By David Shepardson and Joey Roulette
WASHINGTON (Maxima) – President Donald Trump’s appointee to head NASA, entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, encountered queries from senators on Wednesday regarding the approach for balancing Trump's emphasis on reaching Mars with NASA's primary lunar mission initiative.
Isaacman, the head of the payments firm Shift4 Payments, maintains a strong relationship with SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk. He has traveled to space twice as a civilian astronaut aboard one of the company’s spacecrafts.
The wealthy businessman has traveled to Washington for a confirmation hearing with the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation where differing opinions about sending American astronauts to the Moon and Mars took center stage.
Upon confirmation, Isaacman, who is 42 years old, will be responsible for managing approximately 18,000 staff members and a budget of around $25 billion. The focus will largely be on sending astronauts back to the lunar surface through a project known as Artemis. This initiative was launched by Trump during his initial presidential term.
Senator Ted Cruz, whose home state of Texas hosts NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, questioned the nominee about their plans for lunar exploration. He highlighted the significant rivalry regarding the moon between the U.S. and China, pointing out that China intends to land its own astronauts there by 2030.
"It would be difficult for me to imagine a graver error than telling Communist China, ‘The Moon belongs to you; America will abstain from leading,’" Cruz stated at the beginning of his remarks.
However, the president along with Musk, who invested $250 million in backing Trump’s presidential run and advocated for Isaacman's appointment, has started focusing intensely on Mars as a key national objective. This shift has raised doubts regarding NASA’s lunar initiative, which has already received billions of dollars in funding.
"I definitely hope to witness our return to the Moon… we aren’t forced to choose between going to the Moon or Mars,” Isaacman stated, emphasizing that NASA has the capability to undertake both lunar and Martian expeditions concurrently.
When questioned about his stance on NASA’s Space Launch System rocket—a key component of the lunar mission costing billions—Isaacman didn’t explicitly endorse it. However, he noted that the rocket is included in the present plans and expressed hope for the successful launch of the Artemis 2 crew to the moon. Previously, Isaacman had labeled the SLS as “unfathomably costly.”
"He subsequently stated that he believes this to be the most efficient and quickest method to reach their destination," referring to SLS and Orion, the multi-billion-dollar crew capsule constructed by Lockheed Martin sitting atop the SLS.
When asked whether he has communicated with Musk about running NASA, Isaacman stated, “Not at all,” emphasizing that his allegiance lies with NASA rather than companies like SpaceX – “SpaceX is the contractor; NASA is the client. They work for us, not vice versa.”
CONTRACTS WITH SPACEX
SpaceX currently holds approximately $15 billion in NASA contracts, providing the organization with its sole American transportation system for sending crew members to space and a lunar lander designed to deliver personnel to the moon before the end of the decade.
Isaacman informed the senators that he doesn’t understand why the 25-year-old International Space Station, which serves as an orbital scientific laboratory, should be deorbited prior to the scheduled date of 2030. This is when NASA aims to introduce privately operated space stations as replacements.
Musk proposed deorbiting the space station by 2027 to concentrate efforts on Mars exploration, which took Cruz aback, as per three individuals aware of his stance. However, SpaceX holds a deal to bring down the ISS in 2030.
The four astronauts assigned to NASA's Artemis 2 mission - which involves a fly-by of the moon in 2026 before a subsequent moon landing mission - had front row seats in the hearing.
As a Musk ally and astronaut on novel SpaceX missions, Isaacman would reinforce NASA's strategy of depending on private companies for accessing space as a commercial service - a model that threatens space programs held by established contractors like Boeing and Northrop Grumman , the two main builders of SLS.Isaacman's credentials have secured his backing from a major industry organization that represents over 85 space firms along with 28 ex-astronauts.
Although NASA's previous two administrators had extensive political expertise and excelled at managing relationships with the agency’s funding sources in Congress, Isaacman lacks such experience. However, during the hearing, he positioned his unconventional background as a strength.
(Reported by David Shepardson in Washington and Joey Roulette in Colorado Springs; edited by Chris Sanders and Nick Zieminski)