On Wednesday U.S. senators told President Donald Trump’s pick to lead NASA that the agency must beat China back to the moon. The uncertain future of science at the embattled space agency, meanwhile, took a back seat at the confirmation hearing for Jared Isaacman.
NASA is at “an inflection point,” said Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, which held the hearing. “The agency must prioritize if we’re to beat China back to the moon—and then to Mars.”
Renominated by Trump in November, Isaacman, age 42, has twice flown to space via the company SpaceX, including in a 2024 mission that saw him perform the first-ever commercial space walk. The billionaire entrepreneur’s provisional “Project Athena” plan for NASA, leaked in November, called for smaller, more numerous science missions, a reorganization of the agency’s research centers and a hard push for nuclear-electric rockets for future human voyages to Mars.
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“There is no question the overwhelming near-term priority is to return American astronauts to the moon,” Isaacman said at the hearing, expressing support for both a proposed Lunar Gateway space station and the next four crewed missions planned for NASA’s Artemis lunar landing program. That’s despite calls in the Trump administration’s proposed 2026 federal budget to cancel Gateway and to end NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), a rocket that would enable those missions. (Isaacman’s Project Athena document also reportedly proposed canceling the SLS, which is estimated to cost a whopping $2 billion per launch.)
Isaacman also endorsed a reopened competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin for the 2028 Artemis III moon landing, a mission intended to return humans to the moon for the first time since 1972. Former space agency officials have raised serious doubts that NASA can meet that deadline. If the schedule slips, so, too, could NASA’s chances of winning the new moon race with China; Beijing has targeted 2030 for its own crewed lunar landing.
Ahead of the hearing, 36 former NASA astronauts, including former NASA chief Charles Bolden, Jr., endorsed Isaacman’s nomination, saying “he will bring renewed energy and sense of purpose to NASA.”
“NASA needs a leader,” says Syracuse University political scientist W. Henry Lambright, a scholar of space agency history. “He comes across as technically strong. I do not know if he is politically astute.” Isaacman’s proposed philosophy of “accelerate/fix/delete” to streamline programs at NASA echoes the “faster, better, cheaper” ethos of 1990s NASA chief Dan Goldin, Lambright adds. That era foundered on the costly losses of multiple Mars probes.
Still, Isaacman faces constraints from the Trump administration’s powerful Office of Management and Budget, which is intent on slashing federal science spending, and “an unpredictable president,” Lambright says. “He needs Congress to be on his side. ‘Accelerating’ and ‘fixing’ as themes make sense in this respect.”
On Wednesday Isaacman told senators that a U.S. failure to beat China to the moon would undermine “American exceptionalism” but that it also held more concrete geopolitical ramifications. The moon, he said, offers resources such as potential helium-3 deposits, which might someday serve as nuclear fusion fuel and “could change the balance of power” on Earth in the next century.
Despite the hearing’s overall genial tone, Isaacman did face some tough questions about his support for NASA’s climate science and agricultural data missions, which the Project Athena plan reportedly proposed outsourcing to academia. “We only inhabit one planet, and Earth science is pretty vitally important,” Isaacman responded. He also endorsed NASA funding for early-career scientists and for university-based research—two areas that the Trump administration has targeted for deep cuts.
Some of the most pointed queries Isaacman fielded concerned a proposed nearly 50 percent cut to science at NASA (rejected by Congress in budget decisions) and his relationship with Elon Musk, whose SpaceX rockets sent Isaacman into space on two private missions. “I more than acknowledge I went to space twice with SpaceX,” said Isaacman, who downplayed his connection with Musk, adding that he had not spoken to the tech billionaire about the NASA job since Isaacman was renominated for it. Isaacman also declined to reveal how much his private space missions cost other than to say that SpaceX “didn’t give me a discount.”
Isaacman said at the outset of the hearing he did not intend to “close centers” at NASA. The space agency currently operates 10 such research centers across the country, and some NASA missions involve contributions from several; the Project Athena document reportedly suggested privatizing some of that work, as well as consolidating some agency initiatives into single space centers. That could lead to less federal money flowing to some of NASA’s most scientifically prized and productive parts, such as the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and its Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland—both of which have suffered extensive layoffs and other disruptions linked to the White House’s agenda.
The fate of the space shuttle Discovery, now at a Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, went unmentioned in the hearing, with this summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act calling for $85 million to move the orbiter to a Houston showplace. Senator Cruz is one of the prime movers behind what some critics have described as the “heist” of the venerable shuttle, which some experts fear would suffer irreparable damage in the proposed relocation. Cruz’s Texas colleague, Senator John Cornyn, claimed in a news release ahead of the hearing that Isaacman had endorsed the move.
“This hearing was generally what I expected,” says space policy expert Casey Dreier of the Planetary Society. Despite some tough questions, Isaacman emphasized his commitment to NASA science and other popular programs, Dreier says. “He’s in the difficult position of having to avoid overt critiques of the proposed budget, which is the official position of the administration he hopes to join but something that he had no part in preparing,” Dreier adds.
Regardless, Isaacman seems to be on track for confirmation, given that Cruz’s committee has already queued up a vote for him next Monday. With the U.S. Senate rapidly running out of working days before the Christmas holiday, Dreier says, “the challenge will be if they can vote on his nomination before the new year.”
Editor’s Note (12/3/25): This article was edited after posting to correct descriptions of Jared Isaacman’s exact comments during the hearing.
