\n Jared Isaacman has been renominated to lead NASA, and a document outlining his vision for the agency has been leaked to the press.\n <\/p>\n
Commercial astronaut and billionaire Jared Isaacman is again in the running to lead NASA following his renomination <\/a> by President Donald Trump on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Trump selected <\/a> Isaacman to lead NASA back in December, but pulled <\/a> his nomination in June \u201cafter a thorough review of prior associations,\u201d which may have referred to Isaacman\u2019s donations <\/a> to Democrat politicians, or his close ties <\/a> to Elon Musk and SpaceX. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has served as NASA\u2019s acting administrator since July.<\/p>\n Shortly before the announcement of Isaacman\u2019s renomination, Ars Technica <\/a> and Politico <\/a> reported that they had obtained a 62-page document outlining Isaacman\u2019s vision for NASA, which he prepared while his first nomination was pending in the Senate.<\/p>\n The full text of Isaacman\u2019s NASA manifesto, known as Project Athena, has not been shared publicly, but snippets shared by media outlets and Isaacman hint at his vision for NASA science and the future of the agency.<\/p>\n In a statement <\/a> on X, Isaacman verified the plan was his but declined to share it publicly, saying, \u201cI just don\u2019t think the space community needs to debate line-by-line while NASA and the rest of the government are going through a shutdown.\u201d<\/p>\n Isaacman\u2019s plan for NASA is organized around five main ideas: reorganizing the agency to reduce bureaucracy, putting more American astronauts in space, figuring out how to \u201cextract more value from space than we put in,\u201d using NASA as a \u201cforce multiplier for science,\u201d and investing in technology and resources for the future.<\/p>\n Isaacman wrote on X that his plans for science include leveraging NASA\u2019s resources to \u201cincrease the frequency of missions, reduce costs, and empower academic institutions to contribute to real discovery missions.\u201d He added, \u201cThe idea is to get some of that $1 trillion in university endowments into the fight, alongside NASA, to further science and discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n NASA\u2019s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, through which NASA hires companies to send small robotic landers and rovers to the Moon, could be used as a model for all of planetary science to \u201caccelerate discovery and reduce time-to-science,\u201d Isaacman wrote, adding that it would be \u201cbetter to have 10 x $100 million missions and a few fail than a single overdue and costly $1B+ mission.\u201d He echoed this sentiment in the All-In Podcast <\/a> earlier this year, saying, \u201cWhy do we accept things taking 10 years when they could be a year? Even the decadal process of prioritizing scientific missions over a 10-year span is kind of insane.\u201d<\/p>\n Isaacman\u2019s plan also embraces purchasing Earth science data from commercial providers. \u201cI know the \u2018science-as-a-service\u2019 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,\u201d Isaacman said on X. \u201cWhy 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)?\u201d<\/p>\n Isaacman\u2019s plan also recommends that NASA terminate its Space Launch System and the Gateway lunar space station after the planned Artemis II and Artemis III missions, eventually incorporating elements of the programs into a nuclear propulsion program. During the All-In Podcast, Isaacman also criticized the robotic Mars Sample Return mission, suggesting that NASA should redirect those resources toward private companies that can support a crewed Mars mission.<\/p>\n On the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Isaacman\u2019s post said he would like to look at overlaps between the work of the lab and its contractors, and denied ever suggesting that the U.S. could do without JPL, adding, \u201cI have publicly defended programs like the Chandra X-ray Observatory, offered to fund a Hubble reboost mission, and anything suggesting I am anti-science or want to outsource that responsibility is simply untrue.\u201d<\/p>\n Rumors that the so-called Project Athena document was leaked to the press to hinder Isaacman\u2019s nomination and keep Duffy in control of NASA were framed as an unfortunate \u201cdistraction\u201d by Isaacman in his X post. He also added context on his relationship with Duffy in the post, stating that \u201cif there is any friction, I suspect it is more political operators causing the controversy.\u201d<\/p>\n How long it will take for Isaacman to secure Senate confirmation to lead NASA is unclear. The White House has yet to formally submit his nomination to the Senate, where he may face another nomination hearing and fresh questions about his NASA plans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jared Isaacman has been renominated to lead NASA, and a document outlining his vision for the agency has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-122115","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}