Jared Isaacman: A New Era for NASA and American Space Exploration

Key Takeaway

Apply “frontier focus” to your own work today: identify the one outcome only you can own, stop investing energy in activities others already do well, and redirect that capacity toward the hardest high-value problem. Isaacman argues that NASA succeeds when it avoids spreading resources to please every stakeholder, builds capabilities through repeated real-world missions, and hands mature work to industry. Make one written stop-doing decision, then schedule a small test that moves your priority forward this week.

Episode Overview

Jared Isaacman presents a vision for a more focused, mission-driven NASA centered on returning astronauts to the lunar south pole, establishing a moon base, developing nuclear-powered space systems, and preparing for Mars. In conversation with the All-In hosts, he argues that NASA should concentrate on frontier capabilities without clear commercial incentives, while leveraging private industry for mature, scalable services such as launch, communications, and Earth observation.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Jared Isaacman: A New Era for NASA and American Space Exploration from All-In Podcast. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Ignition sequence start. All engines up. It's good to have an aviator, an astronaut in charge. Jared Eisenberg. The new NASA administrator. NASA's still hot. Humankind will not be contained to planet Earth indefinitely. And the next giant leap capabilities, that's nuclear power and propulsion. That's what extends America's reach farther into the solar system. That's what guarantees the third race will never be in question. Please welcome Jared Isaacman. Good morning, everyone. It is an absolute honor to be here at All In. We are living through an extraordinary moment in history, aren't we?

It took just 65 years from Orville and Wilbur's first flight to Neil and Buzz walking on the surface of the moon. Now, it's been 57 years since Apollo 11. And for a while there, pace of progress hasn't been all that inspiring. But look at what is on the horizon right now. We got artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, robotics, additive manufacturing, the promise of fusion energy, biotech to heal the disabled, autonomous transportation, this whole abundance thing everyone's talking about. All converging in the years ahead is beyond what most people can comprehend.

Our world will fundamentally change how we live, how we work, how we fight wars, how we reach out and touch the stars. But we are not alone on this journey. We are living through a great power competition. Other nations understand the opportunities that can elevate nations and change civilizations. And perhaps nowhere are the possibilities, the competition, and the consequences of getting it wrong more apparent than in the ultimate high ground above us. Now, at NASA, we are doing things differently, and we are regaining our swagger and putting wins on the board.

But absent this president, absent this geopolitical competition, and the very real possibility of losing the second space race, I suspect very little would have changed. For too long, resources at the world's most accomplished space agency were spread everywhere trying to make everyone happy. Much of it was through external imposition, but plenty of it was self-inflicted. We partnered for the sake of partnerships, oftentimes becoming a drag on the mission instead of accelerating it. As a result, we have the Orion spacecraft that we can't inject into low lunar orbit like we did during Apollo, and the prior administration canceled the Mars sample return mission that was on track to cost more than an aircraft carrier.

We created programs that were too big to fail, too costly to truly succeed, in the hope that they would survive administrations, the results being a rocket that was designed when China was predominantly operating coal-fired locomotives and now becoming operational as China operates 25,000 miles of high-speed rail and is just a few years away from their own Apollo 11-like moment. Core competencies and tens of thousands of the NASA workforce were rented, outsourced, or lost, which turned what should have been months' worth of progress into years at tremendously greater cost.

Eventually, too little was left to do things the right way, the way NASA showed the world how to do it in decades past, so we invented this whole dream state-as-a-service thing, forgoing the playbook of success and shifting the impossible burden onto others. The result is that our moon rocket is, in fact, less efficient than Saturn V at converting launch mass into payload headed for the moon, with more time between the Artemis I and Artemis II mission than all 12 of the Gemini missions that were flown 60 years before.

A lunar space station that, whenever it may have been delivered, put our astronauts in a position to look down on the most desirable lunar real estate instead of operating on the surface and occupying it, one X-plane that wasn't flying very much, and billions spent on failed nuclear programs that had not left the laboratory since 1965. Now, during the first space race, we were slow out of the gate, but NASA ultimately ran up the score. The second will be much closer than it ever needed to be.

