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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — President elect-Donald Trump is making his picks for top positions in NASA and the Army in his upcoming administration.
A tech billionaire who bought a series of spaceflights from Elon Musk's SpaceX and conducted the first private spacewalk was nominated by Trump on Wednesday to lead NASA.
Jared Isaacman, 41, CEO and founder of a card-processing company, has been a close collaborator with Musk ever since buying his first chartered flight with SpaceX. He took along contest winners on that 2021 trip and followed it in September with a mission where he briefly popped out the hatch to test SpaceX's new spacewalking suits.
If confirmed, Isaacman will replace Bill Nelson, 82, a former Democratic senator from Florida who was nominated by President Joe Biden. Nelson flew aboard space shuttle Columbia in 1986 — on the flight right before the Challenger disaster — while a congressman.
Isaacman said he was honored to be nominated and would be "grateful to serve." "Having been fortunate to see our amazing planet from space, I am passionate about America leading the most incredible adventure in human history," he said via X.
During Nelson's tenure, NASA picked up steam in its effort to return astronauts to the moon. This next-generation Apollo program — named after Apollo's mythological twin sister Artemis — plans to send four astronauts around the moon as soon as next year. The first moon landing in more than half a century would follow.
NASA is counting on SpaceX to get astronauts to the lunar surface via Starship, the mega rocket launching out of Texas on test flights.
The space agency already relies on SpaceX to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station along with supply runs. Boeing launched its first crew for NASA in June, but the Starliner capsule encountered so many problems that the two test pilots ended up stuck at the space station. They'll catch a ride home with SpaceX in February, after more than eight months in orbit. Their mission should have lasted eight days.
Also on NASA's plate right now: exploring the solar system. Robotic missions to the moon and beyond continues with a NASA spacecraft en route to Jupiter's watery moon Europa and the Mars rover Perseverance collecting more rock and dirt samples.
Facing tight budgets, NASA is seeking a quicker, cheaper way of getting these Martian samples to Earth than the original plan, which had swollen to $11 billion with nothing arriving before 2040. As with human spaceflight, NASA has turned to industry and others for ideas and help.
Musk congratulated Isaacman via X, describing him as a man of "high ability and integrity."
The fighter jet-piloting Isaacman, whose call name is Rookie, has described himself as a "space geek" since kindergarten. He dropped out of high school when he was 16, got a GED certificate and started a business in his parents' basement that became the genesis for Shift4. His business is based in eastern Pennsylvania, where he lives with his wife and their two young daughters.
He set a speed record flying around the world in 2009 while raising money for the Make-A-Wish program, and later established Draken International, the world's largest private fleet of fighter jets.
Isaacman has reserved two more flights with SpaceX, including a trip leading Starship's first crew into orbit around Earth.
Army secretary
Also Wednesday Trump that he has selected a former soldier and Iraq War veteran to serve as secretary of the Army.
Trump said Daniel P. Driscoll had completed Army Ranger school and deployed with the 10th Mountain Division to Iraq. Driscoll, who is from North Carolina, had been recently serving as a senior adviser to Vice President-elect JD Vance.
Driscoll graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Yale Law School.
"Dan will be a fearless and relentless fighter for America's Soldiers and the America First agenda," Trump said on his social media platform.
The Army did not immediately respond to a request for Driscoll's military service record.
Contributing: Tara Copp and Lolita C. Baldor
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group.
