Jared Isaacman: What went wrong at NASA | The All-In Interview

Jared Isaacman was nominated by President Trump to become the 15th administrator of NASA in December. He passed out of the Senate committee in May and was set to be confirmed by the full Senate this week. However, on Friday, President Trump withdrew his nomination for Isaacman. We asked Jared to sit down with us for a conversation. We dive into everything. his experiences as a successful entrepreneur, fighter jet pilot, commander of the world's first all civilian space flight and the first civilian to conduct a spacew walk. What he saw in his six months studying NASA. How American government bureaucracy has eroded its performance

and puts the nation at risk in the great space race underway with China. And what really happened? Was it a discovery about prior donations to Democratic candidates or an association with Elon Musk that lost him the nomination? Here's my conversation with Jared Isaacman. All right, besties. I think that was another epic discussion. People love the interviews. I could hear him talk for hours. Absolutely. We crushed your questions in a minute. We are giving people ground truth data to underwrite your own opinion. What do you guys think? That was fun. That was great. Jared, welcome. I, like many space enthusiasts, was thrilled for your

nomination to lead NASA as the 15th administrator of the agency. Founded in 1958, the year after the Russians put Sputnik into orbit, NASA's perhaps, in my opinion, the US government's most pioneering agency, having organized and led our exploration missions to the moon, Mars, the outer solar system, and beyond, as well as the launch of important scientific missions to observe the Earth, to observe our solar system, and the deep universe, and of course, the installation and operation of the ISS. and you seemed really qualified for the job as uh a business manager, a successful entrepreneur, a flight and space enthusiast. So, I'm really curious to

hear your views on NASA, the space industry overall, the race with China, and frankly hear a little bit about what the heck just happened with your nomination. A lot of people have a lot of questions that we'd love to hear your point of view on. So, I thank you for joining me today, Jared. I'm thrilled to be here to chat. And as a someone who's been a space enthusiast since kindergarten, whether it's through the lens of commercial space or, you know, the great space race from the 1960s or NASA today, like these are all subjects I get pretty charged up about. So, love to chat about what inspired you to get into space. You went to Embry Riddle Aeronautical

University and you later became an entrepreneur, but were you always kind of obsessed with space and did you always dream of doing what you got to do last year, which is walk in space? Yeah, so the this is all my parents fault. They um they skimped out on a babysitter as a kid and just put me in front of the TV. So, uh, I was watching movies like Top Gun, uh, The Rights Stuff, um, Space Camp, the movie, you know, 1980s movie where if you go to Space Camp, a robot's going to launch you into space. This was all stuff in like my elementary school year. So, um, I mean, I told I just showed it to my kids last week, by the

way. So funny that you say that. I I pulled up Space Camp. I had to buy it because it's not on any of the streaming services to show it to my kids. Yeah. Okay. I've been to Space Camp to like speak to the students a number of times and I ask them like, "All right, raise your hands if you've seen the movie Space Camp here and know who Jinx is and like no one raises their hands and that just goes to show I'm I'm old." So, so you were always into it. Is is that what you wanted to do to work in aeronautical engineering or as a pilot or what were you thinking of doing? Yeah, I mean so kind of interesting start to the story. I mean I um I started my day job which is shift for you know it's a it's a

pretty large large fintech now when I was 16 and I was just like most you know as you know entrepreneurs you're you're burning yourself out waking up on the keyboard and you know I said I need a hobby in life uh so I picked up my passion for flying and I I I basically had parallel careers you know in aviation and in and in business and I started flying air shows in uh in 2010 and 2011. 11 and I was flying with a bunch of really talented ex-military, even current military pilots and they were like, you know, you could fly in the, you know, in the Air National Guard or the reserves and um and I found out, well, wow, that's amazing. You can fly fighter jets part-time and serve the

country. You need a college degree. I never had one cuz I I started my business at 16. So, that's actually why I went back to why I went back to school, went to Embry Riddle because it's a I mean, it's an aviation school. Uh I think it graduates um more Air Force pilots every year than the Air Force Academy. But anyway, that that's ultimately why I I got my degree. But my my pursuits kind of in parallel of of business and aviation has existed, you know, really since I was a teenager. So you're running this business. So Shift 4, just for those who are listening, is a payment processing company that is a public company today, $8.5 billion market cap. So you've built an

incredible business. And then on the side, my understanding is you've flown like 7,000 hours in fighter jets and you've tried to beat the circumnavigation record a couple of times now. So, were you kind of going to work and then on the weekends flying? I mean, how did you kind of balance running a company trying to do that today while balancing this podcast? I can tell you it's really hard to do that and anything else. It's like how did you how did you do that? Well, I mean, you know, again, I started my business at 16. I started flying a couple years after that. You know, this is before you have a, you know, a family and other responsibilities. So, like literally all

I was doing was working and flying. Mostly flying at night, which was great. You know, I did that around the world record flight. Didn't get it in 08. Broke it broke that record in09. We did it to raise funds for Makea-Wish Foundation, which was which was cool. And it was a great challenge. And then, um, later on started flying air shows, which was great. And you know, we did a lot to raise money for Make a Wish there. And then we we kind of took uh the air show flying, which was just maximum fun, super adrenaline, and was like, we're we're doing loops and rolls to music, you know, 10 ft off the ground, 18 in between our wings. We probably should pivot this to something

that keeps the fun factor up, but has some commercial intent, also helps the country. So, we started a a defense company called Draen. We w up assembling the world's largest fleet of fighter jets, jets just like this behind me. And we were professional bad guys for the Department of Defense, the Air Force. Like we would fly as aggressors just like in Top Gun replicating Russian and Chinese Iranian tactics. I literally I mean I remember at Christmas parties in you know 2014 2015 speaking to the to the workforce I was like I hope you all know next to commercial space and what Elon's doing at SpaceX. This is the second coolest company. Like we get to be professional bad guys all the time.