Since becoming the administrator of NASA last year, we have made a different choice. We are not going to try and make everyone happy. We are not going to spread every penny across every district or partner with every nation just to try and make everyone happy or because that's how people incorrectly believed it always was. I am certainly not here for the money, to favor companies, for the title, the notoriety, the politics. 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.

You can take those conversations up with the Department of Commerce if you like. I'm here to execute on President Trump's national space policy, to align and focus resources, to work alongside and unleash the best this nation has to offer, from the NASA workforce to our industry to our partners and deliver the world-changing outcomes, the kind of outcomes that put Neil and Buzz on the moon, the kind of outcomes that inspired many of you to be in this room in the first place. This is a very reinvigorated and energized NASA, and America is back in the business of sending our astronauts to the moon.

Now, Artemis II was just the beginning. Those four heroic astronauts, recent recipients of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, rode 8.8 million pounds of thrust to near-Earth escape velocities, traveled farther into space than any humans in history around the moon, and back home safely. And that was just the opening act. We are not waiting three years to fly again. We are not turning every rocket into a work of art. Artemis III is already being assembled right now at a pace many doubted was possible just months ago.

Before year-end, we intend to roll out to Launch Complex 39B for a tanking test and send a message to our workforce, our industry, and our rivals overseas. NASA is back, and we are not going to sit idly by. We are not just a procurement organization. We are going to do the extremely demanding work and achieve our objectives safely, responsibly, and urgently because that is what meeting the moment requires. Now, in the summer of 2027, Artemis III will launch on SLS into low-Earth orbit and rendezvous with lander test vehicles from Blue Origin and SpaceX in what will be a remarkable display of the three most powerful rockets and spacecraft in the world.

We will test interoperability and show what a future multi-launch campaign can actually look like. What we learn will inform the uncrewed test landings that follow and then Artemis IV in 2028 when American astronauts return to the lunar surface and this time to stay in parallel. In parallel, we are establishing humanity's first outpost on another world, a moon base, and this time we are leveraging the NASA playbook of decades past. We are not jumping directly to the dream state. We will launch missions on a near monthly cadence and undertake the science of survival.

That means autonomous and crewed mobility, surface improvement, in-situ resource utilization and manufacturing, logistics, habitability, power, communications, and all the science instruments the mass budget affords. We will bring it to you live in HD on the moon base website and we will leave no doubters this time. We go for the scientific and the economic potential. We go to learn about the formation of our solar system, but primarily because the lunar south pole, where the water ice is, is going to be the technological proving ground for where we inevitably go next, which is Mars.

In 2028, NASA will leave decades and billions of dollars of failed nuclear programs behind and launch SR-1 Freedom, a 100 kilowatt fission reactor that will finally get America underway on nuclear power. The mission will transit Mars and release Skyfall, which carries three Ingenuity class helicopters and using ground penetrating radar to scout subsurface ice and future landing sites. This will mark the beginning of the nuclear NASA, pivoting our workforce and facilities back to doing the near impossible. Missions with no obvious business case, what no company, no agency or nation is presently capable of accomplishing, but that extends humanity's reach farther into the outer solar system.

And just like during the Apollo era, the technology that we pioneered to get there will surely benefit life back here at home. There will be lots of nuclear missions, SR-2, SR-3, SR-4. Alongside our industry partners, we will push the boundaries of high temperature materials, more efficient power conversion, more reduced radiator mass and higher performance electric propulsion as we visit some of the most interesting moons, like Enceladus, Europa and Titan. These are worlds with oceans, with complex chemistry and perhaps the ingredients for life, a reminder that some of the greatest discoveries in human history, they may be waiting for us in our own backyard.

