HOW’S THAT SPACE PROGRAM COMING ALONG? Planetary defense may get a boost from Jared Isaacman.

The brief surge of interest in 2024 YR4, which made its way into mainstream media even amid all the activities of the new Trump administration, offers a challenge and an opportunity for the planetary defense community.

The opportunity comes from the renewed interest in planetary defense. While NASA spends significantly more on the subject now than it did a decade ago, scientists are looking to do more. One example is ongoing efforts to win support for a mission to Apophis, an asteroid that will make a close flyby of the Earth in 2029. NASA has yet to greenlight a dedicated mission to Apophis despite proposals that include repurposing Janus, a pair of NASA smallsats built but then placed in storage when delays in its rideshare launch kept it from carrying out its original asteroid mission.

The person likely to be NASA’s next administrator appears receptive to boosting planetary defense. “There is a lot of taxpayer-funded science that should be reviewed & potentially reduced, but planetary defense against NEO threats seems disproportionately underfunded relative to the likelihood and magnitude of the associated risks & consequences,” Jared Isaacman wrote on social media Feb. 14, near the peak of interest in 2024 YR4.

This was one of the few policy statements he has made publicly since being nominated, suggesting he would be open to increasing spending on planetary defense.

Isaacman is a perfect choice for NASA and I wish he’d get confirmed already.