Uphill to Pluto both ways

We're back in the Bohn Zone as Dieter is in charge of the proceedings this week. Tom Warren is on hand to catch us up on Microsoft's Nokia woes, and we welcome Vergecast rookies Sean O'Kane and Loren Grush to discuss the future of space. And of course, Sam Sheffer is on hand to check hype throughout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:06Speaker 00

  Hello and welcome to the Vergecast. Neelai is not here, but I am. That's all you really need.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  What is this place?

• 0:15Speaker 00

  And I have, I have brought rookies with me. To my left is Lauren Grush.

• 0:21Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 0:22Speaker 00

  Grush.

• 0:22Speaker 02

  Grush.

• 0:22Speaker 00

  Grush.

• 0:23Speaker 02

  Grush. Grush with a G.

• 0:24Speaker 00

  All right. And to my right is Sean O'Kane. O'Kane? O'Keen?

• 0:28Speaker 01

  O'Kane with an O.

• 0:29Speaker 00

  O'Kane with an O. Okay. And we have non rookies with us as well. On Skype is Tom Warren.

• 0:37Speaker 03

  Hello.

• 0:38Speaker 00

  How's it going?

• 0:39Speaker 03

  I don't know if you can see me, but hello.

• 0:40Speaker 00

  I could see you. You're waving your hands. You're wearing Apple headphones despite the fact that you're our Microsoft expert.

• 0:47Speaker 03

  Quick, where's my mic?

• 0:48Speaker 01

  Tom is coming to us from interrogation room number two.

• 0:52Speaker 00

  Yeah. Sam Sheffer. Yeah. Can you, can you hype check Tom's interrogation room?

• 0:58Speaker 04

  I can't see it, so I'm going to give it a zero.

• 1:02Speaker 01

  It's an appropriate eye check.

• 1:04Speaker 00

  Neelai is out this week. I don't know, hanging out on a beach, sitting on a log.

• 1:10Speaker 01

  Typical Neelai.

• 1:11Speaker 00

  Log life.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Oh, like a worn out beach log?

• 1:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Okay. I don't know.

• 1:17Speaker 04

  Is this the pun cast?

• 1:18Speaker 00

  This is the pun cast. Man, we had some killer puns happen today.

• 1:23Speaker 02

  Puns have been running rampant.

• 1:24Speaker 00

  Our producer, John Liger-Marcino, wrote us, wrote a story and he had three, no fewer than three really good here puns.

• 1:31Speaker 01

  Embedded puns.

• 1:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, embedded puns. And then of course, there was the giant all profile.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  That was pretty great.

• 1:37Speaker 00

  Which in itself managed, had restraint without puns, but the rest of us.

• 1:41Speaker 01

  We, can I just say, we need to take Josh, Jezza and Michael Zlenko and everybody else who worked on that and remove them from the office. They've been sitting in that office all day.

• 1:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  Like following up to publishing that really great big feature and they need to like get out and like see the world again. Smile a bit.

• 1:59Speaker 00

  All dressed up and no place to go was my favorite.

• 2:02Speaker 01

  All right.

• 2:02Speaker 03

  I like to imagine that Neelai is sitting on a beach, writing article comments in the sand.

• 2:12Speaker 00

  They just wash away every morning.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  If anybody's listening that has Photoshop open, please Photoshop Iverge into sand.

• 2:20Speaker 00

  Oh, no.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  A stock shot of sand.

• 2:22Speaker 04

  Get that Neelai picture of him on the boat.

• 2:24Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:26Speaker 04

  I'm done.

• 2:26Speaker 00

  Okay, so today we have Tom here, so we can talk about Microsoft and later we're going to talk about space. Cause a lot of space stuff. So the big news, Tom, why don't you give us the rundown? Like some crazy stuff happened.

• 2:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, not a lot happened this week.

• 2:44Speaker 00

  Welcome.

• 2:46Speaker 00

  Thanks for listening, everybody.

• 2:49Speaker 03

  Um, yes, Microsoft wrote off their Nokia phone business acquisition to the tune of $7.6 billion. So quite a lot of money.

• 2:58Speaker 00

  Yeah. Do you know what the original acquisition cost?

• 3:00Speaker 03

  Two billion.

• 3:01Speaker 00

  Right. Okay. So they originally paid 7.2 billion and they're writing off 7.6.

• 3:07Speaker 03

  Which is probably because they used, I mean, I'm not a financial expert. I used to work at bank, but it's probably because they used foreign cash. And the, um, the foreign exchange has probably changed over that year. So the, the money is, is, has altered. That's what I'm guessing.

• 3:26Speaker 00

  So, I mean, you're leading with the, the 7.6 billion. Plus, wasn't there like another 850 million or 750 million, like expense cost or something?

• 3:34Speaker 03

  Restructuring.

• 3:35Speaker 00

  Yeah. But like the bigger deal, at least in terms of, I don't know, human effects is that they fired 7,800, 7,800 people.

• 3:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:46Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 3:46Speaker 03

  Which is a lot of people and a lot of those are from Finland.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, is that worldwide or is that US?

• 3:51Speaker 00

  It's worldwide. There was like, there's like one town in Finland that had like 2,600 people laid off.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 3:57Speaker 00

  So.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  That bar is really crowded right now.

• 4:02Speaker 03

  So Finland was pissed off when Microsoft acquired Nokia's phone business.

• 4:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:07Speaker 03

  They're probably not so happy that half of a particular town has been decimated. But, you know, that's an unfortunate consequence of this kind of messy acquisition, really. But, so, yeah, so that's the core sort of details. But it's kind of like, what does that actually mean in the grand scheme of things? So Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella put out a memo to the troops and they put it on Microsoft.com and stuff. It doesn't really say a lot. It says some things, but it's kind of very vague about the future.

• 4:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, like super vague.

• 4:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's very super vague in all places. But like kind of digging into it, the key thing to like the takeaway is they're going to focus on business stuff. And they say that it's a hardware, a combination, their strengths are a combination of software and hardware. They don't specifically say that they're going to make a business phone.

• 5:02Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, I just want to read what he wrote because we've been doing a lot of tea leaf reading based off this. So he says, I am committed to our first party devices, including phones. However, we need to focus our app phone efforts, near term, blah, blah, blah, blah. Near term, more blah, blah, blah, run a more effective phone portfolio, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We'll bring business customers the best management, security and productivity experiences they need. Value phone customers, communication services they want and Windows fans, the flagship devices they'll love.

• 5:34Speaker 00

  Does that mean like there's going to be three, three models of phones they're going to make? Because there are going to be one?

• 5:38Speaker 03

  I mean, that's, I think Bloomberg reported that there'd be one to two phones in each of those segments. So business value and flagship.

• 5:47Speaker 00

  Right.

• 5:50Speaker 03

  I don't know, that seems, that seemed probable, but I think it's more likely to be one or two phones a year for two years. And see how we go, sort of thing. But, yeah, that's, that's the sort of gist of it. And essentially that brings the, so Microsoft controls over 90%. If you believe some people, it's 97% of the Windows phone market of the actual shipments of those devices. So that's, that's, that's a lot.

• 6:13Speaker 00

  I don't know, man, I just got an LG Lancet review unit sent to me. It's a. I should have brought it on the cast. It's pretty small. It's pretty sweet. Pretty cute. Have either of you ever used a Windows phone?

• 6:24Speaker 02

  No.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Not longer than a few minutes.

• 6:26Speaker 00

  Right.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  At trade shows.

• 6:27Speaker 00

  There's the whole problem.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  Well, as someone who hasn't used Windows phones a lot and has spent nearly a decade away from Windows as an operating system, like what confuses me here is we've watched 2015 be like a year of Microsoft. You know, they had this really crazy PR push and like a lot of announcements after CES. We were writing articles about how Microsoft is ready to be loved again. And then they had a pretty good MWC. They were very visible there and they've got a whole bunch of new stuff coming. And so what, where does this fit in? Like it feels like a, it feels like a stone that just got dropped.

• 7:05Speaker 03

  It, it feels like the remnants of Steve Ballmer.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Right, okay.

• 7:10Speaker 03

  Cause if you believe some stories, Nadella initially opposed this transaction.

• 7:18Speaker 03

  And I mean, it's pretty clear from what he's done this week that he opposed it or opposes it. So it feels like a leftover. It was like Steve Ballmer's last, like there's two devices and services. This by Nokia and its mapping business. And the board said, well, you can have the phone business, but we don't want the mapping business. And that's kind of how it, how it ended. And I don't know, like I feel like they didn't really have much choice back then anyway. If Nokia were going to move towards Android. So it was kind of like they're in a, they're in a sticky situation and they always kind of seem to be with Windows phone anyway. But where does it, where does it leave it?

• 7:55Speaker 00

  Well, so my big question is where does it leave it in terms of Microsoft's ability to straight up make phones? Eight thousand people is a lot of people, you know, at its height, I know Palm had like 10, maybe 12. And towards the end it was way, way, way smaller, but it still requires lots of humans who know how to make things. And they have to make the software and they have to make the hardware and they have to design the hardware. It has to not suck.

• 8:18Speaker 00

  Do you think Microsoft is capable of making good phones right now?

• 8:22Speaker 03

  I think that, I mean, they've obviously got a good experience with the Surface stuff like that. That was pretty rough to begin with.

• 8:28Speaker 00

  Right.

• 8:28Speaker 03

  It's progressed. If they could transfer that and they've kept like the key talent on the phone side, then they should be okay for the flagships. I would be interested to see if these value phones or however they shake out, if they actually end up with Microsoft fully designing them and manufacturing them and it's not just a partner like Foxconn just producing it and Microsoft labels it.

• 8:48Speaker 00

  Right.

• 8:49Speaker 03

  Which is kind of what Nokia is doing with its tablet and the potential future phone next year. And that would, that would seem like probably a wise thing to do if they're gonna do sort of budget handsets and they don't have to invest so much money in that.

• 9:04Speaker 00

  Right. But so here's my question about the budget. Like, so we've seen Google try and make Android one budget handsets and they haven't gotten quite as cheap as a bunch of other people have been able to make Android phones. But what they have done a pretty good job of is going to like random phone manufacturers using random chips that are super low end that are nevertheless capable of running Android, like, you know, MediaTek, blah, blah, blah, whatever. So the next version of Windows, Windows 10 running on a phone, like, doesn't that require quite a bit of juice? Like, what does Windows 10 on a phone look like right now?

• 9:37Speaker 03

  Well, at the moment, it's pretty rough. It's in preview. It's supposed to be debuting like sort of September, October time with a couple of new devices. But it's pretty rough, especially on low end devices, actually, which is unusual because usually when you use a Windows phone, it's the same experience pretty much from the high end to the low end. Obviously, there's a little bit of speed changes and stuff, but for the most part, it's pretty, it's pretty solid experience. But from my testing of like low end devices, mid-range and, and the high end ones, it's pretty, it's pretty significant difference at the moment. That, that is beta software, so who knows? But I've never seen Windows phone in such a, a rough state, even through all the, the betas previously. So that might be slightly to do with the fact that it's all out in the public now and everyone's

• 10:22Speaker 03

  getting to test it.

