Inside NASA's Plan to Return to The Moon, Reach Mars, and Go Nuclear | The a16z Show

We are going to get back into the habit of launching moon rockets in months, not years.

Why is it so important for us to go back to the moon?

This was a promise that was made and a promise we need to keep.

When we return to the moon, America will not look down on the prime lunar real estate while our rivals occupy it.

NASA astronauts will be on the surface building President Trump's moon base, and we will realize the scientific, economic, and national security potential surface operations provide.

A lot of people, when I came to this job, was like, industry's not going to let you do what you want to do, and the politicians aren't going to let you do

what you want to do, but you know what?

They all understand the difference between America winning and losing on the moon, saying for 35 years and putting $100 billion in and then coming up short, and that doesn't have national

security implications.

You're completely mistaken.

It's great to be here with so many entrepreneurs, operators, investors, and policymakers who are helping us build the next golden age of space exploration.

I love being around the people who not only look up and imagine what is possible, but possess the experiences and the will to bring ideas into reality.

There is no organization I can tell you that appreciates that kind of determination more than NASA.

On that note, in the weeks ahead, America will send the brave Artemis II astronauts potentially farther into space than any humans have ever traveled in generations, flying around the

moon on a 10-day mission to test the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft before returning home to Earth.

Now, President Donald Trump took the decisive steps of establishing the Artemis program during his first term.

He recently— in fact, it was the day that I was sworn into this position— reaffirmed America's commitment to space superiority, giving NASA a clear mandate and a focus to return to

the moon, build a base so this time we return to stay.

Thanks to historic investments secured in the Working Families Tax Credit Act, NASA has received nearly $10 billion in support of that national imperative.

The bipartisan commitment signed into law by the president gives us the resources to move forward with purpose and urgency, knowing American leadership in the high ground of space is

on the line.

So we have the presidential mandate, we have the resources, we certainly have the, the historic experience.

We have plenty of hardware, hardware.

We have domestic and international partners.

So why does it all take so long?

Why does it cost so much?

And what are we going to do about it?

So lots of those answers are because we have lacked real competition for decades.

You know, after the last space race, we were, we were the only game in town.

So we built partnerships all over the world to, to, to spread goodwill.

We, we spread ourselves thin with broad-based science.

We took on lots of side quest projects, some of which are very cool, but ultimately distract from the world-changing mission that taxpayers have entrusted us with.

It costs a lot because we outsourced a lot of our core competencies.

Industry consolidated.

We let stakeholders set the priorities to serve constituent interests and adopted policies in the attempt to make everyone happy, maybe make everyone happy other than the American people

and really people all over the world that were waiting for the headlines that only NASA was capable of making.

As a result, you get moon rockets that fly only every 3+ years, the worst cadence by far of NASA-designed rockets, um, hardware that is obsolete by the time it's delivered, 51 nuclear

propulsion programs that have never flown, less, uh, less flagship science and discovery missions, less X-planes, less astronauts in space, less kids dressing up as astronauts for Halloween.

I don't like this.

President Trump doesn't like it.

Uh, clearly President Trump doesn't like it and his nat— and, and doesn't like it given what he's trying to accomplish in national space policy.

But, but maybe this was tolerable to some when there was no geopolitical rivals capable of challenging America in the most important strategic domain.

But that's not the case anymore.

Not anymore.

NASA stated we will achieve the national imperative to return to the moon and establish an enduring presence before the end of President Trump's term.

Now, our rival has stated before 2030.

So it's not hard math.

That's less than 1 year of margin, and they might be early.

And if recent history says anything, we certainly might be late.

President Trump does not like to lose, and if I'm doing my job right at NASA, that won't happen.

Now, I've spent the first few months getting my arms around the challenges and the opportunities, and it generally revolves around ensuring that the extraordinary resources that are

made available.

I mean, NASA's budget is $25 billion a year and concentrating them on the most pressing objectives, uh, clearing out needless bureaucracy and really any obstacles that impede progress

to empower the workforce and make sure our capital allocation is done in a thoughtful way that ensures desired outcomes are achieved and ideally ahead of schedule.

So to that end, we are standardizing the SLS rocket, increasing launch cadence from years to months.

We're inserting a new mission in 2027 to buy down risk and increase confidence for lunar landing attempts in 2028.

