Every time you buy a tuna fish sandwich the guy rings it up and it’s more expensive than you thought because of taxes. Taxes! Our money disappears and whadda we get back? Before you respond “nuthin!” (and spit on the floor for added effect) I have some exciting news. A very, very (very, very) small percentage of your hard-earned dough is going to a pretty cool new streaming app: NASA+.

NASA quietly sunsetted its cable channel, NASA TV, just before Labor Day this year. Honestly, it never lived up to its potential. What should have been a look at bleeding edge technology and far-out visuals direct from the source was usually just a feed of dudes standing around computer monitors. It was like C-SPAN with pocket protectors.

But those days are no more! Transitioning to a streaming app (which you can get via Roku and Apple TV and all the other devices), a website (plus.nasa.gov) and, very soon, feeding content to a channel on Amazon, NASA+ is putting a fresh coat of paint on all the cool stuff that quietly happened on NASA TV as well as developing new programming.

And some of it really is creative—like a series called Space Out, which is like the Calm App, but of actual NASA space images set to ambient music. Put that on in the background at your next party and you can’t miss.

DECIDER had the good fortune to speak recently to NASA+’s Mission Commander, Rebecca Sirmons, a former Los Angeles-based television executive now based at NASA’s HQ in Washington, D.C. (Her office has cool posters of the space shuttle on the walls.) Oddly enough, it was just after the launch of Europa Clipper, a mission that (not to jinx it or anything) may very well confirm what so many expect—that under the icy surface of one of Jupiter’s moons lurks a salty ocean brimming with life. (NASA+ is saving that revelation for sweeps week, 2030!) (<—That is a joke.) 

Anyway, read on to learn what Sirmons and her team are planning for the future of this futuristic app. You pay for it anyway. 

DECIDER: One night I was up late, poking around on my Apple TV and I was like “what the hell is NASA+? This looks cool? So … what the hell is NASA+?”

REBECCA SIRMONS: Linear TV is ending, and the next generation is on streaming. The people who will be the ones making the first missions to Mars, we’re meeting them where they are. 

For me personally, I have a TV production background in Los Angeles, but I’m Florida-raised, so pretty NASA-obsessed. When my daughter was 1-year-old, I wanted to watch Bob [Behnken] and Doug [Hurley] go up, but I couldn’t find NASA TV. I wanted my daughter to have a similar experience to what I had. I didn’t understand why NASA didn’t have something. 

It seems like a big opportunity for NASA. In the 1960s, when cable television barely existed, NASA certainly produced a lot of material that was distributed, but then for decades you only saw NASA TV if you went to a hotel that got weird channels. You’d turn it on expecting cool stuff … and it would be some dude talking in front of a DOS computer.

NASA TV laid the foundation. Because of what they did on linear, now we can exist on streaming. 

And we did a gradual shift. The whole thing has been internal—we have no outside parties. I mean, NASA has great engineers, right? When we launched we had zero viewers, and now it’s a million hours consumed, which is small, but consistently going up.

95% of what brings people in is a live event, and then there’s a 20 to 30% stay rate.

Well, that happened to me. There was a live interview with Suni Williams up on the I.S.S.—I got to see her hair flying around in zero gravity—and when it was over I kept poking around and watched something about data sonifcation that blew my mind. 

Perfect. And as more people sign in or use the NASA app they’ll get notifications for live events.

So this is all free, right? This is my tax money at work?

Yes.

I pay your salary?

Yes, absolutely.

Is this only for the U.S.?

No, it’s global.

So I’m subsidizing some Frenchman watching this?

Yes, well, international partnerships are part of this … it’s a global journey, we’re all in it together. We work with ESA (European Space Space Agency) and Canada—

I was poking around ESA’s webpage and also our friends at Roscosmos in Russia, and while they do have video, you guys just blow them away.

Thank you.

ESA’s at least has a look, Russia’s is a complete disaster.

[Rebecca diplomatically remains silent.]

Do you see a future with some co-productions with the other agencies?

We do work with others in terms of, like, gathering shots we can use. Things are different in space. We all have our cameras but there are, you know, feeds we share. Co-productions are not planned for now because America is paying for this. We don’t want to subsidize other people’s material. Plus, we’re telling our story, you know? Showing the heartbeat of NASA is our goal.

It’s amazing this launch coincides so perfectly with Europa Clipper. There’s your narrative arc for the next five years, right?

Absolutely. As well as how NASA is modernizing. We’re being very mindful of what’s coming up. You will watch the next moon landing live on NASA+ in 4K. It’s gonna be—the next moon landing will be fire. 

Now, as far as our show content, yes, our Other Worlds series just highlighted Europa. That’s no mistake. Also, the ongoing JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) stories, our upcoming Planetary Defenders documentary, which is so cool—it’s about astronauts actively saving the world from asteroids, ensuring we won’t end up like the dinosaurs—these stories answer the story of “why are we even doing these things?” Which is a very real question the public asks!

