The last time I reported on NASA, the Artemis program was completely overhauled to enable more frequent launches, allowing problems to be identified and solved more efficiently. The reboot is based on the successful Apollo lunar landing missions.
To help this process along, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced the creation of “NASA Force.” This program is a new NASA and Office of Personnel Management (OPM) hiring initiative aimed at creating a dedicated talent track within the US Tech Force to bring top engineers and technologists into term-limited, mission‑critical roles supporting the U.S. space program.
Isaacman revealed the plans at the A16Z American Dynamism Summit and posted about it later on X before publicly sharing the outlines of the concept during an interview with CNBC’s Morgan Brennan.In the CNBC interview, Isaacman said he and OPM Director Scott Kupor made the announcement jointly at the summit today. Isaacman’s contention is that NASA’s core competencies “have been eroded or lost over the years” and the way to build them back is to bring “thousands of people back into the organization, some from contractors, some term-based appointments from industry” in order to achieve the goal of getting astronauts back on the Moon in 2028.Asked by Brennan how he expects to “lure the top talent” from industry, Isaacman said it will attract professionals who want to serve their country for a fixed period of time.
The US Tech Force is a new cross-government hiring initiative launched by the Trump administration in late 2025 to recruit roughly 1,000 early‑career technologists for one‑ to two‑year rotational roles focused on modernizing federal IT systems and accelerating adoption of artificial intelligence across agencies.
The group is administered by OPM in coordination with other agencies and multiple cabinet departments and targets skills in software engineering, artificial intelligence AI), cybersecurity, data analytics, and technical project management, pairing fellows with “mission‑critical” projects in areas like financial infrastructure at Treasury, digital service delivery in civilian agencies, and AI‑enabled defense and intelligence systems.
Participants will commit to a two-year employment program working with teams that report directly to agency leaders in “collaboration with leading technology companies,” according to an official government website.Those “private sector partners” include Amazon Web Services, Apple, Google Public Sector, Dell Technologies, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, Oracle, Palantir, Salesforce and numerous others, the website says.The Tech Force shows the Trump administration increasing its focus on developing America’s AI infrastructure as it competes with China for dominance in the rapidly growing industry.
Intriguingly, the emphasis is….on what you can do for your country.
“NASA represents the pinnacle of American innovation,” said OPM Director Scott Kupor. “Through NASA Force, we are ensuring the world’s premier space agency has access to the very best engineers and technologists in the country. If you want to work on the most consequential technical challenges anywhere in the world, this is your call to serve.”The launch of NASA Force builds on the growing momentum of the US Tech Force initiative, which has attracted strong interest from early- and mid-career technologists eager to apply their skills to public service.Applications will be live soon and those interested are encouraged to follow @USTechForce on X for updates.
This shift in emphasis marks a stark departure from the recent era of government recruiting, which centered on diversity labels and lifestyle perks rather than the hard demands of national excellence and service. Instead of asking “What can this government job do for you?”, Tech Force and NASA Force explicitly revive a more demanding, aspirational standard: What can your talent do for the country, and can you meet the bar set by Apollo’s engineers?
In tying NASA Force to a rebooted, more frequent-launch Artemis architecture modeled on Apollo’s success, Isaacman and Kupor are signaling that NASA’s future workforce will be selected first and foremost for technical mastery, toughness, and mission focus, not as a showcase for bureaucratic priorities.
If NASA once again attracts the best people by challenging them to do the best work in the service of something larger than themselves, then Artemis could really become a true twin to Apollo.
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