Main Engine Cut Off - T+290: Jared Isaacman Nominated NASA Administrator

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

Jared Isaacman, the man with a private space program, has been nominated NASA Administrator, to run the nation’s space program.This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 32 executive producers—Frank, Lee, Joel, Theo and Violet, Harrison, Josh from Impulse, Matt, Warren, Will and Lars from Agile, Donald, Russell, Kris, Fred, Better Every Day Studios, Pat from KC, Joakim, Steve, Tim Dodd (the Everyday Astronaut!), Ryan, Pat, David, Stealth Julian, Bob, The Astrogators at SEE, Jan, Joonas, and four anonymous—and hundreds of supporters.TopicsT+287: Polaris Dawn (with Jared Isaacman) - Main Engine Cut OffT+288: The Return of President Trump - Main Engine Cut OffJared Isaacman Tapped to be Next NASA Administrator – SpacePolicyOnline.comTrump selects Isaacman to be NASA administrator - SpaceNewsHow did the CEO of an online payments firm become the nominee to lead NASA? - Ars TechnicaThe ShowLike the show? Support the show on Patreon or Substack!Email your thoughts, comments, and questions to [e-mail] @WeHaveMECOFollow @[e-mail] on MastodonListen to MECO HeadlinesListen to Off-NominalJoin the Off-Nominal DiscordSubscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn or elsewhereSubscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off NewsletterArtwork photo by SpaceXWork with me and my design and development agency: Pine Works

Hello and welcome to Main Engine Cutoff, I am Anthony Colangelo. Big news this week as Jared Isaacman was nominated to be NASA Administrator for the upcoming couple of years in the Trump administration. And I want to give you some quick thoughts on this. Really, it is maybe a summation or a collation of two of my three episodes in November in which I, in sequence, had Jared Isaacman on this show and then had an episode talking about the return of President Trump and what might happen in the world of spaceflight. And here we are. We'll bring them all together and tie it all up. Overall, I'm thrilled with

the nomination generally, as is a vast majority of the space industry right now. Everyone seems to be pretty up on it. There are obviously pockets that feel like this is someone too cozy to SpaceX and Elon Musk personally, and that this will be a little insidery. And I get that. But Jared's also somebody who has a reputation of being insanely kind and thoughtful. Some of his longer form writing in the last couple of months about space policy, defense policy. He's had some threads on X and other places with really thoughtfully written out descriptions of what he thinks should happen. Even on this show here, we talked a lot about the Hubble Space Telescope situation. We talked about some of his critiques of the current way of government contracting and some of the ways

that those projects are structured. And in all of that, he seemed very thoughtful and like somebody who cares about these things because he cares about them, not because of his position in the industry or position in society or whatever, right? Like, I think that's the key thing to understand about any particular person in any particular role is, you know, did they arrive at their opinions because, or did they arrive at their positions because of their opinions, or did they arrive at their positions because of their position? You know, is the senator from Alabama arriving at his decision about the SLS because from a first principles perspective,

he really does think that is the best architecture for spaceflight? Or is he arriving at that position because of his position as a senator from Alabama? Those are the things you need to untangle. In the Bridenstine era of NASA, we talked about this extensively of who was the real Jim Bridenstine? Was it the Jim Bridenstine before he had his seemingly dream job as NASA administrator? Or is the real Jim Bridenstine the one that was in a congressional confirmation hearing talking about climate change in that context as the NASA administrator? Or, you know, which of those were the real Jim Bridenstine? And you have that all the time, specifically with regards to politicians, because it is so murky in many cases. And in the

Jared Isaacman case, right, is he someone who is close to SpaceX because he already was close to SpaceX? Or is he close to SpaceX because they are doing the things that he cares about in the world of spaceflight and space development? He has a vision with both Inspiration4 and Polaris and the Polaris program that is very highly correlated with those in the space industry that are actively doing things and are actively leading the industry. And so therefore, he is close to SpaceX. But if Jared Eisenman is in a world in which Blue Origin had their capsule flying, and they had New Glenn flying regularly, and they were the ones that were on the front of

the industry when it comes to human spaceflight, he would absolutely be a Blue Origin supporter. If Starliner was the one that was cheaper and flying more regularly and reliable, he would be flying on Starliner. He didn't choose SpaceX because he loves Elon Musk. Maybe he did, but it's also highly correlated with the fact that SpaceX is doing the best stuff in terms of human spaceflight, every other kind of spaceflight, pretty much with maybe only robotic planetary exploration accepted, they are on the front lines of this. That's what we've talked about for years on this show. So is he arriving at that because they're the ones doing the best or because he's chosen them as a winner? That's an important part to disentangle. And when you look at his writing, when you hear him talk, when you talk to him personally, you get the sense that he deeply cares about this stuff. And that is why he is in

