The airline travel slowdown is spreading to launches, too.

As the Federal Government (AKA Schumer) Shutdown goes into its 38th day, the FAA has issued an emergency order that will prohibit rocket launches during daylight hours. Beginning Monday, the FAA said commercial space launches will only be permitted between 10 pm and 6 am local time, when the national airspace is most quiet.

It was fairly widely reported that the FAA ordered commercial airlines to reduce domestic flights from 40 “high impact airports” across the country in a phased approach beginning Today, Friday Nov. 7.

Because Air Traffic Control and the controllers are practically a perfect example of essential workers, they're still at work - which means that they're now working without pay. Until congress can agree on and pass a budget, they'll continue to work without pay.

In a statement explaining the order, the FAA said the air traffic control system is “stressed” due to the shutdown.

“With continued delays and unpredictable staffing shortages, which are driving fatigue, risk is further increasing, and the FAA is concerned with the system’s ability to maintain the current volume of operations,” the regulator said. “Accordingly, the FAA has determined additional mitigation is necessary.”

Two things come to mind immediately. First is that the only launch company in the world that's likely to be affected the most is SpaceX because they launch more than the rest of the world put together. OTOH, they have more flexibility than other launch providers. Most of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launches deploy their own Starlink Internet satellites.

SpaceX has some flexibility in scheduling Starlink launches because the network, comprising nearly 9,000 active satellites, flies in dozens of orbital planes at different altitudes and inclinations. In the short term, SpaceX could choose to target orbital planes that are reachable at night.

The most important factor in setting the launch time is not surprisingly where they want to launch to. Unlike Starlink Launches, some missions have virtually no flexibility. The second thing to cross my mind was Sunday's New Glenn launch of the EscaPADE probes to Mars, which is an example of that. The launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station must be at 2:45 PM EST.

NASA signed a commercial contract with Blue Origin for this weekend’s launch, making it a commercial mission licensed by the FAA. The space agency saved money by taking this approach instead of going with a more traditional contract with government oversight.

It’s unclear whether NASA could ask for a waiver if the New Glenn launch delays into next week. The situation with the New Glenn launch puts Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who also serves as NASA’s acting administrator, in the unique position of potentially requesting and granting such a waiver.

Submitting a request to yourself and granting it is about as good an example of doing the process just to do the process as you'll find. It happens.

The payload fairing of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, containing NASA’s two Mars-bound science probes. Credit: Blue Origin

It's easy for us to forget that the ground crews are working to prepare the Artemis II mission for its trip to the moon, but they are there.

Ground crews at Kennedy Space Center in Florida have continued working to prepare for the launch of the Artemis II mission NET Feb. 5th, but civil servants and contractors are working without pay. Officials anticipate the shutdown will eventually impact the schedule for Artemis II, which will send astronauts to the vicinity of the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years.

Small Space News Story Roundup 71

Two updates to stories in the last few days. 

New Glenn and NASA's Mars satellites launch pulled up to Friday 11/7 in the early afternoon Sunday at 2:45PM

This story broke this morning, prompting a revision to the previous story saying the launch date would be Sunday but no launch time was available.  

A minor side note to this story is that the way the mission's name is shown has changed. Until this morning, its NextSpaceflight listing referred to the mission in all caps: ESCAPADE. Slightly unusual but it's easy to hit Caps Lock on the keyboard and just type the one word.  Today's update goes to a weirder spelling: EscaPADE. 

The Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE) are a dual-spacecraft mission to study ion and sputtered escape from Mars.

The weather looks darn near ideal, on the Weather Underground 10 day forecast. Winds under 10mph from the East, temperatures in the upper 70s. The only questionable forecast is the cloud cover. While the chances of rain are under 25%, cloud cover is 75%.  not as good as that Friday forecast. The chances of rain are higher at around 50% but the cloud coverage is lower all day. 

   

The BIG Talk on Capitol Hill is the Athena program

In followup to last night's post on how awful the Orion lunar capsule is, I received my daily copy of Payload's newsletter.  I posted to the comments:

In today's newsletter from Payload there's an item reflecting that Jared Isaacman is back in the running for NASA Administrator and so Politico thinks they're attacking him.

"Jared Isaacman’s confidential manifesto has been acquired by Politico, and calls for NASA to quit climate science, buy more space data from industry, and terminate SLS and Gateway."

I'm completely down with all of that.

This afternoon, the story expanded onto Ars Technica emphasizing a copy leaked to their senior Space correspondent, Eric Berger. 

After receiving a copy of this plan from an industry official, I spoke with multiple sources over the weekend to understand what is happening. Based upon this reporting there are clearly multiple layers to the story, which I want to unpack.

In the big picture, this leak appears to be part of a campaign by interim NASA Administrator Sean Duffy to either hold onto the high-profile job or, at the very least, prejudice the re-nomination of Isaacman to lead the space agency. Additionally, it is also being spread by legacy aerospace contractors who seek to protect their interests from the Trump administration’s goal of controlling spending and leaning into commercial space.

The leaked plan is 62 pages long, and while it isn't presented, probably not easy reading. Berger believes the document is an edited-down version of a more comprehensive “Athena” plan devised by Isaacman and his team earlier this year, after President Trump nominated him to be NASA Administrator. 

The Athena plan lays out a blueprint for Isaacman’s tenure at NASA, seeking to return the space agency to “achieving the near impossible,” focusing on leading the world in human space exploration, igniting the space economy, and becoming a force multiplier for science. 

It's worth noting that a copy of this “Athena”plan was provided by Isaacman to Sean Duffy as well as his chief of staff, Pete Meachum as a courtesy. To my way of thinking, that reflects an intent to help whomever gets the job. 

Tonight, President Trump re-nominated Jared Isaacman to the administrator's position. 

You can already sense what this is really all focused on. Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, and the other companies living in luxury on cost-plus contracts like SLS, Orion and all the bad examples we see. 

In recent weeks, Duffy has been building ties with the space industry, trying to paint Isaacman as someone who would come in and force big changes on NASA and its traditional space contractors. There is also an effort to paint Isaacman as a stooge of Elon Musk and his company, SpaceX. However, the Athena plan, read in full, does not seem to support the conclusion that Isaacman has a pro-SpaceX bias. Instead, Isaacman seems equally bullish on Blue Origin.

Ironically, the plan reflects the priorities of the Trump administration for human space exploration.

The Athena plan seeks to transition away from cost-plus contracts for the Space Launch System rocket and Orion, while looking at repurposing elements of the Gateway for a nuclear-powered tug vehicle. These are all in line with the changes sought in the Trump administration’s proposed budget for NASA.

I don't quite know why Eric Berger chose to use the word "Ironically" in the second paragraph there. One would expect the guy the president nominates would do what the president wants to see done. To me the surprise is that Duffy wants to suck up to the companies that have so royally screwed up Artemis and the rest of the post-shuttle space programs. I can only conclude that he wants them to buy his loyalty, too. Which is too bad. I used to have some respect for him.

