• The billionaire Jared Isaacman said his Polaris missions with SpaceX are "a question mark" now.
• Donald Trump nominated Isaacman for NASA Administrator months after he did SpaceX's first spacewalk.
• Space experts doubt Isaacman will fly during his NASA term, due to job demands and safety risks.

SpaceX and its go-to billionaire-turned-private-astronaut seem to be going their separate ways, at least for the next four years.

Jared Isaacman has flown two SpaceX missions to space and is slated to fly two more.

However, Isaacman may no longer fly those missions now that President-elect Donald Trump has tapped him to lead NASA.

Isaacman is the founder and CEO of a payments-processing company called Shift4, but he's more famous for conducting the world's first commercial spacewalk in September.

The spacewalk was the main feature of the first mission of the Polaris Program, which Isaacman started in partnership with SpaceX to supercharge the company's human-spaceflight capabilities as it aims for the moon and Mars.

The program is scheduled to fly two future missions, including the first human flight aboard SpaceX's Starship mega-rocket.

Isaacman has previously indicated that he would be on board that flight. It would be a crucial step in Elon Musk's plans to establish a human settlement on Mars using Starship.

The NASA nomination throws that mission into uncertainty, Isaacman acknowledged on Wednesday.

"The future of the Polaris program is a little bit of a question mark at the moment. It may wind up on hold for a moment," Isaacman said at the Spacepower 2024 conference in Orlando, according to Reuters.

Indeed, shortly after his nomination, experts told Business Insider that it was unlikely Isaacman would fly to space during his term as NASA Administrator.

"Well, it certainly has never happened before," John Logsdon, the founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, told BI.

That doesn't mean it can't happen, but Logsdon added, "NASA Administrator is a full-time, high-level government job. Taking time off to train for and carry out another spaceflight seems to me to be a little implausible."

If Isaacman wanted to fly a SpaceX mission during his NASA term, "that would take some thought on his part and the rest of the team," George Nield, a former head of the FAA's office of commercial space transportation, told BI. "What's the risk, what's the benefit, what happens if there's a bad day, and are there succession plans?"

Nield co-authored a 2020 analysis which calculated that US spaceflight has a 1% fatal failure rate, because four out of nearly 400 spaceflights have ended in deadly malfunctions. That's a rate 10,000 times greater than commercial airliners.

The US Senate has to confirm Isaacman's nomination before he can take office.

"Having the boss of the enterprise take the risk of spaceflight would be unusual, but we live in unusual times," Logsdon said.

• Trump's choice of NASA Administrator suggests he wants to shake up the agency's status quo.
• Jared Isaacman, a billionaire and SpaceX astronaut, is a mascot of the commercial space age.
• He might push for getting humans to the moon and Mars faster, but he'll have to go through Congress.

President-elect Donald Trump has made a bold choice for NASA's new leader.

Trump announced in a Truth Social post on Wednesday that his choice for NASA Administrator is Jared Isaacman — a CEO, fighter-jet pilot, and two-time SpaceX astronaut.

Isaacman is not exactly a traditional pick. For one, he would be the first billionaire to lead the agency. More importantly, though, he's on the cutting edge of the new commercial space age, where private companies are becoming the biggest actors in space.

Some past NASA administrators were former NASA astronauts. Others were former executives from the aerospace industry. Many were politicians — including Trump's last NASA chief, Jim Bridenstine, and the current administrator, Bill Nelson.

Isaacman is none of those things. He has, however, flown to space in a Crew Dragon spaceship, conducted the first-ever commercial spacewalk in a brand-new SpaceX spacesuit, and plans to fly on future missions with the company — aboard its Starship mega-rocket, no less.

The nomination, which still has to be confirmed by the Senate, suggests that Trump wants to shake things up at NASA.

"He certainly has the potential to be a disruptor," Leroy Chiao, a former NASA astronaut and International Space Station commander who now works in consulting, told Business Insider. "I think it's a great pick. It's much better than just status quo — another retiring member of Congress."

