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The National
03-06-2025
- Business
- The National
Question marks over Nasa's plans after Trump withdraws nomination for Jared Isaacman
Nasa has been left without a confirmed administrator after the White House unexpectedly withdrew Jared Isaacman 's nomination to lead the agency. Mr Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur, pilot and commercial astronaut, was nominated by US President Donald Trump in December. The withdrawal comes as Nasa deals with a shrinking budget and pressure to deliver on its Artemis Moon programme and other deep-space goals. President Trump has not yet put forward a new nominee. The US leader said he was withdrawing the nomination following a review of Mr Isaacman's 'prior associations,' without elaborating further. 'Nasa has been operating with an acting administrator to date, Janet Petro, who was the director of Kennedy Space Centre,' David Barnhart, chief executive of California space infrastructure company Arkisys, told The National. 'She has been shepherding the agency through multiple changes, including budget reductions and programme shifts. But the absence of a Senate-confirmed leader may delay major programme changes.' Shift towards Mars? The choice of Mr Isaacman was widely seen as bold and unconventional, aligning with the administration's focus on commercial partnerships in space. The decision to withdraw the nomination was made two days after billionaire Elon Musk, a close friend of Mr Isaacman, finished his tenure in Washington as a 'special government employee'. Last month, the Trump administration put forward an $18.8 billion budget for Nasa for 2026, down 24 per cent from last year, with much of that to be allocated for human exploration of the Moon and Mars. The lower budget cuts or reshapes major programmes, including ending the Gateway project, a lunar-orbiting station that Nasa and many countries were building parts for, and the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. Nasa had developed the SLS rocket for its Artemis Moon programme but each launch would have reportedly cost $4 billion and the entire programme is behind schedule. Mr Musk, founder of SpaceX, has said Starship projects would be at a fraction of that cost. Mr Barnhart said the withdrawal of Mr Isaacman as the next Nasa chief could cause more delays in programme changes. 'It is uncertain whether a focus on lunar activities will shift to Mars, for example, or whether the Space Launch System will be cut back in favour of only using commercial launch providers,' he said. 'Politicised' leadership Sahith Madara, founder of Paris-based advisory firm Bumi & Space, said Mr Isaacman could have helped bridge the public-private divide, especially as Nasa relies more heavily on commercial providers such as SpaceX and Blue Origin to deliver key parts of its missions. 'This says a lot about how politicised the Nasa leadership has become,' he said. 'Jared brought real technical and commercial chops and could've helped bridge public and private space efforts, especially with programmes like Artemis and deep space exploration on the table.' Mr Isaacman issued a statement on X after news of the withdrawal, saying he had gained 'a much deeper appreciation for the complexities of government' over the course of the nomination process. 'The President, Nasa and the American people deserve the very best – an administrator ready to reorganise, rebuild and rally the best and brightest minds to deliver the world-changing headlines Nasa was built to create,' he said. 'I have not flown my last mission, whatever form that may ultimately take, but I remain incredibly optimistic that humanity's greatest spacefaring days lie ahead.' Blow to the commercial sector Mr Isaacman, who has flown aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule and carried out a spacewalk as part of the Polaris Programme, had no previous government experience. His commercial accomplishments, however, and experience in space made him a favourite with those advocating for a more industry-driven Nasa. 'Mr Isaacman's experience lent credence to commercial industry excitement,' Mr Barnhart said. 'It was felt he would help transition more Nasa functions to the commercial sector. In general, it was seen as a favourable transition from past administrators and a recognition that Nasa's focus on doing more with industry as partners would allow them to focus on science and innovation.' Retired Nasa astronaut Dr Leroy Chiao, who spent 229 days in space across multiple missions, told The National that the withdrawal of Mr Isaacman's nomination left questions unanswered. 'I was in favour and am disappointed that he was withdrawn,' Dr Chiao said. 'I don't know the reason, but the official ones given are vague and don't really make sense to me. 'In the meantime, Nasa will be OK, as there is an acting administrator who has been running the agency since February.'
