Rolling Stone provides more details about Jared Isaacman and his nomination as NASA administrator
Jared Isaacman
This article from Rolling Stone published yesterday provides a wealth of new information about Jared Isaacman, Trump’s still unconfirmed pick to become NASA’s next administrator.
Two key details: First, the article quotes Isaacman saying he opposes NASA’s policy of signing up two companies, SpaceX and Blue Origin, to build manned lunar landers.
I will try to help, but this is why I get frustrated at two lunar lander contracts, when will be lucky to get to the [Moon] a few times in the next decade. People falsely assume its because I want SpaceX to win it all, but budgets are not unlimited & unfortunate casualties happen.
In other words, he opposes using NASA to develop an aerospace industry with multiple companies capable of doing things NASA needs done. He also appears to dismiss the value of redundancy that two landers provides.
Second, the article provides links to the financial [pdf] and ethics [pdf] disclosures that he submitted to the government after being named as nominee. In the financial statement he indicates he paid SpaceX more than $50 million for providing the transportation for his multi-mission Dragon/Starship Polaris Dawn manned program. In the ethics statement he asserts he would end that contract if confirmed as NASA administrator, with SpaceX refunding any monies for services not yet rendered. The program itself would be suspended until Isaacman completes his term as administrator.
The Rolling Stone article, though detailed and fair-minded, appears to strongly endorse Isaacman, and thus joins a growing public campaign from many insider Washington players — a large number of whom have been passionately hostile to Donald Trump — to get Isaacman approved. At the moment however his nomination appears stalled because the Trump administration has not yet submitted to the Senate the paperwork needed to allow that body to schedule hearings.
The strange campaign by many of Trump’s opponents to endorse Isaacman continues to suggest to me that the Trump administration has had second thoughts about its NASA nominee. The swamp now wants him, and this is raising hackles inside the administration, which thus explains the slow-walking of his paperwork.
Readers!
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Jared Isaacman
This article from Rolling Stone published yesterday provides a wealth of new information about Jared Isaacman, Trump’s still unconfirmed pick to become NASA’s next administrator.
Two key details: First, the article quotes Isaacman saying he opposes NASA’s policy of signing up two companies, SpaceX and Blue Origin, to build manned lunar landers.
I will try to help, but this is why I get frustrated at two lunar lander contracts, when will be lucky to get to the [Moon] a few times in the next decade. People falsely assume its because I want SpaceX to win it all, but budgets are not unlimited & unfortunate casualties happen.
In other words, he opposes using NASA to develop an aerospace industry with multiple companies capable of doing things NASA needs done. He also appears to dismiss the value of redundancy that two landers provides.
Second, the article provides links to the financial [pdf] and ethics [pdf] disclosures that he submitted to the government after being named as nominee. In the financial statement he indicates he paid SpaceX more than $50 million for providing the transportation for his multi-mission Dragon/Starship Polaris Dawn manned program. In the ethics statement he asserts he would end that contract if confirmed as NASA administrator, with SpaceX refunding any monies for services not yet rendered. The program itself would be suspended until Isaacman completes his term as administrator.
The Rolling Stone article, though detailed and fair-minded, appears to strongly endorse Isaacman, and thus joins a growing public campaign from many insider Washington players — a large number of whom have been passionately hostile to Donald Trump — to get Isaacman approved. At the moment however his nomination appears stalled because the Trump administration has not yet submitted to the Senate the paperwork needed to allow that body to schedule hearings.
The strange campaign by many of Trump’s opponents to endorse Isaacman continues to suggest to me that the Trump administration has had second thoughts about its NASA nominee. The swamp now wants him, and this is raising hackles inside the administration, which thus explains the slow-walking of his paperwork.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
IF . . . I believed he would accept the nomination . . .
and
IF . . . I had the power to nominate someone to serve as NASA’s leader . . .
I would nominate Mr. Robert Zimmerman for the job. We’d lose him for Behind the Black during his tenure, but NASA and space exploration efforts would be better off for it.
Rolling Stone has a problem with veracity.
That having been said, the fastest way to nix Jared’s appointment would be for an outfit like Rolling Stone to write glowing reviews so as to sour the milk–reverse psychology.
I don’t share Jared’s view on anything, save his admission that budgets are not unlimited.
And that’s why there should be no cuts to NASA which has on received limited moneys as opposed to warmongering which looks to have unlimited budgets.
Don’t talk to me about SLS being bloat when Boeing X-47 NGAD will wind up making that company of villains more profits.
X-47 cannot shoot down ICBMs…cannot be used for spaceflight–but it is SLS he wants killed. That will make him and O’Grief NASA’s worst administrators.
I wonder what is so deeply upsetting to Mr. Wright about national defense? He calls it “warmongering” but the Stars and Stripes does not fly out of the kindness of other people’s hearts.
That said, I don’t trust Rolling Stone.
I would also nominate Robert Zimmerman for the head of NASA. Either Zimmerman, or Lori Garver. Lori Garver has been a member of the National Space Society since the 1980s. I remember seeing her in Space World, and then in Ad Astra magazine.
I would also would have liked to see John Stossel as the head of the FDA. I think RFK Jr. was a bad choice.
You all realize that Zubrin wants for Tesla to completely fail and he has little interest in Starship getting us to Mars, right. So, without Musk and the Starship fleet, how exactly do you space advocates think that we will see our goals for space realized in the foreseeable future? SLS? Blue Origin? ULA?
Zubrin on LinkedIn – “All countries hit by Trump tariffs should counter by heavily tariffing Tesla…If Tesla falls, Trump falls.
@Robert,
With Lori Garver, would we get a return of the Asteroid Redirect Mission? Would we conclude that we cannot afford a lunar lander? Would the Moon become a verboten term again? Would the emphasis be on utilizing space data?
Bob,
In your opinion, has the Antares redundancy been particularly needed? Has the Starliner redundancy been particularly needed? Rather, it may be that competitive bids have kept NASA’s contracts reasonable. But, I think that a cost-benefit calculation needs to be made. Lack of redundancy means only a gap before operations continue. Is the cost of that theoretical gap greater than the cost of a second contract? My feeling is that the answer is no. I would rather accept the not-yet-needed gap in Dragon service while putting the money spent on Starliner towards completing surface hardware. instead. Same with Starship versus Blue’s lander.
DougSpace: I take a much wider view of the situation. I do not weight the specific cost-benefit balance needed for NASA and its programs as much for what those programs bring to America as a whole. By buying multiple products from different companies, NASA helps the industry diversify. Right now SpaceX simply dominates too much. We need Blue Origin and Firefly and Relativity and Intuitive Machines and Astrobotics and others to succeed and provide competition. More important, having multiple producers provides us options when one fails (as demonstrated earlier this month between Intuitive Machines and Firefly in landing on the Moon).
This is the one place where our government money is well spent, if it is spent to buy products from a variety of companies.
As for Antares, I think it has been very beneficial to both NASA and Northrop Grumman. It is now also benefiting Firefly, which is replacing the Ukrainian stages and engines in the original Antares design.
As for Starliner, everyone would have benefited had Boeing done its job. That it failed only proved the advantage of signing two contractors.
I don’t feel in a position to determine if there has been a shift against Isaacman in the White House. I have no inside information, alas.
Ted Cruz made the claim about the White House not having sent over Isaacman’s background paperwork to the Senate Commerce Committee back on February 12. So far, I’ve been unable to identify any updates whatsoever on whether that has changed in the 41 days since then.
https://spacenews.com/doge-to-examine-nasa-payments/
Isaacman received the earliest nomination announcement of any NASA administrator to date — December 4. This led some of us to expect that perhaps the White House would speed through his confirmation, too. That hasn’t happened. Maybe it wasn’t as urgent a priority for Trump after all?
Some other perspective: So far, 32 Trump appointments have received Senate confirmation. Sad to say, as much as I am a space nut, I would be hard pressed to say that the administrator of NASA is one of the 32 most important appointed executive branch positions. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that Isaacman’s nomination has just fallen back to its historical level of political urgency — which is to say, not very urgent. Or maybe not.
P.S. I have some criticisms of the Rolling Stone article (as is usually the case with RS!), but they do have some interesting financial disclosure documents, like this one: https://extapps2.oge.gov/201/Presiden.nsf/PAS+Index/5717A2DE21B47AE885258C4E002C7F98/%24FILE/Isaacman%2C%20Jared%20T.%20%20final278.pdf
I would say it was certainly needed in 2015!
Hey DougSpace:, look at this article. https://www.wnd.com/2025/03/america-needs-an-all-of-the-above-space-strategy/
This is how we should go to the Moon, and beyond. NASA should not own, or operate spacecraft. NASA should purchase launch flights, and rent out space facilities. And here is something that Congress should do. http://www.space-settlement-institute.org/space-settlement-prize-act.html
That is from Alan Wasser. We need a lunar land claims bill. This would be a treaty signed by other countries. Lets say a company located in Singapore, with investors from Japan, and South Korea were to establish a settlement on the Moon. If it meets the criteria in the link, then their land claims would be recognized.
I do not believe in multiple supplier redundancy.
But I do believe in redundancy. Back-ups. If one manufacturer can supply its own back up then safety is covered. And quite possibly supplied at a cheaper price and a better integrated product.
Think of it this way.
The government buys Ford trucks. But just in case one truck does not work the government is paying dodge to keep manufacturing trucks instead of just getting another Ford truck that is already manufactured and proven.
Now if you want a second company to tryout new things or different ideas then do not call that redundancy call it testing or science.
pzatchok – I suppose that redundancy in these early days of space exploration includes protecting against systemic faults in one system.
Using your truck analogy if Ford only uses disc brakes and a systemic fault is discovered in disc brake systems then buying some Dodge trucks that use drum brakes might keep a portion of your truck fleet on the road and your operational mission running.
Not clear to me that NASA looked at Dragon vs Starliner in that way, but it seems to make sense.
So did he get his picture “on the cover of the Rolling Stone”?
And….Eric Berger has an article up today at Ars Technica about this situation — noting who seems to be unhappy with Isaacman, and who is not, with a conclusion that he shouldn’t be too worried about being confirmed — though it is not likely to happen until sometime in May, thanks to various recesses between now and then. Excerpt:
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/momentum-seems-to-be-building-for-jared-isaacman-to-become-nasa-administrator/
Eric does not examine the substantive issues we’ve been discussing in this thread. He does, however, briefly discuss an apparent demoralization at NASA, and the eagerness for a lot of peeps there to have a confirmed administrator in place to provide clarity.
Bob Zubrin says many sensible things about space policy and technology. But politics have eaten his brain in recent years. And he seems to be at the point of the brain rot that he would readily trade pushing back the first human landing on Mars by 50 years if that was the price of destroying Donald Trump and everyone associated with him.
Re: redundancy
If only one contract for the Commercial Crew Program had been awarded, Boeing might very well have won, owing to their extensive experience. After all, they got a lot more cash than SpaceX got to develop their capsule. And if that had happened, we’d have been SOL.
I had no idea Zubrin was a Trump hater.
I would have thought he would be eating well.
His Ares exists as SLS (sorta)
Starship/SuperHeavy is to resume flying.
He might be saying this to be popular… keeping the Mars Society afloat if it is filled with Berger-ites, etc.
I seem to remember Zubrin ‘s worst days was when he testified before Sam Brownback–one of the few in government who sympathized with him.
I think he is secretly happy with what’s going on–and just poor-mouthing things. He doesn’t have the best emotional IQ….talking about Columbus when that wasn’t cool with many.
Maybe he’s just being guarded?
Starliner is not a fleet.
How many times has starliner worked without problems. What about SLS?
Space X is the only fleet in the game.
Jeff Wright,
SLS is bloat. It’s also waste, fraud and abuse. As an astronaut himself, Isaacman should take a dim view of SLS-Orion. Flying people on Block 1 without a verification test of a new heat shield for Orion and doing the same on Artemis 4 on the maiden voyage of Block 1B is just nuts. But to do at least one unmanned test of each before putting crew aboard would also add a minimum of six years to the Artemis schedule for the first three crewed missions and also add at least $10 billion to the program budget. That might lose us Moon Race 2.0 to the PRC. Proceeding in the lunatic way currently planned, of course, seems quite likely to get either the Artemis 2 or Artemis 4 crew killed – perhaps even both – in which case the PRC also might beat us. Small wonder Isaacman has no enthusiasm for signing off on that.
Boeing may or may not ever make a profit from the F-47 – I’m inclined to think not – but it certainly has, and is, making bank on SLS.
The F-47, in my view, is just Boeing’s next dinosaur – or perhaps I should say dinosaur egg, as it will supposedly take another decade to actually “hatch.” Simply put, anything styling itself a “Next-Generation Air Dominance” aircraft is going to be nothing of the sort so long as it includes a human pilot in the design. Any actual NGAD – at least against our current main geopolitical rivals – needs to be robotic so it can do the 12 – 20G maneuvers needed both to crush human-piloted opposition aircraft and dodge their missiles while doing so and also while providing useful ground support.
