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President Donald Trump hosting the Otomus two Astronauts of the White House this week, the visit coming nearly a month after that historic trip around the Moon.
I'm really pleased to say that.
In the studio here in New York City, the NASA Administrator Jared Isaac mund John, good.
Morning, going to see you. It's good morning. It's great to be here.
The pitches are Amazac. I understand it costs a lot of money. Can you explain to all of us what we actually achieved in the last month.
Well, I would consider that Artemist two is part of a much bigger plan. So President Trump, during his first term created the Artemist program, America's commitment to return to the Moon. My first day on the job, he signs a National Space policy that says, pick up where Apollo seventeen left off, return to the Moon, but go back to stay this time.
Build an enduring presidence, good luck.
Build a moon base, which I mean it's going to be a hub for scientific discovery, economic potential. Maybe we have a lunar economy someday, but it will be the technological proving ground for where.
We go next.
Choose Mars, so all part of a bigger plan. Artemis two is just the opening act.
In the period of time, we have changed space exploration a lot. We've introduced commercial space exploration. What does that mean for the role of NASA as we try to achieve these things.
It's interesting I get that question all the time because there are some new names. You have your SpaceX's and Blue origins that get everyone's attention. It's like, where does NASA fit in? I remind folks, you go back to the nineteen sixties. You had Boeing, yet McDonald douglas built the gem and E spacecraft. You had a Grummin that built the lander that put the astronauts on the Moon. Many of those players still exist today, but we have
some new and SpaceX Blue origin. NASA is at its best when we're doing the near impossible with no other agency, company, nation in the world is capable of accomplishing. And when we figure it out, if NASA can be one customer of many, we hand it off to industry and let competitive dynamics make it better.
Costs less. Launch is a great example.
Right now, dozens of companies brought down the costput mass in orbit, materially, NASA recalibrates. Like that picture you had on the screen, which was a nuclear powered spaceship, that's not something industry should be playing with. They don't need to mess around with highly enriched uranium launch you know, reactors over Earth. That's something that NASA is capable of doing. So we recalibrate again back to the near impossible.
The capabilities allow us to explore the outer Solis.
Just I think about the space race down back in the fifties and sixties and how much that put grants in all sorts of academic centers to try to get up new scientists, to get them into exactly that kind of thing. Is this kind of what we're replicating here?
Well, I like to think, and I just told this to Congress this past week, is every dollar you give us inherent in it is inspiration. So of course, the rockets, the rockets, the astronauts walking on the Moon, the explanes, the images that come back from James Webspace telescope or our rovers on Mars. But that's that's not enough, right, that's enough to spark the interest, you know, more kids dressing up as astronauts for Halloween. But we still have
a huge grant portfolio that goes out to university. We have a top internship program right now, we take the top one percent of internship applications. And what I like about our moon based program right now, we're going to have landers on the Moon on a near monthly cadence starting in early twenty twenty Sivean. We could raid the pantry at every NASA center for science instruments, there won't be enough.
So what does that mean?
There's kids in universities right now in the United States and across the world that are working on hardware that's going to be on the Moon in the years ahead.
There's an argument why focus on space when we have a lot of problems here on Earth to fix? Can you give us a sense of some of the scientific progress that's coming from some of these programs that has real world application beyond just necessarily hyperscalers on the moon?
Sure?
Well, I mean, first, we've been hearing this since the nineteen sixties too, And what I would say, it's a different, different budgetary environment now versus then. So nineteen sixties NASA is about four and a half percent of discretionary budget. We're about a quarter of a percentage now, So I.
Would argue we can do both.
We can make investments into a brighter future for the for the world we want our children to grow up and try and address some of the hardships, the affordability, the challenges of the world we live in today. And does it matter for sure? Inspiration is a price worth paying for the next generation to take us even farther scientific economic potential, I mean, we go to the moon.
What could a lunar economy look like someday? I mean, whether we are three D printing satellites like you described, or maybe we're mining helium three that could have quantum implications or futuresion or future fusion power, a source of future fusion power, not to mention to just look knowledge. I mean, what do we stand to learning game? We've only just begun this great adventure.
Can you achieve these goals with budget cuts? They're the questions you've faced all through the last few weeks.
Well, I guess, and I'll tell you the same thing I told Congress on that is, you can't just look at the president's FY twenty seven budget requests without taking it in combination with the historic ten billion dollar investment that came from the Working Family Tax Cut Act, that one big, beautiful bill, President Trump's signature legislation. You take that ten billion plus twenty six appropriations plus twenty seven what can we do.
We can go back to the moon. We can do it with frequency.
We can build the moon base, we can launch a giant nuclear powered interplanetary spaceship and do all.
The other things.
You've been to space, not once but twice, right, yes, sir. I don't have the imagination that you have about what this could be. When I hear things like data centers in space, I'm like, these guys are crazy. I just haven't flexed that muscle. I was never into sci fi. What could this be? What do you tell people? How imaginative do you need to be?
Well, let let me let me hit that on two points one? Where do you know what I What is my takeaway from coming back from space more twice? At this point we are at with respect to even exploring our Solar system, let alone the galaxy that you know, or the or the two trillion other galaxies out there. We're at the equivalency of hollowing out a log and using it to float across a pond like that is where we are at in this great adventure.
It is so early.
I mean, you have no idea where this is going to take us in years ahead, and then how do we get there? Well, a space economy sure would be great, because I don't think we're going to have that sci fi future we imagine with lots of space stations in orbital outposts and a Mars space if it's entirely paid for by the taxpayers. So I want data centers in space to work. Why not take advantage of a giant
fusion reactor that's already out there. I want, you know, I want to three I want us three D printing organs. I want us making cancer curing drugs in micro gravity. I want all that to come to fruition. We can't force it into existence at NASA, but we can do all we can to ignite it.
You know, when Jared walked into the studio, one of my first questions to him was, you've made lots of money, You've had this great successful life in private business. Why don't you want to go to complement I've never heard someone so excited in that jomb On gomplment.
He feels like you can make a difference.
I don't know. It's very exciting here.
I wish I could hear you talk for the rest of the hour, frankly, because to me, this is really the exciting stuff where we could actually innovate and find new places. Do we want to find aliens though? Do we actually want to find other life?
I don't think so.
Fers and the eye, No, I don't know.
This is the heart of what we do at NASA's to answer the question are we alone? Okay, I don't know how across two trillion galaxies that we are not. I when I have this conversation with a lot of folks and we ad missions out there.
Right, We're launched a.
Probe to Europa called Europa Clipper looking for biosignatures. We're launching a nuclear powered octicopter to Saturn's moon of Titan to look for biosignatures. And we have samples and tubes on Mars and if we bring those back, we put it in a better ninety percent chance.
To hint the bright life. And you know what farirasee theorists are going to say, they pulled the plug, they pulled the plugg would be he.
Was about to say it.
He was about to say it, Jared, thank you, sir, appreciate, thank you. Jered is the NASSA administrator,