Jared Isaacman nominated as NASA Administrator

[yg1968]

Senate complicates Isaacman confirmation for NASA:
https://www.axios.com/2025/11/18/ted-cruz-jared-isaacman-nasa-hearing-senate

[yg1968]

Berger also supports Jared Isaacman's nomination to lead NASA. Guest: Eric Berger.
https://audioboom.com/posts/8809063-continued-berger-also-supports-jared-isaacman-s-nomination-to-lead-nasa-guest-eric-berger

[Comga]

Blackstar: That was quite the commentary.
Do you think Isaacman will read this or a similar, on-the-ground knowledge based critique?

[Blackstar]

Assuming he is confirmed as administrator, his first several weeks will be spent getting briefed by the senior civil service staff. If he doesn't know how NASA is currently organized, he will know by the end of those briefings. For many of these issues, it doesn't matter what his opinion about things are if the facts are different (for instance, if he thinks that NEP will provide faster propulsion throughout the solar system, the actual physics will not support that opinion). Whether that changes his mind on other things or not is TBD.

[leovinus]

I've read the Athena document and find it puzzling.

Interesting. Thanks for the summary. That seems quite mismatched with NASA and current situation. I wonder whether Jared has read books like “Chasing New Horizons” or DC-X books to learn about NASA, JPL and office politics.

Your software observation made me shake my head. Rewriting the same stuff for every mission is very 70sh. If that is what is on the menu for eg Enceladus then there are far bigger issues to solve. For example, car software, talk to Volkswagen about their software money pit (all bespoke but not better than off the shelf CarPlay ).  Very roughly and dreamy, i wish we could plug an iPhone in a space probe as controller and just develop a new app or APIs for new instruments. Details of course for another thread.

[Jim]

Your software observation made me shake my head. Rewriting the same stuff for every mission is very 70sh. If that is what is on the menu for eg Enceladus then there are far bigger issues to solve. For example, car software, talk to Volkswagen about their software money pit (all bespoke but not better than off the shelf CarPlay ).  Very roughly and dreamy, i wish we could plug an iPhone in a space probe as controller and just develop a new app or APIs for new instruments. Details of course for another thread.

No.  The issue is Mission 1 is done by Contractor A, Mission 2 is done by Contractor B,and Mission 3 is done by Contractor C,  When it comes to Mission 4 and it is going to done by Contractor A, the software and avionics from Mission 1 is 5-10 years old.  Or just replace Mission with Apple, Android  and other.

[Blackstar]

Your software observation made me shake my head. Rewriting the same stuff for every mission is very 70sh.

Science spacecraft are unique and complex. They have instruments that are unique to the spacecraft and they perform missions that are unique to the spacecraft. You are not going to use the same software to operate the X-ray sensors on Chandra and process that data that you use for a mass spectrometer landed on Mars. They do entirely different things and operate in entirely different environments.

[catdlr]

Phillp Sloss reports on Jared Isaacman's nomination

27:37 Senate schedules second confirmation hearing for Jared Isaacman

[Don2]

I don't understand the enthusiasm for Isaacman. It would be nice to have an Administrator who understands the engineering and the science. However, what NASA needs right now is somebody who understands  Congressional politics. The next Administrator will need to find allies in Congress to fight off attacks from Russ Vought's OMB. Presidential support would be helpful, but Isaacman doesn't seem to have much of that. The White House seems to be renominating him because they can't be bothered to find another candidate. It seems to me that he is starting off with a very weak position, and he doesn't have any existing relationships with Congress to help him out.

I'm not impressed by Isaacman's interest in nuclear propulsion. A quick look at the budget shows that NASA can't afford the missions for which nuclear propulsion might be useful. In fact, NASA's current budget is hopelessly inadequate for much of what they are trying to do including returning men to the moon. Realigning the ambitions with the available budget is going to have to happen, but the politicians will resist that as long as they can.

[Coastal Ron]

I don't understand the enthusiasm for Isaacman. It would be nice to have an Administrator who understands the engineering and the science. However, what NASA needs right now is somebody who understands  Congressional politics. The next Administrator will need to find allies in Congress to fight off attacks from Russ Vought's OMB.

The NASA Administrator is a political appointee, not a non-partisan position. And since it is President Trump himself who has nominated him, Trump would not take kindly to the new NASA Administrator blocking the even more important director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), who is responsible for implementing the president's agenda across the executive branch.

