This brave 15-year-old fought cancer with all her heart — what Elon Musk and Jared Isaacman did will leave you in tears
On April 1, when Artemis II launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to embark on its historic 10-day lunar flyby, Glenn Beck was sitting in the audience section designated for people who work in the space program and journalists invited to attend the launch.
As he chatted with various scientists and fellow journalists, he noticed a husband and wife sitting among the group who were clearly not part of either world. He soon struck up a conversation with them and inquired about how they received an invitation.
“They started telling me a story that was as impressive as the rocket going off itself,” he says.
The story was about their 15-year daughter Olivia “Liv” Perrotto, who died of a rare and aggressive childhood cancer in January this year.
A bright, space-obsessed girl who dreamed of becoming an astronaut or fighter pilot, Liv’s illness didn’t quell her courage to pursue her passions.
“That 15-year-old lived more of a life than most of us could ever dream of,” says Glenn.
Elon Musk and NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman are largely to thank for that.
On this heart-wrenching episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn shares a little-known story he says will “break your heart and then heal it right back up.”
“This is a story that neither [Musk nor Isaacman] … would tell you. They didn’t do it for the credit, and I didn’t ask [them] for permission to tell,” says Glenn, noting that it was Liv’s mother who “wanted the world to know what they did and what it meant.”
When Liv was just 10 years old, she was diagnosed with undifferentiated sarcoma — a rare and malignant cancer. Overnight, her life went from normal childhood circumstances to “chemo, radiation, surgeries, [and] clinical trials.”
“It was a really dark time until she heard about a SpaceX mission … called Inspiration 4. This one was commanded by a guy that most people didn’t know at the time named Jared Isaacman,” says Glenn.
“The crew of Inspiration 4 heard about this little girl with cancer, and Jared Isaacman paid to bring her and her family to the launch.”
“And this was the beginning of just a life-changing relationship,” he recounts.
Isaacman’s involvement with Liv didn’t conclude with her attendance at the Inspiration 4 launch. “He became committed to her care and to her dreams,” says Glenn. “Without anyone knowing, without anyone asking, much to the family’s surprise, this guy just threw himself in.”
A few months after the Inspiration 4 launch, Isaacman asked Liv to design a “zero-gravity indicator” for his next mission. She quickly sent in a sketch of a Shiba Inu dog in an astronaut suit named Asteroid.
The Polaris Dawn team, commanded by Isaacman, took Liv’s hand-drawn sketch and turned it into an actual plush toy that they brought with them on the mission. A video taken by the team captured Asteroid floating in the cabin as the crew reached microgravity.
“Nobody on that mission forgot about this little girl in Pennsylvania. They sent her a birthday cake on her birthday. They sent flowers to the hospital. They all got together on a Zoom call just days before she died,” says Glenn through tears.
“Jared chartered his own plane to fly Liv cross-country so she could get treatments, personally called St. Jude to review her case,” he continues.
But that was just the beginning.
Isaacman also took Liv “up in a fighter jet, which he flew,” and introduced her to Charlie Duke, William Shatner, and many other big names from the broader space community.
“The whole space world opened its arms to this little girl — somebody you’ve never heard of,” says Glenn, “and they didn’t do it for the press; they just did it because her passion was contagious, so full of love.”
Because of the kindness of Isaacman and others, “the space world was [Liv’s] world, not hospitals.”
One of Liv’s other dreams was to speak to Elon Musk. At a town hall event he hosted in October 2024, she briefly got the chance. Liv had just learned earlier that day that her cancer had returned aggressively, but that didn’t deter her from standing in line all night just to ask Musk when he planned to send kids to space.
After learning of her worsening condition, Musk planned a phone call with Liv in January 2026 so that she could ask him all her pressing questions. But the night he arranged to call her, Liv was too exhausted to carry on a conversation, so she requested that the call be moved to the next day. Musk agreed and immediately sent flowers and a kind note to the hospital.
Tragically, Liv passed before the call came.
“Both the notes and the flowers were put in this little girl’s casket,” says Glenn.
Liv’s legacy lives on through the courage she showed in the face of unimaginable pain, the Asteroid plush toy that now flies on SpaceX missions as the company’s official mascot, thanks to Elon Musk honoring her final wish, and the way her story continues to remind the world that acts of kindness and compassion are happening all around us — even when we can’t see them.
Liv’s mother published her own article about the life of her courageous daughter. You can read it on glennbeck.com.
To hear Glenn’s version of Liv’s beautiful story, grab your tissue box and watch the video above.
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