We could answer the question, are we alone? And are we alone even in our own solar system, let alone the galaxy and universe around us? Someday, a chemically augmented nuclear power transfer vehicle, part of an American star fleet, supported by an armada of starships and other spacecraft, will carry humans to the surface of Mars and bring them home safely to tell us about it. And not just once. We are on this great destiny of human exploration and we are not turning back. Along the way, we are going to do the other things.

Commercial satellites are being printed off at a rate that will help us affordably understand the only planet that we presently inhabit, our home star and space weather and better predict weather and perhaps respond to wildfires and natural disasters better, freeing up more resources to build the exquisite flagship science missions that only NASA can undertake. Like, for example, the nuclear-powered dragonfly, Octocopter. It's powered by a 2-kilowatt MMRTG converting to just 100 watts of electricity, barely better than an old light bulb, but it will journey to Saturn's moon of Titan in 2028.

Europa Clipper will arrive at Jupiter's icy moon in 2030. And our great space telescopes, like James Webb and Hubble, will soon be joined by Roman, and with her nearly 300-megapixel wide-field instrument and JPL-built coronagraph. In the moments ahead, Roman will open her eyes, and in that instance, she will see more of the universe than any scientific instrument we've ever put in space before. Her surveys will seek to... It is a cool telescope. APPLAUSE Her surveys will seek to understand the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter and reveal tens of thousands of worlds that are hidden behind distant stars.

Roman will return images so large and in such detail there is no screen on Earth large enough to display them. Now, other missions, like NEO Surveyor, will find asteroids in comets that can threaten Earth, while next-generation telescopes in development will seek out habitable planets orbiting other stars. The last few decades have shown us that the future in space that we all imagined as children will never be realised if they're perpetually funded by taxpayers. NASA will do everything within reason to support an orbital and perhaps even lunar economy someday, building on the proven markets of launch observation and communication, whether the next frontier is in orbital data centres or commercial space stations or on-orbit manufacturing, regolith resource extraction, asteroid mining or industries that none of us have even imagined yet.

Now, it's not NASA's job to force an economy, but we will do all we can to ignite one as we pursue our missions. And in the service of the first A in NASA, we are rebuilding our X-plane fleet. The X-59 is researching quiet supersonic flight, but it's just the beginning as NASA recommits to flight tests and works alongside industry to push the boundaries of airframe and propulsion design. It will not be long before NASA is flying once again as high and as fast as we have from decades past and then even more.

But if this frontier is going to expand as rapidly as we believe it will be, we will have to cultivate the talent to lead it. The space domain deserves an institution focused on that future and call it what many already have and should, a Starfleet Academy. That is why the president established the Commission for the United States Space Academy, a NASA-led federal academy to prepare the next generation of astronauts, scientists, engineers, technicians, operators, pilots and leaders. And just as the need for Space Force became clear as the domain evolved, we should be equally forward-looking in preparing those who will build the moon base, operate nuclear-powered spacecraft, command missions to Mars, ensure our national security, and create industries in orbit we can barely imagine today.

And there is no time to waste. I want you all to think about where you were when Artemis II astronauts sent back those images from the moon. Who did it touch? Your parents, your friends, your colleagues, your children. Now I want you to imagine astronauts climbing down the ladder. Only this time, it is not grainy black and white footage from July 20th, 1969. It is high-definition color streaming live to billions of people all around the world. The astronaut steps foot on the lunar surface, the camera pans up, and the flag on the spacesuit is not American.

There will be no footnote explaining that we spent more, no disclaimer that our architecture was complicated, no one will care how many studies we completed, how many meetings we held, what congressional districts benefited, who all the all-star lobbyists were for their hardware, who served on the committee, or how many times we slipped the schedule for what someone thought was a perfectly reasonable reason. The world will just see who got there. China intends to put their astronauts on the moon by 2030. Its robotic missions are targeting the Shackleton crater of the lunar satellite.

South Pole next year, and there are only so many good parking spots in that neighborhood. And they intend to occupy them. They are working with Russia on their own nuclear-powered moon base. And to be clear, China will accomplish what the Soviets never could during the first space race. They have a very achievable two-launch architecture, the national will and capabilities to put their astronauts on the surface of the moon. And if America has not returned, despite the decades of promises and the more than $100 billion invested, the shockwave will be felt around the world.

Our allies will notice. Our adversaries will notice. Every nation deciding whose technology to buy, whose standards to adopt, whose security guarantees to trust, and whose vision of the future to follow will take notice. And perhaps most importantly, our children will notice. That is why we must remain focused on the objectives that matter. Why NASA was established in the first place. There is no time anymore for lobbying against America's interests or further tolerating the status quo. Only extreme ownership, competence, and action. Those of us inspired by the pioneers and heroes of decades past know they set the bar high.

But we do not honor them by living forever on what they accomplished. This is our time to pick up where they left off, return, and never give up the moon again, and then set our sights on Mars and beyond. And none of this will be accomplished by NASA alone. We have the support of President Trump. We have Congress. We have a clear mandate in the national space policy. But it will take brilliant entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers, our allies, and Americans across the country who still believe that great nations can do great things.

Because our children will either inherit the confidence of a nation still capable of the extraordinary or the memory of one that used to be. That responsibility, that choice, belongs to all of us. And I believe when history looks back on this moment, let it record that America did not hesitate any longer. We did not allow the bureaucracy, the complacency, the waste, inaction, or fear of failure to constrain what we could accomplish. We chose to go. And we went. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Let's fucking go.

Let's go! All right, everybody. Thank you. Good job. America. Good job. Good job. Thank you, guys. Where do you want me? Right on the couch. Jared, I was commenting backstage on how easy it is for NASA to come and do space exploration on how easy it is for NASA to come and do speeches, given the content, the capacity to show visuals like this. Can you imagine, like, housing and urban development trying to do a presentation? No. We have unbelievable material to work with. I'm thankful every day that I don't lead the IRS for social media.

Yeah, right. Can we talk about—we don't have a lot of time, so I know I want to move our way through the universe. Can we start with the moon? What is—is there a—you know, there's kind of this case that NASA makes about the moon being the starting point for getting to Mars, but is the moon a potentially viable economy on its own? Is there an industry to be built on the moon? Is there an ongoing set of operations that could be established on the moon that makes sense beyond just kind of testing equipment before we go to Mars?

Yeah, maybe, right? So I think we are extremely fortunate we've been gifted a moon three days away to test out everything we need on this great adventure of discovery, right? I mean, this is where you want to go to really dial in power. Your spacesuits—it's taken us decades to build replacement spacesuits from the Apollo era. Let's test that out on the moon. Habitation modules, certainly in-situ resource manufacturing, robotics, right? I mean, you know, look, EVAs are fantastic. Astronauts bouncing around on the moon is going to be highly inspirational.

That's like one of the last things you should do when you have a moon base is send somebody outside in that extremely dangerous environment, let robotics do it. And in order to accomplish all of this, you have to send an extraordinary demand signal to industry. I mean, over the next four years, we're talking dozens of landers, dozens of rovers, lots of in-situ resource manufacturing experimentation. You're giving industry all the opportunity in the world to figure out how to unlock value from the lunar regolith, right? But I can't guarantee it, right?

And that's my point on the Department of Commerce. They have a, you know, a whole space commerce office that can work through that. I am going to make sure that NASA, you know, can master the skills necessary to go to Mars for its scientific potential, put radio telescopes on the far side to inspire the next generation. Along the way, it ignites a lunar economy. That's fantastic. But it costs an awful lot to get there, an awful lot to extract resources. Jared. Sorry, one sec. And then we have to map the South Pole to figure out where we're going.

Is that right? And that's part of this promise mission? That's kind of the next big mission for the moon? So I'm glad you brought up promise. So we have mapped the lunar South Pole. There are only so many good landing spots. And what do I mean by that? I mean, surface area of the moon is like the size of Africa. The South Pole of the moon is like Washington, D.C. And there's only so many good craters that have these permanently shaded regions, which, by the way, I mean, that is a harsher environment than Mars itself.

