Donald Trump’s nominee as NASA’s new administrator, Jared Isaacman, says the United States cannot come second in the global space race. He made his comments during an interview at the Spacepower Conference in Florida on December 11, 2024.
“The competitiveness of our nation is my top agenda item,” he said. “We started out leading in the space domain, and we have to continue doing so.”
Earlier this month, the president-elect nominated the billionaire private astronaut and business associate of Elon Musk to run NASA. Isaacman has been to space twice in private missions arranged by his in-house Polaris program and using SpaceX assets.
Isaacman said the space industry was about to enter a period of experimentation. He said reusability would open up the domain. “Who knows what we could find? It might shift the entire balance of power on Earth.”
“We are inevitably going to have a presence on the Moon and then on Mars,” Isaacman said. “We’ll keep on making the higher ground higher. I think it is imperative that we (the US) are first and lead the way.”
Isaacman founded a payment processing company Shift4 Payments in the basement of his family home when a teenager. Shift4 Payments went public in June 2020. It now has a market value of around USD7.5 billion.
However, Isaacman has no government or political experience, and if his nomination succeeds, he will take over a government agency with a USD25 billion annual budget and close commercial ties with the Musk-controlled SpaceX.
Jared Isaacman says a more diversified space economy is inevitable. “The space economy has been more or less the same for 60 years,” he said. “Communications, telcos, and observation capabilities, which are all great. But other things will develop because orbit access costs are coming down to such an extent that players can afford to experiment.”
“Is mining on the table? I have no doubt, with private funding and public private partnerships, companies will get the dollars and cents to go out and experiment with that,” Isaacman said. “I’m not sure what the future space economy will be, but it will be something.
In the meantime, becoming NASA’s administrator is likely to put the brakes on his Polaris Dawn program. The most recent mission, in September, achieved significant milestones including the first private astronaut spacewalk and the highest-altitude flight since the Apollo era.
“The future of the Polaris program is a little bit of a question mark at the moment,” he said. “It may wind up on hold for a little bit.”
Jared Isaacman was making his first public comments at the Spacepower event since news of his nomination broke. He covered a wide range of subjects during the 40-minute question-and-answer session but did not say how he planned to lead NASA.
The space agency’s big-budget program is the Artemis Project, which involves sending US astronauts back to the Moon and eventually Mars and establishing a permanent presence on both. Isaacman’s comments indicate he supports the broader agenda. Trump is also interested in space and supports the US retaining its top spot in the space race.
Current NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy, both appointments from the Biden era, are expected to vacate their posts shortly after Trump is sworn in as president next month.
