NASA will prioritize sending American astronauts to Mars, President Trump’s nominee to lead the space agency will tell a Senate committee on Wednesday.
The nominee is Jared Isaacman, the chief executive of the payment processing company Shift4 Payments, who is a close associate of Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX. As someone who has led two private astronaut flights to orbit, he would, if confirmed, bring to NASA and its $25 billion budget a perspective more in line with newer entrepreneurial aerospace companies like SpaceX.
In an opening statement released ahead of his hearing by the Senate Commerce, Science and Technology committee, Mr. Isaacman is expected to say, “We will reinvigorate a mission-first culture at NASA” with the top objective of sending astronauts to Mars.
While Mars has long been promoted as the eventual destination of human spaceflight programs, NASA’s current focus is the International Space Station in low-Earth orbit and the Artemis program, which was announced in Mr. Trump’s first term and is endeavoring to send astronauts back to the moon.
Mr. Isaacman will testify that NASA will not abandon the moon but will treat it as a steppingstone to Mars.
“Along the way, we will inevitably have the capabilities to return to the Moon and determine the scientific, economic and national security benefits of maintaining a presence on the lunar surface,” he will say, according to the prepared text of his opening remarks.
Mr. Isaacman will say that kick-starting a vibrant economy in orbit around Earth and increasing the rate of NASA’s scientific discoveries will be other objectives for NASA.
Mr. Isaacman’s confirmation hearing is likely to provide some clarity for the future direction of NASA, which, like many federal agencies, has been racked by uncertainty and rumors. The Trump administration has eliminated NASA’s office of the chief scientist and another office that provided advice on policy and strategy but has so far held back from the kind of large-scale and sometimes chaotic layoffs that have swept through many other federal agencies.
Mr. Musk, a key adviser to Mr. Trump, has said that the moon program is a “distraction” and that the International Space Station has served its purposes and should be thrown away in a couple of years.
Mr. Musk’s views run counter to those held by both Republicans and Democrats in Congress. Last month, leaders of the Senate commerce committee introduced a bill that, in laying out what Congress wanted NASA to do, emphasized continuity and predictability.
Mr. Isaacman is expected to face questions about the fate of the Space Launch System, the big new rocket that NASA has spent billions of dollars developing for more than a decade.
In a posting on X in October, Mr. Isaacman described the S.L.S. rocket as “outrageously expensive” and an example of traditional NASA programs that have been canceled because they end up far over budget and behind schedule.
But the S.L.S. for Artemis II, which is to take four astronauts on a trip around the moon without landing next year, is already built. The first landing of astronauts on the moon would occur during Artemis III, which would use another S.L.S. rocket.
Redesigning those missions with another rocket would most likely lead to years of delays. On Monday, Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican of Texas who chairs the commerce committee, posted on X that he had met with Mr. Isaacman and called him “committed to having American astronauts return to the lunar surface ASAP so we can develop the technologies needed to go on to Mars.”
For many years, NASA was led by people with experience at NASA or in the traditional aerospace industry. The last two permanent NASA administrators did not fit that mold but instead were former politicians. During his first administration, Mr. Trump chose Jim Bridenstine, a former congressman from Oklahoma, and Joseph Biden chose Bill Nelson, a former Florida senator.
Mr. Isaacman’s nomination breaks tradition in different ways. He has not worked at NASA and does not possess a conventional aerospace background.
But in February 2021, he announced he was financing a private mission called Inspiration4. With its crew riding in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, the mission was the first in which no one aboard was a professional astronaut.
The crew launched into orbit in September 2021, spending four days in space.
Mr. Isaacman followed up last year with another trip to orbit, called Polaris Dawn. This mission — a collaboration with SpaceX — tested novel technologies including a new spacesuit that was used during the first spacewalk by private astronauts.
Two additional Polaris missions were to follow, but those will be on hold if Mr. Isaacman becomes the leader of NASA.