That's where the water ice is. But the crater cliffs can also give you near eternal access to light for solar power. So there's only so many good landing spots. And you think about when a vehicle the size of Starship comes down on the lunar surface, believe me, that's going to blast out a little bit of craters, send debris. So really limited parking spots on that. Promise is very awesome, because promise is a radioisotope-powered rover that we built as a spare, essentially, for the two rovers, Perseverance and Curiosity, are on Mars right now.

And just to give you a sense, this thing is the size of a Jeep. So we have some PU-238 that's decaying right now. You only get so much life out of it. We want to take that, put it on promise, and send it to the moon. And it can go in and start prospecting in those permanently shaded regions that, I mean, almost any other hardware would die in. It's a very good way to make use of taxpayer dollars that have largely already been spent. That's awesome.

And Jared, you were informing me last night and educating me on this specific southern region of the moon being absolutely critical for us to get to first versus China. Why is it so critical that we get there before China, and what's it going to take to do that? And just as a follow-up to that, what was the state of NASA when you got there? Because it did feel like they, since the space shuttle program, haven't been super focused or effective. But correct me if I'm wrong.

Yeah. I mean, just to be clear, you're talking about some of the best talent in this nation shows up to work at NASA every day, and they want to change the world in air and space. And for a very long time, everybody was trying to run NASA other than the people themselves that show up to work there. I mean, like you heard from my remarks, you know, let's make everyone happy. Let's spread our resources to every congressional district. Let's collect 25 different flags to partner on the next mission that takes something that should cost a couple billion, which is very cool, like going and getting samples back from Mars that could lead to the most consequential discovery in human history and layer a bunch of other people on it and make it cost more than a carrier, and then it gets canceled right now.

So NASA's back in charge now, right? We are in a space race. People are giving us the latitude to do what we need to do, and as a result, we are extremely focused on the president's national space policy, return to the moon, build the base, get underway on nuclear power and the other things. And the workforce is responding well, and I'm grateful alongside them. So we are in a different state today. Unfortunately, we don't have the time necessarily we'd like because years were lost in this now new space race.

Now the south pole of the moon, again, we've been gifted a moon three days away to again master those skills to go to Mars. There's only so many good parking spots. The Chinese and the Russians know that, right? They were going to launch a mission a couple weeks ago right to the Shackleton Ridge, which, you know, maybe it was mechanical, maybe it was weather related, or maybe they were smart enough to know that if they actually did do it, it probably would ignite one hell of a fire and urgency in us.

But that would have taken up one of like a couple critical parking spots. They're going to build a base there. They partner with Russia. They're going to have a fission power fission reactor there, and they're going to do the exact same things we are, which is interact with the water ice and get very good. And then where are they going next? The third space race, they're going to go to Mars. And then they'll have that massive Neil Armstrong like moment that will send a message around the world.

And we are very committed to not letting that happen. What is the big technological leap that you have to make from the current course and speed to actually make Mars more realistic? Is it propulsion and thrust as the main vector? So I think there's a couple things there. Look, robotics are going to be critical in all of this. So if you chose a path that was purely like chemical propulsion, of which, you know, vehicles like Starship are going to be incredible at that, well, you will no doubt have the means to send astronauts to Mars.

They've already figured out habitability a long time ago. And you're talking very comparable velocities, whether you're going to the moon or Mars in that regard. The hard part is how do you come back, right? You're going to need to make propellant on Mars to do so. And you know, one solution to that to say is, well, I'll have an army of robots that'll do it, and I'll have football field size, you know, solar panels, and then the robots can dust them off from all the dust storms that'll happen, and then you'll make your own propellant and you'll come home.

The hard part is it's really challenging to do that under one atmosphere and one G here on Earth. I mean, you can see how many people show up at like stage zero at, you know, at Starbase to launch a mission, or, and by the way, that is the right way to kind of win the war, to put lots of mass on the surface. NASA can help that by kind of pivoting, by stop doing what industry is already doing really well and invest in that next giant leap capabilities that have no obvious, you know, business use case today, which is vision power.

