"WASHINGTON -- President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday tapped Jared Isaacman to lead NASA, selecting a billionaire private astronaut and close associate of Elon Musk to oversee an agency closely linked to the SpaceX founder’s business.

Isaacman, CEO of payment processing company Shift4 Payments, has flown to space twice in missions arranged by his Polaris program, an effort using SpaceX vehicles and the company’s spacesuits to conduct fully private flights in Earth orbit.

If confirmed, he would oversee the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s roughly $25 billion budget heavily focused on returning humans to the moon under its Artemis program, a multibillion-dollar effort promoted by Trump during his first four-year term that will rely heavily on SpaceX’s Starship."

Joey Roulette reports for Reuters December 4, 2024. [2]