Trump Picks Billionaire Space Enthusiast to Lead NASA

President-elect Donald Trump announced last week he plans to nominate tech billionaire Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator. Isaacman began his career by founding a payment processing company and later started a company that trains military pilots. A pilot himself, he has commanded two private orbital missions led by SpaceX.

In a statement thanking Trump, Isaacman said that space holds “unparalleled potential for breakthroughs in manufacturing, biotechnology, mining, and perhaps even pathways to new sources of energy.” He added there will “inevitably be a thriving space economy—one that will create opportunities for countless people to live and work in space” and that NASA will “passionately pursue these opportunities.” Isaacman also said, “Americans will walk on the Moon and Mars and in doing so, we will make life better here on Earth.”

Isaacman has criticized aspects of NASA’s human space exploration programs in recent years, calling the Space Launch System rocket “outrageously expensive.” He has also drawn attention to these high costs in light of NASA’s proposed cuts to the Chandra X-ray observatory, petitioning the agency to fully fund the telescope.

“The premature loss of Chandra will result in a death spiral for X-ray astronomy in the United States, evaporation of a talented national workforce, and ceding U.S. industrial leadership in the most critical discoveries of the coming decade,” he wrote in a letter to NASA earlier this year. “It is particularly disheartening to witness billions of taxpayer dollars funneled into the Space Launch System and not one but two lunar landing contracts.”

This news brief originally appeared in FYI’s newsletter for the week of Dec. 9.