And then you can have chemically augmented NEP spaceships, transfer vehicles, and go to and from Mars, and you don't need to refuel them until they come back. And what you're refueling is krypton or xenon. You're not having to make propellant on the surface of Mars. That to me is how NASA works alongside industry to invest in the capabilities that are necessary for American leadership in space. And by the way, those are the capabilities you want to go to like Saturn's moon of Enceladus, to go to Titan, to go to Europa, where you have, you have oceans on two of those moons that could have still life in them.

We don't know. How do you convince these incredible learned people to work for NASA versus SpaceX or other private space companies now in a world where there's so many ways in which you can contribute? So, so, so great. I mean, I'm glad you asked that because it's a double down on nuclear, but it's right now we don't have a recruiting problem initially. I mean, we take 1% of the intern applications that go into our pathway program, which guarantee them a job at NASA. Then the question is, can you retain them?

And if you're doing exactly what SpaceX, Blue, Rocket Lab, Stoke, ULA, and others are doing in industry, except you're doing it off, you know, you know, 50 year old shuttle hardware that again is not as efficient for missions like going to the moon as Saturn V was, you're going to lose that workforce. So what do you need to do? You know, when we have those near impossible breakthroughs and there is a business case, like there certainly is for launch where you can be one customer, many, you hand it off to industry and you pivot.

And that's how you retain talent that can only do these type of missions at NASA, which is the nuclear NASA. SR1 is just the beginning. That is our Nautilus. There will be a grand fleet of nuclear powered spacecraft. You need to stay on the frontier essentially. You need to constantly keep pivoting to the next new thing and the next. Can you explain just, just really briefly a primer on how nuclear works for generating thrust? Yeah, sure. So you can just think of a lot of the, like say Starlink satellites that you'd have up right now that use, you know, hauler ion thrusters right now.

They're generating electricity through solar power. And then they're using through electromagnetic forces, they're, they're, they're ionizing either krypton or xenon and, and then just basically accelerating it out of the thruster, which gives you very, very high, you know, exhaust velocity. So it's extremely efficient, very low thrust and you can use that propellant for a very long time. So in space, the faster the molecule shoots out the back, the more thrust it generates for the, for the craft to move forward. Yeah. I mean, it's just very low mass that you're actually, it's very low mass flow, but highly efficient, right?

So very, very efficient high, you know, exhaust velocities. The idea though is where that breaks down is the farther you get away from the sun. So once you get out towards Jupiter, I mean, solar effectiveness is, is negligible, right? So what you're using is like a, a, a, the thermal energy from a nuclear reactor. So a hundred kilowatts, we'll scale it up to 250. Who knows, maybe megawatt class, right? You're going to want to run that reactor as hot as you possibly can. So that's your high temperature materials.

And then you're going to convert it through like a, a closed Brayton cycle power conversion unit into electricity. And that electricity is then going to power those same thrusters that you would see on Starlinks. It's just, they're scaled up, right? They're like 12 kilowatt and 14 kilowatt, 25 kilowatt thrusters. What is NASA's budget? And if you could have your druthers, what would it be? I'm incredibly supportive of, look, I've said it, I've said it many times, right? Now, like NASA does not have a top line problem.

Like we are bad capital allocators and have been for a long time. And a lot of that is based on NASA choices. It's based on what other people forced us to do. And that's changed. We have $25 billion. I mean, there's got, how many, how many entrepreneurs are in this room? Star, 25 billion is a lot of money. You can build some pretty incredible hardware with that. You're one of the few entrepreneurs that actually has built a profitable company and taken it public. You showed a picture of the Blackbird up there.