• 10:23Speaker 00

  Right.

• 10:23Speaker 03

  But it seems, it seems rather rough for, for, for having something that's gonna need to ship on phones in like three or four months' time.

• 10:31Speaker 00

  All right. Most depressing hype check ever, right now, at this moment, Windows phone.

• 10:37Speaker 00

  He can't even bring himself.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  Was there ever hype around Windows Phone?

• 10:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course there was. Come on.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:43Speaker 00

  No, not for years.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  You can't tell me back in the early Metro days.

• 10:46Speaker 00

  I mean, I remember, I remember back at like NGadget when they announced Windows Phone, like when they redesigned it and it was all Metroed out. That was exciting. And then there was like the Dell streak and the Dell venue and I was like.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Do not tell me that the Lumia 920.

• 11:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  That was probably the peak of its hype. I would say now it's like two, three. It's just like people are crying out for a Snapchat app. Like that's, that's it.

• 11:10Speaker 00

  For in the night.

• 11:12Speaker 03

  A lot, a lot. Cause they just haven't done a good flagship phone. They've never done a like a competitive phone that's competed against the iPhone or like one of the top Androids. It's, it's always come just before, but it's never been quite as good what, as what came a month later.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Well, and I think a lot of people, a lot of people really loved like back when, oh, live tiles are new. Everybody really liked that idea. Cause that was when everybody was trying to serve up information sort of at a glance for the first time. And just like, well, you know, well.

• 11:42Speaker 00

  Well, I will say that widgets on Android have always been since their inception and like just an ugly, horrible failure. And so live tiles are like a nice version of that.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  But there was no app ecosystem to back it up.

• 11:52Speaker 00

  Right.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  Which there still isn't.

• 11:54Speaker 00

  Right.

• 11:55Speaker 03

  It's definitely been influential though, in, in terms of design.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, the flat design.

• 11:59Speaker 03

  Cause I, I, iOS and the material design and stuff is, is definitely taken stuff from the Metro design.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  What I'm just realizing is there, there must be like product placement people that work at Microsoft or maybe they don't work there anymore, who must be really, really mad because every Lumia phone has shown up in like, like TV shows, movies. They have like crazy product placement for all these phones that.

• 12:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's actually kind of insane how good it's been. Like, do they, why? I mean, does, does nobody else care to place product? I mean, Apple wouldn't pay to pay, place products, but they, it's all, I don't know, but all, all you ever see anybody use on TV is a Windows phone.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  Which kind of takes you out of the reality, right?

• 12:37Speaker 00

  Right.

• 12:38Speaker 02

  It's not actually like, oh, I'm definitely watching some.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  That's part of it. I mean, Apple stuff shows up in these TVs and TV shows and movies, but it's typically done more subtle.

• 12:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. Or they like, they put the sticker.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  Whereas, whereas like a Lumia phone shows up on Parks and Recreation and it, the shot like starts on it and then they zoom out. And they're like, oh, okay, I get it. I'm supposed to buy that.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  But I that's

• 13:01Speaker 03

  I think Apple's product placement works in a way that they actually just give the devices to people.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Right, sure.

• 13:06Speaker 00

  Or like they just have them sitting around because they work in Hollywood.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like it's like GoPro or like any other ubiquitous kind of thing.

• 13:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. Okay, Tom. So like, what's what's next? You were a big long thing. Did Microsoft give up on Windows Phone? Like, what's happening now? Like, what do you actually think is gonna happen?

• 13:24Speaker 04

  Well, can you answer that question, right? You wrote that headline. Are they have they given up?

• 13:29Speaker 03

  Well, I think they gave up on it a long time ago.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, see? Sneaky.

• 13:34Speaker 03

  Like, I don't think they ever really invested in enough to take it too seriously, anyway. So, I mean, the thing with Windows Phone over the years, Windows Phone 7 came and then then it was like Windows Phone 8, reset everything and then Windows Phone 8.1 was supposed to save the day and then Windows 10 was supposed to save. It's like a long list of waiting and waiting for them to reset and change things and revamp things. And it's never really been a mobile operating system that's matured.

• 14:02Speaker 03

  It never really got the features quick enough. 8.1 kind of got got them to a good level. But then everyone else just jumped in front. Apple announcing, you know, like they're sharing stuff and

• 14:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:14Speaker 03

  Touch ID and wherever you all the various features of Android and stuff. There's always they've always been ahead and they never really caught up and they never really matured the OS. So I don't think they ever really invested enough into the software, to be honest. And you can see that at the moment because Windows 10 shipping the end of the month on desktop PCs and it's not shipping on mobiles. And so what we don't know when shipping, we only know we're only thinking the end of the year.

• 14:39Speaker 04

  Wow. So they could very well just delay it again and then maybe just never even do it.

• 14:45Speaker 00

  Well, so that's my question.

• 14:47Speaker 03

  It should speed up because everyone who's working on Windows 10 should move across to the mobile side.

• 14:52Speaker 00

  Right.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  But I don't know whether, I don't know.

• 14:56Speaker 00

  Okay, so here's my here's my question. I'm gonna ask you, Lauren, because you're you're a nerd, but you're not like a super gadget nerd. No. Can you give me, as someone who's not like enmeshed in the politics and the the strategies of how Microsoft works? Can you give me a single good reason why Microsoft has to make a phone? Why? Why does? Why didn't they just kill it completely? Why is it still? Oh, yeah, now we're still in it, guys?

• 15:21Speaker 02

  No, because I mean, honestly, I just, it's either Android or iPhone for me. That's like all I hear about and all I care about. So I don't see why anyone would try to compete with that at this point, but.

• 15:34Speaker 00

  What do they get by pretending that they're gonna, that, maybe not pretending, but by saying, yeah, no, we're still gonna make some phones. We're gonna make some business phones and make some flagship phones. Like, what do they get?

• 15:43Speaker 04

  They're peddling hope.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  It has to have something different.

• 15:45Speaker 04

  For the people that already have them.

• 15:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's there's.

• 15:47Speaker 03

  I guess there's still, there's still a small.

• 15:49Speaker 04

  What do you think? How many, how many active Windows phone users do you think there are, Tom? Half a million, one million across in the entire world?

• 15:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's way more than that.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  Like, five, 10 million? Something like that?

• 16:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, up to that, I guess.

• 16:03Speaker 00

  So they can't just completely cut?

• 16:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, that would be really foolish. Like Tom said, they should just make the phone, do the thing. I say this all the time.

• 16:10Speaker 03

  What they should do is just make a really nice phone.

• 16:13Speaker 04

  Yeah. And also they should make a really nice laptop. And then OEMs would get pissed at them. But I say this a lot, but yeah. That's a really, really good idea.

• 16:21Speaker 03

  I think that's what they're gonna do. They're gonna make, they're gonna make a really nice flagship phones. And the people that really care about Windows and want Windows across everything will buy them. They'll make them.

• 16:31Speaker 00

  So I'm sorry to interrupt, Tom. Um, yeah, something's happening over at the hype desk. I don't know what is going on.

• 16:37Speaker 04

  Does this happen every episode?

• 16:39Speaker 00

  Uh, no.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  We have a guest star.

• 16:40Speaker 04

  I mean, I watch.

• 16:44Speaker 00

  And what is happening over here? Becky's at the hype seat now.

• 16:49Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 16:49Speaker 00

  You guys sharing the hype seat?

• 16:50Speaker 04

  Hi, Becky. She's the office manager at Verge.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  She's the best.

• 16:54Speaker 04

  Becky sends the best emails of anybody on the staff. They're aggressive and she doesn't look back. They're aggressive and they're funny. Yeah, she doesn't look back. No regrets.

• 17:03Speaker 00

  Becky, what could Microsoft do to get you to buy a Windows phone?

• 17:07Speaker 05

  What could Microsoft give you to do by what?

• 17:08Speaker 00

  A Windows phone.

• 17:09Speaker 05

  A Windows.

• 17:10Speaker 04

  Do you know what a Windows phone is?

• 17:11Speaker 02

  Do you even know what that is?

• 17:13Speaker 04

  Yikes.

• 17:14Speaker 05

  A Windows phone. Um, what could they, they could take Windows off of it?

• 17:18Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 17:20Speaker 05

  They could.

• 17:21Speaker 04

  This is why she's the best.

• 17:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, maybe they could, um, make some puns in their, in their advertising. That would entice me to maybe support them.

• 17:30Speaker 04

  Right. John?

• 17:33Speaker 04

  Where is our Windows phones?

• 17:34Speaker 00

  So, so when, when, I don't know, when, when Apple closes the door, Microsoft opens the Windows phone?

• 17:39Speaker 01

  Something like that.

• 17:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  When Nokia closes the door. Sorry Nokia.

• 17:46Speaker 05

  Yeah. They also need a better icon.

• 17:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, really?

• 17:50Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 17:50Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  They just invested a lot of money into redesigning that, too.

• 17:53Speaker 00

  Icon.

• 17:54Speaker 05

  I think it's really.

• 17:55Speaker 00

  Squares.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  I miss the old one. Make me a Windows phone with the wavy window on the back of it.

• 18:00Speaker 05

  Oh, God.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Now I'm in.

• 18:02Speaker 05

  I mean, they were square before and they're.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  I'll pick that up in the store.

• 18:05Speaker 05

  Now they're squares.

• 18:06Speaker 00

  Squares.

• 18:07Speaker 05

  But in a pair, in a.

• 18:09Speaker 04

  It's a parallelogram, isn't it?

• 18:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:10Speaker 05

  It, it's not all parallel, but the four sides aren't parallel.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  So they just need like shapes.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  Rhombus.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  They like having shapes together.

• 18:16Speaker 05

  It's a quadrangle.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  I just wanted to say rhombus.

• 18:19Speaker 05

  Very basically designed quadrangle.

• 18:22Speaker 00

  So you're here, you need to hype check something since you're in the hype.

• 18:24Speaker 05

  Okay, yeah, great. What can I hype check?

• 18:26Speaker 00

  I don't know. It's up to Sam.

• 18:28Speaker 05

  Oh, Sam, what can I hype check for you?

• 18:30Speaker 04

  Hype check your hype seat takeover.

• 18:33Speaker 05

  Hype.

• 18:35Speaker 05

  Hype, super hype. Thanks, Sam. It was really fun sharing your seat. I'm also going to share this with you.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  She's taking his beer. There's nothing better than watching Sam have his moment taken from him.

• 18:49Speaker 04

  I'll, I'll share the wealth.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  Bye, Becky.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  Bye. Okay, but seriously, Tom, are they, are they, are they, do you really think they're going to make the flagship phone that you're hoping for? And if so, like, like the whole strategy is like, where, where are the apps going to come? The apps are supposed to come from like Windows desktop app makers instead of trying to convince mobile makers?

• 19:11Speaker 03

  Phone that I would, that I would love is running Windows phone, runs iOS apps and has all the customization of Android. But no one can and will be able to do that. Because Windows phone is a base OS. It's great.

