NASA may have a new Administrator as soon as Monday or Tuesday of next week. https://t.co/2aDdcaJMJa
— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) December 11, 2025
[Saturday-morning update]
The Empire strikes back.
One of the last people whose opinions I have any respect for in such matters is Doug Cooke. His and Mike’s porkfest is what got us here. I may fisk this later.
[Wednesday-afternoon update]
Confirmed, 67-30: Confirmation of Executive Calendar #593 Jared Isaacman to be Administrator of the @NASA.
— Senate Cloakroom (@SenateCloakroom) December 17, 2025
[Bumped]
Good.
The sooner he’s in the job, the better. So much time has been lost already this year.
Maybe he can talk them into doing the Hubble mission. Mr. and Mrs. Mennon can be on the crew
Great idea! And Jared should command as well as be an extra pair of hands, of course. Even the previous astronaut-Administrators never chose to lead from the front in such fashion. It would be epic. Jared should still command Starship on its initial crewed test jaunt to LEO too.
They’re both lined up for lunar surface missions, and Anna was aboard Polaris 1. I’m guessing someone with recent ISS EVA experience and maybe someone whose been hands-on with Hubble. There’s room in a Dragon for two standard ISS suits.
There are – unfortunately – no currently active astronauts with hands-on Hubble experience. The last servicing mission was 16 years ago. Everyone with hands-on Hubble experience is now retired. So that’s most probably out.
And, if there is a new Hubble servicing mission ginned up, it won’t be using ISS EVA suits.
In the first place there are barely enough of the things to keep two of them in marginally-usable shape for ISS work. The ones not actually on ISS at any given point are on the ground being fussed with and prayed over by their maintainers who, I’m sure, will be happy to be working with Axiom and/or SpaceX replacements as soon as either or both are available.
In the second place, even with being ceaselessly rotated to the ground for application of copious restorative artisanal touch labor between duty stints on ISS, the things are creaky antiques with patches on their patches and a growing tendency to fail in alarming ways mid-mission. The maintainers, I’m sure, do their best, but there are limits. One can only hope those limits reach at least slightly beyond the last required ISS EVA as human occupancy of ISS winds down prior to its de-orbiting.
And there is certainly no reason the Menons couldn’t do a Hubble service-and-re-boost mission before also doing a lunar surface mission – or a bunch of lunar surface missions. With what Elon seems to have in mind to gin up on the Moon, there will be so much of that kind of work available under purely SpaceX auspices, that the entire US astronaut corps – and likely those of other nations – will probably be kept busy, on detached duty, along with a lot of never-thought-they’d-be-working-in-space blue-collar hardhat types. Lots of those types to be had on the Gulf Coast, especially ones with prior oil and gas platform work experience. Even Jared’s other crewmates from Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn might get 2nd bites at the space apple if they are so-inclined – and 3rds, and 4ths, and…
Cute and adorable little Hayley Arceneaux, for example, is also a medical professional. There will be a need for many such to deal with all sorts of medical issues that will arise in a major push to industrialize the Moon. Even with a lot of Optimus bots deployed, there will need to be plenty of humans in situ on the lunar surface if Elon is to cover at least the lunar sky in giant orbital AI data centers.
Hubble repair is LTO. Also fails on a “show me the hardware” point. Right now, ISS EMUs are all there are, Will an Axiom or SpaceX Mk. 3 be ready in time? Doubtful. Still, a Hubble reboost might be enough for now.
Fair point.
“There are – unfortunately – no currently active astronauts with hands-on Hubble experience. The last servicing mission was 16 years ago. Everyone with hands-on Hubble experience is now retired.”
That is true. Though Andrew Feustel (one of the two EVA astronauts on STS-125) only retired in 2023 (he is 60), and there was talk of recruiting him to the Polaris Hubble servicing mission when it was in active discussion at NASA at the time, I believe. He’s young enough and in good enough health that it is at least a *theoretical* possibility, if this mission were given a green light soon.
