jared isaacman

NASA orders “controlled medical evacuation” from the International Space Station

commercial crew, crew dragon, crew-11, dragon, human spaceflight, international space station, jared isaacman, NASA, Science, Space, spacex / Kris Guyer / January 10, 2026

“The crew is highly trained, and they came to the aid of their colleague right away.”

The International Space Station orbits 260 miles (420 kilometers) above the Earth. Credit: NASA

NASA officials said Thursday they have decided to bring home four of the seven crew members on the International Space Station after one of them experienced a “medical situation” earlier this week.

The space agency has said little about the incident, and officials have not identified which crew member suffered the medical issue. James “JD” Polk, NASA’s chief health and medical officer, told reporters Thursday the crew member is “absolutely stable” but that the agency is “erring on the side of caution” with the decision to return the astronaut to Earth.

The ailing astronaut is part of the Crew-11 mission, which launched to the station August 1 and was slated to come back to Earth around February 20. Instead, the Crew-11 astronauts will depart the International Space Station (ISS) in the coming days and head for reentry and a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.

“After discussions with our chief health and medical officer, Dr. JD Polk, and leadership across the agency, I’ve come to the decision that it’s in the best interests of our astronauts to return Crew-11 ahead of their planned departure,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said Thursday.

The Crew-11 mission is led by commander Zena Cardman, 38, who is wrapping up her first mission to space. Second in command is pilot Mike Fincke, a 58-year-old astronaut on his fourth spaceflight. Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, 55, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, 39, round out the crew.

Isaacman said NASA will release more information about the schedule for Crew-11’s undocking and reentry within the next 48 hours. The crew will come home aboard the same SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft they launched in more than five months ago. The entire crew must return to Earth together because they rely on the same Dragon spacecraft as a lifeboat.

“For over 60 years, NASA has set the standard for safety and security in crewed spaceflight,” Isaacman said. “In these endeavors, including the 25 years of continuous human presence onboard the International Space Station, the health and well-being of our astronauts is always and will be our highest priority.”

From left to right: Crew-11 mission specialist Oleg Platonov, pilot Mike Fincke, commander Zena Cardman, and mission specialist Kimiya Yui. This photo was taken during training at SpaceX’s facility in Hawthorne, California. Credit: SpaceX

Lingering risk

Polk, a physician who has served as NASA’s chief medical officer since 2016, said the agency is not ready to release details about the medical issue, citing privacy concerns. “I’m not going to speak about any particular astronaut or any particular specific diagnosis,” Polk said. “I’d ask that we still respect the privacy of the astronaut.”

Two of the Crew-11 astronauts, Cardman and Fincke, were preparing to head outside the space station on a spacewalk early Thursday. Spacewalk preps at the space station include a period of time breathing high concentrations of oxygen to purge nitrogen from the astronauts’ bloodstreams, a mitigation to avoid decompression sickness when crew members are sealed inside their spacesuits’ pure oxygen atmosphere.

Polk said whatever happened Wednesday “had nothing to do” with preparing for the spacewalk. “This was totally unrelated to any operations onboard,” he said. “It’s mostly having a medical issue in the difficult areas of microgravity with the suite of hardware that we have at our avail to complete a diagnosis.”

Yui radioed mission controllers in Houston on Wednesday afternoon requesting a private medical conference with a flight surgeon, then asked ground teams to turn on camera views inside the station ahead of the session. Medical sessions are carried out on private radio channels and are not heard on the regular communication loops between the space station and mission control. Those open loops are streamed around the clock online, but NASA removed the audio feed from YouTube soon after the crew asked for the medical conference.

NASA publicly revealed a medical concern with one of the astronauts later Wednesday afternoon, then announced late Wednesday night that officials were considering bringing the crew home early.

“I won’t go into specific details about the medical incident itself,” Polk said. “But the crew is highly trained, and they came to the aid of their colleague right away, and that’s part of why we do that training.”

The space station is stocked with medical gear and medications to help astronauts respond to emergencies. Crew members are trained to perform ultrasounds, defibrillate patients, and start IVs, among other things. The medical treatment available on the ISS is akin to what an EMT might provide in transit to a hospital, former astronaut Tom Marshburn, himself a medical doctor, said in 2021.

“We have a very robust suite of medical hardware onboard the International Space Station, but we don’t have the complete amount of hardware that I would have in the emergency department, for example, to complete the workup of a patient,” Polk said.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, associate administrator Amit Kshatriya, and chief medical officer James “JD” Polk brief reporters on the status of the Crew-11 mission Thursday. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

Space station managers will take a few days to determine when the Dragon spacecraft will leave the station. SpaceX will dispatch a recovery ship from Southern California to sail for the splashdown zone in the Pacific, and officials will assess weather and sea conditions before selecting the best opportunity to depart the station. Like every crew return, the vessel will be staffed with medical personnel to examine the astronauts after exiting from the Dragon capsule.

“Because the astronaut is absolutely stable, this is not an emergent evacuation,” Polk said. “We’re not immediately disembarking and getting the astronaut down.”

But without a confirmed diagnosis of the astronaut’s medical issue, there’s some “lingering risk” for the astronaut’s health if they remained in orbit, Polk said. That’s why Isaacman and his deputies agreed to call an early end to the Crew-11 mission.

This was the most significant decision of Isaacman’s young tenure as NASA administrator. He was sworn in as NASA chief last month after clearing a confirmation vote in the Senate. Before taking the helm at NASA, Isaacman charted a career as an entrepreneur and private astronaut, flying to space twice on commercial missions with SpaceX.

An inevitability

After Crew-11’s departure, the space station will operate with a smaller crew of three until the arrival of SpaceX’s Crew-12 mission with a fresh team of astronauts next month. Isaacman said NASA and SpaceX are looking at options to move up the launch of Crew-12 from its current target date of February 15.

Until then, the station’s crew will consist of NASA astronaut Chris Williams and two Russian cosmonauts, who launched to the space station in November on a Russian Soyuz vehicle. Williams and his crewmates—Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Mikayev—have their own lifeboat in the Soyuz spacecraft, so they will still have a ride home in the event of a future emergency.

The space station regularly operated with just three crew members for the first decade of its existence. The complex has been permanently staffed since 2000, sometimes with as few as two astronauts or cosmonauts. The standard crew size was raised to six in 2009, then to seven in 2020.

