Jared Isaacman, appears before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation for his confirmation hearing as NASA administrator. President Trump withdrew Isaacman's nomination, reportedly over concerns that he donated money to Democratic politicians. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

When President Trump recently withdrew his nomination of Jared Isaacman to be NASA administrator, he sorta-kinda said that his decision had to do with a recent revelation that Isaacman had donated to Democrats. But even the most casual observers assumed there was more to it than that flimsy excuse. Isaacman had the backing of Elon Musk. Surely Trump's broken bromance with Musk was the reason Isaacman's nomination fell through.

But in fact, the tragic story goes even deeper than that.

Isaacman at first seemed to suit both Trump and Musk. He's a tech billionaire, owns equity in Musk's SpaceX, and last year, after riding into space on a SpaceX Dragon capsule, he became the first private astronaut to conduct a spacewalk. He said that as the head of NASA, he'd develop a "thriving space economy" (where, presumably, SpaceX would flourish). And he was willing to push Trump's dream of sending humans to Mars.

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The cracks started to show during Isaacman’s Senate confirmation........

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