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President Donald Trump's nominee to lead NASA, entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, faced questions from senators on Wednesday about on how to balance Trump's focus on reaching Mars with the U.S. space agency's flagship moon program. Isaacman, CEO of payment processing company Shift4 Payments , is a close partner of Elon Musk's SpaceX who has flown to space twice as a private astronaut on the company's spacecraft. The billionaire is in Washington for a confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation committee in which conflicting views on the moon and Mars as a destination for U.S. astronauts were front and center. If confirmed, Isaacman, 42, would oversee 18,000 employees and a budget of roughly $25 billion focused heavily on returning astronauts to the moon's surface, as part of a program called Artemis. Trump started the program during his first term.