Trump turnabout sees him re-nominate amateur astronaut Jared Isaacman to run NASA

US president Donald Trump on Tuesday decided who he wants to lead NASA, despite having ruled out the same person six months ago. Trump’s pick is Jared Isaacman, the billionaire founder of payment outfit Shift4 who used some of his fortune to buy a ticket on a SpaceX tourism flight, during which he became the first private …

[El Duderino]

Trump did not explain what, if anything, made him change his mind.

He just forgot what he'd said before, it was so long ago.

[Zebo-the-Fat]

Re: Trump did not explain what, if anything, made him change his mind.

Trump has a mind??

[Eclectic Man]

Re: Trump did not explain what, if anything, made him change his mind.

I forget the film / movie, but I recall the exchange:

Male character: "I've changed my mind."

Mae West's character: "Does it work now?"

(Mae West was not merely an actor, but also made a donation to found a library in a women's prison when she discovered that half the inmates could not read and therefore had few prospects for legal employment after release.

According to the 'AI summary':

"Mae West endowed a library in the Women's Workhouse prison on Welfare Island (now Roosevelt Island) in New York City, where she served a 10-day sentence (minus two days for good behavior) in 1927 for her play Sex.

Upon her release, she donated the $1,000 she earned from a Liberty magazine interview about her jail experience to found what was sometimes referred to as the "Mae West Memorial Library" for the female inmates. She wanted to support the women she met and use the spotlight from her celebrity to shed light on their conditions. ")

[mcswell]

Re: Trump did not explain what, if anything, made him change his mind.

Dr. Gillian Taylor: Sure you won't change your mind?

Spock: Is there something wrong with the one I have?

[bombastic bob]

Re: Trump did not explain what, if anything, made him change his mind.

OK all snark aside, I can explain it.

Last week (or maybe 2 weeks ago) and a bit before Elon had been posting on X about Jared being the new head of NASA, making jokes about tree climbing [related to Duffy] and saying things along the line of "wouldn't you rather have someone with actual experience in space than experience climbing trees" [paraphrased]. There were polls, and many posts, and then it went quiet.

I guess the Prez saw the logic in choosing Jared over Duffy, and NOW cares LESS about people's opinions of possible conflict of interest over just putting the right person in charge.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Trump did not explain what, if anything, made him change his mind.

> "I guess the Prez saw the logic"

That's where your post falls down.

Trump's advisors may see the logic, but the orange buffoon himself definitely wouldn't. (Unless the logic was presented in crisp bank notes)

[Pascal Monett]

Trump does not have advisors.

He has sycophants, and evil minds intent on their own goals.

[Guido Esperanto]

Or depending on whats occuring

Human Bus Brakes

[Irongut]

Re: Trump did not explain what, if anything, made him change his mind.

No, the real reason is because Duffy was using NASA to get on TV regularly and Trump can't have anyone appear on TV more then him. So obviously he has to go.

Meanwhile Duffy has been lobying against Issacman and leaked his original plan for NASA with help from ULA & pals.

If Duffy has to go and he doesn't like Issacman then the later becomes the perfect person for the job.

QED

[Gary Stewart]

Re: Trump did not explain what, if anything, made him change his mind.

My only question, is the new guy unqualified enough? Duffy sets a high (low?) bar for that.

[Dan 55]

I guess this means Trump is friends with Musk again and Isaacman's appointment will last until he falls out with Musk again.

[Flocke Kroes]

Re: Isaacman in charge of NASA until next fallout with Musk

You forgot to account for TACO's senile dementia. If Musk can avoid throwing a tantrum for a few days after Isaacman is confirmed it will be like Trump pardoning Changpeng Zhao:

Norah O’Donnell: Why did you pardon him?

Care home occupant: I don’t know who he is.

[Like a badger]

Could be, but my take on it is that Epstein's orange buddy is doing this purely and solely to steal Musk's pal, and bring him inside the dishonesty and incompetence event horizon that surrounds Trump. thje purpose is not to put somebody competent in place, it is to get at Musk..

Let's face it, Isaacman doesn't know anything about space or running a space agency, he's just a kid who got rich on payment processing software and used his money to become a Top Gun wannabe, without the hazards of actually joining the military and having to fight. Seems he's a lot in common with several other Trump nominees.

Here's a thought, Katy Perry has similar space credentials to Isaacman, was she considered?

[Gary Stewart]

The proposed $1 trillion Tesla salary for Musk might have helped. $1 trillion has the stupidity dial turned up to 111. If the US was smart enough (it once was, long ago and far away) they would tax Elon for half of that and make a discernible dent in the national debt with no discernible difference to him.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Katy Perry has similar space credentials to Isaacman, was she considered?"