As I've said many times, Artemis is a program.

Where we begin with SLS is not where we end.

There will be dozens of missions living on long past where Apollo 17 ended, with the aim of affordable and repeatable crew and cargo missions to the surface for decades into the future.

We are also gonna stop leaping right to the dream state as a service and build a moon base step by step in an evolutionary approach.

We're just gonna start with CLPS programs and LTV-style landers and rovers.

We're gonna provide a strong demand signal to industry for launch, landers, rovers that we can outfit with, with power, navigation, communication, surface improvement capabilities,

scientific and other capabilities that we can experiment with to ultimately inform the Phase 2 infrastructure and move towards long-term habitation.

So the folks in this room, if you're, if you're ever coming to pitch me on the, uh, the Mars-based dream state as a service where the only customer is NASA, it costs billions of dollars

and it's never been done before, I can assure you we probably won't be that receptive.

We're not gonna force an orbital economy where it doesn't exist, but I can certainly provide a demand signal for what we need in line with President Trump's National Space Policy.

and we are going to do everything we possibly can to, to ignite the space economy that we, we all know is inevitable.

When we return to the moon, America will not look down on the prime lunar real estate while our rivals occupy it.

NASA astronauts will be on the surface building President Trump's moon base, and we will realize the scientific, economic, and national security potential surface operations provide.

NASA will achieve the lunar objective— objectives and do the other things.

We will invest in nuclear power and propulsion in space so we can undertake the next giant leap to Mars.

We will ignite the orbital economy and launch more missions of science and discovery.

We never pursue these grand endeavors alone.

We have international partners, we have commercial industry like many of those in this room, but we also require the scientific, the software development, the engineering, technical,

and operational talent to execute on the mission.

So I'm pleased to announce with the immense support of OPM Director Scott Cooper, we are launching NASA Force to rebuild NASA's core competencies.

These term-based appointments from industry partners will provide mentorship and training and help season and rebuild the core competencies within the NASA workforce.

Similarly, these programs offer exchange opportunities for NASA talent to rotate through industry.

At NASA, we have no excuses.

We have the policy, the resources, the will, the support of the most technologically forward-leaning industry.

And we have the winning playbook that achieved the near impossible on July 20th, 1969.

It starts with having a very focused plan, concentrating resources again on the most challenging objectives, staying organized, assembling the best and brightest from around the nation,

instilling a culture in them that requires immense competence, extreme ownership and urgency, partnering with industry, taking meaningful steps towards a larger goal, constantly listening

to data and learning, and never accepting defeat.

This is how NASA once changed the world, and this is how we're going to do it again.

Thank you.

Now, please welcome to the stage Morgan Brennan.

I'm a rocket man.

Rocket man.

Hey, good to see you.

So good to see you.

Hello, everybody.

Administrator Isaacman.

Thank you for joining me here on stage.

So much you just covered at the podium that I want to dig into.

But first, I have to start with this idea of NASA Force and this idea of bringing talent into NASA and making NASA great again, cool again.

Yeah, I mean, people ask me, you know, what was your biggest surprise since taking the job?

And I'd say a lot of things were actually as expected.

I had an opportunity to prepare for it more than once and

But what I'd say was, what stands out having visited every one of the centers on this really epic roadshow is just, you know, what a large portion of our core competencies that have

either been lost outright over the years or we've outsourced.

And then, you know, you take a look at a program like America's return to the moon with Artemis, and you got 5 prime contractors, hundreds of subcontractors, and 75% of your workforce,

your workforce, not partners, not commercial partners in this, are contractors, you know, through staffing agencies.

So they're all using different software tools, collaboration tools, different HR systems, talking to different prime contractors, subcontractors.

Is it a surprise to anyone that we're $100 billion deep into this, years behind schedule?

No.

I mean, that, it's right in front of you.

So look, things like mission control, mission control is outsourced.

I mean, I gotta imagine that would shock most people in this room to say like when the astronauts come over the radio and say Houston, and the person responds back, It's outsource.

Uh, launch control, turning our pad.

People have been freaking out since I've said since last Friday that we are going to get back into the habit of launching moon rockets in months, not years.

Apollo 7 to Apollo 8, 9 weeks apart, 9 weeks apart.

