Billions' friend of Musk takes over NASA
The U.S. Senate has confirmed billionaire private astronaut and close associate of SpaceX founder Elon Musk, Jared Isaacman, as the new director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The nomination passed with a large margin on Wednesday.
Isaacman, 42, funded and participated in two civilian crewed flights by SpaceX, one of which included a spacewalk. He has a close relationship with Musk's company because NASA increasingly relies on SpaceX to carry out a series of missions. Isaacman accumulated his wealth through founding Shift4, a payment processing company that now processes billions of transactions annually.
Isaacman's path to becoming the director of NASA was not smooth. President Trump first nominated Isaacman in December 2024, praising him as "an accomplished business leader, philanthropist, pilot, and astronaut."
Due to public disagreements with Musk, Trump withdrew the nomination in May. In July, Trump posted on Truth Social accusing Musk of being "completely off track" and becoming "a pile of train wreckage." He claimed that Musk had asked to "have one of his close friends run NASA," which Trump called "inappropriate." Isaacman had previously made political donations to Democratic candidates.
Trump re-nominated Isaacman in November, when his relationship with Musk began to thaw. At the Senate confirmation hearing in early December, Isaacman stated that he hoped American astronauts would return to the Moon before China and tried to portray himself as independent of Musk.
This confirmation was made amid the competing space ambitions of the United States and China, including lunar missions and expanding satellite networks. China operates its own space station and regularly conducts crewed flights, while the United States has heavily relied on commercial partners such as SpaceX and Blue Origin, as well as international partnerships including Russia, since the retirement of NASA's space shuttle program in 2011.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1851905056734208/
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