{"id":9806,"date":"2025-07-10T20:32:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T12:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/transportation-secretary-sean-duffy-picked-as-interim-nasa-administrator\/"},"modified":"2025-07-10T20:32:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T12:32:08","slug":"transportation-secretary-sean-duffy-picked-as-interim-nasa-administrator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/transportation-secretary-sean-duffy-picked-as-interim-nasa-administrator\/","title":{"rendered":"Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy picked as Interim NASA Administrator"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Acting NASA Associate Administrator Vanessa Wyche, left, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro, right, react as they watch the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft splash down with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams, Nick Hague, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, Tuesday, March 18, 2025, from the Space Operations Center at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters Building in Washington. Image: NASA\/Bill Ingalls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy will now also oversee NASA as its newest interim administrator. The new leadership announcement came in a late-night post by President Donald Trump on his social media site, Truth Social.<\/p>\n

\u201cSean is doing a TREMENDOUS job in handling our Country\u2019s Transportation Affairs, including creating a state-of-the-art Air Traffic Control systems, while at the same time rebuilding our roads and bridges, making them efficient, and beautiful, again,\u201d Trump wrote. \u201cHe will be a fantastic leader of the ever more important Space Agency, even if only for a short period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duffy was a reality show personality known for appearances in MTV shows \u201cRoad Rules: All Stars\u201d and \u201cThe Real World: Boston\u201d before making his turn to politics, first as a district attorney in Ashland County, Wisconsin, in 2002 and then as a member of Congress from 2010 to 2019.<\/p>\n

Trump announced Duffy as his pick for the position of Secretary of Transportation on Nov. 18, 2024. The Senate confirmed his nomination in a 77-22 vote on Jan. 28, 2025, just days after the second Trump administration began.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonored to accept this mission,\u201d Duffy wrote on X following Trump\u2019s post. \u201cTime to take over space. Let\u2019s launch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
NASA Deputy Associate Administrator Casey Swails, left, acting NASA Associate Administrator Vanessa Wyche, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro, NASA Associate Administrator for the Space Operations Mission Directorate Ken Bowersox, right, watch the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft splash down with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams, Nick Hague, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, Tuesday, March 18, 2025, from the Space Operations Center at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters Building in Washington. Image: NASA\/Bill Ingalls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The announcement Wednesday night comes a little more than five weeks after Trump yanked the nomination of businessman Jared Issacman for the position of NASA Administrator. Isaacman, the founder of Shift4 and the commander of two commercial astronaut missions, was voted favorably out of the Senate Commerce Committee in a 19-9 vote in April and was heading towards a full Senate vote when the nomination was pulled.<\/p>\n

At the time Trump pulled Isaacman\u2019s nomination on May 31, he said \u201cI will soon announce a new Nominee who will be Mission aligned, and put America First in Space.\u201d Since then, the President made a few comments expanding on his decision, including a lengthy Truth Social post on July 6, which was mostly attacking his largest political donor in the 2024 election, Elon Musk.<\/p>\n

He and Musk, who also led Trump\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency, had a very public falling out, which included a number of jabs coming from both sides.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdditionally, Elon asked that one of his close friends run NASA and, while I thought his friend was very good, I was surprised to learn that he was a blue blooded Democrat, who had never contributed to a Republican before,\u201d Trump wrote in his July 6 post.<\/p>\n

\u201cElon probably was, also. I thought it was inappropriate that a very close friend of Elon, who was in the Space Business, run NASA, when NASA is such a big part of Elon\u2019s corporate life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaacman pushed back the following day, stating in a post on X that he is a self-described \u201cright-leaning moderate\u201d who made donations to both political parties \u201cthough 10x more to Republicans.\u201d He also said the he disclosed his political contributions before his nomination was submitted to the Senate and said his relationship with Musk was just professional.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Polaris Dawn crew, seen during a recorded video captured amid the mission. Left to right: SpaceX crew trainer and spacewalker Sarah Gillis, pilot Scott Poteet, commander and lead spacewalker Jared Isaacman and SpaceX medical officer Anna Menon. Image: SpaceX.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since Trump\u2019s second term began, Janet Petro, director of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, has served as the Interim NASA Administrator. Prior to the Wednesday announcement, there wasn\u2019t an indication that Petro would not continue leading NASA until a new nominee was selected. She\u2019s served in the role 171 days.<\/p>\n

The shift comes at a key time for the agency as the proposed Fiscal Year 2026 budget from the White House would cut NASA\u2019s overall budget by about 25 percent, which would include a nearly 50 percent reduction in the science budget.<\/p>\n

Even so, giving high level officials multiple jobs is not new for Trump\u2019s second term in office. More than half a dozen people are now juggling two or more key federal positions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Todd Blanche\n
      \n
    • Deputy Attorney General<\/li>\n
    • Acting Librarian of Congress<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
    • Daniel Driscoll\n
        \n
      • Secretary of the Army<\/li>\n
      • Acting Director, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
      • Sean Duffy\n
          \n
        • Secretary of Transportation<\/li>\n
        • Acting NASA Administrator<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
        • Jamieson Greer\n
            \n
          • U.S. Trade Representative <\/span><\/li>\n
          • Acting Director, U.S. Office of Government Ethics<\/li>\n
          • Acting Special Counsel, U.S. Office of Special Counsel<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
          • Richard Grenell\n
              \n
            • Special U.S. Envoy<\/li>\n
            • President, The Kennedy Center<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
            • Marco Rubio\n
                \n
              • Secretary of State<\/li>\n
              • White House National Security Adviser<\/li>\n
              • Acting Archivist of the United States<\/li>\n
              • Acting Administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
              • Russel Vought\n
                  \n
                • Director, U.S. Office of Management and Budget<\/li>\n
                • Acting Director, Consumer Financial Protection Bear<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

                  Trump didn\u2019t indicate in his latest announcement when he intends to nominate a permanent NASA Administrator. During Trump\u2019s first term, Robert Lightfoot held the interim position for 458 days until Jim Bridenstine took the reins in April 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                  Acting NASA Associate Administrator Vanessa Wyche, left, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro, right, react as they watch the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft splash down with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams, Nick Hague, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, Tuesday, March 18, 2025, from the Space Operations Center at the Mary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[190,1052,967],"class_list":["post-9806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nasa","tag-nasa-administrator","tag-sean-duffy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9806"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9806\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}