Interim NASA Administrator Sean Duffy provides remarks at a briefing prior to the Crew 11 launch in August. Image Credit: NASA

EDIT NOV. 5 @ 11:00 AM to add: My first visit to Next Spaceflight this morning shows the EscaPADE launch has been pushed back to Sunday, Nov. 9th, the date I've been reporting since early October, this time with a launch time of 2:45PM. 

NASA pushing to keep Artemis II on schedule despite shutdown

A noticeable percentage of NASA is shut down now, not updating many (if not all) websites. Staple sites I visit regularly like APOD, the blogs.NASA.gov site, the Voyager project site, and so many more aren't being updated because of the Schumer Shutdown. 

The problem is the preparations for Artemis II, currently set for No Earlier Than Feb. 5, 2026 at 8:09 PM are going into the bad position of depending on people who are going to be going unpaid, which has to add an increased dose of stress.

If you look at any of the thousands of sites that touch on politics more than I do, it's probably not news to you that the upper tier of the Democratic party is doing this strictly to appeal to their voters because they're terrified of any cuts to government. This meme, for an easy to find example, (sixth one down) has direct quotes from some big name demmies. They view anything that blocks the administration from accomplishing anything they want is A Good Thing.

If my 30+ years of close friendships with contractors on the Cape mean anything, the people who are working on this mission, are going to be a mix of union members and non-members. More to the point, some of them are far more dedicated to the missions they're working on than to the job or the union or the company that has its name on their paychecks. That means they're more likely to view going through some time of hardship as part of the job.

The shutdown started after many expenditures for October had already been paid, but as of Midnight Friday night when the clock advances to November that probably comes to a halt. 

Federal civil servants and NASA contractors are not getting paid during the shutdown, even if agency leaders have deemed their tasks essential and directed them to continue working. Jobs classified as essential include employees operating and safeguarding the International Space Station and NASA’s fleet of robotic probes exploring the Solar System and beyond.

Many employees at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida remain at work, too. Their job is to keep the Artemis II mission on schedule for launch as soon as next February. In the four weeks since the start of the government shutdown, crews at Kennedy Space Center have completed several major milestones on the road to Artemis II, including the stacking of the Orion spacecraft atop its Space Launch System rocket inside the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building. This milestone, completed about one week ago, capped off assembly of the SLS rocket for Artemis II.

“All work on Artemis II is excepted to protect both the property and to protect against risks to the crew introduced by unplanned close out and restart,” a NASA official told Ars. “All of our contracts are funded into early November.

“The Office of Procurement has sent letters to contractors doing excepted work (including all the Artemis II contractors) indicating that work is authorized during the lapse in funding,” the official said. “Most workers have indicated a willingness to continue the work in the event of contract funding running out prior to the government reopening.”

It's safe to say that there are months worth of work to be completed and it's not at all unreasonable to ask if it could be completed on time if the issue with paying workers wasn't a concern. It's important to note that this issue isn't unique to the KSC and Artemis II. Artemis II work is being done at subcontractors in Texas, Alabama, Florida and probably others I haven't thought (or heard) of. Plus other shutdowns due to the Federal budget shutdown can affect the mission's readiness. Simple things, like airline or private airplane flights being delayed by air traffic controllers being off.

NASA, overall, is a mixed bag. ISS ground support, for example, is unaffected.

NASA must keep the space station operating in order to protect the lives of the people living and working onboard. NASA has also exempted its other operating spacecraft, such as satellites and robotic deep space explorers, from past government shutdowns to protect the billions of dollars that taxpayers have committed to those missions.

Artemis II is in a different category. While the current launch date is the priority, it was moved up to this date earlier this year. The mission can launch on a handful of days each month when the positions of the Earth and the Moon are right for the Orion spacecraft to complete its circumlunar voyage as designed. 

Let me tell you something

Just between you and me. The NASA/SpaceX/Sean Duffy story yesterday is the kind of story I ha-a-a-te with a blinding passion. It's too much of an annoying people story that doesn't tell you the tiniest bit about some new technology, new engine, new telescope or camera or any cool-ass piece of technology.  It's just my least favorite aspect of any space story is petty personnel crap.

Here we are 24 hours later and it has only gotten worse.  But now it's bigger news.  More complicated. More involved. Believe me, if I had more details on some mission or new piece of hardware, I'd rather post that. So I'll try to be brief. 

It turns out that the Sean Duffy news presentation yesterday was upsetting. Eric Berger over at Ars Technica, who presented the base story I linked to, went for the attention-grabbing headline that "Elon Musk just declared war on..." Sean Duffy but the story title was a little wordier, and ended with the weasel word "apparently." 

What has happened now? Why, it was only SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who is NASA’s most important contractor, referring to the interim head of the space agency, Sean Duffy, as “Sean Dummy” and suggesting Duffy was trying to kill NASA. Musk later added, “The person responsible for America’s space program can’t have a 2 digit IQ.”

This is all pretty bonkers, so I want to try to contextualize what I believe is going on behind the scenes. This should help us make sense of what is happening in public.

Perhaps Eric is on to something, and I bow in his direction for (1) having many years in this field (he's actually a certified meteorologist) and (2) largely because of that, he has put together a group of experts he can trust for good opinions and good guesses on things like "they said their new rocket is going to fly in X months, but when do you think it actually will?"  

What Eric thinks this is all about is that Duffy wants to be NASA Administrator and it looks like Jared Isaacman is going to get nominated again. 

Since then, a lot has happened, but it boils down to this. Duffy was, nominally, supposed to be running the space agency while searching for a permanent replacement. The biggest move he has made is naming Amit Kshatriya, a long-time employee, as NASA’s associate administrator. Kshatriya now has a lot of power within the agency and comes with the mindset of a former flight director. He is not enamored with using SpaceX’s Starship as a lunar lander.

After Isaacman's nomination was pulled, people close to Trump continued to vouch for the billionaire/former astronaut. Trump listened to his trusted circle and got closer to Isaacman, meeting with him multiple times since, and all were positive experiences.

The problem is that Duffy found he liked running NASA. NASA gets more favorable news coverage than the Department of Transportation gets in the news. To add to that, he brought his chief of staff from the DOT, Pete Meachum, and he also enjoyed having power over NASA.  

Berger points out that what Duffy did yesterday in criticizing one of their most important contractors "just isn't done." Is it true that Starship is late with the Human Landing System?  Of course it is.  It's also amazingly ignorant to blast SpaceX for being late when virtually everything associated with Artemis has been late and over budget, not just Boeing's Space Launch System, but the mobile launch towers, even the new space suits needed for the lunar landing, which also almost certainly will not be ready by the projected 2027 Artemis III launch. If everything is late, why pick on just one? 

There seem to be two clear reasons why Duffy did this. One, he wanted to show President Trump he was committed to reaching the Moon again before China gets there. And secondly, with his public remarks, Duffy sought to demonstrate to the rest of the space community that he was willing to stand up to SpaceX.

