Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry laughing at me, and uh, this is stuff you should know the podcast. That's right, Welcome, Welcome every one. That welcome friends. That was one of the best false starts we've ever had. It was like four and one. That was weird. Jerry hit record and Josh went, Chuck, you gotta welcome people on the podcast. I forgot. Hey, hey, man, you're sure it's taking me back. Man, it's taken me back to July exactly five years and three hundred and sixty days before my birth. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah, I just calculated that really quickly. Yeah, that was pretty chuck as well, I believe it or not. No, Yeah, you know I was born in the seven I know, is it seventy or seventy one. It's a nice round number, seventy one. I do remember all the Space race stuff though, from being young. Yeah, I remember the tail end obviously for sure. Well, we had already won when I was around. Yeah, we kind of already one since I was around, but it was still like a big deal. It's still doing the victory lap basically. Yeah. When I was around, it was Space Shuttle, Space Shuttle, Space Shuttle, and as an adult, I've not seen two of the space shuttles in person. Uh, launches are just like in the hangar. The commission was in the hangar. That's pretty cool, tho things are? He was very cool. Yeah, yeah, they're really neat. I've never seen one. You definitely should. There's one at the New Air and Space Museum at Dulis Airport. I think it's Enterprise maybe or Endeavor, and then um. You can also see one at Kate Canaveral Kennedy Space Center, which I highly recommend to anyone who's even remotely interested in space, space exploration or the history of space. Kennedy is the place to go. It is awesome. I've been to and can recommend the Naval Air Station Museum in Pensacola, Florida. Okay, and I've been Huntsville. But have you been to Space Camp? No? Man, that's where Space Camp is, right Huntsville. I think so. I don't know. If it's just look inside that movie and all the privileged kids you got to go to the movie was big. I never saw it. Yeah, I mean I was at the right age where a movie about kids in space was kind of perfect. So what's that Huntsville then? Is it like just the the that's like the rocket place, that's where they did the the original stuff, right. I think Huntsville's before Kennedy. We should know this stuff. I think it was in conjunction with it, if not before it. But yes, so it was a space center and I think it still is. Marshall is in Huntsville. It's getting on to a great start anyway. You like space. I like space. We're not like space junkies or anything like that. We don't like Intravene Slee injected space now like Tom Hanks. You know, we never produced a mini series about it or anything like that, but you know, it's an interesting thing. I think after researching how the space race worked, it occurred to me that there's at least two other episodes that we should do how the moon landing worked, where he did did they fake the moon landing? Which was a pretty good one, but we should do one like assuming that it actually happened, and then uh, the International Space Station or just space stations in general, like the history of the like Skylab Mirror, you know, the I S s. Totally should Okay, so we'll do those people we have committed ourselves, like John Kennedy committed America to put a man on the moon by the end of the sixties. So we're going to do our podcasts on space stations. Yeah. So, like I said, you took me back to July nine, So let's take everybody back. Do you want to get in the way back machine? Oh? Man? Yeah? Well the stuff this thing and did you leave like a halfy eating cheeseburger in here? Something is funky? Yeah, I thought that might keep. It's not keeping. Sorry, there's a mongoose in here. We can just go back in time to when that burger was fresh, good thinking. Will you share it with me? You obviously only wanted half. Well that's why we all know we're kidding, because Chuck didn't leave behind a half of cheeseburger. Silly. Okay, So Chuck, here we are. I assume this is yeah, it's July, and we're gonna listen in as you and I do a dramatic reading of the transmission between mission control and the lunar Landing Module I'll be mission control. Then I'll beat eagle. Okay, thirty seconds uh in prencies of fuel remaining? Okay and stop de segent command over righte off, We copy you down, Eagle. Here's a tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed, Roger, tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about the term blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot, Yeah it is. We're all wearing short sleeve shirts with ties. Uh, we're all cool under pressure. We've got flat tops and a lot of people don't know. I didn't know actually until I read this that when the landing module for Apollo eleven, the first time human set foot on the Moon that we know of, um, the there was a really tense moment where they were about to run out of fuel as they were trying to land. That's what that thirty seconds thing was from. And had they run out of fuel, all three or all two astronauts on board who landed would have died. Yeah. I mean they basically had to uh do it manually. Yeah, they took over. That's why they had. As Tom Wolfe put it, the right stuff. Great great book, great great movie, I've never read the book, but the movie is amazing, so good. If if you're out there and well, if you're a fan of space, then you've seen the right stuff. That just reminded me. Remember when I told you about garbage pails stew So, I guess it must have been for my dad's birthday or something. My family rented the right stuff and we made garbage pails too. That was part of the thing. Yeah every year. No, yeah, yeah, we didn't like my dad that much. Yeah, we got a listener mail from someone in Michigan that did the garbage jack and awesome. I did not see that one, so it must have been a Midwestern thing. Okay, so I'm not insane in either is my father? No? But see the Right Stuff people, really really great movie that encapsulates the Mercury program and the Mercury Seven and uh plus uh leave on Helm, isn't it is that? Yeah? Great? Who did you play? He was? He was not one of the Mercury seven. He was he got cut your cut now. I don't think he was even an astronaut training. I think he was just part of the support military crew. I can't remember exactly. It's been a