By Marcia Dunn
Cape Canaveral, Florida (AP) – The NASA’s first job, billionaire Spacewalker Jared Isaacman, described his vision of spatial exploration on Wednesday which favors the sending of astronauts to Mars without abandoning the moon.
President Donald Trump appointed Isaacman to become the 15th administrator of NASA at the end of last year. If it is confirmed, the technological entrepreneur would become the youngest person to direct the space agency which envisages astronauts back on the moon and among a handful of administrators for having really withered in orbit.
The Senate Commerce, Science and Transport Committee has gathered in Washington for the audience on the appointment. In addition to Isaacman, nine other experienced space travelers were in the public, including the crew of NASA Next Moon.
“As the president said, we will prioritize the sending of American astronauts to March and, along the way, we will inevitably have the capacity to return to the Moon,” said Isaacman in his opening remarks.
Later, he assured the senators that he would not give up the moon and wanted the United States to beat China in the landing of astronauts there.
“I didn’t say that we should not go to the moon,” he said. “What takes so long to come back to the moon and why it costs so much money? I absolutely want to see us go back to the moon.”
Moon and Mars expeditions can be developed in parallel. “I don’t think it’s either or,” he added. NASA can afford both of the current funding, he said, without developing.
Isaacman, 42, has already stolen twice in space, buying his own trips with SpaceX, and interpreted the first private spacewalk in the world last September. An experienced reaction pilot, he made a fortune with a payment processing company, now called Shift4, which he started as an abandonment of the high school in his parents’ basement.
He recognized in his testimony that he was not “a typical candidate for this position”.
“I have been relatively apolitical; I am not a scientist and I have never worked in NASA,” he said. “I don’t think it’s weaknesses.”
The space agency and others were impatient to hear the Isaacman stand on the Moon and Mars for human exploration, given its close association with Elon Musk de Spacex.
In the public, the three American astronauts and a Canadian were assigned to the flight of NASA to the moon planned for next year, as well as the six people who have launched in orbit with Isaacman.
Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the chairman of the committee, urged the need to “keep the course” with NASA’s plans to return the astronauts to the moon.
“An extreme change in priorities at this stage would almost certainly mean a red moon, yielding land to China for future generations,” said Cruz.
NASA is launching the moon as the next logical step for astronauts for years. The Artemis program aims to send a crew around the moon next year and to land astronauts near the southern pole of the moon from 2027. Lunar bases are planned this time, not only fast visits like those of the Apollo missions of NASA in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Artemis was slow and expensive, especially for the Rocket of the NASA Space Launch System. It has not been taken off so far – in 2022 without crew.
Musk promotes Mars as a destination, while it accelerates more test flights out of Texas for Starship, the largest and most powerful world rocket. By making starships reusable, he intends to considerably reduce costs to bring people and equipment to the red planet.
NASA has chosen Starship for its first two astronauts on the moon under Artemis, named after the Apollo twin sister in Greek mythology.
When asked if Musk had contacted her since his appointment on how to manage NASA, Isaacman replied: “Not at all”. Isaacman was then questioned how he would protect against an undue influence against musk, given the billions of dollars of SpaceX contracts with NASA.
“I absolutely want to be clear,” said Isaacman. “My loyalty is to this nation, the space agency and their mission that changes the world.”
___
The Department of Health and Sciences of the Associated Press receives the support of the scientific and educational group of the media from the medical institute Howard Hughes and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