Maybe that should read "willing to pick on SpaceX." Eric also reports, almost certainly from well-placed sources in the other companies, that Duffy and Meachum had spent the weekend calling around to SpaceX’s competitors, like Duffy's mention of Blue Origin in Monday's report, asking for their support in his quest to remain at NASA. 

By this morning (Tuesday, Oct. 21) it seemed like Elon had enough. 

The acting administrator had gone on TV and publicly shamed Musk’s company, which has self-invested billions of dollars into Starship. (By contrast, Lockheed has invested little or nothing in the Orion spacecraft, and Boeing also has little skin in the game with the Space Launch System rocket. Similarly, a ‘government option’ lunar lander would likely need to be cost-plus in order to attract Lockheed as a bidder.) Then Duffy praised Blue Origin, which, for all of its promise, has yet to make meaningful achievements in orbit. All the while, it is only thanks to SpaceX and its Dragon spacecraft that NASA does not have to go hat-in-hand to Russia for astronaut transportation.

Will the crass and Trump-like moniker of "Sean Dummy" work? We don't know enough about the important interpersonal dynamics to guess. Like most experiments, we have to watch for the results. 

SpaceX rendering of the Human Landing System, that I first posted here in August of 2021. It appears to be a crop from a larger scale image posted earlier in the year. Credit SpaceX

Another point to factor into the big picture is that the Wall Street Journal reported last night that Duffy has sought to move NASA into the Department of Transportation, as Eric Berger reported earlier in the afternoon yesterday. That would mean that even if Isaacman were appointed to be NASA administrator that he would report to Duffy. I would think it's more likely Duffy would appoint someone other than Isaacman; someone who is a more dependable suck-up.

Don't forget that NASA has been subject not just to the Schumer Shutdown but also to layoffs of 20% of its employees and the budget cuts going around this year. Morale is said to not be high and this situation isn't helping.

Final words to Eric Berger

So this is where we are. A fierce, behind-the-scenes battle rages on among camps supporting Duffy and Isaacman to decide the leadership of NASA. The longer this process drags on, the messier it seems to get. In the meantime, NASA is twisting in the wind, trying to run in molasses while wearing lead shoes as China marches onward and upward.

NASA's acting chief is shaking up the Artemis schedule

The Monday afternoon and evening news is saying that Sean Duffy, acting NASA administrator is shaking up the Artemis program for getting too far behind where they wanted to be.  

Speaking on Fox News, where the secretary of transportation frequently appears in his acting role as NASA chief, Duffy said SpaceX has fallen behind in its efforts to develop the Starship vehicle as a lunar lander. Duffy also indirectly acknowledged that NASA’s projected target of a 2027 crewed lunar landing is no longer achievable. Accordingly, he said he intended to expand the competition to develop a lander capable of carrying humans down to the Moon from lunar orbit and back.

“They’re behind schedule, and so the President wants to make sure we beat the Chinese,” Duffy said of SpaceX. “He wants to get there in his term. So I’m in the process of opening that contract up. I think we’ll see companies like Blue [Origin] get involved, and maybe others. We’re going to have a space race in regard to American companies competing to see who can actually lead us back to the Moon first.”

Eric Berger, reporting at Ars Technica sees two big takeaways from this announcement: the first and biggest one is that NASA is acknowledging they're behind schedule and the 2027 date being announced for Artemis III's landing mission is unachievable. The second aspect is that by going public with this on Monday morning as an "out of the blue" announcement seems intended to influence a fierce battle to hold onto the NASA leadership position. Rumors are running that Sean Duffy intends to run for president and part of this maneuvering is to get more pubic attention. 

The shock value of that announcement is pretty small to me. Everyone knows that the way Artemis has been run has led to terrible problems with hardware being late and more expensive than reasonable.  It's more surprising to me that Duffy would say, "I think we’ll see companies like Blue [Origin] get involved..." and my reaction was "they already have a lunar lander contract. What more do you want?"  SpaceX won their contract to turn Starship into the Human Landing System in 2021. Blue Origin won their contract two years later in '23. 

When Duffy says “companies like Blue” may get involved, he is not referring to the existing contract, in which Blue Origin will not deliver a ready-to-go lunar lander until the 2030s. Rather he is almost certainly referring to a plan developed by Blue Origin that uses multiple Mk 1 landers, a smaller vehicle originally designed for cargo only. Ars reported on this new lunar architecture three weeks ago, which company engineers have been quietly developing. This plan would not require in-space refueling, and the Mk 1 vehicle is nearing its debut flight early next year.

Duffy also cites “maybe others” getting involved. This refers to a third option. In recent weeks, officials from traditional space companies have been telling Duffy and the chief of staff at the Department of Transportation, Pete Meachum, that they can build an Apollo Lunar Module-like lander within 30 months. Amit Kshatriya, NASA’s associate administrator, favors this government-led approach, sources said.

This last approach of an Apollo LEM-like lander apparently can be seen as "Big Government should run everything." Practical questions arise, centered on things like the mission Duffy is looking to be accomplished doesn't resemble the Artemis program concept of operations that SpaceX bid on so should that be revised? There was a Lunar Gateway space station that seemed to serve no real purpose and definitely won't have a purpose if they're flying something like the Apollo era Lunar Modules to orbit the moon and land directly. A NASA analysis, from 2017, estimated that a cost-plus contract for a sole-source lunar lander would cost $20 billion to $30 billion, or nearly 10 times what NASA awarded to SpaceX in 2021.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk, responding to Duffy’s comments, seemed to relish the challenge posed by industry competitors.

“SpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry,” Musk said on the social media site he owns, X. “Moreover, Starship will end up doing the whole Moon mission. Mark my words.”

Berger goes on to report on what he thinks is the politics of what's going on.  He thinks this whole story is a show put on to impress President Trump. His argument centers on that Duffy was appointed soon after Jared Isaacman's nomination was pulled in July and Trump expected Duffy would use this time to shore up NASA’s leadership while also looking for a permanent chief of the space agency. There's no obvious evidence he did anything along that line. If anything, he has used his public appearances to help his name recognition and public opinion ratings.  Meanwhile, Jared Isaacman is getting more attention, too. 

Since late summer there has been a groundswell of support for Isaacman in the White House, and among some members of Congress. The billionaire has met with Trump several times, both at the White House and Mar-a-Lago, and sources report that the two have a good rapport. There has been some momentum toward the president re-nominating Isaacman, with Trump potentially making a decision soon.
...
A Republican advisor to the White House told Ars that it is good that Duffy has moved beyond his rhetoric about NASA beating China to the Moon and to look for creative tactics to land there. But, this person said, the mandate from the Trump administration is to dominate the emerging commercial space industry, not hand out large cost-plus contracts.

“Duffy hasn’t implemented any of the strategic reforms of Artemis that the president proposed this spring,” the Republican source said. “He has the perfect opportunity during the current shutdown, but there is no sign of any real reform under his leadership. Instead, Duffy is being co-opted by the deep state at NASA.” 

