The Senate Commerce Committee cast votes on Wednesday to progress President Donald Trump’s nominations for Nasa leadership and a Federal Communications Commission commissioner position.
The proposed Nasa administrator, Jared Isaacman, serves as the chief executive of Shift4 Payments (FOUR.N), opens a new tab. He has collaborated with Elon Musk and completed two space journeys as a private astronaut aboard SpaceX vessels, Reuters reported.
Nasa is presently undergoing organisational changes, with staff being offered voluntary departure packages.
The committee endorsed Olivia Trusty, a Senate staff member, whose appointment would establish a Republican majority in the five-person telecom regulatory body. Democratic members indicated their support for Trusty’s full Senate confirmation would depend on continued consideration of Democratic nominees.
Trump and Musk, who contributed $250 million to Trump’s presidential bid and advocated for Isaacman’s selection, have prioritised Mars exploration, creating uncertainty regarding Nasa’s heavily invested lunar programmes.
SpaceX maintains Nasa contracts worth roughly $15 billion, providing the sole American-based astronaut transport service and developing lunar landing capabilities for future missions.
Who is Jared Isaacman?
Born in 1983 in Summit, New Jersey, Jared Isaacman is a self-made billionaire, entrepreneur, pilot, and commercial astronaut. He founded Shift4 Payments as a teenager, a company that grew to process hundreds of billions of dollars in transactions annually.
He later established Draken International, providing adversary training for US and Nato air forces. Isaacman is perhaps best known to the public for commanding Inspiration4, the first all-civilian mission to orbit Earth aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, and later leading Polaris Dawn, where he became the first private citizen to perform a spacewalk. His estimated net worth is about $1.9 billion as of September 2024.
