Billionaire Jared Isaacman

Nothing that happened at yesterday’s Senate hearing of Jared Isaacman’s nomination to be NASA’s next administrator was a surprise, or very significant, even if most media reports attempted to imply what happened had some importance. Here are just a small sampling:

• CNN: Trump’s NASA pick faces questions on leaked ‘Project Athena’ plan in rare second confirmation hearing
• UPI: NASA nominee Jared Isaacman affirms need to beat China to moon
• Washington Times: Jared Isaacman, Trump’s NASA nominee, sees lunar landing, space base as crucial to national security
• The Hill: NASA nominee refuses to say if Musk was in room when Trump offered job
• Space News: Isaacman, senators emphasize urgency in returning humans to the moon
• Reuters: Trump’s NASA pick stresses moon race urgency, pressed on Musk ties in Senate hearing

To be fair, all of these reports focused on simply reporting what happened during the hearing, and the headlines above actually provide a good summary. Isaacman committed to the Artemis program, touted SLS and Orion as the fastest way to get Americans back to the Moon ahead of the Chinese, and dotted all the “i”s and crossed all the “t”s required to convince the senators he will continue the pork projects they so dearly love. He also dodged efforts by several partisan Democrats to imply Isaacman’s past business dealings with Musk and SpaceX posed some sort of conflict of interest.

What none of the news reports did — and I am going to do now — is take a deeper look. Did anything Isaacman promise in connection with NASA and its Artemis program mean anything in the long run? Is the race to get back to the Moon ahead of China of any importance?

I say without fear that all of this is blather, and means nothing in the long run. The American space program is no longer being run by NASA, and all of NASA’s present plans with Artemis, using SLS, Orion, and the Lunar Gateway station, are ephemeral, transitory, and will by history be seen as inconsequential by future space historians.

It is very simple. Even if the next few Artemis missions fly as planned, with no problems, all they will accomplish will be to put a few humans on the Moon for a very short time, with no long lasting impact. SLS and Orion as designed can do nothing more than repeat Apollo, plant a flag, provide some politicians some cool photo ops, but do nothing to establish the United States in space, building real colonies on the Moon, Mars, and the asteroids.

You see, NASA’s Artemis program is nothing more than a very expensive toy for politicians, allowing them to strut like proud roosters before the media, claiming they’ve made America a leader in space, when all they’ve really done is spend a lot of money on a one-off project that builds nothing substantial or permanent.

Yesterday’s hearing was simply another example of this, a vapid photo op for these politicians with no real substance. As summarized cogently by Marcia Smith at SpacePolicyOnline.com:

Ultimately, the hearing unveiled no big surprises and most members seem strongly supportive of the nomination. The committee vote on Monday is at 5:30 pm ET, just as Senators return to Washington for next week’s work. Seven other unrelated nominations are on the docket. When it will go before the full Senate is unknown, but the committee’s leadership is eager to get him confirmed.

In other words, this was nothing more than a performance for the cameras, as Isaacman’s nomination was assured even before the hearing began.

Superheavy after the October 2024 flight,
safely captured during the very first attempt

So what is America’s real space program? I’ve said this more than a few times recently, because the political game described above acts to distract us from reality, but the real American space program is now being run almost entirely by SpaceX. It is building the rocket (Starship) that will make colonization of the Moon and Mars possible. It has the rocket (Falcon 9) that is making a profitable orbital space industry possible.

And most important of all, it has the cash in its own pocket to pay for this. It doesn’t need to cater to the whims and quid pro quos demanded of Washington senators and congressmen to get the funding to pay for Starship. It gets that revenue from Starlink, and in fact those annual revenues are right now getting close to matching NASA’s own annual budget.

Nor is SpaceX alone in this. The American aerospace private sector is across the board becoming increasingly independent from NASA. It now has two rockets that are reusable (SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Blue Origin’s New Glenn), and by next year will have three more (SpaceX’s Starship, Rocket Lab’s Neutron, and Stoke Space’s Nova).

The American space stations under development

That private sector is also building four commercial private space stations, with one (Vast) planning the launch of its first demo station by next year. And that station is being funded entirely with private investment capital.

Multiple American companies are also now making money on orbiting constellations that provide high resolution data and imaging of the Earth, for commercial and government customers. Other companies are making money providing satellite companies tug and robotic servicing.

And even more significant, there are now companies flying recoverable capsules designed expressly to produce products in orbit for sale on Earth, with Varda leading the way. Large amounts of investment capital has been pouring into this new industry, because investors see large amounts of profits from the products it will produce.

Soon to wave in many places not on Earth

The future in space is quite bright, and this isn’t because Jared Isaacman yesterday committed NASA to beating China back to the Moon. It is bright because numerous free Americans are creating their own dreams in space, and making a lot of money as they do so.

And most important of all, despite SpaceX’s present dominance, the American space effort is varied, competitive, and widespread. Its growth is occurring industry wide, with many players all competing for profit. And it is increasingly independent from government funding.

So, it is nice Jared Isaacman will soon be NASA’s next administrator. And it is good that he intends to reshape the agency to make it more effective. But in the end, the real space program is elsewhere, among ordinary Americans following their own dreams. And it will be those Americans, not NASA, that will colonize the solar system for the United States.