Some doubts about Jared Isaacmanby A.J. Mackenzie
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| Watching his testimony last month and reading his later written responses to questions from senators has raised some red flags. |
It’s been hard to find anyone who is opposed to the nomination. Members of Congress, industry groups, former astronauts, and former administrators have all spoken out in favor of Isaacman. He’s a successful entrepreneur with spaceflight experience, a combination many conclude gives him the tools to lead the agency in a new era where commercial capabilities will be more important than ever. Just about the only people who didn’t like him were conservatives who were upset that he donated to Democrats in recent years.
Yet, while his confirmation may be assured, his success is not. Watching his testimony last month and reading his later written responses to questions from senators has raised some red flags. Far from being the leader NASA needs to guide it through turbulent times, he may be getting in over his head, to the detriment of the agency and the country.
Yes, Isaacman is an astronaut who commanded two missions and did a (brief) spacewalk. But those were commercial missions, with limited interaction with NASA. Otherwise, he has little experience at or working with NASA.
That contrasts with many of NASA’s previous leaders, who in recent history either worked at NASA or worked with NASA in industry or politics. A notable exception is Sean O’Keefe, who had little experience with space before being picked by the George W. Bush Administration; his tenure may not be one that people want to emulate. And O’Keefe at least had some government experience at the Pentagon and White House before leading NASA.
(Almost inevitably, people will point out that James Webb didn’t have any space experience when he became NASA administrator. True! Most people didn’t in 1961. He did, though, have experience in the government and personal relationships to help shape a space agency in its early years when money was flowing freely, a very different state from today.)
Being an outsider can convey advantages if you’re tasked with reinventing an agency: you’re not tied to the old ways of doing business just because that’s the way it’s always been done, for example. Yet, you need some knowledge of how any agency works so you can be effective when you make those changes, so you don’t break things that are actually working. It’s not clear he has that knowledge.
A case in point is one written response he offered: “I believe NASA is capable of managing multiple world-changing endeavors—if we eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy and stay focused on the mission.” That’s an easy response: no one likes unnecessary bureaucracy. (Even bureaucrats don’t like unnecessary bureaucracy so long as it’s not their own.) But he doesn’t explain what bureaucracy at NASA is unnecessary and how he would eliminate it.
That response links to another criticism of Isaacman: it’s not clear exactly what NASA would do. How would an Isaacman-run NASA be different from those led by his predecessors?
His testimony doesn’t offer much in the way of insights. “If confirmed, and with the support and guidance of President Trump and members of Congress, we will reinvigorate a mission-first culture at NASA,” he said in his opening statement, broadly supporting human spaceflight, a “thriving space economy” in LEO, and more science missions. That’s all well and good, but how exactly will he accomplish that?
His responses to senators were mostly hand-waving. Take, for example, his support for doing human Moon and Mars missions in parallel, which got a lot of scrutiny. How can NASA take on the challenge of doing both at the same time when it’s struggling with just Artemis?
| How would an Isaacman-run NASA be different from those led by his predecessors? |
“Historically, NASA managed multiple complex human spaceflight programs simultaneously—Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo—alongside numerous exploration missions like Ranger, Surveyor, Pioneer, in an era with far less technological capability than we possess today,” he wrote in a question for the record. “More than six decades later, with the advances in industry and innovation, I believe the world’s premier space agency should be capable of executing multiple major initiatives at a time.”
He never explains, though, what “advances in industry and innovation” will make that feasible. The response also ignores the fact that NASA’s budget today is much smaller than it was at the peak of the original race to the Moon, and only appears to be getting smaller.
Maybe he’s referring to fixed-price contracts and private-sector capabilities, which have reshaped the industry. But they’re not panaceas. Many companies have struggled with fixed-price projects to the point of swearing off bidding on them in the future. And for all the accomplishments SpaceX has made, it’s increasingly clear the long pole in NASA’s plans to land humans on the Moon is not the old-school SLS and Orion but instead SpaceX’s Starship, which hasn’t even reached Earth orbit yet two years after its first launch and two years before the current schedule for Artemis 3.