We're on this cadence of every 3 and a half years.

And they're like, that, that doesn't make any sense.

How, you know, uh, you're never going to be able to pull it in from 3 and a half years.

It's an unrealistic plan.

It's like, no, we're going to go back to doing what we did before because we're going to rebuild the workforce that knows how to do these things.

That, that's part of our history.

So yes, I mean, we, we incredibly value the support from, from Scott and OPM to let us go out, bring the talent back into the agency on things like turning our launch pad so we can

launch with frequency, managing launch control, managing mission control.

We definitely need our partners.

We don't do this alone, but NASA's gotta have those core competencies back within the agency.

So move more quickly, and I would imagine it sounds like also cutting costs in the process.

Bringing this in-house, more of this in-house.

Yeah.

I mean, I, I, when I went to every one of the centers and started talking to the workforce and said, okay, so you work in mission control, you're, you're one of our contractors.

I get we, we treat everybody kind of the same.

Uh, do you wanna be a civil servant?

I mean, there's certain benefits associated with it.

And they're like, I've wanted to work for NASA since I was a kid.

They get paid exactly the same, but you have, you know, tech companies that put a, well, staffing companies put a 40% gross margin on it.

So the, the answer is about $1.4 billion a year is lost in science and discovery because someone 30 years ago or so said there's these artificial hiring ceilings on civil servants.

So 75% of the workforce became contractors, contractors that have been there for, for decades and will stay there for decades if we don't change it.

I mean, we're, we're having these conversations actively.

We're seeing these conversations actively on the defense side, this idea of recruiting the best and brightest.

What does that look like at NASA when you do talk about that competition with, you know, the tech industry and, and private sector?

Well, so I, I mean, to me, NASA's supposed to be doing the near impossible where you can't close a business case, uh, where there's no obvious, uh, you know, demand besides NASA, you

know?

So at one point we had to open this whole thing up with, uh, you know, heavy lift launch vehicles and propulsion design.

I mean, we, again, we're the only game in town.

That's not the case now.

Launch observation and communication, there is a market for, I mean, that, that is, you know, the, the foundation of the of the space economy.

So if NASA's doing the same thing that industry's doing, we're screwing up and that's gonna make it very hard for us to recruit talent.

It's gonna make it very hard for us to retain talent.

So what do you do?

You pivot in direction that others shouldn't necessarily be working on.

Nuclear power and propulsion's a great example.

Lots of great nuclear companies right now.

I, I would, I think there's a lot of demand, terrestrial demand for energy.

So maybe that's probably the, the, you know, the near-term demand signal.

So NASA can do the, uh, what probably others wouldn't want to take on the liability of, of launching a nuclear reactor with power and propulsion so we can get to Mars someday and actually

bring our astronauts back home.

That's a great example of where NASA should be, you know, recalibrating again to the near impossible.

All right, let's dig a little deeper into Artemis, 'cause you just did announce this restructuring.

Artemis III is not gonna put boots on the moon.

You're turning back to low Earth orbit to test out the Human Landing System technology there too.

How did, I mean, you're moving quickly.

Right?

It's been what, 2 months, 2 and a half months since you got in.

How, how did you decide on the restructuring and how did this path forward

emerge as the one that makes the most sense?

Yeah, I mean, to me, I think it's obvious.

I don't know why, you know, these decisions weren't made sooner, but you cannot launch a rocket as important, as complex as SLS every 3 and a half years and think it's gonna lead to

a good outcome.

Uh, you know, we had hydrogen leaks on Artemis I, 3.5 years later, what do we have?

We had hydrogen leaks.

We had helium flow issues on Artemis I.

We have 3.5 years later.

Why is Artemis II back in the Vehicle Assembly Building instead of around the moon right now?

Helium flow issues.

You, you get no muscle memory if you're launching that thing every 3.5 years.

People are working to launch the mission and then they're gonna move on and go somewhere else and you have to rebuild all those competencies again.

It's just, it's not a recipe for success.

Again, we also have tended to just go right to the dream state and forget that you need to do things as challenging as returning to the moon in an iterative evolutionary way.

We had Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, an awful lot of Apollo missions before 11.

Now, we should have learned some things since then.

We do have the power of our, of our great industry in order to help us.

