Space Updates: NASA Administrator, Reusable Rockets, and Satellite Cell Service GUEST NAME: Bob Zimmerman Bob Zimmerman discusses the potential renomination of billionaire Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator, noting Isaacman's previous private manned sp
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 11 October 2025
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Space Updates: NASA Administrator, Reusable Rockets, and Satellite Cell Service
Bob Zimmerman discusses the potential renomination of billionaire Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator, noting Isaacman's previous private manned space missions. He highlights Stoke Space raising nearly $1 billion to develop its fully reusable Nova rocket, potentially cheaper than SpaceX's offerings. AST SpaceMobile signed Verizon (adding to AT&T) to use its "Bluebirds" satellites for direct cell phone service, eliminating dead spots. SpaceX recently flew a Falcon booster for its 29th flight. Congressional cuts zeroed out 15 potential space missions
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBS Eye on the World. |
| 0:06.6 | Bob Zimmerman, Behind the Black. |
| 0:08.6 | We're looking at an interstellar visitor. |
| 0:11.3 | What is that little bright spot, Bob? |
| 0:14.0 | Yes, I got this picture up on Behind the Black. |
| 0:16.7 | This is Interstellar Comet 3-I Atlas. |
| 0:19.6 | It's now zooming through the solar system. It's relatively |
| 0:23.4 | close, not particularly close, but relatively close to Mars. It's behind the sun so we on Earth can't see |
| 0:29.7 | it right now. So it's moving past Mars right now, and not too close, but it's close enough that |
| 0:36.7 | the orbiters around Mars can turn and look at it. |
| 0:40.4 | And so Europe's trace gas orbiter circling Mars turned and took a look and took a picture |
| 0:47.0 | using its camera of comet three eye atlas. And I posted this on behind the black. It's not a |
| 0:52.8 | particularly good shot, which is not surprising. None of those. There's going to be more images from these orbitors at |
| 0:58.4 | Mars over the next week or so. And there'll be more images from the Jupiter probe juice that |
| 1:06.1 | Europe has gotten the solar system. But none of them is going to be great. They're not designed |
| 1:09.9 | to look at this. |
| 1:15.3 | But nonetheless, because it's an interstellar subject, and we want to get as much data as possible, |
| 1:21.5 | they took a picture. The picture doesn't change much. It tells us it's got a coma like a comet and it's erupting water minerals. It's unique. |
| 1:28.1 | It's not exactly like every other comment, |
| 1:29.5 | but then every other comment is not like any other comment. |
| 1:31.6 | So this is not a surprise. |
| 1:33.1 | And that it's so much like our comments tells us |
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