NASA astronaut Zena Cardman works with a spacesuit helmet inside the International Space Station’s airlock. Credit: NASA

Williams will be solely responsible for overseeing the lab’s US segment until Crew-12 arrives. He will be busy keeping up with maintenance tasks, so managers will likely defer some of the station’s scientific investigations until the complex is back to a full crew.

The early departure of Crew-11, leaving Williams as the only US astronaut aboard, also means NASA will be unable to perform spacewalks. This will mean a “slightly elevated risk” in NASA’s ability to respond to a major hardware failure that might require a spacewalk to fix, said Amit Kshatriya, the agency’s associate administrator.

NASA and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, inked an agreement in 2022 to fly multinational crews on Dragon and Soyuz missions to ensure an American and a Russian are always at the space station. The so-called “seat swap” deal is proving worthwhile with this week’s events.

NASA has never before cut short a human spaceflight mission for medical reasons. “It’s the first time we’ve done a controlled medical evacuation from the vehicle, so that is unusual,” Kshatriya said.

The Soviet Union called an early end for an expedition to the Salyut 7 space station in 1985 after the mission’s commander fell ill in orbit.

In a sense, it is surprising that it took this long. Polk said predictive models suggested the ISS would have a medical evacuation about once every three years. It ended up taking 25 years. In that time, NASA has improved astronauts’ abilities to treat aches and pains, minor injuries, and routine illnesses.

Crews in orbit can now self-treat ailments that might have prompted a crew to return to Earth in the past. One astronaut was diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis, or a blood clot, in 2018 without requiring an early departure from the space station. Another astronaut suffered a pinched nerve in 2021 and remained in orbit for another seven months.

One of the more compelling reasons for the space station’s existence is its ability to act as a testbed for learning how to live and work off the planet. The station has served as a laboratory for studying how spaceflight affects the human body, and as a platform to test life support systems necessary for long-duration voyages to deep space.

“We are doing all this to continue to learn,” Isaacman said. “We will absolutely learn from this situation as well, to see if that informs our future on-orbit operations, whether that be on the space station or our future lunar base that we’re pursuing right now, and eventually for deep space missions to Mars.”

Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

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Is Orion’s heat shield really safe? New NASA chief conducts final review on eve of flight.

Features, heat shield, jared isaacman, NASA, orion, Space / Mike M. / January 9, 2026

“That level of openness and transparency is exactly what should be expected of NASA.”

The Orion heat shield as seen after the Artemis I flight. Credit: NASA

WASHINGTON, DC—This week, NASA’s new administrator, Jared Isaacman, said he has “full confidence” in the space agency’s plans to use the existing heat shield to protect the Orion spacecraft during its upcoming lunar mission.

Isaacman made the determination after briefings with senior leaders at the agency and a half-day review of NASA’s findings with outside experts.

“We have full confidence in the Orion spacecraft and its heat shield, grounded in rigorous analysis and the work of exceptional engineers who followed the data throughout the process,” Isaacman said Thursday.

Isaacman has previously indicated that reviewing the heat shield issue early in his tenure, especially with the Artemis II mission due to launch in as few as four weeks, was a top priority. He met with senior agency officials about the matter within hours of being sworn in on December 18.

The private astronaut and billionaire entrepreneur has also said there should be more public transparency at NASA.

Following the Artemis I mission in November 2022, NASA was roundly criticized for its opaque handling of damage to Orion’s heat shield. The seriousness of the problem was not disclosed for nearly a year and a half after the Artemis I mission, when NASA’s Inspector General finally published close-up images of char loss—chunks of ablative material at Orion’s base that were intended to protect the spacecraft during its return but had fallen away.

To address these concerns, NASA tapped an “independent review team” in April 2024 to assess the agency’s investigation of the heat shield. This group’s findings were finalized in December 2024, at which time NASA formally decided to fly the Artemis II mission with the existing heat shield. Although NASA held a news conference to discuss its conclusions, a publicly released copy of the independent review team’s report was heavily redacted, creating further doubt about the integrity of the process. Some notable critics assailed NASA’s decision to fly on the heat shield as is and decried the ongoing lack of transparency.

That is more or less where the matter stood until a few days before Christmas, when Isaacman officially became NASA administrator.

Transparency for the taxpayer

After taking the job in Washington, DC, Isaacman asked the engineers who investigated the heat shield issue for NASA, as well as the chair of the independent review team and senior human spaceflight officials, to meet with a handful of outside experts. These included former NASA astronauts Charles Camarda and Danny Olivas, both of whom have expertise in heat shields and had expressed concerns about the agency’s decision-making.

For the sake of transparency, Isaacman also invited two reporters to sit in on the meeting, me and Micah Maidenberg of The Wall Street Journal. We were allowed to report on the discussions without directly quoting participants for the sake of a full and open discussion.

The inspector general’s report, released on May 1, 2024, included new images of Orion’s heat shield. Credit: NASA Inspector General

Convened in a ninth-floor conference room at NASA Headquarters known as the Program Review Center, the meeting lasted for more than three hours. Isaacman attended much of it, though he stepped out from time to time to handle an ongoing crisis involving an unwell astronaut on orbit. He was flanked by the agency’s associate administrator, Amit Kshatriya; the agency’s chief of staff, Jackie Jester; and Lori Glaze, the acting associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. The heat shield experts joined virtually from Houston, along with Orion Program Manager Howard Hu.

Isaacman made it clear at the outset that, after reviewing the data and discussing the matter with NASA engineers, he accepted the agency’s decision to fly Artemis II as planned. The team had his full confidence, and he hoped that by making the same experts available to Camarda and Olivas, it would ease some of their concerns.

What followed was a spirited discussion, with Camarda sparring regularly with the presenters and Olivas asking questions more infrequently. The engineering team in Houston, led by Luis Saucedo, went through dozens of charts and presented reams of data that had not been made public before.

“That level of openness and transparency is exactly what should be expected of NASA,” Isaacman said after the meeting.

“What if we’re wrong?”

Perhaps the most striking revelation was what the NASA engineers called “what if we’re wrong” testing.

At the base of Orion, there are 186 blocks of a material called Avcoat, individually attached to provide a protective layer that allows the spacecraft to survive the heating of atmospheric reentry. Returning from the Moon, Orion encounters temperatures of up to 5,000° Fahrenheit (2,760° Celsius). A char layer that builds up on the outer skin of the Avcoat material is supposed to ablate, or erode, in a predictable manner during reentry. Instead, during Artemis I, fragments fell off the heat shield and left cavities in the Avcoat material.