• 19:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, but it's easier to port over iOS apps now and it's easy to run Android apps, basically. So like in theory, they're like, they'll, they'll make a phone that'll just take anything anybody makes, screw it. So that seems like a beautiful dream that'll never fail because write once, run anywhere is always perfect, right? Like. I don't know, I want to.

• 19:45Speaker 03

  I don't know. I don't know what's gonna happen with all that stuff because they announced that build and now they've announced. It seems like a weird time to announce that they're writing off then the Nokia acquisition and, you know, pairing down on their phones. Because it's kind of like Windows 10 mobile isn't out yet. And we're kind of, we're getting to the point where they're like, this is our vision for phones and PCs. And they're like, now they're just kind of, I don't know, going back on it, I guess.

• 20:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, so either.

• 20:10Speaker 03

  They're consigning themselves to the desktop.

• 20:13Speaker 00

  Right, so are we supposed to believe that, like, actually, they could have been making phones this whole time? And then they don't, they didn't ever really need Nokia and so now they're just like firing all those people and, and writing off all that money? Because like, oh, it turns out that, you know, we, we could have been doing this the whole time and now we're gonna? Or, or are they, are they lying to us and they're not actually going to do anything serious with the phone? But they just are afraid to come out and say it?

• 20:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think, I think a lot of the, the acquisitions, like the Boma stuff. So he thought that they could do all the devices and services and do the whole thing, be an Apple, be a Google, be a Microsoft. Um, but I think Nadella's more realistic in, in the company's vision is like going up against Apple is not going to work. Um, going up against Google in certain areas is not going to work. And I think also part of like the, part of that memo is really interesting because, um, Nadella's talks about the phone stuff and that's what everyone's focused on. But if you look at it more broadly over the last month, he's actually killed off their ad business.

• 21:12Speaker 00

  Right.

• 21:12Speaker 03

  He's killed off their mapping business.

• 21:14Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 21:15Speaker 03

  Um, and now he's killing off their phone business. The only thing that they need to do next is kill off their search business. And then they're not competing directly with, with Google anymore.

• 21:23Speaker 00

  Right.

• 21:24Speaker 03

  Which is kind of, it's a kind of a weird, like, why, like, this is a weird situation of if you look at the businesses that they're, they're pulling back away from is, is stuff that Google dominates. And they obviously don't feel like they can compete. Um, I don't, I don't think that they would kill off the search business, but it's just, it's an interesting thing going on. I don't know whether there's any potential partnership with Google and Microsoft on the horizon or.

• 21:50Speaker 00

  That would be wild.

• 21:51Speaker 03

  Something crazy like that. It'd be wild, but if you just look at the moves, they're very interesting in the fact that Nadella's removing the, the blocks of like the friction points between Microsoft and Google. Phone being a big one, search obviously being one, but it's not one that really Google needs to worry about.

• 22:07Speaker 00

  I think Google's happy that Bing exists, right?

• 22:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. It keeps the regulators away. Yeah, but the ad business and phone and mapping and stuff. Like it all, it all takes away because Microsoft can strike a deal that says, you know, we'll get YouTube on their maps. And this is all very speculative, but it's just, it's an interesting twist to note that when he's reorganizing his strategy for a new financial year, those are the things that are sort of taking the backseat.

• 22:39Speaker 00

  All right, last question. Windows 10, is it gonna, is it, is it gonna do better than Windows 8?

• 22:46Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, for sure.

• 22:47Speaker 00

  Is it gonna be good enough to be like, oh, hey, Microsoft is back, hooray?

• 22:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's just way better, it's just more coherent, like you pick it up and it feels like Windows 7, but a lot fresher and modern and stuff. There's some cool features now, you can stream Xbox games to it, you know, all that sort of stuff. They've done, I think they've done a pretty good job on it. The only thing I am worried about with it is that it's just a work in progress.

• 23:09Speaker 00

  Right.

• 23:09Speaker 03

  It's a little bit rough around the edges on occasions and it kind of feels like.

• 23:15Speaker 00

  Still, it's still rough.

• 23:18Speaker 03

  It kind of feels like instead of quality, they're rushing for a particular date, which is kind of in the Sonoski era, it was more driven by quality, I'd like to think.

• 23:28Speaker 00

  Right.

• 23:30Speaker 03

  Whereas now it does seem like they're like, we need to hit back to school, we need to hit a holiday and stuff, which is, they do.

• 23:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:37Speaker 03

  But I guess they re-engineered the whole of Windows so that they will have regular updates, so it shouldn't be as noticeable as previous versions.

• 23:44Speaker 00

  Do you feel like?

• 23:45Speaker 03

  I think it's gonna.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  Do you feel like Nadella hyper focusing can make that happen then? I mean, do you, do you think he's doing the right thing to be able to make it work the right way it should when it does come out?

• 23:55Speaker 03

  I think it's gonna be, it's gonna end up, it's gonna shake out as basically Chrome, where it just updates and you don't even realize it's updated.

• 24:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:02Speaker 03

  And it just, you know, that, that's the way that Windows, that's the future of Windows. It's gonna go through a bumpy six months, I think, just because some systems are gonna have driver issues and stuff like that. But I think the end result is gonna be a lot, a lot better version of Windows. It's a lot more usable now, so.

• 24:19Speaker 00

  All right, Tom, I'm gonna let you go. I have, I have to go into the money zone, but thank you so much.

• 24:24Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 24:25Speaker 00

  I have no jokes to leave you with. Bye, Tom.

• 24:27Speaker 02

  Bye, Tom.

• 24:29Speaker 00

  All right. Now it's time for the ching.

• 24:34Speaker 00

  Sam, do you need a new mattress?

• 24:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I bet you hate mattress shopping.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:41Speaker 00

  So I need to tell you and everybody about this new online mattress company. It's called Leesa. They're like Tom's shoes, but for mattresses. Now, the insanely cool Leesa mattress is sold exclusively online. You can't get it in a store. It ships compressed to your door for free. So you take it out of the box and poof, it explodes into a full sized mattress.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  Sounds exciting.

• 25:01Speaker 00

  Maybe it doesn't explode. We'll say it expands. And it has three unique foam layers for cooling supportive sleep. So it keeps you cool because it's hot out, especially in New York.

• 25:12Speaker 02

  I need that right now.

• 25:12Speaker 00

  And it smells. At least it gives you 100 nights to try your mattress risk free. And for every 10 mattresses that they sell, they donate one to a shelter, which is pretty great. So go ahead and go to their website and go to L E E S A dot com slash verge cast. And you'll get 75 bucks off your purchase. That's 75 off your mattress at L E E S A dot com slash verge cast.

• 25:41Speaker 00

  What kind of mattresses do they use in space?

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Oh, that's where memory foam came from. It was one of those things that they developed for space. And then now we have it here on earth. Yeah, it's like one of those, it's like, it's like, it's like Tang, even though Tang, I think, isn't really one of those things that they do for space. But yeah.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  Velcro, wasn't Velcro?

• 26:00Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 26:00Speaker 00

  Velcro was.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Anything amazing was developed on the International Space Station. It's actually, there's a really funny, there was a conferences week about the International Space Station, Space Station. And at a panel, someone was asked what, you know, what's the reason for doing this? And there was just sidelines. And it's like, I knew it was all these NASA people and you know, they had, it was just one of those things where I think everybody hesitated.

• 26:27Speaker 00

  No.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  But it was just like, it's just the worst thing.

• 26:30Speaker 00

  What's the reason for doing this? And they're up there like, oh shit.

• 26:32Speaker 02

  I know, they're definitely, no, they had to gather. Their thoughts because everything they say is like totally So they're just like, okay, how do I answer this question?

• 26:40Speaker 01

  And it was the first

• 26:41Speaker 02

  And not piss people off.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  And it was the first panel after Musk, Elon Musk was interviewed. So they knew a lot of eyeballs were on them.

• 26:47Speaker 00

  But what if for real, like, they all actually like, think they've pulled one over on us and like, we've paid them to go do insanely cool space stuff. And so like, oh no, they've thought it through.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Well, we're at a really weird point right now because I think a lot of, I think you're seeing more NASA people and just more people in the space industry in general, willing to admit that like, while the science being done up there is amazing, it, you know, it's, it's really hard to pin down what we get from it sometimes, but there are, you know, you see these reports, it's like, oh, $14 for every dollar spent up there. We get back and you know, like, there's reason to believe, but we're coming to the point where the International Space Station can only last until 2024. Uh, and they still haven't, I don't think finally extended it that far, right?

• 27:33Speaker 02

  Wait, what was that?

• 27:34Speaker 01

  International Space Station, it's, it can last till 2024. I don't know if they've actually extended it.

• 27:38Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, I'm not sure exactly.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  There's no real plan of what they want to do after that.

• 27:43Speaker 02

  I think, well, okay, the problem is a marketing problem because nobody really talks about

• 27:47Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 27:47Speaker 02

  What we can do with space. It's just like what we are doing with it.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  What do I get?

• 27:52Speaker 00

  Okay, but all we're doing, like, all I, like, we're doing experiments up there, like, oh, we're gonna test this in zero G. And we're gonna test, like, I don't, like, the frogs mate in zero G. What happens to the development of a Nova in zero G? What happens to, all my, all my experiments are like sex and reproduction based. But like, is it really that important to do all this stuff in zero G?

• 28:10Speaker 02

  Sometimes, yeah. So one big thing is protein crystal formation, which is like used for drugs, developing drugs. It, since there's no gravity up there, it can form much more like full in space.

• 28:22Speaker 00

  Okay, sure.

• 28:22Speaker 02

  So there's stuff like that. And actually, there's a whole branch of, of, uh, the International Space Station called CASIS. I can't remember what, what it stands for at the moment, but that's their job is to market to companies about why they should do their research in space because there are a lot of different benefits of not having gravity up there. But that, I, I think that for now is just kind of like, that's very What's the word I'm looking for? It's it's it's fun and it's exciting, but it's not like doesn't have a huge long-term benefit. But there are long-term benefits of space exploration that I don't think people focus on quite a lot. And and that's really where I think NASA should be focusing and be like, how can we make money from sending rockets into space?

• 29:04Speaker 00

  That's it. Like, that's the long-term benefit is we can make bank?

• 29:08Speaker 02

  I think, well, I mean, how else do we get people to care?

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, this is a this is a battle NASA fights daily, hourly. Even Congress is, you know, you have representatives who are saying, why are you in charge of doing Earth science when you're NASA? You should be doing space. Ted Cruz wants to only focus them on space. And you're just, they're in the best position to study the Earth in a lot of ways. And, you know, it's like they fight this battle on every single front.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  So I think they're kind of tired of it.

• 29:39Speaker 00

  I've checked space, space profit, and people saying, why are we in space?

• 29:44Speaker 00

  No.

• 29:44Speaker 04

  Hype check space profit.

• 29:46Speaker 00

  Space profit. Yeah, space profit, making money off space. Hype check it.

• 29:49Speaker 04

  I don't think the point of going to space is to make money.

