During a second confirmation hearing two weeks ago, Isaacman told senators that NASA must accelerate its efforts to beat China back to the Moon this decade. Isaacman will lead an agency of about 14,000 employees.

NASA is currently investing billions of dollars into its Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the Moon and establish a long-term presence on the lunar surface.

The Moon missions are intended to serve as a stepping stone for eventual crewed missions to Mars.

The White House has cut NASA’s workforce by about 20 percent as part of a government efficiency push led by Elon Musk.

The administration has also proposed cutting NASA’s 2026 budget by roughly 25 percent from its typical $25 billion level.

Those proposed cuts have put dozens of space science programs at risk.

Isaacman has advocated for an increased focus on Mars missions alongside the Artemis program.

He has also called for greater reliance on private companies, including SpaceX, to reduce costs and promote competition.

Of the votes in favor of Isaacman’s confirmation, 51 came from Republicans and 16 from Democrats.

All 30 votes against his confirmation were cast by Democrats.

Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, voted to confirm Isaacman.

Cantwell has previously criticized the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce NASA’s science budget.

“During his nomination process, Mr. Isaacman emphasized the importance of developing a pipeline of future scientists, engineers, researchers, and astronauts,” Cantwell said.

Some Democratic senators raised concerns during Isaacman’s December 3 hearing about his close ties to Musk.

SpaceX currently holds about $15 billion in NASA contracts.

Musk supported Isaacman’s nomination after Trump was elected in 2024.

Musk has previously pushed for shifting the U.S. space program toward Mars during his time as a close adviser to Trump.

Lawmakers from both parties have stressed urgency in NASA’s competition with China to return astronauts to the Moon.

China has said it aims to land astronauts on the lunar surface by 2030.

NASA is targeting a 2028 Moon landing using the Space Launch System rocket and SpaceX’s Starship as a lunar lander.

Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy congratulated Isaacman on X.

Duffy said Isaacman will lead NASA as it works to return to the Moon and compete with China.

Some 2,145 senior-ranking NASA employees are slated to depart as part of a staff reduction effort, raising concerns for White House space policy and threatening to strip the agency of decades of expertise, POLITICO reported in July.

These employees hold GS-13 to GS-15 positions, senior government ranks usually reserved for individuals with specialized skills or managerial roles.

The impact is especially pronounced at the top, with 875 GS-15 employees expected to leave, per documents seen by the outlet.

The 2,145 employees represent the majority of the 2,694 civil staff who have agreed to depart NASA under a series of offers aligned with broader administration efforts to reduce the federal workforce, according to the documents. NASA has provided options such as early retirement, buyouts, and deferred resignations, the outlet said.

Many of those departing are integral to NASA’s core missions, with 1,818 employees working in key areas like science and human spaceflight. The remainder hold mission support positions, including roles in IT, facilities management, and finance.

“You’re losing the managerial and core technical expertise of the agency,” Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, told POLITICO. “What’s the strategy, and what do we hope to achieve here?”

Former WH Doctor Gives Grim Outlook On Biden’s Cancer Prognosis

A top doctor to Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump told the Washington Free Beacon that the prognosis for former President Joe Biden’s metastatic prostate cancer is bleak—and that the former commander in chief might die within a year.

Biden’s office shocked the world last month by revealing that what had been termed a “small nodule” was actually Stage 4 prostate cancer that had spread to his bones.

Representative Ronny Jackson (R., Texas), who served as the president’s physician from 2013 to 2018, told the Free Beacon that Biden may not have much time left.

“This is not my area of specialty, but I have spoken to multiple urologists since this came out, and the general consensus is like, you know, it could be 12 to 18 months,” Jackson said. “Hopefully it’s longer than that, and I hope that they’re able to treat this effectively, and, you know, he lives many, many more years. But it’s far advanced.”

Jackson, who regularly checked both Obama and Trump for the disease, believes Biden may have received a diagnosis long before the May announcement.

“Every year I did an exam for President Obama, and every year that I did an exam for President Trump, I checked the [prostate-specific antigen],” he said. “We screened for prostate cancer. I think there’s a probability here that they knew [Biden] had prostate cancer some time ago and just didn’t tell the American people.”

“Treating prostate cancer with radiation or something like that, it doesn’t require you to be an inpatient,” he said. “I mean, people get that done as outpatients all the time. They go in, they spend a couple hours in the doctor’s office, and they’re released the same day. So, it’s absolutely conceivable that he could have been diagnosed and could have been treated without the American people knowing, if his doctor chose not to say anything and family chose not to say anything.”

“That’s definitely justification to follow him closely, and to continue to screen him every single year, aggressively, for prostate cancer,” Jackson told the Free Beacon.

The situation has become so bad that even former President Barack Obama’s former physician is adding to the questions surrounding Biden.

Jeffrey Kuhlman said Biden’s doctor should have offered him a cognitive test during his final year as president because of his age.

The most recent report by White House physician Kevin O’Connor, released in February 2024, included no mention of neuropsychological testing. Biden was 81 at the time.

“Sometimes those closest to the tree miss the forest,” Kuhlman said of O’Connor, who also expressed that such a test would have given voters a clearer picture of whether Biden was up for another 4 years in the Presidency.

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“It shouldn’t be just health, it should be fitness,” Kuhlman said. “Fitness is: Do you have that robust mind, body, spirit that you can do this physically, mentally, emotionally demanding job?”

In a book published last month, journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson created a portrait of a well-meaning but wounded president.