The newly elected US President Donald Trump decided today to appoint Jared Isaacman as the head of NASA, a billionaire and commercial astronaut, also a close associate of Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX.
If confirmed, he will oversee NASA's $25 billion budget focused on returning a man to the moon as part of the Artemis program, a multibillion-dollar project promoted by Trump in his first term.
The last two heads of NASA were former politicians. Trump's first man at NASA was former Oklahoma Rep. Jim Bridenstine, who launched the Artemis program and convinced Congress to increase the agency's budget to fund it. Biden nominated former Florida senator Bill Nelson to lead NASA.
Isaacman, a commercial pilot and astronaut leads the private Polaris program used by SpaceX spacecraft to send astronauts into orbit.
