I guess it could have been worse?
this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2024
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"A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one."
Isaacman would be probably one of the best results we could have hoped for, considering the upcoming administration.
a NASA analogue to RFKJr would have been a flat earther.
a flat earther
That would be hilarious. A terrible admin for NASA, but hilarious.
Edit: Although come to think of it, when he started out, Bridenstine was a climate change... not "denier", but was skeptical that the cause is anthropogenic. But to his credit, he changed his opinion when presented with new data, and turned out to be a pretty good NASA admin.
Who knows, maybe a flat-earther would surprise us! The timeline we're in is already so strange...
I am tentatively hopeful. It looks like he has some exposure to federal procurement via Draken. He doesn’t seem to be a shuddering asshole, which distinguishes him from a number of other potential appointees. As usual these days I would guess good for exploration, less good for other science. If the National Academies report is to be believed (and it should be) he’ll inherit a remarkable pile of infrastructure issues, a troubled Moon to Mars, and an increasingly disillusioned workforce. Should be enough to keep him busy, but they’re actually all issues that his experience could be relevant to… and it looks like he truly loves space, so that’s a huge positive.
So - more services contracts for sure. I’d look to see some really interesting hijinks from non-spaceX companies that are potentially about to get boxed out of NASA procurement; the existing fixed-price model seems to be something that only SpaceX can pull off, which is bad for competition. I’d look to see folks getting increasingly less excited about working at the agency - folks want to be rocket scientists, not contract managers. Curious to see if that’s a problem Issacson tries to tackle.