It was awesome. So I again I've had two awesome parallel careers. Um, but hey, running two companies like nothing compared to Elon. I think I I can't even He's got to be up to like a half a dozen CEO titles uh in parallel right now. Not to mention trying to save the, you know, the country um you know uh and get it back on a good fiscal footing. So, it's my my responsibilities are pale in comparison. Well, so when did you first meet Elon and how did you meet him? So, it's interesting and I almost like guarantee you wouldn't uh remember it. Uh after well, first I think like in early 2000. So, I started my fintech in

1999. I actually think we were on like the same like uh old uh it was like a TV show being interviewed um in the early 2000s and we that was probably the first handshake. It was after we set the uh we broke actually the uh I'm sorry we didn't break the record. This was in 2008 the around the world record. We came up short. Peter Demanis, Dr. De Manis reached out and um asked if uh if I wanted to go to Bikenor and see a Soyuse launch with some of the uh kind of early commercial space pioneers. I remember, you know, all the Google founders were on that TU154, you know, Russian transport. I'm like, man, if if this thing goes down,

you're you're wiping out a lot of like a lot of brain power here because Sergey Larry, Eric Schmidt was on it. And that that was um it was coming back from that. I think there was a charity poker event or something at Elon's house in um it was early days of of Tesla. So, I think I met him again there, but but really we you know, like we don't know each other that well. I've only spoken to him, you know, a couple dozen times maybe over the years and almost entirely related to my commercial space missions, Inspiration 4 and Plaston. Oh, so you're not like super close with him because I think there's this narrative that you and Elon have a secret, you know, deep

connection and he's one of your best friends. And you know, that's kind of like how how your hearing went when I look on the some of the video clips of how some of the senators were treating you. They're like, "Oh, you're you're doing this all for Elon. He's your best friend." Yeah, you know, the sen I think almost every one of the senators on both sides of the aisle made that assumption and asked a lot of questions on that. And I said, look, I Elon is one of the most accomplished, if not the most accomplished entrepreneur in modern history. Every one of his companies sets out to solve some of the greatest engineering problems for all

humankind. Even his, you know, kind of super selfless service to the to the government of trying getting us back on, again, like I said, sound fiscal footing. Um, I admire a lot of what he does, but but honestly, and I told the senators, my connection is I I I paid his company to go to space twice. And look, if there was more than just SpaceX out there offering the service and you had competition, I probably would have paid less. Like, it's like, so if anything, I'm very pro competition in this regard. And uh, you know, I don't consider myself beholden to Elon at all. I want to see all of commercial space succeed. I'm I'm a huge space enthusiast. Let's go through that. So,

you met Elon. Did you get involved as an investor in SpaceX along the way? How did the inspiration 4 mission come to be? In uh 2020, uh I did hear that, you know, SpaceX was doing another one of its secondary rounds and I was connected through, you know, I think it was city and I w up speaking to the CFO at uh at SpaceX and he's like, "No, look, the you know, funding round is closed and um you know, we're kind of pretty selective on on who we let in." I was like, "Okay, great. Well, hey, you know, back in 2008, I actually got the uh the first offer to pilot the first Dragon spacecraft, which is wild to think about, like 2008. And um even if I can't

be an investor, you know, at some point or another, I'd love to have an opportunity. And he was like, well, can't be an investor now, but we could talk about uh a human spaceflight mission. And I had no idea I was going to have an opportunity to be the first. I assumed there was a lot of people in front. And um man, it was uh what a privilege to be able to do that. Um be part of mission design and select a crew of inspiring individuals and raise a quarter of a billion dollars for St. Jude. And it was just a successful mission. It helped open the door for a lot of other commercial missions to come. So awesome experience. So in 2021, you commanded inspiration 4, which was

the first all civilian space flight using the SpaceX Crew Dragon. Yep. And that was just truly like a momentous mission. It was just so beautiful to watch. And I remember it was also like a tough year because it was a year after co. So it was so great to see that happening. But I had assumed and I think a lot of people had assumed that you were like a big investor in SpaceX or really tight. But it just happened within a a one and a half year or year period that you kind of went from, hey, I'd love to put some money into SpaceX to, oh, I can participate and command inspiration for and get out there into space. Like that's a year and a half days. Like I like literally from that

phone call in, you know, October, um, Inspiration 4 was born. A week or two later, we did a like a ceremonial signing at the uh at the Crew One launch, which is wild, too. And it speaks to the confidence of SpaceX that they were ready to sign up for the first commercial, like the first civilian mission to orbit before they even returned operational capability uh for human space flight to NASA. Now, they did demo two, of course, with with Bob and Doug, but crew 1 had not flown when SpaceX said, "We're going to get this done." And then 10 months later, we were in orbit, and it was an incredible experience. And obviously, we followed it up with a whole development program

with Polaris and um and flew a second mission as well. So, yeah. So, just going back, you said you were made, you were given an offer to pilot a Crew Dragon in ' 08. Is that correct? When did that how did that happen? So it was it was right after I came back from that around the world flight and again I said you know Dr. Dmanis reached out and uh we met in the city and he was like you seem to be like kind of thinking the way we think uh in in terms of you know a more exciting future in transportation and and aerospace. Now of course his interests cover everything from like human life extension to he likes to solve a lot of world problems too. Yeah.

And it was through those connections and coming out to Bikenor that I did get that uh I did get that offer. I still have the agreement. It was funny. I uh I showed it to some of the SpaceX folks when we were talking about Inspiration 4, but yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Just knocked on the door every now and then and got lucky in 2020. Um it was certainly through the approach of trying to be an investor, but it it revisited old conversations and moved very quickly. Kind of funny that a banker called you from city and that led to you. Oh, I called the banker. Oh, you called the banker. They called the banker trying to get the the a contact

uh like a a recent contact and that's uh that's that's like hook me up. I want to get in. That's crazy. Yeah. Okay. So then you said hey that was a successful mission. You had obviously a good relationship with SpaceX and the operations team there I'm assuming and you said hey I'd like to come back and like Polaris dawn was formed at that time or did that come together later just for the audience. So last what was it September you were the first private citizen in human history to perform a spacew walk which again another incredible moment and you know I think it was inspiring for people who realized at that moment that perhaps you didn't

need to become an astronaut to be able to walk in space. I mean it was really just incredible. But how did the continuation go from inspiration 4 to Polaris dawn? Yeah and I I loved it. I mean, Plaston was filled with we crammed so many really incredible objectives in five days uh on top of about 40 science experiments. It was an awesome mission. I'd love to tell you about it. And and you know, but uh yeah, so when we came back from Inspiration 4, I thought we checked the box on every objective. I mean, we navigated the whole, you know, billionaire in in space thing, which at the time with, you know, some of the other, you know, missions that were going off was um was attracting a lot of