Work by Saucedo and others—including substantial testing in ground facilities, wind tunnels, and high-temperature arc jet chambers—allowed engineers to find the cause of gases becoming trapped in the heat shield, leading to cracking. This was due to the Avcoat material being “impermeable,” essentially meaning it could not breathe.

After considering several options, including swapping the heat shield out for a newer one with more permeable Avcoat, NASA decided instead to change Orion’s reentry profile. For Artemis II, it would return through Earth’s atmosphere at a steeper angle, spending fewer minutes in the environment where this outgassing occurred during Artemis I. Much of Thursday’s meeting involved details about how the agency reached this conclusion and why the engineers deemed the approach safe.

A test block of Avcoat undergoes heat pulse testing inside an arc jet test chamber at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California. The test article, configured with both permeable (upper) and non-permeable (lower) Avcoat sections for comparison, helped to confirm an understanding of the root cause of the loss of charred Avcoat material on Artemis I. Credit: NASA

However, toward the end of the meeting, the NASA team agreed to discuss something that “no one really liked to talk about.” This was an analysis of what would happen to Orion if large sections of the heat shield failed completely during Artemis II. Formally, this is known as a “damage tolerance evaluation,” the engineers said. Informally, it’s known as “What if we’re wrong.”

The Avcoat blocks, which are about 1.5 inches thick, are laminated onto a thick composite base of the Orion spacecraft. Inside this is a titanium framework that carries the load of the vehicle. The NASA engineers wanted to understand what would happen if large chunks of the heat shield were stripped away entirely from the composite base of Orion. So they subjected this base material to high energies for periods of 10 seconds up to 10 minutes, which is longer than the period of heating Artemis II will experience during reentry.

What they found is that, in the event of such a failure, the structure of Orion would remain solid, the crew would be safe within, and the vehicle could still land in a water-tight manner in the Pacific Ocean.

“We have the data to say, on our worst day, we’re able to deal with that if we got to that point,” one of the NASA engineers said.

Getting to “flight rationale”

The composite layer beneath the heat shield is intended to withstand a maximum temperature of 500° F during reentry. During Artemis I, the maximum temperature recorded, despite the persistent cracking and char loss, was 160°. So any crew on board would have been safe. Even so, the heat shield damage was a serious concern because the agency’s modeling did not predict it.

After more than two years of testing and analysis of the char loss issue, the NASA engineers are convinced that, by increasing the angle of Orion’s descent during Artemis II, they can minimize damage to the heat shield. During Artemis I, as the vehicle descended from about 400,000 to 100,000 feet, it was under a “heat load” of various levels for 14 minutes. With Artemis II, this time will be reduced to eight minutes.

Orion’s entry profile will be similar for the first two and a half minutes, but afterward, the Artemis II entry will undertake a bit of a higher heat load than Artemis I for a couple of minutes. All of the agency’s modeling and extensive arc jet testing indicate this will produce significantly less cracking in the Avcoat material.

Much of the discussion Thursday delved into the technical minutiae of heat shields, tamp planes (the process of packing Avcoat into blocks), early char loss, spallation, and more. The discourse also revealed that one test in 2019, three years before Artemis I, indicated hints of the char loss later observed in flight. But this finding was not unequivocal, nor did it throw up a huge red flag at the time, the NASA officials said.

Technicians inspect the heat shield for the Artemis II launch. Credit: NASA

The message from Isaacman, Kshatriya, and other NASA officials at the meeting was clear. This heat shield was not perfect. If NASA knew several years ago what it knows now, the heat shield would be designed differently. It would be permeable to prevent the outgassing problems. Those changes are being incorporated into the Artemis III mission’s heat shield. There will be other tweaks to increase reliability.

Nevertheless, the agency is confident that flying the Artemis II heat shield on the revised profile is perfectly safe. In NASA jargon, such a rigorous justification that a space mission is safe to fly is known as flight rationale.

But why get to flight rationale at all? About 18 months ago, as the agency was narrowing in on the root cause of the heat shield issues, NASA’s leaders at the time, including Kshatriya, considered their options. They mulled the possibility of flying Artemis II in low-Earth orbit to test its life support equipment but not overly stress the heat shield. They thought about flying a second robotic mission around the Moon.

Perhaps most seriously, they considered moving forward with the Orion spacecraft (or at least its heat shield) that will be flown in Artemis III, which has permeable Avcoat, to be used for this mission. I asked Kshatriya on Thursday why they had not simply done this.

“We had considered ‘let’s just pull forward CSM 3 (the Artemis III spacecraft),’” he said, in part. “and essentially turn CSM 2 (Artemis II) either into a test article or something else. Again, CSM 3 has unique capabilities, docking systems on it, right? We didn’t have a docking mode for that mission (Artemis II). CSM 2 could not be retrofitted with the docking system because of the uniqueness of the tunnel. Really, CSM 2 is kind of uniquely a free return vehicle because of the way it was designed initially. So the mods that would have had to be made for (Artemis) II and III to do that swap would have been too odious, and we wouldn’t have gotten the learnings. And, you know, we’re trying to get up hill as quickly as we can.”

Given all of this, how should we feel about this flight rationale, with Artemis II potentially launching in early February?

Over the last 18 months, I have had many discussions with experts about this, from mid-level engineers and current and former astronauts to senior leaders. I know definitively that the four Artemis II astronauts, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen, are comfortable with the decision. They did not feel that way at the beginning of the process. Wiseman, in particular, was quite skeptical. But they’ve been won over. Like almost everyone else who has reviewed NASA’s data at length, they accept the plan. Indeed, they are ready and eager to fly.

But what of the outside critics? That was the whole point of Thursday’s session. Could the NASA engineers convince Olivas and Camarda?

Yes, and maybe

Olivas flew two Space Shuttle missions in 2007 and 2009 and has an advanced degree in materials science from Rice University. Before this week’s meeting, he had not gone public with his heat shield concerns. But he has been talking to me and another space reporter, Robert Pearlman, for about a month now.

Olivas is very credible on these issues. He was asked by the NASA leadership in late 2023, before the independent review team was formally named, to provide a second set of eyes on the space agency’s heat shield work. He saw all of the investigative data in real time. Although not formally a member, he sat in on the review team’s meetings through 2024 before that process ended. Afterward, he had some lingering questions he felt were unresolved by that process. A few weeks ago, he told Pearlman and me he would be reluctant to fly on Orion. It was a stunning admission.

