Jared Isaacman-An Amazing LIfe

Just before the day began, I started to watch the Polaris Dawn Dragon capsule start its reentry into the Earth's atmosphere as it flew above Western Australia. The Draco thrusters put the capsule into a position where the drag of the atmosphere started to slow it down and begin its fiery ride through the atmosphere. All went perfectly. Four drogue chutes deployed as the capsule got near the water. The capsule landed very close to the recovery ship sitting near Key West, Florida. The capsule was brought onto the recovery ship. After some tests, the four astronauts emerged from the capsule looking happy and well. Space X did an incredible job, without a doubt. The one person who fascinates me the most is the man who financed the mission and put his heart and soul into the project. Some great biographer like Walter Isaacson (No relation to Jared) needs to write the biography of 41-year-old Jared Isaacman. Imagine what each of us was like around 17 years of age. Jared dropped out of high school at that age. He had the dream of creating a payments platform. (Elon Musk dropped out of a Stanford PhD program in materials engineering to do the same thing with what turned out to be PayPal.) To pull this off, one must have awesome skills as a software engineer. Once the platform is operating, one must have incredible commercial skills to make the platform competitive against heavyweights like PayPal and Adyen. Jared started operating in this most competitive environment. He built a publicly-listed company now valued at 9 billion dollars. He built a personal net worth of $1.9 billion. Then Jared wanted to become a proficient jet fighter pilot. He got a degree from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. He next faced giant obstacles to reach his goal. The first obstacle is to pass an aptitude test with a strong psychological orientation. Next comes primary flight school where young aviation cadets learn to fly basic trainer planes. A lot of candidates fail at this level. Next comes advanced flight training where many more candidates fail. Those who survive this school now must compete for the very few fighter pilot slots open. Many good pilots end up flying transport planes, tanker planes, AWAC aircraft, and even helicopters. Only the elite few get to fly advanced jet fighters. Jared became a very proficient fighter pilot respected by military fighter pilots. His next goal was to become a proficient astronaut. In the last class of 10 NASA astronauts chosen in 2021, 12,000 qualified applicants applied for these ten positions. He achieved this goal and reached a level of proficiency to pilot a spacecraft in outer space. What an incredible life!