Can Isaacman Beat China to the Moon?

Hey, it's Brooklyn Adams and I'm partnering with Abercrombie to tell you about the newest drop from their active brand. Your personal Best YPB leggings are made with buttery soft fabrics that hug you in all the right places. And common Abercrombie's viral curve Love fit designed to eliminate waist gap. Paired with sports bras and super soft sweatshirts. It's activewear that supports every part of my busy lifestyle and gives me my best butt ever. Head into the new year feeling your personal best shop Active by Abercrombie in the app, online and in stores. Thanks to our amazing community members like you, we've reached the top 15 of Spotify's video podcasts, the top 10 audio podcasts on both Apple and Spotify for the tech category. So you all make this possible. If you want to support us more, check out Our Patreon that's patreon.com stage 0news so we can keep this free and open for you to enjoy. Something interesting happened the other day. I was looking through our stats on Spotify and Apple podcasts and I noticed that about 55% of you are not subscribed to the show. That means 45 of you are subscribed and I really do appreciate your support. The other 55 are awesome. But I'm gonna favor could you please hit the subscribe button? It'll take you one second. I'm gonna promise you 10 years of this podcast for free. No paywalls. I'm not gonna charge you anything ever, but I'm gonna give you 10 years of this show for free. I've already been doing it for five years and I plan on doing it for 10 more. And the only way that we can continue doing this is with your support. So one second of your time to hit the subscribe button right now would help this show tremendously. Thank you so much. Jared Asigman says the United States will land astronauts on the moon before President Trump leaves office in January of 2029. It's a bold claim from NASA's new administrator, a billionaire entrepreneur in private astronaut who was just sworn in on December 18 after a turbulent nomination process. In an interview with CNBC on Friday, Isaac man said returning to the moon is key to unlocking what he calls the orbital economy. He talked about establishing space stat centers, mining helium 3 from the lunar surface for fusion power, and building nuclear powered moon base. He said, within the next three years we're going to land American astronauts again on the moon, but this time with the infrastructure to say now that timeline is very aggressive. NASA has not landed humans on the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. And the agency's artist program has been plagued by delays, cost overruns in leadership, uncertainty. So what makes Isaacman think he can deliver what NASA has failed to do for over 50 years? The answer involves SpaceX Blue Origin, a leaked 62 page document called Project Athena, and a political backstory that includes Trump pulling Isaac man's nomination after a public falling out with Elon Musk. Now, there's a lot of twists here. We're going to walk through who Isaac Ben is, what happened to his nomination, what his vision for NASA actually looks like, and whether any of this is actually achievable. And we'll get right into that after this very short break. Now, Jared Isaacman is not a career NASA employee. He's not a government official. He founded a payment processing company called Shift Poor Payments as a teenager in his parents basement. In the 90s, the company now processes transactions for over 30% of restaurants and 40% of hotels in America. His estimated net worth is $1.4 billion. He used that wealth to found Draken International, a defense contractor that operates one of the world's largest fleets of privately owned fighter jets. Draken provides adversary training to US British and NATO air forces. And Isaacman has logged over 7,000 flight hours and is rated to fly multiple military jets, including the F5, MiG 29 and T38. He also went to space. In 2021, he commanded inspiration for the first all civilian orbital mission aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. And the mission raised over $250 million for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. In 2024, he led Polaris dawn, during which he became the first private citizen to perform a spacewalk. The mission reached a peak altitude of 870 miles, farther from Earth than any human had Trav the last Apollo moon mission. Both missions flew on SpaceX rockets and Isaacman has a close relationship with Elon Musk. That relationship is both an asset and a liability, as the nomination process made clear. Trump first nominated Isaac men to lead NASA in late December 2024. A confirmation vote was scheduled for May of 2025. Then on May 31, Trump abruptly pulled the nomination. The official reason cited was prior associations, specifically donation Isaacman had made to Democratic candidates. But the timing was suspicious. The exact week Musk left his role in the Trump administration on bad terms with the president, Musk had been publicly critical of the president's spending bill, calling a disgusting abomination. Trump called Musk a man who had lost his mind, and the Isaacman nomination appeared to be collateral damage in that feud. Now, without a permanent administrator, NASA struggled. The agency faced steep budget cuts in the White House's proposed 2026 budget, which sought to slash NASA's science budget by nearly 50% and overall funding by 20%. About a fifth of NASA's civil servant workforce departed through buyouts and attrition. The Goddard Institute for Space Studies, a major research facility, was shut down. In July, Trump gave Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy a second job as interim NASA administrator. Duffy was aggressive about the moon mission but could not focus fully on NASA while running the Transportation department. Then, on November 4, Trump reversed course and renominated Isaacman. The president did not explain why Musk and Trump had reconciled at this point, meeting at a memorial service in September. But before Isaacman's confirmation vote, someone leaked Project Athena, a 62 page draft plan for restructuring NASA. The leak was attributed to Duffy or someone in his camp, and Duffy allegedly did not want to give up control of NASA during this period. Musk called Duffy Sean