Isaacman, Jared (1983- )

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    Trump to Withdraw Musk’s Ally as Nominee for Top NASA Job

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    Jared Isaacman was a close associate of Elon Musk, whose SpaceX company has multiple contracts with NASA.President Trump on Saturday said that he planned to withdraw his nomination of Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur and close associate of Elon Musk’s, to be the next NASA administrator, days before Mr. Isaacman’s expected confirmation to the role by the Senate.Mr. Trump in recent days told associates he intended to yank Mr. Isaacman’s nomination after being told that he had donated to prominent Democrats, according to three people with knowledge of the deliberations who were not authorized to discuss them publicly. Mr. Trump said on social media on Saturday that he had conducted a “thorough review of prior associations” before deciding to withdraw the nomination.Mr. Trump added that he would “soon announce a new Nominee who will be Mission aligned, and put America First in Space.”The U-turn was the latest example of how Mr. Trump uses loyalty as a key criterion for top administration roles, and came at a fraught moment for the space agency. NASA has so far been spared the deep cuts that have hit the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and other federal research agencies. But the Trump administration’s budget proposal for 2026 seeks to slice the space agency’s budget by one-quarter, lay off thousands of employees and end financing for a slew of current and future missions.The Trump administration also wants to overhaul NASA’s human spaceflight program, ending the Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule initiatives after the Artemis III mission that is to land astronauts on the moon in 2027 and adding money to send astronauts to Mars in the coming years, something that had been a priority for Mr. Musk.People inside and outside NASA had hoped that Mr. Isaacman’s arrival as administrator would help provide stability and a clearer direction for the agency, which has been operating under an acting administrator since the beginning of Mr. Trump’s term.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      SpaceX Polaris Dawn Spacewalk: How to Watch the Astronauts

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      The astronauts of the Polaris Dawn mission, after traveling through heavy radiation and high orbits, are getting ready to open the hatch of their SpaceX vehicle.Early Thursday morning, four private astronauts circling far above Earth will try something daring — let all the air out of their spacecraft.That will be a prelude for two of the astronauts, who will then venture outside for the first commercial spacewalk ever, an event that is to be the highlight of the Polaris Dawn mission led by Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur.When is the spacewalk and how can I watch it?The spacewalk is scheduled to begin at 2:23 a.m. Eastern time. SpaceX plans to broadcast live coverage starting one hour before the spacewalk begins.If needed, a backup opportunity is available on Friday at the same time.What will happen during the spacewalk?Because there is no airlock in the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft used for the flight, the only way to perform a spacewalk is to let all the air out of the spacecraft, and then open one of the hatches. That requires all four crew members to wear spacesuits.NASA and Soviet astronauts conducted spacewalks in a similar manner in the 1960s.As the Crew Dragon swings around Earth in an elliptical orbit that swings as close as 120 miles to the surface and as high as 460 miles, Mr. Isaacman and Sarah Gillis, a SpaceX engineer, will exit the capsule for about 15 to 20 minutes each.They will pass through the hatch at the top of the Crew Dragon with the help of a handrail that SpaceX has named Skywalker, moving around carefully and deliberately. The two will not be outside the spacecraft at the same time.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Polaris Dawn Astronauts in SpaceX Dragon Reach Record Orbit Above Earth

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      After launching early on Tuesday, the billionaire Jared Isaacman and his crew traveled to altitudes not visited by any astronaut since the Apollo moon missions of the 1960s and ’70s.Four private astronauts aboard an ambitious space mission led by a billionaire entrepreneur traveled farther from Earth on Tuesday than any other human being in more than half a century.Two of them, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, have now gone farther from the planet than any other women ever.The mission, named Polaris Dawn, lifted off through a break of favorable weather before sunrise on Tuesday. The flight had been grounded for nearly two weeks by unsettled weather in and around Florida.The astronauts, flying an elliptical path around Earth in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, looped outward as far out as 755 miles above the planet’s surface. The mission’s orbits were carefully planned to reduce the hit of radiation the crew would absorb, and to minimize the chances of being struck by tiny bits of rock crisscrossing the solar system.The journey on Tuesday was only a small fraction of the nearly quarter million miles that NASA’s Apollo astronauts traveled to the moon. But after the last mission going there in 1972, humanity has stayed close to our planet, not venturing beyond orbits a few hundred miles up.The Polaris Dawn mission, led by Jared Isaacman, founder of the payment services company Shift4, is a collaboration with SpaceX, the rocket company founded by Elon Musk. It is the first of three missions designed to spur technological advances needed for Mr. Musk’s ambition to send people to Mars eventually.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More