this industry at all. You know, he kind of made his way into the space industry because he cared about it. It wasn't that he saw this as his way to become a billionaire. He made that money elsewhere. And, you know, I think that that does matter. Now, the other aspect here is that no matter who was the NASA administrator, no matter who won the election, this era of NASA, this next four years was going to be crucial no matter who was in any of those positions. delayed or canceled or restructured or something. Decisions are going to be made because it has to. All of the budgets, I've been incessant about this for like, you know, a year or two, all of the budgets are surging at the same time. Everything is costing a lot of money all at the same time. So that can't work. They're not going to magically get $10 billion more than NASA budget, especially in an era when government spending is going to be looked at as closely as it appears to be. So there were going to be decisions made on SLS Orion, on the Artemis program overall, on the commercial LEO space stations department, on Lunar Gateway,

all of these different areas that are coming to a head right now. Something was going to happen. So for people outside of the space industry that might not listen to the show, I think they look at whatever's about to happen as the difference between NASA staying exactly as it was intended versus a bunch of things getting canceled or delayed or restructured. Whereas I and probably you see this as things were going to be restructured it is who's doing the restructuring that really matters but there was going to be a some their hand was going to be forced in some way so i don't think it's like a zero to one thing i think this is

understanding the differences is in in how that decision might shake out not the existence of the decision in itself also important to note for people that might ask you, hey, what's up with this guy running NASA? Maybe I'm in the realm of somebody who's gotten a lot of text messages in the last couple of days of like, hey, what's up with this guy running NASA? But I think these are the important things to consider from, again, from like a first principles perspective of Jared Isaacman becoming the head of NASA. I'm a little bit conflicted, to be honest, because I think Jared Isaacman is someone who's very effective at pushing the frontier of space development, not within NASA. He's a really good influence to have in the industry of showing that there is a different way,

showing that some of these things can be done outside of traditional structures. He has his own private spaceflight program, and the purpose of it is a private Gemini program. That is really cool to have in the industry. We know that he's going to be stepping down from Shift 4, still maintaining ownership in it, but stepping down from voting and decision-making and all that kind of stuff if and when he's confirmed as NASA administrator. We don't really know what the future holds for the Polaris program. Is that going to just kind of sit there? You know, it was going to be a couple of years until the next flight anyway. Presumably he would run his tenure out as NASA administrator and then go back to doing the Polaris program. Will it kind of stay

intact? And the people that are in Polaris elsewhere and SpaceX and the departments within SpaceX that are focused on that, they know their marching orders. They know what's next on the roadmap. They have the work cut out for them. We don't know what shape and form that's going to take yet. And that's notable too. is interesting in the way that Trump supporters had said back in 2015 when Trump was originally running of, he's not part of this system, so he's not beholden to the same influences as the system. Jared Isaacman, that's especially true for him as the head of NASA. He can just go back to being Jared Isaacman, being the guy who runs a cool payments company and goes to space as part of his private space program and flies fighter jets. He has plenty of interesting things going on. And that makes for interesting scenarios as well, because he isn't beholden to the same system. Even Jim Bridenstine, you know, he is a politician who came out of Congress and went into NASA leadership. So in some ways, he was responsive when Senator Shelby told him, do not bring up depots again,

never talk about Orion flying on anything but SLS. He was responsive to those demands. I think Jared Isaacman would rather just go back to being Jared Isaacman than capitulate on something that he sees as the real way forward. And that's an interesting thing, too, because we haven't seen that particular combination before. You know, a lot of people get into these kind of roles and they're still thing, too, because we haven't seen that particular combination before. You know, a lot of people get into these kind of roles and they're still thinking, well, I've got decades ahead of me in life. What am I going to go do from here?

And they have to consider that. Right. If you're maybe not Bill Nelson, because he's like, I'm just going to retire at this point. I've had my run through Congress and I've had my run as my dream job as a NASA administrator. And I'm going to sail off into the sunset and enjoy my days on the Space Coast. You know, that could be where he goes. But for the others, it's always like, what kind of consulting thing am I going to do next? What kind of, am I going to go into investment? Am I going to get some seats on boards? There is always that. I think Jared's might just be he's going back to being Jared Isaacman.

