Isaacman’s second chanceby Jeff Foust
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| Trump’s statement gave no reason for why he renominated Isaacman or any acknowledgement of the events of the last 11 months, even using identical language from his original nomination announcement. |
This was the latest twist in the saga about who will lead the space agency that started with Trump’s surprise selection of Isaacman last December and the even more shocking withdrawal of that nomination at the end of May (see “NASA’s future in the balance”, The Space Review, June 2, 2025). Since then, the White House asked the Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, to serve as acting administrator, the first time a Cabinet secretary has led the agency.
Trump’s statement gave no reason for why he renominated Isaacman or any acknowledgement of the events of the last 11 months. In fact, the sentence in the announcement about “Jared’s passion for Space” was taken word-for-word from Trump’s December 2024 announcement selecting Isaacman to lead NASA.
The White House has not disclosed any details about its decision to renominate Isaacman beyond formally transmitting the nomination to the Senate on Thursday. Since Isaacman’s original nomination was withdrawn, he will have to go through another Senate confirmation process.
So what happened between the end of May, when Trump said he was pulling the nomination after “a thorough review of prior association”—a reference to Isaacman’s long-documented record of donating to both Republicans and Democrats—and, a little more than five months later, Trump’s decision to renominate him?
Discussions with industry sources suggest several factors were at work. Isaacman’s first nomination was withdrawn as President Trump and Elon Musk’s partnership deteriorated. Trump said in July that he “thought it inappropriate that a very close friend of Elon, who was in the Space Business, run NASA, when NASA is such a big part of Elon’s corporate life.” He didn’t explain why he didn’t reach that conclusion sooner, or even before selecting Isaacman the first time.
Isaacman, who has long stated that his contacts with Musk were solely professional, acknowledged that the White House pulled the nomination because of his links to Musk. “I don’t think that the timing was much of a coincidence, that there were other changes going on the same day,” he said in a podcast of being informed by the White House May 30—the day Musk was formally ending his role with the administration—that his nomination was being pulled.
“There were some people that had some axes to grind, I guess, and I was a good, visible target,” Isaacman added.
In the months that followed, Isaacman was careful not to publicly burn any bridges with the White House despite having his nomination pulled just days before the Senate was scheduled to vote to confirm him. His allies, including some in Congress, continued to advocate on his behalf behind the scenes. Isaacman ended up returning to the White House to meet again with Trump.
In the meantime, Duffy took on the acting NASA leadership job, in addition to continuing to lead the Department of Transportation. While an outsider to space, the former congressman and TV personality took a liking to the job. He soon put his stamp on the agency with initiatives to redirect work on nuclear power systems for the Moon and commercial space stations.
Duffy was intended to be a short-term placeholder until the White House nominated a new administrator. But despite statements that Trump would “soon” nominate a replacement for Isaacman, months passed without a nomination. Even the list of potential candidates for the job, ranging from retired generals to former congressman Mike Garcia, dried up, with no sign of a nomination coming.
| “It seems some people are letting politics get in the way of the mission and the President’s goals for space,” Isaacman wrote. “Personally, I think the ‘why’ behind the timing of this document circulating--and the spin being given to reporters--is the real story.” |
With no replacement coming, Duffy reportedly started thinking about holding on to the job for the long term. That include floating the idea of folding NASA, an independent agency, into the Department of Transportation, allowing him to continue to run it even if someone else was handling day-to-day management. A NASA spokesperson said last month that Duffy thought NASA might benefit from being within a Cabinet-level agency like the Department of Transportation “but he’s never said he wants to keep the job himself.”
Such a move would require congressional approval, which would be difficult, at best, to obtain. “NASA has been an independent agency since its founding, and I think it should continue to be so,” said Rep. George Whitesides (D-CA), a former NASA chief of staff, after a panel session at a conference last month.
“I don’t think it will happen. Congress is not going to let NASA move to the DOT,” he said, noting that the department is primarily a regulator while NASA is focused on research and development.