Isaacman appeared to take these concerns seriously. In advance of Thursday’s meeting, he engaged with Olivas to hear him out and share information about what NASA’s engineers had done over the last 18 months to resolve some of the independent review team’s questions. These included char loss very early in Orion’s reentry.

After Thursday’s meeting, Olivas told me he had changed his mind, expressing appreciation and admiration for the in-depth engineering work done by the NASA team. He would now fly on Orion.

Camarda, another former shuttle astronaut, was less effusive. He has been very public with his criticism of NASA’s handling of the Orion heat shield. He told me in December 2024 that the space agency and its leadership team should be “ashamed.” Unlike Olivas, however, he has been on the outside the whole time. NASA had kept Camarda, 73, at arm’s length, and he felt disrespected. Given his credentials—the aerospace engineer spent two decades working on thermal protection for the space shuttle and hypersonic vehicles–Camarda could be a potent voice of skepticism leading up to the Artemis II launch.

After the meeting, I asked Camarda whether he felt any better about flying crew on the Artemis II heat shield.

“I would never be happy accepting a workaround and flying something that I know is the worst version of that heat shield we could possibly fly and hoping that the workaround is going to fix it,” Camarda said. “What I really hope he [Isaacman] gets is that if we don’t get back to doing research at NASA, we’re not going to be able to help Starship solve their problems. We’ve got to get back to doing research.”

But Camarda was no longer the firebrand he was at the outset of the meeting. Near its end, in fact, he even thanked the leadership team for being brought in, read in on the data, and allowed to have his say.

Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston.

Is Orion’s heat shield really safe? New NASA chief conducts final review on eve of flight. Read More »

Jared Isaacman speaks out, and it’s clear that NASA lost a visionary leader

jared isaacman, NASA, Space / Tim Belzer / June 5, 2025

“There’s enough hardware now to fly a couple of missions and make sure you beat China back to the Moon,” he said. “But you can’t be stuck on this forever. This is literally the equivalency, by the way, of taking P-51 Mustangs [a fighter aircraft] from World War II and using them in Desert Storm, because we got to keep the plants open. And that obviously makes no logical sense whatsoever.”

On his de-nomination

Isaacman said he is, politically, a moderate, although he leans right. He supports Trump’s desire to cut alleged waste and fraud from the US government, and that is what he intended to do at NASA. He also did not blame Trump for his departure, saying that a president makes a thousand decisions a day, often with a few seconds of information.

He also said he enjoyed the Senate confirmation process, which allowed him to candidly discuss his positions on NASA with individual US senators.

As for why he was removed, Isaacman said the following: “I had a pretty good idea, I don’t think the timing was much of a coincidence,” he said. “Obviously, there was more than one departure that was covered on that day.”

The phone call to Isaacman saying his nomination was being pulled came the same day that SpaceX founder Elon Musk left his position as a special advisor to the president. Musk had been supportive of Isaacman’s nomination. However, in his time running the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk had made enemies within the US government.

“There were some people who had some axes to grind, and I was a good, visible target,” Isaacman said. “I want to be overwhelmingly clear: I don’t fault the president.”

Although Isaacman did not name anyone, multiple sources have told Ars that it was Sergio Gor, an official in the White House Presidential Personnel Office, who moved against Isaacman after Musk left the White House. Gor was irked by Musk’s failure to consult him and other personnel officials on some decisions.

As a result of what appears to be political pettiness, NASA lost a visionary leader who had the potential to lead the space agency into the middle of the 21st century at a time when an aging agency needs to modernize. If you listen to him, losing that potential in such a way is downright painful. It’s a damn shame.

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NASA nominee asks why lunar return has taken so long, and why it costs so much

jared isaacman, NASA, Space / Rejus Almole / April 10, 2025

WASHINGTON, DC—Over the course of a nearly three-hour committee hearing Wednesday, the nominee to lead NASA for the Trump administration faced difficult questions from US senators who sought commitments to specific projects.

However, maneuvering like a pilot with more than 7,000 hours in jets and ex-military aircraft, entrepreneur and private astronaut Jared Isaacman dodged most of their questions and would not be pinned down. His basic message to members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation was that NASA is an exceptional agency that does the impossible, but that it also faces some challenges. NASA, he said, receives an “extraordinary” budget, and he vowed to put taxpayer dollars to efficient use in exploring the universe and retaining the nation’s lead on geopolitical competitors in space.

“I have lived the American dream, and I owe this nation a great debt,” said Isaacman, who founded his first business at 16 in his parents’ basement and would go on to found an online payments company, Shift4, that would make him a billionaire. Isaacman is also an avid pilot who self-funded and led two private missions to orbit on Crew Dragon. Leading NASA would be “the privilege of a lifetime,” he said.

The hearing took place in the Russell Senate Office building next to the US Capitol on Wednesday morning, in an expansive room with marbled columns and three large chandeliers. There was plenty of spaceflight royalty on hand, including the four astronauts who will fly on the Artemis II mission, as well as the six private citizens who flew with Isaacman on his two Dragon missions.

“This may be the most badass assemblage we’ve had at a Senate hearing,” said US Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, chair of the committee, commenting on the astronauts in the room.

Committed to staying at the Moon?

However, when the meeting got down to brass tacks, there were sharp questions for Isaacman.

Cruz opened the hearing by stating his priorities for NASA clearly and explicitly: He is most focused on ensuring the United States does not cede any of its preeminence to China in space, and this starts with low-Earth orbit and the Moon.

“Make no mistake, the Chinese Communist Party has been explicit in its desire to dominate space, putting a fully functional space station in low-Earth orbit and robotic rovers on the far side of the Moon,” he said. “We are not headed for the next space race; it is already here.”

Cruz wanted Isaacman to commit to not just flying human missions to the Moon, but also to a sustained presence on the surface or in cislunar space.

In response, Isaacman said he would see that NASA returns humans to the Moon as quickly as possible, beating China in the process. This includes flying Artemis II around the Moon in 2026, and then landing the Artemis III mission later this decade.

The disagreement came over what to do after this. Isaacman, echoing the Trump administration, said the agency should also press onward, sending humans to Mars as soon as possible. Cruz, however, wanted Isaacman to say NASA would establish a sustained presence at the Moon. The committee has written authorizing legislation to mandate this, Cruz reminded Isaacman.