It's also another signal that Trump might make a big push to put the next humans on the moon, and even the first humans on Mars.

Speeding up the road to Mars

Isaacman's enthusiasm for space exploration isn't his only bona fide. He also has a businessman's mindset and a close relationship with Elon Musk. The two share the goal of getting humans to Mars.

Chiao hopes Isaacman can speed up the process.

Indeed, in a post on X accepting the nomination, Isaacman wrote that NASA would help make humanity "a true spacefaring civilization."

"Americans will walk on the Moon and Mars and in doing so, we will make life better here on Earth," he added.

NASA is already working on it. The Artemis program began as the last Trump administration's iteration of a multi-president effort to send humans to deep space again. Artemis aims to send astronauts back to the moon for the first time in over 50 years, and eventually to use the moon as a jumping-off point to send people to Mars.

However, Artemis is years behind schedule and billions over budget, largely due to technical and programmatic challenges with the giant Space Launch System that NASA is building for moon missions. Many industry commentators see SLS as a waste of government funds, when NASA could instead lean on commercial heavy-lift rockets like Starship.

"Frankly, we have been at the status quo of this exploration program in one form or another over the last several presidents since 2004," Chiao said, "and we're not even close to launching the first astronaut on a new vehicle."

In fact, NASA just pushed back the launch date for its first crewed Artemis mission, set to fly around the moon using SLS. On Thursday the agency delayed the mission by another seven months, to April 2026, citing issues with the system's Orion spaceship.

That's the slow-moving status quo that Trump might aim to shake up.

To that end, efficiency may be a top priority for Isaacman. That could mean reassessing Artemis entirely or cutting back some of NASA's centers and facilities nationwide, according to Abhi Tripathi, a former NASA engineer and SpaceX mission director who now leads mission operations at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Lab.

"I definitely think SLS will be on the chopping board," Tripathi told BI.

First, though, Isaacman will have to go through Congress.

"He is going to ruffle a lot of feathers," Chiao said.

Pushing through Congress

Congress can be a formidable wall for anyone trying to revolutionize NASA.

In places like Alabama and Southern California, a status quo NASA fuels the work of legacy aerospace contractors like Boeing and Northrop Grumman.

"The majority of members of Congress want jobs in their district, and they look at the space program primarily through that lens," Tripathi said.

Plus, he added, "the lobbying arms of all of those big contractors will be basically camped outside their congressional representative's office, asking them to thwart any big plans that would change the status quo greatly."

It'll all come to a head when the Trump White House makes its budget proposal. That's when Congress will approve or deny any cuts or reprioritizations that Trump and his NASA Administrator try to make.

If Trump wants to put boots on Mars fast, he'll have to convince individual Congress members to push those changes through.

"I think Jared is a very smart and capable individual," Tripathi said, "but his ability to wield power will completely depend upon how much his president will back him up."

• Jared Isaacman is President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead NASA.
• Isaacman has led and flown on two SpaceX missions, including the first-ever commercial spacewalk.
• Isaacman is a billionaire CEO who dropped out of high school and founded two companies.

Jared Isaacman isn't just a billionaire CEO. He's also a SpaceX astronaut, and now he's poised to lead NASA under the new Trump administration.

President-elect Donald Trump announced in a Truth Social post on Wednesday that he was nominating Isaacman to be the new NASA Administrator.

Isaacman has flown to space twice aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon, on flights he commissioned, funded, and commanded — including a mission where he conducted the first-ever commercial spacewalk in September.

So who is Jared Isaacman, and how did the entrepreneur end up as Trump's NASA pick? Read on to learn about his career rise.

Isaacman decided to drop out of high school at the age of 15.

At the age of 15, Isaacman decided to drop out of high school and take the GED, according to the Netflix docuseries "Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space."

"I was a horrible student," Isaacman said in the series. "And I wasn't, like, happy in school, either."

He described his younger self as independent and said he didn't understand things like raising your hand to go to the bathroom.

At 16, he founded a multibillion-dollar payment-processing company in his parents' basement.