dummy and accused him of trying to kill NASA. Despite the drama, the Senate confirmed Isaacman on December 17th by a vote of 67 to 30 with bipartisan support. He was sworn in the following day. Project Athena lays out Isaacman's vision Vision for NASA. The core idea is to move the agency away from what he calls the taxpayer dependent model. He wants to leverage commercial partnerships to do more with less. The plan envisions a space economy where private companies eventually generate enough value to cover the cost of operating a space. For example, Athena proposes science as a service for Earth observation satellites. Instead of NASA building and operating its own satellites, the agency would purchase data from commercial providers who already do the same work. It would be cheaper, but it would also cede capability to the private sector. Athena also discusses transferring some assets from NASA centers like Goddard to other facilities, which has alarmed some members of Congress. Now Isaac man addressed NASA employees in his first town hall on December 19, spoke about cutting bureaucratic dragons and flattening the organizational structure to accelerate decision making. He said he wants to push responsibility down to talented employees who are capable of getting the job done. He acknowledged the anxiety among NASA science staff, but said he supports science and understands its importance. He did not, however, commit to specific programs or answer detailed questions about the White House budget proposal. He said he had a lot to catch up on. It's concerning for those who want concrete assurances about the future of NASA science and the future of their positions and their jobs. The as the Artemis program is the path back to the moon, Artemis to the first crewed test flight of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft is expected to launch in early of 2026. For astronauts, three American and one Canadian will fly around the moon without landing on it. That mission will be the highest profile space event since the final Apollo flights. Artemis 3 is the landing mission. SpaceX Elon Musk company is contracted to build the human landing system using a variant of its starship vehicle. Blue Origin is also developing a competing lander. During his interim time as the administrator, Duffy reopened the human landing system contract to allow Blue Origin to compete for the Artemis 3 mission, signaling frustration with SpaceX's timeline. Now Isaac man has set up a competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin. Both companies submitted expedited plans for how to land humans on the moon before January 2029, and NASA is evaluating those proposals. The agency will also issue a request for information to the broader aerospace industry. A committee of subject matter experts will determine the best path forward now, isaac man said at his confirmation hearing. The SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's new Glenn Heavy lift rockets, which are designed for usability, will enable the US to travel to and from the moon affordably and frequently. He framed this as setting up for Mars missions beyond that now Trump signed an executive order on December 18, the same day Isaacman was sworn in, mandating US boots on the lunar surface by 2028 and a nuclear powered lunar outpost by 2030. The order also calls for $50 billion in private investment in space by 2028 in plans to replace the International Space Stat outposts after its planned 2030 D orbit. Isaac Min was in the room and Trump signed the order. In an interview afterward, he suggested he might try to beat China to the moon even sooner than 2028. China has announced plans to land astronauts on the moon by 2030, and the Trump administration has framed Artemis as a second space race with national security implications. Now the question is whether any of this is actually achievable. NASA's Artemis program has already experienced significant delays. The space launch system has been criticized for high costs and slow development. SpaceX's Starship is still in testing, though it has made pretty rapid progress. Blue Origin's new Glenn just completed its first mission. Both companies need to demonstrate that their landers can safely carry humans to the land lunar landing surface and return them. That requires uncrewed test missions before anyone is certified to fly. Timeline's really tight. The political will is there, at least for now and Congress included funding for Artemis missions through Artemis 5 and a budget reconciliation bill passed in July. Isaac man affirmed his support for these programs of record, and whether he can execute them in the time available is open to question. Now. 36 former NASA astronauts, including former administrator Administrator Charlie Bolden, signed a letter endorsing Isaacman. They cited his flight experience as a vital asset. The Planetary Society in advocacy group said after his confirmation that Isaacman has the opportunity to stabilize and reinvigorate the US Space program after a year of historic disruptions. Supporters see him as an outsider who can bring fresh thinking in entrepreneurial energy to a bureaucratic agency. Critics worry about his close ties to Musk and whether SpaceX will receive preferential treatment. Isaac man has said his relationship with Musk is professional, not personal. He said there are no pictures of a set at dinner, at a bar, on an airplane or on a yacht because they don't exist, he said at his confirmation hearing. Whether that distinction matters in practice remains to be seen. NASA's largest contractor will inevitably benefit from an administrator who believes in commercial partnerships. That is direction American space policy has been heading for years, and Isaac man is just the most visible embodiment of that shift. Hey, thank you so much for listening today. I really do appreciate your support. If you could take a second and hit this subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast platforming on right now, I greatly appreciate it. It helps out the show tremendously and you'll nip and each episode is about 10 minutes to get you caught up quickly. And please, if you support the show even more.com stage zero and please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you tomorrow.