The man who may very well be NASA’s 15th Administrator made his first public address since receiving the nomination for the role.
Jared Isaacman made an appearance at the Space Force Association’s Spacepower Conference in Orlando on Wednesday, having previously spoken at last year’s inaugural conference. While the event was billed as a discussion on his recent spaceflight, his comments before a room full of U.S. Space Force Guardians and commercial companies garnered additional interest given his nomination by President-Elect Donald Trump.
During a roughly 50-minute conversation with Matt Anderson, the SFA’s chief growth officer, Isaacman made a notable point to not only give acknowledgment to SpaceX when asked about Starship development or his missions onboard Crew Dragon, but also gave multiple kudos to other commercial launch providers.
“I love all about the commercial space industry right now. Just to point out, they are all generally doing the same thing, which is putting a lot of their own dollars on the line because they believe in the future that it holds,” Isaacman said. “There’s so much uncertainty around it too, right? There will almost assuredly be some space economy that’s up there and we’re gonna need a lot of people in this room to protect it when it fully develops.
“But yeah, Blue Origin’s putting a ton of their own money on the line. Love everything that Rocket Lab did. It’s another small, scrappy startup that’s doing great things. And for sure, SpaceX and their approach of fully reusable first and second stage, pretty awesome stuff.”
In the wake of Isaacman’s announcement as Trump’s desired NASA Administrator, there are those who expressed concerns with his close ties with both SpaceX and its founder, Elon Musk, who is one half of the proposed Department of Government Efficiency, which will make budget cutting recommendations to lawmakers.
In beginning the conversation, Anderson made clear that the conversation wouldn’t delve into topics concerning the nomination and didn’t mention Musk in his questioning. But during part of the conversation, he did ask Isaacman about his experience working as a government contractor through his aviation venture, Draken International.
“Shockingly, the government does do business very differently than the rest of the country, so I got an education in that and certainly, a lot of exposure to how other defense contractors operate.”
When asked about the “great power competition with China,” Isaacman said stressed that the U.S. should remain a leader in various space capabilities. He argued that “reusability is going to open up this domain in such a new way that we have no idea what the future may hold, but I know we can’t be second in that.”
“We are going to inevitably have a presence on the Moon and then on Mars and we’re just going to keep making the high ground higher and that is going to necessitate the contributions and really the protection from everybody in this room and those that aren’t here,” Isaacman said. “I think it’s imperative that we are first in that regard and that we lead the way.”
Polaris Program uncertainty
Much of the conversation on Wednesday concerned Isaacman’s two trips to space, first with Inspiration4 in 2021 and most recently with Polaris Dawn.
In a nod to the Space Force Guardians in the room and watching the conversation virtually, Isaacman talked about flying some of their service rank patches during those flights. He said one in particular stood out in his memory.
“[A former cadet] asked if I could fly his rank again, except his captain bars, which I was like this must be done because I realized his last name was Kirk,” Isaacman said. “I was like, ‘Captain Kirk’s rank is definitely going to space with us. So I filmed it on Polaris Dawn and sent him a copy of the video.”
Isaacman said while the Polaris Dawn mission didn’t fundamentally break ground when it comes to the capabilities that are possible in low Earth orbit, he said part of their goal was to expand the understanding about things like how different people react when experiencing microgravity for a relatively brief duration of a few days.
He also addressed one of the elephants in the room: what becomes of the Polaris Program if he we to be confirmed as the next NASA administrator. Isaacman was responding to a question about what he sees next for the second and third Polaris missions, the latter of which has been billed as the first crewed launch of SpaceX’s Starship rocket.
“The future of the Polaris Program is a little bit of a question mark at the moment. May wind up on hold for a little bit, we’ll have to see,” Isaacman said. “But overall, I’m just super passionate about humankind’s future among the stars and what’s approaching because it’s going to be a lot. It’s going to arrive a lot quicker than probably many of us think.”
