Jared Isaacman talks about how space exploration will change in the next century, between nuclear propulsion, artificial intelligence, robotic missions and an increasingly stable human presence in the Solar System
NASA’s number one, Jared Isaacman, recently gave an interview to the newspaper Aviation Week & Space Technology in which he explains what humanity’s relationship with space will be like. Says Isaacman: “I believe we will know our Solar System as well as we know our planet today. We will know where everything is, whether there was life in the past, and whether there is economic potential, perhaps like asteroid mining. There will be people on the Moon and Mars, probably more like scientific outposts than actual colonies.” Regarding the technologies used, the head of the US Agency has no doubts: “One of these is next-generation propulsion. If we rely on chemical propulsion, we can send objects very far into the Solar System, but we cannot bring them back easily. Furthermore, the further we get from the Sun, the greater the need for an alternative energy source. The generators we have always used on these missions represent an incredibly inefficient method of energy potential, so nuclear technology is fundamental for the future of NASA. We must develop fission energy and then fusion energy to be able to reach our goals quickly and be able to return to Earth, both with crew and with robotic missions. Then there is the question of on-mission calculations and artificial intelligence. In a century there will be many robotic missions in orbit that will collect an enormous amount of data. Hypothetically, there could be some in orbit around Neptune capable of characterizing the entire environment. 90% of the data collected is not interesting, but the the remaining 10% represents a revolutionary discovery.” What must NASA do to make this future possible? “As I have been saying since I took office until today, we need to concentrate NASA’s resources on the most urgent objectives, on the most complex engineering problems to solve, and do it in a logical and evolutionary way. This is how we proceed quickly, not by trying to do many small things that proceed very slowly, many of which do not achieve the desired result. This is the priority. The second is to ensure that we have the right and adequately qualified workforce to carry out the work at a reasonable pace and consistent with the large undertakings of the past. We must be able to retain the personal, which means working on projects that industry doesn’t tackle, otherwise people will naturally be attracted to industry and leave research.
Is NASA at risk of being sidetracked by politics? “Despite the current political climate, stakeholders on both sides of the political spectrum understand that the way the Agency has operated in recent years has not led to the desired results. Reforms and changes are needed, and they have been supportive. It’s about finding the right balance between some established initiatives and the ability to fund new ones.”
How will advances in aerospace and aviation affect life on Earth? “Things that we admire with amazement today will become routine. We already have examples, such as the live images from the International Space Station, which we still find fascinating but which many, although happy to see what the Earth looks like from 400 km, progressively no longer look at it because they have already seen it. On the contrary, the images of Artemis II were followed by over one hundred million people and left everyone speechless because we hadn’t seen the Moon like that for a very long time. In a century, people might even get bored watching live images from the moon base, a bit like watching workers at work on a construction site or in a mine. But we will see new things, like a robot on the moon Europa making its way through the frozen sea looking for life forms. Our frontier will therefore continue to expand.”
Born in 1983 (43 years old), Jared Taylor Isaacman is a pilot (nickname “Rook”), astronaut and billionaire entrepreneur. Chosen by Donald Trump as NASA administrator in December 2024, in his confirmation speech in April 2025, Isaacman underlined his intention to usher in a “new golden age of science and discovery” at the space agency of the United States. His nomination was withdrawn, but soon after reinstated, during the famous “argument” between Trump and Elon Musk.
