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'I think we will prevail': NASA chief Jared Isaacman on Artemis, China and the new moon race (exclusive)
"I think the implications are pretty severe, which is why we're taking it so seriously and putting such extreme focus on the mission right now."
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NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman is serious about launching "big rockets" to the moon every single year for the agency's Artemis program. And the new space race with China is fueling that ambition.
"I feel good. I feel like we are certainly on a more achievable path to the lunar surface today than where we were before," Isaacman told Space.com.
We recently sat down with the NASA chief to discuss the state of the Artemis program, and, off the bat, he made it clear that he's confident in the U.S. space program following the success of April's Artemis II mission around the moon. In fact, just prior to our conversation, it was announced that Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman will become the new deputy director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. But the road from Artemis II's success to crewed lunar landings and, later, a permanent moon base will take a lot of launches of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket, Isaacman stressed.
"You know, a lot of people, especially in the space community, start getting [into] if the landers are there or not. I don't really care about that right now. What I care about is that we are launching big rockets no less than once a year," he said.
"I think that's imperative for NASA to be doing these deep-space human spaceflight missions right now," Isaacman added. "So, we had a great mission in April of '26. We will launch again in '27."
That coming launch will be for Artemis III, a crewed mission to low Earth orbit that will test docking procedures between NASA's Orion capsule and one or both of the Artemis program's private lunar landers — SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's Blue Moon.
"We need to continue to exercise those muscles," he said, referring to SLS liftoffs. "And, honestly, once a year isn't great, either. I mean, I don't think we're going to get back to the early [space] shuttle days, you know, four missions a year. I don't think we're going to get back to where we were with Apollo, but once a year is the minimum … I would testify that to Congress in this role years down the road.
"If NASA is going to be doing deep-space missions, complicated missions, [we should] launch at least once a year and get as much out of it as you can for taking the risk and spending the taxpayer dollars and building towards something greater," Isaacman added. "That's what we're doing with Artemis III, and that's what's going to better prepare us for Artemis IV."