I would add that there's a distinctive aroma of "let's go with someone other than SpaceX, award some big, fat, cost-plus contracts like we always used to work to and run everything just like Apollo." Compare SpaceX's record to Blue Origin's, ULA's, Lock-Mart's, or any other contractor. In terms of launches, it's SpaceX and then everyone else. In terms of innovation, I don't see much difference there.

Interim NASA Administrator Sean Duffy provides remarks at a briefing prior to the Crew 11 launch in August. Image Credit: NASA

Trump Cancels Jared Isaacman's Nomination

Thanks to a Comment from jeff d to yesterday's post about Blue Origin's CEO I learned that the White House has pulled the nomination of Jared Isaacman to be NASA Administrator.  

There's no real answer to the question of why this was done, but it's not hard to have come to the conclusion that something wasn't going right in the process they're going through to get him appointed.  It's June already (UTC) as I write and people like Kash Patel, Pam Bondi, and a list as long as my arm went through similar processes and were approved months ago.  An easy example is Isaacman's passing a senate committee vote on April 30; he won 19-9 with the "nay" votes coming from Democratic senators.  They seemed to view attacking Isaacman as attacking Musk and Trump. 

Something was clearly interfering with the process and a website called Semafor.com broke the story that Eric Berger summed up in the second link up above.  They quote what White House spokesperson Liz Huston (whom I've never heard of but that isn't saying much - maybe she works weekends) released in their statement was:

“The Administrator of NASA will help lead humanity into space and execute President Trump’s bold mission of planting the American flag on the planet Mars. It’s essential that the next leader of NASA is in complete alignment with President Trump’s America First agenda and a replacement will be announced directly by President Trump soon.” 

Berger interpreted that to mean he wasn't in close enough agreement with Trump's political agenda, but the more I read, the more it sounds like the issue was they believed that the nomination was going to be stuck in the senate because of the hate that has been directed against Elon Musk.  To quote Eric Berger at Ars Technica:

Musk was a key factor behind Isaacman's nomination as NASA administrator, and with his backing, Isaacman was able to skip some of the party purity tests that have been applied to other Trump administration nominees. One mark against Isaacman is that he had recently donated money to Democrats. He also indicated opposition to some of the White House's proposed cuts to NASA's science budget.

Musk's role in the DOGE effort was strangely controversial, attracting enemies from both opponents of Trump's MAGA agenda as well as from inside the administration.  One would have had to have slept through the 130 days Musk was a "Special Government Employee" and running DOGE to not have noticed the relentless attacks on Tesla factories, dealerships, and randomly encountered Tesla drivers.  There were also stories about threats against other things Musk runs. 

That quote from White House spokesperson Huston says that Trump will announce a replacement for Isaacman soon.  There's "wailing and gnashing of teeth" from supporters as Berger continued:

Isaacman is generally well-liked in the space community and is known to care deeply about space exploration. Officials within the space agency—and the larger space community—hoped that having him as NASA's leader would help the agency restore some of these cuts.

Now? "NASA is f---ed," one current leader in the agency told Ars on Saturday.

"NASA's budget request is just a going-out-of-business mode without Jared there to innovate," a former senior NASA leader said.

Further, Berger quotes "other sources" who provide a name for the likely replacement, a former US Air Force Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast  but then criticizes General Kwast as only coming from the Military side and being far more focused on seeing space as a battlefield than on seeing cooperation and peaceful exploration.

The White House “skinny” for NASA is out

The White House released its 2026 “skinny” budget by agency Friday morning, May 2nd.  A "skinny" budget is just another term for top-line, total numbers for agencies and their programs, with little content on specific programs.  We just know that Ars Technica's headline on their story says the agency, "seeks to end SLS, Orion, and Lunar Gateway." 

The big picture is that the budget is cut a bit more from the preliminary budget number we saw in mid-April of an overall cut by 20 percent, which talked about the overall total of $25 billion being cut to $20 billion.  Today's numbers are a bit more aggressive; from 25 to $18.8 billion.  

The big cuts talked about in that April article were to the science programs of NASA, arguably the most productive programs with more missions to brag about than the manned side.  That hasn't changed much.  

These include a $2.265 billion reduction in Space science and a $1.161 billion reduction in Earth science. Perhaps the most notable cancellation here is the Mars Sample Return mission, which the budget proposal says will be achieved by human missions to Mars.

In fairness, the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission was effectively cancelled in 2023.  In September of that year, NASA received a report from an independent review board saying that the Mars Sample Return Mission was unworkable in its current form and wasn't feasible on the schedule and costs they were working under.  They started another series of proposals and bids to come up with a mission they could afford and had a decent chance of working.  By this past January, that looked to essentially be a dead end. 

The new statement that they'll fold MSR into early manned missions to Mars may be the only way it gets done. 

The Budget phases out the grossly expensive and delayed Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule after three flights," the document states. "SLS alone costs $4 billion per launch and is 140 percent over budget. The Budget funds a program to replace SLS and Orion flights to the Moon with more cost-effective commercial systems that would support more ambitious subsequent lunar missions."

As a reminder, NASA has contracted with both SpaceX and Blue Origin to develop reusable landers for the Moon, and both of these systems include vehicles to move from Earth orbit to the Moon.  

It seems to me that the major change in this budget proposal is the first mention of funding for manned missions to Mars. 

"By allocating over $7 billion for lunar exploration and introducing $1 billion in new investments for Mars-focused programs, the Budget ensures that America’s human space exploration efforts remain unparalleled, innovative, and efficient," the document states.

Under the Trump administration, NASA will seek to reach both the Moon and Mars. The goal, stated in the document, is to refocus NASA "on beating China to the Moon and putting the first human on Mars." Unfortunately, there is no information on what these "Mars-focused programs" will be. Some of this new funding would almost certainly go to SpaceX. The company, founded by Trump ally Elon Musk, explicitly focuses on establishing human settlements on Mars.

The tradeoff of more money for the moon and Mars is less money for the ISS, but the budget still commits to flying it until 2030. "The Budget reduces the space station’s crew size and onboard research," the document states. "Crew and cargo flights to the station would be significantly reduced. The station’s reduced research capacity would be focused on efforts critical to the Moon and Mars exploration programs."

It seems reasonable to me.  We can't increase spending every year and we can't keep adding to our debt.  We've all bitched about the horrifically bad SLS but the reason these programs happen is that cost plus jobs both enable cheating and reward it, yet we find NASA leaders want more cost plus and fewer fixed price contracts.  Last August in a post about "Boeing's SLS - There's Nothing Like It" there was a link to an article about Boeing's bad quality control and manufacturing.  The report points out the root cause of these issues is that “Boeing’s quality control issues are largely caused by its workforce having insufficient aerospace production experience. The lack of a trained and qualified workforce increases the risk that the contractor will continue to manufacture parts and components that do not adhere to NASA requirements and industry standards.”  

