NASA Chief Nominee Isaacman "may put the Polaris plan on hold for a while"

Jared Isaacman, who has been named the next head of NASA, has said he could put his private spaceflight plans with SpaceX on hold to serve in office.

"The future of the Polaris program, for now, is a bit of a question mark," Isaacman said at the "SpacePower 2024" conference in Orlando, Florida, on Wednesday local time.

It added that the Polaris plan may be put on hold for a while.

It is interpreted that it will be difficult for Isaacman to lead a civilian spaceflight project that requires a lot of time and effort to prepare while he is in office at NASA, a government agency.

The Polaris project, funded and directed by Isaacman, is a three-time private spaceflight mission organized with space company SpaceX, and the first of which, Polaris Dawn, was implemented in September.

At that time, Isaacman flew in space on SpaceX's capsule with SpaceX engineers and others, making the first civilian spacewalk.

One of the other two spaceflight missions is a manned flight test of the moon and Mars spacecraft 'Starship' being developed by SpaceX.

In the meantime, Starship has conducted six Earth orbit test flights with unmanned flights without humans on board.

Isaacman began investing in SpaceX in late 2020 and has had strong ties with SpaceX, leading its first civilian astronaut, Inspiration4, mission in 2021.

Isaacman said he could hold off on his own Polaris plans, but is expected to continue to support private companies such as SpaceX's plans to explore the moon and Mars.