Yahoo
01-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump Exacts Revenge on Musk by Yanking Pal's Top Job
Just days before the Senate was set to vote on his future as NASA administrator, the White House has confirmed that the Trump administration is planning to withdraw Jared Isaacman's nomination. Isaacman, a commercial astronaut and billionaire, is a longtime friend and business associate of Elon Musk, and Musk had lobbied President Donald Trump directly for his friend's nomination to the role of NASA chief. Former Deputy Director of the Kennedy Space Center Janet Petro is currently acting as NASA administrator. Many had raised concerns about Isaacman's ties to Musk, with Isaacman going so far as to promise during his committee hearing that he would focus on a lunar landing, putting him at odds with Musk's vision for the future of space exploration, which is focused on Mars. When asked by Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) about his relationship with Musk, Isaacman denied that they were close, claiming that only Trump had interviewed him for the role. However, he later demurred when asked by Markey if Musk had been present at his interview with Trump. Others, such as Laura Loomer, suggested Isaacman's nomination could be in jeopardy following Musk's exit from the Trump administration this week. On Saturday, Loomer tweeted that 'deep state operatives' with 'ulterior motives' were seeking to derail the nomination in retaliation for his friendship with Musk. Other Republicans also rushed to Isaacman's defense, with Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT), a Trump ally who sits on the committee that approved Isaacman's nomination, tweeting, 'Astronaut and successful businessman @RookIsaacman was a strong choice by President Trump to lead NASA. I was proud to introduce Jared at his hearing and strongly oppose efforts to derail his nomination.' According to The New York Times, Trump had decided to rescind the nomination after learning that Isaacman had previously donated to prominent Democrats, including Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and the California Democratic Party, during the past two elections. He also donated $2 million to Trump's inaugural committee. At the time of Isaacman's nomination in December, Trump made a celebratory post to Truth Social, describing him as 'ideally suited to lead NASA into a bold new era' and congratulating him on the nomination. Liz Huston, the White House's assistant press secretary, said of the change in nomination: 'The Administrator of NASA will help lead humanity into space and execute President Trump's bold mission of planting the American flag on the planet Mars. It's essential that the next leader of NASA is in complete alignment with President Trump's America First agenda and a replacement will be announced directly by President Trump soon.' Isaacman is the CEO of payment processing company Shift4, which he founded at the age of 16 years old in 1999. He also founded Draken International, which provides tactical fighter aircraft and training to NATO forces. He is also a commercial astronaut who has previously flown to space twice with Musk's SpaceX.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Norway becomes 55th nation to sign NASA Artemis Accords for peaceful space exploration
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Fifty-five nations have now penned their commitment to NASA's Artemis Accords. NASA announced Norway's decision to join the Artemis Accords for a "safe, peaceful, and prosperous future in space" as the space agency's website phrases it. Norway is the third country to join the Artemis Accords so far in 2025. A signing ceremony to welcome Norway took place today (May 15) at the Norwegian Space Agency in Oslo, with Norway's Minister of Trade and Industry Cecilie Myrseth signing on behalf of the Norwegian government. "The United States and Norway have a longstanding relationship in space. Collaboration stretches back to 1962, when NASA supported the first civilian suborbital rocket launch mission above the Arctic Circle from Andøya Space," a statement from the U.S. Department of State says. 'We're grateful for the strong and meaningful collaboration we've already had with the Norwegian Space Agency,' acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro said in an agency statement. 'Now, by signing the Artemis Accords, Norway is not only supporting the future of exploration, but also helping us define it with all our partners for the Moon, Mars, and beyond,' she said. The Artemis Accords were established in October 2020 with the U.S. and seven other founding countries. The Accords represent a set of principles and guidelines designed to shape how nations explore the moon and deep space. The Accords also echo key concepts from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, aiming to promote peaceful, cooperative space activity. The Artemis Program is NASA's current initiative to return humans to the moon to create a sustained presence on the lunar surface and eventually Mars. The first Artemis mission, Artemis 1, launched in November 2022. The mission launched the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with an uncrewed Orion spacecraft on a month-long mission into orbit around the moon and back. RELATED STORIES: — Cooperation on the moon: Are the Artemis Accords enough? — NASA's Artemis program: Everything you need to know — Estonia joins Artemis Accords as moon-exploration coalition agrees to continue outreach efforts Artemis 2, which has been delayed due to allow more time to prepare the Orion capsule after its predecessor mission experienced heat shield issues, will fly four astronauts a "free-return" trajectory around the moon once before flying them back to Earth as early as February 2026. Artemis 3, slated for 2027, will be the first mission in the program to land astronauts on the lunar surface, but beyond that, the program currently exists in uncertainty. The "skinny budget" recently released by the White House slashes NASA's budget by nearly 25%. The new budget cancels NASA's massive SLS rocket after Artemis 3, and scraps Gateway, the lunar space station also in development for future Artemis missions.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