while Yeah, that's an odd cameo. It wasn't came It was a genuine part, right, But I mean, like, why leave on helm he acts? Oh I didn't know that. Yeah, he was in coal Miner's Daughter and stuff. And he was in that Marquee Mark movie a couple of years ago, shoot Shooter, Shooter, Sniper. We done. Yeah, alright, alright, we got way off. Anyway, When Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, buzz Aldrin was close on his heels. Uh. That ended effectively a more than a decade of what was known as the Space Race. Yeah, very exciting time in the United States. Yeah. People were way way into it. Yeah, it was it was like, um, people cared. Yeah, it was like how the voice is viewed now. Oh boy, you know, I guess I've ever seen that show if it really happens a nice So the Space Race, it was this kind of this we should define it. It was this Cold War byproduct of the tensions between the US and the USSR, which we're competing for utter dominance in over the world one way or another. And um, out of that quest for dominance came a an uneasy balance of polarization and you're either with one side or against them. There was very few neutral states, uh, And from this came kind of a just a constant challenge. It was each country drove the other to try to advanced technologically, economically, um and just every single way. And it was kind of a really fruitful time, especially if you are into the whole military industrial complex gig. Yeah. But from from this competition we reached the Moon. The Soviets ended up building a mere space station. Like everything we know about space came out of this race. This tension between the US and the USS are Yeah, and it was it's pretty neat, like the early space programs were. It was all brand new. So it wasn't like let's see how much work we can get done up there. It was let's see if we can get up there. Let's see if this guy won't die if we shoot him up there. And it was like logical steps like can we put a chip up there? Can we put a ship with a jump, Can we put a ship with a human? Can we put too humans? How long can they stay? Can they dock with other ships and meet other astronauts? Can we actually trick them into drinking tank? Yeah? Exactly. And then eventually all right, we feel like we and get up there. Now we need to start accomplishing some things besides just getting up here. That's right. I mean they brought back lunar rocks and things. Don't get me wrong, they had goals aside from hitting a golf ball on the moon. But I just find it really remarkable that it's and logical that it was all just a series of steps and each time we try to one up one another. It was progress for the world, for mankind. And it's really difficult to overstate the effect that that rivalry had. I mean, we'll kind of see that, you know, if I want to achieve something. The other one was like, we've got to top you somehow by tenfold. Yeah, you send the man, we send the woman. Right, Yeah, yeah, Yeah, that was a good one. Like it was a lot of everyone's trying to get a first in there. Exactly. I thought you were doing Sean Connery doing the Ford October. No, they bring a knife, you bring a gun. No. If you thought that was my Irish accent, then I'm worse than I thought I've made. Yeah, just I'm not hearing right, Okay, So the the Space Race put us into space. Everything we now understand and know and have in space, and a lot of stuff on Earth is directly related to the space race, and the space race we trace back to the Nazis. Yeah, it's funny those space races between the US and Russia. But it was really Germany. Yeah, that kind of started everything. During World War two, Nazi Germany had a world class rocket program led by a guy named Werner von Braun. Yeah, and von Braun um. At some point during World War two, I guess saw the writing on the wall. He came up with the V two rocket, which was the scourge of Britain. Yeah, it's uh. It was the first ballistic missile, and ballistic missile means it's not steered, it's fired on a trajectory and then just regular forces of nature and mechanics run the show, as opposed to a cruise missile which is steered. But it could it could hit London from like a launch pad around the Baltic Sea if they did their calculations correct. So von Braun had developed the V two rocket, and at some point during World War two, I guess he saw the writing on the wall that he and he lost faith that the Germans were gonna win. So he got together some of his fellow rocket scientists, literal rocket scientists uh, and said, hey, let's surrender to the Americans. I'll bet you if we come to them and bring some knowledge and schematics and stuff, that they'll just totally ignore the whole Nazi thing. And they were right, kind of work, uh, And Hitler pouted and um died. And then we got these dudes, Van Broun in particular, and took him to White Sands, New Mexico and said you now work for us, And they said great, because you guys got better food and cool cars and and women. Yes, there's like everything you need in New Mexico, Land of Land of plenty. Uh. You ever been to White Sands? No, I have it. It's pretty cool. Van Nostrum went, or No, he went to the Trinity testing site. That's not White Sands. I don't think so. No. Um. So White Sunds relocated to Huntsville and Marshall, Yes, so I was right by calling a Marshall, Yes, Marshall Space Flight Center. So the Soviets did the same thing. They poached a bunch of Nazi rocket scientists and created their own program under the leadership of a very talented and apt Russian named Sergei Kralov. And so basically it was von Braun versus Kralov. Teams of Nazi scientists working in the USSR in the USA, working with obviously American colleagues, Soviet colleagues, and Germany is like, what about our space program? They're They were like, you're lucky. We even let you have a flag right now. Um, and that was the start of the space race. And that's that's incorrect. There was a program developed, rocket program developed, another rocket program developed, and at the time, both of these nascent US and Soviet rocket programs they were designed to blow each other up. But at some point the scientists said, hey, how about rather than pointing them over Earth, how about up, let's shoot these things up and see what we can do. Yes, uh, like maybe carry a satellite space Eisenhower and this jumping ahead a little bit. He also had the foresight to say, you know what, Uh, space is fun and all, but