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This is Science Friday. I'm Flora Lichten.

On Wednesday, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, heard testimony from Jared Isaacman,

President Trump's nominee to lead NASA.

Joining me now to talk about that and other science stories from the week is Cy-Fri's own Charles Berkwist.

Hi, Charles.

Hey, Flora.

Okay, so what's the news from this confirmation hearing?

And, you know, why are we leading to this?

Yeah, so during the hearing, Jared Isaacman said sending a crude American mission to Mars would be a priority for the agency.

You know, we've heard that the president is pro-Mars.

He mentioned it during his inaugural address.

But the agency's current plan involving the Artemis program was to take a multi-step approach to return to the moon.

And then only later using things that they learned from Artemis program was to take a multi-step approach to return to the moon. And then only later

using things that they learned from Artemis to then head to Mars. Moon first, then Mars.

Exactly. Yeah, a staged thing. So having the possible new NASA administrators say that Mars is a

priority is a pretty big policy shift. Does he have the power to ditch the moon for Mars?

Yes.

The thing is that the authorization for NASA and its funding comes from, you know,

an actual law passed by Congress and signed by the president.

And that law says Artemis and the space launch system it's using to get to the moon

is the way that NASA

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