By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, Dec 1 (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee said on Monday it plans to hold a December 8 vote on President Donald Trump’s nomination of Jared Isaacman, the private astronaut and ally of billionaire SpaceX founder Elon Musk, for the post of NASA administrator.
Isaacman’s nomination was withdrawn in June but Trump last month renominated him. Isaacman, an e-commerce mogul who flew to orbit twice on all-private astronaut missions as a customer and collaborator with SpaceX, faces a second confirmation hearing before the committee on Wednesday.
Isaacman’s nomination was withdrawn five months ago amid a high-profile falling-out between Trump and Musk. Sean Duffy, the head of the U.S. Department of Transportation, was named interim NASA chief in July.
At the time, NASA’s workforce of 18,000 and the space industry at large were being whipsawed by looming layoffs and proposed budget cuts threatening cancellation of dozens of U.S. science programs. Nearly 4,000 NASA employees took buyouts the Trump administration offered in January and April.
The return of Isaacman as Trump’s nominee to fill the NASA vacancy on a permanent basis came about two weeks after Duffy said he was inviting other companies to compete with SpaceX for the agency’s marquee lunar landing contract, leading to a public dispute between Duffy and Musk over who should be leading the space agency.
Duffy said earlier that SpaceX’s development of its next-generation moon rocket, Starship, was falling behind schedule and could undermine NASA’s goal of returning humans to the lunar surface under the agency’s Artemis program, an effort rivaling China’s lunar ambitions.
The committee has also scheduled votes on December 8 for John DeLeeuw, managing director of safety and efficiency for American Airlines and a Boeing 787 captain, to serve on the National Transportation Safety Board as well as for a new term for NTSB board member Michael Graham.
(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Tom Hogue and Matthew Lewis)