“If that’s the law, then I am committed to it,” Isaacman said.

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, left, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen watch as Jared Isaacman testifies on Wednesday. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Cruz also sought Isaacman’s commitment to flying the International Space Station through at least 2030, which is the space agency’s current date for retiring the orbital laboratory. Isaacman said that seemed reasonable and added that NASA should squeeze every possible bit of research out of it until then. However, when Cruz pressed Isaacman about the Lunar Gateway, a space station NASA is developing to fly in an elliptical orbit around the Moon, Isaacman would not be drawn in. He replied that he would work with Congress and space agency officials to determine which programs are working and which ones are not.

The Gateway is a program championed by Cruz since it is managed by Johnson Space Center in Texas. Parochial interests aside, a lot of space community stakeholders question the value of the Gateway to NASA’s exploration plans.

Ten centers and the future of SLS

One of the most tense interactions came between Isaacman and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., who wanted commitments from Isaacman that he would not close any of NASA’s 10 field centers, and also that the space agency would fly the Artemis II and Artemis III missions on the Space Launch System rocket.

Regarding field centers, there has been discussion about making the space agency more efficient by closing some of them. This is a politically sensitive topic, and naturally, politicians from states where those centers are located are protective of them. At the same time, there is a general recognition that it would be more cost-effective for NASA to consolidate its operations as part of modernization.

Isaacman did not answer Cantwell’s question about field centers directly. Rather, he said he had not been fully briefed on the administration’s plans for NASA’s structure. “Senator, there’s only so much I can be briefed on in advance of a hearing,” he said. In response to further prodding, Isaacman said, “I fully expect to roll up my sleeves” when it came to ideas to restructure NASA.

Cantwell and other Senators pressed Isaacman on plans to use NASA’s Space Launch System rocket as part of the overall plan to get astronauts to the lunar surface. Isaacman sounded as if he were on board with flying the Artemis II as envisioned—no surprise, then, that this crew was in the audience—and said he wanted to get a crew of Artemis III to the lunar surface as quickly as possible. But he questioned why it has taken NASA so long, and at such great expense, to get its deep space human exploration plans moving.

He noted, correctly, that presidential administrations dating back to 1989 have been releasing plans for sending humans to the Moon or Mars, and that significantly more than $100 billion has been spent on various projects over nearly four decades. For all of that, Isaacman and his private Polaris Dawn crewmates remain the humans to have flown the farthest from Earth since the Apollo Program. They did so last year.

“Why is it taking us so long, and why is it costing us so much to go to the Moon?” he asked.

In one notable exchange, Isaacman said NASA’s current architecture for the Artemis lunar plans, based on the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, is probably not the ideal “long-term” solution to NASA’s deep space transportation plans. The smart reading of this is that Isaacman may be willing to fly the Artemis II and Artemis III missions as conceived, given that much of the hardware is already built. But everything that comes after this, including SLS rocket upgrades and the Lunar Gateway, could be on the chopping block. Ars wrote more about why this is a reasonable path forward last September.

Untangling a relationship with SpaceX

Some of the most intelligent questions came from US Sen. Andy Kim, D-New Jersey. During his time allotment, Kim also pressed Isaacman on the question of a sustained presence on the Moon. Isaacman responded that it was critical for NASA to get astronauts on the Moon, along with robotic missions, to determine the “economic, scientific, and national security value” of the Moon. With this information, he said, NASA will be better positioned to determine whether and why it should have an enduring presence on the Moon.

If this were so, Kim subsequently asked what the economic, scientific, and national security value of sending humans to Mars was. Not responding directly to this question, Isaacman reiterated that NASA should do both Moon and Mars exploration in parallel. NASA will need to become much more efficient to afford that, and some of the US Senators appeared skeptical. But Isaacman seems to truly believe this and wants to take a stab at making NASA more cost-effective and “mission focused.”

Throughout the hearing, Isaacman appeared to win the approval of various senators with his repeated remarks that he was committed to NASA’s science programs and that he was eager to help NASA uphold its reputation for making the impossible possible. He also said it is a “fundamental” obligation of the space agency to inspire the next generation of scientists.

A challenging moment came during questioning from Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who expressed his concern about Isaacman’s relationship to SpaceX founder Elon Musk. Isaacman was previously an investor in SpaceX and has paid for two Dragon missions. In a letter written in March, Isaacman explained how he would disentangle his “actual and apparent” conflicts of interest with SpaceX.

However, Markey wanted to know if Isaacman would be pulling levers at NASA for Musk, and for the financial benefit of SpaceX. Markey pressed multiple times on whether Musk was in the room at Mar-A-Lago late last year when Trump offered Isaacman the position of NASA administrator. Isaacman declined to say, reiterating multiple times that his meeting was with Trump, not anyone else. Asked if he had discussed his plans for NASA with Musk, Isaacman said, “I have not.”

Earlier in the hearing, Isaacman sought to make clear that he was not beholden to Musk in any way.

“My loyalty is to this nation, the space agency, and its world-changing mission,” Isaacman said. Yes, he acknowledged he would talk to contractors for the space agency. It is important to draw on a broad range of perspectives, Isaacman said. But he wanted to make this clear: NASA works for the nation, and the contractors, he added, “work for us.”

A full committee vote on Isaacman is expected later this month after April 15, and if successful, the nomination would pass to the full Senate. Isaacman could be confirmed late this month or in May.

NASA nominee asks why lunar return has taken so long, and why it costs so much Read More »

Momentum seems to be building for Jared Isaacman to become NASA administrator

jared isaacman, Space / Paul Patrick / March 26, 2025

With the vast majority of President Donald Trump’s cabinet members now approved by the US Senate, focus is turning to senior positions within the administration that are just below the cabinet level.

The administrator of NASA is among the most high-profile of these positions. Nearly four months ago Trump nominated private astronaut Jared Isaacman to become chief of the space agency, but he has yet to receive a hearing before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

Almost immediately after his nomination, much of the space community fell in behind Isaacman, who has flown to space twice on private Crew Dragon missions, raised charitable funds, and is generally well-liked. Since then, Isaacman has worked to build support for his candidacy through conversations with people in the space community and officeholders.

However, publicly, not much has happened. This has raised questions within the space community about whether the nomination has stalled. Although some people have expressed concern about financial ties between Isaacman and SpaceX, according to multiple sources, the primary obstacle has been Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who chairs the Senate committee.

