By Joey Roulette
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday tapped Jared Isaacman to lead NASA, selecting a billionaire private astronaut and close associate of Elon Musk to oversee an agency closely linked to the SpaceX founder’s businesses.
Isaacman, CEO of payment processing company Shift4 Payments, leads Polaris (NYSE:), a program using SpaceX vehicles to conduct private astronaut missions in orbit.
If confirmed, he would oversee the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s roughly $25 billion budget heavily focused on returning humans to the moon under its Artemis program, a multibillion dollar effort promoted by Trump during his first term that will rely heavily on SpaceX’s Starship.
“Jared will drive NASA’s mission of discovery and inspiration, paving the way for groundbreaking achievements in Space science, technology, and exploration,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.
Isaacman would also command the space agency’s aeronautics portfolio that has been funding green aviation concepts, as well as a sprawling space science unit that has faced layoffs and budget cuts under the administration of President Joe Biden.
NASA’s last two appointed administrators were former politicians. Trump’s first NASA chief, former Oklahoma lawmaker Jim Bridenstine, launched the Artemis program and convinced Congress to increase the agency’s budget to fund it. Biden appointed former Florida senator Bill Nelson to run NASA.
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