So I do have a little bit of concern, though, that he is so effective outside of NASA, and that having an example of that is really good for the industry. But also, I think his instincts are right for where NASA is at at the moment. I mean, the way he runs the Polaris program is what I would like to see NASA do. Take advantage of the things that are on the market and incentivize them to develop in the areas that they're not yet because you're interested in it and you know that it's healthy for the long-term architecture of a space program. Not even a national space program, not even a particular company's, but just a space program, lowercase a, lowercase s,

lowercase p. A space program benefits from SpaceX being able to have an EVA suit and do EVAs and develop new technologies like being able to vent Dragon down to vacuum and flying higher than we've been since the Apollo missions. All of these things that he's doing at the Polaris program are the kinds of stuff that if that were NASA's operating model, I think we'd all be happy about it because it would be them leading the industry and saying, these are the areas we want to develop. These are the areas that we want to put more focus on. If the Polaris program in its current manifest ran out, think about what would Polaris 4, 5, or 6 be. It's pretty easy to see at some point those being, you know, large down mass to the surface of Mars, large down mass

to the surface of the moon, things that would be up next in terms of the next most interesting thing for humans to do. That's the kind of stuff that we want NASA focused on. So his instincts when he were to make a space program of his own are what we would like to see from NASA. And I say we, it's not everybody, right? There's certainly people that are listening right now that are probably rage quitting this podcast, but a wide swath of the space industry really wants to see that kind of activity from NASA itself and would see that as beneficial to developing capabilities in space. That's really cool. If somebody is going to run NASA that has already shown this is what I would do with the space program and I dig it, I'm into it. So if

you match that up to the priorities and the questions that he might be focused on uh the questions that might come his way he's not somebody who says nasa needs to replicate what is going on in the commercial market because we need to have that capability of our own it's nasa needs to do something just beyond what they're currently working on and take advantage of what's there. So NASA doesn't need to fund a internet constellation, but certainly making use of those comms benefits their missions. And that's what NASA is doing already. They're leaning in that direction in many different ways. But Jared's shown that that's his instinct, and that's what he's going to bring to this. So I'd be remiss not to mention some of the stuff that's been talked about lately, which is obviously SLS Orion, Gateway, commercial LEO stations. Those are the big three questions that there are there

for human spaceflight. There's a ton of questions about Mars sample return and what's going to be done there. Highly variable, don't even have enough to speculate on it past what I've already speculated on, but he's the guy that's also going to be signing that paperwork when it's either decided to be canceled entirely, restructured, refocused. I'll get to that in a minute. But the other three, the human spaceflight programs, those are all coming to a head. Eric Berger reported the other day that there's a tentative deal in place with lawmakers to cancel SLS in trade for officiallyS. Space Command to Huntsville, Alabama. That's a thing that was a hot button issue in the Trump administration,

then the Biden administration is still unresolved of where U.S. Space Command is going to be. Complicated by several things from the previous Trump administration where the decision was made to move it to Huntsville, Alabama. President Trump went on a radio show and said, I moved this there because politics. And then there was a lawsuit of like, or there was a government investigation of, did he move it there because of politics, even though he said it on a radio show? And it came back, no, it evaluated the best. So that got murky in the way that most things did in the 2016 to 2020 era.

Still a little bit unresolved. But if that deal is in place, that's certainly an interesting trade-off to consider. There is still the structure of NASA to contend with. This is not Jared Isaacman getting to rewrite NASA as if it's the Polaris program. There is still the structure of NASA to contend with. So if that deal is in place, you need to figure out what to do, how to sell internally, how to restructure programs, how to retask people, what to do with people, how you can do those different things that you're interested in. So I don't think it's as cut and dry as that deals in place, cancel SLS, move on with our life. You know, for years, people have talked about, well, maybe you take all the people working on

SLS and you focus them on lunar habitats, or you focus them on lunar surface power, or something that isn't being done right now in the commercial industry, or something that you can't even foresee being done without NASA taking it on rather than crewed spaceflight and heavy lift launch vehicles. We have a couple of those laying around right now. We have a few more in development. I think we'll be okay in that department. But in order to do that, if that's your intent, you do have to figure out how to politic your way through the decision and how to actually make that policy stick within NASA. That's going to be really interesting to see how he navigates that all. I think it's pretty unlikely that the SLS Block 1B comes to fruition.

