I think it's in our destiny. We cross the seas, we climb the mountains, we're explorers. Astronauts are going to go to Mars someday and they're going to go beyond Mars.
Hello, hello, and welcome to the conversation. I'm Dasha Burns, Politico's White House Bureau Chief, and every week on this show I invite one of the most compelling and sometimes unexpected power players in Washington and beyond in for a chat to find out how they're navigating and shaping this incredible era of American politics.
This week I spoke with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. You all know NASA, but if you don't know Isaacman, he is a billionaire entrepreneur who's been to space twice himself and in fact he became the first civilian to perform a spacewalk. Folks, this was a very special interview for our show. I traveled to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to speak with Isaacman ahead of the Artemis 2 launch.
If you're watching, you'll see us chatting in front of NASA's vehicle assembly building, the VAB, where rockets and other space vehicles are housed and assembled, including Artemis 2, which was rolled out to the launch pad just before we arrived. Now, the goal of Artemis 2 is to take humans the farthest they've ever been from Earth.
You may or may not remember this from school, but the last time humans visited the moon was over 50 years ago. And Isaacman tells me this mission is one small step towards building a permanent lunar base and even getting humanity to Mars one day in the not-so-distant future.
Outside of the nitty-gritty science of Artemis 2, I also got to chat with Isaacman about the politics of it all. Why this mission matters for the modern global space race and whether he thinks going to the moon is a priority with everything going on here on Earth.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman joins the conversation.
Jared Isaacman, NASA Administrator, thank you so much for joining the conversation.
I'm happy to be here. Thanks for making the trip to Kennedy Space Center.
Some people might be listening, not watching, but I would recommend you take a look at the video here because we are here at Kennedy Space Center. The backdrop is the VAB building where you put together these rockets to take off into space. This is a launch site of some of the most defining moments in American history from Apollo 11 to the shuttle era with all of its triumph, its tragedy, and now Artemis 2. I think I'm looking at it over there.
You sure are. Now Artemis 2 is set to launch in the very near future. This mission will take astronauts around the moon for the first time in over 50 years, taking humans the farthest that they've ever been from Earth. It's the first step also towards a future mission to Mars.
Okay, now that's all really exciting and as a NASA nerd myself, I'm stoked, but there is a lot going on here on Earth, too. So, do you think you can successfully reignite Americans' fascination with space?
Oh, I have no doubt. I mean, what kid hasn't grown up and looked up at the night sky and just imagined the possibilities. Space captivates everyone. Now, I understand there's a lot going on in all our lives these days, right? So, as I tell a lot of folks when they're like, do people realize that we're about to send astronauts farther into space than ever before around the moon to set up for subsequent lunar landing events and like do enough people realize that's happening right now? And I'm like, it's a lot more than the three channels on the television set like there was in the 1960s. There's a lot going on, but I have no doubt when 8.8 million pounds of thrust gets ignited on that massive moon rocket and we send those astronauts on the journey, the world is going to take notice. They're going to take interest and then we just got to kind of keep their attention as we set up for subsequent moon landings, we build a moon base and then we start thinking about what comes next, which is Mars.
Yeah, this is really just the beginning what we're about to see here. What does success for this mission look like?
Success for this mission is actually committing the astronauts on TLI, which is the translunar injection. So, we've set up the mission very logically with lots of off-ramps for safety. So, when the rocket first launches, they'll be in a higher Earth orbit. We're going to use that as an opportunity to get really comfortable with this vehicle. Humans have never flown on Orion before. They've never flown on SLS before. So, this is the first. This is a test flight. So, we want to make sure that the spacecraft is very healthy, then we commit to TLI. That's when we send them out into deep space.
TLI for the translunar injection. So, okay. That's the big deal. I'm going to make you explain some of the acronyms here for the layman.
When they're in Earth orbit, if we don't like something, they could be hours back into the water. Or we could keep them there for a long time and try and learn what we can in that environment. But, the big deal is when you hit the button and say send them to the moon. That's the translunar injection. That's where on their way out they'll go past the moon, back around here into Earth. So, that's an important milestone on it, but we want 10 days of good vehicle checkouts. We want to know that this spaceship is performing as expected because we are going to use Orion on subsequent missions with a lunar lander and by 2028, we're going to put astronauts back on the moon.
Everyone knows about Apollo. How is Artemis different from the Apollo missions?
Yeah, so excellent question. What they did in the 1960s, we knew so little on the subject to send Americans to the moon and bring them home safely is again, it's probably one of the greatest engineering accomplishments really in human history. The Artemis program picks up where Apollo left off, not to return to the moon to plant the flag and pick up the rocks again, but to build an enduring presence, to build a moon base so we can realize the scientific and economic value of being on the lunar surface.