He also appears to confuse cause and effect. In those written responses, he backtracks from previous criticism of NASA’s decision to award Blue Origin a second lunar lander contract (a politically astute move by him, given that the top Democrat on the committee, Maria Cantwell, is from Blue Origin’s home state of Washington!) He wrote he no longer opposes that award: “As a result, the United States now has an additional commercial provider with heavy-lift launch capability, which enhances national resilience and capacity in space exploration.”
But Blue Origin had been developing its New Glenn rocket for years when it finally won the award for the Blue Moon crewed lander. New Glenn enabled Blue Moon, not the other way around.
When Isaacman testified before the Senate, there were many questions about the future of NASA in the new Trump Administration, from cancelling SLS and Orion to layoffs of NASA personnel. His testimony seemed primarily intended to reassure senators, such as his support for SLS and Orion as the “best and fastest” way to return humans to the Moon.
The days and weeks that followed have eroded those reassurances. Just a couple of days later, news leaked out of the “passback” budget that would cut NASA’s science budget nearly in half, and cancel many major missions in development or those still in service (see “All of the above, or none?”, The Space Review, April 14, 2025). Contrast that with Isaacman’s opening statement: “We will launch more telescopes, more probes, more rovers and endeavor to better understand our planet and the universe beyond.” Not if that proposed budget is enacted.
Among the missions that budget would reportedly cancel is the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, even though it is nearly complete and set to launch as soon as the fall of 2026. Isaacman himself, though, said in a written response that it should not: “I’m not aware of any reason why it should be canceled, and I would support its completion and successful deployment.” The budget, it seems, would not support it.
Isaacman said throughout his testimony that he was unaware of any plans to cut NASA’s budget other than canceling programs. “I am not aware of any plans to cancel Gateway,” he wrote in one response. The “skinny” budget proposals released Friday would do just that.
| ISaacman chose to stonewall a senator, in the process making people wonder what else he is withholding. |
Similarly, in responses to Democratic senators’ questions, Isaacman endorsed programs like EPSCoR and Space Grant, initiatives usually overlooked by the space industry but, for many outside of traditional space regions, are their only tangible link to NASA. Both EPSCoR and Space Grant are part of NASA’s “STEM Engagement” (aka education) budget line that the budget proposal would eliminate.
It’s hard to believe that Isaacman was that out of the loop about the budget proposal. (He would hardly be the first person to offer white lies to senators.) If he really was, though, it suggests that he has little support from the administration, support that he will need if he’s serious about pursuing things like multiple human space exploration programs.
Many questions at the hearing were on Isaacman’s links to Elon Musk. Isaacman, after all, was a customer of SpaceX, while his company, Shift4, had SpaceX as a customer of its payment processing services. With Musk advising Trump, it was natural to question how much influence Musk had on the nomination and would have on Isaacman at NASA.
Isaacman offered the expected responses to questions about avoiding conflicts of interest by adhering to ethics guidelines and agreements, but there was one question he refused to answer: was Musk present when Trump, as president-elect, offered Isaacman the nomination? Isaacman repeatedly refused to answer that question when asked at the hearing and again in written responses to questions.
Compare that to Troy Meink, the nominee to be Secretary of the Air Force who also has faced questions about links to Musk. Meink told senators that, yes, Musk was present at his interview with Trump, but added that there were others there and that Trump was the only person to ask questions.
So, why can’t Isaacman be as open? If Musk was present, say so, and put his presence in context like Meink has. Instead, he chose to stonewall a senator, in the process making people wonder what else he is withholding. A fuller disclosure would not resolve any ethics concerns (as Meink’s case shows) but simply not answering a simple question only makes things worse.
None of these issues will alter the outcome of the upcoming vote, allowing Isaacman to become the next administrator. But unless he takes steps to resolve them, it’s unlikely he will live up to the billing that many in the space community have for Isaacman as a strong leader for NASA in troubled times.
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