• 29:51Speaker 00

  That's what I'm saying.

• 29:52Speaker 02

  It's not, but that's how you get people to care about it.

• 29:55Speaker 01

  The easiest way to convince people, yeah.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  And there are some cool, there are some interesting ways, like internet from space is a good one. And then there's some ideas of how we can get energy, maybe like a solar farm in space.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Asteroid mining.

• 30:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, stuff like that. I mean, there's a lot of interesting stuff, but it's just not marketed well. And I think that is really one of NASA's big problems.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  I think the needle is moving and has moved a lot in the last couple of years anyways. Way more people are interested in the general idea now.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  Right.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Than where like five or six years ago.

• 30:24Speaker 00

  And this is because of SpaceX, right?

• 30:27Speaker 01

  It's a couple of things.

• 30:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, no, SpaceX is definitely very much part of that. But I think it's just.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  It's easy to rag on NASA, but like NASA has done a lot of really good stuff, too, that like people have gotten behind. Like, you look at the Curiosity rover, and that had more attention than a lot of national and international events that are more entertainment-focused.

• 30:45Speaker 02

  My parents will get upset, but I think a lot of it also has to do with like the cancellation of the shuttle, is because now we're thinking, well, what are we doing? Like, it's it's a very barren wasteland at the In terms of what NASA is working on.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:58Speaker 02

  So that's kind of reminding people like, oh, hey, aren't we supposed to be like the number one nation for space travel and we're not really.

• 31:05Speaker 00

  Do you want to tell the people why your parents are mad?

• 31:06Speaker 02

  Oh, my parents are former NASA engineers.

• 31:09Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  And they worked on shuttle for quite a long time.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Now they're retired, living off that sweet, sweet NASA coin.

• 31:14Speaker 02

  That NASA pension is like funded their pool.

• 31:17Speaker 00

  Okay, so I want you here to explain this to me like I'm super dumb and there's like a lot to talk about with SpaceX trying to, you know, reland the rocket and it failed and like.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  It's been a busy couple of weeks.

• 31:28Speaker 00

  The reaction to that, you had great stories about like, people are like not having quite the right attitude. But so here's my really dumb question.

• 31:42Speaker 00

  The shuttle was a thing that we put into space and then took out of space and we had some horrific tragedies with it. But we had a thing that, you know, we put into space, we took it out of space. Why don't we, what, what's wrong with that sort of model that we're like, no, we need to like, put a rocket up and then bring that same rocket vertically back down?

• 32:01Speaker 02

  It's politics.

• 32:04Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 32:05Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, it's a lot of things, but you know, I think one of the main, you know, catalysts for the cancellation of the shuttle program was the, the last disaster. It definitely, it spurred things into motion and then, you know, Bush came in and was like, oh, we should go back to the moon with the constellation program and then Obama came in and was like, no, we're not going to do that. We're going to go to Mars and asteroid instead. And then this weird hybrid thing happened to form their new launch vehicle. So it's, it's, that's kind of one of the main issues with NASA is you have a lot of good people there, but they're all kind of at the whims of the each administration and that's, that's the main problem of government.

• 32:44Speaker 00

  But is, is a, is a shuttle type thing with like wings and it lands like an airplane, the best way to land a space vehicle?

• 32:53Speaker 01

  Well, so, I mean, the shuttle, that's basically, it was good that it was reusable, but that was basically just a bigger version of the thing that sits on top of a rocket. And so it's good to land that, sure, but we can recover some of those capsules anyways. Landing a rocket itself, really the engine and the aeronautics and everything inside that. But the fuel stage as well is where the value really comes in. Cause it's that stuff that you just lose every time.

• 33:21Speaker 00

  Right.

• 33:22Speaker 02

  And that's kind of the criticism of, I mean, there's a lot of opinions about the new, the space launch system, which is basically, it looks like a huge Apollo rocket.

• 33:31Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 33:31Speaker 02

  It's what's supposed to take us to Mars and, but it looks completely different from the shuttle. It's, it's basically like a large heavy lift vehicle.

• 33:39Speaker 00

  Right. It's a big ass rocket.

• 33:40Speaker 02

  It's a big ass rocket, yeah.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  With that tiny little Orion spacecraft that got tested last year, the NASA build on top of it.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  But that's, so you just talked about how like the government can get in these weird sort of swings and that affects NASA, which is why we've ended up with, so space, it's nice to see NASA, you know, building a new thing.

• 33:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  They, they have a plan, they want to, plan, they want to go to Mars by like the 2030s ish, you know, maybe. And so they're like, okay, we're going to go build this thing in the meantime.

• 34:09Speaker 00

  I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I do not believe anybody when they say they want to go to Mars. They, everybody says, it's the easiest thing to say.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  It's so easy to say.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  It requires a lot of suspension of disbelief, yeah.

• 34:18Speaker 02

  People think it's just a matter of going there, setting up shop and having like oxygen and, and that's it, you know, but it's, there's so much more to it than that. It's how do you sustain yourself in there? And just even getting to Mars is so complicated.

• 34:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's the thing. Like, like all those questions, like how do you survive and sustain on Mars? Like, I think that's incredibly interesting. I just, I think that whenever anybody says, hey, we're going to Mars, they're lying through their teeth.

• 34:39Speaker 02

  I just, they're just not, it just doesn't illustrate the, the scope involved, you know? It's, it's so many different factors and, and the technologies, they're, they're there, but they haven't been tested for space yet, you know? So, and that's, that's huge. Like you have to miniaturize everything. So maybe we have ways of, you know, stripping oxygen from the atmosphere, but how do we put that on a spaceship? That's that's huge.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  The thing is, it's always going to seem really impossible to believe until we get a little bit closer to it. So it's like for for that big question of it, it's like, we kind of have to suspend it while we talk about the little stuff.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, but in the meantime, we're going to have four more presidential administrations between now and then.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  Well, that's why.

• 35:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  That's why it's so important that we have private spaceflight now. And why we're watching with bated breath every time one of these companies launches something into space. And we, you know, if you're if you're rooting for this whole idea to keep going, you hope that they are going to make it safely.

• 35:36Speaker 00

  Right.

• 35:36Speaker 01

  And for the most part, they had up until the last year.

• 35:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  Last seven or eight months.

• 35:42Speaker 02

  Because, you know, Musk talks about going to Mars, too. And so it's like, I don't believe him either. Like, I want to believe I want I want us to get to Mars, of course. But, yeah, we have the government's problem of, you know, rotating administrations. And then, I mean, it's just going to take a lot more money and and, you know, a workforce than Elon Musk has at the moment to really

• 36:03Speaker 00

  Right.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  do what needs to be done to get to Mars. So maybe some kind of hybrid effort. I see something like that in the future for if we are ever to get to Mars, it would be a very big collaboration.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  Sam, hype check Mars.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  Why haven't we been back to the moon?

• 36:19Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, that's a great question.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  All right.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  Well.

• 36:23Speaker 00

  That was the word. That was like the most passive aggressive hateful hype check ever. It's like.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  It's politics.

• 36:28Speaker 00

  I'm ignoring your hype check. Your hype checks have sucked this entire podcast. I'm just going to talk about whatever I want to talk about.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  That was my is my counter counter.

• 36:35Speaker 00

  Counter counter check.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  Counter check. Well, I mean, the only reason we went there in the first place and or went into space in the first place was because we were afraid Russia was going to do it first. And now there's not, you know.

• 36:45Speaker 02

  We don't have that impetus driving us forward.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  It disappeared a long time ago.

• 36:48Speaker 00

  Do we need to go to the moon for anything?

• 36:50Speaker 01

  It would help. It would help.

• 36:51Speaker 02

  There are there.

• 36:52Speaker 00

  Help what?

• 36:53Speaker 01

  If to go now, the reason everybody's so focused on Mars is because to go back to the moon now would take, you know, another 10 or 20 years.

• 37:01Speaker 00

  Which is no, come on.

• 37:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:04Speaker 00

  It took us 10 years to get to the first.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  To go back to the moon?

• 37:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:07Speaker 02

  No, no, no, that's not true. It is very possible to use existing launch vehicles like the Atlas V or the Delta IV to get to the moon right now.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Right, to get there and like set up shop in the way that people talk about. Like if you're gonna go back to the moon, like set up a base.

• 37:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, but the point is, we're just not, you know, using our efforts to do that right now.

• 37:26Speaker 00

  No, no, no, the point is, what I'm asking is, why would we want to? Like, what's on the moon that's cool?

• 37:31Speaker 02

  Well.

• 37:32Speaker 04

  The moon's worth a lot of money.

• 37:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the other thing, is NASA doesn't really advertise, uh...

• 37:37Speaker 04

  You can mine the moon, seriously.

• 37:38Speaker 02

  You can mine the moon.

• 37:39Speaker 04

  It's worth trillions of dollars.

• 37:40Speaker 02

  There's some complicated way of kind of like trapping radiation that comes from the sun, another energy, form of energy production. But the main thing is, think about how people colonized the Earth, you know? Like, let's say you wanna go to someplace further or farther, you go to someplace closer first, set up shop there, and then move on from there. That's kind of the idea is, how are we gonna know how to set up a colony on Mars before we try it somewhere first, you know? Like, we should think of the, the normal way we colonized the Earth to do that in space.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  Just less killing.

• 38:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  I mean, less killing.

• 38:18Speaker 02

  Well, there's no aliens up there, so...

• 38:20Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, you say it.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  But I think people are so focused on Mars because you're, it's like, a lot of people don't see a reason to go to the moon because they don't have that sort of specter of, oh, we could potentially live there someday, like as a colony.

• 38:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  And so everybody's like, well, if we're gonna go back to the moon, why don't we just go to Mars? It's like a...

• 38:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, but that's such a...

• 38:43Speaker 01

  It's like a motivator in a weird way. I don't really agree with it either. That's why we're so focused on Mars.

• 38:48Speaker 02

  It was like when Obama, like, announced that we were gonna go to Mars and to asteroid, he was like, "Why would we go back to the moon? We've already been there."

• 38:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  And I was like, "That's such a terrible way."

• 38:57Speaker 04

  Because it never happened.

• 38:58Speaker 00

  Oh, no.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  If we had kept going there, it would totally make sense to invest a lot in it, but it's just like, it's kinda like when you, when you don't do that paper, and then you like write it the last minute before it's due. It's like, we're all of a sudden, everybody got interested in space again, and it was like, "Oh, we can't just go back to the moon, we gotta go bigger than that." I gotta write like five more pages on it, and make it look like it was really good.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, that's so true.

• 39:21Speaker 00

  Okay, we gotta talk about SpaceX for real, and about this crash, but before we do...

• 39:28Speaker 00

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• 40:44Speaker 01

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• 40:51Speaker 01

  It's a good one.

• 40:51Speaker 00

  It's good. Yeah.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 40:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, goodbye.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  SpaceX. Okay, so, the thing that they've been doing is trying to prove that they could reuse a rocket. And they've got a bunch of different kinds of rockets now, or two.