Almost certainly not because she's shagging a woke commie Canuck.

[Michael Strorm]

Poe's Law in full effect, not helped by poster being an AC.

[Anonymous Coward]

He gets to be Werner Herzog to a president played by Klaus Kinski.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Kinski was a bit... Unhinged

[Anonymous Coward]

He liked beautiful women, and many of them were on the younger side.

[wolfetone]

It's TACO Tuesday!

(Joke Alert is for TACO, not the pun).

[Dinanziame]

I was surprised to learn that he was a blue blooded Democrat, who had never contributed to a Republican before

It's hard for me to express the contempt I have for such an argument.

[Ken G]

key word "before"

I'm sure he's been incentivised to contribute enough since to make up for any perceived imbalance.

[Graham Cobb]

The interesting thing is that, for Trump, he probably has no conception of how you could be surprised, let alone contemptuous of that argument.

To him (and how many other major US politicians? I don't know) there is nothing surprising or unusual, let alone corrupt, in choosing supporters who have fought for, and funded, him and his party colleagues. I don't think he even imagines anyone else feels differently. That is what making campaign contributions is for: getting your views incorporated into government.

I knew that Trump gave power to people who funded him. But what I hadn't realised is that he doesn't even conceive of that being suprising, let alone corrupt - it is just what politics is about, in his view.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you were to choose supporters from a pool of competent people that includes supporters, it would be OK. Perhaps not ideal, but OK.

[mcswell]

"choosing supporters who have fought for, and funded, him and his party colleagues": This was how US government positions used to work, before the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 made non-elected government positions at the lower level merit-based. That said, the position Isaacman is being proposed for is higher up in the bureaucracy, and would not be subject to merit-based hiring or promotion.

[tony72]

I suspect Sean Duffy's blatant attempt at personal empire building didn't go down at all well with Trump or his inner circle; several White House sources have been reported as saying that Duffy totally overplayed his hand, and everybody is angry with him. So that will have opened the door back up for Isaacman, who has many influential supporters.

[Oneman2Many]

I've seen the same thing a couple of times on podcasts. If he had kept his head down and not tried to make a name for himself he would have been fine.

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect Jared had made a significant donation to the right charity to get the attention of the president

[ParlezVousFranglais]

Politics aside, Jared is at least a pretty accomplished businessman - it'll be interesting to see if/how he deals with the proposals to move Discovery, or whether such distractions will be quietly put to one side as he tries to get NASA back on its feet...

[Flocke Kroes]

It is not a proposal. It is a legal requirement, like funding SLS. The good news is that smaller and cheaper vehicles than Discovery qualify and could be moved with the appropriated budget. SLS is a completely different barrel of pork. Legally it requires congress to vote to end the funding. Getting a presidential pardon is far cheaper than bribing congress.

[Oneman2Many]

The Discovery move has nothing to do with NASA. NASA or even the US government don't own the shuttles now.

[ParlezVousFranglais]

Of course it does - the OBBB requires the NASA Administrator (which is what Jared is being appointed as), to "propose" a vehicle that has been into space and carried an astronaut and transfer that vehicle to a location designated by the Administrator

It doesn't specify Discovery, and it doesn't specify Houston, but everyone knows the meaning behind the text, everyone knows that it's going to end up with the lawyers, and whoever ends up as the NASA Administrator, ergo Jared, is therefore right in the middle of that particular sh*tstorm, or maybe not if common sense prevails - and that's my point, with Jared at the helm, common sense might actually prevail

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Does it have to be a vehicle that meets those requirements and has flown in the past?

If not, then, the next craft that does the lunar mission will suffice

[John Brown (no body)]

IIRC there's a time limit specified, which I very much doubt a future lunar mission can meet :-)

[mcswell]

Wouldn't one of the old Mercury or Gemini capsules qualify? Personally, I'd propose Gus Grissom's Mercury capsule, although transferring it to Houston might be difficult.

[TVU]

I very much welcome this news as Jared Isaacman is an experienced aviator and an astronaut. He is also more likely to be pragmatic and knowledgeable given his background as compared with a Trump ideologue who has no relevant background.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think your optimism is misplaced.

Having fast jets as his hobby does not offer any relevant insight to running a major government agency, and he's barely more of an astronaut than the girly pop group* that Bezos spaffed up in that suspiciously shaped rocket. Even then, what does being an astronaut on one or two trips teach any person about running a massively complex, underfunded public sector organisation whose budget is being slashed by a government that couldn't tell it's own orange-stained arse from its orange stained elbow? Even Isaacman's business experience as founder then god-emperor of a software business is wholly irrelevant to running NASA.

* Yes, I am aware one or two had prior experience.

