The White House announced that it would nominate a new NASA administrator, as the previous nominee, Isaacman, had been confirmed and approved by the Senate.

[Text/Observer Network Xiong Chaoyi] Previously, Jared Isaacman, the NASA administrator nominated by former U.S. President Trump, had already been approved by the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee. However, on May 31st local time, the White House announced that Trump would nominate a new NASA administrator, without specifying the reason for replacing Isaacman.

According to reports from Bloomberg and Reuters on the same day, White House Assistant Press Secretary Liz Huston stated: "The next leader of NASA must fully align with President Trump's 'America First' agenda, and President Trump will soon announce the successor directly."

Previously, the emerging American media outlet Semafor cited two informed sources as reporting that the White House would cancel the nomination of Isaacman. A day earlier, Trump had released a detailed budget plan requiring a 25% reduction in NASA's budget compared to last year, with significant cuts to its scientific projects, while Isaacman believed that cutting the budget was not the "best solution."

Screenshot of Jared Isaacman attending the U.S. Senate confirmation hearing.

Reports indicate that regarding the news about the position change, Isaacman himself did not respond to journalists' requests for comments, and his representative also declined to comment. Currently, the real reason why Trump abandoned the nomination of Isaacman remains unclear to the public.

The 41-year-old Isaacman is the CEO of Shift4 Payments, an American payment processing company, and has no prior political experience. He has a close relationship with SpaceX founder Musk. As a key customer of SpaceX's emerging commercial space business, he has traveled to space twice aboard SpaceX's spacecraft and spent hundreds of millions of dollars.

In September last year, he sponsored and participated in the "Polaris Dawn" space mission, where four American non-professional astronauts boarded SpaceX's "Dragon" spacecraft to reach an apogee more than 1,400 kilometers above Earth. During this mission, at an altitude of approximately 700 kilometers, he and Sarah Gilles, an engineer from SpaceX, completed the world's first commercial spacewalk conducted by non-professional astronauts.

Last September, Jared Isaacman participated in the "Polaris Dawn" space mission. "Polaris Dawn" mission X account.

Isaacman was once a donor to the Democratic Party. Despite some concerns expressed by members of Congress regarding his close ties with Musk's SpaceX, he received broad support from the aerospace industry and Congress.

At the previous nomination confirmation hearing, Isaacman proposed that NASA could "advance lunar and Mars exploration missions in parallel," which was seen as a political balancing act between Congress and government demands. At that time, he claimed that the United States "does not have to choose between the Moon and Mars," and "we can chart a path consistent with the president's expectations, prioritizing a lunar landing and exploring the space economy and completing other tasks."

White House spokesperson Huston now says: "The NASA administrator will help lead humanity into space and execute the bold mission of planting the American flag on Mars by President Trump."

On May 30th local time, Trump's proposed budget plan made significant adjustments to NASA's "Artemis" lunar landing program, including gradually phasing out Boeing's "Space Launch System" (SLS) rocket and adopting a lower-cost alternative led by commercial companies.

Previously, Isaacman criticized SLS for being too expensive and behind schedule. However, when questioned by a senator about whether the "Artemis" program would be adjusted, he stated that SLS was still the "best and fastest" way for current lunar landings but questioned its long-term feasibility for frequent astronaut trips to the Moon and Mars.

Isaacman also expressed his hope to see NASA "launch more telescopes, more probes, and more rovers"—which seems to contradict Trump's recent budget requirements, as the U.S. president advocates canceling scientific missions and pushing American space exploration into an era more dominated by the private sector.

This article is an exclusive piece from Observer Network and cannot be reprinted without permission.

Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7510771628725240358/

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