Can NASA beat China to the moon and beyond? (with Jared Isaacman)

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Jared Isaacman** (0:14)
I think it's in our destiny, we cross the seas, we climb the mountains, we're explorers. Astronauts are going to go to Mars someday, and they're going to go beyond Mars.

**Dasha Burns** (0:25)
Hello, hello, and welcome to The Conversation. I'm Dasha Burns, Politico's White House Bureau Chief, and every week on this show, I invite one of the most compelling and sometimes unexpected power players in Washington and beyond in for a chat to find out how they are navigating and shaping this incredible era of American politics.
This week, I spoke with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. You all know NASA, but if you don't know Isaacman, he is a billionaire entrepreneur who's been to space twice himself, and in fact, he became the first civilian to perform a space walk. Folks, this was a very special interview for our show. I traveled to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to speak with Isaacman ahead of the Artemis II launch. If you're watching, you'll see us chatting in front of NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building, the VAB, where rockets and other space vehicles are housed and assembled, including Artemis II, which was rolled out to the launch pad just before we arrived. The goal of Artemis II is to take humans the farthest they've ever been from Earth. You may or may not remember this from school, but the last time humans visited the moon was over 50 years ago. Isaacman tells me this mission is one small step towards building a permanent lunar base and even getting humanity to Mars one day in the not so distant future. Outside of the nitty gritty science of Artemis II, I also got to chat with Isaacman about the politics of it all, why this mission matters for the modern global space race, and whether he thinks going to the moon is a priority with everything going on here on Earth. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman joins The Conversation. Jared Isaacman, NASA Administrator, thank you so much for joining The Conversation.

**Jared Isaacman** (2:12)
Oh, happy to be here. Thanks for making the trip to Kennedy Space Center.

**Dasha Burns** (2:15)
Some people might be listening, not watching, but I would recommend you take a look at the video here because we are here at Kennedy Space Center. The backdrop is the VAB building where you put together these rockets to take off into space. This is the launch site of some of the most defining moments in American history from Apollo 11 to the shuttle era, with all of its triumph, its tragedy. And now Artemis II, I think I'm looking at it over there.

**Jared Isaacman** (2:46)
You sure are.

**Dasha Burns** (2:47)
Now Artemis II is set to launch in the very near future. This mission will take astronauts around the moon for the first time in over 50 years, taking humans the farthest that they've ever been from Earth. It's the first step also towards a future mission to Mars. Okay, now that's all really exciting. And as a NASA nerd myself, I'm stoked, but there is a lot going on here on Earth too. So do you think you can successfully reignite Americans' fascination with space?

**Jared Isaacman** (3:20)
Oh, I have no doubt. I mean, what kid has grown up hasn't looked up at the night sky and just imagine the possibilities. Space captivates everyone. Now, I understand there's a lot going on in all our lives these days, right? So as I tell a lot of folks when they're like, do people realize that we're about to send astronauts farther into space than ever before around the moon to set up for, you know, subsequent lunar landing events? And like, do enough people realize that's happening right now? And I'm like, it's a lot more than the three channels on the television set like there was in the 1960s, a lot going on. But I have no doubt when 8.8 million pounds of thrust gets ignited on that massive moon rocket, we send those astronauts on the journey, the world is going to take notice, they're going to take interest. And then we just got to, you know, kind of keep their attention as we set up for subsequent moon landings, we build a moon base and then we start thinking about what comes next, which is Mars.

**Dasha Burns** (4:13)
Yeah, this is really just the beginning what we're about to see here. What does success for this mission look like?

**Jared Isaacman** (4:20)
Success for this mission is actually committing the astronauts on TLI, which is the trans lunar injection. So we've set up the mission very logically with lots of off ramps for safety. So when the rocket first launches, they'll be in a high earth orbit. We're going to use that as an opportunity to get really comfortable with this vehicle. Humans have never flown on Orion before. They've never flown on SLS before. So this is the first. This is a test flight. So we want to make sure that the spacecraft is very healthy. Then we commit to TLI. That's when we send them out into deep space.