By this point momentum for Isaacman’s renomination was growing, including a request by the White House that Duffy interview Isaacman—itself a rare event, as acting administrators are usually not asked to interview their potential replacements. It was also around this time that Duffy made his push to “open up” the Artemis 3 lunar landing contract, arguing that SpaceX was behind schedule (see “The (possibly) great lunar lander race”, The Space Review, November 3, 2025.)
The final chapter of this drama unfolded in late October, as a report dubbed “Project Athena” written by Isaacman was making the rounds on Capitol Hill. The document, according to those who had seen it, reflected Isaacman’s plans for NASA from his first nomination.
The document raised eyebrows among some in the industry for what they said it contained, including moving to commercial data buys for science missions and consolidating other programs. It also called on cancelling the Space Launch System and lunar Gateway, in line with the administration’s budget request but rendered moot by a budget reconciliation bill in July that funded two additional SLS vehicles as well as completion of the Gateway.
The 62-page report has not been made public, but Isaacman, in a nearly 1,500-word post last Tuesday, did not disavow it. “It is true that Athena was a draft plan I worked on with a very small group from the time of my initial nomination through its withdrawal in May,” he wrote. “Parts of it are now dated, and it was always intended to be a living document refined through data gathering post-confirmation.”
He noted only a single copy of that 62-page report was delivered to a person he did not identify in August, suggesting that individual was the source of the leak. “It seems some people are letting politics get in the way of the mission and the President’s goals for space. Personally, I think the ‘why’ behind the timing of this document circulating--and the spin being given to reporters--is the real story.”
In the end, the report did not scuttle his renomination. A few hours after Isaacman posted his comments on the report, Trump announced the nomination.
Reaction and reconsideration
For much of the space industry, including those in more entrepreneurial sectors, the renomination of Isaacman was welcome news.
“I’m thrilled for Jared and for NASA and the country,” Andy Lapsa, CEO of launch vehicle startup Stoke Space, said at the Economist Space Summit in Orlando on Wednesday. “It’s important for our national space program to have clear direction and a concrete future, and I think Jared brings that.”
Lapsa was on stage shortly after Greg Autry, associate provost for space commercialization and strategy at the University of Central Florida, which hosted the conference. Autry is also the White House’s nominee to be NASA’s chief financial officer.
“We got some really great news last night,” he said of Isaacman’s nomination, suggesting it might extend to his nomination, which remains pending the Senate alongside Matt Anderson to be deputy administrator. “I look forward to working with him soon in D.C.,” Autry said of Isaacman.
| “It’s important for our national space program to have clear direction and a concrete future, and I think Jared brings that,” said Lapsa. |
One industry group, the Commercial Space Federation, also weighed in on the nomination. “As China seeks to challenge American space superiority at every turn, Jared has the vision, experience, and grit—the ‘right stuff’—to lead NASA during this critical time,” the organization stated. It republished a letter of support it sent to the Senate in March for Isaacman’s first nomination.
In his first confirmation hearing, Isaacman faced tough questions from senators, primarily Democrats, but the Senate Commerce Committee ultimately advanced his nomination with several Democrats joining all the Republican members. Had that nomination not been pulled, he was expected to secure significant Democratic support by the full Senate, with 70 or more senators overall expected to vote for him.
The second time around won’t necessarily be easier. Senators now know more about him, but will have questions about his policies as well as those of the administration. His first confirmation hearing, for example, took place before the White House released its budget proposal calling for sharp cuts at NASA and cancellation of potentially dozens of missions.
They will also certainly want more details about his plans for NASA, given the leak of the Project Athena document. Isaacman’s post past week attempted to deny or at least defuse some of what was attributed to him in reporting on the document.
He said the report centered on five main priorities, which he named “Reorganize and Empower,” “American Leadership in the High Ground of Space,” “Solving the Orbital Economy,” “NASA as a Force Multiplier for Science,” and “Investing in the Future.”
