(Cape Canaveral) A tech billionaire who booked space flights with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and flew the first “private” spacewalk was chosen Wednesday by the president-elect Donald Trump to lead NASA.
Posted at 1:58 p.m.
Marcia Dunn
Associated Press
Jared Isaacman, 41, CEO and founder of a payment card processing company, has been a close associate of Elon Musk since purchasing his first charter flight from SpaceX. He took competition winners on this 2021 trip and returned in September on a mission where he briefly went out of the hatch to test SpaceX’s new spacesuits.
If confirmed to Congress, Jared Isaacman will replace 82-year-old Bill Nelson, a former Democratic senator from Florida who was nominated by President Joe Biden. While already a member of Congress, Mr. Nelson flew aboard the space shuttle Columbia in 1986 – just before the Challenger disaster.
During Bill Nelson’s tenure, the US space agency (NASA) accelerated its efforts to return astronauts to the Moon. This new generation Apollo program, called Artemis, the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology, plans to send four astronauts around the Moon next year. The program then provides for a first moon landing in more than half a century.
NASA is counting on SpaceX to bring astronauts to the lunar surface via its megarocket Starshiplaunched from Texas for its test flights.
The US space agency already relies on SpaceX to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station as well as to resupply them.
Boeing launched its first crew for NASA in June, but the capsule Starliner encountered so many problems that the two test pilots got stuck on the space station. Their mission was supposed to last eight days, but they will finally return home with SpaceX next February, after more than eight months in orbit.
On NASA’s agenda at the moment: exploring the solar system. Robotic missions to the Moon and beyond continue with a NASA spacecraft en route to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa and with the Mars rover Perseverancewhich is collecting more rock and soil samples from the “red planet.”
Jared Isaacman, a fighter jet pilot whose nickname is “Rookie,” describes himself as a “space geek” since kindergarten. He dropped out of school at 16, then earned a high school certificate and started a business in his parents’ basement, which became the genesis of his company “Shift4.”
In 2009, Mr. Isaacman set a speed record by circumnavigating the world, while raising funds for Children’s Wish. He then created “Draken International”, the largest private fleet of fighter jets in the world.
Mr. Isaacman has two more flights booked with SpaceX, including a trip to take the first crew of Starship orbiting the Earth.
He wrote on X Wednesday: “Having had the chance to see our incredible planet from space, I am passionate about the idea of America leading the most incredible adventure in human history.”