NASA Administrators do the bidding of the President, and if they go "off script" then they are canned. Pretty simple.

Presidential support would be helpful, but Isaacman doesn't seem to have much of that.

Who do you think (re) nominated him? The President did.

The White House seems to be renominating him because they can't be bothered to find another candidate.

Or they can't find one that would be willing to work in the Trump Administration, implementing the policies that Trump has already outlined.

It seems to me that he is starting off with a very weak position, and he doesn't have any existing relationships with Congress to help him out.

ANYONE would be in a weak position with this Administration, because A) Trump is President, and B) Vought has vowed to cut anything he can possibly cut from the budget, regardless what effect it has on our present or our future.

I'm not impressed by Isaacman's interest in nuclear propulsion. A quick look at the budget shows that NASA can't afford the missions for which nuclear propulsion might be useful.

By the time nuclear propulsion for space applications is ready, Trump won't be President. And NASA has a long ways to go before Congress would be willing to commit to using nuclear propulsion for important missions.

In fact, NASA's current budget is hopelessly inadequate for much of what they are trying to do including returning men to the moon. Realigning the ambitions with the available budget is going to have to happen, but the politicians will resist that as long as they can.

I would argue that it isn't the money that is the challenge for NASA, but how it is being mandated to be spent by Congress. The SLS and Orion programs suck up a LOT of money, and they do not represent the future of space exploration, and they may not even represent the present version of space exploration.

Back in 2010, when the SLS and Orion programs were created by Congress, we could have instead used America's existing fleet of commercial launchers to support a return-to-Moon program. In fact it would have had many of the elements being used today, like in-space refueling. But instead Congress was more concerned with spending money on the right companies, not the right technologies for America... 

As far as Jared Isaacman goes, if confirmed I think he will do OK, and for now OK is good with me.

[Robotbeat]

Nuclear propulsion is useful for NASA to work on because between SpaceX and Blue (and to a lesser extent, ULA, stoke, and others), industry has chemical propulsion with launch and refueling well under way to being solved.

Only thing really worth spending NASA’s main development money on beyond what industry is already doing is basically surface elements and nuclear stuff (surface reactors and in-space reactors that would work out to Jupiter and Saturn).

Who knows what the Project Athena document says. We just get it filtered through people who have a certain slant to their opinion on the topic.

[Robotbeat]

NASA’s budget in past years looked kinda like this.

[clongton]

The next Administrator will need to find allies in Congress to fight off attacks from Russ Vought's OMB.

Don, see my remarks below to Rob wrt the OMB.

<snip>the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), <who> is responsible for implementing the president's agenda across the executive branch. </snip>

ANYONE would be in a weak position with this Administration, because A) Trump is President, and B) Vought has vowed to cut anything he can possibly cut from the budget, regardless what effect it has on our present or our future.

Hi Ron;
I largely agree with everything you said, but I have some observations about your statement above. For the purpose of my comment, (A) above is irrelevant. My remarks are about (B).

The United States has the largest, most modern, most well-equipped, most capable, funded and trained military of any nation on the face of the earth. Bar none. The military’s annual budget is just under $850 billion. It is ginormous, to say the least. And yet the interest ALONE on the national debt is actually larger. For fiscal year 2025, interest payments are estimated to be around $970 billion and growing! I am a dyed-in-the-wool total supporter of space exploration, in all its forms, for decades without end. And yet I have to concede that getting the federal deficit spending under control HAS to be the number 1 financial priority of the current administration (regardless of the name plate on the POTUS door). The OMB is the only tool any administration actually has that can directly influence that, And the only budget items that can be slashed to accomplish that are the discretionary spending items. Unfortunately, NASA’s budget IS discretionary spending. I don’t like NASA’s budget being cut. BTW did I say that I DON’T like it? Oh yea, I don’t like it – not one bit! But if we don’t get the deficit spending under control, it won’t be long before there won’t be ANY money for a NASA budget – AT ALL! The deficit interest payments alone will simply gobble up whatever funding there might have been, like licking crumbs off your fingers. So Vought is doing his job – for the good of the country – and, by extension, for the good of NASA. Do I like it? No, I DON’T! But it has to be done. If you or I spent our available personal funds like the federal government does, it wouldn’t take long for us both to be in total financial ruin. And the federal financial ruin cliff is right in front of us. We can actually see it if we make the effort to actually look. But most people just can’t be bothered to even look. They will just go about there business until Damocles' sword drops and chops our collective heads off. I would rather bite the bullet and scale back my aspirations for space exploration and exploitation for a while if it will secure a future where NASA can remain funded. I don’t like this situation not one bit. But there it is.

