Two-time space-faring billionaire NASA chief says critics of billionaire space travel are ‘outright wrong.’

(SeaPRwire) –   The billionaire head of NASA, who has journeyed to space on two occasions, has a direct response for those critical of space travel undertaken by billionaires: They are “outright wrong.”

As the Artemis II crew commenced the first lunar mission in over half a century, NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, the mogul behind a payments processing company who was confirmed to lead the agency late last year, lauded his fellow billionaires for investing their personal fortunes into the space race.

“I’m grateful for folks like Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos, and Sir Richard Branson that have put their resources on the line for a capability for the good of all humankind right now,” he stated to Politico.

When interviewer Dasha Burns highlighted that prominent figures such as UN Secretary General António Guterres had previously voiced criticism of billionaire space flights, Isaacman retorted to other critics: “I think they’re just outright wrong, and ill-informed and going for headlines. It’s such a bad take,” he remarked. Guterres had stated in 2021 that billionaires were fostering societal distrust by “joyriding to space while millions go hungry on Earth.”

In defense of billionaire space travel, Isaacman, whose net worth is estimated at $1.5 billion by Forbes, argued that society should not halt the space race due to existing problems on Earth. He drew a parallel to potential critics of cell phone towers in the 1980s, suggesting they might have voiced similar concerns about a technology that ultimately connected and improved the world. For instance, he noted that cell phone connectivity has helped expose wrongdoers involved in genocide, thereby saving millions of lives.

“If we concentrate all of our resources on the problems and hardships of the day, there is no progress. You don’t hit pause on progress,” he asserted.

Isaacman’s remarks coincide with the Artemis II crew’s successful journey on Monday, traveling further than any astronauts before them as their Orion spacecraft utilized the Moon’s gravitational pull for a slingshot maneuver. The astronauts are slated to return to Earth late Friday, with their spacecraft scheduled to land in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, California.

Isaacman’s space flights

While he has not yet traveled to the Moon, Isaacman, the founder of Shift4 Payments and Draken International (which provides tactical fighter aircraft to the U.S. military and its allies), has been to space twice.

In 2021, Isaacman helped finance and subsequently lead Inspiration4, the inaugural all-civilian mission to achieve orbit aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, flying at a higher altitude than the suborbital flights of Bezos’ Blue Origin and Branson’s Virgin Galactic in the same year. In 2024, he became the first civilian to perform a spacewalk during SpaceX’s five-day Polaris mission, which he also reportedly helped fund. He ventured outside the spacecraft approximately 400 miles above Earth for about 10 minutes to test SpaceX’s EVA space suit.

The commercial space race has intensified in recent years, with Blue Origin, SpaceX, and Virgin Galactic all vying to dominate an emerging global space industry that McKinsey projects could reach $1.8 trillion by 2035. In the meantime, the billionaire founders of these companies, including Bezos and Branson, have already experienced space themselves.

Bezos briefly crossed the internationally recognized boundary of space, known as the Kármán line, at an altitude of 62 miles above Earth during a 10-minute suborbital mission with Blue Origin in 2021. Branson piloted his own Virgin Galactic spacecraft to approximately 53 miles above Earth in the same year. Blue Origin has contended that Virgin Galactic’s space flights have not truly reached space as they remained below the Kármán line. Elon Musk, whose SpaceX has transported more individuals to orbit than any other private company, has not yet traveled to space.

Isaacman, for his part, stated that companies like Blue Origin are achieving significant technological advancements that benefit all of humanity, including innovations in planetary defense that could ensure “we don’t go the way of the dinosaurs.” He argued that the efforts of billionaires in reaching space and improving life on Earth are not mutually exclusive.

“We should be grateful for their contributions, and do the other things to make life better here on Earth,” he concluded.