we can use this for military purposes. So he started a couple of national security programs, one for the military potential of using these rockets, and the other one with the CIA. To say that was called the the National Reconnaissance Office, and that was secret until the nineties. Yeah, is it still around. I don't think so. It's codename Corona. And that was Eisenhower saying, well, if we can get satellites up there, and maybe we can start spying on the Russians with these satellites. So there was I was kind of surprised to learn that intelligence was behind some of this that early on. Yeah. So, uh the beginning what's called uh it was an International Geophysical Year, and that was when a bunch of scientists got together and said, hey, let's get together from all over the world and let's all do some put our heads together to do some like serious studying of our planet. That nate, yes, super neat. They said, Okay, well, like we've got these governments, these incredibly powerful governments behind us, let's see if we can use it for some good Like yes, we'll create their spy satellites and whatnot, but let's also see if we can funnel some of that funding towards space exploration, putting satellites into orbit. Let's see what we can do. And they did, and as a as a result, both the United and the USSR as a result of this International Geophysical Year, UM said we're going to be the first to launch a satellite in the orbit, and the race was on. That was the beginning. What was that? That's right, And one thing is clear if you know anything about the space race, is that the US was getting their butts kicked in the early part of that game. Like, if this is a four quarter game, I would say the first at the halftime, they were probably losing about the half. Somewhere in the half they started to come back and maybe she changed momentum around the half, okay, so like they had definitely lost all of the first quarter. Okay, but if this is basketball, they had to run late in the second quarter, maybe to get the fans fired up, Okay, exactly. The Soviets definitely start We're winning early though, um with their sput Nick one, which means traveler in Russian, and they launched that on October four, nineteen fifty seven, So they were the first ones to launch a sad all it in this space. That's right. They scored that first point they did, there was a big one. Well it's a big one they had. They seem to want to do things a little more robustly than Americans. Americans seemed to be a little more conservative, like with how many rockets can we put on, how fast can it go? How what should the payload be? And the Russians were pushing the boundaries a little or sorry the Soviets, um, but they were Russians. Yeah rescues yeah, um, but they had a payload much larger than than the Americans were willing to try. But we weren't too far behind. Um. About four months later, in January thirty first, nineteen eight, we launched launched our Explorer one right, and actually we launched Explorer which was finally attached to a Juno rocket, which was von Braun's design. And the reason we didn't launch one first was because for some reason America had decided to go with a different rocket design and ignored von Braunze. Yeah, and space experts historians say we most likely would have gotten one up there before the Soviets had we just stuck with von Braun's design because it would have been ready earlier and it proved that it could have worked, so we could have beaten them, but we didn't. And that's actually the first point scored by the Soviets. So after that it was like, Okay, well what's next. What's the next logical step from there? Start NASA? Yeah, I guess, so we need a bureaucracy here. Yeah, Congress passed the Space Act and that's what created NASA, and the Soviets created their space program Russ Cosmos and said let's do this, uh in earnest And it's pretty interesting when we're gonna go over some of the differences here. It's interesting to see this early, some of the different approaches, just some of the basic approaches to what each nation thought was like the way to the way to go. Um. So here's one of them. The Soviet rockets, like I said, were more powerful. So right off the bat, they were using more juice, right. The Soviets were using what are called Voss Stock rockets early on in the beginning of their program. Uh and uh the Americans were using Redstone and Atlas rockets. Yeah. And this is when we started the Mercury program. Like we referenced in the right stuff, the Mercury Seven, Scott Carpenter, Heroes, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grisson, uh, Wally Shira, Alan Shepard, and Deek Slayton. Those were some brave, like they would be the guys today that are wearing like those wingsuits and jumping off mountains. You know that they were the early uh what do you what do you call those thrill seekers? What's the word for him? Early thrill seekers? Now extreme, That's what I was looking for. Mountain dew code red mountain dew. Uh want to go ahead? So I was gonna say you you can kind of like, um, the programs were We're started and finished roughly at around the same time. So you have the Mercury program going on in America initially, and at the same time, the Soviets are carrying out their voss Stok program. So another difference is that the Soviets were like, uh, everything that they did super secret about it all, and it was tough to you know, you can't turn on the TV and get a lot of information about uh the cosmonaut of the month um, which by the way, I was like, how do you pronounce that in Russian? And apparently it's very close it's cosmon f not well. Yeah, I was curious about the word not as a suffix, and apparently that came from the Greek. Yeah, like nautical. So they're they're space sailors essentially. Don't you think it would radically alter our view of space? In the International Space Station and everything. Everyone we're called cosmonauts or astronauts if they you basically took away any kind of national or ethnic identity once you got out in space, like everybody was an astro Oh yeah, I thought you were going to say if they use sailor instead of not and it was Astra sailor, Cosmo sailor. Everybody was a dream sailor once you got on the space. No. I think you're totally right. I mean, I think that's like naming your teams. It is because like even now China, since Tycho knots in there in this space, so you can say, just just