[Coastal Ron]

The next Administrator will need to find allies in Congress to fight off attacks from Russ Vought's OMB.

Don, see my remarks below to Rob wrt the OMB.

<snip>the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), <who> is responsible for implementing the president's agenda across the executive branch. </snip>

ANYONE would be in a weak position with this Administration, because A) Trump is President, and B) Vought has vowed to cut anything he can possibly cut from the budget, regardless what effect it has on our present or our future.

Hi Ron;
I largely agree with everything you said, but I have some observations about your statement above. For the purpose of my comment, (A) above is irrelevant. My remarks are about (B).

The United States has the largest, most modern, most well-equipped, most capable, funded and trained military of any nation on the face of the earth. Bar none. The military’s annual budget is just under $850 billion. It is ginormous, to say the least. And yet the interest ALONE on the national debt is actually larger. For fiscal year 2025, interest payments are estimated to be around $970 billion and growing! I am a dyed-in-the-wool total supporter of space exploration, in all its forms, for decades without end. And yet I have to concede that getting the federal deficit spending under control HAS to be the number 1 financial priority of the current administration (regardless of the name plate on the POTUS door).

The debt is a concern, I agree with that. However the manner this Administration has supposedly "addressed" controlling the Federal debt has been nonsensical. At most they are using the old "never let a crisis go to waste" in taking advantage of the lack of political will in Congress to push back on anything that President Trump does.

Let me tie this thread topic.

If confirmed Jared Isaacman would be responsible for managing NASA within the constraints of both what President Trump wants and what Congress has funded. However as we all know Congress has, with the agreement of President Trump, funded two of the MOST wasteful aerospace programs NASA has ever had - the SLS and Orion MPCV programs.

If President Trump was so concerned about waste and over-spending, then why didn't he push on Congress to cancel those two programs back in his 1st term in office?

President Trump has been pushing NASA employees out in a very UN-coordinated way, which means that Isaacman won't be able to be as EFFICIENT with his budget as he would have been. Meaning there will likely be MORE waste time and effort, not less, to do what Congress has authorized NASA to do. In other words Trump has been "penny-wise but pound-foolish".

And of course it is up to Congress to author and create funding bills, not the President. The Executive branch is supposed to spend the money that Congress allocates, in the way that Congress intends. That is how our Constitution was written, and trying to change that would absolve our elected officials of their responsibilities. It also would absolve the voters of their responsibilities too, since they are the ones that should be communicating what their priorities are.

For me, returning to the Moon is a luxury, not a need of any kind. There is no "space race". So cancelling the SLS and Orion would be a necessary re-alignment of NASA. In fact a reset would be a good idea, but Trump is famous for not having a well thought out plan for anything, and cutting NASA personnel and abilities without a long-term plan for what NASA should be would be a waste of taxpayer money.

I hope that Isaacman, if confirmed, can work on a plan for what NASA should be doing for the 2nd quarter of this century, but I have ZERO confidence that the Trump Administration would want to actually spend political capital on a plan that may not produce immediate political benefits to Trump himself.

My $0.02

[yg1968]

If confirmed Jared Isaacman would be responsible for managing NASA within the constraints of both what President Trump wants and what Congress has funded. However as we all know Congress has, with the agreement of President Trump, funded two of the MOST wasteful aerospace programs NASA has ever had - the SLS and Orion MPCV programs.

I am not sure that is a fair criticism. The President proposes and Congress disposes of. Appropriations bills are almost never vetoed. There is only so much that the President can do, the President needs the appropriators to be on-board to cancel SLS and Orion which is not an easy task. 

I hope that Isaacman, if confirmed, can work on a plan for what NASA should be doing for the 2nd quarter of this century, but I have ZERO confidence that the Trump Administration would want to actually spend political capital on a plan that may not produce immediate political benefits to Trump himself.

I think that would obviously be Trump's preference but in the end, it is more likely that Isaacman's efforts for the Moon to Mars program will bear results after 2028.

My hope is that Isaacman will change the NASA leadership to put people in place that really believe in the public-private partnerships model for the Moon to Mars program. I am not convinced that is currently the case. The idea of a RFI for third (government) lander is an indication that the leadership in the Moon to Mars program may need a change. 

