President-elect Donald Trump announced on Wednesday the nomination of billionaire Jared Isaacma (pictured right) as a candidate to head NASA, The Verge writes. As you know, Isaacman financed the private space mission Polaris Dawn, during which he, together with SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis, made the first spacewalk in the history of commercial launches.
Image source: SpaceX
Isaacman will succeed former Florida Senator Bill Nelson, who was appointed by President Joe Biden when he was elected, as NASA administrator. In addition to Polaris Dawn, Isaacman also secured funding for the Inspiration 4 mission, which saw him and three other civilians fly into space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and crewed Crew Dragon in 2021. The mission participants are shown in the photo above.
Isaacman is the CEO of payment processing company Shift4, which he founded at age 16. “With the support of President Trump, I can promise you this: We will never again lose our ability to travel to the stars, and we will never settle for second place,” Isaacman wrote on social media X.
Let us recall that Trump previously appointed SpaceX CEO Elon Musk as head of the Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE).