Buzzing towers with the Navy’s space maverick

Click here for Notes and Transcript

Time Markers

00:00 – Episode introduction00:24 – Welcome00:38 – Top Gun02:04 – Four Space Shuttle missions03:11 – Mission to Mars05:02 – Unmet expectations 07:06 – Commercial risk tolerance10:46 – A new rival – China11:55 – Launch infrastructure and capacity14:02 – Space traffic management15:39 – The dream – From rejection to success 18:52 – Space Takes – NASA budget 26:14 – Space Takes – Erik Schmidt and Relativity Space

Transcript – Scooter Altman Conversation

David Ariosto – Scooter. It’s good to see you.

Scooter Altman – Hey, good morning, David, good to see you too.

David Ariosto – Yeah, we’ve got a lot to dig in into this conversation. You’ve you’re a veteran of four space shuttle missions, test pilots, retired Navy captain, head of space operating group. But, you know, just to kind of get this out of the way, I think I’d like to sort of kick this off with just a piece of Americana, in a way. I mean, back in 86 when movie Top Gun came out, you did a few of the aerial stunts, including the buzzing of the tower and that famous scene where Tom Cruise character Maverick flips the bird to the MiG pilot. Is that, is that about accurate?

Scooter Altman – Those are all accurate. Yes, each of those scenes I was in, it was a lot of fun filming that movie. It was a little different than standard Navy flying, but pretty fun being out there working with the camera crews Hollywood. We even flew the actors for about a week till the director said, Stop, because I’m not using this in the movie, because the guys all look kind of green, but…

David Ariosto – Right, yeah, you don’t usually get to buzz the tower in.

Scooter Altman – No, normally you, I mean, you could, every time you come back, said, Hey, I feel like buzzing the tower. There’s nothing to stop you from doing it. But when you landed afterwards, a staff car would drive up, a guy would get out and rip your wings off and tell you, that’s it for you. You’re you’re not flying anymore. So when they said, Scott, would you mind buzzing the tower? I was like, yeah. And then they said, We want to make sure we get it on camera, so we need to do it like, nine times. Would that be okay? Like…

David Ariosto – I heard that. You really did it nine times, buzzing the towers for the dream of any maybe pilot. All right, let’s fast forward. So fast forward to the maybe those four space shuttle missions. And I kind of wanted you to sort of look at those in comparison to where we are today. Because, you know, there’s just been such an evolution in terms of the nature of space, commercial space, where the industry has gone. And you know how we sort of got from from from there to here, and maybe what you see in between?

Scooter Altman – Well, it’s something that we were looking at from the beginning of the time I got to NASA. What was the next thing after the space shuttle? How would we make that transition? The shuttle was a great pickup truck, and that’s basically what was built to be a pickup truck to take things from earth to low Earth orbit and then bring payload back. And that’s something that we really don’t have today, an easy way to get significant amounts of payload back. Dragon has some capability, but nothing like what the shuttle had. But at the same time, it was also limited to going to low Earth orbit. You couldn’t go further. And we always wanted to extend our reach further out into the solar system, to go back to the moon and eventually go on to Mars. And I know I was part of the team that was looking at a mission to Mars we were planning, at one point, when I got there in 95 looking at 2015 could we do a mission to Mars at that point? And I was like, Well, if we do it, then I’ll be senior enough to write my name on the manifest, and I could be the person that goes to Mars. But we didn’t get…

David Ariosto – 2015, I mean, that’s just, I mean, just kind of unpack that. You know, it’s a decade ago,

Scooter Altman – Right. And we’re looking back at that now, and we didn’t get anywhere close to being able to do that. Some of the different things that happened is we built the space station, which was incredible achievement. Having a space truck was a key part of that, but at the same time, it limited you, like I said, from what you could do, you needed to transition to that next vehicle, and that transition was a lot harder than I think NASA expected when we shut the shuttle down in 2011 and didn’t really have a way to fly until 2019 and that turned out to be the Commercial Crew effort that I had started working on back in 2004 when I had a detail to NASA Headquarters. But we’ve It is an exciting time right now. We do have that capability to do both NASA missions and commercial missions. SpaceX has taken over the commercial crew transport. They also have the supplies ships that are going there now to take supplies up to the station so that Butch and sunny could get a new supply of clothes while they were stuck up there for a while. But it’s, it’s an amazing progress that we’ve made. How much commercial space has come along, mostly being funded and supported by the government.

David Ariosto – Right. You know, I I want to get into sort of the commercial transition, but, but first, before we do, I want to sort of get back to that 2015, number, because it sort of jives with a lot of what I’ve heard over the years from from veterans within the space community. I mean, I think there was a thinking, you know, like, (19)69 were on the moon, (19)79 were on Mars, (19)89 were on Titan, 2000 were in Proxima Centauri. Like there was this perception, I think, of the early germination of the space industry that saw this just steady progression of humanity out into the cosmos, and just didn’t happen in many ways. And maybe that’s just part of the boom and bust cycles of anything, but I wonder what your perspective is on that, and sort of where that sort of lag came from, and how it’s maybe researched.

