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”?