05 Nov 2025, 01:52 PM IST i Who Is Jared Isaacman? Isaacman is a billionaire entrepreneur, investor and private astronaut. He is also the founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments, a financial transactions company. He is also an amateur jet pilot with thousands of flight hours. Isaacman flew to orbit twice on all-private astronaut missions. In 2021, he commanded the Inspiration4 mission, the first all-private crew to reach Earth orbit. He led four civilian astronauts on a three-day mission aboard a SpaceX rocket. He funded the mission personally, according to a Reuters report. In September 2024, he returned to orbit on the Polaris Dawn mission. Funded and led by him, the mission carried a four-member civilian crew to orbit. During this trip, he conducted the world’s first private spacewalk alongside a SpaceX engineer. He supports a long-term vision to return astronauts to the Moon under NASA's Artemis programme by 2027. He is interested in eventually shifting the focus towards "the near-impossible that no one else will work on, like nuclear electric propulsion,” according to Reuters. He has also expressed support for maximising the remaining life of the International Space Station. He advocates building a commercial “orbital economy” with various private sector interests in space, the agency report added. ALSO READ