Trump Has Selected Jared Isaacman as the Next NASA Administrator

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President Trump has announced that he has selected Jared Isaacman as the next NASA Administrator. Jared was the commander of Inspiration4, a private spaceflight using @SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. Also, earlier this year he completed the first private spacewalk.

Jared is the founder of Draken International, a private air force provider, and the founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments, a payment processor. As of September 2024, his estimated net worth is US$1.9 billion.

Isaacman was the commander of Inspiration4, a private spaceflight using SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Resilience, launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on September 16, 2021. The crew returned to Earth on September 18, 2021, after orbiting at 585 km (364 mi) in altitude. The mission was part of a fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, to which Isaacman pledged to donate $100 million.

Isaacman commanded the Polaris Dawn mission, the first private spaceflight in a series of missions named the Polaris Program. During this mission, on September 12, 2024, Isaacman became the first private citizen to perform a spacewalk. Over the five-day flight, the crew performed about 40 different science experiments and provided more insight into life in space. The crew also completed the first crewed demonstration of Starlink laser communication in space.

17 thoughts on “Trump Has Selected Jared Isaacman as the Next NASA Administrator”

  2. Isaacman has such close ties to Musk that he will be open to accusations of favoritism.

    Now that SLS has been delayed yet again, I’d rather see the program be used to put a few big items up, and give over the manned missions to SpaceX.

    All the claimed reasons for delays are centered around human crew safety. No crew, no problem.

    Lifting a nuke drive for shorter trips to Mars, and/or a fuel depot would be useful.

    No delay for those type missions.

    • Agreed…SLS as interstellar probe, ice giant launcher.

      The thing is, this may make Elon Musk haters prop SLS up for spite.

      A few SLS state senators might break ranks or abstain—defund other things for spite, etc.

      Bill Nye will be propped up by MSNBC to push for it…

  3. So probably not a disastrous choice, unlike RFK Jr for secretary of health & human services.
    Would he display favoritism about who gets NASA contracts? I would like to see more companies than SpaceX be able to launch stuff cheaply. Can we get that without NASA contracts to companies that don’t quite have that ability yet?

  5. Not sure how Congress will factor, but I think this will help ring in the death of SLS
    Good riddance. Spend that money on private rocket companies.
    SLS has cost $23 billion SO FAR. And it has had a single test launch.

  6. This could be interesting. If he run’s NASA like a business, though, it could make things kind of musky (yeah, I know I’m clever, you don’t have to say it). But in all seriousness, I do wonder how he’d run NASA. It would be the first time in a long time that we haven’t had someone at least somewhat connected to government as the administrator (unless I’m wrong, and I can be wrong a lot).

  8. The guy that basically re-made Gemini from his own pocket and offered NASA to fix Hubble also on him (just to be declined), is now NASA’s boss.

    Well, I bet they will be interested next time.

    How the tables turn.

  9. The only reason you don’t know this man is your unwillingness to Google his backstory.

    A cursory effort at research would have yielded a cornucopia of information.

  10. I don’t know this man. So I can’t comment on his appointment. But what DO WE KNOW up to now? Trump appointments people to major positions not based on their ability to do any job, but on loyalty to Trump. Just for the hell of it, I think any cabinet nominee (as well as anyone running for senate or congress), should have to pass a simple test. With ;questions like: “What is that job description?” When in office, what can you do, and why?” These are not “yes/no/ questions, but we could start there. Lets face it. Many people elected to public office today have only ideology, and are stupid SOB’s

    • dont let your politics blind you. this is clearly a musk recommendation. he’s a previous client, rich and motivated to explore space with his own money. This guy wont care about state politics he will cut throat put us into space. i think it could go really well but who knows.

    • “Trump appointments people to major positions not based on their ability to do any job, but on loyalty to Trump.”

      Because Presidents routinely nominate people they expect to refuse to follow orders? No reason, for example, that he should expect his AG to be his “wingman”.

    • The first step to understand is admitting to not understanding. You were almost there, but then you make judgement with lack of information.

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