Who Are We?

Team Members

Teachers in Space is an organization of dedicated individuals working toward common goals:
??? make it possible for large numbers of teachers to explore space
??? return Astronaut-Teachers to American classrooms
??? provide teachers opportunities to impact the next generation by sharing their experiences, knowledge, and adventure

We cannot possibly list all our team members here, but these are a few of our leaders:

Edward Wright is Teachers in Space project manager, chairman of the United States Rocket Academy, and a long-time Advocate of the Space Frontier Foundation.

Bill Boland has owned and operated two businesses in New York City that were later sold to public companies. He currently resides in Arizona and commits his time to opening the space frontier to commerce and eventual human settlement.

Jim Dunstan is a partner in the Washington, DC office of Garvey Schubert Barer, where he concentrates on issues of high technology, communications, and space law. He has drafted and negotiated a commercial lease for the Russian Mir Space Station on behalf of MirCorp contracts with several potential space tourists, and the first television commercial onboard the International Space Station.

Don McMahon recently retired as Educational Technology Special Projects Coordinator for Mesa Public Schools in Arizona. He has 40 years of experience in education, including 29 in classroom settings including Special Education, grades 3-8, and gifted programs.

Jason Marcks is Director of Space Education Initiatives, a non-profit education group using space to improve science, math, and technology education. A former high school Earth and space science teacher, he currently teaches science courses at the University of Wisconsin Green Bay and Northwestern State University.

Megan Seals is a recent graduate of James Mason University with a Master's degree in Elementary Education. She has worked in the NASA DEVELOP program, completed a certification in Geographic Information Sciences, and is a NASA Langley Aerospace scholar.

Colleen Howard is coordinator of the Space Integration Module for Mesa Public Schools in Arizona. A veteran teacher of 24 years, she has taught grades 4-12, including special education classes. Colleen has served as a Teacher Liaison with the National Space Foundation and plays an integral part in the development of Mesa???s space and aviation curriculum.

Board of Advisors

Dr. Buzz Aldrin was Apollo 11 Lunar Module pilot and one of the first two humans to land on the Moon. He has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and numerous other honors, commanded the USAF Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, and founded the rocket design company Starcraft Boosters and the nonprofit ShareSpace Foundation.

Anousheh Ansari helped to endow the $10 million Ansari X Prize for the development of the first private suborbital spacecraft. Then, in 2006, she made headlines as the first female private space explorer to visit the International Space Station and the first astronaut of Iranian descent.

Dr. Patrick Collins is professor of economics at Azabu University in Japan and a leading researcher in space commercialization who carried out the first market research on space tourism and co-authored the first book on the subject.

Dr. Peter Diamandis is founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation, which offered the $10 million Ansari X-Prize for private-sector manned spaceflight, cofounder and CEO of Zero Gravity Corporation, creator of the Rocket Racing League, cofounder and former Managing Director of the International Space University, and cofounder of the Space Generation Foundation and Students for Exploration and Development of Space.

Dick Methia has over 40 years experience in K-12 education. He was one of the ten Teacher in Space finalists selected by NASA in 1985. Since that time, he has helped create the Challenger Center, an innovative network of more than 50 science education centers, served two terms as president of the National Coalition for Technology in Education and Training, and directed a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation project training school leaders to transform their schools into data-driven communities.

Burt Rutan is a legendary aircraft designer with more than 40 innovative aircraft to his credit, ranging from homebuilts to business jets to military aircraft. He designed the Voyager, the first aircraft to circle the world nonstop without refueling, and SpaceShip One, the first private spacecraft to carry humans into space, which won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004.

Frank White is a Rhodes scholar and the acclaimed author of The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution, The SETI Factor, Decision: Earth, Think About Space and March of the Millennia (with Isaac Asimov), and The Ice Chronicles (with Paul Mayewski).

Organizations

Teachers in Space is managed and supported by the following organizations.

The Space Frontier Foundation is an organization dedicated to opening the space frontier to human settlement as rapidly as possible. The Foundation's goals include protecting the Earth's fragile biosphere and creating a more prosperous life for each generation using the unlimited energy and material resources of space. The Foundation seeks to unleash the power of free enterprise and lead a united humanity into the Solar System. For more information, see http://www.space-frontier.org.

The United States Rocket Academy is a nonprofit corporation created to promote and advance education in all aspects of human spaceflight for commercial, military, and scientific purposes.