NASA Administrator Isaacman Imagines The State Of Space In 110 Years

Back in 1916, Aviation chose a novel image to mark the first issue of the magazine: a view of the ground from an airplane. In 2026, we showcase Starship in space. What will be cutting-edge 110 years from now? NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman offers a perspective to Senior Editor Irene Klotz.

AW&ST: What does space exploration look like in 110 years? 

I suspect we’re going to know our Solar System as well as we know our planet today. We’ll know where everything is, whether or not there was life there at one point or another and whether there is economic potential, perhaps like asteroid mining. There will be people on the Moon and Mars, probably more akin to scientific outposts than actual colonies.

What technologies will make that possible? 

One is next-generation propulsion. If we rely on chemical propulsion, you can send things far in the Solar System, but you can’t easily bring them back. Also, as you get farther away from the Sun, the more you’re going to need an alternative power source. The radioisotope thermoelectric generators we’ve historically carried on those missions are incredibly inefficient use of the energy potential, so nuclear technology is paramount for NASA’s future. We have to progress fission power and then fusion power so we can get where we want to go faster and come back, whether it’s crewed or robotic. That’s foundational.

The second technology is on-mission compute and artificial intelligence. In 110 years, there are going to be a lot of robotic missions out there gathering so much data. Hypothetically, there could be a handful just in orbit around Neptune characterizing the entire environment. Ninety percent was not interesting, but the 10% is a breakthrough, and that is beamed home to us.

What does NASA need to do to make that future possible? 

It comes back to the same two points I’ve made since coming into office, which is trying to concentrate NASA’s resources on the most pressing objectives, the hardest engineering problems to solve, and do it in a logical, evolutionary, iterative way. That’s how you go fast, as opposed to trying to do a lot of “littles” that proceed very slowly, many of which don’t make it to the intended result. That’s priority one. Two is ensuring that we have the right and properly empowered workforce to do things at the pace that is reasonable and consistent with past major endeavors. You have to be able to retain them, which means working on things that industry isn’t, or people will naturally gravitate toward industry.

Is NASA at risk of being derailed by politics? 

Despite the political environment today, stakeholders on both sides of the aisle understand that the way NASA has been doing things in recent history has not been reaching the correct outcomes. There needs to be some reform and change, and they have been very supportive of it. It’s a compromise on the right approach to balance certain legacy initiatives while being able to fund new initiatives.

How will advances in aerospace and aviation affect life on Earth? 

Things that we look at with total wonder today will be routine. You already have indications of that, such as video feeds from the International Space Station, which I think are still rather mesmerizing, but a lot of people would say: “OK, that’s what Earth looks like from 400 km. I’ve seen it.” Contrast that with the Artemis II imagery, which completely blows everyone’s mind because we hadn’t seen the Moon like that in a very long time. People 110 years in the future might be actually bored of seeing live imagery from the Moon base, comparable to watching people work at a construction site or a mine. But you’re going to see the new things. It could be a lander on Europa cutting through the frozen sea to search for life. People will be tuned in, looking at the visuals, probably with some sort of augmented-reality headset or microchip, and you’re going to feel like you’re there. The frontier will continue to expand.