Jared Isaacman

You know, you can't go back.

Every president for 35 years has said, we're going to return to the moon and have a path to Mars.

And as taxpayers, we spent $100 billion trying to do it.

The moment you say that, you've just committed the nation and our resources, our national prestige to getting something done.

And if you fail to do it, there are ramifications.

There's consequences to it.

If we never said that, if 35 years ago we said, you know what, we've done it, and we wish the Chinese and the Russians the best, and we'll celebrate when they get there, but we're setting our sights on Mars, then it wouldn't bother me as much.

I would still think we should do it because we don't know what we might find that could change things, but we didn't.

We said we're going to do it, and now we spent 35 years and a lot of money doing it.

We better get back there.

It's gone into continuously repurposing old space shuttle hardware.

So first it was the Constellation program, which repurposed shuttle rocket boosters, shuttle main engines.

And then that program was canceled and then reimagined.

as SLS, which is the current name for NASA's internal big rocket program.

And that is also repurposed shuttle hardware.

So, you know, RS-25 engines that were designed, you know, in the 1970s,

are still what's going on SLS, and that's what they want on the space shuttle.

It's actually this continuously repurposing old hardware just so you don't ruffle any feathers with any manufacturers, any congressional districts, keep jobs where they're at.

It would be the equivalency of taking the P-51 Mustang into Desert Storm because, well, we got to keep the plants open.

It's what an awesome question.