I’m Anthony Colangelo.

Jake and Anthony talk about Firefly’s latest spectacular Alpha failure, and the skinny budget request.

Mark Albrecht joins me to talk about his time on the Trump 2024 Transition Team, the thinking behind some of the policy decisions we’re starting to see in the space and national security spheres, and more.

We take a tour of Marotta Controls in Montville, New Jersey, to see how they work, how they develop, produce, and test products at rate, and we learn about the most feared topic in space—valves!

Caleb Henry, Director of Research at Quilty Space, joins me to talk megaconstellations, the hypersonics industry, and more.

Jake and Anthony are joined by Dante Lauretta, Principal Investigator of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, and Professor of Planetary Science at the University of Arizona, to talk about—take a guess!—returning and studying pristine samples from Bennu.

Jake and Anthony are joined by Roman Chiporukha, founder of SpaceVIP, a travel agency for space.

Jared Isaacman was in Congress for a confirmation hearing for his nomination as NASA Administrator, which was followed up by reports of huge proposed budget cuts at NASA and NOAA. And as expected, SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin all received awards for NSSL Phase 3 Lane 2.

Jake and Anthony talk about Jared Isaacman’s confirmation hearing, and the apocalyptic NASA science budget.

Jake and Anthony are joined by Chris Carberry and Sam Burbank to talk about their first documentary film, Alcohol in Space - The Movie, their upcoming projects, and the 2025 Humans to the Moon & Mars Summit.

Jake and Anthony are joined by Richard French, Vice President, Business Development and Strategy, Space Systems at Rocket Lab, to talk about their Mars Sample Return architecture, the way they’ve been putting the word out on it, and to hear what’s been up with their space systems side of the business lately.

Eric Berger of Ars Technica joins me to talk about his recent interviews with Butch and Suni in the aftermath of their flight, the update NASA put out about Starliner, and how it all lands from where we are now.

Jake and Anthony are joined by writer and podcaster Jason Snell, to talk about Jared Isaacman’s nomination to lead NASA, what’s been up in the NASA CFO scene, what astronauts really want to be doing, and so much more. Also, this episode completes the Lifoff-Nominal crossover spectacular, AND makes 10 year old Anthony very happy that he’s podcasting with Jason friggin’ Snell.

Jake and Anthony are joined by Awais Ahmed, Founder and CEO of Pixxel, to talk about building a constellation of hyperspectral imaging satellites. Honestly, we mostly try to help Jake get his head around the electromagnetic spectrum.

Eric Schmidt has taken a majority stake in Relativity and will serve as its CEO, so this is a good time to check in on their plans. Rocket Lab is planning to acquire Mynaric, and I have a theory I felt like I needed to float.

Jake and Anthony are joined by Jonathan McDowell, astrophysicist at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the namesake of the McDowell Line at 80 kilometers, to talk about his fundraiser to move his epic space library to a new, permanent home.

Josh Dinner of Space.com joins me to talk about a wild week in space—Firefly’s Blue Ghost 1, Intuitive Machines’ IM-2, SpaceX’s Starship Flight 8, Rocket Lab announcements, and more.

Jake and Anthony talk about the Moon lander mania this week has been—Firefly’s Blue Ghost 1 and Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 missions.

Former Congressman and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine joins me to talk space policy, then and now: CLPS, Commercial Space Stations, Artemis, international partnerships, and more.

Jake and Anthony are joined by Casey Dreier, Chief of Space Policy at The Planetary Society, to talk about the current era of Executive action, Congressional pushback (or not) against it, and the upcoming Day of Action.

Jake and Anthony are joined by Matthew Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau to talk about their new book, Space to Grow: Unlocking the Final Economic Frontier. Supply! Demand! Subsidies! Probably dunking on the commercial space station market!