One of quite a sizable list of Things That Remain To Be Seen. One hopes Jared will be attacking said list “with vigah” as JFK used to say. No sense giving one’s inevitable opponents any additional time to dig in. I hope Jared has something resembling Trump’s Day One list of Executive Orders already drawn up.
I don’t envy his precarious position. The entrenched gang will do what they can to suck up as much gravy as possible, but at some point it will become obvious to even the most arithmetically challenged that the old guard no longer have the skills needed to compete with the World in the rocket arena. He’ll then be tasked with pushing the babies head underwater. The thrashing will be spectacular, the accusations toxic.
More like smothering senile grand-dad with a pillow than drowning a baby I’m thinking. A fair number of high-mileage lifers have already bailed out under that incentives-for-voluntary-RIF program the Trump people ginned up earlier this year. If Isaacman’s accession to the NASA throne results in even more of these types following suit, so much the better – especially at MSFC, Goddard and Langley.
I’m afraid the only viable solution will be concentration camps and firing squads.
I’d like that too – it’s the romantic in me.
He has the perfect temperament for the job though and he deals with strong personalities as a job and hobby.
Yes, he’s not a man who will be cowed by career bureaucrats – or career politicians for that matter.
Re: Doug Cooke’s piece
It’s hard for me to imagine that any substantial change of plans would result in an earlier lunar landing than simply staying the course. Blue Origin’s lander targeted at Artemis 4 is already a backup plan for Artemis 3 if they manage to be ready for launch before SpaceX. (Not that I expect they will.) Any other lander candidate is already further behind than these two.
The Blue Origin Mk. 2 lander is actually slated for use on Artemis 5, not Artemis 4. Not that that invalidates, even slightly, your general point – with which I fully concur.
Mk 1 with a crew cabin using a Cislunar Transporter as a crasher stage is the only other option. A second Cislunar Transporter might be able to deliver Orion to LLO. Of course, this assumes Cislunar Transporter would be ready anytime soon…
I wouldn’t be betting the rent on that.
No. Something delivered to LLO by Starkicker might work, but that’s admitted Starship HLS is still the best bet. Which it is.
“It’s hard for me to imagine that any substantial change of plans would result in an earlier lunar landing than simply staying the course.”
it’s just beyond laughable that any clean sheet, traditionally procured minimal lunar lander of the sort Doug Cooke wants is going to be ready at any point in this decade, even with crash program funding. None of the contractors you’d consider giving this thing to are known for speed in development.
Even a Mk1 Blue Moon lander converted to a crew vehicle is going to take Blue Origin into the early 2030’s to get ready, honestly.
If NASA wants a Plan B for a crewed lander, it already has one in hand: Blue Moon Mark 2. It just won’t be ready any time soon.
Good.
The congressional GOP continue to disappoint with their performance.
SOP for the GOP, unfortunately.
I grok that Doug Cooke by virtue of his career in the senior ranks at NASA is going to get a deferential nod to publish any op-ed he writes on space policy in a media outlet of record, so turning it down likely wasn’t an option for Dan Robitzki, with or without any thumb on the scales by Lockheed’s advertising dollars.
But it was Doug Cooke who managed Project Constellation into such a behind schedule, cost-overrun nightmare that forced its cancellation in the first place, and that ought to at least require a *rebuttal* every time Space News publishes his stuff or a congressional committee invites him to give testimony. As Casey Handmer put it recently in his latest demolition of NASA’s program of record:
“I don’t want to hear from [Doug] Loverro, [Doug] Cooke, or [Dan] Dumbacher unless it’s a detailed explanation of how, exactly, NASA managed to screw up SLS as badly as they did. Perhaps they can ask for an internship at Starbase to get the elite program management exposure and experience they so evidently lacked when the nation entrusted them with the future of the light cone?”
https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2025/10/31/nasas-orion-space-capsule-is-flaming-garbage/
C’mon Casey – tell us how you really feel!
🙂
I’m not often envious of other writers, but Handmer certainly earned it with that splendid bit of business.
Congratulations Administrator Not Ballast!
As I noted earlier today over at Behind the Black, now the fun begins.