Exclusive | NASA chief Jared Isaacman tells Pod Force One about his NIMBY solution to data center backlash

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has floated a futuristic solution to the furious public debate in America over data center construction: Just put it in outer space.Isaacman, who has helmed the space agency since December 2025, said on Wednesday’s episode of “Pod Force One” that placing the data centers in space could allow for them “to draw on the free solar power” from fusion reactors that would also be operable outside of Earth’s atmosphere.Not to mention it would quiet down those noisy NIMBYs in your neighborhood who don’t want new data centers built near them, he suggested.“Elon [Musk] and others in the industry are like let’s take the data centers that no one likes in your backyard — it seems like there’s a lot of consensus on that — and put them into space where they won’t bother anyone,” the NASA chief noted.“And by the way, it’s not going to mess with your power bill because we’re going to draw on the free solar power from our fusion reactor that’s just sitting out there,” he added.“Fantastic idea.”The solar panels used to harness that power would have to be “the size of several football fields,” Isaacman also said.More than 1,500 data centers were in construction nationwide as of this year, of which around two-thirds are planned for rural locations, according to the Pew Research Center.Regardless of where they’re built, though, a large majority of Americans oppose them, a new Fox News voter poll in July showed.Just 30% of US voters are in favor of constructing data centers in their region to support artificial intelligence, whereas 70% of voters oppose them.That also happens to be the percentage of Americans (70%) who currently support a “return to the moon,” according to Isaacman, who noted he “would not bet against the orbital data centers, the AI data centers, for a lot of reasons.”“And even if the economics don’t close in the first five to 10 years, I think it’ll get there because the econ...