Cruz is not happy that Isaacman has donated to Democrats in the past, and he is concerned that the private astronaut is more interested in Mars exploration than the Moon. Cruz also did not appreciate Elon Musk’s call to end the life of the International Space Station early. The station is operated by NASA’s field center, Johnson Space Center, in Houston, where Cruz lives.

Nomination on track

Nevertheless, despite the slower pace, people familiar with the nomination process say Isaacman’s candidacy remains on track. And recently, there have been some public announcements that support this notion.

In early March, the governors of several southern US states, including Florida and Texas, sent a letter to Cruz expressing “strong support” for the swift confirmation of Isaacman. A notable absence from this letter was the governor of Alabama, Kay Ivey, where NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center is located. However, she also recently sent Cruz a letter praising Isaacman, calling him an “exceptional selection” to lead NASA. It is notable that the governors of all the US states with major human spaceflight activities have now lined up behind Isaacman.

Momentum seems to be building for Jared Isaacman to become NASA administrator Read More »

NASA nominee previews his vision for the agency: Mars, hard work, inspiration

jared isaacman, NASA, Space / Paul Patrick / February 17, 2025

“When I see a picture like this, it is impossible not to feel energized about the future,” he wrote. “I think it is so important for people to understand the profound implications of sending humans to another planet.”

Among these, Isaacman cited the benefits of advancing state-of-the-art technologies including propulsion, habitability, power generation, in-situ resource utilization, and manufacturing.

“We will create systems, countermeasures, and pharmaceuticals to sustain human life in extreme conditions, addressing challenges like radiation and microgravity over extended durations,” he said. “These advancements will form the foundation for lower-cost, more frequent crewed and robotic missions across the solar system, creating a flywheel effect to accelerate world-changing discoveries.”

Additionally, Isaacman said taking the first steps toward humanity living beyond Earth was critical to the long-term survival of the species, and that such an achievement would inspire a new generation of scientific and technological leaders.

“Achieving such an outrageous endeavor—like landing American astronauts on another planet—will inspire generations of dreamers to build upon these accomplishments, set even bolder goals, and drive humankind’s greatest adventure forward,” he wrote.

Upon being asked about his thoughts about sending humans to Mars during the launch window in late 2028 or early 2029, Isaacman said he remains on the outside of NASA’s planning process for now. But he did say the United States should start to put serious effort toward sending humans to Mars.

“We should invest a reasonable amount of resources coupled with extreme work intensity and then make them a reality,” he wrote. “Even getting 90% there in the near term would set humankind on an incredible trajectory for the long term.”

NASA nominee previews his vision for the agency: Mars, hard work, inspiration Read More »

Concern about SpaceX influence at NASA grows with new appointee

jared isaacman, NASA, Space, spacex / Kris Guyer / February 3, 2025

Like a lot of the rest of the federal government right now, NASA is reeling during the first turbulent days of the Trump administration.

The last two weeks have brought a change in leadership in the form of interim administrator Janet Petro, whose ascension was a surprise. Her first act was to tell agency employees to remove diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility contracts and to “report” on anyone who did not carry out this order. Soon, civil servants began receiving emails from the US Office of Personnel Management that some perceived as an effort to push them to resign.

Then there are the actions of SpaceX founder Elon Musk. Last week he sowed doubt by claiming NASA had “stranded” astronauts on the space station. (The astronauts are perfectly safe and have a ride home.) Perhaps more importantly, he owns the space agency’s most important contractor and, in recent weeks, has become deeply enmeshed in operating the US government through his Department of Government Efficiency. For some NASA employees, whether or not it is true, there is now an uncomfortable sense that they are working for Musk and to dole out contracts to SpaceX.

This concern was heightened late Friday when Petro announced that a longtime SpaceX employee named Michael Altenhofen had joined the agency “as a senior advisor to the NASA Administrator.” Altenhofen is an accomplished engineer who interned at NASA in 2005 but has spent the last 15 years at SpaceX, most recently as a leader of human spaceflight programs. He certainly brings expertise, but his hiring also raises concerns about SpaceX’s influence over NASA operations. Petro did not respond to a request for comment on Monday about potential conflicts of interest and the scope of Altenhofen’s involvement.

I spent this weekend talking and texting with NASA sources at various centers around the country, and the overriding message is that morale at the agency is “absurdly low.” Meetings between civil servants and their leadership, such as an all-hands gathering at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia recently, have been fraught with tension. No one knows what will happen next.

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How did the CEO of an online payments firm become the nominee to lead NASA?

Features, jared isaacman, NASA, Science, Space / Kris Guyer / December 5, 2024

Expect significant changes for America’s space agency.

Jared Isaacman at SpaceX Headquarters in Hawthorne, California. Credit: SpaceX

President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday his intent to nominate entrepreneur and commercial astronaut Jared Isaacman as the next administrator of NASA.

For those unfamiliar with Isaacman, who at just 16 years old founded a payment processing company in his parents’ basement that ultimately became a major player in online payments, it may seem an odd choice. However, those inside the space community welcomed the news, with figures across the political spectrum hailing Isaacman’s nomination variously as “terrific,” “ideal,” and “inspiring.”

This statement from Isaac Arthur, president of the National Space Society, is characteristic of the response: “Jared is a remarkable individual and a perfect pick for NASA Administrator. He brings a wealth of experience in entrepreneurial enterprise as well as unique knowledge in working with both NASA and SpaceX, a perfect combination as we enter a new era of increased cooperation between NASA and commercial spaceflight.”

So who is Jared Isaacman? Why is his nomination being welcomed in most quarters of the spaceflight community? And how might he shake up NASA? Read on.

Meet Jared

Isaacman is now 41 years old, about half the age of current NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. He has founded a couple of companies, including the publicly traded Shift4 (look at the number 4 on a keyboard to understand the meaning of the name), as well as Draken International, a company that trained pilots of the US Air Force.

Throughout his career, Isaacman has shown a passion for flying and adventure. About five years ago, he decided he wanted to fly into space and bought the first commercial mission on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. But this was no joy ride. Some of his friends assumed Isaacman would invite them along. Instead, he brought a cancer survivor, a science educator, and a raffle winner. As part of the flight, this Inspiration4 mission raised hundreds of millions of dollars for research into childhood cancer.

