NASA Administrator on Aliens, SpaceX IPO and Beating China to the Moon

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio, News.

**Jared Isaacman** (0:08)
Humanity's next great voyage begins.

**Tim Stenovec** (0:12)
Artemis II's trip around the moon last month was NASA's first lunar flyby in over 50 years.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:17)
And lift off.

**Jared Isaacman** (0:19)
The crew of Artemis II now bound for the moon.

**Tim Stenovec** (0:22)
Ten days after launch, the crew splashed down in the Pacific.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:26)
From the pages of Jules Verne to a modern day mission to the moon, a new chapter of the exploration of our celestial neighbor is complete. Integrity's astronauts, back on Earth.

**Tim Stenovec** (0:37)
I did get to put my kids in front of the screen, a three-year-old and a seven-year-old to watch Artemis II take off, and it was just, it was awesome.

**Jared Isaacman** (0:43)
We're just getting going.

**Tim Stenovec** (0:46)
For Jared Isaacman, NASA's administrator, there was a lot at stake.

**Jared Isaacman** (0:50)
I said it many times, it's a lot easier to strap yourself on top of the rocket than to be on the ground and be responsible for it, especially when you know that's not just Artemis 2 taking flight, that's America's space program on the launch pad.

**Tim Stenovec** (1:03)
Isaacman would know.
He's been to space before, aboard SpaceX's Inspiration 4, the first all-civilian mission, and then leading SpaceX's Polaris Dawn three years later. He's also an entrepreneur, a fintech billionaire, who's bringing his experience in business to running the US. Space Agency.

**Jared Isaacman** (1:22)
This is the first time since I was a teenager that I show up and work with zero economic interests whatsoever, just what's for the good of the nation, what's in the best interest of America's space program.

**Tim Stenovec** (1:33)
Right now, that means facing heightened space competition with China, and competition for talent with the growing private space sector, all amid proposed budget cuts from the White House. I'm Tim Stenovec, in for Sarah Holder and David Gura, and this is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. Today on the show, my conversation with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman on returning to the moon in 2028, why America needs nuclear octocopters in space, and whether he believes in aliens.
NASA is coming off a big win, sending astronauts into deep space aboard one of the most powerful rockets ever built, and then bringing them home safely. Still, it's been nearly 60 years since Apollo 11 touched down, when Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon. I asked the administrator why, so many years later, the US is reprioritizing the moon.

**Jared Isaacman** (2:37)
Well, I would say that I'm not reprioritizing at all. What I'm doing is working with all the talented minds of NASA to ensure our plan to achieve the policy that's essentially been in place since President Trump's first term, when he created the Artemis program, is actually possible. So 35 years, every president has called for a return to the moon. It sounds great. Certainly, I think gets the public riled up. Wasn't until President Trump's first term when he actually created the Artemis program that put focus back on it again. And then my first day on the job, the day I was sworn into office, he put out a national space policy that said, don't just return to the moon, do so to stay. Build an enduring presence, build a moon base on the surface.
So we are increasing production of hardware, pulling it to the left. We added a mission in 2027 to test out the Orion spacecraft that the Artemis 2 crew was in with the lunar landers and use that data to inform the plan for Artemis 4 in 2028, where astronauts will put their boots back on the surface of the moon.

**Tim Stenovec** (3:39)
What would establishing bases on the moon allow us to do?

**Jared Isaacman** (3:41)
So that's a great question.
For 25 years, we have maintained a continuous human presence in low Earth orbit at the International Space Station, which if you take a step back and think about it, if you're 25 years old or younger, you haven't lived during a time where there wasn't an American astronaut in orbit above you, which is pretty cool to think about because the environment is incredibly harsh. You have a radiation environment, you have micrometeororbital debris. Those are billions of bullets just whizzing around, tear through everything up there. The human body, the human physiology does not like microgravity, so you have bone density loss, cardiovascular issues. We just did the first medical evacuation from the space station. So things happen there, but we have been learning. And where do you apply that next? You take it from low Earth orbit, which is probably the safest place you can be in an incredibly threatening environment, and you bring it down to the lunar surface. For all its scientific potential, I mean, we are going to have so many scientific instruments. There are kids in college right now working on hardware that's going to be on the moon in the next couple of years. It's economic potential. Are we mining Helium-3 on the moon? Are we 3D printing satellites for AI data centers? I sure hope so.