Future US government: Trump wants all-excursionist Isaacman as NASA boss

US President-elect Donald Trump wants to make billionaire and space traveler Jared Isaacman head of the NASA space agency. “Jared’s passion for space, his astronaut experience and his unwavering desire to advance research, unravel the mysteries of space and advance the space business mean he is ideally suited to lead NASA into a bold new era “Wrote Trump on the platform he co-founded, Truth Social. The nomination is an honor for him, wrote the 41-year-old Isaacman, who made his money with a payment processing company, among other things, at X.

Isaacman has caused a stir in recent years with two private space missions: In 2021, he was part of the first space crew in space consisting entirely of amateur astronauts and orbited the earth for almost three days together with three other people. In September he took part in the “Polaris Dawn” mission together with three other amateur astronauts, during which they climbed to an altitude of around 1,400 kilometers and also briefly got out of their spacecraft. On both missions, Isaacman worked with SpaceX, the private space company owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk, who is now also set to become part of the Trump administration.

In the past, former astronauts or politicians usually got the job of NASA boss. In his first term, Trump nominated former Congressman Jim Bridenstine. Former US Senator Bill Nelson currently leads the agency. He was nominated by the current US President Joe Biden. Isaacman’s nomination would still need to be confirmed by the Senate.