But the NGAD won’t be in the US inventory if fisticuffs between the US and either or both Russia and the PRC brew up within the next decade. Those would, of necessity, be run-what-you-brung affairs. There is also the very real possibility that both of our “peer” adversaries will have imploded in the interim and leave the F-47 with nothing and no one to fight by the time of its initial operational capability – which will almost certainly be later than the 10 years now being noised around. Boeing hasn’t built anything to schedule or to spec in decades.
I’m a ditto with Catch Thirty-Thr33 on the “warmongering” thing. The main reason the US Defense budget is as large as it is is that it includes the salaries, bennies and pensions of its uniformed forces. Weapons acquisition does not dominate.
And even weapons acquisition is not “warmongering.” The legacy primes have no interest in starting or fighting wars. When that happens, their shiny gadgets have a tendency to get pranged and then it becomes obvious they have long-since lost the knack of mass production to replace same. They make their money on expensive and lengthy preparation for war, not on actually conducting it.
There is a warmongering segment of the Military-Industrial Complex but it’s the service contractors like Halliburton and Kellogg, Brown & Root and the private military contractors that wax fat during actual wartime.
I was also unaware that Zubrin has picked up a rollicking case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. He used to speak well of Elon even while criticizing him a bit for the scale of his intended Mars project. Zubrin has, it seems, spent too many decades figuring out mingy minimum-cost schemes for just barely getting a few people to Mars and is simply unable to break the habit of regarding that as the “right” way to do Mars.
Robert,
Not Lori Garver. She is a very partisan Democrat – a great enthusiast for climate change alarmism and DEI – and completely unsuitable for any role in the Trump administration. She was also willing, back in 2020, to make public noises about curtailing or ending NASA’s manned space efforts in order to try currying favor with the Biden regime in, one presumes, the hope of landing the Administrator job. She was useful during a particularly dark period of NASA’s history – the Obama/Bolden years – and we honor her former service to spaceflight. But her time as a government functionary has passed and, God willing, will never again come back.
DougSpace,
Zubrin really is making a fool of himself with that counter-tariff remark anent Tesla. Tesla has arranged its affairs to be nearly tariff-proof. Its PRC operations have a domestic PRC supply chain. There would be no point in the PRC slapping tariffs on Teslas as none of its Chinese sales are based on importing anything. Ditto, of course, for the US where Tesla is light-years more US-centric in its supply chain than any of the legacy so-called “domestic” automakers. Ditto again for Europe. GigaBerlin is fed by an almost entirely European supply chain.
I also endorse your lack of enthusiasm for Lori Garver as a NASA Administrator, though I think your stated reasons are mostly off the mark. There are, though, many actual reasons to hope Garver never again gets any power anent NASA.
I think your – and pzatchok’s – disdain for second-sourcing of space goods is mistaken. Had sole-sourcing been an immovable NASA and DoD policy, we wouldn’t have SpaceX or any of the rest of NewSpace and that would be catastrophic and getting rapidly worse at this point. It is, in fact, the places where monopoly has been tolerated that are the bleeding sores of NASA – and DoD. SLS is Exhibit A. Doubting Thomas and MJMJ are right.
Richard M,
That financial disclosure document you linked was interesting. Isaacman has a lot more enterprises and entities than I was previously aware of, but that isn’t too surprising. He also seems to have a fairly broadly diversified investment portfolio – also not unusual for a man of his means. I note that Tesla constitutes a minor part of same and that SpaceX constitutes no part of same.
The “sausage-making” anent Isaacman’s nomination doesn’t seem particularly off-putting based on Berger’s piece at Ars. If nothing seems to be moving by May, that opinion will need to be revisited.
It’s hardly a surprise that NASA’s workforce is having the same case of the vapors that seems to be afflicting – if that’s the right word – every other executive branch department workforce to some degree as well. Some of NASA’s careerists have good reason to be concerned, though likely a rather smaller percentage than is the case at, say, USAID or the DoEd. No sympathy from me for the deserved RIFs in any case.
Too bad about Zubrin, but political idiocy is a choice. Having, it seems, made his, he has now guaranteed himself a position of being outside looking in where space exploration and settlement are concerned for the rest of his actuarily expectable life.