So I don't think you necessarily need as many missions.

You certainly need more than one trip around the moon and then land and call it a day, that's not gonna work.

So, you know, we're getting back to some of our basics.

We're inserting another mission in '27 to, again, ensure that we have the muscle memory at the pad.

So when we intend to launch, we actually can launch.

And then you gotta rendezvous with one or both your lander providers in low Earth orbit, just as we did with Apollo 9.

Get confidence in the systems, buy down risk before you send people to the moon.

I mean, it's the difference between if something goes wrong, you're hours away from being in the water or days away.

So we gotta, we gotta get it right.

It's incredibly hard to return to the moon.

We gotta do it in, you know, again, a smart approach.

The SLS rocket is a very expensive, very exquisite, complicated rocket.

You just talked about, you know, 3.5 years.

Can Boeing turn it out quickly enough?

Can you actually get to enough of them to keep up with the cadence you want?

Yeah, you know, look, I mean, a lot of people when I came to this job was like, industry's not gonna let you do what you wanna do.

And the politicians aren't gonna let you do what you wanna do.

But you know what?

They all understand that we are talking about months.

There's a difference between America winning and losing on the moon and all of the associated implications, if you don't think there's national security implications of saying for 35

years and putting $100 billion in that America will return to the moon and then coming up short and that doesn't have national security implications, you're completely mistaken because

that says if they're broken here, imagine where else they're broken.

So yes, I think industry and various politicians have forced the hand for a long time and now everybody is waking up and realizing We've got months of margin and it's time to start

doing things different.

So I am grateful for like what has become essentially unqualified support to do it the right way.

Um, and that includes industry saying we're ready to get in gear.

Now it takes more than promises, right?

Like we are going to embed responsible engineers in every one of the prime contractors, every one of the subcontractors that has components on the critical path.

CEOs of these companies are going to brief me every 30 days on how they're going to meet our timelines because A lot is at stake, uh, and we have to get it right.

And I, and I've said it before publicly, look, the whole SLS program was con— or vehicle architecture was conceived before industry was landing rockets on ships.

You can look at it and say it looks kind of like Shuttle, but not really Shuttle.

That's because a lot of the hardware there came from Shuttle.

So yes, it's like 50, 60-year-old, uh, you know, type hardware that we're, we're leveraging now, but it's the start.

It's not the finish.

You know, the president created a program that's gonna live on as hardware evolves, which is, it's gonna be necessary if you're gonna undertake missions to and from the moon at, at

great frequency because you've got a base there to sustain.

So we've got Artemis through at least, or SLS through at least Artemis V or VI.

We're gonna make the most of it, and then we will continue to evolve our, uh, our architecture until we are watching, uh, NASA astronauts going to and from the moon measured in months,

not years.

Yeah, I mean, we're seeing the demand signals even before your announcement last week with Artemis across industry in terms of, you know, invest more, focus more on these lunar ambitions.

Uh, so the, I do wanna just, before we move on to other topics, I do wanna just get to the Human Landing System piece of this because it's Blue Origin, it's SpaceX.

Are they ready to go?

Can they deliver as quickly as you need them to, especially if we're talking about low Earth orbit rendezvous and they're developed for something deeper space?

Yeah, I mean, so again, when we went public with our plan to actually have an achievable strategy to getting to the moon, we didn't do it in a vacuum.

We spoke with industry, made sure we had commitments.

That's why when the announcement came, you saw every one of the players come out and put a tweet out in support and a bunch of politicians do the same because this is the way back to

the moon.

Now, both SpaceX and Blue had to do, um, uncrewed tests of their vehicle, was already part of the plan.

Uh, so they were planning to launch these, uh, you know, these spacecraft in, uh, in 2027.

Now we're asking them to consider How are we gonna rendezvous with us, uh, in Orion and start buying down risk?

And they all acknowledged, yes, we need to do something like this and we're gonna work with them on it.

I will say, considering the technology that both Blue and SpaceX are investing in, which is way more than just going back to the moon to put footsteps and a flag here, I mean, that

is the capability to truly build out a base, put lots of mass at low cost on the surface of the moon, and really, again, unlock its scientific and economic potential.

Um, it is a complex approach to do it.

