Colorado springs, colo. According to the agency’s acting head, these are strange time for NASA.
During the brief tenure of acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro, the agency has closed the employees, reduced the budget, abolished major programs, and removed all the mentioned mention, equity, inclusion and access from their websites.
If this stretch looks strange to you, you are not alone; Petro depicted himself as a “strange period” during a firerous address today (April 8) at the 40th annual Space Simposium of the Space Foundation in Colorado Springs.
So strange, in fact, Petro said that she thinks that she is the person in NASA to confirm the billionaire private astronaut Jared Isaqman as NASA Administrator. Isaacman has been slated for his first confirmation hearing on yesterday (9 April).
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Petro said today, “I think I am looking forward to the agency the most.”
The acting administrator opened his firecide chat with Major General Heather Pringel (Rit), CEO of Space Foundation, stating that he was given the post of acting administrator after NASA’s former NASA chief Bill Nelson left the post in January 2025. Petro was very surprised after hearing it as head of his head head.
“I felt that he was tickling me. I thought it was a joke,” Petro told those who participated in the space seminar today.
The head of the acting NASA explained in detail how she sees her role in this “strange” time in the agency, saying that she was mainly trying to move forward on her major events of records such as recent partnerships on Artemis Moon Mission or Private Moon Landing.
But the confirmation of a new agency administrator will “allow us to move even more rapidly with some more specificity, if you will,” Petro said.
“So with this, I would say, I like to say that I am preparing to wait for Jarend, just making sure that everything is on the track,” she said.