[alisonken1]

Some hobby

Having fast jets as his hobby ...

Some hobby. I would say Draken International might be considered a little more than just a hobby.

[ParlezVousFranglais]

You are talking about a guy who founded his business aged 16 and is now a billionaire. He has 7000+ hours in fast jets (the average RAF/USAF pilot qualifies after about 300). He may "only" be an amateur astronaut, but even that shows he's passionate about what he's potentially being asked to do...

Try ignoring the politics and the on again/off again relationships with Trump & Musk, and the guy actually seems like a genuinely good fit to try to ensure that NASA gets back to the top of its game, which I suspect (hope!) is exactly where most of us actually want to see it

[TVU]

"Try ignoring the politics and the on again/off again relationships with Trump & Musk, and the guy actually seems like a genuinely good fit to try to ensure that NASA gets back to the top of its game, which I suspect (hope!) is exactly where most of us actually want to see it"

^ I absolutely and fully agree with every word of yours. In Jared Isaacman, we have someone who is quite clearly intelligent and, like Bill Nelson before him, he has direct and relevant experience unlike the current incumbent Sean Duffy.

[doublelayer]

Those are all true without necessarily having any effect on his qualifications for the post. So he has a lot of hours in the air, great, we will assume that this means he is a well-qualified pilot, although theoretically there are ways you could get lots of hours without having that. Being a pilot is not sufficient or even necessary for administering NASA. If someone else was chosen on the only basis of being a seasoned air force pilot, that would not be very helpful. The astronaut part is even less convincing because he did not have any of the things that distinguish actual astronauts. He paid for an interesting experience. That's no recommendation at all.

NASA has a lot of complicated responsibilities. Even if we ignore the building space stuff part on the theory that private companies, and given his friendships I think we know which, will be doing all of that, they still have lots of oversight and management of that technology and equipment to do. No, managing a business of building someone else's payment systems into someone else's point of sale hardware, no matter how successfully, is not automatically experience in managing extremely safety-critical equipment with extremely specific and rigorous certification procedures. If we assume that the private companies will handle all of that, then we're left with an organization whose primary mission is scientific, whatever their funders decide to say, since they're in the business of deciding which expensive hardware to send and exactly what they hope to get for doing it. If they want to have a village on the moon (good luck), there's a lot of knowledge gathering required unless they want to have a dead village and a contaminated moon.

None of this is an indictment of Isaacman's capabilities, but nor is any of it support for them. His statements are somewhat encouraging, because I would rather have more space research than a doomed attempt to get a human somewhere for more bragging rights (we stopped manned lunar missions, not because we had to, but because we could accomplish more with less). That may be as good as we can get. But no matter how many hours he has in the air, it's not going to make a difference to the important part of the job because never will his responsibilities require him to personally pilot a fighter to obtain a goal.

[Flocke Kroes]

Re: rather have more space research

Excellent priority, but not shared by Russel Vought. Judging by RFK Jr it is amazing that a flat Earther has not already been appointed. The main job of NASA administrator is to get a slice of budget out of congress. This is normally done by proposing a giant cost plus contracts for old space. Old space are currently pointing out Jared's public record of speaking out against cost plus.

[mcswell]

I'm hoping Isaacman will turn out better than Duffy has. That said, having lots of money and flying has epsilon to do with running NASA.

[Oneman2Many]

He has the same background as Trump, owning and running companies though he is a bit more successful.

There was an interesting podcast saying that the best NASA admins have come from a flying background. Bridenstine is widely considered to be a successful admin before he has turned to the darkside, and had a history of flying jets in the navy.

[John Brown (no body)]

Yeah,it's helpful if not an absolute requirement. After all, he has to make decisions about all sorts of things NASA does. The first A in NASA is for Air. They do other stugg than space stuff. And at least he has experience in both Air and Space. That;s a lot more than Duffy can claim.

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump isn't a decision maker

Trump is just a figurehead, a face, a puppet.

People give him too much credit for thinking or changing his mind. Once you start looking at this presidency as a reality show (and just as far from being unscripted) things start making sense. We need some drama here, a bit of peril there, build up some tension, this person is terrible that one doesn't like it. Blah blah blah.

The only thing it's lacking are talented writers, it's a far-right reality show devoid of talent, aimed to entertain dimwits.

[Dinanziame]

Re: Trump isn't a decision maker

Trump is just a figurehead, a face, a puppet.

There seems to be a lot of decisions that come from Trump, but at least in one occasion, a declaration of his (ICE will not target farm or hospitality workers) was quickly overturned by Stephen Miller. I found this rather interesting, because such an event during Trump's first administration would likely have ended with Miller packing his luggage.