I think it's pretty unlikely that the Lunar Gateway stays as is and in its current configuration and timeline. Those two things are huge drivers of expense in the next 5-10 years for the Artemis program, with arguably little benefit. People can make cases for why it's beneficial to have Lunar Gateway. I've talked very recently, so you can go back in a show or two and listen to why I think those things should be excised from the program. would have, quote unquote, saved by canceling Gateway and canceling block SLS-1B, if every cent of that just was gone and didn't come back to NASA, I think the program would be better off without it. I really do. So I guess my point in all this is that these questions are, it's not Jared Isaacman's choice to bring these questions up. These questions are here for NASA, whether they want them or not, whether Jared Isaac moves in charge, whether Kamala one and Pam Melroy was the head of NASA, no matter who was in these

positions, who was president, who was NASA administrator, who was deputy administrator, these questions were coming. And it's a matter of who's going to answer them. And we got a guy who has shown us what kind of space program he would like to run that takes advantage of the industry and leans forward in ways that the industry is not taking on yet. And I'm really encouraged by that as a policy model. How that can get through and what things stick is the question. Can he make three things stick out of 10 or 20 that he tries? Good progress. Not everything's going to stick. They're going to have to give ground in certain areas if they're trying to do something radical. But then again, there's a huge amount of variability in what could happen here because the industry is in, as I illuminated on a show or two

back, the industry is in such a different spot right now when President Trump takes office this time than he did last time. It has been eight long years in the industry. There has been so many different things that have happened since President Trump took office the first time. It has been eight long years in the industry. There has been so many different things that have happened since President Trump took office the first time. So the decisions that get made are influenced by the fact that things are so different now. The environment that they're working in is also wholly different in that there are giant battles being waged within government at large right now. So if NASA really is, you know, you could say that's a good and bad thing, right? Either NASA is going to fly under the radar because there are these huge budgetary battles being fought elsewhere,

or they're fighting huge budgetary battles elsewhere, so they can't do it at NASA. Those options are both valid. I honestly wouldn't believe you if you said, you know, you rolled the clock four years forward and said, this one happened, I would be not surprised by either answer. But it does, the exciting part is, these things are in the cards right now. We're up for a really exciting four years. It's going to be a chaotic four years. There's going to be some side effects that we don't like. There's going to be some side effects we do like. There's going to be development in areas that we want. There's going to be things that go slower than we would hope. That's always going to be the case.

But these questions were coming from NASA. They were coming from NASA. They were here to be answered. And it's a matter of who is signing that paperwork. And it's a guy with instincts that I really trust. Not only because I've talked to him and I trust that, but because he's shown us. He's actually done things to demonstrate what kind of space program he would run. And that's really cool. We've never had a NASA administrator come in, in that regard. I joked to Jake, my co

host on Off Nominal the other day, that I'm conflicted still about him being the head of NASA. Like I said up front, he's very effective when he's outside of NASA. So do I want him to make the jump and be inside of NASA as well? I joke that, you know, I kind of assume that someday there will be a Jared Isaacman space telescope. I would prefer it the one that he funds himself than the one that an administrator 20 years from now names after him. So we'll see if that comes to fruition either.

But that's kind of where my head's at. You know, a lot of people have asked, again, this is a little bit of a summation of two of my three shows in November, but I guess that's life when you have interesting people on the podcast. So thank you all so much for the support, for listening. You all are supporting this show directly. It was 100% listener-supported show. I thank you so much for all of your support over at mainenginecutoff.com slash support. You can join up there. There are 32 executive producers of this episode of the show.

Thanks to Frank, Lee, Joel, Theo and Violet, Harrison, Josh from Impulse, Matt, Warren, Will and Lars from Agile Space, Donald, Russell, Chris, Fred, Better Everyday Studios, Pat from KC, Joakim, Steve, Tim Dodd, The Everyday Astronaut, Ryan, Pat, David, Stealth Julian, Pat from KC, Joakim, Steve, Tim Dodd, The Everyday Astronaut, Ryan, Pat, David, Stealth, Julian, Bob, The Astrogators at SCE, Jan, Eunice, and four

anonymous executive producers. Thank you all so much for listening. If you want to join the crew of supporters, manage to cut off the comm slash support. You are the reason that I do this. And if you join up there, you get access to Miko Headlines, a show that I do every single, I say week to 10 days. News tends to hit right before I'm ready to record, so it delays me to like 11 days sometimes. But I run through every single story in Spaceflight, filter out the ones that are dumb that you don't need to know about, and tell you about the good ones. So if you want someone else to read all the space news and tell you about it, and you also want to support the show, you like what I'm doing, it's a huge way to make sure that we keep doing this. And I thank you all so much for the support. You are all wonderful. Very thankful for the almost 900 of you out there.

So thank you all so much. And that's all I've got for you. So we'll see what happens in the next couple of days. I'm sure it'll be interesting. There's a lot of confirmation battles being fought within the administration. It doesn't feel like Jared Isaacman is going to have one of those but people will try so we'll see there's going to be a lot made of his relationship with SpaceX but I think it's going to happen

we're here for an interesting timeline thank you all so much for being with me and I'll talk to you soon.