NASA's Original Post-Apollo Plans Were INSANE | Answers With Joe 

Can you imagine if they kept NASA's funding at 4%? That is the version of reality I'd like to live in.

As a child of the space race, the "today Moon, tomorrow Mars" was a real thing we were conceptualizing - even expecting. Yes, the idea of a manned Mars landing was known to be a 1980s vision, but I recall commentators saying that the 1990s was more realistic for such a venture! Naturally, as kids, we felt depressed at such a delayed timeline.

I was five years old when my mother kept me home from school to watch Armstrong and Aldrin on our little TV in New South Wales, Australia. I turned 58 four days ago, and the path that was taken regarding space travel post-Apollo has been far and away the greatest disappointment of my life.

My grandfather worked as a consultant for NASA in the Apollo era and retired in 1972. I just googled his most famous published paper. He wrote it the year before I was born, while my parents and siblings were living with my grandparents and both my parents were working to save up for a buying a house. I sometimes wondered why my grandfather would always mention its topic when he talked to me. The paper was published in May, 1966, just after I was born. He must have had an association of that paper with my birth. It is behind a paywall, but heck, for $35, I might just have to get myself a copy. My dad worked as an engineer for Westinghouse Defense and Electronics at the same time, which was bought out by Northrop Grumman in the 1990s. Westinghouse made the TV camera for Apollo 12. To this day my dad is still pissed off at Al Bean for pointing their precious camera at the sun, burning out the tube, and spoiling their moment of glory. My grandfather worked with lasers and worked on the Lunar Laser Ranging Retroreflector Array and the laser that shot to the moon and was reflected back by the retroreflector array. I remember sitting in class in the second grade in 1973 or74 and listening to a classmate's dad talking to us about the future plans for NASA that included going back to the moon and to Mars. The one thing I remember asking him is if women would be included in the missions. He told me that yes, they would. I think that if the US government had chosen to fund NASA at anything close to the Apollo level, I expect that we would certainly have run into all of the same technological limitations that we face now, but we would have had the resources of the finest minds and institutions attacking them. I definitely think that we would have seen more accidents and deaths related to space exploration, which might have had a limiting effect, but only time would have told how much more of that ambitious plan would have come to fruition.

My favorite sci-fi show in the 70's was SPACE:1999 and i was in love with the idea of having a Moon Base Alpha and flying around in an Eagle Transporter. In the first episode it made a trip to the moon as common as flying from Toronto to Calgary. For a show made in the mid 70's it gave its fans a "tour" of what it might be like in the not so distant future.

Yeah, the timeline got screwed and so much more could have happened. My grandfather had expected to see us go to the moon. Now I'm a damn grandfather. I was born in 1966 and I grew up with Star Trek and NASA showing us the way. But the military industrial complex got the money, not science and exploration that actually advances humanity. Ok, I may be a bit disgruntled. I do feel like we slipped into some weird alternate universe these last couple of decades. Thanks Joe for always showing us a great perspective. And most of all, for your humor and intellect. You really do make my world more interesting and bearable.

I think that one of the reasons the Apollo program was so successful is that the bureaucrats and administrators were forced out of the way by the insane timeline, allowing science and engineering to happen rapidly. Not sure that could ever happen again

I remember the Space Race of the 1960s as a kid, and watching Kubrick's 2001 as a sort of preview of what was to come. Then came Skylab, and then the Viking and Voyager missions, and then ... the Space Truck (boldly going where we had already gone before). It really couldn't be called a Shuttle until the beginning of the 21st century, since there was no place in orbit for it to shuttle to (before the ISS). In the 1985 PBS documentary seies Spaceflight, host Martin Sheen warned that the US might become "the Portugal of space," meaning it had blazed the path to space, but had abandoned space after a few early successes. Since that aired in 1985, that warning has tended toward becoming more and more correct.