by reading a news report, you know who's up there. Yeah, there's a Tycho, not a cosmonaut and an astronaut. Well, you're totally right, there's no accident. No, Um, so divisive. Well it was a space race. Yeah, it's not a shuttle relay. That's true. Um, and not space shuttle. You know what I mean, I knew it. You mean, okay, I'm sure most people out there. So, Um, the Soviets were secret the Americans were not. We proudly broadcasted our successes and failures for the world to see. And there were some failures. There were. We should say that when the USSR launched spot Nick, Um, we had not one but two major failure they kind where the rocket will go up and then just come right back down and explode on the launch pad kind of failures and they were dubbed things like flop Nick and caput Nick, and it was very demoralizing for America. Or a pre launched test catching fire and losing three of our astronauts, including Gus Grissom, Well that was the beginning of the Apollo program. Yeah, but that one didn't even that was that was on the launch pad, that was a test. Was that televised? I don't know about that, but they still don't know what caused the actual fire. But um, the oxygen UH chamber did not help. No, they used to they used to pump a hundred percent oxygen rather than an air mixture. I think now it's like thirty percent aboard like the I S S. But they would they would have a hundred percent oxygen and there was extremely flammable and yeah, don during a test, I think in January of nineteen sixty seven. UM, they the catsule caught fire and killed three astronauts inside within like five minutes, the fire burned itself out and they were dead. Luckily they supposedly died from smoke inhalation. But which is what quicker? Yeah, they're burning, Yeah, but I don't know well, And the Soviets were the actually the first ones to learn that pure oxygen wasn't a good idea, and they didn't tell us that obviously, not because their program was in secret. Yeah. One of the other differences I thought was pretty interesting was that the Soviets um used a spherical capsule uh, in which the cosmonaut just rode along and they ejected and parachuted out and the capsule crashed into land, whereas we had our our funny shaped capsule that the astronauts actually drove, so they were pilots, and they splashed down into the sea still in the capsule. So again, two completely different approaches. And I just find it interesting that, you know, the Americans like, no, we want our pilots to fly and fly into the ocean because it's a soft place to land. And you know, it worked, didn't Somebody I think one of those guys, Jeff Bezos or somebody like that. We found one of the original mercury capsules at the bottom of the ocean. Interesting. Yeah, that neat pictures of it underwater. Well, the benefits of a spherical spacecraft as it can enter the atmosphere just however it wants to. Whereas you got to kind of nail that with the with the mercury capsule comical. You couldn't just go in there like upside down. Yeah, you have to use your boosters to thrust into place and just your yaw and all that stuff. Pilots dude. Yeah, well it's like Apaul of thirteen. That was one of their big concerns was being accurately angled to re enter the atmosphere. Els they were in big trouble. That's scary. That was such a good movie too. Yeah, that was good. The vomit comment, Yeah, do you remember for that? That's what they use for to train and to shoot. That's how they simulated to Yeah. I still love to write on the thing. I bet it's awesome. Have you ever seen that footage of those girls like on the Vomit comment or something similar? Girls? Yeah, there's three girls in a seat and one of them throws up and it just goes right back into her face, and this kind of hovers there. Have you not seen that? No, I gotta send that to you. Is there real? Yeah? Yeah, man, it is gross. What are they doing putting girls in the vomit comment? They what? No, I mean not like seven year old girls? Women? Women. We heard from our feminist listeners and they said girls is better than females. Girls is successible. I'm just coming with that. No, no, no no, I'm still amazed that people just say female if they're not talking about like a study or something. You know, I've been listening over there and anyone say that it's actually very very common female male. Yeah, it's very common. You've done your own, uh an impromptu survey just by being alive, man, being awake. Yeah. No, And it wasn't like the vomit comment, Like, I don't think it was the one that like Ron Howard wrote on it was a right at Disney. It's basically it looks a lot like a light aircraft that's doing a nose dive, but they're they're basically waitless for a second, So it's obviously not a light aircraft. But it just looks small. But that girl just pukes in her own face. It is so gross, all right, So just to clear it up, Chuck wasn't saying that women should not be allowed in vomit comments, and Josh wasn't saying that the women in the vomit comments were seven year old. I think that does well, put thank you. So the Soviets scored the second point as well. Second touchdown Big one April twel nineteen sixty one. They actually put cosmonaut uh Euri Gagarin uh into space and he was the first man in space and the first man to orbit the Earth, and uh, that was egg on the face of the US at that point on fourteen nothing. Yeah, I think if you could like give him a couple of touchdowns for that one, you should nothing. Yeah, I mean, like Urie was the first person in space and again apparently America could have been the first. But it's actually better that, um, I guess. Von Braun said, we need to schedule a more test than the percent certain about putting a human in here, and um they they they added one more test, which pushed Alan Shepherd's Freedom seven flight back by a couple of months, which put it a month after Uri Gagarin's flight, Right, so we could have done it. But even if we had, the Russians still would have basically beaten us. They would have gotten at least some points even for being second, because Alan Shepherd's flight was basically shot up into a suborbital edition and came right back down. It was a fifteen minutes suborbital space flight, which you can do now if you've got like a hundred grands pretty much. Um, what you'r Garon did was he shot up into actual Earth orbit and orbited the Earth, the entire Earth once, and then came back down a