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- | Trump’s unconventional NASA pick signals Mars intentions in confirmation hearing | + | ‘I could not afford the American Dream:’ This retired US veteran relocated to Brazil after struggling with the cost of living |
- | President Donald Trump’s pick to run NASA, Jared Isaacman, made waves Wednesday by signaling his intention to create a new focus on Mars exploration. | + | After spending years traveling the world while working in the United States military, Christopher Boris dreamed of one day moving overseas permanently. |
- | A confirmation hearing for Isaacman — the billionaire CEO of payments platform company Shift4 | + | But the retired veteran, |
- | During the hearing, Isaacman faced wide-ranging questions about how NASA’s priorities might change under his leadership. | + | “I really couldn’t afford my mortgage payments and my utilities anymore,” Boris tells CNN Travel. |
- | For months, the space agency and its commercial and international partners have faced uncertainty about how the Trump administration may seek to realign NASA’s missions | + | “I struggled. I was living off of VA disability,” Boris says, referring |
+ | In the summer of 2024, Boris and his wife Maria Jesus, originally from Bolivia, left the US to start a new life in Brazil. | ||
- | If such a shift plays out, it could lead to changes for NASA’s Artemis program, which was announced during Trump’s first term and marked a renewed focus on lunar exploration. The Artemis I mission, for example, sent a crew-worthy spacecraft on a test flight around the moon in 2022. Artemis ultimately aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface and eventually create a permanent human settlement on the moon. | + | “I could not afford the American Dream,” he says. |
- | Notably, however, Mars has long been the destination of choice touted by Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX who over the past year has become | + | According to Boris, they had been struggling financially for at least five years, but things came to a head when he left his government job in 2022. |
- | Currently, NASA does not have any concrete plans to send humans to the red planet, though the agency has routinely said it views lunar exploration as an important precursor to Mars missions. | + | “It was a year-long decision,” he adds. “My wife and I were always talking about moving overseas.” |
- | However, Isaacman told the committee he will “prioritize sending American astronauts to Mars.” | + | |
- | “Along the way, we will inevitably have the capabilities | + | While they considered moving to Bolivia, the couple ultimately chose to settle in neighboring country Brazil, a destination that they’d previously lived in between 2007 and 2008, when Boris was stationed there. |
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+ | “We chose Brazil, and Rio specifically, | ||