“It used to be that once your star had fallen in Donald Trump’s orbit, it was destined never to rise again. Any number of discarded former allies stretching back to Trump’s first term of office could testify as much,” The Guardian reports.

“One who has emerged from a political black hole to return to the president’s firmament is the billionaire private astronaut Jared Isaacman, who will on Wednesday tell senators – for the second time – why he is the best person to lead the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.”

“Isaacman’s return to the launchpad is an intriguing tale of politics, ambition and above all the vanity of a president determined to ensure the US flag is planted back on the surface of the moon before he leaves office in January 2029.”

“President Donald Trump’s pick to lead NASA, Jared Isaacman, will face another Senate confirmation hearing on Dec. 3, following the administration’s renomination of the fintech billionaire to run the agency,” Bloomberg reports.

“Some five months after President Trump abruptly yanked the nomination of the person he had chosen to lead NASA, he finally put forth a new nomination on Tuesday — of the same person,” the New York Times reports.

“Jared Isaacman, 42, a billionaire entrepreneur who led two private missions to orbit on SpaceX rockets, is again in line to become the next NASA administrator.”

“Jared Isaacman’s bid to take the top job at NASA — once thought dead in the Senate — has found renewed life as Sen. Tim Sheehy and a handful of high-profile supporters seek to help the tech billionaire supplant the acting head of the space agency, Sean Duffy,” Politico reports.

A new study of cognitive decline finds “individuals best suited for high-stakes decision-making roles are unlikely to be younger than 40 or older than 65.”

Jill Lawrence: “The trajectory from heart and lung transplant surgeon Bill Frist of Tennessee to gastroenterologist Bill Cassidy of Louisiana is emblematic of the dark Republican Party journey on science and health — from the Bush family to the Trump family, from American greatness to self-defeating denialism on everything from vaccines to cancer research.”

New York Times: “In rapid bursts, Mr. Trump has also laid off large teams of scientists, pulled the plug on thousands of research projects and proposed deep spending cuts for new studies. If his proposed $44 billion cut to next year’s budget is enacted, it will prompt the largest drop in federal support for science since World War II, when scientists and Washington began their partnership.”

“Few if any analysts see Mr. Trump as a Stalin, who crushed science, or even as a direct analog to this era’s strongmen leaders. But his assault on researchers and their institutions is so deep that historians and other experts see similarities to the playbook employed by autocratic regimes to curb science.”

Scientists are removing words like “diverse” and “disparities” from hundreds of federal grant renewals to avoid getting flagged in the Trump administration’s focus on eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows.

Franklin Foer: “Last year, 95 percent of the rockets launched in the United States were launched by SpaceX. NASA was a mere passenger. Musk has crowded low Earth orbit with satellites (nearly 8,000) that are becoming indispensable to the military’s capacity to communicate and the government’s surveillance of hostile powers. Even if Trump had pushed to dislodge Musk, he couldn’t. No rival could readily replace the services his companies provide.”

“That Musk has superseded NASA is a very American parable. A generation ago, NASA was the crown jewel of the U.S. government. It was created in 1958 to demonstrate the superiority of the American way of life, and it succeeded brilliantly. In the course of landing humans on the lunar surface, NASA became the symbol of America’s competence and swagger, of how it—alone among the nations of the Earth—inhabited the future. NASA’s astronauts were 20th-century cowboys, admired in corners of the world that usually abhorred Americans. The Apollo crews traveled to the heavens on behalf of ‘all mankind,’ a phrase that appeared both in the act that created NASA and on the plaque left on the moon by Apollo 11. Even NASA’s engineers, with their skinny ties and rolled-up sleeves, became the stuff of Hollywood legend.”

“NASA was born at the height of liberalism’s faith in government, and its demise tracks the decline of that faith. As the United States lost confidence in its ability to accomplish great things, it turned to Musk as a potential savior, and ultimately surrendered to him. This isn’t an instance of crony capitalism, but a tale about well-meaning administrations, of both parties, pursuing grandiose ambitions without the vision, competence, or funding to realize them.”

A public letter from NASA employees on Monday urges leaders of the space agency not to carry out deep cuts sought by the Trump administration, the New York Times reports.

“The Trump administration’s attack on scientific institutions has been characteristically audacious: Eliminating the U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded healthcare interventions and research worldwide. Removing all the members of the vaccine advisory panel of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Cutting healthcare research funding by $1.8 billion and overall funding for the National Institutes of Health by $3 billion,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“It has also homed in on what might seem like a small-bore opponent: the highly specialized world of science and medical journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association.”

The Hill: NIH scientists condemn Trump research cuts.

“NASA and Pentagon officials moved swiftly this past week to urge competitors to Elon Musk’s SpaceX to more quickly develop alternative rockets and spacecraft after President Donald Trump threatened to cancel Space X’s contracts and Musk’s defiant response,” the Washington Post reports.

“Government officials were especially stunned after Musk responded to Trump with a salvo of his own: SpaceX would stop flying its Dragon spacecraft, a move that would leave the space agency with no way to transport its astronauts to the International Space Station.”

“Elon Musk’s threat Thursday to decommission SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft would have left NASA reliant on Russian capsules to get its astronauts into space,” Axios reports.

“Musk’s rift with President Trump exposes how reliant NASA has become on a single private sector partner to reach the International Space Station after ending the space shuttle program in 2011.”

“Musk eventually walked back the threat Thursday, but it demonstrates how critical SpaceX is to the American space program.”

The Guardian: “Senior officials at the US Department of Veterans Affairs have ordered that VA physicians and scientists not publish in medical journals or speak with the public without first seeking clearance from political appointees of Donald Trump.”

New York Times: “As the Trump administration moves with abandon to deny visas, expel foreign students and slash spending on research, scientists in the United States are becoming increasingly alarmed. The global supremacy that the United States has long enjoyed in health, biology, the physical sciences and other fields, they warn, may be coming to an end.”

New York Times: “As President Trump cuts billions of federal dollars from science institutes and universities, restricts what can be studied and pushes out immigrants, rival nations are hoping to pick up talent that has been cast aside or become disenchanted.”

“For decades, trying to compete with American institutions and companies has been difficult. The United States was a magnet for top researchers, scientists and academics. In general, budgets were bigger, pay was bigger, labs and equipment were bigger. So were ambitions.”

Paul Krugman: “Why do our new rulers want to destroy science in America? Sadly, the answer is obvious: Science has a tendency to tell you things you may not want to hear. Medical research may tell you that vaccines work and don’t cause autism. Energy research may tell wind power works and doesn’t massacre birds.”

“And one thing we know about MAGA types is that they are determined to hold on to their prejudices. If science conflicts with those prejudices, they don’t want to know, and they don’t want anyone else to know either. So they really want to destroy science.”

“Again, this isn’t hyperbole, and it’s not about the long run. American science is being gutted as you read this.”