hundred and eight minutes later. So yeah, straight up and down in fifteen minutes or up full orbit of the Earth and back down a hundred and eight minutes. I mean it's actually good that we came second in that anyway, And that chuck that lit the fire beneath America's bottom, like we gotta get going, yeah, because think about it, I mean, like we're down three touchdowns. Who wrote this one? Craig Freud and Rich right, he points out, like this is the time of the followed the McCarthy trials. Um, the people did not like the Soviets. America really wanted to dominate, and we were getting our butts kicked publicly by the USSR and it was demoralizing. But rather than let ourselves get beat down, Kennedy got with NASA and said, what can we do to beat these guys? That's right, because not only with those two things were they beating us, but they at one point during UH this time had more hours in space, this one rocket than all of ours put together. Yeah, so we were getting trounced bad. So they were basically just doing like victory lap after victory lap, like they would send guys up in orbit the Earth one after the other. Yeah. At the end of the UM the Vostok UH program, which was their first program, I believe, yes, their first program. By the time they finished it, they had not only sent the first man in his space, they sent the first woman in his space, Valentina Tereshkova, and she orbited the Earth forty eight times in Vostok six. During the Mercury program, I think the best we came up with was Gordon Cooper doing twenty two times around the Earth. So they were just crushing us um and just racking up the points left and right. That's right. So America says, you know what, we should develop something a new program, and that's how it works. You know, they have a program, it does what it does over a period of years. Then they retired that they start up in newing. The new program was the Gemini program, and the Soviets started the Voss called program on a little bit and they again got out to a little early lead with that program because they were the first to send multiple cosmonauts up, sent three into vols called one and then had a spacewalk before we did Alexei Leonoff and Volscott two March eighteenth nineteen. So there's still they're still beating us at this point. They are, but by this time, just a couple of weeks after Alan Shepherd's first flight and while we're still just reeling from the the the Ryga Garan flight, Um Kennedy came out onto the news and said, you know what, we're going to be the first to put a man on the Moon, and we're gonna do it before the decades out. He kind of declared that the finish line almost like whoever does this and it's gonna be us. We'll win and this is a substantial gold is set. I mean, like we've been beaten twice and like you said, trounced um by the Soviets, and now we're suddenly saying like, oh yeah, let's go to the moon. Let's see who's first to the moon. And uh that set the foundation for everything to follow. That began the Gemini program, which, like you were saying, the Mercury program, Each program was designed to kind of prove that we could do with certain step. The Mercury program proved that a human being could go into space and safely come back down, could orbit the Earth. These next two programs, I guess the next Soviet program, what is it again? Yeah, that one proved that a person could survive out in space outside of a space capsule or space transport um. And the Americans had Gemini, which ultimately bridged the gap between Mercury program and the Apollo program, which would put us on the Moon. And both the vox Shot and the Gemini programs were like putting multiple people in space together to work and do neat stuff, that's right. And uh so with Gemini early on we were like, all right, you guys are beaten into the punch. You're getting people up there, and you can fly around the Earth a bunch of times. You got the quantity part down, But we've got to focus on quality here in the US and learn how to do things up there like change orbits. Can you do that? Rusky? And they said, and yet And so all of a sudden we were flying around up there, changing orbits, um rendezvousing with other spacecraft, docking with rockets, and you can fly around the Earth as much as you want, but we're actually putting putting our work into practice, like you know, what's it gonna take to get on the moon. Since someone up there for two weeks and dock with someone else, change orbits, fly that thing around. And we were able to do that successfully. And that's when we started pulling ahead because the Soviets were just doing laps around the Earth. Well, they were doing some other stuff they did do, like spacewalks and stuff like that. But yeah, it was these two programs are where we started to pull away. And um, it was that Gemini program that we used to to prove that we could do things like spend two weeks in space, which is how long it would take, Like he said to go to the moon and back. Yeah, and the Soviets were doing a lot of unmanned missions at the time, or sending animals up their data gathering stuff like that. Yes, there were a lot of animals sent to space that that perished, that never came back, or that came back in as fireballs. It's sad. I went to this museum, um do you mean? I did? In in l A. It's called the Museum of Jurassic Technology. You should go. It is the most unique, peculiar museum you will ever go to in your life. But one of the exhibits is a hall of portraits of Soviet space dogs. Oh really pretty neat, interesting and sad because they all ended up dead. Huh yeah, it's it's sad. But the tone of them more is the national pride, Like these dogs gave their life the advancement of humans. Yeah. But I mean, like if you, if you step back and really think about it, these portraits are very much like human portraits. Like the dogs are like looking up right, uh, you know, into the future, with their chin raised and like their their breast you know, proud. Yeah, yeah, and yeah there the way they're done, it's neat. Well what they're looking at is a dog treat. They're staring at the effect. Yeah, uh, that's pretty neat. I'm gonna check that out. Oh you need to go, man, go with a child's heart. Well, I have no choice then, Okay, that's the only heart I have. Uh all right. So where we're Project Jim and I, we have a little bit of a momentum. We we have what it takes. We have the right stuff, if you will, to