic components for many application areas (photovoltaic, transistors, sensors, oleds, etc). Organics indeed may be lighter (useful for portable devices), and more flexible than conventional silicon-based inorganic materials. Also, they can undergo a wider range of chemical modifications, which, in turn, enables to fine-tune their properties (e.g., color).

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From Garrett Reisman:

Good question. You are right that the Moon is easier - much quicker to get to, and more importantly much quicker to get home in an emergency, and you can go pretty much anytime, you don't have to wait for a window to open up every 2 years. That means you can go for a few days, a few weeks, a few months or a few years which would let us get experience living for extended periods of time in partial gravity outside the Earth's magnetosphere in a safe and incremental manner. If you go to Mars, you pretty much have to commit for a round-trip duration of about 2.5 years.

But Mars is a much more suitable place for humans to live. It has an atmosphere, a gravity level of about twice that of the Moon, reasonable temperatures and lots of resources that can help support a human colony including oxygen for breathing, water for drinking and methane for fuel. Plus there is the promise of incredible scientific discoveries including, probably, proof of life existing outside of the Earth.

One day it might be possible for a human colony on Mars to be truly self-sustaining. That won't happen on the Moon without continual resupply from Earth.

From Christian Davenport:

I'm fascinated by the Space Force and remember hearing a top Pentagon official talk about the threats in space years ago. He recalled the general panic over Sputnik, in 1957, which was little more than a ball with a radio transmitter, and said that if the American public were paying attention to everything going on in space today--even the unclassified activity--there would be that level of concern. Now, the threats in space have come to the forefront, and we saw in late 2021 how Russia blew up a dead satellite creating a massive debris field. We've also seen in Ukraine, the rise of commercial satellite imagery playing a huge role and test the rules of warfare. I wrote a lengthy story about this. SpaceX's Starlink Internet constellation has also given Ukraine a big boost that has helped its military tremendously.

Hey Guys, thank you for doing this AMA!

I have one question for you both: what’s the space event or mission you are most excited about in the next few years?

For Mr. Reisman:

I’ve heard that riding on the Space Shuttle was quite a bumpy ride, particularly when the SRBs were burning. Did the ride smooth out a bit after SRB sep when it was just the RS-25s firing? And do you think the extra segment on the SLS boosters will make the ride even bumpier for future SLS Crews?

Thanks to you both for doing this and for helping to share the excitement of space exploration with us all!

Do you think training in Artificial Gravity (using a centrifuge) could be beneficial to maintain fit was of crew member during long term missions? What are other aspects you would like to improve with regard to exercising in space?

William Shatner has famously gone into space recently and his major take away was the darkness, the empitiness and realization of just how tiny and insignificant we are. Have you experienced a feeling like that? Would you care to talk about it at all and perhaps describe what you felt or feel when you are looking out the window while up there?

From Christian Davenport:

That was a tough blow for Virgin Orbit, which is really struggling. They needed that launch to go well. Like a lot of companies that went public via SPACs, they are now beholden to the public markets, which don't look kindly on failures even though that is a normal part of the rocket business, especially at first. A quick Google search shows their stock price down 83 percent in the last year. Richard Branson's Virgin group has continued to invest in the company but it is clearly going through a tough time at the moment.

From Christian Davenport: Living on Mars is like living on top of Mount Everest. No, it’s like living inside Chernobyl on the top of Mount Everest, given the high levels of radiation. Mars represents such an unfathomable challenge that writers such as Homer Hickam, the former NASA official and author of “Rocket Boys,” once wrote an essay titled, “A Myth Known as Mars (Psst, NASA’s not going there, pass it on.)” Even Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX with the purpose of getting to Mars, doesn't sugar coat the difficulties and once told me that "probably people will die "on the first trips to Mars. Which is why you're exactly right -- NASA wants to go to the moon first and learn how to live there before going all the way to Mars. Mars is the horizon goal that could come at some point. But NASA -- and SpaceX -- are set on going to the moon first.

Hi, and thanks for this AMA.

For Mr. Davenport: Do you (or might you in the future) ever cover the US Space Force, in addition to NASA and the space industry, or does something like that typically fall under the purview of the Post's defense-focused journalists?

For Mr. Reisman: What sorts of things does a 'mission specialist' do, and can that vary a lot from specialist to specialist?

Garrett are you still working with For All Mankind?

What do you think about the failed British launch the other day?