So for them to rendezvous with us in low Earth orbit is substantially easier than it would be, um, for them to rendezvous with us, for example, in lunar orbit, where that would be not

necessarily a great trade if you're, if you're having to expend numerous launches that you could otherwise use for a landing.

So this is the right interim step.

Why is it so important for us to go back to the moon?

What are, what do you see as the administrator of NASA?

What do you see as the potential?

Benefits and, and rewards compared to the risk?

Well, I, I go back to this was a promise that was made and a promise we need to keep.

I mean, again, 35 years we said we were gonna do this.

I mean, $100 billion that have expended along the way for us to just come up short and say now, well, we did it in, you know, we did it in, in the 1960s and 1970s, so what's the big

deal?

Yeah, that was the position you had to take 35 years ago.

Once you said you're going back and the, and the new race is on and you've committed, Again, $100 billion of taxpayer dollars.

You have an obligation to see it through.

And I'll say again, if we come up short, I mean, the implications are significant.

Our rival is going to say if they're broken in space, which is probably the most important strategic domain, where else are they broken?

And start encroaching on our, our territory across all the most important technological domains.

That's a problem.

That's, that's real national security implications.

But what happens when we get there?

We are going to learn things.

That's why we're on the greatest adventure in human history of exploring our solar system and the galaxy and universe around us.

We don't know what we may learn that could change everything.

Um, I will say it is absolutely the proving ground for future missions, uh, to Mars.

I mean, to be able to get on the South Pole and do in situ resource manufacturing, working with ice, these are the capabilities that we are gonna need to be able to use reliably on

Mars if we're gonna send astronauts there and back.

And I emphasize the back part.

It's a lot easier to get 'em there.

It's very hard to bring 'em back home.

Uh, let's use, let's use the moon as a proving ground when we're a couple of days from home versus 9 months.

Do you see this as a space race with China or otherwise?

Yeah, 100%.

The only thing I'll just say though is that the, um, regardless if we had a rival that is again within potentially a year of our schedule, uh, on this, it is still what the changes

we announced last week is still in the correct direction.

Like whether you had a rival or not, you don't launch a moon rocket every 3 and a half years.

You don't go from flying around the moon to landing on the moon.

You still have to to do things in a thoughtful, iterative, and evolutionary way in order to achieve grand endeavors, which, you know, was, you know, how we defined America for a period

of time.

Like, if we're gonna get back to it, we have to do it the smart way.

The fact that we have a competitor should motivate us, but it should also concern us if we come up short.

Hmm.

What is the timeline now for Mars?

How do we get there?

What does that look like as you think about the moon in, in a bigger, broader, meatier, near-term fashion?

Well, I said that's why, again, I, I, I have the best job in the world and I have a national space policy that, you know, aligns whole of government towards what we need to achieve

and the financial resources to do it.

So the president didn't just say return to the moon and, and build a moon base.

He also said invest in the next giant leap capabilities.

That's where nuclear power and propulsion comes in.

And I've checked in with the president multiple times on this.

I promised him America will get underway in space on nuclear power before the end of his term.

That's going to be a huge breakthrough.

You know, nuclear, you know, especially NEP technology is not going to be the fastest way to get from point A to B, but it's going to be a way that we can move a lot of mass towards

Mars.

And it's also going to be the same type of reactor technology we'll use for power on the surface so we can mine propellant and come back.

So we are taking meaningful steps in that direction.

We will be able to use the moon base to prove out capabilities before we undertake it.

And look, I think like we're gonna see astronauts on Mars in our lifetime.

What does it mean for the NASA budget?

I, I, I've told everyone, uh, that I've come across, look, we, we've got the right top line to work within.

We do, we do have to be better capital allocators.

We spent $200 million last year, uh, on a canceled program.

Like, I was like, I don't understand this.

It's canceled.

Why we spend $200 million?

Um, We have a, we're, we're not great capital allocators at all.

We spread it out.

We do lots of littles.

And look, a lot of that is driven from external stakeholders, like, which as I made, as I referenced in my prepared remarks, when you don't have a competitor and the idea is build goodwill

everywhere, fine.

But like when, when everything's on the line, you got to concentrate your resources on the objectives that the taxpayers depend on you to be able to achieve, why we were created in

the first place.

