Ex-NASA Admin pick blames Musk ties for pulled nomination
(2025/06/06)
- Reference: 1749198613
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/06/06/how_nasa_might_have_looked/
- Source link:
Jared Isaacman, former NASA Administrator nominee, has shared how the US space agency might have looked under his leadership and blamed his connections with Elon Musk for the abrupt withdrawal of his nomination.
"It was a real bummer," Isaacman told the [1]All-In podcast . "I got a call on Friday last week that the president had decided to go in a different direction."
Isaacman's weekend was further ruined when news of the nomination withdrawal broke earlier than he'd expected. He thought he'd have a few days while notification of the withdrawal filtered through government, but that didn't happen.
[2]
And the reason for the withdrawal? Isaacman said: "I don't like to play dumb ... I don't think that the timing was much of a coincidence ... There were other things going on on the same day."
[3]
[4]
There were indeed. Elon Musk's departure from the Department of Government Efficiency was also announced. "Some people had some axes to grind," said Isaacman, "and I was a good visible target."
While NASA remains in disarray as managers study the proposed budget and speculate who might be the next nominee for the agency's administrator, Isaacman shared how things might have looked under his watch.
[5]
If the proposals remain unchanged, NASA's budget will be cut to pre-Apollo levels. Isaacman said: "I fully support the President with the goal of shrinking the budget ... but it is true that doesn't mean that I would have landed at $19 billion."
Trump/Musk bromance crashes, hard
The noise of axes being ground reached a crescendo on Thursday, when Elon Musk and US President Donald Trump fell out in dramatic and very modern fashion – with competing posts to the social media platforms the two billionaires own.
Amid a spat over the One Big Beautiful Bill that spells out and funds Trump's agenda, the president threatened to cancel Musk-run rocket company SpaceX's US government contracts. Musk [6]responded with a threat to immediately decommission SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft.
The International Space Station (ISS) is heavily reliant on Dragon for resupply and crew rotation. If Dragon stops flying, the ISS may not be viable.
SpaceX also has contracts to de-orbit the ISS at the end of its life and land NASA astronauts on the Moon.
Musk later walked back the threat to decommission Dragon.
Isaacman might be out of the running to be the next NASA administrator, but he will also be spared having to deal with the mess left by the end of the Trump/Musk billionaire bromance.
That said, NASA's Moon rocket, the SLS, was still unlikely to survive his tenure. Isaacman claimed that sufficient hardware was funded for "two or three" launches – enough, he reckoned, to "check that box" of getting back on the lunar surface before shifting focus to commercial efforts.
The Mars Sample Return program would also likely be cancelled per the latest NASA budget proposal. Although he claimed to be a "huge fan" of NASA's science programs, Isaacman reckoned that having astronauts go to Mars to collect the samples rather than investing in robotics was a better option, as well as directing funding into commercial industry to achieve the goal.
[7]NASA boss-to-be gets spaced as proposed budget cuts detailed
[8]NASA was eyeing ISS crew cutbacks before Trump's budget landed
[9]NASA keeps ancient Voyager 1 spacecraft alive with Hail Mary thruster fix
[10]NASA JPL boss bails for 'personal reasons' as budget cuts bite
Regarding science, Isaacman wanted James Webb or Hubble-type programs launching annually with an expectation that not all would succeed. "Give me ten $100 million missions a year," he said, "let's try that and let's accept that three fail." He described prioritizing science missions over a ten-year span as "insane" and decried the current policy of overspending by billions as requirements ballooned and risks were mitigated.
"I was going to introduce Time To Science as a KPI [Key Performance Indicator]," he said.
It's reminiscent of the Faster, Better, Cheaper philosophy adopted by NASA in the 1990s. Unlike certain commercial space companies, NASA's missions today are held to a very high standard and face difficult questions in the event of failure. While Isaacman's desire to rapidly iterate and accept failure is understandable, it's unlikely that US lawmakers would be so forgiving of taxpayer dollars being used this way.
Isaacman also proposed cutting NASA bureaucracy. "You have dozens of layers of leadership," he said. "Everybody's got a deputy. It's crazy! I would have deleted all that."
[11]
Returning to the theme of NASA's potentially depleted budget, Isaacman saw it as an opportunity. "As entrepreneurs, we know that some of our best decision-making is always when we are running low on cash, so it kind of drives efficiency, and necessity is the mother of invention."
Or, as NASA's acting administrator, Janet Petro, likes to sign off her memos to space agency staffers: "Embrace the Challenge." ®
Get our [12]Tech Resources
[1] https://youtu.be/6YdOjoaQTOQ
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aEK8J92VQXiXubhiu0e_bgAAAlI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aEK8J92VQXiXubhiu0e_bgAAAlI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aEK8J92VQXiXubhiu0e_bgAAAlI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aEK8J92VQXiXubhiu0e_bgAAAlI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1930718684819112251
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/02/nasa_isaacman_dropped/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/21/nasa_iss_crew_cuts/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/15/voyager_1_survives_with_thruster_fix/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/08/nasa_jpl_director_quits/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aEK8J92VQXiXubhiu0e_bgAAAlI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
"It was a real bummer," Isaacman told the [1]All-In podcast . "I got a call on Friday last week that the president had decided to go in a different direction."