Scooter Altman – Yeah, it is a little disappointing that we weren’t able to keep moving now. You also have to look at the funding level that happened that made Apollo possible, and then what happened as we transitioned to shuttle the Vietnam War funding really hurt NASA and the left with the final Apollo missions. You know, having those extra Saturn five scattered around the country that never flew. Kind of sad after they were built and everything. But we still hope that the shuttle would be a stepping stone. And in the end, it kind of became a trap to some extent, in that it was something we had we didn’t want to give it up, and that that transition is always hard. I think when they went from Apollo to the shuttle, there was a huge layoff down there at the Cape, and it was only, you know, took a while to build it back up when we let go of the shuttle, the same thing happened, but now we’re on the other side. Maybe it is the boom and bust, but we’re on the boom side of the curve right now, and hopefully it’s for both NASA and commercial space, because they’re very intertwined as we work together moving forward.

David Ariosto – Yeah, I remember reading that layoffs at the time happened as late as the end of 1969 which is sort of almost just this interesting situation when we end up going to the moon several more times after that, but it just there was a transition almost like land, sort of the boots and flags component of this. And, you know, I wonder, in the context of sort of modern space, when we talk about Mars and talk about all these other things, there’s, there’s a national prestige aspect to all of this, but there’s also a sustainability aspect that that was not what we had in the 1960s and 70s. And this seems a little bit different, maybe buttressed by by the fact that the commercial sector is so heavily involved, but, but I wonder, in the context what you mentioned with Dragon that you know, you see a lot of missions now, huge launch cadence, but the vast majority of these are robotic missions. We do have some commercial astronauts, and we do have some capabilities of cargo, like you mentioned with Dragon, but I just I wonder, as we start to transition toward more commercial, commercial human space flight, where that risk tolerance is, and And can the commercial sector still be as aggressive as it wants to be, if it, if it sort of maintains those that that that sort of age old mantra of move fast and break things?

Scooter Altman – Yeah, well, that’s a tough thing to live with in space flight, because there’s pretty serious consequences when you make the wrong move there. And that is a challenge we’re going to have to deal with as we move forward. What is the acceptable pace? What are the risk levels? NASA has been criticized in the past for being too risk averse and trying to protect the astronauts, maybe too much, but at same time, you have a catastrophe like challenger or Columbia, and it really sets everything back and even on robotic missions. You know, they’re very expensive. Also, how many failures can you really tolerate financially before you can’t afford to continue?

David Ariosto – You know? I mean, that’s a really interesting point, because it’s not only about, I mean, protecting humans in space is obviously huge concern, but it’s not only about that. It’s the sense of the momentum of the industry. And I wonder, you know, what the threshold or what the tolerance is in the investor community, and you know how they look at that as you sort of go forward, if you have some of these failures that you know would result in, in, you know, God forbid, the you know, the unthinkable.

Scooter Altman – Right, and that is the challenge is figuring out exactly what the return on investment can be for those folks who put some serious money into it, because it is expensive. It’s hard to move things from the surface of the earth to accelerate them to 25 times the speed of sound. That’s an awful lot of energy being expended, which makes it a very dangerous proposition, but you’ve got to be able to do that to be able to get to these places that we need to go to have a return on investment. So that’s probably the biggest challenge. Is, what is that big? Out there that is going to be the driver to push things beyond the tourist level that we’re seeing right now. I think there is going to be a forcing function that drives us to do that. John Young, who I had an office with when I first got to NASA, had flown on all the vehicles from, you know, Gemini, Apollo, and Shuttle, and his mantra was, hey, look at the evidence here on Earth. Single planet, species don’t survive long term. We need this push humanity out further beyond Earth. There’s a whole challenge about our local resources being depleted. I think that’s a long vision from where we are today, but I think it’s a goal we need to keep pushing forward to expand humanity beyond just Earth.

David Ariosto – I wonder also, in the context of this era that we’re in now, it’s not just necessarily the commercial side of things, but But what this era has in common with the 1960s is that there’s a rival, and that the nature of that rival I had somebody describe to me once you know there will be a lunar economy, because China is going to be there, and you know that, and of itself, maybe is germinating seeds that fosters the beginnings of something bigger. I’m just curious what your perspective is on that.