So you asked me, is $25 billion a year plus the plus-up that came from one big beautiful bill enough to get the job done?

Yeah, sure as hell is.

A lot of times people forget, a million dollars, a million dollars, billion dollars, billion dollars, $25 billion a year.

I mean, look, that's, that's an aw— world-changing companies have, have been started for, you know, less than a million dollars.

We can do an awful lot with $25 billion a year.

Yeah.

And of course, relationship with private sector and commercial space companies continues to grow and evolve and change too.

So, so I guess we put a really fine point on it since I know we have some space entrepreneurs in the audience.

What do you see as their domain versus yours here?

Yeah, I look, uh, again, I think it's, it's NASA's job that we should be doing near impossible where, uh, no other agency, organization, company could ever close a business case on

because your demand signal is one and there's probably no logical revenue model to underwrite it.

That's where NASA should be putting our attention.

And when we have big breakthroughs, we hand it off to industry and let, you know, competitive dynamics improve the product or capability and bring down costs.

We are, we owe industry demand signals of where we can forecast lots of demand, where it is potential that there will be other customers beyond us in the, you know, near to midterm.

And that's what we're gonna be doing in the near future with the Moon Base.

I mean, you're gonna have lots of launches.

I mean, lots of launches, lots of landers, lots of rovers, and that's gonna be an opportunity to experiment again with comms, navigation, in-situ resource manufacturing, scientific

experiments, habitation.

You know, power.

Like, we are gonna be able to give demand signals so industry knows where to concentrate the resources.

I'll just say, when we do it, we're gonna do it with lots of littles, iterative way, and not jump to the dream state because that's where no one wins.

The taxpayers don't win.

No one gets the capabilities they want in the timelines that we require them.

Yeah, I mean, NASA's really been on the forefront.

This has been the case for a number of years.

In terms of public-private partnerships and thinking differently about contracting.

So how does that continue?

It does continue.

Like, we can't go at this alone.

I mean, there is no question.

I mean, right now, this is the most competitive, healthy commercial space industry in the history of America's space program right now.

When we need launch, there's lots of companies we can buy launch from.

When we need landers, lots of companies we can buy landers.

We need comms and observation, navigation capabilities around the moon.

There's multiple companies that are capable of competing for it.

This is good.

So we will, again, we'll, I don't think people have long to wait.

We'll put the demand signal out there for what we require.

And I'm grateful that we have, you know, again, the most technologically advanced, well-financed, capitalized industry ready to meet the need.

Life elsewhere.

Do you think we're gonna find it?

Do I think we're gonna find it?

I would say that if we went and brought the samples back from Mars, which is, a program that people have been asking about for a while, was canceled in the last administration 'cause

it was super expensive.

I think the odds are extremely good you'd have direct evidence of once microbial life.

I think the odds are really good of that, which, but I don't think no matter how many robotic missions we land that are doing analysis that phone home and say, yeah, it's like 90% chance

there was something there, that anyone will buy it until we actually bring the samples back and make a conclusive statement.

but what I will say, I don't know about the rest of you guys, but if you're ever, you know, the late night having cocktails with friends and looking up at the stars and being like,

is life out there?

Right?

And people generally say, surely it must be somewhere.

I mean, we, you know, you got 2 trillion galaxies and how many stars are in them and how many of them probably had planet formations within a Goldilocks zone.

Yeah, I'll take that bet.

But if you do find proof of microbial life, uh, at some point on Mars when you bring those samples back, you know, we have missions to Europa Clipper that are out there searching for

life.

You've got an octocopter, nuclear-powered octocopter that we're launching to Titan in 2028, searching for life.

If you start getting biosignatures, um, you know, from, from other worlds within our solar system, it changes the dynamic entirely from like, surely it must be out there somewhere to

what if it's everywhere?

And, and it might be possible in our lifetimes to prove that.

Okay.

We're out of time.

I have one, one quick kicker question for you.

You gonna go back to space at some point?

After you're done serving in the government, or maybe while you are?

I think I'm gonna be very busy the next couple years, but we'll see.

Thank you.

That's the idea, right?

We're trying to be able to open it up for everyone.

And thankfully you got industry putting lots of good resources into bringing space from the few to the many, so.

Jared Isaacman, Administrator of NASA, thank you so much.

Thank you.