Billionaire Jared Isaacman: The next NASA administrator

On Wednesday, December 4, the president-elect announced that his nominee for NASA administrator will be Jared Isaacman. If you’re not overly familiar with the ins and outs of private spaceflight, you may have no idea who this is or why it matters.

Who is Jared Isaacman?

If Jared Isaacman’s name is familiar, it might be because I’ve talked about him quite a bit over the past few years. Isaacman is a billionaire who’s the founder and CEO of Shift4 payments, a credit card payments processor (interesting note, he dropped out of high school at the age of 15 and founded the company in 1999, at the age of 16).

He paid for and flew on 2021’s Inspiration4 mission, and Isaacman also flew on and was one of the two astronauts to perform the first private spacewalk on Polaris Dawn (a mission he also paid for) earlier this year. He’s basically a huge fan of spaceflight and space science. You may remember a private spaceflight asking if they could boost and service the Hubble Space Telescope for free. That was Jared Isaacman with the Polaris Program, and NASA turned him down.

I had thought a lot about who the next NASA administrator might be. It directly affects my job, and it affects my interests because I haven’t been shy about the fact that I love space and I want to be out there more. I want more human spaceflight and I want more robotic missions and space telescopes and space science, as well as more study of climate change and Earth science. Just give me more of all of it.

This pick is, frankly, someone I never considered. It’s unexpected, to say the least. But I don’t think it’s objectively terrible. Here’s Isaacman’s acceptance post for the nomination.

He specifically calls out the space economy, which means more emphasis on commercial space, and he cites that, “We will never again lose our ability to journey to the stars and never settle for second place.” That’s certainly interesting — it suggests that Artemis will be a top priority, as it is for the current administration.

NASA administrator is a post subject to Senate confirmation, but I don’t think that’s going to be an issue here, so it’s not presumptuous to talk about what he might do as NASA administrator.

Isaacman: The background

Trump’s last pick for NASA administrator was Jim Bridenstine, someone who didn’t believe in human-caused climate change when he was appointed. I didn’t have much confidence in him, but he surprised me as a relatively effective leader of NASA. He reversed his position on climate change; he pulled together the disparate bits of the program to return to the moon, gave it a name (Artemis) and a schedule; and generally he was a positive for agency.

(It’s worth noting that Republicans are often more interested in NASA than Democrats because they see the agency as a way of boosting the American reputation, so NASA generally enjoys more funding and more visible successes under Republican presidents.)

Isaacman has a genuine interest in spaceflight and science. It’s also reassuring that he’s posted about needing to not mess up Earth because we can’t just go to another planet and set up a civilization there quickly or easily.

I was unable to find anything specific from Isaacman on his views about climate change (because remember, NASA does exceptional work on this front, and there have been a lot of worries about these budgets being slashed.)

But I did find this pledge letter from his Inspiration4 mission, in which he specifically calls out climate change as a challenge facing us.

(And it’s worth noting Isaacman has a long history of philanthropy, and has partnered extensively with the Make-A-Wish foundation). He also supports STEM education; Trump tried to slash NASA’s education budget in his first term, and it’s not certain what will happen this time around.

Isaacman does seem to be an effective leader, at least in a private company setting — how that will translate to NASA remains as-yet unclear.

NASA: Redundancy is important. Isaacman disagrees.

Here’s what I think could happen based on Isaacman’s past comments. (Keep in mind that people can change their minds when confronted with new data and being internal to an organization, versus an outside critic, and I think that an open mind is a good thing.)

There will be a lot of changes to the Artemis program. Getting back to the moon, and quickly, was a priority during Trump’s first administration, and that will continue. (When I was at Engadget, I remember covering Trump’s suggestion that NASA put astronauts on Artemis I, the first flight of the SLS rocket, to speed up the moon landing). That pressure will likely continue and ramp up.

But Isaacman has been vocal about his criticisms of the Artemis program. His main criticisms are basically, that NASA is wasting money on Artemis while cutting back its science programs.

It’s not that he thinks Artemis is a waste of money — instead, Isaacman believes that NASA’s insistence on redundancy for the program is wasteful when NASA could be spending that money to bolster its science portfolio. Last year, Isaacman specifically criticized NASA on the possible cancellation of the New Horizons mission, which is currently exploring the Kuiper Belt, to save $3 million, when NASA has spent billions of dollars on two separate companies building lunar landers that do, essentially, the same thing.

According to a report from the Government Accountability Office, SpaceX’s lunar lander HLS life cycle cost is $4.9 billion, while Blue Origin’s contract award was $3.4 billion. HLS will be used on Artemis III and IV, while Blue Origin’s lunar lander will be used on Artemis ,. The idea behind this redundancy is that right now, NASA’s aggressive Artemis schedule is frankly unrealistic. Part of the reason for this delay — though not all of its, for sure — is partner hardware, including delays with getting SpaceX’s Starship operational. (HLS is just a modified version of Starship, and will require multiple operational Starship vehicles for fueling.)

But Isaacman could save the Chandra Space Telescope

NASA wants multiple providers for redundancy, and that’s important, but it’s also hard to argue with the idea that NASA is slinging around billions of dollars on its Artemis side while cancelling small and incredibly successful science programs that don’t cost all that much. New Horizons got a reprieve from NASA in 2023, but the Chandra X-Ray telescope is currently on the chopping block.

This is a historic telescope launched in 1999 and it’s unmatched. We don’t have another X-Ray telescope like Chandra if this one were to be retired, and it’s invaluable. I’ve personally talked a lot about how I don’t think Chandra should be cancelled, it’s very short sighted from NASA.

And the program is only $68 million dollars, which doesn’t seem like much compared to the Blue Origin award.

And seemingly, Isaacman agrees.

He’s made multiple comments about how NASA should save Chandra.

(I do want to take a second to note that NASA has been in a bad budget environment the past few years, and that’s up to Congress, not NASA. I’ve talked about this a lot, but determining these priorities with not enough money to go around is hard, and I don’t want to downplay that.)

Will he cancel SLS, NASA’s moon rocket?

Isaacman has also been a vocal critic of SLS, NASA’s eye-wateringly expensive moon rocket. I think the latest figures have us at about $4.3 billion per launch. I think it’s safe to say that Isaacman might at least try to cancel SLS in favor of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy or Starship.

But he wouldn’t be the first administrator to try and find an alternative to SLS. Jim Bridenstine explored commercial options back in 2019 to try and meet Trump’s goal of putting NASA astronauts on the moon by 2024. They even looked at a combination of the Falcon Heavy rocket and a second stage ICPS built by United Launch Alliance (the Falcon Heavy on its own does not provide enough power on its on for the translunar injection burn, hence the need for the second stage.)

This clearly didn’t materialize, mainly because SLS has deep, deep institutional support in the Senate. Senator Richard Shelby from Alabama pushed to re-use Space Shuttle engines, rather than developing new technology for SLS, in order to make the rocket seem more cost-effective. (Clearly, that wasn’t the case — but Shelby was invested because SLS provides a lot of jobs at the Marshall Spaceflight Center in Alabama.)

Shelby has repeatedly threatened to defund NASA programs and fire people if the agency pursued newer technology (such as in-space refueling) that might give commercial companies an advantage over NASA in deep space operations. He was SLS’s staunchest supporter. While his successor, Senator Katie Britt, supports SLS and the Marshall Space Flight Center, it’s unclear how she would respond to any attempts to cancel the program.

Isaacman’s close ties to SpaceX are concerning

And there’s the added issue of Jared Isaacman’s relationship with SpaceX. He pays SpaceX, a NASA contractor, for the Polaris Program, his series of private spaceflight missions. But it’s more than just a transactional relationship. Isaacman tests out new SpaceX hardware on his flights, he pushes the boundaries of what SpaceX is capable of with human spaceflight — the program is very much a collaboration. Two SpaceX employees flew on Polaris Dawn.

SpaceX is a company with many NASA contracts — both commercial crew and cargo to the International Space Station, the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle for the ISS, HLS for Artemis — and it’s not clear how or whether Isaacman will be objective with future contract awards. NASA has historically awarded contracts across private companies, preferring to share the wealth rather than awarding one company all of their contracts. Will, for example, Blue Origin continue to get NASA contracts, or will SpaceX get the lion’s share?

What makes this all more complicated and vague, of course, is that at this point SpaceX is usually both the least expensive and most experienced provider bidding on a contract. But NASA isn’t just looking at costs; the agency’s goal with commercial space is to bolster companies that might not otherwise survive, and give them a footing (and necessary funding). NASA did this for SpaceX in 2008, and I think it’s important they continue to do this for other companies.

There is a possibility that disproportionate contract awards for SpaceX that go against NASA’s previous strategy as stewards of space industry might be destabilizing for the growing commercial space sector.

He also doesn’t like government contracts

Isaacman has also said previously that he thinks that federal government contracting encourages waste and inefficiency.

This would be the cost plus contracts NASA uses on vehicles they own like Orion and SLS, and previously on the Space Shuttle and Apollo-era craft, for which NASA is responsible for any cost overruns.

But with SpaceX, NASA uses what’s called a fixed-price contract, which means that the company is required to put in some of their own money, and NASA isn’t on the hook for overspending or delays. The company owns the hardware and is free to use it and make money off of it.

Isaacman clearly favors the latter, and though he’s said that his views aren’t about preferring SpaceX, this view does advantage a private company like SpaceX. Cost plus isn’t great, and it does encourage overspending, but also it gives NASA a lot more control over the final vehicle, and it’s much easier to make changes along the way.

Isaacman has experience with government contracts thanks to his previous co-ownership of a defense contracting firm called Draken International, which trains Air Force pilots and has the largest fleet of private military aircraft in the world. It makes sense, he’s passionate about flying, and is flight qualified in multiple military aircraft. He even set a world record in 2009 for flying around the world in a light jet. But it’s important to note that Isaacman sold his shares in Draken International in 2019.

According to a letter posted online to Shift4 employees, Isaacman plans on leaving the company after his confirmation. He will keep his majority interest in the company, but says he will reduce his voting power.

It’s safe to say we’re in for an interesting four years in spaceflight.

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