Jared Isaacman

So we, you know, my predecessor asked industry, what are your acceleration pathways?

Because again, we don't have the time here.

Now I will compliment both SpaceX and Blue Origin are not trying to build a lander to put boots on the ground to plant the flag and pick up rocks.

They're building landers that allow us to put lots of mass on the moon so we can build the base, have an enduring presence to go far beyond where we went with Apollo and be able to undertake frequent and affordable missions to the surface.

So in fairness, they are taking on a technically complex approach.

We did ask, how can you accelerate?

How can you simplify?

Both have come back with options that kind of buy down some of the technical risk.

And in both cases, it means different orbits.

NRHO, which NASA originally designed in part to support the Gateway, nobody likes.

In administrative layman's terms, NHRO is the path around the Moon.

Could you just explain that?

Right.

It is a relatively stable orbit around the Moon.

If you were going to put a

moon space station, that's where you would put it, which was our kind of agenda up until now where we're concentrating on an actual base on the moon.

It had less abort options to come home.

It came as we would say a DV penalty or it came with a performance penalty for both SpaceX and Blue Origin to actually get to.

So it didn't really help anyone in that.

One of our HLS, one of our landing providers came back and said, I'd rather meet you in a different lunar orbit.