Sean Duffy Might Have Leaked A Billionaire Private Astronaut's Plan In Desperate Bid To Save His Job At Nasa

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It's ill-advised to juggle 2 full-time jobs unless you person to financially support yourself. However, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is laying nan groundwork to make his 2nd occupation arsenic interim NASA Administrator permanent. The purported plans of withdrawn nominee Jared Isaacman, a billionaire backstage astronaut, person fallen into nan hands of legislators and lobbyists complete nan past fewer weeks. Signs constituent to Duffy arsenic nan root of nan leak. With nan dire authorities of nan country's aerial postulation power system, he was astir apt not nan astir qualified campaigner for nan position.

The 62-page scheme titled "Athena" specifications nan plans that Isaacman had for NASA if Congress confirmed his nomination. According to Ars Technica, nan type of "Athena" was an abridged document, fixed only to Duffy and his main of unit by nan billionaire arsenic a courtesy successful August. Isaacman's scheme has angered NASA's accepted contractors because he would person re-evaluated nan abstraction agency's spending, making appropriated dollars spell further by relying much connected nan commercialized abstraction industry. The leak appeared to beryllium an effort to derail immoderate effort to renominate Isaacman, allowing Duffy to proceed arsenic interim administrator astatine a minimum. Despite nan erstwhile withdrawal, nan backstage astronaut has continued to meet pinch President Trump to talk abstraction policy, according to CNBC.

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Isaacman seemed for illustration nan perfect nominee for NASA Administrator erstwhile Elon Musk was squatting successful nan White House. The 42-year-old became a billionaire aft founding costs processor Shift4, past became a qualified subject pitchy aviator and formed Draken International, nan world's largest backstage aerial force. Isaacman would partner pinch SpaceX successful 2021 to shape and bid Inspiration4, nan first orbital spaceflight crewed exclusively by backstage astronauts. He past launched nan Polaris program, his ain privately funded abstraction programme pinch missions operated by SpaceX. Polaris Dawn, nan inaugural mission, went comparatively smoothly and featured nan first commercialized spacewalk. Isaacman wanted to lift nan Hubble Space Telescope into a higher orbit for Polaris' 2nd mission, but NASA rejected nan connection because of nan risks involved.

The reside shifted erstwhile Trump began gutting nan abstraction agency. As nan Oval Office threatened to cancel nan Artemis program, Isaacman reiterated his ambitions for nan agency to return astronauts to nan Moon earlier China could execute nan feat for nan first time. He besides promised to cancel SpaceX's Polaris statement to trim ties betwixt himself and 1 of NASA's largest contractors. The decease knell for Isaacman's information came successful nan aftermath of Trump and Musk falling retired successful a very nationalist spat connected societal media. However, nan management claimed that his information was withdrawn because of his past governmental donations to Democrats, not because he was a Musk ally. The New York Times moreover reported that Trump was alert of these donations earlier he chose Isaacman arsenic his nominee.

Capitol Hill intrigue aside, I can't ideate fighting this difficult to enactment NASA Administrator erstwhile you're already Transportation Secretary. Running a abstraction programme mightiness beryllium acold much glamorous than trying to hole aerial postulation control, but nan salary is worse and it's not moreover a Cabinet-level position. Despite what immoderate weird corners of nan net declare astir nan satellite landings, everyone knows who Neil Armstrong is. No 1 knows who nan NASA Administrator was during Apollo 11. For damn sure, nary 1 is going to retrieve who led NASA during Artemis II.