NASA Welcomes Norway as 55th Nation to Sign Artemis Accords
WASHINGTON, May 15, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Following an international signing ceremony Thursday, NASA congratulated Norway on becoming the latest country to join the Artemis Accords, committing to the peaceful, transparent, and responsible exploration of space. "We're grateful for the strong and meaningful collaboration we've already had with the Norwegian Space Agency," said acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro. "Now, by signing the Artemis Accords, Norway is not only supporting the future of exploration, but also helping us define it with all our partners for the Moon, Mars, and beyond." Norway's Minster of Trade and Industry Cecilie Myrseth signed the Artemis Accords on behalf of the country during an event at the Norwegian Space Agency (NOSA) in Oslo. Christian Hauglie-Hanssen, director general of NOSA, and Robert Needham, U.S. Embassy Chargé d'Affaires for Norway, participated in the event. Petro contributed remarks in a pre-recorded video message. "We are pleased to be a part of the Artemis Accords," said Myrseth. "This is an important step for enabling Norway to contribute to broader international cooperation to ensure the peaceful exploration and use of outer space." In 2020, the United States, led by NASA and the U.S. Department of State, and seven other initial signatory nations established the Artemis Accords, the first set of practical guidelines for nations to increase safety of operations and reduce risk and uncertainty in their civil exploration activities. The Artemis Accords are grounded in the Outer Space Treaty and other agreements including the Registration Convention and the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices for responsible behavior that NASA and its partners have supported, including the public release of scientific data. Learn more about the Artemis Accords at: View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE NASA Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
What Trump's NASA Budget Cuts Mean for the Space Agency
NASA's Space Launch System moon rocket, seen on its sole launch, in 2022, is on the budgetary chopping block. Credit - Getty Images NASA has a funny way of framing bad news. On May 2, the White House released its topline budget numbers for fiscal year 2026 and the space agency was quick to respond—with applause. 'President Trump's FY26 Budget Revitalizes Human Space Exploration,' read a press release. In an included statement, acting NASA administrator Janet Petro said, 'This proposal includes investments to simultaneously pursue exploration of the Moon and Mars while still prioritizing critical science and technology research. I appreciate the President's continued support for NASA's mission and look forward to working closely with the administration and Congress to ensure we continue making progress toward achieving the impossible.' The real impossibility, however, might be in figuring out how NASA will achieve much of anything at all with the draconian cuts the president proposed. Petro is right in touting a relatively modest 10% bump in funding for human space exploration, with $7 billion now proposed for missions to the moon and $1 billion for later travel to Mars. But beyond that, things get awfully bleak. The Mars Sample Return Mission, which is currently underway, with the Perseverance rover collecting and caching soil and rock samples for return by a later robot craft, will be canceled. Twenty-seven sample tubes that have been sealed and left across the Martian surface like Easter eggs for that future rover to gather will be forever untouched. Those samples could have told us about possible conditions for ancient, or even extant, life on the once-watery world—potential knowledge that will now be lost. The Space Launch System (SLS) moon rocket and the Orion spacecraft, both in development in one form or another since 2006, and both intended for crewed travel to the moon, will be scrapped too. Also marked for elimination is the Gateway spacecraft, a small space station planned for lunar orbit—despite the first of its modules having already been built. Gateway was intended to provide rapid service to and from the surface of the moon for future visiting astronauts. Space science missions will be slashed by more than 50%, threatening—among other projects—the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which, like the Gateway module, is already mostly built. Roman is designed to answer deep and thrilling questions, regarding the habitability of exoplanets—or planets orbiting other stars—and the nature of dark energy, which is thought to make up 68% of the universe and holds the key to its accelerating expansion. Read more: Inside NASA's Struggle to Launch America Back to the Moon On top of all this, research into environmentally sustainable aviation technology is one of several 'climate scam programs,' as the White House referred to it in a statement, which is also slated for cancellation. Consistent with new government-wide policies, any NASA DEI programs are also to be eliminated. Overall, NASA faces a 24% budget cut, from $24.8 billion in 2025 to $18.8 billion in 2026—its lowest funding level since 2015. 'No spin will change the fact that this would end critical missions, dramatically scale back the workforce, and risk our scientific leadership around the globe,' said Rep. George Whitesides, a California Democrat and Vice Ranking Member of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, on X. 'It is completely irresponsible, and I will fight it every way I can.' 'The proposed cuts are drastic,' says Stephan McCandliss, research professor with the department of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University. 