make it to the moon and to walk around up there. And that is when Apollo one caught fire, which was a pretty big setback in January nine seven. Yeah, I mean, like, not only do we lose like three of our great astronauts, these guys were some of the originals. Um, I imagine that it's scared the living daylights out of all the other astronauts and all of the people in mission control in NASA and Americans like, you know, this is everybody knew it was dangerous, but now it was proven like it's deadly. So this is a deadly endeavor that we're undertaking here. Yeah, they knew that, they knew how dangerous it was. That's why all their wives were just you know, no, no, I don't. I don't mean that might mean more like the American public. Oh yeah, like yeah, you're right now, we're losing people. Now. These aren't like dogs like these are three guys you know, yeah, totally, and people that America had grown to love, you know, like national heroes at this point, right like the voice you gotta quit saying that. And so after the fire, actually they disassembled the launch pads but left the posts as a permanent memorial to Apollo one astronauts. Yeah, and rebuilt launch pads elsewhere. Alright, So at this point, the Soviets are concentrating on, like I said, unmanned spacecraft. They're like, all right, you can go walk on the moon, but we're gonna send We're gonna orbit the Moon at least, and we're gonna develop some docking systems and um, seeing how long we can stay up there. Other David Blaine esque feats of strength, right, which is kind of neat Like at some point around nineteen sixty seven sixty eight, the Soviets said, it's obvious the Americans are going to make it to the moon. We're not going to send a man to the moon right now within time to be first. So let's pursue some other stuff that the Americans aren't doing, Like what's the big deal about the moon anyway? Right, And as it turns out that kind of right, kind of um. But humanity as a whole benefited from that decision because the while the Americans were perfecting what the Americans were perfecting things like space shuttles and that kind of stuff, things that came directly out of the Apollo program and the lunar landing and just that that science. The Russians were, like you said, experimenting with things like docking systems, space stations. They ended up building the Mirror and so after the sky Lab. Yeah, we had sky Lab in the seventies, which I again go to the National Air and Space Museum. There's two. There's one at Dullest and then there's one like on the mall in d C. Yeah, it's like when it's one of the main Smithsonian museums. They have like a model of skylight that you can walk through. It's so seventies rrific, It's awesome. Yeah. Um, so we were experimenting with space stations, but at the same time it was very apparent after well, it wasn't the end of the Cold War. This is before the end of the Cold War, but after we won, after we landed on the Moon, apparently the Soviets and Americans said, hey, let's see if we can work together, and they actually did in a very symbolic but also technically um proficient manner the Soyo's Apollo mission of And we'll talk more about that right up in this break man. That music that's got me fired up. I know. Wow, we already won, even yeah, at least the first time. All right, So we left off you were talking about the joint Apollo Soya's test project UM, which was a really big deal to get together on this, and I'm I'm kind of surprised even back then that they had the foresight to work together, you know. Yeah, but because then we still weren't like great friends his nation in the early seventies, no, and space was still a huge question as to whether or not it could or should or would be weaponized too, Yeah, exactly. So for the two dominant superpowers on the planet to get together was a big deal. Yeah, And that happened in they literally got together in space when an Apollo craft carrying three of our astronauts hooked up and docked with the Soya's spacecraft with two cosmonauts, and they spent a couple of days, uh, you know, working and probably getting into one another, maybe drinking vodka. Yeah, they're probably We're not so different. We don't have to go to space and get drunk. Exactly. It's the best. I like tang, you like tank, right, let's put some podka in it. Exactly. So that was a big deal. And UM, at least from that, it proved that we could work together, our space agencies could work together, and UM it led to this this age of cooperation that grew directly out of the rivalry. UM. And like we said, the Russians were kind of paying attention to living for the duration in space. The Americans big thing was this Space Shuttle. We basically had like some cars that we could drive to the Moon or space and back. Um, and we kind of put the two together. Um. The Russians had the Mere Space Station and in the nineties their crews had worked in the eighties or nineties, I don't remember their crews. At least one crew had spent more than a year in space. That was huge, super huge because part of the goal with all of these is, can we one day live in space? Period? And so ultimately this led to this joint cooperation led to the International Space Station UH in the nineties. Yep. And if you go up to the International Space Station, you're gonna see Russians and you're gonna see Americans and they're all up there working together. Still. Oh, but Chuck, that is possibly changing. Yeah, I guess I should have said had been working together nicely, like good neighbors. Because is it Russia trying to like evict this now? Well, they're basically saying like, hey, you guys can't get up there anymore because and we're not going to give you a ride. No, well, no, they will give us a ride, but it's seventy one million dollars a ride now yeah, and um, at the very least, it's humiliating that Americans are having to hit your ride from Russians who are basically extorting money from us. So is this all at the root of it? Is it like just tensions between Putin and the US? Yeah, it all came from the Ukraine stuff in the sanctions. One of the first Russians to be anction was the head of the Russian Space Agency. So They were like, oh really, you know that's that's space station up there, Like, you guys are in trouble now, So I wonder is it not going to be the International Space Station anymore? I think what Russia is basically saying is watch what happens when we stopped