So, you know, putting that like practical terms on the International Space Station, which in itself is another extraordinary engineering accomplishment. I mean, more than a quarter of a century, we have kept humans continuously alive in lower Earth orbit. I mean, think about it. If you're 25 years old or younger, there hasn't been a time you've been alive that we haven't had an American in space above you, right? Pretty cool.
I don't think we think about that enough when we look up at the sky, I think. Isn't that amazing?
But, so we use that as a laboratory. We use it to test certain capabilities that we can put on the moon. For example, we'll probably test the new lunar spacesuits on the International Space Station before we get to the moon. The point is building a base on the moon is that next step as we go and venture out farther into the solar system. So, now we're getting out of a laboratory at the International Space Station, we're getting to the surface where astronauts can interact with the lunar regolith, right? They can do in situ resource manufacturing, meaning working with the water ice to make propellant.
Well, I mean, to be able to just do it. It's really hard to make propellant here on Earth, let alone without an atmosphere or 1/5, 1/6 gravity. So, you think about in the not-too-distant future when we are able to send astronauts to Mars, the hard part is going to be bringing them back to tell us about it. We're going to have to make our propellant on Mars. So, we're going to turn the moon base into the proving ground for the capabilities and the technologies needed to bring astronauts home from Mars someday.
So, this is all part of some really ambitious new changes that you guys have announced as part of the Artemis program that you're completely transforming NASA's priority for the next decade and beyond. Those plans include pivoting away from plans to deploy a space station in lunar orbit to building a permanent base on the moon and nuclear-powered mission to Mars. I want to tackle each of that separately, but first, why were the current programs not sufficient?
Yeah, so first, everything we are doing, just to be clear at NASA, is enacting the objectives that President Trump established in his national space policy. So, President Trump created the whole Artemis program, which is the return to the moon after basically 35 years of promises from other presidents. President Trump put us on that course and then my first day on the job when I was sworn in, the president signs an executive order for American superiority in space, which says, don't just go back to the moon, go back to the moon to stay, build the base and do the other things like you said, like nuclear power and propulsion so that we can get to Mars, ignite an orbital economy and all these other things.
So, what we did earlier this week at our ignition event was align the workforce and industry on how we were achieving President Trump's national space policy. One of the changes, which goes back nearly a decade, is to go from a lunar outpost that orbits above the moon and bring it down to the surface. Maybe it was the right idea then, it's not the right idea now when it's going to come down to months for who will win the moon between the United States and our rivals in China. So, we don't want to be in an orbital outpost looking down at the lunar surface as our great competitor is walking around. We want to be down there on the surface building the moon base. That's one of many topics we discussed at ignition earlier this week.
At a lot of the Trump rallies that I would go to, often times I would get challenged by folks about the idea that we ever went to the moon. You know, this is out there that we never went. And one of the big questions from people that might believe it never happened was, okay, well, if we went decades ago, why haven't we been able to figure out how to get back? It's a fair question. Let me just be overwhelmingly clear. As the head of NASA, an astronaut, and a lifelong space enthusiast, yes, we absolutely went to the moon. I've spoken directly with the astronauts that have been on the moon, that have walked on the moon. I have a moon rock in my office that was picked up by Harrison Schmitt on Apollo 17 and I've spoken to him about it and he still studies a lot of the samples that we have.
In fact, if you went to the ignition event earlier this week, we put a bunch of moon rocks that we picked up in the 1960s and early 1970s and put them on display. We absolutely did it, but it's a fair question, why haven't we been back? Look, things changed, right? We had a great competitor then. I mean, this was another battleground in the Cold War, which one of our political systems, our ideology was superior and we used going to the moon and bringing it back as one of the proving grounds. Not to mention it was great for inspiring the next generation and everything we learned that benefited life on Earth.
Having a competitor didn't hurt that NASA's budget was about 4 and 1/2% of the discretionary budget at the time. It's about a quarter of a percentage now. But without a competitor and without the resources, our priorities changed. We started working with everybody, forming partnerships, trying to please everyone to some extent. I mean, NASA had a lot of externally imposed priorities on us that aren't necessarily aligned with doing world-changing things in air and space. And now it's changed. Now you have President Trump, you have a national space policy, you have the resources from the one big beautiful bill, the working family tax cut act, and we have a competitor. We have a very, very good competitor.
And I do want to get into that for sure.
That's going to get us back to the moon. And I would just say, like technically, it's really hard. When I went to space, you're looking behind me, that was launchpad 39A. So when a Falcon 9 lifts off from there and goes to the space station, it's about 1.8 million pounds of thrust sending four astronauts 17,500 miles an hour. Artemis 2 over there, which is what it takes to send astronauts to the moon, a moon rocket like that, 8.8 million pounds of thrust, 25,000 miles per hour. That's a lot of energy to put into a spacecraft with four people on it. It's really hard to do, but we're about to do it again.
