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President Trump said he would name a new nominee for NASA administrator, just days before billionaire Jared Isaacman, who's a current pick and a close ally Elon Musk, was set to face planned Senate confirmation vote. He's been a Democratic donor in the past, Jarediagman has, and he's found support across swaths of the space industry and in Congress, though some lawmaker's voice concern over his close ties to Musk's SpaceX. We got with us Lauren Grush. He's Bloomberg News space reporter.
She's also the author of the six The Untold Story of America's first women Astrodout. She joins us from Austin, Texas. Lauren, we had you on when Isaacman was chosen. This is a guy who's actually been to space. He's a billionaire, he knows a lot about space. He's a fighter pilot. He's the CEO of SHIFT, or was at the time, not anymore, the CEO of SHIFT for payments. Just remind us, you know, what you spoke to us about just a
couple months ago when he was named NASA administrator. Just remind us who he is and what experience he would have brought to NASA.
Sure, I think when he was first announced there was a lot of enthusiasm across the space industry about his nomination just because of what you mentioned. He has a really long and lengthy resume that comes with, you know, in flight space experience. He also has a lot of opinions that he voices regularly about space policy on social media. He seemed to come to NASA the very clear vision of what he thought the agency should be doing, how
it should be spending its money more efficiently. You know, he had a lot of opinions about the inefficiencies of the contracting process within the agency, and a lot of people celebrated his nomination across the industry just because you know, he did such have that you know, very intricate pedigree when it came to Space and how to run the agency.
I do want to correct myself. I said he was CEO of shift for, but he was still CEO and this is actually part of the story. Taylor Lauber was actually set to start a CEO of shift for to take over for Isaac Menh. Now that's kind of influx emily after this nomination was pulled, Right.
What was Trump's rationale? What do we know about why he holds this nomination?
Right? Yeah, so the official line concerned. I think what Tim said earlier about his past donations to Democrats, what's and supposedly that was brought to the President's attention very recently, and the fact that you know, he gave more to Democrats and to say Republican donors seemed to be rubbing the president the wrong way, and ultimately he hinted that at that in his social post about why he had tould denomination, that he was looking for someone in more
alignment with the White House. I think what's confusing to a lot of people is that it was not a secret that Jared had donated to Democrats. In fact, this has been widely reported, so perhaps it is something that just caught the President's attention recently, or perhaps it's you know, the official line for something else, but that that is kind of where the White House is pointing to as to why this is happening.
Yeah, it's interesting to hear that. I mean, we're not going to talk politics here, Lauren, but I just do want to remind people that Robert F. Kennedy Junior, for example, actually ran against President Trump for the twenty twenty four presidency before he dropped out and aligned himself with the President. You've had people such as the President himself talked during the twenty sixteen election that he was he was asked about this, that he had donated to Democrats right in
the past. And so it's an interesting explanation that we're hearing, or a notable explanation that we're certainly hearing from the White House. But to me, Lauren, it differs than sort of other people that he staffed his cabinet with. It hasn't mattered to those folks. I mean, haven't the folks like having all these folks like this. A lot of the Silicon Valley folks who are supportive of the President now weren't supportive of him necessarily in the past right exactly.
You know, so there is some thought that perhaps this is kind of like the straw that broke the camel's back. You know, maybe too many people with democratic ties were making their way into the administration. But I think it's important to think of the el of it all for you know, it also comes at a time when Elon Musk is very publicly ending, you know, his time at h with the White House and his doge operation. And Jared Eagan was very much seen as an ally of
Elon's because he had such close ties to SpaceX. You know, He's flown twice with the company to space donated a lot of money or invested a lot of money into their research programs to further human spaceflight at the company. So Jared was very much seen as an Elon Musk ally. And so there is obviously a speculation that this was kind of related to Elon's exit. Now that he's on his way out the door, maybe some pushed for less ties, fewer ties to Elon in the White House.