And are you sure that's a Blackbird? Well, okay. What was that picture that you showed up there? Like I said, NASA is getting back in the business of flying high and fast again. I mean, that doesn't seem like a space vehicle. It seems like a Earth air vehicle. Yeah. So the first A in NASA is our, is our aeronautics portfolio. And what we've contributed to over the decades, you may not realize this. Look, when you go see an F-22 fly at an air show and wow you, the fly-by-wire technology was us.

The, you know, thrust vectoring technology was us. NASA has been contributing to breakthroughs in aeronautics, both civil, commercial, and national security applications for a long time. And again, kind of similar to the same theme, over the years we've been forced to spend our aeronautics budget on like subsidizing high TRL efforts from big prime contractors. An engine that's 40 years old, they want to squeak 3% more fuel efficiency out of it, get NASA to pay for it. I'm like, are you kidding? There is no way we are doing that.

You can underwrite that investment yourself for competitive reasons. You know what I want to do? I want to get back to the radical airframe and engine designs like we were always supposed to do. And you're getting a little bit of a taste for that on the, on the. Tell us about the importance of having a human on these ships when we go to the moon, when we go to Mars. Versus if optimists figure these humanoid robotics are ready Why would we risk a human life in these incredibly?

dangerous Environments is it ego is it we're trying to prove a point to have humans in the loop on these Or should we just be sending robots or it's our it's our destiny, right? I mean the same reason why we we cross the oceans and seas and climb the mountains This is who we are would have many people stopped paused from the the discourse of our daily lives To look at those astronauts go around the moon on Artemis 2 if they weren't humans I don't think so now don't get me wrong We are going to need robotics and there are some environments that just whether it's the radiation that we can only do Uncrewed, you know robotic missions, but we can we can go to the moon as we've done before with our astronauts We can go to Mars and we can continue on outward and robotics will absolutely Play a critical role in that journey.

What about then just like the autonomous navigation systems you talked about fly-by-wire I mean, we still see even just like last week the the incident with Amazon air now This is civil aviation, but the overrun is ridiculous that that that Eric mode was pretty shocking to the people I think How do we push better and safer technologies and the more obvious solutions even if that may actually disintermediate Human involvement. Well, just say that NASA has been playing a role with air traffic safety and modernization for a long time It was NASA that pioneered the autonomous ground collision avoidance software So I mean it's saved I mean countless lives of fighter pilots pull too many G's they black out the point in the nose of The aircraft's point at the ground the aircraft recognizes it and and safely returns to the ground Recognizes it and and safely recovers it that was NASA work But I will I mean to your point and we are obviously very involved as you think about a world That's going to have who knows like millions of drones flying around delivering us medicine and other things like we we have to work Very closely the FA on that but I will tell you we are thinking about You know AI and autonomous Applications within the missions we're designing right now like one mission going to Venus Da Vinci It will not last long in that high-pressure environment, right?

We are going to only have so much time To gather as much information as we can to update, you know, kind of the trajectory of the vehicle This is not interesting disregard. This is interesting. I'm turning in that direction We've already tested this with some of our rovers on Mars and I in my last dying breath. This is what I choose to send back You know to the scientists on earth to understand this this environment and that's just one step towards a direction that will Inevitably include more autonomy in our in our crude and uncrewed spacecraft And how do you think about allocation of capital resources Jared to some of the scientific discovery of the observational systems future platforms for observational for deep space research Is there a view in your mind?

It should be a 5% of budget. Like how do you think about? Rationalizing where we go with the spender. Yeah, I mean I would say right now science is Approximately call it a third of NASA's budget We recently reorganized but your main mission directorates right now are human space exploration Which covers both the great work we're doing in the International Space Station as well as missions to example moon and building a moon base You have your research technology mission directorate, which is shouldering most of the nuclear NASA effort And then you have your science mission directorate now I think about this is like you have to take advantage of commercial industry right now like again There's no one would doubt that launch observation communications are real services where NASA is one customer of many You've got all these great companies that are printing out satellites again for Earth observation whether it's for national security reasons You know or otherwise like leverage it for agriculture a level of leverage it for earth sciences Give them the instruments if necessary license it to them Free up resources to do what industry is not going to want to take on which is building a nuclear-powered Octocopter to go to Saturn's moon of Titan so free up as much research we can to do that and I would always Prioritize getting new missions out there to unlock the secrets of the universe Versus the the researchers if we get the data There'll be plenty of brilliant people at institutions around the country that will want to analyze it But what's the point if you can't launch those next mission as we wrap up?

