Since its founding in 1958, NASA has occupied a special place in the American imagination. With immense successes such as the Apollo program and the Hubble Space Telescope, the agency often represents the absolute peak of human ingenuity and ambition.
However, the space frontier in 2026 is not the one of the 1960s. Modern U.S. spaceflight is dominated by commercial launch providers, driving innovation and change that government programs cannot match. China is rushing to the moon, while NASA, still structured for a different era, has been slow to adapt.
With Jared Isaacman confirmed to lead NASA, the agency enters 2026 facing one of the most consequential periods in its history. The next several years will determine whether NASA can assert itself in a competitive and contested geopolitical space environment, or whether it will fall behind at a moment when delay carries lasting consequences.
The reality is that NASA is struggling under the weight of its own history. The agency was built for the Cold War, when budgets were near-unlimited and the government was the primary driver of spacecraft development. Today, it is the commercial companies moving the industry forward, outpacing government programs in efficiency, launch cadence and cost. After the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011, NASA relied on Russia for crew transportation to the International Space Station until SpaceX’s Crew Dragon in 2020.
For many years, NASA has tried to be what it no longer is: a launch provider, a hardware developer and a scientific pioneer. However, bereft of the substantial budgets of the 1960s, NASA is stretched thin and wastes resources attempting to do what industry can do better.
Nowhere is this tension clearer than in the Space Launch System (SLS) program. The SLS was initially envisioned as an affordable heavy launch vehicle that would use existing technology and hardware from the Space Shuttle, but the program has failed to live up to expectations, costing taxpayers $30 billion with just a single launch to show for it.
During his confirmation process, Isaacman pointed out these systemic issues while also easing fears that he would prioritize the commercial providers he relied on for his historic private spaceflight with SpaceX in 2021. He also emphasized his support for competition by endorsing the recent reopening of the Artemis lunar-lander contract so that other firms have the opportunity to compete.
By fostering a robust space market, competition can lower costs and drive innovation.
More than 30 years after the Soviet Union collapsed, geopolitical competition in space has reemerged, with China aggressively pursuing a crewed lunar landing by 2030. When pressed on the Artemis program, Isaacman acknowledged that the Space Launch System is imperfect, yet he committed to using it for the next two Artemis missions because it remains the best option for beating China back to the moon while commercial heavy-lifters mature.
This is a race the United States cannot afford to lose. Unlike the 1960s, NASA cannot win by outspending a rival. We must out-innovate them. To do so, we need an agency that prioritizes adaptability and agility over bureaucratic inertia. By promoting a healthy, competitive commercial space ecosystem, the agency can devote more energy to the ambitious scientific work and deep-space exploration efforts that depend on government leadership.
While beating China may be the agency’s priority, Isaacman has also underscored the continued importance of NASA’s scientific mission. He affirmed that the scientific side of space exploration is just as vital as human exploration. The telescopes, probes and remote-sensing observatories NASA helps deploy provide crucial opportunities for scientific and technological advancement on Earth.
As NASA confronts an inflection point unlike any other in its history, leadership alone will not determine success. Congress, the agency and the domestic space industry must understand the stakes and align. Isaacman warned about the urgency of the moment in his testimony: “This is not the time for delay, but for action, because if we fall behind, if we make a mistake, we may never catch up.”
We have the will. We have the drive. If America wants to return to the moon before China and push onward to new frontiers, it needs a NASA that is shrewd, flexible and willing to evolve. The decisions made in the next few years will not only change NASA’s immediate trajectory but shape America’s role in space for decades to come.