a lot of heat and really focused it on trying to to do good in the world that, you know, we can make progress in space and try and, you know, make the, you know, mother earth a better place. And we focused on raising a lot of money for St. Jude. And um and anyway, like we did and we did three days of science and research experiments. It felt really good and we were a little bit short on our uh on our um you know our fundraising goal for uh St. Jude. I mean we we set out to raise over $200 million. We wound up raising $250 million but we were a little short and we came back and I was like man we almost got everything done and then Elon sent a tweet right after Splashdown. 40

minutes after Splashdown and he said put me in for 50 million. And he already had put in five and we we we exceeded our goal and I was like man we got everything done. We set the bar high. Maybe this is it. And um it was a couple weeks later that I was invited to go to Starbase. Uh this was the second time I went. This was like October of 21. And we sat down with a number of folks including Elon. And we talked about, you know, doing a um like a developmental program where we actually can build things and test things that hadn't been done in a while. And I remember Elon, he's like, "We we can build a suit. I

know exactly how I would do it. and let's go up really high, you know, let's get past the Gemini 11 record, go farther into space than anyone's gone since we last walked on the moon because it's it's different. It's hard and we're going to learn a lot. And that's what you need to do when you want to inspire people is not kind of do the same things over and over again, but but do things that are different and build up to an even grander objective. And I was like, "All right, I'm totally in." And we contemplated other missions, you know, a follow on to Polaris dawn and then the first crude flight of Starship. But, uh, the nomination came in and, you know, had to put my my, uh, fun space career

on hold to to to for an incredible opportunity to serve the country and contribute to the world's greatest space agency. So, let's get into that. How did the conversation lead to you becoming the nominee to administer NASA? Were you in conversations with Elon first? Is that how this this kind of began for you? No. So, and and I think like that's another thing that, you know, almost every senator wanted to ask is, you know, you know, weren't weren't you Elon's guy in this? Like I I have no doubt. I mean, look, he he he helped the president win the election. He he's was in Air Force One, Marine One. He was at Mara Lago throughout the campaign. I'm I'm I'm

sure he had inputs. I was getting text messages from generals that I uh that I got to know when I built, you know, helped build that defense company, Draen. Uh that's where we flew all the fighter jets and and you know, they were in now positions of influence and said, "Would you like to serve in the in the administration and and it wasn't even just NASA. I mean, there were roles from Treasury to uh the department, you know, to the Air Force." And I was like, I am honored to contribute anyway. you know, I've had I've been, you know, relatively apolitical, but if I've had one political position that I've been pounding the table on since I um since I

I was exposed to the defense industry at Draen, it's the competitiveness of the nation. And that's because I saw when we were replicating, you know, enemy tactics in 2015 in fighter jets, the gap between our capabilities and the bad guys was wide. And you felt very confident and every year it started to shrink. And it's like, what is going on here? Why are we paralyzed? Why are we slowing down while while the Chinese especially are moving wicked fast? Um, and I've spoken out about it from time to time on where I think some of the problems are and over consolidation of the defense industry. So anyway, I I was absolutely honored to have a chance to serve. I'm sure Elon contributed into

the, you know, was supportive in it, but it was a number of folks and I got a call from Howard Lutnick, who was leading the uh, transition team, and he did a phone interview and the next thing you know, like 40 hours later, I was at Mara Lago. He said, "Hop on a plane. Come out here." Having a lot of friends of mine who are serving in this administration, your story sounds familiar that folks that are close to this whole group that was sitting at Mara Lago for several weeks and months after the election. I've heard a lot of similar stories that folks got called saying, "Hey, would you like to consider

something?" And it was very open-ended. It's like we've gotten to know you. We trust you. You're reliable. But most importantly, we're looking for folks that have experience and acumen in operating a business, in understanding how to manage at scale, and really have a similar sort of belief system, I would say, to the folks that that were stepping in to run this administration. So, I I do think what you're saying sounds like what I've heard and makes a lot of sense to me. Um, so so you then fly out to Mara Lago. What was that like? Oh man, that was so cool. I mean it just happened so suddenly and I I mean just you know kind of put together

uh a quick plan. Uh, at that point I knew it was consideration for NASA administrator, but I'll tell you in the days leading up to it, I was hearing everything from being at the Treasury Department in various roles and to um, you know, again to the Department of the Air Force, but I knew it was NASA and I was like, well, I got to I got to come with a plan and uh, and I, you know, we put together a one pager for the president and it was a it was a great interview. I mean, I never really met him in person. and I shook his hand kind of once in passing uh 10 plus years earlier and the president was incredibly knowledgeable. Um I was impressed. He

knew a lot about the space program which makes sense. He I mean you know he helped with commercial crew return operational capability to the US with with Dragon. You know a big push on the Artemis program created the space force. He knew a lot he knew a lot about China. Uh he kn we talked a lot about their air force actually which I thought was interesting. some of my my um you know defense experience and uh it was incredible. I mean it was an hour plus long and I um I uh I came away with it feeling uh you know really good about the opportunity. Who coached you on your one page there and what did it say? Nobody coached me on it. It was it was

just I generally you know I've had an opportunity to obviously interact with NASA over the last I mean my my commercial space career now goes on uh well it'll be it'll be 5 years in a in a couple months from when it began. And you know during Polaris storm when we were doing suit development spent a lot of time at NASA using their chambers and facilities had a lot of you know kind of firsthand experience certainly Kennedy Space Center. So I had a good starting place and uh I think it really just centered on look in in in this kind of environment budgets aren't getting bigger. Uh we do have to do more with less. The agency is doing a lot of littles a lot of things that other

agencies departments companies are capable of doing. That's not why the taxpayers fund NASA. Like NASA's funded to do the near impossible that no one else can do, not things that, you know, companies should be doing for their own competitiveness. You know, uh NASA helps fund like engine efficiency programs for you know um commercial jet engine providers. It's like don't they need to do that themselves or else they lose to their competitors? Like why are we funding this? So basically like an idea to kind of go in stop a lot of the littles that are not needle movers that are not why the agency exists and concentrate on the needle movers. So,

you know, that's leading in the high ground of space. Uh, let's get let's, you know, let's complete our our lunar obligations cuz that's a whole another story with with China. At the same time, parallel the the, you know, parallel the capabilities to get to Mars, help commercial industry uh, develop the the rapid reusable heavy lift capability that allows us to go anywhere, pivot from competing with industry to doing what no company would ever do, which is build nuclear spaceships. There's a lot of advantages to it. nuclear electric propulsion for sure. You know, we don't have to worry as much about refilling. It's hyperefficient transport of mass. It opens up, you know, beyond Mars. And

