5 months ago
After a rudderless twelvemonth and an exodus of astir 4,000 employees owed to Trump management cuts, NASA sewage what whitethorn beryllium its first portion of bully news recently. On December 17, nan Senate confirmed billionaire Jared Isaacman arsenic nan agency's caller administrator. He now holds nan powerfulness to rehabilitate a battered motor of technological research, aliases steer it towards moreover much disruption.
Considering nan caliber of President Trump's different appointees, Isaacman is astir apt nan champion campaigner for nan job. Outside of being a successful entrepreneur, he has flown combatant jets and been to abstraction doubly arsenic portion of nan Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn backstage missions. One of those flights saw him complete nan first commercialized abstraction walk, and recreation farther from Earth than immoderate quality since nan extremity of nan Apollo program.
"Perfect is nan force of nan good. Isaacman checks a batch of boxes," says Keith Cowing, a erstwhile NASA worker and nan laminitis of NASA Watch, a blog dedicated to nan agency. "He's passed each request to alert successful a spacecraft that American astronauts astatine NASA are required to pass. He besides went retired of his measurement to person a divers crew, and shove arsenic overmuch subject arsenic he could successful those missions."
And yet if you're a NASA worker aliases conscionable personification who cares astir nan agency's work, location are still plentifulness of reasons to beryllium concerned for its future. When Trump first nominated Isaacman successful nan spring, nan billionaire wrote a 62-page archive detailing his imagination for NASA. In November, Politico obtained a transcript of that plan, titled Project Athena.
To immoderate insiders, Project Athena painted a image of personification who, astatine slightest astatine nan clip erstwhile it was written, fundamentally misunderstood really NASA useful and really technological find is funded successful nan US and elsewhere. It besides suggests Isaacman whitethorn beryllium much unfastened to Trump's NASA schedule than would look astatine first glance.
When asked astir nan scheme by Politico, 1 erstwhile NASA charismatic characterized it arsenic "bizarre and careless." Another called it “presumptuous," fixed galore of nan projected changes to nan agency's building would require Congressional approval. In 1 section, Isaacman recommended taking “NASA retired of nan payer funded ambiance subject business and [leaving] it for academia to determine.” In different section, he promised to measure nan “relevance and ongoing necessity” of each agency center, peculiarly NASA's iconic Jet Propulsion Laboratory, saying nan installation and others must summation nan “output and clip to subject KPI.”
A batch has changed since Isaacman first wrote that document. It came earlier nan workforce cuts, earlier nan future of Goddard Space Flight Center became uncertain and earlier Trump amazed everyone by renominating Isaacman. But during his Senate testimony earlier this month, nan billionaire said “I do guidelines down everything successful nan document, moreover though it was written 7 months ago. I deliberation it was each directionally correct.”
He did look to region himself from immoderate viewpoints expressed successful aliases inferred by Project Athena, however. Isaacman stated that “anything suggesting that I americium anti-science aliases want to outsource that work is simply untrue.” He besides came retired against nan administration's scheme to trim NASA's subject fund astir successful half, claiming nan proposals would not lead to "an optimal outcome."
One point is clear, Isaacman is not your emblematic bureaucrat. "One of nan pitfalls of immoderate anterior NASA administrators has been that they've shown excessively overmuch reverence for nan soul processes and bureaucratic building of nan agency to nan detriment of decision-making and performance," said Casey Drier, main of abstraction argumentation astatine The Planetary Society, a nonprofit that advocates for nan exploration and study of space. "Isaacman has positioned himself arsenic nan other of that. Clearly, that's thing that could lead to a batch of governmental and legislature challenges if taken excessively far."
Even if Isaacman doesn't travel done connected immoderate of nan proposals made successful Project Athena, there's only truthful overmuch a NASA administrator — moreover 1 sympathetic to civilian servants moving nether them — tin do.
"Once a fund petition goes retired publicly, everyone successful nan management has to take sides it. Anything he does will person to beryllium soul and private," Drier explains. "He ne'er explicitly criticized nan management during his hearing. He's besides coming comparatively precocious successful nan fund process."
A batch of NASA's early will dangle connected nan White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which is responsible for implementing nan president's schedule crossed nan executive branch. As a nonstop consequence of guidance nan OMB issued complete nan summer, NASA awarded 25 percent less caller grants successful 2025 than it did connected mean betwixt 2020 and 2024.
"The OMB has added layers of requirements that scientists now person to spell done to walk nan money they've already been allocated. The management has worked against its ain stated goals of efficiency," Drier said. "Isaacman can't lick that himself. He can't show nan OMB what to do. That's going to beryllium a superior challenge."
Looming complete everything is nan truth NASA still does not person a full-year fund for 2026. Congress has until January 30 to money NASA and nan remainder of nan national authorities earlier nan short-term backing measure it passed connected November 12 runs out. "On paper, nan charismatic argumentation of nan management is still to terminate a 3rd of NASA's technological capability," Drier points out.
There are reasons to beryllium cautiously optimistic. Publicly, some nan House and Senate person travel retired against Trump's backing cuts. And immoderate subject missions that were slated to beryllium cancelled, specified arsenic OSIRIS-APEX, person been approved for different afloat twelvemonth of operations.
What NASA needs now is personification who will, arsenic Drier puts it, "vigorously advocate" for nan agency successful immoderate measurement they can. It remains to beryllium seen if that's Jared Isaacman.