Isaacman's weekend was further ruined when news of the nomination withdrawal broke earlier than he'd expected. He thought he'd have a few days while notification of the withdrawal filtered through government, but that didn't happen.
[2]
And the reason for the withdrawal? Isaacman said: "I don't like to play dumb ... I don't think that the timing was much of a coincidence ... There were other things going on on the same day."
[3]
[4]
There were indeed. Elon Musk's departure from the Department of Government Efficiency was also announced. "Some people had some axes to grind," said Isaacman, "and I was a good visible target."
While NASA remains in disarray as managers study the proposed budget and speculate who might be the next nominee for the agency's administrator, Isaacman shared how things might have looked under his watch.
[5]
If the proposals remain unchanged, NASA's budget will be cut to pre-Apollo levels. Isaacman said: "I fully support the President with the goal of shrinking the budget ... but it is true that doesn't mean that I would have landed at $19 billion."
Trump/Musk bromance crashes, hard
The noise of axes being ground reached a crescendo on Thursday, when Elon Musk and US President Donald Trump fell out in dramatic and very modern fashion – with competing posts to the social media platforms the two billionaires own.
Amid a spat over the One Big Beautiful Bill that spells out and funds Trump's agenda, the president threatened to cancel Musk-run rocket company SpaceX's US government contracts. Musk [6]responded with a threat to immediately decommission SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft.
The International Space Station (ISS) is heavily reliant on Dragon for resupply and crew rotation. If Dragon stops flying, the ISS may not be viable.
SpaceX also has contracts to de-orbit the ISS at the end of its life and land NASA astronauts on the Moon.
Musk later walked back the threat to decommission Dragon.
Isaacman might be out of the running to be the next NASA administrator, but he will also be spared having to deal with the mess left by the end of the Trump/Musk billionaire bromance.
That said, NASA's Moon rocket, the SLS, was still unlikely to survive his tenure. Isaacman claimed that sufficient hardware was funded for "two or three" launches – enough, he reckoned, to "check that box" of getting back on the lunar surface before shifting focus to commercial efforts.
The Mars Sample Return program would also likely be cancelled per the latest NASA budget proposal. Although he claimed to be a "huge fan" of NASA's science programs, Isaacman reckoned that having astronauts go to Mars to collect the samples rather than investing in robotics was a better option, as well as directing funding into commercial industry to achieve the goal.
[7]NASA boss-to-be gets spaced as proposed budget cuts detailed
[8]NASA was eyeing ISS crew cutbacks before Trump's budget landed
[9]NASA keeps ancient Voyager 1 spacecraft alive with Hail Mary thruster fix
[10]NASA JPL boss bails for 'personal reasons' as budget cuts bite
Regarding science, Isaacman wanted James Webb or Hubble-type programs launching annually with an expectation that not all would succeed. "Give me ten $100 million missions a year," he said, "let's try that and let's accept that three fail." He described prioritizing science missions over a ten-year span as "insane" and decried the current policy of overspending by billions as requirements ballooned and risks were mitigated.
"I was going to introduce Time To Science as a KPI [Key Performance Indicator]," he said.
It's reminiscent of the Faster, Better, Cheaper philosophy adopted by NASA in the 1990s. Unlike certain commercial space companies, NASA's missions today are held to a very high standard and face difficult questions in the event of failure. While Isaacman's desire to rapidly iterate and accept failure is understandable, it's unlikely that US lawmakers would be so forgiving of taxpayer dollars being used this way.
Isaacman also proposed cutting NASA bureaucracy. "You have dozens of layers of leadership," he said. "Everybody's got a deputy. It's crazy! I would have deleted all that."
[11]
Returning to the theme of NASA's potentially depleted budget, Isaacman saw it as an opportunity. "As entrepreneurs, we know that some of our best decision-making is always when we are running low on cash, so it kind of drives efficiency, and necessity is the mother of invention."
Or, as NASA's acting administrator, Janet Petro, likes to sign off her memos to space agency staffers: "Embrace the Challenge." ®
Get our [12]Tech Resources
[1] https://youtu.be/6YdOjoaQTOQ
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aEK8J92VQXiXubhiu0e_bgAAAlI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aEK8J92VQXiXubhiu0e_bgAAAlI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aEK8J92VQXiXubhiu0e_bgAAAlI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aEK8J92VQXiXubhiu0e_bgAAAlI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1930718684819112251
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/02/nasa_isaacman_dropped/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/21/nasa_iss_crew_cuts/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/15/voyager_1_survives_with_thruster_fix/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/08/nasa_jpl_director_quits/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aEK8J92VQXiXubhiu0e_bgAAAlI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Space, The Final Tantrum
that one in the corner
Posting threats to cancel each other's spacecraft on one's own social media.
The US has gone from "We choose to do this ... not because it is easy, but because it is hard" to throwing rattles out of prams.
Really, really, hoping that Japan's attempts have more success, that India, ESA and everyone else - yes, including China - keep their socks pulled up and their missions flying.
Brewster's Angle Grinder
"Isaacman reckoned that having astronauts go to Mars to collect the samples rather than investing in robotics was a better option,"
Tell us you're an idiot without saying you're an idiot. Whatever the costs of getting samples back by robot, that would pale into insignificance against getting people to mars and back (alive).
Witch hunts
First we had to root out people left over from ties with the Biden administration, now we have to root out people left over from ties with Musk.
There's always an internal enemy with these people.