and frankly, like look, it takes the pressure off insitu resource manufacturing. And if you are going to do insitu resource manufacturing, you're going to need nuclear power. And the farther we get away from the sun, the less reliant we are on solar. A lot of reasons why that should not be a small program in the lab right now doing light bulbs, but should be a billion dollar initiative. you know, figuring out the space economy and uh increasing the rate of world changing discovery. Those have been my priorities. Uh it's what I told briefed the president. It's what I went through the Senate and the hearing on. It's what we would have tried to concentrate on if I got the job. There's

a lot in there we should unpack. I want to just get your perspective on the arc of NASA. You know, NASA is a storied institution, inspirational to many. You and me the same. I still wear a NASA hat with pride often, but you know, the agency from an outsers's perspective feels like it's become a lagard. It feels like it's kind of lost a little bit of its luster. Why is that? Do I have that wrong? And if I don't, what has happened to the administration of the agency over the decades that's led to this this moment? Well, I like you, I love NASA, and I was so excited to to contribute. I was honored that the president nominated me. I mean, you've

got the best and brightest that show up to work every day and want to win in the high ground of space and I would have been thrilled to work alongside him. You're totally right. Everything about it, even that just looking at the insignia, how how damn inspiring it is, but NASA's got problems and um but that's that look that's not unique to them. It's going to be governmentwide. Whatever I tell you that I think is wrong with NASA, I would guarantee it, you know, is uh like, you know, it's systemic across uh every government agency and department. Uh the bureaucracy is super real. No one's gonna be surprised about that. You know

the you have dozens of layers of leadership. Everybody's got a deputy. I mean you know things that you know I know like you know we know in business that certainly Elon knows and instills in his companies across commercial space like ownership like you push ownership down to the lowest levels. You empower the smart people to make good decisions. You know you give them the tools to make those good decisions. You hold them accountable when you get them wrong. That does not exist inside NASA or the government. There is so many layers of management. Everybody's got a deputy. It's crazy. I would have deleted all that. Like not that not the people don't need to go, but they need to, you know,

the the the amount of deputies, assistants, associate assistant to the deputy, the amount of committees, the meetings with 200 people on them, the review boards, like like all that needs to go. You need so many more doers. And there's a lot of them there. They're really smart, but you you got to push down uh you know, ownership to the absolute lowest level. So you you got this crushing bureaucracy that impedes progress. And then and here's where Congress plays a role. Every state's got some equity that they care about and they protect like hell and it impedes the big progress. You know, like I I tell you, I I love talking to all the senators and the Senate was so fair to

me and and I know I would have had a lot of great votes, but you talk to some senators and they're like, you know, we have a local rocket club that supports these schools and NASA contributes it to every year and I want to make sure that continues. It's like, well, why can't you do a car wash for the rocket club? Like, this isn't huge dollars. Why can't the community raise those funds? And then you might say, well, what's wrong with a couple rocket clubs, you know, to inspire the kids all across the country? Well, well, one turns to 10 turns to thousands, and it becomes a distraction. Those are parts to delete. Those are resources that are draining away from what every senator should care about,

which is how do we get to the moon, get to Mars, and shock the world with, you know, with with with world changing headlines. That's what people are are waiting for from NASA, you know, 100%. I mean, man, what you're saying resonates with me so much. It's not just NASA. It's across the federal government. I've spent enough time now interacting with folks and meeting with folks and hearing similar stories. It's just the chaos that that builds with scale, with age, with bureaucracy, with competing interests that all have to be met and you end up diluting everything away. It's so frustrating to hear that. I think this does play into um why China is is really just moving at at lightning

speed right now. They have this immense second mover advantage that is um that is crushing across all technology. You know when you had the Manhattan project we uh we had the the technical knowhow, the will and the resources to get something done and we set up facilities where we needed them. you know, Oakidge and Lawrence Liverour and um you know, like you know, you get um you put the facilities where you need them and the talent where you need them to execute on the mission and everything builds up logically to it and you and you deliver a win. And we did the same thing with the space program, you know, in the in the in the 1960s. Well, now all of those national labs and all and really

honestly a lot of the facilities within NASA are doing lots of little things for existence. Um and some of them are relevant to the mission and some are not. And when you try and do something, you know, glorious now, you have to try and repurpose those resources that are super entrenched and they don't want to necessarily move. And then, of course, you have Congress that's protecting their programs. China is literally doing what we are do what we did, you know, in the in the ' 40s and 60s and saying, we're going to, hey, we're going to go after fusion, um, or we're going to work on next generation fifth gen nuclear reactors. We're going to build sixthgen

fighter jets. And they put the facilities where they belong with the right people and resources. There's no baggage. and they have this incredible second mover advantage and they're able to get things done at lightning speeds because they don't have all that drag and we have a lot of drag and again it's not just NASA it's it's governmentwide and do you think there's a way to fix it without Congress or is the only way to fix it without Congress meaning there needs to be no Congress if we have a shot at fixing this and there needs to be a different governing model. Yeah. You know, look, I I think the uh I

think this is this is why I I absolutely support the the president that, you know, despite all I I mean, I my single largest political donation ever was to was to President Trump in this uh you know, to support his inauguration. It's why I got charged up with uh you know, with Elon assembling the Doge team is like we do have to shrink the government. We do have to get rid of all these inefficiencies, these the waste and the distractions from the mission, things that we don't need every taxpayer contributing to and actually concentrate those dollars, real dollars, on the things that the taxpayers should be fighting for. And when you do that, you

know what, like 20 billion or 25 billion is actually a lot of money. And you know, and I know like it's it's a super tough budget environment right now. And people people hate change, but I'm always surprised when like a million is not a million anymore and a billion is not a billion because you do an awful awful lot with that. So, if there was ever a time to get this done, uh it's now with President Trump with when he has the House and the Senate behind him and and I'm not surprised that there is frustration from from people that were really passionate um and and and are still passionate when uh when this much time goes by and we're not able to get those things done that we thought we

