CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman knows how to make an entrance. Under the bright afternoon sun on Saturday (Nov. 7), Isaacman plummeted through the air above 10,000 onlookers, skydiving into the agency's air show MAX POWER.
MAX POWER overtook NASA's Kennedy Space Center here over the weekend, combining aeronautics and aerospace in a massive public air show, the first of its kind for the space agency. A mix of astronauts, fighter jet displays and new technology on display, the spectacle is a lot space-ier than a traditional air show, and Isaacman made sure to really showcase this merging of worlds. A pilot and private astronaut, Jared Isaacman is no stranger to the skies, and immediately after landing back on solid ground he jumped right back up and took to the event's main stage to greet an excited crowd.
"Going into this job, I I knew we had to do something like this," Isaacman said after landing and taking the stage. "We knew on our nation's 250th birthday, we had to open up [the] Kennedy Space Center the year that we returned our astronauts to the lunar environment and put on a little bit of a show."
And put on a show he did.
From thousands of feet above a crowd holding their breath, Isaacman jumped out of a plane alongside members of Skydive Chicago and other notable individuals, including Montana senator Tim Sheehy (R-Montana) and former U.S. Air Force Thunderbird pilot Shawn Gustoson.
One by one, tiny white parachutes popped up in the sky above, which continued to grow in size as the skydivers neared the ground. And before we knew it, Isaacman was gracefully touching down just behind the air show's main stage, landing to the sound of cheers from the eager audience.
In addition to serving in his role as NASA Administrator, Isaacman is an entrepreneur, commercial astronaut and pilot. Known in flight by his callsign "Rook" which he was given during fighter jet training, Isaacman has so far logged over 8,000 flight hours. In 2009, he broke the world record for fastest trip around the world in a light jet (he made the trip in 61 hours, 51 minutes and 15 seconds) and is flight-qualified in a number of military jet aircraft. He also financed and flew on two private orbital space missions on a SpaceX Dragon, Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn, performing the world's first private spacewalk on the latter misison.
Before jumping out of a plane and careening through the air on Saturday as part of this celebratory stunt, Isaacman was actually flying overhead in not one, but two different fighter jets.
First, he flew an F-5, a lightweight supersonic fighter jet, and just a short while later, Isaacman flew a MiG-29, a twin-engine supersonic fighter jet, over the crowd of excited air show attendees. And the fun didn't stop with this skydive, as Isaacman took to the skies once again, flying over the event in fighter jets on Sunday.
How do you follow this act?
This weekend's MAX POWER events are not a one-time-only celebration of aviation and aerospace at NASA. Earlier in the weekend, the agency announced that in 2028, a week-long event called CAPEWEEK will return to the Kennedy Space Center, promising a next-level showcase of air and space innovation and spectacle.
Isaacman and NASA astronauts presented President Donald Trump, who was onhand for the ceremony, with a gold plaque in his honor that will be installed at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility runway in time for the CAPEWEEK in 2028.
"What you are seeing today again, imagine March 2028," Isaacman said of the future. "It's going to be 10x bigger. I mean, not just the the fighter aircraft you're seeing, but displays of aerospace-related hardware, rovers, landers. We're going to bring commercial airliners in here ... I would bet on this, the next new Grand Airliner will be announced here."
"That kind of ambition is exactly that you should expect from your space agency," he added. "I promise you, there'll be more to come."
