And one that is having some interesting reactions!
Donald Trump has once again broken the mold and has named a billionaire entrepreneur, Jared Isaacman, to head the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Isaacman financed and flew two missions on Elon Musk’s Space X Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule. He started his company, Shift4 Payments, in 1999 after dropping out of high school. He sounds like an anachronism, a throwback to NASA’s glory days.
“With the support of President Trump, I can promise you this: We will never again lose our ability to journey to the stars and never settle for second place,” he said. He added, “Americans will walk on the Moon and Mars, and in doing so, we will make life better here on Earth.”
Now that’s more like it.
Full article HERE from PJ Media.
This is, IMHO, a very interesting pick for head of NASA. Isaacman has put his money and his life where is mouth is, ponying up for two missions, and going into space himself.
And he’s an entrepreneur, so his approach is going to be radically different than the go along/get along/toe the administration line of the previous administrator who was given the job as a political sop.
Space is inherently dangerous, there are few if any second chances, and the lead time for an astronaut to actually ‘get’ a mission was a minimum of 2 years. I’m betting we’ll see that change, especially if SpaceX is used for launches.
The ISS times out in 2030, so I’m pretty sure a new design/set of agreements will also be on the agenda, along with at least some kind of ‘new’ shuttle, different from the Dragon capsule, simply because of the need for larger cargos coming in the future.
And apparently, the ‘man on the ground’ interviews with current NASA folks are positive, so maybe they are/will be happy to get back to actual science and development and stop playing the DEI game!
What say you???
I think its time to give the ‘Not A Politician’ folks the opportunity to fix what we know needs fixing. Putting politicians in charge results in having them seeking to hold their position and not actually make a difference. Appeasing and not making waves does not help and a lot of times only makes the bad worse due to inaction.
I don’t think the ‘Newbies’ hurt and the potential for improvements is worth the risk (to me).
Agree. And we need to do it from school boards all the way up. Fewer power-hungry at all levels can’t be an overall bad thing. I’m willing to see a few mistakes of inexperience regarding the web of governmental interaction (sometimes called bureaucratic rules and policies). I don’t want newbies to learn the ropes of D.C. Those ropes are getting us bogged down in the first place.
NASA was a good start to get us into space.
It now needs to drop out of competition with the private industry and instead focus on coordinating missions.
We certainly don’t want a free for all in space with a collection of junk and abandoned doublewides in orbit, while at the same time, we don’t want an HOA up there either.
And there has to be international coordination, so a national space agency would suit that.
Similar to the FAA.
But we don’t need the NASA we have.
It almost harks back to the Campbell era at “Analog” where entrepreneurs built spaceships in their backyards. As SpaceX has shown the entrepreneurial model can react to solve problems much faster than a government bureaucracy. So far SpaceX (and the others) have avoided loosing people in space. Unfortunately space wants to kill you much more so than any hostile environment on Earth. There WILL be future deaths. I hope that we can take lesson from our pioneering past, honor and mourn the dead and resolve not to have them die in vain.
Let’s hope he starts by clearing out the top-heavy administrative dead-wood as well as the politicians that have no place at NASA. He should then hire more engineers.
Here’s what I’d like to hear from his first speech to the engineering troops at NASA:
“Your job here is to solve problems. One of MY jobs here is to clear the roadblocks in front of you, give you the tools you need, and support you in YOUR job.
“Another job I have is to come up with some ‘what-if’ questions that are going to put all of us to the test, and I’ll welcome those kind of questions from you as well. If you see an innovative new way to do something, bring it forward. We’ll examine it and if it looks possible, we’ll try to run with it and you will get the credit. We are no longer going to move at a glacial pace.
“Failure is once again an option. Let’s use all our amassed knowledge to avoid failure where we know we can, but if failures happen, we must learn from them and improve. So long as we do that, we should not fear failure.
“We’re about to attempt some things never before done in human history. It’s an exciting time! Speaking of time, that’s enough from me. We have a lot to do so let’s to work.”
jrg/Bob- Agreed! And he’s NOT going to want to stay there forever. He has other interests.
NRW- Yep, we know that, and let us USE those lessons learned.
Ag- Oh yeah!
The leftist press will focus on the High School dropout to the extent that his accomplishments will not be mentioned.
First item to do is rehire the Climatologist that Nasa fired years ago because he told the truth that people are not changing the climate.
I agree.. probably a great choice. BTW here is an interview Jared did with a couple of ex-fighter pilots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60VwUQ2FS_I
““Americans will walk on the Moon and Mars, and in doing so, we will make life better here on Earth.””
That is an interesting comment. He didn’t say ‘Americans will walk on the Moon again and Mars.’ Perhaps this is why his last flight had astronaut exposure to the Van Allen belt. Gutsy and intelligent man, I think he is an excellent choice.
Imagine that. A NASA administrator who has earned astronaut wings. Amazing.
Two of the last three NASA Administrators appointed were members of the 1986 STS-61C shuttle mission, the last one before the Challenger explosion. Alas, Bolden’s top priority as administrator was Muslim outreach. And Nelson is the same politician he’s always been.
Hi guys. So I post here and over at LL’s site occasionally. So let me throw in my 2 cents.
Jared Isaacman lives local to me. I even met him once. Great guy, squeaky clean! owner of Shift4, the largest POS system in the country. Always with his wife and kids….unless he’s flying. To that end here is his ‘other’ company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draken_International
“With approximately 150 jets, the company operates the largest fleet of privately owned former military tactical jet aircraft in the world.”
His latest project: https://www.twz.com/air/tornado-f2-set-to-become-most-advanced-flying-fighter-in-a-private-individuals-hands
Yes, I’m a little bit of a fan boy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Isaacman
NASA was born with a “cost-plus” budget, and never got over it, even when the money hose was throttled after Apollo. Most of their budget goes to their own internal overhead; they only spend enough on hardware to make it look like they’re doing something.
Last time I looked at their web site was maybe ten years ago. The main landing page was all about the Amazin rain forest, and said that “saving the environment” was NASA’s #1 priority.
Uh, no. That’s not what I expect the “National Aeronautics and Space Administration” to be doing with my money. And it’s *my* money, extorted from me by the State with the threat of physical violence, even if it’s only 1/330,000,000 of it.
I say right on.