Mars Is the Priority, Trumps Pick to Lead NASA Will Say

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.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe....