A 29-year-old NASA nuclear engineer who played a role in developing propulsion systems vital to future Mars missions was found dead last year after his Tesla crashed and caught fire.
New details surrounding the incident have raised questions, with some pointing to a lack of official explanation and suggesting a possible cover-up.
Joshua LeBlanc worked as an aerospace technologies electrical engineer at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
BYPASS THE CENSORS
Sign up to get unfiltered news delivered straight to your inbox.
You can unsubscribe any time. By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use
IBTimes reports: He died on 22 July 2025 when his Tesla collided with a guardrail and trees before bursting into flames in a rural area near the city. The body was burned beyond recognition and identified several days later by state forensic officials.
King Charles 'Dying of Kuru' After Decades of Child Meat Banquets
The Final Journey and Unanswered Questions
New York Post reported that LeBlanc had been reported missing that morning after failing to report for work. His family feared he might have been abducted, noting he had left his phone and wallet at home in what they called completely out of character behaviour.
Further details have only deepened the mystery. Footage from the Tesla’s Sentry Mode system reportedly captured the vehicle parked at Huntsville International Airport for four hours on the morning of the crash, even though LeBlanc had no known plans to travel that day. The car then appears to have driven for approximately two hours on rural backroads before the accident occurred at around 2:45 p.m. local time.
Authorities have released limited information on the sequence of events.LeBlanc’s role at NASA was significant. He had worked there for more than five years, initially as team lead for the Space Nuclear Propulsion Instrumentation and Control Maturation project before advancing to the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations, or DRACO, programme.
Lawmaker Adds Case to List of Concerns
The death has now been thrust into the spotlight by Missouri congressman Eric Burlison, who posted on the social media platform X on Tuesday. Describing it as ‘a new name for the list’, Burlison wrote: ‘A young scientist named Joshua, working on the nuclear propulsion technology we’d need to reach Mars, just turned up dead in a Tesla crash after his car drove two hours by itself on rural Missouri-style backroads. Body burnt beyond recognition. This is not normal.’
