Trump picks billionaire who performed first private spacewalk to lead NASA

Jared Isaacman. File
| Photo Credit: AFP

A tech billionaire who bought a series of spaceflights from Elon Musk’s SpaceX and conducted the first private spacewalk was nominated by President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday (December 4, 2024) to lead NASA.

Jared Isaacman, 41, CEO and founder of a card-processing company, has collaborated closely with Mr. Musk ever since buying his first chartered flight with SpaceX. He took along contest winners on that 2021 trip and followed it in September with a mission where he briefly popped out the hatch to test SpaceX’s new spacewalking suits.

If confirmed, Mr. Isaacman will replace Bill Nelson, 82, a former Democratic senator from Florida who was nominated by President Joe Biden. Nelson flew aboard space shuttle Columbia in 1986 – on the flight right before the Challenger disaster – while a congressman.

Mr. Isaacman said he was honoured to be nominated and would be “grateful to serve.” “Having been fortunate to see our amazing planet from space, I am passionate about America leading the most incredible adventure in human history,” he said via X.

During Nelson’s tenure, NASA picked up steam in its effort to return astronauts to the moon. This next-generation Apollo programme – named after Apollo’s mythological twin sister Artemis – plans to send four astronauts around the moon as soon as next year. The first moon landing in more than half a century would follow.

NASA is counting on SpaceX to get astronauts to the lunar surface via Starship, the mega rocket launching out of Texas on test flights.

The space agency already relies on SpaceX to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station along with supply runs. Boeing launched its first crew for NASA in June, but the Starliner capsule encountered so many problems that the two test pilots ended up stuck at the space station. They’ll catch a ride home with SpaceX in February, after more than eight months in orbit. Their mission should have lasted eight days.

Also, on NASA’s plate right now: exploring the solar system. Robotic missions to the moon and beyond continue with a NASA spacecraft en route to Jupiter’s watery moon Europa and the Mars rover Perseverance collecting more rock and dirt samples.

Facing tight budgets, NASA is seeking a quicker, cheaper way of getting these Martian samples to Earth than the original plan, which had swollen to $11 billion with nothing arriving before 2040. As with human spaceflight, NASA has turned to industry and others for ideas and help.

The fighter jet-piloting Isaacman, whose call name is Rookie, has described himself as a “space geek” since kindergarten. He dropped out of high school when he was 16, got a GED certificate and started a business in his parent’s basement that became the genesis for Shift4. His business is based in eastern Pennsylvania, where he lives with his wife and their two young daughters.

He set a speed record flying around the world in 2009 while raising money for the Make-A-Wish programme, and later established Draken International, the world’s largest private fleet of fighter jets.

Mr. Isaacman has reserved two more flights with SpaceX, including a trip leading Starship’s first crew into orbit around Earth.