The first called for a “data-driven reorganization” of NASA to reduce bureaucracy. He didn’t elaborate on how that would be implemented, but noted one element would be to “liberate the NASA budget from dated infrastructure that is in disrepair to free up resources to invest in what is needed for the mission of the day.” He didn’t discuss how that would work, including who, if anyone, would take over that infrastructure or how it might be replaced.
The second was largely focused on exploration, including potential changes to Artemis. “To be clear, the plan does not issue a directive to cancel Gateway or SLS, in fact, the word ‘Gateway’ is used only three times in the entire document,” he stated. His plan supported a move to “an affordable, repeatable lunar architecture” that would allow NASA to shift resources to efforts like nuclear electric propulsion, which he has frequently supported.
“Solving the Orbital Economy” involves maximizing the remaining years of the International Space Station, he wrote, demonstrating commercial applications like in pharmaceuticals that could help the business case for private stations.
The fourth priority would significantly reshape NASA’s science programs. He supported expanding the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) model to other parts of planetary science—NASA is already studying a Mars analog to CLPS—as well as focus on more, and less expensive missions: “better to have 10 x $100 million missions and a few fail than a single overdue and costly $1B+ mission.”
He also clarified reporting on Project Athena’s support for data buys, saying that was intended for Earth science alone. “I know the ‘science-as-a-service’ concept got people fired up, but that was specifically called out in the plan for Earth observation, from companies that already have constellations like Planet, BlackSky, etc.,” he wrote. “Why build bespoke satellites at greater cost and delay when you could pay for the data as needed from existing providers and repurpose the funds for more planetary science missions (as an example)?”
He also clarified reporting that indicated he criticized JPL. “With respect to JPL, it was a research request to look at overlaps between the work of the laboratory and what prime contractors were also doing on their behalf. The report never even remotely suggested that America could ever do without the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.”
Those points will likely come up in a future confirmation hearing. Scientists, speaking privately, raised concerns about those plans, noting that many small missions can’t replace one large mission. They have instead called for a balance of large and small missions, a common conclusion of many decadal surveys across the Earth and space sciences.
“It’s like saying NASA could replace the Webb Telescope with ten one-meter telescopes. It just wouldn’t work,” said one scientist, speaking on background.
| “You cannot privatize the foundation without undermining much of what is built on top of it. Think of it like Jenga: remove the base, and everything falls,” wrote Ravichandran. |
The Earth science data buy language also prompted questions. NASA already purchases imagery from BlackSky, Planet, and others through its Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition program (originally the Commercial Small Satellite Data Acquisition program.) Imagery and other commercial Earth science data, the agency notes, “may offer a cost-effective means of supplementing Earth observations collected by NASA, other U.S. Government agencies, and international collaborators.”
But those commercial satellites lack the instruments needed to address specific Earth science questions NASA pursues with its own missions, which results in “bespoke satellites at greater cost” than commercial systems.
“Society needs this information, but no single entity will pay for it at the scale required,” noted Aravind Ravichandran of TerraWatch Space, who focuses on the Earth observation market.
Going to fully private models, he argued, could undermine the Earth science field. “You cannot privatize the foundation without undermining much of what is built on top of it. Think of it like Jenga: remove the base, and everything falls.”
The fifth priority, “Investing in the Future,” sought to have NASA provide additional guidance and support for the commercial spaceflight industry. “NASA eventually should build a Starfleet Academy to train and prepare the commercial industry to operate safely and successfully in this future space economy,” he said, including creating a centralized mission control for government and private missions at the Johnson Space Center.
History does not repeat, the old saying goes, but it does rhyme. Isaacman’s second confirmation will not be a repeat of the first, given the events that have transpired in recent months, along with the additional insights into his plans for NASA. But many of the underlying issues remain the same, including how he would reshape NASA, and whether Congress and the administration will accept those plans.
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