'They are devastating and, well, vicious, in terms of [being] unfriendly to science in general.' The proposed cuts don't just represent opportunity costs, but the loss of sunk costs too. The SLS has already cost nearly $24 billion, with another $20 billion having gone to Orion—money that will have been spent to no end if the two projects are cancelled. The Roman telescope, currently idling in a clean room at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, cost $4 billion. According to the General Accounting Office, $3.5 billion has been spent on Gateway, with the launch of the first module originally set for 2027. All of this penury is something of a departure for President Trump, who presided over small but steady budget increases for NASA—from just over $18 billion to just over $21 billion—during his first term. Space Agency funding rose further, to its near-$25 billion peak, under President Joe Biden, before the ax fell this week. The impending starvation rations, as always, have NASA veterans looking wistfully back at the space agency's golden era, during the space race with the former Soviet Union. Historically, NASA's peak funding year was 1966, when the agency was allotted $5.93 billion—or $58.5 billion in 2025 dollars. That represented 4% of the government's overall budget. NASA's slice of the federal pie today—before the Trump cuts? Just 0.4%. Read more: NASA's New, $4 Billion Space Telescope Will Unravel a Great Cosmic Mystery The generous funding of the 1960s yielded impressive results. The U.S. launched 10 crewed flights in just 20 months during NASA's Gemini program in 1965 and 1966. From 1968 to 1972, eleven Apollo missions were launched—nine of them either to lunar orbit or around the far side of the moon, and six of those proceeding down to the lunar surface. That was all while NASA maintained a robust pure science program, launching more than 20 missions to the moon, Mars, and Venus during the 1960s. It's the loss of those uncrewed science flights that worries some space experts the most. 'It's mortgaging the future,' says Henry Hertzfeld, research professor at George Washington University's Space Policy Institute. 'It takes time to develop these programs, to build the instruments and, of course, to analyze the results.' 'I see a role for government in doing the science,' says McCandliss. 'That's what government ought to do—the cutting edge stuff that isn't going to be commercially viable, but will in the long run, bring some surprising results.' The matter of commercial viability—with the private sector taking over a growing share of the work now being done by NASA—seems to be driving much of the administration's budget proposals. The aging International Space Station (ISS) is set to be de-orbited in 2030 and NASA and the White House are looking for industry to bankroll and launch the next generation outpost. 'The budget reflects the upcoming transition to a more cost-effective, open commercial approach to human activities in low Earth orbit by … the safe decommissioning of the station and its replacement by commercial space stations,' said NASA in its press release. Currently, NASA spends about $3 billion per year to operate the ISS. Privatization would eliminate that outlay. Similarly, if SLS and Orion stand down, the move would clear the field for SpaceX's massive Starship rocket. SLS and Orion have flown just once—an uncrewed mission, known as Artemis I, in 2022. Current plans call for Artemis II to carry a crew of four on a circumlunar journey late next year, and Artemis III to follow with a crewed lunar landing before the end of the decade. Artemis IV and beyond were intended to help establish a long-term human presence at the south lunar pole, but the new proposed budget cancels those plans. Starship could be a worthy successor. The biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, Starship stands 40 stories tall and puts out 16.7 million pounds of thrust at launch—nearly twice as much as the SLS's 8.8 million pounds. The single flight SLS has managed in the 20 years it's been in development is dwarfed by the eight uncrewed launches Starship has had just since April of 2023. None of those launches has been fully successful, but the business model for SpaceX and its boss, Elon Musk, has always been to fly fast, fail fast, and fly again until you get it right. The unalloyed success of the company's smaller Falcon 9 rocket, which, with 467 successful flights, has become the world's workhorse booster, stands as proof that that approach to R&D can work. 'It's pretty amazing stuff that they've been doing,' says McCandliss. 'When you have a devil-may-care leader who is willing to spend his own personal capital on these sorts of things, it's a different story [from what the government can do]. Musk has not been shy about trying to pursue his dreams, and he has the capital to do that.' If NASA has any hope of escaping the Trump Administration's proposed cuts it's in the fact that they are just that—proposed. Presidential budgets are wish lists put forth to Congress, with lawmakers calling the final spending shots, and NASA has seen this movie before—most recently and dramatically in 2010. Back then, President Barack Obama cancelled the space agency's Constellation program—the precursor of Artemis, which was aiming to have bootprints back on the moon as early as 2015. The move pulled the plug on both Orion and the SLS—the latter of which was then known as Ares V. But legislators from space-friendly states that depend on NASA for thousands of local jobs—most notably Texas, Florida, and California—rebelled, and funding was restored for both vehicles. Today, Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat—the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Technology respectively—are being looked to for leadership to keep the lights on at NASA. Neither lawmaker has made a public statement yet on the proposed cuts and neither responded to a request from TIME for comment. Still, Capitol Hill will get the final word. 'The president proposes and Congress disposes,' says McCandliss. 'I know that there's an awful lot of NASA centers that are in red states.' NASA is accountable to Congress for its funding and Congress is accountable to the voters in those red states and all of the others for their own jobs. Ultimately, Americans will get the space program they demand. Write to Jeffrey Kluger at