I was sold this vision as a GenXer growing up in the 1970's. As a geeky, tech fascinated kid watching Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. and then seeing these visions from NASA, I was convinced that was the direction for me, and I decided to become an Aerospace Engineer. Of course, by the time I got to college in the 1980's, a lot of those visions had already been scaled back and/or militarized under Reagan and "Star Wars" and related systems. Of course it was great that we defeated the Soviet Union, but that led to a collapse in the Aerospace industry in the early 1990's. I did find gainful employment as a satellite engineer, but it was far from the visions NASA had planted in my mind in the 1970's. My point? The loss of those visions not only "set us back" from where we might've been, but it also robbed many of us of dreams that we'd built. Aerospace technology, despite what some would have you believe, isn't easily achieved alone, in your garage (show me the nuclear rocket that someone is working on in their garage and I'll gladly eat my words). So we lost a generation of talented, motivated people as well.

When I was a kid in the 80s, I thought that Space Shuttle launches were moon-bound. Then I was told that we stopped going to the moon before I was even born. That was incredibly disappointing. I just couldn't understand why we'd walk away from a massive achievement like that. I'm 42 now, and I'm still waiting on the government to correct that.

As an analogy I remember when I was 14 we did a 100m dash in my athletics class and my time was a horrible 15.6 sec. And my teacher demanded everybody should be running below 15 sec at years end. I worked very hard and my time improved to 14.5 sec and I foolishly thought wow at this pace I'm gonna break the world record in like 5 years LOL. Pretty much the space program prediction.

The series "For All Mankind" is an incredible series about if the funding had kept going on Apple TV

Joe, how did you write this script without ever watching For All Mankind? You literally plugged a series of we kept the space race going- it’s the premise of the entire series. It’s really good!

Excellent take on the faltering stop / start space program. I think you nailed it Joe when you said that progress can't automatically be sped up by just throwing money at it. The 100's, if not 1000's of minor and major developments across a wide range of disciplines from IT to materials science, data processing to biological systems.etc needed to make long term space travel and space building possible can only be accelerated so much. I think there was little or nothing wrong with their vision, it was just their timeline - Keep up the excellent work Joe!!

Thanks for this video! There's a whole sub-genre of science fiction devoted to exploring what might have happened if NASA had kept going after Apollo. "The Tranquility Alternative" by Allen Steele is a great example of this kind of alternate history. Although he goes even further, and imagines a timeline where the first manned spaceflight happens during WWII in 1944. I'm not certain they could have landed on Mars by 1981, because the technical challenges of building self-sustaining enclosed biospheres that can support human life for 6-12 months at a time are considerable. It's something we're still working on now, despite all those years of living on the ISS. When there's absolutely no resupply coming, just living in space becomes a very difficult challenge. Still, they had the right approach, starting with space stations and using the same components in later space ships. Each step teaches you how to make the next one.

As a 10 year old, I fell in love with the idea of space when I got a close up photo of the moon at a home show event. Now, a lot of years later, I am disappointed the space program never moved forward as hoped. I really, really wanted to see all the things that were planned come to fruition. It will be something I regret not getting to see in my lifetime.

In 2011, I was in high school, picking a career path to follow. I knew I wanted to go into engineering, and living on the space coast of Florida, I wanted to work for (or at least with) NASA. But, as you may have guessed, the STS program was cancelled in 2011 and at that time, Space-x wasn't something well known, so the future of space flight looked bleak. I personally decided there wouldn't be much of a future in space programs, so I chose to pursue a career in Civil Engineering. I love it and it's fulfilling, but this video was all about what could have been, so It got me thinking, "what if?"

I always learn some really great stuff from your videos! I thought I knew a lot about the early space program but now I see that I barely scratched the surface of the plans that they had for our space travel. Thank you for all the amazing things I learn from your videos!

18:53 Joe it already is a series somewhat. It’s called “For All Mankind” features some great actors and is based on an alternate reality in which the Soviets get to the moon first.