giving you guys ride right, and then we say, you know what, let's just let the space station fall out of orbit. We Russia will still have a space flight program, a human space flight program. You guys won't because the International Space Station is the only piece of human space flight equipment that the United States has because the space Shuttle program was scrapped. Wow. Uh so the space Shuttle was scrapped, Like you said, um Bush before he left office sort of had to read a directive for NASA moving forward that is moot now because Obama scrapped a lot of it, um Bush want to go back to the moon basically, and even some of the people within NASA said, it's like Apollo on steroids, and do we really need to go back to the moon, Like what can we gain from that at this point? So Obama scrapped it and redirected NASA's funding towards more rocket technology. Research like how can we fire rockets farther and uh, can we refuel them in flight? And not just for military, but maybe this stuff can be useful, uh, you know in the space program as well. So that is the current space program. But there's a new space race. Yeah, um ish China. Yeah, has come along and very methodically and plaudingly has followed and met its space goals. Two thousand three put its first man in space. What do you said? They were taco nuts, Tyco nuts, Psycho nuts. Yeah. Yeah, one of the um I read an article about China's space race and they said, so far their space program program is roughly equivalent to the US and Soviet space program circum mid sixties. I saw that too. Yeah, so they're clearly behind, but apparently they are making a lot of headway in a short amount of time. Plus they have the luxury of not having to invent items like microchips from scratch, right that people, the Russians in the so in the Americans and the space race had to do. Um. The fact is, though, if you if you read anything about China and it's space ambitions and the United States in the state of its current space program, you basically find you're sitting around reminiscing about the golden days of Tang and guests. Grissom. Yeah, we're we're China is basically going to dominate space. They're poised to dominate space. They very cleverly have started a space uh station program that will come online at the same time that the I S S, the International Space Station UM makes its fiery ark in to the Pacific Somewhere I read, Yeah, the I S S is going to come down some time after two thousand sixteen, probably two thousand twenty, and the United States will have no presence in space any longer. China will be the only game in town with the space station. And I feel like, I don't know that this is true, but I feel like in something like space space exploration, UM, that's kind of something that you have to build on momentum. Once you use momentum, you really are set back. Like all of these people who are working for NASSA who have been laid off recently, and as they age out and retire and and all of that cumulative knowledge and and organizational memories lost. So even if we m to ten years from now, five years from now and say, whoa we're a spacefaring nation. We need to get back out there. We've lost quite a bit already, not to mention in the ensuing five or ten years where we start to lose exponentially more. Yeah, it takes a while to ramp that back up. And my my I agree. My fear is this that we're going to take our typical or what's come to be our typical klectocratic view of things and just let private business handle it. We'll just let you know, SpaceX handle it. For America. They're addicted the money, so they're in their pursuit of money. Um will benefit as a nation. Well, that hasn't necessarily worked out for us with like you know, housing markets and stock markets and dangerous chemicals and that kind of thing. So while I do think that the true space race right now is between private industry amongst itself and private industry and China, I don't think that as a nation, by sitting back and just leaving it to private industry and virtually withdrawing our federal dollars from space exploration, that the United States is going to benefit in any way, shape or form. Well, Yeah, especially when you hear Aston Kutcher is going up on Virgin Galactic. How's that helping us? It's not Angelina Jolie's up there, though, I don't know. I mean, I think it's neat, but it's it's one of those private space travel for the super rich. It's just like another thing for the super rich, like owning a yacht, Like, how does that benefit me that if you've got several hundred thousand dollars you can take a suborbital flight, which is basically like a tourist. You know, that's not that's not advancing I don't think that's advancing our space exploration at all. Just leave it to business. We'll see. And that's not to say that SpaceX or or any of the private space industries aren't working to do things beyond send movie stars enriched people to space. No, they're working to send the rest of us to space too. It's just the rich people and movie stars are the ones who will have the money to hit that first price point. But they're doing other things too, though, like research or are they not? Uh, Like that's what I need to look at. I would imagine that probably most of the goals of anything like SpaceX or any company like that is to is to make money from space, so I would guess mining, um, basically selling the services to space agencies, colonizing and selling a moon condos. Sure, like India, Iran, Um. These countries have space programs as well and are entering space themselves. Space X can go basically contract for them. Um. Yeah, they're they're doing stuff, but they're not doing stuff necessarily just for the pursuit of science like for the US even Yeah yeah, um, I got a couple of things before we finish. There's some inventions that sometimes are mistakenly attributed to NASA which aren't necessarily true, but our favorites in space. Yeah. Velcro is the one I've always heard that's wrong, is it? Yes? It was invented in the nineties by a hiker who um noticed that little birds were stuck to his socks and wondered how they stuck. I've heard that story. Look closely. This is the true story. Look closely and saw that birds have little hooks and his socks have little loops, and that gave rise to velcon and velcro is used a lot by NASA, so it's often wrongfully attributed to NASA. All right, this is a fun game, since you you know