Trump picks Musk ally Jared Isaacman to head NASA

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday tapped Jared Isaacman to lead NASA, selecting a billionaire private astronaut and business 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 on SpaceX capsules in fully private missions arranged by his Polaris program, working with Musk and spending hundreds of millions of dollars as a key customer of SpaceX's nascent private astronaut business.

If confirmed by the Senate, Isaacman, who has no government or political experience, would oversee the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's roughly $25 billion budget. The agency's top priority has been returning humans to the moon under its Artemis program, an effort promoted by Trump during his first term that will lean heavily on SpaceX's Starship.

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

Trump's pick for NASA came months earlier than in past presidential transitions as Musk, SpaceX's CEO and founder as well as major donor to Trump's election campaign, has used his close proximity to the president-elect to discuss missions to Mars and other space exploration matters that could boost SpaceX. Trump attended SpaceX's sixth Starship test launch in Texas last month.

Isaacman, 41, is expected to deepen the agency's strategy of depending on private companies for accessing space as a commercial service. This has posed an existential threat to NASA's Space Launch System rocket, a massive, over-budget launch vehicle built by Boeing and Northrop Grumman and a crucial element of its Artemis program alongside Starship.

"Space holds unparalleled potential for breakthroughs in manufacturing, biotechnology, mining, and perhaps even pathways to new sources of energy," Isaacman said in a statement, adding he is "passionate about America leading the most incredible adventure in human history."

Isaacman would also command the agency's aeronautics portfolio, which has been funding green aviation concepts, and a sprawling space science unit that in some areas has faced layoffs and budget cuts under Democratic President Joe Biden.

NASA's last two appointed administrators were former politicians. Trump's first NASA chief, former Oklahoma congressman Jim Bridenstine, launched the Artemis program and persuaded Congress to increase the agency's budget to fund it. Biden appointed former U.S. Senator Bill Nelson of Florida to run NASA.

Dozens of space industry veterans and lobbyists had recommended candidates for NASA chief including SpaceX's Kathy Lueders, who has overseen the company's Starship operation in Texas, and California Republican Representative Mike Garcia, who lost reelection last month, according to five people close to the nomination effort.

Isaacman in September was one of four crew members to conduct the first-ever private spacewalk in orbit, using new SpaceX-built spacesuits in a novel mission he helped bankroll.

(Reporting by Ismail Shakil and Doina Chiacu; writing by Chris Sanders; editing by Caitlin Webber, Scott Malone, Jonathan Oatis and Cynthia Osterman)