Joe, I was 13 years old in 1969, lying on the living room floor watching Neal Armstrong's first steps on the moon. I had a Saturn V / Apollo model (and still do) and was really into the space program of the 60's. I watched the news for any stories on the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo flights. I was deeply sickened by the deadly Apollo I fire and feared that that could spell the end of it all. I had just turned 18 in 1974, registered for The Draft, then breathed a deep sigh of relief when my draft number was something like 250. The Viet Nam war ruined SO much for everyone in the world, killed 10's of thousands, and did an effective job of halting what could have been the greatest achievement of mankind - space exploration of our solar system. As a young man, I was left with a ''What's next?" feeling. Although my outlook on life is my responsibility, the end of the Apollo program was a contributor to my feeling rather aimless. But in the early 80's, my youthful excitement for the space program found a resurgence with the STS program. I really thought we had a GREAT thing going there, regardless of the two STS tragedies. It broke my heart forever when the STS program was allowed to die without a replacement. I will never forgive our national leaders for their short-sightedness regarding space exploration at that time and the surrendering of the leadership of the USA in space. The STS was a great idea that just needed some technological improvements. Expensive? Yes, but worth it? Undoubtedly! As I get older, I am hesitant to get excited about space exploration now, especially since we STILL have insane oligarchs who want to dominate the world and threaten world peace, or refuse to even look at evidence of hanky-panky in an election. Where are THEIR priorities? Those people are ESPECIALLY short-sighted because they focus on the things of this world instead of joining with the rest of us more sane people who want to look to the stars, exploring our potential as the Human Race. But oh, how I WANT to get excited about space exploration again! I welcome such developments as the Webb telescope and the efforts of private companies to develop launch vehicles, both ''crewed'' and ''not crewed''. :) I believe a Mars Manned Mission is fraught with risks, but on the other hand, so was the Moon Manned Missions. And our available technology today eclipses that of the 1960's and '70's by a long shot! Thank you for the humor-injected video presentations. I appreciate your views! Best regards, Russ H.

The old shuttle concepts have always fascinated me. Thank you, Joe, for covering this.

This one isn't just food for thought: it's a whole 5 course meal of informative ponderances. Bravo sir... But I'd like to add, that declaring ourselves (the United States) the winner of the space race, had a massive negative affect on the public interest in the pursuit and achievement of the goals in space.

I'm so privileged to be part of the reinvigoration of space travel. It's a once-in-a-civilization opportunity.

Nice little disclaimer about Starlink launches there, but am I the only one who thinks it's absolutely amazing that all the Apollo launches were within 6 years? Every 6 months to build an entire rocket capable of traveling into space, and even landing on the moon. That's INSANE, ESPECIALLY when you consider this was all taking place in the 1960s.

Okay, with the "Vision of Hindsight", of course 10 years to a manned mission to Mars was "overly optimistic." However, I could see it from their shoes. In nine years the US went from nothing in space to being the first (and still only) nation to put humans on the surface of the moon. To them, it kind of made sense. They came off a 10 year ride where the (EDIT) department had both the political and social will to do this thing. It was "Us versus the Commies", and we weren't going to let Russia beat us to the Moon like we had been beaten to space so many times. The problem was they hadn't foreseen the change in the landscape. By the time we reached the Moon, the Soviet space program was mired in so many problems they basically conceded the Moon to us. They weren't going to the Moon anymore, so they certainly weren't going to go to Mars. Without that driver, a lot of that will that drove us to the Moon fizzled. The military wasn't interested because there would be little gains for them at the time. We won the race that mattered with the Soviets, and since they king of dropped out to focus on "their thing" (Militarization of space), there was no more race. And no race meant no more interest from the public at large. And when the will of the people evaporated, so did the political will. That meant that while the race to the Moon was a "We must do this", the race to Mars became "We'll eventually do this." I suspect if the Soviet Union had not caved on the space race to the Moon, we'd probably would have reached Mars by now. I don't think 1981, but maybe the 1990s. Our nation does so well when there's someone else to challenge us. Having a "hated other" seems to light a fire under us like nothing else.