Habitats, nuclear power, drones, vehicles, like that's a massive effort. Part of the problem with the shuttle program was that it was super expensive, went way over budget, and there were safety issues. How do you avoid making some of the same mistakes of the past with this mission?
The space shuttle was another extraordinary engineering accomplishment. Certainly was a very visual representation of America's technological might and the peaceful exploration of space. But it was a design that made a lot of people happy. There were a lot of prime contractors that worked on it, a lot of subcontractors on it, and even today a lot of the SLS rocket is components of the shuttle era. You know, you have Boeing that makes the core stage, you have Lockheed that makes the spacecraft, Northrop Grumman makes the solid rocket boosters. I mean, you bring a lot of that expertise and industry together, you're not necessarily going to formulate the least expensive solution. So it's rightful criticism.
That's why we're putting a lot of measures in place to start accelerating production. NASA not being passive, but taking an active role, getting out there with industry and driving production schedules, pulling it in, and bringing down costs. I said, we are not going to sit idly by as schedules are exceeded and budgets are overrun at the expense of the American people and everyone who's excited about the headlines only NASA can make.
Going to fix some of those budgetary problems. Sure, there were some safety issues.
Honestly, we got good lessons learned out of it, a lot of independent commissions. I will tell you, we will do everything we can to understand the risks that exist, to drive them as close to zero as we can, but you cannot explore the worlds beyond ours without taking some risk. I mean, there are some risks that are worth taking.
You mentioned industry and NASA and some of both the advantages and benefits of working together, but some of the challenges, too. I mean, the moon base is going to cost American taxpayers 20 billion over the next 7 years at a time when private space industry is exploding. Some taxpayers may look at the budget and say, 'Why is my money still going to these missions?' What's your response?
Well, I would say, look, we can do both and we should do both. Like a lot of our resources should be spent on solving some of the hardships and the challenges that exist today, which I absolutely know is a high priority for the administration on that. But I think a small percentage, a quarter of a percentage, being spent to build a better and brighter future for our children, so kids want to dress up as astronauts or engineers or scientists for Halloween and then grow up and contribute to this endeavor. I mean, it's really hard to put a price on that.
What I would say, you know, relative to a lot of other government programs, you said 20 billion over 7 years, NASA's annual budget, approximately 25 billion dollars, it's actually a reasonably small percentage of our annual budget that's going to go to building America's presence on the moon. And who knows, again, what we may learn. Knowledge is power, the scientific possibilities, the economic potential, and again, how about inspiring our kids to want to grow up and go even farther.
I think I know the answer to this is probably going to be both, but I do want you to explain it. Do you think these endeavors are worthwhile just for the sake of human curiosity and progress and discovery, or do you think there needs to be a tangible return on investment for Americans?
I think the answer is both, but I would argue that some of the economic and scientific return is a worthwhile measurement. You know, the things we learn from a Hubble space telescope or James Webb's telescope, like that knowledge is certainly very helpful to America. The technology that goes into building some of these instruments that will go into building out a moon base comes back and improves life here on Earth. So, no, I don't think we should just spend for the sake of spending, but when you do these big, bold endeavors, it has the opportunity to change the world. Sending American astronauts back to the moon, building a moon base, getting underway under nuclear power and propulsion for sure will satisfy a lot of curiosity, will help us pursue the answers that people have been asking themselves since the beginning of humankind. But there is good economic return from it. There is good scientific return as well.
We were talking off camera about just the amount of brilliance, of human knowledge that is in NASA these days. But over 4,000 employees, about 20% of the entire workforce left NASA last year under the president's deferred resignation program. One former employee called the impact of that brain drain cataclysmic, a stage five hurricane. I know you've announced plans to bring in more talent, but did those cuts set NASA back?
So I would say first, you have to look at our workforce on a fully integrated basis. So we had 18,000 civil servants. We have a little over 14,000 now after the deferred resignation program. We have over 40,000 contractors. Those aren't employees that work at Boeing or Lockheed that we're counting. They are walking around here at Kennedy Space Center. They're doing launchpad operations. They're in mission control. So I think when you look at it on a fully integrated basis, the percentage of our workforce that moved on as a result of the deferred resignation program is actually incredibly small.
That said, we are doing a lot of things to rebuild our core competencies, things that were outsourced decades ago, long before the President Trump's administration. I mean, the people working on our rocket right now are from mission control staffing agencies and contractors. We're rebuilding those capabilities back in NASA, moving them over to civil servants, working with OPM on this NASA force initiative to bring expertise from industry into NASA, those that have been working on things like reusable rockets that have been really just eye-watering capabilities. Bring them back to NASA, elevating the young talent from our internship programs.
