RE: WDR 2

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Spaceflight Now@SpaceflightNow
With the first crewed flight of the @NASAArtemis Program on the horizon (no earlier than April 1), we sat down with @NASAAdmin Jared Isaacman to talk about the future of the Artemis Program, Moon base ambitions, lunar landers, nuclear propulsion and more.

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:17 Jared Isaacman’s experience
04:05 Artemis 2 progress
05:53 “Test as you fly”
08:18 Upper stage plans for the new Artemis 3
09:31 Blue Origin and SpaceX weighing in on Artemis 3
10:40 Addressing NASA OIG concerns with SpaceX’s Starship
12:57 Plans for the NASA workforce
16:18 New announcements, coming soon…
18:42 Understanding HLS Starship
21:27 Manual piloting Starship: Yes or No?
24:06 Blue Moon Mk.2 readiness for Artemis 3
26:12 Understanding “accelerated plans” for HLS landers
27:25 Future cooperation with China in space?
29:49 NASA’s next near-impossible undertaking
4:18 PM · Mar 14, 2026

https://x.com/SpaceflightNow/status/2032838779149373901

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Nic Cruz Patane@niccruzpatane
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman says that as a Moon base is being built, NASA plans to install comms relays and observation systems so people on Earth can watch it being constructed in real time.

Additionally, NASA will begin landing landers on the Moon on a monthly basis in 2027 to learn more about the surface.

Jared: “We’re going to plus up on Moon construction in a huge way.”
7:07 AM · Mar 17, 2026

https://x.com/niccruzpatane/status/2033787409876312566

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(09:10) JI: We do have a request out to both SpaceX and Blue Origin to tell us what they think is achievable by 2027. And based on that feedback we'll use it for ultimately crew selection, but making a determination of 'do we even need to use our upper stage in this regard?'

- Jumping to that assessment from both Blue and SpaceX: when do you expect to have enough data back from them to make a call on refining the architecture of what Orion may need for Artemis III?

JI: I would say 60, absolute 90 days at the most. (...) Again, in the next 60 - 90 days we owe it to everyone to describe what Artemis III is gonna look like (12:57)

(17:02) JI: If you build a moon base and you're going there to stay, you gonna need lots of missions to and from the moon - from a crew perspective, from a logistics. We're gonna talk about the moon base. I want landers on the moon, on the south pole, on a monthly cadence, starting beginning of 2027. There is a lot to build out there: we've got comms, we've got power, we're going to start Surface Improvement Demonstrations, we've got rovers everywhere - so there's a lot to talk about that. We're going to talk about nuclear power and propulsion.

(18:46) - The promise of Starship as both a cargo and a human lander has exited a lot of people's imagination just by this sheer volume it has the capability of bringing in. But, going back to both this report as well as the ASAP Report that was looking back in 2025, did raise some concerns about the height-to-width of Starship, landing at the South Pole in poor lighting in an environment where there's a lot of rocky craters - and it only has so much latitude before you get into a tip-over situation - which no one wants to see, obviously, with something that big. So, having had the opportunity to talk with SpaceX leadership and see the development of Starship for NASA's purposes: can you talk about what you have seen and understand that maybe those of us on the outside don't, that gives you confidence in that type of architecture to work in that evnironment?

JI: I would just say in terms of where my attention is with Starship and HLS is all about enabling flight rate and on orbit prop transfer. I believe if they can get their flight rate up and pull off on-orbot prop transfer, the ladning is not gonna be a problem. I have high confidence they will solve it. Let me tell you why: first of all, a lot of these isues being raised again were raised prior to some of the action we're taking now. We have a National Space Policy from President Trump that says 'bild the Moon Base'. I wan to bring the world along with that construction - which means we gonna put up assets for comm relay and observations so we can see, as the moon base is beng constructed, in almost real-time. I think this is a great thing to inspire people and show what we're capable of doing. We're gonna start being better able to analyze the encironment that we're gonna send HLS landers into at some pont. I also say that we're gonna start landing, largely leveraging the Eclipse program, landers every month, starting in the beginning of 2027. I mean, we're gonna plus-up for Moon Base construction in a huge wa. Every time one of those landers comes down, we're gonna learn something. We are gonna do Surface Improvement Demonstrations, so we're gonna land, you know, larger rovers and have them improve the surface down there where you one day may be creating a landing pad for these HLS providers. We have the opportunity to do all this in parallel while our landers are in development. And you know what?- you also have Blue Origin; they're working on capabilities too. They're gonna start landing Mark 1. They're going to do Crew Mark demonstrations; they gonna take Viper to the surface. They're gona learn from every. So everyone gonna get a lot of shots at the goal over the next couple of years in advance of a crewed landing.