Space fans, rejoice — President Donald Trump just brought back the one man who might actually save NASA. Here's the best news since last May, when Trump withdrew his nomination of astronaut/billionaire Jared Isaacman to head up NASA: Trump nominated him again.
"Jared’s passion for space, astronaut experience, and dedication to pushing the boundaries of exploration, unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and advancing the new space economy make him ideally suited to lead NASA into a bold new era,” Trump posted to Truth Social on Wednesday.
Take that, Old Space.
My antennae started twitching about Trump and Isaacman on Monday, when space reporter Eric Berger (probably the best in the business) published this story for Ars Technica: Capitol Hill is abuzz with talk of the “Athena” plan for NASA.
Long story short, Athena was Isaacman's plan for cutting costs at NASA and restoring the agency's "mission-first" culture — and getting us back to the Moon, at a price we can afford and before China does. Needless to say, Athena involved upsetting an awful lot of well-anchored apple carts and taking way some gold-plated iron rice bowls.
For starters, Isaacman wants to ditch the stupidly expensive, technological dinosaur knowns as the Space Launch System (SLS), meant to carry Americans back to the Moon. Not only is SLS built from yesterday's disposable rocket parts, but "at $4 billion a launch, you don’t have a Moon program," interim NASA Administrator Sean Duffy (and full-time Transportation Secretary) said back in September.
"A careful reading indicates that Isaacman wanted to take a hard look at what NASA has been doing in recent years, how it is spending its money, and whether it is seeing returns on this investment," Berger wrote. "With Athena, Isaacman would attempt to lean into the entire commercial space industry as a means to further stretch public money and maintain an advantage over competitors in space."
Washington read that as "Isaacman is too close to Elon Musk and too far from Lockheed," and that's when the long knives came out for the 42-year-old billionaire and record-setting private astronaut.
AND ANOTHER THING: "Old Space" refers to old-school contractors who have been in the business forever, mostly doing the same things in the same ways — and also to NASA. "New Space" encompasses the free-thinking startups, large and small — and hopefully to NASA under new leadership.
So Athena was dead in the water after Isaacman's nomination got pulled on May 31 for "political reasons," as they say. And with Isaacman out, so were most of my hopes for real reform at the nation's premiere space agency. Duffy is doing fine, moonlighting as NASA chief. But NASA is a full-time job, and Duffy wasn't the best guy for the job, even if he weren't wearing two hats.
But here's where things get interesting.
There were very few copies of the leaked version of Athena available, so Berger believes that "the initial leak came from either Duffy, [Duffy's chief of staff Pete] Meachum, or someone acting on their behalf several weeks ago."
It seems likely that someone high up a Transportation, perhaps even Duffy himself, leaked Athena to the press in an attempt to derail Isaacman's re-nomination. Instead — and to his great credit — Trump doubled down and put Isaacman back up, regardless.
I tend not to think it was Duffy, given how forthright he's been about SLS. Then again, Berger also reported that "Duffy has been building ties with the space industry, trying to paint Isaacman as someone who would come in and force big changes on NASA and its traditional space contractors."
So who knows?
What I do know is that Trump wants to put Isaacman back where he belongs, making our space program great again.
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