The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee will hold a hearing on Jared Isaacman’s nomination to be NASA Administrator next week. If confirmed, he will be the agency’s 15th Administrator.
President Trump announced his intention to nominate Isaacman in December. A billionaire entrepreneur who has made two trips to orbit on Elon Musk’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, with more planned, Isaacman currently runs the payment processing company Shift4 that he created after quitting high school at 16. Now 42, he is a graduate of Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and a jet pilot who owns his own MIG-29 (which used to belong to Paul Allen) and goes by the handle “Rook.”
Science and technology journalist Miles O’Brien interviewed Isaacman after he won the National Business Aviation Association’s 2023 Meritorious Service to Aviation Award.
Isaacman’s nomination raised a few eyebrows because of his lack of government experience and some Republicans are cool because he donated to Democratic candidates and his companies have supported Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).
But he has the strong support of others including former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and seven Republican governors who recently sent a letter championing his nomination. So did 28 former NASA astronauts.
I am one of 28 former NASA Astronauts who signed this letter supporting Jared Isaacman for the position of NASA Administrator. In the words of the letter, “Jared has a genuine passion for space exploration and will bring a renewed energy and sense of purpose to NASA.”
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— Garrett Reisman (@astro-g-dogg.bsky.social) March 21, 2025 at 7:05 PM
Isaacman came to prominence in the space community in 2021 when he bankrolled and commanded the first SpaceX private astronaut mission to Earth orbit, Inspiration4. Using the mission to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, he chose childhood cancer survivor Hayley Arceneaux as his first crewmate. Two others, Sian Proctor and Chris Sembroski, were chosen through a competition and a lottery. They spent three days in orbit, the first all-commercial crew.
Inspiration4 crew, L-R: Jared Isaacman, Sian Proctor, Hayley Arceneaux, and Chris Sembroski.
He soon bought two more Crew Dragon flights and the first crewed trip to Earth orbit on SpaceX’s new vehicle, Starship, as soon as it’s ready to carry people. The first of the two Crew Dragon missions, Polaris Dawn, flew last September. That time he was joined by a long-time colleague, Scott “Kidd” Poteet, and two of the SpaceX employees who helped train him for his first flight, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon. Isaacman and Gillis became the first private astronauts to make a “spacewalk,” standing up in Crew Dragon’s open hatch for several minutes each.
Commander @rookisaacman has egressed Dragon and is going through the first of three suit mobility tests that will test overall hand body control, vertical movement with Skywalker, and foot restraint pic.twitter.com/XATJQhLuIZ
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 12, 2024
Polaris Dawn crew, L-R: Jared Isaacman, Anna Menon (SpaceX), Sarah Gillis (SpaceX), Scott “Kidd” Poteet. Credit: Polaris Program
After learning he would be nominated to be NASA Administrator, he said the other flights “may wind up on hold for a little bit. We’ll have to see.”
Neither SpaceX nor Isaacman have disclosed how much he’s paid for the flights or for designing the spacesuits used on Polaris Dawn. The Wall Street Journal reports that his company, Shift4, bought $28 million SpaceX shares in 2021 when it won a five-year contract to handle payments for Starlink, SpaceX’s broadband Internet satellite system, and that he has a personal investment in SpaceX as well.
How Isaacman’s close personal and business ties to Musk and SpaceX affects the confirmation process will be interesting to watch. SpaceX is NASA’s second largest contractor behind the California Institute of Technology, which operates the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), raising conflict of interest concerns.
Musk also called Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) a “traitor” on X because Kelly and his twin brother Scott, both former NASA astronauts, visited Ukraine and called for the United States to continue its support.
Traitor?
Elon, if you don’t understand that defending freedom is a basic tenet of what makes America great and keeps us safe, maybe you should leave it to those of us who do. pic.twitter.com/9dgmQfg7HZ
— Senator Mark Kelly (@SenMarkKelly) March 10, 2025
Musk’s assertion that the Biden Administration “stranded” NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on the International Space Station and they had to be “rescued” prompted a heated exchange on X with European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, a former ISS commander, who charged Musk with lying and Musk responded by calling him “retarded.”
Musk also asserted that the International Space Station has “served its purpose” and should be deorbited in two years instead of 2030 as the ISS partners (U.S., Russia, Canada, Japan, and 11 European countries) currently plan. That may not sit well especially with Senators from Texas (including Commerce Committee Chair Sen. Ted Cruz), Alabama, and Florida. ISS Mission Control is at Texas’s Johnson Space Center, also home to the NASA astronaut corps. Alabama’s Marshall Space Flight Center conducts mission operations for the ISS science payloads. ISS crews launch from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, as do most cargo missions.
Isaacman himself is well liked and respected by many in the space community, but he has his work cut out for him to convince Senators that Musk will not have an undue influence on the agency if he’s in charge.
The hearing at 10:00 am ET on April 9 will be webcast on the committee’s website. The committee will meet first in Executive Session to vote on the nomination of Arielle Roth to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications. That will be followed by the hearing on Isaacman’s nomination along with the nomination of Olivia Trusty to be a member of the Federal Communications Commission.
Last Updated: Apr 02, 2025 10:29 pm ET