In refusing to penalize Boeing for these quality issues, NASA and Deputy Associate Administrator Catherine Koerner are actually rewarding Boeing for these quality issues. This is a "cost plus" contract.  It pays for all of Boeing's expenses, plus a fee. That style contract is incentivizing things like hiring the untrained and unqualified workforce. Need some welders? Go find some winos that have never been within 10 feet of a welding setup. If it takes more time and the stage needs to be scrapped and rebuilt - you make money on it instead of paying for it. 

Artemis I mission during one of its trips to the pad that didn't result in flying. NASA Photo.

Isaacman's nomination clears Senate committee

On the journey to being accepted as NASA's next administrator, Jared Isaacman passed the next big hurdle today, being confirmed by the Commerce committee, where he had his first appearance back on April 9th.  Far from unanimous, the vote was 19-9 with the "nay" votes coming from Democratic senators.  The next step is a full senate vote.  It could be within a couple of days, but probably more likely to be in weeks.  

However, some key Democrats voted in favor of Isaacman, including the ranking member of the committee, Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. Before the vote, Cantwell said she appreciated that a candidate like Isaacman, with his background in business and private spaceflight, could bring new ideas and energy to the space agency. 

As a Senator from Washington, one of the biggest employers in her state is Boeing, which "just happens" to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the SLS and Artemis programs.  Both Cantwell and Texas Senator Ted Cruz are big advocates of Artemis and both emphasized that their support for Isaacman was based on his public support for the Artemis Program to return humans to the Moon.

"A commitment to keeping on with the Moon mission is the key requirement we have to have in this position," Cantwell said. "While it's not clear to me where the Trump administration ultimately will end up on the NASA budget, and I have concerns about some of their proposed cuts today, Mr. Isaacman seems to be committed to the current plan. I think this is a very big competitive issue for the United States of America. That competitiveness is not just a goal; it's a reality that we may some day wake up and find ourselves falling behind."

While both Isaacman and Trump have talked about Mars and the Moon almost as equals, it seems that congress considers the Moon to be the higher priority simply because of the visible "space race 2.0" with China.  Isaacman's direct quote is: 

I believe pursuing both lunar and Martian objectives is not inherently cost-prohibitive nor expressly prohibited by existing federal statute should such efforts not detract from the near-term objective of returning to the Moon first.  There is meaningful hardware commonality across the existing Artemis Human Landing System (HLS) providers. For instance, both contractors are already required to validate reusable heavy-lift launch capabilities—technologies essential for transporting mass beyond low Earth orbit, whether toward the Moon or Mars. In fact, many of the technologies and capabilities NASA is already investing in—such as surface nuclear power systems, nuclear electric propulsion, and nuclear thermal propulsion—are highly relevant for Mars exploration, though they remain underfunded and subscale.

Jared Isaacman, who goes by the name "Rook" in practically every other reference to him on this blog, on his last private mission to orbit, Polaris Dawn in September '24. You can see his shirt is embroidered "Rook Isaacman" on his right in this picture - just right of his thumb. Credit: Polaris Program

Small Space News Story Roundup 57

Calling one of these "small" might be underselling it... 

Rocket Lab's CEO Peter Beck sees his market segment as healthy and robust

In an April 7th interview in Colorado Springs and reported in SpaceNews, Beck said his company has found a successful market providing dedicated launches for small satellites — a strategy that he said does not directly compete with SpaceX rideshare missions. 

...Beck said the customers for his company’s Electron rockets are different from those seeking less expensive launches on SpaceX’s Transporter and Bandwagon lines of Falcon 9 rideshare launches.

He explained, “Dedicated small launch is a real market, and it should not be confused with rideshare.  It’s totally different.”  

He said Rocket Lab is experiencing growing demand for Electron from companies who want control over their schedule and orbit, traits that a dedicated launch offers over a rideshare. This has included customers such as Kinéis, a French company that launched its constellation of 25 Internet-of-Things satellites across five Electron missions, and Japanese radar mapping companies iQPS and Synspective.

Something I found particularly interesting is his disdain for the "one ton to orbit" sized boosters that were the subject of headlines just under three years ago.  

That skepticism extends to a new line of European small launch vehicles, like Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum, which crashed less than a minute after liftoff on its inaugural flight March 30. Spectrum and some other vehicles there are targeting about one ton to orbit, which he described as a “no man’s land” of performance: “It’s too small to be a useful rideshare mission, and it’s too big to be a useful dedicated rocket” for smallsats.

We've mentioned Rocket Lab's development of their bigger payload rocket, Neutron. SpaceNews reports development is proceeding and the first Neutron launch looks to be before the end of this year.  Beck remarked that they've used all the lessons they learned getting their Electron to 50 launches faster than any other company's rocket on Neutron, adding, “It’s way easier to build a bigger rocket than it is a little rocket.”

The fight over NASA's budget begins

This week, as part of the process to develop a budget for fiscal-year 2026, the Trump White House shared the draft version of its budget request for NASA with the space agency.  Let's just say the opposition can't figure out what to burn, carve a swastika onto, or whom to assassinate. 

In the "big picture" context, the budget is cut by 20 percent, so effectively $5 billion from an overall total of about $25 billion.  What people are upset about is that the cuts seem to be centered on the agency's Science Mission Directorate, which oversees all planetary science, Earth science, astrophysics research, and more. 

According to the "passback" documents given to NASA officials on Thursday, the space agency's science programs would receive nearly a 50 percent cut in funding. After the agency received $7.5 billion for science in fiscal-year 2025, the Trump administration has proposed a science topline budget of just $3.9 billion for the coming fiscal year.
...
Among the proposals were: A two-thirds cut to astrophysics, down to $487 million; a greater than two-thirds cut to heliophysics, down to $455 million; a greater than 50 percent cut to Earth science, down to $1.033 billion; and a 30 percent cut to Planetary science, down to $1.929 billion.

While the Science Mission Directorate continues funding the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes (or HST and JWST), the cuts are seen as killing the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, widely considered a more modern version of the Hubble and a possible replacement for the HST rather than the Webb.  The HST was deployed 35 years ago this month: April 25, 1990. Not only has it been in orbit approaching 35 years, it has had many technical problems.  

The kicker is that the Roman Telescope is already fully assembled and on budget for a launch in two years.  Saying the cuts are going to kill off an already assembled successor because of budget cuts, instead of not funding other programs that are much closer to their beginnings doesn't make much sense.  

Other significant cuts include ending funding for Mars Sample Return as well as the DAVINCI mission to Venus. The budget cuts also appear intended to force the closure of Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, where the agency has 10,000 civil servants and contractors.

Note that the Mars Sample Return mission doesn't exist as anything beyond very preliminary documents.  I've seen mention of DAVINCI mission to Venus "in the late 2020s to early 2030s," but that's all. 

Naturally, this is seen as handing China the moon - if not the entire solar system - and the end of everything.  Science policy experts have been characterizing such cuts as an "extinction level" event for what is seen as the crown jewel of the space agency.

