The former congressman and reality TV contestant whom President Donald Trump has picked as temporary head of NASA brings little experience with space policy and few apparent ties to Alabama.

Trump announced Sean Duffy – the current secretary of the federal Department of Transportation – as his pick for interim administrator of the space agency in a post on TruthSocial late Wednesday.

“Sean is doing a TREMENDOUS job in handling our Country’s Transportation Affairs, including creating a state-of-the-art Air Traffic Control systems, while at the same time rebuilding our roads and bridges, making them efficient, and beautiful, again,” Trump wrote.

On the X platform, Duffy posted a screenshot of Trump’s announcement along with the text, “Honored to accept this mission. Time to take over space. Let’s launch.”

A former congressman and prosecutor, Duffy first gained fame by appearing on several MTV reality television programs, including 1997’s The Real World: Boston; Road Rules: All Stars (1998); and Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Battle of the Seasons (2002). He has also worked as a political commentator for CNN and for Fox News.

Duffy, a Republican, served in the U.S. House as representative for Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District from 2011 to 2019. Before Congress, he was district attorney in rural Ashland County, Wis., from 2002-2010.

In Congress, Duffy sat on the House financial services committee – where he was chairman of the oversight and investigations subcommittee — and on the House budget committee.

An AL.com review of Duffy’s record in Congress shows he did not sponsor or cosponsor a single bill directly related to NASA or space policy.

Duffy stands in stark contrast to Trump’s first pick to head NASA, a tech billionaire and space enthusiast with north Alabama connections.

The White House pulled the nomination of Jared Isaacman in May, shortly after proposing historically large cuts to NASA, including to flagship systems related to the Artemis moon program that are managed from Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

Administration spokeswoman Liz Huston told NBC News at the time, “it’s essential that the next leader of NASA is in complete alignment with President Trump’s America First agenda.”

Isaacman is founder and CEO of the credit card payment processing company Shift4 Payments. He was a close ally of Elon Musk, having twice purchased flights into space aboard the latter’s SpaceX rockets. Trump withdrew Isaacman’s nomination shortly after the president had a public falling out with Musk as well as revelations that Isaacman had previously donated to causes related to both Democrats and Republicans.

Isaacman attended the U.S. Space & Rocket Center’s Aviation Challenge as a child and, in 2022, donated $10 million for the construction of the facility’s Inspiration4 Skills Training Center. He is also a member of the class of 2022 U.S. Space and Rocket Center Space Camp Hall of Fame.

Duffy’s main connection to Alabama comes in the form of grants earmarked for state infrastructure projects under his tenure as head of the federal Transportation department.

In May, the DoT announced a $550 million grant had been finalized for work on the I-10 Mobile River Bridge and Bayway Multimodal Project. That grant was initially announced in 2024, under the Joe Biden administration.

Four other grants for Alabama projects were also announced in May, totaling just over $43 million.