Isaacman founded United Bank Card in 1999.

The company, now called Shift4, offers mobile-payment software, point-of-sale solutions, and online payments for various businesses.

Isaacman said in the Netflix docuseries that when he started the company, he would wake up every day at 7:30 a.m. and fall asleep on the keyboard at 2 or 3 in the morning.

By 2020, he took the company public. Today, Shift4 processes over $260 billion annually and serves over 200,000 customers, according to its website.

Isaacman has a wife and two kids.

Isaacman has known his wife, Monica Isaacman, for most of his life. The two come from the same town and got married in 2012. They now live in New Jersey with their two daughters.

"I want my kids to see humans walking on the moon and Mars," Isaacman told BI.

His wife said in the docuseries that she had good and bad dreams leading up to his first SpaceX mission, Inspiration4, which launched in 2021.

She said while she wouldn't want him to compromise on his dreams of going to space, she worried about what could happen if something went wrong.

Isaacman told BI in the interview that his family and wife were much more enthusiastic about the Polaris Dawn mission this time around, thanks to a successful first mission.

While there are still risks, he told BI his family is aware and accepts them.

He also founded Draken International.

Isaacman founded Draken International in 2012. The company is a private aircraft provider that also trains pilots for the US military, the UK, and NATO countries.

In 2019, Isaacman sold the company to Blackstone.

Isaacman became a billionaire in 2019.

Isaacman hit billionaire status in 2020 after selling Draken International and taking Shift4 public. His net worth is estimated at $1.7 billion, according to Forbes.

He always had a passion for flying planes.

Isaacman said in the Netflix docuseries that he took an early interest in flying and went to flight school at a local airport in 2004.

At the time, he was feeling burned out from starting his company and described flying as "therapeutic." Isaacman also set a world speed record for flying around the globe in 2009.

"I do believe you only get one crack at life," Isaacman said in the docuseries. "To the extent you have the means to do so, you have this obligation to live life to the fullest. You never know when it's going to be your last day."

He added in the docuseries that this philosophy had taken him to fly in air shows as part of a seven-ship formation aerobatic team and on mountain-climbing expeditions in Antarctica.

He's involved with philanthropy.

Isaacman has been involved in several charitable causes and organizations, including the Make-A-Wish Foundation and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

His first SpaceX mission raised over $240 million for St. Jude and was named Inspiration4 to inspire support and raise awareness for the research hospital.

Isaacman and his wife have also committed to The Giving Pledge, a charitable campaign founded by Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates, and Warren Buffett in 2010.

The Giving Pledge serves as a commitment from wealthy people to donate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy.

Isaacman's first mission to space took place in 2021.

In 2021, Isaacman funded and led the first civilian mission to space, called Inspiration4. The mission was carried out by SpaceX 's Dragon capsule.

Isaacman previously told Business Insider that the prep for the mission was extensive and involved a lot of studying and physical tests.

"The academics were pretty intense," Isaacman said, adding that there were thousands of pages across a hundred manuals to learn about SpaceX's Falcon and Dragon aircraft.

It also involved crew members drawing blood from each other and learning how to take skin samples to prepare for increased radiation levels on the trip.

Isaacman commanded the first-ever privately funded spacewalk

On September 10, Isaacman and three other crew members successfully took off on their way into orbit for the first-ever privately funded spacewalk.

The spacewalk featured SpaceX's new EVA suits.

During the spacewalk, the Polaris Dawn crew will wear the new SpaceX EVA suits → https://t.co/LRl5pPlAC9 pic.twitter.com/MVHzNwiWZU

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 10, 2024

Polaris Dawn lifted off from Launch Complex-39A at NASA's KSC, which also saw the launches of other historic missions, such as the Apollo 11 moon landing. Dragon and the Polaris Dawn crew safely arrived back on the coast of Florida on September 15.

Trump nominated Isaacman to lead NASA

In an X post on Wednesday, Isaacman called the nomination "the honor of a lifetime" and suggested that human space exploration would be a top priority.

