Posted on 11/11/2025 12:05:04 AM PST by blueplum
A 62-page document written by President Donald Trump’s on-again-off-again pick to run NASA, billionaire Jared Isaacman, outlines a sweeping, ambitious, and at times controversial plan for the space agency....
The leak — according to a recent Ars Technica report and a source who confirmed the account to CNN — looked to have been part of an effort by Duffy, who is temporarily running NASA, to spur controversy and potentially thwart Isaacman’s renomination...
A Mars shot and nuclear propulsion One eye-popping proposal in Project Athena is to set up a new Mars program, dubbed “Olympus.”...The document also includes numerous mentions of setting up an expansive program to pursue nuclear electric propulsion ...
Isaacman’s document also details myriad other plans to change how the agency operates — such as conducting a sweeping review of NASA’s boards and committees ....
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Dear FRiends,
We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.
If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
“Former NASA astronaut and SpaceX advisor Garrett Reisman, who has long said he believes NASA may have become too risk-averse in the wake of the 2003 Columbia disaster, told CNN in a November 8 phone interview he was encouraged to see that Isaacman hopes to reevaluate that aspect of the agency.”
I think that change goes back further, to just after Armstrong stepped on the Moon.
Ever since the first nuclear bomb was tested Civilization has had the means for self destruction. Having some Civilization off world is the one thing that can guarantee the continuing story of Civilization.
Viewed critically, the badly designed Space Shuttle was built to put the elements of the essentially purposeless Space Station into orbit. We thus had a dangerous and expensive space jalopy for the sake of a giant hole in the sky to fees powerful aerospace contractors.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk and his investors took up ideas that NASA declined to fund and made billions as they revitalized America's launch capacity with reusable boosters. Other innovations await approval and funding. I hope that the Trump administration gets NASA straightened out.
NASA needs a complete reform or to just be scrubbed and another agency created to replace it. It’s become too bogged down in red tape and “climate science” to do its real job of manned and unmanned space exploration, with emphasis on the former. Nuclear propulsion is certainly the way to go, since any serious presence in space will some day demand it. NASA has proposed it many times but each gets cancelled for one reason or another. The only other thing to do is allow China to eclipse the U.S.
I really don't much care about civilization continuing.
I think Christ will return long before we can build self-sustaining colonies in distant star systems, or even within our own solar system. (And that's assuming we can ever build such things.)
Furthermore, God intends to someday end our civilization by fire. And while we might be able to escape Earth, we can't escape God.
That may have been the ostensible justification - but the real reason was to launch DoD platforms at a lower cost than is possible with non-reusable vehicles.
If NASA had ever managed to reduce costs to the projected / hoped-for $100 per lb, we would have been one step closer to realizing President Reagan's vision of SDI.
Regards,
So God creates an entire Universe, watches over it for 13 billion years and then lets us go up in smoke? What is the point of creating such a vast universe then?
“Having some Civilization off world is the one thing that can guarantee the continuing story of Civilization.”
_______________
Ridiculous — that’s no guarantee whatsoever.
Thinking we are central to God’s overall plan for EVERYTHING is arrogant and short-sighted. All He promised is that we can become part of that plan.
I’ve always been intrigued by the thought of there being no universe had it not been for humans to have become aware of it, and to then entertain the idea of there being parallel universes or some kind of “Multiverse”. Far out, man!
From a classical point of view - one that takes the biblical texts literally and seriously - the centrality of man’s place in creation and throughout history is an overarching theme, not it invites humility, not arrogance.
*but
Yes but the Bible is God’s Word to mankind, which makes us a central theme in it. Thinking the Bible is all that God has ever said is presumptuous, however. We are servants, and servants don’t strive for glory.
The German engineers with embarrassing Nazi pasts whose expertise was critical to the US manned space program criticized the Shuttle design as unwieldy and dangerous. They were especially alarmed at using non-throttleable solid rockets for manned space flights. The Germans were ignored and pushed into retirement, but risk assessments validated their concerns and projected a loss rate of one per one hundred flights. NASA buried the damning report and, when caught out, claimed that it was not pertinent due to safety improvements.
As it was, the military got some use out of the Space Shuttle but its primary intended use -- a military manned space station -- never materialized. The Shuttle and several other failed or overly-expensive projects illustrate NASA's deepest flaws of letting a can-do ideology sometimes overcome engineering realism and management caution and discipline. Those defects are amplified when Congress opens the national checkbook up for big aerospace contractors with lots of lobbyists and a lush flow of political donations and favors.
As for Reagan's concept of SDI, he was badly misled by physicist Edward Teller's idea of using nuclear pumped lasers to zap Soviet missiles and warheads in space. The idea was so problematic as to be risible except for Teller's reputation. Various other SDI concepts were also examined and found wanting. Cheap access might have made some of those ideas less impossible but they would still have been unworkable.
Who knows, but technology may now make Trump's Golden Dome version of SDI possible and affordable. Or, then again, like Reagan, he may shrewdly know that our adversaries might stumble or make an attractive deal with the US out of fear of bankruptcy from the costs imposed on them by having to counter even a faltering SDI system.
The orthodox biblical understanding is that all of creation was spoken into existence and is yet sustained for the everlasting benefit of mankind. This is cause both for fear and trembling given its vast expanse whether micro or macro, as well as joy for the fact His mercies are boundless.
Well I don’t know where it actually says that in the Bible. It does say that God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the garden of Eden. They were to be stewards of the earth and so forth, being masters in a way of all the creatures, etc. But that didn’t quite go as planned, apparently. The one verse that says “He also made the stars” leaves out a lot of detail that we can only speculate about for now. It doesn’t mean that they were not part of His larger plan.
I worked on several proposals for Honeywell to present to NASA. NASA has too many academics and academics do studies. Their job isn’t to produce a product other than a piece of paper. The agency is insanely bureaucratic.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.