T+311: Phil McAlister on Commercial LEO and NASA’s Human Spaceflight Budget

Phil McAlister, former Director of NASA’s Commercial Space Division, joins me to talk about the Commercial LEO Destinations program, the budgetary issues facing NASA and its human spaceflight programs, and to share his perspective on the last (and next) few years in these areas. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 32 executive producers—Joel, Pat, Will and Lars from Agile, Joakim, Jan, Warren, David, Fred, Better Every Day Studios, Josh from Impulse, Ryan, Natasha Tsakos, Theo and Violet, Tim Dodd (the Everyday Astronaut!), Stealth Julian, Donald, Joonas, The Astrogators at SEE, Russell, Kris, Frank, Steve, Heiko, Lee, Matt, and four anonymous—and hundreds of supporters . Topics Phil McAlister | LinkedIn The Dreaded Gap | LinkedIn You Can’t Reach the Stars While Chained to Low-Earth Orbit | LinkedIn No Changes Allowed | LinkedIn Vast backs new NASA commercial space station strategy - SpaceNews T+205: Phil McAlister, Director of Commercial Spaceflight at NASA - Main Engine Cut Off The Show Like the show? Support the show on Patreon or Substack ! Email your thoughts, comments, and questions to anthony@mainenginecutoff.com Follow @WeHaveMECO Follow @meco@spacey.space on Mastodon Listen to MECO Headlines Listen to Off-Nominal Join the Off-Nominal Discord

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T+311: Phil McAlister on Commercial LEO and NASA’s Human Spaceflight Budget is an episode from Main Engine Cut Off by Dot First, LLC.

This episode is 00:42:37 long.

This episode was published on Oct 10, 2025.

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