Rick Tumlinson is the
co-founder
An organizational founder is a person who has undertaken some or all of the formational work needed to create a new organization, whether it is a business, a charitable organization, a governing body, a school, a group of entertainers, or any othe ...
of several space companies and non-profits including
Deep Space Industries
Deep Space Industries, or DSI, was an American private ly-held company operating in the space technology and space exploration sectors. It was acquired on January 1, 2019 by Bradford Space.
The company is developing and building spacecraft tech ...
,
Orbital Outfitters, the
New Worlds Institute, and the
Space Frontier Foundation
The Space Frontier Foundation is an American space advocacy nonprofit corporation organized to promote the interests of increased involvement of the private sector, in collaboration with government, in the exploration and development of space. I ...
. He is an active space entrepreneur and
space activist
Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consi ...
. He has testified on space-related topics before the
U.S. Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washin ...
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.
Background
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 International Space University (ISU) is dedicated to the discovery, research, and development of outer space and its applications for peaceful purposes, through international and multidisciplinary education and research programs. ISU was f ...
, the
X-33
The Lockheed Martin X-33 was a proposed uncrewed, sub-scale technology demonstrator suborbital spaceplane that was developed for a period in the 1990s. The X-33 was a technology demonstrator for the VentureStar orbital spaceplane, which was plan ...
rocket program, the Air Force's
Space Command
A space command is a military organization with responsibility for space operations and warfare. A space command is typically a joint organization or organized within a larger military branch and is distinct from a fully independent space force ...
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
Space Studies Institute is a not-for-profit organization that was founded in 1977 by Princeton University Professor Gerard K. O'Neill.
In 2009 SSI moved its operations from its long-term base in Princeton, New Jersey, to Mojave, Californi ...
and was involved 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.
Over the years he has been a witness in six congressional hearings on the future of NASA, the US
space program
A space program is an organized effort by a government or a company with a goal related to outer space.
Lists of space programs include:
* List of government space agencies
* List of private spaceflight companies
* List of human spaceflight prog ...
and
space tourism
Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism.
During the period from 2001 to 2009, seven space tourists made eight s ...
. In early 2004, Tumlinson testified before Senator
John McCain and the Senate Space and Technology Committee on the Moon, Mars and Beyond program.
Tumlinson conducts many talks and speeches in the field of
space advocacy
Space advocacy is supporting or advocating for a human use of outer space. Purposes advocated can reach from space exploration, or commercial use of space to even space settlement. There are many different individuals and organizations dedicat ...
. Topics of his talks range from critiques and discussions of current national space policy, presentation of a "Frontier" ideology for opening space, to the how and why of returning to the Moon, to a spiritual discussion of our place in the universe, the search for other life and the reasons why humans are reaching for the stars.
Contributions and projects
Tumlinson founded the Permission to Dream project, which has over the years placed dozens of telescopes in the hands of schools and groups around the world in hopes to educate and inspire interest in space.
He co-founded the now dissolved firm
LunaCorp, which teamed up with
Radio Shack
RadioShack, formerly RadioShack Corporation, is an American retailer founded in 1921.
At its peak in 1999, RadioShack operated over 8,000 worldwide stores named RadioShack or Tandy Electronics in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Austra ...
on a proposed mission to send a robot
rover
Rover may refer to:
People
* Constance Rover (1910–2005), English historian
* Jolanda de Rover (born 1963), Dutch swimmer
* Rover Thomas (c. 1920–1998), Indigenous Australian artist
Places
* Rover, Arkansas, US
* Rover, Missouri, US
...
to the moon to confirm that ice exists at its poles.
[Space.co]
Companies Team Up to Send Robots to the Moon
Retrieved on July 14, 2007 He led the team which turned the
Mir
''Mir'' (russian: Мир, ; ) was a space station that operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, operated by the Soviet Union and later by Russia. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to&n ...
Space Station into the world's first commercial space facility, and was a co-founder of the space firm
MirCorp as profiled in the documentary film
Orphans of Apollo.
Along the way he personally signed up
Dennis Tito
Dennis Anthony Tito (born August 8, 1940) is an American engineer and entrepreneur. In mid-2001, he became the first space tourist to fund his own trip into space, when he spent nearly eight days in orbit as a crew member of ISS EP-1, a visitin ...
, the world's first "citizen explorer," and has assisted in numerous other such projects.
Rick was the Executive Director and co-Founder of the Foundation for the International Non-Governmental Development of Space (FINDS), a foundation with the objective to fund breakthrough projects and activities such as
Helium 3
Helium-3 (3He see also helion) is a light, stable isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron (the most common isotope, helium-4, having two protons and two neutrons in contrast). Other than protium (ordinary hydrogen), helium-3 is the ...
research,
laser launch studies, and asteroid processing projects. The organization provided the first $100k in seed money for the founding of the
Mars Society
The Mars Society is a nonprofit organization that advocates for human Mars exploration and colonization, founded by Robert Zubrin in 1998. It is based on Zubrin's Mars Direct plan, which aims to make human mission to Mars as lightweight and ...
, operated the Cheap Access to Space Prize and supported such projects as The WATCH asteroid search program. FINDS also underwrote and co-sponsored a very successful series of Senate Roundtables on space issues in conjunction with the Foundation and the lobby
ProSpace over the last few years.
A regular contributor to the space industry paper ''
Space News
''SpaceNews'' is a print and digital publication that covers business and political news in the space and satellite industry. ''SpaceNews'' provides news, commentary and analysis to an audience of government officials, politicians and executives ...
'', Tumlinson's writings and quotes have appeared in the ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', ''
Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'', ''
Miami Herald'', ''
Reader's Digest
''Reader's Digest'' is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace and his wif ...
'' and other publications around the world. He has appeared on such television programs as
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
's ''
World News Tonight'', the ''
CBS Morning Show'', and ''
Politically Incorrect
''Political correctness'' (adjectivally: ''politically correct''; commonly abbreviated ''PC'') is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in socie ...
''. Internationally, he has appeared on TV sets from Russia to China's CCTV and the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
''. Tumlinson has appeared on the front page of the ''New York Times'', has been featured in two issues of ''
disaster. He also appears often as a space commentator on
.
In 2004, Tumlinson was one of 20 guests invited by the White House to hear President
. He has been a consultant to the
and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust. He is editor of a book entitled ''Return to the Moon'', a collection of papers by leading professionals in the space industry regarding the future of space exploration and the privatization of the return to the moon. In 2006, Tumlinson started his own space firm, XTreme Space and Orbital Outfitters.
Tumlinson is a member of the Leadership Board of
a nonprofit organization committed to creating an effective and enforceable system to manage and protect human heritage in outer space.