NASA chief Jared Isaacman says Artemis II would not be possible 'if it wasn't for President Trump'

"I want to be incredibly clear, we would not be at this moment right now with Artemis II if it wasn't for President Trump," Isaacman told Fox. "And we certainly would not have an achievable path now to get back to the lunar surface and build that enduring presence."

The goal of the launch is to circle the moon and return to Earth, landing in San Diego some time this week. 

"In the next 24 hours or so, they're gonna pass behind the far side of the moon, these four astronauts will have traveled farther away from Earth than any humans ever before, about 250,000 miles away," Isaasman explained. "We are putting the spacecraft through all its paces, testing out its various systems, including manual controls."

Isaacman said the spacecraft is "performing better than we would have expected" before launch, and that the astronauts will soon begin their journey back to Earth once they have passed over the far side of the moon. 

"It is not even a close comparison," Isaacman said. "The operator consoles or flight controllers have multiple screens, lots of computing power that's available to them right now. I mean there is certainly an army here supporting NASA, or an army at NASA that's supporting this mission, but not the hundreds of thousands of people that you would have had during the Apollo era that had to bubble into that enormous endeavor."

"Someday we can send astronauts to Mars and they can come back home to tell us about it."

The 43-year-old billionaire was sworn in as NASA administrator last December. A longtime space enthusiast, Isaacman previously commanded the first-ever commercial spacewalk in September 2024.

When asked about what this mission means to him personally, Isaacman told Fox News Digital he credited the NASA workforce and the team behind him for the success the space agency has seen on this mission and those yet to come.

"For everybody else, we got to start working on Artemis III," Isaacman explained. "You go back to the Apollo era, Apollo 10, as those astronauts were orbiting in lunar orbit, just miles above the surface, two months later, Apollo 11 launched where Neil and Buzz walked on the moon. That means we have to be able to do multiple world-changing missions in near parallel."