we'd be able to. So, NASA's budget last year, $25 billion. Break it down for us. How is that money being spent? what are the dimensions upon which you would kind of categorize that budget? Um, and we'll talk about kind of what's going forward. Yeah, I mean, look, I I think an incredibly large portion of it is with human space flight and uh and specifically uh the Aremis program and SLS and it's a lot of billions going to a disposable rocket. It is billions that when I you're talking so I mean I think it's like five or 600% overrun to build the mobile launcher 2 for the next

generation SLS. So sorry just tell us what SLS is for the audience. That's the space launch system I think or it's uh they also call it the Senate launch system I think and uh it's spread across um a lot of dollars are spread across some key states. Well just to give you an idea so SLS is just repurposed shuttle hardware. So, uh, and I don't blame anyone for putting us down this path because at the time you did not have Blue Origin or SpaceX or any of these other commercial companies doing the things that are doing today, but they were like, "Let's, uh, let's take the shuttle program parts and put into a program called Constellation, and let's

take the Constellation parts and put it in a program called uh, SLS." And and essentially, again, it's the it's it's it's it's the same shuttle motors. It's the same solid rocket boosters. You're basically taking the tank and putting Orion on top of it. Orion is 20 years old, by the way. It hasn't flown humans yet. And it's incredibly expensive and very disposable, but it creates a lot of jobs in certain states and um and it's like at some and look, there's enough hardware now to fly a couple missions and make sure you beat China back to the moon. But but you can't be stuck on this forever. This is literally the equivalency, by the way, of taking P-51 Mustangs from World War II and using

them in Desert Storm because uh we got to keep the plants open. And that obviously makes no no logical sense whatsoever for factories that are making this stuff that used to make landing ships in World War II that made Saturn rocket that pivoted to shuttle to SLS and now to believe that you can't make another pivot is is kind of crazy and the right thing you should pivot towards honestly is nuclear. I want to just talk about the the Trump budget proposal for NASA. So this is the NASA budget over the history of NASA. And the proposed budget would basically create the lowest budget since 1961. So they're proposing to reduce the

overall budget from 25 billion a year down to 19 billion a year. Were you part of the conversation on building this budget? And then I'll highlight some of the features of this budget here in a moment. But did did you um have conversations with the administration as this was being put together and some of these proposals were being considered? I mean, how how deep have you gone in this? No, you know, when you're a nominee, you're actually kept in the dark on a lot of things. Um you do get briefed on everything that's going on with every center, you know, every major program, things that senators could ask

you about from a um from like a one-on-one perspective, but you're not given access to sensitive information. you almost need some deniability when you're talking to senators on that or else your nominations could get held up really big time. So, I wasn't aware I honestly uh I was voted out of committee, you know, uh the commerce committee by um you know, Senator Cruz and and you know, 18 other it was 19 senators in total. And the next day, the skinny budget came out. And if that skinny budget had come out uh you know again a day or two earlier I would I would never have made it out of committee because obviously as as I think is playing out right now both

sides of the aisle are not happy about the you know the budget. Okay. So, in this budget, there's a proposal to cancel SLS and Orion, terminate numerous robotic science missions, including the Mars sample return mission. Mhm. Um, probes to Venus, and several future space telescopes. And it represents the White House's desire to end the development of a nuclear thermal rocket engine. I guess having scrutinized this budget, how do you react to what you see being proposed? And does it solve what you've identified as some of the challenges in NASA? Or are those more management challenges? Does budget create a constraining force here that

fixes some of the issues with respect to focus and concentration of capital into the right projects for from your point of view? Yeah, it's a it's a it's an excellent question. So So first, like look, the the the reduction the big budget reduction is a great forcing function for change. And I know there's a lot of people that probably don't want to don't want to hear that, but uh it is true. That doesn't mean I would have landed at 19 billion in this whole thing, but I fully support uh the president and uh with the goal of shrinking the budget and and and and getting back to responsible footing and

I do think billions can go a very long way. So uh I will just start with that. I I everything you just said directionally is is is kind of in the right direction. We've already got paid for enough SLS hardware that if you were to terminate for convenience now, you got enough to launch like two or three of them. It's enough to get you back to the moon, check that box to make sure that you don't have any economic or scientific or national security reasons to stay on the moon and and put your energy much more towards um commercial industry. Look, nuclear thermal uh propulsion I'm not a fan of. I like nuclear electric. Nuclear thermal to test it, you're spewing radioactive

debris here on Earth. It's not going to go over well to anyone and it doesn't really solve your refueling problem. you still need to top it off with hydrogen in space if you want a reusable space plug. So I don't like that either. And and it's subscale. It's it's a fact. It's a program that sits in a lab forever. Like what you need in nuclear electric I'm passionate on the subject is you you need us to get back to the good old days. Like we went from the atomic bomb in 1945 to laying the keel on the nautilus in 1951. Five six years. We didn't keep it in a lab forever. We said, you know what, we're going to do big bold things. And that's what we need to be doing with uh in space with when

it comes to uh to nuclear. Look, a lot of the science programs I'm huge fans of Mars sample return. The best thing to do is when the astronauts get there to bring the samples home. Why would we spend billions to send a robotic mission? We can put that into commercial industry and accelerate their timeline. So, I'm not I I wasn't a fan of a pure robotic mission on that one. And you know, a lot of the big science programs I want to see James Webs and Hubble telescope programs launching annually, if not more. Um, flagship programs definitionally are billion dollar spends and if you spend a billion then you got

to get it right and that means lots of requirements and and and we can't take unnecessary risk and a billion becomes a three billion program and it's never on time. Like we should be challenging the best and brightest. Give me 10 $100 million missions a year. Let's try that and let's accept that three fail and get act you know I was going to introduce like time to science as a KPI like how why don't why do we accept things taking 10 years when they could be a year even the decal process of of prioritizing scientific missions over a 10-year span is kind of insane 100% 100% and I I think a lot of people hear budget cuts and I I hear this on the NIH side as

well now that the administration and budget cutting is going to take lives people going lose lives. We're going to lose science. This is an anti-science agenda. But the if you can get more efficient with how you deploy capital and how you manage the deployment of that capital and the utilization of that capital, you actually accelerate science. You accelerate outcomes and you improve the condition and the prosperity for humanity and for America. And it's completely a misdirected statement when people say that a budget cut is an anti-science movement. It's about finding the right places so that you get more outcomes and redeploy in a smarter,