Nearly all of NASA's most significant achievements over the last 25 years have been delivered by the science programs, including feats such as Ingenuity flying on Mars, New Horizons swooping by Pluto, and Cassini's discovery of water plumes on Enceladus.
...
"This massive cut to NASA Science will not stand," US Rep. George Whitesides, D-California, told Ars. "For weeks we have been raising the alarm about a rumored 50 percent cut to NASA's world-leading science efforts. Now we know it is true. I will work alongside my colleagues on the Science Committee to make clear how this would decimate American leadership in space and inflict great damage to NASA centers across the country."

Since congress hasn't passed a "real" Federal Budget since 2009 (article from 2012 talking about that), I lean toward thinking that they're not likely to pass this one, either.  Instead, we'll get some number of continuing resolutions to authorize some spending or other. 

An illustration of the field of view of Roman Space Telescope vs. the Hubble Space Telescope.  From the NASA Roman mission website.

Jared Isaacman Clears First Hearing

Over the course of a three hour interview in the Russell Senate Office building next to the US Capitol, President Trump's nominee for NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman faced some tough questions and asked some of his own.  He also spoke to the honor of the position and his admiration of NASA.  

His basic message to members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation was that NASA is an exceptional agency that does the impossible, but that it also faces some challenges. NASA, he said, receives an “extraordinary” budget, and he vowed to put taxpayer dollars to efficient use in exploring the universe and retaining the nation’s lead on geopolitical competitors in space.

“I have lived the American dream, and I owe this nation a great debt,” said Isaacman, who founded his first business at 16 in his parents' basement and would go on to found an online payments company, Shift4, that would make him a billionaire. Isaacman is also an avid pilot who self-funded and led two private missions to orbit on Crew Dragon. Leading NASA would be “the privilege of a lifetime,” he said.

The large table where Isaacman sat featured company of the four astronauts who will fly on the Artemis II mission, and the six private citizens who flew with Isaacman on his two Dragon missions; Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn were also present. 

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, left, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen watch as Jared Isaacman testifies on Wednesday. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

The meeting started with Senator Ted Cruz stating his priorities for NASA clearly and explicitly: He is most focused on ensuring the United States does not cede any of its preeminence to China in space, and this starts with low-Earth orbit and the Moon. 

“Make no mistake, the Chinese Communist Party has been explicit in its desire to dominate space, putting a fully functional space station in low-Earth orbit and robotic rovers on the far side of the Moon,” he said. “We are not headed for the next space race; it is already here.”

Cruz wanted Isaacman to commit to getting Americans back to the moon ASAP as well as to creating a  sustained presence on the moon or in cislunar space.  Isaacman said he would commit to completing the Artemis II lunar flyby next year and Artemis III lunar landing as currently planned.  Cruz then pushed on Isaacman about keeping the ISS flying through 2030; my guess is because Elon Musk had recently said that it should be deorbited in two years.  Isaacman agreed to that, but when questioned about the Lunar Gateway currently in the Artemis mission plans, Isaacman only said he would work with Congress and space agency officials to determine which programs are working and which ones are not.

Ted Cruz is a big supporter of the Lunar Gateway (a Lunar space station) because it represents jobs for the Johnson Space Flight Center in his state.  Many observers from different backgrounds have questioned the whole concept of the Lunar Gateway in its Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit, and concluded it was a bad design compromise.

When questioned about the Space Launch System, Isaacman was more reserved, questioning its history of every piece costing far more than budgeted and delivered many years late.  

He noted, correctly, that presidential administrations dating back to 1989 have been releasing plans for sending humans to the Moon or Mars, and that significantly more than $100 billion has been spent on various projects over nearly four decades. For all of that, Isaacman and his private Polaris Dawn crewmates remain the humans to have flown the farthest from Earth since the Apollo Program. They did so last year.

“Why is it taking us so long, and why is it costing us so much to go to the Moon?” he asked.

In one notable exchange, Isaacman said NASA’s current architecture for the Artemis lunar plans, based on the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, is probably not the ideal “long-term” solution to NASA’s deep space transportation plans. The smart reading of this is that Isaacman may be willing to fly the Artemis II and Artemis III missions as conceived, given that much of the hardware is already built. But everything that comes after this, including SLS rocket upgrades and the Lunar Gateway, could be on the chopping block.

Naturally there were questions about his relationship with Elon Musk.  Isaacman had been an investor in SpaceX, as well as paying for two Dragon missions.  These are what I think of as “de rigueur” - "required by fashion, etiquette, or custom".  They're just expected to ask these things.  To borrow a line from Shakespeare, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."  Earlier in the meeting, Isaacman had tried to derail those questions by saying he's not beholden to Musk in any way.

“My loyalty is to this nation, the space agency, and its world-changing mission,” Isaacman said. Yes, he acknowledged he would talk to contractors for the space agency. It is important to draw on a broad range of perspectives, Isaacman said. But he wanted to make this clear: NASA works for the nation, and the contractors, he added, “work for us.”

Temporary Interruption

I beg your pardon for an interruption in regular blogging tonight as I have something I need to tend to.

We have a special election tomorrow and I just haven't gotten to the point that I'm comfortable with any of the candidates.  Time for a last attempt at more digging.  

The main reason for the special election is that our current state Representative has reached her term limit, and as I'm sure I've mentioned before, the biggest impact of the state's term limits is that the term-limited person runs for the office down the hall.  In this case, our representative is running for the state senate and while that may ordinarily be thought of as a step up, or even a "promotion," it goes both ways.  Senators will run for the house, or pretty much any office.  Their ability to win seems to largely come down to name recognition. 

As a result, she's running against three people I know nothing about, and another three people I know nothing about are running for her old job.  The current campaign fad has been to mail out oversized post cards printed (in color!).  I probably have five pounds of those cards.  The buzzwords this year are being endorsed by Trump, being MAGA, or common sense.  There's some talk about the other headlines like exporting illegal aliens, or keeping boys out of girls sports.

My standard election picture, featuring Kang and Kodos from the Simpsons. 

The other thing I say all the time is this old quote:  Preparing for an election is like cleaning out the litter box.  It's a disgusting, revolting task that exposes you to all sorts of dirty, filthy things you'd rather never see, but if you don't do it, the job gets even more disgusting and revolting.

Former NASA Astronauts Endorse Jared Isaacman

A group of 28 former astronauts have gathered to endorse Jared Isaacman for his appointment as NASA Administrator, and to call for the senate to complete reviewing him for the position as soon as possible.  

“We believe that Jared Isaacman is uniquely qualified to lead NASA at this critical juncture. As an entrepreneur, pilot, and having commanded two groundbreaking space missions, he brings credibility and capability to make a difference now,” states the letter, signed by 28 former NASA astronauts and posted to social media March 21 by one of them, Garrett Reisman.

Garret  Reisman's letter is in a post to BlueSky you can read here.  

Earlier this week I was wondering about when Isaacman's confirmation hearings were going to be held.  The last things I heard were that it was looking to be the end of February after the bigger names, more controversial people who were going to be first; RFK Jr., Pete Hegseth, Kristi Noem and others that are looked at more politically.  The last time I posted anything about his nomination was mid-February.  

