NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman Talks Lunar Efforts, New Moon Base
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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America will never again give up on the moon. Those are the words of NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman in a press conference this morning discussing new plans for the space agency. The core of it is $20 billion of investment over seven years, the focus to build a moon base, but there is so much more to it than that. And delighted to say that NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman joins us right now here at the Hill and Valley Forum, but on Bloomberg Tech. You will not be surprised, administrator, that my first question's about money. $20 billion, where does it come from? And I guess, you know, your plans have evolved pretty rapidly since you took post. What does this figure signify in how you're doing it differently?
Sure. I mean, it's interesting. A lot of people think NASA doesn't have the resources to execute on the mission. I'm like, our appropriations this year is $25 billion. $25 billion is an awful lot of money, not to mention we received a $10 billion plus up in the one big beautiful bill. which is probably one of the most significant investments in human space exploration that we've seen in an extremely long time. Bottom line is, we have the resources. Are we concentrating them in the right direction? Are we doing a lot of little things and getting nowhere, right? So we talked today, hey, we're going to hit pause on the Gateway, which was a space station designed to orbit above the moon. We don't want to orbit above the moon.
We want to be on the moon. We want to build the base. We want to interact with the regolith. We want to do in situ resource manufacturing. We want to test out mobility on the surface, do power communications. We want to build President Trump's moon base that he called for in the national space policy. We have the resources to do this.
What are NASA's new plans for returning to the moon?
We have a lot of resources at NASA. We just need to move them in the needle moving direction. It's 20 billion over seven years, but all told over the decade, 30 billion. Is this something that you've been able to meet with Congress about and appropriate the funds through that mechanism? Or it's just in the budget? It's planned based on the annual appropriation that you outlined? This is within the resource available. And of course, we try and subscribe to a no surprise policy. So we never formulate these type of initiatives in a vacuum. We've met with our international partners that are supporting us in our great return to the moon. We've met with leaders from the authorizers in Congress, the appropriators, the White House.
How will the $20 billion investment be utilized for lunar exploration?
Everybody gets fully aligned around how we're going to achieve this. When you talk about these kinds of dollars and you look at it across our budget, this is just small percentages of it. We definitely have the means within the resource available to achieve this. You think about it, we have a science technology mission director, right? Does lots of experimentation for future applications from the moon to Mars. Great, we're going to the moon. We concentrate STMD in that direction. We have a science mission directorate, right? They have Eclipse program. We do lots of scientific missions on the moon. Great, we're going to the moon. We concentrate that on building the moon base and attaching scientific payloads.
It's really across the board. ESDMD, which is tasked with the return to the moon and thinking through Mars. We've got a lot of resources there from Gateway, especially since that was plus stuff in the budget. Diverted resources. And we are repurposing that to the surface where we all want to be.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–2:17
2
What are NASA's new plans for returning to the moon?
2:17–2:56
3
How will the $20 billion investment be utilized for lunar exploration?
2:56–7:10
4
What changes are being made to the Gateway program?
7:10–9:42
5
How will NASA ensure efficient resource allocation for lunar missions?
9:42–11:52
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from Bloomberg Talks
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