[catdlr]

My $0.02

Because of inflation and the fact that pennies are no longer made, you'll need to consider raising your opinion to $0.05.  Tony

[laszlo]

If confirmed Jared Isaacman would be responsible for managing NASA within the constraints of both what President Trump wants and what Congress has funded. However as we all know Congress has, with the agreement of President Trump, funded two of the MOST wasteful aerospace programs NASA has ever had - the SLS and Orion MPCV programs.

I am not sure that is a fair criticism. The President proposes and Congress disposes of. Appropriations bills are almost never vetoed. There is only so much that the President can do, the President needs the appropriators to be on-board to cancel SLS and Orion which is not an easy task. 

Absolutely fair criticism. The Administration deleting SLS and Orion would be no different than way it clawed back previously-approved funding for foreign aid and CPB. As long as he has Congress on his leash he could do it anytime that he wants.

[yg1968]

If confirmed Jared Isaacman would be responsible for managing NASA within the constraints of both what President Trump wants and what Congress has funded. However as we all know Congress has, with the agreement of President Trump, funded two of the MOST wasteful aerospace programs NASA has ever had - the SLS and Orion MPCV programs.

I am not sure that is a fair criticism. The President proposes and Congress disposes of. Appropriations bills are almost never vetoed. There is only so much that the President can do, the President needs the appropriators to be on-board to cancel SLS and Orion which is not an easy task. 

Absolutely fair criticism. The Administration deleting SLS and Orion would be no different than way it clawed back previously-approved funding for foreign aid and CPB. As long as he has Congress on his leash he could do it anytime that he wants.

Rescissions have to be voted by Congress. It only needs a majority in the Senate and the House but it would be difficult to get a majority to vote in favor of cancelling of SLS and Orion (especially if there are no replacements that are being funded).

[Don2]

But if we don’t get the deficit spending under control, it won’t be long before there won’t be ANY money for a NASA budget – AT ALL! The deficit interest payments alone will simply gobble up whatever funding there might have been, like licking crumbs off your fingers. So Vought is doing his job – for the good of the country – and, by extension, for the good of NASA.

Discussion of the Federal budget deficit is off-topic for this board, and I am not going to put much time into a reply that has a high chance of being deleted by the moderators, so I will keep this short. There are three points you need to consider:

1/ The tax cut passed this year will decrease revenue by about $400 billion per year.
2/ This year's increase in the Pentagon budget was $119 billion.
3/ NASA's budget of $25 billion was 0.36% of total federal spending of $7 trillion.

So the current regime has done two things that will make the budget deficit substantially worse. And the NASA budget is too small to matter one way or the other. If the increase in Pentagon spending had been held to $112 billion, the NASA cuts could have been entirely avoided.

Debt / GDP was 125% in 2025, down a little from 126% in 2020. Federal spending was 23% of GDP versus 21% in 2016. The US does pay a higher rate of interest on our debt than any other industrialized country other than the UK, so I think financial markets are a little uncomfortable with the situation. However, we are not in crisis.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/

[Don2]

Russ Vought presents himself as a waste cutter, but does his plan to cut waste at NASA make any sense? Why focus on the science budget? Yes, there were problems with Mars Sample Return, but Biden had already partially cancelled it. Surely the place to start would have been to get NASA out of the launcher development business. SLS and Orion have consumed a vast amount of money with very little to show for it. The private sector has done a better job of developing launchers and manned capsules. Vought could have immediately terminated SLS and Orion, and shutdown Marshall and Stennis to end NASA's involvement in launcher development.

Instead there was a proposal to move headquarters, which makes no sense as NASA needs an office close to Congress and the White House. They were also interested in shutting down Goddard, which makes no sense as the clean rooms there were needed for spacecraft development.

Russ Vought appears to have spent his entire career working in DC politics, starting as a staffer for Senator Phil Gramm of Texas. There is no mention of him ever having worked in the private sector. His budget for NASA makes a lot of sense as a partisan crony capitalist budget, which aims to cut funds flowing to Democrat leaning areas. I suspect he has no serious interest in eliminating SLS and Orion, because that would be bad for his Republican cronies in Congress.

If they were serious about terminating SLS and Orion, they would have shut them down the way they shut down USAID. Shut the whole program down right now, and forget about Artemis 2 and Artemis 3.

Without strong support from the White House, Isaacman will have to continue SLS and Orion. I'm not sure why he wants the job.