An Atlanta native and summa cum laude graduate of Georgia Tech, Stephen returned to his alma mater in mid-2005 as Chief Commercialization Officer. His appointment led a reorganization designed to streamline the handling of intellectual property, accelerate the licensing of technology, and make the Institute’s resources more readily accessible to business and industry.

Stephen is also active in the “alternative space industry” and is an investor in several private spaceship companies and is on the Board of Directors of XCor. He serves on the Board of Trustees of Tech High School, a charter high school emphasizing science, math, and technology in urban Atlanta.

Having caught the space bug as a child from his father, Richard has held a passion for the space industry and has invested in various related ventures such as the Zero-G Corporation, X-Prize and Spacehab. Richard is currently co-vice chairman of Space Adventures, Ltd., the world’s premier private space exploration company. He is also a member of the NASA Advisory Council and is on the board of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education. Today he’s one of the world’s leading experts on private/commercial space travel.

Richard got his business start in the video game industry where he reached legendary status with his design of the Ultima role-playing games, one of the most successful computer game series ever. His Ultima Online game defined the massively multiplayer genre when it launched in 1997.

Richard’s first game company, ORIGIN Systems, went from garage startup to an eventual 1992 merger with game publishing leader, Electronic Arts (EA). At the same time, ORIGIN became an iconic industry brand for quality game play and established Austin, Texas as a major global game development center forevermore. Following eight years as a creative exec with EA, Richard struck out on his own again with Destination Games. Within a year that studio was acquired by Korean gaming giant, NCsoft Corporation, and the Austin team went on to establish the North American HQ for NCsoft and drive that business to more than $70 million in annual revenues within three years of launching their first titles. Now, with his latest start up, Portalarium, Richard and his longstanding exec team are poised to achieve success once more in the red-hot mobile and social media space.

Over the years Richard has been honored with numerous awards including Entrepreneur of the Year from Inc. magazine and Computer Gaming World’s 15 Most Influential Industry Players. In 2006 Richard was awarded with two industry honors for his work in the games business: selection into The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame, and the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards.

Prior to working on Astronomy Cast, Pamela and her fellow Slackers Aaron Price and Travis Searle worked on Slacker Astronomy, this first podcast devoted explicitly to astronomy. Slacker Astronomy was the reason for science becoming a distinct genre in podcast directories.

In addition to her podcasting, Pamela also communicates astronomy to the public through her blog Star Stryder (www.starstryder.com). Writing about astronomy and academia one sidereal day at a time, Pamela communicates not just the facts but also the context of what we are learning about our cosmos. Her writing has also appeared in Lightspeed Magazine, Astronomy magazine and Sky and Telescope magazine. She also gives frequent invited public talks around the United States, and in many other parts of the world.

In addition to communicating astronomy to the public, Pamela works to engage people in doing science through the citizen science activities with CosmoQuest. This new citizen science community makes the public part of the scientific community, one NASA image at a time.

A public school kid through and through, Pamela received a B.S. in astrophysics from Michigan State University in 1996 and a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Texas in 2002. Today, she is on the faculty at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

Pamela lives in a historic house in southern Illinois with her husband, two dogs, and a lot of books and technology. When she is not online or teaching, you might be able to find her gardening or riding her horse.

His PhD research was on trapping and cooling neutral atoms to nearly absolute zero by using really powerful lasers, vacuum systems, and a fair amount of Mountain Dew. During that research he only set fire to himself once, shocked himself twice, and still has two working eyes. He has won awards for presentations to non-scientist audiences and has provided scientific commentary for FoxNews.com and CBS Marketwatch.

In his spare time he is part of the Disasterpiece Theatre and WhatTheCast? podcasts, writes computer games, and is involved with Dragon*Con TV. He is featured in the interactive fiction documentary Get Lamp, and he reluctantly admits to being the guy pretending to be Jonathan Coulton in the Re Your Brains video.

Grazier is a recovering rocket scientist, and spent 15 years on the Cassini/Huygens Mission to Saturn and Titan. At JPL he wrote mission planning and analysis software that won both JPL- and NASA-wide awards. Still an active researcher, his research areas are numerical method development and long-term large-scale computer simulations of Solar System dynamics, evolution, and chaos.

Dr. Grazier is also very active in bringing the wonders of science and space to the public. He teaches classes in basic astronomy, planetary science, cosmology, the search for extraterrestrial life, and the science of science fiction, and has taught at UCLA, Santa Monica College, and College of the Canyons. He has appeared on several episodes of History Channel’s The Universe, National Geographic’s Naked Science, and he co-hosted the premiere episode of Discovery Channel’s Science Live! Kids’ Edition. He also co-anchored CNN’s all-day live coverage of the Cassini spacecraft’s Saturn orbit insertion with science correspondent Miles O’Brien. He also serves on multiple NASA educational product review panels.

In 2001 Dr. Grazier was named the first-ever honorary chairperson for Oakland University’s “Week of Champions” (homecoming) celebration, eight years later he won OU’s Odyssey Award given to the alumni whose life most typifies the university’s motto: To Seek Virtue and Knowledge.

Les frequently speaks to the general public about space and science. He regularly speaks to civic and community groups throughout the southeastern United States and has done so in public forums in four countries. One student at the Tec de Monterey in Monterey, Mexico told him that he was “bigger than a rock star.” (Now that’s something a physicist does not hear very often!) He was the technical consultant for the movie, Lost in Space and another major motion picture to be released in 2012. NPR, CNN, Fox News, The Science Channel and The Discovery Channel have all interviewed him about space and space exploration. He appeared on the Discovery Science Channel in three episodes of their July 2009 series about interplanetary and interstellar exploration called Exodus Earth and the How to Build A Starship episode of Michio Kaku’s 2010 Discovery Science Channel Series Physics of the Impossible. He will be featured on National Geographic Channel’s Evacuate Earth in 2012.