What’s the first show you want people to watch when they get NASA+?

The live events. Watch how it comes together. Watch a launch. Also the kids content. We’re working to build more, and it’s what brings a lot of viewers in.

Plop your kid in front of NASA+, it won’t hurt them.

Yes, it’s free, and you don’t have to worry about them, like if they were poking around on YouTube. Also The Color of Space, which is about our Black astronauts. That’s also the heartbeat of NASA. 

Let’s go deep on the offerings here, and why I am convinced you guys are building a great service. Number one:  SPACE OUT. I saw this and nearly did a cartwheel. 

Turn on. Tune in. Space Out.

How did you get this approved? How is it that our government is cool?!?! Will you maintain this?

Yes. And it’s a kid favorite, too. I put my daughter in front of it and she was mesmerized for hours.

When I first went to Goddard Space Center they showed me some STS (Space Transport System) imagery and all I could think was how I wanted this on a big screen with cool music. Now, NASA is the most creative place I’ve ever worked in my life because you are kinda given nothing, then you need to figure something out. So, we’ve already got a season two coming soon, and we’re kicking it off with black holes. 

Season three, I feel like you need to get some known rock bands, maybe jazz artists, some experimental DJs. There are definitely some famous people that would love to score a 40-minute zone-out to Neptune. Remember, my taxes pay for NASA+ so I get to make suggestions. 

I would love that. Believe me. It’s tough because we’re a government organization, we can’t solicit, so …

It’s gotta come from them?

Yes.

Okay, I’m putting the word out to all the good artists, and somebody cool is gonna’ sign up.

This is the next step, perhaps a competition or something.

Hey, that’s even better. Find someone new. 

I have an interesting job. I have the easiest thing in the world to sell, because it’s free. I can say “hey, Amazon, you want this?” But then it’s still working with the government. It goes through procurement, there are a lot of rules about equal treatment. Which can be good, it makes you stay creative.

I joked about the old NASA TV. You put it on and some guy is blabbing with a PowerPoint. A little boring. But I love that it’s still there, for the hardcore science nerds and for students. You call this The Von Karman Lecture Series, and I am going to predict over time it is your least-viewed content—

[Chuckling] Yep.

But I implore you to always keep it, because it shows you remain hardcore. If someone really wants to know about sunspots, this is the way to go. 

Absolutely. And we’ve got something in development that doesn’t have an official title yet, that’s basically NASA Talks. Let’s say you want to see the latest developments with James Webb. This is where you go to hear a cool NASA scientist talk about it. And we’re looking for more distribution partners—we have a deal with Kanopy, because we need to be in every school, every university and library. 

Something else that I got excited about was the deep archive of old NASA 16mm documentaries that go back to the Mercury 7. You guys own it, you just pull ‘em off the shelf. Is there more to come?

Oh, yes! Our archives are legendary. We go to Johnson Space Center, physically take them off the shelf, dust ‘em off. We’re going to put more out there. It’s free!

Some are very “of their time.” It’s pretty damn male—

I know, I know—

And others, like I watched one on Skylab—which was great!—but had some dry patches. I would imagine you can inexpensively repackage some of this material, put a new coat of paint on it in a way … 

This is something we’re very passionate about. Our show Our Alien Earth, that’s a repackage of an older show, Astrobiology in the Field. Another great series called JPL and the Space Age, I love this one. We’re looking to see how we can freshen it up a little. 

The Skylab one is a good one to repackage because a lot of people don’t know about Skylab, how they did their exercises and stuff, it’s really neat.

Now that we’re friends, Rebecca, I need to get into some controversy. This might be uncomfortable. For all things NASA and visual, there is the great schism—the meatball and the worm. And NASA+ chooses neither! When I clicked with my little Apple TV remote to start a show, a whole new font showed up. Walk me through this, as I know this probably involved a lot of work and probably some screaming and yelling.

Oh, indeed. My God. This was a decision that went all the way up. We needed to replace NASA TV. We needed an identifier. We needed to replace the meatball. 

Now, by the way, I am #TeamWorm. Just saying. But we needed something, and we didn’t want to just lean into the old. We needed something simple. This was actually one of the first questions I had. Because you can’t—they were like “Rebecca, you can’t doctor the worm! We don’t doctor the worm!!!” So there was a lot of back and forth. Also with our sound, our little quindar. A lot of back and forth. 

The upcoming shows, like Planetary Defenders, do you foresee splashy press events for when those debut?

Well, Planetary Defenders, for example, which will come out in 2025, there’s a pretty well-known film festival that isn’t 100% official but, fingers crossed, looks like we’ll have a debut there and … I’m kinda still pinching myself. 

Last question: who’s your favorite Star Trek captain?

Picard. He’s the go-to leader. Instinctual. Immediately. There’s an emergency? Go to Picard. 

Jordan Hoffman is a writer and critic in New York City. His work also appears in Vanity Fair, The Guardian, and the Times of Israel. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, and tweets at @JHoffman about Phish and Star Trek.