more efficient way. It drives me nuts. I just see it, you know, all over uh right now. That's just I mean it's just politics. I do think overfunding leads to complacency, leads to bureaucracy, which actually leads to a slowdown in discovery, a slowdown in invention, a slowdown in progress. Anyway, I'm sorry for my rant. I agree. Look, as I mean, as entrepreneurs, we know like some of our probably best decision-m is always when we were running low on cash. So, um, you know, it kind of drives efficiency and, uh, it is a, you know, necessity, mother of all invention there. Yeah. Look, I think that's just a product of some of our and I'm not

familiar with any of the NIH or and I'm I'm not pretending to go deep on that at all. Just I do think this is kind of a product of of of the politics of our time. It's a very divided country. You know, people have to take an opposing view and and and go to extremes. People will die over over this. But the government is terrible capital allocators. Come on. We should all know that. And you know we should as taxpayers we should be contributing to the things that no one else is willing to do where there is no good business use case or or economic model you know it is in you know if competition is working they can solve a lot of problems

and we should put our energy to what they won't solve. Um and and look I think Katzios by the way in science he's a great leader. I I've spoken to him a bunch of times. Um you know he he's not a quag. He doesn't think wild things like that. He he wants you know the golden age of science and discovery. I'm fair. Yeah. Good science. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, let's talk about Artemis. I think this is a big piece that that the American public doesn't fully gro that we have this effort and maybe you can just lay out for us the case for Artemis. Lay out for us the case for Mars. Tell us about the relationship between the two and the timelines. Sure. And why Yeah. Why are

we doing them? Let's just say I I am in the return to the moon camp. doesn't mean like uh you know I and I'm I know that you know Elon is very focused on on Mars and he has a lot of great reasons why including just the survival of our species. I mean the long term it is the right move. I remember um during my hearing uh one senator was really grilling me a lot of like what really what's the difference between you know moon and Mars and uh you know isn't moons a stepping stone. I'm like well one's a planet you know and uh you know it has an atmosphere and if you looked at the moon it doesn't look pretty. I mean, it's getting beat up all the time. It has no protection from, you know,

from solar radiation. So, reality is like you should go to the moon if it because for 35 years we said we were going to. And I think that's very important. You know, we it's it's it's very late in the game to say, well, we did it in the 60s and early 70s. You know, that would have been the fine position to state the entire time that we've done it and we're moving on. But we didn't. For 35 years, we said we're going back and we spent over a hundred billion of taxpayer dollars saying we were going to do it. And for us not to be able to do it now and watch China do it. Like I said, it's it signals a far greater disease across our our government and and how our system

operates. And I don't think we want that reckoning. So look, we paid for the hardware anyway. We let's let's go back, but let's parallel going to Mars. So that's what Artemis is really about. I mean, you can say Artemis is about Mars, too, but that's like 100 years down the line. And like I said, it's a giant disposable rocket program that repurposes shuttle hardware. It's incredibly expensive. We signed up a lot of international partners to support it because we like collecting flags. Um, and it doesn't necessarily always mean that what they're contributing to is in the best interest of the program. Case in point, you know, we had, you know, gateway man like this is going down a

rabbit hole of a lot of things because of the shortcomings of the vehicle, but it's expensive. It's disposable. it is not the way to do uh affordable, repeatable, efficient exploration whether it's to moon, Mars or anywhere else. So let's get it done and then focus on the on the right way to go about doing this so that we're not seeing people walk on the moon every 5 years or something crazy that it's happening all the time which is what we get excited about. What is there to do on the moon? Why should we go back? What is the purpose? I think, you know, it's it's it's almost like a, you know, if you're going to go and commit yourself uh take risks in a in a conflict, you

know, you want clear objectives. And in my mind, again, aside from the fact that the hardware is already essentially purchased, it's clear objectives. Is there any economic, scientific, or national security reasons to be here? And I don't think we can say that conclusively right now that that there are none. and China is going uh and if they were to find something even a small probability a 1% let's just say hypothetically it's helium 3 and and they're going to usher in a new form of power. Think about how many conflicts that we've had over the last century over uh over sources of power over energy. Do we want to get that one

wrong? And and are we willing to take a 1% chance and and that could shift the balance of power here on Earth? I don't think so. And we said we were going to do it for 35 years and we and we spent 100 billion of taxpayer money. Like I said, the hardware is there. But I think you do it. You make those determinations. Is there scientific, economic or national security reason to be here? And if not, you move on. And if companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX and even Rocket Lab are successful with their vehicles, you're going to have like the optionality to go to the moon. It's not the Delta V is a negligible difference between whether you're going

to the moon or Mars. And we should colonize Mars. We should build a colony on Mars. I think we need to go there. Um and by going there it is a it is the first step on a far grander journey you know and uh you know I I I you know Elon is obviously very passionate about it occupy Mars like he knows it's not the perfect destination there's nothing like you can you know it's unlike anything in in Earth's history you know people say it's analoges to you know the explorers of the 1400s or putting people in like those shipping containers for six months and saying we know how to live on Mars it's you know you could work your whole life on Mars and you still live in a bubble

You know, so it's not like it's not going to be an easy way of life, but it is a step in the right direction. Like our destiny is out and among the stars. Like we will inevitably learn something out there that's going to change our thinking and we it's going to it's going to create a a craving for that knowledge and we are going to want to continue to go out and explore and learn even more. Mars is the best stop first step on that journey. So, let's talk about getting there and achieving some of the other missions that we might have as a country, as a species, and the relationship with private industry. Elon believes he can get

payload into orbit for $10 per kilogram with the Starship platform, which is, call it a roughly 100x reduction in cost. Yeah. Um maybe more. Maybe from some from a depending on the point at which you're measuring it, maybe a thousandx reduction in cost. And that unlocks the potential to do these things in an economically viable way. Going to the moon, going to Mars. Why shouldn't NASA be more fully embracing of this private industry capability? Is it because it's Elon or is it because it reduces money going to defense contractors? What is the motivation against going all in on this company SpaceX or companies like it that

have built these competencies that would have been unfathomable just a few decades ago but are real here today? Oh, this is such a a deep conversation. Uh so, um look, I I one thing I'd say is like I obviously I love SpaceX and they safely put me into space twice on two awesome missions, brought me home and I'm cheering them on. I I'm I'm happy what SpaceX is doing. I'm thrilled about the investments that Blue Origin's doing, that Rocket Lab is doing, you know, uh Firefly. So, it's a look, we have a great industry. So, the broader question is just why isn't why isn't NASA leaning more into commercial? Well, look, it's NASA's foresight that gave birth to the commercial crew program