President Trump announced his decision to nominate Isaacman in early December, but the nature of this process is that pretty much nothing happens until after inauguration.  And then some more time.

His nomination is under the jurisdiction of the Senate Commerce Committee, which has yet to schedule a hearing to consider the nomination. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the committee, said in February that the committee was “still waiting for the paperwork to be completed” before scheduling a hearing.

Of the 28 astronauts who signed the letter, I recognized a few of the names and they seemed to largely be Shuttle-era astronauts along with some from the space station era, with an interesting exception: Rusty Schweickart, who flew on Apollo 9 in 1969.  Wikipedia says Rusty was born in 1935, so he'll turn 90 this October.

SpaceNews adds:

Other notable signatories include Bob Cabana, who after his astronaut career was director of the Kennedy Space Center and NASA associate administrator; Bill Readdy, who became associate administrator for space operations; and John Grunsfeld, a veteran of several Hubble repair missions who later served as associate administrator for science and, during the 2024 election, backed a group called “Space Cadets 4 Harris” that supported Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

They also note that former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine endorsed Isaacman at the Satellite 2025 conference held March 11.  

Bridenstine responded by heaping praise on Isaacman. “I think Jared Isaacman is going to be an amazing NASA administrator,” he said. “I think he’s got all the tools to be what could be the most consequential NASA administrator given the era in which we live in now.”

Jared Isaacman, who goes by the name "Rook" in every other reference to him on this blog, commanded two SpaceX private astronaut missions, Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn in September.  You can see his shirt is embroidered "Rook Isaacman" on his right in this picture.  Credit: Polaris Program

How is NASA Facing the DOGE Days?

Eric Berger at Ars Technica has a headline today that caught my eye: "By the end of today, NASA’s workforce will be about 10 percent smaller" - subtitled "A dark and painful day at a space agency that brings so much light and joy to the world."  As is generally the case, Berger presents the facts in a balanced view of the situation.  

For openers, he quotes a number from NASA itself that between the headquarters its 10 field centers, the agency employs "nearly 18,000 civil servants."  Then he goes on to say:

However, by the end of today, that number will have shrunk by about 10 percent since the beginning of the second Trump administration four weeks ago. And the world's preeminent space agency may still face significant additional cuts.

There's no update to the source article on ARS, which they often do, nor do I see any news about this on a few of the NASA sites I visit regularly or NASASpaceflight dot com, so I assume there were no announcements about a layoff or Reduction In Force today.  Still, all that means is that maybe instead of "by the end of today..." it could have been "by the end of this week."

Berger addresses what seems to be a natural question: how many people leave NASA in a typical year, and says that number is around one thousand.  He says his sources tell him 750 people have taken the eight month severance pay layoff, which is a sizeable chunk of that 1,000.  A 10% RIF of 18,000 people, or 1800, is only slightly bigger than that 750 added to the 1000 per year, but I don't assume those are two different groups and that there might be sizeable overlap between the 750 the typical 1000 resignations per year.  

The culling of "probationary" employees will be more impactful. As it has done at other federal agencies, the Trump administration is generally firing federal employees who are in the "probationary" period of their employment, which includes new hires within the last one or two years or long-time employees who have moved into or been promoted into a new position. About 1,000 or slightly more employees at NASA were impacted by these cuts.
...
However, the cuts may not stop there. Two sources told Ars that directors at the agency's field centers have been told to prepare options for a "significant" reduction in force in the coming months. The scope of these cuts has not been defined, and it's possible they may not even happen, given that the White House must negotiate budgets for NASA and other agencies with the US Congress. But this directive for further reductions in force casts more uncertainty on an already demoralized workforce and signals that the Trump administration would like to make further cuts.

I think all of us who have worked in industry have been through layoffs, widespread (like in the 1980s) or just in a company that got into troubles of their own doing.  Layoffs suck.  Are the cuts necessary? 

It is also clear that, as within other federal agencies, there is significant "bloat" in NASA's budget. In some areas, this is plain to see, with the space agency having spent in excess of $3 billion a year over the last decade "developing" a heavy lift rocket, the Space Launch System, which used components from the Space Shuttle and costs an extraordinary amount of money to fly. In the meantime, the private launch industry has been running circles around NASA. Similarly, consider the Orion spacecraft. This program is now two decades old, at a cost of $1 billion a year, and the vehicle has never flown humans into space.

One could go on. Much of the space community has been puzzled as to why NASA has been spending on the order of half a billion dollars to develop a Lunar Gateway in an odd orbit around the Moon. It remains years away from launching, and if it ever does fly, it would increase the energy needed to reach the surface of the Moon. The reason, according to multiple sources at the agency when the Gateway was conceived, is that the lunar space station would offer jobs to the current flight controllers operating the International Space Station, which is due to retire in 2030.

Part of what DOGE has been all about is looking at things that seem to only exist to funnel money between politicians and contractors. "Create jobs" with cost-plus contracts, like the SLS he talks about. An even worse example is the Lunar Gateway Berger mentions.  Created to keep the jobs for the current ISS flight controllers it becomes obsolete the minute Starship's Human Landing System version becomes operational.  It’s not entirely clear, but NASA reportedly wanted to land just 400 lb of cargo, while the crewed Starship is probably capable of landing tons of cargo in addition to several astronauts. Why do they need the Gateway to stage people and cargo if the HLS can carry it all?

In recent years, NASA has been in the midst of a difficult transition. The agency deserves a lot of credit for nurturing a commercial space industry that now is the envy of the world. But as part of this, NASA has been moving away from owning and operating its rockets, spacecraft, and other hardware and buying services from this commercial space industry. This transition from traditional space to commercial space marks an important step for NASA to remain on the cutting edge of exploration and science rather than trying to compete with US industry.

What was a bit shocking to me - although it shouldn't have been - was reading some of the comments.  I didn't read many, maybe only a dozen out of the nearly 400 a little while ago, but the TDS and the Elon Derangement Syndrome were stunning.  The comments were either hatred of those two in particular, hatred of "rich people" in general, pro-union or pro-communist. 

The old saying about every comment taking away an IQ point sure seemed to be applicable there.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collects a sample from the asteroid Bennu. NASA's superpower is its capacity to dazzle us. Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

Jared Isaacman Lets Out a Peek at His Vision

While there is still no definite date given for Jared Isaacman's Senate confirmation hearing before the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, all we have known for sure until now is that the nominees typically have some private conversations with the senators that will be on the other side of the table, and otherwise tend to keep quiet.  They especially tend to avoid public statements that might make their confirmation hearings more difficult. 

