FOUNDER BIOGRAPHIES
![]() Dr. Peter H. Diamandis
Dr. Peter H. Diamandis currently serves as chairman and president of the X Prize Foundation, a non-profit educational organization promoting the formation of space-related prizes. He also is the President/COO of Angel Technologies Corporation.
A founder and trustee of the International Space University (ISU), Dr. Diamandis also has served as the University's first managing director. Additionally, he established Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) where he was the first chairman from 1980 to 1983.
In 1989, Dr. Diamandis formed International MicroSpace, Inc. (IMI), a commercial launch company where he served as the CEO. IMI was later acquired by CTA Incorporated. While at CTA, he served as vice president for commercial space. Diamandis is also a co-founder of Constellation Communications, Inc., one of the "big-LEO" satellite communication companies.
Dr. Diamandis received his undergraduate and graduate degree in aerospace engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and his M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School. He has conducted research in a number of fields, including molecular genetics, space medicine and launch vehicle design.
Dr. Diamandis has received a number of awards including MIT's Kresge Award, the 1986 Space Industrialization Fellowship Award, the 1988 Aviation Week and Space Technology Laurel, the 1993 Space Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award, and the Russian 1995 K.E. Tsiolkovsky Award.
Dr. Byron Lichtenberg has flown two space shuttle missions as a payload specialist. In this capacity, he represented more than 100 scientists with experiments from all parts of the world. In 1983, Dr. Lichtenberg flew his first mission, Spacelab 1, as the first non-NASA astronaut, aboard the shuttle "Columbia". He spent 10 days in orbit conducting 72 different experiments in five scientific disciplines. This mission was the first flight of the European developed Spacelab module and was a demonstration flight for the different types of science that can be conducted in orbit.
In 1984, Dr. Lichtenberg co-founded Payload Systems, Inc., a spaceflight science and engineering support services company. Payload Systems, Inc. is best known for flying the first commercial experiments aboard the Soviet space station MIR.
During his second flight, Atlas-1 in 1992 aboard the shuttle "Atlantis" Dr. Lichtenberg conducted 14 experiments during nine days, primarily studying the upper atmosphere and the sun. During this mission the crew created the first ever artificial aurora by firing a beam of electrons into the lower atmosphere to produce spots of light similar to, but much dimmer than, the "Northern Lights."
Dr. Lichtenberg also continued his flying career by flying F-100 and A-10 fighter aircrafts in the Massachusetts Air National Guard from 1974 to 1992. During this time he received numerous commendations including the Meritorious Service Medal.
In 1991, he founded Omega Aerospace, Inc., a company dedicated to the advancement of space travel for all people. Dr. Lichtenberg is also a consultant to NASA on the space station and future scientific experiments. He has been a co-investigator on a series of space experiments designed to study how the human inner ear organ of balance adapts to spaceflight, and also how human eye-hand coordination and mental performance change in space.
Dr. Lichtenberg has written numerous scientific articles and is a member of the Association of Space Explorers, the National Space Society, and Tau Beta Pi and Sigma Xi engineering and science organizations. He is also a founding member of the X Prize Foundation, and has participated in many committees for NASA and the National Research Council.
Dr. Lichtenberg received his bachelor of science degree from Brown University in 1969 in aerospace engineering. Following a tour of duty in the Air Force, during which he flew 138 combat missions in Vietnam (earning 10 Air medals and two Distinguished Flying Crosses), he returned to graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he received both his master of science degree in mechanical engineering and his doctorate in biomedical engineering, in 1975 and 1979 respectively.
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