That was a really good summation of the report and fascinating look at what could have been, great video

The original plan for a Venus mission was part of the plans to re-use Apollo hardware (I forget the name for the program) which was to use Apollo tech to do a Venus flyby EDIT: remembered, "Apollo Applications Program" I think

I am constantly reminded that it *seems* like hardly anyone has ever read Zubrin's The Plan For Mars. He does the math, the physics, the chemistry and the engineering: at the end of the Apollo era, we had the tech we needed to colonize mars. We just need to choose to do it.

Shout out to Amy Shira Teitel, aka Vintage Space, who has been covering these topics for years and has several excellent videos on it. Plus 2 "Amy's soapbox" videos about why she's not a fan of the Space Shuttle (the fact that it's the deadliest spacecraft in history is one)

There's also the affect of the acceleration of the moon program to consider as well. There were plans to do a more incremental approach to lunar exploration before Kennedy's proposal, but his deadline required everything be sped up, preventing more sustainable options from being pursued at that time.

I remember going to Houston and visiting NASA. I saw a titanium space suit that was meant for a trip to Mars. I am an engineer and I am rarely impressed but that blew my mind. In fact, my tour of the facility blew me away and I met some great people. Truly, it was something else.

Joe please watch the series on Apple TV called For All Mankind. Great show and pretty much exactly what you were talking about here.

"Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down. That's not my department." said Werner von Braun.

I remember watching Armstrong set foot on the moon for the first time. Even though I wasn’t quite 12 at the time, it’s one of those events that sticks with you for a lifetime. And to think we did it with computers that are laughable by today’s standards. My only question about a Mars mission is what about cosmic radiation and the long term consequences of exposure. Do they have ways to shield humans from cosmic rays of that magnitude?

I was 6 when we landed on the moon and always thought we dropped the ball on the space program, but as time has passed I've realized how insane and ahead of its time the moon landing was

Interesting concepts! Thanks for sharing this with us! And I’m in that ballpark of “space travel has been disappointing”, I wish this stuff could’ve happened and I hope it can get started with Starship.

Aerospace grad here, my impression is that apollo was lucky to achieve as much as it did. imo we are right on track with progress, all we need are some inspirational leaders to help people understand why its worth the money

Fueled by the knowledge that we went to the moon and amplified by the dreams of discovery when I watch Star Wars, I changed my major right before attending college from music to engineering (yes, I love math l;ol). These influences had a positive effect on me over-all. I just retired after 30+ years as an engineer and loved my job till the end :)

Just discovered this channel today and i love the content, the comedy, and the overall vibe, thank you for the hours of entertainment!

Watch "For All Mankind" on apple TV!...it has EVERYTHING you just mentioned and how it would be applied to the space program!! - nasa gets to profit from their patents. - nerva engine for 2nd generation space shuttle. - combat on the moon and in orbit. - and about 90% of the things you've mentioned Joe, are all on that show seasons 1 and 2.

I grew up with these dreams. I ended up with a PhD on it, dreaming on work on nuclear space propulsion. Turns out it is a military technology, and foreigners are not allowed security clearences for that. And now, it turns out, they don't really know what are they doing in the first place.

I'm offended that the missions where dogs were sent to space weren't called Dogged Expeditions. Also, where's my damn flying car? 🥲

Thank you for posting the two links! Always increasing my knowledge by visiting your channel. Keep up the wonderful work!

I was about to suggest The Expanse but you did it for me 😂 Great video as always. I’ve been getting my childish excitement back in recent years with all the private space flight happening. I’m so excited for the near future!

