If at First You Don’t Succeed: Jared Isaacman is Really Back

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1, which is a single-launch, lunar cargo lander. (Blue Origin)

President Trump has had a change of heart on Jared Isaacman, his initial nominee for NASA administrator until he withdrew that nomination earlier this year.

Earlier today, the President posted the following:

Jared’s passion for Space, astronaut experience, and dedication to pushing the boundaries of exploration, unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and advancing the new space economy, make him ideally suited to lead NASA into a bold new era.

So what has changed in the last few months to make Mr. Isaacman “ideally suited” to lead NASA as compared to when he was determine unsuitable? I cannot think of anything other than the end of the President’s feud with Elon Musk. Of course, that was recently replaced with Elon Musk’s feud with acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy, who proposed reopening competition for the first manned Moon landing this century due to delays with SpaceX’s Starship.

Will Mr. Isaacman save Musk’s Moon mission? He may calm some of the acrimony for the time being, but any new NASA administrator had better have a solid plan to get Americans back on the Moon before China does. Mr. Isaacman may be friends with Mr. Musk, but should he be confirmed he will head a weakened space agency that is struggling with a complex Moon mission that may be much less complex without the Starship refueling plans. In fact, Blue Origin just submitted a new Moon mission plan that drops this refueling altogether.

It is not impossible the winds will shift again, leaving Mr. Isaacman adrift once more. That is how it is in Washington these days. Fickle leadership leads to fickle decision-making and fickle planning.

The Chinese are not having these issues at the moment as they aim to be on the Moon by 2030.

Space Quote: SpaceX May Lose the Moon

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay.

“If SpaceX is behind, but Blue Origin can do it before them, good on Blue Origin…But … we’re not going to wait for one company. We’re going to push this forward and win the second space race against the Chinese.”

–Statement by acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy regarding ongoing delays with SpaceX’s Starship, which was given a $2.9 billion contract in 2021 for a lunar landing vehicle as part of Artemis III. As a result, NASA may reopen to lunar lander contract. Blue Origin is working on its own lunar lander called Blue Moon. As noted in yesterday’s post, Mr. Musk has been distracted this year, so it may make sense to have a solid back up.

Update: Mr. Musk was not pleased with the news. In reference to acting NASA Administrator Duffy, Mr. Musk commented, “The person responsible for America’s space program can’t have a 2 digit IQ.” The man certainly knows how to make friends.

Space Quote: SpaceX Delays May Sink Efforts to Beat China to the Moon

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of SpaceX’s Starship HLS on the Moon. (SpaceX)

“The HLS schedule is significantly challenged and, in our estimation, could be years late for a 2027 Artemis 3 moon landing.”

-Statement by Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) member Paul Sean Hill, as quoted by Space News. NASA contracted with SpaceX to develop the Human Landing System (HLS) for the astronauts landing on the Moon as part of Artemis III and later missions. While Blue Origin has also been tapped by NASA to assist with later missions, SpaceX was expected to provide the initial HLS. Maybe NASA should have picked two companies to provide the initial HLS, with the second in place still assisting with later landings. The ASAP’s 2024 Annual Report highlighted the many risks related to Artemis III, including several related to the HLS (shown below). Everyone knew this was going to be difficult, and no one wants to be asked to answer “Who Lost the Moon?” Also, it is good we still have a few advisory panels left after the recent purge.

Image (Credit): Figure 1, “First-time milestones for the Artemis III mission,” contained in the ASAP’s 2024 Annual Report. (ASAP)

The VIPER Lives!

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Image (Credit): The VIPER outside a testing chamber in the fall of 2024. (NASA/JSC David DeHoyos)

It was only last year that NASA gave up on its $450 million Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) project, but things have changed for the better.

Blue Origin has been selected by NASA to bring the rover to the Moon as part of a $190 million task order under the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 robotic lander, which is scheduled to land on the Moon later this year, will include the VIPER was part of its future cargo in 2027.

As NASA has noted on its VIPER mission page, the rover was part of the Artemis program:

NASA’s Artemis lunar rover, the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, was designed to explore the relatively nearby but extreme environment of the Moon in search of ice and other potential resources. This mobile robot was slated to land at the South Pole of the Moon on a 100-day mission, in order to teach us about the origin and distribution of water on the Moon and help determine how we can harvest the Moon’s resources for future human space exploration.

While the VIPER mission was cancelled last summer, NASA continued to look for a partner to bring it to the Moon. Fortunately, Blue Origin was already going that way.

This is good news for scientists everywhere. It made no sense to turn a half billion dollar piece of equipment into a museum piece. We need more boots and tires on the lunar surface, and VIPER is fortunately part of those plans again.

Space Stories: Even More Space Tourists, Upcoming Asteroid Encounter, and Copernicus Had Help

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Image (Credit): New Shepard’s NS-31 Mission crew. (Blue Origin)

Here are some recent stories of interest.

—ABC News: “Blue Origin Mission with All-female Crew, Including Katy Perry, Completes Space Trip“

Blue Origin’s all-female crew, which included pop star Katy Perry, completed their trip into space Monday morning. The flight lasted around 11 minutes and traveled more than 60 miles above Earth, according to Blue Origin, passing the Kármán line, which at 62 miles above sea level is considered to be the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space. Along with Perry, the crew included Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos’ journalist fiancée, Lauren Sanchez, who is also a helicopter pilot.

—NASA: “NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft Prepares Second Asteroid Encounter“

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft is 6 days and less than 50 million miles (80 million km) away from its second close encounter with an asteroid; this time, the small main belt asteroid Donaldjohanson. This upcoming event represents a comprehensive “dress rehearsal” for Lucy’s main mission over the next decade: the exploration of multiple Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun.

—University of Sharjah: “Copernicus May Have Leaned on Ancient Muslim Astronomer in Developing his Cosmological System“

New research has revealed that the cosmological model developed by Nicolaus Copernicus, the renowned European Renaissance polymath, bears striking resemblance to the one designed by an Arab Muslim astronomer nearly two centuries earlier. The research conducted at the University of Sharjah is a comparative and analytical study which examines in parallel the writings of Copernicus in correlation with the works of the 14th century Muslim astronomer Ibn al-Shatir.