Space-industry experts told BI that Isaacman is not a traditional pick for NASA Administrator, but his background in commercial spaceflight would benefit the agency.

"They need someone who is not afraid to try something new if the old ways aren't working," George Nield, a former head of the FAA's office of commercial space transportation, told BI.

Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law, called Isaacman "an inspired pick," in part due to his "stellar" managerial skills.

"He has shown a real commitment to increasing access to space, and I think he is going to be a great person to promote space to the general public," she said.

This story was originally published on September 11, 2024, and most recently updated on December 4, 2024.

• Jared Isaacman has been nominated by Donald Trump to head up NASA.
• Isaacman has flown two historic, all-civilian SpaceX missions, with more planned in the future.
• Isaacman vowed on X to advance US space exploration and send Americans to the moon and Mars.

The man who commanded multiple space missions for Elon Musk has been nominated to lead NASA.

President-elect Donald Trump nominated Jared Isaacman, the billionaire and repeat SpaceX astronaut, to be NASA's administrator on Wednesday.

Isaacman, who is also the CEO of the payments company Shift4, recently made history by leading the first private spacewalk with SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission. The five-day mission took Isaacman and three others further from Earth than anyone has traveled since the Apollo moon missions.

"We have to keep going," Isaacman said about space exploration in a November interview with Business Insider. "We just got to proceed with caution and just make sure we get it right. And if we do, we stand to learn so much that can change the course of trajectory of humankind."

Isaacman also previously helped finance and lead the world's first all-civilian private spaceflight. That was also a SpaceX mission, called Inspiration4, which Isaacman commanded.

"Jared will drive NASA's mission of discovery and inspiration, paving the way for groundbreaking achievements in Space science, technology, and exploration," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post announcing his nomination.

Trump pointed to Isaacman's passion for space and "exceptional leadership," demonstrated by his 25 years as the founder and CEO of Shift4. Trump also highlighted Isaacman's work as the cofounder and former CEO of Draken International, a defense aerospace company that supported the US Department of Defense, the UK, and NATO countries.

"I think that's a creative and hopeful recommendation," George Nield, a former head of the FAA's office of commercial space transportation, told Business Insider. "Jared has a lot of vision and enthusiasm."

He added that, "I would interpret this as at least an openness, if not strong advocacy, for industry playing an important role for the nation's space programs going forward."

Elon Musk, who is the founder and CEO of SpaceX and whom Trump tapped to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, said "Congratulations" to Isaacman on X.

This would be Isaacman's first-ever role in government.

"He doesn't have experience as a government insider, and that's probably a good thing," Leroy Chiao, a former NASA astronaut and International Space Station commander who now works in consulting, told BI. "He certainly has the potential to be a disruptor, so I think it's a great pick. It's much better than just status quo."

'An era where humanity becomes a true spacefaring civilization'

Following his nomination, Isaacman wrote in a post on X that it is "the honor of a lifetime to serve in this role" and work alongside NASA.

"With the support of President Trump, I can promise you this: We will never again lose our ability to journey to the stars and never settle for second place," Isaacman said, adding that "Americans will walk on the Moon and Mars."

Isaacman added that space holds potential for advancements in various areas including manufacturing, biotechnology, and possibly new energy sources. He also shared his vision for humanity to become a "spacefaring civilization" and described a "thriving space economy" with opportunities for people to work in space.

"I want my kids to see humans walking on the moon and Mars," Isaacman previously told BI.

Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law, told BI in an email that this was a "perfect direction for NASA."

It's unclear whether his new role would impact his work with SpaceX or any plans he has to fly on future missions. The Polaris Program Isaacman is leading includes two more missions over the next six to nine years, including the first crewed flight of SpaceX's Starship mega-rocket.

Nield said Isaacman and his team at NASA would likely assess the tradeoffs and the risk of him flying into space during his term as Administrator.

"NASA's got a great team. They've got super smart and experienced and motivated people, but they need a leader. They need a communicator," Nield said. "They need someone who is not afraid to try something new if the old ways aren't working. So I think I'm excited about that choice."