Les was the NASA co-investigator on a Japanese space propulsion experiment, T-Rex, which flew in the fall of 2010. He was the Chief Scientist for the ProSEDS space experiment, twice received NASA’s Exceptional Achievement Medal, and holds 3 space technology patents. He has numerous peer-reviewed publications and was published in Analog. He is a frequent contributor to the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society and a member of the National Space Society, The World Future Society, and MENSA.

Mr. Ramsden will setup several observatory quality narrowband solar telescopes for close up imaging and viewing of our Sun’s fiery ballet of plasma. Visitors will receive a free pair of solar viewing glasses and plenty of NASA related giveaways.

Mr. Ramsden has been published in every major astronomy and nature periodical and is the worlds leading amateur solar astronomer.

Trina received her Bachelor’s degree in Physics from California State University, Northridge, and her master’s degree in Astronomy from San Diego State University, where her research specialty was Planetary Nebulae.

Trina has received numerous awards, including the NASA medal for Exceptional Service. Trina is an active public speaker for NASA, JPL, and Cassini and a founding member of the Cassini Virtual Singers: a group of project staff that rewrites lyrics to popular melodies and performs at various Project and Laboratory functions.

Capt. Shepherd attended the Navy’s Naval Construction and Engineering program at MIT, graduating in 1978 with the degrees of Ocean Engineer and Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering. He returned to the Special Warfare community as a platoon commander and operations officer at SEAL Team TWO. Between 1981 and 1983 he was assigned to a Navy field unit where he worked on rapid development projects. Capt. Shepherd assumed command of Special Boat Unit TWENTY in 1983, conducting deployments and operations in El Salvador, Honduras, Grenada, and Beirut. He applied to NASA for the Astronaut Program in 1984, and was selected as one of 17 candidates in Astronaut Group 10.

After a year of astronaut training at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Capt. Shepherd was assigned to work pad “closeout” operations for Space Shuttle launches at the Kennedy Space Center. He helped direct the underwater search and salvage of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986. He flew 3 Shuttle missions as a Mission Specialist Astronaut and flight engineer—STS 27 in 1988, carrying a DOD payload, STS 41 launching the solar probe “Ulysses” in 1990, and STS 52 in 1992, which carried the LAGEOS research satellite to orbit.

In 1993, Capt. Shepherd was assigned as the Program Manager for the International Space Station, a 16-nation partnership to build a new orbital “gateway” to space. Capt. Shepherd led a 12,000 person government/industry team in the technical, management, and operational details of the new program. He helped to establish NASA’s unprecedented relationship with Russian government and aerospace leaders, and to integrate their equipment, techniques, and procedures into this truly “international” effort.

In 1996, “Shep” was selected to command the first flight crew to the new station with Russian Cosmonauts Col. Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev. After 4 1/2 years of training in Moscow and Houston, the “Expedition One” crew launched to orbit in Oct 2000 and began permanent human operations aboard the Space Station complex. “Expedition One” activated the Russian and American modules, supervised 3 Space Shuttle and 2 “Progress” vehicle dockings, and carried out assembly, checkout and initial operations of 3 new station modules. After 141 days in space, and a voyage of 58,000,000 miles, the crew returned to Earth aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in March 2001.

In July of 2001, Capt. Shepherd completed a 30 year Navy career with an assignment to Commander, Naval Special Warfare Command, assisting with the development of new capabilities and programs. He retired from active duty in 2002 to work on private research and development projects in the aerospace and defense sectors. Capt. Shepherd served at USSOCOM from 2008 to 2011 as Science Advisor, where he managed the Special Operations science and technology portfolio.

Capt. Shepherd’s awards include the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the National Intelligence Medal, NASA’s “Steve Thorne” airmanship award, the Komarov Diploma, the Gagarin Gold Medal, and the Robert H. Goddard Trophy. In 2003, Capt. Shepherd was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor by President George W. Bush.

In 2009 NASA’s International Space Station Team, which Capt Shepherd led on the ground and in space, was awarded the Collier Trophy, recognizing the Nation’s greatest achievements in aviation and astronautics.

Capt. Shepherd is married to the former Beth Stringham of Houston Texas.

After graduate school, Kim started her career at NASA’;s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Her first job was as a Systems Engineer on the X2000 Integrated First Delivery, a technology project whose goal was to develop the nucleus for control, communications and monitoring of a spacecraft.

Since December 2000, Kim has worked on the Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn. Currently, Kim is a Flight Operations Systems Engineer where she reviews sequence files before they are sent to the spacecraft to make sure they meet the science and engineering requirements and ensures that no flight rules are broken. Another part of her job involves development, implementation, uplink and execution of Orbital Trim Maneuvers on the spacecraft. She also supports the Titan Science Team integrating science and engineering activities for Titan flybys.

Kim also worked for 6 months on the Mars Exploration Rover Mission validating communication window timing using DSN coverage requests and generating data rate capability requests and data volume summaries prior to EDL (Entry Descent and Landing).

Kim was the primary author on a 2010 SpaceOps paper titled “Cassini Titan Science Integration: Getting a ‘Jumpstart’ on the Process.”