Hey, Lauren, So you write that the White House is about face comes after President Trump released a budget plan that would call for slashing NASA's budget by twenty five five percent from the previous year. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit more just about like what are Trump's visions for NASA right now? What is NASA supposed to be doing in an ideal Trump world?
Right I think that's kind of the open question right now among the space community. The budget proposal that the White House is released would, if enacted, would be the largest single cut to the agency since the agency was created. It primarily targets space science programs, so it would cancel a lot of missions for planetary science, astrophysics, things of that nature. You know, a lot of the things that NASA has become famous for are being targeted in this
budget plan. At the same time, there is a much more renewed focus on human spaceflight with the budget, some money being given to start, you know, make sure we're we stay on the course for lunar exploration. The name humans back to the mooned through this, the Artemis program that NASA has created, and then also starting up development
into potentially sitting humans to Mars. So it seems like there is much more of a focus on funding human spacelight initiatives and a poolback on space science, which doesn't necessarily have humans on board when those happen. And I think that's a kind of a fundamental tension that the agency has grappled with for many decades, and it seems to be clear where this White House what line they fall on when it comes to that debate.
We're speaking with Lauren Grush. She's Bloomberg News Space reporter. She's also the author of The Six, The Untold Story of America's first women astronauts Joining us from Austin, Texas. Lauren, do we know what direction the president wants NASA to go in? Or the president? We don't? Do you know which direction the President will go in? Now that Isaac Men's name has been pulled? Are there any names being banded about at this point?
There's definitely names being banded about. I'm not sure I'm ready to say them publicly, but there's definitely a speculation on who would come next. I think what we can expect is that this White House is very keen on furthering the privatization of spaceflight and making it so that NASA helps to jumpstart the commercial space industry even more
than it already has. So NASA less being the ones to oversee development and to spend all the money on all these endeavors, but to partner with the commercial space industry and to you know, make help the vitalization or revitalization of the commercial space industry by helping companies get the money they need to jumpstart their various programs. I think the question becomes, though, you know, how long is it going to take for a new dominie to get named.
You know, they have to go through the entire Senate confirmation process. Again, we were on the cusp of that happening with Jared as I think, as you mentioned, it was expected that he was going to get confirmed by the full Senate today or at least as early as today, and so now we have to start from square one. They have to be vetted, they have to go through a hearing, and so when that person will be in charge of the agency as an open question. And then
during that time we're going through the typical budget process. Right, so there's going to be hearings and discussion among lawmakers about these major budget cuts that the White House has proposed. But NASA doesn't have a full time advocate, a political advocate. They have an acting administrator, Janet Petro, but that person has not been fully vetted. It's not her responsibility to really take up with the mantle of what the White House wants. So NASA is kind of lacking this leader
to really be an advocate for the agency. And so what that means for the budget process through the rest of the year is going to be interesting.
Maybe I am a naive in thinking that space should be or supposed to be bipartisan. I'm wondering, You've obviously followed the space for a while, is space becoming more politicized?
I think that is the concern for sure. You know, there's for a long time, Space has fairly benefitted for space policy has benefitted from being bipartisan. Everybody loves space. Democrats and Republicans alike love to, you know, have space initiatives in their districts and things like that. I think
everybody can rally behind space. But I think the concern is that, you know, with Elon's foray into politics, you know, he's obviously very closely aligned with SpaceX and NASA and now space policy, and so, you know, has that had a tarnishing effect on space? And you know, people who support space. I don't know if we're that far into
it yet. But that is the concern because once space has become politicized and it suffers from many of the other things that happened to very politicized topics, you know, and then it becomes less about you know, science and discovery and more about who supports what.
Lauren gonna have to leave it there. Always appreciate when you joined us, and we know we'll have you back on when they announced a new pick for NASA administrator, but hopefully before then as well. Lauren Grush Bloomberg News Space reporter. Check out her book The Six The untold story of America's first women astronauts.