Martine Rothblatt

Martine Rothblatt
Rothblatt in September 2014
Born	Martin Rothblatt 1954 (age 62–63) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Residence	Satellite Beach, Florida
Alma mater	University of California, Los Angeles (B.A., J.D, M.B.A) Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry (Ph.D, 2001)
Occupation	Chairman of United Therapeutics
Spouse(s)	Bina Aspen (m. 1982)
Children	4

Martine Aliana Rothblatt (born 1954) is an American lawyer, author, and entrepreneur. Rothblatt graduated from University of California, Los Angeles with a combined law and MBA degree in 1981, then began work in Washington, D.C., first in the field of communications satellite law, and eventually in life sciences projects like the Human Genome Project. She is the founder and Chairman of the Board of United Therapeutics. She was also the CEO of GeoStar and the creator of SiriusXM Satellite Radio.

Rothblatt was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1954 to Rosa Lee and Hal Rothblatt, a dentist, to an observant Jewish family. Originally named Martin, she was raised in a suburb of San Diego, California.

Rothblatt left college after two years and traveled throughout Europe, Turkey, Iran, Kenya, and the Seychelles. It was at the NASA tracking station in the Seychelles, during the summer of 1974, that she had her epiphany to unite the world via satellite communications. She then returned to University of California, Los Angeles, graduating summa cum laude in communication studies in 1977, with a thesis on international direct-broadcast satellites.

As an undergraduate, she became a convert to Gerard K. O'Neill's "High Frontier" plan for space colonization after analyzing his 1974 Physics Today cover story on the concept as a project for Professor Harland Epps' Topics in Modern Astronomy seminar. Rothblatt subsequently became an active member of the L5 Society and its Southern California affiliate, Organization for the Advancement of Space Industrialization and Settlement (OASIS).