Because of this dynamic, we've heard very little about his opinions on the big questions the agency has to deal with.  At this point, the success of the Artemis moon landing mission doesn't look like it's a safe bet. Do they keep the SLS or drop it, and if they drop SLS, how do they replace it?  What about the a potential for switching to Mars as the big manned goal and dropping the moon return, which Trump has hinted at?  There's the International Space Station sliding into obsolescence, the Mars Sample Return mission plan that remains unsolved, a limited pipeline of science missions, and the likelihood of budget cuts.  On top of all of this, it's hard to imagine the NASA staff is free of the unease federal workers face as the Trump Administration scrutinizes their activities for efficiency and, to be honest, working for the benefit of America.

However, Isaacman made some of his most in-depth remarks yet on his vision to lead the space agency this weekend on the social media site X. Commenting on an image of Mars, it is notable that Isaacman chose to focus on the benefits of sending humans to the red planet.

"When I see a picture like this, it is impossible not to feel energized about the future," he wrote. "I think it is so important for people to understand the profound implications of sending humans to another planet."

Among these, Isaacman cited the benefits of advancing state-of-the-art technologies including propulsion, habitability, power generation, in-situ resource utilization, and manufacturing.

"We will create systems, countermeasures, and pharmaceuticals to sustain human life in extreme conditions, addressing challenges like radiation and microgravity over extended durations," he said. "These advancements will form the foundation for lower-cost, more frequent crewed and robotic missions across the solar system, creating a flywheel effect to accelerate world-changing discoveries."

Isaacman added that he thought that taking the first steps toward humanity living beyond Earth was not just critical to the long-term survival of humanity, but that doing so would inspire a new generation of scientific and technological leaders. 

"Achieving such an outrageous endeavor—like landing American astronauts on another planet—will inspire generations of dreamers to build upon these accomplishments, set even bolder goals, and drive humankind’s greatest adventure forward," he wrote.

It seems inevitable that anything going on in DC becomes infected by contact with politicians.  Just being nominated to be NASA administrator by President Trump has critics screaming about conflicts of interest, assuming that since he hired SpaceX for his Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn missions that he'll unduly favor them if given the position as leader of NASA.  Never mind that SpaceX does more orbital flights than any other launch provider on the planet.  Hiring them isn't just a logical decision, it's favoritism. 

Although Isaacman's remarks this weekend were general in nature, we can draw some information from them. First of all, Isaacman does not appear to be foreclosing on the idea of a lunar component for NASA's deep space exploration program. He mentions "Moon to Mars" in his comments. However it is likely that NASA's lunar program will become more focused, with the goal of learning what we can on the Moon to support human missions to Mars.

As for Mars itself, it seems clear the Isaacman's spaceflight goals align with those of Trump—who, despite creating the Artemis lunar program during his first term, has always been more interested in sending humans to Mars—and Musk, who founded SpaceX with the express purpose of putting humans on Mars.

Jared Isaacman, the tall guy, with the Polaris Dawn crew last August, on arrival at the KSC to prepare for their mission.  August 19, 2024.  Left to right: Mission Specialist Anna Menon, Pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet, Commander Jared Isaacman, Mission Specialist Sarah Gillis. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now  

I Hate to be the Bearer of Bad News

... but the Federal Government did not shut down last night.  If you're a Fed.gov employee whose job has been rated “nonessential,” sorry, no paid vacation for you, and if you're considered essential, you already know you weren't getting that paid vacation.  Yes, I know that you don't get paid until the issue is settled so you need to live off savings for the few minutes or days that are shutdown. It never, never, hurts to have some savings you can use for times when things go pear-shaped - or however you like to describe it. 

As usual, talk about that mythical debt ceiling came up and that linked article (Business Insider) brings that up as something that was a problem. 

Republicans denied Trump's request to suspend or even eliminate the debt ceiling, which would have resolved a thorny political issue in advance of a likely GOP effort to extend Trump's 2017 tax law. According to Punchbowl News, Johnson said Republicans have agreed to address the nation's borrowing limit next year when the GOP will retake entire control over Washington.

I call the debt ceiling mythical because not once since it was made a law has the debt ceiling actually decreased or done anything to stop the debt from increasing.  The best it has done was to hold the measured debt constant for a short period while the things being shutdown stopped the debt increasing for a few days. Which has historically often meant the groups keeping track of spending and the debt were lying.  LCS - lie, cheat and steal - gets them through these times.  

Here's a chart I put together using a crude tool (Microsoft Paint) that tries to depict the life of the Debt Ceiling since its inception. There are no stops, no point where the ceiling goes continually down, nothing but constant increase. The place where they meet was labeled $6 trillion on both plots, but the vertical scale is a bit compressed on the right, so the situation is actually worse-looking.

Notice how this plot ends at about $28 trillion in 2022?  The current national debt, according the excellent US Debt Clock site is $36.25 trillion dollars. We have been adding another $1 trillion roughly every 100 days. That's pretty much 3 months or one quarter of the year. These fights and threats to shut the government down are show business of the worst time.  Not only is the outcome known in advance, they spend months writing these Continuing Resolutions or CRs to keep the government running and then drop 12 or 1500 page turds laws on the legislators with about two days to read it and approve it. Clearly proposing any changes is actively discouraged. I've run this cartoon since it first showed up because it sums up the story completely.  They set everything up so that they can look like heroes. It's all a show for people who understand nothing but headlines.

You might want to read the poem at this link: it's one of Rudyard Kipling's best.

Trump Picks Jared Isaacman for NASA Administrator

Regular readers will instantly recognize the name of Jared Isaacman, as the tech company CEO who flew this September's Polaris Dawn mission and the Inspiration4 mission in September of 2021. Today, Dec. 4, president elect Trump announced via social media that he has picked Jared Isaacman, the founder and CEO of payment-processing company Shift4 Payments,to lead NASA. Isaacman both funded and commanded those two missions, flown on SpaceX hardware. (The pilot was Scott “Kidd” Poteet, also from Shift4). The third Polaris program launch has been talked about as the first manned flight of Starship; that might be affected by this appointment.

"Jared will drive NASA's mission of discovery and inspiration, paving the way for groundbreaking achievements in space science, technology and exploration," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, the platform he launched in 2022.

"Jared's passion for space, astronaut experience and dedication to pushing the boundaries of exploration, unlocking the mysteries of the universe and unlocking the new space economy make him ideally suited to lead NASA into a bold new era."

For his part, Isaacman replied (also on X): 

"I am honored to receive President Trump's nomination to serve as the next Administrator of NASA. Having been fortunate to see our amazing planet from space, I am passionate about America leading the most incredible adventure in human history,"

If you followed the two manned missions, you will have also seen that Isaacman has some ... let's just say unusual private jets; the kind only billionaires can have.  Two are pictured at the top here, another is pictured at the top of the Ars Technica coverage of this story.  He flies those, as well.  

It's a very easy prediction that current NASA Administrator Bill Nelson would be highly likely to be let go from that job, and at 82 is not likely to run for office again; he was our State and Federal Representative, as well as our US Representative and Senator at various times.  Coincidentally, Jared Isaacman is exactly half of Nelson's age: 41.

I think it's worth the minute or so to read Isaacman's reply to Trump, copied here from a screen capture: