Rick Tumlinson

Rick Tumlinson is the co-founder of several space companies and non-profits including Deep Space Industries, Orbital Outfitters, the New Worlds Institute, and the Space Frontier Foundation. He is an active space entrepreneur and space activist. He has testified on space-related topics before the U.S. Congress six times since 1995. In 2004, Space News magazine listed Tumlinson as one of the 100 most influential people in the space industry, stating:

Part agitator, part operator, Tumlinson has spent the past two decades advocating human exploration and settlement of the solar system and has been a strong advocate of creating commercial opportunities at the Russian Mir space station and at the international space station.

Tumlinson was born to a Texas family whose roots were involved with the co-founding of the Texas Rangers and fighting at the Alamo. He was the son of a retired U.S. Air Force Sergeant and English wife, and was educated primarily in England and Texas.

To support his space activism in his early years, Tumlinson produced a series of animated videos used to gain funding for the Air Force's DC-X rocket project, the International Space University, the X-33 rocket program, the Air Force's Space Command and created the first ever paid political announcement for space, which was featured on NPR's All Things Considered.

Tumlinson worked for noted scientist Gerard K. O'Neill at the Space Studies Institute and was a key player in starting the Lunar Prospector project which discovered hints of water on the Moon. He also lobbied to help pass the Space Settlement Act of 1988, testified before President Ronald Reagan's National Commission on Space, and was a founding trustee of the X-Prize.

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