Jared Isaacman is a man of great accomplishment, having founded his first multibillion dollar company at the tender age of 16. He has embarked on two private spaceflights, including Inspiration4, which raised hundreds of billions for St. Jude’s Children’s Cancer Research Hospital. Polaris Dawn featured the first private spacewalk and ventured farther from Earth than any human has gone since Apollo 17.
Isaacman is on the brink of his greatest challenge. He will soon become NASA administrator with the mandate to take the space agency, the U.S., and the world to the moon, Mars and beyond.
No pressure.
During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee, Isaacman promised that he would have NASA go back to the moon and on to Mars and perform a wide variety of science missions with the current space agency budget. Two days later, President Trump’s Office of Management and Budget proposed lopping 20 percent of NASA’s budget, which would include cutting the space agency’s science programs in half.
The proposed cuts would kill the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, the Mars Sample Return Mission and the DAVINCI Venus probe. They would close NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Virginia and put 10,000 civil servants on the street.
The proposal has caused nearly universal condemnation. Even Elon Musk believes it to be “troubling.” The Congressional Planetary Science Caucus has expressed bipartisan opposition to the proposed cuts.
The spectacle of Isaacman making promises of an invigorated, productive NASA and then being undercut by the administration that he proposes to serve is mind-blowing.
While funding for NASA’s science programs is sorted out, Isaacman has assumed the difficult task of getting American boots on the lunar surface by the end of Trump’s current term while attending to the priority of sending astronauts to Mars.
“As the President stated, we will prioritize sending American astronauts to Mars. Along the way, we will inevitably have the capabilities to return to the Moon and determine the scientific, economic and national security benefits of maintaining a presence on the lunar surface,” Isaacman said during his confirmation hearings before the Senate Commerce Committee.
Under questioning from members of the committee, including Chairman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Isaacman reaffirmed the commitment to land Americans on the lunar surface by the end of Trump’s presidency. But what happens after that?
One thing Isaacman should not do is to assign the determination of the benefits of a presence on the lunar surface to some study committee. The only way to know the answer to that question is to go ahead and establish that presence (i.e. a lunar base) and find out.
Isaacman can accomplish this task by forging commercial and international partnerships to create the lunar base. Many nations will fall over themselves for the honor of having their astronauts taken to the moon by NASA. Commercial companies will be eager to test and then implement the technologies to make the moon economically viable.
Even though Mars is much farther away than the moon, it actually presents an easier task for NASA, because SpaceX is already spending a great deal of effort to fulfill Elon Musk’s dream of sending humans to the Red Planet and starting a settlement there. The space agency can assume a supporting role for the humans to Mars effort, developing the technology necessary to sustain the humans who will go to Mars, first as explorers, but then as settlers.
Also, Isaacman’s proposal to develop nuclear-powered propulsion technology would facilitate sending people to Mars.
Isaacman noted in his testimony that the U.S. has been trying to send people back to the moon and on to Mars since 1989 and has spent $100 billion on the effort, but has so far nothing to show for it. Someone should write a book about the political and bureaucratic impediments that have caused that waste of time and money. (Speaking of which , I did write one.)
Isaacman, with his business acumen and boundless vision, may be the leader who will finally make the spread of human civilization beyond low Earth orbit to the moon, Mars and beyond happen. But will Congress let him do it?
Congress has been notorious for micromanaging NASA programs, the better to grab a share of jobs and money for members’ districts and states. It’s time, instead, to provide NASA the resources to accomplish the great task at hand and then sit back and watch it happen.
Mark R. Whittington, who writes frequently about space policy, has published a political study of space exploration entitled “Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?” as well as “The Moon, Mars and Beyond,” and, most recently, “Why is America Going Back to the Moon? “He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.
