Miles O’Brien:
Well, clearly, NASA will be heading into the commercial direction. There is no doubt about that.
Some of the unknowns are, what is Jared Isaacman’s thoughts, for example, on climate change? A big portfolio for NASA are Earth-observing satellites, which are used by scientists to measure the effects of the climate emergency. And he’s said precious little about that.
He did offer up one tweet not long ago where he said, it’s a false choice to say you have to make a choice between space exploration and fixing the climate on Earth. Beyond that, we don’t know much about that. The science mission of NASA is important. He has proposed a mission to use a SpaceX Starship to go and re-boost the Hubble space telescope, which NASA has rebuffed. That might change.
And then, ultimately, Geoff, he’s going to have to make a decision on whether to continue with that Boeing Starliner capsule, which brought Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the space station. Will it ever fly again for NASA? You could say there’s a conflict of interest here, given his close association with SpaceX and Elon Musk, given that that is the alternative to the Boeing spaceship.
So, lots of questions about how much Elon Musk will have a say in the space program. Clearly, his imprint will be all over it, one way or another, using Jared Isaacman in that role.