Can we watch the video of the helicopters on Mars? And yeah, you just tell us about the timelines to this becoming reality for oh absolutely yeah So here it is coming in there it is. Yeah. I mean how cool is I mean? I'm telling you you can't do this at HUD Or IRS you imagine IRS putting out a video like this. I only made the Irish joke because I know here's the auditor I Mean it is it is really incredible, so what's this? What's the status of this this program, so we tested one?

Ingenuity on our last rover mission to Mars it did fantastically well I mean, can you imagine this is near vacuum by the way on Mars right? It's like a 10th atmosphere Yeah, you know fractional that are that are flying around now We're going to send three of these with ground penetrating radars Which I think is just awesome But most importantly how it got there got there under nuclear power a true fission powered 100 kilowatt spacecraft that flew by Mars and released It this will launch in 28 We believe the it's it's approximately a year before the the helicopters will get there We're still doing some some trades, but absolutely extraordinary mission in the start of many more.

I mean again think about it There is so much we can learn on the moons within our own solar system some really shocking discoveries They're just waiting for us in our own backyard a test pilot the Blackbird does not the Blackbird We have a lot of talented folks You mentioned China all levels of the organization exactly Including the head of the organization Quite a pilot. I know we got a wrap, but you mentioned China and Russia collaborating together. Just wanted to double-click on that What are their capabilities Russia can't even take Keeve and like they've been at a war for four years Are they capable of getting to space and doing anything of the big material?

I mean, I mean this genuinely Please come back. But then China is Copying a lot of what? You don't have to listen to Chamath This is a serious question. China is Copying a lot of what Elon's doing in real time. Yes, and What's their actual capability if we assume Russia is up against it and they're broke And am I correct that Russia's up against it and they're broke I would just say I mean look obviously have a great appreciation for the history of the the Russian and Soviet space program I mean, like I said in my remarks they came out of the gate hot first, you know astronaut in orbit for spacewalk They've done a lot of great things and they contribute to us to contribute with us today and collaborate on the International Space Station But yes, they have a conflict and they're prioritizing resources.

They're the Chinese are an Incredible rival in space right now. Yes They don't have the same reusable launch capabilities that SpaceX and others have but what they do put in space Even if they brute-force it there with hypergol powered thrusters or a hypergol powered Rockets akin to like Titan two of decades past what goes in space is good and I think there were some pretty Interesting developments that came out of AFA today that our Secretary of Air Force and others in the Space Force said that enlightened I think the general public about how contested that environment is the bottom lines The Chinese are extremely good in space right now.

You couple that with some Russian capabilities on nuclear power They will return to the moon and they will get to the moon and they will build a base on the South Pole And where would we be if we didn't have SpaceX in relation to China? I mean SpaceX is our I mean, they're they're incredible I mean, they're our most important launch partner. We can't send astronauts to and from the Space Station Without them. We can't have down mass of our science experiments from the Space Station without them The the Nancy Grace Roman telescope that's going out to pursue the secrets in the midst of the universe was launched on a Falcon heavy Not that long ago.

We are fortunate. There's a lot of great companies in commercial space right now, but net I mean the United States would be Seriously challenged in the in the high ground of space without their capabilities Jared. I'm not a huge fan of government But I think NASA plays one of the most important roles for humanity that no individual organization outside of government can play I cannot think of a better person to lead it. I think you're an inspiration to so many absolutely And I truly honestly respect your service that that you've provided to this country into the world.

We're so lucky to have you Thank you for being here grateful every day. Thank you Thank you Thanks for coming