• 41:08Speaker 02

  They're really, I mean, they're really just using the Falcon 9 at the moment.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  So it's the Falcon 9, that's all they use. So, and the idea is that the thing gets up into space, hooray, and then it needs to, like, just... Just come straight back down like a rocket in reverse.

• 41:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, so.

• 41:21Speaker 00

  But they want to land it on a floating platform because landing it on the land is too simple.

• 41:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, so whenever.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  Well, it's it's less risky.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  If you're going to try and land it even at like a spaceport, one slight miscalculation, all of a sudden that thing just went 300 miles north of your spaceport and now it's over.

• 41:39Speaker 00

  There's a lot more nothing in the ocean than there is in like Texas.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 41:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, but that's huge because right now, when you launch a rocket, that's it. You're just setting that rocket up and it's not, it doesn't go recovered when you're done with it. So if he's able to do this and then use that rocket body to go for another launch, that's that's never been done before.

• 41:58Speaker 00

  So again, I have really dumb questions. Why not just strap a big ass parachute to it? Or like, why not, why not have giant inflatable inflatable things that that blow up around it like they did when they landed the thing on Mars and just have it crash down into the ocean and then all the inflatable balloons like shrink down and then the rockets back? Like, why do we need to like, is it because it's cooler to just land the rocket vertically?

• 42:21Speaker 01

  Well, yeah. Speed and weight are big.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, speed and weight. But that's funny that you say that because there are designs. So SpaceX isn't the only one talking about reusing rockets.

• 42:33Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 42:33Speaker 02

  And ULA has a plan, which is kind of sketchy and we don't really know much about it, but.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  ULA is Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

• 42:40Speaker 02

  And they they're designing their next rocket called Vulcan. And that has some elements where parts of the rocket would come down, use a parachute, and then helicopters would swoop in and.

• 42:52Speaker 00

  No, no.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  Michael Bay, they need to get Michael Bay on board with this because it's actually a really crazy idea. It's literally a cartoon drawing right now.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's all we know about it.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  This rocket's not going to launch until the end of the decade, maybe in the 2020s. And it, they're only talking about recovering the engine and the aeronautics at the bottom. They're not recovering the big fuel stage.

• 43:11Speaker 00

  Right.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  And it's it's literally, it's doing kind of what you were saying. It has a parachute that will come out.

• 43:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Save that really bottom cap of the engine, every, everything. And while that's floating down, a helicopter literally swoops in.

• 43:23Speaker 00

  And catches it midair.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  I'm going to, I'm going to show you this.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  It's basically like the plot of a James Bond movie.

• 43:27Speaker 00

  You've not been excited about hype checks all day, but tell me that you cannot be hype about a helicopter catching a rocket midair on its way down back to Earth.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  That didn't happen.

• 43:38Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, it's just a concept.

• 43:40Speaker 02

  I mean, this is, this is.

• 43:42Speaker 00

  You can hype check, like ephemeral concepts.

• 43:44Speaker 02

  That's the whole.

• 43:45Speaker 04

  Can you hype check a theory?

• 43:46Speaker 00

  The whole point of hype is that you're measuring the value of a thing that doesn't exist. Hype isn't a thing. You can't touch hype. You can't feel hype.

• 43:54Speaker 04

  Have you ever shaken my hand, Dieter?

• 43:55Speaker 00

  You cannot eat hype. You can't put it on your body. You can't.

• 43:58Speaker 01

  Remind me never to shake your hand.

• 44:00Speaker 00

  You can't smell it. You can't hear it. It's a, it's a thing that imbues all of us. It's in the air. It's everywhere. It's untouchable. It's unseeable. It's unknowable. And yet you can still put a number on it. That is the point of the hype check.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  You should do marketing for NASA.

• 44:14Speaker 00

  Hype check a helicopter catching a rocket descending from space.

• 44:18Speaker 04

  10 out of 10.

• 44:19Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  Oh, there you go. You really, you earned that one.

• 44:23Speaker 04

  That was an epic, epic monologue.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  That was amazing.

• 44:26Speaker 04

  I would love to put some dramatic music behind that and play that while I go to sleep at night.

• 44:31Speaker 00

  All right.

• 44:32Speaker 04

  And then get, and then get Shia LaBeouf to ramp it up even further.

• 44:36Speaker 00

  Just do it.

• 44:38Speaker 00

  Okay, so they're catching the whole rocket. They're catching like.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  They're catching parts of it.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  This is literally in their white paper, though. This is ULA's drawing.

• 44:45Speaker 02

  Nobody has.

• 44:46Speaker 00

  This is like, this is something I would have drawn when I was like eight years old. Like, you guys. It's, and then we'll put a tank turret on it.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  So it's, I mean, it's good that they're working on this too, but the problem is this still doesn't save you as much money. And especially considering United Launch Alliance costs more to send a rocket to space. They just, they, they don't build it on the cheap like SpaceX does. You're saving less. SpaceX right now is talking about if they can land, right now SpaceX charges about, it's like 60 or 70 million dollars for a cargo launch for NASA.

• 45:20Speaker 02

  I'm not sure if that's right, actually.

• 45:22Speaker 01

  It's somewhere in that range.

• 45:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Cause ULA is up in like the, for a rocket launch is in like the 100 range. So if SpaceX is like 60, 70 million per launch, if they can recover that stage and reuse it, now we're talking about 6 million a launch. It's like, it's like on that order of savings.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  That is so drastic.

• 45:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's insane. Okay, so SpaceX is trying to land the rocket and it's been hard.

• 45:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 45:48Speaker 00

  But I shouldn't say that.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  No, no, please. I feel like everybody just completely misread what I wrote.

• 45:56Speaker 00

  Well, we're gonna, I want to talk about that a little bit.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's another.

• 45:59Speaker 00

  So. Why is it failing or not working? And then why is it not working out for them? But more importantly, I think is like, why do we need to like, demand more and demand that it start?

• 46:13Speaker 02

  Well, I think-

• 46:14Speaker 00

  Demand is demand the wrong word. I think about it wrong.

• 46:16Speaker 02

  It was getting really close. I mean, the reason I think a lot of eyes were on last week's launch was because this was their third time to do it. And the second time that they did it, like, it got on that ship. It was like-

• 46:30Speaker 01

  It landed. I mean, it landed and like a thrust, well, it's like a thruster just kept going.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  Basically. It gave it too much sideways motion.

• 46:39Speaker 02

  It was like there and then just went, and then exploded.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  It's made wonderful gifts and vines. Great internet fodder.

• 46:47Speaker 04

  Wait, so did we say what actually happened last week?

• 46:50Speaker 02

  We still-

• 46:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, we don't know yet, right?

• 46:53Speaker 04

  No, like for like-

• 46:54Speaker 02

  Like what actually happened?

• 46:55Speaker 00

  Explain to us what happened.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  So, well, yeah.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  It's crazy that it was only a week and a half ago. It feels like a month ago.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  I was actually on a plane, which was terrifying. We were about to take off and then I was watching on my phone. And yeah, so when it was up, it was about to, and I think it was right before stage separation, which is when the two parts of the rocket break apart.

• 47:12Speaker 00

  Right.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  The right way.

• 47:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. It just disintegrated and-

• 47:18Speaker 01

  It looks like, it looks like some sort of oxygen tank or something in the top stage-

• 47:22Speaker 00

  Right.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  ruptured, and it just caused explosions all the way down.

• 47:26Speaker 04

  And this was an Elon Musk SpaceX rocket?

• 47:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's way up to resupply the International Space Station.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it was a pretty routine launch for them, too.

• 47:34Speaker 04

  Can, can you, Lauren, explain how the hell Elon Musk just has the ability and power to just make a thing and is like, I'm gonna resupply the ISS, NASA, like, what's up?

• 47:47Speaker 00

  Oh, they bid for it.

• 47:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:49Speaker 04

  That's how that works.

• 47:51Speaker 02

  There is a lot of work leading up to this. I mean, they've had, they have a contract with NASA. So this was their seventh resupply launch for the ISS. So they've done this before.

• 48:00Speaker 00

  What he did is he went to NASA headquarters and just did donuts in his Tesla. And so they came out like, dude, let us just, go ahead, we don't care.

• 48:08Speaker 04

  And, and so it is, is it a joint venture sort of thing between SpaceX and NASA? Who, who is supplying the supplies inside the rocket?

• 48:18Speaker 00

  Microsoft.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  It's packed full of Lumia phone.

• 48:23Speaker 04

  Maybe that's why it's exploded.

• 48:27Speaker 04

  Terrible.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  So, yeah, NASA, NASA, it's like a shipping company. It's like you're paying NASA's paying them to ship.

• 48:33Speaker 04

  Oh, wow. Wow.

• 48:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, and, and it's, it's, it had like science experiments from school kids in it.

• 48:40Speaker 04

  There were no humans on board.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. There was a really heartbreaking story I read somewhere about like one of those school experiments where it was like they, they had had their experiment originally on the orbital. So orbital is another company that's been doing resupply missions to the space station and they had a rocket blow up on launch pad in October.

• 48:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  And that was another resupply mission and one of those supplies was this like, I can't remember what the school it was, but it was like these kids had this science experiment that was supposed to go up to the station and it blew up. And so, you know, there were all these stories written about a lot of those things that were lost, but it was, you know, these particular kids, it was like, oh, you know, you learn to lose, you get better, like space, space makes you realize that like, it's all a process and like this. And then they ended up sending their next version up on the, on C R S seven.

• 49:28Speaker 02

  No.

• 49:29Speaker 01

  And they were there for the launch. And so.

• 49:32Speaker 02

  That's.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  Where the rocket. Where.

• 49:37Speaker 02

  Sometimes kids, you lose and you lose.

• 49:41Speaker 04

  And then the third time's a charm.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  The real, the real heartbreaking part was they were there and they, so, so from the ground, by the time the rocket actually exploded, it was so far up that it was like really kind of hard to see, like from our computers and our phones, we had the benefit of a zoom lens.

• 49:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  But on the ground, it kind of looked, oh, that's just like the stage separation. It was just kind of a dot in the sky. And so they had turned around and started walking away like, claps, high fives. They were like, we did it this time. It didn't blow up. And then they were getting people like tweeting and texting at them and like consoling them, being like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I can't believe you lost this again.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  So it was like.

• 50:16Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 50:16Speaker 01

  It was like an extra punch.

• 50:18Speaker 02

  That is so scary.

• 50:19Speaker 04

  Why doesn't NASA do their own resupply?

• 50:23Speaker 02

  Politics.

• 50:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  I was gonna keep saying that.

• 50:25Speaker 00

  What?

• 50:26Speaker 02

  Well, okay, so the the main way that they resupplied the ISS for years was the space shuttle. And now that it's grounded, they really don't have a launch vehicle of their own.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  And the space shuttle cost a lot of money.

• 50:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  A lot.

• 50:37Speaker 02

  They put all their efforts into it. And so then, basically, they've been using the Russians.

• 50:41Speaker 04

  So NASA is just like.

• 50:42Speaker 00

  Did NASA, like, the government will get, like, NASA can get enough money to, like, get SpaceX to send the stuff up. But they can't get enough money to develop their own rockets?

• 50:51Speaker 02

  Well.

• 50:52Speaker 00

  Is that the story?

• 50:53Speaker 02

  They have the money to develop their own rockets, but they're putting that effort into the space launch system right now. So they are, they are working on it. But it takes time.

• 51:00Speaker 00

  Right.

• 51:00Speaker 02

  So when the space shuttle was retired, they didn't have anything, like, on the docket that was gonna take its place right away. So that was the main problem.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  And that's why they spent the last decade paying Russia for

• 51:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  saying, you bring our supplies up to the space station, you bring our astronauts up to the space station. And it hasn't come cheap. It costs $70 million per seat to send an astronaut to a NASA astronaut to space with Russia.

• 51:23Speaker 00

  Right.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  Which is part of why SpaceX and all these other private companies are lobbying to, and why NASA set up a commercial program, a crew program, to get these private companies to bring these astronauts to space for them, instead of paying Russia $70 million ahead going forward. But that's not gonna happen until about 2017. But we did learn today that

• 51:45Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 51:46Speaker 01

  Now we know the first four astronauts who are gonna test out those. So, right, it's SpaceX and Boeing are the two companies that got awarded that contract

• 51:54Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  last fall? Was it really that long ago already?

• 51:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was in September, yeah.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  And so they're currently working on remodeling versions of spacecraft they've already done, so that they can fit crew in there. And in 2017, they'll be the ones launching astronaut NASA astronauts to the space station.

• 52:14Speaker 02

  But it is slightly terrifying, because a modified version of the rocket that blew up

• 52:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:19Speaker 02

  will be taking humans.

• 52:21Speaker 00

  Well, but they just got to figure out what caused it to blow up.

• 52:24Speaker 02

  We still haven't heard what the the cause is yet.

• 52:27Speaker 00

  So have you read the Musk biography?

• 52:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:29Speaker 02

  No, I haven't.

• 52:29Speaker 00

  So they they they went into like the, you know, a lot about SpaceX and a lot of like, everybody from NASA was just horrified at how fast they they went and how quickly they like bought off the shelf components. And, you know, they just they they didn't sit around to like do triple testing and fi- figure out that there's three different redundancies for every single system. There's like, nope, we made a rocket, put it up in space.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:52Speaker 00

  I mean, that's a little bit of a worse implication, but that's that was basically the.

• 52:55Speaker 02

  I mean, I can tell you from some inside sources that it's it's, you know, some people are big fans of Musk at NASA.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm sure.

• 53:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm sure.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  Especially in the early days, they had a lot of pushback. I mean, Neil Armstrong, the first person to ever walk on the moon, testified saying that NASA shouldn't be awarding them this contract, that they were doing these things so fast and so unchecked that it was a mistake to do this because eventually lives were going to be in their hands. And Sam just sent me this link the other day. It's the 60 Minutes interview with Musk from like four or five years ago, before they had even done the first crew, uh, excuse me, cargo launch. And I can't remember the 60 Minutes interviewer, but he's asking Elon Musk what it felt for like to see Neil Armstrong slam SpaceX in front of Congress. And Musk was in tears. Like, he was just like so like distraught.

• 53:47Speaker 04

  Dieter says he wasn't in tears.

• 53:49Speaker 00

  So I don't think he was.

• 53:51Speaker 04

  He was watery eyes.

• 53:52Speaker 00

  He had watery eyes and some people have got shiny eyeballs. I think I think Elon Musk just has shiny eyeballs.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  He's under he's under a lot of stress all the time, I would imagine. And I think most of that interview was that. But after that question, you can see it working.

• 54:04Speaker 00

  Shiny eyeballs, man. I'm saying, he's got different emotions than you and I do.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  So so my big conspiracy theory.

• 54:11Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  No.

• 54:14Speaker 00

  Which one?

• 54:14Speaker 01

  My big conspiracy theory.

• 54:15Speaker 00

  It was shot down?

• 54:16Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 54:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was the best.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  There is a conspiracy theory out there that ULA, because it's competing with SpaceX, used a laser to blow up the rocket.

• 54:25Speaker 00

  Right.

• 54:25Speaker 01

  Because, you know, it helped their competition.

• 54:27Speaker 00

  Right.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  That's not what I think. It's much more mundane than that. But in the biography, biography of Musk, we found out that SpaceX often tests things on its rockets that it's not telling anybody about. Either things that they're eventually going to put into the rocket, like systems that they just haven't really developed yet, that they just want to test in, in situation. Or they'll test the way that the government does it. Like, say, they do something different with the separation. They'll test, they'll do theirs, but they'll also test the government's version, NASA's version of that in the same launch. They won't tell anybody about it. And then when they go to the government to tell them, like, oh, here's how Chevalier can do this thing. Also, like, we, we actually tested it and we know that it works better. They do it that way.

• 55:10Speaker 01

  And so, so my theory is, you look at the, the footage of the explosion, it looks like the Dragon capsule actually got away. That had all the cargo and stuff in it. It looks like it does. And it also looks like their little booster fires.

• 55:22Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't believe this at all.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  They're not supposed to have a way, right now, they're working on a way to move the capsule away from the explosion to protect the crew. Because NASA's requiring them to build a system like that for the commercial crew program. And we saw them test that on a launch pad a couple of months ago, in that, like, really cool little video where they, like, blew the, the Dragon capsule out into the water.

• 55:45Speaker 00

  I'm gonna say your email address right now on the Vergecast and tell people to direct their counter-conspiracy theories at you.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  I just, I just think the Dragon made it away. I don't think the capsule survived or anything, because I don't think it had a parachute. No one saw it come down.

• 55:56Speaker 00

  Oh, man.

• 55:57Speaker 02

  I don't think that.

• 55:58Speaker 00

  Laura's gonna burn you to the ground.

• 55:59Speaker 01

  No, we've been talking about this. We were talking about it all week.

• 56:01Speaker 02

  I mean, yeah.

• 56:03Speaker 01

  I think, I think they got, I think the capsule got away from the explosion. I just don't.

• 56:06Speaker 00

  That is the hardest, like, no, like, you're totally wrong, I've ever.

• 56:10Speaker 01

  I just, I just.

• 56:10Speaker 02

  They would test that on a NASA launch. They wouldn't do that.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  But it's not a test. It's like, they just.

• 56:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, but they wouldn't test, like, some fringe new, like.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  But they leave the system on, I mean, they're already.

• 56:19Speaker 02

  Something that would jeopardize a mission like that.

• 56:21Speaker 01

  Like, the pad abort worked.

• 56:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  It was a little bit inaccurate, but it worked. So like, all you have to do is like build it and if like a rocket explodes, silver lining, we tested the, you know, in-flight abort and now we have some data for the actual test, but they're not going to use it to like.

• 56:37Speaker 00

  You really want this thing to be true, don't you?

• 56:39Speaker 02

  He wants it so bad.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  Look at the footage. It looks like the dragon got away.

• 56:43Speaker 00

  All right. One more space thing. Oh, wait, I can't end, I can't end this on your conspiracy theory.

• 56:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, sorry.

• 56:48Speaker 00

  GoPro. No, no, I want to talk about Pluto.

• 56:51Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:52Speaker 01

  I'm going to be in Maryland next week for that.

• 56:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:54Speaker 04

  That once used to be a planet, but not anymore.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:57Speaker 02

  Talking about problems. Pluto almost had, or the New Horizons thing almost had a big problem.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. So New Horizons spacecraft was launched nine years ago.

• 57:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  To go explore, was Pluto, no Pluto wasn't a planet by then. To go explore.

• 57:13Speaker 00

  Was, yeah, it was still a planet.

• 57:14Speaker 02

  I think it's still a planet.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  The New York Times wrote its article about the decision in the Hayden Planetarium to remove it from a planet in like 2001.

• 57:22Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 57:22Speaker 01

  It might, it might have really picked up the press like nine years ago.

• 57:26Speaker 00

  Man, I'm super old.

• 57:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:28Speaker 00

  I remember, okay.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  I remember when Pluto was a planet.

• 57:32Speaker 00

  When I was a boy.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  Regardless.

• 57:35Speaker 00

  I walked uphill to Pluto both ways.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  Pluto is like one of the last major bodies that we know about at the edge of the solar system. And so New Horizons spacecraft was launched nine years ago to get there and it takes a long time to get there. So it's just getting there next week and a couple million miles out, a couple of days ago.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  On Saturday, on July 4th.

• 57:52Speaker 01

  On the 4th of July.

• 57:53Speaker 02

  It like had a glitch and just like.

• 57:55Speaker 01

  It just shut down, just pissed out, which is, which is supposed to do.

• 57:58Speaker 02

  Right. Yeah. So what happened was it was, it was like handling two big like operations to gear up for the flyby that's coming up. And apparently it was like, oh, too much to handle. And then it switched to its backup computer and like sent back word to NASA like, help me.

• 58:13Speaker 00

  Oh, so it's, it's just like me. It's like, nope, I'm just going to sit here for a minute. I'm not going to do what I'm supposed to do. It like had too many tabs open in the browser. Yeah. It's like, nope.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  New Horizons spacecraft had too many tabs open and Chrome.

• 58:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, just went, just went, nope.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  And then the next day NASA reopened Chrome and it said, do you want to restore all your tabs? And they did and we're fine. And now we're gonna go to Pluto.

• 58:38Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 58:38Speaker 02

  But it freaked out NASA because to get a signal to New Horizons right now, it takes four and a half hours.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:44Speaker 02

  So.

• 58:45Speaker 01

  Oh, so nine round trips.

• 58:46Speaker 00

  So about how long it takes me to start Chrome on my desktop is about the same.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  Yes. Hopefully it's not draining New Horizons battery.

• 58:53Speaker 00

  Right.

• 58:54Speaker 01

  It's nuclear, so I don't, it's gonna take a while. If anything could do it, it's Chrome.

• 58:58Speaker 00

  So we're gonna, how, how close are we gonna get to Pluto? How like, how good an image are we gonna get of this?

• 59:03Speaker 02

  I can't remember.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  We're gonna get as good an image as we have of any other major celestial body in our solar system. I'm careful not to say planet.

• 59:11Speaker 02

  It's basically.

• 59:12Speaker 01

  The Pluto system.

• 59:12Speaker 02

  It's flying by though. It's not getting into orbit. So we're gonna have like one day of wow.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. A lot of other spacecraft we send out to these other planets, you know, actually orbit and stick around. We have Cassini's been orbiting Saturn and its various moons for years now.

• 59:27Speaker 02

  Don is at Ceres in the asteroid belt right now.

• 59:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. So, so this is just gonna keep going because there's a lot of stuff past Pluto. Part of the reason why Pluto, Pluto was demoted as a planet was because it's very similar to hundreds and hundreds of other big rocks out past like where sort of the light really gets to visibly. And

• 59:49Speaker 01

  so New Horizons is gonna go past that and explore a lot more of those.

• 59:52Speaker 00

  But Pluto, but it's gonna hang out in that belt. It's not gonna go like rendezvous with Voyager and like.

• 59:59Speaker 02

  I think there's another rock it's going to.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's got some other named like asteroids, basically.

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  Out there in the Kuiper belt. But it's, I will say this, like Pluto, a lot of those other big objects, there are some that are as big, maybe even bigger than Pluto, past Pluto.

• 1:00:18Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:00:18Speaker 01

  But those are all typically like, you know, kind of potato shaped. They're like a little lopsided.

• 1:00:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  They're not as formed.

• 1:00:23Speaker 00

  What do you got against potato shape?

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  No, it's fine. No, but Pluto looks and is made up a lot like planets, but it's also a lot like the moons that are in our solar system, which is why it's sort of in this like sub, this dwarf planet territory.

• 1:00:37Speaker 02

  But Pluto's pretty cool. Like it has its own moon, even though it's. But they rotate around each other. They rotate around a center of mass. So instead of the moon rotating around.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  Which technically all things do. Uh, even the earth and the sun. It's not like we just orbit around the sun. There's like a tiny little bit uh, off the center of the sun. We both orbit that point.

• 1:00:56Speaker 02

  It's much more drastic with Pluto. You can like see them like rotating around this like invisible point.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we're, we're getting all these pictures back from New Horizons, but we're going to get a really high resolution one. Like main image of the planet for the first, the planetary system, the Pluto system. There we go. Uh, for the first time. And it's also got a camera called Lori, L O R I, that's going to scan on the level of like a hundred meters. Uh, or a resolution of maybe like a meter per pixel or something like that.

• 1:01:24Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Uh, and like in hundred meter blocks and scan the whole. All of Pluto and then make like a really high resolution map of it.

• 1:01:31Speaker 00

  So I can 3D print Pluto after this?

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  Basically, yeah.

• 1:01:33Speaker 02

  Hopefully. I mean, that's the main goal of sending it up.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  But I mean, it's gonna be.

• 1:01:37Speaker 00

  And then I could sell it.

• 1:01:38Speaker 02

  What's the point if we can't print it?

• 1:01:39Speaker 00

  And therefore we should go to space?

• 1:01:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:01:42Speaker 02

  The main profit of space travel is 3D printing.

• 1:01:46Speaker 00

  3D printing Pluto.

• 1:01:47Speaker 01

  All I can definitely say is that we are. We are gonna hear that Pluto is a planet like truthers.

• 1:01:55Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  A lot after next week. When we see, cause it already looks like really impressive.

• 1:01:59Speaker 02

  Well, from, not from scientists.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  No, no, no. But I mean, the people who have been bummed that Pluto isn't a planet, it's gonna be like, it's gonna be endless.

• 1:02:07Speaker 02

  Why do people out so much? I didn't have that much of a connection to Pluto until it was gone, I guess.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  We make really weird attachments to things in space, whether it's robots or rocks.

• 1:02:16Speaker 00

  You know, couple, two, three thousand years of like nine planets and like forming.

• 1:02:21Speaker 02

  It messed up that mnemonic device that I used for it.

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:24Speaker 02

  My very educated mother just served us nine.

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  Just served us, just, just served us noodles.

• 1:02:31Speaker 02

  Noodles.

• 1:02:32Speaker 00

  Noodles.

• 1:02:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, but so am I. She's still serving us something. It's, it's not good.

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh yeah, true.

• 1:02:37Speaker 02

  We need to get her to like, just saved us nicely.

• 1:02:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. She shouldn't just have to serve.

• 1:02:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:44Speaker 00

  Serve us.

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  We'll come up, we'll come up for that later.

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:50Speaker 01

  It's cool. It's really cool, though, because this is the last like major thing in our solar system that we haven't visited.

• 1:02:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:55Speaker 01

  So we're gonna have like really good understanding of everything after this.

• 1:02:58Speaker 02

  Until Europa.

• 1:03:00Speaker 01

  Well, yeah. Well, we've like imaged it and measured it and stuff.

• 1:03:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, but.

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  I mean, we want to really swing it back to Mars. There are arguments to be made that like as much as people are pushing NASA and everybody are pushing to go to Mars, there are other places in the solar system that it'd be better to look for life.

• 1:03:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  And maybe even better to actually live.

• 1:03:19Speaker 00

  I'm pretty convinced that Europa is full of killer aliens.

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 1:03:23Speaker 02

  Did you see that movie Europa?

• 1:03:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:25Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, I loved it.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was pretty good.

• 1:03:27Speaker 00

  And just.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  For like a B movie, horror movie.

• 1:03:29Speaker 02

  It was so good.

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  That they shot on like no budget. It was actually really good. Yeah.

• 1:03:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:34Speaker 01

  But I, I would love to.

• 1:03:35Speaker 02

  Just like.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  There are so many, there are so many other planetary bodies that we know have like wells of actual liquid water, like Europa.

• 1:03:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:44Speaker 01

  And Ganymede has an ocean under it now.

• 1:03:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's so cool. It's like, there's water throughout our solar system and they just never thought that would be possible before. And so now it's kind of changing the idea that, you know, so when we search for alien life, we look for planets in these places called habitable zones, which is basically where they orbit around a star where water can be liquid.

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:04:06Speaker 02

  But now it's kind of changing the definition, definition of what a habitable zone is because these planets in our solar system are so far out from the sun and yet liquid water can still exist out there.

• 1:04:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:17Speaker 02

  That's pretty like, that means that maybe life is much more prolific than we thought.

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  When we started exploring the solar system decades ago, we didn't think that water was, that we thought it was like life. We thought it was really hard to find.

• 1:04:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  And it's like everywhere we turn now, it's, we find water. Yeah, it's really crazy.

• 1:04:34Speaker 02

  Water. It's just so hot right now.

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Big year for water.

• 1:04:38Speaker 04

  Lauren.

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  Hype check water.

• 1:04:41Speaker 04

  Life sustenance. Lauren, would you, two questions for you, specifically you.

• 1:04:46Speaker 02

  Specifically me.

• 1:04:47Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:04:49Speaker 04

  A, would you go to space?

• 1:04:52Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 1:04:52Speaker 04

  Okay. And B, do you believe in aliens? Do you believe that aliens exist?

• 1:04:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:57Speaker 04

  Cool. That's it.

• 1:05:00Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 1:05:00Speaker 04

  I'm with you. No, I'm with you.

• 1:05:01Speaker 02

  Have you seen Contact?

• 1:05:02Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:05:03Speaker 02

  Oh, such a good.

• 1:05:04Speaker 04

  I've seen Independence Day.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  So Independence Day is like Contact but with more cigars.

• 1:05:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's actually exactly the same movie.

• 1:05:13Speaker 02

  There's this great line in Contact that Ellie says and she's like, if it's just us, then it's such a waste of space. And I totally agree with that.

• 1:05:22Speaker 04

  Is that a space pun?

• 1:05:25Speaker 01

  It can be. Do you want it to be?

• 1:05:26Speaker 02

  I don't think so.

• 1:05:27Speaker 04

  How about you guys?

• 1:05:29Speaker 00

  You haven't hype checked Pluto yet.

• 1:05:31Speaker 04

  What is Pluto? It's like a little turd at the end of the solar system.

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  Wow. Harsh.

• 1:05:36Speaker 02

  Oh my god, just wait.

• 1:05:38Speaker 00

  Can I quote you in that?

• 1:05:40Speaker 02

  Sam, you're gonna get so much hate now.

• 1:05:43Speaker 04

  There's a reason why I got demoted.

• 1:05:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, I mean.

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  Pluto deserved it.

• 1:05:49Speaker 02

  I'm gonna tweet that.

• 1:05:49Speaker 00

  Pluto deserved.

• 1:05:52Speaker 04

  Does anyone know about our other planets' moons? Like, you know, there's some other stuff.

• 1:05:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, Europa.

• 1:05:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, but there's some other stuff in our solar system that I don't think gets enough credit.

• 1:06:03Speaker 01

  What do you think would generate more hate? Pluto is, Pluto deserved it or space is hard?

• 1:06:07Speaker 02

  I'm tweeting, there's a reason it got demoted, Sam.

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  No, I would go, I would go to space.

• 1:06:13Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  And there's, there's definitely life out there somewhere. It, there's definitely not very complex life out there somewhere.

• 1:06:21Speaker 02

  We don't know that.

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  And, no, I, I think there definitely is. And I also think somewhere there's complex life.

• 1:06:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:28Speaker 01

  There's just too many, there's.

• 1:06:29Speaker 02

  That universe is infinite, guys.

• 1:06:31Speaker 04

  I wanna know what you think. I really wanna know what you think.

• 1:06:34Speaker 00

  Uh, I would go to space, although I would need a good reason.

• 1:06:39Speaker 04

  Like, would you like go in a Virgin Galactic?

• 1:06:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, like I would, I would, I would go be a space tourist.

• 1:06:44Speaker 02

  That's another discussion.

• 1:06:45Speaker 00

  I'd go be a space tourist.

• 1:06:47Speaker 04

  I'm not saying, Dieter, would you strap in and go to Mars? But like.

• 1:06:50Speaker 00

  No, I would, but like, I'd like, straight up, like, Mars doesn't need me.

• 1:06:56Speaker 00

  It needs moms, it does not need me.

• 1:06:58Speaker 04

  True.

• 1:06:59Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um, I am less positive that there's complex life.

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  Complex is tough, but like, I don't know, is the numbers game is just, even if you, even with the Fermi paradox, the numbers game is just too good.

• 1:07:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  Especially if you believe that.

• 1:07:13Speaker 00

  Okay, I'll say this. I think, I, I am, I am more confident that there's complex life out there than I am that we will ever in the, in, until mankind and the earth dies that we will ever encounter it.

• 1:07:25Speaker 04

  I've seen UFOs. I have. And I'm gonna sound insane. It's fine. It's totally fine. I've seen UFOs. I mean, what I, what I perceive to be UFOs.

• 1:07:35Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, if it's, if it's, if you don't know what it is, then, then, yeah.

• 1:07:38Speaker 04

  I mean, look, it could be government testing their aircrafts, whatever. But let me just paint this picture.

• 1:07:44Speaker 00

  All right.

• 1:07:44Speaker 04

  I was maybe eight years old.

• 1:07:46Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:07:47Speaker 04

  And I was living in central Jersey, a different, different.

• 1:07:50Speaker 00

  Eight-year-old in central Jersey.

• 1:07:51Speaker 01

  A tiny, I have a witness.

• 1:07:53Speaker 00

  Tiny little high priest.

• 1:07:54Speaker 04

  Hey, hey, hold on.

• 1:07:55Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:07:55Speaker 04

  And I was with my father and my older brother, Mike, in my backyard.

• 1:07:59Speaker 00

  Both good guys.

• 1:07:59Speaker 04

  And over, over the distance, like as far as we could see in the distance.

• 1:08:03Speaker 00

  Oh, so it was, it was really far.

• 1:08:05Speaker 04

  There were, there were three.

