Unusually, I’ll try to live blog it in the morning. It starts at 1000 EST, and I’ll update here.
[Morning update, just before scheduled start]
Here is the link to the live stream.
[Update a few minutes later]
Hearing has started, with an introduction from Chairman Cruz.
[Update a couple hours later]
NASA Administrator Nominee Jared Isaacman delivers a powerful and urgent opening message at his confirmation hearing:
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) December 3, 2025
“The last time I sat before you, I introduced myself, my qualifications, and the challenges and opportunities ahead. This time, I'm here with a message of… pic.twitter.com/DRsJFxt9ZY
Here is the second NASA confirmation hearing for Jared Isaacman.
— Robin (@xdNiBoR) December 3, 2025
I have removed questions directed to Steven Haines and long unnecessary pauses, shortening the hearing by about an hour.
Please repost and share 🙏🙏
07:53 – Opening remarks from Jared Isaacman pic.twitter.com/9lLh3zwzIQ
[Thursday-morning update]
Bob Zimmerman says that the hearing, along with NASA, is ultimately irrelevant.
“May the lord have mercy on his soul.”
No truer words ever spoken for such a thankless job.
China launched Falconski in the same week the US deployed Shahedski to the Middle East.
Make Aircraft Experimental Again.
Yeah 20% more diameter stainless steel methane vehicle is practically identical to the aluminum kerosene falcon.
It’s bigger because methane is less dense than kerosene. Otherwise, it’s a modernized F9. But F9 has been flying for 15 years.
And landing its 1st stages for 10.
Influenced by the success of Falcon9 is somewhat different from just modernized. Propellant, construction material, organization, and size are all different. Like calling a Tesla an upgraded Mustang.
It is not known at this time if the Chinese vehicle will be successful or even viable. It is not safe to assume incompetence though.
Hey, get it right: Tesla is an upgraded golf-cart!
Somehow Eazygo Tesla just didn’t occur.:-)
When a Falcon and a Starship love each other very much…
But seriously, while none of the three cases are exact copies the resemblance is not coincidental.
https://grokipedia.com/page/Soviet_industrial_espionage_of_Concorde
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9kmmx4
Just because an F looks like a digamma does not mean it is a digamma!
Someone ‘splain the joke.
Putting “ski” at the end of nouns is an English speaker’s idea of noun endings in the Russian language. It is as accurate as writing Roman alphabet characters backwards to make them look like the Cyrilic alphabet Russian is written in. But we are talking about China?
Falcon is actually the official name of the F-16, so China deployed a clone of the F-16 fighter aircraft? I thought they were trying to clone the F-35, which we could call Amy-ski because in Russian, the qualifier of “Fat” in this instance is silent?
Shahed is the name of an Iranian drone that Iran supplies to its client states, including Russian Federation? So the US has cloned Iranian drone tech?
Old Cold Warrior joke, like having Pavel Chekhov claiming Russia invented everything on Star Trek. I guess some feel Russia invented China?
Yes, the U.S. doesn’t hesitate to admit that it reverse engineered the Shahed. Iran has been manufacturing unlicensed versions of U.S. military hardware for decades. Our drone technology seems to favor expensive advanced technology, which limits its numbers. The evolving threat is in vast numbers, and we need to counter that.
It will be interesting to see if the confirmation vote takes as long to put on the calendar as it took last time…
Interesting questions from Cantwell. Do any of the other Senators have conflicts of interest with companies that work with NASA on climate matters or is that purely religious for them?
He was on Unsubscribed recently, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_BVqyTisnA
Just finished watching that. Wonderful stuff. Sen. Sheehy was a nice bonus.
I heard that Isaacman supported moving Discovery from the Air and Space Museum to JSC. While I think that’s a dumb idea. It is interesting to read the TDS addled at JSC that were upset with not getting a shuttle now complaining about getting one. “The money should be used to fully man ISS and back Artemis”. I can’t imagine moving Discovery would cost an extra mission to ISS or another month of funding Artemis to nowhere. Moreover, these things are funded, and JSC is doing nothing to make them worth continuing. Maybe, instead of embracing “the resistance” 8 years ago and slow walking Artemis, they could have done what they said could be done for the funding then and flown 3 times by now and we have already been back to the moon.
But yeah, you don’t need a shuttle either.
It’s a rocket ship, right? So just launch it from Edvarhazy and land it at JSC, East-peasy!
Maybe this is a dumb idea but why can’t we:
1) Launch the equivalent of an Apollo CSM on a Falcon Heavy
2) Launch the equivalent of the LEM on and F9 or Falcon Heavy (FH)
3) Launch a fueled booster to provide the TLI kick on an FH or maybe starship booster if need be.
Dock all three
Execute the TLI burn
Dump the TLI booster
Go to the moon land and come back.
All with proven rockets
No refueling.
No (stupid) Gateway.
BO has the slides for their lander, so that’s a start. Maybe it needs to be downsized.
Yes you’d have to design the equivalent of an Apollo CSM and the TLI kicker.
But maybe the latter can be just a few Starship rings, 1 Raptor 3 and modified clam shell doors to cover a docking apparatus
Or launch a crew in an uprated Dragon that remains attached to the second stage. Second stage refuels from a Starship tanker(s) for TLi and LLO. Second stage remains in Lunar orbit while a separately delivered stage takes Dragon to Lunar surface and back. Second stage boosts Dragon to TEI.
All these ideas fail at the “show me the hardware” stage. A fully expended Starship V3 (hardware being assembled at Stargate) could launch Gateway, Orion, and Blue Moon Mk2 all in one go without refueling. All that hardware will likely be available by 2028.
Meanwhile, Isaacman was approved, the poor bastard.