Now he finally gets the chance to take action, instead of reacting to everyone else.
As the Project Athena plan clearly demonstrates, Isaacman has a good handle on the problems facing NASA, an aging and increasingly bureaucratic organization. NASA can still do great things, but it has become almost infinitely more difficult since the heady days of Apollo six decades ago.
Isaacman has ideas to shake things up, but not to the extent of deliberate change for change's sake. From the interviews he has given to others, and from the conversations he has had with him himself, it is clear that Isaacman is also a good listener. He wants to understand problems so he can work with others to implement thoughtful solutions.
Perhaps most importantly for NASA, unlike some other Trump administration nominees, he appears to be a builder, not a leveler.
His toughest mission yet
Isaacman finds himself in a beleaguered and bruised agency that has had an extremely difficult year. Thanks in part to Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, about 20 percent of the agency's 17,500 employees have taken buyouts or early retirements. There have been significant layoffs at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and concerns about the future of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Moreover, the agency is engaged in a high-stakes race with China to return humans to the moon, which has gone in China's favor over the past twelve months.
NASA's administrator is responsible for implementing the administration's policies and working with Congress to secure funding. In this, Isaacman finds himself caught between a Trump administration that tried to cut NASA's budget by 24 percent, and a House and Senate that rejected the vast majority of those budget cuts.
These are big hills to climb.
Looking at the past year, it would be easy to say that NASA and Isaacman lost more than half a year due to the withdrawal of Isaacman's nomination in late May, when he was in the Senate just days after bipartisan approval. In the intervening months, however, Isaacman has made strong connections within the U.S. Senate and the White House. As part of the campaign to build support for his renomination, Isaacman emerges with significantly more political experience, a much closer relationship with Trump and an expanded list of contacts in his phone.
That's all good, because despite all the great flying Isaacman has done to get to this point, his most difficult flights lie ahead of him.
