NASA Chief: How To Reach Another Star System | Jared Isaacman

Jared Isaacman (0:00)

Let me tell you, there is a space race right now. China will do what the Soviets never could during the first space race, and in 2029, you will see Chinese astronauts on the moon. And I think that has serious implications. I mean, that sends a message to the world, you know, whose technology should I be buying? You know, whose military security guarantees should I trust? Whose standards should I conform to?

SPEAKER_2 (0:24)

We are back with Jared Isaacman, who is the administrator of NASA, been a huge fan of NASA for a long time. I watched one of the last space shuttle launches in 2010, when I was like five, I still remember it vividly. So it's amazing to have Jared here with us. Welcome to MTS.

Jared Isaacman (0:39)

It's great to be here. And we got a lot of fun things to talk about at NASA.

SPEAKER_2 (0:42)

Yeah. So why don't we start with the United States Space Academy that you just announced? Like, what is that all about? What's the plan?

Jared Isaacman (0:48)

Well, certainly, I mean, the president of the United States just announced it, and it was really exciting because the president came to Johnson Space Center in Texas to bestow the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, our highest award for valor to the four extraordinary Artemis II astronauts who went farther into space than any humans in history and around the moon. And while he was there, he dropped the one more thing, which is, by the way, we're commissioning the United States Space Academy. So it's really exciting. It's also really logical when you think about it. We have a lot of service academies.

Three of them are dedicated to the maritime domain. So you got the Naval Academy, you've got the Merchant Marine Academy, and you got the Coast Guard Academy. Well, I can tell you, there's a lot of space out there, and it's increasingly important. I mean, you're talking our communication satellites, to connect the disconnected, internet connectivity, information is pretty foundational to solving a lot of problems. Weather satellites, natural disasters, national security implications, for sure, it is the ultimate high ground, not to mention all the commercial potential, the scientific potential, we're going to the moon, building moon base. Should it be that surprising, then we would actually have an academy to graduate, the engineers, the technicians, the operators, the pilots, the astronauts that we're going to need to build this really cool future in space.

SPEAKER_3 (1:58)

Has there been any similar academy in the past? And is this like an alternative to college? Is it like a trade? How is it different?

Jared Isaacman (2:05)

Yeah, so I would think about this like you would the Naval Academy, the Air Force Academy, the Merchant Marine Academy, the Coast Guard Academy. You know, this is a federal academy to prepare the future leaders for this, again, increasingly important domain. Now, 10% of the graduates from the Air Force Academy go into the Space Force. So you think about that, all our federal academies for these important domains, and we get 10% of one of them to prepare the leaders for, again, this increasingly important domain for all the reasons I described before. So it's a four-year degree program. Eventually, I'm sure it'll have post-grad programs, and you can graduate from it, and you can come to NASA. It is NASA-led. We expect the majority of graduates to come to NASA for a period of time. But you could also go into the Space Force, you go into the Air Force, potentially.

You can join other government agencies.

SPEAKER_2 (2:52)

On that, how do you attract top talent to NASA, and especially competing with the private sector, which is like private sector and space is bigger than it's ever been?

Jared Isaacman (3:00)

What a great question.

I would tell you, first, it is not hard for us to attract talent.

The NASA logo, the meatball, as we call it, is pretty widely recognized around the world. The hard part is going to be retaining it. Because right now, a substantial portion of what we do at NASA does in fact overlap with industry, and that's a dangerous place to be. Because you can graduate from school, you can be really excited. I'm going to NASA, I'm going to work on chemical propulsion rockets, and then you're there for four or five years, and you're like, but there's companies that are doing this, and they're landing their rockets on ships, and I get stock options, so why do I want to stay at NASA? That's why you can't have overlap with industry. NASA always has to recalibrate back to doing the near impossible. That's why we're building nuclear-powered spaceships, something no company, no other agency, no other nation is capable of doing but NASA. So that's how you recruit your talent, but then you retain them because they're working on things they can't do anywhere else.