The trouble was if they’d gone to Mars in the 1980s it would’ve been an absolute disaster and probably a big loss of life. They didn’t realise at the time how dangerous it would’ve actually been travelling to Mars and living in space, we had the international space station to learn how to live in space

Joe, the world is a shitty place right now, and your videos always take me to a different place, even for just a moment. Thanks.

Would love to hear more about the Nerva engine, and the new startups working on the tech. Could be a great method for human space to space transport

This is one of my favorite videos on (in?) this channel. Excellent summary full of hope and optimism. If we have kept that level of space spending the speed of technological advances would have far exceeded what we have today. But I fear that since the world is not a safe place, the lessened defense spending would invite attack from the outside.

Nice work. This type of science and exploration always brings innovation for everyone.

Great, very imformative and exciting video, Joe - thank you! If you get a chance, I recommend watching the excellent series "For All Mankind" on Apple TV+ to get a glimpse into a future in which plans for space travel never slowed down, and how that affects society, and the course of history.

the depth of these videos are amazing. love the manned/crewed breakdown. nice. i'm not even mad.

Thanks for all your hard work Joe. I really enjoy the variety and style. Keep it up!! 🇨🇦🏴‍☠️

After all the budget cuts and redesigns of the Space Shuttle, and mainly NASA management at the top level at the time of the programme, the Space Shuttle has the record for costing the most lives of any space vehicle.

My dad was an engineer. And now, having just graduated from Coding bootcamp, I am now also an engineer. So, yes, your cloned room full of engineers is exactly right on. Never stop killing. This is now my favorite video of yours. Plus, all the Saturns ordered for the Moon were finished by 68? Damn. Didn't know. So, I guess they HAD to do the shuttle. And I just thought Nixon was an idiot... Anyway, SPACE TRUCKS FOR ALL!!!

Would love to see a video on the Nerva engine! Great video as always.

Hey Joe, you make learning fun. Man, that almost sounds like the titles of two popular 70s songs! At any rate, thank you; I appreciate your sense of humor!!

We've come a long way! Great video man!

Apple TV'S For All Mankind touches on alot of these subjects. I guess this is where they got it.

I was at NASA with the Scouts maybe 10 years ago and Jack Louisma was there. I was on the kick that the Space Shuttle was a dangerous experimental program and diverted us from exploration and I asked him his thoughts about that. He of course flew STS-3 and gave a positive answer about the shuttle and the technology it enabled, etc. But then he opined what could have been if the shuttle didn't change NASA's trajectory. His estimate if I recall correctly was a Mars landing by 1984 in the long term plans so close to what you found in your research. Wild stuff.

I love your videos. Factual and pacted with information. Enjoysble and easy to digest. THANKS for all your work .

I have a great "what-if" in my head right now: What if we pledged 5% of the fiscal budget to civilian space exploration for the next 50 years? No fussing, no asking questions, the top 5% of every FY goes to NASA or it's future equivalent, for fifty years. That's a wonderful thought, to me.

The first step to going anywhere is the ability to get into space with people quickly and easily as a matter of routine and NOT be tied down to expensive infrastructure to get there. Get Dream Chaser man rated, put it on a Falcon 9 and you have most of that. Don't send people up along with tons of cargo. Send cargo up on unmanned flights. Keep it Simple.

HOLY CRAP! my grandpa was a nucleat engineer on the NERVA Project. I haven't heard this name since I did a biography project on him for a college English class (he was 87 years old at the time). AMAZIN' life that guy had.

I could get through these videos so much faster if I didn’t have to stop because I’m laughing so hard. You make risibility real again ! I have to wipe the tears away cause it makes your sardonic delivery harder to appreciate when the screen is blurry.

One of your best so far. Imagine if they had given a tiny percentage of the military budget to NASA, like 4 %. That would have been 3 billion and change in 1970's money.