that enabled even me to go to space. So, like they are thinking in that direction, but there are politics in play. The nice thing is is those winds are shifting uh throughout my you know, whole confirmation process. you know, you are educated heavily by some very smart political folks. Uh they sherpa you around every senator and they were like, look, the, you know, a year ago, two years ago, the idea of talking to senators that are in SLS states and convincing them we need to be looking a little bit more to the future with commercial and maybe pivoting to things like nuclear propulsion would be a non-starter. And I'll tell you, they were very reasonable. uh all of them

were very reasonable that they know that you're you know this this rocket built on 60-y old technology that's $4.5 billion a launch has an expiration date. So I do think like that ship is turning. It's just this isn't like a this isn't a speedboat. The government, you know, it's a it's turning like it's a giant, you know, shipping container. It turns a half a degree like a year and uh and that's not obviously fast enough for a lot of us. Um but I would say it's moving in that uh that direction. And then NASA also has to, you know, repurpose its resources on things that a SpaceX or Blue Origin won't do. They're

not going to put a rock, they're not going to build a nuclear reactor and launch it. Uh you're not going to get the indemnities for that. Even shipping highlyenriched uranium is a nightmare. That is what the government should be doing. Like so NASA should be doing what the commercial industries can't. And that by the way takes so much stress off a company like SpaceX trying to get to Mars. Like if you can minimize the number of space-based refueling or the insitu resource manufacturing, look, even when a starship gets to Mars, you're betting on like you know a 100 consecutive miracles happening to top to mine propellant there and bring it back.

NASA should be helping. The government should be helping with that because it it creates a lot of other optionality. We can have you know nuclear battle stars in lower Earth orbit um you know as part of uh Golden Dome. There's a lot of reasons why you know it's not all SpaceX all commercial versus NASA. both totally. So just to compare last week Space Epoch, a Chinese rocket company completed its first sea recovery test. So much like we saw a few years ago with SpaceX, they had a vertical launch and they landed back in the ocean about 125 second flight. The key question a lot of folks are now asking, has China caught up? Is this a space race? Why does it matter? Because isn't space big enough

for everyone? I mean the space is the ultimate high ground and the high ground has mattered you know it's had tactical and strategic significance since like the beginning of humankind. It matters. I was grateful to have the opportunity to lead you know the peaceful exploration uh of space but it's not all peaceful like we we we can't be naive to the fact that it has been weaponized and you know China leading in this domain makes a difference. Um there are things of scientific and economic and again national security value out there and we we can't we have to lead we can't fall behind. If we fall behind we

may never catch up. So and I am concerned about that uh you know China moving closer to reusability. They launch the second most uh orbital rockets every year without reusability. Uh you know thank goodness for for SpaceX or or we definitely be already behind in that regard. So um I am concerned about it. It it it honestly it is a race and like yeah we we the domain is vitally important we can't fall behind. So that gives them the high ground with respect to weapons systems with respect to observational platforms sensors etc. Right. Yeah. Okay. So so let's talk a little bit about your nomination. You seem I would give you my vote. You should be the administrator of

NASA. It would be amazing. Um thanks. You testified in front of the Senate committee on April 9th. I think it was a 19 to9 vote to move you out of committee. Yes. Then there were reports going into this weekend that you were going to be voted on by the full Senate this week and the estimates were you were going to get 70 confirmation votes or that was some news report I had read. So it seems like you were going to fly right through and administer NASA. Um so then what happened? So I I mean I got a call um Friday of last week that um you know the uh the president has decided to go into a uh go in a different direction. Uh it was a um uh it was a real bummer and I

uh I know like a number of parties in government need to be notified of that which um you know I expected to kind of have just a peaceful weekend and the next thing I knew on Saturday you know it was uh there was a lot of activity on the internet but maybe that's just like my perspective cuz I follow space uh and and such but it was certainly uh you know disappointing but uh you know the president needs to have you know his person that you know he counts on to to fulfill the agenda And um yeah, I uh the person that called you, what was what did they tell you was the reason the president was withdrawing

his nomination? Uh just said the president had decided to go in a different direction. We all serve at the pleasure of the president. Um now I mean I started to get some more details as it went on. I honestly also like I'm not like I don't like play dumb on this. I I had a pretty good idea of um you know that um you know I don't think that the timing was much of a coincidence uh that you know there was other changes going on the same day and uh you know it was kind of uh obviously a little bit of a a disappointment. So are you referring to Elon? I I just you know there was uh obviously

there was more than more than one you know departure that was covered on that day and um it became uh you know at least from what I what I've heard that it was uh there was a um you know there was and I'm just you know I read the news same as everybody else but I you know had obviously was in the in DC for the last 6 months getting ready that you know there were some people that um you know that had some axes to grind I guess and uh and I was a a good visible uh target. I know that like the the news talks a lot about like that, you know, Democratic donations is the cause. Um that was not a new development. You just Google, you can they're all public. The

New York Times published an article saying that President Trump knew about your Democratic donations in the past when you received the nomination. So that was actually not news according to the New York Times that that was well understood, well covered. So kind of put the kibos on that explanation. So what are the axis to grind or the access to grind with Elon? Are there kind of two factions? Whatever you can kind of provide some color on, I think it would be really helpful to understand because there's a lot of speculation going on right now and I would say some folks are really disappointed in some of the transitions that are taking place and some folks are really trying to grock it

and understand it. So anything you can do to help folks understand would be, you know, I think helpful. You know, first I just I want to be overwhelmingly clear. I I I don't fault the the president at all. I fully support him that you know the president of the United States you know the leader of the free world makes a thousand decisions a day with seconds of information. He's got to get a lot more right than wrong. Um so I don't I mean you know I don't blame you know an influential adviser coming in and saying look here's the facts and I think we should kill this guy and the president's got to make a call and move on. Um I think that's exactly uh you know kind of how it went.

