A rare spectacle is set to play out on Capitol Hill Wednesday as Jared Isaacman — the billionaire tech entrepreneur and Elon Musk ally who has been tapped to serve as NASA administrator — faces a second confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, reports BritPanorama.
The hearing is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. ET and will be livestreamed on the committee’s website.
Isaacman was first grilled by Senators in April. He was days away from final confirmation for the top NASA job when President Donald Trump, amid a falling out with Musk in late May, abruptly rescinded Isaacman’s nomination. Trump selected Isaacman as his NASA pick again in November.
Project Athena leak
During his second confirmation hearing, Isaacman is expected to face an onslaught of questions about the Project Athena document — a 62-page outline of his plans for the space agency that was recently leaked.
While Isaacman has publicly acknowledged the Project Athena document, which is labeled May 2025, he said in a social media post that “parts of it are now dated.” He did not specify which portions were obsolete.
The goals outlined in the document, a copy of which was obtained by CNN, include revamping some NASA centers to focus on nuclear electric propulsion, establishing a Mars exploration program, and embracing an “accelerate/fix/delete” philosophy to reshape the agency.
Isaacman will likely face questioning about how he plans to pursue such goals alongside NASA’s existing Artemis program, which seeks to return astronauts to the moon amid a new space race with China. NASA is slated to launch the program’s next moon mission, called Artemis II, as soon as February. It will be the program’s first crewed flight and will send a group of astronauts to fly around the moon without landing on it.
Some of Project Athena’s contents are controversial, specifically portions that relate to Isaacman’s ideas for the future of NASA’s science initiatives. The plan, for example, includes proposals to outsource more of the agency’s role in scientific research to the private sector.
Isaacman has sought to quash rumors that he seeks to gut the space agency’s scientific pursuits, noting in one social media post that he was willing to personally foot the bill to launch an upcoming space telescope. He also asserted that “anything suggesting that I am anti-science or want to outsource that responsibility is simply untrue.”
Still, some lawmakers have openly expressed trepidation about Isaacman. “To protect our nation’s innovation leadership, he must be more than a rubber stamp for the Administration’s chainsaw approach to our space science initiatives,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, home of Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a November statement.