• 1:08:07Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:08:08Speaker 04

  Triangles in a, in a triangular formation. And I shit you not, you can ask my brother and my dad. And then my.

• 1:08:14Speaker 00

  You know, Meg fighter, it looks like, maybe those Russians, because Meg fighters kind of.

• 1:08:17Speaker 04

  But in the middle, in the middle of New Jersey, and they were just, they were just sort of hovering in a triangle formation, three triangles in a triangle formation, just sort of hovering over in the distance.

• 1:08:25Speaker 00

  And what'd you do about it?

• 1:08:26Speaker 04

  And then my dad got his video camera out and we zoomed in and they, that's how we were able to tell that they were the individual, things were, were triangles.

• 1:08:34Speaker 00

  Where's this video?

• 1:08:35Speaker 04

  Uh, somewhere deep, deep in a basement somewhere.

• 1:08:38Speaker 00

  Was it, was it not confiscated by the government?

• 1:08:40Speaker 02

  We gotta unearth this.

• 1:08:40Speaker 00

  We gotta see this video.

• 1:08:41Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, it's probably gone.

• 1:08:42Speaker 00

  You gotta, you gotta bring this video in. I wanna see it.

• 1:08:45Speaker 04

  Have you guys never seen something that you were like, what the hell is that thing?

• 1:08:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course I have. And then I realized, oh, wait, I'm 12. I don't know what I'm doing.

• 1:08:54Speaker 02

  Not in the sky, though.

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

  It was a kite.

• 1:08:55Speaker 02

  Well, no, I take that back.

• 1:08:56Speaker 00

  Three kites.

• 1:08:59Speaker 02

  I did see.

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  If something had the technology to get here.

• 1:09:01Speaker 00

  Did they zoom off? Did they land?

• 1:09:03Speaker 04

  They.

• 1:09:03Speaker 02

  Did they?

• 1:09:04Speaker 04

  So it was in a, it was in a development, it was in a development and they went too far, like, we couldn't see.

• 1:09:10Speaker 00

  It went over the horizon.

• 1:09:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, basically, yeah.

• 1:09:12Speaker 02

  Oh, they knew that you were watching.

• 1:09:14Speaker 04

  Basically, yeah.

• 1:09:16Speaker 01

  If we had the tech area, if they, somebody had the technology to get here.

• 1:09:17Speaker 00

  So why do you think they wanted to go to New Jersey?

• 1:09:19Speaker 01

  They would definitely come see Sam first.

• 1:09:21Speaker 00

  I don't know.

• 1:09:22Speaker 01

  They wanted to buy Sam's Nikes.

• 1:09:24Speaker 02

  Who do we need to, we need to talk to this guy, Sam?

• 1:09:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:09:27Speaker 02

  That's like.

• 1:09:28Speaker 04

  Look, all I'm saying is that there are probably aliens out there.

• 1:09:32Speaker 02

  There are definitely aliens.

• 1:09:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, we're just never gonna talk to them.

• 1:09:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:36Speaker 02

  I don't, I mean, how, how can you predict that?

• 1:09:38Speaker 00

  I can, I can totally predict.

• 1:09:39Speaker 02

  You know, NASA, NASA thinks we're gonna encounter aliens soon too. They, they, the, I can't remember who it was, but one of the NASA administrators was like, we're gonna like find aliens in the next 10 years.

• 1:09:48Speaker 04

  Dieter, do you think it's more?

• 1:09:49Speaker 01

  I think we'll find life.

• 1:09:50Speaker 02

  Which I don't know how you qualify that. Yeah, I mean.

• 1:09:53Speaker 04

  Is it, is last question, last, last crazy space question.

• 1:09:56Speaker 00

  All right.

• 1:09:57Speaker 04

  Is it more plausible?

• 1:09:57Speaker 00

  Where have you been the entire podcast? The last five minutes like, oh yeah, here I am.

• 1:10:02Speaker 04

  I'm, I'm in it now.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  He was really bummed that back he took his seat.

• 1:10:05Speaker 04

  The hype, the hype woke up.

• 1:10:08Speaker 04

  Is it more plausible that in some fourth dimension, there is, there, like the Star Wars universe exists? Or that we're gonna, um, like, you know, come in contact with aliens? What do you think is more plausible?

• 1:10:19Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 1:10:20Speaker 00

  Same question.

• 1:10:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, wait.

• 1:10:22Speaker 04

  Is it though?

• 1:10:23Speaker 02

  So that the entire Star Trek universe exists in another dimension?

• 1:10:27Speaker 04

  Or that we're gonna just encounter like aliens, like in the sense of an alien?

• 1:10:30Speaker 00

  It's way more likely that we'd encounter aliens than that a precise replica of the Star Wars universe exists. Although, although, actually, if you do properly believe in the multiverse, it's actually the opposite. Because if the, if there are infinite universes out there, then one of them by definition would have to match the Star Wars universe.

• 1:10:46Speaker 02

  Have to match it.

• 1:10:47Speaker 00

  And in our universe, it seems like it's way less likely than a certainty that we're going to hear from aliens.

• 1:10:53Speaker 04

  No, but.

• 1:10:54Speaker 00

  Therefore, therefore, Star Wars exists out there for sure, but we're never gonna talk to aliens.

• 1:10:59Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no, no, no.

• 1:11:01Speaker 02

  This conversation really derailed.

• 1:11:03Speaker 04

  That's not correct. If you believe in the theory of the multiverse, then every single possible universe exists. And that means a universe exists in which we would come in contact with aliens.

• 1:11:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, but that's not us. That's a different universe.

• 1:11:15Speaker 01

  It could be us.

• 1:11:15Speaker 02

  Mic drop in the form of a laptop closing.

• 1:11:18Speaker 00

  Now that you've closed your laptop, why don't, um, actually before.

• 1:11:21Speaker 04

  Do you have to do the money thing?

• 1:11:22Speaker 00

  Before you get to, to, uh, socialists. Uh, I wanna look to the camera that podcast listeners can't hear. I don't wanna say, uh, one thing. You ready?

• 1:11:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:35Speaker 00

  Verge is hiring. Verge.com/jobs.

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  Do you want to come sit in these seats with us?

• 1:11:40Speaker 00

  We are hiring a reporter out on the west coast in San Francisco. We are hiring.

• 1:11:46Speaker 01

  Transportation?

• 1:11:46Speaker 00

  Transportation, man. Car reviewer, car reporters.

• 1:11:49Speaker 02

  So many things.

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  Video.

• 1:11:51Speaker 00

  Ton of video stuff. So, check it out, verge.com/jobs. Every level, actually, from like, entry level first, you know, green reporter, all the way up to grizzled video veteran director and car reviewer. So like, come, come.

• 1:12:05Speaker 01

  Apply.

• 1:12:06Speaker 00

  Sit here.

• 1:12:06Speaker 01

  Send us an email with what you think of it.

• 1:12:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, come talk about aliens.

• 1:12:09Speaker 00

  And the video team in our forums right now, which are fun and a cool place to hang out and comment on things.

• 1:12:17Speaker 01

  Convincing.

• 1:12:18Speaker 00

  No, it's true, they are, it's fun.

• 1:12:19Speaker 01

  I've had fun in the forums last couple.

• 1:12:21Speaker 00

  You've been, Sean's been posting like, what's your favorite thing to read?

• 1:12:23Speaker 01

  I apologize to Rossi Foster because I basically just ripped off today in tabs. But it's, it's cool because it's just a handful of people that kind of check it every day and that's all I really wanted. I just. You build a small community. Yeah, when I'm away from Twitter, I want to see the stuff that I didn't get to like, store myself to read later.

• 1:12:38Speaker 00

  But the video team is doing a Q and A in the forums right now, in the lens and our photography and camera forums. And you should go there and ask questions and they will tell you which cameras they use. And they will not tell you what music we use because that's just, that question gets tired. Okay, Sam, socialist.

• 1:12:52Speaker 04

  Well, if you enjoyed this podcast, you should probably go on iTunes and rate it probably five stars because five stars is better than four.

• 1:13:01Speaker 00

  And tell us, tell us if you think we'll see aliens.

• 1:13:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, tell us if you think we'll see aliens. And also, just like the Star Wars universe, beef or bust that for me, please. You should also.

• 1:13:12Speaker 02

  I thought it was Star Trek.

• 1:13:13Speaker 04

  No, Star Wars.

• 1:13:14Speaker 00

  Don't even, oh god.

• 1:13:15Speaker 04

  You should also, you should also find our other podcasts. One of our podcasts is called What's Tech and it's hosted by the wonderful Chris Plant. And that explains technology, various forms of technology in layman's terms. It is a great show. You should definitely listen. And we have another new podcast called Verge ESP. That is available on iTunes as well. That is hosted by Emily Oshida and Liz Lopato. It is dope also. Check it out and rate it. Five stars because you're already there.

• 1:13:45Speaker 01

  Please go listen to ESP because I want Emily and Lopato's chemistry to just like win everybody over and end up, end up where it needs to be, which is a buddy cop movie.

• 1:13:56Speaker 00

  Ooh.

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  It's so good. I like that. They're so much fun together.

• 1:13:59Speaker 04

  Um, and then for the social window that I'm going to.

• 1:14:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're like way, way out of it.

• 1:14:05Speaker 00

  Hurry up.

• 1:14:06Speaker 04

  We're at Comic Con right now. If you're listening to this podcast in the, you know, next few days, Comic Con is happening in San Diego. We've got a bunch of reporters out there. We're doing video and reporting and lots of things are going to happen there. So follow us on Snapchat. We are the real verge on Snapchat. Uh, we have a story up today. Brian has taken over the account and then you get to see Batman's costume and a whole bunch of other great things. Uh, you should also add us on Periscope. If you use Periscope, just add the, uh, no, it's not the verge. It's just at verge. Um, I Periscope today. Chris Ziegler is riding around in a McLaren this weekend. Um, and you can hear that engine roar on Periscope within the next 20 hours. Um, and, uh, instagram.com slash verge.

• 1:14:49Speaker 00

  Just always sneak the extra one in, don't you?

• 1:14:51Speaker 04

  If you don't, if you don't follow us, say already, I know you, if you're using this podcast, if you're listening to this podcast and you don't use Instagram, please send me an email to [email protected] and explain to me your life, but you should follow verge on Instagram. We are instagram.com.

• 1:15:04Speaker 02

  Explain to me your life.

• 1:15:05Speaker 04

  That's it. And Dieter, that's it.

• 1:15:06Speaker 00

  We will be back next week. We're going to talk about Comic Con. We're talking about a lot of stuff, but until then you should follow us on Twitter. We are.

• 1:15:14Speaker 04

  Verge.

• 1:15:14Speaker 00

  Verge. I am Backlon. Lauren is Lauren Grush, L O R E N.

• 1:15:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:19Speaker 00

  Sean O'Kane is S O K A N E one.

• 1:15:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:24Speaker 00

  Easy. And Sam Sheffer is Sam Sheffer. Thanks for watching and or listening.

• 1:15:28Speaker 04

  Hashtag bah.