After this mission, Isaacman set about a more ambitious project he named Polaris. The nominal plan was to fly two additional missions on Dragon and then become the first person to fly on SpaceX’s Starship. He flew the first of these missions, Polaris Dawn, in September. He brought along a pilot, Scott “Kidd” Poteet, and two SpaceX engineers, Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis. They were the first SpaceX employees to ever fly into orbit.

The mission was characteristic of Isaacman’s goal to expand the horizon of what is possible for humans in space. Polaris Dawn flew to an altitude of 1,408.1 km on the first day, the highest Earth-orbit mission ever flown and the farthest humans have traveled from our planet since Apollo. On the third day of the flight, the four crew members donned spacesuits designed and developed by SpaceX within the last two years. After venting the cabin’s atmosphere into space, first Isaacman and then Gillis spent several minutes extending their bodies out of the Dragon spacecraft.

This was the first private spacewalk in history and underscored Isaacman’s commitment to accelerating the transition of spaceflight as rare and government-driven to more publicly accessible.

Why does the space community welcome him?

In the last five years, Isaacman has impressed most of those within the spaceflight community he has interacted with. He has taken his responsibilities seriously, training hard for his Dragon missions and using NASA facilities such as a pressure chamber at NASA’s Johnson Space Center when appropriate.

Through these interactions—based upon my interviews with many people—Isaacman has demonstrated that he is not a billionaire seeking a joyride but someone who wants to change spaceflight for the better. In his spaceflights, he has also demonstrated himself to be a thoughtful and careful leader.

Two examples illustrate this. The ride to space aboard a Crew Dragon vehicle is dynamic, with the passengers pulling in excess of 3 Gs during the initial ascent, the abrupt cutoff of the main Falcon 9 rocket’s engines, stage separation, and then the grinding thrust of the upper stage engines just behind the capsule. In interviews, each of the Polaris Dawn crew members remarked about how Isaacman calmly called out these milestones in advance, with a few words about what to expect. It had a calming, reassuring effect and demonstrated that his crew’s health and safety were foremost among his concerns.

Another way in which Isaacman shows care for his crew and families is through an annual event called “Fighter Jet Training.” Cognizant of the time crew members spend away from their families training, he invites them and SpaceX employees who have supported his flights to an airstrip in Montana. Over the course of two days, family members get to ride in jets, go on a zero-gravity flight, and participate in other fun activities to get a taste of what flying on the edge is like. Isaacman underwrites all of this as a way of thanking all who are helping him.

The bottom line is that Isaacman, through his actions and words, appears to be a caring person who wants the US spaceflight enterprise to advance to greater heights.

Why would Isaacman want the job?

So why would a billionaire who has been to space twice (and plans to go at least two more times) want to run a federal agency? I have not asked Isaacman this question directly, but in interviews over the years, he has made it clear that he is passionate about spaceflight and views his role as a facilitator desiring to move things forward.

Most likely, he has accepted the job because he wants to modernize NASA and put the space agency in the best position to succeed in the future. NASA is no longer the youthful agency that took the United States to the Moon during the Apollo program. That was more than half a century ago, and while NASA is still capable of great things, it is living with one foot in the past and beholden to large, traditional contractors.

The space agency has a budget of about $25 billion, and no one could credibly argue that all of those dollars are spent efficiently. Several major programs at NASA were created by Congress with the intent of ensuring maximum dollars flowed to certain states and districts. It seems likely that Isaacman and the Trump administration will take a whack at some of these sacred cows.

High on the list is the Space Launch System rocket, which Congress created more than a dozen years ago. The rocket, and its ground systems, have been a testament to the waste inherent in large government programs funded by cost-plus contracts. NASA’s current administrator, Nelson, had a hand in creating this SLS rocket. Even he has decried the effect of this type of contracting as a “plague” on the space agency.

Currently, NASA plans to use the SLS rocket as the means of launching four astronauts inside the Orion spacecraft to lunar orbit. There, they will rendezvous with SpaceX’s Starship vehicle, go down to the Moon for a few days, and then come back to Orion. The spacecraft will then return to Earth.

So long, SLS?

Multiple sources have told Ars that the SLS rocket—which has long had staunch backing from Congress—is now on the chopping block. No final decisions have been made, but a tentative deal is in place with lawmakers to end the rocket in exchange for moving US Space Command to Huntsville, Alabama.

So how would NASA astronauts get to the Moon without the SLS rocket? Nothing is final, and the trade space is open. One possible scenario being discussed for future Artemis missions is to launch the Orion spacecraft on a New Glenn rocket into low-Earth orbit. There, it could dock with a Centaur upper stage that would launch on a Vulcan rocket. This Centaur stage would then boost Orion toward lunar orbit.

NASA’s Space Launch System rocket is seen on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in April 2022. Credit: Trevor Mahlmann

Such a scenario is elegant because it uses rockets that would cost a fraction of the SLS and also includes all key contractors currently involved in the Artemis program, with the exception of Boeing, which would lose out financially. (Northrop Grumman will still make solids for Vulcan, and Aerojet Rocketdyne will make the RL-10 upper stage engines for that rocket.)

As part of the Artemis program, NASA is competing with China to not only launch astronauts to the south pole of the Moon but also to develop a sustainable base of operations there. While there is considerable interest in Mars, sources told Ars that the focus of the space agency is likely to remain on a program that goes to the Moon first and then develops plans for Mars.

This competition is not one between Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX, and Jeff Bezos, who founded Blue Origin. Rather, they are both seen as players on the US team. The Trump administration seems to view entrepreneurial spirit as the key advantage the United States has over China in its competition with China. This op-ed in Space News offers a good overview of this sentiment.

So whither NASA? Under the Trump administration, NASA’s role is likely to focus on stimulating the efforts by commercial space entrepreneurs. Isaacman’s marching orders for NASA will almost certainly be two words: results and speed. NASA, they believe, should transition to become more like its roots in the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which undertook, promoted, and institutionalized aeronautical research—but now for space.

It is not easy to turn a big bureaucracy, and there will undoubtedly be friction and pain points. But the opportunity here is enticing: NASA should not be competing with things that private industry is already doing better, such as launching big rockets. Rather, it should find difficult research and development projects at the edge of the possible. This will certainly be Isaacman’s most challenging mission yet.

How did the CEO of an online payments firm become the nominee to lead NASA? Read More »

Trump nominates Jared Isaacman to become the next NASA administrator

artemis, Donald Trump, human spaceflight, jared isaacman, NASA, Science, Space, space policy, spacex / Tim Belzer / December 4, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday he has selected Jared Isaacman, a billionaire businessman and space enthusiast who twice flew to orbit with SpaceX, to become the next NASA administrator.

