Billionaire astronaut Jared Isaacman seeks NASA leadership
Billionaire astronaut seeks NASA leadership.. Trump withdraws and then reinstates his nomination.
Spacewalk billionaire Jared Isaacman urged U.S. senators Wednesday to move quickly on his nomination to lead NASA, after it was withdrawn and then reinstated by President Donald Trump.
Isaacman appeared before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee in Washington eight months after his initial confirmation hearing. The tech entrepreneur, who has flown two spaceflights with SpaceX, stressed the need for "full-time leadership" at NASA as the agency prepares to send astronauts back to the moon early next year. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been serving as NASA's acting administrator since the summer.
Speaking before a committee chaired by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Isaacman said that returning astronauts to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years would be "a challenging adventure, to say the least." NASA aims to send four astronauts on a lunar flyby early next year. The astronauts will not land on the moon; that will take place on a separate mission. The goal is to surpass China in this field before the end of the decade.
"This is not the time to delay," Isaacman told the committee. "This is the time to act, because if we delay—or make a mistake—we may never catch up, and the consequences could shift the balance of power here on Earth.
" Cruz agreed, saying, "NASA cannot afford to turn a blind eye to this," referring to China's upcoming lunar exploration plans. He added, "The United States must remain the undisputed leader in space exploration."
Jared Isaacman, 41, is a highly skilled pilot who set a world record in 2009 for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe in a light jet. A close friend and confidant of billionaire Elon Musk, he has led numerous space missions for his company, SpaceX, and is a strong advocate for expanding the space industry.
From a young age, Jared Isaacman displayed a remarkable aptitude for computers. At just 16, he decided to start a payment processing company, using a $10,000 check he received from his grandfather.
Jared Isaacman started his company in his basement, offering financial solutions and payment processing. He was highly successful in these endeavors, leading him to expand and launch Shift4 Payments, a payment processing company in the United States.
Over the years, he continued to thrive, transforming it into a major corporation and going public in June 2020. Currently, Shift4 Payments has a market capitalization of $7.4 billion. The company's headquarters, a 75,000-square-foot facility, is located in Center Valley, Pennsylvania, and it employs over 2,000 people nationwide.
Isaacman began taking flying lessons in his twenties. In 2009, he set a world record, circumnavigating the globe in a Cessna Citation CJ2 in under 62 hours, nearly 20 hours faster than the previous record holder. In 2013, he founded Draken International, a company that trains student pilots for the U.S. Air Force, and sold it to the investment firm Blackstone Group in 2020 for millions of dollars, according to Forbes.
In 2021, his involvement in spaceflight training began with SpaceX when he commanded the world's first all-civilian mission to orbit. This year, 2024, he made history by commanding SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission, the first spacewalk conducted by a private company.
During this mission, Jared Isaacman set a record as the first civilian to perform a spacewalk, spending 10 minutes floating in the vacuum of space after exiting the Crew Dragon capsule—a dangerous feat never before accomplished by anyone outside of government astronauts.
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