CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A technology billionaire who bought a series of spaceflights from Elon Musk’s SpaceX and performed the first private spacewalk was nominated Wednesday by President-elect Donald Trump to lead NASA.
Jared Isaacman, 41, CEO and founder of a ticket processing company, has worked closely with Musk since he bought his first charter flight from SpaceX. He took competition winners on that 2021 trip and followed it up in September with a mission where he briefly popped open the hatch to test SpaceX’s new spacewalking suits.
If confirmed, Isaacman will replace 82-year-old Bill Nelson, a former Democratic senator from Florida who was nominated by President Joe Biden. Nelson flew aboard the space shuttle Columbia in 1986 — on the flight just before the Challenger disaster — while he was a congressman.
Trusted news and daily treats, straight to your inbox
See for yourself: The Yodel is the source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories.
Isaacman said he was honored to be nominated and would be “grateful to serve.” “Having been fortunate enough 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 gained steam in its effort to return astronauts to the moon. This next-generation Apollo program – named after Apollo’s mythological twin sister Artemis – plans to send four astronauts around the moon next year. The first moon landing in over half a century would follow.
NASA is counting on SpaceX to get astronauts to the moon’s surface via Starship, the mega-rocket launched from Texas during test flights.
The space agency already relies on SpaceX to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station, along with resupply flights. Boeing launched its first crew for NASA in June, but the Starliner capsule encountered so many problems that the two test pilots ultimately became stuck in the space station. They will ride home with SpaceX in February after more than eight months in orbit. Their mission was supposed to last eight days.
Also on NASA’s plate at the moment: exploring the solar system. Robotic missions to the moon and beyond continue with a NASA spacecraft heading to Jupiter’s watery moon Europa and the Mars rover Perseverance collecting more rock and dirt samples.
Faced with tight budgets, NASA is looking for a faster, cheaper way to get these samples from Mars to Earth than the original plan, which swelled to $11 billion with nothing arriving before 2040. As with human spaceflight, NASA has turned to industry and others for ideas and help.
Musk congratulated Isaacman via X, describing him as a man of “high ability and integrity.”
Fighter jet pilot Isaacman, whose nickname is Rookie, has described himself as a “space geek” since kindergarten. He dropped out of high school at 16, earned a GED certificate and started a business in his parents’ basement that became the origin of Shift4. His business is based in eastern Pennsylvania, where he lives with his wife and their two young daughters.
He set a speed record in 2009 by flying around the world while raising money for the Make-A-Wish program, and later founded Draken International, the world’s largest private fleet of fighter jets.
Isaacman has two more flights booked with SpaceX, including a trip that will take Starship’s first crew into orbit.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