Did you lose people you maybe shouldn't have lost?
I mean, you know, it was a voluntary resignation program. Were there some people here that as part of that had great expertise that could be helpful in things like turning launchpads and such? Sure. Were there some people that were occupying positions that made it hard for younger talent to elevate in the organization and then left NASA and put us at a detriment? Absolutely. That was a factor in it as well. So, I mean, the idea of shrinking the government, getting our deficit under control. I mean, do I think our national debt is maybe one of the greatest national security issues for the nation? 100%. So I fully support the president getting that under control. And we have all the tools now to build the workforce to execute on our mission.
All right, let's talk about China. Aggressively working to put its own astronauts on the moon by 2030. Appears on track to do it. I mean, they have been advancing rapidly and in the time that you talk about where we were kind of in stasis essentially, they were making progress. Can you explain why Americans should care if China beats us in this new age space race?
Oh, I absolutely. I mean, I don't think there isn't a person alive right now that didn't grow up in America where the United States was the overarching leader, the world superpower. There's a real chance that that could shift in the years ahead. You know, you spend 100 billion dollars in 35 years of making promises the American people that we'll return to the moon only to come in second place from a nation that didn't have all of the expertise, all the experience that we had starting in the 1960s. That says there's a problem. It literally is the exact opposite message that you sent to the world July 20th, 1969 when Neil and Buzz walked on the moon and then came back to Earth. It says, 'Wow, I wonder what else America is capable of doing.' And again, you come up short after all the resources and all the promises, commitments that have been made over the decades, it sends a message that something is broken and you may want to start encroaching across all the important technological domains.
So I take our national security mission that we have here at NASA very important because coming up short in the ultimate high ground of space, even through the lens of the peaceful exploration and science and discovery, does have implications.
You know, NASA's programs and funding hang in the balance every 4 years. Different administrations have different priorities. China doesn't have that problem. How do you make sure that all the groundwork that you're laying right now doesn't disappear if under a new administration?
I mean, this is one of the things I love about the job because everybody does love NASA and everybody wants to see NASA succeed, but all our various stakeholders have different ideas on how we should do it, right? And it's understandable to some extent. What parts made where and what jobs does that potentially impact and when I go around and speak to everyone and say, you know, for a long time these conversations were pretty fair. Now, when you have a rival that is not encumbered by any of this baggage if you want, we have to become more outcome oriented. It's said all the time like we are going to always be responsible about jobs and our vendors, our workforce, but we have to establish priorities, we have to resource them, we have to move with urgency, we have to do it safely, but we have to achieve world-changing outcomes or all those other things you're concerned about won't matter quite as much.
So, NASA announced the retirement of the International Space Station in 2030. China is ramping up development of its space station. Why is now the right time to transition the ISS to commercially operated stations? Is there any worry that NASA might be ceding low Earth orbit to China?
Well, I would say this has been in discussion for at least 10 years right now. So, we didn't announce anything new. We just talked about the transition. It's in the national space policy to prepare for a transition by 2030 from the International Space Station to one or ideally multiple commercial space stations. I mean, now we're getting back into the sci-fi future and we got lots of space stations out there. One of many presentations we had in ignition this week was to talk about that transition making sure we do it in a very thoughtful way so that we do not give up the incredible orbiting laboratory capabilities we have in lower Earth orbit that we do the transition without creating a gap and that's what we talked about this week.
Okay, Mars. I've been dying for this part of the conversation. The Artemis program, this is a precursor for the United States to get to Mars. If we actually want to do this, what technology do we need that we don't have right now?
We have the technology. We just have to apply it into environments that it has never been tested in before, which is why the moon base is so important. So, we have to be able to make propellant on Mars. That's going to be imperative. So, I want everyone to realize this because it may not be that intuitive to them. When American astronauts return to the lunar surface, you virtually are already there with the capability to send them to Mars. The velocity differences are negligible between the two. So, when you see Starships launch, when you see New Glenn launch, which is Blue Origin's rocket that's supposed to launch in about a week, and those vehicles get really dialed in, the ability to go to moon or Mars, there's going to be very little differences. Of course, you're going to have an atmosphere, it's a different gravity well, but you'll be able to probably send American astronauts shortly thereafter.
The hard part is bringing them back home because when they get there their fuel tanks are empty. And we're going to have to make that propellant on Mars. Now, the good news is the water ice on the South Pole of the moon gives us that opportunity to prove out those capabilities. We know how to do it.
Did I hear a Pennsylvania accent in water ice there?
We're going to use the moon as the tech proving ground for nuclear power, which is going to be important because it's going to take a lot of energy to make propellant. We're going to have the water ice on the moon to experiment with and when you start to dial those things in, you're going to be very close to being ready to send astronauts to Mars.
