Two news outlets in the past day (Politico and Ars Technica) have posted stories about a 62-page plan — supposedly written by Jared Isaacman while he was still the nominee to become NASA administrator — that was recently leaked to them as well as others inside and outside NASA.

The plan itself, dubbed “Project Athena”, has not been made available, though the descriptions at both sources suggest it matches closely with the overall Trump effort to cancel SLS and Orion and shift space operations out of NASA and more into the private sector.

The nature of this plan of course threatens NASA’s established work force and the big space contractors who have worked hand-in-glove with NASA for decades, producing little but distributing a lot of money and jobs to these groups. Not surprisingly, both news sources quote extensively from anonymous sources within that NASA work force and those big space contractors, lambasting the plan and blasting Isaacman for proposing it. From the Politic article:

Sean Duffy: “Pick me! Pick me!”

Putting all of these plans into writing is a “rookie move,” and “presumptuous,” said an industry insider who has seen the document and thought it would stoke congressional skepticism around his nomination. Many of these ideas would need congressional approval to enact, and Congress could always block them.

The Ars Techica article speculates that interim NASA administrator Sean Duffy was the source of the leak, in his effort to become NASA’s official administrator. If the plan is Isaacman’s, it generates opposition to renewing Isaacman’s nomination as NASA administrator while garnering support for Duffy from NASA’s workforce and those big space contractors.

All of this is pure Washington swamp, however, which really matters little in the long run. First of all, none of this is real. We are talking about an unreleased plan that no one has seen publicly, and the reactions of anonymous sources criticizing that unseen plan. It is all the stuff of ghosts and fantasy. For we know, it is all made up, just like the Russian collusion hoax was manufactured against Trump.

Second, and more important, who runs NASA next is becoming increasingly unimportant. The real American space program is being run by SpaceX, using its own revenue to produce the only spacecraft and rockets truly capable of exploring and colonizing the solar system. What NASA plans to use for its manned program — SLS, Orion, and the proposed Lunar Gateway station — are badly conceived, over-priced, and incapable of accomplishing much.

And NASA’s space station, ISS, is on its final legs, due to be retired in only a few years. By that time the rumored proposal by Duffy to fold NASA into the Department of Transportation might make sense. NASA itself won’t be doing much by then.

Thus, this is all a Washington game about dividing up taxpayer loot. Essentially, Duffy and Isaacman appear to be fighting like dogs over the scraps left over from the main meal, cooked by SpaceX.

From the Polaris webpage

I’ll tell you what I would do if I was Jared Isaacman. I’d stop wasting my time trying to get to run NASA and instead renew my focus on my own presently-suspended Polaris manned space program. Isaacman had already flown twice on Dragon, and had planned another Dragon mission followed by one on Starship. He should now team up with Elon Musk and SpaceX to start detailed planning of that Starship manned mission to the Moon, flying it completely independent of NASA, with the goal to do it before either NASA or China manage their own manned Moon landers.

That would be a much better use of Jared Isaacman’s skills and money. Becoming NASA administrator will get him nothing but heartache and an empty legacy inside that Washington swamp that has little to do with exploring the solar system. Let Sean Duffy have it. He wants it, and it better matches his far more limited capabilities.