NASA Administrator: We Are Not a Procurement Agency, We Are a Nuclear-Powered NASA
Jared Isaacman says NASA used to spread resources across every congressional district and partner for partnership's sake, and the result is a lunar rocket less efficient than the Saturn V; what he wants to build is nuclear power and nuclear propulsion, and to hand low Earth orbit to companies like SpaceX.
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The argument · tap a timestamp to hear it
NASA used to spread resources thin to please everyone
Isaacman sorts NASA's problems into two categories: externally imposed and self-inflicted. Partnering for partnership's sake turned partnerships into a drag on missions rather than an accelerator. The result is that Orion cannot inject into low lunar orbit the way Apollo did; the previous administration cancelled Mars Sample Return because the cost would exceed an aircraft carrier. He also says NASA built programs that are "too big to fail and too expensive to ever really succeed," betting they would survive across administrations. Core capabilities were rented out, outsourced or simply lost, and progress that should have taken months turned into years at greatly increased cost.
— Jared IsaacmanThe lunar rocket is less efficient than the Saturn V of sixty years ago
He offers a jarring comparison: China's rockets were designed when locomotives still burned coal, and today China operates 25,000 miles of high-speed rail and is only a few years from its own Apollo 11 moment. Meanwhile NASA's lunar rocket is less efficient than the Saturn V at converting launch mass into payload headed to the Moon; the gap between Artemis 1 and Artemis 2 is longer than all 12 Gemini missions of sixty years ago combined. The lunar space station puts astronauts in a position to look down on the most coveted lunar real estate rather than working on the surface and occupying it.
— Jared IsaacmanThe lunar south pole has only a few good parking spots
The Moon's surface area is roughly that of Africa, but the south pole is only about the size of Washington, D.C., and the usable permanently shadowed craters are limited. Those craters hold water ice, and the environment is harsher than Mars itself; the crater walls in turn offer near-permanent solar illumination. So good landing sites are very few. He notes that a Starship-sized vehicle landing on the lunar surface will blast out a crater and throw debris, further shrinking the usable spots. China's robotic mission is targeting Shackleton Crater next year, and China and Russia are also cooperating on a nuclear-powered lunar base.
— Jared IsaacmanA 100-kilowatt fission reactor launches in 2028
NASA is saying goodbye to failed nuclear programs that have not left the lab since 1965, and in 2028 it will launch SR1 Freedom, a 100-kilowatt fission reactor. The mission will fly past Mars and release Skyfall, carrying three Ingenuity-class helicopters and using ground-penetrating radar to scout subsurface ice and future landing sites. He calls this the beginning of a "nuclear-powered NASA," turning its workforce and facilities back toward doing nearly impossible missions with no obvious commercial case. SR2, SR3 and SR4 follow, with targets including Enceladus, Europa and Titan, moons with oceans and complex chemistry.
— Jared IsaacmanThe hardest part of Mars is not getting there, it is coming back
Pure chemical propulsion can put astronauts on Mars too, at speeds comparable to going to the Moon, and the habitation problem was solved long ago. The hard part is how to come back: you need to manufacture propellant on the Martian surface, and the plan is robots plus football-field-sized solar arrays, with the dust from sandstorms periodically blown off. He says doing this at one atmosphere and 1G on Earth is already extremely difficult. NASA's answer is to stop doing what industry already does well and turn to next-generation capabilities with no commercial case: fission power, plus a chemically enhanced nuclear transfer vehicle using krypton or xenon rather than manufacturing propellant on the Martian surface.
— Jared IsaacmanHiring is not hard, retaining talent is
NASA's internship program accepts only 1% of applicants, so recruiting is not the early problem. The problem is whether it can keep people. If NASA does the same things as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Stoke and ULA while still flying fifty-year-old space shuttle hardware, it will lose talent. His approach: once a breakthrough has a commercial case, such as launch, NASA becomes one customer among many, hands the capability to industry and moves on to the next new thing. SR1 is only the start of a nuclear-powered NASA, their Nautilus, and a whole nuclear fleet will follow.
— Jared IsaacmanNuclear propulsion is essentially an ion thruster in space
He explains the principle: the ion thrusters on Starlink satellites generate power from solar panels, ionize and accelerate krypton or xenon and expel it, giving extremely high exhaust velocity, very low thrust but very high efficiency, so propellant lasts a long time. The farther you get from the Sun, the more useless solar power becomes, and near Jupiter it is essentially negligible. At that point you switch to the heat of a nuclear reactor, starting at 100 kilowatts and possibly scaling to 250 kilowatts or even megawatts. The reactor should run as hot as possible, using high-temperature materials and a closed Brayton cycle to convert heat to electricity, then drive the same thrusters, just scaled up from 12, 14, 25 kilowatts.
— Jared IsaacmanNASA does not lack budget, it lacks capital allocation ability
He says NASA does not have a top line problem but has long been terrible at capital allocation, partly by NASA's own choice and partly imposed by others. The budget is now $25 billion. He asks how many founders are in the room and says $25 billion is a lot of money that can build pretty amazing hardware. In aeronautics, he complains that NASA's aviation budget is used to subsidize high-TRL programs at big contractors, such as a forty-year-old engine where NASA is asked to pay to squeeze out another 3% in fuel efficiency. He wants to get back to radical airframe and engine designs.
— Jared IsaacmanIn their own words · checked verbatim
For too long, resources at the world's most accomplished space agency were spread everywhere, trying to make everyone happy.
Jared Isaacman2:06
The result is that our moon rocket is in fact less efficient than Saturn 5 at converting launch mass into payload head payload headed for the moon
Jared Isaacman3:07
I'm not here to be your VC to entertain your dream or invent new markets if it detracts in the slightest way from the missions that we have been entrusted to achieve on behalf of the American people.
Jared Isaacman4:07
The astronaut steps foot on the lunar surface. The camera pans up and the flag on the spacuit is not American.
Jared Isaacman14:14
But I can't guarantee it, right? And that's my point on the Department of Commerce.
Jared Isaacman19:20
right now like NASA does not have a topline problem like we are bad capital allocators and have been for a long time
Jared Isaacman28:24
The bottom line is the Chinese are extremely good in space right now.
Jared Isaacman36:29
Figures
| NASA budget | $25 billion | 28:24 |
| Artemis 2 thrust | 8.8 million pounds | 6:07 |
| China's operating high-speed rail mileage | 25,000 miles | 3:07 |
| NASA internship program acceptance rate | 1% | 25:23 |
| China's planned crewed lunar landing date | 2030 | 14:14 |
| U.S. money already spent on lunar landing | more than $100 billion | 15:14 |
| Martian atmospheric pressure | about one-tenth of an atmosphere | 34:27 |
Glossary
- NEP / nuclear electric propulsion
- A form of space propulsion that uses a nuclear reactor to generate electricity and then drives ion thrusters.
- MMRTG / Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator
- A space power source that generates heat and electricity from the decay of plutonium-238, with very low power but a long life.
- closed Brayton cycle
- A power generation method that uses a gas cycle to convert reactor heat into electricity.
- TRL / technology readiness level
- A graded indicator of how far a technology is from practical application.
- in-situ resource utilization
- Mining and processing materials locally on the Moon or Mars rather than shipping them from Earth.
How to listen
Founders and investors watching space, deep tech investment and geopolitical competition; anyone who wants to know where NASA's new administrator will put money and which capabilities get outsourced to companies like SpaceX.
The Q&A from 32:43 to 35:28 is soft and can be fast-forwarded.