“I am delighted to nominate Jared Isaacman, an accomplished business leader, philanthropist, pilot, and astronaut, as Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA),” Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social. “Jared will drive NASA’s mission of discovery and inspiration, paving the way for groundbreaking achievements in space science, technology, and exploration.”

In a post on X, Isaacman said he was “honored” to receive Trump’s nomination.

“Having been fortunate to see our amazing planet from space, I am passionate about America leading the most incredible adventure in human history,” Isaacman wrote. “On my last mission to space, my crew and I traveled farther from Earth than anyone in over half a century. I can confidently say this second space age has only just begun.”

Top officials who served at NASA under President Trump and President Obama endorsed Isaacman as the next NASA boss.

“Jared Isaacman will be an outstanding NASA Administrator and leader of the NASA family,” said Jim Bridenstine, who led NASA as administrator during Trump’s first term in the White House. “Jared’s vision for pushing boundaries, paired with his proven track record of success in private industry, positions him as an ideal candidate to lead NASA into a bold new era of exploration and discovery. I urge the Senate to swiftly confirm him.”

Lori Garver, NASA’s deputy administrator during the Obama administration, wrote on X that Isaacman’s nomination was “terrific news,” adding that “he has the opportunity to build on NASA’s amazing accomplishments to pave our way to an even brighter future.”

Isaacman, 41, is the founder and CEO of Shift4, a mobile payment processing platform, and co-founded Draken International, which owns a fleet of retired fighter jets to pose as adversaries for military air combat training. If the Senate confirms his nomination, Isaacman would become the 15th NASA administrator, and the fourth who has flown in space.

Trump nominates Jared Isaacman to become the next NASA administrator Read More »

One of the most adventurous human spaceflights since Apollo may launch tonight

jared isaacman, Polaris, Science, Space, spacex / Mike M. / August 26, 2024

Above and beyond —

Liftoff is set for 3: 38 am ET in Florida.

Eric Berger – Aug 26, 2024 6: 35 pm UTC

Enlarge / The crew of Polaris Dawn, from L to R: Scott “Kidd” Poteet, Anna Menon, Sarah Gillis, and Jared Isaacman.

Polaris Program/John Kraus

SpaceX is set to launch the 14th crewed flight on its Dragon spacecraft early on Tuesday morning—and it’s an intriguing one.

This Polaris Dawn mission, helmed and funded by an entrepreneur and billionaire named Jared Isaacman, is scheduled to lift off at 3: 38 am ET (07: 38 UTC) on Tuesday from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

This is just the second free-flying Crew Dragon mission that SpaceX has flown, and like the Inspiration4 mission that came before it, Polaris Dawn will once again field an entire crew of private astronauts. Although this is a private spaceflight, it really is not a space tourism mission. Rather, it seeks to push the ball of exploration forward. Isaacman has emerged as one of the most serious figures in commercial spaceflight in recent years, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to fly into space and push forward the boundaries of what private citizens can do in space.

“The idea is to develop and test new technology and operations in furtherance of SpaceX’s bold vision to enable humankind to journey among the stars,” Isaacman said last week during a news conference ahead of Tuesday’s launch.

A novel step forward

Isaacman, chief executive of the Shift4 payments company, led the Inspiration4 mission in September 2021, which was unique because the crew consisted of himself—an experienced pilot—and three newcomers to spaceflight. Isaacman used the world’s first all-civilian spaceflight, on a private vehicle, to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for charity and expand the window of who could become an astronaut.

Yet whereas Inspiration4 felt like something of a novelty, Polaris Dawn is truly pushing the boundary of private spaceflight forward. Working closely with SpaceX, Isaacman has plotted a five-day flight that will accomplish a number of significant tasks after it launches.

During the initial hours of the spaceflight, the crew will seek to fly in a highly elliptical orbit, reaching an altitude as high as 1,400 km (870 miles) above the planet’s surface. This will be the highest Earth-orbit mission ever flown by humans and the farthest any person has flown from Earth since the Apollo Moon landings more than half a century ago. This will expose the crew to a not insignificant amount of radiation, and they will collect biological data to assess harms.

The Resilience spacecraft will then descend toward a more circular orbit about 700 km above the Earth’s surface. Assuming a launch on Tuesday, the crew will don four spacesuits on Friday and open the hatch to the vacuum of space. Then Isaacman, followed by mission specialist Sarah Gillis, will each briefly climb out of the spacecraft into space.

Isaacman’s interest in performing the first private spacewalk accelerated, by years, SpaceX’s development of these spacesuits. This really is just the first generation of the suit, and SpaceX is likely to continue iterating toward a spacesuit that has its own portable life support system (PLSS). This is the “backpack” on a traditional spacesuit that allows NASA astronauts to perform spacewalks untethered to the International Space Station.

The general idea is that, as the Starship vehicle makes the surface of the Moon and eventually Mars more accessible to more people, future generations of these lower-cost spacesuits will enable exploration and settlement. That journey, in some sense, begins with this mission’s brief spacewalks, with Isaacman and Gillis tethered to the Dragon vehicle for life support.

Enlarge / Sarah Gillis, a mission specialist on Polaris Dawn, is pretty darn excited about going to space.

Polaris Program/John Kraus

Lasers and SpaceXers

Isaacman and his crew will also conduct a number of other research experiments, including trying to better understand a recently detected but major concern of space habitation, spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome. This will also be the first crewed mission to test Starlink-based laser communications in space.

Then, there is the crew. Isaacman’s close friend, retired US Air Force Col. Scott “Kidd” Poteet, will be the mission’s pilot, with Gillis and Anna Menon serving as mission specialists. Both Gillis and Menon are SpaceX engineers who worked with Isaacman during Inspiration4. Now, they’ll become the first SpaceX employees to ever go into orbit, bringing their experiences back to share with their colleagues.

This is the first of three “Polaris” missions that Isaacman is scheduled to fly with SpaceX. The plan for the second Polaris mission, also to fly on a Dragon spacecraft, has yet to be determined. But it may well employ a second-generation spacesuit based on learnings from this spaceflight. The third flight, unlikely to occur before at least 2030, will be an orbital launch aboard the company’s Starship vehicle—making Isaacman and his crew the first to fly on that rocket.

One of the most adventurous human spaceflights since Apollo may launch tonight Read More »