this stuff? Okay. How about Eminem's No, the popular candy that melts in your mouth and on in your hands. No, they also don't like squish around in space. The candy coated shell makes it great for space travel, but not invented four space. What about the joystick? Yes, okay, that is the direct result of the Space Race and the space programs. What about GPS? Yeah, because you can't spell Global Positioning satellite without positioning. Yeah it system, isn't it? GPS system? Yeah? It uses satellites. So we also have the space race bot that one. We also have the space face to thank for satellite TV. Uh. What about um smoke detectors in your home? Yes, because of Space program base yeah. Um. What about tang sopping dots, the freest dride, the dipping dots. I don't know, man, that was supposed to be like the you know, outer space ice cream. It's what the answer? Not tan supposedly, but I don't know if it was developed by NASSA for them. Um Tang. No, it was already around freeze drive foods. The freeze drying process was already around the freeze drive blood to save for later. Um. But then NASA adopted it to start free drying food, so technically you can thank NASA for free drive food. Yeah, and while tang was not invented by the Space program, it was definitely, um heavily marketed as being tied to the space program, and it was a big deal. Like it was like people gave it to their kids because they thought it would make them go into space. Yeah, like stronger and smarter and yeah, pretty much you got what are what are some other? I have one more for you. Have you ever heard there's like this um urban legend that the American Space program and the Soviet Space program both had this problem. Um, the the Americans they needed to be able to write in space, but if you use a pen, pens are functioned by gravity, and if you're in zero gravity you can't use a pen Seinfeld, had an astronaut been right, Yeah, So supposedly that NASA spent millions of dollars in coming up with a zero G pen, while the Soviets had a much better idea pencil. Was that really? Yeah? Wow, So apparently that's an urban myth. Both programs used pencils to start, but the Apollo one fire showed that you don't want anything that's even remotely flammable, like a wooden pencil aboard your spacecraft. So NASA started using mechanical pencils, which were a couple of hundred dollars a piece. They were way over paying them for him. Um. And then a man by the name of Fisher, who owned Fisher Pen Company, used his own millions of dollars to create a pressure functioning pen rather than gravity functioning pen, a space pen, which he in turns sold to the US Space program and eventually the Soviet space program for just a few dollars each. So that millions of dollars space pen is a myth that you that's your Paul Harvey moment. Uh pencils and hey, shout out to our buddy David Reese, who wrote the quintessential books how to sharpen Pencils book. Yep, not books, but if you want to know about sharpening pencils, that's the way to go. There's a book and he will explain that. And he's a great funny guy than a friend. So yeah, he's good. I always like to plug that. He's got a new show coming out. Well, um, what that geo? Oh yeah, yeah, what's it about. It's called Going Deep with David Reese, where he each episode is like how to open a Door, how to make ice, how to Squatterfly, where he goes deep into the how too is a very mundane task. It's nicely done. Yeah, I can't wait to see it for sure. Um, have you got anything else? I got nothing else. So if you want to know more about space race, you can type space and Race in the search part house to first dot com. And if this fascinated you, you should go back and listen to our was the mood Landing a hoax episode? Uh? And our episode did Reagan Star Wars program and the Cold War, both of them excellent excellent episodes we've done and you can find them both at Stuff you Should Know dot com, Slash Podcasts, slash archive. And we did a very special television episode about the Private Space Race. So one of our ten TV episode Stuff you Should Know featured John Hodgman. Uh. And the gist of the episode is we are have been invited to do some training for private space play. Yeah, it's bax and it's a fun episode. So you can get that on iTunes and Google Play and or you can stay up until four in the morning and watch it on side. Maybe apparently they do show the late night yeah, like regularly. Yeah cool for weird I'll have to watch those. Uh. If you already said all that, I think it's time, buddy for listening, ma'am. Okay, I'm gonna call this, uh breastfeeding from Becky. Hey, guys, I'm a newer fan. I'm so glad to found y'all. I discovered your shows while looking for ways to spend the vast amount of free time I have during my day. Now my husband I just had our first child, Penelope. Do you have free time? Well, you know, raising the kid not free. I wouldn't call it free time. I agree. Um, I've discovered that breastfeeding is very time consuming. I think she means while she's breastfeeding is not a lot of use. Basically forced to sit around for long stretches of time and able to do anything besides think, read, or listen to podcasts. I feel as if our daughters already leaps and bounds ahead of all the other four month olds out there. This is a while ago, so she's even older than that. She's been educated about how meth and crack cocaine, work, sign language, human cannonballs, the amputation, castration, diplomatic community, etcetera. The list is growing longer as we worked through the archives. Made me wonder if you ever thought about doing a show on breastfeeding. I thought at first it would be a super weird experience, but I've come to really be fascinated by the process. And let's be honest, it's something with which the vast majority of humans have had firsthand experience. So we didn't do breastfeeding doing No, we totally should that. That's a great suggestion as a huge hornet's nest too. Oh yeah, yeah, well, let's step right into it. Let's do it. That's from Becky Breastfeeding Becky. Thank you, Becky, Thanks Becky. Uh. If you want to suggest an episode, we are always up for that. We love great suggestions like Becky's. You can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. Uh, and last but not least, you can hang out with us at our home on the web, the coolest location on the Internet. It's called Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com.