Welcome, everyone. It is the first Friday in October, so it's time for planetary radios

space policy edition. I'm Matt Kaplan, the host of planetary radio, particularly the

weekly show that I hope you're all tuning into and enjoying. Thank you for that. I am joined

by Casey Dreyer, the senior space policy advisor and chief advocate for the planetary society

with whom I have been co-hosting the space policy edition for I've lost track years and

years. Five more than five years going on five and a half years now. Hi, Casey. Hey,

Matt, happy to be here. And I guess this is it's always timings little awkward, but I

guess this is our spooky Halloween edition of the space policy show. And we have an appropriately

scary situation to discuss. Congressionally with debt limits and potential government shutdowns

and funding clips and all sorts of other wild stuff happening in the US Congress that will

impact NASA. And to talk about that, we have our colleague, Brendan Curry, our chief of DC

operations. So we will be discussing what is happening in DC later in this episode.

Very much looking forward to hearing from Brendan in just a few minutes here. I guess, you

know, in space, no one could hear you scream in DC. Everyone can hear you scream and no

one cares. It happens a lot. Oh, well, scary space, kiddies. I'm sorry you had to drop back

into this mailstrom after having what certainly sounds like a wonderful vacation that included

getting your scuba certification, which is something that I've had for a long time, though

I haven't used it in a long time. So congratulations. Well, thanks, Matt. It's the most affordable

alternative to flying into space right now that I can do and get a sense of weightlessness

while underwater. And I actually had a really fun time doing that with my wife. We went

Hawaii and we learned how to scuba and really what I found really amazing was you're at

neutral buoyancy and you can inhale and exhale and you can control your presence or your position

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