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

It is, like, one of the most universal goals you can have, like, just as mankind. Did you want to be an astronaut? Yeah, totally. I was, like, obsessed with space when I was, like, four. I still do like this. So I was like, this is the only cool city, the only cool thing my city has. So I'm curious, what are your thoughts on Elon committing to the moon as a goal and refocusing from Mars?

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Lovable.dev. Now, onto the episode. Going back to my question earlier about like NASA having aura, you know, obviously space is really cool. Everybody loves space. Another area of technology that we're seeing a lot of right now is AI. And generally speaking, people kind of hate AI. They like they don't see the vision of the good future. The main emotion felt by most people, I think, is more fear of change. What do you think, like, developers of AI, proponents of AI can learn from NASA and others in space on, like, how to make the objective awesomeness of the technology, like, apparent to more people?

It's actually not one of my objectives. I mean, meaning there are commercial companies out there right now trying to solve problems for us on the moon.

We put a demand signal out for landers on a near monthly basis, rovers, rovers that can take crew, that can be autonomous, that can do logistics or surface improvement. So I can put demand signals out there to help us do what we need to do on behalf of the American taxpayers. And if that turns into a, you know, a self-sustaining industry, fantastic. Like I want there to be lots of customers to be on the moon, but like we go there for specific reasons, to master the skills to go to Mars for its scientific potential, for national security reasons, for inspiration to the next generation. And if there's an economic benefit along the way, that's even better. Should we build a Dyson sphere or a Dyson swarm at some point? Well, I think that's part of, Elon's strategy for going to the moon and building a mass accelerator. Yes, I actually very much subscribe to a lot of Elon's views that the capability of a civilization, when you truly zoom out, is its potential to harness as much of the energy potential from your own star as possible.

So now, what form that ultimately takes? I mean, we're not necessarily doing the greatest job of even leveraging solar power as it exists today. But I do think that that is absolutely directionally correct. That should be the aspiration for all Earthlings is to make the greatest use of our star's energy potential. How long do you think it'll take? Some people say decades. Some people say centuries. Some people say millions of years. You know, there is a lot of smarter people than me that can make those kind of predictions. I'll tell you, we've taken long enough just simply getting back to the moon.

I mean, to such an extent that there's actually a lot of doubters out there on that. Like, I've heard it's like a third of the interested population. So step one for me, get astronauts back on the moon. Bring a lot of HD cameras this time. Like, we are going to leave no doubters behind. We're going to put orbital observation satellites. You are going to see the moon base get built in real time on a moon base website and get America underway and nuclear power in space. Like, those are my near-term priorities. The harnessing the sun thing, getting to a type two civilization, I'm going to leave for the other experts.

Yeah. One of my favorite parts of the Apple keynote this year was like they had footage of the Artemis mission shot on iPhone 17 Pro Max. It's like, wow, like the exact same camera that like we all have is like being used to take photos of like the actual moon, like the moon in space. Yeah, that was somewhat of a little bit of a personal agenda of mine. That was like one of my first executive orders coming into this role was we're putting iPhones with our Artemis II astronauts going around the moon. They're going to take pictures and videos just like any other normal human being would if they were right next to the moon with their phone.

And we're going to put them up on space station as well. And I think it was a hit. Yeah, I'm really curious on another front, if NASA is doing any research into how biological life sort of behaves in space. Are you guys still thinking about that and possible life sciences implications? Oh, for sure. I mean, the vast majority of the work that's done in the International Space Station. So for those that don't know, if you're 26 years old or younger, you have not lived at a time where we didn't have astronauts living continuously above you in low Earth orbit. The International Space Station is an incredible international collaboration.

It's an orbital laboratory and a lot of the work that they are doing up there. In fact, I mean, keeping human beings alive in that environment was probably one of our greatest, you know, accomplishments in space right now. But they're doing everything from crystal formulation for cancer treating drugs, you know, biotech. I mean, you know, like we're not we're not quite there at the 3D printing everyone a spare liver to keep in their their fridge. But a lot of the work they're doing is to take advantage of the unique environment of microgravity like that. And we'll continue to do so. I mean, we want to find some real silver bullets that make a meaningful impact on humanity that have to be manufactured in microgravity.

How do you guys think about prioritizing the narrative? Like the space race is way less talked about these days than the AI race. Yeah. Right. So how do you guys think about that? Well, it's very real for starters. The issue is it's not the 1960s anymore. We have more than three television channels. So like tuning in to the space race is kind of hard when there's all the other kind of problems and opportunities that exist in the world. I mean, the daily discourse is dominated by so many topics that, you know, we're in a completely different news cycle every couple of hours. So it's hard for people to fully lock in.

But 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 guarantee should I trust? Whose standards should I conform to? Right. I mean, you know, America, you know, America and NASA is responsible for the peaceful exploration of space. Apollo 11's plaque said we came in peace for all mankind. Right. We said a standard out there.

It is a beacon of light. And I think if we come up short in the space race, the implications are probably beyond what we can really imagine at this point. Yeah. Well, I think that's a good place to wrap. Jared Isaacman, thank you so much for joining us on MTS. Thanks so much. Absolutely. a huge thanks to mts sponsors 11 labs ai that communicates at human level across every channel and modality 11 labs.io slash mts scale your startup on neon millions of developers and startups have already chosen neon for their Start on the free plan or get up to $100,000 in credits for your startup at neon.com slash MTS.

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