WASHINGTON, April 30 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate

Commerce Committee voted on Wednesday to advance President

Donald Trump's nominees to head NASA and to serve as

commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission.

Trump's pick to head the space agency, entrepreneur Jared

Isaacman, is CEO of payment processing company Shift4 Payments ( FOUR )

and a business partner of Elon Musk who has flown to

space twice as a private astronaut on Musk's SpaceX spacecraft.

NASA, like many government agencies, is currently going

through a significant restructuring and employees have been

offered buyouts to leave.

The panel also approved the nomination of Olivia Trusty, a

Senate aide who would give Republicans three votes on the

five-member telecom regulator. Some Democrats said they would

only support Trusty on the Senate floor as long as they had

assurances that the Senate would continue to consider Democratic

nominees.

Trump fired both Democrats on the Federal Trade Commission

and has also removed Democrats from other independent

commissions. U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen, a Democrat from Nevada,

said Trump had illegally fired FTC commissioners.

FCC Chair Brendan Carr has an aggressive deregulatory agenda

and will need a majority of the commission before he can

implement many priorities.

Isaacman, 42, if confirmed, will 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.

Trump and Musk, who spent $250 million in support of Trump's

presidential campaign and pushed for Isaacman's nomination, have

become fixated on Mars as a national priority, raising questions

about NASA's moon program for which billions of dollars have

been committed.

SpaceX has roughly $15 billion worth of NASA contracts,

offering the agency its only U.S. ride for astronauts to space

and a vehicle that will land crews on the moon later this

decade.