After almost a year of rudderless leadership, NASA may be getting an administrator before the end of the calendar year. Maybe.
On December 8, the Senate plans to vote on Jared Isaacman’s nomination to become NASA’s administrator. But first, Mr. Isaacman needs to attend a December 3rd nomination hearing with the Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Yes, this will be a repeat of the April 9th nomination hearing that was part of Mr. Isaacman’s initial White House nomination.
In his April testimony before the Senate, Mr. Isaacman emphasized three main points:
- First—American astronauts will lead the way in the ultimate ‘high ground’ of space;
- Second—We will ignite a thriving space economy in low Earth orbit; and
- Third—NASA will be a force multiplier for science.
As part of the third point, he stated:
We will leverage NASA’s scientific talent and capabilities to enable academic institutions and industry to increase the rate of world-changing discoveries. We will launch more telescopes, more probes, more rovers and endeavor to better understand our planet and the universe beyond.
That task will be all the more difficult with the departure of more than 4,000 talented NASA employees. He and the agency would have been in a better position if he had come on board before all of the efforts to downsize and diminish the “scientific talent and capabilities” at NASA. However, political temper tantrums intervened.
Given that Acting Administrator Sean Duffy’s recommended that NASA should be a sub-component of the Department of Transportation, as if it was another roads or airport project, NASA is now on a better path with outside leadership. We can only hope that Mr. Isaacman is given the budget and tools to stem the losses and start repairing the mess that DOGE and other brought to NASA.
One thing is clear – Mr. Isaacman’s good friend Elon Musk crippled NASA like many other agencies, making the job of NASA administrator that much harder.
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