Senate Committee Advances Nomination for NASA Administrator

A U.S. Senate panel on April 30 approved Jared Isaacman’s nomination to become the next administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Senate Committee on Communication, Science, and Transportation voted 19 to 9, with several Democratic committee members, including Ranking Member Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), voting with their Republican counterparts. Isaacman’s nomination now heads to the Senate floor, where a final decision will be made. The entrepreneur and veteran astronaut from the Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn missions, who undertook the first-ever private spacewalk, appeared before the committee on April 9. He emphasized the need for NASA to fulfill its mission to beat communist China and establish a permanent presence on the moon’s surface and in lunar orbit with the Gateway Space Station, and to land an American on Mars....