NASA has a brand new chief, at the very least for now.
On Wednesday night (July 9), President Donald Trump named Sean Duffy interim chief of the house company. Duffy takes over from Janet Petro, who had served as performing NASA administrator since Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20.
It is unclear how lengthy Duffy will serve in his new function, but it surely might be some time. Trump has but to call a alternative for Jared Isaacman, who he initially nominated to be everlasting NASA chief earlier than rescinding that nomination on May 31.
Nevertheless lengthy he stays within the job, Duffy might be fairly busy: He is additionally Trump’s Secretary of Transportation. This is a brief primer on Duffy, whose background is much extra colourful than that of most authorities officers.
Duffy was born on Oct. 3, 1971 in Hayward, a small metropolis in northern Wisconsin. He is the tenth of 11 youngsters in an Irish Catholic household, in accordance with his biography on the U.S. Division of Transportation web site. He “comes from a protracted line of lumberjacks, who helped construct his beloved state of Wisconsin,” the biography states.
Duffy himself was massive into timber sports activities; he began log rolling at age 5 and pace climbing — racing vertically up 60- and 90-foot (18- and 27-meter) poles — at 13, in accordance with an early 2000s feature in Classic Wisconsin.
“There’s an enormous log rolling faculty right here in Hayward,” Duffy informed the publication on the time, “so numerous the children locally would come down and take log rolling classes, a lot the identical as youngsters would take soccer classes and swimming classes in different communities.”
He bought excellent at such contests. On the time the Basic Wisconsin article was printed, Duffy (then 30 years outdated), held two world speed-climbing titles.
Duffy stayed within the higher Midwest U.S. for school, graduating from Saint Mary’s College of Minnesota with a B.A. in advertising and marketing in 1994.
Three years later, the broader world bought its first have a look at Duffy. He starred in “The Actual World: Boston,” the sixth season of the MTV actuality present that put a disparate group of younger individuals collectively in a home for just a few months and chronicled their lives and interactions. (The present continues to be going, although its MTV days resulted in 2017.)
Duffy was considered one of seven individuals within the Boston home. He remained within the “Actual World” universe for a spell after that stint ended, collaborating within the spinoff exhibits “Highway Guidelines: All Stars” and “Actual World/Highway Guidelines Problem: Battle of the Seasons.”
On “Highway Guidelines: All Stars,” he met Rachel Campos, an alum of “The Actual World: San Francisco,” which aired in 1994. The 2 bought married in 1999.
“Rachel and Sean are America’s first and longest-married actuality TV couple,” Duffy’s Division of Transportation bio reads. “They’ve been married for 25 years and have 9 youngsters collectively.”
The identical yr he bought married, Duffy graduated from the William Mitchell Faculty of Regulation in St. Paul, Minnesota. He started his regulation profession in non-public apply however in 2002 was appointed district legal professional of Wisconsin’s Ashland County.
Duffy, a Republican, held that put up till 2010, when he was elected to symbolize Wisconsin’s District 7 within the U.S. Home of Representatives. He gained reelection a number of instances and made an imprint on the physique, “serving on the Home Monetary Providers Committee and actively main on native transportation points through his co-chairmanship of the Nice Lakes Job Power,” in accordance with his Division of Transportation bio.
Duffy stood behind a lot of Trump’s initiatives and priorities throughout the president’s first time period. In 2017, for instance, he supported the manager order quickly barring individuals from seven Muslim-majority nations from coming into the U.S. A yr later, he introduced a bill designed to offer Trump extra tariff-imposing energy.
Duffy left Congress in September 2019 to spend extra time together with his household as he and his spouse ready to welcome a child daughter who had been recognized with a coronary heart situation.
He then labored as a CNN political commentator and as a lobbyist with the agency BGR Group. In January 2023, he started co-hosting “The Backside Line with Dagen and Duffy,” a present on the Fox Enterprise channel. Nevertheless it would not be lengthy earlier than he returned to politics.
In November 2024, Trump introduced that he had tapped Duffy to steer the Division of Transportation throughout his second presidential time period. Duffy will proceed to carry this high-profile job whereas steering NASA as interim chief.
Duffy might lack a substantive science, engineering and aerospace background, however he appears to have loads of enthusiasm. “Honored to simply accept this mission. Time to take over house. Let’s launch,” he said via X on Wednesday night.
It is too quickly to say what Duffy’s appointment will imply for NASA. The company is beleaguered in the meanwhile, going through giant cuts to its coffers, its workforce and its science portfolio: Trump’s 2026 finances, if enacted, would slash the agency’s overall funding by 24% and its science finances by practically half, ensuing within the cancellation of dozens of missions.
Having Duffy within the high spot might give NASA one thing of a lift, within the type of a direct line to the president through considered one of his trusted allies, Ars Technica’s Eric Berger noted. However, Berger added, “it is usually doable that he takes his mandate to slash NASA’s finances and workforce critically, and in doing so could be vastly more practical than Petro.”