I agree with the phrase "A lot of the advancements needed for the Space Task Group Plan to happen probably wouldn't have been solved by throwing money at it"

One thing they weren't counting on is the *INSANE* increase in our computing power we'd see over the next couple of decades. There are things that *only* a person could've done in 1969, which we *routinely* have computers do today. Even just half a decade later when the Voyager spacecraft designs were being finalized, we'd already seen Moore's Law double our computing power three times over. There was *so much* science that was originally planned for manned missions that we've been able to accomplish with our machines. We have learned *so much* about Mars and Venus -- stuff they couldn't even *dream* of back then -- and we've yet to set a single human foot upon the surfaces of those planets. It's truly beyond belief, when you really think about it.

Great walkthrough of the Visions of the 70's Thanks for sharing your thoughts with all of us 👍😀

I have to agree, we really were in over our heads with Apollo. That was the equivalent of the Viking crossing the Atlantinc in rowboats. Only possible through insane determination, skill, and luck. I think our space program could be more advanced, but probably not waaaay more. I feel like we needed the computer tech, and it has advanced about as afst as we could push it.

The 1950s and '60s was just an insane time for all things air, space and flying. It was like the world was teenager drunk on aerospace keeping the buzz going. Of course people who lived through that era figured it was just going to keep going. I was born in '67, so I'm the Skylab/Viking/Shuttle generation. I remember when the Concordes started their flights. I remember when Voyager reached the ice giants. I was late to the party, but I sure thought people would be walking on Mars by now.

Thank you for putting this video together, I really love the space and What If style speculation. It really shows how we have lost that spark of ambition, that we no longer want to do the hard work (as a society, not individuals) and pay for government programs to build impressive things and push science and technology forward.

Just want to mention I love your "tangent" cam.

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do the other things" That has to be one of the worst lines in a monumental speech.

I’ll say it once, I’ll say it again: you and your team provide such great content! It makes science and other topics that make things interesting and fun. It frankly reminds me of how I felt when I watched bill nye the science guy in school.

That fainting @2:15 was perfect lol

Happy to see "Robot B-9" behind you on the shelf!

Concerning the economics aspects of this, the 1960's saw a huge period of economic growth, quite likely due to the kind of spending we did on the space program. Not mentioned in the video were all the precursors to the Apollo program, such as the Mercury and Gemini programs. That was a lot of spending, too. I believe the next phase we did follow through with was the right path. Finding out the effects of space travel on humans, as we did with the various space stations and shuttle flights. Also, the long range probes we sent out told us a lot about the conditions of space, such as the radiation present. Also, when we look back at computing power during the Apollo program, we tend to be amazed at how undeveloped it was compared to today. Our current capabilities are far and away much more of what we would have needed to explore more of the solar system, so putting off that exploration can be looked at as a wise choice. We had to bring our technology up to speed in so many ways before we should have taken that step.

I maintain that nothing in those plans was ACTUALLY overly optimistic, and it absolutely represents a failure. Given proper funding, the right minds, and a national will to see it through, we could've landed people on Mars in the 80s. That doesn't sound silly to me at all. If we hadn't blundered our way into a wildly irresponsible and reckless series of proxy wars, if we didn't have backwards thinking politicians who treated the government like a corporation that needed to make a profit when that literally makes no sense, if the military didn't have most of congress in its pocket, draining minds and resources away from proper scientific progress...then yes, we would've been well equipped to reach Mars and beyond.

Want that Nerva episode. Great job Joe and Team

This was a great video. I LOL’d many times along the way. Thanks Joe (and Joe’s writers)!

I'm impressed with how much of the plan was actual brought to reality. The crewed aspects are really the only thing (that you discussed) in which we kind of put on hold. I don't think Elon Musk as a genius, just a billionaire who regurgitates stuff he finds on the internet, however he is responsible for reigniting the publics interest in exploring those crewed objectives & space overall!

17:45 - You most definitively need to make a video titled "How military ruined STS project, and then bailed out when the first trouble struck". But, yes, we did a good part of those visionary goals.

I was wondering the same thing Joe said about innovation because if you think about all of the aerospace engineers from Huntsville increasing their knowledge and transferring that knowledge to future generations knowing there’s a market for that career into the future. Yeah, that would’ve be wild

I like the new tangent cam 😂

Personally, I find it much more likely that we would have overcome many of the technical challenges with money and research. I doubt we would have overcome the biological challenges though. This is the biggest problem with space exploration at the moment. We can send things to Mars but we don't yet know how to send people there.

is there a reason rotating spaceships need to be so large? i understand that there's the coriolis effect to account for, but couldn't the rotating part have ridiculously short ceilings so you just crawl inside as a place to sleep? if you're laying down then surely the coriolis effect wouldn't matter. if crew spent 8 hours a day in there then i'd imagine it'd prevent many of the long-term side effects of spending the rest of their day in zero G.

I love your content. It’s just plain truth. No bullshit. Information for people who keep an open mind, and see well beyond the trees. Never stop 🤘

hey, love your content, always have and will keep being a fervent follower. This video is no different, I loved it! :) thanks for all you're doing! I felt like I should say something but I've noticed only today, that your audio has a low volume, old school whine to it, almost like the bleed of a cassette tape rolling. Not sure where that comes from as I know nothing about... well anything but yeah... not sure if anyone hears it, I never noticed it before, just thought I'd mention it. ;)

"Imagine you're Richard Nixon..." This transported me back to Watergate and it came with a side order of GERD. Hey, thanks, Joe.

If the NASA budget had remained similar to the Apollo program, a lot of this would have been more likely to have been achieved.

The Task Group Report was not entirely over-optimistic, as it was based on an assumption that funding for NASA could/would be about the same as funding for the Apollo program. The engineering issues could have been solved by keeping in place the infrastructure created for Apollo with follow-on developments in new technologies. Such projects had been accomplished in the past, such as the Manhattan Project, or even the Apollo program itself. It all came down to the will to accomplish it and a dedicated source of funding. If history is any indication, money is what makes these things happen. I remember an interaction I saw on television of former US Senator Barbara Boxer, during funding hearings for a NASA program, asking a NASA official about how much the particular program was going to cost and he couldn't give her a straight answer because they were inventing new technologies to complete the mission. The official (I can't remember who it was) finally said, in exasperation, "If you want to fly in space, you don't want a budget, you want a blank check." He went on to say something to the effect that if a nation wants to win a war (like WWII) or the Egyptian pharaohs building the pyramids, you don't ask how much it costs, you just do it.

Your content and execution is the gift that keeps giving

3:52 - "Man, space travel's been a huge disappointment" Robert Zubrin embodies the "Dammit! Why aren't we there yet? Let's go!" mentality. He got into engineering because of the early space program, only to be hugely disappointed as we barely stayed in LEO after Apollo. He can get a little... over-enthusiastic sometimes, but I like his "cut the bullshit and get it done" attitude. I'd love an interview/chat between Joe and Zubrin. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-T5uImXbhQM8.html

I would never be pissed at you for acknowledging that the term "manned" is a problem, I just politely disagree.

Just discovered this channel. So good. Thanks Joe.

Hi Scott!❤ Been watching you for sometime and I wanna see something on induced hibernation.

18:55 Sounds similar to the show "For All Mankind", which is truly an amazing show!

Despite the rabid Republicans here in Brevard County (where the Kennedy Space Center is), growing up in the same from that era, and witnessing the great space depression of the 70s that made me flee any interest in becoming an aerospace engineer, Nixon did more to destroy the space program than any other person in American history.

I like the txt on the "Humor Cam" and the normal "Tangent Cam" as well 😀 ( if I've got the name right) I may need to adapt a similar technique lol

I totally agree with how progress in space inspires science itself. I've seen it firsthand with my own kid, who learned way more science in his time being inspired by spacex than he ever did at school