Senate Confirms Jared Isaacman As NASA Administrator Under Trump
The U.S. Senate on Wednesday confirmed billionaire private astronaut Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator under President Donald Trump. The Senate approved Isaacman’s nomination by a 67–30 vote.
Isaacman becomes the space agency’s 15th administrator, Reuters reported. Trump removed Isaacman earlier this year before renominating him for the post.
During a second confirmation hearing two weeks ago, Isaacman told senators that NASA must accelerate its efforts to beat China back to the Moon this decade. Isaacman will lead an agency of about 14,000 employees.
NASA is currently investing billions of dollars into its Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the Moon and establish a long-term presence on the lunar surface.
The Moon missions are intended to serve as a stepping stone for eventual crewed missions to Mars.
The White House has cut NASA’s workforce by about 20 percent as part of a government efficiency push led by Elon Musk.
The administration has also proposed cutting NASA’s 2026 budget by roughly 25 percent from its typical $25 billion level.
Those proposed cuts have put dozens of space science programs at risk.
Isaacman has advocated for an increased focus on Mars missions alongside the Artemis program.
He has also called for greater reliance on private companies, including SpaceX, to reduce costs and promote competition.
Of the votes in favor of Isaacman’s confirmation, 51 came from Republicans and 16 from Democrats.
All 30 votes against his confirmation were cast by Democrats.
Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, voted to confirm Isaacman.
Cantwell has previously criticized the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce NASA’s science budget.
“During his nomination process, Mr. Isaacman emphasized the importance of developing a pipeline of future scientists, engineers, researchers, and astronauts,” Cantwell said.
Some Democratic senators raised concerns during Isaacman’s December 3 hearing about his close ties to Musk.
SpaceX currently holds about $15 billion in NASA contracts.
Musk supported Isaacman’s nomination after Trump was elected in 2024.
Musk has previously pushed for shifting the U.S. space program toward Mars during his time as a close adviser to Trump.
Lawmakers from both parties have stressed urgency in NASA’s competition with China to return astronauts to the Moon.
China has said it aims to land astronauts on the lunar surface by 2030.
NASA is targeting a 2028 Moon landing using the Space Launch System rocket and SpaceX’s Starship as a lunar lander.
Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy congratulated Isaacman on X.
Duffy said Isaacman will lead NASA as it works to return to the Moon and compete with China.
Some 2,145 senior-ranking NASA employees are slated to depart as part of a staff reduction effort, raising concerns for White House space policy and threatening to strip the agency of decades of expertise, POLITICO reported in July.
These employees hold GS-13 to GS-15 positions, senior government ranks usually reserved for individuals with specialized skills or managerial roles.
The impact is especially pronounced at the top, with 875 GS-15 employees expected to leave, per documents seen by the outlet.
The 2,145 employees represent the majority of the 2,694 civil staff who have agreed to depart NASA under a series of offers aligned with broader administration efforts to reduce the federal workforce, according to the documents. NASA has provided options such as early retirement, buyouts, and deferred resignations, the outlet said.
Many of those departing are integral to NASA’s core missions, with 1,818 employees working in key areas like science and human spaceflight. The remainder hold mission support positions, including roles in IT, facilities management, and finance.
“You’re losing the managerial and core technical expertise of the agency,” Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, told POLITICO. “What’s the strategy, and what do we hope to achieve here?”
"""My husband brought his mistress to our daughter’s wedding—and then asked me to give her my seat beside him.
"""My husband brought his mistress to our daughter’s wedding—and then asked me to give her my seat beside him. For a few seconds, I honestly thought I was looking at the wrong table, because my name card had vanished and Melissa’s was sitting exactly where mine had been on every seating chart. She wore a pale blue silk dress, lifted her champagne as if she belonged there, and avoided my eyes when I stopped beside the chair. David stood up, pointed to an empty seat at the next table, and quietly said, “For tonight, why don’t you sit over there?”
I had spent fourteen months helping our daughter, Emily, plan that wedding, from dress fittings and florist meetings to late-night calls over napkins and seating charts. That morning, while I fastened the pearl buttons on her gown, she made me promise I would enjoy the day and not let anything between her father and me touch it. I meant that promise, because whatever was left of my marriage, I would not make my daughter’s wedding the battlefield where it died. But David had apparently made a different plan, and he expected me to cooperate with it in silence.
When I asked what Melissa was doing there, David’s face showed guilt for only a second before he hid it behind irritation. He acted as though I were creating the problem simply by noticing that his mistress was seated at the family table in the place reserved for the bride’s mother. Then Melissa looked at me and said, “Honey, today really isn’t the day to make Emily uncomfortable.” I almost laughed, because the woman who had been sleeping with my husband for nearly a year was now warning me not to embarrass my own daughter.
I could feel people settling into nearby seats, laughing and talking, unaware that my marriage was being quietly rearranged in front of them. David kept his voice low and told me we should not “do this here,” as if the humiliation belonged to me because I refused to disappear politely. I looked at the empty chair he had chosen for me between a cousin and someone from the groom’s side, and I realized something colder than anger. This was not spontaneous; he had thought about where Melissa would sit, and he had assumed I would move.
For twenty-eight years, I had been the woman who adjusted, explained, forgave, and made excuses when David forgot anniversaries, missed dinners, or put work ahead of family. When he became distant, I learned to expect less instead of asking for more, and somewhere along the way he mistook that patience for permission. Even now, part of me considered taking the other chair, smiling for photographs, swallowing the humiliation, and telling myself it was all for Emily. I actually reached for the chair because protecting my daughter still mattered more to me than winning a public fight.
Then I heard one word behind me: “Mom?” Emily was walking toward us in her wedding dress, still glowing from the ceremony, and at first she looked confused rather than angry. Her eyes moved from me, to the empty chair, to Melissa, then back to the family table where she had personally placed me months ago. David quickly stepped in and announced that he had “rearranged a few things,” as if changing the bride’s seating chart without permission were no more serious than moving a centerpiece.
Emily asked why I was not sitting in my seat, and David casually pointed to the neighboring table and said I would be sitting “right there.” Her smile disappeared, and her eyes dropped to the place card in front of Melissa. I watched my daughter’s expression go completely still as she picked up that card and turned it over in her hand. In that instant, I understood the worst part: Emily had not approved this, and David had brought his mistress into our daughter’s wedding believing he could force everyone to accept what he wanted once it was already done.
What Emily did not know was that six months earlier, I had discovered David’s affair through a message that appeared on his phone while he was in the shower. Melissa had written, “I hate pretending I don’t miss you when she’s around,” followed by another message asking whether Friday was still theirs. When I confronted him, David spent eleven minutes calling me paranoid, insecure, dramatic, suspicious, and unfair before I repeated Melissa’s words exactly. The silence that followed ended our marriage long before either of us ever said the word divorce.
We had kept the details quiet because Emily was planning her wedding, and I refused to turn her happiest season into a crisis about us. David told me he was “confused,” that what he had with Melissa was “more complicated than an affair,” and that he needed time before making decisions. I agreed only that Emily’s wedding came first, so we slept in separate rooms, spoke carefully, and tried to appear functional while our marriage quietly collapsed. I believed David understood that one day required restraint, but he had apparently used that silence to prepare something else.
Three weeks before the wedding, he had casually asked whether Emily had finalized the family table and whether every seat had been assigned. At the time, I thought it was harmless conversation, but standing there with Melissa’s card in my daughter’s hand, I finally understood why he had asked. He had been checking whether there would be room, and when there was not, he simply removed me. Emily looked up at her father and asked, very quietly, “Where is Mom’s place card?”—and for the first time that night, David had no easy answer.
…FULL STORY IN THE COMMENT 👇👇👇"" "