Scooter Altman – Well, we have seen a lot about what China has been doing in space, and they’re being very aggressive. You’re right. They’re basically started off more like a Soviet era mission, but they’ve demonstrated capability. You know, they built a space station. They’re traveling to it now, back and forth, and they have designs on the moon. There’s a concern about who gets there first. Can we have a lunar environment that is free to all? Or if the Chinese are on the South Pole first? Is it Hey? Who gets there first? Is with the mostest or not? So…

David Ariosto – Right. And then when you, when you look at the at the US side, you know. And you see what SpaceX is doing, and you also see what Rocket Lab is doing, and what Blue Origin sort of hopes to do. And you know, so all these new companies, and you see three lunar lander companies that are sort of making their efforts, I wonder, in the in that context, with all these planned launches and the 1000s of more satellites that we have, you know, coming on orbit, there’s this concern about capacity and image and will that, will that create a bottleneck in terms of the efforts that that want to be somewhere and potentially could be there, but don’t necessarily have just the bare sort of Lighthouse effect of the of the launch pads and wind tunnels and you know, all that sort of the federal sort of aspects of what it takes to develop a healthy rocking industry,

Scooter Altman – Right. And you’re exactly right. The pace of launch has picked up incredibly from where we were in the shuttle days, where it took two weeks between launching somebody from the Cape and the next launch to reconfigure the range and have everything ready. Now you’re having two SpaceX launches on the same day, which boggles my mind, and they’re talking …

David Ariosto – About four minutes apart. And I think one Vandenberg, and then…

Scooter Altman – Yeah, multi coast. And right now, on top of each other, it is to still, even with the capability expansions we’ve made, there’s a potential for a huge bottleneck as so many more players come onto the stage and want to launch. There’s only so many places that are safe to launch into the same orbital inclinations that we want to go to but the positive thing is we’re getting better at doing that faster. I think someone’s going to have to manage the pace and separate the traffic. I know the US decided that the Commerce Department had the right was the right person to do the space traffic management, and NOAA’s looking at doing that right now…

David Ariosto – So, you know, in the context of this like that, managing the traffic on orbit is the other side of this, right? And if it’s, it’s within NOAA and the Office of Space commerce. And you know that’s, that’s an office that’s seen a decent amount of cuts in last month. And, you know, there’s just sort of this, like, quiet little office there that has been doing this thing that that space companies really rely upon, that, you know, I wonder what that actually means when sort of the rubber hits the road in terms of actually operating up there.

Scooter Altman – Yeah, that it looks challenging right now with the cuts that we’ve seen, and we had a contract that was supporting NOAA doing that, and we’re not sure how many of the civil servants remain right now on that contract, which is going to make it difficult for it to fully operate. It is a critical piece of the infrastructure. There’s the licensing of the launches and then the management of. Traffic and ensuring that everything that goes up has a plan for the end of life, because it’s not going to be up there forever. You want to make sure that things aren’t falling on people’s heads as they de orbit. To have a satellites are supposed to be designed now with the idea that they will disintegrate on the way back and not have a credible threat to humans. There’s a few things up there right now that aren’t designed to that standard, and the Hubble Space Telescope is one of them. It’s got some parts that are definitely going to re enter, make it all the way to the ground. So NASA has to decide, do they boost it up or send something up to de orbit it at some point.

David Ariosto – Right. All right, in a little bit of time that we have left, I kind of want to just take a step back here and just maybe get a bit of a broader picture. Just, Did you always know that new, know that you wanted to do this, and did you want to be an astronaut? Is like, where did this come from? Is it just, you know, one of these things that’s just sort of built on itself, or was there sort of,

Scooter Altman – Well, I have to admit, it was a series of incredible events, you know, like person, you know, a series of unusual things happen. I started off at three years old, telling my mom and dad I’d like to be a pilot when I grow up. And they said, you know, three things. One, you know, do your best to work hard, and three, never give up on your dreams. And those were key things that I went for, because at certain points in my career, people told me no, like when I thought the way to become a pilot was go to the Air Force Academy, and I got an appointment.

Everything was going great, till I took the physical, and they said your sitting height is too tall to be an Air Force pilot. So then there’s my dream crushed, but I went to school, studied engineering, and found out the Navy had different height standards, so I became a Navy pilot and got to achieve my dream there, went through the training program, got selected for jets, sent out to Miramar was flying that and then saw thought, well, I should use my engineering degree and I went to test pilot school. We took a field trip to NASA, and I met actual astronauts. And realized two things. One, astronauts are actually real people. I don’t think I believed that before, and two, I really want to do this, so I signed up, actually got an interview, went to NASA, came home, and when I got the call, they said, No, we don’t want you as an astronaut. But I said, All right, I’ll try again.

They had another call for applications. I submitted my package. I actually went on cruise and was in the Persian Gulf when I got a call on the satellite phone, saying, hey, Scooter, can you come to NASA for another interview? And the skipper checked with KAG and let me off the ship, and I flew home and interviewed. And then this time they said yes. So…

David Ariosto – What I like most about this story, is that just sort of the willingness just not to accept, no, I think, for an answer. And I think that’s that’s something that a lot of people maybe need to sort of hear a bit, because rejection comes in any kind of profession, anywhere you just maybe just the sense of attrition that you’re just gotta kind of grind it out at some point. Alright…

Scooter Altman – That’s exactly one of my messages. It’s not that’s what happens when somebody tells you no. It’s what do you do after the no to try and keep working for your goal.

David Ariosto – Alright? Scooter Altman, veteran of four space shuttle missions, test pilot, retired Navy captain and the real life Maverick. Thanks so much for joining us.

Scooter Altman – Really enjoyed talking with you, David, thanks so much for having me on.