Donald Trump's selection of a billionaire private astronaut to head up NASA was likely inspired, if not requested, by tech billionaire Elon Musk, Ross Andersen wrote for The Atlantic — and more importantly, the appointment could permanently enshrine the federal government's reliance on Musk's businesses for spaceflight and space research.
Jared Isaacman, 41, is "a pal and an extreme admirer of Musk’s," wrote Andersen, who effuses praise for the fellow billionaire and says he's "solving the world’s problems."
"In some ways, Isaacman is Musk’s Mini-Me. Both men made their fortune, in part, from payment-processing companies. Both used their wealth to pursue their boyhood dreams of spaceflight: Musk created SpaceX; Isaacman began in the lower atmosphere, by buying up the world’s largest commercial fleet of ex-military aircraft," said Andersen.
Moreover, Isaacman has repeatedly hired SpaceX for his own missions, including his execution of the world's first private spacewalk this year.
His confirmation, wrote Andersen, could spell the end of NASA's non-SpaceX projects — including their planned Space Launch System rocket that is supposed to be used in the mission to once again send astronauts to the Moon.
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"For more than a decade, NASA has been developing a costly one-and-done rocket system that can launch humans to distant destinations beyond lower Earth orbit," wrote Andersen. "SpaceX recently leapfrogged the agency with the Starship system, which is meant to be not only fully reusable, but also more functional once in space. With Isaacman in charge at NASA, the agency’s inferior homegrown rocket may be more likely to get killed off, once and for all — which means that more federal dollars may soon be flowing into SpaceX’s coffers."
Already, SpaceX has benefited from federal contracts to the tune of nearly $20 billion since 2008.
Musk has grown close to Trump following his extensive bankrolling of the president-elect's voter outreach, to the extent that some members of Trump's inner circle are unnerved by how much time they spend together.
All of this comes following reports that the Heritage Foundation, the far-right think tank that masterminded the Project 2025 agenda to reshape the government for Trump and the Republican Party, plans to use Freedom of Information Act requests to interrogate which NASA employees have privately criticized Musk and Trump.