Um it was not the Senate at all. Uh you don't get floor time by the way. uh you know there's a hundred nominees that are like waiting for floor time. The only way you get floor time is when a lot of senators you know call Senator Thoon and say this is our guy and we got to move him along. That's how you know it's like a high you're going to get a high vote count. So the Senate was very fair, really nice. I I enjoyed that experience. I you know I think you you got one person um and I don't know the history on like what the trigger was or wasn't but um you know decided to to kind of make a move and again I don't fault the president for it at all but you know look in in in terms of

donations I I've always been you know somewhat of a moderate I actually like I am like a right leaning I I I do support you know the president's agenda that's why I made as big of a donation as I did to his cause. Let me just ask for clarity. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead. I was just going to say like when you fill out your questionnaire for the Senate committee, which is public, it asks you to list every donation. Before you go in front of a single senator, before you do a hearing, you do these um prep sessions at the White House where people pretend to be senators and they prep you on the donation question. So like that wasn't

new news. Might have been new to the president at that, you know, might have refreshed his memory perhaps, but uh that I don't I don't think that was the cause. I think the media has got it pretty accurate. So, was this a shot at Elon by someone that is anti- Elon? I mean, you know, people can draw their their own conclusions, but I I think the direction that people are going is um or thinking on this seems seems to check out to me. And what is the root of that? Is it vested interest in spending that Elon is advocating gets cut? Is it diametrically opposed philosophical points of view on the role of

government? What is the root anti- Elon sentiment? that is kind of on the other side of the equation here. Do you think I mean I think that the uh the people overwhelmingly voted for the president to go in and shrink the government and bring about change and get rid of fraud, waste and abuse of which I am a thousand% behind the president and I I believe that that's what you know Elon and Doge was working towards. But people also hate change. Like we all know this and um you know people can uh be very protective of their empire and you know when somebody comes in you know Elon's got a playbook and I think he knows how to get things done. And I and I I think

you know in a lot of respects that um that rub some people or you know what I think that was one of you know or um had some axes to grind. I don't know. And uh and um you know we're just waiting. I I I don't I you know I don't want to speculate on all this but yeah. No, I mean, um, I think that that you've said enough and I I guess you've seen the tweets from Elon today where he was pretty negative about the House bill that is being labeled the big beautiful bill, making the case that it's actually going to drive up a government deficit to over two trillion, two half trillion dollars a year. It

doesn't make deep enough cuts. There's a lot of pork in there, a lot of wasteful spending in there. And then the House Speaker today responded to Elon saying, "Hey, we've still got a recision bill coming. We've still got an appropriation bill coming where we're going to start to fix the budget." But clearly Elon is now getting vocal about his point of view on this. Have you spoken with him at all about what's going on and government spending and his kind of take on things as he's walked out of the office there? Well, you know, as you know, I kind of mentioned, I told the Senate, too, like I've only spoken to Elon, you know, I don't know, a couple

dozen times, most of which related to human space flight missions, but when I was talking to him towards the end of last year, it it was all on government efficiency related programs. And I think Elon got a lot of people excited about Doge u by making like one simple point. The interest rate on the national debt exceeds, you know, the DoD budget. that's scary and it's getting worse and we can't spend our way out of this problem. Um, which we've grown a habit to doing and I know he's very passionate about it and um, you know, he sacrificed a lot along with all the others you know at Doge to try and bring about some significant you know spending cuts and

then you know to see a bill come in you know uh whatever 1,200 pages or so that you know adds you know to the deficit I think was pretty you know pretty disheartening. Uh I suspect I mean I'm not I'm not um you know I'm not in this uh in this fight and I think like trying to codify like you know a handful of billions in cuts probably is you know a drop in the in the bucket. So I can't imagine that's too exciting. You think he's going to get more vocal? I I I don't I wouldn't presume to know what goes on through his mind. Like I said, I think he spends a lot of time trying to solve a lot of world's problems and and a problem for this country and I think a lot of people

agree with it is that the um you know this national debt is just getting way out of hand. I mean, this has been my case for about four years that if we don't fix this, it eventually becomes an intractable death spiral. And uh when that happens, all of the wrangling we're doing over budget, priorities, programs, interests, jobs are no longer possible. It's like you're trying to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. You don't get the choice of what programs to fund when there is no funding. And that's the unfortunate iceberg we're running into. Do you think Doge is dead? Any point of view on that?

I mean, it was interesting. You know, obviously there was kind of the grand exit uh this past week and then I don't know, at least in my Twitter feed, I try and follow a lot of the cabinet secretaries. You know, they were all coming out and saying, you know, Doge is alive and well embedded inside the I you know, I think it was more implying that like, you know, we're going to clean house. We're going to take care of our own house as opposed to letting other people help us do it. Problem is, like we haven't been very successful at that historically. So, I suspect going into the midterms, people don't want to, you know, let the other side be pounding the

table on Doge. So, I I don't know. I mean, I look, I was I've been an outsider nominee, so I have no idea how it'll play out, but I I I I think that some I imagine some people in the government want to see it go quiet late in the night. Is there a deep state? And does the deep state's like, is it too big to break? You know, I don't I don't I don't like know what I would classify a deep state or not. Like there are there are there is an absolutely bloated bureaucracy that uh hates change uh gets very entrenched that is happy to ride out uh political appointees like you know what you're gone in three four years or you know you're or dead before

you even arrive in my case uh we'll wait you out. So, I think there's some of that uh and then I think there's some of that in with actual, you know, uh politicians and political appointees that um uh advocate like hell for the status quo. And some of it might be good intended because they're just afraid of what comes next. And you know, why um why take a risk when you've got something right now that supposedly works? And I ask like, you know, what what if that what if that comes at the competitiveness of the nation and our economic security? What if we get it wrong because you weren't willing to take some risk and and make changes? Um,

so I don't think they're necessarily all evil, by the way. I just think some people get very comfortable in the status quo. Are you going to go back to space? I um I don't know. You know, this is like the first time in 26 years that I've been, you know, really kind of out of work. Uh I'm sure I'm definitely going to go back and help Shafor. I won't ever rob my CEO of his well-deserved, you know, title now. I I'll probably be an exec chair or something. And, you know, I got to work. I got to have a mission. Um, but I'll find something to to contribute to. And man, I I love uh I love flying and I love space and I like the philanthropic

efforts we've been doing with St. Jude. So, I'll keep busy. Amazing. Well, look, you're you've been, if nothing, Jared, an inspiration to many. Uh, I appreciate your commitment to service, your commitment to charity, your commitment to discovery, and uh, I want to thank you for the time today. It's been really great talking with you. Thank you. Oh, thank you. I, uh, I appreciate having the opportunity to chat. [Music]