Jared Isaacman appeared before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation earlier today for his second confirmation hearing. Overall, everything went well and he should be ready for a full Senate vote next week that will make him NASA’s next administrator.
In his prepared testimony, he laid our five goals:
- The success of the Artemis program that President Trump began during his first term. America will return to the Moon before our great rival, and we will establish an enduring presence to understand and realize the scientific, economic, and national security value on the lunar surface.
- Along the way, we will pioneer the next ‘giant leap’ capabilities to extend America’s reach even further into space, including expanding and accelerating investments into nuclear propulsion and surface power programs. These efforts, in addition to industry partners building reusable launch vehicles, we will set the stage for future missions to Mars and beyond.
- We will never accept a gap in capabilities again–not with our space station presence in low Earth orbit or our ability to send American astronauts to the Moon.
- We will strive to build an orbital and lunar economy that can fund the future we all want to see in space and not rely exclusively on the taxpayer. We will begin making the investments now for the inevitable spacefaring future that is just on the horizon.
- We will make the most efficient use of every dollar allocated–pushing for more xplanes, more rovers & telescopes, more exciting missions like Hubble, James Webb, and Dragonfly with the aim of enlightening the world through breakthrouh scientific discoveries–knowing that if NASA doesn’t do it, no one else will.
The third point about a “gap in capabilities” specifically addresses the hardware needed to get to the space station or the moon, but we are also facing a gap in our scientific capabilities given the loss of so much talent this year. The statement reads like a dime store space novel where all we need it a rocket and grit, but hardware can only get your to a location.
Living and thriving once we get to wherever we are going will depend upon many other factors that are outside the understanding of rocket engineers. Yet too many of the senior mission specialists with these needed skills are now sitting at home after being forced out or deciding to retire in the midst of recent chaos. This gap in this area only widened, and the full impact on the NASA’s space programs has yet to be realized. However, these personnel losses are likely to close the gap between the US and Chinese space programs to our detriment.
Maybe Mr. Isaacman needed to add a sixth goal to close this new gap in scientific capabilities created this year by the White House.
Our Awesome Universe 